trigger warning: suicide, depression, self-harm
~~~~~
"No, you've got it wrong," Levi protested gently. The tear Chi shed fell onto the fabric of the pillow and soaked in, creating a dark stain. Levi grabbed her fist and held it, caressing her cheek with the other. "That's not right. How much did you hear?"
"...Everything," Chi whispered in a crackly voice, barely restraining her tears; she'd slowly drank in all of the words Hanji had read off of the documents. "I heard every word."
"Ch—Chi!" Hanji stuttered, joining Levi by Chi's side. "Levi's right, it's not valid information! After all, these documents could be fake. I mean, if they aren't, and if you really are just a science experiment, it could mean that you would kind of be considered our enemy, and—"
"Not helping, shitty-four eyes!"
"S—sorry!" Hanji bit back the rest of her words and glanced back and forth between Levi and Chi nervously. Hesitation filled her stomach until her hands shook, but she forced herself to calm when she realized how empty Chi's eyes were.
"I'm sorry," Chi murmured, closing her eyes again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Why are you apologizing, you idiot?" Levi sighed, clenching her hand tighter. "You did nothing wrong." The nickname brought a small smile to Chi's lips, the corners of them barely curling upwards.
"I've been going mad over killing titans, when the entire time... I was one of the monsters. I had no idea I—"
"Shh. Quiet." Levi pressed a thin finger to Chi's lips to silence the rest of her pained words. "Stop. You need to rest. Just forget about all of this."
Chi looked at him with a face of regretful gratefulness and she closed her eyes. Levi retracted his hand and watched her silently. A few silent moments passed, then a few minutes, and a few more. Soon, Chi's breathing had gone steady and slow; she'd fallen into slumber. Levi's tense shoulders dropped and he sighed, grabbing his bangs in his fists.
"God dammit," he growled. "I'm going to find those bastards of the Reiss group and slit their throats! They will pay for what they did to Chi, those sons of bitches... they deserve to burn in hell! I'll torture them so badly they won't even be able to shit properly for the rest of their short, filthy lives!"
"Levi," Hanji coaxed gently, setting her hands on his shoulders, "you need to calm down. High blood pressure isn't good for oldies."
"I'm not even in my thirties yet!"
"Still. I promise you that I'll search for and collect as much information as I can on the Reiss group, but for now, we will have to settle with helping Chi heal and making sure she's alright. Okay?"
Levi gritted his teeth, his jaw set. "...I don't care. I'm going to find them and kill them the moment I find out their names."
"Shortie, think about Chi! Suffering and alone—you know that when she feels pain, she refuses to admit it it. The best thing you can do is be there for her. Can you do that?" Hanji peered as deeply into Levi's troubled eyes. Levi was silent as he stood from his chair and latched his hand on the collar of Hanji's jacket, dragging her outside the room and closing the door. His skinny eyebrows scrunched together as he quickly shut the door behind him, pulling her out into the hallway.
"Wh—what're you doin'?!" Hanji squeaked, prying the fabric of her shirt away from Levi's deathly vice grip. "Levi!"
"We shouldn't argue in there, while that idiot is asleep," Levi replied, pacing back and forth across the wooden floorboards. "For now, let's devise bloody, agonizing deaths for those worthless Reiss shits."
"Levi, you do realize that the Reiss group is just a small fraction of the entire Reiss bloodline, those of which are of noble blood?"
Levi momentarily paused in his pacing to look at Hanji with annoyed disbelief. "Do I look like I give a shit?"
"You may not, but that doesn't mean the others don't. The Military Court is sure to get involved if you make any rash actions, and it could affect the Corps, including people like Erwin and Chi."
"I said, do I look like I give a shit? I'm going to give them a taste of their own medicine!"
Balling his hands into fists, he punched the wall next to him. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm his erratic heartbeat. Hanji set a hand on his shoulder and peered at his face curiously.
"Levi, let's go get you another cup of tea, alright?" she offered, leading him away from Chi's room. Reluctantly, Levi followed, and they travelled down the hallways and sets of stairs before coming upon the kitchen in which Levi had been trying to relax earlier that day.
"Dammit," he groaned, grabbing the once-steaming teacup. "It's cold now."
"We can always boil more," Hanji chuckled, walking over to the cool teapot that sat on the stove. "Do you want me to reheat this?"
"Go ahead."
Heeding his words, Hanji stoked the wood beneath the burner and Levi collapsed into the chair he'd been sitting in earlier, his fingertips tracing the rim of the teacup. His mind whirred as he processed what he'd learned that day as well as the Corps' current reputation. At this rate, he imagined himself gaining white hairs.
Barely any time had passed for him to relax before a panicked Military Policeman rushed into the room, disrupting any time for Levi to have some level of tranquility and enjoy this rare teatime.
"Lance Corporal!" the soldier exclaimed, his breaths coming out quickly in pants.
"What the hell is it now?" Levi growled, shaking his head. "I don't have any fucking time to enjoy my peppermint chai!"
"It's—it's Chisaki!"
Levi was out of his chair in an instant, his hands gripping the collar of the younger man's jacket. When it came to her, no amount of peppermint chai in the entire world could convince him to sit still. "What now?"
"I—I was bringing a report to Hanji-sama, and I was told she was in Chisaki Matsumoto's room with you, but when I went there, it was empty! I thought she was supposed to be resting, but I think someone saw her on the roof, but they're not su—"
Without waiting for another word, Levi was already out the door, sprinting up to Chi's room. "Fuck!" he swore to himself, and behind him, he could hear Hanji's pounding footsteps following him, crying for him to stop running. "Dammit... she must've been pretending to sleep to escape! Why!? Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
Once he reached Chi's room, he flung the door wide open and popped his head inside, grimacing once he saw that her bed was indeed empty, the sheets neatly done and nicely folded, although they were stained with dried blood. All color drained from his face and he raced towards the stairs again. Hanji's eyes widened and she swore she'd never seen such a short man run so fast in his entire life. His feet flew as he skipped the stairs by twos and threes until he finally reached the top, barging through the roof door with superhuman speed.
Hanji struggled to keep up with his incredible pace, and once she caught up to him, she was breathing hard, her hands on her knees.
"Oi, Shortie," she panted, "why'd you sto—" But she cut herself off as she realized why Levi's feet were now glued to the roof.
On the other side, there was Chi, her back faced toward them. What scared them was not that, but it was the fact that she stood on the edge of the roof, the toes of her boots hanging off the edge tauntingly.
"Chi!" Levi screamed. "Get the hell over here! You're not supposed to be out of bed, you idiot!"
Slowly, very slowly, Chi spun in spot, now the heels of her boots threatening to drop. "It's four fucking stories high; you're going to hurt yourself if you're thinking of doing anything dumb!"
He and Hanji both felt a sharp pain slam into their chests when they spotted the tortured look on the broken girl's face. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, her golden eyes shimmering with silent tears that slid down her cheeks. With her lips pressed together in a thin line, her eyes seemed truly sad, a reflection of sorrow and lament shining in the dulling metallic color. With her bloodstained and torn clothing, her body looked in an even worse condition.
"Levi," Chi whispered in a broken voice. "...I'm sorry."
Levi's steel eyes widened and he shot from his spot just as Chi's body began to careen backwards, first one foot leaving the roof. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion; dread dawned on his face as he neared her, closer and closer, but he did not reach the edge until both of her feet had slipped. With one arm stretched out as far as possible, he leapt off the edge to grab for her falling body, and for a moment as quick as the blink of an eye, he felt his fingertips brush her's—but a hand latched onto his wrist and yanked him back, slamming him on the rooftop.
"Levi, stop! If you try and save her, you'll just—!"
He wrestled with Hanji—who'd been the one to grab his wrist before he fell—and rushed to peer over the edge again, his face pale with terror as he watched Chi's form slowly plummet toward the ground, a melancholy smile frozen upon her pale lips. Tears left her eyes and dripped and fell away, slipping into the air. They fell slower than she did, her tears like rain.
It seemed as if time was frozen when Levi watched her body collide with the ground; first her head, then her torso, then her legs. They fell around her as if she were a rag doll, her body first ricocheting off of the cobblestone. Sickening cracks could be heard as she made contact with the hard ground. She landed on her back, her limbs splayed around her—and then she went still. A red puddle began to form where she landed. First it spread from her head, then grew larger and larger still.
Her hair was spread wildly around her head, the red soaking into her hazel strands, staining them. Chi's eyes were still open, half-lidded, but now they peered emptily at the sky, the gold now dulled to a sickly mustard color. They seemed almost alive alive, as if they could blink any moment, but they stayed frozen, one last tear rolling away from the corner of her eye. Her entire body, in fact, looked as if she were able to stand again, as if she were able to smile as she always did, but... she didn't.
Something sliced through the air, screeching her name—a sound that was inhumane and animalistic. It was full of torture. It was only then that Levi realized it was his—a scream that had torn from his throat with horror as he watched his lover embrace death with his very own cursed eyes.
"CHISAKIII!"
