Did you see the closing window?
Did you hear the slamming door?
They moved forward, my heart died
They moved forward, my heart died
-Dead Hearts, Stars
Armin stood quietly with the airline employee, one small hand gripping the handle of his suitcase and the other on the strap of his backpack. The airport was loud, and people bustled around him, though none of them seemed to be Armin's grandfather. He almost didn't want him to arrive, because maybe, if he didn't show up, Armin would be sent back to England and it would be revealed that everything was a big misunderstanding and he'd be given back to his parents.
But that would never happen. There'd been too much evidence incriminating them; too much evidence showing how terrible they were at looking after Armin. Still, he wanted nothing more than for this strange nightmare to end and for him to go back to the life he knew—to everything that was familiar.
He'd been taken away from his parents two months ago. He remembered the police arriving late at night—their loud pounding on the front door had woken Armin up. The police had arrested his parents and taken Armin to a big building where he'd been put in a room with an old couch and some toys for hours and hours while a bunch of people tried finding any of his relatives to take him in.
But no one had wanted to take him; some of them hadn't even known of his existence beforehand. So Armin was put into the foster system for a week before an aunt decided to take him in, though she insisted it was only temporarily. Armin had hated being with her; she didn't have any kids his age, and she had a mean cat that spent the whole time hissing and scratching at him.
Eventually, his aunt got in contact with Armin's paternal grandfather, who lived in America. He hadn't heard about his son's arrest until then, and hadn't seen him since before Armin was born. Still, he decided that he'd take the small boy in, and even payed for Armin's passport, Visa, and plane ticket. Armin had climbed aboard the plane early the previous morning, put under the care of an airline employee, the same one who stood with him now.
He was absolutely exhausted—he'd been awake for almost twenty-four hours, and missed his bed and his house and even his parents. He'd been allowed to bring whatever he could fit into his backpack and suitcase, which consisted mostly of clothes, his favourite books, and his ratty old teddy bear. None of it even smelled like his old house anymore; his aunt had washed everything the minute he'd stepped into her house, saying it all stank to high heaven.
Suddenly, the airline employee—whose name was Madeline—was tapping Armin's shoulder and pointing to an old man who was making his way through the crowd, a wide smile on his face. Armin froze, and watched as the man stopped and kneeled in front of him. He had a scruffy, graying beard and warm brown eyes, with weathered skin that was etched with wrinkles.
"Hello, Armin," he said, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's very nice to meet you."
Armin didn't say anything as he drove to his new house with his grandfather. He sat quietly in the backseat, staring out the window and watching the buildings zoom by. His grandfather lived in a peaceful, quiet neighbourhood with identical, spaced-out houses and trimmed green lawns. It was nothing like where Armin had lived before, where it was dangerous to be out past dark.
Here, kids played in the streets. Some of them waved to Armin's grandfather as he drove past, and he smiled and waved back. A woman pushed a baby along in a stroller, and a boy walked his dog. It was like one of the neighbourhoods Armin saw on TV—friendly and clean and perfect.
His grandfather's house was just like all the others, with a brown shingled roof and pale yellow siding. Just looking at it Armin could tell it was bigger than his old house. His grandfather parked the car in the driveway and got out, opening Armin's door for him. The small boy climbed out, clutching his backpack and glancing around. He could hear the kids playing down the street now, and they talked loudly and laughed with each other.
"Give me the ball!"
Armin watched as a boy with messy brown hair chased a girl with dirt all over herself and a basketball in her hands around the driveway of a house a few doors down. A girl with straight black hair pushed back by a flowery headband sat on the ground giggling at them, a piece of chalk in her hands. Armin couldn't see what she had been drawing, but it looked colourful and spanned most of the driveway.
He felt a sudden pang when the boy stopped chasing the girl and looked up at him. He couldn't see him too well from where he was standing, but everything about his face seemed familiar. Armin wasn't sure how, though, as he'd never see the boy in his life. He quickly turned his head away when the boy started smiling at him, looking towards his grandfather.
"That's Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha," the man explained, putting a hand on Armin's shoulder. "They all live on this street. I'm sure you'll become good friends with them."
Armin nodded quietly, and let his grandfather lead him inside. He looked back as he walked through the door, seeing the boy pointing at him with a wide grin on his face and talking excitedly to his friends.
The house was huge, just as Armin thought it would be. It had a nice, homely feel to it and smelled like old people and something that Armin couldn't place. There were pictures everywhere, hung up on the walls and on tables and shelves. Armin didn't recognize most of the people in them, except for one that he was pretty sure was of his father when he was younger.
"That's your daddy," his grandfather said, smiling warmly at the small boy. When Armin didn't say anything, he knelt down beside him, grabbing his hand. "I know this is a lot to take in, Armin. And I know it'll take a while for you to get used to it all. I'm sorry this had to happen to you. But everything will be okay."
Suddenly, tears were welling up in Armin's eyes, and for the first time in two months he didn't try to hold them back.
Later that evening, Armin sat on his new bed in his old pyjamas looking out the window. The stars were just starting to come out, and Armin was glad to realize they looked just like the stars in England. He used to spend hours staring up at the dark sky when he couldn't sleep, and it had become a comforting routine for him.
However, he was distracted from his stargazing when a light was suddenly turned on in the house next door. Looking over at it, he saw the boy from earlier, Eren, sitting on a bed in almost the exact same position as Armin's, smiling widely as his parents kissed him goodnight. Glancing down at the teddy bear he was gripping in his hands, Armin sniffed slightly and blinked away the tears in his eyes before crawling beneath the blankets and burying his face in his pillow.
The next day, his grandfather took Armin to visit their neighbours, the Jaegers. The door was answered by a woman with straight, tied-back brown hair who smiled brightly when she saw Armin, quickly inviting them in.
"Hello, there," she greeted, leaning down and giving his hand a little shake. Armin noticed that she had a strange accent, though it wasn't American or one he recognized. "I'm Carla. You must be Armin. Your grandfather's told me quite a bit about you!"
He nodded shyly, keeping a tight grip on his grandfather's hand. He'd grown attached to the old man in the twenty-four hours that he's known him—he was one of the first people the boy had ever met that hadn't brushed him off or ignored him.
"How old are you, Armin?" Carla asked.
"Five," Armin said quietly.
Carla's smile grew wider. "I have a son who's about your age," she said. "Why don't we go into the living room and you can meet him?"
Armin nodded, and Carla led them to the living room. He sat close to his grandfather on the couch, still refusing to let go of his hand.
"Eren!" Carla called, walking towards the staircase. "Come here, please!"
"Warum?" a small voice answered; Armin strained to hear and understand what he was saying, but quickly realized he wasn't speaking English. He didn't know what language it was, though he figured it was the reason why Carla had such a funny accent.
"We have guests!" Carla replied. "Come on, get down here!"
There was the sound of footsteps upstairs, and then a little boy was hurrying down the stairs, grinning at Armin and his grandfather. It was the same boy Armin had seen both times yesterday, but for the first time he could see him clearly. He was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of recognition and familiarity, more so than when he'd seen him playing across the street, as if he was seeing an old close friend for the first time in years.
But then he remembered. It was almost like a memory he'd forgotten up until then had suddenly resurfaced. He was being shoved down onto a worn cobblestone street and, bringing his arms up around his face, he realized that the clothes he was wearing weren't his, and looked like they belonged to another time period completely. The boys crowding around him were all wearing the same type of clothing and all the buildings looked almost medieval. However, in the memory, none of that seemed strange to him.
He remembered a sharp pain in his side, and feeling angry. He couldn't remember why though. Then he saw Eren running towards him out of the corner of his eye, and relief flooded him. The other boy looked angry, and was yelling at the kids attacking his friend, but Armin couldn't understand what he was saying.
Before anything else could happen, though, he was back on the couch beside his grandfather, and Eren was smiling expectantly at him. Everything surrounding the strange memory was nonexistent; where were they? Why were they dressed like that? Who were those boys attacking him? All he knew was that it was something that had definitely never happened to him, yet he remembered it clear as day.
Noticing Armin's baffled expression, Eren repeated the question he'd asked that he hadn't heard. "I asked what your name was." He had the same strange accent as his mother; Armin still couldn't figure out where it was from, though it had stopped bugging him as much.
"Oh. I'm Armin." he said, blinking and looking around the living room. It was still the same as it had been before, with pictures hung on the walls and decorations placed every here and there. He hadn't been transported to some strange, far-off land.
"Armin? That's a funny name," Eren said. Armin shrugged and looked down at the ground.
"Not that that's a bad thing," he corrected quickly, obviously thinking he had hurt Armin's feelings. "I like it."
When Armin didn't say anything, Eren grabbed his hand and pulled him up onto his feet. "Do you wanna play with me?" he asked. "I have tons of cool toys. Come on!"
He didn't wait for a response before dragging the smaller boy upstairs, saying how happy he was that there was another boy in the neighbourhood. Armin felt like he'd been pulled around by this fiery, brown-haired boy hundreds of times before, and for the first time in months something seemed familiar.
Armin quickly fell into the routine of his grandfather's life. Because it was summer, there was no school, which meant he spent most of his time running around the neighbourhood with Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha. He had never had many friends in England; there had been no other kids on his street, and he had mostly sat and read by himself at school.
He really enjoyed the company of his three new friends, however. As soon as Eren had introduced him to Mikasa and Sasha, he'd had the same odd feeling that he already knew them. Mikasa was a cheerful, albeit quiet, girl who shared his love of reading, though the first time he saw her smile it had seemed a bit out of place to him, though he didn't know why. He tried not to dwell on it too much, though. Sasha was loud and boisterous, and was always cracking jokes. She also loved to eat, and when she met Armin the first thing she'd told him was that he was too skinny, almost like a worried mother. He found out a few days after his arrival that the Jaegers were originally from Germany, and that Eren had actually been born there, which explained their accents.
Armin was much happier than he thought he would be. He found some of the things Americans did a little strange, but he wasn't miserable. Nothing like what happened in Eren's living room happened again, either, though he thought about it all the time. No matter how much he thought about it, however, he couldn't figure it out.
About a week after he arrived, his grandfather took him shopping at the local mall. It was much bigger than any mall Armin had ever been to, something that was becoming a trend: everything was bigger here. It was a Tuesday so it wasn't too crowded, and Armin was allowed to get a book.
He was looking forward to reading it when they got home, but as the pulled onto the street he saw several cars parked around his grandfather's house. Clutching tightly at the book in his hands, he waited until he and his grandfather were standing at the door to ask what was going on.
"Everyone thought it might be nice to have a little surprise party for you," he explained, and Armin froze. "To welcome you here."
The only parties he knew were ones with lots of people and loud music that lasted well into the early morning. The type his parents liked to throw. So when his grandfather led him through the door and he saw all the people gathered in the kitchen and living room, the last thing he wanted to do was go talk to them.
But that's what he was expected to do. Slowly, he walked to where everyone could see him and stood there as they crowded around him, talking happily as he tried to smile but didn't really succeed. Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha managed to shove their way through the crowd so that they were standing right in front of Armin, all smiling widely.
"Hi, Armin!" Eren greeted happily. Mikasa waved at him, and Sasha grinned through her mouthful of food.
"Hi," Armin said quietly, his voice barely audible above the chatter of the people who had started to disperse.
"What's that?" Mikasa asked, looking at the book in Armin's hands. He held it up for them to see, and Eren wrinkled his nose at it.
"Books are boring," he said. "Let's play something!"
Sasha nodded in agreement, though Mikasa shot him a rather dirty look for his comment about books being boring. Armin told them he just had to put his book away, and scurried off to his room. Shutting the door behind him, he sank to the ground with his hands over his ears. He could still hear everyone talking and laughing, and he hated it. He hated parties.
Taking a deep breath, he stood up and put the book on his dresser. Then he carefully took the blanket from the end of his bed and a pillow and opened his closet door. He knew he'd told Eren and Mikasa and Sasha that he'd be right back, but he did not to go out there again. Shuffling a few things around, the small boy wrapped the blanket around himself and crouched down in the corner of his closet, struggling a bit to close the door before actually managing to do it.
When he was much younger, he would simply cry whenever his parents threw parties. He would sit in his room and cry and cry until his mother came in and tried to get him to shut up. But she would be rough with him like she always was when she drank, so he learned not to cry. Even when he fell and hurt himself and his mother hadn't had a drink in a while he never cried.
Instead he hid in his closet. When his parents had parties or they drank or the foul stench that seemed to cling to everything in their house grew stronger he would hide in his closet with his blanket and pillow and he'd try to block the world out.
He once read about how animals had different defense mechanisms to protect themselves; some were poisonous and some could blend into their surroundings and some had long sharp claws they could use to fight.
Armin's defense mechanism was hiding.
It took a while for people to realize Armin was missing. Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha had wandered off while waiting for him to come back, figuring he'd find them eventually, considering he did live there. But after about ten minutes, with no sign of the blond-haired boy, Eren decided to go looking for him.
A scan of the main level proved fruitless, and he wasn't sure if he was allowed to go upstairs, so he sought out Armin's grandfather.
"Mr. Arlert!" he cried, finding the old man talking to Mikasa's father. "Have you seen Armin? I can't find him anywhere."
"What? Really?" Armin's grandfather asked, looking around the room. "I'm not too sure where he is, actually… Why don't you check his room? It's upstairs, second one on the right."
"Thank you!" Eren said, before running off and up the stairs. He easily found Armin's room, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. "Armin!" he called, walking around the room and checking under the bed. "Armin, where are you?"
He was just about to leave when he heard a small sound coming from the closet, like someone sniffing. Frowning, he went over and opened the door to find Armin huddled in the corner, wrapped in a blanket with a pillow over his head. He looked like he was trying not to cry, and seemed shocked when he saw Eren standing in front of him.
"Armin?" Eren kneeled down, looking at his friend with concern. "Armin, what are you doing in the closet?"
Armin swiped his hand across his eyes and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "I didn't want to go back out there…" he said quietly.
Eren looked confused. "Why?" he asked. "Mikasa and Sasha are waiting for us. Come on!"
Armin shook his head at Eren's outstretched hand, shrinking back further into the closet. "I don't wanna go back out there," he said. "I… I don't like parties."
Eren seemed to be even more confused by this statement. "What!" he cried, throwing his hands into the air. "How can you not like parties? They're the best!"
"I just don't like them," Armin repeated, glancing down at the ground.
"That's no reason to cry though," Eren said, crouching down so he could see Armin's face.
The blond blushed at Eren's statement, before scowling at him. "I was not crying," he snapped, bringing the blanket up around his face.
"You were too," Eren retorted. "I'm not stupid, Armin. Now come on. You can't hide in here until the party is over."
Armin realized that Eren was probably right, but that didn't make him want to leave any more. He shook his head, flinching as a loud burst of laughter came from downstairs. Eren furrowed his eyebrows at him, before crawling into the closet and sitting down beside the smaller boy.
"Eren?" Armin asked, peeking out from under the blanket.
"I'm not gonna leave you here alone!" Eren said, almost as if Armin was stupid for not understanding that. "Friends don't let their friends sit in closets alone. And if you don't wanna go out then I have to sit here with you."
"Eren, you really do—,"
"Don't care," Eren cut him off, prying part of the blanket from Armin's hands and wrapping it around himself. "Mikasa and Sasha can just play by themselves."
Armin wanted to protest further, but it was nice having someone with him. It made him a lot less scared.
Armin's grandfather found them about an hour later, sound asleep, with their heads pressed together. He didn't wake them up, though, instead quietly closing the door and going back to the party.