He went against the waves and broke them with his board. His head disappeared. Mikasa searched from the shoreline. Then he was back, his knees bent, his hands out, ghosting along the surf, having found the biggest wave to ride.
The white morning was dazzling on the ocean's surface. Mikasa let the soft sand dribble between her fingers, onto her ten little piggies.
Dawn colors glimmered on the backs of crabs as they found pockets in the shore. The wave took Eren back. He stabbed his kid-sized board in the sand and sat down with his back to her. His wetsuit was a second skin. He was a sleek black seal.
"Help me with the zipper," Eren said.
Mikasa helped him. This, she thought, was a very important job. Without her, Eren would be stuck in his swimming skin even after they went home, and he'd have to walk to school in it the next day.
The zipper parted the wetsuit down his back. A triangle of white skin glowed in the sun. Knobs humped along his neck. He freed his arms. His shoulders and elbows were pink, raw where the suit had been the tightest. His dark hair flattened to his skull. Mikasa ran her small hands through it and mussed it all around.
"'Kasaaaaa!" Eren shouted. Mikasa ran away. Foam bubbled beneath her feet.
Eren slipped from the rest of his wetsuit like a minnow and chased after her, butt naked. They ran along the beach until Eren's mother caught them and Eren went home early.
Mikasa was a little bigger than Eren when she was seven. She could pin him under her whenever they wrestled. But she was a whole lot smaller than Reiner. He was nine and big as a whale.
Mikasa's dad and Eren's mom met his mom at the beach, and now they all sat under the same rainbow umbrella and ate lunch on the same Spongebob Squarepants towel.
The kids played House. Armin, who had gotten a ride from Mrs. Carla, was nowhere to be found.
When the tide was low, a reef rose from the surf. This reef was slippery and coated in algae. Sharp rocks stabbed the pads of your feet when you walked on it. Normally, Mikasa and Eren's parents didn't let them play there, but Reiner's mom said it was okay, and they didn't want to be impolite. That's when House was invented. In House, you staked claim to one of the many tidal pools that puddled the reef. You could move in with someone if you wanted.
"Eren—"
"Go away! This is me and Reiner's house. Find your own!"
Reiner gave her an apologetic look.
Mikasa sat cross-legged in a pool at the base of Eren and Reiner's mansion. Here, the waves sprayed over the edge of the reef. Shivering, Mikasa decorated her house with pretty seashells.
Eren decided that House was boring, so House became Fort. Mikasa had to try to take their fort all by herself. She sized up Reiner. Eren, she could win against. Reiner was too big. Too strong.
Mikasa shook her head. "I don't wanna."
"You have to. Boys versus girls."
Eren lobbed a mussel he'd peeled from the wall of the reef. It hit Mikasa on the forehead and she sat down in her pool and cried for twelve minutes.
Eren and Reiner hid in the fort and whispered urgently to one another.
Armin came back, toting his yellow bucket heavily, the rim sloshing water everywhere. He saw Mikasa and sat down in her pool.
"Look, Mikasa," he said.
She peered into the bucket in his lap. Nothing was in there. Mikasa wiped her eyes, sniffled, and frowned.
"Huh?" Armin said. "Where'd the little guy go?"
Some of the yellow in the bucket suddenly displaced. A banana blob darted around the walls of its container.
"There! Wow! He changed color!"
Mikasa's eyes grew wide in amazement. Usually, the uncoordinated Armin could only nab sea snails and hermit crabs to put in his aquarium bucket for "research." Today was a special critter. Armin ran away again on his wisely sandalled feet to ask the adults about it.
Mikasa had quick hands. She caught the yellow and it wasted no time turning skin tone in her palms. She dropped it back into the bucket and it was yellow again. Mikasa scratched her head.
Armin came back again.
"Did you know?" Armin said, which was the same thing he always said when he was about to state a fact that no one else knew. "Cuttlefish can camouflage! They can turn the color of their environment so nobody can see them."
Mikasa wished she was a cuttlefish. Then she could change to the color of a boy and be allowed to enter Eren's fort. Whatever the color of a boy was. Reiner always wore red swim trucks, so maybe red was the boy-color. Reiner was more of a boy than Eren was, she thought, because he was the biggest and Eren was the second-littlest and Armin's shaggy hair often got him mistaken for a girl.
"'Kasa," Reiner said, standing over her. His shadow chased the sun away.
Mikasa didn't look up. "My name's not that," she said.
Reiner turned as red as his trunks. "Oh! S-sorry! I didn't know."
"Mi-kasa," she said, pronouncing it like her mom did.
"Mi-kasa," Reiner said.
"Uh-huh?"
"Sorry for throwing rocks at you."
Mikasa looked up. Eren was hiding behind Reiner. She looked past Reiner and his bigness, and said to Eren, "It's all right."
Eren's eyes had been trained downward. Now they were on her, swirling, color-changing, all the blue and green hues of the sea. He beamed.
Eren turned ten. He had his birthday party at the park near the beach. Under a cabana, all his friends sat on a bench and ate cupcakes. Eren was at the head, and a social hierarchy placed the others around him in order of popularity with the birthday boy. Armin and Reiner sat on either side of him and Mikasa sat on the very edge of the bench, chipping teal paint from the wood.
Eren liked to lick his cupcake bald and throw the rest away. Mikasa offered hers to him and she got to swap seats with Jean Kirstein, who thought Eren's cupcake-eating habits were gross.
Then it was time for presents. Eren unwrapped the biggest one first, a gift from his brother whose name made Mrs. Carla's lips downturn slightly when she read it aloud.
A new surfboard. A real surfboard. It had a waxed body and fins like dolphins in the wake. A racing stripe streaked down its middle. This was Eren's favorite.
Teams were picked for manhunt. Eren demanded to be captain. Reiner was chosen as the other, because he was oldest. He was also different at twelve years old. He'd been tubby, but now that baby fat was simmering away, and he was still shooting upwards, showing no signs of stopping. He commanded respect now, and this fact was dawning on him slowly.
Mikasa was on Eren's team. Sunset threw their shadows far across the lawn. Big shadows running after small people. Darkness fell and Mikasa hid in a bush by the banquet pavilion.
A crash of leaves and snapping branches. Eren rustled in beside her. His eyes bogged.
"You?"
"Me," Mikasa agreed.
"Scoot your butt. This is my hiding place now."
Mikasa scooted her butt.
Eren's hair was frosted with saltwater. He smelled like boys always did, of grass and bugs and other earthly odors. Cupcake sprinkles dotted his round cheek. Mikasa wanted to brush them off with her thumb. His bony knees jutted from his pants, scuffed and stained brown.
After a while of swatting mosquitoes, Eren said, "Wanna hear a secret?"
"Mm," Mikasa affirmed.
"Okay, here goes," Eren said. He shifted and laced his fingers behind his head. "I like Reiner."
"Oh." Mikasa thought about this. Then she said, "I like you."
Eren turned to look at her, shocked. "What? Mikasa, do you even know what that means?"
She shook her head uncertainly. She thought she had.
"If a girl likes a boy, they have to get married."
Mikasa gasped.
Eren nodded gravely. "Gross, right?"
Mikasa looked away. Eren took her head and spun it back towards him. His eyes were pools of storms. "You can't tell anyone my secret."
Mikasa went to shake her head, then changed her mind and nodded instead.
Eren let go of her head. He stood up. "I know you won't tell anyone. That's why I told you, 'cause you don't talk hardly."
"I talk," Mikasa said quietly.
"I'm gonna pee here, so move."
Someone shouted from the courtyard flagpole. Eren turned around. "Oh—" he said a bad word.
He and Mikasa darted from the bushes. They ran around the pavilion and raced to the beach. Their tiny bodies were conservative on their boundless energy. The moon was a ghost light in the slack waves.
Mikasa was faster than Eren on land, but nobody could beat him in the water.