Life continued as usual for Velvet and me. We were busy with tests, and the training got increasingly more difficult, and... well, it went on, life did. To say that it was nothing interesting would be wrong, but to continue describing everything that happened to us after what happened is too much of the good stuff.
There are, however, a few things I want you all to know.
First of all, a few days after that certain event, some packages arrived for Velvet, containing fresh school supplies. Her bed was replaced too, as were her uniforms. Her clothes were not renewed, though an impressive amount of money was deposited to her bank account. We planned to spend it all in Vale. I'm not bragging when I say I developed quite a knack for fashion, and I anticipated dressing Velvet up in exquisite garments greatly.
It was Cardin, of course, who kept his end of the deal. Begrudgingly, I imagine. Other than that, he avoided us, and our gazes. Something about being beaten to a pulp changed him, or reverted him maybe. Whatever, who cares about that?
I woke up the next day feeling surprisingly refreshed. To compliment my good feeling, there was a present lying in wait for me.
I had gone in early the previous night. My exhaustion had been trying to catch up to me for the past few days, and when it finally did, I practically collapsed. Velvet was extremely tired too.
In the end we decided to flop down on a bench in the empty cafeteria, stuffing ourselves before staggering off to bed. Despite what happened, neither of us was particularly excited. We embraced the victory with docile acceptance. There were no elated feelings, no fanfaronade. As if the physical action was only a definitive full stop to what had already been processed in our minds.
While we showered, Velvet suddenly gasped.
"I just remembered I don't have a bed to sleep in," I heard her say from somewhere within the swirls of steam. What she didn't know, was that she was wrong.
"Yeah, you do," I told her, "You can sleep in mine."
"In- in your bed?"
"Sure."
"B-but where will you sleep?"
"Also in my bed. It's big enough to share."
Now, that last bit wasn't exactly true. My bed was the average, standard size bed that Beacon provided.
But a bed it was, and it would have to serve as a twofer for the night. I knew my team would be off somewhere from the evening till the afternoon on the succeeding day, so there would be no prying eyes to disturb the both of us.
In bed, the bed I shared, I was sweating bullets. It was definitely warm that night. Or hot, as they say. No blanket or douver necessary. Because, you know, it was summer after all. That's the sole reason, I swear.
The sunlight hit me in unison with a weak breeze, both entering through an open window, waking me up.
The first thing I noticed was a small box, wrapped up in green paper, with a ribbon around it, resting on my night stand.
My interest was definitely piqued, the box light in my hands.
"For Coco," the label read.
She was an endearing girl, Velvet. I knew this already, of course, but it were little things that kept reminding you. Little things like this.
The contents of the box shouldn't have surprised me, but they did. Looking back, it was pretty obvious what it would contain.
On top of a satin cloth lay a pair of sunglasses.
And not just any- the lenses shone like a polished hubcab and were as black as onyx.
Without hesitating (I couldn't wait to don such a marvelous piece of work) I carefully picked up the shades from their resting place, and slipped them on.
Perfect, is what I would describe them as being. The legs fit so well it was like I wasn't wearing them, the lenses were crystal clear, and I'm pretty sure they were polarized too.
When did Velvet have time to set this up?
She must've snuck out to Vale real early to buy these for me- just for me.
She'd gone to a store, probably several, and carefully considered each design.
She also remembered perfectly what sunglasses I used to have and based her decision on that, picking out a similar yet more elegant variation. It must've been a hell of an expensive one on top of that, by the looks of it.
Then, she had to rush back to Beacon to leave the present on my nightstand, all before I woke up.
If I was anymore of a romantic, I might've shed a tear of happiness. Instead, I clutched my sheets and rolled around, giggling like no one cared- I for one, sure didn't, especially since this was the best way for me to express the emotion that can only be described as 'glee'.
After I rolled around so much I fell off my bed, I decided enough was enough, got dressed as quickly as I could, and rushed out.
My mind was brimming with what I wanted to do. Talk, of course, but that was the mundane part. More importantly, I wanted to convey something beyond words, and I did that first.
The moment I spotted her sitting somewhere in the meadow that is Beacon's courtyard, I ran straight at her.
Once I reached the 'destination,' if you could call it that, who was sitting with her face to the sun, eyes opened only slightly, I took a massive leap.
As she yelled in surprise after I tackled her, I swung my arms around her in a tight hug.
We toppled over in unison, and stayed like that for a while, laying entangled in the grass.
Velvet at this point was giggling at my display of affection,
"Come on, we have to stop now," she said, sounding like she didn't want to quit our activity at all.
"Why?" I retorted, "I don't want to!"
"That's fine, but I think there's someone who wants to talk to us."
I looked up through the brown strands of Velvet's hair that got draped over my face, and saw a figure standing over us with his back to the sun.
"I'm not interrupting anything, I hope?" he said.
"Not at all, sir," Velvet replied, and let go of me.
Standing beside us was Port, holding a few papers, with a half smile on his face.
"Well, ladies, I won't bother you for very long. I'll be brief- I have these files for you to look at, miss Scarlatina," he said, and he bent down to hand two stacks of paper to the girl who was laying on her back.
"Professor Ozpin caught wind that maybe you weren't exactly satisfied with your current team. Since you aren't the only student who feels this way, we teachers decided to shuffle a few things around."
Velvet slowly flipped through the first file.
"That's possible?" she asked, "I thought the teams were final."
"We do indeed like to test students by randomly assigning them into teams with the eye-contact arrangement, but that system has its flaws, I admit. Anyway, those two lads could be your new teammates, if you'd like."
I took a peek into the papers Velvet was holding. On one of them I saw a passport photo featuring a young man with dark red hair and peculiar eyes. In another, I briefly spotted the profile information of a guy called "Yatsuhashi," who according to the info was 6"4 tall.
"I have one question professor," Velvet piped up, "Do you not yet know who the fourth member of the team would be?"
Port chuckled in response.
"That would be the girl next to you. My apologies, I thought it was obvious."
We rolled around in the grass for a while longer- we would have done so forever, if it were up to me- and continued to spend the day doing gratuitous amounts of nothing. That something so normal as being in each other's presence could feel amazing, was crazy to me. Then again, Velvet is pretty amazing, so that probably explains it. A mysterious feeling followed me around like a flock of butterflies that day, and everytime Velvet turned around to me, for whatever reason, my heart fluttered. With a spring in my step I followed her, and followed her, and followed her.
Velvet was happy. We were both happy, which meant we had already pushed way past the centerpoint of the status quo- which is exactly where we wanted to be. No more excitement, just tranquility, at least for the time being. The only thing we would have to focus on was killing grimm, which was something I looked forward to. In a few days we'd leave for the forever fall forest, my hands already itched to grab my weapon.
Whatever happens from now, well, that's for someone else to decide. If anything good happens- let it happen. If anything bad happens- we'll be ready. In the meantime, I'll just be enjoying my school life while I can.
Yeah. I think that's a good idea.
Velvet Scarlatina. The girl that meant a lot to me.
The girl who, despite everything, was happily nibbling on a sandwich beside me. The girl who did not break. Crack, perhaps- but she was too tough to break.
She could be an inspiration for all of us, though forget that. She was an inspiration to me.
Looking at her now, sitting in the grass and basking in the sun, I knew it would be all right from now on. We've yet to see whether that's true.
But the way she giggled at jokes we made, the way she held her head high, the way her eyes shone with brightness I never saw before, well, if that wasn't good
then I don't know what is.
-the end-