"Looking good, Jaune," his sister teased.
"Saph, I'm trying to be serious here." Jaune struggled to wiggle his way out of the buttoned shirt he had on. Once accomplished, he tossed it into the discard pile he had on his bed. "I want to look at least semi-presentable for this."
"But you still have no idea whether or not this will be an actual date or not..."
"I described the situation to you, didn't I?"
"Well, yes but I'm not a mind reader, Jaune." She curled some of her hair with her finger. "Based on what you've told me, she does look forward to meeting you, but she's not throwing herself at you, Jaune. Unlike how you were with this Schnee girl you've been fawning over. In fact, this has to be the first time you've called without mentioning her since you've arrived at Beacon." Her eyes narrowed as a toothy grin formed. "My, my... dear Jauney has found a new potential first love~"
"Saph..." he whined.
"I jest, I jest... You should be grateful I haven't brought this up with Mom. She knows how you always come to me for anything from trivial to catastrophic. She calls just to pry for info out of me regarding you specifically, you know."
"I..." Perhaps it'd be best for him to call his mother sometime. He couldn't mention Jackie to her though. There was no way. "Anyway, I just want to look appealing. Showing up with my armor and weapon isn't exactly... appropriate."
"Mm, right. She's a civilian as well by the sounds of it. Unlike hangouts with your friends, you'll have to be more mindful of your habits. Not all civilians are okay with hormonal teenagers with superpowers waving weapons around like toys."
His mind wandered over to his neighbors for a brief moment. He shook the thought with a little guilt. A little. He wasn't wrong about some of his friends. Speaking of which, how were they going to react to this? Thye probably wouldn't make a big deal out of it though. Yang might tease him, and he doubted Weiss would give much a reaction, which saddened him a bit.
"Just show up with the first outfit I recommended. You still have those black trousers from your old job, don't you? Those'll fit with your gray button-up and the shoes you've got on now." He heard Terra's voice. "Ah, I've got to go. Message me about how it goes, alright?"
Jaune watched as his sister's face disappeared, replaced by the current time-
Wait, did Jackie ever specify what time she wanted to meet up? He brushed his hand over her scroll and considered leaving a message, but that wouldn't do. He'd have to call her if he was was contacting her work phone. How'd his hair look? Did he remember to wash his face?
He shook his head and took a deep breath. Just... check in and inquire about the details. No need to overthink this.
"Jaune?"
He jumped. "Jackie- Oh, I mean... Hey, Pyrrha."
His partner had walked into their room without him noticing. His panic made her recoil a bit, but she regained her bearing.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Jaune." Her eyes danced around the room a bit. She held her hands behind her back and tilted her head a bit. "Are you going out?"
"Oh, yeah. Figured it'd be nice to explore Vale this weekend." Now that he thought about it, would he be able to contact Jackie by her work phone? It was the weekend after all. "I'm meeting a friend of mine for lunch. I need to return her scroll to her."
"Her...?"
"Right, I haven't really introduced you, have I?" Well, he doesn't have a clue what she looks like either.
"Would it be alright if I tagged along then?"
Jaune paused. It's not that he didn't enjoy Pyrrha's company - he loved spending time with his partner. It was just that it'd be a bit awkward to bring her along, wouldn't it? He still needs to actually meet Jackie for the first time.
"Ha, I uh..." Jaune bit his lip. "The thing is, she's kind of a huge fan if yours, Pure. And I wouldn't want to overwhelm you-"
"I'd be perfectly fine with that." There was an odd amount of weight to her voice. A hint of... urgency? Either way, his excuse didn't work. He needed to think of something!
However, it wasn't necessary. A ringtone he wasn't familiar with went off. Jaune reached into his pocket for the buzzing device and read the name. Jaune already saved Jackie's work info on his own scroll, but he hadn't called her from it yet, so she didn't have his contact info.
"That's her actually," he pressed his thumb down on the scroll, answering it before Pyrrha could comment on it. "This is Jaune with Jackie's scroll."
"My, my... Openly admitting you have property on your person that doesn't belong to you? The gall! The audacity, my dear Arc." Pyrrha's cheeks flushed a bit. "I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time, your hair appears to be quite a mess."
"This is how my hair always looks..."
"Well if it suits your fancy... Oh? Do I see someone behind you?" Jaune could practically feel Jackie's eyes scanning his surroundings despite how the screen didn't display her end. "Such fiery red hair... My dear, I must say you look like an absolute gem."
"Ah, oh uh... thank you?" Pyrrha began stroking her ponytail a bit. "My name is-"
"Pyrrha Nikos, yes I can tell. I may be an uncultured swine, but I'm not stupid." Pyrrha chuckled at that as Jaune felt his cheeks warm up. He didn't really pay attention to celebrities - there was nothing wrong with that. "I must admit, I'm surprised to see she's your roommate Jaune. Then again, it was pretty big news how you decided to come to Vale instead of going to school in Mistral, Miss Nikos."
"Pyrrha is fine."
"Oh thank gods, you don't have a stick up your ass." Pyrrha coughed at that. "Er, what I mean is most Mistralians I've met are rather uptight, you know? Nowhere near as bad as Atlesians but..." She paused. "Actually, I'm not interrupting right? You two weren't in the middle of some weird foreplay with all the clothes on the ground, are you?"
Pyrrha let out a little squeak. Jaune wasn't aware she was even capable of making such a noise.
"No!" Pyrrha blurted. "I, uh-"
"I can picture it, the adored Pyrrha Nikos ravaging her fellow classmate. Ah, the shivers I'm getting..."
Pyrrha covered her face with her hands and ran towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
"You got that from that one novel by M.C." Jaune pointed out.
"And hey, it actually worked, didn't it?" Jaune glared at her. "Ah... Sorry, but it was too good to resist. To be fair, I did legitimately think there's something going on there. The way she positioned herself in reference to you, her eye movement..."
"Heh?"
"Ah, forget it. I did want to speak to you alone anyway, dear Jaune. I'm... Well, if it wasn't obvious I don't make many friends with how... I like to speak my mind, catch my drift? So I'd rather have one objective rather than two. She was planning on tagging along for our little date, yeah?" She continued on before he could respond. "Don't ask, a woman just knows these things. It's called intuition. Anyway, I'd rather not get swarmed by adoring fans as we try to enjoy our time to ourselves."
"That's a fair point, but you didn't have to tease her like that. She's not..." Not like Yang or Blake, who would handle something like that far better.
"She's precious to you, I can tell. I'm sorry for that, Jaune. Really. I'll be sure to apologize to her in the future. Right now though, let me get you the details for our little outing. You have a pen and paper on you?"
I figured I'd continue this for the shits and giggles. Still working out the ending, but I already planned everything leading up to it. So yeah, at least I'm not going through this blind.
-Mute