Under the willow tree - Eremika

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the anime that this is based on, or the song or a unicorn or a plush Totoro *cries*

Modern day AU - I'll try to make it as un-crappy as possible, promise. Part of it seems kinda rushed in retrospect, but that's partially because I realised how long this oneshot was getting and also because I'm thinking of doing a second part from Mikasa's P.O.V, so sorry if it's annoying.

A/N : Thanks to Lucewood, writingdisorder and Chibi_Sniffer, who all waited patiently (or not so patiently in Lucewood's case) for this oneshot to be finished. Sorry it took so long, guys.

Under the willow tree.

Eren's P.O.V:

Age 10

Mikasa.

The girl that I met all that time ago; the girl that stole my heart slowly, then all at once.

The cold of the wind bit fiercely at my cheeks the first time that I saw her. My scowl, buried under the red scarf wrapped around my neck, melted away when I saw the girl under the willow tree. The girl that I would find out was called Mikasa.

At the age of 10, I didn't know what love was, or have the range of emotions or level of comprehension to understand its power; how it felt, or even to know what the flutter of my heart and heating cheeks meant. But when she smiled at me, the barest hint of white showing behind her lips, I felt the flutter in my heart and the heat rushing to my cheeks for the first time.

She wasn't dressed for autumn. Her light summer dress did nothing to prevent the chill of the wind from reaching her, the boughs of the willow tree above her the only thing protecting her from the bite of autumn. But still, despite the cold wracking her body, she smiled. At me.

And despite the pain in my lip from the cut splitting it in two, I smiled back, shyly, a tinge of fear flitting through me at the thought of her running away before I could speak to her. I don't know why I thought she would run. Maybe it was because everything precious in my life had always left me until then.

My mother. The man my father used to be - the man that didn't see me as an obstacle instead of a son. The father that didn't solve his problems with his fists.

I couldn't bear the thought of the girl with grey eyes leaving before I got the chance to hear her voice, even though in my heart I acknowledged the truth I had been shown all my life: that she would leave, just like everybody else.

Please don't leave. Not yet.

She didn't leave. The girl under the willow tree stayed where she was, watching as I slowly grew closer, the black tresses of her hair shifting gently in the wind. It seemed like the words that I would say to her that day would be the most important to ever leave my lips. What do I say? The thought echoed around and around in my head, a recording on a loop.

"Hi. I'm Mikasa." Those were the words that cemented me to this girl, the sound of her soft laughter as I struggled for speech binding me further to the decision that I would protect this girl, because I didn't want the world to show her its truth - I didn't want her to be left alone, the way I had.

"Mikasa..." I whispered, shaping it with my lips, the name slipping comfortably from my tongue and spreading quietly through the cool air. My cheeks burned as I met the soft grey of her eyes, the erratic pattern of my heart speeding up to a flutter again for a reason that I didn't understand. "I'm Eren. Nice to meet you." I offered softly, watching as her eyes flitted to the bruise on my jaw and the fading discolouration at my temple before dropping to the cut in my lip.