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you had no clue why you, mikasa, and niccolo had to be standing in front of the whole class. you fidgeted with your fingers as you eyed the taller mikasa from your peripheral, breaths just as quick as yours were. you rarely got called out to the front like this, and now that you had no clue why, you were even more intimidated than ever.
mrs. zoe eyed the three of you before fixing their spectacles to look at the other students, whose eyes diverted from the teacher to you from time to time.
“today, class, i would like you to see the mentors that i have especially chosen for those who failed in the last semester,” mrs. zoe spoke as they sat on the corner of their desk. all the students began to exchange words, with names ‘jean,’ ‘eren’ and ‘sasha’ floating through the air. “so we’d be teaching these airheads? nerve wrecking,” niccolo whispered, clearing his throat as he spoke.
“if that’s the case, i hope i get eren,” mikasa uttered, a tinge of peachy tones appeared on her pale cheeks. you silently giggled as you eyed the boy sitting at the corner of the classroom in his basketball jersey. his nonchalant expression plastered on his face as he listened to mrs. zoe’s next sentence.
“eren yeager, come forward please.”
eren, who was looking at his phone, immediately turned it off as he realized that he was being called out. he nodded and stood up.
“ms. ackerman would tutor you for the semester,” mrs. zoe denoted, gesturing him to stand beside mikasa. you eyed mikasa as she breathed heavily, not smiling but eyes obviously gleaming in euphoria as she got the mentee she desired.
on the other hand, the boy with the basketball jersey was being elbowed by his friend, connie springer, as eren walked over to mikasa. it was no surprise that he liked mikasa; the whole school knew about it. ever since mikasa moved here from japan in junior year, he developed a heavy crush on her. he even asked her to be his date for the sophomore prom night during a timeout in his match last year. you got a secondhand embarrassment when mikasa declined the public proposal. if you were her, you’d do the same too.
mrs. zoe called out your name, fazing you out of your trance.
“yes?” you uttered as you stopped fidgeting.
“jean kirstein will be your mentee,” mrs. zoe smiled as they gestured for jean to come over. jean stood up and walked lazily to where you were. when he came, he did not bother to spare you with even a slight smile. instead, he exchanged grunts with eren, who clearly was in the win for him for having mikasa as a tutor.
-
mrs. zoe had provided a schedule for you to have one-to-one sessions with jean. they knew that if all six of you were placed together, no exchange of knowledge would even occur. therefore, after mikasa and eren’s session finished at 2 PM, yours and jean’s was up next.
five minutes passed as you looked at your watch, which showed that it was 2:05 PM. you sighed as you looked down on the physics textbook given by mrs zoe. you somehow expected jean to be this way, he was never intrigued in the academics. his world was basketball, and that was why mikasa did not like him. but what drawn her to eren, you had no idea. that guy was no einstein, either.
“sorry, i’m late,” jean said, slightly chuckling as you shook your body in surprise. his body was drenched from sweat, noting you that he probably had an all-out training session. he ruffled his hair as he pulled out the chair beside you and sat down, head jerking over to see the book in front of you.
“where’s mikasa?” he asked, taking out a notebook as his eyes scanned the library.
oh. he didn’t know that it would be a one-to-one, you thought.
“mikasa and eren have finished their session just 10 minutes ago,” you said, smiling slightly as you eyed the blond on your right. he nodded, lips pursed as if to hint a note of disappointment. you kind of guessed it, he probably would only attend this for mikasa, but since mrs. zoe was smarter, he couldn’t do anything now. even if he were to ditch the future sessions, he would have to risk basketball to do so. mrs. zoe’s stern voice was still audible in your head as they denoted, “if he doesn’t take this seriously, i guess he doesn’t love the team as much too.”
“so which part do you think you can’t really understand?” you raised a brow as you watched him sketch a rather familiar face of a girl on his notebook. you took a long minute to realize that it was in fact, mikasa. you wanted to roll your eyes at his obsession towards her, but you didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. you barely knew him after all.
“pressure? i think that chapter was the reason why i failed last semester,” jean rubbed the back of his head as he spoke, light peach tones blossomed on his cheeks as he eyed you with embarrassment.
“okay. page 78 then.”
-
ever since the first session you had with jean, you started to look forward to it. sometimes, you would find yourself looking at the watch to see how many hours would be left before seeing him, and although he was a popular one in the school, he was not as mean as his friend connie.
for a few weeks now, he had been sneaking snacks for you in his backpack, since he found out that you always skipped lunch in order to be punctual for your one-to-one sessions.
one time, he went out of his way to pack lunchboxes for the two of you. it was witty to think of it, as popular kids were always somewhat embarrassed to bring lunchboxes to school. jean, however, packed two lunchboxes of rice and his mother’s signature omelette for you, because “the kirstein eggs could never go wrong.”
apart from that, he would always wave at you or say ‘hi’ whenever you stumbled upon him in school. you couldn’t help but to be flattered by his friendliness, which was not common to be shown by “cool kids’ like him. especially when it was shown to you, an introverted and lonesome nerd with one friend.
even so, he still would ask you about mikasa whenever he had the chance to. you could see how his eyes glimmered differently when he talked about her, and somehow, you had this weird bitterness whenever you witnessed the glimmer. you never felt this way before, especially when mikasa was your best friend (only friend), but now it felt strange that you would find yourself rolling your eyes silently whenever you heard her name coming from his mouth.
“guess what?” mikasa poked you with her shoulder as you were trying to gain your focus on the slides projected upon you. it was 8 am and mr. smith was presenting on electrolysis, so there was no wonder that the whole class seemed to slowly doze off, especially when mr. smith could not even figure out how to use the remote provided to change the slides. he would have to move to his laptop every time he wanted to do so, which just slowed the lesson and made it more boring than ever.
“what?” your eyes lazily diverted their pupils towards the raven-haired girl next to you. a hint of blush was seen on her cheeks, and you knew it was about yeager.
“eren asked me out.”
called it, you thought.
“oh really? when?” you smirked. there was somehow a tinge of hope in you when you heard mikasa’s words, for whatever reason it was. you couldn’t help but to silently pray that if they’d date for real, jean would give up on this hopeless crush he had on her.
“tonight. we’re seeing a movie together,” mikasa silently squealed, her fists shaking in exhilaration. you nodded and gave her a pat as a sign of ‘congratulations,’ and you couldn’t help but to give a glance at jean, who was sitting at the table opposite from the two of you. to your surprise, he had been having his eyes glued on the two of you with a bored expression plastered on his face.
-
you sort of anticipated jean to ask about the brief conversation you had with mikasa during chemistry this morning, but to your surprise, it never came. for now, at least. you watched as he silently did his question on buoyancy, and he lifted his eyes to meet yours.
“hm?” he raised a brow, expecting you to utter a word. you shook your head and gave a soft smile. “can you do it?” you asked, jerking your head up to view his work.
he slightly nodded as he slid the book over to you. his fingers fidgeting as you scanned the page for any mistake, but there was none.
“good job, honestly,” you said as you slid the book back towards him. “you’ve improved, tremendously.”
he rubbed the back of his neck as he smiled towards you. somehow, you found your heart leaping to that view. he always looked so innocent when he did that, washing away his ‘popular boy’ image almost immediately.
“it’s all you,” he said, almost insinuating as he uttered those words. you looked at him with a faint smile, not wanting to dive deeper into your thoughts with those words. words can be deceiving. words can play with feelings.
“i’m just helping,” you simply said before reaching out to your pen to keep it in your pencil box. and while you did so, his voice called out for your name, almost inaudible due to the crack at the end of it.
“yes?” you turned towards him as you kept your pencil box in your backpack.
“during chemistry..”
here we go, you thought. you prepared for the bizarre bitterness to attack you as you nodded, allowing him to continue with his sentence.
“what was mikasa so excited about?”
and with the mention of your best friend’s name, that bitterness filled every pound of your body as you looked at jean, whose eyes were glimmering as usual whenever he talked about her. you sighed silently before placing the textbook in your backpack and zipping it slowly.
“she’s- she’s going out on a date with eren.”
he raised a brow. “oh,” he nodded as he rolled his eyes, so hard that you could feel the bitterness he felt, almost similar to what you were feeling right now.
“i wonder what he has, that i don’t.”
you smiled, lifting your backpack and swinging it over your shoulders as you stood up. what else could you say? you hated the fact that you thought mikasa’s date would put an end to jean’s emotions. you hated the fact that you felt stupid. all this while, you never felt this jealous towards anyone, not this way at least. you could be jealous of mikasa whenever her marks were higher than yours, but now, the jealousy that you were feeling seemed more destructive than before. it wasn’t motivational, like the way you would pull all-nighters to get your marks as high as hers whenever she scored an A+ in any subject. this one made you feel like staying away from her, and you never felt that way before because you enjoyed her presence as a friend.
“leaving already?” jean asked as he looked up at you. you nodded hastily as you placed your earphones in. he nodded and turned to pack his pencil box and notebook in his backpack. you didn’t bother to wait for him, so you just walked as fast as you could to the exit of the library.
“hey, what’s wrong?” jean semi-shouted, pulling your backpack from behind. “nothing,” you shook your head, blasting the volume of the music in your ears to be in your own little world of solitude.
he repetitively called out for your name, but since you were no way in hell going to hear him, he pulled your backpack even harder this time, making you automatically turn your back towards the 6’2 blond. his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he looked down towards you.
“i said nothing, jean,” was what could only come out from your mouth. you wanted to say, “fuck you for not being able to change your heart and see what’s in front of you,” but that would change the whole story.
“i’m just heartbroken. i’m sorry,” he said, gaze turning soft as you looked up to his light eyes. you were, too. but you were too proud to shove it on him, and it wasn’t like you could do anything. you admitted it, who were you to compare to the mikasa ackerman anyway? 5’9, intelligent, athletic, beautiful as hell, of course anyone would be drawn to her.
“and i’m just feeling stupid,” you simply said, turning your phone on so you could continue playing your song. however, he held your index finger, stopping you from resuming your music. you felt a rush of electricity as this was the first time that he held you. sometimes your skins did accidentally brush against each other, and every time that happened you would feel your blood drain from your body. this, however, made you feel like your soul was drifting away.
“you’re the smartest person i know after mikasa,” he softly said, hands letting go of your index finger as you looked down on your phone screen, baffled by this mixture of emotions you felt. you looked up to him and carved a sad smile as a response. you knew that you were letting your emotions go to waste, because whenever he thought of you, he also had her in mind to compare.
“see you, jean,” you nodded as you turned your back to walk away, leaving him in this perplexity of the odd situation that took place just now.
-
after the situation occurred weeks ago, the mentoring sessions you had with jean were more silent and more tormenting than ever. you hated yourself for doing this, but you also felt that if you didn’t, you would just make a fool of yourself for falling for his charms again.
even the snacks he brought remained untouched for the two-hour sessions. once, he brought the banana bread slice packs because he figured that they were your favorite. but instead of silently indulging them in, you chose to prioritize your ego and starve yourself for the next two hours. he also began to notice the changes in you, that after two weeks of bringing neglected snacks, he stopped doing so.
even your conversations weren’t as exciting as before. sometimes, after he had finished his questions, you would ask some questions about basketball and he would ask about your other interest which was art. both of you were seemingly intrigued in each other’s capabilities and talents, and maybe that was why you felt this emotional connection to him. you and jean both had this burning passion for the things you liked, and that you would sacrifice almost anything to pursue whatever you were passionate in.
now, however, the word count between the two of you could not even make it past 100. he would always be the one to ask, “how are you?” or “have you eaten?” and you would always choose to lie instead. because if you were honest, you would have to share your emotions with him, and that was the last thing that you would wish to happen.
mrs. zoe handed over a physics module to you, mikasa, and niccolo respectively after class. it was thick, perhaps around 150 pages of just physics questions, that even you could go sick after finishing it.
“as this semester is coming to an end, it is important for you to let your mentees go all out and pass this subject in order to graduate this year,” mrs. zoe spoke, fingernails tapping on the desk as they leaned their slender and tall figure towards it.
“niccolo, how is sasha doing?” mrs. zoe asked, and niccolo explained how she was progressing greatly. he also stated that her motivation would increase drastically whenever he brought her food, and the other three of you laughed at that matter.
“ms. ackerman, how about yeager?” mrs. zoe diverted their eyes towards mikasa, who was already blushing at the mention of her now-boyfriend’s name.
“he’s doing.. okay. a little bit behind in the chapter of light, but apart from that, he has been doing well.”
“that’s good to hear, mikasa. after all, i’m sure his girlfriend would save his results,” mrs. zoe winked, making mikasa blush even harder. you could tell from the smirk on mrs. zoe’s face that they had planned for them to be partnered together all along, since mikasa’s crush on eren was no secret.
and then, mrs. zoe’s eyes shifted to yours. they called out your name before asking if jean was doing well. you softly nodded as you looked up to your taller teacher.
“he’s fine. he’s actually impressive as he could balance between the mentoring sessions and the extensive training he has. so i think that, he’s able to go through this soon,” you smiled, thinking of those times whenever he hummed your name to ask for the questions that he did not seem to understand. you missed him, truth be told. you missed conversing with him the way you used to, but of course, stupid feelings came in the way and now you couldn’t look at him the way you did before. the way you only observed him from afar as the ‘popular jock.’
“that’s good to hear from you guys. i knew i could count on you,” mrs. zoe grinned as they fixed their spectacles. “anyway, hand this over to them during your session this evening,” they spoke as they pointed towards the module on your hands.
“and remember, today is your final session. focus on your own studies after that,” mrs. zoe smiled before dismissing the three of you. their words echoed in your ears, and you somehow felt this sort of ache to know that you were not going to mentor him again. of course, you would see him in class, but with the presence of the others, you didn’t think you’d be able to talk to him like you used to anymore.
-
you nodded as you closed his notebook and slid it over to him. “no mistakes,” you said as you gave him a weak ‘thumbs up.’ he smiled and nodded before keeping his belongings in his backpack and standing up.
“jean.”
he turned his back towards you, an eyebrow lifted as he looked at you with anticipation.
“here’s a module mrs. zoe would want you to complete before finals,” you handed over the module to him, who gladly took it and observed the cover page, sighing.
“okay.”
you nodded as you turned to your backpack to zip it up, but he called out your name before you even had the chance to hold the slider of your backpack’s zip.
“hm?” you hummed in response.
“can i get a clearer coverage on nuclear physics next week? it’s still pretty vague to me.”
and that was when you realized that you hadn’t told him.
“about that- today is our last session, jean,” you said, giving a faint smile as you reached out for the slider of your backpack.
you could hear a faint “oh,” but it was almost inaudible that even your zipper was louder.
“i’ll just ask connie then. thank you, by the way,” he said, voice becoming softer at the mention of your name towards the tail of the sentence. you nodded and waved towards him, who was reluctantly making his way out of the library.
your heart felt heavy as you observed his lean figure separating from you, feet by feet. you honestly had no clue when you could be this close to him again.
-
today was the day the results would come out, and everyone was nervous when mrs. zoe made their way inside the classroom, holding a stack of worn-out examination papers.
“i’ll be calling out those who obtained the highest scores first. and did anyone fail? unfortunately that’s a surprise,” mrs. zoe winked as they picked on five sets of examination papers from the stack on the desk.
“highest score, 97%,” mrs. zoe held the paper up, before calling up your name to the front. you couldn’t believe your ears that you really obtained the highest score this time. of course, your scores were always in the range of 85-93. but 97? groundbreaking.
you walked over to the front to take your paper and thanked mrs. zoe for it, before making your way back to your place beside mikasa. you stole a glance towards jean, who was grinning at you as you hugged the paper to your chest. you couldn’t help but to paint a tinge of blush on your cheeks unconsciously, you obviously missed his smile.
then came mikasa in the second place with a 95%, niccolo with a 93%, annie leonhart with a 90%, and armin arlert with an 89%. you silently waited for his name to be called out, but when mrs. zoe denoted that the A-listers ended with Sasha Braus, you couldn’t help but to feel sorry for him.
“and now for the B+, surprise... jean kirstein!”
the whole classroom went wild, applauding for jean as he made his way proudly towards mrs. zoe to gather his paper. there was a token of happiness in you for him, as he had worked so hard to obtain the score, and he deserved every bit of it.
he looked over at you from the front of the classroom, smiling as he held up his paper. you gave a halfhearted smile, refraining yourself as hard as you could from falling for this guy in front of you. because you knew that underneath the playfulness he displayed, his heart remained loyal towards your best friend.
when the ball rang, everyone began to stand up to head home, and you kept your belongings in your backpack as you looked up towards mikasa, who was doing what you did, just three times faster.
“where are you heading?” you asked, head jerking over to see her, who was giving a beatific smile as a response.
“eren’s taking me to lunch, you wanna join?” mikasa said, eyes beaming as she mentioned your name at the end of her sentence. you shook you head and smiled.
“you don’t always get to spend time together, so i guess i’ll just go home,” you stated, not wanting to be the third wheeler who would just end up getting sad over the lovey dovey pair in front of you during lunch soon. she nodded as she swung her backpack over her muscular shoulders.
“i guess i’ll see you monday? and oh, do you want to see the final match against trost high school this saturday?” mikasa asked, moving her bangs from her beaming grey eyes to get a good look at you.
“final match? oh..”
then you realized that tomorrow would be the final basketball match, between your school’s team and Trost Hawks. it finally clicked to you on why jean was always training. he was getting ready for this.
“i’ll see,” you simply uttered as you smiled.
“if you want to come, give me a call okay? i have an extra ticket. love you!” mikasa said, waving as she made her way out of the classroom, leaving you with just a few students inside.
as you turned your back to grab the shoulder straps of your backpack, you noticed connie and jean, still not leaving the classroom.
weird, you thought. as athletes, all they looked forward to was leaving the classroom, but now they were left with you and just two more students who were assigned to sweep the floors today.
connie saw you eyeing them, and elbowed jean as he diverted his eyes from you to his friend, back and forth. whatever the reason was to that action, you didn’t bother to know. or you just didn’t want to bother.
before you even managed to stand up and leave, jean arrived right in front of you, sitting on the desk next to you as he smiled.
“hey,” he uttered, eyes not leaving you as you stood up.
“yes, jean?” you lifted your gaze to meet his, who was rubbing the back of his neck; your favorite action, as usual.
“i was wondering if..,” he shoved his hand in his pocket as if to reach for something, eyebrows furrowed as he did so. when he finally got a hold of whatever he was reaching for, he nodded to himself.
he took out a piece of paper, which seemed to take the form of a ticket.
“i was wondering if you could-“
“if i could give this to mikasa? she has the tickets already. don’t worry, she’ll come,” you smiled, almost halfheartedly before trying to walk away. but to your surprise, jean’s sturdy hand reached out for your forearm, stopping you from continuing your motion. you turned your head towards him, who was still holding the ticket in his left hand.
“you didn’t let me finish my words,” jean uttered, sounding almost as disappointed towards your action. you sighed before gently removing his hand from your forearm and crossing your arms against your chest.
“mikasa has them. she will come, okay?” you tried to look into his eyes, but jean looked down, avoiding himself from making any eye contact with you.
“this isn’t for her.”
you raised a brow. this is new, you thought to yourself as you looked at him, wanting him to finish his words so you could go home.
“i was wondering if you could come, and support me.”
there was that mixture of emotions again, drowning you in a matter of milliseconds. you couldn’t think of a word to say, yet could you even think of an expression you could plaster on your face. all you felt was bewilderment.
“i moved on, for the better,” jean smiled, lifting your chin up to meet his gaze. you were perplexed, as you thought this day would never have come. because, how were you able to be the reason why mikasa was forgotten?
“jean-“
before you could mouth another word, his lips landed on yours for a gentle kiss. even though it was only for a matter of seconds, it really felt like the earth stopped orbiting for a while. how would you go to bed tonight when this just happened in school?
“see you,” jean smiled as he pulled away, hand reaching for your pocket to slide in the ticket to his basketball match tomorrow.
and with that, you were left with confusion on what would happen on the next days to come, with jean kirstein in your life, and not just for eight hours a week anymore.