Housekeeping
Disclaimer: SnK and its characters are not mine.
Chapter 3
Not only did Mikasa wake up earlier, while it was still pitch black outside, but she also got herself dressed at record speeds. She wasn't about to give the Captain another excuse to chastise her for tardiness.
The faint light of the moon was her only guide as she slipped down corridors, past rows of rooms whose occupants were still in deep slumber. In order to make sure she wasn't sleep-deprived, she'd forced herself to go to bed shortly after supper, even if that meant cutting into her already scant time with Eren from yesterday.
She soon found the door of the room she was looking for. Trying the knob, she found it surprisingly still locked. Could he possibly still be asleep at this time? Mikasa rapped gently on the door to find out.
"Who's there?" barked the clearly awake man. Not even a trace of grogginess could be heard in his voice.
"Housekeeping," Mikasa spat sardonically.
There was a click of the lock, and the door presently opened before her. "Cute, Ackerman, very cute."
The raven-haired girl was about to step through when she noticed his appearance. Still moist hair indicated he'd finished a shower not too long ago. Since then, he'd managed to change into his trousers, but his white shirt still hung unbuttoned over his torso. She could see his rock solid chest and perfectly sculpted abs, only marred by a few battle scars, from within the opening of the garment.
Without thinking, Mikasa inhaled sharply at the sight. She had to admit he looked quite attractive like that. Sure she had seen him and other men shirtless before during training, but the way his clothing was loosely draped over him in the gentle moonlight…
"Something wrong, Ackerman?" He had half-turned back into his room when he must have noticed her staring at him.
Reflexively, Mikasa shook her head, but she could feel a blush starting to creep up on her face. "N-No, Sir!" She did her best to keep the waver out of her voice as she thought of a cover. "I just remembered I need to do someone—I mean, something—later today, that's all." She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks while she mentally cursed herself. "Now if you'll excuse me." Fixing her onyx eyes on the wooden flooring, she made to push past him and get to work.
The Captain merely raised an eyebrow at her but stepped aside and let her through.
Mikasa went to work immediately, opening his windows to clean them and then wiping down the tables. She didn't dare look at him during this or when she moved onto dusting the shelves before scrubbing the floor. The nervous girl would have attempted cleaning the bathroom first so that she could hide in there, but the shorter man had kept going in and out of it to finish getting dressed.
At least when she was working on the floor, she didn't have to look up at him. That is, until a pair of black boots planted themselves firmly in front of her.
"Ackerman, you're acting awfully strange this morning," commented the man hovering above her. "Are you feeling ill?"
Keeping her head low, she shook it and simply moved onto another spot on the floor. His feet followed her.
"Spit it out, Ackerman, I can tell something's wrong."
Mikasa chose not to even respond this time, and she could feel a glare boring into the top of her head. Without warning, he reached down to grab her by the wrist and hauled her up to her feet. With the other hand, he yanked her chin toward him so that he could examine her face. She couldn't bring her eyes to meet his grey ones.
He removed his hand from her chin to run the back of it gently across her forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever, but your pulse is racing," he remarked diagnostically. "Your eyes don't show a lack of sleep either." The Captain finally released her wrist and let her stand on her own. "So something must be going on in there." With that, he flicked a finger at her brow, which made her flinch. "Now are you going to tell me what it is, or am I going to have to wait for an accident report from your training because your head's not on straight?"
Mikasa let out a soft sigh. "It's nothing, really."
"Like hell it is!" he snapped.
This made the girl give a start, but she kept her voice steady. "No, really. My mind's just not as focused as it normally is, that's all. I don't think it's used to being up at this hour. I'll be fine by morning exercises."
Captain Levi studied her face throughout all this, but she'd gotten as good as him at keeping it stoic. "Very well then," he conceded. The dark-haired man then turned to make his way out the door for the morning. "Don't forget to lock up again before you leave."
Mikasa nodded and released a deep breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.
"And Ackerman," he added halfway out.
'There he goes again,' she groaned internally.
"Come by ten minutes later tomorrow," he ordered gruffly. "But no longer than that, got it?"
Mikasa's eyes widened in shock. Was he actually…being nice? "Yes, Sir," she said as she saluted. With that, he disappeared behind a shut door.
That picture-perfect image of him was all that she could see in her mind's eye. How the waning moonlight made his body glow like a celestial being. The way his wet ebony hair had been matted above his handsome face—why had she never noticed before how handsome it was? And that built torso of his…she had the sudden urge to run a finger over it, to trace over his scars, to dig in and feel how solid his muscles really were.
"Hey, Mikasa, anyone home?" An open hand waved in front of her face. She blinked once before turning her head toward the source of the distraction. Her onyx eyes fell on a pair of emerald orbs. "You awake in there? You haven't said a word all morning."
Doing her best to restrain a blush, she took a new interest in stirring the untouched soup in front of her. "I'm fine, Eren."
She quickly noticed other pairs of eyes being fixed on her.
"Does it have anything to do with the new chores for Captain Levi?" asked a voice on the other side of her. The blond teenager had probably been staring at her the longest.
"Something like that, Armin." It was harder for her to hide the truth under his scrutiny. She bit into her roll and passed the rest of her tray down to Sasha's eagerly waiting hands. "I think I'm not used to waking up this early," she finished with the same lame excuse she'd given the Captain.
"Chores?" Eren asked.
"Yeah, don't you remember from yesterday?" Armin shifted his focus to her brother. For once, she was grateful for his memory lapses.
A light seemed to go off in his head. "Oh, right, that's why you had to go to bed right after dinner."
"I still think the whole thing is a crock of shit," Jean added, finishing off his mug of coffee.
"I'll be fine, don't worry," Mikasa assured. Her roll now completely gone, she stood up from the table. "I think I need a walk to clear my head."
Before anyone could say anything else, she had already made her way out of the mess hall.
Connie gave a low whistle. "Leaving before Eren does, that's something that never happens with her."
"Should one of us go after her?" Krista chimed.
Armin knit his brow in concern. "I really want to, but at the same time, I think she needs some space right now."
In the meantime, Eren's gaze never left the doorway she'd left through. Something was seriously wrong with his sister, he could feel it. But maybe Armin was right for now. She had always opened up to him before. Maybe he just needed to give her some time to come around. That didn't mean he couldn't be concerned about her until then, though.
Mikasa sighed for what had to be the tenth time on her walk along the edge of the forest. What the hell was wrong with her?
She kicked a stone that lay in her path. The dark-haired girl watched as it skipped a few times along the ground before stopping against a tree.
Ever since earlier that morning, she couldn't get Captain Levi out of her head. Every time that memory of him came up, she could feel a warmth start to spread in her cheeks along with a racing in her chest. Just what was this feeling inside her? Could it possibly be…?
She shook her head furiously. That miserable excuse for a man was a sneaky, vindictive little asshole. How could she possibly want someone like that? She should be going after someone more like…like…
He'd turned away from her, his hand having just regenerated. A fierce determination had replaced that fragile-looking face.
She had to lean against a tree for support, her legs suddenly feeling weak.
But Eren evoked a completely different feeling from her. She could never picture herself desiring him physically. Loving him, yes, like a brother. Wanting him like that, not a chance.
Closer and closer she inched, her chin tilting upwards…
She clenched her eyes shut. Okay, maybe during the heat of battle like that, but any other time she couldn't picture herself getting the nerve to do it.
Captain Levi on the other hand…
Again with the angry shake of the head. Regardless, she couldn't let herself feel such things, not when there were titans to kill and a war to be fought.
She turned on her heel to stomp back toward the castle. Maybe it was all what people called "hormones." She was almost through her fifteenth year; it wasn't uncommon in her age range. Yeah, that must be it, just a little fancy, something fickle and fleeting.
Mikasa had been an expert in setting aside her emotions and maintaining full control of her body since she was nine. Surely, she could do the same here.
Couldn't she?
Much to Eren's relief, his sister seemed to be in much better spirits. Not that she was very expressive in the first place, but she didn't seem as preoccupied as she was earlier that day, and she talked to him as if nothing had happened.
She had even cracked a smile when Sasha got caught stealing a roll for her when they were on kitchen duty together. At least Sasha had claimed it was to cheer Mikasa up.
Now he was staring at the back of her head in this cramped place they called a classroom. For their first year in the Survey Corps, they were required to go to daily classes on the squads' tactics and maneuvers. There were about twenty other people in attendance. The ones that hadn't been in his same graduating class were soldiers that had either failed the class previously or were retaking the class as punishment for incompetence on the battlefield.
The chatter of the room slowly died down as the brown-haired Corporal in charge of the class cleared his throat and walked over to the blackboard.
"Today we are going to review riding formations optimized to avoid titan encounters. As you know, the pattern used during the 57th expedition was quite complex…"
He had barely touched his chalk to the board when the door slammed open and in limped Captain Levi.
Still lazily resting his gaze on the girl in front of him, Eren was surprised not only by their commanding officer's appearance, but how Mikasa clearly tensed up at the sight of him and attempted to bury her face in her scarf. The young titan-shifter might not have been as smart as Armin, but he could put two and two together enough to see that the Captain's presence upset her.
Speaking of his genius friend, he turned to look at the blond two seats to Mikasa's left. It was obvious by his grim expression that he had noticed the same thing.
"Ca-Captain Levi," the flustered Corporal stammered, giving an awkward salute. "What brings you here on this fine day?"
Levi merely gave him a nod to relax while his grey eyes perused the room of students. "I will be using this room to discuss tactics with my special ops squad for the next week. The rest of your class is dismissed," he stated nonchalantly.
"What?!" The taller man at the front of the room gawked at him. "But-But, Sir, the tactics course is an essential requirement in the Survey Corps. They are not to be disrupted without orders from the Commander himself."
The Captain withdrew a sealed envelope from within his jacket and slapped it against the Corporal's chest. "Erwin said you might need this."
His face flushed red with indignation, the other man tore through the seal and darted his eyes over the paper in his hands. The once scarlet visage then turned pale.
"As I was saying," Levi continued calmly, "Commander Erwin has stepped up the timetable for the next expedition. Therefore, I require this classroom to teach my squad some maneuvers vital to the mission. Have I made myself clear, Corporal?"
The man in question merely nodded and sulked out of the room.
Turning to the rest of the class, the Captain barked, "If your name isn't Jaeger, Ackerman, Arlert, Kirstein, Springer, Braus, or Lenz, get out of my sight!"
There was a veritable stampede of students scrambling to make it out the door before they faced Levi's infamous wrath. Soon silence fell over the room in sharp contrast to the rustle of papers and screeching of chairs just moments prior.
Their commanding officer wasted no time drawing the outline of a giant humanoid on the chalkboard. Even though he faced away from them, his voice still boomed off the walls.
"For the next week, we will be learning a task that is key for the next mission. Namely, the extraction of Eren Jaeger from his titan form."
While everyone around him let out exclamations of surprise, Eren cringed. The Captain drew four straight lines through the arms and legs of the diagram that was meant to represent him.
"At the end of the seven days, I will take you all out to the training grounds to test what you've learned. Are there any questions so far?" Their new teacher turned to face them, both hands behind his back.
Eren gulped and meekly raised his hand. "S-Sir, do I have to be present for this? Since you'll be cutting me up."
A pair of smoky eyes glared at him. "This information will be valuable for you to learn as well, in case we run into another titan-shifter that needs to be extracted. That is, if you are unable for any reason to change into your titan form and subdue it yourself."
"Ah…yes, Sir…" Eren said, deflated, and shifted uncomfortably. He didn't know if he liked this idea so much.
"Besides, perhaps you'll be so scared hearing how we're going to carve you like a turkey, you'll find a way to come out on command." Levi allowed a small, sadistic smirk to show on his face.
Eren noticed how the Captain's eyes flickered to Mikasa briefly and seemed just as surprised as he was to see she was just sitting there—no evil eye, no scowl, not even a barely contained objection to the prospect of hurting him. Something was definitely wrong again with his overprotective sister.
However, Levi continued with the lesson. "Everyone will have a primary job, as well as secondary and tertiary positions to fill in case another team member is otherwise preoccupied. Kirstein!"
"Sir!" The young man involuntarily saluted at the sound of his name being called.
"At ease. This is a class, not a drill." Pointing to a spot on the diagram, he explained, "Your primary task will be to disable the right arm. His right, not yours. Don't screw that up. You'll be focusing your cuts here and here…"
The Captain took up the full hour and then some making sure everyone knew their roles clearly. Most notable to Eren would be that Mikasa's primary position was making the two crucial slices to get him out of his titan body, with Jean and Armin being back ups.
"Until he's capacitated enough to be safely extracted, Ackerman, you have the option of gouging his eyes out if he goes berserk."
Eren immediately placed both his hands up to cover his eyes at the thought.
"I don't think that will be necessary, Captain," Mikasa muttered, staring at the desk in front of her.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "So you've finally decided to join the conversation, Ackerman? And here I thought your disrupted circadian rhythm had rendered you mute for the rest of the day."
She didn't move an inch, which left Eren to wonder if that fiery gleam had appeared in her eyes or not.
Unfortunately for her, the Captain wouldn't leave things well enough alone at her lack of response. "Would you care to explain why it would not be necessary to take out Eren's sight on the off chance he goes on a rampage and attacks his friends? If I recall correctly, he once even turned on you, and left you a nice parting gift for it."
That seemed to finally snap her out of it, since her head whipped up in his direction to fix him a fierce glare. "If he's that far gone, it would be a waste of time and a hindrance. With his sight intact, his movements would be predictable because he'd be targeting us. Take out that out and he'll thrash around erratically, making it harder on me to cut him cleanly."
A heavy silence hung in the air. Everyone held their breaths, watching the intense staring contest between humanity's strongest and the top student of their graduating class.
Eren opened his mouth a few times to try to break the ice, but one look at the two made him cower back at the prospect of facing retribution from either of them.
"A good point, Ackerman," the Captain finally hissed. He didn't let up on staring her down, however. "But there will be plenty of other scenarios in which you'll have to take out his eyes or doom the mission. So I suggest you get over this reluctance to 'hurt' your brother sooner rather than later."
"Duly noted, Sir," she reluctantly conceded, tearing her gaze away first so that he could finish the lesson.
Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.
"And last but not least, Jaeger!" Captain Levi called after regaining his composure.
This made Eren jump into a very straight sitting position in his chair. "Yes, Sir!"
"If we come across a titan-shifter, your focus, as with Lenz, will be to fill in any gaps left by your comrades. If none exist, you are back-up on the legs, in the event someone fails in their task. Tertiary will be the arms and neck."
Once Eren acknowledged his understanding, their temporary teacher concluded, "If there are no other questions, class is dismissed for today. You will be quizzed on your positions first thing tomorrow."
Even though they were eager to get out of there, no one dared move from their seats until the Captain had hobbled out of the room and slammed the door behind him. For a few seconds, everyone merely looked around and gave each other dazed blinks.
"And I thought classes couldn't get any worse," Connie was the first to groan.
Armin shrugged. "At least it's only for a week."
As the rest of his friends took turns voicing their opinions, Eren glanced over to his adoptive sister. She had already gathered her belongings and was making her way for the door. He gave a slight nod to Armin as a good-bye and quickly followed after her.
He caught up with her not too far down the hallway. "Hey, Mikasa, can I talk to you for a sec?" She instantly stiffened but slowed her pace to indicate he could walk with her. He fell into step easily as they both made their way toward the mess hall. "So…how are you feeling?"
"Better, thank you," she answered quietly, her mouth partially covered by the maroon scarf. "Are you all right after that class?"
He flashed her a reassuring grin. "I'm sure it'll be more painful actually doing it than it is talking about it."
Her lips curled into a slight smile in response.
"So uh…" Eren started to scratch the back of his head. "Is there something wrong…between you and the Captain?"
Mikasa stopped abruptly in the hallway. Eren had to backtrack a few steps and turn around to face her.
"You've just been…not yourself today," he clarified. "Well, you seemed better until he came to class."
Without a word, she pushed onward, avoiding eye contact with him. Something about the way she was acting irritated Eren. Normally they could talk about anything—their hopes, fears, doubts, pet peeves (even with each other.) But this she was being completely tight-lipped on, and he hadn't a clue why.
"Mikasa, what is it?" He ran to catch up with her. When they reached a quiet section of hallway, he grabbed her by the shoulders and lightly pushed her toward the wall. "Hey, after all we've been through, is it really that bad that you can't tell me?"
His sister remained looking downward as she responded quietly, "It's nothing you should be worried about, Eren. I need to deal with this on my own."
Eren couldn't pinpoint that expression on her face. It didn't help that she was good at hiding her emotions. But the way she acted and moved was something more than just nerves. It was more like…shame. A sudden thought came to Eren's mind which made him catch his breath. She and Captain Levi had, after all, been spending a lot of time together—alone—in his office and bedroom.
Squeezing her shoulders and keeping careful watch on her reaction, he cautiously asked, "Did the Captain…do something inappropriate? Like try to force himself on you?"
Mikasa's eyes widened and she shook her head. "No, no, no, nothing like that. You know he's not that kind of man."
"Thank God." Eren immediately relaxed his grip at her response. He then wrapped his arms around her in a relieved hug. "Yeah, I know, I just had to be sure. We swore we'd look out for each other, remember?"
Eren could feel her nodding into his shoulder. "I remember. But believe me when I tell you this is something you can't help me with."
He pulled away and bent down to make eye contact with her. "If not talking to me about this is that important to you, then I guess I can accept that. But please, if it's something you can speak to anyone else about, like Armin, or Krista, or even Hanji, please do. I'm worried about you; we all are."
Tears threatened to fall down her pale cheeks, so she rubbed a sleeve across her face. "Thank you, that means a lot to me. And…I'm sorry." She gave him a faint smile.
"Don't be. So long as I get my overprotective sister back at some point, I'll be happy with whatever it takes."
Mikasa couldn't help but softly giggle at the toothy grin he was giving her.
"Come on, let's go get something to eat. My stomach was already growling halfway through that class." He tugged at her jacket sleeve, and soon enough they were back to walking side by side down the castle's stone halls. Not much else was said between them, but whatever was made him feel like his sister was returning already.