Honestly, the more Jean considered his roommate situation with Marco, the more he contemplated murder. His own, or Marco's, he had no idea. But he did know that he'd rather be sharing a dorm with Taylor Swift worshipping Armin than Marco, and that said a lot.
Almost as soon as he had so much as gotten within five feet of the shared dorm room, Jean was almost blown back but the sheer amount of positivity radiating from the entire space. It was like a My Little Pony had a litter of equally adorable kittens on the floor.
Just his luck, Jaeger was standing outside of his own room when Jean walked up, a smug smile on his face. "Did you have enough room to display your Hello Kitty memorabilia, Jeanie, or did Mr. Sunshine take up all of your space with his shrine to the Teletubbies?" Eren asked, his voice dripping with faux sincerity.
"Shut up, Jaeger." Jean snapped, yanking open the door to his room.
Almost instantly, Marco's smiling face came into view like some sort of sick horror game, and Jean yelped. "Roommate! You're back!" Marco cried happily.
"Oh ho ho, this is gonna be good." Eren chuckled happily from behind him.
"You better hope you stop talking before I shove your face through the wall." Jean growled without turning around. He wasn't going to give Jaeger the satisfaction of looking into his boastful little rat eyes. Eren gave a small little neigh under his breath in reply, and it took everything Jean had not turn around and rip his head off.
Marco stepped back to let Jean in, waving at Eren over his shoulder. "Hi there, Across-The-Hall Neighbor!"
Losing his nerve, Jean allowed himself a swift glance in Eren's direction, and the gloating look on his face made him wish he hadn't as he was whisked into the Disney Channel House of Horrors.
Marco shut the door behind them with a sigh. "Well! Today's been productive!" He said, chipper.
But Jean was hardly listening. He was staring in disgust at the room around him. Everything within twelve feet of him matched. Like "I got this at Home Goods on clearance with my mom" matched. It was all a frothy shade of what could only be considered salmon in the manliest of opinions, and he swore everything must have literally been cut from the same cloth. Was that couch there before? He had only been gone fifteen minutes at most, no way Marco moved in an entire couch by himself.
"What twelve year old girl vomited in here?"
Marco laughed. "The room was so bare. I decorated a little. You can put any of your stuff up, though. It is a common room, after all, I wouldn't want to take it over."
"Why? When? How?" Jean sputtered.
"Well, I didn't want it to be bland for our dorm warming party. What would the neighbors think?" Marco berated gently.
Jean spun on his heel to face Marco. "At this point, the neighbors are going to expect two old women and their fifteen cats to live here, Marco."
"Pet's aren't allowed in the dorms." Marco reminded him, clearly missing the point.
Jean sighed. "Listen, Marco, you have to realize that you are going to be ripped to literal pieces in college if you keep acting like this?"
"Like what?" Marco asked, confused.
"Like a suburban housewife with three kids in elementary school!" Jean cried in frustration. "College is brutal. It will eat you alive and spit your bones into the fiery pits of Hades."
Marco blinked, his eyes wide. "Excuse me?"
Jean pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "College is preparation for the real world, Marco, okay? In the real world, your throw rug does not match your curtains."
"That's horrifying!" Marco cried.
"Exactly. Throw back a couple kegs of beer. Decorate the walls with pictures of monster trucks. Do not bargain hunt at Target for a pack of pens to coordinate with your binder."
Marco paused, mulling this over. "Really? My mom-"
"Your mom is null. Void. Zero. Your mom might as well be on the international space station, because your mom is less relevant than Stephanie Meyer in 2018."
"Than who?"
"You just proved my point." Jean replied.
Marco's face fell. "You want me to forget the woman who raised me?"
Jean shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much."
"I'm not sure..."
Jean waved Marco's thoughts away. "That's the best part about college. You're never sure. And that's why you drink until you're even less sure than you were before."
"And you're not lying to me?" Marco said slowly, raising an eyebrow.
Jean walked over, throwing his arm over Marco's shoulder, gesturing around the room. "Monster trucks, Marco. Monster trucks."
oooooo
"I used to think you were really sad, but Jean has officially beat you." Eren said as he walked into his dorm. His observation was met with silence, and he cocked his head. "Armin?"
A muffled shout came from somewhere to his right, and Eren turned. "Armin? Where the hell are you?"
There was a small bang, and the closet door flew open with a smack, Armin's sweater vested body flopping to the ground like a dead fish.
"I'm here!" Armin cried, scrambling to his feet and dusting himself off.
"Why? Why were you in the closet?" Eren asked, giving his roommate a bewildered look.
"Putting stuff away." Armin replied vaguely, his cheeks reddening. "Anyway, what were you saying? All I heard was the word sad, and something about Jean. Honestly, I'm kind of following where you're going."
Eren was about to reply, but hesitated, sniffing the air slightly. "Armin?"
"Yeah?" Armin asked nervously.
"Was Mikasa here?"
Armin shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. "Why do you ask?"
Instead of replying, Eren bent down, picking up something minuscule off the floor and holding it up to reveal a small red string. "This looks like it was from her scarf."
"You're crazy. Hundreds of people have lived here before we have!"
"I can literally smell the psychopathic desire to control my life, Armin, she's not fooling anyone." Eren said flatly, dropping the thread back to the ground with a sniff of disapproval.
Armin sighed. "Okay, fine, she came."
"That explains why you were in the closet." Eren muttered.
"She said not to tell you she was here, though. She's totally going to kill me." Armin wailed. "Do you think she brought her taser with her to college?"
"She brings her taser with her everywhere, Armin, you're as good as dead." Eren replied distractedly, ignoring the small, animal-like cry that came from his friend shortly after. "Do you know why she came?"
Armin didn't reply, and he was shaking like a Chihuahua at the vet.
Eren groaned. "Armin, worry about your impending doom later, okay? I've got real issues."
Before Armin could answer, the door flung open, and Armin screamed, covering his eyes. "I swear to Evanescence, I said nothing!"
"Dude, what's with him?"
Eren turned around and saw Reiner, the guy from next door, standing in the doorway, looking at Armin like he'd just dropped from the sky.
"Reiner, hey." Eren said, and he could hear Armin drop into the fetal position with a small screech. "What's up?"
Reiner stared at Armin for a couple more seconds before turning back to Eren and replying. "I just came to see if you had a stapler I could borrow, but after seeing your roommate, I'm kind of thinking you're legally not allowed to own anything sharp."
Eren frowned. "I don't think I've ever owned a stapler for that exact reason..." he muttered.
Reiner gave him a forced smile in return, looking extremely nervous. "Ah. Got it. Cool. I'll, uh, catch you later, I guess."
With that, he hurried out, and Eren spun back around to face his roommate, in the midst of what looked to be a nervous break down. "Armin! You're scaring the neighbors!" Eren snapped, incorrectly placing all of the blame on his friend and not himself, although Armin was not completely guiltless.
Armin shakily got up, looking green. "I can't take any more of this."
"It's been two hours, you'll drop dead of a heart attack by morning."
"You're probably not incorrect." Armin mumbled, his eyes glazing over.
As Armin stumbled away, Eren frowned thoughtfully, his mind drifting back to Mikasa. If she had come in here, it certainly wasn't just to stuff Armin in a closet, albeit how fun it was. So what was Mikasa skulking around for?
At least he wouldn't have to dwell on it for long, because it seemed to be she was already in the room, sitting on the couch.
How she got there, Eren had no idea, but from the look on her face, he could tell he was dead meat.
"You didn't call me! I had to come in here thinking you had been stabbed by a masked man!" Mikasa yelled, her voice echoing off the walls.
Eren hardly winced. He was already half deaf from living with her for 10 years before now. "I was supposed to call?"
Mikasa snatched Armin's signed copy of Teenage Dream and hurled it at Eren, narrowly missing his head. "I had to beat information out of Armin!" Mikasa seethed. "Not that he was much help. What a wimp. I literally thought comparing a person's body to a limp noodle was an exaggeration until now."
"Hell, Mikasa, calm down. It hasn't even been one day. If I was dead, I'd tell you." Eren snapped, trying not to listen to the nervous gagging coming from the bathroom that sounded suspiciously like Armin.
"You can't say anything if you're dead, Eren, you'd be dead!" Mikasa screeched like a hagraven in labor.
"Have you seen literally no episode of Ghost Hunters? Buzzfeed: Unsolved? I'd let you know." Eren replied evenly. "I'm extra enough to communicate beyond the grave."
Mikasa put her head in her hands. "In the name of all that is good and pure, Eren, I'm going to die. I'm going to actually keel over and die from osmosis of being too close to your sheer stupidity."
"Sounds like more of a you problem..." Eren said, clearly not caring that he was this close to being strangled by a ratty old scarf.
Mikasa dropped her hands, looking defeated. "I...I'm not sure what life is anymore, Eren, but I do know that if you're still in college by next week, it will be the work of God Himself."
"You're telling me." Eren said, pretty cheerfully for someone who just narrowly escaped death by strangulation.
They both went silent then, and the seriousness of the moment was thus punctuated by the sounds of Armin sobbing from the bathtub.