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Jean’s hands are sweaty as he looks around the theatre for the other boy, for his best friend dressed up in his nicest suit, waiting for Jean to come on stage for his recital. His heart is beating like a humming bird is stuck in his chest and is frantically beating its wings so it can escape. He’s never felt this nervous for a piano recital. Actually, when he thinks about it, he’s never been this nervous before ever, not on the various first days of school, not on the night before a big field trip, never. That makes him even more nervous as he tries to calm the panicked bird that’s flying around in his chest.
Tonight is the big night. It’s a special competition where the competitors only play songs that they’ve composed. That would be nerve-wracking enough, playing your own piece for the music world to judge. But no, Jean just had to make it even worse, he had to write a song dedicated to a certain somebody. He had to write a song about a certain somebody, about all they meant to him, and Jean just had to invite them to come and see him play it.
Jean just had to invite Marco to come and hear the song that was created for him, and only him.
Ah, and there he is, sitting in the third row back from the stage, right smack dab in the middle.
God he looks like an angel dressed up in his suit, it’s been tailored to fit his slim frame, to hug his body in a way that Jean wished he could on a daily basis. It’s a sight that leaves the pianist speechless and desiring for a moment. It leaves his mouth dry and the sweat on his hands forgotten because all Jean can remember is the way that Marco’s dark locks creates a soft nest of featherlike hair.
It’s always like this when Jean looks at Marco nowadays. Every glimpse that Jean can sneak at his best friend sends his heart soaring high, it makes his mouth dry, it keeps all the words from properly leaving his throat, every single time he can sneak a glimpse Jean is left spellbound. He doesn’t know when it started, or why it started, or what started it. But Jean doesn’t care, all he cares about is Marco and his music, and tonight the two greatest loves of his life come together—only one of them doesn’t know it.
Hopefully by the end of the night he will. Hopefully Marco notices the song that Jean is about to play in the next few minutes. Hopefully Marco recognizes that it’s the song that Jean’s been talking about. The song whose meaning Jean told Marco the night before. The song that Marco knows is a love song, a confession for a certain someone in the crowd tonight.
Jean almost laughs out loud to himself. Marco would have to be like that dense Eren Jaeger not to notice that the song was about him. Jean had to present its title to the judges, to the entire theatre, before he can play it. He can see himself out there now, from where he waits in the wings. He can see himself walking up to center stage, looking not at the judges, but straight at Marco, and telling everyone, everyone including Marco, its title, its name.
“Marco.”
Five letters that will turn into a sweet serenade, into a symphony of fingers and keys, into a desperate cry for love, into a full on confession of frustration, of adoration, of worship for the boy that has been by Jean’s side for nearly a decade now. Five letters that will turn into eight letters through notes both high and low that have been strung together to create what Jean can only call a pining’s man breathless plea. Five letters that become more than five letters, that become instead a boy whose hair is like a nest of dark feathers, whose face is the likeness of angels lit by a light of hope, whose frame feels like it is supporting Jean’s entire world by just being.
Five letters that echo all that Jean is and all that Jean hopes to be. All that Jean desires and all that Jean rejects. All that Jean loves and all that Jean curses.
Five letters that will send the world shaking, collapsing, until all one can do is create a new one.
Jean just hopes it is the new world will be a good one where a certain Marco Bodt stands by his side, gripping Jean’s hand like it is his lifeline, but not out of the need to survive, but out of the need to hold what one loves.
“Jean Kirschstein, contestant 108, please come to the stage.”
And just like that Jean’s heart is sent roaring again. His forgotten nervousness rushes back to him. At first the two tone haired boy panics, and briefly wondering if instead his whole world will come crashing down into nothing. Briefly he thinks about running back to where he was until he can calmly walk onto the stage without a trace of sweat or fear as he takes his first step foward. But the desire—the desire to finally tell his muse of his feelings—that swells within his chest as he strides from his place in the darkness of the stage’s wings convinces him otherwise. The boy strains to look for his muse out of the corner of his eye, and it is only when he is at center stage that he finds the other boy.
Jean sees the judge’s mouth move but he cannot hear what the aged man is saying, yet Jean knows every word. It is not as though his heart is racing too fast that he cannot hear these words—though the humming bird has not ceased in its fluttering—it is just that the world has gone silent, it has gone to a peaceful realm where Jean can only hear the first few notes of his confession hang in the air. And Jean knows it is because he is in view of the other boy, the boy with the dark nest of hair, with his star-kissed face, with his eyes that shine with a gentle light that Jean can only hope to tell the world about through his song.
Yes, the pianist is at peace, he has acknowledged that he may fail in his declaration of adoration, but he has accepted it. The pianist is at peace with himself as he watches the shocked look on the dark haired boy’s face as he recites Marco’s name like it is a prayer, not just a title of a song. And when he sits down at the bench, after bowing low to the crowd that will hear of his love, he is certain that never shall a time come again when he is more at peace with himself.
Jean spares one last glance at Marco, who is smiling like he’s been given the world, and he decides on something.
If he is to go to hell for loving this boy as all the fanatics say, then first he will grace his love with heaven.
And then his fingers hit the piano keys, and it rings out.
Five letters ring out like a war cry that roar of a desperate worship that only the lovesick know.
Five letters that send the humming bird in his chest to a standstill, as if it has been calmed by a song that only it considers beautiful.