Author: lil'chrome-chan

Pairing: LeviHan all the way!

Rate: T for Levi's foul mouth

Genre: Friendship, Romance

Summary: As a good friend, she only has one hope; for Levi to find his soul mate soon. But the Corporal doesn't seem to be thinking the same way. In addition, he mentioned that she was the reason he rejected Petra's confession. "One Hanji is enough women for my life. She's as noisy as a hundred women." And that's when Hanji decided to give him some space. Written for the RivaHan week, Day 3 prompt: Distance.

AUTHOR NOTE: This is my second attempt on this pairing after Of Rumors and Titans—for you who haven't read that fic, go ahead and check it out—and maybe another failure. But hey, I'm learning here. You're free to give constructive critics but no flames. Please. I'm not fond of that nor do I think it's necessary to flame authors, no, writers who are developing.

I originally didn't plan to write anything for this pairing so soon after I posted Of Rumors and Titans but my friend, solitarycloud, informed me about the RivaHan week and I thought I just had to write something. At least I have to write one out of the seven topics provided.

Enjoy :3

Disclaimer: I don't own Shingeki no Kyojin! Isayama-sensei does!

It was completely accidental when Hanji overheard Petra's confession to the petite Corporal.

She didn't want to eavesdrop on people's privacy but this one really got her hooked. She never knew Petra liked Levi. Probably because she has too much of her attention focused on her work that it didn't leave time for her to think about those things specifically.

But Petra was a good girl; polite and reliable. She was always there when her comrades needed her. She would do a very good job as Levi's partner. With that thought in mind, Hanji swore to herself that she would help the gingerhead to approach the Corporal if needed.

"I'd have to apologize, Petra."

The girl looked down in disappointment and Hanji mentally bombarded Levi with complaints at his choice.

"I believe one woman is enough for my life."

Both Petra and Hanji were taken aback by that statement as the latter couldn't help but lean further into the two for easier access. She had to thank military training for granting her the ability to maintain balance perfectly.

Wait a minute. Did that mean Levi already had his own woman?

"Co-Corporal, you already have a girlfriend?" Petra encouraged herself to ask.

The Corporal moved his head left and right.

"Not a girlfriend."

He closed his dark blue eyes in silence before he spoke up again, "One Hanji is enough women for my life. She's as loud as a hundred women."

Privacy

After Petra's confession, Hanji became upset with Levi's decision that she deemed incorrect. And what upset her more was herself being the reason the nice girl being rejected. Maybe because she always went to Levi's office and started talking non-stop about her Titan experiments. Because she always kept Levi occupied, no one else could actually approach him.

Groaning, Hanji ruffled her hair in frustration.

"S-Squad Leader, are you okay?"

Ignoring Moblit, Hanji's hand reached for something to wipe her sweaty face, not realizing that she was using the paper she was working on as a tissue. Beside her, Moblit had started to freak out when he saw her peculiar action.

"Squad Leader, you're supposed to submit that paper this afternoon!"

Hanji stopped. Not because of Moblit but because she had come up with a perfect way. Come to think of it, everything boiled down to her being the reason Levi never get to meet his soulmate. Logically speaking, if that was the case, the solution would be pretty simple.

[She only needed to keep her distance from him.]

She grinned at her genius plan and threw her arms into the air with a cheer.

"—Squad Leader?!"

.

.

.

"Oi, Hanji, aren't you going to the meeting?"

"You go first, I'll follow up later."

"Yeah, and maybe you can give me a reason or two why I should leave first while you're basically doing absolutely nothing."

"I'm waiting for Mike." Hanji paused and realized how stupid she probably sounded when Mike was probably already in the meeting room. "Come on, go, go!" She pushed him away.

Levi looked at her with suspicion, but she averted her eyes everywhere except him, whistling awkwardly in the process. He knew she was up to something he couldn't tell. Deciding to let it slide, he sighed and left without her.

.

.

.

"Let me brief you for today's mission. We are here to replenish our resources by the river that we had located in our last missions. The mission might sound simple but despite that, I want everyone to be on their guard as Titans can strike at any time. Hanji's squad will gather the resources in the streams uphill as Levi's squad will be positioned in the rear guard. Mike's squad will be positioned with me inside the forest. If the titans were to initiate an assault, lead them to us. We will have the best advantage there. Any objections?"

Hanji raised her hand and waved it enthusiastically, making a scene in the meeting room as usual. Levi looked at her quietly from the corner of his eyes while Erwin acknowledged her objection.

"I want Mike's squad to defend mine instead. I believe Levi's squad can go with you, Erwin."

Erwin raised a brow, "You do know that Levi's squad has less members than yours and Mike's, don't you, Hanji?"

She nodded. "Well, feel free to have half of my squad under you. I won't need that many people just to gather fish, anyway." She snorted and shrugged.

Levi scoffed and turned away with his eyes closed.

Erwin chuckled and agreed with Hanji's suggestion. It wasn't because he thought that plan was perfect, but he could sense something going on between one of his Squad Leaders and his Corporal. He had almost never seen them have a real argument before. Most of their arguments would be childish, if not trivial.

However this one looked a little different.

.

.

.

For the whole week, Hanji avoided Levi using all the extravagant methods she could come up with. She would quickly hide whenever she saw him in corridor; which, ironically happened most of the time. There was one time when she tried to run away and instead stumbled upon a rock and fell flat on her face; crushing her glasses with the impact. Levi tried to help her but she refused and dashed off—after bumping into pillars and walls, she finally arrived to her study to find spare glasses.

She knew she wasn't being reasonable for not explaining anything to him first but there would be no point in this if she were to. She only hoped he would someday thank her for what she did because she had sacrificed her precious time of sharing "important knowledge" about Titans with him and had to go to the poor Moblit instead. She didn't even eat with him in the cafeteria and had to endure the pitiful sight of him eating alone.

However, whenever it became hard, she reminded herself that she did it for his well-being.

It was in the middle of the night when Levi suddenly felt his throat burning. He got up from his bed to go to the cafeteria, wanting to get something to drink. On his way, he went pass Hanji's room. Her room's door was half-opened and he could see her still working on something with limited lighting. He wouldn't marvel at the fact that her vision was getting worse by day.

He stared at her back. It had been a while since she rested her back on his while talking about her research, tickling his neck with her messy hair in the process. It had been a while since he saw her smiling with her eyes sparkling as she enthusiastically explained the theory she had came up with or how her face darkened when the higher-ups didn't grant her permission to perform more specific experiments. It had been a while since she burst into his room without knocking. It had been a while since he last pulled on her ponytail.

Sighing, he left for the cafeteria, still wondering about what he had done to make her ignore him for a week.

When he was back from the cafeteria, he went pass her room once again. This time, she was already sleeping on her desk. Without warning, his feet dragged him toward her, faster than he had wished for. When he finally stood beside her, he couldn't resist ruffling the rat's nest she called hair. It was still oily and tangled as usual. Apparently, Moblit didn't do a very good job forcing her to take her bath.

"…vi… Levi…"

He heard her mumbled.

His hand stopped its track and he started to wonder what she was dreaming about. Was she killing him in her dream? Or was she dreaming about him being a Titan?

Before he could think of anything else, he saw a single tear forming on the corner of her eyes. It was a very tiny hint of a tear but it made him wonder nonetheless.

"Levi…"

Not knowing what to do, Levi squatted beside her and stroked her head gently, calming her down from whatever was scaring her in her dream.

"…Don't go…" she choked.

He had never heard her sound like that before. She never cried besides when her pet Titan died. Not when one by one of their old friends fall in the battlefield. Not when public was giving their Legion a hard time by bashing them. Never.

"Shh…" he hushed her while continue stroking her head gently "I'm not going anywhere…" he whispered to her.

Her sobs ceased and she mumbled, "…I'm doing this… for your sake…"

He blinked quizzically.

She went silent for a while before her arms slowly circled his neck and brought him closer, rubbing her cheek on his. The feeling was familiar. It had been a long time since the last time she did this. Ever since she changed the moment she fell in love with Titans and stopped treating him like her personal doll, she hadn't hugged him like this.

She was too busy with Titans to even look at him.

Sometimes he thought he would just slay every single one of them only to empty her mind for a little while.

Levi shook his head. He was being childish. They were at war and Hanji's attention was not the thing he was supposed to aim for.

"I don't know what happened but don't you think it's time to reconcile?"

Hanji was about to sort out some documents when Mike suddenly spoke up. It was unusual since he normally preferred to let other people initiate a conversation. Blinking, Hanji tilted her head at the Squad Leader.

"Sorry?"

"I'm talking about you and Levi."

"Ooh…" Hanji chuckled. "No, no, nothing happened. We didn't fight, really! I'm just– Right , I'm teasing him, that's all!" She laughed heartily.

Not convinced, Mike started sniffing her, making her jerk away slightly in response.

"It feels a little weird. You don't smell of Levi at all lately. And he doesn't smell of you either." Mike tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Your daily argument with him usually resulted in you getting hit by him or other things of the sort. But now you don't even smell of him and I know you guys haven't been near each other for a while."

Hanji was a bit surprised at first, but then again, this friend of hers had always been tactful about this particular subject. And now that she thought about it, she hadn't been teasing Levi for a while. Worse, she hadn't been talking to him for a while now.

Laughing nervously while scratching the back of her head, Hanji spoke up, "Okay, I'll tell you the truth since we go way back, Mike."

Mike pointed at her with his chin. "Go ahead."

She told him about her overhearing Petra's confession to Levi and about Levi's answer. For some reason, the blond didn't seem surprised at all, as though he had already known all along. But then Hanji continued to the part where she decided to avoid Levi to give me some space for other people to enter his little world. In respond to that, Mike seemed a bit bothered.

Hanji inhaled. "…that's it."

"I don't think he would want you to do that," came a fast response from Mike.

"Eh? Why? It's not like he's interested in any Titan researches I did. I don't think he had fun listening to me at all, truthfully speaking." Hanji laughed and started sorting the documents she had been postponing. "And to be completely honest, I think he needs a woman to listen to him sometimes. I don't do a good job listening to people. I talk."

"You know he doesn't talk much."

"He's a human being and even he needs to talk sometimes." Hanji dismissed his comment and continued sorting out the documents.

There was a long silence before Mike spoke up again,

"Don't you feel lonely, Hanji?"

Her hands stopped.

Her lips formed an almost broken smile before she opened her mouth,

"…A bit."

Hanji yawned as she entered the cafeteria, which was already quite crowded by the time she came in. A certain sight made her heart jumped—in joy. An ear-to-ear grin plastered on her face as she saw Levi and Petra sitting at the same table, eating breakfast together. She had to hold the urge to jump in victory at how her hard work was finally paid off.

At last Levi was willing to talk to another woman. This meant he no longer thought of her as a hundred women.

She pumped a fist of victory before she skipped to get some breakfast.

Hanji was overly-excited when they brought her the two experimental Titans—one 4-meter class and one 7-meter class. They were lovely darlings and she swore she would take care of them with all her love, unlike her previous babies who were accidentally killed in one of the experiments. After examining the two new Titans she excitedly named them Sawney and Bean, named after the folktale of Sawney Bean, the head of a cannibal clan.

One day she decided to conduct a sunlight-denial experiment on Sawney and Bean. While Sawney's activity dropped after an hour, Bean had shown a different result. Thinking that one hour might be the constant time for Titan's activity to drop, Hanji was happily shocked when Bean showed her otherwise. Placing her lamp on the ground, she sat beside it and waited for Bean to show signs of exhaustion.

While having nothing to do at all, she suddenly had the urge to chat with someone. And it reminded her that she hadn't been talking to Levi lately. Today marked two weeks of her avoiding him.

Staring at the Titan, Hanji chose to spoke up after a brief silence, "Hey, Bean…"

As if replying to her, Bean made a groaning sound, which made her lips twisted upward slightly.

She hugged her knees on her chest, "Two weeks ago, I overheard a girl confessing her feelings to my friend. He said I'm as noisy as a hundred women so he doesn't need addition," she pouted a bit "so I decided to avoid him since I think he needs some space for himself and for other people to enter his world…"

Bean was still lively after half an hour.

"…he'd always come to my room to clean up and scold me afterwards." She laughed at the image of Levi with mop and broom. "He always makes sure I eat properly. You know, there was this one time when he forced me to eat even when I told him I don't wanna!" She chuckled. "But then I realized that he's just worried about me. He's never honest when I asked him about it but Erwin said he's just being shy. He's such a sweet guy. He's been my friend since forever."

Hanji's smile dropped when she thought about the moment she decided to avoid him, "I'm just doing everything for his sake… to pay him for his kindness. I'm not wrong, right, Bean? But for some reason I don't feel that happy at all. Am I sick? He just wants some privacy and I'm giving it to him. There isn't supposed to be anything wrong with that theory," she messed up her hair in frustration, "or am I just growing stupid?"

"Yeah, damn right you are."

Blinking, Hanji quickly turned around only to meet Levi's menacing glare. She gulped and awkwardly looked around the tent just to avoid his gaze while sweating buckets. Why was he here?

"Look at me, shitty glasses."

Hanji frowned and hesitantly looked at him, "How long have you been listening?" she asked.

"From; two weeks ago I—"

"That's exactly from the start!"

"Indeed."

"You snooper," she pouted.

"Shut up."

"Oh well, I think I'll be going… since Bean's activity is already dropping." Bean made a lively groaning noise. "And I need to hand the result to Erwin."

"You suck at lying. Stop your track and sit down."

"What on Earth are you talking about, Levi? I'm doing nothing of the sort!" Hanji laughed stiffly as she turned away and prepared to dash off to the exit. "Alright, see you around—"

Before she could execute her plan, Levi had caught her wrist, her hand behind her head…

…and he crashed their lips together.

Hanji's eyes were wide while Levi's were closed. He was the personification of calm and serene in contrast to her wildly-pounding heart. Her mind was confused by the whole situation. It was very unlikely. According to every theory she could come up with, this kind of result shouldn't have been in the options at all. What did she do anyway? She was just avoiding him to give him some space.

What could have caused this to happen?

After a minute he finally let go of her. She was too petrified on her spot to even talk.

"Earth to Hanji?" he raised a brow as he waved a hand in front of her face.

"Oi, shitty glasses."

Silence.

"Shitty glasses!"

Silence.

"Hanji!" he shook her a bit too violently and she finally snapped out of it.

In a blink of an eye her face heated up and she jerked away, covering her lips with her arm. "Wh-wh-wh-what in the name of Titans do you think you just did, Levi!?" she stuttered, face red.

"I kissed you—"

"GYAAAHH! Don't say it out loud!"

"But you're the one who asked me—"

"I know that! But… why?" she asked him hesitantly. She just hoped his answer would satisfy her. She hoped it was just his method of greeting—even though she never saw him do it to anyone else before, just so be it.

"Because I love you…"

"Oh, thank goodness—wait, what?"

"Because I lo—"

"Don't repeat it!" she covered his mouth.

"You're annoying. What do you want me to do? Just give me your answer."

"What answer?"

"The chemical reaction between sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid, Hanji…"

"Ooh! That's easy! The answer is—"

And her lips once again met his. For some reason her heart felt warm. Perhaps because they were spending too much time together that she barely realized how she actually felt about him. Perhaps the two weeks they spent away from each other had made them realize instead.

She didn't predict this kind of result at all.

Perhaps she couldn't use scientific concepts to guess the outcome when people's feelings were the main topic.

"Keep talking like that, shitty glasses."

"Eh? I thought you hate it when I start talking?"

"I hate it."

"Then why?"

"Because I love you."

Hanji chuckled, "That doesn't explain a thing."

She noted that she would never be able to predict people's feelings.

The End