MAMIHLAPINATAPEI
YAGHAN LANGUAGE OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO
1) A wordless, yet meaningful look between two people who both desire to initiate something, but both are too scared to initiate look across the table when two people are sharing an unspoken but private moment. When each knows the other understands and is in agreement with what is being expressed. An expressive and meaningful silence.
2) That look across the table when two people are sharing an unspoken but private moment. When each knows the other understands and is in agreement with what is being expressed. An expressive and meaningful silence.
finally, the time has come
everything up till today was a prologue
skimming through the days of old,
it's my turn to bear the load
my experience and my skill
and all the courage I had let start to mildew
at an unprecedented speed I will
dive right into you.
- RADWIMPS, Sparkle
It's been a few hours and it's completely dark outside now, which they hardly notice as their conversation flows easily like a mountain stream, switching from one topic to another. Surprisingly, they're not trading facts and personal histories, but rather opinions, all joking around and getting in heated arguments over their favorite tv show characters, with their faces colored in blush and in a warm glow of the kitchen light.
Above the cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream, extra marshmallows and a spoon of cinnamon on top for good measure, Eren waves his hands excitedly, in the middle of telling a very long and complex story involving ten years old him, his best friend and a bucket full of earthworms. Mikasa must admit she has long lost track of the tale, but she doesn't particularly mind that; Eren may not be the best storyteller ( and then I like, grabbed his hand – she was kinda, uhm, you know – like, you know - LITERALLY ) but he's definitely an engaging one.
Besides, she has to admit that no matter how interesting his story might be, she would rather just watch him anyway. What he does gives her a way better idea of who he is than his words do.
And he's.. non-stop. Constantly in motion. Twitching his leg, as if he was in a hurry, biting on his lip, changing a position every few seconds. His hands never simply rest on her dinner table or stay wrapped around his mug, no; his fingers are tapping on the wood, scratching his nose and the back of his neck, ruffling his hair.
And how she aches to do just so. To reach out her hand above their mugs, to touch this boy sitting across the table. Her fingers itch as if someone was pricking their tips with needles - just to map the features of his face, to trail the slope of his nose and the arches of his brows, and jaw, and cheekbones. To check if his lips are really as chapped as they look.
To get lost in those beautiful, breathtakingly green eyes.
She toys with those ideas, plays the scenarios in her head, so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she almost doesn't catch it when he stops talking.
"… and that's how we were basically banned from visiting aunt Flora ever again. Hmm, Mikasa? You're with me?"
His brows furrow and he's looking at her, concern vivid in his features and she perks up at that, straightening her back so abruptly that she can hear her spine cracking.
"Yes! Of course." She twirls the spoon in the remains of black lemon tea in her mug, avoiding his scrutinizing gaze. But she still feels that; his disappointment filling her lungs with unpleasant, acidy smell.
Oh no. – her heart clenches.- Oh no, no.
"Sorry, Eren," she says, soft and soothing. "I get lost a bit. But from what I did catch -" – it's like in her head; she can feel smooth wood underneath her fingertips and then the roughened skin of his palms as she reaches out her hand across the table. " – is that you should never ask me for childhood stories. Mine are all boring. I never did anything even remotely close to throwing a whole jar of worms into my relatives' Christmas pudding ."
He huffs in amusement, letting her caress his hand for a moment before wrapping his fingers around hers.
"In my defense, the stuff was so disgusting that the taste might've actually improved with this extra meat in it. " Their eyes lock and something wild gleams in his as he raises her hand up and brushes her knuckles with his lips.
She gasps; can't help that. It's like an electric shock, the one that leaves her whole skin tingling and her cheeks blushing.
"I like that – hand holding, I mean," he admits quietly, turning his gaze away to stare at his mug. The tips of his ears are slightly redder than they were in the freezing cold outside and as soon as she notices it, she feels a wave of affection crashing over her.
And this makes her just a little bit bolder.
She pulls her hand from his grasp and just – does it. No thinking, zero overanalyzing. Pure instinct. This seems to work best with Eren, so that's what she's gonna do.
Her caress is so delicate that it's almost phantom, but the heat with which her palm burns his cheek is undeniable and he almost groans at that; it's almost as if he was melting in her touch, transfixed by the sight of her grey eyes turned black and those rosy lips parting. She looks dazed; she feels dazed and he is so out of his mind that he's not sure that he's not imagining the whole thing.
"And I had spent the whole evening wanting to do just that," Mikasa confesses, her whisper faint but ringing clear in his ears.
She's about to back off - the gleam slowly dies in her eyes and some kind of second-thought embarrassment is clearly catching up to her – but he covers her hand with his, keeping it placed on his cheek.
"Don't," he lets through gritted teeth. "Don't stop."
And it washes over her; a tidal wave of warmth and amazement and desire, it all messes up in her head, knocks the ground from underneath her feet. Her toes curl.
"Okay."
…
She doesn't know how they ended up on the couch, but she decides that she will wonder about it later.
'Cause Eren is sitting right in front of her - so close, no longer across the table, but close enough that their knees touch – he is sitting right in front of her, his eyes closed, head thrown back and breath heavy, and she trails her fingers on his face, just as she imagined. He's so beautiful; the way his eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks, the contrast of her milky complexion again his dark, his hair so soft when she gently combs through them.
She thinks they would make a nice painting, positioned like that; her, kneeling on the couch and raising her hips up to be closer to him, her pupils blown wide and dark. Eren, gasping for breath underneath her touch, lips wet and the top buttons of his shirt undone. The yellow light of the lamp basking the whole scene in a golden glow, turning her white living room into the honey-colored inside of a beehive, the air thick with heat and wonder and ache.
He keeps his hands firmly placed on his thighs, but then her nails lightly scratch his scalp and before she can notice, he puts them on her waist, spreads them from her hipbones to the edges of her ribcage. His grip is firm, but not bruising; it leaves her dizzy anyway.
Eren's stupid with want.
On the one hand, a quiet, rational voice at the back of his head ( one that sounds suspiciously like Armin) urges him to take it slow, as he was supposed to. On the other, he can't, like, for a life, remember why should he take it slow and a much bigger and louder part of his brain is currently out of order, as Mikasa slowly lifts her hands and lets him pull up her thin, grey sweater and then throw it on the floor.
And he looks at her, simply can't stop looking; all this skin suddenly at display, the graceful line of her neck and the hollow of her throat, arches of her collarbones and valleys of her breasts rising up and falling down with each breath, her taut stomach- – holy shit, she has better abs than he can ever hope to have.
He could swear that he never wanted anything in his life as much as he wants to touch her now.
To kiss her now.
But, as he leans closer, something sharp and cold pierces through him; she opens up her mouth to say something, but he is already backing away from her, her fear tasting like metal on his tongue.
As Mikasa leans her head down in shame, blush traveling down from her cheeks to her chest, he feels like a total, complete, unredeemable asshole.
What did I tell you about not fucking it up with this girl, Jaeger?
Fucking fuck.
"I'm not-" ready, she wants to say, but that's not exactly true and words got stuck in her throat. She somehow trusts this stranger with the most familiar eyes with her life. She doesn't know why she's suddenly feeling so scared, so ashamed. Why she has this overpowering need to push her want away and hide it somewhere in a box in a closet when she knows he feels the same want for her. Why, as he leaned down to kiss her, she somehow felt rejected.
What she does know, is that in the moment he took her sweater off her, the heat from his touch evaporated from her skin, leaving her bare and shivering.
And afraid.
Her body locked up when he leaned closer, so quickly and abruptly that it left her confused and gave her a pulsing headache. A shift in a mood so swift and sharp that he felt it along her.
Is it an echo from the past? Is that how it feels like? She wonders, still staring at her knees and begging him to understand. Is this because of how we parted the last time? I'm sorry, I don't know what is happening. I really wanted it. I'm sorry, don't leave.
She sends one wordless beg after another. She can see it, clear as day; Eren standing up, putting on his jacket and taking his scarf with him as he closes the door behind him. Taking his warmth, and his smile, and his green eyes away from her. It is an irrational thought but the one she can't shake off anyway. Did you leave me just like that, sometime before?
"Hey, Mikasa."
He sounds angry, he is angry; and she knows this in such a subconscious, impossible way. There's a flash, a hit and for a second or two she's out of her body, he used to be angry at me all the time, once.
And Eren, to his surprise, finds this anger in himself. This anger that doesn't even feel his entirely, which seems older than his body but as old as his soul.
An echo.
(It was the first thing one of his friends felt when she met her soulmate in this life; it came before pain and before warmth, and before a lightning strike and he was there when it happened. He saw it with his own two eyes; Ymir suddenly going dead silent in the middle of the sentence and stopping in the middle of a hallway. Her quiet gasp and then one of her hands raising slowly, almost hesitantly, up, to wave. She was so lost in this one moment, so completely disconnected with reality that Eren thinks the whole world could've ended and she wouldn't even bat an eyelash at that.
She looked so happy. She has never told him what she felt, but it must've been something really good; she had awe radiating from every millimeter of her body.
And a half a heartbeat later, a small figure appeared at the end of the hallway. A new student, in the middle of a tour through school, guided by the principal. Blonde and so fucking pretty that almost celestial, clad in a baby pink suspender dress and white, lacy stockings, she couldn't be more different from Ymir if she tried.
But she raised her head up, the same wonder in her sparkling blue eyes as in his friends' brown ones; she looked right at Ymir and smiled, and waved back.)
He's not angry at Mikasa because this weird rage is not even directly connected with a situation; even if it was, he'd be angry at himself, but when he glances at her, her head is still down and her shoulders are shaking a little bit.
Nobody really thinks they used to be a bad person once and Eren is not an exception. He was sure that all of his past selves were – well, if not good people, then at least decent. He's nowhere close to perfection now; not with his carelessness, pettiness, and lack of empathy sometimes. He's can be a thick-skulled idiot and he knows it well, but he would never call himself intentionally cruel.
He would've never thought that he hurt his soulmate in the past so deeply, that the memory of this hurt is the first one that comes back to them.
Did my rage burn the world with you in it? How many scars on your soul spell out my name? I'm so, so sorry, baby. You deserve someone better to share your eternity with.
"My previous self was a douchebag, right?" he says and it sounds so hollow, even to himself. "That's probably how it was if you feel this way. "
He pauses, turns his head away from Mikasa because he swears to God, if he was to spend another minute looking at her hunched figure, he would cry. He weighs what he's going to say next in his head, trying to find the best words, to ease this echo of a pain of the past somehow.
Anger curls at the pit of his stomach, burning him in a way that is so different from the way Mikasa's touch makes him feel that it's a sensation straight out of another dimension. He pushes it away: you don't belong here anymore.
"But I'm not like that, this time. I don't want to hurt you and I'm not leaving, unless you want me to do so," he continues quietly with such an honesty ringing in his voice that she raises her head up to look at him. "I don't want you to be afraid of me."
And as he says this, the ache disappears like a mist, like a bad dream evaporating immediately after you've awakened from it. Mikasa watches him, fumbling with the edge of his shirt and looking for the best way to console her and all there is in her is a simple tenderness, sweet as a morning dew.
"I'm not," she says before he can.
She tries to recall the feeling, her stomach turning at the unpleasant sensation, already turning into a fuzzy memory. "I don't think I ever was. I think … if anything... I was more afraid for you. "
He chuckles, clearly surprised and this gives her a push to go on.
"Maybe you used to get in trouble all the time, act without thinking. Judging from all the stories you told me today, you're not much different now, right?"
This earns her an actual laugh on his part and she smiles at the sound. She loves it so much, this love seems to be hidden so deeply inside her that she wouldn't be able to tear it away even if she wanted to. Eren's laugh … it just makes her feel so safe.
So at home.
"So. You think I straight-up ran away from you to do something stupid and you were left afraid I won't come back?" he asks and although she somehow feels that's not the whole truth, she nods in confirmation.
"But we will have all the answers sooner or later. Maybe let's not dwell on that." Mikasa leans down to pick up her sweater and Eren can feel the tips of his ears burn again. Echo or not echo; he knows this girl for a few hours tops and he has already tried to undress her. Well – fucking –done. Doing his fucking best to be better than his asshole self was countless times before.
She puts the sweater on and he turns away, looking at the snowstorm behind the window. It must be even colder outside than when they met. The thought of coming back home becomes even more unpleasant than it was a moment ago. He eyes Mikasa silently, trying to stop himself from yawning, but it's so difficult; it's been such a long day.
And her apartment is so warm. And she looks so lovely. And he honestly just wants to lay by her side and bask in her glow like the sappy bastard he is at heart.
And, no matter how hard he tries to deny it, half of him is still quite convinced that their meeting is just some sort of a very vivid dream. That he'll say goodbye to her, freeze his ass off while going home and each step will be like stepping on knives as he moves away, not towards her. That he will realize that he has lost his keys (again) so he will have to ring the bell for half an hour before Armin emerges from his cocoon of blankets to open the door for him, blinking sleepily and asking where the hell he was.
And then Eren will take a shower and every drop of water will scream her name ( Mi-ka-sa, Mi-ka-sa ringing in his ears, pulsing in his ears, humming in his blood as if she was a part of him he had lost and didn't even realize it until now) and he will go to sleep haunted by the smell of her skin and then -
The next day he'll go to her apartment and find it empty or find out that it never existed in the first place. And he'll forever be left with this ache and longing, and a hunger he does not know how to satisfy.
He grimly waits for the shoe to drop, for Mikasa to politely show him the door ( maybe wrap his scarf for him, if he's particularly lucky and hand him her phone number without being asked to do so) but instead, she stands up abruptly and blushes slightly, tugging a stray strand of her behind her ear.
"C'mon," she says, reaching out a hand towards him. "This couch is too uncomfortable to sleep on it. "
Is she – isn't she? She isn't. His mind is a mess. Thank. Fucking. God. Bless. Yes.
He's so happy that she's not kicking him out, that the full implications of her words get to him with a delay.
If he's not sleeping on the couch… Well, where exactly is he sleeping?
He imagines Mikasa in the morning, all warm and sleepy with a messy ponytail, cuddling with him, drooling a little bit on his shirt and stealing all the sheets, and he immediately decides to stop thinking about this that instant, because, from this point, he'll be nothing but a fucking gentleman. Decided. Period.
"I'm not sleepy," he states stubbornly out of habit, although even a five-year-old would see through his lie, let alone a girl that can literally feel his emotions.
"Uh-huh. Of course, you're not. That's why I have an urge to yawn," she snickers, pulling him off the couch by tugging on his sleeve. "I'll show you the bathroom, okay?"
…
She doesn't send him home.
Of course, she doesn't; not when she's still not one hundred percent sure that he won't turn into mist after he closes her door behind him.
Instead, she sits with her back leaned on the bathroom door as Eren takes a shower; she listens to the sound of running water and his terrible whistling and she grins so hard she's afraid her cheeks might burst.
Then, she is the one to go wash up and, as she undresses, she shivers violently, goosebumps all over her skin, burning thoughts twisting in her mind and hot ache swelling in her stomach when cold water hits her back.
And when she emerges with wet hair sticking to her neck, he's standing in her bedroom; back turned on her, he's talking quietly on the phone, his lean silhouette illuminated by the white glow of street lights falling through the window.
He's shirtless and the line of his spine leaves her speechless; the way muscles of his back dance underneath his dark skin enchants her; he bewitches her, mind and soul, with everything he does.
He holds her full attention by simply existing in the same space as her.
…
The problem is, after he ended talking on the phone ( with his flatmate, Mikasa assumed) and after they laid down on her way too narrow bed together, their feet touching, knees and elbows and arms pressed together -
She still can't turn her mind off.
"Hey. You can 't sleep?" he asks after an hour or so, interrupting the stiff silence between them. Mikasa, staring at the ceiling and wondering idly why awkwardness is not eating her inside out right now, turns her head to face him and nods slightly.
"Maybe think about… like, top five things that make you sleepy," he suggests, half-jokingly, but he sees her brows furrowing.
She has this cute little wrinkle between them when she's thinking about something really hard. He lets himself imagine reaching out and smoothing it with his thumb.
"Rain," comes her soft voice. "Riding in a car. The smell of cinnamon. "
She stops taking abruptly, biting on her lower lip and locking her gaze on the ceiling.
"A -and?" he presses on.
"Being he- held," he whispers, stumbling on words and blushing red in the darkness.
Well, he can only do one thing in response.
He gathers her in his arms, pulling her closer to him and spooning her from behind. Their bodies press to one another on the whole length; and although this contact burns, although they both gasp when their skins start to tingle – their limbs rearrange, seemingly by themselves. His arms lock around her waist and he rests his chin on the top of her hand; her hands cover his, laced up on her belly. Their legs entwine. Both of their hearts beat in the same erratic rhythm.
"I thought we agreed not to do – this anymore tonight," she lets out, stunned.
He shrugs; a motion that she feels on some weird emotional level before she feels it on her own body.
"I'll hold you so you can fall asleep. Unless-" his arms loosen a bit around her - "unless you're not comfortable with that?"
I let you take my sweater off. He can almost hear her thoughts as she huffs, clearly irritated. I know that you know that I sat in front of the bathroom so not to be far from you for even a second. We both know it's not an issue of being comfortable. More of an issue of being too comfortable, actually.
Because, to their mutual wonder, she is not stiff in his arms and he holds her just right. They fit together so easily, so seamlessly that she just can't wrap her mind around it. That's a stranger, a strange guy that she still knows only a handful of things about. And yet she welcomed him into her apartment and into her bed and when he holds her-
When he holds her like that, when she feels his hot breath on her hair and one of his legs tangled in-between hers-
When they lay like that in darkness, in silence, with only their shining eyes and beating hearts and quiet breaths to interrupt that-
She has never felt more right.
Instead of answering, she lets her guard down; she melts against him, turns even softer and warmer. She closes her eyes, forcing her heart to calm down and her breath to be steady. She curls beside him, laces her fingers with his; hold me like that, I welcome you here, in my heart. By my side.
The air is sweet in his mouth; she smells like lemons and mint and snow and he buries his face in her hair, this overwhelming urge pushing him closer and closer, making him tighten his arms around her and just breathe her in, with all of him.
"Mikasa?" he whispers, and she shifts beside him a little.
"Huh?" she answers, voice already laced with sleepiness and his heart swells at the sound.
"I'm so happy we've met today." His lips move, pressed on the top of her head, the words blurred and Mikasa's mind finding it hard to concentrate on anything when it feels just so good. But she doesn't need to hear him to understand what he's saying; she doesn't even have to use her mouth to say it back.
In the dark of the night, she reaches out towards their bond and doesn't pull on this red string linking them, no. She strokes it, caresses, as delicately as she can. She sends him a kiss, sweet as a kiss can be, and a me too.
Hello, guys! Sorry that it took me so long to post this chapter, I was crazy busy lately, but I'm back with posting once a week/ once in two weeks tops. I hope you enjoyed this part of my story; if so, PLEASE leave me kudos and/or a comment so I would know that and have more motivation to continue writing. See you soon ;)
