Bzzt bzzt.
"Want me to field through your messages for you?"
Jaune raises weary eyes upon Neptune. "Huh?"
Neptune glances pointedly at Jaune's scroll. "Since I'm pretty confident you don't have a girlfriend, I'm going to guess obsessive admirer or creepy stalker."
Bzzt bzzt.
Jaune slams his hand down on his scroll before Neptune can pick it up. The impact rattles everything on their breakfast table. "No! I'll… I'll look at them."
"Sorry, man. Just trying to be helpful."
"It's fine." He expands his scroll and flinches at the dozen or so messages from Weiss.
[White roses and blue balloons? Or red carnations and pink balloons?]
[Old-fashioned hardcopy invitations or special announcements to every scroll?]
[Be sure to send those invitation designs to me by midnight tonight! I expect at least seven different unisexual designs.]
[Apple rose tarts or lemon custards?]
[I've heard good reviews for DJ Monokuma. He frequents a mafia dance club in Zodiac's red-light district but wears a stuffed bear head, so you shouldn't need to be there for more than a couple seconds.]
And on and on. Sometimes mundane, sometimes with suicidal requests attached. He checks them all as Read with future plans on compiling them all into a single cohesive spreadsheet after his afternoon classes.
Neptune nods over his shoulder. "A chainsaw juggler who breathes fire into the crowd? I might pay to see that."
"H-Hey!" He snaps his scroll shut and shoves it into his bag. "That's confidential!"
"Can I get an invite to this party?"
"It's the homecoming dance," Jaune sighs. "I'll design the invitations… sometime… today… ish."
Bzzt bzzt.
Neptune's blue eyebrows jump into his scalp. "You? On the homecoming committee? This is the best. Yo Sun! Get a load of this!"
Sun plops himself down on Jaune's other side. "Jaune, dude. Did you forget about me last night? In case you don't remember, my eyes were frozen open. I saw everything."
Oh. Lovely. "I invoke my privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to give you an answer. Period."
"Oh, that's fine. But… Bro."
Neptune grins. "Bro."
Both hold out fists for him to bump. Monty above, does he have to do this? They're smiling without further explanation, just waiting in silence. He should out-awkward them. It can't be that hard, right? He'll just eat and continue to read the endless stream of texts from Weiss. This… This could actually work.
Bzzt bzzt.
They're still frozen in this position when Blake drops by a few minutes later. "Jaune."
He looks up so fast that his lip knocks into the spoon in route to his mouth and catapults its load of oatmeal across the table. "B… Blake?"
"Hello." She tilts her head inquisitively at the two frozen figures practically pressing their cheeks against his.
"You want to move to another table?" he says.
Instead, Blake sets her tray upon the blob of oatmeal, seats herself before him, and administers dual fist bumps.
"That's what a good little freshman is supposed to do," Neptune grumbles.
"Forget about that," says Sun. "Dude, Jaune. I saw everything last night and bro. Anybody ever tell you you're packing it down under?"
"Excuse me?"
"Neptune, back me up on this. You were the one taking off his whitey-tighties."
"Excuse m—"
"Oh yeeeah! Packing it, literally. Those whiteys were tiiight. Taking them off was almost like playing with a jack-in-the-box toy. An organic toy."
If he could melt into a puddle and slosh down the nearest sewer drain, that'd be great. At least Blake looks absolutely unperturbed. Maybe she's been too busy consuming her breakfast to listen closely? Then again, she always looks like this. Not that he can say he knows her very well. She was there for his first day within faunus territory; then she became Weiss's shadow and that was that.
Regardless of how comfortable he feels around Blake, there's no way he can initiate any sort of conversation when Sun and Neptune are singing a horribly off-tune duet of Pop Goes the Weasel straight into his noggin. Blake seems completely comfortable in this kind of situation. Any situation, really. Must be why she gets along with Weiss so well.
Maybe that's why she's decided to approach him today of all days. Surely everybody on campus knows that he's in cahoots with Weiss now. Staged or not, last night's panty raid has united debaucherous degenerates from all around the campus under one common goal and inadvertently kickstarted a massive community that has added yet another title to his despicable resume: Ice Queen Conqueror.
If it means finally making friends with the girl he'd wronged during their Initiation duel and getting to connect and converse with Blake about more than a smattering of cryptic comments, then Jaune will take it.
He busies himself checking his scroll, if only to better tune out Sun.
[I need new academic-based traps. Budget is not an issue.]
That's new. He quickly texts out a reply.
[…For homecoming?]
[No, you dolt! To replace the traps guarding my dormitory.]
[What's wrong with the Fibonacci staircase? I thought that one was brilliant.] Never mind the fact that he was hallucinating about cats while solving it.
[Clearly I've underestimated the combination of stupidity and sheer willpower present in droves at this academy. I need a foolproof snare that will grind their puny wills underfoot. Who better to design such a trap than the King of Fools himself?]
[I'll take that as a compliment.]
"You're unflappable, Belladonna," Sun practically whines. "Would it break your face to smile every once in a while?"
Blake takes a moment to swallow before nailing Sun with an intense stare. It is probably the most formidable Resting Bitch Face Jaune has ever borne witness to, such that he gets secondhand intimidation from it.
Sun shrugs it off because he's Sun. "Okay, fine. So what were you doing during the Frozen Panty Raid Massacre?"
Lovely. It has a name now.
"Don't you sleep in Weiss's bed most nights?" adds Neptune.
Eh? Jaune was not privy to this knowledge. He tries to hide his sudden surge of interest by pretending to eat oatmeal. His disguise fails horribly when he misses his mouth and smears breakfast all over his cheek instead.
In contrast, Blake not only guides her spoon into her orifice accurately, she also licks its concave side in a lascivious attempt to lap up a spot of honey stuck there. "I took a walk. Ran into your girlfriend."
Sun grins. "I'll share mine if you share yours."
"I won't need your help to take her up on her offer."
"Sizzle," Neptune stage-whispers.
Blake angles her shoulders away from Sun in a clear signal that their conversation is over. Jaune would have to be blind to not realize at this point that she means to talk to him. He gulps in anticipation.
She doesn't actually talk to him though; she pulls out her scroll and texts him.
Bzzt bzzt.
[Fruit punch or tropical delight?]
[Convince the academy board to loosen dress code standards for homecoming night.]
[Meet me in the library for lunch.]
He snaps his scroll shut to prevent Neptune from reading over his shoulder and lifts wary eyes in her direction.
She stares back impassively.
Right. Not sure why he was expecting anything different. He pops open his scroll and starts a new message thread. [I need to work on a couple projects, so the library sounds great.]
[I accidentally shattered a bathroom mirror. You should make a disco ball out of it.]
[Helium is a little beyond our school budget. I have 3000 balloons I need you to inflate. Two weeks should be plenty of time.]
[She's testing your resolve. Reply within a timely and organized manner and she'll back off in a few days.]
He tries to imitate her deadpan glare.
Light, are her lips curving upward? It's not a smile by any means, but wow. Wasn't expecting that. She looks slightly more approachable now.
"Mother of Monty, Neptune…" Sun hisses. "I think he broke her."
Blake intercepts him right outside the library. "Let's go somewhere else."
"Cloak and dagger much?" he laughs uneasily.
"Sun and Yang have trackers tailing me," she says. "Up."
"Up where—whoa!" He'd known the hallways to be high-ceilinged, but he'd never considered leaping up into the rafters to escape the crowd. Why not go outside first? ...Though actually he can answer that one right away: too much visibility outdoors. Barely anybody here. But… seriously. Blake is fifteen feet above him, perched on a beam of wood barely four inches wide. She has a tail for balance. He's jealous that she doesn't have to worry about splitting her pants because she's wearing a skirt, and wow he'd never expected that sentence to come out of his mouth. She's a Cat, for crying out loud. All he has is the muscle memory of a Sheep.
Eh. Never know till you try, right?
His first leap is pathetic. He'd started off at 20% just to gauge his strength, which results him lifting maybe two inches off the ground. Blake facepalms up above.
He's unprepared for 70%. Panic overwhelms his muscle memory and he crashes headfirst into the rafter next to Blake before plummeting to the ground. He braces for impact and is blinded by a flash of white. Huh. His body is glowing white. He stares at his fingers in wonder for a few seconds until it fades away.
"Is that your semblance?" Blake calls softly.
"Uh… I don't know? Look, can we just—"
"You need to learn as soon as possible," she says. "It's obvious you picked up the technique from someone else and that you're still adjusting it to your own body. Spend a little time practicing it whenever you can."
Either his deadpan glare is not up to par or she really doesn't care. Probably both. But after a few botched jump attempts, he finally manages to hug a rafter, sloth-style. From there, it's a very, very slow journey full of peril and sad little coaching tips from a bored Cat till they reach an actual, Monty-to-honest door in the wall. No walkway leading up to it or anything. Probably meant to be accessible only to bird faunus and holy Light Blake's practically walking on the wall. No, her fingernails have darkened and grown so absurdly long that she can anchor them into the soft wood of the door frame no problem. All while hanging two stories above the ground in dim light.
Then she shoves the sliding door open and sunlight pours into the empty space.
She motions him over. "Quick. Before we draw attention."
Melanie's muscle memory manages to hurl him through the doorway. He skitters to a stop in a secluded little landing that serves as the starting spot for several more platforms leading up in increasing heights, probably all the way to the top of the academy tower. Definitely a hideout for bird faunus. And faunus not afraid of heights. Jaune's not acrophobic by any means, but every human has a healthy dose of fear when it comes to anything remotely dangerous, right?
Blake slides the door shut, leaving them sitting on the tiny open platform. "Can you remember where this is?"
"Don't tell me this is your secret hiding spot."
"It's not exactly a secret, but this is Schnee property and the trespassing fines are so sky high only somebody with Yang's inheritance can afford it."
"Yet the Frozen Panty Raid Massacre happened last night. A quarter of campus participated."
"They'll probably get off easy if they pledge allegiance and sell their souls to Schnee."
He can't keep a laugh from escaping his lips at her absolutely deadpan tone... then he realizes that she's being completely serious, shuts up, and settles for surveying the area. Their little platform is relatively secluded from the ground below. It's possible somebody could look out a classroom window and spot them, but apart from that, it's not a place easily spotted… unless you can fly.
"Can't Yang fly?"
"That's what Landing #17 is for."
"There are seventeen of these?"
"If I ever text you a random number under 53 in the middle of the night, you know where to find me."
"I don't have night vision."
Her expression is as detached as ever. "Better learn where these are then. These platforms are unsupervised by the school because the Schnee family values their secrets so highly." She leans close, so close that their shoulders bump together and her warm breath tickles the skin around his ear. "So here's your first secret... Penny is not your friend."
He flinches away from her, nearly topples off the side of the fairly narrow platform is his haste to put a little space between their faces so he can actually look at her. Penny. Penny. The Chameleon girl who's gone through such great lengths to hide her identity from everybody on campus (except for Ruby, who would never take advantage of anybody). "H-How…?"
Blake presses her forehead against Jaune's in a frighteningly intimate display of… not affection, not anything. "I know your greatest secret, Jaune Arc, so let me give you one of mine: don't make friends. No matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter how much you smile and laugh and play… Better crush her mousy little heart now than later down the line, Jaune, because there's only one way your story in Zodiac ends."
