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Hange’s shopping cart looks like she’s either got a really dysfunctional roadtrip planned, or she’s trying to prepare for a vacation with no real idea of how to actually do that. The dollar store is her first stop of many today, and probably the most useful stop. It’s not the most sentimental stop, but definitely the stop that Levi will be most grateful for. She’s got about twenty bucks here in stuff she can’t really afford, but it’s okay, because it’s for Levi (or so she reasons).
The discolored carpet under her feet needed changed about ten years ago, but she shuffles forward through the aisles, ignoring the exposed air conditioning ducts (“they’re going to be fixed later today” – okay, yeah, four weeks ago when she came here for dish soap) and putting more and more items into her cart. There’s tissue packets, toilet paper, shaving razors, travel deodorant, lotion, baby wipes, and other essentials sitting in their disposable plastic packaging.
The lady at the checkout station is the same one who was here for the emergency dish soap run. She doesn’t recognize Hange, but she remarks how tall she is. Hange smiles politely and forks over a twenty before gathering her items and heading out to the car.
Her car still smells like Levi, like soap and lavender and his own kind of musk, and it takes her a full minute of sitting in idle to collect herself before she feels stable enough to drive the hour out to the mall. Inside, the fluorescent lights are too bright, and the floor is significantly cleaner than the dollar store.
Hange doesn’t wear makeup unless she’s being photographed or she’s got a special occasion to do it for. Sure, she’ll run a pencil through her eyebrows and slap on some mascara before work, but it’s nothing special and she definitely doesn’t fuss any extra time in the morning. And for once, she’s walking into Sephora not to get a replacement for the only two items she uses, but instead a sampler.
It must be a special day at Sephora or something, because every sale associate she sees is dressed up in overly puffed skirts, bright lipstick, and heavy winged eyeliner. One approached her in a red-and-white polka dotted skater skirt with matching red lipstick that made her skin look like warm cinnamon.
“Hi, welcome to Sephora! Is there anything I can help you with today?” She asked, her voice surprisingly not as candy-sweet as her outfit. It reminded Hange a little bit of her own, the kind of not exactly female, but not male either timbre. That little bit of familiarity relaxed her.
“Hello, um, is there any way I can get just a small bottle of perfume? Like in one of those sampler tubes?” Hange asked, gripping her wallet tightly.
The associate gave her a curious look. “If you don’t mind me asking, why?”
That voice was so helpful. “My fiancé, he’s in the military. I’m trying to put together one of those soldier boxes. I want to send him a little bit of my perfume,” she stopped for a moment, trying to gather herself. “I smell him every time I get in my car and every time I step in our bedroom.”
“Oh, baby,” was all that the associate said before leading Hange to the perfume section.
“Boxes are here,” came a quiet voice. “You got a heavy one, Ackerman.”
Levi rose his eyebrows, sitting up from his position of laying back against the single pillow on his cot. He didn’t know Hange even knew about the solider box program. Of course, it might be some random person who was giving him a solider box, but in his gut, he knew immediately that this one was from Hange. He took it, surprised at the weight. There was too much masking tape on it once he ripped the brown packing paper off, which he took a knife to, before slowly opening the box. Above him, the soft-voiced man sat on his bunk, his long legs dangling over the side.
“Thanks Mike,” he said before sorting through the box.
There were a lot of essentials in the box. He was assaulted with a variety of different objects wrapped in brightly colored paper. Some quick tearing showed they were all toiletries, of various types and sizes. Buried underneath the toiletries (a shaving razor! He could hug someone right now for that razor) was a small velvet box. The hair on the back of his neck rose; she couldn’t possibly be returning his ring. No, Hange would never.
Instead of a ring, there was a load of folded up paper packed so tightly that he wondered how the box had even stood closed. He unfolded one of the papers, finding it to be a photo of Hange that immediately made him want to hide it. She was dressed up in a maid costume, from who-knows-where, except this maid costume had a plunging V-neck top and much more lace than the original design called for. She’d polished it off with a deep red lipstick and sultry eyes, making a part of his body miss her even more than usual.
“You got pictures from your wife?” Mike asked, slowly laying all his soldier box items out on the cot. “Ooh, raunchy. I like that top.”
“Piss off Zacharias,” Levi muttered, re-folding the images and tucking them into his shirt pocket. Deep inside, he was a little amused by Mike’s statement. He liked that top too. He wouldn’t correct him on calling Hange his wife either. Sure, she was his fiancé, but he planned to marry the shit out of her the moment he got back to the States.
There were a couple more items in the velvet box, hidden underneath a letter and a coupon for Twinning’s Earl Grey. One of them a small glass vial, no larger than his pinkie finger. He uncapped it hesitantly, careful not to spill it. There was a certain fragrance along with this vial, one that took him from this uncomfortable cot in a foreign country back to home, home in bed with Hange Zoe who would give him back massages until he felt he was made of jelly. Home, where Hange Zoe sat alone over a mug of Earl Grey at the kitchen table, watching the news and praying that there wouldn’t be a knock at the door tomorrow.
He inhaled the scent.
This was worth fighting for.