Mikasa
I've rehearsed this conversation in my head at least a dozen times by now. It starts with a knock on the door. If Dusty was in his prime, he'd go berserk, pawing and barking on the other side of the door, and I'd hear Eren shouting, "Down, boy! Chill out, will you?" A jingle—he's firmly gripping Dusty's collar—followed by the creak of the front door. I say hi. And then I launch into my spiel, a short one spelling out the quick synopsis of the letter in my hands. I deliver my written message. And then retreat.
This letter was produced in sluggish bursts.
When Levi went to meet with his publisher, I took his advice and wandered around Columbia's campus. I had a small notepad in hand, and I sat on the steps in front of the Alma Mater statue before a Greek-style rotunda building. There, I did some people-watching. Students lounged around, some chatting, others absorbed in their readings. I started scratching some thoughts down, but I found myself crossing out lines shortly after composing them. I followed a group of undergrads into one of the academic buildings, and I managed to sneak into a large lecture, where I listened to a professor talk about Homer. From there, I made my way to Levi's most loathed spot—the towering Butler Library—and I tried to write three more paragraphs before throwing in the towel. I instead decided to look for Strokos, Levi's favorite deli.
I tried to picture a younger, more reckless Levi trotting around this campus. I imagined him grudgingly standing on his tip-toes over the deli counter, ordering himself a B.L.T. Strutting out of office hours, having secured stellar marks on his term papers. Drunkenly streaking through College Walk with Hanji, crashing through the perfectly-manicured hedges, outrunning the campus police. Waving around picket signs with student activists. Burning the midnight oil with the campus news staff, hustling to hit deadlines.
I ended up back at square one, on the steps before Alma Mater's patina-covered figure. For hours, I plugged in my earphones, turned up the Radiohead, and let the words spill out onto paper. As the sun was starting to set, my focus broke when a plastic take-out bag dropped before my feet. When I looked up, Levi loomed over me, dressed in business casual, his blazer slung over his back. We slurped ramen from plastic to-go containers, and I criticized his chopstick technique. He pointed out his old dorm room, showed me where Hanji got a concussion, and stuck out his middle finger at Butler Library one last time before we grabbed our bags from our AirBnB and headed towards John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Going through security on the return leg of our trip was smoother; after all, Levi's pocket knife was already confiscated before our outbound flight. Instead of making a mad-dash through the airport, we actually had time to kill in the terminal. Levi sat in the waiting area seat with his legs propped on top of his carry-on luggage, scanning through my paragraphs. For someone who wrung his hands at my grammatical nitpicking, he was ten times worse as an editor, relentless in shredding my draft, line by line. On the plane, I revised my writing, while Levi argued with the flight attendant over the pricing of the onboard beer. During the car ride back home, I read my second draft aloud, and every few sentences, he'd critique my word choice. I made these edits, and read my third draft in the doorway of our upstairs bathroom while he brushed his teeth. He spat out his toothpaste, rinsed his mouth, wiped his face, and told me good-night.
And so, here I am, on Eren's doorstep, final draft in hand—but unable to bring myself to knock on the door.
I talked to Jean this morning. In a small cardboard box, I returned the belongings he left at my house—his hoodie, his several water bottles, his sweatpants. We both flushed when he gave me back a red bra, along with a copy of Anna Karenina that I lent him (which he claims to have read and enjoyed, but I don't think he understood it entirely).
He didn't interrupt me once when I apologized for using our relationship as a means to an end, for withholding the truth behind my feelings, for cheating on him, for breaking his heart. I told him he deserved better, that he was a solid guy, that the next girl was going to be so damn lucky to have him.
Talking to Jean was a matter of rattling off my crimes, followed by padding the hard truth with cliched post-breakup lines. There was nothing else better to say. "Cliches are cliches for a reason," Levi said, shrugging.
Jean's voice cracked when he summoned the words for a response. "I don't know who you are anymore, Mikasa," he said before closing the door on me.
Right now, I don't recognize myself either. I stare at my reflection through the glass panes in Eren's front door, checking to see if I happen to have thin wires protruding from my arms, legs, and jaw. Is there an invisible puppeteer hanging over me? This new Mikasa discards the verbal filters. She no longer orbits an issue like a wayward satellite; instead, she touches down, making contact. She's straightforward; she's direct. And this new Mikasa's footsteps move more lightly, no longer clunking with each step, weighed down by extra baggage.
I steel myself. I knock on the door.
As expected, Dusty answers first. Old age has besieged him with hip dysplasia, so I hear him snuffling at the other side of the door, letting out a feeble woof, instead of jumping up and down, scraping at the window. A jingle. I picture Eren bending down to scratch Dusty's ears, behind his collar, cooing at him, assuring him it's okay. He's always been so affectionate with that golden retriever.
My heart thuds in my chest when the door opens. He's just gotten back from a soccer game, still wearing the navy and white jersey of our high school. He has a heat pack in his hands—probably treating a tight hamstring. Dusty's fluffy flank brushes against my calves, and he sniffs at my feet, licking at my ankles.
"Eren," I begin. "I was wondering if—"
But Eren cuts me off by whistling at his dog. He reaches for Dusty's collar, pulling him back inside the house. "Mikasa," he says stiffly, refusing to look me in the eye. "I really, really need some space from you. I wasn't kidding when I said that."
He starts to close the door on me, but my arm lunges for the doorknob. Of all times, Levi's voice blares through my mind, like an intercom announcement: Brute-force it. I yank the door open.
"What the fuck?!" Eren demands. Dusty starts barking and straining against Eren's hold on his collar.
"Eren, I need to talk to you," I blurt out over Dusty's protests, and a torrent of words rushes out. "But I'm bad at communication, especially when it's about feelings and the past and hard things—"
"Sorry, I can't hear you—Dusty, down boy!" Trying to leap at me, Dusty seems to have regained some of his youthful vigor.
"I'm nowhere as articulate as you, Eren!" I shout over the barking. "I really wish I could be, so here's my best shot at it! I wrote you a letter explaining everything—"
"Dusty, can you shut the hell up?" Eren hollers, fighting against his golden retriever. "Down, boy! Come on, don't be like this! Can you go back to being senile, please?!" As Eren drags his dog backwards, Dusty's nails scrape and clatter along the hardwood floor. His howls become muffled after Eren manages to square him away in the basement.
"You're lucky he's a geezer now," Eren gripes, when he comes back to the doorway. "Otherwise he would've knocked you to the ground."
"Can I give you this?" I hold out my letter. My hand is trembling.
Warily, he takes the envelope from me. In my head, this is where I'm supposed to go home and await a reply, but he starts opening it in front of me. He pulls the letter out. I wrote my final draft on a sheet of blank printer paper. I watch his expression as he reads. His brow is furrowed in focus, and his lips occasionally mouth a word. My thoughts are a whirlwind when he looks up at me.
"Mikasa," he says. I brace myself for what he's about to say next. He blinks several times, pausing to mull things over before telling me, "I can't read your handwriting."
"Sorry, what?"
"It's in cursive, and it's too loopy and swirly for my head to make sense of it."
"But we learned cursive in the second grade," is all I can say when he hands my letter back, envelope and all. "Wait," I say, before he kicks me out of his house. "Can I read it to you?"
Eren reluctantly invites me inside. As always, there's a soccer game playing in his living room. On the coffee table, a half-eaten bowl of cereal sits next to his Gatorade squirt bottle. He mutes the TV, and we sit on opposite sides of his couch, creating as much space between us as possible. He winces as he sits down, pressing the heat pack to his leg.
"How did you guys do?" I ask.
"Oh, we won," he says dismissively. "But I think I pulled something. Also, your stupid ex-boyfriend tried to trip me during overtime."
"I'm sorry about that," I mumble.
"So you were translating your impossible-to-read handwriting?"
"Oh, right," I stammer, unfolding the letter.
I didn't factor in this outcome when I was playing this scenario in my mind. Internally, I knee myself for not thinking this through—of course Eren can't read cursive! The whole point of the handwritten letter was so that I could express things without actually having to say them. He was supposed to read. I was supposed to answer questions, which does require talking, but I made sure to be exceedingly thorough in my writing such as to minimize the need for clarification.
When I look up, I prepare to wilt under his burning eyes, but to my surprise, the expression on his face is gentle—sad, even. He watches me, uncharacteristically patient, as the paper crinkles between my fingers, waiting for me to start.
"Dear Eren," I read. Two words down. Too many more to go. The letters start blurring into a solid square of black ink, but I shake my head and start again:
Dear Eren,
I owe you an explanation, but we both know I'm garbage when it comes to talking about these things. When we tried to talk in the past, my mind would freeze up. I'd only skate around the edges, and we'd never crack the surface. There's a lot of ground to cover—for starters, what we did at prom. I'll get to that, but first, we should go further back, years back to that day you defended me.
After you hit my father, I remember seeing his tooth land on the floor. At that moment, I never felt more scared in my life. I knew my father's cues—the way he hunched his back, the way his eyes misted up with anger. I could picture him throwing himself at you. I'm sorry for punching you in the face, but I needed to get you out of there. And in the years following, never again did I want to put you in that kind of danger, so I shut myself off from you—and everyone else.
I'm sorry if that hurt you. And I'm sorry I kept deflecting every one of your attempts to be my best friend—giving you the cold shoulder, ignoring your compassionate text messages, not to mention that whole snowblower incident. You were trying to mend what we had before, but after a certain point, I made our friendship toxic for you. No wonder you needed to move on.
In retrospect, I realize how selfish this was, especially when we argued in your car that one time over Annie and Jean. All this time, I was trying to let you go, thinking it was for your own sake. However, when I found out you were hooking up with her, I was upset to learn that you had let go of me. I know, it's such a self-centered, nearsighted, unfair double-standard, right? I directed my resentment at you, yet I sowed the seeds from which this resentment bloomed.
I've missed you, Eren. I wish I recognized these feelings at the time, and I wish I had the courage to tell you directly. But instead, I embarked on this wild-goose chase, and I enlisted Jean as a means of getting you back; that is, to make you envious. That was beyond shitty of me, and I severely fucked over Jean by ensnaring him into all this.
And now, prom. You were trying to do the right thing, since we were drunk, and I had a boyfriend. Yet I ended up roping you into a huge mess. I shattered your integrity, and I take full responsibility for everything. I'm so fucking sorry, Eren. Please, don't ever blame yourself.
I'm sorry for making things so hopelessly complicated for you, and I'm sorry for hurting you, time after time again. However, there's one thing I don't regret. That night, I made a decision. Yes, I was in a drunken, irrational state-of-mind, but as I write this letter, stone-cold sober and clear-headed, I reaffirm that decision. I have feelings for you, Eren. I need you back in my life, and this time around, I want to lean on you, confide in you. You're the only person in the world who can make me smile—laugh, even—during a pregnancy scare. I've been a raging dumbass to push someone like you away.
However, I've broken your trust to the point where it's probably irreparable. And I've been an awful friend to you. I took you for granted, and I don't deserve a second chance. But please, know this: I want to thank you for everything—
I pause here. This was everything Levi edited, and I put down the letter. I told myself I wasn't going to cry. I've read this letter so many times aloud with Levi, alone in front of my mirror, so many times that I could probably recite it, forwards and backwards. Each time, I got through without a problem.
Yet there are teardrops spotting the paper.
"Mikasa," Eren starts to say. "Hey—"
"Wait, there's more," I interrupt. I force myself to take three deep breaths before looking Eren directly in the eye, and I keep going, unscripted:
Eren, you've always had my back. You've always had this intuition about me. And you make me into a better person, into someone less full of shit, someone more balanced, someone who's learning to find the courage to face things head-on, rather than ducking away. So with that said, I want to thank you, Eren.
Yours,
Mikasa
My last couple of words came out a garbled, unintelligible mess. I squeeze my eyes shut, internally begging myself to stop crying. I've been doing this too much lately; it's unbecoming of me. But the sobs pour out of me, and when I open my eyes again, Eren's mouth is pressed into a tight line, and he's trying hard to hold back tears himself. He's always hated seeing me cry. "It's contagious," he told me one time.
After a long moment of silence, his eyes are still watery, but he's managed to hold on strong. "There's no 'P.S.' bit, is there? " he asks, sliding forward to hand me a Kleenex box from the coffee table.
"N-nope." I press a tissue under my eyes. "Th-that's it."
"Thank, God. You're so wordy, Mikasa." When I lower the tissue, I'm astounded to see that he's giving me one of his teasing smiles. Before I can respond, he follows up, "Can I say something, then?"
"Yeah, please."
He grins at me. Not one of those strained ones that form crinkles at the corners of his eyes, but an ear-to-ear, earnest grin. "I can read your handwriting perfectly well, you know."
I'm about to ram my elbow into his gut, but he catches my arm, pulls me close to him, leans in—and he kisses me.
It's a slow, gentle kiss. He keeps his forehead pressed against mine when we pull back for air. His arms encircle me, and I let him hold me, letting my tears soak into his soccer jersey.
"Thanks for telling me all that," he murmurs into my hair. "I know that wasn't easy."
"It feels good to say it," I say with relief.
"Does it?"
"Yeah."
He kisses me again.
We make love in his bedroom, a place filled with fond memories. As kids, we flipped through comic books, and reenacted the plot of Godzilla with Legos and stuffed animals. As middle schoolers, we listened to explicit Kanye West songs, keeping the volume of his iPod low, out of earshot of his mother. As teenagers, we laid back on his bed, ignoring our homework, opting to complain about it instead.
I run my fingers down the contours of his abdomen, commenting on how soccer has been good to him. He sheepishly informs me that a coach at NYU has taken an interest in him. "It's only D3, though," he shrugs when I congratulate him. "But there might be a scholarship thrown in there."
I show him my weak spots, guiding lips to the front of my neck, the center of each breast, the inner parts of my thighs. He shows me a menagerie of odd birthmarks that he's kept secret from me all these years: a giraffe-shaped spot just inches above his navel, a little freckle resembling a hippo on his lower back.
We're nowhere as rough as the first time, but the sex feels fuller. We take it at our own pace. He asks me what I like, and I ask him what feels best. He pauses from thrusting every so often to kiss me properly, but this drives me crazy. I whisper against his mouth, pleading him to keep going, and he does—only after pressing his lips to my forehead, then my jawbone, then my clavicle, and then retracing his steps back up my forehead again.
When his leg aches too much from being on top, we switch positions, and I ride him, holding onto his bed frame. Between gasps, he tells me I'm beautiful, and when I lean down to kiss him, he takes a detour from my lips and kisses the scar on my cheek.
Our moans grow louder as we both get closer to climax. He says my name. I say his. His hand reaches between my legs, rubbing my clit, and I move my hips faster. Finally, I cross the edge, and this wave of pleasure ripples through me from my core. At the same time, he lets out a sigh as he comes as well, and when I crash beside him, he pecks my forehead once more.
"Damn," he remarks.
"Yeah."
"Crazy day, huh?"
"I gave my best friend nine hickeys," I reply, tapping each red spot on his neck.
"Let's see—" He pokes at the marks he left on my own neck. "Hah, slacker. I gave mine eleven. This one looks like a Ferrari."
"I saw my best friend naked."
"I touched my best friend's boobs."
"I gave my best friend a handjob."
"I sucked her tits, and went down on her."
"I blew my best friend."
"I just fucked my best friend. I also just fucked the hottest girl I've ever met."
"Do you want a high-five or a handshake?"
He goes for a high-five. But before he can pull his hand away, I lock my fingers through his, and I kiss him. We laze under his covers, our unclothed bodies nestled against each other. This has always been one my favorite parts of sex, and doing this with Eren sends flutters up and down my spine. He tries to count my eyelashes, but he never makes it past thirty before getting distracted. I express my jealousy towards his kaleidoscope pupils, and he strains not to blink as I identify the colors I can see—turquoise, royal blue, cyan, pine green, occasionally a flash of hazel when the light strikes a certain way.
He tells me he always thought that I'd be his first kiss—and that he'd lose his virginity with me. A fifteen-year-old Eren had a fantasy of taking us for a picnic by Lake Michigan. He was going to sneak a bottle of wine from the cellar, and he was going to cut a prized sunflower from his mother's garden, even though Carla would surely punish him with hours upon hours of crochet work. And at the time, he had done his due diligence. "No one fucking knows how to kiss for the first time," he says. "So I read up on a ton of WikiHow articles. They were incredibly unhelpful."
He takes out his phone and Googles how to French kiss properly. We actually give a stab at the methods prescribed on WikiHow, but five seconds in, we abandon our efforts, dissolving into laughter. We take turns being the big spoon, and I manage to drag the confession out of Eren that he likes being the little spoon better. He gives me the update on Connie and Sasha: they're still "working it out." And I tell him about Columbia. He asks me how I'm faring with Levi. I admit that he's slowly but surely growing on me.
I'm just completely and utterly at ease around him. Eren. My best friend. My long-time neighbor. Even silence is comfortable, as we lay together, my head tucked against his chest, the only noise being the sound of our breathing, the steady thump of his heartbeat.
We heat up leftover lasagna for dinner. Eren frees Dusty from the basement, and I scratch the elderly dog behind the ears, rebuilding trust with him. We put a stand-up comedy special on the TV, and the three of us bum it on the couch, just like old times.
But midway through, something buzzes from within the couch, making Dusty jerk his head up in alarm. I pat his head reassuringly and fish my phone out from between the cushions.
I have five missed calls from Hanji Zoe, as well as two missed calls from Carla Jaeger.
"Hey," Eren says, turning down the volume of the TV. He also has his phone out. "My mom just texted me asking if I could go find you," he says, looking puzzled.
A barrage of text messages from Hanji:
Mikasa, you there?
Hellooooo?
Can you pick up the phone plz, when u have a chance?
Your phone keeps sending me to voicemail, so i'll text u rn. there's been an accident. Pls come to the hospital and give me a call asap!
When my call to Hanji goes through, she's babbling a million words a minute, absolutely hysterical.
"Hanji, can you slow down?" I try to interject.
There's a static on the other line, the sound of a phone changing hands. "Mikasa?" It's Carla. "Are you there?"
"Yes," I breathe. This is all too familiar.
"Mikasa, this is going to be hard to hear, but—"
"Please, just say it."
"Levi's hurt, and we're at the ER right now. He was on a bike, and a car didn't see him. He's going to go into surgery really soon and…" The rest of what she says goes over my head.
I'm numb as Eren herds me into his station wagon, and he floors the accelerator, taking us to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
A/N: Voila. These recent chapters have been so special to me, and it's kinda made me realize that if one of my IRL friends stumbled across this fic, my anonymous fanfic writer cover would be entirely blown—especially from my choices in music and setting. I hope you guys enjoyed the little trip to NYC—and I say this as I look into the streets of Manhattan myself haha ;)
With that said, what did you all think?
One more thing before I sign off: Jartz120 made yet another SICK fanart for WUARD, so plz plz plz check her out on Twitter! Unfortunately, I can't put a link here, but if you go to her June 23 tweets, you'll see her wonderful take on Chapter 20, featuring a lovely Radiohead song!
Thank you, all of you. I keep trying to space out updates so that I can tinker with things properly (aka I've re-read some of my older chapters, and good GOD, the TYPOS?!), but I just get too excited to share, and well, here we are, ahead of schedule! I don't have Chapter 26 written out just yet… But the next couple are gonna be challenging. Might need a bit more time, but I'll try to keep you guys posted on progress on Tumblr!