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birdkujapropaganda · 3 years ago

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my completely biased and official rating of every keyblade ever:

Kingdom Key: absolute classic. excellent design for the like, mascot keyblade. very simple, vaguely key shaped. i hate the mouse head though it's so stupid and makes no sense. and i hate mickey. 9/10 minus a point for the weird mickey keychain

Oathkeeper: wonderful. amazing. never boring. excellent design love the heart and wings and all the significance. and that the keychain is kairi's charm? terrific. 10/10

Oblivion: brilliant. awesome. phenomenal. again excellent design the wings and chains and purple crystal are absolutely perfect. love the crown keychain. 10/10

Ultima Weapon 1: literally just a sword with some filigree on it. nice. too much yellow and i don't like the weird cyan gradient on the guard. 7/10

Kingdom Key D: d for disgusting. i don't have any other comments i just hate it. 2/10

Keyblade of Hearts: yeah that sure is an anti-keyblade. love the simplicity and the heart in the negative space of the teeth. and that it doesn't have a keychain, that fueled a lot of theories for 12yo me 8/10

Lady Luck: i think i don't like this one bc to get it u need to use a white trinity but you can't do that until near the end and i have way cooler blades to use. the design is pretty ok, don't really get the card keychain tho. 5/10

Olympia: oh the sight of this one makes me irritated because the kh1 strategy guide uses this in one of the pictures for the fight against possessed riku. it did not help me win. and i hate short keyblades. love the clouds and columns though 7/10

Jungle King: kinda ugly but i appreciate that it looks kinda handmade. also like the butterfly keychain bc it doesn't look like it fits but it Does. also the first good alternate blade u get in the game so. 8/10

Three Wishes: not bad but it doesn't stick out to me either. also doesn't scream agrabah to me but also it does? 6/10

Pumpkinhead: NICE. very long and very cool. the teeth looks like bat wings and a pumpkin so very epic. 9/10

Wishing Star: so pointless i already have pumpkinhead. also short. cute design though i like the gears. 5/10

Crab Claw: i never used this one because it stuck out so ugly in Halloween Town </3 i love blue and crabs though so 8/10

Fairy Harp: I HATE YOU DIE. short and stupid. does NOT remind me of neverland at all. 1/10

Divine Rose: pretty nice but short and lategame. always thought its existence was kinda weird?? like thanks belle but why. i have oblivion. 7/10

Spellbinder: for some reason i really don't like it. i like blue and the circles are neat. the handle looks really painful though. 4/10

Metal Chocobo: kinda ugly lol. love the holes and chocobo keychain. 8/10

Lionheart: oh i am so biased by recoded. absolutely excellent keyblade. design's kind of weird tho where are those lions going. 9/10

Diamond Dust: so i was really confused because i thought this was khux-only or maybe bbs keyblade but apparently it's kh1 final mix only. you know what i got as a reward for fighting the ice titan? sephiroth. you know what i got for fighting sephiroth? NOTHING. it was my favorite khux blade though so grrrr 7/10

One-Winged Angel: grr bark bark final mix again fuck you. kinda weird design though like what is the teeth? a meteor? should've been a wing. nice guard though there's not enough hand room. excellent keychain obviously. 8/10

Ultima Weapon 2: very similar to the first but blue and symmetrical. very good learn from your mistakes. 9/10

Way to Dawn: YEAAAHHHHHHH BOY HERE IT IS PERFECT EXCELLENT GREAT DESIGN WONDERFUL LORE. HAS WINGS. THE EVOLUTION FROM SOUL EATER. THE LACK OF THORNS ON THE HEART. 10/10

Destiny's Embrace: very cute!! my favorite part is the name. i wish it wasn't so like. stereotypically girly though. like you look at the destiny trio's keyblades and can immediately pick out which one is The Girl's. 9/10

Star Seeker: i wanna hate it because it's mickey's/yen sid's but honestly it's so nice. the stars and moons and comets and gradients and colors... wonderful 9/10

Rumbling Rose: oof. weird and ugly and gross. keychain looks like a ladybug from far away. 3/10

Hero's Crest: bring the clouds back. i don't really get the design but i like columns. 5/10

Monochrome: super cute!! i don't like Timeless River but this fits it so well and has cute hit effect. 8/10

Mysterious Abyss: i always get this one way late in the game so it's always pretty pointless oops lol. also the design doesn't really say atlantica?? 3/10

Follow the Wind: another weird miss but i like this one more. nice wheel shaped guard, and that the keychain is a cursed coin. 6/10

Wishing Lamp: now THIS is the agrabah keyblade. very nice and elegant. looks like the palace! 7/10

Decisive Pumpkin: THIS ONE 😭😭 it's so ugly but it's so strong so i have to use it but it's so ugly. it does look like jack's idea of christmas so points i guess 😭 4/10

Circle of Life: also pretty ugly. and short. sorry simba. 3/10

Sweet Memories: shrek voice it doesn't even have attack. i don't like winnie the pooh so that's definitely influencing me. makes cute noises iirc and looks pretty cute. 4/10

Photon Debugger: this one should look pretty cool but my brain is saying it's bad. i think the giant red ball by the teeth are throwing me off. love the neon blue tho 5/10

Gull Wing: why the weird space in the name. anyway. i really want to love this keyblade bc i love X2 but it's really bad. i'm so sorry YRP kh did you so wrong. excellent keychain choice though. 2/10

Guardian's Soul: MUCH better thank you. auron my beloved <3 the lines are very appealing and i like how simple it appears. also looks like auron's swords. 8/10

Sleeping Lion: wayyy better than lionheart. looks kinda like a gunblade! again though what are those lions doing. 8/10

Fenrir: my car key got in a fight. 1/10

Bond of Flame: looks like a bad first draft of axel's keyblade. either the teeth or the guard should look like a chakram, pick one. love it though. 7/10

Two Become One: MY BELOVED <3 excellent design, so so so roxas i think he should use it. very excellent i love the little twist at the top. checkered handle is a little weird. 10/10

Fatal Crest: lol i was so mad when i first saw this because it looked like one of my oc's keyblades. i like it now though, it's a dragon!! pretty neat bro 8/10

Winner's Proof: oh this one is so cute. if it wasn't a reward it would be really weird and bad. surprisingly elegant! and there's even 13 mushrooms on it! 9/10

(shoutout to portadorx on deviantart for the 358 keyblade refs)

Missing Ache: YOU. interesting design, though it says roxas more than ventus to me. great first alt keyblade. 7/10

Ominous Blight: very edgy names in this game <3 looks like guardian's soul, which is interesting. i don't like yellow but it works bc blight 6/10

Abaddon Plasma: what a cool fucking name. so many yellow keyblades. but very cool looking i love roxas' aesthetic 8/10

Pain of Solitude: this is just pink missing ache. 8/10

Sign of Innocence: SO COOL. idk what's going on in most of these blades but i love it. 9/10

Crown of Guilt: come on. it doesn't look like a crown. big disappointment. very cool though 6/10

Abyssal Tide: so cool!! i love blue and fighting in midair <3 the teeth kinda looks like waves 8/10

Leviathan: weirdly furry looking. very cool guard 6/10

True Light's Flight: looks like two become one if it was only one. the top kinda looks like the nobody sigil 9/10

Rejection of Fate: SPEAR. epic name too, but i think it should swap names with true light's flight. very cool but i don't remember seeing it in name. kinda awkward bc it looks like it should be a spear 7/10

Midnight Roar: sooo cool. the orange handle pops without looking wrong... nice. also the teeth kinda look like a bat. 9/10

Glimpse of Darkness: ugly. weirdly bulky and hollow. short. 3/10

Total Eclipse: weirdly bumpy sword. i like how the orange looks like it glows. 5/10

Silent Dirge: GoD but purple. 2/10

Lunar Eclipse: TE but purple. 4/10

Darker than Dark: Hello 😳TLF but purple 10/10

Astral Blast: Abyssal Tide but yellow. interesting choice, but kinda clashes with the blue accents 7/10

Maverick Flare: Ominous Blight but red... excellent. very nice. 8/10

Twilight Blaze: Abaddon Plasma but red... also excellent. very epic. 9/10

Omega Weapon: props for not looking like any of the ultima weapons. very interesting and spiky but i kinda don't like it. 6/10

Aubade: kinda weird. "draws forth its wielder's personality"... ok. looks light elemented. 7/10

Wooden Stick: lol 10/10

Umbrella: not what i would've chosen but lol 10/10

Zero/One: WONDERFUL, EXCELLENT, AMAZING. i can't really explain why i love this one so much it's just very good. 10/10

Earthshaker: very solid design. not much to say it's just nice. love the colored guard. 7/10

Ends of the Earth: love that it is so clearly an earthshake upgrade. makes u realize how incomplete the first one is. 9/10

Dreadgnaw: kinda silly looking lol those are teeth. love the red bit in the center. looks very similar to earthshaker in a good way. 8/10

Chaos Ripper: looks like EotE but in a bad way. i don't like the weird teeth. it's also almost impractically long but i'm here for that. ALSO THE EYE. NICE. 7/10

Rainfell: oooo i love this it's so simple but so nice. very elegant 9/10

Stormfall: less nice. looks like a rainfell upgrade though. also kinda looks like master's defender which makes sense but i don't like it. 6/10

Brightcrest: GORGEOUS. PERFECT AND WONDERFUL. SO PRETTY. i wish it was kairi's. kinda looks to ornamental for aqua? but good for her. 10/10

Wayward Wind: none of ventus' blades look very ventusy to me. this one looks like an extra training one they had sitting around. cool shape though 5/10

Frolic Flame: NICE. looks like lea's frisbees! i like fire and fire designs so but it's a little awkward looking 8/10

Lost Memory: ok so first off WINGS. EXCELLENT. love that the only color is the heart. very cool and epic but i don't understand why it doesn't have a reverse grip handle. or the pointy bit at the tip. but still 10/10

Void Gear: hiii vanitas :) so anyway in my totally unbiased opinion this is the best keyblade ever obviously. love the gears and red accents and it's just super cool. the eyes and chains... vanitas character development keyblade when <3 10/10

Void Gear (White?): still very cool, love the simple contrast going on. 10/10

No Name: i didn't know this one was also called no name which is kinda lame. but i love the keyblade it's very cool. super glowy and i love the time design. 9/10

Crown Unlimit: I almost really like this one. very neat design, love the crowns and twists and glow. 7/10

Master's Defender: literally so plain and boring. i don't care if that's the point give it some frills. nice design though :/ 7/10

Broken Xblade: love the broken bits and the weird rust color. wish one of the kingdom keys was more broken and i think the top bit should be broken too. 7/10

Wooden Keyblade: sobbing and crying and tears. this is literally so cute and good and i love that it looks like Ends of the earth. or the kingdom key i guess. 10/10

Treasure Trove: i never expect to like this one but it's actually pretty nice :) wish the gems looked like they were spilling from the top and not leaking from the bottom. 8/10

Stroke of Midnight: also surprisingly nice! the guard kinda looks like a pumpkin which is cute. just a very cute design. 8/10

Fairy Stars: rad as hell. absolutely love this design very appealing. like how point the stars are. 9/10

Victory Line: i hate this one. maybe bc i don't like the world. kinda ugly and the teeth look awkward. 3/10

Mark of a Hero: ok we brought the clouds back but the weirdly buff trophy arm fucks this up. the blade is also just kind of a column, nothing going on there. 4/10

Hyperdrive: super cute!! love how the blade looks like laser fire and engine streams. the teeth are weird again though, and the handle looks like a bee 8/10

Pixie Petal: SO much better than fairy harp. this one is very cute and these teeth actually fit with the rest of the design. kinda short though >:/ 7/10

Sweetstack: oh this is so cute. a bunch of ice cream scoops!! why are the teeth oranges and what are some of those flavors. why are cones on the guard soft serve. 8/10

Ultima Weapon bbs: NICE. A SWORD WITH SOME FILIGREE BUT ALL IN BLUE. LOVE the wayfinders on it, very good for them. wish it wasn't just blue since it seems so aqua-centric but it looks nice soo 10/10

Skull Noise: LITERALLY SO PERFECT. THAT'S SO TWEWY. INCREDIBLE. the headphones and mr mew keychain... wonderful. only thing is that the name is kinda weird. like it makes sense but sounds weird. 10/10

Guardian Bell: i like it more than i think i would. elegant looking, and i love the gargoyles on it. hate the sentient gargoyles tho. 8/10

Dual Disk: VERY cool! looks like it has a reverse grip. the teeth are really cool and i love the bright blue. 9/10

Ferris Gear: eh. pretty cute but i think my pinocchio bias is acting up. the gears are nice, reminds me of wishing star. 5/10

Knockout Punch: SO COOL. really love the spikiness and colors and that the guard looks like the monkey. unfortunately for it, i don't like monkey. 8/10

All for One: the design's nice and it matches the world... but eh. 5/10

Counterpoint: so fun!! the violin guard is great, and the blade looks so cool. the teeth are a little awkward looking, it goes up too much. 9/10

Divewing: RAD!. just a sword with a heart on it and i love it. just so fucking cool. and the guard looks like a wing so 10/10

Sweet Dreams: so cute :) in love with the meow wow on top, but the teeth go up too much again. and i think there should be some komory wings on it. 7/10

Ultima Weapon DDD: NICE. almost identical to the kh1 blade, but blue and BETTER. the wings above the guard and the crown coming out of dream eater sigil... brilliant. 10/10

Unbound: not a hit 💔 just kinda weird and unfinished looking? and the lime green bit is off-putting. the hear at the top is nice. 2/10

End of Pain: ok mood shift hello. looks like it should be one of terra's evil blades. at first i was thrown off but looking closer it's so cool. the wings and eye at the top... the horns above the guard... the butterfly and gazing eye (buttereye) keychain... magnificent. the blade reminds me of x2 dark knight paine's sword. 10/10

Ocean Rage: looks pretty cool at first but the monstro mouth guard is literally horrifying i don't want to look at it anymore 1/10

YMX's keyblade: apparently has no name and is different than the one in bbs. nothing new really to say since it looks pretty similar but the goat head on top is super interesting. how much did No Name (luxu) influence young xehanort... 9/10

Mirage Split: absolutely perfect. i can't think of anything that isn't positive to say. the stained glass, the heart by the teeth, the thin lines, the gradient, wings, pointy, the keychain, literally all perfect. 10/10

Nightmare's End: also utterly perfect. i don't like yellow but it works here and looks great. the cyan gradient is startling but matches MS so i love it. all the colors in the stained glass are wonderful. 10/10

Starlight+: a little guady. but i love how the stars look like comets. the twisted blade looks neat too, but what's the point of the pointy bit on top. 7/10

Treasure Trove+: love that it looks golden and gem encrusted. very rich looking, but the cart is still leaking gems. 8/10

Lady Luck+: NOW the card thing makes more sense, i love how its incorporated throughout the design. more more interesting than the original. 9/10

Three Wishes+: looks like fire?? which is way cooler but why??? i like it more but where's the agrabah. 8/10

Olympia+: CLOUDS. like that zeus is in the clouds, but they took my columns. and the cyan handles are really weird. 7/10

Divine Rose+: excellent. what it should've been all along. the iridescenty guard is suuuper pretty and all the leaves and vines are great. 10/10

Moogle o' Glory: a lot happening here but i love smacking shit with a moogle head. there's so much happening and i don't really get it. 7/10

Fairy Stars+: i didn't know it could get better, the teeth is super cool looking but i wish the twisty blade was more visible. 9/10

Sleeping Lion+: love that it turns that metallic light blue color, very pretty. and the handle looks more like the gunblade! very nice looking and i used it a lot but the top is very weird. 9/10

Counterpoint+: let's take all the fun and exciting bits from the original and crANK IT UP TO ELEVEN. wait. stop. go back it's too much. very pretty still i love colors. 8/10

Fenrir+: my car key recovered from that fight. looks wayyy cooler and looks like ff7. hate the cyan glow though it feels weird. 6/10

Darkgnaw+: took me forever to find an image bc i keep calling it dreadgnaw. much cooler than the original, it looks like it's gonna bite you. the purple is also very nice. 9/10

Missing Ache+: POINTY. super cool but how does ventus twirl it around without poking himself. the colors are fun and it looks rad. 10/10

Diamond Dust+: i used this one the most <3 very pretty i love shades of blue and purple :) looks kinda icy but the top is weirdly flat. 9/10

Bad Guy Breaker: there's so much happening calm down 😭kinda nice but there's a lot to look at. also this world irritated me. 4/10

Gula's Keyblade: #leopardus4ever. as you can see, this keyblade is perfection. fun and spiky and lightningy. i think the whole blade should be lightning tho. 10/10

Aced's Keyblade: do any of these have names. anyway what a dreadgnaw ripoff 🙄 it suits him but guess what. i don't like him. 5/10

Ira's Keyblade: i don't like ira either but his blade is fucking great. love the teeth so much, and the colors. very pretty and cool 8/10

Invi's Keyblade: absolutely gorgeous. i love the flowing lines and little vines. love the colors and also it's super long. 9/10

Ava's Keyblade: girl this hurts to look at on a white background. very pretty though, i love how wispy and cloud-like it is. looks delicate which is great considering she'll kick anyone's ass. 8/10

No Name: unfortunately, this is absolutely wicked. look at it. it's wonderful. the goat head looks so much cooler than the other animal heads somehow, and i love the hollow center of the blade. and the teeth look like a claw, a little. just so fucking cool but i hate everyone who uses this. 10/10

Shooting Star: super pretty, i love how this one flows. i wish the blade went down to wrap around the guard though, instead of cutting off. 8/10

Hero's Origin: they took away my clouds again. i like that half of it is just. zeus. the lightning bolts are cool, but the handle and guard don't really match. 6/10

Favorite Deputy: you are not my favorite deputy fuck you. i don't like toy story but i do like cactuses. 3/10

Ever After: this one's nice :) the guard is super pretty, but i wish there was more going on with the blade. 7/10

Happy Gear: this one's kinda ugly but i like it soo. the energy canister guard is cute. 7/10

Crystal Snow: i hate it so much. it's boring and the keychain is olaf and i don't like frozen. 1/10

Hunny Spout: pretty cute :) the honey jars remind me of sweetstack. i like the wooden handle. 7/10

Wheel of Fate: cool as hell that's my boat. love that the blade looks like a mast that's so cool. wish it wasn't so gray though. 8/10

Nano Gear: ah, here's the color. i like everything except how the nanobots look at the top. it's just kinda gross. 7/10

Grand Chef: oh this is so cute. but why is remy the teeth. poor rat :( but it looks very nice i like how the Tower goes into the guard 8/10

Classic Tone: fuckyoufuckyoufuc. i hate this one. pretty ugly and i don't like it. 2/10

Starlight: SO GOOD. very simple but i like that. looks mysteriously similar to the kingdom key? i love it but it needs a little more going on. 9/10

Ultima Weapon 3: LOOK AT IT. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE THEY CAN'T MAKE A BETTER ULTIMA WEAPON. the silver and red look so good and it's spiky and cool. and the red is glittery!!! why? i don't care it's phenomenal. the spiky heart teeth. that it looks like it's moving. i wish i could break my rating scale. 10/10

Braveheart: riku kingdomhearts stole my fucking car key. we've all heard the complaints i'm not repeating them 1/10

Star Cluster: it's really nice >:( mickey switch with riku pleaase. the star theme is really cute and the colors are nice but why does it look so similar to the kingdom key. 8/10

Flame Liberator: i don't like the name but ok i guess. the keyblade is so fucking cool though. it's what bond of flame wanted to be. i love fire and it looks like it moves so hell yeah. 9/10

Xblade: still can't decide if i like this or not. How do you hold it comfortably. Love the glistening spiky bits. 8/10

#that's all of them holy shit #you are required to read this #might make another list with all of them in order if i feel insane enough #kingdom hearts #pere's bullshit #kh #keyblades

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tundrainafrica · 3 years ago

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Title: Lovebug (12/14)

Summary:

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D

It was one of those days where Levi could barely focus.

But it wasn’t anything new. A few days a year, his eyes would be heavy, his back would slump naturally and codes would blur together in some strange way even the most experienced engineers wouldn’t understand. Those days, he had attributed it to exhaustion, to sheer workload or the tension that accompanied impending releases.

It feels a little different. It was terribly unfamiliar and Levi could have almost sworn that it was worse than ever.

Still, he attempted to get back some inkling of control. He opened his workflow tracker, saw green then decided he could consider his priorities later. He opened his checklists and saw meaningless black ink on white spaces then he decided he could start elsewhere.

He opened up a few pull requests, only to end up approving a whole lot of them before even making sense of what fix the developers had been working on. Then, he then assured himself that maybe he could fix errors on the code once they were in production.

It isn’t good practice. A part of him warned. Really, how many times had he heard that from everyone else? How many times had he held those words like a badge and repeated them countless times to his fellow engineers?

But really, how did anyone particularly Erwin, the upper management, the executives, expect him to work after the meeting just that morning. They had dropped a bomb, a very painful truth that he had somehow managed to keep snug, almost invisible at the back of his mind for so many years.

The company ran on too much red tape and officialism. Hell, every fucking comapny ran on red tape, officialism and some tacky version of bureaucracy, all intricately engineered to please the richest stakeholders. Yet, Levi had been working corporate for decades, long enough to learn and just blindly accept them as inevitable parts of work.

Then and there, it was biting him in the ass. So painfully. Levi never expected something as grey and monotonous as office work and corporate politics to bite so painfully.

Ninety five percent chance. Erwin never told him the details of the contract termination but he had some consideration to at least inform Levi that Zeke was very much considering it. In that same meeting, he had casually mentioned the amount of time it would take to finalize it. If Erwin did tell him some specifics, Levi probably didn’t hear it, especially when he had been busy only barely keeping himself together.

Levi soon figured out, although he had been accepting them the whole time, a huge part of him would have gladly rebelled.

By god, he hated bureaucracy, he hated corporate synergy, he hated the concept of investor satisfaction. Most importantly, he hated the whole prospect of everything the past few months ending with some signed contract termination.

And the silent rage continued well inside him, as he mindlessly switched from one tab to the other, unable to make sense of much.

Maybe he had been too busy reflecting, entertaining those very unwelcome emotions.

Was he too soft hearted. Was he taking his job too personally demanding some personal closure? Was he too immature having been so emotionally affected by that memorandum? And maybe that inability to let out anything more than some professional query at his manager had him barely coping.

‘Coping’ came in many forms. It involved the slow realization he was merely an employee, albeit a head of an engineering team. Then another realization soon after that he was in no position to question the upper management’s decision.

It involved a very cruel realization that although he was the head of the emotions alarm project, the one who had developed it from the beginning and the only one who knew the application end to end, the emotions alarm was still corporate property.

By extension, by some fruit of corporate processes and the constant exchange of assets, it was Zeke’s property. All the assets, the codes Levi had created, the pull requests he had reviewed and merged, every long night he spent looking over bugs, had all been because he was paid to do it.

Zeke’s property. He acknowledged those two words and they echoed incessantly in his head as his eyes ran over the codes of the emotions alarm.

The emotions alarm wasn’t his. It was the companies. And when the contract is finalized, it would be all Zeke’s and Zeke would be the one to decide for himself how to work with that application.

Hire another head engineer to work with Hange… Hire other coders… That’s what business is.

He and Erwin had talked for a while after the meeting. Erwin had been careful with his words and maybe he had softened his tone just a bit, as if he had sensed Levi’s discomfort.

In his own state though, Levi could only stumble upon one conclusion. He was just as replaceable as every other employee. And the pain of having been too attached to a project, the impending loss of his own brain child had him catatonic.

Any comfort or attempt at alleviation seemed far off.

He wouldn’t be invited to the rest of the meetings. The fate of that project would be up in the air, mulled over by the top brass of the company, a few lawyers and accountants, then approved by Zeke. Levi on the other hand, would be ordered back to his office to focus on other tasks, expected to function like it hadn’t felt like some slow and painful end of the world, since the incident at the school a few weeks ago.

Any silver lining as he worked was shot down by his cynical side. The next few minutes, he continued to work, just for the bare minimum to get paid. He approved leaves here and there, He mindlessly looked through some code, ran a debugger he didn’t completely understand. He mindlessly scanned through the logs before he accepted, his brain was in no state to work.

Then he opted not to think beyond that. He closed all the windows on his desktop. He opened another folder towards the corner.

His own personal folder. Inside it were the same codes for the emotions alarm he had worked on for Hange’s birthday. But it felt like more of a personal project.

In its own little way, it pulled it out of that catatonic state. By some miracle, the gears of his head were turning again, slowly at first. Then they turned more quickly by the second, sending a rush of motivation through him. Maybe because the upper management still didn’t know about that side of the emotions alarm. Maybe it was because it still felt like a secret between him and Hange. And somehow, his mind was able to twist it. Levi had managed to convince himself, it was still his and Hange’s.

Hange is still here. She’ll come back.

"You know, I'm pretty sure conference rooms are for conferences.”

Levi bit back the surprise at Petra’s sudden visit. "Well we have five empty ones," he said. He had been working in empty conference rooms for weeks already and had silently rehearsed his own explanation already.

"You have your own office," Petra said.

"I know," Levi answered nonchalantly. Maybe most other days, he would have attempted something more engaging.

How engaging could he be though when his own brain child was close to being sold to an investor, its fate completely out of his control?

By some stupid corporate rule, he couldn't tell Petra that just yet. He looked up at her, willing himself to make some meager excuse of eye contact. "You need anything?"

Petra shook her head. "It’s not really work related… Or actually it kinda is... If that's okay… If you're busy I can bring this up another time." She was holding her work laptop closer to her, a subtle move that had been enough to catch Levi’s eye.

For just a second.

Levi looked back at the code. A wave of guilt washed through him when he remembered, it wasn’t necessarily productive work— a very temporary wave of guilt that he easily washed off just recalling the overly reverent attitude the executives had towards corporate processes.

He wasn't busy. The code he had been staring at the past few minutes wasn't company business anyway. "This can be finished later," Levi said as he lowered his laptop screen.

Petra cocked her head to the side. "Boss, are you okay? I noticed you haven’t been working in the office in a while and I know you---”

“The office is a mess,” Levi said. “And I just haven’t had time to clean up.”

“You need help?”

“No.”

“If you’re busy, I could--”

“Petra, it’s my mess to clean up.” He probably had said that last part too abrasively. After all, that mess referred to multiple messes at once and he was more than a little salty about that.

There was a flash of surprise, or maybe hurt in Petra’s face. Levi only had his peripherals to hint for himself how she might have felt. He sighed. “I don’t wanna clean it up but I don’t wanna stay there either. Besides, as long as no one is using the conference rooms, I think it’ll be fine.”

“Well, it is our right as employees…” Petra started.

“It is,” Levi said. He looked back up at Petra expectantly then lowered his laptop screen much lower, he could have easily just shut it down. “So what did you come here for?”

“I wanted to ask about Hange.” Surprisingly, Petra had brought out that conversation topic with a lot more certainty than every line before that.

Hange. And it had brought about an unwelcome twinge of pain inside him. He took a deep breath, letting it spread over his already enervated body. He noticed then, her name had started to seem strangely unfamiliar to his tongue. In truth, he hadn’t said her name in a while.

Levi took a deep breath and repeated her name, just a little experiment for himself. “What about Hange?”

“Your alarm and her alarm. They were ringing back in the gym.”

“That was weeks ago. Why bring it up now?” Levi asked.

Petra gave a slight shake of her head. “I was just wondering. Do you think it’s a bug?”

“It’s not,” Levi said, one eyebrow raised. He wondered if Erwin had ever discussed it with the others. Or wait, that might have been his job.

Petra grinned yet she seemed more hurt than actually happy. “I suspected it was a bug at first. But you know, when Hange stopped showing up in the office, you started acting different.”

“Have I?” Levi asked

“Yeah, you stopped working in your office. The few times I visited, it was a little cluttered but you never liked your office messy right? It only started getting messier when Hange started working closely with you…”

Levi was only becoming more self aware. Suddenly looking at how quickly, he had opened up his laptop, hunched over, just to hide his face behind the screen. He couldn’t even control his own reaction anymore. “And?”

“And when Hange was working… you seemed happier… You started going out for lunch more, talking to us more. You even invited me out…” Around that time, Petra started to stumble at her words, her ears turned a little pink. With time, she started to stumble with her words, to points beyond comprehension. “I know, I might look creepy pointing all this out but there were two points I wanted to make with this.”

“Two...points?” Then why didn’t you just start with it? Levi would have wanted to ask. But he was grateful that the speech was long enough for him to edit two lines of code, even in his own compromised state.

Petra took some time to compose herself. She put one finger up. “First, Hange changed you for the better, there were obvious signs that you were happier, so maybe those can be considered signs of love. Second, that means there might not be a bug and you’re just a really talented developer.”

“That’s reassuring,” Levi said. With his lack of energy, it could have come out toneless. “I mean it,” Levi added.

“If you wanna call it love or not, that will be up to you. But I think it aligns with our expectations for the application,” Petra straightened her back after that, adopting a more professional demeanor. “If possible, I’d love to have a chat with Hange about it. Maybe get her take on my theory…”

Petra wouldn’t have known. The talks had been between the upper management, it would only make its way to lower rung employees as a memo.

A fucking memo. Fuck red tape. Levi thought to himself. When it wasn’t official, could he even tell her?

Fuck that. “Hange might not come back,” Levi said.

Petra’s eyes widened almost immediately, her jaw dropped.

Before she could even speak, Levi continued. “They might terminate the contract. I know they’re discussing the legalities of it. Zeke is going to take the unfinished and have another team work on it. Or at least that’s what I’m understanding.”

“But there might---”

“There’s no chance,” Levi said firmly.

“Levi just---”

“None. There’s none.” Levi shook his head for emphasis. He allowed his voice to rise just a little bit louder than usual. He wanted to shoot down whatever glimmer of hope, before it got out of control.

Annoyingly, Petra had a way of just trying to find hope, the brighter side in most situations. But he didn’t need it. He didn’t want it. In his already vulnerable state, it seemed almost mocking.

And she was still trying. “But Hange----”

Levi banged one hand on the table in warning. “Petra,” he said. “Just stop.”

An abrupt slam on the table had always been enough to quiet people and Petra shouldn’t have been an exception.

In a surprising turn of events, she slammed harder on the table. “No, listen to me Levi.” Her voice was much firmer and at that moment, it didn’t seem like she had regard for differences in positions.

In shock, Levi fell silent and he was compelled to listen to that voice of authority.

“I came here for a reason.” She dropped her laptop on the table, almost louder than the slam she made just a second ago. “We got a support email which you might want to see. This is the reason I went here in the first place.” Petra quickly booted up her laptop. “It’s a support ticket, and the email...it looks like Hange’s.”

[email protected]

A quick look at the date only confirmed it, it had been there for a week. There was a flyer attached which only sealed its fate as spam mail. Of course, it would have taken weeks to identify it.

But why would Hange use that email? At first glance, Levi couldn’t help but be suspicious.

“It looks like it’s related to Mr. Jaeger’s convention. He’s having one and I thought, you might wanna check it out… If you have unfinished business with Hange, use that opportunity to talk to her.”

It could be spam mail. It wasn’t that hard to create a fake email using Hange Zoe’s name but it was still worth some looking into. A quick google search only confirmed it. Zeke was having an event in one of the most expensive cities in the world, a coastal city a twelve hour flight away.

Still, Levi couldn’t brush off the doubt. Would Hange have used an email with her name? After taking so much of her precious time creating fake emails?

“If this is really her, then that means she wanted to contact us right?” Petra continued. “I think it’s worth a look.”

Maybe all he needed was someone to tell him, a good push in the right direction. Before Levi even realized it, his mind was working harder than ever since the incident three weeks ago, working overtime to justify something as ridiculous as a last minute week-long vacation.

If Hange did send the email, it might be worth it. And if by some chance, it really was spam, then he will have just wasted a good week-long vacation in ‘one of the most dazzling cities in the world.’

Levi could count with the number of fingers in one hand, the amount of times he had been in a long haul flight. The prices for a hotel, a last minute flight and of course, the leaves needed to make the trip were all daunting issues to consider.

He had expected himself to be at least a little more hesitant. A part of him was moving almost automatically. He stood up and slammed his laptop shut. “I think I’m gonna take a week long leave.”

“Since I joined, you haven’t even taken a sick leave. I think you deserve this,” Petra responded. And that peaceful response from her of all people had been reassuring.

“Thanks for that.”

Petra shook her head. “It’s only natural to wish the best for someone right?” She paused, and a weak blush climbed up her cheeks as she bit her lip. “Well, I meant the best for you and Hange. Just see what you can do for her.”

Levi let out a sigh. “But it helps you know.”

And somehow, those kind words had only left Petra more flustered. In thanks, he offered to take her back to her work station, but not much farther than that. He made a quick stop to his still cluttered office, did some quick cleaning up, leaving the white board and Hange’s own work station still untouched, like it has been everyday since three weeks ago.

He went home early that day and as expected, his brain continued to nag.

Was it a useless move? A stupid move? A rash move? Maybe it was. But he wasn't going to tell anyone else, just in case someone managed to convince him out of it.

Levi had taken some precautions. He emailed back, only to get no response. He did some research on the flyer. The event came with different names, trade shows, networking events.

With the objective of bringing together the largest names in neighboring countries… We aim to optimize production, bring about the best quality… Seminars, business dinners, product demonstrations etc.

The words blurred together slowly and before Levi knew it, he couldn’t make sense of it at all. It wasn’t important anyway. What seemed more urgent was the schedule of events right under the spiel.

It was a five day conference and it had already started the night before. Levi opened up his leave credits, still completely full. Most years, it had remained untouched until the end of the year.

He opened up his own bank account. He didn’t have much but he still had more than enough to take that particular risk. And when he contacted Erwin about it, the latter seemed almost excited he was taking a leave.

By some sorcery, he got the one week leave, tagged as emergency leaves. The next afternoon, less than 24 hours after that meeting with Petra, Levi was already in the airport, overnight bag over one shoulder.

He was going on an adventure, some stupid, impulsive and potentially pointless adventure.

***

The guilt never abated. There was something almost surreal, yet seemingly audacious about taking a last minute long leave, after spending years working non stop.

Would anyone understand it? The more Levi thought about it, the more he realized, he didn’t understand it himself. So by some twists and turns of logic, Levi guessed nobody would understand.

He had books he could have read on the plane. There was an inflight entertainment system.

Still shaken by that one week long life, Levi ended up booting up his laptop and spending a huge chunk of the time reviewing pull requests on the flight. Time started to pass like how it used to in the office.

As expected, he got tired four hours in. Losing energy reserves midday in the office was a very unwelcome experience but something Levi never seemed to completely avoid. It was a very familiar experience that the next few steps had been much easier.

He pulled out the codes, his own personal project folder on his desktop, he stared at the files of codes yet to be merged to the original plan.

Then he started to organize his thoughts. Before he knew it, his fingers were flying over the keyboard.

It could have been some reminder, or just some attempt at shoehorning reason to his impulsive decision to cross the ocean on a last minute vacation. But the more Levi let his brain nag, the more he started to justify. The longer he justified, the sooner he just accepted.

Who cared if anyone else found it sappy. He needed closure.

Then and there, it seemed like closure meant articulating the plans of his own personal project, ideas that had been exchanged that fateful night in some empty playground, ideas that only built and built themselves until they were rows of codes yet to be tested or executed.

Maybe closure was getting the plans for the emotions alarm to Hange.

And as Levi continued to type, he realized, he had a clear idea on how he wanted it to work. Articulating it, planning it into something Hange would have understood was not too much of a tall order.

Connect the emotion alarm to a dashboard… plans on how to quantify emotions, moods… Colors, emotions, suggestions.

Newfound energy had Levi tirelessly working over that plan the whole long haul flight, creating diagrams, appending it with his own notes and suggestions. They were still empty spaces, questions and question marks, space which Hange would have been more qualified to fill herself.

After looking at it once then twice, reading out loud softly too himself the parts that hadn’t made too much sense, Levi scrolled back up and typed four words on the upper left.

Working Title: Mood Alarm.

Hange would probably argue semantics, how moods were a lot more temporary than emotions. And Levi was imagining some outrageous argument in his head and his own responses which would never see the light of day. He stayed staunch with his decision. Unless, Hange could come up with anything more catchy, it would stay.

And that fake argument, had been enough for him to relax. He lowered his laptop screen then reclined his seat and stared out the window. It was still a light blue but there were already hints of purple and pink just straight ahead.

The sun would set soon but only for a few hours. One quick calculation told him, it wouldn’t ever be late at night. Once he arrived at his destination, it would still be day and he would have to adjust quickly.

Tucking his laptop away, he allowed himself a few hours of sleep and he had been lucky to have slept long enough to wake up to a pilot’s message about flying over the city then a good view of unfamiliar landscapes just outside the window.

Levi spent those last few minutes before landing, tracing the skyline, counting the number of tiny boxes that dotted the greens, just inches away from clusters of green, white, silver, then flashes of other colors, too many colors to count.

It was an expensive city. He didn’t need Google to tell him that. Everyone knew it as a city only for the filthy rich. He could imagine Zeke having a house or an apartment there, maybe even two. And he made some guesses of which one Zeke could have owned among the larger ones by the beach. Then he made a much longer reflection of just one Yes or No question.

Would Hange been there? He was still too high up to distinguish humans on the outdoor balconies from tricks of light. Still he pretended that she was on one of the balconies over looking the ocean.

The plane got lower and lower, the houses were starting to look more like houses than little tiny boxes. Close enough, Levi was starting to see the glamour of the city, he was starting to see the glowing characteristics which made it a first choice for the ultra rich.

Sparkling blue ocean, only peppered by speed boats and yachts moored at the docks. From inland, mountain ranges formed crescents and worked with the coast to outline the borders of the cities from miles around.

By some type of magic, the landscapes surrounding it had managed to make the dazzling city its own world. Levi begrudgingly gave some credit to the rich for seeing potential in such a breathtaking view.

Just before the coast were tall buildings among shorter buildings and they were lined up on the flat lands, touching one end of the mountain range then the other. Some were hotels, others were casinos, a few of them were malls. Parks were clustered among the buildings, yet they seemed out of place. They were like some shoddily formed assurance that the city wasn’t out to get any tourist’s money.

Levi was seeing differently. The struggle he went into booking a hotel was already a prelude to whatever he would be dealing with. He silently patted his wallet at his back pocket as the pilot’s final instructions sounded over the whole plane.

"Cabin crew prepare for landing."

And all the passengers had been excited to leave. The plane soon slowed to a stop. Even before the seatbelt sign went off, Levi was already hearing the click of seatbelts. Then everyone filed out of their seats, pulling out luggages from the overhead compartment.

Levi was one of the last few out of the plane. Yet with his lack of check-in luggage, he was still one of the first out of the airport.

Nothing could have completely prepared him for the abrupt shift from dry autumn to a wet perpetual summer. He was greeted by some faint smell of the ocean, almost stifling warmth in the middle of October, and very very humid air that stuck to his skin. Unfamiliar sensations on skin, unfamiliar scents and an unfamiliar language that only blurred into nonsense when they made their way into his ears.

It was a new world, a new adventure, Levi would have never taken under any other circumstances. And maybe that had been the reason why the rush of guilt came back when he allowed himself to marvel over the views, the first hand experience of standing close proximity, breathing the same air of that city he had only ever read about books, or seen in the news.

Levi took a deep breath, pulled off his autumn jacket almost violently.

Then he reminded himself again. If he didn’t find her, he’d still be okay. If he didn’t find her, then that trip will just have been a break.

A well-deserved break.

***

According to reception, his hotel was conveniently located just a five minute distance from the convention center. According to his maps application, it was ten minutes away. Levi though, had taken one hour to make his way there

There were hidden paths that weaved through allies and the occasional mall entrances and exits and maybe that had been what reception had been referring to when they mentioned shortcuts.

Levi walked quickly through them at first before he opened up to a larger road. When his surroundings were more open, when his vision stretched far beyond the narrow walls of the alleys, he thought one of the most beautiful cities in the world to be worth a few detours.

Anyway, he had found the signs were all pointing towards the hybrid building that doubled as a hotel and convention center. It might have been the grandest building all around.

He scanned his surroundings, trying to connect his own view from the plane to his own surroundings. Unable to conjure a very clear and accurate picture of what had come above, he couldn’t confirm whether it had been the grandest building around.

It wasn’t too important anyway.

It seemed like the city was on some journey to prove itself to him. Every path, road, alleyway, shopping street and even the interiors of the mall were all different levels of grand. And they all didn’t disappoint, especially to someone who barely even left his home city.

Clean finishings, newly paved roads, cobble stoned streets and red brick roads all seemed to come straight out of the sappiest rags to riches movies.

One cruel truth though Levi soon found out—and had been expecting anyway—was that everything came with a price.

Of course, it would. But Levi hadn’t embedded that truth deep enough inside him to be able to completely stifle his surprise at the price of bottled water, then the price of a late breakfast. They were all prices Levi would have never considered paying for one meal’s worth of food. So he settled for fast food. And he was sure, he would be eating fast food for every single meal until he flew back home.

Eating burger meals worth twice or thrice what he would have gotten at home was still a harrowing experience. He was on that constant in between state, naturally bitter at the ridiculous cost of living yet still forcing himself to savor those few bites of a sandwich.

And he found some inkling of a distraction just staring out the window, watching the crowds go by as he consumed his brunch slowly.

Then, he noticed, he never stopped thinking about her. She had always been somewhere in his mind, still close enough to the front that a flash of brown hair, a messy pony tail or even a pair of glasses among the crowds were enough to have him eyes wide, chewing slower than usual.

In one quick impulsive move, Levi dropped the burger, pulled out his phone and activated the love alarm.

Just in case.

He put on his earphones, then his baseball cap over it. He finished his food much faster then exited the store.

The love alarm didn't ring as he weaved through the crowds. He put his cap lower on over his face, keeping himself unrecognizable.

So, it shouldn't ring for anyone if anyone can't see me right.

That was expected behavior at least. And Levi was just laying trust on some belief that if Hange was nearby, two things might happen. If Hange hadn’t cleared her alarm history and her alarm would recognize his. Or, even if she used a new account, she would recognize him with a baseball cap covering half his face, and it would still ring.

That was assuming she still used her love alarm.

It was a very small chance and Levi was completely aware of it. So he made his way to the convention center, taking note of the signs with the names plastered on them, with arrows guiding him through shopping streets.

Levi didn't mind the detours, more crowds to attempt to look through. When he finally arrived at the hotel entrance though, he found he was tired and a little grumpy.

With the words at the front mentioning Zeke Jaegers name as a keynote speaker though, he had gained some newfound hope, Hange might just be nearby.

He had done the research at least. There was a visitor's price. There was a guest book.

There would be people selling him medical equipment, the latest medical technology and the drugs, supply chains, just the latest lingo, Levi never bothered to learn.

And he got those business vernacular in slow, stilted opportunities, so separated from one another that he never made sense of them.

He was there for one reason. Hange. So it wasn't too difficult to feign purpose, maybe even pretend that he had a few million dollars resting in his bank account for an investment.

There was a map, the names of some of the companies were in languages he was only familiar with by appearance. It was name recall that saved him then, he saw a few of Zeke's hospitals show up in the convention map. Forming a path in his head, he dove into his crowds, clutching his phone harder, readjusting his earphones.

No ringing. And he couldn’t help but feel a strange emotion, a mix between disappointment and relief. It was quiet and somehow he liked it that way. Yet, that only meant that Hange wasn’t nearby.

But leads to Hange were a good second best option. “Levi--- Mr. Ackerman?”

“Ms. Finger,” Levi greeted.

If Pieck knew anything about the incident at the school, she didn’t make it obvious. She was all business at that convention, decked up in business attire, fliers and a product handbook on the desk right in front of her,

She made her way closer to him, letting out a hand to raise and before Levi could even mirror that same movement, someone cut in between them.

“May I help you?”

Levi could have sworn he had never met that man in front of him. Yet the man was looking at him suspiciously, out of character for someone in a suit and flyers.

Pieck pushed past him."Porco, I'll handle this. So, what brings you here?"

Levi had to play his cards well. "I wanted to talk…" to Zeke? Or to Hange? Which was the better name to bring up?

Pieck nodded at him, an inquisitive look on her face. "To talk…"

"Business…"

"What kind of business? You could relay it through your manager right?"

"it's about the app we're developing." He had his laptop with him then, and only the motion of his laptop to his front albeit had Pieck lighting up.

Of course it would, Pieck had been one of his fans when he had first demo-ed the emotions alarm in the hospital just a few months back.

"You've been planning improvements."

Levi gave a light nod. "I've created plans to further improve the efficacy of the application. I was hoping to talk to Zeke about it, or if he's too busy, Hange." He hoped he had used the right jargon.

Pieck had seemed uncertain there. Yet her eyes had darted to his laptop enough times for Levi to see that she was interested, that somehow she had held a stake in those final products.

"If you want me to show it…" Levi was about to drop his bag and pull it out.

That is, if Peke hadn't stopped him then. "Don't trouble yourself," she said. "But, you wouldn't find Zeke here for most of the day. He only shows up for the business dinners but they're on an invitation basis. I can try asking around, we have a few employees who could ask Zeke."

"If you could tell me where Hange is…"

And that was where things got slightly complicated and somehow Levi suspected from the way Pieck had avoided his gaze yet at the same time, Porco had flashed him with a glare, there was something they knew that he didn't.

Pieck spoke up. "Hange huh? Haven't seen her since the convention started. Even during the days leading up to the convention, she was in and out, more than we could even remember."

"She's unpredictable. Don't think you're going to find her here," Porco added.

"But if you could contact her yourself?" Pieck looked at him pointedly.

"Unpredictable huh?" Levi wasn't all too surprised that they would call her unpredictable. And they had said it with a hint of animosity on both their voices, a tone which very much said 'dont bother', or maybe, ‘contacting Zeke might be the better option."

Levi, though, saw a challenge in that unpredictability. If he played his cards right, he might even find predictability in it.

At the least, he managed to let out a light greeting of thanks before he pulled out of the crowds then past the entrance of the stifling convention.

Levi still kept a copy of a program, taking note of keynote speakers among them. Hange wasn't in any of them so his thoughts flew quickly out of the convention, only rooted there somehow by that offer from Pieck to get him in touch with Zeke's executive team.

No help at all with finding Hange. But Levi couldn't help but just think that their actions may have been calculated. Once again, Levi was groveling about the stiffness of the world of politics and artificial corporate pleasantries.

When that became too stressful, his thoughts went back to Hange.

Hange was unpredictable, in a predictable way. And Levi was sure as long as he strode through the town with some purpose, he could make sense of that 'chaos' she always seemed to exude.

That night, he approached it with some careful premeditation, while considering as well that he was still suffering from jet lag.

He scanned through maps, aerial photos, then pictures from taken from high points in the city. He let his eyes trace over the coasts, then the beaches, the affluent areas close proximity to the beach that strategically overlooked the bluest parts of the ocean. Then he noted a less affluent area that brushed the other side of the mountain.

Focusing on the smaller houses, almost hidden by the iconic skyline, he asked himself, would Hange be there? He didn't have a straight answer but he wouldn't put it past her. Besides, any sense of adventure had started to become a little more welcome.

There was truth to it, Hange was unpredictable. But the predictability to it was, Hange was so unpredictable, she was memorable. He was sure if he would ask about the brunette, someone would know.

If Hange acted like the Hange, he knew, someone might recognize her. Someone in a simple community in a country thousands of miles away from his own, wouldn't know Hange Zoe as anything more than some eccentric brunette.

And maybe that was where he was supposed to start.

The next morning, he bought a bus ticket and he had been lucky enough to even get an opportunity to sit. After all, no one actually visited that city for the locals.

It was almost a half an hour bus away form the city center, and houses by the coastline were getting further apart until Levi reached a point where cabanas were made of simple wood, paths were etched lightly on the ground.

Levi disembarked at one of the more simpler bus stops for miles around, and it didn't look like the bus passed there often.

But maybe it was better that way.

Untouched Nature, free nature is a beautiful thing. Nature once again at its rawest form, at its most candid, not flaunting its best parts for the rich to admire.

And Levi was seeing beauty in the candid.

There were a few local kids, wading by, speaking a language Levi didn't understand and for a second, Levi just stood, breathing in the sour air of some untouched beach. It differed a lot from the beach thirty minutes away. There was no music playing in the background, no strobe lights and Levi concluded one thing.

Hange would have enjoyed this.

Levi would bet money that if Hange did have the freedom to run around, she might have been there. The houses around the area were of a simple kind, so far apart, that Levi had to walk thousands of steps just to get from one to the other. He traced the coastline as he walked, far enough from the shores to keep his feet dry but still close enough that he felt the moist sand squish from underneath him. He was following some path back the way he came, towards the skyline, he noted there were bars among them, seemingly affordable bars, maybe catering to locals.

Levi entered to find chaos. Men in a group playing some possible version of mahjong with rocks, others playing chess and others playing cards with rocks as currencies.

And he was more convinced Hange would have joined them if she had the freedom to move around.

So he took the risk. "Do you get foreigners here often?"

And maybe the word ‘foreigner’ or the word ‘often’ had been unfamiliar to the bartender.

He looked questioningly at Levi but it didn't look like he was completely lost. He turned the younger bartender who looked back at Levi. "May I help you sir?" he asked with a thick yet still very intelligible accent.. Levi suspected he had worked in the city center before.

"Foreigners...do you get a lot here?" Levi was slow at first.

"A few. May I ask why?" And he was starting to suspect the man worked in service.

It looked like the man didn't need the quick adjustments though, so Levi continued. "I'm looking for someone…"

The local gestured for him to go on.

And just like that, Levi found out Hange's predictability. All he needed was some subtle gesture, some consideration, that maybe it would have been best to approach the men hustling chess players by the side, or the other men playing some version of mahjong.

It was just a quick flick of his head towards the gamblers as he tried to find the right words to say.

And the man in front of him figured it out. "Glasses? Brown wavy hair?"

"She likes playing games. She plays here?" Levi asked, just for some confirmation, some proof that he wasn't socially engineering anyone.

The younger man looked at the bartender. The latter broke out into a smile. "Hange?" he said with a thick accent. He let out a laugh then turned to Levi almost suspiciously.

Levi nodded quickly. "Yes, Hange." Hänge Zoe. Should he say her last name?

The bartenders said something to the English speaking local. There was a brief exchange between them and the bartender pointed at Levi.

"Her hair is always messy," Levi said, he put his hands at the back of his head, mimicking the messy way she tied her hair up. "She always wins games. She's very smart. And sometimes, she'd just go out to the beach and she'd get lost in the view."

The two locals look towards each other, their faces suddenly unreadable.

They knew something Levi didn't and Levi knew he was punching blindly just making quick guesses of what Hange would have done. The specificities could also mean they escorted him out with new information.

Yet, somehow, it seemed those descriptions worked. They both smiled, exchange a few words.

"She plays. She wins---"

Levi smiled. "And let me guess, she doesn't keep the money?" And when he saw the grins of the two men widen, he made another guess. "And she gives the money away?"

The man dropped his shoulders and put one hand out in greeting. "What do you need?"

"I wanna see her--- No, I wanna talk to her. Do you know where I can find her?"

"She doesn't tell us where she's going too."

The bartender said something just behind the younger man and the latter's expression changed. They were both pointing at something, seemingly hypothetical, then drawing something with their fingers.

The younger man then continued in English. "I'll take you out."

"Wha--" Levi never had time to finish.

The man guided him out.

At first Levi wondered what he did wrong. The man didn't seem to carry any animosity. He seemed almost excited. "She likes going there," he said with some level of certainty.

There. Initially, it had been difficult to figure out where 'there' was. Following the direction of his finger with his gaze was almost a tall order. But there was only one place from that angle which boasted any level of significance.

He was pointing high up to mountain ranges and from his place by the coast, on the other side of the city, maybe he could make out a small tower that peeked out over the green.

"She likes high places," the man said.

"She told you that?" Levi shifted his grin to something certain then he nodded. "Thank you, I'll check it out."

And that tower peeking out of the mountains was identifiable with just an easy google search, expected from one of the most tourist friendly places in the world.

A tower observatory huh? Was it be open to the public? Sources said yes. What did Hange enjoy there? Levi had an inkling of an answer but he might have to see to it to be sure.

While waiting for the bus back to the city center, he consolidated his clues. Pieck had told him to wait for a message from someone named Yelena. If he couldn't talk to Hange, he could talk to Zeke.

Still, he was covering his bases with Hange but he was a little messy with it. It was all a matter of fate, some inkling of what kind of person Hange would be.

But what would he know about Hänge?

Even on the empty bus on the way back, he left his love alarm on, earphones propped comfortably in his ears.

In the bus it didn't ring but when Levi was weaving through the busiest streets, changing from the city bus to the bus leading up the mountain, it may have rung a few times. And Levi only started to become aware, a few incidents in, that every single time he had stopped, then he would scan the crowds.

One flash of brown hair, sometimes it would show up red under direct streams of light. A bird's nest tied up in a half pony tail or just a very messy one. Or maybe that low voice, which seemed to shift to something shrill almost immediately when excited.

There was only one person he would have wanted his Love Alarm to ring for. So Levi, lowered his cap over his face, boarded a bus and made the journey to the mountain.

***

He didn't go back to the convention center anymore. A long list of programs and keynote speakers only confirmed it, it was a roadshow on business ventures more than research.

But Hange likes business right? Hange likes medicine? Or she might even be wedges among the crowds of tourists among the snazzier casinos, just playing. He then considered playing just to check it out and maybe ask around.

And when Levi was weighing options, he realized Hange was somewhat unpredictable. He was at the mercy of fate, luck and a few well thought out guesses.

So he treated it like some challenge, a challenge he could very much fail. But he would get a better chance of running into her, if he kept to one place.

He picked the summit of the mountain and he parked there for the next few days, laptop bag in hand, sweatshirt over his boardshorts. There was a cafe only a few blocks from the tower with a good view of the main street leading up to the observatory.

And Levi only had to be there a few days to realize, it was off-season and it was off-season for a reason. It was the time of the year, when the weather by the road was a fickle bitch.

That day, the rain was on and off. The northern winds blew strong and Levi almost wished he had brought his autumn jacket. Yet it never was cold or windy enough to be certain it was worth lugging around.

The sweatshirt had been a golden alternative and he found the hood had a dual purpose. Enough, to hide his face so he could keep his love alarm on without receiving too many alarms. And enough to keep him safe from the blinding wind that came with climbing high elevations.

Levi abandoned the baseball cap, instead keeping the hood low over his face. He made himself at home in that cafe that overlooked the main road towards the visitor's center and a platform with a good view of the city. He picked a spot right next to the window. He only had to turn left, to get a peek, yet he was in a good enough position that if anyone looked back, he only had to lean back to be concealed by the opaque wall.

Levi was taking stupid risks. Did she clear her cache? Did she even still use the app? Any of those miniscule decisions would have been enough for Levi to come home empty ended. Yet, they were highly probable decisions. After all, why would Hange want to keep the application after the fiasco months ago. He started to even entertain the possibility that maybe Hange wasn’t even using her phone as often anymore. She hadn’t replied to texts, responded to calls and her number was also out of service.

Everything was against him, every single probability. Everything had been against him since the start anyway so it was much easier to stomach such circumstances.

Levi made for himself an ultimatum. He only had until his flight back, three days after, to talk to Hange.

If he is not able to find her, he goes home empty handed. He cooperates with the transferring of assets, the finalization of the contract. He scraps his own personal project, the colors, the attempt to quantify emotions and the dashboard.

At the least, he tried. He responded to that ticket. He tried to contact her, he tried to look for her. Hell, he was even contacting Zeke, personal pride and corporate processes be damned.

Surprisingly, instead of leaving him more desolate, the high stakes, all against him, had only sent a surge of motivation through him.

Maybe helplessness could do that to people. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe for himself that losing could be such a probable outcome.

Levi turned up the volume of his phone, scanned the crowds just outside the shop. It was off season, the weather was dark and gloomy so it wasn’t too difficult to even count the number of tall lanky brunettes who could have remotely been Hange. And he probably wasted more than enough time looking closely at each one, before accepting that twinge of disappointment every time they looked back revealing an unfamiliar face.

He never failed to remind himself how stupid of a plan it was. In the end, his best option really was to wait for a message from Yelena. Even if he would have preferred to discuss the plans with Hange himself, without that monkey as an intermediary.

When the disappointment accumulated, becoming too much to bear, Levi opened his laptop again, checked his work trackers, then his own project but he always made sure to look out, in between lines of code, or in between tickets or pull requests.

Just in case. Just in case, one of the brunettes was Hange.

When his love alarm finally rang, Levi had been reviewing a pull request. The surprise lasted for a second, the horror at realizing if that person hadn’t opened their love alarm, he wouldn’t have noticed her, lasted a little longer.

But he couldn’t be too sure it was her. She had on a cap, her hair tied up on a high ponytail. It was wavy and untamed, yet bunched up in such a way that maybe even her hair felt stifled. The ponytail swung wildly with even the slightest movement of her head.

And she was moving a lot, head bent down at first, looking at her phone, then at two kids next to her.

She was part of a tour group and those kids didn’t seem like hers. The alarm stopped for a while, and Levi used that short rest to check the schedule of the convention he had downloaded just yesterday. There was a tour that day. So it could be her.

Still, he couldn’t be too sure. His alarm rang again. Then when he was watching closely, he saw her jaw drop, he saw her explain something to the kids. Then she started to scan her surroundings and when Levi used that flash when their eyes met for just a second, he suspected.

But maybe their eyes haven’t met. She was wearing sunglasses.

And there was still a good chance it wasn’t Hange. But from her reaction, from the reaction of the kids, then the way she poked at her phone and the way the heart just suddenly disappeared then appeared then disappeared from his phone within few second lags, Levi decided it was a risk worth taking.

He continued to stare. And the brunette continued to scan her surroundings. She bent over, said something to both kids, then patted one on the head. And she turned around, looking through the cafe window.

And Levi turned off his own alarm, leaning back on the chair, just far back enough to hide.

What was he scared of? It looked like she could have been scared too. She didn’t bother to come nearer, or to even crane her neck to see just behind the wall right next to the window. She shook her head, a half smile played at her lips. And she walked away from the cafe, back to the tour group.

A disappointing turn of events. And Levi was scolding himself. It almost seemed surreal to even find Hange there, after losing contact with her for months. But he couldn’t be too sure that it was her. And how many times had he repeated it to himself.

Heart beating wildly, Levi let out a wretched sigh and slammed his laptop close, loud and hard enough to jarr him and even his closest neighbors. Who cared anyway? He continued to stare at Hange, and just for some level of security, just in case his emotions took more control than he allowed, he put the hood of his sweat shirt over his head, zipped it up a little higher over his neck and stared out.

She was talking to the tour guide. The tour guide shook his head, then pointed just above him.

Grey skies. Levi understood gesticulations enough to get that part.

The tour guide then pointed at the cafe then at the shopping streets but maybe she wasn’t listening anymore. She turned to the sky and Levi followed her gaze to see that she was probably looking at the tower, the base was visible from his view but even when he bent his head to the side, he couldn't make out the top. He made it a game for himself, he craned his neck, just to see how far up he could make out from his comfortable seat in the cafe.

Then eventually, he gave up, yet the brunette was still looking up, her head hung back, almost freely. Her mouth a thin line. And it was only when Levi heard the loud murmurs, took note of the sudden shift of the cafe atmosphere from peaceful to bustling, did he realize she had been left all alone.

The whole tour group was inside the shop.

Except her. She walked ahead. And if Levi were right, and that was her, he might as well follow. For the first time in a while, he wasn’t coiling the charger of his laptop before stuffing it into his bag. He wasn’t placing it hinge first into his bag. He stuffed everything, leaving chaos in his wake.

But he didn’t have much time anyway. Besides, cafe was starting to get too crowded for comfort. He exited the shop, and she was still in view, for just long enough for Levi to make out, that she had turned a corner.

If a part of him wanted to hesitate, if a part of him was holding him back, he didn’t let it take over. He didn’t have much time to consider the situation either. After all, she was moving fast and the winds were enough of an adversary already. So he ran, holding his laptop bag close to his side. He was grateful, he had at least tightened the hood of his sweatshirt.

The corner she turned on, opened up to a smaller cobblestone road, and at the end of it was the entrance of the tower. She opened the door with the sign ’authorized personnel only’, and she didn’t come back out.

Many feet behind her, but still unperturbed, Levi followed behind. The first floor was wide, and it acted as shelter, an ante room to a visitor’s center maybe, and there was a small open room to the side. A rope acted as some weak barricade to the entrance with a sign hanging in front.

Closed due to weather conditions

Uncertainty was another adversary. He turned to the glass door of the visitor’s center. He could look for her there. After a small peak through the glass, he realized if he went through there, he might just get a little self conscious, he might just hesitate to even climb over the rope.

In the slow few seconds that followed, Levi considered several things.

If she wanted to go to the visitor’s center, she would have gone through the main door. If she were Hange, it wouldn’t be too outrageous to imagine her climbing over a rope or even opening an ‘authorized personnel only’ door. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized, the bartender was right, his own instinct could be right.

Hange loved adventure. Hange loved freedom.

And as he stepped over the rope, then entered the hollow area where the spiral staircase climbed endlessly, he realized, his instincts, his decision might have just been right.

The footsteps echoed loudly, bouncing one end to the other over the hollow walls. Even when he couldn’t make out movements, just staring above him, towards the dizzying top, he made out the echoes.

And that could be Hange.

Or it could be an illusion. Levi added a second later, as he started the journey up the spiral staircases, the laptop bag dangling precariously on his side. He was dealing with too many sounds at once, and they all echoed in the narrow room, that Levi couldn’t be too sure if her footsteps had been his own imagination.

Still, he climbed.

Hundreds or maybe even thousands of steps in, it became an issue of sunk costs. The rubber soles of his shoes on the metal, the slap of his laptop bag on his side. And the few times he looked back, the few times he allowed himself to slow down, he heard an echo, unfamiliar footsteps, the shoes not his own.

A few times, he tried to go faster, just to beat the sound. When he sprinted up steps, losing count along the way, he remembered he had to conserve energy. The sounds were blurring against each other anyway.

So he settled for a quick jog. The monotony that came with jogging had him thinking, the spiral case really was endless. He wondered how many feet he had climbed.

A few times, it was tempting to run. A few other times, it was tempting to walk. A few times, he wondered how nice it would be to be able to fly, just float all the way down like a bird. Soon enough, he was high enough that just looking down made him dizzy, left his stomach turning.

He started to focus on what was ahead anyway, even when it was all just some predictable pattern of stairs and stone walls. Along the way, maybe he had started to lose feeling in his legs, just like he lost track of the echoes, or maybe she had just stopped climbing altogether.

Close to the top, there was a platform that led to a doorway. And Levi only had to push open, to be greeted again by winds. Suddenly they were coming in all directions at once, enough for Levi to put both his hands over his eyes. Enough to have him bending his knees, trudgling forward, one step at a time.

He was at the top of the tower, the highest point for miles around. When he got his bearings, started to accept the wind as an inevitable companion, he had managed to sprint forward, lean his elbows on the arm railings and look forward, at the magnificent view that stretched past the hotels, the shopping malls and the casinos.

The mountains beyond that and just next to them, the empty beaches, the local communities.

A few times, he closed his eyes, allowing them some reprieve from the harsh winds. And around the time, when he started to notice the grey sky, the streams of light that seemed to let bright colors glimmer, the few parts of the land they touched, he easily remembered why he had been there in the first place.

Of course, Hange enjoys this.

He looked around him once. Then twice, just in case the first time had been a trick from his tired eyes. She wasn’t around. Then he started to question himself.

Is she really here? Or were the echoes of footsteps just an illusion?

Was he going crazy?

It could have been from the strong winds, or the crushing disappointment, but around that time, he found it difficult to breathe. He felt tears prickle in his eyes. He swallowed once, and that had been enough to keep his face unmoving.

He looked back at the view, then at the grey sky above, the streams of light that were only getting smaller as dark clouds hovered over the city, then at the neon lights that only started to glow brighter with each stream of light that disappeared.

The wind started to blow harder, the trees down below rustled, creating their own glimmer of green, all dancing at once. Then he looked up at the ocean, the waves only getting larger, as the direction of the winds started to become unpredictable.

Sometimes, his hood was pressing harder towards the back of his head. Sometimes, it pushed from the front, blowing his bangs out of his face. It was chilling his cheeks, forcing the salty yet very sour scent of the ocean through his nose, then his half open mouth.

The wind brought with it many things at once, utter chaos, in separated parts. Most Levi couldn’t even understand.

I love you. At first, he thought it to be the whistle of the wind. Then a second later, he decided that he was just going crazy.

Then the wind stopped for just a second, the whistle, the blowing deadened into nothing for just a few seconds.

A few seconds enough.

“I love you!”

A few seconds long enough for Levi to trace the voice to a strange location, above him, yet behind him. He traced it to the brunette, cap still propped snugly on her head, her ponytail swinging from left to right.

Her sunglasses were off, she stood balanced on one of the lower rungs of the rail. There were still a few streams of sunlight left, yet they shone on Hange, bright enough for Levi to see red, in her ponytail, to see those roundish hazel eyes, those cheekbones and hint of pink in them.

Red. For a while it looked like a fire, the smell of the sea tickled his nose, then a wave of horror. Then loss?

See you later, Hange.

She stood there, meters above him, far enough for Levi to still doubt yet still close enough that with a longer look, Levi accepted, he was obliged to believe it.

It was Hange. The longer he looked at her, the more certain he became, the more money he would have put into such a wild conjecture.

But what the hell are you doing here?

Comprehension was a slow process, muddled by surprise, disbelief and confusion at his own reaction. Impatient, Levi had exited the spiral staircase to a platform a few meters below the top, while she had climbed all the way up. That left them in two completely different floors, two completely different platforms, a good distance away from each other.

And it didn’t look like she noticed him.

Then who are you talking to?

She continued to look straight ahead. She took a deep breath then screamed again.

I love you.

The wind caressed his face again and the words came again as a whisper.

The few times Levi opened his mouth, he noticed. When the wind was strong enough, the clearing of his throat, the grumbles didn’t come out as expected. As if the wind stole his words, and carried them away with it.

And the wind wouldn’t tell its secrets right?

Exhausted, terrified, confused then frustrated. Unwelcome tears threatening to force themselves out, Levi decided he was desperate for someone who’d listen but he he didn’t want anyone capable of judgement.

He took a deep breath. “I love you!” With the wind blowing in all the directions at once, his ears snug under his hood, it came out as a whisper. It was as if his body saw an opportunity for a cathartic release in the potential listener in the wind. Even as his throat burned, he screamed it again. “I love you!”

I love you. Hange’s voice seemed to ride with the wind, once again, he heard it as a whisper. Looking back up, Hange had dropped back on the platform, her two hands cupped her mouth. She dropped them and took a deep breath. She dropped her shoulders, then stared up at the sky, her head hung back. And she looked like she was about to collapse.

And maybe he looked the same way. He wanted to collapse too, with the weight over his shoulders, another, more deeply embedded exhaustion reared its ugly head.

But he wanted to hear the rest of it. He couldn’t be too sure who she had been talking too. Either way, he was sure it didn't change anything. Whether she felt the same way or not, love was love.

He took another deep breath. “I love you!” The wind was only getting stronger and once again, it snatched the words out of his mouth, his throat raw, almost burning. He didn't even know wind could burn until that moment, until he noticed the ache in his tongue.

Hange didn’t seem to notice. She still continued to stare straight ahead, then up at the sky. She put one hand over her eyes, wiping sweat. Or tears?

And maybe his mind suspected tears. And maybe tears were contagious. They came out unwillingly, as something that just welled at the rims.

And maybe if he just screamed again, they’ll force themselves back. “Hange Zoe.” He took a deep breath. “I love you!” He had been more strategic, letting it out a split second later, when the wind was whistling, almost screaming.

The wind might never take those words to her. But he didn’t seem to mind, the words had been for him more than anything.

Levi…. I love you...

The wind was strong enough, rain started to patter over the stone platform. And it became difficult to distinguish screams from the whistling of the wind. So Levi couldn’t be too sure. Still, he listened closely.

...In another life… Okay?

The rain was cold. The dampness pressed the hood closer to the back of his head, then the edge of his hood hung low over him, obscuring his view.

Yet the wind still found a way in, it first caressed his cheeks again, then tickled his lips as if forcing something out of him.

It goaded. It teased. And Levi had always been a sore loser, even if he never told anyone.

Alone, with no one there to hear him, but the wind, and Hange beyond ears reach, Hange who had barely noticed him, the words were forcing themselves out.

He looked back to see her standing, leaning closely over the railing. The strong rains, the ferocious winds had reduced her to a shadow.

And he was sure, she probably hadn't seen him.

Another surge of confidence. Then one deep breath. By some unexpected rush, Levi was starting to feel some strange anger. And Hange’s own staunch acceptance, the way she just gripped the railings and stared ahead, was only aggravating it.

“I don't wanna wait for any more next lives!” He let out a painful cough after that but even that didn’t penetrate the rumble, the pattern of the rain and the gusts of wind that surrounded him.

I want you. It was a weak whisper at first. Recovering from that last bout, Levi attempted once again. “I want you now.” Even when he couldn’t hear it himself, he felt it, the rawness in his throat, the anger that laced every single word. “Love is a choice right? Then I made my fucking choice! I want you! I want you now!” He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, the figure hidden by a thin veil of rain.

The figure that eventually disappeared into the tower.

He eventually got tired of looking up. His neck ached, his vision started to blur and the hood hung damp over his face.

Levi only realized then, how much he had been holding in. In fact, it never felt all his to begin with. Cathartic releases weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Hell, Levi didn’t even notice how much had actually been released until he leaned back on the wall, until he realized, he didn’t mind at all being covered head to toe in water and dirt.

Humans were unpredictable. They were incomprehensible. And the moment that everything fell into place, Levi let it sink in.

He loved Hange. He wanted her. He wanted to be selfish about it.

“That’s what a choice is right? Doing what I want?” Levi whispered, making some sense of Hange’s own words, he mimicked her voice, her mannerisms as he said those first words. He then lowered his tone, into something more natural. “We’re not fucking robots Hange. We want things. We feel things.”

He didn’t need to tell her that. High up on the tower Hange had been screaming. He was certain of that. Hange had been leaning forward, she had been breathing hard.

She was feeling. She was human. She was free.

And Levi wondered why she had seemed so desperate, so eager to let something out, as if every other moment outside the tower had been stifling.

“That’s life married to a billionaire huh?”

He couldn’t blame her for screaming. HIs only little game of copycat had him exhausted too but somehow, by some sleight of hand, some magic, it had him calm, peaceful even under the strong patter of rain.

Articulating only made emotions all the more real. The signs that he hadn’t been the only one chasing blindly was reassuring.

And maybe that was all Levi wanted anyway, that was the final closure to that long game of cat and mouse. Levi turned to his soaked laptop bag, he maneuvered his way back inside the shelter. He zipped his bag open, let out a sigh of relief to see that the case had done its job to keep the laptop dry.

Then alone on the stairwell, he leaned on the wall, noted the sound of footsteps many feet below. He opened the laptop, then before even booting it, he closed it again and took a deep breath as one realization dawned on him in those slow steady movements.

In truth, he didn’t mind never showing the plans to Hange. Maybe he had just been looking for some excuse to see her, some attempt at closure.

“You got it,” he whispered to himself, hands cold and shaking even under the humid tropical air. “You can stop now…” But something inside him continued to lightly boil. “So what? Do we wait until the next life?”

Nobody answered.

He opened his phone, then his mood alarm. He already predicted the color on the screen.

Green. Happy sad? Or sad happy?

At that moment, Levi concluded, desire and acceptance could begrudgingly coexist.

***

Levi had no plans of going back to the convention. Yet, after that night, he had one more day left, one more day to check the city.

He did a quick google search, reading through long reviews on beaches, on the mountains, the hiking trails, the tower and the shopping street. None of them seemed interesting and Levi almost considered just curling up in bed on the last day and allowing himself to recover from the ordeal the night before.

And even if his mind had been willing him to find some other purpose. Levi found, as soon as the adrenaline rush ended, all he wanted to do was lie in bed. Only standing on two feet long enough to get him through a shower and curled into bed.

His mind was racing with other questions. Could Hange move? Was Hange moving? Was she walking? Was she talking? As if nothing happened? And the more he thought about it, the harder it became to move.

He slept through the night. By morning, he had enough strength, enough need for stimulation to pull his laptop closer. He ran his hand over the keyboard. It was fully dry. He realized he would rather wait a few more hours before opening it again.

He turned back to the ceiling. Rest. He whispered to himself. You don’t need to go out. You went on enough adventures to last a lifetime.

A fucking lifetime. It felt like sour graping. And Levi soon found himself admitting to sour graping. He would have wanted more adventures if it meant more time with Hange.

But real life didn’t work that way. Life expected people to decide on circumstances, never on emotions or actual thought.

So what’s the point of being fucking human then? Rejecting the world as a whole, made it easier to just roll over and nap again despite the light streaming through the window.

And Levi was in and out of sleep, the only view was the plain white walls of his hotel room, and whatever light reflected on it. Some natural need for stimulation had him jumping at the sound of the phone ringing.

Instinctively, he pulled his hand behind him, dragging the phone roughly from the side table.

An unknown number. Hange. The unwelcome part of him tried to rear its ugly head again. He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” He kept his voice cold, just in case it was her, or wasn’t her.

“Mr. Ackerman?” An unfamiliar voice on the other end and Levi couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman speaking.

“Speaking.”

“Ms. Finger told me about your request, about your plans for the Mood Alarm. I ran through it with Mr. Jaeger and he would be happy to host you for dinner, then for a private meeting in his suite."

“No need,” Levi said.

“No, he insists.”

“It’s not worth your time.”

“Mr. Ackerman, listen.” And the voice on the other end was firm. “Mr. Jaeger has invited you to dine with him. He took the time out of his busy schedule to do this. This is a formal invitation, if he is interested in your plans he will tell you himself.”

Levi didn't respond immediately. He couldn't think of much else to say yet.

“Will you dine with him?”

Levi put the phone in front of him, put it on speaker and just stared at the unknown number. Could this be a scam?

As if to answer his question, the person on the other line only continued. “We have added you to the guest list for the dinner tonight, just give your name to the reception at the hotel. Mr. Jaeger will see you there.”

And the person on the other end, did not give him time to protest. Levi thought it almost rude to call back, to even bother anyone over a decision that was just his to make.

Hours of contemplation later, Levi decided to just show up and lay low. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? He had already reached the point of acceptance the day before.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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