bonding with krista and ymir
M/n didn't know how he ended up in this situation.
Getting yelled at right after running around the mountain of the training camp three times wasn't what he was expecting. Especially by someone who was not Shadis.
It was an older girl with brown hair that was parted right down the middle, freckles painting some parts of her face. Her fierce eyes boring into his own, the look in her eyes translating just how close she was to punching his teeth in.
"What do you mean you left her there?!"
It was a boring day at camp, but at least that weather was nice, M/n thought to himself as the girl continued to berate him for answers. They were given the optional task of completing three laps around the mountain for extra points that went into their graduation scores. M/n didn't have anything better to do and considering he was a rising soldier, he thought that the exercise would be a good use of time.
It was an individual assignment.
So it wasn't his responsibility at all to be taking after that short blonde girl that followed behind him. Nor was it his responsibility to carry her all the way down the mountain after she collapsed. So he just didn't, not thinking twice in leaving her there.
He wasn't the only soldier to be training in this exact course today either, so he figured someone else would find her and take care of it.
"It means I left her there," M/n boldly answered after a couple of moments of silence, "Why should I be the one to clean up after some blonde bitch?"
"Oi! Watch it there!" Ymir defensively shouted, leaning closer to M/n to get in his face. The intensity in her eyes only grew at the derogatory comment that slipped past M/n's lips and she wasn't about to let Krista be disrespected like this, "Say it again, I dare you," she said lowly.
M/n smirked, enjoying the look of anger and rage on her face, but decided he wasn't going to fuel it further. He had other things to do anyway, like nap or train.
"No, I think you heard me clearly the first time," M/n said, pushing her away with his shoulder as he walked past her, "She's somewhere near the summit, collapsed after only her second lap. Good luck finding her,"
Ymir grit her teeth, watching as M/n walked away without a care in the world.
She was going to chase after him to give him a piece of her mind, but in a more violent way, but decided against it as Krista still was abandoned at the summit of the mountain. She looked off at the distance in which she had to climb, gritting her teeth as she got moving as fast as possible.
Hopefully, there would be someone there that would have helped Krista, but she doubted it when she thought of the circumstances. Everyone that was doing the training in the first place was doing it for the extra points, there's no way they'd go out of their way to help a girl like Krista.
Maybe Eren would, his natural instinct to help people was rather strong, but his determination to be a soldier would sometimes outweigh that instinct.
Now as the time passed, dinner was ready to be served and Ymir and Krista were no where to be found. M/n didn't pay it any mind, but there were more than a dozen people worried about the camp ground's "Goddess."
He just ate his food without second thought, semi-listening to Eren and Armin converse about the two missing girls and voluntary training course.
"I was surprised Krista wanted to do it, she seems too frail," Eren breathed out, biting into a piece of bread after speaking his opinion.
"Well, anyone would want to end up in the top 10," Armin reasoned, although the slight nod he gave Eren showed that he agreed with his original statement, "I'm surprised no one had helped her when they saw her, though,"
"Who said it was anyone else's responsibility, though?" M/n spoke up, rolling his eyes at the offended look in their eyes, "See, you guys say that anyone would want to end up in the top 10, but then look at me like that when I say something that falls under that,"
Mikasa raised her hand to slap the back of his head in a ways of disciplining him, but he caught her hand before she could strike.
"We all know the terrain of that mountain, it was up to us to also decide if we were truly capable of completing it or not," M/n said, a bored look in his eyes, "you can't expect other people to help the weak all the time,"
"Hey, M/n, even for you that's a bit much, isn't it?" Reiner said, now joining the conversation as he slammed his hand down on their table, "how could you leave Krista out there like that?"
Just like Ymir, Reiner was a bit too intense for M/n's liking.
There was no use in amusing that idiotic question anymore, M/n decided. He stood up, grabbing the spare bread roll off of his tray and glaring at Reiner before leaving the table.
Talk about a dinner ruined.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Reiner shouted, clamping his heavy hand down on M/n's shoulder, making the shorter of the two to stop in his tracks, "You left a defenseless girl out there! Don't you feel ashamed?!"
"And what about all the other people that were after me? I don't see them getting shit on about this," M/n calmly responded, turning around to swat Reiner's hand off of his shoulder, "and don't tell me you guys didn't see her on the path to the finishing line because I know she fell right on paved dirt on the main path,"
Reiner faltered for a moment, his shoulders stiffening as if he were caught in a lie.
"I was one of the firsts that finished," M/n said, "there were a good amount of you in this room right now that ignored Krista's collapse as well, I don't know why I'm the one getting fucked over when all of you did the same thing as me,"
Heavy and tense silence fell over the room as looks of guilt crossed the faces of many cadets.
M/n took that as his sign to leave.
And the dining hall remained silent for the entire night as they took in M/n's words.
Meanwhile, M/n was making his way through the training grounds, munching on his dry roll of bread with a neutral look on his face. And his expression didn't change, not even for a second when he saw Ymir's dirtied appearance and Krista's limp body enter his line of vision.
He didn't make any comments, looking down at the brunette as she stopped her journey right in front of him.
"She's not injured, thankfully," Ymir breathed, holding tight onto Krista's arm that was limply hanging from her shoulders.
"Don't care," M/n said after a moment of silence, quirking his eyebrow in suspicion, "if you came here just to scold me, then I'm leaving,"
"No, I came here to apologize," Ymir said the moment he was done speaking, looking down at her feet, "I blew up in your face and when you walked away, I went to go and get her immediately. But I took the path that was going down the mountain because I thought I would most likely find someone that was helping her down...but I just kept passing people that looked more than relieved to almost be done with the course."
M/n hummed, allowing for her to continue uninterrupted.
"She was left behind by every single person that saw her. She was right on the path that everyone had to have crossed and she was left behind, no one even tried helping her..." Ymir said, her figure slightly shaking in anger as she thought of the sight of Krista being left there alone by everyone, "So I'm sorry for yelling at you, although I still don't feel all that bad. Your selfish ass deserves to be yelled at, and at the time, my reaction was completely valid. But on the way down from the mountain, I realized that everyone here...are truly the shittiest people. Not making you an exception or anything, but-"
M/n shrugged, shifting on his feet as he spoke up, "Her clothing are still in tact and she's not bleeding from anywhere, that's good, but she got some scrapes and bruises from her fall. Also she smells like shit,"
"Figures, she was out there for a while," Ymir emotionlessly agreed, face scrunching up as she thought of the conditions, "should probably wash her up before the bathrooms close," there was a silence that befell the duo before Ymir finally spoke up again, "This doesn't mean I forgive you either,"
M/n watched with bored eyes as Krista and Ymir got farther and farther away from where he stood.
Sighing, he turning on his heel and walked to the direction of the female dormitories. His rough hands broke the large roll in his hands into two, keeping the side that he bit into in his pocket. And he didn't mind the girly cries that echoed in the dormitory when he stepped in, ignoring their curses that were directed at him and instead dutifully searched for where Krista's bed was placed.
When he caught sight of a familiar blouse and brooch, he set the piece of bread under her bed and calmly walked out of the room - that was now watching him with interest and peeking over to what he left on the blonde's bed.
"If I hear about any of you taking that, I'll be sure to pair up with whoever takes it during out combat training," he said, sparing a glare to all the girls in the room before violently slamming the door shut.
The threat seemed childish, but everyone knew that whoever was paired up with M/n for that part of their training always walked away with various bruises, cuts, and sometimes in need of stitches.
The boy was not one to hold back on someone just because they were of the opposite gender as he was. And they knew that. So they steered clear of Krista's bed and didn't speak a word about the man's abrupt appearance in the girl dorms to anyone else.
"But, Ymir! We will be quick I promise!"
"I don't care, all the men in this dorm are creeps anyway, we're leaving!"
"Hey, was that Ymir and Krista just now?" Connie asked, leaning his head out from his bed to look at the entryway of the men's dorm, "I wonder why they're all the way over here, they might get into trouble too,"
"Who cares? Just open the door and just ask them," Jean yawned, "hurry before Shadis sees and suspects something of us,"
M/n was sleeping peacefully before he felt someone poking at his feet. Immediately, he felt annoyed since he thought he would be able to finish the week off with some good sleep, but whoever this person was just had to ruin that for him.
It'd been about 3 days since the incident with Krista and Ymir and for the most part, he was relaxing to his heart's content. Minus the strenuous training, of course. But no one was bothering him anymore about the whole ordeal with Krista and the mountain training.
"M/n-san?"
A soft and girly voice called out to him, making his face screw up in annoyance.
"Fucking hell," he cursed, sitting upright and running a hand through his already messy bed head, "what the fuck are you two doing here?"
Krista merely smiled politely at him whilst Ymir glared holes into his head.
"Repaying you for you giving me that piece of bread," Krista said, climbing up onto his bed - which made him click his tongue in annoyance - and kneeling in front of his figure.
She was so small compared to him that even when he was sitting upright and she was kneeling on her legs, she had to look up at him.
"Hey! Krista get down from there, don't enter a scum of a man's bed like that!" Ymir scolded, making a lot of the men force her to keep her voice down since Shadis might hear her yelling.
The blonde, however, ignored her friend and instead pushed forward a small brooch, "This used to be mine, but I feel it's only appropriate I give it to you in thanks. I don't care what you do with it, you can sell it after we finish training here, or you can keep it. Just please, take it as my thanks,"
He looked at the jewel, quirking his eyebrow as he saw it shine brightly under the dim lights of the room, "Why are you thanking me? For giving you a piece of bread?"
Krista's smile only grew wider, pushing her gift forward with her hands, "No! Because you treated me like your equal - even when I'm not. You treated me just like any other person, and...I feel grateful towards you for that,"
M/n looked at her unimpressed, "Were you that pampered as a child you're just used to people kneeling before you?" he looked her up and down before rolling his eyes, grabbing the blanket and falling back down onto the bed, "I don't want your gift nor your thanks. You annoy me a lot so just get off of my bed now and leave before you get all of us in trouble,"
There was a tense atmosphere in the room, awaiting Krista's response and since no one could see her face, they were even more antsy.
"Haha! You're so funny, M/n-san! I feel like we'd make great friends! You're always so honest and brash," the girl praised, playfully slapping M/n's arm, making the people in the room gawk at.
Instead, M/n just glared at her and kicked her off of his bed, the rough punt making her fall backwards and land in the safety of 3 people's bodies that caught her landing.
"I said get out, that goes for Ymir too," M/n huffed, pulling the blanket closer to his chest as if he were saying - 'get away from me, I don't have time for this.'
"Ah! Good night then, M/n! See you tomorrow," Krista cheerfully waved goodbye after dusting off her skirt and shirt, grabbing Ymir's hand and pulling her away before she could fight M/n for kicking Krista.
And after that night, Krista would try her best in trying to befriend M/n. It was odd, seeing such a bright character and happy-go-lucky person like Krista hang around a gloomy and intimidating M/n. And no matter how many times M/n roughly pushed her away and/or degraded her into humiliation in front of others - she would always come back with a stupidly wide smile.
"I hate you," M/n groaned when he saw the short shadow of a girl following him in the ground. He turned around on his heel and approached Krista, leaning down to headbutt her forehead, gritting his teeth as she fell to the ground on her butt, "stop following me already,"
"Hey, now, the thing I noticed with you M/n, is that you are always resorting to violence. That's something we don't have in common," there she was again, deflecting and ignoring his request of her to stop following him.
"What is wrong with you? Why are you so obsessed with following me?" he questioned, grabbing her shoulders and maintaining strong eye contact with her, "your friend Ymir also has to be dragged along too and I can tell she isn't really my biggest fan,"
"Ymir acts like that with everyone," Krista laughed, waving her hand.
M/n grit his teeth, tightening his hold on her shoulders until it was painful for the girl, "Your attitude makes me want to kill you and then myself, I hate it. It's suffocating. You following me around like some lost puppy is getting on my nerves too. I don't want some weakling like you constantly getting in the way of my day-to-day errands. I can barely stand it, makes me want to kill you - really. So stop or else I'll force you to," he threatened, watching as her smile gradually fell off of her face, "stop lying to yourself, you're not some goddess, you're just an annoying bitch,"
And when he was left with nothing but a strong frown as his response, he left her to stand there by herself.
Thank god for some peace and quiet today, M/n thought to himself as he strolled through the training grounds, this time not being followed by some annoying blonde - that wasn't Armin.
His walk to the dining hall where he would have his breakfast had been uninterrupted, for the first time in a while, and as he ate at a lone table with Mikasa. He informed the girl that Armin and Eren were sleeping in, it seemed, and didn't follow him there. She hummed in thanks of knowing their whereabouts and took a seat next to him.
When he looked up from his hot porridge, he looked up at the shadow that was standing over him. He squinted his eyes to block the glare that was coming from behind the person and sighed when he saw that it was Ymir.
"Scoot over, I'm sitting here,"
"Why?"
"Why not, asshole?"
"I don't want you to sit here," M/n finished, looking unimpressed as he moved to sit closer to Mikasa, "I have company to keep me occupied anyway, so you're not needed."
"Trust me I don't want to sit next to you either, but someone kind of forced my hand in this so just let me sit already, asshole,"
M/n looked around the room to see if the blonde, that he suspected, to be the one to have put Ymir up to this was anywhere to be seen. When he saw she wasn't present, he allowed for her sit and waited for her to explain herself.
"Krista talked about you not a while ago," Ymir sighed, "did you say something to her?"
"Yeah, told her to stop following me around like some lost dog and go get a life and a new personality," M/n replied nonchalantly. Mikasa was just silently listening, a blank look on her face.
Surprisingly Ymir didn't react in her brash manner, instead smiling and laughing to herself at what M/n said.
"Ha! You idiot!" Ymir laughed, pointing a finger at M/n, "you know what she said?"
"No," M/n said, an annoyed look on his face as he realized he was being laughed at.
"She said, she can't wait to prove you wrong, and got all determined about becoming your friend,"
M/n's plan backfired and instead made the situation worse.
He already had Connie and Sasha following him around like little ducks, he really couldn't afford - for his own mental health - to have another person be on his-
"M/n-san!!!" Krista's loud voice bellowed in the dining room, the door slamming into the wall as he aggressive kicked it open, "Let's start training early today, M/n-san!"
M/n clicked his tongue in annoyance, a tick mark appearing above his eyebrow, "Fucking hell,"
"Don't worry, I already told Shadis about my voluntary position in being your training buddy for the entire camp period!" she informed him, a wide grin on her face.
That's three whole years, M/n thought to himself, feeling dread come over him.
"I reject it," he simply said, ignoring how Ymir was chuckling next to him.
"I reject your rejection!" she cheered, jumping up and down with a fist held up in the air, "I'll prove you wrong, M/n! I'll show you just how strong I am,"
"I don't want you to," he complained, fighting the urge to punch her right then and there.
"You'll find out soon enough that Krista might not be the strongest physically," Ymir commented, resting her head on her palm, "but she is one of the strongest mentally and emotionally,"
If M/n had known that, he surely would not have challenged her the other day. Now, he knows that he's only made matters worse.
BONUS: Modern!AU
"M/n-san!!!"
Envious eyes of both female and male watched as the bright Krista hugged M/n's arm, a wide smile on her face. The gloomy teenager looked at her in annoyance, roughly jerking her off of his body.
"Get off of me already," M/n said in disgusts, as if she were a virus and were to infect him.
"Wanna go out with me and Ymir later today? We were planning to watch this movie, Train to Busan!"
"Hell no."
"I'm sure it'd be fitting for a guy with your taste, huh? Gloomy, dark, and depressing," Ymir joined the conversation, bumping M/n's shoulder with her own and a smirk on her lips.
"I don't give a shit about your shitty movie," M/n groaned, wishing he was anywhere but in between the two girls.
"But! M/n-san! It'll be fun!" Krista whined, making the boys that were listening in blush at the sound of her cute voice, wondering to the gods above how M/n was so cool and calm.
And the girls that were watching in the hallways blushed heavily to not only see M/n's handsome figure walking by, but also Ymir's walking right next to him made them feel even more flustered.
"I don't want anything to do with that," M/n said, running a hand through his hair with his free hand (his other one still trapped in Krista's embrace).
"What? You have plans later or something?" Krista pouted, looking up at M/n with nothing but desperateness for him to come along with them.
"M/n, you better not think about skipping out on the day we were all supposed to hang out," Mikasa's soft voice was now the center of M/n's attention as she made herself known to the trio.
"Huh?" he echoed in confusion, not recalling ever making any plans with Mikasa.
"Remember, Eren insisted that you come to Armin's house later," Mikasa calmly approached them and pulled M/n away from Krista's hold, catching the two other girls off guard.
"I neve-"
"Just stop arguing and come with me," Mikasa huffed, feigning annoyance as she clapped her hand over his mouth. His eyebrows furrowed together in annoyance of being told to shut up, but looking into Mikasa's eyes for a second longer he understood what she was trying to convey to him.
There were in fact really no plans that the four of them had together, she was just making that excuse to give him a ways of escaping the pushy blonde and brunette. He was grateful, really, but he wished that she hadn't had to come and put her hand on his mouth.
His want to tease her and lick her palm was rather tempting too, especially since he knew things like that truly pissed her off.
So he lifted his hand and grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand off of his mouth to speak, "Fine, yeah, I just forgot for a second, sorry,"
"Good, if you didn't come I'm sure Eren would have been very disappointed," she said, whisking him away and leaving the duo behind them in a state of shock.
To them it looked at if M/n was not at all annoyed or peeved that Mikasa had touched him or even shut him up with her hand. It all looked natural to the two of them.
Meanwhile, as the two of them got farther and farther out of eyesight, Krista huffed and pouted in sadness whilst Ymir crossed her arms over his chest.
"Next time," Ymir spoke, gently guiding Krista to their classroom.
This made Krista's expression brighten up as she nodded, "Next time for sure!"
And when the duo looked back up at the retreating Mikasa and M/n, they looked rather shocked to see Mikasa dutifully glaring at the both of them with a dark look in her eyes.