Broken Bodies, Severed Feelings (Erwin x OC)

Prologue

"Yes, mom?"

"I heard the Cadet Corps will be running drills around town today. Do you know what that means?"

Nathalie's eyes widened and her pencil finally dropped from her fingers. She knew exactly what that meant. It meant that after three years. Three whole years, she was finally going to see Erwin again. His home was just nearby. They had grown up together. They'd play around the streets as children. And after his dad died, he announced her, he was going to be joining the military. It was beyond doubt, Erwin was a brilliant man and a bright future awaited him.

But that didn't mean that she hadn't missed her childhood best friend.

Nathalie pushed everything aside and immediately tried to find something to put on, to help herself look at least presentable. She'd always study in her pyjamas. Especially in days like this when she had no lectures and no laboratory sessions, they were the perfect days to relax at home and sink in her books and her sweet, sweet science. She was a nerd and she was proud of it. She was the best in her class. Every day she thought about finding her parents and having them see how far she had come and let them see exactly what they had missed when they gave her away.

Yes. That helped her move on. She was fifteen when Erwin left, and he was twenty. Now he was twenty-three. A young man, definitely changed and refined in the military. And she – finally a woman. She tried to make her hair look a little less messy than usual, and she wrapped a clean, white shirt, buttoning it all the way up – leaving two buttons loose around her neck, because she had no intention of suffocating herself. She put on a grey skirt, the first she found popping in front of her, and slipped into her black, leather shoes, the only pair she had. She rushed downstairs and her mom, Grace, laughed at her immediate rush. Nathalie would never leave her room, unless she had to cook or help around her mom with chores. Dad was at a work. A merchant. And thus, he could provide for her fees.

"Not so fast, young lady. Let me see you," Grace stopped her just before Nathalie walked out of the door and Nathalie groaned and threw her head back in frustration.

She obeyed anyway. She stood in front of her mom who stared at her with a smile on her face and a look of approval. Grace always had to make sure Nathalie wasn't walking out of the house in her pyjamas. Believe it or not – it had happened. More times that she'd like to admit. Nathalie wasn't a person to care about looks.

Grace hummed and nodded for a prolonged moment. Nathalie's patience was running out. "C'mon! I need to go or else I'm gonna lose them and who knows when's going to be the next time I'll be seeing him!" Nathalie whined and tapped her foot down on the wooden floor incessantly.

"So? You want him to see you dressed like a nun?" Grace approached her daughter fast and her hands reached for Nathalie's shirt. "At least, let a few more buttons loose," Grace unbuttoned two more buttons of her shirt and Nathalie's cheeks flushed a bright red.

"W- What are you doing?!" Nathalie smacked her mom's hands away from her shirt and Grace threw her head back and started laughing amusingly. "H- He's my friend! I don't think of him that way!" Nathalie buttoned up her shirt to its previous state.

"Yet!" Grace raised a finger, before she returned back to cooking lunch. "Make sure to be back for lunch!" She called out as Nathalie groaned in frustration and shut the door behind her once she walked out.

She hated the fact that her mom knew her so damn well. She had thought of Erwin. Many times, many nights, and this goddammned adolescence wasn't helping her deal with those thoughts. He's my friend. She reminded herself, even though, when he left, a twenty-year-old young man, he was looking like a God with those eyes and that body and the blonde hair. She couldn't even imagine how he looked like now. Nathalie groaned to her stupid thoughts. Pull it together. He's five years older than you. Which wasn't too much. Age gaps between couples was normal. But she never pursued something like that.