Welcome, everyone!
SPOILER ALERTS. This takes place after the ending of the manga.
I tend to think that Mikasa suffered more than anyone truly knew after the war. We saw her demeanor change when she thought that Eren was dead earlier in the series. I believe that she would truly have a hard time coming to terms with his loss. The beginning of this chapter reflects that.
Enjoy!
Armin eyed Mikasa nervously from across the table, brow furrowed and heavy with worry. He studied her face, focusing sharply on the glaringly obvious signs of exhaustion burned into her empty eyes, silver irises long since faded into a murky pool of unfeeling oblivion.
He watched as she weakly poked at her dinner, movements listless and groggy. Her slender fingers barely gripped the tarnished silver, unsuccessful in her pursuit of a stray broccoli florette. The prongs of the fork grated and stuttered against the beaten plate. It was painful to watch. She was unbearable to watch. Weak. Frail.
Her pale lips were parted slightly, shallow breaths revealed only by the fluttering strands of raven hair framing her face, and Armin found himself grossly grateful for that small consolation.
Simultaneously, he felt mildly sickened that something as simple as breathing was the only assurance remaining that Mikasa lived…. If he could even call it that. To live was to experience life. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Fall in love. Gaze at the stars. Eat something other than air.
Mikasa merely survived - and even saying that was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It had been a month since the war ended, and it had been anything but peaceful. The days were filled to the brim with negotiations, rebuilding, strengthening international relations, and finding time to mourn the millions lost to the rumbling.
They had been so incredibly busy, a welcome thing for Armin, a distraction from the haunting images carved jaggedly into his memories.
However, nothing could ever hope to distract Mikasa, and Armin had recognized that the second she emerged from the roiling steam with Eren's severed head cradled tenderly in her arms.
He had tried so desperately to give her jobs and keep her mind moving. He sent her on trips, assigned her to lead the construction teams, sent her on quiet reprieves to give her space. But nothing worked. He had watched her health decline frighteningly fast. He had watched her skin pale, her eyes dull, and her limbs shrink in malnutrition. Nothing could have prepared him for how quickly she would fall from her emerald skies, wings clipped, heart obliterated, every fleshy, splattered piece engraved with Eren's name.
But, to be fair… was it truly surprising? Armin stared down at his own plate with a withering appetite, musing silently over his thoughts. Anyone would suffer as Mikasa did if they shouldered the burden she carried.
Eren had been her everything. He was her reason for existing. It was obvious to everybody how deeply she loved and adored him. But no one outside of Armin seemed to care that she was shriveling under the pressure of Eren's blaring absence.
He jumped when something suddenly brushed his cheek. Glancing sideways, he met the blue of Annie's eyes and watched her hand retreat from his face.
He could tell by her expression that she had similar concerns. Her gaze flickered to Mikasa, lingering briefly, frowning when she dropped her fork and despondently gave up on the idea of dinner. Looking back to Armin, Annie raised her eyebrows sharply, emphasizing her worry.
She often surprised him with how much she had opened up, how blatantly obvious her concern for her friends was. It was, for lack of better words, adorable to Armin.
He nodded. Fingertips brushing the fabric of her trousers, he gave her leg a reassuring squeeze. Pretending not to see the blush flood across her cheeks, he looked at Mikasa again with gentle, careful eyes, bracing himself.
"Hey, Mikasa . . ."
She flinched at her name, seemingly startled. Like a rabbit reacting to a snapping branch. A creature of prey. Not like herself. Not like the lethal predator she had been during the war.
Armin clenched his teeth, sadness welling in his throat and decidedly settling there, a thick, obtrusive lump. Forcing a smile, he leaned to make eye contact with Mikasa and tried desperately to ignore how utterly hollow she looked… Like a corpse.
"Did you sleep okay?" he asked, trying his best to sound more optimistic than he felt, finding instead that he sounded syrupy and disgustingly fake.
He wanted to smack himself.
He knew it was a stupid question. Did any of them truly sleep well any more? Were any of them not plagued by the godawful scenes of bloodshed and violence, of friends being torn apart, gunfire peppering the rot-filled air, death, destruction, loss . . . If Armin closed his eyes long enough, he swore he could still smell the stench of rancid blood and decay, feel the squelch of flattened, massacred bodies shifting underfoot.
Focus… he reminded himself.
Mikasa blinked, swollen eyelids desperately aching for the sweet reprieve of sleep. She assessed Armin's expression, fully aware of his deepening concern for her. Such a mother hen. Always fussing over her well-being. Always putting a halter on Eren when his anger burned out of control. He was the stable foundation of their trio. He had always checked in on them regularly. Now, with Eren gone, it was only her, and the constant attention was exhausting.
She spared a quick glance at Annie, who was cautiously appraising the situation. Why did she have to be here, too?
Contorting her lips into some semblance of a smile, she nodded, fully cognizant of the deception written all over her face. "Yeah, I'm okay." Her grip tightened on her pleated skirt. Her teeth grated against each other painfully.
Lies lies lies lies, all lies. Sharp, disgusting lies made only to repel anyone and everyone from being exposed to the shattered, demoralized state of her mind. She was an Ackerman. She wasn't supposed to feel like this.
Her head existed in a perpetual haze of depression. Her insides screamed constantly. Her bleeding heart clawed violently and incessantly at itself, begging, pleading for the succinct mercy of death. Her brain played an eternal slideshow of gore, never allowing her to look away, always forcing her eyelids wide fucking open. Watch what happened. Watch what you did. Watch the life leave his eyes, the blood pour from the wound YOU inflicted. Remember how cold his lips were against yours, how long you cradled him, how hard you sobbed and BEGGED…
Mikasa closed her eyes and said nothing more. Armin pursed his lips, hearing the ache in every syllable that had dropped from her mouth. Looking at his plate again, he clasped his hands together with enough force to turn the knuckles white. His thumbs twiddled and danced around each other nervously. He could tell that she wasn't in the mood to be helped, but… he was desperate, and she never wanted help, anyways.
"Listen…" he swallowed, the lump in his throat stubbornly cemented in place. "I think… I think you need to see somebody, Mikasa."
Her steely eyes flashed dangerously, life momentarily flaring deep in her pupils.
"Not like that!" Armin raised his hands defensively, fingers splayed. Backtracking quickly, he added, "I mean someone like a doctor. Someone to talk to, someone to help -"
The table rocked back when Mikasa leapt to her feet in a blinding movement, dishes and cups clattering. Her glass tipped, spilling its contents haphazardly across Annie and Armin's plates. Their uneaten bread readily sucked the moisture in, staining red quickly as the wine soaked into it. Those sitting at the table quieted quickly, surprised at the outburst.
Armin placed a handkerchief down and leaned back, sitting straight and trying to gather the courage to stand his ground and ignore the stares aimed their way. Her anger was palpable. He thought, for a strained moment, that she would knock him flat. He almost wished that she would, if only to show him that she still had the ability to express her feelings.
But, to his dismay, the fire in her eyes died down, replaced with an empty void once more. She sighed, morose, and gently righted her cup.
"See you tomorrow, Armin," she finally murmured. The air between them stiffened, stale with bitter tension. Pulling her scarf over her nose and throwing a half-hearted wave towards Annie, she threw a leg over the bench, lithe body stalking away, dodging other civilians and concerned onlookers as she went.
Armin's eyes followed her every step, the lump in his throat burning like acid. Tears stung his eyes, building in intensity as she grew smaller and smaller. Once she disappeared from view, he dropped his head into his hands, gripping his hair as grief finally overwhelmed him. His tears readily spilled then, brimming over as he began to drown. His chest convulsed, spewing a quiet, strangled cry from his lips. Pulling at his hair, his shoulders heaved with the chaotic, silent agony of a man who had lost too much to bear.
Annie watched him, feeling almost trepid. It was awfully uncomfortable for her to be in this particular situation. She had never been good with words and was not known for having a nurturing nature. However, she felt the pain in her chest and knew that Armin needed… something. Comfort…? Support?
Slowly, hesitantly, she reached for his trembling frame. Condolence was entirely a foreign thing to her. She felt herself second-guessing her actions, doubting whether she would help. Lip pinched between her teeth, she halted, deciding against her actions.
But before she could retreat, he leaned heavily into her touch. Blood rushed to Annie's cheeks. He was broken, afraid, so alone, and oh, so vulnerable. It was uncharacteristic of him, the commander of the scout regiment, the living symbol of freedom for all.
Annie felt a well of sadness rise in her chest, adding laboriously to the ache already there. Pressing her palm to his back, she tried to convey her understanding. She began to rub his trembling shoulders gently in slow, circular motions. Does this even help? She wondered, somewhat flustered. To see Armin, her personal embodiment of positivity and light, hunched over in obvious torment - it was disheartening, unnatural.
Exhaling slowly through her nose, Annie slid her hand along his shoulders again. Curling her hesitant fingers around his upper arm, she pulled him into a soft embrace. Careful. Gentle. Shy. She worked quietly to untangle his fingers from his hair, replacing the golden locks with her hand and pulling his arm around her waist. A tremble shivered through her when his fingers tightened right above her hip. She tried to ignore the racing of her heart as her other hand gently slid along the back of his neck, leaving tendrils of warm comfort in its wake.
His tremors made her heart pang. Pressing her forehead to his crown, she whispered a gentle "It's okay… I've got you…" and allowed him time to feel his emotions.
Armin readily accepted her validation with desperation. He tightened his grip around her waist and held her as if she were his lifeline, his tether to sanity. Just as he had relied on her to listen when she was imprisoned in her own crystalline hell, he depended on her now to help share the burden of his mind. If it weren't for her, he feared he would have been driven to pure madness long ago. He looked back on their one way conversations with fond warmth.
Annie continued to stroke his back, run her fingers through his hair, and whisper very occasional words of reassurance. She ignored the stares of those who passed their table, friend and stranger alike. When she spotted Reiner making his way towards them, she shook her head discreetly and motioned for him to move along. He shrugged, looking confused, and obliged.
The time passed in a similar manner - Annie protecting Armin from himself and unwanted attention, Armin struggling to keep a grip on his slipping sanity. They clung to each other, both a little broken, both a little desperate.
Eventually, finally, the mess hall had cleared, the last bit of chaos leaving with the final group of straggling soldiers. Once the doors swung closed, they were alone.
It felt like hours had passed before Armin finally calmed enough for the hiccups and tremors to fade. He began to grow numb from the burning. His logical reasoning began breaking through the frontlines of the wildly raw emotions fighting in his brain. His irregular breathing steadied. Blurred vision cleared. Blinking firmly, he took a deep breath and pressed his face into the spot just below Annie's jawline, inhaling deeply. He felt her heartbeat stutter. It grounded him further. He briefly considered pressing a chaste kiss to her heated skin, but decided against it. This was not how he wanted a first kiss to happen, even if it was just her neck.
Sighing, he finally pulled away, roughly scrubbing the tears from his face with the heel of his hand. He smiled down weakly at Annie, reluctant to release her from his grip.
"I'm so sorry, Annie," he mumbled, throat hoarse. "It's just… I feel…"
Helpless.
sighing, he let his fist fall to the table. "I feel as if I've lost both of them." His eyes bored into hers, heart bared and vulnerable. "I knew I was going to lose Eren. Well, I actually lost him a long time ago… But I didn't expect him to take Mikasa with him when he died."
Armin could still see it clear as day as the image flashed through his mind for the second time within the hour: Mikasa striding through the steam, the bloody head of his best friend tenderly pressed to her chest, her expression distant, dissociated, destroyed. She was an entirely different person.
Annie nodded, thinking back to Mikasa's soulless eyes from earlier.
Armin looked back to his hands, jaw working as he tried to frame his words. "She… she screams in her sleep."
Screams of pure agony. Blood curdling screams of pain and loss.
Annie's eyes widened, surprised. She couldn't imagine Mikasa screaming.
"I hear it every night," Armin continued, tears threatening to appear again. "I haven't told her. But it's always the same. She never sleeps, and when she does, it's short lived. I hear her pace the halls. I hear her cry until her voice is gone. And every night, she calls his name." He paused, looking at Mikasa's unfinished plate. "I've never, ever seen her like this. I know that losing Eren was terrible, especially when she was the one to do it, especially since they were so close, but this…" he trailed off, chewing his bottom lip. "This is just agony."
A breeze wafted through the mess hall, flickering the small flame of a nearby candle. Annie watched goosebumps prickle up Armin's neck. He shivered, eyes fixated on something in the distance. His lips parted, sucking the fresh air in. He focused on the feeling of that air filling his lungs. Never a day went by when he was not grateful to be alive. He so wished for Mikasa to feel the same way, but he knew the truth.
Beneath it all, she yearned to die, too.
"I lost Eren," he finally continued, voice hard. "I can't lose Mikasa, too. She's the only family I have left, Annie."
The cold evening air stung Mikasa's cheeks as she stalked quietly through a dark alleyway, fuming. She blended with the shadows, melding into them effortlessly. She placed her feet with care, minding every pebble and puddle in her path. The pads of her fingers skirted softly along the brick wall she was following. Though she found herself in a state of physical decay, her senses remained sharp as a tack.
Home wasn't far, but she was loath to return. There was nothing about her lusterless room that beckoned her. It consisted only of bare wooden floors and a cold, empty bed - the place in which her nightmares routinely terrorized her, sucking her dry of any inclination to continue fighting.
It was not the bed within her treasured memories of the life she could have led, the warm, downy bed full of laughter, love, happiness, companionship. The life that didn't happen.
Squinting through her tired, foggy eyesight, she stopped.
No.
She didn't want to go home to toss and turn, scream and flail. Unless sleep could offer her a more permanent solution, she would continue to avoid it. Vehemently.
Pulling her scarf tighter around her neck, she shifted through the shadows and entered another alleyway that led in a different direction.
Her feet begged her not to walk this way. She felt reluctance seizing at her back, trying its best to drag her to a halt. Even the wind pushed against her, hushed whispers twining through her ears, leaves and debri scuttling along the tips of her boots.
She wanted badly to listen, but…
It had been a while since she had visited him.
Him. What a cold way to address someone so warm, someone who engulfed her so entirely.
He has a name . . . Mikasa thought to herself, eyes glazing over. He has a name. Say it.
Her throat automatically constricted. Her breath came out in a small gasp.
Damn.
Kicking at a stone, Mikasa dug her fingernails into her palms. She hated the weakened version of herself that she had become. She despised how frail she felt and how hard it was for her to even stomach a meal. She had become such a shadow of her former self. She was ashamed to be seen and reluctant to engage in social interaction.
But what she hated most of all was how painful it was to remember him. How scared she was to feel the agony. Even picturing his face was something she couldn't bear to do, because the only face she could see was from that day . . . empty eyes, sunken cheeks, and muscular tendrils strung from his head - a grotesque, defeated puppet. That expression that begged Mikasa to end his suffering . . .
Her chest tightened considerably. It was decidedly better to keep an empty head while walking, she mused, and so she continued her path in heavy suppression.
However, try as she might to hold it back, the moment she saw the tree looming over sunset-lit buildings, her heart began to race. Adrenaline surged in her veins, pushing her to increase her speed. Her atrophied muscles cried out, begging her to slow down, but she ignored them, breaking into a jog. Her lungs struggled to keep up, but she didn't care.
It was engrossing and tantalizing, how the tree called to her. It sang to her soul. It showed her precious memories of two children, so entirely absorbed in one another that nothing else in the world mattered as they sat under its shade among the campanulas.
He was all that mattered. He was all that had ever mattered.
The mantra ran on repeat with her footsteps, keeping rhythm as she wove through fairly empty streets, stumbling when smooth cobblestone gave way to uneven, grassy footing. The crisp scent of dirt and flowers caused her to inhale sharply and deeply.
Everything around her sang of him.
She charged up the hill, legs crying out for oxygen. Tears already pooled in the corners of her eyes.
She reached the base of the tree thoroughly depleted. Air whistled past her teeth as she sucked it in, lungs searing. The taste of iron leached onto her tongue. Stumbling to a halt, she bent over, grasping her knees and trembling as she waited for the panting to approach a somewhat bearable level. She swallowed hard when the urge to vomit hit her like a barreling train, flooding her mouth with sour saliva. Pressing the heel of her hand to her lips, she stood straight and threw her head back to the stars, eyes wide. She felt the chill of the night whisper around her neck, cooling the sheen of sweat glassed over her skin.
Beautiful . . . she thought, gazing upon the myriad of stars dancing in the sky, waltzing with each other in various collections of gorgeous constellations, free now that the sun had fully vanished.
It was a clear night. A perfect night to spend with him. Her arm fell back to her side.
How many times had they come here together as children to stare at the stars? How many times had she tried her best to teach him their names? How many times had he failed miserably, only for her to laugh gently as he cursed himself, each of them hiding a very obvious blush.
So many precious memories here, memories that she treasured beyond anything earthly she possessed. They were proof that he had lived, that he had cared, that he had once been free of the world's problems. He had been a normal boy… and he had been Mikasa's entirely.
Her hands brushed against her flowing skirt. The fibers caught on her dry fingers, the sensation uncomfortable.
Though she had made it here, she still found it incredibly difficult to face his headstone. The proof of his death. It was a simple one, engraved with words written by Mikasa herself.
"Here lies my dearly beloved, the love of my life, forever drifting off into sleep."
She had the words memorized and chiseled into her heart. She had thought of them while hugging his head to her chest, holding him under the tree, dragging the time between them before she would have to lower him into the ground. Because it was true… for all of the various methods of brutality he had endured, he appeared peaceful in death. Eternally sleeping.
And of course, the rest of it was painfully obvious. He was her beloved. She would never find a love so deep.
The headstone was perfect. Armin had agreed, too.
Water quickly spread along the fabric covering her knees when she fell to the ground, eyes screwed shut. She didn't want to see it. She didn't want to be reminded yet again that he was permanently gone. She could feel grief lurking in the shadows, ugly claws extended, waiting eagerly to pull her back into its tormented grasp.
She smiled sardonically, imagining a stronger version of herself facing grief equipped with full ODM gear . . . But she hadn't touched her gear since the end of the war. Grief would surely win without much of a fight.
Nostrils flaring, she took another gratuitous breath of brisk air. The dense scent of campanula flooded her senses, dragging buried memories back from the dead. Precious memories filled with Carla, Armin, collecting firewood, her parents, and . . .
"Tch," she scoffed, frowning. She still couldn't even think of his name without flinching. Somewhere deep within her mind, a younger Mikasa shook her senseless, begging her to resurface from this pool of misery she was drowning in, imploring her to fight. Just like he used to do.
Bright colors began to bloom lazily behind her eyelids. Still, she refused to open her eyes.
A faint breeze tickled her neck, soft as a gentle caress. What would his caress have felt like?
Sighing, she tried to loosen the tightly wound muscles in her throat and shoulders. Coughing slightly, she murmured, "I… I'm sorry I haven't visited in a while."
Weeks. It had been weeks. And even then, she had merely stood at the headstone, tears streaming. No words. There had been no words adequate to explain how she was feeling and how she was falling apart.
"I just... this is difficult. I know you would understand."
Would he? Or would he pull her to her feet, scold her for giving up?
Mikasa swallowed. "I haven't been doing the best," she admitted, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear self-consciously. "Can't sleep. Can't eat. I can't think straight most days. Armin is worried."
That was definitely an understatement. Armin was beside himself, she knew.
Softly biting her lip, she added, "He misses you. He tries to act like he's doing okay, but I know he does. He has to be strong, since he's commander and all… It's a good thing he has Annie. She's good for him. You should see how he gets around her." Mikasa almost smiled, remembering how Armin flushed whenever Annie so much as looked at him.
The night was quiet. Not even the crickets disturbed them now.
It was impossible not to acknowledge the warmth spreading in Mikasa's chest. Sitting here with him... it was healing. The holes in her heart were weaving together simply by talking to him, though he wasn't even there.
Why did she avoid this? Wasn't the warmth and the comfort worth the pain and grief? It beat out her isolation, leaving her empty half entirely whole.
"And… I miss you, too," she affirmed, twisting her hands into the ends of her scarf. "You have no idea how much… I..."
Hadn't she shed enough tears at this point?
Breath hitching, she steeled herself. She was strong. She needed to face it. She could do it.
"I miss you . . . I miss you so much. It makes me sick. It makes me want to d-"
She caught herself.
"...disappear…" she whispered, unable to tell him that she wanted to die. He would have hated that.
"I just… I wish you were here… Eren."
His name.
It was perfect. It burned. It spread a fire along every extremity, it brought back every glance of his emerald eyes, it highlighted every touch they had ever shared. It sang on her tongue, a soft, affectionate tune ringing from its letters. It was so simple, and yet, it brought her to life. Its light dispelled every shadow suffocating her heart.
Eren. Eren.
Using every ounce of courage she could muster from this burst of vigor, she opened her eyes, ready to face the stoic engravings -
And met Eren's impenetrable gaze instead.
His lips twitched into a beautiful smile. "Hey, Mikasa."