Chapter Text
“I think I like my friend. What should I do?”
Armin is seven when he tells his grandfather about his first crush. He hadn’t told him it was the girl who sat beside him in class-- Mikasa-- that same quiet girl who always hung around Eren whenever they’d visit the Jaeger household during the summers. And yet, looking back on it now, Armin’s pretty sure his grandfather knew exactly which friend he was talking about when he had told him that.
As his grandfather sets down a mug of hot chocolate in front of him at the breakfast table one morning, he simply tells Armin to try asking his friend if they could hold hands.
But the first time Armin and Mikasa do hold hands, it is out of a need to seek solace from fear that he asks it of her.
--
It was late afternoon-- right after school finished for the day-- when Armin had rushed to the playground behind the local library where Mikasa’s mother worked. He hastened to leave the school once the bell had rung to dismiss them, eager to escape the kids who had tried to lock him up in one of the girls’ bathrooms earlier that day during their break time. Thankfully, Eren had witnessed the scene and managed to fight the bullies off-- even with most of his kicks and punches haphazardly landing all over the place.
Armin spends about an hour silently moping (with bouts of crying in between) as he sat at the bottom part of the slide before eventually catching sight of Mikasa and her mother emerging from the back door of the library.
Mikasa doesn't fail to notice him immediately and Armin instinctively shrinks himself in his seat when he senses her approaching. In an attempt to avoid her gaze, he bows his head down and fixates himself on the felt-tip drawings of rocket ships and constellations playfully doodled on his shoes.
Mikasa soon stands in front of him. Her lithe figure bends-- tilting her torso to one side, and a few tufts of hair fall messily in front of her face as she tries to meet Armin’s eyes.
“Mom and I are about to go home. We could walk you too.”
“Oh. Ok.”
Armin starts to gather his things-- books, lunchbox, and a backpack that had been laid down at his feet. He zips open his bag and stuffs in the lunchbox alongside his books before neatly arranging them. Once he’s done, Armin lifts himself up from the slide and Mikasa acknowledges him with a nod.
--
At some point during the walk home, Armin manages to tell her about what happened in school that day.
“I see. How are you now?”
“A bit better. But I’m… I’m still a little scared.” Armin lets out a dejected sigh. He nervously rubs a palm over his arm. “Uhmm… Mikasa, can we… can we hold hands?”
She hums in thought. Mikasa's eyes dart towards her own hand clasped in her mother’s grasp and then up at her mother's face. She's been talking on the phone for a while now and Mikasa assumes her father was the person on the other line.
“Ok.”
Mikasa examines his hand with curiosity as she takes him by the wrist, soon noticing the strip of bandage on his palm. It’s one of those kinds with a bright pattern of cartoon illustrations and this one shows a school of pastel-colored fish against a plain yellow background.
“Armin, what happened here?” Mikasa looks at him-- eyebrows scrunched in a mix of worry and question-- all the while still holding his wrist.
“Oh. The other day-- uhmm... with a sharpened pencil… they...” Armin trails off. His eyes turn downcast. Mikasa silently looks at him in question-- as if still waiting for him to recount the rest of what happened. When she realizes that Armin probably can’t bring himself to talk about it anymore for now, she responds with a perfunctory hum.
“Tell me if they ever try anything again.”
Mikasa then hooks her pinky finger with his own.
When Armin looks down at their hands-- fingers lazily dangling in the tiny space between them, he feels the warmth of the sunset seeping further into his skin.
***
Armin is sixteen when he gets his heart broken for the first time.
The day after their high school prom, he finds out that his two best friends had started dating. It shouldn’t have been surprising. The signs were all laid out in front of him-- Mikasa obviously harbored feelings towards Eren for quite some time now and they had eventually gone to the prom together as partners. And while Eren admittedly had a tendency to be oblivious to her feelings, the idea of him returning Mikasa’s feelings wasn’t entirely implausible. After all, Mikasa had lived with the Jaegers for a while. She had stayed with them from the incident of her parents’ tragic death-- up until the end of middle school, after which a distant relative-- Levi Ackerman-- had taken her in. No doubt, Eren and Mikasa had spent more time with each other than either of them had with Armin. Feelings were bound to bloom somehow, somewhere in between no matter how oblivious Eren could get… right? And besides, Mikasa was undoubtedly a pretty girl. She was cold and stern, sure, but her reticence had a charm to it. Armin acknowledged this and so did a lot of other boys in their school. None of these other boys had a chance on her, but Eren? He was probably the only one Mikasa seemed to have her eyes on. Not even Armin himself stood a chance. At least that’s what he thinks.
And yet, months before the prom, he actually considers asking Mikasa to be his partner. He even manages to make plans for it too. He’d rush out of campus after school to visit the local florist to assess which flowers would best convey his feelings for Mikasa, and even stop by the nearest patisserie to look at the chocolates and pastries displayed on the shelves so he could decide which delicacy he thinks she’d enjoy the most. When he gets home, he’d struggle pushing pen to paper trying to write out how he’d ask Mikasa to the prom. And on his morning walks to school, he’d silently rehearse the lines he had written trying to assess if they sounded awkward in his head. In dreams and daydreams, he’d imagine sweeping her off her feet to a soft ballad in the dimly lit gymnasium-- under the glimmer and dancing lights of the mirrorball that hung above them.
It’s on a Saturday-- exactly two weeks before the prom-- when Armin tries to ask her out. He nervously paces around in front of the Ackerman residence for almost half an hour with a rose in one hand and a box of lemon bars in the other. The ticking on his watch seems slightly louder than usual, but he doesn’t actually realize he’s been needlessly pacing around for that long. All he knows in that moment are the hammering of his heart in his chest, the lump in his throat, the cold sensation of sweat on his shaking hands, the dryness in his mouth, and the shortness of his breath. It gets increasingly difficult for him to concentrate and he blames himself for failing to fall asleep the night before.
There’s no point in this. Mikasa doesn’t like you back. She likes Eren. You’d be ruining a perfectly good friendship by doing this. It was pathetic of you to even try. You’re only humiliating yourself. There’s no point in this.
There's no point.
--
He doesn’t try again.
On the night of the prom, Armin stays in bed-- a pathetic lump of gloom in his blankets. A wilted rose sits languidly on his bedside table beside an empty pastry box. He watches a lone petal fall limply on the floor before closing his eyes that night.
His dreams aren’t any better. And the morning after doesn’t make up for it either.