A/N: The next chapter, focusing on our main characters! Please review if you like or don't like, it would mean very much to me! I'm always open for improvement if you point it out!

Mikasa

Bustling. Rushing. Mumbles. Problems everywhere. All over the house, Mikasa could hear the buzz of the morning through the endless bickering of her parents. Sometimes she wondered how they managed to fit so many formal questions and fake concern in that one-story house: "where are my keys?", "come down to eat", "go wake the children", "I have to work until late today". She squinted her eyes in small disgust, looking to her side where Eren's form was still covered in the blankets in the bed near hers. Her eyes lingered on the white sheets longer than they should. The windows were wide open and coldness was getting inside, but she didn't seem to mind, because she was trying to chase it away: the calming smell of the sleep from his bed, from his shirt she was wearing, from everything. If you asked any of Eren's friends to tell you how he smelled, Mikasa knew for certain what they would answer: mint, spice, salt, and some other basic smells boys were supposed to smell of. She sighed, she took in the air. In that moment, she didn't feel that unimportant to him, because she knew it all: how he smelled in the morning, before there was time to apply perfume, to say 'Good morning", to start fighting. Before mint, spice, and everything nice, his smell clung to her skin heavy, drowning, ten times stronger than gravity. He smelled like sleep, skin and secrets, and none of the friends, girlfriends and other acquaintances knew that. She was sure of it. For that, she felt proud and some unexplainable joy was created inside her nerves, because he had no choice but to let her steal something vulnerable and intimate. And although Mikasa wasn't sure how secrets were supposed to smell like, she imagined it must be what she inhales when she wakes up at night to find his green eyes staring into hers. No words spoken, no gestures made. Only them, like they were trapped in some primordial silence.

"Mikasa, wake Eren up and go to school, you're going to be late. You don't want that in the first day of school, do you?" A quick spasm of her hand was what had saved her from probably the third world war, led by her mother. She threw open the door to their room in a hurry, and although she was pretending all the time to have good intensions, Mikasa knew her rebellion against the maternal figure of the house was not unjustified. She wanted to catch them. But no luck this time either. Because Mikasa was younger, smarter, quicker and had more guts than anyone. Almost anyone, she thought as her calf was brushing against the foot of Eren's bed.

"Are you hiding something, young lady?" Ugh, there it comes, the interrogatory. By now, Mika was more than certain about the order of the questions. First, she was going to ask about school, even though both children told her the same things about a hundred times.

"When do you finish today?" Then, about the dark circles under her eyes.

"You don't look well rested, did you slept well last night?" Next it's about Eren. Or her. Or her and Eren.

"Did Eren keep you up all night? I thought I heard some noises…"

"Mother, stop it. I was helping Eren with some lessons in literature." Not that he needed them; really "I know it is important for everyone that he does well at those finals at the end of the high school"

"Mikasa..." her mother kindly smiled, she was leaning against the door frame. " You know very well I can tell when you're lying through your teeth" ugh-oh. Busted.

"Get out" Mika sighed and got up to slam the door. Was it her business anyway?

" Sweetie, please…"

"I don't want to hear it" said Mikasa

"Then stop feeding me your bullshit all the time!" Karla's screams hit her in the face like thousands of sand bits from a beach storm, concluded with the slamming of the door, there you had it. The mix of the perfect morning. Mikasa walked to her bed, her feet slow, pale, with pretty veins around them. She intentionally walked with strange, clumsy steps, putting her weight from one foot to the other. She felt strange, but because Eren told her once she looked like a doll everytime she wasn't stepping straight and fierce, she liked to feel clumsy, without precision and careless behind closed doors. She looked at her palm, which was holding a half-smoked cigarette. She brought it closer to her face, examining it , turning it on one side, then on the other. The smoke was rising up, no purpose, no target, only to be washed away by the wind from the outside, grey and full of meaning. Nowdays, dozens of pages from any biology book she had to study talked about the dangers of smoking, cancer, traheoctomy, how it's only a bad habit that is going to ruin the youth of the new generation, making them unable to work, concentrate, fulfill their purpose. Their purpose. Not hers. Or Eren's. There it was, this white stick with an orange tip, her's and Eren's little manifestation against the world. Their own tie to one another that they won't bend or fit, their own secret hidden from the eyes of those who say that they're only reckless and without conscience. She let out a little chuckle and threw the whole package inside her schoolbag. Marlboro.

She turned to Eren's bed, her long fingers grabbing the white sheets and throwing them to the floor. Underneath, a great pile of shirts, jeans, pillows and socks made it look like his form. She had done it the night before, after she waited until 2 AM for him to call her on a public phone. When she made up with the idea that he won't call, as he usually does, she turned into the sculptor of their own tiny toxic world, so that when his mother will knock on their door this morning, she will have it covered while he was out there. Right now, she hated how this big pile turned out, how badly it resembled him. Eren was everything not in the way he scrapped his jeans, ruined his socks or did his own T-shirts with discreet poetry lyrics, but in the way all seemed to fit him like a mirror and her like an armor.

She headed to the door and she threw one more menancing look at the Eren-pile. She resisted the urge to throw in it and surround herself in a closed bronze bubble, because she knew that later that day he would clash right there, tired, spent, no words, like he had been on a journey to search for his soul over the 7 seas. If only he weren't doing exactly that.

He will come back. He always does. While this may seem like cheap self-pity, the messed up sheets, her lighter, the small mirror and their collection of forbidden books under her bed knew she was right all along. He's a dumbass anyway. Not my fault he chose to stay in that far away place until now. She tried to man up and make excuses for her own self, but everytime she tried that, a small corner of her mind scorned her that they weren't fitting just because she didn't listen to him as much as she should. Or maybe she just wasn't reckless enough to walk the line by his side. She was smart, unpredictable and strong, but there was this little bugger: the problem was that she could hardly breathe, and it wasn't from all the cigarttes she smoked.

Eren

„GET OUT OF MY WAAY!" on the train station in the far away place that connected here to the other dreamless, censored places, they were running and running. Quick, aggitated steps were trying to make their way out from the mess they did with their own hands. Two pairs of legs seemed like they were winning the world marathon cup, when in reality, the problem at stake was much more important than that: highschool was starting and they had still a two hour ride with a train that was always trying not to leave.

„Armin, move your ass or we are both more than screwed!" of course, you could imagine who it was about. Two casant souls. The pair of legs clad in heavy, black leather boots turned around and a hand full of sand and smelling like vodka grabbed another hand, paler and more gracile. So they started to run again, and even tho the situation was less than likeable, Eren had a grin on his face enough to light up his whole home town. As his backpack was hitting against his back with full force, his feet were faster than the wheels that started to move, and he whished for nothing more than to be stuck in a time loophole, the kind Armin had told him about the night before: always chasing, his lungs burning, a shell in his pocket, fire in his eyes and a hand to hold onto. He wanted to be able to run forever, towards what was supposed to happen, towards his dreams and ideals, over fields and railways, highways and oceans. 4 more seconds and the train would be gone from the station, so he was dealing with a less-than-likeable situation

„Eren this is all your fault!" the high-pitched voice of his best friend rang in his ears.

4.

One last chance to catch it. He had to somehow jump more than all his muscles could manage from the platform straight through the door of the train.

3.

Chances to make it: less than 0. he imagined himself clashing on the concrete floor, Armin tearing up, his cute little head read with anger. Another chance to dissapoint everyone: his parents, his friends, the system, his fucked-up school, Mik-

2.

Not. This. Time. Not her. Not now. Never. He gritted his teeth and now the door was so close to him, he had to make it. This one-way ticket back to his home, to grab her hand and change the world together.

1.

The wind was everywhere: in his ears, nose, veins, behind him, in the train station. Everything was moving, and he realised for once, that it was not against him. He wanted to laugh at the whole situation. How come he, who pulled every muscle while trying to go against the stream, was suddently helped by it? He held Armin's hand way too tight and did it. The jump. His feet left the ugly platform, and he felt the strings bringing him closer. To them. To her. The ties that bind us. He remembered some fancy words he read a long time ago in some poem.

0.

And love, like a window, you throw yourself from.

They made it. When he opened his eyes, the sky above him was running from him, back here, he was panting like a hunted animal and his legs had given up under him. They had not catched him yet. On his side, Armin looked like he's about to puke.

„We are never doing this again, Eren." He mumbled.

„Shut up, coconut, you loved it." He managed to get up and clash his forehead against his best friend's. Thousands of thoughts roaming, one above the others: ‚ I'm not dissapointing you this time, Puppe.' When the spirits calmed down, Armin was sitting on the connecting wood platform outside of the train, a book in his hand. Eren gave him a small smile, then kneeled beside him.

„Armin, name one person here that learned a lot and ended up well..." he said in a bickering tone

„You don't have any right to say a word after this mess. I won't go anywhere with you again as long as I live!" he bit back.

„ Yes you will..." Eren said with warm, melting eyes and leaned down to rest his head on Armin's lap, fading away in a sweet much-needed sleep. He loved it. Everything. And nothing would stop him this time.