Armin wouldn't call it a project. After all, there was no endgame, regardless of his fantasies where Eren would realise how truly amazing he was and stop hurting himself, or where Eren would whisk Armin into those bony arms of his and plant a perfect little kiss on his rosy cheek. Nor was there any plan; with Mikasa giving him nothing more than a meeting point for after school, and what might be considered a kind parting smile as she exited the science classroom, the door creaking quietly behind her.

Plus, Eren wasn't a subject. Eren was the most human one could be: he was the face Armin saw in a crowd, the one standing in the middle of a corridor while everyone walked round him, the face in a world of blanks.

It was a strange request. Armin couldn't help his mind ticking over it during maths, and in history, as he watched Eren scribbling notes at the front of the class. She "needed" him? Armin had never been told he was needed before, let alone by a girl who seemed so wholly capable of anything. Maybe she did have a plan, and Armin was merely being manipulated: it would explain why Mikasa hadn't mentioned anything concrete. She didn't seem like the sort of girl who would go out of her way to cover up her ulterior motives when her intellect was so easily hidden by her quizzical and enigmatic exterior.

And then… "need". As if Eren was in some kind of danger without Armin. It was hard to believe, and even harder to work out why Mikasa would find it auspicious to suggest that. Eren was mute, but he wasn't incapable of defending himself. Indeed, Armin thought as Eren raised his hand for third time that lesson, showing the teacher the second notebook he now kept with him to write conversations down in, he wasn't incapable of anything, and most certainly not modern history.

"He never smiles," Jean muttered to him, and Armin saw Marco lean into the conversation from his desk.

"Who?" Armin whispered, furrowing his brow a Jean, who was twiddling his pen between his fingers and intermittently letting it tap the desk.

"You know, for someone with the best grades in forever, you're really fucking stupid sometimes. Eren. You've been staring at him for the past 20 minutes?"

Jean evidently wasn't as dumb as his haircut made him out to be. The self-obsessed and candidly smug expression on his face, however, when Armin inadvertently blushed, was just as annoying as always.

"Has he?" Marco chipped in, slightly too loud, as Jean kicked him under the desk and a girl Armin forgot the name of glanced round at the trio.

"'S because he keeps answering questions," Armin said coolly, though couldn't help but check himself as he found his line of sight wandering back towards the front of the class. It was true though- he wasn't sure he'd seen Eren this animated about anything before, not that he'd known him that long. Did he like history? What was it about history, Armin found himself thinking, as he stared at the notebook on Eren's desk, its pages pulled back over the spine and margins abused with noncommittal pen squiggles. It was only then, as he heard Jean giggle, that he realised he'd done it again- he was indeed absolutely transfixed on Eren goddamn Jaeger.

"S-Shut up, Jean," he muttered, blushing harder this time and only cursing himself when he felt the tips of his ears go red. He found his mind wandering back to the morning, Eren complimenting him and consequently bunking his lessons, Jean hanging on (as he still was) to the way Armin acted when Eren was in the room… And then there was Mikasa. Somehow, all these things didn't fit. If he was supposedly necessary in Mikasa's plan to help Eren, then why did Armin only serve to make things worse for him? Jean wouldn't notice Eren further than their scrap on the previous Friday if it weren't for Armin's ridiculous blushing, Eren wouldn't have skipped his lessons if it weren't for Armin's mere existence; and now Eren was turning round to look at them- he could hear Jean giggling- and he saw Jean punch Armin lightly in the arm as he looked straight at him. Armin didn't catch his facial expression as he turned back round in his seat, but Armin knew what it would be like, having already been there: the boy sat at the front of the class, hearing someone laughing and feeling their eyes bore into the back of his head.

The frustrating thing was, he wasn't even friends with Jean. It was merely by association, that since Armin had once followed "that douchebag with the undercut" around like a forlorn yet amorous puppy, that meant they somehow were still friends. If Armin himself had to put it down to one thing, it would be that no one changed friends enough to warrant changing the seating plans at the start of the new school year, hence Armin was stuck, in the previous year's wisdom, sat next to Jean for all lessons except German. Eren, on the other hand, played the missing part; he and Mikasa slotting in wherever there was an empty desk as if where they sat were some kind of intricate code. In reality, the relationship between Armin and Jean had soured a bit. Marco- poor Marco- was now the boy smitten with the class "jock"; whereas Armin was alone, people still thinking he was friends with Jean from the fact they sat together and because Jean had an irritating habit of being unable to shut his face.

Time must have passed after that, because he had the notes on Hindenburg's presidency to prove it. So he hadn't slept or been distracted, but mulling over his conversation with Jean in bed later that night, he came to realise that everything from the moment Jean was yelled out for making goofy faces to the second after the bell rang was a complete blur. He had a memory problem sometimes where he'd repeat himself or forget little details, simply because life often became too mundane to bother remembering. Yet, of course, he could remember Eren's exact expression as he walked up to his desk as everyone left out the back: it was one of cautious contentment.

Eren held up a note, prewritten. Mikasa said you were going to hang out with us?

"Um… Ah… Y-Yeah. Wait a minute," Armin said, flustering with the contents of his bag, Eren watching him bemusedly as he shoved papers into his notebooks. He threw his bag violently over one shoulder. "Ready?"

And there it was again: Eren's smile. Jean was right, he wasn't as fast and loose with his facial expressions as most people, so much so that he could understand a girl he'd overheard that morning mentioning how Eren always seemed angry. Eren had a right to be angry, of course, but he also had a right to be happy: and if Eren being happy meant Armin got to gaze upon his cheeky smile more often, he would champion this right as much as the USA championed unfettered capitalism.

"So, do you know where we're meeting Mikasa?" Armin asked casually as he followed Eren out of the classroom, and Eren made an expression that made him look momentarily dumb, as he squinted into the middle-distance, before extracting his phone from his jeans pocket. It wasn't a flashy variety, more a functional, middle-of-the range thing, probably second-hand, unless Eren had inflicted those scratches on it himself. Eren slowed down as he unlocked it, opening his messages and opening one of three conversations held there, which he held up to Armin. It was a text from Mikasa, but Armin didn't get as far as reading it as the phone buzzed and a message icon obscured the screen.

Armin couldn't help but notice how Eren made a little "ah" with his mouth, though no noise came out. He read the text and frowned.

"Eren and Armin, sitting in a tree…" came a sing song voice, as Jean swaggered up to them, Marco in tow. Eren scowled as they walked past, initially mostly perturbed by the fact he'd been distracted, though the lines of his scowl deepened as he recognised Jean from his fight on the Friday. The moment Jean made kissing noises as he walked away was the very moment Eren snapped, and Armin watched in amazement as Eren took of his shoe and threw it straight at Jean's head. Armin wasn't sure if it was more satisfying to see what a great shot Eren was from what was probably 8 metres away, or to hear the resounding slap the sole of his trainer made at it made contact.

What was even more surprising is that Eren had risen to the same level of anger as on Friday- one that took him out of his mutism and let him yell "FUCK YOU" down the corridor. This action took both boys by surprise, as Jean took a moment to compute- Armin could virtually see the cogs working- what had just happened. Eren, meanwhile, seemed shocked and perhaps even disgusted by the sound of his own voice. This was when Jean picked up the shoe and threw it back, missing Eren, and broke into a run. Eren took this opportunity run away from him, still holding his phone and now only wearing one shoe. He ducked into the boys toilets and both Jean and Armin heard the click of the lock behind him.

Why did the boys toilets lock?

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE JAEGER, DAMMIT." Jean turned to Armin, the latter too dumbstruck with the simultaneous stupidity and brilliance of Eren's actions. Marco handed Armin Eren's shoe, which he couldn't much say he particularly wanted. "Do you believe me yet, Armin? Fucking nuts. Who the fuck even throws a shoe? And how come he won't speak but he'll yell at me, huh? Is he faking it?" He kicked the door, as if redirecting his open question.

"Shut up Jean, you're embarrassing yourself," Armin clenched the shoe. "Who… Who would even fake that sort of thing? O-Optionally?" Armin hated himself for saying that- something about it made Eren sound tragic, and while it wouldn't matter if he was, Eren was not tragic: he was an enigma, albeit one with smelly trainers.

"He's already got your twisted round his little finger, huh? I wouldn't have put you down as someone who fell for such a dumbass."

"Eren's not a dumbass, and I haven't changed my feelings about anyone except you, Jean… You… You…"

Armin was surprised to find himself choking up. Why? He didn't have anything to feel sad about- if anything, anyone who walked down the corridor in that very moment might have found the situation quite funny: a boy insistent on not leaving the closed bathroom door unattended, staring at two boys, one of whom was now crying whilst clutching a shoe that clearly wasn't his own.

He tried in vain to wipe his tear away with his sleeve. Perhaps it was the shock of a fight; it really had been a long time since Armin had properly engaged with anyone, let alone fought, and it was just so emotionally exhausting. He thought about how stupid he looked, and hoped Eren had found a way to escape out of the bathroom window and shin down the wall (it would, after all, be just the sort of thing that Eren would do), lest Armin have to look at him with puffy eyes and a broken spirit.

Oh, Mikasa, he thought. He couldn't even help himself- how was he supposed to help cucumber boy?

Maybe when Eren came out of the bathroom, he'd see right through Armin. He'd pretend he didn't exist- no, he really wouldn't see Armin at all, but it wouldn't bother him. He wouldn't remember anything as he flung his bag over his shoulder and drowned his head in drum and bass, crossing the courtyard without looking back, without thinking, without remembering.

"Fuck it. Jesus, Armin, there's no need to be such a girl. Urgh… Marco, you wanna go get a McFlurry or something?"

The way Jean massaged his own head made it seem as if he were obsessively flattening some unseen creases in the fabric of his own skin.

"You coming then or what?" Jean veiled his tone of voice with fake annoyance, but he wasn't annoyed: it was obvious, he wouldn't have offered out a hand if he weren't feeling guilty.

For a moment, Armin did consider it. He'd be less of a burden to Eren if Eren didn't care about him any longer.

Except it was Mikasa, her grey and goose-down eyes swimming in his mind's eye, which stopped him.

"'Girl' isn't an insult, Jean."

"Suit yourself."

Perhaps seeing Jean turn his back on him might have been the worst thing to happen to him a few years previously. Now, however, it served no emotion to Armin, who if anything felt relieved that he could properly wipe his tears without pretending he wasn't crying. There was no guilt, not this time; no self-loathing either, just a weary sense of relieve that he no longer had to pretend to care, that he no longer had to waste his time in another conversation he had no need to be engaged in.

The moment it took for Jean and Marco to skulk out of view wasn't long enough for it to occur to Armin that Eren might notice Armin's red-rimmed eyes, so Eren's surprised expression as the bathroom lock clicked open came as a bit of a shock to Armin.

Or was it? Was it the expression on Eren's face, or was it the way he leaned in to Armin, as if trying to suss him out? Was it the way he was so hesitant in reaching up to wipe a stray tear from Armin's burning cheek, anxiety almost getting the better of him; and the way it killed Armin to watch him deliberating with himself behind those telling eyes? Or was it, indeed, because Eren's eyelids fluttered, like the wings of a dying butterfly, and his lips parted slighty, as if he was going to say something; except then he pulled away. But it was too late. Armin's breath was dry in his throat.

He'd seen. Eren had glanced back up at him.

Eren's pupils had dilated.

Caught in his own logic-driven mind, a maelstrom of thoughts hit him at once, and he almost found himself kneeling under the intensity of it. The first most feral thoughts, were to grab the taller boy right there and… what? That's where the next thoughts came in, bombarding him with a hundred questions about what it meant, if anything. Had Eren wanted to kiss him? Why? Why when his face was red and his eyes sore from wiping them with his sleeve?

After that followed the more long-term consequences of this action- what was Mikasa going to say? Would she mind? If she did mind, was it because it would screw with Eren when he really needed to be kept out of trouble (a mean feat though that might be), or because she herself had feelings for Eren? If she did, then what? Armin had hidden his feelings fine before, but it hadn't ended how he would have hoped, thinking of Jean's scathing backward glance.

Eren had momentarily turned around so Armin couldn't see his face, searching for something in his rucksack, which, judging by his frantic movements, was not neatly organised like Armin's. In the consequent seconds, while Armin had been preoccupied with the ragings of his own brain, he'd scribbled something in red pen on the back of what looked like his unfinished Economics homework, which Armin now found stuffed in his hands, as Eren dashed, once more, into the bathroom.

Won't be a minute.

Indeed, he wasn't a minute. He didn't time it, but it was definitely longer than a minute. It was however long it took for Armin to become self-conscious about standing in a school after-hours (did Eren do this often or was it just when Armin was around?), long enough to slide down the wall, staring at the toilet door opposite, but not long enough for the thoughts to stop whirling or for his cheeks to return to their normal pasty hue. He came to the conclusion that Eren was on the phone, muttering things Armin couldn't hear, no matter how hard he tried.

The explanation came in the same spidery red handwriting, this time in the book he usually used to communicate.

Mikasa texted me before to say she can't come, and she wouldn't tell me why not? I'm still cool to hang with it, if it doesn't make you uncomfortable? I get it if you've got homework or something.

Armin looked up at Eren. He had come out of the bathroom looking exactly the same as when he went in, save for two small details Armin picked up on: firstly, that his hair was much messier, dragged backwards as if he'd been stood in a wind tunnel, and of course, his pupils were smaller now, though still not quite normal size, Armin reckoned.

"Um… No. I… Why would I be uncomfortable?" He smiled, except it faltered when he wondered if that was the impression he gave off. But Eren? Eren didn't seem to care, kicking his shoe back onto his foot and pocketing the lid of his pen, supposedly ready to hold a conversation.

Why would Mikasa bail out? On top of everything else- what did that mean?

That reminded Armin.

"Hey, Eren," he said, as Eren offered him a hand up. Armin accepted before continuing his point, taking a moment to notice that up his sleeves, Eren was still wearing the bandages Armin had applied at the end of the previous week. Or at least, they looked similar.

Eren was still looking at him with those piercing eyes of his as they started along the corridor, and Armin blushed as he realised he'd forgotten to finish speaking.

"Oh… Oh yeah, I was going to ask… Um… Do you speak sign language?" It sounded stupid once the words had rolled over his lips, but Eren's face lit up. He did a hand gesture, holding his palm open pointedly, folding it into a fist, opened it, and folded it again, only this time folding two fingers of the fist over the other two.

Armin realised that he'd probably asked the wrong question. Indeed, it had been more of a suggestion than a question, but then it was Armin's own fault for underestimating the one and only Eren Jaeger. He looked pleased about it though, so perhaps he'd hit the spot when it came to the conversation starter to get them over the numerous events of the last ten minutes.

Armin's heart was still echoing in his chest.

"Ah… What does that mean?" Armin smiled, and this time it didn't falter.

Eren pointed to himself. Armin's cynical side listed a number of words- puzzling, trouble, hot, weird, new, interesting, lanky- that he thought the word could describe, before connecting two and two. Four gestures. Four letters.

"Oh… It's your name. Ehh… Anything else? I don't know any, ha. I don't know why I asked, I'm being put to shame." The reply was vague, Eren pulling a face and wiggling his hands in a non-committal fashion.

And that was it. Eren may have not been able speak, but there was little impediment to his communication. The fact that his mutism obviously did him harm aside, it was invigorating in a way, to see one person say so many things in so many ways, with no spoken words at all. He threw his hands about, flourishing his pad of paper and pulling all manner of faces (though smiling was, as Jean had said, a rarity). The most interesting part, however, would always be Eren's eyes. Living in Berlin, life could be quite grey, and he'd never really seen such things as the purling of the ocean or the dunes of a desert. Yet, somehow, all of these things existed in Eren's eyes: his odd heterochromatic eyes, where Armin could gaze deep into a pit of gold and fire and a field on a summer's day simultaneously, for as long as Eren would hold eye contact.