A/N- 1,000 reads?!?! I love all of you so damn much, it hurts! Thank you all so much, and I will definitely be writing a lot more in this little drabble of mine ;) So as always, Happy Reading!-Zenovia
Armin's POV
Chapter 13
The colors red and green were strung everywhere around the campus a day before Christmas break. Blankets of snow covered the grounds of the school in a winter wonderland, and water had become ice sculptures in the fountains. Although, all of this beautiful scenery was hidden behind shaded windows, and pencil shavings. All of my friends and I were cooped up in stuffy classrooms finishing all of our finals, waiting to finally be released from this torture. It was absolutely exhausting, but just thinking about the freedom I would have after all of this was over, is what was pushing me to fill in more of the answers on my final. Every time I checked the time on the clock above the whiteboard, it seemed as if the hands on the clock were pushed backwards. I groaned silently at how cruel time was being to me.
I went from class to class, finishing out whatever finals the teachers threw at me. Then finally, I was at my last class, and last final for the semester. I strode into the English building, with my head held high. Since Professor Petra gave us an efficient amount of time to complete our final, all I had to do in the class was to edit any grammatical errors I had. By the end of the class period, I had finally turned in my fifteen to twenty page final. I raced out of that classroom like I was the Flash. I just wanted to get to my dorm and to never look at another note card again. As I was trying to run through all of the snow on the sidewalk, I felt a small vibration from inside my jean pocket. I stopped running and dug into my pocket to see was caused the vibration.
From Eren: Hey, you done with finals yet?
I took off my gloves and replied to the brunette.
To Eren: Yeah, just got done. Why do you ask?
I started to walk back to my dorm, when I felt the vibration again.
From Eren: Meet me at your dorm room in five minutes! I will explain later.
"Here we go." I said to myself. Once I finally got back to my dorm, and unlocked the door, I saw that Eren had already situated himself on my bed. "Finally! It took you forever to get here!" Eren said jokingly. I rolled my eyes at him, and put my backpack on the floor. "Alright, Eren. What do you have in mind for today?" I questioned the brunette. Eren stood up from the bed and said "You like shopping right?" I was a little confused at what he was trying to get at, but I still nodded my head in response. Eren's grin widened "Time for a new adventure my friend!" He said enthusiastically. "But what about the gift exchange tonight?" I asked. "Don't worry, we will be back before it starts. I just wanted to spend some time with you before we had to hang out with everybody else." Eren's eyes seemed to gleam after he said that. The ocean waves in my stomach, were conjuring up a storm. I sighed at Eren and agreed to go shopping with him before the gift exchange.
We got into his truck and started our next little adventure. We jammed out to the radio all the way to the mall downtown. Although, we almost got into a car accident when Eren was head banging too much when the song "Handlebars" by the Flobots, came on. That little 'near death experience' drove us into a fit of laughter after we were in the clear. We finally got to the mall without any dents in Eren's truck. We walked through the sliding doors, and were hit with the smells of cheap perfume and cleaning products. There were many more people than we thought would be there because of the holiday's and everything, so we tried to avoid all of the big brand name stores for a little while.
We strolled through the food court, and we even went to Build A Bear, just for fun of course. At one point, when we were walking through the halls, going from store to store, mine and Eren's hands accidentally brushed up against each other. I looked into his emerald eyes, that were looking right back at mine. I could see a little blush start to creep up on his ears and cheeks before we both looked away. We were both looking to see if any stores interested us. I was looking at all the stores all around us, when I finally found the best store of all time for a geek like me. Hot Topic. My eyes grew wide, and before I knew it, I was grabbing at Eren's wrist, pulling him towards the direction of my favorite store.
Fall Out Boy songs vibrated the store with the constant drumming of the beat. I could have probably spent all day in that store, if it wasn't for the gift exchange later that night, and also the store closed at nine. I seemed to forget that Eren was even with me when I found the wall of shirts containing all of my favorite bands on the front of the apparel. I was acting like a little kid in a candy shop. I traveled all over the store, stopping at the Harry Potter section and of course the anime section. When I was in high school, I used to get so much band and fandom merchandise, that my grandfather restricted me from going to the mall for a month. I seemed to lose track of time whenever I went into that store. I could have spent two hours in Hot Topic, and only buy like three things. When I was finally pulled out of all of my excitement, I tried to find Eren. He was looking at all of the Supernatural merch. I walked up to the brunette, and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey Blondie! I thought I would ever see you again when you walked in here." Eren smirked. "Ha Ha Ha, very funny Eren. Sorry I ran off though, I just love to geek out in here. I just love this store so much! The only problem with Hot Topic for me, is that the clothes never fit me right. I try all of the black skinny jeans, but they just don't seem to suit my figure I guess." I told Eren.
A mischievous grin was splayed on Eren. "Hey Armin, what are your three favorite bands?" Eren suddenly asked. I was confused as to why he was asking me the question, but I still answered honestly. "Um, well probably Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, and My Chemical Romance, but Eren, why do you want to know all of that?" I asked him. He grabbed me by my shoulders and told me to stand still, and not to move. I grudgingly obeyed his strange order, and stood in my place. I was looking at all of the Supernatural shirts and wallets, when I felt my phone vibrate a few minutes later. I opened it to see I had a strange text from Eren.
From Eren: Hey, come in the number 3 dressing room, and knock on the door so I know it's you.
I looked around for the dressing rooms, until I found one that was labeled with the number three. I lightly knocked on the black door, until I heard Eren's voice telling me to come inside the room. I turned the doorknob, and was meet with a sight that surely was going to put me in a coma if I kept staring. Eren was clad in tight, black skinny jeans along with a My Chemical Romance t-shirt, a P!ATD bracelet, and fake black earrings. I could feel myself drooling at this intoxicating sight.
If this was a cartoon, there would be a little angel on one of my shoulders and a miniature devil on the other, but both of them would be telling me the same thing. "Fuck Eren Jaeger in this Hot Topic dressing room." I could feel all of the blood rushing downwards, and there was no stopping it. Luckily for me, I had a baggy sweatshirt on to hide my arousal. I was at a loss for words. I was afraid if I said anything, I would end up telling him that I really, really wanted to have sex with him. So many dirty scenarios were dancing through my mind, that my whole body started to tense up. Eren was cruel. He was so evil, that he would try and see how far he could push me until I finally snapped. He knew exactly what he was doing to me, and my sanity. He started to brush the hair out of his face, and he popped one of his hips out, and that was the finishing touch for me.
I grabbed him and told him that he was going to buy that outfit, or I was going to buy it for him. "Armin, are you okay, you seem really flustered." Eren said in a concerned tone. I looked at the ground and shook my head no. After we bought his little outfit, he took me out to sit on a bench. I tried to settle my breathing, and get my arousal under control. I took some deep breaths and tried to speak appropriate words to the brunette. "S-sorry about that, I-I think I got a little claustrophobic and I just needed to get out of the store quickly." I lied to Eren. Luckily, he didn't see past my lie and nodded in understanding.
After my little melt down, the both of us left the mall. We bought a few things from Hot Topic and other department stores. I felt much better once we were away from the mall, and heading to my dorm to get all of the presents for the gift exchange at Jean and Marco's. Now that I got all of my nervousness away from being sexually attracted to Eren, a new anxiety crept in. I was to give Eren his Christmas present tonight. I had gotten him two different things. One of them was a book on music theory, plus I got him a book of newer pop songs to play on his piano. The one that I was nervous to give him was the project that Annie had helped me with. I wanted to give him that present in private, but I still didn't know how to get him alone with me, without having everybody start to assume things about the two of us.
We finally pulled up to my dorm complex, and I quickly went upstairs and grabbed the huge bag that contained all of my friends presents. We then went to Eren's dorm, and he did the same thing. The ride to Jean and Marco's was very quick. We pulled up to their apartment building, and knocked on their door. Marco greeted us, and invited us inside. The room was covered head to toe in tinsel and Christmas lights. Marco and Jean had a real Christmas tree in the corner of the room, with numerous presents at the bottom of it. Jean told me that I could put my bag of gifts with everybody else's at the bottom of the tree. I looked around the room and saw that the whole squad was here, and pleasantly, Mikasa was here for the festivities as well. Everybody was wearing a Christmas hat, whether they liked it or not. I grabbed two hats from the coffee table, and put one on Eren's head. "Merry Christmas, Eren." Eren winked at me with those shimmering emerald eyes, "Merry Christmas, Armin" I could feel a blush splayed all over my cheeks, until I heard somebody from the group yell "Just kiss already!" I looked around to see who said that, but nobody would own up to their crime.
"Alright guys, should we finally start handing out presents?" Jean asked the group. We all nodded our heads like eager Kindergartners. First off was Sasha, she gave most of us gift cards to fancy restaurants and some new clothes that she had made herself. Connie seemed to have the same idea as Sasha with the gift cards, but he didn't give one of them to the auburn haired girl. Instead, he pulled out a huge bag of potatoes. Apparently, when Connie and Sasha were in high school, Sasha had decided to bring a potato to gym class, and she started to eat it when the gym teacher was giving instructions. She got detention for a week and did extra running that day in gym. All of us started to laugh our heads off when Sasha picked up the bag. "Fuck you Connie! That happened one time, and now I can never live it down." Sasha kept rambling, until Connie placed a soft kiss on her cheek, that effectively shut her up. All of us cat called at the two, but Sasha didn't yell back at us, since she was still in shock at what Connie had just pulled.
The gift exchange went on from there. I got books from Christa, Hanji, Ymir, and Reiner. I received iTunes money from Bert and Erwin. Mikasa and Annie bought me new phone cases with my favorite TV shows on them. Jean got me a new winter scarf. Marco bought me two Game of Thrones sweatshirts. One said "Crows Before Hoes" with a sword underneath it. The other one had a lion on it, and underneath it said in white letters "The Lannisters Send Their Regards." I gave Marco a death glare for the second sweatshirt. The Red Wedding did things to my sanity afterwards. Eren then finally gave me my gift. I acted surprised, just like Eren wanted me too. However, when I opened the book, I was actually pleasantly surprised. I was flipping through all of the pages, and realized that some of them had yellow highlighter marks over the words. I opened the book to the back cover, and pulled out a little piece of notebook paper, it read:
Dear Armin, I couldn't just give you a plain old book, without adding a little something special. All of the highlighted parts are sections of the book that I absolutely had to share with you. This book really showed me that it was okay to just be me, and it really inspired me to write music. I hope that it does the same for you. Feel free to highlight the book as well, and don't be afraid to share your favorite parts with me. Merry Christmas, Armin. Love, Eren.
I looked at the brunette, and he was just sitting there, smiling that big goofy smile at me. I then pulled Eren into a tight embrace. Eren tensed up at my sudden contact, but finally gave in to the hug. "Thank you, Eren." I whispered into his ear. I felt his stomach move as he chuckled, "No problem, Armin." I looked back at the room, and noticed that everybody's eyes were staring directly at us. I saw Annie wink at me, and I swear, it looked as if Connie were using his fingers to smash our heads together in his eyesight. I easily laughed off the little bit of tension, and started handing out all of my gifts to everybody.
I gave most of my friends some type of gift card along with something a little more personal. I got Hanji a chemistry set, Erwin got a workout DVD and a pair of tweezers as a joke. Christa got a gift card to Barnes and Noble to get all of the books on Medieval Times she wanted, since she was a history major. Ymir got a Starbucks gift card because she was always up late studying. Connie and Sasha got matching t-shirts that said 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2' on them. Reiner and Bert got some iTunes gift cards. I bought Annie some new sheet music, and a note attached that thanked her for helping me with Eren's present. I got Mikasa a new winter scarf and some painting supplies since she was an aspiring artist. For Jean, I bought him some new sunglasses and a notebook with a picture of a horse on it, just for fun. I got Marco a new Doctor Who sweatshirt that said "Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff" Marco got a kick out of that one. Finally, for my first gift for Eren, I gave him the book of music theory and the book of pop songs for piano. Everybody loved all of their gifts, and I loved all of mine.
After cleaning up all of the wrapping paper from all of the presents, we all decided to play a "friendly" game of Truth or Dare. We gathered up in a circle and started to play. Connie and Sasha were the people to help everybody else think of funny dares to pass onto the other person. The first person to go was Connie. He picked the one of the most innocent people in the room, Marco. "Alright Freckles, Truth or Dare?" Connie asked Marco. Marco took his time deciding which of the two to pick, either way, he was probably going to be embarrassed by the end of it. "Truth." Marco stated. Connie grinned evilly then said "How many times have you had sex with Jean?" Marco looked like his head was going to start steaming by how red it was getting. He started stumbling through his words, "Alright, to make it easy for you, on average, how many times do you have sex a week?" Connie simplified the question. Marco put his head in his hands and mumbled through his words "Fhmm" "Sorry, what was that Freckled Jesus, I couldn't hear you?" Connie started teasing. "FOUR! Four times okay?" Marco yelled. All of our mouths dropped at how much action Marco and Jean got. I turned my head to see that Jean wasn't phased at all by all of this, he simply shrugged his shoulders and continued playing.
After a few more turns, we were onto the last person to pick. It was Sasha's turn to decide to choose the last person of the night. Her eyes scanned over the small crowd, until they landed on striking emerald eyes. She showed her mischievous grin to Eren, and then asked him the obvious question. "Dare." Eren said nonchalantly. Sasha looked very pleased with herself at his answer, then said six words that would change everything. "I dare you to kiss Armin." I could feel all eyes on me, and I looked out of the corner of my eyes to look at Eren, who just so happened to be looking right back with the same expression on his face. I turned towards the auburn haired girl and pleaded with her to switch the dare. "Listen Sasha, I really don't want my first kiss to be because of some silly game, please can you just change the dar-"
The feeling of lips on somewhere other than my forehead was a strange sensation. I couldn't speak, my lips couldn't find words, even if they wanted to because suddenly Eren's lips were pressing against my cheek. I was actually afraid that I was going to have a heart attack in front of everybody. I could see that some people's mouths dropped open, and others were snickering. All I could feel were his sweet, hot lips on the side of my already warm face. I couldn't move an inch from my spot, until Eren finally returned to his original sitting position. "Happy now?" He looked at Sasha and everybody else in the room.
After the party was over, Eren and I were hanging out in my dorm room. We hadn't really said anything to each other since the whole 'kissing' incident, but Eren didn't seem too irritated with me when we were hanging out. We were sitting on a fluffy blanket in my room when Eren finally spoke to me. "Hey Armin, I have another present for you." I sat up immediately, and looked into his now amber eyes. "R-really? Cause, I have one for you too. But we have to go to your dorm room so I can show it to you." Eren agreed to my weird request and we walked in the snow together.
Once the door opened to his room, I was hit with a blast of heat. I went and sat on his bed. "Alright, you first." I motioned to him. Eren went and got my gift out of his little closet. "Here, I didn't want to give it to you at the gift exchange because I wanted this just to be a little secret between you and me." Eren said quietly. I tore off all of the wrapping paper to find a notebook, and what looked like a mix-tape. I opened the little brown notebook, and saw that something was already written in between the margins. I recognized Eren's handwriting and looked at the little note.
"Write about our adventures sometime."
I looked up at Eren, with hot tears in my eyes. Nobody, had ever given me something like this before. Even though they were just so simple of words, they meant the world to me. He wanted me to write about us. To be able to write about how much I cherished him, and to describe all of our adventures together, was something that I would have never passed the opportunity for. "That's not all though. I know that you write best with soothing music on, so I decided to go old fashion, and make you a mix-tape. I know, it's very cliche, but I thought that it would be perfect." Eren shrugged his shoulders. I looked at the songs on the mix-tape. Lots of them were slower songs, but I recognized a few songs. One of them was "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" The same version that I played for Eren on Halloween night. "Eren, I-I can't thank you enough. I love all of it." Eren gently wiped the tears dripping down my cheeks. "I'm glad Blondie." Eren said.
I sniffed and tried to get myself together. "Alright, now for my present for you. Just don't laugh, okay?" I said shyly. "Armin, I would never laugh at you." Eren assured me. I went up to his keyboard, and turned it on. I pulled out the sheet music that Annie and I had worked on and started to lightly press the small keys. I took a deep breath and started to sing.
"When our stars align"
"Everything seems perfectly fine."
"With one look, and one touch, I can't say it enough"
"I'm on cloud nine!"
"When our stars align."
I played over through the bridge that Annie had taught me and over some more lyrics, until I finally ended the song that I had made for Eren. I looked up at the brunette, and waited for him to say something because the silence was killing me. "I-I can't believe somebody as perfect as you, would do something like that, for a person like me." Eren looked at me with his shimmering emerald eyes. "I'm not perfect, Eren." I said to him. "But you are! You are so amazing to me Armin! I-I..." I was sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for him to finish his sentence, but instead, he stood up and motioned for me to take his hand.
Before I could ask what we were doing, we were already in his truck, going down a familiar road. Eren parked his truck in one of the many open parking spaces. I got out of the vehicle and looked around at the familiar sight. "We're at your thinking place." I stated to Eren. "That's right, this was my place, but I shared it with you because you are so damn special to me, that I thought it efficient to show you a place like this. I would never take Mikasa here, or anybody else of that matter, but I showed you because you are so perfect Armin." I couldn't understand the words that Eren was saying. "But Eren, I'm not perfect. I'm not anything that you are saying me to be." I retorted. "Yes, you are." "I'm not."
"Stop saying that!" Eren yelled at me. I was in a state of shock, Eren had never yelled at me like that before. His facial expression lightened up a little, "Armin, I don't care if you don't think you're perfect, but I think you are. You might think that you are all alone whenever you get lost in all of your thoughts, but guess what, I will find you. I will search forever if I have to, but I will search through all of the existing wonders of your thoughts, just to get you back to me. You mean so much to me Armin. I couldn't afford to lose you. You are my person, after all." Eren stepped closer to me with each of his statements. I had the urge to kiss him again. Right here, right now. I spoke to Eren, "Eren, I-I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I can't think of myself like you see me. I do honestly try, but it's harder than you think." Eren grabbed hold of my hand, "I will help you through all of that Armin, I will be there to catch you whenever you feel like you're falling." The distance between us was getting smaller and smaller with each intake of breath. "Armin?" "Yes, Eren?" Eren paused for a few seconds, until he finally said "Do you still want your first kiss to be with somebody like me?" My eyes grew wide, and I effectively grabbed him by his coat and whispered in his ear, "I wouldn't change it for the world."
You know in romance books, when they describe a first kiss as something like a spark or fireworks going off? Well that is total bullshit. It's nothing like a spark or a flame, at least for me, that is. I was pulled into his lips so suddenly, that I gasped at the contact. The kiss didn't feel like fire, instead, it felt like an ocean. I have never actually been to the ocean in my life, but in this moment, with Eren's lips on mine, I feel like I'm already there.
A/N- Sorry that this chapter took so much longer to write, but I wanted to make it perfect for all of you guys. Also I know that its is a lot longer than normal chapter, but I have been planning this one since the beginning sooo....I hoped you enjoyed the first Eremin kiss. ;) Happy Reading!-Zenovia