Chapter Eight: Brackets

Long time, no update. But I said I would finish this even if it takes me years. (Also because this story holds a pretty special place in my heart for me to be updating it even though I'm not all that into snk anymore.) This chapter gets more into Armin's past, as well as Jean's. Both of these stories are important to them, as it'll be shaping a lot of the future chapters (especially Jean's story).

After such a long wait, I hope you enjoy. Thank you for your patience and sticking with me!

Jean leans back in his seat, this eyes returning to Armin when he finishes speaking. "Wait," he says, "what's wrong then?"

Armin swallows hard, "I'm getting to it. But. It's hard to talk about." His eyes are hard—they typically hold a soft, caring look that could make someone believe he's an angel. But instead he looked… dead inside, or maybe murderous. Jean couldn't tell which.

"You don't have to."

"I want to," Armin says. "I haven't really talked much about it. It's come up, but everyone here was with me through it."

Jean's not sure how to take that. Was that good or bad, that he's an outsider? Did Armin feel obligated to tell him because he hasn't been around for all of these important moments? Or was it because Armin wanted to talk to someone who hadn't experienced it already? Whatever 'it' was.

"Okay," Armin says, "I'm ready."

Boston. Armin was in love with the city, as were is parents. And to have a competition there? He was beyond happy at the time. There was so much history. And while he had read about it, seeing where it happened—being where it happened, was completely different.

His parents were excited too. They had even agreed to spending an extra week after the competition to explore the city.

The competition itself had gone pretty well. He placed second overall in his event. The day following, Eren and Mikasa left to head back to Michigan. They told Armin to send pictures during his mini vacation and he happily agreed to doing so, and started sending pictures before they even retuned home.

He would almost say the week following was more exhilarating than the actual competition. But the last day wasn't so great.

"Our plane crashed," Armin says. His voice is soft and Jean has to lean closer to hear him over the sound of Mina's music for her short program. "It was bad. Really bad. Almost everyone died." He seems far off, lost in the memory. "My parents included. Neither of them made it. They died as soon as we crashed, or that's what I was told. I woke up in a hospital with my grandfather hovering over me."

He pauses, glancing at Jean. "They told me I would never be able to skate again. Walk, too, but I can move fine after a few years of therapy. Do you know what that's like?"

Silence.

Jean doesn't know what to say. And then, he's speaking. Words are slipping through without his permission. "I do know, Armin, believe me. And I'm really sorry."

Armin stares, confused. "You understand? What? How? Aren't both of your parents—?"

Jean shakes his head, "No, no. The not being able to do anything. That's been my entire life."

Armin doesn't talk. Instead, he waits for Jean to continue.

"I was really sickly as a kid. I spent more time in the hospital than at home or school. I could hardly walk. I had about a two percent chance of surviving to the age of five. Chances of me living to eighteen have gone up significantly, but I still have at least a sixty percent chance of not making it. I've had a few up times. When I was eight until I was ten I could actually go to school most days, but I usually had an oxygen tank. It got bad again when I was eleven, though. I finally could start going to school again at fifteen, but…" he has to pause to collect himself. This shouldn't be the hardest part to talk about, but it is. "I met a girl that year. We got really close. Last summer, a few months before I moved here, we got into a pretty nasty car accident. I somehow survived, she didn't."

He shrugs. "My entire life has had negative statistics placed on it yet I'm always the one who lives. It'll be a fun day when my luck runs out."

"When's your birthday?" Armin asks slowly, "You're seventeen?"

"April seventh. And yeah."

"That's only a few months away."

"It is," Jean replies. He feels sick. He shouldn't have brought this up. He never meant for it to come up. In fact, he meant to separate himself from his past as much as possible when his family made the move to Michigan.

Yet here he is, getting into the shitty story about his shitty life thanks to his shitty lungs. He couldn't stand it.

Neither of them say anything for the rest of the session. When the buzzer sounds, signaling time for the skaters to get off, Jean says, "My chances of relapsing before are over eighty percent before the time I turn eighteen."

The remainder of January convinces Jean he won't make it to the end of the school year. He'll be a Jeansicle before Marco even leaves for Sochi.

Seeing Marco becomes a rare experience, as he's constantly on the ice. Jean doesn't mind.

Okay, so maybe he does a tiny bit.

But it's the coolest opportunity Jean has ever seen or been close to touching. It's something he would never be able to accomplish. (And really, even if he had gotten the privilege of a healthy childhood, he honestly would've focused much more on his music career.)

Which, recently, he has been doing. With all of the free time on his hands due to Marco's absence, he's been spending a lot of time playing guitar again. He wishes he could get his hands on a piano, but the only one he's even seen was at Marco's house (read: Marco's huge ass mansion). He's heard there's one at the school, but he prefers to not stick around that building after school.

He's also been working bit by bit on vocals. It's been getting hard though. He always finds himself breathless after a few songs. He feels as if he should mention this to someone, but he doesn't feel like hanging out in the hospital nonstop again.

Which brings him to another problem: Marco.

He'll have to tell Marco sometime about what's going on. Obviously, he can't do it now because of the Olympics coming so soon. He doesn't want to throw him off right before one of the biggest moments of his life.

And afterwards? If he does well at the competition, he'll probably be travelling constantly and gearing up for the grand prix already.

He groans into his pillow late one Friday night, wishing he could simply get this over with.

I'm sorry is probably the only appropriate thing to say if you can see where this is headed. Thank you for reading!