Levi was damned.

He’d known it from the moment he saw you standing in the Survey Corps barracks—fresh-faced, wide-eyed, barely eighteen. Too young. Too bright. Too alive for someone like him.

Love was nonsense. A luxury. Something soft that didn’t belong in the world he lived in. He’d never wasted time on it. Not once. But fate had a cruel sense of humor, and apparently, it had decided to play its worst joke on him.

Of all the people in the world, it had to be you.

You, with your gentle smile and your steady hands as you brewed the tea he liked. You, with your voice that always softened when you called him “Captain.” You, with eyes that looked at him like he was something more than a weapon.

It was unbearable.

He could be your father, for god’s sake. He was nearly twice your age. The thought made him grit his teeth, made him curse himself for the weakness he couldn’t shake. He’d scolded himself a thousand times, tried to bury it beneath missions and blood and silence.

But it never worked.

Because every time you smiled at him, something inside him cracked.

And the worst part?

He didn’t regret it.

Not one bit.

He hated himself for it. Hated the way his heart betrayed him. Hated how you made him feel like maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t as cold and broken as he thought.

But he wouldn’t act on it.

He couldn’t.

So he watched from a distance, kept his voice clipped and his gaze a little too long, and let the feeling rot quietly inside him.

Because Levi was a soldier.

And soldiers didn’t get to fall in love.