Being given the fair sized box, Mike is a bit perplexed. There’s a icy wind howling through the headquarters, threatening snow to fall soon. When Erwin said the two simple words, it wasn’t until it was spelled out to him did Mike realize what day it was. He scoffed, not at Erwin, nor his words, just at the thought of it all. Mike wondered how many people in the world knew his birthday. Erwin had known since they were young– since long before Mike took every single piece of his past and tried to throw it out the window. Hanji seemed to know everything about everyone, but Mike couldn’t recall telling her. He felt Levi knew, but Levi didn’t seem the type to give presents– not that Mike expected any at all.
“You remembered?” Mike replied, no ire or sarcasm in his voice, just genuine surprise. He held the box with both hands, and gently shook it. It didn’t make a sound, and Mike figured he could sniff at it, but it just smelt like wood polish and he didn’t know what that meant. “How cute.” Mike would never actually describe Erwin as ‘cute’ in front of another person, not sober at least. Nor would he actually say it seriously. But Erwin’s gesture in itself is charming in a way. He took to the cloth, gentle not to injure anything. He was the type to take apart presents without ever ripping the paper. He liked to keep it in tact. Perhaps just a habit of his youth, where even resources like that were hard to come by.
Once the box is opened, he’s perplexed, and the expression is not hidden on his face. Mike looked confused down into the contents of the box, and gingerly, with his left hand, he puts his hand under the wooden frame, and lifts up the picture. After a moment, it hits him who is actually in the picture frame. Then he laughed, a very rare laugh, a real laugh, almost as rare as Erwin’s. His shoulders shake containing the noise. Then he stopped himself, thinking of how he must’ve looked. Mike tried his best to hold his emotions back, as usual, but it seems in this case he had to make an exception.
“Geez…” He looked over the glass, the carved wood, polished by hand, Mike could tell it was made recently from the smell– but that picture was anything but recent. Mike knew for a fact he’d seen people born, grown up, and die, with a lifespan shorter than the picture in front of him. He held the photograph up, and all the emotions he expressed started to get stripped away, and Mike started to show what he was actually feeling. His eyelashes were already wet. Mike urged himself not to, and he rubbed his eyes to wipe any tears trying to fall. Then he turned away from Erwin, trying not to show his face out of shame.
“Thank you.” He spoke without a tremble, or any indication of his tears, and tried not to look at Erwin. “I’ll… I’ll put this in my room.” He murmured. Mike’s room was quite a mess of things, pressed flowers and books and all sorts of other knickknacks he’d found outside the walls. Another constant memory of how long he’d been around; his room was one of few that was actually well lived in. “Where did you find this…?” Even if he wanted to escape the room before Erwin caught him looking pathetic as ever, he really did want to know.
it takes not even a moment for one to realize that erwin is no tender nor loving man by any nature he’d established for himself------------that he tends to avoid any expression of genuine feeling like a bite from a PLAGUE-INFESTED RAT, but he is one to make exceptions. not frequently, and not for many, but being that mike knows him in a special manner; a manner unlike any other living soldier standing amid the dwindling ranks----------------------isn’t it simply HUMAN to make little excuses as to why his soulless exterior may falter from time to time? perhaps it is whatever fragments of a human being are left to his name, reaching out and wanting to have some kind of sentiment with someone who is important to him, though how strongly he BLOCKS those urges for his own sake. but when he’d looked at the calendar last night; in a glance of a leisure kind, a glance that held little to no substance, for he’d been near certain he wouldn’t find anything of SIGNIFICANCE inscribed onto the thick parchment into which the gregorian dates are etched.
oh, how wrong he had been to assume that.
for the moment his steely blue hues fell onto the yellowing paper, he bore witness to the date, circled in RED INK, which, in the code of erwin’s annotations, indicates utmost importance, or urgency. RED is that same hue where oceans of blood are spilled in the name of a RIGHTEOUS mission, is it not? but he knew, he knew then exactly what that arabic numeral indicated the moment he’d laid eyes upon it. it was mike’s birthday.
how many times in the last TWENTY OR SO years had he seen that november date, circled by some pen to draw the deserved amount of attention to it. to erwin, it isn’t like his own birthday, which is nothing special at all---------no, this is the birthday of someone who MATTERS, who matters so greatly that erwin cannot say he would be the man he is today without this man’s influence ... for better or worse, maybe even for better AND worse, but no worries are held by way of mike’s impact in his life. he feels nothing but POSITIVITY toward it, nothing but gladness to call the taller man his friend, his greatest friend.
❛ have you ever known me to forget anything? ❜ the question comes somewhat playfully, despite the underlying double-entendre. even when you want to forget things, you can’t. but this impeccable memory comes to his aid as much as it does his ail, and he brings himself to give a rare, genuine smile to mike’s inquiries. upon being called “CUTE” however, erwin’s nose crinkles in distaste, much like a rabbit’s, though he’d loathe the comparison. rarely ever did mike refer to him as such anymore, and it causes the blond to give a single-breathed laugh as his head turns slightly away. lengthy lashes come to rest over frosty blue hues, evident as soon his oculi return to the too-familiar face before him.
there is some EMOTION in the air, as erwin had suspected there may be, but not to this degree. the photo, of course, means a lot to him---------it is one of the last surviving trinkets of his YOUTH, the proof that he once was human, as his wide smile and lively eyes behind the glass of the frame do attest. never again may he wear that expression, but how nice it is to know that he COULD, once.
❛ of course. i’ve kept it for years now ... i found it quite a bit ago, as i was straightening up my room, back in my father’s house. how relieved was i, for all those years i thought i had left it behind in those trainee dorms, way back when we used to sleep there. it is one of the only surviving photographs of us, and of course i’ve hoarded them all, to quench some compulsive need i’ve always had to bask in the past ... when times were far simpler than they are now. though i cannot bring myself to complain toward anything. i can only appreciate whatever it was i had, then, and reminisce rather than mourn. and i thought, perhaps, you would want to do that, too.
and, admittedly, some selfish part of me wanted to give you something only i could give you. something with meaning, albeit ... i ... i don’t know how many more of your birthdays i will get to experience with you. i cannot take it for granted, mike. as small as it may seem, it matters greatly to me. ❜
YOU matter greatly to me.
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