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For Gabi and Falco, returning to normalcy meant returning to school, in a part of the world that hadn’t been completely crushed by enormous, fiery giants. Strangely enough (to Levi), they decided to stay with him and Onyankopon for the time being.
“What’s your new friend’s name?”
Levi enjoys being a part of the children’s lives. They adapt more quickly and play with more abandon. Even when the weekly nightmares that bring them to huddle into his bed, he is more assuaged that the pain, with time on their side, will recede. Even if the memories never quite disappear, children don’t hold on to them with the steely desperation that many more adults do; afraid that without pain, they might have nothing left.
Falco hesitates, but Gabi barges in, overwhelmed with excitement and lacking inhibition. “Zoe! Their name is Zoe!”
“Zoe…?” Levi nearly stutters, grip tightening on the wheelchair armrests. Even Gabi registers his shock, faltering a little. Instead of keeping quiet, Gabi elaborates more, in hopes of soothing Levi’s inexplicable reaction.
“Zoe is so smart! I do a bit better than them at math, though they don’t seem to care about getting good grades.”
“Gabi I think Levi doesn’t want to—”
“It’s okay.” Levi stops Falco’s interruption with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Go on, Gabi.”
Spurred on by Levi’s go-ahead, Gabi goes on in detail. “Zoe has been reading a lot of history books lately, but the teachers won’t tell her where to find books about the war.”
“You know, the war we were in.” Gabi swallows, finding comfort by clenching Falco’s arm.
Falco chimes in with increased confidence. “I think Zoe would love to talk to you! They’ve been asking a lot of adults. Nobody wants to talk about the war… for good reason… I suppose.”
Onyankopon sits across Levi at the dinner table, hearing what Levi had to say about his conversation with the two kids after they bid them good night.
“They want me to meet this kid called Zoe.”
“An unfortunate name…” Onyankopon muses sombrely.
“Who knows?” Levi contends, casting a quick glance at the tabletop where a photo of Hange Zoe sits. They had insisted on taking a picture together when they arrived at Marley. For the memories! To find out a camera works. An arm draped around Levi, they gave a peace sign as he stood stiffly, gazing sideways at the grinning commander. Levi remembers the flash of the new technology caused him to instinctively reach for the knife in his back pocket, before Hange promptly caught his hand in theirs.
“That’s the camera flash, Levi. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Levi grumbled.
“Oh, I’m sure you weren’t. I just wanted to hold your hand.” Hange chuckled, about to let go of Levi’s hand before he clumsily squeezed back. A tense moment is shared, dissipating into a calm intertwining of fingers. A subtle smugness spread across Hange’s face.
“Very smooth.”
“You said you wanted to hold hands,” Levi said, unable to look at Hange.
“You’ve definitely got my hand in a choke-hold there.”
Loosening his grip, Levi mumbled a quick apology. Hange only got bolder, tucking Levi’s hand into their coat with what seemed like a practised gesture.
“Will you meet Zoe?” Onyankopon asks, dragging Levi back into reality.
“What do you think?” Levi often asks Onyankopon for advice.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Onyankopon says measuredly. “Even if it’s Gabi and Falco who are the ones asking. I know you have a soft spot for them.”
“Who says so?”
“You literally let Gabi manically push you around in the wheelchair on a bumpy grass patch and let Falco climb into your bed at night when he gets nightmares.”
“They’re kids. What’s the point of getting mad?”
“Exactly my point.”
Levi sighs, staring out of the window and the darkening sky. “I’ll meet them.”
“Don’t push yourself too hard, okay?” Onyankopon says, remaining concerned.
“Hi, I’m Zoe!” Dressed in a loose t-shirt and an equally loose pair of shorts, the bespectacled child thrusts out a hand in greeting. Gabi and Falco stand around them in anticipation of the long-awaited meeting (they waited a whole day).
“I’m Levi,” he says in kind, shaking the hand, quietly amused by the enthusiastic formality.
“What’s that?” Zoe points at Levi’s scarred eye. He lets out an unsteady breath. The sweat that has begun to accumulate at his pits tells him he isn’t sure if it had been a good idea to impulsively meet an uncanny reincarnation.
“Is it from the war?” Zoe helps him by asking more questions, seemingly not minding if they got responses or not. As though giving Levi a choice, a way out of the hard ones.
“Yes.”
Without missing a beat, Zoe pursues another train of thought.
“Gabi tells me I look like a commander that you used to know.” Zoe, for the first time in the whole exchange, almost looks nervous, shuffling between their two feet.
Maybe Falco and Gabi told them what happened. Words elude him if he were to try to explain anyway. For that, Levi is grateful for the straightforward manner of children.
Levi pulls out a photograph from his shirt pocket and hands it to Zoe. It’s a copy of the one back at home, printed in a smaller, carriable version.
“This is the commander. Hange.” He leaves out the surname, as Zoe observes the photograph of the two of them carefully.
“Did you two fight the war?” With that question, Levi confirms for himself that Gabi and Falco probably didn’t tell Zoe the whole story.
“Yes.”
“Did you win?”
There is a difficult, necessary silence that accompanies Zoe’s inquiry. “I don’t think anyone did.”
Zoe nods, eyeing the photograph again.
“Is that your best friend?”
Levi never quite thought about the nature of his relationship with Hange, so he pauses, eyes flickering towards the photograph—at the hand hidden in Hange’s coat.
“Like Gabi and Falco?” Zoe asks, making Falco blubber in denial, which he does so whenever someone associates him with Gabi as a pair.
“Yes.” Levi decides. The best of many friends.
“Your friend looks cool!” Zoe hands the photograph back to Levi, peering at him with wide-eyed intensity.
“Will you tell me more about the war?”
Placing his cheek on his palm, Levi bends closer to Zoe. “What would you like to know?”
As the day draws to a close, Zoe still has questions. The sunset closes in on Levi and his small, attentive audience.
“Can I talk to you again tomorrow?”
Though fatigued, his body worn out from the unexpectedly long exertion, Levi finds himself agreeing.
“Yes.”
“One more question, please?”
Levi obliges.
“Do I remind you of Hange?” Zoe asks, a frown forming within the wrinkle between their eyebrows. Levi registers the suspicion, unable to figure out its source.
“Sometimes.”
“Which part?”
“Your curiosity,” Truthfully, there was not much he could garner from a one-day spontaneous meeting. Zoe’s curiosity, however, was blatantly obvious. Nonetheless, plenty of children are interested in many things—it was not anything special, Levi internally assures himself.
Zoe pouts slightly, a troubled expression now apparent. “But I’m not Hange. I’m Zoe.”
“I know,” Levi says unconvincingly.
“Do you miss them?”
Levi doesn’t answer the question, preferring to gaze over their shoulder.
“I’m not Hange. But do you want to be friends?”
Raising an eyebrow, Levi tries not to sound too sarcastic. “A kid like you wants to be my friend?”
“Gabi and Falco think you’re very cool. They also think you could do with more friends.” Falco has the decency to avoid eye contact, preferring the scenery of his shoes.
“You don’t go out that much!” Gabi says, hitting the nail on the coffin.
The familiarity of Zoe still stings him in the gut, where the similarities make it appear like the universe is playing an awful, blessed joke on Levi.
What did Hange tell all of them, that day in the sweltering sun?
Let’s meet them ourselves. If they don’t understand who we are, we just have to teach them.
“I don’t really fully understand who you are and why you look so sad. But I hope to learn more from you, Levi!”
A leap of faith comes in the form of a small child. A spunky, talkative child with an unsatiated thirst for knowledge and acute compassion for a depressed man they just met.
Straining his hip, Levi reaches out to ruffle Zoe’s wisps of stray hair, tightening the rubber band that kept their ponytail in place.
“We have a lot to learn from each other,” Levi says softly, allowing himself this leap. Only this once.
Zoe gives him the brightest of smiles, revealing an open, toothy grin.