Ruby

Weiss seemed taken aback when I asked her if we could be friends. I could easily read her body language. She didn't seemed too subtle when she raised her eyebrows in surprise, speechlessly parting her lips by just a margin.

"Is that a no?" I rocked on my heels nervously but still maintained eye contact.

"You want to be friends with me?" She repeated, sounding more cautious than normal. Without a second thought, I quietly nodded.

"Why?" She asked. It wasn't an acrimonious tone, far off from being a sharp cutting edge knife. It sounded more inquisitive, closer to a naive child learning something new for the first time.

My head flopped to one side at the silly question. "Well… You seemed like a pretty cool and interesting person to talk to."

"Even though I called you a goldfish?"

"Goldfish?" I thought back to our previous conversation a few minutes ago. A frown tugged at the corner of my lips when I realized she actually did called me a goldfish. It didn't register through my head because I was really caught up with her euphonic accent. "Did I really look like a goldfish?"

I shot her a mystified look, and she nodded.

I couldn't help but break into laughter. I wasn't offended by the nickname, in fact, I wasn't exactly surprised. I had a knack for collecting nicknames for some odd reason.

"I looked weird didn't I?" My tense shoulders eased and the feeling of anxiety disappeared. I was grateful that I wasn't the nervous wreck like I was previously before.

"Debatable." The corner of her mouth twitched, and I was somewhat certain she was trying to fight a smile.

"It's okay to call me weird you know," I giggled and subconsciously tucked my hands into the pockets of my athletic shorts. "Even I thought I looked like a bit silly, so I don't blame you."

"If you insist, then yes you did looked weird. It was my friend who pointed out that you looked like a goldfish."

"Beats crater face." I shrugged and she tilted her head in confusion. "Ah, that's another nickname I got. But anyways... Is that a — Um... No to being friends?"

She murmured something underneath her breath that I couldn't quite catch.

The nervous anxiety was slowly swimming back up, and I steadied my shaky voice, hoping to hide it from her notice. My nails nicked into my skin, pushing down and digging deeper.

Despite only a second has passed, it felt overwhelmingly long for my comfort.