The night falls, while the sunset slowly exhausts its colors.
In the sky, the rays and darkness mingle, joining in an embrace that is warm and cold until they no longer seem such different colors.
But the rays at sunset are warm, stubborn, radiant. They spend their time making everything lively, defining the contours of everything. The night, however, is calm, sweet and cold. It's the glimmer of unspoken things.
It has nothing to do with life. It seems more like wanting to lull you into quiet dreams that alleviate the anxiety of tomorrow.
Yet at dusk, when the sky catches the attention of two pairs of eyes – the sea-green waves and their storms – those two colors don't seem to be so far apart.
Mikasa wonders why.
Distractedly, her gaze falls on the mountains in the distance – behind which the sun went down. She brings the scarf to her face, covering her mouth and the tip of her nose; then observes the soil under her feet, where their footprints as close as their shadows are describing a path. And she remembers, closing her eyes, of those afternoons spent with her mother and father watching the sun say "goodnight" to the moon.
"The sun is caressing the moon, promising her that they will meet tomorrow again."
These are the words of a fairy tale that her mother had told her, when Mikasa asked her a question about the sunset. And those were words she pronounces softly, crossing her arms and bringing them to her chest, to shelter from the wind.
It's cold and strange outside, the streets are familiar and old and at the same time everything is new.
"What did you say?" he asks, the familiar voice of the one who walks next to her.
She barely looks up, and blushes.
Welding her feet to the ground, she shakes her head slightly. The butterflies are flying in her stomach, and she hopes they will pass sooner or later.
"Nothing," she says, looking at the ground.
"I was remembering something my mother told me about the sunset."
Eren slightly arches his brown eyebrows, exposing his green sea waves to the night. He doesn't turn to look at her, but she is sure that behind his eyes there is curiosity.
Despite being dense and beautiful as the sea waves, in some weak moments, she isn't able to talk while looking at them - that's why she is grateful that his look is adverting from her.
For example now, while walking for the same road that saw them growing up together, less than an arm of distance between them, the backs of their fingers brushing.
Everything seems to talk around her, around them. The way the silence makes their footsteps more audible, the swish of the leaves on the ground, their breaths mixing with the cool air of the almost night.
"What's it about?" he asks.
He adjusts his jacket and hat, and the wind stops blowing for a while.
And... oh.
Mikasa fights with her thoughts.
On the one hand she would really like to tell him something about herself – again, like it was happening for a couple of months now – and on the other hand something told her to keep the details of that story to herself, avoiding further embarrassment.
The problem is that sometimes she found herself telling the truth, or sharing stories with him, without even realizing it.
It happened whenever she was alone with him, walking distractedly back to the dorms, or when they spent time on the wooden stairs outside, chatting before saying good night.
When the weather didn't allow it, on cold winter evenings, Mikasa would join him in the great hall of the headquarters.
Under the gazes of the different paintings, and the fire that lit up the room, they sat on the couch with steaming cups. It was there that Mikasa perceived that Eren was no longer sleeping as easily as he used to do: from the dark circles under his eyes, or whenever she found him asleep on the sofa in that same room, his clothes still on.
At the time, his head rested on the headrest, and his long hair surrounding his face. She watched his chest rising and falling, his parted lips and his eyes closed. Or the rapid movement of his eyelids, and the restless and accelerated breathing.
But then, Mikasa would have slightly take his hand in hers, squeezing it a little, to remind him that somehow she was there. And then, she would have moved off his hair from his forehead with a gentle caress - fingertips caressing slowly his temple.
"Eren. Hey, Eren," sensing from the mutual clasps to her hand that the dream he was having was anything but pleasant. And every time he woke up, confused and agitated, Eren would have carried a hand to his forehead, staying silent for a few minutes.
He never wanted to explain her what his dreams were about, despite her insistence.
He just told her not to worry, because everything was fine.
That those dreams happened because he was more nervous and agitated than usual – even though they had been going on for months now.
Other times, when she didn't find him sleeping, he asked her how her day had gone.
And Mikasa began to tell him stories about herself before she even realized it, with her heart beating in her throat, his eyes fixed on hers, the warmth of his body so close to hers.
Eren listened without showing that he was quite surprised to see her so keen to speak, but the reaction was always the same:
he smiled at her.
And in those moments, Mikasa took note of the slight beard that now surrounded his cheeks. How
protruding the Adam's apple was under his chin. How marked his jaw was, and how lovely was the light hair just on his lips – pink and fluffy to the eye.
Or how low his voice was now. How reassuring the words he spoke seemed. At times she felt so much lulled by the feeling of having him by her side, by the warmth that his body emanated, and by the safety of his whispers, that she barely kept her eyes open.
At other times she stood staring at him, with her elbow resting on her knees, her cheek pressed against the palm of her hand locked in a slight fist, every feeling of fatigue vanished in an instant.
Why?
She didn't know.
"Are you ok?" he asks her. And the question wipes out all her thoughts.
When she puts her feet on the ground again, realizing that she had been silent for a while, Mikasa decides to tell him the truth, sharing something about her again – sharing something with him, again.
And he's so nice, so kind. Even now. He lays his eyes on hers for a few seconds, then averts them, palpating in the air that perhaps the topic makes her uncomfortable.
He doesn't want to force her, she knows. So she speaks.
"She always told me," she begins to say, "that the reason blue and orange mix is because the sun is caressing the moon, giving her good night."
"It was a story about how the sun ended up falling in love with the moon, despite the short time he was given to see her," she explains.
She brought her arms to her chest clutching tightly, the moment the breeze began to blow.
"And that's why the sunset seems so long, though it lasts for an instant. Because the sun went out of its way to convince the sky to give him only a few more minutes."
Her stomach closes, for two reasons: in rethinking the fact that, well, that too had been part of her life - a happy childhood, made up of hidden colors and truths. And it closes in rethinking that, only now, she fully understood that story. The moon just wanted a few minutes, too. Just a few more minutes.
She tries to change the subject a few seconds later. She doesn't want to think about that – not now.
"I believed it until Armin explained us why sometimes we can see the Moon, and other times we don't," the vivid memory as if it were yesterday – years spent reduced to a flashback.
Eren had kept his gaze low on the ground, walking, listening to her.
He raises the corners of his mouth, barely kicking the pebbles on their way. Their arms touch each other, his lips separate to speak.
But then, what he says diverts her attention from every perfect trait that characterized his appearance, because Mikasa was ready for any answer, but not to that. So she looks at him in amazement when, observing a little smile on his lips, he says:
"It's... romantic."
Her eyebrows are raised, but she tries to gain composure before their eyes cross again.
He isn't wrong – neither on that story, nor on many others.
Many myths that her mother told her to explain things to her, had to do with kindness, with delicacy, with caring for the other.
Now she understood the reason, and those values had grown in her heart with roots as strong as those of oak trees.
"You think?" she asks, uncovering her mouth from the scarf.
"Yeah."
His answer is immediate.
"And although it's not the truth, I don't mind it."
His lips are bent in a shy smile. The small streets become more and more recognizable. With his feet, he goes on kicking some cobblestones in the way, before raising his chin to observe the sky.
"I wanted to meet your mother and hear her stories," he says. His voice is deep and cautious.
"Who knows? Maybe I would have been a quieter child."
Then he puts his hands in his pockets, and Mikasa can't see the street anymore. All of a sudden, she sees two children.
Sitting down, with the little blanket wrapped around the little shoulders, listening to all the stories they would ask her mother, in front of the small fireplace in their kitchen.
She pictured her mother taking a handkerchief and cleaning his dirty cheeks. Or grow things in the little vegetable garden she had. Or she saw her mother ask him if he wanted to stay for dinner, and cook him what he liked the most.
Or...
"She would often recommend you take me home safely."
Yes.
That would have been definitely her mother's attitude.
"And she would have loved you, of course."
She barely smiles, reproducing the scene in her head as if it were vivid – a memory, more than her imagination.
But then, the beginning of a laugh resonates in the air.
"Why are you laughing?" she says, and his expression is reflected on her lips.
She can't help but think that, for a few months now, everything seems to make sense. Everything seems aligned, and the reason behind her gestures is always the same.
"Nothing," he tells her. And she knows what he is thinking about: how things reversed over time. How those were similar to the words Carla said to her every day.
How do eyes talk so much?
"I think I would have given her the best answer I could have given at the time."
Mikasa wouldn't want to ask him which one, but at that very moment, she feels Eren's eyes on her.
She looks doubtful, uncertain and embarrassed, and as if he had just read her doubts in her eyes, Eren smiles at her again.
She doesn't understand.
"... What would you have replied, then?" she asks, genuinely. And her eyes twinkle. She has a different light tonight.
She looks happy. Confused and happy.
Eren arches an eyebrow again, and then holds back a smile. For once, he thinks there's nothing wrong with feeling that way.
There's nothing wrong with being happy.
"As many times as I need to."
The wind passes through the alleys, causing her a long chill down her back. She feels her cheeks and the tip of her nose frosty – but she's not as cold as she looks.
They say that if your hands are cold, then your heart is safe. It's warm. That then it beats for the right cause.
And maybe it's true, because now she feels the wind ruffling her hair and her hands get colder, her lips dry out, and her eyes tear,
And yet, a gentle warmth warms her from the inside. A warmth that puts butterflies in flight in her stomach, a gentle - but strong - warmth that does not make her fear the coming storm.
And she looks at that man, the man she loves, the man who is beside her, shoulder to shoulder, with affection, admiration.
And that's how two soldiers head to their home, on a cold evening, for that district that had seen them walk right through those streets, with Armin's books and dirty cheeks that Carla cared for with the gentle touch of her soaked handkerchief.
The two soldiers, by strength and choice, had made a habit, in the meantime, in the presence of each other.
They don't say a word, but everything else around them does: everything talks about their story, how a young girl followed a boy, with sea-green eyes and a kind heart. How this guy had become the reason of everything in such a short time.
Everything seemed old to her and everything seemed new at the same time.
Like, for example, his hands. Once small to barely hold a few twigs, and now big and strong enough to rebuild a district from scratch, to close breaches in the walls, make the walls a safe place.
And... his fingers, long and tapered, in which his veins branched; the greenish color in contrast to the amber skin, now darker at sunset.
Or...
Like walking together to the same destination, next to each other, and finding it...
Different.
Their footsteps resonate in the air, and describe footprints on the ground that in some places still covers the streets – until, turned a corner, they stop altogether.
She knows why: it has to do with the fact that their hearts have begun to beat at the same pace.
That's why she shifts her gaze first to the remains of her second home, and then to Eren.
His forehead is frowning, his chin is up and his eyes don't shine, but he's...
Calm. Different.
And at the same time it's always him.
There is no anger on his face, nor melancholy, nor nostalgia: there is only resignation,
... but to what?
To the past? Or tomorrow?
To what?
Her frosty, delicate hand is on his shoulder before she even realizes it, and as much as she was used to that contact – one of the only actions she allowed herself when he was around – she asked him if everything was fine.
Green sea waves move from their house to her.
Deep as a chasm, but calm like the early morning sea. They seem to say many things, more than his mouth was uttering in truth – but strangely...
she can't read them,
not this time.
Then, Eren smiles to her.
"Can you imagine our return to this house?"
And she doesn't know what to say. What to answer.
Because there are one hundred answers to that question – and others to come – and even though the lips and tongue seemed kneaded, because she was not able to speak.
She's incompetent, clumsy in her reactions, and she knows it, but maybe Eren doesn't notice.
She doesn't know what he wants - if he wants that, too.
But when she drops her hand, touching his, she notices that even his hands are cold - and she laughs on her own, because in no way could his heart be warm for her, right?
She just knows that after a while, his jacket is wrapped around her shoulders. That his scent clouds her senses, mind and butterflies in her stomach. That her heart beats strongly against her ribs, that she would like to feel tight in his arms, listen to the beats of his heart and hear him laugh. There is nothing more beautiful to her than this secret desire, nothing more beautiful than his eyes, of his kindness and nobility of soul,
and the great, immense love that he makes her feel.
When they arrive at the dormitories, the snow had begun to fall.
Facing each other, Eren has his hands in his pockets. His shirt covers his arms, and he says he's not cold – although Mikasa observes that he was trying not to bring his hands to his mouth to warm them up.
His eyes are so deep even in the night.
"It's cold. Go inside," he says. And despite sounding like a command, she knows that that's just his way to express his concern. They say good night, staying a minute longer – just a minute longer.
"Tomorrow I'll give you your jacket back."
She could very well have returned it to him at the time, but he says she can keep it. That she can give it to him the next time they'll see each other.
The question arises spontaneously.
"Why? Aren't you coming to the railroad tomorrow?" she asks, naively. And her question and concern are as innocent as the snowflakes that fall into her hair. Like the redness she has on her cheeks and on the tip of her nose. Eren notices how her lips separate in surprise and disappointment, as the light in her eyes seems to have disappeared.
Eren nods no with his head, his hands still in his pockets.
"No. Hanji and Levi require me elsewhere."
Oh.
Oooh.
That's her answer.
"Oh," seems to be the only word she can utter.
Disappointment just broke her good dreams, the expectation of seeing him tomorrow, and the desire to know what they were going to talk about the next day.
"All right. So..."
"I'll be back in four days."
... Four days?
"Okay."
…Why?
"Good job, then. And take care of yourself. "
And with an embarrassed smile, forced, tries to hide her disappointment.
She is almost leaving when she feels Eren's hand in her hair, ruffling them.
And then his hand is on her cheek.
"Good night."
She would have loved to hold him tight.
"Good night."
Rub her nose against his.
But she slowly walks through the dorm corridors to get to her room.
Then Mikasa closes the door of her room, slumps to the ground, and looks in front of her. Eren's scent is now on her dress, her skin, she still feels his eyes on hers and her heart beats hard.
Even before she knew it, the tears fell on the backs of her hands - and happiness has made room for despair.
In no way the sun could convince the sky to give him a few more years, and the moon would have missed him forever.
She should have stroked his face. Tell him she'd miss him. Tell him to be careful and kiss his lips.
Mikasa is always afraid that tomorrow may be too late.
She wondered if it was really worth dying with all that love in her heart – and she doesn't know that, on the other side of the dorms,
a soldier was looking at the ceiling wondering what would have happened if, that girl's answer to his previous question, had been
"yes."