Years.

It's been goddamn years.

Your mother always told you that the only meaning in life was to make others happy. Not exactly the most encouraging thing to tell to a child, but oh well. Parents, right?

At this point, though, it was more of a challenge that you couldn't give up, rather than trying to just make him happy.

You see, for years, ever since you'd been placed under Captain Levi's command, you've been trying to make him smile. It had started as a simple joke, before gradually growing into concern, because holy shit the man was not happy. Never smiled, never laughed, never cracked a joke (unless you thought being told you were a joke was funny) and really, the only expressions he made were annoyed, pissed, and cleaning.

Cleaning was the worst one.

So why was it that when you weren't even trying, Levi decided to smile?

It was a pretty crappy joke.

No, seriously, you made a joke about horse crap.

And he smiled. To be fair, it was more of a 'what the hell is wrong with you' smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.