Laughter was an unusual sound to come by nowadays but somehow still managed to creep in and invade the sleeping quarters of the Survey Corps. This time the disruption was caused by Sasha, who was usually to fault for the noise, and Connie who had managed to squish themselves together into one single sleeping bag. "You snuck bread out of the dining hall?" Connie had kicked open the sleeping bag on the floor to reveal two whole loaves of bread and an additional piece that seemed to be already half eaten. His discovery was followed by an animalistic howl that had erupted Sasha before snatching up one of the loaves and stuffing most of it into her mouth, popping up from her laying down position with stuffed chipmunk cheeks and scrambling across the room. She plunged down into bed with Christa, who had been pretending to be asleep for over an hour, and snuggled up close to her; earning herself a hard smack in the back of the head from Ymir. Ymir had always slept close to Christa's side and striking a potential attacker of hers was just a natural instinct. "Go to bed, you cow." But the damage had been done. Their miniature division had all been awoken.
The sudden shifting of Ymir's body was a domino reaction, causing Mikasa to her left to quickly sit up in defense mode followed by a close by Eren Jaeger. His hand shot up to his mouth, jaws wide open and ready to clench, before Mikasa quickly pushed his hand to the side and said in a low tone, "Eren." Before she could continue, Connie quickly shot up across the room and waved his arms in the air for everyone to see with the limited lights shining through the windows. "False alarm, everyone can go back to sleep! It was just Sasha, per usual." His sudden outburst seemed to be enough to calm everyone down, including Eren who was almost never calm, and allow them to focus on lulling back to sleep. However, trying to go back to sleep was pointless in Mikasa's case. After tossing and turning for the time that it took for everyone to fall back asleep, the dark haired girl finally rose from her sleeping bag and slowly found herself outside to be absorbed by the eerie air of the dusk.
The horses visibly perked up at the sight of Mikasa, who was still dressed in her uniform unwashed from the day before, as she approached them slowly and gently hissed "shh" from behind her teeth. It was a rarity for her to be alone at any time, she wasn't going to allow a rowdy horse to ruin her chance to be alone now. She walked down the stalls aimlessly, occasionally reaching out to give the anxious animals a reassuring pat on the snout, and attempted to ignore the pain surging through the souls of each of her feet. She had always been active but since joining the Survey Corps, she had no choice but to be at one hundred percent physically all of the time. Her knees sometimes even shook as she walked but she refused to acknowledge it. Even when she was meant to sleep, Mikasa was still on her two feet and wandering with no real destination.
"Why are you awake?"
Mikasa spun around with her fists up in an automatic defense and her heart violently pounding against the walls of her chest. A few of the dark horses revved their hooves upwards and squealed at her response, but their fear was slightly outdone by his. Armin Arlert stared doe eyed along the stalls at his longtime good friend, Mikasa, who had propped herself up to attack him but quickly withdrew at the sight of him. She brushed her dark locks out of her hair and quickly dropped her shoulders while she immediately looked to the ground and mumbled, "I could ask you the same question." Her voice lacked its usual tone of strength and was now somewhat softer, inviting even. Though the pair rarely spoke one on one, she felt a certain security within speaking to Armin that she lacked almost everywhere else in this world. She sometimes felt that way with Eren but their conversation was limited as well which she resented in him. "You got me there," Armin said. He didn't smile but instead strolled along the length of the inner stalls until he was only a few feet away from the girl, her body now visibly less tense as well as his. Their eyes finally met and out of both relief and a tinge of awkwardness, Armin began to laugh. "Come on," he said, "we still have two hours of sleep we could squeeze in."
"You never did say why you were at the stables." Mikasa had finally spoken as the friends walked alongside each other back in the direction of their sleeping quarters. She rarely was the one to start conversation but the tension between them was odd, foreign. Her gaze twitched over in his direction, catching the view of his thick blond hair, but she quickly forced herself to just look ahead instead. Armin hadn't seemed to notice and instead answered the question with full honesty. "Because you were there. I followed you."
There was a deadly silence between the two friends, one of which had stopped walking followed by the blond who finally turned to face in her direction. He knew he was out of place to do such a thing, but it would have been even more out of place for him to lie to her; his friend of so many years, whom he knew was struggling greatly within herself. He desperately wished that Mikasa would at least look at him after saying what he did but she instead focused her attention to the ground, avoiding his gaze at all costs and seemingly swimming within the depths of her own twistedly isolated mind. Armin's innocent eyes were fixated on her and were filled with concern, something that Mikasa could feel glued onto her. Everything in her being was screaming for her to run. It was what she felt whenever confronted by any sort of emotion or slightly uncomfortable situation. Uncomfortable in her mind being feelings rather than slaughtering living beings. Finally coming to terms with the fact that the scout simply wasn't going to answer him, Armin continued on with his thoughts; only amplified vocally for her ears to hear, careless speaking something he would never do before. His words were usually calculated but something within him just slipped up. "I followed you because you left and I was worried. Running off on your own isn't okay. For god sake, you always seem to be on your own and it isn't right. Okay? Is it so wrong for a friend to worry about another friend?" His words were met head on with a deadly glare that Mikasa finally showed off, her head lifted to meet his gaze fully. Her eyes were dark and haunting, something that Armin was now seeing all to often. "Why would you worry about me?" She said. Armin's demeanor suddenly softened and he even began to smile before softly saying, "Someone has to."
The girl's hard shell seemed to be melting away, for her dark eyes simmered into the color of caramel chocolate and her pale lips even quivered into a sad attempt at a smile. She was softening at such simple words, something that would usually frighten her but somehow seemed okay at the moment. She rarely cried and when she did, it was only in extreme cases of death or near death experiences. But here she was. Mikasa looked up to Armin with tears collecting at the rim of her eyes, a few tears rolling off of her duct and streaming down her flushed cheeks, and her mouth formed into a genuine smile. She was lost in a strange moment that even took Armin by surprise. He didn't know what to do and before he could defuse the bubbling situation, Mikasa said, "I don't even know why this is happening." Her voice quivered when she spoke, as if she were holding back an unintended laugh, and she continued on. "I think I feel sad. But happy, too." The longer the two kept their eyes in a lock, the darker her rosey cheeks became and the girl immediately apologized out of embarrassment. She straightened up her uniform and coughed out, "I have no idea what even came over me. I'm sorry, Armin." She quickly turned away from him and began walking again. Until he grabbed her hand.
His grip was firm yet gentle, warm yet shiver inducing, sweet yet horrifying. He had reached for her hand on a whim but the moment she turned to walk away, Armin suddenly had no control over himself and snatched it up. Mikasa let out an audible gasp from her mouth, which was now in a gape, and he had let go of her hand before she could even turn around to confront him on the strange motion. When their eyes finally did meet again, she could see that Armin was now blushing as well. His face had turned six shades darker than his light locks and he managed to sputter out, "I guess that makes two of us." But with those final words, Mikasa had already taken his hand again. Her touch was surprisingly gentle and though she didn't smile when they looked at each other, something within the both of them suddenly felt okay. Wordlessly, the pair slowly made their way back to the sleeping quarters.
