Armin half expected Jean or Marco to follow him to the science block that break, yet when he got to room C3- a classroom used by teachers as a dumping ground for student's papers, and by students as a place to avoid teachers- he found it vacant. In fact, it was eerie how quiet the corridors became during breaks, with the science corridor in particular being out-of-bounds. He could hear the wind whistling though the gap in the window pane, and he moved to run his finger through the gap, whilst leaning to see two floors down to the courtyard below. He just about made out Sasha and Connie causing mischief with a Brötchen between them, but other than that, it was the same worn-out, grey faces; people going places and doing things Armin had no interest in.
Mikasa scuffed the door on purpose. Armin knew she could be as silent as cancer if she wanted to, to the extent of creeping up behind him and standing there, waiting, but on this occasion it seemed important that Armin start on her side, so to speak.
"Um… So…" Some may have expected Armin, as a smart individual, to be careful with words, but he had a habit of throwing them about at the worst of times.
"Armin, what do you think of Eren?" She walked as she talked, taking silent steps and holding Armin's gaze like a hand round his neck.
"I… I've only just met him. I-I-I mean, um… You guys only arrived the other week, so… Um… I like him though…"
Mikasa was like a book character- a very extreme character, almost unreal in the way she reacted to the world around her. For example, she seemed to be reading Armin; even though her eyes, as usual, were a flat, lugubrious brown, untelling of any thought or process. "You have questions."
"Um… I guess so. I… I mean, why did you bring me here? I-Is this some kind of interrogation? Why do you care about me? Jealousy? If you are jealous, I suppose it's well-founded- well, no, wait, your thought process is probably logical, I mean, not that Eren and I… We don't… Um…"
He wasn't sure if it was calculated to the effect it gave, but Mikasa sitting down next to him on the table and pushing her hair out of her face gave her a strange air of amicability, even a hint of vulnerability.
"I get the impression you're smart, but you're over-thinking this. You and I, we want the same thing for Eren."
That was the most he'd ever heard her say. It was also the softest he'd heard her voice: a small hint of the tenderness in her relationship with the boy who had somehow bought this odd pair together.
"P-Probably." He took a deep breath. "Um… It's selective mutism, right?"
"Yes." She paused. "And self-harm, suicidal tendencies, explosive anger and social anxiety.
The wind was whistling again, blowing a chill down Armin's neck. Mikasa was starting into the middle distance, a dejected looseness hung across her expression.
"He also has a great smile, a strange habit with cucumber slices and an ineffable ability to perceive the weak point of others and subsequently cover it up with something beautiful out of the blue…"
"Yes."
"Can I ask… How do you two know each other?" Armin was looking down at his fingers now. He didn't want to look at her: he kept seeing glimpses of emotion flashing across her face that he didn't want to recognise, because recognising it would mean knowing and knowing meant Armin was too invested. Mikasa was, at the moment, a force to be reckoned with. Nothing more, nothing less.
And yet, there he was, asking questions about their life.
"What's it to you?"
"Y-You know where my apartment is. I'm allowed something in return." His voice was harder than he felt.
"I found that out for myself."
"By chance. And I'm finding this out, by asking you."
She acquiesced. "We live together, with Eren's mum."
"So you're not related?"
Armin could almost hear the smile passing over Mikasa's lips, but he didn't dare look, because he knew as soon as he said it that it was a stupid question. That, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what kind of smile it was.
"Do we look related?"
The question was rhetorical, but it didn't stop Armin feeling the air go thick with his silence, as her words rang in his ears like a disease.
Armin never thought anything interesting would happen in his life. He felt he lived in a liminal state: never without acquaintances but never with good friends; never consumed by any emotion in particular except perhaps boredom; he didn't dream but he had his future planned out until the age of 21; and above all, nothing interesting ever happened to him. Every week in the life of Armin Arlert had been almost the same for as far back as he could remember, his weekends fading into a mist of markets, homework and rented DVDs, interspersed with house parties attended by the same group of people, where nothing happened and nobody remembered. At least that was the case up until the point where Mikasa leaned forward and whispered that proposal that would turn his life on its head.
"Armin, I need you to help me help Eren."