✘ "You have a new match!" [Riren] [R-18] ✘

44: All hail fairy godmother

"See now that's some proper gratefulness! Levi isn't treating me with the respect this number one match maker deserves at all!" she complained with a laugh. "You have to kick his cute butt for me Eren. I mean, you could totally get away with it".

"Oh my god" Eren laughed. Hange was probably the only one to ever call any of Levi's body parts cute. "Sure thing, madam savior" he said and jokingly saluted, as if she saw him.

"So... I might be barging in, I tend to do that a lot, or so I've heard. But you see, I've noticed that something serious is going on with Levi and he won't tell me anything, so now I'm hijacking his profile again to see if I can be of any unwelcome help" she said with an audible smile in her voice, but he could also sense the seriousness under her relaxed tone.

"Oh god... he has no idea you're contacting me, has he?" Eren asked feeling half amused, half nervous.

"Of course not. But thankfully our tech clueless cutie haven't thought about changing the password I gave him" she said proudly.

"Hah! This is mental!" Eren laughed. "Wow, it's really great to speak with you finally. And thank you for reaching out, honestly... Is he not doing well?" he asked, his voice gradually getting more serious and finally breaking a little as worry started to show. Hange sighed.

"See Levi's a huge grump, especially so when something is up with you" she started. "But ever since he came back from your recent road trip he's been, hmm... distant, rather than grumpy. I've known Levi for a long, long time and I've seen him shut himself in before, but this is the first time in a few years. So, do you know what's up?" she asked. Eren bit his lip and sat down on Armin's bed.

"Shit... It might be my fault" he said, his voice weak. "We haven't really talked the last few days".

"Have something happened between you two?"

"No... not really. Fuck, I've just been stupid and emotional" he said, cursing himself.

"That's okay, love. Tell me about it".

To his own surprise, Eren started to actually spill out just about everything that had haunted his mind lately to the older woman. There was just something about her that made him want to confide in her, plus he found that it was much easier to talk about his problems with someone outside of his own circle.

He told her about his confused emotions after Levi had left and about what then had happened with him going to the bar and getting drunk on his own. He told her about his insecurities with his own messy personality, feeling ashamed and fearing that he was too immature and a bother to the older man. He told her about his worries about the long distance between them and how they would be able to make it work in the long run and even how all of these worries and feelings overall just made him feel weak and pathetic.

Hange listened for a long time to him without interrupting. Maybe she sensed that this was the first time that Eren really spilled out all of these worries to someone and that he needed to just get it all out at once without stopping. When he finally was done, he fell quiet, feeling drained and a bit odd, but also very relieved.

"Oh hun... You need a serious dose of self-compassion" Hange said with determination.

"Self- what?"

"Self-compassion. You're judging and being hard on yourself when all of these emotions you're feeling are completely natural" she explained. "You're human Eren. Treat yourself as such. It's okay to not be okay you know, don't go around feeling weak for having emotions and worries. I assure you that even Levi has them too, and there's no way that he would be mad at you for this. In fact, if I know the geezer correctly, he'll be a bit too happy about hearing about how much he's affecting you".