The speckles of ice floated in the air weightlessly, almost as light as icing sugar at a baker’s place, still visible to the naked eye. My head rested idly on my hand as I stared through my lowered eyelashes, an energy consuming yet unconvincing smile pulled across my face as I watched my fellow squad mates throw snow at each other.

“Gunther, watch out!”

“Auruo, you moron!”

Their laughter echoed from afar, almost like it was indirectly mocking my conflicting emotions of self-hate and to some degree… even cynicism. Their little figures were like black spots in the contrasting white backdrop. From that little shit Auruo, whose cocky bruised face I bashed in two weeks ago was wrinkly happy, to that strawberry blonde Petra grinning ever so cheerfully.

Growing sick of inspecting them, I swiftly pulled out my old Balisong from a deep coat pocket.

The blade that Mike had once given me had that little unique clunking with every round I flipped. I kept that forged smile fixed on my face, although my head was thick with grief. With a few scratches encrusted here and there on its handles, and even if it didn’t look as new and beautiful as it used to be, it was something fairly significant to me, reminding me of the days when I was still fresh and new, and unknowingly happy.

If Hanji was to send me down for professional counselling or something, the most likely thing the person would say to me was that it was completely normal to make mistakes and that I had to ‘move on’. The following things were just messy scribes inked on a daggy paper, handed to me, entitled ‘Dealing with emotions of Guilt’.

One. Apologize.

Two. Do something nice to make-up for it.

Three. Move on with life.

I was already utterly stuck on step one.

And problem was… there was no one to apologize to. Apologizing to someone who was still heaving through corrupted lungs with an alive and beating heart was different from facing a tombstone, or a new fresh patch of dirt a few months old. You could expect an answer, a reaction, just something from the living, even if it was just a round of hateful shrieks at you, whereas standing beside a symbol to mark the once living, you know that the best thing you could get back was just a few bonus hours of dead silence.

An arm was thrown over my shoulders, drawing my lazy, numb eyes away from the whirling blade.

“Hay-Hay,” The brunette beamed at me as she pulled me into an awkward hug, her spectacles reflecting in nature’s free light, “Come on! Show me a smile.”

My lids robotically blinked in their routine-like reply, and my attention was redirected back at the blade in my hand.

They say it was my downhill mood and my growing negativity towards life that led to my constant exhaustion, telling me to ‘brighten up’ or something. But now even ‘brightening up’ was no different from a sin, leaving behind a guilty feeling for each breath of air my lungs drew in.

“Hazel,” My impassive orbs never bothered looking up.

“It’s not your fault. You know that, don’t you?”

Unhealthy thinking. My mind had grown tired of worrying, of thinking, of caring. I was moving, yet I felt pretty dead.

My bony wrist spun in a repetitive circular motion, watching the silver blur of the handles as the spinning blade whirled in my bare cold hand. The Balisong glided gracefully, rotating around my fingers and bounced off my palm. The dainty knife swivelled through the air and twirled around in a full revolution before landing in between my two fingers, flicking its edge out.

“You know, why don’t we bake another cake someday? Or dress you up in those pretty lace gowns, like that cocktail one you were complaining about that night? How about that, Hazel?”

“It’s tiring.”

“You keep saying that. It’s really bothering me.”

My lids lowered, and my eyes naturally humidified as a yawn crawled up. “I’m going to bed. ‘Night.”

The Balisong snapped shut immediately as I thoughtlessly slipped it back into my coat pocket. Halfway from pushing myself up from the wooden porch of the HQ building, the squad leader stopped me.

“Come on Hazel. It’s Christmas Eve.” I caught her sneaky little wink as she tried to radiate some optimism into me.

“And last time I checked, there was a present under the tree, waiting for you.”

__________________

My tired eyes widen in surprise as they caught sight it in Levi’s hand. The thought of slamming my bedroom door in the corporal’s face was no longer on the panel once I saw the big antique-looking book he had in his grasp, labelled ‘Pian-’ something, but his shirt covered half the text on the cover. 

His dark eyes glazed over the woolly sweater scruffily thrown over me and the slightly lengthened dark locks I never bothered running a brush through anymore.

“What is that?”

Levi rolled his eyes irritably to my question, finally meeting my dull and colour-faded ones.

“Four-eyes said classical pieces somewhat appealed to you, so-”

I never stuck around to hear more of his explanation. A wash of impatience overflowed over as my ears picked out the words classical and pieces. That little dead ‘grey matter’ of mine had finally found something productive to set thoughts on, and guiltiness wouldn’t be its cohort, mocking and eating me away internally.

My hand mindlessly grabbed hold of his warm one, ignoring his uneasiness as I half-dragged, half led him towards the room with that same grand piano I’d come across that very day a few years ago. I needed an excuse to not think anymore, and this was absolutely perfect.

___________________

A series of beautiful notes rung as my fingers hesitantly traced along; following the little quavers and crotchets imprinted on the dainty teeth-coloured pages. It’s like when you’re carrying something so heavy and it was suddenly lifted off your back, leaving behind this floaty light feeling. As typical and cliché as it may sound, the series of notes slapped across my face, otherwise known as music, was like a healing potion to my soul, an antidote to all my venomous thoughts.

The shadows grew and shrunk, grew and shrunk as my fingers moved across in a repetitive pattern, with the fire cackling behind us in the fireplace. The occasional little flickering of the light reflecting off the petite glimmering star on top of the Christmas tree caught my attention, but my eyes gave no more than two seconds before laying back down again, watching my fingers do their thing.

The only positive Hazel Adler thing I was actually proud of, and socially acceptable, that would seem unlikely to ruin someone’s life or anything.

The melody came to an abrupt stop, and the sound of rustling pages became distinct once more as I hurriedly flipped through the big book of music collections, gasping in awe as I recognised the lost pieces I’ve always been on the hunt for.

Levi was a pure genius.

The raven-haired corporal, who sat stiffly on the dark piano stool right next to me, met my little smile glistening with confined gratitude. I would happily reach over and pull the man into a grateful hug, but we all knew that would definitely not work out so well.

That old cheeky smile slowly found their deep-rooted position on my face as I caught sight of his displeased expression.

“Didn’t you tell me last time that you could play?”

I didn’t even wait for his usual little tongue click thing that resulted to the signature tch sound. Levi recoiled to my coldness as I seized his hand, steadily placing it along the set of monochrome keys. Eager tinted my once dull and wishing-to-die orbs as I silently encouraged for the corporal to play.

My faint little smile slowly broadened as the keys he hit reverberated a heavenly sound, extending into the safe range of my eardrums. The entire break down of music making was set right before me, the little soft hammers knocking against the tuning pegs under the lid. That was the magic of a piano; watching things move, watching the music get made.

I stared at him in disbelief, my good old carefree smile secured confidently on my face which contrasted to his perfectly calm expression.

He played fluently as he looked at me, as monotone and still as the surface of an untouched pond. Unthinkingly, my fingers glided across the smooth ivory tiles in time with his, enjoying the little tune bouncing off the walls of the room accompanying the dim light of the room.

Everything was so calm with the majestic vibrating tone in the background to drown out the silence which protested and tried to claim what was theirs.

Levi really was a natural. Then again, was there anything at all that he wasn’t good at?

“Thanks, short stack. You know, for the book.” I whispered gently, not even sure if it was loud enough for him to comprehend. No response, at all.

The sight of the faintly lifted edges of his lips would have gone unnoticed if I wasn’t observant enough. His dark mysterious eyes softly gazed down at the keys he touched, bringing in another celestial wave of rhythm, which I really hate to admit, but was clearly a surge of ear-orgasm.

I really couldn’t help but outline his slightly messily swept hair to the side, dark as the feathers plucked freshly off a crow, silently taking note of that simple, yet so sophisticated impression of him. Yeah, I’m only gonna say this once, but he really was surprisingly good looking in the simplest ways.

I could now see where his giant wave of fan girls was coming from.

Levi’s abysmal eyes widened slightly as they caught mine, numbing me completely. What a prompt of uprising awkwardness as both he and I realized that my orbs have gotten the better of me, and that I had awkwardly been gawking at the corporal longer than necessary.

Immediately, I shifted my pupils back down, watching my fingers dance along the smooth consecutive keys as I felt an awkward blush overtake me once again. Why did this little pink hue keep coming back to haunt me? The Hazel on the streets was never bothered by little blushes and despised all this affection shit, then why was I suddenly so…so… blushy?

Could it be…?

I shook my head a little, trying to clear my distorted mind and avoid that direction of thinking. I’ll go kill myself than ever falling for anyone. How lame. My life wasn’t another formulated book with an articulated ending, and I'm not another Juliet desperate for a Romeo, spitting out thous and thys on top of a stone balcony.

“What is it?” His calm voice dragged me out of my bottomless thoughts. The melody had halted as his fingers slowed to a pause, his seeking gaze relayed at me.

“Nothing...” My voice sounded ever so hesitant as I fought hard against the blush behind my dark curtain of hair. I twiddled my thumbs sheepishly in my lap, avoiding his dark orbs varnishing all over me like cocoa powder on a cake.

“Brat, look at me when you speak.”

Despite that, I still kept my head down, taking deep steady breaths, mentally attempting to command that pink shade to scuttle off my face.

My lungs were suddenly paralysed, refusing to take in any air when I sensed him reaching over for my burning cheek that hid dreadfully behind the protection that my hair provided. Stop him. I mentally shrieked. The muscles in my arm would instinctively reach up and halt his actions, or at least that was the repeated mental drill whirling inside my panicking head.

An aggressive force tugged onto the collar of my burgundy blouse under my sweater. Instincts, my good old pal that finally made its grand appearance, took over this time, empowering my hand to reach over and grab onto the side of the dark piano stool.

A little shriek was lodged in my throat as my body realized a sense of imbalance, but before my head could even index everything, the whole vision of the room lunged sidewards crookedly. Levi immediately reached over and grabbed onto my arm. Pffft, as if that was going to help.

My sudden instinctive reaction had resulted to the stool losing its firmness on the ground, sending both of us toppling off like Skittles.

One valuable thing to learn here, that not even humanity’s strongest soldier could go up against the laws of physics from pulling its cruellest move of all time. He never released his hold of me, and with all the possibilities screeching inside my head, which weren’t all that holy and righteous, a free sample of a deeper shade of pink tinted my face disgracefully.

Hint?

One grand fall.

One grand landing.

 _______________________