Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

College wasn't hard. College was boring.

At least, that's how armin saw it.

He wasn't drowning in assignments or pulling all nighters, he wasn't even falling classes. No nothing, he was... bored. Everyday was the same, wake up, drag himself to lectures about supply and demand curves, take notes on things he knew he’d forget immediately after the exam, then walk across campus to spend hours at the library.

Business Administration. That was his major. Not because he liked it, but because it made sense.
It's 2025, you don't get to study what you love, you just study what the world needs. Armin figured he could trade his 20' for a little stability later, so he sat through lectures while doodling whales in the margins of his notebooks and tried not to think about all the lives he could’ve lived instead.

Today was friday, which meant all of his classmates had plans. Friday nights meant beer pong in cramped dorms, bonfires out by the lake, trips into town. Armin’s Friday night ritual was exactly the opposite.

Coffee. Class. Library. Silence.

The café on the corner already knew his order. A latte macchiato. More sugar than coffee, but it was warm, comforting, and predictable. The milk steamer hissed like white noise behind conversations he wasn’t part of. The barista, who probably thought he was incapable of trying anything new, slid it across the counter without even asking his name.

From there, it was classes until his shift at the library.

The library was a relic. Heavy wooden tables, shelves that creaked, that musty book smell that clung to your sweater even after you left. It was where Armin felt most at ease.

Maria worked the front desk with him. Sixty-something, cardigan collector, silver hair always pinned back. She never treated him like the awkward, quiet student worker that most people looked straight through.

“You look pale.” she told him that evening, sliding him a caramel candy from her pocket like a grandmother sneaking treats at church.

“I always look pale.” he said, but pocketed the candy anyway.

Maria smiled knowingly. She never pried into his life, but she always left him feeling like someone saw him, even if just for a moment.

When his shift ended, he walked back across campus to his dorm. It wasn’t bad. Better than most, actually, his parents inheritance had paid for a single, something rare and golden on a campus where most people were crammed two or three to a room. It was comfortable. Warm. Safe. But painfully quiet.

The quiet hit harder once he closed the door behind him. No hum of fluorescent lights, no soft chatter from students searching for books. Just the low buzz of the heater and his own footsteps.
It wasn’t loneliness exactly, just the echo that came after people stopped existing around him.

He showered, pulled on sweatpants, collapsed onto his bed. Another Friday night. Just him, the glow of his phone, and the endless scroll of TikTok.

The algorithm was unhinged. Cats knocking glasses off tables. Someone rating every brand of ranch dressing. A guy claiming he could tell your MBTI by your favorite pasta shape.

And then.
“Things to do when you’re bored.”

The creator rattled off ideas like bullets: “Go for a walk, paint something, journal, pick up an instrument, learn a new language—”

That one stuck.

A language?

He wasn’t sure why it made his stomach flip, but he Googled it anyway. How to start learning a language.

Half an hour later, he was clicking through Reddit threads about “immersion” and “spaced repetition flashcards,” none of which sounded fun at all. But one comment kept popping up.

“Try Talk Talk. It pairs you with people around the world who want to learn too. I met my best friend here!”
“Just be careful, people use it like a dating app sometimes lol.”

Armin tilted his head. He didn’t need a best friend. Definitely didn’t need dating. But maybe, just maybe it would be something.

The only problem? He had no clue what language to pick.

So he did what most humans do, pulled up a random language roulette on Google, one of those neon wheels with clunky sound effects. He tapped the button.

Click click click.

It spun past Spanish, Japanese, German, Arabic. And then it stopped.

French.

Armin stared.

“Okay, French, sure. Why not.”

He could imagine himself at least pretending to be the kind of person who had Duolingo streaks and random French phrases up his sleeve.

Talk Talk greeted him with a cartoonish interface. Flags, bubbly fonts, a smiling dinosaur mascot that probably wanted his soul.

Username: sunm1n
Display Name: Armin
Age: 20
Country: USA
Speaks: English
Wants to Learn: French
Hobbies: Reading, sleeping, horror movies.
Relationship Status: Single (weird question for a language app, but whatever).

For a profile picture, he uploaded a photo of a beluga whale. He didn’t want strangers looking at his face, and a whale felt… fitting.

And then came the matches.

Sexyfrench69
bonjour sexy ;)

Blocked.

4funzahur
Feet pics?

Blocked.

user8917382
Let me teach you trough facetime cutie

Blocked.

By the fifth marriage proposal Armin considered deleting the app entirely, maybe boredom was better.

New Match!

"janomel...?" Armin read out loud.

The profile picture was a photo of a dark forest, filtered sunlight through the trees. No face.

Name: Jean
Age: 21
From: France
Learning: English
Hobbies: Soccer, cooking, complaining(???), crème brûlée.

Armin blinked at that last part. Complaining? Crème brûlée? Who wrote hobbies like that?
But hey, at least it wasn’t feet.

sunm1n
hi

janomel
Hello


sunm1n
wow you answered fast

janomel
I do not like to wait

sunm1n
fair

janomel
You are real?

sunm1n
…yeah. are you?

janomel
Yes, not old man, not girl. Just me.


sunm1n
just you huh

janomel
Yes. Just me.

Armin stared at that last message. The phrasing was odd, almost poetic. Just me.

Armin hadn't planned to stay up late.

Normally, he shut his phone off before midnight, partially to convince himself he was "healthy", but the real reason was becausa there was nothing worth staying awake for. But that night, lying in his quiet dorm with the blue glowof the screen reflected in his glasses, he felt something strange.

He didn't want to stop.

sunm1n
so... do you know any english already?

janomel
Yes, some. Not much.

sunm1n
more than me with french lol

janomel
Lol?

sunm1n
oh it stands for "laughing out loud", it's internet slang!

janomel
Ah, stupid.

Armin laughed out loud for real at that, clapping a hand over his mouth like anyone was around to hear.

sunm1n
it's a little stupid yeah

janomel
Teach me a better word.
Please.

sum1n
okay, mmhm how about "weird"?

janomel
Weird?

sunm1n
yeah it's like strange, unusual

janomel
Ah, you are weird?

sunm1n
... thanks?

Armin rolled onto his side, pillow tucked under his head, grinning into the glow of his phone. The conversation wasn't smooth, not exactly. It was cluncky, broken in places, full of pauses where Jean clearly had to think about what to type. But that clumsinnes made it... charming.

Jean insisted in returning the favor.

janomel
Now you French.

sunm1n
alr

janomel
You know bonjour?

sunm1n
yess bonjor

janomel
No. Bonjour, with "u"

sunm1n
bonjour, srry

janomel
Good. Means hello.

sunm1n
okayy so if i say bonjour at night it's like goodnight?

janomel
No. Hello, always hello.

sunm1n
so people in france just... never say goodnight?

janomel
We say "bonne nuit".

sunm1n
if i write it wrong would u understand?

janomel
...
Wrong but I understand

sunm1n
that feels illegal writing wrong

janomel
You are illegal french.

That one broke him. He laughed, real and sudden, until his stomatch hurt. It had been a long time since a message made him laugh like that. Maybe years.

It was 2 a.m. and he was smiling at his phone like an idiot.

They kept going. Word for Word.

Armin taught Jean phrases like "what's up" and "spill the tea". Jean countered with "pomme de terre", which apparently just meant potato, but sounded way fancier than it should.

Time slipped without either of them noticing.

For once, he wasn't thinking about what he didn't have. He was too busy typing, deleting, typing again, then hitting send anyway.

It wasn't love, not even close. But it was something, something distracting, somenthing warm.

Then out of no where.

janomel
I must go.

Armin blinked at the words.

sunm1n
go where?

janomel
Just go.
Sorry.

And that was it. No explanation. No goodbye. Just Silence.

Armin stared at his phone, the screen reflecting ins his tired eyes. For the first time all night, the dorm felt quiet again. Too quiet.

Armin woke up later than usual, sunlight already spilling through the blinds. It took him a few moments to remember why his phone was still on the pillow beside him, screen dark but warm against his cheek.

Right. The app. The messages. Jean.

He blinked at the ceiling, then checked his notifications. Nothing new. He shrugged, more out of habit than disappointment, and set the phone aside. It wasn’t like he expected anything.

Armin shoved himself upright and ran a hand through his hair, which felt like a bird’s nest. It was Saturday. No classes. No obligations except the usual boring cycle, errands, maybe a shift at the library later if Maria needed him, homework he didn’t care about. And now, apparently, the crushing weight of waiting for a stranger’s text.

He scowled at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. Pathetic.

By late morning, he pulled on jeans and a hoodie and decided to get groceries. His dorm wasn’t far from a little supermarket, and he figured stocking up would keep him from staring at his phone all day.

Inside, the place buzzed with students and older locals alike, the squeak of carts and hum of the refrigerators filling the air. Armin grabbed a basket and tried to look like a functioning human being.

He picked out apples, bananas, and, he hesitated, potatoes. He snorted to himself as he dropped a bag into the basket. Pomme de terre. Jean’s text echoed in his head, dry and sure. “You are illegal French.”

Armin shook his head quickly, earning a weird look from a woman stacking oranges nearby. He ducked down the aisle.

He paid, stuffed his bag, and headed back toward campus.

The dorm felt too quiet when he set the groceries down. He made himself a sandwich, ate half while scrolling TikTok, and sighed at how boring the feed was. More videos about “things to do in your free time” as if the algorithm was mocking him.

He shoved his phone facedown on the desk and cracked open a textbook. Business management, case studies, graphs and numbers. He read a paragraph three times without retaining a word of it.

The hours stretched. Homework half finished, Armin decided he might as well show up at the library. Maria, the old woman who basically ran the place, never complained when he showed up off schedule. If anything, she liked the company.

Maria was at the front desk when he arrived, glasses perched low on her nose. She looked up and smiled warmly.

“Armin. On a Saturday?”

“Yeah.” he said, dropping his bag. “Had nothing better to do.”

Maria gave a small hum that might’ve been amusement, then returned to her screen. “Well, you’re always welcome.”

The hours passed quietly. Armin reshelved books, answered a couple questions from students, and sat at the desk when Maria went on break. It wasn’t exciting, but it was steady. Comfortable.

When his shift ended, Maria waved him off with a cheerful “See you Monday!” and he felt that familiar, fleeting warmth in his chest, the kind that came from being seen, even in small ways.

By late afternoon, back in his dorm, Armin sprawled on the bed with his laptop open. Homework stared back at him. He typed a few sentences, deleted them, tried again.

Every so often, his eyes flicked to his phone. Still nothing.

He didn’t feel disappointed, exactly. Just restless.

Maybe Jean would message again. Maybe not. Armin turned back to his homework and tried to focus.

By the time evening crept in, Armin had given up on his homework. The words blurred together no matter how hard he tried, and the graphs about market analysis felt like a personal attack. He closed his laptop and shoved it aside.

The dorm was so quiet he could hear the hum of the mini fridge across the room. His groceries were put away, his errands were done, the library shift was behind him. And now… nothing.

This was always the worst part of the day.
Armin rolled over and unlocked his phone. The app icon sat there, bright and irritating. Talk Talk. He hesitated, thumb hovering, then tapped it.

The chat list was short, two creeps he’d already unmatched, and Jean. He scrolled past Jean’s name quickly. Instead, he tapped the “Find Matches” button.

New faces loaded on the screen.

Armin groaned into his pillow. “Why am I even bothering?”.

Still, he kept swiping for a while, almost on autopilot. But no matter how many profiles he skimmed, none of them felt worth messaging. None of them made him laugh.
He closed the app and tossed the phone onto his blanket, rolling onto his back.

Hours crawled by. He watched half a horror movie, got distracted halfway through, and ended up pacing his room instead. He scrolled TikTok again (yes again).

He even opened his French textbook once, the one he’d ordered impulsively last night after spinning the roulette. It was still shrink-wrapped. He shoved it into a drawer and forgot about it.

By midnight, exhaustion settled in. Armin plugged his phone in, set it on the nightstand, and crawled under the blankets. The last thing he saw before drifting off was the dark screen, reflecting the faint outline of his face.

Morning sunlight dragged him awake again. He groaned, reached for his phone automatically, and blinked against the brightness of the screen.

A new notification sat at the top.

Talk Talk — 2 new messages from janomel
sent at 3:47 a.m.

Jean had texted him.

Armin blinked, rubbed his eyes, and opened the chat.

janomel
Sorry I left yesterday. Had to go.
You sleep?

He stared at the words for a long moment, half buried in his blankets. The timestamp made sense, 3:47 a.m. here was morning in France. He did the math quickly in his head. Six hours ahead. When Jean was starting his day, Armin was crashing into bed.

The thought made something twist in his chest, though he couldn’t quite name it. Annoyance? Amusement? Some weird blend of both.

Armin yawned and typed a reply, then stopped. Deleted it. Tried again. Deleted that too. For a minute, he just sat there, thumb hovering over the keyboard, debating what the right thing to say was.

Good morning? Too much.
No worries? Too formal.
I did sleep, thanks? Weird.

He sighed, dropped his phone onto the blanket, and pushed himself out of bed. Breakfast first. Maybe the words would come easier after caffeine.

By the time he’d eaten and showered, it was past noon. His phone buzzed a few times, but only with Youtube notifications and an email about the campus laundry service. Nothing from Jean.

Armin gave in and opened the app again, scrolling to their chat. No new messages. But then, at the very top of the screen, he noticed the small green dot next to Jean’s username.

janomel–active now•

His heart didn’t leap. It didn’t. It just… sped up slightly. He tapped the chat anyway. The two short messages stared back at him, patient and blunt.

Armin typed.

sunm1n
yep, i slept
hope ur day’s good

He hit send before he could overthink it. The message hanging there between them.

Chapter Text

Jean answered fast, like he’d been waiting.

janomel
No. Work.
Je suis apprenti pâtissier.

The app blinked twice before a small line of text appeared under Jean’s message.

[translated from French: I am a trainee pastry maker]

sunm1n
pastry maker? like cake?

janomel
Yes. Cake, bread, sweet things.

Armin paused. A pastry chef. Of course. Jean was already older than him, only by a year, but still, apparently already on track for something specific. Something he actually liked.

Meanwhile, Armin was knee deep in a supply chain essay, wondering if his professor even read half the papers submitted.

He stared at the word “pâtissier again, rolling it around in his mind. What would Jean think if he came here and saw what Americans called pastries? Frosting thick cinnamon rolls from mall bakeries, soggy croissants in plastic wrappers, cupcakes that were 90% sugar. It almost made him want to apologize on behalf of the whole country.

sunm1n
that's cool
i'm a student, in business
i don't like it tho

There was a long pause before Jean replied.

janomel
I do not like everything too.
But I like making sweet things.

Armin’s chest tightened, though he couldn’t tell if it was envy or just plain restlessness.

The chat bubble blinked again.

janomel
You will find something, maybe.

It wasn’t the most poetic encouragement, but it made Armin smile anyway.

They kept talking, slipping between English and French (with heavy assistance from Google Translate on Armin’s end). Jean teased him by dropping random words "fraise" (strawberry), “chocolat”, “four” (oven), forcing Armin to figure them out. The translations didn’t always land right. At one point, “pâte” came through as “paste” instead of dough, and Armin nearly lost it.

The moment broke abruptly with a shrill sound, his alarm. He groaned, scrambling to shut it off before it drove him insane. On the screen it glared back at him.

SUNDAY 8PM — HOMEWORK OR DIE

Right. The essay. The Monday lectures. Real life creeping back in.

sunm1n
ugh i have to go
homework, classes, tomorrow

janomel
I see.
Bon courage.

Armin smiled faintly. He didn’t even need the translator for that one. He’d seen it enough in the comments of random YouTube videos, good luck, stay strong.

sunm1n
thanks!
talk later?

janomel
Yes. Later.

He sat there for a minute, the faint afterimage of the chat still glowing behind his eyelids. It was stupid, how light the words were, pastry, homework, good luck, and still they managed to fill the quiet.

Armin shut the app reluctantly, opened his essay, and tried to focus. But it was harder than usual, because for the first time in his college life, Sunday night didn’t feel completely empty.

Armin’s alarm went off at 7:15 a.m., the ugliest sound in the world. He buried his face in the pillow for a solid thirty seconds before dragging himself out of bed. Mondays were brutal enough without the October cold sneaking under the window frame.

He dressed, packed the same backpack he always did, and shoved his business textbook inside, the one so heavy it could double as a murder weapon. Breakfast was quick, coffee, toast, nothing exciting. Then he was out the door, headphones in, blending into the tide of students trudging across campus.

Lecture hall at 8 a.m. was exactly what he expected, half-asleep faces, one guy snoring against the wall, the professor droning about market efficiency like it was the meaning of life. Armin took notes, though half the time he wasn’t even sure why, habit maybe. Responsibility. Whatever.

When class ended, he gathered his things automatically, sliding his notebook into his bag. Something must’ve slipped, though, because later he realized he didn’t have his copy of "Principles of Corporate Finance". But he didn’t notice then. He just went on autopilot, coffee stop, then work at the library.

The library was quiet, the way it always was on Monday afternoons. Maria was already behind the desk, cardigan buttoned, glasses sliding down her nose as she stamped returns. She greeted him warmly, like she always did, and handed him a stack of books to shelve.

“By the way, sweetheart” she said after a moment, like it was an afterthought. “Someone came by this morning asking for you.”

Armin paused, a book halfway to the cart. “…For me?”

“Yes. They said you’d dropped this in class.” She reached under the counter and pulled out his textbook, the brick thick finance one. His name was written neatly inside the cover, but still, he hadn’t expected anyone to bother returning it.

Armin took it, baffled. “Oh, thanks... Did they say who they were?”

Maria shook her head. “No. Just handed it over and left. Tall boy, dark hair, I think. But I didn’t catch a name.”

Armin blinked. He wasn’t used to classmates noticing him, much less tracking down the library to leave a book. For a moment, he tried to picture who it could’ve been. Nobody came to mind.

He tucked the book into his bag, brushing it off. Still, the strangeness of it lingered, a small itch at the back of his mind as he pushed the cart toward the stacks.

By the time his shift ended, the sky outside was already sliding toward evening. Armin shrugged on his coat, slung his bag over one shoulder, and stepped into the cold. His phone was heavy in his pocket, not literally, but enough that he kept checking it every few minutes without meaning to.

He thought about the time difference. If it was close to five here in New York, it had to be almost eleven at night in Paris. Jean could be at work. Or asleep. Or out with friends. Did he even care that Armin’s library shift was over? It felt stupid to type something like “done with work lol” when they barely knew each other.

Armin shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and kept walking, telling himself to stop thinking about it.

He cut through downtown, half on autopilot. The air smelled faintly of roasted chestnuts and exhaust, the kind of mix that stuck to the city in autumn. He meant only to pass through, maybe pick up groceries, but his feet slowed in front of a bakery he’d walked by a dozen times before without ever going in.

The glass cases inside gleamed with tarts, éclairs, and jewel bright fruit pastries. Normally, Armin wouldn’t even stop to look, he wasn’t in the habit of treating himself. Pastries were for people who celebrated things.

Still, he stood there, staring. Jean’s message from the night before echoed in his head. A trainee pastry chef. Someone who actually liked what they were doing.

Armin went inside before he could overthink. He picked out a croissant that looked at least decent, golden layers, flaky at the edges. He didn’t need it, but he wanted it, and for once that felt like reason enough.

Outside, he tore off a piece, chewed thoughtfully. It was fine. Not mind blowing. Probably nothing like the ones Jean worked with. And maybe that was exactly the point.

Armin took out his phone, angled the pastry against the bag for a picture, and opened Talk Talk. His thumb hovered over the keyboard longer than it should’ve.

Finally, he typed.

sunm1n
do u approve?

He hit send before he could delete it. The photo blinked into their chat, waiting.

Armin shoved the croissant back in the bag, wiped the crumbs off his gloves, and kept walking toward the dorms.

The room was quiet, the kind of quiet that made his thoughts echo too loud. He switched on his desk lamp and pulled out a book, not for class, just something he’d picked up from the library last week. Fiction. A habit Maria encouraged every time she slipped him a “this one’s good, you’ll like it” recommendation when she stamped his books.

Armin read for a while, letting the words untangle his brain. Eventually, his eyelids felt heavy. He snapped the book closed, glanced at his phone. Nothing. Jean still hadn’t opened the message.

With a sigh, he set it face down and went to take a shower. The steam filled the tiny bathroom, warm enough to soften the knot in his shoulders. By the time he was dressed again in a worn hoodie and sweatpants, the night had fully wrapped around campus.

Dinner was ramen. Not the fancy kind, not even the improved with an egg kind, just ramen, boiled, drained, and eaten while he scrolled through homework notes. Tomorrow was tuesday classes, and the finance professor was merciless about assignments.

He pushed the noodles around with his fork, staring at the steam curling upward. For a moment, he wondered if Jean was asleep by now. If people in France ate croissants for breakfast the way people here ate cereal. If Jean would laugh at the one Armin had bought earlier.

Armin’s phone buzzed against the desk. He froze, fork halfway to his mouth.

The notification was from Talk Talk.

janomel
This croissant... is crime.
Not approve.
Are you sleep?

Armin stared at the words, then barked a laugh before he could stop himself. He looked at the half eaten croissant on his desk, dense and greasy under its paper bag, and yeah… Jean was probably right.

sunm1n
lmao so harsh
it wasn't that bad!

janomel
It looks bad, very bad.

sunm1n
well good morning to you too
i was eating dinner

janomel
Oh, late. What you eat?

Armin looked down at his sad ramen bowl, then back at the blinking cursor. He hesitated before answering, embarrassed for reasons he couldn’t name.

sunm1n
instant ramen lol
cheap college dinner

janomel
Noodles?

sunm1n
yeah, do u have that in france?

Stupid question, of course they have.

janomel
Yes, but not like yours maybe.

Armin could almost hear the polite hesitation in that text. He huffed out a small laugh and set the phone beside his bowl, suddenly less annoyed about eating alone.

The screen buzzed again.

janomel
I must go. Later I text you.

Simple. No promises, no heart emojis, no dramatic cliffhanger. Just a plain message.

The week passed in a blur of half finished homeworks, library shifts, and a string of Talk Talk notifications that always made Armin’s stomach flip before he even unlocked his phone. Nothing dramatic, just short exchanges, little snapshots of each other’s days.

sunm1n
bonjour
just got to class

janomel
Already dark here.
I walk home.

sunm1n
i hate accounting

janomel
I hate customers.

It wasn’t deep, but it was steady. Enough to keep the boredom from swallowing him whole.

By Friday, Armin had almost convinced himself this rhythm could last forever. Wake up, drag through class, wait for the tiny ping of a message that reminded him he wasn’t moving through the week completely unnoticed.

That morning wasn’t any different. He shuffled out of his lecture hall, textbooks heavy in his bag, already thinking about coffee. The hallway buzzed with chatter as students spilled out, most of them in packs. Armin kept his head down, used to moving through unnoticed.

Which was why he froze when someone stepped directly into his path.
He noticed they were saying something. At first it was just a blur of lips moving, muffled by the music. Armin blinked, tugged one earbud out.

“Uh– Armin, right?”

Armin blinked. A tall guy stood in front of him, a little out of breath, like he’d hurried to catch up. Armin’s name sounded strange in another student’s mouth. Most people didn’t bother learning it.

“Yes?” he answered carefully, clutching the strap of his bag.

The guy nodded, relief flickering across his face. “Yeah, good. I wasn’t sure if it was you.”

Armin blinked at the guy blocking his path. He didn’t recognize him, not really, tall, long hair tied messily at the nape of his neck, and striking green eyes that seemed almost too direct for a stranger. Definitely not someone from his usual quiet bubble.

The guy’s voice was low, a little rough, like he didn’t waste time softening anything. “You work at the library, right?”

Armin hesitated, “Yeah…”

The guy nodded once, like that confirmed something. “Then you can help me. I need a book.”

Armin blinked. Out of all the reasons for someone to stop him in the middle of a crowded hallway, that hadn’t even made the list. “You… need a book.”

“Yeah.” the guy said, unfazed. “For class. Couldn’t find it on the shelves yesterday. Thought maybe you’d know where it was.”

Armin opened his mouth, closed it again. People didn’t usually notice him, much less single him out for help. It was disorienting, standing here with the hallway crowd parting around them, this stranger staring at him like he was the obvious person to ask.

Finally, Armin managed, “Sure... I can check. What’s the title?”

The guy smirked faintly, like he’d expected that answer. “I’ll come by later. Easier that way.”

Before Armin could ask "who are you, actually?", the stranger shifted back into the flow of students, swallowed up by the current like he hadn’t just derailed Armin’s entire morning.

Armin stood frozen for a beat, earbuds hanging loose in his hand, wondering why in the world anyone would go out of their way to track him down for a library book.

Armin didn’t give the stranger another thought, or at least, he told himself not to. Classes had stacked up that morning like a messy pile of papers, one lecture after another until his head throbbed. It left little room for mystery men with green eyes and too many assumptions.

By the time he slipped out of the business building, his brain was already chanting the only thing that could make that day survivable, caffeine. The café by the quad was humming with the usual chaos, but Armin ordered the same thing he always did, a latte macchiato drowned in enough milk and foam to barely qualify as coffee.

He slid into a corner table, snapped a picture of the cup with its ridiculous heart shaped latte art, and hesitated just long enough before dropping it into the Talk Talk chat.

It didn’t take long. His phone buzzed, and when he unlocked it, Jean had sent back a picture too, no filters, no effort. Just a plain paper cup, black coffee, dark and sharp against the pale counter.

janomel
[pic]
Coffee. Real one.

Armin snorted under his breath. Of course.

He pocketed the phone, finished the macchiato, and headed to the library for his shift. The quiet hit him like a blanket after the chaos outside. He clocked in, slid behind the counter, and tried to focus on the returns piling up. His phone sat just within reach, the corner of the screen peeking out, impossible to ignore.

“Checking your phone a lot today,” Maria’s voice drifted from the side, amused rather than scolding. She was shelving a stack of biographies, glasses perched low on her nose.

Armin jolted, caught. “it’s not—”

But before he could finish defending himself, a voice called his name across the counter.

“Armin.”

He turned, and there he was again. Green eyes fixed on him like they’d been waiting.

For a second he half expected he’d imagined it. But no, the same stranger from the hallway stood on the other side of the desk. He looked just as out of place among the quiet rows of books as he had in the crowded hallway.

Armin straightened a little "That’s me.” His voice was even enough, though his grip on the counter tightened.

The guy leaned one elbow on the counter like he owned the place. “I told you I’d come.”

Armin blinked. Right. The book. His brain scrambled to switch into work mode. “Okay. Uh… did you want to give me the title?”

The green eyed stranger tilted his head, studying Armin like the question was strange. “No, I want you to help me find it.”

"Huh?"

“Show me.” His voice wasn’t harsh, exactly, but it didn’t leave much room for debate.

From a few feet away, Maria glanced up from where she was reshelving. Armin could feel her eyes flick between them, her patience humming like static.

Armin’s phone buzzed on the desk, the bright screen lighting up with Jean’s name. His chest gave a little lurch, but before he could sneak a glance, Maria cleared her throat pointedly.

“Go on.” she said, in that way only she could, half command, half kindness. “Help him. I’ll watch the desk.”

Great. Perfect. Exactly what Armin needed, Maria enabling whatever this was. He slid out from behind the counter reluctantly, pocketing his phone, and followed the stranger into the maze of shelves.

The air back here always felt heavier, dustier, like the books were soaking up all the silence. Armin shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket, glancing sideways at the tall figure walking just a step ahead.

“So… what’s the class?” he asked finally. “That’ll help narrow it down.”

The stranger shot him a look over his shoulder. “History.”

“Okay… history.” Armin tried not to sound impatient. “But, like, world history? American? European?”

“History.” the guy repeated, as if that single word explained everything.

Armin bit down on a sigh. “That’s… a little broad.”

He skimmed spines, familiar titles he’d reshelved dozens of times, until his hand landed on the thick, required text most professors demanded. He pulled it free, then held it out.

The guy took it, flipped the first few pages like he’d already known it was the right one, then tucked it under his arm.

“Thanks, Armin.”

Armin froze, the syllables striking harder than they should have.

But before he could ask how do you know my name?, the stranger had already turned, stepping back into the quiet rows like he belonged there, the sound of his footsteps swallowed up in the silence.

Armin stood rooted to the spot, heartbeat ticking a little too fast. The aisle suddenly felt colder, heavier. It wasn’t until his phone buzzed in his pocket that he managed to move, pulling it out like it was a lifeline.

The screen lit up with a picture from Jean, a simple dinner plate, slices of pale cheese, and a steaming bowl of onion soup. Comfort food, framed in soft yellow light.

janomel
[pic]
soupe à l'oignon

Armin stared at the picture a little too long, his brain tripping over the words. He whispered them under his breath, butchered the pronunciation, and winced at himself. Still, his chest warmed. It was such a normal thing, sending a dinner photo. So ordinary it felt grounding, like a rope tugging him back to earth after that bizarre library encounter.

He glanced at Maria shelving nearby, debating whether she’d judge him for grinning at his phone like an idiot. Probably. He turned slightly away, snapped a quick picture of the vending machine sandwich stuffed in his bag, and deleted it before he could send something that tragic.

Instead, he typed.

sunm1n
way fancier than my cafeteria food 😤
thanks for the vocab too, i'm collecting french words
with bad accent

His phone buzzed again, almost before he’d tucked it back into his pocket. Jean had answered fast this time.

janomel
The accent is hard. Do not worry.
You can send voice note, if you want.
I help you.

Armin blinked at the screen, caught between a laugh and a grimace. Him? Send his mangled attempts at French into the void for some stranger?, well, not stranger, but still. He could practically imagine Jean wincing on the other side of the ocean.

“Everything alright, dear?” Maria’s voice floated back over. She was crouched low with a stack of thick atlases, peeking over the cart with the kind of knowing look that made Armin tuck his phone closer to his chest like she could somehow read the messages.

“Yeah” he muttered, ears warm. “Just… studying.”

She smiled faintly, not calling him out, just letting him hide in his own awkwardness.

Armin glanced down again at Jean’s message. The thought of recording his voice made his stomach flip, but the encouragement sat warmly on the screen, like Jean didn’t mind if he messed it up. Like the mistakes were part of the point.

He didn’t reply right away. Instead, he slipped the phone into his pocket, promising himself he’d think about it later, maybe.

By the time his shift ended, the library was dark and quiet, Maria humming something soft as she locked the front doors. She patted his shoulder gently on the way out, reminding him to eat something “that isn’t out of a vending machine.”

Armin promised, and for once, he meant it.

Back in his dorm, he kicked off his shoes, set his phone on the counter, and pulled out actual ingredients from the tiny fridge. Pasta, tomato sauce, garlic, nothing spectacular, but homemade enough to smell like comfort once the pan started to hiss. He chopped with more focus than usual, his mind only wandering when the steam fogged his glasses.

When the food was done, he plated it like he was in some cooking competition, even tossed on a bit of basil just because. He snapped a picture and sent it off.

sunm1n
[pic]
i cooked today
what do you call this in french?

The three dots appeared almost instantly.

janomel
Pâtes à la tomate.
Simple, but good.

Armin grinned. He muttered the phrase to himself, pâtes à la tomate stumbling over the vowels. Jean was right. The accent really was impossible. He stared at the text for a long moment, thumb hovering, pulse picking up.

Then, before he could chicken out, he hit record.

“Uh… pâtes… à la… tomate.” he whispered into the mic, voice shaky but soft, like saying it too loud would make the walls of his dorm laugh at him. He pressed send, heart racing, and dropped the phone face down on the desk like it had burned him.

He almost didn’t want to look when it buzzed again.

janomel
Good.
Here, I show you.
Voice message (0:07)

Armin froze. His thumb hovered, nerves twisting tight in his chest. He’d been the first to send one, but somehow this felt heavier. Riskier. He swallowed, pulled at the little tie holding his hair back, and finally pressed play.

“Pâtes à la tomate." Jean’s voice said, smooth vowels carrying a softness that didn’t match the picture Armin’s brain had conjured up. He’d expected something harsher, maybe even sharp and loud. But this was steady. Low, a little rough at the edges, but careful too. Like Jean was speaking just for him.

He didn’t play it again. He wanted to. Instead he typed quickly, fingers clumsy.

sunm1n
oh wow
thanks!
guess i have a lot of work to do lol

Armin didn’t mean to keep the conversation going. He told himself he’d eat, do a bit of homework, then maybe crash early. But the voice note lingered in his ears, and when he opened the app again, Jean was still

sunm1n
teach me something else
something useful

janomel
Useful? Like what?

sunm1n
idk, like if i go to france someday, how do i say "where's the bathroom"

Another bubble popped up, another voice message.

“Où sont les toilettes?”

Armin pressed play three times, letting the rhythm sink in. He snorted into his sleeve, muttering it back in a butchered version, before sending his own voice note with zero shame.

His pronunciation was so bad he had to laugh at himself.

janomel
Good.
People will understand, maybe.

sunm1n
lmao brutal honesty thanks

janomel
Voice message (0:06)

“Je suis fatigué,” Jean said, his tone drawn out, vowels rolling like he’d stretched the words just for Armin to catch them.

Armin snorted, repeating it in the most broken way possible before hitting record. “Jay… swee… fat tiger.”

He didn’t even bother to listen before sending it, collapsing onto his bed with a laugh that shook his chest.

Jean’s reply came after a pause, another voice note, “Not tiger. Fatigué.”

But the way Jean said it, low, careful, was immediately broken by a small laugh at the end, rough around the edges and warm. Not the polished kind of laugh people let slip in public, but the real thing. Armin froze, his smile faltering only because he wasn’t sure what to do with the flutter it left in his chest.

He shook his head quickly. Ridiculous. He wasn’t about to spiral over the way some stranger laughed.

sunm1n
yeah yeah mock me all u want
one day ill nail this

janomel
One day. Not today.

sunm1n
😑 rude

Armin squinted at the screen, then typed slower, more deliberate.

sunm1n
bonne nuit

The reply wasn’t text this time. It was a voice note.

“Good night” Jean said, in English. His accent dragged soft weight across the words, heavy on the vowels, clipped at the ends. Armin’s pulse jumped at the sound, unexpected. He’d braced for something rougher, harsher, but instead it landed somewhere between careful and unpolished, like Jean was testing out how English tasted in his own mouth.

Armin lay back against his pillow, phone balanced on his chest. He didn’t play it again, though the urge itched at his fingertips.

The morning light pried its way through the blinds, striping across Armin’s bed in pale gold. He groaned, rolled over, and grabbed his phone from the nightstand, half expecting (okay, maybe hoping) for a notification from TalkTalk.

But the lock screen showed something else.

Instagram: @not_eren sent you a follow request.

Armin squinted, brain still foggy. Instagram? He barely touched the app. Just posted the occasional campus photo, maybe a cat meme on his story if it really hit. No selfies, nothing personal. So who the hell was @not_eren?

Curiosity tugged harder than common sense. He tapped the notification, blinking against the brightness of the screen.

The profile wasn’t private. A handful of posts, blurry gym selfies, a picture of an old car, a shot of a New York skyline at dusk. And then, the face.

It clicked immediately. The sharp jawline, the messy brown hair, and above all those green eyes. The guy from the library. The one who had stopped at the counter like he knew him.

Armin’s stomach tightened, but his finger had already moved on autopilot, hitting “accept.”

The request vanished into a new notification @not_eren is now following you.

Armin frowned at the username, rolling it around in his head. Not Eren. So… Eren, then.

He dropped the phone onto his blanket, staring at the ceiling. How did Eren even find him? He hadn’t given his last name, hadn’t offered anything beyond that brief “thanks” at the counter. Maybe Instagram’s algorithm was cursed. Or maybe Eren had asked around. Either way, it left a prickling unease at the back of Armin’s neck.

The phone buzzed again. A DM.

not_eren: yo, you work at the library right?

Chapter Text

Armin had responded.

Not right away, because who answers Instagram strangers instantly? but after pacing his dorm for ten minutes, rereading the notification like it might vanish. @not_eren had only wanted to thank him for finding that book. That was all. Short, casual, not particularly creepy.

He didn’t linger on it. It was Saturday, and Saturday meant no classes, no library shift, no excuses to stay cooped up. The campus trees had gone half orange, half bare, and the wind already carried that sharp edge of October that made him zip his jacket all the way up. The problem was, the jacket itself was pathetic, thin, fraying at the cuffs, more of a leftover from high school than something suited for college life.

So he decided, for once, to go out. To shop.

The downtown sidewalks were busy with people carrying paper cups of pumpkin lattes and shopping bags bulging with sweaters. Armin drifted along, hands shoved into his pockets, trying not to look too much like someone killing time alone. He ducked into a department store mostly for the warmth, but the racks of coats caught him anyway. Puffer jackets, wool coats, plaid scarves, it was almost overwhelming, but the idea of buying something new felt different.

He picked up a mustard yellow sweater, then a navy coat, holding them against himself in the mirror. He snapped a picture. Sent it.

sunm1n
[pic]
what do you think?
too much?

For a second, he regretted it, like Jean might think it was weird, asking a near stranger for fashion advice. But then the reply came.

janomel
Not too much. Nice color.
In france people wear darker in autumn, but I like this.

Armin smiled faintly, lowering the phone. “In France,” of course. He should’ve expected that answer. Jean’s world was always tinted with a little more glamour, even when he typed in blocky English.

Armin tugged a ridiculous fur lined trapper hat over his hair next, snapped another photo, deadpan. Managing to hide his face in a way.

sunm1n
[pic]
is this french?

janomel
Non. Absolutely not.
Burn it.

Armin barked a laugh before catching himself.

sunm1n
harsh critic
remind me to never ask u again 😤

janomel
I am honest.

Armin leaned against a rack of puffer jackets, scrolling as Jean’s typing bubble blinked, disappeared, blinked again. Then a photo came through.

It wasn’t a face. Not even close. Just an arm and part of a chest in a white apron, dusted with flour like snow, and the edge of a tray balanced on the counter behind him. His phone angled low, like he hadn’t really thought about how much he was showing.

janomel
Real fashion.
Work is busy. But I check.

Armin blinked at it, then snorted quietly to himself. “He’s… texting me at work?” It was absurd, but also strangely endearing. Most people back home would’ve ignored him in the middle of a shift, but Jean was typing with dough under his fingernails.

sunm1n
shouldn't u be... not on ur phone right now?

janomel
I am fast. Multitask.
Real friends can do this.

That word friends made Armin pause. He stared at the glowing screen a second longer than necessary. The last time he’d had someone to text during errands… he couldn’t even remember. Not classmates, not people from his dorm, not even relatives. Just Maria sometimes, and that was different.

He thumbed a reply before his chest could get too tight.

sunm1n
guess you're right chef

Armin carried an armful of clothes toward the checkout counter. He kept his phone balanced in one hand the whole time, grinning faintly at the idea of Jean covered in flour somewhere across the ocean, sneaking texts like they’d been doing this for years.

He could’ve headed straight back to his dorm, put the bags on the chair that already looked like a second closet, but something in him dragged his steps past the usual route.

Walking felt better.

The street was quieter the further he went. Less students, less noise, just the sound of cars and the wind. That’s when he noticed it, a little café on the corner, squeezed between a used bookstore and a laundromat. The sign above the door said ZJ Street Coffee in chipped gold paint.

He ducked inside, half out of curiosity, half for the warmth. It smelled like cinnamon and strong coffee, warmer than outside. Armin headed toward the counter, already planning to order a latte to go, when his eyes landed on one of the corner tables.

Eren.

He wasn’t leaning or grinning like in the hallway. He was sitting by himself, books spread out everywhere, pen tapping against his lips. His coffee sat untouched next to him. His hair fell into his face. For once he didn’t look like the type of guy who could walk into a room and own it. He just looked busy. Alone, even.

Armin almost looked away too fast, focused on the menu chalked behind the counter. He ordered his drink, stepped to the side, and decided to keep his head down until it was ready. That was the plan.

But when he glanced up again, Eren was staring right at him.

And then Eren got up.

“Arlert” Eren said, stopping right in front of him. His tone wasn’t sharp, just steady.

"...Hey"

Eren nodded at him, then glanced toward his own table. “You’re not usually in here.”

“First time, actually.” He hesitated a second, then added, “What about you? Studying?”

Eren smirked faintly. “Trying to. Doesn’t mean it’s working.”

That answer tugged a small smile out of Armin before he could stop it. “I know the feeling.”

For a moment, the café noise filled the space between them, milk steaming, chairs scraping, but Eren didn’t look away. His green eyes held steady, curious but not invasive.

His coffee was slid across the counter, but instead of grabbing his bags right away, his eyes flicked toward the stack of books on Eren’s table, the way half of them looked barely touched, and before he could regret it, he asked.

“…What class?”

Eren followed his glance, then exhaled like it was obvious. “History. Dense crap. I read the same line three times and it doesn’t stick.”

Armin blinked, then almost laughed. “That’s… kind of my thing, actually. History.”

Eren raised an eyebrow, curious now. “Yeah?”

Armin shifted the coffee cup between his hands. “Yeah. If you want, I mean–I could help. With the reading. Or just… explaining.” His voice came out steadier than he expected.

For the first time, Eren’s grin sharpened into something warmer. Not mocking, not forced. “You’d actually do that?”

Armin’s lips twitched. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”

Eren gave a short nod, like he’d decided something right there. “Alright then. Next time.”

Armin ducked his head, finally scooping up his shopping bags. His chest felt oddly light, even though the weight in his hands hadn’t changed.

“See you around, Jaeger.” he said before heading for the door.

And the grin Eren gave in return stuck in his mind longer than the taste of coffee.

Another Monday.
Armin woke to his alarm buzzing like a chainsaw beside his bed. He groaned, swiped it silent, and sat up, hair a mess from the pillow. He didn’t bother with his glasses at first, just squinted at the blurry glow of his phone screen.

Talk Talk — 3 new messages from janomel

janomel
You like croissant right?
I can show you good words to order.
Next time you try.

Armin’s brain was still fogged, but he grinned faintly. It was stupidly sweet that Jean cared enough to keep pushing French at him. He typed back.

sunm1n
yea i love crossants i eay them all the timr

The moment his vision sharpened and he saw the wreck of a sentence, his stomach dropped. Before he could correct himself, Jean was already typing.

janomel
...
You are drunk?

sunm1n
NO
i didn’t have my glasses on
i meant croissants, eat, them all the time

janomel
Ok.
For a moment I think you are party boy.

Armin laughed, burying his red face in his blanket. Party boy. Right. If Jean could see him now, hair a mess, hoodie inside out, still half under the covers at 8 a.m. He’d know exactly how wrong that was.

Classes blurred together, they always did.

Slide after slide of graphs, professors droning about market structures, demand curves, and the brilliance of mergers Armin didn’t care about. He scribbled notes automatically, the words going in one ear and out the other. Business wasn’t passion, it was survival, like Maria had reminded him more than once. And so here he was, chewing on the end of his pen, forcing his eyes open while the rest of the lecture hall buzzed with half bored chatter.

By the time he left his last class, the only thing he wanted was his latte macchiato, the sugary lifeline that usually pulled him through afternoons at the library. But today, he walked past the café counter, ignoring the craving tugging at him.

So instead of clocking in, Armin claimed his usual spot in the back, spreading out books and papers. The library was quiet this early in the afternoon, just the rustle of pages and the occasional cough. The sunlight through the tall windows painted warm stripes across the tables, and for once, he almost felt settled. Productive. He buried himself in an outline for a paper due next week, pages flipping, pencil scratching.

It was nearly two hours later, his head heavy, his eyes beginning to blur, that he felt the subtle shift of air. The scrape of a chair being pulled out at his table.

Armin looked up.

And of course.

Green eyes, messy hair, book under one arm. Eren again.

“May I?” he asked, nodding toward the empty seat across from him. His voice was calm, almost careful.

Armin blinked, his pencil hovering over half finished notes.

“I won’t disturb you. Just figured... company is better than staring at a wall alone.”

He swallowed and gestured with a small shrug, pretending nonchalance. “Sure.”

The chair squeaked as Eren sat, dropping his books onto the table. He didn’t talk after that, didn’t press for conversation. Just flipped his notebook open and started writing, his brow furrowed in focus.

For a while, it was almost like they weren’t even sharing the same space, two people orbiting quietly around their own work. But the awareness lingered. The faint sound of Eren tapping his pen. The way his hair fell over his eyes until he shoved it back. The silence wasn’t heavy though. It was tolerable.

Armin caught himself pausing in his notes, his gaze flicking up briefly. Eren’s scrawl was messy, sprawling across the page, nothing like Armin’s cramped precision. He bit back the urge to comment.

He fell into his usual rhythm, outline, draft, erase, redraft. Hours seemed to fold into each other, the faint hum of the radiator blending with the occasional shuffle of other students coming and going. He didn’t even register the ache in his wrist until he flexed it, blinking at how much he’d already written.

The sun outside had shifted lower, painting the library windows gold. Armin rubbed at his eyes, finally lifting his head for the first real break in hours.

And.

Across from him, Eren wasn’t writing anymore. His notebook was still open, pen lying crooked across the margin. His head had tipped forward, resting against the back of his arm, his breathing was slow, steady, almost inaudible under the quiet of the library.

Armin exhaled slowly, realizing the time. His phone buzzed in his pocket, a reminder of how late it had gotten, how many hours had slipped by.

He should probably wake him. Or at least pack up and leave quietly.

But instead, Armin sat there, pencil balanced between his fingers, trying not to think too hard about how natural it felt.

Wondering if this was what a study session with friends looked like, one person buried in work, the other dozing off mid-sentence, then maybe he wasn’t doing so badly. It wasn’t loud or full of chatter like he imagined for other people. But there was something steady about the quiet, the unspoken permission to just exist at the same table.

Armin adjusted his glasses, trying to shake the thought. Friends. Was that what this was turning into? He didn’t know Eren, not really. Just fragments. A name. A thank you. A wave in a hallway. And yet here they were, hours gone without him noticing, like the silence between them had been enough.

“Hey.” Armin said softly, leaning forward. “You’re gonna get a cramp if you sleep like that.”

Eren stirred, blinking himself awake. He rubbed a hand across his face and straightened up with a sheepish grin. “Damn. Sorry. Didn’t mean to uh pass out on you.”

“It’s fine.” Armin said, stacking his papers. “I was about to leave anyway.”

“Then let me walk you.” Eren was already pushing his books into his bag before Armin could argue.
“It’s late. Safer with company.”

Armin almost pointed out that the campus wasn’t exactly dangerous, but he bit it back. Instead, he zipped his jacket higher and matched Eren’s pace as they stepped into the cool evening air. The sidewalks were almost empty now, the lamps humming above them.

“So.” Eren started, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What building are you in?”

“West Hall.” Armin answered.

Eren’s brows shot up. “No way. I’m right across from there. East.” He laughed, the sound low but unforced. “Guess we’ve been neighbors this whole time.”

Armin’s lips twitched at the coincidence, but curiosity pressed heavier. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“How did you… get to me? I mean, the library, the book, was it on purpose?”

Eren slowed a little, then scratched the back of his neck. “Honestly? No. I’m new here. Moved in, what, a month ago? And it’s been… kinda rough. Everyone’s already got their little groups, their inside jokes. Feels like I’m always on the outside.”

Armin glanced at him, the honesty catching him off guard.

“That book?” Eren went on. “Total coincidence. I picked it up, saw your name inside. Asked the lady at the library if she knew you. She said you worked there. So when I needed help finding that history text, I figured… why not ask?” He huffed out a laugh. “And yeah, maybe I hoped you’d actually talk to me. You seemed like a cool guy. Didn’t mean to come off creepy. Sorry if it did.”

“…It’s alright.”

Eren smiled, wide but a little tired. “Then… friends?”

Armin adjusted his glasses, considering him in the glow of the streetlamp. Normally, he’d hesitate, overthink, stall. But something about Eren’s blunt honesty, the way he admitted he was struggling without pretending otherwise, made it hard to deflect.

“Yeah,” Armin said at last. “Friends.”

Eren’s grin widened, a spark of relief slipping through. “Cool. Guess I’m buying the next coffee then.”

“Guess you are.” Armin replied, softer, but the corner of his mouth curved up all the same.

They reached the split between East and West Hall. Armin lifted a hand in a small wave before heading toward his building, his bag heavy with books but his chest a little lighter than it had been when the day started.

Chapter Text

Months slipped by almost unnoticed. The trees that had been gold and orange turned skeletal, and the wind started biting through every layer Armin owned. December meant one thing, exams. Campus felt quieter, heavier, every table at the library buried under flashcards and caffeine.

Eren and Armin had fallen into a rhythm by then. They’d become good friends, the kind that met at cafés and argued about movie endings, that texted half jokes during lectures and studied together until closing time. Eren was loud where Armin was careful, impulsive where Armin thought too long, and somehow, it worked.

And then there was Jean.

Their conversations had stretched far beyond translation practice now. They talked about almost everything favorite foods, annoying customers, random street musicians, the smell of rain on cobblestone. Jean’s English had improved, smoother and funnier with every message, while Armin’s French began to sound less like a textbook and more like a real language.

Jean lived with his mother in a small apartment near the edge of Paris. She owned the bakery where he worked, and from what he said, it wasn’t always easy. Early mornings, long hours, deliveries that went wrong, clients that complained too much. But there were also small details Armin had come to love, Jean sneaking leftover croissants home, his mother humming old French songs while kneading dough, their cat that apparently ruled the kitchen like a dictator.

Those nights of chatting had become part of Armin’s routine. Sometimes it was after midnight, with him hunched over his laptop, half studying, half typing. Sometimes it was between classes, his phone buzzing quietly with a “bonjour” or a new picture a new pastry, a foggy street, a coffee cup resting on a flour dusted counter.

He didn’t notice how much time he was spending on the app until Maria joked that he was glowing lately, and he didn’t even argue.

So when Eren texted him, saying, “Sleepover at my place. You deserve a break,” Armin didn’t see a reason to say no. He’d been practically living between books and screens for weeks.

He showed up with a bag of snacks, expecting a quiet night, maybe pizza, a movie, and Eren talking too loud.

What he didn’t expect was the half case of beer and the brown glass bottles clinking on Eren’s desk.

“Eren…” Armin started slowly. “Please tell me that’s not–”

“Oh, it absolutely is,” Eren interrupted, grinning as he tore the plastic rings apart. “C’mon, Arlert. You’re wound up like a violin string. This’ll help you loosen up.”

Armin set his bag down, eyeing the bottles. “Loosen up or regret my life choices tomorrow?”

“Depends how much you drink.”

Armin sighed, trying not to smile. “You’re unbelievable.”

Eren only shrugged, already pouring something into two mismatched cups. “You’ll thank me later.”

They sat cross legged on the floor, the dorm lights low, a movie flickering quietly on the screen that neither of them was really watching. Eren talked about professors he hated, plans for winter break, random stories about his old high school, and Armin listened, warm from the drink and from the steady presence beside him.

Somewhere between laughter and another empty bottle, Eren leaned back on his hands and looked at him. “Hey. You ever gonna tell me about that guy?”

Armin blinked. “What guy?”

“The one you text all the time,” Eren said, smirking. “Jean, right? The mystery French dude.”

Armin felt his face heat. “He’s not– It’s not like that. We just talk.”

Eren raised an eyebrow. “Just talk, huh? You talk to him more than anyone else I’ve seen.”

Armin opened his mouth, closed it, then muttered, “He lives in another country.”

“Yeah, so? You’re like, halfway in love with his texts, man.”

“I am not.”

Eren laughed. “Then ask for his Instagram. You’ve been dying to know what he looks like. You said it yourself.”

Armin groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “That’s invasive. I don’t wanna ruin it.”

Eren tipped his head back, still grinning. “Arlert, the guy sends you pictures of pastries. You’re not gonna ruin anything.”

Armin laughed despite himself, the sound slipping out small and real. “You’re impossible.”

“Maybe,” Eren said. “But I’m also right.”

Armin didn’t answer. He just stared down at the amber in his cup, thinking about a boy in Paris who texted him about croissants and sunsets, and about how ridiculous it was that someone thousands of miles away felt closer than most people on campus.

By the third drink, Armin had stopped pretending he didn’t feel it. His head was lighter, his limbs warmer, and his usual filter had started to blur. The movie still played on Eren’s laptop, some thriller neither of them followed anymore, the dialogue a low hum under the quiet of the dorm.

“Okay, but,” Eren said suddenly, his voice louder now, “you never told me why you started talking to that guy. You just woke up one day like, I’m gonna learn French?”

Armin leaned back against the wall, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Pretty much. I was bored.”

Eren huffed out a laugh. “You? Bored? No way.”

“It happens,” Armin said. “I just wanted… something new. Something that wasn’t lectures or notes or people pretending to like each other at parties.”

Eren tilted his head, watching him. “And you found that in some French dude who calls you glasses boy?”

Armin’s mouth fell open, halfway between scandalized and embarrassed. “You saw that?”

“Bro, you said it out loud when you read it. You were grinning like an idiot.”

Armin covered his face with one hand. “Oh my god.”

Eren chuckled, clearly enjoying himself. “Relax. It’s kinda cute, honestly.”

Armin lowered his hand just enough to glare. “You’re insufferable.”

“Maybe. But you like it.”

He threw a pillow at him, but it missed.

Armin checked his phone out of habit and of course.

janomel
You alive?
My day never ends.

Eren peered over his shoulder. “That's him?”

“Don’t look,” Armin said, angling the screen away.

“Bro, you’re smiling again.”

“I’m not” Armin started, but the heat in his face betrayed him.

He typed, fingers slower than usual.

sunm1n
im at a friends dorm
sleepover

janomel
You drinking?

Eren saw the question flash across the screen before Armin tilted it again. “Tell him yes. But say something flirty, like” he deepened his voice mockingly, “only if you were here to drink with me.”

Armin shot him a horrified look. “Absolutely not.”

“C’mon, man, that’s gold!”

Armin typed something else instead.

sunm1n
maybe a bit
not much

janomel
Haha party boy.
Be careful.

Eren leaned closer again. “Party boy? Damn, he got jokes.”

sunm1n
im fine
just tired
u still working?

janomel
No.
Cleaning the kitchen.
I miss my bed.
You?

sunm1n
movie
we're watching smth dumb

janomel
Send pic.

Eren perked up. “Ooooh, picture time. You gotta look cool, man.”

“I’m not sending him a picture of you surrounded by beer cans,” Armin muttered.

Eren laughed. “Yeah, good call. Just crop me out.”

Armin rolled his eyes but still snapped a quick photo, his half of the bed, the glow of the laptop, nothing too personal.

Jean replied with one of his own, his kitchen again, messy but warm, a tray of pastries cooling behind him and a faint dusting of flour on his hand.

janomel
Better party here.

sunm1n
ur party look way better
i'd show up just for some pastries

janomel
You like sweet things?

sunm1n
sometimes
depends on who's making them

Eren, reading upside down, gasped. “Wait, that’s flirty! You actually said something flirty!”

Armin turned scarlet. “It’s not– It’s just– oh my god, Eren, stop talking.”

Jean’s typing bubble lingered.

janomel
Haha maybe one day I bake for you.

Eren stared at the screen, eyes wide. “Dude. DUDE. He’s into you.”

“He’s not”

“Oh, he so is.”

sunm1n
haha sure
don't stay up too late chef
bonne nuit

janomel
Good night glasses boy.

Armin smiled to himself despite everything.

Eren grinned lazily. “He called you that again.”

“Yeah,” Armin said quietly, setting his phone aside. “He did.”

By the time the last can hit the trash, the air in Eren’s dorm felt loose, lazy, warm. The movie had long since ended, replaced by music playing softly from someone’s playlist. Armin was laughing at something Eren said that probably wasn’t even funny, but right now everything kind of was.

Eren looked at him, cheeks pink. “Man, you’re such a lightweight.”

“I’m not even drunk,” Armin said, though the way he squinted at his phone betrayed him. “Just… relaxed.”

“Sure you are.”

They sat in silence for a minute, only the low hum of the song filling the room. Armin scrolled through his phone, then suddenly straightened like he’d just had a revelation.

“Okay,” he said, pointing at the screen. “I’m gonna do it.”

Eren tilted his head. “Do what?”

“Ask Jean for his Instagram.”

Eren grinned, teeth flashing. “Finally, took you long enough.”

“But” Armin looked down at his phone, frowning at his own blank profile. “I can’t just ask him if mine looks like this.”

Eren squinted. “Bro, you have no profile picture.”

“I know.”

“And your bio just says… student.”

Armin sighed. “I don’t really use it.”

“Well, that’s changing tonight,” Eren said, pushing himself to his feet. “Come on, we’re fixing this.”

“What are you–”

“Stand up.”

Armin obeyed, almost losing his balance for a second. That only made Eren laugh harder.

“God, you’re gone,” Eren teased.

“I’m fine,” Armin insisted, which was not entirely true.

Eren rummaged through a pile of clothes on the couch, muttering something about “aesthetic” before tossing Armin a black sweater and a thin silver chain.

“Try that.”

Armin looked at him like he was joking. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Trust me,” Eren said, already pushing his hair out of his face. “Now, sit. Let me see your hair.”

Before Armin could argue, Eren crouched in front of him, fingers running through the blond strands, ruffling and brushing until it framed his face just right, still soft, but messy in a way that looked deliberate.

“There,” Eren said, leaning back to admire his work. “Messy, smart, hot. You’re welcome.”

Armin felt heat creep up his neck. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

“I’m a Jaeger. We have natural taste.”

“That’s not a real excuse.”

“Shut up and pose.”

They spent the next fifteen minutes trying and failing to take a decent photo. Eren kept making him laugh, telling him to “look natural” right before saying something ridiculous. Half the photos were blurry or crooked, one had both of them in it mid laugh, Eren half cut out of the frame.

“This one,” Eren said, grabbing the phone and turning it toward Armin. “You look good here.”

Armin squinted at it, his sweater slightly falling off one shoulder, a small smile curving his mouth, the string lights behind him soft and golden. It looked real. Not posed.

“You think so?”

“Dude, trust me,” Eren said, grinning. “If I was your mysterious French pen pal, I’d follow you instantly.”

Armin rolled his eyes but saved the picture anyway. His thumbs felt clumsy over the screen, like he had to think twice before every tap. The lights blurred a little, softening everything.

He added a song to it, The Party & The After Party by The Weeknd.
It fitted the mood, slow, hazy, confident in a way he didn’t usually let himself be.

“God,” he muttered, dropping his phone on his lap.

Eren just grinned from the couch. “No take backs, Arlert.”

Armin rolled his eyes but didn’t answer. He stared at the little ring glowing around his profile picture, heartbeat a bit too fast.

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe the song. Or maybe it was the idea of Jean seeing it.

He hesitated only a second before opening TalkTalk.

Jean’s name was right there, and, he was online.

sunm1n
u awake?

janomel
I am.
Insomnia?

sunm1n
yeah
couldn’t sleep
do u use instagram?

There was a pause, the three dots blinking.

janomel
Yes. Why?

sunm1n
just wanted to follow u
if that’s okay

janomel

Of course.
 It's @jkristeinn.

Armin typed it in, carefully, making sure he spelled it right, and hit “Follow.”
The little “Requested” label popped up. Private account. Of course.

He leaned back, trying not to seem too eager, even though no one was watching. His head buzzed with the faint hum of alcohol. Eren was half asleep beside him, the music low, and Armin just stared at his screen, waiting.

Until the notification popped up.
“@jkristeinn accepted your follow request.”
“@jkristeinn followed you back.”

“Oh my god,” Armin whispered.

His thumb hovered over the profile picture. He tapped.

Jean’s page loaded slowly, like it knew it was about to ruin him.

The grid was almost too neat, muted tones, all balance and order. Landscapes that looked pulled from travel magazines, narrow cobblestone streets, cafés at sunset, some countryside framed in gold light.
 Food shots, of course, pastries, coffee, homemade dinners, artfully plated.
Then people, blurry faces laughing, friends maybe.

And then him.

Not many photos, but enough.

Jean sitting by a window with flour still dusted on his forearm.
Jean in a white T-shirt, hair slightly mussed, holding a mug.
Jean looking straight at the camera with the kind of calm confidence that made Armin’s throat go dry.

This was the guy he’d been texting about croissants and sweaters?

This impossibly good looking French guy with sunlight in every photo?

He couldn’t stop scrolling, eyes tracing the faint freckles on Jean’s arms, the sharp angle of his jaw. His own reflection glowed faintly on the screen, flushed cheeks, wide eyes, hair still messy from Eren’s touch, and the realization hit all at once.

He was drunk.
And drooling over someone’s Instagram.

The pictures felt impossibly distant, each one like a window into a life brighter than his own. He wondered if Jean would still talk to him if he saw him like this, hair messy, sweater borrowed, face flushed from cheap beer.

He was about to close the app, embarrassed at himself, when his phone buzzed again.

jkristeinn liked your story.

Armin froze.

Jean had seen it.
 Jean had liked it.

Armin stared at the screen, heartbeat tripping over itself.
 He glanced toward Eren, who was now definitely asleep, sprawled across the couch.
Armin bit his lip, smiling helplessly at the glow of his phone.

The music hummed low from the speaker, something slow and smoky, and for a moment, the whole room felt unreal. The soft light, the faint buzz in his head, the quiet knowledge that someone across the ocean had seen him.

The screen dimmed as his eyes grew heavy. Somewhere between one song ending and the next beginning, Armin fell asleep with a small, unshakable smile ghosting his lips.

He woke to sunlight stabbing through Eren’s curtains like a personal attack. His mouth tasted like regret and cheap beer. His phone was wedged under his shoulder, and every part of him felt too warm, too heavy.

From somewhere near the kitchenette came a voice that was far too cheerful for morning.

“Morning, party boy.”

Armin groaned into the pillow. “If you’re gonna talk that loud, at least kill me first.”

“Tempting,” Eren said, “but I made breakfast instead.”

Armin cracked one eye open. Eren stood by the stove in a hoodie and sweatpants, hair tied back, holding a pan with the confidence of someone who had no idea what he was doing.

“What’s burning?” Armin croaked.

“Nothing,” Eren said quickly. “Eat before it gets cold.”

He set a plate on the coffee table, eggs, toast, and two painkillers balanced neatly on top. Armin sat up slowly, the room tilting just enough to remind him that he had, in fact, been loosening up last night.

“You’re a saint,” he mumbled, swallowing a mouthful of toast.

“I know,” Eren said, dropping into the chair across from him. “So. Anything you wanna confess before I check your story?”

Armin froze mid chew. “Don’t.”

Eren’s grin widened. “Oh, I’m definitely checking.”

“Eren.”

Too late, Eren’s phone was already in his hand. "The weeknd huh? Damn, Arlert. Didn’t know you had that kind of game.”

Armin buried his face in his hands. “Please stop talking.”

“Wait.” Eren leaned forward. “Hold up. Did he?”

“Yes,” Armin muttered.

Eren blinked. “He liked it?”

“Yup.”

“Jean liked your story?”

Armin groaned, voice muffled. “Yes, Eren, Jean liked my story.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Eren let out a low whistle. “Well, shit. Guess our boy’s got international game.”

Armin looked up, deadpan. “I hate you.”

“You love me,” Eren said, grinning. “Now eat your eggs before I start telling people the great Armin Arlert seduced a French baker through Instagram.”

Armin threw a piece of toast at him. “That's weird.”

Eren dodged it easily, laughing. “And so are you.”

Armin sighed, half smiling despite himself. He reached for his phone on the couch beside him. The little heart icon was still there, red and small and too much.

He didn’t open their chat. He didn’t need to.

For now, just knowing was enough.

Chapter Text

They’d moved to Instagram.

It had started as something small, Jean said TalkTalk was “too serious" Armin hadn’t thought much of it then, but now? He wasn’t so sure if it was a blessing or a curse.

Because Jean had discovered the “view twice” feature.

At first, it was harmless. A photo of his cat curled in a bread basket, a half eaten croissant, the morning sky through a fogged window. But lately, Jean had started sending things that felt... deliberate. A smudge of flour on his arm. A mirror shot where only half his face showed. A blurry kitchen selfie at midnight with the caption “too tired to clean.”

Armin couldn’t save any of them. Just tap, glance, gone. Like Jean was doing it on purpose, teasing him with moments that disappeared before he could fully take them in, like a song that stopped one note before the chorus.

He tried not to overthink it.
(He failed.)

The only thing keeping him grounded lately was finals, his last exam was today. One more essay, one more set of slides, and he’d finally be free.

Well, free according to Eren.

For the past week, Eren had been on a mission, texting him daily about “The Ultimate End of Semester Party.” Apparently, some people from the movie club were throwing it, and Eren had joined that club two weeks ago because, in his words, “someone has to bring taste to their screenings.”

So now, between Jean’s disappearing photos and Eren’s relentless invitations, Armin’s phone had become a war zone.

By the time Armin left the lecture hall, the winter air hit him like a wake up call. His brain felt fried, the kind of empty that only came after writing until his wrist hurt. He zipped up his jacket and exhaled, watching his breath cloud in front of him. It was done. Finally.

He slipped his phone out, mostly on instinct.

A new message waited.

@jkristeinn:
Exams finished? Or still fighting for your life?

Armin smiled, thumb hovering before replying.

@sealert:
just finished actually
i think my brain melted

@jkristeinn:
Then you deserve something sweet.
I’d send pastries if the postal service was faster than a snail.

@sealert:
that’s cruel
u can’t just mention pastries like that and not deliver

A photo appeared.
Jean’s hand holding a chocolate tart, a bite missing. Just his hand, the soft lighting, a faint glimpse of his wristwatch. Simple. Intentionally simple.

Armin stared maybe a second too long before it vanished.

@sealert:
u’re evil, u know that?

@jkristeinn:
I try.

Armin shook his head, still smiling as he walked toward the dorms, phone tucked close like a secret.

He didn’t get to enjoy the quiet for long.

Because, of course, Eren was waiting outside the building, leaning against the rail like he’d been practicing looking casual. His hair was pulled back, coat half zipped, and a grin already forming when he spotted Armin.

“Look who survived!” he said. “C’mon, we’re celebrating tonight.”

Armin groaned. “Eren, I just got out of my last exam. I want to sleep for twelve hours.”

“Exactly. You can sleep after the party.”

“Eren–”

“Movie club’s hosting. Free drinks, decent music, and I already promised I’d bring you.”

Armin raised an eyebrow. “You promised?”

Eren smirked. “You think I’m going to that thing alone? No way. Besides, you need a break, man. You’ve been glued to your phone lately.”

Armin’s ears warmed. “That’s not– I just–”

Eren laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Save it. You’re coming. Eight o’clock. Wear something that doesn’t look like it’s from a library lost-and-found box.”

Armin sighed, but the smile tugging at his lips gave him away. “Fine. But if it’s terrible, I’m leaving.”

“Deal.”

Eren started walking backward toward the steps, calling, “It’s not terrible if you drink fast enough!”

Armin watched him disappear around the corner, shaking his head. His phone buzzed again.

Armin had barely stepped into his dorm before his phone buzzed again, the kind of timing that felt suspicious.
He didn’t even think; thumbs already typing.

@sealert:
u won’t believe this
but eren just forced me to go to a party tonight

A few seconds later, Jean’s reply blinked through.

@jkristeinn:
Forced? Sounds serious.
Should I call for help?

@sealert:
please do
he said it’s “movie club people”
whatever that means
i just wanted sleep

@jkristeinn:
You complaining about socializing?
Shocking.

Armin rolled his eyes, sitting on the edge of his bed.

@sealert:
i can be social
sometimes

@jkristeinn:
Then prove it. Go.
Have fun.
Text me if you get bored.
I’ll rescue you with pastries photos.

He set the phone down, still smiling, and for a second the dorm felt too quiet. Outside, voices carried through the hall, people dragging suitcases, laughter echoing off tile. Everyone was shaking the week off their shoulders, heading somewhere loud, somewhere warm.

Armin leaned against the window, the glass cold against his forehead, and watched a swirl of snow start to fall over the quad lights. His phone buzzed once in his hand, Jean’s chat still open, the glow catching the small curve of his grin before he finally pocketed it and pushed himself upright.

Armin huffed a laugh, reading the message twice.
Then, before he could overthink it, he sent another.

@sealert:
i hate picking clothes.
help me not look like a disaster?

There was a longer pause this time, long enough for him to pull a few options from the closet and toss them onto the bed, a dark sweater, a denim shirt, a plain black tee.

Jean finally answered.

@jkristeinn:
Show me.

Armin hesitated, then took a mirror photo, cropped just at his collarbone, the phone covering most of his face.

The “seen” popped up almost instantly.
Then a message.

@jkristeinn:
That’s the disaster you were talking about?
Please.
You look good.
Too good for a movie club party.

Armin felt warmth crawl up his neck.

@sealert:
u say that like you’ve been to one before

@jkristeinn:
No, but I can imagine the lighting is bad and no one appreciates good sweaters.

@sealert:
so… black tee then?

@jkristeinn:
Keep the sweater.
Trust me.

Armin studied the reflection again, pulling at the hem of the dark fabric.
He looked fine. More than fine, maybe. His hair was still slightly messy from earlier, the kind of imperfection that somehow worked tonight.

He smiled faintly and typed one more message.

@sealert:
okay
sweater it is

@jkristeinn:
Good choice, party boy.

Armin groaned out loud but couldn’t stop smiling.
He pocketed his phone, grabbed his coat, and glanced once more at the mirror before leaving.

The sweater stayed.
And maybe, just maybe, the party wouldn’t be as unbearable as he thought.

Well.

He’d imagined something tame, maybe ten people sitting cross legged on a carpet, sipping beer, talking about cinematography or French New Wave or whatever movie club people did when they weren’t overanalyzing plot structure.

But when they reached the house, he froze.

It wasn’t a house. It was a mansion pretending to be a student rental, two floors spilling light into the street, windows vibrating with bass. The yard was littered with parked bikes, empty cups, and a neon sign that definitely didn’t belong to any film club. The air was cold, but thick with smoke and perfume and something sweet burning at the edges.

Inside? chaos.

Music blaring, something loud and electronic, the kind of rhythm you could feel in your ribs. Bodies everywhere, dancing, laughing, yelling over the noise.

Someone had set up colored lights that turned the walls pink, then blue, then green, like a movie montage gone wrong.

On the counter, half empty bottles, open chip bags, a bowl of melted ice around drowning cans.

On the couch, two people already asleep, or maybe making out so hard they forgot oxygen existed.

Armin blinked, clutching his coat like armor.

“This… is not a movie night,” he muttered under his breath.

Eren just laughed, loud and delighted, clapping him on the shoulder. “Yeah, well. The hosts like to go big.”

“Big?” Armin’s voice was nearly lost under the bass drop. “This is insane.”

“Awesome, right?” Eren grinned. “Come on, we gotta say hi to my friends before we do anything.”

Before Armin could protest, Eren was already weaving through the crowd, pushing gently past shoulders and waving at familiar faces. Armin followed close, trying not to lose sight of him. The smell of beer and cologne and cheap strawberry vape clung to the air. Somewhere in the distance someone was yelling about a karaoke mic.

Finally, Eren stopped at the kitchen doorway, raising his hand.
“Oi! Sasha! Connie!”

Two heads turned, a girl with a wide grin and curls bouncing as she laughed, and a guy beside her, with a backwards cap, juggling two red cups like a magician.

“Eren!” Sasha called, abandoning her drink to pull him into a quick hug. “You made it! And– oh! You brought a friend!”

Her attention swung to Armin, bright and curious.

“This is Armin,” Eren said, half shouting to be heard. “The one I told you about, from the library!”

Sasha’s eyes widened. “The library guy! No way.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “You helped Eren find that book, right? You’re basically the reason he passed that paper.”

Armin blinked. “He passed?”

Connie laughed, passing him a cup. “Barely, but yeah. He said some blond angel from the library saved his ass.”

Eren groaned. “I did not say that.”

“You did" Sasha said, smirking. “Multiple times.”

Armin couldn’t help it, he laughed. They were loud, sure, but the energy around them was disarming. Sasha talked with her hands, every sentence spilling into laughter, while Connie kept interrupting her with jokes that barely made sense but somehow landed anyway.

“So" Sasha said, tilting her head. “You don’t party much, huh?”

“Was it that obvious?” Armin asked, smiling.

She grinned wider. “You’ve been looking around like you’re studying a wildlife documentary.”

“Give him a break" Eren said, nudging her. “He’s new to this.”

“Then we’ll teach him" Connie said, handing Armin another drink. “Rule one, don’t overthink it. Rule two, if you hear the karaoke start, run. Rule three– actually, no, there’s no rule three. Just have fun.”

Armin nodded, a little shy but warmed by their friendliness. He’d expected pretentious film students, not… this.

People who laughed easy, talked easy.
People who made space for him, even in a house bursting at the seams.

And maybe, he thought, as the bass thumped beneath their feet and Sasha started dragging Eren toward the living room, maybe this party wouldn’t be a disaster after all.

It didn’t take long for the noise to stop feeling unbearable.

Maybe it was the second drink Connie pushed into his hand, or the third. Maybe it was the fact that the lights didn’t stay still long enough for his brain to register just how many people were packed into the room. Or maybe it was just the strange, infectious energy of it all.

Whatever it was, Armin started to relax.

The living room was glowing with soft pink and gold light, someone had hooked up a projector on the far wall looping random movie clips with no sound, scenes from Fight Club, Amélie, and something that looked suspiciously like a student short. Every time the clips changed, the crowd cheered like it meant something profound.

Eren was already in his element, laughing too loud, leaning on Sasha’s shoulder as she poured shots directly into someone’s mouth. Connie was trying to stack beer cans into a pyramid and failing spectacularly. The music was relentless, heavy bass, sharp percussion, something you couldn’t name but could feel in your bones.

Armin stood near the kitchen doorway, drink in hand, watching everything unfold like he was inside a fever dream.

Then Sasha spotted him.
“Oh, no” she said, marching toward him with the grin of someone about to cause trouble. “You’re not hiding, blondie. Come here.”

Armin blinked. “I’m not”

“Don’t care" she said, looping her arm through his and tugging him toward the center of the room. “You’re joining.”

“Joining what?”

Connie’s voice boomed from the couch. “Drinking game!”

Armin’s heart dropped. “I, uh– don’t know if–”

“Too late!” Eren yelled, tossing him a red cup. “Welcome to I Never.”

Sasha clapped her hands once, eyes sparkling. “Okay, everyone knows the rules! You say something you’ve never done, and if someone else has, they drink. No lying, no skipping!”

The circle cheered, a dozen faces lit by the flicker of the projector, everyone buzzing with anticipation. Armin sat down between Eren and Sasha, knees touching strangers, heart hammering just a little too fast.

The first few rounds were harmless.
“I never skipped class.”

“I never cheated on an exam.”
“I never sent a risky text.”

Laughter rippled through the group, drinks raised, cups emptied.
Armin drank at “risky text,” earning a loud, knowing “Ooooh” from Sasha.

“Oh, really?” she teased. “Do tell, scholar.”

He shook his head, cheeks warm. “It wasn’t... nothing happened.”

Eren grinned, elbowing him. “Yet.”

The game rolled on. People yelled, groaned, threw popcorn at each other. Someone spilled a drink and got cheered for it. Someone else tried to sing the opening to Shrek 2 over the music.

By the time the cup came back to Armin, his head felt light, his cheeks warm. The lights blurred at the edges, the laughter too loud but not unpleasant.

He hesitated, scanning the faces around him.
“I never…” he began, voice barely steady, “been to a party this big.”

Half the group groaned and drank.

Sasha patted his shoulder. “Well, now you have. Congrats, party virgin.”

He laughed, really laughed this time. It bubbled out of him, light and unfiltered. Eren caught it, grinning so wide it almost hurt to look at.

“That’s the spirit" Eren said. “Now you’re getting it.”

The music changed again, something slower, deeper. The room throbbed with rhythm. Someone opened a window and a rush of cold air swept through, carrying the smell of smoke and something floral.

“Hey” Sasha said beside him, nudging his shoulder. “You’re not bad at this whole having fun thing.”

“Thanks, I think,” he said, smiling.

Connie leaned forward, grinning. “Careful, you keep this up, we’re adopting you.”

He laughed again. “Guess there are worse fates.”

Eren returned with another round, cups already foaming. “Last one” he said, which everyone knew was a lie.

Armin took it anyway.
The world was starting to tilt a little, but it didn’t matter.

Someone started chanting something about dancing. Sasha stood, hands in the air. Connie joined. Then Eren, of course, dragging Armin up with him.

“No" Armin said, laughing, shaking his head.

“Yes” Eren countered, already pulling him toward the living room, where the furniture had been pushed aside to make space for the crowd.

The floor vibrated under their feet, every bass hit in sync with Armin’s heartbeat. Lights spun, colors bled together, and for once, he didn’t care how ridiculous he probably looked.

Eren was yelling something he couldn’t hear, Connie was jumping beside them, waving his cup like a flag, and all around them was a blur of motion, hands, hair, laughter, flashes of light.

For a moment, it felt like being underwater.
Sound came in waves, muffled and bright, and all he could do was float with it.

Armin had always been the quiet one, the observer, the guy in the corner with a notebook.
But right now, in this messy, glowing house filled with strangers and noise and warmth, he didn’t feel like that at all.

He just felt alive.

Armin had lost count of how many songs had passed or how many times someone had shouted “cheers!” in his direction. He didn’t even know what drink was in his hand anymore, something sweet and foreign, someone had said it was French, and that alone had made him grin like an idiot.

Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was because it reminded him of someone.

He leaned against the balcony railing, the night air cool and dizzying against his skin. His pulse was still racing from the heat and noise inside, the music muffled now to a heartbeat behind glass. The city stretched below, soft, golden lights and distant sounds of traffic.

He shouldn’t be smiling this much. But he was.

He reached for his phone in his pocket, the glow almost too bright when he looked at it. He didn’t even think about it before opening the camera.

The front lens caught him half lit by the porch light, hair falling in loose strands over his forehead, glasses crooked from god knows when. His cheeks were flushed, lips curved somewhere between a grin and a sigh. There was sweat on his temple, the faintest blur of color behind him, like proof of the chaos he’d just stepped out of.

He looked nothing like his usual self, not careful, not composed.
But he didn’t delete it.

He sent it.

@sealert:
i think i'm at the loudest party in thw worlddd
they drink like maniacs lolllll

The message went through instantly, the “seen” mark appearing faster than he expected.

@jkristeinn:
You drunk?

Armin stared at the screen, lips curving. The word drunk looked funny when Jean typed it, like it didn’t belong in his usual soft phrasing.

@sealert:
maybe
maybe not
depends who's askin

There was a pause. Then, the little “typing…” bubble flickered and vanished, came back, vanished again.
Then finally.

@jkristeinn:
I'm asking.
And you look good.
Messy suits you.

Armin laughed, a small, helpless sound that disappeared into the wind. He leaned his head back against the railing, phone clutched loosely in his hand.

Without really thinking, he pressed record.

The short voice note crackled with background noise laughter, a distant shout, the hum of music, and his voice, low and loose.
“You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re polite. You always sound polite. Even when you’re teasing.”

Jean’s reply came as another voice note, the soft buzz of static, then his accent curling around each word.
“Non. I mean it. You should smile more often like this. It’s… real.”

That made Armin’s stomach twist, in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol. He smiled, quiet, dizzy, leaning heavier against the cold metal railing.

He sent one more voice note, voice softer now, like the night had settled into his chest.
“You know, I think you’d hate this party. It’s too loud. Too messy. You’d just stand there and look better than everyone else.”

The reply didn’t come right away this time.

@jkristeinn:
But i'd stand next to you.

Armin’s grin faltered into something gentler, smaller, and a little breathless. He looked at the screen for a long time before he locked it, tucking the phone into his pocket like he was afraid to drop it.

Inside, the music shifted again, louder, faster. Someone shouted his name from the doorway, and the spell broke. He straightened, laughed under his breath, the chaos buzzing under his skin in more ways than one.

The bass kept pulsing behind him like a heartbeat that refused to stop, even as Armin walked away from the noise. The house blurred into lights and laughter, the air outside was colder, softer. His shoes crunched against the grass as he crossed the backyard, drawn by the glow of the pool, calm water painted by shifting colors, blue and pink and violet.

He crouched near the edge and dipped his feet in. The shock of cold made him gasp, then laugh quietly to himself. His head felt too light, the world spinning gently but not unpleasantly. Somewhere inside, people were screaming along to a song he didn’t recognize.

He reached for his phone again, thumb hovering over Jean’s name in the chat. That last message still sat there like a small bomb.
But I’d stand next to you.

He swallowed, laughed under his breath. “That’s crazy” he muttered.

And then, as if possessed by that same crazy feeling, hit the call button.
The dial tone hummed in his ear. Once. Twice. Three times.

"...alo?"

Jean’s voice was soft, hazy, with that unmistakable French edge that turned every h into air and every r into velvet. The sound poured through the speaker like warm static. For a heartbeat, Armin forgot the pool, the house, everything, just the flicker of colored light across his hands and the pulse of water reflecting back at him. The air smelled like chlorine and winter and something faintly sweet from inside, it wrapped around him as the world shrank to one thin line of sound between them. “Uh– hi” he said finally, his voice coming out higher than usual. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to, I mean, I did mean to, but–”

Jean laughed, low and warm, like a smile wrapped in sound. “You are… calling me? From… the party?”

“Yeah” Armin said, grinning despite himself. “I just needed… air. It’s really loud in there. I think they’re trying to break a record for how much noise one house can handle.”

Jean chuckled again. “I can hear it. Is that… music? Or… shouting?”

“Both.” Armin leaned back, his free hand resting on the tiles. “You should see this, it’s insane. Feels like I’m inside a movie or something.”

“I see it” Jean said, voice playful. “You send me photo, remember? You look very…” He paused, as if looking for a word. “…free.”

Armin laughed softly. “Free? That’s one way to put it.”

“I mean it" Jean continued. “You look… not like the Armin who correct my English every day.”

Armin covered his face with his hand, smiling against his palm. “I don’t correct you that much.”

“Ah, you do" Jean teased. “But I like it. Makes me sound smart.”

They both laughed, the kind of laughter that leaves a little silence behind, not empty, but full. Armin could hear the faint sound of Jean breathing on the other end, steady and real. He could almost imagine him, sitting somewhere dimly lit, maybe in his room, messy hair and tired eyes, smiling at the phone like an idiot.

“So” Jean said after a pause, his voice softer now, careful. “You always call people when you drink?”

“No” Armin said, staring at his reflection trembling on the water. “Just you.”

That silence again, sharper this time. Armin’s chest tightened. He kicked his feet gently, watching ripples break the lights into pieces.

Jean spoke again, voice lower, thoughtful. “Why me?”

Armin hesitated. The easy answers, I don’t know, you were awake, it was a joke,— all died in his throat.

Instead, he said quietly, “Because when I talk to you, things stop feeling heavy. Even when I’m tired. Even when my head’s spinning like this.”

There was a sound from the other end, not quite a breath, not quite a laugh. More like disbelief.

Jean spoke slowly, his English stumbling but sincere “You say things like that, and you expect me to sleep?”

Armin let out a shaky laugh. “Guess not.”

“Mon dieu" Jean muttered under his breath, and Armin giggled, the sound half drunk, half nervous.

Trying to play it off, Armin decided to show off a little. “Je... suis... un peu... ivre,” he said carefully, the words slurring just a bit.

Jean broke into full laughter, warm, unrestrained, the kind of laugh that made Armin grin even wider. “Ah, oui, I can tell! Your accent, it is… how do you say… cute?”

Armin laughed so hard his voice cracked. “You’re just saying that because you’re nice.”

“Non, non. It’s true. Say something else. Come on, mon prof d’anglais, impress me.”

Armin tried again, giggling between syllables. “Tu es... très... cool?”

Jean laughed so hard this time he had to stop to breathe. “Cool? Oh là là. You flirt in French now, hein?”

“I didn’t!” Armin started, face hot even in the cold air. “That’s not– okay maybe a little.”

Jean’s voice softened again. “I like when you try. You make French sound… gentle.”

That quiet fell between them again, not awkward, but trembling with something unsaid.

He tried to change the subject, anything to calm the flutter in his chest. “So, what about you? What are you doing?”

“Nothing special. I was watching something” Jean said. “Old film. Les Quatre Cents Coups. You know it?”

“I’ve heard of it” Armin said, his voice soft. “You’re such a movie guy. Eren would love you.”

Jean laughed. “Oh? Your famous friend?”

Armin hummed, squinting at the sky. “Yeah. He’d probably try to make you join his club. But you’d hate the people there.”

“You think so?”

“They’re too loud. You’d spend all night judging the lighting.”

Jean’s laugh came again, warm and low. “Maybe. But maybe I’d like to meet you instead.”

That did something to Armin’s chest. He felt it, sharp, then warm, all at once. He glanced at the phone like it had turned into a person, his heartbeat too fast for how late it was.

“Maybe you should" Armin said, voice smaller.

“I would” Jean said. Then, after a pause, with that teasing softness again “If you promise to wear your glasses like that.”

Armin groaned, covering his face again. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m honest” Jean said, laughing. “And you like it.”

He did. Too much.

He didn’t say that, though. He just leaned back against the tile, feeling the coolness under his hands, the water against his legs, the laughter spilling from the house behind him. Everything felt too alive, too bright, too close.

They kept talking, about nothing and everything. About the stupid dance moves Eren had tried to teach him, about Jean’s mother’s cat who apparently hated everyone, about Armin’s finals, about movies they both loved but never watched together. The words came easy now, laughter mixing with pauses that said too much.

Until finally, Jean said softly, almost to himself, “You know… this feels strange.”

“What does?”

“This. Talking like this. Late. Like we are… more than just…” He trailed off.

“More than just what?” Armin asked, voice barely a whisper.

Jean didn’t answer right away. Then, softly. “More than just messages.”

Armin smiled, small and quiet. “Yeah” he said. “It does.”

“Armin?”

“Yeah?”

“Bonne nuit.”

Armin smiled wider. “Bonne nuit, Jean.”

The call ended. The pool lights flickered gently.

For a few seconds, he just sat there, staring at his reflection, the phone still glowing in his hand.

“Dude!”

Armin flinched, nearly dropping his phone. Eren stood there, arms crossed, grinning like an idiot. “You’ve been out here forever! Don’t tell me you were calling your French mystery guy.”

Armin groaned, hiding his face. “Go away.”

Eren just laughed, walking closer. “You’re blushing. That’s a yes.”

“I’m drunk" Armin mumbled, slipping his phone into his pocket as he stood up. “And I’m going to bed.”

Eren slung an arm around his shoulders as they walked back inside. “Sure, sure. Just don’t start talking in French in your sleep, okay?”

“Shut up” Armin said, though he was smiling.

Later, in his dorm, he collapsed onto his bed without even changing, the world still spinning faintly. The phone buzzed once again, a message from Jean.

@jkristeinn:
Sweet dreams, mon petit prof.

Armin laughed softly, eyes already closing.

That night, he dreamed in French.

Chapter Text

The first thing Armin felt was the light.

Winter sun knifed through the blinds, bright, merciless, scattering across the floor and right into his face, impossible to ignore. His eyelids twitched against it, his brain throbbed once, twice, in rhythm with his heartbeat. The warm beams cut across the clutter of his desk, scattered notes, half empty coffee cups, a pen cap rolling lazily toward the radiator, the dust dancing in the air that looked like tiny drifting snowflakes.

His mouth tasted like sleep and regret. His throat was dry enough to feel like paper. The lingering tang of last night’s drinks and the faint metallic bite of a bruised lip somewhere in his memory added to the dissonance.

He made a sound, low and pitiful, somewhere between a sigh and a groan, then rolled onto his side. The motion made his stomach dip. Every bone felt slightly too aware of existing.

His sweater stuck to the sweat on his back, sheets twisted around his legs like they had a mind of their own, and the faint smell of burned toast from yesterday morning lingered like an unwelcome visitor.

His phone lay face down on the floor, the charger cord tangled around a forgotten notebook. He stared at it for a long moment, willing it to move closer by sheer mental power. It didn’t.

He groaned again. “Ugh…” The sound was hollow, resonating through the dorm room like a tiny bell in a cathedral.

That’s when the second sound registered, soft snoring, muffled by a pillow.

Armin frowned, blinking blearily at the ceiling before forcing himself upright. He managed to stand, wobbling once before steadying himself. The floor was freezing against his feet as he shuffled toward the half open door. The light spilling in from the kitchenette was too bright, gold and sharp, outlining everything in blur.

Eren was on the couch.

Curled awkwardly on his side, one leg hanging off, coat still on, hair a messy knot at the nape of his neck. His arm was thrown over his face, the other clutching what looked like an empty water bottle. A pillow, Armin’s pillow, was wedged under his hip, completely useless where it was. The faint outline of his sneakers poked from under the blanket like tiny black rocks.

For a few seconds, Armin just stared, his mind trying to stitch together the fragments of last night. The room smelled faintly of spilled beer, cheap cologne, and faint smoke from someone’s forgotten incense stick. Trying to piece together how they’d gotten from that party to here was like untangling a snarl of memories, each twist a reminder of laughter, shouts, and the dizzying music that had never stopped in his head.

Bits of memory surfaced. Eren laughing too loud, someone yelling about pizza, the two of them stumbling through the dorm hallway, Eren insisting “you’re not walking straight, you’ll die,” and Armin insisting “I’m fine, I just need air.”

Then the key fob failing twice, the couch, his bed. Then nothing.

He pressed a hand to his forehead, grimacing. “Oh god…” His fingers felt cold against his skin.

His voice came out hoarse, barely human. The sound made Eren stir, a twitch, a grunt, then he groaned and flopped onto his back, blinking at the ceiling like it personally offended him.

The faint rustle of blankets and the couch cushion creaking were the only other sounds.

“...Morning?” Eren croaked, voice rough and sleepy.

“Barely." Armin muttered.

They both stayed there in silence for a beat. It was the kind of silence that only came after too much noise, thick, still, a little fragile. The ticking of the clock sounded too loud. Somewhere down the hall, someone slammed a door.

Eren pushed himself up, hair sticking in every direction. “I feel like I got hit by a train.”

“That’s generous,” Armin said. “I think I got run over twice.”

Eren grinned weakly. “You’re talking, that’s a good sign.”

“I’m suffering, that’s a more accurate one.”

The bathroom floor was cold under his feet. His reflection in the mirror looked like a cautionary tale, hair in knots, eyes puffy, sweater wrinkled beyond saving. He looked older and younger at once.

He ran a hand through his hair and turned toward the small kitchenette.

“You want coffee?” he asked.

Eren perked up like a plant given sunlight. “Yes. God, yes. You’re an angel.”

“I’m a corpse with a coffee machine,” Armin said, opening the cabinet and squinting at the near empty jar of instant powder. “That’s the best you’re getting.”

“Still an angel.”

The water kettle hissed to life. Armin leaned against the counter, arms folded, eyes half closed as the steam fogged the air. The smell of cheap coffee filled the space, mixing with faint traces of last night’s cologne and the lemon cleaner from the hallway.

Eren wandered closer, rubbing his neck. “Man, that party was wild.”

“Mm” Armin hummed, voice too soft to commit to an opinion.

“You actually had fun though.” Eren said, grinning at him. “Don’t deny it.”

Armin turned, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe a little.”

“A little? You were smiling like a maniac during that dumb drinking game.”

“I was being polite.”

“Polite?” Eren snorted. “You were laughing, Armin. Like actual laughing. That’s not politeness, that’s possession.”

Armin rolled his eyes, pouring the coffee into two mismatched mugs. “You make it sound like I never leave the library.”

“Do you?”

Armin didn’t answer, just handed him a mug.

Eren smirked, taking a careful sip. “Didn’t think so.”

They stood there for a while, leaning on opposite sides of the counter. The morning light softened as the minutes passed, turning gold instead of white. Dust hung in the air, floating lazily in the beams slicing through the blinds.

It was quiet. The kind of quiet that made you aware of little things, the clink of mugs, the hum of the fridge, the sound of Eren sighing into his coffee.

Armin’s headache dulled slightly. The caffeine was starting to work its slow magic.

“You remember how we got here?” he asked finally.

Eren snorted into his mug. “Barely. You tried to unlock the wrong dorm twice, though. I saved you from breaking into 2B.”

“Oh god.”

“Yeah. You kept saying, "I live here now." like some drunk philosopher.”

Armin buried his face in his hands, groaning. “Please tell me that’s not true.”

Eren grinned. “Dead serious. You also told me the stars looked fake.”

“They did!”

“They were clouds!”

Armin threw a napkin at him. “You’re insufferable.”

Eren laughed, catching it easily. “And you’re adorable when hungover.”

“Shut up.”

The moment lingered, light, easy, familiar. It felt almost domestic, the two of them sharing stale coffee and gentle teasing in the soft chaos of Armin’s dorm. The world outside could’ve been miles away.

Eventually, Eren set his mug down, stretching his arms above his head. “Alright. I should probably go shower before Sasha starts texting me death threats.”

“She already did.” Armin said, checking his phone. “Twice.”

Eren groaned. “Of course she did.”

“She said you abandoned your disciples. Whatever that means.”

Eren laughed, heading for the door. “It means she’s dramatic.”

Armin followed him to the threshold. “Thanks… for getting me home.”

Eren turned back, grin softening into something genuine. “Anytime, man. You needed that night."

The door shut with a soft thud, leaving only the smell of coffee and cold air where Eren had stood. Silence returned. not empty, but full. The room still carried traces of him, the dent in the couch cushion, the second mug on the counter, the faint warmth in the air where someone else had existed a few minutes ago.

Armin sank onto the couch, curling his knees up, the coffee cooling in his hands. The headache was nearly gone now, replaced by something slower, softer, that peculiar afterglow of chaos turned calm.

He reached for his phone, thumb unlocking it on instinct.

A new message waited.

@jkristeinn:
Hangover?

He smiled, eyes closing for a moment before typing back.

@sealert:
define hangover

The reply came fast.

@jkristeinn:
Head heavy.
Eyes tired.
Still smiling.

Armin’s heart stuttered, just once, like a skipped beat.

He stared at the message a little too long, then typed, slower this time.

@sealert:
are u spying on me or something

@jkristeinn:
Maybe.
You make it easy.

@sealert:
u're saying that i look bad

@jkristeinn:
I didn't say that.
You're very readable.
Even though text.

Armin frowned a little, cheeks warm.

@sealert:
that's a weird superpower to have

@jkristeinn:
Better than flying.
Flying doesn't tell me when you're smiling.

Armin blinked at the message, caught between a smile and a nervous laugh. The problem with Jean was that it never sounded like he was trying to flirt. He just said things like that, soft and unhurried, and left Armin to deal with the aftermath.

He typed, deleted, typed again.

@sealert:
u always talk like that?
or is a french thing

@jkristeinn:
Ah, the accent defense.
Convenient.

@sealert:
does it work?

@jkristeinn:
Usually.
Is it working?

Armin threw the phone onto the couch, burying his face in his hands with a quiet, helpless laugh.

“Oh. My. God.” he muttered into his palms.

He peeked at the phone again, half expecting a new message. Nothing. Just the faint echo of Jean’s last question glowing on the screen.

@sealert:
depends
are u planning to use it against me?

@jkristeinn:
Only if you want me to.

He read that line three times, unsure if Jean realized what it sounded like.
Or maybe he did, and that was worse.

@sealert:
u're gonna kill me one day

@jkristeinn:
Not my intention.
But I can't make promises.

Armin let the phone fall beside him, exhaling a breath that was half a laugh, half something else entirely. The screen dimmed, and he let it stay that way.

He stood, stretching his arms over his head until his spine popped. “Alright,” he mumbled to himself, “if I’m gonna lose my mind, might as well do it productively.”

Cleaning started small.

He gathered stray clothes, tossed them into the laundry bag. The soft slap of fabric hitting the floor filled the silence. Then he wiped down the counter, lined up mugs, straightened his notebooks in tidy stacks.

The kettle on the stove clicked as it cooled, leaving a faint scent of coffee and metal in the air.

Every now and then, he’d glance toward the couch, the phone still there, screen dark, like it might light up again. It didn’t.

He hummed under his breath, something tuneless, just to break the quiet.

By the time he reached the bookshelf, his brain had drifted back to the conversation. Jean’s words replayed like static, teasing, calm, too confident.

He dusted the shelves slower than necessary, thinking.

It was weird, right? That kind of thing?
No one talked to someone they didn’t like that way.

But then again, Jean was French. Maybe that was just how he talked. Smooth, casual, comfortable with warmth.

He crouched to fix a crooked row of paperbacks. “You’re overthinking again.” he muttered to himself

Still, his heart wouldn’t stop its uneven rhythm.

The room was almost spotless by now. His bed was remade, the couch cushions plumped back into shape. Even the desk was neat, pens in a jar, loose papers stacked in crisp lines.

The only thing he hadn’t touched was his phone.

He finally picked it up, thumb hovering over the screen. Nothing new.

He opened their chat anyway, rereading the last few messages. His eyes lingered on the last one.
But I can’t make promises.

He smiled, tiny and stupid. Then sighed.

Was it too soon to call again?
Would that be weird?

He imagined clicking on that button again, hearing that soft, accented voice again, the way Jean said his name like he was tasting it. The thought made his stomach twist, that nervous, excited kind of ache.

But what if Jean thought it was too much? Too clingy?

What if he didn’t answer?

What if he did, but sounded different? Cold? Bored?

Armin pressed the phone to his chest, groaning quietly. “God, this is ridiculous.”

He wandered to the window, peering down at the campus courtyard below. Snow was starting to fall, small flakes catching in the wind, barely visible against the pale light. Students walked by in thick coats, laughter muffled by scarves.

Everything looked so normal.

He wished he felt that way too.

He sat back on the couch, pulling a blanket over his legs, the phone still in hand. His reflection looked faint in the dark screen, hair messy, eyes tired, but soft. He could still hear Jean’s voice from the night before, faintly in memory, like a melody stuck on repeat.

Would calling again be too much?

He typed a message once.
Deleted it.
Typed another.
Deleted that too.

Finally, he set the phone down face down, pressed his palms over his eyes, and exhaled.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he whispered. “Tomorrow’s fine.”

Outside, the snow kept falling, soft, steady, endless.

And inside, Armin tried to ignore how much he wanted his phone to buzz again.

The phone stayed dark.

The silence in the room felt different now, not peaceful, not even heavy, just hollow. That kind of silence that eats at the edges of things.

Armin leaned back into the couch, his fingers dragging through his hair, and stared at the ceiling for a long time.
There was nothing to do. No shifts at the library, no classes, no lectures waiting to be attended or ignored.

Just time. Endless, stupid time.

He’d thought vacation would feel like freedom.
Instead, it felt like being left behind.

Most of his classmates were already gone, trains packed with people heading home, luggage wheels clattering against tiles, laughter spilling out in groups. He’d watched them leave over the past few days, one by one, doors slamming, voices echoing down the dorm hallways.

Now it was quiet. Too quiet.

The radiator hissed in the corner, its old pipes knocking like distant footsteps. Somewhere outside, a car honked. Then nothing again.

He closed his eyes. He could almost imagine the sound of waves, not real ones, but the ones from back home, the slow roll of the sea behind his grandfather’s house. He used to sit there after school, watch the horizon go pink and blue, and dream about getting out. About seeing the world, meeting people, doing things that didn’t fit the small town mold.

And now here he was, finally out, finally free, and he’d never felt smaller.

His chest ached in a way that wasn’t physical. Not quite sadness, not quite loneliness, just that vague ache that said something’s missing.

He turned his phone over again, thumb brushing the glass, the faint outline of Jean’s messages glowing back at him.

He wanted to.
God, he wanted to.

But something inside him twisted every time he thought too long about it. About why his chest felt warm when Jean texted, or why he replayed that stupid phone call in his head like a movie he didn’t want to end.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that.

He’d told himself that for years, in quiet, half formed sentences that never left his mouth.
He wasn’t the kind of person who felt that way.
Or maybe he was, but he wasn’t supposed to show it.

Growing up, those thoughts had always come with a sharp edge. The jokes whispered behind hands, the way teachers would look away when someone said the word gay too loud, like it was contagious. The way his uncle once laughed at a TV character, saying, “that’s not normal.”

He used to laugh along. Quietly. Because it was easier that way.
Because silence was safer than being seen.

And yet, here he was, heart stuttering over a text from a boy thousands of miles away, wondering what that said about him.

He pressed his palms over his face until the world went dark. Stupid. He shouldn’t feel like this.

Jean was just… Jean.
Kind. Funny. Easy to talk to. The type of person who could make silence feel full instead of empty.

But lately, when Armin read his messages, he felt this pull, soft, dangerous, that made him want to keep talking forever. That made his pulse jump when Jean said his name.

He’d never told anyone about it. Not even Maria, and she knew most things about him.

It wasn’t that he was ashamed, exactly.
More like afraid of what it might change if he said it out loud.

What if it made everything real?

Yeah, he’d joked about it before, with Eren, usually. But that was what it was supposed to be, a joke.

Something tossed between friends at two in the morning, buried under laughter and too many drinks.
 It was safer that way. If he made fun of himself first, no one could accuse him of anything.

That was how it had to be.

Even when Eren shoved his phone into his hands, grinning and saying, “Then ask for his Instagram. You’ve been dying to know what he looks like. You said it yourself.” Armin had only done it because the alcohol made his veins warm and his thoughts slow. Everything had felt lighter, easier. The fear muted under the fuzz of laughter.

He could never do something like that sober. God, no.

The idea of it, of openly admitting interest, of risking being seen, made his stomach twist even now.

Because what if Eren had caught on?
He wasn’t stupid. He noticed things.
 Sometimes Eren would give him these long, searching looks whenever Jean’s name came up, like he was waiting for Armin to confirm something they both already knew.

Did he know?
Did Sasha? Connie?

He didn’t know what would happen if they saw the cracks.

Would they laugh? Would they pity him? Or worse, would they pull away?

He’d spent years perfecting the art of pretending, learning which smiles to wear, which jokes to make, when to laugh, when to look interested. It was second nature now.
Keep things light. Keep things normal. Don’t make people uncomfortable.

He rubbed a hand over his face, fingers pressing hard against his eyes.
 He wanted so badly to feel normal.
 To not think twice about things that shouldn’t matter.

But he couldn’t unlearn the fear.
 Couldn’t unlearn the way his heart still raced when someone got too close, or when a joke hit too close to the truth.
And the worst part?

Some small, traitorous part of him wanted Eren to know. 
Wanted someone to say it out loud so he didn’t have to.

But the thought scared him even more.

He stood up abruptly, pacing. His thoughts were starting to feel too loud for the room. The floor creaked under his bare feet.

His reflection in the window caught his attention, pale light from the snow outside making him look ghostlike, eyes faintly red from exhaustion. He barely recognized himself sometimes.

The reflection stared back, quiet, accusing.

“Normal people don’t do this,” he muttered under his breath. “Normal people don’t… feel this much.”

But the word normal hit something raw.
Because what even was normal?
The laughter from his classmates on trips home? The couples walking arm-in-arm through campus?
Or the way his chest twisted every time he thought of someone who made him feel seen for once?

He sighed, forehead pressing against the cool glass.

The snow outside was still falling, quiet and endless. Each flake vanished before it even touched the ground.

He remembered something Jean had said one night, “you think too much for someone who feels so much.”

At the time, Armin had brushed it off with a joke.

Now it felt heavier. Like maybe Jean had seen something he didn’t want to admit about himself.

He sank down to the floor, back against the couch, blanket pooling around his shoulders. The world outside was white, still, infinite. Inside, everything hummed with noise he couldn’t name.

He thought about calling Jean again, just to hear his voice, to anchor himself to something warm.

But fear stopped him.

Fear that it would break whatever fragile, unspoken thing they’d built.
Fear that Jean would answer and hear something in Armin’s tone that wasn’t supposed to be there.

So instead, he just sat there, watching the snow.

He imagined Jean’s city on the other side of the ocean, maybe raining there, maybe colder. Maybe Jean was reading something by the window, hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, the same light catching in his hair.

The thought made his chest ache again. That kind of ache that felt almost like hope, but not quite.

“You’re ridiculous,” he whispered to himself, but his voice broke halfway through.

The phone stayed silent.

Outside, snow fell without sound.

Inside, Armin sat still, pretending the quiet didn’t hurt.

Chapter Text

The silence had grown teeth. It wasn’t peaceful anymore.

It gnawed at the corners of things, the desk, the floor, the hum of the radiator that never quite stopped rattling. Armin sat on the couch, knees pulled close, phone balanced on his palm like a weapon he didn’t know how to use.

Jean’s name glowed faintly on the screen. Still there. Still easy to reach.

Too easy.

He stared at it for a long time, the soft blue light painting his face in the half dark. He thought about that last message, the one he’d reread too many times. Not my intention. But I can’t make promises.

It should’ve been harmless. It wasn’t.
It had been echoing in his head all day, soft and sharp at once.

He swiped up, opened Instagram, thumb hovering over the tiny circle of Jean’s profile picture, a street café, blurred background, sunlight in his hair.

For a second, he hesitated. He almost closed the app.

Then his finger moved.

Blocked.

The screen blinked, the name vanished, and the emptiness that replaced it hit like cold air.

There. Done.
Simple. Clean. Final.

Except it wasn't.

The relief he expected didn’t come. Just that hollow ache again, heavier now, spreading under his ribs. He dropped the phone face down on the table and leaned back, pressing both palms over his eyes.

“Good,” he muttered to no one. “Good. That’s what you wanted.”

But the silence didn’t agree.

It sat there, thick and patient, waiting for him to admit it wasn’t what he wanted at all.

Outside, snow had gathered thicker than before. The world beyond the window was colorless, quiet, almost kind. Inside, the heater clicked and groaned, too loud in the stillness.

Eren had left that morning, a train ticket, a duffel bag, a grin half hidden by his scarf. “Text me if you start talking to the walls,” he’d said.
Armin had laughed. “I’ll try.”

He hadn’t realized how literal that might become.

He thought about calling Eren, but the idea of hearing his voice, cheerful and full of noise from home, made something twist in his stomach.
He didn’t want to sound like this.
Small. Stuck. Needy.

He turned on the desk lamp just to fill the dark, but even the light looked tired.
His reflection in the window was faint, the glass ghosting his outline back at him. His hair stuck out in uneven tufts. His sweater sleeves were pushed to his elbows. He looked… fragile. The kind of tired that didn’t sleep away.

He picked up his phone again. Opened TalkTalk. Closed it.

Opened Instagram. Remembered. Closed it again.

His chest tightened.

Blocking Jean had been an impulse, the same kind of panic that makes you slam a door too fast.

He told himself it was for the best, that he’d been getting too attached, too lost in something that wasn’t real. But now, all he could think about was what Jean might see on his end.
Would it show?
Would Jean notice?
Would he care?

Of course he would. Jean always noticed.

Armin groaned, dragging both hands through his hair. “Stop thinking,” he muttered. “Just stop.”

But his mind didn’t listen.

What if Jean thought he’d done something wrong? What if he tried to message him? What if he didn’t? What if this was the moment he moved on? Met someone else? Someone who wasn’t halfway across the world and couldn’t even decide what he wanted?

The thought made his throat ache. He wanted to take it back, to undo it, rewind it, explain somehow that it wasn’t about Jean, not really, it was about him. About the noise in his own head that wouldn’t quiet down.

He buried his face in his hands. His breath came out shaky, fogging against his palms.

“God,” he whispered. “What’s wrong with me?”

The words sounded too loud in the stillness.

He stayed like that for a while, knees drawn in, head bowed, listening to the hum of the radiator and the wind outside. He thought about calling Eren again. He thought about unblocking Jean. He thought about everything he couldn’t do and everything he shouldn’t.

And then, soft but real, came a sound that didn’t belong to his thoughts.

Knock.
 Three short taps, muffled through the door.

Armin froze. Lifted his head. For a second, he thought he’d imagined it.

Then again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.

He blinked toward the door, heart suddenly too loud in his chest. No one was supposed to be here. Everyone had gone home. He hadn’t ordered food. The hall was usually empty by now.

He stood slowly, bare feet silent against the cold floor.

Another knock. Louder this time. Familiar rhythm, impatient, playful.

He hesitated, then opened the door.

Sasha was there.

And Connie.

Sasha’s cheeks were flushed from the cold, her hair escaping her beanie in wild curls. Connie stood beside her, bundled in a puffy jacket two sizes too big, holding what looked like a plastic bag from a convenience store.

“Hey!” Sasha said, her grin instant and bright, a puff of white breath leaving her mouth. “Uh, sorry to just… show up like this. Hope that’s not weird.”

Armin blinked, caught between surprise and confusion. “I– no, it’s fine, I just… didn’t expect company.”

“Good.” Connie said, stepping closer and lifting the plastic bag like it was a prize. “Because we brought snacks. We were gonna drag Eren out for lunch, but apparently he ditched us for his family.”

“Traitor.” Sasha muttered. “So we figured, why not bother his study buddy instead?”

Armin blinked again, the words sinking in. “You… came here because Eren couldn’t?”

Sasha shrugged, still smiling. “Well, yeah. He talks about you all the time, and you didn’t look like the kind of guy who leaves campus for break, so… here we are.”

She paused, eyes darting behind him to the messy living room. “Is it okay if we come in? Promise we’re not serial killers. Connie’s too clumsy for that.”

Connie rolled his eyes. “You set a microwave on fire once, Sasha.”

“It was one time!”

Armin’s lips twitched before he could stop them. “You can… come in.” he said, stepping aside.

“Sweet.” Connie said, brushing snow off his sleeves as he entered. “Man, it’s freezing out there.”

Sasha followed, already looking around like she’d been here before. “Cute place! Cozy. Smells like… coffee and existential dread.”

“Thanks?” Armin said weakly.

“Compliment.” she said quickly. “That’s our favorite combo.”

The door clicked shut behind them, sealing out the cold, and suddenly the room didn’t feel quite as empty.

Sasha was already unpacking chips and sodas from the bag, Connie humming some tune under his breath, both of them bringing in a kind of warmth that didn’t need an invitation.

Two hours later, the dorm looked nothing like it had before.

The coffee table was buried under a pile of snack wrappers and half empty cans of soda. A blanket someone had dragged off Armin’s bed was tangled around all three of them on the couch. The air smelled faintly of buttered popcorn and cheap chocolate.

Twilight flickered on the TV in front of them, the blue light washing everything in that unmistakable early 2000's haze.
Sasha had declared it a “cultural necessity,” and Armin hadn’t had the energy (or heart) to argue. Now, halfway through the movie, he wasn’t even pretending to pay attention.

Sasha was sitting cross legged behind him, humming something off key while weaving a loose braid into his hair.

“Your hair’s so soft.” she said, fingers quick and unbothered. “Do you use conditioner or, like, divine intervention?”

Armin snorted. “Cheap conditioner. From the pharmacy.”

“Lies.” she said. “This feels expensive.”

Connie, slouched on Armin’s other side, was halfway through a family size bag of chips. Crumbs clung to his hoodie like badges of honor.
“If you two start a hair care channel, I’m unsubscribing immediately.”

“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you.” Sasha said, tugging gently at a strand. “You could use– well, never mind. You don’t really have enough hair to critique.”

Connie turned, pointing at his buzzcut. “Exactly! Low maintenance, high reward.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “You mean low style, high delusion.”

“Hey, this is aerodynamic,” Connie said. “I could win races with this.”

Armin laughed, soft but genuine. The sound melted into the background noise of the TV, Edward Cullen sparkling dramatically, Bella whispering like every word might break her. Sasha laughed so hard she nearly ruined the braid, and Connie threw popcorn at her, missed completely, and somehow hit the wall instead.

They didn’t even look at the mess. Just kept laughing.

For a little while, Armin forgot about the stillness that had haunted the room earlier. Forgot about the silent phone sitting face down on the counter. Forgot about the blocked account he refused to think about. The laughter and bad dialogue wrapped around him like insulation.

It almost felt like they’d known each other for years.
The kind of friendship that didn’t need permission.

He was just starting to think maybe, maybe he could stay inside that warmth for a bit longer when Connie’s voice cut through the sound of the movie.

“Hey, uh…” Connie paused, lowering the chip bag. “Can I ask you something?”

Sasha stilled behind him, fingers still caught in his half-finished braid. “Oh– yeah, we were actually talking about that earlier,” she said. “Whether we should, y’know, ask. We didn’t wanna be invasive or anything. We just met you, and barging in with feelings felt… rude.”

Armin blinked, caught off guard. His body tensed slightly, the reflex of someone used to deflecting. “Ask what?”

Connie shifted, eyes darting between him and the screen before finally settling on Armin. “You just seem kinda… off.” he said simply. “Like something’s eating at you.”

Sasha nodded, her tone softer now. “You don’t have to say anything, obviously. We just– Eren’s not around, and it looked like maybe you could use… people.”

Armin stared at the glowing TV for a moment, the frozen frame of Bella and Edward mid stare reflecting in his glasses. No one ever asked him things like that outright. Usually people just joked, or changed the subject, or let the silence stand.

It was disarming, the blunt kindness of it. Like someone had cracked open a door he didn’t realize he’d been leaning against.

He hesitated. His first instinct was to say I’m fine.
His second was to say nothing.

Instead, he exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the edge of the blanket. “It’s… nothing dramatic.” he started, voice low. “Just… complicated.”

“Complicated’s allowed.” Sasha said, resting her chin lightly on his shoulder now, her braid forgotten.

Armin gave a small, tired smile. “I guess I messed something up. With a friend. We talked a lot, and I– well, things got weird, and I didn’t know how to fix it. So I didn’t. I just– I just cut it off.”

Connie nodded slowly, like he wasn’t sure if he should say something yet. “You mean you ghosted them?”

Armin winced. “Blocked, technically.”

“Damn.” Connie said, but not unkindly. “That’s one way to fix it.”

“I thought it would help” Armin admitted, eyes dropping to his hands. “You know, clear the noise. But now it’s just… quiet. Too quiet.”

The movie kept playing in the background, some overly dramatic monologue about fate echoing through the small room. It filled the space between their silence.

Sasha shifted, her tone lighter again, as if to soften it. “Well, for what it’s worth, cutting people off doesn’t make you bad. Just means you’re trying to protect yourself.”

Connie nodded in agreement, crunching another chip. “Yeah, dude. But…” He glanced toward Sasha, then back at Armin. “Sometimes you also just gotta talk it out, y’know? Communication and all that. People can’t fix what they don’t know’s broken.”

Sasha pointed at him with a chip. “Wow. That was almost profound.”

“Almost?” Connie said. “It was completely profound.”

“Alright, philosopher.” she teased, flicking the chip crumb at him. “You’re still wrong about Bella picking Jacob.”

“I’m sorry.” Connie said, grinning. “Are you team sparkle vampire?”

Armin laughed quietly as they devolved into mock argument, throwing popcorn at each other. The tension slipped out of the air, replaced again by laughter and the ridiculous hum of the movie’s soundtrack.

He leaned back, the braid loose against his shoulder, the room filled with their voices.

And for the first time in that day, it didn’t feel like silence was winning.

After Sasha and Connie left, the dorm fell quiet again, not heavy, but still in that way that felt louder than sound.

The faint echo of their laughter lingered in the air, woven into the couch cushions and the smell of buttered popcorn that clung to the fabric. The blanket they’d used was still draped over the armrest, one of Sasha’s stray hair ties looped around a mug handle.

Armin stood for a long minute, arms crossed loosely, staring at the faint reflection of the paused Twilight credits on the dark TV screen. The room looked dimmer than before, though the same ceiling light hummed faintly overhead.

He moved to tidy up, not because it needed it, but because the movement helped keep the silence from swallowing him. He stacked the empty soda cans, brushed chip crumbs from the coffee table into his palm, and wiped the surface clean with a napkin that smelled faintly of lemon.

When his hands had nothing left to do, he exhaled through his nose and muttered to no one, “Dinner. Yeah. That’s something.”

The kitchenette light flicked on with a soft buzz. The small space looked almost sterile compared to the mess behind him. He opened the mini fridge, scanning the shelves, half a carton of eggs, a block of cheese, some wilted spinach, and a takeout container that had definitely expired. His reflection in the fridge door looked unimpressed.

He ended up cracking two eggs into a pan anyway, adding a splash of milk and a handful of the spinach just so it didn’t feel completely pathetic. The sizzle filled the air, followed by the faint scent of butter and salt. He moved slowly, deliberately, whisking, flipping, stirring, trying to focus on each sound instead of the quiet behind it. The eggs bubbled, the kettle hissed faintly on the back burner, and the tiny vent fan above him hummed with a tired whine.

He glanced at the clock. Nearly nine.

Normally, this was when Jean would’ve sent something, a picture of the night sky over Paris, a blurry photo of flour dusted hands, a voice note saying something about “you should be sleeping, mon petit prof.”

The thought made his chest tighten.

He scraped the eggs onto a plate, poured himself a glass of water, and carried everything to the small table by the window, the chair legs scraping softly against the floor. Outside, the snow had stopped, but the world still looked muted, white rooftops, lamplight spilling like honey onto the paths below, everything quiet.

The food steamed faintly, pale yellow against the chipped white plate. He wasn’t really hungry, but eating gave his hands something to do. He tore off a piece with his fork, watching the yolk smear like watercolor, then took a small bite. It tasted fine, warm, buttery, familiar, but it landed heavy in his stomach.

His phone sat on the counter where he’d left it earlier, screen facedown.

He glanced at it once, then looked away.
He chewed, swallowed, stared at the snow outside again. The reflection of the window glass caught the outline of his face, tired eyes, mussed hair. He looked small against the backdrop of the white world beyond.

“Just check it,” he muttered to himself, pushing his plate aside. “Just once. Then it’s over.”

He stood, crossing the short distance to the counter. The floorboards creaked faintly beneath his socks. His hand hesitated mid air before reaching for the phone.

The screen lit up as soon as he touched it, bright enough to make him squint.
No notifications, at least, not at first. Then he remembered the setting. He swiped down, turned off Do Not Disturb.

The flood hit immediately.

The screen filled with banners and vibrations, one after another.

TalkTalk — 23 new messages, 4 missed calls from janomel

Then a new one, bold, recent. “Call me when you can.”

His throat went dry.

For a second, he thought it was some kind of glitch. His brain refused to process the sight of Jean’s name lighting up his screen again. Convinced he’d ruined everything, convinced Jean would just stop trying.

But he hadn't.

He set the phone down, like it had burned him. His fingers trembled faintly, the skin around his knuckles pale. He stood there for a long moment, the hum of the fridge and the faint tick of the clock filling the silence.

Why?

He sank back into the chair, staring at the phone from across the table. His pulse felt too loud, echoing in his ears. He’d wanted to move on, hadn’t he? He’d wanted to clear the noise. So why did seeing Jean’s name make his chest ache like this?

He picked up his fork again, more for show than anything, stabbing at the cooling eggs. “You don’t have to answer,” he whispered under his breath. “You don’t owe him anything.”

He took another bite, barely tasting it. His thoughts spun, what could Jean possibly want to say after all this time? To scold him? To ask why he disappeared? Or worse, to be kind?

His gaze flicked back toward the phone.

He should block him there too. Clean slate. No half open doors.

He swallowed, reached for the phone with a shaking hand, thumb hovering over Jean’s name in the chat. The little green dot glowed beside it, online.

The screen pulsed once.

And then it started to ring.

Armin choked.

The bite of food caught halfway down his throat, making him cough violently. He grabbed his glass, taking a gulp of water, eyes watering as the ringtone vibrated against the table.

He stared at the screen in disbelief.

TalkTalk — Incoming call from janomel

His mind scrambled, heart stuttering so hard it hurt.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, breath shallow. His first instinct was to let it ring, to pretend he didn’t see. But the sound filled the small dorm like a pulse, steady, insistent, alive.

He pressed a hand against his chest, trying to steady the rhythm that wouldn’t listen.

The phone kept ringing.

It felt like the sound was pulsing through his ribs, matching the rhythm of his heart. His fingers twitched on the table, caught between fight and freeze. He didn’t think, he just moved.

Before he could stop himself, his thumb slid across the screen.

For a second, there was only static. The faint buzz of connection. Then.

"Armin?"

That voice.

Low. Familiar. Softly roughened by distance and bad reception, and that unmistakable lilt of French that always curled around his name like it was fragile.

"Armin."

He froze. His throat went tight. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

He didn’t know what to say. What was he supposed to say? Hi, sorry I blocked you? Sorry I thought ignoring you would hurt less? Sorry I missed you so much I almost lost my mind?

His hand trembled around the phone. The room suddenly felt too warm, his pulse too close to his skin.

Jean exhaled on the other end, a shaky, disbelieving breath. Then came the flood, his voice low and fast, words tumbling in French before Armin could even catch up.

“Armin, tu m’entends? Dis-moi que tu m’entends.”
(Armin, can you hear me? Tell me you can hear me.)

Armin pressed the phone closer to his ear, eyes wide.

“Armin, réponds, s’il te plaît.”
(Armin, answer, please.)

The desperation in his tone made Armin’s stomach twist. Jean sounded tired, hoarse, like he’d been trying to reach him for hours, days.

“Armin, je t’en prie, dis quelque chose.”
(Armin, I’m begging you, say something.)

The words slipped through the static, soft and broken at the edges, like every one of them cost something.

Armin’s lips parted, breath stuttering. He could understand him, every word, and that somehow made it worse.
Hearing his name in French, over and over, raw and real and pleading, it didn’t feel fair.

He hadn’t realized he was shaking until his hand slipped a little on the smooth glass. “Jean…”

It came out barely above a whisper, cracked and uncertain, but it was enough.

On the other end, Jean exhaled sharply, half relief, half disbelief. “Mon dieu. You’re there.”

Armin swallowed, his voice small. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“You didn’t answer." Jean said, his accent thick, words halting as if he’d rehearsed and forgotten all at once. “For days, nothing. I thought–” He stopped, the sentence hanging, unfinished but heavy.

Armin couldn’t look anywhere but the floor. The tiles blurred. “I– I didn’t know what to say.”

“Then say nothing. But don’t disappear.” Jean said softly.

The line went quiet for a moment, just the faint sound of Jean breathing.
Armin shut his eyes. The ache in his chest spread slowly, steady and deep, filling every part of him that had gone hollow.

“Jean…” His voice trembled. “Why did you keep calling?”

There was a pause, the kind that hummed with all the things better left unsaid. Then, quietly.

“Because I was afraid." Jean said. “And because I missed you.”

The room tilted. The words shouldn’t have hit so hard, but they did. Armin pressed a hand over his eyes, his throat burning, something fragile breaking loose under his ribs.

For the first time in days, the silence between them didn’t feel like a wall, it felt like air. Thin, shared, trembling.

He breathed in slowly. “I’m sorry.”

The words tumbled out before Armin could stop them, quiet and shaking, like his voice was breaking apart halfway through.

"I'm sorry." he said again, and then again, softer each time. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I'm sorry–”

His throat closed around the last one. It felt like the only thing he could say, the only thing that made sense in the noise of his chest. His breath hitched, uneven. His hand shook as he pressed the phone tighter to his ear, like that would stop the distance between them from feeling so impossible.

On the other end, Jean’s voice came through low and careful. “Hey, hey, Armin, it’s okay. You don’t have to–”

"It's not okay."

The words came out sharper than he meant, cracked open like glass. He took a trembling breath, his voice rising, desperate. “None of this is okay.”

Silence pressed against his ears. He could hear his own heartbeat echoing through it. Jean didn’t interrupt, didn’t try to fill it with more words.

Armin’s lip quivered. His vision blurred, tears burning at the corners of his eyes before spilling over, warm against his cold cheeks. “It’s wrong.” he whispered.
“This, everything, it’s wrong.”

Jean’s voice softened even more, careful now. “What is?”

“This.” Armin said, choking on it. “This feeling. I’m not supposed to feel this way. It’s–”

He cut himself off with a quiet, helpless laugh that sounded too close to a sob. “It’s not allowed. I’m not allowed.”

The words hung there, raw and shaking, like a confession no one should ever hear.

He pressed his sleeve to his face, wiping at his eyes, but the tears just kept coming, slow and steady. His chest ached like he’d been holding his breath for years and finally let go.

For a long moment, Jean didn’t speak. The silence stretched, not empty but heavy, like he was trying to find the right words in a language that wouldn’t let him.

Then, quietly, his voice came again, hesitant, almost fragile.

“I don’t know how to say this right in English.” he began. The words carried a pause between them, the kind that came with honesty. “But I understand you.”

Armin shut his eyes, biting back another sob.

Jean continued, his accent thicker now, like he wasn’t bothering to hide it. “There is nothing wrong with… humans feeling. That is what we do. It’s what makes us... alive.”

Armin’s breath hitched again. The words felt too kind. Too gentle.

Jean added, softly, “If I wrote something bad before, something that made you feel this way, I’m sorry–” He took a slow breath, and his next words came quieter, careful and heavy. “Let’s just forget this happened. Yes? We can go back. Talk like always.”

He nodded before remembering Jean couldn’t see him. “Yeah,” he said, voice faint, broken at the edges. “Yeah. Okay.”

Because what else was he supposed to say?

He didn’t trust himself to explain more, didn’t trust his heart to stay quiet if he did. It was easier to fold everything back into silence, to pretend this moment could be erased like a typo, something accidental and fixable.

He sniffed, wiped his eyes again, forcing his voice steady. “We can go back.”

Jean’s sigh of relief crackled faintly through the line. “Good. I like when we talk.”

Armin’s lips twitched, a small, trembling ghost of a smile. “Me too.”

And it was true.
He liked talking to Jean. He liked the way their messages could fill hours without effort, the easy rhythm they fell into even with an ocean between them. He liked Jean’s voice, the warmth in it, the way he said his name like it belonged somewhere softer.

He liked all of it. Maybe too much.

But this, this was what he was allowed. Friendship was safe.
That’s what he told himself as he sat there, tracing circles on the edge of his phone, the skin of his fingers cold and damp.

Friendship didn’t break rules.
Friendship didn’t make his chest feel like it was caving in every time he heard Jean laugh.

If he kept it inside, if he never said it out loud, maybe it would stay small. Maybe it would fade.

He tried to convince himself of that as he stared at the darkened window across from him, his own reflection barely visible against the faint snow outside.

“I missed this.” Jean said softly, interrupting the quiet. “Hearing you. You sound…" He hesitated, as if looking for the right word. “Real.”

Armin swallowed hard. “You too.”

A quiet hum of acknowledgment came through the speaker, followed by the sound of Jean shifting, maybe leaning against something. “You should eat.” he said suddenly. “I heard your plate before.”

Armin blinked, startled that he’d noticed. “Yeah. I, uh… I will.”

Jean chuckled quietly, the sound light enough to ease something small in Armin’s chest. “Good. You always forget when you think too much.”

Armin let out a soft, wet laugh through his nose, tears drying on his cheeks. “You sound like Eren.”

“I take that as insult or compliment?”

“Depends on the day.”

Jean laughed again, and for a moment it almost felt normal, almost like they hadn’t just broken something fragile between them.

When they hung up later, after the small talk had dulled into sleepy silence, Armin stayed sitting at the table, the empty plate in front of him gone cold. The phone was still warm in his palm.

He stared at it, the reflection of the screen catching in his tired eyes.

He’d told himself he liked Jean as a friend. That was safe. That was allowed.

He repeated it in his head like a mantra until the ache dulled into something distant, something numb.

Maybe he was lying to himself.
Maybe he knew that.

But if pretending was the only way to keep Jean close, to keep something warm in the long, quiet hours of winter, then maybe that was enough.

Maybe locking himself up wasn’t the worst thing. That friendship was enough.

Even if his heart refused to believe it.

Chapter Text

The shower ran too hot, the kind of heat that turned the small bathroom into a fogged up blur.

Armin didn’t mind.

He stood there longer than necessary, forehead resting lightly against the tile, the steady rhythm of water muffling everything else, thoughts, noise, memory. It was one of those rare moments when the world went quiet in a way that didn’t hurt.

He still felt something, though, a strange pressure in his chest. Not heavy, just there. That leftover hum of worry that always came after things seemed to “settle.”

He wasn’t sad, not exactly.
 Just unsure.

Yesterday hadn’t gone the way he expected, but somehow, that was okay. Talking to Jean again hadn’t fixed everything, but it had stopped the free fall. The silence between them didn’t feel like a wound anymore. It just existed. Manageable. Bearable.

Maybe that was the best he could hope for right now. Not clarity, just calm.

By the time he stepped out, the mirror was completely fogged over. He wiped a small circle clear with his hand, revealing his reflection, flushed skin, damp hair sticking to his forehead, eyes still rimmed with that soft morning tiredness.

He looked alive again. That counted for something.

He towel-dried his hair as he padded back into the dorm, feet sinking into the half warm carpet. The air smelled faintly of coffee grounds from earlier, and sunlight pooled in a slow, lazy stripe across the floor.

He pulled on a sweater first, light gray, soft enough to count as comfort, and rummaged through his closet for something decent. Jeans, a scarf, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, the navy coat.

The one Jean had helped him pick out months ago.

He slipped his phone into his pocket, grabbing his keys and a pair of gloves from the desk. He was supposed to run a few errands, laundry, groceries, maybe even grab a coffee somewhere that wasn’t his own kitchen for once.

Before leaving, he sat on the edge of his bed and unlocked his phone.

A new message from Eren blinked near the top.

eren :>
bro i miss campus
my mom made me fold towels for an hour
my aunt's dog tried to eat my charger
there are like 12 people talking at once i cant hear myself think

arminnn ☀️
sounds peaceful
maybe stay longer

eren :>
wow betrayal??
u r supposed to miss me

arminnn ☀️
i do
a little

eren :>
fake
come save me

arminnn ☀️
send me snacks and i'll consider it :b

eren :>
deal

He laughed quietly to himself, shaking his head.
He really misses Eren, more than he'd like to admit. Although his personality may be hard to understand at first, once you do, there's no going back.

He set the phone down and pulled up his scarf, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway, the cold air of winter break following him out.

The campus was quieter than usual.
Winter break had drained it of noise, leaving only the soft shuffle of snow underfoot and the occasional hum of a passing bus. Armin’s breath fogged in the air as he crossed the courtyard, scarf tucked high against his mouth.

The sun hung low, pale and thin, turning the world almost silver. A few lampposts still glowed stubbornly, even though it was midmorning.

He liked the quiet, in theory.
But after days of it, it felt too big.

His boots left uneven tracks in the slush as he walked toward the laundry room tucked behind the residence hall. The glass door squeaked when he pulled it open, a gust of detergent scented air rushing to greet him.

Rows of washing machines lined the walls, humming like tired engines.
Only one other person was there, a girl folded over her phone, earbuds in, tapping rhythmically against her thigh.

Armin nodded politely as he passed, though she didn’t notice. He loaded his clothes into a machine, tossing in detergent, quarters, a small sigh. The coins clinked against metal, oddly loud.

When the cycle started, the rhythmic spin filled the room, steady and hypnotic.

He leaned against the counter, watching the blur of colors behind the glass door, sweater sleeves, socks.
His reflection making him aware of the blue of the coat he shouldn't have worn.

Jean's coat.

He could almost picture the conversation again. Armin smiled faintly despite himself.

The machine beeped once, snapping him out of it. He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head. “Get a grip,” he muttered quietly.

When the cycle finished, he carried the warm pile back through the halls, the heat of the fabric seeping through his gloves. The air smelled faintly like dust and winter, that odd, sharp scent of metal and cold.

He didn’t realize he’d started humming until he was halfway back to his dorm. Something slow, tuneless, maybe a melody from a song Jean once sent him. He stopped when he noticed, rolling his eyes at himself.

The world felt gentler today.

The grocery store was busier.

He’d taken the bus into town, sitting near the window, forehead resting against the cold glass as the scenery slid by, rows of shuttered cafés, bare trees lined with faint Christmas lights still clinging to the season.

The store’s heater blasted too hot. His glasses fogged immediately when he walked in, forcing him to pause by the entrance to wipe them clean on his sleeve.

He grabbed a basket, weaving through aisles lined with half empty shelves. The smell of coffee beans and cinnamon hung thick in the air, mixed with the faint sound of some old pop song playing overhead.

He moved slowly, reading labels he didn’t need to read, picking up a jar, setting it down, glancing at his reflection in the glass of the freezer doors. His face looked softer in that diffused light, like he was caught between two versions of himself, the one who overthought everything, and the one who was trying not to.

He reached for a carton of milk, a box of cereal, a few instant noodles. Comfort food, no effort required.

Near the produce section, an older woman asked if he could help her reach a bag of apples on the top shelf. He smiled, stepping forward to grab it for her. She thanked him with a warmth that startled him, too genuine for how small the act was.

Maybe that’s what he’d been missing lately. Simple kindness.

He paid for his groceries, thanking the cashier who looked just as tired as he felt, and stepped back into the cold. The wind bit at his cheeks, but it felt cleaner than the air inside.

He didn’t take the bus back right away.

His grocery bag swung lightly at his side as he walked through the narrow streets that threaded between campus and the city. Snow clung to the curbs, thin patches of ice catching the light like glass.

The town felt half asleep, most of the shops shuttered for winter break, a few windows glowing dimly from inside. Somewhere, wind chimes clinked against a door.

He passed a row of parked cars blanketed in frost, a stray cat perched on the hood of one, tail curling lazily around its body.

He slowed his pace, not ready to go back just yet. There was something about walking with no destination that felt like breathing again.

After a few blocks, he reached the park, a small one tucked between apartment buildings, mostly empty except for a few traces of life scattered across the snow. A kid in a red hat chasing a dog that clearly didn’t want to be caught. Two older women feeding pigeons from a bench near the fountain.

And, a little farther away, a couple walking slowly under the bare trees, gloved hands brushing together until one finally reached out and held the other.

Armin sat on a nearby bench, setting the grocery bag by his feet. The wood was cold, biting even through his jeans. He leaned back, breath fogging faintly, eyes following the couple until they disappeared behind a row of evergreens.

Something in his chest ached, not painfully, just in that quiet, human way.

It was strange, watching other people fit together so easily, like their lives naturally overlapped. He wondered if that ever stopped feeling foreign. If connection ever stopped feeling like something you had to earn.

He pressed his gloved hands together, exhaling slowly. The branches overhead were lined with frost, glittering faintly each time the wind passed through them.

He could hear laughter from somewhere behind him, the child and the dog again, and for a fleeting second, he smiled.

Then his phone buzzed.

Once. Twice. The sound startling in the quiet.

He frowned, fishing it from his coat pocket, half expecting another meme from Eren or a campus notice he’d forgotten to mute.

But the name on the screen stopped him.

janomel

The sound of the ringtone filled the empty park, too soft to be jarring, but too familiar to ignore. His fingers tightened around the phone. He glanced around, as if someone might see, might confirm this was actually happening.

"...Alo?"

Jean’s voice, low, warm, unmistakably real. The faintest buzz of background noise came through the line, maybe street sounds, maybe a café nearby.

Armin’s pulse skipped. His voice came out rough, unsteady. “Oh, uh hi.”

There was a pause, just long enough for him to hear the sound of Jean exhaling softly. Then, gently.
“How are you?”

It was such a simple question, but it landed heavy. Armin stared at the park fountain, the thin sheet of ice across its surface, the way the light fractured against it.

“I’m fine.” he said after a beat. The word sounded lazy, automatic, the kind of answer people gave when they didn’t want to think about the real one. “Just running errands.”

Jean hummed softly in response, the sound like a small nod. “Errands are good.” he said. “I didn’t have work today, so I thought…” His voice trailed off for a moment before returning, quieter. “It was good to call.”

Armin blinked. “You… got a day off and decided to call me?”

"Oui." Jean said, smiling audibly now. "That's what friends do, non?"

Friends

It hit like a pinprick, small but deep. The word that always felt both safe and suffocating.

He didn’t respond right away. His breath came out slow, misting the air in front of him. His eyes traced the faint footprints leading away from the bench, strangers who had passed through, gone before him, like echoes.

Jean must have felt the pause, because his voice came again, softer, tentative. “Ah– should I not have called?”

Armin swallowed. “No, it’s… fine. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Good.” Jean said, almost relieved. “Then I am forgiven for interrupting your… walking?”

Armin huffed a quiet laugh, the sound curling in the cold air. “Something like that.”

The silence between them shifted, no longer awkward, but fragile, balanced. The faint sound of Jean’s breathing came through the line, steady, calm, grounding in a way Armin hadn’t realized he’d missed.

He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, watching a small dog dart across the snow, leash dragging behind it. The owner chased after it, laughing.

He smiled faintly.

For a moment, it almost felt normal.

He wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

Jean chuckled softly on the other end, that low sound that always seemed to fill the quiet between words.
“Where are you now? Still sitting in the cold?”

Armin stood, the bench creaking faintly beneath him. He shifted the grocery bag in one hand and started walking again, his shoes crunching over the thin frost on the path.
“Yeah. Just needed some air, I guess.”

“Air is good. But you sound like you’re freezing.”

“I’m fine.” Armin smiled despite himself. “I’ve got one of the coats you helped me pick out, remember?”

There was a pause, then a quiet, pleased laugh. “Ah, le bleu marine! The one from the pictures. I told you, that color makes you look très sérieux. Like a writer.”

Armin huffed a small laugh, his breath fogging in front of him. “You also told me to burn the trapper hat.”

Jean laughed, full this time, the kind that warmed Armin through the phone. “Because it was a crime against fashion, mon dieu. You looked like a lost tourist.”

“I was trying to blend in.” Armin said, smiling more openly now. “Guess I failed.”

“Yeah” Jean said. “But you kept the coat. That means I win.”

“Win what?”

“Your trust.” Jean replied easily. “And a tiny piece of your wardrobe.”

Armin shook his head, still smiling as he stepped over a patch of ice. “You sound very proud of that.”

“Of course.” Jean said, teasing but soft. “Every time you wear it, you’ll think of me, non?”

Armin’s steps faltered for just a second, barely noticeable, but his voice stayed steady when he answered. “Yeah. I guess I will.”

They walked in shared silence for a few seconds, only the faint static of the call and the rhythm of Armin’s footsteps between them. The world felt distant, just the sound of wind tugging through bare branches, a car door slamming somewhere down the street, a plane passing overhead.

Jean broke the quiet first. “Can I ask something, mon petit prof?”

Armin smiled faintly at the nickname. “You just did.”

Jean ignored the tease. “Can you… maybe unblock me on Instagram?”

Armin stopped walking. The world seemed to pause with him, his breath caught halfway out, fog freezing in the air.

He didn’t answer right away. He could hear Jean realizing it, the nervous shift in his tone when he spoke again.

“Désolé.” Jean said quickly. “That was… direct. I just– you don’t have to, if you don’t want. I only– I like seeing what you see. Your photos, I mean. They’re quiet. They feel like you.”

The words sat heavy in the air. Armin stared at the ground, the salt scattered across the pavement, the little pools of slush reflecting the pale sky. His throat felt dry.

He forced a breath, tried to sound normal. “No, it’s fine. I’ll… I’ll unblock you.”

Jean hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah” Armin said, starting to walk again. “It was just… complicated. But I’ll fix it.”

Jean’s voice softened. “Merci." Then, with a small laugh, “You know, I was going to say you didn’t have to, but I won’t lie. I’m glad.”

Armin huffed a small laugh, half embarrassment, half relief. “You don’t really play fair, do you?”

“Never.” Jean said simply. “Not with friends.”

That word again friends landed differently this time. Softer. Maybe because of how gently he said it.

Armin crossed into the quieter side streets near campus, where the snow wasn’t trampled yet. The world seemed muted there, his own footsteps loud, his breath steadying.

He adjusted the phone against his ear. “Hey, Jean.”

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you something weird?"

"I don't know." Jean said, teasing. "I like weird."

Armin smiled faintly, eyes on the empty street ahead. “Can you… describe what you see right now? Like– just whatever’s around you. Even if it’s in French. I don’t care if I don’t understand everything.”

Jean paused, caught off guard. “Describe?”

“Yeah. Just, talk. I just want to hear it.”

There was a rustle of sound through the speaker, maybe Jean moving, maybe leaning on something. Then he spoke, his voice lower, thoughtful.

"D'accord." he said. "Let me think."

Another pause. Then, softly.

“Je suis dans la rue. The street" he translated slowly. “There is a café behind me, small, old. They leave the door open even in winter, so you can smell the coffee in the air. The sky is–" he hesitated, searching for a word. “Gris clair. Light gray. Everything looks cold but… not sad.”

Jean continued, his voice steady and almost musical.
“Une femme marche avec un chien, petit, blanc. The dog barks at nothing, like it wants to talk too.” He laughed softly. “And across the street, two men are fixing a bicycle. One of them keeps dropping the wheel. They laugh every time.”

Armin closed his eyes for a moment, letting the sound of Jean’s voice blend with the wind. He could almost see it, the cobblestones, the smell of coffee, the faint color of a Paris winter.

As Jean spoke, switching almost effortlessly between English and French, Armin found himself smiling without meaning to.
It was strange, hearing how natural it sounded now, the rhythm smoother, the pauses rarer. It hadn’t even been three months since they started talking, but the change was obvious.

He remembered one late night, maybe a month ago, when Jean had sent him a photo, a small desk crowded with notebooks, each page filled with uneven lines of English words and scribbled translations.
"My battlefield" he’d written in the caption, half joking, though the smudge of ink on his fingers told a different story.

Armin had stared at that photo longer than he should’ve, the chaos of pen marks and coffee stains feeling strangely intimate, a piece of someone’s effort, their persistence. Even now, hearing Jean speak, every careful sentence carried a kind of tenderness, proof that he’d been listening all along.

“Et il y a de la lumière qui tombe sur les vitres… how do you say– the windows shine a little. Like the city is pretending it’s summer.”

Armin smiled. “You make it sound beautiful.”

“It is.” Jean said simply. Then, quieter “Maybe not all the time, but right now, yes.”

Armin looked up at the trees above him, their branches bare and trembling. He imagined Jean walking under a different sky, another kind of cold. The distance between them felt huge and fragile all at once.

For a while, he said nothing, just listened. Jean kept talking softly, describing little things, the smell of bread, the echo of footsteps, the way pigeons followed people like shadows.

It wasn’t about the words anymore. It was about the sound, about the way his voice made the air feel warmer.

Armin thought about what it would be like to see that world for himself. To wake up somewhere with sunlight that didn’t hurt, with people who didn’t expect him to apologize for how he felt.

If he hadn’t grown up afraid of being different. If he’d had a family waiting for him at holidays, or a home that didn’t feel borrowed. Would he still be this lonely?

Or was this who he was always meant to be, the quiet observer, the boy who listened instead of speaking, who fell in love with things he could never touch?

He didn’t realize he’d slowed to a stop again until Jean said softly “You’re quiet.”

“Sorry.” Armin said quickly. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

He smiled faintly. “Nothing you need to fix.”

Jean chuckled, the sound light and full of air. “I wouldn’t try. I’d just listen.”

Armin’s throat felt tight. “Yeah.” he whispered. “That’s what I like about you.”

The line went quiet for a moment, heavy but warm. Then Jean said softly, almost like a secret.

“Moi aussi, Armin. Me too.”

Armin closed his eyes, standing in the middle of the snowy street with a bag of groceries and a phone pressed to his ear.

Jean kept talking while Armin walked, his voice unhurried, floating through the quiet like a thread holding the evening together.

They talked about nothing, the kind of conversation that didn’t need meaning to exist. Jean complained about how the bakery downstairs played the same three songs on loop. Armin said the campus café was worse, because they still hadn’t fixed the espresso machine since last semester. Jean laughed at that, said something like “Then it’s not espresso, it’s just sadness with foam.”

Armin laughed too, soft and genuine.

The more they spoke, the less the distance felt like distance. The cold air didn’t bite as much. The weight in Armin’s chest loosened, replaced by something quieter.

He turned the corner toward his dorm building, boots crunching lightly over the thin layer of snow. The sky was still gray, but the kind of gray that looked soft, not empty. Through the phone, Jean was humming something, off key and unbothered.

“What’s that?” Armin asked.

Jean paused. “Huh?”

“That song. You were humming.”

“Oh.” Jean chuckled. “Old French song. My grandmother used to sing it when I was small. I don’t even know the name anymore.”

"What's it about?"

Jean hummed again, thinking. “A man who walks every day by the river, waiting for someone who never comes.”

“That’s depressing.”

Jean laughed. “C’est français. We romanticize everythin, even sadness.”

Armin smiled faintly. “You’re good at that.”

“Romanticizing sadness?”

“Making things sound beautiful.”

Jean didn’t answer right away. There was the faint sound of him breathing, then a quiet “Merci. You do that too.”

Armin felt his pulse quicken, just a little. “I don’t think I do.”

“You do.” Jean said. “Even when you talk about snow or tea or whatever you had for breakfast, you make it sound like… I don’t know. Something worth being there for.”

Armin swallowed. “That’s just good lighting, probably.”

Jean’s laugh came through the speaker, soft and bright, like the flicker of a lighter in the dark. “Maybe.”

They reached another stretch of quiet. The kind that wasn’t awkward, just full. Armin found himself slowing his pace, not wanting to reach the dorm yet, not wanting to hang up and let the silence swallow him again.

But eventually, the building loomed ahead, the familiar gray of concrete and fogged glass. The automatic doors hissed open when he stepped close.

Jean was still talking, rambling now about how his friend at work had spilled an entire tray of croissants that morning. Armin smiled, entering the lobby, his voice lowering automatically like he might disturb the quiet. “You really have a chaotic workplace.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” Jean said, mock serious. “C’est un désastre quotidien. A daily disaster.”

Armin laughed softly as he climbed the stairs, the sound of his boots echoing faintly. “You make it sound fun, though.”

“Maybe because it is. Sometimes I think we live just for the mess.”

"That's very poetic of you."

"I'm French, we can't help it."

Armin reached his door and fished for his keys, the phone tucked between his shoulder and ear. He unlocked the door, pushed it open with his hip, and flicked the light switch. The small dorm glowed back to life, still, quiet, a little too clean.

“I’m back.” he said softly, setting the grocery bag on the counter.

“Good.” Jean replied. “It’s cold out. I can hear it in your voice.”

Armin smiled, tugging off his coat and scarf. “I guess.”

There was a pause, the faint shuffle of movement on Jean’s end. Then Jean said, almost to himself “Ah, je devrais prendre une douche.”

Armin blinked. "What?"

"I said I should take a shower."

“Oh. Right.” Armin sat on the couch, kicking his shoes off. “Yeah, of course. Go ahead. We can text later.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Jean’s voice again, quieter this time.
“I don’t want to hang up.”

Armin froze slightly, his hand halfway to his hair. “What?”

Jean hesitated, the kind of hesitation that made his accent heavier. “I mean– it’s fine if you need to go. I just… don’t feel like saying goodbye yet.”

The corner of Armin’s mouth twitched. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Probably.” Jean admitted, laughing under his breath. “But… what if I just shower while we’re still on call?”

Armin’s brain short circuited for a second. “Wait– what?”

“I’m not saying you’ll hear anything.” Jean added quickly, teasing laced through the words. “It’s just… I keep talking. You keep talking. And voilà, problem solved.”

Armin could hear the smile in his voice, could picture the tilt of it. “That’s not how normal people do phone calls.” he said, trying to sound indifferent.

“Good thing we’re not normal.” Jean said easily.

Armin exhaled through his nose, shaking his head even though Jean couldn’t see it. “You’re unbelievable.”

“C’est pour ça que tu m’aimes bien.” Jean teased softly. (That’s why you like me.)

Armin’s face warmed, pulse skipping before he caught himself. “Just– go shower, idiot.”

Jean’s laugh filled the line again, bright, familiar, and far too fond. “See? You do like me.”

Armin stayed on the line even after Jean said “One second, I’ll put you down.”

There was a shuffle, the soft clink of a phone being set somewhere hard, and then the unmistakable hiss of running water.

It was faint, distant, not loud enough to intrude, just enough to make the quiet feel alive again.

Armin sat there on the couch for a while, staring at the little green call timer glowing on his screen. 41:37. 41:38. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t hung up yet.

To distract himself, he stood and started picking up the day, folding the throw blanket, stacking dishes in the sink, wiping down the counter that didn’t need it. The chores were mechanical, something to keep his hands busy. But the sound of water kept slipping into the edges of everything, soft and steady, like a heartbeat behind the walls.

Jean hummed sometimes. Nothing melodic, just fragments, his voice blurred by the echo of the tiled bathroom.

Armin tried not to think about it. It wasn’t weird, it wasn’t anything. Just background noise. Warm, human background noise.

He moved to the sink, started rinsing the dishes, realized he was humming too, a low, tuneless thing that barely existed. When he noticed, he stopped, smiled faintly, embarrassed at himself.

“Still there?” Jean’s voice came through, a little muffled but clear enough.

“Yeah” Armin said. He leaned against the counter, drying his hands on a dish towel. “You sound like a dying radio.”

Jean laughed, a soft, distant echo. “That’s flattering. How’s your view?”

Armin glanced at the window. Outside, the world had dimmed into that early winter evening blue. “It’s snowing again.”

“Describe it.”

“The snow?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated. “Um… It’s thin, I guess. The kind that looks fake. Streetlights make it look gold.”

Jean hummed approvingly. “You do make everything sound beautiful.”

Armin rolled his eyes, though he was smiling. “Shut up.”

He could almost hear Jean’s grin through the line. “Steam. Soap. And my terrible reflection.”

Armin laughed softly, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “Very poetic.”

“Already told you, I’m French. We make poetry out of boredom.”

Armin leaned back until he was flat on his bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The room was dim now, only the bedside lamp on, washing everything in warm yellow light.

“What would you write about?” Jean asked suddenly.

Armin blinked. “What do you mean?”

“If you had to. If you had to write about something today.”

He thought about it. The ceiling. The snow outside. The ache in his chest that had dulled into something manageable but not gone.

“Probably… about quiet things.” he said finally. “Things that pretend to be calm.”

“That’s sad.” Jean said gently.

"It's honest."

Another pause. The sound of water stopped. Then came a click, the squeak of a faucet turning off.

Jean’s voice was closer now, clearer, lighter. “And what would your poem say?”

Armin exhaled slowly, tracing invisible shapes on his blanket with one finger. “That I’m trying. Even if I don’t know what for.”

Jean didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, softly. "That’s a good poem.”

“Maybe.” Armin murmured.

The line went quiet again, but it wasn’t empty. Just the faint shuffle of Jean moving around, the rustle of a towel, the creak of a door.

“Still there?” Jean asked again, quieter this time.

“Yeah.”

“I like that you stay.”

Armin closed his eyes, the corner of his mouth lifting just slightly. “I like that you call.”

He could hear Jean’s breath catch, faint but real, before he laughed under it. “Dangerous combination.”

"Yeah."

Neither of them said goodbye that night. They just let the call run until disconnected on its own, two green dots going dark at the same time.

Chapter Text

The first thing Armin registered was sound.
Not the radiator this time, or the wind against the window, but a sharp, cheerful ringtone that cut straight through the fog of sleep.

He groaned, face half buried in the pillow, groping blindly across the sheets until his fingers brushed something cold and flat. The phone buzzed again, screen lighting up the dim dorm room in quick pulses of blue.

Incoming FaceTime — eren :>

Of course.

He swiped up without thinking, squinting against the screen’s brightness.

“Armin!”

The voice hit him like a splash of cold water. Eren’s face filled the frame, too close to the camera, all sharp grin and wild hair. Behind him, chaos reigned, voices overlapping, laughter, the sound of a pan clattering, someone yelling about breakfast.

Armin winced. “Eren, you’re shouting.”

“You’re sleeping!” Eren shot back. “It’s really late. I thought you’d been kidnapped or something.”

Armin blinked, eyes darting to the digital clock on his desk. 3:28 PM.
He frowned. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I?” Eren leaned back, giving him a better view of the background. “I called you three times this morning. You didn’t answer. I thought you choked on your coffee or froze to death in that depressing dorm.”

Armin stretched, the blanket falling off his shoulder. His voice was still hoarse from sleep. “That’s dramatic, even for you.”

Eren grinned. “I learned from the best.”

Armin rubbed his eyes, trying not to smile. “How’s home?”

“Loud” Eren said immediately. “Loud and exhausting. My mom’s making soup for every single neighbor, Mikasa’s pretending she can’t hear me, and my cousin keeps showing me his Fortnite kills. I’m losing brain cells.”

The camera wobbled as he moved, revealing a blur of cabinets, a cat tail flicking past the frame, and a flash of sunlight across his hair.

Armin snorted softly. “You sound like you’re thriving.”

Eren gave him a flat look. “You think this is funny?”

“A little.”

“You’d last five minutes here.”

“Probably.”

That earned a grin. “At least you’re honest. So what about you? Still playing hermit? Or did that French guy of yours finally convince you to go outside?”

Armin blinked once, twice, feigning confusion. “...What?”

Eren rolled his eyes. “Don’t do that innocent thing. Jean, right? The ‘oh he’s just a friend, Eren’ guy?”

Armin felt the tips of his ears heat. “He is just a friend.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Eren said, leaning closer to the screen. “You’re blushing.”

“I just woke up.”

“Sure you did.”

Armin sighed, but there was laughter hiding under it. “You’re unbelievable.”

Eren grinned wider, teeth showing. “You used to tell me everything. Now it’s all mystery calls and European accents.”

“I do not sound like that.”

“You literally sound like that.”

Armin laughed quietly despite himself. The sound came easier this time, less forced than it had been in weeks. “You’re jealous.”

Eren froze mid eye roll, scoffing. “Jealous? Of some dude who says bonjour and makes you cry over poetry? Please.”

“That’s a very specific image.” Armin said, amused.

“Because that’s what happens when you talk to artists, man. I’ve seen movies.”

“Jean’s not an artist.”

Eren smirked. “He’s French. That’s basically the same thing.”

Armin shook his head, tugging the blanket around his shoulders again. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Admit it.” Eren said. “You like him.”

The words landed too simply, too casually, the kind of teasing that should’ve bounced off. But something in Armin’s chest stuttered, just enough to feel it.

He looked away, pretending to adjust his pillow. “He’s… easy to talk to, that’s all.”

Eren hummed, not buying it but also not pushing. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

Armin smiled faintly, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. “Maybe I am.”

The truth sat there, small but heavy, and for a second, Eren didn’t say anything. The kitchen noise behind him softened, a door closed, someone laughed farther away, and suddenly, it was just them again.

“You okay?” Eren asked after a moment, quieter this time.

Armin nodded, though his chest felt tight. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Tired or thinking?”

He hesitated. “Both.”

Eren tilted his head. “About him?”

There was no judgment in the question, just curiosity, that open, too honest way Eren had always been.

Armin swallowed. His first instinct was to lie. His second was to change the subject. His third, the one he didn’t act on, was to tell the truth. To say that it wasn’t about Jean, not really, but about what Jean made him feel, and how that feeling scared him more than he’d ever admit out loud.

He’d never told Eren anything like that before. He wasn’t sure if he could.

So he just shrugged. “Maybe.”

Eren studied him for a second through the screen, like he wanted to say something but decided against it. Instead, he grinned. “Well, whoever he is, tell him thanks. You look less like a ghost today.”

“Wow” Armin deadpanned. “Compliment of the year.”

“I mean it.” Eren said, softer now. “You’ve been… better lately. I noticed.”

The quiet between them stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just warm. Familiar.

Armin leaned back against the headboard, phone propped up against his knee. “You know.” he said, “you could just say you missed me.”

Eren barked a laugh. “Not a chance.”

“Uh-huh. That pantry call says otherwise.”

Eren scowled, half amused, half defensive. “It’s not a pantry. It’s a tactical communication base.”

“With snacks.”

“Exactly.”

Armin laughed, covering his mouth as Eren flipped the camera to show the shelves around him, jars, pasta boxes, a bag of rice threatening to fall.

“Strategic positioning.” Eren said proudly. “Everything I need for survival.”

“Truly heroic.”

“Someone has to keep this family together.”

Armin smiled, the kind that crept up slow. “You’re doing a great job, really.”

Eren grinned, but his voice softened again, that rare edge of sincerity sneaking through. “Hey. Seriously. Don’t disappear on me again, okay? Even if you’re busy with your… mysterious Frenchman.”

Armin laughed under his breath, but it came out fragile. “Yeah. I won’t.”

“Promise?”

He nodded once. “Promise.”

“Good.” Eren sat back, satisfied. “Now go eat something. And text me when you’re alive enough to join the human race.”

“You say that like you’re part of it.”

“Touché.”

Someone yelled for him again in the distance. He turned, sighing dramatically. "Duty calls. I’m the designated family tech support today. Pray for me."

Armin laughed quietly. “Good luck.”

“Luck won’t save me.” Eren said, pointing at the camera. “But if I die, tell Jean he’s still suspicious.”

Armin blinked. “Suspicious?”

“Yeah” Eren said, grinning. “Nobody’s that charming over text.”

The call stayed on another minute, Eren’s mother yelling in the background, his camera spinning as he walked through the hallway, before he finally said, “Alright, talk later, sunshine.” and waved the phone like a kid before hanging up.

The line clicked, the screen went dark, and the silence that followed felt warm instead of hollow.

Armin sat there for a long time, the corner of his mouth still curved up, phone still in hand.

He should’ve told Eren more. Maybe he would’ve understood. Maybe he wouldn’t have.

But for now, it was enough, the sunlight spilling across his sheets and the quiet hum in his chest that didn’t hurt anymore.

He stretched, letting the blanket slip down, and whispered to no one, “Okay. One thing at a time.”

Armin leaned against the counter, damp hair curling slightly at the ends, hoodie too big and sleeves swallowing half his hands. The air still smelled faintly like his shampoo, clean and citrusy, mixing with the scent of melting butter and milk on the stove.

He watched the steam rise, slow and ghostlike, curling toward the ceiling before fading. The water started to bubble, soft and restless, and he dropped the pasta in, the hiss of starch hitting heat echoing through the tiny kitchenette.

It was almost peaceful, this small ritual of feeding himself, of doing something ordinary that didn’t demand thought. Just movement. Stir, wait, pour, stir again.

Outside, snow kept falling, thicker now, blanketing the world in a hush that matched the rhythm of the soft hum from the stove fan.

He grabbed his phone from the counter while the noodles softened, thumb tracing the smooth glass without unlocking it. The background was still the same picture, one Eren had taken during their first hangout as friends, the two of them squinting in the sun, laughing at something stupid.

The screen lit up under his touch, the faint reflection of his face caught in the corner.
No new messages.

He didn’t mind, not like before. The quiet felt earned this time.

Still, it was strange how quickly things could shift. A week ago, he’d been convinced he’d ruined everything. Now, he’d had an actual good day, laughed, eaten, even managed to sleep past noon without guilt.

Progress.

He stirred the pasta, smiling faintly when a bubble popped and splashed a tiny drop onto the stove. “Good enough.” he murmured to himself, reaching for the packet of powdered cheese, pouring it in, watching the sauce turn gold and creamy under the spoon.

It wasn’t fancy, but it was warm, and it smelled like the kind of comfort you could eat straight out of the pot.

He plated it anyway, old habits, and carried it to the small table by the window. The snow outside glowed faintly orange under the lamplight, flakes falling slow and heavy, like the world had forgotten how to rush.

He took a bite. Too hot. Burned his tongue. Worth it.

Halfway through the bowl, his mind started to wander.

December. Holidays coming.

Eren would be with his family, probably terrorizing the cat or pretending to help Mikasa decorate. Sasha and Connie were off visiting relatives somewhere up north, judging by their chaotic group selfies. Even Jean was probably surrounded by people, he always seemed to be.

Armin looked around his dorm room. It didn’t look bad, just empty. The kind of clean that came from not wanting to touch anything.

He considered decorating, lights, maybe a small tree from the campus store, but then thought, what’s the point?

No one would see it.

But then again. Maybe that wasn't the point.

He looked down at his half finished mac and cheese, the edges already cooling, and thought about how different this December felt from last year’s. Back then, he’d been barely holding it together. Now, he was still holding, just a little steadier.

That deserved something.

He opened his phone again, scrolling absently through his photos until he hit the camera icon. The window glass caught his reflection, faint and blurred, snow still falling behind it. He turned the camera toward the view instead.

Campus stretched out below, almost unrecognizable under all that white. Benches, trees, paths, all soft edged and still. No footprints. No sound. Just snow and quiet.

The image came out pale and soft, like a postcard from nowhere.

He stared at it for a moment, then flipped to TalkTalk. The chat with Jean sat near the top, last message still glowing faintly.

It felt like forever ago.

His thumb hovered over the keyboard. For once, there wasn’t any panic under it. Just hesitation, the kind that came before something good, maybe.

He attached the photo.

The caption came to him a second later, stupid and perfect in the same breath.

sunm1n
[pic]
veux-tu construire un bonhomme de neige ? ☃️
(do you wanna build a snow man ?)

He stared at it, grinning to himself. The French spelling looked clumsy in his chat box, but that somehow made it better.

He hit send before he could talk himself out of it.

The message popped up with a soft whoosh, disappearing into the void of delivered.

He exhaled, setting the phone face down beside his bowl.

Somewhere outside, a door slammed, and laughter echoed faintly through the hall.

Armin smiled, twirling another forkful of mac and cheese, and whispered, “Your move, Jean.”

He didn’t expect an answer right away.

But a few seconds later, the phone buzzed once against the table.

janomel
Only if you promise to make me coffee after.

He set the bowl aside, curling up sideways on the chair, the phone balanced against his knee. Snow still fell outside, soft and endless.

sunm1n
i'll even add sugar
unless u want salt for the thrill

janomel
Please no.
No salt.
Trauma.

sunm1n
trauma????

janomel
Today I almost destroyed an entire tray of macarons because I put salt instead of sugar.
Trois fois.
THREE TIMES.

sunm1n
three??

janomel
My brain said "sucre"
My hand said "non"

Armin's laugh broke out loud enough to echo. He covered his mouth, but it didn't help.

sunm1n
aren't u supposed to be good at this?

janomel
Theoretically yes.
Let's say my nerves are flambé.

sunm1n
wait
what exams are u doing again?

janomel
Final practicals.
Pastry and presentation.
This week was chocolate tempering.
Next, macaroons.

sunm1n
u make it sound like a boss fight

janomel
IT IS.
You temper chocolate wrong and it turns into existential crisis.
I started at my reflection in the ganache today and questioned my life decisions.

Armin burst out laughing again, the kind of laugh that filled the room and made his stomach ache.

sunm1n
andddd
did u pass???

janomel
Miraculously.
Chef said "good texture"
I almost cried.
My hand was shaking so much I dropped the piping bag afterward.

sunm1n
proud of you
even if u salted the macarons

janomel
Merci.
I am humbled.
And traumatized.
Both.

When the next message came through, it wasn’t text. It was a photo.

The image loaded slowly, grainy at first, then clear, Jean sitting at what looked like a stainless steel counter, apron still on, sleeves rolled up, hair messy from the day. His expression was somewhere between exhaustion and triumph. His right hand, slightly red, held a cooling rack of pink macarons that looked deceptively perfect.

But what caught Armin’s eye was the small burn mark near Jean’s wrist. Not bad, but visible, a faint pink patch against his skin.

He looked so tired, but in that endearing, soft way, eyes half lidded, grin tilted. Like a puppy who just survived something heroic.

janomel
[pic]
Proof of battle.
Macaron 1, Jean 0. 💔

sunm1n
u're injured

janomel
It's artistic suffering.

sunm1n
u need ice, not art

janomel
Too late.
I'm one with the burn now.
Call me caramel.

sunm1n
u're delirious

janomel
Oui.
Caffeine ended at noon.

He hesitated before typing his next message, thumbs pausing halfway. There was something almost comforting about this, Jean, even exhausted, still showing up with humor, still sharing pieces of his world like they were worth something.

sunm1n
i can tell this exam really matters to u

janomel
It does.
I don't want to just pass.
I want to be proud of it, you know?
Sometimes I still feel like i'm catching up to everyone.

sunm1n
u're doing fine jean
better than fine actually
i've seen ur cakes
they look illegal

janomel
Illegal??

sunm1n
yeah
like people shouldn't be able to make things that pretty
it's intimidating

janomel
Intimidating.
I like that.
You think i'm intimidating, petit prof? 😏

sunm1n
only ur desserts
you, not so much

janomel
Rude.
But fair.

He sent another picture right after, a blurry close up of his macaron tray with a doodled smiley face drawn in chocolate on parchment paper.

janomel
[pic]
I named him Philippe.
He's my emotional support pastry.

Hilarious. It seems that a clown possessed this boy during the exam.

sunm1n
LMAO
how late it's there anyway?

janomel
Presque minuit.

sunm1n
and u're here instead of sleeping

janomel
Obviously.
I need to tell someone I survived macaron day.
You're my someone.

Armin’s smile faltered for a second, just a heartbeat, not out of sadness, but that small, quiet ache that came when someone said something too soft, too sincere.

He typed, slower now.

sunm1n
i'm glad u did
survive macaron day i mean

Armin stared at the screen for a few seconds, the light painting his face in pale gold from the window’s reflection.

His heart felt too full for words, so he just sent a small snowflake emoji.

Jean replied instantly.

janomel
Bonne nuit, snowman builder.
Don't melt. ❄️

Armin laughed quietly, biting his lip.

sunm1n
night, caramel

The snow was still falling when Armin looked up from the dimming phone screen.

Not the heavy kind that drowned the world, but the soft, steady kind that made everything glow under the yellow lamplight outside. The dorm window was fogged faintly from the heat inside, and beyond it, the courtyard looked untouched, blanketed in white.

He stood there for a while, staring.

Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled on his coat and boots.

The air hit him sharp the second he stepped outside. Cold enough to sting, but clean in a way that woke him up completely. His breath came out in clouds that drifted and broke apart almost instantly. The snow beneath his boots gave that muffled crunch, a sound that only existed in winter nights like this, when everything else had gone still.

The lamps along the paths were already lit, halos of light falling across the snow in soft golden circles.

No one else was around. The world belonged to him for the moment, a small, frozen kingdom of quiet.

He crouched near a patch of untouched snow and started gathering handfuls, pressing them together until the cold bit at his fingers. The first ball came out lopsided, the second slightly better. By the third, he’d forgotten to feel self conscious. The world shrank to simple motions pack, roll, stack.

It was ridiculous, really. He was a grown adult, freezing, building a snowman in a deserted courtyard while the world slept off its December fatigue. But it didn’t feel ridiculous.

He felt free.

The wind brushed against his hair, the snowflakes sticking to his lashes. His cheeks burned pink from the cold, and for once, he didn’t care how he looked. Each breath came with a soft cloud, dissolving into the air as quickly as it formed.

He shaped the head last, smoothing the uneven edges with his gloves until it sat right. Then, glancing around, he found a few stray pebbles near the sidewalk to use for eyes and a stick for the mouth. It came out crooked, the snowman looked perpetually amused.

Armin grinned back at it.
“Yeah, you’re probably laughing at me too.”

He stepped back, brushing the snow from his sleeves. The courtyard stretched wide and empty, lit in that soft twilight gold, the silence didn’t feel cruel. It felt like permission.

He took out his phone, his gloved fingers stiff from the cold. The screen flared to life, too bright against the dim world.

He switched to the camera, angling it awkwardly until both he and the snowman fit in frame, the snowman slightly off center, Armin with flushed cheeks, wind-ruffled hair, and the smallest smile tugging at his lips.

The shutter clicked.

He stared at the photo for a moment before opening the chat.
Jean’s last message was still there, timestamped just before midnight in Paris. He’d be asleep by now.

He uploaded the photo and typed, slowly, fingers trembling from both cold and nerves.

sunm1n
[pic]
mission complete :]

He hovered over the send button longer than necessary.
The thought crossed his mind, this is weird, right? childish? that small voice that always came when he started feeling too much. The same voice that told him to pull back, to stay quiet, to hide before anyone could notice.

But then he looked around again, at the empty campus, the golden light cutting through falling snow, the tiny crooked grin on the snowman’s face.

Something in him softened.

Maybe it didn’t matter if it was childish.
Maybe he didn’t have to earn every little joy he wanted.
Maybe, for once, it was okay to do something that made him feel alive, even if it made no sense to anyone else.

He pressed send.

The screen blinked once, message delivered.
And that was it, simple, small, real.

He lowered his phone and just stood there, watching the snow continue to fall, dusting the shoulders of his coat and the head of his snowman. The air was quiet except for the faint hum of wind between the buildings.

A thought flickered, quiet but clear.
Maybe I should start prioritizing myself.

The words felt strange in his head, unfamiliar but good.
He smiled, small and steady, as the first stars began to appear faintly through the clouds.

The snowman looked ridiculous.
 And perfect.

The morning came slow.

Not in a heavy way, more like the world itself was reluctant to move.
The dorm was silent except for the faint whistle of wind pressing against the window.

Armin blinked awake. For a second, he forgot what day it was. Then, he remembered, break, weekend, no alarms. He could've stayed in bed for hours if he wanted to.

But his body disagreed.

Maybe it was habit, or guilt, or just that subtle ache of knowing too much quiet could turn dangerous if he let it. Either way, by the time the clock hit 8:14, he was already sitting up, sheets tangled around his legs, hair sticking up in uneven tufts.

The snowman still stood outside, faintly visible through the frosted glass, his silent companion from last night. Seeing it there made him smile before he even realized it.

The floor was cold when his feet touched it. The kind of cold that made him move faster toward the shower.

Steam rose quickly once the water ran. He stepped in and let the water wash over him, tracing familiar paths down his shoulders and back. For a few minutes, he let his thoughts drift, unanchored, nothing sharp or heavy, just that pleasant blur that came with being half awake and alone.

He thought of nothing and everything.

He exhaled through his nose and turned the tap a little hotter.

When he finally stepped out, the mirror was a white blur. He dried his hair with a towel, combed it into place with his fingers, and pulled on a soft gray sweater, the same one he’d worn too many times but couldn’t quite stop wearing. Comfortable things were like that, they made the world feel less sharp.

In the kitchen corner, he filled the kettle and set it on the stove. The faint hiss of water heating filled the air.
While it boiled, he reached for the small loaf of bread and sliced two uneven pieces, dropping them into the toaster.

He didn’t bother with plain butter this time. Instead, he reached for the small jar of strawberry jam tucked at the back of the cabinet, the expensive kind, the one he usually rationed like it was gold.

He spread it thick across the toast, all the way to the edges, watching the red sink into the warmth.

When the kettle clicked, he poured the coffee carefully, the steam curling into his face. Two sugars this time. He hesitated, then added a third. He could almost hear Eren calling him dramatic. Jean would probably call it sweet-toothed American tendencies, or something worse in French.

He smiled at the thought.

The first sip hit perfectly, hot and creamy.

It was the kind of slow, domestic quiet he hadn’t had in months.
No deadlines, no noise, no one knocking at his door. Just the rhythm of small sounds, toast popping, kettle cooling, the faint creak of floorboards when he shifted his weight.

There were crumbs on the counter by the time he sat down, half eaten toast on his plate, one leg tucked under him like he’d forgotten how to sit properly.
The light had shifted now, stronger, whiter, catching in his hair and glinting off the rim of his mug.

He leaned back in his chair, the mug cradled between both hands, and stared absently at the window. Outside, the courtyard looked untouched again, his snowman barely visible beneath a new layer of white.

His phone sat facedown on the table.
He hadn’t checked it yet.

A part of him wanted to. To see if Jean had seen the photo, replied, said something funny or gentle or, worse, nothing at all.

But another part of him hesitated, that same nervous flutter that felt far too familiar, far too teenage for his liking.

“Fuck that.” he muttered under his breath, setting the mug down with a soft clink.

He wasn’t going to sit here pretending to be calm just because he was supposed to be an adult.
Who was going to judge him anyway?
The ghost that had apparently taken residence in his dorm? His snowman?
Sure. Whatever.

He grabbed his phone.

The screen came to life instantly. Notifications blinked up one after another, the usual spam, an email, some app reminder, and there, at the top, TalkTalk.

His stomach did that awful, traitorous flip.

He unlocked the phone. The app took a second to load, that little green circle spinning lazily in the corner like it knew he was suffering. Then, finally, the message preview appeared.

janomel
Your snowman looks happier than most people I know.
Also.
You look très mignon with your glasses like that.

Armin froze.

For a full three seconds, he just stared at the words, rereading them until the letters started to blur. His throat felt suddenly too warm. Très mignon. He didn’t even have to translate it, his brain supplied it instantly, unhelpfully.

Cute.
Jean called him cute.

“Oh my god.” Armin whispered into the empty kitchen.

And then the app stuttered again, screen flickering slightly before another notification appeared, half loaded.
[pic]

He blinked. The thumbnail stayed gray for what felt like an eternity. He tapped it. The loading circle spun, and for one ridiculous moment he thought maybe the universe was protecting him from himself.

Then it appeared.

Jean.
Messy hair, pillow creased cheek, still in bed. His eyes were half open, soft and unfocused, like he’d taken the photo half asleep. There was a faint smile on his lips, unposed, real. The kind that looked like warmth even through a screen.

Underneath, the caption.
Looking forward for today. ☃️

Armin's brain went blank.

Everything around him just faded out, leaving him suspended in that unbearable quiet where all you could hear was your own heartbeat.

He wasn’t sure what he felt first, the heat crawling up his neck or the sudden wave of nausea from realizing how muchhe was feeling.
Was this butterflies? Or early onset shame? Hard to tell.

He set the phone face down, stared at the ceiling, then picked it back up again like some masochistic reflex.
Nope. Still there. Still Jean. Still that sleepy face.

He laughed under his breath, quiet and shaky. “God, I hate you.”

Except he didn’t. That was the problem.

He pushed his hair back from his face, fingers trembling slightly, the faint smell of coffee and toast grounding him just enough.
He should respond.
He wanted to.
He just didn’t know how without sounding like a twelve year old with a crush.

The phone screen dimmed, reflecting his face, tired, flushed, and smiling in spite of himself.

He groaned, letting his head fall into his arms. “I’m gonna throw up.”

He stayed like that for a while, head buried in his folded arms, phone resting on the counter beside him, screen still faintly glowing through the fabric of his sleeve.

He could feel his pulse in his throat, uneven and stupid.

It wasn’t just the message. It was what it meant. How easy it seemed for Jean to say things like that, to send a photo like that, soft, unfiltered, real.
How impossible it still felt for Armin to exist in that kind of ease.

He knew what his brain would say if he thought too long.

Those thoughts came quietly, like they always did, echoing in the same voice that had taught him to laugh things off when he was younger.
Don’t make it weird. Don’t make people uncomfortable. Don’t be that kind of boy.

He closed his eyes, breathing slow.

He picked up the phone.
The photo was still open, Jean’s tired face, that half smile, that caption.

He looked at it until his chest hurt. Then he opened the text box, fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard.

He didn’t want to hide anymore. Not from this. Not from himself.
Maybe that was the point, maybe this wasn’t about Jean, or about romance, or anything he could name yet.
Maybe it was just about not pretending.

He started typing.
Deleted it.
Typed again.
Deleted again.
Then, finally, he let his hands move without overthinking.

sunm1n
that's cheating
u can't look that good half asleep
i feel offended on behalf of humanity

He stared at it for a few seconds, his thumb hovering over send.
It wasn’t much. It wasn’t brave, exactly. But it was honest, a tiny rebellion against every voice that told him to shrink himself down.

He pressed send.

Armin let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, a nervous laugh catching at the edge of it.

“That’s it” he muttered. “You’ve officially lost it.”

But his chest felt lighter. Just a little.
Maybe this was what it felt like to begin.

He needed to do something. Anything that didn’t involve staring at that chat like his life depended on it.

Armin grabbed his phone again and opened Eren’s chat before he could change his mind. Safe territory.
Eren was predictable chaos, loud, dramatic, allergic to silence. Perfect distraction.

He started typing.

arminnn ☀️
wake up idiot
or don't actually
i hope ur cousin replaced ur shampoo with mayo
also
i made mac and cheese like a champion yesterday
and yes
i used too much butter again
no
i don't regret it
answer me before i report u missing

The screen stayed quiet for a while. No typing bubble. No reply. Just his own ridiculous thread of messages lined up like evidence of insanity.

He leaned back on the stool, the corner of his mouth twitching.

But then, of course, his brain circled back.

What if Jean saw the message?
What if he didn’t?
What if he was already awake and reading it and thinking–

Armin shook his head hard. “Nope.”
He wasn’t doing that again.

He opened Instagram instead, scrolled aimlessly through random posts, mostly people showing their Christmas lights or dogs in sweaters. His phone buzzed once, his heart jumped, but it was just a spam email.

“Figures.”

He went back to Eren’s chat and added, because he couldn’t help himself.

arminnn ☀️
btw if u died tell me where u hid ur pokemon cards

A few seconds later, a typing bubble popped up.

eren :>
bro it's 10am
let me rot

arminnn ☀️
consider it a wake up gift

eren :>
a threat more like
what's going on??

Of course Eren noticed. He always did.
He could read tone through pixels like it was printed on paper.

arminnn ☀️
nothing
just bored

eren :>
uuuh
sure
the guy who schedules his boredom?
try again

arminnn ☀️
maybe i just missed u

eren :>
oh god
what do u want

arminnn ☀️
attention

eren :>
that's worse

A blurry photo came through a second later, Eren half under a blanket, hair sticking up like static, only one eye visible.

Armin snorted.

eren :>
u woke this up
hope ur proud

arminnn ☀️
i'm always proud of my disasters

eren :>
yeah ok
seriously though
what's up?
u don't spam me unless u broke something or ur overthinking again

Armin hesitated, fingers hovering above the keyboard.
He could lie, make another joke.
Or maybe, he didn’t have to this time.

arminnn ☀️
can i call u?

The screen barely had time to fade from the message before his phone started vibrating.

Armin’s stomach dropped.

The sound hit sharp and sudden in the quiet dorm brrr, brrr, echoing off the walls like an alarm. He stared at it for one second too long before swiping to answer.

"...Hey"

His voice came out thin, unsteady, caught somewhere between a whisper and a breath.

“Hey?” Eren’s voice shot through the speaker, rough with sleep but already full of that signature energy. “You sound like you’re about to confess to murder.”

Armin huffed out a laugh that didn’t quite make it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Bro, I was awake. Barely.” There was a rustle, maybe Eren sitting up. “You texted like a maniac and then dropped a can I call you? at ten in the morning. Of course I called. You’re scaring me.”

“I’m fine.” Armin said quickly. Too quickly.

A pause. Then a sigh on the other end, heavy but not annoyed, more like Eren was trying to pull the right words out of his chest.

“Alright” he said finally. “Guess this is gonna be one of those serious talks.”

Armin stayed quiet. The only sound was the faint creak of Eren shifting, the muffled clatter of something falling, probably his phone hitting his knee, and then his voice again, steadier now.

“Listen.” Eren’s tone softened, that strange mix of rough and gentle only he could pull off. “Whatever it is, just say it. There’s nothing you can tell me that’s gonna make me mad, or weird, or whatever you’re worried about. Got it?”

Armin swallowed hard, throat dry. His hand was shaking slightly where it held the phone, fingertips pressing too tight against the case.

Eren continued before he could answer, quieter this time. “You don’t have to filter stuff with me.”

Armin stared at the floor, the grain of the wood blurring a little. His chest ached in that too familiar way, the kind that came right before saying something real.

He took a breath. Then another.

“I know.” he said softly. “I just… I didn’t know where to start.”

Eren hummed, that low, wordless sound of patience. “Start wherever. I’m here.”

He ran a hand through his hair, exhaled shakily. “Eren… there’s something I’ve been–” He stopped, rubbed his temple. “...feeling. Or maybe realizing. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“Okay.” Eren’s tone was cautious but steady, that rare kind of patience that only showed up when it actually mattered. “Weird how? Like, sick weird? Because if you say you’ve got mono again I’m hanging up.”

Armin laughed under his breath, but it cracked halfway through. “Yeah. Sick. But… not like that.”

There was a pause, a long, confused pause, before Eren said slowly, “...Okay, what does ‘not like that’ mean?”

Armin’s fingers tightened around his phone. His pulse was loud, like it was trying to fill the silence for him. “It means–” he started, then stopped again, his voice shaking now. “It means I’ve been trying to stop feeling something I can’t stop. And it’s… wrong. I know it’s wrong, I just–”

“Hey.” Eren’s voice cut in, sharp but not unkind. “You don’t get to say that. What’s wrong with you? Nothing. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Armin shut his eyes. His chest felt tight, like breathing itself was too much effort. The words pressed harder, demanding to be said.

He’d rehearsed it before, in mirrors, in notebooks he never saved, but it never sounded right. It always came out too heavy, too soft, too scared.

But now there was no time to plan it. It had to be raw. It had to be real.

He swallowed hard, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"I'm gay."

The words hit the air before he could take them back.

Silence.

For a second, he thought maybe the call had dropped. The world outside the dorm felt too still.

Then Eren finally breathed out, a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh of disbelief. “That’s it?”

Armin blinked. “What?”

“That’s what you were freaking out about?” Eren said, his voice rough but almost incredulous. “Dude. I thought you killed someone.”

Armin stared at the ceiling, speechless. “You’re… not surprised?”

“Surprised? Bro, you’re literally the only one who didn’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

Eren snorted. “It means I’ve known since you cried over that one movie where the guys don’t end up together.”

“I was emotional!” Armin protested weakly, his voice cracking in embarrassment.

“Yeah, emotionally invested." Eren shot back, and then his tone softened, the teasing fading into something steadier. “Seriously, man. That’s not wrong. You’re not wrong.”

Armin’s throat tightened suddenly, tears he hadn’t even noticed forming spilling over before he could stop them. His breath hitched, quiet and uneven.

“Hey– hey, don’t start crying.” Eren said quickly, voice wobbling now. “Don’t do that or I’ll start too, and then we’ll both sound pathetic.”

Armin laughed through it, the sound half-choked. “Sorry– I’m just–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Eren sighed, but there was a smile in it, audible even through the static. “You’re okay, alright? You’ve always been okay. You just didn’t let yourself believe it.”

Armin pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, laughter breaking through the mess of nerves and tears. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Armin’s breath trembled. “...No. I don’t.”

Eren was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You know I’ve got you, right? Like, no matter what. Always.”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Eren cleared his throat, like he couldn’t stand the sincerity for too long. “Now that we’ve had our emotional awakening, can I go back to sleep?”

Armin laughed again, wiping at his eyes. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m the best. Admit it.”

“Not happening.”

Eren chuckled, the sound rough and warm. “Whatever. I’m proud of you, though. For saying it.”

Armin smiled softly, voice small. “Thanks.”

“Now stop overthinking it.”

“Can’t promise that.”

“Didn’t expect you to.”

The line went quiet for a while after that, not awkward, just full of air, shared in the kind of silence that only existed between people who knew each other too well.

Armin breathed out slowly. He’d said it.

And the world hadn’t ended.