*Author's Note: As before mentioned this story does contain adult themes, including swearing, alcohol/drugs, sexual discrimination/conversion therapy, possible future self-harm, mentions of sexual themes, etc.
I do not own Attack On Titan.(Obviously)*
In one lifetime, we experienced many things; hate, regret, pain and suffering. Not only of ourselves, but of those around us. But also love. And with this love there comes the hate. Hate for those that cannot understand your love. Regret for those moments that you couldn't properly cherish with the person you loved so dearly. And most certainly the agony of watching the one you love suffer any amount or form of pain. That much can be expected from life.
Never has it been fair or right to assume that everyone out there was against me, but it was my only way of protecting myself. Protecting myself against a world of harmful people with toxic words that could scar. It didn't matter where I went, once my secret was out there was always a plethora of sinister words meant to break my spirit and an equal amount of malicious teenagers and adults behind them to force their cruel reality upon me.
My secret or as my mother described it, "the Kirstein family's greatest shame," caused a drift in my family, particularly my parent's divorce. My mother, who used to work for a banking firm was now reduced to working long hours for minimum wage at a shitty diner in the middle of our new city, Trost, that we moved to a few weeks after the divorce. She wanted to keep her old job, but the move was too far for the job to still be practical. My father, who wanted nothing to do with me anymore, was an author who turned his pen from the fictional side of writing to now describing how messed up of a son he has. It was my mother's hope that once we moved to a place where no one knew who I was and if I received "proper treatment," I could be turned back to her idea of normal. She treated it like it was some kind of disease, like I was sick in the head.
She strictly ordered me to never tell anyone what I was. She was ashamed of me, I don't know what's worse, having your parents divorcing over you or having them believe that you're some kind of failure.
Autumn could just barely be felt by the citizens in the major city of Trost. The trees in the parks had begun to adopt a more pleasant and colorful look in their foliage. And the days had started to become chillier with the new found wind that blew steadily stronger through the busy streets. The school year at Trost Academy was starting this Monday, and it seemed like all the teenagers felt like spending their last summer Saturday hitting the town.
Even though the Academy was technically a public school since it gave enrollment to almost everyone, it supported dorm rooms to the students, because it allowed for a more "interactive" school environment or whatever they say to get parents to send checks for their crappy kids. My breath formed small circles of condensation on my mom's black SUV windows as I leaned on my arm gazing out onto the streets. I didn't really pay much attention to whatever my mom was saying. Probably just repeating all the shit I needed for my dorm and for the rest of the school year.
According to her, if I had a problem at school, the example she used being if someone found out my "terrible" secret, students could leave the Academy's grounds and live in their actual homes. Everyone was just assigned to a dorm and dorm mate for the Academy's convenience. Traffic was slow as always around lunchtime and a light rain set over the city, causing a sea of umbrellas to appear and sent the masses of wandering teens scattering for the safety of the sidewalks to avoid getting soaked by passing cars hitting puddles. I smirked briefly as I watched a boy that was about my age get completely soaked in muddy water, as of his lateness in hopping up onto the curve to avoid the splash. The boy's friends, one a blonde that was hugging a book tightly to his chest to avoid getting it wet and the other being a taller Asian girl with her neck wrapped with a red scarf, laughed uncontrollably at him as he cursed out the offending car.
I heard my mother scoff at my amusement to the drenching of the unknown boy and I turned to watch her shake her head at me. "Jean, I want you to actually try to get along with the kids at this school. I don't want this to be a repeat of your freshmen year, like what happened at your old school. Which means absolutely no fighting. You need to learn to control yourself."
"Or those assholes could learn to stay out of my personal life. They shouldn't care about who I fucking like." I snapped. My mother's amber eyes glared at me from behind her champagne-colored bangs. Pushing the rest of her long hair from her face, she sighed and pulled the car into the mall parking lot.
"Those kids did nothing wrong, Jean. Their reaction was perfectly normal. Speaking of which, your first appointment with Dr. Gin will be on Friday. And luckily for you, he's also the school's counselor, so you won't even have to leave the grounds to see him." Throwing the car into park, she clicked off her seat belt and quickly exited the car. "Let's just try to enjoy this shopping trip while we can, Jean."
"Too fucking late," I grumbled as I slammed the car door shut behind me and trailed after my mother.
The food court was too noisy and cramped for my liking and I picked silently at the greasy food while watching the passerby. Laughter from other tables and pointless chatter filled my ears, which just made me try harder to make myself less noticeable . My mother decided after shopping for new clothes and school supplies for me, she would go off and get some things for the new house. We'd only been living in Trost for about two weeks and the two-story front gable house was sparsely filled. It was only a few miles from the Academy, but my mother expressed that she wanted me to at least try living with other students.
The hordes of people was merely a blur, since my eyes shifted from one person onto the next in an short-lived attempt to keep myself from becoming bored. Absentmindedly, I picked at the hard plastic cover on the food court table, trying to ignore the fact I was sitting by myself on a weekend. My mind sprung back to reality as I jerked my shoulder forward as soon as I felt someone tap me from behind. "Whoa man, chillax. I was trying to get your attention." Turning in my seat, my eyes fell on an incredibly short boy with a shaved head. The boy's smile was spread wide and his hazel eyes sparkled with a certain kind of mischief.
"What?" I asked, irritated at being bothered.
"Hey, listen man, I just wondered if me and my friends could sit here with you. There's...uh...no other spots." I glanced around, inspecting the nearby tables to make sure that it was true. When I couldn't see any another open spots, I sighed and nodded. "Thanks, man." The boy turned and motioned towards a group of about three other guys, one that was in a wheelchair and then sat down next to me.
"By the way my name's Connie. Connie Springer. What's your's?" Connie questioned as his friends circled around the table.
"Uhh...Jean..Kirstein." I mumbled. "Who are these guys?" I inquired, looking between the three newest additions to the table.
"The one in the wheelchair and portable bathroom strapped to his leg is Franz." Connie said, starting to chuckle when Franz began throwing fries at him for the much too detailed introduction. Franz, who was now smiling, looked towards me and nodded.
"Well, you're not technically wrong, Connie." He said in a breathy voice.
"And uh..the tanned freak is Samuel, but we just call him Sammy, he's a junior at Trost Academy. And the blonde jock is Thomas." The both of them acknowledged me and then struck up a conversation about the Trost soccer team.
"So, Jean. You must be new here, since I don't remember your face from freshmen year. Did you move here?" Connie chomped his food noisily and occasionally playfully flicked spare morsels towards his friends.
"Ya, just a couple of weeks ago actually. I'm going to be a sophomore at the Academy."
"Cool man, maybe we'll have some classes together, so we can hang." We sat there for a while just chatting aimlessly. I had asked Connie to explain more about the dorms, which was turning out to be my least favorite idea of the Academy. The school was apparently co-ed, but the dorms were separated by gender. Your dorm mate was chosen randomly from the same year as you, but the administration didn't really care if the students 'traded' among themselves. Whatever the students had to do to prevent fights or worse, a police report from being filed, was fine with the school.
I did enjoy talking to Connie, but he had begun to insist that I tell him if I'd seen any cute girls yet, so he was breaching on dangerous grounds. So for once, I was kinda glad to see my mother come up to the table and pull me away. I exchanged goodbyes with the group and they waved me off, promising to look for me in school on Monday, before they turned back to their conversation.
Grabbing my bags, I followed my mother outside and listened to her describe how this place was going to be good for both of us. A fresh start. She handled the divorce rather well, but I think that my parents' marriage had been falling apart for years. It was probably just my father blaming my mother, saying she had poor parenting skills when raising me. He said, if she had tried harder, then maybe I wouldn't of been..like I am. That had been the last straw; the very next week, their divorce was pretty much finalized. They agreed to my mother having full custody and my father was released of all financial responsibilities in regard to me.
My mother lifted the trunk door to the SUV and stepped aside to let me set my stuff inside. Hurrying into the dry interior of the car, we sat in comfortable silence on the way back to the house. Her eyes fixed to the overloaded streets, she brushed off the nonexistent dust from her crisp suit jacket. She never really got the concept of casual clothing and dressed like she was always ready to go to a board meeting or something. We looked pretty alike, my mom and I. The same golden eyes and light-brown hair. Minus the fact, I had my father's darker hue of hair around the sides of my head. Thankfully, I didn't gain his facial structure. My dad, was kind of a literal block-head. Very squared features that didn't fit his body. Although, my mother's weren't that much better on me. My longer nose and angular eyes gained me the nickname "horse-face," from more than just a couple of kids.
"Jeanny." My mother stated. I fucking despised that name. I huffed to show I was listening, but I didn't move my vision from the windshield in front of me. "I'm glad you've already met some new people. And you seemed to have gotten along with them. I just want you to know that this therapist I'm having you see Friday. It's...not personal, Jeanny. I only want you to get better."
Then what the fuck is it? How is it not personal? Treating me like I'm sick in the head! I thought savagely. I didn't voice any of my thoughts, I knew all too well that if I argued with her about it. It would only cause a screaming match and probably end up with my mom bawling and wailing about whatever she thinks happened to the son she knew. "Ok, mom." I replied meekly. Eventually, we turned onto a side street into a small sub division where houses instead of businesses lined the streets. 216 Rose Street. The house was quaint and painted sky blue and sat squashed in between two identically-shaped houses of different color. Only a wooden privacy fence around the backyards split up the property evenly. And each yard had their own fragrant cherry blossom tree hidden behind the houses.
Parking in the driveway, we made sure to grab our things before quickly heading for the house, since the rain hadn't stopped. My bed and bathroom were the only rooms upstairs, but unless I stayed here during the school year, the only time they would be used was in the summer. Distractedly, I left my mother downstairs and carried my shopping up to begin packing my new things away for when I moved to the dorms tomorrow. My room was essentially empty, except for a twin bed pushed into the far left corner with a nightstand right next to it and a work desk with a chair on the opposite wall.
The white walls were free of any decoration and the floor was covered in shaggy blue carpet. A sole window over my desk looked into the backyard at the lively tree. Dumping out my new clothes and assorted school stuff onto the floor, I pulled out my suitcase and dark red fabric backpack from underneath the bed and began stuffing the items into the two appropriate containers. With everything packed away, I kicked off my worn, faded grey sneakers and flopped onto my bed. Rubbing my hands up and down my face, I let out another unhappy sigh, before deciding to hit the shower before I scraped something together for dinner.
Opening the tiny closet, I grabbed the only set of clothes that was inside. It seemed only practical to take all my clothes with me to school, except for an extra set at home. The bathroom wasn't anything grand, but it sufficed for the normal expectancy you could get from a bathroom. The entire room was tiled in a checkered-pattern of white and the same sky blue as the exterior of the house. A single self-standing sink stood across from the tub-shower combination. Twisting the shower knob on to its hottest setting. I set my extra clothes on top of the hamper and removed my clothes until I stood bare in what felt like freezing air of the bathroom. Stuffing the clothes away, I waited until the mirror above the sink had fogged up completely before hopping into the steaming stream of water.
It was extremely calming to me; a long hot shower. It helped to soothe my nerves, which unfortunately were constantly agitated by the people around me. My mind was too distracted to concern myself with the actual action of showering, so I decided to instead reflect on everything so far. Maybe school won't be so bad. If what Connie said was true and they hang out with me, then maybe I'll already have some friends made by the time school starts. It would make fitting in easier. Now I just have to hope that the teachers aren't complete ass-hats or that my roommate isn't a dickwad. Eventually, I found enough motivation to shut the water off and climb back out. Drying my body off in a rush and rubbing my hair with the towel until it was dry. I roughly pulled on the pair of black boxers and equally black shorts in one go and slipped into an old grey shirt, before storming down the steps and into the kitchen.
My mother sat at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper, oblivious to the world around her. Trying to avoid another conversation, I skirted around the table and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. Walking to the backdoor, I let myself into the backyard. The rain had finally stopped, but left most of the ground drenched. Luckily, the cherry blossom tree's foliage was thick enough that it hadn't soaked the bench that sat beneath it's branches. Taking a seat, I munched on the apple and leisurely watched the last of warm seasons' insects begin to float lazily in the air one last time before it would be too cold for them to live.
Because once the fall officially came, it would bring the rest of the bitter winds and after that another frozen winter. I almost felt bad for the minuscule insects. I'm sure they realized how close their end was, but they still seemed content on finding one last meal or flying in the remaining warmth, completely unfazed by their inevitable fate.
I guess I understand what it's like to be an insect. Trapped by a force that doesn't care for either of our existences. Finishing the apple, I tossed the core to the ground in front of me and waited until it attracted a few bugs of varying types. I shook my head and started back towards the house.
"It's going to get better, Jean." I whispered to myself. "I know it will."