Athenus •armin ✗ reader •

zelus

The ring of my alarm burst through every wall of my dream. I just lay there thinking, wondering, contemplating whether or not I should go in today. What was a great day for nerds and smarty pants was a horror for the failing students like me. Yes, it was the worst day of senior year so far - report card day. While I was aware not going to school would not change the rainbow of C's and D's splattered across my report card, I'd much rather wallow in bed dreaming of being a straight A student, rather than the reality of the constant bronze of the alphabet in bright red letters.

Around the third time my nine minute snooze was up and I heard the sound of my alarm once more, I decided to get up. As much as I wanted to just pretend I was ill, I knew I couldn't hide under my king sized duvet forever. Reiner had been calling me non-stop, probably to both annoy me and grumble at me for waking up late. Eventually, I hit the green 'accept' button. There was no "good morning", no "how did you sleep", no "your the greatest friend in the entire world and I have no idea how I would ever live without you, in fact I wouldn't I would simply die, I should be on my knees begging to jog next to an angel like you". Men these days.

Once I reminded him what day it was, and he too sounded as defeated as I was so I invited him inside to watch some TV and have breakfast since it was too late to do our usual running route now and besides it was good to take a break sometimes. An hour and three bowls of cereal later we hopped in Reiner's car and set off. When we arrived at school we found our friends and a couple other people sat at some long table in the outdoor seating area chatting amongst one another.

As soon as I saw them I was furious. How dare they sit OUTSIDE! it was October and they had decided to sit in the cold, foggy outside instead of a nice warm canteen or the sports hall: I would even take sitting in the library.

Begrudgingly, I sat down next to Pieck on the edge of the bench. Pieck was an awesome friend to be honest, her mom was a CEO at apple so whenever she would travel she'd always bring back cool stuff for Pieck and she'd share it with us and her mom would also give us special family and friend discounts when we'd buy stuff from apple.

Sometimes I wish I was rich like Pieck and Annie. I know its wrong but I couldn't help being jealous when we'd hangout at their houses or when they showed up to school with some sort of cool new gadget or designer. I love them as my best friends obviously but I just wish I had what they did - financial security. Armin too. I was so jealous of him he had it all: friends, money, brains, looks. He probably hasn't had to struggle a day in his life and he's probably ruined every opportunity he's ever had at all with his jerk personality and asshole behaviour.

It was about five minutes until the first bell went and the table was swarming, so many people were there: Reiner, Eren, Jean, Mikasa, Annie, Pieck, Me, Historia, Ymir, Connie and Sasha. We were all talking about going to the fair when I saw the most shocking thing I had ever seen at Henelopen Highschool. Armin Arlert. In school. Early. He plopped himself down right next to me and started joining in with the discussion. We all decided to go to this huge Halloween festival that happened every year on the pier. There was cotton candy and candy apples, haunted houses and scare coasters, fair games and more. I loved going because it was just so fun I loved the vibe, the food, the rides. It was just the best. By this point I had extracted myself from the conversation and was just scrolling through tiktok when I felt someone nudge my arm. I turned to see Armin staring at me with his ocean blue eyes...

"So you nervous? I'm not 'cause I already know imma be seeing all A's. Never haven't. Bet you wish you could say the same huh idiot"

Jerk. I didn't even entertain him with an answer I simply just got up and started to head to lesson which no one noticed because the bell soon went anyway forcing everyone to lesson. My math teacher was super kind and so she decided to leave the report cards until the end of the lesson so people would have time to process their grades. I personally wasn't to anxious because like I always say 'the only A I will ever get is from gym class' unlike those smart kids, who I absolutely hated because they would always be all nervous when it came to report cards as if they didn't always get A's. 'the only A they will never get is from gym class'. god why couldn't I ever say funny things out loud.

The teacher decided to hand kids their report cards on their way out because as nice as she was, she didn't want to spend the next few minutes arguing with some smart kid who got an B instead of an A. She handed me my report card and I held it tight against my chest. Sure it was no secret that I wasn't the brightest academically, but it was still kind of embarrassing when I got the occasional D or even the odd F. I walked up to my locker and opened the door. Inhaling deeply, I turned over the report card and to my shock I saw I had gotten a C+ in maths. Now I know I'm an average C grader but never in maths! maths was that one subject I was always getting the lower C to upper D in (its also that one odd F unfortunately) so this was a major achievement for me. I happily shut my locker and practically skipped to my next lesson.

I was so proud of myself I didn't even notice the 5'6 boy with blonde hair in front of me until I bumped in to him.

"oh sorry my mistake! oh hey Armin, surprised I didn't spot your shit face from the math department."

"aww is someone sour 'cause they got a big fat F for failure on theirs? wanna wipe your tears with one of my many ivy league college acceptance letters? Don't worry I have plenty since they're practically showering me with them."

"mhm sure they are jerk. Anyways I actually got a C+ in maths for the first time so I'm actually pretty proud of myself. Guess you'll have to save your ivy league tissues for one of those poor bimbos who come to you begging for you to fuck them for some strange reason."

"First, im going to ignore that last thing you said because your just jelous you haven't been laid like ever and second, no credit for my hard work? spending an hour with you for weeks on end destroyed half my brain cells and I don't even get a thank you? your all the same"

I rolled my eyes before gifting him a sarcastic 'thank you' present with a 'now fuck off' wrapping paper and continued on with my day. My friends were all hyping me up for my "amazing" grades and my dad was so proud of me that he ordered in my favourite takeaway to celebrate.

I was lucky to have such supportive family and friends...

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A/n ~ I literally wrote the first part of this during a chemistry GCSE mock exam lmao