Hangenius

Hange doesn't remember when she stopped eating meat. It wasn't a quitting-cold-turkey situation, she had had enough of that shit, but it wasn't so gradual that Moblit didn't notice. Moblit always notices.

"What? You are a vegan now?" he joked when she ordered a veggie burger for the first time.

"Health nut," Hange muttered, skimming through the lost list of salads to finally choose the one with spinach and onions

"Herbivore." She sighed when she specifically sought out plant-based substitutes in the grocery store.

None of it was malevolent, that's just Moblit, but all of it was calling attention to a problem Hange didn't want to address.

"Why?"

A great question really. In any other situation, for any other subject matter, Hange would be asking herself the same thing. That was what drove her to get such good grades at University. It's what made her so good in her job: finding the criminals, or at least that’s what the majority in the precinct thought. Questioning motive is, arguably, the core of a human's existence. But not when it's about yourself. And about events that brought changes into your life. And him.

It's not anyone’s business why I do the things I do, I just do them and pretend I'm not about to die, it's the Hange Zoe way, right ? Right.

But after so many years of trying, pretending to be living in willful, blissful ignorance, Hange doesn't think she can do it anymore. She tried to keep that shit all bottled up, nice, and sealed off from the functioning parts of herself that she needed to get through the day, but something in her wasn’t letting her anymore. Maybe her soul is leery of walls… Understandable, but not helpful. Whatever it was, it eventually won out over her consciousness, and she found herself taking time to be by herself, asking the question:

"Why don't I eat meat anymore?"

The immediate response comes from the part of herself that is bratty and stubborn. Because I don't want to, dumbass. But that's too basic. It's a knee-jerk reaction to something getting too close to a wound she keeps away from everyone’s glares: a defense mechanism.

Directly after that is the logical answer. Because it's the environmentally conscious thing to do . To which Hange scoffs. Fucking Mother Theresa bullshit. She does care about the environment as much as any decent person would, but she's not so self-absorbed to think she should give up eating meat because she is just that dedicated to the cause.

Next is the rehearsed line. You know, it isn't crazy to take care of yourself. You're not getting any younger . This is generally the line she feeds to Moblit in hopes that it'll inspire him to lay off the cholesterol, but she feeds it to herself just the same. She feels fine. She's been lucky, all things considered. Physically, the only aches and pains that bother her are the ones she earns during missions and the standard joint pain from being 5’7. She doesn't need to watch her diet.

Underneath all of the excuses and flawed explanations, there's just the truth. The degrading, humiliating truth.

Because all meat is the same to me now. And I can't stomach it.

Hange doesn't think about the cage. It doesn't help anyone to dwell on the past, especially when the anyone is her. If she thinks about it too long she loses touch with reality. She forgets her age. She forgets her body. Sometimes she feels like part of her is still there, like life didn't pull the most precious thing to her,  with a brutal force, and accidentally left a piece behind, and it's calling to her. Like it's playing a masochistic game of telephone with cups and string.

Hange doesn't think about the cage, but that's where the answer lies. She remembers the smell more than anything, more than the pain or the visions, it was the clotting smell of congealed blood and a barely noticeable hint of the oh-so-familiar detergent that Mike had immediately picked up. It was his limbs hanging lifelessly while his eyes were held open to watch as Zeke ripped pieces off of his bones with his forceps. It was his blood; all the disgusting things no one wants to think about collected on the floor where he was laid out. The point in every weekend where the gore was so intermixed that Hange didn't know if the remainings she saw were his or Zeke’s other countless victims was always a breaking point. No matter how many weeks went by, there was always more of her to break. The shattered pieces of herself are getting shattered again. Zeno's paradox of the tortoise and Achilles.

Apparently, there is still more of her to break. Hange loses time and space, but the one thing she knows is that she is broken now. She knows why her heart beats so hard and fast at the thought of diner breakfasts. She knows why she gets disgusted after seeing people eating burgers in the local cafe during lunchtime even though they taste good. She knows why the idea of buying meat at the grocery store makes her hyperventilate.

She comes back to the place they used to live, together. At first, it was a way to save some money for renting a nice apartment, then they decided to move in as they got comfortable with each other’s quirks, and their own feelings. The apartment is still the same: clean, impeccably clean. She hasn’t sold it, nor has she changed anything in here. Every weekend she comes here to clean the place, although no one lives here and won’t live for as long as she is alive. She steps inside the cozy living room, where they used to spend long hours, drinking tea, or watching crime documentaries to trash the dumb directors for making so many mistakes or celebrating his birthday. She immediately falls to the floor. Blind with panic. An empty stomach, the acid in her mouth-- this place smells like him. Even after so many years of his absence, his scent still lingers around.

Fuck. I need to drink some water, I need to concentrate on breathing… slow and steady

It took years of therapy and psychological research to get her to this point, but still, she can’t stop the panic in its tracks.

This isn't that cage.

There's no way she'll ever eat meat again, not now. Not with the image of him brought to the surface.

And he’s not here.

Hange cannot forget him. She cannot erase him from her memory. Move on. She won't. She'd rather die. She'd rather go back to that moment, to that cage, than continue her life as if he didn’t exist at all.

There’s something else too, something sadder than it is traumatic, and that is that as she forgets the taste of meat, the pain of that day gets raw and more pronounced as if a reminder of the reason why she got where she is now.

She imagines his eyes, the color of the sky on a rainy day, calm and piercing, he looks at her with the same stare he used to give her many years ago. The same expression he wore whenever she caused him trouble with her recklessness and he would scold her with a hint of tenderness reserved only for her. It's a comforting thought for some reason. Comforting that he could look her in the eye and say, "It’s not your fault. It never was your fault. I didn’t blame you for that day in the cage."

These are just words, a trick of her broken mind, a hallucination, whatever Hange calls it, and they don’t matter when he has long been buried in the countryside, next to his mother, but the contrast of  Levi’s calm and peaceful face in the corners of her dark soul, tainted with horrible nightmares of that day in the cage is grounding enough to bring her eyesight back. She sits with her back against the old couch, breathing heavily.

It's okay. This is the place you used to call ‘home’. But now it is empty and you don't have to stay here. Everything is okay. Breathe, Hange.

This voice in her head is more Levi’s than it is hers, which is why it works. She breathes. Unfortunately, that means that his voice in her head is fading into the background of her endless thoughts. It is always like this: it is strong enough to bring her back from the edge of the abyss a fraction of a second before she falls, but not enough to show her the way back to safety. To normal life. If normal life is ever achievable for her  

Fucking pathetic. You can’t face this room without having a panic attack and crying on the floor. How old are you?

It takes effort to retrieve the calm facade back. It is even more straining to realize that this is going to repeat. Again and again. Hange's already exhausted, but this is something she knows how to solve. She knows the cheat codes. She reminds herself that she has been through more than anyone should have to go through, her soul has lived longer than anyone's should in a place it never should have been, and that that has taken a toll. It's the same as any other injury Hange sustained; she pushes through until she can’t anymore, and then she treats it. It won’t fully heal, leaving scars and marks, but that’s the part of life. No one leaves this place unharmed. At least, she reminds herself that someday this will be over. She just needs to stay strong till that moment.

This is a success.

I'm a grown-ass detective and I don't have to eat meat if I don't want to. Ha ha!

She picks herself up off the floor and goes to get the cleaning supplies, the same brand he used to buy. She brushes her teeth and grabs a drink of water in the kitchen. She then follows his instructions, already well memorized, and cleans the dust off the bookshelf, washes his favorite cup, and then neatly folds his clothes. Hange's bones feel heavier than they should, but she reminds herself that this is normal, that panic attacks will do that. After she wraps up the usual ritual of cleaning this empty apartment the way he taught her, maybe she'll grab a protein bar on the way back home and just crawl into bed and sleep for a while. The nightmares will come, but they always do, and she needs to handle them.