Mikasa
My eyes snap open. Sunlight pours into the room from the window. Stars dance across my line of vision, and I rub my eyes, hoping to take away the dreary blur of the morning.
I paw at the nightstand beside me until my fingers wrap around my phone. My lock screen screams with notifications, inundated with the community's sympathy. That goddamned hashtag, #prayforAckerman, splattered across everywhere, pockmarking my Twitter feed, drowning my Facebook news. Someone even decided to pick a color to wear in solidarity on Monday: yellow.
I want to vomit.
Dad is dead.
Yet I don't think it has set in properly. I roll the thought over in my head, wondering when the deluge of emotions are going to roll forth, reducing me to a puddle of tears like any other grieving daughter. But the strongest emotion I feel is this nausea in the pit of my stomach.
In the bathroom, a green toothbrush cup awaits. I know it's mine because last night I didn't have one, and I decided against being a bother and asking. Also, I know Eren put it there because tied around its handle is a pink scrunchie, gleaming obnoxiously with glitter. A tiny smile sneaks onto my face. It's an inside joke between us. When we were kids, he lost a bet (it was something about who could eat a piece of cake faster), and his punishment was to wear his hair in the most embarrassing scrunchie that I could find—for two straight days. Somewhere in the photo albums in his attic is a priceless photo documenting this glorious moment, courtesy of a highly-amused Carla.
He even found me spearmint toothpaste. He remembers. It's the only flavor of toothpaste that doesn't make me gag, and this was the one thing I was monstrously picky about.
In the mirror, I see that I'm grinning.
I open the faucet and silence it with a splash of icy-cold water.
"Don't be weird," I can hear his mom saying.
"Mom, stop it, she can probably hear you."
I pause on the stairs, intrigued. I can only see the front door, but their voices bend around the corner from the kitchen.
"I know you guys have had some roadblocks, but she needs people to support her right now—"
False.
"—so you're gonna have to you put all that history in the backseat for now. "
"Mom, I get it. Can we not talk about this right now?"
"Why don't you go call her down for breakfast?"
A pause. "Shouldn't we let her sleep in as long as she wants?"
"Of course, but you should still let her know that breakfast is ready whenever she's ready. I got a call from Hannes, so I need to head out to his office."
"Oh my God, seriously? Blueberry pancakes?"
"What's wrong with that?"
"Well, A) she hates blueberry, and B) she's a freak of nature and somehow hates pancakes. Don't you remember?"
"It's sweet that you still do."
"That's not the point!"
"You seem to have her likes and dislikes branded into your memory, so why don't you make her something she'll enjoy? Also, do me a favor and let her know that her, uh… uncle? Yeah, her uncle is going to be here this afternoon because he's her legal guardian now, so she has the option of going home if she wants to. But make sure to phrase it so that she knows that she's still welcome here. Seriously, Eren, watch your tone when you tell her."
"Geez, cut me some slack. I know how to be proper human being. Hold on, she's got an uncle? I had no idea."
"Technically, he's a… uh, I've got it here somewhere. Hand me that napkin, will you?"
"Mom, you're a mess."
"Right, so this Levi Ackerman is a second cousin, once removed. It took me a while to map that whole thing out."
"What the hell does that even mean?"
"Basically," his mom says in a lower voice, just barely above earshot, "he's a stranger who happens to share the same bloodline. Why her dad decided on this… this random bozo? I have no idea, but it's how it is now."
"Damn, you're doing the thing."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you're pretending you're okay with something that you obviously disagree with."
"I am not."
"Are too."
"Eren, you're not helping."
"So I'm right! You're trying to convince yourself that it's going to be all okay, aren't you?"
"And you're grounded. The dishes better be done when I get back."
"That's so not fair. Sorry for speaking the truth."
"Quiet, child. Now go wake your bestie up in the next ten minutes. I'm off."
"God, I should be telling you not to make it weird."
I can just imagine Carla kissing the crown of Eren's head.
"See ya in a bit. I love you."
Grudgingly yet genuinely, he replies, "Love you too, Mom."
Levi Ackerman.
I slip away from my post on the stairs, back into my room, shutting the door quietly behind me. Somehow, the name rings a bell, maybe a name that floated in passing, too wispy for me to focus on, to process. Grabbing my phone, I enter his name into Google, searching for a LinkedIn, a Facebook profile, a Twitter—anything to help me jog my memory. But on social media, I come up short. Not a single hit. Clearly, he's a guy who lives off the grid.
However, he's a raging phenomenon elsewhere, namely the news. Instead of profile pages, I'm scrolling through dozens of news articles, his name emblazoned beside hotshot publications: TIME, The Atlantic, Vox, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and mainly our local paper The Chicago Tribune. That's where the bell rings the loudest. Whenever I skim through the paper, I see that name. Levi Ackerman.
His articles are everywhere. Everywhere on the web, and everywhere in the world. He's hopped from southeast Asia to central Africa to the North Korean border to Russia to basically every corner of the world, covering human rights and developmental economics. Most impressive of all, he co-authored a book with the Erwin Smith, the hostage journalist who lost a limb reporting on the front lines in the Middle East. They were nominated for what could've been Smith's second Pulitzer Prize.
I search for images of this Levi, and immediately, Google pulls up hundreds of images showcasing his angular face and his gelled hairstyle. He hardly smiles in any of them; even in the photo with Smith at the Pulitzer ceremony, he's just looking smugly into the camera, the line of his mouth just barely flipping upwards.
I think I might hate him.
"Mikasa?" Two knocks at the door. "You want some breakfast?" I can see Eren's shadow fidgeting in the crack beneath the doorway.
"In a sec!" I reply, staring in horror at this man who's going to be my legal guardian. Living in my house. Pissing in my toilet.
I dare myself to look up the terms "Levi Ackerman controversy." I gape at the headlines:
Levi Ackerman tweets scathing insults towards Tribune editor-in-chief.
Esteemed Tribune contributor Levi Ackerman caught in libel lawsuit.
Levi Ackerman publicly claims he gives "zero fucks" about lawyers.
Levi Ackerman rumored to have sizzling affair with University of Chicago scientist.
And, following this one, I close the Chrome tab, and I flop backwards onto the bed, speechless:
A drunken Levi Ackerman runs nude into Chicago Tribune building and assaults editor-in-chief with doorknob?
Downstairs, Eren set out a plate at my temporary spot at their table. It's an omelette and a cup of Earl Grey. My favorite breakfast. He still remembers, after all these years.
He's trying to read me. Even with the distance between us, each time I find myself locked into a round of small-talk with him, those eyes of his watch me carefully, trying to scan beyond whatever facade I'm putting up.
"Not too gross, I hope?" he asks, gesturing towards the omelette.
Not in the least. It's incredible. But from the slight waver in his voice, the blip in his confidence, it dawns on me that he made this. Just for me. That familiar nausea wells up within me; that queasy guilt returns. My appetite dwindles.
"Eren, you didn't have to," I say quietly. "But thank you."
"Huh?" he says, his face twisting up in confusion. "What are you saying?"
"I know your mom made blueberry pancakes originally. I could smell them from upstairs."
"Oh," he answers. Concern swims in his eyes, and the queasiness only worsens.
"No, no, I really appreciate it. It's delicious."
"Glad to hear." Mercifully, he shifts his eyes away and switches the topic. "So guess what? You've got a family member moving into your place. A… second-cousin, once removed? His name is… Leroy or something."
"Levi."
"Right, that was his name. Uh, have you ever met him?"
"Not once."
"Dang. How do you feel about this?"
"I don't really know."
"Well, I'm confident it'll work out in the end. If he's a cool guy, great. If he's an ass, then you'll put him in his place," he tells me with a grin so forced that his eyes squeezed shut in false cheer.
Why does he try so hard?
Each concise, trimmed, bullshit answer I give him is a bullet right through that armor of kindness. Yet with each fallen layer, he hastily constructs a new one, and in no-time flat, he's ready for the next shower of ammunition. Come at me with all you've got, he seems to be screaming behind that grin, I'm still going to be here. He wants to get hurt. He wants to be collateral damage. He wants to be the bystander sucked into the raging hurricane that is my life—no, in fact, he's the idiot who wades right into the shitstorm, even with warning signs posted everywhere in plain view. He jumps the barbed wire fence, he skitters across the land mines, he tucks in his head, he charges straight into no man's land. He's a spitting image of his mother. Like mother, like two, so blindly selfless, walking around with hearts that bulge, almost to breaking-point, with compassion—those two idiots.
"Thanks," I say quietly.
I put my fork down. On my plate, all my favorites included, from minced cilantro to shredded cheddar to cubed tomatoes; all my anti-foods omitted, from sweet sweet bell peppers to mozzarella to sliced onions. This omelette, it's like a megaphone for him, screaming, I'm here for you, whether you like it or not! The egg cooked a bright, chipper yellow. Yellow. #prayforAckerman
The nausea surges, and I'm about to excuse myself to run to the bathroom—when something soft runs against my ankles. A snuffling sound. Emerging from beneath the table, it's Dusty, possibly the hugest golden retriever in the Western Hemisphere, though age seems to have eaten away at his regal posture, reduced the shine of his coat to a pale blonde.
"Haven't seen him in a while," I remark, letting him sniff at my hand.
Eren laughs. "Yeah, he kinda living the retired life now. He was too lazy to climb the basement stairs to see you yesterday. Sorry, I guess he doesn't give that much of a shit much about you."
He ought to follow his dog's example.
"Bummer," I sigh.
Eren checks his phone while I scratch behind Dusty's ears. I hold the belief that this dog, brimming with energy in his youth, was the one responsible for turning Eren into the inexhaustible soccer player he is. The two would charge down the neighborhood at what seemed like a full sprint for nearly an hour a day; Dusty, tongue lolling gleefully from his mouth, eager to run beyond the fenced-in backyard; Eren, brow knit in fear, dreading the prospect of getting an earful from his mom for losing the enormous dog.
"Hey, so Mom says that we should head over to your house," Eren says, peering at his text messages. "You guys are gonna meet Hannes there."
Outside, it's snowing.
My backpack of stuff slung over my shoulder, I walk beside him. Behind us, two trails of footsteps in the powder dusting on the sidewalk. I live four houses down, roughly a three minute journey.
"Oh," Eren says, shattering the quiet between us. "I forgot to mention that even though you can live back at your house, you're more than welcome to at our place anytime."
I can imagine him piecing that in his head, carefully, stringing together so many different permutations of words, reordering them several times until it sounds right, before stamping them with a seal of approval. An Eren of the past, on the other hand, hardly had even the most basic filter. He's careful around me. I never knew he could do it, to assume this level of patience, but this is Eren. Almost impossible to shake, loyal as a hound. Even though it pains him to put his emotions on a tight leash. Even though at his very core it's foreign to filter his pure, raw honesty. Even though, right now, despite the calm of the moment, he's dying to sever off this thin, tense cord and replace it with that firm, easy bond we once had.
But he knows that once I'm severed, I'll never come back.
I'm pulling, tugging, yanking. Set yourself loose. I want to see it break, I want to hear that snap, the sound of his freedom. But he's learned the patience to accommodate; as I pull, as I tug, as I yank, he moves with me in the same direction—lunging, leaping, and lurching forward as I'm pulling, tugging, and yanking backward—all with the mindless delusion to stop the tension from tearing us apart, ultimately to save this fraying link between us.
Hannes lives across the street from Eren.
He, Dr. Jaeger, and Dad used to meet up on our back porch every Friday to play cards and drink whiskey. Eren and I would hide in the bushes nearby to eavesdrop on their tipsy chatter. A common Hannes quote: "Goddamn you, Grisha. How has Carla not ditched you yet?"
When Eren heard this the first time as an eight-year-old, he made it his personal mission to ambush Hannes with a squirt gun whenever he had a chance. (Later, they made amends when Hannes gave Eren a pair of shiny, new cleats as an apology gift.)
A divorcee himself, Hannes lives alone with two German shepherds. Every summer, in his cargo shorts and plain, white T-shirts, he mows the lawn for Jaegers (re: for Carla). He accompanies her for walks in the evening. He babysat for her. He sold her his old station wagon for dirt-cheap, which eventually became Eren's car.
All things considered, it's unsettling to see Hannes the neighbor seated at my dining room table as Hannes the lawyer, his beer belly concealed by a sleek suit, his unruly, sandy hair combed into orderly submission, his fuzzy slur polished into clear, professional diction. Instead of freshly-mowed grass and sweat, he smells of cologne when he rises from his chair to hug Eren and me.
"How are you holding up?" he asks, gripping me by the shoulders.
"I'm doing okay."
I sit down next to him, while Carla sits across from us, scribbling on a sheet of paper.
"Eren," she says, beckoning her son over. "Do me a favor and go to the grocery store for these things, will you? And when you get back, get started on the casserole if I'm not home yet."
"Uh, yeah, sure thing," he says, reaching for the list.
But she swipes it away from him at the last second. "Drive slowly. No more than ten over the speed limit, you hear me? And don't forget the snow's supposed to pick up later this afternoon!"
On his way out, he turns back to give me one last look of concern before heading out the front door, into the flurries.
I glance around us. "Um, so where's my…"
"Second-cousin, once removed?" Carla finishes for me. She turns to Hannes, simmering with a mother's agitation. "That's a really good question. He was supposed to be here, what, like half an hour ago? What kind of responsible parent is late to these kind of meetings?"
"Carla, relax. Maybe it's the weather. I-94 can really get backed up, I'm sure you know," Hannes tells her gently, reaching over to put his hand over hers.
"Hannes, this is ridiculous. He should know better than to take I-94."
"Carla, we talked about this earlier," Hannes says, sterner this time. He flashes a glance in my direction and shoots me a hasty, false smile of reassurance. I pretend not to pick up on the undertones of their adult conversation and return him a nod.
But Carla is approaching boiling point. She rips her hand away, and next thing we know, she's on fire, "You're telling me his girlfriend dropped off the legal documents because… sorry, remind me of the details, but because this jackass had jury duty? On a weekend? Hannes, you're a goddamned lawyer, how do you not pick up on these flimsy excuses—"
"Carla—"
"—I can just see it. Oh, yes I can. This guy gets fired from his cozy job, and he finally gets what he deserves for being a jackass his whole life, and then, lo and behold—"
"Carla, please. Those are tabloids, for goodness—"
"—Right when the tables are turned against him, he gets a chance to live in a nice place in Evanston, so obviously he snatches it up! But he doesn't even have the decency to A) make a viable excuse or B) deliver these highly official documents on his own or C) even make it here on time or D)—"
Ding-dong.
"Carla," Hannes says in a weary voice. "Let's talk about this later. I'll take this, you guys sit tight."
"I'll be alright," I tell Carla, though she's still fuming, still too angry to hear me.
When Hannes opens the door, we hear yelling on the other side: "CONGRATS ON BEING A DAAAAAD!"
Maniacal, cackling laughter. The slam of a car door, the roar of an ignition gear, the screech of tires, and a screech, its volume bleeding as a noisy, clunky vehicle disappears into the distance:
Silence.
Hannes clears his throat. "Uh, Mr. Ackerman, is everything okay?"
A sardonic, bitter voice replies, "I landed the world's worst Uber driver. Let's just leave it at that."
Hannes reappears into the kitchen, accompanied by a scowling man, nearly a foot shorter. The man is lugging a dripping garbage bag of something behind him. From pictures I Googled earlier, it's him. Levi Ackerman.
"Take a seat," Hannes says, gesturing towards the empty seat by Carla. She bristles as Levi settles himself. "This is Carla Jaeger, Mikasa's temporary guardian. And this," Hannes says, turning to me, "is Mikasa."
"Hi," Levi says stiffly, extending his hand. Carla shakes it reluctantly. He nods in my direction.
Hannes reaches into his briefcase and extracts a manila envelop. He fans out a series of legal documents, guiding us through the whole labyrinth of legal guardianship. The words seem to enter and exit my ear, unprocessed and undigested, and I settle for nodding along, waiting patiently for him to tell me where to sign.
What I focus on is Levi. I watch every one of his movements. Every twitch, every expression, and every sound he makes. As Hannes talks, Levi stares off into the distance towards the living room, ruminating over something, leaning back in his chair. His eyes are dark and piercing; suddenly, I feel them lock onto mine, and we're staring at each other down across the table. I don't dare avert my gaze, refusing to lose this first battle. After what feels like forever, he retreats—not out of defeat but out of what seems to be disinterest.
"I'll leave with you these papers to look over. We're going to need to schedule a hearing with the probate court. There, a judge will hopefully approve this arrangement, and we'll be all settled," Hannes says, stacking the papers together and handing them to Levi. "Sound good?"
"All right," Levi replies curtly.
"Well," Hannes says, glancing at Carla. "We'll leave you guys to it. And, uh, for funeral matters—"
"I got it," Mikasa says curtly. "I can handle it, Hannes."
Carla slowly rises from her chair. "Mikasa, I'll come back over with some food for you guys later tomorrow. Uh, there's a pasta in the fridge right now, so just bake that for half an hour, and you're all set."
They both bid farewell to Levi, and then it's just me and him.
"So, I'm Levi," he says. The staring game resumes.
"Mikasa," I reply.
"Sorry to hear what happened. How are you doing?"
I shrug. "I have a pulse."
"Good to hear."
The kitchen clock ticks.
"This is a cool place," he offers, looking around the house.
"Thanks."
Tick. Tick.
"Uncle Levi? One question."
"Levi's fine. Shoot."
"Do you actually want to be my guardian?"
"I mean, I'm here."
Tick. Tick. Tick.
"Who would be your ideal guardian?" he asks. "That Carla, huh?"
I take a moment to ponder this. "Ideally, I wouldn't need a guardian because I know how to cook, clean, and take care of myself."
"Even laundry?"
"Rookie's stuff."
"Impressive."
Tick. Tick.
I try again. "You didn't exactly answer my question earlier. Do you really want to be here?"
"It depends."
"On work?"
"That, amongst a lot of other things."
"You're still a journalist?"
"Oh, so you did your homework."
"Yes or no?"
"Kinda."
Silence.
I sigh and get up. "Okay, here's how I see it. As long as you do the dishes and let me forge your signature on school forms, I'm fine with you." I get up and head towards the stairs, but I pause before the first step. "Also, just so you know, my curfew is midnight."
"Terrific."
Back in my room, I find that I have two texts from Eren:
hey so u left a t-shirt in teh guest room
i can run it over tomorrow morning at like 11am if u want
I respond with:
sorry about that, sounds good thx
Immediately, the message pops up beneath my text: Seen at 7:41PM.
Followed by the ellipses bubble.
He's typing.
I wait. He's still typing. Typing, typing, typing. It's been at least two minutes now. But then bubble disappears.
No new messages.
Levi is a formality. So I treat him as such.
I only answer the barest minimum to his questions, only interact with him if the situation calls for it (i.e. if I need him to pass the pepper). After a brief while, he is cooperative, thankfully. I was worried at first that he was the nosy type, but he catches on fast, now only asks the necessary logistical questions: Where's the washing machine? How does this thing work? Where do you crank up the heater?
He spends the majority of his time in the living room, sitting on the couch—not unlike Dad. He eats our pasta dinner there, while I eat at my desk. When I come downstairs for a glass of water, the spite bubbles within me as I pass him: one foot propped up on the coffee table, one arm stretched across the back of the couch, one beer positioned in hand.. Do all Ackermans watch sports like that? Levi must have found that in the refrigerator, on Dad's beer shelf. I recall that letter Dad left me, gushing shamelessly over how accomplished and incredible and awe-inspiring Levi is. A "role model."
Taking everything Dad wrote with a hefty pile of salt was the clearly the right approach.
"You wanna beer?" Levi calls as I head back upstairs.
"I'm underage."
"I wasn't aware that that was a concern."
"I'll pass."
He shrugs.
I return my attention to my studying. Well, technically it's not studying. I did all that Friday night, after I came back from the morgue and settled into Eren's house. Chem lab, calc problem set, English paper, and history notes—all cranked out in the span of five hours. In some degree, I'm thankful for the tedium of high school homework. It's an industrial process. The hard part is figuring out the algorithms that lead you to full marks. But once you get that down pat, it's all a regular, unshifting routine from there on out. Every English essay follows the same template: form the skeleton first and then insert the ideas relevant to whatever book we're reading. The same goes for science labs and history papers. Copy-paste the template, load the template up with well-worded bullshit.
Instead, I finish Tuesday's homework. Then Wednesday's. Then Thursday's. Then Friday's. That's as far as I can get in terms of what's been explicitly assigned, but with some careful guesswork, I can at least knock out the basics of next week, taking notes in advance, anticipating what ideas they're going to feed us. But after that, I'm sitting at my desk, cleared entirely of assignments, and I'm anxious. Anxious for more. More distractions. My hands pounce on my history textbook. I'm going to outline this whole thing. This whole fucking thing.
I hear Levi coming upstairs. He lingers by my doorway, mug of something steaming in hand, a book tucked under his arm. Stephen King, from the looks of it.
"You seem swamped," he observes. "What grade are you again?"
"A junior," I reply, fighting the irritation threatening to spew out of my mouth in the form of a bitchy retort. He's distracting me. He needs to stop. Stop with this extraneous conversation.
He leans against the doorframe. He seems so incredibly… puny. Yet he holds himself with the demeanor of someone who demands respect—and fear. "Your friends also workaholics?"
"No."
"Typical teenagers, then? Snagging fakes from sketchy places, always trying to get drunk?"
"You could say that."
"I see you play lacrosse. Crazy partiers, you guys are. What position?"
"Midfielder."
"So was I, back in high school."
"Huh."
A silence.
Levi sighs. "Let me just cut to the chase. What do you want for breakfast? Or actually, a better way to put it is: Are you okay with eggs for breakfast? It's the only thing I'm capable of making."
This question catches me by surprise. Briskly, I tell him, "Don't sweat it. I can handle myself."
"Alright."
His footsteps plod to the guest room. I hear the door shuts with a soft click. Well, that's one difference between Levi and dad: the walls don't shake when Levi enters his room.
I outline for an hour before I decide to throw on a sweatshirt and go for a run. Outside, the snow has stopped, leaving a powder carpet on the sidewalks that I'll soon mar with my footprints. This winter has been tropical—that is, relative to typical Chicago winters—hardly skirting under the magic thirty-two degrees that gives us snowflakes. Before slipping out the front door, I pull a wool hat over my head and slip on some mittens. Just as I shut the door to the closet, I spy an old relic hanging from the top rack. It's my old scarf. Tattered here and there, frayed crimson threads hanging out, helter-skelter.
I close the closet door.
A/N: phewwwww, this one was a long one, but we're floppin back over to levi's pov in the next chapter. I actually struggle a bit with mikasa's voice… especially with what details to include and what details to omit because internally, she's certainly a perceptive person who picks up on her surroundings buuuut at the same time, she's deffo not an overly-verbose analyzer. It's challenging to strike that balance, but all i can do is try :') anyways, pls leave a review/comment because those little email notifications make my heart race and bring joy to my day and also it's a well-known fact that update speed rises proportionally as # of reviews do hehehe C: (i actually have the bulk of it written already so heed the aforementioned phenomenon if u want the chapter, like, i dunno, tomorrow?) anyways, shameless plug aside, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next chap 3