hopeless | jean kirstein

21 | date

After begging Taryn for the whole day to tell him whatever the hell she was planning, Jean retired to his bed, yawning as he collapsed unto the stiff mattress. Eren's snores echoed around the room, paired with Armin's soft sighs, the combination being quite interesting. Connie was nowhere to be found, which he thought was quite unusual since he always seemed to be the first one to head to bed out of the four of them.

Staring up at the ceiling, he thought of all sorts of things, just to help him calm down a bit. It wasn't long until his consciousness started fading away and he fell into a deep slumber, his mind fortunately not being plagued with nightmares for once. He had a nice, dreamless sleep, and he supposed that was better than having such grotesque images playing again and again, forced to live through the horrors once more.

And because of that rare peace, he got a bit carried away, forgetting about his agreement with the girl to wake up early. Soon enough, the night broke into dawn and the dawn turned into morning, the shining sun glittering above them, its rays of sunlight peeking through the gaps of the curtains and into their room.

Jean was half-awake now, and he could hear the others get up and leave, but he didn't mind, wanting to stay in bed for a little while longer. Then someone barged into the room, the boy unaware of the pair of eyes burning holes into his back, glaring at his sleeping figure as if he was the most irritating thing to ever grace the earth.

"Rise and shine, you lazy shit!"

A cheery voice cut through the air, with his mind thinking that it was probably Connie. Mumbling unintelligible words, he turned to face the other way, ignoring whoever chose to disturb his sleep. As soon as he did so, however, he heard the sound of curtains opening and the blaring sunlight greeted his eyes, the sudden brightness almost blinding him. He immediately brought a hand to his face, shielding his eyes from the light but still having no plan to wake up.

The other person in the room scoffed and he then felt a hand enclose around his ankle, pulling him out from the comforts of his bed. He fell to the floor with a thud, hissing in pain as he began to peel open his eyes, finding Taryn looking down on him with narrowed eyes. "I told you to wake up early, didn't I?"

"Taryn? What are you..." He mumbled out, his eyes still adjusting to the brightness of the room. "Oh, sorry. I forgot."

"Of course you did," She sighed, making her way over to his assigned closet, opening the doors before she began rummaging through his stuff. "But never mind about that. You need to hurry up and get dressed."

"What? Why?" He stood up, walking over to her. The girl started to pull out some of his shirts, holding them up in front of her as if choosing which one was better. After a while of contemplating, she tossed one towards him and returned the other to his closet, now looking through his collection of pants. He furrowed his brows. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure you look your best, obviously," She gave him some pants to pair with his outfit, before closing the door and turning to him with a raise of her brow. "You don't want to look like a rag on your first date, do you?"

He paused, his brain failing to process her statement. "Huh?"

Her lips curved into a smug smile, holding up a hand. "I scored you a date with Mikasa. No need to thank me."

His eyes widened almost as soon as the words left her lips, his breath getting stuck in his throat. "W-What?" He managed to stammer out in his state of panic, his pale face draining of what little color it had left. "What?! Taryn—y-you've got to be joking."

"I'm not." She replied in a calm voice, now crouching down to pick out a nice pair of socks. He was unnerved by the way she seemed so unbothered about it while his heart was beating erratically in his chest, and he didn't know whether it had been from excitement or dread.