Chapter 5 : New Landlord
Cleaning for Levi alone was tougher than cleaning for 4 slightly untidy boys living in the same house, no one had expected the toughest and record breaking fighter in the Underground district actually has an unhealthy obsession with cleanliness. Out of the 5 members in the gang , the new comer had already sent 3 of them crying for help and escaping the cabin on multiple occasions , only to be caught by the germaphobes devil himself. Attempting to run away from possibly the cleanest house in the Underground city will only result in being assigned to more back breaking household chores. Farlan and Elizabeth shuddered at the thought of it , they persevered while holding tightly onto their mops and brooms with their shaking , calloused hands and swept over the same area a few times before the household chore sergeant made his inspection. Spotless , speckless , and sanitised , It had took the gang a whole week to brighten the house before Levi is pleased with their services. However , they were only rewarded with the request , or order , to comeby and clean his place again every week.
The gang eyed on the the extra rooms in Levi's house , it was even more spacious and vacant than their two rooms cabin. Ever since Elizabeth had joined them , the boys have been taking turns to sleep on the couch due to the lack of beds. Farlan used to share a room with Yan , and Samuel with John; However with the appearance of a girl member , Farlan readily gave up his bedroom and joined the other 2 boys in their sleep despite of Yan's active disagreement. According to Farlan , a girl should have her own personal space. Using the promises of weekly cleaning and laundry services , and daily freshly cooked meals as a bait , Farlan took the opportunity and negotiated with the clean freak landlord to live in his place as tenants together with Elizabeth. Levi was reluctant but agreed to it anyway , not before beating himself over his obvious Achilles heel that Farlan had conveniently used it against him to get what he wanted , twice. Of course , Farlan had also conveniently left out the fact that Elizabeth's pet dog , Bandit , would also be coming to live with him. Hell would certainly break loose if Levi knew , but not yet.
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It has been a week since Farlan , Elizabeth and Bandit have moved in to stay with Levi. All had been smooth so far and no new information was learned by him. Every morning , Elizabeth woke up early as usual to prepare breakfast for Farlan and Levi. She learned that Levi was a man of his own habits , exactly an hour after she woke up at 7am , Levi would emerge from his room properly dressed and settle down on the dining table to read the daily papers. Initially , she would pour him a cup of tea while he was reading but he waited for another 3 minutes for it to cool down before taking a sip. Elizabeth noticed his strange consistent habits and figured to serve his tea earlier before heading out to practice her martial arts on the wooden dummy.
The 3D maneuver gears have been left untouched ever since Elizabeth had presented them to Farlan as a gift. There wasn't time for them to practice on using the new equipments as they have been preoccupied with revamping Levi's house. Feeling a little adventurous , Elizabeth decided to test those wondrous flying device on her own while Farlan continued to engage in his slumber session.
Harness checked , gas cylinder checked , hand grips checked , black box checked. "Now for firing. " Elizabeth stood at the building directly opposite Levi's house and signaled herself while she aimed the grapple hooks on the ceiling. She applied force on her hand grips triggering the hooks to launch and secured themselves above her. Elizabeth's feet were lifted off the ground , she tried to remain steady in mid air but the sudden lifting force took her off guard and threw her off balance , flipping her over and resulted in an upside down position with her feet in the air and her long raven hair touching the dirty ground.
" Oh wow , " she laughed nervously , surprised at how powerful those maneuver gears were. As if on cue , Levi's room door opened and their eyes met each other's through the window. Elizabeth felt her cheeks heating up , embarrassed at the awkward position Levi found her in. He broke eye contact and nonchalantly went ahead with his usual morning routine , grabbing his usual seat by the dining table and read the daily papers while sipping on the freshly prepared Earl Grey tea , seemingly unaffected by what he had just saw. Elizabeth struggled to let herself down , bending her torso upwards trying to unbuckle the harness that was attached to the black box , she fumbled with the handgrips in attempt to retract the grapple hooks but to no avail , nothing worked , she had zero knowledge on how the 3D maneuver gear operates. Her back was strained and her legs were numb , with blood rushing to her head she was starting to feel light headed and tiny black particles were crowding her sight , blurring her vision. Her body dangled in mid air , swaying in a sea sick motion , she felt like passing out and throwing up together from hanging upside down for a prolonged period. Without her knowledge , all of her pointless and pathetic dying insect act was all being observed by Levi who was still sitting comfortably at the dining table with his papers tipped over as he watched her in amusement from the other side of the window.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and allowed her hands to fall above her head in defeat , " What an asshole , hope he chokes on tea. " she cursed Levi silently.
" Tch , you're not only annoying. You're pretty dumb too. " she heard a familiar low and mellow voice spoke with the associated sarcasm. She felt her legs freed from the strap-oh-death and heard a mechanical whirring sound which was later accompanied by a clean clashing of metals. Levi slung Elizabeth's sluggish body over his shoulder and softly laid her on the living room couch before he proceeded to continue with his breakfast routine.
Elizabeth allowed herself some time to recover before sitting up , " Thanks. " she grumbled unenthusiastically. It was not that she didn't like Levi ,she looked up to him and respected him as a tough fighter, but he was so different from Farlan. They were polar opposites. Farlan was warm , kind and approachable , some what like a puppy ; while Levi on the other end was harsh , sarcastic , with personality almost resembling a cold hard wall. He doesn't start conversations either , having dinner with him on the same table was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop and his presence alone could dampen the atmosphere, you could almost feel the chills in the air emiting out from him.
" You lack strength and balance , like your combat. " Levi spoke , his eyes not tearing away from the news article. Elizabeth pondered silently before she decided to request for Levi to train her , he would probably disagree to it anyway but there was no harm asking. " C-Could you help me to get stronger ?" she stuttered , stumbling over her speech. Levi lowered his papers , as he was about to speak , the sound of a puppy yelping and door scratching was heard coming from Elizabeth's room. " No Bandit ! Think fast! " Elizabeth panicked. Out of a sudden , she started to cough loudly and violently attempting to hide and over power the noise coming from her room.
" I already knew, " Levi's eyes bore into hers unamused , " and your attempt was pathetic." he continued. Elizabeth's cheeks turned pink and hung her head in shame , there's already one too many embarrassing act Levi had caught her red handed in , " i'm sorry…" she apologized. Levi despised the thought that he was living under the same roof with an animal , but was baffled that his new tenant tried to hide it from him and actually thought he wouldn't notice. He let out a deep sigh , " if i ever see a strand of hair in my house, that dog is out of here. " he warned as he made his way outside. Elizabeth's head remained lowered in embarrassment as Levi strolled past her , " So are you going to fight me or are you just going to sit there? " He called out to her. Elizabeth's mouth lifted into a smile and followed Levi , maybe he wasn't so mean after all.
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