Archive of Our Own

“Levi Ackerman and Hange Zoe…”

The teacher was looking through what could have been the class list. No, it definitely was a class list. They were in a parent teacher meeting, what else could it be.

With the way she was holding it though, it was difficult for Levi to sneak a peek at its contents. Eventually, he gave up and let his mind wander, his eyes soon followed. He spared a glance at Hange to see she had cocked her head just a little bit to the side. She was definitely as curious if not more curious about the contents of the piles of paper.

The teacher, Ms. Wilde had a smile on her face and it had been that way since Luke had started school. Her expression then wasn't too far from her usual smile but her eyes were too wide, her mouth too flat of a line especially when she bit her lips. And when she ran her eyes over documents, she seemed…. Stiff.

Uncomfortable? DIsturbed maybe? Levi was expecting the worst.

“Commander Hange Zoe and Retired Captain Levi Ackerman…” Ms. Wilde corrected, clearing her throat.

“No need for any formalities. I mean you have been taking care of our son…” Hange held one hand out for a hand shake, obviously trying to ease the tension in the room.

“Yes, he’s a pleasant kid,” Ms. Wilde added, nodding her head. The discomfort on her face still did not waver.

He is a pleasant kid. Levi was with that kid 24/7. He brought the kid to school and back home, he cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner and he taught him all chores possible at the ripe age of two. Levi was almost certain that along with it, he had taught the kid basic manners.

Levi had to admit though, he himself wasn’t the most diplomatic either. The kid though was glaringly much nicer than Levi was and on top of that, he had picked up some of his other quirks from Hange. The boy didn’t have to be exceptional though. At the least, Luke should have been a functioning member of the kindergarten.

Not enough to make a teacher squirm as she spoke about him. Right?

Most days… And as Levi reflected on it, he started to dig deeper into the past few years, the almost negligible cracks in between their routine. Was there anything he failed to teach Luke? Hange could have been asking the same thing, she looked at Levi questioningly.

Ms. Wilde cleared her throat and in her own way, she had broken some of the residual tension. “Apologies… I’ve been stalling.” She turned to Hange. “Commander Zoe…”

“Retired… Commander Zoe,” Hange corrected.

Was Hange stalling? Or just deliberately looking for a way to alleviate whatever tension had blanketed the room. Hange’s own corrections though were only delaying the inevitable, stretching the tension for longer than necessary.

“I wanted to talk to you about your son," Ms. Wilde started.

No shit. “Go on….” Levi said softly, not loud enough for her maybe. He subtly moved his hands in some signal to continue, as if that could have been communication enough.

Ms. Wilde stared for a bit longer and when Levi squinted, focusing on the paper underneath, he could tell it was a drawing, the crayon ink, visible from just behind the paper. She then put that same crayon art on the top of that stack of papers. “Shitty four eyes… and Clean freak?”

The words sounded strange from anybody else’s mouth, particularly a teacher who had attempted to say it with so professional of a tone and with emphasis on syllables and on words which made it sound unintelligible to anyone less familiar.

“Excuse me?” Hange asked. She had said those words a little too fast. With Levi thinking the same thing though, it had sounded clear enough.

Ms. Wilde flipped the paper open and down on the table.

There were two stick drawings, one with glasses and brown hair, definitely Hange and one with an apron and a bandana over his head and an unimpressed look on his face. That second one was definitely Levi.

Just below it, a caption which Levi had to squint twice to read

Shut tea for ice clean freek. It was straight out gibberish.

Ms. Wilde preempted it. “Would you know what this means?” She looked back up at them expectantly. “Your son… he tried to explain it to me and he said, you two would say… Shut tea for ice and clean freek.” She had said it with unexpected emphasis on some syllables and it was starting to sound like a glaringly familiar cluster of phrases.

Enough for Levi to freeze in his seat and start to dig for some sense in his speculations.

“Don’t get me wrong… Your child being able to spell at this age… It’s admirable, remarkable really,” Ms. Wilde continued. Was she consoling them or admiring them? With that soft and gentle of a voice, it was difficult to tell.

If Levi hadn’t been too busy trying to make sense of that last phrase maybe he would have at least attempted to read through her body language. The teacher had already presented a problem though and naturally, he found himself attempting to get to the bottom of that initial issue.

Luke had Hange’s brain. With Levi on top of that child most of the day, he was perfectly aware of what Luke would usually be playing with. He had gifted Luke letter tiles and had played with him multiple times, at Hange's suggestion of 'something more educational.'

He could have sworn the other times Hange had gotten off work and had played with those tiles with him before dinner, she had been teaching him herself. Although, some words were strange and unfamiliar, she never thought him any of those words. Never.

Levi looked back up at the teacher, forcing himself to meet her eyes. What was the best thing to say?

These are our nicknames. Nope. Should they be divulging something so personal in a professional meeting?

Maybe he could break that awkwardness by complimenting Luke’s work. For a three year old, Luke did a good job with the coloring. Or maybe Levi was just hyperaware about his dad status and somehow everything their little human made seemed almost surreal, almost beautiful even if it was just a bunch of stick figures.

Hange held the drawing between her fingers, her eyes wide with what looked to be the same wonder Levi was holding in. “We’ve been teaching him how to read,” Hange said. “Read and write.”

“But, would you know what ‘shut tea for ice’ means?” The teacher asked.

“Levi here… He really likes tea,” Hange said calmly. “And he likes it with ice.”

“What about clean freak?”

“He cleans with me a lot…” Levi said.

The teacher sighed. “Apologies for the misunderstanding but those words…” She leaned over, cupping her mouth, to soften to a whisper just for the three of them. “It sounds pretty vulgar to me. If you could talk to your son about it, so he could stop calling the other kids names… That would be very much appreciated.”

“Wait, our son, he’s calling people names?”

The teacher shrugged. “I heard him talking to one of the kids just recently… He kept calling her ‘shut tea for eyes.’ and just the other day, when we were cleaning up the locker… then he called her a cleen freek.” She sighed. “It might be just my imagination but it sounds to me like bullying if you know what I mean?”

“Bullying? How?” Hange asked. The knowing look in her face betrayed such a question.

“Well you see, Sarah wears glasses and she likes keeping her cubbyhole neat so… I can’t help but think he might actually be saying….”

“Shitty four eyes?” Levi repeated it again, with a familiar manner, all the emphasis on the right tones. He could almost taste the sweet venom that laced it every other time he said it before.

“And clean freak?” Hange repeated.

The teacher put her hands up in defense. “But that might just be my wild imagination. If ‘shut tea for ice’ is really code in your family, maybe you could spend some time explaining to your son what it actually sounds like?”

Shut tea for ice.

Levi could have been in denial. The first plan of action as soon as he got home was to open and close the cupboard a few times over and stare at the box of tea bags every single time. He was deep in thought, still trying to come up with any other reason for those words to roll so easily out of his son’s mouth.

“You want me to make dinner?” Hange called out from the living room.

Levi instinctively turned behind him and towards the voice, craning his neck to look past the kitchen counter. Hange was sitting cross legged on the floor, a toddler Luke right next to her.

The letter tiles Hange had scattered on the floor were an eye sore.

An eyesore which Levi tolerated. After all, Hange had done amazingly at making Luke one of the smarter toddlers in his class.

Experiment… Titan… Omnivore...Carnivore… Whether the child needed to know how to spell those words at that young of an age, Levi wasn’t too certain. At least if ever the classes shifted to topics on history or science, Luke would have the upper hand.

Or so, that was what Levi consoled himself with as he looked back at the cupboard, trying to erase that picture of a mess in the living room. His own experiences with playing with those blocks had been teaching Luke words like clean, broom, breakfast, lunch, dinner. For a second, he wondered which Luke enjoyed more.

“I’ll make it,” Levi said. “You’re at work most days. I’d rather you spent your free time bonding with Luke.”

Hange didn’t respond and the next few minutes passed with the clacking of the wooden letter tiles on the floor. And then an exchange which Levi felt almost compelled to insert himself in.

“When the creature eats both vegetables and meat…” Hange started.

“Omnivore,” Luke answered.

“And meat only?”

“Carnivore.” He had learned to repeat those words clearly very quickly. Levi had to note as he tipped the tea, Luke had always learned to pronounce the more complex words within a few repeats.

The inquisitiveness and the natural genius came from Hange for sure. And Hange was only nurturing them. Soon, the conversation shifted to animals, and then to titans and why the fuck was she talking about her goddamn experiments?

Even when half listening, Levi never understood what the hell that one experiment after capturing the titan and burning through its hair actually did but Hange was suddenly talking about follicles, roots and some catalytic reaction.

Would Luke know what a catalytic reaction is? Levi attempted to answer it for himself by first asking, what the hell a catalytic reaction was. Whatever slate that had appeared in his mind remained blank and he asked another question. Should a child really be learning those words?

“And you know what a dinosaur looks like?” Hange asked.

“Dinosaur!”

A rustle of papers. Hange muttered something about a pencil.

Found one! Then the sound of scribbling on paper.

Levi was only starting to boil the soup, when whatever conversation on whether dinosaurs were omnivores or carnivores slipped one ear and out the other.

The padding of socks on the carpeted floor, Hange’s hums and just Luke’s high pitched voice lisping at some words, saying lines which could have started with Rs or Ws were faint and Levi found himself passing the time just listening to them as he stirred the soup.

He bent over, pulling out the tray of baked chicken from the oven. “Hange,” he called out.

Hange took a second longer than necessary to respond. “Hm?”

“Set the table,” Levi said. “It’s almost dinner time.”

No response. No clicking of plates, no slamming of utensils on the table.

“Hange?” Levi asked.

“Wait, just this last page,’ Hange said louder.

Levi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Hange was murmuring, words Levi couldn’t make sense of. And the lisping words, the mispronounced Rs and Ws and garbled syllables were telling. Luke was reading something out loud.

“That’s right! So, the plants eat through photosynthesis," Hange said. 

“Hange, set the table,” Levi said.

Hange sighed in response. There were footsteps then the clack of plates.

Levi soon confirmed for himself that Hange had stood up, tiptoed and pulled a serving plate and a bowl from the upper cupboard. He transferred the roast chicken and the soup onto the plates. While it cooled, he took the bread basket and dropped it on the table, raising one eye at the view in front of him.

“Hange,” Levi said, louder this time.

Hange was back in the living room, cross legged once again, an open picture book in front of her. Luke had shifted to half lying down position, stomach down on the floor, propped up by the elbows.

“Are dinosaurs real?” Lukei asked.

Hange nodded. “They were alive a long time ago,” she said.

“Hey, you two. I said, let’s eat.” Levi found himself looking away as he noticed Luke’s mouth twist into a pout.

Hange sighed in disappointment. “Alright Luke, let’s stand up.” She carefully pulled her son up and guided him back to the table. She moved sluggishly towards the dining room table and it looked very much like Levi had virtually twisted her arm just to get her up.

To make things clear though, he didn’t. There were more pressing things at that moment than making sure the food he worked so hard on was eaten. Levi stared at them then back at the scattered letter tiles on the floor. Then back at Hange again.

The years might have just made it easier for Hange to pick up the silent question just with a few glances. “We’re gonna go back after we eat,” she answered,

“And you’re fine leaving a mess like that there,” Levi said. “What if someone trips on that?”

“Well, we won’t. Luke and I know that it’s there and you can just watch where you’re going right?”

“It’s still a hazard,” Levi argued.

“A negligible hazard.”

“Can’t you just clean it up then bring it out again later?”

“It takes time,” Hange answered nonchalantly as she walked past Levi.

For a retired commander with a full-time job rebuilding Paradis, time felt like a luxury more than disposable income did and Levi had only ever silently acknowledged that. The moment he looked back, he realized there wasn’t much he could have argued about. Hange guided Luke to his chair, and she started to pour the soup into his bowl.

Levi sat next to Hange and served Hange first then himself, a pressing distraction, long enough for Levi to need not look back at the mess on the floor.

“Luke, chickens look a little bit like dinosaurs,” Hange said.

Levi rolled his eyes. Most of their meals usually ended up as a science lesson.

Luke seemed to be enjoying it though. He clapped his hands excitedly. “We’re eating dinosaurs?”

In response to that, Levi shoveled more of the soup into his mouth, enough to give any excuse not to speak up. That wasn’t his conversation. It was Hange’s and Luke’s.

“Technically yes,” Hange said.

What the fuck is she researching this time? Hange did too many jobs at once that Levi never could catch up to her theory or vernacular wise.

“Like the book! The dinosaur looked like the book!” Luke said excitedly.

“Yes! You remember!” Hange mirrored that same excitement.

“Are dinosaurs like titans?”

“Technically no… They can be the same size... “

“Are titans omnivores?”

Hange hummed. She dropped her spoon and put one finger to her chin, a very climactic sequence of motions that could have meant she had something interesting to say. To the disappointment of everyone in the family, she returned the question with one word. “Maybe.”

They don’t eat. Levi added to himself silently.

“Do titans poo?” Luke pressed.

Hange opened her mouth to speak. “They don’t…”

And Levi only had a split second to note the glimmer in her eyes, then the wonder that could have come from reminiscing nights worth of experiments. Then the familiar excitement and passion he had seen so many times before in the barracks over tea.

Oh no. He looked back at the soup, a mixture of beans and tomatoes, the green of the vegetables sticking out at very strategic places. 

What the fuck.

And Hange’s tirade only continued, and naturally Levi’s mind made sense of the words having had too many direct experiences with titans to last a lifetime. If he looked at his own soup from the right angle, with the right vegetable bits in the right places and the right lighting from just above them, he realized it looked just like vomit.

He was in a frustrating position, hungry but with no more appetite. He pushed himself up. “You two just keep talking. I’m gonna clean up.”

Hange stood up. “Wait, Levi where you going?”

Everything was just suddenly pissing Levi off at that moment. “I’m cleaning up your fucking mess.”

“That’s not a mess!” Hange retorted, an incredulous look on her face.

“I told you, just bring it out after if you wanna play again!” Levi bent over, and started to mix the blocks amongst one another. Words like carnivore, omnivore, photosynthesis, follicle suddenly mixed among one another. The tiles were suddenly gibberish, letter soup. And the more he mixed, the worse it became.

It became easier to put them into the basket.

“We were planning to go back to it after dinner. You didn’t have to clean it up,” Hange chided.

“Well, you two might step on it,” Levi said.

“Really?” Hange raised one eyebrow. “You can’t watch where you’re going?”

“Listen Hange, I’m the one who cleans this house ninety percent--- hell, a hundred percent of the time. I decide what messes we can leave around.”

“Well, it takes a kid a while to pick up the words, we were supposed to practice reading.”

“Hange a three year old does not need to know what photosynthesis means.”

“Three and a half,” Hange clarified. “A child his age does not need to live in an immaculate environment.” Clean. Hange definitely meant clean. The way she had said the word ‘immaculate,' the fact that she had chosen such a heavenly word, an almost self righteous sounding word felt almost mocking. “Why do you have to be such a clean freak about this?”

“Why do you have to be such a nerd about this. He’ll learn how to read big words at his own fucking time,” Levi said. He noted the way Hange had put one hand to her chest, seeming scandalized at whatever insinuation Levi had brought up.

When he was dealing with the someone who couldn’t bat an eye at hygiene and clutter, who suddenly thought the pursuit of knowledge was a must have for a poor four year old, Levi wasn’t feeling too guilty at offending her, at least not too much. He opened his mouth, only intending to let it out as a release born from quiet anger. And during moments of heightened emotions, sometimes he lost a little control, and sometimes, he’d fall back to very familiar habits.

Shitty four eyes.

Hange could have heard it, but they had said it so many times before, that she didn’t open her mouth to speak. He couldn’t be too sure either that he had said it out loud.

“Daddy? You want tea with ice?”

Levi only realized then, when the silence broke and a young Luke went in between them a mug in hand.

No hot water, no tea bag. A look of confusion on Luke’s face. ‘Daddy, shut tea for ice?” The words were stilted, the syllables garbled against one another.

Levi and Hange had both looked at Luke with the same surprised look, surprised but very very understanding of the current situation.

Shitty four eyes.

Luke didn’t have a potty mouth. Or at least, he wasn’t supposed to.

Levi was with Luke the most among everyone. The heavy responsibility of 'main provider' on his back, he found himself thinking back to every single ‘alone time,’ the two of them had since Luke had been old enough to talk. It had been a year at least since Luke had started to seem more like a companion than a responsibility. When Levi looked back at it though, he thought the moments to be countless and consequently, he had found it difficult to point out the exact point in time where Luke had thought it a good idea to blurt out the words ‘shitty four eyes.’

Coming up with no conclusion, he desperately grasped for a glimmer of an explanation. “Luke’s a nice kid, he wouldn’t call people names,”

“I don’t doubt that,” Hange responded, seeming not at all bothered by the chain of events.

“Hey, we’re still gonna have to explain that to Luke?”

“You tried a while ago, right?” Hange asked “What did Luke say?”

“He just kept repeating it… Shut tea for ice. Shut tea for ice.” Levi whispered in response, letting it get softer and softer on his tongue. It had been just an hour before they had put their son to bed. The conference, the incident just a while ago suddenly had self conscious about how loud they were talking and how close the bedroom door was to the living room. He turned to the sofa and sat a few more feet away from the door, as if that could have done anything to make their conversation more private.

“So Levi, what do you think that means?” Hange asked. She had moved next to him, as if she understood Levi’s intention with switching seats.

“He didn’t seem hostile,” Levi said.

“So he doesn’t think what he’s saying is bad right?”

“He called you shitty four eyes too.” Levi turned to Hange.

“And shitty four eyes has never been an insult to me. You’ve been calling him that since before,” Hange said.

“So what do you suggest?” Levi asked.

Hange was in deep thought for a second, one hand to her chin. She turned to the phone on the kitchen counter. “Calling someone more experienced maybe.”

Historia had a child, a good few years past the terrible twos and threes. Naturally, she seemed almost nonchalant about that problem.

“Imitation,” Hange said so confidently, yet so abruptly that morning as she sipped her coffee. She turned to Levi and grinned in the same exact way she would have dropped a research-backed theory many years ago when she was still a titan researcher.

“Titans used to imitate right?” Levi said. Mentioning the magic word ‘titans’ could be enough to pull any good ideas out of her.

“Yes, I know,” Hange said matter-of-factly. “And titans and humans are a little different… It would be easier to have a peaceful conversation with titans. Luke understands me almost perfectly. And you too. I think we can talk to him first about why using nicknames is bad.”

“You think a three year old can understand a convoluted explanation by Hange Zoe?”

“Three and a half,” Hange clarified again. If he can tell omnivores and carnivores apart, I’m sure he can tell the difference between calling people names and respecting people right?” She propped her mug on the dining room table and looked expectantly at Levi.

Levi averted his gaze. “Hange, do you think a three and a half year old will get it?” He dropped the tea bag into the mug and watched as the darker liquid consumed the water, touching the rims of the mug. He walked back to the dining table, settling himself on the chair right in front of Hange.

Hange chuckled. “Worth a try right?”

“Daddy! Shoes!” Luke was painfully demanding. And of all moments, it had been then that Levi noticed that Luke had picked up some of their attitude.

Right. Although Luke could easily get ready for school himself, tying shoes was still something Levi had been in the process of teaching him. “I’ll just help him tie his shoes first.”

“I’ll go ahead.” Hange gulped the last few drops of coffee. “Gonna be late for work. You think you can handle this?”

“Talk to Luke right?” Levi asked. “About the importance of respect?” He had put emphasis on those last three words, as if to hint to Hange that introducing such an abstract idea to a three year old seemed like not so good of an idea.

“Worth a try right?” Hange responded as she stood up and slung her back over her shoulder.

“And if it doesn’t work?” Levi pressed.

By then, Hange was already closer to the door than the dining table, far from hearing range of Levi’s naturally soft voice. Levi felt it pointless to say it louder, especially since by then, Hange had already slammed the door behind her.

And he had bigger fish to deal with, like a frustrated son, who had knotted the laces of his shoes enough times that Levi struggled to find the tips. “Luke… Why… Did you do it like this?” Levi had to resist the sweet temptation of inserting a ‘fuck’ somewhere on that question. After all, it wasn’t Luke’s fault he was just a three year old who was still learning the ropes.

The process of unknotting a very tight knot though was painful, frustrating enough for Levi to sit down crosslegged in front of his son. It was taking longer than a few seconds, enough to have a conversation.

“Luke… The school told me about ‘shut tea for ice’”Levi started and when he started to pull at the top most knot, he felt some sort of release with it, some extra reserves of patience he could easily tap at.

“Shitty four eyes! Clean Freak!” Luke responded happily.

When Levi looked up and met his son’s eyes, he couldn’t help but be somewhat bothered by the knowing and confident look. “You shouldn’t call people names Luke.” He put one finger right in front of Luke’s face.

Was that how to tell a kid off? Levi had been working with Luke long enough though to know, Luke didn’t understand what he was saying. Or maybe he didn’t understand what Levi meant.

What would Hange say? When Levi reflected on that though, the only thing he could salvage were her rants on photosynthesis and titan experiments. If their son understood those, he should understand a lecture on respect right?

“No.” One word Levi had learned as a parent. “No calling people names,” he added, his voice softer that time.

Luke pouted.

Levi had a soft spot for his son’s pout and consequently, he did what any sane parent would have done in that situation. He stared at the clock. Fifteen minutes before class starts. He stood up and took his son by the hand. “Come on Luke, let’s go to school.”

On the way to school, he allowed himself another session for self reflection. Imitation huh? Levi thought to himself. He had to admit, he may have called Hange ‘shitty four eyes’ more often than not and in return, he may have brushed off a few ‘clean freaks’ from Hange as well.

They could try to wean Luke out of it right or at least find out why Luke had been using it at school? He could leave that to Hange though, and maybe consult a bit with their teacher.

Levi took a deep breath, a loud one, particularly when they passed through one of the less saturated parts of town on the way to school. He was sure he had enough reserves at his already scarce social battery to deal with asking advice from teachers.

Same advice as Historia.

Children were master imitators. And whether a three year old (or a three and a half year old according to Hange) would understand such an abstract concept as respect, that was one thing they weren’t sure of.

So when dealing with a toddler, play with their imitator side, not this belief that they might actually understand an abstract concept.

Levi had repeated those same words to Hange. By that evening though, he had forgotten half of it, and he had hoped that was the message she got.

“So, we should change how we talk to each other then…” Hange leaned back on the sofa. “But when do you think Luke heard us say it?”

Levi shrugged. “When do you say it?”

In return, Hange shrugged and let out a short laugh. “To be honest, I don’t remember calling you a clean freak either.”

“When we fight?” Levi suggested.

“Or when we don’t?” Hange put her hands up. “Anyway, the important thing is, he hears us say it. That kid won’t get shitty four eyes or clean freak out of anywhere. So we watch ourselves okay? No using bad words in front of our son.”

“That’s easy.” Levi narrowed his eyes at Hange and sat back on the sofa. “I’ve been doing that ever since Luke was born.”

With a little more self-introspection and blatant awareness of his surroundings, Levi started to realize it wasn’t as easy as he had expected it to be. He had stopped himself enough times that his throat had been sore from the many times he concealed his own penchant for vulgarity with a dry cough.

“Luke, make sure to put your bag back in the room,” Levi said from the kitchen as he pulled an apple from the fruit basket. It was just like every other day before, pick Luke up, prepare an afternoon snack. Very routine, very predictable and the only thing that made it a challenge had been the heavy awareness that Levi did curse on a regular basis.

Or maybe just the fact that he had to watch himself, had him very very heavy, as if every move had to be cold and calculated.H e was a little more careful than usual with cutting the apple. And he was terribly terribly slow. By the time, he turned back to the kitchen counter, sliced apples arranged neatly on the plate, Luke had already settled on the seat in front of him, looking expectantly at the plate on Levi’s hands.

How long he had been there? Levi didn’t want to ask. “Are you hungry?” he asked instead.

Luke nodded. It was a stupid question, but at least his son was too young to judge his ineloquence.

He dropped the pile of apples in front of him and made himself comfortable on the seat next to his son. “After this, you wanna play with the tiles?” Levi offered. 

But never freak. Levi told himself as even the prospect of teaching his kid was starting to weigh on him.

“Let’s play with the tiles!” Luke clapped one hand on the table, and he shoved one of the apples into his mouth.

“Okay, I’ll bring it out later,” Levi said. He took one apple from the plate and started to munch on it, only interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing a few seconds later.

Most days, the phone ringing was a nuisance, peppered with conversations with salesmen, customer service. Having grown up with a place with no phone, but too many scams, it was only natural that Levi would detect the opportunity for scams in that new fangled piece of technology.

There was one voice which always made the process of using the phone though, bearable, if not pleasurable.

“Levi! What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Four eyes, you’re out from work early.”

There was a pause, a pregnant and awkward pause. Then Hange spoke up. “Is Luke with you?”

The silence and that one question spoke for him. Levi spun around to see Luke, staring right at him. “Four eyes… Shitty...Four eyes?” The young boy repeated. It sounded rehearsed the first time around, then confident the second time.

There was a lot he had to teach the kid.

“Just take out food for dinner. Luke and I will have a long talk,” Levi said.

Levi’s mind was a blank slate. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing though.

Whatever he was supposed to say to lecture Luke on proper respect lasted at the most, a few seconds in his muddled brain. It went into one ear and quickly out the other.

Somewhere along the way, Levi had given up. He had mentioned words like ‘respect,’ ‘not nice.’ When he didn’t even believe half of what he had spewing out of his mouth, he ended up unable to blame Luke for wearing such a blank expression.

Would Hange have done a better job at teaching Luke? Maybe.

Levi had never been the most diplomatic person, having sat at the sidelines every time Hange had been negotiating trade contracts and war treaties. Besides, he didn’t believe it completely necessary either to teach children not to curse.

There were bigger fish to fry, like rebuilding a war torn country, eradicating poverty and starvation, income inequality and terrorism.

Having lived like a soldier his whole life, dealing with something so mundane as a teacher’s request to teach his child not to curse, seemed almost mundanely unnecessary.

When his son was insulting other children, when a teacher was telling his son off for it, Levi didn’t necessarily find it horrifying. School rules were school rules though and their new society made compliance for three year olds a big issue. Maybe he could leave that educating to Hange though, and just focus maybe on teaching the young boy how to read.

He rearranged the letters and a few times, he gave free rein to his son to form words himself.

There were easy words like ‘dog,’ ‘cat,’ and ‘cow.’ Although Levi had been surprised that Luke had independently put together more complex words like ‘broom’ and ‘clean,’ he started to accept anyway, that it was only natural that the young boy would know them. After all, Hange had been teaching him more complex words like ‘photosynthesis,’ ‘omnivore’ and ‘carnivore.’

Luke had been spelling all those words on his own while Levi watched silently. And when Levi started to scramble the pieces again, just to watch what his son would create, he started to notice some pattern.

Shut

“Shut!” Luke screamed. He didn’t completely open his mouth though, and it started to sound more like another cursed word. Levi wasn’t going to mention that though.

“Shut…” Levi explained. Like ‘Shut up.’ ‘Shut up’ wasn’t the most diplomatic expression and it was probably better not to teach his son that at such a young age. “Like shut the door,” Levi added a second later. He mimed the act of slamming a door closed, suddenly self conscious of how rude it probably would be to slam a door. Was Luke going to start slamming doors if he made his movements too forceful?

Ice

“Ice!” Luke read aloud.

“Ice…” Levi paused for a second, racking his brain for the best way to explain it without having to go for the refrigerator and risk making a mess on their matted living room floor. “The cold thing…”

Four

“Four!”

“The number,” Technically there were two words ‘four’ and ‘for.’ What do you call those filler words? How do you define the word for? Levi realized then, there were only too many ways he could explain what words like ‘for,’ ‘to,’ were used for. He could just leave that to the school to explain.

Tea

“Tea!”

“Te---”

“Daddy likes tea!” Luke started. His face fell. “Right?”

In shock, Levi didn’t even notice he had frozen still, his hand dropping the tile. He nodded. “Yeah I like tea.” He allowed himself a tight lipped grin as he adjusted the letters just to make his son’s final product a little neater. “I really like tea.”

“Shitty four eyes?” His son said again, his excitable tone from a while ago unwavering.

That’s a bad word. Levi wanted to say. That’s disrespectful. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything else though. After all, his son was a bundle of innocence, a bundle of excitement. Did Luke even know what the hell he had been saying?

Levi was pathetic. He was weakshit. And he couldn’t even bring himself to disciplining his child on something he personally didn’t even believe in. He continued to reflect on it as he rearranged the letters again. Then he further wallowed in whatever guilt settled in him as he stood up and walked towards the kitchen. As he prepared dinner, then washed the dishes.

When Hange came home, he at least had been ready enough to speak. “I think he’s too young to understand,” Levi said.

“Well a three and a half year old would have a hard time understanding abstract ideas right?”

“Says the parent who’s teaching a three year old science.”

Hange pouted. “Science is not an abstract concept.”

“That’s not the point,” Levi said firmly. He knew if he didn’t interrupt Hange there, she probably would have gone on another tirade. “Do you have any ideas? On how to deal with this?”

“I have one,” Hange said. “I was talking to Historia just today, and some other parents…” She propped her chin on the palm of her hand. “Have you considered… Aside from just laying off, the shitty four eyes first? And I’ll lay off the clean freak? I mean, the kids apparently, at this age, they like to imitate and if we just be more careful about what we’re saying and try to say something nicer, more positive as nicknames. He should stop right?”

“We’ve been calling each other for years,” Levi commented.

“But, not in public right?” Hange said. “You never really said it during meetings.”

“Well those were meetings.”

“Think of this as a meeting, except this time, our son is probably listening to us every single time.” She frowned, wrinkled her nose and looked behind her. Just on the other side of the wall was Luke’s bedroom. It was late at night and he probably was asleep.

But with their conversations and Luke's tendency to pick things up, it only proved that the walls may have been too thin and their son may have been very observant.

Levi raised his eyebrows. “So you’re saying…”

Hange nodded. No clean freak. No shitty four eyes. AT ALL. She spelled out those nicknames slowly and carefully, just so their son wouldn't’ pick the words up, taking in the small possibility that he was awake.

Levi sighed. “Fine.” He wasn’t fine. Their home was supposed to be their private space. Luke would be a sponge for information but a stranger to logic and abstract concepts for the next two years.

Letting go of such an intimate habit born through years in the survey corps just to please the teachers and to make it easier for their son fit in, seemed almost unfair. He sought solace at least in Hange’s forced grin. She didn’t want to do it either.

We suffer together. Levi thought to himself. With a quick glance at her, Levi was sure Hange understood. Making it an issue of pride and misery made it all together a more bearable challenge.

It was bearable at least. And it took a little more careful introspection to pick up those few moments he had called Hange 'shitty four eyes' or ‘four eyes’ and he started to realize, it had been more difficult to point out than his own abrasive choice of words and his own vulgarity.

Shitty four eyes after all, never seemed like a string of curse words or insults. It was a pet name, so invisibly embedded in conversations that Levi felt strangely incomplete not peppering his dialogue with it.

Hange seemed to struggle as well. Clean freak. She used to say. She had started to replace it with something more diplomatic. “You really like cleaning huh?” A few syllables longer but it felt terribly, terribly unnatural. And Hange always accompanied it with the widest and most cringe inducing grin.

Every single time, Levi would look away, to stop himself from laughing or grimacing, one of those. Hange must have been doing the same though.

Shitty four eyes.

He had replaced ‘shitty four eyes’ with the closest thing he could come up with. It had taken some strict observation from other couples to pick up the best one. “Yes honey, I really love cleaning,” Levi admitted. He put enough emphasis on the pet name, hoping that would at least teach their child about proper pet naming conventions, the importance of ‘not cursing’ and just conventional diplomacy.

Hange was only making it harder to take the challenge seriously, a sardonic grin constantly plastered on her face. Every single time, he had called her honey, she looked away and cleared her throat, or let out a wracked cough, a good disguise for what he guessed had been a laugh.

A shoddy disguise but somehow, it seemed to work. Luke would watch them every time, his stare far from blank. He had on the same face he made every single time he would form those words with the blocks. Luke was deep in thought. “Shitty four eyes! Clean freak!” He said a second later.

Luke would then repeat that many few times over dinner or breakfast.

Imitation. Levi would tell himself, will himself to ignore Luke’s words. As painfully uncharacteristic as it was. Levi would trod on with his mission. “Honey, you want more bread?” Levi tried to make that one word seem as sweet as it sounded. He never got the practice though, so he wondered if he ever had the innate ability to make any words sound sweet.

“Thank you honey,” Hange responded, her grin much wider. A split second later, she looked away, seeming ashamed with herself.

Levi couldn’t blame Hange. It was a painful rendition, her tone seemed very much rehearsed. And when it was common knowledge between them that she was naturally more eloquent than he was, Levi found himself wondering how bad he sounded.

As long as Luke learns. Levi willed himself to swallow whatever embarrassment and stifling sensation came with the slow and excruciating weaning process from very intimate habits.

Luke eventually picked it up. “Ho...ney?” he repeated as his eyes darted between his two parents.

Yes. Honey. Levi nodded.

Luke’s face fell, his expression shifted from something curious, then something confused. Ending with something that could have been a hint of crestfallenness.

Levi couldn’t be too sure though. The boy looked down at his food and Levi couldn’t bring himself to crane his neck and sneak a glance to confirm it. The drooping shoulders of his son was enough to get his stomach turning though.

How long would it take for him to get used to it? Three weeks? Months? Eventually Luke should get used to it… Right?

It was one of those rare days where Hange had decided to work from home. Her piles of paperwork took up more than half their dining table and food would seem more like a hazard than a necessity.

When Hange was only present during weekends, Levi at the least, tolerated it.

On one condition, he was allowed to straighten out the almost two foot tall pile everytime he passed by the dining room in between household chores. When Hange was deep into hundreds of pages worth of reports though, she didn’t look like she minded Levi’s silent interruptions.

“What time are you picking Luke up from school?” Hange asked.

Levi looked at the clock. “He gets out of school at two today,” he answered. It was eleven, and half his mind was already looking into planning lunch.

“Okay,” Hange said, her focus fell back to the paperwork.

It wasn’t anything new, even on weekends or any other day Hange was home, Levi did most of the cooking and cleaning. Hange’s presence did manage to take some of the load off household management off of his shoulders.

Answering the phone was no exception.

Most days, Levi was capable of doing it on his own. When the vegetables were boiling on a pot, the pasta heating in the oven just below it, Hange offered to answer the phone.

“Zoe residence… Speaking…” Hange had always been better at answering the phone anyway. “Luke?”

Levi’s ears perked up at that. He lowered the heat of the stove, as if that would have done anything to make the conversation clear.

“What? Why? No… We’re not.” Hange’s voice was racked with surprise. “....You’re right. We’ll get there soon… We can leave now… We’re not too busy….”

Hange? Not busy? Levi had turned off the stove. Lunch never was the most urgent thing. “You’re going to school?”

“It’s about Luke.”

No shit. “I can tell that much from the conversation,” Levi said. “What happened?”

“He just started crying apparently…” Hange said.

Levi sensed the urgency in the speed at which she pulled her coat over her and retied her hair. “Crying over?” Levi pressed. Luke rarely cried and just that thought had Levi’s heart pounding.

“When the teachers were explaining… Luke was crying about… his parents… About us?”

“Your son said, you two ‘’didn’t love each other anymore’” the headmaster explained. It had been just them in the office but with the way the headmaster had explained it, it looked like she could have been quoting Luke word per word.

Levi surreptitiously flashed Hange a look of confusion, a glance just to see if she knew anything.

She seemed as lost as he was. “Can we talk to our son?” Hange asked.

“Before that, I just wanted to discuss the family situation first… See if we could do anything to support Luke through this?”

“Through what?”

“Through your ‘separation?’”

Levi turned to Hange, his eyes wide. We’re separating?

Hange furrowed her brows at him, an incredulous look. She turned abruptly back at the principal. “Who told you we’re separating?”

“Your son said you two have been fighting a lot. And he seemed very affected...”

“Fighting?” Levi asked. Are we?

No we aren’t. Hange’s expression said it all. “If there’s any misunderstanding, we can explain it to Luke ourselves.”

“You have to understand. We have our students welfare in mind. If we believe that your son is being raised in an unsuitable environment…”

“Excuse me?” Hange put one hand to her chest. Her tone was slipping to something with more emotion than any attempt at compromise.

“Just let us talk to our son,” Levi said. The echo of his own voice sounded unfamiliar in that small voice, especially since Hange had done the talking the whole time.

“We’ve been hearing as well about the vulgarities your son has been spouting...” the headmaster said.

“Yes, we’ve been working on it,” Levi said firmly, with every intention to interrupt the old lady.

“I’d like first some verbal commitment from both of you at least to work on this? We treat every child here like part of the family. With the case on Luke’s word usage and his suddenly bursting into tears in school… It looks like his home environment might not be ideal.”

“Can you let us talk to our son please?” Levi said. He turned to Hange. The brunette had fallen silent yet she seemed very much deep in thought.

“Could you please explain though from your end the debacle about the ‘shitty four eyes’ and the ‘clean freak?”

“We’re working on it,” Levi repeated. Somehow, it was getting harder and harder to sit still.

The condescending look in the woman’s face, the accusing glare wasn’t making it any easier. “But have you been working hard on it? Can I ask what is causing you to employ such vulgarity in your own home, in an environment for children?”

Since when did schools in Paradis get this vigilant about children’s home lives? It was a welcome change at least but Levi was in no mood to ponder the benefits of such an arrangement. “With all due respect ma’am, that’s none of your goddamn business.”

Levi could have just made it worse. And Hange said so herself, in between a stifled grin and a stifled chuckle.

If his own treatment of the very snobby principal could have done anything to convince the whole school that they were shitty parents. He was confident at least, Luke would defend them.

I mean a three year old should be capable of defending their parents right?

A three and a half year old. Hange’s words echoed in his head. If the ‘half year’ of living did anything to make Luke anymore aware of what exactly was going on, he prayed it did work.

Whether it was because he was three and a half or he was merely three, he seemed to have understood. A flash of recognition as they locked eyes along the hallways, Luke still let go of the Ms. Wilde's hand and ran towards them.

By some instinctive need to prove something maybe, Levi clutched Hange’s hand. She gripped back.

Luke seemed to have noticed it. “No fighting?”

“Fighting? Who said we’re fighting?” Hange bent down and patted her son on the head with her free hand.

A wide grin on his face, Luke turned to Hange. “Shitty four eyes.” Then to Levi. “Clean freak.”

Levi bent down, right next to Hange. “Yes, this is my shitty four eyes,” Levi said as he put one hand on Hange’s head, pulling her close.

“And this is my clean freak,” Hange pointed a finger to her left, towards Levi.

Something felt natural and intimate and something tasted sweeter than honey when he was saying those words again, words he had kept nill for months.

The grin in Luke’s face only made the release all the sweeter. “Shitty four eyes and clean freak!” Soon, he was running back to the teacher that had called out to him. He still had a few more hours of school.

“I guess we’ve been pretty careless about the nicknames huh?” Hange whispered wryly. “He’s probably just too young to understand what ‘shitty’ or what ‘freak’ could imply in any other situation.”

Levi stared ahead, at the young boy who was talking to the teacher in whatever childish babble the three year old could manage. “You know, the nicknames never felt like an insult to me.”

“I mean, we have been using them since we’ve met right? It just slips off our tongue every now and then,” Hange said as she let out a soft chuckle.

Every now and then. No a lot more often, than every now and then. To the point that Levi never felt it when it happened. Yet the absence of such words were painfully glaring.

“What are we going to do now about Luke’s language?” Levi averted his gaze, perfectly aware that if Luke had learned anything, it had probably been from his father.

“Have you ever taught him what the words ‘shitty’ or ‘freak’ meant?”

“Never,” Levi said.

“Then maybe we don’t have to think too much about it?” Hange suggested.

But it continued to nag. After all, the teachers continued to stare, probably whispering. Levi and Hange spent the last few hours before school ended just sitting by the courtyard of the school and they had more than enough evidence by then to be sure, teachers were talking.

When the bell rang, they found themselves attempting to brush away whispers and glares from the teacher, instead focusing on the hallways which were starting to fill with toddlers and kids.

And eventually, they found Luke, next to him a young girl in pig tails, with glasses. She wore a blouse and a skirt without a single crease on them. “This is my shitty four eyes… And my Clean freak!” Luke said. The girl next to him waved her hand, a wide grin on her face, not at all fazed by the words ‘shitty’ or ‘freak.’

Levi exchanged a knowing glance with Hange. No other words were shared between them but somehow they both understood. Maybe adults were just overthinking that very simple thing called language.