"y/n!" you stopped walking upon hearing your name and looked up from the papers you were reading, turning around to see your friends rushing towards you with incredible speed. before you could comprehend what was happening, you screamed just as connie tackled you from behind with sasha following suit causing the three to crash down to the floor.
"ow! i can't feel my bones! get off of me!" you cried out in pain, trashing around as the two laughed at your pain. your passing colleagues shook their head at the three of you before turning their attention to their work, leaving you writhing on the ground.
from afar, armin was busying himself with his phone as if he wasn't seeing or you and the others doing something stupid on the ground.
"armin, help me!"
the blond looked up, "sorry, i'm not armin. i'm crisostomo."
"fuck you, armin! what next, you're going to be elias?! simoun?!"
you managed to sit up after pushing the two away, gasping for air once you felt your lungs work again properly without two giants crushing down on you. the two chuckled at this and connie ruffled your already messy hair, "so, when are you going to tell us the details?" he asked with a creepy smirk, making you roll your eyes at what he was implying.
sasha sighed out dreamily beside connie and started stroking your hair as if she was a mother, "you know, we almost died because of armin. when connie said that you and hange were on a 'midnight date' armin almost bumped to a tree at how shocked he was and we kept screaming the whole time we got here." the brunette lets out a heartwarming laugh, as if that very near-death experience was funny and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
armin shushed the brunette and narrowed his eyes, "hey, quiet! i don't need anyone asking me if i'm trying to get you two killed."
before any of them could say anything, a pattern of heels clicking on the tiles caught their attention. armin froze in his place before flashing a shaky smile towards the person, "h-hello, boss."
the said brown-haired scientist appeared in their vision and the three of you scrambled to stand up, greeting your boss with a calm smile as if you weren't fooling around just a minute ago. hange looked up from their folders and smiled back, though the three noticed it was more directed to you. though you remained oblivious.
"springer... and others," they started with a hint of disappointment, pushing their glasses to stop it from falling off their nose, "you're late."
their aura was serious and cold, making all the three falter. they couldn't joke their way out of it this time but you were lowkey loving hange's new aura. "uh, we almost had an accident on the way. we're sorry." armin was the first one to break out of his trance, chuckling nervously.
"that's unfortunate," hange hummed out, "anyways, come. we have to start working on our project." the boss lead the four to a newly-constructed room at the end of the hallway, surprising them with how new and slick the new equipment were as soon as they entered.
"what's our project again?" sasha asked the three as soon as they stepped in, lowering her voice down just in case hange heard her.
"were you not paying attention to what they were saying yesterday?" connie raised an eyebrow.
"you know i couldn't concentrate well when the ship is literally sailing in front of me," sasha hissed out.
you rolled your eyes once you overheard their conversation though embarrassment still filled your head, "we're making a technology to clean up some of the dirty rivers in europe." you told the three in a blunt tone.
"oh wow, can't believe you managed to focus even when you were sitting in boss' lap." sasha teased, giggling at the sudden redness that bloomed in your cheeks.
you huffed and crossed your arms over your chest, kinda hard not to when they're speaking behind me.
"i thought boss was focused on making a vaccine for dengue?" armin questioned, grabbing some spare lab gowns from a cabinet.
"the government is funding this project so we have to do it. not only that, the rhine river is still polluted and any invention done to save it keeps failing so they trusted us with it." you explained before sauntering towards a desk where the others were already waiting.
"so, they're depending on us." armin concluded before letting out a sigh, "i should've seen it... there are many polluted rivers in europe now, too."
"so the dengue vaccine is transferred to another division?" sasha asked, sitting down beside you on the table placed in the middle of the room.
"yup."
everyone went quiet as hange stands up in front, eyes narrowed down as seriousness exceeds off of them. you looked away and focused on the table, running your hands along the furniture to determine what kind of material was used to make it. your cheeks were already red just at the cold look hange had on and your thoughts had already wondered far off into the 'not safe for work' section. you licked the bottom of your lips and turned your attention to your boss who started telling their action plan. their eyes met and hange flashed a comforting smile, making your heart skip a beat.
after the small meeting, the group dispersed into their own tasks. you and armin was tasked to research about rhine river and the other rivers in europe to find out about its history, how it started to get polluted, the buildings and infrastracture, and many more.
"we'll have to go over there to thoroughly conduct a research," armin mumbled as he wrote notes in a sheet of paper. you nodded and continued searching more information about the rivers, making hypotheses and guesses using the geography of the rivers and structures near it.
"you know, we saw you two a while ago." armin suddenly hummed, placing his pen on the table to turn to you where you're currently busying yourself with the computer.
"who?"
"you and boss. you think we can ignore the smiles you two send to each other every now and then?" armin chuckled as he turned his attention to you, patting your head in a teasing manner just as your cheeks suddenly became ablaze. before you could ask what he meant, you felt an arm snaking up on your shoulders before pulling you to a warm body.
the scent of something fruity reached your nose and you immediately felt yourself heating up once you familiarized whose it was. "hey you two!" hange greeted behind you, their voice reverberating on your back that made you shiver, "it's lunch time so chop chop and eat! the others already left, along with moblit and nifa." then they sighed out with a distant look, "geez, when will those two realize their feelings for each other?"
"oh, i know how you feel, boss." armin coughed out, sending a glance towards you.
you didn't even realize that it was lunch time as the two of you were too occupied with your research. armin grinned devilishly and it suddenly made you nervous at his devil-like look. he stood up and looked at his boss with a smile so innocent, completely different from the one he was wearing a while ago. "well, i guess we better go."
you thought that armin would be calling out for you to follow but instead, he called for connie and sasha who was secretly watching from afar, giggling to themselves. they left you behind in the arms of your boss until the two of you were the only ones inside the lab.
you should've been used to hange's skin ship, considering that you had already sat on her lap once and that hange would always wrap an arm around her when they find the chance. their hug-like actions shouldn't bother you so much and yet it did.
hange giggled and pulled you up to your feet, "why don't we eat out?" they suggested, pushing their glasses up to their head as they removed their lab coat.
"i-is it a date?" you questioned after a few seconds, your voice barely above a whisper. youu suddenly remembered what connie had said before through text, when they invited you out for some midnight snack. what if hange was thinking of it as a date and you, being the 'dense bitch' you were, thought of it as two friends going out for lunch?
hange seemed to froze as they placed their coat on the table but they managed to regain their posture after a second. they turned around to face you, only to see you looking at the floor with pursed lips. "if you want it to be." hange replied calmly, walking towards you to place a hand on your head before patting you softly.
you didn't reply at this, but you felt your heart flip at their words. you nodded nonetheless as soon as you looked up after forcing yourself to stare into their, making hange's face glow in happiness. they grabbed your hands excitedly and started pulling you out of the lab with a grin so bright it could fight the sun, "well, come on then, we have food waiting to be eaten!"
a/n: hey y'all, just wanna say that since we're nearing the point of romance i'd be writing in narrative instead of the usual text chapters. of course, it doesn't mean that there'll be no more chapters like that!!! there still will be so don't worry :))
also, i'm writing this and yet i'm the one smiling a bit too much every time i make y/n and haneg interact.
and to all my filipino peeps out there, innocent armin is crisostomo but a slap on titan armin is simoun lmfao