Chapter Text
The first time I ever saw Jean Kirstein, I was at school. He was new, and so therefore automatically the most important person on the planet for at least a week. That was what happened in small towns like Superior.
When the only place to hang out after dark was the three burnt out lampposts outside of the only Walmart for miles, and the only events going on were either the races or the fair that came through (both only happening during the summer, leaving the rest of the year virtually barren), and the only people you could stand were the only four people in the town that weren’t born and raised there like their parents and their parents’ parents and their parents’ grandparents…
I would wager that Jean Kirstein was actually more popular to us in that moment than when the fucking president drove through our town two years ago, and that was only because he was going to a different town, because believe me, this town didn’t count as a town. It was kind of like a nickel, ya’ know. A nickel was worth five cents, but it cost eleven cents to make it or something like that? Why bother, right? That was Superior.
Anyway, I saw him at school. He had already warmed up to his popularity. Within days, he had made more friends than I had made acquaintances in my entire life. I never saw him alone. And when I did see him, he was always the focal point of whatever was happening.
But it wasn’t like it mattered. He was a freshmen, and I was a sophomore, so the novelty of a new person was already watered-down.
He didn’t give a shit if I liked him anyway, or if I thought his weird, blond undercut looked feather soft, or that his Nebraskan farmer’s tan was sexy as hell, or that if you caught him speaking under his breath, at just the right time in the morning during math, with just the right dose of aggravation tightening his fists, you could hear some kind of a northern-southern, accent baby and – Oh man.
Oh man, oh man, oh man.
Okay, so my excitement wasn’t watered-down. It had been mixed in with gasoline and set on fire.
But I pretended it was watered-down, because no one knew about me, and a male sophomore had no reason to be enthralled by a male freshmen.
Of course, I had forgotten to act like I wasn’t enthralled.
The first time I saw Jean Kirstein, I had grinned so dopily and so idiotically at him, that he looked at me and he said, “What the fuck are you lookin’ at, faggot?”
And oh, here we go.
…
The second time I saw Jean Kirstein, was when I looked out my bedroom window and thought, huh, my neighbors were moving out.
No. My neighbors were already gone, and I had cared so little that I hadn’t noticed them carrying their fucking furniture out of their house four months ago, and hadn’t noticed that there weren’t any cars in their driveway, and their dog wasn’t on a leash outside anymore, and – oh yeah, there weren’t any fucking people around?
Like, what the hell?
Not my best day, man.
Anyway, so, that meant that the people carrying boxes of shit around in my neighbors’ yard – my old neighbors’ yard – were moving in and becoming my new neighbors. The moving trucks had been there for three days, my mom had said.
Let me get this straight.
No one moved to fucking Superior, Wisconsin. There was nothing here, except one highway with a speed limit of twenty five, going right through it. Yeah, I was fucking serious. Twenty. Five. Two, then a five.
That way, the people that arrived could creep along the highway and look out their windows at all the decrepit houses and bars, kind of like we were zoo animals, before exiting Superior, and returning to Not-Superior, the best place on Earth.
So, these people that shouldn’t fucking be here, were the Kirsteins. It couldn’t be anyone else.
Yup. This was what my luck was like on an everyday basis, although this was a pretty exceptional moment to put on my resume of all my unlucky experience.
Jean jumped out of their SUV carrying his backpack and a box of something as I watched out my window. He was wearing a tank top. Fucking idiot. He had to be freezing. Nebraska’s winter was the diet version of Wisconsin’s winter.
He wouldn’t last through September in tank tops.
Either that, or he would, and then I wouldn’t fucking last, because - holy hell.
God, what were you thinking? How dare you. I want you to think about what you’ve done.
…
The third time I saw Jean Kirstein I was being the second biggest piece of shit on Earth. And I didn’t mean Jean was the first. No, that medal belonged to someone else, but I’d get to that in a bit.
As of right then, it was at least three weeks later, maybe more. I had gone out of my way to not fucking look at him, believe you me. Not in math class, not in the halls, not even when I could hear him yelling at someone outside. In fact, I didn’t even listen to what was being said. There were reasons for that last one. I didn’t want anyone hearing the shit I said to my family, and I wouldn’t wish that sort of shit on my worst enemy.
My worst enemy at that point in time didn’t have a family though.
Six packs generally didn’t, I didn’t think, have families.
Unless, maybe each individual ab considered the other abs family, I didn’t know.
The point was, I was fucking peeping over the edge of my fucking window at his window.
Oh yeah, I was that guy. But he wasn’t fucking naked or jerking off or anything, okay? For Christ’s sake he was just shirtless, it wasn’t that bad. He was laying on his bed, reading something. I wouldn’t have gambled a dime that he was the type of person to read, but hey, we all had our secrets.
Now, God, I fucking meant what I said. If you didn’t fucking want me getting turned on by men, you shouldn’t have put assholes like him on Earth, you hear me? Course you do, but do you give a shit?
So, Jean’s abs. They uh, they… existed.
That about summed that up.
But, what I saw next I should have not seen even more than I should have not seen Jean shirtless. It was the first biggest piece of shit on Earth.
His dad barged into his room. Or I assumed it was his dad, anyway.
Jean stood up to face his dad. There was yelling. A lot of yelling, the yelling I normally tuned out. His dad swung his arms. He tipped over Jean’s computer chair, he tipped over Jean’s textbooks, and then he tipped over Jean.
Just as I ducked below my window so I wouldn’t be seen, I heard a scream.
A real scream. Not like your-friend-got-drunk-and-tripped scream, not like you’re-fucking-someone-into-the-headboard scream, not even a your-mom-caught-you-fucking-someone-into-the-headboard scream.
A real scream, and it crawled under my skin through my ears. I felt that scream’s fingers on my throat. For a second, I knew exactly what the scariest feeling there ever was felt like, and I preferred death.
Fuck you, God.
…
The fourth time I saw Jean Kirstein, he was sitting on his roof, just outside of his window. He was shirtless. It was November. The snow made his skin glitter. The wind ruffled his hair.
I didn’t look at his abs anymore.
I looked at the purple and blue blotches that tainted his fair skin. They were all over the place. His shoulders, his face, his chest, his stomach…Everywhere except his arms and neck.
He smoked a cigarette, and then he put the cigarette out on his arm.
…
The next time I saw him – and I thought I lost track after this, of when I saw him and how many times – he was sitting on his roof again. He was out there, writing in a tiny notebook. He wasn’t shirtless, but all he wore was a sweatshirt and jeans. Before going out on the roof, he’d used a broom to brush off all the snow. Still, some snow had to have melted and seeped through his jeans. His knuckles and cheeks were pink as he wrote. His fingers were chapped, so were his lips. The entire outside world was black and gray, because it was night, and it was winter, and everything was dead.
Except his eyes. They were hazel, and they were two little candles flickering back and forth as he wrote in the journal.
Without thinking – probably one of my greatest talents, to be honest – I reached for my backpack and I pulled out a notebook.
I ripped out a piece of lined, notebook paper and grabbed a pen.
I wrote:
Jean
Sucks about your dad. Everything sucks. I probably do too. But you can talk to me if you want.
– Eren
Then, I folded it all up into a paper airplane. I opened my window, and the sides of it scraped against the window paneling as I did. His head perked up, and as soon as he saw me, his whole body stiffened like he’d been electrocuted. I’d never seen an innocent human being look that fucking guilty. He went to stand, but because it was icy and shitty outside, he couldn’t do it quickly.
“Wait!” I yelled, and then I flicked the paper airplane his way. It skidded to a halt on his roof.
His eyes met mine.
“What the fuck is it?” he asked.
“It’s a paper airplane,” I replied. “Obviously.”
“No, I mean why the fuck are you throwing paper airplanes at me?”
“Just open it.”
He clenched his teeth, but given that we were ten or so feet apart, he did nothing. He eased himself back down, and snatched the paper airplane up.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“You can read, can’t you?” I replied.
“Fuck you,” he said.
I thought about replying “okay,” ‘cause I couldn’t have been more down to get fucked by him if I was already so far down I was at the bottom.
If you know what I mean.
Okay, seriously though, I didn’t fucking say that. I had an ounce of self-control I’d been saving for a rainy day, and I used it then. This human being might actually fucking need me, and considering he’d already called me a faggot once, I thought I better not radiate any homo vibes his way.
“Just read it,” I said, “You can pretend it never happened. If you want.”
He stared for a moment longer, and shook his head. He crumpled up the airplane in front of my face, but he didn’t throw it off the roof. He tucked it into his pocket. Then he disappeared through his window.
The next morning, there was a paper airplane sitting on the roof outside my window.
I unfolded it. He had written:
Eren,
Mind your own damn business, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Yours truly,
Jean
I grinned. That shithead. He couldn’t fool me. I was the master of making other people think I hated them when I didn’t. I’d been doing it with my parents for years.
He wouldn’t have bothered to reply if he truly didn’t want to talk to me.
That idiot.
I fist-pumped the air and damn near nose-dived into my bed.
Thank you. Not you, God, you didn’t do anything. But Jean, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me a chance.
…
November 2, 2014
My ass is freezing. I’m on my roof. My fucking roof! Can’t even write in my bedroom anymore. Can’t even THINK in my bedroom anymore. So much Goddamn yelling.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother with this bullshit. No one will ever read this, and really I don’t want anyone to.
If you’re reading this, whoever you are, fuck off and run before I find you.
Anyway, dad went on a bender a few days ago. Three awesome days passed without him, but then he came back and punished everyone for not fucking missing him. I think he left because he found my shit under my bed.
Mom’s got a black eye. I got a black and blue everything. My body looks like space, without the stars. Just ugly and murky. It’s getting harder to hide.
And it’s only going to get worse if
November 3, 2014
The fucking next door neighbor knows about dad. What the hell.
Last night when I was freezing my ass to the roof of my house, this kid fucking opens his window and throws a paper airplane at me filled with a note. What a fucking loser.
He wants to talk to me. Not like everyone at school wants to talk to me. He wants to talk to me about my problems. He doesn’t even know me! And he couldn’t handle it anyway. He isn’t rich or anything, but I bet his parents feed him every day. I bet his parents get along. I bet he’s never even been spanked.
Eren Jaeger is the last person in the world who would ever understand MY problems.
Whatever. I’m not going to talk to him anyway. I wish he hadn’t seen. Or heard, or whatever it was that tipped him off. I don’t know if he’s going to tell anybody, but if he does I’ll fucking kill him. He probably will though. He’s always staring at me. And I…I called him a faggot the first day I saw him. But that’s just what I had to do. He…he’s just…I wish his window wasn’t right across from mine. He keeps his blinds closed a lot though, so I guess that’s good.
He’ll probably tell everybody. I don’t want to move again. No matter how awful this place is, nobody here knows. No one except him.
(Later, like sometime after school)
He didn’t tell anybody. He could have and he didn’t. I’m not sure what to think of that.
God, I keep looking out my window for paper airplanes. How pathetic is that?