It wasn't often that Pyrrha Nikos fully lost her composure, though you might be mistaken for assuming she did, given her epic spit take she just sprayed all over Ren (who was only in that position to begin with because Nora used him as a human shield).
Thankfully, it was only water and not fruit punch like the others were drinking.
"Sorry...," she apologized, "it's just that I think I may have just heard you wrong, Nora; would you mind repeating that?" She'd been a bit distracted wondering where Jaune was; he'd been absent ever since breakfast when he said he had a promise he had to fulfill, only showing up for classes. That, and Nora did tend to ramble on from time to time, so it was understandable that she'd tune most of the ginger girl's hyperbole out.
Yeah, that's probably what happened. She took another sip of her water, waiting for Nora to repeat what she said.
"Uh...I think Jaune's smashing Ruby?"
The second spit-take managed to actually strike its original target.
Nora just robotically wiped the H2O/spit from her mug.
"...Pyrrha?" Ren asked.
She gave a dismissive wave, "No no, I'm fine..."
That was a lie, she wasn't fine. But she was more composed again.
She focused on Nora again. "What...precisely did you mean by, um...*ahem*, 'smashing'?" she blinked.
Loudly.
"Well..." Nora put a finger to her chin. "For the past couple nights there've been lots of grunting coming from the room on the other side of the wall, you know, the one that Ren sleeps on?"
Yeah, that made sense; Pyrrha couldn't recall hearing any such noises on her side of the room.
"I have to bang on the wall to let them know they're being too loud," Ren explained.
"Ok...but that doesn't mean it's Jaune who's-"
"And have you noticed how he always has a convenient excuse whenever he needs to duck away?" the ginger girl continued, "How many of you guys' practices has he missed now?"
"...a few," the Invincible Girl reluctantly admitted, "But he's a good person, he probably just offered to help with something and lost track of time."
Both Nora and (a still damp) Ren gave Pyrrha a Look™️.
"...he gets lost easy?"
They Looked™️ harder.
"On top of that, Ruby always sneaks away from her team around the same times, according to Snow Queen."
Ok, well, that question was answered before it was asked.
"And she also gives lame excuses." Nora leaned forward, locking eyes with her friend, "Pyr, I think we have to accept the fact that Jaune and Ruby are smashing."
As much as she didn't want to admit it, Pyrrha had to agree with Nora on this point. After all, Jaune and Ruby Rose were good friends since they first met before the Initiation, and a lot of their interests seemed to align with each other, not to mention they were both attractive in their own ways...especially Jaune, with a chest you could just run your hands down all day-
Focus! There was plenty of time for flights of fancy later on.
Her friends were still Looking™️ at Pyrrha when she snapped out of her impromptu daydream.
"Sorry..."
"You were thinking about Jaune without a shirt on, weren't you?~" Nora asked with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
Grapes! How did she always know?
"Th-that's-"
She was about to (unconvincingly) say "unimportant" when her Scroll rang with an incoming call, the caller ID displaying Jaune's name.
She snatched it up and immediately hit the Answer button.
"Jaune, hello again!~" she said, her demeanor instantly shifting to bright and cheerful. "We were just talking about you; where are you right now?~ ...oh, headlight fluid? I wasn't aware that- ...no, I suppose I never did ask how it worked...no no, pay it no mind, I shouldn't have even brought it up! ...again? Jaune, you can't keep missing- ...you really can't back out of this? Alright, but I expect to see you at the usual place tomorrow at the same time as before, OK? ...see you later, Jaune." She hung up the call and turned back to her teammates. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this," she informed them.
"Ooh, can I help? I haven't gotten to break any legs in like...three days!"
Nora, do you even need to ask?
Now it was Pyrrha's turn to give her friend the Look™️.
Ren still hadn't toweled his face off, for the record.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Jaune was NOT cheating on her!
For one thing, the two of them weren't even an item right now. Not for lack of trying, mind, but for the moment those efforts had yet to actually bear fruit, and thus there was no technical way he could "cheat" on her (despite what half of Pyrrha's brain seemed to be screaming at her). Also, there was no rule that said you couldn't have multiple friends, at least no rule that any sane person followed.
So, thusly, Jaune was allowed to..."smash" with whoever he chose to.
...come to think of it, that Neptune boy had been hanging around Team JNPR a lot lately. Did he and Jaune...?
Nah, probably not.
But if they were "smashing" together-
Focus, Pyrrha!
Anyway, while it might not be cheating per se, she still needed to convince herself that there was nothing untoward going on with Jaune and Ruby. And for that, she needed the most knowledgeable person on human relationships she could possibly think of.
Unfortunately, her old promotional manager had retired and settled down with her wife after Pyrrha left for Beacon and she didn't have their new contact info, so she had to settle for the second-best thing.
"Normally, I'd be insulted that I'm not your first choice in this matter," Coco Adel said. She was hanging around one of the common areas on Beacon Academy's campus, one leg tastefully propped up while the second year student nursed an iced coffee, "but honestly, who else in the whole school know as much about love as I do?~"
Sip.
"How can I help you, Cereal Box?"
"Well...," Pyrrha wrung her hands a bit, "...hypothetically...how would you tell if someone is..." She wracked her brain for a moment to come up with a tactful way to phrase things. "...being unfaithful."
An eyebrow poked above Coco's shades. "And I suppose you're just 'asking this for a friend', right?" the fashionista asked knowingly. "Pyrrha, if you want my advice on this, I need you to be straight with me." ...she gave a brief chuckle for reasons that flew right past poor Pyrrha. "This is about your crush on Jaune, isn't it?"
Like it could really be about anything else. Pyrrha gave a sigh, "...yes."
"I see, I see..." Another sip. "Well, before you go jumping to conclusions, you have to ask yourself WHY he would possibly be cheating on you. You know, 'did I push him away?' and the like. Of course, the answer to that is obviously going to be 'no', so then you have to look for signs that there's someone else is involved."
"Alright, that makes sense. What signs should I look for?"
There appeared to be a glint of light that reflected off Coco's shades at that moment.
"WELL, my young celebrity-" They were only about a year apart. "-let me tell you what to look for!" She slung an arm around Pyrrha's shoulders. "Now the most common sign to look for is..."
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Never in a million years would Pyrrha imagine herself skulking through JNPR's dorm room, looking for signs that one of her beloved teammates was cheating on her.
...in the relationship they didn't yet have.
Whatever, Pyrrha needed to get to the bottom of this! And naturally, the first place she needed to check was the laundry hamper; according to Coco, one of the signs of infidelity was hair that didn't belong to either her or Jaune (or Ren & Nora, obviously).
Unfortunately, in her excitement for playing detective, she forgot that JNPR had just taken part in Ms. Goodwitch's combat class yesterday, so everything still smelled like stale sweat and BO.
Mostly from Nora's clothes.
Understandably, waiting until the clothes had been washed would defeat the purpose of even finding evidence, so she just had to brave it out. "Ugh," she groaned, pinching her nose closed with one hand while rooting through the hamper with the other, "I really hope this is worth it..."
Despite the difference in their sizes, it was a surprisingly difficult task to find one of Jaune's shirts on the collection of discarded clothes. However, once she got past the middle of the basket she grasped Jaune's Pumpkin Pete's hoodie and yanked it out, dragging a couple other bits of clothing with it. Pyrrha quickly tossed them back in and hurried into the bathroom to inspect her prize.
The first thing she found was that Jaune apparently had this hoodie for a few years before coming to Beacon: it was slightly faded, the cartoon rabbit on the front looked like it was starting to come off in pieces, and all the elastics were pretty much the opposite of taut by this point. It was obviously well-loved, and how it survived to this state spoke volumes of that love. (Was it possible to feel jealous of a hoodie?)
The other thing that stood out to her, holding onto the fabric just below the base of the hood, was the object she'd been looking for: a single strand of dark brown hair with a slight hint of red at one end.
She knew exactly who this hair belonged to, and they didn't live in this room.
"Jaune...why?" she whispered to herself.
"Why what?" a familiar voice suddenly said from behind her, causing the Mistrali girl to squeak in surprise. She spun around- reflexively hiding the hoodie behind her back -to find Jaune Arc standing in the bathroom doorway, looking slightly confused.
"Oh, hello, Jaune!~" she said, her smile clearly pasted on, "...I wasn't aware you were in the room again."
"Uh, yeah, I just got here. ...why are you hiding my hoodie behind your back?"
...well, grapes.
"...um, well...you see..." Think of something believable, think of something believable, think of something believable...! "I...was..."
Then, a thought occurred to her; she gave a small tug on the fabric, forming a hole.
"I was going to try and fix it," she lied, now holding the offending garment out so he could see the (newly formed) hole. "I was hoping it would be a surprise, but it seems you've caught me..."
"Wait, really?" He took the hoodie back, "I didn't know you knew how to sew."
Gulp.
"We all have our hobbies, heh heh..."
"But we don't have any thread; what were you going to fix it with?"
She hoped the sweat on her brow wasn't as visible as it felt.
"...dental floss," she flailed, "it's not a permanent solution, but it would have held enough so I could go and get some proper thread."
She silently did a mental fist pump for that excuse.
"Oh. Huh...I didn't know that was a thing. Makes sense, though." He handed the hoodie back to her. "Don't let me stop you; I just came by here to drop my school things off before I-"
"...before you what?" she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"...uh, nothing special; I just agreed to help someone with something today, that's all." He closed the bathroom door as he left, calling back "I'll be back later tonight!" before the sound of their dorm room door slamming shut.
If that wasn't suspicious, then she was a pile of dirt.
Pyrrha intended to follow after the scraggly blonde boy to question him further when she noticed his uniform haphazardly strewn on his bed, on top of which lay his Scroll.
...she waited 10 seconds before snatching the device up and turning it on, scanning through his recent messages.
There were quite a few from Ruby.
The most recent convo read thus:
R: I need more
J: already? Weren't you satisfied last night?
R: not enough. R U free tonight?
J: yeah
R: good. I need to do this as soon as possible.
For some weird reason, she didn't feel like looking through the rest of the messages. Go figure.
This was all the proof she needed that Jaune was doing illicit activities with Ruby.
There was only one thing left to do: confront him in the act. (An essential part of the process, according to Coco.)
Steeling her emotions and her partner and leader's Scroll clutched in her hand, Pyrrha stormed out of their room toward the one next door, ready to raise hell over Jaune's indiscretion. She stopped outside the door, not due to nerves but to listen and confirm that both parties were currently inside; it would be quite a foolish spectacle if she just barged into an empty room with nothing going on.
She placed an ear against the door, listening.
If it were any other situation, the grunting noises coming from the other side would have made the Invincible Girl a tad uncomfortable, but not this one.
Electing to forgo propriety, Pyrrha burst into the room (which thankfully wasn't locked), pointing emphatically and declaring "You two are having sex!" at the occupants.
Ruby and Jaune, both still fully clothed, turned to stare quizzically at the red-haired intruder. They were sitting a couple of feet apart from each other, each holding a game controller. Behind them was a TV with colorful computer graphics on the screen, a small timer in the corner counting down.
"...we are?" Ruby wondered, blinking audibly.
Jaune then piped up "Ruby, why didn't you tell me; I would have put my controller down."
Pyrrha just stood in the doorway, her arm starting to droop in concert with her mood. "Wait, but I thought...?"
"Thought what? Also, please don't tell Yang we're doing this," Ruby pleaded, "she'll try to fix our next match in her favor."
"...you next match?" Pyrrha asked. She'd been so convinced that the respective team leaders were engaging in carnal relations with each other that she'd been wholly thrown for a loop when, clearly, that wasn't the case.
"Yeah; Yang keeps beating me in Super Smash Grimm, so Jaune offered to help me train so I can totally kick her butt next time we play!"
"I used to play it all the time back home," Jaune added, "my sisters would always beg me to unlock all the secret characters for them."
"But...wh-what about this!" She held up the Scroll. "And I found one of Ruby's hairs on your hoodie; how do you explain that, hmm?"
"...you went through my Scroll?" Jaune asked, looking a little hurt.
"Oh, that must have been from last night," the fifteen-year-old explained, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head, "we sorta lost track of time and Jaune helped walk me back across the hall; I must have been leaning on his shoulder at the time. Also, I was kinda pulling my hair out a bit during that training session."
"I told you that you'd crash if you ate that much sugar beforehand," Jaune chastised, giving Ruby a light shove.
Pyrrha just stood there, looking like she'd just been told the sky was green and grass was red. This couldn't be right...could it?
"But...if all you're doing is playing video games, then why did Nora say that you were smashing?"
At this, both dorks looked at each other before erupted in a fit of giggles.
"I guess you don't play a lot of games yourself," Jaune remarked, turning back to Pyrrha, "'Smashing' is just what people say when they talk about playing Smash Grimm. Maybe Nora just thought it was a common enough phrase that you'd know it?" He picked up a third controller and held it out to Pyrrha, "You wanna join us? It'd probably be good for Ruby if she knew how to handle different characters."
"You just have to promise that Yang won't hear a word of this," Ruby added.
Well...what else could she really do at this point? Reluctantly she sat down next to the pair, accepting the controller. "I'm sorry I suspected you both of being unfaithful, and I'm sorry for going through your Scroll without permission, Jaune."
"No worries, Pyr."
"Yeah, no harm done." Ruby put a hand in Pyrrha's shoulder.
"Thank you both." She'd let Coco know she got it wrong later. For now, she was just going to spend some time with her good friends. "So how do you play this game?"
"Oh, it's easy! The first thing to know is..."
fin.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
"Nora…"
"WHAT? She's famous, I thought she would've known about Super Smash Grimm."
"I know you're aware of how much of a double entendre that word is... Also, how does Pyrrha being famous equate to her knowing gamer lingo?"
"Because…"
"..."
"...boop.~"
"That's what I thought.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Well, that was certainly fun, wasn't it? Be sure to check out "Pyrrha And Weiss Get Away and Get A Coffee" by AManwithaB0x since we write both these fics in tandem.