Beneath The Flies • 《 Levi × Reader 》

《 Chapter 4 》• Humming Bird

"Not now."

Not now, not now... Not now, not now.

The words replayed in my mind like a broken record with an unfathomably horrid tune.

I kept telling myself, soon.

Someday I would tell him. 

Soon. Soon.

But it was appearing to me that the word soon was just a mask for, not now.

If I told him the truth, would he forgive me...?

No, he would hate me even more for placing the blame of my own actions on his back, piling it on the weight he already carried. He would hate me. It was written in my veins; in the blue and red array of colors that swam down my arms and attached to my heart.

He would-

My elbow knocked over a glass of water propped on a table inside the empty Mess Hall. The glass shattered, the shards spilling down the waterfall of invisible color, snapping me out of my cluttered thoughts.
The sharp sound of the crash filled the empty room, a jolt of shock zipping through me.

After a moment, I took a calming breath, relaxing myself before crouching down to pick up the mess I made.

My fingers reached for a triangular splinter of glass, but before I could take hold of it, I took notice of a reflection that feathered inside. My shoulders stilted as I brought my chin up, seeing the cause of the glimmering image.

"... You should be more careful," A hand extended downward, scooping up a handful of glass and cupping the fragile pieces carefully. I blinked daftly, starstruck by who I saw.

Levi...

He mirrored my pose, also crouching down as he assisted me in picking up my mess...

This struck me in a way I didn't think it would have.

He was cleaning up the mess that I had fabricated myself, holding those shards in his palm ever so resiliently without a single complaint. He was holding them the same way he held my burden atop his lean shoulders, carrying it for me.

Those silly glass pieces symbolized my mistakes and my failures-

And he was holding them in his hand.

... I picked up a piece he missed. It was the least I could do.

"Sorry..." I said in a shrill whisper, lifting my gaze to meet his. I could see my reflection in his barren eyes that held no words, and yet so many all at the same time. It was as if I was seeing myself for the first time, finally able to greet the girl who stood staring back at me. And when I looked even deeper into her eyes, I saw Levi staring back at himself, too.

I peered down at the pile he held.

I put my palms out, both of them facing upward, gesturing for him to dump his load into my hands so I could release him from the weight that rested there. He gave me a brief look that spoke volumes in the quietude that held us apart, and eventually, he poured the glass from his grasp into mine.

A small, gentle smile crept up my cheeks.

"Thank you." I voiced through the dimly lit room, eyes still interlaced with his. I felt like I was being puppeted by that face. Every blink extracted my breath, and every twitch of his curved bottom lip made me go numb. He watched me get up with that unadorned look in his eyes while I stood.

I charted my course over to a trash bin squeezed between the corner of two walls, walking over quickly.
I opened my fingers, letting the glass plummet into the dark pit below, hearing it crack into even smaller bits at the impact in the bottom.