Disclaimer: I don't own SnK
Saturday morning found Annie looming over Mikasa's bed, waiting for her to wake up for their usual run.
"Wake up." It wasn't a request; it was more like a terse command, accompanied by a slight kick to the bed.
Mikasa groaned and opened her eyes, wincing at the light that Annie was holding to her face. "Put that thing away; I'm awake,"
"Good." Annie said, flicking the room lights on and putting the flashlight down. "Then let's go."
Mikasa rolled out of bed and put her hair up in a messy ponytail, before grabbing her phone and following Annie out. The two of them had gotten into a habit of getting up at 4 in the morning to run for three solid hours before making their way back to the dorm. They went to bed on Fridays in their running attire, so that the only thing they had to do when they woke up was to make themselves look presentable before leaving.
They stretched outside the building in silence, Mikasa still rubbing sleep from her eyes occasionally, and Annie completely focused on her movements. When they were ready, they ran at their own pace, often outstripping one another at different points in their run. At the end of three hours, though, they usually ended up jogging slowly together back to their dorm before slowing down to a walk.
They got back to their room at 7 in the morning, took a quick shower, before heading out to the dining hall to meet Sasha for breakfast, where she was often already eating before them. Today was no different; her plate was already half-empty by the time they arrived.
"Sorry," she said, smiling at them, "But the food looked really good, and I was really hungry,"
Annie rolled her eyes, taking a seat and pulling her own food towards her. "Since when are you not? You're lucky that they provide a buffet for every meal,"
"The only reason why I chose this dorm, actually," Sasha said in all seriousness, pausing in her attempt to inhale the rest of the food on her plate. "So what's on everybody's agenda today?"
"Studying," Annie and Mikasa said at the same time, forking eggs into their mouths slowly.
Sasha sighed. "Sounds fun,"
"You could come to the library and study with us," Mikasa coaxed. The library was a lovely place to go to study, with hardwood flooring and shelves, and great huge tomes on every subject you could ever want to know more about.
Annie wrinkled her nose. "I'm not going to the library." Unfortunately, it seemed that out of all her friends, Mikasa was the only one who enjoyed spending time in the library. Eren had deemed it too quiet, Sasha was put out by the ban on food in the building, Armin had gone through most of the books before, and Annie thought it was too oppressive. As a result, Mikasa too rarely went into the library as her friends were always suggesting some other place to study instead. On the rare occasion that no one was pressing for her attention, though, she enjoyed going into the library to study, or to read.
"You can bring drinks in, just not solid food," Mikasa tried again. Sasha's dread of studying was well-known to everyone, and frankly everyone had been surprised that she'd done well enough to make it into the college. It was thus that her friends had to continually try to encourage her to study, though they failed to do so half the time. She'd somehow managed to keep her grades up, which was an impressive feat in itself, but sometimes they still worried about her.
"Hmm," Sasha replied non-committedly, swallowing her last forkful of food on her third plate of breakfast. "Are you guys done?"
Mikasa and Annie stood, drawing up their empty plates with them as they followed Sasha to the plate-return section, then went back up to their dorm.
"Sasha, why are you following us?" Mikasa finally asked as she turned the corner leading to her room.
"You asked me to study with you?" Sasha offered.
"Yes, but don't you need to go get your books?"
"What does it matter?" Annie responded. "She can just borrow some of your books and stare at them blankly for a while,"
"Yeah, and besides—" Sasha added, halting in front of Annie and Mikasa's room door, then throwing it open with a loud flourish. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
The door flew open with a generous crash, and Eren and Armin belatedly sprang up from their crouching positions behind the beds, spraying confetti and flecks of glitter overhead.
"Oh," Mikasa said, looking at the spectacle before her, not knowing how to respond to it. Behind her, Annie gave an irritable sigh before pushing her into the room and collapsing on the sofa.
"Were you surprised?" Eren asked, excitedly crowding Mikasa. "You were, weren't you? Didn't expect it, huh? Annie said we probably shouldn't do it, but you've got to admit that this was a really good idea!"
Mikasa smiled; it was hard not to get carried away by Eren's enthusiasm, even if she thought it was a little over the top. "Yeah, it was. Thanks, guys,"
"We thought we'd do this because we hardly see you around anymore ever since you got that job," Armin said, carefully dusting her bed free of any specks of glitter or confetti before sitting down on it.
"I've only worked for three days, and besides, you see me every day at lunch," she responded. "Anyway, you guys can always come by to the café after classes if you miss me so much,"
"It's so far away," Sasha groaned. "But how's work? Do you have to work late every night?"
"Is it safe when you walk home?" Armin added, remembering her mention that she usually left by eleven, which was, while early enough by campus standards, was still quite late in his opinion.
"It usually is, but I guess yesterday was an exception," Mikasa said. "There was a group of guys who wanted to, you know, attack me, but it was fine, I dealt with it with a little bit of help,"
"I did not hear about that," Annie said, her eyes sharp. Eren, next to her, had gone completely still, and his face was steadily growing darker and darker. "Who were they?" He demanded.
"It's fine," Mikasa quickly said, attempting to calm them down. "They were drunk, and didn't hurt me in any possible way; Rivaille stepped in before they could do anything,"
"Ooh," Sasha said, her eyes widening. "Tell us!"
Mikasa recalled her walk home the previous night over a cup of tea and some birthday cake, which they had produced from the depths of Annie's closet, and which was almost immediately devoured by Sasha once everyone else had gotten a sliver of cake. As she told them the story, she kept an eye on Eren and his girlfriend; either one of them were liable to get up and demand for revenge upon the group of boys and while it was touching, it wasn't something she wanted to happen in the immediate future, or any future at all.
"Hmm," Eren said, when she was done. "Maybe I should start walking you home every day from the café,"
"Don't be silly," Mikasa dismissed him. "It was just a fluke. Anyway, suffice to say I won't be taking that route home anymore; I'll just stick to my shortcuts through the school buildings,"
Eren seemed dissatisfied with her answer, but eventually he backed down and stopped pushing the matter.
"If it happens again, then we'll talk," Mikasa said firmly. "But I'm fully capable of defending myself, and from now onwards, I'll dial the number for the campus police and keep my finger on the 'call' button, alright? Besides, I don't always leave at the same time, and I don't want to inconvenience any of you,"
The conversations then turned to lighter, more idle topics, about courses and classes and professors and if Mikasa really liked the gifts they had gotten her.
Sasha had given her a gift voucher to a book store just outside campus, and Annie had gotten her a new pillowcase set "because yours looks old and I can't imagine how you sleep on that every night." Armin had compiled a list of books which he'd thought she would like, and on top of that he had gotten a new pencil case to replace her current one which was falling apart. Eren got a red beanie to match the red muffler she still used from back when they were children; every year, he'd get something else that was red to match the muffler he had given her when they were kids. They often joked that by now, Mikasa probably had enough birthdays to have a complete red outfit (which she did, but it wasn't like she made an effort to announce it to the whole world.)
The rest of the day passed in a companionable fashion, the five of them just gathered in Mikasa and Annie's room, talking and laughing late into the night.
That was why, on Sunday, Mikasa felt the urge to wake up much earlier than usual at six in the morning and go down to the school library to study, to make up for the complete lack of it the previous day. She crept out of the room past a sleeping Annie, leaving and note to let the girl know where she had gone, before taking a quick breakfast in the hall and hurrying down to the library. She knew she had a time constraint; she had to finish the work that was assigned to her by today, and she still had to go down to the café at 4 to help out with the cakes. And yet, she didn't regret spending the entirety of her Saturday with her friends; it had been a while since they'd gotten together to just talk.
Eight hours later, Mikasa had a crick in her neck and had finally finished all her work, and finished reading up on her classes. She was starving, but a quick glance at her watch told her that she only had two more hours before she had to go to the café, and she figured that she might as well grab something on the way there, or get some food from the café itself.
After an hour and a half more of reading, she decided that she had had enough, and gathered up her books and piled them into her bag, ready to leave the library in search of some sustenance. As she was passing by the door on her way out, she accidentally bumped into someone, spilling their books all over the floor.
"I'm so sorry," she gasped, hurrying to pick up all the books.
"It's alright," the other person said, smiling at her and adjusting her own glasses. "Accidents happen, after all,"
"Oi," someone called down from above them, sounding very much like Rivaille. "Four-eyes. Hurry up."
"Sorry, he's a bit rude," the other girl said as she gathered the last of her books. "Thanks for the help!" She grinned at Mikasa, before running ahead and meeting Rivaille at the door, who scoffed and let her go in before him.