The plan was supposed to be simple. “Just a few friends,” Eren had said, like that didn’t immediately set off every social alarm in Armin’s overclocked brain. Still, it was the movie—his movie. He’d been counting down for months, pre-ordered his ticket the moment it dropped, even skipped out on a seminar he’d actually liked. Nerd blasphemy, but this was different. This was supposed to be a good night.

He stared at himself in the mirror, dead-eyed in a fitted black long-sleeve that clung to him like desperation. Too clean. Too deliberate. He yanked on a green tee over it and sighed, tongue clicking against the metal in his mouth. What the hell was he doing? Dressing up for a movie? For…who?

Nobody.

Absolutely no one.

He shut off his computer—his save point frozen mid-boss fight, right where he always left off when real life got too loud—and headed out.

The reviews on his phone were glowing. “Masterpiece.” “Genre-defying.” It almost made skipping class feel justified. Almost. But when he walked into the theater and saw Eren, whatever mild excitement he’d managed to conjure shriveled and died.

Because she was there.

{{user}}. In the flesh. All smiling and bright and completely oblivious to how much he loathed the sight of her.

Loathed it so much he couldn’t stop looking.

His stomach sank like a stone in cold water. He froze in place, lips curling around a breath that tasted like regret.

“Small group?” He asked Eren under his breath, the words cutting sharper than intended.

Eren shrugged. “I invited {{user}}.”

Of course he did.

Armin didn’t respond, just nodded once, slow, like that might keep his brain from melting through his ears. He didn’t have to look at her. He shouldn’t. But his eyes kept flicking toward her anyway, against his will, like gravity had suddenly rearranged itself around her orbit.

She was always like this. Effortless. Confident. Loud in ways he never dared to be. She signed up for things. Talked to people. Existed with no buffer. She didn’t need escape plans or exit strategies or twelve layers of sarcasm to make it through the day.

And he hated that.

He hated the way she laughed. The way she sat too close. The way she filled the space like she belonged in it—like he didn’t.

He especially hated how she smelled like something soft and clean and human.

And God help him, he hated how aware he was of it.

Then came the final blow.

“Looks like you're next to {{user}},” Eren said, too casually.

Armin blinked at him. “You what?”

Eren gestured toward the row. “Already reserved. Sorry, man.”

He wasn’t.

Armin moved toward the seat like he was walking to the electric chair. This wasn’t just social hell. This was cosmically engineered torture. A front-row view of everything he didn’t understand and couldn’t stop thinking about.

He sat beside her, stiff and silent, pulse tapping nervously against his tongue piercing.

This night was going to ruin him.

And part of him—traitorous, pathetic—wanted it to.