Chapter 11: Trivia Nights and Lotteries for Rent

Rent is due at the same time shit happens. The struggle of dating your best friend is real.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A week after classes have resumed from the break, Levi's already running an all-nighter. He's not really a crammer per se; he prefers scheduling everything and managing his time accordingly, but a lot of things have piled up that stalled everything for him: five homeworks, three presentations, two quizzes, and a reflection paper on life, as if he hasn't mulled over the absurdity of his experiences long enough to write 5,000 words about it.

He's been studying on his desk when the house gets disturbed by shouts from the main bedroom . It's nothing, really. Or so he thinks. He puts on his headphones and turns up the music to the highest volume to remove the distraction. However, the fight gets more heated and the background music has been rendered useless over the sound of raised voices. After rubbing his temples and groaning, he yanks the door open and pokes his head out. "Is the entire fucking world ending?"

Hange also comes out of her room. "Actually, I think it's doing a backflip."

Their eyes meet for a second and, after blushing, they both tear their gazes apart. Levi knows he's really terrible at this. Everything's still awkward between them, despite that night. Especially after that night. Both of them haven't had a proper conversation since they got back from their Thanksgiving break. Is he even supposed to bring up the moment they shared last time? What about that kiss? No one else even knows about it. Only Erwin was still up when they went back to the cottage that night, and all they told him was that they had already made up. No questions asked.

Out of nowhere, there's a thud and a bang and a crash from Mike and Nanaba's room, which causes both of them to worry. The next thing they see is the door getting slammed right in front of Mike's face. The poor tall guy just got shoved out of the bedroom. Meanwhile, Nanaba's grumbling can still be heard inside.

"You alright?"

Mike looks confused when Hange asks the question. "Oh, yeah," he laughs. "Don't worry, this is normal."

A shrill voice emerges from the other side. "No, it is fucking not!"

The door opens again and Nanaba hurls him his duffel bag full of clothes.

Mike is forced to camp outside their house; Nanaba would have thrown his stuff by the dumpster if he didn't comply. Levi and Hange initially had offered him to the couch in the common room temporarily, but Nanaba was relentless, kept saying she would chuck her own boyfriend out of their lease if he ever stepped foot inside their place.

By the next day, Mike had already set up his small tent by their garage.

It was also difficult to pry out the main reason for his forced eviction. Apparently, Mike had lost an absurd amount of money in a betting game. He and Nanaba had been saving some cash for post-college life and now everything went down the drain. He admits it's his fault, anyway. However, he thinks giving Nanaba enough time and space to cool down will allow his sin to be absolved and forgiven.

Levi is standing by the door, watching his friend settle in by the garage with the heater on. It's still winter, but at least Mike's not freezing on the streets like The Little Match Girl. Every now and then, Levi allows him to sneak inside the house so that the poor guy can take a piss whenever Nanaba is out. He'd rather have Mike not pee on the plants.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asks Mike who's sitting cross-legged inside the cramped space.

"Are you kidding me? This is, like, camping." Mike stretches out his hands in his tiny tent. "I had an uncle who lived in his mom's garage because he didn't wanna move out."

"How old was he?"

"32."

Levi snorts, watching as his friend grabs a paper bag and a plastic bottle from inside his tent . "Hey, don't throw that away," he warns Mike who has emptied out the water from the bottle. "We've got a recycle bin, remember?"

"You mean, your pile of junk underneath the kitchen sink?"

"It's not junk if it can be reused."

"Whatever you say," Mike chuckles. "Well, at least I'm not paying rent this time."

The idiot's right. They can't really force Mike to pay his share when he's lost most of his money. He can't even enter the house in the first place, and Nanaba would strangle him if Levi were to even ask her to forgive Mike.

"You know, you should have just camped by the lawn from the very start," he says, sarcastic. Levi's nose wrinkles as Mike starts eating something soggy inside the paper bag. "And what the fuck are you eating?"

Mike lifts up a bag of fries before dipping it into his sundae. "Oh, by the way, can I borrow your laptop? I need to look something up."

He frowns but doesn't object to it. Levi then goes back inside to grab his laptop and hands it over to Mike, who immediately logs into his e-mail and starts working on something.

The unshaven guy is typing nonstop like a lunatic, his keyboard clacking noisily in the silence of the lawn. Finally, Levi cannot stand it any longer. "Why do you have to fucking type like that?"

"Like what?" Mike looks up, unaware.

"Like you're hacking the system and the FBI is right behind you."

He shrugs. "Old habit, I guess." He starts typing away once again. When Mike catches a glimpse of Levi's curious face, he explains, "I'm looking for ways to recover the amount that I lost."

"About time."

Mike decides to change the subject. "How are you and Hange, by the way? Still mad at each other?"

"We're fine." He doesn't know how to break the news to his friend who would probably react with an I told you so once he finds out about that kiss. Levi would be the butt of Mike's jokes for weeks.

"I see." The clackity-clackity-clack continues for an entire minute or so until Mike finally stops and inhales sharply. "So uh, Levi, can you lend me money?"

He snaps out of his thoughts. "Huh? What the fuck, why?"

"So I can make a bet at this horse-racing event." Mike holds his gaze with all seriousness. "Good way to recover the amount I lost, right?"

Without warning, Levi slams the laptop shut and pulls it away from Mike's lap, taking it back with him inside the house.

It's sort of peaceful during the weekend, mostly because he keeps himself locked inside his room, trying to answer this another set of homeworks that his professors had given him. The stress is piling up, and to add to that, they need to come up with enough money for their rent. All that Levi wants to do is to be with Hange, to spend more time with her and think things through together, and he can't even do that for now.

He gets up and heads for the kitchen to throw away his empty plastic bottle in his recycling bin when he overhears Nanaba cussing out loud near the sink.

"Stupid, stupid, faucet, why is the water pressure so low?" Nanaba asks. "Hange, do you know anything about this?"

Apparently, Hange is also there beside her, holding a textbook and flipping through the pages. The two friends don't notice him coming in so Levi silently backs away and hides behind the nearest wall.

"I don't recall anything about plumbing in my Thermodynamics class," Hange confesses.

"We should call for a professional plumber, then."

He then hears a sigh from Hange.

"Nana, we don't have enough money to spare," she says, defeated. "This apartment is falling apart. The steps are creaking. The knob to the front door is about to fall off. We're behind on rent for this month, and you and your boyfriend aren't on good terms yet."

"Yeah, first it's you and Levi, and now it's me and Mike. Is there a curse in this apartment?"

Hange doesn't even want to remind her best friend that their landlord could be barging into their place one of these days. There's a sound of a wrench hitting the pipes underneath the sink and that's how Levi knows Nanaba has no clue what she's doing.

Finally, Nanaba sighs in defeat. "I just wanted to plan everything out once we graduate in a few months."

"Maybe Mike was also thinking of the same thing?" Hange suggests.

"Yeah, funny how his plan literally made our savings go down the drain. It's a good thing Levi's consoling him for now." Nanaba then asks her friend, "How are things between the two of you going, by the way?"

He can hear Hange chuckling nervously, trying to avoid the question just like he did when Mike asked him about the two of them. Good thing Nanaba is distracted enough when she sees the over-piling recycle bin filled with bottles of all kinds. "Damn it, why does Levi keep all of this trash?"

"For recycling. He wants to save the earth," Hange goes to his defense. But Nanaba falls on deaf ears when she keeps fumbling with the pipes underneath the sink. Hange then changes the subject, her eyes gazing towards the window. "You know, uhm, Mike can fix that in a sec…"

Mike is right outside, sitting happily by his tent, smoking cigarettes on a beach chair by the garage. He waves at them.

Nanaba rolls her eyes and shakes her head. "No, we don't need him."

In her frustration, she accidentally pries the wrench off the pipe and the faucet bursts, water spurting all over them like a fountain.

The doomsday actually occurs when their landlord chances a visit to their apartment. The blasted doorbell is ringing nonstop, and that's how they know who it is. Levi merely leans against the wall by the stairway as he waits for Nanaba and Hange to open the door. A lady in her late 50s wearing sunglasses is standing outside, her prim and proper outfit really out of place for their dilapidated apartment.

"Miss Kiyomi! What a pleasant surprise." Nanaba has to force a smile on her face despite knowing why their landlord is here. "I assume you're here for the rent?"

Their landlord slams the door so hard that the nearest picture frame on the walls falls out of its hook. It shatters on the ground, but Kiyomi merely scowls at it with distaste.

If anyone can beat Levi when it comes to being high-strung and uptight, it's Kiyomi Azumabito. She's rich and grumpy and lives in a huge mansion with her fancy cats. Also travels the world first-class. Yet, a total killjoy. Stringy when it comes to money. Could beat all the Karens at McDonalds who demand for the manager everytime they get their orders wrong.

Kiyomi crosses her arms. "What else should I be here for?"

Nanaba is already sweating at this point, so Hange steps in to help out her friend. "Maybe a friendly visit?"

The lady steps in. "None of that sort. So, is everything all right?"

"Oh, yeah," Nanaba lets out a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, very."

Kiyomi nevertheless invites herself into the living room. She owns the place, anyway. The woman paces around the dining table first, eyeing the dirty dishes that they have left. When she starts walking around the apartment, she doesn't see Nanaba and Hange squirming behind her, their teeth chattering from the sheer nervousness. They still haven't told her that they don't have the money; Kiyomi only knows they're three days behind their rent. She goes to the garage and sees Mike inside the tent, snoring.

Mike looks more bedraggled than before, his beard and moustache a little bit thicker. Like Jesus. But blonde. And without the need for salvation. Mike's close to being a homeless streetrat at this point.

"What's he doing there?"

"Camping?"

"Reliving his childhood days?"

She eyes them warily, already suspicious. "I expect cleanliness and order in this house. And look at the state it's in."

"Aren't you supposed to be the one fixing that?" Levi huffs.

He shouldn't have said that, because the way Kiyomi's eyes glare at him, she's ready to skin anyone alive. "You've got one week before I send out an eviction notice."

"That's not fair, we can't possibly—"

Hange cuts him off. "We'll find ways, Miss Kiyomi."

Kiyomi eyes her warily. "Really? How?"

Nanaba whispers to Hange, aside: "What else can we do?"

"Apply for food stamps? Get aid from the government?" Hange suggests, but Kiyomi pretends she didn't hear. So Hange suggests a few more, "Sexy car wash? "Beg for alms?"

"Work?" Levi asks out loud.

Hange waves a dismissive hand. "Anything but work."

"Then go starve in the streets," Kiyomi mutters. "You all are out of your minds." She turns around and goes straight to the main door.

"Wait, please!"

Kiyomi's muttering "crazy kids," "lunatics," "broke-ass students," as she heads outside where her car is parked.

Nanaba calls out to her. "Hold on, please!"

The landlady stops in her tracks like the diva antagonist of a melodramatic soap opera. She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. "What now?"

"We will, uhm, we will—"

Levi sighs, "We'll sell our used bottles for cash."

All mouths drop open the moment he says this. Levi would never, ever, ask anyone to touch his recyclable bin, let alone make money out of it. There really is a fine line between desperation and poverty.

"One week," Kiyomi raises her index finger before she clambers inside her BMW. "Then I'm chucking you all out of my apartment."

The car revs off, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.

When Kiyomi finally leaves them in peace, Nanaba taps Levi on the shoulder. "Sweet. Who knew your stinginess would help us in the wrong run?"

The Survey Scouts are hosting another general assembly, the budget enough to shoulder a few platters of ham sandwiches, pocket pies, mini-burritos, and bottles of Gatorade. Petra is giving a financial planning talk to the audience, her voice trying to rise above the sound of munching and chewing. She's going to have a field day after this.

"We're really one step away from being homeless," Hange whispers to Nanaba who's sitting in between her and Levi. "And here we are, listening to a talk about finance."

Before they headed to this talk, they had brought Levi's empty bottles to the junk shop, an entire bin overflowing with it, but the guy owning the place said he'd only pay 50 bucks tops for everything. ("And I thought one man's trash is another man's treasure!" Hange wheezed.)

Levi clicks his tongue. "At this rate, we might as well be praying to win the lottery."

After an hour or so, Petra finally announces the end of her seminar. The lowerclassmen have already gotten up, preparing to leave after thanking their speaker. Most of the students would have walked out at this point, but not the seniors. It's the free food that gets them. It's also the free food that reveals how impoverished they are at this point. They're all groveling and shoving the food into their mouths when Petra notices them staying behind. "Why are you guys eating like that?" she asks, completely disgusted.

"Like what?" Nanaba's cheeks have ballooned like a chipmunk's.

"Like this is a buffet." Petra raises an eyebrow at the seniors.

Hange swallows before she awkwardly flashes her a grin. "Well, uhm… we don't want the food to go to waste?"

"We're fucking broke," Levi finally answers before he shoves half a sandwich into his mouth.

Petra sighs. "Guess it can't be helped. Let me know when you guys are done so I can take out the trash."

They all look at each other.

"So, uh, Petra…" Nanaba calls out to her, sheepishly.

The junior slowly turns around. "Yeah?"

Nanaba takes out several food containers from her bag. "Can we take the rest of this home?"

Levi's lottery suggestion finally gives them an idea. They're at a bar right beside a convenience store, with twenty, thirty scratch tickets filling their tables, their takeout containers right beside them filled with leftover food from the Survey Scouts' general assembly. It's t hree days before their rent is due and they're still damn-it-we-are-good-as-dead broke. The three of them have no idea where Mike is, but they're hoping to win the million-dollar lottery.

"Darn it, I only got five bucks on this one!" Hange is furiously scratching a ticket with her quarter. She was down to the last number, which, unfortunately, did not match the winning sequence for today. She piles it up on their finished stack, and grabs a new one, all the lint from the ticket-scratching scattered on their table.

"Hange," Levi puts a hand on top of her free one, trying to get her attention, "what are the chances of us winning if we buy a hundred one-dollar scratch tickets?"

She's too focused on scratching her fifth ticket or so. "Let me think, so that's a hundred bucks worth, but our odds are still only 1 in 2,920,000." Hange doesn't see Levi's mouth drop open. "Oooh, this one's the bingo-style!"

"Give me your coin." He reaches out again, palm open. "We're buying more."

It's funny how they're all scratching lottery tickets when gambling was the main reason why they're in a shithole right now. Maybe they should apologize to Mike. Maybe they should be casting bets now. Do horse-racing. Play poker. Whatever that can make them money in a span of a night. They're still busy scratching more tickets that they don't notice Zeke entering the pub. "Hey, what's up, losers?" He grins.

"Shut the fuck up, beardface," Levi snarls at him before going back to his scratch ticket. "Can't you see that we're busy?"

"Don't give me that look, short-stack. I got Mike a job here."

He finally stops. "You… what?" Levi's sour face is hard to hide.

Apparently, the owner of this pizza place is an acquaintance of the beard-face. Talk about networking, Levi thinks. Zeke's smug face only annoys him even more when he calls Mike to come out of the kitchen. Their friend looks more neat this time around, his hair pushed back out of his face, his apron clean and orderly. "Hey, uhm," Mike says, "Guess it's about time I take a part-time job."

He looks wistfully at Nanaba, hoping that this is somewhat an acceptable apology. Nanaba, however, merely rolls her eyes. "If you bag the grand prize in the lottery, maybe I'll forgive you."

"Are you guys doing scratch tickets?" Mike raises an eyebrow. "You do know there's a one-in-a-million chance of winning the jackpot, right?"

Nanaba stares at her boyfriend, now a changed man.

"I heard you guys are scrambling for rent," Zeke smirks. "We also have a trivia night at 8pm, you guys should join! We've got cash prizes at stake."

They all look at each other, thinking of the same thing.

Levi ended up paying for their entry fees in hopes that their group would end up bagging the cash prize enough to pay their rent. It's not going to be easy, though. On the other end of the bar are Porco, Pieck and someone who might look like Porco's brother. There are a few other groups, but they don't seem competitive enough to shoot them dagger-eyes unlike the students from Marley. Zeke is in front, a microphone in hand, announcing the mechanics of the game and the prize for the winner.

"I swear, if we don't win this, I'm skinning that beardface alive," Levi mutters. It's a good thing there are enough people to drown out his voice. There's a hush among the crowd, and that's how they all know the game's about to start.

"Round one," Zeke announces, all participants' hands on their group's buzzers. "What is the most common color of toilet paper in France?"

Levi slams the buzzer in an instant. "White, of course," he says. "What the hell is this question?"

Hange, however, is hesitant. "Shouldn't it be brown? White's too common for the French!"

"What's wrong with being common?" Zeke interrupts them as if he's not the host.

Hange shoots back, "What's wrong with the French?"

Porco shouts: "I dunno, why are you asking? Our answer is yellow!"

The timer drills a hole in their ears. The answer turns out to be 'pink'. Nanaba is flabbergasted. "What the heck, why?"

"So much for the French," Hange mutters.

It only gets wilder from here. The second question is ready to be announced, and all of them are now hyped up even more, adrenaline pumping and rushing through their veins. Zeke then asks them the following: "Native to the Caribbean, what sort of animal is the mountain chicken?"

Porco shouts out as soon as he taps the bell several times, "That's easy! A chicken, duh."

The alarm sounds off, signaling them that Porco's answer is wrong. Pieck gives it a try. "Caribbean? It's probably… a fish?"

Also wrong.

"Probably some kind of cattle," Marcel is thinking out loud, "since it's a 'mountain.'"

Still wrong. Since they get a chance to steal, Nanaba gives it a shot. When she answers a snake, Zeke finally sighs. "It's a frog," he says. "Are you even trying?"

Hange bangs her fist on the table. "I'd like to call my lawyer! I'm going to sue the dictionary."

There are boos from the non-participating crowd. Mike is standing near the kitchen door, highly amused. It goes like this for the next few rounds, the two groups yapping at each other, fighting over the seemingly wrong answers, while the rest of the bar are watching, intrigued. The other groups have backed out and have decided to just enjoy the night for themselves, regardless of the cash prize; they're now drinking their nights away with mugs and mugs of beer, unable to answer the questions from all their slurring. The questions don't get easier from there, especially when Zeke asks where the fortune cookie was invented.

"Is this a trick question?" Pieck says the moment she slams the buzzer. "I'd say it's China. They give out those fortune cookies at Panda Express."

Levi mutters, "China, definitely China," and Hange and Nanaba nod in agreement.

Porco hears him, though. "For once I agree with you. China's my answer, too."

There's a loud mirthless laugh from Zeke and that's how they know the answer is wrong. He tells them it's San Francisco.

"What the fuck, San Fo?!" Levi's anger has finally shot through the roof. "Then why the hell do Chinatowns have a monopoly on fortune cookies?"

Mike cups his hands around his mouth and yells, "Are you all sharing a single brain cell?"

His three other roommates all shoot him a middle finger simultaneously.

A few more questions are announced, the two groups ready to strangle each other, none of them getting an answer right. However, the lucky streak finally happens when Zeke happens to ask this question: "Coprastastaphobia, a highly-unusual word, is the fear of what?"

Marcel scratches his forehead. "Copras—what?" Their team is ready to give up from the way Pieck's forehead is already touching the surface of their table.

"Coprastasta?" Nanaba is thinking out loud. "Fear of… cobras? Copra pasta? Damn it, this trivia night sucks."

"It rings a bell… but I can't remember," Hange sighs.

Levi huffs, "Same here. Probably something about shit. Maybe the fear of shit."

They hear the ding ding ding —the sound of a correct answer—and the crowd finally gasps from sheer amazement at the sighting of a perfectly-functioning brain cell. Nanaba and Hange's eyes widen at the realization that they just won a point. "As much as I hate to admit it," Zeke says, "but the Eldians have finally scored. Coprastastaphobia is the fear of constipation, folks."

The two of Levi's friends are screaming from the top of their lungs from the sheer relief of getting that one answer right. Levi, as always, is as sour-faced as ever, but he's glad to see that Hange's having fun just sitting beside him. She then nudges him in the ribs. "No wonder we've heard of it before." She grins before putting a hand on top of his. Nanaba pretends not to notice that.

Their team manages to bag a couple more points, mostly from pop culture and absurd anime references (Hange knows a shit-ton about those), and the Marley team is on the verge of surrendering. Zeke is already at the end of his wits as well. The game finally ends when the final question is announced: "What is the cross between a zebra and a donkey known as?"

"Wait, they can mate?" Porco is dumbfounded. "Isn't that bestiality?"

"It's not bestiality if they're both animals, Porco," Pieck corrects him.

"Oh, uhm, zebra and donkey… a zenkey?" Marcel is unsure. But their team still hasn't rang the bell.

Levi slams the buzzer with so much force that it finally breaks into pieces, all the screws and coils flying in all directions. Nanaba and Hange jerk back from surprise just as he says, "A Zeke. Fucking beardface."

It was then that Zeke finally dropped the mic. "Alright, that's it. I'm calling it quits," he says before walking out. "And the term is a zeedonk, you damn losers."

Never has a trivia night ever seen a group of dumb and broke people. Never has a trivia night ever seen a group of winners so furious at their prize. Apparently, the 500 bucks was in terms of gift certificates ("A free spa day!" Zeke was grinning at their surprised faces). Levi was furious, and so were Hange and Nanaba. They all knew they couldn't pay their rent with that.

Mike, however, was having the last laugh. "You knew all along, didn't you?" Nanaba glared at him. The two of them were going to settle their argument once and for all at that moment, in that bar. Hange was having none of it, and volunteered to head home ahead of them, to spare herself from the round of shouting and cursing. Levi wanted to follow, but he knew his two other friends needed him now more than ever. He really doesn't know how he usually ends up in the middle of intense confrontations between couples; if anyone can sub for him, now would be a good time for that.

"Levi, you should go," Mike tells him after a long round of volleys of sappy lines between him and Nanaba that lasted for almost half an hour. "I think we'll be alright here, bud."

"You sure?"

"Positive." Mike was grinning, which is unusual, because Mike's smile doesn't go that wide.

After a few more minutes, Levi does go home, though. Hange's finishing her meal by the dining table when he walks in. She instantly cranes her neck up at him, like she's waiting for something, a hopeful longing or so. There's some kind of comforting silence between them, some kind of understanding that they both know what they want and what they need. When he raises an eyebrow at her cup of instant noodles, she gives him an awkward smile, and that's how he knows she's also trying to save up whatever extra money she has so they can cough up the needed rent.

Levi heads right to the kitchen to load up the dishwasher when she hands him her utensils. He says 'thanks,' and lets the silence settle before they both head to their rooms.

They're in the hallway when Hange asks him, "How do you think Mike and Nanaba are doing back at the bar?"

"Good, I guess. I think Mike could camp out on our lawn for the rest of the school year."

"Oh, I hope not. Nanaba wouldn't let him be, would she?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know."

"I would ask her to take him back, but they have to sort this out tonight."

Something sparks right in both of their eyes. "So, it's just us right now?" Hange asks.

He nods. "...Yeah."

They both are thinking of the same thing. Wasting no time, Levi grabs her by the waist and captures her mouth with his. Hange then wraps her arms around him, craning her neck down a little bit so he doesn't have to go on tiptoe. It's less sloppy than the first time they've done it, more passionate and fueled by the times when they couldn't be near each other. Levi holds her face closer and adjusts the angle of their kiss. They're making out for the first time in their apartment, finally relieved that they have the place all to themselves. Hange pulls away. "When are we telling them?"

"I don't know." Levi brushes her cheek with his thumb. "Does this seem like a good time to do so?"

She looks up as if thinking hard. "Meh, probably not."

They resume kissing, teeth scraping and tongues running against their lips. The light in Hange's room is very bright and blinding, all the weird critters in her jars by the window sill watching them make out like eels. Levi's already weak in the knees from all the hot and steamy scenes that are flashing in his mind that he doesn't realize that Hange has already dragged them both into her bed.

The mattress squeaks the moment it acknowledges both their weights. He can feel Hange's heart beating against her chest so he tries to ease her by gently rubbing her thigh.

There's something exploring inside his mouth which turns out to be her tongue. He blinks once, twice. Levi has never tried this before. He seizes up and Hange notices it.

"What's the matter?"

He's embarrassed to admit that he's never done French kissing before so he makes up a wild excuse. "I can't concentrate with all your critters staring at me."

"Oh, sorry." She lets out a soft laugh. "Did you know that worms have mouths for their anus?"

"No, I don't, and I just want to forget that you told me that." He tugs her hand. "Let's go to my room."

They move to his room which is smaller, but way cleaner. They look like two horny teenagers who just want to get on with it.

"Are you nervous?"

Levi breathes, "Yes."

"Is this your first time?"

"No, I've been nervous before."

Hange chuckles, and it's darn cute. "That's not what I meant."

The kiss is awkward and sloppy, almost forced. Hange tries to tilt her head to vary the angle of her mouth, but their teeth gnash against each other. Desperately, she clasps a hand on his nape, her fingers grazing against his undercut.

All his life since he met her, he's never imagined to be making out with Hange. Well, except for that one time he had a dream. It feels pretty wild, and he has the urge to laugh because something in his mind is telling him, "Ah, so you finally fell for her, you idiot," as if that voice knew this was bound to happen.

"Hange, stop."

She pulls away, her cheeks already flushed. "That bad, huh?"

"I know you've been waiting for this. But just don't… try too hard." He struggles to get the words out of his mouth and he's not sure why. Why does it have to be so goddamn awkward between him and his best friend?

"What do you mean?"

He fondly pulls her towards him once more, cupping her face with his hand. "Let me take the lead."

This time, Hange lets him. Closing his eyes, he leans in, his mouth gently enclosing hers. She responds by parting her lips, allowing him to deepen the kiss. The sensation is gradual and chaste. He grabs onto Hange's arms and slowly pushes her down.

Unfortunately, he miscalculates the space on his bed. He accidentally rolls over and they both fall off the bed, their backs hitting the ground with a thud. "So, how's that?" Hange chuckles.

He looks at her. "We're gonna need a lot of practice."

Their eyes lock into each other for a few more seconds when they hear a voice outside the door. "Levi? Hange? Everything okay?"

Mike and Nanaba are already back.

Levi and Hange both stumble, trying to get on their feet, hair still disheveled and cheeks flustered, just as Nanaba opens the door, with her boyfriend right behind her.

Mike frowns. "What's happening?"

"Haha, oh, this?" Hange runs a hand through her ponytail. "I'm just helping Levi out on his homework."

"...without a book. Or a notebook." Nanaba eyes her curiously.

"Oh, and we're uhm, also looking for spare coins and bills for more scratch tickets, haha." Hange pretends to bend down and look underneath the bed, her eyes still flitting at Nanaba then at Levi. "Oh, wow, here's 25 cents, sweet."

Nanaba crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow, grinning. "Cough it up, lovebirds, you're busted."

They look at each other before giving an apologetic look at their friends. "Fine. Sorry."

Nanaba unfolds her crossed arms, one palm open towards her boyfriend. "Mike, pay up. I won."

"What?" Levi is scowling. "You were betting that we had already ended up together?"

Nanaba and Mike burst out laughing. "Ah, we've been waiting for it all this time."

"You were?"

The two blonds nod. "Yep." They then cross the bedroom and join Hange and Levi on his bed, the mattress spring creaking and groaning underneath all their weight. The awkwardness is still there, but at least their friendship remains intact. He and Hange, however, are now ready to make it official with the support of their friends. Levi takes her hand and tenderly rubs her wrist with so much gentleness and affection, while Mike puts an arm around Nanaba, inhaling the scent of her hair.

Then Hange finally breaks the silence. "So… what are we going to do for rent?"

Mike responds, "I'm getting my first paycheck next Friday, but we're still a couple hundred bucks short."

"Do you think Kiyomi will accept a $500-gift certificate?"

"If it's for a spa, then probably so," Nanaba says.

"And don't forget the 50 bucks we got from selling my recyclables to the junkyard," Levi reminds them.

The four of them burst into laughter once more.

END OF CHAPTER

Author's Notes:

I imagine Nanaba was able to forgive Mike when he made a small cheesecake for her and fed it to her while she's crying at the bar.

Anyway, thank you so much for waiting for this! The first draft of this chapter goes something like Nanaba and Hange doing sexy carwashes while wearing swimsuits (in the dead of the winter), with Levi ending up as a mechanic but accidentally setting Zeke's car on fire (idk why, my brain just goes in different directions...)

Hope this is just funnier and more realistic than the intended story!