"So what're you doing here?" I ask her, perhaps a little bluntly, after I get over my shock of encountering someone I know here of all places, and after she forces me to buy her another drink. Damn alcoholic.
She feigns a hurt expression, "Why Jaune!" she exclaims, loud enough that we get a few annoyed glances from the other patrons (I'm sorry, inconsequential patrons, but you will have to be duly ignored) "Is it so out of character for me to say hello to a friend?"
"No it isn't," I shake my head at her grin of victory, "It's more out of character for your rampaging murder boner to get flaccid enough to go to places where there aren't any poor innocent Grimm to slay."
Yang gives me an incredulous look at my dull statement, "Poor innocent Grimm?" she questions, tilting her head. She completely ignores the 'murder boner' part of my statement, go figure.
I sigh, but I'm inwardly excited for her reaction of what I was about to show her. I extract my scroll from my pocket, quickly type something into my preferred search engine - Schnayahoo, for the curious. Jaune Arc always supports his friends - and then hit enter. It takes a few seconds to load, but after it does I tap the first result, and then hand her my scroll.
She takes it with her robotic arm, and then uses her organic one to scroll through the article I showed her, expression shifting into one of supreme amusement after a few seconds of reading, a few snickers escape her as she reads through the article, and by the time she reached the end. She was laughing uproariously.
Cue more annoyed glares. Engage maximum apathy overdrive. Going through the shit we've had, one learned to be a bit callous. My younger self would have been so ashamed.
"Hey," I say in a deadpan voice, miraculously finding the self control to avoid laughing, "the Grimm Rights Protection Movement is serious shit. The Grimm have been an integral part of Remnant's history ever since we can remember; while they may not have been the most courteous of companions, they have been companions nevertheless. But I guess someone like you, one who has hunted humanity's closest companion to near extinction, cannot hope to understand their significance. Utterly disgusting. People like you make me sick."
Yang was wheezing for air at this point, clutching her sides. My Scroll fell from her weakened grip, but I put my years of combat experience into good use and managed to catch it. One would think that being part of the team that helped save humanity itself from destruction would've helped pay the bills, but nope. Sure, shower us with affection and praises but actually give us something useful? Heh, fat chance. Plus, that thing has my porn stash on it.
"Was - was that actually real?" she asks me after the laughter subsided into something calmer, and quieter.
"Yep," I say and nod, popping the 'p' for extra emphasis, "they're real alright. Some people are just that stupid."
"And is there actual support for them?" she asks the question, but it's clear that she doesn't really worry. Stupid people tended to kind of, well, die in a world like Remnant.
"They got their ass slammed within the first few weeks."
"Aw," Yang gives me a faux pout, "but their cause was so noble!"
"I know right?" I give her an equally faux nod in agreement. We manage to hold onto our facades of solemnity for a few more seconds before those very same facades are smashed with a hammer.
It feels...good to be having a conversation with a friend like this. While Yang and I have never been particularly close, we've been through a lot together, and we're far from strangers. Not getting my ass kissed by those who wanted to take advantage of my fame as one of the people who had toppled Salem's reign is great too.
"Anyway," I say after a little while of joking, and absentminded drinking, "back to my question. What are you doing here?"
Yang rolls her eyes, placing her Strawberry Sunrise to the counter, and crossing her arms under her considerable bust. I try to not let my eyes stray, truly one of the greatest challenges ever given to a single young-adult. "I already told you," she purrs, and I wonder if Blake is really the one who resembles a cat the most in team RWBY, "I just came to say hi." She leans ever so slightly closer to me. Not enough to be noticeable to anyone but me. I'd like to say that her games didn't affect me, I'd really like to.
"Even when the person 'you came to say hi' to is in..." I crease my brow, honestly having no idea what the name of this town even is, "uh, whatever this place is even called."
Yang gives me an amused look, "Whoa, vomit-man, maybe you should ease up on the liquor. Don't want you turning into the second coming of Uncle Qrow now, would we?"
I grimace at the thought, glaring at her all the while, "That's real rich, coming from you."
She pouts at me, and lesser men would've fallen for her feminine wiles at the spot, "Whatever do you mean?" she asks in a disgustingly sweet tone of voice.
"Remember that time whem you had that drinking contest with Qrow and Nora?"
Her pout dies an ugly death. I revel in the satisfaction, I did not revel in the elbow to the gut, but some victories require sacrifices. Strategy 101.
"We agreed to never speak of that!" She hisses, face gaining just the slightest of pink.
I leaned forward, intending to push my luck. Verbal victories against Yang had grown rarer and rarer as she grow wiser and older: blunt innuendos turned into cunning verbal traps, something much more subtle and effective.
"Oh, really? But don't you want to relive the memory of how you-!"
Okay...the elbow to the gut this time nearly broke through my Aura. I think it's time to stop, live to fight another and all of that good stuff.
A pained wheeze, and a warning look from one fiery blonde brawler later and we fall back into a comfortable silence. Damn it.
She dodged the subject, again. She's awfully good at that, always has been, and probably always will be. My earlier comparison of Yang to a cat is wrong, she's more of a vixen.
My gaze bores into her eyes with pinpoint intensity, and the veneer of embarrassment quickly fades. As perceptive as she is cunning, that one.
"Why are you really here?" I ask in a deathly serious tone of voice, all the remaining traces of joviality left the air. As whimsical as Yang seemed, she was not one to conduct any serious action without reason, and finding me in a town whose name I can't even remember suggested that she sought me out for a reason. Maybe that reason is important, maybe it is trivial, who knows?
Yang's shoulder sags, and she sighs in exhaustion. For a second I feel guilty. I have a feeling that Yang had been our banter as a way to ease herself into getting into the reason why she had sought me out. But I push that guilty away, I'm not one to beat around the bush, and if the problem is serious, then I would need to address it as soon as possible.
Silence reigns for a few seconds. And just when I am about to ask what was wrong. Yang opens her mouth and speaks.
"It's Ruby," Yang says, a worried crease to her brow, "she's pushing herself way too hard."
"What happened?" I ask.
"She collapsed yesterday," Yang says, clenching her robotic fist around the glass of Strawberry Sunrise, afraid that the glass would shatter, I placed a hand to her shoulder. She stops grasping the glass so hard. She gives me a grateful look, I just nod in turn.
"Collapsed?" I aske, somewhat stunned, Just how exhausted had she been? I mean, Ruby 'The Hero of Humanity' Rose is a really really busy person, sure, and she has a really bad habit of pushing herself - but not to the point of collapse, never to the point of collapse.
"Yeah," Yang grits her teeth, and I know that she blames herself. A virtuous flaw of her's: her mother hen personalty. I've experience it personally, everybody our little group has. She's the most overly protective over her sister, as expected. Whenever Ruby's hurt she always blames herself, it's something that I hate, yet can't help but find charming.
I expected her to continue on to say something, to elaborate, anything really, but the void of silence stretched on for far too long. I let out a breath and finally made manifest the question that I wanted to ask ever since I figured out the reason she sought me out.
"What do you need me to do?" I ask her. As long as it's in my power. I would do damn near anything to keep Ruby Rose safe and healthy: she's pulled me out of the fire so many times that it's not even funny. If I can help her in any way possible, anyway at all, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
"Talk to her."
Her response catches me off guard for a little bit. That's it? Just...talk to her. i know that she considers me an elderly brother figure and all, but talking to her didn't seem like it would really resolve the issue.
Yang sees my doubt and elaborates further, "If it's you, then she'll definitely listen."
She looks just a little bitter as says that. I'm not even touching that an hill with a ten foot stick, not even if you pay me.
I let the subject drop (probably the wisest thing I've done in a long while) and utter the only response that I can possibly give, "Okay."