FRIENDS ➳ jean kirstein

015. STRINGS

Charlie - November 15, 2020
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Charlie could vividly imagine what Armin would say if he could see her struggling with her homework then and there.

"It's basic differentiation," he would say. "It's not that hard."

All math was basic math to Armin. But this was so far from basic differentiation—which Charlie hadn't actually been too bad at. Now that sine, cosine and tangent were in the picture, however, her mind couldn't begin to grasp how to even make an attempt at doing her homework. Truth be told, she didn't even know what sine, cosine and tangent meant. It was something to do with trigonometry, she thought, so why the hell were they now being included in differentiation. Wait, what was differentiation again?

Charlie was saved by her distress by a soft rapping of knuckles against her bedroom door, but the distress rushed back to her once she turned around in her seat and saw just who had done the knocking.

"Hey," Eren smiled sheepishly, holding up a carton of chocolate milk and a bag of ring donuts. "Can I come in?"

In all her years of knowing him, Charlie was sure she had never borne as much resentment for Eren as she did in that moment. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd never resented him at all. Nevertheless, she blinked away the red haze that seemed to be blurring the edges of her vision and gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, turning back into her desk and closing her textbook.

"Sure," she responded. "What's up?"

Somewhere behind her, Charlie heard her bed creak and groan, telling her that Eren had taken a seat on its edge. It took him at least half a minute to swallow his pride and say what he had come to say—Charlie listened avidly as he sighed loudly, heard the shuffling movement of his hoodie as he raked a hand through his hair.

"Cherry," he spoke at last. It may have only been one word, but at least it was something. Swallowing down a harsh lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat, Charlie slowly rounded on Eren, giving him the most bland expression she could muster.

Once more, Eren's hand pushed through his hair. He sighed, rubbed his palm across his mouth, then he placed the milk and donuts aside and finally plucked up the courage to look Charlie in the eyes.

"Look, I know we don't do the whole sappy, 'You mean the whole world to me, I love you more than I love Marvel movies,' best friend thing, but—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Charlie swiftly interjected, pointing a warning finger at Eren. "Because if you start with the whole sappy best friend thing, I'm gonna throw up. And I just cleaned this carpet, so I don't wanna deal with that."

Eren frowned, bewilderment written all over his face. "I didn't think you even knew how to clean your room."

"Yeah, well, I had some things to get off my mind," Charlie grumbled, arching an eyebrow in a sort of challenging manner. She watched, feeling momentarily better about what had happened earlier with Eren as his face fell in shame. But the satisfaction dissolved as quickly as it had materialised.

"I'm sorry, Cherry," Eren said, and Charlie actually blinked in surprise, because she didn't know he had it in him to verbally admit that he was wrong and own up to said wrongdoings. She had thought a little gift would be the extent of his apology, and although she still felt like complete and total shit, she knew when Eren walked through her bedroom door with the chocolate milk and ring donuts that she would forgive him entirely in a day or two.

"I was pissed off and I took it out on you, and that wasn't fair," Eren continued, and Charlie was sure she was about to go into shock. She hadn't known he even knew how to say the word sorry.