Hey guys, this is me again! And wow, the amount of reviews exceeded my expectation! I was fired up when I write this chapter so I hope you guys will like it :3

Thank you very much forhiyomi, jneth1lary88, Stargazer Aika, ParagonFlynn, Milia, lone green leaf, KK, alex, Miwokgirl101, kaminokaze no arashi, mashemele, Nikka-chan, Guest, Berry9704, Silentux131, Dinendir, MobileClaspy, AoiHana26, The Picturesque Skyline, and ProudToBeaFIlipina for your reviews. They mean so much to me :)

Also, thank you for you who favorite and follow this fic ;)

Alright, please enjoy your read~

Disclaimer: I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin


The little girl sat at the corner of the bed, hiding herself inside the blanket.

She was still not used to this family. It didn't feel like her home at all. No mom and dad. The whole thing felt foreign. She wanted to return to her old life despite knowing it was impossible. No matter how hard she tried, she could never return what she had lost.

The door of the bedroom opened and the boy peaked inside before deciding to enter.

"Mikasa? It's time for dinner. Let's go."

"…I'm not hungry…"

Eren walked toward her and removed the blanket.

"Come on, mom's cooking is so good. And she especially cooks a lot today to welcome you."

"Tell her I'm sorry…"

"I'm not listening. Come now," he pulled her hand and she finally got off the bed.

When she followed him slowly from behind, she had her head lowered the whole time. Suddenly, Eren turned around and she brought her head up to face him.

"I heard from dad about your family. I'm sorry about that. But, Mikasa… this isn't the end. Fight it! If you lose, you die. But if you win, you live. If you don't fight, you can't win."

Mikasa looked at him with mixed expression. Surprise, awe, and confusion were present at the same time.

The little boy scratched the back of his head. "I learned that line from a book. But well, doesn't it sound great? It does give you the motivation, right? It works on me a lot of time already," he said nonchalantly. Her heart felt warm.

Smiling, Eren tightened his grip on her hand without hurting her and said, "We're family now. No matter what happens I'll always be your ally. If you can't fight alone, we'll fight together."

The girl's eyes slightly widened before hot tears suddenly trailed down her cheeks.

"Um…" she nodded.

Eren grinned and patted her head, "You're unexpectedly a crybaby. Don't cry, mom and dad will think I did something bad to you."

She nodded again.


Chapter 2. I've Had Enough of This!


Mikasa had always been good at tricking people with play of words, Eren had noted that.

For example, in the previous chapter, she managed to convince every single guy in he class (except Eren) to practically wear either maid outfit or mascot constume for the school festival event merely with a relatively short speech.

Mikasa is a scary girl who can get anywhere just by speaking up.

No.

Mikasa is a genius girl who is ignorant enough to make use of her intelligence for something very insignificant; seeing Eren in maid outfit.


That morning, Eren woke up earlier than Mikasa.

The girl was still sleeping soundly beside him when he woke up, probably tired after working yesterday.

Eren looked around. Their decent apartment, their living expenses, all were covered by Mikasa alone. After their mother died five years ago and their father left them behind, Mikasa had replaced their roles in Eren's life, acting as both mother and father for him despite being a girl. But that's exactly what made him feel useless.

He looked at the sleeping girl and unconsciously scowled.

"It's your own fault for being a genius at everything."


In a peaceful morning in class 1-04, Reiner, followed by Bertholdt, shouted excitedly after opening the door.

"Annie! Guess what? I borrowed this maid outfit from the drama club! Care to try it out?"

Annie, who was reading book in her seat, ignored Reiner as soon as she saw him, dismissing him as a fata morgana. He didn't learn anything even after she expressed her irritation to him by threatening to pull the whole guys in the class into humiliation yesterday.

"Hey, hey, don't ignore me. Please wear this as reference to the other girls."

Reiner snickered as he shoved the maid outfit into her face.

"Why must I be the one? Ask Christa or Sasha."

"What!? I refuse! Christa will wear mascot costume with me!" Ymir quickly took Christa into her arms, securing her.

"See? Ymir's got her own issues. And geez, Annie, Sasha's size isn't even near yours."

With that, Annie quickly flashed a glare at the much taller guy. "Are you trying to say that I'm short? You've got guts." Her voice was far from friendly.

Reiner gulped and sweated.

"W-well, what I wanted to say was that you're smaller than her!"

"Smaller, huh? In what terms, chest?" Annie's blue eyes glinted with murderous intent.

"N, no! Why do you keep misinterpreting what I say!?"

At the back of the class Jean sighed.

"Look, those two are at it again."

"Reiner just wants Annie to be a part of the class." Marco smiled nervously.

"Nah. That guy's being too desperate about it. I'm sure he has a thing for Annie," Jean snickered.

"Really? I thought it's Christa?" Marco asked curiously.

"Nah, I bet on it!"

Just as Jean had started to enjoy himself talking about the two, he spotted Mikasa, Eren and Armin entering the class. The trio always arrived to school together; typical best friends.

Eren and Armin seemed to have a conversation while Mikasa walked silently, sometimes yawning or rubbing her eyes.

"Oh shit. The first period is math, right? Pixis-sensei will return our test result today, won't he?" Eren said.

"You did great on the test, Eren. You will get perfect score this time." Mikasa said with a small smile.

"Yeah, of course. I wouldn't want to lose to you again." Eren rolled his eyes.

Pixis-sensei returned the test result as soon as the class begun. Eren excitedly received his and his lips formed and ear-to-ear grin when he saw the three lucky numbers on his paper. He got perfect score! At last he could beat Mikasa, or at least tie. He kept on grinning when Mikasa received her turn.

When she made her way back to her seat, she noticed something and returned to Pixis-sensei to inform it to him.

The teacher uncharacteristically panicked and quickly changed the score.

When Mikasa got back, Eren asked her what happened.

"I found a marking error so Pixis-sensei gave me an extra 5." Mikasa said while showing her test paper with a foreign set of number on it; 105.

Eren went silent for a while.

"Holy shit, Mikasa! What the hell's wrong with you and overly-perfect score!?" Eren slammed the table in anger.

Mikasa frowned sadly, "Are you mad, Eren? I didn't mean to anger you…"

"Argh! Just kill me!" Eren slammed his face on the table and sulked.

"Eren—"

"Shut up! Don't talk to me!"

Mikasa lowered her head, looking guilty.

Armin looked back and forth at the two and tried to think of something to say but failed to do so. In the end, he decided to shut up and went back to sit.


The girls had decided to eat at the cafeteria to accompany Mikasa since Eren refused to eat lunch with her. He was still sulking about what happened before and had given Mikasa a silent treatment.

"Eren's the worst. I can't believe he said those things to you for that stupid reason." Ymir commented.

"Y-yes… He shouldn't yell like that… Poor Mikasa…" Christa said sadly.

"H-here, Mikasa. Since you're in low spirits, I'll give half of my lunch to you," Sasha said, reluctantly pushing her lunchbox to Mikasa who sat beside her.

"No, I'm okay with my lunch alone. You can have yours." Mikasa said lifelessly.

"I-is that so? Thank you very much!"

Sasha quickly devoured her lunch. She had the appetite of a Titan.

"Sasha, you're not supposed to eat like that in front of a depressed person. And you, Annie, say something." Ymir turned around to the blonde girl who sat alone at the table behind theirs.

Annie looked at them with her usual half-lidded eyes, "Eren is just being childish. There's nothing more to it." Then she continued eating her bread.

"See? There's nothing to worry about, Mikasa." Ymir tried to convince the black-haired girl.

Mikasa nodded, her eyes still looking empty.

Christa had started to get worried and looked at Ymir while pointing at Mikasa. Ymir shook her head and sighed hopelessly. The two decided to give a body signal to Sasha too but the brunette was too busy eating her lunch to notice. Annoyed, Ymir confiscated her lunchbox and that freaked her out.

"No! Anything but my lunch—"

Ymir put a finger over her lips, signaling her to stay quiet. Then she pointed at Mikasa.

Getting the meaning, Sasha looked at Mikasa in worry.

"Mikasa, let's not think about—"

"You're hopeless, Mikasa. If merely a few words from Eren are what needed to take the spirits out of you, you don't have the right to call yourself top of the class."

Mikasa lift her head up to face Annie, who had stood beside her table.

"But I'll be honest here. Eren is at the wrong. He's childish, hotheaded, immature, unwise, stu—"

"Don't insult Eren!"

Ymir, Christa, and Sasha were frozen in place when Mikasa suddenly stood up and slammed the table.

Not even batting an eyelash, Annie glanced at Mikasa.

"Eren's a good person… He is nothing like you described!"

"Is that so? Then why is this good person making you feel down?"

Glaring coldly at the blonde, Mikasa left the cafeteria.

"Oi, oi, what was that about, Annie?" Ymir asked, her chin lazily rested on her palm.

"Now Mikasa is going to make up with Eren no matter what…" Christa stated, glancing at Annie.

"Eren's a good guy. He'll grow soft after a few sorries!" Sasha laughed.

Annie walked away, "Consider this my thanks for helping me yesterday, Mikasa. Now I owe you nothing…" she muttered.

After Annie left, Sasha commented something about Mikasa's lunch being homemade.


"H-hey, Eren… I think you shouldn't blame Mikasa like that. I mean, she did nothing wrong, right? You can't keep treating her like this…" Armin tried to convince Eren.

Eren opened his lunchbox and frowned.

"Mikasa cooked this…" he muttered, sounding indifferent.

"H-huh? She can cook?"

"She was up late reading the cooking manual last night. Who would be able to cook just by reading the manual and without practice?" Eren said as he threw an egg roll inside his mouth and started munching it.

"Y-yeah… Usually people would—Eren, what's wrong?" Armin asked when Eren suddenly put his chopsticks away.

"It's good, too good…"

"Eh? Then, what's the problem?"

"She managed to become an expert in just one night, and on top of all, after only reading the manual? You got to be kidding me! I did try to cook several times and it ended up disastrous!"

"Um… Eren, this is just a guess but… I think Mikasa only—"

"Eren!"

Eren clicked his tongue when he saw Mikasa entering the class.

"What now?"

"Eren, I'm sorry for whatever I did that make you angry. Would you forgive me?" Mikasa bowed.

That made Eren realized. He was being childish. None of this was actually Mikasa's fault. She only did what she could and got the score she deserved. Never did she show off to him at all, either. He got angry for no apparent reason, simply being jealous of her and yelled at her despite her not doing anything wrong.

Sighing, he finally nodded.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, too."

Mikasa's expression quickly lightened up.

"Anyway, don't you think you're being too soft lately? You used to scold me for being childish. You're supposed to do so too this time." Eren chuckled bitterly.

Mikasa tilted her head, "…Eh?" then she lowered her head, "But if I do so, I'm afraid you'll get mad even more… You look really hurt back there, Eren. I immediately thought that I hurt you, so…"

Seeing how guilty Mikasa looked, Eren grew soft.

Beside him, Armin smiled, elbowing him ever so lightly. Eren half-glared at the blond before looking at Mikasa again.

He placed his hand on her head, rubbing it gently, "No, you did nothing wrong. I was, you know, too emotional back there."

Relieved, Mikasa faintly smiled.

It was before someone suddenly barged into the class, followed by two others.

"Is Mikasa Ackerman here?"

TO BE CONTINUED


I got the idea for the scene where Mikasa got the score exceeding 100 from a certain anime. Any of you can guess? :3

And can you guess who's saying the last line of this chapter? ;3

Alright, see you in the next chapter~