"You know what they say about Paris, don't you, Monsieur Ackerman?" Zoë asked in that annoying singing voice of hers as they walked down the Champs Élysées.
She wasn't even looking at him when she addressed him like that with an accent that made him want to rip her throat so she could never try to speak French again. Her eyes were checking everything around her, taking in the boring shop window decorations and the ridiculous fashion choices of French people surrounding them. He gave a noncommittal grunt. She didn't acknowledge it. If anything, experience had taught him that she took grunting as a form of encouragement.
"They say it's the most romantic city in the world."
Another grunt of his went ignored as she kept on peeping her bullshit.
"Are you romantic too, Levi?"
"'Tch. No. I fucking hate Paris."
"What?!"
He gave her time to pick up her jaw. He tended to get this kind of reaction every time he admitted his opinion of his own home city and country.
"You don't like Paris?!"
"All French people hate Paris, really."
"How is that even possible?"
"People here are fucking rude."
She snorted, a disgusting sound she made far too often and that made her nose wrinkle a little bit, like a goddamn rabbit. He hated rabbits.
"Look who's talking."

They walked silently for the next couple minutes. Despite his outward grumpyness, Levi actually felt rather peaceful for some reason. He just didn't like to show it. He wouldn't tell, but every time he came back to his home country, he felt a deep surge of comfort just by hearing everyone speak French around him. It was silly, really, because he understood English just fine when he was in the States, and what people said was boring anyway (French or not, actually). Still. Hearing proper French around him was just about the only thing he liked about France. Not that he was fond of the United States either. To be fair, he didn't think there was any place where he felt happy and cheerful like Zoë always was.

The silence lasted only just as long as Zoë was able to shut up − not very long.
"I'm glad you decided to come teach at our school, you know."
Another grunt. He couldn't help those, though he knew that it was sadly more than enough to get her going again, rather than shut her up.
"'Cause I'm glad I could come here with you. The French teacher before you never went to France with her students. I'd never been to Europe before."
"Yeah, I could tell."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He didn't answer and she stuck out her tongue before giggling again.
"Also I'm glad we've come to become friends, but that goes without saying."
"Get over yourself, Hange, we're not friends. Erwin told you to come so there would be two teachers for the class and not just me. I was vehemently against it and only accepted because I was utterly defeated."
"Call it as you want, darling, we've still been spending every lunch time together just the two of us for months and I know for a fact you don't just come because you like my lab. Quite the opposite, in fact."
"It's fucking filthy."
She giggled.
"Yeah, it is."

The time they had told the students to meet up at was nearing and Levi started walking towards the Arc de Triomphe, where he had told the brats to find them.
"Look at you, finding your way all on your own like the smart little French man you are!"
He ignored the sly remark about his height, as always. He was thirty-four, far too old to take comments like that to heart.
"I lived here, remember?"
"Oh, I'll never forget that. I can just picture you as a little French boy, with a cute little striped shirt and a little beret."
He pulled a face at that.
"It's pronounced béret. You know I hate it when you try to speak French."
"Oh, je sais."
"Just fucking stop speaking French."
"Can't stop, won't stop! We're in France, Levi! Omelette du fromage! Bonjour, Monsieur. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"
"Ugh. I never should have accepted to take you with us."
"I'm gonna buy the biggest box of chocolate for Erwin when we get back, just to thank him. French people make good chocolate, right?"
"That's Belgians."
"Yeah, yeah. Same difference."
"This is why we hate you Americans."
She giggled and grinned when she saw the students were already there, quietly sitting on the ground underneath the Arc de Triomphe. Levi almost gasped when he thought about all the dust on their clothes and vowed to keep even more distance with them than he usually did.

"Vous êtes tard, Monsieur!" shouted Eren Jaeger and was quickly silenced by Mikasa elbowing him in the ribs.
"Ta gueule, Jaeger. Il est six heures pile."
The little brat did not seem to understand until his sister whispered into his ear and his face fell. He was so easy to upset it was almost too easy. Levi really liked laughing at him − not that actual laughing was involved.
"Bon, on va retourner à l'hôtel comme prévu. Tout le monde est là?"
Levi never really bothered speaking slowly to make himself understood by his students. Most of them wouldn't understand a word anyway, so he wasted no effort for clarity. As usual, the best students translated for the others and they all nodded that yes, they were all here and ready to go to the hotel.
"Parfait. Suivez-moi."

He led the group through the streets. They took the subway (Artlert almost got lost in the crowd, if not for Mikasa grabbing him like the mother hen she always was with the boy) and walked some more until they finally reached the cheap hotel where Erwin had booked their rooms. Or was it Zoë? She had been extremely involved in the planning of this trip, even though she was only accompanying them and had not actually initiated it, considering she did not speak French at all and was just a science teacher. But she had Erwin in her pocket and Levi had ended up stuck with her. He'd thought his friendship with headmaster Smith would have been enough to get rid of her, but it hadn't. The whole way to the hotel, she tried chatting with his students as she always did (the brats loved her, they found her fun and perky, if a bit too passionate about biology), though admittedly they were also her students, until Levi told her off for speaking English with them on a trip in fucking France.
"But Levi, I don't really speak French!"
"Pas mon problème. Chacun sa merde."
There was something liberating about being rude to her in a language she couldn't understand, knowing she knew he had been insulting but not knowing exactly what he had said. Then again, he was never completely civil to her in English either.

Being on a school trip with dumb brats was just about the easiest way to navigate through a trip. Under the pretext of making them improve their French language skills, he simply asked them to do just about everything and they would comply. They were even excited about it. Most of them had probably never been to Europe − or anywhere outside their home state. That was why he had chosen this particular class, fourth group of the tenth year. Mostly poor kids from underprivileged families. Many of them were orphans, came from foster care or were simply dirt poor. Levi knew it made him sound ridiculous, or like he was bragging, but he was proud of himself for having convinced Erwin Smith, the cheapest man in the world, to have school fund pay for the trip.
"Monsieur, où se trouve notre chambre d'hôtel, s'il vous plaît?" chirped Arlert to the hotel receptionist and Levi would be damned if he wasn't proud of him for saying the whole sentence perfectly. His accent could use some work but it was nothing compared to Zoë trying to speak a word of his native language.
Sadly for the poor boy, the man responded as all French people do, as Levi did himself, as fast as he would with a native and with no regard for people who did not understand him. Arlert looked at him like he'd grown a second head and then at Levi himself. Levi shrugged and walked up to the counter.
"Bonjour, une chambre au nom de Levi Ackerman?"
"Vous êtes le professeur du groupe américain qui a réservé?"
Levi glanced at the teenagers all staring at him with various expressions of admiration and hope and sighed. Yep, that was him. The teacher. He nodded. The man checked up something on the computer and smiled.
"Voici les clef de votre chambre, Mr Ackerman. Et voici pour vous, jeune homme," he said to Arlert with a broad smile, handing him a pack of keys.
They were these cards that acted as keys that Levi hated. Why not have a real key, one made out of metal? He still took his, feeling grumpy. Mikasa grabbed the cards from Armin's hands and began calling every student one by one, dispatching the keys to every one according to the rooms they would be sleeping in. Had she just remembered the room disposition from the trip program description he had given them a month ago? It should have been more surprising than it actually was, coming from her.
"On se retrouve dans le hall à dix-neuf heures trente pour aller manger," Levi shouted out for everyone to hear, and those who understood nodded.

The first thing Levi noticed when he opened the door of his room was that the card worked perfectly, and he was glad for that, because he was used to these magnetic cards never working and hotel staff making all sorts of fuss when you had to replace them. The second thing he noticed was that the room looked and smelled clean, and if he'd been a different kind of man, he would have smiled at that. The third thing he noticed was that there were two beds in the room, which was odd and made him frown. The fourth thing he noticed was enough to make him downright angry, though, for Zoë Hange was standing by the window of the room, looking at the sky.

"The fuck are you doing here?"

She startled and turned to him, smiling broadly.

"Just look at this sky! It's so blue. Not a single cloud."

"I mean what are you doing in my room?"

"I just told you. I'm looking at the sky of Paris."

"Go to your own room for that, Four Eyes."

"… This is my room."

"Better have your shitty glasses checked soon, 'cause this is my room."

"Pretty sure this key is the key to my room, since the receptionist gave it to me, and it led me here."

Levi threw his bag on the closest bed and sank on it, grabbing his head between his hands.

He startled when Zoë sat on her own bed in front of him, but was thankful that she didn't sit on his, at the very least. He had no idea how long that pair of pants had gone without being washed.

"You know, I find it mildly insulting that you would get so upset over sharing a room with me."

For a split second, thoughts ran through his mind when he saw her looking quite blue, scary thoughts of what could happen if he just gave himself unto the temptation and simply… But none of that would happen. He wouldn't let himself. He decided right then to not let his mind wander to such silliness anymore.

"Your clothes are filthy, I don't share bathrooms and I think you snore."

She looked up and her eyes gave nothing away.

"I do snore," she whispered.

He snorted and she did laugh at that, a little bit, a laugh that did not reach her eyes.

"Do you want me to find another room?" she asked.

He nodded, not taking his eyes away from hers. After a long while, longer than was comfortable, she stood up, took her bag and left the room.