Levi Ackerman had never cared much about who sat down in his classes. Most of the time, people blurred together—loud, sloppy, irritating. He preferred to sit in the back, legs stretched out, pen tapping against his notebook while he ignored the stares and whispers from half the girls in the room. It was routine. Predictable. Boring.
The air was damp and heavy, filled with the musk of soil and moss. Levi blinked awake on a bed of cold leaves, his temples throbbing. The canopy above was so thick that only thin ribbons of moonlight managed to slice through. For a moment, he stayed still, listening—his instincts demanded it. No wind, no footsteps, no distant shrieks of Titans. Just an oppressive silence.
Artem had insisted you come. “It’s just a chill hangout, nothing serious,” he said, tugging you along until you gave in. The apartment was buzzing with music and laughter, bottles scattered across the table, the kind of casual night only close friends shared.
Kuroo’s voice filled the room — loud, animated, and impossible to ignore. He’d been talking about their next practice match for what felt like an hour now, pacing across the carpet with the energy of someone who thrived on noise. Kenma sat on the couch, half-listening, half-lost in his phone. His thumbs moved lazily across the screen as the soft glow of the game reflected in his golden-brown eyes.
He liked coming over — mostly because it was familiar. The Kuroo household was loud but warm, the kind of chaos he’d gotten used to over the years. Still, it was a different kind of noise than what he preferred. He didn’t say anything, though; he just hummed occasionally so Kuroo wouldn’t accuse him of zoning out completely.
Then the door flew open.
“Have you seen my charger?”
The sound was sharp and bright, cutting through Kuroo’s monologue like sunlight through clouds. Kenma’s head lifted instantly, his fingers pausing mid-tap.
She stood there — Kuroo’s younger sister — hair falling down in soft, silvery waves that brushed against her hoodie. Her eyes were bright with mild annoyance, her expression sweet but sharp-edged, like she could be kind or deadly depending on her mood. Kenma thought she looked like something out of a dream — delicate, but with a spark that made her feel real.
“In your room, where you left it,” Kuroo answered without looking up from his phone. “Again.”
She rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath, and then glanced toward the couch. Her gaze met Kenma’s for a second — a brief, casual thing — but it made his heartbeat stumble all the same.
“Oh. Hey, Kenma.”
Her tone softened, that little hint of warmth she only used with people she liked.
Kenma blinked, forcing himself to look casual as he set his phone down. “Hey,” he said, quiet as ever. His voice always seemed to shrink around her — not out of fear, but out of something deeper, something closer to awe.
She smiled, that easy, unbothered smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle slightly. Then she disappeared down the hall again, the faint sound of her door closing behind her.
Kenma exhaled slowly, as if he’d been holding his breath the entire time.
Kuroo, oblivious, kept talking. “Anyway, if Lev actually manages to—”
But Kenma wasn’t listening. His eyes had drifted toward the door she’d gone through, and his chest felt a little too tight. He hated how easily she could do that to him — how just seeing her made everything else blur out. She wasn’t like her brother. She didn’t fill the room with noise; she filled it with something softer, something that made him want to stay.
He thought about how different they were — Kuroo, all confidence and chaos, and her, calm but fiery when she wanted to be. She wasn’t loud unless she cared. She didn’t fake her attention. And she smiled like it meant something.
She’d never like him, though. Not really. Someone like her — all light and easy laughter — wouldn’t look twice at someone who preferred silence to conversation, who hid behind a phone screen and avoided eye contact like it burned.
He sighed and sank deeper into the couch, picking up his phone again. Kuroo was still yapping about strategy, but Kenma’s thoughts were elsewhere — replaying that smile, that little “hey” that sounded like it was meant just for him.
He told himself it didn’t mean anything. That it was just a moment. But as his game loaded and his reflection flickered on the screen, he couldn’t help the faint curve of his lips.
Maybe some moments were enough.
The Slytherin common room pulsed with low laughter and murmured voices, the green firelight casting ghostly ripples across the walls. It was late, the lake outside a dark mirror pressed against the windows, and most students had retreated to their dorms. But near the fire, the usual group remained — the ones everyone else instinctively steered clear of.
Draco Malfoy sat back in an armchair, posture languid, long fingers wrapped loosely around a cup of steaming tea. Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott flanked him, both half-listening as Lorenzo Berkshire animatedly described how Mattheo Riddle had nearly set a corridor on fire that afternoon. The laughter came easily — low, sharp, dangerous.
They looked like they owned the room. Because, in truth, they did.
The echo of footsteps interrupted their conversation. The heavy wooden door swung open, and the girls entered — Pansy Parkinson first, as always, her voice carrying across the room before the firelight even touched her face.
“And honestly,” she was saying, her tone thick with disdain, “they had the nerve to correct me — me — on the difference between a potion and an infusion! As if I’d listen to a bunch of ridiculous Mudbloods who can barely hold a wand the right way.”
Blaise snorted softly, muttering, “Merlin save us,” under his breath.
Astoria followed just behind pansy, calm as always, her soft blonde curls glinting under the light. But then she came — the one who always seemed to shift the air in the room without saying a word.
Her long black hair flowed down her back like silk, dark as ink, gleaming faintly green where the firelight caught it. Her eyes — that piercing, cold green — seemed to take in everything and nothing at once, as if she could see straight through the walls and into the soul of anyone foolish enough to meet her gaze.
She was the epitome of pureblood grace — composed, untouchable, her every step deliberate. Where Pansy’s energy was loud and demanding, hers was quiet command. Together they made a striking contrast: noise and silence, arrogance and elegance, fire and frost.
Draco’s gaze lifted the moment she entered. He didn’t need to look to know she was there — he could feel it, like the shift of magic in the air. His eyes followed her every step as she moved through the room, ignoring the stares that always trailed her.
“Honestly,” Pansy went on, rolling her eyes dramatically as she approached their group, “I don’t know why they even let them in this school. Hogwarts used to have standards.”
“Lower your voice, Parkinson,” Theo muttered dryly, though there was amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Pansy ignored him, tossing her hair and flopping down on the sofa beside Blaise, who instantly leaned away from her in mock horror. Astoria took the seat beside pansy, soft-spoken as ever, and she — the Ice Princess herself — glided into the empty space beside Draco.
The faint scent of her perfume — something delicate and cold, like fresh rain on stone — reached him, and it took every ounce of composure he had not to turn his head. He didn’t speak; neither did she. She simply crossed one leg over the other, fingers resting lightly on her knee, her gaze fixed on the fire.
Draco’s heart thudded once — hard — before he forced himself to look away.
“Don’t look now,” Mattheo murmured from across the table, smirk curling at the edges of his mouth, “but the prince is losing his composure.”
Draco’s glare was immediate and deadly. “Shut it, Riddle.”
But the others only chuckled — they’d seen it all before. The way he couldn’t stop glancing at her, couldn’t stop trying to read her silence. She was the one thing Draco Malfoy could never seem to master — the one person who made his practiced poise falter.
She didn’t seem to notice — or maybe she did. Maybe that was what made her smile, just faintly, when Pansy’s next complaint turned ridiculous enough that even she couldn’t hide her amusement.
Draco caught the tiny curve of her lips, and something in his chest tightened.
Merlin, he thought, he was doomed.
The air around headquarters was restless that morning. The courtyard buzzed with voices, boots shuffling against stone, the shuffle of reins and gear. Word had spread faster than wildfire: an old captain was returning. Not just any captain, but one who had led an outpost behind Wall Maria for years, a figure spoken of more in rumor than in detail.
Levi leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded. Another officer. Another name. He wasn’t here to be impressed.
But when the horses arrived, his gaze shifted almost against his will.
The first rider dismounted with practiced ease, her movements smooth, unhurried, controlled. Captain Anastasia Volkov. Her presence silenced the yard in a way no shouted command could. She was small, almost delicate in stature, her long white hair slipping free of her hood to glint in the light. Her face was flawless—sharp lines, pale skin, lips pressed into an expression that betrayed nothing. A doll, one might have thought, if not for her eyes.
Deep green, steady, unyielding. Eyes that carried authority without speaking a word, eyes that seemed to cut through whoever they landed on.
Levi’s breath caught in his chest before he realized it. It wasn’t recognition—it couldn’t be. He didn’t know her. But something pulled at him all the same, rooting him to the spot as though the entire yard had shrunk until it was only the two of them.
She removed her gloves with a slow precision, her posture so composed it seemed unnatural in the chaos of the Scouts’ headquarters. Men stood straighter when she passed, as if her silence alone commanded them to.
Levi was still staring.
At his side, Hange followed his gaze, then blinked in surprise. In all the years she had known him, she had never seen that look on his face. Her grin was instant, sly and knowing.
“Well, well,” she whispered, leaning close, “would you look at that. Levi Ackerman, speechless. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Tch.” He clicked his tongue and forced his eyes away, but it was too late. Hange had already seen, and she would never let him forget it.
Across the courtyard, Captain Volkov hadn’t spared him so much as a glance. But Levi knew, with an uncomfortable certainty, that this was not the last time he’d be watching her.
For Captain Volkovs return even Erwin made his way out of his office.
The Phantom Troupe’s hideout was dimly lit, the air heavy with a mixture of smoke, faint perfume, and quiet menace. Illumi Zoldyck stepped inside, movements precise and unnervingly calm, his eyes scanning the room with the practiced vigilance of a master assassin. Beside him, Hisoka moved like a shadow, grinning ever so slightly, enjoying the tension that followed their intrusion.
The barracks were silent that evening, long after the others had gone to sleep. A single lamp burned low on the table beside Levi, its light falling across the open pages of a book he’d already memorized.
He was reading it again. The fifth time now.
The story wasn’t about war, or soldiers, or anything that should have held his attention. It was about another world entirely—some far-off future where walls didn’t exist and people fought battles of a different kind. The girl in it came from nothing, parents who barely scraped by, working jobs that never paid enough. She dreamed of becoming a model, of standing in front of cameras, of seeing her name on something beautiful.
Every time she got close, something dragged her back down—her family’s debts, her mother’s illness, her father’s drinking. She didn’t complain. She stayed cold, unyielding, carrying the weight because no one else could.
Levi could almost hear her voice when he read her words—flat, steady, but with something fragile underneath.
At the end, she finally made it. She reached the dream she’d clawed toward all her life. And then, in the final pages, a jealous fan killed her. Just like that. No happy ending. No peace. Just the quiet tragedy of someone who had fought too hard to ever be saved.
He’d thrown the book across the room the first time. Then, the next day, he’d picked it up and read it again.
Now, weeks later, he turned another worn page with gloved fingers, eyes tracing words he already knew by heart. He didn’t understand why this story stayed with him. Why this one. But somewhere in that girl—cold, tired, refusing to give up—he saw himself.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he understood her more than he wanted to admit.
„Still on that one?”
Hange’s voice drifted from the doorway, drowsy and amused. Levi didn’t look up.
“Tch. Don’t you have work to do?”
She leaned against the frame, grinning. “It’s lights-out, Levi. You’ve read that thing five times. What’s her name again? You’re gonna end up falling for a fictional woman at this rate.”
He didn’t answer. He just turned another page, the soft rustle of paper the only sound.
Hange tilted her head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You really like her, huh?”
Levi’s fingers paused on the corner of the paper. He exhaled through his nose, a faint scoff that might have been a laugh if you listened close enough.
“She’s… different,” he muttered finally. “Didn’t quit. Even when she should’ve.”
Hange smiled, gentle now. “Sounds familiar.”
When she left, the room fell silent again. Levi stared at the last line of the book, the one he hated most. His thumb brushed over the ink as if it might change.
He wouldn’t say it aloud, but if anyone ever asked again—what kind of woman he’d want, what kind of person could hold his attention—he already knew the answer.
It wasn’t anyone real. It was her.
The damn girl in the book.
And he hated how much that meant.
Levi shut the book, the worn spine creaking softly in his hands. For a long while he sat there, eyes tracing the cover’s faded lettering. He should’ve been asleep hours ago. Instead, he was sitting under the flicker of the lamp, staring at a name that wasn’t even real.
When he finally forced himself to bed, sleep came heavy and dreamless—until it wasn’t.
He woke with the taste of earth in his mouth and sunlight cutting through his eyelids. The first thing he noticed was the smell: grass, damp leaves, and no hint of smoke or stone. He pushed himself upright, dirt clinging to his gloves, and looked around.
A forest. Dense and green, the kind he’d only ever seen in sketches from before the walls. Birds called somewhere above him. No titan roars. No human voices. Just quiet.
Levi frowned, scanning the treeline as he rose to his feet. His gear—gone. His blades, uniform, gone. Only his black shirt and boots remained.
He moved. Habit took over. He walked until the forest thinned, until the trees gave way to open road and a skyline that made him stop dead.
Towers of glass and steel. Roads of smooth stone lined with flashing lights. Strange metal carriages humming past at impossible speed. The air smelled different—too clean, too artificial.
And then he understood.
It was the city from the book. The one he’d read about a hundred times, the one he’d seen in the corners of his mind as words on a page. He stood there for a long time, just staring, a strange stillness settling over him.
It couldn’t be real.
And yet…
He started walking.
Hours passed, or maybe minutes. The city blurred together—faces, noise, light. Until he found himself in a quieter district, buildings chipped and fading, the pavement cracked. It was exactly as it had been described—the run-down apartment complex at the edge of the city, where she’d lived with her parents.
Levi’s heart kicked once, hard, as he spotted the small balcony on the second floor, the crooked railing, the old chair that always sat outside the door.
And then he saw her.
She stepped out onto the balcony carrying a tray, the steam from a cup of tea curling into the morning air. Her hair—long, white, falling over her shoulders—caught the light just the way he’d imagined, maybe softer. Her eyes, when she turned slightly toward the street, were deep blue, clear and calm, the kind that saw everything and revealed nothing.
She smiled faintly at the older woman seated beside her, setting the cup carefully on the small table, her movements quiet and precise.
Levi stood motionless on the sidewalk, his pulse a strange, steady rhythm in his ears. She looked exactly as she had in his mind, and yet more real—alive in a way words could never capture.
For a moment, he didn’t move. He just watched her, the wind shifting her hair, the light catching on her profile.
He’d spent months reading about her life. And now, somehow, he was standing inside it.
He didn’t know if it was a dream, or madness, or something else entirely. But for the first time since he could remember, Levi Ackerman felt something break quietly open in his chest—something like awe, or maybe hope.
He took a step closer.