Chapter Text
In the far away corners of his mind, Armin can hear the horrors of the past, haunting, lingering, making its way back to him. It seeps through his bones, paralyzes his whole body, while a familiar ache takes over his chest. He relentlessly tries to get rid of it, only to fail miserably. It has been this way ever since, and Armin wonders if he will ever truly be free of this melancholy, but maybe this is the price of living. To suffer and to find meaning, to fight and to surrender. A never-ending paradox meant to be experienced in more than a thousand days and a million hours. That in itself is a conundrum, he laughs to himself—how can one contain an endless mystery in a finite amount of time?
It is times like this she wonders what’s happening in that brilliant mind of his. She lays her head on his chest and listens to the sound of his heartbeat. As his chest heaves up and down, Annie thinks about the past few years. She never knew how much love she’s capable of giving, until she started loving him. Armin loves to tell her how much he loves her, and Annie feels weak not being able to say it back as often as she should. He has a way with words, she doesn’t. He tells her it’s alright; he feels her love in the air anyway. One day he tells her, “You have your own way of loving.” She knows he’s right. But Annie tries. For him.
“I love you,” she says in a soft whisper one night, the words coming from the deepest depths of her being. “I love you,” She repeats.
She thinks she’s equal parts foolish and coward for hiding herself when she feels the deepest.
The moonlight enters the room through the open window. Annie looks at the stars and wonders how they were formed. She carefully places a hand on his chest as a thought forms in her head. She has become fascinated with the sky just as Armin is captivated by the ocean.
“I’m beginning to appreciate the world we live in,” Annie confesses.
“Is that so?” He says as he brushes a few strands of her hair from her face.
“I think you’re wrong,” Annie lifts her head from his chest and faces him. “About how my eyes resemble the ocean.” The moonlight passing through the window illuminates her face, and Armin can see her light blue eyes staring at him.
“Your eyes are the color of the ocean.” Annie continues. “Mine is the color of the sky during the day.”
Armin holds his breath for a second. It’s moments like this he wonders how she figures to break him out of his hopelessness. He looks at her with complete marvel, tracing the side of her face with his hand, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I think you’re right,” Armin gives her a small smile.
Her own way of loving—rather than tell, Annie shows. She places a tender kiss on his forehead, then wraps her arms around him. Armin feels her breath on his neck and the warmth of her hands on his skin. He lets his sad thoughts be washed away by Annie’s touch, and slowly, he lets go of them. He clings to her as a buttress against any obstacle, just like he acts as a pillar for her when things get unsteady.
A few moments later, Annie drifts off to sleep. But Armin still ponders on what Annie said. He has always been enchanted by the ocean and the depths of it, but she might have just given him a new thing to be riveted by—this time, the sky and the vastness of it.
If he is the ocean, then she is the sky.