Framed

I enjoyed the walk, as much as a man could along a silver-blue streamline. It gave me some time to myself, some time to flush out recent events. The muse brought light to a rez of reflection, a vivid mosaic of choices and consequences, of people and their parts in all of it. I had felt disconnected, but the more I had let go, the clearer my thoughts became. It wasn't that I forgot about Eren, or Elga, just simply rearranged my priorities around them. My wellness needed to be first in order for me to help them. It was difficult for me to admit it, but Hange was right.

I reached my estate, reclining my back against a stone column. Overlooking the backyard garden, I whistled toxic smoke through my teeth. My impatience had made me bias, so bias that I may have allowed something or someone to slip from underneath me. I needed to retrace my steps, beginning with where it all started.

I took another wind of my cigarette before stomping it out, casually gazing into the horizon. Funny, wasn't it? How something so beautiful could harbor something so deadly. Titans, animals, humans—we were not so different from each other. It was like the earth had imprinted within itself a means of self-destruction, or perhaps a schedule to reset itself and start all over. It carried the true meaning of existence; we are just a bunch of barbaric creatures absorbing its strength with more and more carnage. Sweet, poetic, pointless carnage.

Some musing and meditation had done me good, I thought, finally walking back into my home. I had left Hange in the kitchen, but nothing but cold breakfast looked back at me flagrantly. I called her name, and the house answered back with emptiness. Instantly I began to panic, this mystery killer over my shoulder seeking to slaughter everyone I ever cared for. My anxiety ran up and down the house in search, my calls growing louder every passing second. Until I bulldozed her bedroom door open, my heart nearly popping out of my chest.

I took in a breath, panted hard and shallow from my paranoia. She stood fine over her bed, stuffing a suitcase filled with her clothes.

"Didn't you hear me calling you?" I approached her, she continued to give me her back. "Hange?" She made a sharp turn into me, walking right into my shoulder, nearly knocking me out of my feet. Her heated stride towards her closet made it apparent she was angrily ignoring me, for what, I was still unclear. "Is everything all right?"

She ran her hands through hangers and hangers of clothes in a rush, and I stood there behind her, awaiting answers. If she was upset with me, I ought to know why. Especially if it was enough to make her pack up her things and leave me. But the silence lingered there, like a bad itch it lingered and lingered until I couldn't take it anymore. I snatched her shoulder from behind, veering her to me, but she'd immediately thrust herself out of my reach.

"This is your only chance to tell me what the fuck is going on, Hange. If you want to leave without at least working it out then—"

"What's there to work out, huh, Levi?! Tell me, what?!" She snatched an envelope from beneath the front flap of her suitcase and tossed it by my feet. "After I asked you if there was someone else? I gave you a chance to tell me the truth! But no, you'd rather shove some more of that deception in my face!"

I opened it, the photos mirrored in my eyes too profound, too execrable for words that my shaking hands dropped them.

"Well you know what, Levi? I'm done eating your shit! You're finally getting it your way. You can keep the house, keep your bitch, and keep all that mind-fucking to yourself because I'm officially done with it!"

"Hange, I didn't sleep with her." My voice trembled, the zipping of her luggage amplified in my head.

"Oh? So now this photographic proof is something intangible, huh? I'm just imagining it? Or, no, wait, let me guess, she placed a gun to your head, and forced you to fuck her? No, wait! Wait! Even better, she drugged you! Oh well, Levi, why didn't you just say so?!"

"Hange… "

"You know, all that obsession is now making a lot of sense. A cute little diversion, really. I should applaud you for your creativity. Letting you lead me into thinking you were losing your shit, feeling sorry for you, the countless times I was worried if you'd come h—"

"—Hange, stop."

"NO! You stop bullshitting me and grow some balls, and tell me that you did it, right in front my god damn face, Levi!"

Her eruption shook me down to my core. I, again, had the feeling of being left with my pants down, this time, quite literally. But I couldn't remember a raunchy evening with the one thing I hated more than towering monsters. I didn't remember any of it. But nothing I could say would help Hange trust me. This was hard evidence, and sure enough, my wife was a woman of fact over fiction. I couldn't even try…

"What? Nothing?"

I gave her not one word as she closed the distance between us, wheels of her luggage tailing her behind.

"After everything I had to go through with you? After everything I've done? This is how it's going to end?"

"Nothing I could say will make you stay, right? I won't stand in your way, but know this, Hange," I folded her hand into mine and whispered, "I'm just a pawn in whatever game she's playing; all the pieces are there. I just have to connect them. Whatever it is that happened in those photos, know I didn't willingly partake in it."

"…Ok Levi." She snatched her hand away, and gave me one last death glare before she parted.