Complexity- Armin x Reader

Chapter 11: The Backdrop

"I hope they don't make us eat weird stuff. Like snails or something."

Marlowe turned to her and deadpanned.

"Hitch. That's French cuisine. I think you're gonna be fine."

Y/n skimmed through the permission slip, soaking up all of the trip's details and making a note to ask her mom to sign it right away.

Armin bumped Y/n's leg with his own, grabbing her attention.

"Do you know how excited Sasha's gonna be when she comes in during fourth period?"

Y/n laughed.

"She's going to go feral. Red, glowing eyes and everything."

"Let's sit on the bus together, yeah?" Armin bashfully asked the girl next to him. Y/n met his nervous eyes momentarily with her own pair, smiling widely at the proposition. She felt jittery in the most wonderful sense as she shared a warm feeling with Armin, feeling the cacophony of butterflies fluttering in her stomach. This time, she allowed herself to smile as much as her face could handle.

And of course

"Yes. Definitely."

~♢~

"Hey, what's up Reiner." Eren was quick to find the blonde sitting at the group's usual table under the oak tree. The green-eyed boy clambered onto the faded, blue lunch table, taking a seat right across from Reiner, who looked up from his BLT sandwich and raised his hand slightly to greet Eren with a modest wave.

"Hey, Eren. You guys get the permission slips?"

The brunette's face brightened as he pulled out his lunch from his backpack. "Yeah, it was a nice surprise. Sasha was especially excited. She was practically frothing at the mouth."

Reiner chuckled and took out a glistening green apple from his paper bag, eyeing it in thought before taking a large bite out of it.

The two fell into a comfortable silence as they ate their lunches and waited for the rest of the group to arrive. There were only the sounds of a crisp apple being bitten and a Caprisun being downed.

It wasn't until after a minute or so of Eren crunching on some pretzels that he remembered what he had to say.

"OH!"

Startled, Reiner looked up from his sandwich and warily looked at Eren.

The brunette set his bag of mini pretzels down and trained his intense eyes onto Reiner.

"I found out that Jean's helping Y/n try to ask out Armin!"

Pretzel bits flew out of Eren's mouth and onto the table, and if it weren't for his revelation, Reiner would have told him to keep his mouth shut while eating. But the blonde frowned.

"What the hell? He can't do that. Fucking cheater." Reiner grimaced as he finished off his sandwich. He crumpled up the plastic bag that it came in and tossed it along with the apple core into the paper bag, eyeing the trash can from a distance before shooting his trash into it with practiced trajectory.

"I know. I told him that if he's doing that, then we should help Armin, too. To level the playing field."

"Alright, then. At least this development might speed things up. Now all we gotta do is figure out how to get the guy to ask the girl out. Any thoughts?" Reiner crossed his arms and set them onto the table, relaxing his posture as he bounced his foot in anticipation.

Eren shrugged. "No clue. I just thought we could hype him up. Give him a good pep talk."

Reiner snorted.

"Eren, you're the last person who should be giving people pep talks. You get way too serious."

"Eh?"

"Remember last time when Shadis asked you to help calm everyone down by giving a speech and you ended it by saying weird shit like 'together, we'll destroy these Marleyan pricks and make them wish they were dead-" Reiner lowered his tone an octave and mockingly imitated Eren with a menacing voice before the brunette had a chance to stop him.

"Ok, ok, fine. I do admit, I did get just a little out of hand." He sulked and sipped from his empty Caprisun.

"How did you even find out Jean was helping Y/n?"

"It's funny, actually. Mikasa and I saw them talking at the coffee shop and we honestly thought it was weird. I thought they were on a date 'cause he had put his jacket on her. But nope. Jean denied it and fessed up."

"Does Armin know?"

"Well, he knows that they went to the Coffee Bean together, but Y/n had told him that they had gone to study. I kind of messed up by telling Armin that I found it suspicious, though. I think I scared him into thinking that they were dating."

Reiner nodded his head at the information and let his eyes travel across the lunch area, letting his mind unpack everything he was being told. In the distance, he saw Jean and Y/n conversing at the back of the lunch line, Armin calling out to the both of them as he made his way towards the line. It was then that Reiner had an idea pop into his mind.

"Ok. So," the blonde began, "What if we let Jean do the work for us?"

Eren paused from eating his carrots and looked up to meet Reiner's eyes. His forehead creased in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you think that if Armin thought Jean was moving in on Y/n he'd want to act fast? Since Jean's talking to Y/n now more openly, let's steer the narrative on that. Let's convince Armin that if he doesn't say anything now, it might be too late."

Eren contorted his face as if he had eaten a sour fruit. He wasn't too fond of this suggestion, seeing as how it had the potential of hurting his friend more than helping. And there was no way of knowing for sure what type of ramifications would arise if things did end up going south.

"But what if we discourage Armin? I wouldn't want him getting depressed."

"And we won't let that happen. You and I are going to be his wingmen, and I'm sure Connie will help us. Plus we have Ymir on the sidelines. She'll probably talk some sense into him."

The brunette looked down towards the table as he considered the option. He was a known optimist who pushed for what he wanted no matter the odds, but did he really want to go about the bet like this?

"Don't you think we're taking this too far?" Eren folded his hands on the table as he questioned Reiner's thinking.

The blonde shook his head.

"Nah, I don't think we're taking this far enough."

Their conversation ended a few moments afterwards with the arrival of their friends, everyone gradually entering the picture with their lunch in hand. New conversations were sparked, and Reiner's plan was not revisited anymore that day. But Eren carried on with his day with an uncomfortable feeling settling into the back of his mind. Though a small part of him wanted to speak up against the plan, he chose to ignore it and follow along with his blinding positivity.

What he didn't know was how he'd soon come to regret his decision. And how he'd wished he'd never come to meddle in the first place.