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Hange woke with a start. She was falling, weightless and cold. A dull ache pulsed through her head, giving her the feeling as though the slightest agitation would be enough to crack it into two. Her nostrils and mouth felt constricted and she found herself unable to breathe. Her lungs came to life, spluttering and hacking up liquid. What was happening to her? She thrashed wildly, trying to grab onto some anchor before she was swept away. Before she could get her bearings, a gallon of icy cold water came crashing down on her head, soaking her to the bone and sending shivers up her spine.
“Oi, idiot.” said a familiar voice. “Stop flailing around. You’re making a damn mess.”
Hange blinked rapidly. Blindly groping, she managed to grab onto something with one hand as she rubbed the water out of her eyes with her other. Gradually, she took in her surroundings.
She wasn’t falling, but in a tub in the bathing room. She looked down and found herself fully clothed and soaking wet. She looked up only to see Levi with another bucket of frigid water at the ready.
“Hey! Stop it!” she protested, pushing the bucket away. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem? Your problem is that I could smell you all the way from the damn barracks.” Levi’s face was hidden behind a washcloth, but the furrow between his eyes laid plain his disgust. “You’ve been messing with those captured Titans for almost a week straight. You stink.”
Hange’s eyes widened with panic. “Sonny and Bean! Are they okay? I have to go see them!” As she scrambled to climb out of the tub, Levi grabbed her by the jaw, his gaze boring into hers.
“Hey… shitty four-eyes. The way you were acting around those titans, the recruits were more scared of you than them. I had to knock you out to drag you in here, and I won’t hesitate to do it again. Wash yourself… Now.”
Hange held his glare defiantly for a few moments, before finally pouting and slipping back into the tub. “But I want to go talk to Sonny and Bean!” She splashed the water with kicks as a child might. “We were making real progress! I bet they’re so lonely without me. Let me go see them!”
Levi stared at her, an indescribable emotion within his eyes. Finally he sighed, standing up and tossing a washcloth in her direction. “Just wash yourself. It’ll take a few minutes at most. Unless you want me to give you another ice bath?”
Hange shook her head furiously before sinking lower into the tub, depressed. “What does it matter anyways? I just want to learn more about the titans…” Hange sighed as she began to scrub her forearms half heartedly.
Levi stopped in the doorway of the bathing room. A look of contemplation settled on his face, his mouth opening and then closing, as though he had something to say but then promptly reconsidered. His eyes darted back and forth, as though he were carefully searching for an answer.
Finally, he seemed to find an sufficient one. “Hange… if you’re not clean… people will look down on you. They won’t be able to see past your appearance. If you aren’t clean, then people won’t care about what you have to say... about Titans. That’s the way the world is.”
Hange blinked, turning to stare at Levi, whose back was taut and neck stiff. She smiled at him before returning to scrubbing her arms with renewed vigor. “Hah! I know that, obviously. Thanks, Levi. But don’t worry. I’d listen to you even if you were drenched in Titan blood.”
“Tch. Leave me out of your perverted Titan fantasies.”