The Little Things
Nightly Revelations
Eren yawned loudly as he opened the wooden door before him. His head was heavy and his groggy, sleepless eyes kept closing in all by themselves. He was tired as hell and he just couldn't wait to go back and leap into the heavenly comfort known as his bed, but his throat felt as dry as a bone and he just couldn't sleep with this annoying sensation coursing through his neck.
He slowly but surely marched his way downstairs, all the way to the kitchen without sparing a moment to lose. Not wanting to waste another precious second of the pleasantly peaceful night, Eren hurriedly grabbed and prepared a simple cup filled to the brim with water. He quickly gulped it all down like there was no tomorrow. He wasn't as thirsty as before, but the boy quickly prepared a second cup of water and gulped it all up yet again, just to eliminate what's left of that dry sensation inside his throat.
Finally satisfied, Eren somehow quickly skipped his way back up the staircase with the grace of a thousand cats, imagining the tantalizing warmth of his own bed waiting for him at his room. He can't wait to just go back there...
As he passed his old room from back in the day before Mikasa's unexpected arrival, Eren immediately stopped dead in his ever so elegant tracks. He's not sure if he's incredibly tired or if he's starting to see things in the dark but he could've sworn he actually saw what seems to be light coming from the wooden door. After ferociously debating inside his head on whether or not he should bother checking, Eren turned around and shambled his way closer to the door, just to get a better look amidst the thick veil of darkness.
"Huh? Is... Is that..." Eren was genuinely surprised when he saw the door to Mikasa's room was left slightly ajar, the faint light from before managed to escape through the small opening, almost difficult and maybe even impossible to see amidst the darkness if you're not trying hard enough.
"Why is she even up this late at night? What could she possibly be doing? Is she okay in there? What am I even doing over here, I'm sure she's fine, right?" These various array of questions darted to and fro across the boy's weary mind as he wonders what he should be doing next, a part of him just wants to go back to the incredible comfort of his own bed while the other one was anxious and worried but mostly curious about the little girl living in his old room.
Mikasa was always a strict follower of the house's rules and she would always pester Eren about diligently following it all to the very letter - right from brushing his teeth till it was spotless all the way to sitting up straight at the table during dinner. She wasn't exactly the kind of person who will stay up this late past curfew - this was actually the very first time Eren actually saw a sliver of light coming from the young girl's room this late at night and it actually caused him some worry. Could it mean that something is troubling her or maybe, could it be something worse?
In the end, he couldn't make up his mind at all. So, Eren simply goes with the usual technique when he's unsure of what to do next - he just ignores whatever's rattling inside his head and just do what he feels is the right thing to do.
'Just a small peak and then, back to bed. Nothing more...' Eren kept reminding himself, wanting to sate his uncomfortable worries. He carefully edged himself closer and closer towards the wooden door and took a deep breath as he peered into the small opening, preparing himself for any possible mistakes or misunderstandings - not that he was... actually expecting anything, no...
He saw Mikasa sitting at the little wooden table in the corner of the room, a small flickering candle was the only source of light in the otherwise blinding darkness. She seemed to be hard at work writing on something as Eren's ears eventually began to pick up some distant murmurings coming from the girl.
"Is... Is she talking to herself? What the hell is she even doing?" Eren asked himself, fueling nothing but his curiosity and his worries.
He stood there for a few more minutes, gazing at the little girl as she works her very best on... something. It's been a long while before Eren had seen her like that and he couldn't help but to feel a bit uneased from her helpless frustration - he wanted to help Mikasa but, is there even anything he could actually do nowadays? It's not like she's the strange and helpless girl she was before when she started moving in here...
Eren, throwing caution into the wind, gently pushed the door wide open, its deafening creaks and moans immediately alerted the young girl to his sudden presence. She almost jumped at her seat as soon as she heard the rumblings of the door and erratically turned around, her flushed face was shocked to see the young boy callously standing at the doorway. "E- Eren? What are you doing this late at night?"
"I could ask the same thing to you, Mikasa." Eren unknowingly scratching his hair to calm his nerves. "What's wrong?"
"...Oh?" She turned towards the messy pile of papers on the table and hesitated as she said, "I, uh... It's... It's nothing. I'm just studying, that's all."
"...Studying?" Now Eren is just more curious than ever.
"Studying for what? Unless... There's no quiz or something next week, is there?"
"No, not that kind of studying..." She muttered, twiddling her thumbs as she kept her eyes towards the floor.
"I'm studying for something... pretty different."
"Well then, so..." Eren briefly paused as he tries to find the proper words and the courage.
"Do you... Do you need some help or anything?"
"Oh?" Mikasa seemed surprised at his sudden question.
"I'm not so sure you could help out with... this."
"But, thanks for the offer, though." She mustered a smile on her weary face.
Eren, feeling slightly heartbroken, decided to just give it a try and help the tired girl in any way he could.
"Come on, Mikasa." Eren said as he slowly ambled his way closer to the girl.
"It can't be that hard, could it? Just give me a chance to try and help you."
"No, wait, wait! NO!" The flustered Mikasa threw her arms over the messy pile of papers in a desperate attempt to cover it all up.
In her rushed desperation, a few of the papers flew all around the room from her ensuing force, swirling and dancing in the dusty air before they finally settled across the entire floor. The two children just stood there, their bodies frozen still with eyes widened - they couldn't believe something like that just happened. The boy stifled an awkward chuckle as the girl silently cursed her luck...
"Wow... So, that just happened." Eren said.
"Uh, yeah... Whoops..." Mikasa added.
"Sorry about that. Here, let me help you." Eren smiled as he slowly bent down his legs and reached for the nearest paper available.
Mikasa suddenly leapt from her chair, much to the boy's shock and horror.
"No, no, there's really no need for that!" She loudly begged, her voice faltering from the nervousness building up inside her throat.
"Don't worry about it, Eren! It's fine, really! It's fine! You can just leave now..."
The half-kneeling Eren, with his eyes firmly locked onto the girl's, quickly picked up the paper and then, laid his eyes across it without so much as even saying another word.
"No, no, wait! Hold on a second, Eren! That's-"
"Huh?"
Eren was completely perplexed as he saw various sets of different lines and shapes written across the entire paper, most of the lines would then diverge and intersect with each other in similar but also, contrasting manners. The strange symbols was. for some reason, written alongside different crudely drawn pictures such as - what the boy believes - a house, a tree and some kind of weird creature, just to name a few. Eren tries his very best but he just couldn't understand, let alone make any sense at what he was looking at...
"Eh, um... Mikasa? What's... What is this?" Eren stammered, his eyes kept scanning the entire paper as he tries to make sense of what was written on it.
Mikasa, already defeated, snatched the paper away from the boy. She gave him a stern glare and a brief scowl before she turned around and went about collecting the rest of the papers across the floor. The boy stood awkwardly still, a feeling of uneasiness inside him began swelling up even more as he watched the girl collecting the various pieces of paper. He wonders what he had done was the right thing to do...
"It's an old Oriental language." Mikasa muttered.
"An old language?"
"Believe it or not, there was a time where different kinds of languages exist behind the Walls. But nowadays, most, if not all, of the old ones have just been forgotten in favour of this universal language. I'm just trying to learn my people - the Orientals - one of their ancient languages. "
"But then - Why are you trying to, well... Why keep it a secret?" Eren asked.
"I... I just don't want anybody to ask me about it, that's all. It's just one of those things where you just don't want anyone else to find out because... Somehow, for some reason, you just knew that deep down, you feel like they'll never understand, am I right?" She briefly glimpsed at the nervous Eren, her cold eyes felt like they were stabbing directly into the young boy's heart.
"Oh..." Eren fell silent - that sounded a little bit too familiar for him.
"Yeah, I don't know what it's even called but, my... My Mom used to teach me all about it before - Well, you know - before she died." Her throat felt dry.
"Just like Armin, my Mom also had all these really old books and she would use them to teach me how to fluently speak all the words of her old language, how to write it all down to the very curve and how to put a proper sentence together." Mikasa just gazed into the cold floor. For some reason, she just stopped trying to pick up the rest of the papers.
"I was pretty bad at learning it all and she would be so angry and flustered whenever I said the wrong word. Dad would just laugh all the time at her reactions - It was funny..." The grim expression on her face was still the same but the boy could tell that it was more sad and depressed than before.
"But still, I just want to keep learning about it and try my best to keep it inside my head as long as possible because..."
"Even though there might be no one else behind the entire Walls who will understand these words, I sometimes feel like if I just stop and forgot all about it..." She paused, tightening her grip around the papers in her hands.
"If I just forgot about it, I feel like I'll..." She closed her eyes as she couldn't even finish her own sentence.
"I could be one of the last few Orientals behind the Walls, Eren, maybe the only one left. I could be the only one that's keeping these words alive, and if I can't even remember it, then it feels... It feels like I'll just let everything about my Mom fade away..."
The cold and painful silence of the night quickly settled into the dim room as she unknowingly finished her heartfelt confession.
Eren paused, standing completely frozen still, looking at the little girl hunched on the floor as she gazed into the darkness that surrounds and dances in the corners of her room. She was hiding it behind her usual expressionless self but the boy could easily see the sheer sadness flickering behind her hollowed eyes. He clenched his fists and swallowed the uneasiness inside him - he knew what he wanted to do now...
Eren marched his way over to the girl's side and immediately knelt down besides her, picking up all the remaining pieces of paper left on the floor in one fell swoop, without even a single moment of hesitation.
"Eren?"
"Hey, what does this word means?" Eren smiled as he pointed towards one of the sets of symbols besides a picture of a strange creature.
"That... That's..." She was taken aback by the boy's weird behaviour at first, but she still tries to answer normally. "That spells dog, you can see I already drew a picture next to it."
"Oh, really?" Eren squinted his eyes and looked at the picture even closer than before. "That's... It's a dog?"
"Yeah? What's wrong?"
"Nothing! nothing..." He playfully smiles it off like it was nothing - Guess he finally found something that Mikasa wasn't very good at...
"Anyway, then... What's this?" He pointed towards another set of words besides a picture of oddly arranged rectangulars.
"That would spell a door."
"Awesome, thanks a lot."
"...You're welcome?"
"Then, what's next, uh... Let's see, how about - Could you show me how to write, hmm... How about an apple?"
"Eren, what are you even trying to do?"
"Huh?"
"What is wrong with you tonight? You're just acting all weird and crazy." Mikasa doesn't know whether to be angry at the boy or annoyed by him.
"Like I said before..." His callous smile from before faded away in favour of a more serious and determined look. "I just want to help you."
"And right now, if you're willing teach me, Mikasa, I can help you keep these words alive. So if there is ever a moment where you happen to forget any of this, I'll be there, I can help you remember. I won't let your Mother fade away from you..."
"Eren, I... I..." Mikasa was speechless.
"I'm also a pretty bad student in - Well, generally everything, but - I'll try to do my best, okay?" Eren smiled.
"Don't worry about that. We can help each other." Mikasa returned the smile with one of her own.
The children got up from the cold floor and went their way to her table, still cluttered with dozens of her messy papers and a dusty old book or two.
"Alright, so... Could you show me how to write the word' apple'?"
Mikasa sat on her chair and promptly picked up a pencil and the closest, most remotely cleanest paper she could grabbed from the big pile on her table.
"Alright, here's how you do it." Mikasa exclaimed as her hands gracefully danced across the paper, writing the strange words that Eren couldn't even fathom.
"Wow, I have no idea what you're writing." He joked. She just smiled back.
"Okay, okay, if we're going to do this seriously, we should start from the beginning and try to understand some of the basic and simple phrases first and then, we can slowly move on from there."
"Sure, go ahead! But, uh... Go easy on me, okay?"
Somehow, the boy's crippling drowsiness from before had all but disappeared, replaced with nothing but sheer relief and unknowing excitement. Of all the subjects he casually ignored at school without paying it much attention, for some reason - he was actually looking forward to learning about Mikasa's old language, maybe it was the exotic feeling he gets or maybe it's the special reason he decided to do such a thing in the first place.
But whatever the reason maybe, Eren wants to try his very best and give it his full undivided attention.
He was sure Mikasa would like it very much, she'll be happy again, finally happy...
"Hey, Eren..." Mikasa suddenly stopped in the midst of her writing.
"Hmm?"
"Thanks... For doing all of this." She spoke softly, without even raising her head from those papers of hers.
Eren smiled, "No problem..."
"It's the least I can do, Mikasa..."
The flickering candle almost melted away into complete nothingness as the children spent the many hours of the entire night just hard at work studying together and trying to understand Mikasa's ancient language.
Eren's parents was indeed shocked and amazed when they found them slumbering in the same room together, completely drained and weary to the bone.
It was a... surprising night, for sure.
Hey, guys! I just want to say thanks again for continuing to read all this nonsensical crap that I put out and actually favoriting it. (Wow, really, guys? Wow, I love you all so much!) As always, any opinions and reviews are welcomed and very much appreciated. Also, I just want to apologize for the frivolous use of the word 'Orientals' - I was just trying to follow the current lore of the world but I do understand that it is still a demeaning and derogatory term for some and thus, I do apologize if I had offended anyone who read it.
Lastly, if you enjoyed the good memories of Eren and Mikasa's time together so far, I just wanted to say - there must be bad memories too, right?
...Right?
Anyways, thanks again for reading and I wish you all a very good day.
-ParagonFlynn