Chapter Text
Dying at sixteen years old is unconventional. To look around and see others laughing without a care in the world, realizing that she herself will never be able to do that again, is heartbreaking. Historia longs for the normalcy she will never be able to experience again. Not even her time spent at school gives her a sense of it anymore.
She sits in a classroom, at a desk, copying down notes, which is normal, she supposes, but then she realizes that it's all for naught. What is she going to do with this information? She certainly won't need it in the future, because she'll be dead. Historia doesn't care much for pessimism, but optimism has been hard for her, lately. Armin, her friend, tells her that it's understandable - she's watching everyone around her grow up, knowing that she will not be following them, after all. But she thinks it's more than that.
It's always been more than that for Historia. She knows herself - knows that she's the kind of girl to believe in fairytales and happy endings, and to be denied one of her own? Well, she's not been taking it well. Long story short though, she wants to find love before she kicks it. She's been told plenty of times by the people around her that she won't be able to do that in the short amount of time she has left. Their faces twist into sympathetic expressions that she finds horribly ugly each time they do it, and Historia wants nothing more than to prove them wrong.
She doesn't see why she can't not do it. Usually, but sometimes it does get to her, and then Armin would tell her otherwise.
You'll find someone, he would tell her each time she'd voice her doubts. And Historia would believe him every single time. It's funny in a horrible sort of way, she thinks, that she is dying, but also happens to only be worried about romance. At least there she can find normalcy. Somewhat.
Historia quickly grows bored of the lesson she decided to sit through, and curses herself for not using the one opportunity she was given to stop going to school. As much as she likes her teacher, she cannot for the life of her like the subject he teaches. Math, she thinks, definitely came straight from the deepest pits of hell. She doesn't even bother with listening to it, at this point. Instead, she doodles on the side of her paper. They're cute little drawings, and she's quite proud of them. There's a puppy with a bow tie, a cat with a top hat, and then she's drawing hearts all over her notes. By the time the lesson ends, she's left with a few short examples of functions, and she can't be bothered to ask any of her classmates for the rest.
Armin waits for her at the front of the classroom. His long hair is pulled back messily with one of the hair ties she had let him borrow earlier this morning, and it brings a slight smile to her face. Armin, as smart as he is, never could quite get the hang of tying his hair up into anything more elaborate than a ponytail. He claims he'll figure it out every time Historia and the other girls offer to teach him, and they respond by shaking their head in amusement, because they know he won't. He's too busy for it, with all of the extracurricular activities he does.
"Are you coming with me to hang out with Eren and Mikasa, Historia?" He asks her, and she nods. She's not close to many people, but she gets along fine with them. Mikasa is a fairly quiet girl, and Eren is the complete opposite, but they're both nice enough. Historia doesn't know if she'd call them friends, though. She doesn't find it easy to get to know people.
"Yeah." She tells Armin, grabbing her bag and heading out with him to their locker. The school had gained a lot of students this year, with Maria High School closing, and they no longer had enough room for each person to have their own locker. Historia doesn't care. It's how she became friends with him, after all. And they had gotten close quite quickly in a bit of a bittersweet way. Armin was too smart for his own good, and had managed to figure out Historia was seriously ill after she had missed one too many classes. He confronted her about it, asked if she was doing okay, and they hit it off from there.
She hadn't yet told him that she would be dead by next year. He knows that the chances of her not making it are high, but he doesn't know just how bad it is. She feels like a horrible person for hiding that fact, but she just doesn't want to burden him with it. Perhaps, she thinks, the anticipation of death is worse than it being sudden. Perhaps, she thinks, she will save everyone from an abundance of pain if she goes quickly, and they're not expecting it.
Historia hides a grimace. She does not like the morbid turn her thoughts have taken. She doesn't even fully understand why they're so morbid today. She likes to think that she's an optimistic girl, despite all that is happening, but she guesses that today's just... a bad day.
"Oh, here." Armin says, gesturing for her bag. Historia hands it to him. "I'll put that in our locker for you."
"Of course you will." Eren hollers, nearly half way across the hall. Mikasa stands beside him with her arms crossed, looking annoyed at how loud he is. Sarcastically, Eren continues to yell; "You're such a gentleman, Armin!"
Armin flips him off half-heartedly as his face turns red, Historia can't stop the grin spreading across her face. Even Mikasa is hiding a smile. "Fuck you, Eren!"
Historia is a little surprised when Mikasa joins in on bantering with Armin. She's usually content to just sit and watch. "Ooh, Armin, that's a naughty word! You never would've said that last year!" She shouts back. "Historia, you're a bad influence!"
Historia snorts as her and Armin join Mikasa and Eren. "Never thought I'd hear someone say that in my life." She says. Mikasa just sighs, pushing her hair behind her ears.
"It was bound to happen eventually - fuck, Armin, let me have that extra hair tie around your wrist. You never use it anyways."
Armin frowns, and waves an arm around his hair. "I used one of them today though, see?"
Mikasa looks at him flatly. "If you don't give me that hair tie I'm going to spend the entirety of our lunch in the washroom, chopping all my hair off."
Historia thinks she's being completely honest, and apparently, so does Armin. He hands her the hair tie, and Mikasa thanks him.
The rest of Historia's day is fairly boring, up until it decidedly isn't. Like always, she had been dozing off in chemistry, willing herself not to completely pass out from boredom when she walked in.
Historia instantly notices that she is much, much shorter than the other girl. In fact, she notices that they look like complete opposites. Where the other girl is tall, slender, with narrow eyes so dark they could pass as black, and brown hair styled into a messy ponytail with long bangs framing her pointed, undoubtedly attractive face, Historia is short with wide, blue eyes, and she tends to prefer to wear her hair down. And as much as Historia doesn't care about beauty standards, she feels... self-conscious, for a moment, as she gazes up at her. The other girl is beautiful.
But then brown meets blue, and Historia no longer feels at all. She can only stare - can only focus on her heart pounding in her chest. She wonders if this is what having a crush on someone feels like, because she has absolutely no experience in that department, and she can only go off on what others tell her.
Without breaking eye contact, the girl moves swiftly over to her desk and offers her hand.
"I'm Ymir." She says. "I'm new to the school."