A/N:
Hi friends and welcome back to RWBY: The Selection!
We left off on a bit of a wild ride (Tyrian and Watts always try to shake things up), and, in the aftermath of the Capital Report, Blake and Yang have sought each other out to celebrate the successful completion of another bout of live television. That's right y'all, it's time for some BUMBLEBEE.
Thank you to everyone who read, favorited, and followed last time! And a huge shoutout to Ravell Aqim for the awesome review!
Once again, please review with any thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, suggestions, OTPs, date ideas, and anything else that strikes your fancy!
Without further ado, enjoy!
Chapter 68: Blake
"How do you answer personal questions that easily?" Blake asked.
She and Yang were sitting in her room. After the Capital Report, Yang had invited herself over with stolen drinks and treats from the royal kitchens to celebrate a successful survival of the interview question onslaught. Blake didn't feel very successful. The basic questions were okay; she tried not to mumble so much, but one call-in fan asked about her relationship history, and if any previous failed relationships had taught her what to look for in a good one. Blake had stumbled through a lie, saying that her relationship with Jaune was the first relationship she'd ever had, and ignoring the knots in her stomach and the swelling in her throat. Jaune might've believed her, and Port and Oobleck might've gone along with it, but when she returned to the stands with the rest of the girls, she could tell many of them knew she was lying.
Yang shrugged, bringing Blake out of her reliving of that terrible moment and back to the present. "I went through a lot of school, so I'm used to being put on the spot like that."
"Did teachers call on you for stuff you didn't know?"
"Yeah," Yang snorted, "my dad was the worst with that. He knew the nights when I didn't do the readings because I was up late partying, and he'd specifically call on me in class the following day." Yang shook her head. "It used to piss me off, but now I'm grateful. It made me better."
"Better at doing the readings beforehand?"
"Better at BS-ing my way through questions I don't know the answer to."
They shared a laugh, and Blake felt a hesitant smile creep onto her face. Everything felt easy with Yang. Everything felt natural.
"Although if I'm being honest, I did lie on one of the questions," Yang said with a shrug.
Blake snapped to look at her. "Are you serious?"
"Mm-hm,"
Blake thought for a minute. The interviewers and call-ins had asked a lot of questions: how her relationship with Jaune was going, whether she got along with the other girls, if she liked other girls... "Which one?"
Yang popped a cupcake into her mouth. "Let's just say I'm not exactly the best at getting by."
"Oh," said Blake, and she wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or confused.
"What about you?" Yang asked, popping a candy into her mouth.
Blake blushed. "I haven't really thought about it much. I mean, I'm pretty sure I like guys, but then sometimes I see a girl and I—" she and Yang locked eyes. Yang raised an eyebrow, and Blake's face grew hot. "You were asking how I answer personal questions," Blake realized.
Yang nodded, "that was my original intent, but I'm not opposed to having this conversation instead."
Blake rolled her eyes. "I… am not the best at answering personal questions," she admitted.
"Pfft, everyone thought you did great," Yang insisted. Blake shook her head. "Did you BS your way through any question?"
Blake was silent for a minute, and then she replied. "Yes."
Yang's face lit up. "No! Which one?"
For a second, Blake considered telling Yang everything. Then, she considered telling her nothing. In the end, she decided on something in between the two.
"I have been in a relationship before," she admitted.
"Really?" Yang cocked her head. "I mean, I'm not surprised, but why lie about that? Plenty of others have had relationships before joining the show: Coco, Reese, Emerald. Why lie?"
Blake chewed on her lip. If she was going to tell Yang about Adam, now was the time. But what would she think of him? What would she think of her?
"It's… complicated."
"Was it a particularly bad relationship that you don't want to talk about on camera?"
"No," Blake wanted to say. The words were right on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't force them out. "It's just complicated."
Yang stared intensely at Blake for a few seconds before nodding. "I understand. If you ever want to talk, I'm here. But if not, I—"
"I'm still in a relationship back home," Blake blurted. Her hands flew to her mouth. Why had she said that? Why had she said that?!
Yang's jaw dropped, and Blake's heart leapt into her throat, where it pounded mercilessly. After a few seconds of agony, Blake broke the shocked silence with an, "I'm sorry."
It seemed to take Yang a second to remember how to use her mouth, but when she did, she cracked a wide grin and snorted, "don't be. I'm impressed, honestly. You're running the long con here. I thought I was screwing with the Prince because I'm totally a lesbian, but you've already got someone back home." Yang laughed, and Blake blinked back surprise.
"Because you're totally a what?" she thought.
Yang chuckled, leaning back against Blake's bed. "Do you think anyone's actually here to date Jaune? Poor guy... Hey, what's this guy back home like? Or is it a girl?" Yang paused, and Blake's heart rate struggled to return to normal. "Are they nice?"
That was when the tears came. She wasn't sure if she was crying out of relief that Yang wasn't going to have her executed for her relationship with Adam, out of frustration at Yang's question, or out of heartbreak at the answer she knew was the truth, but, before Blake could stop them, silent tears were running down her face.
When she saw Blake's tears, Yang's smile quickly faded. "Holy shit, Blake, are you okay?"
"Yeah," Blake lied. "Yeah, it's just… a lot."
"I know what you mean," Yang said, and Blake could hear some sadness in her voice too. A moment of silence fell between them. "Can I ask you something?"
Blake nodded, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand.
"Why did you come here?"
Blake blinked. "What?"
"If you already have someone back home, if you don't care about dating the Prince, why did you come?"
"Why did you come?"
"To be a Huntress," Yang admitted, and Blake wished her answer was that simple. "You?"
Blake looked away. "I can't tell you that."
Yang was silent for a second, and Blake found herself wishing she had the courage to tell Yang the truth. "Have you thought about what you want to do?"
Blake turned, confused.
"After the Selection, that is."
"Sometimes," Blake admitted. "Sometimes we talk about it together."
"You and the guy back home," Yang clarified.
Blake nodded. "Adam." His name felt foreign here, like he didn't belong in a conversation between the two of them. "We talk a lot about what the world will be like after this…" Blake trailed off, her mind on the upcoming White Fang attack. To overthrow the royal family would bring so much liberation to so many Faunus. They would enter a caste-less society, a brave new world, where everyone would be treated equally.
"If you win?"
Without thinking, Blake nodded. "If we win."
Yang was silent for a moment, and Blake lost herself in visions of the future.
"You're a Faunus, aren't you?"
Yang's words cut through her visions like a knife.
"Wh- what?"
"It's nothing to hide."
"I know that," Blake snapped. She raised a hand to her bow and sighed. "How did you find out?"
"The bow," Yang said with a shrug. Blake lowered her hand and growled. "Also, you really like fish."
"Fish is good for you!"
"I never said it wasn't," Yang laughed, "but you are, aren't you?"
"Does it matter?"
"Not to me," Yang admitted, "does it matter to you?"
Blake was taken aback by the simplicity of her question. It was asked without judgment, without fear, without pressure to answer one way or another, and yet, she had no idea how to respond.
Every day, Blake went back and forth on whether or not being a Faunus mattered. On one hand, it shouldn't. A pair of cat ears shouldn't differentiate her from everyone else. She was just as capable, just as intelligent, as just as flawed as the rest of the human population. But in a much more real sense, it did matter that she was a Faunus. People saw her differently, they treated her differently, and, even if they didn't, her Faunus heritage had been the source of her caste placement, of every lost opportunity, of every inaccessible right.
"Even if I pretend like it doesn't, people will still treat me like it does."
There was another moment of silence between them, and then, Yang pulled her into a hug.
Blake blinked, taken aback. She hadn't been hugged since she'd left for the Selection a few weeks ago, and the feeling of human contact was a shock, although not unwelcome. Butterflies exploded in her stomach as Yang held her tightly, and they didn't disappear when Yang pulled away.
"If anyone treats you poorly for being a Faunus here, let me know, and we'll beat them up together."
Blake laughed.
"And then we'll get drunk and read Ninjas of Love."
"You haven't read a page of Ninjas of Love, Yang, don't try to fool me like that,"
"Quite the contrary," Yang winked. She cleared her throat, and then, in a formal, posh accent that rather resembled Dr. Watts, she recited, "The night was dark and stormy, but the moon shone as white as pale skin, as Orchie Xana walked through the empty fields of Northeast Anima. Always alone, her heart longed to walk these fields with another. On this particularly stormy night, Orchie's mind was filled with doubt as she pondered her next adventure: Ninja-"
Blake threw a pillow at her, gasping. "You did read it!"
"Hey, when you said it was your favorite book, I had to check it out."
The smile that crept onto Blake's face now was wide and uncontrollable. "I can't believe you."
Yang winked. "I've been preparing to do a live-action reenactment. How's my narrator voice?"
"Absolutely ridiculous," Blake smirked, rolling her eyes.
"Aw, come on, Blakey, I thought it was pretty good." Yang cleared her throat and put on her posh accent again. "Ninja Academy, where she hoped to learn to kill a man. Little did Orchie Xana know, however, not only would her new school teach her to kill a man. It would teach her to love one."
Yang was interrupted by another pillow to the face.
"You are such a dork…" Blake said, smiling.
"I try," Yang shrugged. "Want to hear the sauciest chapter?"
Blake rolled her eyes, prepared to cringe to the highest degree, when her scroll buzzed beside her. Her smile faded.
"Is it your own Ninja of Love?" Yang asked with a grin.
"Yeah," whispered Blake. She stared at Adam's contact name, at those four letters that she so inexplicably wanted to ignore. With a sudden surge of courage, she canceled the call and put her phone on silent. "It can wait. Ninjas of Love is far more important."
Yang grinned. "I agree."
As Yang narrated the sauciest of chapters with overdramatic voices and noises, Blake couldn't help but laugh. She corrected Yang on her many, many mistakes, having memorized the book word-for-word herself several years ago, and she cringed at every excessively saucy line. The adrenaline from declining Adam made her feel almost in a state of high while laughing with Yang. She knew it was stupid. She knew she would pay for it later. But a small, growing part of her didn't care.
"Adam's far away," she thought as Yang had to check Blake's copy for a line she'd forgotten.
"He can't hurt me right now," she convinced herself as Yang fell off the bed from laughing too hard at Blake's Orchie impression.
But the pit in her stomach returned when she flipped over her scroll out of compulsion while the two took a candy break. Not only did she have seven missed calls from Adam. She had one from Sienna Khan. Blake's heart dropped.
"You need to go," she said abruptly.
Yang looked up from the pile of Skittles in her hands. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah," Blake lied, "yeah, but I should take this. You should go."
Yang eyed her nervously for a second before shrugging. "Okay," she said. She grabbed some drinks and candy, leaving some behind for Blake. "Continue tomorrow?" Yang winked.
"We'll see," Blake replied. Her smile was tight. Did she want to see Yang tomorrow night? Yes, of course. But she hoped against hope that she wouldn't. Tomorrow was another elimination. If Yang was sent home, she'd be gone by nightfall. If Yang was sent home, she'd be safe.