Jaune was never a popular kid, okay maybe that's an understatement. He was never liked, the only friends he had, well could you really call sisters friends? He did at least, it was all he really had anyways. But now, now was different, he had Ren and Nora, and although they WERE his brother and sister, well he was just happy to have them.
It had already been a few weeks since they started training, and this was the first time that Nora and Ren had been willing to leave the house. Jaune thought it was a good idea to finally show Ren and Nora around. Though he hoped, that they'd be able to avoid running into any of the other kids. He didn't need them to know how uncool he was. Every so often, he'd find himself searching from side to side, looking and paying attention for any one possibly seeing him.
Ren, being Ren had noticed this, when Jaune felt a hand on his shoulder he jumped up in surprise. Causing Ren and Nora to give him looks of curiosity, but also a hint of worry.
"Is everything okay Jauney?" The worry in Nora's voice was obvious, and Jaune hated it, they had just started warming up and he was making things worse.
"Yeah, ya I'm fine Nora, sorry for worrying you. I just…" Before he could finish though, a voice that resembling nails on a chalkboard invaded their hearing.
"Well if it ain't little J!" The noise, or voice rather, came from a rather large child. If one didn't know better one would think he was a tiny Ursa. He was tall, easily twice as tall as Jaune, and his arms were some how larger as well. And surrounding him, were a bunch of other children, not quite as tall as him.
Nora glanced over towards her new brother once she realized that he had started to shake. She didn't like this, she didn't like this at all. Whoever this punk was, he was upsetting Jaune.
"Whatcha doing out here pip-squeak, I thought I told ya not to show your face around here." His attention however, was soon taken off of Jaune, and onto the newcomers. "The heck are you two looking at? Never seen ya brats around here."
Nora and Ren decided to ignore him, and instead made their way over to Jaune. "You alright?" Ren's soothing voice reached his ears, as his stupor came undone.
Jaune stared at his siblings and nodded, still unable to say anything. Whatever, it was that had happened before, it clearly bothered Jaune.
"Aww, is the baby going to cry? Do I need to put ya back in the locker, want to spend another night by yourself? Maybe it'll help you grow a backbone! Don't worry, this time we won't have to fool ya with a fake love letter." He paused and smiled, "Though I'd bet that Flanna would write another, just to mess with ya." The laugh that followed, could be described as a snort and a chortle all at once. "Maybe we'll give ya another shower to boot!"
This caused Jaune to shiver, he remembered that day. It was the day that he was betrayed by what would equate to a child hood friend. She had apparently put a love letter in his desk, and he would admit he was excited. Turned out it was a trap. They had dumped dirty mop water on him when he entered the school shed, he could still remember their laughter, he could remember her laughter! He had gotten sick for two weeks, while the kids involved had gotten suspended, this hadn't sated his parents and they pulled him from school.
The bully was about to say something else, when he noticed Nora and Ren giving him rather ugly looks, and if looks could kill… "What, you punks got a problem with me?"
"I'm going to break your legs… I'm going to break them so badly, you'll never walk again." At this, the bullies began to laugh, Nora was about to approach them but Jaune grabbed her hand.
"It's not worth it Nora, let's just go… please?" He stared at Nora and Ren, the two of them ended up relenting. As the three of them were starting to walk away, however this angered Jaune's tormenter.
With out warning he picked up a rock at his feet and threw it at Ren. This honestly wouldn't have been an issue, and Ren was getting ready to dodge it. But he was suddenly pulled away by Jaune, as instincts took over, he used his head to crush the rock.
This caused the everyone to pause, even Nora and Ren. Who by all accounts shouldn't have been surprised, they had been training with Jaune after all. The bullies froze when Jaune eyed them. "Don't… don't you EVER, think about hitting them! Do you understand?" He said as he walked towards them, his hand raised as he was about to hit them when he was suddenly stopped by Nora and Ren.
Their hands were now on his arms, turning back to them the looks of concern caused him to pause and stop. Releasing a breath, he turned back, right right he could have killed them he had Aura now. "Leave us alone." When they were far enough, for the first time since they met Jaune, he gave out. His back now against a tree, tears began to form. He had obviously been scared, this entire time.
"Jaune?" He felt arms wrap around him as Ren pulled him into a tight hug, soon followed by Nora.
"We're here with you okay?." Nora's voice was soft and full of concern.
Ren came next, "You've been there for us, so we'll be there for you too."
Silence soon permeated as Jaune's body continued to shiver alone, he had hoped to forget all of those bad memories. Finally though, he felt better about himself, to Ren and Nora, he wasn't worthless. He meant something, he had self worth.