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When Levi was little, the concept of a soulmate didn't make much sense to him.
The earliest encounter he remembered having that involved his soulmate was when he was just about the age of four-years-old. He could still recall the way his mother's light eyes lit up at the sight of the green lettering that appeared in a scribbled manner across the pale skin of his forearm.
"Look, baby, that's from your soulmate!" She had said in a happy tone, pointing it out with her index finger. He had stared down at the lines for a minute in silent contemplation, before scrubbing harshly at the skin with the palm of his hand. His mother quickly pulled his arm away, his skin now a bright red from the friction he caused to himself. He didn't focus on that, his eyes instead trained on the green marker that still lingered there despite his best efforts to wash it away. He promptly burst into tears.
Levi learned a year later exactly what a soulmate was; a person that you were connected to spiritually from birth. His mother had explained this to him while she tucked him beneath his covers, her thin fingers combing through his hair in a comforting manner. During this point in time, the lines drawn on his arms were only increasing in frequency and size, which had irritated him to no end.
"Momma, how come you don't have a soulmate?" He remembered asking that night, his head tilted in unconcealed curiosity. Her movements never faltered once, a small smile gracing her lips. Levi couldn't recognize it then, but years later he realized that her expression was bittersweet.
"Not everyone is born as lucky as you are, Levi. That's why you're supposed to cherish your soulmate." She leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. She then switched off his lamp near his head and left Levi alone, bathed in darkness and his young mind filled with a hundred thoughts at once. His mother had called him lucky, but he had felt anything but that. The doodles on his arms were more of a nuisance than anything else, and he wished that he didn't have a soulmate at all. His life seemed like it would be easier without one.
As he continued to grow older, naturally so did his soulmate. Once he turned seven-years-old, their drawings had become more and more intricate, and much to Levi's dismay, they now appeared on his skin on a regular basis rather than the once or twice a week he had grown accustomed to. They started out by drawing messy flowers along his forearms; their petals were always uneven and never colored in. Soon after, it evolved into stick figures on his thighs, and then their scribbles grew into these hideous monsters with jagged teeth on his ankles. The latter ones always bothered him the most; his soulmate was weird, there was no denying that.
"What are those, Levi?" One of his new friends asked on the playground, his tone full of wonderment. Levi's pale eyes traveled to where the blond boy was pointing, confusion apparent on his face. Erwin had been pointing to a forming scribble along the back of his leg. It was too early to tell what it was going to be.
Levi involuntary shivered at the all-too-familiar tingling sensation along that part of his skin. "That's my soulmate." He explained with a frown, watching as his friend grew closer to his skin and watched the event unfolding in amazement.
"Wow! You have a soulmate?" Erwin breathed out in awe, his mouth slightly agape. Levi didn't see what the big deal was; it was nothing extravagant, and nothing close to what people often made it out to be.
"You don't?" Levi tilted his head towards the left.
Erwin paused in thought, before swiftly shaking his head. Levi instantly regretted his choice of words upon seeing the saddened look that dressed his features. "I don't." He confirmed steadily.
"You're lucky that you don't." Levi attempted to cheer him up. "My soulmate draws all over me all the time, and it kinda feels like when your leg gets numb."
They stood in silence for the better half of five minutes. Levi grew bored and had found a stick near him to poke at the sand with, while Erwin continued to stare at the unfolding drawing on his skin. For the first time, he wondered what it would be like to not have had a soulmate, and found himself almost envying Erwin as his thoughts spiraled.
By the time he was nearing his teenage years, he was more than annoyed by his soulmate's existence and their blatant disregard towards him or how he felt about their drawings. The entire length of his arms more often than not would end up completely covered in marker and ink by the end of a school day. "I like this one." Erwin pointed towards a lone drawing on his wrist, an amused smile tugging at his lips.
Levi glared at him from across the table, further pulling down his long-sleeved shirt. "I'm glad you can find them enjoyable." He had grumbled out, stabbing his plastic spoon into his pudding in an irritated manner.
"Why don't you write to them?" Erwin suggested after noticing how upset his friend seemed. "You can just tell them to stop or tone it down. It couldn't hurt to try, right?"
Levi contemplated his words quietly before he turned and began to look through his backpack for a pen or anything he could have written with for that matter. "This is stupid." He sighed out as he finally grasped a pen and laid his arm out on the table.
"It might not be, though." Erwin reminded him, his blue eyes watching his movements intently.
Once Levi brought the tip of the pen to his pale skin, he came to the realization that he had never done this before. It was an odd feeling, he surmised inwardly. Throughout the entire twelve years of his life, he had not once made an effort to communicate with his soulmate - whether it was intentional or not. He had never drawn on himself as a child because they had always done it for him instead.
'Will you stop drawing all over me?' Levi wrote in a careful manner, making sure each letter was curved and perfectly angled. He often prided himself on his neat cursive handwriting; something most of the kids in his school lacked.
Levi and Erwin waited with baited breath for a response back, the former trying to deny the nerves he felt floating around his belly. A few seconds later, and Levi felt that tingling sensation he had grown to despise on his inner ankle.
Erwin leaned over the table as Levi lifted his leg up and cuffed his long jeans until he was able to make out what she had said in return.
'Oops, sorry!'
Levi felt his insides boil with anger at the response. They were sorry? Oops...? Had they just forgotten that they had a soulmate who had been on the receiving end of each and every 'drawing' they had produced? A person simply couldn't be that ignorant, could they?
Throughout the entirety of the day, the message stubbornly lingered in the back of his mind and continued to agitate him. It had gotten to the point that during dinnertime, he had brought it up to his mother.
"Has it ever occurred to you that your soulmate wasn't even aware of your existence up until this point, Baby?" She pointed out in a thoughtful manner, pointing her fork in his direction. The broccoli on the other end of it slipped off entirely, landing on the worn down wood of their dining table. They both stared at it in silence, before his mother had burst into laughter despite her best attempts at stifling it, Levi let out a small, almost forced chuckle.
Levi shoveled around the food in his plate after that, his mind swirling with countless amounts of different thoughts. His soulmate had been unaware of his existence throughout their entire life due to his silence and refusal to make a mess of his skin any further than what they did throughout the day. He came to the realization that he had zero impact on his soulmate's life, while, on the other hand, they had been apart of his daily routine for the majority of his.
The next day, the drawings had come to an abrupt end. Admittedly, Levi had felt unsettled as the day flew by without a reminder that his soulmate was alive and not a figment of his imagination. It seemed as if Erwin missed them more than he did, though. It had become a tradition at some point to point out which doodle he had liked the most that day during lunchtime. Levi could not relate.
That summer was entirely uneventful for Levi. The only thing he could recall that was memorable was that he could wear shirt-sleeved T-shirts for the first time in a few years. He could enjoy the outdoors without the constant fear of a heat stroke; his mother, while saddened by the disappearance of his soulmate, was happy about this as well. They had spent a few days doing outdoor activities together, and his favorite by far had been gardening.
Summer break had ended eventually, which made Levi feel both grateful and dismayed. He had been sitting in his math class, failing to pay attention to the ramblings of his math teacher, when all of a sudden, he felt a familiar prickling sensation near his wrist. His form tensed visibly, his light eyes widening slightly as the tingling continued.
"Are you okay?" A voice from behind him asked, concerned. He recognized the voice as belonging to Petra Ral; one of the most popular girls in school who also lived no more than half of a block away from his house.
"I'm fine." Levi forcibly relaxed his shoulders after responding, not sure why he had gotten as surprised as he did. In fact, despite his best efforts not too, he felt relief in knowing that they were okay. He slowly flipped his arm around to showcase the inevitable drawing that would be there, bracing himself for how horrendous it might have looked.
He was genuinely surprised to find hastily scribbled chemistry notes on his forearm, instead. Their chicken scratch handwriting had made Levi feel repulsed at the sight of it, he wondered how they could understand it. He chose to ignore them entirely a moment later, laying his arm back on his desk, and forcing himself to pay attention to the teacher.
This continued for months afterward. It seemed as if his soulmate was either extremely forgetful or just lacked a notebook for whatever reason. Those thoughts aside, he had learned a bit about them from their notes after he had given in and read them in detail. He found that they were extremely intelligent and that they had a profound passion for science in particular. He figured this because their chemistry notes were always personalized with tiny exclamation marks and happy faces.
And every-so-often, a sloppily drawn doodle would appear on his skin. It seemed they favored the outdoors considering all they drew was trees when they did draw on him. It left Levi wondering if his soulmate remembered he existed at all, considering they had merely thrown away his previous complaint as if it had never happened in the first place. The thought aggravated him more than it should have.
Admittedly, their hastily written notes had helped him out quite a bit when he had first entered high school; they most certainly had to be one of the smartest students in their school. Levi could also see them being an extreme suck up to teachers, as well. It seemed fitting.
Slowly, he had begun to paint a picture in his head of what his soulmate looked like, and what their voice sounded like. If he were being honest, he had never cared for the concept of a person your soul was bonded to, and throughout the years this mindset had only further cemented. Still, he was a bit curious about what they were like, and how they acted. It was only natural to be, after all. He found himself imagining a nerdy, isolated teenager covered in ink with a highly nasal voice that would grate on his last nerves.
Later in the year, he had discovered a few interesting facts about the person he was emotionally connected to; a big one being that he had learned that they were a she, or at least, biologically so. He had become enlightened by this information when she had written 'pick up tampons' across her forefinger in tiny letters. Erwin and his friend Mike had laughed until their stomachs hurt - not from her reminder note, but from the displeased look he wore the entire day.
He also learned that her favorite flavor of ice cream was Mint Chocolate Chip.
One morning, Levi had uncharacteristically slept in later than he usually would. He didn't think much of it, brushing off the odd feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach and carried on with his morning routine quietly. He realized something was off when he walked into their kitchen and none of the blinds had been open, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee was strangely absent.
The sinking feeling in his stomach only increased.
His mother's bedroom was darkened and almost eery as he walked into it, the sunlight barely peeking in through the window blinds. He had found her unresponsive to touch, extremely pale, cold, and buried beneath a bundle of blankets. He had sat on the floor near her head for ten minutes in denial before he reached for his mother's cell phone on the bedside table.
"Hello, 911, what's your emergency?" A feminine voice sounded.
"I think my mother's dead." He spoke evenly, holding in the urge to scream until his throat was raw.
He had learned later that day that she had passed away due to cold complications. It seemed her fever had gone much too high for her body to handle. Levi was left to wonder if his mother would still be alive if he had taken the time to check up on her during the night, and give her the medicine she needed. He had sat down in the hospital waiting room for hours, his expression stoic, but the uncontrollable shaking of his hands gave away his grieve.
The rest of the day had gone entirely in a blur, and he vaguely recalled his uncle putting him in a car sometime during the late evening. Kenny was a man Levi hadn't grown up around, although occasionally they would see him for holidays. That was extent of their relationship; the man was practically a stranger to him.
"Go upstairs, kid, I need to make a few phone calls." He spoke roughly while pulling out his cell phone from his pocket. Levi could only nod in response, dragging his feet as he inhaled the scent of his mother's perfume that had lingered in the halls.
His feet had a mind of their own, seemingly, as they led him towards her bedroom. He had barely contained the sob that threatened to escape his lips, sliding down the side of the mattress until his bottom hit the carpeted floor. Levi let out a shuddering sigh, praying to whatever god that was up there that this was all some sort of sick nightmare he would wake up from sooner or later.
A tingling sensation began to spread across his forearm, and he had managed to shift his gaze from the stained floor, towards his skin numbly.
'Are you okay?'
Levi stared down blankly at the words that had been inked into his left forearm. He briefly recalled a conversation with his mother who had informed him once that if you were feeling particularly happy, sorrowful, or even angry, your soulmate would share those feelings, and be affected by them just as strongly as you were. He almost felt guilty for inflicting the agony he was currently experiencing on her.
He dragged his gaze upwards, spotting an ink pen sitting neatly on top of his mother's bedside table. He grabbed it, his hands shaking as he wrote back to her.
'Does it feel like I'm okay?'
'...It feels kind of like your entire world just fell apart.'
Levi stared down at her response for what could have been anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.
'Something like that.' He wrote back in haste, abandoning his neat handwriting for once. He simply didn't have the time nor energy to care.
'I'm here for you.'
He blinked once, staring down at the message. The tears that had once blurred his vision had returned with a vengeance, now trailing down his pale cheeks.
'No, you're not.'
But he sincerely wished she was.
'I am, though. Whenever you need someone to talk too, I'll be right here.'
And that was the day he had grown to know her as something more than the eccentric, irritable, nerd that wrote her school notes along the length of his arms. She was his soulmate, and even though they hadn't met or even exchanged names, he felt like she was one of the only people he could depend on in that moment.
Exactly one week later, she had once again made an effort to communicate with him. It had been a little after two in the morning, and Levi had been wide awake when he felt his arm prickling.
'Hey, are you awake?'
Levi let out a light sigh, reaching over to his bedside table and swiping up the pen he had left there for exactly this purpose.
'No.'
'Great! Somehow I knew you'd be.'
Levi furrowed his brow forward at her response, unsure how to continue the conversation without sounding utterly awkward and uneasy. "Fuck it." He muttered to himself, realizing that becoming a different person around his soulmate would get him nowhere fast. Admittedly, he wasn't the warmest person to be around, and if she didn't like that he was a dick, she'd stop talking to him. It was as simple as that.
'Is there something you want from me?'
'Yes, actually, I'd like to know your name.'
Her response had made Levi pause. She wanted to know his name? It wasn't an unusual thing to ask, but it seemed odd that she was requesting his name randomly without any prior conversation at two in the morning. He wondered if she had been thinking about it beforehand.
'Levi.'
'Just Levi? No last name?'
'I'm not going to give my full name out to a stranger, idiot.'
'Completely understandable, but I'm not exactly a stranger to you, I'm your soulmate...'
'Are you going to tell me your name now, or what?'
'Hange Zoe. See, now that wasn't so hard, was it?'
"Hange Zoe," Levi repeated her name slowly, trying it out on his tongue. It was unique, to say the least, and nothing at all what he had expected. He hoped he had pronounced it correctly. The raven-haired boy laid his head back against his pillow, his pale eyes wandering across the dozens of glow in the dark star stickers on his ceiling. It felt odd, he decided, putting a name to the person he had often referred to as 'Nerd' or 'Soulmate' or 'Shithead' when she had particularly annoyed him that day.
He had a feeling he'd continue to call her by these nicknames even despite knowing her real name. Old habits die hard, after all.
'Hey, Levi, when's your birthday?' Had been one of the many questions his soulmate had asked him throughout that week; as it turned out, she was insanely curious not only about how the world worked but about him, as well.
'December 25th...' He wrote back, pausing in the middle of eating to respond to her question. The sixteen-year-old didn't miss the look that Erwin and Mike shared across from him.
"Are you talking to your soulmate, Levi?" Erwin inquired, surprise evident in his tone. Levi could not blame him, as he was just as surprised that he was willingly communicating with the person who had annoyed him endlessly throughout his life.
Levi nodded his head once in confirmation, hoping they would get the hint and drop the topic entirely, but his friends lacked compassion and continued to tease him. "What made you change your mind? I thought you didn't want anything to do with her?" Mike asked as he took a bite out of his sandwich, his green eyes curious.
Truthfully, he hadn't known what had made him change his mind. He slowly came to the conclusion that it was because she had shown him kindness and cared about his wellbeing when he had been at his lowest point.
'Hey, where do you live?' She had asked no more than a few days after the last incident.
'New York.'
'Wow, that's a bit away.'
'I'm guessing you live somewhere really far?'
'California.'
Levi wasn't surprised to find out that she had lived across the country from him. Just because two people were soulmates didn't mean that they were guaranteed to meet each other, as cruel as that sounded. He knew a girl in his class that had a soulmate who lived in Australia. She claimed that she would never be able to see them because she was terrified of airplanes, and her soulmate's family was financially unstable.
'Gross.' Had been his response.
His wrist had begun to tingle no more than a few seconds later, and he watched with a narrowed gaze as random numbers began to appear on his skin. What was this? This couldn't be her -
'Hey, you should call me later.'
Levi had stared down at the number for an hour in contemplation before curiosity got the best of him and he reached for his phone.
"Hello?" Her voice had sounded, and he instantly appreciated the fact that it wasn't the nasal tone he had imagined it would be. Her voice was smooth, a bit deeper than what he was expecting, but it didn't irritate his ears.
He breathed in and out, his mind searching for the right words to say as she waited for his response. "You're a dick." He blurted out without thinking; he supposed it had come from his subconscious considering he had been wanting to say those words directly to her since of age of seven.
There was a stunned silence that followed, and Levi was almost certain that she had hung up the phone before she spoke again.
"...Is this Levi?" She inquired incredulously, it seemed the few seconds of stillness that followed confirmed her suspicions, and she let out a string full of laughter.
Levi raised a brow at her antics, left to inwardly wonder what was so damn funny to her. It hadn't been a joke, and if it had been, it wasn't a very funny one. "It's so weird to me that you're actually a real person." She exclaimed once she had calmed down. "Can you talk one more time, please?"
"No."
"Hm, you kind of sound like an extremely bored asshole." She quipped notedly. "Your voice is a bit deeper than I thought it'd be. How old are you? You're not twenty something, are you?"
"I'm sixteen, and my voice isn't that deep." He said flatly.
"Awesome, so am I!" Levi could hear the grin she was wearing in her voice. "Hey, can I ask you a question." Before Levi could respond, she continued. "Why did it take you twelve years to say something to me? I mean, if I'm remembering correctly, I used to draw on myself almost every day when I was little, why didn't you say anything before that?"
"My mom always told me that you'd eventually grow out of it, and I believed her. I got fed up of your shit eventually and asked you to stop shortly after that."
"Yeah, I know, but I still can't believe you never once drew on yourself as a kid. You must have been very boring, huh?"
"I never drew on myself because you always did it for me." He rolled his eyes, crossing his legs over each other absentmindedly. "And I hated being messy."
Hange remained quiet for a few seconds before she spoke once more. "I'm sorry about that, but it's kind of your fault too. I would've stopped much earlier if I knew you existed."
"Why did you draw on yourself so much anyway?" Levi found himself asking. When he was little he had always assumed it was because she had no one to talk to because his mother would write on paper whenever she wasn't busy or talking to anyone.
"I liked the look of it." She answered with missing a beat. "My uncle had a full sleeve of tattoos, so I guess it stemmed from there." She went on to explain.
Their conversation had ended not long after that as Hange's mother had been calling her inside to eat dinner. It left Levi to sit there in silence, replaying the words they had exchanged to one another over and over again in his mind.
Over six months had passed since their first phone call, and Levi had learned much more about her than he had originally anticipated. He learned that she was only a few months older than he was; her birthday was September 5th, and she had forced Levi to sing Happy Birthday to her - which he did, in the flattest tone he could manage. As he had predicted, she was a huge nerd, and she was extremely passionate about researching anything and everything; her curiosity knew no bounds.
And, most importantly, she was just as annoying as Levi predicted she would be.
As the weeks flew by, and they continued to talk for hours at a time over the phone, including text messaging, and occasionally writing on their skin, Levi found himself slowly growing an appreciation and an odd fondness for her.
She eventually sent a picture of herself to him, declaring that they were both inclined to know what each other looked like after a few months of consistent conversation.
The picture she had sent him was taken just a few seconds before, she had told him. Her hair was a chestnut brown that sat messily in an untidy ponytail, Levi's finger's itched to comb through her thick locks at the sight of it. Her complexion was tan, no doubt from the California sun she often bathed in, a thick pair of glasses sat perched on her hooked nose, and behind the smudged lens were a pair of doe-like sepia colored eyes that swam with happiness. He had stared down at the picture for more than he'd like to admit.
'Okay, now that you have a picture of me, it's only fair that you send one back!' She had written messily on his forearm.
'I never asked you for a picture.' He had pointed out, which was his usual response when she had continually begged him for one throughout the next few weeks. That changed, however, when Hange had been gifted a laptop Christmas morning, which had also come along with a brand new webcam. They had agreed to video chat later that evening.
Levi tried to not let himself feel nervous as their call begun to connect, the loading circle making him uneasy. "Ooooooh my gooood! Look at you!" She exclaimed as soon as her face appeared on his monitor. "I was picturing an older guy with scruff and thick eyebrows, but instead, you have a baby-face and chubby cheeks and look at that nose! You're so cute, Levi, I can't believe this!" She had gushed out in one breath, the widest smile he had ever seen settling on her lips.
"I'm gonna hang up." He threatened emptily, his eyes scanning over her appearance. They both knew that he wouldn't even dare.
She laughed breathlessly, the grin never leaving her face. "I don't think I'll ever let you hang up."
"What if I have to take a shit?" Levi wrinkled his brow together.
"Take me with you." She stated, her faux expression of seriousness crumbling as she struggled not to laugh as she spoke.
"You're so damn gross." He complained flatly.
"Oh, by the way! Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy birthday Dear Levi, Happy Birthday to you!" She sang loudly, seemingly not caring about the state of his fragile eardrums. "I really wish that I could have been with you today, I feel bad that you're spending your birthday alone. Maybe next year, when we'll both be eighteen and free to make any decisions we want to make."
Levi felt his fondness for his soulmate only grow as she continued to talk without any prompting from him. She had completely overwritten the fact that it had been Christmas Day, instead focusing on the fact that he would be spending his birthday alone. There were very few people who had remembered his birthday and brought importance to it; his mother, and Erwin were the only ones previously.
"My uncle visited us today. He smelled like old cottage cheese and cigars. He hugged me earlier and I'm pretty sure I'm going to smell like this for the rest of my life." She wrinkled her nose in distaste.
"Hange, what the fuck..."
Another year had passed by quickly, and despite Levi and Hange talking to each other every day for the past two years, they had yet to actually meet each other in person. Levi didn't have the proper funding to travel very far, and Hange's parents had been adamant about her traveling by herself. However, she had been preaching recently that since she had turned eighteen a few months ago, she was allowed to do whatever she pleased. Levi knew this meant she would go to college somewhere far away from her coddling parents just to spite them. Unfortunately, that could only mean further away from him as well.
'Hey, did you know that Human babies are 75% water at birth, a slightly higher water content than bananas and slightly less than fresh potatoes?'
Levi paused in the middle of toweling dry a glass, feeling the tingling sensation on his forearm begin to fade as her message inked clearly across his skin. He barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes once he had read it in full. They had barely talked in three days, and this was the first thing she had thought to say to him? He pointedly ignored her and carried on with his task.
She had claimed that she would be busy the entire week with family affairs, but Levi knew for a fact that she would usually find the time to send him a quick text or a spare five minutes out of her time to call him. Hange had been busy constantly lately, but that had never stopped her from communicating with him before.
He didn't bother looking up at the customer who had sat in front of the bar, choosing to place the glass on the rack and grab a clean towel to wipe down the bar with. A plastered old man had been consistently splashing his drink everywhere for the past three hours, and one woman had choked on her drink and spit up everywhere in the process. Life was a pain in the fucking ass, he thought irritably.
'No response? :(' She wrote on his forearm once again, and he glared down at the letters.
He threw down the towel and reached for the pen he had always kept in his back pocket with a soft sigh.
'I'm working. Leave me alone."
'Why so grumpy, Dear?'
He scowled down at the message, scribbling something back hurriedly as the customer droned out his order.
'The bar is a fucking mess, I've been working nonstop for six fucking hours, and on top of that, you keep covering my arms with ink.'
'I'm sorry.'
He knew that she was wasn't.
'Hey, when do you get off of work?'
He raised a thin eyebrow at the words on his palm, shooting a glance towards the clock placed above his head.
'Ten minutes. Why?'
'Nothing. I'm not busy at the moment and wanted to video chat.'
'I'll be home in half an hour.'
'I'll be waiting for you.'
He now had something to look forward too upon coming home.
Once he had stepped off the bus, he had begun to slowly make his way towards his home, a route he had become very familiar with considering he had been taking it for almost six months. He still resided in his childhood home, barely being able to pay the bills month after month, which was the reason he worked so many long shifts. It was getting to the point where he had been considering looking for a second job.
His uncle had disappeared shortly after he had gotten him a job and graduated high school, and Levi had not heard from him since then. He found himself wondering where the man could have gone, or why he had left in the first place. He couldn't be sure if the man was even alive at this point, or not, he hadn't left a single trace of himself anywhere.
He quickened his steady pace as his house came into view, eager to sit back and talk to his soulmate after a long work day. He stopped dead in his tracks, however, as he spotted a figure lounging along the stairs that led to his porch.
Upon further inspection, he froze entirely, his mind going rigid as he came to the realization that the woman he had hated up until the age of sixteen was sitting directly in front of his house. His soulmate, his partner, the nerd who adored talking about the things she was insanely passionate about - she was here. She was in front of him, in person, alive and breathing.
He walked numbly over to her with this thought in mind, his eyes taking in the high ponytail her untamed hair was in, for once combed and washed. "Are you stalking me now, Four Eyes?" He breathed out in disbelief.
She let out a loud laugh and immediately hopped up to her feet, before she pounced on him, her long arms enveloping around him in a tight grip, preventing him from breathing properly. "You're real." She let out a watery laugh after a few seconds of silence, her fingers coming up to tug at his hair, pulling his face closer to her shoulder.
Levi let himself be embraced for the first time in years, the feeling odd but not entirely uncomfortable. "How'd you get here?" He managed to ask once she had pulled away from him. He hoped that he wasn't hallucinating. He did have some questionable looking bread for breakfast this morning.
"I wanted to surprise you, so I flew down yesterday!" She revealed happily, moving her hands downwards in order to give a reassuring squeeze to his palms. "Well, are we just going to sit outside, or are you going to give me a tour of your house?" She looked towards him expectantly, amusement swimming in her warm eyes.
He nodded once, moving to lead her up the stairs and onto the porch. "You've lived here a long time, huh?" She observed, walking away from him as she moved towards the small faded lines along the siding of the house. She ran her fingers along the height chart, smirking as she turned towards him. "Looks like you stopped growing at the age of thirteen."
"Looks like your brain stopped developing at the age of seven," Levi responded easily as he moved to unlocked the front door, gesturing for her to walk in before him. "Get your ass in here, it's fucking freezing right now."
Hange skipped ahead of him and paused as she took in the small house, taking note of the worn down furniture he often complained about, as well the scratched wooden flooring. "Geez, you really are a clean freak." She quipped as her eyes scanned over the spotless living room.
"No. I just prefer living in a clean environment, unlike some people I know." He said flatly, his gaze unwavering from her.
She snorted in response to his words, taking a few steps towards him. The brunette reached her hands up to cup the side of his face, her palms cold against his cheeks. She stared down at him, her eyes heavily lidded before she spoke. "I really want to kiss you right now, can I?"
Levi nodded his head once, the movement barely visible. "Awesome!" She exclaimed happily, slowly leaning down before Levi pulled back with a lazy glare.
"You ruined it." He droned out.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She laughed airily, pulling his face back towards her own. He relented easily, reaching up to cautiously capture her lips with his own before she could get the chance to.
His mother had told him years ago that when two soulmates shared a kiss for the first time it felt like a piece of you that you weren't even aware you never had was found and put in place. Levi deemed that explanation bullshit now that he had gotten to experience it firsthand. It certainly felt exhilarating, however, like a burst of energy that had begun at the soles of his feet and sprung up throughout his entire body, like a can of soda being opened after being shaken beforehand.
Hange tilted his head back further, pressing harder against his lips eagerly as she deepened the kiss, her fingers brushing against the fine locks of his hair. Levi broke apart from her a moment later, feeling like the air had been knocked entirely out of his lungs. "Whoa." Hange breathed out in awe. "I should write that down and ask other pairs of soulmates to compare what they had felt when they first kissed. I'm really curious to know if everyone has the same reaction or if it differs for each pair of soulmates?"
"You can do that after you eat and take a bath," Levi stated in a softer tone, brushing a hand along the small of her back as he guided her towards the kitchen.
Hange let a pout grace her lips but otherwise didn't protest. She glued her feet to the floor and turned around to face him. "Admittedly, this probably isn't the most appropriate time to say this, but -"
"Wait -"
"I've been waiting a year and a half to tell you this and now that I'm finally in front of you -"
"Can you wai -"
"Levi, shush. I'm trying to say something important!" She huffed out, narrowing her brown eyes slightly at him in annoyance.
"I know, you idio -"
"I love you!" She interrupted him quickly, her declaration loud and enough to quiet Levi instantly.
"You have the most unconventional timing." He said while crossing his arms.
"We have an unconventional relationship - I mean, you grew up hating my guts." She pointed out in amusement, moving to lay a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay if you don't say it back, I just wanted you to know -"
Levi moved to peck her lips quickly, before squeezing her hand. "Sit, I'll make you something to eat."
Hange smiled down at her soulmate fondly, letting go of his hand and sitting down at the table. "Okay." She agreed whole-heartedly, watching as he made his way over to the fridge.
Levi snuck a glance at her while she turned away for a moment, remembering how at one point in his life the woman that had provided comfort and shown genuine care for him had been his biggest enemy. It was almost surreal to think about, and he almost regretted not reaching out to her sooner, but he knew that things happened the way they did for a reason.
And, ironically on top of that, despite all of his complaining about Hange's drawings littering his arms, he was now contemplating getting a tattoo sleeve or two.