Chapter Text
Eren was 15, and like most 15-year-olds, he had the whole world against him, and he was angry. Anger wasn’t a strong enough word for what he felt, though. It was rage. Rage, so consuming and inflamed that it was no longer red but white. Glowing white rage. They’d have to kill him to keep him on the ground. They’d have to lock him up to stop him from keeping on moving against the tide. They’d have to gag him to stop him from bellowing that he wouldn’t be silenced.
He was often in trouble with the law, and his older brother had to get him out of police custody at least once every two weeks. His father never commented on his behaviour. That lack of reaction was responsible for the destruction of several objects in his room. His father was seldom at home, and when he was, he was mostly in his office and didn’t want to be disturbed. The only other family he had was Zeke, his half-brother, who lived with him, but he didn’t like to tell him things ever since he’d become a teacher at his school.
That was yet another punch in the gut from the world. His brother was a teacher at his fucking school. That would haven’t been a problem if he looked anything like him.
“He’s your brother? Are you sure?” Connie had awkwardly said when the subject arose. Zeke would never be Eren’s teacher – that was against the rules since they were related – but Eren shared the same surname as him. It couldn’t be a coincidence. When Connie pointed it out, Eren said that he was his brother. When he expressed his doubts, Eren had a burst of rage.
“We have different mothers!” he roared and slammed his fist on the table. That startled his friends and everyone within earshot.
“I-“ Connie tried to reason with him, looking at his friends for support. Jean huffed and shook his head, and Sasha shuffled away. Mikasa hit him. Eren glared at her, and she held his look.
“Don’t take out your anger on us,” she said firmly, “it’s a legitimate question. You do not look alike.”
Eren massaged his side and gritted his teeth. Then he stood up and left them there without finishing his lunch.
“Let him go,” Mikasa said to Connie, who looked guilty, “there’s nothing you can do.”
“I shouldn’t have said it like that, of course, he was sure,” Connie muttered.
“Not your fault he’s an asshole,” Jean defended him, annoyed, “what the hell is his problem?”
Eren’s problem was that he didn’t like to be reminded of the way he looked. Because he looked exactly like her.
And he only had one clear memory of her.
Eren’s mother died when he was four. At least he had something in common with Zeke aside from the same stupid, cheating father. Though Zeke’s mother had died when he was 16, so he remembered her well. Eren hated his father more than anyone in the world. It was a good fucking thing that he didn’t care about him. Eren often thought about beating the living shit out of him.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to join a sport like that,” Sasha said, wary when he said he wanted to join the rugby team of their school.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Jean said, and that was one of the few times he agreed with Eren on something, “I think I’ll try joining too. Girls like sportsmen, don’t they?” he asked, hopeful.
Eren snorted loudly, and they were lucky that Mr. Ackerman didn’t catch them trying to choke each other, and Mikasa was there to punch them both in the gut.
Connie and Sasha sat that one out, joining the chess club instead. Eren, Mikasa, and Jean joined the rugby club. Armin went along with them, mostly because he had to join a club, and he didn’t want to join any club without people he already knew. Everyone was accepted to any clubs if there were still spots available. Sasha and Connie took the last two places in the chess club, otherwise known as the sit-around-and-do-nothing-but-snack club.
When they were in the shower rooms, which, unlike the team, weren’t co-ed, a friendly sophomore approached them to greet them. The boy was tall, well-built, and blond. His eyes were the colour of shimmering, warm, clear honey bathed in sunlight.
“Hey there, newbies,” he greeted, standing in front of them. Eren’s eyes shot up from his boots to look at the stranger, “I’m Reiner Braun, I’m one of the props. Tighthead.”
“Jean Kirstein,” Jean reached his hand to shake his. Reiner took it and gave it a firm shake.
“Kirstein,” Reiner repeated, smiling a little. He had an accent when he pronounced the name.
“Armin Arlert,” Armin sheepishly reached his hand to shake his and was almost flew off the bench he was sitting on.
“Armin,” Reiner’s smile turned into a toothy grin. He also pronounced his name with an accent.
Eren didn’t move to introduce himself, quickly tying his boots. Reiner looked at him.
“Hey,” he called, shaking and hand in front of his face. Eren glared up at him.
“His name is Eren Yeager,” Armin jumped in to introduce him.
“Jäger?” he repeated. He pronounced it the right way. Eren’s hands started shaking. Armin sensed the danger and tried to stop him from getting in a fight before they’d even been on the pitch, “Can he hear alright?” Reiner asked, befuddled, looking from Eren to Armin.
Eren stood up. “I can hear fine,” he snapped. He was considerably shorter and slimmer than Reiner. Reiner stepped back, confused, looking at Eren’s friends, “don’t use that stupid accent to say my name!”
There was silence in the room as Eren stomped his way out into the pitch.
Reiner was frozen on the spot, staring at the door he’d just slammed behind him.
“Sorry on his behalf,” Jean said, annoyed and worried about their upperclassman’s reaction, “he’s got a shit temper.”
Reiner frowned and pursed his lips.
“Your accent is, it’s quite nice,” Armin tried, terrified and not hiding it, “my name is, it’s actually German. My parents are from Austria.”
That made the frown on Reiner’s face disappear. He looked down at him.
“Yeah, my surname’s also from around there,” Jean said, hoping it’d do something, but kind of wishing Reiner did punch the lights out of Eren, “my dad has Jewish ancestry. My mum’s French. I don’t know any German, though,” he said, smiling a bit.
“I can speak a little German,” Armin said, a little less scared, seeing that Reiner liked to hear it, “but not much. My parents never taught me a lot since I was born here.”
Reiner’s smile returned to his face. “You’re like Bert, then,” Reiner pointed with his thumb at a very tall guy who was standing nearby. He was lanky and hunched a little. Slightly awkward. Looked like he’d just dropped there and didn’t know where he was “Berthold.”
Reiner went around introducing the newbies to their teammates and telling them how nice it was to have fresh faces there. They’d thought nobody would be joining in.
“Where are the others?” Mikasa asked Eren when she saw him come out of the shower rooms by himself.
“Inside, making friends,” Eren snapped. Mikasa gave him a look. “Don’t start with me!”
“If anyone’s starting anything, it’s you,” Mikasa countered, crossing her arms in front of her chest, “what happened?”
“None of your business,” he said and meant to walk away when a strong hand pressed against his chest. He looked up to see cold, brown eyes stare at him through a messy brown fringe.
“That’s no way to speak to a lady,” she said with a rather unfriendly smile, “apologise.”
“There’s no need for that,” Mikasa said flatly, “He’s my best friend. It’s alright, Ymir.”
“Hm,” Ymir removed the hand from Eren’s chest. He was shaking and had fisted his hands. She studied him for a minute, staring into his eyes, “those are some green eyes you’ve got there. So much anger to hide what?” she smiled, leaning down, so close their noses almost touched. Eren wasn’t expecting that, but he didn’t move back “Pathetic.”
“Now, Ymir, don’t be like that to the new-comers,” an adult voice called from behind Eren, who looked back to see the rugby team’s coach.
Coach Mike Zacharias was a huge man with a calm personality who only raised his voice to urge his players to keep going. He didn’t sound mad.
Ymir shrugged and stepped back. “I was just teaching him some manners, Mike,” she said, smiling.
Coach Mike put a placating hand on Eren’s shoulder, which made him tense up. “Don’t mind her. She’s cocky because she knows I’d never throw out the strongest player in the team.”
“Formerly the prettiest, too,” Ymir said with a smile, fanning her eyelashes. She eyed Mikasa, “I guess I’ve been thrown out of the eye-candy position.”
The other boys joined them then.
“Oh, we’ve got one more girl, that’s nice,” Reiner said, walking up to Mikasa and reaching his hand to hers. She shook it, “Reiner Braun.”
“Mikasa Ackerman.”
“Ackerman?”
“No relation to Mr. Levi Ackerman that I know of,” she said, almost automatically, not smiling but agreeable. Reiner nodded.
There was a round of introductions then, and Eren begrudgingly introduced himself at last.
“Like the maths teacher?” one of the team members asked.
“Yes,” he confirmed through gritted teeth.
“Are you related? You don’t look alike,” the same guy said. Eren stared up at his lily-white face, and the guy blinked at him.
Eren’s fists were paling at the knuckles, and he was shaking. “We have different mothers,” he said.
“Okay, damn,” the guy said. His name was Olly something. Eren didn’t remember and didn’t care to remember.
There were three other girls aside from Ymir in the team, tall, pretty, and built like mountains. It turned out that the team really needed new members. Armin wasn’t a good player, but he had a bit of fight in him if they scared him enough. Mikasa was, coach Mike noted, on par with Ymir where it came to natural talent - he said that with practice, she’d be the one to stand in the fly-half position, which was Ymir’s. Jean would be a decent flanker, maybe a number 8 later, after a good deal of practice.
Then there was Eren, or as coach Mike called him, gunpowder boy. Eren was volatile. Anybody saying anything to him prompted him to shout, and he didn’t know much about the rules of rugby, which made it more aggravating for everyone on the pitch. By the end of the first practice scrum, everyone wanted him gone.
Coach Mike didn’t, though.
“He’s got raw energy,” the coach said to the team. Eren was standing away from them with his friends and being scolded by Mikasa and Jean, “I smell potential in him.”
Ymir groaned. “Maybe your nose’s broken, Mike,” she said, “he doesn’t even know the rules. He’s a stupid spoiled brat with anger issues.”
“And he’s skinny,” Reiner said and glancing at him, seeing his glare, “he’ll end up getting trampled.”
“He won’t get trampled,” coach Mike said, “not with that amount of anger, he won’t. Trust me. That anger is great for the game. We can change him.”
Ymir scoffed. “I’m nobody’s mother to be changing dirty diapers.”
Some of the other players laughed.
Right off the bat, Eren was shunned by his teammates. Nobody doubted that it was entirely his fault.
In the end, all four of them stayed in the team. Eren knew he’d been singled out and that everyone hated him, but he didn’t care. If everyone hated him, he'd hate everyone back, twice as hard.
His lamp was the victim of his wrath that evening, and he took out the rest of his fury on the free-standing punching bag his brother had bought him for his 15th birthday.
Skinny?
Skinny?
Connie and Sasha weren’t shocked when they heard that Eren had antagonised the entire rugby team in less than two hours. What they were shocked to hear was how quickly he’d decided that he would hate Reiner more than everyone on the team.
“And you don’t understand how cool he was,” Jean said to them at lunch the following day. Eren was eating by himself. He was mad at them. They let him be, “he came to talk to us and introduced himself. And that asshole just went off for no reason.”
Mikasa hadn’t heard that part of the story yet.
“No reason?” Sasha asked.
“Yeah, no damn reason,” Jean confirmed, “he called his accent stupid, and you should have seen Reiner’s look. Like he’d been slapped in the face.”
Mikasa pondered a moment. She knew that there was a reason but didn’t feel like it was her place to tell them.
All she said was, “Don’t judge him too harshly.”
Jean scoffed. “I damn well will. Sorry, Mikasa, but no. I won’t forget that that twat set fire to my science project in year 7 just because I said he was adopted.”
“You said that after seeing his dad and his brother,” Connie reminded him, “I know you had been fighting. But you said that after seeing his family.”
Jean remembered it then and felt a flush creep up to his cheeks. He’d forgotten that completely. All he remembered was his model of the Milky Way that he’d spent weeks working on erupting into flames.
He scratched his forehead and sniffed. “I did say that… it was an asshole thing to say, I admit it,” he said, “but setting fire to my project was messed up.”
“It was,” Sasha offered and took the plate from Armin’s tray when he pushed it in her direction. It was some sort of stew. Armin was a bit picky with his food, “but saying he was adopted was mean.”
Jean made a face. “It wasn’t like I was reasonable back then. I was 12,” Jean defended himself.
“So was he,” Mikasa defended Eren, who wasn’t there to defend himself, “don’t argue, Jean. You’re not right either.”
“Why do you always defend him?” Jean complained, forking some of his stew and deciding that he didn’t want it anymore. He pushed the tray aside. Connie was happy to get his leftovers, “I don’t know how you even became so close to him.”
Mikasa looked straight at him. “Because I want to,” she said, “and that’s between me and him.”
“He’s not here to defend himself, too,” Sasha said, stuffing more stew into her mouth, “it’s fair that someone else does it.”
“He’s not here because he doesn’t want to be,” Jean countered and then huffed. “If he has issues, he should talk about them.”
“Maybe it’s not easy,” Armin reasoned, mildly, eating a bit of bread, “when he’s ready to talk, we’ll be here,” he paused seeing Jean’s look, “well, some of us will.”
Connie sniffed. “You know,” he said, “Reiner lives in my street,” that was something none of them knew. It’d never mattered until then, “I know his family. I used to play with him and his brothers when we were smaller, but then, uh,” he stopped and shrugged, “my dad didn’t want me to hang out around there anymore.”
“Maybe he fell out with them,” Sasha suggested, “it’s weird that your dad would do that, though. Your dad likes everyone.”
“Yeah, I know,” Connie said and shrugged. He focused on eating Jean’s leftovers.
There were many possibilities. Connie didn’t say anything else on the matter. Jean huffed and glanced at the table where Eren had been. He’d already left. Jean shook his head.
“I only tolerate his ass because we,” he pointed at the people at their table, “are friends. And you want to have him around.”
He’d said it that way, but the truth was that it was because of Mikasa and, to some extent, Armin that everyone put up with Eren and his current moods.
“Don’t be so mean, Jean,” Sasha said again, “Eren isn’t a bad person!”
“I’m just being honest. He’s not good either.”
“He’s cool,” Connie defended, and then, “except when he’s in one of his moods… I mean, everyone has bad moments. Guess he just has them more often.”
Jean checked the time on his wristwatch. “Which makes him an asshole,” he insisted, “it’s almost time to go.”
Lunch break was short. Especially when you wanted to eat your share and your friends’ leftovers.
Eren didn’t talk to anybody the rest of the day or the days that followed. Sometimes his rage silenced him. This was one of those times.
Rugby practice was great to let off steam. He got to be angry all he liked. He got to ram into people, full-force, without getting in trouble. And he liked it even if everyone hated his guts. Even if he had to see that stupid German guy. Even if he had to put up with Ymir calling him a lanky shithead. Even if he had to put up with Mikasa scolding him after practice.
His “friends” knew better than to push it when he was like that, and he knew they didn’t even like him. Not anymore, anyway. He remembered when they’d been actual friends back in year six. They only let him be with them now because of Mikasa and Armin. That pissed him off, too. He didn’t need anyone’s charity friendship. He turned off his phone and logged off all social media. He was damn fine on his own. But he didn’t want to go home.
And he wandered about alone and ended up at the harbour.
“Hi,” he muttered, sitting on the boardwalk, staring down at the water. It calmed him to look at it. Swaying slowly, in waves, that crashed and ebbed away. The smell of salt was soothing. All he had to do was close his eyes, and no matter how cold it was, it’d be warm again. He’d be far away, holding a soft hand, hearing the cries of seagulls, and he’d hear her laughter. And her big yellow hat that looked like the sun. That was the only time he remembered being happy. The only time he remembered not feeling alone.