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Eren has been steeling himself to ask Mikasa out. Yes, really, Mikasa Ackerman. That Mikasa Ackerman. The most terrifying girl in Sina Academy. But Eren isn’t scared of her because Eren isn’t scared of anything. They’ve been friends since birth, Mikasa always racing right behind him; his other best friend Armin always arrived at the tree at the end of the line a distant third, panting, kicking up the leaves, noticing their colors. Eren’d always asked him: what, did you stop to smell the flowers? And Armin always said, with no trace of self-consciousness, that yes, he did, and they smelled like “beautiful, blooming aromas”, or “volatile organic compounds”. Okay, sure, whatever, Armin, Eren always thought, even though he always listened. But back to the important part! Mikasa! What’s the worst thing Mikasa could say when Eren shows up at her afterschool wrestling practice armed with a veritable arsenal of promposal materials: a megaphone; a box of chocolates from CVS; a giant teddy bear, bigger than his body; and a poster that says PROM WITH ME? DON’T MAKE ME CRY next to a colossal crying emoji he drew and colored himself?
“What?” says Mikasa.
“I said,” Eren repeats into the megaphone, “WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME?”
He’s suddenly a lot less brave when Annie Leonhart stops enacting whatever exquisite torture techniques she’s demonstrating on a lowly freshman, dusts off her knees, and comes to stand next to Mikasa. (Perhaps Mikasa is only the second scariest girl in school, Eren realizes now.) Annie leans her chin on Mikasa’s shoulder and curls a possessive arm around her waist. Mikasa’s expression seems unreadable to Eren.
“Oh,” her voice falters. “Eren.”
Everyone’s staring at them now. He’s Making A Scene.
“Mikasa,” Eren says, blinking. He feels a total lack of understanding, and a total disconnect with the ground. “Here,” he says, trying to pass her the giant teddy bear; in doing so, he drops the poster, and the box of chocolates opens with a loud BANG, amplified by the megaphone, which is now on the ground. The megaphone buzzes, feedback reverberating, and the whole wrestling team shrieks. Little balls of chocolate roll everywhere. The freshmen dig for them. Annie stares at Eren.
“She doesn’t want you, man,” says Annie. “Now leave before I kick your ass.”
“This is not about you, you freak of nature! You traitor!” yells Eren. (It becomes clear to everyone present he needed no megaphone to amplify his voice, after all.) “I’m asking Mikasa!”
Mikasa’s still looking at him with that same unreadable expression. He’s searching for what it could possibly mean, Mikasa’s brows arched upwards, her eyes not meeting his, her mouth pouting, and then, suddenly, inexplicably, he finds its meaning: pity. Mikasa’s leaning into Annie’s touch and feeling, of all things, pity. For him. For the mighty Eren Yeager.
“Oh, Eren,” Mikasa repeats, “can we not do this here?”
Even Eren’s socially aware enough to understand the answer to his question. It’s a no.
“FINE,” he yells as he leaves everything but the teddy bear behind (too much of a hassle, and it was fucking expensive), even though it’s not fine. It’s so far from fine. “I’LL FIND SOMEONE HOTTER TO GO WITH!”
When he’s far enough away from the gaggle of giggling wrestling girls, though, he breaks down and begins to cry into the arm of the giant, fluffy teddy bear. Guess he was right in his poster (hastily made at midnight when he remembered he had to ask someone out to prom, and who better than his bosom friend): he did, in fact, start to cry.
***
A small, warm hand on his shoulder lifts him out of his self-pity party.
“Hey,” says Armin’s voice. He knows it’s Armin’s voice because he’d recognize it anywhere. Whether it’s going off about organic chemistry or marine biology or whatever other IB/AP/Honors class he’s taking right now, or whatever documentary he’s been watching or Shakespeare play he’s been reading, or whether it’s scolding him for running too fast with scissors and splitting his chin open (something that’s happened more recently than he’d like to admit [read: two weeks ago]), Eren knows that voice. Of course. It’s Armin’s voice.
Armin’s voice, his touch, is immediately comforting, and for a second only, Eren takes a breath in, stops his crying. But then, as he turns back and looks into Armin’s blue eyes, he’s reminded of someone else with blue eyes. Someone much meaner. Who TOOK Mikasa from HIM.
“Armin,” he wails, “Mikasa said no to my promposal. I FUMBLED MIKASA ACKERMAN, ARMIN.”
Armin looks concerned. He sits down next to Eren, still holding on to the latter’s shoulder. “Sure, that is a colossal fumble,” he agrees. “But I mean, yeah, of course,” he adds when Eren looks up at him, furious and betrayed. “She’s dating Annie.”
“WHY,” Eren screams, muffled, into the teddy bear.
“I didn’t know you liked her so much,” said Armin. “I would’ve told you. In fact,” he remembers, “she told you herself. Mikasa. Remember? At movie night at Jean’s house?”
Eren blinks. Once, then twice. “She said it? She said she was dating Annie?”
“Yeah,” says Armin. “Remember. She told us all that she’d finally asked Annie out. She was all blushy. It was cute,” Armin giggles. “I was happy for her.”
Eren suddenly remembers. He feels the memory come back to him like a jolt of lightning through his body.
“Oh my God,” Eren says. “I thought she said she was asking Annie to be roommates with her. In college. Jean even said it. He said, ooh, Historia will say they were roommates.”
Armin corrects him. “No, Eren, he said HISTORIANS will say they were roommates. Because they’ll be rooming together in college AND they’re dating.”
“But they will be roommates,” Eren says, confused. “And what does history have to do with it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” says Armin, petting his back, and then whispers, “kitten,” because Armin is, for all his good qualities, also chronically online.
“I’m not a kitten,” Eren whines, and then curls into a ball, nuzzling himself into Armin. “Oh my God, Armin, I feel so bad,” he sobs, and instinctively buries his face further in Armin’s neck. He’s cried into Armin’s shoulder, inhaling his scent, the vague smell of cologne and chlorine, many a time before. What’s one more time, he thinks. “I told her I’d find somebody hotter to go to prom with. Armin, I fucked up. She’s gonna think I’m an incel. She’ll never talk to me again–”
“Wait,” Armin interrupts his spiral into self-loathing. Armin does have that talent; Armin makes him believe like he’s someone worth following into battle, someone worth going to the ends of the earth for. In other words: Armin’s own worth is incalculable, his closeness irreplaceable.
“Yeah?” asks Eren, face painted full of angry tears.
“What if you do find someone hotter to go to prom with,” Armin says, smirking a bit, eyes shining with slight malice, “and you make her jealous.”
Armin has another talent (well, besides swimming and reading and being good at literally everything academic ever): he’s a manipulative little shit. His plans always, always come to fruition. Eren’s never beaten him in chess. (Unless you count throwing the board on the ground, pieces scattering and shattering, as winning. [Which Eren does.])
“Okay,” says Eren. “Sure. Who’s hotter than Mikasa?”
“Annie,” says Armin. “But that’s not an option.”
Eren shudders. No, not an option at all.
“Historia,” says Armin, pensative, “but Ymir would kill you.”
Eren agrees with a nod.
“Oh,” says Armin, like a firefly or a lamp just lit up in his head. “There is someone she’d be really upset to see you with.”
“Who?” presses Eren.
“Well,” says Armin, “me.”
Armin’s blue eyes glow like diamonds; the corners of his mouth crinkle.
***
And now here they both are, Armin and Eren, wearing matching black suits and light teal cummerbunds. Carla Yeager is taking millions of pictures; they don’t have a proper in-house stairwell, and neither do the Arlerts, what with the little two-bedroom Armin and his grandpa share; but: the apartment complex they both live in has a little waterless fountain, and they both pose side by side and back to back. Eren groans when his mother repositions him. Armin says, of course, Mrs. Yeager, with a pleasant smile; Carla no longer bothers to tell him to call her by her first name.
“Nice color,” Carla praises them. “It really brings out both y’all’s eyes. Blue and green. Like pools.”
Armin beams. “That’s why I picked teal.”
To tell the truth, Eren thinks, if he really admits it to himself, Armin is so thoughtful; Armin always takes such good care of Eren. When Eren broke his hip trying parkour for the first time, Armin brought him his homework and soup every day; he even did said homework for him. Eren’s grades were never so high as they were in tenth grade.
Carla finally finishes her conga parade of humiliation and lets them go. The car’s waiting outside, and Armin lets Eren into the backseat first. Eren groans when he sees who’s driving the beat-up 1980 mustard Toyota Corolla. It sparkles like gold, impeccably clean.
“Not you,” Eren whines.
“Yes, me,” says Levi, their math teacher, and worse, Mikasa’s guardian. “I’m chaperoning this shit. I have to go anyway.”
“No,” Eren cries out in horror.
Armin makes use of his talents and calms Eren down with a finger down his arm, then two down his spine. Now why does the latter make him shiver, make him forget he’s in a car with Levi.
To Eren’s surprise, though, the ride isn’t so bad. Because as soon as they’re on the road, Levi absolutely BLASTS the ENTIRETY of Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. Eren, of course, knows every word.
“Man, Levi, I didn’t know you were cool like that,” quips Eren when they arrive and the radio’s off.
Levi does not dignify that with a response. “Alright, go on in while I park, you brats,” he says, deadpan, and then looks at them through the mirror. “Just know I’m gonna have my eyes on you the whole time.”
“We should make an entrance,” says Armin. Make A Scene, he means. He grabs Eren’s hand, interlocks their fingers; Eren squeezes back.
“Yeah,” agrees Eren. “Let’s show them all!” he shouts, with his usual unflappable determination and complete lack of volume control.
There’s just one problem: he doesn’t remember now why it matters so much. Why did it matter so much?
When they’re approaching the start of the staircase leading into the dance floor, in full view of the whole Sina Academy senior class, Armin leans in. “It’s time. We should kiss.”
“Oh,” says Eren, the wind knocked so far out of him it’s forming a tornado in Australia.
“Hey,” says Armin, still holding his hand, soothing him. “It’s a strategic kiss. I need to do it. You know. For strategy.”
Eren is almost giving in, eyes closing, when he remembers something. “Armin,” he says. “Annie’s with Mikasa now. I can’t be with her. I can’t try to impress her. To be honest, I’m not sure if I want to,” he admits.
Armin smiles. “I know,” he says, and then presses his lips to Eren’s, leaving him stuttering, breathless.
Okay, so, maybe he likes it. Maybe he likes it when Armin kisses him. He checks himself. Is he drunk? No, he hasn’t had any alcohol, because he’s not in with Reiner’s cool crowd. They’ve certainly pregamed this already, since Annie’s shoving Mikasa against a wall, hungry and passionate, and sweet shy Bertolt’s doing a very tone-deaf I Will Always Love You on the karaoke machine.
“I think I love you,” Eren blurts out, strings of actually-for-once-washed hair falling out of his bun.
“Oh, Eren,” says Armin, bumping his nose into Eren’s chin, then tilting Eren’s head down to draw him into a passionate kiss, “I’ve always loved you.”
The last thing Eren thinks, before drowning in Armin, Armin, Armin, is: I wonder if I still have that giant teddy bear. I think Armin would like it.
***
“Oh, thank God,” says Mikasa, when Annie takes a break from attacking her neck, painting bruises on it with her mouth.
“What,” asks Annie between gasps.
Anyone who doesn’t know her would think she’s being rude. Mikasa, however, knows she communicates with her hands. Not her words. Mikasa’s like that, sometimes, often, too. Tactile. Wanting. But right now, she’s spotted something with her eagle eyes.
“Eren and Armin are making out,” Mikasa says.
“Fuckin’ finally,” Annie agrees. “I was so sick of them circling each other like vultures.”
“So true,” Mikasa agrees.
“I can’t believe Eren asked you out,” Annie says.
Mikasa laughs, the memory forever etched into her brain, unfortunately. “Oh God, that was horrific,” she says.
“Anyway,” says Annie, who’s recovered her breathing pattern, “what do you say to this: I’m going to untie this corset.”
Why not? There are no chaperones here. Weren’t there supposed to be chaperones, Mikasa wonders, and then decides she doesn’t care. “Yes, Annie, please, God,” she says. So Annie laughs, freely, blushing, and bites Mikasa’s neck gently, lightly, waiting to hear her scream.