A/N: Aaand we're back to present-time with Mikasa (for now)! I know Eren's not done telling his side of the story just yet, but we'll see him again soon ;)

Mikasa

I'm the only one who didn't seem to get the memo, opting for black leggings and a forest green sweater. The crowds in the hallways seem to part, as if I'm Moses and they're the, well, Yellow Sea. They give me a wide margin of distance as if a thunderhead of shitty luck looms over my head; they don't dare wander too close, for fear of being pulled into the gloom.

When I sit next to Historia in chemistry, I can feel her big eyes sneak confused glances in my direction. I can sense her lips parting, a question forming, only to press them closed. She twirls her pencil nervously. Her fingers fidget with the hem of her oversized yellow T-shirt.

"Mikasa," she says quietly when the bell rings. "If this… made you uncomfortable. You could've told me." She rubs a lock of golden hair between her index and thumb, knitting her brow in earnest. "I'm not trying to justify charging ahead with the whole hashtag and social media thing, but I just want you to know that the school community is behind you."

I certainly have no doubts of her good intentions. Historia's story is intriguing. Born to a conservative Baptist family, she split off from tradition her freshman year, joined the local Quaker organization, and organizes local queer rights parades several times a year. She sets up blood drives. She hangs out with disabled kids. She raised money to build a school for children in some third-world country. She's the textbook definition of "good," yet a seed of malice grows in my gut, reaching taller and taller, winding through my esophagus, sprouting along my trachea, and blossoming out of my mouth, poison and thorns: "People don't actually care."

"That's not true," she insists. "Look at all this yellow—"

"Historia, I really don't think—"

"Mikasa, come on. Don't tell yourself these kind of things. People actually do care about you—"

My conscience yanks on my tongue, digging its heels in, but this strange malicious adrenaline surges through me, knocking all my reservations face-down into the current. It's an adrenaline that feels like voltage blistering through my veins. The very fibers of my psyche shriek in protest, strained a way they've never experienced before, but this momentum hurtles me forward. Polite, reserved, dishonest Mikasa has been kicked to the curb.

This electrified Mikasa interrupts, "They wear it because they don't want to be an asshole. Not because they actually care. It's like a simple 'yes' or 'no.' If you wear yellow, you're a good person. If not, you're a self-centered jerk. Look, I'm not asking to be showered with stuffed animals or balloons or anything. I just don't want dishonest bullshit."

Historia flinches. She averts her eyes from mine for a split-second, and right there, I've won. She's turned away from me. She's withdrawn all her help, all her support, all her energy. No longer am I tangled to her kindness like a parasitic vine. She has cut me loose, in effect cutting herself free.

She gathers herself, she prepares a retort, but at the last moment, she doubles back. Historia is not a bitch. She squeezes my hand gently before leaving to her next class. "You have my number if you need anyone to talk to. Again, I'm really sorry."

I've always taken a liking to Armin Arlert. He reminds me of a spider sometimes, having not only a good sense of where delicate, invisible boundaries lay but also a nimble grace that allows him to keep even the most fragile threads intact.

I enter the newspaper room to find him huddled over spreads upon spreads. His violet pen spares no typos, darting to capture a misspelled word, severing dangling participles with a swift slice through the letters. Contrary to nearly every other person in this school, he greets me normally, flashing me that bright smile of his. I know it's genuine because crow's feet gather at the corners of his eyes.

"Hi there," he chirps. "So we've got a ton of stuff to get through, thanks to the snow day, but I think we can still make the deadline if we double down on everything. You wanna take care of that stack?" He nods his head towards a mountain of papers to his right.

"Sure thing," I say, gratefully.

For the next hour, a familiar ensemble: pens scratch, highlighters squeak, pages rustle, printers chug, keyboards clack. The underclassmen whisper in hushed tones. Armin slurps from his mug. At one point, I pause from my editing work and gaze out the window. A skeletal tree cuts the gray sky into icy fragments, disparate pieces soon to crumble, one by one. In the parking lot, I spot a red station wagon backing out of its spot. It's Eren, cutting econ class with Connie like usual, probably sneaking into the movies or going to Chipotle before swinging back to school for practice in the later afternoon. I force my attention back onto this work, this distraction.

I can feel Armin observing me, even though his eyes are trained on the article he's writing on his laptop. I wonder what Eren has said to him regarding me. The three of us were close friends up until the end of freshman year before we all splintered off to our own. Eren gravitated towards the guys on his team. Armin receded into newspaper and debate. I enjoyed a solitude without commitments. Armin and I, however, were still on what might qualify as "friendly" terms. In other words, he was the least affected by what happened, so his relationships with Eren and me are still fairly strong.

Back to the scratching, the squeaking, the rustling, the chugging, the clacking. Underclassmen whisper. Armin slurps.

But then the bell strikes without warning.

What follows is cacophony: backpack zippers squeal, chairs scrape, doors grind, hallways thunder. The yellow consumes me once again.

Sasha jogs across the parking lot after me. We hardly had a chance to talk during our sprint workouts, so thankfully, I didn't need to regale her with the details of my grief and suffering.

"Wait a minute!" she calls, after taking a moment to catch her breath. "Chill with us! It'll only be like an hour."

She's referring to the lax girls' post practice tradition of gathering in Ymir's backyard just a few minutes' drive away. There, they smoke after every practice. All of the upperclassmen go, except for me.

I check my phone. It's only 6:00. I can picture entering my own house to find Levi sitting on the couch, his skinny, flamingo-like legs propped up, his coffee cup in hand. I can imagine him swiveling his overly-gelled head in my direction. A smirk comes into view. Followed by some annoying comment about how I'm anti-social and pathetic.

We park along the side of Ymir's street. Her driveway is already packed with five other cars, all emblazoned with lacrosse bumper stickers. We bypass the front door and stroll directly into her backyard, towards a circle of lawn chairs. In the center, the snow has melted a ring around the firepit that may or may not be permitted under the local housing codes. Ymir is already in the midst of telling a story, summon laughs and chuckles from the team the way a conductor wills music from a symphony. Everyone's still in their leggings and sweatshirts, their hair still pulled into ponytails.

Ymir pauses when she spots us. "Woah! Is that Mikasa-fucking-Ackerman I see?"

All ponytailed heads turn in my direction. Some drop their gazes immediately, out of respect, given the circumstances. Silence.

"Hey," I say quietly. I take the empty chair beside Annie. There's a tray in her lap covered in this ground-up leafy substance. Her fingers nimbly press the weed into a sheaf of paper.

"Okay," Ymir says, passing me the joint in her hand. "Do me a favor and take a drag on that, will you?" I bring the rolled marijuana to my mouth, but Ymir shakes her head. The other girls laugh. "Goddamn. Silly, silly you. You don't hang out with us enough, but not a worry, girl, we'll get you sorted out. Flip that around."

"Oh." I reverse the joint. I take a drag but come up coughing. The girls laugh.

I've never been into this whole marijuana culture. Or, to put it more accurately, I've never had time for to entertain this whole marijuana culture. For the past few years, my life has revolved around taking care of Dad, but now that enormous responsibility is no more, I'm faced with something I find, believe it or not, even more daunting: adolescence. A time to make bad decisions. A time to revel in mishap. It's like driving a car in automatic for the first time, after years upon years of driving stick. Each tap on the pedal comes with a rush of worry. Did I remember to adjust the shift?—only for that rush to evaporate, leaving me with the freedom that comes with a life of fewer responsibilities. My life has never been linear. I learned how to pay taxes before learning how to roll a joint. I wore cramped, heeled shoes, dragging my dad to various job interviews, before discovering the comfort of a pair of beaten Vans. Several days ago, that defibrillator may have failed in realigning the electrical impulses of my dad's long-gone heart, but it certainly realigned the trajectory of my life.

And it's refreshing as hell.

"So elephant in the room," Ymir says. "Do you wanna talk about what happened?"

"No," I say immediately.

Before I can go on, Ymir claps her hands. "Sweet, good thing we got that out of the way because to be brutally honest with you, we were all talking about it, and we've come to the conclusion that we don't fucking know what to say to make you feel better—"

"Jeez, Ymir," Sasha grumbles. "You're really not help—"

"And so, what we're going to do instead is bitch about this rumor I've picked up on. Word on the street has it that a boy is after Historia," Ymir continues, leaning back in her chair and crossing her long legs.

"And I'm out," Annie grumbles, shifting in her seat to leave, but Ymir pins her with a sharp look.

"Sit down, Cap. We're going to be talking about you today too."

Annie scoffs, shoving her hands into her hoodie. "Bull. Learn how to roll your own joints."

"Nope, sit because this concerns a certain someone," Ymir sneers.

"Which someone are we talking here?" Mina asks. Her braided pigtails swing as she leans forward. "Is it the Giraffe?"

"What the fuck does that even mean?" Ymir scowls, gesturing with her hand for the joint to go back to her. I pass it to Annie, who passes it to Sasha, who delivers it to the queen of this firepit.

"Wait, wait," Sasha muses. "I think I have an idea. Spaghetti-limbs, awkward, and sweaty, right?"

"Bingo," Annie answers curtly, releasing a deep sigh. She decides on sitting down again, as if struck by the realization that she doesn't, in fact, have anywhere else better to be.

"Okay, okay, before we get too ahead of ourselves, can someone tell me who the hell the Giraffe is?" Ymir protests. "You bitches are speaking in code here."

"C'mon," urges Sasha. "Spaghetti legs. Spaghetti arms. Awkward as a thirteen-year-old. Sweat stains everywhere. Does that ring a bell?"

"Uh," Ymir blows an impressive smoke ring. She stamps a foot. "Goddammit, guys. I'm a second semester senior, and this brain here," she points to her temple, "is fried beyond help. I don't have time for these stupid puzzles."

I'm no stranger to the gossip ring, and it's a well-known fact that Annie has a pursuer—an unwanted one, at that. He dresses in blue sweaters, sock ties, and an assortment of slacks. He's like a ghost in the music department, ever-present, everywhere. His towering frame allows him to play towering instruments. Double bass, tuba, trombone, bassoon—they all seem tiny next to him. He's bound for Juilliard this fall. Every atom of his being is invested in his music—leaving nothing for his social skills.

After much hand-wringing, Ymir eventually decodes the Giraffe, who is none other than Bertholdt Hoover. "Fuck no! That's not who I meant!" she yowls, stomping her foot. "And I can't believe y'all made me go through that long-ass guessing game for this. I'm talking about another significant pair of balls in Annie's life—"

"Oh, I know who you're talking about now," Mina says, winking across the fire. Annie scowls in return.

"So Mikasa," Ymir says, leaning forward and crossing her legs. "You have much to catch up on because you've avoided us for so long. So Cap here has a Saturday routine."

Sasha whistles.

"Shut the hell up," Annie retorts.

"Care to enlighten us, Cap?" Ymir purrs.

"I don't give a fuck about this. I'm going home."

"Mikasa, I don't know what the fuck you've been doing on your Saturday nights, but you've been missing out on some royal fun, and by royal fun, I mean the nastiest debauchery you have ever fucking laid your eyes upon," Ymir proclaims. "Right there, you see, right by that grill—" She points over to her patio. "—is where Cap engaged in some raunchy, fucking activities."

"You're exaggerating the hell out of this," Annie mutters.

"She corrupted a pure soul."

"Do you even understand the definition of the word corrupt?"

"She corrupted him. And from that moment, she created a beast. A fucking monster."

"I didn't know he had it in him," Mina chirps.

"I had no idea he was that hot," Sasha adds.

"Annie," Ymir beckons, blowing two smoke rings. "Speak, girl."

"Screw off."

"Yo, I'm giving you a pass to tell the story yourself, otherwise I'm taking the wheel!"

"Go fly a fucking kite."

"I'll take that as in invitation then," Ymir declares, clearing her throat. She fixes her gaze on me. "So Ackerman, you're familiar with a certain soccer player named Eren, right?"

I shouldn't feel so ensnared in this cobweb. I cut myself free years ago. I reinforced that just yesterday by shaving off whatever frayed ends remained.

But even so, years of knowing Eren have left this unshakable image of him in my head. I've always seen him as that goofy, bull-headed kid with the wild golden retriever, constantly dribbling around a soccer ball. The kid with a penchant for filthy language, a habit for speaking without a filter. Dense at times, can't take a hint other times, but always keen when it comes to whatever demons decide to trouble me. His fingers still have a knack for jazz tunes on the piano, and his eyes light up when he's playing, even though he insists he's still traumatized from terrifying lessons with his mom ages ago.

This single drop of poison shouldn't have the power to spoil and taint every other memory I've had of him.

But it does.

At first, my brain refuses to even consider that this new Eren exists. It's so at odds with all the history between us; my mind is wholly incapable of connecting old and new together, straining and failing to gap the chasm. This new Eren wears button-downs and Sperry's. This new Eren mixes elaborate drinks for girls. This new Eren trades plastic baggies of weed for twenty-dollar bills. This new Eren makes out with random girls (i.e. Annie). This new Eren has a weekly hook-up routine (i.e. with Annie).

I don't even know what "hook-up" means anymore. It's entirely subjective. It can range from simply kissing to doing it like animals in an empty parking lot.

I can't see it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to think about it.

But my mind is anchored. I can't swim.

The girls chatter. They comment how lucky Annie is. They swoon over what a great kisser he is. They remark how good he is with his hands. They marvel over his eyes. They analyze his "fall from grace," his transition from a nervous guy who's never had his first kiss to a "hungry fuckboy."

Annie is indifferent to it all. "I'm bored," she tells me, while I try my absolute hardest to keep the horror from seeping into my face. "This is my sole entertainment in life." She hands me the joint she just rolled.

"Gotcha," is the only thing I can say. I stick the joint in my mouth. Mina tosses me a lighter. I manage to get a better hit than that first time around.

"Anyways," Ymir says. "Guess what I heard? Reiner's gonna ask my Historia to homecoming, and I'll be damned, tomorrow, after he finishes kicking that stupid soccer ball around, I'm gonna fight him. Annie, go tell your boy to tell Reiner to fuck off!"

"For forty-seventh time, I don't fucking care. We just hook up. Sometimes, I forget his name."

"Also, you haven't really laid claim to her yet," Sasha quips. "You just talk about Historia all the time, but you haven't exactly made it clear to her that you're into her yet. It's kinda like you're in this lame-o 'admire from afar' thing."

"That's because I've got a plan in the works, ladies. One day, we'll get her to come to chagirl Ymir's house, and I'm gonna finesse her outta those hetero-fucking-normative ways of hers. But I can't have Jaeger parading around and steering me off course!"

This is an incredible amount to take in, and a part of me is so thankful for this weed. While a thousand thoughts swarm my mind, the THC is definitely keeping stronger emotions at bay. It's kicking in, pulling a hazy curtain over everything, blurring the startling truth that Eren of today is a complete stranger to me. I don't know him. He doesn't know me. We're riding trains in opposite directions, and in no time, he'll be nothing but an invisible speck on the horizon. That was the goal all along, right? Why should I let him jump on with me, only to drag him into my abyss, dark and crawling with menacing creatures? Between us was a pool of blue nostalgia, and I was the one who took a huge gulp of air, swam to the bottom, and yanked open the plug, effectively draining everything, leaving nothing but dry, crumbly sediment. That was what I wanted. Nothing between us. I wanted him to see that there's no hope in this desolate wasteland. I wanted him to turn around and move on.

So would this be a success? This new Eren?

I can't stop staring at a mark on Annie's neck. It's a freckle. A bruise. A shadow. A dimple. Certainly not a hickey.

She gives me a sidelong look. "What do you want?"

What comes out of my mouth is one of Eren's lines. Old Eren's lines. There were times when I'd just feel his eyes on me, watching me, smiling, as if the little things I did like blink or sneeze amused him somehow. When I called him out on it, he'd turn red and say, "There's a bug in your hair." And he'd flick at nothing, all while turning redder and redder.

I flicked at an invisible fly buzzing over Annie's head.

Ymir doesn't let me drive home until I'm completely sober by her standards. Despite her reputation for throwing the best weekend ragers, she stands before me, with her hands on her hips, and commands me to stand on one foot for ten seconds.

"Okay, I trust you, but I better not be hearing news of any Mikasa Ackerman smeared across a guardrail, you hear me?" she barks.

I drive home, but muscle memory takes me to Dad's office building. He worked in some sort of network engineering before Mom's death took a hit to his productivity. They downgraded him to a management job, and when he started swearing at his employees, they gave him the boot. Since then, I'd been dragging him from place to place, building to building, office to office. He had a new job every year.

It's Tuesday. By routine, I swing by the grocery store, and so I steer the car into the Whole Foods parking lot. I walk the same aisles, starting at the fresh produce, swinging into the meats, veering into the dairy, and then winding through the snack aisles. I used to make Dad grab every item on the list. I'd ask him how his day went, pushing the cart alongside him. He'd alternate between complaining about his boss and about his responsibilities.

"Hey, brat."

I turn around, and pushing his own cart, it's him. My legal guardian.

"Levi," I greet him.

He peers into my cart. "Looks like we're actually on the same page. Except you forgot this." He kicks at a box of Heineken beers at the bottom compartment of his shopping cart.

"I don't drink."

"I do," he replies, yawning. "Good thing I ran into you because there's no way in hell I can bike home with all this junk and make it back with a pulse."

"Who's bike are you using?"

"Whichever one I found in the garage."

"Oh. What do you want for dinner?"

"Unless burgers give you explosive diarrhea, I'm down for a quarter-pounder to-go."

"I did not need that image in my head, but cool, let's do it."

We feed the groceries through the checkout line and wheel the cart out into the icy road. Levi whistles something we load up the trunk. I know this tune. I know the harmonizing part to it, and I join in seamlessly after years upon years of practice.

Levi stops whistling. "Damn. Way to steal my thunder."

"I was harmonizing."

"So let me guess, you're one of those musical prodigy fetuses who can tell me whether my car's horn beeps at an A-flat or a C-sharp?"

"Nah. I just know the hymn."

"Are you religious or something? Am I supposed to be dragging you to church or mass or whatever every Sunday?"

"Nope. I know the song because it was on The College Dropout."

"Is that some young-adult movie?"

"Nope, Kanye's debut album."

"You kids listen to some shit music."

Eren worships Kanye. He has Kanye posters splashed across the walls of his room, and Kanye's birthday is basically a holiday to him.

A bitter pang claws at the pit of my stomach. The image of that mark on Annie's neck flashes back into my head. That hickey. Left from Eren's lips kissing her skin.

A/N: And this week's updating spree continues… I head back to school in September, so my goal is to get a good number of chapters out before shit hits the fan and leaves me with zero time to fangirl over EM. Ugh, I'm so not ready to pull all-nighters and study again, but c'est la vie, and la vie can suck sometimes.

MAJOR MAJOR shoutout to all of you guys who've shed some input on those questions I was struggling with last chapter! A huge thanks to omnipotent13, Eien no Moonlight, Jungianca7, Bersange, SeptarSenior, as well as all you Guests/Anons! And I gotta tip the hat to Elivra26 for I got some really great insights from you guys, and continuing with this storyline just got a lot smoother, all in virtue to the suggestions and comments y'all made. Much love for you ALL 3

Just so I don't leave you guys too in the dark, I'm planning on throwing in Eren's POV in segments scattered throughout the storyline, kinda like a backwards rendition of how Anthony Doerr sprinkled flash-forwards throughout his plot, only I'll be sprinkling around flashbacks.

Anyways, same spiel as usual: if you've got the time, please, please, please leave a few words in the comments/reviews and let me know what you think of the chapter!