𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 | 𝐉𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐊𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧

𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐗: 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭

You flopped onto Eren's bed. Pillows slammed your face with a strong scent of regret: of cotton, of old wood, of faded antiseptic. You couldn't stomach their sickly smells without feeling eternally ill and instead breathed through your mouth to manage.

Collapsing in your room would have been preferable. There, sheets smelled more strongly of a brothel–of cheap flowers and cheaper sex–than morose, medicinal memories.

But Jean locked the door and held the key. You were much too proud to march to the front desk in search of a spare and much too meek to find the billiards room and face the death of love head-on. 

Silently, you craved morphine in each heavy huff.

Sunset's heat ignited Eren's bed sheets into an orange blaze. A thin line of frustrated sweat beaded above your lip. No matter how many times you knuckled the dampness, its bothersome, burning tide bubbled back, drowning you in frustrated thoughts.

Lying about something so trivial as a jealousy-fueled engagement should not break your heart like it did. It should have sent butterflies fluttering through your chest, just as it did when men would tell the same lies in books. Experiencing fiction in reality was far less romantic.

Perhaps you were receiving what you gave. Perpetual perjury was an integral piece of your personality. Never needing to explain your feelings; never needing to expose the truths that broke your heart; never needing to talk to someone if you didn't want to–lying made existence simple. Existing would only get you so far.

Now, a vow of honesty cursed your lips. Lying was no longer an option. At least, it was not one with Jean.

So, why would he use something as beautiful as earnest affection to hurt others with lies? To hurt you? How was that fair? It angered you to the point of tears. You refused to let them fall.

"Which might you prefer?" Armin called to you from Eren's doorway. He held one golden bottle and one red one out for you to see.  "Something stronger, perhaps?"

"How about a loaded pistol," you answered. Armin silently stood, disturbed eyes wide enough to reflect all of the sunset's blaze. "That was a joke."

Armin relaxed. "Ah. Stronger it is."

He stepped in, placed his bottles on the nightstand, and sat beside you. Next, Armin pulled something metal from his pocket and toyed with some dry paper on his lap. It noisily crinkled, but it was not the sound that bothered you.

It was the smell.

Not of alcohol, or blood, or lilies. The culprit was a freshly rolled cigarette stuck between Armin's fingers. Its pungent stench reeked of skunk spray in a tomato patch.

"I don't smoke cigarettes," you told him.

"You are in luck," Armin said. "This is not a cigarette."

Curiosity rolled you over, but it did not sit you up. "What is it then?" you asked.

"God's sole creation that can sustain me through my more stressful episodes. I have a nasty habit of keeping some on my person for such moments."

"Why does it smell so wrong?"

"'Wrong?' Its earthy notes are rather comforting."

"What's it called?"

"That depends on where you are. Ma. Ganja. Cannabis. I call it hashish. Jean calls it herbe. You may know it more simply as hemp."

"That is not hemp," you pushed.

"So you say."

"Hemp doesn't smell like that," you said, voice bordering on indignation.