Chapter Text
Levi didn’t wake up so much as he just stopped sleeping.
The room was dim. Quiet, nothing moving. Only a little bit of light pushing its way in at the edges of his black-out curtains. His phone layed on the mattress next to him, face down, as he flipped it over.
_____
Furlan:
ok i watched it again
its a weird tag
Isabel:
agreed
matches their answer tho
Furlan:
yeah i guess
maybe someones rebrand?
Isabel:
maybe
or its a new crew
Furlan:
looks pretty amateur tho
Isabel:
that would make it even weirder
Furlan:
probably just some edgy teenager lol
Isabel:
hahaha
no wonder they chose levi as their target
Levi:
you two still drunk?
Furlan:
busted
Isabel:
shut upp
_____
Levi closed his eyes again, phone slipping from his fingers and landing somewhere near his hip. He was tired. Not any more than usual, just the same lingering exhaustion that never fully went away. Sleep and him had an understanding: it kept it’s distance and so did he.
He laid there for a moment longer, staring at the nothing behind his eyelids and considered staying in bed. Just for a minute… maybe the whole day. But he decided against it. Instead, he dragged himself up, functioning on autopilot and shuffled to the coffee machine. The kitchen wasn’t far, but it still felt like a commitment. Left button - large. The machine crackled to life, filling the silence as the coffee started dripping into his mug.
He took it with him to the small Juliet balcony, setting it down on the ledge before reaching for his tobacco. Rolling his morning cigarette came as naturally as breathing, fingers moving without much thought.
By the time the tip glowed, the coffee had cooled enough to take a sip.
He drank his coffee black. Always. With no sugar. On rare occasions - rare enough to barely count - he’d add a pump of licorice syrup. Today wasn’t one of those days though. Today wasn’t anything, really.
If it weren’t for the exam coming up, Levi might’ve entertained the idea of crawling back into bed. But he wasn’t the type to leave things undone. Unfortunately. Fourth semester had just started after all. Archival studies; digital or analogue - it didn’t matter. Preservation, curation, keeping things from slipping into oblivion. Old newspapers, photographs, fragments of lives that had already moved on, or ended, or simply been forgotten. Things destined to collect dust until someone like Levi decided they deserved better.
Most people didn’t even know the program existed. The ones who did thought it sounded painfully boring. Levi didn’t care. He liked the quiet of it, the order, the way forgotten things stopped being forgotten. At least for a while.
Not in this case though. A few more coffees and a couple of handwritten pages later, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from spilling all over the place anymore. No matter how much he tried to fight it, his mind kept circling back to the tag. Since yesterday, it had been sitting there, lingering.
He hesitated before eventually reaching for his phone, thumb hovering over the screen for a a while, before he unlocked it anyway. His fingers moved almost cautiously as he typed.
undue
/ʌnˈdjuː/
Undue (adjective) describes something excessive, inappropriate, or unwarranted, going beyond normal, reasonable, or necessary limits.
Levi let out a short breath through his nose, starring at the definition, though it didn’t help in the slightest.
Isabel had been right. He was overthinking this.
So he locked his phone and set it aside, a flicker of something close to embarrassment settling in his chest. It was ridiculous how much space that stupid tag had taken up in his head since yesterday. Irritating, more than anything.
Still, it stuck.
When he couldn’t take it anymore, Levi pushed his chair back with a quiet scrape. Fine. If he couldn’t get it out of his head, he’d have to deal with it another way. So he grabbed his bag, packing it quicker than necessary, then changed into something more suitable for outside.
After practically flying down the stairs, he headed straight for the linear park. The sun had just dipped below the horizon by the time he reached the street, leaving behind a fading light, that made everything look a little less real.
Levi lived just outside the city center. Anything closer was either too loud, too crowded or simply too expensive. ‚Affordable‘ was a flexible term, apparently. But what did you expect in a big, growing city?
He kept heading south, putting more distance between himself and the metropolis. It got quieter the further he went. Fewer people, fewer light, more space. He picked up his pace, still careful - the spray cans in his bag knocking softly against each other if he moved too hastily. The sound was small but noticeable enough to keep him aware of it.
Every now an then, he pulled a sticker from the back pocket of his pants and pressed it to whatever surface happened to be there. Traffic lights, lampposts, trash cans - as long as he liked the placement of it, Levi wasn’t too picky. These particular stickers were nothing special anyway. Just some typical „Hello, my name is…“ prints with his tag written on them. Even though his personal style leaned a little more towards the avant-garde, Levi still respected the classics.
He could already see the canal, cutting through the green part of the neighborhood, which meant he was almost there.
Levi would never admit it, but he was paying more attention than usual. His gaze lingered longer, sharper, scanning walls, corners, anything that might stand out.
But still, there was nothing.
Maybe this ‚undue‘-guy stayed closer to the city center. More people = more visibility. Made sense. But it also made things harder. The heart of the city was a mess of overlapping tags, layers upon layers of color and ego. Finding one specific mark in all of that- yeah, good luck.
A gust of wind brushed his hair as he stepped onto the railway bridge. Though the sun had already set, its colors still lingered, fading into a gradient of purple and blue.
It took him a second, shameful attempt to pull himself up onto the tall metal barrier separating the walkway from the tracks. Just as he managed, the first freight train sped past him, the force of it sending his dark hair flying in every direction. He glanced up, hoping to catch some graffiti, but no luck. Just one of those car transporter trains, with no carriages to be written on.
Once it passed, Levi stayed perched there, one foot resting against the metal, the other hanging down loosely.
Three paint markers sat in his hand, which he shook absentmindedly to get the ink flowing. He started experimenting with different-shaped stars, creating a frame for a tag, when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
„Yeah?“
„Hey, where you at?“
„The canal bridge where you threw up last time.“
Levi could hear Furlan cracking up at that: „Perfect. Wanna smoke?“
„Sure.“
„Nice, be there in twenty,“ he replied, hanging up before Levi even had a chance to answer.
The purple gradient had turned dark blue by the time Furlan arrived.
„Hey,“ his voice came in along with dull footsteps on metal. The taller one pulled himself onto the rusty railing with ease, dropping into a cross-legged position across from him.
Levi only gave a short glance. „Hi.“
Furlan was already digging through his pockets, pulling out papes, filter tips, then a baggy. He immediately began transferring some of it into his metal grinder, the small plastic bag falling into his lap. Levi reached for it before he could put it away. The plastic crinkled between his fingers as he turned it, squinting at the label. „Orange hoe?“ He read flatly.
The blonde snorted, spreading some tobacco onto the brown almost see-through paper. „My plug ghosted me, so I asked Rainer.“
That did not help. If anything, Levi’s expression sharpened: „Explains why Isabel’s not with you.“
Furlan just shrugged, now distributing the green crumbs onto the tobacco: „It’s not like I’m going behind her back, she knows I met up with him. She just doesn’t want me hanging around them too much-“ he shot Levi a more pointed look, „which I don’t.“
„I know you don’t,“ Levi said, quieter now. „I think she just worries.“
„I know,“ Furlan sighed, lining up the filter. „She’s working a shift at the bar tonight anyway. I just dropped her off.“
Levi nodded.
„Berthold was there too,“ his friend mentioned incidentally.
„Who would’ve guessed?“ He sighed with a flat look on his face, not surprised by his friend's words.
A subtle grin spread across Furlans lips as he rolled the filled paper up into itself. „I showed them the video.“
„And?“
„They actually said they’ve seen it before.“ Levi hated how those words made his pulse pick up.
„Really?“ He asked in a calmer manner, afraid of sounding more eager than he wanted to. „Where?“
„So, you know the villa district further south?“
„Yeah?“
„Remember how I told you about Berthold being super rich?“ Levi did not, but let him continue either way. „He lives there. Told me about an old town wall at the edge of the district - apparently their crew did some stuff there. And- “ Furlan leaned forward a little, sealing the joint with a quick lick, „- he said an entire section of that wall was covered in ‚undue‘s.“
Levis couldn’t stop his eyes from growing larger at that.
„They thought it was weird- and he also said he saw it on a power box there, a couple days later,“ Furlan added, finally lighting the joint, a thick smoke cloud surging from his lips.
Levi’s gaze drifted somewhere past Furlan, unfocused. A power box in an area like that was pretty bold. „So you think that ‚undue‘ person lives there too?“ he asked, finally.
Furlan tipped his head. „Either that, or he’s trying to make some anti-capitalist statement.“ A crooked grin, more smoke. „Or he’s just a psycho.“
Levi let out a quiet breath through his nose, fixing his haze on his worn-out shoe: „So you think it’s a guy too?“
„Isabel said no woman would behave like that when I told her,“ Furlan explained while handing Levi the joint. „And I agree. I mean, there aren’t many girls in the scene to begin with.“
Levi didn’t answer right away, as another train thundered past them, louder this time, close enough to rattle through the metal beneath them. The wind hit harder, pressing his jacket against his back, dragging loose strands of black hair across his face. For a moment, everything else got drowned out.
He’d thought the same thing. Of course he had. Statistically, it made sense. The scene was dominated by men, always had been. Not because women couldn’t do it, but because most didn’t. Too many nights alone, too many empty places, too many situations that could turn dangerous fast if you were on your own. Tracks, tunnels, abandoned spots - not exactly safe.
So yeah, probability leaned one way.
Levi shifted slightly, eyes drifting along the blur of passing wagons. It annoyed him more than it should. How this had stuck with him, digging it’s claws into him even deeper now. Because now there was something.
Not much. Barely anything, really. But enough to feel like a direction.
Levi exhaled quietly through his nose, eyelids lowering.
Could be coincidence. Could be bullshit. Could be Berthold exaggerating to sound interesting.
Could also be a rich kid with too much time. Someone bored in a villa, sneaking out to play underground.
Or the opposite. Someone making a point. Anti-capitalist, marking territory where they didn’t belong on purpose.
Or just someone who didn’t give a shit at all. No message. No statement. Just ego.
Or yeah. Just some edgy teenager.
The corner of his mouth twitched, but it didn’t quite turn into a smile. The train finally cleared, the noise dragging out behind it until it dissolved into the distance. Silence settled back in, thinner now, like something had shifted.
Levi blinked once, refocusing. „It’s still a shit tag,“ he muttered, trying to convince himself.
The joint passed between them again, slower now, the glow at the tip dimming and flaring with each drag. Smoke curled upward, immediately torn apart by the cold wind. For a while, they didn’t say much. Just sat there, legs hooked against rusted metal, watching nothing in particular.
Then Furlan suddenly leaned back a little, like he’d just remembered something.
„Oh- right.“ He reached into his jacket pocket, rummaging around before pulling out a small stack of stickers. „Rainer gave me these for you.“
Levi raised an eyebrow but took them anyway. A quick glance was enough. „These look like shit.“
„I knew you’d say that,“ he could hear Furlan chuckle.
They were loud, overdesigned, too many colors fighting each other, some half-baked graphic clashing with a tag that didn’t even flow properly. The kind of thing that tried too hard to stand out and ended up doing the opposite.
Levi flipped through them once, unimpressed.
Exchanging stickers was part of the culture - not just some throwaway habit, but a quiet system people actually paid attention to. You traded to show connection, to signal respect, sometimes even to mark a loose kind of hierarchy. Whose stickers got passed around, whose ended up in the hands of the right people - it said something.
And then there was what you did with them. People paired stickers, stacked them. Placed someone else’s next to their own like a signature of association; we know each other, we’re cool, we exist in the same orbit. Some even designed their frames so other tags could sit inside them, building little combinations that only made sense if you knew who was connected to who.
He slid the stack together again, thumb pressing along the edges. Truth was, he rarely gave his own out. Not because he didn’t have enough, he just didn’t see the point in handing them to everyone who asked. Most of the time, people gave him theirs instead.
Levi let them. Didn’t mean it went both ways.
The only exceptions were Furlan and Isabel. With them, it wasn’t transactional. Their stickers showed up next to his without thinking about it: on poles, signs, random corners of the city. Sometimes layered, sometimes side by side.
„So, you brought some cans with you or what?“ Furlan pulled him out of his thoughts eventually.
„Of course.“
And just like that, they spent the rest of their Saturday night decorating the bridge.