Ahh, this felt good!
I haven't written anything creatively for so long, since I'm following an outline for every one of my stories, so this was a really welcomed experience. I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I did writing this piece :)
Mikasa would lie awake most nights. She would wait until her eyes grew weary and she fell asleep.
Her dreams were often carried away by a faint breeze. A fragrant air that wafted Eren's scent into the vault of her memories and blew his existence deeper into her dream – where she would see him, sitting on the roof with a mug of cocoa, languidly watching the world pass underneath the starless sky.
In those moments, Mikasa would watch him from her bedroom window. The view unrestricted by the curtains she kept pulled back inside her unlit room, wholly capturing his silhouette two houses away.
The mere sight of him would rise Mikasa out of her sheets and into the night, following the familiar trek to his house – where she would see him, standing outside in his shorts and sweater.
"What do you want to do?" he would ask once she was near enough to grasp the whispers of his voice.
"Nothing." she would say, sinking deeper into the warmth of her scarf as she followed him inside. "I just want to stay here with you."
But like always, the hands of the clock would move and tick past the flow of time, where the scenery disappeared from her eyes and the memory faded from her waking eyes.
Secretly, Mikasa loved the quiet moments the most. Moments when it was only the two of them without the chirpings of others breathing into the private spaces of their home. It was only then her fingers would wander – out of her pocket and into the cold air when she sought the gentle warmth of his hands.
Mikasa loved these moments where she could feel the silence of his touch, gently warming her fingers inside the pocket of his jacket. . .
Mornings used to greet her with the gentle breeze of his footsteps, the faint sizzle of pans, wafting the scent of breakfast across the walls of their home. . .
She would stand by the doorway, watching him turn and look over his shoulder, greeting her with a smile and his gentle eyes at a time when the sun still rose high in the sky.
"What do you want to do?" Eren would ask, languidly lying on the couch, flipping through the channels with no clear interest.
"Nothing," she would say without straying from the book she perched on her lap, curled on the other edge of the couch. "I just want to stay here with you."
Satisfied, Eren hummed a tune that now haunted her most nights.
Mikasa lay deep underneath the covers, weary until the hands of the clock moved, carrying her into a time when the sun still rose in the sky. Flittering its rays across the high rising buildings on afternoons they visited the football pitch.
On those days, Mikasa would sit on the bleachers, water bottle in hand and a bag full of pain relief patches in case the carrier of wounds visited Eren on the field, haunting him with old aches and inflicting him with others as he dribbled across the field, soaked in sweat, and exhausted on a weekend he hung out with friends. She would always make sure to keep an eye on the jerking of his elbows, the bending of his knees in case the cracks resounded before they broke. . .
"I'm fine," Eren would remind her during breaks, unscrewing the cap and taking a large swing from her water bottle as his gaze swiped across the field at something far away, invisible in front of her eyes even when she followed the trajectory of his gaze. . .
"I know you are," Mikasa would say quietly to herself when Eren's gaze still lingered distant, withdrawn and quiet until the light returned in his eyes, vigorous and full of life.
In those moments Mikasa would smile, thinking she could come to understand him another time. . .
"What do you want to do?" Mikasa would whisper most days, filling the silence with conversations they used to keep alive between the two of them.
The rhythmic beating of his chest would lull her with comfort when she lay awake at night, tracing loose patterns on the front of his shirt - patterns that she had long since marred into the fitted sheets of her mattress, wondering and thinking, and thinking again –
I want to see you.
The roof across her bedroom window stood vacant. His house shone darker than the evening sky when it once lit up with cheerful laughter and fragrant memories. . .
"I'll be right back," Eren had promised, but Mikasa still waited for his quirky smile and well lit up eyes when she lay awake most nights.
"Let me go with you," she had wanted to say but each word was lodged in her throat as she watched the inevitable closing of the door. She would wake up with dampened sheets, and a voice so hoarse, there was nothing to hear.
(There was only the screeching of the car, worn tires skidding across the road, colliding against the guardrail of a remote motorway that she saw on the evening news.)
Mikasa would lie awake most nights. She would wait until her eyes grew weary and she fell asleep.
Her dreams were often carried away by a faint breeze. A fragrant air that wafted Eren's scent into the vault of her memories and blew his existence deeper into her dream.
In those moments she would hear his laughter first – chortled underneath the back of his fist. Each tune would vibrate from his chest into a husky wheeze of a laugh. His colourful eyes would brighten with splashes of green and swirls of faint blue.
It was only in those moments her hand would wander– away from the gentle hold of his hand and over the stretch of his cheek, where his eyes would curiously follow each miniscule movement of her hand, tracing and retracing every feature of his face as she listened to the beating of his chest, thumping with such strength and vitality, its musicality always used to lull her to sleep in the early hospital hours.
.
.
.
.
"What do you want to do?" Eren asked, groggy and half asleep in the early morning hours, knowing that Mikasa would know the answer even before it resounded in the gentle space of her heart.
"Nothing," she said, just as he predicted, and her nose dipped deeper into her scarf when their fingers gently intertwined. "I just want to stay here with you."
Satisfied, Eren hummed a tune that Mikasa heard most nights when she lay awake at night, waiting until her eyes grew weary and she fell asleep – right next to him.