a/n: This story is also sci-fi and sometimes supernatural-ish.
Saturday
Mikasa woke up late and watched cartoons. Her bedroom blinds were shut. A bar of morning sunlight flattened to her ceiling and slid slowly sideways. Netflix asked if she wanted to continue watching. Yes, she wanted to continue watching. She texted Eren first:
Hey, does 8 work for you?
She sent it at 1 PM. Eren replied at 4 PM:
Perfect. I'll bring chips.
He sent a thumbs up.
Eren knocked on her door at 8:13 PM. He walked in without waiting to be let in. By then, Armin was there too: He and Mikasa were already on the living room couch, invested in violent Nintendo combat: Ganondorf v. Mario in Super Smash Bros.
Eren stood, carrying a Party-sized bag of Tostitos. He was an odd stranger who'd found himself accidentally inside the Ackerman household. An incompatible peg thrust into the wrong space. A square in a circle, a circle in a square. He stood with a straight spine, as if a wire were screwed into his vertebrae at one end, attached to the ceiling at the other, suspended, his toes light on the floor.
Once they started gaming, Eren sank down and was taken into the couch and the cushions molded the oddness out of him, the strangeness. He began to remember how to be with Mikasa. He began to remember how to be with Armin. They began to remember how to be with each other. And it was very easy, being with each other and remembering how to do it. So easy that they forgot about the movie. So easy that Mikasa forgot about remembering February and the New Year. It was only September now. Time was theirs. They leaned forward, intent, controllers clicking erratically in their hands. On screen, the characters brawled, voicing their efforts, damage percentages rising. Spices from the buffalo dip brought water to their nostrils.
"Eat it," Mikasa said, and assaulted Eren with a string of haphazard combos.
"You freaking scrub," Eren said. "Wait, wait, wait—" He launched off screen.
"Get out of here with that," said Armin. "You're trash. Absolute trash."
"Why's Meta Knight so overpowered?"
"He's not. You're just trash, Eren. Absolute trash."
"Uh-huh, yeah, okay." Eren respawned at the top of the screen and dropped to the stadium. He attacked Armin. Armin's character fell, struggled, and plummeted to his virtual death. "Daddy's back," Eren said. "Who's trash, huh? Who's trash?"
Mikasa swiveled her thumbs, "You are," and targeted Eren again.
"Wait, wait, wait—" He launched off screen again. "I hate Meta Knight. He's annoying as hell."
"You're annoying," Mikasa said.
"You're annoying-er." Eren rammed her with his shoulder. She jolted sideways, her eyes never tearing away from the TV. Eren was tight up against her, squashing her between the couch's armrest and his side. She jabbed her elbow in his ribs.
Six months from now, into the New Year, in the third week of February, Mikasa would think back on this day and many other days, and wonder: Why hadn't she looked away from the TV?
Memories began to resurrect. Before. After: So, then—
She investigated her remembering. Searching for answers. Maybe there was one here, on this couch, in front of this TV—if only she had looked—so that she could remember, so that she would know—the blood in her ear spiraled down the infinite tunnel-thought of if only. What did he say? how did he sound?
She clapped a hand to the side of her head.
"Are you okay, Mikasa?" said Eren.
"Yeah, it's fine," she said. "I've been getting this ear ache." She squinted.
"Maybe you have an ear infection," Armin said. "You should see a doctor."
"Could just be a mountain of ear wax," said Eren.
"What? No." Mikasa rammed Eren's shoulder. Their skeletons crashed and rattled. "I clean my ears, stupid."
"You're stupid."
Mikasa concentrated on the TV screen. Eren was sitting tight against her in an old Nike T-shirt. She wouldn't remember that. Not the Nike T-Shirt, nor the proximity. How she could feel the downy of his arm-hair buzzing against her skin. She'd forget about the veins that snaked over his wrists too. She'd forget that he smelled like he'd been sleeping for a long long time. Submerged in his bed. Entirely bathed, mummified, wrapped inside his own flesh and body. Buried. Not in the earth. But buried in a grave dug miles deep inside himself. —Are you okay? —Yeah, definitely. Memories don't resurrect the dead. Memories don't even preserve them.
Eren was sinking away again, flipping through the rows of playable characters. "Are you guys busy next Saturday?" he said. He ruminated on Pikachu. He continued flipping through the rows.
Eren was fading.
"I'm not," Mikasa said, remembering. Forgetting: Eren Jaeger was found dead, hanging inside his closet. The Mikasa of before, of then, of now, could only sit there, disremembering Eren's sad, sleepy smell; his veiny wrists as it was happening right in front of her. The moment it happens is the moment it begins to turn into memory, is the moment it begins to be forgotten. All occurring instantaneously: the happening, the remembering, the forgetting.
Mikasa selected Meta Knight.
"I hate you." Eren chose Captain Falcon. The announcer came on. A count-off flashed on the screen. Battle music started to play. Eren said, "Next Saturday is Cassandra Acosta's birthday party." He was dissolving beneath the tides of imperfect human memory. A faint boiling voice drowning deep. "Would you want to go with me?"
"I don't know who that is."
"You don't need to know who she is. I'm inviting you."
"What about your girlfriend?" Mikasa was focused on her character, focused on her fingers, her thumbs, mashing the buttons quicker than her brain could register a thought. Not thinking about Eren or his diminishing voice, his dimming presence, the elusive life of Eren Jaeger, washed away under a rising obliterating sea.
"Actually, Cassie's her—"
Saturday (in another time)
Mikasa's phone was silent. No flags of notifications cluttered the screen. Her blinds let in slats of sunlight and the early morning scorched her room. Pencils were fanned across the hardwood floor. She began working on her Art I project. Due: September 17. She had two weeks.
She recreated an image from National Geographic on large gridded paper. She multitasked, waiting for Eren's text. For hours, she worked. She waited.
Light glittered sand granules sprinkling her floorboards. She retrieved the vacuum and commanded the machine, purring, across her room. In a warm hum, spinning bristles and coils sucked sand and dust from her floor. At 3 PM, she went to the grocery store. At 4 PM, she went to Michael's. By 7 PM, a lightly-penciled orangutan stared out of large white paper.
Armin texted: omw.
Delivered at 7:48 PM.
Mikasa took a bite of a pizza slice. Cheese grease squished under her fingers. Armin's message ballooned on her phone, unchecked. Luxuriously, Mikasa chewed and took another bite. Saliva gushed and wetted the grease clump. Her throat muscles eagerly pulled it down and she licked her lips. The rest of the pizza slice, unfinished, flopped to the bottom of the garbage bin like a limp fish.
A black hoodie inflated around her. Mikasa zipped it up, tugged the hood over her hair.
When Armin arrived at 8 PM, asking: "Is Eren coming?" it was dark outside, and Eren hadn't texted, and Mikasa hadn't either. Armin wore shapeless blue jeans and a striped polo. His hair was damp.
"He said he was going to text me but never did." Pizza grease blazed Mikasa's gastrointestinal tract. "I'll try calling him," she said.
She reached her phone out of her back pocket and opened her contacts. The names fell in bars. Scrolled fast, blurring. The H and I names rose on her screen. The names slowed. Now at the J's, she paused. Filtered one by one, past her eyes. No. No. No. Now at the K names, Jaeger hadn't been listed. She backtracked to the E's. Mikasa's finger swept up the screen. Name after name went by, the alphabetical list rolling, flying past her eyes. The name was elusive, evading her with each swipe.
Letter by letter, now. Typing. Search: E-R-E—
At last, wedged between Jacob J. and Javan was Eren Jaeger. Her finger tapped. The speaker buzzed in her ear. A tone rang and paused, rang and paused, three times. A female voice told her the call was being forwarded to an automated voice messaging—
She slid the phone into her back pocket.
"Guess he's not coming." Armin propped himself against the wall and twisted his sneakers off.
"Let's swing by his house," Mikasa said.
"He's probably busy doing something with Noralis."
"Let's go see."
"He's probably not even there." Next to his evacuated shoes, Armin stood in cotton white socks. Pale yellow patches protected his toes. Settled where he was, Armin didn't move, with no intention of moving.
Mikasa grinded her Chucks on. "Let's just see. It won't take long."
She opened the door a crack. Insects surged toward the inch of light. Outside, crickets sawed neighborhood lawns. Armin was still settled where he was.
"Do you even want to see Eren?" Mikasa fought to keep the insects back.
"I guess. If he's actually home." Armin bent down and undid the shoe laces and crammed his foot in. He redid the laces. He caught his glasses on the tip of his nose and shoved them up against his face. "I've stopped holding Eren to any expectations," he said. "If I dropped dead tomorrow, he'd probably flake on my funeral." They went out.
The night was warm. Frogs belched from retention ponds and mosquitoes whirred above sluggish water half-filling neighborhood ditches. Crickets sawed, invisibly, from everywhere. In the driveway, Armin's car was still making cooling noises, clicking and wheezing into a short-lived peace.
Armin was not tall, but his legs were disproportionately long, and he had long uncoordinated strides. When he walked, his arms remained almost motionless at his sides.
Armin's car flashed, unlocked. The interior was immaculate. From the speakers sputtered FM radio, in and out of static. White-noise and ghost-singers sang two different songs of two different languages. Armin cut it off and wrenched his head around and backed out of the driveway. Tire-rubber flowed against asphalt.
Street lamps made yellow glowing puddles on the road and as they went, the houses flanking the street passed with different expressions, staring at one another across the way. They were awake with lights. Now and then shadow-figures passed behind windows.
"Remember when we used to ride our bikes around the neighborhood?" Mikasa said.
"Yeah," Armin said. "I was always jealous because you and Eren lived so close to each other."
Onto a cul-de-sac, Armin turned and rounded. A circle of houses smiled and laughed and glared at them. They rolled up onto a frowning U-driveway. In front of them, headlights speared out, then swung and turned, beaming into a set of windows caged by wrought iron. In the glass, two blazing torches beamed back at them. The engine cut off. The torches blinked out. The car doors opened and clashed shut. From the sleeping golf course chirped invisible crickets.
"Remember when we ran through the golf courses, trick-or-treating?" Mikasa said.
"Yeah," said Armin. "It's a good thing we didn't get caught."
Two sets of footsteps clapped against an imitation stone walkway as Armin and Mikasa took the path leading to the red door. The Jaeger's lived more-than-comfortable lifestyles. Mr. Jaeger was a doctor, private practice. The front yard, with its country club palms, leafy vines climbing the brick wall, could've been upper middle-class bourgeois.
Pizza grease still blazed in Mikasa's gastrointestinal tract. "If his parents answer, can you talk?"
"It's just the Jaegers," Armin said.
"I know."
Armin stepped a little in front of Mikasa. His glasses didn't need to be adjusted, but he pushed them up his nose, dropped his fingers into his blue jean pockets. They stood, waiting in their bones and ignored the crickets, listening hard to the sounds inside. It was nothing like when they were nine years old. Palm branches collided, dryly shushing in the breeze.
Footsteps came from the other side. Porch lights blinked on and blasted down on them. They stood, exposed, spotlighted. Mikasa enveloped herself in her hood. Winged insects darted to the bulb. A blur moved behind the door's warbled glass window. The lock clicked and released. The door came open.
Armin and Mikasa had entered the future. They were time travelers, visitors from the past, shocked by this unexpected future. In front of them stood Mrs. Jaeger. A new Mrs. Jaeger, an aged Mrs. Jaeger. Not quite the Mrs. Jaeger from their time. Here, with wizened eyes and frays of treated, chemical-exhausted hair that fell, unraveled, down the sides of her face.
Mrs. Jaeger opened the door wider, amazed. The air conditioning flushed out onto the porch. "Armin?" she said. "And Mikasa?" Mikasa put her hood down. This, them on her front porch, devastated Mrs. Jaeger with amazement.
To her they were not time travelers. They were changed. Exquisite with age and growing-up. She stared at them, her eyes glittering and damp, lit tenderly inside her graceful face like candles. Two gentle flattering wicks in a hurricane darkness. She ushered them inside the house, then into her arms.
"It's good to see you, Mrs. Jaeger," said Armin as he was swept up against her heart, the same way she held Eren. She let Armin out of her arms, smiling, still holding him but with her eyes now. "Is Eren home?" Armin said.
"He's here. Up, locked away in his room. Playing his computer games, I reckon. That, or sleeping." She put her hands on her hips. She was looking at them, comparing their current selves with her memory of them. "I can't tell you how good it is to see the both of you. I can't remember the last time you came to the house." She kissed their faces. Her cheek was soft, velvety. She led them upstairs to Eren's room.
As they moved up the steps, stained and beige-carpeted, there was hardly any creaking. Mikasa remembered Mrs. Jaeger demanding, five years ago, that Mr. Jaeger hire a crew to tear up the carpet and replace it with wood flooring. The beige carpet still cushioned their feet, muffling their footfalls.
On the wall hung picture frames. Photos of Eren, Armin, and Mikasa: Sand castles at the beach. Fishing at a neighborhood pond. The happiest place on earth: Disney World, Cinderella's Castle, wearing character hats. Eren: Pluto. Armin: Mickey Mouse. Mikasa: Sorcerer.
"I'm glad you're here," Mrs. Jaeger said breathily, climbing the stairs. "I think it'd do Eren some good to reconnect with friends. He's been so lethargic lately. He never wants to do anything but play on his computer and sleep." She toiled over the last stair, wheezing. They followed and waited outside Eren's door. Mrs. Jaeger's knuckles connected twice.
"Eren. Your friends are here." She seized the handle, pushed. In the room, only a single bedside lamp gave off a subdued artificial yellow glare. At a wood desk was Eren on his computer in a white cotton tee and plaid boxers. His upper thighs were paler than the inside of his wrists. Tiny voices came from headphones clamped over his ears.
"Mom," he said complainingly. He swiveled in the desk chair. He took the headphones down, staring, not surprised or unsurpised to see Armin and Mikasa. His skin was dulled and faded, and he sat, large, in the desk chair.
"Get off that computer. Your friends are here." He was not surprised by this, staring. "Put on some pants." She swung the door closed. To Armin and Mikasa, she turned and changed tones. "Do you want anything to eat? to drink?"
"Thanks, but I already ate," said Armin.
"What about you, Mikasa?" Mrs. Jaeger's eyes pressed her.
"I already ate too. Thanks."
"You sure?" Mrs. Jaeger's eyes pressed her again.
"Yes, ma'am."
"All right." She said it like she didn't believe it. Then she let them alone, outside Eren's bedroom, moving back down the stairs in her bare feet.
A moment later, the door swung in and Eren didn't emerge from his room; he inserted himself in the doorway like a strip of paper slipped between two panes. He was wearing red mesh shorts. His dark hair was black with oil.
"Just so you know," he said. "I need to shower."
"Don't worry about it." Armin pushed past Eren's shoulder and into the bedroom. Shelves were cluttered with miscellaneous things. Clothes were clumped on the floor. The bed, however, was made neatly.
A potent locked-up Eren smell imbued the air. It wasn't unpleasant. Just pervasive and distinctive, drowsy and unchanging. It was like the inside of an attic or a basement, stagnant with quarantined slumber. On either side of Eren's bedroom window, silver duct tape ran along the edges of a navy curtain. Armin sat on the foot of the bed.
"What's wrong with your window?" Armin said.
"Nothing," Eren said.
"Why'd you tape your curtain to the wall?"
"So I could take naps during the day."
A single bedside lamp flared light from an ailing bulb. Morose halos fell from wall to wall. The room was an underground bunker. Outside, the world could be burning. Outside Eren's room, the world could've been burning all the time. Mikasa entered Eren's bedroom vault and looked for a position to hunker down. Eren's desk chair was empty. She sat on the floor.
Eren said: "You can sit on the bed, you know," and Mikasa stared wordlessly at his face. "What?"
"You screw your girlfriend in those sheets."
Armin sprang off the bed.
What Eren did or didn't do with his girlfriend, Mikasa didn't know. She only heard the stories flung from tongue to tongue. Mouths with no off switches, operating unstoppably every minute of every day. Around school, stories fluttered and swarmed like clouds of moths, powdery wings whispering: i saw them—under the cafeteria table—damn nasty—
"They're clean," Eren said. "They're clean."
"I'm fine here." Mikasa pulled up her legs and put her chin on her knees. Turning the desk chair around, Armin sat in it backward. His long awkward legs straddled the front.
"My bed is clean. I swear. I literally just changed the sheets a few hours ago."
The powdery wings whispered, building to whirlwinds, and Mikasa heard them. She picked the threads in her hoodie. "I don't know . . ."
"Oh, my god, Mikasa. They're clean. I don't even see Nora that much anymore."
"You don't?"
"No."
On the edge of the bed, Eren sat down. Mikasa moved and sat beside him. She twisted her head and looked across her shoulder at his face. He moved his head and under his eyebrows, his eyes stared out and didn't see anything and there was nothing behind them. Two windows without any lights on. He was asleep. He was always asleep. She moved her head with his, keeping view of his face, wondering, remembering, trying to understand (though it wouldn't happen for some time yet).
"It's a little uncanny, being back here after so long," Armin said. "Things are familiar, but they're different. Your house, your room. This desk is new."
"I got it last year."
"Your mom looks stressed out by the way. Is she doing okay?"
"I think so." Eren sat on the bed. He was still, but under his face, on the inside, something was moving. "It's probably PawPaw. He's been pretty sick."
Armin and Mikasa watched Eren. They patiently waited, ready to listen. But the lights were still off in him. Just flat dark glass eyes. He said nothing more, and they said nothing too. Eren's ceiling fan slowly ticked, turning, swishing the Eren-smell within itself.
"What about you?" Eren said. "How's your grandpa?"
"He's doing all right, I guess," Armin said. "He's getting up there, you know. It's getting harder for him to get around."
Sitting on the bed, Eren and Mikasa looked at Armin now. His arms rested on the back of the swivel chair, his chin rested on his arms. Eren and Mikasa were ready, patient, waiting to listen to more about it. All that Armin was going to say, he'd already said, they soon realized. Now they were being quiet out of their own silence. And they didn't know how to break it. In the time they spent apart, they'd forgotten how to encourage each other to speak. Forgotten how to be streetlights, guiding each other down dark roads.
Eren was lost. Armin didn't know where he was going but thought he did.
The ceiling fan continued ticking in a slow circle.
Inside her oversized hoodie, Mikasa shivered.
"Sorry," Eren said. "That sounds hard."
"It's okay," Armin said.
Silence, two years' worth of it, took over the room. It'd been too long since they'd last tried to speak to each other, been too long since they last tried to talk about themselves.
Mikasa's ear did not throb.
Slyly she looked at Eren.
"What?" he said.
"Let's watch a scary movie."
"No."
"Yes."
"Do you even know who I am?" he said.
"Eren McChicken Jaeger," she said.
"And you're trying to kill me, apparently. My anxiety levels are too high for that. I'll drop dead of a heart attack."
"I'll resuscitate you."
"No, you won't. You'll watch me die and laugh as I ascend. I remember how you do, Satan."
"I'm an angel."
"So was Lucifer." Eren hugely exhaled. "I'm going to die."
"You're not going to die."
"I'm going to die."
"You're so dramatic. Isn't he being dramatic, Armin?"
Armin lifted his head from his arms. He wiggled the off-yellow toe patches of his cotton socks. "You know I hate scary movies, Mikasa. I always have a hard time falling asleep afterwards."
"It won't even be that scary," Mikasa said.
"We can't all be Satan incarnates," Eren said.
"It won't even be scary," she said.
It was two against Mikasa, so they negotiated. After Mikasa made them feel bad enough about themselves, 'wimps' 'wusses' 'chickens' 'big babies,' an agreement was reached: A horror movie downloaded in Eren's rental library. He clicked on it. The film studio's logo emerged. Opening credits began.
Between Armin and Eren's shins, Mikasa lied on her stomach, closest to the TV, satisfied, her chin in her palms, hood tugged over her hair. The lamp was turned off. Armin and Eren sat against the headboard, sharing a bowl of buttery popcorn. Reluctant scary-movie watchers, Armin was a flincher; Eren was a squinter and a reactive flincher. When Armin flinched, Eren did too, surprised each time, not by the movie, but by Armin's violent jerks.
For a while, they silently watched. It started as many low-budget horror movies did: Teenagers on a road trip. Vans, bongs, beer, hormones. Somewhere there was a killer. The jock character took his blond girlfriend into a secluded place in the woods. They began to make out. Nobody ever liked these characters. These characters were always the first to die. The jock started to undress his girlfriend. Mikasa shriveled in her hoodie.
Eren nudged her with his foot. "You're watching a little too hard," he said.
"Huh?"
"You're into it," he said.
Armin laughed.
"What are you talking about?" she said.
"I see why you like scary movies now."
"What? No," Mikasa said.
"What? No," Eren mimicked in an insulting falsetto. "Why you being defensive?"
Armin laughed.
"I'm not."
"Uh-huh."
They laughed. It was two against Mikasa again. Revenge for calling them 'wimps' 'wusses' 'chickens' 'big babies.'
Mikasa tugged the drawstrings of her hood. It scrunched closed around her face, over her eyes, over her chin. She was a worm, a cocoon. "Stop talking, Eren, or I swear to God, I'll chop your feet off and make you eat them."
"Whoa," Eren and Armin said together like she was an impetuous horse getting out of hand. "Whoa."
Her hoodie flooded with waves of embarrassment. She squirmed back onto her belly, facing the TV. Next to her, Eren radiated like a muscled-furnace. Large in body mass, always burning hotter than the environment. The scene was long over, the characters were already gutted and eviscerated. Barely watching, Mikasa lied motionless on her stomach, scrunched up, warm, inside her hood.
When out of nowhere the killer lunged, Armin jolted with a yelp. Eren jolted reactively.
"You're such babies," said Mikasa.
"You're a baby," said Eren.
Armin covered his eyes. "I hate scary movies."
Mikasa crawled over Eren's legs and went to the bathroom and, unzipping her hoodie, patted water on her face. Then she returned, hood drawn up again, crawled over Eren's shins, and retook her spot in the middle.
"You okay?" Eren said.
"Who?"
"You."
"Yeah. Why?"
"Just asking."
Mikasa let her hair out of her hood and looked away from the TV, and still on her belly, twisted her face, to look at Eren sitting against the headboard. He tilted the red bowl to her.
"Popcorn?" he said. It was almost empty.
"No."
Eren held the bowl in his lap. They were looking at each other. After having been embarrassed by him, she was ready to ask, ready to carefully peel back layers to find answers that only he could disclose.
"To be honest," she articulated carefully, "I've been kind of worried. You've been getting in trouble lately."
"That's not my fault," he said. "My teachers hate me."
"Yeah, okay."
"I'm serious," he said. "Mrs. Brooke sent me to the office for no reason. I wear those pants all the time and never got dress code."
"Wear a belt."
"I don't like belts."
"That's your choice."
"I don't like belts," Eren said. "I never liked belts."
On her stomach, Mikasa grew still, head twisted, looking at Eren. Eren was not stupid. He had never been stupid. She turned over on her side, seeing him better. His hand, wrist-deep in the chip bowl, dug out a palmful of popcorn. LCD snowed over him. His eyes were black. He clapped popcorn to his mouth.
"You've worn those jeans before," Mikasa said, saying what she knew he wanted to hear. "And nobody ever said anything."
"Thank you. That's what I'm saying."
If he'd worn those jeans before, Mikasa couldn't remember. And still, even now, she couldn't remember. Sympathy told her Eren wasn't wrong. And memory reminded her Eren owned a small stock of clothes that he recycled regularly. All you needed, Eren had told her, was a pair of dope-ass shoes. You didn't need an elaborate wardrobe. You didn't even need name-brand.
Nike high tops sat by his door.
On the TV, the movie was playing, ignored.
Eren said: "Do you know Cassandra Acosta?" and No, neither Armin nor Mikasa knew her. "She's one of Nora's ten-thousand cousins, and her Quinceañera's next Saturday. Do you guys want to go with me? It's okay that you don't know her. A lot of people going don't know her."
"I'm taking Grandpa fishing that day," Armin said.
"Tell him I said hi."
"Okay."
They fell quiet. Mikasa sat up, crossed her legs, facing them in the dark. Horror-movie screams erupted behind her. Neither Armin nor Eren jumped or jolted, watching her instead of the TV.
"How about you, Mikasa? You busy?"
"I don't think so." She knew so. She was never busy. Her teeth clamped the edge of her thumbnail.
"Want to go?" Eren said.
"Not really."
"Please? I watched a scary movie for you."
Her teeth chewed the nail shorter. "You know how I am." Broken keratin shreds came away in her teeth. To later dispose, she rubbed them off in her hoodie pocket.
"I know," Eren said. "But I'll be there with you the whole time. If you get anxious, you can grab onto me. If you want to leave, we'll leave. We'll do whatever makes you feel better."
"Not going'll make me feel better."
Colors from the TV flashed and flickered on Eren's face. His eyes were black and shiny. "All right," he said, patiently. "I won't push you."
She chewed the nail of her pointer finger now and didn't look at him directly. "It's just, I've had people say they'll be with me. Then they forget and leave me to go talk to other people who are less boring than I am. And I don't really feel like putting myself in that situation."
"You're not boring. You can stick to me like a glove. Okay?"
"I think you mixed up your idioms." Her hands were freezing. Eren waited for her answer. "I don't know. It's just not my scene. My palms are already getting sweaty." She held out her arms. Her right thumbnail was a thin, jagged stub.
With his hand, Eren wiped her glittery palm, dragging his hand down hers, wiping the grains of ice-water away.
"Gross." Mikasa cringed. "Why would you do that?"
"If you go, I promise I'll be there with you the whole time," he said. "I won't leave you," he said.
I won't leave you, he said.
a/n: You know those mix-and-match flipbooks where you can turn different sections at a time and create new outfits or new characters? There's usually one combination for each picture that seems to match the best. But they all form a complete outfit or character, no matter what page is turned up. It just might look awkward sometimes. I feel like that sort of represents what I'm trying to do with this story. There are other realities and every reality has common scenes/settings but they play out differently. And these scenes can be mix-and-matched to form multiple timelines.
If it takes me a while to update, it's cos I'm trying to do something that I don't know how to do. It's just trial and error.