Chapter Text
The lecture hall smelled like dry-erase markers and the faintest hint of mildew—a scent Levi Ackerman had come to associate with academia. He adjusted the cuffs of his pressed black shirt, rolling his shoulders back as he scanned the rows of students shuffling notebooks and half-asleep faces. Thirty seconds until his first class began, and he already regretted agreeing to this visiting professorship.
Then he saw her.
Front row, center. Black hair pulled into a neat ponytail, posture rigid as if bracing for impact. Mikasa Ackerman.
His stepsister.
Though neither of them had ever used that word. Not after the funeral. Not after the years of silence that followed. Her dark eyes flicked up, meeting his for half a second before darting away.
Levi cleared his throat and clicked the slide remote harder than necessary.
"Modern Economic Theory and Its Failures. Section 101. Look alive—if you're here to nap, do it quietly."
Levi’s first lecture was a brutal dissection of Keynesian economics, delivered with the same precision he used to wield scalpels in his former surgical career. His voice never rose above a dry monotone, yet the entire room leaned forward, caught between intimidation and fascination. All except one.
Mikasa’s pen moved steadily across her notebook, but her gaze kept drifting—not to the slides, but to his hands. The way his fingers curled around the marker. The faint scar across his knuckles from a childhood accident she remembered too well.
When the dismissal bell rang, students bolted like spooked deer. Mikasa lingered, slow as a shadow, tucking her notebook into her bag with deliberate care. Levi pretended to organize his papers, acutely aware of her proximity. The air between them hummed with unspoken history—shared Christmases before the divorce, the way she’d wept at their mother’s graveside while he stood stone-faced beside her.
“Professor.” Her voice was softer than he remembered. Younger.
He didn’t look up. “Office hours are Fridays. Syllabus has the details.”
The silence stretched between them like a live wire, taut and humming. Mikasa didn’t move, her bag strap digging into her shoulder as she stood there, waiting.
Levi finally glanced up, meeting her gaze with the same detached precision he’d used to lecture. But his fingers twitched against the edge of his notes, betraying him.
“It’s not about the syllabus,” she said. Her voice was steady, but the way her throat moved when she swallowed gave her away. Levi remembered that tell from when she was twelve, trying to lie about stealing his cigarettes.
He exhaled through his nose, sharp. “Then what is it about, Mikasa?”
He hadn’t meant to say her name. It slipped out like an accident, too familiar, too raw. Her eyelashes fluttered—just once—before she schooled her expression back into something neutral.
“You never answered my letters.” The accusation hung between them, heavier than the stale classroom air.
Levi’s jaw tightened. The letters. Three of them, sent in quick succession after the funeral—neatly folded pages he’d burned without reading.
“That wasn’t the agreement,” he said, low enough that the last straggling students wouldn’t hear.
The agreement, their parents’ divorce decree, the unspoken rule that Mikasa would stay with their mother, and Levi would vanish like smoke.
Mikasa’s fingers tightened around her bag strap.
“Agreements change.”
A laugh huffed out of him—dry, humorless.
“Not this one.” He shoved his lecture notes into his briefcase with more force than necessary, the metal clasps snapping shut like a verdict.
She didn’t flinch. “You’re wrong.” Her voice dropped, barely above a whisper.
“I’m in your Tuesday/Thursday seminar. Office hours won’t work.”
The pen between Levi’s fingers snapped clean in half. Black ink bled across his palm, but he didn’t wipe it away—just stared at the mess, the way it seeped into the creases of his skin. Like guilt.
"You signed up for my seminar," he said, not a question. The syllabus had been posted for weeks. She'd done this deliberately.
Mikasa's chin lifted a fraction. "Economics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Seems relevant."
Her tone was textbook casual, but the pulse at her throat betrayed her. Levi knew that rhythm by heart—the quickened beat when she was lying, or nervous, or both. He'd heard it through her bedroom wall when she was fifteen and sneaking out to meet boys.
He wiped his hand on a handkerchief, methodical. "Change your schedule."
"I can't. It's required for my major."
Levi’s grip tightened around the ruined handkerchief, ink staining the pristine white fabric like a spreading bruise.
"Required," he repeated flatly, as if tasting the lie on his tongue.
He knew damn well the university catalog—Post-Conflict Reconstruction was an elective. A niche one at that. She’d chosen this deliberately, like picking at a half-healed scab.
The overhead lights flickered, casting her face in stark relief—the sharp line of her jaw, the stubborn set of her mouth. She looked older now, but still so much like the girl who’d glared at him across the dinner table when their parents announced the separation. The same defiance. The same ache beneath it.
"Fine," he said abruptly, slinging his briefcase over his shoulder. "But if you’re in my seminar, you’re there to learn. Not to reminisce."
He strode past her, close enough to catch the scent of her shampoo—something faintly floral, out of place in the sterile lecture hall.
Mikasa fell into step beside him, matching his pace effortlessly.
"I didn’t come here for nostalgia," she said, low and steady.
The hallway was emptying, students scattering toward the quad. A few glanced their way, curious. Levi ignored them.
linoleum echoed too loudly in the emptying hallway. Mikasa kept pace beside him, her sneakers silent, her presence a weight he couldn’t shake. He could feel the questions coiled in the air between them—why she’d really enrolled here, why she’d sought him out after all these years. But Levi had spent a lifetime mastering the art of not asking things he didn’t want answered.
"You’re staying in the dorms?" he asked abruptly, just to fracture the silence.
Her shoulder brushed his as they turned the corner toward the faculty wing. "Off-campus. With Eren."
Levi’s stride hitched—just a fraction, barely noticeable. Eren Jaeger. The name tasted bitter on his tongue. He’d seen the boy’s file during faculty orientation; bright, brash, the kind of student who asked too many questions in seminars. The kind who looked at Mikasa like she’d hung the stars.
Levi’s fingers tightened around his briefcase handle.
"Eren Jaeger," he repeated, voice flat as a scalpel’s edge. "Engineering undergrad."
Mikasa blinked, slow. "You looked him up."
"I look up all my students." Lie.
The faculty portal required three clicks to access student records, and Levi only bothered with the ones who pissed him off. Eren’s grinning ID photo had lingered on his screen longer than necessary.
The hallway dead-ended at the faculty lounge. Levi swiped his keycard harder than needed, the door buzzing open with a sound like a trapped wasp. Mikasa followed him inside, her reflection warping in the stainless steel fridge as she leaned against the counter. The lounge was empty except for Hange’s abandoned coffee mug, still faintly steaming.
The refrigerator hummed between them, a dull mechanical drone that did nothing to fill the silence. Levi tossed his briefcase onto the cracked leather couch, the sound louder than intended in the empty space. He didn’t turn around, but he could feel Mikasa’s gaze burning into his back—the same way it had when they were kids and she’d caught him sneaking whiskey from their father’s study. Like she could see right through him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said finally, pulling a mug from the cabinet with more force than necessary. The porcelain clattered against the countertop.
Mikasa didn’t move from her spot by the fridge.
“It’s a faculty lounge, not a crime scene.”
Levi snorted, filling the mug with scalding black coffee.
“Same difference.” He didn’t offer her one. Didn’t trust his hands not to shake if he poured a second.
The coffee burned his tongue, bitter and too hot, but Levi didn’t flinch. He leaned against the counter, deliberately putting space between them, the steam curling up to blur his vision. Mikasa hadn’t moved—still perched by the fridge, her fingers tracing the edge of the countertop absently, like she was mapping the grooves of an old wound.
"You changed your hair," he said abruptly, just to shatter the silence.
Her hand twitched toward her ponytail, then dropped. "You changed careers."
Levi smirked into his mug. "Touché."
He’d traded scalpels for spreadsheets, the OR for the lecture hall—less blood, more bullshit. But Mikasa wouldn’t know that. She wouldn’t know anything about him now, not unless she’d been digging. The thought sent a sharp thrill down his spine.
The coffee in Levi’s mug had gone cold by the time Mikasa spoke again. “They tore down the house,” she said, unprompted, her fingers still tracing the counter’s edge. “The one by the river. It’s a parking lot now.”
Levi’s grip tightened around the ceramic. He remembered that house—the creaking floorboards, the way the kitchen window caught the sunset, the exact spot on the porch where he’d found Mikasa crying after their father left. He hadn’t thought about it in years.
“Sentimental,” he muttered, setting the mug down with deliberate care. “Didn’t peg you for the type.”
Mikasa’s lips twitched, something between a smile and a grimace. “Neither did I.”
She pushed off from the counter abruptly, crossing the room to stand before the faculty bulletin board plastered with departmental announcements and seminar flyers. Her reflection in the glass covering the board was fractured, split into pieces by the overlapping papers.
“You’re giving a talk next week,” she observed, tapping a flyer with Levi’s name in bold print. Post-War Economic Reconstruction: A Case Study in Failure.
Levi exhaled through his nose. “RSVP required. Don’t bother.”
The flyer crinkled under Mikasa’s fingertip, her nail leaving a crescent-shaped dent in the paper.
"I already signed up," she said, too casually, her reflection fractured in the glass.
Levi could see pieces of her face—the curve of her cheekbone, the slant of her eyebrow—sliced apart by departmental memos.
Levi set his mug down with a sharp click.
"Then un-sign."
Mikasa turned, leaning back against the bulletin board, her palms flat against the glass. The posture was deceptively relaxed, but Levi knew the tension in her shoulders, the way she held her breath when she was bracing for impact.
"Why?" she asked, tilting her head just enough to catch the fluorescent light. "Afraid I’ll ask uncomfortable questions?"
Levi’s jaw tightened. He remembered her at fourteen, drilling him with questions about his surgical residency until he’d snapped and thrown a textbook at the wall. She hadn’t flinched then either.
"Afraid you’ll waste everyone’s time," he said, reaching for his briefcase. The leather was cool under his fingers, ink-stained and worn at the edges.
The faculty lounge door creaked open before Levi could formulate another dismissal. Hange Zoe breezed in, arms laden with precariously stacked folders and a thermos clutched between their teeth. Their eyes darted between Levi and Mikasa, brows lifting over the rims of their smudged glasses.
"Am I interrupting something?" they mumbled around the thermos, dropping the folders onto the coffee table with a thud. Papers spilled out like a confession.
Levi stepped back, putting another foot of space between himself and Mikasa.
"No." Too quick. Too clipped. Hange’s grin widened.
Mikasa straightened, smoothing her sweater where it had wrinkled against the bulletin board.
"I was just leaving," she said, her voice measured—too measured, the way it got when she was forcing calm. Levi knew that tone like a remembered pulse.
Hange wiped their palms on their lab coat, eyes bright with curiosity. "You’re in Levi’s seminar, right? Mikasa Ackerman?" They said the name like a question, but Levi knew Hange had already memorized every student roster.
Mikasa’s fingers curled slightly at her sides, but her expression didn’t flicker.
“Yes,” she said, glancing briefly at Levi before returning Hange’s gaze.
“Economics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction.”
Levi watched the exchange with narrowed eyes, the weight of his briefcase suddenly heavier in his grip. Hange grinned, nudging their glasses up with one ink-stained finger.
“Oh, you’re in for a treat. Levi’s lectures are drier than the Sahara, but he knows his stuff.” They flopped onto the couch, sending a stack of papers cascading to the floor.
“So! You two related, or is the surname coincidence?”
The air in the room thickened. Levi’s grip on his briefcase tightened imperceptibly, his knuckles whitening. Mikasa’s breath hitched—just once, soft enough that only Levi caught it.
“Coincidence,” Levi said flatly, before Mikasa could speak.
Mikasa's fingers flexed at her sides, the only outward sign of tension as Hange's gaze ping-ponged between them with undisguised interest. Levi could see the gears turning behind their smudged glasses—Hange never missed a detail, and the way Mikasa's shoulders stiffened at the question was practically a neon sign.
"Funny," Hange mused, popping the thermos cap with their thumb. Steam curled upward as they took a sip, their eyes never leaving Mikasa's face.
"You've got the same bone structure. That jawline could cut glass."
Levi's teeth ground together.
"We're done here," he said, gripping Mikasa's elbow before he could think better of it. Her skin was warm through the fabric of her sweater, and he felt the minute tremor she tried to suppress.
He steered her toward the door with more force than necessary, the weight of Hange's speculative stare burning into his back.
The hallway was mercifully empty. Levi released her arm as soon as the lounge door hissed shut behind them, flexing his fingers as if her touch had scorched him. Mikasa adjusted her bag strap with deliberate slowness, her expression unreadable.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like a swarm of trapped insects. Levi exhaled through his nose, forcing his hands to unclench at his sides.
"Hange's a gossip," he muttered, glancing down the empty hallway as if expecting eavesdroppers.
"They'll have half the faculty speculating by lunch."
Mikasa smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from her sweater sleeve.
"Let them." Her voice was calm, but Levi caught the way her fingers trembled slightly before she tucked them into her pockets.
Levi's jaw tightened. He remembered that tremor—the same one she'd gotten at sixteen when she'd lied to their mother about skipping school. Back then, he'd covered for her without hesitation. Now, the instinct to shield her flared again, unwanted and inconvenient.
"This isn't high school," he said, lowering his voice. "Rumors here have consequences."
Mikasa turned toward him fully, her dark eyes unflinching. "What consequences, Levi?"
The way she said his name—quiet, deliberate—sent an unwelcome heat crawling up his spine.
"You're not my guardian anymore. We're just two people with the same last name."
The overhead lights flickered again, casting Mikasa’s face in fractured shadows. Levi could see the pulse at her throat—quicker now, betraying the calm of her voice.
"Two people with the same last name," he repeated, tasting the lie. It was too thin, too brittle. Hange would tear through it by afternoon tea.
Mikasa shifted her weight, the toe of her sneaker brushing against his polished dress shoe. The contact was accidental, fleeting, but Levi stiffened as if scalded.
"You should go," he said, nodding toward the exit.
"Before Hange comes out with a DNA test kit."
A ghost of a smile tugged at Mikasa’s lips.
"Wouldn’t put it past them." She hesitated, fingers tightening around her bag strap.
"You’re still at the same place? The apartment on Rose Street?"
Levi’s spine went rigid. She’d looked him up. Not just his faculty profile—his address.
The implication settled heavy in his gut. "Why?"
Mikasa’s fingers tightened around her bag strap, her knuckles whitening.
“Because I—”
She cut herself off, her gaze flicking past Levi’s shoulder toward the faculty lounge door. The muffled sound of Hange’s laughter drifted through the gap, too close for comfort.
Levi stepped forward, forcing her back against the cold tile wall.
“Because what?” His voice was low, rough with something he refused to name. The scent of her shampoo—something clean and sharp, like winter mint—filled the space between them. Too familiar. Too much.
Mikasa didn’t shrink back. She lifted her chin, her breath warm against his jaw.
“Because I need to talk to you,” she said, her voice steady despite the pulse hammering visibly at her throat.
“Somewhere that isn’t a hallway.”
Levi exhaled through his nose, the ghost of a laugh. “Office hours. Fridays.”
The fluorescent lights flickered again, casting Mikasa’s face in jagged shadows. Levi could smell the faint trace of her lip balm—something minty, clinical—and it shouldn’t have unsettled him as much as it did. He leaned back just enough to break the proximity, but not enough to look like retreat.
"Office hours," he repeated, slower this time, as if she might have misheard. "Fridays. Like I said."
Mikasa’s exhale ghosted across his chin.
"You’re impossible," she muttered, but there was no bite to it—just the same exasperated fondness she’d used at sixteen when he’d refused to let her borrow his car.
Levi’s fingers twitched at his sides. He could hear Hange shuffling papers beyond the lounge door, their muffled humming a hair too deliberate.
"And you’re reckless," he shot back, keeping his voice low.
"Showing up here like this. Asking about my apartment." The words tasted bitter. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Mikasa’s gaze dropped to his mouth for half a second before flicking back up.
"I told you," she said, her voice dropping to match his. "I need to talk."
The overhead lights buzzed again, louder this time, as if amplifying the tension between them. Levi could hear Hange’s footsteps approaching the lounge door—deliberately slow, feigning nonchalance. He stepped back sharply, putting a full stride’s distance between himself and Mikasa just as the door creaked open.
Hange leaned against the frame, thermos in hand, their glasses catching the fluorescent glare.
“Forgot my keys,” they announced cheerfully, dangling a keyring from their index finger. The lie was so blatant it was almost insulting.
Mikasa straightened, smoothing her sweater with practiced indifference.
“I was just leaving,” she said, her voice cool and even. Levi watched her throat move as she swallowed—the same tell she’d had since childhood.
Hange’s grin widened. “Aw, don’t run off on my account.” They took a sip from their thermos, eyes darting between Levi’s rigid posture and Mikasa’s too-casual shrug.
“So, Mikasa—you’re from around here?”
Levi’s fingers flexed at his sides. “Hange.” The warning in his voice was sharp enough to draw blood.
Mikasa's gaze flicked to Levi for half a second before answering.
"Shiganshina originally," She said, smooth as poured ink.
Levi remembered that town—the cramped apartment with the perpetually dripping faucet, the way Mikasa used to press her forehead against the bus window on visits, watching the city blur past.
Hange hummed, tapping their thermos.
"Long way from home then." Their glasses caught the light as they tilted their head.
"What brings you to Trost U? We don't get many transfer students in Levi's niche seminars."
The unspoken question hung in the air like a scalpel balanced on its point. Levi clenched his jaw, watching Mikasa's fingers tighten around her bag strap—the same tell she'd had at fourteen when social workers asked why her stepbrother had stopped coming home.
"Academic reputation," Mikasa said, too evenly.
Levi almost smirked. Lie. Trost U was middling at best for economics, and they both knew it.
The hallway smelled like industrial cleaner and the faint tang of Hange's coffee—bitter and burnt, just like their curiosity. Mikasa's fingers flexed around her bag strap once more before she exhaled through her nose.
"I should get to class," she said, stepping around Levi with deliberate care, her shoulder brushing his sleeve. The contact lasted less than a second, but Levi felt it like a brand.
Hange whistled low under their breath, rocking back on their heels.
"Levi's seminar, right? Starts in ten." They grinned when Mikasa paused mid-step.
"Lucky for you, I'm heading that way too. We can walk together."
Levi's jaw tightened. "Hange—"
"Relax, grumpy. I won't interrogate her."
Hange winked, slinging an arm around Mikasa's shoulders like they were old friends. Mikasa stiffened but didn't shrug them off—Levi could see the calculation in her eyes. Better to play along than to draw more attention.
Levi watched them go, Hange’s chatter fading down the hallway as Mikasa matched their stride with stiff precision. His fingers dug into his palms—half-moon indents blooming red where his nails bit skin.
The faculty lounge door clicked shut behind him, trapping him in the empty hallway with nothing but the hum of fluorescents and the echo of Mikasa’s last glance—the one that said 'this isn’t over' without speaking a word.
---
The seminar room was too bright, the projector’s glare throwing sharp rectangles of light across the laminate tables. Levi adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves for the third time in five minutes, his gaze skimming the roster on his tablet. Fifteen students. Fourteen faces glanced back at him with varying degrees of attentiveness. The fifteenth seat—front row, center—remained conspicuously empty.
A pencil rolled off the edge of a desk, clattering against the floor. Levi didn’t flinch.
"Open your texts to page forty-three," he said, tapping the slide remote. The screen flickered to a graph on postwar economic decay.
"Jaeger. Explain the correlation between infrastructure investment and civic unrest in Liberio’s reconstruction."
Eren Jaeger straightened in his seat, fingers drumming against the annotated margins of his textbook.
"Liberio funneled resources into military-industrial zones first," he said, too loud for the small room. His knee bounced under the desk, rattling the legs.
"Which created a wealth gap that—"
The seminar door creaked open. Mikasa slipped inside, her sneakers silent on the tile. Levi’s grip on the remote tightened. She was fifteen minutes late—deliberate, he knew—but her hair was slightly mussed, as if she’d run here. Hange’s doing, no doubt.
"Nice of you to join us, Ackerman," Levi said, voice drier than the lecture notes.
Mikasa slid into the empty seat without apology, her notebook already open to a fresh page. Eren shot her a glance—concerned, proprietary—but she kept her eyes on the projected slide, her pen poised like a blade.
The projector hummed, casting pixelated shadows across Mikasa’s cheekbones as she scribbled notes with mechanical precision. Levi watched her pen—the same blue ink from when she was seventeen, bleeding through cheap notebook paper—and forced his attention back to Eren’s rambling analysis. The kid was passionate, if nothing else, gesturing wildly enough to knock over Armin Arlert’s coffee.
"Liberio’s mistake was prioritizing short-term stability over long-term equity," Eren concluded, slouching back into his seat with the smugness of someone who’d just aced a pop quiz. Levi resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"Superficial," he said, tapping the slide forward.
The graph dissolved into a black-and-white photograph: a collapsed bridge, its steel ribs twisted like broken fingers.
"Liberio’s council didn’t prioritize military zones—they survived them." He let the silence stretch, watching comprehension dawn on a few faces. Mikasa’s pen hesitated.
Eren frowned. "That’s not in the assigned readings—"
Levi’s thumb hovered over the slide remote, his gaze flicking from Eren’s furrowed brow to Mikasa’s stilled pen.
"Because the assigned readings are sanitized," he said, voice low enough that the students leaned forward unconsciously.
"Liberio’s archives redacted the casualty reports from the bridge collapse. Textbook publishers don’t like pictures of dead civilians next to GDP charts."
The projector fan whirred too loud in the sudden silence. Mikasa’s pen resumed its scratching, but Levi caught the way her fingers tightened around the barrel—white-knuckled, like she was bracing for impact. He remembered that grip. She’d held her pencil the same way at sixteen, scribbling furious notes while their father packed his suitcases downstairs.
Armin cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up his nose.
"The bridge collapse was in the Marley Times archives, though. Page fourteen of the supplemental packet."
He tapped a highlighted section of his notes, where a photocopied newspaper clipping showed the same wreckage. Levi hadn’t assigned any supplements.
Mikasa’s head snapped up, her gaze sharpening on Armin’s notes. Levi followed her line of sight—to the margin where Eren’s slanted handwriting read 'Mikasa said check Marley Times'. His stomach dropped.
Levi’s grip on the remote tightened imperceptibly. Mikasa had read the Marley Times archives—of course she had. She’d always been thorough, digging deeper than required, even as a child. He remembered finding her at fourteen, curled in the library with economic journals too advanced for her grade level, her brow furrowed in that same focused crease she wore now. But this wasn’t childhood curiosity. This was deliberate. Targeted.
“Supplemental packets aren’t required,” Levi said evenly, tapping the slide forward.
The bridge collapse dissolved into a spreadsheet of red-inked budget cuts.
“But points for initiative, Arlert.” He didn’t look at Mikasa, but he could feel her gaze like a blade between his shoulder blades.
Eren grinned, nudging Armin with his elbow.
“Told you she was right,” he muttered, loud enough to carry. Mikasa’s pen stilled. Levi’s jaw clenched.
The seminar dragged on—statistics, projections, the dry arithmetic of human suffering. Levi’s voice remained clinical, but his attention kept snagging on Mikasa’s bent head, the way her ponytail slipped over her shoulder when she leaned forward to write.
Eren kept shooting her glances, his fingers tapping an impatient rhythm against his textbook. Levi wanted to snap at him to focus, but that would’ve been too obvious. Too personal.
The projector’s glow painted Mikasa’s collarbones blue as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear—the same absent gesture she’d had since childhood. Levi caught himself staring and cleared his throat, flipping to the next slide with more force than necessary.
"Midterm proposals are due next week," he announced, watching fourteen heads duck to scribble reminders. Mikasa didn’t move. Her notebook page remained pristine except for three words circled twice in dark ink: Liberio bridge collapse.
Eren leaned across the aisle, his whisper carrying. "You okay? You’re zoning out." His fingers brushed Mikasa’s wrist—casual, proprietary. Levi’s pen snapped against the lectern.
The snap of Levi’s pen echoed in the sudden silence. Fourteen heads jerked up. Mikasa didn’t flinch, but her fingers twitched around her own pen—a microscopic tell Levi clocked instantly. Eren’s hand lingered on her wrist, his thumb tracing the delicate bones there. The projector hummed, casting Eren’s shadow across Mikasa’s notes like a stain.
Levi set the broken pen down with deliberate precision.
"Class dismissed," he said, too evenly.
The students exchanged glances but gathered their bags with the speed of prey sensing a predator. Mikasa remained seated, her gaze fixed on the red-budget spreadsheet still glowing onscreen.
Eren hovered by her desk, shoving his textbook into his bag with unnecessary force.
"You coming? We’re meeting Historia at the quad."
His voice was too loud, too present in the hollowed-out room.
Mikasa capped her pen. "Go ahead. I need to ask about the midterm."
She didn’t look at Eren—or Levi. Her focus stayed on the projected numbers, her reflection faint in the screen’s glow.
Levi busied himself with disconnecting his laptop, the cord catching twice in his grip. Eren’s sneakers scuffed the tile as he shifted his weight.
"I can wait—"
"No." Mikasa’s voice was soft but final.
Levi recognized that tone—the one she’d used at twelve when their mother tried to make her eat mushrooms. Eren’s jaw tightened, but he shouldered his bag with a shrug that didn’t reach his eyes.
"Whatever," he muttered, shooting Levi a glance that was equal parts suspicion and challenge. The door slammed behind him with unnecessary force.
The projector fan whirred in the silence. Levi finally risked a glance at Mikasa. She was staring at him now, her dark eyes unreadable. The Liberio bridge collapse still glowed on the screen behind her, its twisted metal framing her shoulders like jagged wings.
"You read the Marley archives," Levi said, stuffing his laptop into his briefcase. The accusation hung between them, heavy as the dust motes swirling in the projector’s beam.
Mikasa’s fingers tapped her notebook once—a silent admission.
"You assigned Liberio," she said simply. As if that explained everything. As if they both didn’t know Liberio was where their father’s second wife had lived. Where Mikasa’s mother had—
Levi’s briefcase clicked shut with finality. "You’re dropping this seminar."
Mikasa stood in one fluid motion, her chair scraping back. "No."
She stepped into the aisle, closer than necessary, her mint-and-ink scent cutting through the stale classroom air. Levi could see the pulse in her throat—quick, relentless.
"You don’t get to disappear again," she said, softer now. "Not after—"
The door creaked open. Both their heads snapped toward the sound. Hange leaned against the frame, their grin sharp enough to draw blood.
"Did I miss the fireworks?" They held up a replacement pen between two fingers, the plastic still gleaming with its store sticker.
"Heard yours met an untimely demise."
Levi snatched the pen with more force than necessary. "Get out."
Hange’s eyebrows climbed their forehead. "Testy."
Their gaze slid to Mikasa, who hadn’t moved from her position—too close, too still.
"Mikasa. Eren’s pacing by the bike racks like a jilted lover. Might want to put him out of his misery."
Mikasa’s expression didn’t flicker.
"Tell him I’ll meet him at the dorm." Her voice was calm, but Levi saw the way her fingers curled at her sides—white-knuckled, braced.
Hange whistled low, pushing off the doorframe.
"Message delivered." They winked at Levi.
"Don’t forget department meeting at four. Erwin’s bringing that awful sherry again."
The door clicked shut behind them, leaving Levi alone with Mikasa and the ghost of unfinished sentences. The projector’s fan groaned as the screen flickered to black, plunging them into sudden dimness. Mikasa’s silhouette was barely visible now, her breath audible over the hum of dying electronics.
Levi exhaled through his nose. "You can’t—"
Mikasa stepped forward, cutting him off. Her sneaker brushed his polished oxford, the contact deliberate.
"Friday," she said, low enough that the walls couldn’t overhear.
"Your office. After hours." It wasn’t a request.
Levi’s pulse hammered in his throat, traitorous and loud. Mikasa turned before he could respond, her bag swinging against her hip as she walked out. The classroom door hissed shut behind her, but her presence lingered—sharp as the scent of her shampoo clinging to the air.
He stared at the empty space where she’d stood, his fingers tightening around Hange’s replacement pen until the plastic groaned. After hours. The implication curled like smoke in his lungs. Levi knew exactly what she was doing—knew, too, that he should’ve barred his office door the moment he saw her name on the roster.