Thank you for all of your lovely reviews!

So I was just thinking that maybe Mikasa's part in this relationship needs some elaboration, too. But, man, do I hope that I did not screw her up.

02 - #48. unknown

Eren isn't fond of her. Or so she thinks.

Said mom, "close proximity always makes hearts part". Apparently so. Back when they were still strangers, he looked at her with even warmer eyes than he does now. Actions more gentle, and words an edge more kind. It makes her wonder in nights alone and days without him that maybe he is not needing her anymore, that perhaps he is now strong enough to step out of her protection and to leave her behind. Leave her desperate, defeated. Alone. Fleeting thoughts, she tells herself, and forces them away very often, but after days thinking she starts to dread the moment they become strangers again.

Sometimes she thinks, maybe it's just the way she acts. Constant nagging, with even more constant protecting. Over time she knows that her every new attempt to protect Eren will just turn out to be one more time treating him like a baby, but life just isn't fair that way and she's scared of what will possibly happen to him once she is not nearby. So be it. Let him hate her. She's willing to pay that price, as long as he is intact, to hate her again like he means it.

But sometimes she thinks, maybe there's something about her look that he just doesn't like. After all, they are different – their races are different; times after times she feels the numbing pain in her arm and is reminded that she is an Oriental, an outcast, the one who doesn't belong. Nine feet underground with the rest of her clan, might be, but never here, never will be here. Annie was right, was detestably right: she's not one of them – her eyes hold no light and hair dark as night can never find its way into a lover's arms. She's not- so of course, of course he would like another girl. Hell, even she would like to be another girl. Someone with bright blonde hair and eyes as blue as his. Someone with a smaller frame, prettier smiles, and knowing how to defeat him without using sheer force. Someone very unlike her.

Someone weak enough for him to protect.

The very one, who she can never become.