Undeground!Levi, who couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the Scouts' headquarters for the first time. The bathrooms with hot running water, the food in the pantries, the beds in the dormitories. No cockroaches scurrying around the place, no mold, no stuffy air. No surviving with leftovers, days-old food, stolen food. No makeshift toilets, pissing or shitting on the street, cleaning himself with whatever he found. No personal hygiene products that irritated his skin or scalp, since that was all he could find, and that he had to use.
Undeground!Levi, who felt like it was too good to be true. What was the catch? What if they sent him back out on the street at any moment? After the law of the jungle had kept him alive, all those comforts didn't sit right with him. As if they were making fun of him—mocking him. Was this how people lived on the Surface, with all these comforts and conveniences? He couldn't believe it. It was some kind of hallucination or dream given by the pangs of hunger, and when he would wake up, he would have been in his home, in the Underground. What he saw was not to be trusted, nor were the kind words of his companions who told him that "it would be fine" there.
Undeground!Levi, who sneaked out of his room to get to the kitchens and the pantry room, where the Scouts stored the food exclusively used to cook meals and for times of scarcity—therefore, off limits, unlike the food kept in the cupboards. Just a piece of bread, some goat cheese, and maybe some ham; he saw no harm in it. Until he came face to face with Shadis, who descended to the kitchen to grab something to eat and drink before he would resume his tedious work, and heard noises from the pantry. Thinking it was because of rats, the Commander opened the door and found Levi there, with food in his hand, caught red-handed. Shadis' deep voice echoed around the kitchen, waking up a handful of soldiers that thought that it was a titan roaring. Even the guards, outside the main doors of the headquarters, were quite concerned about that scream.
Underground!Levi, who saw a few soldiers keeping Shadis away from him as he left the food there. He could understand why he was enraged—he had been informed about the rules of the headquarters once he joined, a few days earlier. Yet, that instinct of not trusting anyone but himself, to rely on his survival instincts, to getting food as he always had prevailed. He felt uncomfortable, deep down; guilty, sheepish, hurt by himself. He had been a thief, but he still had manners—his own. It was difficult for the others to understand, and even more difficult for him to explain.
Undeground!Levi, who decided to leave the kitchen with his stomach growling. He wasn't going to apologize, not even if they punished him. He did nothing wrong, because he did the only way known to him to survive and feed himself. Although he felt uneasy, in the depths of his heart, he couldn't fully grasp it. He said nothing to Furlan or Isabel; too embarrassed of it, not wanting them to be worried about him. Trying to keep his façade on.
That night, he got away with it. But ten years later, when he was offering lollipops to the little kids who survived the Rumbling, at the refugee camp in Marley, he saw a boy stealing a sweet from his box. His face was the definition of guilt.
That was when he knew. And he offered that boy another candy.
