Series of X-Reader One-shots

Doomed Love || Armin Arlert x Reader

Noon has always been your favorite time of day. Since most people would rather be eating lunch somewhere rather than sticking their nose inside a book, you're granted the opportunity to quietly read on your own until busier business hours. Of course, lately you've gained another reason to look forever to noon, that reason being the young man who never fails to chime the front door each day at the midday hour.

You have many regulars at the library, however, there has always been something about Armin Arlert that has brought a glitter to your eyes since he had first arrived weeks ago. He's an inquisitive young man who shows a similar love for knowledge as yourself, always requesting a book of various topics and already having it read by the time of his return the next day; an expeditious speed that he bashfully blames on boredom.

Armin typically stays at the library for no longer than an hour, but fills that time engaging in a friendly conversation with you at the front desk before politely tipping his hat and disappearing back through the door with a soften look within his ocean colored eyes as if you've greatly humbled him by your lengthy rant about your coworker's laziness. If you didn't know any better, you'd even note the redness to his cheeks that has begun appearing more often as of lately yet is always dismissed by a stutter.

Armin is cute which is the simplest word you could use to describe him. 'Cute' merely hides your true affections for the man who makes you look forward to each afternoon and leaves you childishly wishing that just one of these days he'll ask you to have coffee with him at the café next door. Childish indeed, for you doubt he'd ever make such a request given the overall distance he seems to try so desperately to set between the two of you.

That is one strange fact about Armin that you find yourself pinned over. At one moment he's laughing along with your joke, appearing to be in excellent spirits before a sadness sets across his handsome features, one you so desperately want to reach out and touch but never feel it's your place to do. You would have hoped that after allowing your friendship to grow so warm, he'd trust you enough with the demons that haunt his mind. If anything, you should present the perfect opportunity. You work at only one of the many libraries in Marley. If whatever's clouding him is truly horrible, all he has to do is let it off his chest and never return to this location, although for some reason or another, you doubt he's afraid of facing simple embarrassment.

On time per usual, the front door chimes and as you always expect, Armin stands there immobile as if he needs an invite to venture any further into the building. Such an invitation is provided by your smile as you close the book you had been looking over.

Under his arm, he carries the latest book loaned to him, a zoology encyclopedia that you had personally recommended after he had expressed a lack of knowledge towards the topic. Unlike many of your visitors who merely drop their books off with you before wordlessly hurrying to find another, Armin hovers by the front desk, watching you go through the process of checking the book back into the sheets while asking whether he enjoyed it. Of course, he has never said no.

"Any ideas for another book? Perhaps a certain animal you'd like to know more about? Oh, I didn't consider it while you were here last, however, I really should've thought of it sooner. There's this book on marine biology that would be perfectly suited-" You stand from your seat, grabbing hold of the book you had been reading moments ago, but to your surprise, Armin shakes his head for possibly the first time that you've seen.

"Actually, I, um...I won't be getting another book today," now those are words you never thought you'd hear from the blonde's mouth. Armin Arlert leaving the library without a book? Is the world ending? It seems like you're not the only one to realize how off it sounds. Even he spoke with a squeak as if it pained him to say.