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I
Armin has always been a crybaby. It's not something that makes him proud, though. That’s why he enrolled in the military to begin with, because he won't sit and wait to be eaten by the Titans inside those airless walls. But it’s difficult to prevent his knees from trembling and not to wish he’d chosen to be a farmer instead of a soldier when he plants himself in front of the most intimidating girl he’s ever seen before.
(and after being friends with Mikasa all these years, he knows what intimidating girls are like).
Annie is everything that Armin is not. She’s self-confident, fearless, apathetic and good at wrestling. And he didn’t want the moment he would have to wrestle with Annie to come, ever .
But it did.
Out in the backyard, hearing the panting and the struggle of their comrades, Armin stands in front of Annie, looking at her like a fool, not knowing what to do with his arms. She looks at him behind her thick eyelashes with utter indifference and assumes her fighting position, with her fists flanking her face.
Armin only wishes she doesn’t kick the hell out of him.
But she does.
And while Armin lays beaten up on the ground, trying to recover some breath, he thinks that Annie’s beating felt nothing like those of the bullies back in Shiganshina. It was a methodical, almost choreographed fight, that she has surely rehearsed a thousand times (while all Armin could do was try to dodge her fists, with little success).
It’s not Annie who helps him get on his feet again, but Eren. She has already walked away from the group, wandering in her own world.
Eren whistles. “What a woman, huh,” and Mikasa growls at his side.
Armin doesn’t tell his friends, but he would gladly receive another couple of hits from that girl.
II
It’s late at night, and Armin reads a book in the boys’ dormitory. He lays in the upper side of his bunk bed, while the rest laugh and talk loudly from below. Armin frowns at the ceiling; he can’t read like that, all giggles and murmurs around. The boys have no intention to hide their conversation, though, and Armin hears everything loud and clear.
“Fuck!” shouts Connie. Armin peeks over the railing. Just what the hell are they talking about.
“Annie,” grins Eren and Armin almost falls off his bed. Fuck… Annie?
“Marry.”
“Krista,” his friend replies quickly.
“Kill.”
“Ymir.”
They burst into laughter. It’s Jean’s turn now.
“Fuck,” Connie begins again.
“Mikasa.” Armin turns beet red. What the hell.
“Marry.”
“Mikasa,” he says again and everyone rolls their eyes and boo at him.
“And kill?”
“Eren.”
“Oi. Oi. Oi. Do you want to die?”
Both boys clash their foreheads together as if they were two goats fighting.
“Hey, Arlert, what do you do there?” Connie smiles at him. “You wanna join us?”
Armin hides his face behind his book, pretending he hasn’t heard them all along.
“I don’t think that’s the right thing to do,” he mumbles, and the rest laughs loudly at him.
“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it before,” Jean suggests with derision.
“I… I haven’t…”
Eren snorts. “Annie really knocked the hell out of you, didn’t she?”
“What? Annie?” Connie asks with genuine interest.
“He’s been quiet in the clouds since he fought with Annie the other day,” Eren says with a mischievous smile and everyone grins at Armin.
“HEY… that’s not…” he protests but is interrupted when he actually falls off his bed.
The rest ignore him and turn their attention to Connie, who scribbles in a piece of paper.
“Then another vote for Annie in Fuck .”
“I didn't say anything!”
“Yes, yes, we heard you. Annie ties with Mikasa in this category.”
“Who wins in ‘ Marry’ ?” Reiner inquires from a corner and Armin gives him a quizzical look. Even Reiner is involved.
“Our dear Krista, of course.”
“And kill?”
But at that moment, the door burst open and all the girls stand at their doorway, visibly pissed and ready to sweep the floor with them. They should have known that they were no delicate princesses, but trained soldiers and they beat them all into a pulp.
All except Armin.
And as the rest lay on the floor rubbing their bruises, Annie turns slightly to look at Armin before heading out the door.
The sea must look like her blue eyes , he thinks, realizing that if he had a piece of paper, he’d write Annie’s name all over it.
III
The next time they talk, Annie addresses him at the canteen.
“You did the bare minimum the other day.” Armin gives a startle and almost drops his meal from his tray when he hears her voice. Annie pierces him with her eyes, and he swallows.
“Sorry… I’m not good at wrestling,” he replies, lowering his gaze. He knows he’s not a big opponent for Annie, but he’s still disappointed that she thinks he didn’t give his all in their wrestle. Because he did, but he’s too weak to ever have stood a chance against her.
“I wasn’t talking about wrestling.” Armin looks at her, disoriented, but her drowsy eyes show no sign of what she’s talking about. “I meant your little game of ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’”
Armin jumps again and if his hands weren’t holding his tray he would cover his blushed face. That was certainly not a topic he wanted to discuss with Annie. Not after they rest of the boys had noted down that he would Fuck Annie.
“I… I didn't play...”
"That’s why you did the bare minimum." Armin purses his lips because she’s right. But she doesn’t look mad at all, nor disappointed.
Now that he thinks of it, he’s never sure what Annie is really thinking. Her lethargic self makes her look aloof all the time, as if they weren’t living in the same world. And maybe they weren’t. That’s why Armin is surprised that she came to talk with him. Maybe she wants him to apologize for not standing up for the girls.
“Look… Annie…”
“I couldn’t care less about your tasteless game,” she says walking past him. And Armin watches her leave. But then she looks at him over her shoulder and adds: “Next time I’ll make sure I kick the hell out of you.” And he almost, almost swears her lips curve into a brief smile.
IV
He doesn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of Annie again, so he asks Mikasa to train with him during the following days. Not that he’s any better at dodging Mikasa’s fists, but at least his knees don’t tremble as they do when he’s in front of Annie.
And he’s starting to think that the shiver that goes down his spine whenever he spots the blond girl has nothing to do with wrestling at all.
“Do you like Annie?” Mikasa suddenly asks when they are resting (Armin visibly more worn out than Mikasa). But he still has energy to sit up with a jump, all flustered as clumsy hands flap in the air trying to deny what is obvious.
“It’s not like that! It’s just that I… I…”
“Ooh,” his friend hums. “I didn’t know Annie was your type.”
“She’s not!”
Yet when they go back to their dorms and find Annie sparring by herself, punching a sandbag hanging from a tree with the twilight at her back, Armin can’t help but stare . She’s short, shorter than Armin, but she irradiates an energy as strong as the sun that dazzles and burns him.
Mikasa looks at him out of the corner of her eye as he gasps like a fish out of water.
“Yes, tell me more about how she’s not your type.”
V
When it’s their time to wrestle again, quite a crowd gathers around them. Word had spread among the boys that Armin had a thing for Annie, so they stood there, all devilish grins and folded arms.
“Get lost!” He mutters at them, but no one listens to him. They are too busy placing bets on how long Armin will endure against Annie.
She stands a few meters away from him, unbothered and indifferent. And Armin tries very hard to stop his chest from jumping, but it’s all useless.
Mikasa comes to him and places a hand on his shoulder, transmitting some courage into her friend. “It’s going to be okay, remember what we trained.”
But Armin doesn’t remember a shit when her blue, blue eyes pierce him and his face is buried in the ground in less than a heartbeat, a knee on his back and both arms locked up in Annie’s hold.
It’s clear that he wasn’t born for this. Good thing that he was clever, at the very least. Though he always felt like a fool around Annie, especially when she’s on top of him in an awkward position.
“Hum, Annie, I think you can let go of Armin now,” Mikasa says what he can't, his mouth all full of dirt. But Annie just leans over him and whispers in his ear:
“It seems like it was me who fucked you up at the end.”
+1
Annie isn’t there to make friends. She doesn’t even think of Reiner and Berthold, her fellow comrades, as her friends. She stopped caring about the world around her a long time ago.
That is, until she meets a guy who was too anxious for his own good.
And it’s clear that Armin isn’t cut out for military life. He wouldn’t have lasted a week at Marley under their training.
He’s everything that she’s not. He’s too insecure, too sensitive, and cares too much. And maybe that’s the reason she can’t stop watching him closely.
Three years go by in the blink of an eye and Armin isn’t the same scaredy-cat Keith Shadis could make fun of. Although he still wears that ridiculous bowl cut Annie would like to shave off. He’s only sixteen, but he’s clever, sharp and has the strategic mind of a commander. He’s still too unsure of himself to realize it, though.
And maybe that’s what Annie likes about Armin. That he’s too clumsy to realize what a diamond in the rough he is.
But Annie doesn’t have time to fool around with Armin. She has a mission to accomplish and a father to return to.
When they graduate from military training, Annie is sure to choose the Military Police Brigade. They have yet to find the Founding Titan within the walls of Mitras. And it seems that she’s the only one who remains dedicated to their mission while Reiner and Berthold play Eldians.
She is alone in the girls’ dormitory, arranging the few things she will take to the imperial city, when someone knocks on the door.
“Come in,” she says without lifting her eyes from her pitiful suitcase.
Armin peeks through the door. “Hi, Annie.”
And she blinks repeatedly because Armin was the last person she expected to walk through that door.
“Armin? What is it?”
“I heard you were leaving.”
“Yes, I am.”
Silence surrounds them both and Annie doesn’t know what else Armin expected. She had never been good at talking, after all.
“I wanted to say goodbye,” he mumbles. And she’s not dense enough to not see the blush in his cheeks. “It won’t be the same when we get out of here.”
A shadow crosses Annie’s face. No, it won’t be .
“I don’t like to say goodbye.” And it’s true. Annie is not good at feelings either. The only thing she’s good at is fighting. That’s what she had trained for her entire life. And no boy was going to distract her from her mission.
Even if it was Armin.
He holds out a hand, expecting her to shake it.
“But I do.” He smiles softly.
And if it was any other boy who had snuck into her room while she was alone, she would have grabbed his arm and put him in a wrestling hold. But it was Armin . So she shakes his hand lightly.
And his smile widens.
“You are a good friend, Annie.”
A pang of guilt stabs into Annie’s chest. She wishes she had never befriended the boy, but it’s hard to hate Armin, especially when he smiles so warmly at her, the girl who will soon betray them all.
She only wishes that they could meet again, maybe in another life, so she doesn’t have to hold back her feelings anymore.