A/N: hi welcome to my story. Once I got the idea of a shy Historia having a crush on a popular Ymir, I couldn't shake the idea from my mind so I had to write something. I don't like to commit to multi chapter fanfics until I've written a few chapters. I've written 4 chapters so far which I'll upload once I've proof read them (so i'm not going to flake out after one chapter lmao)
Word of warning; I'm going to mess with Annie's character and turn her into someone very dislikeable. I don't like doing this because I love Annie but I'd rather make an existing character OOC than attempt to create my own character. So sorry about that.
The bitter cold morning nipped at her rosy cheeks and Historia sighed; another year of this bullshit. The short blonde girl waited in the school car park trying her best to fit in with the girls she stood with. Mina was her only real friend and it made sense for them to hang out since they shared most of their classes. However during break time and lunch, Mina hung around with her other friends, Mikasa and Sasha, and since it was the first day of year 11, Historia tried to make an effort to stay with them instead of disappearing off to the library on her own.
Mikasa and Sasha were very nice but Historia usually had a horrible nagging feeling that she didn't quite fit in, so she compromised and hung around with them for about half of the time.
Historia was 15, she was shorter than average, wore too much pink and was painfully shy. It was a constant internal battle to convince herself she preferred being alone and that other people were annoying; the idea that her social anxiety was holding her back and she'd be happier with proper friends was something she only allowed herself to contemplate at 2 in the morning.
She rubbed her icy hands together in an attempt to keep them warm, cursing herself for forgetting her gloves and was jolted out of her daydream when she heard a familiar laugh.
The laugh belonged to Ymir, a tall girl who she shared many of her classes with. She had coffee brown hair that fell past her pronounced jaw and plenty of freckles all over her cheeks and arms. There she stood, flanked by a number of people currently kicking an empty bottle. They were the 'popular people' who always congregated in large groups, dominated classes with the rowdy behavior and had no confidence issues at all.
Historia stared sadly at the girl in the distance, feeling as though there may as well be a stone wall between them. It was so stupid of her to have missed someone over the summer who she had never held a proper conversation with.
X
The day had dragged but she was happy that her classes were the same as last year. Mina was in almost all of them so at least she had someone to sit with; Mikasa and Sasha were in a different band so they classes never crossed over. Sadly, Historia wondered whether Mina would have still sat with her if the other two girls happened to be in their classes.
Ymir also happened to be in Historia's classes like English, maths and science which she was secretly glad about. Honestly, Ymir and her friends weren't bad students. Yeah they were a bit too loud and sometimes got on the teachers' nerves, but they got decent grades and weren't usually disrespectful to the staff. Ymir enjoyed playing the class joker a lot of the time and Historia found her very funny. Despite this, she had never properly spoken to Ymir and most of her opinions of her had been formed through obsessive observations.
Physics was the last lesson of the day so Historia was one of the first to arrive and settled herself down. Just one more hour, she thought desperately, her blue eyes searching for the clock. She fiddled with her pink folder anxiously as she waited for her friend to arrive. Other than Mina, most people didn't pay her much attention. Typically she was the quiet girl who got good grades, didn't have many friends and was probably considered to be a bit of a loner. Once or twice, she received some attention from guys but she honestly didn't know whether they were serious or making fun of her so she ignored them.
"Hey Historia," a voice came from behind her.
"Hi Mina," she said to her pig tailed friend who took a seat next to her.
They waited for the teacher to arrive while trying to ignore the noisy 'popular kids' at the other end of the classroom.
"Jean you fucking loser, doing your homework before Hanji arrives," a shrill voice cackled.
Annie snatched Jean's homework, scanned the answers and sneered "I've never read so much bullshit in my life,"
"Annie you're such a dick," another voice laughed as Jean playfully wrestled the paper from the short blonde.
Historia's stomach did a back flip when she recognised who the voice belonged to. Ymir swung back on her chair watching her friends fight over the stupid piece of paper with a cocky grin on her face.
Mina nudged Historia with a knowing smile after catching her staring again.
"D-don't even say anything," Historia muttered with red cheeks and began to stare at the textbook on her desk.
After getting bored with tormenting Jean, Annie turned her attention to the two girls who sat at the front. "Hey Jean, why don't you copy from the nerds at the front?"
Historia felt her cheeks flush darker and her stomach drop. This was why she hated being with too many other people and why she felt anxious all the time.
"Oi, stop being a bitch and sit down," Ymir said in a serious tone while grabbing Annie by her collar and pulling her into the seat next to her.
"Ymir?" the blonde turned to her friend and gave her a questioning look that was returned with a glare.
"Sorry, okay?" Annie said quietly and rubbed her hand over Ymir's.
"Whatever," Ymir replied and then rolled her eyes with a grin but jumped slightly as the door burst open and their physics teacher stomped in.
"Sorry I'm late class!" her loud voice woke up the sleeping students and she set her laptop on her desk.
While their teacher, Hanji, tried to organise the chaos of their lesson, Historia leaned towards Mina and whispered, "see, Ymir is nice,"
"She's a lot nicer than her lapdog Annie but I still don't fully understand why you have such a big crush on her," Mina snickered waiting for her friend to shush her and get embarrassed.
"Well, s-she's nice and she's attractive, I mean she does sports and y-you can tell and uh freckles – yeah, her freckles are cute," Historia muttered, partly to herself, with a dreamy look in her eyes.
"Oh my God Historia, you like her so bad, if she's so nice go talk to her!" Mina urged, trying not to laugh at her cute friend.
"Nooooooooo," the blonde whined with a pained expression and then lowered her voice, practically whispering in her friend's ear, "yeah, I really like her but there's no way someone like her would be interested in someone like me."
"She's popular and loud, so what?"
"Firstly, I physically can't talk to her because, well, you know what I'm like and she'll never like me. If her friends found out they'd probably laugh in my face and ughhh," Historia rested her head in her arms and whined.
Concerned, Mina rubbed her friend's arm. She knew Historia too well and hated to agree with her but she did. Sure, she found Historia's crush on Ymir cute but she secretly knew it would never become anything. Apart from knowing Historia's shyness would hold her back from ever talking to Ymir properly, she highly suspected there was something going on between Annie and Ymir.
As soon as she managed to find her notes for this class, their slightly eccentric physics teacher informed them they'd be spending the next few weeks doing a big group project (which caused a groan from the class).
"Anyway, I'd suggest you take it seriously because this is worth 25% of your final grade," Hanji announced and slammed her fist on the table dramatically, "Oh and before you get into pairs, I'll be assigning the groups. Yes I've deliberately paired you with someone you don't usually work with. Isn't that exciting, getting to work with someone new?"
Historia felt her stomach drop. Oh God no, she thought, her face the same colour as soured milk; this was her idea of personal hell. Usually she'd just go with Mina and everything would be fine, but this? She could be paired up with anyone!
"During lessons you'll have to work with your partner and I'd highly recommend you work together after school either at one of your house's or the library," Hanji explained.
Beside her Mina groaned, "if I have to work with that snot nosed bitch over there, I swear someone will die,"
She immediately understood her friend was referring to Annie who she had history with. While they were at primary school, Mina and Annie used to be the best of friends but once they reached high school, Annie got popular and ditched Mina while turning into a bit of a bully.
Meanwhile, as Hanji found her piece of paper with the already assigned groups written on, Historia was experiencing inner turmoil; while being paired up with anyone 'more popular' would be distressing, there was one person who she desperately didn't want to end up with.
"Ah found it, okay here are the pairs, once I've read them all out you can use the computers in the classroom or go to library," Hanji began listing off her pairs as Historia and Mina sat there with bated breath.
"Eren and Jean,"
"No fucking way," Jean muttered as Eren slammed his book down angrily. They were sort of friend since they hung around the same people but the idea of them working together was an absolute catastrophe.
"Haha Jean, your favourite person," Ymir laughed and turned around to nudge his shoulder.
"There's not many people left Ymir, I hope I get to work with you," Annie said after a while, grabbing the brunette's arm, "although we probably wouldn't get much work done, y'know?"
Ymir laughed as her friend winked at her, "you twat, she said she won't put us with our friends,"
Meanwhile, Mina had her fingers crossed under the table and was aggressively chanting under her breath "please not Annie, please not Annie".
Hanji cleared her throat and continued.
"Mina and Thomas,"
"Oh, thank God!", she whispered.
"Historia and Ymir,"
Wait, what? Historia froze and felt numb. This couldn't be happening. Anyone else she could have coped with, apart from Annie maybe, but she was so nervous around Ymir how could they possibly work together?
Until now, Historia had admired the handsome Ymir from afar therefore the other girl probably didn't have much of an opinion of the quiet blonde but if they were paired up… it was her worst fear since she was sure Ymir would hate her. She would realise she was a weird girl who barely talked and would probably figure out she had the hots for her and laugh in her face.
The rest of the class began to stand and find their project partner but Historia couldn't move. I need to escape, she thought desperately. Usually if something stressed her out she'd go off to "the bathroom" or something, anything…
"Hey, Historia," oh God it was her. Ymir appeared in front of the blonde and looked even taller up close.
"H-Hi," she replied in a quiet voice, feeling her cheeks going pink.
"Uhh, do you wanna go down to the library cos there's more space," the brunette suggested, scratching her head.
"Umm okay,"
Historia got to her feet awkwardly, unable to look Ymir in the eye and grabbed her bag. Her stomach felt like it was doing acrobats and she walked out of the class with her new partner.
They made their way to the library in silence. Ymir walked in big strides and stretched her arms yawning, while Historia looked at the floor and tried her best to keep up. She hates me, she hates me.
"I bet Hanji paired up the two kids with the unusual names," the taller girl laughed as she held a door open for the blonde who noticed how muscular her arms looked while opening doors.
"Yeah probably," Historia laughed nervously.
"You okay, Historia? You seem a bit tense," Ymir asked after a couple of minutes of silence.
Fuck. Oh god she's looking at me, and her eyes are so brown.
The blonde cleared her throat and made an effort to speak louder, "sorry, I just… umm I'm just really shy,"
"Hey, don't worry about it, I'll help you out," Ymir said with a grin.
"T-Thank you," Historia replied, slightly taken aback and feeling her heart melt.
Once at the library the pair settled at a computer and Historia internally freaked out at how her and Ymir's legs were touching.
They started drawing up a plan of their project which involved Ymir typing it up and Historia timidly suggesting ideas. The blonde's eyes wandered to her partner's hands as she typed away; they looked so big compared to hers. As soon as she realised she was visualising how her tiny hands would feel enveloped in Ymir's larger ones she forced away images of their entwined fingers.
Jesus Christ Historia, she thought.
"That looks pretty good already, we'll def' get an A* on this," Ymir said with a wink and Historia let out a nervous giggle. "So you hang around with Mina, right?"
"Uh, yeah, we've been friends for quite a while," Historia replied while fiddling with her notes. For God's sake keep talking you twat, her inner thoughts screamed.
"You play on the school football team, don't you?"
"Yeah! It's great, I love football, well sports in general to be honest," Ymir replied with a spark in her eye, "so what's your favourite thing to do? The thing that gets you through the day?"
Historia blinked in surprise. So far Ymir seemed quite easy to talk to and genuinely interested in what she had to say. Her biggest fear had been that Ymir actually turned out to be really rude but that wasn't the case so far.
"Um, I love writing. I dunno, I like getting home and just lying on my bed and writing whatever I feel like," the blonde explained with a shy smile.
"That's so cool,"
"What, really? Most people say I'm a nerd,"
"Well they're dickheads. If you have one thing you're passionate about then that's all that matters. I could tell 'cos your eyes lit up when you said that,"
Historia couldn't contain her blush and her heart was thumping like crazy. After all this time of not talking to Ymir, she realised maybe it wasn't quite as completely terrifying as she once thought and Ymir was actually really sweat.
The bell made the pair jump and Historia actually felt disappointed. Saving their work, Ymir shut the computer down as the blonde picked up her bag.
"It was great talking to you Historia," Ymir complimented as they exited the library.
"Ah, um you too, Ymir," the blonde stammered. You're so cute, argh.
"See you tomorrow then,"
"Yep, bye Ymir,"
The tall brunette walked off and was flanked by her friends as Historia stood and watched. She knew exactly what she would be writing about when she got home.