Author's Note: Reviews appreciated!

Afternoon (training)

"Give it up, Krista. I'm sorry, but he's gone."

"You're not sorry at all!"

"Heh, you caught me. Whatever, the trap's dead. …Hey, why don't you unzip those pants. I need to know what's inside."

"What? Ymir, why would you say such a thing?"

"Just hurry and do it. You said you'd always be on my side, didn't you?"

"Ooookay…"

The feeling of a soft, delicate hand touching his nether parts shocks Armin back into reality. "I am most definitely a boy!"

"Ah, he's alive!" a blurry blonde head bounces back, straight into a taller Ymir's arms.

"Huh. Guess you can't ever kill the shota," Ymir muses as she sets Krista back onto the ground with surprising gentleness. "Especially when he reaches Krista-levels of moe."

Armin tries to get his bearings, but the quick movements make him swoon and he has to close his eyes for a minute. His vision was super fuzzy, but all the green suggests that he's in the forest. He might also have a concussion. However, a sudden memory springs to mind of another blonde who also used the word 'moe' to describe him… "Thomas!" he cries as a flood of memories returns to him.

When Sasha had attacked them, Armin was slammed into floor of their sleeping quarters so hard that he barely remembers what happened to Thomas. Even though Thomas' dare was horribly stupid, Armin was just as stupid for agreeing to it. He should have refused… but Thomas had challenged his honor as a soldier and as a man, so there was no way he could back down from that! Especially when everybody keeps calling him a shota, dammit!

"Armin! Can you tell us what happened here?" asks Krista.

His head hurts, so he reflexively replies with the first thing he can think of: "On that day, mankind received a grim reminder: we lived under the fear of titans and were disgraced to live in these cages we called—"

Ymir's places her hands on either side of Armin's head and squeezes it like a melon. "Don't even start, you stupid narrator! I still don't know if you're a boy or girl when you do those freakish voiceovers!"

"You're hurting him!" yells Krista, leaping onto Ymir's back and pulling her away. "Armin, just tell me yes or no: are you okay?"

Armin blinks again, but the headcrushing that Ymir just put him through seems to have momentarily disabled his ability to see. "What's going on?"

"You've been missing since breakfast. Eren went crazy looking for you!"

"Until lunch rolled around," Ymir says. "Then he went to stuff his face and squabble with Jean."

"Shut up, Ymir. You're not helping."

"I know. Heehee."

"What time is it?" Armin asks wearily, opening his eyes and blinking in an attempt to clear his vision. Something's not quite right, but he can't put his finger on it.

"Oh! This is the afternoon training session," Krista explains. "Mikasa told Instructor Shadis that you were sick in bed after he came and broke up her fight."

"Fight?"

"Oh ho ho!" Ymir guffaws. "You missed Mikannie's half-naked, mid-shower bitchfight in front of the mess hall!" She fans herself. "And Annie didn't even miss a beat when her towel slipped. That was when Krista here—"

"I was protecting her purity!"

"—ran right up to her and copped a feel." Ymir pats Krista on the head. "I've taught her well."

"I grabbed her towel!" Krista squeaks, stomping a foot childishly. She turns to Armin and assures him, "And it didn't fall."

"Oh yeah, and she kicked in the faces of anybody who tried to sneak a peek, including Old Man Shadis, and she still got away with it, the manipulative little bitch." Though Ymir's words is harsh, she speaks fondly and her tone is quite loving.

However, Krista is too distracted to protest Ymir's most recent insult. "This is it?" she asks in wonder. "I thought this was just stuff of legend. To actually see it with my own eyes…"

"Hmph. It's not like Sasha tried covering up her meat. He's even trussed up like a dead turkey."

That's when Armin realizes what's wrong with the world: he's hanging from a tree branch with his hands and feet firmly hogtied behind his back.

"Ah—agh—aaaaargh!" Armin panics and tries to free himself, but the rope work binding his entire body shows the expertise of a hunter. Ropes criss-cross around his torso so that his weight is evenly distributed across his entire body. It looks like a bondage outfit, but its true purpose is to not cut off blood circulation to all parts of his body. "What did Sasha do to me?" He looks around, recognizing the tree he's hanging from. "Her secret stash?"

"Wow. If I wasn't completely in lesbians with Krista, I might consider the fact that Sasha was saving you for later, like, supermegafoxyawesomehot. As it is, though… Krista?! Why is there drool coming out of your mouth?"

SLURP. "What? No, I wasn't—"

"I saw that sparkling slobber."

"W-w-what are you talking about? Slobber doesn't sparkle!"

"Don't you dare pretend that I didn't. I saw—"

Seeing as these two girls have been holding an entire conversation with him while he's been hanging upside down like a piece of meat, Armin uses his powers of deduction to conclude that neither Ymir or Krista are likely to help him if he doesn't take drastic measures... like screaming at the top of his lungs. "HAAAAAALP!"

Ymir sighs. "Aw, and now you've just got to go and ruin the fun. Fine." She pulls out a survival knife and slices a rope, causing Armin to body-slam the ground.

"Owwww!"

"Yay, we helped the trap!" Ymir slings Krista over one shoulder. "Let's go."

"Wait, my hands and feet are still tied!" Armin shouts, but Ymir zooms away, leaving a cloud of smoke (and a couple twinkling drops of Krista's drool) in her wake. "Don't leave me…"

He has to escape. He's still lying in front of Sasha's secret food stash like a pig waiting to be slaughtered, with his hands and feet hogtied behind him… given, Ymir had said they were in the middle of training, so Sasha was probably out there training and not eating food. Or… what if the reason why she didn't constantly pilfer food from the kitchens between meals was because she came back here to her secret stash? What… what if she'd eaten Thomas for brunch and was saving him for a mid-afternoon snack instead?

"HEEEELP!" he shrieks. "SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

No response… except a rustling of branches and the crunch of leaves in the distance. Sasha?

"I don't want to die! HELP ME! HEEEE—grufnk!"

"Hey, there you are!" It's Connie, framed by sunlight, standing proudly in front of him with a bulging sack of what must be bread slung over one shoulder. "Everybody's wondering where you've gone—though I can't say that I'm surprised."

(You knew about this and you didn't come help?) Armin wants to say, but the gigantic loaf of bread that Connie has just lodged into his mouth prevents him from saying anything. When he tries to spit it out, Connie shoves it back in while continuing, "You've got wonder why, even though everybody knows that it exists, nobody's ever found it."

Armin chokes as the baguette hits the back of his throat—and then bends and keeps going.

"And why the people who go out looking for it usually shut up about it afterwards. Wow. You're definitely better at this than Eren. Almost as good as Sasha, I'd say." Connie laughs lightheartedly as he finally pulls the bread out of Armin's mouth.

"Hck… hlph… wh… why?"

Armin wheezes for breath as Connie closely inspects the saliva markings on the bread. "20 cm," he muses. "Not bad at all!"

"What… what are you talking about?"

"You beat out Jean by 8 cm! That's… that's…" Connie's exuberance quickly morphs into terrified suspicion, and he turns his eyes, cast in deep shadow, upon Armin. "Are you a boy or girl?"

Armin would have pounded his fist on the ground, had it not been securely tied with rope. "Why d-does everyone keep saying that? I'm not a trap!"

His intuition tells him that telling Connie he actually has no idea what a trap is would not be a good idea. Whatever it is, it can't be good.

Connie's expression twists with doubt, but he crouches low to the ground and takes out his utility knife. "Okay, man, if you say so. I trust you." He says, sawing away at Armin's bindings.

Armin almost weeps in relief. "I'm saved!"

"What, did you really think Sasha was going to eat you?" Connie roars in laughter. "Dude, I thought you were smart, but you're actually sort of dumb! And this is coming from the idiot who forgets to wash his own underwear and has to steal other peoplohwaitnoyoudidnthearanything."

"Then why was I hogtied and left hanging above her secret food stash?"

"Isn't it obvious? To scare the shit out of anybody looking to steal her food." Connie just grins at him. "Betcha that, even knowing that, you're never going to try coming to this neck of the woods again."

Now that he's past the overwhelming terror of the nightmare, he can think about this a little more rationally… and it is pretty clear. In fact, it's pretty brilliant for a girl who needs constant access to food while wanting to keep hundreds of other trainees away from it. Armin silently applauds Sasha.

The cut ropes loosen from around his wrists; the rope burns there prickle with pain as they breathe oxygen. Ouch. He cradles his wrists gently and uses his chin instead to gesture at the discarded baguette. "Why are you copying Mikasa?"

"On a scale of 1 to 10, just how sexy did you feel deepthroating that piece of bread?"

Armin instantly feels horribly, horribly violated—even more so than when he thought that Sasha was saving him for a mid-afternoon snack.

"Yeah. She won't listen to me, so you go tell Mikasa how you feel about losing your virginity to a loaf of bread."

Next time: Krista werqs it to the best of her ability and people start to notice…

"Jean, that better be a breadstick in your pocket."