Episode 12: Dreams Or Memories?
はるかに忘れられた友情
In the two cottages that were provided to the group, Kristina and the girls slept in one, and the guys slept in the other. Wishing everyone a 'goodnight' as the sweet girl that she was, Kristina shut the door of their cottage and climbed into her bed, falling asleep after a tiring day instantly.
However, Mikasa kept wide awake.
What was so special about this island that she felt an unnatural pull towards everything she saw around? What was binding her to the island so much that she felt rather nostalgic about it? She had never been to Paradis, so what was this odd uneasiness?
Thinking about it, she eventually fell asleep; not before hearing a voice,
"Do you miss me too?"
Lost in the deep slumber, she saw something in her sleep.
A young boy that she had seen before, but hadn't clearly viewed his face. His voice felt so familiar… but unfamiliar too. The same set of eyes that sparkled with hope and spirit, the same voice ringing in her ears.
"Oi, Mikasa!" he called out her name in the dream, and she felt herself running towards him quicker. However, it wasn't her present self; she seemed to be in her younger body, almost at the age of eight or nine.
She didn't know who he was, but she felt so… protective of him. As if she only hoped to continue living because of him. It was overprotectiveness, adoration, affection, everything. Like he was her cause of happiness.
"Hurry! Armin is waiting for us!" he yelled again, puerile excitement in his voice. Her legs carried her faster as she caught up with the boy, and taking a turn while running, she saw Armin.
The same Armin she knew since childhood, but it wasn't a scenario that she herself had created when they were young. However, it was a memory that she had made, perhaps not in this life.
Armin waved his hands zealously at them, happily grinning at both of them, with a book in his small hands.
"I got this from my grandfather!" Armin exclaimed, "It's about the outside world!"
"Outside world?" the boy, whose lower face was blurred in the dream, asked in awe.
"Yes! Wanna read it with me?" Armin sat down, making her and the boy sit around the book. They enthusiastically opened it, and noticed the pictures of sand dunes, of glaciers and rivers… and of the sea.
Their voices sounded like a buzzing to Mikasa in the dream, and she looked at Armin - the same Armin that she knew. But she didn't remember making any memories with him like the one she was experiencing at the moment, in the dream.
And then she looked up at the boy, and all of a sudden, his voice changed into a manlier voice as he spoke, "We did it, Armin, Mikasa. We saw the sea."
She knew that voice. She couldn't pinpoint it, but she had heard that voice before.
Deep in thought, she looked down; her head hurt in the dream as well as in real life, and then came Armin's voice, "Eren!"
She snapped her head up, and the young boy was gone. Instead, before her stood a tall man, his hair long and tied up in a manbun. His striking green eyes stared into her soul, and he smiled at her. He stayed quiet, just looking at her with a kind of longing in his eyes. That's when a voice rang in her head,
"I missed you, Mikasa. I hope you haven't forgotten me."
Mikasa woke up with a start, her body covered in sweat and her breath ragged. She breathed heavily, and the scenes from the dream replayed in her head.
Eren. Eren Jaeger.
How did she know him? Why was he in her dream? How was she so sure that it was Eren whom she saw in her dream?
Why was it confusing her so much?
That's when she remembered that she was another person in that dream - Armin. And so, she tip-toed out of the cottage, with an aim to meet Armin and get some kind of an explanation.