"I like you."

Armin tensed a little, but stood quietly with a solemn expression while the young recruit continued her confession. With her short, dark hair, she looked a bit like Mikasa back when they had first joined the Survey Corps. "Ever since that time outside the walls when you saved me, I've liked you," she trembled in nervousness. "You were so brave, like a prince, and, well…" she trailed off before falling silent, waiting for his response.

His voice was firm. "I think you're a really great girl, but I can't think of you that way." He made to move past her. "…I'm sorry."

As he strode away, he could hear the girl and her friend talking, their voices slowly fading away.

Aaaand you got rejected," the slightly taller, blonde girl stated flatly.

"That's so mean! What kind of friend are you?" the first girl complained. She clutched her hands to her chest, still shaking from the nervousness earlier.

The other girl flipped her thick ponytail a bit and crossed her arms. "Didn't I tell you, though? He'll definitely turn you down, so you should quit while you're ahead."

"But…."

"You know what they call him, don't you?" the friend argued.

"Of course I do. He's the—"

"Titan-Chasing Squad Leader," a voice finished from right behind him, causing Armin to turn in surprise.

"Oh, it's just you, Jean. Don't sneak up on me like that," he laughed. "It's your day off, right? How're you planning to spend it? Are you going anywhere?"

"Yeah, just going to do some shopping." Jean sighed. "…You turned down someone again, huh?"

"You saw that?"

He leaned back and crossed his arms. "Yeah, I did. You're popular as always."

"Not really."

Jean scoffed. "They get all giggly and weird when you go by, don't they? All, 'Prince Charming!'" he mimicked. "Would it be so terrible to actually get yourself a girlfriend?"

"I don't know as you're really one to talk, Jean, when you're still pining after Mikasa."

"!?" Jean straightened with wide eyes.

Armin's sugary sweet, yet strangely ominous smile widened. "Did you think no one had noticed?"

"…."

Satisfied that he'd silenced his commander, Armin half turned to leave and waved with a smile. "If you don't get going soon, everything will be closed."

Jean scratched the back of his head as the squad leader shrunk in the distance. "And this is why," he muttered with a deep sigh, "it's a bad idea to get yourself involved with smart guys…."

Once out of Jean's sight, Armin's smile faded. His lips quirked in self-deprecation as he swiftly moved down a flight of stairs, the air growing colder and staler as he progressed. "Prince Charming, huh? That's not someone I can ever be."

"Which story was it where a sleeping princess is awakened by the kiss of a prince—"

"After all," his steps drew him toward a large crystal chained in the center of the room. A young, teenage girl in a Military Police uniform stood encased inside, her eyes closed as if in sleep, hiding her sky eyes beneath her unbound flaxen hair.

Armin slowly stopped in front of the girl frozen in time.

"You won't even let me to touch you," he placed his hand against the cool, iridescent stone with a smile that looked on the verge of dissolving into tears, "let alone kiss you."

He gently pressed his lips longingly where hers would be if not for her crystal prison.

"Without a doubt."

"Annie…" his voice rang softly through the still cavern as he laid his forehead on the cold surface of the crystal.

"For the titan princess I'm chasing whose eyes will never open…

"I cannot become her prince."

As promised, here's the link to the manga: pixiv…net/member_illust…php?mode=manga&illust_id=44021892. You should really check it out even if it's a little hard to figure out exactly where the speech and thoughts line up with the panels (sorry; I did my best to match things). The story is beautifully illustrated and colored; it captures everything wonderfully. I couldn't help but cry when I got to the end. I'm still crying now as I translate this thing with the last page open on the side. I'm not sure exactly why I'm so affected by this since there are other stories on FFN and others where Armin's still waiting for Annie long after, but something about this one struck me. I hope my awful conversion was able to capture an inkling of the power of the original.

Here are the original author's notes from page 9.

AruAni eye color story (pg. 2-4) and fabricated future content (pg. 6).

I made the future Survey Corps with this chain of command as a base: commander = Jean, squad leaders = Armin, Mikasa, with the position Corporal Levi had having been retired. Armin is in a position as a strategist, and although he only cares about the untainted memories of Annie, he manipulates multiple women while being a ladies' man and Jean is always going to be in a tight spot because of him.

The manga on page 6 was drawn quite a bit before, so that's why the drawing style is different.

Thank you for reading!

(End Manga's Author's Notes)

A couple of translation notes:

1.) In English, we generally use ocean and sea interchangeably, but in Japanese, there's only one word: umi. Sorry if it was weird that Annie would use the word sea when she had technically only heard the word ocean.

2.) When I wrote out "titan princess," it was a bit of a hack. So the actual line reads, "For the titan whose eyes won't open," but next to the Japanese characters for the word titan, there's a note that it's supposed to be read princess. Since we don't have an equivalent way of conveying the double meaning in English, I chose to write out both words. In any case, the reason I'm even talking about this is to explain that while Armin recognizes that Annie is undeniably a titan, to him, she is a princess; it's not that he thinks of her as some kind of titan royalty if they even have that sort of thing.

If you have a Pixiv account and liked this story, please be sure to rate/bookmark the original to support the artist!