Chapter Text
Finding someone attractive? Sure, Jean was tall, and his face was symmetrical, which offered a pleasing sensation to any observer, but the only reason she would accept his prom invite was because she craved a date, which wasn’t exactly a pressing reason to accept his hand. Not to mention, the unfortunate truth was that he was most likely in love with her, and Mikasa wasn’t sure a pole of any length would be sufficient if she wanted to prod that dumpster fire.
Besides, Armin and Eren weren’t going with anyone. Armin, only because Annie had missed the ticket deadline (ignored it, more likely, despite clearly liking Armin back) and Eren…. It wasn’t a lack of interest from other parties, and he was free to do as he pleased, but Mikasa wasn’t sure if he’d ever looked at a girl in his life.
This was far too early, but marriage and a family, these were things Mikasa wanted one day. There would be a man, and they would have kids, but the man was nameless, shapeless. It would imply that someone would fit into their cohesive unit— the three of them: Armin, Eren, her—and really that he would gel with Eren. That seemed unlikely for any guy she currently knew, not because Eren was disagreeable, but because Eren and her were family but not siblings, and that had a way of making most men she knew insecure.
And so that would mean he would have to be pretty strong, and therein lay another problem, for she would be hard pressed to find someone stronger than say, Eren or her, who also fit the other criteria.
But back to Sasha’s question—which seemed bizarrely unfair considering the girl’s main affections were for food and Connie and Jean and maybe her, and the usual assortment of things like family—did she find anyone attractive?
No…? After moving out of the Jaeger household to live with her uncle, she had thought his friend had been traditionally masculine, which she guessed was supposed to be attractive. Of course, that had been before she’d interacted with Erwin, and well. She was pretty sure he was a war criminal.
“Do I have to go with someone to prom?”
“You don’t, but I think answering this question would be good for you,” Sasha replied. “Okay, how about a thought exercise. Describe your ideal man.”
“Uhm, kind—”
“He’s really not, but okay,” Annie says from her right.
Sasha snorts. “Ignore her. Continue.”
Who? Mikasa nodded, but the question really wasn’t easy to answer. “Strong, and has to get along with Armin and Eren.”
Ymir chucks a cherry tomato at her forehead. “She meant physically. Like, my type is short, adorable, cute blondes. That kind of thing.”
“‘Strong’ is a physical descriptor though.” Mikasa plucked the tomato from her lap before handing it to Sasha. “Okay, hmm, if I had to choose something. I feel like eyes are the window to the soul, so nice eyes, if I had to choose.”
It seemed like an impossible demand though, since she was pretty sure no one else had nicer eyes than Eren. Her poor future husband was in an inconvenient situation, though it was strangely liberating that his looks were probably the last thing she truly cared about.
“What’s going on here?”
“Mikasa’s describing her ideal type,” Historia says.
Sasha shook her hand and gulps down the half-chewed tomato in her mouth. “Mainly to find her a prom date.”
Though Mikasa flushes, Eren is utterly unperturbed. “Oh? What did she say?”
“Kind and strong, nice eyes. We aren’t done yet.” Sasha scoots over and pats the seat next to her, and Eren slides in to join the group.
Eren scratches his chin before looking back at her. “That’s stupid.”
“So who should I go for then?” Mikasa found herself suddenly interested in the conversation; who did Eren think she would be good with? He definitely knew her best, and it would make sense that he would know how to answer this question. The table seemed to agree, because even Annie’s gaze was focused on him.
“Huh, how would I know?”
The table sighed a bit.
“What about Jean?” Ymir asked, ever the pacifist.
“As if I’d let that horse-face anywhere—”
“I’m sure she would have a number of choices if she looked like she was trying to go with someone,” Annie says, before turning around on the bench to look out at the grassy quad behind them.
No one really had anything to say in response. Sasha seemed to agree, Mikasa wasn’t sure why—no one had asked her out, so these “number of choices” seemed to be more of a “n=1, Jean”. Eren was still looking at her, still unhappy, probably about the whole Jean comment.
In a prelude to the bell ringing, the masses were beginning to shuffle even in their post-luncheon haze.
Ymir cackled and whispered in Historia’s ear when it finally sounded. Historia whacked her on the arm and they disbanded, Annie and Mikasa heading to P.E. despite its abysmal timing.
The glitter was thrown later that afternoon. The intercom had sputtered on with its usual struggles, though Ymir had only cursed once while on air, so it was still much less of a disaster than it could usually be.
Historia sped through the usual announcements with grace and poise, ever the excellent Class President, though the words were definitely all Armin’s. She stumbled once over “pernicious,” which was wholly unnecessary to begin with, and Mikasa made a note to tell Armin to use less flowery language when the school was full of dimwits who couldn't care less what he thought about the new regulations on vending machines.
“And one final announcement, I would like to say that Mikasa Ackerman is looking for a prom date. If you are interested, please reach out to her directl—”
“—Ymir! I said you couldn’t—”
The intercom switched off.
It took Mikasa a moment to unsuspend her disbelief before slamming her head against the desk and hiking her scarf up to hide the flush she knew was pasted to her skin.
The day had ended, and Eren had promised her a ride home, as he always did ever since he got a car and it was easier than biking to school together when it was cold out. He was standing by the passenger door this time.
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“You know,” Eren scratched his temple, “someone asked you to prom? Uh, yet?”
Mikasa started to answer, that no, no one had asked, until it made sense that the kid who she had never seen before had been standing so close to her locker to the point where the door hadn’t even been fully open.
“Wait,” she frowns, “I think someone might have been trying actually? Maybe that was my group project for History?”
“Was it a guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Blond, kind of big?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah, now that I think about it. How’d you know?”
“Fucking hell”—Eren ruffled his hair—”yeah, forget about that. You said no?”
“I left while he was saying something, I didn’t really realize he was talking to me until five seconds ago, and even then I don’t think I heard.”
Eren sighs. “Let’s go home.”
“Brat, I had to make my class run an extra mile because of you.”
“You already made us run one today.”
“The stunt your friend, Ymir was it? Well, they were being annoying. You’re lucky it wasn’t you, I would have made you run three for the trouble you caused me.”
That must have been the period after her, the announcement had been after she’d already seen Levi for the day.
“You aren’t going with Eren?” Levi asks.
Huh? “No, why?”
Levi looked at her with the expression he gave when something was supposed to be blatantly obvious, like what cleaning solution to use on oil stains on shirts versus grass.
“I’m sure you’ll piece it together eventually.” He sighed. “Well, good luck, I guess.”
Mikasa was confused. Ymir had blown this whole prom date situation out of control—she didn’t need one, Eren and Armin didn’t have one, and they were all going to hang out together with the main group, so why bring someone who wasn’t even a friend only to ditch them for the night anyway?
Maybe it was one of those traditions, those double-standards, that only applied to women. Eren and Armin could be date-free, no trouble, but Mikasa, by mere virtue of being a woman, had to have some male prom-attaché. Proof of desirability? Or was being asked to prom enough to fulfill that point? Besides, what if they wanted more? She wasn’t interested in really dating or anything. Guys like Jean wanted too much from her, others had a very vested interest in certain parts of her.
Neither option was particularly appealing. It would be nice if she knew them, had known them for a while, and they were friends as much as they were lovers—the word made her wiggle with discomfort.
What if she went with Eren?
No, no way. They didn’t fool around like that—Eren was family, and you don’t take family to prom.
Husbands are family.
Oh my, where was her mind going?
She’s on the phone before she can even stop herself. To be fair, she had seen the message requests from people at school and the horrifying message previews were enough to get her to press Eren’s name even before it had fully registered.
“What if we went to prom together?”
“Mikasa—”
“No, sorry, that was a stupid question.”
“No, wait, why are you asking?”
“It would be convenient, wouldn’t it? Ymir is causing me a bit of trouble today, and mostly I want to avoid it if Jean thinks I would go with him.”
“Didn’t you say you only want to go with someone if you really liked them?” He asks.
There’s a little pause, and Mikasa isn’t sure why her heart is beating so fast if she’s only calling Eren.
“You can say no if you don’t want to. Like, if there’s someone you like who you want to go with.”
She doesn’t really want that, because then there’s going to be someone else hanging out with her and Eren, oh, and Armin of course. But, if he has plans, she’s not going to cause him problems.
“No, that’s. No, no. I’ll. Yeah, yeah, okay.”
“Okay,” she says slowly.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Do you want me to ask you properly?” She asks.
“No. I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to do such a troublesome thing. I’m the one making you have to go with me, so I can do the asking.”
“You aren’t making me do anything.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re ‘free’ to do as you please.” She breathes. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
There’s a beat.
“Uhm—”
“See you—”
Oh, no, did she make things awkward?
Eren speaks first. “You want to go for ice cream?”
The parlor knows their orders, has it ready at the counter by the time they’re ready to order in the first place. She’s always gotten vanilla—it was the type she had with Eren when he took her here for the first time and for some reason it had stuck. She missed that, missed when they could hold hands and share ice cream. She wasn’t sure when they’d stopped.
They didn’t do a lot of things together anymore. Share a bed, sleepovers, all those things started meaning something different after a certain point.
It would be nice if they could, but it was out of respect for Eren’s future girlfriend. It would already be impossible to explain that Eren was her world and not have it bring on all the jealous ire of a spited woman. There had been a couple who had tried, and if Eren hadn’t already been too dense to realize they were interested, hanging around Mikasa killed the rest of their enthusiasm.
Nothing quite like a date at the ice cream parlor your boyfriend has been taking the girl-who-is-family-and-his-best-friend-but-not-a-sibling-and-definitely-more-important-than-you since they were five. He’d gotten slapped for that one.
“Listen, Mikasa.”
“Is this about prom? We can forget it if you don’t want to do it.”
“No, it’s not that.”
She’s still licking the rim of her cone, precious drops making it the right amount of mushiness and crunch.
“What’sitthen?”
“What are we?”
Mikasa chokes.
“Family? Best friends?” She tries her best.
“Okay, but. Uh, I don’t really see you like a sister?” He’s beet-red, and Mikasa wonders if that means he’s looked at her boobs before at the pool or something. Or maybe he had—
“I mean, you’re”—Mikasa felt her own face heating, because this was embarrassing, this wasn’t supposed to be something you said aloud—”special to me. More than anyone, I think.”
Eren’s ears have turned the same color as his face, and she’s pretty sure his neck is beginning to do the same.
“I—” He stops. “Fuck it. I don’t want to go to prom as friends, even best friends.”
Mikasa’s heart drops. So he didn’t want to go to prom with her. It hurt more than she thought.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not—” She wipes at her eye and the finger comes away wet. “Something just got in my eye.”
“Wait, I’m sorry if that messes everything up. Forget it, forget it.”
“No, I just. You shouldn’t have said yes then,” and the words are quiet, but that’s only because she’s unprepared and this indeed hurts a bit more than she wishes it did.
“I didn’t think it was going to be a problem, I mean, I’ve had to keep it in for years already. But you should know what you would have been getting into, I think.”
Wait, what? “What?”
Eren looks up at her and cocks his head. His eyes are beautiful, she thinks, and she’s going to be hard pressed to find someone better than him to fall in love with.
“No, I mean, what are you talking about. Keeping what in?” She asks when he doesn’t elaborate.
“That I, uh, like you?”
WHAT? “Sorry, what?”
“Yeah, I don’t want you to be roped—” Eren’s eyes flash open and he slaps his forehead. “Fuck, Mimi. Did you think I was saying I didn’t want to go to prom with you?”
Mikasa nods.
“That’s not the problem!”
“Wait, are you saying….”
“I want to go to prom, with you. Like as in, prom with you. Because I like you.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
The asking is everything she could ever ask for, because it is Eren. Eren who knows her best, knows that a scarf suits her far better than any number of roses—not that roses aren’t beautiful. He wraps her in the scarf in the most Eren-way possible, throwing the last bit over her head so it slides down and tickles her nose.
She’s wanted this for longer than she knows.
The happy couple is endearing, but Sasha, Ymir, and Historia are fishing little stacks of cash from their pockets, mourning the loss and their much thinner wallets. Eventually they have a pool together and give it to Armin, who pockets the whole sum.
Annie kisses Armin on the cheek.
“We can use some of that to pay for the corsage and boutonniere,” Annie says.
“I thought Annie missed the ticket deadline?” Historia asks.
Armin looks at their group. “And you all thought I was going to lose the bet? I told you I’d be able to get them together by prom.”
Ymir cackles. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You definitely owe me at least half for the intercom.”
Mikasa looks at her friends. So who did she find attractive? Physical attraction, fleeting attraction, none of that mattered. It was the person who was home to her. And the answer was Eren.
It would always be Eren.