The bridge delivered him to a morning sky that looked like a far off war-torn city; the fading stars were inbound missiles, the ragged clouds were maroon flags flying proud, the sun was a radioactive blip.
Eren walked till he got to the highest point on the bridge. He walked as though he knew the route by heart. Below him, past the canal, houses crouched like prey animals in silent mimicry of each other. Sailboats bobbed in the tide. A garbage truck navigated the neighborhood.
Eren put his hand up over his face, squinting against the light.
The sun was rising. The sun was cauterizing him. The sun was here.
###
They were doing a controlled burn by the school. The air was smokey and embers drifted on the wind. A helicopter oversaw the burn. Trees shed blackened skin. This did not stop the girl's football team from practicing. Eren was the only one in the bleachers, watching the girls set up a scrimmage game. He clapped when Mikasa caught the ball or made a touchdown and shouted encouragement when she messed up. Occasionally Mikasa would take a break to guzzle water and talk to him at the bleachers.
Eren wasn't watching her face when she talked. He was watching her pulse jump in her wrist and wondering if the blood flowing through her veins was prismatic. Her coach, a middle-aged lady, yelled at her to run laps and Mikasa jogged back to the field.
A jeep pulled into the school parking lot. Reiner's head looked like a statue bust in the window. He got out, swinging his keys like he meant business. He saw Eren and walked over, brow furrowing.
"Yo," Reiner said. "I was looking everywhere for you. Don't you need a ride?"
"Mikasa's giving me one," Eren said, not looking at him.
Reiner coughed. "Are they seriously still doing the burn?"
Eren said nothing, crossing his arms.
"Let's go," Reiner said.
"I told you. I'm going with Mikasa," Eren replied.
"I don't think I'm comfortable with that," Reiner said.
"What?"
"You two seem tight," Reiner said. "I thought you didn't hang out with her anymore. What happened to her stutter, anyways? Remember that? H-h-hu-hi, I-I-I'm r-r-ruh-retarded."
Eren knew that Reiner was smiling without seeing any evidence of it on his face.
Reiner continued, innocently. "Didn't you tell me once that she's autistic?"
Eren felt something in his chest compress, crushed by an astounding pressure. Mikasa caught his eye from the football field and Eren looked away again. He didn't move. Reiner stared at him for a long time, and then started down the bleachers.
"Hey!" Reiner called. "Y'all need another person?"
Eren stood, shouting. "Reiner!"
"It's okay," Mikasa said. "He can play if he wants." She turned to the coach. "Can he?"
The coach shrugged. "Why not? We'll have an even amount of players."
Reiner turned back to Eren as if to say: see? Eren sat back down. Mikasa pointed. "You're on the losing team. Put on a jersey."
Reiner pulled a red jersey over his varsity letterman jacket and lined up with the opposing team. The red team and the black team faced each other as standing armies. The smoke from the forest fire shrouded the sun like a net passing over a golden fish.
Reiner smiled at Mikasa. "May the best man win."
She held her hands out. "Down… set… hike!"
The two lines crashed into one another. Reiner pushed through and sacked Mikasa. She hit the ground hard. Mud splattered. The football bounced out of her hands. Reiner flopped on the ball. A whistle blew and it was red team's ball now. Reiner was quarterback. He sent the ball spiraling high but Mikasa snagged it from the air. Interception. Black team's ball. Mikasa had learned from last time and, when Reiner blitzed her, she ran the ball to the end zone. Touchdown. Mikasa thumped the ball on her chest and then pointed with it at Eren: that one's for you. Eren laughed, clapping. Reiner shook his head like an irritated bull. The teams lined up again. Reiner made someone else quarterback and scored another touchdown on the third down. He spiked the ball, whooping. He waved to Eren in the bleachers and blew him a kiss. Eren didn't give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
Mikasa's team pulled ahead. Then Reiner's would just even it back up. Eren got the feeling that he was watching nature and nurture battle; Reiner's natural talent versus Mikasa's synthetic skills.
Soon, the score was tied up and they were in overtime. Next to score a point wins. Mikasa called for a time out and brought her team in for a huddle. Reiner paced impatiently. Mikasa raised her head from the huddle. She found Eren in the bleachers. She waved him over. Confused, Eren went to her.
"We're down a man," Mikasa said. "We need you."
"I'm just going to end up looking stupid," Eren said.
"No, look." Mikasa grabbed both his hands and raised them. "Catch like this. Make a diamond shape with your hands. Got it?"
"Got it," Eren said.
They got in position. Everyone knew what their job was except Eren. He tried to copy what the other girls were doing.
"Down… set…" Mikasa said. "Hike!"
They were off. Eren ran past clashing bodies. Dust mixed with smoke. Nobody was covering him. He turned at an angle and ran sideways, skirting the end zone. Mikasa was backing up, looking for someone to throw to. Eren raised his hands. Mikasa saw him. She drew back and launched the ball. Reiner was running after him, but it was too late. The ball flew high enough to graze the sun. Then it dropped in an great fall. Eren squeezed his eyes shut and held up his hands like how Mikasa showed him. When he opened his eyes, the ball was clutched firmly in his hands. Touchdown.
"Yes, Eren!" Mikasa bounced up and down. She threw her arms around his neck and then collapsed so that Eren caught all five foot nine of her. Straining, he dropped the football so he could lift her. She laughed and then cut it off abruptly when she saw the way Eren was looking down at her shining face. Reiner walked over, smiling, but Eren only now got the impression that he was not smiling at all.
"Good game," Reiner said. He held out a hand. Mikasa shook it, still in Eren's arms. Eren dropped her and Mikasa rolled in the grass, eyes closed, experiencing the euphoria of being young and mortal and Eren was sure that the Earth would tilt on its axis just to move them closer to the sun.
###
The fire hit the retention dirt ditch and stopped. Black acrid smoke poured from the burning trees. The helicopter whirled overhead, circling like a large dizzy wasp. Pinecones burst from the heat and scattered their seeds. Bracken shriveled. Clouds of insects were driven back.
The fire paced, trapped on this side. Suddenly, the wind direction changed from east to west. A phantom gust kicked up. Embers flew like seed pods in the wind. Voices from alarmed firefighters filtered through the woods. A stray ember drifted, crossing the retention ditch, catching on dry ferns on the other side. The forest was undergoing homeostasis, trying desperately to regulate its temperature under the inferno. It went from a controlled burn– a healthy antiseptic meant to cleanse the woods– to a wildfire in a matter of seconds.
Back at his house, Eren pressed record on his phone. He backed away from the camera so his whole body and bedroom was in view. He was wearing just shorts and a binder.
"Hi, my name's Eren–" He broke off, laughing. Someone out of frame said something and Eren told the other person to shut up. He restarted the recording.
"I'm Eren and I'm –" He nudged his brow up. "-seventeen, I think– I mean– shut up!"
"What do you mean you think?" Armin said, laughing, coming into view.
"Okay, restart," Eren said. "I'm Eren. I'm a seventeen year old trans dude and this is my journey so far." He leaned in and saved the first part of the video and then resumed. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a girl. I'm a dude." Armin chimed in: "just two dudes." Eren laughed again and pushed Armin. "For real this time."
He took a deep breath. "I've been transitioning for about three years now and it's been rough. I don't know if my parents support me–" At this, Armin nodded sympathetically. "-I don't think they had a choice because I'm pretty sure I'd be dead if I hadn't transitioned so they were kind of forced to accept it. I'm on T and puberty blockers and I probably will be for life."
Eren saved and continued. "I'm lucky enough to have a boyfriend who supports me–" Armin leaned in past him, his face coming close to the camera. "Hi Reiner," said Armin, wagging his fingers. Eren went on. "-but this school sucks and I can't wait to leave."
Eren's voice became shaky. "You all suck. I can't stand a single one of you. Everyday it's something new. Y'all will always be talking shit no matter what I do."
He saved the video. "So this is a call-out: fuck y'all. Stay mad. I don't give a shit. You're all a fucking joke." Eren flipped off the camera and after a moment, Armin did too. Eren ended the video. Armin helped him edit and inserted captions.
"Are you sure you want to post?" Armin asked.
"Yeah," Eren said. "I don't care anymore."
He posted and they played video games for the rest of the day. Eren checked TikTok intermittently but he had no likes on the video.
While he was sleeping, however, his phone lit up. Notifications began pouring in. His phone buzzed on the nightstand. It glowed whenever he got a message and this meant that his phone didn't stop glowing till morning.
The fire spread. White smoke meant the fire was out. Black smoke meant that the fire was still burning.
Black smoke enveloped everything, clogging openings, sealing airways, eating oxygen, filling space.
###
The wildfire raged on. Eren skipped school and laid in bed all day, avoiding his phone. Around 3 p.m, he checked. Missed call from Armin and a text: dude, you're viral. Are you okay? Fifty thousand new notifications on TikTok. Eren groaned, getting out of bed. He made his way downstairs.
"Feeling any better, sweetheart?" Eren's mom asked. He had faked being sick.
"Yeah." Eren's voice sounded strange to him. Raspy and unrecognizable. He sat at the dining room table.
"Want something to eat?" Carla said.
Eren rubbed his eyes and then rubbed his face. "Hey, mom?"
"Hm?" Carla's back was to him. She was doing the dishes.
"I'm thinking about detransitioning," Eren said.
Carla was silent for a long time. Finally, she turned around, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
"Did something happen?" she asked.
"No," Eren said.
"Does your father know?"
"No."
"Maybe this is a discussion you should have with him."
"You don't even care."
Carla sighed. "I asked you. I asked you if you were sure that this is what you want. I made sure."
"I do want it. Nobody else does, though," Eren said. "Not you, and not dad. I thought that– I thought if maybe I looked good enough and put the effort in, you'd stop looking at me that way. I'd be, like, worthy. Please stop looking at me like that."
Carla pursed her lips.
"It's in your voice too," Eren said. "You're disgusted with me."
"No, I'm not," Carla said. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, mom." Eren stood. He walked out the kitchen, grabbing his keys on the way out.
"Eren!" Carla shouted after him. He slammed the door shut. He walked to his car and didn't realize he was crying until he saw his reflection in the window. He got in, started the car, and peeled out of the driveway.
While driving, he texted Reiner: meet me under the bridge. He parked at an abandoned gas station next to the bridge. He got out of the car. The asphalt was cracked and the gas station parking lot was choked with weeds. Graffiti on the side of the bridge depicted a man, face covered by a bandana, hurling a brick at what appeared to be a stained glass window; the shattering window was rendered in dull colors, the man in neon. This was where Reiner and him first had sex. In the back of Reiner's jeep to the rumble of cars overhead and the smell of motor oil.
A jeep pulled into the parking lot, facing Eren's car like two dogs at a fight. The wind swung the door open for Reiner. He stepped out. Eren met him.
"Delete the video," Reiner said. The wind was howling now.
"Too late," Eren said, smiling. "The whole school's seen it."
"You think this is a joke?" Reiner said. "My dad knows now."
Eren laughed for some reason. His voice still didn't sound like him. "I thought you liked the attention."
"Delete it," Reiner said. "Or better yet, make another video. Say it was a joke."
"Make me," Eren replied. The wind gathered in the tunnel under the bridge and seemed to swell. Reiner's red and gold letterman jacket flapped. Eren's long hair was thrown to one side.
"You're just like everyone else," Eren said. "I'm only now getting that."
Reiner's face was stone.
"I want to–" Eren's voice was drowned out by the wind. It was rushing to a singular point in space. Reiner's features began to follow a spiral. His face twisted in on itself. His brow collapsed. His nose inverted. His mouth tore itself open. His eyes disappeared. His face was condensed by the wind, scooping up violence the way a tornado scoops up mass. His face was a swirling whirlpool of blurry flesh. He had a face that didn't make sense.
"I want to–"
Reiner's face was sucking in debris; leaves and paper and trash were all shredded in his swirling face that wasn't a face. Eren dug his heels in, feeling himself being dragged by the force of Reiner. He was resisting but it didn't matter. The face was not just destroying physical matter. A long wispy strand, connected to Eren's chest, was being fed into the whirlpool and Eren felt his very essence being ripped away from him, eaten by Reiner.
"I want to–"
The cars lurched towards Reiner, brakes dragging. The trees bent double, branches shivering. Eren closed his eyes, put his hands over his ears; even noise was destroyed. Time itself was broken irreparably. Eren felt the strand connected to him snap and Reiner's face vacuumed it up and there was the agonizing sensation of loss. But then there was relief. Eren had nothing left to give. He was empty. He was light.
Immune to the devastating wind now, Eren got in his car and drove off. In the rearview mirror, Reiner's shrinking face was busy reassembling itself; an eye on his forehead, a nose where his mouth should be, a mouth splitting open his ears. The mouth was forming words but Eren was deaf to them.
He drove and drove and drove. He ended up in a familiar cul-de-sac. He parked in a driveway. He wondered how many times he had been dropped off here for a sleepover or a play date. He realized that, without Reiner, there was nothing preventing him from thinking about the past like this.
He knocked on the door. Mikasa answered it. She took one look at him and pulled him in an embrace. He listened to her heartbeat, a tinny mechanical sound.
"I saw your video," Mikasa whispered in the crown of Eren's hair.
"What did you think?" Eren asked.
Mikasa held him at arm's length so she could look him in the eye. Her eyes were strange and dark.
"You're right. Fuck them," she said. "And he doesn't deserve you either."
They went upstairs to Mikasa's room. Eren checked his phone. Armin's frantic texts. Nine missed calls from his mom. Nothing from Reiner. He had more TikTok notifications. He opened the app and nearly sobbed when he saw his own video; in it, his eyes were bright, his face shining. He looked resolute and brave. He was made beautiful by the camera.
Mikasa's room was different than when he last saw it. Paper covered the floor. The bed was moved to one side to make room for the large canvases. The desk was cluttered with watercolor, gouache, acrylics, and sticks of charcoal. Eren avoided looking at any of the paintings. He knew better this time.
Mikasa took his hands. Eren rubbed at her jumping pulse. She smiled and it was warm as sun-soaked rain. Eren grabbed her by the waist and Mikasa giggled as though ticklish.
"This okay?" he said.
"Wait," Mikasa said. She put a finger to her lips. She walked over to the window and looked directly at us. Her eyes are feline with hidden knowledge. We reeled back in surprise. She closed the blinds and we can't tell what happened next.
###
Mikasa's room. It was deserted now. We looked around for Eren and Mikasa but found no trace of them.
We noticed the canvas paper sketchbook on the floor. There was a girl drawn on there, smudged with charcoal construction lines, with red watercolor paint overlaying the figure, and a stark white acrylic outline. The girl sat on a half-drawn bed. The window that Mikasa saw us through was open now and a phantom wind disturbed the pages of the sketchbook, flipping it to the next page. A drawing of a boy, done in bright yellow watercolors this time, laid on it.
The wind picked up and the pages were turning and the art was moving with the pages and the girl was kissing the boy and moving him around the white space of the page like rearranging furniture, kissing him on his neck, collarbone, face, lips, and then the girl was absorbing the boy, drawing him into her chest, eating him, swallowing him, and the boy was a just a yellow orb in a sea of red.
###
Mikasa Ackerman and Eren Yeager did not have sex. However, sun-dazed and heartsick, Eren collasped in Mikasa's bed and his body came undone. His hands crawled across the sheets, separated from his wrists. His face drooped and slid off like the melted clock in Salvador Dali's painting. His legs unscrewed themselves from his hips and walked away. His stomach lurched from him like a fat pulsing maggot. Mikasa's body did the same thing and their parts met to create someone new, someone who was not fully Eren but not fully Mikasa either. When dawn came, their bodies reclaimed themselves, separate once more. Eren sat up in bed and touched his chest, certain that it was Mikasa's heart that was pumping blood through his system.
It had been two days since his TikTok blew up. Eren had not returned to school yet. Mikasa stirred, huddled in the blankets next to him. Her alarm was going off, soft lavender sounds. The time on her phone read 7:15. The morning light filtered in through the blinds and onto the floor like moth wing patterns.
"Mikasa," Eren said. "Wake up. You have school." He touched her shoulder. Mikasa snorted but did not wake up. Eren jostled her gently. "Mikasa."
Mikasa opened her eyes. Her hair was a mess. "I don't want to go," she moaned.
"You have to," Eren said.
"Fine," Mikasa said. "Come with me?"
Eren shook his head.
"Please?" Mikasa sat up. "It's been a day. Everyone's probably forgotten about it."
"They definitely haven't. I should just transfer schools," Eren said. He scratched the back of his head. Mikasa wound a lock of his hair around her finger.
"Then I'd miss you," Mikasa said. "You're the only one who makes Mr. G's class tolerable."
"Aw," Eren said. He sighed and swung himself out of bed. "Fine, I'll go."
They both got ready. While Mikasa brushed her teeth, Eren said, "I had the weirdest dream."
"What about?" Mikasa spat in the sink.
"Someone was standing at the foot of my bed and watching me sleep and I couldn't move or do anything. They were just watching."
"What did they look like?"
"I don't remember. Does it matter?"
Instead of answering, Mikasa went over to the bathroom window and looked out to the street as though investigating his claims of a watchful stranger.
"My parents are the only ones home," Mikasa said.
"Oh god." Eren rubbed his face. "What are they going to think?"
"They think we had a sleepover."
Eren stared at himself in the mirror. "Mikasa, I can't do this. I feel like I have a fever. I'm burning up."
Mikasa's arms came around his midsection. Her head rested on his shoulder. "You feel fine to me. We'll go at your pace."
"People are going to talk shit," Eren warned her.
"I don't care," Mikasa said.
"That's because you're you."
Mikasa smiled and Eren had to look away from the glare.
They went downstairs, where Mikasa's mom was making breakfast. Eren greeted her, embarrassed, but trying not to act too guilty. After breakfast, Mikasa drove them to school. A change came over Mikasa the closer they got. She stopped talking. She jerkily piloted the truck around, stiff with the brakes and acceleration. Her face paled. She looked sick. They parked and Eren got out. He held her hand as they walked to school.
The fire had been put out a while ago but the school still retained an ashy smell. White smoke floated above the treeline like low-hanging clouds. Mikasa stopped at the entrance to school. Her hand slid from Eren's.
"You go on ahead," Mikasa said.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes." She looked around furtively. They had gotten here early but kids were still milling around the lockers. The hallways had sprouted eyes. Eren felt the familiar pressure settling on his chest.
"I thought you didn't care what other people think," Eren said.
"I- " Mikasa swallowed, eyes wide. "I'm sorry." She moved to go past him and Eren watched her walk rapidly away.
Eren went to his locker. Next to it, there was a sign up sheet for the upcoming powder puff game. The poster had a pink football adourned with a crown on it. After a moment's hesitation, Eren grabbed a pen from his bag and jotted his name down.
Mikasa's borrowed fear-stricken heart thumped wildly in his chest.