Archive of Our Own

Jean Kirschstein isn’t the type to ask for favors; however, desperate times call for desperate measures.

A time that started exactly thirty seconds ago.

“So,” Armin had said as they sat in the mess hall one uneventful, warm June afternoon, “are you doing anything for your birthday next week, Marco?”

Marco’s eyes had widened before he smiled a little, a faint blush on his cheeks.

Jean pretends not to notice and stares down into his gruel very pointedly, focusing all his energy on not letting his own stupid cheeks flush. Marco looks… unsettlingly tantalizing when he does that, maybe because he’s normally so resolute.

Wait.

Birthday?

“Oh,” Marco says with a little humble shrug, “nothing, I suppose. We don’t really have time for that.”

Armin smiles kindly, dragging his spoon through his own lunch thoughtfully, staring into his bowl. Apparently coming up with nothing spectacular as a suggestion, he finally offers, “You can have my bread that day if you want.”

“That is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard!” Jean exclaims, unable to help himself.

And suddenly feeling panic to divert attention away from the fact—if only to himself—that he forgot his best friend’s birthday. When Marco became Jean’s best friend, he’s still a bit unsure; even more unclear is when Marco blushing made Jean’s heart speed up. But it is what it is—as Jean’s mother says sternly whenever something inexplicable happens—and although it’s confusing, it’s not altogether unpleasant. Maybe a little distracting.

Jean swallows hard as Marco and Armin stare at him after his outburst.

Okay, more like a little terrifying.

“Jean, that’s not very nice,” Marco says disapprovingly, frowning slightly, before turning back to Armin. “Thanks, Armin. That’s really generous of you.”

“I bet Jean forgot!” comes a voice from behind Armin as Eren suddenly appears. “He’s not very good at thinking about anyone except himself.”

“Shut up!” Jean hisses, standing up abruptly and scowling. “Of course I didn’t forget.” He rolls his eyes, shaking his head at Marco as if there’s not a chance he’d ever forget a birthday. “Haven’t you ever heard of a surprise?”

“Okay,” Eren challenges, refusing to take the bait and fire back with an insult, “I’ll believe it when I see it. Give your big surprise to Marco on his birthday, in front of everyone.”

Jean grits his teeth; the rational part of his brain is saying not to rise to Eren’s childish challenge, his pride is screaming at him to meet it.

“Fine,” he growls, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. “I actually remember important dates since I think about other things than…” he pushes his tone down an octave to the perfect timbre of Eren’s voice, “defeating all the Titans.” He grins triumphantly as Eren’s face starts to redden in rage, knowing he’s gotten the better of the other boy. “I live in the real world, after all.”

“I’m sure Jean’s gift is very nice,” Armin interjects, rolling his eyes and grabbing Eren’s wrist. “Didn’t Shadis tell us to clean out the stables after breakfast?”

Eren blinks his big, crazed green eyes—Jean has to at least yield to the fact that Eren is 100% sincere in his vehement, albeit insane, convictions—and he hesitates.

“You know,” Armin continues, standing slowly and tugging Eren in the other direction, “since you got caught fighting with Jean a few days ago?”

That earns a grumble, but Eren stands down and follows Armin away toward the entrance to the mess hall.

Jean looks over at Marco with a shit eating grin, until he realizes Marco is facing him with a stern, unamused expression.

“I’m not lying!” he exclaims, throwing up his hands. “Did you think I’d forget?”

Marco blinks in surprise, seemingly not expecting this response, and he cocks his head to the side. “No, it’s not that,” he replies, sounding slightly bemused. “I was going to say fighting with Eren is pointless.”

“Oh,” Jean replies lamely, sitting back down in front of his meal in slight embarrassment. “Well,” he adds defensively, feeling childish since Eren is actually right, “what kind of shitty person forgets their best friend’s birthday?”

Marco smiles warmly, patting Jean’s shoulder in the same way he tends to pat the stray cats that lurk around the barracks and the horses to calm them.

Jean is aware that Marco touches him like he does feral animals; but he can’t bring himself to take it as an insult, because the touch is so calming.

“I’m surprised you even know when my birthday is,” he remarks carefully, shrugging a little and dropping his hand. “Not because I think you’re a bad friend,” he adds quickly, “but because who remembers birthdays? I’m surprised Armin did.”

“Armin’s good at remembering things,” Jean reasons. “It helps since he’s so bad at running.”

Marco’s eyebrows raise, and Jean just shrugs—it’s a fact. He wouldn’t say it in front of Armin, but he’s secretly glad that Armin is good at something other than failing at the physical training. He actually likes Armin, and he likes him even more since he’s not competition; at the same time, he doesn’t want to see the smaller boy sent out to die in the fields.

He’d heard what happened to his grandfather through some series of rumors, given that Mikasa, Armin, and Eren were objects of fascination amongst the other cadets, having survived Shiganshina and actually seen the Colossal Titan in person.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Marco replies, tensing his jaw and looking a little put out. “Hopefully…” The unsaid words remain hanging in the air: It’ll help him survive.

“Well, only ten of us are joining the Military Police,” Jean reasons as Marco’s voice trails off. “The Garrison isn’t so bad. Armin’s good at remembering things, and they always need people like that.”

That seems to hearten Marco, and the anxious look in his dark eyes abates somewhat. He nods, and then takes a more enthusiastic bite of his lunch, chewing the gruel as if it’s necessary.

There it is again—that flutter—as Marco smiles and meets Jean’s eyes. There’s a grateful sentiment there, and it makes Jean feel more powerful than even flying through trees in ODM gear: that he can comfort Marco.

“Anyway,” he continues, wanting to get off morbid topics, “the gift I got you is really great. You’re going to love it.”

Marco touches his shoulder again, and this time, doesn’t let his hand drop.

“I’m really excited,” he says, a bigger smile gracing his features as he looks up at Jean, an expression of almost childlike delight on his face he’s trying to hide.

Jean grins and nods, hoping his nerves don’t show through.

Well, shit.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Jean likes to be good at things—he’s a natural at ODM gear, and not bad in the classroom, even if he does find it boring and ends up reading Marco’s notes most of the time before exams.

However, there are some things Jean would rather not admit he’s good at, one of those skills being: knitting.

Now, of course, if Eren challenged him to a knit-off, he’d probably say yes based on pride alone. It would take Eren insulting him to get him to admit that he’s actually quite skilled at domestic things, since he grew up primarily with his mother instructing him in the ways of everything from cooking to knitting. He knows they’re useful skills, of course, but it’s not like he wants to share with the boys’ bunks that he can make doilies or omelettes.

Which he can, but that’s beside the point.

Of course, he’s depending on the domestic skills to save his ass from looking like the worst friend of all time, and he’s also hoping the former based on his talents as a cadet will help him out.

Instructor Keith Shadis’s office is shadowy, much like the man himself, the only indication that anyone actually spent time there the collection of burnt down candles on his desk.

“You requested to see me, Kirschstein?” he asks, finally looking up to where Jean is lingering in the doorway, wondering whether he should salute or say something.

He’d been instructed to stop by the office directly after dinner. He’d shown up promptly, and seeing the door open, had gone to stand there, waiting.

Shadis had simply remained in his chair, looking over what appeared to inventories of equipment and blueprints. There’d been talk of increasing the number of cadets in the 104th to allow for faster training and more men to be dispatched, but Jean ignores that for now. He’s here for a more important reason.

Jean decides that a salute is always the safest approach when it comes to Shadis, and he’s also pretty good at that.

He pulls his arm into a smart, tight salute, hand fisted over his heart, making sure his form is absolutely flawless. He has to get this right—his friendship with Marco depends on it.

“At ease, cadet,” Shadis says, his voice unimpressed as he raises his eyes. “What is it you want?”

“Sir!” Jean continues formally, knowing not to drop his guard even though Shadis is acting casual. There’s nothing the man enjoys more than catching a cadet being anything less than professional or up to par. “There’s something I would like to request.”

“You don’t make requests,” Shadis answers, looking back down at his papers. “Dismissed.”

“But…” Jean knows it’s a mistake to contradict his instructor, much less the former commander of the Survey Corps, but this is important. “Um, I was just hoping I could get some spare yarn, to…” he trails off, swallowing hard, but deciding to continue even though Shadis’ beady eyes are boring into him. “To make gloves for myself this coming winter, so I can handle the ODM blades better.”

Yes, there—that makes sense. Supplies all in the name of bettering himself as a soldier.

“Yarn?” Shadis echoes in a level voice, staring at Jean as if he has two heads. “Extra yarn?”

“Only if—”

“Kirschstein!” he barks harshly. “Do you think the supply wagons bring extra yarn to us? Out of the kindness of their hearts?”

“Uh…”

“Don’t answer that, you little shit!” Shadis shouts, pointing a finger at Jean, the veins in his neck bulging.

Supply wagons?

“The answer is no, cadet!”

Jean didn’t even know the supply wagons brought yarn—it’s always seemed like solely bread and replacement gear.

“You’re running twenty laps for breakfast, Kirschstein! Now get out of my sight!” he ushers Jean away with an exasperated twitch of his hand.

Jean scurries away, saluting once as a formality, but doesn’t go straight to the bunks.

It’s dark, and he’s risking a lot when he steals away to the supply sheds; but sure enough, he finds quite a few tidy wads of yarn. It’s undyed and raw, and not exactly pretty, but it’s better than nothing.

Although he’s tempted to take the full amount required for a scarf of reasonable length, he knows that someone will notice, so he only steals enough for a quarter of a scarf.

Regardless that it’s June, and it may just be the ugliest gift he’s ever given another person—and, to be fair, the only gift—he needs to give Marco something, and this all he knows how to make.

This also means he’s going to need to find someone else to ask for yarn, and find a time when he can knit in private.

On his way back to the bunks, stealthy as he avoids Shadis at all costs in the shadows, he doubts this entire crazy plan for a moment.

But when he finally walks into the bunks and quickly undresses for bed in the dark, shucking off his clothes and pulling on his rough cotton sleep pants, he can’t bring himself to regret it when he looks over at Marco’s still form next to him.

His shoulders are broader now than when they first met, and there’s that flutter again that Jean feels more and more when he really stops to think about Marco’s body, Marco’s face, Marco’s everything really.

“Jean?” comes a sleepy voice. “Everything okay?”

Jean smiles a little in the dark, carefully stuffing the yarn under his side of the mattress.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Go back to sleep.”

The twenty laps don’t even seem that bad the next morning at the ass crack of dawn when he remembers the sleepy, dopey look on Marco’s face the night before when he’d turned over and sighed “kay.”

Jean knits in the hour between the end of each day’s training and dinner, sneaking away to the woodshed or forest to frantically work his way through each row of knotted yarn.

When his mother had sent him off to military training, he had thought she’d packed some of his clothes and maybe some extra bread. Needless to say, he’d been mortified to find that she’d not only sent him off with a scrap of his childhood blanket, but also a pair of knitting needles.

Of course, now, as he desperately knits together the raw wool into something that resembles a scarf, he’s grateful. The click of his knitting needles haven’t attracted anyone’s attention yet, and when he realizes he’s making decent progress, he starts to feel more confident.

Only a few days go by and he’s nearly through a quarter of the scarf; the panic doesn’t set in again until he realizes he’s out of yarn.

There’s no way he can go back to the supply sheds and get more. At the same time, he can’t give Marco a random knitted square of ugly undyed wool yarn as a gift and pass it off as something decent. What would he call it? A potholder?

For the next day—during ODM practice, during classroom lesson, and even during dinner—he wracks his brain to figure out how to procure more yarn. He gets desperate enough to even risk stealing more, until finally, it hits him.

It’s when Mikasa, of all people, looks over at him in the evening when everyone is outside, enjoying the pleasant air, and asks, “Are you all right?”

He must look anxious if Mikasa Ackerman is asking after his well being.

Two years ago, he would’ve stammered out something that probably didn’t resemble human words and then just blush.

But now, a memory comes rushing back to him as Mikasa stares at him expectantly in the dim evening light, pretty gray eyes and dark hair shining.

She knows how to embroider; and if she knows how to do that, there’s a vague possibility she might have other supplies.

“Do you know how to knit?” he asks abruptly, jumping up from the steps where he’s been sitting, staring at the ground deep in thought.

Mikasa blinks at him, raising an eyebrow in surprise, but considers the question.

Before she can answer, Sasha bounds up out of nowhere, startling Jean. “Mikasa’s a genius!” she enthuses, grinning. “She made me a pair of gloves last winter.”

Much to Jean’s amazement, Mikasa actually looks away and looks somehow embarrassed. Probably because Sasha is loud and Mikasa’s polar opposite; Jean fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“Knitted gloves?” Jean asks hopefully, looking back and forth between Mikasa and Sasha. “With yarn?”

“Well, what else would it be?” Sasha asks, her eyes wide. It’s an actual question, and Jean just stares at her.

“I don’t know. Magic?” he retorts, unable to keep his sharp tongue in check.

“Why are you asking?” Mikasa’s calm voice interjects, looking genuinely curious.

Jean shifts uncomfortably, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s private,” he finally settles on, shifting his weight so that the wooden steps up to the bunks creak under his boots. He’s one of the few cadets that now wears his uniform at all times, avoiding his regular clothes; partially it’s because they’re now too small for him, partially because he feels much more confident in his uniform.

Is this worth swallowing his pride over, sucking it up, and asking the girl he had a huge crush on within the first day of training for yarn?

And he knows it is, because there’s one thing that Jean values over his own pride at this point in his life.

“I need some yarn,” he grunts out. “What do you want for it?”

Mikasa is looking at him with wide eyes now, obviously surprised at this request, but Sasha pipes in immediately.

“You have to be nice to Eren for a week,” she crows, looking delighted at this turn of events.

“Wait!” Jean cries, and then lowers his voice again when a few other cadets look over in their direction. “Let Mikasa answer. It’s her decision.”

Mikasa looks back and forth between them, and then in an absolutely deadpan tone of voice, echoes, “You have to be nice to Eren for a week.”

A smile quirks at her lips; Sasha grins radiantly.

Jean grimaces. These two are fucking crazy.

“Fine,” he grunts. “But I need it now—as in tonight.”

“Sure,” Mikasa nods agreeably, rising. “I only have a little bit left, though.”

“I’ll take whatever you have,” Jean nods eagerly, not caring that he just made a deal to be nice to the devil in return for a tiny amount of yarn.

What Mikasa has is a sort of strange, army green, but Jean doesn’t mind. At least it’s not raw wool that still smells a little like sheep; in fact, it’s rather nice, probably a mix of silk and wool.

“This is really nice,” he remarks in surprise, looking at the yarn as he stands in the girls’ bunks, ignoring the suspicious looks he’s receiving from a few of the other cadets. He can’t help but notice Mikasa looks amused as he runs his fingers over the yarn, testing its texture; somehow, he doesn’t mind. “Where did you get this?”

“You know a lot about yarn, huh?” she asks. Despite the fact she looks amused at Jean’s attention, her tone isn’t mocking, but merely curious. In fact, her expression almost seems warm.

“No,” Jean immediately replies defensively, taking a step back and sliding the fine yarn into his back pocket. “I just… I’m helping someone make something.”

“My mother taught me to knit,” she says cryptically, shrugging her shoulders a little. “I like doing it, because it reminds me of her.”

Jean opens his mouth and closes it, not sure what to say; Mikasa’s never revealed anything about her past. He always figured she was busy making scarves for Eren or doing some other thing that the dumbass doesn’t deserve, but apparently, that’s not the case.

“Um,” he stammers, finally having the decency to meet her eyes, “my mother taught me, too.”

She smiles at him, her expression strangely shy. “Let me know if you need any tips.” She turns away, turning down the coverlet of her bed—which, Jean notes, is embroidered with quite elaborate patterns—and adds casually, “But if you break your promise, I’m telling everyone you’re making Marco a scarf for his birthday.”

Jean just gapes at her, his mouth hanging open; but he has to admit, she has a fair point. They did make a deal, and although Jean isn’t one for admitting weaknesses or doing people favors, he also isn’t someone who breaks his promises.

“I’ll be nice to Eren,” he finally grumbles, “by avoiding him.”

“Fine,” she replies. “I hope Marco likes the scarf. You do know it’s June, right?”

Jean turns on his heel to shoot back something defensive, but when he sees the small smile on Mikasa’s face, he shuts his mouth.

She’s teasing him, the way that friends do.

Jean’s never really considered anyone a friend outside of Marco; but Marco’s also the one who’s given him enough sense to recognize when someone is being silly, versus insulting him.

“I like being prepared,” he finally replies, a lame attempt at humor.

But it makes her laugh; and to Jean’s own personal surprise, he laughs too.

The fine green yarn looks a little better against the raw stuff, and he even stays up late into the night to finish it now, not caring who sees him knitting as long as Marco doesn’t figure it out.

After a few nights—and admittedly, a few discreet tips from Mikasa—the scarf is a little more than half done, but it’s still not quite enough.

The scarf is almost done, but Marco’s birthday is exactly two days away, and Jean is running out of time.

Even if he wanted to steal more yarn from the supply sheds, the carts are late this month, and there probably isn’t even any there. Mikasa is fresh out, and even though he scouts out the girls—a few of them accusing him of being a pervert when he stares too long—he doesn’t see anyone else who’s fond of knitting.

Not only that, but somehow, Eren’s found out about his pact with Mikasa and is now torturing him. While Jean readily believes Mikasa wouldn’t actually betray his secret, especially when Eren had accused Jean of not having a gift ready, he wouldn’t put it past Sasha or anyone else who overheard.

The worst part is that Eren isn’t even being direct about it; he’s simply taunting Jean, waiting for a reaction.

One morning, a few days after Shadis’ punishment: “Hey, horse face, what’d you do to have laps for breakfast instead of bread?”

Jean ignores it; it heartens him when Marco actually looks impressed.

The next afternoon: “Jean, is it true that the Military Police polish their ODM gear with perfume since they never actually use it?”

Jean grits his teeth; it makes him feel better when Mikasa nods her approval.

Nonetheless, although his friends’ (and he now counts Mikasa as a friend) approval improves his mood, Eren has to pay without Jean breaking his agreement with Mikasa.

It occurs to him the next afternoon—only a day and a half from Marco’s birthday—that the color red might vastly improve his hideous scarf thus far.

The next morning, when Eren goes to saddle up his horse for afternoon equine training, his outraged shout when he finds the blanket gone can be heard from the bunks.

Jean refrains from asking him how those twenty laps taste for dinner instead of bread.

Although the scarf smells like a mixture of horses and raw sheep’s wool in the middle of something very fine at the moment, what’s important is that it’s almost done.

Nonetheless, it’s still too short to be considered a scarf, or even a proper gift, and Jean starts to panic.

It’s the final day—Marco’s birthday—and Jean wakes up in a panic at the crack of dawn before everyone else.

He wracks his brain for anywhere else he can salvage the tiny bit of yarn he needs. The rough blankets they use at night aren’t suitable, made of raw cotton cut into large sheets. The uniform isn’t an option, there aren’t any more favors he can ask for, and there’s nary a tablecloth in the mess hall to scavenge for fabric.

At the point when he’s seriously considering just unraveling his own shirt and then blaming it on a freak Titan attack, someone shouts his name through the mess hall just as he’s the first one to get his breakfast tray.

“Kirschstein!”

He jerks his head up, sleepily digging into his porridge as he tries to come up with a solution, and blinks sleepily.

“You have mail!”

The package he retrieves is thick, filled with a letter and mysterious gift, but he knows it’s from his mother. He always tries to open these care packages in private, given that they’re embarrassing, but since no one else is in the mess hall at this early hour, he tears it open as he chews on the tasteless breakfast.

First, there’s the letter.

Dear Jeanbo,

He groans immediately, rolling his eyes at the embarrassing nickname, but keeps reading as he takes another bite.

There’s been a bit of upset here—talk of Titans and other frights—but everything is fine. I made you something to keep you warm. Stay safe.

His throat tightens at the brevity of her letter, the strange tension in her written words, but tries not to focus on the rumors she’s heard.

Instead, he reaches into the envelope to fish out whatever gift she’s sent him.

It’s a pair of socks, freshly and smartly knitted with clean brown wool; he feels a sense of unexpected gratitude swell in him.

Normally, he feels mortified over his mother’s care packages; but this time, he thinks of Armin and his earnest birthday gift of bread, Mikasa and her mother’s sewing, even Shadis and his rage toward a special “unfair” request.

He feels no guilt when he unravels one of the socks and finishes the scarf right after the pink dawn has turned into proper morning.

Marco looks sleepy as he walks into the mess hall at 8 a.m., joining the line, but surprised to see Jean standing there already alert.

“You’re up earlier than usual,” he says, yawning.

Jean just grins. “Happy birthday,” he replies cheerfully, and Marco smiles warmly as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

Jean promises silently to send his mother a letter that’s longer than a few sentences.

Dinner starts uneventfully.

They shuffle into line for their nightly meal, and Jean ends up behind Marco, nearly vibrating with excitement. Regardless of the fact that his gift is sort of ugly, off-season, and strange, he has one, and that’s what matters.

The truth is that he wove all of his pride into this scarf, and he did it for Marco.

Even when Eren stands by, grinning like an asshole, waiting for Jean’s admission that he was lying, it doesn’t matter. Jean just wants to see Marco’s face.

“Happy birthday,” Armin says, sitting in his usual spot across from Marco at the long table as he slides his bread over, true to his promise a week before.

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s a gift,” Armin interjects.

Marco’s eyebrows pinch together as he looks at the offered bread, but finally, he smiles a little and accepts it.

“Thanks, Armin,” he murmurs, munching happily. “That’s really generous of you.”

“So,” Eren crows, interrupting the pleasant moment, “what’s Jean got? An apology?” He laughs, but to Jean’s slight surprise, it actually sounds a little… nervous.

Everyone is looking at him, including Mikasa and Sasha, just waiting.

“Yeah, Jean,” Armin echoes, staring intently, “uh, what do you have?”

It occurs to Jean right then, as he holds the ugly scarf under the table wrapped in the same brown paper as his mother’s package, that no one cares if it’s ugly.

That they’re all hoping he actually made good on his promise.

That they want to believe he actually meant his former claim.

“It’s private!” he stammers, looking down and blushing intensely. “It’s…”

“You didn’t forget,” Marco says confidently. When Jean doesn’t answer, though, it breaks his heart when Marco adds a quiet, “Right?”

“Um, it’s…” He pulls out the awkwardly wrapped scarf and shoves it toward Marco, staring down at the table, embarrassed now that it’s actually going to see the light of day. Regardless of the fact he worked hard on it, he now feels a little silly. “It’s right here.”

Even Eren looks surprised when he sees the package, and everyone leans in curiously to see what mystery thing Jean’s actually presented.

Marco opens the paper carefully, not looking at anyone, and then finally, the scarf is revealed.

“That is the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen!” Eren crows immediately, standing up to point. “Did you make that with a blindfold?”

“Jean,” comes Mikasa’s quiet enthusiastic, albeit quiet voice, “that looks really nice.”

“Oh my god, did you steal that wool?!”

Eren’s voice again. “That… that red part looks familiar.”

“Why’s it smell like a stable?”

Everyone is talking all at once—either shocked Jean actually delivered or critiquing his scarf—until Marco stands up abruptly.

He looks down at Jean, pulling the scarf out completely, and then wrapping it around his neck despite the stifling heat that’s made the mess hall unbearably humid.

“I love it,” he says softly, smiling so radiantly that Jean has to look away to hide his embarrassing blush.

“Um,” he replies bashfully, stirring his spoon through his soup, “I’m glad, since I made it for you.”

There’s a slight tug at his shoulder, and he’s finally forced to look up. When he meets Marco’s eyes, everything else melts away—Eren’s confused grumbling about the familiar red wool, Mikasa’s attempted explanation, Sasha’s quiet laughter, Armin’s rebuke for everyone to leave them alone—and he just stares.

“It’s really nice,” Marco says as Jean stands, finally meeting his eyes.

And with that, he leans forward and kisses Jean on the mouth.

There is absolute silence in the mess hall.

Marco kisses him again, and Jean kisses him back.

Even Eren is silent, until Armin says in a very loud voice, “Wow, the soup is really good today!”

Jean prays for someone else to speak as his lips tingle from Marco’s kiss and his hands—as if of their own volition—slide up under the scarf to stroke Marco’s neck with gentle fingertips.

To Jean’s shock, it’s Eren that replies, “Uh, yeah, let’s talk about that… the soup is so good!”

The soup is horrible, and Jean—for the moment he can divert his attention away from Marco—realizes that everyone is on his side.

Everyone, even Eren, is trying to help him.

“I love it,” Marco murmurs, pressing his face against Jean’s neck, sighing softly. “Thank you.”

“It smells like horses and sheep,” Jean blurts out, unsure of what even to say.

“I love it,” Marco repeats, pulling away to smile warmly at Jean, his cheeks pink.

Jean doesn’t fight his own blush this time.

“Happy birthday,” Jean replies softly.

That night, when Marco and Jean fall into their shared bunk, Marco says softly, “I’m proud to have a friend like you.”

And Jean kisses him goodnight without a second thought.