Work Text:
Last Words Of A Shooting Star
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The clinking sounds of glass and plates that gush along with mixing of sobs, giggling and heavy stomps, vibrations of children playing on the wooden floor after their early breakfast. The warmth from his favourite tea cup that helps his body to regulate the heat from another morning of shivers.
Apart from this routine, he got used to the uttering sounds of children. It changes from small mumbling to unending weeping until he finally hears their first word, same as with the sounds that weren’t sharp and clear as before. He was just relaying if that person would like to talk to him as near as possible or else he couldn’t quite hear them at all.
One time, while he was looking at the mirror and fixing his white hair, he noticed. Gabi’s first child standing at the ajar and innocently gawking at his face. The little brunette climbs up into his wheelchair. His left hand was guiding its small body from falling, but he grunts a little as she heavily jumps on his lap and faces him. Her small two hands slap his cheeks and pull away his skin. Levi lets the child play with his cheeks.
“Saggy…” He gave her a frowned expression, but she didn’t seem to care about it and giggling from whatever she was doing on his face. Her little finger travels along upon his scarred “Ouchie?”. He simply gave a nod at the innocent child. The little brunette gently kissed on his scar.
“Oh, still ouchie?” The man shakes his head as his answer. She raised her two hands up and jumped away from his lap.
“Yey! Mama! Gramps is okay now!”
As Levi absentmindedly touches his scars. Another surge of waves from the ocean has merged in, letting the waves engulf him until he felt so drown. It was not the water that caused him to drown— it was the memories. The waves of memories as he prefers to let himself indulge its strong current. Amidst of engulfing, a random familiar sound of mumble chatter came from somewhere as he swam further searching for its source, until it became more distinct - it was Her.
“Ah, Four Eyes.”
Until another powerful current takes him. He closes his eyes as the preparation for another shard. The clement hands suturing his defamed structures while indulging her soft and heedful hands as he felt it on his skin.
“I think, maybe..” A long silence followed by a heavy sigh escapes her. “..I’d rather the two of us live here. Right Levi?
While her tone was complaining, he had turned it into one of his favourite music. Levi couldn’t let it go. The brunette commander has a deep-voice yet too soft. It sounds too concerned that she might hear from the man. Levi was so perturbed that one day that voices he used to adore would be taken away from him. He gave himself an assurance..
He wouldn’t let it happen.
Levi was aware of aging. As he moves his frame, the amount of ache in every part of his body emerges even though he doesn’t care about it. He had got used to it as the former captain.
But this time, one thing he shouldn’t take away from himself.
“G-Gabi, have you seen my tea cup? I think I haven’t washed it yet.”
The brunette gave her a weird look. As far as she knows Levi just washed and put it on his dish cabinet an hour ago. Gabi was aware how clean-freak this man could be and delicate in organizing his own belongings. Even how brittle his body now, even though he could still move around with his crane that was giving him support. Gabi couldn't stop this man for how many times his physicians had told him.
“You just washed it, an hour ago. Have you forgotten?” The brunette just stood at the kitchen, wiping off all the remaining moisture from utensils. She felt suspicious about Levi’s actions. He has become more irritated even at the simple thing, his mood has become fluctuating and more distant from her children than unusual and like what she has observed. This was way more different from what usual.
“No, I haven't, I just left it here an hour ago.” He growls as he roams the living area near the window, where he spends most of his time. The brittle man walked ploddingly while holding his crane as his temporary support. He keeps coming back and forth from the areas where he has already looked for and continues to grumble about it..
“Did I really wash it already?” Gabi met the man’s grey eye. They both stared at each other as they were trying to find the one missing part of the puzzle. The brunette chuckled, trying to disregard her thoughts about the man’s unusual actions.
“You’re really getting old, runts.”, she gave him a usual skit.
The sunbeam strikes on his skin along with its heat; it casts a rosy hue across the morning sky. The golden fingers of sunlight reflect on his wooden floor, letting the light scattered inside of his room. As the sunlight poured, his muzzy eye concentrated with the small orbs of dust floating around, along with the sunbeam.
”This room is so filthy again….” He grunted vexingly.
He was still lying on his bed, letting his eye travel along with the orbs until it reached the old faded portrait that has been hanging at the wall for ages.
Flegel Reese, back home in Paradis, gave it to him as a gift when he celebrated his birthday, which he thought little of. The gift was the familiar sketch by her erstwhile squad vice captain. The almost faded black lines formed the figure of a familiar structure of a woman that he worked with for a decade.
She was wearing her usual battle google gear along with rubber strips that attached around her messy hair, and usual brunette ponytail hair. A buttoned polo shirt along with a deluxe scout regiment cloak. He put it on the picture frame to protect from its fading out.
At that moment, he lost in track as he struggled to remember every moment with her, from the day he almost stabbed her during their first met with Isabel and Farlan, as he suspected at first, she was part of those people infiltrating their actions and the other glimpse of significant moments with her.
Levi always lets those hundreds of vivid memories dancing along through his head and has turned their voices into an opera.
But this time. He couldn’t do it.
He was sure, those memories were vivid. It was his routine, until he memorised those moments, but this time was peculiar. He felt it was indeed that peculiar to himself. The flash of images has become deteriorated, blurry face, and voices until he drifted away into the blankness. The man couldn’t retrieve those memories.
Levi lifted from his back. His hands massages his temples as if he has difficulties and lets it crawl around on his head, pulling every thick strand of his white hair, struggling to clear off those bleary images until he gradually sees the facial structures of his former comrade. He gasps furiously as he feels terrified of losing it.
” Erwin, Mike, Nanaba, Moblit…”, he utters as the beam of familiar figures has emerged, while his mind is swiping all the familiar images inside of his head.
“…Han-?”
Levi lifted his head to stare back at the old portrait. He couldn’t collect all the letters. Her voice. The way she cackles. He doesn’t want to forget. His fragile hands continuously travelled through on his head, squishing it until he was able to track that name.
“No, no. Don’t you ever forget about her.”
When the flash of memories becomes more visible. He saw his left fist upon her chest. He stares on the cemented floor of Odiha, avoiding those last glimmering eyes, which he only imagined. The final cackle at him as she drifted away to kill off those colossal titans.
Both of them knew what they had offered to each other during that time.
The thoughts of regret stab him intensely that he didn’t let himself to see those hazelnut eyes for the last time. He knows it to himself. He had let her go, but he couldn’t let it go even before the words of pleading didn't work anymore. Hange fully accepted her own fate, but until this now, Levi still couldn’t accept it.
“Her name is Hange Zoe. You bastard…” He gasps after the moment of assurance. “It’s Her. I’ve always been.”
Onyankopon stood at the door. Meanwhile, Gabi and Falco knock.. The couple persuades the man who hardly declined their offer of accompanying him again to the hospital. The man inside of his room has started acting differently as a concern of Onyankopon.
When the words from the couple wouldn’t work anymore. The dark-haired man excuses the couple and gasps some air before he yells at the door.
” Levi, I know. You don’t want to forget about them..” The man cleared his throat, “ and Hange.”
Onyankopon gave another knock. A long silence filled between the two. The man finally uttered. “Am I right?” He was supposed to give another attempt to knock, but it was followed by opening his door. As expected, a darker, glaring grey eye met the man.
” Oh, finally need my help?” The dark-haired man chuckles at him as usual.
The physician suspected. Levi has had an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. He was expecting it and ready for it but one thing, that part of him making him apprehensive and he absolutely doesn’t like it. This condition would eventually take these precious vivid memories of that he has been holding on -
The swaying of her brunette hair dancing along through the air, her obstreperous behaviour as she fascinated about new things, her annoying skits, her irritating cackles, her fruity yet loquacious voice, her non-stop chatter about her unique profound inventions.. it was.. It was all about her. Those scintillate memories only had left for him.
Levi wouldn’t let it take away from him.
The man was exasperating, staring at those floating orbs of dust inside of his room. Levi already has a slightly blurry eye, but that dust irritates him every morning once he opens his eye. The small vibrations of stomping on the wooden floor rushes toward his room.
” Hey! Gramps! Here’s the broom, let us clean now!” The two children were panting when they came to his room. “I told you already. No running down the hall” Levi snorted at the children. The three brunettes ignored his grumbled, and they cleaned.
He let the children do their job on cleaning. The man slowly took a seat back in his wheelchair while his hands guided his knee, silently watching them yelling and annoying at each other. His mind slowly drifted into another familiar place as the glimpse of moving figures gradually changed and found himself back with his former squad.
His mind drifted as he walked on the cemented floor down the hall. It was the old castle where the former Head Quarter of the Survey Corps was located, where he had given his squad the task to clean the entire area. The mumbling voices of the teenagers having a quarrel inside of one room.
“Hey focus! We gotta finish cleaning before the Captain gets back!”. The light ash-brown haired teenager barks at his comrades to finish their cleaning.
“Keep your mouth zip, Horse-face and just clean it up.” The other teenager yelled back at him.
Levi opens the door. He has seen the young teenagers squabble at each other. The youngster stares at him as he walks in.
“What’s this commotion about?”
A silence filled the room while the other group of teenagers prevented Sasha from eating the bread away from her. Eren slammed his palm on his face when Levi found out how still unclean the under part of the wooden table. While the others are wiping the glass window to remove all the accumulated dust.
The mixing smiles and innocent faces of the young soldiers he had used to work and fight with. As he didn’t expect, everything has turned out into a night of terrors. He wanted to satiate more with those moments. His mind asking for more just to hear their distinct voices.
Amidst of reminiscence. The howl of the child made him back into physical existence. The pony-tailed brunette holding her bottom showed the child had fallen on the ground.
He holds on to his crane and saunters toward the whipping child. “What happened?” Her elder brother pointed to the top part of the empty shelves.
The elder brother anxiously walks towards him, “Sh-she climbs up there and then tries to get this.” He gave him the thick journal covered with black leather.
The man removes the dust that had accumulated on the leather. He opens it and he finds nothing yet written inside.
”I’m going to clean up the rest. Help your mother in the kitchen. Thank you for your help.” He gave them a pat on their head and the two brunettes went out of his room.
As he stares at the blank leather journal. A stream of consciousness as he holds the journal, ideas are floating around and when he tries to pinpoint inside of his mind.. until one idea pops out inside of his mind.
“I’m going to write about them.”
He wasn’t a skillful writer, or even good at using words, yet he turns all of his significant memories with his fallen comrades and most especially with ... her, into thousands of words.
The clinking of glasses and plates along with indistinct chatters of children ordering each other and redolence of frying raw meat, the thuds of wiped plates and glasses on the table. The vibrations of various footsteps onto the floor.
At the dark side of the living room, the man stares at the window as the dull orange gold that stretches far and wide; he awaits for the large golden orb to descend among the line vast of rice fields. The man came along with the birds to bid their goodbyes to the sunlight, awaiting it coming back for another daylight.
Until that day came, Gabi was making his bed. Levi has become more taciturn, as he prefers to keep that silence to himself. The brunette accepted reality. The doomed inside of her heart has begun.
The brunette has overheard a question she would expect, but still disquiet to hear it from his mouth.
“What is her name?”
He pointed out the old faded portrait of the 14th Commander of the Survey Corps. Gabi allows her to absorb what she just perceived. She held her lips, keeping herself to produce a whimper sound, letting all the tears rolling upon her cheeks.
It started to happen. She has no control over it..
”You always told me you don’t want to forget her. I guess it’s my time to read this to you” She held the journal that has been neatly kept inside of his cabinet.
The man continues to gaze at the windows, letting his mind travel along into nothingness, barely crawling and his mind still seeking for another vivid memory to appear but he failed miserably to retrieve it all.
She promised it to the man, retelling their stories to him from the beginning of everything. Even he wasn’t able to keep it from inside of his head anymore. However, she would just do it. For him. And for her.
For both of them.
While busily folding their clothes in the living room. Gabi always finds Levi writing every single day at the window, watching those birds freely flying around, same as the freedom they’d fought for so long.
The brunette had attempted to invade the man for whatever he was doing. The man gave her a death glare, Gabi just smiled at him and left him alone, but as soon as she turned her back, the man uttered a word.
“Someday.”
And when that “someday” happened. The man approached Gabi, rolling in his wheelchair, while the echoes of the chirping of the birds that travelled around outside, along with the chatter and laughter of playing children.
The man stops at her front, meeting his melancholy left eye and conditioning his mind to utter something before everything was too late.
”I have a favour.” Levi stares on his lap while unconsciously rubbing his thumbs against the black leather cover of his journal while on his left hand he was fidgeting with his pen.
A long silence filled across the living room while the indistinct chatter and laughter of her children continues outside. The brunette’s eyes become dilated, followed by what she heard from the statement of the man.
“Gabi,” he leaned forward and rested his elbow on his lap. “When the day has come that I can't remember everything or everyone..”
Levi put his palm on his face, rubbing it as he snuffled against it. “Please don’t let me forget about them.” The man leaned back in his wheelchair and produced a small gasp. “The survey corps, Erwin, Nanaba, Miche and Everyone…”
He keeps his mouth close for a while trying to find his energy to say next “… and most especially about her .”
The man laid his eye on the brunette as he pleaded. Even though Levi knows it to himself that she wouldn’t let it happen.
“That’s why you keep writing about them.” Gabi gave the man archaic smiles attempting to conceal the awkwardness.
“I don’t want to forget her, that goddamn four eyes. Let me always remember her. Read this to me repeatedly until I remember it again..” he breathes heavily as he quickly sputters the words with an attempt to hide the sounds of sobs from the brunette along with his words, yet he fails to hide those tears.
“Again and again because my brain is just rotting as hell but this..” he pointed his left fist at his chest, feeling its skin to feel the rhythm of his heartbeat giving the brunette and assurance. “.. this is still beating for her. She was still here.”
While the man is still holding his fist at his chest, the small and soft hand of the brunette moves under his hands, squeezing it.
“I won’t let you forget about her. I promise.”
The sea of pale orange skies above it being devoured by the billion blinking eyes on the blanket of nighttime and a variety of sounds of night creatures have emerged amid tranquillity.
“Oi, I’m asking you again, what is her name?.”
The man weakly raised his hands to point out the faded lines of portrait that had been hanging there for decades. Gabi stares at the man, effortlessly making a curve line on her lips, admiring the man’s eagerness to always remember her name. Everything about her.
“Her name is Hange Zoë” Her mouth happily bubbled the late commander’s name and cleared up her throat “.. Commander Hange Zoë.”
Gabi turns to the next page of his journal. “..She was the 14th Commander of the Survey Corps and...” She keeps her tone cheerful as she reads each and every word. “...you wrote here that she was really fascinated about things like Thund-”
“Why?” The man put his hands on his chest, while staring at the blankness. “Did I let her go?”
Gabi stares back at him, absorbing another question, scanning her back in his journal and flipping throughout the pages, until she finally finds it.
” You wrote here, because she asked you to let her go to kill off the Colossal Titans..” The harshness of those words stab Gabi slowly as she reads it. “..but your plea didn’t work but instead you put your left fist on her chest and you said that-.”
“What is her name?”
Gabi stares on her lap where his journal laid. She let the heavy rocks rolling upon her chest finally let her heart feel defeated. It wouldn’t work anymore.
” What is her name?” The man moves his head, randomly uttering questions yet still waiting for another answer that he would eventually fail to recall.
She stood on his front and down on her knees facing the man, thoroughly lost in oblivion, keep uttering questions, random names, nicknames, military terms and the rest of what was unfamiliar to her. Everything he said was bemusing for her. That was it.
He lost everything.
” What was her last word?
Again the brunette turns her brown eyes back on the journal searching for the answer, for the certain question but fails to find nothing. She holds her chest and breathes heavily, preparing herself to deliver something to the man.
“Maybe it’s time now. You really did your very best of remembering her. That’s enough to say how much you loved her. I fully understand it, she does. I believed.”
Her soft hands travel along to the man’s cheeks. “You always told me, you don’t want to forget her.” She focuses on his left eye and expects to see its gloom, but it was unexpectedly strange. She saw the billions of stars of the night reflecting on his remaining grey eye, even his mind lost into the amid of nothingness.
Levi jumps a little, as if he found something on those shiny and glittering stars. “The stars!” He pointed out the stars outside of his windows. The confusion in the brunette’s face towards the man’s peculiar actions.
“Th… the stars hear it. But those stars don’t let me hear it.” He put his two hands on his ears. The brunette doesn't understand what the man’s trying to say, but only Levi knows it…
Amid of nothingness, his unbalanced vision deliberately focuses on the small indefinite shining and flickering white dots upon the blanket of darkness under the tall trees. Various sounds of insects that syncs along with the small thumping on his chest, it gradually louder, giving him an assurance of his life. The different torment screaming throughout his entire body. He felt the soft cloth of bandages surrounding his head ‘til his right eye. Beneath of it, the injuries from the result of explosions of Thunder Spear.
The realisation of disappointment to execute the filthy monkey has come to him. He lethargically holds his right fist out of disgruntled, but as soon as he lifts it, his left eye sees the bleary, familiar figure lying on the grass from the distance that gives it enough light from the warmth of the bonfire.
She was wearing a white collar shirt. Her messy brunette hair lying on the grass, not minding its dirt. He notices the mumbling sounds from it until it becomes clear. He was glad that his ear was not affected after the explosion.
“Ahhhh! Can I just let myself become selfish for a while now?” She vigorously stomps her two feet on the ground and puts her palms on her face out of frustration.
She cackles, not minding the man behind her. Hange letting herself be freed from everything for a while. The billions of stars under her right eye allow her inner peace while her heart holds the wary eye towards the dying man behind her. Levi imitates the woman, letting himself also swim across the vast of twinkling dots until one statement that made the stars shine more among the vast of tranquillity.
“Levi. I’ve always been in lov-” The woman slammed her palm drastically on her face and she guffawed at the thought she has been holding for so long.
“...Ahhhh shorty! You are so! Uhm.” She huffs. “…Levi, just don’t die on me, please?”
With those words. Hange let the stars listen to it. She put her right hand on her chest, trying to feel the rhythm of her heart beating faster along with the heat on her cheeks, out of embarrassment for the attempt of confession.
She slowly lets her hands off her face, stares back at the billion glimmering orbs across the boundless darkness. In every direction, she let her thoughts swim into the universe. Between those thousands of concerns, her right eye opened the ideas of the possibilities.
As soon as she saw one distinct star move across the darkness, leaving it in the form of one straight line. Her lips curved, and it reflected on her right brown eye.
“Maybe, I will just let the shooting stars hear it from me…” She smiles at those indefinite and she closes her smile while her lips murmuring the words that Levi couldn’t hear. “.. because someday I believe it will reach you.”
"I will choose you now and everyday"
.. and it reaches him.
He came back into the vastness of darkness, along with the stars that slowly weakened its shine and glimmering, that ceased along with those words that he kept it for so long.
It always reaches him.
Fin.