Chapter Text
Twenty minutes seemed like plenty of time to quickly grab a cup of tea. Erwin said he wanted Levi to arrive on time for this work event, which had been planned for months and mentioned by the paranoid bastard several times. Despite this, he still found his way into a small cafe in town because one thing Levi Ackerman could never resist was tea.
He had to admit, the atmosphere was quite cozy. Levi was never really that bothered about Christmas, as December was his birthday month as well, but the beautifully decorated tree and the red tinsel around the windows gave the place a nice, homely feeling.
Levi didn’t have many hobbies but one of his favourite things to spend his money on were small cafe businesses, regardless of whether he liked the drink or not. Levi respected the recognition of tea and was more than happy to fund it whenever he could. Besides, this trip will be quick.
Or so he thought…
Levi didn’t expect to still be waiting in a queue ten minutes later and a bit concerned for time. It’s usually an in-and-out sorta thing but apparently everyone had the same idea as Levi. He had ten minutes to get there and he could already feel his blood boiling, pretending like this wasn’t his own fault.
The queue was moving at an excruciatingly slow rate. They seemed understaffed, there was only a scruffy-looking woman with glasses and a blonde man with a noticeable moustache.
The tall guy in front of Levi, who would have gotten his face shoved into the counter if he had taken any longer, finally got out of the way and now he could actually see the menu. The skyscraper made that impossible before and the blinding Christmas lights around said menu were not helping his case either.
“What could I get you?” The worker with the moustache asked him.
Not wanting to add on to his lateness, Levi just picked the first blend of black tea he saw and said his name, ignoring the ingredients below it because all he wanted to do was get out of this cramped cafe. Now Levi was just in a bad mood, it was way too stuffy in there and it was ruining his usually serene and leisurely visits to the various coffee and tea shops across town.
“So that’s the Earl grey with 100% sweetness for Levi? Coming right up.” What. That’s not what he said.
“Wait—” Levi tried to correct him but his efforts were proven futile, as the big oaf called for the next customer. Dickhead.
Seething with anger, Levi grit his teeth and trudged over to the side where he could wait for his tea. Hopefully it tasted alright…surely his day couldn’t get any worse. Although, it was technically his fault. If only he had just resisted the temptation—
“Earl grey for Levi!” A rough voice called. He looked up to see the four-eyed brunette he’d seen earlier.
The short man walked up to the counter and behind it was the woman, smiling brightly and looking far too cheerful, considering how early it was in the day and how sweaty she looked. Disgusting, Levi initially thought, but as soon as he looked directly into her eyes he immediately took it back.
“Here you are, sir!” She placed the ceramic cup on the counter and he realised he close enough to read the tag on her black apron. ‘Hange’, it said.
Levi muttered a quick thank you as he peeled his eyes away from the unique name. Before Hange could turn around to prepare another order, Levi practically chugged his tea. Or he attempted to, rather. He spat it out before he even registered his disgraceful action. A massive waterfall of Earl grey gushed from his mouth…right in line with Hange’s face. She didn’t even have time to recoil, both of them started coughing as the tea drenched them, soaking into their clothes.
The tea was awful! How much fucking sugar did she put in there? 100% his ass, it was more like double that. Although, that didn’t give him the right to spit it out, let alone on someone…
“Oh shit, I’m sorry—” Levi was now terribly embarrassed, his voice hoarse after hacking the bloody thing up. To make matters worse, literally everyone was staring at him.
“Argh man I liked this shirt…” He heard her mutter, “…Hey it’s alright!” Hange looked up at Levi, giving him a toothy grin, despite him committing that humiliating act. A slight blush dusted her cheeks, probably mirroring his embarrassment.
“No it’s not, I just spat on you!” Levi couldn’t fathom what she was saying.
“The tea must’ve been real bad…s-so I’d say it’s my fault.” She replied. What?!
“Listen I’ll pay you back—”
“No! No it’s okay, really.”
“Well how could I make it up to you then?” Levi would do anything at this point. This is crazy. He’s never coming back.
She stared at him for a second, as if she was contemplating what to say. Hange opened her mouth to reply but Levi abruptly interrupted her after he glanced at his watch.
“You could—”
“I gotta go, sorry again…” He slammed a twenty on the counter and sprinted out of that cafe, leaving four-eyes in the dust.
Erwin’s gonna kill me, he thought with one minute to arrive.
“Hange, what the fuck just happened?” Mike appeared behind her with some paper towels and immediately started patting down her clothes. For a composed man he seemed quite irate in that moment. He snatched her glasses and wiped them down before shoving them back in her open hands.
“I don’t know! I guess he didn’t like the drink.” She mumbled that last part. He gave her a look that basically said ‘no shit’ and Hange just grimaced at him.
“What an asshole. Why didn’t you yell at him?”
“I would’ve but he…I just couldn’t.”
“What do you mean y—”
“He was hot, what do you want me to do?” She eyed him with a smirk before rushing back to the till.
“…The hell?” Mike just sighed and also went back to work, shaking his head. He didn’t get paid enough for this.
All throughout that ‘important’ meeting, Levi’s mind kept wandering back to the cafe incident. Curse his social awkwardness and his amazing ability to be so bashful…and to think he literally just paid her off and left! All night he couldn’t sleep because of the sheer embarrassment he felt. Although it might’ve just been his insomnia, but that’s beside the point.
So the next day, Levi found himself in that same shop walking up to the counter, and with every step came a new bead of sweat on his forehead. It was fairly empty today, annoyingly when he wasn’t in a rush, but the same Christmas decorations still gave the place life.
The four-eyed barista, Hange her name was, noticed him immediately and Levi could’ve sworn she perked up a bit when they made eye contact. That’s his mind acting up again.
“Hey.” He started. Her eyes were wide and her skin was flushed. Well it was still a thousand degrees in there.
“Hi.”
“I came to apologise again, what I did was unacceptable and I couldn’t get it out of my head how I—”
“So you were thinking about me?”
“What?”
“Sorry forget it— anyway, it’s okay sir.” Her tone was playful in a way. Levi subconsciously followed, he had no idea why but it was like he couldn’t resist. A weird, but warm feeling washed over him.
“Okay ma’am, I’m not leaving until you tell me what I can do.” The short man said, tapping his index finger on the table.
Hange chuckled, placing her elbows on the counter and resting her chin on her palm, “Well I guess you’ll be here a while then…”
“I paid back the money for the drink but I know that doesn’t cut it.” Levi felt his blood boiling again, something about this damn shop aggravates him and he was pretty sure it was the lanky idiot in front of him.
“Dude, you’re having a one-sided argument here!” She said and straightened up.
“I don’t care! Answer my question!”
“Why do you care so much?”
“Becuase I have proper manners, unlike some people.”
“You also have a proper temper there, sir.” Levi ignored the jab and started listing solutions.
“I’ll wash up.”
“No.”
“Okay, I’ll clean the place.”
“Nope.”
“Fine, I can serve people.”
“No and you have shit social skills anyway.”
“So then tell me what I can do!” He was running out of ideas and was so close to just walking out of the cafe at this point.
“You could take me out on a date…” Did he hear that correctly?
“What?”
“I get off work in 15 minutes.”
“O-Okay.” Levi couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t know why he agreed, nor did he even think before he answered. He probably should leave and never come back but he wasn’t going to do that. Again, he had no clue as to why he wasn’t, usually he would shy away from that sort of stuff.
“See you in 15 then! Merry Christmas…” Hange gave him a huge smile and a wave before hurrying off to the back room, probably to stock shelves or something.
Thank god Levi took her on that date, and the next few, and the couple after that. They married 4 years later.