Nick / 30s / She/Her

Levi Ackerman has learned, over three years of working in an elementary school, that children are capable of putting virtually anything anywhere.

He’s found crayons inside air vents, yogurt beneath bookshelves, a single wet sock hanging inexplicably from a ceiling projector, and, one memorable Tuesday afternoon, half of a banana wedged so deeply into the back of a student desk that he spends nearly five minutes staring at the browned fruit in complete silence, debating on whether he should just let the other janitor take care of it.

“How the hell did you even get in there?” he mutters, pulling on a pair of gloves.

By five o’clock, he’s scraped cracker crumbs from a rug, cleaned paint off a window, and discovered a nightmare in the second-floor boys’ bathroom, so by the time he reaches Room 112, he’s already preparing himself for another mess made by twenty-four small children with poor impulse control.

He unlocks the door, then pauses. Room 112 is clean. Not clean clean, because Levi’s definition of clean is far different to other peoples. But the chairs are pushed beneath the tables, the construction paper scraps have been picked up from the floor, the pencils are in their containers, and there’s not a single juice box left open. 

He narrows his eyes suspiciously. Then he spots the glitter.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Gold glitter sparkles across half the floor, caught in the fibers of the rug and scattered beneath the tables. There is, however, a dustpan beside the teacher’s desk. A pathetic little pile of glitter sits inside it. A handwritten note is taped to the whiteboard.

SORRY ABOUT THE GLITTER. WE TRIED. — ROOM 112

Levi stares at it, then looks at the dustpan. “At least they’re honest,” he mutters.

“Can’t teach children to lie, can I?” 

Levi turns. You stand in the doorway, holding the frame, slightly breathless from apparently walking back through half the school in a hurry. He’s seen you before. Obviously; you teach here. He’s seen you crossing the cafeteria sometimes, holding folders and supplies. He’s passed you in the hall often enough to recognize your face, although most of those encounters have been polite nods exchanged. But this is the first time you’ve ever looked directly at him for longer than a few seconds.

“Forgot my purse,” you explain, pointing toward your desk. “And apparently, returned just in time to witness the crime scene.”

Levi looks down at the glitter. “So you’re responsible for this?”

“Technically, I just supplied the weapons.”

“Then yes.”

You press your lips together. He recognizes that expression immediately—you’re trying not to laugh. “I’m sorry,” you say. “We were making solar system projects.”

“With glitter?”

“Space is sparkly.”

“Space is a vacuum.”

You laugh, the sound filling the otherwise empty classroom. “Okay, fair.”

You cross the room, retrieving your purse from beneath your desk, but instead of immediately leaving, you set it on the tabletop and reach for the broom leaning against the wall. Levi frowns.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Helping,” you say.

“No.”

You pause. “It’s my mess.”

“It’s my job.” Levi takes the broom out of your hand. “You’ve been here since six.”

You raise your eyebrows. So does he, internally. Why the hell does he know that? He’s seen your car in the staff lot when he arrives, that’s all. Just a simple observation. Nothing strange about it.

“Six fifteen,” you correct.

“Congratulations.” You stare at him for a beat, then you laugh again. Levi turns away before you can see the corner of his mouth betray him. “You should go home,” he says.

You pick up your purse. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Yes, Mr. Ackerman.”

He looks over his shoulder and sees your smile. He isn’t sure why it annoys him that you’re leaving. He has work to do, and you have a life that exists beyond these four walls.

“Goodnight, Mr. Ackerman,” you say. You make it halfway into the hall when he suddenly speaks.

“Levi.”

You stop. He almost takes it back as you turn your head. Levi grips the broom harder, irrationally uncomfortable under your attention.

“Just Levi,” he repeats.

Your expression softens by such a small degree he’s sure that he’s just imagining it. But then you say, “Goodnight, Levi,” and you disappear.

Levi looks at the gold glitter sparkling around his shoes.

“Shit,” he says.

The word has nothing to do with the floor.

.

Levi develops a routine over the next few weeks. He cleans the administrative wing first, empties the trash cans in the second-grade corridor, and leaves Room 112 until later in his shift, because you’ve developed an irritating habit of staying after school to grade assignments and prepare lessons, which means cleaning your room before five thirty would involve working around you. It’s better to wait.

Yet he finds himself cleaning while you’re present anyway.

“Connie ate another crayon today,” you tell him one Wednesday evening.

Levi stops mopping. “Another?”

You sit at your desk surrounded by spelling tests, a red pen held in your fingers while you draw a tiny star beside a student’s score. “Three, technically.”

“Why?”

“He said blue looked yummy.”

“Is he stupid?”

“Levi.”

“What?”

“He’s eight.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” You laugh under your breath and return to the test in front of you, though Levi catches the smile on your lips. 

It’s almost irritating how much he knows about your students now. Connie eats crayons. Mina hates reading aloud but loves science. Eren has lost four water bottles since September. Christa is currently in a one-sided feud with a girl named Ymir in Room 109 over a pencil shaped like a carrot. They’re all useless pieces of information that enter Levi’s life because you talk while he works, while he sweeps and sanitizes, and although he occasionally answers with little more than a grunt, you never seem particularly offended by his silence. Sometimes you fill it, and sometimes you don’t. 

One afternoon, he arrives to find a paper cup sitting on the corner of your desk. He stops.

“What’s that?” he asks.

You don’t look up from your laptop. “Poison.”

“Thought so.”

“Black tea. No sugar.”

Then you look at him. Levi feels a shift of discomfort—but at the same time admiration—in his chest. “You remember everyone’s drink order?” he asks.

“Nope.” You turn back to your laptop. That’s all you give him. No nervous attempt to ease the implication. Just nope. Levi stands beside your desk for an embarrassingly long second.

You’ve noticed how he takes his tea because you’re observant—that’s it. He can’t be stupid now. He notices things too, after all. He notices that you hum when you’re concentrating, usually without realizing you’re doing it. He notices that every child who scores higher than their previous test receives two stars instead of one. He notices the little bottle of vanilla hand lotion you keep beside your computer. He notices that you read stories using different voices for every character, because sometimes, when he’s cleaning the hallway during your final few hours of class, he hears your students howling with laughter through the door. He notices you always forget to drink your coffee while it’s hot.

Levi picks up the tea. “Thanks.”

You stop typing. Then you smile at your screen. “You’re welcome.”

For some reason, Levi thinks about that smile while he’s emptying trash cans two classrooms later.

.

In December, the sink in Room 112 begins leaking. Levi kneels beneath it during your math period, a wrench in one hand and his shoulders wedged awkwardly beneath the cabinet while twenty-four children attempt to complete multiplication worksheets.

Or, more accurately, twenty-three children. One watches him. Levi can feel it.

He tightens a connection beneath the drain. The child continues staring. Finally, Levi slowly looks over his shoulder. A small boy in a dinosaur sweater is leaning so far out of his chair that two legs have lifted off the floor.

“What?”

The boy straightens. “Nothing.”

Levi turns back to the sink. Three seconds pass.

“Mr. Janitor?” 

Levi closes his eyes. “Yes?”

“Do you live here?”

The classroom goes quiet. You look up from the desk where you’re helping Mina with a worksheet. “Thomas,” you say.

“What?” Thomas asks. “He’s always here.”

“I go home,” Levi says.

“Where?”

“Do your math.”

A few students giggle. Levi hears you trying not to. He also hears you resuming with Mina, your voice lowering, but not enough that Levi can’t hear it.

“It’s okay. Look at me,” you whisper.

A sniffle. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s okay to not understand.”

“I keep getting it wrong.”

“I know. That’s frustrating.”

Levi stops moving for a second. There’s no impatience in your voice, like he’s heard with other teachers. You pull a blank sheet of paper out and begin explaining the problem differently, using groups of drawn stars instead of numbers, pausing every few seconds to ask Mina what she thinks should happen next rather than simply telling her the answer. Levi listens, even though he doesn’t want to.

Eventually, Mina whispers, “Twenty-four?”

“There you go,” you smile.

“I—I got it?”

“You got it.”

The girl’s whole face changes. Levi sees it when he emerges from beneath the sink, the sudden burst of pride that makes her bounce in her seat, and he watches you pat her head. 

He knows teachers. He works around dozens of them. Some are patient, some aren’t, and some clearly entered the wrong profession, either due to attitude or their lack of realization that children bite, vomit, and ask the same question eleven times. But you never seem surprised by what your students need. You just adjust.

Levi returns his attention to the sink.

“Miss?”

His shoulders tense. He recognizes Thomas’ voice now.

“Yes?” you say.

“Mr. Janitor is staring at you,” Thomas says.

Levi’s wrench slips from his grasp. He hisses through his teeth and grimaces. 

“He is not,” you laugh.

“He was,” Thomas insists.

“I wasn’t,” Levi says.

Christa turns in her seat. “Yeah, you were.”

Levi slowly straightens his spine. Twenty-four faces are now looking at him. Well, twenty-five, if he includes you. “Don’t you kids have math to do?”

The room explodes into giggles. You turn toward the whiteboard, but not quickly enough to hide your smile. Then a hand shoots into the air, and you hesitate.

“Yes, Connie?” you say.

Connie lowers his hand, then looks to Levi. “Mr. Janitor, do you think Miss is pretty?”

Levi freezes. Someone gasps. Thomas whispers, “Connie!”

“What?” Connie asks.

Your entire face goes red. “Okay! Everyone finish your worksheet.”

“But—”

“Worksheets!”

“Mr. Janitor didn’t answer,” Thomas says.

“Worksheet, Thomas.” Another hand raises. You stare at it, terrified of what awaits. “Yes, Mina?” you ask, already nervous.

Mina looks between you and Levi with curiosity. “My mommy said when two grown-ups love each other very much, they have sex. Do you and Mr. Janitor do that?”

Every pencil in the room stops moving. Levi shoots upright so quickly he hits his head on the underside of the sink. You don’t even bother checking on him, because by the time you consider it, the classroom erupts.

“What’s sex?!”

“My brother said that word!”

“You’re not supposed to say it!”

“Do they?”

“Miss is red!”

You clap your hands once, loud enough that half the room jumps. “Tests!” you say brightly, silently considering an early retirement. Don’t blush, don’t blush, don’t fucking blush. “Eyes on your tests. Pencils on your papers. No one is discussing anything their mommy or daddy said at breakfast.”

“But Miss—” Mina tries again.

“No.”

“Is it true?”

“Mina.”

“What?”

“Worksheet.”

Levi stays crouched beneath the sink, one hand gripping the pipe so hard his knuckles turn white. Thomas, apparently choosing to continue the chaos, whispers, “Mr. Janitor still didn’t answer.”

“Thomas,” you warn.

He immediately looks down. “Worksheet!” he chirps.

Levi finishes the sink in absolute silence. He leaves five minutes later without looking at anyone. You catch him in the hallway.

“Levi.” He keeps walking. “Levi!”

“What?”

You hurry beside him. “I’m sorry.”

“They’re nosy, aren’t they?”

“They’re eight.”

“Same thing.”

You laugh. He looks at you properly and regrets it instantly, because he realizes your cheeks are still flushed. Something about that sight makes his heart skip a beat.

“For the record,” you say carefully, “you never answered the question.”

Levi stops. You take two more steps before realizing he’s no longer beside you. When you turn, he’s watching you, and he can practically see the moment your confidence falters. 

“Which one?” he asks. His mouth twitches at the sight of your flushed face and startled expression. “Didn’t think I needed to answer.”

You open your mouth. Levi walks away before he can blurt out anything else.

.

On Valentine’s Day, Levi discovers a card on your desk addressed to him in purple marker.

TO MR ACKERMAN

He doesn’t pick it up at first, but curiosity defeats common sense. Inside is a crayon drawing of two stick figures. One is holding a mop. The other wears a dress and has about ten strands of yarn glued to its head. Red hearts surround both figures. Beneath them, in enormous uneven letters, someone has written:

YOU SHOULD MARRY MISS BECAUSE SHE LIKES YOU

Levi stares so hard he doesn’t hear the classroom door open.

“Okay, before you get mad, the glitter this time is biodegradable,” you say, walking into the room carrying two tote bags. Levi silently holds up the card. You stop, your eyes widening at the giant words scribbled onto the paper. “Oh my god.”

“Your students sure are… persistent.”

You set the bags down. “They’re invested.”

“Clearly.”

You reach for the card, but Levi moves it out of your reach. Your hand freezes mid-air. “Are you keeping it?”

“Evidence of harassment.”

You huff out a breathy laugh and walk to your desk, opening the bottom drawer. “I have something for you.”

Levi frowns, “No.”

“You don’t even know what it is!”

“Doesn’t matter.”

You pull out a small box. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“Oh good god.”

“Levi.”

“No.”

You shove the box against his chest. He grabs it automatically. The packaging is simple, dark green, and when he reads the label, he recognizes the name of a tea shop across town. Good tea. Expensive tea. A sticky note is attached to the top. 

Thanks for surviving Room 112.

Levi looks at you. “You bought me tea?”

“Oh god, don’t make it all weird now.”

“I’m not the one making it weird.”

“You’re the one staring at me.”

“Because you’re talking too much.” 

Your smile appears slowly. That goddamn smile. The one that’s been making his job unnecessarily complicated since last year. He’d noticed it before then, yes, but it only started doing strange things to his stomach recently. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

“You’re welcome,” you grin.

Levi sighs through his nose. At least he feels less weird about what he did for you now that he knows you got him something. “Here.” He reaches into the cleaning cart.

“What?”

“Take it.”

He hands you a box. You look between him and the box. “Levi.”

“Open it or don’t.”

You open it, and inside is an insulated travel mug. Your mouth falls slightly open. It’s a muted blue, not too garishly bright that it’ll blind you first thing in the morning, but also not too dark that it’ll easily get lost in the dark. 

“Your old one leaks,” Levi says.

“You noticed?”

Levi immediately regrets speaking. He regrets the entire day. He regrets accepting this job. “You spill coffee everywhere.”

“Right.”

You’re smiling again. Levi glares at you. You run your fingers over the metal, then grin wider, hugging the box to your chest. “Thank you, Levi.”

“Yeah.”

“I love it.”

“It’s a cup.”

“And I love this cup.”

“Jesus Christ.”

The next morning, your old travel mug is gone. The new one sits on your desk.

.

Spring arrives slowly. The trees outside the school begin flowering, jackets disappear from classroom hooks, and the children become restless from the prospect of summer approaching. 

Levi finds you asleep at your desk on a March evening in April. He stops in the doorway. Your cheek is pressed against one arm. Student portfolios surround you in piles, along with construction paper, folders, and a roll of tape that appears to have become attached to your sleeve.

Levi checks the clock. Seven twenty-three. “Idiot,” he mutters.

You don’t move, but he still enters quietly. He empties your trash, sweeps beneath the tables, sanitizes the sink, and somehow, you sleep through all of it. Naturally, Levi looks at you, even when he screams at himself not to. Your face is relaxed in sleep, nothing like the attentiveness you show during school hours where you’re expected to answer questions or redirect arguments or notice if a child has gone too quiet.

You look exhausted. Levi doesn’t know why he doesn’t like that. Or maybe he does know. He finishes the room, then begins to organize the folders scattered near your elbow. You stir, and Levi immediately looks away as your head lifts.

“What—”

“You drooled on a spelling test,” he says.

You bolt upright. “I did?!”

Levi almost smiles. “Just fucking with you.”

You glare at him. “You’re horrible.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“What time is it?” you ask as you rub your eyes.

“Late.”

“Oh.”

You look at the unfinished portfolios. Levi watches your shoulders fall. Then, before he can think it over, he pulls the nearest stack toward himself.

“What goes where?” he asks.

“You don’t have to help,” you say, blinking.

“Didn’t ask.”

“Levi—”

“What goes where?”

Ten minutes later, you sit side by side at one of the student tables, slipping assignments into folders. The school is strangely quiet. A quiet that only exists after everyone else has left, when the hallways become empty and echo when one lone person walks down them.

“Why’d you become a teacher?” Levi asks.

You look up at him. He keeps his attention on the folder in his hands. “I had a teacher when I was little. In fourth grade,” you say after a moment. “She noticed things about me that other teachers didn’t notice.”

He moves a little slower, paying close attention to your words.

“I wasn’t a bad student. I wasn’t failing or anything. I just… got overwhelmed easily, I guess. And everyone thought I was shy, so no one really paid attention when I stopped talking.” You smooth the bent corner of a paper. “But she did.”

Levi then looks up at you fully.

“She used to let me sit in the reading corner when the kids were being too loud,” you continue. “Never made me feel weird about it. Never asked me to explain myself in front of everyone. She just… noticed.” You smile faintly. “I think I wanted to be that for somebody else.” You pause for a moment, then laugh and say, “That’s cheesy.”

“No, it isn’t,” he says. You meet his eyes, and Levi looks down at the folders again. “You’re good with them.”

“You think so?”

“Wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

You stare at him. Then you say, “You’re good with them too.”

“No.”

“You are. The kids adore you.”

“They don’t know any better.”

“You fixed Armin’s backpack.”

“The zipper was broken and he was crying.”

You smile. “And you found Mina’s stuffed rabbit before winter break.”

“It was behind a shelf I needed to move anyway.”

“And you remember Connie’s allergies.”

“I clean the classroom he’s in.”

“And Thomas told me you taught him how to tie his shoes.” Levi pauses, so you lean slightly closer. “Levi~”

“He was holding up the fucking lunch line.”

You laugh again, louder than before, and Levi really looks at you for a moment. Your smile slowly fades as the air changes, your mind acknowledging the feeling of your knee touching his beneath the table and the hitch in his breath.

“You’re much nicer than you pretend to be, you know,” you whisper.

“You’re getting much more annoying,” he says.

“I’ve been annoying for months.”

“Yeah.” Levi’s gaze falls to your mouth. “I noticed.”

His breath catches, and so does yours. You’re quiet for multiple seconds, then, because you apparently have more courage than him, you ask, “Are you ever going to ask me out?”

Levi blinks at you. “I was planning on it.”

“When?”

“Before you started interrogating me.”

You grin. “Sorry.”

“You’re not sorry.”

“No, not at all.”

Levi huffs, then lifts one hand, his fingers brushing your jaw so lightly that, for one second, he worries you might pull away—but you don’t. Instead, you tilt your face into his palm. Shit. That’s it. 

Levi leans forward. The first kiss is softer than he expects. Maybe because he’s spent so long wanting it that the reality of your mouth against his feels strangely delicate, something he has to cradle carefully despite the months of tension that have led here. Levi’s thumb moves against your cheek. You kiss him again, and this time, he feels you smile.

A loud electronic chime rings from across the classroom. Both of you jerk apart. Levi turns to see a student tablet lighting up on the charging station.

SOFTWARE UPDATE COMPLETE!

Levi glares at it while you choke back a laugh.

“I’m throwing that thing away,” Levi grumbles.

You laugh so hard you fold forward into his shoulder. Levi closes his eyes, but his arm goes around you anyway.

.

Keeping a relationship secret from twenty-four eight-year-olds is, as Levi discovers, impossible.

He and you manage for a month. Technically. You don’t discuss your relationship at school. You don’t touch in the halls. Levi still cleans Room 112 late in his shift, although now he sometimes leaves with you, and your students only become suspicious when they notice that you’re smiling more often. 

Then, on the last Monday of May, Levi makes a mistake. He enters Room 112 before school. You’re standing behind your desk, rearranging papers.

“Morning,” he says.

You look up. “Hi.” Levi places a coffee beside your laptop. Your face lights up. “You got me coffee?”

“You forgot to make it this morning,” he says. You freeze, and Levi realizes what he just said. You stare at him. He stares back.

“Someone might think you like me,” you say.

“Someone would be an idiot,” he says, but you still smile. He walks around the desk, then kisses your temple, something he’s done a dozen times in your apartment.

Then he turns, and twenty-four children stand in the hallway. The door is wide open.  Levi freezes. You freeze.

Thomas points. “I knew it!”

Chaos erupts. Children flood the classroom.

“I told you!”

“Mr. Ackerman kissed Miss!”

“The valentine worked!”

“That was my card!”

“No it wasn’t!”

“I said they liked each other first!”

Levi stands perfectly still, sighing quietly to himself. Your face is completely flushed with heat. “You kissed me in front of them,” you whisper.

“I didn’t see them,” he whispers back.

“You always see everything.”

“Apparently not.”

Connie appears in front of Levi. “Are you getting married?” he asks.

“No,” Levi says.

Christa gasps. “Why not?”

“Because we’re not.”

“But you kissed her.”

Levi looks at you. You’re biting your lip, trying not to laugh, trying not to look too interested in his answer. He knows you too well by now.

“Haven’t decided,” Levi says.

Thomas smiles. “So maybe?”

Levi sighs. “Ask me again in a few years.”

The children lose their minds, but not before Levi leaves. He makes it halfway down the corridor when you catch up to him.

“Levi,” you say. He keeps walking. “Levi Ackerman.”

“Got floors to clean,” he says dismissively.

“Did you just imply you’re going to marry me?”

“No.”

“You absolutely did.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

You step in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. Your face is still flushed. You’re smiling so widely that he suddenly has trouble looking directly at you.

“Ask me again in a few years?” you repeat.

“Move,” he warns.

“Levi.”

He reaches forward, your breath catching in response, but he just straightens your crooked teacher lanyard. “Go teach your kids.”

“They’re your kids too now.”

“Don’t say shit like that.”

You laugh and kiss his cheek. Behind you, there’s movement. Levi looks back upon seeing your exasperated expression and sees a bunch of faces pressed against the narrow classroom window.

“I hate this school,” he mutters.

A muffled voice immediately shouts through the door. “We can hear you, Mr. Ackerman!”

Levi closes his eyes, and you laugh against his shoulder. Despite the embarrassment, he wouldn’t change anything. Not the glitter-covered classroom. Not the tea you got for him. Not the terrible Valentine’s card that remains inside his nightstand at home. 

“Go on,” he says.

You smile. “See you after school?”

“Obviously.”

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