every corner that jean passed, he could find another student with their nose in a book, muttering things to themselves, and a snack in their other hand, wandering the grounds until their next class; but this scholarly atmosphere isn’t free from rumors and idiotic acts of courage to prove oneself. one such example would be climbing the tower then back down, though most seemed to not even go along with the idea. jean’s heard of it, but never felt the need to go through with it, since why would he have to prove his courage anywhere else but in battle? so, he ignored it, readying himself for the plan, up until a certain night.
being a nocturnal type of person, jean began to make his way to his dauly night stroll, but didn’t make it past the bridge as a group of students lined up along the way, their attention turned up towards the top of the tower. it didn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on, but perhaps it could be interesting for once.
❝ what’s up? ❞ jean asked, faking his curiosity to seem like he cared, his gaze too turning up. most of his classmates knew how young jean is, but he brought laughs to nearly everyone when they didn’t irritate him, but they also knew not to mess with him as they’ve seen how he is with a rapier.
❝ the geneolgia kid tried doing the test of courage by climbing the tower,” one of them, a three star, answered. hearing that name, jean turned to make sure that he hadn’t been mistaken but there surely wasn’t anyone else even close to having such a prestigious family name like that around here. ❝ he climbed it up earlier, but it’s been over an hour and he still hasn’t come back down. we’re not sure if he fell over the edge or what. ❞
‘how thoughtful,’ jean thought, saying out loud, ❝ it’d be pretty bad for you lot then if he fell over the side while you were watching.” at pointing out that fact, the others cursed lightly, realizing their mistake. ❝ aw hell, he’s probably stuck up there and not knowing how to get back down. better get up there, and help him down.”
this is it. the chance he’d been searching for. climbing up, pointedly ignoring the fact that the students left quickly as to not get caught in what could happen, keeping his mind trained to not slip up and fall down to his own death, jean knew that this little step could help set up everything that will happen in the future. the school semester barely started, but quite honestly jean felt that an opportunity had fallen into his lap to speed up this meeting to get it over with.
--and it appeared in the form of a small shaking frame, gripping tightly to the stone decorating the tallest point as if his life depended on it, as jean worked on being able to stand on his own two feet after climbing all the way up. ❝ hey...” he said lowly, raising a brow at the sight in front of him, ❝ don’t tell me you’ve been up here this entire time like this? you know, it’s not that hard to climb back down. ❞