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This is how you get the girl

Summary:

BEING REWRITTEN!! >> You, my love, like orange, linger

Mikasa Ackerman, academic prodigy, is obsessed with being perfect. After all, School captains are both representatives and role models of the school. So when she gets paired with Eren Jaeger, a sports nerd notorious for his lack of care for the school's ethos she is understandably confused.

But where his reputation fails, his kindness exceeds and so the two make a pact. Mikasa tutors his tardiness and Eren teaches her how to publicly speak… through a volleyball tournament? As they work alongside Armin, Historia and the dance committee to plan a fundraising event, Mikasa learns how to enjoy being imperfect, make good friends and maybe, just maybe, fall in love with the green eye boy along the way.

Notes:

Ahhhhhh this will be my first attempt at a multi chapter fic in a longgggg time lololol, we’ll see how this goes

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Swear on it

Chapter Text

Mikasa fiddles with her tie and adjusts her blazer again. She was nervous- which was inherently fine for the situation, public speaking wasn’t the number of fear in the world for no reason, it was just...aggravating that this was her job. She was going to be inaugurated as school captain in a matter of minutes. She exceeded the academic expectations ten fold… but she could never get over this one fear. 

 

“Tch brat, stop fussing around with your uniform- you look fine.” 

 

Mikasa rolls her eyes at the midget slouched against the wall backstage. 

 

“Don’t lecture me.” She huffs “The only reason why your here is so you can pine after Miss Hange.” 

 

“I am not pinning after Four eyes.” 

 

“Funny that it almost seems like for the last seventeen years you’ve been using me as an excuse to see her.” 

 

“I was merely educating my favourite cousin.” He plasters a fake smile on his face “and look how that’s paid off for you! Now little baby Mikasa is all grown up and school captain at her esteemed high school.” 

 

“How very charitable of you.” 

 

She glances back over at Hange who is animatedly talking to a tall blonde man, she watches in delight as Levi’s face twists into one of disgust as he fidgets with his hands in his pockets. 

 

“Please just ask her out already.” She sighs

 

Levi turns pink “I am not dating that messy untidy grotesque freak.” 

 

“That's a lot of synonyms for messy for someone who looks pretty sharp.” 

 

Hange was wearing a colourful sundress, ears looped with geometric shapes and hair embroided with daisies. 

 

They were gifts from Levi, and though she did wish to punch him in the face, and Shed never wish to plague anyone with the midget- Mikasa did believe they were cute together. 

 

Idiots, but cute. 

 

She smiles at the thought- in his futile attempt to court her Levi would take her to Hange book shop every week, he’d spoil her with gifts- that were presented by herself. Hange would always hug and thank her, and Levi would smile from his cup of tea- that was until Mikasa had spoiled that her secret admirer was in fact her older cousin the tea addict, and not an endearing young girl. Embarrassed that she knew of his affections, Levi began to spend less time at the bookshop. Mikasa, however, retained a friendship with her avidly reading and studying there every afternoon she could spare. 

 

Levi was still, whether he was aware of it or not, hopelessly in love with her, and despite his measly attempts at wooing her before, she seemed to have a pique of interest in him- determined to bring him into conversation every time they talked. 

 

They were truly utterly, embarrassingly, made for each other and it was days like these, where her near thirty year old cousin wistfully started from the stage curtains that she wished she could smack their heads together like a couple of barbie dolls and make them kiss. 

 

Just as she’s considering the repercussions of her pushing him off of stage a man with a headset taps them on the shoulder with a pen.

 

“We’ll be starting in a few minutes- do you know where the other boy is?” 

 

She shakes her head. “No sir, I believe Eren makes it his personal mission to be late to every single possible thing.” 

 

The man sighs, shaking his head and clicks his pen on a clipboard.  “Let’s hope by some miracle he makes it.” 

 

And as if they’ve manifested him by mere conversation he appears breathless and slightly sweaty, tie mangled around his unbuttoned collar and jacket sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was supposed to be representing the school- and yet she’d never seen him show up on time once or give two hoots about his appearance. 

 

“Eren jaeger at your service .” He gives a shaky bow and she rolls her eyes. 

 

“Finally Mr Jaeger!” The man rakes back sweaty hair “please fix your appearance we are on in two minutes?” 

 

Eren laughs and tightens his tie and extends a hand towards her. 

 

“So you must be the Mikasa Ackerman, I’ve heard all about you from my friends.” 

 

“Your reputation precedes you too, I am not one to judge by appearances but do you really think you're equipped for leading this school?” 

 

“Ouch, they weren’t wrong when they said you were blunt.” He pushes down his collar and sleeves. “I learnt from a very young age to not question authority.” 

 

A lady smacks him with a purse from behind. 

 

“I’d love to hear you say that when you complain about the dishes.” The lady’s scowl turns into a smile. “Carla Jaeger, I've heard nothing but wonderful things about your achievements dear- I’m sorry you have the misfortune of working with my son.” 

 

“It’s no trouble at all ma’am, I’ve dealt with plenty of delinquent teenage boys,” she glares at Levi 

 

“Oi watch your mouth brat.” 

 

The man with the clipboard lifts his head. “Ah, on stage, on stage!” He pushes Eren and Mikasa into the limelight and they are greeted by the deadpan expressions of the student body and the million dollar smile of the principal. 

 

“Ladies and gentlemen please welcome your captains for this year.” 

 

There is a round of applause from around the room and she can feel the anxiety stir inside of her. 

 

“Now perhaps a word from our academic prodigy-“ the man pushes the microphone towards her- spiking her heart rate. 

 

Eren snatches the microphone much to her relief. 

 

“My name is Eren Jaeger and this is Mikasa Ackerman, as your co-captains for this year we look forward to representing you and your interests to the best of our abilities.” He flashes an epic grin and nudges her to smile too. 

***

 

“Thanks.” They are sitting in a boardroom, eren spinning around in his chair as she types away at her laptop. 

 

“For what?” He scrunches up a piece of paper and throws it into the bin “KOBE!” 

 

Mikasa rolls her eyes, how is she gonna deal with this idiot for the rest of the year? 

 

“For talking instead of me.” 

 

“Oh that? No problem?” He spins towards her leaning across to watch her work placing his feet on the table. “I think you just need to take it easy- relax a little- that’s all.” 

 

She pushes his feet off the table and shuts the laptop. 

 

“Relax? We’re in our final year of high school, we have futures to think about, you need to start being more focused on school work and not on yourself.” 

 

“Relax.” He relents 

 

“Focus.” 

 

“Relax.” 

 

“Focus.” 

 

“Re- you know what? how about we make a pact, I'll participate in some more ‘focused activities’ of yours and you loosen up and have a little fun with me.” 

 

“Oh yeah?” She snorts. “And what does this fun entail?” 

 

“You come and play volleyball with me?” 

 

“Just you?” 

 

“No, for a tournament.” 

 

“What makes you think I’m so great at volleyball?” 

 

“I’ve seen your reflexes, we could use someone like you for a Liberio- and even if you weren’t it’s about having fun not winning.” 

 

“You’re  telling me that it’s ‘fun’ losing?” 

 

“No- it’s just as much fun as studying.” 

 

The door slams open to reveal a slightly flustered armin clutching three small binders like his life depended on it. 

 

“Oh looks like somebody ran into Annie Leonhardt.” He whispers and she elbows him in the stomach 

 

“Sorry guys for being late!” He sets the folders down on the table. “I got caught up doing...stuff.”  

 

“If by ‘doing stuff’ he means kissing Annie.” Eren snickers 

 

“What did you say eren?” Armin asks innocently 

 

“Nothing.” He smiles waving his hand and Mikasa rolls her eyes 

 

“It’s no problem that you were late, armin, we were just talking about responsibilities as captains.” 

 

“A truce actually.” Eren adds 

 

“Truce?” 

 

“Yeah and since you're here you can be our witness.” He rubs his hands together mischievously “By this handshake this seals the deal that I, Eren Jaeger will try to be more focused and you, Mikasa Ackerman will try to have fun- which the other will instruct each other to do.” 

 

He spits and holds out his hand. 

 

Mikasa raises an eyebrow at him “That’s severely unhygienic of you.” 

 

“Eh- it’s not like I don’t wash my hands.” He gestures for her hand and she spits into it and shakes it. Sealing the covenant between the two. 

 

“Dettol?” Armin says passing Mikasa and sanitiser “I know how gross Erens spit can be.” 

 

“That’s bold words for someone exchanging tongue a few moments ago.” Eren whispers and Mikasa stomps his foot. He lets out a boyish squeal. 

 

“You are my new favourite- Armin was it?” 

 

He nods politely as she hands it back. 

 

“Armin arlert, student council treasurer and unfortunately Erens best friend .” He tucks the sanitiser into his jacket and opens up a binder “Now where should we begin?” 

Chapter 2: ~ Friendship is magical ~

Summary:

A look into Mikasa and her school life

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“So.” Sasha bumps shoulders with Mikasa as she walks through the corridor “how does it feel to be right up close and personal with eren jaeger .” 

 

“I’m gonna pretend to ignore how you said that, and for your information he’s a moron.” 

 

“That was not what you were saying a couple of years ago,” 

 

“We were in middle school Sasha, I was young and naive,” she brings her voice down low “and I told you not to talk about that 

 

“Talk about what?”  Hitch slouches from the corner and links arms with her “Is Mika keeping secrets from me now? I thought we were friends.” 

 

“No, I was just talking about eren-“ Mikasa slaps a hand over her face realising the impact of her words as hitch’s face lights up like Christmas. Devil

 

She glares at her “Don’t you-“ 

 

“I wouldn’t dare darling,” she pulls out her phone “so are we still going out shopping this afternoon.” 

 

“As long as we go to that bakery, man they’re tasty.” Sasha says words practically drooling from her lips 

 

“And are you talking about the men or the bread.” Hitch snorts, reminding Mikasa of one of the many misadventures when it came to Sasha and her one true love: food. 

 

She raises her shoulders nonchalantly “As if you wouldn’t kiss a guy over a good pie.” 

 

“You're not wrong about that.” She turns to Mikasa “you in Mika?” 

 

“I Uh, actually have studying to do in the library.” 

 

“Oh and is this with eren ?” 

 

“Eren and armin actually, we figured since our duties as captains were going to eat into our study time that we may as well put our thoughts together.” 

 

Oh? ” 

 

Mikasa slaps hitch on the arm slightly and she yelps. 

 

“what was that for.” 

 

“You know exactly what.” 

 

Sasha shoves a bread stick into her mouth. 

 

“You know armins apparently courting Annie Leonhardt or at least trying to.” She muffles 

 

“You make it sound like where in the nineteen hundreds Sasha.” 

 

The girl with bread gestures towards armin who is stirring beside her as they share earphones. 

 

“Speak of the devil.” Hitch gasps “he really is trying to woo her.” 

 

“Well they are good friends,” Mikasa winces, trying to save Armin from the doom that came with hitch chaotic shipping shenanigans. 

 

“Full offence but why would anyone like armin seek out Annie as a friend if they weren’t interested in her.” 

 

“Armins a sweet boy he’d talk to anyone,” Mikasa rebutted 

 

“Good point.” She crosses her arms and huffs, staring at the two of them desperately. 

 

Armin averts his gaze to Annie, eyes softening, he reaches a hand to brush her hair out of her eyes, even Mikasa can feel her heart strings tug a little. It was really endearing. 

 

Annie whips her head towards him before he can accomplish his deed. 

 

“Oi are you gonna listen to this or not?” 

 

He smiles sheepishly. 

 

“Ah, sorry.” 

 

Hitch rolls her eyes at them “titans, he’s more whipped than my mum's cream cheese icing.” 

 

“Oh man that was so good.” Sasha laughs breaking off another piece of the bread stick 

 

“They really are kinda cute,” Mikasa adds. 

 

They continue down the hallway. 

 

“So I guess scratch armin from the list of mikasa's big romance.” 

 

Hitch .” She whines. 

 

“I guess we’ll have to stick with Yeager boy.”  Mikasa sighs as Hitch hums in  amusement “so studying huh?” 

 

***

 

“I don’t understand,” Eren fidgets with a pen in between his fingers “So the entire plot to Romeo and Juliet is that they’re star crossed lovers that commit suicide? And people are comparing their love lives to this?” 

 

Mikasa almost laughs “You haven’t seen Romeo and Juliet? In all your seventeen years of existence.” 

 

“He’s only ever seen gnomeo and Juliet,”  Armin replies 

 

“Now that.” Eren taps a pen on his notes as to rhythmically enforce his statement  “that was a story that made sense.” 

 

“Did you just insult one of the English language's most accomplished screenwriters?” 

 

“Get used to it.” Armin sighs 

 

“I’m just saying, they didn’t need to die, why build up a romance if you're just gonna kill them in the end?” 

 

“That isn’t the point.” 

 

“Then why build up the romance?” 

 

Mikasa sucks in a breath, patience wearing thin. “The morale of the story is how the stupidity of feuds can ruin the innocence of children, and that despite the hatred between the house of capulet and Montague, they fell in love.” She smiles softly “it’s quite poetic really, love always finds a way.”

 

“Isn’t the phrase, ‘ life always finds a way’ ?” 

 

She groans and armin chuckles. “Ignore him, The nerd watches documentaries when he gets sick.” 

 

“Says the nerd who fanboyed for nearly an hour over the complexity of moral relativism in your commander's heir show.” 

 

Armin stands from his seat pointing a finger at eren. 

 

“I’ll have you know Erwins character is a genius move on the writer's efforts to portray the voices of many people throughout his many relationships.” 

 

His raised voice raises the attention of the librarian and he slacks back into his seat sheepishly.

 

“both of you shut up.” She hisses  “We got a bunch of annotations due next Wednesday,” she raises an eyebrow at the both of them “and I’m not letting either of you copy.” 

 

“Yes ma’am.” Eren grumbles and Mikasa fights the urge to slap him over the head with a textbook. 

 

The three of them quietly work, the only sound between them the flickering of pages and the scratching of pens on paper. It’s pleasant really, being in the quiet of the library on a Friday afternoon. 

 

Eren is the first to speak, or rather yawn as he stretches his hands up. 

 

“You mind checking my notes to see if they’re ok?” 

 

Mikasa nods and takes the piece of paper, flicking through the notations. 

 

“It’s a commendable effort for you.” 

 

“What’s that supposed to mean.” 

 

“Just teasing jaeger,” she laughs, before making eye contact with the librarian, she hushes herself. “It's great eren. Maybe just fix up some grammatical errors.” 

 

Armin passes a piece of paper to her. “Do you think this makes sense?” 

 

She frowns in thought analysing the paper, the corners of her lips tingle into a smile, his explanation of character was simply, genius. 

 

“Yeah, I like your thoughts on mercutio's characterisation.” 

 

Armin opens his mouth to reply when his screen lights up with a text message. 

 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who is on his screen. 

 

Annie Leonhardt. 

 

He stands up quickly, flusteredly shoving his papers into the binder. “Uh thanks Mikasa, I got to go.” 

 

He collects his belongings and speeds out of the room. 

 

“Ha, I wonder if he’s got a date,” 

 

“They are really sweet together.” 

 

“Oh so now you join me in my teasing?” 

 

She crosses her arms “I’m only stating the facts, they were listening to music together at lunch, and he was staring at her like she was his entire world.” 

 

“Oh that’s the tip of the iceberg with all the sappy crap they do.” 

 

“I think it’s cute.” 

 

“Maybe for the first few days, but after a while the boring repetitive excuse of them just being friends gets overwhelming ya know?” He waves his hand around. 

 

“I suppose.” 

 

Silence fills the room and Mikasa finishes the last of her notes. Eren In a boredom Induced state rocks back in his chair, too far, and he crashes down onto the floor. 

 

“Ouch.”  He rubs the back of his head trying to untangle his limbs from the chairs. 

 

The librarian glares at the sound and Mikasa feels the slightest bit of anxiety rise within her as she walks to the other side of the table to help him. 

 

“You ok?” She whispers 

 

“Yeah” he chuckles “I guess we better get out of here and stop disturbing these guys.” 

 

She smiles and pulls his arm up.



Outside the building storm clouds rise and thunder crackles in the distance. the sky seems to swirl in a mix of green grey and purple, she prays the rain will have mercy on them. 

 

“Damn I hope this clears up by Sunday.” He smacks his head lightly “Oh yeah I forgot, can I get your number?” 

 

“I’m sorry? ” 

 

“For the volleyball tournament, so I can text you the details.” He gives a brilliant grin and She obliges. 

 

“Fine but only if you promise to take studying more seriously next time, we cant have you falling off chairs and getting us kicked out,” 

 

“We were not kicked out.” 

 

“May as well have been.” 

 

Mikasa glares at him and he raises his hand in defeat, “fine I’ll do your stupid studying!” 

 

She shakes her head and recites her number to him. 

 

“Thanks I’ll call you later?” 

 

“Text, my uncle doesn’t like phone calls.” 

 

“What a grump.” 

 

“Ha, I’d like to see you call him that and live.” 

 

Eren laughs as they cross the courtyard and outside of the school gates. 

 

“I’ll see you on Sunday.” He waves to her as he walks off “and make sure to bring your frilliest togs.” 

 

Mikasa follows behind him “uh we’re going in the same direction.” 

 

He smiles sheepishly and picks up his pace “not if I walk fast enough!” 

 

“Eren-“ 

 

Her words are cut by the sky crying out, bursting into rain, and they run, bags lifted over their heads down the blocks to their houses, barely offering a goodbye as they split down their separate streets. 

 

Mikasa is greeted by her mother and cocoa before she runs up stairs stripping off her school uniform and slacking into sweat pants and a hoodie. 

 

Her window is knocked with the light patter of rain as she stares out, the heat of the mug warms her knuckles as it’s chocolate aroma drifts around her room. 

 

A moment later her phone rings. 

 

Eren Yeager: heya  



Notes:

Ah so I triedddd to set up the dynamic for the two trios (hitch Sasha Mikasa) (EMA) I hope I've been able to converge it well enough. Tbh this chapter was not what I wanted it to be since I was kinda winging it, but I kept on getting writers block so I’ve just decided to go ahead and post it lolol.

Next chapter shall be the beach, and whoo boy am I gonna have fun with that.

 

As always thank you for the kudos And the comments I really do appreciate the encouragement!!

Chapter 3: Sand, sun and strawberry ice cream

Summary:

Mikasa learns how to play volleyball

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Levi glares from his green tea as Mikasa finishes her breakfast. 

 

To be honest it was strange that such an angry bitter man drank such a calming thing, perhaps she ought to be grateful for it though, it was the one thing that restrained his grumpy midget frame from strangling every living organism in a twelve kilometre radius. 

 

He clears his throat as if to address the elephant in the room- that is her being up so early so willingly this early on a Sunday. 

 

“Date?” He asks 

 

Mikasa laughs “what concerned your cousin has a better love life than you?” He rolls his eyes “and no, just an outing with a couple of friends.” 



Levi pushes down his papers. “Look it’s ok if you are, I have no problems with it’s just uh stay safe.” 

 

Mikasa deadpans him

 

“I’m not.” 

 

“Ok.” 

 

“Ok?” 

 

“Are you going with Sasha then ?” 

 

“I believe she’s planning on stealing as many free samples as she can from the mall stands, so no.” She stuffs a piece of toast into her mouth and Levi snorts. 

 

“Well enjoy it I suppose.” He picks up a newspaper and walks to the lounge room, Mikasa refreshes her feed, and checks on her messages again. 

 

Eren Yeager: yeah we should all be there at like elevenish for practice, game starts at one so that should be more than enough time to teach you the rules. 

 

She frowns, at the banner underneath reading ‘ no new messages’

 

Picking up her totem bag and swinging it over her shoulder she passes the threshold of her house and walks down her street to the bus stop. 

 

—-

 

Three heart attacks and two bus trips and a train ride later Mikasa is standing in front of the beach, stretching to her tippy toes to glance around the vicinity. The beach itself was packed with people, families, friends and lovers playing around in the waves splashing and screaming with glee. However the area they were supposed to meet, or rather the Barren volleyball nets to the right, is void of any one of consequence. 

 

She chews the inside of her cheek as her consciousness gnaws at her. 

 

Was this a prank after all? Did eren really mean to just waste her time, to bully her? She wouldn’t put it past the jerks at her school to do the same, but eren, eren had always seemed different. She had higher expectations for him. 

 

She taps on her phone begging it to load messages that weren’t there, racking her brain for excuses of wifi and poor data. 

 

Her phone pings a few minutes later, and her features flood with relief as she taps into the notification. 

 

Eren Yeager: hey, sorry I’m a little late, I’ll be there in like five, are we still on to meet at the umbrellas? 

 

She sighs, of course , trusting a Yeager to be early- on time-  was a terrible idea. Mikasa taps a reply with a slight smile tugging at her mouth. 

 

Mikasa. A: sure, meet you at the umbrellas 

 

He sends a silly cat gif in response and she giggles before hoisting you her totem bag over her shoulder and heading to the toilets. 

 

She ought to get changed. 

 

—-

 

Five minutes later she stands in front of the bathroom mirror, uselessly smoothing out the frilly trim decorating her one piece swimsuit. 

 

It really was quite pretty, pastel pink in colour, suiting her ivory complexion that blushed peach in the sunlight. It’s sleeves extend modestly down her arms to her delight, and she smooths out the last wrinkles in them turning around in the mirror again, shifting her weight from side to side as she flexes legs from her hips. 

 

If it wasn’t for the fact that it was insanely frilly and bedazzled- almost childishly with glitter and rhinestones, she would have felt self conscious. It was form fitting and though it covered her torso, she felt like she was exposing her legs far too much than she was comfortable with. 

 

She takes a final glance in the mirror and elects to put red beach shorts on. 

 

She shoves the rest of her clothes into her bag, shoves a straw hat over her head and walks out of the stall. 

 

Eren Yeager: where r u? 



“You're late much.” He glances down at her “raid a kindy gymnastic costume room.” 

 

“Steal your uncle's togs?” 

 

He smiles and shrugs his shoulders at his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and shorts combo “it’s my brothers actually.” 

 

“I like his style.” 

 

“Did I hear you complimenting me?” 

 

“I complimented your brother's taste and clothing.” She snorts pacing down the sandy stairs to the beach “and I never said it looked good on you,” 

 

“you never said I didn’t though.” He jogs after her “Race to the volleyball courts?” 

 

“Oh and is this some sort of fun exercise of yours?” 

 

“Maybe.” His lips quirk upwards “I think I could beat you with my eyes closed. “

 

“In your dreams Yeager .” 

 

She kicks sand up at him playfully with her jandals and he squeals like a child, swearing runic curses at her before chasing her through the crowded beach to the volleyball courts, which were now populated with a group of students tossing a ball between them in a circle. 

 

Mikasa darts through a pack of children, clinging to her totem bag with breathless laughter, and she weaves through a collection of tents, just as she is about to claim her victory he tackles her to the ground spraying sand everywhere.

 

“Got you.” 

 

She taps him with her left Sandal that has flown off. And he releases his grip on her legs. 

 

A shadow raises over them, the outline of several teenagers towering over them.

 

“Well well well, if it isn’t our esteemed captain Eren Yeager chasing after girls again.” A boy with a long face that shared an exceedingly alarming  amount of facial qualities with a horse snickers (neighs).  



“Wasn't he dating historia like three weeks ago.” Says another with a tamed buzzcut, slinging his arm around a girl who Mikasa infers is the said girlfriend. 

 

“More like the third grade.” The girl who she assumes to be historia laughs

 

 “Wait didn’t have a crush on-“ a frighteningly buff teenager replied with a stoic tone, leaving a lanky one to slap his hand over his mouth.

 

“My name is Bertholdt I’m a middle blocker, and that’s Reiner- ignore everything he says.” The other boy lets out a hey but is silenced by his voice again “you must be the new player eren was talking about,” 

 

Bertholdt extends a slender hand in greeting and she shakes it firmly. 

 

She takes a step back next to eren. A beat passes and he elbows her in the stomach. “We’ll, introduce yourself.” 

 

“Oh uh- my names Mikasa, Mikasa Ackerman- erens dragging me to play here on a dare, I don’t actually know a lot about volleyball.” 

 

The buzzcut guy grins “my name Connie, and don’t worry it’s just like an intense game of keep the balloon in the air.” 

 

She nods.

 

“Dude, keeping the balloon in the air is way more intense.” The boy name Reiner adds, launching the two into an intense debate. 



All that is left is another lanky freckled girl, and the blonde named historia. 

 

The smaller one squeezes Mikasa in a hug “My names historia, it’ll be so nice to have another girl on the team!”

 

“Aye, I’m a girl?” 

 

“Barely.” The shorter one rolls her eyes and walks off to join the rest of them, the freckled one lofts her eyebrows. 

 

“I’m Ymir, if you have any troubles with the little one or the other blockheads call me, I’ll beat them up for you.” She winks and turns away. 



What a strange bunch of people. 

 

“Somethings not right.” Eren mumbles from behind her “Marco, and armin? Where are they?” 

 

He glances around the courts “and no Annie?

 

“Annie Leonhardt comes to your volleyball games?” 

 

“Believe it or not she’s an exceptional player- except she ‘hurt her wrist’ a couple of weeks ago… she keeps on coming to ‘not watch’ armin.” 

 

“Wow that’s just…” 

 

“Hard to imagine a vampire come out into the sun like this?” 

 

“No I just- playing volleyball was unexpected, beach volleyball at that.” 

 

“Oh come on it’s not like she’s anakin.” 

 

“She did fall in love with a genius diplomat and has disciplinary issues from middle school.” 

 

Eren laughs and takes a ball from out of his bag. “Come on, I’ll teach you how to play.” 

 

A few accidental head spikes on strangers later, Mikasa squats ready to receive the ball. 

 

“You ready?” 

 

She nods. 

 

“Serve it.” 

 

The ball flies towards her and she takes a second to calculate its direction before grazing her knuckles against the sand as she dives for it. The volleyball bounces off of her wrists and hits the sky, he cheers and runs towards it receiving it in a similar manner. It descends and she flexes her hands and sets it. He copy’s, and their rally continues on for another seven rounds. 

 

“Wow you're like a natural.” 

 

“Thanks, it’s pretty... fun…” 

 

Eren laughs and points towards the others in the circle. “Do you wanna go and join them?” 

 

“Lead the way.” 



The practice circle is a fun way, she finds, to take whatever vengeance she has and use it to her advantage. The game itself is called ‘1,2,3 spike’ and it’s challenge means any mistake ends up with you in the circle, and at the mercy of a spike after the three tallied rally.

 

Eren ends up inside the circle after throwing a lame serve, and she spikes him directly a couple of times, before he catches on and ends up in the circle herself, falling mercy to his wrath. The game continues on like this for quite some time, until a few familiar faces emerge from the crowd.

 

Armin smiles cheerily and Annie has her head sunk down as usual, licking an ice cream intensely, another boy joins him, of which she assumed to be Marco and he waves at them with the same level of enthusiasm as the other boy. 

 

“Yo where did you guys go?” 

 

 “We got lost when we went looking for ice cream.” Marco beams as armin rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

 

“There’s like twelve diffrent parlours now could you-“ Bertholdt slaps his hand over reiners mouth again and sighs. “We should all get to practice then,” His eyes gleam hopefully at Annie “will you be joining us today?” 

 

Her gaze throws daggers as she rolls her eyes tossing her bag into the sand and curling up, throwing on a floppy white hat to cover her already burning shoulders. 

 

“Alright everyone, since the rest of our team is here, let’s do some spiking and blocking practice, Mikasa, you can just watch for now, this week we’ll have you rotating as a Libero in place of Annie.” 

 

Historia pumps a fist up in the air “Finally! I can be free of all the knee pain.” 

 

Ymir slouches on top of her head “oh so the princess can feel pain?” 

 

Historia shoves her lightly sending her off balance. “I can inflict it too.” 

 

“Ooh fight! fight!” Connie starts a chant encircling the two but is picked up by Bertholdt legs dangling at the mercy of his height. 

 

“Oi put me down.” 

 

“Focus Springer.” Eren rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders at Mikasa, and she feels a giggle escape from her most unfortunately. 

 

——

 

“Ok so here’s the starting line up for today” Eren draws with a stick in the sand. “Armin bertholdt Connie, you're up front, me, Mikasa Reiner up back- I’ll serve first.” 

 

“Oh so since the new girl is here you have favourites now.” 

 

“Shut up jean, I said starting line up, you can rotate throughout the game.” 

 

They resume their positions and a whistle blows, Mikasa finds herself sucked into the game- focused entirely on the ball in the match, as the points neared together and they drew closer, her mind narrows, keeping her eyes on the ball. 

 

The end of the game begins and she wipes sweat off of her brow as the hopefully second to last rally begins. Her bones ache for exhaustion as the ball is set over the net again and she digs it. 

 

“NICE RECEIVE!” Eren compliments from the sidelines, followed by a chorus from the rest of her teammates, she forces herself not to be distracted with a smile. Jean chases after it, setting the ball to Connie, who jumps amazingly high for his stature. Sand sprays with a thud and Reiner and him cheer again dancing along the court as they rotate along to their original line up, Jean gives her a thumbs up as he leaves and eren slaps him on the back as he walks to his starting position beside her. 

 

The other teams line up was exceptionally...average. Even Mikasa had no trouble receiving their balls as a beginner, their blocks were half done, they almost had no energy. 

 

Except for one player, their ‘Ace’ as eren had called him stood as tall as bertholdt and seemed as strong as Reiner, he had insane speed like Connie, calculated strategy like armin and served just as well as eren. 

 

She is reminded of her conversation with him last night. 

 

Eren Yeager : They call him a titan. A top player in the open prefecture.

 

He wasn’t able to lead, or use his rather useless teammates to cooperate, however his talent was undeniably strong. 

 

Mikasa. A: Do you wanna be a titan? 

 

Eren Yeager: Eh I wouldn’t mind, some say there’s a curse on it though, you end up breaking some sort of bone or important ligament within thirteen months 

 

Eren Yeager: it’s superstitious but I’d rather just okay for fun with my team of idiots.

 

Mikasa. A: Idiots?

 

Eren Yeager: Oh yeah they’re idiots.

 

“Yo listen up.” Eren yells from the back “One of the shifters is here, be on guard.” 

 

“Is he really that important.” 

 

“Trust me Mikasa, he's an amazing server.” 

 

“Eren Yeager? Calling another server amazing,” Connie quirks in eyebrows in surprise “does he scare you?”

 

Eren rolls his eyes “just be prepared, this is the match point!” 

 

The titan steps up to the serving line and she crouches, they must win this. 

 

Fight, and win. 

 

The titan runs and jumps, slapping the ball and sending it into a shift spin, it’s shadow closes in towards the ground and she digs for the balls, as if it was a life or death situation. 

 

The ball grazes her wrist and she flicks it accidentally sending it flying across the opposite side of the court, her eyes widen in horror as it crosses over the lines. 

 

Oh no

 

She might have just lost the game. 

 

Connie sprints towards the ball just barely sending it back to the court and Reiner spikes it quickly. 

 

The ball is blocked and rebounds into their court- as she is lost in distraction eren dives for it, Armin sets it to Bertoldt who again tries to spike it. 

 

Just as historia is about to let out a cheer, The titan receives it and somehow his slacking teammates cooperate, sending the ball back over the net. Her limbs begin to ache at another rally, the ball falls in the favour of Reiner who passes it to bertholdt, the setter, arms shaking misses it  and Connie (who at this point should be labeled as the team's sprinter) bounds after it and hits it to armin, who has a devilish sparkle in his eyes as he setter dumps it avoiding the surprised blockers as the ball finally touches the ground. 

 

Historia squeals and races towards them wrapping them in a group hug, Ymir slowly clapping behind her, Marco and Jean blow and whistle and even Annie stands up with a lesser scowl tugging at her features. 

 

“That was amazing, especially you Mikasa!” Historia beams, “with enough training I think you’d be able to match Annie in skill.” 

 

Annie frowns at her and opens up her mouth  but is interrupted by armin crashing into her. They both turn red and Armin utters an apology flailing around as he tries to explain that Reiner pushed him into her. 



Eren laughs and slaps Connie on the back and moves towards her. 

 

“That was literally insane, I can’t believe how talented you are!” He beams, swinging an arm around her  “let me treat you, do you like ice cream?” 



“Vanillas nice.” 

 

He picks up his bag and nods his head towards the stairs “race you to the parlour?” 

 

“Eren I’m practically dying.” 

 

“That sounds like something a loser would say!” He yells racing through the crowd. 

 

She sighs and swings her bag over her shoulders chasing after him. 



——

 

“What’s his name again? John...Jerome?” She says licking a cone of vanilla as they stroll through the streets. 

 

“Jean?” 

 

“Yeah, that’s it,  I thought his face looked like a horse to be honest.” 

 

Eren sinks into a howl of laughter “horse face? I didn’t know you were so creative in your insults” 

 

“When you're considered to be mature and sophisticated, you have to learn to be.” 

 

Eren raises an eyebrow “so you insult people using barn animals?” 

 

“Be careful or i'll start calling you a pig.” 

 

He snorts as they continue walking down the road. 

 

“So, you got any place to be?” 

 

“At home studying.” 

 

“Man do you ever take a break?” 

 

“My ‘break’ was your volleyball game.” She says as they near the bus Stop.

 

“Speaking of which, I saw your smiling- don’t you dare say you didn’t enjoy it!” 

 

“Yeah I suppose…” 

 

“Ha! I knew it, I was right!” 

 

He laughs and Mikasa sighs “don’t think our deal is off though, as student representatives we ought to be showing the best of ourselves.” 

 

“Alright ‘kasa.” He shrugs waving her off as she steps onto the bus. 

 

‘Kasa

 

She barely blinks at his goodbye, and is wrapped in a haze, waving her Go card and moving to the back of the bus, sinking into a seat. 

 

She’d been called plenty of things by her friends and relatives. 

 

Mimi by her maternal grandmother, Mika by her friends. Brat by Levi. She’d been called a prodigy by her teachers, and had received many other pet names from her mom dad and hange over the years. Nicknames were commonplace to her. But this one. ‘Kasa. 

 

It was brilliant and she found herself repeating it over and over...

 

‘Kasa’  

 

It rolls off her tongue and she lets the name marinate in her mind as she glances out the window counting the passing cars on the motorway. 

Notes:

THIS ONE. This one oH MY. For some reason it was so hard to just start writing,,,,apologies for taking so long to update ^^

Thank you for all your sweet comments though, it’s so encouraging to hear that people are enjoying it as much as I am, because really these two deserve the world after what they’ve been through!

I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4: Oranges

Summary:

Eren gets teased by his family, Mikasa cashes in on her side of the deal.

Notes:

Thank you to all of the lovely readers who have kudos and commented and bookmarked on this work, you guys are my life force, and thus (slightly off schedule) I present to you this chapter *rips off cover to reveal a crimpled present.* HERE!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Seven am. What a horrible time to be up and alive. His alarm taunts him with his evil rings and he slaps a sleepy arm onto his bed side table, feeling for his phone button to turn it off. 

 

He groans and unplugs it pulling it towards him to face the bright screen. It was way too early for this. What on earth had made him subject to such horrors. He swipes to view the notifications and is greeted with Mikasa's name printed across the screen with a smiley face. 

 

Mikasa :) - Our study session is still on for this morning? 

 

He snorts. How ridiculous, did she really think he was that lazy? At that very moment his room seems to mock him with its untidiness,and he sighs tapping a reply. 

 

Eren- ofc kasa, i'll be there in forty five

 

To be honest it was simply atrocious to wake up this early and then apply school concepts to paper for homework, but he supposed he ought to keep his end of the deal. Mikasa had been amazing- no absolutely slaughtered their game yesterday. She had picked everything up so naturally with insane skill, technique and speed, it was aweing to him in a sense. Thus he had taken her out to ice cream in celebration, and then bestowed the great gift of all. A nickname. 

 

Ah, he ought to change that, he fumbles through his contacts again, editing her name to kasa. 

 

He hears the muted bickering of his families lively banter in the kitchen and he 

trudges down stairs to them, greeting them with a game and sloping down into a seat mulling in his own self pity of being awake at such an hour. 

 

His father ruffles his papers and raises an eyebrow. 

 

“Morning son?” 

 

“Grisha dear, are you losing your memory already,” Carla turns from the kitchen pacing to her husband and kissing him on the cheek “you said that to Zeke already-“ her eyes snap to him slouching over the table. 

 

“I think our son is up Carla.” 

 

“Eren up so early? It’s a miracle!” She runs over to him and squeezes him against his chair. 

 

Zeke chuckles chewing on a bowl of oats and tossing an old baseball in one hand. “It's because of that girl isn’t it.” 

 

Eren rolls his eyes “I’m just studying with her, that's all-“ he begins to regret saying anything, as Carla's eyes widen in glee. And she begins to bombard him with questions. 

 

“Eren you have a girlfriend and you didn’t tell me? What’s her name? Who’s her family? Does she have any allergies? I’ll bake her a pie- oh eren you have to invite her over.” 



She pinches his cheeks and rubs her nose against him affectionately, a sentiment he enjoyed as a kid being tucked in bed, but now thoroughly despised. 

 

“Ma no .” He pushes her off of him and grabs an mandarin from a fruit bowl, peeling off the skin he stuffs a slice in his mouth. “She’s just a friend.” 

 

“Ah but you said that about historia too.” Carla retreats back to the kitchen swinging her spatula to punctuate her words 



“Ma that was in the third grade.” 

 

His mother shrugs her shoulders and turns back to stirring oats. 

 

“Didn’t you win the game yesterday? I heard your friend is an excellent player.” 

 

Oh ?” Carla says, prompting for more information. 

 

Eren chokes on his mandarin “How did you know-“ 

 

“All your little friends follow me online for some reason.” Zeke shuffles back in his seat “that girls an asset, if Annie got better and she stays I’d say you might have a fighting chance at actually going somewhere this year-maybe even at being a titan.” 

 

“It’s just for fun Zeke.” 

 

“Just saying.” He stands up from his seat and pulls a satchel over his shoulders. “Good luck.” 

 

“What do I need luck for, idiot !” 

 

Zeke ignores him and kisses Carla on the cheek and waves to Grisha. “Goodbye everyone.” 

 

“Oi monkey boy what do you mean?” 

 

“Love you too eren.” He smiles and waves walking out the threshold. 

 

The front door closes and Eren sighs, sinking back into his seat. 

 

“Don’t be sad baby, all the good love stories start out weirdly- just ask your dad how we met, he threw a bucket of water over me,” 

 

“Are you still going to be salty about that my dear?” 

 

“Always my love,” she sets a bowl of oats down in front of him. 

 

“But this isn’t a love story.” 

 

“Eren she's managed to wake you up early in the morning how is this not a love story.’ 

 

Eren frowns mumbling  “it’s for a dare.” 

 

“Isn’t that a brand of iced chocolate.” 

 

“No dad.” 

 

Carla smiles “well perhaps given today’s subject matter we should talk about it.” 

 

“Talk about what?” 

 

Carla nudges Grisha and he holds a confused look. 

 

“The birds and the bees.” 

 

“Oh of course, we’ll you see eren when a-“ 

 

“La la la- NO.” He rolls his eyes “I am not talking about this today.” 

 

Grisha laughs and scrapes the rest of the 

 

“Good thing you already asked me about it then.” 

 

“DAD!” He flushes red. 

 

His parents burst into laughter and soon he joined in too remembering why he had been so interested in it before. 

 

It was dumb certainly, but he does remember it. A particular group of boys in the upper cohorts had told his friends that babies came from storks in the sky. Which seemed most ridiculous, and so he had taken it upon himself to ride the three blocks from school to his fathers practice to ask him immediately right in front of his patient. And he refused to leave otherwise. 

 

Luckily the said patient had been a family friend, so as his father performed a diagnosis of the flu he explained, with agonising detail and scientific terms he barely understood, how exactly a baby is born. Eren was scared for life. 

 

Eren finishes his breakfast quickly and makes his way upstairs to change into his uniform. After slinging the tie around his neck and not tying it, he smiles with a sense of satisfaction. As a representative of the student body it was his job to ‘represent’ the other extreme of their school, counterbalancing Mikasa's neatness. And armin as their treasurer was rather in the middle, his lightly tousled, often loose chin length hair was rather not compliant to the schools avid policies of tying back, his uniform was sometimes a little crimped as compared to mikasa's neatly pressed and ironed wardrobe. He also hanged out with people that by the schools board standards weren’t the best, and yet somehow Somehow armin still managed to look presentably dapper, sharp and armed with a smile on his face. He slides on a blazer electing to leave his vest at home.

 

He races back down stairs just in time to make lunch, faster than the speed of light (a skill of which one must learn to achieve when not waking early). Spinning the condiment platter in the pantry around he blindly slaps one of them, taking out a vegemite jar to his delight. He spreads it over buttered bread and stuffs it into a snap lock bag. Eren digs through the fruit bowl and takes a pair and two oranges, with Dad's ungodly hours at the clinic it was hard to tell how long he would be waiting after school, or if he would elect to walk home instead. 



Turning to his mother, who is currently folding washing while watching the morning news, he kisses her on the forehead, wishing her a good day. 

 

As he files out the front door she calls out to him. 

 

“You must bring that girl home eren!” 

 

He flushes red, which he regrets to admit was not from the cooler morning air frosting his features, courtesy of the cold flush the radio had been drilling to them for the last few days. He regrets not bringing that vest underneath.

 

Minutes later of speed walking through the chilly morning, annoyed that the schools uniform neglected to garner his knees with its shorts and long socks, Eren arrives at the school gates, entering into the courtyard. It’s pristine cobble stone interior (which to the cleaners grief will be littered with rubbish in no less than half an hour) is scattered with stray students, some sitting in groups or walking with friends with not chocolate. Others sit alone studying in a storm of textbooks and worksheets piled on top of creaky lunch tables as they stencil pencil lead in an attempt to finish homework. 

 

He crosses it quickly, glancing at the cloudy grey sky and then the cobblestone ground-  not wanting his morning to be disturbed by awkward overdue congratulations of his inauguration, or the teachers lurking in the shadows waiting to strike him down with a lecture on uniform policies. Thankfully this time he escapes their hands. He trudges to the lockers, kicking his bag in and grabbing text books and his laptop bag which he slings over his shoulder. Just as he is about to kick the adjustments on his bags straps back into his locker his eye catches her, pacing down the hallways with what he assumes to be hitch dreyse. School gossip if he ever knew one. 



Eren waves to her and hitch waves back, nudging Mikasa to say hi. She frowns at her and her head sinks and she gives him a tiny wave, hitch whispers something to her and Mikasa squeaks turning pink. She slaps her on the shoulder and he laughs as he walks over to greet them. 

 

“So she can be violent,” 

 

“Oh man she’s beat me up plenty of times.” 

 

“Really Miss Ackerman? I might have to write you up about that.” 

 

She stays silent and eren frowns. They were fine with trash talking each other yesterday, what changed now? 

 

She lets out a sigh and grabs his wrist. “I’m leaving you hitch, go find someone else to bother, come on eren.” 

 

“Rude I’m your bestie!” She folds her arms over each other as Mikasa drags eren to the library “Don’t get eloped without me!” She calls out and Mikasa flushes pink. 

 

“What was that about?” He asks as they round a corner. 

 

“Don’t worry, hitch was just being…” 

 

“Hitch?” 

 

“Yeah.” She sighs 

 

“So why the silence? You were so talkative yesterday.” 

 

“I’m probably just tired,” they enter the library and she slides into a desk, sliding her books onto the table. 

 

“Why? Stay up late thinking of yours truly?” He drops his books onto a table earring them another warning stare the the librarian. 

 

“No.” She hisses “and make sure to be quiet, we don’t want a round two of last time.” 

 

“Why of course, your majesty.” 

 

Fifteen minutes later and eren groans, quietly this time. 

 

“I can’t do this.” 

 

“Can’t do what?” 

 

“This.” He gestures to the textbooks sprawled open “look I get your whole prim and proper routine but I can not wake up this early every day just to study, surely there’s something else we can do.” 

 

“You should try it wonderboy.” She smirks

 

Eren tosses his head back in an exaggerated tantrum. “ Please ‘kasa” 

 

He doesnt miss the way her eyes widen and soften, for the slightest moment. She bites her lip and sighs “fine, this afternoon, meet me outside the gates- don’t be late” she adds with a threatening aura. 

 

He throws his hands in the air and lets our a half cheer that is silenced by glares from both Mikasa and the librarian.

After a whirlwind of classes, of which similatbeousky seemed like an eternal in hell and less than a heartbeat eren finds himself standing next to the front gates, waging for Mikasa to arrive. 

 

He didn’t want to seem too eager to be spending the rest of the afternoon with her, and he can only begin to imagine the merciless teasing that would befall him when his family found out what he was doing this afternoon. He decided it was best to take the pride fall and be on time, and get it all over and done with. 

 

No less than two minutes later, Mikasa arrives waving goodbye to a group of friends, she joins him and gestures to walk with her. Eren follows after her, a light spring in her step following her every move. 

 

“You seem happier?” 

 

She hums “yeah, Annie mentioned armin today, this has GOT to be a sign that she likes him.” 

 

Eren chuckles “so saying someone’s name is Annie’s way of expressing love? Intriguing.” 

 

“Well you can’t say she’s the most expressive type.” 

 

“She is no crushing teenage girl, that’s for sure.” 

 

“Hmmm, I think she could be, she just hides it really well, underneath that cold exterior I think she really does have feelings,” 

 

“Maybe?” He shrugs “so what about you?” 

 

“What about me?” 

 

“You got someone? A crush, a boyfriend.” 

 

“Why, are you interested?” She teases bumping his shoulder  and eren rolls his eyes.  

 

“No I’m just genuinely curious, does our academic prodigy have someone that pulls her heart strings?” 

 

“Does it look like I have the time?” 

 

“Nah.” 

 

“There’s your answer.” They turn down another street, and houses begin turning into small boutiques and shops as they near the centre of the town. “What about you?i heard you dated historia,” 

 

“Me? Partners, no, not since the third grade.” He laughs “actually my mom teases me about it all the time, but I guess no one has really caught my eye.” 

 

“And what does ‘caught my eye’ mean exactly?” 

 

“Why, are you interested?” He mimics and she shoves him lightly rolling her eyes. “I just mean someone who I have that spark with, someone who can keep me on my toes and has a nice smile.” 

 

Mikasa nods as they reach the doorsteps to an old shop. 

 

“Well this is it.” 

 

“This is where you wanted to take me?” 

 

“Hey watch it mister I had to take all kinds of public transport to get to your game.” 

 

“I could always just drive you.” 

 

“No thanks I’d rather not lose my life in a tragic car accident because you speed up as a joke.” 

 

“Wow, so little faith.” He cries clutching one hand to his chest as he uses the other to push open the door for her. “Ladies first,” 

 

“Why, your quite the gentleman aren't you.” 

 

He walks in after her and becomes struck with the sight of...books. Hundreds and thousands of them, stacked ontop of each other in the most strangely, unorganised way, Mikasa traces the spines across the mismatched shelves, with hand painted murals decorating the edges. He is careful of where he treads his feats as a small stacks of books line the wooden floors, which are splotched in a strangely artistic way, with paint coffee and glitter. 

 

Mikasa leads them through the sea of books to the back of the shop, where they spot a spectacled lady with brown shaggy hair and tired eyes, typing away at some sort of old  cashier register. She peaks up from under her glasses. 

 

“Mikasa dear it’s so good to see you!” She stands up abruptly, shaking the desk, and the jars of water and books that lined it, and pulls Mikasa into a hug 

 

“Hange, good to see you too!” She pays her on the back slightly. 

 

“How’s Levi doing?” 

 

“As always, a grump.” 

 

Hange snorts and pulls her cardigan over her shoulders. “And who is this lovely gentlemen?” 

 

“I’m Eren Yeager, miss-“ 

 

“Zoe, Dr hange Zoe, but you can just call me hange.” She holds out a hand and he shakes it. “You have a fine grip Eren, a lovely boy you have here Mikasa, good choice.” 

 

Her cheeks dust a light pink. 

 

“Ah he’s not my boyfriend Miss hange,” 

 

“Oh, I see rhen, sorry if I made it awkward.” She chuckles “Well both of you are welcome to grab a book and go read in the corner over there.” 

 

She gestures to a small bunch of chairs and tables near a big window overlooking the street below. And Mikasa's eyes seem to sparkle as she drags him down the book aisle again. 

 

“So you brought me here to read books?” He asks as Mikasa runs her fingers down the spines. 

 

“Do you have a problem with that? Would you prefer to do studying?” 

 

“No, no not at all.” He panics, “I just, it’s interesting, but somehow entirely you.” 

 

Mikasa smiles as she tugs a book out of a shelf, pressing it to her chest as she inhaled its scent. 

 

“Levi’s been taking me here ever since I was little, I always thought it’d be fun to go with a friend.” 

 

He smiles and picks a random book. 

 

“Righteo little nerd lets go read,” 

 

They walk back to the window and slide into a booth looking over the city. Mikasa opens the book studying the first few pages, eren glances at his own, unable to untangle the phrases, he’d never been good at being able to concentrate for long periods of time. He needed to fidget, to move around. 

 

His stomach grumbles lightly while he pretends to read the prologue again and he sets the book down, taking an orange from his bag and peeling it. 

 

“Are you...eating an orange?” Mikasa says, removing the book, masking her face. 

 

“Yeah, you want one?” 

 

“Sure?” He digs through his bag and hands her his second orange, and they each peel their own in silence. 

 

“So who’s this Levi guy you and Hange were talking about?” 

 

“Oh him?” She says stuffing a piece into her mouth “that’s my grumpy uncle.” 

 

“The midget from backstage?” 

 

“Yeah that’s the one.” She sighs “I’ll let you in on a secret, theyre in love with each other?” 

 

“Who?” 

 

“Levi and hange.” 

 

“You can’t be serious.” 

 

“No no, he’s infatuated with her, and as far as hanges ‘polite concern’ and need to bring him up in every conversation with me goes, I think it’s safe to say she likes him too.” 

 

“So like have either of them done anything?” 

 

“Here’s the funny thing.” Mikasa says chewing “so like when I was like a kidLevi would give me secret gifts to give to hange every time we came here, they were supposed to be anonymous but for some reason I decided to tell her it was Levi once and he got really awkward about it.” 

 

“Oh so Mikasa was a tattle tale from the very beginning, good to know.” 

 

Mikasa rolls her eyes dramatically. “But that’s not even the best part, he’s still in love with her, more than a decade later, and so is she.” 

 

“So why haven’t they?” 

 

“Because she’s engaged to some cooperate heir.” 

 

“Are you sure you aren’t living in a drama.” 

 

She snickers “sometimes I think I do with the amount of dumb things I’ve gone through. Did you know he refuses to come to this store now I’m fear of embarrassment? And hange thinks she did something wrong. Dumbasses.” She mutters. 

 

“My my, Mikasa you are living in a drama.” 

 

She smiles politely and turns back to her book. 

 

“Well I have to find out what happens in the murder mystery, “ 

 

“Oh of course, and I have to find out what this riveting tale about…” he glances on the cover containing an illustration of an ethereal woman holding fruit “apples is about.” 

 

In the silence eren does find himself turning pages, divulging into the book in the comfort of a safe environment. The book itself wasn’t entirely interesting, but the intimacy of the environment, with only the quiet flicker of pages and the distant tap of a type writer accompanying it allows him to read again. 

 

—-

A farewell to the bookkeeper hange later, Eren and Mikasa twist their way down the streets back home. 

 

A group of kids ride down the street on bikes splashing them with water as they ride past. 

 

“OI YOu IDIoTS!” He curses, hurling a fist at them and Mikasa giggles, pulling his arm down. 

 

“Eren.” She squeaks “don’t do that, you're supposed to be a leader not bully children.” 

 

“That’s very textbook of you,” he raises an eyebrow “Do you happen to have written a guide of ‘how to be a leader: and not bully children’.” 

 

Her lips curl into a smile “Perhaps.” 

 

He laughs, amused at her finally playing along to his banter. 

Notes:

Once again, You guys rock, and make writing this so much more interesting with your lovely reactions. For this chapter I feel it went a little slower than usual, but it’s really starting to set up the story so that pretty cool. Next chapter I promise some more action. (And when I say actions I MEAN action. Like buckle your seatbelts, things are about to accelerate at ten times the speed). Get ready for fluffy eremika and aruani kiddos ( and a little bit of detective work)

 

Once again thank all of you for reading and investing your time in this writing! ^_^

Chapter 5: Change of tune

Summary:

Look, Mikasa… there’s something I should have told you a long time ago.” 

 

He ghost strums his guitar and leans closer to her- eyes panicked and face flushed. 

 

“The truth is I like-“ 

Notes:

Today’s title is sponsored by my primary schools musical name, Mrs Olsen if ur out there-

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Look, Mikasa… there’s something I should have told you a long time ago.” 

 

He ghost strums his guitar and leans closer to her- eyes panicked and face flushed. 

 

“The truth is I like-“ 

 

——-

 

Mikasa awakens to the sound of chirping outside her window, as the cool dead room begins to heat up with the newly awakened sun, creating a silhouette of her neighbours house. 

 

It hasn't always been like this, when she was a child maybe, but she hadn’t woken up with a fresh sense of spring blooming in her heart in years. The sun tickles her nose from her window. 

 

She didn’t usually like waking up-especially on weekends, it was somewhat natural, a by-product of the precise training of her parents and cousins schedules. 

 

But lately, for some reason she found every reason to have a spring in her step- and today she and her new group of friends at volleyball would have another fierce match with a titan opponent, she was pumped to say the least. She wouldn’t ever tell eren that though. 

 

Unlike her, the grouch Levi, she could hear from across the hallway snoring rather loudly. A horrific defect of decade long heartbreak and late snotty teared nights of pity. With the date of certain doom looming closer- or rather Hanges engagement party that he had been invited to, the byproduct of his misery (the terribly loud snoring) grew more difficult to bear. 

 

She slips out of her bed grabbing her comforter behind her and creeps down the hallways to the kitchen where she spots her dad humming a tune to an old song with his signature care bear pjs, making a pot of coffee. 

 

Mikasa blinks in surprise. After a tediously long week her parents are usually  knocked out the entire weekend, but here he is, still standing grinding coffee beans and boiling water all spritely like herself. 

 

Was there something being added into the water? Perhaps she really should have chosen to analyse the chemicals in ‘the purification process for reduced water’ for her chemistry assignment claim. 

 

“Hey sweetie, want coffee?” 

 

“No thanks dad.” She rubs her eyes “why are you up so early?” 

 

“Co-workers birthday party. Your Ma’s still asleep though.” He rubs his hands together to warm them over his brewing coffee “why are you up dear?” 

 

“Volleyball practice.” She sighs, tugging the blanket over her more “remember the guy who was inaugurated as captain with me.” 

 

“The one you had a crush on in middle school?” 

 

“DAD!” She squeaks 

 

“Oh do you still have a crush on him? My bad.” He takes a sip of his drink 

 

“I did NOT have a crush on him.’ 

 

“Honey you were doodling his last name with ours, at dinners he was all you’d talk about- at one point I’d say you were just as infatuated as Levi.” 

 

“I heard that.” Came a grumble from the hallway 

 

Mikasa lowers her voice “crush or not, that is severely off topic- what i was saying is Eren and I have a contract where I’m dont volleyball and he comes to the library with me.” 

 

“Hanges?” 

 

Mikasa nods and drops ties the comforter around her neck. 

 

“Maybe you should organise a double not date then, drag Levi down, he needs to stop moping in his room.” 

 

“I am not moping.” 

 

“Sure son.” Mr Ackerman pats him in the shoulder and scoots over to the fridge 

 

Levi slumps onto the table and Mikasa shuffles out of the way of her dad, grabbing a cup from the shelves and spooning generous amounts of milo into the glass. 

 

She swipes the milk off of her dad and pours it into the cup before taking her place at the table across the Levi. 

 

“So why are you up so early little L?” Her dad asks glancing at the sachets of sugar stuffed in glass jars on the counter 

 

“Don’t call me ‘little L’ .” He glares “and I’ve got an early shift today.” 

 

“Oooh at your mysterious job you won’t tell anyone about.” 

 

“No for the mafia,” he deadpans 

 

“I always assumed that was where you worked.” She smirks 

 

Levi kicks her from under the table and Mikasa lets out a yelp. 

 

“Now now children.” Mr Ackerman says dumping  random sweetener into his coffee indecisively “let us not choose violence.” 

 

“The world made me choose violence when they woke me up today.” Levi groans 

 

“It’s not anyone’s fault but yours for working Levi.” 

 

“Isn’t it time you be off with your boyfriend Mikasa?” 

 

“Isn’t it time you be off to simp over hange ?” 

 

“It’s Dr hange. ” 

 

“Simp.” 

 

She smirks and Levi sighs raking his hair from his forehead

 

“I can not deal with being awake in this hell house today.” He whispers 

 

“Righteo.” Mr Ackerman dings his teaspoon against his coffee “there are pastries in the fridge leftover from moms shift yesterday, whoever gets them gets them,” 

 

“Don’t you dare Mikasa.” Levi grips the table 

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, cousin.’ She bats her eyelashes 

 

“Uh-Uh.” Mr Ackerman wags his finger “you must stack the dishwasher- I shall be off now, ta-ta “ 

 

“Dad you’re in your PJ’s” 

 

“It’s a PJ party.” He blows a kiss and dramatically slams the door as he leaves. 

 

Mikasa slaps her forehead and Levi sighs. 

 

My pateries.” He growls 

 

She slurps the last of her milo and pushes it towards him. 

 

Your dishes.” 

 

The comforter drags behind her as she saunters away with the elegance of a queen. 

 

—-

 

Mikasa licks her strawberry cone and manages to snort out a laugh at another one of Eren's horrible dad jokes. 

 

“Where’d you learn all these horrible one liners? Did your dad like to torture you?” 

 

“My brother actually, when he was younger he made me practice pitching with him every day, whenever I didn’t catch it He’d tell me a horrible monkey pun, it slowly grew on me, and as soon as I got good enough I would rebuttals with my own every time he missed,” 

 

“So it was a coping mechanism? No wonder they’re so crappy.” 

 

“Speaking or crappy, why strawberry? It’s like the worst flavour.” 

 

“Excuse you,” Mikasa shoves him lightly. “I’ll have you know strawberry is delicious.” 

 

“I thought you liked vanilla.” 

 

“People change.” 

 

He laughs as they walk further down town towards the bus. 

 

“So you got any plans this afternoon?” 

 

“Studying- why?” 

 

“Ugh, you're so boring.” 

 

Boring gets me good grades.” 

 

“Do you even have a little fun?” 

 

“This is my fun-“ she gestures around her “and I’m not as boring as my cousin so I think I’m doing ok.” 

 

“Your cousin is a looser,” he rolls his eyes “and as your mentor for the fun things I think I’m going to clear your schedule.” 

 

“Eren.” 

 

“Come on it’ll be fun, and we can do some dance planning so we keep to your boring agenda!” 

 

Mikasa rolls her eyes. 

 

“Fine wonder boy, take the lead.” 

 

——

 

“When you said fun, I didn’t figure you meant your house.” 

 

“Ok but the fun part is we’re going to sneak it.” 

 

‘Have you been kicked out?” She snickers “has Eren Yeager been disowned from his own house, or perhaps your just lying about where you live to impress me.” 

 

“Why on earth would I want to impress you.” 

 

“Just teasing.” 

 

Eren shakes his head and digs into his pockets nervously. “It’s just my family can be embarrassing and if they found out about a girl-“ 

 

“Oh I get it, you don’t think I’m cool enough to be your girlfriend.” She smirks 

 

“No- I mean yes? No?” He shakes his head “Never mind, why would we even date? We’re complete opposites.” 

 

“I was joking, chill.” She smiles 

 

His face relaxes. “So the fun instinct has taken over.” 

 

“Of course it has jaeger, now which tree are we climbing?’ 

 

He blinks in surprise and raises a hand to his ear mimicking a phone. 

 

“9-1-1 I’ve broken our school prodigy, she is now encouraging breaking and entering in private property.”  

 

“It’s your house dummy.” She flicks his head and he laughs  “lead the way.” 

 

Eren points to an old oak tree near the side of the house. 

 

“What if the window is closed?” 

 

“I always keep it open just in case I need to sneak in.” 

 

Mikasa smiles and begins climbing up the branches, bouncing to test each one's firmness, and clawing for the top ones. As they begin to thin out, she spots a branch leading right to the windowsill, she swings across to it, and carefully balances across it, barely supporting herself by the stingy branches above. 

 

She tugs the window upwards and swiftly crawls in, like a feather touching the ground 

 

Eren follows behind her rolling into the room and thudding on the hardwood floor. He yelps. 

 

“Eren is that you?” His mother calls from downstairs. 

 

Eren swears and Mikasa panics, gaging the surrounds of his Room for a hiding spot. But unlike her room tidied with a desk and bookshelf and other such furniture to hide from, erens room seems to only contains a creaky  bed, with a trundle underneath, and a closet she bets is filled with stinky laundry. 

 

The steps creak louder as his mother approaches and she shares a panicked glance at him, who is frozen to the spot. 

 

“Eren I told you to not-“ the lady pauses and glances at her “hello dear.” 

 

“Uh hi?” She waves awakedly and his mother smiles 

 

“Eren you didn’t tell me you were having guests!” 

 

“That’s because she’s-“ 

 

“Oh- you must be Mikasa Ackerman! We met at the inauguration!” She extends a hand 

 

“Ah yes…Carla was it?” Mikasa shakes hers and the lady nods in affirment.

 

“Well I’ll leave you to your captain stuff, don’t mind me- oh and my regard to whatever grief he’s caused you.” 

 

Eren snaps out of his traumatised daze “Ma!” 

 

“Good luck !” Carla waves and walks out of the room 

 

“Well she’s lovely.” Mikasa smiles and eren groans “At least I don’t have to sneak out the window to leave.” 

 

“Ugh the amount of ruthless teasing- I won’t hear the end of it, this will be the end of me.” He slips onto the bed groaning into a pillow. 

 

“Stop being dramatic.” She pokes him in the sides and he squeals “Now show me what ‘dance’ preparations we can do, though I can’t imagine what creativity you’d even have in such a Plain room.” 

 

“Oh this isn’t my room.” 

 

Eren springs up and begins walking down the corridor of the upstairs, Mikasa glances down the banister that leads down into an open plan living kitchen and dining room. She sees Carla chopping up vegetables for a delicious smelling soup while she comments on an old soapie in the background. 

 

Eren taps a bright green room door, decorated with dinosaur stickers and leans into it, walking backwards and presenting his room with a kiddish pride. 

 

“Voila!” He exclaims “Mikasa, su casa.” 

 

She rolls her eyes and examines his room, surprisingly she finds he does have a desk to the right of the doorway stacked with papers.

 

Even more surprisingly a small bookshelf is tucked beneath a loft bed. Several guitars sit on stands in the left corner, and a music sheet is sprawled across the floor. 

 

So he’s a band kid. 

 

“Sorry for the mess.” He winces “I actually didn’t think I’d be able to convince you to come.” 

 

She smiles “it’s cool.” 

 

“Huh?” 

 

“Your room, it’s very much... you” she gestured to the chalkboard wall covered in weird sketches of Garfield and spider-shark morphs. 

 

“That was Reiner.” He winces “and I’ll take it as a compliment that you like it, I decorated it myself.” 

 

“I never said I liked it, but it’s very creative.” 

 

“Oh what would you have me do.” 

 

“Have more books.” 

 

“Nerd.” 

 

“Says the guy who collects guitars.” 

 

Eren goes quiet with no retorts and melts into a beanbag tossed in the middle of the room, she sits next to him in another coloured s similar shade to his eyes.

 

He stretches over and picks up a guitar. 

 

“So I was thinking we could do some stuff of music and all, I know we don’t really have a band or anything so maybe being in a musically inspired environment we could work something out?” 

 

“That’s a fairly good idea.” She throws her head back “so what you thinking wonder boy.” 

 

“Ok So I have this idea, but before, I have to tell you something, and you have to promise to not tell anyone.” 

 

“Of course wonderboy.” 

 

“No seriously it could change our entire dynamic shift the game-“ 

 

“I won’t tell anyone about it eren. “ 

 

He nods

 

“Look, Mikasa… there’s something I should have told you a long time ago.” 

 

He ghost strums his guitar and leans closer to her,  eyes panicked and face flushed. 

 

“The truth is I like guitars, I play music, I was a band kid.” 

 

Mikasa blankly stares at him. 

 

Did he really think she was that stupid? 

 

“Eren you're a clown“ 

 

“Please don’t hate me.” 

 

“What the heck? Why would I hate you for playing music?” 

 

“I don’t know, you might think I’m not cool anymore, and then I’d lose my whole nonchalant jock persona I’ve been playing at.” 

 

“If anything this would make you cooler.” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“Girls dig guitars.” 

 

“Oh, is this some sort of hint that you like me kasa?” 

 

“In your dream clown boy.” She laughs rocking back and forth. 

 

Eren begins to play a chord progression, strumming steadily while his hands move quickly over the strings. 

 

“So you wanna play for the school?” 

 

“Hell no, not without a band.” He laughs 

 

“Really? You seem so confident in front of a crowd.” 

 

“Music is my insecurity Mikasa.” 

 

“Doubt it.” She swats her hand “play something for me.” 

 

“A song?” 

 

“No, a pig- of course you clown.” 

 

“Alright your majesty calm down.” 

 

He plucks a few strings on his guitar and adjusts his fingering.

 

He opens his mouth and to her surprise, he begins singing sweetly. 

 

/All those days watching from a window/ all those days, outside looking in/ all that time/ never truly knowing just how blind I’ve been/ 

 

She closes her eyes and her mind is instantly filled with memories of her childhood adventures. Meeting her friend hitch through a discussion on the ethics of cheating on exams, her first time meeting Sasha when she feel out of a tree trying to steal fruit. Her pride when she won her first academic award, her class cheering her on in the sports festival. Her weird crush on him in middle school and the cringe poem...

 

Ugh brain, why did we have to bring that up. 

 

Her mind snaps back to his voice as he finishes the song.

 

/Now that I see you/ 



“Wow I didn’t know you could sing so well. And Disney of all things.” 

 

“Impressed?” 

 

“More than that, you have a really good voice, you should sing more often.” 

 

“I’ll make sure to greet you in song form every morning.” 

 

“I’m sure Hitch's mind would blow if that happened.” 

 

He chuckles “Well it is kinda Kate you should probably-“ 

 

“Hey we didn’t do anything.” 

 

“Wrong. We had fun.” 

 

She lets out a half smile “I suppose we did,” 

 

————

 

Eren splashes his face with cold water.



What the hell. 

 

What the hell. 

 

What. the. hell. 

 

It’d been innocent enough, that’s what he’d told himself. Oh yeah go invite the school's academic into your house, sneak her through a tree and hope that works. But no, his leg had to go fail him and he alerted his mothers six senses and got them caught. 

 

Strike one for eren. 

 

Then he had led her into his room, in some sort of attempt to impress her with his five year olds self decorating skills. And then he had found that lying on his desk in the open. A love poem from a secret admirer in fifth grade. He would rather die than her find it and misinterpret it and outcast him as a weirdo. Despite the fact they had a banterous teasing relationship he did value her opinion the highest.  And so in order to avoid looking creepy he had told her that he liked guitars. Which was clearly obvious by the state of his room. 



Strike two for eren. 

 

Of course, then she had encouraged him to play for her and he had. And of all the songs he chose a love song. A Disney love song. And she had closed her eyes as he had sung it, and perhaps there was something up with the lighting or perhaps it was hormones, but he’d NEVER had more of an urge to kiss someone right there and then. And he nearly had, he had leaned in, so close she could probably hear his heart and feel his breath on her face. And he had leaned in. Luckily the bridge caught up to the instrumental and he continued singing. 

 

Strike three for eren. 

 

He had gone and made a mess of himself, and then he had practically dragged her out the door. All he had left to do was pray, pray that she hadn’t noticed how weird he was acting. A lot of things were uncertain, unsettled dust in the air, a pause in the eye of the hurricane that was about to sweep him off his feet and into an endless emotional roller coaster that ended in flames. 

 

One thing was certain though. All hell was about to be set loose. 

Notes:

Ok Mwah mwah MWAH I love you all so much, thank you for reading and keeping up with this series it’s literally so amazing that we’re up to like 100 kudos??Y’all are too kind.

Sisjsjejejjss though I’m literally so sorry, I was hitting a huge artist/writers block moment and I was stuck With ideas for everything, despite having planned most of this series out lolol.

This chapter also ended up being completely different to its original design so those events shall be happening next chapter hopefully (which fingers crossed I can get that out soon, depends how desperate I am to procrastinate on my four assignments due this week sjsjsjskekekks).

And I know I promised a huge eremika Moment but I just felt like the build up wasn’t there so that shall also be happening next time lolol, and hopefully erens POV at the end will explain his actions more further on from here.

(And as for the aurani and levihan it’s coming! I promise!)

Anyways thank you all for reading if you’ve mad sir this far your a champion, thank you for taking time out of your day to read my EM trash.

Once again I appreciate all the comments kudos And they’re really motivating to write for (I swear the only reason why I persisted writing like an entire chapter tonight is because of how lovely y’all are)

Thank you, and see you next time ^_^

Chapter 6: Spy

Summary:

Eremika spy’s on Aruani. That’s it. That’s the plot.

Notes:

*evil laughter*

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Eren takes a deep breath and raises a hand to knock on the door across the hallway. He was the last, the absolute LAST person he would ever ask for romantic advice, and yet here he was. Ok maybe not the last, but if he had learnt anything from his family it was the fact that they were the  W O R S T at romance. 

 

Dad was stuck in the eighties, Ma’ would tease him tremendously and Zeke? He would sigh quote love poetry while strumming a guitar to a song about soulmates something or other. 

 

He wasn’t even exactly sure how he felt about Mikasa, he wasn’t even sure why, but for some reason his brain had short circuited and led him to the doorpost of his brothers bedroom, pasted with said poetry and a monkey sticker, as music flows from neith it’s frame. 

 

He knocks. 

 

There is a pause in music followed by a ‘come in’ and eren contemplates running away from everything right in that moment. But because he is completely stupid he swings open the door and into the realm of his brother, which is forever tinged with the musty aroma of a barn animal- yet somehow in a good way. 

 

“What’s going little bro?” 

 

Eren bites his lip. There truly is no good way to say this. 

 

“I-“ 

 

“Let me guess you have a little crush on her.” 

 

“How-“ 

 

“It’s a feeling.” Zeke strikes a chord leaving a pang in his heart. “So you wanna know the good news or the bad news?” 

 

Good news ?” 

 

“She likes you too.” 

 

“You really think so?”

 

“The bad news is I’m a whole ass liar, you're a simp, Eren.” 

 

He rolls his eyes at Zeke and leans against the wall. 

 

“So you really think she doesn’t like me.” 

 

“Never said that.” 

 

“But-“ 

 

“Here’s some advice, you like her, yes?” Zeke interrupts and Eren nods quietly “well then don’t mess it up because you wanna make out with her, she’s a lovely girl eren, don’t go breaking her heart.” 

 

Zeke shakes his head “anyways I have a song to write, go finish your homework lazy butt.” 

 

Monkey face .” 

 

He walks out of the room and resolves to take some of his brother's more sensible advice and just not kiss her. 

 

Great, easy, simple. Done. 

 

No kissing. 

 

Memories of last night resurface in his brain and he throws a punch midair in frustration leaving his messily knotted tie to loose and fall to the floor. 

 

Perhaps this was going to be harder than he thought. 

 

-------



“So…” Armin taps a marker against the white board. “Any ideas for this dance?” 

 

“How about, it's ridiculous that the school expects us to plan everything.” Eren says snapping his fingers 

 

“True,  but I'm pretty sure that's not a theme.” Mikasa shrugs 

 

“Aww come on ‘kasa, it's pretty cute,” Eren stands up grabbing a fistfull of paperwork and lathering over himself “You like my dress? It's sponsored by poor management by our school teachers”

 

“You look as pretty as a bin chicken.” She grins and eren laughs 

 

“Ooh nice burn, you're really doing well at this whole relaxing thing.” 

 

“I learned from the best didnt i?” she turns back to Armin. “How about a time period... like the seventies-” 

 

“EIGHTIES!” Eren exclaims “I FINALLY HAVE AN EXCUSE TO STEAL STUFF FROM MY DAD'S WARDROBE! AND CLAIM MY VICTORY AS WARDROBE AVATAR!” 

 

“You’ve stolen stuff from everyone in your family? Even your mother?” 

 

“Grade two, dress up day, Eren insisted on wearing Carla's wedding dress so he could be a weird Godzilla-zombie mashup ” Armin chimes in 

 

Mikasa snorts “you weirdo.” 

 

“I’ll have you know I won first place for creativity.” 

 

“I’m pretty sure everyone was terrified of you.” Armin chuckles 

 

“Oh well, that was the idea.” He steals the marker out of armins hand and scrawls ‘eighties’ across it. “Well I think that just about covers all of today’s work.” 

 

Mikasa gestured to the pile of papers across from them “We are not done- and we’ll be here tomorrow too, so don’t you even think about trying to skip, this is your part of the deal.” 

 

Armin smiles sheepishly “about that- I actually have plans for tomorrow do you mind if I skip? I can do some extra paperwork today-“ 

 

“Oh no you're  fine, Armin, you are  my favourite after all.” She whacks Eren on the head when he tries to stand up. “Eren however needs to learn to participate in captain duties.” 

 

“Kasa…” he whines 

 

“We have a deal, remember, Mr. Fun.” 

 

Eren groans and Armin collects his papers. 

 

“Well don't stay too late.” 

 

“Wouldn't dream of it.” eren says with a wink

 

“I think at this rate you'll be sleeping in here.” Mikasa says, rolling her eyes as she pushes papers towards him. “Sign all of these- Bye armin!” 

 

He gives her a slight nod and leaves the boardroom walking down the corridor. 



Mikasa counts thirty paces and eren darts towards the white board erasing their brainstorm from today. 



“He should be gone by now.” 

 

Eren flips the whiteboard over revealing the otherside scribbled in illegible handwriting with magnets and string strung over it pinning together photos printed out text messages and search history of their trios treasurer. 

 

“What the hell- where is he going?” Eren sighs, placing his hands on his hips with a confused glance. 

 

Mikasa walks towards him, red marker in hand. She squeaks another time captured from her phone and adds a question mark to it.  

 

“Annie too, she's not answering any of my texts.” 

 

“And that's unusual?” 

 

“Not really but she'd at least have the courtesy of leaving me on read, or being online.” 

 

Eren furrows his brow in frustration.  “They're dating! I know it! You don't spend that much time with a stranger disappearing for hours on end!” 

 

“I mean…” 

 

“Ok but we’re different- At least we're doing our work! I don't think I can handle forging Armins signature anymore!” 

 

Mikasa raises an eyebrow at him and he places a hand on his chest in defence. 

 

“I am completely innocent.” 

 

“Sure you are eren.” 

 

“Are you suggesting that I can't get tired of forging signatures all day?” 

 

“I saw you forge your mothers to get out of class today and bother me during my study period.” 

 

“In my defence math is boring.” 

 

She brushes him off and goes back to staring intensely at the board. 

 

“So, we think they're dating-”

 

“Wrong all the evidence clearly means they are.” 

 

“What evidence? All we have is a bunch of dates and times Armin has left and some random text messages, that doesn't mean squat all!” 

 

“We have instinct.” 

 

“Instinct?”  

 

“And I may have looked at his search history and saw him booking tickets to a movie this afternoon-“ 

 

“You what ?” She pokes him with a paperclip “Eren did you snoop through his stuff?” 

 

“I prefer the term ‘glancing briefly’.” He smirks “and he was asking me how to flirt in the theatre, I had the right to see what he was scheming.” 

 

Mikasa drums her fingers on the desk impatiently. She bites her lip. “Do you think he’s really asked her out?” 

 

“I swear on my honour.” 

 

“That's not a lot of honour.” 

 

“Hey, my track record of truth telling is a clean slate.” 

 

“Why because you’ve never told the truth?” She teases 

 

Kasa .” He groans “Trust me, I know when someone’s in love.” 

 

“Oh do you now?” She grabs her  blazer slipping it over her uniform “Do you wish to go test that theory?” 

 

“Mikasa, how unorthodox,” he gasps, clasping a hand over his mouth. “Are you suggesting that we spy on them?” 

 

“Why I’d never!” She threw his coat to him “I prefer the term, glancing briefly .” 

 

Eren laughs as she ushers him out the door.

 

—-

 

Eren regrets it. He regrets it all.

 

In a whirlwind of distractions and debates as they rushed around the city on busses and trams like little toddlers, caught breathless under her gaze (curse, CURSE hormones) somehow he managed to get them here. 

 

Technically speaking it was her fault, Mikasa was the one taking advantage of his chivalrous acts in loving kindness. She was the one who pointed over to the very shop they were now sitting in. And now, most unfortunately the circumstances of the intimate space, let their knees graze together from under the table. 

 

He had done this plenty of times before, ( see here: none ) he didn’t really understand why it was driving him mad.

 

In bitterness he swears under his breath to never come here again. 

 

“What was that eren?” Mikasa smiles unfazed by the charming features of their vicinity as she peers over her menu. 

 

“Nothing.” He fans it off “what do you want? I’ll pay!” 

 

Titans eren, we know your whipped but your also broke as hell how the hell-

 

“That’s ok, you're always buying me stuff, I’ll shout this time.” 

 

“Kasa…” 

 

“No eren, I chose where I pay- same goes for the movies, that was my idea.” 

 

“But I-“ 

 

“Nonsense, I can be chivalrous too.” 

 

He pouts in a sulking matter, but his wallet cheers that its thinly stretched allowance may be spared another day. 

 

“So,” Mikasa draws, spinning her straw into ice water. “What do you want to eat?” 

 

“I'll just get ice cream i guess?” he shuffles his feet awkwardly, searching for conversation “what about you?” 

 

“I think I’ll get a cone too.” She presses her lips into a sweet smile and he HAS to stop looking at her like that. 



“So eighties Huh?” 

 

“What?” 

 

“Your dad, he likes the eighties?” She prompts him, trying to release the awkward tension in the air. 

 

His eyes sparkle with greed, and he immediately takes the opportunity to make a fool of himself- to make her laugh of course, eren may have been an idiot but he certainly wasn’t going to look stupid on purpose. 

 

“Oh yeah, he’s all over that stuff, he’s got it all, the leather, the ugly pants, the bright colours- all of it waiting to be preyed upon by the wardrobe avatar!” 

 

Mikasa giggles and he feels his centre of gravity shift, his heart takes flight in its spastic fluttering and with no restraint of the laws of physics, has bargained to occupy his skull, of which’s brain has disappeared, long gone with all of his sound logic and common sense of reason. 

 

It’s ironic how mere days ago he would have scowled at his mothers teasing, and yet now, here he is, getting lost in her grey eyes. 

 

A waitress clears her throat taking out a notepad. 

 

“Excuse me, would you like to order anything?” 

 

Eren glances up at the server, chin length silver hair framed by circular glasses, making her look strangely owlish like, but awfully familiar…

 

“Rico...?” 

 

“Rico!” Mikasa exclaims interrupting him. 

 

The waitress blinks twice and seems to snap out of her customer service daze. 

 

“Oh, hello Mikasa, ” she turns to him with a glaring look  “And Eren .” 

 

He gulps and Mikasa raises an eyebrow, “You know Rico?” 

 

“Oh, don't I know this brat.” She sighs “Little bastard would pretend he was bird watching every time I came to Dr Yeagers clinic.” 

 

“I was like five!” 

 

“Last time I recall you were fifteen with that blonde jock ‘pretending’ to shoot me with nerf guns.” 

 

“Ah.” Eren smiles sheepishly “Yeah that was an accident.” 

 

Mikasa coughs awkwardly. “Well how's the law degree going? I haven't seen you at Hanges as of late.” 

 

“And this would be the cause,” She gestures at the cafe “They raised dorm fees on us, and its not like my parents are awfully rich enough to subsidise me.” 

 

“That doesn't seem fair!” Eren says 

 

“Life's two teenage boys with a nerf gun, and I'm an owl-like girl.” Rico deadpans 

 

Sorry .” 

 

“I'm sure you are.” she turns to Mikasa “What would you like to order?” 

 

“I’ll have a strawberry sundae and he can have peppermint.” 

 

Rico scribbles it down and morphs back into her facade. 

 

“Your order should be with you in a moment.” 

 

——

 

Mikasa surveys her surroundings, taking a sudden interest in the way the plastic olive green vines were wrapped around the beams crossing the establishment's high ceiling. It wasn't that interesting to her but anything to drown out the awkward moment drifting between them, dragged out by Eren drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. Their knees touch underneath the table and Mikasa begins to regret choosing this particular place as their hideout for spying on armin. 

 

Curse eren for being so ridiculously nice. 

 

“So strawberry huh?” 

 

“What ?” 

 

“I thought you liked vanilla.” 

 

“I did.” She stretches out her hands “but sometimes change is a good thing.” 

 

“I suppose.” He leans back “so are you still free for next Sunday because i'd like-“ 

 

She ignores his remark, eyes widening as they hook onto the pair of blondes crossing the street. Somewhere in the middle of probably some dramatic monologue inciting the team they’d be playing on the weekend, she taps his shoulder pointing out the window. He follows her finger to the crossing where Armin stands animatedly chatting to Annie. Mikasa swears she can see the ghost of a smile form upon her lips in return. 



“Wow, is that-” 

 

“Look!” Mikasa squeals, pointing out the window “It’s them!” 

 

“Really!” He glances out the window following her pointer finger to where they stood. 

 

Armin, talking animatedly to her, reaches into a pocket and produces a small wrapped gift, Annie's eyes widen and she slowly takes her hands out of her tartan culottes pockets as he hands it to her, she makes a small comment as she rips it and armin brushes it off with a laugh. She produces the object from the wrapping paper and she smiles. 

 

“Go armin ?” Eren says turning back to Mikasa with a raised eyebrow 

 

“Did he give her a baby duck key chain?” 

 

“Maybe it’s an inside joke?” 

 

“Inside joke or not, I’d be charmed.” She says with conviction

 

“Oh really?” Eren says leaning into her as she continues spying them from the window “well then you’d be glad to know that I have a dozen or so of those key chains in my bag.” 

 

“Why are you trying to be so charming,” Mikasa says, lifting an eyebrow “did you magically fall in love with me?” 

 

“No it’s just funny seeing your pointed reactions at all of it.” He shrugs condescendingly 

 

“Wow, such a gentleman.” 

 

“Did you think I was trying to court you?” 

 

“No i-“ 

 

“Your ice cream?” Another, not Rico waitress deadpans, bowls in hand. 

 

“Oh can we get these-“ 

 

“Thank you!” Eren interrupts him by taking the dishes from the waitress and placing them in front of them. 

 

“But Armin-“ 

 

“We should space ourselves away from them, that is the first rule of spying.” He cracks, grinning sheepishly. 

 

Mikasa rolls her eyes and Eren passes her a spoon, signaling for her to eat. 



——-



Curse her tiredness. 

 

As an academic prodigy, light of the school and general genius, Mikasa ought to have intelligence, or at least give herself the courtesy to think before acting. She supposed it’s Erens fault.The mental damage she was receiving having to babysit him everyday was getting to her, and of course she had decided it was going to be a great idea sitting with him. Alone. Together. In a dark theater, all because she was invested in the crappy romance between a couple of her acquainted friends. 

 

Speaking of which. 

 

Mikasa scans the room, searching for the pair. It was a terrible idea really, it had been easy to sneak in without being noticed by them, but she hadn't taken into account they'd have to find them- to spy of course. 

 

The movie screen lights up, beginning to play a series of ads. She continues arching her neck around to spot them, but her eyes fail her, and she turns to Eren beside her. Mikasa elbows him in the side, and he drops an array of packaged snacks earning him death glares from surrounding moviegoers. As he bends over to pick them up Mikasa lowers her voice to a whisper. 

 

“Sorry, it’s too dark in here” She apologises “can you see them?” 

 

“Nah, I have horrible eyesight, sorry.” 

 

She bites her lip in concern. 

 

Spying seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, as the dark theatre closed around her, Mikasa begins to feel an itch of anxiety. She searches again and again, eyes panning across the theatre, begging for Armin to show himself. To make some jokes, some references. Trailers begin to play and she withholds her eyes from the blazing screens filled with action and romance. Her mind begins to swirl as sweat trickles down her forehead. Her skin grows ice cold. 

 

She had always been afraid of the dark, it was cool, and empty and seemed to hold no love. And where no love, monsters reigned, protruding from the depths of her closet and neith her bed, grabbing her by the ankles and dragging her to hell or some other domain that burned with wrath for her. Perhaps she was the only high schooler in the world to be afraid of such a thing, but nevertheless, the thought of the dark twisted her stomach to the point of which she still kept a small starlight in her room to glow at night. 



Mikasa's stomach lurches as it encompasses the theatre, and her skin seems to crawl with the whispers of the monsters echoing through her ears. She clenches her mouth to bite back any screech. Her breaths become short and laboured as she tries to search for a light to grasp onto, that isn’t the abyss of the darkened screen. 

 

The room seems to sway around her and there is a growing queasiness in her stomach,  she-  



A warm hand grasps hers, dragging her out of the whirlpool of emotions. Mikasa turns to face Eren , he gives her a half smile, and squeezes her hand before gesturing to turn to the screen. 

 

Her eyes widen and she nods in compliance. Resting her head upon his shoulder in return. 

 

——

 

Eren exhales with relief as he feels her pulse steady, no longer beating through her throat.



Panic attacks were something he was familiar with, at the clinic he would see them all the time, people were afraid of lots of things, needles and jabs, swallowing medicine, swabs and even sometimes doctors. And he had seen his Dad consol each of his patients with patience, carefully breaking down their anxieties with weightless effort. His dad would always lecture him about how to stop a panic attack, how to help people. How he should help people. And yet it never actually occurred to him that he might need to use it. And even more so on Mikasa, who nearly always seemed to keep her cool. 

 

He squeezes her hand a little tighter reassuring her that he was there she nods, squeezing back and turning to the screen. 

 

Erens has seen the movie before, (his mother insists on movie nights on a Tuesday), he has a basic understanding of the plot, and so, hoping to easy her anxiety a little more, considering the theatre staff guarding the door like ravenous wolves, decides to find Armin. 

 

His eyes, of course, aren't perfect, and he hasn’t eaten enough carrots in his life to channel his inner rabbit, so he squints leaning forward, and scans each row with scrutiny, searching for the silhouette of two teenagers, hopefully with their tongues down each other's throat (blackmail material). 



Three rows from the front he spots them, sunk into their seats, they lean at an awkward distance away from each other. He curses Armin, heck if he can hold a girl's hand in a theatre, why can’t he? 

 

He nudged Mikasa lightly, guiding her eyes to them and she let out a smile, whispering something along the lines of “they're cute”

 

Her lips pout in a cute way and Eren feels the dangerous lure of kissing her, he pulls back his hand, attempting to offhand it as getting snacks, she weakly smiles back and turns to the screen, himself following. 

 

———-

 

They make brisk talk of the movie. 

 

It’s fine, it’s good even, but somehow, stupidly Mikasa misses feeling the warmth of his hand cradling her own, as they walk out the theatre. Eren makes a horrific pun referencing one of the scenes, and she rolls her eyes at him. 

 

Somehow despite him knowing a stupid amount of dad jokes, he still was kind enough to comfort her, putting aside his merciless teasing at the knowledge of her discomfort, it was sweet really. Mikasa skips down the theatre steps admiring the space themed eights carpet that still adorned the ageless cinema. The smell of popcorn incites a crowd of laughs around her, and her stomach begins to grumble. 

 

“Hungry?” Eren says raising an eyebrow and she nods her head with a tinge of shame. 

 

“Uh yeah, you wanna go get the burgers?”

 

Eren opens his mouth to reply but his eyes widen with shock, and he pushes Mikasa to the backside of an occupied  photobooth. 

 

Breathing heavily against the wall, expression wincing with apology. He presses strawberry scented lips upon hers. 



If she could faint, she would, because she can not imagine the slightest reality where this scenario could play out, and yet here she was, being kissed. In the lobby of a cinema, popcorn and candy smells drifting from the canteen, stars washed on the carpet. 

 

And yet somehow, despite her affirmed stance on refusing to ever like Eren Jaeger ever again , she finds herself enjoying it. 

 

He pulls back quickly glancing over his shoulders turning back to her face (which she guarantees is spread with bright pink right now). 

 

“Armin, armin  was behind us.” He explains and she nods her head in affirment “This was the first thing I could think of to make sure we wouldn’t be caught.” 

 

Her mind thankfully snaps back into action, readying her bantreous taunts. 

 

“Oh, and kissing me was the first thought in your mind? How scandalous Mr Yeager.” 

 

“NoOooh.” He exclaims “I just-“

 

“How about that burger?” She laughs and Eren begrudgingly agrees, wallet crying as Mikasa drags him out of the theatre. 


———



A girl, steps out of the booth, a redhead boy beside her. She shuffles their prints and the boy tugs on her purse lightly. 

“Ugh what is it-“ 

 

The girl turns, to face a rather interesting couple smooching round the back of the cinemas arcades, she smirks, snapping a photo on her camera and walking away.

Notes:

Ajajsjxjwkwokkskskiwiwkwejn

 THIS CHAPTER.

Honestly it was a trip to write, some parts took days while others took less than minutes, and some of it I didn’t even know I was writing until I did, Mikasas panic attack for example- or even the Jeager brothers talking out romance, it gives to show how weird writing is!

So, first of all, THANK You, You and YOu For your support of this series.

Nowwwwww, I know it’s says out of 10 but to be honest, I’ve looked at my plan, and it’s definitely not ten chapters, at least how I’m writing it.

In fact, technically speaking this is only act 1 of this entire fabulously stupid performance, and I look forward to writing more and more of their stupid interactions as they fumble about, especially now with all the chaos I’ve created *evil laughter*

 

So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and continue to enjoy reading the rest of my beloved EM trash with a side of aruani and Levihan, and a bunch of other minor ships lolol.

I have exams next week so idk how my writing schedules is gonna be, but I’ll try my best to get a full chapter and kick start the next act of our beloved dramatic teens making a mess!

Mwah, love you all, thanks for reading.

Chapter 7: Questions

Summary:

Kiss talk, Levi thinks, Hanges printer is exploited and Mikasa and Eren make another dumb deal

Notes:

Act TWA has arrived *yay*

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Eren bites his tongue, flickering his  gaze between his fidgeting  hands, the table and Mikasa's dropped head. 

 

Up. 

 

Down. 

 

Counter. 

 

Hands. 

 

Her eyes. 

 

Back down again. 

 

It was all particularly awkward, and by the looks of the busy line at the burger joint they had run to, they weren’t gonna be interrupted in their thrilling saga of looking up at each other briefly and then glancing down. 

 

Perhaps in a feat of bravery (or rather stupidity) Eren tempts the waters and clears his throat. 

 

“So Uhm,” he begins swallowing his anxiety unsuccessfully “are you hungry?” 

 

“No.” She squeaks and their conversation burns out 

 

He drums on the tables, chewing his mouth. He glances up. Mikasa bites her lip. 

 

Eren winces at the reminder. 

 

Of course. Of course the only explicit  advice Zeke had given him he threw out the window the second he was in a panicked daze. Of course he kissed her without asking. Wait was that considered sexual assault? Was he going to jail? Should he apologise?

 

He casts a glance towards her again. She looked nervous, and he ? Well he’d messed up. Big time. He’d ruined every aspect of their relationship, violated her trust and generally became the very image he’d sworn to destroy. A toxic no for good douchebag that plays with a girl's feelings. 



Not that she had to have feelings, in fact his goofy attempts to amuse her have probably counteracted any thoughts of the like. It wasn’t like he cared though. Mikasa can have her own feelings. She can not like him. 

 

Still there is the slightest part of him that almost wishes she had a crush on him. 

He glances up at her and begins to realise she hasn't talked in a while? For Titans eren she was having an anxiety attack in the movie theatre? And you went and kissed her afterwards without warning? Are you trying to kill her? Make her even more uncomfortable? 

 

“Eren.” She speaks to his relief “Can I ask you something?” 

 

He nods, almost too eagerly much to his chagrin. 

 

“Why did you do …that ?” 

 

His mind swirls with answers, and truly he himself is trying to grapple with the truth. But they’re generally incoherent and stupid, and so he finds himself gravitating to the most logical answer, the answer he hopes is the right one. 

 

“The truth is, I panicked…” he trails off 

 

Mikasa nods her head solemnly. 

 

“That doesn’t mean I don’t think of it as a kiss- unless you don’t want to, it’s just I don’t mean disrespect and-“ 

 

He mentally slaps himself for his fluster disposition, flailing around like a stuttered goose, tripping over his own feet wadded with insecurities. 

 

And she laughs. 

 

His breath catches and for a moment he forgets his own hubris, enchanted by her bubbled melodic laughter. For a moment, he is lost in her voice. 

 

But as the stroke of midnight strikes, or rather, a stifled end to her gorgeous giggling, he snaps out of it tuning into her reply. 

 

“It’s ok eren, just don’t do that again without asking.” 

 

“Right…” he slouches in his seat and Mikasa raises an eyebrow. 

 

“I’m serious eren, consent is so important.” 

 

“Yes I get it, but what  I'm lingering on the fact you said again .” Her cheeks, though dusted from her previous fit of laughter, began to redden and he leans in closer, stirring the pot. “Why Mikasa, do you have a crush on me ?” 

 

She takes a moment to grab her composure and flick his nose, turning away to hide any possible evidence of a flustered expression grazed on her face. 

 

“I’d sooner have a crush on a horse than you.” She smirks in retort and eren snickers. 

 

“Oh am I supposed to believe that?” 

 

“Yes you are, little naruto.” She taps him on the head, pushing her seat back as she stands up. “Come on, we have school tomorrow.” 

 

——

 

Levi inhales sharply. Filing another document into his alphabetically and numerically organised cabinets dissolved directly across from his desk in the small cubical. He taps it with a sickly sense of satisfaction that only comes when one is a neat freak. Or had a tragically traumatic incident, involving a messy librarian, a couple of ambiguously titled gifts, and a nosy tattle-tailing two year old or whatever cousin- thus distancing himself from any type of chaos lest he be reminded of her awkwardly toothy grin between dusted files and half stamped files that were, due at his bosses office in an hour. 

 

Shoot. He was going to be killed if he forgot them again. 



Contrary to the popular belief (nasty rumour) going around the Ackerman house, The only thing criminal about this job, was the ridiculous deadlines demanded of them, and perhaps alongside that, the pool of blood his body would be sunk in if they were not met. 



But other than that, his job was more of a stamp, sign and file type thing. Menial tasks that within six months would have sent any sane person off the edge, but with Levi, and his intense and strict routine of avoiding that unfortunate Hange Zoe and her bookstore. A nine to five was the exact thing he required in order to keep himself from somehow ending up embarrassing himself around her again. 

 

He swivels back in his chair towards the growing pile of paperwork that somehow seems to multiply every time he turns away from it. It normally does not phase him though, the company’s paperwork is a never ending wormhole. And as long as that allows him to be paid a fair amount, and keep his mind off of her, he’s fine with it. 

 

Except this time…his eye catches, a yellow flier dances on top of the pile, taunting him to take a peak. 

 

He snatches it off and reads it briskly, frowning he pushes back his seat and storms to the clerk desk, a musty old man with bangs too long for his own good with a ridiculously cartoonish sense of smell that can scout out the slightest hint of tuna casserole in the break room. 



“What the hell is this Mike?” Levi spits, slamming the flier on his table. 

 

“I thought the requirements of working here were knowing how to read? Wait, of course it was your masterful rendition of the effective use of the ABCs in corporate filing design.” 

 

“Perhaps if you filtered out all that smack talk you could actually talk with elegance.” 

 

“Better than a man of few words.” 

 

“Oh please mike.” A lady from another cubical calls “That was a new low of attempting to woo me. Swallow a dictionary to cool the burn I gave you last summer?” 

 

“Who said I liked you Nanba?” 

 

“You did, while drunk at the office New Year’s Eve party.” 

 

“I did not-“ 

 

“Oi no one here wants to witness you flirting.” He says snapping his fingers across Mike's face “I want to know what it means, I can read idiot.” 

 

“Oh so you can read, you just didn’t pass comprehension, no wonder you missed all of petras cues,” 

 

“Levi’s a bit too old for her don't you think? ” 

 

“Of course he is, doesn’t make him any less oblivious.” 

 

“Oi. Focus. On topic. Why the hell do we have to bring a child to work today?” 

 

“Ah now we’re getting somewhere,I’m glad you learnt how to read Levi.” Mike slaps him on the shoulder stoically “but I have to tell you, I have no idea why, boss just likes torturing us with compulsory activities I guess, but as an faithful employee we try to follow the rules deal with stinky kids and not get fired.” 

 

“What’s wrong with children mike?” 

 

“They mess up my sense of smell with all their grimy germs.” 

 

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s works-“ 

 

Levi groans, walking away from their imbecilic conversation. 

 

Compulsory? 

 

Who was he ever. Supposed to bring? The only “child” he knew of was Mikasa, and he doubted with her captain duties, studyholic attitude and strange new entanglement with an equally strange and mysterious boy that she wouldn’t want to come to a dumb work event so he could keep his job. 

 

Though…she was interested in where he worked, all that teasing and all. 

 

Perhaps if he played his cards right he could trick her into coming along for the day. 

 

——- 

 

Armin blinks his eyes, slowly adjusting to the light as they sludge out of the theatre. 

 

It’s had been one blur of a movie, and he could barely remember any of the details, but he wouldn’t trade it in for the world to see her face contort into a an amused grin, chuckling at all the crappy jokes and puns. 

 

He does however, regret the fact that eren was going to grill him over everything that occurred, and that he would have to answer honestly. Forget his history draft due tomorrow. He was going to be toast for not trying any of the moves on her. 

 

It wasn’t that he was nervous or anything (ok maybe he was a little ). It was just the fact that Annie was a genuine person, she didn’t put a dumb facade on for anyone, and she wouldn’t tolerate anyone who did. And although he admired the confidence and suavity of each of the tricks eren taught him, he didn’t feel his genuine self pull through any of them. And if there’s one thing he owed her if he dared romance her, it was being his true self. 

 

Annie was stoic, a little prideful and even cold at times, but she held a soft spot for sweet things, and not just confectionary, but dumb one liners and sappy poetry. Heck the first thing they bonded over was Shakespearean love poetry in English class. 

 

To be honest If he had even tried to repeat some of the things eren has taught him he probably would have gotten a knee to his stomach, and a greeting from the candy he had probably been a little too greedy with this afternoon. 

 

Annie swings her arm beside his, both of their hands briefly grazing each other as they squeeze through the crowds down the cinema staircase. He doesn’t dare look down though. To acknowledge such would be a death sentence. Rather, one looks straight ahead like a dead person stuck in headlights, a faint blush rising to his cheeks in an agonising painstakingly obvious way. Suddenly he almost wishes he hadn’t encouraged Annie to not read in the dark lest she be blind sighted to his face's predicament with teenage hormones and the slighted crush he’s had on her since primary school. 

 

“You enjoy the movie.” She grumbles politely. 

 

He nods, thrilled by the fact that against her better wishes she’s making small talk. It’s progress into politehood- Armins native tongue. 

 

“Yeah. It was really cool- what did you think of it?” 

 

“It was pretty cool. I especially liked the part where the two love interests are on a boat confessing their feelings since they’ve been separated for the past five years and then they kiss and save the world.” 

 

Armin frowns. He doesn’t remember that being a part of the plot, but then again he would put it past him to slip up while staring at her and miss a couple of key story points.

 

“Uh yeah, I liked that part too.” 

 

Annie let’s out a cold snicker and he winces. Wrong answer.

 

“That wasn’t even a part of the movie dork.” She snores “fall asleep did you?” 

 

“No, I was just testing you .” He squeaks, biting his lip mentally begging her to not call his bluff. 

 

“Sure alert sure.” She shakes her head and for a second he swears she smiles. 

 

They continue weaving through the sea of people, fanning out to the shopping centre's courtyard, filled with people shuffling around, families feasting in restaurants and children swinging on gym equipment as a sad excuse for a playground. The crowd surrounding them is much too overbearing and pushy and so he glances down in escape. 

 

 “I’m hungry, do you know any good places around here?” 

 

“There’s a Chinese takeout a few blocks away…” 

 

“Perfect.” He extends a hand, daring to try one of erens suave tricks. “take me there.” 

 

Annie let’s out another precious half smile and tugs down on his hair, dragging him backwards as he yelps, cursing Erensdumb advice. 



———

 

She begins to quicken her pace, alarmed by the fact that her wifi wasn’t working, and Google maps was being an ass and not showing her the stores opening and closing times. 

 

“Louise, would you slow down? My legs hurt!” 

 

“We have to get this done now flotch, or else there’s no point to it !” 

 

“Do we have to walk this fast?” 

 

“Either widen your strides or quicken your pace, it’s not hard- I’m in heels.” 

 

Flotch curses and she rolls her eyes, typing away at her screen, desperately trying to reload the page to the Library. The only place in town that offered free printing for students, courtesy of the librarian's naivety that teenagers would use it  responsibly rather than exploit its colour inking setting. 

 

Though she had heard rumours that she knew someone who worked in a printing company and offered her ink carriages free of charge. Though rumours being rumours were often blatant lies, and she can’t imagine anyone associated with Hange working under such boring conditions, considering how “ special ” she was. 

 

The bell to Hanges bookstore rings sweetly as two students wander in, shoes shuffling across the carpet as they climb up the stairs to the top levels. 

 

Hange peers down from square frames, dusting off her hands from book stacking over a cream cardigan and smiles. 

 

“Ah, Louise, Flotch! How lovely to see you, how can I help?” 



“Uh we just were wondering if it were ok to print something?” The boy with red  hair asks 

 

“Well of course, you just have to email it to the printer's address and it should do it in full colour.” She says gesturing to the corner across from the window seated cafe.

 

The girl nods, twisting a lollipop around in her fingers, tapping down at her phone. “Thanks mrs hange.” 

 

“Any time kiddos, and be sure to look at the new collection of books I have over there, they are some good classics!” She says drowning in a stack of books. 

 

Louise smiles, pressing print on her screen, printer mechanics spiriting into life as they begin illustrating it. 

 

A few seconds later, the first print comes to life, she grins with satisfaction, folding it over and placing it behind her phone case. In a matter of seconds a second one follows and flotch does the same, an evil smirk sliding across his features. With a diabolical plan of chaos up their sleeves, they saunter out of the shop, ushered with a goodbye from the foolish bookkeeper. 

 

———

 

The bus makes its last blocks around the corner to Mikasa's place. The bus sings a low hum, accompanied by the chug of the engine and the ticking percussion of the indicator, Navman poetically announcing to turn left. 



It was moments like these where Mikasa usually found herself in an indescribable amount of melancholy, but today, knees pressed together tightly and shoulders subject to the swaying of the road, brushing against him that she felt a rather sense of panicked calm. 

 

While she was completely flustered by every movement that pushed her against him, she also had an amazing sense of serenity next to him, that sent a rush of calm towards every stricken nerve in her body. 



Stuck in the paralysis of a cycle between anxiety and peace, Mikasa doesn’t budge, nor speak, only flickering her eyes between the misshapen colourful patterns on the floor, and tracing the metal bars along the ceiling. 

 

The current trajectory of their bus ride had been complete silence, and home was set to be a course only bothered by a brief goodbye as she collected her belongings and left her seat. 

 

But eren, being eren was never one to let time pass without conversation, and suddenly like a light switch, his head snaps into conversation, illuminating her awkward mood. 

 

“So about consent I-“ 

 

“It’s always important yes,” 

 

“I was just going to  say that we should make a deal to never kiss.” 

 

Mikasa frowns, blush spreading against her will across her cheeks. 

 

“What’s wrong Mikasa? Do you want to kiss me now?” 

 

“No I do not.” She huffs in stubborn pride. “I accept your deal. No kissing.” 

 

Eren blinks in surprise and for a moment even she is surprised at how easily she’s managed to confuse him and herself. 

 

It’s not like she even wanted to kiss him anymore. 



That's ridiculous, they were classmates, captains and teammates. Romantic relationships would just be a complete bother and hindrance towards all aspects of both of their social life. 

 

The bus pulls towards her stop and Mikasa clambers out of her seat, clawing her eyes out at how easily her entire reputation would plunge if even Armin found out they had kissed. 

 

Thankfully, they were spy’s





Notes:

AHHHhHhHhHhhH

Mwah mwah mwah, I love yous all so much, thank you for your patience. Exam block literally killed me, and then I was working at snail pace from the lag of writing wayyyy too many essays and killing my will to write. So thanks for waiting! I’m still very determined to finish this story, and if y’all still with me I hope you can enjoy it too!

This chapter almost feels like a filler to me lolol I rewrote it so many times it’s such a blur, just tryna figure out where to put scenes, which scenes to even put? Like plot emphasis, consistent character development ect. Writing is hard.

But like i think the build up will pay off (hopefully) bc honestly they’re dorks and too fun to write. Especially Levi, he’s fun to bully hehehe.

Anyways if your reading this big thank you for your support and continued dealing with my dumbasses horrible updating schedule. I hope if your still invested in this narrative that you’ll confuse with me and these idiots! And once again thank you for the comments the kudos and the bookmarks! Even just reading really motivates me to keep on writing this story out!

Notes:

Thank you for reading ^_^

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