Maxaro: Moral of the story; don't let me and Lonely near highschool!AUs. Ever. Unless you like this. Then enable the f*ck out of us.
Yang swallowed down the lump in her throat as she rode up to the driveway of Jaune's house on her bike, noting the absence of his family's huge van as she parked in one of the grassy areas beside it. Group project or no, she hated that she had to be here without Ruby. Usually Ruby made it a lot easier, and things went a whole lot smoother. But now Ruby was sick, and the project was due in just a few short days. Which meant that she had to do it today, if she wanted the free time to help Ruby get better. And that meant they had to do it without Ruby too.
She strode up to the door and knocked, and it took a few more knocks for Jaune to open the door. She wasn't surprised to see him still in his pajama pants and sleep shirt. Which, Yang had to admit, was adorable on him, being at least two sizes too big for him.
He smiled at her before having to let out a big yawn and Yang had to force back the urge to squeal at how cute it looked and sounded. "Mornin', Yang. You can come in if you want, I'm guessing you'd rather not work on our assignment outside after all."
She laughed nervously a little, not unlike how he too laughed when he felt awkward, and followed Jaune inside, throwing off her boots as soon as she could. Whoever it was that decided that the Arc household had a no-shoe rule was her hero, because letting her feet 'breathe' was heaven for Yang.
"Ruby feeling any better?" Jaune asked her as he lead them both towards his and his sister Noir's shared room, tilting his head until a few satisfying cracks resonated from within his neck.
"Not yet, but she's eating the entirety of our pantries soup supply thanks to dad..." Jaune let out a soft chuckle at that. Taiyang was always the worrywart about his daughters.
"That's a good thing though, I bet she'll get better in no time." The small talk was helping Yang ease up, if only a bit. But when he threw open the door to his room, and they both stepped inside, she was immediately met with a face full of ebony hair.
"Oh, Yang, I didn't know you were coming over today!" Noir's happy tone betrayed her words, and Yang blushed as she knew exactly what was coming. She was kind of hoping that none of Jaune's sisters were home, and that today would be the day that she would avoid being teased. Yang could dish it out, but she couldn't take it when it involved the cute blonde standing beside her, and Noir was like the master of teasing. Especially when it came to her feelings about Jaune.
"Hi Noir. Ruby got sick so Jaune and I need to finish our assignment from school without her, which means we really need to pick up the pace." Yang hoped Noir got the hint, or at least that she didn't hear the nervousness in her tone, but when Noir's face twisted into a cheshire grin she knew she was in for a rough time.
"Oh really~?" The ebony haired girl practically sang as she got up from her bed and threw her arm around her brother's shoulders, "You and Jauney are gonna work together, all alone, with no one to interrupt you should you start getting frisky...?"
Both Yang and Jaune blushed, Yang because of the suggestiveness in Noir's tone along with the truth of her statement, and Jaune because him getting anywhere near someone as gorgeous as Yang in a sexual way was completely ridiculous.
["U-um th-that's not-" Jaune tried to say, but Noir interrupted him yet again.
"Sure, sure, I get it, you two are still growing after all. Two young kids trying to just make it through the aches and pains of puberty! Ah, it's so romantic. In a weird way." Jaune's blush intensified, and Yang felt like punching her. With insults, because she would never harm Jaune's sisters. That would be a one way ticket to him loathing her forever.
"You're two years older than us!" Jaune said, and Noir just laughed.
"Which means legally I am an adult, and done growing, Jaune we went over this last year. It clearly means that I am your superior!" Jaune wanted to answer back with a 'you always were, that's why I come to you with every little problem,' but he held it in because he knew she would just tease him more. Before Yang had got here, they just calmly sat talking of school and relationships, and videogames like they always did. But of course her teasing persona had to push its way out as soon as she saw Jaune with a girl. A girl that, to her, looked perfect for Jaune. Which of course meant that she had to make the chances of it happening next to impossible.
She liked to see it as a trial by fire; if the girl, or guy (she had seen the way Jaune had looked at that Sun fellow when he had visited), that fancied Jaune could survive her teasing gauntlet she would give them her blessing, but if it turned out the person was just some weak willed plebian that didn't even deserve breathing the same air as her beloved brother, she would quickly get them out of the picture. It was a win-win. Either Jaune got someone as great as he, or Noir got more time with him once the unworthy worm who had been trying to grab his attention had been banished.
"Do you need me to go grab some scented candles or fix up some good mood music for your study-session~...?"
Yang guessed that if her cheeks got any hotter she would potentially set the whole house on fire, so she did the only sensible thing she could do; laugh nervously and scratch the back of her head...
... in a perfect imitation of Jaune's nervous habit... which didn't go unnoticed by Noir.
"N-no! That's fine, we can make do without them, right Jaune?" She gulped and he nodded his head quickly, debating on whether or not he should shove Noir out of the room before she made things even more tense and awkward for them. Noir chuckled in the most evil manner Jaune had ever heard.
"Are you sure? I hear they make things even better!"
"Okay, out, o-out, that's- no more!" Jaune shouted, his voice cracking from how nervous he was, and Yang thought it sounded cute. Noir tried her hardest to fight back against Jaune as he pushed her out, but he was just too strong when his future - or as he saw it - friendships were on the line. Noir couldn't help the smug grin she had on her face, because she knew that no matter what now, her work was done. The atmosphere would be stiff and awkward as all hell, and if they still ended up smooching, then she knew that Yang was the one. She slapped her hands together and walked into the kitchen for a well earned snack.
Silence reigned in the room for a moment after Noir departed, neither Jaune nor Yang really knowing what to say to break the tension. They had been in these kinds of situations before, of course, but they had almost never been left alone after one. Either Ruby or someone of their shared friends were usually there with them to help make the moment less awkward, but now it was just the two of them... alone... both blushing heavily... both replaying Noir's teasing and suggestions in their head...
"W-w-want to j-just get s-started?" Jaune asked awkwardly, not realizing just how his statement could be interpreted. Or how Yang's eyes widened at his Words.
She liked Jaune. She like liked him, alot, and had done so for a while, desperately hoping he would notice that her playful flirting had turned real. But he hadn't, and she hadn't been able to stop finding him sweet. And cute. And handsome. And nice. And brave. And caring... and just as bad as her at doing these kinds of love things for real.
There was a time when she tried to stop caring, but Ruby was so against that that she told her that if she actually did stop trying then she would actually beat her up. Ruby believed that Yang truly deserved the happiness she was looking for, even if that happiness came from the dork that was Jaune Arc.
But now she didn't exactly know what to do, and being alone with him when he said that had effectively shut down her brain. She coughed. "A-a-actually, I think I need a moment!" She squeaked in the highest pitch Jaune had ever heard. She ran out of the room and into bathroom that was exactly adjacent to his room. She locked the door behind her and pulled out her phone anxiously, her shaking hands making the action a lot harder than it needed to be. She dialed the familiar number quickly, completely forgetting that there was such a thing as a contacts list.
The phone started to ring, and a moment later it was answered by the croaking, broken voice of Ruby.
"S-sis? Is everything okay?" The question was immediately followed by a nasty cough and sneeze.
"Yeah, everything's great!" Ruby could tell that, shockingly, everything was, in fact, not great from the very subtle tell she had learned Yang had; whisper-yelling in a high pitched, uncertain voice. "Me and Jaune are doing work and I'm gonna be home before you know it-"
"I know you haven't even started and you're not leaving Jaune's house without kissing him." Ruby interrupted in a deadpan voice, sniffling slightly as she grabbed her 30694th tissue. "Come on, Yang, I know you're crazy about him! Just tell him how you feel and I promise you'll find out he feels the same about you!" Yang and Jaune's little dance had been going on for so. Bloody. Long. And Ruby was frankly sick and tired of having to postpone the party she and Nora had been planning for when they finally just got a room... though she didn't really understand why getting a room would help when confessing one's undying love.
Yang tried desperately to slow down the frantic beating of her heart and calm her raging nerves. "I can't do this, Ruby! There's no way Jaune will feel the same! He will just say that he doesn't like me in that way and then our friendship will be ruined!"
Ruby groaned, and it came out on Yang's end like a dying cat with asthma was trying to take it's last breath. "Yang don't be silly, it won't be the end of your friendship! Jaune's not like that, you know that, I know that, even Blake knows that, and I'm starting to think that Blake actually has a crush on him now, so you better get your butt into overdrive and confess!"
"Blake?! Oh, that lying sack of... I don't know, Rubes, everything is so awkward between us when you're not here!" Ruby blinked. Yang couldn't see it, but she could hear the silence of it loud and clear.
"Oh geez," she sniffled, "I wonder why. It couldn't possibly be that he likes you back." Yang looked into the mirror and noticed that her hair was out of place. She quickly grabbed Jaune's brush and began to brush it back into perfection. "Look, it sounds like you're in the bathroom, so I'm guessing that Noir started teasing you again, and I'm guessing you got scared and panicked."
"I did not panic!"
"But it's alright, calm down, I know a way to fix this! Okay, when you go back into his room, just don't mention that you left, at all, because I know you will with how nervous you are. You'd probably say something stupid like 'sorry nature called and I had to answer it.'" Yang cursed silently so Ruby couldn't hear. She was going to say that. "Just jump right into the assignment, and he'll forget anything ever happened in about ten minutes. Then that's when you make your advances."
"Hold on, I don't-"
"Yang Xiao Long you will kiss that dork before you leave that house, or you're not getting those tickets I promised!" came the shrill voice of Weiss Schnee over the phone.
"Since when have you been in on this Ice Queen!?"
"Since Nora and Ruby wrapped me into the party!"
"What party?!"
"Eep," exclaimed Ruby. "L-look sis, just pretend nothing happened and you'll be fine, gotta go bye!" Ruby hung up the phone and Yang let out a nervous sound before jamming it back into her pocket.
"Okay, you got this..." she said to herself before making her way back into Jaune's room.
She opened the door to the room and said nothing as she got in and sat down on Jaune's bed, taking a deep breath before opening the bag she brought with her. Her eyes were firmly planted on either the floor or the books she took out of her bag because she knew that if she looked at Jaune before her nerves had calmed down more, especially if he was smiling at her in that cute way he always did when he thought it was his fault a situation got awkward, she'd go insane. Again.
'Deep breaths, you can do this. You're Yang Xiao Long for pete's sake, you're not going to back down just because you've been crushing on your handsome and awesome friend Jaune for the past century! You can- no, you will do this!'
"Sorry about Noir, I don't know what's gotten into her recently..." Yang was broken out of her thoughts as Jaune's voice made its way to her ears. "Let's just get started, okay?"
Yang nodded her head silently and Jaune smiled gratefully, making her chest clench in that wonderful way that only he seemed to be able to create. She picked up the book closest book to her on the bed, grabbing her notebook and pencil from her bag as well, and started writing where she had left off.
It was as Ruby said, exactly ten minutes into working on it, it seemed like the awkward air was no longer there, and she could focus on what really mattered. That is, she could have, until Jaune's hand accidentally brushed against hers and her mind took a steep drop into the infinite abyss that was her dumb feelings. Now she was back to square one, thinking about the boy she was sitting just five feet away from. How on earth was she going to get from doing work to kissing him in the span of two hours?
And she only really had two hours. That wasn't a long time at all for something like this. Ruby said to make advances, but what advances were there to make? Things had calmed down, so now she only really could do one thing. Flirt. Like she always did when they were surrounded by friends. When she did that, Jaune always had reason to believe she was joking around, after all there were other people around them to see the effects of such things. But why would she joke around when there was no one to see his embarrassment?
Maybe, just maybe, Jaune would get it now.
If anything, it was better than nothing, right? And she didn't really have anything to lose, if Jaune thought she was being weird she could just claim she was actually joking, like he believed she always did. It was worth a shot, she decided, and for the first time in ten minutes she turned her gaze to where Jaune sat biting on his pencil as he thought about what he was going to write.
"So, Jaune... you planning on bringing anyone to the concert? Weiss did say we could take a plus one after all and I'm sure there are plenty of gals and guys who'd love to spend a night with you..." 'Like me, for example...'
It took a moment for Yang's words to fully register within Jaune's mind, but when they did he blushed and buried his head deeper in his book. "N-no, I haven't asked anyone... and just who these people who'd want to go with me are I have no idea."
"I can think of a few... Sun, for instance, or that Coco girl I always see you talking with in art class, Blake maybe..." 'Or, again, me...' Jaune just looked more intently at his book.
"N-nah, Sun's going with his team, he wouldn't have time for a date. And like I could ever get someone like him, right? Coco too, that's not ever going to happen, she's like the most popular girl in school, even if she is nice, and cool. Also, Blake, really?" He asked it like an actual question, and Yang couldn't control the spike of jealousy and envy she felt as soon as he asked. Even if Blake was like her best friend. She didn't know when to stay in her lane.
"I-I just mean there are a lot of people you could ask, you know. They could be closer to you than you think, and you never really know what their answer might be..." she said, trying to make her voice more sultry, and less nervous.
"Really?" Jaune asked, trying to not blush Bright red again. "I mean... I'm already going with you and Ruby, so asking you would be kind of pointless..." he didn't really realize just what he had said before the words left his mouth and it was too late to take them back.
Yang felt her heart begin to race again, but this time from hope rather than nervousness. "You want to ask me to go with you, Jaune...?" This time the sultry tone she used was a real one, because now she might have a chance.
The blush Jaune had been trying desperately to suppress returned with a vengeance and he couldn't help but let his right hand wander up to the back of his head to scratch it. "W-well, yeah... y-you're, like, one of my best friends, of course I would want to go with you... and you're also gorgeous..." once again Jaune realized he had spoken his thoughts out loud…
One little slip up and Jaune knew that he had probably ruined everything there is to ruin. "So I'm gorgeous, huh? Let's explore this new development, yeah?" Jaune scratched at his cheek as he started sweating profusely, and he scratched the back of his head. All of his nervous tics were starting to make a comeback. "What else do you think about me, Jaune?" Yang's smile was just getting wider and wider by the second, and Jaune wondered just how the heck he was going to get out of this alive.
"W-what is there to explore...?" Jaune backed his chair up and hit the wall as Yang climbed off his bed and started making her way closer to him.
"I'm sure there are some other things you've been wanting to tell me for a long time, right? Why don't we start with those." Jaune knew at this point there was just no going back, he had already said too much, and Yang was going to end up leaving when he revealed that he really wasn't just flirting back and that he actually had things he had always wanted to say. Things that he never could say, for fear of losing someone he had known for so long.
"W-where are you going with this, Yang...?" He asked, desperately trying to play dumb as Yang made her way closer and closer to him, finally ending up pushing her oh so wonderful chest against his as she looked deeply into his eyes.
"Most guys don't just tell a girl they think she's gorgeous right after admitting they want to take said girl to a concert~..." she could feel his breath against her lips, that's how close they were, and it took every ounce of willpower Yang had not to just smash her lips against his right then and there. They were in her terrain now, she could finally don her flirty persona and forget about the awkward, love stricken girl she'd been just a few minutes ago, at least outwardly. 'Come on Jaune, please just say you like me! Please, I want you to like me too so bad!'
She placed her finger on his chest and dragged it up to his left shoulder. She gripped it and then made the distance between them even less. "They don't," he admitted. "B-but I, uh... you are. Uh, gorgeous that is. Beautiful even. E-everybody knows that." She hummed in delight, hearing those words come out of his mouth. On the inside, she was just about to have a heart attack.
"True, but you know, I'm really glad you think so." Jaune wasn't exactly sure what she was hoping to gain from this little game of hers. She could have literally anyone in their school. She could have Weiss, she could have Pyrrha, hell she could have Sun if she wanted and he was gay! There was no way in hell that she was doing this because she was interested in him! No way!
"W-why is that?"
Gathering up the last shreds of courage she had, Yang began slowly closing what remained of the distance between them, hoping, praying that he felt the same as she. She closed her eyes, catching one last glimpse of Jaune's own shocked eyes, before her lips finally met his in the kiss she had been longing yet dreading for years. The first thing she noted was how just... right it felt, even if it was merely a soft kiss. It didn't feel as awkward as she thought first kisses, she guessed it was his first kiss, were supposed to be. It felt natural, like her lips were always meant to be on Jaune's, and when one of his hands cupped her cheek while the other sought out her hand she could feel her heart soar.
'He's kissing me back... he likes me too..." she thought Before she broke the soft kiss and once again looked deeply into Jaune's eyes.
"Oh..." Jaune breathed out. "I never thought..." Yang smiled softly and pulled him out of his chair, leading him to his bed. Jaune sat with his back against the wall, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I..."
"You don't have to talk right now," Yang said softly. "You already told me." He looked down at her, and the light streaming in from his window hit her hair just right, illuminating the golden strands, seemingly making her glow. She looked absolutely angelic. He looked down at the book still in his hands, and set it down beside him. He didn't feel like working on the assignment anymore.
"Yang, do you want to go to that concert with me?" He asked with a humorous smile.
She giggled and punched him lightly in the arm, "I thought you'd never ask."
Sometime later Ruby's phone buzzed, signaling she got a message. She, along with Weiss and Taiyang when they realized it was from Noir, crowded around the phone as they opened the message and saw the picture of Yang and Jaune kissing on his bed within it.
"Go Yang!" Ruby and Weiss cheered, not noticing the rage burning within Taiyang's eyes as he watched someone defile his oldest daughter.