Ruby isn't pleased to see Yang now, not after her sister abandoned her with a spider, especially not with some upperclassman in tow.
"Hey!" Yang calls. "I think I've figured out your problem!"
"That's what you said the last three times," Ruby points out. She's still feeling more than a little downcast from the last attempt.
"Okay, look the problem is that I'm loud and overconfident and make stupid decisions."
"Oh, okay, keep going."
Yang looks a little annoyed, but does continue.
"Anyway, you do need a confidence boost, but I'm not the right person to be emulating. So I brought Coco!" Yang flourishes a hand at the girl behind her, who pushes her sunglasses slightly farther down the bridge of her nose and looks at Ruby.
"Apparently you're bad at being a lesbian and need a makeover," she says dryly.
"I am not!"
"You came to the right place," Coco says. "I can teach you how to be fashionable and flirtatious and get yourself all the girlfriends you want, if you listen to me and follow my advice."
Okay, maybe this isn't such a terrible idea.
…
"Okay, now strut."
"I don't even know what that is."
"It's like walking, but slower and more cool."
Ruby tries to walk slowly, and make cool hand gestures.
"Strut, don't imitate a jellyfish having a seizure. Hands on your hips."
Ruby marches the length of the dorm with her hands on her hips, then turns to look back at Coco, who appears to be facepalming.
"What did I do wrong?"
"The strut isn't about exact motions. It's more about a feeling. Imagine that you're confident and powerful."
"I am confident and powerful!"
"Now walk like it."
Ruby scowls, then stalks back to Coco, arms folded.
"Much better," Coco says. "Now, we move on to conversation."
…
Weiss is used to Ruby doing stupid things, but she's not used to them involving sunglasses and berets. Ruby wears the sunglasses inside, inexplicably, and contentedly refuses to take them off when Blake mentions it.
It's not Weiss's problem. She can just keep studying and ignore her team leader's antics, at least until Ruby decides to sit down on the edge of her desk and tug her sunglasses down ever so slightly to wink at Weiss. Both of her eyes close.
"What exactly is going on?" Weiss asks nobody in particular.
"Just a much-needed confidence boost," Ruby says. She's clearly pitching her voice down an octave or two, and Weiss can't say she minds.
"The last thing you need is more misplaced confidence in yourself," Weiss responds, turning back to her book. She'll head to the library if necessary.
"Aww, but Weiss –" Ruby hastily catches herself and coughs, returning her voice to its lower pitch – "I wanted to talk to you."
"Then talk," Weiss snaps.
"Your eyes are so beautiful," Ruby begins, but is cut off by Weiss slamming her book shut and heading for the door.
"Wait! Weiss! I'm not finished telling you how pretty you are!"
Weiss has had enough.
"No!" she snaps. "You've been tormenting me for weeks, all of you! You were all in on the joke, weren't yo? All of you wrote that letter, and decided to set a Grimm on me, for what? As a prank? To see the Ice Queen get upset? Well, you win, because I am extremely upset!"
Ruby is cowering, eyes wide, but Weiss isn't going to stop just because of that.
"All I wanted to do was get you flowers, but then you – you brutally crushed my dreams. Why?"
Weiss is crying now, and she doesn't like it. She strides away, preparing to head to the library or some other place where she can be more or less alone.
…
"Weiss! Wait!" Ruby tears after her.
Blake and Yang exchange glances in the awkward silence left in their wake.
"So, uh, should we go after them and make sure neither of them die?" Yang asks.
Blake shakes her head.
"One of them has screwed up, and hurt the other one's feelings through a tragic misunderstanding, and now they're going to confess to each other," she says matter-of-factly.
"So we did it."
"I guess so," Blake says, smiling.
…
"Never do that again," Weiss manages when she can stop crying hysterically into Ruby's shoulder. "Never break any windows or start any fires just to try to ask me out."
"Okay, okay," Ruby says reluctantly. Her beret and sunglasses have been discarded, and her hair is now sticking up from her head in all directions. Weiss tries to smooth it down. "But, uh, is that a yes? Because if not I kind of do have to go set more stuff on fire."
"That most certainly is not a yes," Weiss says indignantly. "I wanted to be the one to ask you."
"Fine, then ask."
Weiss pulls together all of her courage, which right now isn't very much, and a decent dose of poise.
"Ruby Rose, will you go out with me?"
She should have expected the flying tackle, and probably should have expected Yang showing up to laugh at them and take pictures and high-five Blake, and to be honest probably should have guessed that Ruby had some dramatic scheme up her sleeves ever since she broke a window at five in the morning.