I barely lift my eyes from the scroll screen to say thank you when James places a cup of tea on the table right next to me, just like he does every morning. I've had no notice of any of my teammates since I returned to Atlas. It's already been a week since I finally texted Yang after her not writing a letter back even though James told me that she already received her new arm and, consequently, seen the note I wrote; despite reading my messages, she hasn't responded yet. Blake hasn't read them, and Ruby hasn't even received my texts. I'm starting to get worried.

"Is anything wrong, Weiss?"

James' voice calling my name makes my pupils finally abandon the screen to look at him. He must have tried to shave this morning, because has no stubble, but four small paper pieces stained with blood stuck to his cheeks. My heart softens when I realize that there's genuine worry in his eyes.

"Yang hasn't texted me back." I say, putting my phone away with a sigh and turning the screen upside down. I wrap my hands around the steaming porcelain cup, but it's hot to the touch, so I place them some centimeters away from its surface to feel its warmth without burning my fingers. It smells like berries and sugar.

However, the strong scent of fresh black coffee soon overpowers that of the tea. I didn't like it before, but now it doesn't bother me that much since I'm used to James having it every morning. He takes a teaspoon and starts stirring his coffee very gently.

"I spoke to her father last night to ask if she had made any progress with her arm. He told me that she tried it on once but took it off right away, and she hasn't touched it since. Apparently, her sister left their home without saying a word, so she must not be in a very good mental state right now."

"That's terrible." I murmur with muffled voice. "Do they know where Ruby is now?"

"I'm afraid they don't." He says, shaking his head.

"That would explain why she hasn't been receiving my messages."

I should go see Yang, but I will wait until she gathers some strength and finally answers my texts. I trust that she is strong, and she will overcome everything; but I know her, and I know she wouldn't like to be seen on her worst days. It's better if I don't put any more pressure on her, and my presence would only make things worse. Only time and patience will help her heal, and that's everything I can offer to her right now. I don't know where Blake has gone or where Ruby is, so I don't have anywhere else to go right now; however, looking at James, I realize that the truth is…

I don't really want to leave, either.

Morning light reflects on the waves I make on the tea's liquid surface when I gently blow on it to cool it down, making the steam tremble away. Distracted in my thoughts I take a sip, and its sweet taste runs down my throat and warms my chest from the inside. Right here, with the soft tinkling sound of James' teaspoon stirring his coffee and the stillness of a quiet morning, the world somehow feels a little less cold.

At least, until something breaks the atmosphere.

When James takes his coffee with his right hand and brings it to his lips to take the first sip, he makes a muffled groan of pain and suddenly drops the cup. It crashes against the table, and its content splatters his clothes. I jump on my seat, surprised.

"Oh, curses!" He exclaims, fanning his mouth with his hand and gently touching his lower lip with the tip of his index finger. "Now I've made a mess." He sighs, looking at the fragments of the broken cup and the spilled coffee all over the table.

"What happened?"

"I burned my tongue."

"How?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"The coffee was hot."

"I know." I say, and I roll my eyes. "I mean, didn't you realize that the cup was hot when you picked it up?"

"I can't." He smiles. Then, he gets up from the table and disappears behind the kitchen's door for a few seconds – he has taken a dishcloth when he comes out again.

I frown and slightly tilt my head, disconcerted. He can't?

"What do you mean?"

"My prosthetic arm. I can't feel cold nor heat with it." He says as if it was nothing; then, he leans over the table and starts cleaning its surface. "I don't feel pain either, so I didn't realize that the coffee was hot. It has happened many times already, and I'm afraid that this won't be the last one." He smiles.

"Oh. I didn't know. I thought it was like your other arm, but stronger."

I saw James fighting a Grimm back at the Battle of Beacon. I remember it clearly. It was a huge Beowolf, and it fiercely pounced over him. If it had been a human arm, the impact of the attack would probably have thrown him to the floor and broken his aura, but James stopped its claw with his metal arm right before shooting it in the head.

"It formerly was, but now... not exactly. I can explain it to you if you want to, but I'm afraid it would probably bore you."

"Oh, no, James." I say, shaking my head a bit. "Please, tell me."

"As you wish." He responds, leaving the dishcloth over the table and sitting by my side. "I'm no scientist, and I'm sure Pietro would explain it much better, but I will try my best. Let's see…

»At first, Pietro designed my prosthetics to be, as you said, like my other arm – half body, in this case – but stronger, and more resistant. They had every kind of receptor a human body has too: pain receptors, which, as their own name suggests, allow us to feel pain; thermoreceptors, which make us sense if something is hot or cold, and mechanoreceptors, which are sensitive to pressure. Are you following me here?"

"Yes, I think so." I respond.

"Alright." He smiles. "My prosthetics have a whole network of nerve implants, too, so these receptors would feel an external sensation, such as a hot cup of coffee, and would send it to my brain through this network. It flows both ways: not only does it send information to my brain, but it also allows my brain to send information to my prosthetics, just like a human arm or leg. That's why I can move them."

I nod.

"One day, around seven years ago, I received a call from Jacques saying that there was a Grimm herd in one of the Schnee Dust Company mines in the mountains, and that he needed it exterminated as soon as possible. The Grimm from the mountains aren't the easiest to kill: they hide underground or watch you from the mine roof, camouflaged, until they can jump on you. However, they are not that hard to eliminate if you already have some previous experience, so instead of sending the Ace Operatives, I thought that it would be a good occasion for the fourth-year Academy students to test their own abilities as almost certified Huntsmen and Huntresses. Each team was sent with one of the teachers to a different part of the mine, and I decided to go too.

»At that time, Winter was one of those fourth-year students, and since she was one of the most promising future Huntresses of the Academy - if not the most - and had manifested her desire to join the military, I wanted to see how she would handle a situation like that, so I decided that I would be the one to accompany her team to the expedition.

»It was easy, at first – I didn't have to intervene once; I just stood behind them and let them do what would be their future job. They managed well, and Winter, as team leader, showed an incredible understanding of fighting strategies and attack combos; it was a pleasure to watch. However, the further we went into the mines, the more abundant the amount of Grimm that emerged from their depths was, and it came to a point when four people were not enough to clear the path, so I had to draw Due Process – my guns – to help them fight the monsters. Eventually, we made it to a huge cavern at the very core of the mountain, and when I saw what was standing before us, I regretted not sending the Ace Operatives instead.

»Right at the center of the cavern was a gigantic worm Grimm emerging from the floor. Its circular mouth had three rows of sharp teeth, and was leaking a dark, thick substance from where smaller worm Grimm were materializing. The cavern walls were crowded with even more Grimm – every single one of their eyes, staring at us. The herd's nest. It was way too late to call for reinforcements, because as deep in the mines as we were, our scrolls had no signal. We were alone. Before we could do anything, hundreds of Grimm moved as one and pounced on us, and the battle began.

»It was terrible. It was like a dark tsunami of killer monsters charging over us again and again, and the biggest one, the worm Grimm in the center of the cavern, attacked with powerful lashes, as if its whole body were a deadly whip. We managed to decimate the smaller ones thanks to the team's coordination and your sister's summons; by that time, however, all of the students but Winter had their auras broken. Two of them were out of combat, lying on the ground and unable to keep fighting. With all the small minions killed, it was our chance to lift the students up and just go and call for reinforcements when we got signal again, but the other student standing between Winter and I was panting in pain, and fell unconscious all of a sudden. Since she was the closest to him, Winter, who was hurt, bleeding, and almost out of aura, ran towards him. She kneeled and gave her back to the monster. While she was assisting her teammate, the giant Grimm charged against them once again. My guns don't have a way to stop that kind of attack, so I did what I had to do: put myself between them and the Grimm.

»My metal arm stopped the blow, but the force of the impact made a shock of pain shake my whole body with such intensity that I thought it was tearing apart once more. I fell to my knees with my aura broken, grabbing my right arm – which was intact, but hurt like it had been broken into a million pieces – and screaming in pain. I was utterly out of combat, and in that moment, I thought it would be the end, that those students were going to die and that it would all be my fault for having made them come in the first place. Screaming, I managed to beg Winter to flee, to leave us and save herself."

A glimpse of light crosses his eyes, and he sighs and smiles before continuing:

"But she didn't. She stood up once more and attacked the giant Grimm with piercing ice skewers, and with her last remaining forces, she summoned the biggest Manticore I had ever seen; straight after that, she fell to the ground right beside me, unconscious from the effort. The last thing I remember before fainting from pain too, was Winter's summon tearing the Grimm apart with its very own jaws.

»When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed – Winter was there, too, in another bed next to mine. Later on, I was told that another group of students found us all and carried us out of the mines. My recovery didn't take long, but Winter had to be admitted for a couple of days. The first thing I did when I left the hospital was go to Pietro's laboratory and ask him to remove my pain and temperature receptors from my prosthetics. Even though the impact broke my aura in the mines, it really was the pain I felt what prevented me from fighting anymore. It was only logic to deduct that if I hadn't felt it, I could have kept going, so I decided that I didn't want anything as mundane as pain to be the reason why I couldn't save the people who depended on me. He seemed hesitant at first, but he finally agreed. He left the mechanoreceptors, though, because I need them to feel where things are, or when someone touches me. Without them I couldn't even hold my gun, because I couldn't tell whether I was holding it or not. It would be like not having an arm at all. Since then, however, it wouldn't matter if a stampede of Goliaths run over the right half of my body – my aura would break, but I wouldn't feel any pain, so I could fight them anyway.

»And… that is why I burned my tongue. I have mechanoreceptors, so I can sense a surface; however, since I have no temperature receptors or pain ones, I can't tell if that very same surface is hot or cold. I usually try to have my coffee with my human hand precisely because of this, but even though I'm ambidextrous, my right one is still the dominant, so I sometimes forget and make a mess, just like it happened today."

I stay silent for some seconds, still trying to assimilate everything he told me. I find it surprising how dedicated James is to his job that he decided to give up something as human as pain – even though he called it "mundane" – just to have fewer weaknesses when it comes to defending the people and fighting the Grimm. It breaks my heart a little, too. I can tell why people would call him "a robot" – it doesn't take a brilliant mind to come up with such a name, anyway –; however, I highly doubt any of them know James' very core: everything he does, he does it for the good of others. As much as he tries to distance himself from what he considers a disadvantage of being human in order to protect everyone else, he's no robot, and he will never be, because he has something they lack: a heart. I look at him with sad eyes, and my irises land on the small pieces of blood-stained paper I noticed before.

"But your hands still tremble." I murmur without thinking.

"They do." He accepts with a sad smile. "My prosthetics are only immune to external pain, but apparently, not to my brain interfering with them because of stress. That's why you heard me asking Pietro to remove their nerves, but if he did, I wouldn't be able to move my prosthetics, so it would be like if I didn't have them at all."

You are not immune to what makes you human, James.

"I understand."

As sad as that may be.