Ordinary Hero (Attack on Titan // LeviHan)

Chapter Two

Her name was Hanji Zoe. She was around my age, somewhere in her early thirties. She had messy dark brown hair that flew in every direction, which she tried to control by keeping it up in a high ponytail on the back on her head. I hardly ever saw her with it down, the few times I had witnessed her like that were when she was either particularly grumpy or extremely drunk. She bore a pair of deep brown eyes that were concealed by thick glasses. About two hours into the night, they’d start slipping down the bridge of her long nose, but she did nothing to stop them.

My attention was drawn away from Hanji for a moment by Petra. “Don’t worry, I can take over this shift,” she flashed me a wink before quickly returning to the customers. I appreciated everything that Petra did for me on Saturday nights, often times she’d work the shift all by herself until the early morning hours, until Hanji left. She and I were both aware that when Hanji was here, I was focused on her and her only. It was like the entire world around me disappeared.

I sighed and leaned against the bar and faced Hanji, waiting for her to spill her life’s troubles to me. I didn’t even need to ask her what was wrong, she would just tell me. She took another drink, her glass already one-fourth empty. She was silent for a moment, drumming her fingers on the counter, facing away from me. Her eyes flutter shut, and I swear I caught a glimpse of tears in her chocolate-colored eyes before they had closed. She turned back to me, running a hand through her long bangs that hung loose. “I… I… I’m running out of cash, and fast. It’s like… It’s like a headfirst spiral down into debt and I keep sinking, but I can’t seem to pull myself up and out of it,” Hanji explained, blinking back tears. “I won’t be receiving my paycheck for another week or so, and my landlord at the apartment complex is expecting payment by Monday, or else I’m evicted,” she choked out the last sentence before grabbing her drink, downing half of it in a matter of seconds. She sat it back down, rubbing the leftover residue off of her top lip. “I don’t know what to do, and for the first time in a long time… I-I’m scared.”

I furrowed my eyebrows together, trying to help her come up with a solution. It wasn’t necessarily my problem, technically it was none of my business to be meddling in, anyway. Even still, Hanji and I had established a connection over the past few months, so I felt like it was my duty and responsibility to try and give her some advice on the situation at hand. It was the very least I could do for her. “Well,” I started, finger-combing through my lank, black hair as I pondered about the best way to answer her. I had never been faced with a problem like hers, since my residence was located right above my bar, which I had finished making the final payment on several months ago. “I suppose that the only two ways you could solve this would be to either ask your employer to give you your paycheck early or to request your landlord to push back the due date for your rent,” I stated with a shrug.

“I’ve tried, Levi,” she cried out, slamming her fist against the counter, causing me to jump back in shock. A few tears escaped from the inner corners of her eyes, sliding down her pale cheeks. She wailed, covering her face with her hands. The conversation fell silent for a moment before Hanji decided to pipe back up again, explaining he cause behind her outburst in a hushed voice. “I’ve been pushing back paying my rent for the past couple of months, and even if I did get my paycheck early, it still would be barely enough to make my downpayments. I’d probably have to starve myself for a week or two,” Hanji let out a sigh and reached for her drink as I prepared another one for her. “That job doesn’t pay me enough for what I do as it is. Do you know how hard it is, teaching eight class periods a day? All those rowdy kids, there’s got to be like, what? At least one trouble maker in each class I teach? It is god-awful. Speaking of trouble makers, you’d never believe the two kids I had to pull apart who were fighting in the halls between fifth and sixth period. Jaeger and Kirstein, I think. Yeah, it was like, all out fist fight, black eyes and bloody noses, the whole she-bang,” she explained, continuing to ramble on.