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Gray is all she’s ever known.
Historia hates the color. After 22 years, she has given up hope on finding her soulmate. As a teenager her friends found their soulmates, most of them pairing off once they were introduced to a world of color. As an adult, she’s made peace with the lack of color, accepting the dull shade. It at least meant she has a soulmate out there, somewhere.
She wonders what her eyes look like.
Mikasa tells her that her eyes are the same as the sky on a sunny day. After Mikasa met Annie, her entire personality shifted; she’s a little happier, her eyes a little softer, and she’s in love now. She paints again with a renewed passion, creating landscapes and scenery that Historia wishes she can appreciate fully. She can’t, though, instead dreaming to know the array of colors she sees Mikasa work into her pieces. Even Eren found Jean, refusing to admit that they were soulmates at first, but eventually he came around. Historia can see how they look at each other when the other isn’t looking.
It just isn’t fair. Her heart aches with envy, her chest tight with a longing that isn’t fulfilled.
She settles for her sketches in graphite and gray ink, bringing life to artwork but holding back from dabbling in colors that she’ll never know.
Levi sees through a lens of blue.
Ever since he’s seen the sky, he’s never doubted the color that he sees is what it actually is.
After Hange met Moblit, they helped Levi determine exactly what color it is he can see. They discovered that he sees a light shade of blue, similar to the summer sky. He never really thought much else of the color he sees, only knowing that it’s all he’s ever seen. He does, however, treasure the color like an old friend.
He wonders what his eyes look like.
Hange tells him that his eyes are gray, like a storm cloud. He thinks that there’s an odd poetic irony in that, considering how chaotic his life has been in his 32 years of living. His family’s past haunting him, and his own demons chasing him, cumulating in his aversion to people in general. A storm cloud of emotions are always following him. Poetic irony etches in his mind as Hange spoke to him about the way storms look with color introduced in their view.
Then again, he isn’t a poet.
After two degrees, he’s a librarian. It’s quiet, it’s steady, and it’s surprisingly well paying. He dedicates his life to his job, convinced that he won’t meet his soulmate anytime soon; so much of his life has passed already. He’s content if he never knew anything else if it means his soulmate is happy, wherever they are.
They both are drawn to the park that day. There’s a garden there, filled with many flowers and plants with different fruits, all in bloom. Anyone who can see color can marvel in the assortment, pastels and deep colors alike presented by the various flora.
Levi comes for the solitude, his scattered mind craving an escape from a long work day. Historia seeks shelter from the pitying eyes of her friends, her loneliness yearning for the company of another, even if it’s from a stranger walking in the garden.
They start at opposite entrances of the garden, taking their time working through the different displays. Some flowers are just budding, others are in full bloom. The setting sun shines over the tops of the trees, casting the garden halfway in shade. Historia’s monochromatic vision is disheartening as she dreams of what it must feel like to see the true beauty of all the life around her. Levi’s attention to the other details keeps him moving slowly, appreciating the velvet touch of some petals, and noticing how others are closed in the shade.
They both register that the other is there, wandering.
Historia looks first. She watches him look up at a tree branch with flowers on the branches beginning to open their buds, revealing their delicate centers. She can see his profile, sharp and defined, and his hair is dark. He’s wearing a plain short sleeve shirt, and she notices from afar how defined the muscles in his arms are. He’s not incredibly built, but his lithe frame carries toned muscle. He’s devilishly handsome in his stoicism, looking deep in thought as he stands still. She can see that his skin is pale, and if he posed in the right way, she could mistake him for a marble statue.
When Levi turns his head, he sees her. She’s hiding her face amongst a bush of peonies, her eyes out of his line of sight. He notices that her hair is light and her skin fair, and her dress ended halfway down her thighs, exposing enticing looking skin. Her dress loosely hugged her figure, making Levi wonder about what curves lay hidden beneath. Even in the setting sun, her hair shines and makes her look like she belongs in the garden, as lovely as the flowers around her.
They both keep missing glances of each other, never quite catching the other person’s eye.
She leaves first. His stomach drops when she does, and he feels like a part of him leaves with her.
Their dance in the garden becomes a regular, weekly occurrence.
They never make eye contact, but it’s not for a shy lack of trying. Some flowers bloom and some wilt, petals falling to the ground with gentle breezes. Historia learns to take her time as she wanders through the garden, trying to slow her pace to his, yet she always is the one leaving first. Levi lingers, his chest tightening when she walks away. He wishes he could find his voice and speak to her, ask her why she’s there every week.
He wants to ask her why he feels so drawn to her.
When she leaves one uneventful week, her long hair flows behind her, gentle curls bouncing with each step.
“Why do you keep bringing me back here?” he asks to the air where she stood.
The flowers lean toward him in response as the wind picks up, whipping his hair away from his face.
Hange and Erwin take Levi out to lunch the following week. It’s the same day, and he knows that he’ll see that girl in the garden again, and he already is braced for the probability that he won’t talk to her and won’t even make eye contact.
He’s not quite sure what he’s hoping for anymore.
“Levi.”
Erwin’s deep voice pulls him from his reverie of thoughts.
“Sorry?”
“You spaced out.” Erwin’s expression softens sympathetically as he notices how slumped Levi’s shoulders are. He reaches out, placing a large but kind hand on his forearm. Hange coos, propping up their chin in their hands, leaning forward with their elbows on the table. Erwin speaks up before Hange does. “Did you meet someone?”
Levi furrows his brows together. “No.” He wrings his hands nervously, adding in a quiet voice, “You know I would tell you guys.”
“We know, Levi,” Hange smiles fondly at him. “You’ll find them soon.”
Levi glares at his hands, wishing he could bury his head in the ground instead of having this conversation. After a few moments, he sighs in defeat; they care. They really do. He should allow them both to care instead of shutting them out.
So he tries to keep himself open, raising his gaze to meet Hange’s. Their eyes are a medium shade, supposedly a color called brown. He wonders what that will look like to him. “What’s it like?”
Hange’s whole face brightens, genuine excitement radiating from them. “It’s simply magical.”
Historia’s sketches litter her room as she sorts through her portfolio earlier that same day.
Her core is aching, a deep-seated longing willing her to go to the garden later on. She wonders if that same man will be there, if he will pass her by like he always does, and if she’ll get to catch his eye. He always looks so serious and unimpressed by the flowers and plants, yet he returns without fail every week.
She picks up a page filled with small drawings of different flowers, some with large buds, others with many small petals. Another page has leaves drawn over and over again like an autumn floor. A page out of reach is of the sky, her weak attempts at clouds filling the page. One that catches her eye makes her breath hitch and her chest ache with desire. She sets down the page in her hand to pick up that one she can’t look away from, holding it gingerly, like it’s fragile.
She drew him.
It’s how she remembers him from the first day she saw him.
She forgot that she drew him, but she could never forget how he looked. She was taken by the sight of him and wondered if he was carved from stone.
This doesn’t go in her portfolio, but she keeps it hidden away for herself. She may never find her soulmate but she can treasure this idea of a person who she’ll never know.
She’s in another dress that reaches her knees, flowing and loose. He’s wearing a button up shirt that he wore to work, slightly creased from wearing it all day. They look exceptionally ordinary amidst beautiful life, both seeing different shades of color and carrying different perspectives. The garden is their escape from reality, drawn by the pull in their hearts.
They begin at opposite ends again, slowly working toward one another. Historia touches a flower’s petals, marveling at how soft it is. Levi leans in close to one to smell the light fragrance of another, sweet and floral. Levi looks up at the sky, grounding himself for a moment. The color he sees is real, and this soothes his racing heart a little. Historia looks at her feet and she messes with the hem of her dress, her nerves beginning to fray. That yearning returns, urging her to step toward the man in the garden.
She does.
His head snaps in her direction, his eyes tracing over her figure. She takes a deep breath and raises her eyes to meet his.
At last, they do.
Sky blue met stormy gray.
A mix of emotions pass through them both. His normally unexpressive face reveals his swirling thoughts, and her eyes become glossy with fresh tears. Her world became alight with color. His shirt is darker than his eyes, much like his hair. His sharp gray eyes stand out against his pale skin, and she notices that there’s light shadows under his eyes, exposing an exhaustion he probably doesn’t speak of. He looks tightly wound with tension as he stares at her. He wish he had a name for every color he could see. Her face is flushed, a tender color dusting her cheeks. He can’t get over her eyes—her light blue eyes were glittering, and the color that once filled his world became beautiful to him.
It was several moments before either of them spoke to each other, too overwhelmed with the new colors in their vision to acknowledge the obvious.
They are soulmates.
She smiles at him, and he takes a step closer to her at this gesture until they are arm’s length apart. Up close there’s freckles visible across her cheeks and nose, a little darker than her already fair skin tone. Her eyes look like gems as she gazes up at him; he can’t help but grin a little when he realizes standing close to her that she’s shorter than him.
She feels her heart race in her chest as she thinks about how stunning the color gray is while looking at his eyes. “I’m Historia.”
He remembers Hange’s words from earlier that day. It’s simply magical. “My name is Levi.”
“You have really lovely eyes,” she murmurs, and he lets out a breathy laugh.
“So do you.”
When she smiles at him, she smiles like the sun, the sky reflecting in her eyes.