Soon after gathering Weiss' textbooks, Ruby and Weiss returned to their dorm room. Ruby was unnaturally quiet after her conversation with Penny and it was bothering Weiss that she was being quiet about it. Once they returned to their room, Weiss decided she needed to relax for a bit. "Hey, Ruby, I'm gonna take a shower. You're welcome to join me if you want," Weiss said, tempting Ruby to join her.
"I'll pass today, maybe next time," Ruby responded. Weiss just shook her head and gathered her things together. The suite that they were living in had a shower room and a bathroom built in so Weiss was glad that she didn't have to worry about communal bathrooms anymore. Once she got all of her things together and went to the shower though, Ruby immediately went to talk to Yang. She walked into the room and noticed that both Blake and Yang were in there. "Yang, can I talk to you about something?"
"Sure, Ruby, what's up?" Yang asked.
Ruby didn't say anything at first, instead looking towards Blake. "You want me to not be around for this?" Blake asked, getting a nod from Ruby as a result. "Ok, I'm gonna go see Sun then. I might bring him over for a bit as well afterwards if you're fine with that, Yang."
"Sounds good to me," Yang said as she watched Blake leave. Once the door closed behind Blake, Yang turned her attention to Ruby. "Ok, Rubes, what happened that's got you upset."
Ruby walked over to Yang's bed and flopped down onto it. "Guess who I just saw while I was with Weiss getting her textbooks," Ruby said.
"I don't know, who did you see?" Yang asked.
Ruby propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Yang. "Penny."
Yang's face dropped when she heard who it was. "Well fuck," She said after a second.
"You're telling me," Ruby said back to her, letting her head fall back down onto the bed.
"Well, what happened exactly?" Yang asked.
"She tried to get close with me, and I mean like, 'thinking we still could be together' close. I really felt uncomfortable at that point and wanted to just get out of there," Ruby responded.
"Yikes, I can only imagine how Weiss would react to her doing this to you," Yang said. Ruby's silence to that point gave Yang all she needed to know about whether Weiss knew or not. "You didn't tell Weiss about her? What's wrong with you?"
"Yang you know exactly why I don't like to talk about that. I'm not gonna tell Weiss about it unless it's absolutely necessary to do so. It doesn't involve her in any sort of way and I'll deal with anything that comes from this," Ruby stated.
"You know that's not going to end well if you do that. If you don't tell Weiss about this then I will," Yang said as she walked over to Ruby and sat down next to her.
"Yang, I don't want Weiss starting a fight with her because of this whole thing, ok?"
"Well then tell Penny to just leave you alone."
"I want to but somehow I'd feel guilty about doing that. You know as much as I do that if I do that then it will only get worse."
"It'll get worse if you let Penny control your life. Not only will Penny cause you to be miserable, but Weiss won't be there to help you because she would be upset at you for pushing her away like you would have to do. Don't do this, Ruby," Yang pleaded with her sister to listen to her.
Ruby sighed. "I'll talk to Penny, get her to let me be. I just hope that it doesn't get out of hand though."
The sisters heard the door to their suite open up, their attention diverting towards the front door. They opened up Yang's door and noticed that Blake had returned with Sun and what appeared to be Sun's roommate. "Hey, Sun," Yang and Ruby said at the same time.
"Hey there, nice to see you guys again," Sun walked over and gave each of the sisters a hug. He then turned his attention to his roommate. "Ruby, Yang, this is my roommate, Neptune. He's my best friend, besides Blake of course, and we pretty much grew up together."
"Sup," Neptune said, giving a head nod and a smile as he said it.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Yang, and this is my younger sister, Ruby. Obviously you know Blake, but our last roommate is in the shower." As if right on cue, they heard the shower tun off. "Looks like she'll be out soon actually," Yang said to Neptune.
After a moment, Weiss popped out with nothing but a towel covering her up. She looked over to see Sun and Neptune there and she jumped at the sudden appearance. "Gah, what the hell, Sun? Do you not know about privacy?" Weiss exclaimed.
"Don't mind him, he tends to not be overly attentive. Myself on the other hand, I was hoping to introduce myself to you beautiful," Neptune said to her. "My name is Neptune Vasilias, the charm between the two of us. Now what would I be allowed to call you?"
Ruby could tell that Weiss felt a bit uncomfortable at the moment so she stepped in between the two of them. "You can call her by her name AFTER she finishes getting changed into something other than a towel," Ruby said, giving Weiss an opportunity to walk back into their room.
"Woah, woah, take it easy, uh Ruby, right?" Neptune asked. When she got a nod from Blake she continued. "I'll admit that my timing wasn't the best but I don't think that warrants this kind of hostility."
At this point, Sun walked over to Neptune and threw his arm around his shoulder. "You do realize that you're talking to the girlfriend of the girl you just tried to flirt with, so way to go, dumbass," Sun said to Neptune. "I hope you're ok with me saying that to him, Ruby. It was gonna be the only way to stop his flirting, which works out in your favor."
"It's fine, Sun, just as long as his flirting with Weiss stops," Ruby said to him. "I'm gonna go check on Weiss." She opened the door to their room and walked in. She saw Weiss putting on a pair of shorts at the time and felt a bit better knowing she was ok. "Hey, Weiss, did you hear what happened after you came in here?"
"I heard," Weiss said as she finished putting her clothes on. "Thanks for sticking up for me by the way, not that I have to ask you to do so."
"You would do the same for me," Ruby said back to her. "I'm glad to see you again by the way."
"I'm glad to see you too Ruby," Weiss lifted her arms and loosely placed them around Ruby's neck. "By the way you still owe me an explanation for earlier, though you don't need to tell me right now."
"There is nothing to talk about, but if something does come up then I'll tell you," Ruby said back, kissing Weiss and wrapping her arms around Weiss' waist. "We should get back to the others and actually try to introduce you to Neptune. Who knows he might actually be a cool guy when he isn't trying to flirt to you."
Soon the first day of classes came and everyone was going from lecture to lecture. Ruby was fortunate in that she had two classes with Weiss, Pyrrha and Jaune this year, and she had a class with Blake, Nora and Neptune. After the weekend she went through when she first got here, it was something that she was really looking forward to. Her first class was biology, a class she had Weiss, Jaune and Pyrrha with. Weiss had told her to go on ahead of her and so Ruby met up with Pyrrha and Jaune before class so they could walk together.
They arrived at the lecture hall and found their seats. Ruby left a seat next to her open for Weiss, while Jaune and Pyrrha sat down on the other side of her. They had about two minutes left before class and Weiss still didn't show up. Ruby was starting to get a little worried about her, before a familiar voice spoke up to her. "Hey Ruby, is this seat taken?"
Ruby looked up to see Penny standing right over her. Upon the sight, Ruby froze and could only watch as Penny put her bag down on the ground and sit down right next to her, where she was saving the seat for Weiss. "Wait what are you doing? I was saving that seat for someone," Ruby said.
"I don't think they will mind Ruby. There are plenty of places to sit in this room." Penny gestured around her as she pointed out a few seats which were left unclaimed.
Ruby was about to reply before she felt her phone vibrate. She looked down and saw that it was a message from Weiss. =Ruby what the hell? I thought you said that you were going to save me a seat.=
Ruby quickly leaned over to Jaune looking for his help. Jaune was aware enough about Penny that she could talk to him about what was going on. "Jaune, I won't be able to text Weiss back because of you know who over there, just let her know that I'm sorry and that this is a very delicate situation. Tell her I would honestly rather have her around than the actual person sitting next to me."
Jaune saw the worry in her eyes and went right to work. Ruby went back to her seat to try and act like everything was normal, but she knew that this was going to be the most awkward hour of her life. Jaune looked down at the message he typed out to Weiss and reread it.
=Ruby is in a pretty tense situation right now with the girl sitting next to her. She wanted me to let you know that she would rather have you there than the actual person who is there.=
Satisfied with his response, he put his phone away and looked over to see Penny wrap her arms around Ruby's arm. It was painful to watch Ruby look so stressed out and upset, but there was nothing that could be done.
Jaune looked up to see the professor begin his lecture. Leaning into him so that they wouldn't get in trouble, Pyrrha whispered into his ear. "What is going on with Ruby? Do we need to be concerned?" Pyrrha asked him.
Jaune let out a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Nothing we can do about it right now, but we need to be more than concerned right now."
Once the class finally let out, Ruby didn't wait for anyone. Jaune, Pyrrha and Weiss were all left behind as she sped off as fast as she could. Ruby didn't have to worry about another class for a few hours so she decided to go walk into town and over to a local convenient store. Pulling her wallet out of her pocket, she went up to the register to buy what she went there for.
Walking out of the store with what she bought, she opened it up. She looked down and hesitated for a moment. 'Should I really do this? I mean, I thought that I was done with that back during that summer.' Ruby started to walk back up to the campus, her mind still in a daze. 'It's not like it'll be the same as before, I can stop with this after I deal with Penny and that whole situation. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Everything will be alright.'
Ruby reached down into the packet and pulled out a single cigarette. Bringing it up to her mouth and holding it in between her lips, she flipped on her lighter and lit the cigarette up, inhaling a deep puff of smoke in the process. Coughing when the smoke reached her lungs she felt an oh too familiar burn run through her body and she felt its control on her take over.
AN: So here we go, the second part of this nice little story arc. I plan on updating this every 3 days, so since it's the 5th of Nov. here at almost 2 in the morning out near Philadelphia, the next chapter will be out on the 8th, which is this friday.
I'm gonna make a prediction on your opinion of one of the upcoming chapters. We're in chapter 37 now, and I predict that when I publish chapter 39 and you read that, you are all going to hate me and call me an terrible person. I say, bring it on by the way, it'll be worth it in the end when you love me again afterwards for my genius idea.
As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.