Chapter Text
The misty morning air wafted against your skin, though, the chill sinking into your veins had nothing to do with the temperature, but everything to do with the wearied tension from the day before.
You had woken up long before the sun had even thought about creeping over the horizon, mind already operating at its full capacity. Across the room, the faint crepuscular rays trickled through the windows, the light was softly striking both Historia and Mikasa, who were still fast asleep in their respective bunks, while Sasha, above you, was snoring loudly—there was absolutely no need to check if she was still asleep, given that godawful noise she was making. Nonetheless, the scene unfolding felt very comforting, almost domestic, if it weren’t for the loitering thought that kept nudging your mind.
Because the truth was, even if you felt like you had enough sleep, you still felt restless. The resolve you had spent the previous night rationalizing to yourself hadn’t faded at all; if anything, it had strengthened even more. Today, you were so certain and so determined that you were going to decode Captain Levi. Every look, every command, every act of intervention—you were going to analyze it all through an objective lens.
But the key to this strategy was subtlety. You couldn’t afford to let him catch on, nor could you let yourself be betrayed by the gnawing impulse to look at him for too long. If he still harbored suspicions that you were a spy, acting too different and prying into his personal space would only paint a glaring target on your back. If he was just being weird, then, doing so would still bring a humiliating conversation that you weren’t ready to have. Whichever was true for him, nothing should change: you needed to be discreet, observant, and completely unbothered by him.
Having freshly showered, the damp ends of your hair resting against the collar of your casual civilian shirt, you gently padded downstairs, careful not to make too much noise. Your bandaged ribs still throbbed with a dull ache whenever you took a deep breath, but the frigid water you had used earlier at least washed away the lingering exhaustion of yesterday’s cleaning marathon.
The main hall was silent, dimly lit by the pale light filtering through the freshly scrubbed windowpanes. To your surprise, you weren’t the only one up.
Eren was already sitting in front of the long wooden dining table, hunched slightly over a modest spread of rations. A single candle flickered near him, casting shadows across his face as he vigorously munched on a piece of dry bread.
He blinked in surprise as you strode quietly through the room, swallowing his mouthful before lifting his unoccupied hand slightly to greet you.
“Morning,” he muttered, voice still thick with sleep. He gestured toward the basket of bread in the center of the table and pushed it toward your side. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
“Good morning,” you replied softly, pulling out the wooden chair across from him and taking a seat. You picked up the bread, tearing off a small piece. “I slept, but I woke up earlier than expected. I think I was just restless thinking about the experiments today.”
Eren let out a deflated sigh, leaning his chin into his palm as he stared down at his half-eaten meal. “Yeah. Tell me about it.” He rubbed his temple with his free hand, frustration evident in the tight set of his jaw. “I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to figure out how I’m even supposed to do what Section Commander Hange wants.”
He trailed off, turquoise eyes fixing intently on you, before continuing, “Hardening… it sounds… it sounds impossible. I don’t even know what triggers it. I feel like everyone’s being way too optimistic about the whole thing. What if we spend all day out there and I can’t even produce a single shard?”
You chewed slowly, observing the massive weight of responsibility resting on his shoulders. For a moment, your own problem involving Captain Levi seemed to shrink as you absorbed the reality of the young boy sitting in front of you—the literal hope of humanity, terrified of failing a test he hadn’t even been given anything to prepare for.
“You’re overthinking it, Eren,” you muttered under your breath, offering him a grounded smile. “No one’s expecting you to manifest hardening nor master it in the first try, that’s why it’s called an experiment. It’s pure trial and error. You try something, if it fails, we try to find out why, and you try something else until it finally works.”
Eyes that resembled the lake rippled with sudden enlightenment, as he seemingly took temporary comfort in your calm logic.
“Besides,” you added, tapping your knuckles against the wooden table, “if the Section Commander starts pushing you past your limit or tries to drag out the testing when your body is already giving out, I’ll step in and call them out. I’ve assisted in their lab enough times to know when their scientific curiosity is blinding them to reality. You won’t be out there alone, Eren. I’ll be there with you, I promise that.”
A visible wave of relief washed over Eren’s features, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. “Thanks, Y/N. Seriously. That… helps a lot.”
Before he could pivot to another topic that did not involve the grueling experiments to be done today, the muffled sound of galloping hooves broke through the fragile quiet within the cabin. The steady thumping grew louder, stopping abruptly near the wooden porch outside.
A few seconds later, the front door was shoved open with an alarming force that rattled the iron hinges.
“Eren!” Hange’s resounding voice shattered the serene silence that once enveloped you two, their words vibrating the dust out of the rafters. They stood in the threshold, hair wild, wearing their full Scout uniform, and pulsating with too much energy considering that it was only the crack of dawn. “It is time to—”
Hange cut themselves off mid-sentence, blinking through their goggles as they scanned the main hall, realizing the room was nearly pitch black and missing a key figure. They lowered their raised arms, letting out a disappointed sigh. “Wait, where is Levi?! Don’t tell me he’s still sleeping! We don’t have time to—”
“I am awake, you loud-mouthed lunatic,” a familiar voice drawled from the shadows of the staircase, cutting through Hange’s rambling early in the morning.
You and Eren both turned to the source of the sound. Captain Levi was descending the wooden steps with a deliberate cadence that fit his nature. He was fully dressed in his grey shirt and dark trousers, looking very immaculate despite the ungodly hour. Gaze as sharp and elusive as a smoke had flicked toward the front door, narrowing into an unamused glare as he addressed the Section Commander.
“The sun isn’t even over the trees yet, Hange,” Levi remarked dryly, his voice carrying that usual pointed edge. “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead, and if you scream like that again, I’ll kick you back out into the dirt.”
Hange merely brushed it off, already immune to the Captain’s threats that meant nothing to them, and strode into the room with wide, energetic strides. “Oh, come now, Levi! We have a busy day ahead! Besides, I knew I wouldn’t be the only eager one today!”
Hange swung an arm outward, pointing dramatically toward the dining table with a triumphant grin. “Look! My favorites are already awake and prepared for the day! Both Eren and Y/N are ready to reclaim Wall Maria, they’re even more excited than I am!”
Levi paused at the bottom of the stairs, letting out a disgruntled huff.
His head turned slowly toward the table. His piercing gaze swept over Eren first, accepting the boy’s “Good morning, Captain” with an imperceptible tilt of his chin.
Then, his eyes—totally unavoidable—had found you, like always.
The room seemed to curl its corners inward, drawing the walls close and close until only the reality of his gaze on you had remained true. Yet, you kept your face perfectly neutral, maintaining a composed posture despite the confusing inner turmoil you had been experiencing right now. You gripped your bread as if you were just a bystander enjoying breakfast. Without saying something, since you were afraid you would stutter in front of him, you just offered a polite military nod—nothing more, nothing less.
Levi didn’t say a word about yesterday. He didn’t mention the compromised position in the main hall, he didn’t mention the loose bandages, and he certainly did not address the unanswered questions hanging in the stifling air between the two of you.
Breaking the quiet stare-down, Levi clicked his tongue and ceased the eye contact, turning his back on you three as he directed his attention toward the kitchen archway.
“Brief the brats, Hange,” Levi commanded over his shoulder, his tone flat and businesslike. “Explain how the experiment is going to happen while I make tea.”
As his figure disappeared into the kitchen, the feeble sound of a kettle being filled with water reverberated back into the hall. You let out a quiet exhale through your nose, your mind already filing away the short yet strange interaction with him, again.
As Hange passionately mapped out the morning’s schedule with animated hand gestures and unbridled enthusiasm, Levi finished pouring his tea. He turned around, not rushing at all, as he subtly rested his back against the edge of the kitchen counter. Stillness had settled around him like a heavy cloak as he brought the porcelain cup to his lips, holding it in that signature and peculiar manner that did not bother you at all.
What bothered you, however, was how his grey eyes remained fixed on you over the steaming rim. You could not decipher anything from his look, his gaze remained unreadable, tracking your expressions with an intensity that made the cool morning air bite harder on your skin.
One by one, the rest of the squad began descending down the staircase. Sasha came down first, sniffing the air instantly, her face crestfallen the moment she realized no meat was waiting on the table, Historia followed almost immediately, yawning as she stepped down. Jean, who was rubbing his bleary eyes and lowly complaining about the noise, was followed closely by Connie and Mikasa. Meanwhile Armin went down with his luminous, wide-eyed gaze as he scanned the room with curiosity.
“Alright, everyone! Time is of essence!” Hange declared, clapping their hands together. “Moblit should be finished settling the horses near the clearing by now, so let’s move! Science waits for no one!”
Before the rest of the 104th could fully rouse themselves from their stupor—and before the Captain could even set his teacup down—you made your move. Gathering up the unfinished piece of bread Eren had pushed toward you earlier, you quickly shoved the crust into your mouth, chewing furiously and swallowing as fast as humanly possible. You bolted out the door right behind Hange and Eren, ignoring the stinging sensation it brought on your ribs, since you were so, so determined to put as much distance as possible between yourself and Captain Levi.
Because it was early in the morning, and you couldn’t seem to fathom why the hell was he staring at you like that?
He was driving you crazy. That was all it had to be. You had promised yourself last night that you were going to analyze him, observe him, and meticulously gather clues to deduce his real motives for dragging a soldier with fractured ribs into his elite squad. But you couldn’t resume your investigation when his eyes were locked directly on you. To dissect his behavior, you needed him preoccupied with something else. And Eren’s upcoming Titan hardening experiment was the perfect cover. Once the chaos started, the Captain would be too focused on Eren to notice you stealing glances at him from afar.
You sped down the winding forest path, the loose gravel crunching down your feet, as you emerged into the brisk air of the rocky clearing that overlooked a vast and vacant glade down below. Moblit was standing right near the precipice, holding a journal while his free hand adjusted his satchel. He looked up as you approached, offering a polite nod.
“Good morning, Y/N,” Moblit greeted warmly.
You hummed in agreement, unable to articulate an actual greeting because your cheeks were puffed out, stuffed with half-chewed bread. You swallowed desperately, throat burning, just as Hange strolled over and shoved a leather-bound journal and a charcoal pencil into your hands.
“Here! You know the drill!” Hange exclaimed, opening the journal to a blank page. “Moblit will be taking down the primary data and timing, while you focus on the sketching just like you used to do in my lab! I need every detail, Y/N! I will need you and Moblit to shout out your observations from up here, because I’ll be going down to stand near Eren’s feet so I can inspect him up close!”
You were still trying to clear the lump of bread from your throat, so the part about Hange standing at the feet of a fifteen-meter Titan didn’t immediately register in your muddled brain. Furthermore, you were too busy registering the shift in the air to your right, as your peripheral vision caught the sight of the figures moving nearby.
The rest of the squad had just reached the edge of the cliff. Standing only a few paces away from you and Moblit was Captain Levi. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, posture relaxed yet brimming with authority.
Snapping out of it, you swallowed the last lump of bread, your brain catching up to Hange’s words from earlier. Your head snapped up in sheer disbelief. “Wait—Section Commander, at his feet?” you objected instantly, voice rising slightly due to concern. “The blast radius from the transformation alone could throw you off balance, and the heat will burn you to a crisp. You can’t stand that close!”
“Nonsense! Science favors the bold, Y/N, and you should know that by now!” Hange chirped, dismissing your warning as they turned toward the open space below. “Eren! Transform now!”
Eren didn’t hesitate. Down the clearing, he brought his hand to his mouth and bit down hard.
A blinding flash of yellow lightning made you cover your eyes in instinct, accompanied by the thunderous crack that shook the ground beneath your boots. The force of the transformation swept over the cliffside, rustling the high tree canopies and generating an immense plume of scalding steam and dust. True to form, Hange didn’t even wait for the smoke to clear before firing their ODM gear, soaring recklessly right into the heart of the explosion down where Eren was.
As the dense fog of smoke gradually drifted away, Eren’s massive Titan form materialized below, hunched awkwardly over the terrain.
“Eren! Try to constrict the muscles in your hands!” Hange instructed. They were standing mere feet away from the Titan’s giant toes, craning their neck upward. “Focus the energy into your knuckles! See if you can force the skin to calcify!”
You squinted through the thin haze of vapor, the charcoal pencil hovering over the blank paper. Beside you, Moblit was frantically scribbling down time records and initial observations of Eren’s titan form. Narrowing your eyes, you were able to look at the gigantic hands of Eren’s Titan, but there was no crystallization, no bluish light reflecting off it, and no hardening appearing on his skin. Just the raw muscle straining against itself.
“Y/N!” Hange yelled up, cupping their hands around their mouth to amplify their voice. “What do you see from up there?! Tell me whatever you’re seeing, my view down here is too limited!”
You hesitated, fingers tightening around the pencil with complete hesitation.
To give Hange the answer, you would have to shout at the top of your lungs. Back when you were working as Hange’s lab assistant for a few days, that was completely normal for the two of you, since it was not like anybody there could witness it. In the chaotic yet uplifting environment of their laboratory, your usual quiet and stoic shell had been shattered by Hange’s relentless energy and babbling, and you had frequently found yourself yelling back and forth with Hange in the cramped room like it was the most normal thing in the world.
However, your friends in the 104th had never seen that side of you. To Connie, Jean, Sasha, and the rest, you were quiet, serious, and composed—only joking whenever you felt like it, only ever raising your voice during life-or-death missions or moments of extreme distress. To start screaming your observations felt like you were being peeled alive to be scrutinized by everyone.
And by everyone, of course that included a certain someone who clearly made you nervous on top of it all.
You cast a brief, anxious glance toward your right. Why did you care so much about Levi’s perception of you? Why did the thought of him judging you make your stomach twist into knots? You didn’t want him thinking you were unrefined, loud, or disobedient. Plus, what if he viewed you yelling at a superior officer as blatant disrespect and decided to punish you for it?
Why couldn’t Hange just get Moblit to do it?
Down below, as if hearing your internal conflict, Hange threw their arms up in the air, stomping their boot impatiently. “Y/N! Don’t get shy on me now! Moblit is busy taking notes, and I need your eyes! Just do it!”
You took a shaky breath, closing your eyes for a split second to ground yourself. Dropping your pride, you stepped up to the very edge of the rocky precipice, cupped your hands around your mouth, and unleashed your voice across the valley, high enough to rattle your bandaged ribs.
“There is no hardening yet!” you screamed out, your voice ringing sharp and clear over the wind. “He’s just straining his muscles, but there’s no crystal formation yet!”
With Moblit just nodding off as he continued writing, you went back and poured all your focus into the sketchbook, pen flying across the parchment as your hands captured the evolving structure of Eren’s Titan form. But as the minutes ticked by, your eyes, how treacherous they seemed to be, couldn’t resist darting sideways.
Every few moments, you couldn’t help but steal a fleeting glance at Captain Levi.
He remained standing a few paces away, arms folded, posture as still as carved stone. His grey eyes were vacant of emotion, fixated on the experiment happening below. It was infuriating. You had promised yourself you would decode his motives, find a single clue as to why he had dragged you—broken bones and all—into his squad. But staring at him felt like trying to read a blank wall.
With frustration bubbling beneath your flesh, you turned your attention back to the clearing, throwing yourself into the rhythm of the experiment. The professional barrier you usually kept up around your peers had dissolved. Backed into the familiarity of your days with Hange before, you began trading shouts back and forth across the wind with the Section Commander.
“Look at the nape!” you screamed across the valley, cupping your hands around your mouth again as you ignored the dull ache settling in your ribcage. “It’s degrading!”
“Are you sure, Y/N?!” Hange bellowed back, craning their neck as they prepared to fire their ODM gear near Eren’s nape. “Check it again!”
“I already did, Hange! Like I said before, it is deteriorating!”
You blurted out the Section Commander’s name without a single thought, stripping them of their rank in the heat of the exchange since that was what you had been familiar with anyway.
Except the squad just standing paces away from you did not share the same sentiment.
Armin’s jaw dropped. Having been separated from you during the time you had been recovering in Hange’s laboratory, he had no idea just how unhinged and casual your working relationship with the Section Commander had become. Beside him, Mikasa’s eyes widened a bit, astounded by your audacity. Historia parted her mouth as she stared at you with utter bewilderment. To them, shouting at a high-ranking officer—let alone dropping their title entirely—was unthinkable and disrespectful, even for someone as respectable as you.
Meanwhile, Jean, Connie, and Sasha were experiencing a different flavor of panic. They had witnessed your dynamic with Hange before, they were not that shocked that you were comfortable with yelling at the Section Commander. In fact, their eyes weren’t on you and Hange, they were watching how Captain Levi was absorbing the interaction.
Connie’s face went pale, eyes darting nervously between your side profile and the Captain’s motionless figure. Jean gulped, posture stiffening as he prepared for the worst. They were convinced Levi was reaching the tail-end of his patience. To them, your screaming and blatant insubordination were inviting him to give you a brutal disciplinary action. Sasha instinctively took a half-step back, fully expecting Levi to march over, grab you by the collar, and kick you off the precipice to join Hange and Eren in the dirt below.
Yet, the anticipated blow never came. Levi didn’t move an inch. He simply stood there, his piercing gaze tracking you and the frenzied movements of your pencil.
You were far too consumed by the disaster unfolding down in the clearing to notice the tension wrapping the whole squad. To you, Eren was not just yielding zero hardening results, his Titan form was also actively decaying in real time. The once-intimidating fifteen-meter frame was now shrinking, sagging inward as if the flesh were melting off its own bones. The face of his Titan was warping into an unrecognizable, deformed mass.
“Moblit, look at the hands!” you urged rapidly under your breath, charcoal smudging across your palm as you sketched the unnatural curvature of the Titan’s arms. “He’s shrinking, but there’s steam near his knuckles!”
Moblit’s quill scratched hectically against his paper as he nodded in acknowledgement, squinting his eyes to get a better look.
“Hange!” you yelled out again, stepping closer to the precipice. “Check his knuckles closely! They’re emitting steam even though the rest of his body is collapsing!”
Down there, Hange scrambled over the terrain toward the Titan’s hand. But the phenomenon disappeared as quickly it came. The localized steam flared for barely eight seconds before vanishing completely into the crisp mountain air, leaving behind only the skin.
Hange threw their hands in the air, looking up at the cliff with a face reeking of pure disappointment. “It’s gone! Y/N, Moblit, Are you sure you saw steam there?!”
“Yes!” you screamed back, your throat hurting from the strain. “I sketched it! It’s right here in your journal!”
“I saw it too, Section Commander!” Moblit yelled, backing you up. “The steam was real!”
You let out a harsh breath, wiping a smudge of dark charcoal off your cheek with the back of your hand, chest heaving as you looked down at the messy yet detailed drawing in Hange’s journal.
Then, the ambient noise of the wind swishing the leaves of the trees seemed to mute entirely.
Deliberate footsteps echoed against the hard rock just beside you. The distinct yet slow cadence of the boots clicking against stone sent you straightening up your posture instantly.
A violent somersault beneath your ribcage emerged, pressing hard against the healing bone as if something uncalled for was clawing its way up your skin.
Turning your head slowly, the horror dawned over you as you realized what you had just done. You had screamed at Section Commander Hange, dropped their rank repeatedly in front of the squad, ignored military decorum, and acted like an unhinged individual in front of the most lethal and strict officer in the regiment.
Captain Levi stopped directly beside you.
He didn’t say a single word. Yet, the ominous click of his boots ceased, standing so uncomfortably close just mere inches from you that the fabric of his grey shirt almost brushed against your shoulder.
Before you could even formulate a proper military salute or take a step back, Levi’s hand darted out. In a swift motion, he snatched the journal right out of your loose grasp.
You immediately stiffened, eyes widening in panic as you watched the Captain look down at the open pages.
“Captain, I—” you stammered awkwardly, the unhinged tone you had been speaking in earlier evaporating in an instant. “I apologize, sir. The sketches are messy right now due to the time constraints. I was going to refine the line work and clean up the annotations after the experiment but—”
Your voice seemed to lose its own volume, realizing that he was pointedly ignoring you and your pathetic rambling. His eyes swept over the erratic, charcoal-smudged pages with extreme focus.
Whatever Levi was searching for in your work, he seemingly found it. He didn’t offer a critique, nor did he reprimand you for dropping Hange’s rank just moments prior. Instead, he simply lifted his head, his gaze penetrating across the clearing, directly toward the steaming carcass of Eren’s Titan.
“Oi, brat,” Levi’s voice cut through the air, resonant and commanding, easily carrying over the wind. “If you’re not dead in there and have one more in you, get out and transform again.”
Down in the clearing, Hange let out a triumphant shriek of eagerness. “A second round! Yes! Hear that, Eren? The Captain demands more!”
With a flurry of manic energy, Hange fired their ODM gear, zipping directly into the dissipating steam to manually slice Eren out of the melting Titan nape. The Section Commander carefully dragged his exhausted human body onto a nearby patch of elevated rock, giving him just enough space to catch his breath before demanding he bite his hand once more after he had rested enough.
To your absolute horror, the Captain did not return to his designated observation spot.
Without breaking his gaze from Eren, Levi simply held the journal back out toward you. You took it with shaky fingers, the charcoal pencil hovering over the paper. You waited for the sound of his boots retreating, for his presence to momentarily disappear so you could finally exhale in relief.
But he didn’t move. He just stood there, anchored firmly to your right side, his boot mere inches from yours.
Minutes dissolved into one another as the both of you breathed in the same quiet. Then, another blinding flash of yellow explosion signaled Eren’s second transformation.
It was going well, until the Captain had decided that your sketching was not just your business. And worse, he wasn’t even attempting to be discreet about it. Every time you adjusted your grip on the pencil or flipped a page to sketch the new and deformed bone structure of Eren’s Titan, Levi would unapologetically steal glances at you. He would turn his head, eyes tracking the movement of your wrist, tracing the smudge of charcoal on your cheek, and scanning the notes you were writing.
Your paranoia shifted into maximum overdrive again. What is he expecting me to do? your brain screamed as you aggressively shaded the Titan’s deteriorating muscles. Is he waiting for me to rip these pages out and swallow them to sabotage the experiment? Does he think I’m going to use a flare gun to signal spies in the forest to ambush us and kidnap Eren while he’s physically compromised?
You forced your attention onto the paper, refusing to make eye contact with him. You just sketched through the discomfort, the lines sharp and unyielding, praying the ground would open up and swallow you whole so you would not endure this for any much longer.
Meanwhile, completely oblivious to your internal psychological warfare, the rest of the 104th squad was having a collective meltdown for reasons you couldn’t comprehend.
Catching the scene from the corner of your eye, you noticed Connie leaning over to whisper something behind his hand to Armin, Jean, and Sasha. Whatever Connie had just said, it made Jean’s face contort into a mask of unadulterated irritation. Jean looked ready to march over and start a fistfight—you just didn’t know if it was with you or the Captain beside you. Armin looked like he was one second away from suffering a stress-induced migraine. The blonde boy was making subtle “calm down” hand gestures to both Jean and Connie, whispering reprimands at the boy with the shaved head to shut his mouth.
Connie, however, just looked overly excited, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face as he watched Sasha biting the inside of her cheek. She was staring fixedly at Eren’s Titan, but her shoulders were trembling as she fought a losing battle to suppress a hysterical laugh. Historia was awkwardly side-eyeing the group, her brow furrowed in a mix of confusion and secondhand embarrassment, while Mikasa just ignored all of them, her dark eyes focused solely on ensuring Eren’s safety in the clearing below.
What is wrong with all of them? you thought internally, a bead of cold sweat rolling down the back of your neck. It has to be cabin fever. That was the only logical explanation for why they were acting so odd right now.
You were so confused. And it didn’t help that the suffocating air, along with the blistering heat of the Titan steam, the peculiar, whispered arguments of your friends, and the unreadable presence of the Captain standing right beside you, were all contributing to melt your brain off your skull.
Keeping your head down, you just continued to sketch, the charcoal grinding against the paper. He was so weird. Why couldn’t he just take five steps to the left so you could finally have the space to breathe?
An agonizing hour bled by, and the situation down in the valley only seemed to worsen.
It was his third transformation now. And Eren was trying—you could see the desperate willpower radiating from his grotesque Titan form—but it simply wasn’t working. He couldn’t trigger the hardening. Worse, the physical toll of it all was now rapidly catching up to him. The towering fifteen-meter form was now barely pushing ten, its posture severely hunched. The degradation of his mass was so prominent that his Titan didn’t even have a proper ass anymore, both the gluteal and lumbar muscles almost melting away into strings of steaming flesh.
He was exhausted, that you could see, and his Titan was on the verge of collapse.
“Come on, Eren! More! Try visualizing it!” Hange hollered, their relentless scientific optimism temporarily blinding them to the grim reality of the younger boy’s physical limits.
From your peripheral vision, you could see Mikasa’s body coiled tight like a spring. Her hand was gripping the hilt of her blade, and she looked about half a second away from mutinying against Hange’s orders to go rip Eren out of the nape herself.
You bit the inside of your cheek, realizing you could not yell at Hange again. Your eyes moved to the clearing, catching sight of the untouched, rustling yellow wildflowers that had been blooming just a few meters away from Eren and Hange.
Only then, did you realize that you had already pushed your luck far beyond acceptable military boundaries today, and screaming another insubordinate demand to halt the experiment would likely result in a disciplinary action. But the sight of the poor boy torturing himself down there made your chest tighten with worry. Worse, you remembered your promise to Eren. You told him that you would call out Hange, that you would make sure he wasn’t alone there.
And although the last person you wanted to speak to was the intimidating man standing far too close to your side, your protective instincts for the young Titan shifter forcefully overrode your anxiousness.
Turning your head slightly, you tore your gaze away from the golden blooms to look at Captain Levi.
He didn’t look at you immediately, eyes still trained on Eren, but you knew he was acutely aware of your movement and sudden attention on him.
“Captain,” you started, voice barely above a nervous whisper, though you knew he could hear you perfectly over the wind. “Can you… can you please tell Section Commander Hange to stop the experiment? Eren has been trying for an hour, but it’s not working. He’s just draining himself at this point for nothing, and if we push him any further, the fatigue is going to compromise his actual human body. I think.. I think he could just try again another day.”
Levi slowly turned his head to face you.
For several seconds, he just stared at you. Stale grey eyes scrutinizing your face, looking as unreadable as ever. You held your breath, bracing yourself for the inevitable verbal lashing. You fully expected him to insult your audacity, to call you weak, or to reprimand you for being too soft on the Titan shifter.
Instead, the harsh lines around his eyes looked as if it softened by a microscopic fraction. He didn’t insult you. He didn’t scoff nor clicked his tongue in a condescending manner. He simply turned his face back toward the clearing, took a deep breath, and projected his voice loud enough.
“Oi, Four-eyes! That’s enough!”
Down in the clearing, Hange froze, throwing their arms out in protest. “What?! Why, Levi?! We’re on the verge of a breakthrough, I can feel it!”
“The brat here says he’s just draining himself for nothing,” Levi retorted, giving you a split-second glance before he went back to looking at Hange, his tone brooking no argument. “We’re done for the day.”
Hange blinked, their goggled eyes darting from Levi’s figure to you. A big, beaming smile suddenly broke across the Section Commander’s dirt-smudged face. Hange nodded enthusiastically, clearly thrilled by the assumption that you and the Captain had finally reached some sort of mutual and respectful truce. To Hange, the fact that you had went to Levi first with your concern, and Levi had actually listened to you, meant that you were no longer paralyzed by the terror that had consumed you just two days ago when you found out you were moving into this cabin with him.
Little did they know, that was still far from the absolute truth.
“Armin, Mikasa,” Levi ordered, his voice dropping back to its normal and composed volume. “Go get him out of the nape and bring him back to the cabin.”
“Yes, Captain!” they said in unison, immediately firing their ODM gear and diving into the clearing below.
As the others sprang into action, you let out a sigh of relief, closing your journal. But that relief was short-lived.
Captain Levi didn’t move to help them. He didn’t walk back to his spot with the others. He remained right by your side, not intending on going anywhere.
Your restlessness spiked to astronomical levels. If he was listening to you this closely—literally taking your scientific observations seriously enough to supersede Hange’s earlier commands—what did it mean? Was he just hovering because he thought your ideas held genuine weight for the success of Eren’s experiments? Or was this a calculated trap? Was he staying close, waiting for you to drop your guard and do something suspicious now that the main event was over?
Does he still think, after all this time, that I’m a spy?
Before you could spiral any further into your deduction, a hushed sound caught your attention.
A few feet away, Connie was still whispering into Jean and Sasha’s ears. You couldn’t hear the exact words over the wind, but their physical reactions were damning.
Your mind recalled the yesterday’s events to try and get some context regarding their unusual behavior: the cleaning in the main hall, your demanding to know why you were in squad Levi, the popped button on your uniform, your hand clamped tightly around the Captain’s wrist, the odd stare-down, and then… Sasha bursting through the door with a skillet, complaining about rats, witnessing the compromising position.
Please no.
Did Sasha rattle off to Connie?
Did she tell Connie what she saw yesterday?! Was that why Connie had been looking so excited all morning, and why Jean had been one step away from starting a brawl?! Was that why they had all been staring between you and the Captain for the past hour like you two were some sort of funny spectacle?!
A hot, embarrassing flush crept up your neck. You glared at the side of Sasha’s head with enough intensity to melt steel. You couldn’t believe she had traded sisterhood for a bunch of cheap laughs.
At the moment, you didn’t care about the Captain’s motives anymore, nor did you care about the Titan experiments.
If you found out Sasha Braus had snitched about the main hall incident to the biggest gossip in the 104th, you swore to the Walls you were going to steal every single one of her rations for the rest of the month.
Your internal plotting against Sasha was abruptly cut short by the hissing zip of ODM gear wires retracting. Armin and Mikasa had successfully reached the steaming carcass of the Titan. With synchronized precision, Mikasa sliced through the nape, freeing Eren’s half-unconscious body, while Armin helped her and hoisted him up.
Before you could even process their ascent, Hange fired their own anchors and came hurtling over the edge of the cliff, landing right in front of you, Captain Levi, and Moblit with a dramatic thud.
“The sketches, Y/N! Hand them over!” Hange demanded, their goggles fogged with Titan steam and their uniform reeking of earth and burnt flesh.
You quickly passed the leather-bound journal over. Hange flipped through the pages with soot-stained fingers, their eyes scanning your detailed anatomical sketches of Eren’s localized heat bursts and failing muscle mass.
“Fascinating…” Hange muttered, though a tinge of disappointment oozed out their voice. They snapped the journal shut, letting out a sigh. “But it’s not enough. I was really hoping the thing you would sketch today was his hardening. Why isn’t it working? The steam was there, the intent was there! We must be missing a catalyst!”
You awkwardly looked down at your boots, nervously shifting your weight.
You did have an idea. Having spent most of your waking days recently with Sasha, it was only bound to happen that a hypothesis involving food had been slowly forming in the back of your mind over the last hour no matter how hard you tried to push it away. You thought that it was just as something basic as mass conservation, but still, it was purely theoretical. It had zero empirical proof—a wild guess, plus, you certainly did not want to voice an unproven idea in front of the Captain.
“Spit it out,” Hange said abruptly, pointing a finger directly at your face.
“What?”
“You have that look, you know,” Hange declared, wiping a smudge of dirt from their nose. “The ‘I-know-the-answer-but-I’m-overthinking-it’ look. I’ve seen it a couple of times in the lab. So speak up now. What are you thinking?”
You had a look? You didn’t even know you had a specific facial expression for overthinking, let alone one recognizable enough that Hange could identify it out here in the field.
Worse, Hange’s loud observation immediately drew Captain Levi’s attention. He pulled his gaze away from Eren, turning his head to face you directly. His eyes locked onto yours, expecting for you to spew whatever Hange was babbling about.
Your hesitation skyrocketed more so when you had noticed that Armin and Mikasa just crested the ridge, supporting a groaning Eren between them. Jean, Connie, Sasha, and Historia rushed forward to help support his weight. They were only a few paces away now, within earshot. You knew they were subconsciously listening.
Fuck it. Hange didn’t entrust you as their assistant for you to suddenly act this timid the moment the attention was on you. You needed to get it together, forget the lingering anxiety, and prove to yourself that you were still that stoic and sharp-minded soldier that Hange had grown to like, and your friends had grown to admire.
“Well… I’m not sure yet,” you started, schooling your expression into a neutral one, though it was betrayed by the slightly wavering of your voice under the crushing weight of everyone’s combined attention. “But I feel like the reason Eren couldn’t get himself to harden might be.. something simpler than expected. Sometimes, biology is rarely the complexities we attach it to, and we tend to overlook it since we’re always looking for more things to focus on—the more complicated the solution is, the more acceptable things are for us.”
Stopping for a bit, you exhaled as you continued, “But I was thinking the solution might have something to do with Eren’s biological reserves. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So based from that logic, as observed, Eren has a massive Titan body, meaning a large amount of physical mass, and sustaining that mass alone requires a high amount of energy. The hardening process likely demands a demanding energy expenditure that he simply doesn’t have right now. That amount of mass needs to be balanced. I think Eren should eat more, this is so his body, his flesh could—”
“If this is your pathetic attempt to suggest we farm Eren for meat, again,” Levi’s deadpan voice sliced through the crisp morning air like a guillotine, “then no.”
At that, a suffocating stillness crashed over the cliffside, as you tried to process what he just uttered into existence.
Every single one of your friends whipped their heads toward you and the Captain so fast that you were surprised you didn’t hear their necks snap.
Beside you, Moblit looked genuinely horrified, whether at you or the Captain’s words, you couldn’t tell. Connie’s jaw unhinged as his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. Jean looked at you as if you had just sprouted a second head, face contorted in a mix of disgust and disbelief. Sasha let out a strangled wheeze, staring at you with an expression that was equal parts amused and morbidly intrigued. Armin and Historia exchanged confusing looks. And worst of them all was Mikasa, she had stopped walking, dark eyes flashing with a defensiveness over Eren’s half-conscious body.
Meanwhile, Levi didn’t blink. He maintained the unbreakable eye contact with you, his expression as flat as it always was.
You stared back at him in paralyzed shock. You could actually feel the blood rushing to your face, a mortifying heat spreading from your neck all the way to the tips of your ears.
And then, Hange started to cackle.
If this was just you, Hange, and Levi in the lab like a few days ago, you would’ve just let this slide before muttering a weak defense. But Hange’s laughing only made the situation infinitely worse. To the Section Commander, this was the pinnacle of comedy, but to your friends, it was a confirmation that you had a few screws loose in your head. You knew, with absolute certainty, that Connie, Jean, and Sasha were never going to let you live this down, ever.
Brain completely short-circuiting, your thoughts descended into a downward spiral of paranoia again. May the Walls help you, why did he just say that?!
Was this a calculated strike against your character? Was he actively trying to destroy your reputation in front of the 104th so you wouldn’t have any allies left? If he arrested you for treason later, nobody would question him because you were now the deranged, cannibalistic woman in his squad who wanted to butcher and eat Eren!
Or was this a psychological game? Did he just want to embarrass you in front of your peers for his own twisted entertainment?
Or—and this was the most unrealistic thought of all—was he joking?
Did Humanity’s Strongest Soldier just make a dark joke at your expense? Did you severely misjudge his character? Because from the looks of it, it certainly sounded like he was teasing you—after all, it was a perfectly timed and dryly delivered punchline. But he was always so serious, his face so devoid of humor, that you honestly couldn’t tell if he was seriously forbidding you from eating the Titan shifter or if he was just messing with you for the laughs of it.
“Oh my, I remember that!” Hange wheezed, wiping a tear of mirth from behind their goggles. “I still cannot believe you brought that up right now, Levi!” Hange stepped forward, clapping a hand on your shoulder. “You know what, Y/N? You should come with Moblit and me later. We’re going to meet with Commander Erwin anyway. And I cannot wait to see Erwin’s face when you formally propose that we farm Eren’s regenerative Titan meat to solve the famine crisis inside the Walls!”
“No,” Levi shot back instantly, his tone dropping, hardening into something serious and unyielding.
He didn’t even look at Hange, gaze remaining firmly fixated on you. “She’s not going out for something as unserious as this. She’s staying here.”
You finally found your voice, desperately trying to salvage whatever was left of your dignity and reputation. “Captain, wait I—that’s not what I was going to say. I was talking about why he needs more food for energy, I wasn’t going to suggest we eat him, I was just trying to explain—”
“Then continue your explanation if it’s not about your meat farm,” Levi interrupted smoothly, the ghost of a challenge glinting in his silver eyes. He tilted his head slightly, the movement very subtle you thought you had imagined it, but the bulky weight of his attention on you was undeniable and unescapable.
“I didn’t tell you to stop, did I?”
You were trapped. The entire squad was still staring at you like you were a certified psychopath, Hange was still snickering, and the Captain was just standing there, waiting for you to continue digging deeper into your grave.
Taking a ragged breath, your face still burned with a furious blush, but you forced yourself to push past the humiliation to speak.
“As I was saying,” you continued, raising your voice slightly so the horrified 104th could hear you. “Eren needs to eat more, maybe even double or triple his normal rations before a transformation. If his human body is lacking the essential nutrients, the Titan body won’t have enough energy to execute the hardening process. Because from how he is eating now, his body is only prioritizing keeping him alive over generating a hardened crystal.”
Silence, less oppressive than before, hung in the air for a brief moment as your actual and logical idea was absorbed by the group. You could visibly see the tension bleed out of your friends’ shoulders, while Mikasa’s defensive glare toward you had slowly softened back into her usual look.
Levi held your gaze for a second longer, before lifting his chin to acknowledge your explanation.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Levi drawled out, his voice a low rumble that was meant only for you despite the quiet air. “You should’ve led with that instead of chattering nonsense earlier.”
Your heart skipped a beat.
You stared at him, bewildered. What was that? Was he bullying you? Was he making fun of your panic? Or was he simply acknowledging your idea? Worse, was that mortifying interaction—specifically the second to the last sentence he croaked out—supposed to be a form of condescending praise coming from him?
Your face flushed even darker, if that was even physically possible. You quickly looked back down at the journal that Hange had closed, your thoughts spinning wildly out of control. You had promised yourself you would observe him today, that you would decode his real motives and figure out exactly where you stood with him.
But that seemed to be an impossibility now.
When Hange finally managed to calm down from the high of the joke, the Section Commander let out a sigh that transitioned smoothly back into their pragmatism that you rarely see, only in serious situations.
“Jokes aside, it is logical,” Hange conceded, tucking the leather-bound journal safely into the depths of their satchel. They adjusted the straps, nodding thoughtfully. “Y/N is right. And since Moblit and I are heading back to the capital anyway, we will try to secure more rations for Eren before we return.”
The tense energy of the Titan experiment seemed to dissipate, but the topic of conversation pivoted quickly as Hange’s demeanor shifted into something serious.
“Well, Levi, we’ll be taking our leave now since the experiment is done for the day,” Hange announced, their tone dropping an octave, losing its excited edge and adopting the grave cadence of a military official. “Erwin gave us strict orders to check on Pastor Nick’s status in the capital. We need to ensure that the Military Police haven’t located him yet, and that the Church of the Walls hasn’t made any moves to silence him—”
You instantly dropped your gaze, staring intensely at the scuffed leather of your boots.
Your heart hammered against your fractured ribs. You knew that this was not a conversation you were authorized to hear. Pastor Nick, the Church of the Walls, the Military Police’s internal affairs—this was highly classified Scout Regimen intelligence, meant for those only in the higher-ups’ inner-circle to know. If you stayed, if you even looked like you were listening, you were scared it would only further convince the Captain that you were here to gather confidential information from them. Shifting your weight, you stepped backwards to physically distance yourself from the exchange.
Captain Levi noticed.
From beneath the dark fringe of his hair, the burnished silver of his eyes flicked toward you, catching your immediate withdrawal. He didn’t say a single word about it. He simply looked away, gaze sweeping over the other members of the 104th squad who were currently helping Eren stay upright.
“Get Eren back to his bed,” Levi ordered, making all of you stand straighter than before. “The rest of you, head back to the cabin. There is still cleaning to do inside.”
As the Captain turned his back and began walking toward Hange and Moblit, who were preparing to go and mount their horses, you let out a confused breath and started the slow trek back toward the treeline. You had to move carefully, keeping your steps measured so as not to agitate your sensitive ribs, but your mind was sprinting too fast for your consciousness to even catch up on.
You could not believe that man, he might as well be a conundrum disguised as a vertically-challenged person at this point.
Just moments ago, he had humiliated you in front of your peers with a dry statement about cannibalism, only to instantly change direction and defend you from Hange’s teasing, telling the Section Commander it was unsafe for you to leave the cabin. He had praised you—if that was even a praise—only to revert back to his untouchable persona, ushering you all off to do chores as if the strange moments by the precipice had never happened.
So, was he back to not trusting you again? Had him trusting you with Eren’s well-being just a fluke? If he trusted your judgment enough to halt the experiment, why was he still looking at you like that?
Your clues were now very contradictory with each other. The psychological profile you had tried to build of him was in shambles. Even so, you were more baffled now compared to yesterday. You had no idea what his endgame was, and you still had no idea where you stood with him.
Your overthinking was cut off short as three familiar figures intercepted your path.
“So,” Sasha began, materializing at your right shoulder with a look of intense curiosity. “What do you think he tastes like? Like, realistically. Are we talking about a wild boar situation, or more of a roasted beef?”
You stopped dead in your tracks, staring at her in complete disbelief. “Sasha, not now—”
“I don’t even want to know,” Jean interrupted, sliding in on your left. Usually, Jean was your ally when it came to times like these. He was the one who consistently defended you from the Sasha and Connie’s relentless teasing, the one who always served as the grounded voice of reason. But today, a wicked and highly entertained smirk was plastered across his face. He looked more than happy to watch you squirm. “Though I’m certain you already have a recipe prepared, considering how easily you rattled off the idea of butchering him to the Captain and the Section Commander.”
“I did not suggest we butcher him!” you hissed, your face flushing a humiliating shade of pink all over again as you playfully shoved Jean’s shoulder. “That was a hypothetical joke meant for the Section Commander from days ago! I wasn’t being literal!”
“Whatever you say, Chef,” Jean snickered, dodging your weak swing.
Before you could defend yourself further, Connie squeezed between the three of you, intercepting Jean as he cut off your path entirely. He was acting very weird, looking over his shoulder with wide, paranoid eyes to make sure Historia, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin were far out of earshot.
“It doesn’t matter what Eren tastes like,” Connie whispered fiercely, his voice vibrating with the repressed energy of a boy who had just uncovered a massive government conspiracy. He pointed a finger directly at your chest. “What matters is that I finally figured it out. I know exactly why you’re here!”
You blinked, completely thrown off guard. Your expression was back to its blank slate, yet your voice betrayed you as you croaked out a confused, “What?”
Jean immediately groaned, throwing his head back in pure irritation. “Oh please, Connie, drop it! Not this again! Seriously, it was funny for about five minutes last night, but it is not funny anymore.”
You looked between Jean’s exhausted expression and Connie’s triumphant grin, your confusion rapidly mutating into pure panic. You snapped your gaze to Sasha, who had slapped both hands over her mouth, as she fought to suppress her giggles.
Your stomach churned as you realized what had happened.
You were right: Sasha really had sold you out. She had told them. She had bypassed the sacred bonds of whatever sisterhood you two had and exposed the humiliating incident to Connie and Jean.
But as Connie leaned in closer, his eyes unblinking, you realized with dawning horror that he was spinning something entirely different out of his ass.
“I know why the Captain specifically drafted you for his elite squad,” Connie declared, ignoring Jean’s groans of protest. “And it’s definitely not because you take notes for Section Commander Hange!”
“Connie, I swear, I will feed you to a Titan myself if you don’t—”
“The Captain likes you,” Connie ignored the taller boy and just dropped the bomb, nodding sagely as if he were bestowing the wisdom of the universe upon you. “There is literally no other explanation but that.”
If possible, you felt your brain turn into an actual mush. “…Excuse me?”
“Think about it!” Connie pressed, fully on a roll now, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Today only confirmed my suspicions! He was standing close and checking your drawings. He told the Section Commander to stop the experiment just because you asked him to! And then, he teased you about the Eren’s Titan meat in front of everyone! That was clearly an inside joke!”
“It was not an inside joke!” you defended, your voice cracking as your embarrassment gave way to unfiltered outrage. “He humiliated me, Connie! He doesn’t like me, are you stupid?!”
“He was trying to make you blush!” Connie countered loudly, jabbing his finger in the air. “And it worked! He looked satisfied afterwards, and he even made sure you didn’t leave for the capital! He said you’re ‘not going anywhere’ because he obviously wants you to stay here with him! Come on, Y/N, look at the facts! Why else would he drag a woman with broken ribs into an elite combat squad? He did it so he could make moves on you in a secluded forest cabin without his superior officers breathing down his neck!”
An overwhelming wave of relief washed over you—Sasha hadn’t snitched about the main hall yesterday. But that relief was incinerated by the batshit insanity spilling out of Connie Springer’s mouth.
“What is wrong with your brain?” you asked, incredulity lacing your tone, staring at the boy. “What you are saying is completely delusional!”
“I tried to stop him,” Jean sighed, sounding exasperated. “But this idiot has been whispering this stupid conspiracy theory across the boys’ room all night. He didn’t let Armin or Eren get a single wink of sleep over this.”
“It is baseless!” you sneered at Connie, pointing an accusatory finger back at him. “The Captain is not interested in me in that way! He is a man in his thirties who lives to clean houses and slaughter Titans! He’d rather flirt with a broom than make a move on me, that’s for sure! And if you keep spewing that shit out loud where anyone can hear, I will farm your meat and feed it to the horses!”
Sasha could no longer contain herself. She broke, bursting into a breathless fit of laughter, clutching onto Jean’s sleeve to keep her balance as she howled at your threat.
But Connie was unbothered, his resolve only growing stronger.
“Baseless, you say?” Connie challenged, crossing his arms with a smug, knowing look. “Then explain yesterday. He ordered you to clean the main hall alone with him while the rest of us were conveniently ordered to stay out of sight. He wanted alone time with you! Probably so it wouldn’t be obvious to the rest of the squad that he’s trying to romance you. And then! After dinner! He specifically ordered you to stay behind at the table while he sent the rest of us upstairs! He isolated you again to have more alone time with you!”
“He isolated me to scold me!” you groaned in frustration. “He saw me slide my carrots onto Sasha’s plate and lectured me about wasting rations! If that is his way of flirting, then he is doing a terrible job at it!”
“He’s a weird guy!” Connie argued fiercely, refusing to back down. “He probably doesn’t even know how to flirt properly! That’s why he does it through chores! And him scolding you about the carrots? That was definitely out of personal concern for your health! Even Armin thought so!”
You froze. “What do you mean, Armin thought so?”
“Last night, when I was joking about it to Eren and Armin in the dark,” Connie explained, glowing with pride. “Armin got really quiet. He was considering the possibility! He didn’t deny it or shut me down once! And Eren was super concerned for you! He said if it was true, it wasn’t right for the Captain to do that because of his rank and the power dynamic. But I told Eren he was just overreacting, you were old enough for him anyway. It’s literally a perfect match!”
You stared at Connie, mouth opening and closing a few times as you struggled to find words capable of expressing your profound disbelief. You couldn’t believe you considered this teenager—who was so bored out of his mind in this tiny cabin that he managed to see something romantic between you and the scariest man in the Regiment—as one of the closest friends you have in the 104th.
They did not even know that you were so convinced that the Captain was only hovering because he was waiting for you to make a mistake so he could finally drag you down the cells. There was nothing in your interactions with him that signified that he liked you like that. But you held your tongue.
“Connie,” you finally managed to say, voice trembling as you tried to contain your colorful threats to yourself. “Armin did not consider your theory. Armin is a genius, he’s probably just too polite to tell you that you are an idiot!”
“You know,” Sasha chimed in, a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes, “it would be so funny if the Captain was standing right behind a tree listening to all of this.”
You slowly turned your head and pinned Sasha with a glare so lethal it could have dropped a fifteen-meter Titan where she stood.
Sasha quickly clamped her mouth shut, holding up both hands in a hasty gesture of peace. But the playful smirk tugging at the corners of her lips gave her away. She knew far more than she was letting on. Ever since she had barged into the main hall yesterday to report a rodent emergency, you knew she would not let that incident go even if she didn’t bother to mention it at all. And now, she was whole-heartedly on board with Connie’s absurd delusion. Having Sasha validate his lunacy was quite literally the worst possible thing that could happen to your mental well-being.
Your eyes snapped toward Jean next, the glare intensifying as you forcefully jerked your chin toward the cabin door, silently ordering him to take control of his idiot friend before you lost the rest of your sanity.
Jean caught your gesture and let out a miserable sigh. Grabbing Connie by the back of his collar, Jean forcefully shoved the bald boy up the wooden steps of the porch. “Come on, Springer,” Jean muttered sarcastically, kicking open the front door. “Let’s get you inside before you accuse the Captain of planning the fall of Wall Maria just to get a chance to hold her hand.”
“Hey! I’m just being honest!” Connie yelled back as Jean hauled him through the threshold, his protests fading into the interior of the cabin.
With the two boys finally out of sight, you let out a long exhale, rubbing your temples to stave off the migraine blooming behind your eyes.
Sasha lingered at the base of the porch steps, watching you with a surprisingly soft look of sympathy. She took a step closer, leaning in to whisper so her voice wouldn’t carry into the house.
“Hey,” Sasha started gently, “Seriously, you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to tell anyone about what happened in the main hall yesterday. My lips are sealed!”
You let out a small breath of relief, “Thank you, Sasha. Seriously. If Connie got his hands on that information, he’d probably—”
“Though…” Sasha interrupted, pausing on the second step of the porch and looking back over her shoulder with a playful grin. “…you should probably consider it.”
“Consider what?”
“Connie might be an idiot,” Sasha offered, tapping her chin with a wink, “but sometimes? He’s right.”
Before you could even process the betrayal, Sasha turned on her heel and slipped through the front door, slamming it shut behind her and leaving you alone on the quiet forest path.
You couldn’t believe this was happening.
The useless protest died in your throat. You were left standing there, mouth half-open, cheeks burning, and mind tangled into knots.
You stumbled through the front door of the cabin and opened it, your immediate instinct was to put as much physical distance between yourself and the rest of the squad as humanly possible. No matter how crazy the conversation outside had been, you wanted zero part in it.
But there was no escaping them.
From the kitchen, the muffled sounds of Jean and Connie arguing bled right into the main hall.
“Connie, stop it! It’s literally impossible!” Jean hissed, pacing the worn floorboards. “The Captain was humiliating her out there! He’s a bully, that’s what he does! He did that to keep us all scared of him, he wasn’t making a pass at her!”
“Come on, Jean!” Connie argued back loudly. “He literally flirted with her right in front of the Section Commander, and they didn’t even care! If Hange didn’t scold him for it earlier, the Captain is going to get way more confident. He’s going to start doing it more! Tell him I’m right, Sasha!”
In response, there was only the humming of Sasha as she brazenly chewed on a loaf of bread.
They are dragging Hange into this now, you thought, groaning internally. I am going to run away into the forest and live like a nomad so I can never speak to another human being again for the rest of my natural life.
Jean was officially the only sane person left in the 104th, and you two were being rapidly outnumbered by idiots.
Desperate to look busy and avoid eye contact, you marched over to the corner, grabbed a rag and a bucket of water, then dragged it over to the large windows of the main hall. You submerged the rag and began wiping down the window frame with furious strokes.
Just a minute later, the front door clicked open again. Armin, Mikasa, Eren, and Historia shuffled inside, bringing the chilly mountain air with them.
They walked right into the middle of Jean and Connie’s escalating kitchen debate.
The last thing you needed in your miserable life was facing Armin and Eren right now.
Connie had undoubtedly infected Armin’s brain with his stupid conspiracy theories, and you knew exactly how the blonde boy functioned. Armin wouldn’t just laugh it off, he would try to logically deduce if it was true even if it sounded really stupid and impossible. He would start being too perceptive, watching your every interaction with the Captain—which was the last thing you needed when you were trying to remain invisible in the corner, decode the Captain’s intentions, all the while healing your busted ribs peacefully.
And Eren… poor, traumatized Eren.
You could only visualize the mental gymnastics happening inside the fifteen-year-old’s head. He had just spent an hour failing the hardening experiment, only to find out that a comrade he had trained with for three years calmly suggested to his superiors that he be farmed for his regenerative meat. On top of that, he was being told by Connie that his Captain—the same man who had brutally kicked his tooth out in front of a military tribunal—was inappropriately pursuing the very same lunatic who wanted to butcher him.
“I’m telling you to drop it because it’s weird!” Jean yelled, his patience fraying at its thinnest. “It is never going to happen at all!”
“Why not?!” Connie asked exasperatedly. “She’s the oldest out of us anyway! She’s the only adult in the 104th, she’s grumpy, way more mature than the rest of us, threatens us with violence whenever things don’t go her way—she’s literally the female version of him!”
You stopped wiping the window, utterly offended by the statement that just slipped past his lips.
Whipping your head around, you locked eyes with Connie through the kitchen archway. The rag dripped soapy water onto the floorboards in dead silence. You didn’t say a single word, but the murderous and unblinking glare you leveled at him was a very clear and silent threat: Finish that sentence, and I will murder you.
Near the doorway, you could see the exact moment Historia and Mikasa finally grasped the context of the humiliating conversation.
You were so ruined.
Historia was standing there blinking rapidly, brows furrowed in bewilderment. Mikasa, on the other hand, looked like her brain was malfunctioning. Her dark eyes darted between Eren and you, torn by an internal conflict: did she need to protect Eren from the woman who joked about harvesting his flesh, or did she need to protect you from the supposed inappropriate advances of the Captain?
Fuming, you turned your head back around and redirected all of your explosive annoyance onto the windows, scrubbing them so hard it threatened to break under your hands.
You couldn’t believe this. You were so convinced that Captain Levi was intentionally making your life a stressful living hell because he still suspected you were a spy.
But your friends were witnessing the bizarre way of his investigation, and instead, saw a different thing.
They were all crazy. You couldn’t believe Connie Springer had watched you get publicly humiliated over cannibalism and somehow concluded that Levi was aggressively flirting with you.
It’s his fault, you thought viciously, wringing out the wet rag with enough force to snap a neck. The Captain is the reason they are all spiraling.
If Levi hadn’t inexplicably drafted you into his squad, if he hadn’t forced you to clean the main hall alone with him yesterday, and if he wasn’t acting so weird and unreadable, Connie would have zero ammunition for this delusion caused by the contagious cabin fever.
You continued scrubbing the windows, so hard that there was a high-pitched scraping sound that echoed through the entire cabin. In your mind, you weren’t cleaning a window anymore; you were scrubbing Captain Levi’s stupid and unforgettable face.
The harsh noises were making Armin shift uncomfortably, but you didn’t care, you continued.
“Just leave her alone, you guys,” Eren finally interjected, voice heavy with exhaustion and stress. “It’s not true, and you’re just risking the Captain’s wrath by standing around and gossiping about it.”
“Eren is right,” Armin added quickly, his tone urgent and hushed. “It’s baseless. If Captain Levi catches us gossiping about him like this, we’ll be scrubbing the latrines until we drop dead.”
You exhaled a detached breath, the tension in your shoulders dropping their previous tension. You just desperately hoped both boys genuinely believed what they were saying as you resumed your cleaning.
But the reprieve lasted for exactly a few minutes.
Almost immediately, the grating sound—although reduced in volume—of Jean and Connie bickering started again.
You chanced a quick glance over your shoulder. The whole cabin was descending back into disorganized chaos. Historia was awkwardly standing by the hearth, carrying a tall stack of firewood in her arms, while Mikasa was standing protectively near Eren, idly holding an axe with a blank expression as she waited for Historia to put down the firewood so she could start working.
Eren let out a dramatic groan, turning to glare at Jean and Connie. “Would you two just stop it?! If the Captain walks in here and catches you two slacking off, he’s going to be angry!”
Jean’s eyes narrowed, rising to the bait. “Quit nagging, who are you, my mom?!”
“Sasha, what did you just put in your bag?” Armin’s voice, dripping with suspicion, had stopped Eren from opening his mouth.
“Definitely not bread!” Sasha said, too defensive to the point that you knew she was definitely hiding some bread in her bag.
Both Jean and Eren got distracted from their momentary bickering when they heard the commotion, Jean stepped forward to try and get Sasha to return the food back, but Eren was already intercepting him.
“Hey, focus! We’ve got to finish cleaning before the Captain comes back!”
Then, the heavy wooden front door creaked open.
Captain Levi stepped through the threshold, eyeing everyone with that same bored expression he always wore.
“What’s this commotion about?”
You didn’t stop cleaning. You didn’t dare turn around, didn’t bother offering a military greeting, and didn’t even look in his direction. Let him think I’m a disrespectful, insubordinate brat, you thought internally, your rag squeaking as you cleaned. Let him think I have zero discipline and professionalism so he finally realizes I am way too incompetent to be a spy. Maybe if I just keep being disrespectful, he’ll get so annoyed by my face that he’ll kick me out of the squad and send me back to Hange.
Just nearby, the unmistakable click of Levi’s boots travelled across the wooden floorboards. He walked straight toward the dining table. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw him reach out.
Levi swiped two fingers under the cleat of the wooden table. Then, he brought his hand back up, staring blankly at the thick layer of dust coating his fingertips.
“I’m quite sure I gave you all plenty of time,” Levi said. His voice was low and flat, but still intimidating enough to plummet the temperature in the room.
Eren paled, bringing a hand up to facepalm himself as he realized they had forgotten to clean underneath the furniture. Without a word, Levi pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and meticulously wiped the dirt away, as his eyes scanned the whole room.
Every single one of them stiffened, bracing for the inevitable lashing out of a man who was not satisfied with the atrocious chore they had called as “cleaning”.
But what happened next was a million times worse.
You felt the undeniable weight of the Captain’s gaze shift, his eyes locking onto your back.
“I can’t believe the only soldier doing the job properly,” Levi started, the sound of his voice slashing the remaining peace you thought you had, “is the one with broken ribs.”
Your hand completely froze mid-air.
For fuck’s sake.
What the hell was this man’s problem?! Why on earth was he praising you in front of the others?! Did he have zero self-awareness? Did he not realize exactly how that sounded to a room full of bored teenagers who had nothing better to do in their free time but gossip?!
It sounded exactly like blatant favoritism, and not a single fiber in your body liked it at all.
When Hange showed favoritism, it was fine; Hange openly treated you like a scientific protégé, they were an eccentric mentor who simply valued your brain, so that was understandable and something everyone could tolerate.
But Captain Levi? He was just being weird.
He doesn’t even like me as a person! your mind screamed as you stared blankly at the soapy rag you were holding. He literally thinks I am a spy!
You were spiraling into a pit of drizzling confusion. Why was he doing this? Was he really that dense to the social implications of his own behavior, or did he simply not care? Or—a more paranoid thought crept into your mind—was he purposefully trying to alienate you from your squadmates? If he made everyone think he favored you, your friends would start looking at you weirdly. They would start gossiping, turning their backs on you, isolating you until you had no allies left.
He’s not being nice, you rationalized desperately, gripping the wet rag so tightly your knuckles turned white. He’s being a bully and an investigator at the same time, a miserable one obviously.
But your friends didn’t know that.
You could feel the collective and burning stares of the your friends drilling into your spine. You didn’t even have to turn around to know exactly what their faces looked like.
You knew Connie was standing in the kitchen archway, vibrating with the triumphant thrill of being proven right. You knew Sasha was holding her breath to keep herself from cackling. You knew Eren was standing there, very much confused and unsettled by the Captain’s behavior. You knew Armin was quietly absorbing this new interaction to have a better understanding of the situation. You knew Historia was looking at somewhere else just so she could avoid being part of this lame situation. You knew Mikasa’s dark eyes were now locked onto the Captain as she scrutinized the man now with intense scrutiny.
And Jean. Oh, no. Jean—the only sane friend you had left, the one who had defended you against Connie’s rumors just moments ago—was now standing probably shell-shocked too. All because the Captain had just used you as the golden standard for the rest of them to follow.
“The rest of you have functional limbs,” Levi ordered coldly, utterly oblivious—or just apathetic—to the bomb he detonated in the room. He tucked his handkerchief away before turning to the others.
“Best get to work.”