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Chapter Text

Hey guys! I wanna start off by saying that English is not my first language, so I apologise for grammar mistakes and such. Although I'm fluent and I pretty much use English in every conversation, that doesn't always mean my grammar is correct. I do have tools to help me write, but I don't guarantee anything. 

This story was inspired by Attack on Titan, an original work from Hajime Isayama. The characters do not belong to me. I made my own interpretation of how they would be if they lived in our modern world. This means they won't be exactly like in the anime since they most likely don't have the same backstories. That aside, I will try to match them as closely to their original character as I can. 

Anyways, I've yapped long enough by now, enjoy!! 

Chapter Text

The bass is trying to concuss me.

Lights are strobing like someone's filming a music video in the living room, bodies everywhere, the kitchen table's a bar now, and there's a beer pyramid sagging in the corner like modern art. It smells like cheap perfume, cheaper vodka, and too many choices. I'm buzzed, warm, happy, not thinking too hard because I don't want to.

Porco spins me by the waist, and I crash into his chest, breathless. He's grinning that cocky grin that always gets him his way.

"Having fun?" he shouts over the music.

"Yeah!" I yell back, laughing, sweaty and glittery and letting myself float in the moment because why not. He pecks my forehead instead of my mouth, quick, distracted.

"I'll grab us drinks," he says, already turning.

"Okay!" I hold up my cup. "I still have—"

He's gone.

Whatever. I dance anyway because the DJ finally remembered what bangers are, and my friends are screaming the chorus like it's a group prayer. Sasha catches my wrist, spins me, we're laughing, Connie nearly wipes out on a sticky patch and calls it choreography. I check my phone: no text from Porco. Fine.

One song becomes two. Then three. My happiness starts to fray at the edges like a cheap sweater. I scan the crowd for blond hair and that dumb chain he never takes off.

He's not in the kitchen. Not by the beer pong table. Not by the back door, where Mikasa is silently judging men who don't wipe their shoes.

Whatever. He's probably in line for the bathroom, or showing someone the playlist he "curated" like he invented Spotify. Totally normal. Totally fine.

I head down the hallway because it's cooler and darker, and my throat's dry. People are lined up for the bathroom, doing that sway you do when you have to pee and don't want to admit it. Someone is crying into the mirror while a stranger pats their shoulder. College solidarity.

Then, at the end of the hall, I see it.

Two silhouettes, pressed way too close. A girl pinned to the wall, leg hiked, hands tangled in a guy's shirt. His arm braced next to her head. His mouth... yeah. All over her.

My brain goes blank and then prints one sentence in 300-point font:

That's Porco.

My stomach just... drops. Like an elevator-cable-cut kind of drop.

I step closer because my eyes are liars sometimes. They aren't lying. It's him. Blonde head. Stupid chain. And the girl, Pieck. The one from psych who always looks cosy and soft like a Pinterest board. Big cardigan, perfect hair, pretty mouth. That mouth is currently eating my boyfriend's face.

"Porco," I say. Calm. Too calm. Nuclear reactor before it blows calm.

They break apart. He turns, slow like molasses, like gravity is heavier for him than everyone else. Pieck's breathing hard, lipstick smeared in a way that makes me want to rip mine off with my teeth. Her eyes go wide.

"Y/N," he says, and my name sounds disgusting coming out of his mouth suddenly. Like it's been rolling around in dirt.

"How long?" I ask. No preamble. No performative crying. Just the question.

He drags a hand through his hair, laughs once. It's ugly. "Babe, it's—"

"How. Long."

He looks at Pieck like maybe she'll throw him a lifeline. She doesn't.

"I don't know, two weeks?" he says. Then, unbelievably: "Three?"

Something in my chest cracks loud enough I swear everyone hears it.

"You've gotta be shitting me," I say, smiling too big, the kind of smile that means I could bite.

"It's not—" He lifts his hands. "It's college. People mess around. You've been distant. You're always studying or working late, and it's like—"

"Oh my god," I laugh, but there's no humour in it. "I've been distant because I'm trying to afford your stupid concert tickets."

Pieck flinches. Good. I look right at her because cowardice tastes worse than vodka. "You didn't know?"

She shakes her head, voice small. "I didn't. I swear, I didn't know he was—"

"Yeah," I cut in. "This isn't about you. But stay away from me tonight."

She nods. Good.

Porco reaches for me like I'm still the person who'd let him. "Y/N, don't make a scene."

"Don't—" I say, and I step back, because if he touches me, I might do something extremely illegal. "Don't tell me what to do right now."

"Babe," he tries again, like the word is a magic spell that forgives everything.

"Don't call me that."

A door opens behind us, and someone spills out into the hallway. The music dips for a second and then slams back on, and somehow that's the trigger. Anger climbs my spine, all hot and electric. I turn on my heel and march back into the living room, because if we're going to do this, we're doing it in a place with witnesses.

"PORCO!" I shout, and the whole room pivots because college students are nosy and drama is free entertainment. Heads swing. Conversations pause. Someone goes "ooooh" like we're in a high school cafeteria. Perfect. I plant myself near the coffee table stage and face him as he follows, hands out, eyes darting like he's deciding whether to lie or die.

"You wanna tell everyone how long you've been shoving your tongue down Pieck's throat?" I ask, voice clear, steady. My hands are shaking, but I keep them at my sides.

A circle forms. Sasha edges to my left, eyes wide; Connie is already pulling out his phone before Mikasa smacks his arm, and he guiltily shoves it back into his pocket.

"It's not like that," Porco says. "It's not a big—"

"Not a big deal?" I repeat, eyebrows up. "You were literally attached to her like a fucking barnacle."

A couple of people snort. Someone mutters, "Barnacle is wild."

He bristles. "You've been checked out for weeks."

"I've been—" I bite down on the word, and it comes out clean. "I've been studying, working, trying to be a person. You could've said 'hey, I'm a cheating asshole' instead of making out with her in a hallway like a goddamn cliché."

"Y/N," he warns, like I'm a toddler reaching for a stove.

"What? You gonna tell me again not to 'make a scene'?" I take a step closer. "Newsflash: you made the scene when you couldn't keep it in your pants for more than a week and a half."

He flinches. Good. I'm on a roll, I can't stop even if I wanted to. "Two weeks? Three? Which is it? You keep losing track because you're busy? Or because you don't give a shit?"

"Fine," he snaps. "Three. Happy?"

There's a collective inhale. Pieck is hovering at the edge of the circle, hands twisted in her cardigan, like she'd pay money to unzip her skin and crawl out.

"Ecstatic," I say. "Thrilled, actually. Couldn't have asked for a better anniversary gift."

"It wasn't serious," he says, and that's the part that breaks me. Not the cheating. The casual. The way he says it is like I'm dramatic for caring.

"God, you're such a coward," I say, and my voice finally cracks. "You could've told me. You could've just said it."

He swallows, angry and embarrassed and small. "You gonna cry now?"

Every girl in the circle goes stone-cold at the same time. I feel the shift. The room is officially on my side.

I straighten. Wipe under my eye even though nothing fell. "No," I say, dead calm. "I'm going to get a drink. And then I'm done with you."

He steps in like he's going to grab my arm. Jean, whom I haven't even noticed until now, moves in smoothly from the crowd and slides one hand onto Porco's shoulder, casual as hell.

"Hey, man," Jean says, voice low, not picking a fight, just a warning wrapped in chill. "She said she's done."

Porco shrugs him off, pissed, but he doesn't touch me again. Good choice.

I turn on my heel, and the circle cracks open to let me through. My heart is pounding so hard, I swear I can see it move my dress. Everything is hot. The kitchen air tastes like heat and plastic. I pour whatever's clear over ice and throw it back. It burns all the way down, acidic, mean. I pour another. Someone tries to compliment my earrings, and I nod like I speak human languages.

I head for the back door because I need air that hasn't been inside someone else's lungs first. The porch is blessedly quieter. The weak bulb above us hums; the yard is dark like a closed mouth. I lean on the railing, breathe, and let my hands stop shaking one finger at a time.

"Rough night?"

His voice is warm, like a hoodie you forgot you loved. I don't jump. I just turn my head.

Jean Kirstein is leaning against the door like he owns the angle. Brown hair a little messy, a charcoal smudge by his knuckle, and paint on his hoodie sleeve that didn't wash out. Artist's hands. Artist face. Eyes that look like they notice too much and keep it to themselves.

"You could say that," I mutter.

"Or I could say your boyfriend's a dick and you can do better," he says, taking a sip from his red cup.

That punches a laugh out of me. "Bold for a stranger."

"Not a stranger." He nudges his shoulder off the frame and takes the spot beside me, leaving just enough space I could step into it if I wanted. "Art building. The third floor always smells like turpentine and grief. I've seen you cut through to the library. Also, the coffee line at 8:12 a.m., like clockwork."

I glance at his hands again. They're nicked and stained in ways you don't fake. "So you're the one hoarding the good charcoal."

"Guilty," he says easily. "Want water?"

"Yes," I say before I can pretend I want anything else.

He disappears for thirty seconds and comes back with a bottle like he knows where everything is. He twists the cap, hands it over without making a production out of it. I drink like it owes me money.

"Want me to say something inspirational or keep roasting that guy?" he asks. "I can do either. I'm versatile like that."

I snort into the bottle. "Versatile, huh."

"Artist," he says, wiggling the charcoal-smudge fingers. "We adapt."

Silence, but it's the good kind. The kind that doesn't push. The music from inside is a dull throb now, like a heartbeat behind a wall.

"I really thought..." I say, then stop, because finishing that sentence might break me in a way I don't want to break on a porch.

Jean doesn't make a sad face at me. He stares out into the yard. "Yeah. People really make you believe in them. Then they trip over their own bullshit and blame your ankles."

I huff something that might be a laugh. "That's... disturbingly accurate."

"I'm a visual learner," he says. "I paint metaphors. And badly parked cars."

"You paint cars?"

"I paint everything," he says, then grins. "But not like, on them. Unless they pay."

The porch light buzzes. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore both.

"You handled that like a champ, by the way," he adds, tipping his chin toward the house. "Could've gone nuclear. You just... told the truth. He looked small."

"I felt big for like two seconds," I admit. "Now I just feel... stupid."

"You're not," he says. No flourish. Just a fact he's decided, and I can borrow.

I swallow. "Pieck didn't know."

"Then that's on him," Jean says. "Not on you. Not on her. On his inability to keep his mouth to himself."

A tiny, evil smile pulls at my mouth. "You saw?"

"Caught the end," he says. "I was looking for the bathroom. Found a soap opera."

"Sorry you didn't get the full show," I say dryly.

"Nah," he says. "The finale was perfect." He looks at me, really looks, like he's sketching me quickly in his head. Not creepy. Curious. "You want a distraction?"

"What kind?"

"Walk to fries?" He jerks his head toward the street. "The place on the corner pretends it closes at eleven. It doesn't."

I should say no. I should go inside, cry in a locked bathroom, make Sasha come with me while I dramatically order an Uber and swear off men. Instead, I hear myself say, "Yeah. Fries."

"Good," he says, like he was hoping. He holds the door for me without touching my back or rushing me. Old-school.

Inside is loud again, but the room shifts when we step through. Eyes flick to us. I pretend not to notice. Sasha catches my gaze; she mouths, You okay? I nod. Connie raises his eyebrows so hard they almost leave his face. Mikasa gives me a tiny, surgical nod that means text me the body count. I smile, just a little.

And there he is. Porco. Propped against the kitchen island, talking too loud to some guy I've never seen before, trying to look unbothered and failing. For one second, our eyes meet. It's a hit to the ribs. Then it's over.

Jean doesn't touch me. Doesn't guide me. He just moves in the same direction, side by side, like we decided together. We reach the door.

"Hey, Y/N!" someone calls. "You good?"

I pivot, slap on a smile that feels almost real. "I'm great!" I say. "I'm getting fries!"

There's a cheer because, again, college students are nosy and carbs are religion.

We step into the night. The air is cooler, honest. Streetlights buzz. My phone buzzes again, a text I'm not reading. Jean sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket, pacing easily.

"You okay?" he asks, softer now that there aren't fifty ears around.

"No," I say, and it feels good to say it. "But I'm starving."

"That I can fix," he says. "Artist by day, fry escort by night."

I side-eye him. "Is that on your resume?"

"It is now." He bumps his shoulder lightly into mine, not a claim, just a hey. "Tell me something true."

"Like what?"

"Anything. First thing," he says. "I'll go first if you want."

"Fine."

He clears his throat, mock-serious. "I hate the smell of oil paint, but I love what it does. I once cried at an ad about adoptable senior dogs. And I've noticed your hoodie has cat ears, and I support that for you."

I groan into my hands. "It was one time."

"Two," he says, smiling. "But who's counting?"

We turn the corner. The fry place glows like a tiny church for the heartbroken. There are three people outside pretending to read menus like they aren't ordering the same thing they always do.

"Your turn," he says, pulling the door open.

I step in, let the greasy warmth hit my face, and for the first time since the hallway, I feel my lungs open all the way. "Okay. Something true: I thought he loved me," I say. "And maybe he did. But not enough."

"Then he didn't," Jean says, like it's a simple equation. Paint by numbers: if the colour isn't there, you don't force it.

I nod, throat tight, eyes suspicious. I sniff once, pull it together. "And I look good in ugly sweaters."

He grins. "I knew it."

We order. We wait. The fryer hisses like it's telling secrets. My phone buzzes again and again and again. I put it face down. Jean doesn't ask to see. He doesn't crowd the silence. He just stands there with paint on his sleeve, charcoal on his hand, like a whole different night is possible.

When the fries come, we take them outside and sit on the curb, sharing ketchup packets like we're rationing for war.

"To not texting him," he says, raising a fry.

"To not forgive him," I say, clinking mine to his.

We eat. We talk about nothing and everything, and I realise my laugh still works. The world didn't end in that hallway. It just changed shape.

And when we finally stand, hands greasy, mouths salty, he looks at me like he's sketching the next page.

"Walk you home?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say, because I'm tired and brave and hungry for something that isn't him. "Walk me home."

We go. The bass from the party fades into a heartbeat I don't have to share anymore.

Chapter Text

I woke up to sunlight attacking my face like it had a personal grudge and a cardboard fry box collapsing on my textbook. Cold fries, warm guilt, and the faint smell of last night's hairspray. My phone buzzed on the desk, vibrating like it wanted to run away from me. I flipped it over with one eye open.

Three unread from Porco. I didn't open them. I didn't need to read "can we talk?" to know it said "can we talk?" He was predictable like that.

A fourth text was from an unknown number:

Hey, fries-partner, I found your hoodie hiding in my backseat.
Sincerely, Jean.

Right. Porch boy. Paint on his sleeve, the kind eyes, the fry jokes.

I quickly typed back:

Keep it, it's starting a new life now.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, reappeared like they were shy.

Cruel. Meet me at the art building? third-floor steps. I'll give it back before it files for custody.

I shoved my hair into a ponytail that definitely wasn't stable and tossed on jeans and a sweatshirt that wasn't my cat-ear hoodie, which was apparently living a glamorous life elsewhere. I told myself I was going because it was my hoodie. Not because of the boy with the sketchbook. I even took my notebook to pretend I had class. Which I did. Technically.

Campus still had that morning-after look. Dew on the benches, people moving slowly in the sunlight like NPCs loading in. The art building sat at the edge of the lawn, old brick, tall windows, green vines that refused to die no matter the season. Up close, it smelled like linseed oil and ambition.

Jean was exactly where he said he'd be: third step, sketchbook balanced on his knee, pencil behind his ear like a tiny sword. His hoodie had new grey streaks across the sleeve and a blue smudge near the cuff. When he saw me, he stood, smile tipping up like it was on a dimmer switch.

"Cat-ear hoodie girl returns," he said, holding the hoodie out like a trophy.

"I was hoping you'd accidentally washed it and shrunk it," I said, taking it back. "Then it'd be your problem."

"Tragic. It tried to unionise, but I negotiated," he said. "How're you holding up?"

"Somewhere between 'I'm fine' and 'I will commit a small arson.' You?"

"Alive. Out of coffee. Ready to fight a professor," he said cheerfully, then nodded toward the door. "Got two minutes to walk-and-talk? Promise I won't make you late to... whatever you're pretending to go to."

"Rude," I said, but I followed him inside.

The stairwell had the same old-campus vibe as outside, plus paint stains on the steps and a "PLEASE DO NOT CLEAN BRUSHES IN THE SINK" sign that had clearly lost its war years ago. People passed us carrying portfolios, canvases, and a sculpture that looked like someone had glued forks to a basketball. The third floor was bright and loud, sunshine striping the hallway, doors thrown open to little studios that all smelled like effort.

Jean stopped by a bulletin board littered with scribbles and flyers. One flyer said figure drawing, tasteful nudity, bring your own charcoal. Another said poetry slam on Thursday, open mic, please no bongo drums. He tilted his head and spoke low.

"I've got a final project," he said. "Portrait series. Real faces. No fake smiles. No ring lights. Would you... Sit for one? If that's not the creepiest sentence you've heard today."

"Top three," I said. "Why me?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly a little shy. "You look like you actually feel things. Most people freeze into a 'yearbook photo' the second a pencil comes out. You didn't freeze last night. I mean, not literally. You stood your ground. It was... cool."

"Cool is not the word I'd use," I muttered, but the compliment landed somewhere warm. "So what, you want me to just sit there and be what, sad?"

"No sadness requirement," he said quickly. "Just... exist. Be you. Talk if you want. Or don't. I'll bribe you with fries."

"You really think potatoes solve everything."

"They solve most things," he said, deadpan. "And for the rest, there's ketchup."

I stared at him. My brain said: too soon, absolutely not, do not pass go. My mouth said: "Fine. But if I end up looking like a Renaissance goblin, I'm suing."

"Noted," he said, grinning. "We can do it at my place. The on-campus studios are packed and also cursed."

"Wow, inviting me over already?" I said. "What's next, draw me like one of your French girls?"

He didn't miss a beat. "Only if you insist."

I tried not to laugh like an idiot. "Text me the address, art boy."

He typed it in and sent it with a little salute. "See you after your very real class."

"My class is real," I lied, then left before he could fact-check me.

I lasted twenty minutes in the library pretending to read before my eyes kept sliding to the clock. I gave up, stuffed my notebook back into my bag like I hadn't just wasted two years' worth of willpower, and headed off-campus.

His building was the kind of old brick that looks better with age. The entryway smelled like bread and dog shampoo. Third floor, door 3 B. I knocked. Something clattered, a muffled "one sec!" and then the door swung open.

Jean stood there with charcoal on his fingers and a blue smear on his jawline that had no business being attractive. He stepped back with a flourish.

"Welcome to the chaos. Mind the paint water. It's not soup."

The apartment was one big room chopped into zones by sheer willpower. Kitchenette on the left with two mugs, a kettle, and a jar full of brushes where normal people keep spatulas. A small table buried under sketchbooks and a fruit bowl holding exactly one lemon and three pencils. A bed against the far wall, fairy lights strung above it like they'd been put up mid-December and never taken down. Two tall windows let in a slab of city light and the occasional siren. Canvases leaned everywhere, some blank, some half-finished, some staring.

"It's cute," I said, surprising myself. "Like a store called Boyfriend Aesthetic."

He choked on a laugh. "That's the rudest compliment I've ever received."

"Do you live in here or does it live around you?"

"Both," he said. "Sit by the window. The light likes your hair."

He dragged a stool into the sun patch, and I sat, tucking one foot on the rung to keep the wobble under control. He grabbed a sketchpad and a fistful of charcoals, then paused.

"Ground rules," he said. "You can stop anytime. You can look anytime. You can tell me I'm being weird, and I will stop being weird."

"You say that like you've practised."

"It's the artist version of 'if at any point you feel uncomfortable, you can remove the VR headset,'" he said. "But I mean it."

That... helped. More than I expected. I nodded. "Okay. Proceed, doctor."

He started to draw. The sound of charcoal on paper is scratchy and soft at the same time. He looked up, down, up again, his eyes flicking like he was scanning a horizon. The room settled into that quiet that isn't awkward. I could hear the kettle on the counter ticking as it cooled. Outside, someone yelled about a missing skateboard. The fairy lights hummed even though I don't think fairy lights are supposed to hum.

"So," he said after a bit, still drawing, "are we blocking Porco forever or just until he realises he messed up?"

"Do you want the honest answer or the mature one?" I asked.

"Honest with a side of petty."

"I want him to trip on a flat floor in front of a crowd," I said. "Nothing lethal. Just humiliating."

Jean nodded gravely. "We can manifest that. Also, I can draw it for closure."

"Please do. Add a pie to the face."

"Pieck?" he said, then winced. "Sorry. That was cheap."

I snorted despite myself. "It was. Keep it in."

He shifted his weight, still drawing. "Tell me something true about you that's not trauma."

"I can't snap with my left hand," I said immediately. "It just does this... damp clicking noise."

He lowered the charcoal and tried to snap with his left. It sounded like a shy cricket. "Wow. We're the same."

"Also, I name my plants. Basil's named Basil, but ironically."

"That's not ironic," he said. "That's literal."

"Don't tell Basil that. He thinks he's deep."

He smiled, and for a second, I forgot I was sitting for a drawing. It felt like hanging out in a friend's place, except there were canvases instead of posters and a bed in the line of sight we were both pointedly ignoring.

His phone buzzed. He flicked a look at it and didn't pick it up. Mine buzzed from my bag with the intensity of someone trying to force entry. I didn't check. He didn't ask.

"Okay," he said quietly, angling the pad. "Don't move—there it is."

"There, what is?"

"That thing you do with your mouth when you're pretending not to care."

"Rude."

"Accurate," he said, amused. "Hold."

He drew faster, quick lines and gentle smudges. He leaned in, then back. He squinted, then softened. I watched his hands because looking at his face for too long made my stomach do weird flips. An artist's hands are dangerous. They look like they know how to be careful.

After a few minutes, he paused. "I'm going to sound like a creep, but can I move a piece of hair?"

"Depends. Is this your move?"

"My move is tripping on flat floors. Hair is a new frontier."

"Fine," I said, rolling my eyes. "You may touch exactly one hair."

He stepped close and tucked a strand behind my ear. Knuckles brushed skin. Quick. Gentle. Everything in my body went, huh, interesting, and I tried to look like a person who didn't notice anything ever.

He stepped back like the floor was hot. "Thanks. Hair was trying to unionise."

"We support unions," I said.

"Except for hair," he said solemnly. "Hair must be crushed under the boot of management."

He drew for a little longer, then stopped and stretched, arms over his head, hoodie riding up just enough for me to see a sliver of skin and a line of paint on his shirt. I looked determinedly at the window because I am a person with dignity.

"Moment of truth?" he asked.

"No," I said instinctively, then winced. "I mean, yes. Show me."

He turned the sketchbook toward me.

It wasn't some perfect, airbrushed version of me. It was messy in the right ways. My hair actually looked like my hair. My eyes looked like I'd slept three hours and still wanted to make jokes. My mouth had that stubborn curve I pretend I don't have. I looked like a person who'd had a night and still had a day.

"Damn," I said softly. "That's... me."

"That's the goal," he said, relief easing his shoulders. "First passes are always rough. We can do more. Or less. Or different. It's your face. You get a vote."

"I like it," I said, surprising both of us. "I look like I might win an argument and then take a nap."

He grinned. "Yeah. That."

"Do you ever draw people and... not like them?" I asked.

"Sure," he said, honest. "I mean, not usually their face. Faces are innocent. It's what's behind them that gets annoying."

"Deep," I said, and then ruined it by immediately asking, "Do you have snacks?"

He laughed. "I have ramen and coffee and exactly one orange that might be decorative."

"Coffee," I said. "Please."

He went to the kitchenette and I hopped off the stool, legs tingling. Up close, his desk was controlled chaos. Tape rolls, charcoal dust, a kneaded eraser that looked like chewed gum, a jar with two brushes in water labelled not wine. There were sticky notes on the wall: STOP OVER-BLENDING, NO DEAD EYES, CALL MOM, and one that said little victories count. A Polaroid of a cat sat in the corner under a thumbtack. Under it, he'd written breathe.

"You always write yourself notes?" I asked.

"If I don't, my brain runs laps," he said, measuring coffee grounds like he was doing a science experiment. "Notes slow it down just enough to be useful."

"Same," I said. "My notes say things like 'don't text your ex at 1 a.m.'"

"That's good advice," he said. "Do you follow it?"

"Absolutely not."

He laughed into the steam of the kettle. "Sugar? Milk?"

"Two sugars. No milk. I like my coffee like I like my slogans. Short and aggressive."

He handed me a chipped mug with a faint smear of blue paint on the handle. I stared at the smear in a way that made me want to throw the mug into the sun for being too intimate and also glue it to my hand forever.

"Okay, new game," he said, leaning against the counter, feet crossed at the ankles. "Fast round. 'This or that.' No thinking."

"Bad idea," I warned, already smiling.

"Dogs or cats."

"Cats. They judge me less."

"Lies," he said. "They judge you more, you just're into it."

"Maybe I like accountability."

"Sunrise or sunset."

"Sunset. Mornings are rude."

"Spicy or sweet."

"Spicy. I like pain I can control."

He lifted a brow. "The therapist would love that."

"Don't tell her," I said automatically, then blinked because now I sounded unhinged. "I mean, hypothetically."

"Hiking or naps."

"Naps. Hiking is just walking with marketing."

He cackled. "Last one. Text or call?"

"Text. Calls are jump scares."

"Agreed."

He took a sip, then tilted his head. "My turn to answer?"

"Yeah. Dogs or cats."

"Dogs, but I respect cats for having boundaries."

"Sunrise or sunset."

"Sunrise. Feels like I beat the boss level."

"Spicy or sweet."

"Sweet. I'm a baby. Tell no one."

"Hiking or naps."

"Hiking to a place where I can nap."

"Cheating," I said.

"Winning," he countered.

"Text or call."

"Call, but only with people who won't let the silence get weird," he said, then gave me a quick side-eye like he was testing something. I pretended to drink my coffee so I wouldn't react.

"Okay," I said, setting the mug down. "Actual serious question. Do you ever get scared you're just... bad? At your art?"

"All the time," he said immediately. "Like... every other day. Then I make something that feels right and the fear shuts up for ten minutes."

"Relatable," I said. "Except replace 'art' with 'life choices.'"

"We're all just jumping puddles and pretending it's parkour," he said.

"That's the most art-school sentence I've ever heard," I said, but I wrote it down in my head anyway.

The kettle clicked off by itself like it was proud. We drank. The record player—oh right, he had a record player—hummed something soft I recognised from a coffee shop playlist. He had a small stack of vinyl: Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, something with a screaming angel on it. A postcard was taped above the player: a painting of a street in Paris, little lights strung across, glossy after rain.

"You been?" I asked, nodding at it.

"No. Friend sent it. Said the croissants are life-changing. I assume he meant emotionally."

"Draw me like one of your French girls," I said again, deadpan.

He raised his mug. "Any time."

"Don't threaten me with a good time."

He set the mug down and pushed off the counter. "Round two? I want a quick profile sketch before the light moves. I swear it's like the sun's on a timer."

"You mean day?" I said, climbing back onto the stool. "Yes, I've heard of it."

"Smartass," he murmured, smiling as he took up the charcoal again.

He worked faster this time, as if the first sketch had taught his hands my face. The pencil whispered. He shadowed the line of my jaw, the curve of my ear, the mess of my ponytail that had lost its will to live. He didn't tell me to tilt this or hold that. He didn't micromanage my face. He just watched and translated.

"Why art?" I asked after a minute. "Like, why not accounting or... dentistry?"

"Because I'm bad at teeth," he said seriously. "And numbers make me cry."

"That's fair."

"Honestly?" He shrugged, still drawing. "It's the one thing that makes my brain shut up. When it's going right, it's quiet in here." He tapped his temple with the charcoal and left a dot. "I like quiet."

"Me too," I said. Then, because it was true: "You make it feel... quiet."

He glanced up, quick. "Good."

"Don't get cocky."

"Too late."

He finished the second sketch with a few last strokes, then blew lightly on the paper to clear dust, which felt weirdly intimate for no reason. He turned it toward me.

It was cleaner, simpler. Just the lines that mattered. I liked it even more. It looked like me on a day I wouldn't mind running into someone I wanted to impress.

"You're annoyingly good at this," I said.

"Thank you for your hostility," he said, mock-bowing.

My phone buzzed again. I finally looked. More texts from Porco, stacked like a slow avalanche.

Can we talk
I'm outside your dorm
I'm waiting

I felt the whole warm apartment tilt for a second. Jean must've seen my face because he set the sketchbook down.

"You good?"

"Yeah," I lied, then corrected, "No. He says he's outside my dorm."

"You want me to walk you?" he asked, no hesitation, like we'd been friends forever. He didn't puff up or look excited about drama. He just... offered.

I let out a breath I didn't realise I was holding. "That'd be nice."

He grabbed his keys and a hoodie without checking if they matched anything. It didn't. He turned off the record player with a gentle hand, like he was tucking it in. We left the apartment and the hallway hit us with cold air and the smell of someone's garlic dinner. On the stairs, he walked on the side closest to the railing like he was instinctively making a little shield. It was subtle. I noticed anyway.

Outside, the afternoon had turned bright and a little windy. We walked side by side, not touching, not rushing. A couple of bikes whizzed past. Somewhere, someone practised the trumpet very badly. My dorm came into view faster than I wanted it to.

Porco was actually there. Leaning on the railing like the main character in a music video, scrolling his phone with that bored-yet-agitated look. When he saw me, he straightened, then froze when he clocked Jean. For a beat, all three of us were pretending we were in a normal interaction.

"Y/N," he said. "Can we talk?"

"About what?" I asked, keeping my voice level.

He scoffed. "Seriously?"

Jean stayed a step back, hands in his pockets, eyes on me, not on Porco. It helped. I wasn't alone on the stage.

"I don't want to do this again," I said. "You said enough last night."

"That's not fair," he said, posture tilting ugly. "You made a scene—"

"I made a boundary," I corrected. "I'm making another one now. Go home."

He looked at Jean like he wanted to pick a fight and couldn't find a good reason. "Who's this?"

"An artist," I said, because it would annoy him. "He pays me in fries."

Porco's mouth worked. For a second, I saw the guy I'd liked: the joke ready on his tongue, the boyish tilt of his grin. Then it slid away, and he was just a person who'd made a choice.

"This isn't you," he said, which made me want to light something on fire.

"This is exactly me," I said, calm. "Goodbye, Porco."

He stared, angry and lost, then shoved his hands into his jacket and walked off with too much swagger. I held still until he was small. The wind picked up and stole the last of his cologne.

"You okay?" Jean asked quietly.

"Yeah," I said, surprising myself that I meant it. "Actually... yeah."

He nodded. "Do you want me to—"

"No," I said. "Thank you. I'm good."

He shifted, like he was putting away the part of himself that was ready to go full guard dog. "Tomorrow? Same time?"

"You're persistent," I said.

"I've got deadlines," he said. "And you've got a face."

I snorted. "Wow. Romance is alive."

He smiled and took a few steps backwards. "Text me if you need anything. Or if you decide ketchup is better than mayo so I can block you."

"I'm not a monster," I said.

"Good." He pointed at my hair. "Don't wash it."

"Excuse me?"

"The light likes it that way."

I made a face. "Creep."

"Artist," he corrected, walking away, hands in his pockets, stride easy. "See you, French-girl."

"Later, Louis," I called, just to see him turn around and laugh.

Inside my dorm, I finally read Porco's last text and then deleted the whole thread. It felt like taking out the trash. I set my phone face down on my desk, then picked it up again immediately because self-control is a rumour.

A new message lit up my screen, from a contact I put under the name 'Artist boy'.

You did well.

I typed:
You weren't even close enough to tell.

He replied:
I have a great imagination; I can picture it just fine.

I rolled my eyes and bit down on a smile that wouldn't quit. I put the phone down for real this time and stared at the ceiling. The room felt different, as if someone had opened a window I hadn't realised was painted shut.

I told myself I didn't like him. I told myself he was just a nice distraction with paint on his hands and a studio that smelled like coffee. I told myself this was about art and fries and nothing else.

Then I grabbed my hoodie, smelled the faint mix of charcoal and fabric softener clinging to it, and smiled into the sleeve like a complete idiot.

It was nothing. It was a sketch. It was two mugs of coffee and a joke about French girls and a boy who stood one step behind me without trying to take the step for me. It was the smallest spark. I ignored it with all the skill of a person who absolutely knew how to ignore sparks.

And when his last text arrived.

Bring the hoodie tomorrow, it's good luck.

Chapter Text

Sasha texted "group dinner therapy" twelve times like the words might unlock a secret door in my soul. Two days after the studio, I was tired, under-caffeinated, and dangerously close to cancelling when she followed up with "if you bail I will fetch you like a golden retriever." I put on jeans, lip balm, and the smallest "I'm fine" smile I owned.

Gracie's was busy in a comforting way, warm lights, too many conversations, tables that were almost the right size if nobody breathed. The chalkboard listed specials in handwriting that got panicked near the bottom. It smelled like garlic and fries. A neon sign buzzed over the bar like it knew things.

Sasha had claimed the round table right by the window and already annexed the bread basket. Connie sat next to her like a bodyguard for butter. Armin had a stack of napkins that looked like they were for an experiment. Mikasa was calmly reading the menu like it might misbehave. Eren was late, which is Eren's brand.

"There she is," Sasha sing-songed, dragging my chair out with one leg while clutching a roll with both hands. "Our broken-hearted heroine."

"I'm neither broken nor a heroine," I said, sitting. "But I will take a roll."

Sasha hissed and then, with dramatic generosity, tore the basket in half and shoved it between us. "You may have custody on weekends."

Armin leaned in. "How are you feeling? And do you want water, tea, a small horse?"

"I'm okay," I said, meaning it more than I didn't. "Sasha's offering me livestock. That helps."

Mikasa set her menu down. "You're coming with us to the gym on Saturday."

"I love this new plan-based friendship," I said. "Do I get a sticker chart?"

"Absolutely," Connie said. "One sticker per fry you don't steal."

"Then I'm getting zero stickers," Sasha said, dead serious.

Eren arrived in a gust of cold air, hair a little messy, scarf wrong. "Sorry, the bus driver and I had creative differences," he announced, sliding into the last open chair. "What did I miss?"

"Bread custody, horse offers, sticker charts," Armin summarized.

"Therapy," Mikasa said.

"Perfect," Eren said, grabbing a roll. "I brought trauma."

The waitress stopped to take drink orders and Sasha raised her hand like school. "Wine. Red. The kind that tastes like feeling nothing."

"She'll have a glass of the house red," I corrected, smiling at the waitress. "And I'll have... one glass. Small."

Sasha glared. "We're sharing."

"You're a bad influence," I said.

"I'm hungry," she said, as if that covered all sins.

We were halfway through debating appetizers when Sasha's head shot up like a meerkat. "Oh, Jean!"

My heart did a weird rollercoaster drop I pretended wasn't happening. I turned because pretending not to was worse.

There he was, inside the doorway, scanning the room. Jean in a black crewneck and a denim jacket with a smear of paint near the cuff that made my stomach do things. He spotted our table, paused for exactly one heartbeat, then slipped on the easy grin like it had been waiting in his pocket.

"Hey, chaos crew," he said, weaving through tables with that comfortable confidence, the kind where you know half the staff and none of the rules apply. He tapped Connie's shoulder, air-kissed Sasha's forehead, nodded at Armin and Mikasa. When his eyes landed on me, something in the air tightened, not bad, just... awake.

"French-girl," he said lightly.

"Art boy," I said, like my voice hadn't forgotten how to exist.

Eren's gaze ping-ponged between us. "You two know each other?"

"We met at a party," I said before anyone could rewrite history. "He witnessed my hallway villain origin story."

"And saved me from walking into a bathroom gender debate," Jean added. "Heroic of her."

Sasha beamed, looking between us with cartoon sparkles. "Also they hang out now," she told the table, too loud.

"Studio stuff," Jean said, grabbing the extra chair. The server materialised like a magician and dropped into it across from me. "Calm down, matchmakers."

Mikasa's mouth curved half a millimetre. "We are calm."

The waitress, Val, according to her nametag, appeared with our waters. Jean smiled up at her. "Hey, Val. Wrist any better?"

"Loads," she said, brightening. "Thanks for asking. You with them?"

"For my sins," he said. "We're ready to order if that saves your life."

It did. We ordered in overlapping competence instead of chaos: one loaded fries for the table (Sasha hissed), wings for Connie, a burger for Eren, steak for Mikasa, something with roasted vegetables for Armin, chicken for me, and whatever Jean picked with a shrug that said he trusted the kitchen like a religion.

Val left. The table turned into six different conversations and one long braid of noise. Controlled chaos, like we'd rehearsed it.

"So," Eren said, pointing a fork like an accusation, "Jean here is an artist. Which I think means he cries at sunsets."

"I cry at raw onions and capitalism," Jean said. "Sunsets are free. Can't cry at free."

"Ladies' man alert," Connie declared. "He said capitalism like it wronged him personally."

"It did," Mikasa said.

"See?" Jean pointed at her. "Mikasa gets it."

Sasha, chewing, pointed at me. "Tell him about the wine."

"There's nothing to tell," I said. "I'm a lightweight."

"Translation," Eren said, "she's fun after one drink."

"I'm fun all the time," I said.

"Agreed," Jean said, too quickly, then pretended to examine the salt shaker.

Sasha clocked it and smiled like a crow with a diamond. "Jean, pass the butter, you shameless flatterer."

He slid the butter to her without looking, then nudged the little dish of flaky salt toward me with his knuckle, casual, like he knew exactly what I wanted before I did. I pretended not to notice and thanked him anyway.

Armin tried to rescue the tone. "So, Jean, what's your current project?"

"Portraits," he said. "Trying to catch faces without the fake. No ring lights. No 'say cheese.' Just... people being people."

Mikasa nodded, approving of "no ring lights" like it was a moral stance.

Eren leaned back. "So you just... stare at faces? For school?"

"I stare respectfully," Jean said.

"Creep with a degree," Connie translated.

"Art with consent," Jean corrected.

I hid a smile behind my glass. Warmth was already climbing my cheeks, courtesy of exactly three sips. Economical drinking. Hybrid car of tipsy.

"So," Sasha said, way too excited, "who's your muse?"

I stared at her. She stared back like she'd just lobbed a grenade and wanted to watch it pop.

Jean lifted his water. "Hard to find a good one. My current muse keeps showing up late."

Heat shot straight to my ears. "I was on time. The stool was late."

"The stool did wobble," Armin said helpfully.

"Muse?" Eren repeated, slow, like a cat spotting a laser dot. "He has a muse?"

"I'm not a muse," I said, which somehow made everyone at the table look at me. "I'm a person who sits in a chair while he draws and talks about ketchup."

"Spicy topics," Jean said gravely.

"Girls love condiments," Connie declared. "It's science."

Val dropped off the first wave: wings, a salad Mikasa called "acceptable," and the loaded fries that arrived sizzling like a promise. Sasha clapped once, quietly, like it was a church and she respected the fries' religion.

"Don't touch these," she warned the table, already touching them. "I'm planning a strategy."

"Strategy?" I asked.

"Eat the cheesy ones first, then the crispy outliers, then go in a spiral," she explained, completely serious.

"Fry cartography," Jean said. "A noble art."

He set a fork near my plate without making eye contact. Our knees bumped under the table, a definite, warm contact quickly disguised as nothing. I moved my leg. He didn't move his. Electricity did what electricity does in movies: made me look away and pretend a water ring on the table was fascinating.

"So, art boy," Eren said, hunting, "you're always drawing. Ever tried drawing something useful? Like a map to a personality?"

"Savage," Connie whispered, delighted.

"I draw what I see," Jean said, unbothered. "And right now I see ketchup on your sleeve."

Eren looked down. He had ketchup on his sleeve. "Snitch," he muttered, dabbing with a napkin. "You're not even that observant."

"Mm," Jean said. "Okay. You lean back when you're deflecting. You chew slower when Mikasa talks because you were trained like a dog to be quiet. And when you're about to pretend you didn't hear a question, you squint and tilt your head like you're receiving radio signals from space."

Eren blinked. Then, like his body was controlled by a script, sat forward, chewed, and went very still.

The table laughed. Even Mikasa. Eren scowled, which was basically a laugh in Eren.

"Fine," he said, grudging. "You know stuff. Draw a conclusion."

"I conclude you love these people and are annoying by choice," Jean said, stealing one of Sasha's fries with a speed that could qualify him for the Olympics. Sasha slapped his wrist half-heartedly without looking away from the plate. "Ow. See? Family violence."

"Share or die," Sasha said sweetly.

Val refilled waters and set the wine carafe down. Jean poured without looking like a try-hard. He filled mine half, then topped it with a splash of water like he'd been tipped off by a ghost about my lightweight status. I watched him over the rim of my glass and he pretended not to notice.

"So," Armin tried again, "how many portraits?"

"Five," Jean said. "Six if I want to cry."

"You do," Mikasa said.

"Rude but true," he said.

Eren drummed a finger. "And the muse is...?"

"Present," Jean said, eyes sliding to me. "And insisting she's not a muse. Which is very muse behavior."

"Stop saying 'muse,'" I said. "It feels illegal."

"Fine," he said, stage sigh. "My person-who-sits-on-a-stool-and-rolls-her-eyes."

"That's better," I said, even though it wasn't. "Also accurate."

Armin smiled into his water like he had a thesis about this. Connie whispered "ooooo" until Mikasa flicked his ear.

The mains arrived and talk melted into the clatter of plates and the universal language of "try this." Jean somehow ended up with versions of exactly what I wanted to taste: the grilled thing with the crispy edge, the pasta with the chewy bite, the side that looked boring and wasn't. He'd tilt a piece onto my plate without announcing it. I'd pretend not to hover my fork.

"Good?" he asked once, quiet.

"Annoyingly," I said, equally quiet.

He smiled without showing his teeth. The paint smear on his cuff caught the light. My brain: be normal. My stomach: ok but what if we did cartwheels?

"Hey," Sasha said mid-chew, pointing at Jean with a fork, "tell them about Frygate."

"No," Jean and Connie said in unison.

"Tell me," I said, because I enjoy chaos.

Jean sighed. "Sasha dunked a fry into three sauces at once."

"That's not a crime," I said.

"...and then into her milkshake," he finished.

I turned slowly. "Sasha."

"It's optimal temperature differential," she said, shrugging. "Hot. Cold. Life."

"I'm calling The Hague," Jean said.

"You owe me fries from last semester," Sasha shot back.

"That debt expires if you milkshake a potato," he said.

"Never," she said.

The wine was doing its warm-cheek magic. I wasn't sloppy; I was soft-focus. I could hear the music from the bar, the buzz of light, the squeak of a shoe on tile. The table had a good heartbeat. I let myself sink into it a little.

"Dessert?" Val asked, and Sasha answered "Yes" before air left anyone's lungs.

"Chocolate lava thing, apple crumble, cheesecake," she rattled off. "And a scoop of vanilla because balance."

"Balance," Connie echoed.

"Two spoons each," Armin added, practical.

Mikasa said nothing and somehow communicated "Bring a third spoon."

Eren bumped Jean's shoulder with his. "So, ladies' man. You charming the entire waitstaff tonight, or you taking a night off?"

"Night off," Jean said, then ruined it by smiling at Val when she passed. "Mostly."

"You always like this?" Eren pressed, competitive creeping in. "Juggling attention?"

"Only when I'm bored," Jean said lazily. "Which I'm not."

"Because of the muse," Eren sing-songed under his breath.

Mikasa didn't look up from her water. "Let it go."

Dessert landed and turned the table into a cooperative heist. "Left corner," Jean murmured, nudging my spoon toward a perfect edge of molten chocolate. I took it without thinking. He watched me taste it like he got graded on the outcome. I hated that about him, and also didn't.

"This is criminal," I said.

"Visiting hours are Thursday," he said.

Sasha groaned at her cheesecake like the slice had told her she was beautiful. Connie tried to photograph the lava cake and only got three fingers and a blur. Armin managed to cut equal pieces like a diplomat. Eren announced he didn't like dessert and then ate half the apple crumble straight from the tin.

When the check came, the math tried to kill us. Armin started to divide, Eren rounded down, Mikasa quietly corrected, Sasha tipped like she was apologising for existing, Connie wrote a heart instead of doing anything useful, and Jean slid a folded bill under the leather check holder like a magician palming a coin.

"Stop," I said, catching him. "You don't have to—"

"It's easier," he said. "I'm allergic to Venmo arguments."

"That's not a thing," I said, and he smiled at me like it was.

We spilt into the street. The air had cooled, the kind of clean cold that woke your skin up. A bus sighed at the corner. A bike bell chimed. The world was doing its ordinary thing.

"I'm not drunk," I announced, because that's what a drunk person says.

"Unconvinced," Jean said, catching my elbow when I stepped off the curb like gravity was optional. He let go immediately, hands back in his pockets, attention pretending to be on a passing dog.

Sasha hooked her arm through mine. "We're getting pancakes."

"It's ten p.m.," Armin said.

"Breakfast is a mindset," Sasha said. "Come on, Connie."

Connie saluted and followed her toward the bus, already debating syrup viscosity. Mikasa and Armin peeled left toward the library because of course they did. Eren drifted, then paused, eyeing Jean, then me, then the space between us, then smirking like a cartoon villain who'd just discovered foreshadowing.

"No," Mikasa said without turning.

"Fine," Eren sighed, sauntering after them. "Text the group chat if you kiss."

Mikasa: "No."

Eren: "Okay, but—"

Mikasa: "No."

We were alone under a streetlight that put faint halos on the sidewalk. My building was two blocks away. Jean rocked on his heels like he had time.

"Walk you?" he asked, voice easy.

"It's not on your way," I said.

"I live everywhere," he said. "Artist thing."

"Stop saying artist thing," I said, smiling because my face was out of my control. "But... sure."

We fell into step. He took the street side without making a show of it. I pretended not to be charmed by basic safety.

"Did you seriously call me your muse?" I asked after half a block, "in public."

"I called you my person-who-sits-on-a-stool," he said. "Muse was Sasha's word. I was joking."

"You were not joking," I said.

He thought about it. "I was half joking."

"Half is a lot," I said.

"I meant it in the non-creepy way," he said. "The 'you make me want to try' way."

The quiet that followed wasn't awkward. It just existed. We passed a shop window full of plants, trying their best. A kid scooted by on a skateboard. Somewhere, someone's TV laughed.

"You okay with tonight?" he asked. "The group thing. Eren being Eren. Sasha marrying fries."

"It was nice," I admitted. "Controlled chaos."

"Yeah," he said. "Best kind."

At my building, I stopped on the first step and turned to face him. He looked like the version of himself I kept accidentally liking: casual and kind, charm turned down to a soft hum. Hands in his jacket. Hair doing that thing. Paint smear still there, stubborn as a personality trait.

"Thanks," I said. "For the walk. And for not topping off my wine like a menace."

"I like you conscious," he said, then blinked. "Present. I like you present."

My heart did a weird stutter. "Good save."

"Thanks. I practice," he said, deadpan.

We stood there like a movie was supposed to tell us what to do next. He didn't step in. He didn't step back. He just watched my face like it was a piece he wanted to get right.

"Tomorrow?" he asked, softer. "Studio?"

I made a show of thinking. "Maybe."

He smiled like he knew what "maybe" meant when it came from me. "Don't wash your hair."

I groaned. "Stop."

"The light—"

"Goodnight, Jean."

"Night, Y/N."

I went inside before my mouth did something honest. The lobby smelled like cleaner and a little lemon. The elevator mirrors caught my flushed cheeks and stupid grin and didn't ask questions.

My phone buzzed when I reached my floor.

Home? 

I replied with a quick 'yep' before adding 'you?'

Pretending my place is two blocks from yours, so I can say yes.

Stop pretending. Bring fries tomorrow, I wrote. I'll forgive you

You really do like your fries, don't you? Fine, I'll bring a medium. 

I locked my door and leaned against it like a cliché, smiling into the quiet. It wasn't a big thing. It wasn't a plan. It was a table that felt like a family, a walk that felt like a choice, and a boy who said "muse" like a joke while drawing me like he meant it.

I set an alarm for tomorrow, because the stool is always late and I don't want to be.

Chapter Text

The plan was simple. Shower. Coffee. Sit on a stool and try not to blink too much while Jean draws me. That is what I told myself while I stood in front of the closet and rejected every single thing I owned.

Black jeans felt safe. I pulled them on, looked in the mirror, and pulled them off again. The skirt was hanging there like it had been waiting for me to admit something. It was black and short, not reckless, just honest. I put it on and did the usual little wiggle to check the length. Not a mini, not innocent either. Fine. Physics said it was already warm out. Practical, I told my reflection.

The lace tank top was a worse idea. I put it on anyway. Flowers traced the neckline and hooked under the straps in a way that made me look like I had planned to be seen. I added mascara and then pretended the wand had attacked me. My hair tried to pretend it wanted to be a frizz cloud, so I talked it into something that looked like I had tried. Perfume sat on the dresser, silently judging. I walked past it, then walked back. One spray. I stared at myself. Another spray. It is called hygiene.

By the time I was at the door, I had downgraded my mental speech from I am not dressing up for him to I am dressed. That is all.

The walk to his building felt different than the last two times. I noticed the chalk hopscotch faded into the sidewalk at the corner. A bike bell chimed three blocks over. There was a sweet smell coming from a bakery I had never paid attention to. My head was busy and quiet at the same time, a strange combination that made me walk faster.

I knocked once. The door opened before my knuckles landed a second time.

He was there with a half smile and a white button-up that should not have looked as good as it did. The sleeves were rolled to his forearms. The top buttons were open just enough to look easy, not calculated. His hair was neater than usual, still his, but like he had run a hand through it and then respected the result. There was a light on his collarbone where the window hit. Charcoal dust smudged his fingers even though he had clearly tried to start clean.

"Hey, French girl," he said. "You are early. Should I alert the press."

"Frame this," I said, lifting my phone. "Museum piece."

He stepped aside and let me in. "You look like the weather said please."

"New shirt," I said, trying to sound normal. "You ironed."

"I attempted," he said. "The shirt survived. I thought my muse deserved fabric that was not a felony."

"Stop saying muse," I said, but the word landed in my stomach and stayed there.

The apartment smelled like coffee and paint again. Sunlight slid across the floorboards, stopping in a pale rectangle where the stool waited by the window. Canvases leaned everywhere. Two sketches of me were pinned on a larger canvas, one near profile, one with my head tilted down like I had been listening. The fairy lights above his bed were off, but they held onto the daylight in a way that made the corner feel softer.

He had already poured one mug. He grabbed another for me. "Coffee?"

"Yes, please."

He handed it over and the warmth sank into my fingers. The mug had a little paint fingerprint right where my thumb landed. The detail made something in my chest unclench. It was a small, domestic thing in a room full of half finished work.

"The stool missed you," he said, moving toward the window with his sketchpad and a fistful of charcoal.

"The stool is clingy," I said. I sat and the legs wobbled once. He nudged one with his shoe until it steadied.

We slid into our usual rhythm before I could overthink anything. He stood half turned, shoulder to me, eyes moving between my face and the paper. The sound of charcoal on paper filled the space between us. It was soft and scratchy at the same time. Outside, a bus sighed at the corner. Someone upstairs walked across their floor with a heavy step. A breeze found the edge of his curtain and lifted it just enough to let the light shift over my knee.

"You are quiet today," he said without looking up.

"I am thinking."

"Dangerous."

"I am allowed," I said. "It is Saturday."

He smiled. "What are we thinking about."

"Whether this skirt was a mistake."

"It is a strong artistic choice," he said. "Ten out of ten would draw again."

"That is not helpful."

"Honest feedback is part of my process."

"Do you always annoy your models," I asked.

"Only the ones I like."

He said it so easily that I could not decide if he did not understand the effect it would have or if he knew exactly what he was doing. The answer did not matter. My face warmed like the sun had moved closer.

He tilted his head and stepped a little closer. "Do not move."

"I was not planning to."

His hand lifted and hovered near my temple. "May I."

I nodded.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His thumb brushed the top of my cheekbone by accident or on purpose, I could not tell. It was a light touch, careful. The kind of touch that felt like he was editing the moment rather than my hair. He stepped back a fraction, eyes focused like the light had showed him something new.

"Better," he said quietly.

"You say that to all your models," I asked.

"Only the ones who make the room feel different."

He went back to the easel. The quiet grew. I tried to look at the window and not at the line of his throat. The light moved again and landed on the open collar of his shirt. There were small pale marks on his forearm, paint ghosts that had survived a wash. I thought about how he moved when he drew. He was not stiff. He shifted his weight like the drawing was not on the paper, but in the air between us and he had to stand inside it.

"Okay," he said after a while. "Tilt your chin just a little."

I did. He watched. He did not tell me when to stop, so I paused and waited. He nodded once, returned to the page, and the charcoal made a quick, sure sound that I had learned meant he liked the angle.

The air felt full. Not heavy. Not tense. Just full. The kind of full that made every small sound matter, the scrape of the chair leg when I adjusted my foot, the soft tick of the kettle cooling on the counter, his breathing when he leaned in to shade a corner and forgot to breathe out.

"You are doing that thing," he said.

"What thing."

"That face. The one you had last time when you decided to be brave for exactly thirty seconds."

"I am not brave," I said, too fast.

"You are," he said, and it was not an argument, just a fact he put on the table for me to disagree with later.

He set the charcoal down and picked up a softer pencil for details. His eyes flicked up to mine and held. The pencil hesitated over the paper and did not move.

"Hold still," he said. His voice had dropped, not to be dramatic, just because the room told it to.

My mouth said a quiet okay. I did not know what my eyes said.

The quiet turned into that moment that lives right before a storm. Not loud, not bright. Charged. The curtain lifted again. The light slid higher up my thigh and caught the lace on my top. He noticed. I saw him notice. He did not look away quickly. He looked back at my face and he was not smiling. Not in the usual way. It was a smaller curve, a question more than an answer.

His hand lifted again, slower this time. He did not touch me. He traced the air near my cheek like he was drawing a line I could not see. His knuckles hovered a breath away. I sat very still. I felt the warmth of him in a small straight line over my skin.

He stepped close enough that I could count the darker flecks in his eyes. One, two, three. The light caught his eyelashes and put a thin shadow on his cheek. He looked at my mouth in the smallest movement imaginable. It was not a glance the way people steal at parties. It was a consideration. A tiny pause in his attention that asked nothing and expected nothing.

He did not lean in like a movie. He leaned in like he was checking a brush stroke.

I was looking at his eyes and then I was not. His mouth landed on mine in a soft, sure press that felt like stepping into a warm room from the cold. I did not realize it was a kiss until my body told me my hands needed somewhere to go. One slid to the edge of the stool and tightened. The other lifted, then thought better of it, and lowered again. The second I understood what was happening, my lips curved against his, surprised. He answered the curve with a quiet breath that I felt more than heard.

It was not long. It was not careful to the point of fear either. It was a kiss that belonged to the same category as laughter you try to hold back and fail. When he pulled away, he did not move far. He stayed close enough for his breath to touch my mouth. I let mine out in a small rush I had not planned.

He studied my face with a painter's focus. "There it is," he said, almost to himself.

"There what is," I asked, and my voice sounded different. A little higher. A little breathless.

"The expression that ruins me," he said, then smiled like he knew that was dramatic and was going to say it anyway.

I sat back a fraction. Somewhere in the space behind my ribs the old fear rattled its cup against the bars. I saw a hallway and a bad decision and a word I hated stuck to my name.

"You have a reputation," I said, and I hated that I said it right then, but I needed to. "Ladies man."

He nodded once like he had expected it to show up eventually. He put both hands in his pockets, which is what he does when he wants to give me space. "I have people who think they know me," he said. "I flirt. I am friendly. I know a lot of people because I talk to them. That turns into a story that fits easily into a sentence. It is not the same as who I am."

"And who are you," I asked. It came out softer than I wanted.

He thought about it, eyes not leaving mine. "I am a person who likes to know what is real. I like when someone looks like themselves and not like what they think I want. I like when the room is quiet, not empty. I like when the coffee is burned a little because it means we talked too long. I do not collect."

The quiet stretched. He let it. He did not reach. He did not plead. He waited like it was part of the drawing and he would not rush a line he wanted to get right.

Something in me that had been holding itself at the back door for two days stepped forward. I stood, the stool legs creaking, and he straightened a little but did not move. I put my hand on the front of his shirt where it had folded over near the buttons. The fabric was warm. I tugged lightly. He came the rest of the way.

The second kiss was mine. I knew what I was doing and that helped. He smiled into it and then stopped smiling and let it be what it was. His palm found my jaw and held me like I was an idea he had been trying to remember. His other hand stayed at his side. The restraint was not performative. It felt like respect. It made me want to step closer. So I did.

When we parted, I leaned my forehead against his cheek because I did not know where else to put it. He breathed out a laugh that touched my skin.

"I should put that expression in a museum," he said. "Wait one second."

I turned my head enough to see him reach for his phone on the counter. He lifted it, dipped it, and looked over the top at me with a warning sparkle in his eyes.

"Do not," I said.

"Just a reference," he said. "Artist thing."

"You cannot keep saying artist thing and expect it to work."

"Watch me," he said, and then the soft click of the shutter happened. He showed me the screen quickly. It was not a close up. It was the two of us in the same frame, me with that post decision softness and him with a look I did not want to name yet. The white of his shirt made the light in the room look better than it probably was.

"Delete it," I said automatically.

"Never," he said, but he lowered the phone and put it face down like he knew the joke had a limit.

The air changed. Not awkward, not hot. Just calm. The kind of calm that happens after a wave hits and pulls back.

"Can we still draw," I asked, because I wanted to be inside the part where we do the thing we said we were going to do.

"We can definitely still draw," he said, like I had offered him his favorite answer. "Session three. Official."

He set the phone far away on the table, stood behind the easel again, and found a fresh page. The pencil marks started small and sure. I returned to the stool. He did not tell me where to put my hands. He did not ask me to tilt my chin. He looked up at me and something in his face relaxed. He drew faster than he had when I walked in.

"Tell me something true," he said after a minute.

"About what."

"Anything. First thing that hits your mouth before your brain edits it."

I thought about it and then decided not to. "I like when you remember the waitress's name."

He nodded, like that fit a picture he was making. "I like when you pretend you do not care and your eyes give you away."

"That is mean."

"That is accurate," he said, eyes flicking between me and the page.

The noise outside settled into a soft street hum. Someone below us opened a window and a radio drifted up for a minute, just a chorus. He shaded the hollow below my cheekbone and softened the line where the light hit my forehead. He looked at my mouth, then back at my eyes, then kept drawing.

"Are you hungry," he asked.

"Always."

"There is a diner down the block," he said. "Forgives all known sins. Pancakes for cowards, grilled cheese for heroes."

"Which am I," I asked.

"You are a person who orders pancakes and then eats half my fries," he said.

"That is correct."

He drew in silence for a while. My shoulders found the right place to set, the one that did not ache. The stool behaved. The sun slid toward the far window and put a warmer edge on the floorboards. I counted my breaths and then forgot to count. He blew lightly across the page to move the dust. The small cloud sparkled for a second in the light and then was gone.

"Done for now," he said finally. He turned the pad and held it so the light did not glare. "Meet you."

I stood and stepped closer. The sketch was not clean in the decorative way. It was clean in the way that tells the truth and does not apologize. He had caught that stubborn curve in my mouth again, but there was something else around my eyes that had not been there in the earlier ones. Softer. Braver. Open in a way that did not feel like I was about to break.

"I like this one," I said. It was not a performance. I liked it enough that my throat felt stupid for a second.

"Good," he said. "Me too."

We stood there longer than we needed to, looking at the same piece of paper, sharing the same patch of light.

"Food," I said eventually, because my stomach made a noise that would have embarrassed me if he had not smiled like it was a joke we had written together.

"Food," he agreed. "Bring your lucky hoodie if you want the staff to respect you."

"It is summer," I said, laughing. "Hoodies are a winter sport."

"Art is a year round sport," he said, grabbing his keys. "Shoes."

I slid mine on near the door while he switched off the small lamp on his desk and checked the stove like a person who has set a tea towel on fire before. The apartment held onto us for a second. Coffee. Paint. Paper. The little humming quiet that we had been making all morning.

In the hallway, he fell into step beside me, not touching, not guiding, just there. On the stairs he stayed on the inside and let me take the railing. It was a small thing. I noticed. Outside, the heat had turned into a nicer warmth. The city was going wherever cities go on a Saturday afternoon. A kid on a scooter streaked past and yelled that he was speed. A dog tugged its person. The street smelled like cut grass and somebody's bacon.

We did not speak for half a block. It did not feel like a test. It felt like resting.

"You okay," he asked, and it was a quiet question, not a checkmark.

"Yes," I said, and I meant it. "You."

"Yes," he said.

He bumped my shoulder with his, light. "Do not wash your hair tomorrow."

I looked at him on purpose and let the smile come. "Stop."

"The light loves it," he said. "I have proof."

"I will sue you and your proof," I said. "Artist thing."

He laughed. "That is my line."

"It is mine now."

At the diner, we got a booth near the window. The vinyl seat squeaked. There were hand drawn stars on the specials board and a server with a nametag that said Bea and three little stickers around it. He ordered fries without being asked. I ordered pancakes because he had called me on it and I wanted to be predictable just to see him grin.

Bea brought water and looked at the two of us like she had seen versions of this before. "You two look like you did something brave," she said, half teasing.

"Art," Jean said. "She sat still for thirty minutes."

"Heroic," Bea said, and walked away.

When the food came, the fries steamed and the pancakes were the size of a record. I reached for his plate without waiting. He moved his hand out of the way like he had already predicted it. We ate and laughed and let the grease and sugar turn the day into a glow.

Halfway through, he took out his phone and unlocked it, then turned it so the screen faced me. The photo from earlier was still open. He did not say look at this. He just let it sit there on the table where I could or could not look.

I did. The two of us were caught in a little square that made the studio look bigger than it was. The light looked expensive, even though it was just sun. My face had that open, post choice softness. His had a real smile, not the social one. I did not hate it.

"I might let you keep that," I said.

"You might," he said. "Or I will draw it and pretend the photo never existed."

"You are impossible," I said.

"True," he said, pleased. "But useful."

We finished the pancakes and the fries. He paid before I could argue and then pretended it was because he has allergies to math. I threatened to Venmo him anyway. He said he would block me if I named the payment fries tax. I said watch me.

We stepped back into the afternoon. The sun had moved, the light on the buildings had changed, the breeze had shifted toward warm. He walked me to the corner and then farther than the corner. At my building, he did not ask to come up. He did not make a speech. He looked at me like I was the thing he would be drawing later whether I sat on the stool or not.

"Tomorrow," he said.

"Maybe," I said, because I cannot help myself.

He smiled like he knew what that meant coming from me. "Text me if you change your mind."

"About what."

"Anything," he said, then corrected himself. "Everything."

"Specific," I said.

"Painfully," he said.

I went inside with a full heart and a calm I did not trust yet but liked anyway. The lobby smelled like floor cleaner and lemons. Inside the elevator the mirror caught my face and gave it back to me the way his sketch had. Open. A little brave. Not pretending.

My phone buzzed as the doors opened on my floor.

home, he had written.

yeah, I typed. you

pretending my place is across the street so I can say yes

do not get hit by a car, I wrote. bring the photo tomorrow. or the drawing. dealer's choice

both, he wrote. ladies man discount

less charm, I added.

medium charm, he sent back. and extra fries

I unlocked my door and leaned against it like I had stepped out of a scene and into another one. The room smelled like my perfume and coffee from the morning. I set the phone face down and then picked it back up, smiling like a person who had done something brave and was going to do it again.

The air felt different. Not heavy. Not loud. Full. The good kind.

Chapter Text

Two weeks went by in a blur of classes and small routines that somehow kept circling back to him. I pretended not to count the days between studio sessions. He texted me photos of half-finished sketches and once a picture of his sink full of brushes with the caption "industrial dishwashing." I sent him a shot of my notes covered in doodled flowers and one lopsided heart I immediately regretted. He replied with a tiny smiley and did not make it weird.

On Thursday night, he sent the invite.

exhibition tomorrow evening. student show. I'll be the one pretending not to care. Come if you want

I wanted. I told him yes. Then I stared at the ceiling for a while and told myself it was just an art show. No big deal. People. Walls. Paper. I would look at things. I would clap with my eyes.

The art building smelled like varnish and energy drinks. The hallways hummed with voices. Every classroom had turned into a mini gallery with lights dragged from somewhere and extension cords running like vines. You could feel the nerves under the chatter. Students pretended to be cool while professors pretended not to judge, and everyone's friends said wow a lot.

I found him in the main studio, where the big windows made the evening light look expensive. His section sat along the far wall. Four portraits on black clips, one larger piece in the center. The room shifted in my head the way rooms do when you spot the person you came for.

Jean wore a dark shirt, sleeves rolled, hair behaving. He looked like he had slept and also like he had not. The second he saw me, the tired part left his face.

"You came," he said, stepping in close enough that I could smell his soap under the paint.

"You invited me," I said, which felt like a flimsy cover for I would have showed up even if you hadn't.

He tipped his head toward the wall. "Ready to make eye contact with paper versions of you."

I took a breath and walked to the center piece before I lost nerve. He had not told me what he was putting up. He had not told me about the last drawing at all.

I stopped. Looked.

He had translated the photo. Not literally. Better. The charcoal lines had softened the edges and sharpened the feeling. It was the two of us from his studio, caught mid-laugh and mid-something else. My mouth had that new curve he liked to tease. His smile was real and a little surprised, eyes looking at me, not the viewer. Our shoulders leaned without touching. It said more than it showed.

I felt my face heat and my spine lift at the same time. Flustered and proud, tangled together.

He watched me, careful now, like my reaction was one more thing he was trying to get right.

"It is beautiful," I said, and then hated how small my voice sounded.

"Good beautiful or please take it down beautiful," he asked.

"Good," I said, stronger. "Good good."

His mouth tipped. "That is a technical term."

"It is now."

The other portraits were different moods of me. One with my chin up and eyes stubborn. One softer, the line of my mouth almost smiling. One with my gaze turned off to the side like I was listening to something no one else could hear. The last one was almost all light and shadow with barely any hard lines, and yet there I was, recognizable.

"You did these fast," I said.

"Fast when I knew what I wanted," he said.

"How did you know," I asked.

He looked at me in a way that answered the question and made my stomach drop. "Practice," he said out loud.

People drifted past. A guy with green hair stopped and squinted at the center piece. "Spicy," he said to his friend, then kept moving. A woman with a notebook took the names on the cards under each work. Mine all said Untitled, which made me laugh for no reason.

A voice cleared behind us. "Kirstein."

We turned. His professor stood there with a clipboard and a cardigan that had been through a lot. She had the kind expression of someone who could also end your whole semester with one sentence.

"Professor," Jean said. He slipped into polite mode without losing himself, which was something I liked about him and also hated because it made my chest warm.

She looked at the series, arms folded, not giving anything away for a long moment. Her gaze landed on the center drawing and stayed.

"You found your range," she said finally. "You stopped pushing for clever and started telling the truth."

Jean's shoulders loosened a fraction. "I tried."

"You did more than try." She stepped closer to the central piece and smiled, small but true. "You can tell your girlfriend inspires you."

My brain short-circuited. Warm shot right to my face. I made a sound that was probably a word before words decided to go on strike.

Jean did not miss a beat. He slid his arm around my shoulders like it belonged there, light and casual, and looked perfectly at ease. "She does," he said.

I tried to pull together some adult response. "We are actually not— I mean— This is—"

The professor nodded, already half turned to the next student's work. "Either way. It reads." She lifted her clipboard, made a note, and moved along, calling "Good work" over her shoulder as if she had not just detonated something.

Jean kept his arm where it was for a second longer, then looked down at me with a straight face and eyes that were definitely laughing.

"Do not," I said quietly.

He tipped his head. "Do not what."

"Do not look so pleased with yourself."

"I am being supportive," he said. He squeezed my shoulder once and let his arm fall. "You survived."

I pressed my lips together and tried not to grin. "You are insufferable."

"And yet," he said, turning back to the drawings, hands tucked into his pockets, "you are here."

"Shut up and take the compliment," I said. "They are good."

"Thank you," he said, and the way he said it made me want to take his hand and also push him into a wall. I did neither. I stood there and pretended I was a normal person at an art show.

We made a slow circuit through the room. His classmates had done wild things with color and line and fabric. A sculpture in the corner looked like an exploded instrument that had decided to be beautiful anyway. We paused to say nice things, and he remembered names I forgot as soon as I heard them. He introduced me as Y/N, and sometimes as the person who saved him from overthinking, which made me want to hide under a table.

By the time we got back to his wall, the room had filled more. Voices grew louder. Laughter floated from a cluster near the door. Someone's playlist bled from a speaker. The windows had turned gold. I caught our reflection in the glass. For a second we looked like we belonged on the wall too.

"Want to escape," he asked.

"Yes," I said, not pretending.

We took the long way out so we would not get trapped in a conversation about charcoal grain the size of a dissertation. The hallway felt cooler. The hum of the show dimmed behind us. He dropped his voice the way people do in quiet spaces.

"I know she surprised you," he said. "If it made you uncomfortable, I can move the center piece down. Or take it out. I do not need the chaos."

"It did not make me uncomfortable," I said. It half did and half didn't and that added up to something like more. "It just felt... big."

"It is big," he said. "So we do not have to name it yet."

We stepped outside and the evening had turned into that soft time when the sky can't decide between blue and orange. The steps of the building were warm under people's hands. A bike rattled past. Someone laughed on the far side of the lawn. For a minute we stood there and watched the light change.

"Hungry," he asked.

"No," I said, surprising both of us. "Come over. I will cook."

His eyebrows did a small jump. "Should I alert emergency services in advance."

"Rude," I said. "I can cook."

"You once burned toast on a pan."

"Why do you remember that," I asked.

He smiled. "Occupational hazard. I notice things."

"Fine," I said. "I will not burn anything."

He held both hands up in surrender. "I will bring an appetite and low expectations."

"Bring yourself," I said, and then immediately found something fascinating to stare at across the street.

He walked me home. Our shoulders brushed once when we turned the corner, and neither of us apologized. The late sun pulled long shadows across the sidewalk. The sky went from orange to the kind of pink you only get for five minutes before it fades.

My apartment looked like it always did but somehow different with him in it. He took his shoes off without being told and set them by the door, which should not have been as attractive as it was. He looked around like he was cataloging my whole life, then let it be what it was.

"Kitchen," I said, pointing. "Rule one. Do not judge."

"I would never," he said, already smiling like he was about to. "What are we making."

"Burgers," I decided, because that was safe and dinner-like and I could not mess up salt.

He washed his hands like he did it for a living and then rolled his sleeves one more turn. I hated how much I liked it. He leaned against the counter at my shoulder while I checked the fridge.

"Okay," I said. "We have ground beef. We have onions. We have exactly two slices of cheese if we are careful. We have buns. We might have pickles hiding. We also have a suspicious tomato."

"Throw the tomato away," he said. "It has seen things."

We covered the counter with the ingredients like we were doing science. He let me take the lead and only stepped in when I looked like I was about to harm the onion. He showed me how to hold the knife so my fingers were not in the line of fire. He pretended not to notice when I flinched at the first sizzle.

"What do we call them," he asked while the patties hissed.

"Burgers," I said.

"Boring," he said. "This one can be The Late Submission. That one is Untitled No. 3. The extra cheese is The Audacity."

I snorted. "You are not naming my dinner."

"I am curating it," he said. "There is a difference."

"Get the plates, curator," I said.

He set the table with an exaggerated flourish. I added two glasses of water and a bowl of chips I found in the back of the cupboard that were still mostly intact. We ate at the tiny table that was not really built for two people but tried anyway.

The burgers were good. Better than good. We both made the surprised noise at the same time and then laughed because we liked that about us, the moments that lined up without planning.

"This is ridiculous," he said around a bite. "I am going to have to commission your kitchen."

"Commission yourself," I said. "I did the hard part."

"You did," he said, and there was pride in his tone like I had passed a test he had not told me about.

When we were full, we migrated to the couch with the leftover chips and two small bowls of something pretending to be dessert. The movie we picked was a comfort movie where nothing bad happens and the jokes still work after a hundred watches. We synched in under a minute, like we had been practicing for weeks. He sat with one arm along the back of the couch, not touching. I leaned into the corner with my legs tucked up, close enough to feel his warmth.

Halfway through, my head found his shoulder on its own. He stilled for a second and then adjusted a little, not to trap me, just to make room. His shirt was soft where it met my cheek. His breath was slow and even. The movie hummed on and the room settled around us.

"Comfortable," he asked, voice low like the volume.

"Yes," I said, which came out more like a breath than a word.

He reached for the remote and turned the sound down a notch. I felt that more than I heard it. After a while I forgot to hold up the part of myself that always waits for the other shoe. I watched a silly scene. I laughed into his shoulder. He laughed too and I felt it under my cheek.

At some point the credits rolled. I did not see them. I drifted.

When I woke, the room was dim and the credits had looped back to the menu. The only light came from the kitchen where I had forgotten to turn off the little lamp over the sink. My neck did not hurt. My back did not protest. He had tucked a folded blanket at my side without waking me. I realized I was still on his shoulder. I realized he had not moved.

I shifted, blinking. "Sorry," I murmured, already embarrassed.

"For what," he asked. His voice had the warm rasp of someone who almost fell asleep too.

"For using you as furniture," I said.

"I am high end," he said. "Very supportive."

I raised my head and rubbed my eyes. He looked soft in the low light. He looked at me like I was not heavy at all.

"You should go home," I said gently. "Before the buses stop being themselves."

He nodded and stood, stretching his back in a way that made my body consider twelve unhelpful ideas. He slipped his shoes on and turned near the door.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "To the show. To here."

"Thank you for inviting me," I said.

He stepped closer without crowding the doorway. "Text me when you wake up tomorrow. I want to know what your first thought is."

"Coffee," I said.

"Your second thought," he amended.

"You," I said before I could stop myself, then slapped a hand over my mouth like that would rewind the universe.

He blinked, slow, then smiled in that quiet way that still surprises me. "Goodnight, Y/N."

"Goodnight, Jean."

He left with a soft click of the door. The room felt full but not noisy. I turned off the kitchen lamp, then stood for a second in the dark and let my eyes adjust. My apartment smelled like onions and heat and his soap. I brushed my teeth. I climbed into bed with my hair still smelling like his laundry detergent. I told myself to think about anything else.

I woke to sunlight and a message waiting.

home, he had written, with a small star.

yes, I wrote back. slept on the couch. chef's fault

best burger of my life, he sent. The Audacity wins

i am never letting you name food again, I wrote. also the professor called me your girlfriend and I am still red

he replied fast.

she was reading the room, muse. you can be flustered. i will be calm for both of us

you are not calm, I wrote.

medium calm, he sent. see you tonight. bring that look from the drawing. i want to see if i can catch it again

you are impossible, I wrote.

true, he sent back. still useful

I stared at the screen and then at the ceiling and then at the spot on my couch where my head had been. The memory felt like it belonged in a frame. Not the kind on a wall. The kind you carry around without realising it until the light hits it just right.

I got up. I made coffee. I let the morning be simple for once. And somewhere under the quiet, pride and a blush held hands and refused to let go.

Chapter Text

The first sign that he was quietly taking up space in my life was the coffee.

It started as a joke. He texted me a photo of a crooked latte heart with the caption "interpretive caffeine," and I sent back a blurry pic of my chipped mug with "tragic realism." The next morning he tapped on my door at eight with a to-go cup and a grin like he had just beaten a level and wanted me to see. He set the cup down on my desk and kissed the air near my temple, not touching, and said, "Study fuel. I'll be over here not breathing loudly."

He really did try not to breathe loudly. He claimed the corner of my room near the window where the light was kind, opened his sketchbook, and went quiet in that way he has where the silence feels intentional, not empty. I highlighted sentences and underlined things I probably wouldn't remember. Every time I glanced up, he was there, head tilted, pencil moving. It felt like a little church no one had to pray in.

By the end of the week, there were three empty cups lined on my bookshelf like trophies and a soft graphite smudge on my desk where his sleeve kept brushing the wood. I kept pretending not to notice how much I liked that smudge. It made my space feel like a photo you could touch.

The second sign was the laundry.

"Take the bed," he said one afternoon, arms full of my warm sheets because the dryer in the basement had actually done its job. "You fold like a raccoon."

"I do not," I said, then looked at the lopsided pillowcase in my hands and amended, "I fold like a raccoon that cares."

He flicked a corner straight with a neat tug and didn't comment when I lost a fitted sheet to physics. I watched his hands work, quick and sure, and felt that weird brightness in my chest I pretend not to have. It wasn't about the sheet. It was watching someone move through my small life as if it was already partly theirs, like it was easy to help and natural to stay.

The third sign was the mess.

It isn't that my place is chaotic. It's more that it's mine, and small, and everything has to earn its square inches. Now there were extra pencils in my old tea tin. An eraser that looked like chewed gum beside my lamp. A sketchbook half-slid under my bed because we ran out of surfaces. A button from his denim jacket on my dresser that he hadn't noticed was missing. When I cleaned, I kept stepping around his things as if they were sleeping animals.

Most nights we made simple dinners. I chopped vegetables with the focus of a surgeon because the first week he had gently stolen the knife from me after I tried to dice an onion like I was angry at it. He would set the table in that dramatic way he does, elbows and flourishes and bowing to an audience of none. We ate and talked about nothing heavy. Homework. A weird dog we saw on the way home. A poem he liked that week. Every once in a while he would sketch while I read, and I would look up and find my face staring back from his page with a different mouth or a softer line and a note in the margin that always said something like fix ear.

We didn't call it anything. I didn't ask for a name. That felt smart until I learned it also feels like standing in a doorway when part of you wants to step inside.

On a Wednesday in the middle of midterms, Sasha showed up with enough energy to power the building. She barged in without waiting for me to say come in, dumped a tote bag on my rug, and immediately honed in on my table.

"Wow," she said, eyes wide. "Your art boyfriend lives here."

"My what," I said, which would have sounded more convincing if there wasn't a cup of sharpened pencils sitting on my table like a bouquet and three different kneaded erasers beside my laptop like mascots.

Sasha touched a brush like it might bite. "Look at this. Sketchbooks stacked like pancakes. This is a nest. You two are nesting."

"We are not birds," I said. "Also he is not my boyfriend."

She raised her eyebrows so high they almost left her forehead. "Then why do I see a pencil case on your chair, a hoodie on your bed, and a shoe under your desk that is not your size."

I looked under the desk. There was a shoe. It had paint on it.

"He was here yesterday," I said. "He forgot it."

Sasha leaned on her elbows and smiled like a cat. "He forgets a lot of things here."

I opened my mouth to argue and realized there was nothing to argue with. My room had quietly turned into a map of someone else's habits. The sight of his stuff lit up a path inside me. It was a soft light. I stared at the path until it felt too bright and then looked away.

"Anyway," Sasha said, flopping onto my bed. "Want bubble tea. I can bribe you."

"I have to finish this reading," I said. "Also I am very poor."

"I will bribe you for free," she said. "Price tag is company."

I put my pen down and sat on the bed beside her. She rolled onto her side and grinned at me, already knowing she was about to say something true and annoying.

"He is basically moved in," she whispered.

The words hit like a soft ball to the chest. Not painful. Startling. My face did that slow heat thing that is not quite a blush and not quite embarrassment. I felt every open drawer in my brain slam shut at once.

"He is not," I said. "We are just... spending time."

"That is what people who are basically living together say, babe."

"We are not," I insisted. "We haven't even... We are taking it slow."

"I know," she said, gentler now. "I like it for you."

"I like it too," I said, and then the second half came without permission. "But I don't know what it is."

Sasha took my hand and squeezed. "You don't have to know yet."

She left me with a bubble tea, three unsolicited hugs, and a room that suddenly looked too full. After she was gone, I stood in the center and turned in a slow circle, taking stock. Pencil shavings. Hoodie. Shoe. Button. The way my bedspread had been smoothed toward the window, which is how he does it, not how I do. It felt good. It also felt like a precipice.

That night I texted him slower. The next day I told him I was swamped and asked if we could move our usual dinner to Friday. He replied with a thumbs up and a "destroy those deadlines." He didn't send a photo of his morning sketch. He didn't push. It was thoughtful. It made the guilt worse.

By Friday I had finished exactly one of the three things I had postponed dinner for. I had also cleaned. Not in a normal way. In a way that involved wiping imaginary fingerprints off already clean surfaces. I put his hoodie in a neat fold on the chair. I slid the button into a little dish. I tucked the shoe farther under the desk.

At seven there was a soft knock. I opened the door and Jean stood there with takeout in a paper bag and a careful expression on his face, like he had knocked on a sleeping dog's head and wasn't sure if it was friendly.

"Hi," he said. "I brought food and literally no expectations."

My shoulders dropped. Relief came in a warm wave.

"Hi," I said. "Come in."

He did. He noticed the clean table and the folded hoodie and the lack of pillows on the floor where he normally tosses them. His eyes flicked once to my face and back to the bag.

"Before you ask," he said, setting it down, "no, you didn't do anything wrong. And no, I'm not upset. I count how many times in a row I text you first and then reset to zero like a lunatic too."

I pressed my hands to my cheeks. "I am the lunatic."

"Welcome," he said. "We have jackets."

He moved around my kitchen like it was his own, opening cabinets in the right order, handing me chopsticks without asking which ones I wanted. The quiet felt tender, not tight. As we ate, he told me a story about his professor acting like a raccoon when someone left an abandoned canvas by the studio door. I laughed. I told him about a kid in my class who said the word milieu like it hurt him. He laughed. The tension in my ribcage let go.

When the cartons were mostly empty, he sat back in his chair and looked at me like he was choosing a word carefully.

"Do I get to ask a thing," he said.

"Yes," I said, even though part of me didn't want to. He waited anyway, and that gave me enough air to nod.

"Did something happen," he asked. "Or did someone say something."

I breathed out. I could lie and say deadlines, and it would be half true. The other half was sitting between us, patient and humming.

"Sasha," I said.

He smiled, soft. "Ah."

"She saw your stuff," I said. "And called you my boyfriend. And then my brain threw a confetti parade and set a small fire."

He nodded like he had read this chapter already and liked the ending. "Do you want me to come here less."

"No," I said so fast I surprised myself. "I don't. I just panicked because the word is big and last time I used it I ended up feeling small."

He reached for his water and took a slow drink while I watched his throat like an idiot. He set the glass down. When he spoke, he kept his voice light, but not so light it dismissed anything.

"Okay," he said. "Then let's not use the word."

I stared at him. "Just like that."

"Just like that," he said. "I like being with you. I like carrying bags to your kitchen and pretending I know where your plates live. I like sketching in your room while you bully your textbooks. If we don't name it for a while, I'm still in it."

Something inside my chest unclenched for the second time in one night. It made space for something softer to stretch.

"And if someone asks," I said, testing it out like a new coat in front of a mirror.

"I'll say we hang out," he said. "And I like it. If that changes, you'll be the first to know."

"You don't want clarity," I asked. "People usually want clarity."

"I want accuracy," he said. "Clarity can wait."

I watched his face while he spoke. He wasn't performing. He wasn't trying to score points. He was just making the thing smaller until it fit into words I could hold.

"Okay," I said, and the word felt like stepping onto solid ground. "Okay."

We cleaned up the table together. He washed. I dried. I bumped him with my hip and he bumped me back, gentle. The ordinary rhythm returned like it had been waiting outside the door.

He opened his sketchbook when I returned to my desk with my laptop. "Permission to lurk."

"Granted," I said. "I have a paper to be mediocre at."

"Shoot for good enough," he said. "It's the most underrated grade."

He sketched. I wrote. Every now and then he looked up and made a small face at me until I smiled without looking away from my screen. Time passed in the way it does when you do something with someone you like and forget to watch the clock. My brain kept trying to peek around the corner for a label and then remembered it didn't need to. The quiet made a nest and my thoughts sat down in it.

At some point I realized I wanted to see what he was drawing. I swiveled my chair. He covered the page with his hand and shook his head like a child.

"No," he said. "I'm in a fight with this chin. It insulted me."

"Let me see your enemy."

"Not until I win."

"Coward," I said, and he smiled.

He finished a few minutes later and slid the book across. It wasn't my face. It was my hand on the keyboard, wrist slightly bent, ring catching light, finger hovering like it was making a decision. It looked like motion more than stillness. It felt true.

"I like this one," I said. "It's smug. In a good way."

"Your hand is very smug," he said. "It thinks it's smarter than your brain."

"It is," I said. "My hand makes fewer mistakes."

He reached across, took the pencil from behind his ear, and handed it to me. "Your turn. Draw me."

"I can't draw."

"I know," he said. "Do it anyway."

I made a show of cracking my knuckles and then produced the ugliest stick figure that has ever existed. It had hair. It had eyebrows. It had an aura of disappointment.

He pressed a hand to his chest. "How did you capture my soul."

"It was easy," I said. "Your soul is mostly eyebrows."

He laughed so hard his head fell back. The sound went through me like sunlight. I didn't know how to bottle that and I didn't need to. It was here. That was enough.

When the clock said it was late enough to pretend we were being healthy, we put our things away. He stood and stretched, arms up, shirt riding a fraction. I looked at the ceiling like a responsible adult.

"Walk you home," I asked. It was a joke. He lived ten minutes away and the street was quiet.

"I was going to ask if I could stay till you fall asleep," he said. "Then steal your blanket and leave in the morning in shame."

"You will not steal my blanket," I said. "You will fold it."

"I will fold it badly," he said.

"You fold like a raccoon."

He put a hand to his heart. "Thank you."

He did stay, but not under the blanket. He took the chair by the window and opened a book he pretended to read while I brushed my teeth and moved around the room in that slow end-of-day way. When I crawled into bed, he looked up and gave me a small salute.

"Night," he said.

"Night," I said. "Wake me if a ghost shows up."

"I'll sketch it," he said.

The room dimmed into a soft kind of dark. The city outside hummed. I listened to him turn pages. I felt the exact size of my body in the bed and how safe it felt with him in the room. I thought about the word boyfriend and decided it could wait outside for as long as it needed to. I fell asleep faster than I deserved to.

I woke before my alarm to pale light and the sound of someone trying very hard to be quiet. Jean was in the kitchen making coffee like it was a sacred rite. He saw me, smiled, and pointed at the mug already set out on the counter for me in silent invitation. I padded over and stood beside him in my ridiculous socks, hair doing things.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," I said back, and the way those words felt in my mouth made my throat tight for no good reason at all.

We stood shoulder to shoulder and drank in silence. He asked if I had time for breakfast. I said I had ten minutes and a granola bar. He made toast that was exactly not burned. I ate it over the sink like a person with a life. He watched me like it was a movie.

He left at nine because he had studio hours. He took his shoe and his hoodie and left the button on my dresser. He squeezed my shoulder on the way out and said, "Text me a sentence from your day. Just one."

"Any sentence," I said.

"Any sentence," he said.

When the door clicked shut, the room felt like it always had, plus something. Nothing in it was named. All of it was true.

I sent him the sentence at noon.

the guy next to me in lecture said "epiphany" like it owed him money

He replied twenty seconds later.

i keep finding your hair on my shirt. artist thing. not returning it

I stared at the text and let the smile happen. I let it stay. My chest felt like a room with two windows open. Air went through it. It didn't need a definition to feel like home.

We didn't fix anything big in each other that week. We didn't get official. We didn't kiss again. He came over with coffee and left with a new smudge on my desk. I studied while he drew my hand. We cooked and named the food something stupid and laughed. Sasha returned a day later, saw the hoodie back on my chair, and raised her eyebrows. I said, "We hang out," and I didn't flinch.

When I went to bed Sunday night, my last thought was that maybe the word didn't matter yet. The shape of what we were already did. It fit in the sore places. It made them easier to carry.

On my dresser, the little dish with his button caught the light. I didn't move it. I didn't need to. It was exactly where it should be.

Chapter Text

Not holding hands. Not making an announcement. Just… together. His shoulder bumps mine on the walk up the front steps, bass leaking through the door like the house is breathing heavy. Warm night, sweaty air, too many people draped across the porch furniture like they were born famous.
I show up wearing a black top that doesn't reveal too much but also doesn't keep too many secrets, along with that, I'm wearing some baggy grey jeans and my platform heels. I styled my hair (if straight hair = curled, if curly hair = straightened) and added a few braids for fun. I did a smoky eye, and I put on some (your shade) lipstick and gloss. I looked totally badass. Jean was dressed in a simple black t-shirt and a pair of dark, washed jeans with a small paint stain that was too stubborn to wash out. Luckily, I got him out of wearing a suit vest; this man has some questionable choices.

“Last chance to run,” Jean says, voice near my ear so I can hear him over the music.

“Please. I look too good to leave.”

He laughs, knocks once, and pushes the door. Heat and sound hit at the same time. It smells like cheap beer, spilt soda, a lost fruit punch, perfume that could kill a horse. Colored bulbs throw red and blue across a living room that’s half dance floor, half battlefield. Someone’s put a mattress against the wall for “vibes.” A guy I’ve never met is surfing on it like it’s a wave.

“College,” Jean says, deadpan.

“Anthropology,” I say back. “Observe the rare species: frat boy in his natural habitat.”

Cue Eren, in a backwards cap and a white tee that says something aggressive. He’s on a chair, one sneaker on the seat like he’s giving a campaign speech, yelling, “Shotgun tutorial, cowards,” to an audience of three and a blender.

Connie barrels out of the kitchen, neck craned like a peacock. “Look!” he shouts, pointing to the side of his throat.

There’s a tattoo. It is, objectively, the size of a postage stamp. It looks sort of like an abstract flame and sort of like a lizard.

“Behold,” Connie says with pride. “Symbol of inner strength.”

“It’s a salamander,” Armin says politely from behind him.

“It’s badass,” Connie insists.

“It’s a salamander,” Mikasa says, not looking up from her phone.

Sasha slides past like a comet, two paper plates in hand, each with a slice that could double as a blanket. “Don’t talk about Connie’s neck, he’s sensitive,” she says, then shoves pizza into my free hand. “Eat. Hydrate with cheese.”

Jean raises his cup in salute. “Doctor’s orders.”

We get swallowed by the living room. A slow wave of bodies pushes us toward the middle, and suddenly we’re dancing, not because we agreed to, but because the floor made the decision. Jean’s hand finds the small of my back to keep me upright when someone bumps into me. It stays there a heartbeat longer than necessary. I pretend to fix my hair. My face is already warm.

“You’re glowing,” he says.

“Sweat,” I say.

“Radiance,” he counters, grinning.

The song shifts to something older, the kind everyone magically knows. The whole room starts yelling lyrics like they grew up in the same town. Eren jumps down from the chair, grabs Armin by the arm, and drags him into a chaotic circle. Armin resists for half a second, then gives in with a small smile that says he’s learned it’s easier not to fight the tide.

Connie leans close to us and shouts over the music, “Neck lizard says dance,” then vanishes into the mess, flapping his shirt like a cape.

Sasha appears again, already mid-story. “So then the barista tells me decaf is ‘a state of mind’ and I said so is my rage,” she says in one breath, then points at Jean. “You two came together.” It’s not a question. Her eyebrows wiggle like they’re on a trampoline.

“It’s called walking,” I say.

“Mm-hmm.” She bites her lip to hide a smile and fails. “He’s staring at you.”

“I’m right here,” Jean says.

“Exactly,” Sasha says, then presses a kiss to my cheek and disappears back into the crowd like she’s in charge of it.

The song changes again. The bass turns the floor into a trampoline. Jean leans in, and I feel the word low against my neck. “Kitchen. You’re about to be trampled by interpretive dance.”

He’s not wrong. We squeeze our way through. Strangers, a hallway, a door someone tried to tape open. The kitchen is cooler, at least by one degree. Counters covered in red cups, sticky rings, and a bowl of questionable fruit. Mikasa stands sentry by the fridge like a bouncer at an exclusive water club. She takes one look at my face, hands me a bottle, and says, “Drink.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I chug and immediately feel like a new species.

Eren bursts in, sweaty, triumphant. “I just beat two dudes at flip cup with apple juice,” he says, like it’s historic.

“Hero,” Jean says flatly.

“Jealous,” Eren shoots back, then swings his gaze to me. “You and art boy finally made it official, or what?”

I choke on air. “We are… here.”

“Together,” Jean says mildly. Eren narrows his eyes at the word and smirks like he’s just won a private bet.

“Cute,” he says, then tips his cup back and saunters out, shouting, “Next round is a group sing-along. Mikasa, you’re banned.”

Mikasa watches him go. “He’s not wrong.”

“Terrifying,” Jean says. He turns to me, hand light on the counter, finger absently tracing a ring in the condensation. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, and it’s true. The noise. The lights. His thumb tapped a slow rhythm on the Formica. It all blends into something warm that wraps around my ribs.

We hang in the doorway, half in the party, half in our own orbit. People slide by, laughing, yelling. Over his shoulder, I see Armin actually win a game of something with dice. Connie is telling three girls conflicting stories about his tattoo’s origin. Sasha is dancing with a stranger like the song is a conversation, and she’s bilingual.

“You want to dance again,” Jean asks.

I consider the heat and the crowd and the fact that I’ve started to enjoy losing track of time. “Yeah,” I say. “But outside.”

We cut through the hallway and out onto the back deck. Night air, thank god. Crickets. The soft thump of music through wood. A string of dead fairy lights. Someone left a cardigan on the railing, abandoned with last semester’s dignity.

“Better,” I say.

“Your cheeks stopped glowing,” he says, pretending to sound disappointed.

“Give me a minute,” I say, and tip my head back to look at the sky. The stars here never really show up. City haze. But the clouds look like they’re moving on purpose. Jean stands close enough that our arms brush when I breathe.

He taps the rail with his knuckle. “How’d this week treat you?”

“Badly,” I say. “I have a professor who says the word praxis like it owes him rent.”

He laughs. “I have a professor who stares at my drawings until I apologise out loud.”

“Did you?”

“Twice.”

We stand quiet, just… existing. This part always surprises me. The party roars inside; out here, it’s like we stepped behind a curtain.

“Hey,” he says, softer. “I like being here with you.”

I look at him. He says it like he’s commenting on the weather, not dropping a stone in a pond. It lands anyway. The rings move outward, slowly.

“Me too,” I say, because lying would be dumb.

A door opens, and a blast of song knocks into us. Eren sticks his head out. “Front porch shot pictures,” he announces, then squints at us. “Oh. You’re busy breathing. Carry on.” The door closes. Silence returns, slightly crooked.

Jean huffs a laugh. “We should go save Armin.”

“After one more minute,” I say.

“One,” he agrees, counting under his breath like a kid. At thirty, he stops counting and turns to face me fully. He’s got glitter on his shirt from someone’s disaster, a single piece stuck near the collarbone. I reach out and flick it off without thinking. My fingers don’t want to leave. I let them.

He swallows, barely. “You like it.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“Never.” He smiles, and the smile walks straight down my spine.

We head back in, get swallowed by noise again. Eren forces us into a group photo where everyone is either blinking or a model. Mikasa somehow looks perfect and also like she has never smiled in her life. Connie points at his neck like it’s a newborn child. Sasha throws bunny ears over my head. Jean’s hand settles on my waist like it has a reservation.

The night blurs, in the good way. Songs we shouldn’t know. Cups that refill themselves. Someone brings out a stack of sticky notes for a game where you stick a name to your forehead and ask questions. I end up being “a toaster.” Jean is “a golden retriever.” He leans down and murmurs, “Feels personal,” against my ear, and I almost lose the game on purpose.

Time changes shape. One minute, we’re yelling the chorus of something from middle school. The next time we’re in the hallway again, laughing for no reason, shoulder to shoulder, my head buzzing like I swallowed a beehive. I’m happy. It sneaks up on me, and then I’m laughing harder because of that.

“Breathe,” he says, smiling like he wants to keep this forever and is trying not to look like it.

“I am breathing,” I say. “Loudly.”

“You’re cute,” he says, bluntly, and my brain fumbles. We stop near the coat rack where a pile of denim jackets has become a shrine. He reaches up and fixes a strand of hair behind my ear, slow, like he’s moving a curtain for a better view.

“Don’t,” I say, but I’m laughing. “I’m fragile.”

“Noted,” he says.

Someone bumps past, and I stumble a half step forward. He catches me like it’s nothing. The party slides away for a second. It’s just his hands steadying my elbows, my palms flat on his chest, his heartbeat acting like a drum I want to memorise.

“Outside,” I say, and I don’t know if I mean fresh air or just away.

“Yeah,” he says, voice low.

We cut through the living room, down the hall, past a couple making out like they’re auditioning for something, and out the front door. The porch is cooler. Streetlights cut soft cones across the sidewalk. The city hums. Somewhere a siren. Somewhere, somebody is laughing like they got good news.

“How drunk are you?” he asks.

“Medium,” I say. “You.”

“Responsible,” he says. “Annoying, I know.”

“Infuriating,” I say, smiling. “Charming, unfortunately.”

He curved his mouth. “Unfortunately.”

We stand on the top step like we own the street. My head sways toward him without asking me. His hand finds my hip, gentle. I look up. That’s all it takes.

He kisses me like we’ve been building toward it for hours. Slow at first. A question I answer immediately. Then a little hungry, a little breathless, the world narrowing to the heat of his mouth and the way his hand fits the curve of me like it has a map. There’s no audience. No crowd. Just the electric quiet that happens when two people stop pretending a thing isn’t a thing.

When we break, we don’t step away. We’re both smiling like idiots. My forehead rests against his jaw. He’s warm. I can taste something apple-like. My pulse taps at my throat like it wants to be included.

“This is a terrible idea,” I whisper.

“Probably,” he says. “We should do it again.”

I kiss him this time, because courage is easier with music leaking through the walls and the night being kind. He backs me against the porch column and then stops, palms on the wood on either side of my shoulders, not trapping, just bracing, like the world tilted and he’s steadying it. The kiss slows. Softens. We both laugh into it like we can’t help it.

“Your place,” I say, words small between us.

“It’s closer,” he says, and that’s the whole plan.

We peel ourselves off the house, fingers laced without thinking. The sidewalk tilts toward his building. Streetlights blink in a rhythm that feels conspiratorial. We don’t rush. We don’t talk much. Every so often, we bump shoulders, and it feels like punctuation. At one corner, I stop, pull him down by the collar, kiss him under a buzz of yellow light. He makes a sound I feel in my knees.

“Keep walking,” he says, smiling against my mouth.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” he says, losing the thread on a laugh.

We reach his steps. He fumbles keys only once. The stairwell smells like someone’s dinner and old paint. He looks back as we climb, and the look is soft enough that my chest aches a little. At his door, he pauses, hand on the knob.

“You sure?” he asks, real voice, steady.

I nod. “Yeah.”

He opens the door. The studio greets us like a familiar song. Warm air. Canvas and coffee. The city through the window. He steps aside like a gentleman from a movie, and for once, I don’t make a joke about it. I go in. He follows. The door clicks closed. The music from down the street fades to a hum.

He kisses me again, deeper this time, and we move through the space by instinct. My back finds the edge of the table, his fingers thread with mine. He smiles into my mouth like he’s memorising the shape of it. I pull him closer by the front of his shirt, and we both laugh because that part has already become a thing I do.

The lights are low. The room feels like it’s holding its breath. We don’t rush. We don’t narrate. The world can have the party. This is ours.

Chapter Text

I wake up with the kind of headache that feels like a tiny drummer lives behind my left eye. The room is quiet, the kind of quiet that makes last night feel made up… until my pillow smells faintly like his laundry detergent and my stomach does a small, traitorous flip.

Flash: his mouth on mine on the porch.
Flash: my back against his door, laughing into his kiss.
Flash: later, breath warm against my hair, his voice low and unguarded, saying mine like it slipped out before he could catch it.
Flash: His toned body on top of mine, the feeling of his body working mine like he knew all my spots.

I stare at the ceiling until the word stops echoing, and then I grab my phone because I am a responsible adult who handles feelings by calling in backup. He was gone, which meant I was alone in his studio apartment.

I typed a quick chat in the group Conny made for us and Sasha 'The Dazzlings', I guess, inspired by My Little Pony.

"Emergency meeting. Bring caffeine and something crunchy.
Also, do not be weird about it"

Sasha responds with twelve explosion emojis, a heart, and a shoe. Connie sends “on my way, therapist hat secured” and a selfie in a hoodie with bed hair that defies gravity.

I quickly got my stuff and got dressed. I placed a note on the table telling Jean I was leaving. Just short and simple, I thanked him for last night and offered a quick apology for leaving without seeing him.

I was barely home when the door burst open without a knock because my friends have never met a boundary they didn’t climb over.

Sasha swans in carrying iced coffees the size of toddlers, sunglasses on her head, hair in a messy knot that still looks deliberate. Connie trudges behind her with a family-sized bag of chips and a box of cereal I didn’t ask for.

“Okay,” Sasha announces, kicking the door shut. “Where’s the body. By which I mean your self-control.”

Connie pushes the chips into my arms like an offering. “We’re here. We love you. Tell us everything or we’ll start making it up.”

“We left together,” I say. “We went to his place. We…” My voice trips over the border between private and public and decides to camp on the line. “We made out a lot.”

Sasha gapsed, "and that wasn't the only thing we did..."

Connie fans himself with my syllabus. “Did he say anything. Men are notoriously unscripted.”

I swallow. The word sits on my tongue like something I brought home from a market. “He called me his. Not like a speech. Like it fell out.”

The room goes silent in the way rooms go silent when the audience agrees the plot has just thickened.

Sasha launches upright and screams into a pillow like a responsible neighbour. Connie clutches his chest and whispers, “Possessive era.”

I should be laughing. I am laughing a little. But the laugh is tangled with something else.

“I liked it,” I admit, small. “And that… scared me.”

Sasha’s face changes. It’s like watching a storm turn. She flips the pillow, softer now. “Because of Porco.”

I nod. “He said all the right things. He made big noises about being mine and then—” I make a vague gesture that means bad hallway, bad night, bad memory. “So hearing ‘his’—it felt good. It also felt like standing on a trapdoor.”

Connie’s chair stops spinning. He plants his feet and looks at me like a grown-up for once. “I love you, so I’m going to be useful for five seconds. Jean isn’t Porco. Jean physically cannot fake a feeling. Have you met him? He gets awkward buying apples.”

Sasha snorts. “He does. He once apologised to a still life.”

Connie nods solemnly. “And when Jean doesn’t mean something, he… dodges. Jokes. He didn’t dodge last night.”

I pick at the edge of the coffee lid. The plastic clicks. “I know. I know he didn’t.” My chest loosens a notch just saying it out loud. Then tightens again. “I don’t want to break the nice thing by rushing to name it.”

Sasha pats my knee. “Then don’t. You’re allowed to be happy and careful at the same time.”

Connie points the cereal box at me like a teacher with a yardstick. “We are pro caution. We are anti fear. Say it back.”

“Pro caution,” I repeat. “Anti fear.”

Sasha sits back, satisfied. “Okay, now that we’ve done feelings, we need data. Daylight data. An environment with witnesses but also snacks.”

I squint. “Are you… planning a sting operation.”

“A movie night,” she says primly. “Totally casual. We can invite everyone, observe if the porch chemistry survives fluorescent lighting.”

Connie claps once, loud. “Controlled variables. Popcorn as a constant.”

“You two are allergic to subtlety,” I say.

Sasha beams. “Subtlety is for people without charisma.”

“Or for people who can spell it,” Connie adds, ripping the chip bag with his teeth and scattering crumbs on his hoodie.

Sasha ignores him. “Text the group. I’ll handle snacks. We’ll put you and Jean on the couch because of fate.”

“Absolutely not,” I say, already feeling my face heat. “We are not staging a nature documentary.”

“Fine,” she says. “We’ll let the universe do it for us.”

Connie squints at my bookshelf like it personally offended him. “Question. If he calls you ‘his’ again, are we screaming or pretending we didn’t hear it.”

“Do not scream,” I say. “I will die.”

Sasha zips an imaginary lip. “We’ll be normal.”

“You’re incapable,” I say, but I’m smiling.

Sasha POV (thirty seconds, all caps energy)

This is not a drill. My girl is glowing like a streetlight and trying to be chill about it. I will be the chill for her. I will be serene. Also, I will create a movie night so casual that the Academy will ask about distribution rights. Operation Daylight is a go. Popcorn, blanket, ambient lighting set to “admit your feelings softly.” Connie is my assistant. He doesn’t know that yet.

Connie POV (ten seconds, wearing the therapist hat sideways)

I have never been more employed as a friend. I will provide comedic relief and also hold a pillow over Sasha’s mouth if she starts narrating. Neck salamander believes in love. The neck salamander also needs lotion.

---

We spend the afternoon pretending to study and actually reorganising my cutlery drawer, which is apparently calming. I change shirts twice and end up back in the first one. I make a nest of pillows on the floor so the couch won’t feel like a trap. I tell myself I’m not nervous. Then I check my phone for the time three times in one minute like a raccoon with a watch.

By seven, the apartment smells like butter and sugar. Sasha’s taken over the kitchen like a small benevolent dictator. Connie is in charge of “ambience,” which worries me until he successfully untangles the string lights and plugs them in without setting anything on fire.

“Armin’s bringing something green,” Sasha says, gesturing to a salad like it’s a foreign concept. “Mikasa texted ‘I’ll be there.’ That’s a complete sentence. We love that.”

“Eren said he’s late and it’s society’s fault,” Connie adds.

I wipe my hands on a towel and try to slow my heart. “Did you—”

There’s a knock. Not tentative. Familiar.

Sasha points at me with a wooden spoon. “Breathe like a person.”

I open the door. Jean stands there in a black tee and a denim jacket that has lost three buttons since I met it. He’s holding a bag from the good bakery, eyes warm, smile small in that way that is for me and not the room.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” I say, and the floor under my feet stabilises a little.

He steps in, kicks his shoes off, and holds the bag up. “Bribery.”

“Accepted,” Sasha says, stealing it midair. “Welcome to movie night. We are normal and calm.”

Jean blinks. “I’m immediately afraid.”

“Don’t be,” I say, giving Sasha a look that promises retribution. He glances at me like he wants to laugh and chooses to survive instead.

People trickle in. Armin with the salad, Mikasa with a tote bag that probably contains rope and snacks. Eren arrives late with two litres of soda and an apology to no one.

“Group project energy,” he says, dropping onto the floor. “What are we watching?”

“Something with plot,” Armin says.

“Something with explosions,” Eren counters.

“Something with a dog,” Connie offers, petting his neck tattoo like it’s a pet.

We compromise on an old heist movie because it has plot, explosions, and a dog for exactly one scene. The room settles. Sasha kills the overhead light. The string lights glow. People claim spots like it’s musical chairs with no music.

I sit on the couch at the far end. There is, unfortunately, still room beside me. Sasha looks at the space and then at Jean like she’s dealing cards.

“Sit,” she says cheerfully, and then casually kicks Connie’s shin so he folds onto the rug with her.

Jean lowers onto the cushion, not close and not far. Our knees almost touch. It feels suddenly like the only thing happening in the universe is two knees thinking about it.

The opening credits flicker. Popcorn moves like a river from hand to hand. The group commentary starts immediately, led by Eren pretending he could plan a better heist.

“Terrible disguise,” he mutters. “I can see his crime.”

“Inside voice,” Mikasa says without looking at him.

Halfway through, a character on screen does something stupid and everyone groans in unison. Jean leans toward me to whisper a joke and his breath skims my cheek. I forget the punchline because his shoulder brushes mine and my brain goes offline to attend an emergency meeting of its own.

“You cold,” he asks, quiet.

“No,” I lie, and then stop lying. “A little.”

He lifts the edge of the blanket and drapes it over both of us like it’s nothing. Our hands end up sharing the same edge of fabric. He doesn’t grab mine. He doesn’t have to. The touch is a steady hum, not a firework.

On the floor, Sasha and Connie are being incredibly subtle by whispering at a volume normal people use for small talk.

“Move the bowl,” Sasha hisses. “It’s in their line of sight.”

“What is their line of sight?” Connie whispers, equally loud.

“Their souls,” she says.

“Stop,” I say without turning my head.

“Can’t hear you,” Sasha stage-whispers. “I’m busy being casual.”

Armin, saint that he is, distracts them by asking Connie to explain his tattoo again. Mikasa takes advantage of the moment to steal the good pillow. Eren falls asleep for seven minutes and denies it when he wakes up.

At some point, Jean relaxes enough to let his arm rest along the back of the couch. It’s not around me. It’s near me. Gravity does the rest. By the time the second act starts, the weight of my head has tilted onto his shoulder like it belongs there on Tuesdays. He breathes in like this is fine, like this is good, like he didn’t plan it and doesn’t need to.

Sasha catches my eye over the coffee table. She mouths breathe. I mouth stop it. She grins and places the bowl of candy slightly farther away from us, like she’s moving a chess piece.

During the climax, the dog reappears and Eren cheers. I laugh into Jean’s sleeve, and he tilts his head so it rests lightly against mine. The part of me that flinches doesn’t move. The part of me that wants to trust takes a small, measurable step forward.

The credits roll. The room stretches and yawns and becomes a group of people again. Armin collects cans with the resigned air of a medieval monk. Mikasa sets the remote on the table like it wronged her. Eren announces that he has somewhere to be (the fridge). Sasha claps once, startling everyone.

“Great hang!” she says too brightly. “We should all… go to the kitchen at the exact same time.”

Connie jumps up, playing along. “Yes, because… dish… logistics.”

“Stay,” Sasha says to me with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “You two look comfortable.”

“Sasha,” I warn.

“Okay!” she chirps, steering the others away like a sheepdog with glitter eyeliner. “We’ll just be over here not listening at all.”

The kitchen door swings shut. The apartment exhales.

We sit in the quiet flicker of the TV menu screen for a second that stretches long and gently. Jean turns his head, voice low.

“Your friends are relentless.”

“They mean well,” I say, and bury my face in my hands. “I’m going to kill them tenderly.”

He laughs, careful not to shake me off his shoulder. “Don’t. I like them alive. They take care of you.”

I drop my hands and look at him. He’s close enough that I can see the tiny flecks of gold in his eyes, I only notice when the light is kind. He looks at me like the party porch didn’t disappear when the sun came up. Like it never does.

“I wasn’t sure how today would feel,” I admit, words small but honest. “After last night.”

“How does it feel?” he asks.

“Like I’m still here,” I say. “And so are you.”

He nods. “I am.”

We don’t say anything else for a while. The menu music loops. The string lights buzz like bees half-asleep. In the kitchen, Sasha laughs at something Connie says and then shushes herself. We exist.

He shifts an inch, and the blanket slides higher over my knees. “You didn’t deny it,” he says eventually, almost like he’s testing a line in a sketch.

“Deny what?”

“That I’m yours,” he says, calm, like he’s just labelling a folder.

My heart does a gymnastics routine. I roll my eyes to cover it and fail. “You started that.”

“I did,” he says, unbothered. “I meant it.”

“I know,” I say, surprising both of us. “I heard it.”

We watch the little cursor on the TV hop between options like it’s nervous too. He doesn’t reach for my hand. I don’t reach for his. We just keep sharing a blanket and breathing in the same square of air while the room learns our shape.

The kitchen door opens with the tact of a marching band. Sasha peeks around it like a cartoon villain. “We made brownies!”

Connie appears behind her with a pan and oven mitts and his most innocent face. “We did not make brownies,” he whispers loudly. “We found them.”

“Group second movie?” Eren shouts from the fridge.

Armin sighs like a parent and checks the time. Mikasa tilts her head at me with a question in her eyes. I nod once. It’s small, but it says I’m okay. She nods back, just as small.

The night reassembles around us. Brownies get cut. Another movie gets queued. People reclaim spots. Jean and I don’t move. No one tries to move us.

When the next set of credits rolls and the lights come up for real, there’s a collective stretch that sounds like contentment. Plans dissolve. Hugs happen. Doors open and close. Sasha lingers to press her cheek to mine and whisper, “Proud of you,” before she bolts, dragging Connie by his sleeve because he’s attempting to steal the last brownie.

It’s just us again. The apartment has that warm, lived-in quiet I’ve started to love. Jean stands, collects cups, and sets them in the sink like he lives here on alternating Thursdays. I walk him to the door because routine is a kind of promise.

He leans on the frame, looking annoyingly handsome in a way I’m getting used to and not at all bored by. “Text me when you wake up,” he says, easy.

“Why?”

“So I can say good morning before anyone else,” he says, like it’s obvious.

I bite the inside of my cheek to catch a smile and fail. “Okay.”

He tips his head. “Okay.”

He leaves. The door clicks. The room keeps its shape. I stand there for a second holding the edge of the blanket like a prop I forgot I was using, then toss it back on the couch and breathe.

No labels. No speeches. Just a couch that still remembers our weight and friends who can’t whisper, and a word that doesn’t scare me as much as it did yesterday.

Mine.
Maybe it can be simple for a while.
Maybe everyone else can see it because it’s already here.

Chapter Text

It’s strange how fast two months can slip by when you stop trying to name everything.

I didn’t plan on any of this.
Not the first party, not the fight she had with Porco, not finding her half-crying, half-laughing with a drink in her hand and too much hurt in her eyes.
Definitely not the part where I ended up sketching her face on every other page of my notebook like my brain forgot other shapes exist.

It’s not just that she’s beautiful, though she is, and it’s stupid how easily that word fits her.
It’s the little things. The way she talks with her hands, like punctuation isn’t enough.
The way she raises her eyebrows when she’s pretending not to be amused.
The way she hides her smile in her cup when Sasha starts talking too loudly.
And that laugh. God, that laugh. It still hits me like the first time, loud, real, unguarded.

When I think back to that night, the party, the porch, the kiss, it feels like a dream I keep replaying just to make sure it actually happened.
I can still see her face when I said mine.
I didn’t plan to say it. It just… slipped. And I meant it in the safest way possible, not possession, just recognition.
Like I’d found something that felt like home and was scared to lose it if I didn’t say it out loud.

Since then, everything’s been quieter, steadier.
The chaos is still there, Sasha’s noise, Connie’s bad ideas, Eren yelling in the background, but between all of that, we carved out something that feels real.

Most days, I end up at her place after class.
She’ll be half-buried in a pile of notes, pretending to study, and I’ll be pretending to work.
We don’t talk much. Just existing next to her feels enough.
Sometimes she’ll start mumbling about an essay and I’ll listen, nodding like I know what “praxis” means. I don’t. I just like the way she says it.

The movie night was when I realised how far gone I actually am.
Everyone was loud, and the couch was too small, and the popcorn kept getting passed around like currency.
She sat next to me, not close, not far, just close enough for the blanket to end up around both of us.
When her head fell against my shoulder, everything in me went quiet.
The movie didn’t matter. The noise didn’t matter.
It was just that, her weight against me, steady and trusting.

I pretended to watch the screen, but I memorised every small movement instead:
how her hand fidgeted with the corner of the blanket, how her breathing slowed halfway through, how she tilted toward me like it wasn’t a decision at all.

That night, when I went home, I didn’t even bother unpacking my sketchpad. I just sat at my desk, staring at my hands like they were full.
I tried to draw something else, anything, but all that came out was her, sitting there under the string lights, laughing at something Connie said.
I smudged the lines three times before giving up.
Maybe I didn’t want to get it perfect. Maybe I wanted it to stay alive.

She still has that wall around her sometimes, the one built by someone who didn’t deserve her.
I see it in the way she hesitates before trusting silence, the way her smile falters when she thinks too much.
But I’ve learned not to force it.
You can’t rush someone out of their fear. You can only show up and stay.

So that’s what I do.
I show up with coffee when she forgets to eat breakfast.
I fold her blankets the way she doesn’t like, just to hear her complain.
I sit in her room and draw while she studies because the quiet feels better when it’s shared.

Sometimes Sasha calls us “a soft launch.”
Connie says we’re “in beta testing.”
They’re not wrong, but they’re missing the point.
This doesn’t feel unfinished to me. It feels like breathing.

She’s not mine in the way people mean it when they talk about love.
Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But she’s mine in the way she laughs with her whole body, in the way she says my name like it’s lighter now,
and in the way her eyes find me in every crowded room before I even notice she’s there.

If someone asked me what we are, I wouldn’t have an answer.
But if someone asked me what I want,
I’d probably say this.
Exactly this.
No labels, no panic, no pretending I don’t care.
Just us, figuring it out.
And me, quietly hoping she never figures out how obvious I am.

Because every time she smiles, it feels like she already knows.

Chapter Text

The group chat looks like someone dropped an industrial string toaster in a bathtub.

Sasha: ROADTRIP
Eren: Absolutely not if Reiner drives
Reiner: I drive fine
Mikasa: He does
Connie: Neck lizard wants sun
Armin: Please stop calling it a neck lizard
Ymir: Coast house, three rooms, two nights, no refunds. I booked it
Historia: She did. Bring towels
Jean: Is there coffee within a five-kilometre radius
Annie: If there isn’t, there soon will be
Me: I’m in
Jean: Me too

I lock my phone and stare at my ceiling for five seconds. I can practically smell salt through the screen. Two nights away from campus. One house. Eight people. A boy who kisses me like he means it and then makes me laugh before I can overthink it.

I’m not nervous. That is a lie. I pack twice and then take half out again. Sunblock, a book I will not read, swimsuit, backup swimsuit in case the first swimsuit betrays me. One was a basic red bikini with triangle cups and a small bikini bottom, and the other was a bikini with a sportsbra-looking top and a normal-sized bottom; this one is black. Maybe I could mismatch them? Not sure yet.

---

We meet at the van that Reiner swears belongs to his cousin and not his side hustle. Eren argues with the trunk like it insulted his family. Mikasa loads snacks with military efficiency. Armin brings a paper map because he doesn’t trust anyone’s phone to have signal. Connie takes a selfie with his tattoo and captions it “coast mode.” Historia and Ymir arrive last, sunglasses on, matching small smirks like they came to win something.

Jean drops his bag at my feet and gives me the smile he uses when he has already decided to be in a good mood. I feel it in my knees. He tips his head toward the passenger seat.

“Up front with me,” he says.

“You called shotgun yesterday,” Eren complains.

“No,” Jean says. “I called being useful. I can read Armin’s map without crying.”

Armin raises a careful finger. “That is both accurate and rude.”

We cram ourselves in. The van hums like an old refrigerator and then decides to trust us. The air shifts when the city rolls away behind us. Windows down. Hair everywhere. Ymir and Historia share earbuds. Mikasa pretends the playlist was her idea. Annie sits with her knees drawn up and lets the sun warm her legs. Armin points out birds like we’re on a field trip. Connie tries to start a sing-along to a song none of us know. Jean drives with one hand and rests the other on the wheel like he has been doing this his whole life.

He catches my eye at a red light. He doesn’t say anything, just that small lift at the corner of his mouth that says everything is fine.

I settle back and let the road unwind.

---

The town smells like sunscreen and fried dough. The rental house is two streets from the beach, pale blue with a porch that promises late night talks and bad card games. Inside, the floors creak in a friendly way. There are three bedrooms, one bathroom that everyone eyeballs like an enemy, and a kitchen with a humming fridge and a bowl of lemons for decoration.

“Room draft,” Ymir says, tossing keys and fate to the wind.

She and Historia land the room with the queen bed and a window that looks at the ocean. Eren and Mikasa end up with the room that has two twins and a broken blind; Mikasa doesn’t blink, Eren loudly insists he snores in a subtle way that sounds like traffic. Armin opens his mouth to volunteer for the couch just as Annie puts her bag on the third room’s dresser and looks at him like he tries such noble nonsense again and she will open the window with him.

That leaves me and Jean in the den with the pullout sofa. The mattress protests when we try to fold it flat, then flops into place like it was waiting to be asked nicely. Two pillows, a blanket that smells like laundry detergent and dust.

Jean glances at me. I glance back. The silence is comfortable and a little bright.

“Top sheet truce,” he says. “We can be civilized.”

“I’m always civilized,” I say.

He huffs a laugh. “I have met your snack drawer.”

“It’s curated chaos.”

We throw our stuff down and pretend we are not calculating how much space one person takes up when they are trying not to touch the other.

The ocean is right there, the kind of blue that belongs on a postcard. We bolt down the street like we are late for joy. Sand gives under my feet. The wind lifts the edge of my shirt. Gulls complain at us. The water is colder than it looks and I yelp like a child on purpose because it makes Jean laugh.

Sasha veers off toward a line of food shacks like a bloodhound. We follow because we care about her safety and also because I can smell garlic.

There is a stand with a chalkboard menu and a man behind it with sun in his hair and forearms that say he carries heavy pans for a living. He has a towel over his shoulder and a look like he likes the world when the world is honest.

“What’s good,” Sasha asks.

He blinks at her voice and then remembers speech. “Everything,” he says, then catches himself and smiles. “But the grilled shrimp and the lemon pasta are what I make when the sea is kind.”

Sasha orders both like she just remembered how hunger works. We steal a corner of the counter while she takes her first bite. Her eyes close. She makes a sound that absolutely guarantees this man will fall in love with her in under twelve seconds.

He leans forward without meaning to. “You like it.”

She opens one eye. “I could write it a sonnet.”

“I accept,” he says reflexively, then laughs, embarrassed. “Sorry. I am Niccolo.”

“Sasha,” she says through an unholy amount of pasta. “I am your biggest fan.”

He grins like a person who is not used to being someone’s favorite part of the day and wants to try it on. He gives us extra lemon wedges. He gives Sasha an extra napkin like a love letter folded into cloth. He speaks with his hands, the way people do when they grew up around kitchens and stories.

Connie leans into my shoulder. “Culinary lust,” he whispers.

“I heard that,” Niccolo says, amused. He points his tongs like a conductor. “Come back at sunset. I will bring things to the fire.”

Sasha bows like he proposed.

We migrate to a patch of sand that will briefly pretend to be ours. Umbrellas. Towels. A cooler that Reiner declares off limits and then immediately forgets to guard. Eren challenges everyone to volleyball. Mikasa pretends she cannot hear him until he gets sentimental about teamwork, then she stands and destroys him with grace.

Jean sinks into the sand beside me, forearms on his knees, eyes half closed against the brightness. I can see the grain of salt on his eyelashes. The wind turns his hair into something I want to touch.

I steal his hoodie when the breeze picks up because I am shameless. He doesn’t comment, just watches me roll the sleeves and smiles to himself like it is a private joke that only we are in on.

“Turn,” he says after a while, and lifts the sunscreen bottle.

“Is this a trick,” I ask.

“It’s me not wanting you to catch fire,” he says.

I sit, back to him, and feel the cold stripe along my shoulders before his hands make it disappear. It is a practical touch, careful, even. It is also the least practical thing I have felt in weeks. The ocean is right there. It is loud. It is still somehow quieter than the way my pulse pays attention.

“Fair trade,” I say, turning with my palm out. “You will actually burn.”

He obeys. I try to be clinical about it. I am sure I fail. His skin is warm. His grin is unfair.

A cheer rises from the makeshift court as Mikasa returns a serve with the finality of a judge slamming a gavel. Eren falls in the sand and cheers anyway. Armin high fives him and then immediately applies sunscreen to his ears like a mother.

Ymir and Historia lie on their stomachs and debate shell taxonomy with the passion of people deciding something important. Annie sits near the edge of the group where the sand is more packed. Armin drifts over and lowers himself beside her with polite caution, like she is a wild cat that enjoys poetry. She listens to him talk about tide pools, then says something short that makes him smile like he has found a new constellation. It is very them.

Reiner and Bertholdt take a break from being responsible to sprint into the waves and come back with their hair plastered to their heads and their souls renewed.

Sasha returns to the shack more times than the laws of both cuisine and pride allow. Each time she comes back with something new. Each time Niccolo looks more hopeless.

In the late afternoon the light gets warmer like someone turned a dial. Reiner starts building a bonfire with the authority of a man who watched eight tutorials and memorized three. Niccolo arrives with trays, all steam and lemon, and a shy sort of swagger like he is not sure he is allowed to be proud. Sasha claps. He blushes and almost drops the tongs.

We circle the fire as the sun kneels at the horizon. Ymir takes a stick and points like a villain.

“Ship roll call,” she says. “Eren and Mikasa, married by common law, stop pretending you’re just roommates.”

Eren makes a noise of protest. Mikasa raises one eyebrow and he shuts up on principle.

“Armin and Annie,” Ymir continues. “Congratulations on speaking.”

Annie flips her off without heat. Armin beams.

“Historia and me,” she adds, leaning into Historia’s shoulder. “Obviously.”

Historia kisses her like punctuation.

“Connie and his tattoo,” Ymir says. “Deeply committed.”

Connie makes heart hands around his own neck.

“Jean and Y/N,” Ymir concludes. She pauses for effect like a conductor about to bring in the violins. “No comment needed.”

The circle laughs. I want to hide in the sand. Jean tips his head at Ymir and pretends to applaud while not looking at me on purpose. His cheeks look warm from the fire. Mine feel warmer.

Niccolo passes plates like a man painting a gallery wall. He hands Sasha a skewer with an expression that belongs in a romance montage. She eats like it is both a compliment and a promise.

I am not thinking about last night. That is a lie. I am thinking about last night and this morning and the way things have been since. Steady. Calm. Like a song that finally found the right tempo and does not intend to speed up.

“Walk,” Jean says softly at my ear when the circle gets louder and the fire throws sparks high into air like it is telling stars to wake up.

“Yes,” I say, because I wanted to ask first and I like letting him ask instead.

We follow the hard line of wet sand where the waves meet the shore and argue about it, then give up and let them touch our ankles when they feel like it. The fire becomes a warm dot behind us. The sky goes from pink to deep blue in a span that feels shorter than it should.

“Your friends are a lot,” he says finally, amused.

“You say that like you are not one of them,” I say.

“I like being one of them,” he says. “I like being here with you.”

I count five heartbeats before I answer so that my voice will do what it should. “Me too.”

We walk with our shoes in our hands. I can feel grains of sand trying to get comfortable between my toes. The breeze lifts my hair and puts it in my mouth. He reaches without thinking and tucks it behind my ear. My body pretends this is not news and fails.

“I keep thinking how fast this year is moving,” I say. “Two months ago I was trying to remember how to sleep. Now I can’t remember what my life looked like without you in it.”

He looks at the water for a long second like he is asking it for the right word. “I don’t want to name it too soon,” he says, careful. “But I don’t want to pretend I don’t know it when I see it.”

“I’m scared of breaking it,” I say. “Of being the person who trips over the good thing and knocks it off the table.”

He laughs softly and it makes my chest loosen. “Then maybe we stop calling it an accident when it goes right.”

I look at him. He’s not trying to be poetic. He’s just telling the truth in the simplest way he knows. The tide reaches for our ankles again and this time I let it.

“You make things sound easy,” I say.

“They’re not,” he says. “But they’re not impossible either.”

We stop where the water leaves a film thin enough to show our reflections in pieces. My reflection looks tired in a way I recognise and happy in a way I’m still learning. His reflection stands beside it like it has been there a long time.

“I keep thinking about you saying mine,” I admit. “I liked it. It scared me. Both can be true.”

“Both are true,” he says. “I didn’t say it to trap you. I said it because I recognised something.”

“Me,” I say.

“You,” he says, and that is all.

The waves hush. The moon decides to stop being shy. The far-off chorus at the fire hits the wrong note together and somehow makes it right.

He steps closer like he is giving the sea a chance to object. It doesn’t. His hand finds my wrist and settles there, warm, steady, not pushing. I step into the space that opens up, which is maybe the bravest thing I have done this year. His nose bumps mine. That small clumsy thing makes us both laugh and the laugh dissolves into something softer when our mouths meet.

It is not the porch. It is not the party. It is slow and sure and kind. His mouth tastes like salt and lemon and something I want to learn the name of. His hand slides to the back of my neck. Mine finds the front of his shirt because that is a thing I do now without thinking. The world does not tilt. We do not rush. We do not narrate.

When we part, neither of us looks away like we are afraid the moment will disappear if we blink. The water pulls at our ankles and lets go again.

“You taste like the ocean,” I say, because courage makes me a little foolish.

“Occupational hazard,” he says, and we both grin.

We walk back the way we came, slower. The bonfire grows from dot to flame to faces we know. Ymir is telling a story with too many hand motions. Historia knows the ending and is letting her have it anyway. Mikasa is pretending she does not like the song that is playing. Eren is singing with his whole chest. Armin and Annie are holding a conversation entirely with eyebrows and it is somehow working. Reiner has sand in his hair. Bertholdt has accepted his fate.

Sasha sits on the sand with her chin on her knees, and Niccolo beside her holding a plate like a sacred object. They are talking with their bodies more than their mouths, the way people do when food is a language and they have just found a dialect they both speak. He cuts her a piece of something and she looks at him like he just invented the idea of kindness.

Jean sinks down next to me and passes me a cup of something sweet. His knee touches mine. Our friends do not cheer. No one makes a speech. The night just adjusts to our new shape like it has been practising.

We stay until the fire becomes coals and even Eren admits that sleep might not be a conspiracy. On the way back to the house the streetlights look like patient moons. Inside, the kitchen smells like lemon and smoke. We brush our teeth in shifts. The floorboards complain in sound effects.

In the den, the pullout looks less like a joke and more like a promise. I climb in on one side. He climbs in on the other. The blanket is a border that neither of us minds crossing and both of us respect.

“Goodnight,” he says in that voice he uses when he wants a word to sit and stay.

“Goodnight,” I say to the ceiling, and I mean it to the person on my left.

The ocean keeps moving in the dark. The house settles. The wind finds the eaves and sings to them. I fall asleep to the sound of his breathing and the memory of the way his mouth tasted and the quiet certainty that we are not the same people we were two months ago and that is not a tragedy.

A small slice of his thoughts, somewhere between the waves and sleep:

The hoodie looks better on her.
I knew it would.
I pretended not to notice and noticed everything.
I kept wanting to say more than jokes and kept choosing the right amount of quiet.
When she smiled into the kiss, I forgot what I was afraid of.
I think I could get used to this.
I think I already have.

In the morning, the gulls wake us like rude alarm clocks. The air smells like salt and toast and something Niccolo brought as a thank you that he swears is simple and Sasha swears is a miracle. Ymir and Historia make a list on a napkin of shells they intend to find before noon. Eren insists he can surf because he has confidence. Mikasa buys him a lesson because she has wisdom. Armin and Annie go early to look at tide pools and come back with wet cuffs and an inside joke. Connie learns you cannot outrun a wave with shoes in your hand.

Jean hands me coffee before I ask. I steal a sip and make a face. He kisses that face like he is taking notes. It is a small thing. It feels like the whole point.

We spend the rest of the day making new memories with old friends and pretending we are not all getting sunburned in interesting shapes. When the time comes to pack, the house looks briefly empty and then reveals all the small ways we were here. A lemon rind on the counter. A shell on the coffee table. A towel over a chair. A hoodie on my shoulders that I do not intend to return today.

On the drive back, half the van sleeps. The other half plays a quiet game of naming things we can see out the window. I watch the road unspool and catch Jean watching me in the reflection.

I smile. He smiles. The road keeps going. So do we.

Chapter Text

--Jean's POV--

I’m downtown because my brain insisted on caffeine that isn’t from my janky machine, the one that sounds like it’s coughing up secrets. Sun’s out. People are wearing sunglasses indoors again, as if they’re on the run from the taxman. I text Y/N a picture of a dog in tiny shoes. She replies with seven heart emojis and one “I’m out with someone, call you later?” smiley. No problem. I can be normal.

I step out of the café with my coffee and there she is across the street, like the universe threw me a cameo. She’s laughing, a real laugh, head tipped back a little, hand on a dark-haired guy’s sleeve. He’s got the posture of a line drawing: clean, efficient, expensive. A minimalist coat, perfect boots, and a face that says 'resting judgement.' He leans down to say something, and his hand skims her shoulder like it’s a normal place to rest.

I don’t follow them. I’m not an idiot. But something sharp slides under my ribs and hooks in. It’s not a thought so much as a sentence fragment: her smile / his hand / mine too slow.

I go home and draw three chairs out of spite.

Later, she texts a picture of a pretzel the size of a steering wheel. “Look what we stole from a giant.” I type 'nice' and delete it, type 'who’s your friend' and delete that, type 'pretzels are a scam' and send it. She replies with “Look me in the eye and say that again.” I stare at my wall and try to locate my dignity.

Sleep is a rumour. Sunday morning, I run it off and fail. By afternoon, we’re at her place, movie cued up, the couch doing that couch thing where it tries to fix you. She’s a blanket burrito. I’m a person-shaped coil.

“Okay,” she says, pressing play. “You’re suspiciously quiet.”

“Plot twist,” I say. “I contain multitudes.”

She gives me a look that says, Cool joke, try again. Ten minutes in, she pauses the TV. The frozen actor on screen looks disappointed in us.

“Talk,” she says. “You get two minutes to be weird and honest, then we go back to pretending the world is simple.”

I rub my thumb over the edge of my cup because I have not learned any of my lessons yet. “Who was the guy yesterday?”

Subtlety has left the chat.

She blinks. Surprise, then confusion, then something like oh. “You mean Levi?”

The name lands and bounces. I shrug, aiming for casual, hitting petty. “Didn’t know I was competing.”

It slips out faster than my brain can tackle it. There’s a beat where the room rearranges itself around the sentence.

Her eyebrows go up slowly. “Competing?”

I stare at the carpet like it owes me money. “I saw you two at the mall. Looked… close.”

Her mouth opens, then closes, then flattens into a line that is not my favourite shape on her. “Levi is my brother, Jean.”

Time crawls into a paper bag and screams. My stomach drops through the floor, rides the elevator back up, and drops again.

Before I can find a single adult word, there’s a knock, two clipped taps like the knocker has somewhere better to be. A cool voice through the door: “You planning to open this, or should I break it down?”

Y/N pinches the bridge of her nose. “Perfect timing.”

I stand because that seems like something a person with a spine would do and open the door. The minimalist coat from yesterday stands on the threshold. Up close, he is all precise lines and the kind of stare that has seen worse and decided to keep going anyway. He takes one look at me, then at Y/N over my shoulder.

“You’re Jean,” he says, like roll call.

“You’re… Levi,” I say, with the confidence of a man who just tripped over his own name.

He steps in without waiting for an invitation and kicks off his shoes like he’s allergic to dirt. “Brat,” he says to Y/N. “You text back like someone who got their phone confiscated.”

“Tsk,” she says, which would be cute if my blood wasn’t still sprinting. “Hi to you too.”

He glances at me again, taking inventory. Not hostile, just… clinical. The way a surgeon looks at a weird mole. He sets a small duffel by the wall with military tags clipped to the handle. It clicks, finally, in the dusty corner of my brain where useful facts go to die: the way Y/N kept saying family away on duty, the way she deflected questions that weren’t mine to ask.

“Why have I never heard of him before?” It comes out like I’m making a case when really I am just trying not to drown in my own relief. Great, Jean. Ten out of ten.

She crosses her arms, frustration sparking in her eyes. “He was on an expedition with the army. He’s been gone three months. I didn’t have a reason to bring him up.”

Levi flicks a glance between us, then at the duffel. Dry as sandpaper: “Tsk. I mean that much to you? Brat.”

Y/N glares at him like she’s been practising since childhood. “Don’t start.”

He ignores it like he’s been practising longer. “Which room is the guest one?” he asks, already scanning the floor plan like it insulted his mother.

Y/N blinks. “Uh, down the hall? Second door.”

Levi nods once. “I’m taking it.”

I blink too. “You’re… staying?”

“Don’t have a place yet,” he says, tone like a period at the end of a briefing. “Got back, the barracks are full of loud idiots, and your couch is an ergonomic nightmare.” He aims that last part at Y/N’s furniture like he’s about to court-martial it. “I’ll cover rent for the weeks I’m here. I won’t touch your things. I’ll clean this place properly.”

Y/N opens her mouth to argue, realises she won’t win, and gestures vaguely. “Fine. But no reorganising my kitchen like you’re planning a military coup.”

Levi looks at the drawer handles the way artists look at an empty canvas. “We’ll see.”

He picks up his duffel and disappears down the hall with the sound of someone who does not step on squeaky floorboards by accident. The bedroom door clicks shut.

Silence. The kind that hums.

I exhale like I forgot how. “I’m… sorry,” I say, words clumsy. “I saw you with him, and my brain threw a parade and set a fire.”

Her shoulders soften a fraction but stay squared. “Yeah. It did.” She sighs. “You could’ve asked yesterday.”

“I know,” I say. “I didn’t want to be—” I search for the right word, come up with “that guy,” and hate it immediately.

“Jealous?” She says it like she’s putting a label on a jar so we can both stop pretending it’s flour when it’s sugar.

I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “Yeah.” I spoil the confession by adding, weakly, “He’s very… coat.”

That breaks her. The tension cracks and she laughs, short and unwilling. “He is very coat.”

“Also knife,” I say. “He looks like he has four knives and a backup knife.”

“He does,” she says, affection sneaking into the corners of her mouth. “He’s also the guy who learned how to braid my hair so I wouldn’t cry before school when I was eight. So maybe next time you see me with a scary man in a mall, you start with brother or cousin before you invent a novella.”

I deserve that and worse. “Noted,” I say. “I’m sorry I made you feel judged.” I mean it, and I let it sit there unclothed.

She takes a breath. Let's it out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think to tell you sooner. It’s just… Levi is Levi. He shows up like a tornado and then leaves, and I don’t always build narratives around him.”

A cabinet opens in the kitchen. Water runs. Levi reappears with a mug that belongs to none of us and a towel thrown over his shoulder like he’s disappointed in all fabric. He eyes the paused TV.

“Movie night?” he asks, like he has to approve the genre.

“Was,” Y/N says. “We were having a small misunderstanding.”

Levi looks at me, then at her, then at the space between us that’s still recovering from my personality. “He figured out I’m your brother?”

I nod like I’m at a parole hearing. “Eventually.”

“Tch.” He takes a sip. “Try using your eyes next time, horse.”

I blink. “Horse?”

Y/N is already covering her mouth to hide the smile. “It’s… a term of endearment.”

“Uh-huh,” Levi says, flat. “Don’t make me regret not choosing the couch.”

“I thought the couch was an ergonomic nightmare,” I say before my survival instinct can stop me.

“It is,” he says. “But it’s better than listening to you two talk in circles.”

He moves to the bookcase, frowns at the way the spines are not by colour, not by author, not by any system a human has named. He glances at Y/N. She points at him without looking.

“Don’t,” she says.

He grunts, which I’m told means “fine” in Levi. Then, as if remembering manners were invented recently: “Are you staying for dinner, Jean?”

I look at Y/N. She looks at me. Neither of us is ready to call the night early and let the awkward win.

“If it’s okay,” I say.

“It’s your funeral,” he says, deadpan, and disappears again, leaving the scent of coffee and clean soap and mild disapproval.

The tension has somewhere to go now. It decides to move out. Y/N sits back on the couch and nudges my knee with her foot.

“You still mad?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “I was never mad. I was… seventeen for ten minutes.”

“Next time,” she says, tone softer, “be twenty again and ask me.”

“I’ll try,” I say.

“Try harder,” Levi calls from down the hall, because of course he heard that.

I groan into my hands. Y/N laughs and peels my fingers away.

“Welcome to the family pilot episode,” she says. “We have dry humour, mild threats, and a very clean sink.”

“Can I still be the love interest?” I ask. “Or did I get demoted to a guy who learns a lesson and leaves in act two?”

She leans over, presses her forehead to mine for a second like she’s resetting the scene, then pulls back just enough to look at me. “You’re still the guy.”

Something loosens behind my ribs. “Okay.”

We half-watch the movie with the sound slightly too low because Levi is a stealth panther, and I have never felt less cool. The door to the guest room opens periodically as he claims territory: a folded stack of t-shirts on the dresser, a charged phone plugged into an outlet I didn’t know worked, towels hung on the rack with geometric precision. He moves like a man who does everything on purpose.

At some point, he reappears in socks, evaluates our distance on the couch like it’s a math problem, and grunts in what I can only interpret as neutral acceptance. He grabs his mug, aims a last look at me that says 'do not be an idiot in my house', and vanishes again.

When the credits hit, we sit there in the soft quiet that happens after a storm clears, and you can hear birds again.

“I like him,” I say, surprising both of us.

Y/N smiles like she’s been holding her breath. “He’ll pretend to hate you for three days and then start bullying you with affection.”

“Can’t wait,” I say, and mean it.

She tucks her feet under my thigh. It’s a small, domestic gesture, and it kills me softer than anything that’s happened this weekend. My hand finds the back of the couch. Our shoulders touch like we’ve always known how to balance.

“I’m not competing,” I say, just to close the loop I opened with my worst mouth.

“No,” she says. “You’re not.” Beat. “But for the record, you would win.”

My grin gets away from me before I can act cool. “I like my odds.”

From the hallway: “I can hear you,” Levi says, like God.

We both snort. I lean in, say in a voice low enough for just her, “Still terrifying.”

“You get used to it,” she says. “Maybe.”

Levi appears one last time, arms crossed. “House rules,” he says.

We both sit up like we’re about to be graded.

“One,” he says, “no shoes inside.” He eyes me. “Two, if you cook, clean up right. Three, don’t leave wet towels on the door. Four, if either of you are going to be stupid, do it quietly.”

Y/N opens her mouth. Levi raises one finger. “Five, I’m not your dad.”

“Thank God,” she mutters.

“But,” he adds, almost imperceptibly softer, “I am your brother. Which means—”

“Which means you’re going to act like my dad,” she finishes, rolling her eyes.

“Tsk,” he says. “Guest room is mine until I find a place. Try not to trip over your feelings in the hallway.”

He disappears again. The guest door shuts with a click that somehow feels like a treaty instead of a warning shot.

We exhale at the same time. I look at her. She looks at me. The worst version of this chapter didn’t happen. The real version did: I made a dumb assumption, we said the quiet parts out loud, and now there’s a pair of boots by the door that belong to her family.

I take her hand, turn it over, press my mouth to the spot below her thumb. A line I know by heart now. “I’ll do better,” I say, not in the performative way—just a simple promise.

She nods. “Me too.”

We put the movie back on for noise and don’t make it ten minutes before we’re talking over it, about nothing heavy, about what we’re eating this week, about Sasha’s new chef boyfriend (“already??”), about Armin becoming an accidental tide-pool influencer, about how many knives Levi actually owns. We laugh. The room goes warm again. The day shakes the last of its ash off.

When I leave later, Levi nods once from the hallway like a doorman who’s seen things. “Text when you get home,” he says to Y/N, then turns to me. “Don’t walk in front of buses.”

“I’ll do my best,” I say.

“Try harder,” he says, and closes the door to the guest room with the finality of a judge.

On the walk back to my place, the city looks normal again. The knot in my chest is gone, replaced by a clear, quiet space where something steady can live. I made a mistake, we handled it, and somehow I like us more because of it. The jealousy wasn’t the point; the conversation was.

I text her when I’m home: made it. didn’t fight any buses.

She replies: proud of u. ps levi reorganised my spices alphabetically. Send help.

me: Tell him paprika and power go next to each other

She: he said “tsk” and did not laugh

me: I’ll wear him down

her: brave. Goodnight, horse

I stare at the word and laugh like a man who deserves it. 'Goodnight, brat, ' I type, then delete brat and send 'goodnight' because I still want to have knees tomorrow.

I fall asleep faster than I thought I would, thinking about a guest room down the hall from her, thinking about a coffee mug that’s going to judge me now, thinking about how close I came to being stupider than usual and how lucky I am that honesty, hers, mine, ours, won in the end.

Next time, I’ll look twice.
Next time, I’ll ask first.
Next time, I’ll try harder.

Chapter Text

I wake up to the sound of a spoon clinking against porcelain, like it’s judging me.

Not coffee. No warm roast drifting under my door. Something sharper, cleaner. I sit up, blink at the ceiling, and remember: I have a brother again. A brother with opinions and a guest room and a vendetta against dust.

I shuffle into the kitchen in an oversized T-shirt and socks that lost their elastic in a past life. Levi sits at the table with a neatly folded newspaper, a steaming mug, and the most offended box of Earl Grey I’ve ever seen. The kettle cools on the stove like it’s already been disciplined.

He looks up once, eyes flicking from my bed hair to my socks to—God help me—the dish rack. Judgment without a word.

“You don’t even own tea,” he says, by way of good morning. “I had to go out before sunrise like some caffeine-deprived vagrant.”

“You woke up before sunrise?” I yawn, reaching for a glass. “To buy Leafs?”

“To buy civilisation,” he says, and takes a precise sip. He sets the cup down, lines it with the shadow of the handle, and narrows his eyes just enough to begin my trial. “Who’s this Jean-boy to you?”

I stare at him over the rim of my glass. “We’re… together.”

His eyebrow moves a millimetre. In Levi, that’s a gasp. “Define.”

“Dating,” I say. “Seeing each other. Existing in the same room with intention.”

“Intention,” he repeats, like he’s tasting it. “How long?”

“Months,” I say. “With a lot of… prelude.”

He hmphs, flips the newspaper. “He smoke?”

“Only sometimes, like parties.”

“Drink like a fool.”

“Moderately,” I say. “Responsibly. He’s very boring about water.”

“Job.”

“He’s an art student. He sells commissions sometimes. He works at the campus studio and helps the underclassmen. He’s good at it.”

Levi’s face doesn’t change, but I can feel him slotting facts into a shelf labelled Useful Until Proven Otherwise. “He treat you like a person or like an art project?”

“Like a person,” I say. “And sometimes a person who distracts him so much he draws chairs when he meant to draw anything else.”

He makes a quiet noise that could be approval, wearing camouflage. The spoon taps the cup again. “You sleep at his place?”

I choke delicately on oxygen. “Levi.”

“It’s a yes-or-no question, brat.”

“Sometimes,” I say, because lying would be stupid and I’m too old to pretend. “Sometimes he sleeps here.”

Levi stares, unblinking. “Door policy.”

“We close it,” I say, mortified. “We’re not animals.”

His gaze slides to the hallway. “Good. That bed squeaks. I’d hear you.”

“Oh my God,” I whisper to my cereal bowl, which I have suddenly lost the will to pour.

He keeps going like he’s reading a checklist from the Department of Older Brothers. “He cook?”

“Yes,” I say. “Questionably. He tries. He prefers buying from people who can actually cook.” (Hi, Niccolo.)

“GPA.”

“Above mine,” I mutter.

Levi sips, satisfied by math. “He fight.”

“What, like physically?” I ask, imagining Jean getting into a fistfight with a chair. “No, well, he argues, although it can get physical with Eren.”

“Good, that brat needs to learn a lesson.” Levi’s eyes soften a fraction. “When you’re hurt, who does he call first?”

“Me,” I say, before he can add a clause about ambulances. “Then Armin. Sometimes, Sasha, if he needs noise.”

Levi sits back. The interrogation light dims. “He’s late once, he’s on thin ice. He’s late twice, I throw him out a window.”

“We live on the first floor,” I say.

“I’ll build a second,” he says, flat, and lifts his mug.

I rinse my glass for something to do with my hands. He watches my technique like I might lose a finger unsupervised.

“Don’t hover,” I say. “Go, fold towels dramatically.”

“I already did,” he says. “You own eight. Three should be retired and made into rags.”

“You’re retiring nothing,” I say, then squint at him. “Did you go through my towels at sunrise before buying tea?”

He blinks. “Yes.”

I rub my temples. “Okay, stop domestic-terrorising my apartment and tell me what exactly you’re looking for.”

Levi turns the mug in his hands, thinking. “I’m not looking,” he says. “I’m checking. There’s a difference.” A beat. “You look—” He searches for a word that won’t make him allergic. “—better. That matters.”

Warmth crawls up my throat like a sunbeam. “Thank you,” I say, which makes him scowl like compliments itch.

A knock interrupts us. It’s three gentle taps, two beats, like someone who has learned the rhythm of my door. Levi stands before I do because, of course, he does and opens it like he is leasing the threshold to applicants.

Jean stands there, carrying two coffees and a warm paper bag that smells like butter and the French Revolution. He smiles when he sees me over Levi’s shoulder; there’s a little shift in his face that always happens when he clocks me in the room. He glances at Levi, recalibrates, and holds the bag up.

“Morning,” he says carefully. “I brought croissants.”

Levi takes them like he’s confiscating contraband. “You're bribing her with carbs now.”

“Seemed safer than flowers,” Jean says. “She can eat these.”

Levi peels the bag open, inhales, and makes a very small, very real sound of approval he will deny until death. “Smart,” he says, and, without breaking eye contact, takes one croissant for himself, then steps aside like the world may continue.

Jean hands me the coffees. One is mine exactly the way I like it. I try not to melt all over the doormat. “You okay?” he asks softly.

“Surviving,” I say, tipping my head at Levi. “He woke up and bought civilisation.”

Jean’s mouth tilts. “I can learn tea.”

“Don’t,” Levi says from the kitchen. “No one wants to drink the first batch.”

We migrate toward the couch. Levi chooses the armchair, angled aggressively enough to keep us both in frame. He breaks his croissant into pieces with the precision of someone dismantling a weapon, then eats like he’s grading the baker.

Jean sits close but not crowding, passes me my coffee, and lets his knee rest against mine in a way that announces I’m here without performing it.

Levi watches like he’s at the dentist, and the tools are suspicious. “That’s your driving face,” he tells Jean, apropos of nothing. “Hm.”

“My what?”

“Your jaw,” Levi says. He mimes a tight clench. “You grip the wheel like it owes you rent. Relax.”

Jean blinks, then laughs. “Noted.”

We try a movie. Levi critiques the cinematography five minutes in. “If you’re going to use natural light, commit. This looks like a hospital forgot it’s a hospital.”

We make lunch. Levi judges our knife technique, then silently finishes the onion dice in thirty seconds like a magician. Jean says, “Do you do children’s parties?” Levi looks at him like he’s requested a plague.

We wash dishes. Levi rewashes the pan while making no eye contact whatsoever. I point. “Stop passive-aggressively cleaning my life.”

“Not passive,” he says. “And your sponge is a crime.”

All day, the sniping is constant and weirdly affectionate, like an improv show where no one smiles. Jean holds his own in a way that makes something in my chest unclench: patient, dry, never defensive.

Levi: “What’s your five-year plan, besides poverty?”

Jean: “Avoid stress-induced wrinkles.”

Levi: “You’re losing.”

Jean: “That’s why I started dating your sister. She makes me forget I have a face.”

Levi’s eyebrow dips—his version of ha. “Flatterer.”

Me, from the couch: “You two are unbearable.”

Levi ignores me. “You leave tools out.”

Jean glances at the coffee table where his pencil and sketchbook have multiplied. “Sometimes.”

“You’ll trip,” Levi says.

“I’ll learn,” Jean says.

Levi accepts this grudgingly, the way a cat accepts you chose the right brand of food by not moving for ten minutes.

In the afternoon, I escape to my room to change into something that doesn’t say I’m being interrogated before noon. When I come back, Levi is standing by the window in the guest room doorway, talking to someone low and clipped on the phone about a job lead, a temporary post, a schedule that doesn’t exist yet. He says “copy” like a period and hangs up. His eyes cut to me. The softness in them is quick and private.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Working on it,” he says. Then, before I can decide if he needs anything from me beyond presence, “Don’t leave wet towels on the door.”

“You already said that,” I say.

“I’m saying it again,” he says, and ghosts past.

Four o’clock becomes golden; five o’clock becomes dare-to-be-domestic. Jean cleans up the coffee rings he didn’t make. Levi labels my spice jars with a label maker he either brought from the army or manifested. I throw a dish towel at both of them on principle. It hits Jean in the shoulder. He catches it and tosses it back like a basketball pass. It hits Levi in the chest and drops. He looks at it like it broke a rule of physics, then folds it in half, then in half again, and hangs it straight.

“You’re both hired,” I say.

“For what?” Levi asks.

“Existing,” I say. “General life maintenance.”

“Contract work only,” he says. “No benefits.”

“Boss is stingy,” Jean murmurs.

Dinner is noodles with vegetables and a very sincere salad we all bully but eat anyway because Armin texts a thumbs-up emoji like a disappointed parent. Levi holds his fork like a lecture. Jean tells a story about Sasha calling Niccolo “Chef Husband” to his face. I tell one about Eren trying to fix an umbrella and making it more broken. Levi says “tch” at both like punctuation.

It’s almost nice. That’s the weird part. The three of us in a room that used to be quiet because it was missing someone. Everything is louder now. I like the volume.

After we eat, Levi stands at the sink and runs hot water like a metronome. He says, without looking up, “You’re still here.”

Jean wipes the table. “I am.”

Levi nods once at the plates. “Means you passed the first round.”

Jean squares his shoulders like he’s about to get drafted. “Do I ask what the next one is?”

“You’ll know,” Levi says. “You won’t like it.”

I snort. “Subtle.”

Levi finally turns enough to look me in the face. Not the one he uses for crowds. The one from breakfast when he said I looked better and acted like he hadn’t. “He’s tolerable,” he says.

“High praise,” I say dryly.

“I didn’t say likeable,” he adds. “I said tolerable.”

“Again,” I say, “glowing.”

Levi dries his hands. On his way to the hall, he stops in front of Jean, just a fraction too close to call it friendly. “If she gets hurt,” he says, calm, quiet, not a threat so much as a weather report, “I’m cleaning you off my floors myself.”

Jean doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t joke. He just nods. “Fair.”

Something unreadable, maybe respect, passes through Levi’s eyes like a shadow. He grunts, which in Levi is a handshake, and disappears down the hall to the guest room he claimed like a lighthouse.

The apartment exhales. I sag against Jean’s side, and he laughs once, soft, like a person who got through a test and only now feels his heartbeat.

“He likes you,” I say into his shoulder.

“He threatened to mop with my corpse,” he says. “That's your definition of like?”

“That’s Levi for welcome to the family,” I say. “You’ll hear worse when he starts using nicknames.”

“Worse than horse?” Jean asks, scandalised.

“I told you, it’s affectionate,” I lie.

We attempt another movie. Levi reappears twice: once to adjust the lamp (“This bulb is one watt away from eye strain”), once to silently place a coaster under Jean’s coffee. He ghosts like a house spirit who moonlights as an interior designer.

I tuck my feet under Jean’s thigh and scroll through nothing. He idly traces circles over my ankle with his knuckle. It’s nothing, and it’s everything. The day has a weight I didn’t know I was missing: a new routine creaking into place.

“Tomorrow,” I say, “do you want to come to the market with me? We can buy flowers that look accidental and bread that isn’t.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll bring civilisation. We can compare notes.”

“Don’t,” Levi calls from his room, because of course he can hear us. “You’ll buy the wrong tea.”

“I wasn’t going to buy tea,” Jean calls back.

“Good,” Levi says. “Stay in your lane.”

We both laugh, and then laugh harder because we’re trying not to.

When it’s late enough to pretend we have self-control, Jean stands to leave. Levi materialises for the exit interview, arms folded like a bouncer at the door of my life.

“Text when you get home,” he says to me, which I already do, and he knows I do, but saying it is part of our religion.

We stand in the quiet, shoes half-on. Jean smooths my hair behind my ear the way he always does when he’s about to be decent. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. The honesty is easier lately. “He’s… a lot. But he’s my lot.”

“I like him,” he says, surprising both of us. “He terrifies me, but he’s… good at being here.”

“He is,” I say. “He cleaned my sink emotionally.”

Jean smiles, then leans down and kisses me slowly, domestic, like a punctuation mark that means keep going. “Tomorrow,” he says against my mouth.

“Tomorrow,” I echo, and then he’s gone, and the door clicks, and my apartment has two heartbeats again: one in the guest room, one in my chest.

I brush my teeth. Levi knocks on the bathroom door like we never left childhood. “Stop squeezing the toothpaste from the top.”

“I’m living my truth,” I say, mouth full of mint.

He snorts. “Your truth is inefficient.”

Back in my room, I stare at the ceiling and feel the shape of the day settle into me. Morning interrogation. Croissant diplomacy. Snark warfare. Partial approval. It didn’t feel like a test until it did, and somehow we passed without cramming.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Jean: Home. didn’t fight any buses
Me: Levi says you’d lose
Jean: Agreed. See you tomorrow, French girl

I smile into the dark, roll onto my side, and listen to the quiet sounds of a house that got busier without breaking. The kettle clicks once in the kitchen like it remembers being useful. Down the hall, a door opens and closes softly. Footsteps pause. Levi’s voice, low enough to be for the apartment and not for me:

“Good job, brat.”

I don’t answer. I don’t need to. I fall asleep to the clean smell of tea and the memory of butter and the steady certainty that no one will ever be fully worthy of me in Levi’s eyes, and that maybe that’s the point. Not to be worthy. To be here. To try harder. To stay.

Chapter Text

The day starts like we’ve finally figured out how to be people.

Levi is already up, of course, judging the kettle into submission. He mutters “uncivilised” at my sponge, then pours Earl Grey like it’s a ceremony and not leafs impersonating water. Jean sits cross-legged on the couch with a sketchbook, hair still soft from sleep, pencil tapping a quiet rhythm that keeps time with the hiss of the kettle. I’m at the table pretending to read an article about something that absolutely does not matter when he looks like that.

“Your plant is dying,” Levi announces, staring down my pothos.

“It’s thriving,” I say.

“It’s begging for mercy,” he says, lifting a leaf like he’s checking a pulse. “Turns out plants like water. Who knew.”

Jean hides a smile and flips a page. “I watered it yesterday.”

“Lies,” Levi says, not looking up.

“Okay, I watered it a few days ago,” Jean amends.

Levi grunts, then takes a cup of water and pours it for the poor plant. It’s all very domestic, very ordinary. I want to frame it and hang it where the good light hits.

Jean’s phone buzzes on the cushion. Unknown number. He glances at the screen, hesitates, and lets it go to voicemail. The pencil tapping stops for one, two, three heartbeats. Then he starts again, a touch too even.

I put my article down. “Spam?”

“Yeah,” he says lightly, but his hand is still on the phone like it might jump.

Levi clocks it. Of course he does. He doesn’t say anything; he just sips tea loudly enough to be supportive and critical at the same time.

We do our morning routine. Levi critiques the way I fold towels (wrong), the way Jean loads the dishwasher (a war crime), and the way gravity works in this apartment (suspicious). Jean sketches my side profile while I text Sasha about something ridiculous. Everything hums. Balanced.

By noon, the voicemail has turned into an email, and the email has turned into Jean standing very still in my kitchen while the oven timer blinks 00:00 and the pasta we forgot to put in the water lounges in a box, unbothered.

He’s quiet in a way that isn’t peaceful. It’s the silence a room makes when it’s holding its breath.

“Okay,” I say, leaning on the counter. “Tell me.”

He looks up, eyes bright with something that’s not quite fear. “I—” He breaks, then laughs once, breathless. “I got an offer.”

Everything in me goes still the way you do when a wave is about to hit and you want to feel all of it.

“What kind?” I ask, even though the part of me that’s learned his voice already knows it’s the good kind.

“An internship,” he says. “Paid. Really well. Six months. It’s with a studio that does large-format work and installation—like actual spaces you walk into, not just walls. They saw my portfolio through a professor, and they want me. Me.”

Pride spikes so sharply it almost stings. “Jean—”

“It’s an hour away,” he adds quickly, like he can soften the edge if he says it fast. “Commutable in theory, but with studio hours… they want me there, like there there. I’d have housing with the other interns. It starts in three weeks.”

The wave hits—joy, because he deserves good things; panic, because distance has teeth.

I swallow. Make myself meet his eyes. “That’s huge.”

“It is,” he says, and there’s the hurt: he’s happy. He’s terrified to be happy in front of me.

Levi has the decency to leave the room then, as if summoned by the gods of timing. He mutters something about reorganising the bathroom and ghosts down the hall.

I push off the counter and cross to Jean, take the paper he’s crumpling without noticing. It’s the email, printed; he’s already folded it twice into the shape of a decision.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

He exhales. “That I want it. That I want us. That I don’t know how to want both without hurting something.”

I hate how much I understand that sentence. I also love him a little for saying it out loud.

“I’m not mad,” I hear myself say. “I’m… scared.”

“Me too,” he says. “Remember when we thought the biggest test would be surviving Levi’s critique of our blanket folding?”

“Still top three,” I say, because humour is the only boat I trust on this particular water.

We sit on the couch, knee to knee, the paper between us like a third cup of coffee neither of us is drinking.

“Six months,” I repeat, because numbers become real when you say them. “It’s not forever.”

“No,” he says. “Just long enough to feel like it.”

I nod. “It’s just an hour.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not the miles. It’s the hours. The late nights. The ‘can I call you tomorrow because I’m dead and my phone’s at 3%.’ The stupid little things that turn into walls.”

His honesty feels like a hand on my back, steadying me even as it pushes me to look down.

“I want you to go,” I say, surprising both of us. It’s the truth, even if my throat hates it. “You’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”

He looks at me like I just handed him a compass. “I don’t want to choose between this and you.”

“You’re not,” I say. “You’re choosing this for you. I’ll be here.”

His hand finds mine, turns my palm up, traces the line below my thumb with his thumb the way he always does when the world is too loud. “Will you say that again when I call at midnight and sound like a raccoon in a dumpster?”

“I will,” I say. “I’ll bring snacks.”

He laughs, then goes quiet. “And if it’s awful?”

“You come home,” I say. “And we make fun of it. And you still get to put it on your CV because we are not saints.”

Levi appears in the doorway like a soft jump scare, a tea mug in hand, a label maker clipped to his pocket like a weapon. “Good. You already landed where I was going to push you.”

I blink. “You were going to… push?”

He leans against the frame, eyes warm in the way most people would confuse for indifferent. “If it’s real, you don’t need to guard it so hard,” he says, like he’s reading a weather report. “Let him go build something. You’ll still be here.”

Jean opens his mouth. Levi lifts a finger.

“And you,” he adds, to Jean, “don’t come back smaller. Come back better. Or I’m charging you rent for breathing my air.”

Jean manages to look chastened and delighted at once. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” Levi says, and disappears again, because he’s physically allergic to lingering sentiment.

We sit with the echo of that for a while. The apartment hums. A car passes. Someone upstairs laughs. It’s all so normal, it makes my eyes sting.

“When do you have to answer?” I ask.

“End of the week,” he says. “Soon.”

“Okay.” I take a breath that feels like breaking the surface of a pool. “Then say yes.”

His eyebrows tick up, surprised even though we’ve been walking toward this exact sentence for ten minutes.

“Say yes,” I repeat. “Go be the version of you who gets this. I’ll be here, being the version of me who doesn’t make you choose. We’ll figure out the hours. We’ll hate them together.”

He leans in until his forehead rests against mine, our noses bumping the way they always do right before he remembers to be careful. “I don’t deserve you,” he says, quietly.

“Nobody deserves me,” I say, because Levi taught me that, and because it makes him huff a laugh into my mouth when he kisses me.

It’s not a desperate kiss. It’s steady, almost reverent. The I-choose-you kind. When we part, the email is still on the table. It doesn’t look bigger than us anymore.

He says yes on Thursday.

I’m there when he hits send, his finger shaking a little. He sits back like he just finished a race. I kiss the corner of his mouth because I love men who do terrifying things for their future.

The next weeks turn into lists. Housing forms. Studio schedules. A group chat with people he hasn’t met yet who all use too many exclamation points. Levi gives him a box of cleaning supplies with a note that reads 'for when your roommates are useless'.

We practice distance like it’s a sport. We pick nights to call and promise to reschedule without guilt when life laughs. We draw a radius on a map and circle halfway coffee shops, joking about how romantic it is to kiss in parking lots. We write each other stupid notes and hide them where the other will find them later: in a coat pocket, tucked into a novel, taped under a mug.

The last night before he goes, we don’t make a ceremony out of it. We cook badly, laugh anyway, fall asleep in the wrong direction across the couch with my feet under his thigh and his hand in my hair like his body knows where it belongs even when his brain is busy.

In the morning, Levi drives him because I would overthink directions. They don’t talk much, two men communicating in glances and the sacred language of “seat adjusted correctly.” When they get back, there’s a single text in the group chat:

Levi: Dropped him. No one died

Sasha: 😭😭😭

Connie: We salute!!

Mikasa: Proud of both of you

Armin: Call if you need help moving anything. ☺️

Jean: I miss bad coffee already

Y/N: Bring your own then.

He sends me a photo of his new room: a bed, a desk, and a window with light. I know he’ll learn. A sketchbook on the pillow like a welcome sign.

Jean: Call you at 9?

Me: I’ll be here

He calls at 9. His voice is soft with that first-day exhaustion and the thrill of being terrified on purpose. He tells me about a wall he touched that felt like a question. We tell each other nothing important and everything that matters.

“Okay,” he says finally, voice low like the hour. “Hang up first.”

“Never,” I say. “You.”

He laughs. “On three.”

We fail at three, say goodbye twice, and then the line clicks to quiet. My phone screen goes dark and becomes a mirror. I look like a person who is doing something hard and not lying about it.

Levi taps the doorframe. I didn’t hear him walk up. He holds out a cup of tea like a peace offering to a god.

“You’ll be fine,” he says. “Both of you.”

“You don’t know that,” I say, because saying the scared part out loud has started to feel less like weakness and more like breathing.

“I do,” he says simply. “He’s dumb enough to love you and smart enough to learn. You’re stubborn enough to wait and mean enough to tell the truth.” A beat. “If it breaks, it breaks. But it won’t be because you were cowards.”

I take the cup. It’s too hot. I hold it anyway. “You've always been this poetic?”

He rolls his eyes, offended. “It’s literally tea.”

“Thank you,” I say.

He shrugs, already turning away. “Don’t make it weird.”

When I’m alone again, the apartment sounds different but not empty. There are two mugs on the table—mine and the one Jean used this morning. I don’t move them. I like the shape of them together.

His sketchbook sits where he “forgot” it. I open it to a page with a loose line drawing: me at the sink, hair up, face turned away, hands in the water. He’s captured the stupid little curl near my ear I always miss with a hair tie. The caption at the bottom says, in his messy pencil:

See you soon.

I trace the line with my fingertip. The kettle clicks in the kitchen. The plant looks slightly less doomed. The door is closed but not locked. An hour away feels like a lot. It also feels like a distance I can cross with a car and a playlist, and an ugly rest stop coffee.

Not goodbye. Just longer hellos.

I text him.

Me: Goodnight, art boy. Try not to fall in love with another muse.

Jean: Impossible. Already taken.

Jean: Goodnight, French girl

I put the sketchbook back where he’ll find it when he comes home on the weekend. Then I do what Levi would be proud of: I water the plant. I wash the mugs. I make a list that says work / sleep / call him / breathe, and I stick it to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a pretzel.

It’s not courage so much as choosing. And for once, choosing feels like enough.

Chapter Text

Jean's POV:

Leaving her behind was harder than I thought it would be.
The car smelled like coffee and goodbye. She’d written drive safe on the inside of the to-go cup; I didn’t notice until the first stoplight, and by then the ink had already smudged against my thumb.

The highway out of town was a silver ribbon that didn’t know how to end.
For the first twenty minutes, I kept the radio low, our playlist, the one with every song that had accidentally become ours. I turned it off halfway through the first chorus; singing alone felt like cheating.

The drive was just under an hour, like the internet had promised. Long enough to think, short enough to regret thinking.
When I finally saw the sign for the art firm, I sent a quick text:

Jean: Hey, French girl, just arrived safely! x

Y/n: Be careful! Miss you already.

Jean: Miss you too. 😔

Knowing she missed me made me smile through the emptiness sitting in my chest.

The firm smelled like turpentine, graphite, and espresso, the holy trinity of creation.
At the reception desk, a woman with green-stained fingers checked my name and pointed me toward a glass door. “Intern floor. Don’t touch the sculptures, they’re temperamental.”

Inside, the place buzzed like a quiet hive. Light poured through the long windows and landed on people who all seemed more confident than me.
A tall guy in a denim apron looked up from stretching a canvas.

“Are you the new intern?”

“Yeah. Jean Kirschtein.”

He nodded toward a workstation by the windows. “That’s you. Supplies underneath. Try not to bleed on anything expensive.”

“Noted.”

My space wasn’t much: desk, a stool, lamp, but the view was a painting waiting to happen. The river cut through the city below, all moving light and noise. I unpacked my pencils, placed my sketchbook dead centre, and tried to look like I belonged.

A woman in her thirties approached, sleeves rolled to her elbows, hair tied up with a paint-stained scarf.
“Adele. I run the intern program,” she said. “You’re the one who did the mirror sketch, right?”

I nodded, half proud, half embarrassed. “Yeah, that was mine.”

“Pretentious but effective. I liked it.”

“Thanks… I think.”

She smiled. “Relax, Kirschtein. We’re all pretentious here. Welcome to the madhouse.”

By noon, the room had turned into a rhythm, brushes tapping jars, laptops clicking, somebody laughing about a spilt coffee.
I lost myself in sketching a test layout for one of their projects: an industrial space turned art exhibit. The floor shook slightly from the subway below, like the city itself was restless.

My phone buzzed beside the sketchpad.
A message from her.

Y/N: Have you eaten?

Jean: Not yet, except the back of my pencil.

Y/N: Classic. Stay hydrated, Michelangelo.

I grinned, thumb hovering over the screen longer than necessary. Across the room, Adele caught me smiling and raised an eyebrow.

“Girlfriend?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Good. Every artist needs a reason to remember the real world.”

After lunch, I met the rest of the interns, Felix, who talked like caffeine had replaced his blood, and June, who could stretch a canvas faster than I could blink.

Felix elbowed me. “You're the Trost College guy, right? The one with the mirror thing?”

“That’s me.”

“Bold move. Most people try to put their ego in the art, not watch it shatter.”

“Guess I’m innovative.”

“Guess so.”

By the end of the day, I was covered in charcoal dust and maybe actual dust; everything in this building seemed to shed something. I sent another text before heading out:

Jean: Survived day one. Only mild humiliation.

Y/N: That’s an improvement.

Jean: Adele says I’m pretentious but effective.

Y/N: She's wise.

Jean: Your responses are really dry, you know that?

Y/N: Oh, I'm aware. My plan to make you miss me even more.

Jean: Brat.

Y/N: You're starting to sound like my brother.

The firm provided housing, tiny apartments stacked like drawers above a bakery. The hallway smelled like sugar and paint thinner. My room was barely larger than the bed, but there was a window, and that window faced west.

I set my sketchbook on the sill, opened a blank page, and started drawing the skyline. The sun dropped behind the bridge in streaks of orange and blue that didn’t look real. I wanted to send her a picture, but the camera flattened everything, so I wrote instead.

Jean: Wish you could see the sunset, it's beautiful.

Y/N: Take a picture for me? 🥹

Jean: Doesn't do it justice.

Y/N: Perfectionist.

Jean: You love it.

Y/N: You caught me.

Days started to blur into sketches and coffee cups.
Morning meetings where everyone spoke in metaphors.
Afternoons where Adele wandered by and dropped small bombs of wisdom.

“Don’t chase perfection,” she told me once, watching me erase the same line five times. “It’s faster than you.”

Felix would laugh and tell me, “She says that to everyone. Means she likes you.”

In the evenings, I’d walk down to the river and call Y/N. Sometimes she’d answer right away, voice soft and sleepy; sometimes she’d text instead, “Dead tired, call tomorrow?”
Either way, hearing from her made the world make sense again.

Still, distance crept in slowly, the way dust settles on an unused canvas.
Calls shortened.
Deadlines stretched.
Every night I promised, Tomorrow we’ll talk longer, but tomorrow always turned into a new project, another critique, another exhaustion that left my phone untouched.

One Friday, Adele dismissed us early. “Go live a little. The art will wait,” she said.

Felix suggested drinks; I begged off. My head was already halfway into a call with her.

At my desk, I texted:

Jean: I'm free tonight, you?

No reply.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty.

When the phone finally lit up, it was just one message:

Y/N: Sorry, I was out with the girls. Tell me everything later.

I typed 'have fun' and meant it.
Still, the quiet after was heavy.

I walked home through the city lights, thinking about how she’d laughed last time we were at a bar together, how she’d leaned against me and called me her safe place.
Now I felt like a postcard someone forgot to send.

Back in the apartment, I set up my sketchbook and drew her from memory: head tilted, eyes half-closed, the faint smirk she gave me when she pretended not to like my jokes.

When the drawing was finished, I wrote beneath it:
One hour is longer than it sounds.

Later that night, my phone buzzed again.

Y/N: You awake?

Jean: Always am.

Y/N: Sorry, I missed your call. Just got home.

Jean: No worries. Did you have fun?

Y/N: Yeah. Just tired.

Two words. Just tired.
I stared at them until the screen went black, then placed the phone face down on the nightstand.

A train passed in the distance, shaking the glass. The city hummed like it was alive just to keep me company.

I lay back on the bed, watching the reflection of the streetlights crawl across the ceiling, and thought about her hands, her laugh, the plant Levi had probably already judged into survival.

I’d told her once that distance was just math.
Tonight, it felt more like gravity.

Something feels off...

Chapter Text

Y/N's POV:

Sasha’s group chat reminder popped up while I was still at work.

Sasha: GIRLS’ NIGHT. No excuses. 9 PM.

Historia: She means you, Y/N.

Ymir: Bring your sad playlist so we can mock it.

I almost typed maybe next time, but the typing bubbles from all of them stared me down. Levi’s voice echoed from memory 'don’t do anything stupid' which, in hindsight, should’ve counted as foreshadowing.

By the time I made it home, Levi was camped at the kitchen table with the newspaper and tea like the guardian of common sense.
“Out again?” he asked without looking up.

“The girls want to go dancing.”

He turned a page. “Wear shoes you can run in.”

“Why would I—”

“Instinct,” he said, and that was that.

The bar was already pulsing when we arrived, neon light, sweat, perfume, someone’s bass-heavy remix of a song we’d loved in high school.
Historia led the charge to the dance floor. Ymir ordered shots. Mikasa claimed a corner booth with a look that said, 'I’m the responsible one.'

Sasha shoved a glass into my hand. “To forgetting deadlines and stupid boys who live too far away!”

“To art,” I said weakly, but I drank anyway.

Halfway through the second round, I felt the weight of my phone in my purse.
Jean had texted an hour ago:

Jean: Free tonight. You?

My stomach twisted. I typed out with the girls, tell you later and hit send before I could think.
When the message showed as delivered, I stared at the screen too long, waiting for those three dots that never appeared.

“Hey!” Sasha yelled over the music, pulling me back. “We are not phone-checking tonight. You promised fun!”

“I didn’t actually promise—”

“Shut up and dance!”

So I did.

The night melted into rhythm. Lights flashed red, then violet. Every song bled into the next.
For a few moments, I could almost pretend I wasn’t counting the minutes since his last call.

That’s when someone offered me a drink.
A guy, for a moment, I thought it was Jean who had come home to surprise me. Under all the liquor, it was hard to grasp the reality that he wasn't. The shape of his smile tricked my heart into a half-beat of recognition before my brain could catch up.

“You look like you need this more than I do,” he said, handing me the glass.

“I look like I need a week of sleep,” I answered.

“Fair,” he laughed. “I’m David.”

“Y/N.”

We talked, nothing deep, just noise against the bass: what we studied, how awful the playlist was, how this city never slept.
Every time he leaned in to hear me, I caught the scent of his cologne, not the one I was used to.
It was wrong, but my head was light, and the room was spinning just enough that 'wrong' started sounding like a break.
He reminded me so much of the man I was missing that I kept accidentally calling him Jean in my head; luckily, I don't think I called him that out loud.

Sasha reappeared long enough to shout, “You good?” and I nodded too fast.
The floor tilted, or maybe I did. David’s hand steadied my elbow; his laugh was warm.

The music grew louder, the air heavier.
I remember thinking: It’s just attention. Attention is harmless.

But attention turns into closeness when you’re lonely enough.

The rest of the night blurred—the crowd, the heat, the city breathing outside the door.
At some point, I stopped thinking about distance altogether.

---

The first thing I noticed was light, sharp and white, the kind that doesn’t belong in my room.
The second was the ceiling, too high, too plain.

The sheets were rough against my skin. I was still in my underwear, my dress balled at the end of the bed. My head throbbed like the music hadn’t stopped yet.

For a long moment, I didn’t move. I listened. A city bus sighed somewhere below the window. A kettle clicked from another apartment. Beside me, on the chair, a shirt that wasn’t mine.

Memory started returning in fragments: the bar, the music, the stranger’s smile that had looked too familiar. I closed my eyes and wished it all back into a blur.

The air smelled like detergent and cheap cologne, not coffee and paint. The wrong life.

I sat up fast, dizzy, found one shoe on the floor, the other half under the bed. My phone was dead. I pulled the dress over my head, fingers shaking, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Mascara blurred at the edges, a bruise from sleep on my shoulder.

For a heartbeat, panic replaced every other feeling. Then shame followed.

He shifted in his sleep. I froze. The idea of him waking and smiling, of pretending any of this meant something, was unbearable.

I grabbed my bag, shoved my arms through my jacket, and slipped out the door as quietly as I could.

The air outside was cold enough to sting. Morning traffic already hummed; people walked dogs, bought coffee, lived normal lives. I walked fast, head down, the city too bright, every sound too loud.

By the time I reached my street, my pulse hadn’t slowed. I let myself in with shaking hands, kicked off my shoes, and went straight to the bathroom.

The shower hissed to life. I stepped under it before the water turned hot. The cold hit first, shock that made me gasp, then the heat, scalding and deliberate. I scrubbed my arms, my shoulders, my face, until my skin flushed pink. It wasn’t about being clean; it was about trying to find the person I’d been yesterday.

When I closed my eyes, the night replayed in flashes: a hand on my arm, the smell of someone else’s cologne, laughter that wasn’t mine. My stomach clenched. The more I tried to breathe, the shallower the air became.

How do I tell him?
Do I tell him?
Maybe it doesn’t count if I can’t even remember—
The thought made me choke. Water mixed with tears before I could stop them. I pressed my palms to the tile and let the noise of the shower drown out the sobs.

You ruined it.
You ruined something good again.

The voice in my head sounded uncomfortably like Levi’s calm disappointment. That hurt worse than anger would have.

Steam thickened until the mirror vanished. I stayed until the water cooled and the world shrank to the sound of the pipes rattling. Three hours disappeared that way—just me, the hiss of water, and the rhythm of my own heartbeat echoing against tile.

When I finally stepped out, my eyes were swollen, my throat raw. The apartment smelled faintly of tea.

Levi sat at the table, mug in hand, newspaper half-folded. He didn’t look up right away; he didn’t have to.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

He nodded once. “Drink some water.”

I poured a glass, but my hands shook so badly that it sloshed over the rim. He watched the puddle spread across the counter, then finally met my eyes.

“Rough night?”

“Yeah,” I said.

He hummed—neutral, but the kind of neutral that meant I already know. “Try not to make a habit of it.”

I turned away, desperate for an escape. “I’m fine.”

“That,” he said quietly, “is the worst lie you’ve ever told.”

My breath caught. He set his mug down and stood. “You came in before sunrise, mascara halfway down your face, shaking like you’d been chased. You’ve been in that shower for three hours. Whatever you did—own it before it eats you alive.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came. The tears did instead.

He sighed and crossed the room, not close enough to touch me but close enough to anchor the air. “You tell him,” he said. “Soon. You don’t get to bury this.”

“I can’t,” I whispered. “He’ll leave.”

“He might,” Levi said. “But at least he’ll be choosing with the truth in front of him.”

I sank onto the couch, pulling my knees up, arms wrapped around them. The fabric of my robe stuck to damp skin. The first sob slipped out loud enough to make him flinch.

Levi didn’t move for a moment. Then he set a box of tissues on the coffee table and sat in the armchair across from me, posture stiff, eyes soft despite himself.

“Cry,” he said. “Then fix it.”

I nodded, unable to stop. The sound filled the room—ugly, real.

He watched, silent except for the quiet clink of his spoon against the mug. When my breathing finally slowed, he said, “You’re not the first idiot to hurt someone they love. Just don’t make yourself the kind who lies about it.”

I curled tighter, voice small. “I don’t know how to start.”

“Start with a phone call,” he said. “And drink that water before you faint, brat.”

Afternoon light cuts the room into soft rectangles, dust drifting like it has nowhere better to be. I’m on the couch, hair still damp from the shower-that-wasn’t-just-a-shower, a blanket around my shoulders because I can’t get warm. The mug on the table has gone cold twice. I keep reheating it and forgetting to drink.

My phone buzzes against the cushion. I flinch hard enough to jostle the blanket.
Jean flashes across the screen like a decision I’m not ready to make.

Let it ring. Let it go to voicemail. Text him later with some neat, harmless lie. Sorry, nap. Sorry, library. Sorry, Levi staged a tea coup. My thumb is already moving. Stupid thumb. Stupid muscle memory that knows what to do when it sees his name.

I swipe. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he says, and my ribs loosen just enough to hurt. He sounds close, that warm-casual tone he gets when he’s pacing a room and talking with his hands, I can’t see. “I only have a few minutes before Adele steals me, but can I tell you something cool?”

Say no. Say you’re busy. Say anything that gives you time to figure out how to be a good person. “Tell me.”

“Okay, so,” he says, words tumbling. “We’re testing the mirror grid today. You remember the draft? The one that catches ambient light and rethrows it as colour? Felix finally got the mountings seated, and when the sun hit at the right angle, the whole wall went. God, it was like the room exhaled rainbows. People actually stopped talking. Adele did the eyebrow thing. I think that means she didn’t hate it.”

I picture it because I’ve trained my brain to build whatever he describes: a wall catching sky and giving it back better; his face tilted up into light I can’t see. He’s happy. He’s happy, and there is a knife behind my tongue.

“That’s—” I clear my throat, which has decided to be thick and traitorous. “That’s amazing, Jean.”

He laughs, a softer version for me. “Yeah. It felt… right. Like something I thought I could only fake actually happened. You’d have loved it. The colours… I swear I saw a shade of blue I didn’t know existed.”

I am proud of you. The words line up and refuse to leave my mouth. I switch to safe. “Did you eat?”

“I inhaled a pastry,” he says. “I’m ninety percent sugar and hubris.”

“Classic,” I say, and try to smile so he’ll hear it.

He hears the shape but not the effort. “What about you? How’s your day?”

Tell him the truth. Say: I made a mistake. Say: I’m sorry. Say anything before the wrong kind of silence grows teeth. “Just… slow,” I say. “Laundry. I watered the plant. Levi called me a ghost. Normal things.”

“Normal’s good,” he says, and it lands like a dare. “I miss normal.”

Me too. God, me too. “How’s the apartment?”

“Still echo-y,” he says. “But I stole one of those tiny lamps from the supply closet, and it’s pretending to be cosy.”

I can hear him moving, buttons, fabric, the sound of a door nudged open by a foot. He’s smiling; I could pick his smile out of a crowd of ten thousand by sound alone. My chest tightens. I press a fist against it because grief is ridiculous like that; it wants you to hold it like a bruise.

“Felix says hi,” he adds. “Well, he said: ‘Tell your mysterious muse that the grid didn’t fall and murder us all,’ which is his love language.”

“Tell him I’m proud he survived gravity,” I say. It comes out steadier than I feel.

He chuckles. “I will. God, I wish you were here.”

Me too. Say it out loud. Give yourself the smallest mercy. “Me too.”

A beat of quiet. I can hear the studio on his end, the hum of a fluorescent, someone laughing, the squeak of a rolling ladder. On my side: the tick of the stupid clock Levi swears is five seconds slow and the kettle cooling from its last boil. The apartment smells like tea and lemon cleaner because I went to war against a kitchen counter as if bleach could forgive me.

“Hey,” he says, gentler. “You sure you’re okay? You sound… I don’t know. Small.”

Because I am. Because I made myself small on purpose last night, and now I’m trapped there. “Just tired,” I say, and hate myself immediately. I am using the flimsiest lie on a person who knows my breathing patterns.

He pauses long enough to hear around it. “Do you want me to call later? I can—”

“No,” I say too fast, panic spiking. If we hang up, the truth will still be here, and I’ll still be the same coward. “Talk to me. Tell me something stupid. Tell me about Adele’s eyebrow.”

He hums, smiling into the phone. “It has degrees. There’s the mild disdain lift and the acceptable risk lift. Today, we got a surprise and a pretend-not-to-be lift. Highest praise.”

A laugh scrapes out of me like a match that barely takes. He hears it and relaxes a little. Good. Keep him far from the cliff I built.

“Also,” he adds, “I taped your note inside my sketchbook. The ‘drink water or I’ll haunt you’ one. Terrifying.”

“That’s its job,” I say. I pull the blanket tighter, as if wool can hold the parts of me trying to run. “Are you drinking water?”

“Unfortunately,” he says. “Felix keeps handing me cups like he’s my hydration sponsor.”

The image is stupid and perfect; it should make me happy. Instead, my throat tightens. I blink hard at the window. The glass smears into two versions of the same city.

Tell him. Tell him now before this becomes something uglier. Before your lie starts writing over his good day. Before you get used to how easy it is to be cowards.

“Jean,” I say.

He hears it. “Yeah?”

Say it. It’s two words: I’m sorry. Then four: I made a mistake. Then what? Then whatever he chooses, because that’s what honesty is, handing someone the truth and letting them decide if they can carry it.

My heart panics. My mouth goes diplomatic. “I… I’m really proud of you.”

He exhales like I tossed him a rope. “Thank you.” Another pause, and then, quietly: “I’m trying to be the version of me you made room for.”

Something in me buckles. I slip my hand over my mouth so he won’t hear it. The blanket is suddenly too heavy. The room feels tilted. I want to run all the way back to the beginning and stand in the kitchen with him when the email arrived and choose being brave every minute after that.

He fills the silence the way he always does when he thinks I need saving. “Okay, logistics: I probably won’t make it home next weekend, they’re pushing the install, but maybe the one after? Or I can meet you halfway on Tuesday if you’re free? There’s this diner by the motorway that looks like a health code violation, which means the pancakes are probably religious.”

“Yeah,” I say. A ridiculous sob wants to crawl into the world; I flatten it with practice. “Tuesday could work.”

“Text me your schedule,” he says. “I’ll make it fit. I want—” He stops, laughs at himself. “I want to see your face.”

“You just heard me cry over tap water,” I try to joke. “Not sure the face is an upgrade.”

“Your crying face is elite,” he says, too earnest to be teasing. “Top-tier.”

I smile into the blanket because I hate that he’s right. Because he finds a way to love even my worst versions. I don’t deserve that. The sentence lands like an indictment: Nobody deserves me. It used to make me feel strong. Today, it just feels like I’m hiding behind my brother’s voice.

A door closes on his end. The room tone changes. He must have stepped into the stairwell, the echo tells me. “I have to go in a sec,” he says, reluctant. “They’re about to test the final grid. I’ll send a video if Felix doesn’t drop the camera.”

“Be careful,” I say. It’s automatic, like crossing yourself before a storm.

“I will.” A smile in the words. “You too.”

“Mm.”

Another beat. I can feel him not wanting to hang up. I can feel myself clinging even as the lie in my throat grows sharp.

“Hey,” he says, voice low. “Thank you for picking up.”

“Always,” I say, and the word cuts. I add, because I can’t stop myself from telling at least one true thing today: “I love hearing you happy.”

He goes quiet long enough, I think we’ve lost signal. Then: “I love telling you first.”

My eyes sting. The ceiling blurs. “Go make rainbows, art boy.”

“Yes, French girl.” He inhales like he’s memorising me. “Tonight? If it’s not too late?”

“Tonight,” I say, and hate that I’m borrowing time.

“Okay. Bye, no, wait. On three?” He laughs at himself. “One, two—”

We fail at three, like always. Then the line clicks and I’m left staring at my reflection in a black screen: red eyes, damp hair, a mouth that didn’t do the brave thing.

The apartment reappears around me. The kettle ticks as it cools. A car passes outside; a dog barks; life resumes its normal audacity.

Levi moves down the hallway, footsteps soft, the way he walks when he doesn’t want to make me flinch. He pauses in the doorway, takes in the blanket, the cold tea, the guilty phone. His gaze is surgical. He doesn’t ask how the call went. He doesn’t have to.

“Drink something that isn’t regret,” he says, and sets a fresh glass of water on the table. He turns to go, then adds, not unkindly, “You can’t keep that in your mouth forever. You’ll choke.”

After he’s gone, I press my palms to my eyes until stars bloom against the dark. My heart is still racing like it missed a step and never found the beat again.

I whisper to the empty room because it’s the only place safe enough to hear it first: “I don’t know how to fix what I broke.”

The clock ticks. The water fogs its glass. My phone stays black and patient, waiting for me to decide what kind of person I’m going to be.

Chapter Text

I decide before the sun dares to show up.

No more waiting for a better version of me to do it. No more rewrites in my head until the truth sounds like something it isn’t. Today I put the words in the air and let them do what they do.

The apartment is blue with early light. My list from last week is still magneted to the fridge: work / sleep / call him / breathe, and it looks like a dare. I add one more line at the bottom in tiny letters: tell him.

Levi is already awake, because of course he is. He stands at the stove, kettle at a military angle, reading the label on a new box of Earl Grey like it’s committed a crime.

“We’re out of the decent one,” he says, hearing me before I speak. “This brand tastes like wet cardboard that met a lemon once in 1997.”

“Stunning review,” I murmur, tying my hair up. My hands are steady in the mirror. I don’t trust it.

He glances at my face in the reflection of the microwave door. “You look like you’ve decided to do something stupid.”

“Maybe something honest.”

He pours water. “Same thing, usually.”

I take a breath that scrapes going down. “He asked to meet halfway. The diner off the motorway, the one that looks like a bad idea.”

“You’re going.”

“I’m going.”

He studies me, not unkindly. “Good. Don’t be late. Being late makes bad news sound worse.”

I pull open a drawer for car keys and close it again because I’m not wearing shoes. My brain is a tangle of Before and After. Before were warm kitchens and stupid jokes. After is a table in a diner where I might lose the thing that made Before possible.

Levi sets a mug down within reach. “Drink something that isn’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” I lie, and then ruin it by breathing like a person who’s forgotten the instructions.

He doesn’t argue. He watches me reach for my coat, then says, too casual to be an accident, “You have something on your conscience, you say it clean. Not neat. Clean. You don’t owe him a performance. You owe him the truth.”

I nod because if I speak, I’ll cry. Again.

The front door swings open and a gust of colder air sweeps the kitchen. I turn and almost laugh from the sheer weirdness of timing.

Levi steps aside to make room for a tall man with a paper bag and a bouquet that looks like it won a fight with the discount bin.

“Don’t judge the flowers,” the man says, pushing the door shut with one heel. “They were on clearance because the tulips are very… interpretive.”

“Translation,” Levi says, taking the bag, “he bought the sad ones and expects praise.”

“Hello, Erwin,” I manage, and he beams like we share a private joke I’ve just remembered.

“Morning, Y/N,” he says, cheeks pinked from the cold. He lifts the bouquet. “For your table. And for Levi’s blood pressure.”

Levi plucks one tulip, turns it like he’s inspecting a weapon, and mutters, “This one’s pretending to be a swan.”

“It’s trying its best,” Erwin replies, deadpan. He sets the flowers down, kisses Levi’s cheek like people who have had ten arguments and twelve breakfasts together, and starts unpacking the bag. “Also, I brought that tea you actually like.”

“Finally,” Levi says, relief disguised as insult. “Someone with taste.”

They move around each other in the kitchen like choreography practised for years, Erwin pulling out groceries, Levi rearranging them with a level of judgment that would get him arrested in three countries. They argue quietly about steeping time. Erwin mispronounces a brand name on purpose to make Levi huff. The whole scene is so dry and gentle that it aches.

They met in the military, so they're somewhat accustomed to proper schedules, which makes them a perfect match. I heard Erwin was one rank above my brother, so dating was a no-go back then, but it's nice to see they kept in touch.

I stand there in my coat, watching two people who learned how to stay, even after whatever wars they dragged each other through. They’re not soft, not exactly. They’re precise. They keep choosing.

Erwin notices me noticing. He hands me a tulip with a crushed petal. “For luck,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say, voice small.

Levi shoves a to-go cup of tea into my hand and the spare key toward my pocket like I’m twelve again. “Go,” he says. “Fix your mess. Don’t make it bigger by being late.”

A laugh catches on my ribs and leaves them sore. “Love you too.”

“Tragic,” he says. It sounds like be safe.

Erwin leans against the counter, eyes kind. “Drive carefully. And—” he glances at Levi “—breathe between sentences.”

Levi grunts, which means agreed.

I tuck the tulip into a clean glass on the table, take my keys, and walk out before I can think myself into an easier lie.

The sky is that pale winter colour that makes everything look like it’s underlined. The car heater fights against the cold breath of the morning. I put on the playlist we made months ago and immediately turn it down to a whisper; every lyric feels like it’s looking at me.

I rehearse versions of the truth at red lights.

I made a mistake.

It meant nothing.

It meant I was lonely and stupid, and I hate who that makes me.

None of them sounds survivable. None of them sound like enough.

Half an hour is a weird amount of time to hold your nerve. Too long to sprint, too short to stop for help.

I pull off the motorway into the gravel lot of a diner that looks like a movie set where pancakes are both religion and crime. The sign flickers even though it’s day. Inside, everything is stainless steel and stubborn lighting. The waitress refills three cups at once with a move that could win contests.

Jean is already there.

He’s at a table by the window, jacket slung over the back of the chair, sketchbook open next to a coffee that looks like it’s survived several refills. His hair is pushed back like he’s tried to tidy himself into calm. When he sees me, he stands too fast and almost knocks his knee on the underside of the table. The automatic smile finds his mouth and then hesitates, like it isn’t sure what shape it’s allowed to be.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” My voice does the thing it does when I speak into winter air.

“You found it,” he says, like that’s an accomplishment.

“Eventually,” I answer, like that’s a joke.

The waitress slaps down a menu I don’t need and calls me sweetheart like I deserve it. I sit. The vinyl sighs under me like it’s been coached. Jean sits too, but not all the way. He hovers in the kind of indecision that makes your chest ache to look at.

“How’s the drive?” he asks.

“Short,” I say. “Long.”

“Yeah,” he says, and then we both stare at the sugar packets like they have instructions printed on them.

I pour cream I won’t drink into coffee I won’t taste. My hands are steady. I wish they’d shake so I’d have an excuse.

He watches me for exactly three seconds too long. Then he moves. Not to leave. Not to look away. He stands, circles the table, and crouches beside my chair the way you do when someone you love is about to break in public and you’re trying to build them a small private room around their heart.

His voice is low and careful. “Look at me.”

I do, because I always do when he asks like that.

The kindness in his face is worse than a shout would be. It cracks something tidy I tried to build around the truth. Water finds the fracture first. My eyes burn; my mouth pressed into something hard and useless.

“I’m sorry,” I say, except it comes out as air. I try again. “Jean, I’m—”

The rest doesn’t make it to air. It makes me tear.

They fall embarrassingly fast, hot enough to ruin any hope of sentences. I fold, and he is there, arms around me without asking, without making a show of it, just there, the kind of there that slows your heartbeat enough to remember your own name.

I don’t sob. I leak. It’s somehow worse.

His sweatshirt smells like detergent and graphite. His cheek presses to my temple and he whispers nothing words, hey, hey, breathe, it’s okay, it’s not okay, but you can say it, until the world shrinks to sound and warmth and the humiliation of crying into his shoulder in a diner that serves hash browns like a threat.

The waitress floats by and looks once, then becomes professionally blind. The coffee keeps refilling itself. Outside, a truck rattles the window. Inside, a man at the counter pretends to read the sports page while absolutely eavesdropping. It all happens anyway.

When I can breathe without hiccuping, he doesn’t move away. He just eases back enough that I can see his face.

“Tell me what happened,” he says. It’s not sharp. It’s a hand offered over a gap.

My throat closes. I look at his mouth and remember the call, how he’d sounded under the stairwell echo, telling me he wanted to see my face. I look at his hands and remember what trust feels like when it’s given without ceremony. I look at my own fingers twisted into his sleeve and think of Erwin handing me a crushed tulip like luck on purpose.

I wipe my eyes with the napkin he holds out. It’s the rough kind. Maybe that’s good. Honesty doesn’t want luxury.

“I—” I start, and stop to swallow the taste of metal that’s not there. “I did something. I can’t… I can’t keep lying to you, even by omission. I don’t want to be that person with you.”

He nods once. Encouragement. Permission. A promise not to flinch before I’ve even said it.

My voice comes out smaller than I deserve. “I was out with the girls. I drank too much. I was… lonely. And I let someone get close. Not like, I didn't do anything that I know of, but I woke up in his bed-” I stop, correct myself because clean doesn’t mean gentle. “It was wrong. It was stupid. It wasn’t you. And I hate that I made it true.”

Silence arrives and sits down with us.

He doesn’t drop his eyes. He doesn’t grab for a neat summary. He just breathes. The muscle in his jaw remembers what clenching is. His hand doesn’t leave mine.

“Thank you for telling me,” he says finally, and the words feel like they cost something. “I—” He stops, glances away toward the window where a flag does a miserable dance in the wind, then back. “I need… a second.”

“Take one,” I say, even though every second stretches like wire.

He sits back in his chair, not far, just enough to look at me without crouching like a confession priest. He rubs his thumb over a sugar packet until it goes soft.

“How long have you been holding that,” he asks, “in your mouth?”

“A week,” I whisper. “It tasted like rust.”

He closes his eyes for one beat. When he opens them, there’s hurt there, raw, real, but also something I didn’t earn and can’t name yet. Not forgiveness. Not yet. Something like staying while he decides.

“I’m angry,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it. He lets the word sit between us without weapons. “And I’m not going to pretend I’m not. But I’d rather be angry with the truth than happy with a lie.”

I nod because anything I say will turn into apology soup and drown us both.

He gestures vaguely toward the door, the highway, time itself. “This thing, distance, it’s awful. And it doesn’t excuse anything. But I understand the part where a room is too quiet and you fill it with the wrong noise.”

Fresh tears threaten. I force them down. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he says. It’s not a balm. It’s a fact.

We sit there with the coffee and the clatter and my heart making a slow, mortified recovery. The waitress appears with water we didn’t order, sets it down like she’s been doing this for decades, and vanishes again.

“Okay,” he says at last, almost to himself. He looks at me like he’s choosing migraine over amputation. “We’re not fixing this in a diner.”

“I didn’t expect to,” I say. “I just didn’t want to keep making you love a version of me that wasn’t telling you the whole story.”

Something changes in his face at that. Not relief, exactly. Recognition. He reaches across the table and takes my hand again, firmer.

“I asked you to meet me so I could see your face,” he says. “I’m… not sure what I was hoping to see. But I see you. And I’m going to… I’m going to need time.”

“Take it,” I say, because that’s the only thing a person like me can give now.

He nods, more to himself than to me. “I have to go back in an hour,” he adds, apologetic like schedules are his fault. “They’re testing the final grid, and if I’m late, Felix will tape himself to the scaffolding and Adele will kill me.”

A laugh escapes me at the edges, wounded but alive. “Please don’t die today.”

“No plans,” he says. He hesitates. “Can I—” He gestures, then gives up and stands. “Come here.”

I stand too. His arms go around me again and I fold into the shape that’s learned him. We hold on in the middle of a diner where someone is arguing about the price of extra bacon, like it matters more than anything. Maybe it does. Maybe everything ordinary matters more than we give it credit for.

When we let go, he picks up the check with a look that says don’t fight me on this one small thing, and I don’t. We walk to the door like people who have to learn new choreography mid-performance. The wind outside is rude. The gravel makes the same sound it made when I parked, like the lot is clearing its throat.

At my car, he touches my shoulder, then my cheek, then thinks better of any gesture that might promise something he hasn’t decided yet. He drops his hand. “Text when you get home.”

“Always,” I say. This time it doesn’t cut. It just sits in my mouth like a stone I might eventually swallow.

“Okay.” He steps back. “We’ll... talk.”

“Yeah,” I say. “We will.”

He gives me the smallest smile, the kind you save for when everything else is too big, and then he turns toward his car. I watch him go until the distance is the same distance it was yesterday, and entirely different.

I get in, buckle up, and sit there with my forehead against the steering wheel for three long breaths. On the passenger seat, the napkin from the diner has a small square of graphite on it from his fingers. It feels like an artefact.

On the drive back, the playlist is off. The road is the road. Half an hour is half an hour.

When I push the apartment door open, Levi looks up from the table where he and Erwin are engaged in a very serious discussion about the rightful order of the spice rack. Erwin has a tulip tucked behind his ear like a dare. Levi assesses me in one practised sweep and gives a short nod.

“Alive,” he says. “Good.”

“Barely,” I answer.

“Progress,” he replies, and pours tea without being asked.

Erwin slides a fresh napkin across the table like the world’s gentlest referee. “Any news we should prepare for?” he asks, voice neutral, eyes soft.

“Not… yet,” I say.

Levi tips his head. “You told him.”

“I did.”

“Then you’re already doing better than yesterday,” he says, as if it’s the most boring math. He picks up a jar of cumin and moves it two centimetres left. “Sit. Drink. You can wait without pacing a hole in my floor.”

I sit. I drink. I look at the crushed-petal tulip in the glass and think of things that live despite discount bins and bad weather and hands that don’t always know how to hold them. "I hope this isn't the end of us. Didn't seem like it was..."

My phone stays dark and patient on the table. It will light up when it lights up. And when it does, whatever it says will be the next true thing we have to carry.

For now, all I can do is be the person who told the truth and stayed to hear the echo.

Chapter Text

A week makes new grooves in a life.

I learn where the quiet creaks and which songs don’t poke wounds. Levi learns to leave tea without commentary and to steal my phone only to put it back on the table, face down, like he’s reminding me it exists without insisting I use it. Erwin drops by with a bag of fresh bread and a look that says you’re doing the hard thing; keep breathing. The tulip on the table gives up, then decides not to. Same, honestly.

It's nice to see my brother this happy, even on his face, the subtle smiles he hides, it's a great change. Erwin is a good guy. Kind of like a second father figure.

On Friday, my phone finally lit up with the message I’ve been both begging for and dreading.

Jean: Can we talk again? Same place?

Y/N: Yes, I'll see you there.

The drive feels different this time. No rehearsed speeches, just a steady drumline under my ribs. The sky is clean and bright, as if the week got washed.

The diner is still committing crimes with its décor. The waitress still moves like she could refuel a car mid-drive. Jean is already there, jacket folded carefully, hair pushed back like he tried to tame it into responsibility. He looks tired in the way that happens when you carry a thought for too long. He stands when I do, and we both smile like people who aren’t sure if they’re allowed to.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” I shrug out of my coat; he takes it without thinking and hooks it on the chair back. It’s the kind of muscle memory that hurts in a good way.

We do the ritual: coffee, menus we won’t read, sugar packets lined up like brave soldiers. For a minute, we hide in small talk, traffic, Felix’s latest near-death by ladder, Levi’s crusade against inferior tea and newfound relationship.

Then he laces his fingers together on the table and looks at me like he left every deflection at the door.

“I still love you,” he says.

The words land softly and heavily at the same time. I breathe out like the room was holding me underwater, and finally let go.

“You shouldn’t,” I say, automatically and uselessly.

“Too late,” he answers, and the corner of his mouth twitches like he’s not sure which expression comes next.

Relief walks in. Guilt follows it, slower but stubborn. I wrap both hands around the cup because I need something hot to hold.

He exhales, eyes skimming the window, then returning to me. “It doesn’t change because of what happened,” he goes on, careful. “But it… got harder. I don’t know how to pretend it didn’t.”

“I’m not asking you to,” I say. “I’m asking you to keep telling me the truth, even if it’s ugly.”

He nods. “Okay. Ugly truth: I keep replaying it. Not the specifics, God, I don’t want them, but the… possibility. The room you were in without me. The way distance can become a door you don’t notice you’ve opened until you’re on the wrong side.” He winces, frustrated with his own metaphors. “I hate that the thought exists at all. I hate that it sits next to the part of my brain that used to be just you making faces at me over my sketchbook.”

“I hate that I gave you something you have to fight,” I say. “I hate that I handed it to you.”

We sit with that. The waitress refills us automatically and pretends we’re the easiest people she’s seen all morning.

“Another truth,” he adds, quieter: “A part of me wants to make the fear stop in the loudest, dumbest way, just quit and come home. Rip out the distance by the roots and say art can wait, the studio can find someone else, I choose peace.”

The word quit is a match dropped in a dry field. It flares, then dies because I stamp it hard.

“No,” I say, immediately. “Don’t you dare shrink your life because I messed up mine.”

He blinks at the force in my voice.

“If you can’t trust me again while you’re away,” I go on, softer but not less certain, “then there isn’t a future even if you stay. You’ll be here, and I’ll still be something you’re guarding against. That’s not a relationship; that’s house arrest.”

A small, pained huff of a laugh escapes him. “Leave it to you to make the moral high ground sound like a court sentence.”

“I’m not on higher ground,” I say. “I’m ankle-deep in consequences and trying not to drown in them. But I’m not the girl who asks you to pick small because I’m scared.”

He studies me so closely I can feel it. Not suspicious. Taking inventory. Learning this version of us with the care he saves for impossible lighting.

“Okay,” he says finally. “Then I don’t quit. We don’t quit.”

“We don’t quit,” I repeat, because saying things twice makes them stick better.

He leans back, like a muscle unclenched. The tiredness around his eyes doesn’t vanish, but it looks less like a bruise.

“Then we need rules,” he says. “Not prison ones. Kind ones. Useful ones.”

“Agreed,” I say. “We can make a treaty on a napkin so it’s legal.”

He snorts, but it turns into a smile. He flips his placemat and uncaps a pen, like this is a studio meeting and we’re designing our own exhibit.

“Rule one,” he says, writing. “We don’t do performative ‘I’m fine’ on the phone. If one of us sounds like a raccoon in a dumpster, the other gets to say, ‘You sound like a raccoon in a dumpster,’ and we believe them.”

“Scientific,” I say. “Rule two: if we miss a call, we don’t punish each other with silence. No, you didn’t, so I won’t.’ We reschedule like adults and say out loud when it stings.”

He scribbles, nodding. “Rule three: actual visits, on purpose. I can come home twice a month, every other weekend.”

“Generous,” I deadpan. “Rule four: after my midterms, I have a week off. I come to you. I’ll bring earplugs and a terrifying amount of snacks. I’ll do my readings on your floor while you pretend not to draw me.”

The pen pauses, the smile doesn’t. “You’ll really stay the week?”

“If your roommates can survive me alphabetising the pantry,” I say.

“They can’t,” he says. “But I’ll defend you with my life.”

“Rule five,” I add, and my chest goes tight because it’s the important one: “If that thought comes back, the glitch, you tell me. Even if it’s ugly. Especially if it’s ugly. You don’t make yourself sick alone because you’re trying to spare me.”

He writes more slowly. “Same to you.”

“Same to me,” I echo.

He caps the pen and sets it down on the treaty like we’ve drafted a constitution for two. We look at the napkin and then at each other, and both laugh, a little wild, a little relieved.

“This is so stupid,” I say, wiping my eyes because apparently laughter and tears have merged accounts now.

“It’s perfectly stupid,” he says, and reaches across the table. His hand finds mine. Warm. Familiar. Chosen.

There’s still a thrum of hurt under everything. It’s not gone because paper rules exist. But something in the room changes colour, like the mirror grid he described when the light hits right. Not forgiveness. Not yet. The first working version of try again.

We eat toast because our hands need something to do. He shows me a photo of the painting he'd been working on and I point at a corner and say, “That blue looks like it needs coffee.” He laughs like I just told him a secret about the weather.

We talk logistics until they sound like hope disguised as calendar entries. Train times. Who cooks what. Where we’ll hide Levi’s tea if he visits. (Erwin will betray us; it’s fine.)

When the check comes, he grabs it, and this time I don’t fight. Outside, the wind is brisk but polite. We stand by my car because sooner or later, there has to be a moment when the talking stops and the living continues.

He looks at my mouth and then at my eyes and then back at my mouth, and it feels like the first time again precisely because it isn’t. He steps closer carefully, giving me enough time to be brave or to leave.

“Is this okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, and it’s the easiest word I’ve said all week.

The kiss isn’t cinematic. It’s soft and cautious and tastes like coffee and almost-spring air. When we part, our foreheads touch in that stupid way that makes strangers roll their eyes and me feel like a person who gets to have miracles.

“Let’s be better,” he says, breath shaping the words against my skin.

“Let’s be real,” I answer.

He smiles, and it’s the one I fell for before I knew I was falling—the one with the earnest edge he tries to hide when he’s being clever. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and the motion is so ordinary I have to look away to stop from crying again.

“I’ll text you the new schedule,” he says. “And the week for your visit. Prepare to be bored out of your mind by me sanding frames.”

“I’ll bring a book and dramatic commentary,” I say. “And earplugs, in case Felix snores.”

“He does,” Jean says, grim. “Like a toddler with a harmonica.”

We laugh. We stand there a minute longer, not because we need to, but because it feels like a promise every second we don’t rush.

“Drive safe,” he says, stepping back.

“Make rainbows, art boy.”

“Yes, French girl.”

He touches my hand once more, and then he’s walking toward his car, and I’m getting in mine, and the gravel makes its throat-clearing sound and the world keeps insisting on being the world.

The road home is less sharp. I don’t turn on the playlist; I let the engine and the tyres hum the song for me.

When I push the apartment door open, Levi is reorganising the spice rack for the millionth time, and Erwin is pretending to lose the argument so Levi can win with dignity.

Levi looks up, reads my face, and nods once. “Alive,” he says.

“Better,” I say.

“Progress,” he replies, like math.

Erwin offers me a smile and a slice of bread. “A treaty?” he asks, eyes on the napkin in my hand.

“A very official one,” I say, laying it on the table like a relic. Levi leans over it, snorts once, then slides a magnet on top.

“Frame it later,” he says. “Eat first.”

My phone buzzes. A message lights the screen.

Jean: Sent the schedule. Also: there’s a cheap hotel two blocks from the studio if my roommates declare war on your snacks.

Me: They can try.

Jean: I told Felix you alphabetize pantries. He fainted.

Me: Tell him I alphabetize boyfriends too. You’re under J.

Jean: Hmm, normally I'm on top.

Me: Perv.

I grin like a person who remembers how. Levi pretends not to notice. Erwin doesn’t pretend.

“Good news?” he asks, already knowing.

“Good work,” I correct, feeling the shape of the words settle in my chest. “Hard work. But ours.”

I set the phone down, break the bread, and take the first bite. It’s warm. The tulip on the table is somehow still trying.

Out the window, the afternoon light slants in the direction of the week we just decided to survive together. It’s not simple. It’s not neat. It’s clean enough to build on.

Not forgiven. Not forgotten. But forward. And for the first time in too long, the future looks like something I can smile at without lying.

Chapter Text

By the time I reach her door, I’ve had three separate pep talks with myself and lost all three arguments. I’m holding flowers (safe choice), a paper bag with pastries from a pretentious bakery (bribe), and my sketchbook (security blanket I’m pretending is a gift).

The door opens before I knock twice. Y/N is barefoot, flour on her cheek like she tried to kiss a mixing bowl. The apartment smells like citrus cleaner and tea. My chest does that relieved ache it’s been practising since we decided to try again.

“Hi,” she says, already smiling. I hand her the flowers. She reads the card, which just says to choose hard things, and makes the smile a second time, the real one. “Get in here, art boy.”

I step inside and nearly collide with Levi, who appears from the kitchen holding a wooden spoon like an indictment.

“You brought pollen into my house,” he says, by way of hello.

“Hi to you too,” I answer. “They’re… vaccinated.”

He stares. Somewhere behind him, a timer beeps and another voice, deep, calm, calls, “Four minutes. And please stop threatening the basil.”

I blink. There’s a tall blond guy at the stove, sleeves rolled, moving a pan with the same precision I use when I’m nudging a line into place. He looks over his shoulder, takes me in with an easy once-over.

“Guest?” he asks Levi.

“Unfortunately,” Levi says.

“Be kind,” the man replies. “If he’s staying for dinner, we need him to feel safe enough to chew.”

“This is my brother,” Y/N stage-whispers to me, then corrects herself just as quickly, lips quirking. “Okay, you know Levi. That is, with the pan, Erwin. He’s… a friend.”

“Of the household,” Erwin says mildly, offering a hand that somehow feels like a handshake and a welcome. “Erwin Smith. It's a pleasure to meet you. Heard you are a fine young man.

Y/N smiled at me, "Don't mind him, he makes a speech about pretty much everything."

“Jean,” I say. “Kirschtein.”

“Artist,” Levi adds, as if listing my crimes. He eyes the pastry bag. “If those are inferior, I’ll know.”

Y/N plucks the spoon from his hand before the spoon can become a weapon and steers me toward the table. “Sit. Breathe. We’re playing at being normal people tonight.”

“Speak for yourself,” Levi mutters, but he’s already back at the stove, arguing with Erwin about heat levels like the fate of the city depends on not overcooking pasta.

It’s… domestic. Not what I expected. Levi in a kitchen is terrifying enough; Levi in a kitchen with a tall, unflappable blond person who softens his worst corners with one raised eyebrow is disorienting in a weirdly nice way.

Y/N leans closer. “They met ages ago,” she murmurs, answering the question I haven’t asked. “Long story. I just, didn’t realise how long the story was. I found out… recently.”

“Got it,” I say. I don’t, but I like that she’s telling me first.

Dinner is ridiculously good for a Friday night. There’s a salad that tastes like it has opinions, pasta that would make Sasha cry, and bread that might have been blessed by a saint. We sit, Y/N beside me, Levi across like a judge, Erwin at the end pouring wine with calm competence.

Small talk is an Olympic sport for the first ten minutes. Erwin does the heavy lifting with gentle questions.

“So, you’re at the installation firm,” he says.

“Trying not to break things,” I say. “We’re doing a mirror grid.”

“Ah,” Erwin says, interested. “Deceptively difficult to mount.”

“Thank you,” I groan. “Tell Felix.”

Levi watches us like a hawk who’s considering giving a field mouse a second chance. “Show him the thing,” he tells me, nodding at my sketchbook.

I raise an eyebrow. “You want to see?”

“No,” he says. “But he does.” He tilts his head toward Erwin.

Erwin’s mouth tugs. “He’s not wrong.”

I hand the sketchbook over. Erwin turns pages carefully, the way people touch old maps. When he pauses on a study of Y/N’s hands, my face gets hot and stupid, and I pretend to cough.

“Your line weight is considerate,” he says, and I don’t know why that makes me want to stand up straighter. “You let the subject tell you where to look.”

“He means you’re not a show-off,” Levi translates.

“I got that,” I say. Y/N nudges my knee under the table. The urge to grin keeps blooming, and I let it.

We relax. Levi still sharpens every sentence like a knife, but the edges aren’t for me. Y/N tells an improbable story about Sasha’s latest snack emergency. Erwin laughs, then corrects Levi’s pronunciation of a brand on purpose so Levi narrows his eyes and calls him insufferable. It’s stupidly warm.

I don’t clock it immediately. It’s a dozen small gestures stacking up. Erwin refills Levi’s glass, and their fingers touch for half a second longer than necessary. Levi’s shoulders, usually set in a permanent fight me, drop a millimetre when Erwin slides a dish near him. They move around each other like choreography, not caution. Familiarity. I file it as “close friends with kitchen synergy” and go back to my pasta.

Halfway through the meal, Y/N makes me laugh with some under-the-table commentary about the dictatorship of Earl Grey, and I take a sip of wine at exactly the wrong time.

Erwin reaches for the basket of bread. Levi reaches at the same time. The back of Erwin’s knuckles glances Levi’s wrist; Levi doesn’t flinch, he does the opposite. His mouth softens, a crack in granite, the kind of change you only notice if you’ve spent months learning how to read a face that doesn’t like being read. Erwin’s thumb brushes once, like punctuation, then gone.

Oh.

I stop with the glass still hovering. The world takes a photo. Click. The picture rearranges itself: the groceries earlier, the choreographed movement, the quiet bickering that’s nothing like mine and Y/N’s chaos and everything like knowing.

Erwin notices my brain catching up and meets my eyes with a look that is both kind and a little amused.

“You look surprised,” he says.

“Uh-no, I just, didn’t realise—” My mouth trips over itself, dragging my dignity face-first into the carpet.

Levi raises an eyebrow, enjoying this in a way he will deny to his grave. “That I have a boyfriend?”

“I—” Panic humour chooses treason. “That you… cook with him.”

“And occasionally kiss him,” Levi adds, bland as weather.

Erwin, perfectly polite: “And that we occasionally, every night, share a bed.”

I choke and manage to sound like a malfunctioning kettle. Y/N slaps a hand over her mouth, eyes watering from trying not to laugh. I put the glass down because survival instincts still function.

“Right,” I say, because the English language has abandoned me. “Great. Love that for you. For both of you.”

Levi stares one second longer than necessary. “We’re thrilled to have your blessing,” he deadpans. “Dinner can proceed.”

Erwin pats Levi’s knee once under the table, so subtle I’d miss it if I weren’t looking for it now, and that tiny gesture settles the room back onto its hinges. It’s stupid how relieved I feel. Not because I needed to know. Because I like knowing what love looks like in this house. It looks like small, practised mercies and someone remembering to lower the flame before the sauce burns.

Conversation returns to safer ground. Safer, but still very them.

“So,” Erwin says to me, slicing through bread with precision. “How are you two managing the distance? Besides treaties on napkins.”

“We’re… practising,” I say, and it feels honest. “Rules help. Calls. Plans that are more than wishful thinking.”

Levi points his fork at me. “And honesty when the rules fail,” he says.

Y/N’s hand finds mine under the table, squeezes once. I squeeze back.

“Also,” I add, because I can tell we’re allowed to be silly again, “she’s staying with me for a week after midterms. You have no idea how exciting it is to think about arguing over one kettle in person. And after that week, it's only one more until I get to come home.”

Levi snorts. “Tragic romance.”

Erwin smiles into his glass. “Domestic victories count more than people admit.”

“Exactly,” Y/N says. “I will alphabetise his pantry.”

“Over my dead body,” I say. “Okay, maybe. If you let me label your pens.”

Levi points at me again. “I raised her like this, don't try to change that.”

“Noted,” I say, because I’m brave until there’s an actual label maker involved.

After dinner, I volunteer for dishes in a misguided attempt to impress the most judgmental man alive. Levi watches me run the sponge along the rim of a pot like I’m defusing a bomb.

“Competent,” he pronounces eventually, like a judge at a bleak talent show.

“High praise,” I say.

“Don’t get used to it.”

Erwin dries, passing plates with those surgeon's hands. “He used the soap you like,” he tells Levi, voice warm. “You could at least offer him tea.”

“Tea is earned,” Levi says, which I assume means I’m ninety procent there.

In the living room, Y/N flips through my sketchbook again and calls me out for drawing her when she’s not looking. I defend myself with art student nonsense; she laughs in the new way, lighter, still careful at the edges, but real.

Erwin eventually asks to see the installation photos on my phone. I show him; he studies them with that same map-reading focus, then points at a corner. “That panel’s catching glare. Can you tilt the grid two degrees?”

“Already on the list,” I say, delighted and a little embarrassed to be so delighted. “Adele did the eyebrow.”

“Formidable eyebrow,” he agrees.

Levi, drying a spoon: “Congratulations on your shared hobby of being insufferable.”

“Jealous,” Erwin murmurs. Levi smacks the back of his hand lightly with the spoon, fails to disguise a fond look, and returns to pretending he doesn’t care if anyone in the apartment feels comfortable ever. "Careful, or you'll lose an arm."

When the kitchen surrenders to order, we migrate to the couch. Y/N tucks her feet under my thigh, like she’s anchoring herself to the person version of a heavy book. Levi and Erwin claim the armchairs, the domestic monarchy surveying their kingdom.

We watch something stupid for twenty minutes and make fun of it like it owes us money. It’s not an event. It’s better. The kind of evening you don’t realise you’ll miss until you have to.

Eventually, I check the time and stand, hating the clock. “I should head out. Felix will assume I’ve been kidnapped by a cult if I’m not back by ten.”

“Is he wrong?” Levi asks.

“A little,” I say. I turn to Y/N. “Walk me to the door?”

In the hallway, with the kitchen noise fading into polite clatter, we both stop like we forgot how to do this part. She looks up at me. The flour is still there on her cheek, a white smudge of earth. I swipe it with my thumb; she smiles, soft and surprised, and for a second, the week we spent learning how to talk looks like a bridge we actually built.

“I like them,” I say, nodding back toward the kitchen.

“Me too,” she says. “They’re… good. For each other.”

“And for you,” I add. “In their weird, terrifying way.”

She laughs. “Don’t tell Levi that or he’ll start charging rent for my emotions.”

“Fair,” I say. “He should.”

She leans in. Not dramatic. Just enough that we both know we’re allowed. We kiss, brief and steady, a punctuation mark that belongs exactly there.

“Text when you get back,” she says, forehead leaning against mine for one suspended heartbeat.

“Always,” I say, meaning it without flinching for the first time in a while.

We separate before the moment can ask for more than it can hold. Back in the living room, Erwin hands me a small paper bag.

“Leftover bread,” he says. “Emergency carbohydrates.”

“Thank you,” I say, unreasonably touched.

Levi eyes me. “Don’t crash.”

“I’ll try not to,” I say, and at the door, Y/N squeezes my hand once more, our new ritual for we’re still here, and I carry that feeling all the way down the stairs.

Outside, the night air smells like rain, thinking about it. I load the pastries minus two (Erwin has stealth), the flowers minus one (Y/N tucked a stem in a glass by the sink), and the bread into the passenger seat. I look up at the window and catch a glimpse of two shadows moving in the kitchen, a small silhouette and a taller one, they seemed intimate. I had to take my eyes off by force. The light glows warm.

Halfway home, my phone buzzes at a stoplight.

Y/N: He liked you.

Jean: Which “he”?

Y/N: Erwin, Levi is still a work in progress. But not a total rejection.

Jean: Terrifying. Honored.

Another buzz:

Levi: Leave the bread in a breathable bag, or it’ll go stale.

Jean: …thank you?

Levi: Don’t make that my problem.

I laugh alone in the car, and it doesn’t feel empty. The road hums beneath the tyres. The week ahead is already mapped with calls and train times and a pencilled-in block of days where she’s on my calendar like a holiday.

I didn’t expect family to look like Earl Grey, knives lined in a tray like quiet threats, and a blond man rescuing tulips from a clearance bin. I didn’t expect forgiveness to feel like learning how to sit in a room without bracing for an apology. I didn’t expect any of this to make art easier. But it does. The line feels steadier in my hand.

At home, I text:

Jean: made it. Bread is alive.

Y/N: good. I miss you already.

Jean: Same. Tell Levi I kept the bag breathable.

Y/N: he’s pretending not to be pleased.

Felix sends a photo of himself holding a drill like a hostage situation. I groan, set the bread on the counter, open my sketchbook, and draw the kitchen, mugs, steam, two figures sharing space like a language they invented.

Underneath I write: Tea and other shocks.

And then, because I can, because the room is quiet in the right way, I call her just to say goodnight.

Chapter Text

Levi gets a call at seven in the morning, like alarms are for cowards.

The phone is already on speaker because Levi believes in mutual suffering. Kenny’s voice hits the kitchen like a thrown bottle, gravel and amusement.

“Oi. Heard the brat’s got herself a boy. Bring him. Bring her. I got meat, fire, and a chair that definitely won’t collapse this time.”

Levi pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re not feeding them expired sausages again.”

“They were aged,” Kenny says. “Like whisky. And anyway, the new batch still has labels. Two o’clock. Don’t make me come steal you.”

The line goes dead. Levi stares at the phone like it owes him money. “We’re going.”

“Define ‘we,’” I say, already knowing the answer.

“You, me, and the art project,” he says, pouring tea. “Erwin’s coming to stop me from committing homicide.”

“Romantic,” Erwin says, appearing in the doorway with a reusable bag and the resigned look of a man who has already consented to whatever this is. “I’ll bring salad so someone survives.”

I text Jean.

Y/N: Family thing. Today. It’s… Kenny.

Jean: That’s a noun and a warning. Do I wear armour?

Y/N: Bring humility and a nice shirt.

Jean: I own one of those. Surprise me which.

Kenny’s place is an organised disaster on the edge of town, faded clapboard, a porch that creaks like it’s complaining, a backyard half workshop, half battlefield. Smoke curls from a monstrous barbecue he probably won in a fight. Music bleeds from a radio older than Levi.

We arrive in two cars because Levi trusts only himself behind the wheel. Jean pulls in behind us and gets out with flowers, a bottle of something amber (insurance), and the brave smile of a man who can’t draw an exit.

Kenny’s already on the porch. Cowboy hat, boots, grin like he invented trouble. He flicks ash off a cigarette and opens his arms wide.

“There’s my brats,” he says. “And their emotional support men.”

Erwin accepts this as a compliment. Levi does not. “Take that thing out of your mouth before you hug anyone.”

Kenny laughs, puts the cigarette out, and crushes Levi in a hug that would kill smaller men, yes, even smaller. Levi tolerates it with the same expression he uses for IKEA instructions. Then Kenny grabs me, lifts me off my feet like I’m still twelve, and sets me down with a kiss to the forehead.

“Look at you,” he says. “Almost normal. Against all odds.”

“Thanks, Uncle,” I deadpan. “You look legally questionable.”

“Always,” he says, delighted. His eyes swing to Jean. “So. The artist.”

Jean offers the bottle. “For the chef.”

Kenny squints at the label, whistles. “He brought tribute. Smart.” He claps Jean on the shoulder hard enough to check his warranty. “You draw my niece naked yet?”

“KENNY,” Levi and I chorus. Erwin coughs into a smile. Jean short-circuits.

“I do portraits,” he says weakly. “With… clothes. Usually.”

Kenny cackles and waves us toward the backyard. “Relax. I’m house-trained. Mostly. Come on, food’s screaming.”

The backyard is already busy. A grill the size of a car hood hisses under Kenny’s attention; folding tables groan under bowls and foil pans; a cooler sweats in the shade. A few cousins I only half-recognise wave and call me “kid,” like time paused just for us. Someone’s kid, someone else’s kid, chases a dog with the fury of a tiny god.

Levi transforms into logistics. He confiscates the raw chicken from a hot spot, rearranges cutlery by morality, and mutters at tongs. Erwin uncovers a salad that looks like it has a degree and sets it far from Kenny’s barbecue to prevent ideological conflict.

Jean hovers near me, eyes everywhere, polite turned to eleven. “Do I... help? Stay? Pray?”

“Breathe,” I say, handing him a plate. “And never ask Kenny for the good knife. He’ll test you.”

“Copy.” He glances toward the grill where Kenny is turning sausages like live munitions. “Is there a… bad knife?”

“Yes,” Levi says without turning. “It’s all of them.”

Introductions go about as well as you’d expect. Cousin Jo hands him a beer and asks if he can “draw the dog like one of those French paintings.” A neighbour named Pièrro invites him to look at a shed, like that’s a social activity. Jean keeps up, charm steady, laughter easy. He’s good at being a guest. It hits me, suddenly and warmly: he’s good at being here.

“Knew you at twelve,” My aunt tells me, conspiratorially. “You were feral.”

“Half-raised by wolves,” Kenny calls from the grill.

“Half-raised by you,” Levi corrects, and there’s the shape of our history: Uncle Kenny until I was twelve and Levi was eighteen, then Levi took the wheel because, in his words, “the wolf was too unhinged to teach a brat how to do taxes.”

Kenny hears that wordless footnote and snorts. “Messy kept you alive,” he says. “Tidy made you civilised. Between us, we built a person.”

“Debatable,” Levi says, but softer than he’d like.

We eat in waves. Plates circle, stories circulate, heat radiates. Erwin referees with the skill of a diplomat. He steals the cigarette from Kenny’s ear and pockets it without comment. Kenny pretends not to notice and grins at him like a dare.

Jean holds his own through thirteen variations of “what do you plan to do with art besides starve.” He explains the firm, the installation, and the way light can be built. Kenny listens, head cocked, genuinely curious despite the teasing.

“Light you can walk through,” he says. “Huh. The world needs more of that.”

The sun slides a little lower. The grill surrenders. Kids melt into the grass and dogs. The house exhales people into the backyard, and the backyard exhales them into the porch. Conversations split and braid.

Later, with plates abandoned and the radio murmuring old songs, I find Jean leaning against the fence, looking out at the field like it’s telling him a secret. He sets his beer on the post, hands empty, the way he stands when he’s ready to catch a thought.

“Doing okay?” I ask, bumping his shoulder with mine.

“I think your family tried to adopt and interrogate me at the same time,” he says, fondly. “I passed the vibe check. Barely.”

“You did great,” I say, and mean it so much my throat goes warm.

He laughs, then sobers a little. “Levi was twelve and eighteen here,” he says, softly, like he’s talking to himself. “And Kenny was… Kenny.”

“Until twelve,” I say, nodding. “Then Levi said ‘enough,’ and we moved. He said Uncle was too unhinged and messy to finish the job.”

Jean glances toward the porch, where Kenny is telling Erwin a story with wide hands and bad facts. Erwin humours him with surgical patience. Levi watches them both like a hawk who has learned to nap with one eye.

“Looks like the job’s still happening,” Jean says.

“Always,” I say. “That’s the thing about us. We don’t finish; we maintain.”

There’s a pause that isn’t empty. The sky goes pink at the corners. Someone lights the small firepit; smoke threads the air.

Footsteps crunch behind us. Kenny appears with two more beers and a look that says he timed this on purpose. He hands one to Jean, one to me, and then, without looking, flicks the cap off Levi’s with the edge of the fence post. He doesn’t offer Levi the drink; Levi takes it anyway and stays at a distance that is not actually distance.

"I thought you didn't drink," I teased my brother, knowing how much he hated it when I did this. "And you shouldn't either, but here we are."

Kenny leans against the fence on my other side. For a while, we watch the field like it’s a show.

“You love her?” he asks Jean, finally, as if opening a door he cut himself.

Jean doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

Kenny nods, satisfied the way a mechanic is when an engine answers right. “Good. Then don’t waste it.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says it. He has never been good at the versions of tenderness that involve eye contact.

“I messed up,” I say, because Ackermans don’t leave the important words to other people.

“I know,” he says, not sharply. He takes a long, unromantic drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was unhinged and messy, but I wasn’t blind.”

I brace. He shakes his head, amused and annoyed with me in equal measure.

“Ackermans don’t do halfway,” he says. “You walk in, you stay. You leave, you don’t come back. But you—” he tips his chin at Jean, then at me, “you two are building something weird. Looks like staying with extra steps. So here’s the deal, artist.”

Jean meets his gaze without trying to win it. “I’m listening.”

“You don’t quit,” Kenny says. “On the art. On the girl. On the days it feels dumb to try. You don’t play martyr either. She screws up, you tell her. You screw up, she tells you. You both tell the truth even when it tastes like wire. That’s the only way people like us get to have normal.”

Normal. In Kenny’s mouth, it sounds like a dare you win by showing up.

“Got it,” Jean says. He means it.

Kenny studies him, then grunts a laugh. “You’re soft, kid. But you don’t scare easily. I like that.”

“Thank you,” Jean says, which is brave.

Kenny claps him on the shoulder once, hard enough to make him rock back into the fence, and wanders off to heckle the radio. Levi ghosts into the space Kenny left, not right next to us, but close enough to count.

“What’d he say?” Levi asks, suspicious of silence.

“That you we're unhinged and messy,” I say.

“Historic fact,” Levi says. “What else?”

“That we don’t quit,” Jean says. “And that’s normal, a dare.”

Levi considers this and, the strangest thing, smiles. Not big. Barely there. But it changes his face in a way I wish I could take a picture of and keep in my wallet.

“He’s an idiot,” Levi says, and it’s the kindest thing he calls anyone.

Erwin joins us with a blanket and the soft authority of a man who knows where people should sit. He drapes it over my shoulders, then flips a corner over Levi as if Levi will bite him. Levi doesn’t. Progress.

The four of us lean on the fence and watch the sky be a cliché. Someone starts a story that gets told every time we’re all in one place; someone else groans; Kenny heckles the moon. The fire pops. The kid finally catches the dog, who allows it like a saint being audited.

Jean’s hand finds mine in the blanket and stays.

Later, when the night has cooled and the yard has thinned and the radio has surrendered to whatever station the antenna can forgive, we say our goodbyes.

Kenny pulls Jean into a hug unannounced, thumps his back, and says, “Bring her back not crying, and I’ll consider not scaring you next time.”

“No promises,” Jean says, eyes wide.

“Wrong answer,” Levi mutters, but he looks… relieved.

Erwin shakes Jean’s hand and says, “You did well.” It sounds like he’s grading an exam and handing out a rare A. Jean stands taller than when he arrived.

In the car, heading home through dark roads and warmer quiet, I rest my head against the window and feel the shape of the day settle.

“You okay?” Jean asks, one hand on the wheel, the other open on the console like an invitation.

I lace our fingers and breathe. “Yeah,” I say. “We survived Kenny.”

“Barely,” he says. “He’s—”

“Unhinged and messy,” I supply.

Jean smiles. “And kind in the way a thunderstorm is kind. Loud about it.”

“That’s family,” I say. “We don’t finish; we maintain.”

He squeezes my hand once. “Then I’ll learn to maintain.”

When we pull up outside my building, Levi’s window is dark. Erwin’s car is still out front. The tulip from last week somehow hasn’t given up yet. I look at it through the glass like it’s a punchline I’m not done laughing at.

On the stairs, we pause because we always do. Goodnight sits between us like a choice. Jean brushes his thumb over my knuckles and kisses me the way people do who intend to keep making room for each other’s worst and best.

“Text me when you’re in,” he says.

“Always,” I say, and it’s easy again.

Inside, Levi is half-asleep on the couch, blanket kicked to his knees, remote clenched in a fist like a weapon. He cracks an eye when the door opens.

“Well?” he asks, already knowing.

“Normal,” I say, to annoy him.

He rolls his eyes and sits up enough to take the keys from my hand and set them in the bowl by the door. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Too late,” I say, and head to bed warm with smoke, laughter, and the stupid certainty that we are, in fact, doing the hard thing right.

Out in the yard of my mind, the grill is out, the fire is embers, the chairs are empty, and the radio hums a song that sounds like home.