The examination took a long time, so the three children sat idly on the clean lawn outside the house.
Mikasa sat in Arthur's lap, weaving flowers and grass into all kinds of necklaces, bracelets, rings, and crowns, then putting them on him.
Arthur offered no resistance. With a foxtail grass stem between his lips, he simply let Mikasa do as she pleased.
"Hey, doesn't wearing that make you hot?" Eren asked just then, pointing at the scarf around Mikasa's neck in puzzlement.
"Hot? Not at all. If Arthur gave it to me, I'll always wear it, no matter what." Mikasa stroked the scarf around her neck and shook her head.
"You two really are close siblings."
"We aren't related by blood," Arthur quickly corrected Eren when he heard him mistake them for biological siblings.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Eren looked a little confused.
"Uncle Kane saved me from a wolf's jaws. I had nowhere to go, so he kindly took me in," Arthur explained. He couldn't help remembering that he had been in this world for almost two years already. Time really did fly.
"So that's what happened." Eren nodded in understanding.
"But Arthur has always been very good to me. I'm so happy to have him with me." Mikasa hugged Arthur's arm and kept rubbing her little head against it, a contented smile on her face.
"Me too. I'm lucky to have such an adorable little sister." Arthur gently stroked Mikasa's hair, his voice light.
"Arthur, can we go play in the forest?" Mikasa suddenly asked.
"Hmm..." Arthur hesitated at her request.
"Pretty please?" Mikasa began wheedling.
"All right, we can go." Unable to withstand her pleading, Arthur nodded in agreement.
"Eren, do you want to come too?" Arthur turned to Eren and asked.
"Yeah! I want to come too." Eren nodded. Honestly, he was eager to see a real forest himself.
Arthur then told Kane that he wanted to take Mikasa and Eren for a walk in the forest, and received his permission.
Arthur picked up his bow and quiver.
Although he was only taking the two of them somewhere safe to play, he still needed to be prepared, just in case.
With his gear ready, Arthur led Mikasa and Eren toward the forest.
"Arthur, do you know how to use a bow?" Eren eyed the bow and arrows on Arthur's back curiously. As a boy, he naturally felt an itch to try something like that himself.
"Of course! Arthur is a really good shot, too. I saw him shoot a crow out of the sky with a single arrow." Before Arthur could speak, Mikasa eagerly answered for him.
"You're lying, right? How is that possible?!" Eren found her claim hard to believe. After all, Arthur was only two years older than him. How could there be such a huge gap between them?
"Arthur, Eren doesn't believe you. Can you show him?" Annoyed that Eren didn't believe her, Mikasa asked Arthur to demonstrate.
"You little rascal. All right." Unable to resist Mikasa's insistence, Arthur agreed.
He took the bow off his back and held it in his hand, then drew an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and began looking for a target.
Just then, Arthur's keen eyes spotted a leaf slowly falling from the canopy.
Arthur took a deep breath. In that instant, everything around him seemed to slow down, and his attention focused entirely on the leaf drifting in the breeze.
Once he had locked onto his target, Arthur released the bowstring. With a whoosh, the arrow flew out, pierced the falling leaf dead center, and embedded itself in the tree trunk.
Eren hurried over to inspect the result and discovered, to his astonishment, that the arrow had pinned a leaf to the trunk.
"Well? I wasn't lying, was I?" Mikasa declared proudly at the sight of Eren's stunned expression. Her proud little look was utterly adorable.
"That was amazing!" Once Eren confirmed that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, he was filled with admiration and awe for Arthur.
"Arthur! Can you teach me archery?" Eren ran up to him and asked eagerly.
"No!" Arthur's reply doused Eren's enthusiasm like a bucket of cold water.
"Why not?" Eren asked, baffled.
"Try drawing the bow first, then we'll talk." Arthur decided to let a practical demonstration make Eren give up, so he handed him the bow.
"Don't underestimate me!" Eren protested. He took the bow and clumsily held it upright in front of himself. He was nearly two heads shorter than Arthur.
"Nngh..." Eren strained with all his might, but only barely managed to draw the bow halfway.
"Pfft!" Seeing Eren attempt something beyond his abilities, Mikasa couldn't help laughing.
Her laughter left Eren feeling embarrassed and annoyed as reality sank in.
"You're not strong enough to draw the bow yet, so I can't teach you," Arthur said, shaking his head.
"All right." Eren nodded dejectedly.
After that little incident, the three finally reached a scenic valley.
The air here was wonderfully fresh, and there were plenty of fragrant patches of flowers.
A few months earlier, Arthur had even had a picnic here with Mikasa's family.
"So this is freedom." Having always lived in town, Eren had never seen such beautiful scenery before. He spread his arms, letting the breeze wash over him, and couldn't help marveling.
"Look at you, acting like you've never seen anything." Arthur felt that Eren was being a little dramatic.
"You don't understand. Whenever I'm in town, I feel like I'm living in a cage." Eren shook his head with a bitter smile and began explaining.
A cage? Kids in this world really do grow up fast, Arthur thought, giving Eren an odd look.
"Mikasa, slow down! Don't trip!" Arthur called to Mikasa, who was chasing a fluttering butterfly.
"Okay!" Mikasa nodded and continued chasing the butterfly through the trees.
Suddenly, Mikasa followed it to a bush and stopped moving.
"What's wrong, Mikasa?" Seeing her standing motionless, Arthur hurried over, worried that something had happened, only to find her staring blankly at a spiderweb on the bush.
The butterfly she had been chasing had flown into the spider's web and become trapped, unable to break free. Sensing the web's vibrations, a spider quickly crawled out of the shadows, approached the butterfly, and sank its fangs into its body.
It then injected venom into the butterfly. Under the venom's effects, the butterfly struggled for only a short while before going still.
"Mikasa, are you all right?" Arthur asked with concern as he looked at her dazed expression. He thought she was upset because the spider had killed the butterfly.
"Arthur, why did the butterfly get eaten?" Mikasa turned to him and asked.
"Uh..." Arthur looked at Mikasa, unsure how to answer.
After thinking for a moment, Arthur began to speak.
"Mikasa, the spider needs to survive too. If it doesn't eat the butterfly, it'll starve. Survival of the fittest and natural selection are unchanging truths of this world. You must remember that this world is cruel, too."
Listening to Arthur, Mikasa nodded, only half understanding.
She simply continued watching the spider wrap the butterfly in silk, seemingly lost in thought.
After they had played for a while, Arthur noticed that it was nearly lunchtime. Worried that Uncle Kane and the others might be getting anxious waiting for them, he took Mikasa and Eren back.
When they returned home, Dr. Grisha had finished the examination. Since he still had other patients to examine, he didn't stay for lunch.
Arthur and Mikasa said goodbye to Eren, the boy they had just met.
Seeing that his son had made new friends, Eren's father was genuinely happy.
He also promised Eren that whenever he had time, he would bring him over to play with Arthur and Mikasa.