✨️ Written in the Stars ✨️ - a Levihan drabble, for Hanji
The beach laid quiet that night. The low murmur of waves meeting the sand the only distinguishable sound echoing at the distance, almost like a hushed lullaby.
The kids had paid him a visit earlier that day, as they did every year when the last scraps of summer started to fade into the chill of orange trees and autumn breezes. It was nice to see them again, honestly. Levi was proud of the young men and women they had all become.
But he needed time to breathe alone, he figured. Time to be with himself in solace.
Gaby had taken him to the shores had everyone said their goodbyes, much like he'd asked of them. Then, she'd left back inside the house to finish up clearing the tables. He noticed, she had grown taller; taller than him, even, and that she wore her auburn hair in an unkept messy ponytail.
Everything reminded him of them.
He looked over at the sea, there where the dark waters met the black night skies, and let out a heavy sigh that melted into the salty air.
It seemed forever ago when they had first reached beyond the walls. When they touched a world so new it felt they could grasp the horizon between their fingertips and nothing could ever hurt them anymore.
It was a simpler time, maybe. Even when war awaited, hidden in the shadows. The kids played amongst the crashing waves, laughing like the little children they had no chance of being, and hope painted the sky of bright clear blue. Even when fate uncertain clouded the roads ahead.
It was easier of a life, he mulled, surely, wincing at the memories flooding bittersweet. They were still warm and safe and alive next to him. And he much preferred uncertainty to the concrete and finite of death.
He exhaled. Hanji had held his hand and guided him along the shores that night, when they decided to set camp across the sand, curious and excited, like they had once explored mistery. The kids were already sound asleep in their tents, and everything else around them was drowned in silence.
"Have I ever told you about the stars, Levi?", they'd said.
He nodded, letting go of them if only for a brief second. They had stopped walking, far away from their lit bonfire, only to sit down together in the sand, facing the vastness of the universe side by side; two halves of a whole.
"You've told me way too many things, four eyes.", he admitted.
They laughed; a small sound that was ever so precious to his beating heart.
"Well, did you know they are nothing but boiling rock, pressed together by gravitational force?"
Levi shrugged. He usually had no idea what half of that scientific terminology meant, whatsoever, but still decided to listen either way. Time after time again.
"I guess it kinda makes sense.", he'd concluded, unsure. And Hanji smiled, with a fondness only reserved for moments like those they shared in the intimacy of eachother's company.
"A while back I read about them having some sort of life, much quite like us humans.", they'd explained, glaring up at the trail of specks that glimmered over the black infinity. "It's funny, you know? 'Cause when they die, it could be months or even years after they become invisible to us here on Earth."
Levi swallowed. There was a lump tightening his throat that he hadn't even noticed forming until he started struggling for air.
"Is it because of how far away they are from us?", was all he managed saying.
Hanji remained quiet for a while; a sigh of melancholy escaping them inevitable, slipping into the soft of the wind's melody.
"Sometimes, I like thinking that our fallen comrades turn into stars.", they'd confessed; dropping their weight free onto the sand immense, almost as broad as the skies above. "That we can still see them, even after they've been long gone. And that, in spite of their clear absense, their light still shines for us who're over here."
Levi had nodded, once more. He had never thought about it that way back then, but he certainly did now.
Was Hanji watching him, as he'd wished for that day? Were they still present, beating iridiscent in the shimmering of the brightest star?
He stared up; his only eye searching for signs written in the night.
It was hard to be without them, really. Desperating, even; to know a world without their shining light reaching for every corner, as fiery as the smoke that had once tarnished them whole. His heart hurt and twisted and turned, shattered to pieces with every beating day.
Specially when life reminded him they should have been on Earth, by his side, and not wandering lost around the gates of heaven.
He grumbled, much to his desdain, and traced his fingers through the scars that had sewn him miraculous, back to life. Hanji's birthday week had always been difficult, but that one was specifically gut-wrenching.
September fifth, and they would have turned fourty, Levi remembered. Because, of course: how could he not?
Fourty, he thought to himself; a deep sigh, tinted of sorrow blue almost rushing through him.
He was sure, then, that they would have joked about becoming a fossil, if fate had ever given them the chance to, and that they would have smiled, evergreen as they blew out their candles; joy sealed concrete, imprinted permanent on the corners of their eyes. He was certain, also, that they would have booked a ticket anywhere right after the party was over with, and that they would have spent a lifetime following the clouds; because they were impulsive like that.
He chuckled; brief, yet audible.
It was ironic, honestly, how silver linings were starting to splatter his ever-dark hair, and Hanji would be no more, forever stuck in eternal youth.
No wrinkled smiles, no candles to blow.
They were ripped too early, for they would never be able to walk the world they once fought so vehemently to liberate.
No threads of grey crowning their head. No birthday cakes. No chances of attesting time change their skin. Nor growing old next to him.
The kids had brought them presents, though, as they did every year. Armin, a handful of titan books and a letter from sweet Mikasa, over in Paradis. Annie and Pieck a box of their favourite tea, along with a bottle of the local marleyan wine. Connie had fetched a bouquet of the lilac flowers Hanji used to love, and Jean had drawn them immortal into thick chalkboard traces: so realistic, Levi's heart had froze for over a good minute.
"You see?", he spoke, swiftly into the darkness. His chest stung with fiery anguish, much like the tears he held restrained inside his eyes. "How loved you are, shitty glasses..."
He never knew why he could never tell them such himself, back when they were still alive.
How could he be such a coward?
He had loved them, then. Loved them, still. Loved them always.
Were they ever aware that he loved them?
He exhaled, tiresome, and clutched his broken hand between steady fingers; a refugee he had built if only to savour the last of their breathing warmth, right before smoke had drowned them worlds away.
Hanji Zoe. The crazy titan scientist. A misunderstood soldier. A tornado that had spun his universe on its axis and ablazed his soul into burning flames.
He had loved them. Intense and achingly pure. He had loved them, although aware that surrendering himself to love was only condemning his emotions to the agony of eternal loss.
Maybe, that was why he had swallowed the words shut, he sought. Why he chose to explode in silence, instead of bombing wholes and make a mess of what little he had left. What would have been the diference, had he told them? Would there have been any?
Earlier that day, Reiner had given him a gift from both Flegel and Queen Historia herself: a fancy ring, of white gold and purple glimmering stones. He wondered, in his now solitude, if he would have put it around Hanji's finger had they breathed longer to keep him company. If he would have been brave enough to place the right questions, in spite of there never existing a fitting time.
He swallowed, impossible, and finally allowed himself free to cry in silence, for the suffering shaking his bones frail was just too much to bear alone.
When was the last time he'd cried like that? He figured, eventually, pain was something a soldier like him had to learn how to live with and in spite of. So he had kept it guarded to forsake his sanity, awfully convinced it would be for the best.
Even when he'd forgotten how much goodbye weighed heavy on his soul. How needed it was to set all hell loose, every once in a while.
He inhaled, sharply, and looked over at the seas through now blurry vision. The moon white reflected round over the rather calm waters; the only witness of his pouring emotion, flowing endless out of him.
Would Hanji know they were free now, thanks to them? That they had all tasted the peace they had once risked everything to discover?
Would they know he loved them, as deep as the ever-unreachable ocean?
The night was still yound and summer was slipping away and they would have been fourty. But they were gone and a piece of himself would always be missing, gone fourty times over with them.
"Four eyes...", he said; voice faltering, left fist closed tight across his chest, there where his heart remained fractured, but beating, still. "Happy birthday."
He assured, then, he was going to live through the pain, much to his terror of even trying. He was going to, if that was what would have made them joyful and content, wherever they were.
He promised, he was going to live for them.
Even when his only and biggest regret was ever agreeing to let them go that day.
"Hanji..." he glanced over at the sky, and extended his hand up open; as though he could touch them one last time, feel them laugh in the cool of the chanting breeze. "I will always love you. Did you know...?"
Stars danced and winked and sparkled blinding atop his head, attesting to the truth behind his words; purple like the stones in his ring. Precious like their favourite color.
He was going to live for them.
Maybe, because they were still watching, after all.
