Notice Me, Ruby!

Chapter 14: Without A Rose

The next morning, Yang woke up and looked towards where Ruby's bed was, thinking that she would see the young redhead sleeping there. Unfortunately for the blonde, Ruby was nowhere to be seen, which reminded her of what had happened last night. The younger girl had decided to spend the night at Team LION's dorm, meaning that she wouldn't be seen until breakfast at least.

A frown made it's way to Yang's face, as she thought about the idea of Ruby spending the night at another team's dorm, especially with that Elaine person. For some reason, the brawler couldn't help but be very bothered by it. No matter how much she tried to reason with herself and say that Ruby had the right to spend time with other friends when she wanted, Yang couldn't help but hate the idea. It just didn't feel right to her that the scythe-wielder was currently getting close to someone else. Someone else that wasn't her. The blonde didn't know why, but she just felt angry and irritated just by thinking about it.

Deciding that it was no use to simply lay on her bed and worry about it, Yang got down from her bed and decided to get ready for the day. She hoped that she might see Ruby during breakfast and get to talk with her. Maybe she could find out what happened inside the third-year team's dorm.

"Good morning, Yang," Blake said to her partner while waking up. She looked around and noticed that one of her teammates was missing. "I'm guessing that Ruby still hasn't come back then?"

"No. We probably won't get to see her until breakfast," Yang replied. "Hopefully we'll get to see her, because I want to know what happened between her and Elaine's team."

"I don't see why you need to know that, as I doubt anything all that serious could have happened," the cat faunus said as she got up from her bed. "I mean, they were probably just talking about that assignment of theirs and getting to know each other. What possible harm could come from that?"

"Well, we won't know, until we find out, now do we!?" the blonde asked somewhat harshly, surprising her partner a bit. "All I know is that Ruby spent the whole day with that girl's team and we know nothing about them or what they were doing! I need to know what really happened before I can just let things be!"

"Yang, calm down!" Blake said to the aggressive girl. "Their team was chosen by the staff of this school, so they have to be trustworthy! Why are you getting so upset over all of this!?"

Yang was about to answer, but couldn't do it. She honestly didn't know the reason herself either. All she knew was that something about Ruby being near that Elaine person, who was acting very friendly towards the younger girl, caused something to twist inside the brawler.

To make things more confusing, Yang herself had hoped that Ruby would make new friends upon arriving at Beacon. Why was that such a problem now?

"Would someone mind telling me why you need to be so loud in the morning?" Weiss asked in an irritated voice, having been woken up by her two teammates. "Some of us would like to sleep during Saturday morning, you know?"

"Sorry about that, Weiss. It's just that Yang is a bit troubled," Blake said, causing the blonde girl to glare at her. "She is not happy about Ruby spending last night with that Elaine person's team. Why she feels like this is still a mystery, though."

"I don't see what the big deal with the whole thing is. After all, Ruby was put on an assignment with them, so they naturally should be spending some time together," the heiress said while getting up. "As far as I know, nothing bad has happened, so there's no need to be acting like the world is going to end."

"That's because neither one of you is taking this seriously!" Yang yelled angrily. "Do either one of you know anything about Elaine!? Or her teammates!? For all we know, they could be abusing Ruby or something!"

"And like I said earlier, their team was chosen by Beacon's teachers themselves!" Blake yelled back at her partner, having grown tired of the way the brawler was acting. "If you can't trust the people they have chose, you essentially cannot trust the teachers themselves! Are you really saying that the teachers of Beacon themselves are not trustworthy!?"

"I'm not saying that! I just... well... THIS WHOLE THING JUST FEELS WRONG, OKAY!?" Yang yelled out of frustration. She could almost rip the hair out of her head at this point. "Don't either one of you feel that things shouldn't be like this!? Ruby is OUR teammate! Our team leader! Don't you think that it's wrong for her to be in another team!?"

"Yang, I can understand that this is... difficult to get used to. Even I feel a bit weird over the fact that Ruby's not here," the raven-haired girl said, hoping to calm the blonde girl. "But it's something that we are just going to have to get used to. Ruby has been given a great opportunity that we shouldn't go mess with, like we did before. I doubt she would forgive us, if we did. It will take some time, but I'm sure we'll get through this."

"Yeah! Besides, it's not like this change is permanent!" Weiss added, hoping to help Blake in calming down their upset teammate. "Before you know it, Ruby will be done with her assignment and she'll be back with us again! It might take some time, but things will go back to normal! You can be sure of that!"

Despite her friends' reassurance, Yang couldn't help but feel worried. There was something about this whole thing that just felt wrong. And because of that feeling, the blonde didn't like what was happening at all.

Some time later, the three girls were in the cafeteria, eating breakfast. They had hoped to see Ruby there, but couldn't find her anywhere. With no better ideas, the trio decided to wait for their missing team leader to come to the cafeteria, while enjoying their first meal of the day.

Unfortunately, this seemed to be difficult to a certain person.

"Yang, I'm sure Ruby will come here soon," Blake said with a sigh while eating her tuna sandwich.

"I know that," the blonde replied.

"If you do, then how about actually eating your breakfast?" Weiss asked with a raised eyebrow. "You haven't eaten any of your cornflakes."

"I'm just letting them soak up some of the milk. That's all," Yang said while poking her bowl of cereal with her spoon.

"With the way you're letting them soak up, I'm sure the cornflakes are actually going to melt into the milk," Blake said with a roll of her eyes. "Honestly, is the whole thing with Ruby really such a big deal?"

"Yes, it is. Now, how about you two let me be? Or were you planning on to bug me for the whole day?" the brawler said in a slightly angry tone, not in the mood for any more of her teammates' questions.

The other two members of team RWBY decided to stay quiet, not wanting to upset their blonde teammate more than she already was.

Despite waiting for two hours in the cafeteria, the three girls didn't see Ruby arrive there at all. Due to this, Yang was starting to get visibly irritated, as she was vey unhappy about not getting to see the missing redhead at all. During this whole time, she hadn't touched her cereal at all, as she was not in the mood to eat anything.

Seeing how upset their brawler teammate was, Weiss and Blake wondered if there was something they could do to help the situation. If things got worse with Yang, who knew what she might end up doing.

"Yang, how about instead of waiting for Ruby here, we go ask about her from one of the third-year teams?" Blake suggested. "It might be a bit of a gamble, but we might find out where she is."

"Not a bad idea, but it has one problem," Yang said in a grumpy tone. "Do you know which of these students are third-year students? I'm asking because I sure don't know."

The cat faunus frowned as her partner did have a point. Even if they could find out where Ruby was from one of the third-year teams, they would first need to find one such team. Since they didn't even know who all the first-year teams were, it would be very difficult to find a single third-year team among all the students.

Blake suddenly spotted a team of four boys arriving to the cafeteria who seemed to be a bit older. It was a complete guess, but the raven-haired girl decided that it was worth the shot to ask them if they were third-years and knew about Ruby. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

Blake quickly got up from her seat and walked up to the older-looking team. The four boys soon noticed the younger girl that was walking towards them and stopped, wondering what she wanted.

"Excuse me, but you four wouldn't happen to be third-year students, would you?" Blake asked politely.

"Indeed we are," one of the boys answered with a smile. "Do you need something from us? Perhaps some private tutoring from your seniors?"

"No, but thank you for the offer," the cat faunus replied. "I was wondering if you happened to know where another third-year team would be. You see, one of my friends is currently with that team and I would like to know where she is."

"Really? And what team would that happen to be?" the boy asked.

"The team I'm looking for is led by a person named Elaine Lambert, who is the leader of team LION," Blake explained. "Do you know where they are? I've been waiting for them here at the cafeteria with my teammates for some time now."

"Team LION, huh? Well, I'm afraid that you've wasted your time by waiting for them here. Before we came here, I saw them heading out with a young girl in a red cloak. I might have heard wrong, but I think I heard them saying something about "showing her the best pancakes in Vale", so I'm guessing they went somewhere else to get breakfast."

"I see. Thank you for telling me this," the raven-haired girl said with a slight sigh. Yang was NOT going to be happy to hear about this.

Just as Blake had feared, the blonde girl became very upset over learning about where Ruby had really gone to. So upset, in fact, that she actually smashed her bowl of cornflakes with her fist out of anger. This in turn sent milk and soggy cereal flying everywhere, which in turn made Weiss rather upset.

After their failed attempt at meeting Ruby in the cafeteria, the remaining members of team RWBY had decided to head out to Vale. They were hoping that taking part in some fun activities might get their minds off the whole thing with their missing team leader. At least that was what Weiss and Blake were hoping would happen with Yang.

"So, any ideas on how to spend this Saturday?" Blake asked. "I personally don't have any ideas, so I'm open for suggestions."

"How about we go to the movies?" Weiss suggested. "There might be something there that we can all enjoy."

"Sounds good to me. What about you, Yang?" the cat faunus asked her partner, who had been silent the whole time.

"Sure. Whatever," Yang answered in a grumpy voice without even looking at her teammates.

Weiss and Blake were both a bit taken aback by their teammate's response, but didn't say anything about it. If Yang was in such a bad mood already, then it was best to avoid making it any worse.

The three girls eventually arrived at the movie theater and began to look through what was currently playing. Unfortunately for them, there didn't seem to be anything even remotely interesting for them to see there.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm not all that excited to see any of these movies," Blake said while looking through the list of films that the theater was showing. "How about you guys? Did you find anything that you'd want to see?"

"I certainly didn't. All the movies here are either ones I'm not interested in or are ones we have already seen," Weiss replied. "How about you, Yang?"

The blonde didn't answer, which caused the two girls to turn their attention to their silent teammate. Once they were looking at her, they noticed how she wasn't even looking at the list of movies that were being shown. Instead, Yang was staring at a movie poster for a film that hadn't come out yet. It was a poster for a new Pokemon movie.

"What's the matter, Yang?" Blake asked as she and Weiss walked up to their teammate. "Is that something you want to see?"

"No... Well... kind of," Yang answered. "You see, I've seen almost all of these movies so far with Ruby from the very first one. At one point it even became an event for the two of us."

"So are you going to see this one with her as well?" Weiss asked.

"I... I don't know. To be honest, I haven't seen the two before this one either," the brawler explained as she looked down sadly. "When those two movies came out, we had already come to Beacon. Ruby tried to get me to go watch the first one of the two, but I was always busy with other stuff. When the second one came out, she didn't even bother asking me."

"Would you have wanted to go with her, if she had asked?" Blake asked.

"I would like to say "yes", but I'm not so sure," Yang answered. "I mean, I feel that if she were to ask me now, I would definitely say "yes", but I'm not sure if would have done so back then."

"Well, don't worry about it too much," the raven-haired girl said in a comforting tone as she put a hand on her partner's shoulder. "Whether you want to or not, I'm sure you'll get a chance soon."

Yang simply nodded at her partner's words, but couldn't help but feel uneasy. This was all so confusing to her, as she didn't worry about seeing these movies with Ruby before, but now it felt like the most important thing in the world. The blonde didn't understand why she was feeling like this, but she knew one thing about it. She didn't like it at all.

Having found nothing to watch in the movies, the WBY decided to go look for something else to do. Yang had suggested for them to go to the arcade, which wasn't exactly a thing Weiss and Blake enjoyed all that much. But with nothing else to do and the two girls hoping to cheer up the blonde, they decided to try it out. Unfortunately, the arcade wasn't going to be of any help for them, as it had been closed for renovations.

"Oh, this is just great! What are we supposed to do now!?" Yang complained.

"Calm down, Yang! The city is full of things for us to do!" Blake quickly said. "We just have to look for them a bit."

The cat faunus took out her Scroll and started to look for things to do in the city. However, no matter what she looked up, there wasn't anything that they could all take part in. A lot of places were closed down for all sorts of reasons, while others were things only one of the three girls would have enjoyed.

"Well, that certainly didn't go well," Blake mumbled in disappointment.'

"Great. Just freaking great!" Yang complained. "How are we supposed to spend the time now!?"

"Yang, there's no need to get so upset!" Weiss scolded her teammate. "This just means we need to be a bit more creative on how we are going to spend the day!"

"Yeah! If nothing else, we can probably go to one of those clubs you like so much!" the raven-haired girl added, hoping that it would calm her partner.

"That would be fun, except for one problem. Those places won't be open until later at night!" the blonde said. "We are going to have to wait a few hours before they're even open. What are we supposed to-?"

Yang suddenly stopped talking upon noticing something. The three girls had not been looking at where they were going, causing them to wonder over to where Junior's club was located. However, much to the brawler's displeasure, there was a large sign on the front of the entrance that said "Closed for now".

Wanting to hear an explanation as to why her favorite hangout was closed, Yang spotted one of Junior's thugs taking out trash and walked up to him. The underling might have some answers as to why the place wasn't open.

"Hey! You!" the brawler called out to the thug, who didn't seem all that happy to see her. "Why is the club closed!?"

"Of all the bad things to happen to me..." the underling mumbled to himself inaudibly. "The place is closed, because our boss felt like he needed to take a vacation! Not only that, but we also need to fix it up, after a certain someone came in and trashed the place!"

Yang's shoulders visibly slumped down upon hearing what the thug said. It seemed like there wouldn't be anything fun for them to do in Vale.

Having found no fun activities to take part in at the city, the WBY decided to return to their dorm. While they were all obviously upset over what had happened, Yang was the one who was most upset. She had really hoped to find something to do and get her mind off what was going on with Ruby, but it had not worked at all. In fact, a lot of things seemed to only remind her of the redhead more, especially now that they were in their dorm.

"So, now that we have looked through what Vale has to offer for us, do either one of you have any other suggestions?" Blake asked. "I can't really think of anything fun to do anymore."

"Actually, I was thinking of simply going to the library to study," Weiss suddenly stated. "I feel like I should go through some of my notes. You're free to join me, if you want."

"While I don't feel like studying, I wouldn't mind going to the library. There are some books there that I've wanted to read," the cat faunus responded, before looking at her partner. "What about you, Yang? Do you want to come with us?"

"To spend time in the library!? Of course not!" Yang answered angrily. "Sitting on my ass while reading some dusty novels is not my idea of a fun time! You can count me out on that!"

"Well, what do YOU suggest that we do then!?" Weiss asked angrily, having grown tired of her teammate's attitude. "Since you're the one who is so against the idea of going to the library, you should have something better on your mind!"

"I actually do! How about instead of spending a boring day in the library, we stay here in the dorm and play some video games?" the blonde suggested with a smile. "I've got a good selection of games for us to play, so how about-"

"No thanks," Blake said, cutting off her partner. "I'm not in the mood for playing any video games."

"Same here. I feel like there are a lot of better things for me to do than that," Weiss added, agreeing with the faunus.

"HUH!? But not too long ago, you were both willing to go to the arcade!" Yang argued. "How is playing games in our dorm somehow worse!?"

"Well, first of all, the arcade has a wider selection of games for us to play. There's more variety there than in your own collection," the raven-haired girl explained. "Not to mention, the arcade makes the games more fun with all sorts of added things, like driver's seats for racing games and such."

"Not to mention, you've played your games way too much," the heiress added. "Neither one of us has any chance at beating you, so it's not all that much fun."

"You guys can't be serious! Are you really saying that you would have more fun in the library than playing games with me!?" the blonde said angrily. "Besides, Ruby would always play with me! Even if it was a game I was way better at than her! She knew how to have fun!"

"Then I guess you need to get her to play with you and not us," Blake said as she began to walk to the door. "To be honest, I'm tired of trying to get your mind off her. I need to do something that's fun for me now."

"I agree. You're on your own, Yang," Weiss said and also left the dorm.

With her two teammates gone, Yang was left alone in the dorm. She let out a long and frustrated sigh, before taking out her Scroll and climbing up to her bed. She guessed it was solo gaming time for herself then.

However, after playing games on her Scroll for only about 20 minutes, the brawler had to stop. All the games she played had things that reminded her of Ruby one way or another. There were scythes, red cloaks and even girls with silver eyes that made her think about the young team leader. It seemed like there was no escape for her mind when it came to Ruby.

Finally having enough of being reminded about Ruby all the time, Yang put away her Scroll and got off from her bed. There was something she needed to do, no matter what.

The blonde had quickly made her way to where the dorms for the third-year students were located. She was planning to go straight to team LION's dorm and demand that she got to see Ruby. Yang was currently feeling so furious that she didn't hesitate at all, when she entered the area occupied by older and more experienced students.

A lot of the third-year students gave strange looks at the younger student, who had suddenly come there. They couldn't help but wonder what she wanted, especially when she wasn't accompanied by a teacher or another third-year student, like Ruby had been.

After asking for some directions, Yang soon found herself standing in front of team LION's dorm's door. The brawler took one deep breath, before banging her fist on the door, hoping that someone would open it from the other side.

As soon as the door began to open, Yang readied herself to angrily demand that she would get to see Ruby, but her words died in her throat upon seeing who had opened the door. It was an insanely tall boy, that made the blonde girl look like a small child in comparison. Yang had always thought that Yatsuhashi was huge, but this guy made the team CFVY member look normal.

The boy was completely silent, as he stared down at the first-year student, waiting for her to say why she was there.

"U-... Ummm... I came to... see if... you had..." Yang struggled to explain the reason for her visit, as the tall boy in front of her was honestly scaring her. He was so huge and mean-looking that the brawler felt like a small child facing against Grimm. "You know... if a certain... somebody was... uhhh..."

The boy narrowed his eyes a bit as he tried to understand what the visitor was trying to say. However, Yang thought that he was getting annoyed by the way she was talking, which caused her to be even more frightened.

"You know what!? It doesn't matter! I'll come some other time!" the brawler quickly said, before she started to make a run for it. "Sorry for bothering you!"

Meanwhile, Oliver, member of team LION, was left standing there, completely confused as to what had just happened. He didn't understand why a random first-year student would be there in the first place, let alone what she actually wanted.

"Hey, Ollie, who was that at the door?" Elaine asked from within the dorm.

"I have absolutely no idea," the huge boy answered, before closing the door.

Author's notes: I wanted to return back to the WBY in this chapter, especially Yang, who is pretty much the main character of this story. While I do like the OC's I've created, I don't want them to be the main focus of this story. I think fanfics should be about the actual characters from whatever story the fanfic is based on and not about some new characters made by a fan.

I would like to say that I'm very happy to see how well team LION has been received by you. I was worried at first how you people would react, but I'm happy to see things went well.

Until next time.

RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth.