I woke up. There was sun in my eyes and sand under me. I was at the beach, on vacation - we retired and planned to come back every summer on vacation. We lived in Trost. I rolled over and saw Petra lying next to me. The ginger hair I saw for most of this - weird recollection of my past, was almost all white. I realized that I had been recollecting. Why? Petra wanted to write a biography of me. I told her not to, but now I see that one might be interesting. "Petra." She rolled over. I was half expecting the smooth, 24 year old face when her 67 year old one looked at me. "You should write it."

"Okay."

"Also, write a part about why I said yes."

"Why?"

"It should be my perspective - it'd let people understand how I thought." She nodded. "And write about yourself, and the family."

"But the book's about you."

"Well, I want that there, so they understand."

That's all that Levi told me to write.

It dawned on me later that the family was probably Levi's proudest achievement. But, that ends the 'why' section of this biography.

I did ask Levi why the memories were quite random. "I guess it's how I opened up," he told me. Which was true - Levi got connected to the world with his cousin, Mikasa, and then me.

The inclusion of certain things was based on how he valued them, he revealed. There were some omissions because of their vulgar nature.

Levi also changed his style because he realized that unadulterated thoughts make a bad story. This is why around chapter 4, the narrative voice shifts. He may have also felt differently about the events, but that's just my wishful thinking.

Another note on the style - I tried to put in blank lines where the subject, time or person changed but it was difficult to follow the one-word thoughts Levi included.

The narration also glosses over many of the bouts of depression both he and I shared. There were several over the years, and the omission is due to the fact that he didn't recall that in his story. These bouts were a combination of survivor's guilt and the missing the dead.

Levi has also noted that the time skipping was exactly what happened on that afternoon at the beach. The rebirth of humanity was glossed over because it had nothing to do with the why. The part about the deal was included, according to Levi because "it was important, and we'd finally won."

Before I close off on Levi and write about us alive Ackermans and what we did after his death, I want to write about him a little more.

The one thing I did not get to describe was his personality. He was obviously (as seen throughout the book) short and rude. As I described him once (I believe to Eren): "He's not what people expect to see, you know. He doesn't look like the flawless hero they imagine, starting with his short stature. He's also unexpectedly tense, rude and unapproachable." That shows only the two shallowest layers of understanding. The first is if you've heard of him - 'humanity's greatest soldier.' If you've read this, spoken to him or any such thing, my quote was probably nothing new, and you were at the second stage. The third is where, I believe the squads - the old and the new ones with me in them, reached. At this point, one could discern Levi's feelings, regardless of his inexpressive face. There were small clues - twitches at the corner of his lips of joy, slow blinks of sorrow and his raised eyebrows of surprise or anger. Then there is the fourth stage, where one could react to his expressions correctly at all times and know why he feels the way he feels. I believe I have been at this stage for 67 years. This is probably why Levi notes that I am not too annoying - because I always knew how to react.

Another thing, I leave off physical descriptions for the most part to let you imagine him. Here I would like to write how I remember him. The pictures of him were taken after the turned 70, thus everybody may find it easy to remember the old, wrinkled, white-haired Levi. When I think of him, my mind sees the 32-year-old Heicho I fell in love with on the third morning. Levi had a smooth face. The shape was the same as in the picture, but instead of the wrinkles and white hair, Levi had deep-set eyes and black hair. His hair was parted in the middle and fell with a curve out, over his face. The hair was bouncy (I tested this) and stayed in this shape regardless what Levi was doing. He was much more muscular than portrayed as he was humanity's strongest.

Also, one more anecdote. I will be brief. It's about Levi as a captain and a boyfriend, and I think it helps people understand some of the bipolarity he and I had to put on.

This took place after the winter solstice when I introduced Levi to my father as my boyfriend. One night, Levi came into my room. I shared a room with Sasha, and thus we normally didn't meet there. This time, Levi climbed over me and wrapped himself around me. "Levi, Sasha will notice." I tried to warn him. All he told me was "I want you so bad." Of course, we didn't violate my father's 'nothing stupid' rule. But Levi spent the night with me.

The next morning, I woke up late and noticed Levi still around me. His face was on mine and I couldn't move without waking him up. Sasha stirred. Shit! I shook. Levi woke up. "What is it?"

"Get out, you'll get caught." All he did was kiss me. "It's your reputation, not mine." I closed my eyes. I heard footsteps. Levi was going to get caught with me. The squad was going to see. Could he hope to get respect? There was a slight murmur. I decided to pretend to sleep and let Levi deal with this. Levi stirred. "What are you guys doing?" The edge in his voice made me a little scared as well.

"Heicho, we did not realize you were that close." It was Jean.

"Listen, brat, I love her. It is not something to be gaped at, I am human as well." This was odd, did he want to lose respect? "In half an hour, I expect us to stop being human, like everyday." Everybody stiffened. "In half an hour, I will do what I do - pretend not to care. You will see, just like everyday, I will not touch Petra. I will not treat her is what I hope to show you. While you may fight titans as a machine, you need time to stay human. Use that time wisely because it is short in the survey corps." There was a silence. Armin stepped forward, judging by the creak of the wood.

"Thank you, Heicho." Armin needed this because he had no family and little 'human' time.

"Hey, guys." There was a mocking tone in Levi's voice. "I'll prove it to you, even the kindest of us has another side." He meant me. He gave me a squeeze. "Oi, you, I know you're awake." I got furious, now he was taking this too far. I understood his using me as the cause of a speech, but now what did he want?

I jumped up and said, in an aggressive tone, "Levi! What do you want?!" Everybody looked shocked. I just realized I addressed him as Levi and yelled at him in front of the entire squad.

"See? Had we been soldiers, I'd have slapped her and told her never to do that again. But right now she's my girlfriend, so I don't care." That's what he wanted. I calmed down.

"All right, I hope you guys don't mind, I need to change - Heicho did give us half an hour of which ten minutes have been wasted. Please leave." Jean was staring at me. I was wearing the least amount of clothing any squad member had ever seen me in. "Jean, stop being perverted."

"And there's the other Petra." Levi kissed me and left, leading the squad out. The squad learned how to become friends and realized that there was a life beyond the fighting. Unlike the old squad, these people never enjoyed life and were all hardened by the loss of wall Maria. They needed to calm down before they burnt themselves out. This is how, as a boyfriend, Levi was a captain to the squad, even when wrapped around me in bed.

With that ends all that I could fit in this book about Levi. I could add anecdotes - like the time when we came up with an excuse to ditch Hange with our eyebrows, or the time we tried to imagine Erd, Gunther and Auro at our dinner table, or any weird little conversation that comes to mind. But, without being too long and garrulous, I must omit certain days. It is sadly impossible to contain one man's every thought or one relationship's every moment on paper.