In the Pursuit of Happiness

As the final student made his way out of the classroom door while bidding his instructor a cheerful farewell, Armin happily returned his student's pleasantry with an astute grin frozen on his features until the student ventured into the hall out of his eyesight. Only then did Armin's facial muscles return to resting expression.

Relief...

Armin allowed his shoulders to slump from their rigid position and a small sigh to tumble from his mouth as an act of relaxing catharsis. Judging by the warm, honey-golden sunlight seeping through the windows and sculpting shapes in shadows on the wooden floor, the time fell somewhere between mid-afternoon and early sunset. The clock in Armin's designated classroom broke months ago, though nobody delegated time, equipment or energy for its repairs. Thus, the intuitive blonde relied on sunlight to guide him through his daily schedule.

The solitude from a lack of rowdy students eager to learn and disrupt their teacher, uptight co-workers magnetised to rules and regulations, or over-enthusiastic friends anticipating their much-needed weekend break was a luxury Armin seldom granted himself. Figuring he might as well enjoy the silence while it lasted, Armin wordlessly erased his notes and teaching material from the large blackboard spread along the wall. Each stroke of the eraser expelled powdered chalk like a metaphor of suppressing each memory Armin unconsciously created from the current, more than a difficult week he had experienced.

And, like a cruel (but not unwelcome) act of fate, Armin's short-lived quiet moment abruptly ended. Marco cautiously searched the classroom in its student-less glory through the medium-sized opening of the door and smiled with friendly delight upon discovering Armin.

"Hey, Armin! Great work today!" Marco greeted with idiosyncratic enthusiasm only the freckled man could emulate on a Friday afternoon.

"Thanks, Marco, you too," Armin replied with commendation, with a tired, exasperated smile that widened Marco's own sympathetically. Multitasking the rest of his duties while debriefing with friends never troubled Armin, especially when Marco (or Jean, when he wasn't undertaking a week-long absence) were accompanying him. Besides, Marco's natural consideration always perked him up.

"Rough week?" The brunette entered the classroom properly to approach the podium Armin based himself behind when teaching his class.

"They've been unbelievably troublesome all week," Armin complained stressfully. Anger and indignance slowly bubbled to his surface. These emotions were entirely foreign to Armin. His students deliberately antagonised him with any chance they encountered this week to his breaking point; this usually involved Armin meekly excusing himself from the classroom, idling tensely in the hallway while the sounds of his students' irritating, skull piercing giggles haunted him. Cleaning the blackboard while reliving frustrating memories was not advisable - Armin halted his rough rubbing stationary in a single continuous circle on one place on the board.

"How many detentions this time?" Marco prompted as if routine.

"Um...six. Just for today. And you can only imagine the amount I've distributed throughout the week," Armin rolled his eyes, glancing over his shoulder to his friend supporting his weight with the teacher's podium.

"Mm, I don't want to imagine. That sucks for you, though," he sighed. "Hopefully you haven't received too much extra paperwork to cover the detentions."

"It becomes routine after a while. Thank God it's the weekend, huh?" Armin hummed wistfully.

Nothing comprehensible could compare to the blonde's excitement for the short break from his teenaged cohort. Though the two days would instantly begin and end before him, inevitably filled with barely enough downtime to recharge himself, plus inventing new material for his classes and presented with clarity and simplicity, Armin was thankful that his identity as a teacher, and an analyst for the Survey Corps, was solely reserved for weekdays.