Complexity- Armin x Reader

Chapter 20: In Retrograde

"How come she's friends with only guys?"

"That's weird!"

"Maybe they like having fun with her...that's pretty gross."

"She probably likes being shared."

Kids can be cruel at such a young age.

Ymir then turned to Armin, who had been stiff with shock.

"Armin, you just gonna let her two-time you like that?"

Armin stayed silent, with his blue eyes wide and shining with each flicker of the fire.

Connie frowned and suddenly felt guilty.

"Oy, we should just calm down. I didn't mean for that question to lead to this. Ymir, stop being rude."

Eren frowned as he glanced over at Y/n's distraught face.

"Too far, Ymir."

The freckled girl stuck to her guns and took on a crass tone. She shrugged off Historia's gentle touch to her shoulder and fixated on the current situation.

"What's your guy's problem?" She raised a brow and glanced from person to person before narrowing her eyes.

"I'm just trying to do my part." She briefly glanced at Reiner before going lax, slumping in posture and looking unenthusiastic about the lack of support.

"What the fuck are you even taking about?" Jean hissed. "All you're trying to do is put me and Armin at odds over some fake relationship that you and Connie are imagining." He darted his eyes over at Armin and then back to Ymir. "Y/n isn't dating either of us. Leave her alone."

"Defending your girlfriend since she can't do it herself?" Ymir asked in a snooty tone. The freckled girl then turned to Armin.

"This wouldn't have happened if you had just asked her out already. Now she's running around with Jean."

Armin was completely horrified at what was transpiring. Too much was being said at too fast a rate, and his mind could barely keep up with one piece of information after the other.

He hated to admit it, but he also questioned Jean and Y/n's friendship. He just didn't expect Ymir to call them out on it. And he also didn't expect for Ymir to put him into the limelight in front of all of his friends and his crush.

The blonde kept quiet and tensed as he felt the silence of the night palpitate.

The blunt force of Ymir's words had already done its damage.

"The teasing, and the pranks, and the pressuring were funny at first," Armin began with a perturbed voice, looking at Ymir gravely. "But this? You guys are just making a big deal out of nothing, and now you're even slandering your friends."

Armin looked over to Y/n and saw the state in which she was in. She had hugged her legs tightly and set her head down on top of them, closing her eyes and crying streams of tears. The girl felt humiliated.

Armin, upon seeing this, laid his hand to rest on Y/n's back and rubbed it in comfort. He then shot Ymir an ice-cold stare. 

The girl, once receiving Armin's look, grinned, impressed.

"Who knew you could get mad?" Ymir patronized.

"We're done for the night."

Eren stood up, serious, and called it quits. He put out the last embers of the night, and left with his group without anyone saying goodbye to each other. 

Sasha was quiet to herself as she led her group back to her van, with Ymir and Historia arguing heatedly some ways behind them.

The red-head turned to Connie, confused.

"What the hell just happened?" She asked. Connie averted his eyes and looked down to the parking lot's gravel.

"Reiner told me to ask Y/n that question so that Armin could get jealous."

Sasha was speechless.

She kept walking forward and stayed silent. Connie then sighed.

"I regret agreeing to do that."

"Well why did you agree to do it in the first place?"

"Because of the bet."

"Connie!"

Connie winced under Sasha's disbelieving stare, with the red-head shaking him sideways.

"All for that stupid bet we made months ago? Forget about it!"

Connie's brows furrowed as he looked incredulously at Sasha.

"You don't care about it anymore? Weren't you the most excited about getting free food, though?"

"Forget about it! That isn't even important anymore!" Sasha exclaimed. She frowned deeply and groaned. "What happened was just-- just plain awful."

She had now seen Y/n cry twice in that week, and both times were just as upsetting.

"We're hurting our friends, Connie."

She looked at her friend with misty eyes, and Connie's face contorted in guilt. 

"I know."

~♢~

The car ride in Eren's van was silent, and Carla Jaeger noticed the change in air.

"You kids hungry?" She asked, hoping to lift the mood.

Jean and Marco politely said no, and Eren looked at his mom and shook his head slightly.

Carla worried for her boy and the other teens, but stayed silent in respect to their attitudes.

Y/n was dropped off first, and she lurched out of the van without hugging Armin. She merely thanked Carla and Eren and addressed her friends collectively with a quiet goodbye.

She felt ugly on the inside. Many unflattering thoughts about herself popped up in her mind, and she felt as if her motion was in retrograde. Right back into junior high.

Y/n quickly strode to her front door and heaved out a shuddering sigh once she closed the door behind her.

The girl was tired, and she knew that she would pass out on the couch as soon as she reached it.

She wished that she had never gone to the beach, even though her heart had screamed at her to go see Armin again.

She was going to steer clear of everyone for a while to process everything.

And this time, when plans were made, she wouldn't make an exception.