Summary: An accidental mix up reveals Weiss' embarrassing secret.

*White Rose Week 2020 Day 2: Beacon Days/School.

If Weiss were to summarize high school in a nutshell, she would describe it as a temporary confinement for a hodgepodge of wild animals. When class was in session, they were kept under control. No one would dare bark at the alpha teacher unless they had a strong desire to walk shamefully to the principal's office.

But once the bell tolled, they were dismissed into the wild. Hallways pinned with banners of school spirit were flooded with chaos. Whenever Weiss stepped out of her classroom den into freedom, she noticed the same thing.

Animals travelled in packs.

Pompous jocks flocked around in their letterman jackets. Marching in an orderly fashion were the polar opposite band geeks lugging their oversized instruments. The scholastic nerds huddled in their respective circles. Gossip girls almost always lived in bathrooms. The socially inept castoffs were nowhere to be found, and the delinquents disappeared to play hooky.

Then there was a fraction of the student body categorized as miscellaneous. These were students who didn't fit in any of the listed groups above, which included her also.

Weiss was convinced that she was normal. She did not play any sports, participate in any academic clubs, or play any instrument. Nothing special at all, if anything just a gay disaster at heart, but a functional teenager in the eyes of her peers.

Weiss weaved through the crowd of students who were tossing paper airplanes like immature children. Of the many animals wandering the hallways, another prime example of a miscellaneous group would be that random couple sucking each other's faces like leeches.

Weiss disliked the excessive public display of affection. Despite being greeted by it every day, she struggled to ignore their presence.

She rifled through her locker with haste.

The sooner she left, the less kissing she would see at the corner of her eye.

Weiss shoved away her dictionary sized books and pulled out a few flimsy notebooks. She intentionally slammed the locker door shut and smirked when the couple jolted apart.

Weiss walked away satisfied while ignoring the irked glares carving into her back like knives. She deftly navigated through the hallway traffic, took a sharp turn around a corner and walked smack-straight into someone.

All the notebooks she had been carrying in her arms scattered to the floor.

Just as Weiss was about to make a quick apology, her voice had gotten trapped inside her throat when she heard the other person apologize first.

"I'm so sorry!"

It was a rare encounter. A wild Ruby appeared out of nowhere, her former project partner from last year. Weiss' heart started thundering and a few choices came to mind.

One — apologize.

Two — woo the creature.

Three — flee.

Three choices, one answer.

The choice was obvious.

Weiss tried to go with the first option, but her gay heart begged to differ. It decided to stray from the options and created a fourth choice.

"Watch where you're going!" Weiss hissed.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry Weiss!" Ruby knelt down to retrieve everything that had fallen to the floor. She swept them all into one pile in her arms. "I really didn't mean —"

Weiss snatched her notebooks from Ruby's arms and cut her off with a dismissive and quiet, "whatever."

She rushed past Ruby in such a hurry because she couldn't stand her cheeks rising to a feverish blush. More importantly, she couldn't function properly without breakdown into gay panic. It would be like last year all over again — a lot of unintentional snapping.

When Weiss deemed she had put a safe distance, she wilted all the way down like a dying weed. She cursed at herself for saying those uncalled for words.

"I'm so stupid, stupid, stupid." Weiss thumped herself silly on the head with the notebooks. She wanted to rewind time so she could redo their interactions, but that was only wishful thinking.

"An apology would have suffice." Weiss continued to berate herself in her rambling monologue. "It would have been nicer in fact! She would've shrugged it off saying that it was totally cool. Maybe she would've walked me to class while going off about how long it has been…"

Weiss couldn't slump any closer to the floor as she held her belongings to her chest tightly.

"Now, her impression of me probably has gotten worse. We don't share any classes anymore. We weren't really friends to begin with, and now we'll never be friends."

"Why can't I just act normal?" Weiss groaned out loud for the heavens to hear.

Weiss sat there sulking like a kicked dog for a few more minutes until she straightened her head. She could weep about it later in the shower when she got home. Passing period was coming to an end.

She headed straight to class and cracked open the first few pages of her notebook. Except, she didn't recognize any of the writings when she examined her notes. Her face paled a ghostly white as the pages were filled with notes from an unfamiliar class. On the top right corner, Ruby Rose was legibly written.

Weiss started hyperventilating because she had swapped notebooks with Ruby.

Ruby already knew Weiss' first impression of her wasn't too great. It had a lot to do with a bunch of redos in their project, and it didn't help that she could be extremely talkative at times. She assumed that was the primary reason why Weiss snapped at her a lot.

The rest of their encounters could've been better, but the most recent one was a complete disaster.

"Watch where you're going!" It was the shrill, angry shriek of someone she knew.

Ruby froze midway and glanced up after reflexively kneeling down to retrieve everything.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry Weiss!" Ruby quickly apologized again. Of course of all the people she bumped into it had to be her last year project partner. She panicked and swept their scattered notebooks into her arms. She messed up this time. It was a big mess up. "I really didn't mean — "

"Whatever."

Weiss yanked her stuff out of Ruby's grip. She stormed down the hallway until Ruby couldn't see her back anymore.

"— it." Ruby deflated as she watched Weiss disappear. "Way to go. If she doesn't hate my guts, then she totally does now." She kicked the floor and sulked, ignoring all those people who were trying to go around her in the hallway. "So much for trying to be friends with Weiss."

Ruby never thought she could possibly sulk any more than this. She wanted to get struck by lightning rather than drown in her own misery.

"From a burdening project partner to a walking disaster, her impression of me can't get any worse than this. Ugh, this sucks," Ruby groaned. "A rare chance in meeting flew off the rails."

Ruby then let out a defeated sigh and went to class as she couldn't cry over spilled milk. Once she sat down, she cracked open a random page in her notebook. She looked down to her notes and her eyes widened at the unusual discovery.

There, drawn inside a giant heart, were the names: Weiss + Ruby.

Ruby gulped. The writing wasn't her own — the penmanship was too perfect compared to her sloppy chicken scratch. Riding on the suspense, Ruby slowly turned over to the inside of the front cover.

On the top left corner, Weiss Schnee had been written.

Ruby randomly flipped to another page somewhere in the middle of the notebook. There were many more Weiss + Ruby written neatly inside a heart. At the center of one page was a doodle of two female stick figures holding hands, which were properly labeled as Weiss and Ruby.

Decorated around the drawings were a bunch of heart shaped balloons. The rest of the pages after that had a heart with a combination of their names. Teetering on the borders of malfunctioning, Ruby silently closed the notebook and tried to process everything.

Three things came to mind.

One — Weiss liked her.

Two — Weiss liked her.

Three — Weiss liked her.

Ruby had accidentally swapped notebooks with Weiss, and Weiss liked her.

Weiss hounded Ruby down as soon as class was dismissed. She had a general idea of the girl's class schedule. Their school wasn't enormous as she had seen Ruby pass by from time to time at the corner of her eyes.

When Weiss caught a particular girl lagging out of a classroom, she hurried even faster. She earned a few scowls after bumping into other students, but that didn't stop her from shoving her way through. Her heart raced faster from panic. If there was one thing she didn't want Ruby to see, it was the forbidden content written inside the notebook.

Weiss slammed a hand into the locker to cut Ruby's path.

"Where's my notebook?" Weiss demanded, her eyebrows drawing together as her eyes honed in on her.

"I — Uhh…" Ruby gulped when Weiss' eyes searched her.

Weiss wasn't patient. "You have it don't you?"

"This?" Ruby weakly offered Weiss her notebook back.

Weiss snatched it straight from her hands. She flipped through the notebook to double check whether she had taken the correct one. Once she caught a glimpse of a few particular drawings, she held onto it protectively. Her fingers paled from how tight her grip was; she was afraid she might lose it again.

"Did you open it?" Weiss glared at Ruby intently.

Ruby curled her lips inside her mouth. She was conflicted on whether or not she should tell the truth. If she did, then there might be a happy ending to all of this. However, Weiss would have to suffer from first hand embarrassment. If she chose not to, then they would continue on with their lives as if nothing happened. Weiss would save face, but Ruby knew she would regret it in the future.

"Please tell me you didn't…" Weiss whispered, her voice dropping low in a heartbeat. She noticed Ruby was taking so long to formulate a response.

As the seconds ticked slowly, Weiss felt her fears coming true. The notebook took the shape of a cylinder as she crushed it in her clutching hands. Her stomach sank and the color drained from her face when Ruby smiled sheepishly.

"I kind of did…"

Everything in Weiss' world shattered like glass in that instance. She took two steps back, her mind jumping into all kinds of frenzy.

" — Wait, Weiss. I need to talk to you about something."

Now that Ruby had seen the evidence, it was all over. Of all the people who had to stumble upon her secret, it had to be the person she liked.

"Weiss — "

The only way Weiss could think of to save herself from this humiliation was to transfer schools. She could start a new life, make new friends, and maybe find a new crush who would never stumble upon her secret. That was a good plan — a fantastic well thought out plan actually.

Weiss returned — shoved, actually — Ruby her notebooks back. She sharply twisted around because turning tail to leave was the best option on her plate. Avoiding Ruby forever was also a great option too. When Weiss was about to do just that, a hand seized her wrist to stop her from leaving.

"Wait Weiss, give me one minute," Ruby pleaded. "Just one moment of your time. I just need to show you something. It's okay if you don't want to talk. I just… Can I just show you something?"

Weiss squeezed her eyes shut because she didn't want to deal with Ruby right now. She couldn't even look at her because she was dying from the embarrassment. She just wanted to bury herself in a hole and never come out. But the tight grip on her wrist didn't seem like it had any intentions of letting go. Ruby wasn't making this easy for her.

Nervously, Weiss turned around and watched Ruby flip through the pages of her own notebook. It took awhile, but when Ruby found what she was looking for, she turned it around for Weiss to see.

Ruby smiled sheepishly again, and Weiss' eyes went wide.

Drawn inside a heart was Ruby + Weiss.