-earlier that evening-
Sasha strolled happily into her apartment, returning home after a late evening at her parent's house. She expectedly makes her way into the kitchen, as if she didn't already stuff herself full at the dinner table just moments before she left. She instantly spots the bowl of uncooked rice on the counter, along with your phone buried deep inside it. Curious, she pulls it out, realizing that you must have gotten it wet and had attempted to fix the problem. She goes to test its functionality by booting it up, smiling softly to herself as she watches the screen light up.
Suddenly, the front door opens as Connie is practically thrown to the floor by Jean's inability to hold his drunken, stumbling form upright as he kicks the door into a jar. Connie hits the ground with a thud while Jean pants restlessly, attempting to catch his breath from having to carry the man up three flights of stairs.
"Do I even wanna know?" Sasha questions the pair, who can't help but laugh at their predicament, and more so at Connie's idiotic display of intoxication.
"Connie got completely wasted, as usual." Jean snorts, before kicking his friend's legs out from under him as he attempts to stand upright.
"You two are idiots." She laughs, setting your phone down on the counter before reaching her hand out to finally help Connie up.
"Oh— y/n's phones workin' again." He slurs as he clings onto Sasha like a vice, not wanting to encounter yet another meeting with the floor.
"Quick, someone take a picture of my ass— I'ma set it as her lock-screen... Jean?"
"Fuck no, I'm not taking a picture of your nasty ass." Jean grimaces teasingly.
"My ass is beautiful, I'll have you know." Connie chortles, punching Jean's stomach only to get knocked to the ground again once Jean retaliates.
Sasha allows them to tussle with each other a bit more while she goes to unlock your phone— she's pretty sure she remembers the password... after all, it would be pretty funny for you to come back and find a picture of Connie's backside on your screen.
She types the password once, then twice... the third time was the charm, your phone immediately unlocking— soon displaying a notification of a text you must have received while your phone was re-cooperating.
'see you tonight, pretty.'
The text was short and simple, but something was off-putting about the wording of the sentence. Sasha wasn't one to snoop around or invade your privacy, but call it a gut feeling— she felt the need to investigate further.
Opening up the message thread, her eyes widened when she skimmed through the various texts, almost all of them sexually flirtatious in nature with a man who clearly wasn't Jean. She didn't even bother to click the video, after seeing the nude photo of yourself that you sent to the recipient.
"Fine, I'll do it."
Jean says apprehensively, making his way over to Sasha in order to retrieve your phone.
She panics, swiftly closing out of the text before sliding the phone into her pocket and out of sight. Despite her friendship with Jean, she feels a sense of loyalty to you— girl code, perhaps, that prevents her from informing Jean about what she's found. Ultimately, she just needs more information about the situation; she needs to talk to you about this first.
"Oh! Um, y/n's phone is still bugging out... I think we should leave it alone for the rest of the night." She exasperated, dismissing Jean's attempts to grab ahold of the device. "Besides, Connie def needs to go to bed, he's a mess."
The two of them gander at the man who had seemingly passed out on the ground, drool seeping out of his parted lips as he snored heavily against the hardwood flooring.
"Yeah, you're right. Guess I'll drag him over there— but uh, could we talk for a bit afterwards? I want your advice on something." He asks wearily, the urge to express himself to his best friend was painstakingly overwhelming. He needed to talk to someone about the situation going in between the two of you and Sasha was the only feasible option as far as he was concerned.
"Sure." She smiles, although it wasn't her most convincing expression. She could already guess what Jean wanted to talk about, as it had become a routine for the two of them to discuss the nature of your relationship whenever you had a falling out.
Typically she was eager to offer her advice, but this time, she would come to dread the exchange.
"I think we're done for good this time."
Jean's voice was low and rasped as he ran his finger through his shaggy, ash-brown tresses. He let out a deep sigh, almost as if he had been holding in that very breath since he had first left the party that night.
"We've gotten into some pretty bad fights, but this time it just feels different."
Sasha can hear just how much it pains him to say those words— but to make matters even worse is that she has an inclination to exactly what's changed; an unforeseen problem that goes by the name of Eren Jaeger.
"Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the two of you... ya know? Called it quits." She says this cautiously, as if she expected Jean to blow up over the notion.
"... maybe you're right."
It's the only thing he says for a good while, his head hung low, cradled in the palms of his hands. It's odd to hear him say such a thing, but what strikes Sasha as even more odd, is that it sounds like he really means it.
"She's not happy with me anymore, Sash— she hasn't been for a while. I think I knew that... I knew she was slipping away from me but instead of doing something about it I just simmered in the fact that I knew she wouldn't leave me." His voice cracks towards end of his sentence, a clear indication that he was fighting back tears.
"How fucked up is that? I've been treating her like shit just because I knew she'd put up with it... but that look in her eyes when she left that night— she was so much more confident and self assured... she was different, a good different." He chuckles half-heartedly. "She's become someone who won't put up with my shit anymore."
He plays with the laces of his shoes as he ponders more on that heart-rendering thought.
"That scares me, Sasha. I love her so much, I don't know what I'd do if I lost her— but at the same time, I don't know what I'd do if I kept her...
I don't wanna keep hurting her."
Sasha carefully throws her arm around Jean and pulls him in closely, allowing him to rest his head shoulders.
"You should've seen her at that party when she kissed Jaeger." He sighs.
"She what?!" It came out more intensive than she meant to, but she was shocked to find out this piece of information; not because of the act itself, but more so because Jean had act witnessed it.
"Well, it was more like he kissed her. It was for a stupid fucking dare... but she looked like she enjoyed it. It was so effortless— the passion between them. She used to kiss me like that... but she hasn't in a while."
He lifts his head from her shoulder, his light- brown eyes glittering against the moonlight with sullen tears as he stares deeply into Sash's gorgeous, deep browns.
"She had kissed me just moments before, but it wasn't like that. Wasn't nothing like it, not even close. It was like she was just going through the motions with me, like always— doing what she was used to, or what she felt like she needed to do."
He's crying real tears now— unmistakably juicy tears that roll down his cheeks with each desperate sob he lets out. It felt good for him to release all the pent up emotional turmoil he had been harboring away... even from the likes of you.
Sasha's quick to wipe his tears, brushing away the loose strands of hair that stick to his cheeks amidst their newfound dampness. He gazes at her once more, this time his expression held that of someone who's only felt the worst of inadmissible heartbreak.
"She fucked him, Sasha...
I just know it."