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If there was something that Weiss Schnee prided herself on, it was her studious discipline. Even after entering Beacon and gaining greater independence from her family, academic excellence was one of the few things from her past life that she took genuine pride in.

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Take their weekly essays for instance. Even now months into Beacon she still topped the class regularly, with only Pyrrha managing to challenge her. She was determined to keep up that streak.

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Yes, nothing would distract her…

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Her fingers clenched, and an involuntary growl came up from her throat.

"Yang, cut that out, you're driving us insane!" Blake slammed her book down on her bed, glaring at her partner. Weiss' mouth, open and with a lecture already forming, clicked shut.

"Look guys, I'm sorry but I can't help it! I can't stop thinking about…" she gestured her arm vaguely, but everyone in the room picked up on the meaning instantly.

Weiss massaged her temples. "If you have any problems with Jaune Arc, please bring it up with her." She pointed her thumb towards the shower where Ruby was, singing horribly off tune to some rock music playing over her scroll.

On some level, Weiss could understand Yang's agitation. Ruby had apparently taken measures a few days ago to evade her scroll tracker and sneak away, and then steadfastly refused to say where she'd gone. Yang had been beside herself with worry, only to be blown off by Ruby who went out again with the same boy earlier in the afternoon. If Ruby was her sister she might feel the same way.

On another level, she was half tempted to shove Myrtenaster down Yang's gullet just to get a few moments of peace.

"Didn't you say you were going to give Jaune a chance? That was the last thing I remember you saying the last time we saw him." In actuality it wasn't, the last thing Yang had said before being forcibly removed was demanding what hotel he'd defiled her sister's innocence in, but Weiss felt that she could be forgiven for twisting the truth slightly.

"I was! I wanted to! But look at this!"

Marching over to the laundry bin, she snatched up Ruby's dirty sweater and held it out in front of them.

"Okay… So it's a nice sweater. What's the big deal?"

"This is a piece of clothing! An expensive piece of clothing!" Yang was shaking the sweater with the aggressiveness people usually reserved for Grimm or shake-to-mix drinks.

Blake looked genuinely perplexed. "Again, what's the big deal?"

"What's the big deal? What's the big deal?!" Yang threw her hands up, the sweaty piece of clothing flying onto Blake's bed, who batted it away in disgust.

"First the badge, now the sweater. Don't you guys see, this is classic sugar daddy behavior! Sugar daddies buy their sugar babies nice clothes, they make them wear them and then they parade them around like, like a trophy!"

"You're saying Jaune's treating Ruby like a trophy wife?"

"No, I'm saying he's treating her like a sugar baby, Blake. Keep up!"

Idly, Weiss wondered if she should start packing her study materials. Ruby was about to finish her shower and it was unlikely that this was going to end.

No, she had to hold out hope. There had to be a time later when she would be able to squeeze in more revision. She just had to hang on.

"Showers done!" Ruby walked out, turning off her scroll and tossing it onto the table.

Yang, to her surprise, flopped back onto her bed. "This isn't over."

Yang was true to her word. It was not over.

Rubbing conditioner into her hair, Weiss Schnee tried to focus on the sensation of her hair and not the crazed words of the blonde showering beside her.

Yang seemed to want to keep the peace between her and her sister, which was understandable to an extent. What wasn't understandable was the fact that instead of doing anything productive about the situation, Xiao Long had instead decided to spend the rest of the day complaining to anyone within earshot, like she was doing now.

To her anger Blake had taken one step into the shower, read the room and immediately left with an excuse about forgetting something, leaving her to weather Yang's conspiracy theories alone.

"-like he's that good! I mean seriously, she just met Jaune a few-"

"Jaune?"

The two of them turned to see Coco, shampoo and towel in hand walking into the bathroom.

Yang looked at her for a moment, before apparently deciding that it wasn't worth it to explain. "Urgh, you wouldn't know him."

"That blonde guy with Ruby?"

"Wait, you know him?"

"Yeah I saw them together yesterday. What about it?"

Weiss rolled her eyes, washing off her conditioner and squeezing her exfoliating foam onto her body. "Yang here believes that Jaune Arc is trying to seduce her innocent sister Ruby by dazzling her with money."

Coco snorted. "Well if he is, he's doing a real good job of it. Did you know he brought her on a private tour? To the Weapon Museum?"

Ahhhhhhh!

Weiss spasmed, soap flying and arms waving as she tried to stop Coco, but it was too late.

"W-what? Private, like, just the two of them? Alone?"

"Yeah. I didn't even know they offered private until I looked up her tickets."

Yang wheeled on Weiss, a betrayed look on her face. The Schnee had been present for her secretly searching through her sister's wallet, and the two of them had found oddly coloured tickets to Vale's Weapon History Museum. Yang had pointed out the strange color and feel of the paper, but Weiss had persuaded her that it was probably a new ticket model and to let it go.

"Aren't you rich? How did you not know about this?"

Weiss had noticed. She'd simply wisely chosen to keep that information to herself.

Without waiting for an answer Yang wheeled around to face her shower head, muttering, leaving Coco and Weiss to stand there awkwardly. "Private… the two of them… knew it…"

The two of them shared a look, communicating silently.

'You deal with her'

'She's your teammate.'

'You're the one who started this.'

She won, and Coco coughed.

"Listen, it's not really my business, but I don't think this Arc fellow is as bad as you're thinking."

For a second time the blond wheeled away from her shower to look at Coco. "Private. Tour."

"Um, yeah, but that's a museum. Not exactly the most romantic place. Kinda jumping to conclusions there eh?"

"He bought her a sweater!"

The poor second year looked completely out of her depth. "Uh, ok, but it's just-"

Ruby came skipping into the shower.

"Hey guys!"

"Hey sis!" Weiss breathed a sigh of relief as Yang finally, finally brightened up.

"Whatcha guys talking about?"

"Oh, uh, well…" The Schnee could've laughed at the blond's expression as she floundered for a subject, so consumed over the last day that she had no idea what to talk about.

"We were just talking about… clothes."

"Clothes? Ooh!" Ruby slapped her fist into her palm. That reminds me! I need to wash my sweater, we're going glasses shopping tomorrow!"

"Good for you sis." None of them had made any plans for tomorrow, so it wasn't hard to guess who Ruby was referring to. She gathered up her stuff, ignoring Ruby's happy ramblings and whispering to Weiss. "I'm getting wasted tonight, don't wait up."

Weiss could only groan and massage her temples again as Yang stormed out the shower.

"Hey, maybe you'll get lucky and she'll be too drunk to come back."

Somehow, she doubted that.

If there was one thing that Yang loved about being a Huntress, it was the safety.

Not the safety from death. There were tonnes of risks for Huntresses, as her dad and Miss Goodwitch had been more than eager to hammer into her. Grimm, criminals who had aura and semblances, the job of a Huntress was dangerous.

But for basically anything else? Huntresses were as untouchable as could be.

Case in point, the shortcut she was taking through some very seedy neighborhoods would have been really, really dangerous if she'd been just a regular civilian. She'd seen plenty of seedy-looking people lurking in the alleys, they'd even tried to mug her once or twice, before her fists had shown them the error of their ways.

Now, where should she go? She was trying to have a good time, but she also wasn't trying to burn a hole through her wallet. Unlike some people, she did have a budget.

A flash of yellow caught her eyes.

Wait, wasn't that-

It was! Jaune was strolling down the streets, looking like he didn't have a care in the world. Involuntarily she looked up and down the street in concern. No muggers or stalkers that she could see.

What was he doing here? Didn't he know how dangerous it was to be here at night? Maybe he had some bodyguards hidden somewhere? If he did they were either really good at their job or complete slackers because she couldn't see a single soul anywhere.

Bounding across the road, she slowed down and brisk walked up to him, keeping her footsteps loud so she wouldn't scare him, noticing the distinct lack of any kind of bodyguard trying to stop her. He turned with a lot less worry than he should have.

"Oh it's you." His brows furrowed and he turned back around.

"Yep, it's me." She fell in step beside him, noticing how he was keeping his eyes locked on the road. "Whatcha doing out here?"

"Business matters."

"This late?"

He shrugged. Well it made sense to her. When dad had given up his Huntsmen career to take care of them he'd tried taking part time jobs closer to home. The best paying ones were protecting businessmen who had to work late nights in weird parts of town.

Protection that this guy for some reason was completely missing.

"So, where're you going?"

He pointed his thumb in front of him. "If you want, you can join me and see for yourself."

Wait, really? She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. She had considered following him or better yet trying to weasel her way into going wherever he was going, but for him to straight up offer it to her was weird. It's not like they got on famously or anything like that. He wasn't trying to get her under his spell as well was he?

Wait, his lips were moving. Was he saying somethi-

Clonk!

"Watch the lamppost."