There were a lot of firsts, with Pyrrha and him.

Some were public. Highly public, as was the case of his honored bet. The white dress was not very flattering, but the baffled look and the genuine laughter he got out of her was. It wasn't often that he got to feel good just by being his awkward-yet-lovable self.

Sharing funny stories of growing up with his sisters was another. Where before, those might've had the listener making fun of him, Pyrrha seemed delighted to know about his background. Sure, Nora and Yang definitely made fun of him, but he could count on Pyrrha to simply smile and laugh with him.

Simply having her for a best friend was a first. He could be the dork he surely was, the angsty teenager he really ought to stop being, or simply the worried leader of a team of highly skilled warriors (and him), and Pyrrha would be there. Through thick and thin, the redhead has built a reputation for sticking by his side like no other partner in recent Beacon history.

Others were...more private. Jaune was no stranger to sexuality, especially with seven sisters and the gossip that implied, but he'd always considered himself the romantic. Sure, he was curious about the more physical aspects of a relationship, and had, as anyone who'd ever gone through puberty, fantasized as much, but he was worried enough about trying to actually attain a relationship, that sex just...didn't figure in the picture.

It still didn't, of course, but recent events had...maybe brought the concept to the forefront of his mind again.

Weiss liked Neptune. He'd accepted that; he wished he could begrudge him, but he was a legitimately cool dude, if a bit more insecure than first impressions might suggest. It hurt, but then again, it was hardly the first crush he'd failed to woo.

He wasn't that oblivious. He could see that his liking the Heiress had an adverse effect on Pyrrha, but he'd always chalked it up to pity. The same kind of worry someone had for a friend whose course of action was bound to fail.

The night of the dance had brought other possibilities to the mix. Pity clearly wasn't the case. Pyrrha had outright said she wished he had asked her to the party. One would assume, as his date. Now, the more skeptical part of his mind argued she simply didn't want to spend the night without some friendly company. But, if that were the case, wouldn't she have simply suggested the idea to him in one of their many rooftop spars? It could be that she didn't wish to come between him and Weiss, but Pyrrha had to know the Ice Queen would shoot him down.

It had kept him up at night for weeks after that awesome night. Pyrrha even noticed as much, when he started slipping up more and more during their rendezvous. He passed it off as nerves for the upcoming tournament at first, but Pyrrha wasn't as successful as she was from being lucky. She was smart, and the excuse ran thin much too fast for him to come up with another.

And he really needed to, because, the past couple of weeks, he'd noticed, for the first time, that Pyrrha Nikos, Champion of Mistral and former face of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes, was a girl. A very attractive, exquisitely formed young woman, in fact.

He'd flirted with her once, right at the start of the year, sure, but he hadn't even stopped to look at her before he'd popped the one-liner. Later, with the events on the Emerald Forest, and the pressure of being Leader, he'd pretty much ignored her. Not until they started training together had he really paid much attention to her, and by then, Weiss held all of his attention on the attraction front.

Now, well. He knew her, at least subconsciously, to be beautiful. In that "wow, she should be leader because she's talented, smart, and beautiful" kind of way. But until that night of the dance, he hadn't noticed just how much. That red dress haunted his dreams for at least a week, with its bare back, and the slit that let you glimpse at the mile-long legs usually hidden away by leather, cloth, and bronze.

The dress was bad enough, but then they resumed their sparring.

Pyrrha usually wore her armor, and so did he. Their training was usually tame, but could occasionally get more than a little rough, and so she deemed it necessary. Sometimes, though, they would just do conditioning exercises. Running laps, crunches, push ups...whatever was needed for him to get on the level Beacon demanded of its students. Armor was not worn then, and such was that he noticed for the first time that Miss Nikos had curves. For days, even.

On such occasions, he wore workout pants and a sweatshirt. She, on the other hand, wore something more like boxer briefs, and a rather snug sports bra. Nora said Blake had the best behind, and Yang the best chest, but Jaune would argue Pyrrha had the better balance.

That he would now argue that about his best friend was pretty telling, and definitely a first.

She'd worn that revealing outfit before, but lately he'd realized her tanned skin wasn't as smooth as he'd assumed; scars both faded and marked littered her legs, back, and abdomen, telling the tale of a fierce warrior who'd survived a thousand battles, though not without some damage. Your soul could heal the wounds, but the scars remained. It was poetic, really, and fitting, from what little he knew of her past. More often than not, he found himself wanting to uncover her story more than her skin, though the latter desire was more than a little present as of late.

Waxing poetic was not at all something he usually did, and so that first was also mentally chalked up.

"Is something wrong, Jaune?" -she asked him, concerned.

He froze for a second. Reminiscing was maybe not the best thing to be doing while in the middle of training, but he wanted to figure out how he truly felt about his partner.

He laughed nervously. "Yeah, Pyrrha. Just distracted, y'know?"

The redhead smiled. "I do. When I was younger, I used to be a lot less focused. It caused me to get a fair number of scars then"

"Noticed that" -he muttered.

She cocked her head. "What was that?"

"Nothing! Just, uh...well, they're normally kinda covered up, but you can see them now." -he said, dumbly.

Pyrrha blushed. "Oh. Sorry, exercising here really makes me miss Mistral's constant breezes. I'll...try to wear something more appropriate next time."

He panicked a little. "No! I mean, no, don't worry. I happen to think they suit you." -he said, then gathered up his courage. "Makes for a nice image."

Pyrrha's eyes widened, her blush intensifying, but then she shut her vivid green eyes and smiled. "Thank you, Jaune. You're not a bad image yourself."

Jaune sighed mentally, relieved he hadn't ruined anything yet. He did have a tournament coming up, and a lot of figuring out ahead of him.

Maybe...if she won, he could talk about it with her. He just hoped, that, just this one time, he wouldn't mess things up.

It would certainly be a first.