Chapter Text
There was something left to be desired by the rainy town of Forks, Washington. The drear muddling the town into a blur of greens and greys was underwhelming, and even more so when it settled in that this was now the place that Armin would be calling home.
“Was your flight okay?” asked his Grandpa in the seat next to him.
“Yeah, it was fine,” he said, hands clutching onto the red octopus stuffed toy his mother had given him when he was just one, which she had named ‘Octavius’. He may have been seventeen, but he’d never stopped being sentimental.
His Grandpa glanced over at him. “I’ve got some raincoats and warmer things for you to wear to school. I’ll be at work when you head out, but take what you need, okay?”
Armin nodded and stared forward, watching the way the windshield wipers threw the onslaught of rain off the window. It was a sight that he was going to have to get used to.
He had never been fond of the scorching heat in Phoenix. He hated the way the sun would cling to his skin all year round, and he often opted for the shelter of shade in his bedroom where he could sit cool as can be with his parents’ fancy AC system whirring through the house. He was sure there was a good chance that he would be missing that aching warmth in just a few hours of this murky weather.
Before Armin knew it, his Grandpa’s car came to a halt, and he smiled over at him. “I’ve got your old room all set up upstairs.”
Armin smiled. As much as this move was going to be difficult, at least he would be with his grandfather – there were certainly much worse people to be stuck with in a town like this.
“Oh, actually,” said his Grandpa before he could open the door. “There’s an umbrella in the back. I need to show you something.”
Armin reached back and pulled it out before stepping out of the car and wrestling it up. He only got a little wet, but the sound of the patter of raindrops splattering over the umbrella was surprisingly unfamiliar.
“Well?” asked his Grandpa.
“Well, what?” asked Armin, turning around.
“The truck,” said his Grandpa.
Armin squinted at the bright red truck parked in the driveway. He was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t realised that his grandfather had parked on the side of the road. It was an old thing, but it was definitely safe, and probably better suited for the weather than whatever cars the other kids were driving on the road.
“It’s yours,” said his Grandpa.
Armin’s eyes widened. “Grandpa, you didn’t have to.”
His Grandpa waved him off. “It’s yours. It was cheap, anyway. Gives me peace of mind, too; if something crashes into you in that, you won’t even be scratched.” His face softened. “And I know this move isn’t gonna be easy on you. Now, if you need to go anyway, get out of town, you can just go. Don’t worry about gas money or anything.”
Armin’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment, but then he decided not to debate the issue any further and smiled. “Thanks, Grandpa. I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, son,” said his Grandpa. “Now go get sorted in your room and I’ll get dinner going.”
Armin lugged his suitcase out of the back of the car, heavy and stuffed with his most prized possessions. They were mostly his favourite books and any special editions his parents had bought him on birthdays and Christmases. There were some tiny souvenirs from his parents’ travels that he couldn’t bear to part with, but when he looked at them laid out on his desk in his room, the sight of them made his heart sink. He wondered if his parents would bring him anything back now, wherever in the world they were heading off to for work. He doubted it.
He spent the evening organising his room, the room he used to spend Christmases in when he was younger, before his parents decided his Grandpa could fly to Phoenix for the holidays instead. It wasn’t long before he was finished, and his Grandpa called him down for dinner to have a hearty plate of lasagne, which improved his mood much more than he expected to. Afterwards, his Grandpa insisted he pick through his wardrobe to grab some cardigans and sweaters to wear to school. Style wasn’t really an issue for Armin, but he had a feeling that the sort of cardigan that an old man would wear would make him stick out like a sore thumb at a small-town high school. Still, they were comfortable and warm, and he supposed nothing else really mattered than that.
The flight had tired him out enough that once he showered and packed his backpack for school the next day, it was easy to fall asleep. Still, the sound of his alarm thudding in the morning made his skin crawl.
When he stepped outside and was immediately hit by the rain, he regretted not asking his Grandpa for a raincoat. Or an umbrella. He got into his truck and managed to avoid most of the rain, before starting the engine and putting the radio on to some bad radio station – he made a note to ask his Grandpa for his CDs, even if they were all just classical and jazz music – and made the aching journey to school.
When he pulled into a space at the edge of the parking lot, far away from all the other cars – the last thing he wanted to do was scratch someone’s car on the first day – he cut the engine and took a few moments to prepare himself. Then he reached over and grabbed his backpack before climbing out of his truck and making the short walk to the main entrance of Forks High School.
Even in that short walk, the chill of the rain still managed to bite into his skin enough to make him shiver in the reception. He hoped there would be somewhere he could dry his sweater first period, otherwise he’d be pretty uncomfortable for the rest of the day.
When the receptionist finished her phone call with God knows who, she placed the phone down and gave him a questioning look.
“Hi, I’m Armin Arlert, I’m new,” he explained with a smile. “I need to collect my timetable.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, sliding back on her office chair to reach for a piece of paper behind her. “From Arizona, yes?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She handed him the paper. “You’ll get used to the weather.” Then, she added, “Maybe bring a coat tomorrow.”
Armin forced a smile onto his face. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”
It was sheer luck that he managed to find his way to his first period without getting lost, but he was forced to make an introduction, which was like pure agony. He could feel all the other kids’ eyes on him like he was a shiny new toy, and he supposed he couldn’t really blame them. They probably hadn’t seen a fresh face since kindergarten. He was relieved to slink into the only available seat at the back next to a kid who was far too eager to get to know him. His name was Eren and he had excited green eyes and not many thoughts on the book they were supposed to be studying – in fact, Eren didn’t even seem to be aware that they were studying a book at all until Armin told him so he prayed there wouldn’t be a lot of pair work for this class. Still, Eren was nice enough and offered him a seat at his table with his friends at dinner, which was more than he could have hoped for this early in the day.
His next period was history with Mr Pyxis, but it ended early, so he found himself waiting at a table alone, waiting for Eren and whoever his friends were to appear. To pass the time, he pulled out the book they were reading for class – Dracula by Bram Stoker. It was an annotated edition his mother had gifted him since it was one of her favourites; she’d even gone on a trip to Whitby once before Armin had been born. Personally, Armin thought it was a bit of a slog, but he supposed there were much worse books to be studying.
“Hey, Armin!”
Armin’s eyes flicked up to see Eren waving at him from the other side of the cafeteria with a small gaggle of students behind him – he counted five in total. Who’d have thought the guy would have that many friends?
When Eren slipped into the seat beside him, his eyebrows drew together. “Why are you reading Dracula?”
Armin raised an eyebrow. “Well, I want to get further into it since we’re studying it in class.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Eren, but Armin wasn’t really sure that knowledge had fully sunk in yet. He turned to the others who had started slipping into their own seats at the table. “Oh, guys, this is Armin Arlert, the new kid from Phoenix – we sit next to each other in English class.”
Eren barely spared a breath before he introduced him to all of his friends – besides him was Mikasa, a quiet dark-haired girl with a soft smile, then Sasha and Connie who acted like they were two half of the same whole, but they were fairly funny; then there was Jean, a guy with a mullet who was nice enough but was clearly trying to act cooler than he was, and lastly there was Marco, a friendly boy covered in freckles who immediately tried to talk to him about the book he was reading.
“I’ve read Dracula, but it’s got the same problem as a lot of classics,” said Marco before taking a bite out of his sandwich. “There’s some very poignant lines and scenes, but they have so much waffle in between that they’re hard to get through.”
“Well, I guess it was the style at the time for a lot of them,” said Armin, closing his copy of the book and leaving it on the table.
“Just because it’s the style doesn’t mean it’s good,” said Marco pointedly.
Armin let out a small laugh. “Yeah, I guess not.”
Sasha leaned forward from where she sat and squinted at the cover. “Is this what The Vampire Diaries is based on?”
Armin’s eyebrows drew together. “Well … uh, I mean …”
“It’s a little true,” said Mikasa. “But in the loosest sense.”
Sasha seemed satisfied and straightened in her seat before raising her eyes to him. “How’d you do your hair like that, anyway? I wanted an undercut, but I don’t think I can do it myself.”
“My mom did it,” admitted Armin. “But I’m living with my Grandpa now, so I’m gonna have to find a barber or something now.”
Sasha’s eyes lit up. “If you find a good one, let me know! I really want one. I’d keep my hair longer, though.”
Armin smiled. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’ll do it for you, Sasha,” said Connie. “But it’ll cost you.”
“You shouldn’t do it for free,” said Jean.
“I don’t think it would be the best idea,” said Marco softly.
“Wait, what?” said Connie, his face settling into a grimace. “Why not?”
“I’m not letting you cut my hair,” said Sasha.
“Why?”
Armin fell out of the conversation as the others burst into bickering with Connie about how he should most certainly not cut Sasha’s hair. His argument wasn’t a very strong one, and no one at the table seemed to be able to get through to him, and Armin wasn’t about to try to. He’d only just met the guy, and he didn’t want to take him down a peg already, so he debated turning open his book again and continuing reading until everything calmed down again. But then, just as his fingers brushed the cover, something caught his eye – the cafeteria door swung open, followed by a slight draft that sent a chill up his spine.
His eyes trailed up to the person who stepped through the door. It was a girl around his age, maybe a little older, with a bored look on her face that suggested she’d rather be anywhere else but here. Her pale blond hair was pinned back in an oddly perfect messy bun, her skin fair, and her eyes such a light shade of blue they reminded him of a winter sky. She had one of those Roman noses that seemed to belong to ancient statues and small pink lips that looked far too shiny under the dull cafeteria lights. She looked like a casual punk with a checked red skirt and a big black shirt, combined with biker boots and a loose jacket tied around her waist.
What shocked Armin the most was just how pretty she was. No, pretty wasn’t a strong enough word. She was beautiful – so beautiful, in fact, that Armin couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.
But he hadn’t realised just how obviously he’d been gawking at her until he felt her freezing gaze meet his. Armin dropped his head and quickly opened his book again, his face erupting into a bright red blush. He only dared to turn back to her when he was sure she was no longer looking at him, and as his eyes followed the path she’d been making before, he found her sitting with a group of boys and one other girl who were just as pretty and fair as she was.
He apparently wasn’t being subtle at all because there were her eyes again boring into his, and before he could duck his head and never look at her again, she flashed him a tiny smirk. Somehow, his face burned even more as he turned back to his book. What was he doing? He didn’t usually just openly stare at girls like that; it was creepy and so disrespectful, and –
“You aren’t blushing at Annie Leonhart, are you?” asked Mikasa abruptly.
The bickering ended almost immediately as the eyes all turned towards him.
“Sorry?” asked Armin weakly.
Sasha took a bite out of her burger and barely swallowed it before she said, “You’re bright red.”
He wanted to argue, but he knew it was true. Had the weird weather gotten to him or something? He wouldn’t have dared to do something so stupid back in Phoenix. But before he could even think to defend himself, Jean spoke up.
“Look, man,” he said, waving his hand. “I wouldn’t even bother yourself there. Those guys all keep to themselves. She might be hot, but she’s never shown any interest in anyone here; plus, she’s hot in a scary way, so she’d probably eat you alive.”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Armin weakly. “I just saw her walk in.”
“You were staring,” said Mikasa pointedly.
Armin’s eyes narrowed. “Why were you looking at me?”
She shrugged. “I saw your jaw hanging open out of the corner of my eye, and I was curious, so I looked.” Then, she added, “Annie clearly noticed you as well, but I bet she’s used to people staring.”
Armin tried to ignore the embarrassment brewing inside him and asked, “Is she a junior, too?”
“Come on, man,” said Jean. “What did I just say?”
Marco nudged him with his elbow. “He’s just curious, Jean.”
“She’s just a junior,” said Eren. “She came here last year with her family – those other kids at the table and their dad, Dr Magath.”
“Most of them go by their real surnames, though,” said Sasha, eyebrows furrowing. “It’s really weird.”
“They’re all adopted,” explained Mikasa. “I think he adopted them when they were all teenagers. Also,” she added, turning to Sasha, “all of their surnames are Magath officially; most of them go double-barrel on record but just tell everyone their actual ones.”
“They just moved down from Alaska not that long ago,” said Connie.
“Yeah, and their dad is super rich,” said Eren.
Jean scoffed. “Yeah, and for some reason, he decided to send his kids to Forks High School.”
“Don’t worry about them,” said Eren in a voice that Armin thought was an attempt at comfort, though he wasn’t quite sure what had warranted it. “I doubt you’ll ever really talk to them.”
But for some reason, he could still feel Mikasa’s eyes on him in a way that made him want to squirm. He didn’t understand what the big deal was – he just thought she was pretty. Well, more like the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, but he didn’t feel like admitting that to the people he’d only just met. Fortunately, Sasha started an entirely new drama by nearly choking on a piece of beef from her burger, and after Connie had basically done the Heimlich manoeuvre on her, they all berated her for eating her food too quickly.
That girl had slipped from his mind once he left the cafeteria and went to gym class. Armin was terrible enough at the volleyball game that not much managed to occupy his mind for the next hour, especially when some of the other guys were clearly getting more frustrated with him with each passing minute. He mildly wanted to sink into the ground and disappear, but when Mr Shadis blew the whistle to signal the end of class, Armin was sure he’d never felt relief quite like it.
After Armin had slipped back into his regular clothes, he sat down on the bench in the locker room and unfolded his timetable to check his last period. Biology with Dr Hange. After gym class, he’d have been happy with anything, so he shoved the paper into the bottom of his bag and made his way to his last class.
He wasn’t as lucky at finding this class as he had the rest of them, getting off to a bad start by walking straight into the wrong classroom. But when he arrived at the right class, he ended up only being a few minutes late. Dr Hange’s eyes flickered over to his in the doorway, and they energetically waved them in.
“You must be the new student from Arizona! Armin Arlert, right?”
He smiled. “Yeah, that’s me.”
Dr Hange smiled. “Okay, you can sit down beside Miss Leonhart.”
Armin’s smile fell as his heart froze in his chest. Miss Leonhart. For a moment, Armin stood there desperately hoping that Miss Leonhart was Annie Leonhart’s sister, that all those kids weren’t unrelated with different surnames, praying that it wasn’t the girl he’d nearly drooled over during his lunch break. But when he turned to face the seat that Dr Hange was referring to, his worst fear was confirmed as he saw Annie, looking as bored as ever, as she propped her head up on one hand on the desk, next to the only empty seat in the room.
He tried to act as nonchalant as possible as he moved towards the other end of the classroom to walk down the aisle towards his new seat. But his fake confidence only lasted a few moments because Annie Leonhart’s eyes seemed to meet his just as he passed by the fan that Dr Hange had whirring at the front of the class.
Annie’s bored expression twisted into something much worse; her face was a mask of pure disgust as her hand flew up to desperately cover her mouth and nose as if she had just gotten a whiff of week-old vomit. Armin’s face fell at the same time his stomach did – had that been because of him? No, surely not; there had never been an instance in his life where he hadn’t freshened up after gym class. He was wearing antiperspirant, deodorant and aftershave and probably smelled the freshest he had since that morning.
He pushed the thought out of his mind and tried to shove a smile onto his face as he approached the desk, but it was short-lived. Even as he stood beside his stool, Annie wouldn’t even look at him. Her face was cradled in the crook of her elbow as she curled her body over the desk, angling towards the window away from him. He wasn’t sure it could get much worse once he slipped onto the seat beside her, but when she noticed his movement, she shuffled her own seat further away from him towards the window.
His ears were burning as Dr Hange began the class, and he could barely hear them over the ring of embarrassment in his head. He reached up to pull his sweater towards his nose, but when he quietly sniffed it, he found that its scent was just as fresh as he’d expected it to be. Maybe she just couldn’t deal with strong aftershaves or something? Or maybe it was even asthma – but she wasn’t close to coughing, and she hadn’t pulled out an inhaler. If anything, it looked like she was close to vomiting.
As the minutes crawled by, Armin’s skin felt as if it was crawling with it. Annie hadn’t moved from her position for the entire class, and he knew that ‘mortified’ wasn’t even a strong enough word to describe how he felt. He wished he could just sink into the ground beneath him and never see anyone in Forks High School, especially Annie Leonhart, ever again. Everyone in this class must have thought he reeked with the way she was acting, and he wouldn’t even be able to blame them for thinking it.
“Alright!” said Dr Hange, clapping their hands together. “Sorry about that one. I know it dragged on, but we always have to cover this stuff. I promise the next class will be a bit more interesting!”
Armin nearly let out an audible sigh of relief. But any relief he felt soon vanished when everyone was finally allowed to pack up, and Annie Leonhart yanked her backpack over her shoulder and practically raced out of the classroom, leaving Armin sitting alone at their desk, wishing he could just melt into the floor beneath his feet.
As he left the class, he tried to ignore that gnawing feeling in his chest, but it was hard to push out of his mind. What had that been about, anyway? Was it payback for staring at her at lunch? He knew how he must have looked, and if it was an apology she wanted, he would gladly give her one; if that’s what it was about, he wished she had just yelled at him or even hit him, because anything would have been better than whatever had just happened.
He sighed as he reached the reception, stopping at the door when he heard someone already having a discussion beyond the doors. Who knew what she was doing? Maybe that would be her payback, and she’d let it go – but Armin had no idea. The others had said she was scary, not mean, not like this. He just hoped, prayed, that if he had to deal with this sort of thing for the rest of the year, then this feeling of embarrassment would ease over time.
A voice beyond the door caught his attention. “I really need to switch.”
“There isn’t a lot that can be done,” said the receptionist.
Armin’s eyes flickered up to see Annie Leonhart standing with the most furious look on her face that he’d ever seen. He felt his stomach tremble at the sight of it. “Surely there must be something I can switch to.”
“Every other class at that time is full,” said the receptionist. “I’m sorry, Miss Leonhart, but you’re going to have to stay in Biology.”
Armin took a deep breath before he pushed open the door to the reception. Annie’s blue eyes rose to his, and that look on her face flickered to surprise for only a moment before it returned to its regular fury. That expression was so harsh that he thought if she really wanted him to burst into flames, her gaze alone would be able to will it.
She turned back to the receptionist. “Fine,” she snapped. “I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.”
Her shoulder slammed into him as she shoved past him, and he winced at the impact. He spun around to catch her gaze, to make sure she saw his expression of confusion and shock – maybe to make her realise just how rude she was being. But Annie Leonhart didn’t look back at him once.
“Mr Arlert?”
His gaze turned back to the receptionist, who was trying her best to offer him a sympathetic smile, but it was doing nothing to improve his mood.
“Uh, hey,” he said, taking a step towards the desk. “Could I have my timetable for tomorrow?”
Her smile was more genuine. “Of course,” she said before turning around to grab another piece of paper.
Armin tried to stop his fingers from trembling when he took his timetable from her hand, but he didn’t think he was very successful.
He forced a smile. “Thank you.”
Then, he turned around and headed towards the school’s main doors. When he stepped into the parking lot, the harsh drill of rain above his head mostly went unnoticed as he strode towards his truck. By the time he slid into the driver’s seat, his hair was soaking and his glasses were too cloudy to see. He slipped them off, ready to wipe them down, but before he did, he placed them down on the dashboard and dropped his forehead against his steering wheel, fingernails gripping hard into its leather before he released a long, frustrated groan.
Annie Leonhart’s looks of pure disgust and rage melded together in his mind, and he found himself wishing his parents hadn’t made him leave Phoenix.