Weiss was taking forever. Yang wasn't the kind of girl to keep to a schedule, but the dining hall was going to close at some point and she liked to eat after exercise. It had all started that morning, when she'd thrown on a tank top and shorts on her way to the door. The room was empty aside from Weiss, who'd been reading in bed, and only piped up when Yang was leaving.
"Where are you going?" Yang had turned around, surprised that Weiss was taking a study break to ask her a dumb question.
"I'm going to work out," she'd replied. "You know. Pump iron. Punch things. The usual." Weiss's book had snapped shut, expelling a puff of dust into the air. Yang watched it settle, tapping her foot gently on the floor.
"Can...can I come? I've been thinking lately that perhaps it might do me some good to take a more, ah, physical approach to my training. I don't want to be the weakest link." Yang had figured out a long time ago that telling Weiss she wasn't the weakest anything never did any good, so she just ignored that.
"Yeah, sure. Just throw on some gym clothes and we'll head out." Weiss's brows had creased.
"Gym clothes?"
And that was how Yang was still here in the room, an hour and a half later. She'd explained the whole deal about loose, stretchy, and comfortable, and then mentioned a brand. Weiss had run down to the city before Yang could blink, promising to be back soon with the proper wardrobe. Yang's offers of a loaned pair of sweats had fallen on deaf, bourgeois ears.
"Miss Schnee—"
"That's right. Schnee. I can pay for any product you have in this store. All I am asking you for is this top." Weiss waved around a small, stretchy exercise halter.
"You can buy that one," said the employee. Ebon, according to the nametag affixed to his black polo shirt.
"I want it," she said in tones of high exasperation, "in periwinkle." From the corner, a few employees shot glances of sympathy at the one she was consulting. She could feel other customers staring, but even better than her Semblance was the hereditary ability to carry oneself as if no one was watching.
"Ma'am, there's another top in periwinkle, just not this one. Could I interest you in—" She cut Ebon off as he reached for a nearly identical top.
"Have you checked in the back? I know you have boxes upon boxes back there. I do not want another top. I want this top, just in another color."
"It's not in the back, ma'am, we don't carry that garment in that color. I'm very sorry."
"Well..." Weiss drew herself up for another declaration, but found that she couldn't argue the point anymore. "You should be. I'll take that." She snatched the replacement top from his fingers and strutted over to checkout, ignoring the sigh of relief she heard behind her. The cashier didn't make eye contact with her and rang her up quickly. Halfway through checkout her scroll buzzed in her pocket.
"Weiss? Where are you?" Yang's voice was flat and toneless, a sure sign that she was put out. Weiss put out her arm, and the cashier obediently draped her bag of clothes on her arm.
"The store. I'm coming up right now!" Weiss considered using some Dust on a haste sigil; it was horribly embarrassing to be late. But in the end she just power walked it, hoping Yang wouldn't be too upset with her.
When Weiss walked through the door of their room in yoga pants and a periwinkle exercise top, the only thought that went through Yang's mind was "Wow, I'm gay". Weiss complained about her experience at the store for several minutes, so Yang managed to play off her shock while she was regaining her power of speech. For someone who probably weighed one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, Weiss had really well-defined calves and thighs, probably from all the running around she had to do. The yoga pants alone were worth a few seconds of stunned, worshipful silence. Nothing would ever be the same.
"So, are we leaving now?" It was the first thing Weiss had said since her arrival that merited response; accordingly, Yang fumbled to come up with one.
"Oh! Yes. Yeah, let's go." She grabbed a bottle of water on the way out.
"So where's the gym?" Weiss asked, as Yang turned down yet another endless corridor. Yang laughed.
"There's no one gym. I mean, at a school like this, practically everyone is training all the time, so there's like a million gyms, and most of them are empty since everyone doesn't exercise at once. The way it's ended up, you just move the exercise equipment you like to an empty gym, and everyone who likes what you like uses it, too. I'm pretty sure no one else is using mine right now, though..." What Yang didn't say was that she liked it that way. Exercise was one of the few things she wasn't usually extroverted about. She would never have let a non-teammate come work out with her. As it was, aside from seeing Weiss in gym clothes, group workouts didn't seem to have many benefits so far.
They made it to Yang's gym. As promised, no one was inside. Instead of people, there were resistance machines, a rack of free weights, and a few punching bags in various states of disrepair. Both girls inhaled deeply, the smell of sweat and metal. Weiss made a face, but Yang couldn't hold back her smile.
"Alright! Weiss, if you want to work out my way, you need to work on those arms. Just work your way through the machines on the far wall, okay?" Weiss nodded, and set her face in that hard way she did when she was faced with a huge Grimm or a powerful enemy. She advanced on a fly machine, set the resistance to 90 pounds, and did her best to pull the arms of the machine in front of her. She could not get the weight to budge.
Yang thought she might need a little encouragement, so she flashed Weiss a smile while she pulled a dumbell up to her shoulder.
Weiss never put much thought to her sexual orientation, but watching a sweaty Yang smile at her, all the tanned muscles in her arms bulging, brought her nothing but the thought, "Wow, I'm gay". She smiled back weakly and set the weight thirty pounds lower so she could actually use the machine, did a few sets, and moved on to the next thing.
Just when Weiss' arms were beginning to feel liquid, Yang called her over to the area with the punching bags and hung the least battered one from the ceiling. Yang wrapped her own hands in white cloth, then did the same to Weiss, noting with approval the small hard patches on her hand from using her rapier. They looked redder than usual, worn a bit from the rough handles on the resistance machines.
Weiss tried not to let her hand shake in Yang's as large, rough fingers gently touched her from palm to forearm before pulling the cloth tight. She hardly listened to Yang's lecture on how to throw a punch; it was nothing she hadn't heard before. But she snapped to attention when Yang advanced on the bag.
She immediately pitied everyone who'd ever been on the receiving end of Yang's punches. She wasn't pulling her punches, but she was clearly not going all out to keep her form up. Even still, every punch blasted small black flecks of the bag into the air and sounded like a thunderclap. When the momentum of a punch kept her body moving, she simply rolled, kicked the bag with her flying feet, and came up on the other side, hitting again. Her breath control was superb, keeping her core tight and her chin down. Then, without preamble, she put her arms down, stilled the back with a hand, and grinned at Weiss. It was like watching a hissing snake turn into a puppy.
"Come on, you try!" Weiss put her arms up, but she felt bumbling and silly. She wanted Myrtenaster, but she had signed up to fight Yang's way. She punched the bag and felt a sharp pain shoot up her arm.
"Hey, that hurt!" she said. Yang cackled..
"Want me to kiss it better? Come on, you've got to keep your wrist firm and straight. Go on, try again." Pushing down the very real fact that she had wanted Yang to kiss it better, Weiss tried again, this time moving the bag back— but only a centimeter.
"Wait, this thing is really heavy! What's in it, bricks?"
"Ball bearings," Yang said cheerfully.
"I think we should do something else," Weiss replied. Yang cocked her head to the side.
"Like what?"
"How about we take a water break? Only, in the room, with tea and textbooks." Amused, Yang followed her back to the safety of the dorm. It went to show, some people just couldn't roll with the punches.