Chapter Text
Hange wakes up, and the world is still dark. She blindly reaches to the bedside table, lights up the gas lamp on, grabs her glasses and puts them on. The world comes into focus and Hange glances at the opposite wall, checking the time.
4:32
She curls her lips in a slight smile. She woke up just in time.
She swings her legs of the bed and yawns, stretching her limbs. She gets up and heads to the kitchen, putting a kettle on a stove and firing it up.
While the kettle heats up, she moves to the bathroom, grabbing a soothing balm on her way.
Once there, Hange takes off her glasses and starts applying the balm, carefully smearing it all over her face.
The burns don't hurt anymore, at least not as much as they did in the beginning. Hange learned how to live with it just as she learned how to live with not knowing how she had received these burns or how she got there - to the middle of nowhere, on a coastline next to a ruined structure that she could only guess was once a port.
Finished with her face, Hange moves to her hands, applying the balm to the inside of her fingers and the backside of her palm. The balm cools her still tender wounds and Hange softly signs, relishing in the pleasant feeling.
The whistle of a kettle shakes her up and Hange whirls around, hurrying to turn it off. She gives another look at the clock, worrying her lip between teeth as she sees that it's past quarter to five. It's only the beginning of spring and the sun doesn't raise up that early at this time of year, but Hange feels a pressing need to hurry. She can't be late, not today, not after she spent weeks, chasing the mysterious man.
The man that had been visiting Hange's cabin for as long as she was living there. He brings her food, medicine, clothes and other supplies. Sometimes he even goes as far as to bring her little gifts - books, flowers and sweets.
He never shows his face, though. He never approaches Hange, never talks with her. Whenever she attempts to catch him, he disappears without a trace. She has only ever seen him from far, in the rare moments when she was lucky enough to catch him leaving her cabin. Frustratingly so, he does his best to remain hidden.
Hange doesn't understand it. The man - for whatever reason - obviously cares about her. Then why is he so dead set on staying away? Why doesn't he let her express her gratitude at least?
She thinks every night about it. She curses her mind for forgetting.
Her previous life exists only in the flashes of sound and images. They're bright, loud, blurry and swift. Hange can't make sense of them no matter how hard she tries. It frustrates her to no end, makes her want to tear out what little hair is left out on her scalp, but nothing comes back to her.
She's sure that the man is important, she's almost sure that he was a part of her old life. What reason does he have to help her now after all?
But the man doesn't want to see her, and Hange needs to see him, so she resorts to different methods. He won't be running away from her anymore, she is going to make sure of that.
With that in mind, Hange pours hot water in two cups, adding tea leaves to it. She throws some sugar in her cup, but hesitates to do the same with the cup she's preparing for that man. She doesn't know why, but it feels wrong.
Your sugary shit destroys the true essence of tea, she suddenly remembers. For the life of her, she can't recall who has said that to her. Or when. Or why.
Deciding to tackle this issue some other time, Hange goes back into the room, wraps a blanket around her shoulders and then takes the cups with steaming tea.
Pushing the front door open with her leg, she comes out on a porch and breathes in deeply, savoring the fresh, crisp air. She puts the cups down on a small table and settles down in a rocking chair, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. Hange shivers slightly, the morning chill freezing her fingers and toes.
She hides them inside the warm cocoon of a thick fabric and turns her eyes to the horizon. The stars slowly disappear, showing a narrow strip of golden light. It paints the sea below it in a gentle purple color.
A smile pulls on her lips as she continues to watch the sunrise. Hange sits back in a chair, rocking slightly. She glances to one side, then to another. Confirming that the coast is clear, she allows herself to close her eyes for just a second.
Just a second, and the world around her is dark again.
Hange groans, shielding her eyes from a light shining right at her. She looks up and nearly jumps. The sun is high in the sky. She was going to rest just for a bit. For how long that bit had lasted?
She swirls her head from side to side. The coastline is clear. Already clear. There is no one there, and she is alone.
She looks down then and sees a small package by the door. She glances at the table with teacups on it. One of them is empty.
Despite her failed attempt at catching the mysterious and annoying, but extremely nice man, Hange smiles.
"Have you enjoyed the tea at least?" she asks, hoping that he listens.
Hange spends the next couple of mornings, watching the sunset and anxiously waiting for the man to show up. She slaps her face and pinches the skin of her arm, stopping herself from falling asleep. It bears no result, however, because the man doesn't show up.
It is only when Hange finally gives up, returning inside her cabin that the man returns. She disappears for just a moment, going inside to make another cup of tea. When she comes back, a package with fresh fish, a journal and a few quills is already awaiting her. Hange sighs, annoyed at the man, despite his gifts.
She needs another plan, it seems.
She has more than enough time to think about it. Hange’s life is dull and uneventful to a point of making her feel weird. She doesn’t know what life she led before she was found on the coastline near the port, with severe burns and wounds and before she stumbled into abandoned, old cabin, but this— this peace and quiet that defies her every living moment now, it’s— it’s not unwelcome. But it seems wrong. There is a need, a desperation set deep in her bones. It torments her at night, nudging her to do something, anything. It always keeps her on edge, pushing her in the unfamiliar direction.
That direction feels a dead-end.
Not every part of her life is lost. There are some memories that persistently linger in the depth of her mind. She still remembers her childhood - the bright, sunny days, filled with carelessness and wonder. The way wind blew through her hair, the way sunlight danced on her skin and kissed her cheeks, these memories don’t fade. On the contrary, there is more life in them than in Hange herself.
She knows the gentle touch of her mother and remembers the strict face of her father. She can close her eyes and see her puppy, running towards her every time she came home from the never-ending adventures, greeting her with loud, happy barking and wiggling tail.
Her school, a grand beautiful building with big windows and polished floors, still lives in her memory. And the image of the school’s library – the favorite place in the whole world for little Hange, where she spent countless afternoons – fills her with happiness and content even after all these years. She remembers the displeasure and annoyance she felt in the moments when she couldn’t reach the higher shelves. She jumped and stretched out her hand and balanced on the balls of her feet, huffed and scoffed, but nothing ever worked out, until she let go of her pride and went to fetch a chair. She still recalls the wonder and excitement every book evoked inside her. Her fingertips, although scarred and burned, didn’t forget the feeling of yellowed pages. The voice of her teacher, scolding her for reading without proper lighting, still echoes in her ears.
However, everything after that, past the playgrounds and school yards, is nothing more than a blur.
She remembers the cold, dark nights, spent by a fire, surrounded by merry laughter. She remembers the feeling of adrenaline, of excitement and agitation, yet can’t recall what exactly had caused these emotions. She remembers the parchment and a quill, remembers that she used to write, write, write. Not a single written word comes back to her, though. She remembers a bright, imposing figure right ahead, a reassuring, calming presence just behind her shoulder, and someone standing right next to her, their hands almost touching.
These people were important, Hange knows that. She wants to remember them so desperately.
But no matter how much she tries— she can’t.
Whatever life she used to have, it most certainly couldn’t have been easy. It was not a life of leisure and prosperity, because her body, despite its weak and injured state, still isn’t used to lazing around.
The spring only just began, and the earth is too cold yet for gardening. As long as the cool weather holds, Hange has nothing to occupy herself with. There are no seeds to plant, no weeds to pull out, no crops to look after. She has all the time in the world.
She can sleep as much as she wants, yet every morning she wakes up at the very break of dawn. Still exhausted and weary, she forces herself to sleep for a little bit more, but she can’t.
So she walks out on a porch, a cup of tea in her hands, and watches the sun slowly rise up over the sea. The sight is mesmerizing, Hange watches it every morning and yet she’s not bored of it in the slightest. She feels like she will never get bored of it, she drinks it more eagerly than the hot tea.
Watching the world growing from black to light, cold blue, before settling into palette of bright yellow, orange and pink never fails in making Hange sigh in wonder. The crush of waves across the shore, the sun beams illuminating the dark green water, the white foam swirling around evoke a warm, tender feeling inside her. It’s a confusing bundle of excitement, pride and happiness.
It makes her think – maybe, it was all worth it.
It makes her think – maybe, we can finally be free.
There is nothing much for her to do, so Hange concentrates on getting her memories back. It’s not an easy task, and it proves to be even harder, when Hange comes to conclusion that she has but a single clue, nothing more than a thin, uneven string that connects her past and present life.
That man.
So she thinks long and hard about her next course of action, writes one plan after another in her recently received journal. The process is oddly familiar, it brings her a sort of nostalgia, although Hange doesn't know the source of it. Still, it's comforting and she spends long mornings, days and nights, sitting at her porch under the light of sun, gas lamp and stars, thinking how to get closer to that kind, but irritatingly distant man.
In the end, she can't come up with a decent enough plan, and so Hange resorts to leaving a note to him. She wants to show her gratitude, and if she can't do it face-to-face, if he wishes to continue hiding from her, then so be it, she'll play by his rules.
It frustrates her, she can't deny it, but she needs to do something, and it’s the very least she can do after all the kindness this man has bestowed upon her.
The next time, when a package is delivered to her doorstep, it contains fresh apples and seeds. With a smile on her face, Hange brings it all inside and sets out to work.
She washes her hands, puts the apples on the counter and fires up the oven. Next she takes a bag of flour and pours it into a bowl. She adds water and sugar and mixes it all up. She opens the oven, places the bottom crust and spills the contents of the bowl there. Then Hange moves to the basket, delivered by a man. She grabs a few apples, washes them thoroughly and starts cutting them.
It takes her a while to finish, and so Hange starts humming under her breath, losing herself in the routine of gripping one side of apple with the fingers of her left hand and then slicing it with a knife she's holding in her right one.
The quick chop-chop-chop sets a tune to the melody she's humming and Hange smiles, enjoying the mundenity of it all.
At least, nothing will explode this time...
The thought is so bizarre, it appears completely out of blue. Hange freezes for a second, ruining the rhythm of her work. She looks up to the celling and repeats that thought, muttering it under her breath.
Explosion, explosion...
What could it possibly mean? Why does it fill her with anxiety? And what is that another feeling? Fear?
Tree branch hits the window in that exact moment, and Hange jumps. The sudden sound rings unusually loud in the silence of her little cabin.
It sounds almost like a gunshot.
This thought leaves Hange feeling even more shaken that she was before.
She exhales nervously, gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles go white. She feels dizzy out of sudden. Like there isn't enough air in the room.
Like she's swimming underwater and struggling to take a breath.
Why does that feeling seem familiar?
Hange shakes her head, wipes her forehead with the backside of her palm, hoping that it would help get rid of those ridiculous thoughts.
"I should spend more time outside," she mumbles, her voice still trembling. With unsteady hands she returns to the apples.
She quickly finishes chopping them and then puts it all in the oven.
Now all she has is to wait, and so Hange heads into the bedroom to get a paper and quill from there.
After all, the pie is worth nothing, if she doesn’t write a note.
When the pie is ready, Hange puts it on the best plate she possesses. She covers it with the only napkin she has and then she takes it outside, setting it on a table at the porch. She brews a cup of tea and puts it next to the plate. Then she lays down a note.
Since you don't let me thank you any other way, it reads. Hange hopes it won’t go unanswered.
Next morning she wakes up and immediately dashes out of the house, stopping only to put her glasses on and get her warm robe. She forgets about her morning balm applying ritual, too excited to see the results of her little experiment.
Just as she hoped, the pie and tea are gone. Her note is gone too and another one lies instead.
Grinning from ear to ear, Hange eagerly snatches it in her arms, grips it tightly with her fingers and squints slightly, quickly reading it.
Work on your cooking skills, four-eyes. The pie was awful. Try adding less sugar next time. I think just a piece of this shitty pie could give someone cavities. Tea was good, though.
Hange rereads the note a few times, struggling to understand. She can't quite decide if she should be angry or amused. She settles on a mix of something in between.
Her experiment produced an unexpected results, it seems. It helped her realize that her assumption about that man was a bit wrong. He's kind, yes. Caring too. But he's not nice. Quite the contrary. He's a little piece of shit, Hange decides with a gleeful smile.
How curious, she thinks and lets out a happy snicker.
Hange's shirt rips at the seams a few days later. It's not her only shirt - the mysterious man has made sure of that - but it's her favorite one. So Hange searches the house, turning it upside down to find a needle and a thread.
Her hands tremble as she tries to fit the thread into the needle and Hange curses, as she misses the small aperture once again. She pushes the glasses up on her forehead and squints, struggling to get the thread inside.
After a few failed attempts and more than a few colorful words, Hange succeeds. She celebrates it with a wide grin and grabs the shirt, starting to stitch the torn parts together.
The stitch is even and neat, Hange wonders if she has been taught that. As far as she remembers, her mother tried numerous times to teach her how to do embroidery, but little Hange always refused, running away and hiding in the library. Evidently, she changed a lot since then.
I managed to stitch his face just as perfectly.
Hange blinks as that thought appears. She closes her eyes and instead of a shirt, she sees a bloody mess of ripped skin, muscles and tendons.
She blinks again and that vision is gone. Hange closes her eyes, tries to recreate the image, but she's drawing a blank this time. She is greeted with nothing but darkness.
She growls in frustration and throws the goddamn shirt away.
She was so close to remembering something, to getting back a part of her life. But, as before, it had ended in a failure.
The feeling is strangely familiar to her.
She spends the next week, writing little notes to the man. Sometimes he answers, granting her with more of his crude and sarcastic comments. Other times, when she attempts to ask a personal question, when she begs him to tell her his name or when she laments about wanting to get to know him, the messages go unanswered and her note stays exactly where she laid it, fluttering in the wind.
The frustration gets to her after a while and Hange starts to feel bored. The routine is pressing onto her and so she packs what little provision she has, grabs one of her warmer sweaters, puts on a patch to hide her missing eye and decides to go exploring.
There is a town near enough that it takes only a couple of hours to get there. Hange visited it once, before the winter came and the snow made the trip impossible. The town isn’t big – truthfully, it’s hard to even call it a town – the place stands in ruins with only a few houses rebuild and ready to let people in.
Now, as Hange enters the town after three long months, she sees that it’s changed. Not much, but enough to attract attention, enough to make Hange marvel at the additional buildings and appreciate the hard labor done by the townspeople.
She walks through the town slowly, gawking at everything and everyone. Despite the chilly weather, the people are working hard, rebuilding what was once lost.
When she came to this town for the first time, she asked about the cause of this ruin, thinking that it could be linked to her own wounds, and, consequently, to her old life.
The answers she received, though, didn’t satisfy her. The tales of giant people, destroying everything in their path sounded familiar, almost similar to the stories her mother used to tell her. It reminded her of the tales about titans Hange read in the school’s library. She was scared of them back then, and at the same time excited too. She always wanted to see one up close, and so she felt something close to regret when the townspeople informed her that there are no titans anymore.
“Those island devils got rid of them, thank gods,” one woman said to Hange back then. “Everyone now calls them heroes, but do you wish to know what I think? We should have destroyed them all along with their damned island.”
Hateful words left a bile taste in Hange’s mouth. They made her angry for a reason she couldn’t even understand. She left quickly after, her mind even a bigger mess than usual.
Now, as she strolls through the narrow streets, Hange thinks back to that conversation. Is it true that those islanders are to blame? Could it be that they’re the reason for the burns on her body? For the memories she lost? Maybe, Hange should hate them too?
It’s easy to hate someone when you don’t know them, she remembers words from one of her teachers at school. Hange finds it hard to agree with that statement. She thinks the contrary is true – it’s impossible and irrational to hate someone, when you don’t even know them.
She banishes these thoughts as she turns a corner and sees a man struggling to carry a large wooden pole. Hange isn’t that strong herself, the wounds taking its toll on her, but she rushes over to him, ready to help. She grips the pole with her hands and lifts it up, putting it on her shoulder to support it.
The man slightly turns his head, probably with intent of thanking her. Their eyes meet and he drops the pole almost instantly.
“You!” he gasps, his eyes wide. “It’s you!”
Hange puts the pole down and frowns. She wants to ask the man so many questions. What does he mean? Does he know her? Did they meet before? When? Who is he? Who is she?
Before she can at least open her mouth, the man grips her shoulders and stares at her face, his eyes running up and down frantically, as a wide smile pulls on his lips.
“It really is you,” he concludes happily. “Captain— he was right! He didn’t imagine it all, oh god, it’s a miracle!”
“I’m sorry,” Hange says slowly. “But who are you?”
“Oh.” The man lets her go immediately. He takes a step back and fixes his shirt. His eyes fill with sadness.
“So he was right about this as well,” he whispers more to himself than to Hange. “Forgive me, please,” he adds, and he does look apologetic, but Hange suspects it’s for entirely different reason. “I mistook you for a good friend.”
“Onyankopon!” someone calls from inside the house. “What’s taking you so long?”
“Sorry,” he repeats, flashing her a painfully forced smile. “I need to go.”
He leaves before Hange can reply and ask him to stay and explain.
“Onyankopon.” Hange mutters, pronouncing each syllable.
The name doesn’t seem familiar. But it spreads a wave of warmth through her chest.
She keeps muttering that name under her breath on her way home. It results in absolutely nothing, but Hange is nothing if not persistent. When she comes back home, she finds a few hyacinths planted in a pot that stands at the table at her porch.
Hange’s heart swells at the sight of it. The flowers are purple, and it’s her favorite color. She wonders if the man knows that little bit of trivia about her and if the choice of color was purposeful. She writes a quick note, asking him exactly that.
At the bottom of a page, she asks if the man knows a guy, named Onyankopon.
As always happens with that kind of questions, she doesn’t receive an answer.
Too soon, life returns to the world. The trees become greener, the sun shines brighter, and the water in the ocean gets warm enough for Hange to dip her toes in it.
The birds return back to the coastline too, the seagulls filling Hange’s quiet life with cheerful squeaking. When she isn't busy with crops and flowers in her little garden, Hange walks out on a beach and spends her days, watching the little things fly around. The sight is strangely calming, soothing her weary soul.
It’s during one of those perfect, peaceful days that it happens. There is not a cloud in the sky and a soft breeze moves through the air, entangling in her hair and moving through a thin cotton shirt she’s wearing. She curls her lips in a smile, squinting against the bright sun.
In that moment, Hange feels blissfully content.
It happens faster that she can react. She looks up, shifting her eyes from the sea to the flock of seagulls, flying high enough that Hange needs to raise her head.
There are eight of them – two bigger ones are on the front, leading the others, while the rest is flying behind, keeping close to each other.
Hange’s smile widens at the sight of the small family.
And it slips from her face, as she sees that one of birds, the one of two at the front, starts falling. Hange watches it as though in slow motion, staring at the sudden descent with wide shocked eyes.
The seagull’s body hits the ground with a soft sound that isn’t loud enough to be heard over the ocean’s hissing or the beating of Hange’s heart.
The other birds halt their movement but don’t dive in the sand. They hover above the body on the ground, silently mourning one of their kind, before continuing their flight.
Looking at it hurts.
Hange stares at it for another long moment, and then scrambles onto her feet, gathering the little bird into her trembling hands. She can feel the faint heartbeat beneath her fingers and Hange rushes back to her cabin, desperate to help the injured creature.
She spends the whole day, nursing little one back to health. After all of her efforts, it lives and breathes, but it’s too weak to fly or even move yet. Hange prepares a makeshift nest for a bird and leaves it there, watching closely.
She falls asleep right at the table, where she left the seagull, using her own elbow as a pillow.
It’s there, where, later that night, Hange has a nightmare.
She had dreams before, always blurry, filled with silhouettes and shadows, always disappearing from her mind with first rays of sunshine.
This one is different. This one is terrifying as it is vivid. It still isn't concrete enough, but it evokes something inside her— something that hurts.
The dream – it was full of desperation. It was full of confusing feelings, of ‘there is no one, but me, who can do this’ and ‘I don’t want to go, not right now, not from him’. The thing that feels the most real, the thing that makes her heart ache is a feeling of a hand on her chest. It’s warm, so warm that it burns. It gets through a few layers of clothing, marking her skin, before finally reaching her heart.
And before she can enjoy it, before she can savor this sweet torture, the hand is gone. The hand is gone, and she’s still burning, but this— this fire that spreads through her veins is different. It kisses her skin, but not gently, not like a lover. It kisses her with dispassionate hatred, with apathy that is set to destroy her. It kisses her, sucking all the air out of her lungs.
And then— then Hange is falling.
She wakes up before her body hits the ground. A loud, annoying noise stirs her sleep. She lifts her head and the sound doesn’t stop.
Hange groggily looks around, confused and disoriented. It takes her another few seconds to locate the source of the commotion.
It’s the window at the far side of her cabin. Someone is knocking on it. A sound between a gasp and laughter bubbles out of Hange’s throat as she takes a good look at the intruder.
It’s a seagull.
She slowly rises to her feet and approaches the window, opening it. The bird instantly flies inside, and Hange isn’t at all surprised to see that it stops in front of the nest she made for her winged patient.
From across the room, Hange watches the birds interact. The newly arrived seagull approaches its friend cautiously, slowly. When it reaches to wounded seagull, it opens his beak and puts a small fish down, so the other bird could reach it.
Hange almost coos at the sight.
The caring seagull doesn’t stay for long. It waits until the wounded one finishes the fish, and then it flies away, leaving Hange’s cabin through the still opened window.
“I’ll call you Sawney,” she whispers, as the bird flies past her. “And you will be Bean,” she grins, approaching the wounded bird.
As she checks the state of the bird, the strange dream continues to linger at the back of Hange’s mind.
Is that what had happened to her? Did she almost burn alive? Whose hand was on her chest? Who was the person she didn’t want to leave? Where are they now?
Why just thinking about it hurts so much?
She’s desperate to get her answers, and she knows a person, who most certainly has them.
In a last, almost definitely futile attempt to find the truth, Hange sits down and writes a letter. She writes about her dream, about lost memories and torn connections. She writes, asking, begging the man to let her know who she was. Who she is.
The next day, she receives her answer. It’s a disappointingly short one.
Forgive me. It’s better this way.
After that, Hange tries to forget about her forgotten life. She lost her memories. She’s still alive and able to make new ones.
The life goes on, and so does Hange.
The summer rolls around and suddenly she's constantly busy, tending to her crops and garden.
She continues to look after the injured Bean. The progress is slow, but Hange's patient. The bird's family is patient too, and they frequently fly inside Hange's cabin to bring more food or simply to visit. Suddenly, it’s not just Sawney and Bean. It’s a whole flock of seagulls.
When the mess inside gets too much even for Hange, she moves the nest outside and the rest of the flock starts living there, caring about the injured bird in little ways they can.
The birds can be loud, but Hange doesn't mind. They provide a company in her quiet life, they help keeping the loneliness at bay.
Birdwatching becomes one of her favorite past times. There is a certain appeal in studying the winged creatures. Hange notes different kinds of movements and habits each bird exhibits. She watches them hunt and eat, watches them interact with each other. Sometimes she even brings out a journal, cataloging everything she finds peculiar about her small test subjects.
It’s comforting in some way. It almost fills the void inside her chest.
One day, she receives a bag of sweets. On top of it lays a note that says:
Are your hobbies so boring that watching the birds is somehow fun for you?
Hange giggles, as she reads it, and quickly writes a reply.
It's much more fun than you think!
Something changes after that small exchange.
The man starts leaving her messages more frequently, and Hange, now that she let go of her attempts to get her memories back, answers each and one of them.
Her mysterious friend is actually funny, Hange realizes after his secrecy stops annoying her. He’s sarcastic and crude, and has quite a foul mouth.
Hange enjoys that aspect of him more that she probably should.
She enjoys their little conversation too, even though they’re not particularly lengthy. The man doesn’t visit her every day, but when he does, he always leaves a small note, asking how is she doing and what does she need him to bring. Hange answers him with more varied questions. She asks about his favorite color, his favorite season and if he sleeps on his back or on his side. She etches every answer into her mind, collecting bits of trivia about him like it’s the most valuable treasure.
Despite never seeing his face, Hange likes him. A lot.
His notes always bring a smile to her lips. Hange starts to miss him when he doesn’t show up for a few days. And after a while she realizes – she starts caring about this man. Not as an acquaintance from her past life, not as a means to get her memories back. He becomes something more to her.
He becomes a friend.
It all happens in almost unbelievably mundane way.
A vicious storm catches Hange unaware. The weather was sunny and warm one moment, and in the next – the wind picks up, throwing sand in her eyes. The rain starts a mere seconds after, drenching her clothes in a record time. The seagulls she was watching don’t waste a single moment and soar into the air, hurriedly leaving to seek a shelter.
Hange needs to find a hiding place too. She gets to her feet and starts walking. Her steps aren't swift or hasty, she slowly strolls back to the cabin. Despite the harsh rain and wet clothes, she doesn’t shiver.
The rain turns into a downpour, but Hange enjoys it nevertheless. The droplets that persistently hit her face feel warm. They soothe the burns that still ache. They elevate the pain that hides deep in her bones.
The lightning strikes, the sudden booming sound ringing over the empty beach. It startles Hange, but she doesn’t cry out – she laughs, louder than rain and thunder. She spins around, yelling in pure joy.
In that moment, Hange is happy. In that moment, she is free.
It’s with laughter still bubbling out of her throat that she sees him. His hand shielding his head from a downpour, he descends from the porch. His eyes are cast down, watching his step.
Hange freezes in her spot, watching him.
He lifts his face, their eyes meet, and— and everything makes sense now. Everything comes back, the memories return as though she never lost them.
“Levi,” the name stumbles from her lips unprompted, unplanned. “Levi.” She repeats it again, because she likes the sound of it. Without realizing it, she missed saying his name, she missed him. So she calls his name again. And again.
Levi watches her, clenching and unclenching his fist. He takes a deep breath, shakes his head and then asks. “So your memories returned?”
“They did,” Hange nods.
“When?”
She shrugs. “Just now.”
“And you…” he clears his throat, shifting his weight from one foot to another. His eyes don’t leave her face. “You aren’t freaked out by this?”
She shrugs again. “I guess I’m still processing. Would you like to… help me with it?”
And before he can answer, Hange adds. “I know I’ve talked about living in the forest but… will the coastline be good enough for you?”
“You’re more than enough,” he says and takes a step closer. Hange takes a step too.
They meet in the middle.