Songfic: "Love Story" by 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie)
Video and Lyrics Translation available on my tumblr (see my profile; short url for song and lyrics post: ZqznJq10poFhL)
Hiraeth (Welsh, noun): a homesickness for a place you can never return to, a place which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.
The wide brim of her straw hat welcomes him from where she crouches in the flowerbed, rising like the sun out of the waves of brightly colored poppies.
"Mikasa."
She turns at the sound of his voice, abandoning her trowel in the dirt. "Captain," she returns, warmly.
"Enough with that. I don't command soldiers anymore," he reminds her, raising a hand in reproach.
"Levi, then." She extends her own in greeting towards him, stopping short as she registers the vaguely disdainful expression on his face. Glancing down at her soiled palms, she laughs – a mysterious, lilting melody that he's unfamiliar with.
"I should go wash up first. Have a seat, won't you? I'll be back in a minute." She points him towards the wicker table and chairs set up at the edge of the garden, before disappearing inside the house.
It is a simple cottage, perched on a rocky bluff overlooking the ocean. Housing three people within would be a cozy affair to say the least, but he guessed that they didn't mind exchanging some space for the fulfillment of their long-cherished dreams.
Crossing over, he settles in one of the chairs, marveling at the greenery bursting from all corners of the garden despite the salty air and overcast skies.
She returns carrying a tray and without her hat, allowing her hair to flow freely past her shoulders. "I'm glad you were able to find this place. Connie has been here twice, but he still manages to miss that last turning."
"Surely you know I have a better sense of direction than he does," Levi scoffs, as he moves forward to help her. He aims for the teapot and cup on the left, while she targets the one on the right and disposes of the tray. Everything falls into place in four precise beats, a coordinated rhythm honed under entirely different circumstances.
"I'm sure it's also thanks to Armin's detailed directions," she insists, sitting down opposite. "Connie got his from Eren." The rusty brew gushes from the pot, spattering the inside of her hand as she fills the two cups. Deliberately facing the handle away from him, she pushes one across the table.
"Tch. They all work in the same lousy building. Serves him right if he's too lazy to walk up two floors for proper instructions." He lifts the delicate porcelain by the rim, staining his throat with the hot fluid.
"Well, Armin tells me the higher ups are so busy dragging him to meetings that he doesn't have enough time to eat, let alone talk to anyone else."
Replacing his drink with a dull clink, he snorts. "Pigs will be pigs. There are some constants in this shitty world." Mikasa doesn't reply, but her eyes glitter with amusement over the edge of her cup as she sips.
They banter easily for a while, exchanging news of their comrades who had survived. She muffles a cough when Levi grumbles about Jean's filthy office in the Planning Division. He, in turn, suppresses a sigh when she explains that Sasha's bakery is losing customers because they are always 'sold out'.
There is an elusive familiarity to their interaction, which she has trouble placing, at first. But gradually, the deep timbre of his voice leads her back down the dark corridors of her mind. To the sparse confines of his office. To a tiny cabin, hidden in the woods. To those countless, sleepless nights, hastened onward only by the subdued conversations that she had grown accustomed to, towards the end.
"And you, Mikasa."
She blinks, returning to the present exchange. His finger worries at a faint smudge marring the bleached tabletop. "It's been a while since you left duty."
It is a statement, laced intricately with a question.
Like everyone else, she had been reassigned after Humanity's victory, since the combat skills of the Scouting Legion were no longer required. However two months ago, she had abruptly requested to be discharged.
All demands for explanation, including those from Eren and Armin, had been stubbornly refused.
Her spoon traces haphazard patterns in her tea, as she struggles to retrace the steps that had led her to that decision.
"I was… lost, I suppose," she offers hesitantly. "When the Legion was reorganized… I threw myself into as much work as possible. I volunteered for every operation with the Reclamation Department. I chose the hardest tasks, the ones that nobody else wanted to do, just to keep myself occupied. But… in the end, it still felt… hollow, somehow."
The spoon hits the bottom of her cup with a final tap. "Everything should be fine… Eren's life is no longer in constant jeopardy. The titans and the walls don't exist…" She falters.
"…Humanity's Strongest Soldiers, huh…" Levi mutters, finally giving shape to the doubts that had been haunting her. "People who have only ever been good at fighting… what do they do, when there is no war left to fight…?"
The slope of his shoulder mirrors hers, as he casts his eyes over the glassy waters stretching before them.
"There are only two choices, in the end," he muses wearily. "Stay and forge yourself anew, or… run away."
"…Still fight or flight, huh." The breath ruptures from her lungs in defeat. "I guess there are some constants in this world, after all…"
"You're not the kind that flees, Mikasa," he asserts. "You won't abandon the things you have now. The things that you have fought long and hard to protect."
He studies the curve of her jaw as it pulses with tension beneath the frozen skin.
"Seems like your hands are good at holding things other than swords."
She looks up, puzzled, and catches his second admiring glance at the verdant life all around.
"Maybe you should do something about all this. Tell Sasha to let you sell fresh flowers in her shop. The swine in Sina would love that, and pay top dollar, too."
The corners of his mouth turn upward by a fraction. "You could save her from eating herself out of business."
The rare warmth in his expression doesn't match with the mockery of his words. Chasing the fleeting sensation, she returns to that day on the dusty training grounds, chests heaving as they savored the thrill of having mastered the pincer attack that would turn the tides. That bitter night, as she stormed through the gates and flung open his office door, to announce her return from her solo mission. That pale dawn, observing her tears of relief veiled by the rain streaking down her cheeks, as she clutched her brother's limp but barely breathing body in her arms.
"Eren…" he ventures, draining the dregs from his too-cold tea. "He seems to be doing alright these days, but… I guess you would know better."
Mikasa pauses, pulling his cup near to pour a refill, then sliding it back into position.
"It's ironic, isn't it," she laments after a while. "His job now is to rehabilitate the humans who had lost themselves as titans."
She frowns at the empty teapot. "He hides it well, but… they don't realize that nobody is looking after his rehabilitation. They don't know about the anxiety attacks, or the constant nightmares…"
"I'm sure he doesn't want to make a sorry show of himself," Levi counters. "He wouldn't be of much help to anyone else, like that. But those close to him, know. They do watch out for him, in their own way."
His clouded eyes gently trace the furrow of her brow as he continues. "Anyway… he will always have you, and Armin, in those times, won't he?"
There they were, again. Those nebulous feelings, surprising her with their intensity. This time, she allows the waves of emotion to rise up and flood her freely, revealing the impossible treasure that she had buried deeply beneath the ages of strife and bloodshed.
It was only now, looking back, that she could see them clearly. The beautiful pearls that he had been quietly depositing in the glass jar of her heart, all this while.
For the first time, she wonders at the figure sitting before her – how this grim, reticent man had somehow managed to cut through to the core of her, with his sharp counsel and concealed gestures. And as she contemplates the worn lines etched into his rough countenance, she realizes that maybe, all the things that he has said to her in the past were merely shades of himself, reflected in the tremulous depths of her soul.
Someone else, who knew of the fragility that lay behind the façade of strength.
Perhaps, in this world without walls, they could help each other to learn not to lie.
"Levi…" she begins haltingly. "I heard from Armin, that you'll be leaving on a mission, sometime…"
He stills. "Yes… today, in fact."
"Oh… so soon," she whispers, catching him unaware.
"How long will it be? I… I would very much like to meet with you again, when you return…"
The words tumble uncertainly from her lips, and he stares at the table, ruing over their meaning.
Hange had once asked him about it, in the midst of those turbulent times. Why he always seemed to have a particular interest in Mikasa's well-being.
He had dismissed her query then; in a war there was neither time nor place for such sentimentality.
"You've changed, Mikasa," he murmurs, turning the saucer of his teacup between his fingers. "Eren was everything to you for so long. I understood that. He was your strength, and protecting him helped you to survive, to fight. It was something I eventually came to accept as part of who you were, and always would be."
He moves his hands down, locking his fingers together in his lap. "I had thought it would be impossible for you to open your heart to anything else… but now… now it seems… that you have room enough."
The moments pass, and at last he raises his head, eyes searching hers. "Perhaps, if things had been different then…"
Her face is alight with hope, and despite the faint scars and passing years, he finds that she looks more like a girl now than ever before.
"Levi. When your mission is over – "
"My mission," he says firmly, breaking away to confront the cascading seas in the distance. "Is to lead an expedition to retrace the coasts that humanity has long since abandoned." His voice is soft, but distinct enough for her to hear. "I will not be returning, this time."
Slowly, she turns, following his gaze across the endless waters to where the mist obscures the horizon, and feels something deep within her fracture in the silence.
"I must go."
Pushing back his chair, he rises to his feet. Their footsteps echo with a yearning for lost time as she escorts him to the gate.
As he steps out onto the path, he permits himself to caress her features with his eyes, just once more.
"Mikasa…" he breathes, locking her name away in a corner of his memories.
She wants desperately to reach for him, but she knows now that it would break them both, and so she only nods.
"Please… take care."
Her vision blurs as she lingers by the gate, watching his figure vanish around the bend.
"Thank you, and… goodbye."