endure | e. jaeger & a. arlert

IX. Jean

a/n: just as promised, here is the double update/alternate POV chapter. sorry if you were expecting someone else but i felt like some jean pov would be fun

Jean Kirstein was, perhaps, the loneliest boy in the entire world.

Oh, sure, he played it off like he was popular. He had befriended Marco, Connie, and Sasha. The eccentric trio accompanied him as he paraded around the training camp like he owned it. To an outsider, it seemed as though he had it all. Most of the cadets admired him, he was skilled and a sure candidate for the top ten, he had a loving mother (though she was a little insufferable at times), and he was pretty good-looking, despite his apparent resemblance to a horse.

Despite all of this, he was still lonely. He wanted more than admiration and camaraderie. To be clear, he wanted what Eren had. Eren, who had a best friend in Armin and a loyal protector in Mikasa and a...he didn't even know what Y/N was to the brown-haired boy. All he saw was that she looked at Eren as if he was her own personal hero, and that made him burn with rage and jealousy. Why didn't she look at him like that?

It wasn't even like he liked her all that much. She was annoying, altogether far too nosey and judgemental for him to ever want to be with her. He just liked the idea of her, of someone that trusted another person so much that they were willing to put their life in their hands — for he had no doubt that the girl would do such a thing. She'd probably jump off of a roof if she thought Eren was there to catch her.

No, he did not like Y/N L/N. But he did like her best friend.

Tullia Ral. Where could he even start with Tullia Ral? She was everything he wasn't. She was outgoing, but not in such a way that it got on one's nerves. She was kind, funny, and strong. She was so beautiful it scared him. He had been inside of one of the old Churches of the Walls once, and he remembered being taken with a large stained-glass portrait of the manifestation of Wall Sina. Now, he was almost certain that the portrait had been made in Tullia's likeness, for it was the only time he had ever seen anything coming close to how resplendent she was. His silly little charcoal drawings never even came close.

She was his dream girl, literally. As a child he had been bullied, mercilessly. Only his mother cared for him, cared to wipe the tears that streamed down his chubby cheeks. He had been not just alone but ostracized. He had been made fun of and hurt, over and over until he developed his tough exterior to chase them off. He hadn't always been like this. He was once kind and gentle and caring, but the world was cruel to those that were soft, forcing them to become hard (unless they were named Y/N L/N, because she had Eren and Mikasa to do such things for her. Yet another reason he couldn't stand the girl).

Yet even becoming rude and cocky wasn't enough, because then he was the one that chased others away, so he was just as alone as he had been at the start. His only companion came when he closed his eyes. As he slept, he dreamt of a pretty girl with long blonde hair in two braids and eyes exactly the color of summer pears. The two of them had been adults in his dream, and he had been cradling a baby and rocking it to sleep while the girl watched him fondly. There was an overwhelming air of love in those dreams, and he tried to sleep as much as he could, if only to see her again.

So when he arrived in the Cadet Corps, he was shocked and excited to see her standing in front of him. She was younger, of course, but so was he, so it wasn't that big of a deal, not at all. He didn't know how to approach her. How does one approach someone they were born to be in love with? He wasn't sure, so he just didn't.

And he cursed himself. Oh, how he cursed himself for missing the opportunity when he saw her laughing as she talked with Eren and Armin and Y/N and Mikasa. Had he lost before he had begun? He watched as Eren helped her back to her dorm, and he was overcome with a wave of sheer hatred for the boy, surprising even himself with the intensity of the emotion. Eren already had Y/N. Why couldn't he be content with that? Why did he have to go for the one girl Jean had ever cared about?