Violets (Mikannie)

13 - Reunion

I hate essays and I hate Hamlet
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"Hey, Annie - are you out here?"

Mikasa was standing in the Arlerts' garden, looking around but not seeing Annie. The garden had once been very carefully taken care of, but as Grandpa Arlert had gotten older, less and less time had been spent pruning and trimming and weeding. The place needed a bit of attention, but that just meant that there were plenty of places for Annie to hide.

Mikasa heard some twigs snap, and turned around to meet Annie, who was climbing out from behind a bush. Mikasa rushed over to help her up.

"You have leaves in your hair," she said with a small laugh. Annie frowned and ran her fingers through her hair, pulling the leaves out. Mikasa couldn't help but feel mildly entertained by her expression.

"Whatever," Annie grumbled. "Is he gone?"

Mikasa bit her lip.

"Oh, no," Annie said.

"Yeah. We told him about you. He took it... Surprisingly well."

Annie, despite not saying anything, was clearly stressed. Mikasa saw her grip the hem of her jumper tightly. She offered Annie her hand instead, and Annie held that in a bone-crushing hold. Distracted from the Eren Problem, Mikasa asked a question.

"Annie... What are we?"

"Hmm?" Annie looked up.

"Do you... Would you like to..." Mikasa bit her lip once again, not knowing how to phrase what she wanted to say. Her lipstick was probably ruined by now. "What I'm trying to ask is, can I be your girlfriend?"

Annie stood frozen with a shocked expression akin to the bluescreen of death.

Mikasa blushed a little and turned away. "Sorry, forget I said anything."

"N-no!" Annie used her other hand (the one that wasn't death-gripping Mikasa) to turn Mikasa to face her. She let go of her hand, and used it to cup Mikasa's other cheek. Then, she stood on her toes and pecked her lips.

"Does that answer the question?" Annie said, after stepping down.

--

Annie had taken some convincing to come back inside, not eager to meet Eren again. But she had given in, and now she and Mikasa were standing hand in hand in front of the lounge room's door. They looked each other in the eye, and Mikasa opened the door.

"We're back," she said, walking (almost marching) into the room, pulling Annie along behind her.

"Hey," Annie said. She seemed fine with being dragged by the hand, but on the inside, she was panicking. Oh god, there he was, sitting on the ground. Eren met her eyes, and -

He didn't look as nearly as angry as she had expected.

"Hey," he said back.

A silence settled over the four teenagers, each unsure of what to say.

"So Annie and I are dating now," Mikasa said, all of a sudden.

"What? Since when?" Eren asked, standing up.

"Ten minutes," Annie said. Suck it, she nearly added.

"Fuck," Eren muttered. He went to sit on the couch.

"Well, congratulations," Armin said. He stood as well. "I'm happy for you. But, now we're all here..." He paused, his tone changing. "We need to talk."

The silence returned.

"To make a long story short, somebody's looking for us, and it's probably because of you," Armin continued. "That doesn't mean you're at fault, Annie. Currently, whoever is looking for us knows of yours and Mikasa's identities, but they don't know Eren and I are involved. Because he's involved now, he knows everything, plus he's working for somebody who wants to find us but supposedly has better intentions than these people, I don't know, I'm not trusting them anyway because it could be a trap. The real question now is, what do we do?"

Eren moved to speak, but he was interrupted by Armin.

"Actually, there's been something that's been bugging me the whole time you've been awake, Annie," he said. "Is your titan shifting ability still working?"

Annie looked down at her thumb. "I don't know. I haven't tried shifting since I woke up."

"Hmm. Well, I don't think now's a good time to test it out." Armin turned to the window, and then almost immediately remembered something. "Oh! Oh my god, Eren, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt! What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say that it's only a matter of time before Donovan Tech finds out that you're in this, Armin," Eren said. Annie could have sworn that she heard a "lucky I love you," on the end.

"So we need to get Annie out of this house," Armin finished. "But we could get caught trying to move her, and where would we go? They already know about Mikasa, so her place is out of the question-"

"Not necessarily."

All heads turned towards Mikasa. "They know I'm involved, but they've already searched my house, right? So they won't look there again, and it should be safe."

Eren frowned. "That's a terrible idea! There's way too many flaws in that plan!"

"Since when did you care about me, Jaeger?" Annie murmured.

"Look, you're dating my cousin but that doesn't make us friends," Eren said. "In fact, your dating her is the whole reason why she's in danger!"

"Eren, that's enough," Armin said. "Our options are limited. We can stay here and hope that Damien and Donovan Tech won't find us, or we can take Annie to Mikasa's place and hope that they won't go back there."

"Or we take her to my boss," Eren said.

"We don't know her, so we can't trust her. She could have ulterior motives."

"You do know her, she's Hanji."

"Well then we definitely can't trust her."

"Is nobody taking my opinion into consideration?" Annie asked.

"No, we aren't."

"She's right, though," Armin said. "Annie should have some say in what happens to her. And if we can't decide, then I guess..."

"It's up to me?" Annie looked sideways to make eye contact with Mikasa. Her gaze made Annie's chest feel warm. "I want to stay with Mikasa."

"Really? You don't have to-"

"I want to. It's my choice, and I'm staying with you."

Annie had made up her mind. At this point, she wasn't going to budge, no matter what anyone said.

"So I guess we're moving you out then?" Armin said. The silence confirmed his question. "Alright. Tomorrow morning."