I'm a bit late for valentines day but still!

As always, I don't own SNK or any of it's characters.

Hope came calling around 2 weeks later. Jean almost dropped the phone the moment he heard Armin's voice on the other end of the receiver.

"Hello! It's Armin. The guy who you promised free sketches for all eternity. Remember me?"

Jean lifted an arm and gave a silent cheer in victory. His birthday present worked!

"Y-yeah, I remember. So you want one?" Jean immediately face palmed. He was so stupid for going straight to business! He should have taken advantage of the moment and asked him how he was or maybe about how he spent the rest of his birthday.

"Yeah. The ones you made for my birthday were… simply extraordinary." The brunette had the stupidest grin on his face. "… so do I go to your store and give you the picture?... or should I send it?..."

Jean was startled by the question. Of course he was dying to see the blonde again but he wouldn't want to trouble Armin into going all the way to the store to do something that could easily be done with a click. With great pain in his heart he answered.

"Email should do… by when do you want it done?"

"Oh…" Jean could've sworn he heard some disappointment in Armin's voice. "Don't worry about it. Whenever you have it done is fine. Just let me know and I'll go pick it up. Thank you, Jean."

"Goodbye." With that, the line went dead. Jean slowly hanged up the phone then slammed his head against his desk.

You idiot! You should have told him to come!

But it would have been really unnecessary…

Maybe he wanted to come!

Why would he?

Jean sighed. On one side he was happy to have gotten to hear Armin's voice today and would even be getting a new image of him to sketch but on the other side he felt a pang in his chest when he thought that maybe he had wasted a precious opportunity.

He forced himself to stop sulking and better check his email for Armin's request. The thought of doing something directly for the blonde got his heart fluttering and brought his good mood back. He quickly opened his email and waited impatiently for the request. Soon it was there and Jean opened it.

There was a little message from Armin before the attachment.

I hope you don't get sick of my face from sketching it so much!

Jean actually laughed out loud because Armin didn't have the slightest idea of how many times Jean had actually sketched his face and the fact that it was always on his mind. Also the idea of him getting "sick'" of it was nothing but laughable.

He clicked on the attachment and eagerly waited for the image to download. He chuckled when he finally saw it. The setting was somewhere in the mountains. Armin was at the top of a cliff and the photographer had been on the bottom. The blonde was right at the edge waving down. For a moment Jean had to fight the instinct to stretch his arms incase the blonde fell. He really liked this picture because it made him feel like Armin's attention was pointed at him. At least for a moment he could pretend it was so.

Looking forward to the next few days, Jean began to work.

To be honest, he could have finished the sketch much faster than he did. He was taking his time for 2 reasons. One: that picture was very special. It was a request from Armin for Armin and Jean was over thinking every little detail. He wanted it to be perfect, no, more than perfect. Two: Ok, Jean was also a little nervous about seeing the blonde again. He desperately wanted to spend time with Armin and to get to know him but he was so afraid of messing up that he was starting to avoid working on the request and instead doodling on his casual sketchbook. As he worked on the details in the blonde's hair he gave a defeated sigh.

This is getting out of hand.

He began to flip through all the sketches. Armin had taken over his sketchbook just like over his heart.

I need to talk to him. I'll see him when I finish the sketch so I need to stop avoiding it.

Jean sighed again. He traced a finger gently over the drawing of Armin's face before closing the casual sketchbook and switching it for his work one.

He had just finished sharpening his pencils when he got a phone call.

Saved by the bell? He mused before answering.

"Hello?"

"Ah- Hi, Jean!" The brunette's heart skipped a beat when he realized who it was.

"A-Armin! H-hey!" He tried to calm himself by reasoning that he probably wanted to know if the sketch had been completed. "I haven't finished your sketch yet. We could avoid problems if you just gave me a due date."

"Oh! Don't worry, I'm not hurrying you up. I was… actually going to ask for another sketch." Jean blinked in surprise.

"Another one? Besides the one I'm working on?"

"Yes! This might sound sort of weird but… would you be interested in doing a live sketch?" The brunette could seriously not hear his thoughts over the sound of his heartbeat.

"L-live sketch?"

"I just thought it could be interesting! You know, maybe the result would be different if instead of a picture you had the actual person there. I really don't know much about art. It was just an idea that I thought could be-" He stopped himself. "Anyway! Would Friday be ok? We could meet at your store and then maybe grab some lunch before going to a park or some place for the actual sketch… would you like that?" Jean's mouth was dry and his mind went blank. A sudden thought came yelling.

SAY YES YOU DUMBASS

"Y-yeah! That sounds… interesting! See you Friday, then?"

"Yeah! See you!"

The moment Jean hanged up, he jumped out of his chair and ran around.

Stop being so excited! It isn't a date!

But I'm going to see him again and we're going out for lunch! And being able to sketch him in his presence, even if it's for a job, will be something amazing!

Jean could simply not slow down or stop smiling. He forced himself to sit back on his chair but ended up spinning it for a while.

"I'm going to spend time with Armin!" Suddenly it hit him and he froze. "Shit! I'm going to spend time with Armin!" Now he was a nervous wreck. "What am I going to say!? What am I going to do!? I'm going to stare a lot, I know me! He's going to freak out. This was such a bad idea."

He tiredly laid back against his chair and took a deep breath.

"Just relax. If he notices the stares I can always say that I was thinking about the sketch." Jean spent the rest of the day coming up with every possible thing that could go wrong during their "meeting".

On Friday, as he waited for the blonde to arrive, he had a sudden attack of nerves. To avoid freaking out he was occupying his mind with useless tasks like color-coding his pencils. He was almost done with that when he heard the door open. He jolted violently and the pencils went flying to the ground. Soon both Armin and he were kneeling on the ground picking them up. The blonde laughed.

"Were you going to pack all of these?" He asked humorously.

"No, I was just… having some free time." Jean felt really stupid. He then realized that Armin stopped picking up pencils and was staring at him. The brunette tried hard not to blush. "W-what?" He stuttered. The blonde smiled and shook his head.

"If you're not careful you will start a stereotype that artist play with pencils in their free time."

"I wasn't playing with them!"

Armin took one of the pencils and tapped it lightly against his cheek while giving him and incredulous look (I will treasure that pencil for the rest of my life). Jean cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"Anyway. What do you have in mind for today?"

"Oh well I don't really know this area very well so I don't know any restaurants. Whatever you choose is fine." For a moment Jean stared blankly at the blonde then he couldn't fight off a teasing grin that took over his face.

"I meant for the sketch." Armin's eyes widened and his cheeks became red. Jean outright stared at the sight.

"Oh! Right! Um- maybe a park nearby? Like I said I-I don't really know the area." He was looking away and his face was still lightly pink and Jean thought it was the most adorable thing he had ever seen (These kind of moments are the ones that make me wonder whether I should start coloring my sketches).

Before he could stop himself, he ruffled Armin's hair. He was internally freaking out over the fact that he touched those golden locks he had drawn so many times (they're even softer than I thought they'd be!) but somehow his voice functioned with ease.

"There's actually a very nice park conveniently next to a seafood restaurant I go to a lot. How about that?"

Armin had had a shocked expression when Jean ruffled his hair but it turned into a bright smile.

"That sounds great!"

At the restaurant Jean guided Armin to his usual table. Jean was internally laughing over the fact that he had made so many sketches of the blonde on that very table and now he was having lunch with him there. It seemed like a dream.

He was a frequent customer there so he was greeted by many people. Jean had taken both his work sketchbook and his casual sketchbook with him. He knew he wouldn't be able to draw in the second one in front of the blonde but it seemed like a crime not to take the works inspired by that very person. Maybe by just having the sketchbook in his presence would bring him some sort of inspiration later on.

The waitress got there and smiled at Jean. Her eyes widened when they landed on Armin.

"Oh my god! That's him, isn't he!? Your model!" She hovered excitedly over Armin who smiled good-naturedly. Jean was trying really hard not to laugh because Armin probably thought she meant that one time Eren asked for a sketch or maybe the one he ordered, not the giant sketchbook filled with him. The waitress was a fan of his "Armin Art". "I had started to believe that maybe he wasn't real! I mean I saw the picture but still." She smiled to the blonde before turning to Jean and speaking in a voice level only he would hear. "He's even cuter in real life! Congratulations!" Jean choked on his own saliva but tried to pass it off with a laugh. As she walked away with their orders, Armin began to laugh.

"So you come work here a lot?"

"Yeah." The restaurant had become quite meaningful to Jean considering that was the place where he first drew Armin in his casual sketchbook. "Actually one of the sketches I made for your birthday was the first thing I ever drew here." That wasn't quite true, but it was close enough.

Even the presence of Jean's "model" in the restaurant didn't make the chefs work any faster. Jean and Armin had lots of time to talk. The blonde would often take Jean's jokes seriously and the brunette found it endearing. Every new fact that he learned about the blonde was highly acclaimed by Jean. Even though his heart never seemed to sit still, he was soon able to easily joke and talk with Armin.

Soft laughter echoed in Jean's ears. Armin leaned in with a curios glint in his eyes.

"Has anyone ever dropped you the obvious line? You know, with you being a sketch artist and all."

"Obvious line?"

A smirk suddenly appeared on the blonde's face. He leaned even closer until his mouth was right next to Jean's ear.

"Draw me like one of your French girls…"

Jean shivered and Armin leaned back against his chair, smiling innocently.

Soon the food arrived. Jean enjoyed watching Armin eat (is that creepy? That might be a little creepy.). He didn't want the evening to end.

That's what he was thinking about when Armin suddenly put his fork down.

"Hey… I should be honest with you." He was looking away, smiling shyly.

For no reason, Jean's heartbeat increased.

"Ever since Eren gave me those sketches for my birthday… I haven't been able to stop thinking about then. About you. I look at them all the time and they are just… so expressive… I can't even describe it."

Jean thought this might be the most important moment of his life.

"So I finally came to the conclusion that I had to see you again. I had to talk to you. That's when I called to order a sketch. It's not that I didn't want it, but the intention was to see you. When I asked about going to your store to drop off the picture I thought it would be something so obviously unnecessary that you would realize it was what I really wanted but it seems it wasn't obvious enough." The brunette didn't want to interrupt him but he couldn't help it.

"I just didn't want to inconvenience you…" He muttered, embarrassed.

"I know. You were just being nice but it complicated my plan. Now I had to wait until you finished the sketch but… I couldn't wait anymore." Jean felt bad for half-purposely avoiding Armin's request but at the same time he was glad he did so because that was what had brought this moment.

"So… in conclusion… I do want the sketch but that's not why I did this…" He finally looked at Jean. "I just wanted to spend some time with you."

Jean felt like his heart could burst into flames, rise from the ashes, and burst again.

After lunch, they made their way to the park Jean had been talking about. They talked the entire time but all the while there was an annoying voice hammering in the back of his head.

Take his hand! Take his hand!

He didn't know if it was a good idea or not, but that wasn't important. He didn't have the guts to do it anyway.

Once they got there, Jean showed him around his favorite spots as they searched for a place to sit and do the sketch. The park was quite large. It had a few fountains and even a lake with ducks. When Armin laid eyes on them he began expelling all kinds of facts about them. It startled Jean but he loved it.

"I wish I could have a pocket you so that I could carry you around everywhere. It would be like having a human Wikipedia!"

"I'm already quite small, thank you."

"I don't think I could carry you everywhere."

"You could try."

And that's how Armin spent half of the tour in a piggyback ride.

Finally Jean got tired and they sat at the edge of the lake with their backs against a tree.

"Well it was accidental but I think we just found the perfect spot." Jean mused. "Sit over there with your back to the lake." Armin did.

"Should I, um, pose or something?"

"Don't pose, just be yourself."

Armin's eyes softened and a certain fondness took over his expression. Jean felt overwhelmed by having that look directed at him. He knew that the moment he pointed it out it would disappear and change into confusion or shock, so he took it upon himself to carve each of the blonde's features into his memory to sketch later.

He changed his focus to the scenery and began to plan the angle he wanted for the sketch. He was so distracted with that that he didn't notice Armin sneaking Jean's causal sketchbook out of his bag.

It took a while for the sound of pages flipping to startle Jean. When he turned around to look at the blonde he felt utter horror fill him. Armin hadn't gasped. He hadn't made a sound. His eyes were wide as he stared back at his own face. He flipped and flipped and with each flip Jean felt like he was being stabbed.

He's going to be so freaked out. I just destroyed any chance we had at being friends.

"…h-how?" Armin finally spoke. Jean could hardily breath. He gasped, though, when the blonde looked up and there were tears threatening to spill from his bright blue eyes. "… t-there's so much emotion in these… how can you draw me so fondly?"

And that's when it hit Jean that the sketchbook Armin was holding in his hands was practically Jean's heart on paper. He could be literally yelling out his feelings for the blonde and it would have been the same.

Somehow Jean found his voice.

"Why are you crying?" Armin actually smiled. He weakly whipped the tears off his eyes but they were soon replaced.

"They are just... so beautiful." Something between a sob and a hiccup escaped his lips. "Is this… really how you see me?"

Jean suddenly felt like he could laugh because what Armin was shocked about was the idea of someone caring so much about him or seeing him as something so precious.

"Yes." He said, voice firm. Armin's eyes widened. He looked back down at the sketches. Another little sob came and he began to laugh.

"I don't know what to say."

"I do." Jean said. "You're beautiful. Can I sketch you?" Armin blinked. He had never felt so unattractive in his entire life and yet here was Jean (who was currently lost in the way the sun reflected from Armin's tears and made the boy look angelic) telling him otherwise. He laughed even more.

Jean began to sketch and conveniently enough, the blonde's tears would not stop coming as he kept laughing. The brunette finished in a little less than an hour and by then Armin had calmed down. The blonde sat next to Jean and looked at the sketch.

"Thank you." He said simply but the words were heavy with emotion. Armin took it and held it close to his chest. "Can I see your other requests?" Jean nodded. He began to flip to the first page of his sketchbook when he felt Armin's head on his shoulder. He tried to fight the ridiculous grin invading his face but failed. "I hope I don't find any French girls in there…" Armin mused before the two of them began to flip through Jean's work.