Chapter 7: Unordinary Crime Scene
The gang celebrates Halloween and Levi has to deal with women on their period.
People have this idea that October is cute and fun, with Halloween right around the corner, and college kids end up spending an entire month looking for silly costumes to wear. They also dream of baking sweet potato pies and ordering pumpkin spice lattes—which taste like bland squash hyped by Jack Skellington—just to be in trend with the season.
On the other hand, the Survey Scouts think it's the perfect month to have an upcoming expedition. Erwin has already approved it as their club adviser, noting the several urban legends that they can look into as they venture around campus after school hours. It's a dismal horror story waiting to happen.
With this, the Special Operations Squad has come up with the expedition's name called Hocus Pocus Hoo-Haa!
Of course, Levi has taken no part in brainstorming the stupid title. "Seriously, why would people pay just to shit in their pants for a thrill?" He has just spent the previous half hour listening to his team discuss the haunted tours, which apparently will be the theme of the said expedition. Oluo has suggested frightening students around campus at night with urban legends, scary props, costumes, and all.
"Oh, I don't know, Levi," Petra says sarcastically, "Why would you pay for beer when life fucks you over?"
He lets her win this time.
Even their apartment has become festive with the Halloween decorations, much to his dismay. It's too kitschy for Levi's taste, but Nanaba, being creative and artistic, has already adorned the main door with a bat on a wreath, making it look like Batman has been forced to come home for Christmas.
"Trick-or-treat!" It's Hange in a sing-song voice after knocking on their apartment door.
"Shut the fuck up. No one's here."
Disheartened, Hange opens the door with her keys. Once she's inside, she comes up to him in the kitchen, pretending to be offended. "Levi, why do you have to be so mean? Weren't you a kid who wanted candies, too?"
He has just finished his dinner together with Mike. "When I was a brat, Hange, what my uncle dumped in my pumpkin bucket were empty peanut shells and cigarette butts."
"You must have had a splendid childhood, then." Hange says, heading to her bedroom. And then she remembers something. "By the way, a parcel just arrived in the mail for you. It's right by the door."
He has not been expecting to receive a care package from Kenny. In fact, Levi doesn't expect anything from him at all. Maybe except getting thrown in jail.
'Your mom wanted me to make sure you're stocked up with essentials. Kuchel would skin me alive if I don't.' With Mike looking over his shoulder, Levi reads the note right before where Kenny signed his name. His eyebrows furrow at the post-script: 'P.S. Protect yourself, shrimp.'
Protect himself how? From whom? With what?
After opening the box in the common room, he peers inside to see two dozens of cup noodles, five bags of Doritos, and an entire set of low-quality tea leaves. Nice of his gangster uncle to know the kind of stuff that he abhors. And then once he reaches the very bottom of the package, Levi stops, his eyes widening at the very last item: a box of condoms.
Levi roars Kenny's name in fury as it echoes throughout their apartment.
"Your uncle seems pretty cool," Hange comments, coming out of her room, and—after seeing Levi's dangerous dagger eyes—adds, "Just saying. Gangsters will still be gangsters."
"So that's what he meant with the post-script," Mike infers, holding the exquisite item. "This is certainly an upgrade from your childhood treats."
He leaves them with the box and heads for his bedroom before they can ask: "Do you even know how to use this?"
Levi slams the door shut.
"What do you think?"
Two towering yellow bananas—Mike and Nanaba, to be exact—are standing right in front of him. Their costumes have just been delivered after ordering it online. Levi knows the reference of their attire, but he still doesn't understand why kids—adults, in this case—dig a pair of fruits dressed in blue striped sleepwear. It fits them since they both have the height that no one else has (he would be mistaken for a minion if he were to try it on), but it also looks ridiculous since their eyes are right where the mouth is.
"You look like you've been swallowed by a pair of condoms." He's still mad about the prank that his gangster uncle has pulled on him.
"God, don't you ever have anything positive to say?" Nanaba spats. Her glare could dissolve any solid matter. She would have thrown something at him had her arms not been cramped inside the suffocating Bananas-in-Pajamas costumes.
Levi has meant it to be a joke, as always, but it seems that his dark humor is not welcome this time around. Nanaba would usually laugh it out.
Teetering in his attire, Mike moves over to her side and tries to calm her down. "Hey, that was funny. We do look like condoms."
Annoyed at both men, Nanaba groans and mutters something like 'stupid boring people' before heading back to their bedroom to get changed.
Hange, having witnessed the entire scene, is slouching by the armchair, reading her textbook as if it were a bedtime story. "What's your Halloween costume, Levi?"
"A stressed college student."
She looks up after flipping a page. "That's no fun."
"Then I'll just bring my mop and pretend to be a janitor who's tired of dealing with shit."
"Let me rent you something from the store!" She closes her textbook and jumps up, excited at the idea. "Maybe we can be ketchup and mustard, or a pair of chickens! Oh my god, that would be so—"
"What's that smell?" Mike's nose wrinkles. There's an overpowering scent of rust in the air.
"I don't know?" Hange bends over to check for trash underneath the furniture. Mike follows her actions, only to accidentally bang his banana head against the table.
And then Levi sees it. "Oi, Four-Eyes, you're bleeding." He's trying not to show his disgust deep inside. He's familiar with the concept behind women's periods, but he doesn't understand how someone could not sense it when it's that time of the month. And then he remembers this is Hange he's talking about.
She cranes her head to see the back of her pants. "Ah. No wonder something's fishy."
"Go take a bath."
She doesn't need telling from him. Immediately, she runs the faucet in the bathroom and shuts herself behind the door. And then, after a few seconds, she calls out his name and asks him, "Can you hand me a tampon?"
"Why the fuck would I—"
"God, Levi, just fucking do it!"
"What does a tampon look like?" And he means it; he knows what it's for, but he's never seen one his whole life.
After Hange describes it to him ("It's a plug to stop the flow, dammit!"), he goes to her room and looks for one, terrified at the prospect if he refuses to do so. In one night, he just pissed off the two females in their apartment. What is it with women and their sudden mood swings, anyway? The critters in her jars do not have the answer. Hange finally loses her entire cool when Levi hands her a test tube with a cork.
The posters for their Hocus Pocus Hoo-Haa! are all over the campus. He still hates the expedition's name, though; it feels animated, more farcical than scary. But even the freshmen of the Survey Scouts spend their time distributing flyers and inviting people to sign up for the haunted tours, so Levi needs to ensure that their efforts will not be in vain. After his Fluid Mechanics class, he passes by a bunch of sophomores snickering loudly at the posters. "Did they really use that word?" They asked themselves, hitting each other in the arms. Levi's vocabulary isn't that great like the others, but he's aware that there's nothing wrong with the poster. Hoo-ha is short for brouhaha, a commotion, a hullabaloo—the Special Operations Squad even consulted the English dictionary for that.
"Guess we're signing up for some Hocus Pocus coochies." The students all burst into laughter.
Apparently, they've been looking at a different dictionary all this time.
He arrives at their apartment, tired and sweaty from working out. His hair is clinging like dried worms to his forehead. Had it not been for the asshole who kept asking him if he was done with the weights, Levi would have stayed longer at the gym. He is not up for getting clawed by two females whose mood swings combined are worse than his grumpy personality.
And as if luck would have it, they're lounging on the sofa in the common room, eating pizza. He remembers that Mike is out for the weekend, hanging out with his other friends from high school to celebrate his early birthday party with them. Nanaba's sitting upside down, her legs up in the air supported by the couch. On the other hand, Hange's back is against the armrest, her thighs crossed together, feet up on the upholstery. His initial plan is to just ignore them and walk silently until he reaches his bedroom, but Hange has already spoiled that for him.
"Levi, join us! Nanaba and I are just sharing some sex advice with each other."
"No thanks. That's disgusting." He notices that she seems to be in a better mood, so he's grateful for that. Then again he's curious about what she knows about the subject matter.
"Come on, or I'm going to wipe my bloody underwear on you tonight." She wiggles her eyebrows.
Coerced by a woman on her period, he reluctantly sits down on the armchair, picks up a slice from the box, and then frowns. It's Hawaiian pizza, which is an abomination. Pineapples don't belong on pizza. He doesn't get why people keep on ordering shit like that. He'd rather put mayonnaise on his.
Nanaba groans. "I can feel it gushing out of me. And I'm just sensitive all over," she complains, chomping down on her slice. Apparently, it's also her monthly period, which explains all the girltalk and the bitching episodes. Although he still doesn't understand how it happens, for some reason, she and Hange are in the same cycle. He only connected the dots after seeing the trash bin in the bathroom overflowing with bloody tampons.
"Well, at least, you can tell Mike you've got a lot of nerve down there," Hange teases her friend.
"Oh, he already knows," she chews. "He's been there more than I can count."
Levi freezes from taking out the pineapples on his pizza. The entire thing is so flimsy and greasy he cannot tell where the crust is anymore. The sauce and toppings are sliding off like lava so he keeps on changing the angle of his hold, melted cheese dripping onto his lap
"As I was saying," Hange speaks, trying not to point out awkwardness in the air, "It's not always about the length. But did you know that the majority of penises are actually the same length when erect, which is 6-7 inches?"
"Really? Damn, I knew it!" Nanaba snaps her fingers. "Dick sizes are a hoax."
"Exactly! It's more about the girth that makes you choke," Hange states.
"I should assert my dominance in the bedroom next time."
At this point, he's trying not to choke from the food in his mouth. Of all conversations he could be in, this is the one he really doesn't want to be involved with. But now, he's really, really curious as to how Hange can do a sermon about the wonders of sex. So he grabs a cup of water from the kitchen while listening.
"And remember," Hange continues, "You're representing the entire female population. If you wanna make that your kink going forward, you better eat your man like it's your last supper."
Levi spits out his drink, water sputtering across him. "What the fuck?"
"What? It's true," Hange cranes her neck to look at him and then back to Nanaba. "The same goes for orgasms. The foreplay matters so much and yet men keep on skipping it." She wags a finger. "It's like removing pineapples on pizza when they're meant to be there."
He stops wiping his chin. "How the fuck do you know all this stuff?" Levi didn't expect her to have a lot of experience, unless Hange has a thing for bestiality.
"I watch a lot of documentaries on the reproductive system," Hange stares at him right in the eye. "For research, of course."
Watching Erwin flirt is not part of his agenda for the day. However, he relents, for his friend's peace of mind. The bar today is deserted, and he and Erwin are the only ones at the counter. He's been in bars more often these past few weeks than his entire college years combined; he's one step away from being branded as an alcoholic—well, maybe half of it.
"Marie…" Erwin combs his hair in one swift motion, his voice low and seductive. He has been pining for this girl in his batch who has been pining for Nile, another instructor, which makes everything a terrible ordeal in the first place. "I heard you're a 9 out of 10. We should get together, because…" He smolders at Levi who's pretending to be this woman. "I'm the one for you."
Levi looks like he's going to throw up. "Nice try, Casanova."
"How was that?"
"Pathetic. Just give it up."
Erwin makes a gruff sound, then pouts. "I don't want to."
"What's that line that students always use?" Levi creases his forehead, trying to remember the stupid shit he heard from Oluo. They've been trying to think of pick-up lines ever since they came into the bar. "I think it goes something like 'Are you a horse? 'Cause I wanna ride you.' They say it works every time."
"Uh, I'm pretty sure that's not how it goes."
After another round of drinks, nothing beats having a big break on a shitty day where no one can rain on his parade. Still, Erwin keeps on lamenting about Marie, how Nile, who's beady and ugly as a skinned chicken, has the gall to confess to the girl of his dreams.
"Well, you know what they say—no ring, no thing." Levi motivates him, even though Erwin has a 0.001% chance of not getting rejected. "And if they ever end up together officially, maybe you can always nip it in the bud."
"How?"
"Shit, how should I know? Do I look like a love expert to you?"
"Maybe I should point out the physical traits, instead of giving pick-up lines out of nowhere," Erwin ponders. "Can I try doing that with you?"
Levi thinks for a moment. Even though he volunteered to be here, he'd rather much be a punching bag than a pretend-woman for Erwin. But Levi cannot let the brotherhood fall down because of him. So he agrees once again to Erwin's request. "Whatever, just go for it."
"Okay, let's see. Levi..." Erwin pauses, thinking hard on what to compliment on. He eyes Levi from head to toe. Then it hits him. "Your hooded eyes are so sexy... you look like you just got out of bed." Which is true; that's why it's an inside joke among his friends that they call his heavy-lidded blue gray orbs 'bedroom eyes.'
"Cut the crap out. My eyes make me look like I've been drugged in broad daylight."
Erwin breaks into a laugh. "That's not true. You wouldn't be that short if you had enough sunlight in your bones."
"At least I've got one defining feature." And then he remembers what Hange was blabbering about the other night. He tries his best not to measure himself in the bathroom. "Erwin... did you know that the majority of penises are actually the same length when erect which is 6-7 inches?"
This time it's Erwin who spits out his drink in surprise.
"What the hell?" Erwin coughs, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He looks down at his own pants, frowning. And then he smiles like he just had an epiphany. "Well that all makes sense. Maybe you should ask Hange to experiment on that."
"I don't wanna know." Levi finishes his drink. "And don't fucking ever do that in public. My eyes are up here."
"Here you go!" Hange throws a drawstring bag at him. "The party store had a limited supply of interesting costumes your size. But that should do the trick."
He is sitting on his favorite spot on the couch, flipping through the TV channels. After watching the news about how a man threatened to rob a store (not with a gun, but with a baby alligator in hand), they still have the energy to talk about other things.
"I thought the party store ran out of adult sizes?"
She nods. "It did. So I had to select from the children's section." And then she sees his unamused expression once again. "Oh, don't worry. I got the largest size for you."
The worst one she could have picked up would have been a maid's uniform, complete with puffy sleeves and a fluffy skirt. However, something tells him this is just as bad. Suspicious about Hange's fashion taste, Levi opens it and takes out the costume. He lets it drop to the floor together with his mouth in horror. "Hange, what the fuck?"
One can tell where the Hocus Pocus Hoo-Haa! is simply by following the loud booming music on campus. All classes are finally done and it's already dark but the people are just starting to come in with their costumes. Even some of the professors have opted to stop by just to see what the commotion is all about. Highway to Hell, Thriller, and Psycho Killer have been on loop for an entire hour; those songs are already stuck in everyone's mind.
"How nice of you to dress up as my bride, Pet!" Oluo exclaims in a cackle. He's Dracula, complete with the stakes in his hand and a garland of real garlic around his neck.
The Special Operations Squad is taking turns by their fortune-telling booth inside the huge white canopy tent. They're also making last minute preparations on the makeshift cemetery by the campus forest at midnight. The entrance is decorated with candles, skulls, fake blood, and cotton cobwebs.
Petra frowns, looking paler than usual in her long white gown because of the powder on her arms and face. "Excuse you, I'm a white lady! And hurry up, I'm running out of horoscopes to give."
Gunther glances at her and says, "You look like you're about to go to prom." He and Eld are both wearing Men In Black costumes.
"And you two look like my bodyguards."
"Shut up, or we're going to neutralize you." The two MIB agents hold up their pens that look like sex toys.
"It's 'neuralyze,' Eld," Petra raises her eyebrow, dodging her friend's poking with the dildo-looking neuralyzer. "If you wanna keep up with your costume."
He rolls his eyes. "Whatever, that's not even in the dictionary."
Mike and Nanaba enter the canopy tent in their Bananas in Pajamas attire, singing the annoying Banana Holiday theme song. On the other hand, Hange is in a T-Rex costume, her shortened arms flailing all around. She's been greeting everyone with a "Rawr!" until she accidentally bumps her huge dino head against the steel beam.
They're having a good time when Petra notices that they're missing one more person. "Where's Levi?"
"Ah, yes, about that…" Hange moves to the side.
Everyone leans in to see the person behind her and gasps.
"No shit," breathes Oluo while Petra almost drops the crystal ball.
Gunther and Eld stop poking at each other with their dick-shaped neuralyzers when they see their boss.
The music gets stuck the moment the line goes "I'm on a Highway to Hell..." so 'Hell' repeats over and over as if on a loop.
Levi is in a blue unicorn onesie with a golden horn and a pink fluffy tail that bounces every time he walks. Hange had to force him into it right after class. The man-child looks highly-unimpressed, ready to rip limbs off anyone who tries to comment on his outfit.
"Well, boss…" Eld starts, unsure of what to say. "Don't you look, uh, spectacular?"
Everyone starts snickering.
Levi's about to punch poor Eld when Erwin comes up from behind him dressed up as Fred from Scooby-Doo. "Let me fix that." Erwin adjusts the string of the hood tighter around Levi's face, making him look like a kid who has been forced to try on something by his mom. Levi slaps Erwin's hand away and Erwin does back off, laughing. "What? We're just helping. All you're missing is a nice, big rainbow."
"Or I can make you puke rainbows with my fist." He clenches his hand in front of Erwin.
"Aw, Levi, don't be like that," Mike nags him. "The horn adds to your height."
"The tail even suits you, boss!" Oluo shouts from the fortune-telling booth before Petra hits him on the head.
He clenches his fists which are tucked under the unicorn hooves. "If none of you stop, I'm going to stab everyone in the ass with this horn."
All laughter ceases once again. Crickets start chirping in the background.
"Why are you like this?" Nanaba comes up to him again. "Are you having a mood swing or something? Everyone's having fun."
He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. There's the slightest guilt in him, but he doesn't know how to control his foul mouth.
Thankfully, Hange goes to his defense, her tiny T-rex arms tottering uselessly. "What Levi means to say is…" She puts a T-rex hand on his shoulder. "If your stupidity doesn't cease, he's going to employ violence to your anus as a unicorn."
They gather together in front of the makeshift cemetery that is secured by two poles with a red ribbon hanging in between. Fireflies keep on flickering everywhere and the students in their costumes cannot help but be awed by the efforts done by the Survey Scouts. Erwin starts with his speech as the club adviser. "Welcome to the Survey Scouts' Hocus Pocus—"
"Hoo-Haa!"
Levi does not miss the snickering and bickering from the sophomores he overheard the other day. Who the hell invented the Urban Dictionary in the first place?
"Tonight you will dangerously embark on these haunted trails—"
"Hoo-Haa!"
"And your courage will be tested within the walls of our school—"
"Hoo-Haa!"
"So dedicate your hearts to the cause!"
"Hoo-Haa!"
"Enough with the Hoo-Haa." He eyes the freshman nearest to him who immediately stops. Connie slaps the back of Sasha's head. Raising a pair of scissors, Erwin continues, "Let the expedition…" He snips the ribbon. "...begin!"
They cheer loudly in high spirits as he opens the path to where the forest trail starts, and beyond them—utter darkness.
"You do know that most schools were actually cemeteries in the past, right?"
There's a huge chance that they're stepping on corpses laid to rest many, many years ago. The thought unsettles Levi. It also doesn't help that the Survey Scouts did too much of a good job making the forest path look like a real cemetery. He's probably stepped on about ten makeshift epitaphs and more or less fifteen fake human skulls and bones so far. The air is chilling, but not as much as the ear-splitting screams of people who have paid to shit in their pants for this tour.
A voiceover from one of the nearby speakers reads the tale of The Bloody Headless Man who was caught in bed with a wife of a soldier, prompting the husband to chop the lover's body into pieces. Levi thinks the stupid guy deserved it.
Another wailing guy jumps at them, this time in an executioner's suit, and pretends to lunge with his bloody scythe. Erwin almost has had a heart attack. The two of them are patrolling the premises to make sure everything runs smoothly, which also means they're getting a free haunted tour not to their liking.
"Fuck it, stop being so scared, Erwin." Levi chides the taller man. The itchy unicorn tail is swinging right behind him.
"Men are allowed to be scared. How are you not terrified right now?"
"Compared to the family gatherings I'm forced to attend, this is actually rather tame," he says, his expression bored. "And it's not like we weren't the ones who planned this all along. What if your students see you?"
A guy named Floch with an orange mop for a hair starts screaming and running within the first five minutes of the haunted tour. That's how they know it's all going well. Some of the volunteer freshmen are stationed in different parts of the campus forest, awaiting anyone who crosses their paths. Levi and Erwin eventually come across Mikasa who is wearing a blue nightdress, her hair in cute pigtails. She's holding a headless baby doll by its leg, a flashlight on her other hand eerily lighting up her face. The girl doesn't need to do anything to scare the shit out of them except stand there with her murderous eyes and say, "Boo."
They keep walking, double-checking that no one has gone astray in the path. In order to break the creepy silence in the forest, Erwin asks him, "When you die, do you wanna be buried or cremated?"
Before he can answer, Levi plucks out the unicorn tail that has formed a wedgie in his butt. "Why get buried? That's a waste of space."
"I don't know, maybe fertilize the earth with your dead body?" His blue eyes are convinced that corpses are helpful to the living in some way.
"Tch, just make your ashes useful for humanity, then. Have it recycled."
A loud shrieking cackle of a witch echoes somewhere beyond them. "W-what was that?" Both of them turn around and see something moving in the shadows. "Levi, t-that's a black cat!" Erwin clings to Levi's arm. The grip is so tight it's about to break a man-child's limb.
Levi wrestles his arm free. "Aren't you the larger person between the two of us?" When Erwin grasps Levi's shoulders from the back, he continues, "Oi, Eyebrows, don't pass out on me here."
Erwin eventually composes himself but not before he makes a defeated expression that says, if I do, just dump me in the trash.
The rest of the Survey Scouts are enjoying their time as much as they can. It all changes when Connie and Sasha start screaming from the top of their lungs when Bertholdt appears as a gargantuan zombie, pretending to eat what seems to be a brain. They are about to back away trembling when someone grabs Jean by the shoulder. "Surprise, motherfuckers." It's Rainier dressed up as another zombie, an armored one, which doesn't make sense.
This prompts the rest of them to run for their lives, with Armin bumping into a tree and Jean, Connie, and Sasha tumbling down the path, their limbs entangled together. Historia then springs out from the bushes as a blonde Sadako, swaying slowly which scares the living lights out of them.
In a panic, they begin tracing back the original path as fast as their legs could carry them. Ymir dressed as Slenderman appears from the trees and now the freshmen are ready to call it their worst nightmare. They all cower in fear upon hearing some rustling right behind them.
Levi shows up from the other direction. "Oi, stop running around—"
Something, or someone, knocks him down. Hard.
He falls right onto the ground with a thud and cusses out "goddamn motherfucking fuckface" so loud it scares the shit out of everyone. His nose is now throbbing in pain.
"Sorry, the horseface was fooling around. Your costumes are way too similar," Mikasa's eyes are still lifeless as she stares back into the skull of Jean who's now hiding in the bushes. The freshman now wishes he has never been born.
"Why the fuck can't you tell the difference between a horse and a unicorn?"
Levi can feel something oozing out of his nose in the dark. Nifa, together with Nanaba, arrives to help him out, flashlight in hand. Mike and Hange, hearing the commotion, have come to his aid as well.
"Oh my god, Levi, are you alright?" Nanaba panics at the sight of blood running down his nose. "Someone get the first-aid kit! I need something to stop the flow."
Hange rummages through her pockets and after three minutes of shimmying out of her costume, hands something to Nanaba. "Here, this should work!"
They maintain the silence for a few minutes as they watch Nanaba tend to Levi's injury, lifting his chin up to examine his nose before gently plugging it with what feels to be like a thick piece of rolled cotton.
When they are finally out of the trail, Nifa breaks the peace. "That was amazing, you guys!" she exclaims, still exhilarated from the horror thrill. "Good job with the planning! The bloody headless man was the best of all. It looked all too real, with the blood and the brains spilling out…"
They all stare at each other. Erwin has a look of confusion on his face as he asks them, "We only had a voiceover for that, right?"
But Levi's mind is somewhere else, specifically on the weird thing shoved up in his nose. He removes it and squints hard at the bloody piece of cotton. "Hange… is this a tampon?"
END OF CHAPTER
Author's Notes: Here's a pre-Halloween treat for y'all! I'm currently in the midst of a job search, but I'll do my best to work on the next chapters so please stay tuned (really means a lot to me).
Thanks to wingsofincorrectquotes for helping out in some of the funny dialogues. Go follow them on Tumblr for hilarious AOT content!