Chapter 9 (Extra)

You woke up wrapped in too much warmth.

For a second, your brain tried to convince you you'd died sometime around the third Twister round and this was your reward. But then you heard someone snoring into your shoulder and remembered: no, not heaven. Just Armin.

And a hangover. Definitely hell adjacent.

You cracked one eye open. His hoodie was bunched under your cheek like a very soft hostage. Armin was still out, hair sticking up like static had fought him and won. His arm was around your waist, your legs tangled like a half-assed game of human pretzel, and someone in the hallway was singing Mr. Brightside at a volume that could only be described as criminal.

You groaned. Armin stirred, blinking slowly. "Did we... move at all last night?"

"No," you muttered. "We died here."

He smiled, sleepy and wrecked in the nicest way. "Best death I've had in years."

You didn't say anything for a moment, just watched him. His face was still soft, that unguarded kind of morning soft where he looked like a person, not a thought spiral dressed in cardigans. You kind of loved him like this. Quiet. Real.

Okay. You didn't kind of love him.

"You remember what I said?" you asked, trying to keep your voice light.

Armin looked at you, awake now. Awake and aware. He nodded once, serious. "Every word."

You smiled. "Good. 'Cause I meant it."

He pulled you closer, kissed your forehead like it was something he'd been waiting to do for a while. "I meant it too."

Then the bedroom door flew open and Jean stormed in wearing a blanket like a cape.

"Tell your boyfriend to stop sending me heart emojis," he snapped.

You blinked. "What?"

"Eren," Jean growled. "He made a group chat called 'Survivors of the Balcony Love Confession' and he keeps live-texting me his feelings."

Armin groaned and pulled the blanket over both your heads. "I'll deal with it later."

"No you won't," Jean shouted. "He's doing it right now!"

Your phone buzzed once. Then again. Then four more times.

You didn't even have to look. You already knew.

Group Chat: Survivors of the Balcony Love Confession Eren: just wanna say love is real Eren: and i forgive you for nothing but i'm so happy for you both Eren: YOU LANDED THAT'S SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL Eren: i'm crying into my protein bar rn

You groaned into Armin's chest. "Make him stop."

Armin kissed your hair. "I'll marry you just so we can legally block him."

                                                                    ***

You finally peeled yourself out of bed after Jean threatened to "blast Mamma Mia! at full volume through the vents," which was only a joke in theory. When you opened the door, he was already holding the speaker.

"Cowards," he muttered when you and Armin emerged, barely dressed and entirely unbothered.

The apartment was a graveyard of red plastic cups, tortilla chip crumbs, and at least one sock no one could identify. Historia was curled on the floor under what appeared to be Eren's jacket, Ymir perched protectively beside her like a very hungover statue not really moving.

Sasha was on the balcony, sunglasses on, drinking something green with a banana stabbed through the straw like a sword.

"I've made peace with my past," she said when you looked at her. Random as fuck but she was probably still drunk.

Mikasa walked past holding a broom and a trash bag like this was a sanctioned military operation. "We're cleaning before anyone leaves," she said. "I'm not letting Eren's cousin find this mess and exile him."

From the kitchen, Eren yelled, "She can't exile me if I exile myself!"

"You don't live here!" Mikasa snapped back.

"Details!"

"Oh come on, get your ass here Eren!" Mikasa screamed at him, clearly mad.

You looked at Armin and pressed your forehead on his, closing your eyes, and he wrapped his arms around you.

"This place is really a mess Jesus" he murmured. "Eren made most of the mess so he should clean"

"I heard that!" he screamed visibly offended as he entered the room, Mikasa holding his arm, practically dragging him.

Eventually, the cleanup became a group activity by force.

Sasha vacuumed like she was fighting a personal vendetta. Jean did dishes while aggressively listening to sad boy acoustic covers. Eren got banned from sweeping after he tried to ride the broom like a skateboard. Connie got duct-taped to a chair for reasons unclear. Historia recorded all of it.

"Where the hell is Reiner?" Jean muttered, scrubbing a mysterious red stain off the countertop with the grim focus of a man who's seen things. "I swear I saw him fall asleep in the tub with a bag of Doritos."

"No, that was Con-" Sasha started, but paused. "Wait. Shit. You're right."

The bathroom door creaked open ominously.

Out walked Reiner, wrapped in what may have been a curtain, with a towel turban on his head and an expression that said he'd seen God and been unimpressed.

He blinked at everyone, eyes bloodshot, voice hoarse. "Do I... still have eyebrows?"

Everyone turned to look. They did, in fact, still exist. Barely.

Historia started slow clapping from the floor. "You made it, king."

Reiner held up a finger. "Don't congratulate me. Someone poured vodka into my face wash."

"Okay, that wasn't me," Eren said quickly. "But I did fill the shampoo bottles with Capri Sun, if that's what you're talking about."

Reiner just looked into the middle distance. "I tasted Pacific Cooler. I saw my ancestors."

Connie, still duct-taped to the chair and now slowly rotating thanks to Sasha spinning him, started giggling. "I told you the Doritos were cursed."

"You said they were 'ancient and blessed by the snack gods,'" Reiner muttered, sitting down on the floor like his soul had left him days ago.

"Semantics," Connie shrugged.

"I'm going to murder you all," Mikasa said cheerfully, tossing a bag of trash outside.

Armin sat cross-legged on the couch beside you, sipping from a mug that definitely wasn't his, probably wasn't clean, but looked like it had coffee in it, so he was committing to the bit. "Does anyone remember how Twister turned into a confessional?"

Sasha raised her hand. "I told Ymir I wanted to live in a cabin and raise goats."

"I proposed to the microwave," Eren added solemnly. "It accepted."

Jean didn't look up from the dishes. "I watched two people slow dance to the Spotify ad."

"You were one of the people," Sasha said.

Jean paused. "...Yeah."

Reiner groaned. "Someone hugged me and whispered 'I forgive you' while I was peeing."

Everyone turned to Eren.

"What?!" he yelped. "That could've been anyone!"

"It was you," Historia said without even looking up.

You laughed into your sleeve. "I remember that. Right after Jean tried to fight the coat rack."

"Listen," Jean said, turning around with a soapy ladle. "It looked at me funny."

"It didn't Jean. You were just drunk because you had more than half of the vodka yourself" you said.

"Oh god," Armin said slowly, eyes going wide. "Does anyone remember what I said to Levi when he showed up?" 

-Levi was Mikasa's older cousin that apparently wanted to check up on her after she didn't pick up the phone for more than two hours-

There was a beat of silence. Then everyone at once:

"You called him 'Dad.'"

Armin buried his face in your shoulder. "Please erase me from the timeline."

You patted his back. "No can do, son."

"You also tried to hug him," Ymir added, sipping water like it was tea.

"And then cried because he said 'absolutely not,'" Sasha said brightly.

"Honestly?" Reiner shrugged. "Fair response."

"I'm gonna go lie down in the trash," Armin said, flopping sideways into your lap.

You just grinned and ran your fingers through his hair. "No trash for you. Only more coffee and emotional damage."

"Y'all act like that wasn't one of the best nights ever," Connie called out, still spinning. "Come on. We survived. Reiner's alive. Armin didn't combust. Jean cried. That's a win."

"I didn't cry," Jean said.

"You did," Sasha said.

"Historia filmed it," Mikasa added.

Jean dropped the ladle. "You people are monsters."

"I love us," Eren declared from where he was dramatically flopped across two chairs like he was waiting to be painted.

You looked around at your dumb, loud, sleep-deprived, disaster of a found family. Your head still throbbed and your body ached and you were pretty sure Reiner might pass out again, but yeah-Connie was right.

You survived. You laughed. "Let's do it again next week."

Everyone groaned.

Sasha raised her glass banana. "Hell yes."

You escaped to one of the guest rooms after Mikasa started making a "floor nap sign-up sheet" and Connie tried to barter for a pillow using three bottle caps and an old sock.

The room was small and dim, the blinds half-drawn, dust floating in the soft afternoon light like lazy confetti. It was quiet miraculously quiet. Like the house itself had taken pity on you.

Armin closed the door behind you, leaned back against it, and let out a sigh like he'd just escaped a war zone. "This might be the only room where I can't hear Eren narrating his emotions."

"Don't jinx it," you whispered, grabbing the nearest throw blanket and flopping onto the bed.

Armin joined you a second later, lying on his back, arms behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. "My body's sore in places I didn't know I had."

"That's what Twister does to you," you said, then paused. "Also emotional confessions. And too many tequila shots."

He turned his head to look at you. "You were very honest last night."

You rolled over to face him. "So were you."

Armin smiled, but it was the quiet kind. Not sheepish sincere. "I've been wanting to say all of that for a while now"

"I know," you said, fingers brushing the edge of his shirt. "Me too."

There was a moment where the house noise faded to a distant hum- somebody arguing with the vacuum, probably Sasha, a door creaking, muffled laughter but in this room, it was just you and him.

"You scared me," he said suddenly, eyes not leaving yours. "Not in a bad way. Just... I didn't think I'd ever get to have this. You."

You shifted closer until your forehead bumped his. "You already had me. You just didn't know it."

His hand found your waist, thumb drawing slow circles, grounding and gentle. "I think part of me did. I just didn't want to hope too hard."

You smiled. "Well. Hope paid off."

He leaned in and kissed you soft and slow, nothing like the giddy, dizzy kisses from the night before. This one was real in that bone-deep, quiet way. Like a promise.

When he pulled back, you were already smiling. "You're stuck with me now."

"I'm not complaining," he whispered, thumb brushing your cheek. "I think I've been waiting to be stuck with you."

You tangled your fingers with his. "We should do something together. Just us. Something dumb and peaceful. Before everyone convinces us to do round two of party hell."

He raised an eyebrow. "Something dumb and peaceful like... what? Knitting? Joining a goat commune with Sasha?"

"Could be," you said, grinning. "Or maybe just sneaking off for coffee and pretending we're normal."

"Scandalous," he murmured. "I'm in"

Then after some more comfortable silence he spoke again.

"I love you"

"I love you" you whispered back wrapping your arms around him.

You stayed there for a long while, wrapped up in each other, the world on mute outside that door.

And for once, nothing needed fixing. Nothing needed explaining. It was just you and Armin, in a room that felt like quiet proof that something good had finally settled.

THANK U SM GUYS FOR 3.4K READS AND IT REACHED #4 IN ARMIN OMGGG. ILL BE BACK SOON. LOVE YALL <33update: 10 August. I'll be back I'm just employed LMAO