pain
What hurts me most about Eren and Mikasa is the contradiction between what he truly feels and what he chooses to tell her.
When Eren finally opens up to Armin, all that coldness disappears for a moment and admits that the idea of Mikasa loving someone else hurts him, that he wants to remain special to her, that deep down he wishes he could be her only love, it’s selfish, immature and painfully human. Because at the end of the day, Eren is still only nineteen years old.
He loves her, he is afraid of dying, and he is terrified of being forgotten.
But Mikasa never gets to hear that version of him.
Instead, he tells her to throw away the scarf, forget about him and live a happy life without him. Earlier, he even forced himself to tell her that he hated her, knowing exactly how much those words would hurt.
That is what makes it so sad to me.
Deep inside, he wants her to hold onto him forever. But when he speaks to her, he asks her to let him go.
People can judge Eren’s choices, and many of them deserve to be questioned. But emotionally, it is difficult not to feel something for a 19yo boy who had to deliberately break the heart of the person he loved just to push her away from him.
He wanted Mikasa to be happy, even if that happiness eventually existed without him and at the same time, the thought of her loving someone else broke his own heart. That is what makes Eren’s love for Mikasa feel so painfully real to me.