"You're here again." Levi lets out in a bleak tone, noting the child that stood a few inches away from him, her face strayed from any emotions. This unfamiliar being who always distanced herself to an extent—where he was not able to come in to contact with her. She never seemed frightened, nor did she veil any sort of apprehension. She just stood there, her devoid eyes approaching his orbs for a protracted moment, never surfacing any traces of fear. Her pupils held a bitterness—cold and ominous, as if it held an unspoken chronicle that wandered aimlessly, never surfacing—just concealed in the depths. There was no stiffness in the air. No tension. There never really was. Somehow, it became a habitual routine for them to meet about like this. He never questioned anything about her—considering her withdrawn personality, he just observed her from this safe distance. This distance that they created from a world of their own perceptions. Levi however, couldn't help but take an inquiry about this child, and the reasoning as to why she always trailed her steps to a dark, formidable place like this.
"Tell me, you little brat, " he blurted out between clenched teeth, hoping to strike some sort of fear in her vacant eyes. "Why do you come here?"
The little girl, apparent of his scrutinizing orbs, held her rigid stance while her eyes reached their way up to lock gazes with him. Though, after moments of silence that passed by relentlessly, she dropped her gaze towards the murky ground below her—her raven hair billowing in the wind, as if dancing to the current that briskly threaded around them unnoticing. She parted her lips slowly—that of which were drained from any color. She whispers a word though, it was too soft-spoken for him to make out of it. He exhaled heavily, his interest in figuring her out diminishing from his mind. "Forget it." He deepened his gaze with her, taking a step forward.
One step.
Her head abruptly arises with extreme caution, her eyes broadened with hints of pain and dejection that it rendered his being speechless. She barely lets out a word, her lips trembling to the motion of her frail body. "So, I'm not alone." He could feel her aura wrapping around him—this pungent coldness, numbing him in ways he couldn't understand. His eyes fell back to her shaken body, her arms folded tightly around her chest, trying to maintain some restriction of warmth through tattered clothing. He suddenly felt the urge to step forward, his half-lidded eyes drowned in curiosity.
Two steps.
The little girl falters backwards, startled by his movement towards her. "Stop." She barely breathed, just above a murmur.
Levi shook his head slowly, deriving to a conclusion that she was an abandoned orphan. Just like he was. The cruelty of the world giving them no place to stand ground. No form of resolve for them to grasp.
"It's okay." He responded back, his eyes sliding back to hers, still tight. "You're alone, like me." He nods in absolute discernment, his foot slowly closing in the distance between them.
Three steps.
She stood still in a frozen stature, silently observing his movements as he continued to approach her, taking slow strides. "This shit hole you see here, is my world." The edges of his lips pulled up, ever so slightly, his hands in mid-air, noting the over-spacious dark area that hinted not even a glare of light, but an exception of one. The light that hovered above them, a grand view of the blue sky that gently romanticized the depleted walls around them. "This world of mine has one rule brat," He quietly reached her, kneeling his body down with ease. "The rule is, to believe."
She didn't comprehend the words that parted from his lips. The puzzlement in her eyes, told him in advance. He lets out a dark chuckle, brushing his onyx hair back with the strokes of his fingers. "We've been abandoned kid, nothing much for us, but to pretend that this world is still balanced," He exhaled, his eyes lifting up towards the clear sky that sheltered over them. "But you see, in this world that I created," he lifted a finger up, a smirk edging at his lips, "we are our own strength. We don't rely on others to survive." He closed his eyes, inhaling the cool breeze. "We survive by believing. Believing that we are strong soldiers, battling against all odds— never in a waking moment, do we ever give up." He flickered his attention towards her again, noticing how her stiff shoulders began to relax. "To give up means to forget that we're alive."
The little girl could feel a wetness crashing against the brim of her eyelids, pushing her over the edge, as her breaths became frantic. More urgent. She was suffocating inside. Suffocating in darkness that she could never escape.
Levi approached her again, his eyes burning with unveiled emotions in which she couldn't decipher—forcefully grabbing a handful of her tattered blouse, exhaling sharply. "You're suffering right?" He narrowed his eyes, lifting her up by collar of her blouse, her body barely clinging only to the clothing that held her in place. She began to struggle, throwing wild punches at him, extending her foot forward to kick him in the hollows of his throat—though he swiftly halts the force of her foot by the clasping of his free hand. "It hurts doesn't it?" He tightens his grip around her foot, causing her to whimper out a cry of pain. "Suffer, because that pain that you feel inside your hollow body—it will make you stronger. It will give you the strength to live. This pain is proof that you still exist in this world." He freed his hand from the collar of her blouse, dropping her body to the concrete ground. She cringed in pain, from the impact of her body collapsing to the floor. Levi loomed over her, his arms folded across his chest tightly, his eyes glinting with amusement. "How does it feel?" He quirked an eyebrow, watching a change of expression in her face.
"...It hurts." She uttered in a flat tone, her fingers fidgeting together in antsy movements. "But it also feels beautiful." She flickered her dark orbs towards him, her onyx hair descending over the soft edges of her face. "It's a beautiful feeling to be alive." She managed through jagged breaths, tears accumulating in the depths of her eyelids. She felt the remoteness inside of her, igniting a tiny flame ablaze in her vacant body—the sentimental words that threaded around her, branded itself in the core of her twisted existence.
'Suffer, because that pain that you feel inside your hollow body—it will make you stronger. It will give you the strength to live. This pain is proof that you still exist in this world.'
She existed in the midst of the cruelty— her existence still, very much, significant to the world, even if she stood alone, amongst the internal suffering. She would walk this world with clenched fists, and the trails of her footsteps would be left behind her, leaving the traces of her mere existence, bounding her soul to this sickened place, even after death. She would become strong. Strong enough to be remembered. Strong enough to be a person worthy of their own life. Because this world is merciless— she glanced up at the man in front of her, an impassive expression on his face, extending his hand outwards with a welcoming, darkened smile— and it is also very beautiful.
"My name is Mikasa." She paused for a brief moment, slowly reaching her hand upwards. "Mikasa Ackerman." Her voice became firm, as she clasped her hand tightly with his.
He let out a dark chortle, his eyes gleaming with beguilement. "Ackerman." He let the name roll off the tip of his tongue, his hand resting on top of her head. "Sounds like a name of a strong soldier."
An unexpected giggle escaped from her thin lips— gasping in the process, as she concealed her crimson face with her hands.
"So that's what it sounds like." Levi scoffed, squeezing the sides of her head between his grasp tightly— before letting out a chuckle in return. He glanced down at her arm, a grand idea surfacing in his mind. "Give me your wrist." His rested his sharp blue eyes on her charcoal orbs for a protracted moment. She wavered inside— though her body instinctively reacted to the tone of his voice, her arm shooting up in a haste movement. He reached inside his pocket, fumbling his hand for a few minutes before presenting something abstract on the palm of his hand. White bandages. He grabbed one end of the lengthy bandages, lightly raising her wrist in mid-air— before wrapping it around in slow measured movements. She gazed at him in confusion, not quite grasping the situation.
"We'll make this a symbol," he muttered under his breath, his eyes probing deeply into hers. "Symbol of our existence." He knotted the loose ends together, releasing his grip around her arm, pulling up his sleeve to expose the bandages of his left wrist.
Mikasa traced her fingertips over the bandages, her eyes hinting curiosity with a mixture of enlightment on the surface of her pupils. She was beyond words, unsure on whether the wrapped bandages of endearment were making her feel a taste of bliss.
"What's your name?" She abruptly questioned him, recalling how he never introduced himself to her.
He just stood there with his arms crossed, a smirk embelishing on his placid face. "I'll tell you when we meet each other again, later in our lives."
She exhaled sharply, slightly disappointed. "How will I find you then?"
He arched an eyebrow, thinking to himself in drawn-out silence, taking a glimpse of the bandages around her wrist and responded back briskly. "The bandages," he pointed his forefinger at his wrist and nodded his head towards hers. "We'll find each other by the bandages that seal our promise." He clenched his fist tightly, his gaze wandering above him towards the clear skies. "Our promise to become stronger and leave proof of our existence in this world."
There she felt it. A slight tremor in her void chest— a soaring, eruption coursing through her hardened body, as if she were being illuminated under a layer of warmth, wrapping tightly around the regions of her hollow heart. She would meet him again some day. And she would become strong. Strong enough to prove that her existence was enough in this shallow world. This promise tightly wrapped around their wrist, bounded them together with a seal. Inevitably twisting their fates together by a thread.
'We will meet each other again some day, our fates intertwined, and our future ahead of us...'
To clear up misunderstandings, this is a prompt where he finally talks to the child Mikasa, who would always show up underground, at a secret area where
Levi would always be at. This is like the first encounter and how they would meet again in the future
, so I added the bit of the bandages in there to. Idk T_T I like this drabble and I kinda
don't, I might delete it later because I feel like it wasn't as good as I thought it would be.
But thank you anyways for reading!