Chapter Text
Do you have everything, Eren? Sweetie?" my mother yawned from the doorway, rubbing her eyes gently and leaning to one side. Her hair was tied up in a rushed ponytail and her pyjamas gathered in strange places where she had just risen from bed.
"I don't know. I hope so," I replied with a stretch and a shiver. The night air went straight to my bones the second I stepped outside and I wanted to get to the car as soon as possible, but there was no way I could before a goobye. Leaning forward, I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek which she returned happily but hastily; standing practically outside the house in winter at three in the morning wasn't too nice a thing.
Mikasa would have been awake to see me off as well, but she had an important exam tomorrow (today, really) and really needed an unbroken night of sleep. She'd said her goodbyes yesterday with a tight hug and a firm "stay safe." As was expected of her, of course.
There would be no doubt she'd be sending message to me on Skype as soon as she woke up.
My suitcase was pried gently from my hands by my father and he patted my shoulder as a sign to for us to leave. I began to make my way down the garden path, stepping in snow more than once. "See you in two and a half weeks, Mutti!" I called to her, watching her silhouette wave from the front door and blow another kiss. The door closed before I turned away and I soon found myself buckling up my seatbelt in a freezing car. I shuddered. The radio was being fiddled with, and I folded my arms when the engine started because the heating would take longer to warm up than the length of our journey.
A sigh sounded from my father, "I don't know why you're doing this to be honest, Eren. French is not exactly your best subject."
I groaned and looked away, knocking my head against the icy window, "not this again, Vatti, please."
"It's costing me money," he turned right at the end of our road, putting our three-bedroom house out of sight, "and it's a subject you're failing in."
I stayed silent, so he continued, "I don't know how you or your mother managed to persuade me to let you go. I take it you're using this chance to actually get your language skills up to scratch?"
"I just like France," I shrugged and put a fist under my chin, "it's not my fault if the language is stupidly difficult to learn. Besides, I've e-mailed my exchange loads, and he speaks near perfect German already because his father's German. It's not like I won't be able to talk to everybody. And I have Armin. He speaks French like he was born there." I noticed his hands grip the wheel a little tighter, and an unsettled feeling set in my chest. He wasn't lying at all - I was awful at it, despite trying so hard. Grasping language was just difficult for me; my mother said that I even spoke my first words a little later than a child should.
"You need to learn not to rely on your friends, Eren."
"That's not what I was trying to say!"
"Do you have your phrasebook, at the very least?"
"It's in my handluggage."
"Use it if you're stuck."
"I know that, Vatti."
The rest of the journey was silent.
My father switched off the ending after he parked and briskly got out. "Get in the coach quickly," he told me with his goodbyes and I returned them half-heartedly, the mix of the weather, the amount of sleep I had and our minor argument getting in the way of my true feelings.
The coach was toasty; I smiled sleepily at Mr Pixis when I boarded and handed him my passport. Armin had saved me a seat and he greeted me with a grin and a packet of just-opened sweets, wishing me a good morning as I sat down and got settled.
"I'm really excited, Eren!" he exclaimed and jittered in his seat a little. "I was talking to my exchange on Skype for hours yesterday and barely got to bed on time."
"His name's Marco, yeah?"
The blonde nodded and took a slip of paper out of the phrasebook that rested on his lap. He pointed to the photo at the top. "Yep," he said, "this is him here. I asked him if he knew yours, and apparantly they're great friends and live right near eachother, which means we'll still see eachother a lot! Isn't that great, Eren?"
"Sure is."
"Have you been talking to Jean?" Shaking my head slightly, I suddenly wished I'd arrived before him and got the window seat. "Not really... I mean, I've added him on Facebook and everything, said hi and asked a few questions, but we've never really had a proper conversation or anything. Told my dad different to try and keep him satisfied, though."
Armin took a while to reply, but the enthusiasm still remained in his voice, "that doesn't matter; you'll have plenty of time to talk to him when you actually meet."
"I hope he's not much of a dick," I frowned and reached for more of his food. It had that weird taste that you only get when you're tired enough.
"If he's anything like Marco, there's no way."
Mr Pixis interrupted the reply I had begun to form in my head to call out the register. I leaned back and drew my legs up, resting my arms behind my head.
"Right then," he said as he finished, "we're all here, which is very good because we might be able to get a bit of an early start at this rate. The journey is an hour and a half or so to the airport, and when we get there I want everyone to stay seated until we get your luggage off. I'll relay the rest of your instructions when we arrive, so please try to catch that last bit of sleep that you'll get for a while."
I gladly did, much to Armin's disappoinment; he watched me start to drift off and frowned at me, but I wasn't in the mood to reply. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was the blonde fiddling with something on his phone that seemed to make him feel a little better.
My favourite part of riding an aeroplane (despite never doing it very much) was the part where you went through the clouds. Both landing and taking off were the best parts; the rest was a little boring and I spent it sleeping and chatting lazily with Armin, who had shown me that he had been fiddling with a language-learning app. He practically shoved the phone into my hand and forced me to revise random French words, but I still obliged as a last-minute attempt to see if I could cram anything into my head. I stared at the open sky as we came to it while the app loaded, and found myself suddenly wishing I'd stayed home.
Reiner and Berthodlt, who sat in front of us, joined in conversation with us sometimes. I remembered vaguely at one point that one of their exchanges had cancelled at the last minute, so they were sharing one - a girl called Annie.
The plane touched down with a jolt and it shook me out of half-conciousness sharply. Armin reached down and grabbed all of our stuff, handing me mine with a big smile, "we're here!"
I stretched as soon as we were allowed to sit up and pulled on my coat again. The weather was roughly the same in this country as Germany at the moment, so while I wasn't exaclty welcoming of the snow, it wasn't too much of a change too fast.
Yawning, I slugged my bad over my shoulder and grabbed a free chocolate from the air hostess with an absent smile. Nervousness was beginning to settle in noticably and I felt my fists clench when our group started walking. The distance down the corridor to the luggage collection was too long and the wait we had before it arrived dragged on for an eternity. There was French everywhere, English at some points and even less German than that.
I picked up a few nouns here and there, but Armin was in his element. He nudged me and pointed every few seconds at we walked past the airport's shops, signalling to whole chunks of text that I couldn't even begin to translate.
"Relax," I was thankful he found it fairly easy to work out what I was thinking, "they'll understand if you're not very good at the start, and they'll definitely help you! You'll know so much more before the end of trip, trust me!"
I chewed on my lip and grunted a reply. Our exchanges were waiting just outside the terminal, and I knew we'd be there any second now. Armin was muttering things to himself; I forced myself to focus enough to try and work out what he was saying. Polite and good-first-impression-giving French greetings, by the sound of it.
I didn't know what the hell I was going to say to Jean and his family.
Why did I even sign up for this in the first place again?
We'd all been given photographs of our exchanges, and they had ones of us.
Of course Armin found Marco straight away, calling his name cheerfully and seperating from me with a hastily spoken goodbye as he rushed over with a massive suitcase trundling (bouncing) on the concrete behind him. I think Marco's whole family were there - they fell into conversation with the short blonde almost straight away. Frowning, I watched as they led him to a car and he crawled inside next to his exchange.
"Are you Eren Jeager?"
The German sounded very fluent and easy-spoken, with only a hint of an accent. I turned to see the guy I recognised as Jean, standing taller than me with his arms folded. His face was long and had refined edges, not unlike that of a horse, and his hair was styled short and light.
"O-oui," I blinked, trying to make my brain create words, "et... et toi... Jean?"
He raised an eyebrow at me, "I can already tell that you're shittier at French than I thought. Which means I suppose I'll be the one doing most of the talking, then?"
"Um..."
"Save it," he turned away a little and nodded to my case, "that looks heavy - do you need any help carrying stuff?"
"Yeah, please."
"The car's just over there," he told me as he took my hand luggage, "my mum's waiting inside. She's not great at German, so just try, alright?"
I nodded and found myself walking a little slower than I wanted. I'd only been with Jean for a minute and I could already tell that my stay was going to be stressful.
"Bonjour!" I put on a smile and the best accent I could muster when Jean opened the door, instantly regretting it when a flood of words came out of the woman's mouth that I could swear I'd never heard before.
"Uh..."
Jean saved me, his expression halfway between irritated and amused, with more French words. Her previously unreadable face changed to an understanding one and she smiled softly at me, reminding me of my own mother the last time I saw her. She becokened me in to sit down. The car was warm and I visibily relaxed when we began to drive.
France was pretty; the style of the buildings created a pleasant and fresh atmosphere that I found myself taking an instant liking to. For this time of day on a Monday morning, there were a lot of people about, and I watched them absently through the window as my hand rested on my chin. We were at red traffic lights when I turned to glance a Jean. He practically glared back, making a quiet 'tch' noise and asking his mother something.
I felt bad, I really did. Perhaps not so much for Jean, because it was a two-way thing when it came to exchanges, but more for his mother. It made me angry that I was embarassing myself and I made a mental note to at least try and complete a proper conversation with her by the end of this all.
"Oh!" she exclaimed from the front seat, and this time I caught the name 'Marco' from her sentence. 'Armin' was in Jean's reply and I saw that they were looking at a small red car on Jean's side that sat next to us. A familar, eager face was inside it and I waved at my best friend. He picked up how uncomfortable I was straight away and sent me a reassuring smile from beside Marco, who was making a phone action to Jean.
No guess as to what for as he pulled out his mobile and scrolled through his contacts.
French, when you were listening to it, was nice. I liked Jean and Marco's conversation, and Armin's occasial easy addition coming in every now and them. Jean's mother must have initiated a race at one point when both of the cars came to a much more quiet road, because excited voices raised and I felt us speed up a little. Armin explained how it was 'Marco and Jean's thing' in a quick moment of German before laughing with them again.
The road they lived on wasn't far after that and it wasn't long before our cars were parked side-by-side in front of an apartment complex. I looked up - the building was only three or four storeys high, and looked to be a pleasant, clean place. (Empty) flowerboxes hung from a few of the windows and there were some kids at the end of the road on bikes. I caught sight of a field and maybe a woods behind the flats, coated with a thin layer of snow.
However nice it was, I was to spend two and a half weeks here.
Marco lived on the third floor and Jean on the ground, so we had to say goodbye to Armin as soon as I stepped inside. He patted me on the shoulder and told me that Marco's family was making dinner for everyone, so it would only be eight hours or so before I saw him again. I smiled at that, happy that I wasn't as alone as I had first thought.
"What's your mum doing?" I asked my exchange as he unlocked the door to his family's flat. Mrs Kirschtein was knocking on the door opposite, a bag in her hands that she had taken out of the car.
"She went to the shops before picking you up and offered to grab something for our neighbour. That's all."
"Oh."
I didn't see the 'neighbour', even though I watched the door start to open - Jean was hurrying me inside with a grunt about how heavy my luggage was and how we needed to get it to his room before his arms gave out.
"We've brought in the spare bed from the spare room," he said, almost throwing my stuff he was carrying on his bedroom floor, "someone put on the letter that you don't want a room on your own."
My face heated up at the way he said it and my mind trailed back to a conversation over dinner with my mother, insisting with a pleasant but irritated voice that she knew how I wouldn't like being alone in a room in a foreign country even if I didn't think it yet.
"Anyway," he carried on when I didn't reply, "that bed's yours. I like sleeping with the light off but the door slightly open, and the radio on. Dad comes in and turns it off before he goes to bed if he's home, and Mum forgets either way so it's never up to her. I have a cat that comes in here sometimes, so don't be freaked out if you wake up with feline arse on your face. We have a day off from school today if that wasn't obvious, but it's tomorrow at six that we have to wake up if we want to be on time, so I hope you're a morning person, Jaeger. Also, Mum's making you a packed lunch every day, so be sure to say thank you. and Armin's already told you we've got dinner at Marco's. Got everything?"
"...I think so."
"That's good, because I'm not explaining it again."
"I wasn't expecting you to."
"...Yeah. Now, I've got a shit-ton of homework that needs picking through. So if you could leave me to that that'd be great. I suggest you unpack, get settled and then brush up on your French - the rest of this trip isn't going to be one-sided like it is now."
I nodded, a little annoyed about how he was speaking to me, but it wasn't something to care about in the long run. I was going to have to put up with him and he me if I was going to enjoy myself in France. Jean had settled on his laptop and had already pulled up Word, so I shrugged and unzipped my hand luggage. Inside and right on top was my French dictionary, which I decided to start using straight away.
"Imbécile," I tried out with a faint laugh, only to get a very unimpressed look from my exchange.
"Is that the best you can do?"
"Not for long."