Ghost!Levi x Reader - The Impostor Part 1/2

If you're a ghost, I'm marrying a ghost.

Silly thing, really. How is that even possible? At least that’s what I thought at the time when I saw the quote in a newspaper article about a girl’s devotion to her recently dead fiancée. I dismissed it as some pretty, poetic way of saying she loved him. Soon to be forgotten. Soon to move on.

But life is funny that way. I guess I don’t have the last laugh, do I?



People often say I laugh too much. Even for no reason. Apparently, it makes me look inferior and like a push-over. I guess I am in a sense. It’s sort of a boon and a bane at the same time for my line of work. On one hand, it makes me approachable. On the other, it causes people to not take me seriously.  But to me, it’s a way of masking my insecurities.

Laugh it off. Just laugh it off….

“Wow really? You’re a marketing intern at that large company?”

Letting out a good-natured chuckle, I replied, “Yeah, I am!”

The large-sized barista threw his head back in a guffaw, pointing at me as he did. “I never figured you for that.” His laughter finally subsiding, he frowned. “Are you sure you can handle the job though?”

There it was again. I snorted, waving a hand to dismiss his concerns. “Yeah yeah it’s totally fine.”

Was it? Subconsciously, my left hand rubbed the back of my neck as a familiar crick crept up. I was barely a month into the internship and already, the pressure was on. Everyone in my department were so suave, so intelligent, so confident. The other interns came from prestigious schools and all of them were dressed smartly every day. I looked down at my oversized, faded blazer and pants. Maybe that’s why even Cole is worried that I can’t do it. I just don’t fit in.

Leaning over the counter, Cole gestured towards me to come nearer. I hesitated for a split second before moving closer. He cupped a hand to his mouth and whispered, “Did you know there was someone from that same company who died here not too long ago?”

A gasp escaping my lips, I took a step back in shock. My eyes darted around the small café, wondering what monstrosity could have taken place here.

Seeing my reaction, Cole laughed and shook his head. “It’s not that dramatic. Apparently, the guy had a heart attack and before the ambulance could arrive, he was dead.”

I sighed in relief, glad that at least it wasn’t a murder or something. “Who… who was he?”

“I don’t know much. He was a regular during dinner time. Wasn’t one for talking. He used to sit there and work on his laptop.” Cole pointed to a seat in the corner. “Right there.”

“He was old then?”

“Oh no no. He was a young guy, probably a couple years older than you.” Cole frowned as he reached for the takeaway coffee cup that his colleague had placed on the table beside him. “I guess you don’t know about it. It’s a big company after all.”

“No no… I.. I don’t,” I murmured, wondering whether it was someone I had passed in the corridors or had greeted.

“Anyway, here you go!” Cole held out the cup, grinning.

Snapping out of my daze, I smiled and thanked him. The cup was warm to the touch as I wrapped my hand around its body. On cold winter days such as these, black Earl Grey tea was the best. It was my evening fix before I walked back home to that small, dreary one-bedroom apartment that I rented.

As I stepped outside, the blustering wind blew straight at me, taking my breath away. Gritting my teeth, I wrapped my hands around my precious cup, letting its warmth seep into my cold skin. Raising it to my lips, I took a small sip, instantly relieved as the warm liquid burned its way down my throat. Filled with more energy, I trudged across the street, ignoring the bustling evening crowd around me.

It was a Friday and people were going out for social events. Well, everyone except me. I was simply exhausted, wanting nothing but a nice long rest. The weekends weren’t free for me since I had deliverables to hand in the following Monday. But just for tonight, I wanted a short break. Maybe I could even watch a short movie. A small smile growing on my lips as I got lost in my thoughts, I raised the cup up a bit too high.

I exclaimed in pain as the hot liquid scalded my lips. A hand hurriedly pressed to my mouth, the other flung the cup away from my body as I nursed my wounds, my head bent downwards. Realizing too late that the tea would spill, I righted the cup to a vertical position, looking up as I did.

My eyes widened in shock. In front of me was a flickering visage of a man, his body totally transparent save for the tea stains that seemed to hover in the air. I stared uncomprehendingly, my mouth hung open. The man’s outline then sharpened, although his body was still translucent. He was looking right at me, his lips curled nastily downwards in disgust.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I could hear his voice, see his lips move correspondingly with the words… I shook my head, unable to comprehend what was taking place right now. Was this a magic trick?

I stuttered, “W-wh-what the hell me?? W-wh-what the hell are you???”

He frowned. “You can see me?”

And that’s when I lost it. Everything turned black, my legs giving in under me. This must be what it feels like to be crazy…



The cold icy touch on my skin was what snapped me back to consciousness first. My eyelids fluttering, I thought I must either be in Heaven or back at home, having forgotten to turn on the heater. But as my blurry vision cleared, I noticed the falling snowflakes and then…

I scrambled up into a sitting position, my eyes staring wide at the apparition in front of me. The same man was still there, staring at me with disinterest. My veins turned cold, and not because of the temperature. He floated towards me and I hastily backed away, crawling away from him until my back hit a wall.

Whimpering, I stared at him in horror as he drew nearer. He squatted down – or rather moved down, who knows – his arms on his knees as he studied me. I couldn’t even close my eyes, fearful of what he might do. My heart was racing so fast that I felt like it would just burst out of my ribcage.

“Don’t worry, I don’t mean you any harm,” he said.

Too stunned to even reply, I just looked at him, my eyes wide. A ghost. I was seeing a ghost. A real one. In front of me.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I get it. You’re scared. I’m Levi, okay. And yes, I’m a ghost. I don’t know why but I was attracted to your tea and so, I ended up following you. I couldn’t leave the coffee shop before but somehow, I managed to. Might be the power of that tea.”

I could hear each word clearly but I couldn’t seem to string it together. My… tea?

“Well.” He looked me up and down. “You seem to be alright now… more or less. So I’m just going to leave.”

Watching him float away, my fear subsided. But then, the air buzzed as a crackle of electricity struck the man. He winced, backing away quickly as he cautiously studied the part of air he had touched. My eyes followed him as he traveled every which way – up, left, right. Each time, an invisible barrier seemed to prevent him from moving away.

My heartbeat was slowly returning to normal but as he came back towards me, it picked up again. He stopped a few feet away, crossing his arms over his chest as he sighed in exasperation.

“Well, great. Bad news is I’m stuck with you.”

I sputtered, “Wh-what?”

“If you didn’t see already, I can’t seem to move more than 30 feet away from this spot.” He snorted. “Believe me, I don’t want to be stuck with you either. Of course if you don’t trust my words, we can conduct a few experiments... But otherwise..”

He looked me in the eyes. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of me.”



So there it was. A ghost who got tea spilled on him ended up following me back home. What a great story to tell in a bar. It took me days to believe that Levi was real and not a figment of my imagination. But he proved to me, by moving objects and playing tricks on people, that he was an actual ghost.  

Those were the roughest days. On the first night, I got so paranoid that I didn’t even go to the bathroom or catch a wink of sleep. After loads of reassuring from a very annoyed Levi, I finally went about my daily routines but not without slipping a paranoid sideways glance at him. Setting ground rules helped a lot, ensuring that I still had my privacy and I grew more confident that this ghost attached to me was at least a responsible man in his previous life.

Going out with Levi was also odd since only I could see and hear him. If I accidentally spoke out loud or stared at him, people gave me weird stares until I finally learnt how to mask my behavior. Talking to him was easy. I just needed to whip out my phone and pretend to have a conversation. Looking was more difficult. But we figured that out by having Levi appear in front of me as much as possible. It was terribly awkward to have a ghost constantly facing you but it worked out better that way.

We talked a lot, trying to figure out why he was still a ghost, why he was attached to me. The first question I asked him was whether he knew how he had died. He replied me with a deadpan expression, “Tea poisoning.”

I almost choked on the tea that I was drinking, spitting all the liquid out until he told me he was joking. He got a tongue lashing from me then, but I found out he was terrible at making jokes since he didn’t really smile. We figured out soon that he was the same guy who Cole had told me about earlier, which implied he had died from a heart attack. Why that was the case, Levi said he couldn’t recall since he didn’t have any medical issues.

At work, I would walk around with him, seeing if anything or anyone would jog his memory. He remembered some faces, some memories, but nothing that helped. We found out he was a pretty big player in the research department, one of the leading minds actually. Still, nothing useful.

Of course, I still had to go about my own life. But having Levi around actually made it so much more enjoyable. It was like having my own personal confidante twenty-four hours a day. That is, a confidante who chided me constantly. Within the first week, he had picked up on my self-esteem issues and berated me for letting myself and other colleagues think so lowly of my skills.

Levi was crude but beneath his admonishments, he constantly reinforced the fact that I was much better than what I let myself believe. It wasn’t easy to change my perception but he did things only a ghost could do. He showed me the sources that my colleagues used, the notes that they took, and even their GPA scores in school. All were no better than what I had, he pointed out.

The only difference between me and them was the way I presented myself, from what I wore to how I talked and moved. But I resisted the idea of change, saying that I liked the way I was. It took a lot of coaxing and threatening before I finally gave in and went to a clothing shop to buy office wear that fitted me and was decently priced. He helped me pick out the outfits too, of course. And it was only after we got home that he confessed to having rigged the cashier such that I only had to pay 50% of the price.

By that time, I had gotten pretty suspicious about all his “illegal” or unethical activities. Proving something to me was one thing, but stealing money was another. I asked Levi to come clean with me about whether he ran an illegal organization or something when he was still alive. His expression dropped as he sighed and rubbed his eyes. Not looking at me, he spoke in an exhausted tone about how he remembered his life to be. He painted a picture of utter dreariness and loneliness, a life where he couldn’t recall having many pleasant memories. To him, this new ghost life was a fresh start.

“A chance to do whatever the fuck I wanted to do,” he had said. “Without responsibilities, without consequences.” He then looked me in the eye and added, “I don’t want to see another young brat walk down that same path.”

To say I was touched was an understatement. So overcome with emotion, I teared up, leaning on his shoulder as I did, since I had the special privilege of being able to see and touch him to a certain extent. But my tears fell through his translucent body, eliciting a small sigh of irritation from Levi as he gently patted my back.

Understanding his side of the story, we then upped our game even more. We agreed we wouldn’t do anything illegal anymore but that didn’t mean Levi couldn’t do small tricks. I let him run wild with his imagination and boy, was it fun!

He messed with some of the more arrogant and bossy colleagues by changing a few words in their reports or presentations, turning them into laughing stocks. Once, he had gotten so mad at one particular guy, and tripped him as he gave a speech. That had me laughing for hours later after the end of work. Seeing my colleagues in a new light as they fumbled and made mistakes really changed my opinion about them. They were no longer someone who ranked above me but someone who I could speak to confidently like a peer.

Even my bosses and the company’s sponsors were not exempt from Levi’s torture. Of course, he didn’t go too wild with them but during my presentations, he would try to inject a little ghost magic on something they ate – a banana, or a doughnut perhaps. It was akin to the poisoned apple in tales about witches but this was decidedly light-hearted and for some reason, apples were never involved. Apparently, Levi didn’t like apples.

As the ghost magic did their job on making the bosses happier and more lenient, he would hold my hand throughout the presentation. It served both as a deterrent for me to raise my hand to the back of my neck, as I always did when I was nervous, and as a soothing gesture to remind me that I was doing alright. Undoubtedly, both the bosses and my colleagues were impressed with my work and by the time my internship was close to an end, I was pretty popular within my department.

Life was great. I was doing well in my work, my colleagues treated me well… and I loved having Levi around. He was probably the one person, or rather, ghost, who always made my day. The way he turned my sadness and anxiety into his crudely worded jokes never failed to put a smile back on my face.

It was like the burden on my shoulders was slowly lifted off. And I felt that it was the same way for him too. The Levi I knew from a few months back who hardly ever smiled, now smirked and laughed umpteen times a day. Seeing that small smile tug at his lips always warmed my chest. And when he laughed in that low, sultry voice of his…. my heart would do a million summersaults.

I don’t know when it was that I realized I was more than in love with Levi. But even if I wanted to believe that he reciprocated my feelings, I didn’t want to affect what we already had. Besides, we were basically living together! What more could I ask for…

But then again, he was not of this world. He had to pass on….

“(F/N)?”

Jolted from my thoughts, I looked up. “Yeah?”

Levi studied me with concern, his intense gaze sending a flutter through me. “Are you worried about the presentation? You’ll be fine alright. I’ll be right by your side like always. Just think of it as a normal everyday talk to the fucking stupid boss.”

Snorting, I nodded. “Thanks for giving me that mental image.”

I smoothed my blazer down, patting out the wrinkles. Exhaling softly, I looked around the small preparation room. The table at the corner was filled with small tidbits and coffee but I was in no mood to touch them. It was my final presentation to wrap up my internship results and the big bosses would be there to listen to it. This would decide whether I got a satisfactory report… or not.

But as Levi said, there was nothing to worry about. I’ve been doing well and with Levi by my side, it would be just like normal. I snuck a sideways glance at him. As expected, he was wearing his usual disinterested expression, his back against the wall as he folded his arms across his chest. He always exuded that aura of confidence and seeing him that way boosted mine as well.

I was ready.

Just then, the door to the adjacent conference room opened with a slight squeak, admitting a middle-aged man dressed in a tailor-made suit that perfectly fitted his muscular body. His face, although boyish, held many wrinkles and even his hair had turned white. If I hadn’t known him, I would have estimated his age to be near the big six digit rather than the forty seven years of age he was.

Bowing my head slightly, I walked towards him and extended my hand. “Pleased to meet you, sir. I’m (F/N) (L/N).”

His grip was strong and with a single pump of his wrist, my entire arm was jerked up and down in the handshake. “Nice to have you here. As you already know, I’m the Director of the company.”

I nodded, smiling, even though on the inside, I was trembling slightly. His words were cool and collected but just looking at his expression and body language was enough to intimidate anyone. His gaze was deadlier than a shark’s and his jaw was set firmly, his lips a thin line across his face.

“Well,” he added, “I’ll help myself to some coffee if you’ll excuse me.”

As he headed towards the table without waiting for a reply, I quickly shuffled away, merging with the background. My nerves were in a bundle again, the fear of being scrutinized by this person in just ten minutes returning to haunt me.

I looked towards Levi, hoping that he would summon my inner courage. But seeing his expression, my eyes widened in surprise. His aloof composure was totally gone. One hand pressed to his mouth, the other wrapped around his stomach as his body doubled over. His gaze glued to a spot on the floor, the fear reflected in his grey orbs terrified me.

Holding his arm, I whispered urgently in his ear, “What’s wrong?”

“Hmm?”

My head shot up, immediately realizing my mistake. The director fixed me in a hard gaze, his eyebrows raised at my odd behavior.

“Oh it’s err.. nothing,” I quickly stammered, my hand instinctively moving to the back of my neck, rubbing it as I faked a small laugh. “I was just rehearsing for the presentation.”

Eying me a second longer, he finally clicked his tongue in what seemed like disgust, his lips turning downwards in a slight sneer. He glanced at his Rolex watch, and noting the time, he gulped down the last of the coffee and tossed it in the trashcan.

“Anyway, good luck, Ms (L/N),” he addressed me again. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from your bosses..”

“Thank you, thank you,” I murmured, my head bowed slightly in acknowledgement.

“… so don’t disappoint me.”

Looking up, I stared at him, incredulous at his blunt attitude. The past few months here, I had experienced so much berating to the point that I was used to it… but his words certainly took the cake. To say I was appalled at him was an understatement.

Digging his left hand into his pockets, he continued, “Recently, there have been many disappointing cases in the company.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “The most disappointing being the young Levi Ackerman.”

My breath caught in my throat. Lips opening and closing, my voice came out as barely a whisper. “Levi..”

Mistaking my reply as a question, he waved his right hand in dismissal. “A research scientist. You probably don’t know him.”

My feet rooted to the ground, I watched as he headed towards the door before pausing, his hands on the door handle. With his back half-turned to me, he added, “Don’t end up like him.”

I barely caught the slight quiver in his bottom lip before the door closed behind him, leaving me alone in the small room. Exhaling a breath I didn’t even know I was holding in, I pressed a hand to my forehead, trying to steady myself. The whole encounter had left me shaken but there were more pressing matters…

Turning towards Levi, I hurried back to where he stood. He had recovered slightly, his hands were now on his knees, his locks of hair shielding his expression.

“Levi? What happened?”

He expelled a long breath before slowly straightening up, his eyes distant as he turned his gaze to me. “That man… is…” Levi corrected himself. “was my father.”

Blinking, I looked towards the door and then back at him. “But… his surname is not Ackerman.”

“I took my mother’s surname, not his.”

My hand finding my mouth, I took a deep breath, muttering, “Oh my god” repeatedly.

“I think I remember now…,” Levi said slowly. “How he forced me to be perfect at everything. Studies, sports…. You name it. I couldn’t be good. I had to be great. Nothing left to chance.”

He shook his head. “I wanted to break free of his shadow. Surprise him. Make him fucking proud.”

Hearing him speak so softly, I didn’t dare breathe lest it disturb him from his stupor.

“So I worked. I worked so damn hard on my research because I saw a potential.” His voice shook in rage. “But it was so difficult to convince those close-minded idiots. I failed… so many fucking times.”

Hands balling into fists, he took a deep breath. “The patent application was my last attempt. I was going to show him that I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t a useless piece of shit that wasn’t worth the investment.”

My lips drawing into a thin line, I had a mental picture of me beating the hell out of Levi’s father but shoving it aside, I listened attentively.

“And then… that day in the coffee shop... after so many sleepless nights of waiting. The results came out.” Levi ran his hands through his hair. “It was rejected.”

“One word. My entire world crashed. The pain….” His voice wavered. “I had no purpose. I… lost it.”

He held his hands out, staring at them as if for the first time.  

“I died.”