[levi feels the sympathy swell inside of their chest. they recognize what it looks like when someone is just trying to get by. when the world is placing expectations on them, or when someone else is doing it, and all they want to do is make it to the next artificial sunrise. leviathan has seen it rise again and again in the faces of the people they've helped on the streets, the new meta-humans they've mentored, the friends they've made in the NSO.]

[it's the main factor that causes their steps to slowly quicken so they can keep better pace with nazuna. when she starts talking about everything else that she's been through, levi's heart aches with that same pain. and it's the last line that crushes them.]

[it's what everybody has ever wanted.]

Hey, Nazuna. [they touch her shoulder, then her other shoulder. and with the distance already closed between them, they pull her into a hug close against their body. she can probably hear the way that levi's heart is beating a little faster, just as a result of any kind of intimacy even if it doesn't actually mean anything. but in this case it means... a surprising amount.]

It's not wrong to want that. That's the kind of thing that I worked for every day of my life at home. It's what I want everyone like me to have.