The day he came out to his best friends was probably the most nervous day in his entire life. Even with Hange already being out as nonbinary, he was still stressing over how they would react. They have known each other since the first grade and they grew to know him as someone he pretended to be. Even if unconsciously.

The number of positive reactions and acceptance he received was overwhelming but in a good way. Hange was excited to have someone new in their trans gang and Erwin just said that it makes sense and it isn't weird for him.

He stopped the urge to cry from relief.

Going with the flow, he decided to tell his mother too. She was surprised but she encouraged him to sit with her and explain it a bit more.

It was the second time when he didn't let the tears come out.

There were no other people that he cared about. His living in hiding was finally over.

The next months were troubling.

Kuchel was called to the student council at least 4 times, because of his fights with people that misgendered him on purpose. Eventually, she convinced him to ignore them, as it was the best solution for them to stop. He had an easy time with being cold so he got used to that. He even needed to stop Hange from throwing hands when they were present during those encounters.

It was a matter of a few meetings with a psychiatrist before he got permission to start the transition.

On his 18th birthday, his mom gifted him the money for breast removal surgery. At first, he refused to take so much money, since they weren't that wealthy but after she insisted a few times he took it and closed himself in his room to deal with the emotional breakdown it gave him. He was so happy it almost hurt. He laid on his bed and combed his short dark hair back with his fingers to look at the ceiling.

Again, it didn't make him cry.

As another semester passed, he got used to his new life. Even if it wasn't clear from the outside, he was happier, finally being himself.

Levi raised his head and took the earphones out seeing that the class was about to start. Not that he enjoyed school in any way, but math was his favorite subject, aside from PE. Even though Hange attended the same class, they were sitting next to their other friend, Moblit, so he was left alone and bored.

Only after a moment, he noticed that people were turning and glancing in his direction. Alerted instantly, he got angry, but before he decided what to do about it, he realized that they weren't looking at him, but at the new girl sitting at the desk next to him.

Her peachy-blonde hair barely reached her shoulders. She definitely stood out, and with the angelic face she owned, the boys were already trying to catch her attention. When she put a strand of her hair behind her ear, Levi saw that she didn't see any of that, as she was invested in checking her notes.

He averted his eyes when he realized he was now staring at her just like everyone else. He propped his chin on his hand and started playing with the pen in another.

It was already thirty minutes into the lesson when he noticed she was looking in his direction. She looked away as fast as their eyes met. He ignored it.

Ten minutes later, he busted her again, when he turned to get the water bottle out of his backpack. His eyebrow perked in irritation, but again, she fixed her eyes on her notes instead.

A couple of days passed, and as it didn't stop, he decided to call her out.

When the class came to an end, he packed his stuff and stood up to approach her desk. He put his shoe on the spindle of her chair.

"Listen. I don't know how untouchable you think you are. I don't care if you are popular or not. Say shit about me and I will show you where your place is," he said in a low voice, looking down at her.

The girl's face turned red and she blinked, turning her eyes away.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything wrong," she assured, but he couldn't care less.

"Tch," was the only reaction she got before he put his leg down and turned to get out of the room. As he walked through the corridor, anger was rising in him. Even with the new people he met, they already treated him like some kind of novelty.

He couldn't wait to get out of this shitty-ass school.

"OOH. Listen to this," Hange called to Erwin who approached them at the bench behind the school on their lunch break. "I talked to that new cute girl. You know, the redhead? She's like, super sweet! I mean, she asked me for notes in biology and went all blushing and embarrassed when I suggested giving her some private lessons!" they added and laughed loudly.

Erwin smiled awkwardly at them and sat between them and Levi.

"I think I know her. There is a ginger girl that joined the girl's volleyball team recently. Petra, I think?"

"Yeah! That's her. She's so pretty, what the hell. Right?"

"Well...she's definitely good at sports," he responded and Hange leaned forward to look at Levi who was only focusing on his sandwich.

"Isn't she sitting next to you in math?"

"She does," he responded simply.

"Ooh! Did you talk to her?"

"Why would I?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Yeah, that was a stupid question," they agreed, getting back to eating their fruit bowl.

"She's getting on my nerves."

Both of them looked at him, surprised, as neither expected any more comments about her from him. He noticed their stares.

"She keeps staring at me. I don't know what her problem is. I already told her not to fuck with me," he said, looking back at his lunch.

"Wait, what?" Hange stood up with their bowl and stepped in front of him. "She's staring at you?"

"That's what I just said, shitty-glasses."

"And what was her reaction?" Erwin asked, after exchanging glances with Hange.

Levi leaned back and frowned.

"She chickened out. Didn't tell me what she wanted, just turned to a fucking tomato. It better be enough to leave me the fuck alone."

He couldn't understand the looks they sent him as he finished talking.

"Levi. Think. Use your brain," Hange said, leaning down to look him intensively in the eyes. He got confused and looked in Erwin's direction.

"Did you consider that she might be into you?" he suggested with a serious face.

"What? No."

"Why?" Hange interrupted, clearly irritated.

"Exactly. Why would she?"

"You ask me?! Ask her!"

Levi sighed tiredly.

"Please, that's bullshit."

"What do you mean?" the blonde asked, already taking his lunch out. In contrast to Hange, he was staying chill about it.

"She's hanging with the rich kids."

"Mhm, so?" Hange asked, visibly judgemental of his train of thoughts.

"Bitch, they are so fucking shallow. And they fucking hate me. So I don't know what you mean with the "so."

"Maybe start with just not assuming the worst?" Erwin suggested but Levi wasn't convinced.

The next day, Levi headed to their usual meeting spot in the corridor. He was looking through his Twitter page and stopped without paying much attention to his friends.

At least that was until he heard an unfamiliar voice. His eyebrow perked in irritation at the sight of the ginger in front of him. She was standing with her back to him, talking with Erwin.

"What is this?" he asked in a flat tone, stepping into a place between her and Hange.

Petra looked at him surprised and fixed her hair, moving the strands behind her ear in a nervous reaction. Despite that, she smiled.

"Hello," she said awkwardly before Hange interrupted.

"Sup, shorty, have you heard there is a party at Jinn's house? We wanted to invite Petra, but somehow, she had the same idea, so here we are," they said with excitement.

"You thought that we were not invited?" he asked the ginger.

"Oh! I didn't know, really. I just thought it would be nice to have some more people I know, and Hange is very nice so I thought… Their friends would be cool too."

He watched her avert her eyes. There was no way such a sweet soul would be into him.

"Since we're already here, we should plan this together anyway. I have a match the next day so I won't be drinking, I can give you a ride," Erwin replied, sensing that it would be better to not let Levi respond to this one.

"What are you playing?" he asked anyway, not taking his suspicious look off her.

"What?" she asked, at this point clearly worried.

"Tch. People like you don't hang with people like us. We're the weirdos. They're crazy, I'm fucked up and he's a psychopath."

Erwin facepalmed and Hange burst into laughter.

"Oh god, here goes the king of PR."

Petra looked at them one after another and smiled shyly.

"You seem fun and nice. I don't see a problem."

He huffed and looked away. Life already taught him to not trust the strangers, he wasn't about to get fooled again.

As days passed, Petra joined their small squad during lunch breaks more often. As she and Erwin lived in the same part of their city, they also started going back home together, at least to some point.

Levi started to slowly get used to her presence. He tried to ignore her as much as possible. There was something weird about her. She was too nice, too cheerful. Normal people didn't behave like this.

He wasn't surprised when he heard the first rumors about her. Apparently, her good grades were the consequence of her staying after class with their male teachers. Later he heard she tried to seduce all the soccer team boys, and that she was living alone and was too poor to afford it so she was selling her body.

He knew better than to believe rumors. He didn't care anyway.

It also looked like she wasn't bothered by that, because, as she said, it wasn't true so why would she be worried. No one assaulted her directly so she stayed her usual self. He couldn't understand her lack of anger. It was simply not normal.

As one of their classes was canceled due to the absence of the teacher, he headed to smoke in his usual place behind the building. At this point school staff surrendered with trying to bust the students for that. They just had to hide well enough and they let it slip.

He took out a package of cheap cigarettes from his pocket and turned to the small alley between the building and the fence. He stopped when he saw a small figure under the wall. She was hiding her face in the space between her clenched thighs.

Levi approached the weeping redhead and stopped in front of her. Without saying a word, he lit up the cigarette and waited a couple of seconds before opening his mouth.

"What are you doing?"

She flinched at the sound of a familiar voice and hid in her body even harder, trying to stop crying as much as possible.

He waited patiently for her reply, smoking calmly with his eyes fixated on her. A weird satisfaction of seeing her actuality showing negative emotions overflowed him, though he wasn't proud of that.

After a long moment, she raised her head. She didn't look as pretty as usual, with her eyes swollen from tears and nose red from crying. He frowned and after poking in the pocket of his jacket, he handed her a pack of tissues.

"Thanks," she said and blew her nose loudly. He averted his eyes to the side in disgust.

They remained in silence while she wiped her eyes and cheeks with another tissue.

He squatted in front of her and put down the cigarette by pressing it on the ground.

When she looked at him, he tilted his head. He must have looked intimidating, at least that is what the look in her eyes portrayed.

"Sorry," she said with a feeling of sorrow in her voice.

"What for?"

It seemed that even Petra herself didn't know the answer to that.

"I don't want anyone to pity me."

"I don't pity you," he replied simply.

"Well…that's good."

A soft sound of surprise left her mouth when she felt his hand on her head.

"I was starting to suspect you're not a human with all this positivity you show around."

She looked down when he patted her hair. There was a grimace on her face as she wiped the residues of her tears from her cheeks.

"I don't understand. I'm trying to be good to everyone and make friends but they make up stuff about me anyway."

"And since when is it new in high school?"

She looked back at him.

"I never attended a public school before. My family and I used to travel a lot so I had online or private classes for most of my life."

Levi raised his eyebrow and squinted his eyes. Petra smiled at him.

"I wish I was so tough like you to not get bothered over the rumors."

He looked at her blankly until he understood the meaning of her words. She didn't know. Didn't believe, because he passed as a cis guy so much. A feeling of gender euphoria fell on him but he didn't show it.

"Yeah."

The fact that Petra saw him as a real man changed his approach toward her a lot. It was giving him so much serotonin that he didn't want her to know the truth.

This was a lie he could live with.

Levi wrinkled his nose as Hange dragged him into Eld Jinn's house. They were late, or, fashionably late, how they described it to him.

He wasn't a fan of the parties. The smell of alcohol was everywhere and the air usually was stuffy.

They went inside and passed through the crowd, looking for any familiar faces. They found Erwin in the backyard, speaking with his basketball teammates. Levi looked around and wished he didn't agree to go there. There were a lot of individuals that he despised.

Without saying anything, he went back inside to find a place with something to drink.

Finally, he found the table he was looking for and stopped to decide what he even wanted.

"Hi!"

Before turning his eyes to the side, he already knew who it was. Petra wore a simple green dress that ended above her knees. It was pleasing to see her in something different than the school's uniform. It seemed that she noticed the way his eyes quickly lingered over her figure. Or the blush on her face was simply the consequence of the alcohol.

"I'm glad that you changed your mind."

Levi nodded awkwardly and looked back at the table.

"What are you drinking?" she asked him, moving closer.

"I don't know yet."

"Can I make you a cocktail?"

"I guess. Just no tequila."

Petra beamed happily and started preparing a drink for him. It wasn't anything complicated, he judged from watching her. He looked up at her and noticed that she braided her hair at the sides and put on some makeup. She was indeed a pretty girl. He got startled when she looked up at him but didn't even flinch.

"You seem happy. Is this for real or for the show?"

She seemed embarrassed by his comment but a smile didn't disappear from her lips.

"No, no, I have a good time. People are so much nicer and more relaxed than in the school? I love it."

He nodded slowly, absolutely not agreeing to any of those statements.

"Why aren't you outside with Erwin?"

"Hm? Why would I be?" she asked curiously.

"Because you came here together and you both are in those sports clubs," Levi responded, looking anywhere but at her. If he didn't know himself any better, he would consider that it could be out of jealousy.

"Oh, right, but I don't really hang out with them much. Some of them are creepy, fascinated with the shorts of our volleyball uniforms. It's very uncomfortable," she said and gave him the glass with his drink. "Here you go, I hope you'll like it!"

Levi took the glass from her.

"I'm going back outside, it fucking smells in here."

He was ready to leave but got stopped for a moment by her laugh. He wasn't joking.

"Petra!" one of the girls chirped when the spinning bottle stopped.

"What? I'm not even playing," she pointed in surprise.

"But it stopped on you, I don't make the rules. Truth or dare?"

Petra was clearly not sure about this but as she was in the middle of the conversation with Hange, they convinced her to try it out.

"Okay," she sighed and smiled at the people on the floor while coming up to them. "Let it be a dare."

Her decision made a loud fuss around and she giggled, embarrassed by the sudden attention. It brought the attention of people drinking at the table as well, which included Erwin and Levi, both of them not knowing what's going on aside from the fact that Petra was in the spotlight.

The girl who spun the bottle laughed and clapped her hands. "Wow, you're brave! Let's see…" she said, looking around and then back at Petra. "I dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room."

The crowd around made an even louder noise. Petra's face reddened in a matter of seconds.

"Oh god, there are so many people..."

She looked around and even though not everyone was paying attention to the game, it was quieter than before. She moved slowly, passing through the crowd throwing "please let me get through" and "sorry" left and right.

Levi felt like someone just splashed a bucket of cold water on his head as the girl was closer and closer to their place. He averted his eyes and put down the cards, as their game was already interrupted.

He felt sick as she clearly headed towards Erwin, of course, he was tall, handsome, and popular. Why did the idea of Petra kissing anyone bothered him so much? It was stupid and didn't make any sense. He wasn't the type to be interested in anyone. He was very much sure and prepared to be alone till the last days of his life. He hated physical attention anyway.

"Levi."

A light touch on his shoulder pulled him out from this train of thoughts. When he looked up, he was greeted by a beautiful pair of amber eyes. He blinked twice, while his mind drowned in confusion. It just didn't make any sense.

"Can I kiss you?" the girl asked nervously.

"Yeah," he replied before she even finished the question. It couldn't be happening, it was fucking impossible, was this some sickly realistic dreams of his?

He froze at the sight of her putting another hand on the back of the chair he sat on. She leaned down to his face.

The kiss was soft but pretty awkward. He had absolutely zero experience, but at this drunk moment, he wasn't worried about it.

Petra opened her eyes after breaking the kiss and quickly moved back up, fixing her hair at the same time.

"My time to spin then!" she called and ran away from the table to join the circle again. Levi covered his mouth for a second before standing up. Although no one was paying attention to him anymore, he needed to get away from there.

The cold air of the night helped him sober up a bit as he exited to the pool area. Whatever had happened just before, was fucking weird. He also couldn't find any reason why she would lie about him being the hottest. His head spun as he walked back and forth, trying to ease his mind. There were a couple of other people outside but they were too busy to pay attention to him.

He leaned his back on the wall and took his phone out to distract himself. He lost a track of time until the moment he noticed Petra approaching him. He turned his head to look at her directly. She looked worried.

"I've noticed you disappeared. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable," she said softly and stopped a few steps away from him.

"You didn't. I was just not expecting that," he replied and straightened up since it was the only way to be at least a bit taller than her.

"Really? That's a relief," she said and smiled shyly. He watched as she silently played with her hair. It felt like his body was moving by itself when he came closer and grabbed her hand. She looked at him in surprise as he cornered her to the wall.

"L-Levi?" she stuttered while he stayed motionless, just looking at her from up close.

"Let me kiss you again."

"Please do," she replied in a shaky breath. He looked over her lips and leaned to meet them again with his own. Being in charge, he felt better. He put his other hand on the side of her face, tilting it slightly as they carefully learned from each other's moves. He shuddered at the little moan she let out when he pressed her body to the wall with his own. They had to break the kiss, not being able to stand the tension.

A burst of mocking laughter interrupted their moment. Levi knew that voice and the nerves in his mind burned instantly.

"Oh wow, look at those shorties. What a cute sight. Though I didn't know you were a lesbian, Petra," the young man in front of them expressed.

Levi frowned, it was clear that their classmate was drunk as fuck.

"I…I don't understand."

Levi moved away from the confused girl, suddenly understanding the meaning of this situation. As far as he was able to keep cold blood, being drunk in this case wasn't helping.

Before he knew it, he was already grabbing the other guy's collar and aggressively pulling him down.

"Shut up."

"You better let me go."

"You better shut the fuck up."

"So she doesn't know?" he laughed in his face.

Levi instinctively turned his eyes to Petra, who seemed worried, but the worst part was that she looked like she started to put the pieces together. He let go of the idiot in front of him and froze for a second before heading back inside the building at a quick pace.

He maneuvered between people, quickly moving to the front door. Without informing any of his friends, he left the place and walked down the street.

Silence ringed in his ears as he stared at his reflection in the mirror in his room. His mind was blurry from the amount of alcohol he consumed during the party. He took a deep breath as the feeling of pure hatred towards the body he was born with overflowed him. He felt helpless and was directing all this negativity towards himself.

A loud noise of shattering glass echoed through his room when he punched the mirror in the reflection of his face. He shuddered at the pain of the cut knuckles and fell to his knees.

Kuchel opened the door to his room abruptly and called his name in a worry. Seeing him slouching on the floor, surrounded by the sharp pieces of the mirror, she approached him fastly and crouched to embrace him from behind. He lowered his hand, hiding his painful expression from his mother.

"Don't panic, it's okay," she asked, caressing his arm. Only then she moved her head and pulled his hand closer to inspect it.

"I hate it. I hate my body so fucking much. I hate myself. I feel… so fucking helpless."

The woman let go of his hand and hugged him tighter.

"And even despite that, you're still fighting to be yourself. I'm proud of you, Levi," she said in a soothing tone.

He shuddered at her words and took a shaky breath.

"I just want to have a normal life, as myself, this is so fucking… unfair."

"You are yourself, honey. And the good people around you will always love you for that."

"You don't understand."

"I probably don't… but I won't give up on you. You're my son, the best thing that ever happened to me. That's why I will never be fine with you hating yourself like this."

As he didn't reply to her words, she raised her hand and stroked his hair slowly.

"I just want to have a normal life…" he said finally and shivered as the tears went down his face at the last memory of Petra's face.

Bringing himself to school wasn't easy on Monday. Especially after the whole weekend of ghosting everyone who tried to contact him. To see a notification of Petra messaging him was painful enough. He was glad they didn't have any classes together on this day.

He didn't go to the usual meeting spot of the four of them.

Hange was the first one to find him and even with all the frustration he was attacked with, he didn't explain himself, nor the reason for the bandages on his right hand. They eventually stopped asking but didn't leave him alone.

He finally got a chance to flee when he convinced Moblit to go and talk to them to avert their focus from him.

Standing under the wall, he watched the clouds slowly moving as he smoked alone in hiding.

"Levi!" He heard her voice from the side and closed his eyes wondering why their encounters always looked like this. He pushed himself off the wall and threw the cigarette on the pavement to put it down with his shoe.

She ran to him when he moved to leave in the opposite direction.

"Wait!" she called and grabbed his arm but let go of him when she saw how he tensed and straightened up.

Levi turned to look at her. She took a step back, intimidated by his serious expression.

"Spare me the excuses. I don't care," he said when she looked down at her shoes.

"But I don't have any," she said so quietly that he could barely understand her.

"Good, then go."

"No! What I mean is that I don't care. I mean, I do. About you. You're my friend, right?"

His heart sank at her words. Why the fuck did it bother him so much? Why did he feel like he wanted more from her than just friendship?

"If me being myself changes anything to you, then you're not considered my friend," he informed her indifferently.

She looked frustrated when she raised her head to meet his stare.

"Who said it does?"

He looked at her silently, somehow unable to respond. She had a point and it confused him.

Petra took a breath to calm herself.

"You're so silly, I swear… I already expressed that you're the hottest to me. It's embarrassing."

His face displayed pure confusion as she finished her sentence.

"What? Because now everyone will talk about your poor choice?"

She frowned deeply and clenched her hands into fists.

"Because now you know!"

They looked at each other in silence. Her face was red while Levi slowly processed her words.

"You like the way I look."

"Yes."

"As a friend."

"As a man."

He raised his hand to massage the bridge of his nose.

"You're making my head hurt."

"What happened to your hand?" she asked concerned and reached to grab it and pull it closer.

He stared at her face, not replying to her question. His mind felt empty. She noticed that and let go of his hand to put her hands on his cheeks.

"What did you do?"

He smiled awkwardly at her angry expression and put his hands on her waist. She moved her hands behind his back when he pulled her closer, burying his face in her shoulder.

"Nothing," he whispered to hide the urge to cry.