: Year 832 :
"Isanna, I like you! Please g - "
"No."
With a blank face, Isanna walked past the boy. And here she was wondering what important thing this guy (she didn't even know his name) wanted to tell her out in the corridor.
Here they were, training to fight for humanity's cause and people wanted to date? Isanna thought they were all stupid. She had followed Erwin's decision in joining the Training Corps for 3 years, striving to become stronger and fight for her life in this harsh world of man-eating abominations just so she could stay alive by her best friend's side, and people were really wasting their time pursuing useless goals. At least, useless to her.
2 years had passed since both Isanna and Erwin joined the Training Corps, one more year left and they would be off to their deat - to the Survey Corps. What was she thinking. There was no way she was leaving Erwin alone - not with that stupid, risky, gambling side of him.
Walking back into the mess hall where all the other cadets were having dinner after a tough day of training from their devil-spawned instructor, she strolled towards a particular table where a redhead and a brunette were eating their meals.
"Lemme guess, another confession?" The redhead shot a question when her eyes landed on Isanna. Her cheeks were full of food and some crumbs were dropping from her mouth, but she wasn't one to be mindful of table manners in the first place.
The other girl with the brown hair peered over her shoulder and saw Isanna, before she grinned. "Duh, of course. This is Isanna we're talking about."
The said girl didn't say a word but took a seat beside the brunette and continued on with her meal that had been interrupted when the boy from earlier (she still hadn't gotten his name, but she wasn't interested to know either) called her out into the corridor. Isanna had a short patience with people who ruined her eating schedules, so she was not in a particularly good mood.
"Guess she rejected him," The girl with the short red hair who went by the name Adalaide Müller commented after gauging Isanna's reaction. "How many does that make it again, Chi?"
Chiara Bauer, the brunette, put down the spoon in her hand and began counting her fingers off. "... 11 people so far."
"Damn," Adalaide lowly whistled as she looked at Isanna with amazement. "What's it like being so popular, Isa?"
Isanna swallowed the piece of food that she had been chewing before she answered with a bored gaze. "Annoying."
She never knew why those guys had taken a liking to her. It wasn't like she was the kindest saint out there, heck, she had the face of a constipated serial killer with her infamous death stare. A death stare she commonly gave to anyone - everyone who pissed her off.
2 years of rigorous training as cadets transformed her like that.
"Girl, you don't realize the value of that pretty face," Adalaide tutted at her with a dramatic shake of her head. As a close friend, she knew Isanna was so focused on training so that she could join Erwin in the Survey Corps and not get killed. The redhead could still remember when she first saw Isanna - the girl had looked so scrawny and weak and she had been constantly on the verge of crying every day for months on end when she first joined the Training Corps, but look at her now: six-pack abs like bread rolls but hard as rock, biceps and thighs that could kill, and a chiseled-face that could cut you in half. No wonder homegirl was getting confessions left and right. Hell, she even got a confession from a girl once.
"It's not because she isn't interested," Chiara butted in, eyeing Isanna with a knowing grin. Her meal was now forgotten as she rested her chin on her open palm, elbows on the table. "It's just that she's got her eyes on the real prize."
Oh, Adalaide thought, lips forming a smirk. "Facts."
Isanna, on the other hand, was completely unaware what her friends were getting at. "What?"
"Oh, you know," Chiara chirped in a lighthearted tone, shrugging her shoulders while wiggling her eyebrows. "we're just talking about a certain blond, with beautiful blue eyes, tall and - mind you - a hunk. Does it ring a bell?"
"And," Adalaide added, emphasizing with a raised pointer finger. "with smexy eyebrows. How could you forget that, Chi?"
The brunette gasped, prolonging it as long as she could for dramatic effect while clutching the front of her shirt. "Of course, how could I forget those fancy eyebrows on fleek."
Both girls gave each other a high five with matching grins before turning to Isanna, who was just staring at them with a poker face.
"What about Erwin?" Isanna asked, utterly clueless at the current flow of their conversation. She sometimes wondered where Adalaide and Chiara got those.. weird terms. Still, she managed to pinpoint who they were referring to the moment they mentioned 'eyebrows'. There was only one guy in the 95th batch of Training Corps who was associated with that word. Her best friend.
"What about Erwin," Adalaide mocked with a derpy face. "DUH! We're saying you've no interest with other people because you already have your eyes on him!"
If there was a specific term for the expression 'are-you-stupid-why-would-I-ever-look-at-him-that-way-there's-no-way-I-would-ever-like-my-best-friend-like-that', that would be exactly what Isanna wore while she stared at her friends as if they had just said something so out of this world. Her face wrinkled in pure disgust.
"The hell, Ada? He's literally family to me," Isanna defended, shuddering at the thought of ever seeing Erwin in that light. She never even considered it. Years of sticking together with him had morphed their relationship into a brother-sister connection.
Chiara rolled her eyes after exchanging looks with Adalaide. Bullshit, they thought simultaneously.
"Family? Puh-lease, how do you even hang out with a hunk like that and not get all giddy?" Adalaide's voice was coated with skepticism and mild frustration as she tried to rile Isanna up while making hand gestures all over the place, "I mean - have you seen the man? LOOK AT HIM, FOR WALL MARIA'S SAKE, ISA!"
Isanna's eyes followed Adalaide's finger and landed on a certain table a few feet from them, right across the room filled with cadets. Despite Adalaide practically just decibels away from yelling at the top of her lungs, Isanna doubted anyone heard them since the mess hall was as rowdy as a town celebrating a festival.
With her eyes zeroing in on the people on that table, it was then did Isanna took note of the fact that their surrounding tables were filled with girls, who were all oggling at the boys seated on that one table.
And that one table where those four men were sitting at was the highlight of the mess hall. Literally, it was glowing with strong aura emitted by all four of them, looking like one of those cool group of high school hotshot boys. Because they were exactly that.
There was a blond guy with a stoic face as he ate his dinner, Mike Zacharias. He had this weird habit of sniffing people at first greeting, creeping Isanna out when they first met 2 years ago, but he was a great guy overall.
Next to him was a guy with light-brown, short-cropped hair, who was chatting away with a smile at the person in front of him. Adrian Schulz was one of those outspoken extroverts who knew everyone and always had a way of lightening up the mood.
The dark-haired in front of him was Nile Dok - Isanna wasn't fond of him that much because the jerk had commented on Erwin's brows and called them "thick earthworms" on the first day of training. He didn't do it out of ill intent though. Ever since then, both Isanna and Nile had been contending against each other, trying to outroast the other each chance they got.
Last but not least and the topic of their 'girl talk', was the blond sitting beside Nile, the eyecandy of the 95th batch, the man whom every girl (and boy) wanted to date. Erwin Smith. As someone who had been with Erwin ever since he was 9, Isanna had to admit the boy was God's favorite and blessed him with the prettiest glow-up she had ever witnessed. Erwin had been already taller than most of his peers when he was little, but he was practically a walking tree at this point. As if that wasn't enough, years of arduous training had toned his body to a fit soldier - gone was the little boy with sparkling eyes of innocence and round baby cheeks - now replaced with eyes as sharp as a hawk and a jawline that could cut through your soul (the only thing that didn't change were his fancy eyebrows). He looked like a Greek God who had descended among peasant mortals.
"Look at him and tell me you don't like him," challenged Adalaide with a strong gaze directed right at Isanna, who had already stopped observing the boys and shifted her eyes back at her friend.
There was no way Isanna could ever like Erwin romantically. She scoffed.
"Never in a million years."