#arukuri

“You will do no such thing!” Another voice yelled as she stomped over. Her name was Historia Reiss, but she preferred to go by Krista by most.

The three men didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was. But they still quickly turned around. “H-Historia! W-We, uh-”

“Don’t you ‘Historia’ me! What were you doing to this poor student?” She asked as she crossed her arms, tapping her foot lightly on the grass as she looked at them angrily.

They all nervously looked at each other before they looked back to her. “W-We were just-”

“Trying to make him do your homework? You should all be ashamed of yourselves!” She yelled, before she raised a fist, making all of them duck and cover their heads out of fear of getting hit.

They were only scared of her because of how ‘powerful’ her family was in the town they lived in. The Riess' were the richest family in the area, and everyone knew that if they got on her or her family’s bad side- something devastating would happen to them.

“Go to class, all of you!” Krista yelled, clearly starting to get fairly pissed now.

“B-But w-” The student could barely start his sentence before he was interrupted again.

“Now! Or I’ll have the school call all your families!” She threatened. Then they all just ran off without another word.

She sighed, turning towards Armin once they had run off. “I’m so sorry about that, are you alright?” Krista asked worriedly, her tone completely different now from earlier, and it honestly quite shocked Armin, who was now sitting on his knees to catch his breath.

“A-Ah, y-yes. I-I’m fine.” He managed to stutter out. Those students were scared by the mere presence of her, so by default he was a bit nervous too.

Krista smiled a little and took a few steps forwards, which actually made Armin tense up as he looked at her.

“P-Please don’t hurt me!!” He said as he put his hands up to block his face.

She stopped moving and blinked a few times. “Hurt you? Dear gods, I would never hurt you.” Krista chuckled as she crouched down in front of him. “I was just trying to scare them off- luckily it worked.” She said with an oddly warm smile.

Armin slowly put his arms down and looked over at her. “Y-You won’t?”

Krista shook her head. Thank god.

“That’s a relief..” He said, sighing a bit in relief, before quickly realizing how stupid he must’ve sounded. “A-Ah! I-I’m so sorry! That must’ve been so rude- please forgive me!!”

Krista tried to bite her lip to keep herself from laugh, but it ended up not being able hold back her giggles long. She started to laugh as she looked at him, she wasn’t really laughing at him, but just at the fact of how quick he was to apologize or something so simple.

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize at all, alright? I would’ve been scared too if I were you.” She reassured, moving to hold her arm out to help him up. “Please, don’t worry about it.”

Armin nodded simply, moving quickly to pick his things up off the ground before he took Krista’s hand and stood up. “A-Alright, thank you so much, Ms.- Oh, Historia was it?” He asked, feeling bad that he didn’t know her name.

She took her hand back after he got up and sighed a little. “Krista.. I’d rather not go by my legal name.” She spoke softly as she gazed down at her hands. “Just call me Krista Lenz please.”

Armin very quickly nodded, bowing his head a bit as he held his hand out. “It’s nice to meet you, Krista. I’m Armin, Armin Arlert.” He said before he lifted his head, starting to smile a little.

Krista started to smile again upon seeing his smile. There was something about this student that made her feel… Just plain happy when she looked at him. And that name, there was something about it…

“What class are you headed to next? Maybe I can walk with you.” Krista offered happily while she looked at him.

“Oh, my next class is math- on the east side of the school.” Armin explained while he put his messenger bag over his shoulder, getting it situated so he’d have an excuse to not look at her while he started to blush a little. “Y-You don’t have to walk me, really.. I’ll be fine.”

Krista shook her head, quickly grabbing the other blond’s hand before she started pretty much dragging Armin to his class. “Nonsense- besides the bell is going to ring soon, we need to get going!”

“Wait!” Armin called, doing his best to keep up. “R-Really, I’ll be fine!” He reassured once again, though the fact that they were ‘holding hands’, made him blush a little.

“Just be quiet and follow me!” Krista said as she turned to look at him, giving him a smile and wink before she just continued to drag him to class.

This would be quite an interesting day.