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Hanji’s favourite part of the day has always been the hour before dawn, when the sky is still a muddy blue from all the light pollution and the dew still clings to the fickle few strands of grass escaping the pavement of the city. There’s no cars, no noise, no people out except for a few shift workers stumbling to the closest seven eleven for a fix of caffeine.
Then, slowly, the dark blue gives way for reds and yellows, brilliant and clear, and it looks different every time. It always takes her breath away, just slightly.
She’s always been a morning person, more energy then the sun itself, her mother used to say, and she smiles fondly at the memory as she tightens the knots on her worn down running shoes. They’re a bright neon green with purple lacings and whenever Nanaba sees her wear them, she makes a face like she’s just swallowed a lemon whole.
She makes that face a lot, actually.
Putting in her headphones in and shoving her out-dated and scratched up iPod into the left pocket of her sweatpants, she takes the old marble stairs down two at the time, pushing the door open and breathing in the fresh air.
As fresh as it gets in the city, anyway, she thinks as she lets the rhythmical thumping of her running feet beat along to the music pumping into her ears.
The usual meeting spot is only ten or so blocks away, but she likes to use the travel time effectively for warm-ups. High knees, back kicks, the whole ordeal.
Mike and Nanaba are already waiting for her at the bridge and Hanji raises her had in a wave when she spots them. The bridge is old, too small for traffic, and it’s served as their meeting spot for as long as any of them can remember. It’s made out of some light limestone, the railing low enough to seem like an appropriate climbing spots for small children. Not that Hanji would know.
Nanaba is stretching her calves, Mike his triceps and Hanji jogs quickly on the spot, shaking her arms to make her circulation go up a notch or two.
“What’s the plan?” she asks in a way of greeting as Mike rolls his neck back and forth.
“Basic rooftop climb? We could head south,” Nanaba suggests. “There’s a lot more pipes and ladders on the older houses down there.”
Hanji shrugs. “Sounds good to me,” she says. “Mike?”
The tall man shrugs as well, which she takes as a yes.
They’re off in an instant, three pairs of shoes on the ground and in less then twenty minutes, they’ve crossed the still-empty squares and deserted bridges taking them south. The district is older, but large, like a city within a city, the brick buildings old and crumbling. Some call it run-down and dirty, Hanji feels its charm in her very core. It’s a place filled with bookstores where the owners play jazz on a gramophone in the background and the numerous cafes are small and crowded, smelling of coffee and chocolate.
They veer off the main street, running up and down the cobblestoned hills until they find a back alley that seems abandoned enough.
Nanaba climbs the wall first, quick hands and feet gripping and pushing against the decorative yellow façade of the building. She uses the drainpipes at the top to pull herself up and onto the roof. Mike is next, using his height to easily reach and push his way up. Hanji goes last, making quick work of the obstacle in front of her.
“Nice view,” Mike comments when Hanji has pulled herself up over the edge of the roof, and when she stands she lets a small whistle escape her lips.
“Damn,” she says. The city stretches out below the three of them, still sleepy and just slightly foggy. There are rows of buildings as far as she can see, divided only by large bodies of water and again reconnected by the bridges crossing them. The skyscrapers are sparse and few in-between, and the view is almost completely clear for miles.
Nanaba snorts. “We don’t have all day, so if you’re quite done…” she trails off and gestures towards the rooftops in front of them.
“Yes ma’am!” Hanji barks and then she’s off, running along the edge of the roof, jumping and vaulting when necessary to get her body forward. She hears the others behind her, their shoes against the tiles and their quick breathing, and she lets herself revel in the moment, in the freedom their hobbies provide them.
It’s Hanji’s favourite part of the day.
-
She’s in the line of her favourite coffee place five days later when she notices the scars on the hands of the stranger standing in front of her. Notices, because she can see straight over his shoulder. His palms look like they’ve been dragged repeatedly across gravel and solid pavement, scabs not yet formed to cover it up.
“Wow, what happened to your hands?” Hanji blurts before she can stop herself.
The guy in front of her turns his head slowly towards her.
“What?”
“Your hands,” Hanji repeats. “They look terrible.”
The guy shrugs. “Fell,” he says.
Hanji doesn’t have time to say anything else before the barista hands the guy his drink and he snatches it up, too quick for her to catch the name written on it. Then he’s heading towards the door, pulling his hood up as he goes.
“You really should bandage that!” she yells after him and she’s pretty sure that he’s heard from the way that he glances back, just briefly, as the door swings shut with the chime of a bell.
-
She goes back the next day - her most recent paycheck giving her a bit of blessed economic leeway - and finds the same guy sitting on the steps outside the shop.
“It’s you again!” she says to prematurely fill the awkward silence she’s sure is about to settle around them.
"No shit,” they guy says, rubbing his hands together. Hanji glances down on them and sees that they’re still red and raw, wounds still open. At least they look clean.
“I thought I told you to bandage those,” Hanji says in her most reprimanding tone. They guy doesn’t seem to be bothered by her harsh tone, or the scars.
“You’re supposed to let wounds breathe,” he says, scuffing his shoes on the pavement, eyes flicking down. “Speeds up the healing process.”
“You’ll get dirt in them if you just walk around like that,” she retorts, quickly, and the guy frowns.
“No I won’t. I’ll keep them clean.”
“What, do you always carry around a bottle of antiseptic?” Hanji leans one shoulder against the doorframe for support, suddenly very amused by the conversation.
“Not always-“ they guy’s face cuts himself short and his face scrunches up even more. “Why are you so concerned about some stupid scratches anyway?”
Hanji smirks. “I like the composition and decomposition of the human body. If it gets infected and starts to rot, you should come find me. Not only so that I can say ‘I told you so’, mind you, I’d also like to take some samples.”
The guy rolls his eyes, but rubs his hands together with more ardour, as to ward off disease.
“Don’t worry,” Hanji continues, smiling, “I’m just teasing. You want coffee? It’s on me.”
“No,” the guy stands so quickly that she’s almost startled. “I should go.”
Hanji raises a brow. “So you sat around here to wait for me and now you’re just leaving?”
“Who said anything about waiting for you?” He snaps back, and suddenly he’s gone, vanished behind a graffiti-covered corner.
“Well then,” she says to thin air, and pulls the door to the shop open with a jingle.
-
Nanaba had to take an early shift at the hospital, so it’s just Hanji and Mike on their own for the morning run, three Saturdays later.
Hanji doesn’t mind. She and Mike have known each other for longer than either of them can remember, introduced by mutual friend Erwin Smith, who has shown no interest in “jumping off of roofs”, as he called it, despite repeated whining, begging and, on occasion, bribing. He exchanged football for boxing in high school and never looked back. Despite this act of high treason, Hanji will always carry her fondness for him and her gratitude for the fact that he let her into his circle of misfits so many years ago.
Where Hanji is excitable and loud, Mike is quiet and contemplative. He also happens to be the best listener she knows.
“-and so he just leaves, you know, just like that!” She’s still stuck on the fire escape ladder so Mike reaches down to pull her up onto the roof. “Who does that?”
There’s no answer. It was mostly a rhetorical question, anyway.
“It sounds like something you would do,” her friend says then, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes.
“Hey,” she retorts, and shoves at Mike’s shoulder. He doesn’t budge.
Nanaba calls her the same evening, tired and droopy from a long shift, so Hanji offers to buy her a drink.
The place is four subway stations away and located in a basement with a dirty staircase and a less than tasteful shade of red painted on the walls, but the music they’re playing is always good and the drinks are cheap. They both like to sit in a booth in the far corner and play a game called “find the fake ID”, which is practically impossible to lose.
When they run out of teenagers to poke fun at and Hanji’s halfway through her fourth glass, she tells Nanaba the same story she told Mike.
“You’ll find him,” her blonde friend says, slightly slurred.
“How do you know? There’s a lot of people here,” Hanji retorts and wiggles her brows in what she’s sure is a gesture of superiority.
“Gut feeling,” Nanaba says, patting her stomach twice. “I’m never wrong.”
-
Turns out, she isn’t.
Hanji drags herself to the coffee shop the next morning, head pounding just enough to be annoying, and finds the guy at one of the barstools by the counter. She sits down heavily next to him.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she says, and the guy drops the phone he was holding to the table with a clatter.
“What did I do wrong?” he asks, face smoothed into apathy.
“What?” Hanji asks, biting back a yawn. “Wrong?”
“Usually when people say that line, both of those people are in trouble,” the guy explains, quirking a brow. “I’m just having a Mocha.”
“Oh,” Hanji answers, waving her hand sloppily in the air, “I didn’t think to hard on it. It was between that, something like ‘fancy seeing you here’ and ‘are you stalking me?’. Neither seemed appropriate so...”
“I’m not even going to bother answering the stalking thing,” the guy says, picking his phone up form the table and slipping it into his pocket.
“So that’s a definitive yes then?” Hanji smirks. The guy just rolls his eyes.
There’s a beat of silence before the barista comes over, asking for Hanji’s order. She waits for her coffee while staring off into space and ignoring her aching head. The guy pulls his phone back out of his pocket and continues what he was doing, which turns out to be-
Playing a game about flying penguins.
“Penguins can’t fly,” Hanji says, drumming her fingers against the counter. “That game is wrong.”
“Actually, you’re wrong,” the guy says. “They’re just sliding on the hills and then flying because of the momentum.” He falters, breaks the eye contact, clears his throat. “My friend got me into it.”
“Oh really? What’s the name of this friend?"
“Petra.”
“Hmm. Okay, then. To uncommon for you to have made up on the spot. I believe you.”
“I don’t care. And you shouldn’t look at other people’s phones.”
“Why, because it’s rude?”
The guy just shrugs, frown back on his face. The barista brings Hanji’s coffee in a to go mug.
“Well,” Hanji says, stretching as she slides off the barstool. “See you around….?”
A beat of silence. Then, “Levi.”
“Alright then!” she smiles, stretching her hand out. “See you around, Levi.”
Levi offers up his hands and they shake, just once. Before he can pull away, Hanji grabs Levis wrist and turns his hand around to look at his palm.
“It’s healed nicely,” she says with a nod. “You did well, taking care of it."
“I’m not a toddler,” Levi retorts. “Besides, you didn’t even give me your name.”
“Oh! Sorry about that. I’m Hanji.” She holds her hand out again.
“What are you doing?”
“Introductions, what else?”
“We already shook hands.”
“You’re right,” Hanji laughs, picking up her coffee. Levi just continues to stare. “Okay, well, bye! I’ll probably see you around here, right?”
Levi shrugs. “Probably.”
“Great.”
The door slams behind her, and Hanji just feels confused.
She blames it on the hangover.
-
The fourth time they meet, they exchange numbers.
It’s completely non-dramatic, just a swift exchange of digits and then a fairly one-sided conversation written in text messages. Most of the time, Levi doesn’t even respond, or when he does, it’s in a single word or a short phrase. No punctuation though, which makes the few messages he does send look less harsh.
Hanji takes to telling him about her day. Mike doesn’t have a phone, Nanaba is almost always in the no-service zone of the hospital and Erwin is too busy at his office, which leaves her no other options.
She tells him about her morning walks, the cat she saw from her window, the professors she’s disagreeing with and the new books the picked up form the antiquarian around the corner.
You live down west, right, she writes, meet me at the supermarket, you know the one underground, inside the subway station with all the flower shops, because she is terrible with names.
And he writes, I’m actually up north, which makes her squint and type, but you’re always hanging around my neighbourhood.
It takes five minutes and then, yes but everything is really expensive here. Another two and, I’ll see you in 15 mins
They buy a tub of ice cream and a pack of fifty plastic spoons. Hanji wants to sit on the floor but Levi throws one glance at the piles of dust gathering in the corners and pulls her in the direction of a bench. Every now and then a train passes beneath them and the floor shakes, just a little, like an earthquake in miniature. They eat the chocolate caramel swirl from separate corners and every time one of the crappy plastic spoons loses the battle against the frozen produce and snaps, they throw it in the trash and pick another one from the jumbo bag.
It’s nice.
-
“Wait, hold up, Levi Ackerman?” Nanaba says, waving the mostly-eaten apple around in her hand. “I know that guy.”
“What?” Hanji asks, looking up from her phone. Her friend had elbowed her in the ribs and asked something along the lines of ‘who’s the lucky one’ in her most teasing tone, to which Hanji had replied ‘just a friend, kind of’.
“Well, I don’t know him per se, but I know of him.”
“That makes it sound like he has some horrible reputation,” Hanji replies, shoving her phone back into her pocket.
“Nah, he doesn’t. Not that I know of anyway. But he used to do parkour with some people I knew from high school.”
“He did what?”
Nanaba just shrugs and takes another bite of her apple.
It doesn’t make sense to Hanji, the fact that she’s nagged his ears off for weeks about one of her biggest passions, and he never said word about being interested in the same thing.
Why didn’t you tell me you were into parkour, she writes, finger shaking, and the reply, for once, is quick.
You didn’t ask
She wants to break her phone in half. Then it vibrates again. How did you know?
Hanji is unproportionally riled up about this, she knows this very well, but somehow it feels like cheating, or lying, which are two things she doesn’t appreciate.
Her phone vibrates a third time.
I just don’t do it a lot anymore since most of my friends quit
Hanji sighs.
I haven’t quit yet, if you’re up for a run, she writes.
Ok
-
They meet at the old limestone bridge and Hanji waits while spending her time watching the seagulls float around in the water, bobbing to the rhythm of the waves.
She sees Levi’s eyes drawn to her neon shoes as soon as he’s within shouting distance.
“Explain,” he says in lieu of a greeting, pointing to her feet as soon as he’s close enough to speak.
Hanji gives him a grin and a shrug. “Why not?” she says, and Levi shakes his head, crouching down to redo the knot on his own plain grey sneaker.
“I thought we could go down to the water,” Hanji says, staring down into his mop of shiny black hair. “It’s a great view and there are loads of good spots for climbing.”
Levi stands back up and nods, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. “Sure. We could do a warm-up on the running tracks there too,” he says, and in mutual agreement, they’re off.
Even though he told her he’s not as active anymore, Levi is a good runner and quickly proves himself in the free running department as well. They find a sting of flat roofs with an arms length of distance between them, and Levi crosses them as quickly and effectively as humanly possible. His flips are small and not at all flashy, used solely for the purpose of getting his body forward. There’s a lot of power in his compact body, Hanji realises, and he knows exactly how and when to use it.
She’s almost impressed.
Hanji’s own style is more extravagant but still purposeful. She backflips from one ledge to the other just because it’s fun, drops into a roll not to break her falls, but to see if she can. She loves the adrenaline and the way her stomach drops when she looks down to see that it is, in fact, still six floors down to ground level.
Three hours pass in the beat of a heart and they take the fire escape ladders down, walk into the closest gas station with sweaty backs and pumping hearts, buy a banana coconut smoothie each.
“Let’s do this again sometime,” Levi says, and Hanji snorts into her straw.
-
It becomes routine. Mike and Nanaba on Saturdays, Levi whenever he’s off work but mainly on Wednesdays. Sometimes they go out to eat, never at a sit-down restaurant but at whatever fast-food place is closest.
Are you up for a run today, Levi writes on a Tuesday afternoon and Hanji replies immediately.
Do you want to try something different?
What is it
There’s something I’ve always wanted to do, Hanji writes.
-
Most of the cranes are up in the southern outskirts, where the closest suburbs are slowly being absorbed into the pulsing core of the city. It’s at least an hour and a half from their usual meeting place, so instead they get on the rickety subway, thighs pressed together as they sit next to each other on the uncomfortable and itchy seats.
The construction site isn’t closed off at all, pillars and wood arranged into neat piles around the base of the yellow crane. They’ve been building around this area for a long time, Hanji knows, new apartments for the ever-increasing flow of people moving into the city.
Hanji glances at Levi. Levi glances back.
“You sure about this?” he asks and Hanji nods.
“I’m not backing out,” she says, jaw set.
“Then neither am I,” Levi responds, rubbing his palms together.
The first twenty metres or so are easy, a simple fire escape ladder bringing the two of them up to the first platform. Then the tricky part begins.
“Do you want to climb on the outside or inside of this thing?” Levi asks and Hanji quickly looks around to inspect their options.
“I think there are more things to grab on to on the outside. Supporting bars and what not,” she says and Levi nods.
“Outside it is then.”
He goes first, pulling himself up another six metres or so before Hanji steps out of the safety of the landing and out in the open hair. Her heart is already beating, hard and fast. She feels it in her sweaty palms, hears it inside her eardrums.
“Not backing out,” she whispers to herself and takes a deep breath as she begins to climb.
At fifty metres above ground level there’s another platform and a small cockpit for the construction workers to sit in. Hanji heaves herself up onto it, willing herself not to look down quite yet.
Levi is already there, wiping the dirt off his hands and onto his jeans.
“Well, at least we can’t go further up,” he says, and Hanji glances upwards to find he’s right. Only the sky stretches on above them and she breathes a quiet sigh of relief.
“My hands are hurting,” she says and immediately regrets it. Complaining is not her thing.
“Well, it’s only horizontal from now,” Levi says, gesturing towards the jib in front of them. “Just like walking on a rooftop.”
“Like a rooftop,” Hanji says, ignoring the way Levi’s voice shakes just the slightest bit. “I’ll go first.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She hoists herself up and wills her heart to slow down as she takes the first step out on the thin metal bar, hands grabbing the top bar as if it’s a railing. The whole jib shakes slightly in the wind and she feels for the first time how cold it really is, only fifty metres up into the air.
Fifty metres up. If she lost her balance for even a second, she’d be taking a swan dive towards a certain death in a splatter of blood on the concrete. She swallows heavily and forces herself forward, step by step.
She can feel the vibrations in the metal from Levi’s sneakers on the bar; close enough behind her back that if she reached out, she’d be able to touch him.
“You okay?” she calls, not looking away from the bar where she’s putting her feet.
“I’m fine,” he calls back and she soaks up his calm, tries to absorb it into her hammering heart.
They’re only meters from the very edge when Hanji stops, Levi doing the same right behind her. The wind makes the metal construction sway and creak uncomfortable, like an abandoned ghost house. Levi sinks down to sit on the bottom rail, feet dangling in the open air underneath them. Hanji takes a breath and does the same.
The silence that stretches out is comfortable, so Hanji decides that it’s better off undisturbed. Instead, she allows herself to breathe, to look down, and lets the swell of pride fill her chest.
“We did it,” Levi says quietly, and Hanji snorts.
“This is so stupid,” she says and Levi huffs a small laugh.
“It really is.”
“What on earth were we thinking?” Hanji exclaims, laughter in her voice.
Levi shrugs. “Staring death in its face, isn’t that kind of what we do?”
“Staring hospital bills in the face, maybe,” Hanji retorts. “This is a whole new level.”
“You think so?” Levi says, almost contemplative. Then, without warning, he leans forward, quicker than Hanji’s brain can recognize what’s happening. He grabs the railing just in front if Hanji’s knees and scoots of the one they’re sitting on until his whole body is dangling freely, held up only by his two hands.
Hanji lets out a screech she’s not proud of, and quickly covers her mouth with one hand.
“Are you insane? Get back up here right now!”
Levi tilts his head back as far as his neck allows to look her in the eye. “Why? It’s exactly the same as hanging two or three metres up.”
“It’s not!” Hanji insists, “If you fall now, you die.”
“If you fall now, you die,” Levi echoes, a faint smirk on his lips. “You’re usually the one taking risks in this relationship, and this was your idea from the beginning.”
Hanji forces herself to not get stuck on the word relationship. She decides to keep quiet.
Levi loosens the grip on one of his hands slightly, the removes it from the railing and lets it hang loosely by his side.
A minute or so passes in silence, then Levi pulls himself up and sits back down at Hanji’s right side.
“Do you want to try it?” he asks, voice completely collected. There’s no judgement in it, no expectations, and Hanji is grateful.
There’s a heavy pause, Hanji’s eyes scanning the horizon, contemplating, then,
“Yes,” she says. And so she leaps, falls freely for a fraction of a second, then she’s hanging, swinging, swaying as the wind and momentum rocks her body back and forth. She hears Levi’s sharp intake of breath behind and above her, and she smiles.
Underneath her, the sleepy city stretches on. Above her fingertips, only grey skies. Her victory shout echoes between the two, fills her up completely, and she’s not trembling anymore.
Levi grabs her arm to help her back up, and then she’s back on the relative safety of the jib.
“Well,” he says, and she can’t help but breaking into a snorting, chest-heaving laugh at the look of incredulousness on his face.
-
Maybe it’s hubris.
Maybe it’s long leftover adrenaline from the most reckless endeavour of her short life.
Maybe it’s just plain stupidity.
She slips on a wet roof title and tumbles off of the rooftop, hits a lower, protruding steel shelter, a canvas marquise and then the pavement.
The doctors tell her later that without the shelter and the marquise, she would have broken her neck, instead of just her arm in two places and her lower leg. Scrapes and bruises over most of her body, but nothing internally broken, by some miracle.
You were lucky, they say, shake their heads in a ‘kids these days’-fashion.
Her parents call five times in her first day of admission to the hospital. Nanaba and Mike visit twice, sneaking junk food into her room through the pockets of Mike’s giant hoodie and Nanaba’s classy leather backpack. Erwin sends her texts through the day, accompanied by pictures of cats stuck in boxes, which he somehow knows will cheer her up.
She spends the rest of the day watching reality shows on the old TV mounted to the wall opposite of her bed. Then, at 8 pm, long after visitor’s hours are over, a head with windblown back hair pokes through the half-opened door.
“I fell,” Hanji says before Levi has the chance to open his mouth.
“You certainly don’t do anything half-assed,” he says after a second of contemplation and Hanji snorts, bending over forward when her stomach aches. “I brought you this,” he continues, holding up a take-out Styrofoam mug with a familiar logo, the café up west they’ve both frequented for months. Their first meeting place too, when Hanji thinks back on it.
“You know me too well,” Hanji grins and accepts the mug with both hands, holding it gingerly over her lap.
There’s someone clearing their throat by the door, and when they both glance over there’s a nurse with a stern look on his face, pointing down the hall and towards the exit.
“Visiting hours are over,” he says and Hanji opens her mouth to protest but Levi gets there first.
“Okay,” he says, “I can see myself out.”
The nurse nods once, then leaves them alone, shoes squeaking against the plastic carpet as he leaves.
“You should have gotten here earlier, mister” Hanji teases, shoving at Levi’s shoulder with her non-broken hand.
“You should have called me and told me you were here,” Levi shoots back and Hanji smiles.
“Fair enough.” There’s a beat, and then she opens her mouth again, tentatively. “Come here,” she says, and Levi draws his brows together.
“Why?”
“Just… come here.” So he leans forward, over the cold metallic edge of the bed as the same time and Hanji stretches her whole body upwards. She ignored the flashing pain of, well, everything, and presses a kiss to his cheek, as chaste as kisses can possibly go.
“Thanks for coming,” she says, then nods towards the door. “Now get the hell out.”
“Uh,” Levi says.
“Before the nurse gets you and sticks a needle in you or something.”
“I don’t like needles,” Levi manages out.
“I figured.”
And with that, he gets up, throwing a last glace over his shoulder before the door swings shut.
Hanji takes a sip of her coffee and smiles.