It was a warm summer Saturday afternoon in the dorms of beacon castle. Team JNPR sat around in their common room in various states of lethargy from the heat. Their apartment was in a particular state of shambles tonight, with armour and weapons haphazardly discarded across every flat surface, and books and class notes filling the gaps in between. The state of the dorm apartment not unexpected for the 4 teenagers sharing the space.
Ren sat on the couch gaming on his scroll, from the furrow of his brow Pyrrha could tell he was deep in concentration. Nora was napping on his shoulder, snoring ever so slightly enough to be kind of cute rather than obnoxious. He'd occasionally take a quick break from his game to run his fingers through her hair delicately, before returning to fighting imaginary Grimm. Pyrrha couldn't help but keep glancing over at the two of them longingly, it was such a heart-warming scene. They really were a perfect couple, she thought, even if they didn't know it yet.
Pyrrha and Jaune were both sitting up at the dining table, attempting to study. They had just survived a particularly gruelling lecture that day with professor Oobleck on the history and classifications of Ursa Grimm. 'That's Doctor Oobleck' Pyrrha thought to herself with a suppressed giggle at the terrible joke their team always made.
While his classes did tend to be a bit dull, Pyrrha was quite fascinated by Doctor Oobleck. He seemed like the kind of person that had far more to him than meets the eye. Between the textbook history lessons of Remnant and it's inhabitants, he often regaled the class with fascinating stories of his travels and adventures as a young huntsman, at least to those who weren't asleep on their desks. She just wished he wouldn't ramble and rant so much in his lectures. Maybe it was the sheer amount of coffee he drank? Come to think of it she couldn't recall a time she'd ever seen him without a coffee in his hand. "Mmm Coffee" she thought, fighting hard against the urge to get up and go make another make one.
Realising just how far her train of thought had wandered from her studies, Pyrrha decided maybe now was a good time for a break. Leaning back from her book she stretched her arms out in the air and let out a long, over exaggerated yawn, hoping to subtly catch the attention of her partner.
Looking over she realised he was deep in concentration, scribbling away in his book. His face had the air of someone who was completely oblivious to their surroundings, captivated by the book in front of him. Strange, this wasn't much like the Jaune she knew to be so engrossed with his studies. While Jaune certainly wasn't a bad student, no one would refer to him as a star pupil either. She had lost count of how many times she had to help him with his studies because he'd not been paying attention in class.
She'd never admit it but secretly she enjoyed this, helping Jaune with his class work was just another good excuse for her to spend time with him. With a pang of guilt, she realised she probably shouldn't take such joy from her partner struggling with his studies even if it was bringing them closer together. As he scribbled across the page his mouth hung open slightly, whatever notes he was currently writing, it had clearly consumed the entirety of his attention. The determined look on his face was quite cute Pyrrha had to concede, if a little goofy. This was just one of the many little things that she noticed more and more these days, those little things that really gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest whenever she thought of him.
Realising that just staring at him wasn't going to be enough to break his attention, she decided to resort to more drastic measures. She did another over exaggerated stretch, this time reaching out under the table with her legs to brush them across his, the contact lingering just long enough that she could still feign innocence. This certainly had the intended reaction. Jaune was startled by the touch, jumped in his seat and dropped his pen. He bent down to pick it up, looking up at her with a sheepish grin. God that grin always got her. No matter what mood she was in or how bad of a day she'd had, the way Jaune smiled at her as he did something, most likely dorky but cute, always brightened her spirits.
She lent over and put her arm on his, noticing his grin intensify ever so slightly as their skin made contact. It was a small, unconscious reaction but she took it as a good sign. She found they were both making more and more excuses to touch each other lately, and she certainly wasn't in any hurry for it to stop. It had started small, Jaune would put his hand on her shoulder when he brought her coffee while she was studying, she would lean on his arm when she looked over his notes. She'd even found herself leaning her head on his shoulder the other night when they were all on the couch together, watching one of Nora's sappy rom com movies, and her heart had skipped a beat or two when he'd responded by putting his arm around her shoulder and leaning his head on top of hers.
Realising her train of thought had not just run off, but probably derailed completely, she tried to recover by taking the focus off herself. "What part of the lecture were you working on?" she asked, peering over at his notes. He hesitated, looking from the book in front of him, then back to her several times, as if trying to find an answer that wouldn't come to him. Leaning over and looking down at his book, she suddenly burst out laughing, as the reason for his out of character studiousness became apparent. It wasn't his notebook he'd been scribbling away in madly, but his sketch book.
On the page in front of him, Jaune had drawn a preposterously oversized Ursa in a comic scene like battle with their team. In the colourful rendition, Nora was floating in the air, hitting the Ursa over the head with Magnhild. A comical 'Boop' sound effect emanating from its ears like steam clouds. Ren was half way through a spinning jump, arcing through the air, stormflowers outstretched, unleashing a maelstrom of bullets. Pyrrha and Jaune stood in a battle stance, shoulder to shoulder in front of the Ursa, Jaune slightly in front with his shield outstretched in a protective manner. Cute, she couldn't help but feel a slight flush rise to her cheeks at the thought of Jaune as her guardian Knight. She certainly didn't need his protection in a battle, but she liked the notion that he imagined himself in that role.
Horror dawned on Jaune's face as he realised Pyrrha had seen his sacred drawing and analysed its contents. His cheeks began to glow red as he quickly scrambled to close his sketch book. Jaune had always been very secretive with his sketch book, tending to hide in a faraway corner whenever he was drawing and never showing anyone in his team the contents. Out of curiosity, Pyrrha had once asked Ren if Jaune shared his works with him, but it seemed even Ren was none the wiser to Jaune's artistic endeavors.
At the sound of the commotion, Nora twitched and murmured in her sleep, "Not enough syrup, never enough syrup... You'll regret this betrayal..." She trailed off back to peacefully snoring again as Ren stroked her hair gently, shooting both Jaune and Pyrrha a scolding look as he did so, before returning to his game.
Hoping to break the ice that now hung between them, Pyrrha came up with an idea. "Hey, how about we go outside and do some sparring practice? That is if you're not too tired from all that studying?" she giggled pointing at his book. A small modicum of the redness in Jaune's face began to recede, and a smile shone through.
"Yeah I'd lov... I'd like that" he said with the hesitant guise of someone who was actually really excited but trying to play it cool. "It's not like I'm achieving much here anyway" he added with a nod towards his book.
"Ooh I don't know, I think you really captured professor Oobleck's caffeine fueled ramblings about the Ursa there" she teased sticking her tongue out at him.
"That's Doctor Oobleck to you" Jaune countered, in his mock bravado voice. She covered her mouth to stifle a giggle, it was a well and truly worn out joke but somehow he always managed to make her laugh. From the couch they heard Ren groan at them and Pyrrha could imagine him rolling his eyes in disdain.
Deciding to ignore Ren rather than give him any satisfaction she continued; "I found a nice clearing out on the edge of the emerald forest. It's such a nice day, I thought we could train out there rather than on the roof top for once".
Jaune nodded immediately, it seemed like he was looking for any excuse to get out of studying as usual. "I'd like that" he repeated, more confidently this time.
Gathering up their scattered assortment of weapons and armour, they each began packing their gear bags for the training session ahead. Pyrrha was ready first and waited patiently by the door for him, a bemused look on her face as she watched him searching for his missing pauldron behind the couch cushions. Remembering that she needed to see Professor Port about an upcoming assessment task, she called back to Jaune; "I just remembered I have to talk to Professor Port, how about I meet you down by the gates in 20 minutes?"
"Yep that's fine, I have to go see Weiss quickly anyway so I can just meet you down there after that."
Jaune didn't notice, but Pyrrha's previously radiant smile faltered. She quickly covered it with a well practised, fake grin but it didn't reach her eyes any more. "Oh, Weiss? Ok sure, that sounds... Perfect... I'll see you down there..." She hoped he hadn't noticed the change in her tone of voice.
She put her head down and ducked out the door quickly before Jaune looked back up. Closing the door behind her, she leaned back against it and sighed, she felt the corners of her eyes starting to water and began trying to blink profusely to counter her bodies unwanted reaction. 'Weiss!', hearing the name from Jaune's lips had felt like an unexpected dagger to her. Jaune hadn't mentioned Weiss since that night at the dance, she had thought his one-sided infatuation with the ice Princess was over, but evidently she was wrong. 'The dance...' she sighed internally just thinking about it. That night at the dance had been the best night of her life. She still couldn't believe he'd had the courage to wear that dress in front of all their peers, and he'd done it just to impress her. They'd danced together like no one else was in the room and then spent the rest of the night talking on the balcony and watching the stars. It really was the perfect evening. He had been so open and honest with her and it felt like they had grown so much closer in all their interactions since. Had she been misreading his intentions this whole time?
'Ice Princess', she winced at her unexpectedly cruel jab towards Weiss. It's true that when Weiss had started at beacon, it was a nickname many had thrown around about her. While Pyrrha had felt almost embarrassed and unworthy of her name and the fame that came with it when she'd got to beacon, Weiss had come to the school proud of the Schnee name and the status and power it afforded her. Since then however, Weiss had really begun to mellow out and Pyrrha would almost consider her among her close friends now. She cringed internally, now painfully aware that her jealousy over Jaune had led to her cast dark thoughts about a friend with such ease. She did not like this revelation about herself. Vowing she could work on her emotions later, she wiped her eyes and set off down the hall towards professor Port's office.
First chapter done, let me know what you think, if you liked it you'll be please to know I've got the next chapter almost finished. This is my first FF so still trying to find my writing style, I can always use constructive feedback.
