Most of the other students at school think you’re far too sweet for your own good, to pity someone like Armin so deeply that you’d date him. Him, of all people. You’re stunning, drop-dead gorgeous, funny and kind—so how in the hell has someone like Armin Arlert managed to bag you? They truly don’t believe, when they see the two of you walking through the hallways holding hands, you hanging off his arm and giggling at everything he says, that you’re in this for nothing. He must be doing your homework or something, right? Maybe you just feel bad for him?

In truth, it’s none of that, really. You like him. He’s sweet and funny—which the others would know by now if they stopped beating him up and shoving him into lockers for being a ‘nerd’—and he’s one of the only people to ever see the real you, past your good looks—not that he doesn’t think you’re beautiful. You’re way out of his league, and sometimes he wonders himself if you’re just with him out of pity—regardless, he isn’t complaining. Even if you were using him, he’d happily let you with a smile on his face the whole time.

You’re sitting at lunch with the rest of your popular friends—the type of girls who relentlessly bully those like Armin—giggling and chattering away about whatever as one girl shows you all something on her phone, when you feel a little tap on your shoulder. You turn around to see him, looking a little shy in front of your friends, who are clearly judging him. “Baby,” He mutters, the teal of his braces showing a little as he speaks. “Are you ready to go? I’m walking you to class, right?”

Your day brightens immediately when you see him, in his dorky little glasses, his grown-out hair obscuring his vision just a little. His layered graphic shirts with some game logo or other printed onto them and the backpack lazily slung over one of his shoulders is attractive to you in a way you don’t think anyone could understand.