Chapter Text
Super Rich Kids
Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt
0:54 ─〇───── 5:03
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Y/N's POV:
You wouldn't notice unless you were close enough–and unfortunately I was, but Armin's palms were sweating. His hands profusely rubbing against the fabric of his uniform pants. The picture of nerves. Still, his hair was coiffed and trimmed to neat perfection—a rehearsed smile plastered on his face; prepared for whatever the poll results might bring.
He took a deep breath, eyes on the stage.
"President of the Paradis Academy Council..." Headmaster Fritz is centre stage— his words prior to this moment just a mundane blurb of words that just blend into each other.
Armin had every right to be nervous.
The Council positions weren't simply mere roles, but small a prophesy that you'd end up somewhere that mattered. The names called in this hall tend to circulate long after graduation and find themselves on law firm letterheads, campaign posters, named after research grants.
Nobody really questioned the pipeline. In fact there wasn't much to question. Most of our futures were already spoken for long before the ballots were counted. Most of us were just fulfilling prophecies beaten into our heads as children. The lucky few got to forge their own path.
Yet still, beaten or self-forged, these announcements carried a certain weight, a quiet distinction money couldn't buy. But somehow, these names always seemed to belong to the same sort of people.
People like Armin, Mikasa, even Eren.
He exhaled the breath, lungs finally deflating the tension in his ribs.
"Armin Arlert."
The applause was immediate, the results unsurprising. Armin had consistently been the head-boy for years, so it only made sense that he'd be president in his final year.
From the stories I've been told by our friends, I know Armin had always been an intelligent boy— a true product of his environment.
He comes from a long line of academics, his family line being credited with all sorts of inventions, theories, curriculums.
His grandfather a few greats back being one of the founders of this school. The Arlert Library, a couple of buildings away, is one of the most renowned libraries in the world and it lives up to the expectations. An army of PhD trained librarians specialized in almost every field you could imagine, a private museum accessible only to the students of this school—filled with some of the world's first first's.
Being president was his birthright, something nobody could take away from him.
Yet there he was, head high and overcome with so much emotion, nerves, and relief. We applauded as he walked He walked up to the podium, then began his speech.
Looking at him you never would've assumed that his stomach was churning; the sight of a legion of students as normal as brushing your teeth.
For those of us that know him better, we could tell he felt severely unprepared, the eloquence of his speech could easily fool you, but you truly can't miss the rosiness of his cheeks and the way he spins his thumbs against each other. His tell.
"Appointed with me are the following..." Armin's hands grip onto the cue cards given to him from the former president.
A few paces behind Arlert was a statue of his forefather amongst those of other founders, and countless portraits of former presidents, including his great-grandfather, his grandfather, his aunt and even his own father.
"Really makes you wonder doesn't it?" murmurs a voice behind me, "how much of this democracy thing is a choice." The whisper is low but the Ragako Auditorium has a great enough echo that you could hear a pin on the balcony floors drop all the way from the ground floor.
"He's an Arlert, he was predestined for all of this." another whispers.
The person eases into their seat, it creaks as they move.
"I wouldn't call it destiny, the average IQ in that family is just ridiculous. It's like they eat, drink, sleep books or something. Pair that with an aptitude for politics and you get, well... That."
Armin clears his throat, "Eren Jaeger as my vice president". The voices behind me silence themselves and applaud as Eren's name is mentioned.
Funny, because they had many words for Armin and no applause for him. They dissect Armin's life like they know him personally, yet when presented with another product of genetics and grooming, their discernment wavers.
Still, I get it. Eren is cut from a different cloth to say the least, yet I'm still unsure if it's because of his family's nature or simply the way he was nurtured into being. His father, a wealthy oil tycoon, always kept to himself, never letting the world know what he truly thought about anything.
When he knew he couldn't answer a question, he smiled.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
"Mr. Jaeger, do you have any comments on the multiple deaths reported at your oil reserve in the UAE?"
"Mr Jaeger, can you address the reports that your Saudi operation uses the Kafala system to recruit labor?
The cameras flashed and burst white and yellow. Grisha Jaeger, at the center of the podium, didn't blink, not at the flashing lights, not at the questions. He adjusted his cufflinks, waited for the noise to settle, and smiled.
"Every death is unfortunate" Grisha said, "and every rumor more so... that will be all, thank you."
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Eren inherited that philosophy, though his smile was never rehearsed; It came naturally to him.
It was him.
That's the real difference between him and Armin.
He had the kind of face that people called magnetic because it was frightening how charmed they were by him and how influenced they were by crumbs of conversation with him.
He moves smoothly, hypnotically, like a snake charmer and bites back with the ferocity of a cobra.
He stood, and all eyes were on him; it's hard to look away from a man whose body language controlled an entire room.
The applause felt religious, everyone desperate to be near whatever energy that was.
Cultish, that's a better word for it.
I applaud anyway. Eren's victory is unfortunately, well deserved.
He's a well rounded player in this game we all choose to play. He keeps his cards close and never reveals anything till the last minute—and when he has you in his corner, he strikes messy and loud because he knows he can get away with it.
He's a Jaeger after all.
But beyond that, he's a straight A+ student, a prodigy who never had to do too much to be the best, damningly charismatic, and well... he's not unattractive objectively speaking.
But truly that charm that he has—that's what gets you. I can never fully pinpoint what exactly about Eren makes people act the way they do around him. Perhaps, it's the offhand quips, the way he wears the blazer that hangs on his shoulders, or the way his smile that lands exactly where it's supposed to.
He stands two paces away from Armin and gives a polite smile to the faculty, the scholarship kids sitting in their section, the general public. He gives everyone a calculated full second of attention before stepping one pace closer to Armin, and placing a respectful and reassuring hand on his hand shoulder.
"Mikasa Ackerman as my secretary".
Mikasa is a true confidence. She's a portrait of elegance and restraint— a painting composed of brushstrokes and cool seasonal colours. The kind of girl who never needs to raise her voice to be obeyed, who makes excellence look effortless because she's been perfecting it her entire life. The type of person whose last name walks into a room before she does.
She commands the room in a much different manner than Eren.
She isn't hypnotic like him, he could never disappear in a room. She can, and that's her greatest skill; the way she can fade in and out of a background and the way a simple eyebrow raise from her can ignite a fire.
The applause for her was warmer than it had been for anyone else. She's loved but she's not worshipped and that's perfectly fine by her.
While old money is nothing new to this school, no other family wealth is as well aged as Mikasa's. Nobody can truly date when exactly the Ackerman or Azumabito fortune started and certainly, nobody can see when that fortune is going to end.
Yet despite that, she still stood as a princess to the people. Never too close to the clouds to feel the ground, and never too far from the ground to reach for the clouds again.
She grew up with Eren and Armin, however, she never spent more than a couple weeks at a time in London with them, where the two boys were raised. She spent most of her childhood in Singapore, attending one of the few private primary academies that rival Paradis' and you could tell by the way she chose her words carefully and walked as if her legs weighed nothing. A natural beauty, and natural talent.
She stood only about half a pace away from Eren. She didn't glance at him, annoyed at him for one of their million sibling like disagreements, but he smiled at her anyway. She gave a polite nod to Armin before facing the crowd before her.
"Y/N L/N as my Treasurer and Chair of the STEM Committee."
The sound of my name didn't echo like theirs, it fell flat and lingered awkwardly. Applause followed, but it was clearly acknowledgment, not admiration, especially in the Scholarship section.
Unfortunately I expected this. This is not the right political climate to be applauding me, or my family, or anything attached to the L/N family name lest you be caught on camera and exposed as a traitor as well.
Not that most of the people in this room hold opposing views; my family is just as tangled in the world's mess as Armin's, Eren's or Mikasa's.
Arms, oil, gold—it's different to the camera however when you're still in the land your bloodline profited from. Nobody wants to be publicly seen in support of it.
But it's hypocritical still isn't it? If we were to tally the corpses linked to every family name carved into these walls, the arithmetic alone would take generations. If we were to count how many people Armin's family sacrificed to have this school built, the many indentured servants currently under the Jaeger family name all in the name of oil extraction, the families Azumabito's slaughtered during the Shogunate and war crimes the Ackerman's rallied in the world wars.
They look at me with empty eyes yet they still voted for me. They do the same in private with my family.
I stood, smoothed my skirt, and walked up the steps. The lights hit my face making me wince a little but I put on my best smile anyway.
But as I walk closer to it, I can't help but think about how power looks smaller when you're moving toward it—the podium, the banners, statues, portraits, even Armin. The closer you get to it, the more you wonder what made it seem so far away to begin with? Maybe it's the shine, or the way everyone looks at it as something holy.
Up close, this is just a stage, and just a microphone.
Just the same faces pretending not to care. The same polite clapping—and Armin—Armin smiling like he's both relieved and terrified, as if he's just realized what he's won isn't exactly freedom, but something else entirely.
Everyone's chasing the same version of success, and it's best not to ask why. You play your part, applaud at the right moments, and tell yourself this is what you wanted.
Still, I can't help thinking how small the room feels when the applause starts and all eyes are on you. How the air changes. How strange it is that something meant to celebrate achievement can make you feel like you've already reached your limit.
Maybe that's just the thing with proximity, everything feels grand until you're part of it. Then you feel small all over again, and that's just it.
I smile, I nod and stop by Mikasa. Armin mentions other names, but-
"Jean Kirstein as the Chair of the Arts and Humanities Committee and Scholarship Student Union."
That name in particular wakes me up for whatever reason. Jean.
I've had Jean in my art electives a couple of times now. He always sat with his headphones in, paint stains on his cheek or hair–staring off into the distance and fading into the background like he preferred it that way.
He's always lingered around this group but never fully stuck around. He's always been more Connie and Sasha's friend, but I've seen him have conversations with Mikasa and Armin every now and then.
I'm still personally surprised that he ran for election to begin with. He didn't seem like the type to care about any of this. Not student life, let alone student politics. But it's funny because his family name is synonymous with "political monsters."
Which makes his choice of pursuing fine arts all the more interesting.
He walked up the stage and to his spot but today he didn't have paint on his cheeks nor his hair.
Armin hurried through the final announcements before letting the Headmaster Fritz speak again, his voice regaining rehearsed confidence.
YKWIM?
Yot Club
0:54 ─〇───── 3:32
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The applause died in May. Summer swept over Paradis Academy, silencing the political noise and swapping grand speeches for the sound of air conditioners and the silence of empty hallways. The promises made under those gilded ceilings turned to stacks of folders and the realization that the Council Hall was just another beige room in Mid-August.
You wished, however, that you stuck to your schedule and slept at 10:30 like you were supposed to. Instead, you were up till 4 am soaking in your last hours of freedom before you had to go back to being the version of yourself you hated the most.
Y/N the academic.
Y/N the model student.
The Y/N that cares a little too much about her grades and even more about her future.
That's why you liked the summer, you didn't have to be anything, especially not yourself.
You didn't have to spend hours rereading every last sentence in your essays; making sure there wasn't a single misplaced comma. You didn't have to recheck your lab results over and over again; making sure you didn't misrepresent a single variable.
You could just endlessly disassociate into nothingness and pretend that for one moment, you weren't feeling everything all at once.
It was easier that way. To live like everything meant nothing and felt like nothing. That the sudden bolts of anxiety that shot through your fingertips weren't there and the tightness in your chest was from the heat and not the ache of simply just existing within your current body and mind.
You wished it was easier to give up on everything as well. To meander your way through life rather than make a consistent effort at making something out of yourself.
There were days where you wondered why it was so important for you to make something out of yourself.
One thing was for sure, nobody cares how you live or die as long as you eventually get married, have children and continue your bloodline.
So why on earth do you care so much about making something out of yourself when you could just live off of your family's savings like the rest of your family does?
Grief.
It does that to you.
The funny thing about it is that grief pushes you into even more painful coping mechanisms in order to not feel the pain of loss.
It's easier to allow yourself to self-destruct. Because at least it's by your hand. You're hurting on your own terms. Nothing was stolen from you because you willfully handed it over.
Perhaps you're thinking too much. Perhaps you wasted another summer doing nothing because it's easier to let life pass you by than to try to live. Perhaps you wished you were nothing. Perhaps you simply just exist between tomorrow and the days you've spent pondering on why you even are.
Maybe you no longer exist and instead, a vain shell takes your place and that's why you feel this way. Maybe you should've joined your parents in Madrid instead of spending the entire summer high and watching back to back sitcoms in bed.
Connie and Sasha were both away for most of the summer, which was unfortunate because at least one of them would've physically dragged you out of your room to get high in other places.
They both texted you every day, both FaceTimed at the slightest inconvenience, both pleaded with you to join them on vacation, and you tried to convince yourself that this, settling for FaceTimes, was enough.
That the time zone differences weren't eating away at you.
That you didn't feel alone when you had to keep on living when they went to bed.
That even when you tried to sleep the insomnia would get to you first.
The thoughts second.
The grief last.
They came back with the same stories about their trips that they told you about whilst they were actively happening, and you sat down and let them tell you the stories a second time, and just like the first time, you smiled, nodded, and laughed when needed to.
But now it's 8 a.m., you're out of bed, sleep deprived and carrying your boxes into your office at the Student Council Hall.
At least Armin promised donuts and coffee.
You drop the boxes right by the entrance of your office. You stare at the golden, engraved placard.
"Y/N L/N: Treasurer, STEM Committee Chair"
The hard part, getting elected, was over. At least you could do what you do best now: numbers and planning.
Though you still weren't looking forward to the school year or even the idea of having real responsibilities all over again, at least you weren't wasting your life away in bed (but you can't seem to figure out if this change of pace was a good thing or a bad thing).
You walk to the general area and find Armin going through a fat stack of reports and paperwork .
"Started your paperwork late this year?"
Armin shoots up, surprised that there was a person near him, he gives you a smile.
"Paperwork's done, at least the new stuff. I'm just revisiting the last five years—seeing what went wrong and potential problems we might face."
That's Armin for you, a meticulous planner. That's what makes him such a great leader and strategist.
"Need any help?"
"No it's okay, just some light reading anyway." He says jokingly.
"At this pace I'll be done by the end of the week, just focus on unpacking your office and finalizing your reports for the joint council meeting next week".
Right. That.
Each quarter, the main councils of Paradis Academy gather to debate budgets, events, and proposals. The first meeting sets the tone for the year—funds are divided, projects approved, priorities set. The rest are little more than formalities to make sure the machine keeps running.
The few times you did socialize with anyone other than your staff, Sasha and Connie this summer was when you had to attend online meetings with the STEM Committee to motion certain projects into approval for presentation for this very moment.
Your team worked really hard this summer, working at all times of the day and night to work on the budget for the annual STEM expo at the start of each spring. It was the best way for any student in the program to get scouted by major STEM universities and jobs across the world.
You already checked the numbers. It was very well possible to do as planned.
The project could honestly speak for itself but you let your best speaker, Gabi Braun, present the proposal to the council. She's an Honours Cycle I student who shows excellent promise at being your successor in the upcoming year. Multi-national and international debate champion, diplomat family. She was perfect for the job.
You give Armin a polite nod.
"But I'm surprised you arrived early, I thought you'd run off to avoid Reiner's personalized motivational speeches." Armin added while patting on the couch, inviting you to sit for a bit.
"God, he's giving them already?"
"He was practicing them in the mirror when I got here."
You both laugh, the kind of laughter that makes the walls feel less grand and yourself more at home. Armin's laughter cut short at the sound of the printer humming. He turned, then he saw Eren stapling a couple papers together.
"Morning," he said to Armin—not to you.
He had the sleeves of his zip up hoodie slightly rolled up, his hair tied up in a manbun, and unlike you, he didn't look tired at all. Armin stood immediately and walked towards him. Eren gives him a warm smile back.
"I thought you were still abroad," Armin said, hugging him.
"Landed last night. Couldn't sleep so I figured I'd start ruining someone's morning early." Eren said, hugging him back.
The stairwell echoed before the door slammed. Jean crosses the room without looking at anyone, drops a folder so hard the papers spill out and disappears straight into his office. The force of the door hitting its frame making the window tremble.
Armin flinches. "I'm guessing his meeting with Fritz didn't go well."
Eren doesn't even turn. "When do they ever?"
His question lingers in the air, and somewhere in the quiet the hum of the lights grow too loud.
The silence sits there heavy and thick, until the door swings open again— violently, but this time with sugar instead of fury. Sasha walks in from the shared kitchen.
"Just letting you know," she announces, voice too loud for the tension she walked into, "there were definitely only seven donuts in there to begin with."
Reiner trails behind her, carrying two coffees. "She's lying."
"I'm not lying," Sasha says. "I'm protecting morale."
"By eating a third of the supply?" Connie shoots back, somehow already inside and holding an empty paper bag.
"Quality assurance," she says dusting sugar off her shoulder. "You're welcome."
Armin blinks twice registering the scene. "They were for the meeting."
"And they served their purpose," she said. "They met me."
Connie points accusingly. "You promised to save me one."
"I promised to consider saving you one. I considered it."
Reiner set the coffees down. "One's for Y/N. One's for whoever needs it most."
The tension in the room slowly melted away as everyone found themselves in their respective roles in the group. Connie comments about how coffee makes him poop, Reiner tells him not to bring up his bowel movements around him—Sasha thinks it's a good time to talk about her's instead.
Connie disappears into the kitchen and comes back holding the box of donuts. "If there were only seven donuts, then why am I counting six?" He said looking dead at Sasha.
"Don't think about it too much Con-Con, you know it doesn't do you any good." She looks back at the rest of you."In fact, that's why you're all stressed out. You think too much."
Reiner sighs, done with donut-gate "She's got a point."
"She's got icing on her face." Eren quips.
"Same thing," Sasha sticks her tongue out playfully.
The room rolls into redundant chatter. Even Armin leans back with a small, reluctant smile on his face—the kind that made him look younger— and joins in on the conversation.
Behind the chatter, Jean's door stays closed. But the sound of his pacing leaks faintly through the wall—shoes over tile, a rhythm that keeps the room shy of fully relaxing.
Eren notices it as well. He keeps his eyes on the door every few seconds, then pretends to have been staring at the window the whole time.
"You think he's gonna come to the meeting?" Reiner asks, but he knows Jean well enough to know the answer.
"Probably not, but it's fine, I'll rehash it with him later when he's in a better mood." Armin replies back. "Does anyone have an ETA on Bertholdt, Annie and Ymir?"
"They won't be here for another 20 minutes." Reiner replies back, checking his phone.
Armin nods, setting his papers into neat piles. "I need a cigarette." He mutters lowly to himself, already tired of the long day ahead of him.
From The Ritz To The Rubble
Arctic Monkeys
0:54 ─〇───── 3:13
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The group moves towards the meeting room that was to the left of Armin's office. You could almost see the rest of the council in the glass box; children playing democracy.
Eren stretches his arms behind his head, looking at the empty chairs through the glass, then back at Jean's office. Maybe tempted to ask him to join the rest for the meeting.
"Don't" Armin whispers to him, a soft plea.
Eren knocks at his door anyway, he doesn't expect an answer back, nor for Jean to immediately come out of his office. Eren was all too familiar with Jean's attitude, and he's found his own work-arounds with him. But that hadn't stopped the two from butting heads.
According to Armin, they couldn't stand each other when they first officially met, but with the years, tensions subsided and they dissolved into a non-communication-communication.
"He'll show. He loves pretending he doesn't care." He says, almost as if he was talking to the wind
Armin doesn't argue, but his look says he's not fully sure.
Eren holds the door for you; you wish he hadn't. He didn't say anything about it.
Inside, the air was colder, the overhead lights too bright. Every seat had a nameplate, every table had a stack of files waiting to be fought over.
The chairs creak as everyone takes their places. Armin settles at the head of the table and watches as the rest of you settle in.
Mikasa comes into the room and sits beside Eren, she had been here earlier but was carefully tucked into her office.
The others trickled in twenty minutes after—Annie's sneakers against the floor, Ymir's hair half-damp like she'd showered five minutes ago, Bertholdt balancing two folders, a laptop and a box of donuts—all but Jean who was still in his office. Sasha and Connie whisper to each other a little too loudly, laughing until Armin gives them a silencing glare.
Reiner distributes more coffees, Bertholdt the new donuts. Once everyone's settled in. Armin taps his fingers against the desk, a small cue signalling the meeting's start.
"Alright," he straightens the stack of folders in front of him, like if the paper was organized enough, the meeting would be as well. "Let's begin."
The projector hums to life, light pools across the table, catching the condensation of Reiner's coffee cup.
It was odd being 'the inner council'. You still weren't used to this part of the job; looking across the table and seeing your friends go from just that to a room full of cold suits—like the placards in front of you meant you weren't allowed any jokes, any fun, any personality. Like you had to hide the parts of yourselves that you already knew.
"We underspent last year by 4.7%. Arts exceeded allocation by 11, but we offset through STEM's surplus. Armin says quickly going through the highlights of the report.
Jean's chair was still empty, but the room stared at it a moment like it'd miraculously fill itself.
Eren leans back, "That's a nice way of saying STEM bailed out Arts again." He spins his pen between his fingers, "Happened with the previous council—interesting pattern."
You roll your eyes, annoyed by the dots Eren's pointing to. It is true that committees in the past have made under the table deals with each other, consensual or through some type of personal blackmail—that is just the natural path of politics.
But this wasn't the time to allude to such accusations, especially not with you and your team having just taken over. But unfortunately, as with the natural path of politics, the errors and sins of the past reflect poorly not just on the people who committed those sins, but their predecessors as well.
"We had leftover grant funds that couldn't legally be redirected anywhere else. You'd know that if you read our expenditure report"
Eren relaxes further into his seat. "Relax, Treasurer." He says with a grin. "I'm not accusing STEM of financial misconduct."
"Yet."
"Yet?"
He grins wider, happy he elicited the reaction he wanted. Armin ignores the you both.
"We are also entering the year with a projected 6.9% operational deficit."
Armin turns the page as if announcing rain in a country that always carried umbrellas."Expenditure discipline is expected."
He kept on going until there wasn't anything else to say on the topic. He then picks up a leaflet that was tucked in his folder.
"This year the Board would like for us to be a little more hands on than previous councils—for publicity and visibility sake."
"Publicity?" Eren says almost as if tasting the word for himself.
Armin nods, "They want to get with the times."
Eren half-laughs to himself a little, but doesn't say anything further. Armin passes down the leaflet, giving everyone a turn to look at it.
"Volunteer more, engage with the students—the public, something. Just don't be holed up in your office all day every day." Armin says, summarizing the leaflet.
"Next on the agenda Fall and Winter trips." He transitions seamlessly.
Reiner, one of our event coordinators, opens a blue folder like it weighed more than it did.
"We've narrowed it down to two options each: the annual ski trip to the Alps or The Northern Lights Gala in Finland for the Fall semester, and a cultural exchange to Portugal, or the Lake Annecy Leadership Retreat in France for the Winter semester.
He and Connie go through their prepared slides explaining the potential details of each trip.
Sasha perks up instantly. "Ski trip. Obviously."
Connie raises a hand, still in front of the presentation. "Seconded."
Armin sighs. "Let's hear the reasoning before we vote."
Eren doesn't bother hiding his grin. "Ski trip because it's fun. Because sponsors love photos of students on mountains. Because no one wants to write a reflection paper on a cultural exchange again."
Mikasa tilts her head. "The Gala would serve the same purpose and look better on reports. It also provides more networking opportunities for students which is more in line with Paradis's values."
Reiner adds, "We'd still need to justify it to the finance board. It's more expensive than the ski trip."
"Doesn't have to be, I can take a look at the numbers." You reply, though you'd be happier with a ski trip
"Boooo," Eren says, blowing a raspberry in your direction. "Don't be a killjoy."
You roll your eyes, "Apologies. I didn't know you chose when I operate as treasurer."
"No this isn't you as treasurer, you just hate to see me happy." He says feigning upset.
No," he says, feigning offence, "this isn't you as treasurer. You just hate to see me happy."
"You're confusing 'happy' with 'financially reckless,'" you reply. "It happens."
Eren clicks his tongue. "Wow. Spoken like someone who's never done anything fun in their life."
You glance at him. "Spoken like someone who's never had to be responsible a day in theirs."
"Funny," he says lightly. "You always sound very confident when we're talking in theory."
He leans forward just slightly. "Tell me, how'd you do on the calculus final last semester again?" Eren says, looking directly at you.
The room hums with low hisses. You roll your eyes—it didn't matter, he only scored two points higher than you anyway.
Armin sighs, tapping his pen against the folder. "Alright, can we keep this civil? The school likes the Gala, the students want a Ski Trip. Let's at least pretend we're weighing them fairly."
Connie chimes in, "Ski trip's tradition, that should count for something."
"Tradition's just old PR—nobody cares for tradition anymore." Eren says brushing off Connie's point, acting the contrarian.
"Eren hates PR? Funny since you love attention." You mutter.
He slowly smiles. "I never said I hated PR."
"I'm still for the Ski Trip, I'm just pointing out issues." He clarifies further.
The door opens quietly, but enough to make everyone look up.
Jean walks in and doesn't offer an apology. Just the sound of his shoes against tile and the faint warmth from the hallway that followed him in. There's ink stains on his fingertips which you hadn't caught before and that same scowl on his face that he always has. He stretched his arms. The small bronze pin on his lapel caught the light– The Scholarship insignia, required to be worn only by scholarship kids.
Jean wasn't a scholarship kid, he was just as spoiled and rich as the rest of you. But maybe as the Chair of the Scholarship Union he felt compelled to wear it.
Eren smiles to himself, satisfied that he predicted correctly that Jean would come. Jean takes the empty seat beside Reiner not saying anything, instead he folds his hands and listens.
Armin glanced at him briefly before continuing. "Let's vote. Hands for the Ski Trip?"
Connie's hand goes up first, then Sasha, Reiner, Ymir, Eren, and you last though it's reluctant.
"And for The Northern Lights Gala?"
Armin began counting the rest of the votes, Jean abstaining.
"You're not voting?" Armin asked, looking at Jean.
He just shakes his head.
"Alright, the Alps for the Fall, Winter—Portugal or Lake Annecy?"
Sasha grins. "Leadership by the lake. I vote France."
Eren leans forward, elbows on the table. "France does what the Gala would've. We'll meet alumni, investors, and a few board members. Portugal's... quaint."
Jean spoke then, calm and cool. "France, sounds like the type of trip people justify by calling it networking when it's really just a tan with a certificate."
Eren looks over, amused. "You say that like you've been."
Jean doesn't look up from his notes. "I don't need to go to know what kind of people it attracts."
The air between them thins, just enough for everyone else to notice.
"How about we vote? Hands for Portugal?"
Jean's went up first. Then Mikasa's. Then yours.
"Lake Annecy?"
Everyone else's hand went up. Armin presses his pen to the paper, hesitates a second, then says, "Lake Annecy for the Winter semester, The Alps for the Fall semester".
The rest of the meeting blurs into logistics and debates from all ends of the table. The foreground noise against the steady hum of the air conditioner. Outside, the sun's rising to its peak. Eren leans back, half-listening, half somewhere else. Jean keeps eyes on the table, fingers tapping a quiet rhythm that didn't match Armin's voice. Connie in his own world doodling on the corner of scrap paper.
When Armin finally closed his binder, the sound was sharp enough to pull everyone back. "That's all for today," he said in relief.
LOYALTY.
Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna
0:54 ─〇───── 3:37
⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻
Volume: ▁▂▃▄▅▆▇ 100%
By night, the quiet belonged somewhere else entirely. Connie's dorm, thick with weed and music, the new semester tradition between you, Connie and Sasha. You never talked about it but always showed up. Finally, no agenda, no politics— just you and your closest friends stripped of your suits. Connie and Sasha started this tradition in freshman year, the weed and alcohol came along in junior year, and you did in the winter semester of senior year.
Sasha always brought too much to drink. Connie always said too much. And somehow, it never felt like enough.
Connie was lucky enough to have his dorm to himself allowing him to host these sleepovers. Typically, everyone needed to have a roommate regardless of status, lineage, etc. but for some reason the rules always seemed to bend in Connie's favour. He was simply never assigned a roommate to begin with so he had two rooms to himself. One that he actually slept in the other that he turned into his man-cave.
Posters of old sports teams and half-ripped movie prints covered one wall, held up by an uneven mix of thumbtacks and ambition. His desk a graveyard of empty energy drink cans and tangled chargers .
The room smells faintly of a nice cologne and weed, the curtains were drawn halfway, letting moonlight cut through the smoke like a stage spotlight. A small speaker hummed low in the corner, cycling between playlists Sasha had made for him years ago and songs he'd never bothered to remove. Some mix of Kendrick Lamar, Arctic Monkeys, and whatever lo-fi track Armin insisted was "good for the vibe".
The couch felt older than the dorm itself, a soft, sunken thing that had seen too many spilled drinks and too many late-night arguments about nothing. Someone— Reiner— had carved initials into the wooden armrest during their first year. Nobody really mentioned it and nobody covered it up either.
The fridge hums loudly in the background, stocked with Red Bulls, takeout, and Sasha's midnight baking experiment. Above it, a string of fairy lights hung unevenly— his failed attempt at 'atmosphere.'
It wasn't clean. It wasn't mainstream stylish. But it was Connie.
You sat cross-legged on the floor behind Connie, a towel draped over his shoulders, latex gloves snapping as you stirred a bowl of bleach with the handle of a toothbrush. He'd found the kit shoved behind a pile of laundry in his closet — bleach, gloves, and a half-used bottle of black dye — and decided it was a sign.
"New year, new me," he says dead serious, holding up the box like a revelation.
Now he sat hunched over in front of you, shirtless, smoke still curling from the ashtray on the nightstand, while you tried not to get bleach on his neck. He puff-puff passed the blunt to you and you hit it before returning it back to him.
"Are you sure about this?" you ask, feeling his buzz cut.
"Nope," Connie replies. "But I'm already committed." He says, taking a hit.
Sasha snorts from the couch. "That's exactly what you said before your last exam."
"Hating for no reason, I freestyled and still landed an 82." He says, popping a Hershey's Kiss into his mouth.
Sasha sprawls on the couch, waving her phone around like a mic. "If his hair falls out, we're naming the patch."
"You're on to something" you add, coating the toothbrush in another layer of bleach.
"More like on something," Connie cuts in.
"How about the donut?" Sasha adds against Connie's will.
"It's fitting, his forehead already looks glazed." You giggle a bit while applying the bleach to a corner of his hair.
"WOWOWOW," Connie turns around to you and pouts, feigning sadness. "Not too much on my forehead you know I'm self conscious about that baby." He holds the blunt to you, you lean in and take a hit.
You laugh and try to nudge his head back. "If you're self-conscious, maybe don't shine it up like a spotlight."
"Damn, okay!" He throws his hands up, grinning even while sulking "You're lucky I can't move or I'd—"
"Mess up your bleach job?" you cut in, lips twitching.
Connie closes his mouth.
"Exactly. Stay still, Krispy Kreme."
"I'm being bullied in my own home by my stylist and her evil sidekick." Connie mumbles to himself.
"Your stylist is making you look good right now so shut up and let me work."
"Oh so you do think I look good." You could hear the smirk from Connie's voice. He turns around anyway despite your previous threat.
"I never said you didn't, baby." You say quickly kissing his forehead.
Connie froze for half a second
Sasha makes a loud gagging noise from the couch. "Gross, get a room!"
"This is my room." Connie turns his head back, and shoots at Sash. He grins, his reflection catching yours again. "Don't listen to her, Y/N. She just can't handle this level of chemistry."
You grin back, keeping your focus on his hair. "Relax, I'm just keeping the client entertained."
Connie leans back slightly, careful not to mess up the section you were working on. "Entertained, huh? So this is part of the service?"
"Yeah," you say, tapping the toothbrush against the bowl. "Flirting's complimentary. Confidence boosting costs extra."
"How much does a kiss cost?" Connie says half-joking.
"I just kissed your forehead Con-Con."
"Nah nah nah, I want a real kiss, I'm being serious, how much would it cost baby?"
"It costs a kiss back, and you're already in debt."
Connie tilts his head, grinning. "Then I'm paying in installments."
He turns his head quick—his eyes low and unbothered, and before you realize it you're leaning in—quick, careless, smoke and sugar between you.
From the couch in front of you, Sasha lobs a pillow across the room; it bounces off Connie's shoulder and onto your lap.
That's the thing with you and Connie: it never counts. You trade kisses the way other people trade jokes—it's part of the bit, part of the comfort.
Connie grins, catching your eye in the mirror. "I expect a full refund." Connie kisses you back, just as quick, and turns his head back
"Keep dreaming," you say, turning back to his hair. The room hums again— same smoke, same laughter, nothing new and everything familiar.
"I swear to God, if you two start eye-fucking over bleach, I'm walking out." Sasha groans from the other side of the room.
"You wouldn't last five minutes without me, Sash," Connie shoots back, running a hand through the unbleached side before you smacked it away.
"Hands down!" you snap, laughing. "You touch it again, and I'm giving you a Wiz Khalifa Skunk Stripe Special."
Sasha cackles. "Do it. He deserves it for kissing you in front of me when he knows we're married."
"You just mad she wants me, ugly1" Connie shoots back, voice low and teasing.
You meet his reflection in the mirror, eyes narrowing in mock warning. "You keep talking to my wife like that and I'll 'accidentally' dye your hair pink."
He grins wider. "I'm a feminist I ain't afraid of pink."
Sasha groans out dramatically, "Con you're giving me second hand embarrassment."
Connie smirks, still facing the mirror. "You're just jealous no one's ever offered to bleach your head with love, Sash."
She throws a balled-up wrapper at him. "With love? Babe, if that's your idea of romance, no wonder you're single."
You snort, trying not to laugh as you brush more bleach through his hair. "She's got a point."
"Hey, I'm single by choice," he says, pretending to look offended.
"So when Mikasa curved you, that was a choice?," Sasha asks while digging in his snack drawer.
Connie's head whips around so fast you almost drop the bowl. "Wow, okay—low blow."
Sasha shrugs, mouth already full of chips. "What? I'm just saying, it didn't look very 'by choice' when you brought her flowers freshman year and she said she was busy."
You bite your lip to hide your smile. "Busy doing what?"
Sasha grins wickedly. "Anything else, apparently."
Connie groans, covering his face with his hands. "That was one time!"
"One public time," Sasha corrects, still rummaging through the drawer. "Half the dorm saw you standing there like a sad florist."
"Okay, first of all," Connie says, pointing his finger at her, "I'm not ashamed of being emotionally available."
You laugh. "That's one way to describe being rejected in 4K."
He looks at you through the mirror, mock-offended but smiling anyway. "You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I am," you say, still grinning as you brushed the bleach along his roots. "I'm just also on the side of truth."
Sasha pops another chip into her mouth. "Can't fight facts, lover boy."
Connie slouches dramatically, sighing like a martyr. "You two are menaces. I let you into my home, feed you my snacks—"
"—and we bully you," you finish, leaning closer with a smirk. "Honestly, you should've seen this coming."
"Yeah," Sasha says, laughing through a mouthful of chips. "Like Mikasa did."
Connie groans louder this time, dragging the towel over his face while you and Sasha lose it, the laughter spilling through the dorm so bright and easy it barely fit in the room.
"Man, yall are a bunch of haters, always trying to dim my light." Connie pouts, now grabbing his phone to distract himself.
You and Sasha laugh even harder this time. You rinsed the last of the dye from Connie's hair and towel-dried it until the strands stood up in soft tufts.
The bleach had lifted perfectly—against all odds—and the black stars you'd painted near his temples glimmered wet under the light like constellations.
Sasha leans over your shoulder, whistling. "Oh my God. You actually made him hot."
Connie blinks at his reflection, running a careful hand through his hair. "Nah, this is crazy. I look AMAZING."
You pull the towel off his shoulders. "You're welcome, superstar."
He turns toward you, grin wide, that familiar sparkle of ego finally justified. "I'm not even gonna lie, Y/N... you snapped. I thought I was gonna look like Slim Shady, but this—this is art."
"Art? Babe, you look like the night sky got lost in a frat house." Sasha taunts.
Connie ignores her, twisting a strand to inspect the tiny stars. "Nah, this is symbolic. New school year, new constellation, new me."
"Right," you say, handing him his brush. "Next thing we know, he's calling himself a walking metaphor/'"
He smirks, turning toward you. "Exactly! I feel like a cosmic baddie and the stars are lining up for me."
Sasha snorts into her drink. "Jesus."
Connie points both fingers at you in the mirror. "You, stylist of the century—remind me never to doubt you again."
You smile, leaning against the counter, a little proud and pretending not to be. "You can thank me by not staining my towels."
He smiles wider. "Deal. But next time, I'm letting you freestyle."
Sasha groans, already collecting the mess on the floor. "Please don't encourage her. Next time you'll have a neon galaxy painted into your skull."
Connie looks at his reflection one more time, head tilted, smile softening. "Could be worse," he said.
(dream)
Salvia Path
0:54 ─〇───── 3:37
⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻
Volume: ▁▂▃▄▅▆▇ 100%
The night later began to fade into itself, and soon both Sasha and Connie fell asleep. Sasha cuddling you, Connie cuddling Sasha. Yet you, you were still awake. Sleep doesn't come, it rarely does. It's raining and the soft patter that you'd normally find soothing was intruding on some well needed sleep.
You check your phone to see it's 1:03 am, you need to be up by 6:30 at the very latest. But the bolts of anxiety shooting through your fingertips made it impossible to ignore that the weed was fading and you were no longer high, you were still awake, still breathing and still going through another endless night.
You sigh, and turn your body towards Sasha. She was still fully asleep, fully unaware that you were staring at her. You want to wake her up. Want to ask her to stay up with you till you fell asleep. But you know it'd be unfair to. So you just stare at her until it feels weird to do so.
You turn your body away from her and back to the window, back to the rain. You stare as the single droplets raced against the window, each eager to get to the bottom before the other. Some of the droplets merge halfway down, colliding into something heavier and faster. Something that didn't have to fall alone. You wish that could be you. That the voice in your head could bump into someone else's and quiet down for a while, that the burden could be shared.
The clock ticks again. 1:14. The seconds dragging their feet like they're mocking you. You try breathing slower, the way Sasha always told you to—"In for four, out for four, like waves." But the rhythm breaks before the second exhale. Your chest tightens like it's bracing for impact, even though there was nothing coming.
You try counting your breaths instead, then naming things in the dark—window, curtain, desk, charger—like your therapist once said to. But even the dark feels loud tonight.
Your mind wanders, as it always does when sleep won't come. Back to the report you had to finish. The text you shouldn't have sent. The people you should've talked to over the summer—maybe you should call him, he'll always pick up for you... The look your dad gave you earlier—the one you pretended not to notice. It all spun together into that same choking feeling you couldn't quite name, like trying to swallow the air.
Then you feel it.
Even in a room full of the people you love the most, you feel alone.
Even in the arms of the people who've said they'd die for you, you question if it's true as you recall how complete they looked laughing together without you.
Like the absence of your laughter was the most natural thing to them.
A selfish thought.
They're allowed to feel happy.
Even without you.
Even when you're unhappy.
Even when being alive hurts more than it should.
Think nice thoughts.
Your eyes begin to feel heavy. Not out of tiredness but because your body had decided it was done participating. The room steps back, or at least it feels that way.
The rain still taps against the glass. The minutes still pass without you. The minute still passes without you. 1:15 a.m.
You ignore the window and stare at the wall, then your hand. You try to move it. It moves.
Good. Still yours. You're not completely gone. Just somewhere between nothing and tomorrow.
"When did it get so quiet?"
And when did the nights get so dull and mundane?
You pull the blanket tighter around yourself, as if warmth could trick your body into thinking it was safe. The rain keeps falling. The clock keeps ticking. And still, the night refuses to let you rest. So you take a deep breath and put on your headphones.
And you put on her playlist.
The cover is still that photo you took of her hand in her room—rings, chipped nail polish, a smudge of ink on her thumb from writing on her palm. The kind of picture you take when you think there will be a thousand more.
You zoom into the photo until the grain shows. The picture was taken years ago— yet you could still see the subtle pink hues of her room. Her hand rested on your thigh— some of the rings she wore were too big for her—her mother's but she let her borrow them for the night. The other bent where she slammed it in a locker once and said it gave it "character."
The ink stains on her hand were a lightly blotched to do list. She ran out of paper (again) and insisted that this was her next best option instead of letting you lend her a page.
"charger /garden /call Y/N /don't forget the poem." She underlined "don't forget" twice.
Her wrist vein is up, the way it does when she's excited. There's a hair elastic biting into it because she always forgot it was there until it snapped.
You didn't frame her face, and that's what makes the photo hurt. It's not "her" in the way people demand her to exist. It's the thing you actually remember—the habit of her. The way she talked with her hands. The way her rings clicked against her pens. The way she wrote on herself like her body was a notebook and the day was worth annotating.
She chose it as the cover because it looked like nothing at the time. Yet, to you now, it's everything.
You snapped hundreds of photos like this on her phone because you thought there'd be a thousand more photos just like it—hands, lists, rings, blur—until there weren't.
You don't move, instead you read the ink again even though you know it by heart.
charger /garden /call Y/N /don't forget the poem
charger /garden /call Y/N /don't forget the poem.
charger /garden /call Y/N /don't forget the poem
charger /garden /call Y/N /don't forget the poem
You press the first song and play it on repeat.
Track 1:
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
The Smiths
0:12 ─〇───── 1:52
⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻
Volume: ▁▂▃▄▅▆▇ 100%
It plays like a confession you didn't mean to make.
Not to anyone in particular—just the air, the dark, yourself.
The first notes crawl through the static, fragile and desperate in that way only old songs can be. There's something about Morrissey's voice—how it trembles between begging and pretending not to. It's not sadness; it's the exhaustion that follows it. The quiet surrender that comes when you've wanted for so long that wanting itself starts to feel holy.
You close your eyes. The guitar sounds like dust settling on furniture no one visits anymore. The kind of sound that feels lived in. It stretches across your chest, soft but heavy, a pressure you can't name. The words barely register—just the shape of them, the ache. You mouth along without meaning to, as if the lyrics were a prayer you used to know.
Please, please, please.
The repetition digs somewhere deeper than memory, scraping the space where hope used to sit. You can't even tell if you believe what you're asking for. You just need the asking.
It loops again. Same opening note. Same plea.
Every inhale happens in time with it, every thought drags to its rhythm.
You lie still. Suspended in that thin place between peaceful and restless. The words fade before they finish, and still you let it start over. Because it's easier to stay inside the loop than to face the silence after it ends.
So you sit in it.
And let it linger.
Until you can't anymore.
Then you get up, dig through your bag, pick up your organic chemistry book and start working.
Because that's what the living do.