Chapter Text
Levi Ackerman thinks his condo will not make much of a home for a 12-year-old. The living room is stripped to the bare essentials: sofa and television. The only decoration was a silver clock – ticking every second with clinical precision.
It wasn’t until the social services came, clipboards in hand, to check the condition of his home did he see it through the eyes of other people. Clean, yes. Functional, yes. Welcoming, no. The social services, nonetheless, decided that his home was acceptable and safe for a 12-year-old. Just three days after their ocular visit, they were back with the child.
“Dr. Ackerman, this is Mikasa Ackerman, your niece,” the social worker presents. She is wearing a grey suit, wrinkled in places, and her eyes are tired, too. Levi notes the softness in her voice before giving her a nod.
The woman gently holds the child by her shoulders and speaks in a quiet voice – as if careful not to startle the child.
“Mikasa, this is Dr. Levi Ackerman, your uncle. As we’ve talked about, he will be taking care of you from now on. Be a good girl, alright?”
The girl only nods. She glances up at him with a hollow gaze. Levi observes her swollen eyelids, the redness of her sclera, and the darkness of her undereyes. But, Levi doesn’t say anything to her yet, and directs his attention to the social worker instead, beginning with a curt nod.
“Thanks for taking care of her,” he says. He then reaches out his arm towards the girl, and the tired social worker takes it as a signal to finally turn Mikasa over to her foster dad. Giving her a little push in the back, she says, “There you go, now,” as if releasing a bird into the wild.
Mikasa steps inside but doesn’t say a word. Her eyes do not even wander to scan her new home. Her eyes were merely set on the floor. The social worker’s worried gaze travels from Mikasa to Levi, and she offers a sympathetic smile.
“Thank you, doc. Would you like me to brief you about our visitation schedules…?”
Levi shakes his head. They had already briefed him days prior. “That won’t be necessary. Thanks.”
“Well then, I’ll be heading out. Do give us a call if you need anything. Once again, thanks.”
Levi closes the door, and quietness engulfs the whole condo. The place seems to have returned to its usual stillness, but the air is pregnant with uncertainty. Levi is now officially responsible for another human being.
He’d lost his brother just a week ago. His brother fell asleep at the wheel, crashed into a road barrier, causing his and his wife's instant deaths. Their little girl was then alone at home with a nanny, waiting for them to come home by 11 pm. When the nanny got the call that something terrible had happened, she didn’t know what to do or what to say to the child.
Levi receives the call only four days later. The news came as a shock, estranged though he and his brother may be. Somehow, he had the feeling that his brother would remain like the weather: a constant, yet distant, presence. His disappearance thus left a strange ache, and Levi did not know what to do with it.
“Mikasa, right?” Levi speaks. The girl nods.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, to which she responds with a shake of her head. Her gaze remains on the floor. Her tiny fingers are clutching the straps of her bag. What the bag contained, Levi can only wonder at. He’d already filled her closet with clothes appropriate for her age.
“Alright. I’ll show you to your room. Follow me,” he says before heading towards the room at the rightmost corner of the short hallway, beside his office. The room used to be his stockroom – mostly patients’ files – so he used the day before to clean it and move things out.
She obeys without saying a word. Levi wonders if he should have done the fatherly thing of taking her hand to guide her, but doing something like that is foreign to his nature.
He opens the door to her room, revealing a room with white walls and pink fitted sheets. The sheets were newly bought, and they were recommended by the sales assistant at the mall. Seeing it now, though, the bright pink color was alien to his grey and polished home.
Finally, the child lifts her head up. She opened her mouth, hesitated, and clamped up again.
—
Mikasa was unspeaking for weeks. Their meals together were thus quiet, and she barely touched her food. It is as if he never took another person under his roof. Levi, being the quiet man he was, struggled to break the ice. She only offered a yes or no, a soft nod or a shake of her head as a means of communication. What she feels and thinks – Levi has no idea, even as a psychiatrist.
“You don’t like the food?” he asks. It was a sunny-side-up with cherry tomatoes. It has been fifteen minutes, but the egg on her plate was barely eaten, and the tomatoes were still intact. Levi wonders if he should have bought the junk called chicken nuggets at the supermarket instead.
Mikasa only makes herself smaller in her chair and offers no answer. Levi sighs and places his newspaper down at the table.
Without her saying anything, he was at a loss. He is not used to this. He can only help people who can speak their minds. Briefly, he wonders if she hates him instead.
‘Well, at least she’s functioning,’ he notes.
Without any alarm whatsoever, she comes out of her room at 7 am every morning, (barely) eats breakfast, then goes down the elevator to ride the school bus, which always arrives at 8 am sharp. Levi is astounded by her functionality. Too robotic, too eerie.
The condo’s quietness was broken a little when, finally, she decided to speak.
It happened at around 6:30 am on a sunny spring day, and she stumbled upon him preparing her boxed lunch. She takes a pause by the kitchen entrance, holding her arm shyly.
“Uncle…thank you for taking me in,” she tells him quietly. Levi has his back to her and he dryly responds,
“No need to thank me.”
Silence. Levi washes his hands on the sink before putting on the lid.
“You got up early today,” he comments, untying his kitchen apron to sit down with his tea.
“The heater made the room too warm.”
“I see.”
She approaches him and takes the lunch box.
“I can prepare my lunch starting tomorrow, uncle.”
“No need to force yourself if you can’t, yet.”
“I think I can, now. Thanks. My mom—” and at this she takes a lengthy pause. Levi sees her wipe her eyes with her uniform sleeve, her eyes and nose getting scarlet. “My mom taught me how to cook when I was younger. I should be more responsible. I don’t want to be a burden.”
Levi sets his tea on the table and it makes a quiet thud. “No one’s saying you’re a burden.”
She looks at him squarely in the eye, for the first time in a long time. She opens her mouth, hesitates, and tries again.
“It’s…it’s just what I feel. So thanks for taking me in and being patient with me.”
Levi knows she doesn’t hate him after all.
—
In a split second, a loud bang. He is thrown on the ground and feels something in him crack on impact.
He then realizes he was with a comrade. Disoriented, he searches for him amid the dust and spots him about ten feet away: legs twisted, arms torn. Red was pooling underneath his body.
The stench of the explosive burns his nose and throat. His breathing gets ragged.
‘What the hell just happened…?’ he wonders.
It all happened so fast.
Levi jolts awake.
Another recurring dream. On the menu for tonight: his first experience of a comrade dying. Not the most gruesome yet, but from that day onwards, he was never the same again.
Levi sits up and massages his forehead. It is on nights like this that he remembers the time he spent with those he knew at the Marleyan front. Those who survived ended up with disabilities, whether mental or physical. Those who died, he had committed to memory, no matter how painful remembering their deaths had been out of a stubborn refusal to let their deaths be forgotten.
He sits on his bed for a while, letting his nightmare wash over him. Here, in the dark, there is space to let the thoughts linger.
But Levi doesn’t ruminate any longer. Instead, he leaves the bed to prepare tea – a ritual to regain his equilibrium.
With the sound of the explosion still ringing in his ears, he passes the child’s room. He almost misses it, but he hears a faint sobbing.
“Mommy, daddy,” –he hears. And immediately, it reminds him of the daughter of his comrade during his funeral, screaming “Daddy, don’t go,” as the casket was lowered into the ground. His mind makes a quick image of his own brother and his wife, dead on the ground like his comrade was, and it immediately makes him sick.
He cups his hand over his mouth and stares at the ground, the sound of the child’s crying from the other room and the echo of the blast deafening him.
‘It looks like I’m not the one having a bad night tonight,’ he thinks wryly. He then counts to ten – a grounding technique – while he focuses his eyes on the wooden floor. Light grey oak. In ten seconds, he is standing straight back up, hands raised to knock on the child’s door, his heart rate back to normal. He is used to this.
And he knocks.
It doesn’t take a while for the door to creak open, revealing a sniffling Mikasa – pink nightgown hanging on her bony frame, eyes puffy.
“You alright?” he asks, his face stoic.
She shakes her head. “Nightmare.” She then looks down. “I miss my mom and dad…”
He stands still, a clinical response ready to leave his lips, but he takes it back. This is a child, not an adult patient.
What would he, as a psychiatrist, have told himself at this moment?
“Can you still go back to sleep?” he asks instead.
“It will be a little bit difficult.”
“Do you want warm milk then?”
“Okay.”
-
Levi pours hot water into his tea kettle. He decides on hojicha tonight. Not too strong, not too mild, just right.
As the tea steeps, he pours milk onto another mug before placing it inside the microwave to heat up for a minute.
While waiting for their drinks to be ready, he leans onto the countertop, folds his arms, and decides to talk with his niece who is sitting quietly on the chair, head hanging low.
“Do you want to go to therapy?” he asks.
This makes her raise her head. “...therapy?”
Levi nods. “You will speak to a trained professional about your mom and dad. What you experienced. He or she will help you cope with your grief.”
Briefly, he wonders if he is being too straightforward this early on. But as a psychiatrist, he is concerned of Mikasas’s trauma response to losing both of her parents. She is too functional, yet getting skinnier day by day. He wants to ensure that she is coping healthily. He doesn’t know a good pediatric therapist, but he can make a call and ask around.
“If you think it’ll help…I’ll try it.”
Her readiness surprises him a little.
“I really do,” he responds honestly.
Silence. Then, the microwave dings. Levi takes out the mug of milk and places it down on the table before Mikasa.
“Thanks, uncle,” she says, wrapping her fingers around the mug. It wasn’t too hot. It was just right. On the other hand, Levi doesn’t say anything in response but instead he turns around and checks his tea. About two more minutes.
“I have an appointment with a patient earlier than usual tomorrow, so I’ll be out at 6 am. I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own, but call my number on the fridge if you need anything,” he says as he pours tea onto his cup.
The clock is ticking quietly, and he carefully considers the words that come out of his mouth next.
“Mikasa,” he calls and she looks at him. Her curious gaze, paired with what he knows he will say next, makes him hesitate but he proceeds nonetheless.
“Your mom and dad aren’t here anymore. That is your reality. You have to face it. But the fact remains that you’re still here, so you must keep on living. This is not just for your sake, but for theirs, too,” he says softly.
As he expected, Mikasa’s eyes welled up with tears. A few seconds pass, and her tiny frame is being wracked by sobs. But out of the mess of her cries, she manages to elicit:
“Thank you, uncle,” with a tiny smile.
‘What a wonder that it worked,’ he thought to himself.
He says the same thing to his patients, particularly those left behind by those who died in combat.
It was not something he learned in med school, but rather, something he was told by his uncle when he lost his mother as a child. Harsh, yes, but sobering.
‘Sometimes, people do not need comfort but reality,’ he thinks to himself.
When Mikasa, a mere child, received it as a sobering reminder, he remembered his younger self who did the same.
He sits across her and hands her a tissue.
“Once you feel better, you should go back to sleep. Also, I haven’t had the chance to say this, but I’m sorry for your loss.”
As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he realizes that no one had ever told him their condolences.
‘Did I lose a brother or is it just a dream?’
“I’m also…sorry for your loss. My dad was your brother, too,” she sniffles out. And this catches Levi off guard. Before he catches himself, a wistful smile breaks out of his lips.
“Thank you,” he utters softly.
When she finally goes back to bed, Levi proceeds to the balcony with his tea in hand. His tea has gone colder than he prefers, but this time, he lets it go. It had been made cold by a welcome intrusion into his tea ritual.
In the distance, the city lights flicker in the haze, reminding him of flickering feelings towards therapy. He was unlike Mikasa, who readily said yes to therapy. It took him a lot of convincing to try it.
But therapy had never been right for him. He could describe the horrors of war as intensely as he could, but at the end of the day, words could never suffice. He was never inclined to convince another person to understand him either. It was a hopeless situation.
The only thing keeping him sane was the fact that he was making the lives of military veterans and their families better by being their doctor.
A cool breeze caresses his face, and he remembers his clinic. It’s always cold there.
“Today’s been hard, doc,” a patient tells him. He is sitting on a couch before Levi. He should dwarf Levi with his size, but his shoulders are drawn in. He is making himself small.
Levi jots down something on his paper pad.
“Yeah? The black dog sure is one heck of a bastard,” he responds. He writes something again. “Are you fine with increasing the dose of your sertraline to 150 mg?”
This is how Levi knows how to treat people – one prescription at a time.
“He sure has been bitin’ hard, doc. Will the sertraline help me feel better?”
“It should keep the black dog out the door, meaning, it will further lessen your depressive symptoms.”
“Alright, doc. Looks like my current dose hasn’t been working.”
“That’s right,” Levi responds. He hands the patient his written prescription. “Watch out for your stomach in the next two weeks or so. Might get queasy.”
If his suffering was water he is desperately trying to remove from the well of his heart, therapy is like doing it with his bare hands. On the other hand, treating patients is akin to scooping out the water with a cup.
Treating patients is the only way he knows how to abate the void in his chest.
-
Four months later, Mikasa had grown comfortable enough to tell him he was scary-looking.
“Uncle, I thought you looked super scary before.”
“I get told that a lot.”
“You don’t look unpleasant. It’s just your serious expression. Maybe you should try smiling.”
“There are not many reasons for me to smile.”
“That’s dark, uncle. My therapist said that living to see another day is another reason to smile.”
‘That’s a pediatric therapist for you. I cannot imagine telling something like that to my patients,’ Levi thought.
They are outside at a nearby convenience store. Levi had just arrived home when Mikasa politely asked him if they could eat ice cream outside. When probed why, she reasoned that she’d seen her classmates do it with their friends.
Levi allowed it with a resigned sigh.
Therapy has been beneficial for Mikasa. She’d been more talkative recently. Her frame is not as bony as it used to be, as her appetite is back to normal. Levi is deeply grateful for this, as he will not allow her to be malnourished like he used to be.
At the moment, however, she is struggling to connect with her peers, especially at school. She doesn’t have friends, and her therapist is concerned that this might be stunting her social development. However, Levi thinks that Mikasa’s progress is rightfully slow and must not be forced. Mikasa not being bullied at school is enough for Levi at this point in time.
“What are you grateful for, uncle, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asks out of the blue. Her ice cream was halfway finished, partly melted, and she was carefreely swinging her leg on the chair. Levi is not having ice cream but having a bottle of cold tea imported from the Orient.
“That’s a difficult question.”
“I’ll give you an answer. It’s not difficult at all.” She points at the bottle of tea he was holding. “That drink you’re having. It must be delicious, right? Uncle, you should be grateful for the privilege to enjoy such a drink.” She looked completely serious, and Levi was taken aback.
His niece’s newfound strength, which gave her the confidence to teach him about gratefulness, makes him feel unexpectedly proud. She’d come far from the girl who barely spoke. A tiny smile breaks out on his lips as he observes the twinkle that was back in her eyes. His brother’s eyes.
This, too, was actually therapeutic.