The Last Witness (Journalist reader x AOT Boys)
With the fall of the Titans, Paradis is no longer completely sealed from the world — but trust is still a fragile thing. Not that Y/N cares. She's a foreign journalist and war photographer with a mission: become the first outsider brave (or foolish) enough to tell Paradis’ story from within.
Levi
He doesn't trust Y/N for a second and sees her as a liability.
If they don't censor her, she could doom Paradis all over again.
But over time, Levi sees her patching up her own wounds, sneaking cigarettes with soldiers, and treating even the lowest-ranked cadets like their words matter. That earns his respect.
Y/N's camera annoys him. “Tch. Point that thing somewhere else”. He doesn't get cameras, therefore he doesn't trust it.
Deep deep down though, he appreciates someone trying to document the mess they survived. (Even if he’ll never admit it).
She’s a walking mess — hair never brushed the same way twice, camera strap tangled with her bag, ink stains on her fingers. Her clothes are strange too — loose trousers, suspenders, shirts with sleeves rolled halfway. Half the time she’s got her shoes untied. It drives Levi insane.
“Button your collar,” he grumbles. “Too hot,” she says, camera clicking. “Also, not your collar.”
He mutters about “sloppy foreigners” but somehow ends up following her around, picking up her dropped notebooks, wiping dirt off her lens, adjusting her straps before they snag on something. It’s not duty anymore... it’s reflex.
One day, rain’s coming down hard and she throws her jacket over a kid’s shoulders. Her camera’s soaked, she doesn’t care. Levi’s jaw tightens. She’s reckless. But when she turns to grin at him through the downpour, he feels something crack open. That dangerous warmth he hasn’t let himself feel since before the world ended.
He's fallen.
Levi doesn’t allow the thought to grow. He buries it deep under routine, under paperwork. But at night, when her laughter drifts through HQ’s halls, he listens. He hates that he listens.
Eren
When Y/N arrives knocking down the walls, he almost kills her. Eren is hostile; seeing her as part of the world that condemned them.
She’s standing too close, camera raised, asking questions no one else dares to. He warns her once. She doesn’t back off.
“If you get in my way again,” he says quietly, “I’ll eat you next.” She only smirks. “Then at least my obituary will be interesting.”
He should have eaten her right there and then, but something in the way she stared him down, unflinching, planted itself in his head and never left.
From then on, he avoids her like the plague. Jean and Hange call it “running away.” Eren prefers the term “dodging bad press gracefully.”
But none of it matters, because somehow Y/N always finds him. She finds him in the quiet corners of ruined streets, sitting on a step, pretending not to notice her. She finds him at dawn, by the shore, staring at the horizon like he’s trying to memorize the end of the world. And she keeps firing questions that slice through his rhetoric.
“What does freedom mean if it costs everyone else theirs?” “Do you ever miss being right instead of being worshiped?”
He tells her to leave him alone, but she doesn’t listen. She never listens. And for reasons he can’t name, he stops wanting her to. Eren is fascinated by her defiance, but she frustrates him deeply.
Because of her challenging and intrusive questions, she becomes one of the few people who can make him pause.
The realization, of his new feelings, comes slowly. In the way her voice echoes after she’s gone, the way he catches himself remembering her expressions instead of his plans.
One day, she calls him out again: “You keep saying you want to save the island, Eren. But what about yourself?” He opens his mouth to answer... and nothing comes out. That silence is the truth.
Y/N represents a version of freedom that doesn’t require blood. And to be honest, she knows more about the world than Eren does.
And he’s terrified. Because if he admits he loves her, even to himself, then he has to admit he’s still human. And humans don’t destroy the world — they grieve it.
Jean
At first, he’s suspicious. Sees her as another outsider trying to make Paradis look like monsters.
But her blunt honesty and visible compassion disarm him.
Jean finds himself watching how she moves through war ruins and listens to survivors — not with pity, but respect. He’s quietly impressed.
Eventually, he becomes her unofficial escort, making sarcastic remarks about her “suicidal curiosity” while secretly admiring that she reminds him of who he wanted to be: someone who still believes in something.
Jean realizes he's in love during one of their 'sketch sessions'.
It starts with a joke: she sits cross-legged on the floor of the barracks, sketchbook open, tongue between her teeth as she caricatures him mid-rant. “Hold still, soldier boy.”
He rolls his eyes. Jean doesn't get satirical caricature. Ten minutes later he’s kneeling beside her, showing her how to shade with a charcoal stub.
Soon, it becomes routine: late-night drawing sessions after patrol. She sketches the absurd, he sketches the real. One night she draws a cartoon of two figures painting over the words Devils of Paradis on a crumbling wall. “Hope that makes tomorrow’s paper,” she murmurs. Jean watches the way she leans over the page and something in his chest pulls taut.
Jean’s reaction? Avoidance, of course. He gets flustered, defensive, starts joking too much around her. But every time she teases him back, his heart races. It’s the first time he’s liked someone who scares him — not because she’s dangerous, but because she sees right through him.
Floch
Absolutely hates her guts. To him, she’s a walking symbol of everything wrong with the outside world.
He’ll call her a spy, accuse her of manipulating people, and might even threaten her early on.
Yet, what unnerves him most is that she isn’t afraid of him.
When she fires back with facts, or challenges his sense of nationalism, he’s forced to confront his own hypocrisy.
Y/N become his most powerful ideological rival and the first person to see the broken boy behind the soldier.
Their fights are infamous around HQ — loud, sharp, and always in public. He calls her naïve, she calls him fascist. And their arguments always end the same — her walking away, him furious that she doesn’t break.
But the worst one happens after she publishes an article criticizing Paradis’ military rule. Floch corners her outside the press room, voice low but shaking. “You think you’re saving us? You’re making us look weak.”
“Maybe you’re scared people will see what strength really looks like.” She fire back.
The silence that follows burns. He sees the disappointment in her eyes — not fear, disappointment. And it guts him more than any insult. She walks away without another word.
That’s when it hits him: He realizes, with bitter clarity, that he’s falling for the only person who doesn’t worship or fear him. He hates it. Denies it. So he doubles down, becomes crueler, colder, anything to prove she doesn’t affect him.
For the next few days, she avoids him. No quick remarks in passing, no arguments. Just silence. It’s unbearable. He tells himself he doesn’t care, but every time he sees her laughing with someone else, something in his chest twists. When they finally cross paths again, he says nothing — just stands there, fists tight, wanting to apologize but not knowing how.
He doesn’t want to win against her anymore. He just wants her to look at him the way she used to, even if it’s in anger.
Armin
Instantly intrigued. He sees her as living proof that curiosity survives even after hell.
They’d probably talk late into the night about history, philosophy, and how nations rebuild after atrocities.
He’d want to learn about her world: her journalism, her protests, her ways of holding power accountable.
In return, she’d remind him of what he’s fighting for: connection. There’s mutual admiration there.
Y/N is also keen on teaching him photography.
She drags him outside after every briefing. “You think too much. Come on, light’s perfect.”
Her hands guide his, adjusting the aperture, the focus ring. Explains the different type of portraits, the perfect golden hours. "It’s like breathing. Slow down the world long enough to see it.”
He peers through the lens and the island blurs into color and silence. For once, everything looks… gentle.
When he develops the photo later, Armin sees it's blurry, overexposed, but her reflection is caught in the glass beside him. She’s smiling.
That’s the moment.
Armin stares at the photo until the paper curls in his hand. For someone who understands logic and cause, he can’t explain why her laugh lingers like an echo in his chest.
His reaction is quiet. He tries to analyze it. Tells himself it’s admiration, intellectual connection, nothing more. But when she ruffles his hair and calls him “professor,” his face burns.
He doesn’t fall all at once. He drifts — a tide slowly pulling him somewhere safe
Connie
At first, he’s confused why anyone would willingly step foot on their cursed island. But quickly warms up to her once he realizes she’s not there to judge.
He’d probably be one of the first to laugh at her jokes, help her navigate the island, or pose awkwardly for her photos “Wait—did I blink again?”.
To him, she’s proof life goes on. That maybe they can still be seen as people, not devils. He’d protect her like a sister and make sure she never gets lost in the darker corners of Paradis.
Connie notices how she photographs everything — even the mundane. When she points the lens at him mid-bite, he chokes on bread. “Perfect! Realism,” she teases. “You trying to ruin my reputation?” “What reputation?”
Their friendship forms on teasing and laughter. She shows him her photos of protests: smoke, raised fists, defiance, and he listens, fascinated. He starts accompanying her on interviews, helping carry gear, pretending it’s for “security.”
When does Connie realize he likes Y/N more than just a sister?
It happens mid-laugh. They’re joking about how awful his first photo turned out — him cross-eyed, mouth open. She’s laughing so hard she can’t breathe.
And suddenly, he stops. Just… watches her. The light hits her face just right.
Connie’s not the type to overthink, but the warmth that spreads through him is both terrifying and familiar. The kind you feel when you finally find home after too long.
He gets quiet after that.
He doesn’t know how to say it, but he realizes, with a small, honest panic, that he doesn’t just want to make her laugh... He wants to be someone worth writing about. And suddenly, every joke hides a heartbeat.
