Chapter Text
He is shell-shocked, honestly, when he first sees her (but he has no idea what he’s in for, truly). But Jean isn’t quite sure what possesses him to go up to her. He will later admit, in retrospect, that he fumbled pretty badly, though it’s soothing to his ego (eventually) to find out that’s not the reason it doesn’t turn out the way he initially hopes it would.
“Hey!” He meets her gaze, then drops his quickly enough that he misses the flash of recognition, the dawning understanding. “You, um. Sorry, you have really pretty hair, I just—”
“Jean.”
It makes him stop short, fumbling over his words as he looks at her again, blinking to see the way she’s looking at him, intently. “Um…”
“You…” She stares harder, leaning in a bit, but apparently doesn’t find what she’s looking for, because then she sighs, her brow furrowing. “You haven’t remembered yet.”
“I—what?”
“My name is Mikasa. Mikasa Ackerman. You’re Jean Kirschtein, right? Here, I’ll buy your coffee, you should come with me. Armin can explain better than I can.”
The name tugs at his memory, both names do, make him pause and frown. But he recovers, pastes on a smirk as he says, “Can’t say I’ve ever had such a beautiful girl buy me coffee before…” but he gets absolutely no reaction.
Jean frowns again, feeling lost, somehow. She hands him his order, and he follows her without another word.
Mikasa lives in a small house a few blocks away, and she unlocks the door with one hand, pushing it open and holding it open behind her.
On the couch sits a boy, on the skinny side, small-ish, with glasses perched on his nose and long blond hair that’s halfway pulled back. It suits him, Jean thinks, though the new look will take a little getting used to, because—
Wait, what?
The boy looks up from the book he’s reading, a stack of them at his side and even more on the coffee table in front of him, and his expression brightens. “Oh!”
But he seems to understand, even before Mikasa says, “He hasn’t remembered yet,” because his expression loses some of its excitement when Jean just stares blankly back, and he nods.
Then he turns his face back over his shoulder. “Hey, Eren!”
Someone comes out of a back room, the kitchen, probably, holding a can of soda in their hand. It’s another boy, taller, with lightly tanned skin and brown hair and eyes the color of the sea, and Jean feels inexplicably offended on principle just looking at his face. The feeling only grows when Eren takes one look at him, scowls, and says, “Oh, come on! You?”
—
Mikasa and Armin together are able to prevent a fistfight in the middle of the living room, and both boys finally calm down enough to take a seat so that Armin can explain to Jean what exactly is going on.
Jean interrupts frequently, and Eren growls at him each time he does, and Jean snaps back a few times, only to be warned off by Mikasa, but finally he gets the whole story, as little sense as it makes.
“So to sum up, we’ve all been reincarnated from a former life where we all knew each other, and you guys remember but I don’t cuz I haven’t found someone specific yet.”
Armin nods. “Yeah.”
Jean frowns. “Have you guys gotten your heads examined?”
Eren snarls, shifting on the couch, and Mikasa puts a hand on his knee. Jean scowls at the flare of jealousy within him.
When he looks back at Armin, the blond is giving him a consternating look, and it makes Jean feel like a child being scolded, for some reason. “We know what we’re talking about, Jean. You can’t tell me you’ve never felt it. Alone, like there’s something there at the back of your mind demanding you pay attention to it, but you can’t quite remember what it was. Like walking into a room and forgetting why.” Jean shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Armin’s gaze is sharp as a blade, and somehow threatening despite the blond’s smaller stature. “How else could we possibly have known your name?”
Jean shrugs. “I dunno, maybe you’ve been stalking me.”
“Like anyone would wanna stalk your ass,” Eren mutters, and Jean nearly stands up, opening his mouth to reply, before Armin’s loud “Hey!” makes them both snap their mouths closed.
A beat passes, and finally Jean huffs, running a frustrated hand through his hair as he sits back. “Okay, fine. How do I fix it, then.”
—
He can’t sleep that night, mind spinning with everything the trio had told him.
Mikasa and Eren had found each other, first, but hadn’t remembered. They just knew they needed to be together. It helped that they were neighbors, their families close, and when Mikasa’s parents had been killed, she moved in with Eren’s family. Jean didn't ask how they'd died.
It took meeting Armin on the first day of sophomore year of high school for everything to suddenly fall in place, for all three of them.
The look the three had shared when Armin had mentioned finding each other held such a deep significance, one that Jean felt he couldn’t even hope to understand, it shook him to his bones.
Jean lays in bed and stares at the darkened ceiling and feels restless.
—
He meets Sasha when he leaves his meal card in his dorm and realizes the fact as he’s trying to check out at lunch one day.
“Hey! I’ll spot you, it’s no big deal! Here, yeah, put his food with mine!”
The cashier rings them up together, and Jean feels the pull of something as he looks at her, brown ponytail, brown eyes, easy grin.
“There ya go, no sweat!” And he barely has time to thank her before she’s walking off.
“H-hey, wait!”
He brings her with him to Eren, Mikasa, and Armin’s house, saying he’ll buy her dinner to make up for buying him lunch if she goes with him, and she easily agrees, and the somewhat manic look in her eyes at the prospect of the free meal seems appropriate, somehow.
The surprisingly fond look on Mikasa’s face when she answers the door lets him know he was right.
—
Sasha is bright, and funny, and has an infectious laugh and a voracious appetite, but sometimes, Jean thinks she looks a little sad. Lonely, maybe.
He tries kissing her, just once, when she gets that sad look, and she blinks at him and her smile wobbles a bit when she tries to spread it over her face.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I know I’m not the right one.”
Her smile slides away, and Jean almost feels worse than before, but then she tucks herself under his arm and presses her face to his shoulder.
They stay that way for a long time.
—
Once, as he’s on his way home from the leasing office, because he and Sasha decided they would get an apartment together starting that summer, he stops by a café on the walk back to campus, and runs into Eren in the midst of bidding goodbye to a short, dark-haired man, who catches sight of Jean and raises an eyebrow.
Jean stares back, and the man sighs. “Not yet, huh.”
Eren answers before Jean can make a fuss. “No, not—not yet. Jean, this is—Levi.”
Levi nods once at him. “Good luck.” And with that, he turns and walks away.
When Jean looks to Eren, expression demanding an explanation, Eren shrugs. “He’s—like that.”
—
Jean curses himself for not thinking of it sooner, when Sasha suddenly sits up and looks to Armin on the other end of the couch at their house one night. “What’re—what’re their names? The others? The ones you guys remember?”
Armin blinks. “It… you won’t remember them until you see them.” He explains, patiently, how Levi and Hanji had heard and seen the name Erwin Smith countless times, a mix-up of the mail-man who couldn’t tell 7B from 8B if his life depended on it, but it had meant nothing until they’d met in the elevator nearly three months after living above one another. Jean is annoyed, because he’d met Levi, but the other two names are unfamiliar to him. Armin, Eren, and Mikasa, they know so much, and Jean feels like each name Armin gives him is a puzzle piece, the images on them faded to grey, with no clue as to how the original picture is supposed to look.
Sasha frowns. “But maybe… What if I—” She cuts herself off with another frown, and Armin sits up a little.
“Do you think you found someone?”
“This girl in my art class, her name’s Christa—”
“Is it really,” Armin murmurs, and Jean can’t help the way his eyes narrow in suspicion.
“She’ll be looking for Ymir.” Mikasa joins them, sitting on the couch next to Armin in a way that seems a bit too close, for anyone that didn’t know them. Armin shifts and accommodates her in his space effortlessly.
Sasha stares at them with wide, wondering eyes. “I know someone named Ymir.”
—
Christa is really, really cute. Gosh, she’s cute, tiny and blonde with big blue eyes, and Jean’s a little bit awestruck when she smiles prettily at him and introduces herself over the table in the coffee ship on campus. Sasha is anxious, bouncing her knee and checking her phone every thirty seconds, and Christa keeps glancing at her, obviously concerned as she chats with Jean and asks him all sorts of questions, like she genuinely wants to know about his life and where he’s from and what he does for fun and what he’s studying and is he dating anyone right now? Jean answers all of her questions, feeling a little overwhelmed, when Sasha suddenly grips the edge of the table, her knuckles going white as she stares at the door.
Jean looks up in time to see a tall girl with olive skin and dark brown hair walk in, laughing over her shoulder at someone else before she looks forward, and he hears the soft gasp Christa gives at his side.
It’s easy to spot, the moment she sees them, as her eyes brighten in recognition when she sees Sasha and then she freezes, the color draining from her face.
Jean feels Christa make to stand up next to him, and the girl (Ymir, he recalls) takes an abortive step backwards, as if she can’t decide whether or not to run away. She’s blocking traffic through the door and obviously not caring, paying no mind to any other soul in the room.
Her expression twists, and Jean watches in shock as she starts to cry. It feels wrong, somehow, like she would be the last one to… but no, large drops start to roll down her cheeks as her breath grows short, clutching desperately at the doorframe, and Jean sees her mouth something silently.
Christa is out of her chair and across the room in an instant, pushing past other tables and chairs and people, reaching Ymir before she has a chance to turn around, grasping at her arms, her shoulders, her face, pulling her down and holding onto her, with the same wide-eyed look of disbelief the whole time.
Sasha and Jean both stand and make their way to the pair, but Sasha holds a hand out before they get too close as both girls slide to the ground, completely ignoring everyone around them.
They’re close enough to hear Ymir’s voice shake as she whispers “I’m sorry” over and over into Christa’s shoulder, fingers pulling at the fabric of her shirt, and Christa shushes her and strokes her head and back, a constant stream of “It’s okay, I’m here, I found you” murmured into Ymir’s hair.
—
Jean and Sasha stay up late that night, watching bad TV and eating junk food and not talking much at all, and around 2 a.m. Sasha’s phone makes a noise signaling an incoming text. She frowns, making a questioning noise, but when she checks the message, her expression softens into that lonely smile he sees on her still from time to time.
Jean frowns, then scoots closer on the couch and yanks her over to lean against him. She makes a startled noise before settling, pressing close to his side and tilting the screen of her phone up so he can see.
It’s from Christa, and all it says is ‘Thank you.’
—
Jean goes to Armin, Mikasa, and Eren’s house the next day after lunch, knocking on the door.
He blanches, scowling, when Eren answers the door – he’d texted Armin, asking if he was home, but hadn’t thought to ask if he was alone.
“I’m here to talk to Armin.” That gets him a scowl in return, but Eren steps aside, even as Armin perks up on the couch and waves.
Jean stands in the middle of the living room and fidgets, debating asking if they can just go to Armin’s room, because the way Eren’s watching him is freaking him out, but he tells himself not to be a loser and pushes it out of his mind.
“Who am I looking for?”
Armin blinks, taken aback. Then his gaze slides to Eren as he shifts slightly and Jean has to swallow down his frustration.
“You know, don’t you? Come on, just—tell me their name, I’m—”
“It won’t mean anything, I told you before—”
“But it could help, right? Come on, just—”
Eren pipes up. “Just listen to him, Jean, and back off—”
“Shut up, Jaeger, I’m not talking to you—”
“Well I’m talking to you and I’m telling you to back off—”
“Okay guys, there’s no need to fight about it, everyone just—”
Mikasa comes downstairs, frowning, and shit, they’re both here, he should’ve just asked Armin to meet him somewhere. But it’s too late now, and Eren is snarling at him and his hands are balled into fists, so Jean forges onward.
“Come on, Armin, this isn’t fair! I know you know, I could maybe look them up, or—”
“What the hell makes you think we haven’t?!” The fury in Eren’s voice actually makes Jean stop short, this time.
“Eren, please—”
“Eren—” And that’s the first thing Mikasa’s said, but Eren plows right over her and Armin both.
“No! Armin, you almost got caught when you hacked into the University databases, that shit could’ve gotten you expelled, okay? We’ve been looking, we’ve been searching, doing our best for the past year, ever since Mikasabrought you here, trying to find him, so don’t you dare come in here and makes demands of Armin like some pompous, entitled jerk!”
Jean stares.
It’s a long moment before he can find his voice again, and it’s small, strained, when he does so.
“Armin… you—you almost got expelled?”
Armin shrugs, looking away, like it’s no big deal. “No! No, I didn’t, that’s—it was only if I got caught, then I would’ve been in trouble, but—”
“Which you almost did,” Eren grinds out.
Jean glances at Mikasa and her expression is a warning.
He grits his jaw, scowling at the coffee table.
Silence hangs in the air.
“Marco.”
Jean looks up at Armin, blinking.
“Armin—” Mikasa actually takes a step forward, but Armin gives her a look and she stops, then frowns, her shoulders sagging.
Then the blond looks back to Jean, meeting his gaze levelly. “His name’s Marco. The person you need to find.” He looks away, the determination of his expression cracking. “At—at least, we’re fairly certain. Given how things were…”
“Marco,” Jean repeats back. Armin nods.
And Jean feels like crying with frustration, because the name means nothing to him. It holds no weight in his mind whatsoever.
—
The weather turns cold again, and Jean, Sasha, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are walking across campus Friday evening when the latter three stop short at the sight of a group on the other side of the street.
The hair on the back of Jean’s neck stands up on end as Eren hisses out a vicious “You,” his expression hardening to the point of breaking, a fury etched along the lines in his face that chills Jean to his core. The step Eren takes forward is cut short by both Mikasa and Armin grabbing ahold of his arms forcefully, yanking him back as he struggles.
Across the street, three people stand. A blond with broad shoulders and a face that seems like it could be friendly, under different circumstances, has shifted to stand between Eren and his companions, a blonde girl almost as small as Christa who watches with a careful, hooded expression, and a tall, nervous looking boy with tanned skin and brown hair. The blond holds out his arms in front of both his friends, meeting Eren’s furious gaze levelly.
They say nothing.
Mikasa and Armin hold Eren until he calms somewhat, the pair murmuring in his ear until he’s only spitting hellfire and insults and not actively fighting against the two people in the world he cares most for to get across the street.
Jean makes eye contact with the taller boy, who flinches, barely able to hold his gaze. Jean just frowns because he has no idea what’s going on. Sasha shifts closer to him, and a glance shows she’s watching the trio with cautious, confused eyes.
Finally Eren falls quiet, his breath billowing in the cold air as he pants, sagging against Armin and Mikasa.
The blond boy shifts, then takes a step back, and Jean can see his lips form the shapes of “Let’s go.”
They turn, but the blond makes sure to trail after his friends, keeping himself between them and Eren, and looks back over his shoulder every few steps as they make their way down the street.
—
One day, right before finals, Jean’s car breaks down and he ends up taking the bus home because it’s apparently going to take them a few days to fix it because they don’t have some part they need. The city buses have two doors, one at the front where you get on and pay, then the back where you exit. He spends the entire ride hanging onto the safety handle above his head by the back door, earphones in, leaning conspicuously away from a fat man with awful body odor. As he steps off the bus at his stop, something pulls at him, making him stumble. He stops, and turns, and the doors behind him close, and the doors at the front of the bus shut, and the bus pulls away.
He checks his pocket, confirming he has his phone and his keys and his wallet, but as he watches the bus turn a corner, he can’t help but feel like he’s forgotten something.