art credit: 'Authenticity' by hagroot
gasp first fic in like 2 years or so
word count: 2.1k
synopsis: aot students come to realise that no teachers have bothered to show up so they decide to spend the period in an art class
characters featured: jean kirstein, annie leonhart, connie springer, armin arlert, historia reiss, mikasa ackerman, marco bodt, bertholdt hoover, ymir (freckles), reiner braun, eren jaeger, sasha braus, hannes, levi ackerman (mentioned like once)
warnings: modern au, fluff, some use of australian school terminology bc im aussie and idk how american school works, jearmin (?) sort of, not proofread
The bells went off for first period, hundreds of students pouring into the specialisation building and dragging themselves over the endless flights of stairs. As the school year goes on, the sight of the teacher-exclusive elevator makes students angrier, oddly enough. Which will show to be underutilised collectively.
In the far corner of the first floor resides the creatives department. Paradis High has a whopping number of one running senior level art class that is significantly uncrowded, so much that the teacher barely even shows up anymore to the point where it has become a regular occurrence.
Heaving their weighted portfolios up and down again whilst waiting at the door was a common routine for the four art students. At this rate it’s considered a workout. Not only must they heave their oversized baggage from class to locker, but they must also take them home with them; it is a bus students’ worst nightmare. They must follow this routine because of the off chance of a student happening to gain an idea for their next piece for their upcoming assignment as a portfolios purpose is to reflect exactly what is in its owner’s head. The students question how so they just might feel creatively moved at the sight of seventh graders downing water in one another's uniform shirts.
“It’s hitting the 8-minute mark,” Connie echoes.
The size of this class may give the impression that these students went up to the head teacher and begged and pleaded for her to not cut out this class due to its lacking demand and to keep it for the sake of this mere minority that yearn to bloom in the creative world. It is not anything noble like that at all.
The majority take this class as a ‘filler,’ once having an innocent passion for the arts in their youth but now exploring other options, then there’s Connie.
The tapping of Armin’s shoes and Connie’s counting till the next minute made Jean’s eye twitch.
“fifty-seven…fifty-eight...fifty-nine…10 minutes! You know what this means right, guys?”
Annie was quick to shut him down. “That rule isn’t real, Connie.”
She shook the door handle, and it was un-locked the whole time. The endless reps of holding up their art journals were all for nothing.
Before anyone else could, she sprinted to the furthest work bench and pounced onto the seat like it was made of gold, resulting in a groaning Jean and Connie.
“Mr Hannes isn’t even here, I don’t see what’s so good about the back seat right now.” Armin cringes.
“Have you even sat in the back in your life?” Connie replies, Armin ignores the unnecessary banter and unzips his portfolio which is blue unlike everyone’s plain leather covers, alongside accents of anime stickers and a seashell keychain gifted to him by Mikasa.
He opens to a spread of brainstorms he did during the fishing trip that he was dragged to by Eren and Reiner. While they were rivalling some kids nearby for who can get the bigger catch, Armin was experimenting different impasto techniques with his acrylic paints like using small rocks and sand. Armin took note that the sand here in particular was much finer compared to the sand on the beach near his house that was rockier and grainier.
Mixing it in with an aquamarine blue, he swiped it directly on a page, trialling different techniques with his pallet knife.
Whilst Reiner chased down some twerp with his fish, Armin carefully filled a container with this sand as a potential impasto medium for his final painting.
Jean eyed Armins flourishing pages, compared to his own blank and bland sketches. He envied the acrylic artist as his to-go medium was oils, not pastels. He dreads pastels. He finds them messy and difficult to control, and he cannot see what he is doing with his big ass hands.
Jean highly prefers the intricate control he has with his fine brushes and reworking ability. You do not exactly have those same pros with pastels.
Due to drying time, there is not much exploration he can do with his designated medium choice, sometimes opting for watercolour for his sketches. He keeps his work in progresses at home, well, garage. Ms Kirstein has had it with him after she saw him almost pass out from the fumes when he used to paint in his room.
“You’re really going to do work?”
“I might as well, there has to be someone that’ll be productive.”
Jean turns around to see Annie kicking back earphones in and Connie having a stare-down with the wall clock.
“I’ll leave you to it then.”
The longing peace of Armin annotating his findings and Jean watching in awe, was quickly broken by an unexpected shriek.
“15 minutes up guys! Let’s go home!” Connie hooted until Annie slapped the nape of his neck.
“What did I tell you? You will be ending up in Mr Ackerman’s office before you reach the gates.”
Before he could snap back, an octad was knocking at the door with a tiny girl leading them all.
“Sorry to barge in, by the looks of it you have no teacher as well? We were just collecting names to get marked present for the office.” She chimed, flailing a paper of names.
Armin was quick on it and thanked Historia for making sure they were not forgotten. Jotting down their names, Mikasa commented “So nobody has a teacher? This must be some act they are playing on us.”
“We should check the cooking class, maybe we can spend the period cooking up a yummy meal for everyone?” Sasha drooled.
“Uh, no, the cooking teacher is present, so it looks like only first floor teachers are missing” Bertholdt corrected, earning a pout from Sasha.
Eren walked over to Armins open art journal, flicking through the pages, and then coming across a painting from a previous assignment.
It was of Mikasa, Armin and himself at the beach as kids using Mikasa’s mothers’ hat as a sunshade, Eren in awe.
“Woah, I bet you couldn’t do anything like this, Jean. Armin is just too skilled at everything.”
Jean knew this was Eren trying to get a rise out of him just like in the old days. He could feel it through his condescending tone and his smug look, but he is above that now; took the opportunity to gloat about his own skill.
Jean flicked through his own folio to his work from the same assignment of a woman covered in moss laying in a field of grass.
“You wish you could do this, which is why you must use your friend to flex,” Jean teases with a matching tone.
Eren’s reaction is not anything like what he expected, Jean really thought he won.
“WAH! She’s naked! I always knew you were a pervert!”
“WHAT?! SHE’S NOT—
Silence, not the peaceful kind like earlier.
“It’s a painting, everyone.”
Snickers can be heard from the back of the classroom. Jean, red-faced, stomped over to the direction of the stifled snickers, coming from Annie. There were other snickers that weren’t so stifled, Connie.
“What are you laughing at? You know it’s about a painting… you’ve seen it. I even used a digital model as reference.”
“Yeah, we can tell that much Kirstein.”
“HUH? Why you…” As Jean grabbed Connie’s collar he was yanked back by Marco and Reiner, assuring him that no one assumed otherwise.
He was forced to face away from Annie, and in his peripheral vision he could see Eren flipping through his art journal and pointing out the supposed naked women who was not completely exposed to Mikasa and Ymir, a frantic Armin behind them giving context to Jean’s visionaries which Jean explained to him personally. There is a saying in writing that goes along the lines of how writing a book is like showing your ass to the world. That also applies to artists, let alone their brainstorms which can be deeply personal.
Jean sighs in defeat, snatching away his sketchbook. An annoyed Eren follows.
“Hey, what was that for we were looking.”
Eren tugged back, causing multiple papers to fall out. Jean groaned in frustration, crouching level to the raining papers.
“Now look at what you’ve done.” He frantically picks up the papers. This is where he wishes for Connie’s dumb rule applied.
A particular piece caught Ymir’s eye and before Jean could pick it up, Ymir lunged at it.
“Hey, hey! You have seen enough!”
“Jean, you do multimedia?”
Ymir holds up the paper covered in ripped book pages, and all sorts of ornaments like photo collages. It piqued her interest as it resembled a particular artist, they were studying in the media class she is in with Reiner, Eren and Sasha. Even if it looked like a scrapped piece, it really could have passed for an authentic artwork.
“What? No…that was just…Whatever, just give it back!”
Jean’s tastes found multimedia collages to not be as appealing as they are to others, but this piece was more just for his brainstorming, a vision board if you must. The piece included cut up photos of him and his friends made into these wacky humanoid figures. This now is a scrapped idea, but it was difficult to admit that the process was not fun.
“I like this, could we make something like this? Like, together? All of us?” Ymir suggested, holding up the paper.
Jean, in despair, looked up expecting to get clowned, but instead this. What?
“Oh, this is us from that backyard party, Jean!” Sasha chirped. “So wacky! We make stuff like this in our class.”
“We could even add in traditional mediums, I am open to the idea. Let’s have fun,” Armin beamed.
Before he knew it, the class felt inspired by Jean’s weird scrap piece, and an A1 sheet and art supplies cabinet were pulled out. Even the psychology class students were having their fun with this new project. Reiner and Ymir raided their own class for instant cameras to recreate their own photo collages.
They used Sasha and Connie as their models, taking photos of different body parts to collage their bodies elongated.
Historia and Mikasa claimed the fountain pens and ink, writing down in fine handwriting random psychology terminology. This was also revision for them, they smiled.
Marco happily made little swirls using a purple POSCA marker around the Connie photo collage. Bertholdt placed down the collage pieces while Sasha directed.
In the corner of the page, Armin added a little seaside scenery, using that same impasto technique.
The only one that was not participating was still Jean, who quietly watched over, after he had a little sulk. Armin called Jean over handing him blue, white, and light purple oil pastels. He raised his eyebrows at the gesture.
“I know you already hate this idea, and you are probably insistent that we don’t do this at all, but we are regardless, so wouldn’t you like to take the opportunity to step out of your comfort zone?”
Jean was silent.
“This artform is messy, disorientated, and unpredictable. You do not have your oil paints here anyway. There is no room for perfection in this piece.” Armin continued holding up the pastels until he carefully nested them in Jean’s warm palm.
He sighed.
Judging by colour pallet he assumed Armin wanted him to expand on his painted ocean.
“…I don’t want to ruin it.”
“You won’t.”
Sighing again, he complies, opting for the middle blue, hesitantly expanding on the wave lines, and then eventually filling in the empty void and blending with the other pastels. It’s not that Jean wasn’t good at using oil pastels, in fact he excels with almost every medium, it’s like charcoal but with colour, he just finds oil pastels to be, he can’t describe it, the specks of different colours getting into other colours really bugs him.
“See? It looks good.” Armin whispered, earning a smile from Jean. The specks matched the texture of the sand impasto so there was not any significant pinpoint to them.
As the piece came along, the bell for second period rang. There goes Connie’s opportunity, but he could get lucky with second period.
“Huh? Already?” Historia sighs. “Oh, and I forgot to give this to the office.” She found herself still clenching onto the list of names.
The students quickly packed up and exited the classroom for their next class, leaving the piece which has yet to be finalised on the bench.
Almost immediately after they left, arrived a sluggish Mr. Hannes.
“Hope I’m not too early. No one here.”
His drowsy eyes caught sight of the mysterious artwork left without an owner, a list of credits right next to it.
