@godgiftcd || reincarnation starter.
he should stop coming to this shop.
he should stop coming to this fucking tea shop, because the paintings on the walls are familiar in ways they shouldn’t be, and reality seems less real in there. he should stop coming to this tea shop because one of the boys who works there looks too much like a boy levi knows - no, remembers - no, imagines - and his life is shitty enough without his brain fucking him over every time he wants to come in and order a cup of tea near closing time when all the sane people are going to bed instead of consuming caffeine.
but, damn it, it’s good tea, and there aren’t a lot of places around here where he can afford good tea (fucking chain restaurants), and levi’s damned if he lets his shitty brain ruin good tea for him too.
except that, tonight, facing the doors, he’s really, definitely telling himself that he should just stop coming to this shop. it’d be the smart thing to do. just turn around, don’t come back, don’t look at the paintings or the drawings on the window, just leave it behind. that’s what he does, right? runs away from things he doesn’t want to face? so go ahead, levi. run the fuck away.
he doesn’t. he pushes the door open and steps inside.
his eyes go automatically to the painting on the wall opposite, full of trees impossibly straight, impossibly tall, and maddeningly familiar, and nearly has to close his eyes against the rush of images -- glancing back at a boy who has to make a choice, asking for trust; standing on the head of a monster all shot through with bolts, taunting it; flying through the air and seeing dead comrades below him, dead eld, dead petra, no stop it -- stop. it’s second nature, now, to force them back. he’s been doing it all his damn life.
he looks away from the painting, towards the counter, and there he is. last time levi saw him, earlier today, his pale face had been visible through an open window, and drawn on the window had been--
ghosts. monsters. things that don’t exist. levi tries to stop himself from thinking the name, but it comes through anyway. titans.
it could be nothing. it could be his own goddamn brain showing him things that aren’t there. isn’t that what he’s supposed to think? but he’s had enough of this. the most the kid can do is think he’s crazy, and what harm can that do, when he thinks the same every day?
“oi. brat,” he says, approaching the counter, not using the kid’s name even though he knows it, or thinks he knows it, or deludes himself into believing he knows it. they’ve never been introduced, but the name is there anyway. jean. blood pounds in his ears, but he forces the words out. “the fuck were you drawing on the window earlier?”
