invidia 『Hange Zoë』

14: " "

You stand at the gate of HQ in salute as the soldiers going on the mission pass through to head to the outer gate, eyes unfocused and empty. After going back to your bedroom, you stayed awake, unable to get comfortable, mind racing, so you just haven't slept. You'd tried to find Hange to… To at least say goodbye and good luck, but they'd been anywhere but wherever you were.

And then it was time for them to leave, and the last thing you said to each other was an argument. It's almost tragic, especially if they weren’t to come back; the guilt, the unspoken words, what could have been would haunt you until the very end. And Hange, much too clever to not be aware of that future should they die, knowingly condemning you to a possible future where they wouldn’t exist. Is your friendship with Levi really the cause of all of this?

Eyeing the procession, you watch as Erwin leads them out, giving you a slight nod as he goes. Levi follows him closely and doesn't look at you, but you'd already said your goodbyes to him since he wasn't avoiding you like Hange was. After Levi's squad is Mike's squad, and then Hange's. Moblit gives you a small wave that you smile as positively as you can manage at, but Hange doesn't even look your way to acknowledge you standing there, and you can't help the way your heart breaks a little. They don't even want to wave goodbye? All because you were speaking to Levi last night?

Your squad can definitely notice your upset as the five of you head back inside to get lunch, watching you warily, but say nothing as you all eat. It's probably for the best; you're not sure you should open the Pandora's box of whatever it is you're feeling right now, definitely not to the soldiers you’re supposed to be in charge of. You can already tell this is going to affect the way in which you lead over the next few days, you just hope it isn’t overly noticeable.

❀❀❀

The first day goes about as well as one would think. Despite trying your best to stay professional, you’re very obviously distracted the entire day. None of your paperwork gets done, you’re late to meetings, and you zone out at mealtimes. You don’t sleep that night.

Wednesday, the free day, is the hardest. With nothing to occupy your mind, it just keeps wandering in two directions.

The first, that the mission is going terribly, that any second a messenger will appear and divulge the horrible news that all the soldiers were wiped out, and no one will return. Or that the very few soldiers left will return soon, bringing with them the carriages full of dead bodies. And that Hange will be one of those, their deep, warm brown eyes turned glassy and cold, staring emptily at nothing because they're dead, and you’ll never be able to tell them how you feel, or ask them what on earth is going through their head.

The second, much less upsetting one; that Hange returns, and, in their anger that's been brewing for the past few days, drags you into their office and… Well, fucks you to relieve them of the anger they keep toeing the line of. The worst part of this train of thought is that it pops up at the worst moments, just as you start to find something to occupy you, or as you're eating. And the thoughts are vivid, from them shoving you up against their locked door and leaving bruises all over your neck because 'you're theirs and no one else's, especially not Levi's', and they wouldn't hold back, to taking their time to make you feel the same frustration they've felt at how oblivious you've been, bringing you almost to completion and just not letting you finish. And it's embarrassing, each thought worse than the last.

And your brain flip-flops between a dead Hange and a very horny Hange so easily you almost find yourself stuck between preemptive mourning and arousal (which is very confusing for you and your body, leaving you all too exhausted). It even invades your dreams, and when you wake up for the third time in one night (the only night you manage to fall asleep while Hange is gone), sweaty and hot and panting, the urge to… Well, you can't even think about it, running to the bathroom and drawing a cold bath that feels like ice when you force yourself down into it.

You start to hate Hange Zoë with a passion.

❀❀❀

The soldiers come back on the morning of the third day, defeated but all alive. The base was a failure, titans had swarmed the area just on the first night and destroyed everything they’d put up, but no one lost their life, and to the Survey Corps, that's a win. Of sorts.

It isn't for you though. You were expecting to have at least until the evening to think of a plan to force Hange to tell you what the hell they're going through, and to finally fix your friendship, but now you have nothing and no time and unless you do something soon, you're going to go completely insane.

But your fate is already sealed when Hange disappears the moment they return, and you can't find them anywhere. So instead, you throw yourself fully into your work, able to focus and function properly now you know Hange is safe and back to being an absolutely insufferable pain, spending as much of your free time with Levi as he’ll allow you to.

Maybe it’s to spite Hange even more. So what if you’re being childish, knowing exactly how it’ll make them feel seeing you spend so much time with the Captain and doing it more for that reason than to genuinely have fun with your other friend, and so what if you feel a little guilty for using Levi like this, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and you just want Hange to make an effort.

They don’t. All that happens, the closest you come to a victory, is when Hange makes to sit at the table the three of you used to always sit at in the mess hall, and upon realising no one else was there, meets your eyes across the room. You held your breath, watching their maroon eyes as they cycled through a hundred different emotions, settling on anger that you reflected back at them. But then they’d turned and taken their food back to their room instead of eating in the same room as you, and you lost any hope of your friendship ever going back to what it was before.

After that incident, you were overwhelmed by an intense guilt (an emotion you are very quickly becoming consumed by), and decided to go back to your original plan; find Hange and forcefully fix whatever had become broken, whether they wanted to or not. And it would’ve been a solid plan, had you been able to find them. It seemed as though you were two parallel lines, close but never close enough for your paths to cross.

They're slippery when they don't want to be found.

You just hope they'll come to you when they're ready.

『❀』