Daisy II | Levi Ackerman

Chapter 31 - When In Marley

(Mild trigger warning: Sexual assault.)

854
Before the Declaration of War

[Naomi]

I didn't know for how long I stared into my own dark eyes in front of the mirror. I had been standing in front of the bathroom sink, my feet on the freezing cold floor, in preparation for leaving; but it seemed that it was easier to get lost in my own churning thoughts than turn away from them.

A different swelling of both fear and exhilaration was ensuing in me, from within my ribs. It felt like it was all going to consume me. I knew from the minute I decided to enlist almost a decade ago that I lived to see these days of glory, it was what we've laid our lives for and the only conviction worth seeing to the end. But now that they were almost right between my eyes, the possibility of all sorts of risk and loss pressed down on me so heavily.

Of course, it didn't help that the precious things I protected all that I could were falling apart, too. I held onto the flickering hope that one day, after this war, we can pick up the debris and build something out of it again; just like we always did before. Fix what's broken. Make up for what's lost. But when I sanctioned my mind to go as far into the seemingly obscured future, I really had no clue how we were to rise from this one again.

You can want something, but at the same time not know how to reach for it. That's how I felt these days with Levi. That's how I felt these days with everything.

In attempt to reel my mind away from the daunt of the ticking time I had left before departure, I released the heavy sigh that I was withholding under my lungs as I leaned back, my hands still lightly resting on the edge of the porcelain. My eyes wandered around from the foggy mirror to the damp, white surface until they alighted onto the glinting pair of scissors that we always kept here for haircuts.

Haircuts. Levi had reminded me about it last night, and I knew well that my long hair would be an inconvenience to the mission- especially when we mobilize. But I'd only just been used having it this way, for even Uncle Erwin liked to keep my silky mane back-length. He liked seeing my long braids, and only now had I just realized it was because his younger sister used to wear her hair that way, too.

After Annie and I were parted by the brutal waves of reality, somehow deciding that we should cease to be friends, I didn't really pay much attention to it until Levi. I always wondered why he was always so attentive with these little things that I took for granted. He always made it a point to maintain the length of my hair, up to my shoulders, before I resigned.

I picked up the scissors, absentmindedly, staring at the mirror as I began snipping my hair off from the bottom. Locks of red fell to the floor, and I stood there as if I wasn't there at all, watching the soft blood-colored bundles flutter down as if they were embers sparking out from a dying flame.

I hate to do this on my own. My gut churned with every snap of the scissors, because these sounds brought me back fond little memories of days when life was simpler, albeit stolen. This was one of the most mundane activities that I ever shared with my husband, because after all we both were soldiers- and yet for some reason, it was inflicting so much ache in my heart. Why? It's just a haircut.

It's just a haircut. It's just a goddamn haircut. It's just all my best years with Levi falling off from me, as if they were autumn leaves. Truly, they too were the color of autumn leaves. Perhaps we were truly approaching the end, and the three years of sweet and endearing companionship that I had borrowed from the pawnshop of fate was due for return.