Chapter Text
A punch to his nose, he fell. Multiple kicks to his ribs and back, he curled up on his side and used his arms to cover his face and throat.
“Stop,” he pleaded, voice choked and hoarse from pain. They didn’t, they went on, kicking him around. One grabbed him by the collar and jerked him up. A victorious smirk formed on his lips as he eyed the boy’s bruised and hurt form.
“What was that?” The cruel boy spoke. Are you begging little queer boy? I can’t believe how easy that was, Armin.” He laughed, his grip on Armin’s shirt seeming to be loosening. That was until Armin spoke up.
“I’d much rather be queer,” the blue eyed blonde started, looking up the other viciously. “Then be a coward who can’t even fight back verbally, so he gets his buddied and uses his fists.” The boy watched Armin, eyes wide as he obviously tried to think of a comeback, but couldn’t. So, he scowled and jutted out his knee before he threw Armin down, ramming his knee into the blonde’s gut.
“Correction, I don’t just use my fists.” He then nodded to his friends and they resumed kicking the male clinging to his gut on the ground, writhing. He covered his face again and whimpered, his vision going black. The last thing he heard was the sound of an unfamiliar voice yelling at the male’s beating him and then, everything faded.
All he could hear were voices, chatting amongst themselves, some sounding more grim and serious, others happy-go-lucky and optimistic. Yet they were all so familiar. Those were the voices of his closest friends, or at least the majority of them.
His eyes opened and he groaned from the light pooling into his vision.
“Armin!”
That voice, the closest one to him out of them all, it was Mikasa, the friend that had been staying with his since the age of ten. She’d lost her parents at a young age, so his grandfather took her in. She was a sister to Armin, they both shared so much in common. Armin too lost his parents at a young age, however he had his grandfather who took him in, Mikasa had no one else, all the rest of her family lived in Japan and she didn’t want to leave, so his grandfather immediately acted.
“Mika…sa…” he groaned, out before slowly attempting to open his eyes again. This time, his eyes were much more attuned to the light. He was in a bed, one that was most definitely not his own, with a thin, white sheet over him. Mikasa sat in a chair next to him, eyes wide with worry and distress. The blond looked around the room, it was a hospital wing.
Was I really that hurt? Armin thought. A squeeze to his hand told him that there was someone holding it, he suspected it was Mikasa, then looked over to the raven-haired female. She was now looking down to her lap, sorrow vivid on her features.
“Hey,” he spoke softly, unable to do much else. “Mikasa, I’m okay, I really am-“
“Armin,” she spoke just above a whisper. “The boys who beat you up, did they start it?”
Armin bit him lip, knowing Mikasa knew the answer, but wanted it clarified, so he looking around the room to avoid her gaze that was, once again, on him. That’s when he realized, every one of his friends were there. Connie was chatting with Sasha, they’re the kind of friends who were inseparable, Jean was sitting in a chair across the room with an arm around Marco’s waist, they’ve been a thing for almost three years now, then Reiner, Bertolt and Annie watched Mikasa and himself. Reiner and Bertolt were also a thing, but they weren’t ones for public affection, well Bertolt wasn’t, Reiner tried sometimes.
He then realized Mikasa was still looking for an answer. The blonde sighed and slowly nodded, “yes, they started it.” Mikasa gritted her teeth noticeably and moved to stand, so he quickly spoke against it. “Mikasa, they could be anywhere in town by now. It’ll take forever to try and find-“
Armin was quickly cut off by her again. “They’re in the next room over, the sort of “leader” or them was messed up badly by the guy that saved you.”
He blinked once, then twice.
Saved me? He thought Mikasa had been the one who- He then remembered the unfamiliar holler of a boy. Was he the one who Mikasa was talking about? No one else interrupted, not a single soul. They just walked by and let it happen. The boys were sons of rich families after all, no one wanted to get on their bad side. So what was his savior thinking? Why would he intrude when he could get him and his family into serious trouble? Despite the questions rising in his head and the embarrassment of having to be saved, he had a serious need to thank this person and apologize to him over and over again.
“Did you see him?” Armin asked slowly, biting his lower lip.
“Yeah,” Jean answered. “I was in the middle of my free period with Mikasa and Marco when the guy used your phone to call her,” he pointed at Mikasa, “since she’s one of your emergency contacts. He was a real douche bag if you ask me.”
Marco frowned noticeable. “That’s because you were being rude, Jean.” Jean narrowed his eyes at Marco before he huffed and looked away. “Anyways,” the freckled male began to explain. “I’ve seen the guy around school, he’s in my College Writing class. He has good opinions, and he’s actually rather quiet when he’s not sharing them. I think his name is Eren. I could be wrong though.”
Armin slowly nodded. Eren. That was the name of the guy he had to thank and apologize to profusely. “When can I come back to school? I couln’t have been so hurt that they have to keep me over night.”
“You have a very mild concussion, Armin,” Annie spoke up sharply, face straight as ever. “You should rest a bit more; we’ll see you out of here by tomorrow.” There was no room for argument on Armin’s part considering she was already heading out the door with Reiner and Bertolt, the two males standing shoulder to shoulder. Marco took Jean’s hand and nodded to Armin as they departed from the room. What felt like, a sharp smack to his shoulder made the blond wince before he looked over to see Connie with a semi-sheepish smile. He’d obviously patted his shoulder with good intentions. “Sorry, buddy. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? Bye!” Soon enough, Sasha and Connie were out of the room, leaving Mikasa and Armin alone.
“So, this Eren, how do you feel about him?”
Mikasa blinked and frowned. “Fine, I guess. He was stubborn and refused to leave until you were taken to a room here. He was the one who insisted you come to the hospital in the first place when you could have gone home. Eren seems to be the kind of person to worry about others over himself.” Armin noticed a frustrated edge to her voice.
“Mikasa, what’s wrong?” He asked. “Do you not like him?”
Mikasa fell silent. It was a couple moments before she spoke to him again. “Get some rest,” the raven-haired female insisted, standing. “If you want to go to class tomorrow, you need the energy to do so, you get better quicker then.” With that she was gone.
“He has one of my free periods with me?” Armin questioned, sending Marco and Jean a quizzical look. “How did you find that out?”
“I talked to him during my college writing class first period. Not only did I find out his schedule, I also found out he’s a senior like us,” Marco explained, grinning. He seemed to be ignoring the frown Jean was sending him, obviously not approving of his boyfriend talking with Eren, the guy he apparently had a terrible first meeting with.
“So does he have this free period with me?”
“Yes,” Jean groaned. “Come on, I’ll point ‘im out.” The dual haired male gripped Armin’s wrist and lead him to the common halls with Marco following suit. They looked around from table to table until Jeans’ eyes stopped on something and he scowled. Armin followed his gaze to the back of a brunette head that had headphones on.
“Is that him?” the blond inquired, furrowing his brow.
“Yup, that’s Eren,” Marco nodded. “Now, I’m gonna head to class with Jean before he blows his top.”
“I don’t “blow my top”,” Armin distantly heard Jean say defensively to Marco as they headed away from him. He was already moving toward the boy who was listening to music. What was he going to say? He couldn’t simply say, “thank you,” and be on his merry way, he felt he owed more to the other than that. He approached him slowly and hesitated before softly tapping on his shoulder. The male turned around with a risen brow before his large eyes widened a bit and his eyebrows nearly shot to his hairline. Eren quickly knocked off his headphones so they slid down his head and rested on his neck. “It’s you!” he exclaimed.
Armin blinked before he slowly nodded. “Yeah, um, I just wanted to say thank you for-“
“Does that happen a lot?”
Armin instantly knew what he was referring to and looked down a bit. “Yeas, sort of, it’s not usually that… brutal,” he had to pause to think of think of the proper word for what happen he day before.
“Usually?” Once again a rather thick brow was raised at Armin. When he received a nod, Eren gestured toward the seat next to him. “So, why’d they do it, there’s a reason right?”
“I’m his competition. We both plan to go to Harvard and there’s a scholarship for one. He’s rich enough to go without the scholarship, or at least his parents are rich enough to send him, but he decided to the scholarship. When he found out I had also gone for it, he tried to get me to drop it, but when I didn’t-… Yesterday was supposed to be a warning, I guess.”
Eren was glaring down at his lap. “What a jackass. Just some spoiled rich kid who wants to pick on the weakest link he can find.”
Armin frowned from being called, “the weakest link,” and was going to voice his frustration with the label, but decided against it. “You really didn’t have to step in yesterday. No one else did. So why did you?”
“They were kicking the crap out of you, there was no way I was going to stand by and just watch that happen.”
The blond opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it, unsure of how to respond to that. He was positive no matter what, this guy didn’t regret intruding what-so-ever. So, naturally, he changed the subject. “S-So, what are you working on? Class work?”
A scowl found its way to Eren’s face. “Yeah, I’m working on Algebra.”
“Algebra, as in Freshman Algebra-?”
“No, no,” the boy with turquoise eyes quickly intruded, flushed. “Algebra 2, for juniors.” He sounded and shamed and rather embarrassed.
Armin watched him, confusion in his features. “Did you fail it? You’re a senior, aren’t you?”
Eren sent him a questioning glance, clearly not knowing how he knew he was a last year, but turned back to the sheet of equations. “Yeah, but a lot happen last year, so Algebra 2 was the last thing on my mind. I failed it. I’m not proud of the fact, but I did. Also, I just don’t understand any of this. I get so confused and frustrated. I have no clue how to solve any of these. I mean, where the hell are the numbers? Almost everything I this is just letters.”
Armin held out his hand for the paper, which was given to him. He read through the problems. They were variable problems, quite easy to him, obviously not so much to Eren. “Here,” he offered, plucking the pencil right out of Eren’s hand and placing the paper in between them. “The basics of this are to get all the unneeded variables and numbers to the other side of the equal sign. So-“
“Wait, wait, wait… Are you helping me? Voluntarily?” Eren looked rather dumbfounded and eyed the other as if Armin had a twisted scheme that had to do with helping him on Algebra.
“Mhm,” Armin smiled over at him. “You helped me Eren. Thank you.” This is the least I can do for you.” Armin noticed Eren’s lips were tugging at the corners a bit into a smile. Finally. He smiles. I was beginning to think he never would.
“Alright, Smartie,” that made Armin grin, “since you’re helping me with Algebra I’m gonna help you with your physical education.”
Armin’s grin quickly faltered. A blush planted itself onto his cheeks. “I-I don’t need help with my physical fitness! I’m very healthy, I’ll have you know.”
“Yeah, if you consider skin and bone “healthy” then sure, continue what you’ve been doing. But had I not gotten there, those guys would have left without a mark. Did you even try to fight?”
“I did fight!” Armin declared with a huff.
Eren looked at him with disbelief and a risen brow.. “Yeah, how did that work out?”
“I didn’t fight the way you’re thinking. I only fought verbally.”
“Is that supposed to do something?” Eren questioned, rolling his eyes.
“I’m not stooping to his level! That’s all I’d be doing if I fought back like that.” The blue eyed male looked down to his lap.
Eren watched him for a second, eyeing his facial expression, his sudden poor posture, and the way his eyes stared down so frustratedly, obviously having some sort of self-conflict. “Alright,” Eren finally broke the silence. “You’ll help me in math and I’ll help you with your physical fitness.” He watched his dace fell from that. “Deal?”
The blond eyed his hand as it was held out to him before he sighed and took the hand, giving it a small shake before letting go and looking back to the forgotten problems. “Fine, but we need to work out a schedule, I also have to tutor Jean.”
Eren’s face scrunched up a bit into a distasteful scowl. “You mean Horse-face?”
A scoff escaped from Armin’s lips before he covered his mouth to stop himself from laughing, this appeared to be amusing to the brunette considering a smile formed on his lips, replacing the spiteful look. “Yes, the “horse-face”.” He then set hi attention back to the math page. “Alright, now to get back to get back to this, the goal is to get g to the other side of the equals sign. What type of equation is this?”
Eren’s smile faltered completely as his face contorted into a look that could only be described as his “concentration face”. “Uh… Aren’t they all variable problems?”
Armin had to force the smile off his face. “Yes, but I mean the type of equations that are in PEMDAS.”
“Oh,” Eren’s face burned out of embarrassment. “Division.”
“And what’s the opposite of division?”
“Multiplication.”
Armin grinned and nodded. “Which means?”
“I need to multiply in order to get it on the other side?”
Once again, Armin nodded. “And what you do on one side,” he purposely trailed off, encouraging the other to finish.
“…You do on the other?”
This was Armin’s favorite thing about tutoring, when the light of recognition and familiarity shown in their eyes and they seem to feel as if they just got a boost of self-confidence.
“See, you understand it!” Armin exclaimed happily.
“Wait, seriously? That’s it?”
“Yup, now write out the new problem.”
Eren obeyed and began writing out the problem. They continued like this, losing track of time and getting lost in little conversations, forgetting about the math work. It would take a bit before Armin realizes it and tried to get back on track, only to get distracted by Eren’s charming humor. They’d only gotten half of the page done before the bell rang. Neither of them noticed that the hour and a half of their free period had passed back, hell, they hadn’t even noticed the bell for that period to start had gone off.
“So you understand it?”
Eren nodded, a faint, “yeah,” leaving his lips.
“Then I should head to my next class.” Armin gathered his stuff, “we can talk about the schedule for our sessions another time.” He turned to walk away, but was quickly, maybe even hesitantly, stopped.
“Wait,” Eren waited for him to turn back to him before he spoke.” I haven’t gotten your name.”
The blue eyed boy smiled, “I’m Armin.”
“I’m Eren.”
Somewhere in Armin’s mind said, oh, I already know who you are, one of my friends began stalking you during first period so I’d meet you,’ but he refrained from saying it aloud. “It’s really nice to meet you, Eren. I’ll see you later.” With that, he left. Little did he know, he’d start wanting to see this boy a lot sooner rather than later.