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As the hours creep by, Armin finds himself with fewer and fewer blessings to count. The one currently residing at the top of his list was the silence, a gift that came with an opening act of questions lobbed his way. He knew he looked a mess, red pooling in the creases of his skin and eyes even redder as they burned with unshed tears. He knew they were only asking about him because they cared. They were his friends, after all.
That didn’t make it any easier.
A harsh glare and a few clipped words from Mikasa was enough to keep the others away, at least for the time being. Give him time, she had said. He’ll talk when he’s ready. Armin hoped she knew that he was grateful.
Ranking second beneath the silence was the dried blood. Crimson stained his skin almost everywhere, it seemed, and the sight of it did two things. For one, it made his stomach twist angrily. For another, getting rid of it gave him something to do besides sit with himself and his thoughts.
That didn’t stop them from burrowing their way into his head, anyway.
The first thing he does after filling the wash basin is plunge his hands beneath the surface, letting the water roll around the shape of his bones and mold itself to his skeleton. It’s a soothing sensation, initially, but then he makes the mistake of scooping some of it up in his cupped hands, and in an instant, Armin’s holding the ocean in his palm once again. The water is missing its frigid touch, absent also of the salt that stings fresh wounds like sharp kisses, but it bites him where he’s bleeding nonetheless.
The ocean, he thinks dully, had changed everything.
After that, Armin goes to find a washcloth.
He’s not entirely certain how much time had passed between him first filling the bin with water and the moment when Mikasa finally finds him, but judging by the state of his hands, he’s willing to guess it’s been a while. The shiny red shade of blood on his knuckles had long since been washed away, replaced instead by the rosy color of a faded burn, skin rubbed raw in his attempt to cleanse it.
“Armin,” Mikasa’s voice drifts over him from nearby, her tone unwavering. She places a hand atop one of his own, gentle with the tender skin, and waits for his eyes to meet hers. Armin eventually turns his head hesitantly, fully expecting her to reprimand him for not paying more attention to what he was doing to himself. Instead, she reaches for the saturated cloth in the center of the wash bin.
He stares at her inquisitively. “What are you…”
“Your face is still bloody,” she states, very matter-of-fact, letting go of his hand momentarily to wring out the excess water. Armin watches her move with glassy eyes.
“Oh.”
Mikasa is quiet as she moves to sit in front of Armin, lifting the cloth to the skin beneath his nose. The fabric moves with enough pressure for him to gauge that he must have been scrubbing at his hands for long enough to let the blood dry on his face, too. Armin wonders, belatedly, if the cut on his lip might have scabbed over as well. His tongue prods the sensitive skin with an inquisitive gentleness, but the lack of pressure isn’t enough to dull the sting that accompanies the contact. Armin winces, and he feels Mikasa’s hand still beneath the cloth.
“Am I pressing too hard?” Her voice is low, quiet, but her concern doesn’t fall on deaf ears. Armin shakes his head lightly, and she offers a soft exhale in response. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes fall on the shape of a scar at the base of her wrist, hidden almost entirely beneath the fabric of her sleeve. Much like the one across her cheek, it’s origin has long been buried beneath the passing years. “Don’t be,” he murmurs after a moment. “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not yours, either.”
Armin knows she isn’t talking about the pain. He lifts his eyes to hers. Sadness has a vice grip on their darkness, though unlike him, she has a way of keeping the tears from spilling over too often. He swallows down his own and gives her a watery smile. “Isn’t it, though?”
Mikasa shakes her head, lifting the cloth to the swelling beneath his eye. “You didn’t tell him to do any of this,” she says.
“I couldn’t stop him, either,” Armin retorts. He can hear the tremor in his voice. “Is that not the same crime?” That was what he was useful for, wasn’t it? Evasive maneuvers? Getting a handle on the situation, and keeping the conflict to a minimum? At face value, that sounded right, but the picture painted cardinal across his face made a pretty convincing argument otherwise.
He wondered when this had become routine. When had he started to use his words to hurt people rather than benefit them? Since when did having amicable aspirations involve isolation from his best friend? It wasn’t a hard question to answer, really, if he thought about it for long enough. He could list any number of moments as the turning point, and all of them would be equally as correct. The day the Walls fell. The day they were reclaimed. The day Eren came crawling out of the body of a Titan and the pieces of the puzzle had finally begun to fall into place.
The day they all stood together and gazed upon the ocean for the first time.
Pinpointing his separation from Eren was easy enough, because shifting blame was easy enough. Pinpointing his separation from himself, however… that was another story.
If Armin were an honest man, he’d have no trouble admitting to himself that the person he used to be was long gone.
“If it is a crime, then I’m just as guilty.” Mikasa’s even voice brings Armin out of his stupor, and he blinks slowly. He wants to respond, to keep stealing the blame back from her before her guilt can devour it in its starvation, but before he can open his mouth to reply, she drops it altogether.
“You’re bleeding again,” she says suddenly, thumbing the skin beneath his nose softly. Taking care to avoid the split of his lip, she wipes the trickle of blood away with a quick swipe. Her thumb comes up red, a color quickly obliterated by the warmth of the cloth she drags over it. He watches as she submerges it into the bucket beside her, water turning a soft rosy pink as the blood is dredged from the strands of the cloth.
His blood. Eren’s blood.
“See? I told you, Eren. A giant saltwater lake, so large that merchants could spend their whole lives collecting its salt, and still not get it all.”
I was right, wasn’t I?
Coral droplets swim slowly, intertwining beneath the surface, and as Armin watches them fade, he lets the tears fall.
He’d never seen an ocean so small.