Silver Lining | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴɴ

Chapter 3

We are all woken up at the first sunlight. My back is aching from having slept on the ground, and I grunt when I get up and stretch. We have breakfast together every morning, so I quickly wash up and get dressed. Jean is already waiting for me in the hallway, and we walk down together like every morning.

"Did you get in trouble last night?"

His question brings a weird feeling into my stomach. I shake my head, but I can't clear it of the memory of the captain's sharp eyes.

"Good," Jean says. "He can be a real ass sometimes."

I try to laugh. "I'm used to that."

Jean only snorts, and we walk the rest of the way in silence. We have breakfast together every morning, but today is the first morning where two faces are present: Eren and Captain Levi. Eren has been so busy with Hange's experiments that most of the time, he was already gone when we had breakfast. I don't know where Captain Levi has been all week long since I got here, and it infuriates me. I know too little about him.

Eren's eyes find mine when I step through the door. They rush to Jean next to me, then back to me, and Eren offers me a slight smile and a nod. I nod back. Mikasa steps right next to him, of course, and shoves a bowl of breakfast to him.

While Jean and I get ourselves some breakfast, too, I try very hard to ignore the unnerving presence of the captain. He's standing in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest, and he's watching us all with those scrutinizing eyes of his. I squirm a little and convince myself that I'm only imagining the feeling of his eyes boring into the back of my head. But when I turn around, he's indeed looking at me. I quickly avert my eyes and fix them on the floor.

Jean and I sit down next to Connie, who happily entertains us while we eat. I feel so at home here that I sometimes forget why we're here. I sometimes forget that I'm here to prove myself. All of the boys that used to make fun of me because I was too small, too skinny, too weak didn't make graduation. I did. I ranked in the top ten cadets, and I was picked to be a part of Levi's Special Squad. I made it so far, and I'm not planning on stopping here.

"Are you sure you didn't get in trouble?" Jean asks me, and I cock my head to the side with a questioning frown. "He keeps stating at you."

I follow Jean's gaze, and my eyes land on the captain, who hasn't moved from his spot in the corner. Jean is right - he IS looking at me. I turn back to the table.

"He didn't really say anything," I say, trying to keep my voice low. I don't tell Jean what Levi asked me about him, and I don't tell him what I answered.

Sasha tells us we should have just gone to bed when the others did, and Armin agrees. I nod and say that next time, we definitely will. Connie makes an inappropriate joke, and Jean punches his shoulder.

While Eren spends the whole day with Hange and the other older soldiers, the rest of us have no real duties. Yet. I'm sure that something will come soon, but for now, the priority is to get Eren's titan under control. Hange is more and more delighted with every day, it seems, and she sometimes can't keep from telling us all about her results over and over again. When she talks about titans, there's a sparkle in her eyes that makes me believe she is definitely not sane. Captain Levi seems to be feeling the same way because in only the one day he's been here, he called her "insane" about a thousand times.

We sit outside in the sun and clean our ODM gear, but for the first time, I'm not really paying attention. I have my head tilted down, but my eyes are fixed on Levi. He's talking to Hange, and they're too far away for me to understand what they're saying, but that's not why I'm looking. I'm looking because I just can't seem to stop. There's something about him that makes me feel immensely uncomfortable, and I can't place what it is.