Family

Old Friends and New Enemies

Marco was sitting behind the counter of Hannes’ Bakery, doing the daily crossword puzzle in the paper when he heard the bell at the door jingle and the sound of footsteps.

“Hi, welcome to Hannes’ Baker-” Marco paused when he realized who was there. It wasn’t really one ‘who,’ though. It was many. Connie, Armin, Sasha, Eren, Mikasa, Annie, Reiner, Bertholdt, to be exact. “If you guys are going to be taking up that much room in here I hope you’re going to buy something.” Marco noticed Reiner and Bertholdt holding hands, and Armin and Annie, well, not. In fact, Armin and Annie were on opposite sides the room. He knew he hadn’t been as social since he started working there three weeks ago, but did he really miss so much happening amongst his friends?

“Why, yes, we are,” Connie said as Sasha pressed her nose against the glass that prevented her from stealing all the pastries they had at the bakery. There were cookies, cupcakes, macarons, brownies, cream puffs, and so much more that he and Hannes, who was in the back making even more baked goods, had worked tirelessly early that morning to make.

“Then what do you want?” Marco asked, readying the tongs he used to get the pastries out of their display.

“Everything!” Sasha said excitedly, licking her lips. Marco laughed, but shook his head.

“Sorry, Sasha, but that’s not happening,” he said, and suddenly Hannes came through the employees’ door with a tray full of many different kinds of cake.

“Wow, what a crowd!” he exclaimed as Marco took the tray from him and moved the cakes to an empty space among the other pastries.

“Yeah, these are some of my friends from the university,” Marco said, gesturing to the large group of teenagers that pretty much filled up the sitting area. “I’m not going to bother telling you all their names, though.” Hannes laughed, a laugh that spilled from his gut and filled the entire room.

“I wouldn’t, either,” he said, surveying the crowd. He suddenly stopped and stared at three of them who were standing quite close together. “Wait- Eren? Armin? Mikasa?”

“Oh my god, it’s you!” Eren said, running up to him. Hannes ruffled Eren’s hair as Mikasa and Armin followed closed behind him.

“I hate to be cliche, but my how you’ve grown,” Hannes chuckled, smiling at the trio.

“Well it has been eight years,” Armin stated. The four of them seemed to be oblivious to the fact that all of the others in the room were staring at them with the most confused faces Marco had ever seen.

“Does someone care to explain what exactly is going on?” Marco asked. Armin suddenly noticed the state the rest of the room was in, and laughed.

“Oh, Hannes was an officer back in Shiganshina, when Eren and Mikasa and I lived there,” he said. “He helped us out when the bombing happened.” Marco nodded.

“I see. Now if I remember correctly, you guys were going to buy some food,” Marco said, raising an eyebrow. Everyone laughed and told Marco their order. Hannes had returned to the back and Marco was trying to get the proper number of each sweet out of the case when the door opened again.

“One moment!” he called, and after he had double checked that he had everything right, he looked up to see Jean standing there with Emily on his back.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly.

“Hey there, cutie,” Marco replied, kissing Jean on the nose. “Just wait a second and I’ll be able to get whatever it is you need.” Marco was in the middle of ringing up the baked goods on the register when Emily ran behind the counter and gave him a hug. He hugged her back and picked her up, holding her with one hand and adding up the total with the other.