Oops, My Bad (Not Really)
Chapter 2: He Texted Back. Unfortunately.
Levi didn’t consider himself a patient man.
He liked structure. Silence. Predictable habits that moved like clockwork and didn’t involve unsolicited requests for amphibian skeletons. No unsolicited discussions about frog anatomy. His mornings were a ritual: wake up at six, clean the already-clean countertop, drink one mug of precisely steeped black tea, and dive into editing half-baked manuscripts submitted by overambitious writers with no understanding of punctuation. No disruptions. No clutter. Certainly no texts from strangers named “Hange Zoe” who thought emojis were a personality trait.
And yet, here he was. Sitting in his living room, ankle crossed neatly over one knee, phone screen glowing with a new message.
He tapped the side of his mug with one finger, sighing before he even opened it.
He stared at the blinking cursor in the reply field. Typed. Deleted. Typed again.
Levi exhaled slowly through his nose, placing the mug on the coaster with exact precision. This was absurd. He had deadlines. Also, a stack of editing notes to compile. A perfectly good afternoon to waste in peace.
Hange sat cross-legged on her office chair, eating cold onion rings over a pile of lab notes. Her desk was a mess of open notebooks, uncapped pens, and a crumpled lunch receipt she’d accidentally used to diagram neurotransmitters. A frog skull paperweight grinned at her from beside the keyboard.
Moblit appeared at her door, arms full of onboarding folders. He paused when he saw her grinning at her phone again.
“Still texting that stranger?”
“He texted back again! I think I’m wearing him down,” she grinned, licking salt off her fingers.
Moblit blinked. “That’s…not the goal, Hange.”
“You’re right. The goal is the pursuit of truth and connection. And also, curiosity. Like, who doesn’t want to know what kind of person replies to ‘bring me a frog skull’ with a straight-up ‘no’? That’s iconic.”
He said nothing. Just handed her the intern orientation folder and walked away. She’d probably forget about it within the hour anyway.
Levi placed the phone facedown on his coffee table, resisting the strange, ridiculous urge to smirk.
He didn’t even like texting. Hell, he hated texting. Everyone in his life understood that. His colleagues knew to keep messages short. Erwin only sent necessary updates. Isabel used exactly four emojis and nothing else. Texts were tools. Functional and Dry.
So why was he… amused?
He hated how easily she got under his skin. Like sunlight bleeding under a blackout curtain.
Later that night, after dinner, Levi sat at his desk. A manuscript lay open before him—some flimsy romance involving a flower shop and an emotionally unavailable barista. Every third sentence made him want to quit the industry.
He scrawled “No one talks like this.” in the margin and moved to the next page.
Buzz.
He blinked, instinctively reaching for the phone.
He stared at the screen.
Absolutely not, he thought. He had no intention of encouraging her.
Buzz.
He hesitated for a full five seconds before tapping it.
The image was chaotic. Labels everywhere, scrawled arrows pointing at jaw structures, dramatic underlines. At the top, in bold red font, she’d written: SCIENCE BONES 🔥
He blinked. Twice.
And then, before he could stop himself—he laughed. Just once. A soft, involuntary exhale that startled even him.
He shook his head, reaching for his tea, still warm beside him.
Goddammit.
