the best of me ⎪eren jaeger

❁chapter thirty-eight - past and present

You slammed your locker and started walking through the hall. You were tired and sad at the same time, and you just wanted to leave the school as soon as possible that day.

For a while, you had been thinking of leaving this place, disappear from this nightmare. But what would they think about you? That you were a coward?

What about the people that you had hurt for months?

This was a thing that had begun since last year, even though you were not totally a part of it until a few months ago, in August, when school had started.

However, you knew your friends were doing this since last year.

You remembered it so well, the day they approached you and sat next to you when you were sitting alone, eating your lunch. It was a sunny day of April, and you really didn't have friends at that time.

At first, it was lovely. You were finally part of something. You felt like someone cared about you. Things were not easy at home but being at school made your life happier.

You found some of their behavior weird, though. You couldn't explain why, for example, they hated other people from the school. And why those same kids were scared of them.

You eventually forgot about that during summer, but it was kind of weird as well how they got mad at you when you couldn't do really simple things, like going out with them because you were busy.

But that's what friends were for, right? They were the only ones that understood you so, eventually, your life began revolving around them.

It wasn't until this school grade had begun when you realized what was going on. You would never forget the first time they forced you to do something to another person from your grade.

You were bullying people because they would threaten you to do those exact same things to you if you didn't obey them. That's how it worked.

You were protecting yourself because you couldn't let another bad thing happen to you. You had enough with your parents.

Not, it was the end of November. You were in 8th grade, too young for all of this. But you knew other people had it worse than you, much worse.

Still, you continued doing it. They were the mind, but you were the body. You were as bad as them.

While you were thinking about all of this, you passed next to one of the school bathrooms. You saw your friends but hoped they didn't catch you.

"Y/n" Pieck called you.

You stopped walking. Shit. "Yeah?" you asked.

"Come here" she ordered. You did what she told you, like always. You entered in the bathroom and saw a common scene.

There were Falco, Gabi, Pieck, Porco and Marcel. They had cornered a boy in a circle against the wall.

You knew who he was, because he was in some classes with you, but you didn't know his name. He was brunette, but what you couldn't stop looking at were his eyes. They had the most beautiful color, but they were so sad that it hurt you by just looking at them.

"What are y'all doing?" you asked, really concerned.

"This one here has been trying to complain about us lately" Porco explained you, "He thought it was going to work because his brother is one of the teachers, but he doesn't know that they couldn't care less about their students, even if they're their family".

His brother? Who is him?

The others laughed, all of them except you. You knew that teachers wouldn't actually pay attention to their students, but his own brother? Really?