Tebanasu

Ch 20

At noon he joined the rest of the students. A few were with the activities group with a supervisor and the rest had gone to explore the parts of the forest that they couldn't on the first day.

Eren had taken Armin and Mikasa to Annies group, to create an opportunity for Armin to spend time with Annie. Both the groups explored the forest together and were later joined by Sasha, Connie and Jean.

Everyone was asked to return by 5 pm to have their dinner, after which they would be shown their surprise...which hadn't really been left a surprise since everyone knew what it was.

By 5:30 pm the supervisors had managed to get all the students for dinner. After they all ate, their respective teacher and supervisors took them somewhere in the forest where the moonlight shunned the most. They revealed that it was in fact the courage test they were taking. They had originally thought to remove this, but the students had insisted on doing it, as most of them found it fun.

They were shown a box where the first group was supposed to take out a chit with the names of the people from the second group and that is how the pairs would be formed.

When it was Mikasa's turn, she picked out Eren, which she got out by cheating(obviously). But most of the girls, being scared of her, didn't say anything.

After all the pairs were formed, they were instructed to walk straight into the forest where they would find an ancient, grey coloured statue on which the exact number of charms as the pairs were kept and each pair had to take one and return with it.

It was finally Eren and Mikasa's turn and they went in. As they walked, neither of them were feeling scared as such, other than Eren's occasional startle/shriek by some or the other sound.

"Ereh?" Mikasa suddenly called out, looking at him.

"Yeah Mikasa?" Eren said, while still looking forward as he walked

"Did I... do something?" she asked

"Huh? N-no, why do you ask?" he was surprised by Mikasa's question.

"Recently...you haven't been around that often. And you stay back in school so much these days. For Armin I still get that he has his duties that he has to fulfill...but what about you, Ereh?" Mikasa asked, sounding a bit sad as she was afraid to hear the answer.

Eren looked at Mikasa and then stayed silent for a moment. He knew how important he was to Mikasa and he too thought of her as someone very important to him. He knew that he had to tell her someday or the other and that telling her at the earliest would be better than giving her false hope.

"Mikasa, the truth is...I..." Eren was hesitating a lot as he knew what he was about to say would upset Mikasa. "I have found someone I like...a lot." Eren finally confessed.

After saying that he was too scared to look at Mikasa again. He didn't know what her reaction was to his statement. Mikasa didn't say anything until they reached the statue; picked up the charm and turned back to return to their camp.

They were about to reach the meeting ground and started to see silhouettes of their classmates.

"Does that person make you feel happy?" Mikasa suddenly asked.

Eren looked at Mikasa, but. wasn't able to see what expression she was making, as her hair were hiding her face.

"...Yes...they do" Eren said apologetically

"...I see, that's good then" Mikasa said, as she looked up at Eren and gave him a sweet smile with her eyes closed and then went to join the group.

Eren didn't feel any better. He knew Mikasa was deeply hurt and just said that to make him feel less guilty.

He went to Armin then and told him about what happened.

"Mikasa must be very hurt right now. Did you also tell her who you like?" Armin asked, feeling concerned for Mikasa.

"Not yet. We didn't get to talk a lot. I'll try to talk to her again tomorrow." Eren said, disheartened and then went inside their cabin.

Everyone packed their bags after returning to their respective cabins and then went to sleep.

This marked the end of their trip to the mountains. With more than a few, who had troubling sleeping, due to the events of the night.

***

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Authors note:

Hello!

Since I've posted 20 chapters now, I just wanted to write a small message.

Thank you to everyone who has made it till here. You reading this story means a lot to me and I really appreciate your support!!

The next chapter is going to be a bit longer than usual, but I hope you think it's worth it because it's an important one.

Also, please remember to vote and comment your thoughts about the story and share if you'd like, it would help a lot! ^-^

Have a good day/night!!