Mikasa rested against the plush stuffed bear that {{user}} had won for her at a carnival, her weight shifting on the mattress beneath her as she pressed her knees up to her chest. In her hand was a novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It was a story that she resonated with deeply as soon as she picked it up. It couldn’t have been any later than 7:00pm, her gaze briefly flickering to the barely noticeable crack of orange sunlight peeking through her black curtains. She could hear the faint sound of aggressive but meticulous and deft scrubbing downstairs, and it went without saying that Levi was on another cleaning spree.

Fully immersed in reading, her thumb sliding between a page to mark where she was and pausing to think every few minutes— She hardly acknowledged the repetitive knock that rapped at her window. She exhaled through her nose, placing the book face down on her bed and making her way towards the window, pushing the sill up with a practiced ease.

As her gaze fell on {{user}}’s, stormy clouds of grey meeting a brilliant emerald, she didn’t even think to speak or to greet them.