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Hange enters her office. Leaning over her desk, Levi freezes for a millisecond. Then, as if to compensate, he moves too quickly, shaking a brush in his hand to remove the dust from everything around him.
"Hey," she greets him as she makes her way to the desk. He responds with a nod, without peeling his attention away from cleaning.
Levi isn't acting like himself. The thought crossed Hange's mind a couple of days ago, when she found him scrubbing the table so hard that wood splinters came out. She would have let the idea go, had it not been reinforced so many times afterward.
On two occasions, he’s served an extremely bitter tea during breakfast. Even he doesn't like to drink it that way. Instead of spitting it out, emptying his cup, and boiling a new one, after taking a sip, his jaw only clenched almost imperceptibly.
During meetings, she usually seeks his eyes to get his opinion and align their postures. But lately, whenever she does it, his gaze slips away and ends up set on her shoulders, chin, or even on the wall behind her back. Not to mention that he’s stood her up on several occasions. When she’s finally found him, he always excuses himself by saying 'the dining room was dirty', or 'the stables needed sweeping'.
Please. The floor of the stables is made of dirt. They always need sweeping!
It's just too many inconsistencies. Throughout the years she has spent with him, Hange has discovered that Levi is a creature of routine. That he suddenly changes them makes her feel as if she were walking on a tightrope high in the sky, without her ODM Gear and only the hard ground beneath her feet.
"So… have you had time to read the report I left for you?" she asks while taking a seat.
"I've been busy."
With what?
He's already skipped three dinners in a row. Every time she sees the empty seat next to her, she feels like crying. Of course, the tears are because she's dealing with too many simultaneous problems at once. The Azumabito, Marley, Eren. It's too much, so being overwhelmed is natural. It isn’t due to anything else—especially not his absence.
As Commander, Hange doesn't have time to weigh her comrade's new attitude. But still, every night her mind is drawn back to the theories she’s formulated about it.
Could he be avoiding her? No, that's ridiculous. If Levi didn't avoid her when, after yet another of her fateful experiments, she arrived at the Mess Hall reeking of manure, why would he avoid her now?
Perhaps he’s possessed? As a child, she read several stories about such occurrences in old books. She always thought they were fiction, but with everything she’s discovered about the world, nothing would surprise her anymore.
His dark hair falls over his forehead. His gray eyes are made lighter by the sun streaming through the window, like two metallic mirrors with golden sparkles. He has his expression of utmost concentration on, with a line between his eyebrows and another at the edge of his left eye. Only on the left one. If it were on both, it would mean he's annoyed.
It's a small relief, noticing that he looks like he always has. Not everything has changed. To some extent, she still knows him well enough to make predictions about him and get them right. Like this one.
Just as she planned, Levi came because he mistakenly thought she’d be in a meeting at this time.
I can change my routines too, Hange thinks, not without pride.
"You can't miss dinner today. The kids organized a tasting of… I believe it's fruits from the mainland?"
"Who will be there?"
"The same as always. Jean, Mikasa, Armin, Connie, Sasha..." With each name, Hange sees him tense up even more. Which makes her wonder: has she seen Levi around any of his squad members lately?
The answer is no.
An idea makes her straighten up.
"We'll find Eren soon; he's most likely lurking around. It wasn't your fault that he—"
"I know that idiot's disappearance wasn't my fault." Levi swallows visibly and, slowly, puts the brusher down and walks toward her. He stops in front of the desk. After taking a deep breath, he reveals, "I made a mistake."
Hange tilts her head in confusion. She didn't anticipate that. Levi doesn't make mistakes, and when he does, they're not usually cause for alarm. What could he have done that was so serious?
"Well, whatever it is, we can figure it out together."
Levi closes his eyes and blurts out, "I got drunk a few days ago and told the kids that… that I thought you had pretty eyes."
Hange's mouth drops open in surprise. A searing heat rushes through her and pools on her face.
"Oh." Her heart staggers inside her chest. It takes her a moment to be able to speak. "Thank you...?"
"Before."
"Uh?"
"Before."
"Ah, right... before ." Absently, Hange touches the patch over her eye.
Levi stirs uncomfortably. "It was a long time ago, not anymore... Now they're making a drama out of it and, in case they tell you anything..."
"Sure." She lets out a nervous laugh. "No, don't worry about it. What could they say?"
The answer to that is: a lot.
They are sitting around a table in the Mess Hall. On it are piles of plates filled with exotic fruits, their fragrant aroma wafting around. Hange bites into a mango. The delicious, sweet juice escapes from her mouth and slides down her chin. Levi follows the movement. When the juice lands on the wooden floor, he simply shakes his head in disapproval.
Noticing that, Sasha snorts. Just a few minutes ago, when she stained the tablecloth with peach juice, Levi forced her to clean it herself. According to him, if you leave it too long, it gets sticky and is a pain to clean.
"It's good to have a cleaning freak in love with you..." Sasha mumbles through her teeth as she bites into another peach, this time with extreme care.
"Sasha!" Armin chides her.
The tension in the air causes everyone in the Mess Hall, including those at the adjoining tables, to fall silent.
"In love?" Hange lets out a laugh to lighten the mood. Also, because it's such an implausible statement that it's amusing.
"No, no, well..." Sasha bites down hard on the peach to shut her mouth.
"Sasha exaggerates." Armin looks from Levi to Hange, and back again. "He didn't say he was in love, Commander. He just said that... hewantedtomarryyou."
Hange goes completely still. A warm feeling runs through her body.
Connie nods. "And that together you’d retire to a cabin away from everyone in the woods."
"Where you’d have a huge garden and thousands of furry beasts," Jean complements.
"Although he hates them, he'd put up with them because you love them so much..." Mikasa adds in a rare show of being present. Lately, she's been doing nothing but hitting walls in her desperation to find Eren.
Hange's heart beats a mile a minute. She feels a compelling need to hide, but is unable to think fast enough to do so. The silence around is such that she almost thinks she can hear the fluttering of a fly circling the fruit.
Armin is the first to stand up, but he is immediately followed by everyone else.
"I think... I think it's best if we leave."
"Yes!"
"Absolutely."
"B—but my strawberrieeeees...!"
Empty, the Mess Hall seems immense. Now with no one to shoo it away, the fly explores the fruits at its leisure. Hange takes a deep breath.
"You...?" Her tone is too high, so she clears her throat before trying again. "You said that?"
"I said nothing."
"But you—"
"You're smearing the floor again."
"Argh..." Hange drops the mango she hadn't even realized she was still holding, and wipes her hands with a napkin. "Levi, you can't just pretend—"
And... he's gone.
When Hange finds him later, Levi is in a tree. Lying on a thick, high branch, he’s contemplating the sky shadowed by laden clouds. When he notices her presence, he avoids looking at her, but at least he doesn't try to run away.
"Guess what?" Hange climbs up to him. She settles in beside him and lies down, using both her hands as a pillow. Her body is right on the edge, in danger of taking a spectacular fall, but she trusts that, if it comes to that, he'll catch her. He always does. "This afternoon I got drunk with the kids... And I told them that my dream was to spend my whole life with a cranky, tea-addicted captain."
Levi stiffens.
"A cabin outside of society would be fine. I told them I'd have a perpetual headache from listening to all his complaints about how unhygienic my lab is. But that, even with everything, it would be worth it."
Hange feels him relax. They’re so close together that every breath he takes passes over her. Her chest expands, at peace. Those little moments they occasionally share, when they are together and silent, but in sync, are always the highlights of her otherwise chaotic days.
"However, I also regretted that it was an impossible dream," she concludes.
A deep ache hurts her heart.
"Impossible," he echoes, voice hoarse.
" Statistically impossible. With all that's going on..." Hange thinks of all the problems, all the responsibility they bear on their shoulders. Finding a solution is unlikely. And if she doesn't do it... She's always been willing to die for her duty. She isn’t afraid of it. What she does fear is leaving him behind. But he wouldn't be alone, would he? The kids would be with him.
Seeing the vastness of the night sky and the grandeur of the world makes her consider it again. Maybe she's being fatalistic. Maybe, after disappearing like this, Eren will return with the perfect solution. Maybe her dream is possible. Hope tastes bitter in her heart, so she dares not share it.
"But even if that's so, reality isn't so bad, is it? Nature against our skin, the cool wind..." Hange takes a breath of air, filling her lungs with rich freshness. "The stars that..." Her brow furrows. "... will surely appear soon."
Unshed tears sting her eyes. They gather painfully in her throat. She has to swallow hard to speak.
"Aren't you happy, Levi? Just being... like this?"
What she really wants to ask him is, ‘Is it not enough, just me?' Even without cabins and happy endings, for her to be like this with him, even amidst all the trouble, and even if it's only for the duration of a sigh, it's enough. It always will be.
She hopes it is for him too, because it's all she can offer him. She cannot leave and turn a deaf ear to the needs of her people. She’s the Commander of the Survey Corps, after all. Even if it's for the worse, she has to see this through to the very end.
The backs of their hands touch. The warmth of their bodies melds and envelops them. The treetops sway in the wind, swinging blossoms and fruity scents.
Although Levi says nothing, he eventually takes her hand in his and intertwines their fingers. Hange’s body becomes as light as a leaf; her heart, as free as the wind. They stay together until dawn, when, as always, they have to go back to work.
As their duty demands.