Wings: Common Life [Aot/SnK Fanfic]

An Ordinary First Day in School

“Wake up, time for school.” 

Iris groaned, she barely opened one eye and saw a blurred silhouette of her father standing by her bed with his arms crossed over his chest before burying herself in her pillow. Five more minutes, was what it meant. But she doubted her father would let her have those five minutes, and she was right. One moment she close to dreaming about a cartoon she was watching the other night with Leon and Sofia, the next she was on the ground. 

Her loving father just pulled her off of her bed.

“The hell?!” Iris exclaimed.

“Oops,” Levi shrugged. “I was supposed to pull off your blanket, but it seems you turned yourself to a burrito last night.”

“The hell, Dad!” Iris got up. She couldn’t believe that her father would ever push her off the bed. “I’m telling Mom!”

Levi scoffed. “Please, your mother dropped you once when you were a baby, me pulling you off the bed is nothing.”

“It’s not something you're supposed to be proud of.”

Levi ignored his daughter and went to the door. He called out to her before leaving the bedroom: “fix your room, get to the bath, get dressed and get down stairs. It’s the first day of school. You don’t want to be late.” 

As soon as Levi closed the door, Iris grumbled, “you’re the one who doesn’t want me to be late.” Sighing, she finally got up from the ground and threw her blanket to the bed. It was six in the morning, too early for school, but not too early for the Ackerman-Reed household. With Levi being a detective, sleep was a rare occurence to him, unless Maria would force him to sleep; and Maria being a lawyer meant having long nights in the office to study a case. Iris remembered finding her father carrying her mother to their bedroom after Maria has fallen asleep on her seat. 

After getting ready for school, Iris raced down stairs with her backpack filled with pins of rock bands, pop culture icons, book characters, and even some doodles by her and her friends, and greeted her parents with her usual good morning. Settling beside her father, Iris filled her plate with the day’s breakfast: pancakes, sausages, eggs, and coffee. She loved coffee, unlike her father who seems to enjoy tea more. It was one of the many things she and her mother shared.

“What the hell did you do to your uniform?” Levi questioned as he saw the alterations she made. Instead of the provided blazer, Iris wore her black hoodie that looked like a coat, the pleated skirt looked a bit too high for his liking, and then she wore boots. “Button that up.”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Dad, it’s suffocating!”

“And did you just cut your skirt?”

“I didn’t!’

“It’s too short!”

“It’s not – you were there when we made the fitting – Mom, tell him!”

Maria sighed. Joining her family in the table, she looked at Iris’ uniform then to her husband who was expecting her to give their daughter a scolding. “Levi, we were there when she had the fitting. And Iris doesn’t even know how to sew a simple bedding, so I doubt she would have the skill to alter the uniform, and she’s right about the buttons, it will suffocate her, and it’s barely showing off anyway.”

“Where the hell is your blazer then?” Levi glared at his daughter.

“She can wear a hoodie since the blazer is for her winter wear anyway.” Maria shrugged.

Levi turned to his wife. “We are going to talk about this later.”

Another sigh. Maria understood Levi’s protectiveness towards Iris, it was natural for fathers with daughters – rather, only daughters – but Maria also knows the cost of being too strict. She grew up in a strict household, her father holding them in a tight leash and an iron fist, it drove her and her siblings insane. Julius went out and got in the wrong crowd, while he is excelling in his work as a Military Police, it is known that he is not the good-type of enforcer. Teresa too had her rebellious stage and was known for taking a substance to keep herself awake before the exams, so she could study, but now she has stopped and it was a rough road for her to rehabilitation. Then Maria had her rebellious stage, getting tangled with a man who was considered a “bad influence” or a “bad boy”, as her classmates called it, and then gotten pregnant before she graduated. If it had not been for her parents’ money and connections she wouldn’t have graduated.