Chapter Text
When Armin wakes up, his hands are clasped lightly around Eren’s arm, which lies draped over Armin’s chest. Eren’s phone buzzes on the night table. Eren gently extracts his arm and rolls over.
Eren clears his throat. “Hi, Mom,” he says.
“Eren, honey, are you ok? I’ve been trying to call you for hours!” Carla’s voice is dimmed, but Armin can still make out the words.
Hours? Really? God, how long have we been asleep? Armin turns the little alarm clock next to him to face him. It reads 11:15 AM. He flops back down on the bed in embarassment.
“Sorry, I was asleep,” Eren says. “I’m fine, I’m sorry, I just had my phone on vibrate and I didn’t hear it--”
“Eren, honey, you’ve got to keep your phone on--”
Eren holds the device out at arm’s length as if his mother were screaming at him through it.
Armin listens in on the conversation and a sinking feeling spreads through his chest. The roads are clear again, or at least clear enough. The bulk of the snow has blown through, and Carla can come pick up Eren.
“I can take the train--”
“No, I’ll come get you,” Carla insists.
Eren rolls his eyes. When the call ends he lays back down on top of Armin’s chest. “I don’t want to go,” he groans.
“I know.” Armin kisses the top of his forehead and sighs. “I don’t want you to go, either.”
But if Eren stayed here too long, would he even like me anymore? Would he get bored with me?
Armin’s body is sore all over, not just from skating. He likes the feeling in his torso and his arms, the pleasant after-effect from being gripped and held by Eren. It makes him realize how badly needed a break from training, from rehearsal, from studying. From being alone.
Yeah, I could do this for a few more days, Armin thinks. Eat, sleep, have sex, build blanket forts…
Armin arches his back slightly so Eren can slip his arms underneath him. He loves the smell of Eren’s hair. Nothing else in life has ever quite smelled like it.
Eren reaches up for the base of Armin’s neck; he slides himself up and leans down to kiss Armin.
“Are you ok?” Armin asks.
“Yeah,” Eren deflates back onto Armin’s chest again. “I just don’t want to go,” he says into Armin’s sternum. “Rose is gone. Mom and Mikasa just yell at me. Mikasa’s just going to make me take photos of her for Snapchat and Instagram and stuff. Dad just tells me to go shovel the driveway. It’s just boring.”
Armin drizzles his nails down Eren’s back.
“Man, I shouldn’t complain,” Eren says. “It’s all fine. They’re all fine. I just...I don’t know.” He rolls onto his side and pulls Armin with him, which makes Armin feel a little bit like a stuffed toy. “It’s like every year, I can’t wait for school to end, I can’t wait for exams to end because I want a break, you know. But now I’m just, like...I don’t know.” He laughs to himself a little bit. “Like I don’t want to just sit around and play video games, I want to sleep and I want to do stuff with you.”
What kind of stuff? Armin wonders. Just sex, or other things, too?
“Yeah…” Armin brushes his nose against Eren’s neck. “My parents are going to be here soon. I mean, I miss them and everything, but I kind of like...yeah, I feel like...less excited to see them…” He realizes he feels guilty at having something else to be excited about.
“Oh, god,” Armin groans.
“What’s wrong?” Eren fluffs his hair.
“I guess I should tell them about you,” Armin says. “I’ve never dated anybody, though. I obviously never told them about Marco.” Armin lays back onto his back and looks at the ceiling with a glazed expression. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell them.”
“Are they going to get mad at you?” Eren kisses the pit of Armin’s neck.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “But I don’t know. We never talk about this kind of thing.”
“Do they know you’re gay?” Eren asks.
Armin scoffs. “They knew before I did.”
“Huh. I don’t know. Maybe kind of test the waters with them first?”
“Yeah. Maybe. I’m not sure.” Armin wants to be able to gush freely, express his excitement. But he doesn’t want his parents to ask too many questions.
“You can wait if you want to,” Eren says.
“I just don’t want it to seem like I’m keeping you a secret because you don’t matter to me,” Armin says.
Eren shakes his head, dusting Armin’s skin with his hair. “I mean, I was going to wait a little bit before telling everyone else, right? And like putting it online and stuff.”
Armin nods. He reaches for Eren’s arm again. “Yeah. We’ll pick a time. Let’s just see how it goes first.”
Eren’s phone buzzes, just once this time. A text. He groans and grabs his phone again. “Fuck,” he says.
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s going to be here in fifteen minutes.”
Armin pouts. He likes Eren’s mom well enough, but this feels like overkill. “Don’t tell her my grandpa wasn’t here,” he says.
“You got it,” Eren says. But he keeps lying in bed like a slug.
Armin sits up. “Come on, you should get dressed.”
Eren clamps his hands over his face. “No,” he says. “Make me.”
Armin leans down and kisses Eren very lightly, on the inside of his hip bone. Eren’s body contracts in shock.
“I’m sorry,” Armin says. “I had to.”
“Ugh, god, all right, fine,” Eren moans and rolls over into a fetal position, then begrudgingly gets up.
Armin gets dressed too, in solidarity. He throws on jeans and a sweatshirt, and mashes his feet into sneakers. He boils water in the kitchen while Eren is in the bathroom.
Eren slips on his jacket but leaves his scarf untied. He stares glumly in the mirror that hangs in the little hallway by the front door. Armin walks up to him and hands him a large thermos.
“What’s this?” Eren asks.
“Open it when you get in the car,” Armin says. “Also, I’m loaning you the thermos, so you have to come back and give it back to me.”
Eren grins. “Deal.”
Then, to Eren’s surprise, Armin pushes him against the wall and kisses him, hard, but taking his time.
“Once my folks have been here for a few days I’ll see if I can get away for a little while, maybe we can go do something,” Armin says.
Eren kisses the top of Armin’s head. “Yeah. Let’s figure something out.”
**
The sun is garishly bright as Eren steps out from under the awning of the building and climbs into his mother’s car. Eren can’t figure out why she was so insistent on coming to get him. She seems strangely happy, like she’s got a secret.
“Was everything ok, sweetheart?” she asks him.
“Yeah, it was fine,” Eren says. It was better than fine. It was the best 48 hours of his short life, and now everything seems strangely dull and tasteless in comparison. Eren wonders what to say, he thinks about how not to look too upset so as to not have his mom grill him with questions. He opens the thermos: double hot chocolate with a candy cane inside. Fuck yes.
“That smells good, what is it?”
“Oh, uh...Armin made me some hot chocolate,” he says. He can barely keep his voice from cracking.
“He seems like a very thoughtful young man,” Carla says. “You should invite him over again once the roads are a little better.” The car clunks as it runs over a pothole.
Armin, you really are a genuis, Eren thinks. Getting my parents to like you. Perfect.
Eren’s heart sinks a little as they approach the house. “Whose car is that?” He spots an unfamiliar truck next to the driveway.
“Oh, um...well, I’ll tell you in a minute.”
Eren raises an eyebrow and gets out of the car. He thinks he hears Mikasa laughing through the closed door. He follows his mom inside. Sitting on the floor of the living room are his dad, Mikasa, and a dark-haired woman he doesn’t recognize.
“Eren, do you remember Freida, the dog breeder who we got Rose from?” Carla asks.
Eren nearly drops the thermos. A tiny, shy puppy with a fluffy black and white coat licks Mikasa’s face. Then it turns around and looks up at Eren with one brown eye and one blue eye. “Oh my god,” he whispers.
“This is Sina,” Frieda says. Mikasa gets up and hands the puppy to Eren. She puts her paws on Eren’s collarbone.
“Your Christmas gift early is the puppy,” Carla says. “Your and your sister’s gift to me is going to be to help your dad and me to train her.”
Eren clutches the puppy to his chest.
“We’re not giving her away,” Carla says. “This one we’re keeping. She’s for us.”
Eren’s eyes start to fill up with tears.
**
Armin has four performances left to skate in. The first one, he goes to alone. Rather than driving his grandfather’s car, he leaves a half hour early and walks to Navy Pier, his mind drifting back to Eren. Everyone will be back the next day; his parents will fly in in the afternoon, and meet him at the arena to see his show.
“But you’ve already seen it a million times,” he told them. Didn’t matter. They were coming anyway.
Armin relishes the tiny break. A little calm before the storm of family, holidays, chaos. When he gets to the dressing room, his phone explodes from new pictures form Eren. Daniela demands to see the new puppy, and Armin scrambles to hide the photos of his and Eren’s naked bodies from the day before.
Armin keeps debating whether or not to tell Marco that he’s going out with Eren. He’s afraid Marco will shout it from the rooftops, and some unnameable bad thing will happen because of it. Armin finds it takes him longer and longer to answer Marco’s texts. It’s not that he isn’t happy for Marco and Jean, but something about Marco’s total lack of inhibition makes Armin uneasy.
Why am I so worried? Armin asks himself between acts, waiting off the ice for his next entrance. Everyone is preoccupied waiting for their cues, but Armin can’t keep his mind from wandering. I mean, seriously, what’s going to happen if I tell people I’m going out with Eren? He’s already popular, his friends don’t care that he likes guys…
Armin has to wipe the scowl from his face before he steps back out onto the ice. It irks him to be so hesitant and ashamed, when in reality dating Eren is one of the things he’s most proud of so far in life.
I should text him about it. No, I’ll call him. Damn it. It’s been less than a day and I miss him already.
Armin listens to the familiar music, the score he’s heard so many times. It still makes him happy, it reminds him of the excitement of Christmas, the overall feeling of happiness brewing in the background of everything during the holidays. Now, he realizes, it conjures up images of Eren, too. Armin thought about him so much during the rehearsals that he now feels like part of the performance. Thinking about him is drug-like. Armin doesn’t want to stop.
“Armin! Let’s go!” Daniela grabs his hand and pulls him out onto the ice with her, out of his reverie. He’s never been so lost in thought during a show before.
**
When Armin gets home from the show, his grandfather has just gotten back from the airport. They each look tired, but Armin makes a pot of tea for both of them, from the tin that Eren gave him. He lights the evergreen candle, paranoid that some trace of his tryst with Eren still lingers in the apartment, even after he threw away all the trash from the junk food they’d bought and washed the sheets and towels.
His grandfather likes the tea. Armin can’t quite explain why that makes him happy.
“So your friend is from Turkey?”
“No, his mom is,” Armin says. Armin tells him about the Turkish food Eren cooked, Carla’s collection of art and antiques that gave her home an elegant and mysterious feeling. Armin mentions that Eren stayed over during the storm, but doesn’t say much more than that.
Deep down, Armin is positive that his grandfather doesn’t care who he dates as long as they’re both safe and happy. But he’s afraid to test his theory and be wrong. He’s sure his grandfather knows. He’s never in his life seen his grandfather have a negative reaction to gay people. But for a second, Armin’s eyes drift to the bottom shelf of an enormous bookcase, where a seemingly ancient copy of the first DSM stands mixed in with a host of other antique and dated books. In it, homosexuality is still listed as an illness.
**
The next night, as Armin hangs up his costume, he feels a tension in his chest. He still hasn’t made up his mind about whether to tell his family about Eren. It seems like there’s so much he never tells them. But why would he? When he was in China, he had the time difference and short windows for video calls as an excuse. But even all on Central Time, he finds himself not wanting to open up to them, and he doesn’t understand why. Elin is the lone exception.
He changes back into his normal clothes and says goodbye to the rest of the cast for the night. But when he gets out into the lobby, there are six people waiting instead of three. His parents and grandfather are there, but so are Elin and her parents, his aunt and uncle.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, delighted but shocked.
“Well, it was my idea,” his grandfather says. “When I was stuck in Canada, I thought let’s all get together here. I didn’t much feel like traveling again, so I made them do it.”
Armin’s not about to complain. It’s not until after dinner, after dropping the others off at their hotel and getting back to his grandfather’s apartment, that he realizes how completely exhausted he is. All throughout the meal, he kept wondering if he should mention Eren. Elin just winked when he talked about his “new friends” from the rink, how much he liked spending time with them, how he hadn’t expected to get along with everyone so soon.
He’s just about to collapse into bed when he gets a text from Eren. Hey are you coming to Sasha’s Christmas party??
Coming to what? Armin looks in his email and is surprised to see a message from Sasha. For a second he feels skeptical. What could she be planning that warrants a real invitation and not just a Facebook event?
I just saw the invitation, Armin types. It says it’s in fox river, isn’t that really far away?
Yeah it’s at her aunt’s house, Eren writes. It’s huge
They have a huge party every year and invite a ton of people and have a bonfire
You have to come
It’s great
Everyone will be there!!
I’m so glad she invited you
If she didn’t I was going to bring you anyways
Armin’s phone just about dances off the counter form Eren’s machine gun texts.
A ton of people? Armin felt thrilled at the chance to see Eren, but the thought of being around a bunch of Sasha’s relatives and people he doesn’t know makes him wince.
But then, maybe this is it. Maybe he should go, and if there are a bunch of people, maybe no one will notice if he sneaks off with Eren for a while.
**
The next morning, Armin’s phone screen is loaded with texts from Marco asking him if he’s going to Sasha’s. Annie asks him, too.
All right, I have to figure out a way to go to this thing, he thinks. On the 23rd, it’s cutting it awfully close to Christmas. But Armin is determined. He meets his family at their hotel for breakfast. He finds them sitting in a long booth in the wood-paneled restaurant in the lobby. Huge stained glass Tiffany windows cast rainbow light around the busy atrium. His mom pours him a cup of tea as he sits down next to Elin, his throat already tight before he even asks. He squeaks out a request.
“I don’t see why not,” his dad says. “If you’ve made friends here and want to see them--”
“Don’t you think it’s a little close to Christmas?” his mom asks.
Yes, I knew you were going to say that.
He takes a deep breath. “Well, one of the reasons I really want to go is that one of my friends is going to be there, and, um..” Come on, he tells himself. Just say it. You only get to pull this card once, so you’d better play it now. “Well, I really want to see him because...I want to ask him out.”
His mother smiles and blinks a few times.
“You should go!” Elin says. She wraps an arm around his shoulder. “You should absolutely go!”
Elin, you are an angel, Armin thinks. Her reaction is so enthusiastic, how could his parents say no? By now, enough people from the other tables are looking over to see what the commotion is about, they can’t say no even if they wanted to. Armin clinches his escape for one evening.
**
Armin waits at the train station in his favorite blue sweater, his dark gray wool coat, and a forest green scarf he borrowed from his grandfather. He expects Eren to wear red, so he wants to coordinate. He texts Elin as he waits for Eren.
Don’t tell anyone this, but Eren and I are already going out, he writes. I thought my parents would be more likely to say yes if I told them I was planning some big gesture.
Bruh I knew that already, Elin writes back. Go have fun with your boo! Eat some cake! Build a snowman! Take a break bucko, cause you need it.
Armin grins at his phone screen. He smells Eren’s woodsy cologne before he looks up and sees him. Eren’s hug nearly knocks him over. They stand in the way of dozens of flustered passengers, laden with shopping bags. But Armin doesn’t move. In that moment, he likes being an obstacle, forcing people to move around him.
“You ready?” Eren’s grin is wide.
Armin nods. It’s cold on the platform underground where they wait for the train to arrive, so Armin just clings to Eren. He plans to do a lot of clinging to Eren.
They would have driven, but Mikasa’s already taken one of the family cars out to the house. Sasha invited all of the girls to sleep over the night before. Mikasa will drive them back.
A few flakes of snow rush in as the train arrives. They melt on Armin’s face, and Eren brushes them off.
“Come on,” Eren says as the conductor opens the door. He reaches for Armin’s hand and pulls him up onto the step leading into the car.
**
Eren felt spoiled getting to cuddle with the new puppy. He’d kicked her out of his room while he was busy enjoying the photos he’d taken with Armin. Otherwise, he hadn’t wanted to let her out of his sight. If anything, being around her had made the time go faster until he could see Armin again.
They sit at the very end of the train car, squished together near the window. Eren wraps his arms around Armin’s shoulders and doesn’t let go. The sky is a dense, dark gray even though it’s still daylight. The city disappears into a ghostly haze of snow, and the train presses on into a white-out vortex.
Eren doesn’t mind not driving. It just means more time to be with Armin.
“I haven’t told my folks about you yet,” Armin says. He leans his head on Eren’s shoulder.
“It’s ok,” Eren says. “I told Mikasa. I told her not to tell anyone yet and she hasn’t. But I feel like she’s lording it over me, you know?”
“I told my parents I was going to ask you out at the party,” Armin says.
Eren squeezes him tighter. “Wait, really?”
“Yeah,” he says, his face flushed.
“Wait a second,” Eren says. “You could pretend to ask me out at the party!” They have the little quadrant of seats at the back of the car to themselves.
Armin tilts his head back slightly. “Yeah...I guess I could,” he says. Eren loves the feeling of his warm hair against his cheek. “Then I guess I wouldn’t have to figure out how to tell anyone. You could just say yes--”
“Or I could pretend to ask you out again!” Eren says.
“Well, I mean...yeah, if you want to--”
“Do you want me to?”
Armin hesitates for a moment. “I think so. I don’t know. It’s like, I want everybody to know, but I don’t want to have to tell them.”
“We could make it a game,” Eren says. “At some point before the night is over, one of us has to pretend to ask the other out. What do you think?’
“You know...I kind of like that idea,” Armin says.
“I mean, only if you want to do it,” Eren says.
Armin looks around the train car, so Eren looks too. Everyone is absorbed in their phones, books, or conversations with other people. Armin smiles and turns around to kiss Eren.
“Sure,” Armin says. “Why not. I have a feeling you’ll win, but you never know.”
Eren loves the mischievous grin on Armin’s face. He kisses him against the window, shielding the two of them off from the aisle. The feeling of the cold glass behind them makes him think of the window in Armin’s room, and he finds himself getting a little bit hard at the memory. His tongue is deep in Armin’s mouth when he hears the conductor walk into the car.
“Tickets please,” she says.
Eren hastily wipes off his mouth and scrambles to pull out his phone to show her the app with their tickets. Armin chuckles quietly to himself at Eren’s frustration.
“I missed you a lot these last few days,” Armin says. “I mean, I know it wasn’t that long, but it really felt like it. I just really wanted to see you before Christmas.”
Eren’s body feels like it’s glowing at Armin’s words. “Yeah, I missed you, too,” he says.
For a while they ride in silence, watching the snow-drenched landscape rush past. The setting sun begins to turn everything pink, then lilac. Eren nuzzles Armin’s ear and kisses his cheek. Even in their heavy coats and sweaters, it still feels good to hold Armin, more so now that Eren knows and can easily imagine Armin’s body underneath all of the layers.
“It gets kind of bleak out here this time of year, doesn’t it?” Armin says, gazing out the weekend.
“Yeah...it’s really flat, anyways,” Eren says. “The place where Sasha’s aunt lives is pretty, though. Lots of huge trees. There’s a lake that freezes, too. Sometimes before school starts back she has people out there to skate if you want to go.”
“Oh yeah, I would love that,” Armin says. “I love outdoor rinks. It’s so cool to skate near trees. Plus I always feel like anything goes outdoors. No one’s judging, it’s outside and the ice gets a little weird, so you can’t really do the same stuff. But it’s fun. It makes me think of when I first learned to skate as a kid.”
The lighted marquee above the aisle flashes the name of their station. Eren feels like he could stay on the train all day.
**
“Get in, losers,” Annie says from the rolled-down window of her forest green jeep. She wears a heavy white coat with a faux fur collar and a wry smile.
“Hey, thanks for coming to get us,” Armin says.
“How was last night?” Eren asks.
“Uh, it was great. You ought to see what we made when we get to the house.” Eren and Armin look at each other, unsure of what she means.
Annie drives them through a long patch of snowy woods leading to an enormous house that looks like a Bavarian hunting lodge, with a ground floor in dark gray stone and the upper part in a half-timber style.
“This place is nuts,” Armin says.
“Wait till you see the inside,” Annie says.
They walk past the long chain of cars that lines the driveway and push open the massive front door. A huge Christmas tree covered entriely in white and gold ornaments stands in the foyer; pine boughs with gold ribbon hang from the wrought-iron railing of the huge stone staircase. People holding plates of food, mugs of hot cider, and glasses of wine are everywhere. Armin looks past the tree. The giant living room is every bit as festooned. Hundreds of white and silver star ornaments hang from the high, vaulted ceiling from sparkling threads. Huge iron candelabras packed with glowing green candles stand on the long wooden console tables that line the room.
But the most impressive decoration by far is in the dining room. The entire long table is covered in a gingerbread city that the girls spent the entire previous night building and decorating. Tiny frosting icicles hang from the edges of the roofs. The gingerbread walls have delicately piped icing mortar, and windows made from melted hard candy. Gumdrop topiaries abound in the little garden plots. A gingerbread cathedral with a tiled roof made of long, flat pastilles and candy cane buttresses stands above it all. Then Armin notices something at the end of the table: a huge tray of gingerbread men, but each one is decorated differently. Half of them have dark green icing jerseys with numbers in white. The girls have made the entire Trost hockey team and North Point figure skating club in gingerbread form. He finds Eren, number 20. Next to it is a gingerbread man with a red icing jacket and little gold nonpareil buttons. They made his Nutcracker costume.
Armin’s eyes start to tear up. Never in his life has he gotten emotional over baked goods.
“Hey! You made it!” Sasha runs out to them from the kitchen in a pair of reindeer antlers and a flashing necklace of giant Christmas lights. She gives Armin a hug. For a moment, he’s too overwhelmed to speak.
**
The basement of the lodge house opens out onto a large stone patio with an enormous, blazing bonfire at the end. Eren’s teammates hover over the pool and foosball tables, breaking away from their games to give the newcomers hugs. Armin is sure he’s never hugged so many other boys in one day before. He doesn’t mind it. It doesn’t hurt, either, to walk into a room full of people who all know who he is and look happy to see him.
As the sky turns darker, more and more of the party guests wind their way down to the fire. A whole choir of snow men stands around the patio. Then Armin realizes some of them are penguins and polar bears. In the yard is a whole snow menagerie. Sasha’s little cousins run and dive onto their sleds, bolting down a shallow hill that drops away from the house. Some of them have built snow caves and tunnels, and dragged extra strings of Christmas lights inside them. Armin notices Annie and Mikasa taking a selfie with some of the lights draped over their shoulders.
Eren walks out onto the patio with a steaming cup of hot chocolate.
“How is it?” Armin asks.
“It’s not as good as the kind you made me,” Eren says.
Armin laughs. “Eren, it comes out of a packet. That you bought.”
“Yeah, I know. But you made it.”
Armin shakes his head. Then he hears a familiar accent coming from inside the basement. Loud and Italian. Oh God. Marco is here.
Marco runs up and hugs Armin from behind, and kisses his cheek. “Hey...Marco…” Armin ekes out a greeting through the tight squeeze.
“Eren!” Marco lets Armin go and throws his arms around a mildly terrified looking Eren. He spots his next victims closer to the fire.
“Oh boy. The hurricane of love is here,” Armin says. Then he realizes Jean is standing is behind them, his face slightly flushed, looking a little glazed over. “You ok?” Armin asks him.
“Yeah, your friend is, uh...something else,” Jean says.
Eren claps Jean on the back. “So I heard you guys got snowed in together.”
Jean nods slowly, gazing at the fire with a starry-eyed look. “Yeah. He built me an igloo. It was wild.”
Armin decides not to mention the pillow fort.
“This might be TMI, but…you know what, never mind,” Jean says.
“What?” Eren shakes his shoulder.
Jean shakes his head. “Nah, not here. I’m just gonna say, I think I needed that.”
Sasha’s uncles deposit more logs onto the already huge fire. One of Sasha’s aunts hands out marshmallows on skewers, and Armin and Eren each grab one.
Marco sidles back up to them as they toast their marshmallows. “It is such a strange food,” he says. “But so tasty.”
“Do you guys not have these in Italy?” Eren asks.
“We have something similar, yes, but we do not put it over a fire,” he says. He wears his hair slicked back, a burgundy cashmere sweater and a charcoal gray coat lined with what Armin hopes is fake fur.
Try to look more European, Armin thinks. Man, every guy here is totally outclassed by you.
But Armin likes Eren’s shaggy hair and more casual look.
“Are you going home for Christmas?” Eren asks.
Marco shakes his head. “No, my parents will come here for the new year. I think they will like Chicago,” he says. “And I want them to meet you!” he says to Armin. “And Franz, and Mina, and of course, Jean.” He grins.
Jean wanders over. “I heard my name.” Marco kisses him on the cheek.
I guess you’ve never been subtle in your life, have you, Armin thinks.
Connie runs over with his phone out. “Hey guys, get together and smile!” He snaps a photo of Eren, Armin, Marco, and Jean, all holding up their marshmallows. When Armin sees it later, it will be one of his favorite photos he’s ever been in, next to the ones he took alone with Eren.
More of Eren and Jean’s teammates make their way out to the fire, and more of the adults and kids retreat inside for dinner and yule cake.
The evening air is still, and without the wind, it feels pleasant to be outside by the fire. Armin leans back into Eren’s arms and notices that he can see a few stars, for the first time in over a year. After traveling to perform, being in big cities, and being so absorbed in his own life, he hadn’t even noticed how long it had been since he had seen a clear night sky. Sparks drift up from the bonfire and join the tiny lights above them.
If things go the way Armin wants them to in life, he’ll be doing a lot more traveling. A lot more big cities. A lot more fluorescent lights over arenas to practice in, more spotlights and stage lights, but perhaps not very many stars. He’ll have to make a point of going to find them.
Armin wonders where he’ll be a year from now. So much can happen in a year. He wants to be training in Chicago, making more progress with Levi, qualifiying for more and more competitions. He figures most of his friends from the rink will have left for college, but maybe some of them will stay nearby. Either way, surely they’ll come back for Christmas, won’t they? He looks at the faces around him, lit up by the fire. In the past few weeks in Chicago, he’s felt more at home than anywhere else he’s ever been. Something inside him feels very still, like a constantly fluttering bird that’s finally found a branch to land on. He pulls Eren’s arms a little tighter around him.
“What are you thinking about?” Eren asks. He rests his chin on Armin’s shoulder. The others chatter and make s’mores, music plays from inside the house. Armin feels the heat from Eren’s body and the warmth of the fire envelop him.
“You know...not much, honestly,” Armin says. “I’m just...really happy to be out here.”
Eren turns and kisses him on the mouth. For a second, Armin is startled, then, he just goes with it. If no one is going to judge or criticize, then why not? If Eren wants to show off, well, then, who is Armin to complain?
Reiner walks slowly up behind them. “So are you going to ask him out, or what?”
Eren flinches and draws back. Armin notices the others are all looking at them now. He assumes Reiner was talking to Eren, but he decides to seize the moment while Eren is still flustered.
“Oh yeah, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Armin says. He rests his hands on Eren’s shoulders. Eren wears a smug grin. “Will you go out with me?”
“Of course.” Eren kisses Armin’s nose.
Sasha cheers, Connie lets out a loud woop, Mikasa makes a squeaking sound no one has ever heard her make before. Bertolt groans. Eren and Armin turn around, perplexed. Bertolt fishes his wallet out of his pocket and hands Reiner two crisp twenties.
“What the-- you made a bet?!” Eren is incensed.
“Yeah, of course we did,” Reiner says.
“Oh dang.” Connie pulls a few bills out of his pocket and gives them to Sasha.
“What the hell, guys?” Eren gives Armin a squeeze.
“Don’t be mad,” Bertolt says. “There’s still time to get your bets in on Jean and Marco.”
“Hey!” Jean shouts, looking up from the s’more he’s making. But Marco just laughs.
“Hey, how about this,” Connie says. “I propose a toast. Who wants special hot chocolate?” Connie looks over his shoulder, and seeing that all of the adults are back in the house, turns back to the group. “I’m just saying, we got a bunch of Peppermint Schnapps, and--”
“I want some,” Annie says.
“Me too,” Mikasa says.
“Me three!” Sasha shouts.
“Wait, Mikasa, you’re driving,” Eren says.
“I only want one,” she says.
“All right, y’all just hang tight for a minute,” Connie says. He and Sasha run back to the house.
Late that night, on the ride back into the city, Mikasa and Annie talk and play music in the front of the car, but in the backseat, Armin just sits on Eren’s lap in a drunk, cozy haze.
**
On Christmas day, the trains are nearly empty. Eren brushes a strand of dog hair off of his coat and looks out the window. Gold light streams through the snow covered trees next to the elevated tracks. Only a few figures walk past on the street below.
Hey, where are you? Eren texts Armin as he gets off the train. The sky is clear after all the snow, and the sun glows orange as it creeps past the rooflines.
Do you know the courtyard where the zodiac statues are? I’m by the dragon, Armin writes.
Eren smiles and runs down the salt-crusted stairs from the train tracks as fast as he can without falling.
Eren figured that plenty of people would have had the same idea to get Chinese food on Christmas night. There are lines out the door for almost every restaurant, and the streets of the little Chinatown mall are clogged with visitors who he has to weave through without pushing. But he doesn’t mind. The wind doesn’t reach their narrow corridor, and Eren knows he’ll just hug himself close to Armin to stay warm as they wait.
He sees a blonde figure in a gray parka and a black hat waiting by the wide concrete base of the huge bronze dragon statue. Armin holds a steaming thermos of tea. He closes it and slips it into his bag to free up his arms to hug Eren.
Eren tastes the familiar spice of the Turkish tea on Armin’s breath when he kisses him.
“I’m not even hungry,” Armin says. “We already had so much food. I just wanted to get away for a while and see you.”
“Yeah,” Eren says. “I’m not hungry either, but that’s not going to stop me.” They take their place in line outside a restaurant flanked by two giant stone creatures that Eren isn’t sure are dragons or dogs. “How’s it been with your folks?” Eren puts his arm around Armin’s waist.
“It’s been...really good,” Armin says. “They just worry so much, you know? I feel like they’re always kind of breathing down my neck even when they’re far away. But it’s like...I’m a lot happier here than I was in Michigan. So I guess they’ve just chilled out more. Like there’s just not much they can get upset about. So...yeah. We’ve ended up having a nice time. Plus Elin’s here, so that makes everything a thousand times easier.”
“I need to meet her,” Eren says.
“Yeah, I think you guys would get along,” Armin says. “But she told me to keep you to myself tonight.”
“We would get along,” Eren says.
The door opens and a large family walks out. Eren catches a whiff of sesame, anise, and chive.
“How have things been with you guys?” Armin asks.
“Ok, you need to come meet Sina soon because I think if she gets to know you early on, she’ll really like you,” Eren says.
“More than Rose?” Armin asks.
“I’m so sorry.”
Armin laughs. “Eren, it’s fine, I just thought it was funny. How is she?”
“I think she’s fine? I don’t know, the family that adopted her sent us some photos, and their little girl seems really happy, so…” Eren sighs. “I miss her, though. I love Sina. She’s amazing, but it’s just not totally the same.”
Another table leaves, and Eren and Armin get closer to the door. They step inside the tiny foyer. The walls of the restaurant are covered in frosted glass panels, bordered in square spirals of dark, laquered wood. Each time the door opens, the cloud of dense noise from the packed tables spills out into the street. Eren doesn’t mind having to lean in close to Armin so they can hear each other.
A hostess leads them to a booth in the corner. Eren slides in next to Armin.
“Are you waiting on anyone else?” she asks, noticing the open bench across from them.
“Oh, no, it’s just us,” Armin says with a little flush of embarassment. But it’s not a problem.
Eren’s phone buzzes a couple of times in his pocket. He pulls it out. Texts from Mikasa.
“What is it?” Armin asks. Eren shows him the screen.
GO LOOK AT LEVI’S VK RIGHT NOW, Mikasa writes. There’s a link and screenshot. Above a long block of text in Russian is an image of a hand with a gold band on its ring finger, holding another, slightly larger hand, that Eren assumes must belong to Coach Smith.
“What the--” Eren shakes his head.
“Oh my god. Levi got engaged to your coach!”
“Hang on, are you sure?”
“That has to be what this is,” Armin says. “Give me a second.” He starts to highlight the long caption, then realizes that it goes on for paragraphs. “Oh man. I’m positive that’s what this is, especially if he wrote so much. Hang on.”
Armin pastes the text into a translator. He and Eren pore over the result.
Perhaps I did not say enough about it, and not everyone was aware. When I quit competing I did not think I would be happy again, maybe never. Maybe you remember that it was quite hard for me then, as I could still skate quite well. But I could not jump well, and I was quite disappointed. You know that, to be injured, in this sport, it is like a death. For a long time I felt like a dead man, and said nothing. I smiled and kept on.
“Is he always so long winded?” Eren asks.
“Always,” Armin says. They keep reading.
I have lived in Chicago now for four years. However the first time I came here, it was not four years ago, but seven years ago at Skate America. This was long before the injuries, before my real problems began.
“I didn’t know that was why he retried,” Eren said.
“Yeah, he fucked up his ankle really badly. It, like, healed for the most part?” Armin said. “Like he could still peform, but landing jumps was way harder. It got pretty ugly for a while.”
On my first visit, I met a very nice man, through friends. And at the time I thought nothing of it. Sure, there are good looking men in every country, that is no surprise. However, this one, I kept thinking about him. I could not explain to you why.
“Oh, here we go,” Armin says. “I bet I could explain to you why.” Eren snickered.
“Hey, do you guys know what you want to drink?” A waitress pops over to them.
“Oh, sorry, I, uh, still need a minute,” Armin says. They haven’t even looked at the menu.
“Uh, could we get a pot of tea?” Eren asks.
“Sure, I’ll be right back. You guys take your time.”
“In honor of Levi,” Eren says. They go back to reading the awkward translation.
I often think, I should call him. But I am not in Chicago often. So I do not think about it for some time. Then, five years ago, is when my real problems began. I chose not to perform for some time. Becuase I was still too angry. As I said before, I felt that I was a dead man, I pretended to be alive.
I had not considered to become a coach. I have always loved art, and writing. However, I did not expect to retire so soon. I planned to skate for five another years.
“Jeez, for a piece about Coach Smith, he sure made it about it himself, didn’t he,” Eren says.
“He’s getting there,” Armin says.
At that time, I discovered that I like coaching. So much. And choreography. So I come back to the United States, because it is a different culture, and I want to be somewhere different. And my good friends from Sofia, Petra Rial and Oulo Bouzado, are in Chicago, and my friends from when I was young, they are in New York. And in Chicago, I meet a very nice man again, you see.
Eren and Armin look at each other and grin.
What I did not understand, when I met this man, is that his life is like mine. He was selected for the professional hockey league in America. And then, he is in an accident. His right arm, the nerves are not completely connect. He says, he is lucky, as he almost loses his arm. But he cannot play hockey the same. And so for some time he is like a dead man also. He pretends to live. Then, he also, becomes a coach and as a trainer. And he also is surprised, that he is quite happy.
“Oh my god, I never knew that about Coach Smith’s arm,” Eren says.
So you see, this very nice man understands me very well. And you see, I am very happy that this nice man will be my husband.
Armin clamps his hand over his mouth and suppresses a little shriek. “Oh my god,” he whispers.
Eren is speechless for a moment. He doesn’t want to say how hopeful it makes him, how lucky he is that if Armin is going to skate with Levi, he’ll be that much closer around for a while.
They thank the waitress as she brings their tea. Eren pours each of them a steaming cup of it, and they raise them up.
“To Levi and Erwin,” Eren says.
Armin laughs. “To having married coaches.”
They clink their cups together.
**
Eren grabs Armin’s hand as they walk back toward the train station. The snow has started to fall gently again. Now the street is quieter, and a feeling of peace prevails. Eren doesn’t see the patch of black ice next to a lamp post on the path. He slips, and suddenly, the snow is falling directly onto his face.
Armin grips his hand tight. Eren’s tailbone hovers an inch off the ground, until Armin hoists him up, back onto his feet.
“Are you all right?” Armin asks.
“What? Yeah, I’m fine,” Eren says. Bewildered. Delighted. “You caught me.” He just laughs. Around anyone else, he would have felt mortified with embarrassment, flustered, irritated and angry. Around Armin, he just shrugs it off. He wraps his arm around Armin’s waist and sighs.
On the train platform, they look at the city lights that fade and blur into the descending snow. Their train car is empty. When they sit down, Eren pulls Armin onto his lap and kisses him slowly, holding his face in his hands.
“Roosevelt is next,” the recorded voice says. “Doors open on the left at Roosevelt.”
Eren doesn’t care if anyone else gets on the train at the next station.
Armin drapes his arms around Eren’s shoulders. Eren wraps his arm around Armin’s back and lets his other hand wind through Armin’s hair.
“Harrison is next. Doors open on the left at Harrison.”
Eren kisses Armin’s cheek, his neck, and his collarbone. Armin kisses Eren’s nose, then his mouth again. Eren ignores the figures he senses move past him.
“Monroe is next. Doors open on the right at Monroe.”
“I’m so glad I got to see you tonight,” Armin says softly in Eren’s ear.
“I’m so happy I could see you, too.” Eren rests his forehead to Armin’s temple. One more kiss.
“State and Lake is next. Doors open on the right at State and Lake.”
Armin starts to get up, and Eren reluctantly lets him.
“I’ll see you soon,” Armin says with a delicate smile.
Eren gives him one more hug before the doors open. “Good night,” he says. He watches Armin drift slowly up the long escalator before the train bolts off again. He feels weightless, warm, and full of light.