whatcha listening to? -armin arlert

seven

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The sound of wet footsteps rings through my ears as Armin and I jog away from the stadium. I'm a few feet behind him, but he's not gaining ground ahead of me. We keep a steady pace as the raindrops fall harder.

"Do you run?" He looks back to ask me. "We've been jogging for a while and you've kept up really well."

"You thought I couldn't keep up?" I shoot back, laughing.

"That's not what I meant!" He replies loudly.

"I ran cross country in high school. This is nothing to me. Hell, if you wanted to, we could pick up the pace a bit."

"We probably should, the rain is getting worse the longer we're out here." He says, then steadily moves away from me as he quickens his steps. I follow suit, and we spend a few minutes in silence. I decide to take a few extra large steps to position myself beside him, and look up. His wet hair occasionally falls into his face, red from exertion.

"What the fuck!" I shout, as hail begins crashing around us.

"We'll go to my dorm so you don't have to cross the courtyard all the way to your building!" He yells over the pounding of the hail. As his building comes into view, he grabs my hand like earlier and pulls me into a sprint. When we reach his building, we stop under the awning and catch our breath.

"Wow. A rainstorm is one thing, but I never thought I'd be caught in hail." I say, standing to look around. Suddenly, there's a crash of thunder and I jump. "Oh my god, let's go inside!"

Armin quickly flings open the door, grabbing my arm to pull me inside. The air conditioning hits me like a train, and I start shaking from the cold. "Don't go and catch hypothermia on me." Armin says, leading me to the stairs. My wet shoes sloshing throughout the stairwell causes me to giggle, and Armin chuckles as well.

After two flights of stairs and turning a corner, we come to a stop in front of a door. "Eren? Are you in there?" Armin says against the door, knocking as well. "Alright, well (Y/N) and I are coming in." He finishes when there's no response.

We walk in to find the dorm empty, and as Armin heads to a closet, I take a look around. It's kept relatively neat for two boys. There's a couple of empty water bottles on the floor by the full trash can, and both beds are unmade. But that's the extent of the mess. One desk has papers strewn all over it, and the other is neatly stacked with books and notebooks with Armin's laptop resting in the middle. Armin comes back from digging in his closet, and hands me a folded gray towel.

"Thank you." I say, taking it from his hands. He nods, and then grabs a towel for himself. "Where's Eren?" I ask as I squeeze the water out of my hair.

"Um, I'm actually not sure. Let me call him." Armin replies, taking out his phone. It rings a few times before Eren picks up.

"Armin, we are so fucking doomed!" I hear Eren wail from the phone even though it's not on speaker. With a wince, Armin pulls the phone away from his ear as I giggle.

"Relax, what's going on?" Armin asks. "Hm okay, well just a heads up, (Y/N) and I are back. Let me know when you're here so I can help you unload. Cool. Goodluck." With that, Armin ends the call.

"What's up with them?" I ask, draping the towel over my shoulders, still shivering.

"Apparently the parking lot is a massive mud pit. Between cars not fit to drive in it, and everyone trying to leave at once, it's a nightmare. They haven't even moved since we left them." He replies, before leaning down and drying his hair.

"I guess I'm grateful that we ended up in the rain. I'd rather not be stuck in a car with a bunch of people and gear for who knows how long." I say.

"Yeah, and it doesn't look like the rain is going to stop anytime soon." He says, and I pull out my phone to check.