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nuri148 · 1 year ago

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My trip to Japan! ⛩️ Part 5 (last)

21.12

The winter solstice made an entrance with a very cold day. Getting out of Osaka station was fortunately much easier than it seemed on Google Maps, and we found our hotel easily. We left our luggage and went straight to the castle. The current one is the third iteration, rebuilt in 1970 after being destroyed twice in the 17th century, when it was first built. Therefore, at 53 years old, this version is actually the longest-standing one. Inside, it's a museum, not a castle, but it was interesting, unexpensive, and the views from the top are fantastic. What impressed me the most, however, was the double moat, huge and full of water. There were even boat rides around it (we didn't ride, but they were there).

We then went to the Namba district, where I had marked a restaurant that had an Attack on Titan collaboration, but it was over. We had lunch in a US-style burger restaurant. In fact, next to Namba there’s this area called Amerika-mura, with many shops of American items or aesthetics. Lots of hip-hop style clothing. It's worth mentioning that the commercial density of Osaka is similar to Tokyo; every building is a shopping center, and there are several covered pedestrian streets as well. Walking around, we reached Dotonbori, Osaka's entertainment district around the canal of the same name, and went on to a street with several manga and anime shops. I had already browsed some in the previous cities and everywhere, here too, there was little to nothing on AoT. Only a handful of 2nd hand, 2nd rate keychains/badges featuring none of my blorbos (sorry Jean, I love you, but not as much as to buy merch with your horseface on it). Still, I managed to find a tiny string bag from the Sanrio collabo and a couple gachas.

For those who don’t know, gachapon are coin-operated machines that dispense a plastic capsule with a surprise inside. Like a Kinder egg, minus the egg. Each gachapon has a picture showing the trinkets you can get in that machine: small character figurines from a given franchise, or a collection of figurines following a certain theme, or a certain character in various positions; keychains, stickers, totebags... anything and everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Japanese Rule 34: If it exists, there's a gachapon of it. The variety of themes and objects you can get from a gachapon is as overwhelming as the commercial streets of the country. Every tourist attraction has some related gachapon. In castles, there are gachas of samurai figures, tiny swords, or pins with emblems of Japan's feudal houses; near zoos, there are ones with animals. In commercial areas, there are entire gacha shops, some with several floors. Some of these shops include a container for recycling the empty plastic capsules, and all of them have a change machine, since gachapon only accept ¥100 coins. The price for gachas usually range from ¥200 to ¥500, with a majority at ¥300-¥400, although there are some "premium" ones up to ¥1000. All good, but I'm not willing to pay so much for a surprise.

youtube

⬆️ English subs available!

In this regard, gachas are not alone: buying surprises seems to be something very deeply ingrained and popular in Japan. Many brands sell surprise products. You buy a little box, an acrylic figure, a little doll, but you don't know which model out of the available ones you'll get. In several shops there are products that aren’t for sale; they're tombola prizes. You buy a number at the counter, you get one of those items. While, as Husband observed, we’re not privvy to the exchange rings generated by this business model, not so conceptually different from the stickers we collected as kids or Kinder Eggs themselves, the profusion of surprises really took me by surprise (no pun intended), both for its ubiquity and for the prices, which can exceed ¥1000, and you don't even get a chocolate egg to console yourself if, as it happened to me twice, you get stupid Eren.

For dinner, we did manage to go to an okonomiyaki place that had an AoT collaboration. Usually, collabo places aren’t particularly good places, food-wise. They offer a menu of dishes "inspired" by whatever franchise they’re featuring, and if you spend more than a certain amount, they give you a souvenir like a card or sticker, a surprise, of course. You also have the chance to buy exclusive merchandise made specially for that collaboration. Again, many of these items are surprises. In short, the food was decent, I got my photo with Levi’s cut-out, and got a little card of him, too.

22.12

After breakfast, we took the Shinkansen to Himeji. The city's 17th-century castle, which has remained intact until today, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Himeji Castle was defensive; it's not a palace, although it may look like one from the outside. Still, it's fabulous to see what a castle was like during that time in Japan (the defensive systems are very similar to European ones. As someone who hates the cold, I was pleasantly surprised by the arrow slits with replaceable covers). It's also mindblowing that this megastructure, mainly made of wood and adobe, is still standing after three centuries.

A few years ago, for maintenance, they dismantled it... and reassembled it entirely… with the same 300 y.o. pieces. The two main columns are two logs almost a meter in diameter and 25 metres long, going from the basement to the 5th floor. The views from the top are beautiful. The visit included a stroll through the neighbouring Japanese gardens. Here, there's a very cute restaurant with views over one of the many ponds in the gardens, which, oh joy, had very reasonable prices, so being already noon, we had lunch there. We returned to Osaka, and after coffee we decided to go our separate ways so each could shop to their heart’s content until dinner. I checked a few merch shops for AoT stuff, no luck.

⬆️ This comic book shop had a lot of dedicated doodles. I looked all over twice and Yams wasn't there, but I did find some other familiar faces.

We’d planned to meet in Shinsekai, but Husband got there first and said it was pretty dead, so we met in Namba and went to Dotonbori for dinner. We had takoyaki and kushikatsu, a local specialty consisting of breaded and fried skewers. I also ordered a beef cartilage stew, it was delicious and, funnily, it sort of tasted like fricandó, one of my favourite typical Catalan dishes back home.

23.12

We woke up early to catch the Shinkansen back to Tokyo. We left our luggage at the hotel (the same one as on arrival), and here I had a great disappointment because we planned to have a mid-morning snack at a nearby place, Hekkelun, which has been selling flan since the sixties. I don't know if I saw the schedule wrong on Google or if they changed it in the ten days we were touring the rest of Japan, but it was closed on the weekend. It made me very angry because I was really looking forward to it and, had I known, we would obviously have gone in the first Tokyo cour. I needed to cheer myself up, so after a tea in front of Shinbashi station, we passed by the NTV building, where there’s a beautiful clock designed by Hayao Miyazaki.

We arrived just in time to see the movement at 12, which was, of course, super cute. We then went to the Hama-Rikyu park. It used to be the shogun's gardens and includes things like ancient tea rooms; a seawater pond, as it’s next to the bay; and duck-hunting ponds, an activity which seems to have been very popular back in the day. Using real trained ducks as bait, they led the birds to narrow corners of the pond with camouflaged huts on both sides from where they hunted them. We returned to Shinbashi for lunch and stumbled upon an inconspicuous sushi place in the basement of the station, where we ate amazing susi for almost half of what takeaway costs here. We decided to go our separate ways like in Osaka, to cover more ground. I checkedd a couple of cute stationery shops I’d bookmarked and went all the way to Shibuya to check the Attack on Titan pop-up shop (it opened on the 22nd, so it wasn't there in the first part).

⬆️(Sorry for the awful audio, I was trying to be discrete)

Finally! I got decent merchandise (plus surprise cards for spending a lot my purchase).

There was supposed to be a collabo café nearby, but I had enough “surprises” and Shibuya was horribly crowded. I would’ve expected that a weekday at 6pm, not a Saturday at 4. I met Husband in Akihabara, where we looked at some merch stores (found nothing), had something at a cat cafe (pretty shitty, but the cats were cute), and had dinner at a nearby place.

⬆️ All my Levi stuff was in that blue bag, kitty knew what he was doing!

24.12

We both woke up ridiculously early, so we had breakfast at McDonald's (the only thing open at 6 am where you could sit) and went to Meiji Jingu. It's a Shinto shrine in Harajuku where Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken, are enshrined as deities. Emperor Meiji opened Japan to the world in the mid-19th century, ending two and a half centuries of isolation during the Edo era. It’s beautiful, well-maintained and free. There is a small fee for the gardens, that we also visited. These were the emperor's gardens; there's a closed tea house from where the empress would gaze at the lake, with a small pier for fishing. There's also a lily field (barren since it was the middle of winter ofc) with a gazebo to contemplate the blossoming. This field was planted in what was once a rice paddy, where the children of noblefolk were made to work in ancient times to understand the labour than went into rice cultivation and appreciate the food they had.

From there, we went to the ukiyo-e museum a couple of blocks away. It was small but very interesting, with lots of insight into this technique, the one from Hokusai’s famous "The Great Wave off Kanagawa". We ate at a nearby place, Kyushu Jangara: the ramen was excellent, with its tonkotsu broth, soft-boiled egg, and the comforting feeling that a proper bowl of soup brings on a cold winter noon. We took a stroll through Harajuku; it was so full it was a challenge to walk through the pedestrian street. We then walked down the main avenue, full of fancy brands, to Omotesando Station, where we took the metro to Tokyo Station. Here is Character Street, a gallery of character shops. I’d heard it was expensive, it wasn’t so good, yada yada yada… well, here I did get more AoT stuff, including Sanrio items.

⬆️ There was probably more Aot stuff here than in all of the other shops I checked.

I stopped by the hotel to drop off the purchases, and we met at the KFC in Shinbashi to buy our "Japanese Christmas Eve dinner." The tradition, born from a 1970s advertisement, is to have KFC for dinner on this day. Despite what the decorations might suggest, Christmas is not celebrated here. They’re just into it for the aesthetics.

It was our last night in Japan, but not our last adventure! Around 11pm, right before getting into bed, we got an email saying our flight was canceled. Wham!

25.12

Needless to say, we slept like shit, and at six, we were already awake. Husband chatted with Lufthansa, and they rebooked us on a flight two hours earlier than the original one, so we got dressed and rushed to the airport. Every cloud has a silver lining, though, and I was thrilled when we got to ride on the LTS monorail! See you, Japan!

#nuri148 trips #Japan 2023 #Osaka #Tokyo #attack on titan #aot merch #finally #gachapon #hayao miyazaki #aot collab #sanrio #little twin stars #kiki and lala #Youtube

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happybird16 · 2 years ago

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👻Halloween Shopping 👻

A cute and silly Halloween themed drabble for @postwarlevi's Under A Harvest Moon Collab

Levi x reader, no warnings... maybe a part two eventually

“Smell this,” you playfully command, holding out a candle towards Levi.

Without even looking up, Levi follows your request, tilting his head to the side and distractedly sniffing from the candle you’ve presented to him. It makes you smile, a warm feeling fluttering in your chest at just how readily he trusts your judgment.

He grunts, his face twisting up in a mix of disgust and confusion. It reminds you of the face one of your cats makes whenever he sniffs one of Levi’s cleaning sprays. “What the fuck is that supposed to smell like?”

Twisting the glass jar around, you show him the label with a toothy grin. “Misty Graveyard, apparently.” You take another whiff of the orange wax, wrinkling your nose in contemplation. “I don’t know if I like it. What do you think?”

“I think it smells like rotting leaves,” Levi replies, his tone unamused as he glances at the colorful rows of candles surrounding you. “Why are there so many, anyway?”

“Because normal people love Halloween,” you reply with a smirk. You lean in slightly, holding the next candle up. It’s off-white, almost eggshell in color, with sparkly bits of glitter mixed in. Lifting it to your nose, the scent of sugary sweetness overwhelms your senses, carrying you to memories of childhood candy and festive treats.

“Normal, right.” Levi rolls his eyes, but there’s a hint of amusement in his tone. “Does that one have fucking glitter in it?”

“Yeah!” you exclaim, chuckling. “Here,” you offer this candle to him next, and he smells it without a bit of hesitation. His brows furrow as he inhales, and you can see him processing the aroma.

His face twists up in thought. “Smells burnt. Reminds me of when you tried to bake those brownies.”

You playfully nudge his arm with yours. “Hey! I just forgot about them!” Grinning, you defend your baking mishap. “They still tasted fine…”

Levi lets out a short laugh, shaking his head. “No. They did not. Everyone just gave them to Sasha when you weren’t looking.”

“Awe…” you respond, feigning disappointment. “Well, at least they went to a good cause.”

“What’s it supposed to smell like anyways?” Levi asks, his curiosity evident as he eyes the array of candles.

You turn the label towards him, the corner of your lips twitching into a playful smile. “Ghastly Ghoul? It says it’s supposed to smell like a marshmallow.”

Levi scrunches his nose in mock disgust. “Definitely not that one. You know my thoughts on glitter.”

You chuckle, remembering the time he had humorously referred to glitter as the physical manifestation of herpes. “Well, we have to pick one!”

“Do we?” he counters, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Come on! This is our first Halloween with our own house! We have to celebrate!” you insist, your enthusiasm infectious.

He bobs his head in response, his resistance softening. “Fine, but can we at least pick a more normal one?” From the shelf, he selects a cool grey candle, tilting it in your direction for inspection. “How about this one? It’s supposed to be Cashmere and cedar.”

“Cozy Autumn,” you read, leaning down for a sniff. A woodsy, rich scent floods your senses, carrying with it the essence of crackling fires and rustling leaves. You take a deliberate whiff of the candle, nodding in approval as the soothing aroma envelops your senses. “Oh, I like that. It’s cozy and not too overpowering. Though, It doesn’t exactly scream Halloween.”

“Well, we’re not getting any of the Candy or Pumpkin ones.” Levi grimaces, a hint of playful exasperation in his voice. “I’m already getting a headache just standing here.”

“Okay, Mr. Picky,” you reply teasingly, giving him a gentle nudge before taking the candle and placing it in your cart. As you do, a surge of excitement ripples through you, the anticipation of the upcoming Halloween gathering growing stronger. You can already picture the warm and inviting scent of the candle permeating your home, creating an ambiance that’s perfect for celebrating the season together.

Leading him into the next aisle, you eye the shelves filled with spooky skeletons and goofy animatronic spiders. “What about decorations? Do you want to do a theme?”

Sighing dramatically, Levi drags his feet as he follows behind you, his reluctance evident. “It’s just shit that’ll sit in a plastic bin in the attic for 11 months out of the year. What’s the point?”

You smile, wrapping your hand around his arm to tug him forward towards a wall of lawn decorations. “Oh, now I can't wait for December. We're definitely getting plastic reindeer for the yard. And lights. So many lights.”

With a huff, Levi raises an eyebrow, looking intrigued despite himself. “Why are you so excited, anyways?”

“This is our first year with a house! We're going to have trick-or-treaters! I've never gotten to hand out candy before!” Your enthusiasm is palpable as you share your excitement with him. “All the little kids in the neighborhood are going to come up to our door! I want it to be fun and exciting for them, ya know? It was always nice seeing houses that went all out when I was little. Ooh, we should carve pumpkins too!”

Levi lets out a soft chuckle, his resistance melting in the face of your enthusiasm. “Fine, but we aren't getting any of the fake spider web stuff. I've heard that it kills birds.”

You nod thoughtfully. “Hmm, that's a good point. How about we go for something a little different, like a little graveyard theme? With tombstones and skeletons? Maybe even a smoke machine for added effect?” With a twinkle in your eye, you grab a large stack of the fake tombstones along with a severed arm decoration.

Levi shakes his head in amusement, clearly caught up in your energy. “You're really going all in, huh?”

“Absolutely!” you declare with a grin, reveling in the prospect of creating a memorable Halloween experience for the neighborhood kids and embracing the joys of your first year in your own house. “Oooh we should get a big bag of candy too while we're here! The big-ass chocolate bars! I want to be that house.”

“The dentist down the road is going to hate us,” Levi snorts, eyes sparkling at your enthusiasm.

“Or love us,” you reply with a smirk. As you continue to explore the decorations aisle, your excitement is contagious, drawing Levi into the plans and turning what was once a simple shopping trip into an adventure filled with anticipation and shared enthusiasm.

More and more decorations join the pile in the cart, Levi even adding a few himself, to the point that it starts to get heavy, and Levi wordlessly takes over pushing it, his silent gesture of chivalry not escaping your notice. Hanging ghosts for the tree in the front yard, a giant fuzzy spider to hang in the front window, a big spooky electronic grim reaper. You have to fight smiling as Levi quietly adds a skeleton hand-sanitizer hip-clip and a spooky ghost cat mug to the pile.

“This all sounds like a lot of work..” Stopping mid-sentence, Levi scowls up at the rack of larger decorations. “Why the fuck is there a twelve-foot-tall skeleton?”

“Why not?” You add the towering skeleton to your cart, laughing lightly at the way its legs hang awkwardly over the edge. “I bet we could scare the shit out of Hange by stuffing it in a closet.”

“They’d just want to borrow it for something,” Levi grumbles, but there’s a hint of amusement in his tone. The comment makes you chuckle, knowing that his coworker often pulls little pranks on him.

“Oh, did you want to do costumes too? Maybe something to match the graveyard?” you ask, your eyes lighting up with anticipation.

“Costumes to hand out candy?” Levi raises an eyebrow, clearly considering the idea. “Fine. Just pick something. Nothing with fake blood though, I hate that shit.”

You let out an excited giggle, delighted by his willingness to participate. “You’re giving me way too much leeway there,” you tease, already envisioning the possibilities for your Halloween costumes. In the back of your head, you start to make plans to come back on your own and pick up a matching pair of costumes to surprise (and horrify) him with.

As the cart begins to overflow, Levi playfully elbows you to get your attention, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “You know we aren’t here for this, right?” he remarks, his tone light.

“We aren’t?” you turn to him in surprise, your eyebrows lifting in curiosity. “Then why did you lead me to the Halloween section?”

He jerks his head to the side, pointing his chin towards the end of the aisle. “To get a birthday gift for Erwin.”

“What? A skeleton dog?” Your laughter bubbles up, and you can’t resist grabbing a decorative item from the shelf and holding it towards Levi with an exaggerated grin. Its jaw clacks open and closed in response, a quirky feature that makes it both amusing and slightly eerie. “Isn’t it cute?”

Levi shakes his head, his lips quirking into a small smile. “A Halloween Hello-Kitty Squishmallow. They’re getting released today. I think this year’s is a vampire one.”

You burst into laughter at his unexpected choice. “Seriously? Alright, but you do realize those things sell like crazy, right? I think I heard about people fist-fighting over them because of their resale value.”

Levi raises an eyebrow, clearly unfazed. “I know. That’s why I’m here now, before the chaos starts. Erwin’s always wanted one, he’s gone on and on about it several times.”

“Fair enough.” You push the cart along with a playful grin. “Shopping first thing in the morning isn’t too unusual for you though… Decorations and a birthday gift – Two birds, one stone. I don’t see any Squishmallows though?”

“Connie said that they’re bringing the pallet out-” Levi pulls out his phone to check the time “- in about 10 minutes.”

“Connie works here now?” you ask in surprise.

“Part-time. Shit, other people must’ve heard about the release.” Just as he says that, you notice a growing crowd of anxious shoppers gathering around the main aisle.

As you both watch, the anticipation in the air is palpable. You exchange a glance with Levi, and without a word, you decide to position yourselves at the edge of the crowd, ready to grab the coveted Squishmallow as soon as it’s available. “Ready to fight if you are,” you smirk at him.

Levi chuckles, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Oh, I’m ready. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. It’d be a pain in the ass to get blood out of this shirt.”

The moment you hear the pallet pulling around the corner, the metal jack rattling loudly, the entire crowd tenses. It's as if you're in the midst of a group of wild animals, their excitement palpable as they rev up and prepare to pounce on their coveted prey. Adrenaline roars loudly in your ears as you feel yourself tense up, mirroring their fervor.

What follows is nothing short of utter chaos. People scream, scramble forward, and claw at each other before the pallet can even be properly positioned. It's like a scene straight out of a zombie movie, with a bunch of wild-eyed 30-something-year-old women mindlessly elbowing each other and spewing insults in their relentless pursuit. By the time you manage to reach the pallet, it's almost empty, with nothing but a handful of plush ghost-strawberries left at the bottom of the box.

Empty-handed, you scan the crowd, your eyes darting around in search of Levi amidst the turmoil. It's a challenge given his shorter stature compared to the rest of the crowd. It isn't until most of the people have dispersed - one woman triumphantly holding a whole armful of plushies - that you finally spot him. He stands empty-handed. “Fuck, you didn't have any luck either?”

He shakes his head, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “That was fucking insane. One of those hags even elbowed me in the chin.”

You notice a pink mark forming along his jawline. “Was it the one that grabbed like 20 of them? I bet she's just going to sell them. Maybe you can find one online?”

“For at least $1000,” Levi sighs, his frustration evident. “I guess I'll just have to-”

A quiet hiss interrupts Levi, coming from around the corner and stopping him mid-sentence. “Psst, hey! Over here!”

“Connie?” you exclaim in surprise as you spot him tucked around the far corner of the store, holding something behind his back. You can’t help but smile as you take in his appearance. “That vest looks good on you. Oh! Are you growing out your hair?”

Connie blushes shyly, reaching up a hand to awkwardly scratch his hair. “Yeah, I’m planning on trying to dye it, so I needed to grow it out a bit. Jean and Sasha have been calling me Fuzz-Ball though.”

“Dye it? What color?” you ask, genuinely intrigued.

“Silver,” he replies eagerly, his eyes lighting up at the thought.

Just as you’re about to continue the conversation, Levi interrupts, his tone carrying a hint of his trademark bluntness. “Shouldn’t you be working, Connie?”

Connie grins mischievously, not missing a beat. “This is technically my fifteen.” But then, Connie’s expression changes, and he becomes more serious. “Oh! I got one of these for you!” From behind his back, he reveals the Vampire Hello Kitty that Levi had mentioned earlier. You hear Levi gasp softly under his breath, clearly taken aback by the unexpected turn of events.

“Here ya’ go, Prof,'' Connie says, handing over the Vampire Hello Kitty plushie with a wide, cheesy grin. “Don’t say anything to anyone, I sort of had to hide it in the back. I could get in trouble.”

Levi takes the plushy from Connie, his usually stern face softening for a moment. “Thanks, Connie. I really appreciate it.” His voice carries genuine gratitude, and it’s evident that this small gesture means more to him than he lets on.

Connie laughs softly, waving as he starts to back away. “No problem. I know they really wanted one.” He winks at you before adding, “Anyways, I should get going. I actually want to sit for some of my break.”

You watch Connie’s hurried departure, a mix of surprise and gratitude filling you. “You told him it was for me?”

Levi’s expression shifts to a more contemplative one as he explains, “I sort of panicked when he caught me looking them up. It was too weird for me to be getting one for another one of his professors.” He gently places the Vampire Hello Kitty plushie on top of the pile of Halloween decorations that have accumulated in your cart. “Didn’t know he was going to go out of his way to grab one.”

Your admiration for Connie’s thoughtful gesture deepens, and you share a knowing look with Levi. “He’s a good kid,” you comment, your voice reflecting your genuine fondness for the teenager.

Levi nods in agreement, his tone softening as he adds, “He slacks off a lot in class, but he always tries when it really matters.”

As the two of you head towards the checkout, you continue the conversation. “I’m surprised he got a job, even part-time. That has to be difficult to manage during college.”

Levi nods in acknowledgment. “Yeah, it’s not easy, but he’s determined. Plus, I think he likes the idea of earning his own money.”

There's surprisingly not much of a line, and the two of you enter the self-checkout area within minutes, maneuvering your cart to one of the larger registers. You and Levi have a well-oiled system: you scan the items and hand them to Levi, who then meticulously and obsessively bags them to his exacting standards.

As you work together, your curiosity gets the better of you, and you lean against the counter, ready to dive into conversation. "I gotta ask, why go through all this effort? I've never really known you to be the gift-giving type."

Levi raises an eyebrow, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes. "I give gifts."

You chuckle, recalling some of his unconventional gifts from the past. "Hah, your usual 'gift' is breaking in and cleaning someone's place for them. Didn't you give Erwin a rock once?"

"I was six," Levi retorts with a half-smile, as if that somehow justifies the childhood gesture. "I got you that necklace last year!"

"Yeah, but I'm different," you playfully tease, offering him a knowing smile. "So, spill the beans. What's the reason for all this birthday fuss?"

Levi lets out a soft sigh, his gaze briefly dropping before meeting yours. "You might have noticed... Erwin's been sort of down lately."

"Maybe?" you reply, furrowing your brows as you think back to your most recent interactions with him. "I know he's been working more than usual. He canceled on us the last few times we were going to hang out."

"He's been having a hard time for the past couple of months," Levi explains, his tone gentle, hinting at the depth of his concern for their friend.

“Do you know why?” concern laces your voice as you lean in closer, eager to understand the source of Erwin’s troubles.

Levi nods, his expression solemn, conveying the weight of the situation. "Hange managed to drag it out of him. This birthday he'll be older than his dad was when he- it- it just really hit him hard."

A sense of understanding settles between you as you absorb this information. "Oh," you respond softly, realizing the significance and the emotional weight of this upcoming birthday for Erwin. “Oh- so he's-”

Levi continues, his concern evident. "I think he's sort of dreading it and overworking himself to avoid thinking about it. That's what he always does when he's stressed, cut people off and focus. He's even been skipping our mid-day workouts."

As he lifts up the Hello Kitty plushie and frowns at its giant fuzzy face, you can't help but feel touched by Levi's thoughtfulness. "He's been talking about wanting one of these plushies for so long. I don't know, I thought it might help."

You offer him a warm, supportive smile and reach over to pat his back softly. "You're a good friend. I'm sure he'll love it." Your words carry a sense of reassurance, appreciating the effort Levi has put into making Erwin's birthday special and trying to bring a smile to his face during a difficult time. The tension in Levi’s shoulders eases visibly as he meets your gaze, a soft smile curving his lips.

“I don’t even know how I’m going to wrap this giant thing,” Levi grumbles, his frustration evident as he attempts to stuff the oversized plushie into one of the grey plastic bags. It proves too much for the bag to handle, bursting over the edges and tearing through the plastic along the sides.

You can’t help but chuckle at the sight. “Maybe a gift bag,” you offer with a playful grin. “A big one.”

“Hey, I have an idea,” you suddenly suggest as the two of you continue bagging your Halloween supplies. Levi looks at you with curiosity, his attention piqued. “How about we invite Erwin over for Halloween? He can carve pumpkins with us and hand out candy. It’s a bit after his birthday, and I know he usually spends the holiday alone, handing out candy at his own place, but it might help cheer him up.”

Levi pauses for a moment, considering your proposal. The prospect of spending Halloween with friends and embracing the festive spirit clearly resonates with him. After a thoughtful pause, he nods in agreement. “Yeah, that could work. I’ll talk to him about it.”

Your eyes light up with excitement. “It’ll be great! We can make it a fun and spooky night to remember, it's a Friday night so we could even have a movie marathon after! It might just be what Erwin needs to lift his spirits. I'll be sure to harass him about coming too, so he doesn't cancel like he has been for D&D night.”

"He'll come, I'll even wrangle Hange in if it helps make sure of it," Levi responds, his tone tinged with a touch of apprehension. "Though I don't really want them to make another mess of our house." A visible shudder runs through him as he recalls the chaotic memory.

You can't help but find humor in Levi's horrified expression, and you respond with a playful laugh. "It wasn't that bad," you reassure him, "It made the housewarming party memorable at least. It certainly distracted from my burnt brownies."

Levi's grimace deepens as he recalls the kitchen ceiling incident. "That memory is still a stain on the kitchen ceiling," he grumbles, completing the loading of the final bag, or rather, placing it on top of the already overflowing shopping cart. "Fuck— are we going to be able to fit all of this into the car?"

Your laughter at the comical situation can only be described as explosive, echoing through the store as you both realize the challenge that lies ahead in fitting all your Halloween decorations into the car.

#levi x reader #levi fluff #levi ackerman #harvestmoonaotcollab #attack on titan #aot #aot collab

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