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Finding an adequate tea shop has proved to be a hard task. One that Levi entrusts to no one but himself these days. Not after the bullshit weak stuff he’s had to suffer through at the Survey Corps, that others apparently find acceptable.
It’s a little tradition of his. Once a week, for the better part of an hour, he’ll go outside of Headquarters to peruse his favourite tea shop. Ride there, buy a stash - enough to last him a week – and ride back.
That is until the gate of Trost becomes non-applicable, and the Scouts have to relocate closer to the Karanes District.
Levi hates change. Specifically any change for his one recreational habit. Good tea, that’s strong enough for him, yet not perfumed is hard to come by. And a bitch to find. And he has to start all over again.
The first shop he tries has teas so weak he might as well drink boiled water for all the good it does to his caffeine hit.
The second has better stuff, but not enough, and the shop owner can’t be talked into buying more stock. He says Levi better try his luck just a touch north-west. Says it’s a family business. Says it’s called The Steeping Room.
And so, in his third week Levi comes across yours.
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The sign above your shop is old, but Levi can tell it’s been well taken care of. It’s painted a deep blue, which he can see would once have been richer and more vibrant. There’s some chips missing in the wood, the foiling has come off some of the sharp edges of the letters, but the name is still perfectly legible.
Levi pushes the door open a couple of inches, hears a bell ring overhead. The inside is warm. Small flames drift in their candleholders along the walls. It’s homely, well-lived in with rows of wooden shelves lined with teas on both sides of the room. Directly opposite the door is the counter, behind which you sit, eyes downcast on something spread on the till, a pen in hand. You don’t glance up, don’t give any indication of having heard the bell chime.
To anyone else this apathetic reception to a customer would be rude. To Levi it is a mercy. Too often he is recognised entering shops or walking down streets, and people either crowd around him, bombard him with questions, or accusations, or try to start conversations he doesn’t know how to satisfy and frankly has no interest in doing so. People either do that, or they eye him from afar, gazes fixed on him, and he can feel them marking every little thing he does in their minds, as if it’s ever so fascinating. Most times it unsettles him, that a stranger – someone with just the title of ‘Humanities’ Strongest’ – could have this effect on people he’s never seen or met, having done nothing to them to provoke these reactions. Sometimes he catches himself longing for the anonymity he had in the Underground. The ability he once possessed to shroud himself in a crowd, to move through and with a throng of people – something he isn’t really able to do anymore. It’s the only real privilege he lost once he became a solider, and then the solider.
So being ignored by a shopkeeper – despite appearing to be the only customer in the shop – is fine by him.
He spots the bagged black teas quickly. He didn’t plan to linger long. He picks one of middling price range before heading to the counter.
At the same time he places the tea down he hears you say, “That’ll be 5.70.” You straighten up and lift your gaze for the first time since he came in. As you take in his uniform Levi detects an emotion flicker in your eyes before they land on his face. Was it disgust, or disapproval for the Survey Corps? Admiration for them? Did you recognise him, or were you simply surprised at the appearance of a solider?
But that flash was too brief for Levi to decode, your expression becoming once again unaffected. Your reaction to his uniform would have to be added to the long list of unanswered questions he has compiled over his life; and he is well accustomed to not fixating the possible answers.
He takes a note out from his wallet. “Keep the change,” he says before turning to walk out, the box of black tea tucked under his arm.
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Levi comes back the next week. You’re ringing someone up. He wanders around the shop a short while, eventually brings the same tea to the counter and puts down the same amount of money. For the first time in weeks, he isn’t plagued by a caffeine-withdrawal headache.
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The next week, the same shelf, the same tea, but at the till he decides to add an Earl Grey on special.
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The next few weeks you and Levi exchange seldom words. You lift your eyes briefly when he comes into the store, and he doesn’t ask you mundane questions – never asks you any questions at all, or tries to start a conversation. This doesn’t bother you, you aren’t one for small talk, and certainly not one to start it, especially with someone with such a striking presence.
Over his visits Levi has tried the different types of black tea you stock. The bespoke blends you make are his favourite, but he’ll never tell you, and he only buys them on weeks leading to expeditions. He knows he could buy it anytime he wants now, but he wants his favourite to still hold that special spark of a finite pleasure. He knows others might call it a form of self-flagellation, but it would feel wrong to give himself such a treat on whims.
Word has got out that Captain Levi visits this tea shop, which leads to more traction.
Which is probably why someone feels comfortable enough to steal from you.
Levi is in the store when it happens. He had been in the black tea aisle longer than usual. The height of your shelves meant that one wouldn’t know he was there unless they were in the same aisle as him.
The door chimes open, and heavy and rushed footsteps follow it. Levi keeps his gaze fixed, but his ears perked up. He hears shuffling, steps, then more shuffling. Like things being shoved into a jacket. Exactly like things being shoved into a jacket.
“Hey!” someone yelps at the same time Levi steps out. But someone is already running past him, out the door. Without thinking Levi leaps to chase after them.
Out on the street his feet are silent, his eyes calculating. Just ahead of him he spots a boy darting around people erratically, trying to weave around them and confuse whoever could be behind him. He’s doing a clumsy job, Levi thinks. If only everything, everyone, moved this predictably in panic.
In no time Levi has a fistful of the boy’s shirt. The boy tries to squirm out of his grip – Levi can see that he can’t be older than ten – and he lifts him off the ground and shakes him a little to show how pointless that would be.
“There’s no use trying to get out of this,” he says. “Hand it back.”
Levi carries the loot as he walks the boy back to the shop - all three blocks he managed to run. Two City Guards are out the front, talking with a woman Levi has seen there before. One of the Guards spots them and motions for Levi to give the boy over, which he figures he might as well.
As he walks up the steps back into the shop he feels irked and a simultaneous sense of pride rising in him. He wishes the chase had been longer, more of a challenge, a grappling for –
What a stupid line of thought, he reasons with himself. He should be glad that it took so little of his energy, inconvenienced him as much as a bug would. Besides, he hates being forced into heroics around civilians, he should not be bemused it almost happened again.
Still, he can’t help but feel a little smug with himself.
The shop is eerily quiet when he enters. It’s colder than outside with the sun overhead. The air feels still. He sees that it’s just you in here now. Your expression is steelier than he’s ever seen before. You’re standing straight with your arms crossed. That must have really shaken you, Levi thinks.
“You didn’t have to do that,” you say flatly as Levi places the stolen goods down. He’s surprised at the absence of gratefulness in your voice, but doesn’t let it falter him.
“Don’t mention it.”
“No, really,” you say, more bitter, like you’re trying to get something clear across, like you’re trying to talk to a child despite your anger rising. “You didn’t have to do that! You should have just let him go!”
“What?” His surprise isn’t hidden in his voice. Levi is so taken aback by this, so puzzled he can’t help but be offended.
“Do you know how many people are going hungry out there?” you point at the window, at the town, at the world. “How desperate you have to be to steal?” The fire in your eyes is still lit, but your voice starts to dwindle, you sound almost sad when you say, “You should have just let the boy go.”
“I didn’t realise you were running a charity here,” Levi can’t help the ire dripping from his voice. He clenches his jaw, his hands are fists at his sides.
“That’s not my point.”
“Then what is?”
“I just- you just-” You look around, brows furrowed like he’s the one talking nonsense. “You shouldn’t have given him to the guards. He’ll be in even bigger trouble now.”
Levi looks at the counter between you two, at the teas now crumpled. It occurs to him that you probably won’t be able to sell them in this condition. To himself he mumbles, “I just couldn’t be bothered with the paperwork.”
“Oh, so this comes down to bureaucratic laziness?”
His eyes snap up, his attention snapped back into the reality of this angry woman before him. Angry at what he did, to protect her shop.
He’s so outraged he leaves without his tea.
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And returns for it four days later.
The scene in the shop has been replaying itself in his mind these past days, and every time he’s gotten angrier about it. He’s tried to look at it from every possible angle, but still your objective evades him. If anything, he reasons, you should be the one racked with guilt and confusion about it.
And he’s not finding a new tea shop because he can’t bear to face you after a stupid disagreement.
He’ll be damned if one neurotic, unstable woman forces him to alter his routine. He will not stand for it.
He fucking won’t.
This is the level of vindication he enters your store with. But he sees you behind the counter sit up straight at the sight of him, straighter than he’s ever seen you do before. Two lines form between your brows as you watch him, but try not to look like you’re eyeing him.
His spirit sinks. He doesn’t feel as if he’s gained an upper hand, overcome or proved anyone wrong. If anything, he just feels worse. Feels this grey, dull mood that’s settled over him become bleaker.
He supresses the urge to groan and bee-lines to his black tea section.
When he puts a box on the counter you don’t ring him up as you always do. There’s a beat of silence that Levi feels like he could slice with a blade, and even though he told himself he wouldn’t, he finds himself looking at your face, studying your expression. You’re still wearing that creased brow, still looking concerned and a little frazzled. If you were his subordinate, he would tell you you looked constipated.
“What I said the other day…” You break the silence, gaze casting down, searching for your words. “Was below the belt.”
“I’ll say.”
“It’s just…” Now you’re really searching, eyes darted up and around the room, going anywhere but him. He can see you’re wringing your hands, fingers bloodless.
“It’s hard to admit,” You close your eyes tight, and it strikes him as something a child would do when trying to put words to something, when trying to confess. It’s something he did when he had to tell his mother something, and couldn’t bear to watch her expression change. “It’s hard to admit that running a store as a single woman isn’t the safest thing to do. That just – no matter what I do - how good I am or anything, the outside world will always see me as a silly girl…”
Levi feels his back go rod straight. He can sense that there isn’t a shadow of a lie in what you said, that maybe it’s the first time you have ever said it aloud. Suddenly he doesn’t want this, despite fantasising about it for days. He doesn’t want you to grovel in apology, doesn’t want you to admit to hard things; doesn’t want anything to be hard for you.
“You don’t have to-”
“No, I want to, I want to explain myself.” You release your hands, palms up. “The men, the other merchants see me as this weak girl who can be taken advantage of, and just dismiss me. It’s like they pat my head and tell me to go about my day as if I’m a child. Or try to protect me from being taken advantage of because they think I don’t have the brains to know when it would happen. It feels like no matter how hard I work, how much I accomplish or how old I am they will always look at me this way. That I will always just be a girl to them.”
Levi is at a loss of what to say. A pathetic “I’m sorry” comes out.
You don’t seem to hear him. “And it’s hard to give up being the sword and the shield for this place, much less admit that someone else can do it, and that maybe it would be easier for them. And that in society’s eyes they would be immediately better suited for it. That it’s safer or smarter move for them to make.
“And so when a man comes in and can remedy a situation without thinking – even if you’re good and even if you don’t mean to – it pisses me off. It, like, sets off this reaction in me. It feels like it just highlights all the ways in which I will never be able to protect myself or my shop or my family – no matter how hard I try.”
You close your eyes, breath in deep and sigh it out.
“So I’m sorry. For scolding you when you were just doing what you thought was best.”
“You were right.” Levi finds himself saying. He feels all his ire melt away from him, and in this moment he knows it’s true, that you were right. “I shouldn’t have handed the kid to the Guards, I shouldn’t have tried to punish him.”
At that you smile a little, puzzling Levi, and then you let out a giggle, which makes his stomach feel like it’s flipping. You look at him through your eyelashes. He notices that you’re the same height.
“Being apprehended by you, Captain, would be punishment enough.”
It’s the first time you have ever alluded to knowing who Levi is, and instead of the uncomfortable feeling of him having to measure up to such a reputation, Levi feels alleviated for the first time all week. With your one sentence, the invisible presence that haunts his outings here has been banished.
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“You’ll want to stock up while you can,” You call out from the counter weeks later. “The shop’s closed next week.”
Levi clicks his tongue, not hiding the annoyance in his voice as he eyes a blend he hasn’t tried yet. “Why is that?”
“My younger sister is getting married.”
“Pass on my congratulations.” Levi doesn’t really know what else to say to that. He’s hardly happy for the girl he’s never met, but it seems like it would be impolite to say nothing. He figures he shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds him, no matter how much of an inconvenience this is for him. He can deal with having things change on a whim during missions and with the scouts, but outside of his job his patience remains razor thin.
He figures a congratulations from Humanity’s Strongest makes up for his off-putting attitude as he grabs another carton of tea. But he turns to the counter and sees your face is just as stern as his.
“I’m not a messenger,” You say incredulously, dusting off your hands and flipping up the counter between you two. “Tell her your damn self.” And you turn your back and walk out.
Levi is left stunned for an instant, but before he knows it his feet are walking after yours. His mind is blank, the tone of your voice echoing throughout it. You sounded almost accusatory, but he’s pretty sure he caught a small smile at the corner of your lips as you turned. Was this a threat? He hasn’t backed down from one before. He’s not about to start now.
He catches sight of your skirt swishing around the back corner, and follows you up old wooden stairs that lead to the apartment above the shop. This must be where your family lives, where you live he realizes.
Levi can sense hustle behind the door as you reach for keys in your pocket. There’s the hum of more than one voice, and under the crack of the door he can see the shadows of movement. The hair on the back of his neck starts to stand on end. He can’t tell if he’s made the right or wrong choice following you here. You look back at him for the first time since the shop, and just as he suspected there’s that small smile playing at your mouth. He feels like an animal led right to a trap.
You unlock the door to a warmly lit living room. It’s modest, but homely. There’s a small fire crackling and the curtains are still open, letting in the afternoon sun. The walls are dotted with the occasional portrait or landscape. A woman with greying hair is sitting on a cushioned couch in the right corner, looking to the centre of the room where two young women are. One is standing with her arms hovering around her middle, like she doesn’t quite know what to do with them, and the other is practically sat on the floor, fiddling with the hem of her dress.
“Oh good, you’re here,” The crouched one mumbles around pins in her mouth. She doesn’t look around to see who opened the door, none of them did, all so engrossed in the standing woman’s gown. “Put on your dress, I want to see you two next to each other.”
“I brought a guest,” You practically sing, and it’s then that the women turn to look. You step aside to give them a clear view of Levi just behind you, who gives a reserved (if not awkward) nod. The women seem to freeze in their spots, cease breathing as they take in the sight of the Captain standing in their doorway, before all bursting into movement and noise at the exact same time.
Everything suddenly revolves around Levi. Making him comfortable, fetching him tea and biscuits and please sit in this chair, not that one, the sun will be in your eyes there and have you got the kettle boiling? and would you like a pillow sir? and from the kitchen a hushed what on Earth were you thinking?!
Levi is exceedingly uncomfortable as he sits in one seat, and then another. He thanks God his face has never been given to candid expressions as he feels the room jostle around him, for him. A coffee table previously pushed to the side is brought before him, a doily set and arranged on it, then re-arranged, then taken away again.
You were immediately sent into the kitchen to make tea, but he finds himself wishing you were in this room with him. That he could lock eyes with you, find just a bit of familiarity in all this fuss. He is asked if he would like the foot stool? If he is close enough to the fire? If he would care for short bread?
When everyone but you is sat in a semi-circle in the living room, and after what feels like an age of fielding polite questions you finally waltz in with a tray of tea and biscuits, wearing a smile that Levi begins to think he should associate with a pit in his stomach.
“The Captain,” You say as you set the tea down, pour out five cups. “Was just complaining about the shop being closed next week.”
“Oh nonsense!” the woman who must be your mother protests, for no plausible reason Levi can discern.
“For my wedding,” the sitting woman says proudly. She must be your younger sister, she looks years your junior. She whips her head around to you, and in an almost sinister tone says, “I told you I want to see you in your dress one more time! Go put it on.”
As you leave she turns back to him and explains with a sugared smile, “Her bridesmaid dress, there’s not a lot of time left to alter it you see.”
What altering could a dress possibly need? he wonders, having no idea what to say to that.
After a couple of beats of silence Levi asks, “Who’s the lucky fellow?”
Your mother pipes up, animated by the question. “The leather maker’s boy. You must know him, Bert Hagen?”
Levi doesn’t, but finds himself nodding regardless.
“You know,” Your mother continues, “My late husband was also in the Survey Corps – the girls’ father. He was a Captain too. He passed away – oh – what must be 12 years ago now. So very brave. You all are.” She reaches over and puts her hand on Levi’s in his lap. She gives it a brief squeeze before retracting. There’s a nurture in that touch he hasn’t felt in so long his throat closes up.
He’s saved having to make an intelligent response by your entrance in a pale ruffle dress, a dark blue sash tied around your waist. Your younger sister jumps up.
“Oh I like it! I think if I take in the sleeves just a little more I think it’ll be perfect!” she declares, swivelling you around to stand in front of a mirror propped up against a shelf. “Leonie, come over here, I want to see the two of you next to each other. What do you think, Captain? I wanted the dresses to match, but not match, you know?”
Side by side, you and your other sister look unmistakably related. Her sash is a light blue, and if he was looking Levi could probably discern other differences in your dresses, but he is not. Instead, he is marvelling at how similar yet distinct from each other you two look. He has always found familial similarities and differences fascinating. No one could ever mistake one sister for the other, but still it is clear you are related. Leonie’s face is longer than yours, but your chins are the same. Your eyes are different colours, but the same shape.
“Captain?” your younger sister says, in that slightly raised and alarmed way that tells him this isn’t the first time she has called him. He clears his throat.
“Yes?”
“I said, don’t they look beautiful?”
Even though she is asking after the pair of you - and probably really about your dresses - he feels his ears flush. He meets your eyes, and there is a nakedness in them that he hasn’t seen there before, a bareness, like he is seeing you, all of you for the first time.
As he does so often in your presence, he finds himself talking without thinking, “Yes. Yes, beautiful.”
You look down, hair falling in front of your face, but before Levi sees your cheeks flush, a smile pressed on your lips.
He stands up.
“I didn’t mean to impress myself on you all for so long. I should be leaving.”
“I’ll walk you out,” You offer quickly.
“I’m sure the captain can manage,” Leonie speaks for the first time, looking at you out of the corner of her eye.
“I haven’t closed the shop,” You justify. Levi silently scolds himself for being so thoughtless as to let that happen.
“Don’t dirty your dress,” Your younger sister says.
“I’m not going into the mines!” You say.
“It was very nice meeting you,” Your mother says from her seat. “You’re welcome back anytime.”
Levi has the impulse to bow, to kiss her hand or do something as if this woman is royalty, but he just nods his head and turns to the door. Your footsteps follow him down the stairs.
Once he has stepped down onto the street, he turns around to you in the shop’s doorway.
“Thank you for having me.”
You give a rueful smile. “You’re welcome. I’m surprised you were able to withstand that for so long. I was only half joking in the shop.”
“Didn’t seem like a joke,” He grumbles to himself.
“A half joke.”
He feels his lips tug upwards. Even though he should, he doesn’t want to leave just yet.
“Your sister…”
“Which one?”
He resists the urge to groan. Could you make any of this easy for him? “The one getting married.”
“Etta. You’ll have to excuse her, she’s quite smitten, and not normally so… overwrought. She just wants everything to be perfect.”
The only thing he can think to say to that is, “She’s excused.”
You giggle, and still that sound makes him want to stay here, standing on the steps, out on the street, being a man looking up at a woman in her doorway. But the candles behind you have burnt out, Levi is a Captain and has never been good at small talk. He feels a little like he’s drowning with how bad he is at it, and how much of it he has had to do today. He’s clutching at straws when he says, “I didn’t know your father was a member of the Survey Corps.”
He thinks he’s put his foot in his mouth, that you’ll stiffen up at his words, but you don’t. You lean to one side of the door, an inch closer to him. “You never asked.”
He gulps. “Right.”
You smile again, and it feels like a kindness to him.
“My mother liked you. You really could come up again anytime.”
“I’ll make an appointment.”
“Right,” You mimic his tone from earlier, and look up at the sky behind him. Levi does too. Evening is truly under way, the clouds are pink and orange, some to the East turning purple and dark blue with night. He hadn’t realized how late it was getting. Normally he would be back at Headquarters by now, going over sheets of plans and artillery. He wonders what you would be doing now.
“Goodnight,” He says, trying to capture the way you look leaning in the doorway, save this image in his mind.
“Goodnight, Captain Levi.”
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A fortnight later he is back. This time you walk him to the door.
“Thank you for the silverware. Etta was thrilled.”
He inhales, steeling himself at the gentleness in your voice. “It was nothing.”
Upon getting back to Headquarters he had arranged for the town’s finest silver maker to send a complete set to your family’s apartment, addressed to the new Mrs. Etta Hagen.
“It was very thoughtful,” You correct, turning to face him. Your eyes dart down his face, then back up. Something in his chest catches, like a fish on a hook.
“Can I tell you something?” He asks so quietly it’s almost a whisper. He had rehearsed how he would say this a hundred times over the past two weeks, once he realized, once he decided. But now all plans have run from his head. He can feel your breath on his face, feel it hitch. He’s lightheaded.
“Yes,” You say just as quietly as him.
“These past two weeks I’ve thought about you. I do,” He feels that he must muster up all his courage, that this is perhaps one of the bravest things he ever has to do. Because he has to do it, and to do so he must be as bare as he will ever be. “I do think about you. Very fondly.”
The words feel strange leaving his mouth. Nothing like them has ever come out before. The air is still as they hang between the two of you in the doorway.
Your gaze flickers down and for a heartbeat he thinks he has gone too far, that this was wrong. Levi notices your hand on the door turn a fraction paler, squeezing it, as if caught between opening it wider or pushing it shut.
Then - that smile. The one that makes his stomach flip like nothing ever has. Your eyes find his.
“I think of you too.”
Levi’s heart could burst.
He’s sure you can hear it, the blood rushing through his veins. He’s not sure how any of this is done, but he feels like he could do anything now. With your words there is an explosion of laxness, a levity taking over him that he has never felt before. He does not hesitate to lace his fingers at the nape of your neck, slow enough for you to turn but quick enough to betray how desperately he wants this, has wanted this. He looks into your eyes. He could drown in them. He is. He could be.
You taste of Earl Grey.