paprika

ac: @miiuu1103 on X

Best character imo

wc: 1k, post-war, death mention

it’s over.

war. bloodshed. death. it was all over.

but his heart hung heavy.

“jean.”

his grip on the pencil was rock hard grip and aching, as if letting go meant losing something else. again. the sketchbook on his lap blurred, and for a moment, he thought his vision was failing. then something warm and wet slide down his face. ah. he was crying.

he turned towards you and watched as you gently knelt in front of him. your hands, soft and careful, cupped his face, wiping away his tears. he gazes up at you, vision hazy from the tears welling up in his eyes but he was still able to make out the warmth in your expression. the softness in your touch felt so foreign after everything—after the screams, the endless battles, the weight of bodies falling around him.

jean swallowed hard, his throat dry and tight. he hadn’t even realized he was crying, hadn’t noticed the tremble in his hands until you steadied him. his sketchbook rested in his lap, smudged with graphite and the faint indentations of pressure where he had gripped his pencil too hard.

jean shut his eyes, exhaling shakily. the war was over. the fighting was done. but the ghosts still lingered, etched into his mind as vividly as the sketches on the pages before him.

“jean,” you repeated, softer this time.

he reached for you without thinking, fingers curling around your waist, pulling you closer. you let him. he pressed his forehead against your chest, tears soaking your clothes. you let him.

you let him fall apart.

in your arms, his body trembled with the weight of everything he had carried for so long. the war had taken so much from him—his friends, his innocence, pieces of himself he wasn’t sure he’d ever get back. but here, in this moment, he wasn’t a soldier, a fighter, or a survivor. he was just jean. your jean.

his breath came in ragged gasps, muffled against you, and you simply held him, your fingers threading through his hair, grounding him. he clung to you like a lifeline, as if letting go meant losing himself completely.

“i can’t sleep.” he admitted.

your fingers still run gently through his hair, slow and soothing. “i know.”

his grip on you tightened again, his breath shaky against your chest. “every time i close my eyes… i see them. marco. sasha. eren.” his voice was barely a whisper, raw and broken.

the names were heavy, like lead on his tongue.

you held him closer, resting your chin on the top of his head. “i see them too,” you murmur. “eren was my closest friend. my partner. my confidant. my other half.”

a pause. a shaky breath.

“sasha was my sister. we look nothing alike. we have different parents. but she was.”

jean stiffened slightly in your arms, his breath hitching at the names—at the weight they still carried, even now. he lifts his head just enough to look at you, eyes red and filled with something fragile, something aching.

marco’s smile. sasha’s laughter. bright and unshaken, as if untouched by war. but they all had. and eren… jean had spent so long resenting him, chasing after him, only to lose him in the end.

you swallowed hard, blinking against your own tears. “i think about what they’d say… what they’d want us to do now.” your hands find his again, lacing your fingers together. “and i think they’d want us to keep going.”

he exhaled slowly, his body still tense, but he listens. he focuses on the steady rhythm of your heartbeat, the warmth of your hands against him, the quiet comfort of your presence.

“don’t let go. please.”

the desperation in his voice breaks you and you let the tears you’d been trying your damned hardest to hide fall as you pull him into a messy and clumsy kiss. nineteen and you’ve just given away your first kiss to the man you know you’d love till your dying breath.

he kissed you back with equal eagerness and fervor. nineteen and jean had smiled for the first time since he was fifteen because now he finally knew the taste of the lips he’s been craving since he saw you on the training grounds.

cherries.

you tasted so sweet and so fleeting in a world that has only ever been bitter. it’s intoxicating, dizzying, and he drinks every second of it, afraid it might vanish if he hesitated.

the kiss was frantic, unpolished, filled with years of unspoken words and aching longing. your hands clutched at him desperately, as if afraid he might slip through your fingers like everything else you’ve lost. jean held you just as tightly, as if this moment—this feeling—is the only thing keeping him from breaking completely.

when you finally pull apart, your foreheads rest against each other, breathless, tear-streaked, but somehow lighter than before. jean exhaled shakily, his lips curling into something small, something hesitant, but real. a smile. his first in years.

“nineteen,” he murmured, brushing a thumb over your cheek, as if memorizing the moment. “and i think i’ve finally found something worth living for.”

you giggled and pressed a kiss on his left eye, then his right, then his nose and soon enough you’re peppering his entire face with kisses. and although your movements were quick and hurried, jean noticed. he always did with you.

he cupped your face in his head and kissed at the falling tears you wanted to hide. “i lied. i’ve been living for you since the day i saw you.

your breath hitched, heart stuttering in your chest. jean’s eyes held nothing but raw sincerity, the kind that makes your chest ache. his thumb brushed over your cheek again, gentle, reverent, as if you were something fragile—something precious.

“you idiot,” you whispered, a watery laugh slipping past your lips. “you should’ve told me sooner.”

jean huffed out a small chuckle, resting his forehead against yours. “would it have changed anything?”

you shake your head, smiling through your tears. “no. i think i’ve been yours just as long.”

his grip on you tightened for just a moment before he kissed you again—slower this time, softer, like a promise. a vow.

and though the world was still heavy with grief, though the wounds of war are far from healed, in this moment, there was only you and jean.