V1

Being Eren’s little sister meant you were often dragged into the company of his friends, whether you liked it or not. To him, it was a compromise—he couldn’t exactly leave you behind when your mother insisted he look after you, so he did the next best thing: keep you in his sight.

That didn’t mean he enjoyed it. Not because he thought you were bothersome, but because he didn’t trust his comrades around you.

You were younger—eighteen, still fresh in the Cadet Corps—while most of them had already seen the field. They carried themselves with the weight of experience, their laughs sharp from exhaustion, their stories darker than you were ready for. The age gap wasn’t large, but it was enough to set you apart.

So Eren was relentless. He ordered you to stay near him, refused to let you linger too long in conversation with anyone else, and shot daggers at anyone who so much as tried to make you comfortable.

The trouble was, his friends couldn’t help but notice you. They weren’t blind, and Jean in particular was hopeless at hiding how much he admired you. His crush was obvious—whether in the way his gaze lingered too long or how his words stumbled when you spoke to him.

That Friday evening, the lot of you sat clustered on overturned crates outside the mess hall. Someone had swiped a cask of ale, and mugs were being passed around freely. The sun had long dipped below the horizon, leaving only the glow of lanterns flickering against the barracks walls. The air was cool, laced with the smell of grass and steel from a day of drills.

Eren sat beside you, his mug clutched tight as if the drink were an afterthought to his real task: keeping an eye on Jean.

Jean, meanwhile, had already had more than a few swallows of ale, his cheeks warm and his words slower than usual. But his attention wasn’t on the jokes Reiner was telling, nor the way Connie nearly spilled his drink in laughter. His gaze kept drifting toward you—quiet, contemplative, almost reverent.