𝐨𝐤𝐚𝐲, 𝐛𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐢

𝟸𝟷. 𝚘𝚛𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚓𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚛

❥ don't mind typos, i kinda just gave up tbh. enjoy.
__

"Marco." That name. The name. The one Jean
can't ever bring himself to say, no matter how hard he tries. How many times that he chokes on it. How many times he heaves on it. The name that holds more than the cavity of him can sustain.

It is so heavy in both mass and meaning you can feel it weighing in on your chest. The cords of your heart unraveling, your lungs exploding into a million tiny pieces.

Five letters coming together to form something that knocks all the wind out of him and shrinks his body to a minuscule size while swelling his heart up so much it overtakes him. Bleeding, beating, and breaking, ten times over, with something that he can no longer give away because the one receiver of every ounce of it no longer exists.

Your eyes are entirely turned in Jean's direction now. You feel them as they droop. Sinking deep into their burning sockets as you take him in as he lay restless beside you. He's only a couple of inches from where you are, but for some reason, the distance feels equivalent to a couple lifetimes. A length that won't allow you to get to him in enough time. One that has stretched too far.

By each fleeting second that ticks by like the count down to a deadly bomb set to detonate, Jean's trembling lips and twitching body are increasingly monopolized with restlessness due to the cruel internal barbarism that's pushed him into the dark corner of solitude with no way out.

His fears, in all their rawness, are chaining him up and skinning him alive like an animal in an overcrowded slaughterhouse. All the while, he swallows his own bleeding tongue that's still wearing a name that sounds like perennial loss and hurts like distressing melancholy. The result of it lingering beyond wherever it is that forever reaches to.

Jean's consciousness is still out like a light. He's still lost somewhere in his shadows that are shaded as dark as a rogue planet that has no knowledge that the sun exists and that it is also a star.

His words, weighted with importance and hurt, continue to spill free from the string that create his voice. A granular substance painted with grieving black as he stirs in his dreams of fear that are a little too vivid the images might not ever leave him, not even once he wakes.

"Sorry, Marco. So sorry." Jean utters, words falling out of him and off the edge of your bed, cracking the supple ground of your bedroom. It's a cry before it's anything else. And then it develops into something more. Something substantial enough to snap your neck in half and revive you back into franticness that can't be tamed. "Marco, I'm so sorry."

And that's exactly what it does. It makes you frantic, it makes you queasy, and everything else in between. As quickly as two particles collide with each other, you are swallowed whole with the need to try and help him. To try and make it better. To try and save him from himself.

To try and fix it.

And you don't hesitate, not even for a moment. It's nothing you have to internally debate or make a single passing thought about. With something like this, there is no coercing to be made.

Your body works by itself, fully controlled by your beating heart that holds the existence of Jean closer to its center than you want to believe is true.

Pulling your body up from where you are on the mattress that emotions are turning hard as a ribbed rock, you bring your heaviness over to him, closing up the respectful space set between your once-rested bodies that's been there since he first drifted away to the place he now needs rescuing from.

You feel the warmth of his body and his movements of terror against yours. Both of which are skyrocketing past the crust of the earth.

There's a bottomless, darkened pit in your stomach that formed the very second you realized what was going on. And now it's starting to branch out like roots of a plant that are housed down in subsoil weaving around every single part of you there is to possibly latch onto to find its nutrients.

It's starting to itch like poison ivy that's infected all the wrong places. You want relief from it, from the flesh-eating irritation, but you want to help Jean more. Ignoring your own feelings, you focus only on him. Nothing else but that matters.

Gently, with the care you've very seldom received in your life but have so much to give, you reach out for him and touch his hand that is tucked into his body as he lies on his right side facing you. His left arm is resting under his chin, which has clenched into a tight fist at some point during all of this. His muscles have gone tight, the fabric of forest green clinging on tightly to his body.

Not wanting to startle him and risk making things worse than they already seem to be, you slowly curl your fingers around his wrist, right where the fabric meets the start of his and hold it there. "Jean," you whisper, squeezing your hand around him, deepening your hold just faintly on his warm yet prickled skin. "Wake up."

He doesn't. Not even for a moment. He remains in his arid solitude, which wants to take his life, and has been yearning to do so for far too long. Your effort here isn't nearly enough in comparison to what he needs. His nightmare continues, the darkness getting closer to its total consumption of him.

With your arm resting up against his chest, you feel his heart as it frantically beats with the motive to be set free from its own feelings that are wrapped around it like barbed wire, causing the muscles to shred.

You remove your hold from his wrist. Readjusting yourself, you place both hands to find his left shoulder, one at the crane of his neck, the other at the curve that maps down into the rest of his arm. You shake him again but this time with a little more strength. You don't want to alarm him, but more than that, you don't want him to stay locked in his nightmare for a moment longer. He needs to be released before he loses any more of himself than he already has.

He's been walking down this unevenly paved road of life after loss, and pieces of him have fallen off along the way. Parts of his heart. His soul. His happiness and will to live.

Jean lives his life as one-fourth human, three-fourths loss. And that isn't a way to live at all.

Lately, you've noticed more of a spark in him since you first met him. It's faint, but it's there, and that alone is something huge. You don't want him to face any more unfairness if you can at all help it. He doesn't have any more pieces of himself to lose. He's lost a lot. Enough.

Too much.

You put that very concern into every action you make. You are dripping in it. Made up of it. "Jean. It's okay." You shake his body a little bit more as it continues to tremble beneath your caring pair of hands that seem to be they are falling too short the way they always do.

Not this time. You think silently to yourself. Don't make me fail at this. Not right now. Not with something like this. Not with him, who has done so much for me. For once, let me help. Let me pay it forward. For once, don't make my efforts fail to meet what I'm trying to achieve.

This once, dear universe, listen. Allow me to repay him for all the times he's rescued me like I'm a person who is worth saving.

Your fingers curl into him more, and your voice raises more but not by much. "Jean. Wake up. Please wake up." Every word that spills from the walls of your lips tastes like the hurt you know he feels, and the lingering of it leaks down into your lungs, sharp like razors, making it sting with the powerlessness your existence is made of.

"Jean, please." You shake him a little more. Your heart is tightening, and your throat is closing in.

Finally, with what couldn't have ever been soon enough, your words find his subconscious and drag him back to the reality of the world.

His restless body jolts, and his lids crack open like a bottle cap releasing all his imprisoned emotions into thin air.

Jean's eyes, all sad and sick, lock in with yours, but they don't hold steady. Rather, they shake back and forth rapidly, flickering with something that makes them sink into the back of his head. Weighing his skull down so heavy it's about to split and spill his brain matter out right on the pillow where he lay in pooling sweat.

He's heavy breathing, and completely wordless; but more than anything else, he looks terrified. So so terrified.

Your heart rips apart, splitting into two even halves, and all the sadness you feel from being a witness to all of this starts to exudate. It's hard to see him in this kind of condition as it is, but what makes it even more difficult is the fact that you know what this experience is like. It is the steep hill on which your life was built upon and it's also something you don't want him to know for himself.

You came apart in front of him that one cold night when the rain was hitting the window of his room while your soul leaked with agony and filled your mouth full. Calling out for Lucas after seeing the graphically forced images of him gutted and rotting. Jean rescued you then before you fell too deep. Held you until the world of hurt stopped.

But it seems this time, sadly, there has been a turn of the deadly cold tide, and he has been selected as the victim. This time, he is the one to come to ruin, and you are the one to watch it occur. It's your turn to be there. Your turn to rescue.

Seeing Jean mourn in such a similar way makes your heart plunge to a place where all hurt goes, and your need for fixing pulls right up to the surface of your splitting chest. "It's alright," you mutter, your voice losing all the strength it has ever known. "You're okay, Jean. Okay? It was just a dream. That's all it was. Just a dream." You assure him again, trying to make sure that your words get through, even amidst their weak build, "just a dream."

There's this woolen cloud of knitted hope floating around in the furthest part of your brain of the chance that he doesn't recall what he saw when he was asleep. That it was one of those night terrors where it was heinous while in the dream state, but once awoken, it vanishes into thin air, leaving only a bit of restless. Easy to forget and almost weightless to move on from.

But by how Jean's skin has faded in all its living color and his erratic breathing that's expanding his ribcage makes it seem like he is living directly on a fault line. His soul and mind are balancing on the razor-sharp edge of caving in on himself as a mountain does when the earth shakes, and you know, by this, that it was one of those nightmares that remain suck. For minutes. For hours. For days. Forever.

All he wanted was to do was rest.

But this world doesn't like him enough to give him that sort of solace. Not in any part of his life, so it seems. Awake and aware or drifting around in the depths of sleep, it all remains the very same for Jean.

An utterly painful undeserved hell.

You rub your thumb against his clothed shoulder, not wanting to make any sudden movements and risk worsening anything for him. "It's okay," you whisper quietly with the need to soothe him because you know he needs it; it's showing in every part of him—a silent yet piercing scream ringing recklessly in your ears. "You're going to be okay. Whatever you saw, it wasn't real. I'm here. I'm right here. Nothing's gonna hurt you."

Jean blinks once. His lips are dry and cracking. His cheeks sunken in. His entire face is consumed with a hot flush that has shot up from his hardened stomach. He doesn't have to ask if he spoke anything aloud while locked inside himself. You can tell that he knows the answer in the same way he knows the back of his hand. Like it's something that happens way more often than it ever should. Probably more often than he has ever let another soul know.

"I-" He begins, but then he falls silent, lips vacuuming shut, sucking away the rest of whatever structure he was trying to form into a sentence of logical sense.

Jean's body has been set on fire by whatever it was that he saw—ignited a deadly flame of mourning blue and self-loathing. All he can do is smell the smoke of his own burning flesh and watch himself melt away into the land of the earth he struggles to stand upon.

You feel powerless. So pathetically powerless. It makes you want to be swallowed by the planet's soiled tongue so that you can be rid of your existence and make your great return reincarnated as something else. Something much better than what you currently are as you sit next to him with the sticky substance of falling too short dripping down the bridge of your back.

"It's okay," you shake your head lightly, trying to find the middle ground of not moving too much or too little. Lifting your hand from his shoulder, you bring it up to his face and set your palm into his left cheek. Your thumb begins to trace the curve of his cheekbone, hot to the touch, back and forth and back again. An effort to paint comfort into him, though you are nothing but an artist with clammy fingers for brushes and expired hope for paint. "You don't have to say anything."

His jaw unlocks, and his bottom lip quivers. It seems like he's cold, but you know that it's the flood of rapid nerves that are being sent so quickly through his brain he can't process them fast enough that's forcing this reaction in his body. His mouth opens, closes, and then opens back up again. This time though, his words find him with the will to embark on their parting from his vocal cords.

"I- I miss M... him," Jean chokes out. His voice is barely above a makable whisper, but its impact is that of a blade to your stomach, freshly sharpened. There's a second quiver of his lip. Then another tilde wave of foaming candor crashes into you. "I m-miss him so much."

He's fully awake now. He's awake, and he's aware, and he can no longer speak Marco's name.

This is the first time he's spoken of him like this, in such a vulnerable way. His usual self-forced disregarded words that always die in his frail lungs have finally been unleashed into the rounded world that took his friend away in vitiated blood and blinding smoke.

And now it's your soul's turn to plunge, finding your sunken heart. It begins to rest there, too, alongside it. "I know," you utter, your voice just as uneasy and quiet as his but for a much different reason. "I know you do."

When he blinks again, it is heavy, and it is so pained. Far the most pained you've ever witnessed another person be. And that alone breaks you in a way you have never before been broken. Brittle glass meets pavement with the pull of gravity and then some.

Jean looks almost as if he wants to cry. As though he is dying to feel strings of warm liquid trail down the hills of his salmon-colored cheeks, an outlet for his bottled grief, but he also looks like he doesn't know how.

Not a clue. Not the slightest clue in this entire damn world.

If one is to eat their emotions enough, they start to forget how to exist.

You see the faint start of welling tears at his lash line, where his long lashes sprawl out like webs of spiders, but falling free isn't anything the salty-formed liquid does. For him, they only burn the rounded surface of his visibility, blinding him of the sight he is holding of you. "It hurts. I hurt, Y/N. I hurt so damn much." His jaw runs tight again as he bites on every painful emotion known to mankind. It cracks his teeth all the way down to their roots. "And I don't... I don't know how to get it to stop."

He doesn't talk about it. He never ever talks about it. He keeps his struggles to himself. All internal. Bottled and vacuumed airtight. It's how he functions, how he suffers, and how he lives.

That is, until now.

But now that he's speaking, what is there for to you say? What can you say to such heavy truths as they spill into your palms and lap and weigh the weight of a thousand tons?

There is no such thing as a fix-it button, but god, do you wish there were. You'd break the damn thing from all the use, and then you'd buy another one just to overuse it all over again and damage that one too.

With your fingers folded inward, you drag your hand up, tracing his cheek with your knuckles. "I know." Your throat knots all the way down as you consume his pain like it's your very own. Every ounce is recognized, felt, and known by you. "I know. It's okay." Straightening your fingers back out, you run your open palm back down to his jaw. "You're okay."

You're desperate here, trying to rub all your comfort into him as you speak, as if that will make any difference. Pain like that, which owns Jean like a pack of obedient mules, is incurable. That incessant little thing stays as a constant. Overwhelming and organ-squeezing to the point, his most vital parts, the most human parts, become nothing but a shapeless mass of some runny material.

But you try anyways. You have to try. An attempt, as enervated as it is, to change the narrative carved into stippled stone with all that you have, which is nothing but the small dance of your fingers and the vibrations of your withered voice.

Jean is speaking through his teeth, unable to let the tension in his jawbone release. "Tell me how to make it stop." His eyes are wadding like the waters of the ocean you have never seen before. But the waves that crash to the shore of his chest are not of beauty but of bereavement. "Y/N. Please. I just need it to stop."

You never knew your heart could hurt in the way it is right now and it's almost nauseating. There's bitterness all along your tongue, cutting the muscle straight down the middle in a thin parallel line. "What do you need?" You ask softly to him through a knotted throat. Your hand finds his untamed hair. "What do you need me to do to help you?"

I'll do anything. Give you my ribs that curve in nearest to my beating heart. You think as you run your fingers back through Jean's soft ashy mullet, as gentle as a dove floating through a current of rustling wind. Or my heart itself. That, too, I will give.

Raw, damaged, and full of spoiled blood. Take it. Take it all. Disassemble me. Pry me apart, your hands as an acting leaver, and pull out of me whatever it is you need. However deep or however much. It's okay. It is. Leave me with nothing but half my spine, or take that as well for all I care. Your heart shatters as your brain flows tirelessly. I'm okay with it. I am. I'm okay with never being whole again.

Broken arteries, sliced ventricles painted with a past that has my soul by its throat like a dying frail boned hostage, and everything else in between each gaping hole I have, where the innocent girl in me once lived with always a little too much hope. Leave me bear, coldly veined and hollow chested. As long as it means it no longer hurts you to breathe.

You deserve air, Jean, painless and clear. You deserve all the air this unfair world has to give.

Jean, he doesn't answer you. It's clear he can barely even function with normality, let alone think. Whatever is going on in his head echoes off the walls of his skull too loudly to allow him to operate the way a developed human is supposed to.

Your mind instantly jumps back to the night he helped you and all the selfless efforts he made in doing so. You use that as your drive forward. Your words come second nature. Everything else then follows directly after. "Headphones," you speak level, though your cells are stirring rapidly. Your fingers still running through his hair, feeling every soft strand flow against your skin. "Do you have your headphones?"

Jean finally moves. He lifts his upper body up, causing your hand to fall away from him and back into your lap. Slowly, he shakes his head like it's hanging by the last of his vertebrae. "I didn't think I needed them." He murmurs. "I... I didn't want to need them."

You can hear the disappointment and anger toward himself, and sadness slips under your skin a little bit more. He didn't want this to happen. He wanted to fight it. He thought he would be okay. He wanted to be okay. But, of course, as always, this world, this life, couldn't find a single damn to give.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ stand by me - bootstraps | make sure it's this cover version of the song for full effect ]

You try to move. "I have some. I left them out in Mika's car. Her keys are in the kitchen. I'll go—"

Jean grabs your thigh, stopping you, his fingers digging in, a desperate grasp. "No, don't." He's coated in pleads. "Please, don't go."

"Okay." Everything is breaking inside of you at once. "I won't go. I'll stay."

Jean straightens his heavy-boned body out. "I can't. I can't I -" With his back now resting into your bed frame, his eyes are closed shut, and you watch as both his hands lift to either side of his face and cover his ears. His voice is ear-splitting.
"I can't do it. I can't do this a-anymore."

He remains like that, eyes shut so tightly it seems they might never open to see the light again. Then he says something more. Something that rips your twisted guts cleanout. "He's dead."

Your heart falls down the center of you.

"Nobody's supposed to die. Not like that." Jean's words that weigh and burn like the mass of the sun do not stop. They are incessant in their flow and harsh in how they chip away at you like the axe brutally meeting the bark of a tree a few thousand times. "I see it. All the time. It's stuck in me. And I beg for it to stop. It's all I ever do. But it won't. It won't leave me. I see it. I see him. And the blood."

Your body snaps in half. He continues.

"People shouldn't be made of that much blood. So much. So much blood." His breaths are sporadic. His words break apart from each other and hit the cracked floor of the attic of his endangered soul, where not a single person is allowed to be. Where he hides and hides and hides some more, living in a body that is gray and meek and more than halfway dead.

There's a slight pause as all your feelings take a parting. When they come back into you, they are knotted with smoldering misery on top of the conflagration of guilt you already have expanding inside of you.

He keeps on as you boil alive.

Jean's hands press deeper into his ears. Elbows resting on his bent knees as they tuck into his chest. "I can still smell it." His body experiences a wave of shivers. He doesn't have to say it for you to know that he's scared. Scared of what he bore witness to, both in and out of sleep. Scared of his own mind. Of himself. Of everything he never dares to speak of. "I can still smell all his blood."

Something is spilling into your stomach now. It's acid, and it's painful. Nothing short of excruciating.

You hurt for him. So much. Your throat is screaming out with thickset tears that are always too scared to know you. Instead of finding their own release, they simply evaporate like water on the concrete during the hottest summer of the year.

Your heart, though, that's the one thing that can always cry up a storm. And so it does. It wales, and you do everything in your power not to choke on it as it turns the bones of your chest into sharp-edged splinters. Your bloodied emotions run through each valve and pierce every chamber.

You need to think quickly on your feet of a way to help him. Reaching out toward his face, you rest the palm of your wrapped hand on top of his that is trying, so hard, to block the world out. "You're not alone," you whisper, trying your best to comfort him with what little you have, "You don't have to do this on your own. Okay? I'm here. Whatever you need."

Jean can't hear you. Not a word. He is still shutting the world. Ears blocked, eyes closed. Heart dying a slow death. "His screams." Jean almost gags. "I can still hear his screams. It's loud. It's so fucking loud."

His hand pushes deeper into his ears as sadness pushes deeper into you. "I wanna forget." He chokes, eyes squeeze so tight stress lines form around his eyes. "I just wanna forget."

He can't. He can't forget. Nobody can forget something like that. It stays, a lingering ghost infecting all a person is.

He is sinking into the grave he's dug for himself. You need to pull him. Up. Out. Away. "Jean. Look at me." Reaching out with your free hand, you grab his other wrist and softly pull them, trying to get him to release them from the sides of his head. "Please."

At your quiet demand, Jean's eyes peel open as you guide both of his hands down to his sides and run your thumbs along his kid. "I'm right here with you." You whisper, trying to keep your voice as level as possible, knowing he needs steadiness somewhere since there is none in him. "You're not alone."

His glossy eyes hold steady in yours, and you watch the stars in them start to burn out. "I just want," his words catch, another star lost. Another. And then another. "I wanna disappear."

Something inside you hurts so bad it's taking everything in you not to scream. You hold it in your chest as it bubbles and release the urge in a small breath. Bringing yourself more into the right of his body, you shift your weight up onto your knees, feet tucked under you so you're sitting a little taller.

Your arms around him at his neck. He runs tense, muscles flexing in unexpectedness. You pull him a little tighter, hold him a little safer. "I don't want you to disappear. I want you here." You speak softly into the wool of him. "I like that you exist," you bury your head a little deeper so he can feel you more. "I'm so glad you exist."

Your feel him finally accept your embrace. Soften into it. Sink. His broad arms wrap around your waist, palms flattening and pressing warmly into your back. He nestles into the top of your head, burring himself alive into it.

You stay like this for some time. Two hearts beating into each other, trying to revive the other with every pump it has to offer.

You break the quiet with the softest your voice is able go. Lifting your right hand, you place it on the back of his head and run it down his hair in a repeated motion. "Tell me what you need, and I'll do it."

Quite frankly, you don't really know what to do. What will help him, or what will be enough? It's unfair that humans are given pain like this but no power to take it away. Why couldn't the universe have given something? Something more than desires that people are incapable of completing successfully.

Why can't you be more? Be better?

You complete your sentence. "I'll do anything."

Jean speaks into you as you he holds as close as you're holding him, if not closer. The low vibrations of his chipping voice craw all throughout you. "I need it to stop." He says, voice just as unsteady as the rest of him. "Fuck. I just want it to stop."

You release him. He reads you, releasing too. "Come here," you shift your weight from your knees and untuck your feet that have been holding the weight of your body.

Jean holds himself still in place, looking at you perplexed, as though there's a chance he may have heard you wrong.

Grabbing him by his shirt sleeve, you tug at it just a little. You readjust your body back to the side of the mattress, still holding your body's indent. "Come here," you say again softly, eyes flickering with empathy.

"I—" His eyes are unsteady as his jaw moves, searching desperately for words that keep hiding from him. "You don't have to I'll be fine I—" another attempt, another fail.

He's trying to reject help, the way he does with everyone else. "You can lay on me, Jean," you pull the fabric again, adding more encouragement. "It's okay."

There's relief now all over him. He takes to your words and accepts them for what they are. Bringing himself over to you, he lays himself down, and rests his head on your chest.

His body is still shaking, this time right up against yours, as you pull the blanket over his and your bodies and wrap his arms around him, pulling him in more. "Listen to my heart," you tell him. "Focus on my breaths. Try to match it with your own."

You don't know if this will help. You can only hope, and you know better than anyone that you don't have much of that left.

Listening to your request, he begins to tap his pointer finger on your left leg, nearing your knee, keeping tempo with how your heart is beating.

Tap tap.

Tap tap.

Tap tap.

With each beat, he seems to bury himself deeper inside you a little more. Trying to find a hideaway in your wayward heart. His shelter from this universe and the parts of his own self that aren't so kind.

There's a sudden shift, a realization kind. "I'm sorry, fuck," Jean weakly utters, no longer tapping his finger against you. His voice drenched is disappointment. And then that disappointment transforms to complete embarrassment as he shakes his head against you, fisting the fabric of your shirt near your hip bone. "I'm so fucking sorry, Y/N. I don't want you to see me like this. You weren't supposed to ever see me like this."

"Stop it. There's nothing for you to apologize for. You're okay. You don't have to hide away from me." You hold his body more snug. Smelling all of him. Feeling all of him. If you could tuck him into you entirely, you would.

Feeling your embrace and the meaning of your words, he lets out a breath of relief, his body caving in more.

It runs silent again. He has nothing to say, but hiding isn't anything he tries to do again. He lets himself rest near you, on you. Slowly, you feel his body gradually start to settle itself. His is still slightly shaking, and his breaths are still running a little heavy and uneven, but it's nothing close to what it was.

Softly, you run your fingers through his soft hair in a repeated motion as you leave the rest of yourself as still as you can which causes him to calm even more. You remain like this, holding him while he tries to find rest. As time goes on, his tension goes too, relaxing out.

You wait a few minutes, just to be sure. "Jean," you whisper, not wanting to risk him if there is a small chance he is knowing rest again the way he deserves. "Are you asleep?"

You hope he is. God, you hope he is.

But that hope, just like always, fails.

Jean's head shakes against you, the side of his face still pressed into your chest. "I just don't wanna see... I can't see what I saw again." He takes a breath, a shallow one, "I don't want to sleep. I can't go back to sleep. Not right now."

This is all hitting so close to home that it makes it a little difficult to breathe because the air tastes bitter as all his hurt spills into it like a downpour. These droplets of darkened rain made of his soul.

Trapped in your own humility that's so limited compared to what life endures, you reflect, and your memories flash through your mind like a spaceship traveling at the speed of light.

You remember back in Mitras that one night and all the nights following until you moved away, how Lucas would come and rescue you from your darkest dreams before they consumed the parts of you that you needed to keep on living.

That's what you want to do here. To help him in the ways that your brother did for all those number of years. It's the only thing that makes sense here.

"Okay. We don't have to sleep." You whisper, trying to keep your voice as level as possible."I have an idea." You grab his shoulder and squeeze it as a sense of encouragement. "Come with me."

Slow in his movements, Jean lifts his head and looks up at you, releasing the hold he has on your shirt. His long eyelashes fan out and almost touch the skin of his under eyes, which are always colored with dark bags heavy in all the rest he can never fully receive. They're even swarthier now than they usually are. "Huh?" His tone still lacks strength completely. Noticing it himself, he clears his throat, trying to readjust it, but it still isn't very strong when it leaves him again. "Where?" he finishes, reluctant.

You rub your right eye and then the left pulling the wool of tiredness out from the base of them. You were so close to falling asleep while reading before all of this. Now sleep is the very last thing on your mind. "Just trust me, okay?"

As Jean sits all the way up, that tension in his face somewhat relieves itself, but not all the way. "Okay," he softly says, the fear in his eyes starting to disintegrate like salt taking a meeting with water. "I trust you."

"Good." You stand from your mattress, and Jean does the same, moving a little slower. You snatch the sage green blanket bunched messily off your bed and throw it over your right shoulder, the ends tangling down the front and back side of you. Turning on your heel, you step around Jean and make your way over to the one large window you have in your room draped in sheer white curtains with fake leaves draped over the golden rod.

Stepping close, you pull the draped material apart from each other and pull the glass window upward, opening it. Jean, filling in the empty space at your backside, remains quiet, free of questions.

The window meets the top, up above your head and you're met with air that smells cold and of the mooned earth. You release your hold and twist your upper body to look back at Jean. He is looking through the open window. Blinking twice in realization, his eyes cut to you. "I always forget yours and Mikasa's room share a fire escape," he says.

"I always forget you knew your way around this apartment before me." You smile very faintly and tilt the top of your head toward it. "I haven't been out on it before. Let's sit out here for a little. Get some fresh air, help get you out of your head." Lining your spine straight again, you grab onto the sides of your wall that hold the window and pull your body up and out onto the fire escape made of black wrought iron. It's rectangular shaped, with a staircase that leads to the fire escape below to get to the lower ground.

You're immediately met with the cool night breeze, causing your shoulder to lift as a shiver tears through your whole body. Walking a couple of small paces to the left, you near yourself to the black side railing and press your back into it as Jean step through the window and straightens his body back out. "How do you know this will help?"

Unhurriedly, you sit down. Crossing your legs you press your spine into the railing. "I don't," you admit to him, angling your neck as you try to make out what you can of the shadows around his body. "But something like this used to help me when I would have bad nights, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try."

Jean steps over to you. Facing the same direction you are, he sits right next to you, on your right. "Nightmares," he begins, his arm slowly settling into yours. "They happen a lot to you too?"

"Yeah. Always have." Leaning forward, your wrap the blanket around your back. "I've always been pretty susceptible to them. I'm not sure why, but it's been that way since I can really remember. They were at their worst right after Lucas. There was this timeframe where I don't think I slept more than a couple hours a night." You offer the end closes to Jean to him.

He grabs the fabric. Bringing it over his shoulder, his back settles back into the railing. Warmth starts as you and him share the blanket of green. "Constant." It's not a question. It's firm in its ending, already known.

Craning your neck, you glance at him. He is wearing a look of the understanding you wish he weren't. "Yeah. Constant." You return, fair and just. "Sleep paralysis and all that."

Jean breathes out as though it hurts him to know of a fact such as this. "What helped you?" He asks. "You know, get through them."

Resting the back of your head against one of the thin metal bars of the railing, you close your eyes. Behind the back of your eyelids, you can see the younger versions of you and your brother before life stripped you of childhood and love you thought couldn't ever be lost. "Recently, mot really anything. But when I was little, Lucas did." You mumble, lids breaking back open. "He was what helped me."

Jean's eyes consume you. "What would he do?"

You can tell he's asking these questions to distract himself from what's happening inside his head. You answer with as much detail you can to help. "We had this tree house in our backyard." You bite at the side of your tongue, trying to get your thoughts back in order as your vivid memories make them jumble. "Whenever I woke up from a bad dream, he would take me up there in the middle of the night, and we would build a fort so we could hide away. We did it so much that it just sorta became this tradition we had."

Jean's arm presses a little bit deeper into yours as you continue. "When we were up there, we would talk about our dreams of the future and our goals in life until we both got tired enough that we couldn't help but fall asleep. He never said it, but I think he was trying to cancel out the bad dreams and replace them with something good."

Jean sees the fabric of the blanket over your shoulder begin to slip before you do. Reaching across the front of you and pulls it up, covering your shoulder. You smile faintly at him shows your appreciation. His hand pulls away, back into his lap. "You had a tree house back in Mitras?"

Your mind turns back and forth left and right until it finds the pieces of your childhood memories that still remain whole within you, time not yet abusing them. Your mind holds them snugly and close to the things most valued.

Nineteen, with a still growing body, heart, and mind, but all you want to do is shrink back small and be able to fit back into those memories from when you were nine.

The tip of your tongue traces the soft flesh of your cheek. "Yeah, my dad built it when my mom was pregnant with me. They wanted there to be a place where Lucas and I could play. We called it the Magic Treehouse." You grab the end of the soft blanket securing its security on your body even more. "Pretty basic, I know, but my mom helped us name it. She made a sign for us to hang in the door and everything."

You wonder if it's still there. Standing tall and strong the way it did for such a significant amount of your childhood. Or have rugged pieces of the wood chipped away with time causing it to crumble completely like the dreams you left behind?

Sometimes you miss Mitras and how you never knew how unkind the world could be before you left. There's a yearning inside of you to return back where you came from, and it's seeming to grow larger day by day. Maybe one day you will. When you have enough strength. Maybe there's a chance that a visit like that could mend the wounds that have been heavily exposed since your mom became one with the soil of the earth.

Your words continue to flood like a waterfall spilling off a hill. "That's why I wanted to take you out here. I know it's not a treehouse, and there's only this blanket instead of some huge fancy fort," you pick at the fabric hanging near your knee, "but I figured getting out of bed and sitting out here to try and get away from your thoughts might help just a little bit."

He strokes his chin calmly, soothing himself. "It's the first thing that ever has helped." His voice sounds like peace, and it feels that way too.

Your lips part from each other, but he shifts the conversation leaving your tongue bare. "You said something about talking to your brother about your future dreams and goals," he begins as his palm pulls across his jaw to the top of his chin, and then his hand falls into the center of his lap. "Back then, what was your childhood dream?"

You look at him, smiling so faint that the darkness of the night cancels out most of its visibility. "I think the biggest one I had was I wanted to go to Jupiter. I swore one day I would defeat all odds and live there."

A soft laugh leaves Jean, brief but warm. "I kinda figured it would have something to do with space," he admits, and his brows pull into a deep furrow. "And what about now? Where do you dream of your life being in fifteen years?" The last two words that part from his mouth are lifted with a sweet teasing tone, "still Jupiter?"

"No, not Jupiter anymore." You shake your head, straightening your legs out in front of you, feeling relief in the small areas that were faintly beginning to ache. "I wish, but once I learned about the kind of schooling it would take to become an astronaut and the true impossibility of living on that planet, I decided it was probably best to let that dream life go."

You lift your finger and place it over your lips. "Don't tell younger me that though, or she'll be really disappointed."

"Your secret that you've called your big move to Jupiter off is safe with me." His eyes, draped with under bags of exhaustion, have a small light of curiosity sitting in the center of them, making the honey color turn richer. "But seriously, what's your dream life?"

Jean's question hits you with an iron clan fist, making your stomach pull down and twist. You can feel it in your throat, head, and mouth for some reason. Probably because of how deeply it's rooting inside of you. How close it hits to the home you used to live where you've kept a hopeful light on for all this time instead of burning it straight to the ground like the rest of you.

You used to have so many aspirations. Dreamt so many dreams, countless in number. The ample sky, shaded blue, was the limit with every single one of them. Until, one day, it no longer was. And that once broad, endless restraint rapidly became much smaller, more suffocating, and far less achievable.

For the years you did have with her, your mother always told you to dream big. That you could do anything you wanted to do and be whatever it was you wanted to be as long as you were kind, and good, and you worked hard enough. And because of her true heart and star filled eyes, you wore the world as your blanket that no one else could have, and your aspirations were the crescent moon you carried in your hands.

But over time, life occurred, and the door to reality swung wide open, sucking you into its aggressive void. That was the moment when your world became a lot less something of yours and something far more universal while the moon slipped from your hold and kept moving further and further away as you continued to chase tiredly after it. These sudden changes caused you to spin around yourself, making your brain rattle against your skull to the point where even your mother's encouraging words started to sound like a lie until you could no longer hear her voice at all.

Even dreams of peaceful simplicity became as complex and as configurable as the law of gravity.

You ran yourself weary trying with even just one. So, to spare yourself, you stopped attempting all together, forcing your cramped dream-catching hands to release all you ever wanted. "I don't know." Your words slip, unsteady. "I focus more on what's in front of me now. Besides wanting to be a lawyer, I don't dream like that anymore."

"Yes, you do. Everybody dreams." Jean blinks narrow-eyed as a piece of the moon cracks through the clouds and illuminates him, alluring his existence to the point that it becomes haunting. "And I don't care about what society wants you to achieve or what the world says is right for you to do. I care about what you want and where you want to be someday."

His tone is sharp with a hint of lingering exhaustion, but it wraps around you like cloying lavender, turning you violet. "There isn't some kind of book or strict rules you need to follow with something like this or some kind of weird test to be passed. There's only your heart, and I want you to know what's resting inside of it. I want to know what you want your life to look like. The life of all your dreams."

As your tongue presses into the roof of your mouth, fighting not to choke on your own hesitance, he angles his shoulder, facing you a little more, waiting patiently for your answers to come.

Pieces of your once innocent heart are resting in your mouth. It spills out, all broken, cutting through your teeth and tongue. "What's left of them, they're small," you speak, a bit muttered, "and not that important."

There is a small space set between yours and Jean's thighs, and you set your hand down right in the center, palm resting down into the metal grate. You can already feel the indents forming on the parts of your skin that aren't covered in the thick bandage.

Jean shakes his head, declining all of what you just said. "That's where you're wrong. Your dreams important to me." His words swirl in the center of the vessel your soul calls home, like newly formed stars amid a spiral galaxy that's about to clash with another. "And if you don't believe in them anymore, then at least tell them to me. That way, I can believe in them for you."

The way Jean warms you, no matter the distance, whether closer or far, have you convinced that the sun in the sky is a fake, a fraud—a complete illusion. The sun is in him. It has to be.

Or maybe he is made of many moons or a thousand exploding stars. You don't know, you're always recklessly clueless when it comes to him. But whatever it is, it is nothing of this spinning world, but everything of what you wish you could rest in until this galaxy meets its neighbor and is swallowed whole.

As your head turns with different configurations of Jean, who is sitting so close that the air turns thick, his voice calms the almost deadly waves. "Hearing about your dreams will help me forget my bad ones," he lowly admits, "So talk to me. Tell me. When picturing yourself in the future, what do you see? I know there's something there. Everyone has something, even if they never say it out loud."

Although you released a majority of your dreams over the years, making them become nothing but particles in the air no human eye could see, one stuck around. You were incapable of letting it go. It is tucked under the skin of your palm, where it's been since you were a little girl. Back when your family was whole, your heart was whole. When your life was unchanged, and so were you.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: yebba's heartbreak - drake, yebba ]

You grind your teeth for a few rolling seconds. Taking a small breath, you release your jaw and everything hiding inside your chest. "A cottage," you confess aloud, a dream you've had since you watched Snow White when you were five and knew nothing of life but everything of what you wanted to be. "I don't really want much, but I do want to live in a small white cottage, like one of those you see in fairytales. You know, with the hay-like roof and the dark wood door with its own little covering above it with a stone pathway leading up to it, surrounded by green fields and mountains that seem like there's no end to them."

Jean hums. The vibrations travel down your throat as though you just ate them alive. "Sounds nice." He sets his hand next to yours on the grated fire escape. "A good dream." His fingertips brush soft but longingly like an angel's kiss against yours. Neither of you moves, but you feel it in your lungs, meteorites bursting inside you, one by one.

You nod, and then slowly, you fall into the aura of comfort that continually surroundings him, resting your head on his shoulder, "What about you? What does your dream for your future look like?" You inquire, pulling the blanket more snugly around you.

Jean pauses, his body going somewhat limper at your simple touch. "How much truth do you want?"

You answer almost too quickly. "All of it."

Jean takes a deep breath and then releases it all at once. "Simple. I guess. Shared with someone I love. I wanna live peacefully surrounded by that person and my kids," he tells you, nose forward, gazing away in the distant night sky. "I wanna be secure, and I want them to be safe."

Your head lifts away from it's rested position, and you blink up at him. "You wanna be a dad?"

His sharp chin turns and drops, eyes now locked. "After I've work hard enough to earn my right to that kinda life, yeah. I think I'm far off from deserving it now," he says softly, his hand still refusing to move away from yours, yours refusing too. "But one day, with the right person, I think I'd like to be one."

You blink, steady, honest. "I think you have already earned your right to know peace like that," you admit to him, words wearing your heart. "I can't really think of a person more deserving of it."

Jean remains unblinking as though he's scared he might miss something. Afraid he might miss a single moment of you. "I can."

His words they're emphasized. They're sure.

Curiosity tilts your head. "Who?"

"You." His eyes are so soft you could read the care right out of them. "There isn't a single person I can think of that's more deserving than you."

Your soul is in between your teeth now, wrapping your tongue. "But—"

"But nothing." Jean's words break through, adjourning the rest of yours. "I don't care if I never get my peace. As long as I could guarantee that you get yours, then I'd let mine go and never think of it again." His thumb drags across the skin of the outside of your pointer finger like it's nothing but an accident.

You pretend it's an accident. The way you do every time it occurs. It's almost easier to accept touch that brings peace rather than pain when you convince yourself it's not driven by sheer purpose. "If you fight for my peace, then I'll fight for yours."

He looks like he wants to fight but then he breathe out. "Fine," he says a little firmly, and then the rest of what he says sounds like the heart of him. "Maybe in the end, we'll both get it."

Your answer comes to him with such certainty it binds your throat with a sweet flavor. "We will."

His brows snap together. "How do you know that?"

"My two cents," you shrug, shoulders tugging back. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm never wrong?"

You study each other as the world continues to spin. "For once," Jean blinks. "I don't want you to be."

You smile at him softly at his honesty, and he smiles too, much softer than yours. Leaning your head back into his arm, your eyes drop down to your hands that are still in brief contact, as he rests the back of his head against the cool railing.

A couple of minutes pass, then Jean's voice comes again. "Y/N," he nudges you, causing your body to teeter under his weight.

Your run your thumb across the blanket as you hold it in place on your shoulder. "Yeah?" Lifting your head, you turn to look at him. His eyes aren't anywhere near you, though. They are set heavenward.

"Look up," Jean says, he signals up toward the sky with a point of his finger.

Lifting your nose and tilting your head toward the clouded sky. At once, you inhale as your eyes flicker at sight. "A plane," you breathe out as your heart fills with all the love you have for your rested brother.

"A plane," Jean repeats, hand back to his lap.

As crickets chirp and the moon wears clouds as its security blanket, the two of you watch the plane pass while sitting near each other on the fire escape that's holding your two bodies full of revisited dreams and the slow recovery of night terrors that are never spoken of again.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

After about fifteen more minutes of sitting outside and talking about nothing important, you and Jean head back inside to try and find the rest that was stolen from him again.

Once the window is closed and locked, you shut the curtain and crawl back into bed. Sitting on the mattress on the right side you cover your legs with your blankets.

Without really thinking twice about it, you simply expect Jean to follow even though the first time he fell asleep next to you was a complete accident. But when you watch him trail across your room, heading for the door rather than your mattress, for some odd reason, your insides twist.

Halfway there, Jean's footing stops, and he turns to look at you, body squared off. Bringing his right arm over the front of his chest, he crosses it over and places it on his left shoulder, near the blade. He rubs it anxiously. "I'm gonna go out there." He gestures toward the direction of the living room with his free hand. His expression matches his voice, both of which are holding coy. "To try and get some sleep."

Stay, is what you want to say. "Alright," is what naturally comes.

Hand releasing his shoulder, he rolls his bones back, limb dropping to his side. He holds there, staring at you. You stare too. Both unmoving. Both not knowing what to say.

It's a quiet, unspoken game you two aren't even aware you're playing. A challenge to whose gonna be the one to blink first, move first, and speak first.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: heart to heart - mac demarco ]

Jean does. All three. "Alright." He turns around and heads for the door. The sight of his back makes you want to fall straight through the floorboard.

There is no victor here.

He sets his hand on the silver knob of your door, but he doesn't twist or pull. Instead, he stands there as he is for a good few seconds. His voice finds function again before the rest of him. "Y/N." With a slow turn of his neck, he glances over his right shoulder at you.

Your eyes don't have to find him at the calling of your name. They were already well into looking. "Jean."

His hand falls away from the knob, and he faces you the rest of the way. "Thank you."

You know what he's thanking you for. A thing that needs no thanking at all. "You don't have to thank me. I'm always here." You pick at the thick yarned blanket a little anxious though you're not fully sure why that is. "I meant what I said. I'm glad you exist."

A pulse of his temples. A tense of his throat. His jaw turned to stone though you're not sure why. His mouth remains empty, wordless, bare of nothing but tongue, teeth, and building saliva.

Your eyes turn to concerned slits. "You okay?"

Jean swallows with difficulty, it almost gets caught in the middle. "Yeah, yeah. I'm good. I just –" His words sink as his face does.

Whatever he wants to say, he can't. But by reading his body language, you can tell he wants to.

Your lips move well before your mind does. "You can sleep in here if you want."

Did you just say that? Your lips pressurize as your words ricochet in your mind only to come back and make you feel stupid for even speaking. He wanted to go out there. He said it himself. Why did you just say that?

Something flashes in the middle of Jean's eyes, but he blinks it all away before your vision can unblur. "You sure?"

Is this what he was waiting for? No. It can't be. "Yeah, I mean–" you shrug with forced equanimity "—I know Connie's snoring is bad. It's not like you're really going to be able to sleep that well out there anyways. Might as well just crash in here so you can actually get some rest."

Jean doesn't fight it with his words or his body. It's as though he were waiting for your offer. Was this the cause of the silent war?

He leaves the door behind, pacing back into your room. Reaching your dresser, he stops, drumming his fingers upon the surface. "I'll sleep on the floor if you can just toss me a blanket," he extends the hand closest to you.

You huff a single laugh, disbelieving his statement made. "I didn't want you sitting on the floor earlier, and you think I'd let you sleep there? Be serious, Jean. We've done this before." You reach over to the left where you are sitting and pull the blanket down, creating a space for him to go. You pat it three times. "It's not weird unless you make it weird."

He groans a little, only because of the quiet night do you hear it. "I'm not making anything weird." He takes the spot next to you and pulls the blank over his legs.

You lay down, expecting him to do the same but he doesn't. He remains sitting, staring straight ahead of him at the wall, dissociated.

You look at him, worried. Concern claws your chest causing your heart to pull down just a little. You push yourself up and sit next to him. "Jean," your tone is like soft air as you extend your elbow and touch his thigh.

Jean's tense back softens like the sound of your voice, and your touch, even if it's brief, melts the ice right off his back. He turns his head to look at you. "You have no idea how bad I just wanna sleep—" He swallows heavily, the lump in his throat shoving through his skin, "But I don't wanna see him like that. And it's the only way I ever see him."

Something inside of you falls. Something that you didn't even know you had within you to begin with. It falls shallow. It falls sad. It falls apart.

"I know I can't take it from you, but I'll be here," your eyes blink slowly as they witness the pleads sitting in his own. "If it happens again, I'll be right here with you, okay?"

He nods twice, eyes washing over with relief, and his face follows after that. "Okay."

"Come here." You back down on your side of the bed, and his body follows you, staying close like that's what he needs. But then he hesitates, like he needs permission to allow himself to get even an inch closer. You give him a slow assuring nod. "Listen to my heart again."

That was all he was waiting to hear, your consent and the want for his nearness. Breathing out of his knotted chest with relief, he finds your body like the pull of a magnet and sinks into your body's natural warmth like he never left.

The tapping of his finger matching the temp of your heart starts again over the blanket on your leg, the same spot as before. You can feel his body gradually settle itself. It's silent and dark as the two of you try to find rest.

Everything is slowly starting to fade until the calling of your name keeps you in reality for a little longer.

"Y/N," Jean voices weakly, splitting the quiet apart. The wind outside hits the glass of your window covered snugly with blinds and curtains, blocking out the world outside. As you lay here, still, it feels like the only thing that exists in the small of this room is your beating heart and him as he listens to every sound it makes, knowing that you're still here. That you're still alive.

Heart to heart.

You hum. "Jean."

It's quiet again as he slowly begins to drift in your arms that refuse to let him go. Your limbs and muscles seem only to know how to pull him tighter. "Thank you," he says, still soft.

"I said you don't have to thank me," you quietly return, eye fluttering shirt.

The tapping of his finger stops and you miss it. "No, not for that," he grumbles, grainy with exhaustion.

You sink deeper into the mattress while he sinks deeper into you. "For what, then?"

Jean pauses for a handful of seconds, the side of his face pressing deeper into your heartbeat as you feel his breath pace itself with the want to match the rhythm your body is effortlessly creating. "For existing in the same world as me," his words get delivered to you barely above a crumbling mumble. "Out of all the galaxies out there, I'm glad you're in mine."

Whatever Jean is planting inside the broken parts of you is coming up mended. Your thoughts leave you, spoke as soft as clouds as they float in the sky, "What would you do if life screwed us," you stroke his hair, "and we weren't from the same one?"

His body melts like an orbiting satellite that has accidentally flew too close to the sun. "Then I would alter space."

You're through the roof at his words. Through the ground. Through every wall. The ceiling and all it's plaster. You're everywhere. "I'd move it all around until both of our galaxies collided," Jean mutters, his voice fraying at the end with tiredness. "That's what I'd do."

You try to respond, but his words continue in place of all the things you want to say, but they come out in a slow tempo—long space between his speech where they usually aren't. "I... wish... that... I... were... -"

And then it goes still, just like the rest of the night.

You take a small breath, eyes still closed, wondering where his voice has gone. "You wish that you were what, Jean?"

There's no response. All you feel is his body go heavy, and his breathing change, and you know without even having to look that he has fallen back asleep, but this time, it's peaceful.

And sleep consumes you whole shortly after him, knowing he's safe. Loving that he is. He doesn't wake again, and neither do you.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Something shakes you, something firm, something warm. "Hey." A low voice melts down into your ear. "Y/N. Wake up."

The combination and persistence of both sound and movement pull you from the dream realm snapping your deep slumber in half.

"Hmm?" Your eyes slowly peel apart from their natural morning residue as your teeth move against each other, trying to pull your voice into something comprehensible. Your blurry eyes start to clear as you blink away the heavy tiredness sitting at the forefront of them.

You quickly make out the large silhouette of Jean, who is sitting on the edge of your bed, looking down at you with a face that seems to lose all of its ability to harden when around you.

"Jesus. About time. Thought I was gonna lose my voice and age fifty damn years by the time you actually heard me," Jean grates, mashing down a smile.

The continuous sound of his voice makes you wake even more. Functioning more like a human than before. "Is that how you say good morning? You have horrible manners." You yawn.

His blinks slowly, unamused if anything. "Morning, Y/N."

You stretch out of your awkward sleeping position, bones and muscles aching. "Good morning, Jean."

You're unsure how long he's been awake or when he got out of bed. But he's dressed, wearing a light grey crewneck sweater with a white collard shirt underneath resting on the neck paired with black pants. His presence seems soft, a little more than usual.

And he smells clean, like linen and soap. His hand wrapped up in a fresh bandage. Signs that reflect that he took a shower not too long ago. Fresh and addictive. You hate it.

It's taking a bit but you're still trying to learn that everyone in this group stays at each other's places as if they live there. Showers, random overnight crashes, invasions of fridges are all normal. There's comfort found in that, the concept of home being away from home especially with being without a true one for quite some time.

Jean's mashed lips build back up to a smile with almost missable faintness. "You sleep okay?" He asks. You only nod, brain still a little bit fuzzy with lingering sleep around the edges.

Jean looks relieved toward your answer. "Good. You feel like going somewhere?" He questions, a rough morning voice blanketing his tone, making it deeper and full of rasps that aren't typically there. It sounds good. A little too good. "Or are you too tired?"

Slow and weak, you push your weary body up and rest your weight on your bent left elbow, twisting your body to face him more. You squint, eyes feeling heavy. "Go where?"

Jean's eyes shut briefly as he shakes his head. When they blink back open, he pushes himself up from the edge of his bed and stands, squaring his shoulders off. "Doesn't matter," his response comes out firm. "Just give me a yes or no."

"Depends." You clear out the grogginess, glazing inside your throat like thick molasses as you rub at your faintly burning eyes, trying to rid yourself away with the lingering tiredness as much as you can. You push yourself the rest of the way up, and your arms reach toward the ceiling as you stretch out your aching muscles from all their tangled knots of sleep. "Can we get coffee first? Since you woke me up at the butt crack of dawn."

"It's not the butt crack of dawn. I'm not that fucked." Jean's eyes pull narrow, his neck dropping as he intakes you, laying on the bed before him. "Besides, do you honestly think I'd wake you up this early to go somewhere without it?"

You yawn. "I don't know. Maybe."

His eyes fall to sharp slits. "You're acting like I haven't caught on to the concerning addiction you have to caffeine by now. I think I know you a little bit better than that."

Your mouth begins to salivate faintly, becoming sweet at the mere thought of fresh coffee consumption. You, indeed, are an addict. Your arm, now more relaxed and less achy with hours of rest, drops heavily on your thigh, elbow bent slightly. "Then yes." Your response to his question is as quick as a bolt of lightning.

Jean looks like he wants to smile, but he doesn't allow it to pull up through his corners, forcing his familiar stagnant face to remain what it is. "Alright. Get dressed then." He demands. "But try to keep quiet, alright? Everyone else is still sleeping."

You freeze, unexpectedness snatching your breathe away. Not giving it much thought, you were expecting that it would be everyone else tagging along to where it is he's dragging you to as well. "Wait, me and you?"

The look Jean gives you is peaceful, sure. There is a gleam in his eye that passes through the warm honey color at the speed of a comet that is nearing the burning sun. "Me and you."

"You want to sneak out without telling them?"

Jean's eyebrows pull upward. "Why? Is that a problem? Don't tell me you're afraid of being a bad girl in your home." He remarks arrogantly as a smirk overtakes him. "Reverting back to your innocent ways?" His head shakes like he's disappointed. "And here I was thinking we've come a long way."

"Shut up." You hear a smart laugh leave him through his nose as you throw the blanket off of you and push your body the rest of your way up into a well seated position. "Since you won't tell me where we're going, can you at least do me a favor and tell me if I need to dress a certain way? I don't wanna wear the wrong thing."

Jean shrugs, scratching his chest right over his hard with his bandaged fingers. "Whatever you wanna wear will be good. Just make sure you're comfortable. Not sure how long we'll be gone."

You push yourself over to the edge of the bed and swing your legs over, feet touching the ground. You sit on the edge. "Do you know what the weather is going to be like today?" Your palms pull from the mattress and rest at the center of your thighs. "I'm guessing rain? It was pretty cloudy last night."

Jean shakes his head, and then his answer goes verbal. "Nah. You're in luck. I went for a run around six thirty-ish. It's cool but not bad. There wasn't any rain. Barely even any clouds." He informs you. "I checked, and it doesn't look like it's gonna rain again until later tomorrow. Guess the clouds just rolled through. Rare as shit in this place."

"You went running at six in the morning?" Eyes agape, your eyebrows flash. "Did you even sleep?" You ask as you feel a string of your soul detach from the rest of it and latch onto the hope that you were able to bring him enough comfort, at least until the sun peeked through the lands.

You're sure to leave the specification of his nightmare tucked underneath your ribs. In the same way, he never spoke of yours, you don't speak of his either.

Mutual respect. The way all of this has formed to be more than just two aching souls that needed to forget themselves while stuck behind the shut door of a closet with a stupid ticking timer that counted down the seconds until you could be rid of one another.

What little you knew then. What little do you still do now. But oh, how much you're learning. And how much you don't want your knowledge to stop.

Jean pauses for a moment, then blinks his eyes in levelness. "I slept enough," his lips press into each other as he swallows the memories of what happened within these four walls last night and replaces them with words so authentic you can feel the backbone of them in which they have rooted. "Better than I have in a long time."

You breathe in his words and relish in the relief it gives you in your lungs. Even the cage of your ribs experiences the relaxation of it. "Okay," you say, peace now dripping in where all your worry has been. "Good."

Jean grabs his phone out of his pocket and scrolls on it, the screen brightening the more shadowed areas of his face. You see through the gaps of his fingers that the dandelion you gave him back at John Wayne airport. It's dried out now but remains pressed in its place right in the center of his clear case. It makes your heart bubble up like a cauldron.

He swears to the ends of the earth that he isn't a sentimental type of person, yet here he is, holding onto things like your polaroid and a yellow weed you picked free from the grass. He's much softer than you ever thought, and it shows rather frequently in small things like this. But you don't comment on it. You're not even sure he realizes it. So you simply let it be. It's kind of nice, keeping realization like this to yourself away from everybody else.

"It's 8 right now." He glances up at you shoving his phone back into his pocket. "I'm gonna go grab some gas so we don't have to stop on the way, and then I'll be back to get you. Think you can be ready by 8:45, or do you need more time?"

You usually need much more time than that, but you don't want to keep him waiting. "8:45 should be fine. I'll try and make it quick."

Jean nods. "Want anything from the gas station?"

"I'm okay." You return, pushing yourself to your feet, and walk to your closet to find clothes. Jean stands right where he is, in front of your dresser, watching you.

You look over at him, waiting for him to walk, but he doesn't. His heels remain pressed into the ground beneath him. You click your tongue, annoyed. "So, do you think you can maybe leave so I can start getting changed?" You crane your neck toward your room's closed door and shift it back to him. "Or are you just going to be annoying and keep standing there staring at me?"

That cocky smirk, the one you learned to hate from the very beginning of your paths forcefully crossing, pulls upward and takes over every part of his face. "Go ahead. You can change," Jean teases. "It's fine."

You cock a stubborn brow. "That's what you want?" Your eyes jump down to the bottom half of him and climb back up to the top. "For me to change in front of you?"

Jean shrugs, the stupid curve of his lips remaining disgustingly stubborn. "Isn't that what I just said?"

He's pressing your buttons intentionally. That's as clear as day. So you do what you do best and push his right back. "Alright, fine then,' you shrug back. "I'll do it."

Jean's eyes go wide, clearly unexpected at your lack of fight. Eyebrows lifted, he walks over and places himself directly in front of you. "Is that right?" Peering down at you, his head drops to the side in a tilt, trying to call you on your bluff.

Your arms cross stubbornly in front of your chest, and you hug them into your body tight. "I just need you to do something for me first before I do."

"Oh yeah?" Reaching his dangling hand slightly forward, he taps your outside thigh with the back of it with a quick motion. "Which is what?"

Your eyes flicker. Releasing your arms, you reach forward and pick off a small piece of white lint that's stuck to the left of Jean's chest, fingertips grazing against the firmness of him. "Beg for me," you whisper. Pulling away from him, you brush the tips of your fingers together, letting the lint fall to the ground. Your ignites gaze bearing into his, "earn the other half of your forgiveness."

Jean elongates his spine, your statement running though him. Reaching behind you, he gathers your hair in one fellow swoop and give it a light tug, causing your head go tilt up more towards him. "You first, Y/N," he says, voice rasping the whole way through. "Wanna see if you sound as good as I remember."

The room is burning. You're dying to escape. "Oh, are you talking about the closet?" You blink slowly, eyelashes batting. "Thought I was boring," you slyly speak. "But I guess you just exposed yourself."

Jean almost chokes on an inhale, body running tight. "Exposed myself?"

"Yeah, exposed yourself." The nod you give is taunting. "Truth is, you can't stop thinking about... can you Jean-Boy?"

His chest stills over like ice, lacking in breaths. Your eyes soften as you power through the silence before he takes it. "It must be so hard having me on your mind all the time."

His jaw goes slack for a split second, and then it loosens all its screws. "Be real with me for a second." He releases his hold on your hair and takes a step forward. "Is the one who can't stop thinking about it me, Y/N, or is it actually you?"

You're suffocating now and you need it to end. "Check your ego. I don't think about it at all." You smack him with the back of your hand in the center of his hard abdomen. It's hard as a wall, and he isn't even flexing. That alone makes your stomach curl in an odd direction. "Out, Kirstein." You demand with a harsh tone wrapped in thick annoyance. "Now."

"Yeah, yeah." Jean sighs and takes a step back. "I'm going." Shifting his weight, he turns toward the door and exits.

You roll your eyes and shake your head to yourself as the door clicks shut behind him.

Knowing how pressed you are for time and eager for the answer of the location you're going to, you open your closet and try to find a comfortable but cute outfit for the day as quickly as you can. You sort through different fabrics, colors, and styles. Your clear indecisiveness paying you no favors.

Jean said to wear something comfortable and not have information on where he might be taking you. You decide to go the safe route. You pull out a pair of cream Dickie's, which you luckily thrifted a few months ago, paired with an oversized light blue ribbed sweater with long sleeves that lightly cover your hands and a pair of light blue sneakers that match your sweater perfectly.

Once you have your outfit picked out, you make your bed, lay your clothes it nicely on it and head out of your room to do a quick on your morning routine. Opening the door to your room, you slip outside, and a sound comes from further down the unlit hallway. Your head snaps to the left to see Eren quietly exiting Mikasa's room.

When he hears your moving body, his head turns almost dreadfully, and his brightly colored eyes shoot wide the second they land on you. Your jaw falls a little bit as you pull your door closed behind you, trying to cause as little noise as possible not wanting the sounds to carry throughout your apartment.

Pacing over to him, Eren closes Mikasa's door softly and steps away from it, more into you. "Oh, hey, Jaeger." You whisper, a glint in your eye. "Whatcha doin'?"

His brown hair isn't tied back the way it normally is, but hanging down. Unkept, long brown strands frame his face making his eyes look a little bit brighter. He looks at you, your closed door, and then back to you. "Nothin'," he mutters unsteadily. "Just woke up and now I need to piss."

Your forehead puckers while you're keep your voice low. "And where exactly does Mikasa fit onto that list of things you're doing?"

Eren's pupils dilate so large it makes up almost the entire scope of his eyes. "I wasn't.." he stutters, flush creeping up to his face. "We were just..." his words get jumbled another time. "Christ, Y/N... no."

You can't help but boast in his seer embarrassment. You've never seen him like this before. He's usually so certain of himself. So confident. That structure of him is chipping little. Not a sight you thought you'd ever see.

"No?" Your one word extends out in a taunting manner, clearly gloating. "Well then, do I need to make out with Mikasa again to get you to actually do something? I don't mind."

He swallows heavily, his eyes falling narrow. He pushes the tip of his tongue into the inside of his mouth, fright below his bottom cheek, and pushes through it quickly. "Watch it," he threatens. "Don't make me flip that question back on you and ask you what the hell you're doing."

"Go ahead and do it." You shrug, all nonchalant. "I'm not doing anything. I just woke up, like you, and now I'm about to go to the bathroom so I can wash my face."

"Yeah?" Eren leans his right shoulder into the white door frame. Keeping his eyes on you, he sizes you up, clearly certain of himself. "Then where was Jean at last night? Forget to leave that part out of your little story?"

Your mouth falls open, but you quickly snap it shut, trying to make your unpreparedness for his question less obvious. Your feet press deeply into the hard floor of the hall. "What do you mean?" You try to shrug him off, but you sound just as pathetic as you feel.

"I went out to the living room in the middle of last night to get water, like 3 a.m." Eren starts. "And Jean wasn't anywhere to be seen. He wasn't with Niccolo and Sasha, and I know damn well he wasn't with Mikasa and me. The only one left here is you."

You try to fork the conversation. "So you admit it, you were with Mika all night."

Eren throws you a threatening look, his arms crossing in front of the chest of his vintage-styled dark grey TSU Basketball shirt. "Stop beating around your stupid little bush, Y/N." He's persistent, achingly stubborn, to keep the topic on you.

Your shoulders roll. "Maybe he snuck out. Did you consider that?" you argue, tasting the lies dripping off your words as they tear out your throat.

Your hard heads are colliding.

Eren scowls, forcing unamuzment. "Your nose is growing so fucking big right now with all the bullshit you're giving me I swear to God I can feel it up my ass."

"Yeah?" You blink playfully. "How's it feel?"

Eren scratches the very top of his nose. "Don't make me kill you. You know better than anyone that I really don't wanna be anything like my dad."

Your lips twitch, and then you shake your head. "You're a dark ass mother fucker."

Eren's eyes squint at you, and he scrunches his nose at you. "Takes one to know one. Why we became friends so fast?" His arms untangle and fall to his sides. "So, you gonna tell me the truth, or are you gonna keep talking out of your ass?" He challenges his hands, tucking them into the front pockets of his sweats.

A defeated sigh leaves you in one uphill rush. "Jesus fuck. I'm not talking out of my ass. We fell asleep talking. That's it," you finally admit. "that's all that happened."

Eren laughs, shortly out of his nose, the sound making your face twists. "Damn." He remarks lowly. "You're even starting to talk like him."

Are you? Jesus fuck. Shit... oh shit. "Eren," it's your arms' turn to cross now, stubborn and strong. "I swear to god."

He throws up his right hand in defense. "Yeah, okay." His lips twitch now, either fighting a laugh or a smile. You're not too sure. It never pulls up enough for you to know. "I'm done. I believe you."

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Seeing your irritation, he sighs. "I said I believe you," he tells you again. Moving his lifted hand, he brings it to the top of your head, and ruffles your hair. "Nothing happened between you and Kirstein, alright? I got it. Loud and clear."

You shake your head. "Why would you think that anything would happen between Jean and me? We're friends," you firmly state. You feel so defensive... agitated and you have no idea why. You're not normally like this. "I don't look at him like that, and he doesn't look at me like that either."

Eren's eyebrows pull, and then he sighs. He looks like he's internally debating, but then he simply says. "I'm just giving you a hard time." There's something more, you can feel it in the air, but he just turns around back toward Mikasa's door.

"I thought you had to pee," you say, a brow cocked.

He glances at you over his shoulder, his hair flowing in the movement. "I can hold it for five minutes." Untwisting, his focus straightens back to the door. "You go first. I'll use it when you're done. Just shoot me a text so I'm not all in your way."

He twists the knob, but you tap him on the shoulder before he can push it open. He turns his neck again and gazes, locking with yours.  "Kiss her, Eren," you whisper.

Eren's eyes hold level, but they both have a small flame in the center that you can feel in your stomach. He pauses for two moments, then his lips split, speaking as quietly as you. "I already did." 

Your jaw drops, and you inhale hair, choking on your surprise. Your lips pull you as you feel sheer happiness for your friends.

His eyes narrow. "You tell anyone..."

"I swear I won't." Snapping your mouth back shut, you drop your head to the side. "You didn't bitch out this time?"

He rolls his eyes as he fights a smile and somehow finds success in not letting it pull through. "Guess I wasn't really family to her after all." Before you can say another word, his shoulder falls back square. Slowly, he pushes the door to Mikasa's room open disappears inside.

You go to the restroom, take care of your business, brush your teeth, and wash your face. The whole time, all you can think about is finding time with Mikasa to get all the details. This is all you wanted for her. Happiness like this that has secretly been pining for over the course of who the hell knows how long. Eren, too.

All you want is for your friends to be happy. Each and every one of them. Way passed any of what the limits reach.

Finishing up your self care tasks and knowing Eren has to use the restroom, you decide to grab your makeup bag and hairbrush so you can finish getting ready in your room.

Once inside, you shut the door behind you and place your stuff on your vanity. Grabbing your phone off the charger on your side table next to your bed, you text Eren as he requests.

Y/N - Bathroom's free Mikasa luvr

He texts back within seconds like he's been waiting. Dying to do his thing and get his relief.

Eren - Thanks, Jean luvr

Y/N - blocked.

Eren - You wouldn't.

Y/N - Try me, freedom boy.
Sorry, my bad. Bird boy*

Eren - Nah that's fucking disrespectful.
Now you're the one getting blocked.

Y/N - you wouldn't.

Eren - You sure about that?

Y/N - I'm sure.

Eren - You're right.

Y/N - Always am, Jaeger

Eren - Cocky ass mf

Y/N - Takes one to know one

Locking your phone, you toss it on your bed and start to get dressed. After that, you sit and your vanity and work on your makeup. You decide to keep light, not able to take too much time on.

Once finished, you stuff everything back in your makeup bag, clearing the flat surface of your vanity and stand. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you feel like something is missing, so you decide to tie a light blue and white plaid ribbon in your hair that matches your outfit perfectly.

Making your way back into the bathroom, the rest of your apartment still silent with sleep, you grab it out of the drawer you keep your ribbon in and head back into your room.

Leaving the door open, you place yourself in front of your vanity door and tie the ribbon in your hair at the back of your head. After that, you grab your cream Van Gogh tote bag with the starry night painting at the center, matching the blue in your outfit, and a lavender claw clip hooked on one of the straps and stuff what you need for the day inside.

As you put the last couple of items into your bag, a voice cuts from behind you, slicing right down the center of your spine, "you ready?" You spin yourself around with searching eyes.

In the doorway stands Jean, his left hand grabbing onto the top of your doorframe as the side of his body leans slightly into it. The posture of his body causes the bottom hem of his shirt to lift up, revealing the contours of the skin that layers his lower stomach. A brief glimpse of his happy trail.

You blink rapidly with the fear your eyes might stay stuck on him. Throwing your wallet inside your bag, you throw the strap over your right shoulder. "Ready," you return, walking over toward him.

There's a lopsided smirk pulling at Jean's face as subtle as a gun in the way it pierces every vital blood artery you have. His right hand is tucked deep into the front pocket of his pants.

Holding onto the straps of your tote with your right hand, your left crosses over your body and grips it too. "Why are you looking at me like that?" You ask, stepping directly in front of him.

The right corner of his mouth stays lifted as he leans a bit more forward into you. He still remains leaned into the frame, just closer. "Nothing."

"Jean." The tip of your nose pulls nearer to the sky. "Tell me, or I swear I won't go with you."

He drops his left arm away from the doorframe and rests his shoulder back on it. The bottom part of his shirt falls back down, covering the small part of his lower stomach that was just revealed. "It's nothing," he repeats.

Pulling his hand free from his pocket, he rounds it to the back of your head, and you feel the harsh shock of his faint touch. There's never any sense made of the cause of him and the way it affects you. "I just like it when you wear ribbon in your hair." He runs his fingers down one of the plaid tails sending chills right down the length of your spine, forcing you to straighten out. "That's all."

Saliva gathers on the base of your tongue, and you swallow it down so hard your ears pop. "You noticed?" You say, still so used to always being looked past.

"It's hard not to." He pulls the rest of his body away from the door, and then he turns around, facing away from you toward the hallway. "Come on. Armin's up now, and I wanna go before everyone starts to wake up too, and their annoying asses decide they wanna come."

With a face turned embarrassingly warm, you follow at the heels of Jean closing the door to your room behind you softly, not wanting to risk waking anyone who is still sleeping.

When the two of you step out of the hallway and into the main area of your apartment, you're met with Armin, who is sitting at the dining room table reading his thick book of the Iliad and the Odyssey as one—the time and sheer commitment that must take to power through.

Connie is sprawled out on the couch mouth open, snoring, a puddle of drool on the pillow he's sleeping on. He's knocked out. His broken gucci belt tucked under the blanket right next to him.

At the sound of your combined footsteps, Armin lifts his attention away from his paged filled with words of complexity. "Good morning, Y/N," he says with a smile. "How are you feeling? Are your hands better?"

You speak gently to each other, being considerate of Connie. "Good morning, Armin. I'm actually doing okay. My hands are still kind of a mess, but they feel better than yesterday, at least." You smile. "How's your book? Make a dent?"

He glances down at it quickly and then returns his focus to you. "Hardly." His thumb runs along the corner of the stacked pages flipping through them at rapid speed. "It's taking a lot longer for me to get through than I was anticipating, but it's still good. The more I read, the more I like it."

You smile, "I give you until our next shift together. I'm sure you'll be onto the next by then." Armin softly laughs but doesn't deny it, probably knowing you aren't too far off with your estimation.

Jean grabs his keys off the kitchen counter, "Hey, Arlert. We're heading out, alright? We'll be back later," he chimes in monotonously and paces toward the front door.

The corners of Armin's eyes crinkle quite questions, but he doesn't ask a single one. "Alright," is all he says. "Stay safe, and take your ibuprofen. Please. Both of you. Like I said yesterday, no more than what the bottle says."

You pat your tote bag hanging from your shoulder with your palm. "I made sure to pack it with me." Armin smiles and nods.

You part for him and walk toward the door Jean holds wide open for you, and you thank him as you pass. Armin's voice comes from behind you before the door can shut. "Jean." Your head snaps, and Jean's follows. "Make sure you listen to Y/N and take the pain meds if you need them, okay?"

Jean throws up a dismissive hand. "I'll be fine, Arlert."

You take the open space between Jean and the door frame and pop your head in. "Don't worry, Armin. You have nothing to worry about. Jean always does what I say."

Jean rolls his eyes. "No, I don't."

Hand holding onto the doorframe, your eyes stay on Armin as you till the top of your head to the right of you in Jean's direction. "Oh, look. And now he's a liar."

Armin laughs while Jean huffs, and you know you pushed him right where all his buttons of irritability lie. "Shut up, Y/N."

Armin's chest continues to shake with light laughter. It slowly settles as his left eyebrow lifts beneath his blonde hair. "Do I need to worry about separating you guys the same way I separate Jean and Eren?"

"Yep." Jean snaps. "I hate her."

"Nope," you say. "He loves me."

Another time answers are said in unison. Another time what's spoke is completely different from each other.

You hear Jean sigh, exasperated, the warm air from his lungs fanning across the side of your face. "Jesus fuck." Your head is held high with the pride of always grinding his gears.

Armin shakes his head, light laughter still in his voice at the witness of your and Jean's endless bickering. "You guys have fun. Be nice to each other." He moves his book a little to the left. "Any idea when you'll be back?"

"None," is what Jean returns to Armin plainly. "Probably not till later."

"We'll text you," you assure, pushing your weight away from the door frame. You and Jean say one final goodbye to Armin and then head out.

Leaving your apartment, you walk outside to the cars parked out front of the complex along the curb.

You arrive at his car which is parallel parked in the side street directly in the front of your complex. Jean unlocks it and holds the passenger door open for you like he always does, not missing a beat in his efforts. You slip into the passenger side and mutter a thanks. 

Nodding, he shuts the door and making his way to the drivers side. Now seated, he pushes the push the start button that is lit up with a red. You feel the motor of his Mercedes' reverberate beneath you on the black leather seat as the seat heaters immediately get to word.

You set your tote bag next to you to feel while Jean adjusts himself. Smoothing out your pants that have forced creases on your upper thighs. It smells like his black ice air freshener like you remember. You can't help but breathe it in. Your neck drops down and to the left where you see a blueberry Red Bull in the cup holder, a box of chocolate pocky and a bottle of water.

He looks at you and you look at him. "I thought," you take a breath, plowing through your confusion. "I thought I said I didn't want anything."

Jean shrugs. "I know. But I'm not really someone who likes to listen." Kind gesture after kind gesture it's like he never runs out. You say a quick thank you and he nods like it's no big deal.

His phone appears in front of you, near your chest. His extended hand is holds it there for you to grab. You look at it just briefly before your eyes map up his arm to his face, a line appearing at the center of your forehead between your drawn eyebrows. He reads your confusion like a book with italicized words. "Put something on."

His phone transfer to your hold, and you nod. "Okay."

Jean starts to adjust the air while you tap his screen, brightening it. You slide his Lock Screen up, but the request to enter a password screen appears, limiting your ability to use it. Your wrist shift, moving the screen of his phone toward his direction so he can see for himself. "It's locked,"

His head turns toward you, pointer and middle fingers held on the glossy black nob of the temperature at the center of his car beneath the large infotainment system. "0721," he says weightlessly.

Your mind takes what he just said and spits it right back out, refusing to process it. "What?"

"0721," Jean echoes himself. "That's my password."

You blink a few times in a row, staring at him. Is he sharing his password like that with you? Like it's nothing? It's so hard for you to process pure openness from another person, even just as a friend. Is something like this actually normal? Reality? Even when Sasha and Mikasa first told you of their passwords it boggled your mind.

You never had friends close enough to share that kind of information like before, and Porco would tell you his password just to change it to something different the next day.

Just what the hell kind of life were you living all those years for something as small as this to throw you off so immensely?

His brows pull into each other at your silence, trying to figure it out. "What?" His head angles, dropping slightly to his right shoulder. "Why are you looking at me all weird?"

His voice grabs ahold of the short-circuiting wires inside your brain and connects them back to reality. You shake your head, getting rid of all the unnecessary jumble. "Nothing," is all you say. Anything more, and you'd sound like a complete idiot. You're not risking that.

Jean's head aligns, and his face wears a confused look, but whatever he's thinking, he doesn't say anything about it. Your focus dips down to his phone, you type the number he told you, and it unlocks. You open his Spotify app and his library of various songs and crafted playlist shows.

His playlist for Marco is still there, on top of the screen, showing its consistent use, adding to the playlist, listening to the playlist. Whatever efforts it takes to keep his loss of his friend alive.

The last time you saw it, it was the night that you and Jean shared your first verities. Now, you're wadding in waters full of his truths, both causal and vulnerable, and the liquid of it all has infested every inch of you, shifting the way your heart sits in regards to him.

Seeing the playlist again reminds you of how he grieves for Marco in silence, though you know the pain behind it is deafeningly loud. It hurts you the same as it did outside of Zeke's house, if not a little more.

You leave it alone, untouched, as you fight to keep your emotions lifted away from the sadness resting in the depths of you that is making an effort to try and sink you alive.

"What do you feel like listening to?" You ask, ignoring how the words 'all the songs I would send to you if you were still here' burn you like the same deadly flames that make up the round of the sun. "Any requests?"

Jean pulls in his seatbelt. "Anything you want. Don't worry about what I want to listen to. I gave you my phone, so that means you could have free rein," he tells you. "But I honestly think I already know what you're gonna pick."

Low air starts to blow out of the center of his car, a light draft on your face. "Which is what?" You take a glance, his eyes already on you.

Jean blinks. "Cigarettes After Sex."

"No, I wasn't." Your voice sounds thick as it parts from you with dishonesty.

A line appears between his brows. "Are you seriously lying just because you don't want me to be right?" You shrug his question off, mouth empty.

He laughs sharply. "Stop being stubborn and play it." His left hand rests on the steering wheel, his right on top of the center of his gear shift. He holds it there in the park and glances from the windshield over to you. "And your seatbelt," leaves him in pure demand. "Put it on."

Clicking on Crush by Cigarettes After Sex it starts to play through his speakers. "Oh shit. You're right. Sorry." You set his phone on your lap and quickly pull your seatbelt on. Jean waits for the sound of the sharp click, and then he pulls away from the curve and starts to drive.

Anxiety is already dragging its claws down the souls of your feet, causing you to move them around a bit on his car's floor. "Where are you taking me?" You query; that same unanswered question eats away at your empty stomach's membrane like moths do cotton.

Jean avoids answering your question directly and yields toward a different route while keeping his attention straightforward. "You still trust me, right?" He asks as he drives down the empty side street that lines outside your apartment complex.

Your answer leaves your tongue at running speed. "Yes," you avow, "I do. I still trust you." Those are the easiest words you've ever spoken.

He brings his attention to you for a split moment, and his eyes go soft. "Are you willing to let that trust you have in me be enough for you?" He says as he aligns his head again and turns on his right blinker.

You crack open the RedBull and take a small sip. "Yes." Another answer given is that it has left your tongue, a muscle with quick swiftness.

A satisfied look crosses Jean's face, but due to the angle his face is set in, you can only catch half. "Good. Then let's go." Turning the wheel, he merges on the Main Street as you bottle all your remaining questions up, relying only on your trust in him just as he asked you to.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

After about a fifteen-minute drive with little to no traffic, Jean pulls into a expansive place full people, cars, evenly paved sidewalks made of brick, and small shops look to be endless in their amount.

At the right side of the entrance, there is a large wall made of eight stacks of dark brick that have large black letters resting on top that read Oakcrest Village, with various types of colorful flowers and ground-rooted plants in the grass that is grown all the way up to where the curb of the main street starts.

As you swallow all your bewilderment that's on the verge of flowing out of you like blue water streaming through a cricket-chirping meadow, Jean drives down one of the aisles in the semi-full parking lot until he finds an empty space at the far left end.

Your eyes jump all around, taking it in. The seatbelt makes a faint scratching sound as your weight rocks back and forth in your seat as you reposition yourself with the need to see everything better. "What is this place?"

"Oakcrest. It's considered Downtown Trost. There's this small coffee shop here called The Pouring Fox that I found about a year ago that I think you'll like." Jean finally sets free some of the answers held behind his tightly locked jaw as he pulls the nose of his Mercedes' all the way forward in the parking space as far as it's willing to go. "You said you wanted coffee, and they have the best."

You pull your tote bag from the floor of his car resting near your feet, bringing it onto your lap. "Is it actually, or is that something that's up for debate?"

He shifts his car into park as I Wanna Be Yours by the Arctic Monkeys starts to play through his speaks. "No. It's my opinion, but I'm also right." Jean arrogantly returns, releasing the gear shift and resting his forearm on the soft surface of the center counsel.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: i wanna be yours - arctic monkeys]

You glower, eyes rolling. "So," Your jaw unhinges, almost offendedly. "All I'm hearing is that you're one hundred percent sure that this place has the best coffee, but you're barely just letting me know about it now instead of the first day you met me?"

Jean leans some of his weight into his rested forearm, leaning his body slightly closer to you, his other hand drops from the steering wheel and courses back through his hair. "The first day I met you, Y/N, we were in the Jaeger Basement stuck in that damn closet, remember?" He returns, voice and presence both potent in their cockiness, and they do not waver for a second.

Your eyes remain locked with his as he adds, "And go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong, but there wasn't a whole lot of talking while we were in there, was there?"

Your heart launches up and finds your throat causing multiple painful knots to form. It beats there a few times, making the surface of your neck feel sore. You speak through it anyways. "Sorry," you say to him sharply, an attempt to match his energy, "all of that must have been really forgettable for me the same way it was for you, considering the fact that I couldn't even remember your name the next day that I saw you, while you had no problem remembering mine."

That's a load of shit. You couldn't have forgotten it even if you tried, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

Jean gives you a twisted look as his body moves like it might fold over in half by the impact of your words, but he doesn't allow himself to back down. "You know," he hauntingly begins, inching closer to the passenger seat you're sitting so tensely in. "You're lucky that damn timer went off when it did."

"Yeah?" Your eyes flash, head setting at a curious angle. "And why's that?"

Jean glances down at your semi-parted lips for only a moment, tongue pressing deep into his right cheek, and then his eyes dart back to yours. "Because if we had more time, there's no way in hell you would have ever forgotten it."

An insurmountable amount of nerves rush in, and you can tell by the way they're overtaking you that they are going to stay there for a while. "You sound sure."

His eyes are glazed over now. With what, you're not sure. Something that wants to draw you in and rest forever but also wants to make you turn away and bold with no want to return. "That's because I am." You can just about taste how much he truly means that. There's no bluff here. Finding the ribbon at the back of your head, he runs the tail down through your his fingers, pulling it forward toward your shoulder. "Wanna go ahead and test it?"

A bunch of things rearrange inside of you at once, and your tongue, for some reason, though it's lying flat, feels so swollen that you're worried you could inhale the whole thing. "You're..." you falter. Fuck. You're slipping. Why the hell are you slipping. This doesn't happen.

"What am I, Y/N?" You feel his voice, it's under your skin. "Go on. Tell me."

You quickly start over, absolutely desperate not to let it show. "You're so damn annoying, Kirstein."

Maybe you masked it up quickly enough. Convincingly adjusted your jumbled words at a high enough speed. Maybe he didn't notice.

Jean laughs through his nose only once. That sound alone makes you know he did, in fact, notice, and it makes your stomach drop to the pits of hell.

As you remain stuck, he brings himself over more and places his hand on the headrest of your seat near your head.

You get chills, and naturally, your shoulder rolls back, reacting to the overwhelming feeling. But Jean saw that movement. Felt that movement. Experienced that movement like it was his own.

Jean begins to lower himself to your ear as you forget all of how to breathe. Soft lips parting, his voice leaves him slow and deep. It trickles down your ear so warm you wish you could rip out of your skin that's about to liquefy—a puddle right under his hands. "So you do squirm," he speaks, almost into you. "Good to know."

A sound is trying its hardest to leave you, but you deny it all access before it can even semi-part. Putting up the hard fight against yourself and this overwhelming moment, you clear your throat and take a breath. "I can't stand you," you whisper.

He pulls away and lines his face up with yours. Close, but never too close. His eyes move rapidly back and forth like he's trying to crack the codes of what rest in yours. "Say it to me again." His voice is still deep, dripping in something that makes you want to taste it. "I didn't hear you."

Thickly, you swallow. "I said I can't stand you," your voice pulls up more steadily now, though your heart is living in sharp contrast.

Jean clenched his jaw, and it pulsates once. "Yeah?" He says, almost amused, looking that way too. "That's crazy."

"Why is it crazy?" Your shoulder deepens into the back of the leather passenger seat. "I thought I'd made that clear."

His grip on the headrest tightens, you hear the leather squeeze. "Because you're the one that's always driving me straight up the fucking wall."

"I do? Always?" Your head tilts. "If that's the case, then why do you keep hanging out with me?"

He breathes like he's trying to inhale every part of you he can without trying to make it obvious. "I said you drive me up the wall, Y/N. I never said it was enough to make me wanna quit hanging out with you," his voice leaves in a grumble, and the vibrations travel across your skin. "Plus, even if it were, you know too damn much about me to stop now."

You stifle up a smile, eyes turning to their natural sweet doe. "So, you like me. Is that what you're trying to get at? Are you finally going to admit it?"

Your words roll over him, and then he sighs. The warmth is enough to expand your lungs and give you relief from your ribs. "There you go again. Twisting my words," He pulls away, falling back into your seat. "You're fucking impossible, you know that?"

"I know."

He scoffs. "Let's go."

With the need to get out of this car that is so heated and stuffy you're convinced there's so air left to keep you alive, you don't disagree.

Getting out of Jean's black Mercedes, he locks it, lights flashing. Meeting each other in the middle near his trunk, you and Jean walk side by side through the parking lot toward the Village, minding for cars and other people. The air you're inhaling smells cool and fresh, spiced with lingering hints of incoming fall and moistened soil.

Stepping out of the parking lot and onto the curb, you and Jean pace alongside the street that is lined with various small-owned businesses on both sides, with a minor road running through the middle. There are planted trees in the concrete made of imperfect brown brick, and cars parallel parked along the way.

Jean brings himself around from your backside to your right, causing you to travel more inward toward the shops as he walks next to you, near the street, arms close enough almost to collide.

You look at him, the right cover of your mouth quirking up as you recall his words in Stohess when he did this same action. "Doing this again just in case I wanna push you into oncoming traffic if you piss me off enough or what?"

He drones as he gives a lazy shrug. Chin dropping, his light brown eyes webbed with patterns of their own uniqueness bare into yours. "Figured I'd go ahead and do you a favor by making it easier on you," he says, tapping the back of his hand against yours quickly. His long fingers drag for a smidge longer, but he doesn't allow the contact to last for more than an instant.

The feeling of him lingers on your skin so much you're almost convinced he's still there. You glance down to ensure he's not and wiggle your fingers around to try and shake it off. Your efforts fall short, the same as they have in days passed. It's becoming rather annoying though you secretly search for it all the same. "Yeah?" Your nose crinkles. "So I can actually do it?"

Jean blinks, level faced, no thought to be made for what he's going to say next. "You can do whatever you want to me, Y/N."

The center of you flips. Your face turns amused, your lips pulling up with mischievousness. "Just as submissive as I expected."

"God damn it." His jaw slacks, not at all having it, eye pinching in threat. "I swear, Y/N. I said it once, but one of these days, I really am gonna strangle you."

"Oh," Your nose lifts is in the air confidently. "So you're a switch. It all makes sense now." You nod profusely like you agree to this. "Just the way I like it."

"Jesus fuck." He groans, flustered, focus falling straight. "You're over here talking like you have you any shot at getting me."

Your step out of the way out of a passing pedestrian and then come back close to Jean. "I can get anything I want, as long as I want it bad enough. That includes you."

Jean's tongue presses into his cheek. He takes a deep breath and then releases, eyes pulling back to you. "So you want me?" His words rub like arrogant alcohol.

"No," you whisper, and your head slowly. "Hence why I don't have you. If I wanted you, Jean," you pause briefly, elongating the moment, "then you would already be mine."

The heat on his face folds by ten. He swallows hard and then snaps his focus away from you. "Do you ever watch your damn mouth?"

You pat him on the back twice. "Alright, alright," bringing that same hand to the front, you wave it dismissively. "I'm done, I swear."

The look on his face is still threatening as he steps a crevice in the sidewalk. "You better be."

Your lips press into each other as you continue to walk, making yourself stop just as you said you would.

Distracting yourself from the endless taunting comments you desire to make, your eyes travel around as you take in the beautiful scenery, following him as your knowledgeable guide. As you continue your journey, Jean walks down each street and turns each corner with the utmost confidence while you remain lost and taken aback by how nice and inviting this shopping village is.

Each storefront is beautifully unique in its own special design. They are built separately from one another, but the distance between each of them is in close company. Each shop is different in its colors, designs, and sizes. Some of the brick, some of stone, some of white pages wood. Some are more modern and some are very old.

A few have decorations, while others are completely bare, with nothing other than the sign that announces the name of its existence. Several have plants, window promotions, and benches set at the front of them, while others have shopping racks and things outside.

Every single one, however, has its own character. No two are like one other. Yet, it all somehow fits together perfectly, making it all the more inviting.

There's a candy shop, an ice cream shop, endless clothing stores, places to purchase home decor, and restaurants every which way, all small owned, making this place even better.

Your head shifts in all directions as you try to take it all in. Jean stops at the corner of the two of you, who have been pacing down for some time. Extending an arm, he presses the button for the crosswalk that leads to the other side, where more shops lay. You wait next to each other for the light to switch. A couple of other people are standing in too.

Feet in place, your weight alternates back and forth in your semi-bent knees. "Are we close? I've never been a fan of secrets."

He drops his head down at your spoken wonderment, a sigh leaving his lungs. "Do you ever stop asking questions?"

"Nope," you speak to him, the right corner of your mouth lifting up softly. "Do you ever stop being arrogant?"

His mouth stays smashed down, but you can tell he's fighting for it not to lift by the tension building in his jaw. "Nope," he returns.

You roll your eyes and shake your head. "Of course not."

His eyes go round, every inch exposed. "You hate me?" He asks in a playful tone. You nod like it's completely certain.

Jean's hand accidentally brushes against yours, deepening that same tingling sensation that remained tucked under your skin stubbornly after he briefly touched it the first time. It's quick, but it crawls up on you and lasts for past infinity. "Say it then," he says to you, demanding.

Your chin pulls up, "I hate you, Kirstein."

Eyes are locked, and his lips twitch with satisfaction that's denied too quickly to find a place on his face. "There it is." He nudges you in your elbow with his.

You smile up at him, returning that same nudge back. "Hate me too?"

"'Course I do. Never stopped." Bearing witness to the curve of your lips, he can't deny himself of his own smile anymore. It cracks through his teeth, sending it through the earth, and you detonate like a bomb well past due.

The crosswalk sign switches from a red hand to a walking silhouette of a person. You match Jean's pace to the other side passing cars that are waiting at the stop light right behind the white line of the crosswalk.

Stepping off the street and onto the sidewalk, Jean leads you to the left. After a few paces he makes a sharp turn down a narrow alley that paved between two shops, one of brick, one of wood.

Walking to the open end of it, he turns to the left. You turn your footing in that same direction and up ahead you see stairs made of large stone leading down somewhere. You stride towards it but at a much slower pace than Jean

Your halt at the very edge of the top step, looking down. It looks like more small businesses, just at a lower level than the rest, but you can't tell exactly. Your gaze can't quite make it out from this angle.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: agape - nicholas britell ]

The walls you're standing between are coated with deep green ivy that clings up and around the surface from the ground all the way up to the tallest part of the brick. Imperfect with marks of age and smeared dirt and grime that shows the build-up of all the countless numbers of storms that so frequently pass through trust—various plants at the end of each step lining the hard surface.

"Where is this place?" You question, feeling like you are entering into a different realm, one of peace and contentment. But you can't tell if it's sourcing from this journey, the environment surrounding you, or something a little bit different.

Jean begins to walk down the stairs toward the lower level, clearly knowing where he's going. This is a path you can tell he's taken many times before. When he notices your movements have stilled over, lacking in your warmth cooled by distance, he stops three steps down from you, twisting his body around to look back at you.

"Down this way, it's pretty hidden." He stretches his right arm back, reaching his wrapped hand out toward you. "I told you this was my little secret, didn't I?"

You glance down at his hand and then blink back up, landing your focus right in his eyes that never seem to take a parting from you. Extending your elbow, you meet his palm in the middle, bandaged hand to bandaged hand, like two strangers who were beckoning to meet again. "And you're choosing to share your little secret with me?"

"Yes. And only you." He says. Palm into yours, he intertwines your fingers together, making your heart swirl like black ink does when it spills into crystal clear water. "Now, follow me."

He begins to pull you down the stairs. With no desire to stop the guiding of his weight, you let him have all the power here, as you follow wherever it is he leads like you are his own body's shadow.

Mind, curious. Heart, safe.

There are countless hole in wall shops throughout this lower level. Overhead are scattered kite shaped lanterns hanging from one side of the building to the other, trailing down the line of hidden businesses. The bulbs of them, at this point in time, are turned off. The sun in the sky is enough. But you can only imagine how pretty this place looks at nightfall. The dark grey concrete is cracked and have some random spots that show lasting residue of old gum.

In some odd but comforting way, it smells faintly like the perfect mix of cinnamon and morning dew, not just in this more secluded place but in the rest of Oakcrest Village too. What it looks and feels like as a whole is storybook land. There isn't another way to put it. A place that makes you want to see more and stay forevermore.

Jean doesn't release you as you follow right at his heels down the steps of aged brick. To your surprise, your fingers remain interlocked as you stroll at the breech of him while he pulls you right along. You can feel eagerness in his touch to get you where it is you're going.

Reaching the last step, he steps onto level ground, and you hop down, skipping the previous two steps and landing right next to him. Still, Jean doesn't let go of your hand. By his wordless guide, he walks about ten large paces, making for fifteen of you smaller ones, and then pulls you to the right, where he then leads you right passed a black chalked sign that reads:

The Pouring Fox
This way . . .
⇨

He pulls you in the direction of the arrow and then after a few more steps, you see it. The entrance of the coffee shop is wholly devoured in that well sparse ivy latched to the walls that enclosed the stairs on the way down to this lower level. The green-colored plant makes the brick stand out more, making it appear almost warmer.

There are two long rectangular muntin windows made out of cedar wood with yellow-hued bulb lights lining the shape of them from the inside and a long wood bench resting in front of the right window. The door is painted olive green and lined with a white doorframe.

The smell of coffee is already starting.

Jean was right. It's hidden, completely secluded. One of those things where it wouldn't ever be discovered unless you were specifically searching for it. "It's so pretty down here. How'd you even find this place?" You ask, keeping your footing up with his, getting closer to the entrance.

"When you spend enough time alone, you discover a lot of things about yourself and about this shitty world. Some aren't good." Jean's sharp chin juts towards the coffeeshop, "and then some lead to places like this."

His thumb quickly traces your skin right beneath your bandage, and then he releases you. Your hand runs somewhat cold, a feeling you were waiting for to occur, somewhat dreadfully. Taking two steps forward, he grabs the circular gold door knob and pulls the door to the coffee shop toward him, opening the world inside specifically for you.

You mutter quick gratitude toward Jean for his gesture. As you step inside the coffee shop, an overwhelming amount of sensations inside hit you in a singular draft of air, and it starts to take over your entire body. The smell of brewing beans, baking goods that smell like sweet syrup, and comfort.

The inside of The Pouring Fox is small and homey. Just standing inside causes you to feel warm and cozy and added with a sense of belonging. The walls are covered in white paint but distressed. The flooring beneath your feet is lined with aged wood panels that don't cross creek beneath the weight of visiting bodies.

There are scattered vintage claw foot pedal tables that show their age all over the imperfect surfaces, both square and circular, with pairs of chairs on either side of different sizes, shapes, and colors. The warm yellow lighting above is created by hanging closer globe pendant lights dispersed throughout the shop.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: blue hair - tv girl ]

Blue Hair by a TV girl is playing on the speakers that are placed somewhere overhead, tucked away in the wooded ceiling. The soothing beat of it consumes every inch of the small coffee shop, mixed in perfectly with low voices from the few scattered conversations of a small handful of customers scattered about inside. Some people are hard at work on their laptops. Others are just relaxing.

You feel Jean step in behind you, the door closing behind him, and you walk up to the front wooden counter painted cream white placed forward and a little to the right of the door.

"Good morning! Welcome to The Pouring Fox," A barista with short blonde hair resting under his black baseball cap with a fox on it and green eyes greets you at the counter. He's wearing a tan apron with an adjustable dark brown leather strap partnered with a black handwritten name tag that reads Caleb.

When his attention shifts over to Jean, his eyes quickly flicker as though he recognizes him, but he doesn't directly address him. No personal acknowledgment of words directed towards him. "How are the two of you doing today?"

You can feel his genuine happiness to be here at his job with his greeting, making you feel even more welcome. "Good, thank you," you say in return. "How are you?"

"Good. I'm so glad to hear that. I'm doing really well. Hasn't been too crazy, so I can't really complain." The barista never loses his smile. He remains welcoming and warm. "What can I get you started with this morning?"

Jean turns his focus and looks down at you. "Whatever she wants."

With the side of your tongue set between your teeth, you bring your head up to look at the black panel menu. You trace your back molars with the top of it as you think, reading off the variety of coffee, teas, pastries, and foods written all across the surface in bright white calligraphy.

Not being great under pressure, when you know there are sets of eyes on you, you only allow yourself to take a few seconds and decide to branch out on your usual order since this is a new place you haven't been to before.

Your tongue flattens attention drawing back down and across the way to Caleb. "I'll have a medium iced vanilla latte with oat milk, please."

Pulling a sharpie from his apron's front pocket, he grabs a plastic cup and writes on it. "Can I get your name for your order?"

"Y/N," you say, kindly.

"Y/N." He repeats for his own memory and jots it down. "Got it." Capping the sharpie, he sets the cup to the left of him. He then looks at Jean again with that same knowing look as before as he grabs a fresh cup from the stack. "Medium cold brew with light sweet cream?" And Jean only nods with his lips pressed into each other. Caleb nods in return and writes on the new cup seeming to already know what he goes by.

So, they know his order by heart here as well as his name. That must be why Caleb looked at him like he did. He knows him as a regular.

Setting Jean's cup next to yours, the barista stuff the sharpie back into his apron pocket. His bright green eyes drop down to the screen before him, and he enters the orders into the system. "Would either of you like anything to eat to go along with your drinks?" He glances up, hand that was typing on the screen now at his side. "Maybe a breakfast sandwich or a pastry."

Feeling your tote bag begin to slip, you pull it higher up on your arm. "No, I'm okay, thank you. Just the latte for me." You shake your head, eyes dropping down to the counter.

Jean touches the small of your back, stepping in a little nearer to you. "You're eating," he tells you, the furthest thing from a suggestion making for an entire unbudgeable demand.

Your eyes and the tip of your chin pull up, craning your neck to look at him. "No," you state stubbornly, "I'm good with coffee."

Jean lets air sharply out of his nose. "Coffee and a few drinks of a Red Bull don't count as food, Y/N. If you want, I'll share something with you, but I'm not letting you walk away from this counter until you order something to eat."

A defeated sigh leaves you, letting him win this small argument. Turning your head back straight, your focus drifts to the small glass pastry case lined in black. There are coffee cakes, bagels, muffins, cinnamon rolls, cookies, croissants with different fillings, and a variety of many other things, all of them fresh and very appealing to eat.

You look to Caleb once you make your final decision. "A cinnamon roll, please." You shift your focus over and up to Jean. "You like those, right?"

"Yeah," he gives you a nod. "I like those." His assurance makes you feel even more satisfied with your selection.

"Great choice. We make them from scratch every morning. They're one of my favorite things here." Caleb smiles and begins to type, ringing in the last item. "If that completes your order, your total today with be $15.35."

You try to pull your phone from your back pocket and sneak in with apple pay, but of course, Jean refuses and pays for it with his Amex card. He tiles on the pin pad leaving a fifteen-dollar tip causing shock to invade your face. You wipe it away before he can see it as his wallet flips shut, and he shoves it into his back right pocket.

Generous.

One of the baristas standing near the espresso machine starts to make your drinks, and Caleb takes the next customer's order, who comes in directly after you, as you and Jean find an empty table near one of the front windows closest to the entrance.

Jean pulls out the chair away from the distressed table, creating room. He stands behind it and looks at you as a signal waiting for you to sit. "Thank you," You smile slightly at him and step in between. "So the baristas know your drink order?" you say as you sit down. "Do you really come here that often?"

Jean shrugs. "The batting cages aren't the only place I like to go when I need some space," he says, releasing your chair. "There are some days when my hands cause issues and I wanna forget baseball even exists, or I just won't wanna be home, so I'll come here instead."

You scoot in closer to the table and set your bag near your feet. Your eyes follow him as he moves swiftly to the other side. "Seems like a good place to go."

He nods, pulling the chair across from you out. "Yeah. I like it because it's small, not really a place everyone knows. You can just spend hours here, and the baristas will kinda just leave you alone, even if they recognize you."

You rest your elbow on the table, arms crossed the wrists. "So you're letting me in on both of your secret hiding spots? Any particular reason?"

Jean sits down. "Nah." he retorts, scooting in but still leaning a significant amount of space. "I think luck just played in your favor."

You could sense his half-assed truth from a mile away. "Yeah? That's really why?" You croon, spine pulling tall.

"Yeah, that." Jean leans back in the chair, his right palm dragging down the left side of his soft jaw over his facial hair. "And also, it might be part of the fact that you're the first friend I've made in a pretty long time," he admits, voice falling smaller with the more he confesses. "I don't know. Guess I just figured I let you in on a couple of things I usually keep to myself. What's the harm since you already know a lot more about me than most people do?"

You start to say something, words taking off before you even truly know what they are, but you're cute off by the barista calling out your names. Your attention shifts to the hand off plane to see the orders being pushed across the counter for easy grabbing.

Your weight shifts in your seat but Jean shakes his head, his words stopping you from standing. "Stay here. I got it." You nod, not wanting to fight, and he parts.

Only a large handful of seconds pass, and he returns with two coffees and a cinnamon roll in hand.

He sets your coffee in front of you and the cinnamon roll on a pink glass plate in the middle, with two plastic forks and a pile of napkins next to it. You grab the base of your cup and pull it a little closer to you.

Jean takes a seat across from you again. "What we're we talking about again?"

"You were saying that I know you better than most people," you cross your legs, "I was wondering if that automatically makes me one of your favorites."

Jean's eyes roll "Alright. Now you're pushing it."

You smile, the curve of it taunting. "I'll take that as a yes, then."

He rolls his eyes another time, a defeated sigh leaving him in a heavy, tight spiral. "I'm not even gonna try to fight you."

You eye him challengingly. "Because I'm right?"

Jean picks up his coffee. He takes a sip and swallows it smoothly. "Because you won't stop until I say you are, and you wear me out."

"Good." Lifting the iced latte, you bring it up to your lips. You take an eager sip, and the flavors of earth and vanilla explode on your tongue. It's smooth and creamy and simply perfect. You go to tell him your thought, but as you put your cup down something catches your attention, distracting you. You eyes transfer to the left corner of the cafe behind Jean.

Your eyes widen a small amount. "No way," the words you're internally thinking find your tongue and slip out of you, mind to focus on consuming what's in front of you to stop it.

Jean moves around in his seat, clearly confused. "What?" He says.

In a quick blink, your eyes jump back to him, whose forehead is wearing prominent creases in his forehead. "Professor Ackerman." Your mouth, not wanting to be too loud. Even though the background noise of everything happening in the coffee shop is quite loud, you still don't want to risk it. "Levi. He's here."

Jean blinks a few times rapidly. "You suck at whispering. I still can't hear you." He leans in more toward the table to hear you better. "What'd you say?"

Scooting your chair in, you lean your body forward, palms pressing into the thin edge of the rounded table. Jean studies you, waiting for your words to become more understandable.

This time you speak slowly and allow your voice to part from you. "Professor Ackerman's here," you whisper.

"Ackerman?" With a slanted mouth, Jean pauses, eyes analyzing and mapping your face as he tries to find your point. "Isn't that one short stats Professor that everyone's scared shitless of?"

"Yeah. That's the one." You nod, unfazed by the description he used due to accuracy. "He's with Professor Erwin."

"Professor Erwin's here?" Jean's eyes of analyzation turn wide with curiosity. That's clearly a name he's familiar with. "Where?"

"Behind you. Look," you tell him. "But don't make it obvious."

"I'm not stupid." Leisurely, Jean twists his head over his shoulder to look. His eyes scan around the care until they land precisely on what he's searching for. But as if Levi Ackerman's entire body is made up those piercing grey eyes of his that always wear stoic darkness, he snaps his head, his cold hard gaze landing directly on you and Jean.

Scowling, Levi shakes his head and turns to Erwin, who is next to him, pointed nose deep in the newspaper he has at hand. Levi's lips, twisted into a deep frown, move as he speaks to Erwin, something you can't make out.

Jean's body rapidly snaps back straight to you. "Shit." He whispers with peeled eyes focused back on you. "He saw me."

You sigh, sinking into your seat, embarrassment creating heat circulation in your face, and you feel it spread through your skin. "I told you not to make it obvious."

"My bad." Jean lifts his right hand in defense. "Not my fault the dude has like super human powers or something."

Glancing back over, Levi and Erwin arise from their table and push in their chairs. With their drinks in hand, a plastic cold cup in Erwin's that holds black coffee and what looks like could be tea in Levi's hot one, they walk across the coffee shop matching each other's pace.

You expect them to pass by like nothing, but Erwin slows his large paces as they come close to your table. He stops once approached. Levi follows, halting his footing too, but not happily.

Erwin tucks his folded newspaper beneath his arm. "Good morning, Y/N." Erwin greets with a warm smile. He then turns to Jean and gives him a nod. "Jean. Good to finally see you again."

Jean sits up straight, and straights the under collar he's wearing. "Morning, Smith," he mumbles, nodding too. There's definitely familiarity here.

Your eyes jump back and forth between Levi and Erwin. "Good morning, Professors."

You can feel their presence and how they differ so greatly from one another. Erwin is kind and warm, while Levi evokes any sort of emotions, more bitterly stern in the way he stands.

"It should be learned young that it's rude to stare." Levi rebukes, tongue bitter, making note that he did, in fact, see you and Jean from across the way. "Do they not teach children basic manners anymore?"

Erwin looks down at Levi through thick, furrowed brows. "You know, Levi," he begins, voice rich baritone, "Some people might say a simple hello would fall within the line of having these said manners you're speaking of."

Levi's slacked jaw sharpens even more, equivalent to some kind of sharp blade kept at the hip. His eyebrows twitch, "Sorry?"

Erwin readjusts the flap of his tan trench coat near his chest. "Manners," he returns with a sigh. "I said—"

"No. I know," Levi interjects, cutting Erwin short. "I'm just failing to see where it is that I asked  what these said people you're speaking so fondly of have to say."

Erwin give him a look that seems to be almost equivalent to a warning. "Levi."

There's a shift in Levi, which causes him to heave out an irritated sigh and shake his head. Turning his focus back to the table, he clicks his tongue. He looks at you, not at all amused with any of this small interaction, as he presses his rectangular black framed glasses up the bridge of his nose.  "Morning..." he trails off.

At first, you think he's keeping it short, but then you come to the realization that he doesn't remember your name. Not even a close guess to be made. "Y/N. In your stats class." You remind him, trying to make it ring some kind of bell. "Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon."

Levi gives the nod. Only once. And it's so sharp that you feel it. "Right." His face remaining serious, never faltering in any sort of way. "The one who frequently turns in their assignments the same day I assign them."

"Oh, I-" your words get lost somewhere in your embarrassment.

"Not saying it's a bad thing." Levi rolls his neck out, gray eyes always piercing. "At least you stay consistent."

Levi turns his focus back to Erwin, who is taking a sip of his coffee. "We should go." He suggests, looking up at him. "Hange's waiting." They know Hange too?

Erwin swallows his caffeinated liquid, and stays where he is. "In a moment."

Levi's eyes turn to slits, almost disapproving. "I'll be outside. Don't take nine damn years. We're on a schedule." Bringing his cup to his lips with the end of two earl grey tea bags hanging from the ends, he walks away, heading for the front door of the Pouring Fox.

Erwin focuses on you and Jean now, neutral, with a hint of care in his eyes. "It's good to see you both," he says, adjusting his phone clip kept on his brown belt as he holds his hot sleeved coffee steady in the other hand. "How's this week's assignment going, Y/N? Any prep for your mid-term paper?"

Taking a quick sip of your coffee, you sit back on the table and swallow. "Going good. I think I figured out my topic, so I just have to do some research, then I'll be able to get started."

A satisfied expression has carved itself softly into Erwin's face. "Good to hear. I look forward to reading your work. It's always top notch." His attention then jumps to the right of him and lands on Jean, who is turning his cup around clockwise as it rests down on the surface. "And Jean. How is this semester going for you so far?"

Jean's eyes pull up. "Fine." He releases his cup and readjusts himself on the cushion of his seat. "Better. GPA's up."

"Good, good." Erwin nods. "I was hoping to hear that." He looks relived as he smoothes out his white dress shirt, a pocket sweater on the left. "You know the door to my office is always open, whether you're still my student or not."

"I know." Jean nods. "Thanks."

His eyes dart for you, a light assuring smile on his face. "Same goes for you, Y/N."

You smile in return, always in awe of the genuine kindness he holds toward his students not just as a whole but individually as well. "Thank you."

Giving one final smile, he bids a nice farewell and takes his leave, meeting up with Levi, whose been waiting outside like he said he would, but if you had to guess, not so patiently.

Alone again, just you and Jean, you look at him. "You took Erwin before?" You ask, spinning the black straw in your coffee around counterclockwise, the ice hitting against the plastic walls of your cup.

"Yeah. The semester everything happened." Jean presses his lips together. "He's one of the few people at the school that was actually willing to work with me. If it weren't for him, I would have been out a long time ago."

Your heart warms, but also your heart. Your hand leaves your star and sets around the base of the latte. "He's such a good Professor."

Jean wipes the back of his hand across his right cheek. "Yeah. He is." But that all he has to say.

You unfold your limbs and take a sip of your drink. With cold, sweetened espresso spreading across your tongue, you gulp it down and find a way to change the subject. "You were right. The coffee here is really good. No wonder you come here a lot."

"See? Told you." Jean takes another sip and then places his cup on the table, and pushes it back, away from the edge. "There's something else I wanna show you. A reason why I like this place so much."

Your eyebrows knit curiously. "What is it?"

"You'll see," he says, and then his eyes drop to the food still sitting at the center of the table. "Eat. I'll show you once I know you have something in your stomach besides the coffee that you drink more than water."

"More than water?" Your head drops in an accusing weight, both eyebrows raising up. "That's a pretty big accusation you're making there, Jean."

His eyes are on you and drawn to slits. "Am I wrong?"

Sighing out air of defeat, your neck aligns back straight. "No."

Jean clicks his teeth. "Then eat."

"Okay." You push the plate over towards him. "But only if you share like you said you would. You can't go back on your word just because you wanted me to agree about ordering."

He picks up forks, giving one to you and keeping one for himself. "Fine," he says, sharp toned. "Whatever you want." He angles the fork to its side and pushes it into the baked roll cutting through the icing and the thick breading. He takes a bite and swallows it down. "Happy?"

"Yes." You smile, cutting a piece away on your side and bringing it up near your mouth. "I'm very happy." And at your words, he mirrors a smile too, but this time, just like all the times before, it's fainter in its delivery.

With eagerness for answers about where he's going to take you next and your stomach still rather hungry, the two of you finish your coffees and share the cinnamon roll in no time at all.
Feeling satisfied now, you clean up your seating area. 

Securing your tote bag on your arm the top of your nose lifts up to Jean who is tossing his empty coffee into the bin. "Can you show me now?"

He steps around you, hand briefly touches your back. "Back this way," he says, signaling the top of his head toward the left. He turns his body in that same direction and walks back through the cafe.

Right at his heels, you trail him, passing by customers scattered at different tables, conversing over coffee and working on their laptops. He guides you around the corner on the opposite side of the wall built behind the coffee bar. To the left is a small hall that leads to the bathrooms, but to the right is something you weren't the least bit expecting. An entrance to something.

Hanging on the distressed wall to the left of the door is a wooden sign.

The Foreword Hound Bookstore
Where all books are . . .
Read. Used. Loved.

"Shut up." You inhale a gasp of surprise. "There's a bookstore here?"

"A used one. All of them are up for resale for pretty cheap, I guess," he says. "This place and The Pouring Fox used to be two complete businesses, but sorry is that the owners of the shops met and ended up getting married. They wanted a way to find a way to combine them but still keep them as their own thing, so they added this back entrance for easy access. You just gotta make sure the door stays closed at all times and stay aware of your surroundings when you're going in and out."

Your eyebrows connect, curious. "Why?"

Jean puts his hand on the rusted knob of the white paint chipped door. "You'll see." He twists it and pushes it forward. The hinges creak, and the inside becomes vivid in its complete picture.

Passing in front of him as he holds the door wide for you, you step inside. Your eyes widen as you inhale the air of aging paper, sweet ink, and the small hint of underlying earthy tones coming up from the wooden floor board that are wearing old vintage unmatched rugs like thick woolen blankets. The colors and patterns clash, but it somehow works for a place like this, adding its own character and uniqueness to it.

To the right, toward the far wall, is the checkout counter with different books stacked on it. One of the workers standing behind it organizing things at hand welcomes you in. You smile at them as you shift your head, taking in everything you can.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: mystery of love - sufjan stevens ]

The Foreword Hound is a complete maze in which you find yourself craving to get lost in. It has little to no customers inside, just a couple here and there searching around, and is a lot less organized than the way The Garrison is kept. It should be overwhelming considering the way you like things to be in order, but this is one instance in particular that you can't find it in yourself to mind it at all. In fact, you like it just a little bit more.

The tall bookshelves of different densities are made out of distressed wood, all standing tall and sturdy. Some are faced parallel, and others are horizontal. There are also a couple of smaller one-tier sleeves here and there that run across the top of the shelves connecting them. Those too filled with books, some aged more than others.

The variety of books themselves is messily stacked, facing every which way. A type of organization that only the workers here could fully understand.

Falling down the immediate rabbit hole, pulled by all the possible fantasies that live in words bound by broken spines, you pace inward even more. On your sixth step, your right foot knocks into something, causing you almost to stumble forward. You catch yourself enough time to halt and steady yourself in place.

There's a slight brush against your ankles, and your gaze drops. A small smile of delight takes a pull at your face while your heart squeezes behind the bone of your chest.

"Meet the reason why the doors always need to stay shut," Jean's voice grows a bit louder in sound as he steps over to your backside. He's close to you, almost touching, but not quite. You can feel it in your moving cells; not a single glance needed to make sure. "Elio."

At the start of your feet, parading on the aged floor is a long haired cat peering up at you with ample light blue eyes twisted with hues of green. The fur is colored gray except for the spots of white on the chest, tips of the paws and chin, and the very tip of the tail, making for a cute salt and pepper look.

"That's such a cute name." Squatting down slowly, you bring yourself low to the ground to get closer. "Hi, Elio," you speak, softened.

Elio pushes the top of his head up into the bottom of your curved knee. Bringing your palm to the top of his back, you feel the vibrations of his purr move through the bones of your hand. Around Elio's neck is a red plaid collar with a small tie running down the front of him. Around it at the back, right at the start of his spine, is a small thin white ribbon. On it, in black print, it reads, Elio, The Bookstore Cat. He has his own labeling, which makes your heart squeeze even more than before.

Jean steps to the left, where there's a vacancy, and squats next to you. Elio, turning his body, completely abandons you and walks straight to Jean for more attention.

"Hey, Elio," Jean grumbles. With his bandaged hand, he uses the tips of his fingers to scratch the cat on the top of his head, right between his ears. "Miss me?" Elio meows in return, pushing his head even further up into Jean's hand, demanding deeper scratches. Jean's fingers are still lost in the gray fur, and he laughs. It's free. It's light. It's happy. "Alright. I'll take that as a yes."

Still squatted next to Jean, your eyes peel away from the cat and look at him, who is wholly focused on his interaction with the bookstore cat. "He forgot I even existed the second you approached him," you sigh.

Jean moves his hand from the cat's tiny head and drags his palm down Elio's spine toward his tail, the tip of it moving back and forth in contentment. "He just has good taste."

Your eyes roll in vexation and then return steadily to the attention Jean is giving to the cat. It's caring, the way he pets him, and gentle in how he speaks, like at any given time, Elio might communicate back to him. You can't stop looking. His demeanor has completely shifted. A part of him comes pushing forward through his hard skin that's never been peeled back far enough for your eyes to see.

Another layer peeled. How long? How long until you see him in all his rawness for what it is? For what he tries so hard to believe is not?

"You like animals?" You ask as a young couple holding hands passes by, walking around the front of you and Jean with a quick excuse me. Jean returns with a brief apology for being in their way before answering you.

He nods just once. "Grew up with them," his focus still remained dropped to the spine of a love-hungry Elio, who is purring loud enough to crack the walls of this bookstore. "I have a dog back home at my parents named Scout."

If your heart twists around itself even more that what it already has, it will bust. "What kind?"

"Golden retriever." He's looking at you now but only for a moment. "Had him since I was ten," he tells you, eyes right back to Elio. "Best dog I've ever had."

Oh. He's good with animals too? Likes them? Has one of his own? Why the hell is it turning you warm? And why is it spilling into every part of you like melting wax?

You shift the conversation, not wanting to pester him with all the endless questions you're craving to know the answers to. You run your hand along Elio's white-tipped tale. "He seems like he knows you. I'm guessing you come in here a lot too?"

He hums out his answer, petting the fur of Elio that lives under his chin. "Yeah, but not to read or anything like that. There's this one hidden seating area back in one of the corners. I usually use it I wanna sketch and need it to be quieter than it is out in The Pouring Fox." He pulls away from the cat and stands.

You stand too, knees relieving while Elio walks away, tiny paws tapping against the flooring as he heads toward the checkout counter, tail moving around like he owns the place. "Art? What would you draw?" You ask as you start pacing to the right and heading for the rows of books.

As your inhale the scent, turning your lungs warm, your eyes scan the endless rows. It's a snug place, but the sea of books is more than satisfying. Both hard and soft cover ones are heavily stuffed from bottom to top. Some are even resting on the floor, using up all the space there is available.

Jean follows you, close enough to feel his heat. It radiates off his body and finds you like a second home. "A whole lot of nothing."

You glance over your shoulder as you take a sharp turn to the left. "I'm sure whatever you've worked on here always came out great."

"Tell that to the hundreds of pages of sketch paper I've gone through because of all that I've thrown away." He return, still trailing you. "But on the topic of books, you still gotta give me the list of your favorite ones. Don't think I forgot about that."

You hate the way he remembers everything because you hate the way it makes you feel. "I'm still working on it," you say as all of your attention is drawn to the rows of stuffed novels resting on the vintage shelves than you are him. "I'll have it for you on Tuesday when I tutor you for your exam."

Jean nods. "Alright."

The floor creaks beneath each pace you make. "That reminds me, I've been meaning to ask you, do you want to do it at my place this time since I came to yours last time? Make it fair."

"Yeah." Jean returns as you hear his feet creek the old wood beneath his feet. "Your place sounds good."

You spin to face him, walking down the aisle backward and at a slower pace, with a smile on your face. "I want to buy the pizza this time too."

Jean stuffs his hands into his front pockets. "Not a chance, Y/N."

Your smile grows, grabbing onto the straps of your tote with your right hand. "We'll see about that," you say confidently. Setting your footing back straight you take a sharp right turn and pass one of the shelf end caps before heading down a different aisle.

Again he follows, and a thin line appears between his bows. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Glancing over your shoulder back at him you crinkle your nose. "I can be really good at getting what I want."

"Yeah?" Jean simpers. "So can I."

Shaking your head, your neck aligns as he continues his paces behind you, following you wherever you go.

Releasing the grip on your bag you reach to the right. You run your fingertips along the spines of the shelved novels as you saunter deeper into the rows of books. "Are you chasing after me, Jean?" you tease.

He's right at your tail, you could reach back and grab him if you tried. "Chasing after you? No. I'd never chase after you," he argues in return. "Maybe you're just going to all the same places I'm trying to go."

"There's a lot of books back here, and I feel like all you're looking at is my back." You halt. Spinning on your heels a quarter of the way, you press your back into one of the bookshelves. "Go look around, Jean-Boy. There's a lot to see."

Jean steps up, setting himself directly in front of you. "Why should I?" He asks, golden eyes looking down at you with enough strength to suck you in like a black hole resting within a region of space-time. "There's nothing that I need to go and find. Everything that I'm looking for is right here."

He never tells you to stop calling him Jean-Boy anymore.

Warmth carries itself from the knot in the center of your chest to the skin of your face. "Which is what?"

Jean lifts his hand from where it's hanging near his waist and brings it toward your face. It seems as though he's going to grab you, touch you. Your skin prickles at that passing through alone. You can smell the faint vanilla coming from him in all its comfort. The taste of it somehow finds your mouth, making your tongue twist.

You watch his mouth hitch, faint but fiercely wicked. "This." He brings his hand even closer to your cheek, but at the last second, he moves it quickly to the right and grabs a book from the shelf, pulling it free from its tight home between two thick paperback novels.

Jean leans himself backward, putting a small amount of space between you and him, and brings the book to the front of your face. The nerves piercing the cells under your skin, are refusing to find settlement despite your silent demands. "Little Women," you say, eyes dropped to the cover. "You're telling me that's everything you were looking for? An old classic book about four sisters and their journey to womanhood."

"Yep," he says. "Exactly that."

Your eyes pull back up to him, a pinch in the skin of your forehead. "You're such a liar, and you're annoying me."

With the Penguins Classic Book now dropped to his side, he brings himself closer again, making up for when he briefly pulled away.

"Am I? How come?" Jean questions slyly, more rhetorical than searching for an actual answer. "I'm not doing anything but standing here." He's inches away from your face now, leaning slightly forward but not enough for any part of your body to come in contact. His voice has fallen to a deepened whisper, causing you to almost melt away into the shelf you're leaning into so harshly. "I'm not even..." his eyes flicker, "...touching you."

He's not, but still, you feel him... everywhere. Like your flesh is being touched. The inside of your goddamn bones.

You give him a look. He doesn't have to be touching you for nerves to transpire in your stomach, and that's something you can't stand, partly because it's annoying to endure, mainly because it doesn't make a lick of sense. "No, you might not be. But you are taunting me," you say accusingly.

"And where do you think I learned that from? Consider it pay back." Jean shoves Little Woman right back into its place, spine perfectly aligned. You'll be sure to curse that book for the rest of your days.

A sting of threats flashes across your eyes. "At least I don't stutter when I get nervous," Lifting your hand, you place the palm of it in the center of his chest. You can feel its heart knocking. You swear it's racing.

His lips pull tight into a thin, irritated line. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Your eyes roll. "Not even you believe that." With your hand still on his chest, you extend your elbow, pushing some weight into him, "Move," you sharply request.

"Alright, Y/N." Jean abides, taking a step back. "As you wish."

You step right away from him and turn your back before he can see the smile on your face.

Coming out of the book aisle, you round to the left and walk upon one of the back walls, one of the few that is bare and doesn't have shelves of books pressed up against it. You align your body with it and step the rest of the way over towards it, drawn into the different book quotes that are hung about—some from older classics and some from the modern day.

Your eyes trace each of them and then they land toward the top and a little bit to the right. There's a quote from the book called The Stranger by Albert Camus, but the quote isn't in English. It's from the untranslated version in the language it was originally written in.

You move a little bit closer to it and stand on the tips of your toes to see it a little bit better. "I love this book. I read it a few years ago," you mutter. "I really wish I could read this and know what quote they pulled from it. There's a lot of good ones in it."

Jean hums nearing your backside, low and faint, but you can feel it spiral into the muscles of your shoulders, making them tense in odd areas. "Which one?" He takes a step to your right and looks at the wall, too, focusing on the same thing as you.

Rolling your shoulder out to lessen the feeling built inside the structure, you lift your hand up and point to it, eyes never leaving the frame, still tracing the words you can't understand. It's quiet in the space except for the creaking floorboard from a couple of people passing by and the soft music playing through the speakers.

His voice then cuts in and rolls down your body on the side where he's standing, only adding to the tension you already feel inside of you, making it grow. "J'ai senti que j'avais été heureux et que j'étais heureux à nouveau," he speaks, voice low and steady. Certain about what's leaving his moistened lips.

You inhale a large whiff of the balmy air, but you catch it at just the right time before it forms into your body, angling away from the wall and towards him. Your eyes pull open wide as you take a small step to the left and back, jaw unhinging itself. "You speak French?"

Jean nods, eyes cutting to you. "Yeah. But only a little bit. I'm not super fluent in it or anything like that," he casually answers. "My mom's side of the family is from France. Some of them still live there."

Your interest is at its ultimate peak, and you don't even try to stop it from pushing toward an even higher elevation. Your eagerness to know him seems to get worse and worse every day. Verities of the day aren't quite cutting it anymore. It's the feeling of constantly wanting to know more that is starting to nestle its way into you. "Have you been there before?"

He nods again, weight shifting around on his heels to face you more directly. "I've gone with my parents a few times to visit them. It's nice."

"Is your dad French too?" You softly query.

Jean shakes his head in denial. "No," he returns. "He's German."

All your questions continue to stack up in your mind making it swell to the point it feels heavy, and the edges of your brain spill over and turn into a puddle on your swollen tongue. "What you just said a second ago, what does it mean?" You question, feeling drawn into him so close you could live in him.

His eyes jump back to the wall of bookish decor, reading off the frame again. "J'ai senti que j'avais été heureux et que j'étais heureux à nouveau." He repeats, the phrase falling off his tongue just as silkened and refined as before. It's completely effortless, his change of language. His focus falls back to you like it has never once left. "It means, 'I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.'"

You don't care about the quote anymore or what part of the book it's from. You're pulled in elsewhere by the kind of gravity science never talks about. An unavoidable, irresistible kind. Fiercer than the kind that planet Earth knows. You're convinced, without a doubt, that this form is undiscovered. Something that no one but you has ever experienced before, except for you. You step back inward, fascinated.

You go to say something but Jean beats you to it. "Sorry if it's all rough. I haven't spoken French in a while."

Smile lines appear on your face. "It didn't sound rough at all." You want to speak on it more, but you know how he is so you leave it at that. Parting from the wall, you and Jean continue to walk around.

About seven minutes pass when Jean gets wrapped up, taking interest in something he sees while you continue to scavenge The Foreword Hound, separating the two of you.

You're nose deep in the shelves now, that's at the furthest part of the store, not noticing the lack of his presence. Surrounded by a small section of classic books that are all stacked messily on top of each other, you look through them. Spotting Romeo and Juliet resting on the top of the pile you pull it free.

Facing the bookcase, standing relatively close so you're not in the middle of the aisle, you begin to flip through the book. Your eyes expand when you realize that it's been annotated and all marked up by readers of the past.

"Y/N," Jean calls out from a distance a couple of aisles away from you, but you're too infatuated with the book you have in mind to pay him any true mind.

He tries again. "Y/N?" Turning the corner he finds you and steps down the small aisle to where you are. "Jesus, I turn my back on you for one second, and you up and disappear from me." He's next to you now, watching you. "What'd you find?"

The movement of your fingers stop, and the pink and red cover falls back shut. You turn it to him so he can see the book in a quick glance. "Romeo and Juliet." Moving your corner back to the top corner, you flip through it again. "I think the last time I read it was in high school. This one was annotated by someone already. They wrote so much in the margins. Look."

His focus is drawn down, and he takes in each thin, moving page. "You don't own a copy of it?" He sounds genuinely surprised.

Turning on your heels, you lower yourself to the ground that's laid with a maroon floral rug, your back pressing into the bookshelf, as you set your bag to the right of you. "No, it's back somewhere in Stohess, so you know there's no way I'm ever getting that back," you admit to him, knowing it's unwontedly in possession of Porco. "I just haven't gotten around to getting another one yet. Which is ironic, considering where I work and the fact that I see it all the time during my shifts."

Jean, mimicking your movement, sits beside you, close but still respecting your space. "Looks like you gotta add it back to your collection sooner or later."

You nod in agreement as you start to flip through the jam packed pages full of words, both printed and handwritten. It's quiet between you and him as your eyes scan scene to scene, act to act, until you find one of your favorite ones.

Act one, scene five.

Pulling the book open a little more, your eyes scan the scene out, which is beautifully but complexly written.

"You kiss by the book," you say, filling in the always-understood silence both you and him so commonly share when in the presence of the other.

"What?" Jean voices, confused. The side of your cheek begins to burn as he searches for your eyes that are still dropped to the pages of the story.

You lift your head and find his gaze, no longer making him scour. "You kiss by the book," you repeat, pointing down and tapping the off-white page. "It's one of my favorite quotes from the play. Back in high school, I remember spending the whole day analyzing what Juliette meant when she said it. There's usually a lot of different interpretations since, you know, Shakespearean stuff isn't always the easiest to understand."

"And what was your take on it?" Jean asks, eyes shifting into clear intrigue.

You blink, feeling the texture of the opened page as you move your thumb back and forth in a rubbing motion. "Well, what do you know about the play?"

"Uh, honestly, just what I remember learning in High School English," he says to you, pushing his spine deeper into the bookshelf. His shoulder brushes against yours on accident, but he keeps them in contact with purpose, unwilling to part. "My teacher assigned us parts, and we had to act the entire thing out in class and everything. Shit was so embarrassing. Felt like the lesson went on for months."

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: romeo & juliet - peter mcpoland ]

You titter softly, crossing your legs. "You had to do that too?​​​​ The whole play thing in class?" You ask. "Which part were you assigned?"

Jean's gaze heavily drops like he's embarrassed. "Romeo." He tells you dreadfully. "You?"

You blink, too, a couple of times, eyes naturally turning to velvet doe, as the tips of your finger drum in a messy repetition along the hard spine as you hold the book right in the center of your lap. "Juliette."

His eyes swim up and settle back into yours, and it's almost like you can feel his eyes soften out and the rest of him, too, far deeper than what you can humanly see. "Guess that means we really did die for each other in another life, huh?"

Your smile stays like it's made of permanent ink. That substance is made up of something that only exists when Jean's around. "Tragic."

And he laughs so deeply you can feel it burry itself into your skin and crawl across every bone you have. "I hated it..." Jean confesses as he shakes his head, "...playing Romeo. I didn't even volunteer for it, but my teacher just selected me for whatever damn reason. I remember during that time of the semester just dreading for third period English to come around."

Your eyebrows pull up like strings. "Really? Mine was during the first period, and I loved it," you gleam, recalling one of the few memories that don't hurt you to look back on during your time in Stohess.

He allows himself to smile, free will, as he focuses on you intently, tracing your lips as the high curve of them cuts lines all the way up into the corners of your eyes. "Of course you did," he lets out a sigh. "That doesn't surprise me at all."

"Is that your way of saying I'm predictable?" You tease, an eyebrow lifted. "I've heard that before."

"Only sometimes," he admits. "Other times, you keep me guessing to the point it annoys the shit out of me."

"Good," you return, a little bit sly. "I like keeping you on your toes."

"Like I didn't already know." He squashes his smile. Reaching over, he taps his pointer finger on the pinkish red cover. He hesitates, pulling away, but then he does, and you go cold. "Now, tell me your analysis about that quote you said," he requests. "I wanna hear it."

Your head drops, gaze following too. Your words spill from the walls of your lips like you've been waiting all your life for a request like this. "Juliet and Romeo were in the main ballroom at the Capulet's Mansion. It was the first time Romeo ever saw Juliet. Do you remember that scene?" Lifting your thighs up toward your chest, your feet press to the ground. You set the spine of the book into your lap, hands holding each side of it, making sure it stays pulled wide.

Jean hums deeply in thought. "Help refresh my memory."

Your lips press into each other, and then they pull apart. "Well, at this part of the story, Romeo approaches Juliet. He tells her that she is a saint and he is a pilgrim and that in order to do away with his sins, he needs to kiss her. And they do. Juliet then taunts Romeo about it and claims that since he kissed her once, that the said sin is all over her lips."

You can tell by Jean's searching eyes and the fact they haven't parted from you except to blink that he is listening to every word you're saying. "What does Romeo say in response?" He asks. "I don't remember, I never paid that close attention."

Your pointer finger presses deep into the page and skims through the lines until you find it, pointing firm. Jean's neck drops, and he reads from it right at the start of the words resting above your fingernail. "Give me my sin again," he speaks Romeo's line aloud.

You nod. Removing your hand from the page, you grab into the side of the pages where it was before. "And then he kisses her all over again to take that sin back because it wasn't ever hers to begin with. And because a saint like her doesn't deserve to be tainted by him or what they have done, he wants to wipe her clean."

Your focus jumps to his, locking in like a promise neither of you realize is present. Your words don't stop. "And that's when Juliette says, 'you kiss by the book.'"

His tongue runs along his bottom lip. "You said it is can be interpreted differently, but what does it mean to you?"

You exhale, and all the breath you're holding starts to ache in your lungs. "Well, Romeo was Juliet's first real-life experience. Since she was so young, everything she knew about romance or what it was supposed to be was from what she would read in her books. So, I think what she meant by it is when he kissed her the way she always envisioned what it would be like while reading."

"So she was complimenting him?" He asks, curiously. "Is that what you're saying?"

You nod. "Basically, yeah, in a poetic way. My personal take on this has always been that she was telling him that how he kissed her was everything she had ever dreamed of. Perfect to what she always thought it would be."

Jean's lips press together, allowing your words to spill with no break. "How I see it is, anybody can kiss anybody, but it's kissing the one m you adore so much that you can feel it in your bones that makes a kiss actually worth something," you say. "If you like someone, you kiss them by the book. You kiss like all the dreams and fantasies tied in one. Whoever is on the receiving end can always tell if you don't. Kiss them with your heart. Even the taste of a kiss like that will be different."

His words come in an aggressive crash, spreading all over you, not a single part of you untouched. "Say it again for me."

You become wide eyed. "What?" You frown, a little confused, closing the book up.

He blinks down at your lips, and gazes so intensely it feels like he is touching them. A burning feeling lighting up your whole face. "The quote. Your favorite one. Say it again." No request here. No pleads—just a firm demand in its pure form.

Suddenly, it's hard to breathe. "Wh-"

Shaking his head, sharp and firm, he stonewalls you. "Don't ask. Just do it."

You pull your the sleeves of your sweater a little bit over your hands and place them on top of the book fighting the urge to rub them together that your nerves are trying so hard to make you do. "You kiss by the book."

Jean's shoulders shift and he leans an inch closer. "One more time."

No way you're breathing now. You grip the book harder, the hard spine pressing into the bones of your bent fingers. "You kiss by the book."

He moves closer, two inches this time. He's taking all your air. He is your air. "One more," Jean swallows hard, so close. Too close. Not close enough. "Do it for me."

His eyes are on your parted lips, studying them, memorizing them. His hand lifts, and he nears it to the right side of your face now. He brushes a piece of fallen hair away. "Say it," you can feel his voice. It is in you as he speaks.

You aren't sure what's happening, but you can't find it in yourself to mind it.

Though you should mind, you really, really should.

You're doing what he says so easily; it feels like his hand in your throat, and he's pulling it out of you. Your heart is in your head, and your head is in your heart. It's mixed together, an imperfect balance of everything you've never felt.

You wet your lips, and his breathing stops. Your mouth is sweet, but also hungry. "You ki-"

A loud crash abruptly cuts you off before you can get the whole thing out, before Jean can move another inch and it feels fucking cruel. The sound causes yours and Jean's bodies to pull away from each other. The moment, whatever the hell it was, completely severed. Never to be rebuilt again.

You look to the left, trying to make out the interruption. You see the bookstore workers who greeted you when you first entered, scrambling to pick up the small pile of books on the floor that just fell from the black cart he's pushing, full of things he's trying to restock.

Tossing them back into the cart, the worker looks at you and Jean apologetically. "Apologies," he says quickly. "A slip of the hand." He nods slightly and pushes the cart again, disappearing into one of the nearby aisles.

You heave out a sigh of relief. Or maybe it's of disappointment. You have no fucking clue. All know is that you can breathe again, and it's never felt so fucking good after feeling like you just spent several lifetimes without it.

Jean's shoulder pulls completely out of you, a vivid space now set between you and him. Lifting his knee, he bends it, his thigh tucking into his chest, and rests his forearm on the curve of it. The hand that was just holding a strand of your hair is now hanging casually like it's been in that position this whole time.

Neither of you says anything. There's silence now, but this time for the very first time, it's awkward—the desire to crawl out of your skin kind of awkward.

Just what in the hell happened a minute ago, and why is it lingering so stubbornly? How do you get rid of it?

Jean tries. "So uh," he runs a stressed hand down his face. "Do you think Romeo and Juliet is the most tragic love story?"

His closeness was a leech, sucking everything right out of you. You do what you can to stay centered though your mind is spinning in a way it never should.  "One of them," you respond, then clear your throat, trying to dissolve its tightness. "I used to think it was until a book I read about a year ago, another one that got left back in Stohess, so my answer has changed since."

He pick out the stitching of his pants. Does he want to crawl out of his skin too? "Which book?" He asks.

"Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Another one of my books trapped in Stohess," you remove Romeo and Juliette from your lap and offer it out to him. "Hold this. I wanna see if they have a copy of it here." He takes it and sets it in his.

You stand. Looking down at him, you brush off your behind. "I'll be right back. Try not to miss me."

He shrugs his right shoulder dryly. "Easy."

You roll your eyes and part. It doesn't take very long to search. Luckily, there were multiple that filled in one of the end caps making for it to be an easy find.

Arriving back in the aisle you left Jean, you make your way over toward him. He is sitting in the same spot, putting on his Burt's Bees vanilla bean chapstick as he holds Romeo and Juliet open, balanced on his raised thigh. He is entirely focused on the black printed words and surrounding annotations of the book with so much tensity he doesn't realize your presence until you speak.

You step to his right side with The Song Of Achilles pressed into your chest. "So, what? I leave for three minutes, and you're a classic reader now?"

Jean closes the book and tilts his head to you. "Just trying to pass the time since you wanna go ahead and take half the day," he states. Snapping the dark blue cap onto his chapstick, he stuffs it in his right front pant pocket.

"You're so dramatic." You pull the book away from your center. In a single swift movement, you flip the cover around to face his direction. "Here you go. Another tragedy."

Setting Romeo and Juliet next to his left thigh on the floor, he puts all his focus on the Song of Achilles. "So you're into stories with sad endings more than happy ones, or what?"

"Honestly," you begin. "Yeah."

Jean laughs briefly through his nose, almost like your answer was expected. "I knew you couldn't be all fucking sunshines and rainbows," he remarks. "Why sad endings?"

You answer. "Because I think they stay with you longer than the ones with ones with happy endings. When you finish a sad book the world ends, but if it's done right, that hurt can linger inside of you for a long time after, and I think that's really cool."

Smoothing out your textured sweater you finish your thoughts. "Plus, sometimes, the only answer for well developed characters is tragedy."

Jean inhales as though he's trying to capture all your words under the cage of his ribs. "So you're twisted."

You shrug, nonchalant. "A little."

He chuckles and rubs his thumb over the blue and gold cover of the book. "Spoil this tragedy from me," he persists.

You sit down next to him, crossing your legs again. "That defeats the whole purpose of reading, Jean," You glance, eyes pinching. "Why would you want me to do that?"

Jean's eyes are light, infrequent in their occurrence but piercingly warm in how it feels to witness the rarity. "Because I like books better when you they're told by you."

His words pinch you at your center, causing all the air your body was holding onto to leave. You take a breath, trying to get it all back. "If you know Greek mythology, then you should know how Achilles story goes. This is just a retelling of it." Your legs cross, and you scratch at your knee. "But I'm not spoiling it from you."

"Fine," He squints at you, a little bit playful. "Since you're stubborn and I know you won't budge, at least tell me one thing about it."

You tighten your bow at the back of your head, "Tell you what?"

"I don't know." Jean pauses, tightlipped to ponder, and then, "Tell me your favorite quote out of this one too."

You don't miss a beat. "'And perhaps you it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone," you say, knowing the quote with such preciseness it's like you were reading straight off the page.

He looks like he reconciles with what you just said. You know that's true in itself. He swallows all their verities he isn't quite ready to give. Taking a small breath, he lifts the book and taps the top of your head with the back of the book ever so gently, "So it's another story about death," he speaks, not a question.

"Love and sacrifice, yeah," you say, answering anyways. "There's no such thing as a tragic love story without it. Is there?"

"Guess so. What do you think about it?" He asks. "A person sacrificing themselves after losing the person they love for the person they love."

"If it were me, I would want my person to stay alive after I died." You admit. "To live out a life they are proud of where they become all I believed they could be, even if that meant being it without me."

He's quiet but it's almost as thought you can hear his hear drip, droplets of blood on the windowpane of your "What about you," you ask. "What would you want?"

"If I died, I would want my person to live." He says. "But if roles were reversed and I were the one left, I don't know if I could live without them even if they wanted me to. Not when grief feels the way it does. Add romantic love on top of it. I honestly, to God, don't know if I could do it." His lips press, turning almost wire, and then, "Could you?"

"No," you confess, "I don't think I could. If I were to lose another person, I think I would be done for."

"Yeah," Jean agrees with a small. "Me too."

The air is heavy. You can both feel it. Jean does something about it. "Come on." Jean pushes himself to his feet, both works of literature in his hand. "There's something else back here that I wanna show you."

You stand. Taking the books from him, you turn to face the shelves. You put Romeo and Juliet away out from where you pulled it from and The Song of Achilles right on top of it.

You square your body off with him forcing to hand to drop away from you and look up at him quizzically. "You're letting me in on more of your secrets?"

He watches you closely, "At this rate, Y/N," he begins, steady with well-built honesty, "you're gonna know them all." His hand finds you're left with, and his fingers wrap lightly around your bone.

You glance down as you start to burn, then your focus cuts back up, eyes gleaming as they fall back into his. "Trying to hold my hand, Kirstein?"

A sniff of a laugh incredulously leaves him. "No. Just making sure you don't run." He denies and then goes on to note, "you got away from me one in here. I'm not letting it happen again."

His grip gets a little tighter but never is it rough. He pulls you out of the aisle you're in and to the right down another long hall of overstocked books that could be mistaken for a sea. Once out, he turns you to the right again over to where three bookshelves meet, two parallel to each other and the one straight ahead, faced horizontally, creating a tiny square space.

He releases his hold on you as his eyes land on the aged piano made of light wood on the front and darker wood along the edges of it, with a overflowing bookshelf is resting right behind it. Directly in front of it is a wooded bench with no backing, matching the same color as the piano almost perfectly, with a maroon and gold floral printed rug running under it.

To the left of it is an armchair made of burgundy velvet line with dark brown wooding. You deem that to be the place he was talking snot where he works on his art.

You turn your head to ask him about it, but he's no longer standing next to you. Standing in place, you watch as he walks up to the piano and stands at the backside of the tucked away bench, his neck dropping slightly as he looks down, studying it carefully.

Slowly, you pace your way up to him and step to his left side, close enough to feel your body's natural heat but not enough to feel his touch. "Do you play?"

There's a pause. A brief one. Like he's trying to figure out if he wants to answer or not, but then, he does.

"Played," Jean corrects, emphasizing the use of past tense. "Not much anymore. My hands and everything, you know, kinda makes it hard." His fingertips run across the keys to the right, but not once does he press down. It seems he wants to know the feeling of them beneath his hand the way he used to but is hesitant to bring sound to the world. "Don't tell anyone, though. No one else really knows that it's something that I used to do. It's not really anything that I like to talk about."

"Don't worry," your focus tears away, sand you smile up at him assuringly. "My lips are sealed. I don't have a big mouth like Connie, I promise."

Eyes to you, Jean nods in appreciation, "No one does," His lips tuck into each other, pink flesh turning white under pressure as his eyes draw back down to the piano keys. His hands stuck into his pockets like he as to fight the urge to touch them again.

"How old were you?" You query, testing the waters to see if he's willing to open up anymore.

"When I started playing?" He returns, taking a glance at you. You nod, and he further explains as his focus drops down again. "I was about five when my mom decided to put me in lessons. I ended up liking it, so I just kept going back. She was encouraging, so over time, it just became one of my hobbies, I guess."

"Sounds like your mom was supportive when you were growing up," you pressure. What you know of his family is sparse. All you're aware of is Zofia, who is his cousin that his parents took in, and the known fact that he was well brought up money wise.

Everything else, though, you're in the complete dark. This is the first time he's ever really been willing to talk about them so openly and not call it one of his verities of the day.

"She was. Both of my parents were." His hands fall out of the fabric they're buried. "Still are," he admits. Rounding himself to the front of the bench he sits down.

You remain silent as his words continue to roll through, no apprehension to be seen. "Ever since I can remember, they saw a lot of potential in me. Dreams and whatever else they were convinced I was gonna be able to achieve. It's all they ever talked about. To our family. To their friends. To me," he says, pushing down on the one of the white keys. The faint high notes reverberate into you and carry throughout the rest of the room. And then he lets up, taking the pressure away, and the sound evaporates into nothing.

Jean pauses, anxious. "There's a reason why I haven't gone back home since I almost dropped out of Trost State, and Eren dragged my ass back here basically by the damn throat."

"Why?" You ask cautiously, as you lower yourself onto the wooded bench, sitting down next to him. "Too much pressure?"

"No," Jean says deeply in return, attention down at the piano while his fingers only hover over the white and black keys, not willing to press down on them again. He swallows hard before he speaks again. "Too hard."

You blink; a million questions are circling around your head, overwhelming enough to chip away piece of your skull, but you only allow yourself to ask a single one. "To be around them?"

He's looking at you now, and there's a cloud of sadness hovering over him, leeching on all the rare brightness this day is made of. He pauses like what he's about to admit to you is taking half of his strength straight out from under him. And then he finally releases. "I feel guilty..." his throat bobs, "...spending time with them."

Your heart begins to hurt in all the places it possibly can. "Guilty? Why?"

Jean's words halt for yet another time, a heavy interval of silence passing through. With his hands now dropped to his lap he starts to taps his thumb across the tips of each finger on his left hand, repeated and uneasy—a soundless rhythm. "Because my parents wanted more for me than whatever it is I've become," his tone has dropped just above a whisper, but the weight held within those words is enough to crush your lungs.

His lips wind tight, and his eyes pull away from you for another time. You can tell it's hard for him to keep eye contract while confessing something like this. His gaze drops again, his shoulders falling forward, a slight curve along his spine. "They saw this big future for me in school and in my stupid hobbies like this," he gestures a hand toward the piano, "and baseball and whatever the hell else, but now I'm just—"

He shakes his head as you continue to listen to all he has to say, completely interested. Completely sad. "I used to love going home. I looked forward to spending time with them whenever I was able to make the trip back." Jean clenches his jaw and takes a breath. When it leaves him, it's shaky. "But now whenever I'm around them, I can barely even look them in the eye because all I can't think about is all the ways I let them down and how I failed in being the kind of person they wanted me to. And I don't really know how to live with that feeling. But it's a feeling that always lives inside me, and I wish that there was a way for me to get it out."

You are now completely made out of a sadness that isn't your own, and you can feel it coursing through every part of you, like running water that has just busted through poorly built dam. Your bones are breaking away, your soul is splitting in half, and all you do is sit in it.

You've spent most of your life setting hope on wishes that never came true, but there's a new one forming heavily inside of you, creating two knots, one in the center of your chest and one in the top of your stomach.

What you want, more than anything, is to make sure there was a way that this one wish, in particular, more than any of the others you had before, could actually come true. The wish—the chest caving wish—to be that moon you always wanted you to be, so in this moment, you could reflect back into Jean all the things you see when you look at him.

The goodness he swears died on that road by that tree. The goodness he doesn't even have to work for because it is the structure in which his bones are built and the way his cells travel. The goodness everybody who is close to him can see. Everybody but him.

Why were humans laced with such big dreams and desires to help and care for people in such drastic ways, only to be given nothing but scarce tools that always fall too short? Why don't superhumans exist? Healers? Reality shifters? Time manipulators? And why couldn't you have been one of something so you could do more than just sit on his left wearing the skin suit of a body full of wishes that can never be achieved?

You look at him, honest eyed. "Do you wanna go back home?" You question. "I know we're supposed to toward the end of this month, but I don't think you should do it if it will be too hard for you. No one should push themselves like that."

Jean hesitates, palms running down his thighs "This family thing. It's important to them."

"I know." You nod. "But that's not my question, Jean. My question is, do you want to go? I'm not asking about what's right or what's wrong here. I want to know what you want. Where your feelings stand on it because those matters. They are important here. Don't invalidate what you truly feel for the sake of other people. That includes people you care about."

Jean's eyes, made of more constellations than the sky, are rooted deep in your soul, and they pull, making you want to fold over.

"I want to want to go." His voice is weak and tender, like sadness is all at its center. "That's what I want."

You can hear that he's pining for it though he doesn't reveal an ounce to show in a single part of himself. All of it is held onto and internalized. The same way it always is.

The stars in his gaze are now outlined with textured melancholy, and you can hear strains of it in his voice as it drips like honeydew onto his tongue. "I love my family, Y/N. My parents. Zofia. But if I'm completely honest right now, sometimes I'm not even sure if they know it anymore because... fuck," he swallows hard and shakes his head. "What if I pushed too far? What if I pushed them same way I tried to push our friends, and they can't forgive me for it. What if they never forgive me?"

You feel like you have a gaping hole in the center of you. What makes you human is about to come spilling out on the ground of old wood and cheaply made rugs.

"Jean." His name fits in your mouth like it's something that's always been meant for you to speak. You rest the side of your head onto his arm, eyes to your lap as you fiddle with your thumbs. Nervous, you might say too much. Just as nervous you won't say enough. "I know I don't know Zofia or either of your parents, but just listening to how you've described your family, how you talk about them, I don't think there's anything for them to forgive."

Jean's voice moves from his body into yours; you feel the deepness of it, coated in broken confessions, course their way through you. "But you don't know..." he trails, unable to finish.

You breathe out, your head pulling away from him. "You're right. I don't know," Your chin tilts up, and your eyes meet his. "But all that's happened, no matter what it was, doesn't change how they see you. Not when they love you the way it sounds like they do. Look at your friends. Every mistake. Every altercation. Even things I don't know, they have stuck by you through it all, right?"

Jean nods, the corners of his mouth pulled down. "Yeah, but if I were them, I would have been gone months ago," he tells you truthfully. "I honestly don't understand why they continue to stick around. I never asked them to."

"With real friends, you never have to ask. You're not a chore to be taken care of. You're a friend they love." There's no hesitation in how you answer, not a single thought to be made. "They don't see you as anything other than the person you were when you first entered their lives. Even with everything, they have never looked at you as less than a friend or someone who is no longer deserving. And that goes for your family too."

Jean's lips split into two, and his words come pouring out into your lap. You're floating now in puddles of truth you never thought you'd be able to know. "And what about you?" He holds your gaze, and you can feel it burry itself deep within your stomach. "Especially with how I acted when we first met and all the times after that, why have you stuck around?"

A question like that should make you think. Contemplate and shift around inside your mind, but you don't have to. Not when it's in the category of him. Your heart knows the answer like it's been hidden in the walls of it for all these years. "Because I look at you, and I feel like I'm able to see what you're truly made of. Not what you think you are or what you've forced yourself to be."

Muscles of shock constrict in Jean's face as you keep speaking. "You look at me and tell me I'm a good person, and despite the stupid things it took for us to get to this point, I think you are one too. When I said this to you the night you stayed with me when I had that nightmare, I meant it."

"You remember that?" Jean's eyebrows lift up, intensifying his tense muscles even more. "I figured you were half asleep when you said it to me."

You give a slight nod. "I remember. Even half asleep, I have a pretty good memory," you utter. "I don't forget many things, but I especially wouldn't ever forget that. I've thought you were a good person even before that night, and I probably will forever."

Your eyes are locked in. Yours are wearing assurance while he are wearing tones of disbelief.
He sits in those words. In your words. Then, he blinks, and it's like rounds of them have been scraped clean with acceptance, adding light to the sharp edges of his face.

Gently he places his hand in your thigh, down near your knee. His swipes his thumb and it feels assuring. "I'm gonna go home. It's long over due. If I don't do it now, I'm just gonna keep putting it off and dig myself a deeper, more shit hole than one I already have."

Relief rolls off your back. "I know they're going to be happy to see you." A grin pulls faintly at the corners of your mouth, a comforting one. "And for whatever it's worth, I'll be there with you, so if there's anything I can do to help you out or something, just let me know. I'll do whatever I can to make it easier on you."

He's the one to find relief next. Relief in those sentences. Relief in you. "You being there will be more than enough." He squeezes your leg not too much and then he pulls it off. "I'm not going to need anything more than that."

Jean's attention jumps away from you again. His hands hover over the straight row of aged keys. Leisurely, he brings the pressure down on them. He presses on one of the white ones with his right and a black one with his left. The low sounds mix as one bites your ear sweetly. And then he lifts, not playing another note, though he holds his hand about it like he wants to.

You study his hands for a few passing moments, and then your focus transfers to the side of his face. "How long has it been since you played?" You wonder aloud.

There's a pause from Jean that runs every part of him still. Thinking. Contemplating. Debating. You can hear his breaths as he paces them, trying to rid himself away of the apprehension you can tell he's holding onto. On his final breath, he holds it for a few seconds, then releases it in a rush and settles more comfortably into his body. "Until now."

And without any sort of warning, those hovering fingers move to the placement he needs, and he presses weight down into it playing notes that complement each other perfectly.

Before he moves to play another tune, he pauses, hands lifting their weight. Looking at you, he asks. "You've seen Up, right?"

"The Disney movie? Yeah. Of course," you give a nod. "Ellie and Carl's story just about killed me. I wish they had more time together." And then you bring your head to a tilt. "Why?"

Jean looks satisfied. "Just making sure." With a quick turn of his head, his focus rips away from you and drops back down to the piano. Putting pressure on the keys, he begins to play.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: stuff we did - michael giacchino & olga scheps | make sure it's the piano only version if you aren't using my spotify playlist ]

This time it's more than two notes.

This time he doesn't stop.

This time it remains enough to be able to admire.

The song carries on with no mishaps, and you instantly fall into it. The notes. The rhythm. Him.

Jean's long fingers move against the keys, slow and almost hesitant at first. Each stroke of the key and every precise movement from alternating from the white and black keys is soft. Lighter than the wings that spread off the backs of saving angels.

You can tell he's a little bit rusty like he hasn't done this for a while. Playing piano has become something that's a little out of his comfort zone after being out of sorts with it and the rest of his life, too, for quite some time.

But even still, Jean moves with keen swiftness, and it is more calming than you could have thought anything could ever be.

His soft pink lips, still coated in his vanilla chapstick, are slightly parted as he breathes in the music he's playing at his own demand with the trained tips of his fingers. Even with the bandage wrapped around him doesn't add any sort of mishap or being any problems to the quintessential way his wrist moves. Every note played is perfect and precise. Every sound that exists from the inside of it finds your veins and runs itself through you.

You know all about feeling the music. Letting it take over you and shift whatever part of you it wants to. The way it consumes your being is like prey. But never have you felt the way you do sitting next to him. To the left of the hands of a musician whose secret you plan on carrying with you until your body's home is the soil of the earth.

As he continues to play the song, the more you can see his heart pulling up to the surfaces of it, pieces of it falling onto the piano that he is creating such a beautiful sounds from it.

He glances at you, and you smile, showing your awe. Something then shifts. Something good, as he focuses back at the keys.

Like your smile was all the encouragement Jean needed, he unfolds completely now, right into the song, brought in by his own talented hand, like a timid flower at its bloom amidst spring. The hesitance is no longer anywhere to be found, and the way he's moving now is making you forget that it was ever even there in the first place.

His eyes are drawn down, studying his own hands. There's no sheet music in front of him for him to have to read. He knows this all by memory, and you are completely drawn in by it. By him.

To describe something that you have been in the most awe of, it would be this, through and through. You want to close your eyes, to fall into the music more, but your gaze is stuck, consuming all of the vulnerability he's offering.

The rest of the world has completely fallen off, and you're not sure if it will ever appear again. Or if it will remain like this forever. You, him, and the music at hand. You're not sure which you would prefer.

As the song reaches near its send is when Jean's fingers start to slow down in their movement, ready to soon stop making the sound of something you don't want to end.

Completing the last hand final note, Jeans hands pulling away from the keys, and they set themselves drop into his lap. Eyes ripping from the keys, he finds you unmoving. Clearly stuck in your own self. "What?"

The sounds of him levels you out. "Nothing, You're just..." you rapidly and shake your head still trying to process. "You're really good."

There's a pull at his expression that make it seem like he doesn't know how to accept your compliment for what it is. "Tell anyone about this, and I swear I'll kill you," he warns.

You blink rapidly as the faded worlds sadly come back to spinning existence. "Is that a threat?" you say, respecting to leave it all unspoken. "You gotta do better. You know how much I miss my brother, Jean-Boy."

Jean rears back, eyes popping wide, the fronts of them glinting with unexpectedness. "Jesus fuck, Y/N."

"I'm sorry." You wave a dismissive hand as you softly laugh. "Sometimes, I use dark humor to cope."

Air deflates his lungs, lightly brushed pieces of available skin on its exit out. "That's some Eren shit right there," he slowly shaking his head, almost disappointed. "No wonder you two got along so fast."

Your left shoulder lifts toward your chin. "Could have been us if you weren't such a dick to me when we first met," you tease.

His gaze is apologetic now, the soft and rare kind not often seen behind the lines of his eyes. "Let it go, alright?" He huffs with defeat. "I feel bad enough as it is."

You touch his back right at his spine with a flattened palm. "I know. I'm just giving you a hard time." You nudge yourself into it and then pull back. "But I mean it, Jean. Thank you for sharing this with me. I swear, your secret is safe with me."

"Good." He nudges you back. "Come on. Let's get out of here, yeah? We can walk around for a little if you're up for it."

"I'm up for it." You nod, and then you stand. "I just have to use the restroom first."

Jean follows, standing too. "Back corner to the left," he signals with a quick lift of his bandaged hand. "I'll meet you in front of The Pouring Fox. Sound good?"

You shoot him an approving smile. "Sounds good." You let the strap of your tote fall from your shoulder and hold it out to him. "Do you mind holding onto this for me? I don't really wanna take it in."

He extends his hand, "sure."

You smile, appreciatively. "Thank you."

He takes it, bunching the strap in his hand. "Don't mention it." And you and him separate.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Meeting Jean out front, he hands your tote bag to you. "Ready?"

"Ready." You grab it and swing it over your shoulder. It feels slightly heavier than before. Curious, you remove the front strap and pry it open, and all your items are revealed. Your eyes go round when you see two things inside that weren't there before.

You dig your eager hand in. "What did you do?" You ask, face stunned, looking over at him.

Jean forces a dumbfounded look. "What?" His lips twitch, making it all the less convincing. "What are you talking about?"

Slowly you pull out the copy of Romeo and Juliet you found in The Foreword Hound from your bag, pages annotated and crinkled.

Tucking it under your arm into your ribs to free your hand back up you dig back into your tote and pull out The Song of Achilles. Putting the strap back into your arm, you hold both books you to him.

"Damn," Jean's lips twitch for the second time, but again nothing breaks through. "How'd those get in there?" He remarks sarcastically. "You're a shoplifter now or what? And here I thought you were this good girl who never did anything wrong."

Flipping the cover of Romeo and Juliet open, tucked into the front page, is a receipt showing proof of purchase of both books. "You?" Your voice is wrapped in accusations as you close the books back up and blink back up at him.

"Nah. Sorry." Jean decides to play the part of cluelessness still. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

You attack the book on top of each other. Holding them both in your right hand you shake them slightly. "Why did you do this?"

His honesty finally pulls through, and he tells it to you kindly, "because you said you left both of them back in a place you wanna forget, and the way you're talking about them, it felt wrong that you don't own them." He says. "Took advantage when you were in the bathroom because I figured you would stop me otherwise."

The gratitude you feel, you are made of it.if you could sink forever in his natural kindness, you would. "I don't even know what to say right now."

Jean gives a smile, all on his own. Enough happiness felt in this moment he want to make it known. "You don't have to say anything."

Not even thinking you step forward and wrap your arms around his, pressing the side of your cheek into him.

His arms find your neck and he wraps them there, arms going tight, pulling you closer. "Now you can read all about the star-crossed lovers. How long do you think it's going to take you?"

You release him, and your head lifts up. "Four days."

Jean's a little slower him his release, almost regretful in the way he does. "I give you three." You smile, knowing he's right.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: somebody to you - banners ]

Putting the book neatly back into your tote, you part from The Pouring Fox and the Forefront Hound Bookstore, and you start your journey through Oakcrest Village. You come upon the stairs that lead down to the hidden alley and take them back up.

You're back to level ground and take a turn to the right, retracing your steps to get back to the main sidewalks of the village. You're steps ahead of him now, always a little more eager than he. You take a glance over your shoulder, your paces remaining forward. "Are you coming, Jean?"

His hands are in his pockets, traveling rather leisurely, trailing several paces at your backside.
"I'm right behind you." He returns his words level-toned, "I told you before that I would take you wherever you wanted to go, even if that meant having you to chase after you all the way there."

On your heels, you spin the rest of the way, squaring your shoulders off. "So you admit it." You're walking backward now, paces slowing down as you travel through the small alleyway between two shops you walked through earlier. "You are chasing after me."

A rush of air leaves him, his chest caving in. "Don't get used to it." He ups his speed with larger paces, catching up with you now. "I'm just keeping an eye out. I know your excitement can get the best of you, and I wanna make sure you don't slip from me, making me lose you in the process."

Standing directly in front of you, Jean's eyes consume you as you extend your hand out toward him. "Here," your palm flops skyward.

Jean glances down at it and right back up to you, brows knit together tight, creating lines right at the center. "What?"

"Take it," you say, reaching out a bit more. "That way, you can be sure you don't lose me."

His forehead releases, and his hand extends, meeting yours in the middle. His hand wraps, intertwining your fingers with his like it's some natural habit for him to do so. It feels that way too.

Hand in hand, you walk through the alley, you eager, and him the more mellowed out follower. Everywhere you pull him, he goes with no resistance.

You weave in and out of people and businesses traveling through and down different small streets, this village is made of.

Quickly, coming up on a new street, you change your direction. Forking right you turn away from one of the main roads, you come across a large chalk wall that runs down the rest of the building that is lining the street, causing your footing to slow down.

You release his hand without even thinking about it and step close to the chalkboard wall, infatuated. He was right when you said your excitement does get the best of you sometimes.

At the top, in bold white writing, is When I Dream I Dream of... and all across the board, there are different responses written by many other people in chalk.

It is spacious, and the bright, calm colors are vibrant enough to see them from a mile away—different handwriting, different words, all coming together.

Jean takes notice of your infatuation with the wall and steps up behind you as your head tilts up to it, taking it all in. He is close enough to feel the warmth of his presence but not of his touch. "They change this about once a month. So it's always a different prompt that people answer."

Your look over your shoulder and up at him. "Have you ever written anything on it before?"

He shakes his head, eyes sitting honestly. "No."

His answer doesn't surprise you at all. "We should do it..." Untwisting, you reach forward to a small white bucket attached securely to the wall. You grab two pieces of chalk. One colored yellow, and one colored green. You hold both hands out, offering him a choice... "together."

"What if I say no?" Jean challenges, right eyebrow lifted.

"Then I'll keep bugging you." You reach forward even more. "Do you really want that?"

His mouth twists, but nothing comes.

"That's what I thought." You swallow down a satisfied half smile. "I was thinking that we can count whatever we write as our variety of the day, and we won't have to give each other another one," you say. "Deal?"

He takes the green chalk out of your left hand. "Yeah, alright. Deal."

He steps to your left, and you shift your weight back to the chalkboard. You find an empty spot to the left while he finds one to the right, several steps away from where you are.

With the tip of your yellow piece of chalk that's been filed down from many past usages. You find an open space a quart of the way down and to the far left. At a kiddy corner angle,

« Awake or Asleep, Everybody Dreams »
When I Dream, I Dream of...

As you stick your tongue into the flesh of your left cheek pressing the skin of your face out, you set close the distance between the top of the chalk and the blackboard.

You write happiness.

Tossing the chalk back when you got it from. Moving your thumb around in a circular motion across your other fingertips, ridding away any of the colored residues it might have left behind, while Jean finishes his answer on the other side of the board.

His hand drops away. His eyes read his own writing, and his cave slightly slouches in vulnerability.

Without asking, you and Jean trade place and read each other answers.

You take His in and you and you feet your heart flip around. He has written: happiness.

At the same time, you turn to look at each other. You start to say something but he beats you to it. "Jesus, Y/N." His face turns into a pinched scowl when he turns to you, "get out of my head, would you?"

"Me?" You place a defensive hand over your chest. "It's the other way around. You're the one in mine."

Jean shakes his head, tossing the piece of chalk into the basket, his color landing right next to yours. "No, Y/N. Trust me. It's not the other way around. You're the one in my head." Turning away from you, he starts to walk back toward the sidewalk. "And you don't ever leave." His last words were to faint to hear

You spin around. "Jean?" You up your pace, making your way over to him. "What was the last part?"

"Nothing," he says, glancing at you over his shoulder. He throws the top of his head in the direction of his body. "Let's go."

"To where?" You ask.

"Anywhere." Jean returns, scratching at the facial hair lining his jawline. "Lead the way."

Stepping up to his side, you leave the chalkboard full of dreams behind and do just that.

After about ten minutes of walking and going into a different store that has caught your eye, you make it to one of the more busier streets, with more businesses and pedestrians. As your eyes take in your surroundings, something latches onto your gaze and refuses to let go. Your paving slowly stops, feening for a better look while Jean, unaware, keeps going.

Quickly, only a couple of paces away, he notices the loss of your presence. Turning over his right shoulder, his searching eyes effortlessly fond you. "What up? Why'd you stopped? You okay?"

You point to your right toward the chalkboard sign with store promotions with outlines of Halloween art written across it in fall colored liquid chalk right outside a small gift store called Paradis' Clutter. "They have customizable friendship bracelets. I love stuff like this," you say, glancing at him. "They're two for fifteen."

"What? You wanna make one?" Jean asks, eyebrows drawn, adjusting the sleeve of his crew neck that somehow for folded up. "For you and Sash?"

Your pointing hand drops down, hitting the outside of your thigh. "No." You shake your head, declining. "For you and me." A look of confusion takes over every inch of his face, his eyes are shoot wide, and his lips have thinned as you continue to elaborate. "You said I'm the first friend you've made in a long time, right? I want something that will mark the importance of that."

His arms are crossed now, folding the grey fabric of his crewneck, his jaw chiseled as he bites on his stubbornness. "You might wear that title, but I told you before, Y/N, I'm not the sentimental type."

The polaroid stuffed away. The dandelion held onto. Both items are kept in things he uses every day. You don't say anything about either of those them, though. You know better than that. Glazing over your inner thoughts, you raise a challenge. "Never said you were, did I? This isn't about sentiments anyways. It's about having fun."

The uncertainty on Jean's face twists into apprehension, with the want to resist this request. To fight you all together. Digging into him a little deeper, you bat your eyelashes a couple of times, and then you watch his body soften out, sinking right into your wants; resisting is no longer something he can do. A fight lost.

You win once again.

Pride rises, you can't help it, but you keep it hidden in your chest like treasure. "Alright, fine," Jean sighs, walking back over toward you. Stepping around your body, he heads for the entrance of the store. Pulling the door open, he turns his head, his eyes set back into softness when he looks at you. "Let's go make them than before I change my mind."

A smile is plastered on your lips now, excitement shifting back and forth between your feet, and you scurry inside.

It's a smaller store, one of those gift shops with a bunch of random things, from t-shirts to snacks, to stuffed animals. Other random knick-knacks surround you, you understand why it's called Paradis' Clutter. The name speaks for itself.

There are people scattered, shopping around. The worker folding clothes near the entrance greets you kindly. You return a quick hello, and you and Jean make your way to the left of the store, where there is a station to make bracelets pushed up against the wall, with folding chairs to sit in.

On top of the table is a long row of transparent plastic multi-clear layers of bead holders that run across the back, near to the plain wall. Inside is a variety of beads, charms, and colorful strings that you can add to the custom bracelets.

You and Jean find two empty chairs to the far left and sit beside each other. In one of the black bins built into the structure of the table, you pull out two long clear strings and a pair of scissors to cut the length you need them to be.

"What should we put on our bracelets?" You wonder aloud. "They have letter beads, so I wanna use those, and I want it to be something unique. So no one else has the same." Jean sits in thought for one brief moment, and then, instead of speaking, he stands.

His broad body shifts around. Moving his arm frequently, he opens and closes the small drawers  grabbing various beads. Palm, now full, he sits back down in his seat. One by one, he slides the white beads over, placing them in front of you for you to see, making for his answer.

His hand then pulls away, giving you full visibility. Your neck drops, face angled down, eyes consuming the letters he carefully selected. You inhale deeply, feeling the sweetness of what he just spelled out and its meaning as they settle into your lungs. "M63." you breathe out as you peer at him quizzically. "That's what you wanna put?"

Jean shrugs, readjusting his legs under the table. "You said you wanted it to be different. Nobody will knows the actual meaning behind it except for you and me," he says casually as he shrugs again, smaller this time. "It's our thing, Right?"

Our thing. His spoken words play over in your head, and you feel your heart hold onto that little tighter than it should. "Right," You blink a few times, and then your answer leaves your stomach, flying out. "Let's do it."

Jean's face is now dripping with satisfaction. "Let me see your wrist," He reaches for the string and the scissors on the table, almost eager in how he moves. "So I can measure it out for you."

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: this side of paradise - coyote theory ]

Obeying his request, you reach out, offering him your right wrist. He takes it and wraps his hand around it, light yet secure. It's quiet between the two of you. The sounds of passing customers and the music playing through the store are what's consuming your ears right now as his warm, calloused touch consumes the rest of you.

He moves the scissors on the table in front of him for it to be easier to pick them up when he needs them. Grabbing one of the plastic strings you selected, he brings it over to your wrist. Fixing the positioning of his hands, he wraps it around your bone, not too loose but tight, still giving you the freedom to move and breathe.

Once it's where he wants it, his hands freeze. "How's that feel?" He asks, and it shoots through you like a deadly gun, leaving residue all over your beating heart. "Does it feel good?" He runs his thumb across your skin, making you catch fire. "Right there?"

You hold your body still, acting like you don't feel the burn of him at all. But fuck, you're close to wanting to scream. Your voice is on the verge of catching as it tries to push out your tight throat, so all you do is nod.

He nods in return, approvingly. Holding the position of the string along your wrist so it doesn't move, he grabs the scissors with his other hand and cuts where needed. Releasing you, his warmth lingers like a virus, and then he sets it down on the table in front of you for you to access.

"Your turn." You grab the other plastic string left for him and reach your hand out to him in search of his palm. Without any resistance, Jean sets his hand in the center of yours, that heat reappearing, burying deep inside you in a matter of an instant.

You look at him, waiting for his approval to expose his arm. His eyes was over with thankful for your respect, which never seems to fail, and then he nods. "Go ahead," he softly utters. "It's fine."

With the quick and careful movement of your fingers, you roll up the sleeves, and his scarred skin becomes visible, and naturally, your heart sinks the way it always does. You measure it out around his wrist and carefully cut where he says it's comfortable.

With both your cut strings resting next to each other on the table, you put the scissors away where you pulled them from as he starts searching the small storage untold for colored beads.

"I think I'm gonna do green," Reaching to the bottom left, second from bottom, Jean finds the compartment filled with green colored beads and grabs a large handful. Sitting back down in his seat, he releases them messily out in front of him.

"What color should I do?" You ask, too indecisive to be able to make a decision that should necessarily be relatively easy.

"Yellow," Jean answers with no thought at all. "I think you should do yellow."

"Okay," you nod, agreeing. "I'll do yellow."

You find the stored away yellow beads. Grabbing enough, you set them down in front of you and get to work.

A small conversation is shared as you and Jean work on your bracelets, making time feel like it doesn't even exist at all.

Finishing 'M63' carefully laid at the very center of the string, you leave it halfway unfinished and shift the angle toward him for him to see, feeling eagerness too strong to allow yourself to wait until the whole thing is complete. "Look."

Jean puts another green bead on the string, and then your attention is all his. Eyes taking in the hallway finished bracelet, he smiles, with no effort to try and hide it. You wish he always smiled with such unbound bliss. Not cut in half or edges severed because he's too afraid to feel the human experiences that he deserves. You wish he would smile, just like this. Always.

"It looks good," he tells you.

A smile pulls your cheeks high to your eyes. "Right? I'm glad you told me to do yellow."

He sets his own string of halfway finished beads down light on the table. "Here. Let me see it really quick," he extends his now free hand.

Your brows lower, and confusion claws your ribs with its bitter, dripped nails. "Why?"

Jean reaches more. "Just let me see. I'll be quick."

"Fine," you groan out and release your bracket to his possession.

He's quiet, any words blocked by the bricks of his lips as they press into each other while he works. About thirty seconds pass is, when he finally speaks again. "There. Fixed it."

Leaning in toward him, you see one of his green beads next to the '3' you just put into place. "Fixed it?" You rear yourself back. "You just messed it up. It was supposed to be all yellow." You swat him lightly in the arm.

"Nah," Jean shakes his head. "I made it better."

This again. You remember this back in the Jaeger Basement. "Yeah?" Your eyebrows jump up, adding a small crease to your forehead. "Like how you did with my initials on the group Polaroid by linking ours together."

"Exactly," he smirks, satisfied with himself and his actions. "Smart girl."

You roll your eyes like you're annoyed, but you find yourself laughing. Nothing is that funny right now, but you're just happy, and it's felt so strongly that it needs to be expressed. Insists on it.

Laughter is different with Jean, more consistent, deeper felt. And it's both rare and alarmingly addicting.

When you laugh like this, it's like all you've ever been is happy. When you laugh like this, any sadness this earth holds under into tongue and spits out without warning is null. When you laugh like this, it makes you want to keep living.

However long it lasts, as quick as the snap of a frail twig, or if it pulls like silly putty, it makes no difference. This form of raw happiness pours into the lungs behind the protective calcium of your ribs and cleanses you free of the lingering ghosts haunting the wrong house.

With Jean, you laugh like you used to. Like you did when you were a little kid. When you still believed in dreams and in love and fairy dust.

You laugh like you mean it.

And you do.

Slowly, it begins to settle. "Now let me see yours." Palm up, and you lift it out toward him.

Jean shakes his head, pushing it to the left, away from you, out of your reach. "No."

"Come on," you persist, not letting up. "It's only fair."

"Fine," he shoves his incomplete bracelet toward you. "But only because I know how you feel about playing fair." You smile, satisfied. He rolls his eyes, defeated.

With his bracket now in your possession, you copy his idea. Taking one of your yellow beads, you put it on the end of his 'M63', mimicking the same placement of what he did to yours.

You hand it back to him, and he takes it as a sigh releases. "Doing what you do best. Coming into my life and fucking up everything up." He nudges you with his knee, teasingly.

You nudge him back. You take his words and spin them around on him. "No," you say. "I made it better, didn't I?"

"Yeah. Something like that." And he laughs, and it sounds good, and the pure freeness of it causes you to laugh; the experience of it is felt all over again. Skin buried, tectonic plate moving, unfiltered happiness in all of its rarity.

It feels good to get it back after being in missing of it for longer than you even realized.

After about fifteen more minutes, you and Jean complete your friendship bracelets. His is all green with M63 at the center and only one yellow bead enclosing in the number three on the left. Yours is all yellow, exactly the same as his but with one green bead enclosing the left of your M63.

You tie them securely on each other wrists, the perfect fit, just as measured. Putting away any of the exact beads you didn't idea, the two of you head to the front of the store to check out.

Jean pays for it, of course, even despite your persistence. Sometimes he can be really good at being headstrong, even against your stubbornness.

After completing the transaction, you head out, leaving Paradis Clutter behind. Jean holds the door open for you, and you step back outside.

Jean remains where he is, making sure it stays wide for a small family heading inside, and then he walks over to where you're standing by the chalk sign that first caught your eye.

You adjust the bracelet on your wrist. "You can't take it off," you release it and point to his. "I don't care what. Now that you have it on, it's like it's a part of you, okay?" You tell him sternly.

"Got it," Jean returns, with an agreeing nod as he shakes his wrist around that the friendship bracket is clinging right to.

"Cross your heart," you say, eyes soft. "That's how I know you'll really mean it."

He gives you what you want, no question. "I cross my heart, Y/N." He brings his pointer finger over his chest and marks an 'x.' "It's on until I get buried with it."

You nod, a satisfied smile creating lines around your eyes. "Good."

He throws his hand over toward the sidewalk. "You wanna walk around some more? This place is pretty big."

You nod for another time. "I wanna see it all."

"Let's go then." The two of you continue your journey.

You and Jean wander through this village of comfort a little bit more, crossing streets, weaving in and out of the stores, and passing people. The feeling of contentment never takes a parting from you for even a second.

Going further down the sidewalk, you pass a bunch of different shops and people until one store, in particular, catches your attention, making your entire body halt and turn towards it. 

There is a bright pink neon light sign of the store name, Celestial Tripp Records, shining in the window, drawing you into what lies inside beyond the glass door lined with a minty green color, chipped in all its paint.

"No way. Shut up," you gasp audibly. "There's a record store here too?"

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: treehouse- alex g, emily yacina ]

Looking at you, round eyes taking in your infatuation, Jean nods. "Yeah. This is the place where I got my record player and most of the records in my room. They have a pretty good variety." He brings himself to the front of you and signals with the top of his head. "Wanna go inside?"

You are becoming the joy you feel, the joy you can barley contain. "Can we?"

His head straightens back, and he nods for another time. "Of course," his voice is deep and assuring. "Anywhere you wanna go, we'll go."

You take a step to the right, closer to the store, making an effort to get out of way of others who are walking down the sidewalk. "Anywhere?"

Jean mirrors you in your movement. "Anywhere." He's certain. You can hear it. Sense it. Feel it. "Last night when we were in the bathroom at your apartment, I said possible or not, didn't it? That same thing still applies. I told you before that I never go back on my word."

"So if I said I wanted to go up to space like I did when I was a kid and orbit around Jupiter?" You test him teasingly. "What would you say then?"

You expect a joke in return, something sarcastic, but that isn't what comes at all.

Jean's face softens, though it was never really hardened in the first place. A delicate kind of porcelain, only ever seen by you. You the burning furnace, and he the making clay. "Then I'd scrape up whatever I had to and build a rocket ship and take you up." The breezing wind carries his words over to you, whispering in your ear just how forthcoming he is.

Pedestrians are passing by every which way, but it feels like everything else outside this snug bubble of you and Jean is equivalent to nothing. Passible blurs to pay no mind. Not just right now but ever again.

Your mind is too full. Filled to the absolute brim with him and all he's saying. If you could hold his words right between your teeth and taste them forever, you would. To lay his words flat on your tongue and stomach them, you know you would never be hungry again.

Valves of your heart are in your eyes, you can feel them expanding your gaze. "That means you'd be stuck with me for twelve years because that's about how long it would probably take us to travel around it."

"Twelve years or twelve hundred. Either way." Jean shrugs in a way that's easy, as though his words have been written in the walls of your mouth for a little too long. Sitting hollow, heart in his lap, beckoning for the day to come when he could finally offer them out to you, their one true possessor. "I'd still orbit Jupiter with you."

His last two words inscribe your skin like his answer was something you should have already been conscious of. As unvarnished as the earth spinning. As true as birds when they chirp a song. A response to your question, undoubtedly a part of a planet that lives amongst the cosmos.

He, of many moons...

He of the of the sun, of endless exploding stars, of heavy bagged galactic eyes, is one who would willingly sit in a long lasting orbit while in the company of you.

You feel like you are everywhere all at once, expanding larger than the earth and breaking into the milky way. He's turned you to particles, and all that's left for you to do is float in the air of a words that has never felt so clean. So peaceful. So healing.

If you looked up comfort in the dictionary to find its textbook definition, it would be etched with this moment of time and nothing else.

You grin, a natural reaction you cannot help, for it is all your cells and muscles are made of now. "Packing up the Milky Way, going to M63, and orbiting Jupiter with me," you say, teetering back and forth on your heels. "Wouldn't doing all these things make you like my own personal astronaut or something?"

Jean blinks, and a warm smile comes like trickling water. "It makes me whatever you need me to be," he says. And then he turns the rest of the way toward the record shop as your stomach, heart, and soul come together and knot as one so tightly it can't even be peeled apart, never undone.

Parting from you, he paces toward the door and pulls it wide, holding it open for you to step inside. "Come on. Let's go."

You're warmer than the planet of Venus, and it's all sitting in the center of your stomach. With excitement running through the bottoms of your heels, you step into the record store, and Jean follows right at the back side you, the glass door slowly falling shit behind him.

"Hi, Welcome in to Celestial Tripp Records," the older man sitting behind the checkout counter to the immediate left of the door greets. You smile at him while Jean mumbles a quick thanks from behind you.

You start to walk through the record shop as your eyes travel around the place, focus jumping from wall to wall, corner to corner. It's mid-sized and jam-packed with many different records, all divided by music genre and artists' names.

The walls are made up of rustic brown brick. Some are hung of different posters like Led Zepplin, The Beatles, Deftones, Arctic Monkeys, and Mac Demarco, showing distinct variations in what this Record store holds. The other walls, not dressed in posters, have Records that are for sale set up for display on thin brown shelves, far too many to count.

The floor is made up of well-polished white tile, and the ceiling is painted black and hung with thick bulb lights, adding light to the place.

You saunter deeper inside, head still turning every which way. "This place is so cool," you mutter aloud, eyes full of so much wanderlust they're at risk of spilling over to your cheeks.

Shifting your head to the right, you notice a large table at the back, the far right corner of the shop. On it rests a vintage Crosby Record player, and next to it are three grated plastic bins stuffed from front to pack with various different artists of ranging time periods. 'Play Me,' the sign on the wall about it reads.

Instantly drawn in, you scurry over to it. With excitement you start to sort through the different album. Jean steps to you left to get a better look. "I didn't know you were all that into records."

"I love them." You enthusiastically nod your head as it takes over you in one great wave, and various tucked away memories come flooding back. "I wanna get my own one day. They've always reminded me of Sasha's dad. I remember when I was little, whenever I would go over to her house, which was like almost every day. His collection was huge. It was like took up half his office place."

"It still is," Jean says. "He's actually the one who talked me into buying a player."

Your head draws back, hands falling to your sides. "You've been to her house?"

"Yeah." Jean turns to face you a little more. "She had a us over for break a couple of semesters ago."

Your heart warms, but a small section of it also falls sad. "Sometimes I forget how well you know Sash," you admit, eyes dropping. "It's crazy to think you've seen her parents more recently than I have."

"Have you thought about it?" He questions. "Going back to see them?"

Your gaze lifts away from the spinning record, returning to him. "I want to. I miss them so much, but I'm also... I don't know... scared. I haven't been back since my mom died and my dad took us away. Whenever Sasha tries to bring her family up to me, I change the subject. She wanted to tell them about me the very first day we reunited, but I asked her not to yet because it all felt so overwhelming to me. She respected it. She still hasn't told them even though I can also tell she's was dying to tell them. But you know how she is."

"She isn't gonna go against what you want. She keeps her word." he says, and you nod, confirming that it's exactly that.

Since you moved here, the subject of Sasha's family has been brought up on multiple occasions, but you brush it away faster than it can settle in. The night you moved into the apartment with the girls, Sasha wanted to call her Mom to tell her everything. But you begged her not to. I told her not to say to her. Scared about being the forgotten one, the way your father always convinced you that you were.

Stupid things like that are always lingering in the damn shadows. It's your anxiousness, and nothing you can really help.

You continue. "I just..." you shift your weight around. "... I don't know. I get in my head about it, and I wonder when she tells her parents if they'll miss or remember me the same way I do them. She says they will that they do and I want to believe her but there's still that doubt in me that doesn't wanna budge."

Jean blinks and answers rather rapidly. "They do."

Your eyebrows knit close at his confident response. "How do you know?"

"Sasha's Polaroid she's kept of you this whole time isn't the only picture I've seen you as a kid." He tells you. "I mean, back then, when I saw them, you were just Sasha's childhood best friend that she always told long ass stories about, so I didn't think anything of it at the time, but yeah. They haven't forgotten you. There's proof of that everywhere back at that house."

You inhale sharply, a pinch under your lungs. "They have pictures of me?" You inquire, surprise washing your over everything inch face, skin drawing tight.

Jean nods. "All over their walls."

You run still. This is one of those times you don't know what to say and Jean can tell, so he continues to speak. "Whenever you feel ready, you should think about going to Mitras with Sash to see them," he encourages. "I think a lot of good might come from it."

"You do?"

A nod. "I do."

You faintly smile. "Maybe I will." You say, and your answer makes him smile too.

Turning your focus back to the record you start to flip through them again. Your eyes light up when you see a familiar record hiding away toward the back.

"Tears with Fear," you exclaim sweetly as the memories you are made up of swimming around your chest. "My mom used to love them. She would always listen to their music while cleaning our house on Sunday mornings. I used to hate it when I was young because it always woke me up."

You blink, eyes heavy with the grief your heart lives in more than you like to acknowledge. "I'd pay so much money to be woken up by her music again."

Jean breathes in the air that smells of dust and faint pine like he's trying to inhale your uttered words that you know he understands far too well. He doesn't show it, though. His face is as still as the rest of him.

His lips move, only to speak. "You should put it on," his sharp chin juts out toward the empty record player.

"Okay," The corners of your lips pull upward. Not needing an ounce of any more convincing, his encouragement acting as your driving force. Grabbing the black and white Tears for Fears record, you carefully pull it from its album and place it onto the light yellow Crosley record player. The needle works on its own, lifting itself away from its holding and placing itself on the black record as it begins to spin around.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears ]

Everybody Wants To Rule the World starts playing, filling your ears and lungs full.

Suddenly, you are thrown back in time, and it's like you can see her, your mother, in real-time. Down to earth, so carefree, and so beautiful.

The image is so clear, of her dancing around the kitchen, with the vacuum in hand and coffee brewing in her pot. Always Folgers. Always medium roast. Always hot. Two sugars, a splash of cream, no more, no less.

And your father, with the newspaper, watching her intently like it wasn't something that occurred every Sunday morning at eight o'clock. Back when he knew how to love. Back when he knew how to be decent. Back before he took your heart and broke it like you didn't share the same blood that ran through it.

Cruel world, always taking what should forever and a lifetime be moored.

As the record continues to spill into the record shop, you set the album on the table and start to look around. You and Jean match each other's paces as you walk through every record flooded aisle, plastic bins overstuffed on either side of you.

"Let's play a game," you suggest.

Jean shoots a loom down toward you, a bit caught off guard. "What kinda game?"

"We pick two albums from the same artist, and when we show them to each other, we have to pick which one you think is the best. Or we have to pick our favorite song from the artist across all of their albums. But either way, once you say it, you can't change your answer. It's firm."

"That's fair," Jean returns, pride drenched in his voice. "Go ahead."

Going from bin to bin, zig-zagging left or right, your eyes scan for different artists and albums, deciding the ends one to pick.

Jean travels alongside you, going wherever you go. "You're indecisive," he remarks cooly, watching your every move, a small taunting laugh leaking in his tone.

You don't glance up. Too busy trying to make your selection. "You're impatient," you spit back, and he releases a scoff.

When you get to the letter 'T,' you sort through, fingertips flipping from thin album to thin album until you get to Tyler, the Creator.

Deciding to stick with this artist, you pick two of his albums out of the pile they have. Once carefully selected, you spin around to face Jean, where he is standing rather close, hands in his pockets, waiting. "Bout time. Pretty sure I aged fifty damn years with how long it was taking you."

Your eyes roll. "You make me wanna tear my own throat out."

"Good," he taunts, all smug. "Then that mouth of yours can finally be quiet."

Your lips pinch together and then release. "I'll slap you."

Jean takes a challenging step forward. "Yeah?" Even the way his head tilts is arrogant. "Do it,"

Your lips twitch. "Just like I said... you're a switch."

He runs a hand across his forehead, and then it drops heavily by his side. "Shut your mouth, Y/N," he remarks, heels digging into place, "and let's play the damn game."

"Yeah, okay." You readjust the albums one in each hand and lift the covers toward him for him to see. "IGOR or Call Me If You Get Lost."

Blinking twice, Jean looks for less than a fleeting second and gives you a certain answer. "IGOR."

You bring the albums back together, sticking Call Me If You Get Lost on top of IGOR, covering up the pink. A slight colliding sound of plastic meeting each other rushes through your ear. "You didn't even think about it."

Jean's tight shoulders lift, barely shrugging. "Don't have to. Easy answer."

"True." Turning your back to him, you back the albums into their correct slot. "I would have picked IGOR too."

"Knew you had a taste." Jean parts from you and starts strolling down the aisle. Now it's your turn to follow at his heels.

With a quick adjustment of his body to the bins on his left, his attention drops down to the stored away vinyls. His long flip through them, clearly having something in particular that he's looking for.

He finally pulls two up and out, freeing them from their stocked suffocation. Turning around, he holds two albums up to you. "Frank Ocean," he begins. "Channel ORANGE or Blonde."

Your eyes jump between the two options. You chew at your bottom lip in thought, though it doesn't take much. "Blonde."

Jean nods with firm approving, his lips twitch with the fight of a small smile, but nothing pulls through. "That's the only answer," Jean says before putting his back now so he can put the albums back in their correct spot.

Your eyebrows pull upward. "What? That's yours too?"

He gives a small nod as he turns over his right shoulder and faces you again, "What did I say about you always being in my damn head."

"Do you hate it?" You ask, right eyebrow lifting, forehead creasing. "It sounds like you hate it."

"So much," he says, then his tone turns to a deep mutter, one you aren't supposed to hear, but you do anyway. "So damn much."

You laugh, and then you make your way over to the album that holds the artists that start with C.

You grab them all black album, the only one they have in stock. "Cigarette After Sex." Turning over your shoulder, you hold it up to him no higher than your chest. "This is a vital question, so I'm gonna make it harder on you. Which song is your favorite?"

"Song?" Jean groans like your question has just brought him a whirlwind of pain. "Can I pick from one of their albums instead of narrowing it down to a single damn song? Or are you gonna up and ruin my day like that."

"Looks like I'm gonna up and ruin your day." You return, and you watch his face drop in dread and never lift back up. Sighing, you try to find a happy medium. "Fine. I'll let you pick two. Two favorite Cigarettes After Sex songs but no more than that."

He sighs, and his head shakes. "Jesus. Two is still criminal. You know that?"

Your shoulders roll as your fingers curl in, holding the thin album a little bit tighter. "That's the fun."

Jean takes a few moments, allowing himself to think. "K and John Wayne. It used to be Cry in place of K, but that changed," he finally answers. "What's yours?"

It's your turn to be silent and think now. It takes a few fleets of passing time. "Probably Sweet and Sunsetz." You answer as you put the Cigarettes After Sex album back. "Why is K one of your favorites now?" You ask, slowly facing yourself back around and then tease him, "is it because it reminds you of me?"

There's a shift in his face, almost discomfort. He tries to blink it away, but it doesn't do any good. He moves his jaw back and forth like he's trying to find his worse lost some place in the tubes of his throat. "If that makes you sleep better at night, then sure." Jean's shoulder rolls back. "I'll be back," Jean shifting the weight on his feet. "I'm gonna use the restroom."

You return him a quick sharp nod of understanding, and he disappears into the far left corner of the record store as you continue to look through the records.

You weave in and out, all throughout different areas of Celestial Tripp, only to find yourself back in the same section you were before Jean took his parting.

Fingers flipping through the records again, you pull the one of interest from its place, the stack of records falling back into their own weight when your hand removes from them. The Cigarettes After Sex album you pulled before, all black with small white print of their name right in the center, still wrapped snuggly in its plastic.

Flipping it over in your hands, you read the small price tag at the bottom right corner, $36.99.

Glancing over your shoulder to make sure Jean is still gone and out of sight, you bring the record up to the register and buy it for him for no reason other than the fact that he would like it.

After you pay, peel the price tag off the bag and toss it. Swinging the plastic bag holding the records at your side, you walk though the aisles some more to pass the time.

A couple more minutes pass, and then you see  Jean coming out of the restroom. Putting your arm behind you, you hide the bag behind your back so he won't notice right away and make your way to the front of the store.

Going through the aisle closes to the checkout counter, Jean approaches you. You keep your frontside facing him.

"Are you done looking?" He asks.

You nod as you start to pace in reverse toward the exit chewing at the flesh inside your cheek.

His eyes narrow thin, the rest of his face muddled. "Why are you walking backwards?"

Reaching the front door, you set your back into the long handle the runs horizontal through it, pushing it open. "Why not?" You casually as you make your way outside without turning around.

"Y/N," he steps outside, following, the door falling shut behind him. "What are you hiding from me?"

Your pacing stops, the album still hidden. "I got you something," you state softly.

Jean's cheeks fall narrow. "You what?"'

"I got you something." Slowly, as you fight off a smile of pride, you bring the record away from your backside and to the front of you. "I couldn't leave without it."

Jean's eyes dart toward the plastic bag as it dangled in front of him. Grabbing it, he pulls the album free. He holds his focus there for a few moments studying it.

His jaw becomes unhinged, mouth splitting. "How much did you spend?" His eyes pull up to you, pupils dilated.

You look up at him through your eyelashes. "Like I'd tell you," you voice sternly. "And don't bother looking either. I already peeled the tag off."

"Why did you do this?" He asks, nose dropping back down to the black vinyl, taking it in.

You watch how he examines it, the curve of his neck, the creases on his face. "Because it's Cigarettes After Sex. How could I not?"

Jean's eyes lift. "You're insane," he remarks, but you can tell the way he means it is nothing but good. "I take my eyes off of you for two seconds..." his words fall off.

"So what you really mean by that is you love it," you claim.

His hand runs across the front of the album. "Yes. I do," he confirms, flipping it to its backside and then back to the front. "I love it. Thank you, Y/N."

"Of course," a smile pulls hard at your lips." Now you can really listen to K and think of me."

Jean blinks, there's brief hesitation, but then he powers through. "I already do."

Your heart flies, and you wouldn't be surprised if it never returned again.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Still infatuated with that Oakcrest Village has to offer, you pass through cross two streets, making a right. Up ahead in the distance, there are two rows of vendors set up next to each other, one after another farmer's market. People are selling home goods, fruits, handmade blankets, candles, and anything else possible.

You're walking a little bit in front of him. On your right is a stand of rows of brightly colored fruit and veggies, all under a large white tend for shading. You feel your stomach grumble, not enough to be heard, but enough to feel its vibrations take course inside you. It makes you up your pace more, adding to the distance between you and Jean.

"Slow down," Jean calls.

You point toward the vendor. "Oranges," you glance back, but your paces don't stop.

Oranges are your favorite fruits; they have been since you were a little girl. Every day after school, your mom would make you and Lucas a bowl full of peeled oranges. And you and he would sit on the floor on a picnic blanket and eat them until your mouths got raw while watching your favorite television shows.

You and your brother would always argue about the oranges and who ate more and who got less. It would happen so frequently that your mom decided she had enough and would count the slices she gave to ensure they were in even number.

But that all stopped when she died. When you tried to eat them again, you peeled, counted, and bowled them for you and Lucas to make up for what you had lost, but Lucas said he didn't like them anymore. He claimed that his taste had changed, but you think it was because they just reminded him too much of her.

You don't blame him, though. Even you recognized that they started to taste a little less sweet and a little more like a loss.

So it was only you now to eat those peeled oranges, no one to share. You should have been happy about it because that meant there was more for you. It was the whole reason you fought Lucas in the first place.

However, it was the aspect of sharing them with another person that made them so special to you. There were even times when you would split the orange apart and set half it on the wooded side table where your dad's recliner was so he could have some whenever he got home from where he was. But he wouldn't come home until it was too late, and the orange would be dried out, and so would your heart.

You missed when life was just about sharing an orange your mom cut and fighting over who got to eat more of its nutrients. You hate so much that life demands to take away even the simplest of things.

What you would do to count out oranges and share them again.

Stepping by a few people, you arrive at the rounded fruit right in between the strawberries and peaches.

You lean forward slightly, grabbing one of the oranges toward the back. Fingers holding onto it, you straighten yourself out. "Will you share this with me?" Your turn to find Jean, who has caught up with you and is standing to your right. "I'll eat half, and you can have the other." You rotate your wrist and move your fingers, slowly turning the frying around in a circle within your hold.

Jean studies the way your fingers dance. "Toss it. His demands, eyes cutting back to you. With an extension of his arm, his bandaged palm turns up to meet you. "Let me make sure you picked a good one."

Squaring your shoulder off with him, you stop moving your wrist and shoot Jean a challenging look. "Are you seriously doubting my judgment, Kirstein?" You question as you underhand the orange to him.

He catches it without so much as a blink, relying more on his overly developed reflexes. It's annoying how effortless it is for him. "Considering that weird ass dude you danced with at The Regiment Room, do you blame me?" His words rub into you as he tosses it up once, and then it falls back into his palm with the quick fall of gravity.

"Yeah?" Your head drops to a tilt. "Like your judgment of deciding to throw a sharpie at me is any better."

Jean looks to be leaking with guilt. "Sill on that?"

You step in closer to him, head tilting up. "Still jealous?"

"Can't be something I never was." He spins on his heels and starts walking in the opposite direction, refraining you from behind, able to return something with your typical fire.

"Where are you going?" You caper at his backside, eager to catch up with the large paces he's leading.

He doesn't respond. The direction he's heading answers you for him. He steps up to the small rectangular check-out counter made of wood painted in bright white.

When you step up to his backside, the cashier checks him out for the orange you picked. He swore he was going to see if it was ripe enough. Clearly, that wasn't the case.

Grabbing the purchased item, Jean utters a quick thank you. He turns, switching the direction of his body. "Come on." Glancing quickly at you, he walks to his right out of the fruit vendor and back in the middle of the shut-down street of the Farmer's Market.

You jump to his side. Your focus pulls up to him, your brows lower and furrow together. "You weren't supposed to pay for it," you state your argument firmly. "You said you wanted to see it because you were gonna check to see if I pick out a good one."

"Did I?" Jean teases with that one smirk you always want to smack right off, "Shit. That's my bad."

Walking side by side, Jean sticks his fingernails into the peel and slices down clean through the orange skin. He peels it away piece by piece exposing the orange inside with the white outer layer, and tosses the excess into the trash can.

As the two of you continue to pace, passing by all the different vendors and people shopping around, Jean breaks the orange in half, and its juice starts to drip down his fingers, coating trails upon his skin. The strongly scented juices hit your nose, the citrus smelling like a newfound home that is resting in him.

With one half in one palm and the second in the other, he studies it, comparing the two halves to each other. Clear comparing and contrasting within his mind. "Here," he softly says after some careful thought, holding the bigger pieces out to you. "Take your half."

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: evergreen - richy mitch & the coal miners ]

The bigger piece. He's giving you the bigger piece. Reaching, with a hungry stomach, you meet him the rest of the way. "Thank you."

He begins to eat his half as you bring yours up to your mouth and pull a slice away with your teeth, isolating it from the rest.

You watch the way he chews his slice while you swallow yours. "Where are we going now?"

Jean, who is chewing, gives you a look. You read it, and your eyes go narrow. "I can't ask questions, can I?"

He nods. "No questions allowed."

Keeping your wonderments silent, you focus on eating the orange at hand with Jean at your side, who is doing the same.

After oranges on your own for such a long time, you finally have someone to share an orange with again. And that person, of all people, is Jean Kirstein. A person who will peel the fruit, freeing it from its skin, and be the considerate giver who double-checks to ensure the one gets the bigger half when split in two, is you.

Though you have less of it now, the fruit that bleeds sweet citrus, consuming only a fraction, you somehow feel more full than you did when you would eat them whole on your own.

Jean has changed the way in which oranges smell and altered the chemistry lying in your brain. You don't need time to pass to know. The second the fruit is forced to leave its home of rough skin, exposing its softest parts and bleeding out what makes it sweet, you will think of him, whether he is close enough to touch or he is nowhere to be found.

You'll smell the cloying air, and you'll recall this moment. This memory in the making of walking down the sidewalk on his right, while he remains the body closest to the street with your protection at the forefront of his armored heart. Getting to experience the same exact sensations as him at the same exact moment. Full mouths, filling stomachs, salivating tongues, and sticky hands.

Two people sharing a simple orange, and everything, both within you and outside of you, is alright.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

While eating the orange, Jean guides you down a number of streets until you arrive at a vast field of green filled with daisies that rests at the other part of Oakcrest Village, behind all the crossed roads and shops. It wraps around in a loop with a trail walkway paving the way all along.

Straight ahead is a large pond stretching wide with ducks swimming inside and a large flowing fountain far out in the middle. On the other side is another field of green and more shops lying even further behind.

At a matching pace, shoulder to shoulder, you and Jean walk together down toward the water. You pass by other lounging people, reading, listening to music, and conversing with the people they're with. He guides you under a large tree that is up near the pond, the branches and fall-changing leaves spread out wide enough to shade some of the water.

Settling in, you take your last bite of orange and chew on it while watching the ducks in the water.

Jean looks at you. "You have something," his voice grabs hold of your attention. You watch him touch his face trying to act as a mirror showing you where. "A piece of the orange."

Taking the back of your hand, your wipe it across your skin. "Better?"

Jean shakes his head. "No. You completely missed it." He leans in toward you.

Slowly, he swipes his thumb across the tip of your chin as he breathes very shallowly through his parted lips. You listen to his breaths while you try to pace yours. You can feel his gaze on top of feeling it touches, making you burn right now the center."There." He lifts his thumb and quickly brings it back down, repeating the motion one more time, worsening the heat even more. "You're good now."

His hand stays where it is. You feel like you're sinking into the grass. You're trying to center yourself because, for some reason, you keep spinning. Our of sorts. Out of mind. "Thank you." You softly say.

He holds your gaze, lips still parted. It's like this for a handful of moments, but time doesn't make sense right now. It feels fast and slow at the same time.

Suddenly, there is a sound of a young yelling child at the far back of you, running around in the grass, and it cracks the bubble that surrounds you and Jean, causing the both of you to snap back into yourselves and out of where ever the hell you just were.

His throat clears, and he reers himself back, hand pulling away. "Don't mention it."

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: gymnopédie no. 1 - erik satie & philippe entremont]

Trying to shake off the stubbornly lingering moment, you align your neck, and your gaze gets lost in the water. Peace swims into you as your body and minds become one with nature set out before you. The smell of grass, water, and the bark of trees feel your nose in each inhale, making up both your lungs. "Is this another place you come to a lot?

"Yeah." He says. "I like to watch the ducks."

Your face falters as confusion sends clouds to twist around your mind. Just how much time does he spend doing things like this? Considering the baseball cages, the Pouring Fox, and the rest of Oakcrest Village, it seems to be much more than others think.

But just how much?

Who is he, really?

A mystery. An impossible code to crack. It's a good thing that you've always been up for a challenge.

Sitting side by side, the two of you watch the ducks swim about until something lands in the grass to your left on one of the daisies, which catches your eye.

With a quick turn of your head, your vision drops down, and you feel your heart expand with memories. "Jean, look," you whisper, not wanting to startle the butterfly with any sudden movements. "It's a monarch."

With his sight tearing to you, Jean scoots closer to you, closing the small gap between the outside of your legs, the smallest of interactions yet one of the most comforting. "You have a thing for monarchs or what?" He asks, his voice adding to all the other things that are spilling into you.

His question throws your brain sideways. Your throat and neck both run themselves right.

You do have a thing for them. Monarchs mean a lot to you, close to the whole world, but how does he know that? You've never said a word about it before, not to anyone. No one else but your brother knew of their significance to you.

"Sorta, I do." You swallow down your saliva, but the built-up tension continues to strain the back and back of your throat, trickling all the way down. "How did you know?" You ask, eyes pulling away from the butterfly and him.

"I didn't. I'm just making an assumption. That one night, when we were watching Demon Slayer back at your place, I remember you wearing a shirt that had a Monarch on the chest of it, and now you're reaction to one being in front of us..." he shakes his head, shoulders shrugging up and dropping lightly back down. "I don't know. Guess I'm kinda just thinking out loud, I guess."

He paid that close attention? Even back then? When you believed you were simply someone he was forced to interact with? When you sat in the same space, convinced you were nowhere on his radar?

You run your palm across your sternum, recalling the shirt he's talking about and envisioning where the butterfly was when you wore it on that night. "Staring at my chest Jean, before we were even friends?" you taunt. "If that's the case, how often do you do it now that I just don't know about? Are you that slick?"

He grumbles, body running tense like your words have created knots of tension with him. "Watch your pretty little mouth, Y/N," he says, almost flustered. No. Not almost. He is flustered, without any doubt. He lifts the back of his hand, his fingers curving in towards his palm and placing it over his mouth to try and cover his cheeks.

"If you hate it so much, then stop calling it pretty," you remark.

All he does is shake his head irritably, the flush never parting from his cheeks, like it's permanent with no escape. For his sake, you leave it and pull back into the conversation he started with his own curiosity. "You want me to tell you about the monarch?"

He nods his head now.

And so you do. "When I was little before my mom died, every single spring since, she would bring home a butterfly garden." You tell, as your mind spins with these moments, making you a little light-headed. "We would put the little caterpillars in this tall green net, and we would watch them go through every stage of growing into Monarchs, and then once they were ready, we would go outside together and the backyard near the treehouse I was telling you about last night and release them together."

Taking a small breath, you stretch your legs out in front of you and cross them at your ankles. "Butterflies symbolize new beginnings, and for centuries a lot of people have believed that it is loved ones that have passed on that are coming to visit them, wherever they are."

"How do you believe in stuff like that?" He wonders, slowed as if he's. "Like all symbolism you do. Things like that. Is it easy for you?"

"No. It's hard," you admit. "My brother was the cliché one, and our mom was known as the optimist. But even having been around people like that for so much of my life, it's still hard for me to think like that. I don't know what I believe, so I just believe in whatever I find that relieves me. And monarchs offer that for me. And I could be wrong about it. All of it. But even if that's true, why should I strip myself of the few things that helped me relearn the same hope they took with them the day they left me?"

Jean blinks. "So you see your mom in them?

You nod. "I see her in parts of the galaxy, but I also see her in Monarchs. I don't see them a lot, but when I do, it gives me a peaceful feeling."

He looks at you with thinly veiled eyes. You can almost see his heat and all the ways in which it's broken. "I don't know where to look," Jean speaks with an almost wavering tone. "To find him."

Your heart clenches, and the rest of you is gutted. "You can find him in anything if you look hard enough. He's everywhere. In past memories. In current things. In small things. In big things. You just have to be willing to see it."

He sits in your words for a fleeting moment. "I think," Jean softly begins. His tone crumbles like gravel even more than before. Swallowing it down hard, he tries another time, "I think he would have really liked you."

His words sit heavy within you. So much pressure is brought on by them that it feels like your veins are cracking like glowsticks, and what's rushing through you is all his unexpressed grief. You run still momentarily, and then your lips move. "Something tells me I would have really liked him too."

He looks at you. He holds it there, time ticking at the rate of your heart. "More than you know," he smiles faintly, and your smile too. It's bittersweet, all of it.

And then eye contact is broken with a blink of your eyes and a small turn of your head, and the two of you watch the Monarch fly away over the water, disappearing in the distance.

The conversation idles, sitting in the clear air as you and Jean remain in each other's company, the pond full of ducks and nature, He's gone silent now, and now it's your turn to listen, the same way he did you.

[ ⅠⅠ ▹ play: wildflower - beach house ]

Jean starts to pick at the grass, feeling it dance between the spaces of his long fingers, obviously still anxious. He reaches out further and pulls a small white daisy out from the ground. You hear a faint snap as it breaks away from its buried roots. Bringing it in front of him, he twists it between the tip of his pointer and thumb as they pinch together at the stem of green, focusing on the soft white pedals and how they blur the faster he moves it.

The sound of ducks quaking and water splashing as their wings flap rushes into you, causing your muscles to relax as you sit close to Jean, warm like the sun.

After a few seconds flash by, the silence breaks apart at the hands of Jean. "Daisies," he begins to ask, eyes on the flower held within his fingertips. "What do they stand for?"

You rear back, just slightly, while your eyes jump back and forth between the small white wildflower in his hand and his face. "How do you know that I know something like that?"

He continues to twist it. "Because you know everything. Especially with stuff like this," He persists, "so, what does it represent?"

The knowledge you have of silly things is always sitting heavy within you. You take after your mother with this. You're grateful that her influence lingers even though you've spent almost as much time without her as you did with her.

You hold your palm out to him. Reading your inaudible request, he sets it right into the center of it, tips of his fingers dragging along it before he lists his weight and pulls away. Now in your possession, you examine it closely, the colors of white contracting with the yellow center.

"Lay down," you tap your thigh, careful not to crush the flower.

Jean doesn't budge. "Answer my question first."

Neither do you. "Lay down," you say again, a little more stern. "Then I'll answer it."

Jean looks perplexed. "Why?"

You twist the flower around in your fingers. "Now you're the one who can't ask questions."

He rolls his eyes, but then he gives up. Readjusting his body, he lowers himself backward, the back of his head resting on your right thigh, his face turned heavenward.

You run it back through his mullet with your empty hand, smoothing it out. "Innocence and purity."

He squints, the skin of his forehead gathering together right at the center of his brows. "What?"

"The daisy," reaching over his face, you place it right in his chest. "It represents innocence and purity, but in Victorian Times, it stood for loyalty and trust, which I like a little better."

Jean's chest shakes with very light laughter. His hands fold together at his stomach. "Just like I said. You know everything."

You divide his hair into three sections with your fingers, and he simply lets you do as you please. "I don't know about that." You say, starting to braid his hair. "I just wasted a lot of my time obsessing over stupid things."

Jean's eyes flutter shut at the feeling of your hands traveling through the thick strands of his hair. "It's cute," he says quickly, his mouth almost moving too fast for his mind.

You inhale, hands being completely halted halfway through the braid. "What?"

Jean's eyelids peel back, the sun shining on his face, radiating light on every part of him that he acts is cold. "It's cute," he says again, his words not changing. If anything, they've become more clear with certainty, "that you do that."

Your nose scrunches as you try to convince your heart to return to normal speed, though it isn't budging. "Surprised you're not insulting me in some way," you voice.

"You want me to?" he jabs.

"No," you shake your head as you smooth out a piece of his hair that has gathered in your braid. "I'll take your niceness."

He smiles and then he turns a little more serious. "Why do you like the loyalty and trust aspect more?"

"Because I think those are the attributes in a person are the ones that matter." Finishing the braid, you grab your lavender colored claw lip from the strap of your bag and set it in his hair, holding the braid in place. "A good person doesn't have to be innocent and pure, but a good person should always be loyal and trustworthy."

Jean moves his shoulder around, adjusting his comfort. "Or they can be like you and be all four."

There's a hitch in your breathing. "I'm not innocent," you sigh softly, shaking out your head. "And definitely not pure."

His eyes bare onto yours as he lies still on your leg. "Your heart is."

The most tender parts of you don't have the capacity of resting within you anymore. They've expanded too much. "You don't actually believe that." You tuck the stem of the daisy back into his mullet right above his ear, and he doesn't resist it, letting you do whatever your little heart desires to him. Your hands fall away. "You can sit up now."

He pushes himself up and sits a little closer than before. "I don't have to believe it is something that's already proven true." Feeling around his head with his palm, he takes the flower out of his half braided hair.

Your eyebrows pull up, face drooping, almost offended. "What are you doing?" You ask. "It looked good on you."

Shaking his head, Jean mashes pressure into his lips, hiding a smile. Repositioning the small flower, he angles the stem of it toward your head and sticks it in your hair. Slowly, Jean's hand pulls away from your face, a now empty hand placed on his lap as his eyes take you as nothing else around you exists. "It looks better this way."

You touch it lightly with glazed-over eyes stuck on him. "I think you might be blind." Your hand transfers over, and you remove the clip from his hair, coming to terms with the fact he probably won't want to walk around with his hair like that all day.

"No. I can see just fine," he mutters. On the other side of your head, he tucks a piece of hair behind your ear. "I think the only blind one here might be you."

Before you can say anything, he pushes himself to his feet. Head tilted down toward you, he rakes both hands back in his hair, smoothing out the brain you put in to pass the time, forcing it to return to his normal messy mullet. "Let's get out of here." And you agree.

Back in Jean's Mercedes, he pulls out of the parking space. He reaches the red light before pulling out of the parking lot and stops behind the red truck before him, turning his right blinker on the opposite way of home.

You shift in your seat. "My apartments the other way."

"Yeah." Jean drums his thumb on top of his black steering wheel. "I know."

You run your hand along your seatbelt, untwisting it. "You're not taking me home?"

The light turn green. Putting pressure on the peddle, he turns right, leaving Oakcrest Village behind, "nope," he says.

Anxiousness brought on by unanswered questions is coursing through your veins. "Where are we going?"

He hands you his phone again like he did earlier this morning, his silent request for you to play music. "There's another place I wanna take you to," Jean speaks, every part of him casual.

You hold the device in your hand before asking your final question. "Just me and you?" You ask, touching for the daisy, making sure it's still in your hair.

"Just me and you." His car accelerates in speed, heading toward its known destination while you're left in the complete dark.

- 49,207 words

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❥ i wanted to share this beautiful ob fanart by Navellu of the planet scene from chapter 20. her socials are navelluuarts on tumblr and navellu on tiktok and twitter where she has posted other fanart for my book as well.

❥ also, i made a pinterest board of what y/n's dream cottage looks like in her mind if you're interested in seeing it. follow my socials and join the ob discord server if you haven't already (18+). all of it is linked in my linktree. i love connecting with you. my readers are the reason i continue to do what i do. my growth is all because of you. until next time - aim <3