"Okay, run this by me one more time," Nora requested.
"Cinder asked Jaune for his opinion on Ruby," Ren began.
"Oh, that's never a good sign," Nora retched.
"Indeed," Ren confirmed. "She already had a pretty good idea of their backstory thanks to the complex series of events that we can't go into detail about here involving multiple souls and Aura transfers that led to our current situation wherein Cinder is our ally and in a romantic relationship with Jaune."
"It's so good of you to do all the expositing," Nora praised.
"And apparently, at some point, Jaune described Ruby as 'cute'," Ren explained.
Nora's eyes widened. "He told his girlfriend he thought another girl was cute?"
"Oh, it gets better," Ren continued. "Ruby was eavesdropping on their conversation, and heard…" Ren consulted the script for clues. "…that she was apparently 'cute', but not 'sexy like you, babe'."
Nora groaned. "Jaune…"
"Anyway, then they got into an argument –and you know how tense they get around each other- and Jaune's tried to defuse it ever since," Ren concluded.
"How's that going?" Nora eagerly inquired.
Ren pointed slightly to the duo's left, where Cinder, Ruby, and Jaune were obligingly waiting for Ren and Nora to finish the recap so they could resume their hilarious melee. Nora smiled and pulled up a chair, and then produced a bucket of snacks, both seemingly from nowhere; presumably in the same space she stored her hammer when it was not in use. "Popcorn?"
"Don't mind if I do," Ren confirmed, idly reaching in the bucket while the story narration migrated over to the other three characters, who resumed their intense debate quickly enough the audience may well have been fooled into believing it'd been going on the whole time, had the hack of an author not revealed the deception already. Fortunately, at that point the narrative abruptly decided to play the premise straight.
"I'm just saying that there's a difference!" Jaune protested.
Ruby and Cinder may have made an uneasy peace, but they were still uncomfortable around each other. It was a terrifying prospect to see them working towards any common goal. "And what –exactly- is the difference?" Cinder asked.
"Yeah, why am I not sexy?" Ruby demanded to know.
"And what about me isn't… cute?" the beginning of the inquiry was fierce, but the latter word was surprisingly timid leaving Cinder's mouth. Jaune wasn't sure if she was being genuine in forcing out the word or putting on a little display of vulnerability to try and force him to admit error.
Jaune powered through. "Cinder's beauty is refined… you know, with time and experience. Ruby's is… uh, you know, more innocent, more youthful."
"Youthful?" Cinder repeated, her timid tone abruptly turning venomous.
"Uh, I don't mean that in a bad way!" Jaune frantically continued, waving his hands back and forth. "I don't mean that you're so much older than Ruby, I just mean that you're more mature-"
"Oh, so now I'm immature?" Ruby interjected. "You're the one with a cereal box bunny on your hoodie!"
"I'm saying that Cinder is more mature than you, and that because she's older, she's sexier, whereas you're younger, and thus you're cuter-"
"You think this little girl is cuter than me?" Cinder demanded.
Jaune knew he was completely borked but couldn't quite manage to stop himself from talking. "I told you, I don't mean it like that! I just think of you differently is all-"
"I should hope so," Cinder scoffed, crossing her arms. "Though perhaps it wouldn't matter, given how much trouble you're in."
"And since when am I not sexy?" Ruby demanded.
"Since uh… since I can't actually imagine describing you that way?" Jaune suggested. "It just sounds weird, doesn't it? Has anyone ever called you that before?"
"I… I can neither confirm or deny-" Ruby began, only to be immediately interrupted by Cinder.
"Please, spare us the thought," Cinder requested. "And don't let him change the subject."
"Right!" Ruby agreed. "You're the one making things weird here, Jaune. Now tell me why you think Cinder isn't cute, why you don't think I'm sexy, and why that matters to me for some reason?!"
"This is majestic," Nora remarked, munching on her popcorn nearby. Ren nodded in agreement, watching as Jaune continued to attempt to explain his viewpoint until Ruby was reaching for her scythe, and Cinder –of all people- was trying to prevent violence. Regrettably, she wasn't able to spare Jaune from Ruby's wrath, and the onlookers suspected Cinder had opted to stop trying to save her boyfriend from the pain after he'd said something particularly stupid. And given what he'd said prior, it must've been exceptionally stupid.
With Jaune rendered unconscious by Ruby's savage beating, she and Cinder were left to speculate whether they were 'sexy' and 'cute' respectively. Though they'd agreed to work together, their enmity had not completely faded, and thus their responses were passive aggressive snipes.
"I don't think children are ever described as 'sexy'," Cinder dryly observed.
"I don't think eyepatches are very cute," Ruby fired back.
Being reminded of the wound Ruby had inflicted undid all of Cinder's character development and soured her redemption, and she decided to resume villainy right then and there, sacrificing her love for Jaune to satisfy the loss of face she'd suffered at Ruby's hand and started setting things on fire.
As one might've predicted, Jaune's stupidity directly led to the downfall of civilization, as any hope to stop Salem was abruptly ended when the Fall Maiden and the last silver-eyed warrior slew each other, their last words each passive aggressive insults directed towards the other.
"Should we be concerned about this?" Ren inquired as he went to drag Jaune away from the conflagration, leaving Nora to roast a marshmallow over Cinder's burning corpse.
"Nah, it'll be fine," Nora assured him. "I'll just hop over to the alternate universe again and undo all these happenings by talking to the Neptune with the notepad. I just have to be careful not to overshoot and end up in the universe run by shopkeeps."
"Wait, alternate universe?" Ren repeated. "When did this happen?"
"Glad you asked!" Nora answered with a smile, stopping to chomp on her melting marshmallow. "It was a Tuesday…"