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Armin was always smart, small, and gentle. He never believed in resolving matters in violence. Instead he was more of a gentle and diplomatic nature. When we were younger those attributes made him an easy target for every bully in our school, some sort of easy punching bag for many of the bigger kids. This automatically made each and every one of those bullies who laid a finger on Armin or spoke ill of him, mine and Mikasa’s enemies and in turn our punching bags when we got into fights. For Armin who never liked solving problems with violence, this became a traumatic experience which plagued even his dreams.
We were in the second grade when it started. Back then, the bullying had caused our sleepovers at each other houses to increase a lot. Armin started sleeping over at my house often and his restlessness would wake me up nearly every night. He would toss and turn, mumble with tears streaming down his face. It usually was about one of the various boys bullying him at school. I would always wrap my arms around him and once he woke up sobbing into my chest, tell him that everything was okay. That nothing was coming to hurt him because I was going to protect him from the evils that plagued this world.
For years it went on like this, with us protecting Armin by day and reassuring him at night. The bullying stopped a few years before we entered High school thankfully. By the time we were seniors, Armin basically lived at my house, only going home when he wanted a change of clothes. Despite the nightmares not being that much of an issue with Armin anymore, the memories of those years still haunted him. Time could only fix so many things as they said.
That night I was laying in my bed and staring up at my ceiling, just waiting for sleep to consume me when Armin started to whimper next to me. Sitting up, I looked down at his face and saw something alarming. He was wearing a look of pure terror and whimpering again. He suddenly shot up in bed, screaming my name. The tears streaking from his panicked and unfocused eyes made my heart go out to him. I immediately wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him tight, whispering in his ear to attempt to calm him down. “It’s okay Arm, I’m right here. You don’t need to be scared anymore.” It took him some time but eventually, his tears dried up and his breathing evened out. His cerulean eyes were relieved as he stared back at me.
“You died. The- They killed you.” A sob shook his body as he spoke. “It was you who needed protecting this time but I didn’t have the strength and you died.” I hold him to me tighter as the tears fell down again. My bedroom door creaked open and a head of ebony hair poked inside. Walking to the side of my bed without Armin noticing anything, Mikasa climbed up behind him, fitting her body up against his. Without saying a word, she ran her fingers through his sweaty blond locks while my own hands rubbed circles against his back in attempt to make him feel better. Little by little, Armin’s breathing returned to normal. We stayed like this for a long time, Mikasa and me doing what we could to comfort him. When his breath started coming out in soft puffs against my neck, tickling me from where his head was resting on my shoulder, I realized Armin had fallen asleep. Carefully, we both laid back down with Armin sandwiched between the two of us. I brushed his hair out of his face and pressed a kiss to his forehead as Mikasa nuzzled the nape of his neck. Twining my fingers with his, I pulled his head to rest against my chest.
“Even if it’s just from the nightmares, we’re going to protect you.” I whispered. Always. We all slept like that until the next morning.