Chapter 1

As it happens, Connie was the first one to spot it.

It had been during one of the 104th Trainee Corps' weekly hand-to-hand combat drills. These typically consisted of the entire division sweating their asses off in the broiling heat, with most of the trainees performing the drills with varying degrees of finesse, while the rest goofed off when Shadis had his back turned. Connie Springer was one of the latter. He was, at the moment, making faces at Sasha, who covered her mouth as she giggled. Something, however, stopped him right in the middle of his hippo imitation—something he thought he'd never see.

"Hey," he said, staring past Sasha, who looked up at him as she tried to stifle a laugh. "Is that…?"

Sasha looked over her shoulder, following Connie's gaze. It was a pair of trainees—Eren Jaeger and Annie Leonhardt, it looked like.

"Yeah, what about them?" she asked, turning back to Connie.

He pointed at the pair, suddenly eager. "You missed it! They were just—mmph!"

Connie was suddenly interrupted by the hand of Keith Shadis, which had grabbed him by the face and lifted him into the air.

"Whatever Jaeger and Leonhardt were doing," Shadis growled, "it was certainly more productive than you worthless Titan shits. Both of you—including you, potato girl—will be cleaning the latrines tonight, after I watch you perform the maneuver you should have been doing flawlessly!"

"Y-yes, sir!" Connie gasped, voice muffled by Shadis' hand, as he attempted to perform a midair salute.

"IS YOUR HAND ON THE WRONG SIDE AGAIN?!"

"…I'm telling you man, it's true!" Connie said to Jean that evening, leaning across the dinner table. "They were holding hands!"

Jean sat back on his bench, bemused. "Jaeger and… Annie?"

Connie took a bite of some kind of leaf—today's dinner was rabbit food, as the trainees had coined it, since there wasn't a scrap of meat to be found in it. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said between chews, "but, I mean, maybe it's an 'opposites attract' kind of thing, you know?"

"…what?"

Connie's ears went red, as he mumbled something about it being what Sasha had said.

Marco leaned into the conversation from his seat next to Jean. "Well, they have been spending a lot of time together lately. I mean, they're partners in most of the drills we do, right? Especially hand-to-hand combat."

Jean still seemed deep in thought. "Yeah…" he replied, his voice trailing off.

Suddenly, a wicked grin spread across his face, as he turned around in his seat.

"Oh no," Marco sighed, slapping his forehead.

"So, Eren!" Jean called over to the boy in question, loud enough for the whole room to hear. His words dripped with taunting glee. "I hear you've gotten yourself a girlfriend!"

The entire 104th Trainee Corps, now quiet, turned their heads towards Eren to see his response.

Eren didn't even look up from the lettuce he had speared with his fork. "Speaking out of jealousy, Jean?" he said casually. "Mikasa tells me that your attempts to flirt with her have gone over even worse than your test scores."

Never before had Jean Kirschtein gone so quiet or his face turned so red than in that moment, when the entire room erupted in laughter.

He turned back to his friends, who didn't even try to hide their amusement, with a defeated look on his face.

"You know, Jean," Marco chuckled once the room had died down a bit, "have you ever put any consideration towards not being an ass to Eren?"

"Shut up," Jean grumbled.

And maybe he imagined it, but as the trainees around them slowly returned to their conversations, Connie swore he saw Annie Leonhardt softly smiling.

Author's Notes: Oh, Jean. This was really fun to write, so please let me know what you thought of it! I'm looking forward to the next few chapters... *wink wink*

-Steiner