When Jean starts calling her every other day, she takes control of the flow of the currents, stopping him from putting down the phone after giving her the news of the day. Just that small insistence that he stay longer had broken open the floodgates, and she let the feeling wash over her freely, finding that it comes naturally to her to laugh softly at his silly jokes, or react to his animated exposition of his mundane life, time running too short until it reached the engaged tone.
Those moments worked as hourly respites from her long days and even longer nights. On one such particularly long night, she thinks maybe it would be okay to take shelter in the soothing tone of his voice and the light graze of their lips against each other's.
That stimulus was becoming a distant memory already that was unable to sustain her like most of her tried and tested strategies. It was the one thing they never spoke about, a mutual fear on what it meant and why it happened plaguing them both. She sometimes feels like she should have said more, done more in the moment, but when he did not similarly respond, it dampened her explosion of irrational courage, making her curl back into her oscillating, fickle thoughts. But that did not mean that a hunger in her had not been ignited, waiting to be satiated again. She wanted more. She wanted to experience it again and better understand what it meant to each of them. She was going crazy just waiting for him.
She dials his number, her heart on her sleeve, but there is no answer.
At 3am, her problems were hers alone.
She lies down on the sofa, too deflated to drag herself back to their room.
Just a week more.
Friday night, and her patience has reached its limit. She can't stop glancing at the door, her knees to her chest, her body shaking from an inexplicable level of eagerness. She was done trying to figure out the whats and whys of her excitement. He said he would be here and she would wait.
So she did, like a good, eager wife.
Jean lets out several deep breaths like a pregnant woman in labour when his fingers wrap around the cold doorknob he had not felt the metal of four agonisingly long weeks. He had to calm himself before seeing Mikasa. He was sure to squeeze the life out of her on reuniting with her otherwise. There was no way he would do anything to sabotage their relationship after all the progress they had made from their simple phone conversations.
Not to mention, that surreal kiss that had put him in a strange trance since the time it had occurred, his mind going over the moment like a film reel, trying to put two and two together. But he was still a coward, and didn't want to hear anything from Mikasa that would ruin that moment, until he met her in person again. They had to work through it together maturely and calmly. He had to keep his emotions in check and he wanted to make sure he could handle hers, whatever her dreaded reaction might be. Her not bringing it up either was a huge respite.
It also meant that he felt more enthused than ever to see her. The more optimistic side of him has lit up again as well, making him hope against hope in ephemeral moments that the feelings are mutual.
"I'm home," he calls out customarily as he steps in, clearing his throat when it sounded too high pitched and emotional to his ears.
He takes a moment to unfreeze himself from the sudden sight of her in the flesh, perched on the sofa in the corner, her knees propped up and her chin buried.
"Oh, you're here," she gasps, looking as surprised as he is, rising to her feet immediately.
She looks even lovelier than he remembered if that's possible, in her usual aesthetic of a long skirt and blouse, layered with the scarf, and a ponytail with locks framing her pretty face. "It's good to see you," he can't help but let out breathlessly.
"You too," she also states breathily. Each step towards him is slow, measured as though he is a wild cat who would run away at the slightest movement. She has a strange look on her face he can't quite put a finger on, reminiscent of their dreamlike rendezvous before she boarded the train home.
"My trip was very close to being extended again but I said there's no way I can stretch out the limited wardrobe I had brought for even longer-" he sniffs the air and turns his head to the pot atop the stove flame, distracted for a second, "Are you cooking something? It smells absolutely divine. I thought it was supposed to be my treat to you though."
When he turns his head back, Mikasa is less than a foot away from him, breaching her own personal space territory, her expression now seeming calculating, disbelieving.
It's overwhelming to even be this near her after being away from her for so long. He doesn't remember how to stand causally or what to do with his face as her grey eyes are on him, intense, unbreaking. He splutters out mindlessly, "Why don't I go and freshen up, and we can-" he starts fumbling with the top button of his jacket distractedly, trying to look away from a very concentrated, very close Mikasa.
"Wait, Jean," her fingers fall on his chest very lightly, and he is forced to meet her unwavering gaze.
It takes him a second to see it; his busy fingers fall back to his side. Looking at her was impossibly like looking at a mirror. She was watching him with the keenest gaze, and he could not look away. She doesn't pause her venture towards him, one hand still resting on his chest that was surely rumbling from the force of his throbbing heart.
He thinks he sees it in her – his ever-burning desire of want.
Before the pessimistic voice in his head can convince him otherwise, in a swift moment that has his brain too shell-shocked to process, he feels her body weight against his chest as she places both of her hands on it, lifting her head up, brushing her lips lightly against his. Her feet plant back flat on the ground before he can even react, his mind and body erupting in fireworks instantaneously.
Everything after that was a blur.
He feels drawn towards her, his lips longing to trace the full feel of hers against his deprived ones, unleashing everything he had held back the earlier day. He sees only her in the moment, his hands rising to her shoulders, his desire breaking the dams of tight control he had guarded it with. He crushes his lips against hers without further thought, every second passed without her lips on his feeling like a second wasted.
They are sloppy and rushed, like two teenagers experiencing their first kiss. Her lips part enthusiastically to accommodate his, her teeth grazing against his. He guides her and takes the lead, their shallow kisses heady. Years of pent-up tension was unravelling faster than the speed of sound. He plants one hand on her waist, pulling her tightly against him. He uses the other to lace his fingers through her silky black hair that caught his eye since they first crossed paths, freeing it from the hair tie holding it together. He cups the back of her head to gain more control and deepen their kiss. She complies willingly, letting his tongue enter her mouth, and lets out the softest moan that jolts an electric current through his senses. She is a quick learner and follows suit, and he realises he loves how she tastes, enticing him to explore more of her.
Mikasa takes a moment to pull back from him, and his heart drops because he hasn't had enough. She rests her forehead against his, gasping for air, rasping out in between breaths, "Take me up upstairs."
Her lids are still shut, her hands he notices, finishing the unbuttoning of his jacket. He discards his jacket in a rush and nods, kissing her cheek. She immediately turns her head to her side so she captures his lips in between hers again. He has no time to shy away and process that his hands have gone to her butt, supporting her as she wraps her legs around his waist expertly. Her arms are around his neck, not breaking the connection between their lips even for a moment.
He takes his time now, once the initial blast of lust and hunger calms down. He steadies his hold on her, drawing back for a second, as she rests her chin on his shoulder. He caresses her cheek once he has a handle on her weight. She turns to him partially, and they engage in a much slower, more romantic pace this time, as he attempts to convey how much he burns for her.
He shifts his weight carefully on each foot until they painstakingly traverse the stairs, his limbs feeling like jelly with the sensations she was arousing in him. He feels the nervousness build up as he fumbles with the doorknob of their bedroom, his senses all muddled up from the intensity of emotion. She flicks on the light switch behind him before he takes her to the bed and carefully leans forward until she drops down onto her back gently. She adjusts her position until her head is on the pillow.
His breath is caught in his throat at the sight of her lying there, waiting for him, a small, satisfied smile on her lightly swollen lips, looking up at him in wonder.
He is amazed that this is his life. What had he done right to reach here?
He joins her on the bed until he is atop her, balancing himself on the hands he had placed on either side of her face that was still shrouded with the same unfamiliar curiosity and longing. He takes a moment to admire her, running his fingers through her hair and scalp, then tracing it to feel the angles of her face, all the way down to her chin, in awe of her beauty.
He lets out a gasp of surprise and then a smirk as she pulls at his collar towards her, melding their lips together again, the space between them close to vanishing. He feels her hands adventurously explore his body, until it rests on his shirt buttons. He is intoxicated by her taste, her lips soft against his, her tongue excitable. As he feels the air hit his exposed chest that Mikasa's hands were freely roaming, leaving a burning trail in its wake, he decides to return her enthusiasm, his hands instinctively going to her collar to find her first shirt button.
His eager fingers pause before they slide under the fabric of her scarf, trying to locate the button while his other hand is busy feeling the curves of her toned waist, her back arching sensuously every time his tongue entered her cavern.
He glances to her face once, his fingers stilled below her scarf.
Her lids flutter revealing a discerning pair of grey eyes looking straight at him.
The distance between them that had closed, gapes once again as he pulls away from her achingly slowly, while her hand goes up to his face, caressing his jaw and cheek, his mind fogging from her simple touch. He covers the hand she had placed with his own, leaning into the feel of her skin, worn with the same battle scars he wore.
He gulps heavily, his breathing thick.
His eyes meet hers, pained.
Never had she craved the touch of man before this much. Gravity itself had pushed her to him the minute he walked through the door, the fleeting ecstasy of his lips against hers in the blinding headlights of the train convincing her progressively that it was all she needed. The exact sequence of events are obscured but the feeling of skin against skin had been burned into her nerves, running fire down through every last blood vessel until it pulsated in response to his touch.
No fantasy could prepare her for the feeling of his lips against hers more fully this time, his tongue dancing around inside her mouth, his taste unimaginably addictive. One dose and she was hooked, unable to sense anything but him. When he laid her on the bed, and saw him for the first time from below, in such an intimate position, she had to remind herself to breathe.
She wanted him so badly. Her body was screaming unbearably to pull him closer and closer, urging her to not leave even a speck of distance between them. She kissed him hard and needily, commanding him not to leave her like he had the previous night.
Or worse, like He had.
She feels an urge to turn away when he looks at her piercingly, his sharp gaze overwhelming her, remembering how hot her whole body, and especially her face was feeling. She manages a small smile in spite of it, and a caress to his cheek, calling him back to the bed with her. The soft lighting was doing wonders on his features, his exposed chest and abdomen intensifying the throbbing in between her legs.
But there is a sudden break in the fantasy, and the warm air disappears, and the beautiful boy who was ravaging her just a minute ago halts.
He looks sad.
The insatiable lust filling the air, capturing them in its intoxication had evaporated. He cups her face, his tightly pursed lips calling out her name so softly as though it were forbidden.
"Jean, what's wrong?" Mikasa looks up concerned at a Jean who was now fully sat up in between her legs, leaning only slightly towards her. His fingers are firmly planted against her cheek, the only warmth seemingly left between them in crushing contrast to their previous intermeshed bodies. His lips are quivering, pursed together, when it should have been on hers.
"Mikasa… do you really want this?" There was a gut-wrenching, conflicted look on his face - a face that she often wore.
Her mind is clouded from her earlier state of bliss with him, causing her to drop abruptly into the confusion he had induced with his question.
"No, wait, I'm sorry," his hands go to his temple, and he shakes his head like he is seeing something he wants to rid himself of. "I'm sorry," He breathes out again and he really does look sorry.
"I don't… understand…" she stutters helplessly, trying to unscramble her own muddled emotions that were flying a mile a minute, as she feels a dread bury her stomach, her ears going hot in the anticipation of the unknown.
"It's not your fault. I shouldn't have-"
"-but I was the one who-" she cries out, trying her very best to prevent another source of comfort in her life from being pulled out from beneath her.
"-Not when I know you-" He says more to himself than he does to her.
"What?" She tries to take control of the situation.
No, no, no.
This couldn't be happening again to her, just when things were going smoothly, just when she was getting comfortable enough to let herself go. She could not take rejection again.
"-Not when you… you're… thinking of someone else."
"Someone else, but who-" her eyes widen as she looks down towards her chin.
Her scarf.
She was still wearing it.
But she wasn't thinking of Him.
All the yearning, the pleasure, the intoxication, the bliss – it was all Jean.
No, no, no, she didn't want it go backwards.
She had almost reached the summit. She could feel it. She was very close to the end. At the end of the climb, she would find He is gone and – and, He will be gone.
Eren will be gone.
The scenery at the top, he would have no place there.
But Jean… that's what she wanted, right? It would be okay if Eren were gone, right?
She looks up at Jean uncertainly, plagued by her own unpleasant thoughts, the corners of her eyes burning hot with tears of shame. She watches him in slow motion, taking her hand in his just as gently as he always has, making her sit up.
"I wasn't though. Not really," she whispers, quivering slightly. It was not a lie, but it still felt ingenuine coming out of her lips.
She feels him pull her close until she is against his bare chest, his arms wrapping around her warmly again. "I didn't mean it like that," he reassures her soothingly, patting her hair and back in repetitive motions.
"Did I do something to give you that impression?"
"No, not at all - not particularly!" He cries out, squeezing her tighter. "It just… doesn't feel right. I think we need more time," he slumps into her shoulder, his hands descending to her lower back. She doesn't know whether it is okay to hold him, not when it feels like she had wronged him.
"Did I make it seem like I was somewhere else?" She dares to ask. She thought she was drowning in him, but there was something else he saw from the surface - something he didn't like. "Or do you just not want… me?" A painful lump in her throat grows, making her feel like she wouldn't be able to say anything more, especially after hearing the dreaded answer from him.
"It's the opposite," his voice comes out muffled as he speaks into her shoulder, inducing untimely goosebumps in her. "It's because I love you that I can't let you do this. I don't want you to regret it. If you do, then I will. There's no coming back from that."
The air reverberates with his subdued words. The weight of it feels overbearing.
He loves her.
It was such an obvious truth that she had never cared to take notice of. It was too ludicrous to be believable. She had abandoned such notions a long time ago, both of herself loving and someone else loving her.
He loves her, in spite of it.
Her.
Mikasa.
Mikasa who couldn't let herself out of her own cage and go towards her freedom of happiness.
But she does not love him.
Love is whole and pure. All she could offer him was mangled bits of herself that she was sewing together with each day she spent with him. She hates that she did not even consider that what she felt for him could have been love.
Could she even love?
She is already spent. Her time was supposed to be over but he came in and suddenly, it was like she was at two starting lines. One, where Jean waited for her at the end, in a field of flowers and sunshine, where it never rained.
In the other, there was only rain. The finish line was a muddy land. No sunshine, but no rain either. It just was.
She slipped and fell through the rainy path, hoping to reach stable ground but somewhere, she found this other path with Jean, and she took it. She thought she had made it, that she was walking on his path - steady, easy, cozy. But the truth of the matter was, she was stuck in the mud a long time ago, and Jean was walking beside her, helping her up along the way.
She never asked him why he held out his hands for her grimy ones. She was just glad that there was some hope for her. But when she looks down at her own feet, even as she stands beside him who is warm and dry, she sees the muck, the filth, the dirt.
That is who she is.
It was his undoing if he believed that she could be who he loved.
What even did he love?
There was nothing left in her.
Her hand goes up to her scarf, and she assumes that this is what he saw. And more than she hates not loving him, she hates that he had found a reason to not want her in that moment where she was surer than she had ever been that he is what she wants. He is who she wants to walk every path with. It was naïve to think she could have it all.
Their silence is drawn out. Her hands had slowly managed to go loosely around his lower back too, and she feels it.
Loss.
And she feels tired, because she has been doing this for far too long. There does not seem to be any end in sight; not with Jean, not with her nightmares.
"I should have said this earlier," He raises his head from her shoulder, interrupting their thickened silence, "but I don't expect you to return what I feel. It was never about that. I'm sorry if I made you feel otherwise."
"No," she states blankly, stuck in her own haze. She thinks wistfully that it may have been easier sometimes if he expected things out of her. Maybe it would motivate her to reach that ideal place faster.
"Are you okay? I know I stopped things abruptly," she winces at his self-blaming.
She understands why he frames it like this; she is the liability, the one with the upper hand. This weak her determined everything between them and ironically, they had never been as connected as they were now. And yet, she was much happier in her blissful state of imaginations where he held her from behind in the afternoon sun and kissed her dizzy, as though that were always where they were meant to be.
"I'm fine. I think I understand why," she says characteristically coldly, taking stock of the distance she had to again traverse to reach him.
"We could forget this happened, if that's what you want," he suggests. She doesn't need to see him to picture his mouth twisted in anguish. "In fact, after that night… we really should have talked. I deliberately put it off."
"Where do we go from here?"
"I don't know."
Her heart wrenches at his honesty. She wishes he had an easy solution as always. But this was her battle. It isn't fair to take advantage of him. Ironically, he probably was feeling the same; that he shouldn't take advantage of her mental state.
"I'm going to go check on the food. You can freshen up," She wrenches herself away from him, refusing to make eye contact, afraid of what she would find. There was too much to make sense of already.
"Wait-"
She rushes out without looking back, her focus on the soup she had left on the fire and the roast in the oven, brushing away her relentless tears.
They eat in a silence that plucks at his skin, the scraping of cutlery against crockery clawing at his ears. She was back in her little cocoon again. He couldn't look at her like this. He knows he did not do anything wrong. But it felt like he had ripped her out of a place where she was perfectly comfortable.
In those few fleeting moments they had shared, they had trapped themselves in a bubble of pleasure driven by base instincts. It would never be just that for him. It would have been okay even if it were just a pure lust that made them revel in the sparks their skin produced on contact, but he couldn't. It simply was not true. It would have been much easier if they could go with the flow, make love, go to sleep like nothing happened, eat breakfast and dinner like a couple, and then do it all over again. But that was never them. It could be, but it is not.
He has always been a man with pride, with a simple goal in life of luxurious comforts. Things went south for him when he found he also had a moral conscience, a need to protect, a need to do the right thing. Otherwise, sleep on his silk pillow would never come. He could not speak for Mikasa. He could not pretend to know her or understand her perfectly. But he had been watching her as closely as he could for years, for months.
He has seen her smile disappear as soon as it graces her pretty lips in the fraction of a second after they exchange greetings on his return home, not because she doesn't care about him, but because her cheeks and the area around her eyes are unnaturally shiny. If he ran his fingers across her face, he would have felt the sticky remnants of her tears. When they lay together, he knows that there are some nights she doesn't sleep a wink, and gets up several times during it to engage in mindless activity around the house to tire herself out.
He has seen her shake and struggle to not cry when she finally manages to read Marleyan without his help, the book she has chosen to read being about a tragic love he can see her projecting herself into. She does not think of Jean then because he is right there in front of her. Her mind was roaming somewhere else. She goes there often and he knows exactly when she does; she has a peculiar, distant look on her face and it takes her a second longer to notice that he has long arranged the kindling for the fire.
But there are also those rare times when she looks at him and he knows; he sees a side of Mikasa he did not imagine could exist for him.
This Mikasa is shy, antsy about meeting eyes for too long, and startles if they so much as brush shoulders on their narrow passageway. She likes being held and spoken to softly about anything while trying to fall asleep. She likes his new shirt with only three buttons stitched on from the top, staring at him longer than decent. She comments about the time he returns every evening casually, and it doesn't take a genius to observe her displeasure at a later than expected arrival, or how she has not cut her hair ever since he told her on that one Tuesday night about how he likes it long. And how could he ever forget how she pulled him in for the most innocent, dizzying kiss, not knowing what to do with her lips to extract the pleasure that was supposed to come from uniting with another.
Mikasa is an enigma he has wanted to be next to for years. She has been his sorrow and his happiness. He does not know the exact moment he started picturing his future with a wife beside him, with beautiful black hair. It can only be after he fell in love with Mikasa because this perfect wife has a distinct scar on her left cheek.
But he has never wanted her in a way to be the replacement for Eren. Not while he was alive and certainly not after he was dead.
The mere thought of it churned the bile in his system.
There was no way for him to prove definitively that she was not thinking of Eren in the throes of passion. She probably very well was not. But he had promised himself that he would never take advantage of her. She was a woman with full agency, free to make her own decisions of what is best for her, but he also had a responsibility to ensure that he did not make her dependent on him every time she was back in her room alone, fearful of the night.
The scarf, a look in her eye, a previous memory – they arose in him a flicker of a doubt, an uncertainty partly arising from his own insecurity. As soon as they came out of the bubble, she would fall hard into her cold space, regret gripping her inside for days, months, years, until he was pushed out of her positive memories.
She just needed to tell him once that she was ready, that there was no doubt in her.
He could tell she would not be able to do that. He had gone too fast, and she got swept away from the overwhelm of not having to be alone anymore after a long break. Her feelings were not ingenuine. They were just cloudy, conflicted, and it scared the life out of him. There was no such thing as unlimited chances and he needed to make sure he was doing right by her. There was only so much he could take and her regret was not one of them.
He justifies to himself over and over why he had to end things that way. None of the reasons sit right with him, his moral compass wavering, as he just wants to hug her again, kiss her and make it all better. Why couldn't it just be that simple? Why couldn't the kiss from the previous night be enough of an indication that she wanted him for him and not to fill herself momentarily?
"Mikasa, maybe we should talk about this some more," he looks at her seriously, hoping she would look up at him from her soup. "It's not that I care that he will remain special to you-"
"Jean, I don't think I can give you any answers right now," she states helplessly, uncharacteristic of her usual suaveness.
Maybe it was too soon to bring up the matter again. She probably needed to re-evaluate what her boundaries are, what exactly she wants from their relationship, and most painfully, whether she wants a relationship in earnest at all.
"I understand," he quietly takes the empty plates from the table for the washing. "But just so you know, I won't think any less of you no matter what you choose to do. You just need to say the word, and I will go along with it."
He hears her hum a yes. He turns on the tap, his ears poised to hear any other movement from her. He didn't want her to ruminate in her thoughts alone, but she probably needed to. This whole conversation was something they should have had before they ever got married, but whatever needs they had came before their rationality.
He feels the soft vibration of the wooden floor and stiffens in anticipation of Mikasa's approach. Wordlessly, with a blank face, she rolls up her sleeves and takes a plate from him, rinsing it under the water. Their elbows brush, and the familiar warmth rushes up to his cheeks, cursing his weak self for getting affected by her like this during such a tense moment.
The dishes are done in half the time. He appreciates her kind gesture of splitting his chore with him. It gave him some relief that Mikasa was still being herself – one who showed her intentions through her actions rather than words. It made him smile, as he wiped the last of the dishes, following with his eyes her next movement.
A sudden fear grips him. He wonders sadly whether their long separation and interrupted intimate moment had put a dampener on them returning to their previous schedule of spending quality time together at night. Or whether she would even share a bed with him.
The thumping against his chest becomes nearly unbearable as she settles down at her usual spot on the sofa, switching the lights to the soft lighting of the lamp. "I had bought a book from the market that has some very interesting things written about the technology of Marley. I thought you might enjoy it." She says to him, and he thinks he hears some strain in her voice.
"That's thoughtful of you," he heaves his heavy as lead legs and settles down next to her, shivering as though this was their first night together.
They read in a silence that drags on uncomfortably. He takes sneaky glances at her from above his book, trying to get into her mind. A master at hiding her thoughts, she reads on for a good hour seeming unperturbed by the heaviness of the atmosphere.
Her mask slips away for an ephemeral moment in between, as he catches her look to him too. She flickers her irises back to the book in front of her, pretending nothing happened, except that now, she looked like she was trying to sink her face into the book. He can't help but smile. They were so hopeless but at least they were hopeless together in that moment. It was reassuring.
The ticking of the clock echoes louder and louder, pressuring the parties pretending to read their books to relent and head to bed. Jean gives in, frustrated now that they were pointlessly behaving like children who had had a fight. They were needlessly being awkward around one another when all they needed to do was have a calm discussion like mature adults, the way he had planned from the start.
He had uncovered at least ten things about their previous intimate interaction in the interim. It replayed in his head till he was drenched in embarrassment and cringe. His love confession took the cake though for most inappropriately timed. But it was out there, and maybe it was for the best. He had held it in for too long anyway.
"I think I'm going to retire to bed now," He tries to sound casual, stretching mindlessly even though he felt like a jellyfish around her.
She nods at him. He stalls for a minute, arranging the books on the coffee table with his shaking fingers.
When she makes no further move, he goes upstairs, only to get the same feeling that this was not right. He was vacillating too much between being there for her and not being there for her. His conscience gets the better of him once he enters his room, and he does an about turn, ready to rush back to Mikasa and tell her how this isn't how things should be.
But he crashes into her instead, a pillow in her hand.
"I prefer this one," she betrays no emotion, walking in the dark towards the bed, settling herself into it like it's the most natural thing in the world. He closes his hanging jaw and joins her uneasily under the same blanket spread across the bed, noticing how it was in disarray from their earlier tryst. Now those images seemed too unreal, as they both lie straight on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
She breaks the silence, startling him, his face red hot now, "Do you think we can at least, just for today…" she outstretches her hand towards his, her fingers inches away from his own.
His heart melts at her innocence.
What is wrong with him? Does it even matter if she thinks about someone else, or if she regrets that it's him later when the morning-after sun shines on his light brown hair and hazel eyes and not the colours she might have been wishing they were?
He shakes away the unhealthy thought and willingly interlocks their fingers together, the electricity already running through his body intensifying. He turns to look at her, and she surprisingly does the same, until they are face to face, the distance between them seeming like an ocean. He can't help but guide his other hand towards her face, brushing away the stray lock of hair obstructing the view of her pretty face, detailed by her unique scar.
The right thing to do would be to take his hand back and respect the distance between them. But she looks particularly lovely in the moonlight, seemingly being more suited to such scenes rather than bright sunshines. He strokes her hair down to her back, admiring the silky feel of it littered by knots that he had probably caused earlier.
"Do you think you could wait for me?" She says with a sincerity that aches him. He could never say no to any request that comes out so earnestly from her.
"Of course. That was always on offer," he steadies his hand on her head for a second, before pulling back.
"Thank you, Jean," She gives him the smallest of smiles that activates the butterflies in his stomach before she closes her eyes.
That was one of the last times in the following few weeks that they had slept on the same bed.
Their days go by slowly, with awkwardness punctuating their mundane interactions.
Jean apologises more than necessary when he trips over a stone while he and Mikasa carry logs from a nearby forest in preparation for winter. She looks more distressed when he comes near her to reach for the large container she needs from on top of the cabinets, moving away to the other side of their tiny kitchen when he gets on his toes. He draws away his hand in haste when he notices a bit of food on the corner of her mouth, unthinkingly reaching to wipe it away, only to switch to indicating where she should wipe instead. She looks away and rushes out of the room frantically when she finds him working out in their living room on a Sunday morning that he somehow woke up earlier on.
He does not mind it but it feels too akin to being newly-wedded strangers, circling around each other juvenilely. It feels like they're both holding back something, keeping themselves under tight control for fear of disorder with the smallest of slip-up. Last time they let their bodies do the talking, they were about to cross a line that would likely have brought a long-drawn out calamity between them.
He agonised over every detail of her more than necessary. He would notice all the times she was looking at him, hoping she would say something, and all the times she turned away too quickly, completely ignoring his presence in the room. When they had shared the bed right after their intimate moment, there was a hope in him that everything would be okay.
But watching her now, he knows he is mistaken. He had hurt her and he was doing nothing about it, always waiting for her to make the first move and tell him she is ready to talk. At this point, he did not know whether he was being respectful of her space or just neglectful of her feelings.
On a Saturday evening, he watches her from their kitchen table. She is seated on the floor near the coffee table, writing a letter in full concentration, likely to Armin. None of their friends had visited the Island for two months now, which means they only had the company of each other on quiet evenings like this.
In fact, increasingly, all their evenings were quiet, asphyxiatingly so.
They weren't cold to each other. They were just coincidentally existing in the same plane. When they were first married, at least it felt like she considered him to be a part of her life. But now, it was like she was actively trying to deny it. They would talk but none of their hearts would be in it. They were too focused on what the other was thinking. Their communication had broken down to such an extent, that he didn't dare to surmise whether they would recover at all.
He felt the burden of it crushing him – the burden of his misspoken and mistimed words that had steered them off course. Now everyday felt like a drag. He didn't have much words left to say, feeling worse watching the life in Mikasa's eyes die slowly each day, even when she would give him a tiny smile after doing a simple task for her like buying the groceries for the week.
There was very little keeping him sane. The scribbling of her pen scratching on the paper was not one of them, his gaze on her strong enough to burn a hole through the paper her attention was on.
"Alright, that's it," he announces, standing up from the chair abruptly, drawing her attention towards him. "We're going out."
"No, thank you," she says so courteously that it hurts his ears as she gets back to her letter.
"I have a place I'd like to show you on the other edge of Shiganshina. I think you'll like it," he says pleadingly, approaching her.
"But I'm not dressed," She says coolly, which he knew by now was Mikasa-speak for "fuck off" merely because it wasn't something she was particularly bothered about.
He repeats himself, undeterred, "That's okay. I'll need a few minutes myself. We're going to be fancy today. I'll see you back here in a bit." He races up the stairs, catching a glimpse of a Mikasa who was blinking blankly at where he was seated earlier. When he reaches the room, he celebrates a little, fist in the air. He could feel it; she was considering his offer.
When he descends the stairs, feeling good in his dress pants, structured navy blue coat, and gelled hair, he is surprised to find Mikasa in a pleasant cream dress with a red cardigan to match her red scarf with locks of her long, loose hair lightly fluttering against the wind blowing in from the window she was looking outside.
A blush tints across his face, and he contemplates whether it would be prudent to comment on how breath-taking he finds her. She turns to look at him with a frown, and the decision is made for him when she chides instead, "Why do you always take so long to get ready?"
He tugs at his tie to adjust it, conscious about the fact that he indeed does take much longer than Mikasa to get dressed. But when one looks the way she does, it's understandable that they would need no time at all, and that peasants like him were only trying their best to catch up. She does not need to hear the pathetic side of his behaviour so blatantly though, so he settles for, "Can't afford to look too sloppy next to you." He grins at her, hoping he had nailed two birds with one stone.
She turns away and grabs the door keys, muttering a "Whatever" under her breath, heading out into the cool night.
He rushes to catch up to her, keeping a steady pace behind her. "You know where to go?"
"You're free to lead the way."
"Let's just get to the city. I'll take it from there."
"We're going inside?"
"Yeah. We had decided it's okay, didn't we?"
"Hm."
Their long walk is uneventful, as Jean takes the time to feel the cool air brush against his face, hoping to calm down his uneasiness from being out and about with Mikasa. They hadn't done anything like this since the time she had come to visit him in the bar, not to mention, they had not spent this much time together since the day he had returned.
He just knew this would happen; the minute they got physically close, it was already proving impossible for him to wind down the desire he held for her, both carnal and emotional. Which is why he was scared out of his wits at the chance possibility that Mikasa would have woken up the next day and been disappointed to find that it was him in her bed, and he would have been disappointed to find that he was only in her bed and nowhere else, that there was no space for him from the start.
Today, he decides it is the day to reiterate that if she needed time to think about what Jean meant to her, he would give it to her. The love he felt for Mikasa did not stop at romantic, but only began there. He cared for her as a person. The whole episode had reaffirmed to him that his intentions towards her were never about getting close to her physically or getting her to love him back. Those would have just been lucky consequences. He wanted to make her happy and keep her happy. He had believed he could once upon a time, as conceited as such a belief was. He just needed to find that confidence again.
He watches Mikasa from the back the whole journey, steeling his intentions, walking beside her from some point with greater distance between them than necessary to lead them to the restaurant. They are seated in the hall of the large restaurant, with dim lighting and soft music.
Mikasa glances at the menu and around her, "Is this place really okay? It seems too fancy and expensive."
"Yeah. I'm doing pretty well at my job honestly. I might have some Yeagerist blood in me after all," He tries to look nonchalantly at the prices printed on the menu, realising maybe he shouldn't have put himself and "Yeager" in the same sentence. He overrides the misspoken words, hoping to divert her attention, "We haven't come out in a while. I think we deserve a treat once in a way," he smiles at her and she gives him that rehearsed one of hers he couldn't stand, which quickly retreated into a sad frown when she assumed he wasn't looking.
Mikasa orders a soup when the waitress comes by, and nothing else, ignoring all the suggestions for the specials of the day and entrees. He asks her, concerned, requesting the wait staff for some more time before ordering the main course, "Don't you want anything else? We could try something different."
"I'm not particularly hungry. You go ahead," she says pleasantly.
"Are you sure? If it's about the prices, I swear we have more than enough saved up."
"No, I'm fine," she draws out her words like it was tedious to speak out loud. "We can split the bill anyway. This isn't a date or anything like that."
He feels a frown forming on his features. To be fair, this was another important topic they should have discussed before marrying. None of them were ever bothered about the finances. She spent on groceries and he spent on utilities and everything else. He loosens his tie when he feels a drop of sweat run down his temple, uncomfortable with the topic, not wanting to offend her in any way. He settles for saying nothing and instead, ordering food in excess.
"I don't think I can eat this much," he groans. "Do you think you could help me finish?"
"It's a bad strategy, Jean. Can't you leave me be?" She was trying hard to maintain her usual neutrality but he could sense the ire in her voice.
He leans forward for some friendly fire, "No, I can't. I know we still have a lot of issues but can't we make peace for tonight, just have a decent night out? The best part is yet to come," he asks pleadingly, leaving his ego aside.
Even through the music and the chatter of the crowd, he can vaguely make out a faint grumbling noise from across the small table separating them. Embarrassed, she reluctantly accepts a plate of his food, and he doesn't comment.
Something big was coming; it was brewing inside of her - he could feel it. They had let their relationship go out of control, and now they were uneasily treading on a tightrope waiting to snap.
He is grateful when they get through the dinner uneventfully. He couldn't help but notice their lack of eye contact, how none of them wanted to look at each other for more than three seconds, opting to observe the crowd passively instead, or the menu they had each memorised by now. His stomach throbs from the premonition that the truce between them was temporary, that he would surely come to regret his actions even more. Her forlorn expression throughout was projected as a fixture in his mind.
He is even more grateful when they leave the restaurant, reluctantly letting each pay their share of the bill. The crispness of the air revives his spirit as he leads her to the place he wanted to show her.
They arrive at a still lake flanked by cobbled paths, metal railings and wooden benches – a perfectly picturesque location to calm their senses.
"What's this?" Mikasa asks blankly, unimpressed.
"This is development. I figured you had not ventured out much. I'm assuming you must have had to leave Shiganshina through that little canal and boat. They've expanded and extended the waterworks to create this little lake as a tourist spot. I thought you'd like it - a bit of nostalgia," he leans on the railings, admiring the black vastness of the water body located at the edge of the town, acting like a border before the next.
Mikasa hesitantly joins him, similarly supporting herself against the railing, her features immediately changing to one of deep contemplation. He gives her some time to herself, imagining all the memories that might be rushing through her head – all the bloodshed, the people they had lost, the panic in their faces, the anguish, the screams, and now, the results of their sacrifices.
She is absolutely quiet for several minutes, her inky hair flying around her so he could barely see her face, and he worries, second-guessing whether it was a good idea to bring her here. "I wish I could get inside your head sometimes, just to see what you're thinking about."
"And here I'm trying to get out of it," She says so smoothly, that he can't help but divert his whole attention to her.
"Why did you bring me here, Jean? What are you trying to do?"
She interrogates him so suddenly, that it disarms him. She had turned to face him, and he sees her lips quivering. On a closer look, there was a moistness that had formed in the corners of her eyes.
"I just thought you would like it, since it's a place from your childhood-"
"-You were not a part of it," She states definitively. "You have no role in any of this."
As true as her words rang, it felt like a stab in the chest to him.
You're not a part of my life.
The subtext was not hard to miss. He attempts softly, trying to hold his ground, not letting his weakness in front of her give way, "No, I was not. But I am a part of your present and I vowed to make you happy. I thought this could do it but clearly, I was mistaken."
Another silence, heavier than the last. Mikasa leans back on the railing, her hair shrouding her face from his view completely. He hears her mutter under her breath faintly, "Why did you have to… why do you do this…"
He slides in closer to where she is standing, straining his ears to hear her better, his heartbeat quickening from the dread that had been pooling in his stomach, ready to feel the crash of the incoming wave destroy him.
"You could have just let me be… but you… why…"
"Mikasa?" Clear concern is laced in his voice, as he taps her on her shoulder.
She slaps his hand away and he takes a step away from her instinctively, the aftershock hitting him harder than he had prepared himself for. His mind clouds, and he is terrified that he had hurt Mikasa on a deeper level than he had estimated.
It could not simply be because of that night, could it? It would make no sense. She seemed to understand why stopping was necessary… she understood it, she had said so. She just was not ready to talk about it yet since she had only gained the awareness then that it was indeed Jean who was with her in that moment and that she had not considered the full consequences of it.
Then why was she looking at him like she… abhorred him?
He takes a step towards her, gauging her reaction.
"Don't," She orders venomously. "Don't come any closer."
"What's wrong?" he stutters helplessly, feeling powerless in front of this woman, as hordes of others have, knowing that she could cut him down with a single word. "What did I do?"
"Leave me alone!" She shouts out, emotions running high in her voice, her body shaking from the impact of the words she was spitting out.
Jean is confused and he can't help but let his hurt show on his face, his mouth twisting in the newly conferred sorrow. "Okay, let me try and underst-"
"Stop with this- this, being nice thing all the time!" She grits her teeth. "Everything was fine the way it was before…"
"Why do you say that?" He asks as calmly as possible, his mind stubbornly gripping onto rationality even as the lid on the pressure of his emotions was ready to fly off.
"You turned my life upside-down, Jean!" Her pitch shifts to a softer hopelessness, her eyebrows knitted tightly together in grief, forming deep creases on her forehead, her fingers balled into fists by her side, "I could have lived my whole life as I was, just slinking into oblivion eventually – peaceful, lost in my thoughts, but you, you couldn't leave me be, could you?"
He purses his lips, his teeth gritted behind them, furrows forming on his forehead as well, "Is that what you would have wanted?"
"Yes," her answer is immediate, infallible. "I hate you for changing my life."
She could have slapped him so hard that his neck snapped and it would have still hurt less than her statement. He has nothing to say. There is nothing to say after that.
"I don't know who you did this whole marriage parade for. We have rings we never wear, and things we never talk about or do. You said some pretty noble words during your proposal, about how we can lean on each, share in each others' burdens but what burdens do you even have, Jean! You got your dream that I just found out about, many peaceful nights of sleep, a house in Paradis but what did I get?" She pushes her fingers against her chest for emphasis and closes in on him, startling him, as he walks backwards, until he reaches the railings.
"Whatever progress I had made in the three years before I met you, you rewind on me so that I'm back having to trudge through all those feelings all over again! Do you have any idea how many sleepless nights I've had? How many waking nightmares? How much my skin has stung, going raw from tears that can't stop? Just when I was finding a rhythm, you happen!"
Beyond his better sensibilities, Jean interjects, a fighting spirit left in him, refusing to believe he could be capable of plunging the one person he would never even joke about hurting, into soul-shattering despair, "I never wanted to do anything but be there for you. How could I predict this is what would have happened? Granted, asking you to marry me was rash and selfish but, at that time, I really saw no other way! Do you regret it? Because I don't, no matter what you feel about me, because it was never even about what you felt for me in the first place!" He lets loose any vulnerability he was holding on to.
"I do. I regret it all the time," There is no life in her voice, the little spirit left in her grey orbs having disappeared. Her whole being is a shaky mess and he feels the strong urge to hold her up, figuratively and literally, but she would want none of that from him.
She slinks to the stone ground on to her knees, like she had lost control of herself, and the images from the early period of their marriage hits him like a train, chilling his bone to the fact that he had truly done something to retard all the progress she had made so that she came to regret all of it. Without a doubt, she was suffering more than she had before and he was the cause. All of his fears had been realised and he had missed the bus in helping her avoid her doom.
He can't get himself to move a muscle as he watches her from above, shell-shocked as she was in full-throttled tears, attracting a couple of bystanders to the scene, in spite of the late hour of the night. Gasps from around faintly reaches his ears, a constant buzzing sound being the only thing registering in his mind, all of Mikasa's words jumbling up in his brain, comprehension having left him the minute she admitted to associating him with regret.
He snaps back to reality, a cry from Mikasa reminding him that this was not the time for him to remain in his head, that he had to face the mess he had created. He gives a stern look to the onlookers, compelling them to disperse from the scene, feeling the need to shield Mikasa's closely-guarded vulnerability from the vultures. He kneels beside her, and listens, wanting to ask only those questions that would help her vent as he steels his heart. "It's best you let it all out now," he mutters to her.
"In that moment, you… you made me forget Eren. I never would have if not for you," She puts her head down to the cobblestone path, the dampening of the stone visible even from his angle next to her. "I've been forgetting him a lot. I was never supposed to. This long life I have, is only because of him, and you… you've just unnecessarily complicated that. I wouldn't even have noticed that he was leaving me without you pointing it out to me."
If it were any other time, he would have probably been celebrating the fact that he was right; she did have genuine feelings for him. But not like this. Not when she absolutely resented having feelings for him. He, meanwhile, resented being compared to someone else, making it seem like he was fighting for a spot in her heart. If this was the only way she could bear to have feelings for him, he would have preferred she didn't have any at all.
She lifts her head up, and as much as seeing her tear-stained face pained him, he was glad she could at least look at him without hurling. She takes him by surprise by grabbing at the fabric near his collar with her hands, bringing him out of the trance that his mind was constantly plunging him into, processing the hundred things he should say to her and the hundred things he shouldn't, trying its very best to keep the strings of rationality intact.
"Why do you let me take you for granted, to get close to you when I'm so unfair to you? How can you bear this? I'm hating this. I feel so, so guilty, that I don't know what to do with myself. Eren, I –I killed him Jean, I killed him-"
"Shh, Mikasa, not here," his survival instinct kicks in, and he is conscious that they are not alone here. He could no longer protect what was happening inside of her, but he could still certainly protect her physically. That much should be okay, that much she could allow. He pulls her in for a hug, gently caressing her hair, trying to calm her down. She doesn't resist, scrunching his shirt tightly, dampening his shirt. "Not here. We can talk about it at home."
"But I killed him," her tears flow freely, and she seems to be in shock from saying those words out loud for the first time. She murmurs into him, "I killed him… I killed him… in spite of what I feel for him…"
"It's okay-"
"-How is it okay?"
He takes some time to form the words on his tongue, gathering his guts to spill it out. "There was never any version of you that I loved that didn't already love Eren. He was your only home for the longest time. You had to do what you had to do because of that. So, it is okay. It always has been. Not ideal, but okay, because I understand what he meant to you."
She looks at him wide-eyed, pausing for a moment, and he feels a momentary respite. He thinks that too soon for she breaks down again, her sobs returning, making it harder for him to control the urge that was brimming at its limit to comfort her. He felt disgusted at himself and he would not want to give Mikasa even more reason to hate him.
"What are we going to do, Jean? It feels like I'm trapped in this cage forever, and that something is stopping me if I try to escape it. I can't do this to you. I'm so sorry," she starts stuttering out her chain of apologies in a whisper, as she helplessly puts her arms around him in a desperation which feels like the longest, most torturous goodbye.
"What are you saying?" He mutters out, wrapping his arms around her protectively, conscious of the fact that no matter what he did, it was going to end badly.
"I'm so sorry for taking advantage of you. I came to you only when I was at my lowest, hoping you would take away all my guilt and my pain but honestly, it just made it all the worse because when I was with you, I realised how badly I'm stuck in this suffocating feeling that I don't know how to get rid of."
"You taking advantage of me? It's the other way around. Everyone knows that. I shouldn't have come to you when you were not ready, whatever my intentions were," He laments bitterly, as she cries into his shoulder.
"No, no, that's not it. I don't see it like that!" She pulls back, looking offended at his statement.
"I'm not thinking straight," she states in a striking moment of lucidity, flabbergasting him, as though his previous statement triggered something inside of her. She sits up straight on her knees, placing her hands on her thighs, looking him straight in the eye, her face mostly dried up from her furious wiping, and whispers, "I don't want you to go."
He lets out the breath that he had been holding.
"But I don't even think we can stay this way."
He nods at her blankly, nibbling at his lip, unable to see any next moves at his disposal from her conflicted answer. "Do you think you could tell me what you would to do? I don't want to do this either if we are both just going to find ourselves at the deep end like this."
She ponders, and evaluates, trouble marring her features, as he makes and releases his fists, ready for the guillotine fall on him.
"I'm sorry, I think I've said a lot of things I shouldn't have," she looks away with the same guilt that had been on his face the whole time. "I wish I could take it all back."
"No, this is… fine. We were long overdue for a chat," he forces a smile at her briefly, trying to reassure her and himself that such a conversation was necessary.
"How can you be this nice? I've-I've messed up. I didn't want you to feel like this. Not you." She shakes her head regretfully, "I should have taken the time to settle my thoughts. But I've… always been a little unsettled since that day, and I pulled you into my misery too."
"And I don't think we should have danced around the realities of what we were doing," he says seriously. "You should have told me the minute you felt like I was overstepping, and I should have come clean about my feelings from the start. If you knew, I think your answer to my proposal might have been different."
She nods slowly, not meeting his eye, probably not wanting to upset him, which he was grateful for because his guilt was crushing him anyway.
"Let me think about how to make this right, if you'll give me that chance," he pleads, bowing his head.
"No, I- please," she hesitantly places her hands on his shoulders, prompting him to lift his head warily, "I know I said I bunch of things that were completely uncalled for, and possibly even untrue. I think I…" she turns away from him, casting her eyes down in shame, "I just wanted someone to blame and designated you as the scapegoat. The decisions I made were still mine, and what I felt, and feel for you are still the same. Maybe we should have just dated instead."
"Would you have said yes for a date back then?"
"Probably not."
Jean lets out a wry laugh that bewilders Mikasa.
Mikasa is such an incredibly frustrating, confusing and complicated woman and he doesn't think he could love her more than he does now seeing the whole of her raw self like this. He doesn't regret his feelings one bit, even though from her words, it seems more like a disease that's festering on him, that he needs to amputate out of his system.
"Then it comes down to the same thing. None of this would have happened if we didn't marry."
"No. But you could have tried asking me out a few times. I might have said yes eventually."
"That's just not me. I would have taken the hint. Believe it or not, even I have my boundaries."
"I can believe that."
A silence greets them, giving them time to digest the intensity of the conversation they had had, the awkward awareness of the fact creeping in with comical effect, that they were sitting all decked up in the middle of the city on stone, in the middle of the night.
"Did you like this spot at least?" Jean says lightly, trying to diffuse the situation, completely spent from the inside.
"Theoretically, I did, but this was never a pleasant memory to begin with," she says honestly, looking at him sympathetically. It seemed that Mikasa had similarly calmed down, to Jean's relief, not having any bandwidth left himself to deal with his emotional turmoil or that of his companion's.
"Ah," understanding dawns on Jean. So the place itself was the trigger. What a dumbass he was. Of course she wouldn't want to reminisce her violent childhood philosophically, analysing how far they've come, when she was still dealing with the trauma of more recent events. "Yeah, you can hate me. I deserve it," he bites out defeatedly.
"Jean…" she warns, her neutral line of the lips turning downwards again to a full-fledged distress.
"Too soon, I guess. Honestly though, I'm not sure what we got out of this conversation. What do you want to do, Mikasa?" He asks gently.
She takes in a deep breath, thinking hard about her answer, before saying, "My answer hasn't changed. I need some time to think about what I want to do about all of… this."
"Us."
"Yes. I don't want to be unfair to you. I'm asking you to please give me some more time, as selfish as it is," she says persuasively.
"In that case, my answer has not changed either. For better or for worse, I will wait for you. Meanwhile, I will try not to overstep and make my feelings a burden."
"I can't promise mine won't be a burden."
"That's perfect," he gives her a genuine smile. "That's what I've always wanted." She smiles back at him unsurely.
After a pause, he says, "Should we head home now maybe? If we're still calling it that."
"Yes, we can still call it that. You go ahead though. I'll need a few minutes." He worries about leaving her here, but if there is anything he has learned, it's that he had to let her be sometimes.
He stands up and dusts himself off, stretching out his legs from the long session of kneeling. "Come whenever you're ready." Steadying his heart, he turns around from her and walks away, hands in his pockets, trembling, feeling the punctures her words had left in him.
A few things were made clear to him – a lot of bitter truths. It was clear that Mikasa had developed romantic feelings for Jean, and she seemed to have woken up to the reality of it only once he pointed it out to her.
The suffocating guilt in her was not from their kiss itself, so much as from the realisation that they were becoming something more, all the while with Mikasa not having properly healed from her past. What his role should be from now on was not decidedly different from how it has been all these months. All their feelings were now in the open. They were just incompatible. As the party who was better adjusted purely due to circumstance, it was still his responsibility to be careful with her but at the same time, respecting her ability to make decisions for herself.
All in all, the conclusion is… that he is still utterly lost.
He sighs out loud, realising that maybe this was the wake up call he needed to give up on his feelings in earnest. All this time, he was doing it half-heartedly, noticing the smallest things about her that made his heart flutter, fanning the embers of hope. This hope was the first thing he needed to kill. It was injuring both him and Mikasa too much, especially when she was not even ready to harbour any romantic feelings for him, too scared of the cost it came with.
The mature step to take would be to devise new steps to sustain themselves for the long term. As strong as he wanted to be, it was hard to digest the fact she couldn't bear the thought of moving on with him. He was going to need time and energy to think.
On the sound of footsteps hitting against concrete, he turns around to find Mikasa trying to catch up to him with quickened steps.