eremikaswift

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[eremikaswift]

Will I always wonder?

Synopsis: Mikasa's life one year post-rumbling

Tags: post-rumbling mikasa, eremika, angst, grief

a/n: soooo this fic is based on one of my fav songs (Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus by taylor swift) bc it’s so eremika coded. I’ve been really fascinated with post-rumbling Mikasa, so I tried to imagine what her life would be like a year after the rumbling. This is my first fic, and I’m not much of a writer, so i hope it’s not too bad! Also, I originally structured this as 4 paragraphs but separated them for readability. There’s no dialogue, so it was kinda hard! Also ive never used tumblr so plz dont mind the formatting #sorry also this kinda sucks but i thought it'd be a waste to not put it out there

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As the morning light began to peek through the cabin window, Mikasa felt the consequence of yet another sleepless night as the painful throbbing in her head began to settle in. She’d never get used to it; the slow, peaceful mornings, the quiet calm of the passing days, the menial tasks she’d do to keep herself busy.

Once night falls, however, she was haunted by memories that felt more akin to sharp weapons. She’d recall the brutality, the fighting, and the stench of death that followed her everywhere. Although perceived as a hero, she couldn’t feel more disconnected from the title; she was nothing more than a fight dog who bore her teeth to save her own skin. Deep down, she’d known from the beginning what she had to do, but foolishly held on to the hope that she could still save Eren, and in the end, innocent lives paid the price of her delusion. When she’d think of him, a flurry of emotions passed through her, never quite settling on one. What is it she felt? Resentment? Anger? Melancholy? Love? Part of her hated that no matter what, her love for Eren was never-changing. 

But she couldn’t linger on that; time had moved on, and it would not wait for her. From a young age, she realized the cruelty of the passage of time, whether it was the realization that her parents’ memory was a fading picture, or standing on that wall, looking down at the hometown that would never go back to how it was. 

The sun was nearly fully over the horizon, and Mikasa began her monotonous routine. She got up, washed up, changed, and ate breakfast with almost mechanical precision. The repetition, as boring as it was, helped her imagine a sense of normalcy; the predictability made her feel safe, in control, something she couldn’t have dreamed of just a year ago when her life held so much instability. 

As she brushed her hair, she realized how long it’d gotten, falling just below her chest. Since she was 12, she’d never let her hair grow past her chin – that was far too impractical for a soldier. Admittedly, after losing Eren, she began to neglect herself. She was too paralyzed to pay attention to such small details when her mind constantly replayed memories she’d much rather forget.

Such behaviour only changed after Armin’s visit a few months ago, when she was snapped back into reality after spending her days wasting away in sorrow. She missed Armin, but she knew it would be unfair to keep him in Paradis for her sake. For Mikasa, he would absolutely stay, so she kept quiet and shouldered her loneliness.

Since his visit, Mikasa had found a better way to fill her days by volunteering at a children’s shelter in the local village. Although Paradis was better off compared to other nations post-rumbling, it still bore the effects of war and destruction, with many people dead, injured, or displaced. 

Although it may not seem so, Mikasa was filled with an overwhelming love for humanity; she’d seen the worst of it, but she liked to believe she’d seen the best of it, too, and that weighed far more in her heart. Her work at the shelter genuinely felt meaningful. She spent so much of her life being defined by her worth as a soldier, but she was getting clumiser by the day. If she could no longer fight, she had to find meaning elsewhere, and at least this wouldn’t gnaw at her conscience. For her, it was a sort of penance. 

However, it’s not something she did solely out of obligation; it was work she sincerely enjoyed. She loved being around kids; they held a playfulness and joy often lost with age. Not only that, their resilience was truly admirable. Despite each child having a different story of loss, every time they approached her, they radiated such bright energy. It almost made her feel like she, too, could move past anything she faced. 

Even though their conversations would often lead to nonsense, as conversations with children often do, it was nice to have people to talk to in her solitary existence – it kept her loneliness at bay. Being with them, she felt she could relax, and she found herself laughing at their childish antics from time to time. She’d always wanted to be a mother, so even if she couldn’t experience it herself, the bond she’d formed with the kids came pretty close. 

As Mikasa made her way down to the village, she took in the billowing of the trees, the quiet chirps, and the delightfully blue sky. In her thoughts, she couldn’t help but let a small smile wash over her face.

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When she returned to her home that night, the silence that accompanied the emptiness was deafening. She could keep her days busy, surround herself with people, but that wouldn’t distract her from the reality in front of her. She had no one. Her friends were off on a peace tour, one she couldn’t bring herself to do, one her friends couldn’t force her to do after seeing the state she was left in, and she had lost the only person she would ever truly open up to. These moments were the only times she’d let herself think deeply about Eren. Oftentimes, she’d see him in the most ordinary things: the green of the trees in late spring when the sun shines through them, the furrow of her brows, meals reminiscent of ones they shared together, words she’d see or hear that he used to say. His presence haunted every room she stepped into; his scent was everywhere it wasn’t.

She recalled memories of the four years they shared in the cabin, which were especially painful when surrounded by an environment eerily reminiscent of the place they called home. She saw a version of him the world would never know, one that belonged to her alone. She missed the daily patterns they shared and the warmth of his touch. She missed the way his gaze lingered on her for a bit longer than normal, the jokes built from years of familiarity, and the comfort his presence brought naturally. Letting herself think about him caused a thousand questions to flash through her mind at once. If she had done something different, would anything have changed? Was it wrong to still miss him? Was any of it real, or had she made it all up? She knew these questions would never be answered, yet she was defenseless against them. When it came to Eren, her mind was always a disorganized ramble, but it wasn’t something she could help, and grief has a way of scrambling one’s thoughts.

If Mikasa believed in a God, she’d call it divine punishment; after all, how could something hurt so much if not by an unexplainable supernatural force? But she knew it was really just a consequence. After all, everyone pays the price of war, so this must be hers. Part of her deeply resented Eren for what he did. It hurt more knowing that it was what he chose to do, that his desires were more important than his own life. But even when he was alive, Mikasa could never stay mad at him for long–she loved him to a fault.

Lying in bed that night, she thought about how tomorrow she’d do the same things again: get up, volunteer, come home, get what little sleep she could. She would distract herself by keeping busy again, as she would never let herself be alone with her thoughts if she could help it. But in those short, fleeting moments of the day when she’d let her mind wander, and late at night when she became acutely aware of her isolation, she knew she’d always wonder.

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i miss eremika