The Practical Girl

It was a tiny room, a bed too large for a tiny girl sitting against the far wall and it took up far too much space, gobbling up the empty floor room while the rest of the furniture was stuck in little gaps of space, hugging the walls for dear life. There was one small window, which filtered in grayish light, dust plentiful in the air but not so much on the sill. The walls were a soft gray hue, like smudges of ash drifting across sheetrock, and they were painfully bare. The room looked lonely and empty in spite of being so cramped.

Armin recalled one day stepping up to a great big rectangular frame hung upon Mikasa's wall, pictures of all sorts stuck together in a beautiful collage. He noted pictures of himself strung about, pictures of him smiling a gap toothed smile, rosy cheeked and bright eyed, him shying away from Eren, who was grinning broadly with a beetle cupped in one hand as he faced the camera, him who smiled and smiled and smiled back when there was nothing to frown about, in the woods and in the creek and laying in a bed of leaves with his blond hair melting into strands of black and brown as he and Mikasa and Eren curled on the forest floor, a picture taken at sunset with red soaked smiles and yellow lit eyes.

A photograph had fluttered to the floor.

Armin had bent to pick it up, but he noticed something odd about the space it had left behind. The back of the picture frame was grayish, and then suddenly pink as Armin's hand drew across the space.

A mirror?

"Mikasa," Armin had said, shifting another photo to be sure he wasn't simply seeing things. There was, in fact, a mirror behind the great collage of pictures Mikasa had compiled. Armin dragged his finger across the heavy wooden frame, and he jostled it, noting it seemed to be attached firmly to the wall. He whirled around to face his friend, who was lying on her bed, her arms sprawled out and one eye cracked open to glance at him. She had one earbud in, and the other was connected to Eren's ear. He was lying beside her, seemingly asleep. Armin had felt a pang of jealousy for a reason he could not explain, though for which one of them he could not say. For both. For neither. He wanted their warmth, but he didn't want to intrude. It was simply difficult. "Mikasa, why'd you cover up your mirror?'

She sat up, her hair a bit disheveled as it hung in limp black strands around her shoulders. Some strands were plastered to her neck, sticky from sweat, and she blinked at him blearily. It had been a hot summer day, and they'd only been little children, tiny and bony and gangly and awkward. Even Mikasa, beautiful as she was, and even Eren, as confident and outspoken as he could be.

"Mirror," she repeated. Her voice had been soft and tiny then, shyer and a little unsteady. She rubbed her dark eyes, her lips parting as she stared between Armin and the mirror, and she looked utterly bemused. "Oh. I just don't like it."

"Why?" Armin asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. Eren stirred, and he'd yawned very loudly stretching his arms up and groaning.

"It's hot," he moaned. "Let's go swimming."

"It's getting late, Eren," Mikasa sighed. "Maybe… you two should go home."

Eren gave her a disbelieving look, and he turned onto his side, curling up in her blankets, a clear response that he didn't want to leave. Or, more specifically, he did not want to leave Mikasa.

"You could've just taken it down…" Armin muttered, glancing once more at the firmly covered mirror. So why didn't she? Why is this here? Armin did not know, or understand, and it was killing him.

"I know!" Eren gasped, his eyes glittering. "Let's go to Titan's Maw!"

"No way," Mikasa said. She sat for a moment, and Armin watched her gaze fall to Eren's back. He winced, and then stifled a giggle as Mikasa shoved him from her bed, and he toppled right onto the floor in a rather graceless heap.

"Ah!" he cried, rolling onto his side, kicking up his legs as he flailed. "Crap, I'm stuck!"

"You can't even handle a little fall like that," Mikasa told him curtly, peeking over the side of her bed. "And you think you can jump Titan's Maw? Don't be stupid, Eren."

"I could totally do it!" Eren cried indignantly.

"No, you—" Mikasa had trailed off, looking suddenly very distraught. The playfulness had left her delicate features, and her eyes had gone very wide. Armin understood why. He heard movement from below. The shuffling of feet against the metal staircase. Mikasa looked very pale all of a sudden, and her eyes flashed wildly around the room. "Closet."

Eren got himself upright, though his brown hair as in a little forest of tufts, wisps curling across his dark forehead. He glanced at Armin confusedly, and Armin glanced back just the same. They stared at each other, thinking the same thought, feeling the same feelings, and they leapt to their feet. Eren scrambled over Mikasa's bed, sliding onto the floor and flinging her closet door open. Armin hurried after him, throwing a worried glance at Mikasa, who was straightening up her room with her eyes glued on them, lines of worry creasing her brow. Armin was scared, and he didn't know why. Eren grabbed him by the hand and yanked him into the cramped little nook of a closet that held maybe three of Mikasa's four dresses.

The closet was bathed in darkness as he and Eren stood, their breaths hot and intermingling in the creeping silence. They could hear Mikasa moving outside the door, but they could not see her, and it was so hot, and Armin felt sweat prickling his neck and down his back, causing his shirt to stick to his warm skin. He felt dizzy, and a little sick.

"It's cold in here…" Eren muttered. He'd moved, and Armin thought he might've sat down, so Armin felt around in the darkness, bumping a hanger and cursing quietly to himself. He finally found Eren's soft hair, and he mumbled an apology as he sat on the ground beside him.

"Cold…?" Armin whispered, his fingers grasping at Eren's bicep and squeezing a little in fear of the darkness around him and of whatever was creeping up the stairs to scare Mikasa out of her wits. He felt hot and gross and sick, but Eren was complaining of cold, and that was so strange because only a minute before he'd been moaning about the heat. Eren could be a bit mercurial in truth, yes, but there was something off about this.

"Yeah…" Eren's breath was muggy against Armin's neck, and Armin closed his eyes and wished very hard for Mikasa to open the door and tell them that it had been nothing, but he knew it hadn't been, so he endured it, and held Eren tighter, and wondered how on earth such a tiny, humid place could be cold to anyone. He felt as though his skin was about to slough off his bones from baking so long in his sweat, like chicken left to stew in its own juices for hours on end.

Armin could feel Eren shivering.

"You really are cold," Armin gasped, his voice a squeaky whisper. He felt Eren nod against him, and then, suddenly, Armin felt it too. A burst of cool air. It felt so good, so refreshing and clear, and it was so nice to think again, because that meant he could maneuver his way out of this situation somehow. He reached behind him and felt along the darkened wall. It was all smooth. "Eren, feel the wall behind you."

"Uh, sure…" The footsteps were loud now. Whoever it was had come up the stairs. Why were they hiding? Armin was trying to figure it out, and it made his throat close up just to think about it. He was so scared. He felt along the floor, his tiny fingers brushing the corners, expecting to find dust bunnies and spider webs, but he felt nothing but roughened, unpainted sheetrock in a few places, and wood.

"There's a box here…" Eren said vacantly. There was a hissing sound of something gliding across the floor. "Ah, crap, it's actually heavy…"

The footsteps were outside the hall.

"Move it," Armin said fiercely. "Move it quickly."

Eren did it without complaint, and the sound was like a glass crashing inside Armin's head, it was so loud. Finally, Eren stopped, and the entire closet was brimming with cool air. Armin had fished for Eren's shirt, and then his hand, and the both knelt there for a moment confusedly, unsure of what they'd just discovered. Armin couldn't wrap his head around it.

"I think," Eren murmured, drawing himself and Armin over the box and toward the wall, "I think there's a hole here."

Armin felt it, and noted it was a small rectangular space, empty for some reason or another. Perhaps an air vent had once been here.

"It feels big enough that anyone with a small build," Armin whispered, braving himself to sticking his hand through the little smuggler's hole, "like the two of us, or even someone a little bigger could fit through here."

"Weird," Eren whispered.

Mikasa's door burst open.

"What the fuck are you doing up here, brat?"

Their breaths had caught. They'd hardly moved the box. Armin was leaning against it, and he was half inside the hole in the wall. He made his decision quickly. He tugged Eren's hand, and he allowed himself to navigate blindly into the darkened passage, through the hole and crouched in a cool little crawl space. His skin was crawling and his heart was beating so hard that he could feel it thudding in his throat.

"Nothing," Mikasa said.

"Nothing? Really? Like I didn't just hear that giant bang?"

"I don't really… know what you're talking about."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying."

"You won't look me in the fuckin' eye. You're lying. Do you know what I do with liars?"

"Leave them alone to rot in the— in the street, and don't let them ever come back home?"

"Wow, so you do listen. That's a fucking shocker. So tell me the truth, where are your little friends?"

"Not here," Mikasa said firmly. "I told you. I haven't seen them at all today."

"No?"

"No."

"Then you won't mind if I look in the closet, do you?"

Armin's breath hitched. He and Eren were already crouched in the crawl space, but they hadn't been able to cover the hole up all the way with the box, so they moved themselves deeper into the crawlspace and listened as the closet door opened. Armin was crying into Eren's shirt, and Eren was holding his hand so tightly that the circulation had been cut off and the entirety of his hand was numb and tingly.

"Huh. Looks like you weren't lying after all, huh, bitch?"

"Get out of my room."

"Watch your tongue."

"Please get out of my room."

"You smart mouth me again, you're getting your mouth washed out with soap. Got it?"

Mikasa didn't answer. She got it.

"Mikasa!" he repeated, unable to keep his enthusiasm to himself. He felt as though he'd been holding it in for months and months, and now everything in him was bursting and pouring out of him in great waves of emotions.

She looked up from her book, looking surprised. It was a difficult thing to surprise Mikasa, but he saw her eyes grow wide, and a smile prickle at her lips until suddenly she was grinning in awe and kicking herself off the wall. He dropped his bags and ran at her. She caught him in a tight hug, throwing her arms around his shoulders and squeezing him so tightly he thought he'd break under the sheer pressure, but he didn't care. He could spare a broken rib or two if it was for her.

"You're skinny," she immediately remarked, resting her chin on his shoulder. He was a little taller than her now, but it didn't really feel like it. She put her hand on his head and buried her face in his shoulder, and he inhaled the scent of her hair— sweat and oil and something vaguely flowery in spite of the grime. She was a bit disheveled, wearing simple a pair of old jeans and a stained white tee shirt. She'd come directly from work, it seemed.

"I'm broke," he responded, smiling into the fluffy black strands. Oh, he'd missed her so badly there was a furious aching inside his chest, and he wished with all his heart and all his soul that he'd never left her alone. He'd visited before, of course, for brief periods of time, but it never felt real or concrete, and Mikasa was odd and distant. Today felt real. Today felt like he was returning for real.

"That's fine," she told him, still holding him like he was the last thing on earth she could call her own. "I have food to spare, always, so you'll probably be okay."

"Probably," Armin repeated, smiling at her sheepishly. "Probably is good, I'm down with probably."

She pulled back a little if only to throw a glance at Jean, who had appeared at Armin's back. "Hello," she said. "You're Jean."

Jean did not reply, and so Armin kicked him. He cleared his throat hurriedly, and blurted, "Yeah, I think so!"

"Oh my god," Armin murmured.

Mikasa turned her attention back to Armin as though nothing had happened. "I'm thinking of dying my hair," she said, letting go of him only to allow him to get his bags. "What do you think?"

"What color?" he asked immediately. He could sense how utterly distraught Jean was, but he didn't care at all.

"I don't know yet," she said, taking his bags from him. "Red, maybe."

"That's a bit extreme," he laughed uneasily. He wouldn't stop her if that was what she wanted, but he didn't know what had brought on this decision, and it was likely someone had made a comment to her, which had bent her mind into one particular focus. "Maybe just dye the tips? Or the underside of it?"

"Maybe," she said. They started out of the station, and Armin noticed she was still gripping her book tightly, its spine bobbing against the handle of his suitcase. He caught the name in a flash of dull white letters. The Parables of Sina.

That was strangely obscure, but the name sounded familiar to him. He wondered if he'd seen that book at the library before. He'd have to ask her at a later date.

"Holy shit," Jean whistled, his eyes enlarged to the point of disbelief as he stopped in the middle of a cramped little parking lot around the corner from the train station. "You have a Camaro. A— fuck, that's a Chevy ZL1, right? That's a really, really good racing car!"

Mikasa glanced at him. Armin felt the need to snicker into his hand, but he resisted the urge and instead smiled wanly. He must've forgotten to tell Jean about what Mikasa did for a living.

"I know," Mikasa said. She looked a little apprehensive as she popped the trunk, setting Armin's bags inside carefully. It was a little snug, but there was still room for Jean's bags it looked like. She then regarded Jean with a long, bemused stare. "You like racing?"

"Marco— my buddy from high school, Marco and I, we used to sneak out and go to these incredible drag races in between Trost and Shiganshina, that strip— ah, what's it called?"

"The Strip," Mikasa said amusedly, taking Jean's bags.

"Yeah, well, anyway the first race we ever went to we saw this Chevy Camaro rip up asphalt, so ever since then we just bet on the Camaro every time we went." Jean looked very pleased to tell this story, and he smiled at her enthusiastically as she closed the trunk. "We never lost our money, I'll tell you that."

"A car is only as good as its driver," she told him.

"Are you a good driver?" Jean asked eagerly.

She stared at him vacantly, and Armin cut between them, smiling his best smile in hopes that he might cut the tension. Mikasa had a bad habit of acting coldly to people she didn't know very well, and it often made her difficult to deal with at times. She didn't mean it, and she certainly didn't do it to be mean, but ever since they were little she'd always been detached and cold to people she wasn't sure about. In truth, it surprised Armin that Jean wasn't more offended by her chilly demeanor.

"Mikasa taught me and Eren how to drive," Armin blurted, hoping to ease the awkward silence. It worked. Mikasa nodded fondly, and opened the door to the driver's seat, climbing into the car without another word.

"So what was that like?" Jean asked, climbing into the back seat. "Teaching Armin, and stuff? Did he get it right off the bat? Probably did, he's fuckin' good at everything."

"Actually," Armin laughed nervously, glancing at Mikasa. She turned the keys in the ignition, and glanced at him. "I crashed Mikasa's old Camaro."

"You half totaled it," she said.

"I drove it into a ditch," Armin said, feeling a little ashamed.

"You had a Camaro before this one?" Jean asked in awe. "Damn, how do you rake in that much money?"

"It was old," she said, shrugging. "It barely worked."

"You weren't angry that he wrecked it?"

"Angry?" Mikasa sounded honestly confused. "Armin could have died. Bigger men than him have been killed from smaller accidents. He's lucky."

"I was actually fine," Armin said, glancing at Mikasa worriedly. "The door was busted, though, so Eren kinda like… ripped it off…"

"Wow."

It was quiet after that. Dreadfully quiet. He could hear his own heart thudding in his chest, and his mind was spilling over, sloshing up thoughts that he'd rather not hear. Mikasa doesn't want to hear about this. Mikasa isn't here to reminisce of silly things like that. What am I even doing? How am I supposed to ask her about what happened that night? What am I supposed to do?

He was scared of speaking to his best friend in the entire world. He might as well give up before he began.

Ah. He couldn't have doubts now. If he had doubts, he'd never be able to complete his capstone, and that meant he wouldn't be able to graduate. He was no fool. He understood what he was risking by not putting his all into this investigation. No matter where it led him.

Even if it means losing Mikasa?

He couldn't imagine taking such a path. But he knew it was a plausible outcome, whether he was careful in how he proceeded or not. He couldn't account for Mikasa's temperament.

He didn't know if what he was doing was right, but something in him knew it was necessary. He felt as though he was being dragged by his ankles, flailing and screaming, into a great void. He could not feel what was around him, and he could not see a thing beyond a great yawning darkness, but he understood the unknown was approaching fast. And he was terrified, because he could not stop himself from moving forward.

Mikasa turned on the radio, and Armin listened to Stromae sing in rapid French, only picking up words that he understood here and there. When Armin asked Jean if he understood it, Jean simply shrugged and said he didn't care as long as it had a good beat.

Through the punctuated beat and the smooth French rapping, Armin could catch scraps of what Stromae was saying, and he nodded along to the beat. Ni l'un ni l'autre, je suis, j'étais, et resterai moi.

"Neither one nor the other," Armin translated, "I am, I was, and I'll remain myself."

"Shit," Jean whistled. "That's pretty deep for some French rap shit."

"The other stuff's about racism and homophobia I think," Armin admitted, scratching his head.

"Oh, brilliant," Jean muttered.

"I like this song," Mikasa said, turning up the volume. The bass was vibrating the entire car, but Armin didn't mind. He felt nostalgic, sitting there with the rumbling of steady rap in his ears, words flying that he could hardly understand but appreciated nonetheless. He'd been here before, a million times, only Eren had been in the back seat instead of Jean, and they'd been something like children then. Running away had felt easy.

He wondered. Was he trying to replace Eren with Jean? Had it already happened?

Armin only needed to spare Jean a glance to know it wasn't so. Eren had always made Armin feel loved. Jean kinda just made Armin feel like he needed to down a few drinks. And Armin wasn't particularly one for alcohol.

As they neared Shiganshina, Armin was filled with a terrible longing feeling, a sad sort of reminiscing that caught him off guard. He knew this place, knew this air, knew the very pebbles the wheels of Mikasa's car rolled across, and yet he felt like an outsider here, and he could not explain the crippling sadness of knowing he'd lost a home somewhere along the way of growing awkwardly and hurriedly.

Armin missed Eren so much. He missed the way Eren could barrel through hardships without fail, without hesitation, without even a thought. He missed the reassurance, the kind words and the firm smiles and the sharp nods. The little things that let Armin know that Eren was watching, and Eren cared. It had been difficult without him there to give Armin the boost in confidence, and Mikasa had tried her best, but even then she had so many problems of her own to face that Armin didn't want to burden her with his own selfish insecurities.

He noticed Jean was filming their entrance into Shiganshina, but this time he did not stop him. It was probably better if he caught this.

Armin began to notice little familiar landmarks, and every sign he passed, every distant blur of a park or a fence was a pang of bitterness that spread like poison through his heart. He wished he'd never grown up.

"Wow," Armin remarked as Mikasa pulled into the lot of a rather beaten up, but still sturdy-looking building. "It's still standing."

"Ha ha," she said flatly, parking the car. Jean had turned his head to peer up at the sign perched up above a black awning, white and streaked with stains from countless dribbling rainfalls.

"Ackerman Auto Repairs," Jean read aloud. He looked to Mikasa, utterly bewildered. "You fix cars?"

"Yes," she said, yanking the keys from the ignition and exiting the car.

"You didn't tell me she's a mechanic," Jean told Armin accusingly.

"It didn't exactly seem important, Jean," Armin sighed. "I didn't know you liked cars so much, either."

"It's a guilty pleasure."

"They're just cars, Jean."

"That's why it's guilty, dickhead."

Armin opened his door and got out before he had to hear anymore of Jean's… Jean-ness. Usually he'd be more understanding, and try patience with Jean, but he was too emotionally drained for that bullshit right now, and thoughts of Eren were making him sick.

Mikasa lived in an apartment above the shop, and had been doing so for nearly twelve years. Armin couldn't even remember where she'd lived before that, if he'd even known her then. It was all a fabulous blur, and he was sick of blurry memories as of late. He wanted to know everything, but his memories were unreliable at best.

He needed something more concrete than memories and words if he was going to find Eren.

They trekked up the long, narrow metal staircase that connected the lot to the door of Mikasa's apartment, and she stuck her key into the lock before pausing. She frowned.

"What?" Jean asked confusedly. Armin already knew, and he felt fear prickle inside his stomach, his eyes darting around worriedly. They were all standing huddled on a rickety metal platform, and a little shoved could do them all in instantly. He had these thoughts often enough, when he was anxious but right now he felt as thought death had caught him by the throat and was squeezing.

"It's unlocked," she said, yanking her key out and opening her door. As though it were nothing.

Mikasa cut Jean off very sharply with her arm and forcing him back outside. She gave them both dark looks, and disappeared into the house.

Armin didn't like the idea of waiting outside while Mikasa dealt with whatever horrors laid ahead of them inside the apartment, but he was too terrified to move, and he all he could see in front of him was Eren's beaming face in the shadowy autumn night, a request that had left Armin freezing in his place, and waking up with regrets the size of mountains.

No, he thought, numbness taking over him as he stepped into the house. No, not again. I won't. I won't lose anyone else.

He took off, slipping into the apartment without a word and ignoring Jean when he objected. The sun was low in the sky, and there were shadows skittering all amongst the musty smelling living room. Armin stood, feeling as though the world was tipping, and everything was tipping with it, all except him. He, who stayed upright while the entire world flipped and crashed and burned.

It occurred to him whose apartment this was.

He walked around the length of a stained coffee table, his fingers running over an old cylindrical mark from when Eren had left an iced coffee on it without a coaster. Mikasa hadn't been angry, of course, but Eren had felt guilty about it and promised to fix it somehow. He'd never gotten the chance.

Armin's fingers slid beneath the table, and landed on something cold and metal. He withdrew his hand, sticking it in his pocket and feeling… empty. The knowledge that Mikasa had a gun did not worry him in the slightest. He could not blame her. What was bothering him was that she did not have the gun with her now.

"This is nice," Jean observed.

"Shh," Armin pressed his finger to his lips. He heard footsteps.

Mikasa appeared in the room, and she paused, glancing at Jean and Armin as they stood innocently in the middle of the living room. "I thought I told you to stay outside," she said.

"You didn't say anything, actually…" Jean muttered, scratching the back of his head.

Armin was suddenly hit by the scent of something sweet wafting toward him. It was the heavy hanging wafting smell of something baking, like a cake or something equally as tantalizing. Armin glanced at Mikasa, who merely shook her head. The trouble here was that there was something about this entire situation that made him anxious, but he could not put his finger on it. Was it simply paranoia?

Jean sniffed loudly, lifting his head and looking suddenly very alert. "I smell food," he said.

"Yes," Mikasa sighed, "that'd be—"

"ARMIN!"

He was caught off guard by a pair of slender arms catching him around the waist and squeezing him like a limp little doll. He recognized the voice, a lighthearted whistle of a tone with laughter tinged in words, words always coming in an easy jumble. Sasha Braus was a good friend, and she'd often made him laugh in the most bleak of times. She was a nice person to have around in a crisis.

"Hi, Sasha," Armin gasped, wincing a little as his ribs constricted under her grip. "I didn't expect you to be here…"

"Neither did I," Mikasa said darkly.

"Aw, come on, we knew you were coming," Sasha laughed, nuzzling Armin's hair. He didn't know why she was being so affectionate, but he didn't think he minded. He was uncomfortable with being touched by strangers and acquaintances, but Sasha had been a long time friend, and he knew it had been far too long since he'd last seen or even gotten in touch with her. "You got really tall! You're taller than me now, that's so weird!"

"Is it?" Armin didn't think it was extraordinarily strange that he'd gotten taller, though he'd stopped growing and was still rather short. He was only maybe an inch or two taller than Sasha. "I can't help growing, Sasha."

"You're super skinny still, though," Sasha observed, pulling back and squeezing his ribs once more. "You don't eat much, do you?"

"They know you really well, don't they, Armin?" Jean asked, sounding amused. Armin had the grace to laugh, though he didn't appreciate being lectured on his eating habits.

"Your lock picking skills are still prime, I see," he observed, glancing at Mikasa's still open front door. "Once a hoodlum, always a hoodlum."

"Nah," Sasha laughed, shoving her hands into the pockets of her letterman jacket, which Armin knew belonged to Connie. "Not me, not ever! Besides, you always did way more illegal stuff than me."

Armin couldn't deny that. He saw Jean's eyebrows shoot up, and he wanted to laugh at how clearly Jean had misjudged Armin's capacity for rule breaking, but he didn't. Instead he asked about Connie.

"Oh, he's in the kitchen," Sasha said. She waved offhandedly, and the smell of cake got stronger, the sweetness becoming startling and warm. Vanilla stung his nose, and he could feel it burning at the back of his throat as his mouth watered. He was usually not one for sweets, but this was kinda a special occasion right? And he was awfully hungry from the trip. "He'd probably be done by now, but I ate his first cake."

"Cake?" Jean eyed her suspiciously. "You ate an entire cake?"

"He didn't feed me this morning, I was desperate." Sasha shrugged, and she tossed herself into one of Mikasa's old leather sofas, sinking deeply into the worn brown seat. "Ah, man, I kinda miss living here…"

"You hated living here." Mikasa seemed to be reminding Sasha, but Armin had no idea that Sasha had lived with Mikasa at all. That went to show how strangled their communication was as of late.

"Yeah, for good reason," Sasha muttered. "But I mean, aside from the spooky creaky noises and the bad vibes, I kinda miss this old place."

"Spooky?" Jean snorted. "How the fuck is this place spooky?"

Sasha stared at him, her brown eyes large and distant, and Armin glanced between her and Jean. He could tell that Sasha was weighing her options with Jean, possibly considering just ignoring him, but she didn't. She raised her chin high, gestured around the room with a grand sweep of her arm.

"This place," she said, "is most definitely cursed."

"Cursed." Jean was on the verge of laughter, his eyes squinted and his lips quirked into a smirk. "Wow. Right, okay." He had his camera in hand, Armin noticed, and he realized it was likely recording.

"I'm serious," Sasha said darkly, her eyes darting furiously at Jean's face. "Mikasa thinks so too! Tell him Mikasa!"

Armin's dear friend merely looked bored as she dragged Armin's bags into the room, shutting the front door behind her. She shrugged meagerly.

"It's cursed," she said simply.

"Whoa, whoa, back up." Jean set his camera down on the coffee table, angling it subtly so it faced all of them. "Explain."

Mikasa sighed, and she glanced down the hall and tipped herself back so she could see through it and into the kitchen. Then she focused on them again.

"It's just a superstition," she said. "But my grandfather killed himself downstairs in the shop, and my great grandfather supposedly was pushed down the stairs by my grandfather. But I don't really know if either of those things are true, or if they're just stories meant to scare little children."

"I swear I've got a bad vibe from this place," Sasha said firmly. "I swear it. Especially Mikasa's room."

"Thanks," she said dully, rolling her eyes. "Thanks a lot."

"It feels like something crawled into the walls and is living in there."

"Now you're trying to give me nightmares," Mikasa sighed, closing her eyes. "It's really not that bad, but the apartment is old so there are a lot of eerie noises you'd expect to hear from an old place like this. Creaky floorboards, squeaky faucets, rusty pipes, settling walls. I've been trying to save money to get it fixed up."

"Start with your room," Sasha suggested. "It needs the most work."

Mikasa merely sighed again, looking actually irritated. Then she looked suddenly very alarmed, and she glanced at Sasha with widening eyes. "Wait," she said vacantly, turning around and tilting her head. "How'd you guys get past The Captain?"

"The what?" Jean asked flatly.

"Uh…" Sasha sunk further into her seat, and she kicked her feet up. "He was sleeping… when we came in…"

A shrill shriek came drifting into the room, riding on the waves of the sweet scent of a baking cake.

"Well," Mikasa said, "he's not sleeping anymore."

They all glanced at each other, and with that they bolted into the hall, and through the hall they reached Mikasa's small kitchen. The tiles were uneven, black and white and yellowed with age, and there were ugly wooden paneled walls that Mikasa had sworn and sworn again she'd rip out one day. The smell of cake was intoxicating, and the overwhelming heat of the room dazed Armin and so he hardly noticed Connie crouched on Mikasa's table, looking rather miserable as a Chihuahua hopped up on its hind legs and barked at him furiously.

"I hate your dog," Connie told Mikasa flatly, his dark face pinched in irritation. Mikasa merely whistled.

"Captain," she called. The dog halted his attack, and cocked his head back at Mikasa, his ears flattening. It trotted to Mikasa's side obediently, and Connie sighed in relief. "Good Captain."

"The Captain is a pretty terrible guard dog," Armin observed, kneeling to rub the tiny dog's head. The Captain was pretty amiable, in spite of his treatment of Connie, so long as Mikasa was around. He let Armin scratch behind his ears, his big brown eyes drooping closed in blatant pleasure. Armin smiled at him as he crawled into his lap, nuzzling his palm.

"Sure!" Connie cried, jumping down from the table. "Sure, he likes you! Where the fuck has that dog even been for the past few hours?"

"He's a heavy sleeper," Mikasa said. "He's old, you know."

As Armin understood it, Mikasa had adopted The Captain from a shelter a few years before, but he'd been old even then. Half his right ear was torn away, and he was blind in one eye, most likely, but he still had the strength to bark like a fucking German Shepherd if it came down to it.

"Yeah, well," Connie sniffed, "if he's not careful, I'm gonna make a hot dog outta him."

"Good luck with that."

"So you're… Connie?" Jean tilted his head. "Yeah, I've seen pictures of you, I think."

"Yeah, you're Jean, hi." Connie waved, and he wandered over to the oven, opening it up and peeking in. "Do you like whiskey cake?"

"I've never tried it, but it sounds baller," Jean admitted, his eyebrows rising. He shot a glance at Armin, who merely shrugged. The last time Armin had seen Connie he'd been going for a business degree, and before that it'd been linguistics, and before that human anatomy, and before that… graphic design? Possibly.

"Good, because I had to actually slave over this thing," Connie said, scowling at Sasha. "Thanks to someone. Who shall not be named. Because I'm just nice like that."

"You aren't nice at all." Sasha pouted.

Connie pulled a pan out of the over one-handedly with a towel, and he tossed it onto a hot pad that rested on the old granite countertop. He kicked the oven closed, and whirled to face Armin. Then he smiled, and Armin smiled back, and they high fived once before hugging. Armin wasn't incredibly affectionate, not really, but Connie was someone Armin had not seen in a very long time, and they'd once been close.

"How's the outside world been treating you?" Connie asked eagerly.

"Pretty well," Armin said, though he didn't know if he was being truthful. "You guys should try it."

"If we could afford it," Sasha snickered.

"That's a good point," Armin admitted. "I'll probably be here for a little while for the same reason, though."

"Aha," Connie scoffed, dragging out a chair and plopping down. "Hypocrite."

"But, yeah, I'm doing fine," he said. This one might've been a lie too. "How are you guys?"

"Meh." Connie waved his hand in mid-air, designating casual so-so. Sasha just smiled, and shrugged.

"I'm great," she beamed. "Connie takes cooking classes, and it's the best thing ever because now he's constantly cooking, and you know what that means?"

"Food?" Jean asked blandly.

"YES!" Sasha punched the air. "Finally those years and years of friendship have proved to be constructive."

"I hate you a lot," Connie groaned. "No cake for you!"

"I'm just teasing," Sasha laughed, glancing at him. Connie glanced back, and he groaned some more. "Mostly."

"Do you guys want some beers?" Mikasa asked suddenly.

"Yes," Jean said immediately. "Fucking yes."

"Sure," Connie said.

"Yeah!"

Armin stood, feeling awkward and a little ashamed that he didn't really like alcohol. "Uh, okay," he said very quietly, shoving his hands into his pocket. Mikasa shot him a glance as she walked to the fridge. When she turned again, she tossed three bottles of beer on the table, and two bottles of coke. Armin was overwhelmed with affection for her in that moment, and he might've thanked her if there weren't so many people around, so instead he smiled at her gratefully, and uncapped the coke bottle.

They ended up sitting in a circle on the kitchen floor eating whiskey cake, which was actually very good and very sweet, though the alcohol had an almost overwhelming presence at the moist, spongy center. They ended up playing a friendly game of Never Have I Ever.

"Never have I ever smoked a cigarette," Sasha chirped. Jean groaned and grabbed the bottle of sangria from the center of their little circle and took a nice long gulp.

"Fuck," he mumbled, wiping his lips and passing the bottle to Mikasa. "I'm down to three."

"Two," Mikasa said, taking a swig from the bottle. She glanced at Armin, who reluctantly took it, and took a sip. It was a sweet taste, and it ran warm like blood down his throat, and he didn't like it at all. He set the bottle back down at the circle, and Connie did not object.

He remembered one late spring afternoon Mikasa had come to them with a pack of cigarettes, and she'd declared that she was going to smoke all of them. Armin had advised against it, but when he'd realized her reasoning he understood. He still thought it was a terrible idea, and told her to just throw them in the river, but she was adamant. So the three of them had smoked the pack, and felt very sick afterwards. But they'd done it together.

Armin didn't really smoke, and Eren hadn't much either, but he knew Mikasa had a nasty habit of doing it if she had a chance. She was good at control, however.

"My turn, huh?" Jean looked miserable. "I don't even know. Never have I ever given a blow job."

"Nice," Armin said. "I don't believe it."

Jean threw a plastic fork at him, and it went sailing over his head.

Everyone sat silently.

"Wow," Connie said. "We're prudes."

"Never have I ever received a blow job," Mikasa said.

"God damn it." Jean grabbed the bottle and tipped it back, holding up two fingers as he gulped down another swig.

"Never have I ever…" Armin sat, feeling silly and unfit for this game. He felt their eyes on him, felt the heat of their stares as they wormed their way into his thoughts and fed on his soul, and he was scared to think too loudly in the gnawing paranoia that they might somehow hear his burning self-hatred. "Jumped into Titan's Maw. From the cliffs, at least."

Jean glanced around, face flushed from the heat of the wine. Sasha and Connie glanced at each other, and they shrugged.

Mikasa tentatively reached for the bottle, saying nothing. She grasped it and held it for just a moment, looking a little dazed. And then she threw it back, taking a very long gulp.

"Shit," Jean muttered. Sasha and Connie merely looked confused as Mikasa set the bottle back down.

"One," she said dully. "I'm going to lose."

"Or win," Connie offered. "Depending how you look at it."

"When did you jump into Titan's Maw?" Armin asked her, feeling eager but sick. She shrugged.

"I don't know," she said. "A few years ago. I guess. Connie?"

"Never have I ever had a one night stand."

Everyone's eyes trailed to Jean. This time, however, he merely shrugged.

"Nope," he said. "Surprise, I'm not that slutty."

"You're not even a little slutty," Armin said. "You're mostly a virgin."

Jean's cheeks flushed, and he opened his mouth. Then he closed it. "Don't go spreading that shit around," he squeaked.

"Don't go telling people the truth, you mean?" Armin offered.

"God damn it, man!"

"I wanna know what the mostly is all about." Connie grinned.

"Oh," Armin said, smiling a bit. "Well—"

"No," Jean said, sounding a little desperate and a little drunk. "No, no, no, no, no, no."

Armin felt guilty, so he glanced at Connie, and he smiled and shrugged. "I actually don't know the details," he lied. "I heard them from Marco." Another lie. Armin hardly spoke to Marco, even when he visited Jean. But the others bought it, knowing Marco from the various stories Jean had told over the course of the night.

"Okay, never have I ever…!"

It went on like that.

By the time Sasha and Connie left it was very late, and the sky was inky and black, and Armin was slightly buzzed so he wasn't in any particular mood at all. Alcohol affected him strangely, never quite altering his personality so much as it wiped it away all together. When Armin drank, he felt like he'd just had a lobotomy. He didn't like the person he became, because that person was very blunt and dull and brutally analytical. As Armin understood it, it was difficult to hold back all the things he wanted to spill when he was under the influence of some substance, so he just spouted things while hardly feeling more than brief twinges of wariness.

He really did not like alcohol.

"You were with Eren that night," Armin informed Mikasa curtly as she gathered all the glass bottles at the side of her sink. Jean had passed out on the couch about an hour before, and the kitchen was hot and dark now, shadows dancing across the mismatched tile and Mikasa's pretty face. She looked at him, and her eyes were smudges in the yellow light.

"I was," she admitted, picking up the emptied bottle of sangria by its neck.

A chilly silence spread out between them. Armin felt like he should be surprised, but he felt very little, and he was very tired. He watched her, wondering if he'd known all along and had just been pretending and lying to himself to keep the resentment from crawling through him like a weed out to choke the life from him.

"You never said anything," he said. "You wanted to, I think, but you didn't. Why is that, Mikasa?"

She stood, empty bottle in hand, and Armin understood that she was just as sad and lonely as he was.

"I was scared," she whispered.

He wanted to doubt that, because this was Mikasa he was talking to, but because it was Mikasa he understood that there were certain things he often forgot when it came to her. Like, for instance, that she was just as human as he was. She got scared too.

"Of what?" he urged her. "Of me? Of telling me? Or of what happened?"

She turned her eyes to him, and in the dimness he saw them flash with remorse.

"I don't know what happened, Armin," she said, her voice thick. She wasn't drunk, he didn't think, but she was clearly tipsy and a little more distraught than he'd been expecting. "That night was a blur. I try not to remember."

"So you're telling me you repress your memories," he clarified. She blinked at him dazedly.

"Maybe," she said, setting the wine bottle aside and bowing her head. "I don't really know. I'm sorry, I… I know it doesn't help you, or— or Eren. But I can't really say what exactly happened."

"Tell me, at the very least," Armin whispered, "what Eren wanted to show us."

Mikasa stared at him, and when he looked into her eyes he saw two sad, inky blots sinking into her skull. She looked tired, and he expected that she was more exhausted than him considering her job. He wanted to leave her alone, but he was just so curious, and all his emotions seemed to have shut off.

"I never got the chance to find out," she said quietly. She turned away from him, facing the sink and turning on the faucet. "I'm sorry, Armin."

"No," he said. "It's fine. I'm sorry for bothering you about it."

"You could never bother me."

He wanted to object, but he didn't feel up to arguing, and it simply didn't feel right. There was a squirming emptiness here, in the room, and he felt it burn him and brand him, marking him up and leaving him lost. There was a hollow space here between them. Eren's presence made everything seem clearer, and his absence made the world thick and stifling and gauzy beyond belief.

"I think I'm going to go to bed now," he told her, turning his back to her. She nodded, not looking up as she began to scrub at the dishes, the sound of rushing water thudding in his ears. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," she said. "Your bedroom is right next to mine. If you can't find it, then shout for me."

"I think I know it."

He didn't know why she'd lie to him, and worst of all he couldn't tell if she was lying. He felt sick, which was not very good, and tired which was also not very good, because he had so much work to do and not much time to do it. He had an entire investigation to get through, and Mikasa's testimony was just about useless. Meaning Armin was going to need to snoop around until he found proof that she wasn't lying. Or maybe that she was. He hoped so very badly she wasn't lying to him, but he couldn't tell. She was difficult to read, even for him.

He trudged to Mikasa's room, dragging his suitcase along with him, and he felt a sense of déjà vu as the yellow hallway tilted and the walls seemed to lean in toward him hopelessly, seeming to be drunker than him. He felt a bit disoriented, and he nearly called for Mikasa, but it occurred to him that he'd bothered her enough for one night. He shouldered the door he was almost positive was his open, flicking on a light and feeling nauseous as he tossed his bags onto the ground.

The room was more spacious than Mikasa's, which struck him as odd. It looked to be almost as though this room was a main bedroom, for it actually fit a queen sized bed as well of a comfortable amount of furniture. It was empty and sad looking, recently cleaned and still smelling of bleach and Kleenex. On the off-white walls there were little tacks of tiny, colorful feathers, which Armin thought was odd. As he examined them more closely, he realized they were fishing hooks. There were three of them, each a different color, each designed a little differently, each unique and odd and out of place in this room. He touched one tentatively, the green tackle a little misshapen and bizarre.

There was also a rather large painting on the wall that he glanced at, and felt an immense amount of anxiety.

The paint was old, faded strokes of pale paint darting the center, a splash of white and gray and pink, greens smudged into the background and browns into the foreground, flesh and grass and ropes. The faces were vague little blotches of color dotting the canvas, and the expressions were nonexistent. The knife was there, the angel, the stars marring the sky with more stinging clarity than the entirety of the painting combined.

For some odd reason, there was a painting of the biblical binding of Isaac in his room.

Weird.

Armin dismissed it at first, flopping onto his bed and groaning. He wished he could forget about the entire investigation, but he just… could not abandon Eren. Not again.

He closed his door and began to undress, but his eyes kept falling back to that painting, and the knife, and the blotted out faces, and paranoia crept up on him. He found himself turning from the painting so his back faced it, and he changed into a loose tee shirt and shorts, tying his hair up in a messy bun before collapsing on his bed again and falling asleep.

He woke up in the middle of the night, another familiar swoop of anxiety coming over him. He ignored it, curling up in his blankets as a chill took over, slipping over him and caressing his bare skin. Normally Armin had trouble sleeping, but it helped that he'd been on a train for a significant amount of the day, and then gotten slightly drunk. He quickly fell asleep again.

When he woke up the next morning from a dreamless sleep, his head was pounding and he felt sick again. He noted the shimmer of daylight streaming in through his window.

Then, curiously, he noted the two hooks on the wall.