Chapter Text
It is so unbelievably hot. The white sun scorches the pavement below Mikasa, Armin, and Eren’s dangling feet, and they draw them under the shade of the bench, slowly, sluggishly. The light radiating off the store window behind them isn’t helping, and Mikasa considers suggesting they move to the other side, because even if it doesn’t have a bench, it at least has an awning; but it’s too hot to open her mouth, almost too hot to bring the toxic waste-blue popsicle to her lips. Her hand is covered in the sticky drips from it, and she’s seventeen years old and knows that’s disgusting, but she can’t muster the energy to clean it up. All three of their bangs are pinned up on their heads, and even short sleeves aren’t short enough for Mikasa and Armin, who have rolled them up their shoulders. Eren is wearing a tank top, but it’s black, so he must be just as hot. Of the three of them, he is the only one eating his Popsicle quickly enough to keep it from dripping all over him, his legs swinging back and forth with his boundless energy. In the street in front of them, kids walk beside their scooters and bikes rather than riding them, the metal too hot even wearing shoes. The already faded awnings of the stores whose exteriors haven’t changed since the fifties seem to droop under the unbearable heat, and the sidewalk, normally covered in teenagers smoking and horsing around, is empty, as everyone with a grain of sense is in their house today. But Eren has somewhere around negative two grains of sense, so here they are, eating cheap popsicles that are not nearly worth the ordeal of sitting out here, all at his request.
Suddenly there’s a noise of flip-flops slapping hard against pavement, and Mikasa looks up to see a group of three teenagers- a burly blonde guy in a lime green shirt, a timid-looking boy with dark, pinned up bangs, and a girl with lemon-frosting colored hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head, long bangs somehow not sticking to her cheeks as she walks at the front of the group with a skateboard under her muscular arm and a near-dead look in her blue jean eyes. They walk past the other three, not acknowledging their presence in the slightest. Mikasa stares at the girl as she walks past, buttercup locks somehow catching a nonexistent breeze.
It is so unbelievably hot.
***************
“Soccer camp?” asks Armin disbelievingly, nearly falling into the water with shock. “But you won’t see us all day. And it’s so hot. Why?”
“I have to become stronger,” Mikasa replies calmly, closing her eyes and lying back so she floats on the pool water. “Since we’re transferring, there’s going to be a whole new team with whole new teammates, which means it’s going to be much harder for me to become captain.”
Armin gives her a look that is a mixture of irritated and sad, folding his arms over his bare, delicate chest. “Mikasa, why do you want to become captain so badly?”
Mikasa opens her eyes and flashes Armin a look, her dark red bathing suit bottom dipping below the surface of the water slightly with the motion, then glances apprehensively towards the lanes, where Eren has challenged some other random patron to a race. “You know why.”
“So you’ll get a scholarship and your parents’ money can go towards Eren’s tuition, yes, I know that, but surely you don’t need to be captain to do that? Plenty of excellent players have been scouted who aren’t captains, you know.”
Mikasa looks back over at Armin, not in the water, just dangling his feet in- just dangling his feet, because he’s too afraid to get in.
“Scouts won’t pay attention to a team who’s no good, and I don’t trust anyone else to hone a good team,” she replies, then holds her nose and ducks her head under the water. She comes up gasping and whips her head around to shake the water off. Armin is watching her resignedly.
“You’ll still see me in the evenings- it only goes until five,” she reassures him.
“The pool’s not open that late,” grumps Armin.
“It’s not as if you’d get in it even if it was,” teases Mikasa. Armin folds his arms tighter and looks away. The conversation is over.
***************
“Line up!”
The kids hurry into a line, ponytails flicking in haste.
“Girls and boys separately! How stupid are you? They’re two different teams!”
The line rearranges itself, and Mikasa finds herself next to a short girl with buttercup-colored hair in a bun and a purple t-shirt. A flashback to the hottest day of the summer fills her head, and she looks away quickly.
“So every single one of you wants to be on the soccer team, huh?” asks Coach Ackerman, striding between the lines. He’s only a little taller than the blonde girl, but his aura and reputation seem to fill out another foot and a half. He pauses to laugh humorlessly. “Kind of a lot of you, aren’t there? You do know only the top fifteen from each get on the team?”
It’s not a question. Everybody knows. Suddenly he drops the four balls he’s holding and somehow with only two feet, he manages to kick them into the stomachs of four separate people in less than a second. Amid the stifled noises of pain, he says, “Let me guess, you weren’t ready. If that’s the case, you’re not ready for the team. The field is a battleground. You have to be ready at every second to receive the ball- slip up once, and the other team has already scored.”
The blonde girl stiffens. Mikasa resists the urge to look down at her scuffed blue cleats and keeps her eyes on Coach Ackerman.
“Passing drills, long distance, go!” A couple people shoot off, but some linger with confusion. The coach turns to them with a nasty look on his face. “Didn’t you hear me? Do as your coach says! Passing drills, now!”
Mikasa runs off quickly and finds herself opposite the blonde girl, her purple shirt a tiny beacon against the eggshell blue sky. She sends a ball whizzing at twenty miles per hour flat on the grass, directly to Mikasa’s foot. Feeling annoyed for some reason, Mikasa sends it back even harder; at this distance, it’s impossible to see if she’s fazed the girl at all. The ball comes back, somehow even harder. Mikasa narrows her eyes. So this is what she’s up against. From there on, it’s obvious that a competition has begun. She becomes aware of the other players’ eyes on them as the ball goes flying back and forth at increasing velocity, until finally, she sees the blonde girl stumble ever so slightly as the ball connects with her foot with just a little too much force to handle. Mikasa smiles slightly. Victory.
“What’s your name?” asks the girl as they’re packing up to leave that day. No introducing herself first- just coming head-on with her demand. Mikasa pauses in peeling off her dirty white socks and says reluctantly, “Mikasa Ackerman. You?”
“Annie Leonhardt,” she replies, standing up and slinging her shiny, definitely new, blue Adidas bag over her shoulder. “I look forward to playing with you more.”
Mikasa watches from the top of the hill where the sun is setting in neon orange behind her as Annie gets into the front seat of a dark blue convertible with the two other guys she’d been with that first day and drive away.
“Yeah,” she mutters, starting the trek down the hill amongst the throngs of chattering players. “Me too.”
****************
“Mikasaaaa! There you are!” yells Eren, running up to her the minute she opens the door. “Let’s go somewhere, I’m so bored. I had to hang around with Connie and Sasha all day! Is this how it’s gonna be every day now?” he demands.
“Connie and Sasha?” says Mikasa incredulously, dumping her stuff on the mat and stomping up the worn oak stairs to their shared room. Eren follows her. “You do know that they’re the biggest dealers around, right?”
“Hey, it’s not like I actually smoked with them or anything, I just hung out with them. And I wouldn’t have had to if you’d been here!”
“What about Armin?” asks Mikasa in a muffled voice as she pulls her shirt over her head then dives into the spacious closet they still sometimes play in. “And how many times did they offer you weed?”
“Armin was with Jean Kirschtein of all people. Fucking Kirschtein. I don’t get it! Why would Armin want to hang out with someone so loud and obnoxious?”
Mikasa suppresses an eye roll and yanks a loose dark green blouse on over her sports bra. “How many times did they offer you weed?” she repeats.
“Only like, three times.”
“Only?” she asks, raising an eyebrow as she pulls on a clean pair of high-waisted denim shorts.
“I didn’t take it,” says Eren crossly. “Anyway, let’s go now. Armin said he and Jean would be done by now.”
Right on cue, there’s a knock on their door.
“Fine,” says Mikasa, heading back for the stairs. “But I’m hungry, so we have to get dinner.”
“Sure,” says Eren, barely paying attention as he hurdles past he, his faded denim jacket flying out behind him, and flings open the door to greet Armin.
“Finally!” he exclaims, flipping the bird to the Mercedes peeling away from the curb. “What were you guys even doing?” he continues as he yanks them both back out the door.
“Hanging out with Marco. Ouch, Eren, get off of me!”
“Eren…” mutters Mikasa, climbing into the front seat of their shared jeep.
“Hold on a second, guys, I’m gonna floor it,” he says excitedly.
“Eren,” she repeats slightly louder this time. Too late. Armin’s rather undignified shriek is whisked away by the wind as they speed off into the warm, glowing pink twilight.
*****************
“So how was soccer camp, Mikasa?” asks Eren, tossing her a wrapped cheeseburger as he jogs back from Five Guys and electing to clamber through the windowless frame of the battered old Jeep rather than open the door, his worn-out red high tops leaving dirty marks. “Did you meet Coach Ackerman?”
“It was fantastic,” says Mikasa flatly, unwrapping it and taking a bite as Eren starts the car again. “And yes, I met your man crush.”
“What-he is not-“ Eren splutters, starting the car again and backing out aggressively. “I just admire him a lot! He was an amazing athlete and didn’t take shit from anybody.”
“Eren, that’s what a man crush is,” Armin tells him amusedly.
“Whatever! Just tell me about him, Mi,” says Eren crossly, eyes back on the road.
“He was pretty much just like every coach I’ve ever had attitude-wise,” she replies, brushing crumbs off her hands into the evening air as they speed along. “But his instructional method was a lot more…physical than anyone else I’ve had yet.”
“Physical?” demands Armin, leaning forward. The wind flicks his short blonde ponytail against the base of his neck, and his loose gray t-shirt billows back a little bit.
“His exact words were, ‘I think that pain is the most effective means of discipline’. The first thing he did was drop-kick a bunch of soccer balls into a few kids’ stomach, and when we did laps, the first kid to drop had to do fifty push-ups while he sat on their back taking notes and yelling at everyone.”
“Holy shit!” says Eren excitedly. “Is that legal?”
“Are you just going to accept everything he does without question?” mutters Armin.
“He was the best soccer player in the nation for years, and the only reason he got kicked out was because he stood up to some dumb gangs,” says Eren defensively.
“And then he went on to teach high school…” Armin trails off exasperatedly.
“Whatever. I don’t really care that much about Ackerman, I just need to get on the team so I can be captain,” says Mikasa, crumpling up her wrapper and sticking it in a cup holder. “Where are we going, anyway?” she adds.
“Bowling,” replies Eren. “I have it from Armin that Kirschtein is gonna be there, and I plan to beat his ass.”
Armin groans. “Eren, does everything we do for fun have to involve getting in a fight?”
“It doesn’t! I just want to show that horse-faced douchebag who’s boss.”
“You’re not even that good at bowling…”
“Shut up, Mikasa!”
********************
Pin Stripes is the only bowling alley in a fifty-mile radius, and just like everything else in town, it was built in the nineteen fifties and pretty much just left that way. The neon red spaghetti writing attached to a painted wooden board above the door still advertises fifty cents for a bottle of soda, despite the fact that the amount has tripled in the time since. As they walk in, an explosion of noise greets them, coming from both the crackly old overhead speakers blaring cheesy pop music and apparently the entire teenage population of Trost.
“Why are there so many people here?” shouts Armin over the noise as they walk to the counter. Wordlessly, Mikasa points to a sign that reads, “Groups of Three Bowl for Free! (Tonight)”.
Before they’ve all even finished strapping on their shoes, Eren is up and searching the alley for the most popular boy in school- in town, really- Jean Kirschtein.
“What were you guys actually doing today?” Mikasa asks Armin quietly, the two of them hanging back as Eren surges ahead, yelling Jean’s name.
“I told you, hanging out with Marco!” says Armin defensively.
“Okay, but what were you doing with Marco?” she asks in the same quiet voice as they watch Jean look up and grin with anticipation at Eren’s challenge.
“We just…went driving,” Armin says, voice suddenly much quieter now. Mikasa scowls. She supposes Armin is entitled to his secrets, if he must have them. She just doesn’t trust that Jean guy.
“Mikasa! Armin!” yells Eren. “Get down here and be my team!”
Jean’s group joins in the yelling, but when they come, they immediately start making protesting noises at Armin.
“Aw, come on Arlert!” yells the blonde guy who’d picked Annie up from camp that day, teasingly. “I thought you were on our side!”
Armin gives an embarrassed little laugh and shrugs, picking up a ball. “I don’t think I’m really your biggest worry on this team,” he says, cradling it to his chest.
“That’s true,” says Jean, sticking his hands in his green letterman jacket. How is he wearing that? It’s like eighty degrees out. “I’ve hear Mikasa is a total beast when it comes to bowling.”
Mikasa makes no comment and instead picks up her own ball and steps up to the lane amidst cheering and various derogatory remarks. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she catches a flash of blonde hair and a curved nose. It’s Annie, on the arm (sort of) of the tall, dark-haired boy with the nervous eyes. She has a dark blue bandana wrapped around her head and a black flannel tied around her waist over ripped short-shorts.
“Hey, Bertholdt and Annie! Didn’t think you guys would come!” yells the blonde guy.
“Hey Reiner,” says Bertholdt. “Do I get something for convincing her to come?”
“No,” says Annie crossly, then catches sight of Mikasa. Her eyes widen.
“Come play, Annie!” says Jean enthusiastically.
She makes no comment but moves to stand next to him, not taking her eyes off Mikasa once.
Mikasa takes a deep breath, steps forward, and lets the ball go in one fluid motion. It rolls down the alley with the same smooth precision she kicks a ball with and crashes into the exact center of the pins, all the others toppling down around them. There’s an explosion of cheering and shouting.
“Holy shit, a strike right off the bat!” yells Jean, punching Marco in the shoulder for some reason.
“Daaaaamn, she is a beast!” yells Reiner, drawing the word out longer than anyone ever should. “We’ve got some actual competition here!”
Eren, apparently ignoring the “actual competition” line, lets out a loud whoop and grabs Mikasa around the waist, rubbing her head with more force than a normal brother might’ve. She straightens herself out as soon as he lets go and catches Annie looking like she might actually be expressing emotion. Suddenly she unfolds her arms, which had previously looked like they could’ve been glued together, and walks up to the lane with irritated, staccato steps, and picks up a ball.
There’s a moment of shocked silence, then Marlo yells, “Get ‘em, Annie!” This incites more cheers that just barely drown out the Beyonce song crackling over the speakers. Before they can even get some decent hype going, however, the ball is flying down the lane and sending the shiny white pins flying. Annie walks back amid more excited shouting, her face again wiped of all emotion.
People jeer good-naturedly at Eren when he misses all but one of the pins but are supportive and slap Armin on the back when his ball rolls into the gutter, because that’s just how teenagers are. But when Mikasa steps up again, people get excited. She closes her eyes and absent mindedly rubs her lips together, feeling the silky remains of her lipstick smear around, thinks of Annie watching her, and rolls. Another perfect strike.
This time when Annie steps up to bowl, Jean yells, “Ooh, a chick fight!” at which Annie hits him none too gently in the chest with the bowling ball. Of course, it’s a strike for her too.
It becomes less of a team game than an extreme Annie vs. Mikasa smackdown from there on, and in the end, they tie perfectly. As the disappointed words and the “oh well, it was fun”’s ring out around them, Mikasa almost feels like she should be shaking Annie’s hand, but instead accepts a bottle of Coke from Eren and turns away resolutely to drink it. Three-quarters of it are gone in thirty seconds, her palm not even wet.
“Let’s go,” she says to Eren and Armin, grabbing the ends of their sleeves and leading them out to the parking lot. She’s silent on the way back, and even Eren picks up on her mood. Both the boys are giving her apprehensive moods, so to lighten the mood, she lets out a massive belch that echoes around the parking lot. It has the two of them in hysterics all the way back to the car, and she ends up driving them all home. The night belongs to them.