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He never would have expected it, but Jean didn’t mind his budding friendship with Armin. Sure, they had grown up together, but the two had never been what you would call close. However, when Jean and Armin found themselves alone in a new city, they naturally began to spend more time together. At first it was just a nice little piece of home, but as their weekly meetups grew in number, he found Armin to be quite pleasant company. Probably because he didn’t have Eren and his loud mouth hanging around him all the time.
“You know, maybe you should consider ditching Jaeger all together. You’re a lot more likeable without him,” Jean jested in a pause of silence while the pair of young men walked through the city’s main park.
Armin sighed. “And just when I thought you were getting over your petty rivalry. I guess some things never change.”
Jean chuckled in response and took a bite of his sandwich. They fell back into conversation about things Jean had seen at the auto shop, lectures Armin had attended at the university, and rumors of what had been going on back home. It was pleasant, comfortable. They had just come into sight of the trolley that would take Jean back to his apartment when Armin suddenly stopped.
“You good?” Jean raised a brow and looked over his shoulder.
Armin nodded. “Yeah, I was just reminded. Next week, can we go to the new aquarium? I’m supposed to do some research for a class… and it might be fun. Sunday around four?”
“Yeah sure. Sounds like a good time. I’ll bring my sketch pad.” With that, the trolley bell rang, Jean deposited his coins, and stepped aboard. Armin waved goodbye one last time and started back towards his university campus.
Jean had never been to an aquarium before; he’d gone to the beach, and a zoo once, but that’s not exactly the same thing. He couldn’t say visiting one was his top priority, but still he smiled at the thought of it. At this point in their relationship, they had a pretty good grasp on each other's passions, so Jean knew the love Armin held for everything related to the sea, (though that probably would have been obvious to anyone considering he moved to a brand new city just to study it at some classy institution) and while it wasn’t quite as entertaining, seeing someone else get excited about something they love was still fun.
In twenty minutes, Jean was back at his shoddy one bedroom apartment. He’d worked his ass off just so that he wouldn’t have to share a room, and the alone time was worth it, even if it meant that the lights sometimes shut off without reason, or that he had to jiggle the key a certain way to get the door to unlock.
Jean shrugged off his winter coat and grabbed his sketch pad, ready for some idle pass time on his day off. He let his thoughts wander as he penned down a caricature of his two friends, Sasha and Connie, riding on horses around a farm. He really should write them soon. He’d much rather call, but country bumpkins as they were, telegram and snail mail was as much as Jean could hope for.
Sometimes he missed his friends and family, but he couldn’t fathom how he and Armin were the only ones to leave the countryside. Not like that was the plan or anything. His best friend, Marco, had gone against their years of hypotheticals to stay back and care for his sickly aunt. Jean would be lying if he said that he didn’t almost quit on his own plans at the news. But he was committed, and Marco was insistent that he would join him in the city in a few years, though considering how much talk Marco had been having about enlisting, Jean wouldn’t be shocked to hear him go back on their plans once more. He grimaced at the thought. He’d better write soon.
…
The week passed quickly enough, despite all the extra shifts Jean had picked up (chopping vegetables with unreliable lighting proved to be quite a dangerous task). He smoothed out the bottoms on the front of vest and did a bit of a spin in front of his mirror. This was something of a special occasion, so he figured dressing nice wouldn’t hurt. He checked his watch, and hair, once more. Grabbing his sketchbook, he was off.
He met Armin at their usual spot in a park outside the university, and as it turned out, Jean wasn’t the only one who thought to clean up his look a bit. Armin wore a blue vest under his wool winter coat with a Panama cap that matched his tie.
“You look sharp.” Jean said with a smile.
Armin’s face turned a bit pink. “Thank you,” he replied, looking away, “you too.” It didn’t take long for Jean to figure out that Armin didn’t take compliments very well, and as a result, he had sort of made a point to do it as often as possible. Seeing him get all flustered was fun.
“Thanks. I assume you know where to go?” Jean asked.
“Yeah, it’s just 3 blocks down straight ahead.” Armin started down the sidewalk with a spring in his step, showing his excitement.
“That's not too bad. Just don’t run off without me” Jean said, picking up his pace to catch up. Despite being a full head shorter than him, Armin could be a fast walker.
Soon enough they were at the aquarium, where upon entry, Armin was speechless… for about thirty seconds before he whipped out his notepad and furiously started scribbling out his observations while spouting countless facts about the various creatures on display. Jean could only watch slack jawed, startled and impressed by his friend's multitasking abilities. Jean could barely draw and talk at the same time, sometimes getting so engrossed that he didn’t even notice someone calling his name.
“Slow down, the fish aren’t going anywhere” Jean smirked.
Armin tapped his pen to his chin once before resuming his notes. “Yes, but I am. I’ve got to seize this opportunity. This is as close as I can get to actually being in the ocean without a boat.” Armin tucked away his notepad under his arm. “Where to?” Armin looked to Jean expectantly.
“Well…” Jean glanced around the opening room of the aquarium. It was moderately busy, about what he’d expected for a Sunday afternoon. He saw couples milling around, young children with their parents, and a few groups of young teens laughing amongst themselves. And fish. Lots of fish that he could tell no significant difference between. “I’ll let you decide. You’re the expert.”
Armin gave him a sharp nod. “Right. This way then, I’d like to see the open ocean fish.” Armin gestured down a hallway to the right, and waited for Jean to follow.
“By the way, what are you even writing down? Considering it’s you, you probably know what everything here is anyway, and it’s not like you can really get in there and observe them or anything.”
Armin hummed. “You’re pretty much right, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still exciting. I want to write everything down so I don’t forget. Other than that, I’m writing about how the aquarium is kept, what kind of fish they have, and how the fish behaved. That’s the bulk of the assignment.”
They settled against a way across from a tank of tiny silver fish. Jean had forgotten they were there for one of Armins classes. He pulled out his own pencil and began sketching out the fish tank and surrounding room. Just something light to occupy his hands.
Armin spoke for a few more minutes before he suddenly paused. “I didn’t know you drew environments so well.”
Jean took a second before realizing he was talking to him. “Huh? Oh yeah. It’s something I started after moving here. Lots of buildings.” Jean added some more detail to the tank.
“Do you like it? Drawing buildings.” Armin asked.
“Not as much as I like drawing people.” Buildings could be expressive, but not as much as a face. They weren’t nearly as fun.
“You’re really good at it. Did you ever consider becoming an architect? I know there’s some courses at my college.”
Jea rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know…” Jean thought about it. It could be a step up from his current job, but he never fancied himself a college man. He wasn’t studious as Armin, and going to school was a lot for something he’d only been doing a couple months. But still he liked the idea of it. “Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”
Armin nodded. “Want to take a closer look?” So the pair made their way around the aquarium, stopping at every tank for around 15 minutes while Jean would sketch and Armin would continue to talk about all the different species, taking occasional notes. Jean mostly tuned it out, though every once in a while he’d be snapped back to attention when Armin dropped a word like “poisonous” or “rare”.
Around the hour mark, Jean had had enough of drawing and tucked his supplies away. Armin, on the other hand, seemed to be just getting started. From what Jean could pick up, he was giving an intense history on fishing boat’s impact on exploration and discovery.
Stopping in front of what seemed to be the largest tank in the museum, Jean took the opportunity to observe the surroundings once more, this was pretty much a glorified fish market to him anyways, and noticed some… changes. For some reason all the families and young friends had found their way out of the museum, and now he and Armin were the only ones who didn’t appear to be on a date. To his left, a woman kissed a man’s cheek and took his hands. A little in front and to the left, a teenage couple swung their interlocked hands back and forth, giggling about something only they could hear. In the corner, a couple was even making out. A bit forward, in Jean’s opinion. He had to look away. Instead, his eyes settled on Armin.
He was still talking about all the different fish, with that same wistful smile. He glanced down at his friend’s hands, wondering why he suddenly felt the urge to take them in his. Probably because they looked soft. He ignored it, of course, must’ve been all the couples getting into his head… but why were they getting to his head? It’s not like-
He was snapped out of his thoughts when Armin locked eyes with him. Turned out he was so lost in thought he forgot he was staring.
“Jean?” Jean took that as a cue to look away, and hoped that the low lighting had done something to hide his flustered expression, even if Armin appeared to have reacted the same.
“That was the last exhibit right?” Jean asked, wiping his sweaty palms on the sides of his pants.
“Yes. I think I got a lot of good notes today,” Armin said, tucking his notebook back into his chest.
“Good. That’s good.” Jean hadn’t recovered yet. “Let’s go then.”
Jean kept his eyes forward as they exited the aquarium and began their walk in silence, apart from the inescapable beating of his heart.
“Jean, I hate to ask, but can I see your drawing from today? From what I saw you did a great job capturing the aquarium.” Armin asked, slowing his pace.
“Yeah, definitely,” Jean handed Armin his sketchbook, flipping to the right pages. Weird, he didn’t usually let people see his stuff, much less give them the whole book. “You can even keep some if you want.”
“Really? Thanks!” Armin flipped through the pages eagerly, before suddenly stopping with wide eyes and red cheeks. “Jean, is this me?”
Jean looked over and caught the urge to snatch the book right out of Armin’s hands. He forgot he drew that. There, in his sketchbook, that Armin was holding, was a detailed sketch of a blonde whose face he found far too interesting.
“Um, yeah.” Jean fiddled with his hat. “Sorry, like I said, drawing people is more my thing.” The memory came back to him, he had drawn it in front of one of the smaller tanks. He was impressed with how excited Armin was, even though it was far from the most interesting exhibit, and how he regretted not having a blue colored pencil to show how well Armin’s vest brought out his eyes. He cleared his throat, hoping to clear his mind with it.
“It looks amazing! No one has ever drawn me before,” that wasn’t true, but what Armin didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “I know you said I could keep some of the aquarium drawings, but do you think I could have this one too?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jean said a bit too quickly. “If you really like it that much,” he smirked, trying to seem a bit more put together.
“Thanks.” Armin selected a couple more drawings and ripped out the pages, tucking them between the pages of his notebook.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied with a playful nudge. Jean could’ve sworn he saw Armin blush, but it must’ve been the cold. They resumed their walk and, all at once too soon and not soon enough, parted ways at the trolley.
He tried to relax on his way back home, but for some reason, Jean couldn’t get his pulse to slow down. Why was he feeling so weird? All he did was go to an aquarium with a friend. Images of all the couples flashed across his mind, for some reason he couldn’t get them out of his head. But now that he thought of it, what’s the difference between two friends doing something and a couple going on a date? He’d done plenty of things with Marco that were in concept identical to his day with Armin… So why did it feel like a date? Armin and him were two friends, and Armin wasn’t a girl, so there really wasn’t any logic behind it. Sure, Armin had a sharp mind, pretty eyes, and an infectious smile that had him wishing his dreams were anywhere near as big as his. In truth, Jean really wouldn’t mind dating Armin at all but-
Wait.