8:30 a.m.
Ren shifted his shoulder uncomfortably, doing his level best not to dislodge the ginger head resting upon it. Nora might be an up-and-at-'em kind of person every morning, and she might be hyper to a fault the remainder of the time she was awake… but, if she decided to take a nap—which was a last resort for when she was unutterably bored—Ren had learned the hard way never to wake her before she was ready. Let sleeping redheads lie.
Peter Port was not a very interesting professor, reflected Ren, as he stared impassively down at the gray-haired, long-winded teacher far below where he and Nora sat. He had been lecturing almost nonstop (pausing only to crack the occasional ill-received joke) for roughly an hour, if Ren's calculations were at all right. What was more, Port had been explaining concepts Ren already knew, telling stories no one cared about, and generally making a fool of himself and his subject.
Far more interesting was the peacefully slumbering Nora as she let out a peaceful, contented sigh, snuggling half-consciously up to Ren's arm. He almost smiled, an indescribable thought dancing on the tip of his mind, but then Port snapped himself out of his anecdote and challenged the class to demonstrate the true characteristics of a Hunter, and it faded away again.
11:45 a.m.
"Time! Switch. Last set!"
Ren groaned internally as he gently placed the barbell back into its rack before sitting up, feeling vaguely lightheaded from having been lifting it for about five minutes straight. If he reported this to the government, it might be considered slave labor—but then, he reflected, accidentally catching Glynda Goodwitch's stern green eyes before he glanced quickly away again, it was doubtful anyone would dare complain.
Across the room, Cardin Winchester set down the weights as though it had been nothing, and envy flashed briefly across Ren's mind before he froze it in its poisonous tracks. There was no sense in comparing himself to others, especially when those others happened to tower over almost everyone else and plainly had a lot of free time to be lifting weights. And probably a few more meals than I've had.
Nora deftly readjusted the weights to be ever so slightly lighter, enthusiastically clambered onto the bench, and—once Glynda had given the signal—began lifting. Ren smiled slightly, proud of his only friend's prowess at physical activity—she had to be strong in order to heft Magnhild, and no one knew it better than Ren. Anytime Nora was considered weak, it had to be only because of her bubbly personality (no one could look at her muscles for more than a couple seconds and think otherwise); because she was so optimistic, they automatically assumed she was stupid. Nora might be painfully oblivious sometimes, and she might be able to talk your ear off for hours on end (fortunately excluding the times she was busy lifting weights), but she was anything but dimwitted.
The next five minutes or so passed much more quickly than when Ren had been on the bench; Nora, after replacing the barbell, sat up as though still fully energized as Glynda called time (and added that there would be a break for showers, much to Ren's relief). But before Ren could say anything, though what he might have said would remain hidden even to him, Nora had wandered over to Cardin Winchester's group; something very like jealousy licked at Ren's heart as he watched her, dumbfounded. She never just… leaves me like that.
"You're really strong!" exclaimed Nora, looking up at the tall, muscular boy, who looked down at her, plainly surprised that she dared approach him. "Even more than me," she added somewhat unhelpfully. "How did you get to be that strong? It's only the first day of class."
Cardin glanced down at her with a condescending sort of grin, and Ren instinctively moved closer to the two of them—though careful to keep out of Cardin's sight—in case he needed to protect Nora. "You think I've never trained a day in my life before today? Just because you have doesn't mean that's true for all of us." His teammates gave wolfish grins, and Ren glowered internally, though still keeping his private emotions hidden from the outside world. The last thing he needed was to make enemies on the first day of class (though that principle would go straight out the window if they threatened Nora).
"I don't think you were watching me very carefully," responded Nora cheerfully. "I lifted almost as much as you did. Just a lighter weight, since you were practically lifting my weight with no problem." Rocking back and forth on her heels, as she always did when she was nervous, Nora's smile nonetheless didn't waver. How does she even do that?
Cardin laughed unpleasantly. "I'd have to add a few more in order for that to be true," he added, patting the weights. "You don't seem too light yourself. All those pancakes must have gone straight to your belly."
For a shaky moment, Ren thought Nora's seemingly unbreakable confidence had shattered—as did Team CRDL, as they snickered at Nora's suddenly crestfallen expression—but she just shrugged after noting their reactions. "I'm sorry for you," she said, a sad little smile reemerging (to Cardin's clear astonishment). "At least part of my weight, whatever it is, is in my head."
Tilting her head as Cardin looked a little lost for words, Nora's smile became noticeably brighter and Ren breathed a sigh of relief (perhaps mixed in with some admiration). Nora weighs one hundred thirty-seven pounds and I wouldn't want her any other way, growled Ren mentally to Cardin. Unfortunately, as though his thoughts had attracted the bully's attention, Cardin's eyes snapped to Ren.
"I see your boyfriend is skulking around as usual," he observed loudly. "Doesn't he know it's not polite to eavesdrop on private conversations?" he added pointedly; Ren ignored his obvious passive-aggressiveness and stepped forward somewhat more cautiously than usual.
"What's my business is Ren's," shrugged Nora, turning to greet Ren with a wide smile and open arms. Ren gently but futilely gestured for her to put her arms down, not wanting to re-circulate the rumor that they were dating (as had happened many a time before).
"Well, I'll leave you two lovebirds alone, then," Cardin chortled, turning in an excessively conceited way; his three teammates followed him immediately. Half-expecting Cardin to throw back a snarky comment or two, Ren's eyes followed them all the way out the door before he turned to Nora, who placed her hand on his shoulder before he could say anything.
"I know," she said sadly, no hint of a smile on her face. "I did it again, didn't I? I acted… well, like I always do, in front of a stranger. I'm sorry. It's just so hard for me to—"
"Nora," interrupted Ren. "Don't worry about it." He might have added some vocalization of his admiration for how she stood up to Cardin before he botched everything, but Glynda Goodwitch was approaching with a frown on her face, so he decided to stop there.
"Mr. Lie, Miss Valkyrie, what do you think you're doing? Everyone's left. Go take your showers and meet back here before you're officially dismissed." Without even waiting for an answer, she stalked out the door, and Ren and Nora exchanged a smile before following her.
12:00 p.m.
"Ruby? What… are you doing here?"
Jaune peered at the girl who had wedged her way between Jaune and Pyrrha (much to the latter's annoyance, Ren noted) somewhat suddenly. She glanced up as though surprised by the question before sighing and staring, downcast, at her uneaten lunch.
"Didn't you see how Weiss was acting in first period? She didn't even talk to me all second. And now they're all sitting over there"—Ruby pointed to the rest of her team, sitting further down the same table—"and she's still not in a good mood! I've tried everything, but she won't accept my apologies…"
Jaune sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," he began sympathetically, giving Ruby a somewhat shy smile. "You can stay with us until she—" He stopped dead as Yang Xiao Long, the girl with the scary attitude and occasionally flaming hair (which now lay thick but dormant against her head), marched towards them and—without any kind of ceremony or explanation—seized her sister by the cape and dragged her down the table to where Team RWBY sat.
Though he looked sorry as Ruby's eyes pled to help her, Jaune was also plainly intimidated enough by the blonde-haired, violet-eyed beauty that he would rather risk Ruby's good opinion of him than his life and limbs.
Ren glanced down at Nora, startled, to see that she was eyeing his previously nonexistent dessert with delight (Ren had cleared his plate, or so he thought, and he was too full to have gone back for seconds). Who sneaked this onto my plate? …Nora. Definitely Nora. Why was that a question to begin with?
"Can I—"
Ren shoved his tray at Nora before she even finished her sentence, looking away as she happily seized it. "I knew I could," she announced, mouth full of ice cream; Ren was doubly pleased because he wasn't watching her. Ever since he was very little, it had made him extremely uncomfortable to watch other people eating, but it was especially bad with Nora: it felt… wrong, somehow.
Glancing momentarily at Pyrrha, Ren was surprised to see her clear her throat and nod in the direction of Nora: Ren turned his head to see Nora, smiling happily, brandishing a spoonful of ice cream at him.
"You know I'm full," muttered Ren. "Go on, have your last bite. I don't want it." Nora's only response was to move the spoon further towards him; Ren leaned away automatically. "Take it!" added Ren, more forcefully. "Don't save any for me."
He tried gently pushing the spoon away, but it returned insistently… and also much closer to his mouth. Nora's smile teasingly danced in his vision as he swallowed. Chocolate ice cream, he thought, eyeing the spoonful. Chocolate. How did she know my weakness? I've kept it so well hidden. But… I really shouldn't eat any more, regardless.
Taking a deep breath, Ren opened his mouth to give Nora his final warning that she should eat it or he would knock it off the spoon, but immediately found it filled with ice cream (and his ears with Team JNPR's giggles). Glowering at no one in particular, mainly to suppress his own urge to laugh, Ren swallowed his bite of dessert and did his best to look sour.
But, once the laughter had died down somewhat and Nora was about to change the subject, Ren suddenly covered her chocolate-smeared mouth with a napkin, and she was quite speechless as he smiled.
2:15 p.m.
"Now you're king of the castle," giggled Nora; Ren started, having been in that delightful, ethereal place between wakefulness and sleep, and immediately narrowed his eyes at his best friend before gauging from her ecstatic expression and the direction her eyes looked that there was something on his head.
Waving his hand through the air above his hair (Nora gasped), he immediately knocked off a yellow paper crown, differently colored gemstones drawn onto every point with crayons, and his lotus emblem sketched onto what Ren supposed was the front in a clumsy way that, if anyone but Nora had drawn it, might have offended him deeply.
"Aw, you're not the king anymore," whined Nora, bending down disappointedly to pick up the paper crown. "Now who am I gonna marry to be queen?" She gave him a somewhat uncertain smile, cheeks as rosy as ever but no rosier. How can she say that without turning completely red?
Suppressing a blush of his own with difficulty, Ren heaved a sigh. "I don't know, but you're going to have to find someone else." I guess, he added to himself halfheartedly. However implausible it seemed for Nora to be with him, whenever Ren thought about the future and of the man who might take his best friend away from him someday to be his wife, it stirred his feelings up into an emotion similar to fury. But I've got other things to think about.
Tuning back in to whatever Nora was rambling about, Ren immediately wished he hadn't, as the first sentence he registered was: "You can be maid of honor when I marry a king!"
"Wh-what?" spluttered Ren, accidentally inhaling his own saliva at the thought. Me? Maid of honor?! "You—you have to be kidding!" he added, coughing.
Looking delightfully shocked at Ren's reaction (something he cursed himself for; this happened whenever he allowed himself to register more than a mild variation on the most basic emotions), Nora grinned at him. "Oh, come on. Since I'll be rich by then, I could buy you a little lotus tutu or—"
"I am not going to be your maid of honor, Nora," snapped Ren, forgetting that he and Nora were in a crowded classroom (work had finished early), and flinched a moment later as the students immediately around them quieted and then burst into laughter. Unable to keep his color from rising any longer, Ren sank lower in his desk, refusing to look at Nora even when she got up out of her desk.
"Come on, I'm not allowed to have a best man—that's the groom's job!" Ren jumped as Nora's voice emanated from below him; peering down (and moving his legs hastily away from her for reasons he preferred not to think about), he saw her sitting cross-legged under his desk as though she did this every day. "So, you're going to have to deal with being maid of honor. Unless you think Pyrrha would be a better choice?" she added thoughtfully, rubbing her chin.
"Yeah," agreed Ren gratefully, closing his eyes and fidgeting with his crown (and, strangely enough, finding himself wanting to put it back on his head). "Pyrrha might not complain so much. I'd rather die than be stuffed into a tutu."
"But I don't want you to die!" exclaimed Nora, scooting forward and cuddling his leg affectionately: Ren stiffened, trying to gauge which way his feelings swung, and their complex compass pointed directly between Irritation and Contentment. But isn't that always how it is with Nora?
7:00 p.m.
"Laundry!"
Ren rolled his eyes as Nora observed the pile of neatly folded clothes sitting on Pyrrha's bed and, before he could grasp her wrist to hold her back, hurtled into the room and onto her bed, effectively strewing clothes and bedclothes alike throughout the room (and evidently forgetting how she had been talking about how tired she was all the way from the dining hall to their room).
"Uh," said Pyrrha uncertainly, as Jaune observed, "Okay."
Ren heaved a sigh as Nora disappeared completely in the pile of perhaps-a-little-less-clean-than-it-was-a-minute-a go laundry. "She's always like this," he explained, somewhat apologetically. "She loves anything warm—"
"It's like a bubble bath!" laughed Nora happily, pausing a moment with Pyrrha's miniskirt wrapped around her head and a pair of unfamiliar boxers on her arm (Ren glanced sideways at Jaune to see him looking stricken) before adding, "Except with more static electricity and fewer bubbles," before submerging herself in clothing again.
"All right, Nora, could you—I mean," began Pyrrha, taking a couple step forward. "I need to—we should—" The only time I've ever seen Pyrrha lost for words is when Nora is… well, being Nora, reflected Ren, before marching towards the wiggling lump of laundry that was Nora.
Nora popped out of the pile of laundry, this time wearing Ren's favorite shirt. "Ta-da!" she announced, as though she had just done the impossible, and Ren took a moment to briefly take in Nora's appearance (or, perhaps more accurately, note that green was not her color) before scooping her up without further ado and carrying her to their combined beds, her giggling filling his ears all the while.
"Thanks, Ren," sighed Jaune, sounding extremely relieved that his boxers were safe from cute girls everywhere, and he and Pyrrha immediately started picking at the formerly neat pile of clothing to find their various belongings.
Ren nodded briefly in his direction before stumbling as Nora pinched his side, crashing onto the mattress beside her and trying in vain to defend himself as Nora tickled him mercilessly, kneeling above him. It was all Ren could do not to let any sounds escape: the last thing he wanted was for everyone to know how ticklish he was, this being the reason he had been so careful to keep his knees out of reach earlier that day.
"Please!" he begged, unable to keep down a hoarse and rarely-used laugh any longer (curled up into a ball at this point to avoid having any of his midriff exposed, but thus unable to defend himself). "You win!"
Nora immediately pulled back her hands, a triumphant grin on her face; Ren noticed, as he sat up exhaustedly, that Pyrrha and Jaune had paused in their frantic re-folding to regard the two of them with mingled astonishment and amusement. "Did you hear that? I win!" she crowed, bowling Ren over again like an overexcited puppy and then standing up to rest her foot on his chest (Ren was made painfully aware of the fact that she was wearing a skirt, and shut his eyes tightly rather than look up).
"You owe me," muttered Ren, and trailed a hand lazily from her thigh to her calf, relishing her sudden squeak and weakening of the knees before she sat down suddenly next to him.
"Not anymore," countered Nora, and they looked at each other with such clear happiness that Ren wondered what, exactly, was preventing him from seizing the opportunity of kissing her. It was just like in the stories, wasn't it? When you liked each other that much—when you thought of her every waking hour and minute—when you slept in the same bed every night, wasn't that what love was? Wasn't he supposed to do something about it, now that their faces were so close together?
But I'm no expert, laughed Ren inwardly, mainly to distract himself from getting immersed yet again in the ocean of his somewhat confused feelings for Nora, and Ren thought wryly—as she flopped onto her back with a happy sigh, breaking the moment—that whatever would happen would be on Nora's terms: in the meantime, Jaune and Pyrrha could stare and speculate all they liked.
((Bit of a longer chapter, now that it's been a couple weeks. :3 I hope I'm not making this too shippy too fast…))
