Buy the Stars
One: Meeting
Jean pushes his hair from his forehead. It's sticky with sweat and honestly, so is everything around him. The air is heavy with heat. Next to him, Sasha fans herself with her hand as she stares out the window. She glances over her shoulder at Jean and sticks her tongue out at him. He rolls his eyes back at her.
There's two weeks left of school and it's absolute torture. The heat is so intense that it hurts, and the only areas in the school with air conditioning are the library and the cafeteria. To top it off, there's only two weeks left of school. Sitting through algebra is hard enough as it is, and adding in those other two factors doesn't help much.
And it's only the beginning of the hour.
The teacher walks in, the typical bored expression on his face. Rather than jumping right into the lesson plan as usual, he pauses at the front of the classroom. "We have a new student," he says.
Jean's brows furrow. A new student? Isn't this really weird timing to be starting at a new school with exams and summer break only two weeks away?
Sasha catches his eye and shrugs.
His attention turns to the door when he hears the ear piercing creaking sound it makes when it opens.
Jean can't see that well, since he was too lazy to bother with his contacts (he could've put on his glasses, but he doesn't really like how they look), but from what he could tell, she was probably as beautiful as someone could get. Her black hair fell to her shoulders, moving with her as she walked to the front of the room. (I should've worn my glasses today, he thinks.)
The only thing that strikes him as odd is the scarf. If it was a scarf made to wear with regular clothing, he wouldn't question it, but it appeared to be a thick, heavy winter scarf.
Why would anyone wear that when it's nearing the hottest summer ever and they're stuck in a stuffy building built in the 1700s?
"This is Mikasa Ackerman," their teacher says, his voice as monotone as ever.
She has a blank expression on her face as she waves to the class with a simple flick of the hand.
"There's an open seat or two back there," the teacher says, pointing by Sasha and Jean. (Jean eyes and on the empty seat beside him and he feels sick. Marco should be sitting there. But he hasn't for months. Sometimes Jean forgets he's gone.
Sasha, on the other hand, is staring at the unoccupied seat beside her. While Connie's not gone forever, she hasn't seen him in months and they've hardly had time to talk.
At the same time, this Mikasa girl seems pretty interesting.)
She picks the seat that's by Jean and sits, not even looking his way.
"No," Sasha says, "I can't." She pushes her books haphazardly into her locker and pulls out her back pack, slamming the door shut. "Mina and Historia demand that we do something today after school, so we're going to get ice cream. I'd invite you, but they have this whole girls only rule or whatever," she sighs. "It was never like this before Connie left and before Marco…" Her gaze shifts away from Jean's, "Anyways, I can't hang out today. Tomorrow you could come over and we could avoid our responsibilities and play video games and get pizza."
Jean groans but nods, slinging his own back pack over his shoulder. "Yeah, that's fine. I'll do math homework or something. Because, you know, that's how must seventeen year olds spend their Friday nights."
"Hey now," Sasha says, stepping towards him and cupping his cheek in her hand, "Don't be so hard on yourself. A lot's happened this year and you're allowed as many Friday nights at home doing homework to distract yourself as you want."
"Yeah, I guess," he replies.
Sasha pulls him into a hug and he accepts it without question. She smells good, like coffee and cherries and a freshly mowed lawn. It's weird combination on smells, but they manage to work together somehow. Jean buries his face in her hair. "Thank you," he says, though his voice is muffled.
"Any time," she pulls away, pushing the slipping strap of her back pack up. "I should go."
Jean nods, "Alright."
She turns and starts to walk off, waving over her shoulder.
Jean doesn't drive to school often. At least, not when the summer months come around. His car doesn't have air conditioning, so having it sit out in the sun in the school's parking lot isn't the best of ideas. (Also, if you're wearing shorts the leather burns your butt, which is incredibly unpleasant.) He also only lives about five minutes from the school, so it's kind of pointless to drive everyday unless he's planning something after school anyway.
And since Marco's died, he doesn't really bother to plan much when it comes to after school activities. There's no point to him because there's no Marco to do them with. And while Sasha's great and all, she's not Marco.
Really, no one will ever be able to replace Marco. Marco's the kind of person who's a completely unique, one of a kind guy and is probably the sweetest person on the planet.
Or, he was.
Jean shakes his head. No use in thinking about it, since he can't change what happened.
He shoves his hands into his pockets while he walks down the old sidewalk. He has to watch the ground with each step to make sure he won't trip, since it's heaved up in some places from bad winters and tree's roots. The sun is beating down on his neck, uncomfortably hot.
Maybe he could draw tonight, rather than stare blankly at his homework before giving up and falling asleep on the couch. He hasn't drawn in ages, but he's been getting ideas again recently. He's still not sure he wants to though, since—
Since there's no Marco to tell him what's right and wrong with the picture. There's no Marco to tell him that that hand doesn't look like a hand or that this foot isn't proportionate with the rest of the body.
He runs his hand through his hair, squeezing tightly.
Stop it.
He's no longer walking, instead standing there with his eyes shut tightly and his hand pulling at his hair when he hears it.
He's not sure what it is, but it doesn't sound good. He hears an angry scream—it's a girl's voice—and a grunt—this time a male's voice.
He swallows. Whatever's going on, it's doesn't sound pretty. It probably doesn't look all that pretty either.
He quietly makes his way down the alley, pressing himself against the wall. The closer he gets to the edge of the building, the more he hears the sound of heavy breathing, quick footsteps, and something swishing through the air.
He holds his breath for a few moments before peeking his head around the corner. At first, nothing appears to be wrong. But as he watches, he realizes that everything about what he's seeing is wrong.
This guy. He doesn't know what the hell it is, but it's not something he wants to mess with. He doesn't even look completely human, but instead like some sort of animal. He has tufts of fur growing out from different parts of his body and his face is shaped more like a dog's than anything.
The green eyes of the creature soon land on him and his own eyes widen.
"What do you think you're doing?" the girl yells to him. "Stay low and get behind me quickly," she adds, holding up a sword that appears to be covered in blood, but with a second glance he realizes that it's actually red.
Wait. This girl.
"Mika—"
"Hurry!" She shouts again.
Jean does as she says, running to behind her. He hears the animal thing growl and charge at him, then Mikasa grunting as he watches her lunge the sword straight for the animal's heart. It hits the thing dead on the animal dissolves into dust, then to thin air.
There's silence, and then, "Should I even ask what that thing was?"
"My brother Eren's creation," she says, leaning down to pick up her sword. She turns Jean, blowing at the sword and the wiping it with her wrist. She then holds it out to her side, aiming it right at her neck. But instead of pushing into her neck like Jean originally thought, she pushes it past herself and it turns into a red, heavy fabric. The scarf from earlier. She drapes it around her neck, adjusting it until, well, until she thinks it looks good. Or, at least, that's what Jean assumes.
"Um," he pauses when she meets his eyes. Her gaze is dark and unforgiving, rather than bored like they were during algebra.
"That was dangerous, you know. Don't run into things you don't know about. It's only going to make my job harder."
"I, um, okay. Alright, I won't bother you again," he clears his throat, "But, before I go, your face is bleeding."
Her hand grazes her cheek and she pulls her hand away when she feels something hot and sticky. He's right, her face is definitely bleeding. "No worries," she says, her gaze softening. Her fingers hover above the gash and it slowly begins to close up, eventually leaving a small, pink scratch. "I'll have to clean the blood from my face when I get home, but this will do for now. You're not hurt at all, are you?" She asks suddenly, concern evident in her voice.
"I, what? No, no, I'm fine."
She nods, "Good. You should be going then."
"Wait. Uh, Mikasa, right?"
"Yeah," she says, "Mikasa. And you're Jean. Jean Kirschstein," her eyes flicker as she gives him a once over. She steps forward, and then she walks around him, studying him. He feels kind of uncomfortable, but when she's standing in front of him again he can actually see her facial features, so he supposes that's a plus.
Their faces are only mere inches apart at this point.
"Out of curiosity," he says somewhat breathlessly, "What's your job?"
"Protecting you," she replies almost instantly.
"What are you?"
"The closest thing a human like you would know of is an angel."
"Why are you protecting me, then? Are you my guardian angel or something?"
"No," she says, "No, I'm not. That was Marco Bodt. But Marco failed and got himself killed. I am simply his stand in," she pushes Jean's hair out of his face, her fingers brushing over his neck and sending shivers down his spine. She brings her fingers around and grabs hold of his chin. "Like I said, don't get in my way when I'm working and we won't have any issues."
She kisses him, but it doesn't register until she's already pulled away. She holds his chin for another moment before walking past him and down the alley way. As he watches her, only one thought can even come to mind.
What the hell.
Hello friends! Guess who's starting a new multi chapter jeankasa fic when she has one that hasn't been updated since August? But yeah, so this idea came to me today and I had to do something with it. I can't promise any updates soon, as I have no idea where this is going to go yet. And by the way, the title is a Marina and the Diamonds song. So, is it any good? Like, I'm going to continue regardless, but I would still love to know if you liked it!