Levi x Reader | Cold

Chapter Twenty-Three [Part One] - Murmurs

[ Estelle/Reader's Point Of View ]

"Estelle," Hanji calls, locking her arm with mine. "You should be resting, you know. You have an injury and all."

"I'm fine, though," I protest. "This beats laying in a wagon bloodied all day."

"Oh?" Hanji inspects my chest. "You really should be resting. Look how bloody your shirt is."

"It's fine," I wave my hand in refusal.

She lets out a muffled sound and I roll my head, laughing.

"You know," she says in a serious tone, "Levi's worrying about you."

I blink in surprise and look around for him. He's standing with the two men that brought on the Titan. I watch as he puts something in their hands.

"He isn't as horrible as he pretends to be, is he?" I ask.

She looks at me strangely. "You mean you don't know yourself?"

I shake my head, frowning. "I don't know him as well as everybody assumes."

"He's changed, then?"

"Yeah," I fidget with my fingers. "He's always been kind of stoic, but back then he wasn't as..." I pause, trying to think of the right word. "Concealed."

"You really like him, don't you?" She taunts.

"N-no," I stammer, blushing.

"Oh, come on," Hanji whines. "You don't have to hide anything from me, I won't tell."

Shaking my hands in front of my face, I begin laughing again. "He's my superior."

"That's funny," She looks up to face me. "He said the same thing."

"H-Hanji!" I yell. "Please tell me you haven't been asking the whole squad about us!"

She begins giggling uncontrollably and I let out a groan. "But in all honesty," she says, "do you like him?"

"There's a different between liking and missing," I mumble.

"But that doesn't rule out the possibility of both," She adds.

"True," I look ahead, squinting in the distance of the sunny day. "But when it boils down to it, how can you tell? When it comes to emotions, we only know how strong we feel about something when it's too late."

"But Estelle," She furrows her eyebrows. "Don't you want to take the risk of admitting how you feel before it's too late?"

"I'm a soldier, not a beautiful heroine of a love story. My purpose lies with humanity, not myself."

She grabs me by the shoulders and turns my whole body so that I'm facing her. "Estelle, do you know how many soldiers we lost today?" I feel my stomach clutch, I've never seen her so furious before. "Not all of us are okay with tossing all of our emotions aside. We're not just soldiers, we're humans with beating hearts, whether we have to throw away our humanity making sadistic sacrifices or not. If you aren't going to be honest with yourself because you want good for humanity, then do so, but look at all these bodies. Do you believe that if you were in one of those bags right now, you would have died making the right choice?"

I look into her eyes, processing her words. She walks away from me without another word, and I watch as she climbs back onto her horse.

She's right, I tell myself. I need to do something.

Looking up, I see Levi's head half-turned, looking in my direction. He looks forward again and his horse starts to walk with the rest of the Survey Corps.