Armin braced for impact as his mind raced to grasp the situation. Hands gripped his arms. His back barely made contact with the floor as his eyes focused on a face full of equal parts surprise and urgency.
She motioned frantically. He scrambled to his feet, his mind telling him to ask why or even to call out. But she held a finger to her mouth and pleaded as best she could in silence. He obliged not speaking, but considered his options as she pointed wildly toward the upstairs coat closet. Eren's voice practically boomed up the stairway.
"When we get to the top of the stairs, close your eyes."
A sudden sense that he was not meant to be there coursed like adrenaline through Armin's veins. He squeezed into a gap in the coats and Mikasa latched the door behind them without a whisper of a sound.
Armin's heart pounded so loudly he was sure that it was audible. It saturated his hearing nearly completely. Between the beats came the sound of his ragged attempt at breathing. He felt the shake threaten his hands and focused harder now on his breathing. One and two.
Just a closet. One breath.
Two.
Just Mikasa. One, two.
It did not always work, but his body seemed to understand and obey this time. The sound of Eren guiding Historia down the hall grew closer to the closet door. A tiny hitch of breath burst in his ears. It took a moment for Armin to realize it was not him making the sound. His pulse quickened as a muffled sneeze went off like a tiny firecracker at his shoulder. He drew as far into the coats as he dared, managing only a modicum more of space between them. Just a closet, just Mikasa, he recited. Two breaths.
An exclamation from Historia was faint beyond the door.
"Historia?" Eren's words were muffled, but still clear enough. "Will you marry me?"
Historia's cry was so gleeful it brought a tiny smile to Armin's lips. It also reminded him that he was hearing this from a closet of all places. Mikasa's presence was even more inexplicable. He felt sweat prickle down his back and tried once more to make himself smaller.
The bedroom door clicked shut down the hall.
Mikasa fled the closet first. The sudden light left his vision blurry, but Armin managed to follow. They snuck down the steps with as much speed as could be done. Mikasa touched the floor four steps ahead of him and beelined through the kitchen. He took the same path, bursting onto the side steps with a gasp. His hands shook as he fished out the key. It clanged against the concrete stoop. Mikasa snatched it from the ground and turned it into the lock before handing it back to him. They power-walked wordlessly down the path and turned the corner, not breathing a single word until they passed the neighbor's mailbox two doors down. He let out a long breath. Mikasa sent a withering look.
"What were you doing in there?" she hissed.
It took him a few more gulps of air to collect his words.
"Me? What about you?"
She shook her head from side to side before groaning into her palm.
"The proposal - I was supposed to set up and leave, but they got back early."
Armin sank to the curb.
"What about you?" She demanded.
He let his hands drop away from his face and met her hard gaze.
"I was just dropping off an old keyboard."
Mikasa's icy look faded and her face screwed up. He flinched when she let out another sneeze.
"That cat," she muttered, sniffling. "I didn't even touch him."
Armin glanced at his sleeves and sighed, mulling over the turn of events briefly before he rose from the ground and took a nice, steady breath. The adrenaline was finally ebbing away. Mikasa's voice had developed a stuffy timbre by the time she said,
"I thought you were Historia at first."
"We don't look that much alike," he said, so beyond done with this conversation.
"You're literally twins."
Her eyes lingered on him with what he was tempted to interpret as mischief. The corner of her lips threatened to upturn. She stood like a knife against the wind, the only part of her not in perfect posture being her dark hair, blown every which way by the breeze before something softened in her features.
"Sorry," she said quietly.
He shook his head. Mikasa's eyes flicked back toward Eren and Historia's house.
"I've got to go. I guess I'll see you around?"
He nodded. If Eren and Historia were getting married, surely he would see her around.
He tried to push it from his mind as he trudged back to his car. Mikasa had never been anything but reservedly polite to him and he could hardly imagine that she would terrorize him on purpose. Surely she had no idea at all, or at least he hoped she did not. Nothing logical was going to take the crawling feeling from under his skin, though.
Walking back through his front door was such a comfort that Armin immediately sighed. Everything might as well have been spinning and he considered calling Historia at least three times, but he never reached for the phone. His hands still threatened to shake as he shrugged into an old shirt and sweatpants. Why not call, he asked himself each time.
Beneath the anxiety that had erupted was another inkling of a thing which he hardly recognized anymore. At the feeling of it, he immediately went to put on a fresh pot of coffee and arranged a mug on the small table beside his keyboard. Next to it sat a warm desk lamp and his never-evolving composition. Until now, he hoped.
The coffee pot sputtered while he tapped out the email to Erwin.
His brain tried to whisper cruel things to contradict his resolve. Things about competency, or that she would undoubtedly be there and he was already going to be seeing more than enough of her. Maybe that was the point. It was easier, for some reason, to say yes when it was in spite of himself.
He blew through two cups of coffee as he scrawled notes across the empty staff paper. It reflected, if only barely legible, what had finally started to form in his thoughts. He poured a third cup of coffee, only taking breaks to stretch his back. It was a wickedly delightful sensation, almost as if he had stepped back in time. He could not remember a time since -
His back stiffened. He cleared his throat and polished off the third cup, pushing it from his mind lest it interrupt things. He had churned out pages - multiple, unbelievably - when Historia was the one to call him.
"Armin!"
"Hey."
"Guess what?"
"What?" he said, tone deceitfully flat.
"Eren! He proposed!"
"What!"
His attempt at surprise sounded overdone to his own ears, but Historia missed it in her elation.
"We're engaged!"
"That's amazing," he said, genuinely this time, "Congratulations!"
She let out a squeal before returning to words.
"And thank you so much for dropping off the keyboard. And for the extra music."
"Of course."
She paused.
"Is everything ok?"
That was the problem with a twin sibling. She knew him too well.
"Everything's fine. Really. Congrats!"
"Ok, good. Thanks! Ok, I've got to go, but I'll talk to you later."
He hung up and smiled, about to lean back over the keyboard when Erwin Smith's was the next name to grace his screen.
