I felt really bad about making you guys wait a long time for another chapter of Kyojin University (which you should totally read if you haven't already), so I whipped up a quick one-shot to keep you guys entertained. Enjoy!
Warning: This contains spoilers for Kyojin University!
Disclaimer: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of the bishies in it.
Sunspots
One thing Jean hated about Marco: his freckles.
It wasn't like they made Marco look bad or anything. No, Jean was not the type of guy to judge by appearances. But it was just something about how they stood out against Marco's complexion and a few other things that made Jean…bothered.
For instance: the symmetry.
Jean and Marco had gotten coffee a few days before class and were hanging out in the café. Now, Jean wasn't counting or anything, but he could have sworn that Marco had exactly the same number of freckles on each cheek. He could practically make constellations with them! Apparently he had been staring for too long.
"Jean, is there something wrong?" the freckled boy had asked while shifting nervously in his seat "You've been staring at me for the last 5 minutes…"
Jean had just calculated that Marco had 10 freckles on each cheek before Marco had spoken. Whoops.
"It's nothing, I'm just…thinking," he had answered before mentally slapping himself.
Way to go, Jean. Now Freckled Beauty thinks you're a freak.
Another thing: how many of them were there? Were they only confined to his face? Jean had been pondering these questions all week.
Since school had started in the fall, Jean had rarely seen Marco without long sleeves due to the weather. Jean was in football and Marco was in fencing, so he never got to see Marco in any of the locker rooms (b-but it wasn't like he wanted to see Marco changing, he was just curious about how many freckles he had, dammit!) But today, football practice had been cancelled, opening up an opportunity for Jean to maybe catch Marco changing in or out of his fencing uniform.
He wouldn't barge in and start counting on the spot or anything. He would just watch from afar and see if there were any more freckles anywhere else on Marco's body—oh my god I sound like a stalker.
Screw it.
Running while keeping an eye on his watch, Jean headed from the football field to the gym—he didn't know why the two places were across campus—and into the locker rooms adjacent the fencing room. Upon entering he almost collided with his roommate, Eren, and quickly ducked into a—closet?—before the brunette noticed anything. Quickly scrambling around to find balance, Jean deduced he was in the closet that held all of the fencing uniforms. There was a little peephole conveniently located near Jean's head.
He pressed his face to the door and looked through the peephole just in time to see Levi, captain of the Recon Fencing Team, reaching for the closet door handle. The football player blanched and pushed himself as far back into the closet as possible behind the uniforms.
Jean had made the mistake of inhaling sharply when Levi had opened the door. The closet reeked!
Luckily, Levi didn't seem to notice Jean (now with tears streaming from his stinging eyes due to the overwhelming scent of sweat) and had grabbed his uniform and closed the door. Jean waited a few moments for Levi's footsteps to disappear before he exhaled loudly, coughing and wiping his face. He was getting sweaty from being surrounded by the thick uniforms, and used the sleeve of one of them to wipe his face. Jean had taken a close look at the name on the sleeve.
Marco Bodt
Well, wasn't this his lucky day? Since Marco's uniform was still in the closet it meant that he hadn't changed yet which meant…Yes! Jean looked through the peephole again and voila!—Marco had entered the room and was now getting undressed—
Oh. Oh.
It had just registered in his mind that Jean was hiding all hot and bothered in a closet watching his best friend taking off his clothes. Jean's face felt really hot. But he wasn't blushing because dammit he was a football player and football players didn't blush.
Unfortunately, Jean had been too busy focusing on how he wasn't blushing to notice that a now shirtless Marco was opening the door to the uniform closet. So it wasn't really a surprise when a sweaty football player named Jean Kirschtein tumbled out of the closet, clutching what appeared to be Marco's fencing uniform, when said freckled boy had opened the door.
Complete silence as Jean was forced to look at an upside-down Marco's confused face.
"Jean? What are you doing here?" the black-haired boy finally asked after a few more moments of awkwardness.
"I—you—guhbuhduh," Jean responded intelligently. A few more moments as Marco's confused look turned to one of concern.
"What are you doing with my uniform?" When Jean didn't answer again, Marco sighed and walked around to Jean's feet, now facing him right-side up. He extended a hand which Jean took blankly, and pulled the football player to his feet.
"Jean, you need to answer me," Marco said slowly, now looking dead into Jean's eyes. "Are you okay? Are you sick? Do you need me to take you to the infirmary?"
Said football player was trying to look anywhere except Marco's eyes, but couldn't avert his eyes to many other locations because Marco wasn't wearing a shirt.
Marco frowned, and lifted a hand to place it on Jean's forehead.
DAMMIT, why is he so cute—
"You're pretty warm, and your cheeks look pretty red. I think you have a fever—!"
"CAN I COUNT YOUR FRECKLES?" Jean suddenly blurted out. Marco yelped and quickly retracted his hand, eyes wide and fearful.
"W-what?" the freckled boy asked cautiously, suddenly looking self-conscious. Jean must have looked pretty desperate at this point with his eyes pleading, cheeks red, and hands still clutching the sleeve of Marco's uniform. Jean let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, and slumped where he stood.
"I'm sorry, Marco," he started after a moment, "This must be really weird for you, huh?"
Marco nodded. He appeared to be calm, but those expressive eyes had betrayed him. He was still scared. Jean slowly handed Marco's uniform to him and Marco let out a deep breath of his own, clutching the uniform to his chest to sort of cover up his half-nakedness.
"It's just that…this has been bothering me all week," Jean continued, "It's your freckles! I don't know why, but I can't seem to get them off of my mind!" Then he began voicing the questions he had been asking himself all week, "Why are they perfectly symmetrical on your face? Are they only on your face? How did they get there? How many are…there…" Marco was shaking. Shit, what had he done?!
And then Marco was laughing.
Jean could only watch, transfixed, as his best friend threw back his head and let loose loud, bright, beautiful laughter. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes as his whole body shook with chuckles, the lights from the ceiling bringing out each one of those 20 freckles on his face perfectly. Marco had dropped his uniform, which was now pooled around his feet. He looked like an angel.
"Is that it?" Marco stuttered, still laughing, "You've been worrying all this time about my freckles?! Is that why you were in the closet?"
"H-hey!" Jean sputtered, "How did you know something was bothering me the whole time?"
"I hate to break it to you, but you've been staring at me at different occasions all week!" Marco said, "I thought you were mad at me or something! But this…this….this takes the cake!"
Jean looked helplessly at the ground as Marco tried to calm himself down, his laughter descending into light chuckles, giggles, and then nothing.
"You know, you can count them if you want," he said quietly, smiling. Jean's head snapped back up.
"Are you serious?" he blurted.
"Well…yeah! I actually have never counted them before," Marco replied, scratching the back of his head, "And I wouldn't mind if you counted them…you could probably count the ones I can't see, anyway."
Okay. Jean was definitely blushing now. Marco looked expectantly at him.
"Well?" he asked, "You can…uh…start, I guess."
Jean gulped, but obliged.
Well, for one thing, Marco definitely had more freckles than what were on his face. Jean began counting the ones on the back of Marco's arms. He made sure to count out loud so Marco could see how many he actually had.
18, 19, 20…
Jean went up Marco's arms and then to the back of his neck, not missing the shudder that passed through his best friend when Jean accidentally breathed onto Marco's skin.
36, 37, 38…
There were a lot on Marco's back. Jean counted slowly, making sure to touch each one. Occasionally Marco would giggle, try to bat Jean's hands away from behind his back and say, "That tickles, Jean."
61, 62, 63…
Jean counted all of the ones on his back and circled back to his front. There were only a few on the front of Marco's torso, but Jean made sure not to miss any of them. He blushed when he reached Marco's chest, but continued counting.
83, 84, 85…
He continued travelling down until…
"86," Jean whispered, mouth dry.
He had reached Marco's stomach. There was a single freckle right below his navel. Marco was blushing.
"J-Jean," he stuttered, "That's not all of them."
"What?"
"Y-you…you can keep counting if you like." Marco had taken a hold of Jean's hands, gently guiding them to the button of his pants.
OH MY G-
"SHITTY BRAT! Why aren't you out there doing footwork? Get moving!" Levi barked, bursting through the doors of the locker room. He froze, seeing the position the two were in—Jean was kneeling in front of Marco, his hands just about to unbutton his pants.
"Oi…I don't want to know what you two are doing, but I suggest you both get out of my locker room in 3…2…"
Levi never had to say "1" in these situations.
While Marco was scrambling to get into uniform in the fencing room, Jean was running back to his dorm as fast as he could, mind reeling from the events that had just happened.
He had almost…he had almost…
Dammit, he was blushing again!
One thing Jean loved about Marco: his freckles.
I hope you guys enjoyed it! Yeah, sorry you didn't get to see Jean count the freckles on Marco's legs-Wait, what? Did you guys think there were freckles somewhere else? You naughty readers~
Until next time,
-Jay