Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY in any way. I don't think I'm legally obligated to include that every time, but what the hey.

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The two young girls were just coming out of the classroom for the day, walking together on their way to the parking lot of the elementary school. Other kids ran and giggled all around them, but she barely noticed at the time. Yang's mind was on whether or not to hold Blake's hand, but she decided against it. She liked Blake… liked her… but didn't want to scare her away. Just walking next to her was fine.

Blake was busy talking about the movie they watched last night during their sleepover at Yang's house. It was some kind of romantic comedy that Yang didn't remember the title of, but Blake loved it so Yang tried to enjoy it. She found it boring. Not enough explosions.

While Blake was rambling on about the movie, Yang couldn't help but stare at Blake's hair, her eyes, her neck. Even though they were only about 8 years old, Yang was already very attracted to Blake. She wanted to kiss her, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She didn't think Blake felt the same way she did. Of course, she also didn't understand her own feelings completely. Not yet. She just knew what she wanted.

As they walked on, Blake suddenly mentioned the idea of a 'first kiss,' and that she wanted to make sure that hers was 'super special.' She wanted to save it for the man who she'd spend the rest of her life with. Her eyes sparkled like gold as she said this, and Yang couldn't hold herself back any longer. Her heart was ready to burst out of her chest. Her head swam. Her arms moved by themselves…

Yang grabbed Blake by the shoulders and gave her a kiss on the lips.

More accurately, stole Blake's first kiss.

Blake's face rapidly ran through all the emotions; at first she's shocked, then upset and almost crying, then outright furious. She screamed at Yang for doing that, but Yang had no regrets. Blake threw a punch, missed, swung again and broke Yang's nose. Yang was bleeding, badly, but Blake didn't stop. She was very angry indeed. How could you, she asked, demanded, while punching a few more times. Yang knew then that Blake would likely hate her for the rest of their lives.

By the time the grown-ups came over to stop the fight, Yang had taken several hits. None did any more damage than the one on the nose. And none hurt as much as Blake's look of utter betrayal.

Blake's parents were ready to take Yang's family to court over the matter, but they settled it 'outside of court,' as Daddy put it. Both families moved away from each other with the agreement that neither child would ever see the other again.

Apparently they never bothered to keep track of where Yang was.

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Yang and Blake were having their first real conversation in eight years.

They hadn't even seen each other during that time, other than the one encounter over the weekend. Blake had been a big help and was the major reason they'd kept Ruby from running away from home (and heading back home, if that made any sense), but now that Blake's story was out in the open, it was time for a little reconciliation.

Yang honestly didn't even know Blake was going to Oum High, even when they met at the train station – but she figured it out pretty quickly, especially in the way the brunette demanded Yang's presence. Now it was the appointed time and Yang was nervous. Really nervous.

And early. Really early. Blake must have meant a specific time, or maybe after a–

"You're here. Good."

The blonde's nerves were tight enough that even those few words almost set her off. She had been standing by the side door of the main building, looking out in hopes that she might spot Blake first, …but of course the brunette had gotten behind her. Sneaky little thing.

Yang tried to start with a smile, saying, "H-hey, Blake… g-good aftern–"

"Walk with me," the brunette snapped and made her way to the middle of the practice field. Yang followed with a heavy sigh.

Yang Xiao-Long's day had already been a bit stressful, mainly because of the impending meeting she'd have to deal with after school was out. Introducing herself to Ruby's group of friends wasn't much help (although it was neat to get to know the people Blake was friendly with, even just for a bit).

Both she and Blake were dressed casually – normal t-shirt and blue jeans on each, although Blake seemed to prefer black while Yang wore yellow. The sky above them was only partly cloudy, letting the air temperature dip down to a level that most of the students seemed to really enjoy. Yang preferred a more tepid climate, personally.

Yes, she was drifting. In her defense, the walk was taking a while – Yang was trying not to lose focus too badly.

Once in the center of the field, Blake Belladonna stopped, turned around, crossed her arms, and stared at Yang. Or rather, glared.

Hard to believe she was still pissed after this long.

Yang had tried to prepare some witty comment, a joke, or even a basic hey-how-are-ya? …but all that fell apart here. There was only one thing the brunette wanted right now, and even Yang could see what it was.

"Blake… I'm sorry."

No response… unless you counted one of her eyebrows twitching.

"What I did back then was stupid, insensitive and rude…"

"…Don't forget thoughtless."

"And thoughtless, yes." Yang was nodding in exasperation. "The point is, I know what I did was wrong and I'm really sorry… Will you forgive me?"

Almost a minute went by without a word, then Blake un-crossed her arms and slowly walked forward. Yang's hands went up on instinct, ready to block if it came to blows again…

But it didn't. Blake embraced the blonde in a gentle hug instead. "That's all I wanted to hear, Yang. Yes …I forgive you."

The blonde blinked as she stepped back, "Really? That's all?"

A sly grin came next as Blake added, "Well… I was ready to unpack all kinds of emotional baggage on you… hoping to guilt-trip you into it…"

The waving hands went up, "Oh no-no-no, there's no need for that. We're all good… right?"

The two teenagers laughed lightly for a bit, but Blake's smile faded soon after. "Yang… what you did really hurt me. You knew how much my first kiss meant to me… yet you still took it from me."

Yang's smile faded now, but she remained quiet.

"It took a long time for me to trust anybody after that all happened. Forcing yourself on me like that, even if we were only eight years old… that hurt. You betrayed me, Yang…"

The blonde was now looking intently at some grass off to the side and muttered, "…I thought you said you forgave me?"

"I did, …I do…" Blake put her hand on the blonde's shoulder in a comforting manner, "But I needed you to know how I felt. I needed to tell you."

They exchanged a look that simply said It's-okay-don't-worry-about-it, then turned to walk back inside. Both girls seemed to walk with lighter steps, as though the weight of the guilt and past offenses were physically dropping off of them, left behind in the grass.

Maybe they were friends again? Yang hoped so, at least.

Just before they reached the door, Yang looked over and said, "…Since we're all buddy-buddy now, can I confess something?"

Blake stopped and looked over, but didn't say anything.

"Even after you slugged me back then… even after we moved away… I never regretted doing it."

Amber eyes widened briefly, then narrowed as they searched lilac ones for any sign of that old spark that had already caused so much trouble. She only found the girl's normal mischief. Teasing, in other words.

"I should warn you against doing something like that again," Blake said with a half-grin. "I have a boyfriend now."

Yang could only bark a laugh to the sky at a comment like that. "HA! Warn me, huh? Unless he's some kind of world heavyweight champion, I could knock his ass halfway across this town…"

"I doubt that. He's a Kung-Fu master. Name's Sun Wukong."

"Ooh, a wee-little oriental man? How cute…" Yang took on a mockingly high voice to tease her with.

"Six-foot, 195 pounds is not exactly wee-little…"

Yang's squeaking quit right there. Her smile fled and her face grew just a little bit pale as they made their way in.

On the plus side, Blake wasn't mad at her anymore.

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Two weeks passed after that. Two whole weeks of peace.

Ruby Rose came back to class and only a handful of students had an inkling that anything had happened… but many of them could tell something had changed in the redhead. It was in the way she carried herself, the look on her face – gone was the shy, sidewalk-facing introvert that first arrived. Now she was a shy, forward-facing introvert. One step at a time.

Weiss Schnee had also changed, but not much. After realizing how her lack of knowledge almost cost her a friendship, the young heiress made a serious effort to learn as much of the 'modern language' as she could. Fortunately, she had plenty of prospective 'tutors' to ask – unfortunately, one of them was Coco Adel. Poor Weiss. None of them would soon forget the girl's face the day she first learned what a 'dildo' was. Priceless.

Blake Belladonna finally returned to her spot in front of the library, rejoining the rest of the gang. Coco didn't pry too far into what had happened (luckily), but she seemed relieved that the elephant in the room had finally been taken care of. Jaune also seemed relieved. He made mention of getting a little part-time job somewhere in town that hired high-school kids, but didn't say where. The only reason he gave was 'video game money' …as if that explained everything.

Yang Xiao-Long finally made an effort to meet Ruby's entire group of friends. They all seemed to hit it off pretty well – of course, the blonde couldn't help but pick at Jaune over his 'nerd fashion.' Ruby seemed to think that Yang and Coco would get along just fine… for some reason.

Cinder Fall's role in this story wasn't exactly done, either. With only a few weeks of school marked off the calendar, the woman was just getting started.

The two weeks following Ruby's attempted running away gave the class quite a few things to think about. No less than three projects came and went, each focusing on a specific medium rather than their usual self-study. Ruby had already mastered the basic colored pencil, so that one was easy enough. Weiss took to the soft pastels rather well, while Ruby absolutely hated them. They were a total mess – and she hated getting dirty, remember? Finally they tried their hand at straight-up ink drawing (using no pencil at all). Both Ruby and Weiss found themselves at a loss. It was much more difficult than they expected… but they still enjoyed themselves, so that was a thing.

They also had another of Ms. Fall's custom assignments. Ruby's task was to produce a drawing of a crowded room, fully detailed, using a single color (other than black). It also had to be 11' x 14' – a size that was larger than the redhead was normally accustomed to working with.

To avoid boring you with the finer details, Ruby finished the drawing in a slate-grey monochrome. She was quite proud of it, actually. When she turned it in, Ms. Fall gave it another one of her raised-eyebrow reactions.

By this point in time Ruby had finally caught wind of how important that look might be. Apparently the woman was a nationally acclaimed art critic and one of the most respected professionals in the entire business. For her to be impressed by anything a high-school girl could do, well …there was no telling what that might mean.

Oh well… that was neither here nor there.

Ruby had other things to think about.

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Just before they entered McNee's Pizza ("We're the bee's McNee's!"), Ruby and Weiss were nervous. Which was normal for a first date.

Even though it wasn't a date. They were just getting dinner. Yeah, that's all. Dinner.

Not that you could've convinced them of that while they were getting dressed, oh no. They had to have the perfect outfits for tonight. Nothing less would be acceptable.

Ruby went with a rather tame look – red button-up shirt with sleeves rolled up to her elbows, along with a pair of black jeans and her hiking boots. She also had a small silver pendant hanging from her neck (on loan from Yang).

Weiss chose a lighter, more formal ensemble – a white sleeveless shirt with a thin sky-blue scarf, coupled with a pair of dark-blue capris and matching pumps (of course). Her platinum blonde hair was still tied in a ponytail, only now it was lower on her head, down by her neck. It was a small adjustment that made a big difference, at least as far as Ruby was concerned.

So yes, they were nervous just before walking in.

After they got inside… not so much. Now they had company.

Coco saw them first and waved them over, not minding in the least that the two had come in together (and dressed a little nicer than eating at a pizza place would call for). Sitting with her was Blake, surprise surprise. The former was busy stuffing her face with a slice from a large pepperoni pizza with black olives while the latter was nibbling on cheesy bread with one hand and holding a book with the other. Blake actually did notice the fact that both Weiss and Ruby had entered together. She grinned, knowing.

"Hey guys! Uh… fancy meeting you here, and all that…" Ruby greeted them awkwardly.

"Yep," Coco nodded, her gradient bang bobbing with the movement, "nothing quite like a pizza on a Friday night, am I right?" Blake only nodded, not taking her eyes from the page. The taller teen turned back and said, "Pull up a seat, there's plenty of room!"

Weiss was the one who looked around and said, rather puzzled, "Where's Jaune? Did you leave him behind somewhere?"

Coco chuckled a bit and said, "Uh, yeah, about that…"

"I should have known you two would show up too…" a familiar, annoyed voice spoke up behind them.

Jaune Arc was wearing a large, dirty apron and pushing a cart loaded with dirty dishes. He also didn't look too happy.

The brown-garbed girl didn't look very apologetic as she said, "Yeah, sorry… maybe we could invite you next time?"

"No need to pity me, Coco. It's not like I enjoy Friday nights… hanging out with friends… having a good time… no, I'd rather clean dirty dishes all night… and get paid minimum wage… but yeah, have fun..." Each time he spoke, a small vein on Jaune's forehead grew larger and larger. The four girls chuckled nervously as he made his way back to the kitchen.

For the next several minutes, the group of teens waited for the new arrivals' food. Weiss had suggested a 'white' pizza, of which Ruby was unfamiliar, along with two sodas. The discussion was light until…

"Okay, peeps, I'm here! You can start the party now!" A familiar blonde mane burst in, heading right for their table.

Blake rolled her eyes, but the others choked a bit. Ruby sputtered, "Y-Yang?! …The hell are you doing here?"

The blonde scoffed, "Duh… pizza on a Friday night. Do I really need any other reason?" She slid over and took the seat next to Blake.

Ruby didn't reply, choosing instead to glare at her big sister until their food came. Weiss just ignored them.

The 20-30 minutes of food and talking sort of… blurred by. They enjoyed themselves, make no mistake, but nothing stood out as important enough for Ruby to remember. She liked the pizza, and made a mental note to order it again when she had the chance – but she also nabbed a few of Yang's slices of pepperoni with jalapenos, dodging the blonde's objecting slaps. The subjects of their conversations varied, jumping from the mural on the large wall of the restaurant (it featured a moon that appeared to have been shattered in the sky, pretty cool) to Weiss' little scooter (causing Yang to go into full don't-get-me-started-on-that-crap mode). A good time was had by all.

Not to mention the fact that Ruby and Weiss' hands touched no less than three times over the course of the evening. She would definitely remember that.

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At one point, and unknown to the others, Coco stood up to get a refill on her drink. Jaune happened to be standing right there, and the two of them made small talk for a bit.

Coco nodded to the table and said, "What do you think when you look over there?"

The blonde boy looked, considered for about three seconds, then turned back and said, "I dunno… it's a table full of girls. Am I supposed to think of something?"

The brunette scratched her chin absently, thought for a moment, then replied, "It's just… something about the four of them sitting together… it just feels right…"

Ruby and Weiss sat next to each other on one side of the table, while Blake and Yang sat across from them. There was general small talk, some teasing (both to and from Yang), and overall a sense of family. The bickering kind, sure… but still family.

"I see what you mean…" Jaune nodded with a warm smile. They quietly parted ways and returned to their places.

In short, it was a good evening.

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[Later that night…]

The moon shone brightly on the stucco building, giving it a feeling of high fantasy; as though it could be the battleground of dragons, wizards, and knights of old. A chilled breeze flowed by, giving notice of the colder season fast approaching. Crickets put on their regular serenade from the older trees in the courtyards.

A brand-new, four-door luxury sedan rolled up to the front gates of Oum High School at this late hour, due only to the passenger's insistence. The rear window was rolled down with a low hum and a pair of gleaming eyes beheld the structure. The left eye was brown, but the right eye shone a bright pink. These were matched by two of the girl's three hair colors – half was brown and half was pink, with a patch of silver-grey hanging down the front.

"Weiss Schnee… I've found you at last…"

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TO BE CONTINUED

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Story Note: This marks the end of the first arc, so feel free to take a breather before moving on. The next arc is also nine chapters, wrapping up with chapter 18. Arc three might be a bit longer, but I haven't started it by the time of posting this update… we'll see how it goes, yeah?

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Author's Note: Just for the record, I actually did learn what a dildo was in my sophomore year. Ah, innocence.

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