Chapter Text
Jean loved playing with his red kite. His father had built it for him and it had been his favorite toy ever since. He usually didn’t take it to the park, but today it was deserted except for two other kids he was sure were not going to bother him.
At least, that's what he hoped. But a few meters away, a kid with big green eyes was looking at his kite in awe.
Jean never liked that kid. His name was Eren and he was one year younger than him, but he was just like a chihuaha; loud, annoying, and he believed to be a lot bigger than he actually was. He was never afraid to stand up to bullies, no matter how much bigger and stronger than him they were. Jean was sure he would have ended up in a hospital, if the adults didn’t intervene each and every time.
What was he hoping to accomplish? The kids he defended ran away as soon as he stepped in most of the time, he wouldn’t even get a thanks. If he hoped to make friends like that, it sure wasn’t working, since he only had two. One of them was a little girl Jean had a crush on, Mikasa. But she only had eyes for Eren, which made Jean dislike him even more.
Jean rolled his eyes when he saw Eren walk towards him.
“Can I play with your kite?” He asked shily.
“No.”
"C'mon! But I helped you yesterday! Remember?”
As much as little Jean would have loved to forget, he remembered quite clearly how some older kids were making fun of him for being chubby. Jean didn’t react, he started walking away but they started shoving him and pushing him around, until Eren showed up.
As arrogant as he was, he tried to take those two older boys on his own, and his cheek got bruised in the process. The bullies only left them alone when Eren's father intervened.
Eren still sported that bruise on his cheek. Jean was almost tempted to let him play with it, but pride got the better off him when he remembered how he couldn't deal with bullies on his own and had to be defended by a younger kid.
“I didn't need your help, you suicidal blockhead."
“Fine!”
Eren puffed then turned his back. As he walked away, a blond kid approached Jean. It was Armin Arlert, Eren's bosom friend since kindergarten. Jean liked him even less than he liked Eren; he was a pathetic little thing, always bullied around, even more than Jean, always hiding behind Eren for protection and clinging to him like a needy little baby.
“Jean, you should let him play with your kite. He's always helping us!”
“I didn’t ask for his help,” Jean said, bluntly.
“And he helped you anyway. Don’t you think he deserves a thanks?”
Jean ignored him and Armin eventually gave up, walking back to his best friend. Eren seemed to have forgotten about the kite quite easily. As soon as Armin joined him in the sand box, they started building a castle and didn’t go bother Jean again.
They were almost finished with their sand castle when they were startled by Jean’s cries.
“Jean-boy, what’s wrong?” His mother was kneeling in front of him, drying the child’s tears.
“My kite got stuck on the tree!” He cried. On top of the tree, you could clearly see the red in deep contrast with the green of the leaves.
Eren didn’t hesitate to run to the tree, Armin ran after him but he could never even hope to keep up. When he reached the base of the tree, his friend had already started climbing.
“Eren, wait! It’s too high for you!”
“It’s gonna be fine!” He said.
Jean thought maybe he had been wrong about Eren. Maybe he wasn’t a chihuaha after all, but a monkey. The way he climbed the tree with ease was almost irritating. Jean bet climbing down wasn’t going to be half as easy, and he almost wanted to see him fall on his butt.
He took a look at Armin, who was biting his nails nervously as he looked up at his friend. The blond only relaxed when Grisha, Eren’s father, joined them under the tree, ready to catch his son if he fell.
Eren was able to reach the kite and make it fall down, the joy Jean felt when it landed on the grass in one piece was so big, it almost made him forget his dislike for the younger kid. Yet he dreaded the moment Eren would climb back down, because he knew this time he had to thank him. His mother wouldn’t have let Jean walk away without him thanking Eren.
As Jean had anticipated, climbing down the tree wasn’t half as easy. Eren was moving a lot more slowly, paying extra attention to where he was putting his feet.
“Eren, careful,” his dad said, apprehensively. “Look where you put your feet.”
Eren looked peeved, since he was already doing what his father had told him to do. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Armin went to give him a quick hug.
“You did it, Eren!”
Jean clenched his teeth. His mother put a hand on his shoulder. “Jean-boy, what do you say?” She whispered so that only he could hear.
Reluctantly, Jean walked up to Eren.
“Thank you, Eren…”
“You’re welcome,” he said. He was about to walk away with Armin, but Jean felt a verbal thank you wasn’t enough.
“Wait,” he said. It irritated him to no end, but Eren had earned it. “You can play with it if you want…”
Eren’s face literally lit up with joy.
“Really?”
“Yes but only a little!”
*
Many springs had passed since that day. Jean wasn’t that chubby little kid anymore, he had grown lean and tall, taller than Eren, which is something he used to love to rubbing in his face back when they were twelve and thirteen.
A lot had changed since then, not only their bodies. From being bullied, Jean became one who stood up to them, helping Eren defend the smaller or younger kids. At first, it wasn’t much for heroism, but mostly because he was sure Eren would have gotten himself seriously hurt one day, if he kept playing hero on his own. Over time, he stared realizing that as a stronger kid, it was his duty to protect the weaker ones.
Eren helped him realize that. “What’s the point of those with means and power if they do not fight?”
Those were the words that changed Jean’s perspective, even if at the beginning they pissed him off.
Eren wasn’t the only one who helped him mature. Armin was smart and level-headed, and grew wiser and wiser as the years passed. He was the one person he always went to for advice.
Jean thought over how their friendship had evolved over the years. Those two kids went from being two people he highly disliked, to be two friends he couldn't live without. Even if he and Eren were always fighting over the stupidest shit, he wouldn't have traded him for the world.
He cared a lot for that suicidal blockhead. Yes, Eren's nickname over the years hadn't change, if anything, Eren’s behavior only reinforced it. He was always putting himself in dangerous situations, fighting bullies was nothing compared to the shit he was up to starting at fourteen. Sometimes Jean wondered how he wasn’t dead yet. Sometimes, he felt like he was supposed to be his guardian angel.
A kite flew high in the sky.
Jean smiled, thinking of the way many years ago his friendship with Eren and Armin had started.
The two were sixteen and Jean seventeen now, yet even after all those years, they found themselves walking in the same park. Childhood games were replaced by long talks and teenage pass times, but it almost felt like nothing had changed.
The only difference was that now, the three friends were in the company of Levi, Eren's creepy boyfriend.
Jean could never read Levi. He was aloof, quiet and he rarely smiled. He only seemed to smile when Eren kissed him or addressed him with words of endearment. But he rarely exchanged a word with Jean or Eren’s other friends, if anything, the man seemed to be barely tolerating them.
Nobody knew how old Levi was. Eren never told them. The only thing Jean and the others knew, was that he was too old for Eren. That was for sure. His smooth and silky skin was deceiving, but the man drove a fancy sport car and had a high paying job. He must have been thirty, at the very least.
Eren hadn’t even told his mother yet. He said he wanted to wait until he was eighteen to introduce her to Levi.
Jean knew Eren’s mom well. She and his own mother were best friends, so he knew she was going to blow a fuse over her son dating someone so much older than him. And she had every right to. Sometimes, Jean wondered whether he should have told Carla about Levi. Eren would have surely taken that as a betrayal, and Jean didn’t have the guts to risk loosing him as a friend. Not yet at least.
Jean never liked Levi. Neither did Armin, Mikasa, Sasha and Connie. They were his closest friends, but no matter how many times they tried to talk to Eren about their doubts, the brunet either got mad or just didn’t listen. They could do nothing but hope that story wouldn’t last long, that Eren would have eventually found someone else, someone who didn’t give serial-killer vibes.
A kid’s cry caught the group’s attention.
Two kids ran up to the group, one of them was crying.
“My kite got stuck on that tree! Can you help me, please?” The crying child begged, with those big and glossy eyes.
“Sure! Leave it too me,” Eren said, with a dashing smile. Jean almost rolled his eyes, he just loved playing hero so much. But that was the reason they were all so fond of him, including Jean himself.
“This sure brings me back,” Jean smiled as they watched Eren climb up that tree.
“Yeah,” Armin had a nostalgic smile too.
Levi was the only one who wasn’t too happy about it.
“Eren, be careful,” Levi said, as he watched him with worried eyes. Jean almost wanted to laugh at his concerned expression. Eren wasn’t six years old anymore, he was sixteen, tall and strong, getting a kite from a tree was literally a child’s play. Nothing compared to the kind of shit he got himself into these days.
Jean wondered how Levi would have reacted if he saw all that.
“Thank you! Thank you!” The kids exclaimed, waving at him before they ran away to keep playing with the now rescued kite.
“You’re welcome kids!” Eren chuckled while waving back.
“Eren, c’mon get down,” Levi urged him.
Be it the rush to come back down, be it the overconfidence or simple distraction, Eren put his foot down wrong and ended up loosing his balance.
Both Jean and Levi moved, but the former was closer and Eren fell right into his arms, unharmed.
Their eyes met and for a moment it seemed like the earth had stopped moving. Eren’s eyes had always been pretty, but Jean couldn’t remember last time he had seen them so up close. Under the broad daylight, every shade of green softly turning into blue really popped up, as well as those specks of gold in his irises.
Eren’s breathe was momentarily taken away. But he snapped out of his trance.
“Thanks, Jean.” Eren patted him on the chest before breaking eye-contact, and Jean promptly let him back on his feet.
“Whoa, that was close,” Armin said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’re hurt,” Levi pointed out his arm. Eren hadn’t even noticed, but his arm was scratched. He must have brushed against the tree when he fell.
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Eren,” Levi said in a cold tone. “Let's go.”
Levi's tone didn't seem any harsher than how he usually spoke, yet the terror in Eren's eyes told Jean something was off.
“Okay…” the brunet said meekly. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow at school.”
Jean could tell Eren didn’t want to leave. It was Levi alone who wanted it.
“Leaving so soon? It’s still early,” Armin voiced his same concerns.
For all they knew, Levi and Eren had planned to go to dinner together, but it was still five p.m. They had nothing planned before that.
“His wound needs to be cleaned,” Levi said, his voice emotionless.
Eren’s wound wasn’t even bleeding. It was just a scrape, even less than that. Yet Levi insisted on dragging him home, and Eren wasn't protesting.
It wasn't the Eren Jean knew. It wasn't the Eren he grew up with. The Eren who wouldn't even let his own mother, who he adored, tell him when it was time to go home. Not without fussing and stomping his feet.
Yet Levi commanded and he followed like an obedient dog. That's what Eren and Levi's relationship had always looked like to Jean; not the one between two lovers, but the one between a dog and its owner.
What did Eren ever find in Levi, that it was worth being treated like that?