Soft, enthralled eyes shifted as two heavy pounds on the door tore the girl's attention from her book. She erected herself in her bed and began to pull herself out of the cocoon of blankets when her door opened to reveal the man she had come to know as Levi Heichou. The sight of him made her tense, but she was certainly not afraid of him. It was formality that she had to uphold now, formality she hadn't had to employ since those days.
He lifted his hand in a motion that told her not to bother getting up. She hesitantly relaxed and folded the corner of her page in order to mark it. She propped herself into a sitting position and tilted her head inquisitorially.
"Is there something I can help you with, Heichou?" He must have left his arrogant air behind, because he refused to make eye contact with the young woman. After a few moments of staring into a dark corner of her room, he began making slow, confident strides towards the edge of the bed. Once seated there, the man let out a tired sigh and leaned himself back into a resting position across the foot of her bed; his arm outstretched behind his head acted as a pillow for his weary head.
"Not really." He finally replied.
"Oh, okay." She smiled and let out a slight giggle at the older man's feigned nonchalance.
"What the hell are you laughing about?" He shot her an annoyed glare.
"It's nothing, Heichou." She reassured him with another smile. He let out a smirk and his vision went distant as it shifted back to the cold ceiling of the Survey Corps Headquarters.
"…You fool a lot of people with that smile." As he spoke, his eyes deadened to a glaze, not uncommon for the middle-aged man.
"…I suppose I do." She looked down, almost shocked by the conversation's sudden turn. The lance corporal thought a long moment before continuing.
"Do you hate me?" His eyes were fixed and unmoving on the cracks in the ceiling.
"…Should I hate you?" She searched his expression but was unable to interpret his emotions.
"I would hate me."
"It's rather difficult, holding on to all that hatred… I used to hate you… It almost consumed me, actually. But that isn't what he would have wanted… That isn't what he taught me." She now carried a pained expression that always came when she remembered that man.
"But you aren't him… You're free to hate whomever you please."
"Yes... But he lives on, inside of me… And besides, if I were to harbor hate for everyone who has wronged me, I would be a very different person." She forced a smile which earned Levi's attention and a bemused smirk.
"You smile like an idiot."
"I know!" She quipped as she pulled her knees to her chest and embraced them in her toned arms which were exposed in a dark cut-off, the paper-back book still hanging between her thumb and index finger. The candlelight seemed to dance in the lightening air of the room. "… I kinda like you, Heichou."
"Hmph…" There were many reasons he admired the girl, the main reason being her ability to express so much emotion despite the hardships she had faced. The same kind of pain that deadened him only seemed to encourage her. In a way, he felt her enthusiasm seemed to compensate for his own lack of sensitivity. He slowly rose from the bed and made his way towards the door. "Goodnight, Rachel."
"Goodnight, Heichou!" The shorter man held a smile, hardly visible, as he closed the door behind him.
His questions had stirred the girl. This certainly was not where she had expected to end up. She was on borrowed time since she made her decision, she was sure of that. But somehow, she stumbled into this place.
A young girl, frightened to death by the thought of losing one more person, was unable to prevent the tears from forming in her hazel eyes. As she drifted off to sleep, she hoped she would awake alone and disconnected from the ones she was growing to love, back where she belonged—in the arms of the unyielding beauty of the world beyond the walls. Alone and unafraid.