September 6, 2016

Future Armin,

This is the beginning of a months-long—well, more realistically, years-long—investment of patience, observing, and a relentless, persistent hope. If every domino falls in its place, then you, Future Armin, should expect to check off whether or not you're going to bring a plus-one in the coming years. This is certainly an ambitious undertaking, but at the core, I'm a realist. I don't sign onto projects that I doubt will come to fruition.

So let me frame this with some historical context.

I have two best friends. One of them is named Eren. He's been my neighbor since we were both four or five years old, sharing a treehouse right-smack between our families' properties. The other one is named Mikasa. She lives on the next block. The three of us have basically grown up together over the past decade-and-a-half, and by some strange twist of fate, we all ended up here at Maria College, Eren miraculously living on the same floor as me, Mikasa just a five-minute's walk away.

Since the dog days, my best friends have been in love with each other.

But one of them is too afraid to admit it, and the other's too thickheaded to realize it. The two are unbudging, anchored by their own inertia. They're like two horseshoe magnets facing away from one another, despite how strong their poles yearn to snap together.

Now, this is where I come in.

Newton's First Law of Motion states that objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by some net force. In other words, I'm going to build that force. The objective of the next few months is to push these two stubborn magnets in the right direction, slowly, gradually—and then sit back with a bucket of popcorn and let the laws of physics run their course.

As of right now, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going go about doing this. We've only just unpacked Dr. Jaeger's station wagon and pulled our comforters over our dorm beds, so for the meantime, I need to sort out what I've got at my disposal here at Maria—what places can come in handy, which people I can add to the equation. Sort out my variables. Plan out the algorithm. So for the meantime, I'll keep my eyes open and report back later.

Ciao,
Past Armin


A/N: *rubs fingers* Alrighty, here's the beginning of a fun scheme, so fasten your seatbelts. Here we go.