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Graduation was coming up soon and their final days of training were swinging wildly between crunching in a few more practice runs with the ODM gear for those who were serious about placing the top ten, chores, and having absolutely nothing left to do as their superiors and supervisors ran around with paper work, collaborating on their final tests.
Currently, Jean was sitting in the mess hall of the cadet’s training grounds, resting his head on the table, cheek pressed into the scratchy but cool wood. The heat outside was suffocating, but for whatever reason, the mess hall felt even worse. Jean felt exhausted but overstimulated, like, if he heard Ymir bark out one more laugh at whatever mean joke she made, he very well might get into a fight.
So he had escaped to the outside. Now, he sat sluggishly against the wooden walls of the building, listening to the buzzing of beetles and muffled sounds of unsupervised teenagers. For a moment, lulled into it by a sense of security, Jean’s eyes slipped shut.
How long he drifted along his thoughts, he’d never know, but eventually his solitude was invaded when he heard the scuffing of boots on the dirt come around the corner.
“There you are,” came a soft voice.
Jean couldn’t help but smile to himself, eyes lazily opening as he turned to look up at Marco, the sunlight reflecting off of everything just right to make it look like he had a halo of light behind his head, casting his face in a half shadow that left him… beautiful. Almost tragic looking.
“At the end of the month,” Jean said, patting the dirt next to him, heart hammering when Marco sat down, knees brushing against knees, “When we get inside Sina, I’ll have to paint something for you.”
Marco smiled at Jean, round eyes crinkling slightly. “Paint me,” he said and Jean’s mouth went dry. “I want to know what you see when you look at me.”
“I see a dumb, smiling oaf,” Jean said, sounding more mean than he had intended, but the heat coursing through his body made him feel sick and he could suddenly feel his pulse in his throat and temples too well.
Marco laughed, and Jean pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging them, trying to put a little space between them. He didn’t understand why being so close to Marco made him feel this way, it was reminiscent of the first night he had really seen Mikasa, but that didn’t make any sense to him.
He stole another glance at Marco out of the corner of his eyes and felt breathless at the sight. The light here gave him a soft glow, highlighting the small spattering of freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Jean wanted to reach up and run his thumb across them.
He bit the inside of his lip, cursing at himself for the thought.
“Your freckles remind me of the stars,” he blurted out, grimacing almost immediately. He turned away from Marco, but not before he saw the touch of pink racing across his face and to his ears.
“Thanks,” Marco answered, voice soft and small. “I think.”
Later that night, Jean had a difficult time sleeping, and he tried to blame the suffocating humidity, but he knew in the back of his mind that wasn’t totally true. He couldn’t stop thinking of the way his nerves had lit up when Marco’s knee bumped against his, how enraptured Jean had been by his face in the lighting. He wanted to capture that moment forever, hold the memory, the image, close to his heart. He’d burn into his mind if he had to. Marco, standing above him, smiling, the halo of light, the warmth…
Jean felt his face burn again and kicked his blankets aside, groaning as he rolled over in the bed. He refused to face those feelings head on. Apparently, he hadn’t been the only one awake, because from down the room, came Connie’s voice.
“Hey man, we gotta share these rooms. Be respectful.”
“I’m going to throw up on you,” Jean hissed back.
“Gross!”
“Hey guys,” came Samuel’s voice. “Can you two, like, shut up?”