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"I… " she said, unsure.
"You fully realized the power you have when the accident happened."
Mikasa nodded slowly, "Yes. I'm aware."
Levi approached her, he held the back of her hands, opened her palms while he traced it carefully with his thumbs. "A great power are meant to be controlled."
She looked up to him, "Like you do with yours?"
This time, it was Levi that nodded. "Mikasa." he called lowly, "What do you want to do with your power?"
A long silence after that, she looked away to the hills, there was a dreamy look in her eyes, as if she wasn't there. "I… want to be strong like you." she replied slowly.
"Strong?" he repeated the word.
"I want to be strong enough to myself that I don't have to depend on someone. I want to be someone that can defend myself, to live up my name freely, to live in nothing that can make me terrified to go outside. I'm tired of hiding, I'm sick of to be treated like a lifeless doll. " she said, there was a sad tone in her voice. "I want to be free." she added while looking up to him.
He released her hands, and he knew what she meant, in fact he yearned the same thing with her.
"'Free." he said, as if tasting the word. "Most people would've gone with they wanted dominance with the power they held. They want to make change, they want something big, money, and political stuff like that. You make me…surprised."
She gave him a side glance, "You're not good at praising people aren't you?"
"Why? That's bother you?"
Mikasa folded her arms to her chest. "I see what you did to Armin, you know he did his best at work but you never say anything about it. Or about Jean."
He narrowed his eyes, there was a certain objection to the way she brought up the topic of his subordinates, one subordinate in particular. "What about Jean?" he said.
"You should compliment him more. Some people need a word of affirmation to know your thoughts, you know."
A scoffed escaped from the corner of his mouth, "Why? Do you want me to flatter you?"
He didn't really mean it, but by the way she immediately nodded, he cursed himself knowing that she was taking this seriously. "You must be kidding." he said under his breath.
"I'm not. Let's try with say something nice about me." He knew it very well, the way she looked at him and those little smirk on the corner of her lips.
She challenged him.
"You can do this. One word and it won't hurt you." she said, almost playfully. She was messing up with him again, wasn't she?
He looked at her just stood there, her hair moved slowly as the afternoon breeze blew through them, she let her hair down this time. And she was exceptionally beautiful with the sun behind her, complimenting her delicate looks. He carefully examined her, entire her. Many people would've easily said that she was beautiful, he would've agreed right away with that. But the words never reach his lips eventually.
Levi was never good with his words. In the military, he never praised someone directly but he'd made sure that all of his subordinates that had done a great job by let them earn a good rests, or treat them with a good meal or drink and he knew that they understood that since their Captain had never been a person that vocally express his word.
He never really had someone that demanded him to flatter them, especially a woman. Petra was just a simple woman, she never asked anything in return, she was just the way she was. She understood him entirely so he never put an effort on it, loving her was easy. Love was probably an exaggerate words to describe the feeling he had for her.
But Mikasa… the young woman came unexpectedly to his life, as if solely to challenge him, making him surprised with every second in it, making him learned not only her but himself. She always left him in either bewildered or even loss of his word, the unfamiliarity she gave him somewhat made him insensibly clumsy.
The word to flatter her never came eventually, he just stared at her, opened his mouth warily, even hesitantly but the words stuck to his throat as he gulped and closed his mouth again, unable to express a single word. The way she stared at him, it wasn't hatred like she used to had anymore but simply an interest, it left him stunned and worried him. An interest could reach any unjustified level, to cross some forbidden things
So he walked away.
She once again left him at a loss of his word.
Cooking was harder than she thought.
Mikasa Ackerman never meant to be a decent cook, she supposed. It was the third attempt she made a dough and failed miserably, ended up with either the dough being too sticky or entirely not coming together. Levi Ackerman wasn't a man with patience at the first place since he was the one that always grunted whenever she was doing it wrong.
"You're doing it wrong." he commented, folding his arms, looking at her skeptically, unforgivingly like a man chided his daughter.
"Thanks for letting me know that." she murmured, a sweat rolled down to her temples despite it was autumn.
"It won't come together if you squeeze that with a strength like that." he sighed, moving closer to her.
"You're saying I'm weak?"
"No." he sighed. "I'm saying your lazy."
Mikasa rolled her eyes, giving more power to the dough. No matter how hard she tried, the dough still didn't sit right and weird. Maybe cooking wasn't her thing to do. She was bored, making the right dough for the pie turned out more complicated than she thought and she hated being failed.
"I do exactly what the recipe says." she grumbled.
"You're doing it wrong at the first place." he said again, which made her even annoyed at the fact that he didn't help either.
"You're not helping." she said, unwavering. She groaned, huffing at her hair that blocking her views. She forgot to tie it before her hands were completely full of flour and sticky from the dough. She probably looked like a complete mess.
"Let's just be honest that we can't bring a single meal to the festival." she suggested, starting to lose hope.
Levi moved closer to her, she expected another discouraging words coming from him and she was ready to dodge whatever he would say. But he wordlessly, all of a sudden touched her hair from behind, gathering her long black hair in one hand. She almost flinched the way his calloused-finger brushed slightly at the base of her neck while he carefully tied it with her ribbon. She froze at the moment, she didn't expect this kind of gesture from him.
Mikasa knew that how close he was standing right behind her, even with his chest didn't meet her back, his warmth radiated all over her, as if to remind her the dominance of himself, it made her shiver. But he didn't say anything and so she did.
"Hands off." He said when he finished tying her hair, it sounded almost like an order in which she obeyed right away.
He was a man with passion. She could see that. Everything he did was perfect and all about precision. They said he was excellent in every aspect, most of them said it was killing the enemies as if he was the killing machine itself. He was a ruthless person when it came to kill the Marleyan. But here she found him in the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves with his strong arms and starting to squeeze the dough as his forearm muscle stretched out making him almost…normal.
He stood there with him working up the dough, she could feel the absolute power that he held, and the way his muscles coiled and rippled adjoining his move behind his white shirt. That calloused-hands had touched her ankle up to her thighs before and she knew he had the unparalleled power behind those hands.
She watched the dough being squeezed with the right amount of power, made her wonder how it would feel to be touched by him again, and it left her throat dry all of a sudden.
"Your face is red. Something's wrong?" his voice called her back to reality. She blinked twice and gulped, she was probably blushing thinking a sudden naughty thoughts for a mere second. It didn't help either when his hands found its way to touch her redden cheeks unannounced as he checked her body temperature.
She released a sigh the moment he touched her cheeks.
"You're not having a fever." he concluded, as if touching her cheeks was the normal thing he used to do. "Why is your face red?" he asked.
"It's probably the sun." she lied.
"You should wear a hat then." he said flatly, pulling his hands and continuing to roll the dough.
Mikasa brought her hands to the part of her cheeks that had just been touched by him, but her palms didn't meet her cheeks, instead it met some sticky stuff.
She narrowed her eyes, and realized it was the dough from his hands, she looked up to him and winced, "You did it on purpose, didn't you?" she asked.
He didn't answer or even bother to look at her, but she noticed the smirk on the corner of his lips.
Levi groaned inwardly, mentally counting one to ten and breathed and he cursed afterward. He was waiting for her almost like an hour outside of her room dumbly, she said it wouldn't take a long time to prepare herself for the festival.
"I'm gonna leave you to walk to the village if you're not coming in 5 minutes." he said, trying to get a hold of himself not to curse.
"I'm ready." she said behind her door.
"You already said that." he grunted, he almost knocked the door when it opened so suddenly with her standing there, it left him stunned and held his breath at the sight.
Mikasa Ackerman was stunning.
She was wearing a beautiful soft pink dress, still a simple one but it was sparkling and gracefully compliment her curves, it had a lower cleavage than she usually had as she rarely revealed part of her upper breast, she half tied her hair and made some curls of it he had no idea how she did that, and some light make up that made her less pale than her daily looks.
"How do I Iook?" she asked, putting on her gloves.
Beautiful.
"Not bad." was the word coming from him instead. He was really bad at this, wasn't he?
She didn't seems disappointed or surprised, she just lifted one of her brows. "Fine. Let's go, we're going to be late for the festival."
Before she passed him, he held her elbow carefully, almost as if he was afraid of making her dress dirty or something.
"You look cool." he said in a deadpan tone so suddenly.
She turned to him, looking at him puzzledly.
"I said you look cool." he repeated aloud, making her even confused.
"And I heard that." she replied. "What's that supposed to be mean?" she wondered.
"It's a…slang, from underground. " he said dumbly, clearly not convincing, for the sake of Titan he must be look stupid.
"You said something about it before." he reminded her, but she still didn't have any clue what he meant.
"I just flattered you." he finally clarified.
The realization came late to her, she looked confused for another second had passed and her face looked surprised later. "Oh." was all she said.
"Not bad." she said deliberately, as if repeating the same word he said to her previously and she intentionally did that.
What a one of a kind woman.
"Let's keep up with that. That didn't even count, Levi."
"Tch."
He noticed her smirk before he really passed her.
Festival wasn't exactly his favorite thing to do. Party in general, he never found himself enjoying it. It was just tiresome. He wasn't a sociable person and he completely agreed with that, and he clearly was not a person to enjoy drinks and to get drunk or to have fun with. He was never good at dealing with some kind of bullshit, all those chit-chat crap he had to deal with, it was just useless.
Levi didn't want to spend his time to this nonsense, he could be sociable when he wanted to and when it was the right person to talk with. It was usually Erwin or Hanji that saved his boring ass from those demanding Lords asking him the same old story about what it felt like to kill the Marleyan? It must have felt like victory, they said.
But what did they really know about killing someone and losing someone at the same time?
They never wanted to know the sins that rooted within him, the restless night he had to endure, the nightmare, or the sickness of himself whenever he came home, with his clothes covered by blood that he couldn't figure which the enemy's blood or the one that fought with him on the field. He was sick of this but he needed to move forward to stop the war, to reach his dream - the absolute freedom.
War was meant to be a massacre. He was the algojo, taking someone's life was always easy on the field as they said it was for the sake of winning the war. But the face of someone he had to kill in the name of war was imprinted on his memory to add another endless list of nightmares he had to encounter later every night.
To them, to the Lords and the higher-up, he was just a killing machine, he was nothing but a complete genius of violence as if the entire him, his blood was built only for violence, and his hand were solely made to be covered by the blood of the enemies to mark that he was the strongest of the island, which was partially true since he grew up in underground, violence was inevitable in this cruel world.
They never cared, and that was why Levi hid it well, hid all those feelings he had. Making a big wall around him and let them think that he was ruthless, a cold-blooded algojo, a killing machine, a heartless soldier. He really wished he just the way they think, to make life seem easier, to become heartless, not to care much of the life he had taken or lose, but in reality he cared.
And he hated being asked of that stupid question, or when someone glorifying that taking someone's life in the name of war was something to be proud of. Killing someone was never a right thing for him.
Additionally, to notice, the dance was part of the festival or party. It caused him nothing but a headache. The dance was a pain for him for the longest time. Those young ladies, lining up for him unabashedly asking for a dance with him. And they made him look like a bad guy if he directly refused them, either polite or in a rude way which Levi didn't care.
But the Harvest Festival on Ragako Square probably was an exception. He actually liked the theme, it wasn't that tiresome rich parties of Lords and the higher up held. It was modest and warm. The festival was full of the people that had been kind to him and respected him all these years. Still, even if it was still loud as ever as the people now gathered to dance together to some folk dance he couldn't tell. He found himself, even tired, he had to admit that he was at least content. He didn't have to deal with those rats of Sina, since they wouldn't bring themselves to these cheap festival of a small village.
"You gotta be kidding." he heard it was Connie's grunt not too far from where he stood but the group of his squad didn't realize his presence near them.
"Jean is really a shameless man, isn't he?" Sasha said.
"Huh? Did he really ask Mikasa to dance?" Armin said in surprise. Levi followed the object of their gossip across the square, dancing as a pair to the folk dance alongside with the villagers.
"It's obvious he didn't care that she is a married woman. Look at that stupid horse face, he was blushing in red at Captain Levi's wife breast so dumbly." Connie said in a mockery tone.
"But her breast is looking good indeed!" Sasha cheered playfully.
"I thought that his little crush on her was just a fling. But it looks like more than that." Armin commented.
"It's weird that Mikasa agreed to have a dance with him, to notice it was actually her first dance?" Sasha asked.
"Well, is there any other option? The people of this village don't have the guts to ask her to dance since she was Captain Levi's wife. Only Jean really lost his mind - " Connie's word was cut off
"- and career soon for asking her to dance." Sasha added while giggling.
"Someone really should save her before Jean really confess his love to her." Connie released an exasperated sighed.
"I'll ask her dance after this." Armin said.
"Thanks for that, Armin. To think that Mikasa doesn't have a choice since Captain Levi clearly won't bother to ask her for a dance. He as usual disappears, avoiding people, nowhere to be seen." Connie replied.
"This is the first time she went to a festival, she must be excited to dance. Poor her, the one that asked her was Jean instead of Captain." Sasha said.
"I bet my tomorrow breakfast for you that Captain Levi won't even bother to ask her for a dance, either he can't dance or he's ashamed that his wife is slightly taller than him. Must be funny to notice the heights difference."
The three of them were chuckling at Connie's jokes.
"What are you brats talking about?" Levi finally decided to interrupted them.
"Captain!" They gave him a military salute.
"What a great coincidence!" Sasha awkwardly said, unable to hide her panic, while they share a glance with each other, contemplating either their Captain heard what they'd said or not.
"Apparently, the three of you don't even enjoy the festival, or should I send you to guard the forest instead?"
"N-no! Please we really enjoy our time, Captain, we should excuse ourselves since Connie is having errr… stomach ache."
"I have?" Connie asked dumbfoundedly.
The poor dramatic man couldn't answer because Armin deliberately stepped on his feet.
"Argh! My stomach ache!" He dramatically groaned, holding his stomach.
"We should excuse ourselves, Captain. Salute!"
The three of them hastily disappeared from his sight, but he couldn't care anymore because what really bothered him was the sight of Mikasa actually laughing with Jean. The laugh that only a few back days were only for him, now that Jean could witness her laugh easily. He winced at they were actually holding hands together as Jean swirled her to follow the beat, and held her waist to bring her closer almost for an embrace. He knew it was part of the folk dance as everyone that joined the dance did the same movement, but still it wasn't right not with that in fact Mikasa's partner was Jean.
Why was it him all over again?
And Jean' flushed face had gotten him to the level that he was annoyed.
Levi was never a man with patience but he wasn't a man of rage either. But the sight of what in front of him was really unjustified. The surge of having her near suddenly came to his chest, and the rage was almost uncontrollable not to push the Jean boy away from her immediately, not when Jean obviously looked at her all over.
But the thing that peeved him the most was that Mikasa easily, genuinely smiled at Jean, even laughed. The sound of her laugh like a breath of fresh air he decided that liked now that it was Jean to hear that.
The villagers cheered and applauded when the dance was over and the music stopped, Levi was ready to get into the crowd in order to get her closer to him or to push Jean away, he still couldn't decide. What matters was he needed to… drag her away.
But he stopped his step as someone called him. The voice that he had been avoiding since last year.
"Captain Levi." her voice was always light as ever, the people that worshiped her like she was some kind of a goddess alive in the island.
"Lady Reiss." Levi turned and gave her a military salute.
"My, my, I know I'm gonna find you here since you always refused the King's invitation to the Palace for a tea." she said softly.
"Please, call me Frieda, considering that we're almost betrothed." she smiled at him, offering her hands for him to kiss the back of her hand.
"I'm here to meet your wife." she said straightforwardly.
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