𝗥𝗘𝗗𝗔𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗬 | 𝙅. 𝙆𝙄𝙍𝙎𝙏𝙀𝙄𝙉

𝐬𝐢𝐱

Soon enough two years had passed and it was almost time for all of us cadets to graduate and choose which branch of the military we would join. The boys grew taller and the girls filled out more; everyone I had spent the past three years with had all turned from little kids and into strong teenagers.

Right now we were all seated in the mess hall, enjoying our supper, days before our graduation. Jean and Marco sat by my side while Connie and Sasha were across from us, both in their own little world, filing their mashed potatoes at each other.

I sat there, my head resting on my palm as I stared longingly at Jean's untouched bread that laid by his plate.

".... that's how you conserve fuel. Just let the momentum do the work for you," Jean said, his arms held out wide, hitting me in the process. I turn my head to face him more, a blank look on my face.

"Woah! That's pretty advanced," Marco says, impressed by Jean's wise words of wisdom.

"Duh, it's called having a sixth sense for the finer parts of your gear," Jean says, his head coming to rest on his palm like how I was sitting. His head turns to me to see if I was listing, only to jolt in place when he sees me already watching him. I smirk when his cheeks heat up.

"Oh, do please go on, Jean," I urge him, nodding once.

He ignores me and continues to go on. "You gotta do the strut to make the cut. The MP will only recruit the best!"

I lift my head, looking more intensely at Jean. "You're still on that?" I ask, a hint of indifference in my tone.

Jean scowls at me, his temper already high. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that someone who had a death wish was still here," he says, egging me on. I take the bait. 

"Well, at least I won't be someone who just sits on their ass all day in the future. Doing absolutely nothing!" I hiss out. Marco places a hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off. Even though I loved the freckled freak, he was no better, always saying how he wanted to work close to the king.

"The Military Police is the best of the best! It's not my fault you just want to throw away your life so quickly!" He hisses back, his face coming dangerously close to mine.

I shove his tall frame away slightly, pointing my finger at him. "I already told you it's not like that! All this titan killing training has had to be for killing titans! Not catching bad guys or fixing the walls! To save humanity! That's why we should all be fucking here for!" I say in a hushed tone, the tension in the atmosphere going rigid, but Marco's quick to break the silence as Jean stares at me with his narrowed light brown eyes.

"W-Well, you know, Y/n, it's not too bad to be a part of the Military Police! Imagine this, you can be working a stone's throw away from the king!" I push down the urge to strangle Marco and turn around to face him with a smile and just nod, not saying anything. Marco's face sweat drops, realizing that was probably the wrong thing to say to me at the moment.

"Shut up, Marco!" Jean says, slapping the poor boy's head from around me, making him spill his water on the bottom half of his face. Jean, "forgetting" to retract his arm leaves it on my shoulders and comes closer to me to talk to Marco better.

"We're not kids anymore, you can drop the misty-eyed BS," Jean says his face right next to mine now. I tried not to breathe too deeply as he stayed in this position, his arm basically hugging me to him for balance as he leaned towards Marco.    

Marco's about to argue back but Eren interrupts him.

"Listen to you guys. Interior? Five years ago this was part of it," Eren says, his mug of water raised to his lips. Jean turns, facing the boy, but his arms stay around my shoulders, making my cheeks heat up unconsciously. Stupid fucking hormones.