One-shots & Short Stories [Levi | Reader]

Ruins Of a Story [Levi | Reader | XX Century's AU!]

I'd like to start this as a love story, but I'm afraid to say that it is not.

I myself am not perfectly aware what kind of story this is. I'd like it to be about ghosts. All I know is that it's not a normal one. Not one you're supposed to find in a public library or hear out of the mouth of your mother before you fall asleep. It's not perfect and the ending isn't flawless but I feel like things are ending good enough. Maybe you could find such a story somewhere deep, deep in the off-limits floor of an old building that's about to collapse or hear it as a ghost story or a strange urban legend from someone you don't even know, the mysterious man from the alleyway or the old woman in the antique shop.

The first thing I remember was seeing a lone boy standing in the room's corner, fully tuned out from the others as if he didn't even exist. This sight accompanied the first ever emotion I have felt. Pity. I could say it was the last ever emotion I felt as well.

If you ask me about the period of time before I saw the boy I wouldn't be able to describe anything particular as if the information wasn't important enough for me to keep it as a memory and so it had automatically erased itself from my mind, deeming its own self as unworthy to be remembered.

But that single moment. The moment I lay my eyes upon the visage of the boy is a moment I remember so clearly, so vividly - the memory is still as fresh in my mind as if it was yesterday. I wouldn't know why is that.

He had ebony hair, strands pocking left and right onto that porcelain almost translucent skin of his. Young but tired he seemed at the time. Lilac crescents resided under his dark smoky eyes. His slim figure was small and curled up into the corner of the room, dressed in worn out baggy clothes.

And I was still unexperienced at the time. I was young. Seven or eight years old.

I remember the pity that overflowed me when I looked at his sad face, it was twisted in an expression of indifference, but somewhere deep inside a strange voice told me he was lonely. At the time I never knew that pity was a painful emotion. Because the ever so first time I felt it it was pure. I didn't even know its name at the time. I could only feel a small pang at my chest, pulling at my heart strings and making my features change drastically into a face of bewilderment and concern.

Then out of pure curiosity - untouched and new emotion in my childish mind - I went ahead, deciding to see why the boy was sad. I remember the look of surprise that shined upon his features when I asked him if he had no one to play with. He was quiet and I considered the possibility of him being unable to talk.

I remember briefly replaying my mother's words in my mind of people - big and small - unable to hear, or talk, or walk, or see. But the boy was no such case. I remember experiencing a drive - an unfamiliar emotion like an urge - that pulled me closer to him, made me crouch in front of him and ask him again, again and again until he answered.

Levi his name was. Unknown his age was. A mommy he didn't have. A daddy he never knew and a friend he didn't know what meant. I decided I'd be a friend of his. The only one if needed. I couldn't care.

Years later, the memory is being repeated in my already teenage mind like a never-ending dream. I was already fifteen. More mature. More like an actual person living in the society. My mother, worn out but cheery - I can't even remember her face, but I know from pictures I have inherited most of her peculiar but beautiful looks. She was still alive at the time I died of course. We just didn't talk and the memories I had of her were small, blurry and tattered like the pages of an old book.

By the time I turned fifteen, Levi had grown a lot too. Hair kept well and in an undercut, ever so unfashionable considered in the times we lived. People didn't seem to mind, though. His clothes weren't any better than the time I had met him, but his style was getting better and better. He still didn't talk much and had absolutely no manners. I liked to discuss things with him, but it was as if he would never speak from his own point of view - giving only an objective look of the situation and listening to whatever I had to say.

He didn't seem to have a family, his home was old and very unkept and he had no friends but me still. It was as if he was a ghost. So funny that thought was at the time. Oblivious I was at the time, laughing so carelessly while saying it and trying to punch his shoulder in a friendly way only to have him glare at me in a menacingly and step to the side before my skin could come in contact with his clothed flesh.

Joking I loved, writing I loved, Levi I probably loved as well. Up to my last moment would I remember how he used to scowl all the time, but smile the smallest of all smiles when we were kids. Evanescent happiness, those memories were.

When I was twenty-four I remember, Levi was particularly dark and hostile for unknown to my mind reasons.