Hate's a Type Of Love (Jean X Reader)

4. No More Fights

Jean POV

I walked slowly back toward the training grounds with (Name) on my back. She sighed softly as she leaned against my back, letting her arms hang limp over my shoulders. "This feels so weird. For the past two years all we've done is fight with each other about a crush I had on Marco that I let go more than a year ago." Her voice was quiet as she spoke near my ear with her chin resting on top of one of her arms. "So then what the hell have you been fighting about this past year?" I felt her shrug and laugh shortly. "I don't know. I guess I just started to enjoy the fighting. It became almost routine and hitting you helped me feel better when I was stressed out, even if you always ended up beating the shit out of me." "Yeah... sorry." I apologized with a frown, staring down at my feet as I walked.

She jabbed her finger lightly into my cheek and huffed. "Just forget it. It's my own fault for starting it most of the time. I knew I wasn't any real match for you but I still went for it anyway so it's what I deserved for being a little shit." I leaned my head away and she let her arm fall back to its hanging state. "I guess so. But I still feel bad about it. So, what now? Are we able to try and be friends now or what?" I was honestly curious. Now that I recognized my true feelings, I couldn't help but want to get closer with her in a friendly way. I had no idea how she felt about me aside from hate so I wouldn't push my luck for now. I'd start with just trying to be friends and see where that went. But that was only if she'd agree to try it. And she wasn't responding just yet.

Reader POV

I frowned a little at his question, unsure of what to say to it. He had apologized in such a sweet way and I did now know that I liked him instead of hated him. But this just brought back everything he'd ever said to me in our past fights. He'd caused a lot of pain to me both physically and emotionally. But I wanted to forgive him. I wanted to be his friend if nothing else. But would that really work? Neither of us really knew how to express ourselves and aside from fighting we didn't really have any decent past encounters. Could we really stop our fighting and become friends?

As I hesitated with thought, I hid my face in Jean's neck and hugged him tightly around the shoulders instead of letting my arms hang limp. "Let's just start over completely." I finally said, my voice a bit muffled by my arm and his neck. I felt him nod and sigh softly. "Alright then. My name is Jean Kirschtein, what's yours?" His voice had a very proper and polite tone to it and I lifted my head to look at him. He glanced over at me with just his eyes and offered me a slight smile. I returned it and returned my face to its hiding place. "I'm (Name). Nice to meet you." I tried to be serious but it only made my chuckle. "I can't take this seriously. I'm sorry. It's just too weird. Yeah, yeah, let's just try to get along from now on. I'll try not to pick fights anymore." Jean laughed a little too and nodded. "Agreed."

~~~~

When we arrived back at the girls' dorm door, Jean set me down and left to go back to the boys' dorm to change into a clean pair of pants. I did the same in the girls' dorm and luckily nobody else was in there to question me. In fact, we hadn't run into anybody at all on the way here and it was getting pretty late so everyone was probably in the mess hall for dinner by now. Once I was changed, I made my way to the mess hall to get myself something to eat. After all, crying and being carried was a lot of work, obviously. With my quick pace it didn't take me long to reach the mess hall and I went right in and grabbed myself a tray of tonight's meal, vegetable stew and a single bread roll. Typical. At least it wasn't a single steamed potato and a bread roll like last night had been.

I looked around the room, not sure who I wanted to sit with. I normally sat with Eren and his little gang or occasionally Bertholdt and Reiner but I wasn't really in the mood for Eren and Mikasa's bullshit or Reiner talking about nothing by Christa. I scrunched my eyebrows together in thought although it didn't take me long to decide to plop my tray down across from Connie and on the opposite end of the bench from Marco. Everyone at the table looked up at me with wide eyes, frozen with shock that I'd willingly sit at their table. What surprised everyone more though, was Jean taking the empty space between Marco and I without so much as a rude look or word to me.

"Uh, what in the fuck is happening here? You two hate each other? But you're sitting next to each other and not fighting?" Connie practically shouted, gaining attention from the surrounding tables. I simply shrugged and began eating the bland stew, deciding to let Jean take the heat for this one. He set his spoon back in his bowl before he could even take a bite and sighed. "We agreed to stop fighting and try to get along." Connie laughed, as did a few others in the room, not buying it for a second.

"(Name) is that true? You and Jean are gonna try and be friends now?" Marco chipped in, leaning forward to look at me and I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze for a moment then look over at Jean and back to Marco. "Yeah. We agreed to stop fighting after he apologized for making me cry." I pointed my thumb at Jean and smiled slyly at him when the three others at the table gasped. Marco gave his best friend a gentle slap on the shoulder. "Jean! You made her cry?" "Hey, I apologized! And now we're even gonna try to be friends so what's the big deal about if I made her cry or not?" Jean got a little defensive and I chuckled. He huffed and looked over at me. "Why did you have to tell them that?" "Well, is that not how we came to the decision to stop fighting? They looked curious." Jean looked as if he wanted to say something rude but he quickly stopped himself and just grumbled some nonsense to himself and continued to eat.

I watched him for a moment as the rest of the room returned to its normal dinnertime buzz. "This might be harder than we thought, huh?" I whispered, mostly to myself but it was loud enough for at least Jean to hear and respond to if he so wished. He glanced over at me as I looked down at my tray, slowly eating my food. "Yeah, I suppose it will be..."