Notes: I know most people think that Levi and Mikasa despise each other when really that isn't the case. Mikasa doesn't hate Levi and Levi doesn't hate Mikasa. They see each other as strong assets in a battle just each of them have different goals even though they're extremely similar.

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Summary: In which a lot of thought happens.

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Mikasa

I know what happened. I can't deny the evidence that's staring me straight in the face. I can't deny that there are all these loving text messages between Eren and someone who isn't me. I can't do that. I won't do that. But I also can't deny the pain in my chest whenever I read one of their texts. I can't deny the fact that I -- despite everything that Eren's done to hurt me -- still love him. Like a fool, I still love him. I know that just hurts myself more. I already know that that's not the right thing to do, but it seems I have no control over what I feel these days.

I immediately hated Levi when I saw his text come up. I hated him for ruining my life . . . for making it impossible for me to be in the same room as Eren and automatically burst into tears because he's right there. I absolutely hate it.

I thought, Levi caused all this. He's the reason everything seems to have faded to a dull thumping in the back of my head while I can't feel anything but the pain in my chest. He's the reason that I've  been huddled up on this couch in my best friend's apartment for the whole night with tear-stained cheeks and close to a hundred tissues surrounding me. Except, when I read their texts, it seemed that Levi had absolutely no idea that I existed. There was never any record of him saying something like, "Get here quick before your girlfriend gets home," or anything remotely close to that. There was nothing that showed he actively knew that Eren was dating me at the same time.

That gave me some hope that Levi was actually a very nice guy and not some snivelling bastard that had no respect for relationships. Perhaps he'd been played the same as me. That didn't stop me from cursing his name every five second in my head before bursting into another round of sobs.

I wondered about Eren too while I was in my deeply-emotionally-clouded state of mind. I wondered what made him do such a thing. If he didn't love me anymore . . . why couldn't he have just broken it off with me? Was it me? Was I not good enough? Was it something that I'd done to push him so far away from me? This whole thing made me realize just how much of a failure I am. I couldn't keep up a job before I quit soon after, I couldn't go to college, I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with my life, and I couldn't even be a good girlfriend to the boy that had cared for me for so long. I suck. I deserve to be punished.

I was the most thankful for Annie that night than I have ever been. She showed me that I wasn't all alone in the world now with Eren gone. I voiced my previous thoughts to her about how I was a good for nothing and I knew she wasn't always the best with words (that was okay since neither was I), but she knew just what to say right then to make me feel better.

It was dark in her apartment when I finally shuffled through the door at around 11 o'clock at night. I knew her living room and kitchen were up ahead with her bedroom and bathroom were on my left and right respectively; I'd been in her house so many times. There was a lightswitch right next to a fern by the front door through which I'd just passed. I didn't even bother to flick it knowing that it would only cause more of a disturbance than something useful. I took my shoes off (I was upset, not disrespectful) before limping into the living room where I promptly stole the blanket off the back of the couch and curled up in a ball.

I finally started to let my pent up tears flow. I--  . . . what did I do to deserve this? Why did God make me fall in love with someone who would only hurt me? Or maybe it was my fault. It's my fault that Eren cheated on me; I wasn't enough.

"Mikasa?" came Annie's voice from above me. The blanket was curled around my ears making her voice sound dulled. "Do you need anything? C'mon, you can't keep wallowing in sadness forever."

I slowly pulled the blanket down to show my face. "Why can't I?"

"Because Eren's not worth your sadness." I could just barely make out her silhouette in the darkness of her apartment, but from her voice I liked to imagine that she didn't look as stern as she usually did.

"But Annie . . . it's my fault," I cried. "I did something . . . to push Eren away from me. I'm the problem, not him. I--" I started to cry in between my words making everything I said sound like gibberish. "I made him unhappy, didn't I? I made him not want to be with me anymore, but he was just too nice to breakup with me."

"Oh, Mikasa . . . ," -- she sat down on the couch next to me -- "You're the nice one, not him. Mikasa, try and think of something that you've done wrong."

"Well that time when I--"

"See, you can't think of any," she cut me off. "You didn't do anything wrong, Eren did. Eren decided that he wasn't satisfied with a beautiful, nice, talented girl like you and went with someone else. He probably didn't care about you when you cared way too much. He's not worth your care, Mika. He didn't realize that what he had was just fine. He's a disgusting cunt that needs to learn about taking things for granted."

I giggled a little at the last part.

"Woo, we got some laughter," she remarked. "Do you know that you didn't do anything wrong now?"

I shook my head no.

"Then repeat after me. I didn't do anything wrong."

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"Now keep repeating that."

"I didn't do . . . anything wrong. I didn't do anything . . . wrong. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Okay, you can stop now," she commanded, a bit of her usual tone seeping back into her voice. "I just wanted to make sure that you knew exactly how awesome you are."

"I'm the awesome one?!" I exclaimed. "You let me into your house and then you let me cry on your couch and now you're comforting me and I haven't given you anything in return," I sobbed.

I heard her sigh softly before saying, "Okay this is gonna sound really cheesy but you've given me your friendship so don't go sayin' you didn't do anything for me. I mean, everyone besides you thinks I'm some sort of super-strong monster that'll gobble their children."

I struggled to find her hand in the dark but accidentally whacked her boob. "Give me your hand, Annie," I finally said, exasperated and tired. "I need some advice." I felt her small but callused hands slip into my own much larger ones.

"Shoot away."

"What should I do?" I croaked. "I don't honestly know what I should do now. When I wake up tomorrow morning, what am I supposed to do? Do I just hang around your house? Go talk to Eren? Get all my stuff from his apartment?"

"Why don't you go talk to Levi?"

"Huh?" I asked, surprised. "Why would I want anything to do with him?"

"Think about how he feels. Right now, he doesn't even know that Eren was cheating on him. Do you want to tell him?"

"Why should I? If he's happy with Eren, maybe I don't want to ruin either of theirs happiness."

"That's a nice thought, Mikasa, but it's also not fair to let him live in ignorance. He needs to know that Eren isn't trustworthy."

I sighed. "I guess you're right, Annie. What should I do then? Should I just text him? I don't have his number . . . "

"Yeah you do." I gave her a confused look before she gently pried something out of my hands -- Eren's phone.

I think today is one of the most nerve-wracking things I've had to do in a while: go and talk with the man my boyfriend was cheating on me with. Part of me feels so guilty . . . like I've upset him. I know I have. Last night, after I sent him the text (which wasn't too carefully thought out due to my tiredness), he sent so many texts that they actually made Eren's phone die. I didn't have his type of charger so I couldn't do anything about it (it was an android and I'm an apple kinda lady). Before the phone had died however, I took a peek at a couple of the messages. They only made me frown. They said things like:

Are you serious?

Eren?

Answer me, Eren!!

Motherfucker! If this is a joke it's not funny

I had made him upset hadn't I . . . I was always making people upset. I can't do anything right, can I.

When I awoke this morning, sun rays were shining in through the curtains that covered part of Annie's front window that overlooked the city of Ann Arbor. I've always liked the city since I grew up in a sort of rural area with not-so-nice neighbors and only horses from the nearby farm to talk to; it was much too lonely there for me and the city provided lots of people. I liked that old home that was next to a barn and cornfield . . . it was nice, but it's probably gone now. I heard a while ago that they were doing something with the land -- building something. I never looked into it since I didn't want to think about my childhood home being mowed down to build something as mundane as a shopping mall.

I miss those horses. . . . And my parents. I miss my parents a lot. They were such a loving couple -- never had any fights. My mother was Japanese while my father was German. My mom had these pretty eyes that I can always remember as looking like chocolate chips that were just baked so they were too warm too eat. My mother was too nice for what she got dealt in life. When I was younger, I could ignore the bags under her eyes that showed just how hard she worked, but now they shined through my memories like a flashlight in the dark. She was the nice one that planned everything while my father was the joker who made everything feel better. Just his presence made things seem not as bad. He had this blond hair, rosy cheeks, and sparkly blue eyes. I no doubt  got more of my appearance from my mom, but before they died I made up for whatever I'd gotten from my mom with my father's genes in personality. That's not true anymore though.

"Mikasa? Don't you have to go soon? I thought you were going back to your house so that you could change your clothes," Annie shouted from the bathroom.

"I am!" I shouted back. "I just woke up though. Give me a sec."

"Sheesh. Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the couch."

I must've sounded more annoyed than I thought I had.

"Annie . . . I need a ride."

"What was that?" she garbled through the toothpaste in her mouth after she finally came out of the bathroom to hear me better.

Annie was dressed in her usual jeans and something yellow which in this case was her shirt. It looked much more like a spring shirt than one to be worn in February in Michigan, but Annie always told nature to go fuck itself and that she wore whatever she wanted. I admired her attitude and that's just one of the reasons why she's my best friend.

We certainly hadn't started out that way though. In Elementary school, we were thought to be total enemies when in actuality we couldn't even give two shits about what the other person did -- we didn't know nor care about each other. Neither of us know how the "enemies" rumour got started (we have a theory that it's just because we both naturally look like we're upset and had to sit across from each other most of the time), but what we did know was that it was never true. We knew each other as "that girl who sits on the opposite side of class and is into sports".

Annie is extremely shy around people she doesn't know so she's not the best at making friends. Don't let her shyness fool you, though; Annie can kick ass like no other. Exercising is our preferred way of calming down and since she seems to get angry a lot more than I do, she tended to be better fit than I was. Exercising was more of a hobby for me while it was Annie's life. She works as a personal trainer now and apparently her new client is "on the right track" -- whatever that means.

While Eren was my main friend in my younger years, Annie was definitely more around than Eren was during high school before Eren and I started dating. I could relate with her and she didn't seem to like to see people upset if they didn't deserve it. She saw me crying once when these people had made fun of me for my race and she told me, "Such a pretty girl like you doesn't deserve to waste your tears over such ugly people like them." We became much closer after that.

"I'll give you a ride on the way to the gym," she said before hopping on the counter and grabbing fruit from what seems like the mini fruit stand she keeps on her counter. Not surprisingly, it's mostly filled with oranges -- oranges are her favorite fruit and has been since she found her guilty pleasure of orange soda. (She'll never admit it but I know she periodically stashes orange soda in her neighbor's fridge.)

"Thanks." I fell back on the couch in a lazy heap, but my small peace didn't last long before Annie was gripping my wrist and pulling me to the front door.

"Noooooo, Annie I don't want tooooooo yet," I whined.

"When I said on my way to the gym, I meant now."

I jumped up off the floor on which she was dragging me across and tried to frantically find a clock.

"Oh my god, Annie! It's 11:30! I told Levi I would meet him at noon! I can't just bail on 'im now!"

"No, Mikasa, you said around noon if you're being technical here."

"Annie! Let's go! C'mon! There's no time for me to change my clothes! I'm just gonna have to go like I am." My eyes narrowed and my face was determined.

"Um, you're at least borrowing my brush."

"Yeah, sure, fine, whatever let's just go!"

This time, I was the one dragging Annie across the floor.

"Damn, girl, slow down!" she yelled from behind me.

And now, I'm sitting in a Starbucks at the island in the center waiting for a man who I don't even know. He doesn't even know what I look like so how are we even gonna know it's us. Yeah . . . this is totally working.

Annie had let me use her brush in the car on our rush over here and I'd braided my shoulder-length hair to get it out of my face and make me seem a bit more confident than I actually felt. I know that this man I'm about to meet is not going to like me, but I thought that maybe it would feel better if Eren had been cheating on someone pretty-looking? I kinda wanted this guy to be hot so at least I could think that Eren has only cheated on my because he was a vanity-obsessed person who only liked people for their looks. I was only giving Levi a reason to hate Eren -- not me.

Eren always had had that dominant aura about him that made him seem both like a jerk and sexy at the same time. I always thought though that when he smiled a warm, loving smile that he indeed cared about more than just a person's looks. I'd always hoped anyways. Or maybe it was his want of dominance that drove him. Eren never liked being "on the bottom" and strived to be a dependent person that we could all rely on -- not someone whom we thought couldn't do anything. For some reason, he'd always believed that when I'd tell he did good that it was never even true. If there was one thing that infuriated me about him, it was that sometimes he just didn't believe in himself no matter how hard I tried to convince him otherwise. He was so sensitive that I always had to be careful about what I said to him and made sure that he wouldn't think I cared "too much".

Now that I'm looking back on our relationship . . . were we even a good couple in the first place? I've never been in any other relationship besides with Eren and now that I'm thinking about it . . . I don't honestly know. I have no way to tell. If it was really a bad relationship though, I have to believe that my friends would've hinted to me about it. But then again, if they were trying not to hurt my feelings . . . would they have stayed quiet? What if they'd even known about Eren's other relationship?

I told my thoughts to shut up; the last thing I need right now is to  start doubting my friendships. Besides, all of them looked absolutely shocked and appalled when they'd seen the text messages.

I wasn't smiling as I sat there waiting. I didn't feel like it; the smile would've been fake anyways. I'd never been too keen on smiling after my parents' deaths. That day, something had snapped within me. What had snapped was majorly important to my personality back then and now I just . . . am not the same. I was so naive when I was a child. I remember I was so optimistic; I liked to think that everything had a little bit of good inside to it whether it be a mean spider or a foreign stranger. Everyone always in the end did what they thought was right in their own minds and in their own sense was good. I didn't realize though . . . the true devastation of it all. I never realized just how . . . cruel the world was.

After I made that discovery, smiles never came so easily. I would look at a beautiful person and think, I hope life doesn't strike you in a cruel way like it has me. In fact, I still do that. I still look at a beautiful person and hope for them -- pray for them. I hoped and wished for those people . . . because I hoped they'd never end up like me.

However, smiles came easy around one person: Eren. Eren had these beautiful eyes you could get lost in and a smile that could light up a whole town in the dark. His entire body was close to a work of art from the small dimples that showed when he smile and laughed -- a nice hearty laugh that always told you he was enjoying himself -- and his arms and abs that were lightly muscled and his other endearing traits like his hair that always looked like he had bed-head and his knuckles that were scarred from all the fights he'd gotten into as a kid because he had such a short temper. Except when he got angry he got angry for a reason. He didn't just randomly get these bursts of anger contrary to a lot of the people that had attended our high school's belief. Eren had made me uncharacteristically happy whenever I was around him, and now that he's gone -- despite the several times that I've said I don't need a douchebag like that -- there's still an empty, hollow feeling right in my chest. I hope it goes away soon because it prompts me to almost cry every other minute.

I'd noticed it -- he got angry when someone was beating a weaker individual up. Eren liked being strong and helping out the weak -- or that's what I've always believed of him and I have high hopes that I'm correct. I don't usually voice my opinions about anyone and prefer to keep a mental list of people's character traits so I know how to react when dealing with them. The only times I'd ever have a problem with Eren was when he felt like I thought he was weak. I could tell he hated being thought of as less than others -- like when he suspected them of treating him like some small child. Eren Jaeger hates it. If there's one thing that I've learned from my three years with him, it's that.

Yet Eren was so beautiful -- not only in appearance but his personality. I always thought that Eren had a beautiful personality. He tried so hard to make others happy and sometimes it hurt him in the end. He was too trusting of others and I thought he was still an optimistic person who thought the best of people. He was appalled by the people on the news who committed murder. It disgusted him to no end. Eren was definitely a pro-life kind of person and I wasn't surprised when he told me that he didn't like when people got abortions. He'd told me that it was basically murder. I disagreed with him though and argued that taking away abortion was taking away a mother's right to choose. He would never have to go through the pain that mothers do -- especially when they realize that they're in such a position that they can't afford to have their baby. It's not like these people having abortions are murders; they just can't do it. Though, if they had the resources and they still had an abortion, I never understood why they wouldn't let the baby live and give them up for adoption  -- that's what irks me.

The fact though that he cared so much about children and people seemed promising -- perhaps he wasn't afraid of having a family and settling down (commitment). I loved the way he fussed over me; it made me feel loved and cared about but in a special way that I found only Eren had the ability to do. Except, maybe I've thought wrong about him this entire time. Eren had never truly loved me. The moment I saw those texts and Eren's invisible explanation I felt like I'd been punched in the gut and played. It had knocked all the air out of me and made me weak in the knees -- almost like I was going to faint.

I really miss him. I miss waking up and getting a morning call. I miss his hugs, his smiles, his personality, his well . . . everything about him. But if Eren's the good person that I make him out to be, then why would he blatantly take advantage of my feelings and cheat on me behind my back? Why would he do that to me? Had he ever felt anything towards me at all?

The apparent truth was that I'd been played and maybe we'd been played. I didn't know if Levi had known about me and still had gone out with Eren, so I couldn't judge him too quickly -- acting under assumptions was sometimes dangerous but other times it was needed and right now I can't tell what it would be, so I've decided to not make any assumptions at all. Perhaps I should just act like I'm meeting a completely new person and not the man that probably slept with my boyfriend and yet . . . maybe I shouldn't completely ignore that fact. This man I was meeting probably wasn't ignoring that I slept with his boyfriend and stole Eren from him for all he knows or maybe doesn't know because he already knew that Eren was going out with me. But if he knew that then why would he be texting Eren's phone all night long searching for answers to his questions?

I swear I'm gonna think myself into oblivion. Forget thinking. I'm just gonna stare straight at this chair until I see him. He doesn't even know what I look like. Should I hold up a sign that reads I Am Eren's Girlfriend and just let the people take photos and post them on the internet just so I can meet the man Eren cheated on me with? Not the smartest thing to do.

Oh wait, I could just text him and tell him where I'm sitting. With all the thinking that I do everyday, it's a wonder that I didn't think of that earlier, but I blame it on the fact that I'm feeling single for the first time in years.

Sloppily, I reach down into my purse where I'd stored Eren's phone. Oh shit. It's not charged. Goddammit. UGH. Great . . . now I've begun talking to myself again inside my head so technically I'm not talking to myself because it's not aloud. . . . Or is that still talking to yourself? Well, now I've screwed up and I'm beginning to think that this entire meeting was just a mistake to begin with. Maybe I shouldn't have ever texted Levi and told him that Eren was cheating on him -- they probably would've lived happily ever after if I hadn't told him. But then I thought that perhaps Levi didn't want to be with a guy who had also gone out with someone else at the same time. Levi had a right to know and I shouldn't be the one to withhold that information from him. He could decide himself if he still wanted to trust Eren -- it seemed he was a grown man after all.

Reading Eren's texts on some level was a breach of his personal privacy but on others I felt I had a right to know. After all, right before I'd run out of the restaurant he'd given me his phone to look after and afterwards he hadn't asked for it back, but that's really bending the rules there. Quite honestly, when I was doing it I wasn't even thinking about if it was morally right so long as it quelled the burning fire I'd felt to know more. I'd learned quite a few things about this guy from the odd conversations they often had -- including what he looked like from a couple of photos he'd sent Eren. I felt confident that I could recognize his face since afterwards it had been burned into my mind.

His black hair was styled into an undercut that reached to just about his eyes. In the one photo that I can most prominently remember, the hair had been covering his eyes slightly. His face looked old to say the least with wrinkles by his eyes and bags underneath them showing just how tired he was and the wrinkles on his forehead showed how much he thought and his pores were very visible on his skin with the camera so close to his face. His eyes were something mysterious though -- they looked as if they could kill if Levi had really wanted them to and I couldn't even make out the color of them. Perhaps his eyes were a dark blue color that was so dark it looked almost black but they also shined sort of which now that I think about it could've been caused by his camera light flashing. He had the same color of hair as me and his eyes looked familiar since I looked at them almost everyday in the mirror when I stared at my reflection. He had my eyes and hair. I wondered what his personality was like in person since I could only glean so much from odd text conversations. I also wondered if Eren had found him anymore attractive since he seemed so close to my own appearance: a tiny sliver of hope in this growing pool of despair I suppose. Levi's sharp, angular face definitely looked much more intimidating than mine did with its slight chubbiness.

The image of Levi's face is still floating in my vision when I look down at my phone to see what time it is and how long I've been waiting for. It's around 12:30 in the afternoon. I've been waiting here for a little over half an hour. Gosh, where is this guy? I thought he was going to be super punctual or something.

As fate would have it, just as I've decided that this meeting isn't worth it, the small bell above the door to the Starbucks rings as the a rather shorter man walks in through the door wearing the very face that was floating in my vision only a few seconds ago: Levi.

Suddenly, I freeze with my purse halfway up to my shoulder and my phone on its way into my purse as I'm still bent over the small booth I'd been sitting in near the door. I stand there, completely frozen, and watch him as he surveys the Starbucks. He doesn't know what I look like so I don't know what he was expecting to find. Suddenly there're butterflies in my stomach and I have the sudden urge to flee from the scene and never see him again; maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

Wait, Mikasa, wait. This man needs an explanation for the probably life-shattering text message you sent him last night, so you better sit your butt down and call him over here so you can talk it out like real people.

Thanks, self conscious, I think I shall do exactly as you say.

I shut my mouth (it'd been hanging open in shock) before shoving my phone back into my purse and hopping out of the booth. I had to pass by Levi to get to the door and I was about to leave rather quickly when I slightly heard him mumble to himself. His words were less than comforting to say the least.

"Where is this person? God, she must be really stupid to set up this meeting without even knowing more or giving me a description of herself." I stopped dead in my tracks as his words seeped into my ears -- allowing my brain to process just what he'd said for a moment before reacting.

Now, I could handle some things, but others such as being called stupid were not okay with me. When I was  younger, my adopted parents always told me that I shouldn't let anybody get a rise out of me when they only called me untrue names. They said, "If you know it's not true, then it's true and don't let them believe it," but I had been a weird, sensitive child and I had let it get to me. I couldn't stand it when people called me false names that belied my true potential. Something within me just couldn't allow this man to call me stupid.

I stood up straight then and glanced at Levi who was still looking around the Starbucks aimlessly -- seemingly having given up on trying to find me and was now doing just for fun. His face look like he had a 5 o'clock shadow and the bags under his eyes were more intense than the photo I'd seen. He probably hadn't slept well either what with the sudden news that his boyfriend was cheating on him. Part of me felt like yelling at him, but the other more dominant part told me that he didn't honestly think I was listening and plus his boyfriend had cheated on him with me so I shouldn't expect him to say anything nice in the first place.

Just as it seemed Levi had gotten too exasperated and had started to walk out of the mini café, I prompted quietly, "Levi?"

Levi was halfway out the door when I'd said that and his body was now completely stiff -- much like my own had only moments ago. He turned back around and looked around at the people in the café.

"Did somebody say my name?" he asked, his tone less than polite.

"I did." He looked up at me. "I'm Mikasa Ackerman -- Eren's ex-girlfriend. I wanted to talk to you about him."

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Next chapter coming Saturday, January 2