A Quiet Evening

"Is that blood?"

"No?"

"That's not a question you're supposed to answer with another question."

She gave him a sheepish grin and rubbed her neck. "I guess I'm not that great at cooking, eh?"

Levi sighed and tiredly swept a hand through his hair. This damn woman; always making a mess.

He eyed her disapprovingly. "Apparently not." After a short moment of hesitation, he continued, "just go sit down before you chop off your hand or something. I will take over."

She raised her head in surprise, but Levi waved a hand at her. "It's to make sure you don't do anything more stupid, okay. We don't need to have this damn place burning down because of your lousy attempts at producing something edible."

In response, Hange chuckled and sat down at the kitchen table, reaching out for her cup of tea.

Levi began to roll up his sleeves. "You have an apron here or something?"

Hange nearly choked on her gulp of tea.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing." She wiped a hand over her eyes. "I just didn't think you were the apron kind of guy."

He threw her a dark glower. And she couldn't help the small smile that played on her lips.

"Well," and Levi caught the cloth she threw him, "it's important to keep everything clean and tidy. And not only while preparing food. Again a disapproving look was cast her way. "Not that you're really keen on that like I've noticed."

"And you're more like a clean freak." She leaned back on her chair and eyed him. "Who cares about a little uncleanliness. That's so boring."

"Tch, not so boring if you die from food poisoning."

She gave him a big grin. "Are you worried about me?" he arched an eyebrow. A habit he often displayed, she had noticed. "No. The only thing I'm concerned about here is the fact that I could be affected too. Who the fuck knows what you carry with you from all those damn experiments of yours."

At that, she laughed heartily.

000

She watched his back while he got to work. She observed his movements; swift and clean and precise, like his movements on the battlefield.

She hadn't known him for that long yet, however, she had quickly come to understand about the man that lay beneath all those unyielding layers. Of course, she had noticed. Observing and analyzing; well, that was her job, after all.

He tried his hardest to keep himself distanced from everyone; he'd lost his two good friends recently. Hange understood all too well what that did to a person. But, she had seen glimpses of it; more and more often it showed through his mask of indifference; the kind and considerate man beneath all that steel.

For strangers, he was the flawless hero. For them, he was Humanity's Strongest; it was the title with which the people had begun to call out to him not so long ago.

Flawless, eh, she mused, as she bent forward, placing her chin in her hand, fingers playing with a strand of unkempt hair.

There was no such thing in this world as a perfect person. Everyone had their flaws, everybody made mistakes. And who would think that their flawless hero was a clean freak with an extremely short temper?

She smiled softly and sat back up.

"Hey," she called out, and pushed her glasses farther up her nose, "if you're that good at cooking, wouldn't you be able to teach me a trick or two?"

"Is that blood?"

"No?"

"That's not a question you're supposed to answer with another question."

I took these lines from a writing prompt and wrote a story based on it.

Hope you enjoyed!

All the mistakes are mine.