11/2/1999... The home of Sam, Ren, and Nora...

Ruby long was uncomfortable looking Sitting on the floor cross-legged in a tank top and sweatpants in the middle of Nikos family's living room. Sam was in the other room watching some news special on the dreaded Y2K disaster that was being talked about on CNN.

In front of her also sitting with their legs crossed, also in sweatpants and tanks tops was Ren and Nora. The pair was staring very intently at Ruby as Ren spoke up

"So you might be wondering why we're doing this?" Ren said

[I don't even know what we're doing.] Ruby signed back

"You came to us asking for help to make things right, so we're doing to you what we used to put Jaune through the few times he screwed the pooch with Pyrrha," Nora said.

"Or Pyrrha and Jaune putting one of us through when we screwed up royally" Ren added.

Ruby nodded as if she understood before signing [I still don't know what on earth were doing.]

Ren smiled "Well were going to help you sort out on your own exactly how you messed up."

"We can't just tell you what you did, you have to figure it out yourself and then tell us what you did" Nora added

[So how do we do this, and can we turn the heat on?] Ruby signed

"We start, and No, this is a punishment as much as it is us helping you." Ren aid.

"I'm going to cut to the chase here. Were going to pull the answer to this question kicking and screaming from you." Nora said before she paused "Why did you cheat on our last still living friend on this earth?"

Ruby sighed, She like Nora, she did. But Nora had a surprising vicious streak in her when someone wronged one of her friends, and Ruby knew that she did. The entire scenario felt engineered to rub it in her face what she did. They were doing this at the home of the mother of Jaune's late Ex-girlfriend. They brought her up twice in a minute after not even muttering her name at all in months.

They wanted it clear that they saw Jaune as some wounded bird that needed time to sit in a cage and heal, but that broken wing had been mended months ago.

[I think I want to go ahead and point out that your attempt to use his Ex against me is in poor taste and that you should both be ashamed of yourselves.] Ruby signed to Nora directly.

"Oh am I?" Nora said with a smirk.

[Just because I'm deaf doesn't mean I'm stupid, I know you chose this particular location to do this. You repeatedly brought her up like I was supposed to feel an extra level of guilt at her passing.] Ruby signed out with gritted teeth. [But you're forgetting she did far more damage to Jaune than I ever could do.]

Ren spoke for Nora "I don't think that's really fai-"

Ruby held out her right wrist and signed with her free hand [I know, I painfully know what rock bottom looked like for him. I know I hurt him, But she almost killed him.]

Nora looked at Ren suddenly on the defensive

Ruby got up and signed [Now that's out of the way I'm going to go put my sweater back on.]

A couple of moments later the trio reconvened sitting back down in the same spots but far more comfortable than they had been before.

Ruby started [So the question then… Why did I cheat on Jaune…] Ruby sighed [That's a hard question to answer.]

"Well, something must have been wrong with your relationship with Jaune if this happened right?" Ren asked.

Ruby signed out [I mean, I'll freely admit that I screwed up, don't misunderstand me, but the worst I did, was have that bastard kiss me out of the blue at the worst possible time… If Jaune rounded that corner even ten seconds earlier, or later…]

"The Jaune wouldn't have seen it, or it wouldn't have happened?" Nora "I'm sorry if that's hardly convincing."

Ruby signed [No, I suppose it's not.] Before she took a second to find her words. [You're going to need to understand, I'm not here to confess to you, any confessions I make will be between Jaune and me.]

"Right, we just need to understand what happened," Nora said. "So what, do you feel like lead up to this?"

It was Ruby's turn to feel defensive. [Honestly, I should have been less naive about his intentions. He tried to play the nice guy to me.] Ruby signed [Of course I just got these damn implants so I'm riding the high of this still very new hearing world I live in.]

"I understand you used to have a crush on him?" Ren asked Ruby.

[Yeah, and considering I got shot down by him the day I met Jaune, that should have been a massive red flag right there.] Ruby signed. [Of course, the fact that I had a long-buried crush on him, and the fact he was able to kinda hold a conversation with me now made me… I guess open to his flirting.]

"I'm still not fully convinced," Nora said, "I mean I'm sure Cardin must have been a sweet talker sure, but that doesn't ignore that something else was going on."

Ruby dug deep into her own memories trying to find the first moment when she felt discontent with her now ex-boyfriend. [If I'm being honest with myself, I think I started feeling discontent for the first time last July…]

"July? What happened in July?" Ren asked.

[Remember that morning when the two of you said you didn't sleep that night and were out watching the sunrise? It was the anniversary of-] Ruby paused her signing [Her death?]

Ren and Nora exchanged glances. "That was almost four months ago…" Nora said.

[I know, but when I looked at the picture of the four of you, I saw just how unapologetically happy he looked in it.] Ruby signed.

"I'm following you so far I guess," Nora said.

[I… I guess I started to feel jealous at how happy he looked with her to an extent.] Ruby signed. [Which, got me thinking about things.]

"Well I mean I can sympathize, it took me a long time to get Ren back to where he was before Pyrrha died," Nora said. "But I didn't cheat on Ren during that time though…"

[I'm getting to the point, okay?] Ruby signed frustrated [You see, that day, uh... Well we did things for the first time.]

Ren pinched his nose and said "I don't know if I needed to know that you and Jaune's first time was on that particular day"

[I didn't know what else to do, I guess at the moment I just wanted to do something that would make him happy.] Ruby signed.

"Oh, I'm sure at the time it" Nora snarked out. "But in the long term?"

[In the long term it just led to me realizing other problems in the relationship.] Ruby signed [Well, I guess the problems were in my head for the most part.]

"Tell us about those problems Ruby." Ren requested.

[Well, I guess on a fundamental level, I was drawn to Jaune for two reasons.] Ruby signed [First off, he could sign, that meant we could communicate on an equal level. I guess I later noticed that he's also very attractive.]

"Let's focus on that one, I'm sure that might of been part of drew him towards you as well, the fact you were both on equal terms physically," Nora said. "I'll be honest with you, Pyrrha was a mess, She couldn't wrap her head around sign language at all."

"How much did Jaune talk to you about his relationship with Pyrrha," Ren asked.

Ruby thought about it for a second and thought [I… Honestly, he never talked much about her at all. I only remember it coming up a few times last year when everything started going downhill for him.]

"That's what I suspected. Jaune, bless his heart, is terrible at communication." Ren said.

Ruby noticed Sam had by this point had poked her head in. Ruby spoke out as best she could manage "I'm sorry we can change the subject if this is bothering you"

Sam smiled and said "It's fine, Go ahead Ren"

"Well you talk about being able to be on equal terms with Jaune, but his relationship with Pyrrha was never really equal." Ren said, "In retrospect, it wasn't a healthy relationship for either of them."

Sam chimed in "I'm not in denial that part of the problem was me and her father was constantly fighting. It got to the point where my daughter would run to Jaune at the first sign of trouble."

Ruby thought about it [I guess I understand.]

Nora said "I guess the point of all this, was that Jaune was not in an equal relationship with Pyrrha, she kinda started depending on him, and… well, we all know what happened."

[I honestly felt like we were on the same level for most of the relationship until, well he started to go a bit crazy and I got my implants,] Ruby signed out.

"What does this have to do with Cardin?" Ren said

Ruby signed out. [Everything…] She paused to try and pick her words but in the end, she just opted to spell it out. [Honestly, I felt like I couldn't complete with Pyrrha, that I was always going to end up as his "number two" as Nora used to put it.]

Ruby sighed and signed [I honestly know this won't make me sound good, because it's not. But in the back of my head, I felt like we stopped being equal in our relationship. That was I was getting too far ahead of him.] Ruby sighs and doesn't make eye contact [That despite the promise I made to see him through his problems, I at some point started wondering why I was making them my problems.]

"Jesus… You're admitting to two of his oldest friends that you started to see our mutual friend as a burden" Ren said.

Ruby didn't mince words and she didn't sign "Yeah, your right, that's what I was doing. Half a year ago I couldn't hear. I couldn't carry on a conversation with most of our classmates, and even when I could I had to put whatever I was carrying down to even do it."

Ruby paused as she rubbed her tired wrists. "Next month will be the first anniversary of me earning this scar" She shook the rest of her thought off. "Just like how Jaune has scars because of me, I can see the surgical scar on his shoulder from when he took a car for me last year."

"So?" Nora said looking at ruby slightly disdainfully.

Ruby went back to signing as her voice had started to already tire [But I started to take for granted just how important Jaune was to me. How much we frankly owed each other.] Ruby stopped and lightly slapped herself [What we owed each other, that's not even close to right. What we meant to each other is more like it.]

Ruby signed out [Honestly I know more about his mental situation than most do, hell probably more than his mother does. I also know that there will likely never be a way to give him a voice or to let him see color. I'm thrilled that I can hear, the world still feels so new and exciting to me because of it.] Ruby shook her head [Jaune will never get to know what that's like.]

"I think I understand, you saw yourself as moving forward and Jaune as stagnating," Ren said. "Which is still not a good look for you"

[I know,] Ruby signed. [That's when Cardin came into the picture and started to make his moves.]

When Ruby say Ren and Nora were silent and attentive, she kept going [It's like this, I had a crush on Cardin for most of my time in middle school. My hearing disability more or less meant I would never really get anywhere with him though.]

Ruby paused and sighed out [So he started flirting me and chatting with me and while I knew better, I still let it happen, I just kinda mentally saw his honeyed words as being kinda like one of the perks of being "Normal" as sick as that was.]

"I can understand that to an extent." Ren conceded.

[But I didn't want to worry Jaune, I mean I wasn't planning on dumping him. But I still felt guilty. So I lied to him about it…] Ruby said. [I felt like shit for that one. But I lied, I lied for the whole week, the whole time I was talking it out with my sister as to what I should do.]

Ren and Nora both groaned

[I know, I know. But she made a compelling point at the time, I was letting Cardin chat me up because I wanted him to. Because some part of me was not happy with Jaune. I started to question why we were dating and by the end of the week I had to consciously remember why we were dating still.]

"Lordy you never had a chance by that point, you have your former crush hitting on you, your sister encouraging you, and your brain was telling you that your now working ears were causing your boyfriend to be left behind," Nora said

Ruby spoke again this time with some noticeable strain in her voice "The thing was, I remembered why I loved him, what made him special to me. Ten seconds later Cardin kissed me just as Jaune came around the corner…"

Ren and Nora stared at her blankly. She kept going [I'm not asking for pity, I'm not even trying to blame Jaune here. Everything that happened is my fault.]

Ren and Nora looked at each other, Nora spoke with a smile "See, that didn't even take much prodding to get out of you, don't you feel at least a little better saying that out loud."

Ruby shook her head [I don't feel like I'm ever going to feel better, not for this.]

"I can't speak for Nora," Ren said, "but I don't think it'd be a good idea to help you get back with Jaune."

Nora turned her head and said, "Wait, are you kidding that would fix all the problems in our group right now."

Ren turned and looked at Nora. "No, it wouldn't. It would only create a Jaune and Ruby shaped Bandaid to put over it, we have to help them both heal from this first before they even begin to start thinking about hooking back up."

Ruby sighed out and signed [He'll more than likely be dating Penny by that point.]

"Then that's his choice, if he feels that the best thing he can do for himself is to move on, then I'll support him fully," Ren said. "Some of the rumors I've heard about him in recent weeks haven't painted a great picture of him, to be honest, there's still the persistent rumor that he's the one that curb-stomped Cardin."

Ruby nods and wipes her eyes [Yeah if that happens that's on me anyways. Is there any way we can arrange a chance to talk to him?]

Nora spoke up "Yeah that's easy, but we need him to get the chip off his shoulder first."

Ruby smiled [Okay, where do we start?]


Wow I never thought i'd find myself writing a 2600 hundred word chapter revolving around a single unbroken chapter, let alone a 2600 word Confession Before. So welcome to the last released chapter of AQMW in this current Decade.

A couple house cleaning things first, A friend of mine on discord pointed out that my profile links to the novel store page have never actually worked due to being, to not to fine a point on it, A bag of ferret assholes about letting us actually promote ourselves. I did my best to resolve it by breaking up the link in a way I'm sure we all can figure out now.

First off, thanks to everybody that wished me a happy holidays last week, I appreciate it. This part of the story is honestly starting to wind down and will probably see some kind of resolution in the next few chapters, I then also want to do a short set of chapters on the Y2k Panic before moving on from there.

So on to the comments from last chapter.

Dragon lord Syed 101: Yeah I did let Jaune get away with almost murder, I also realistically should have imposed a harsher consequence on him during his suicide attempt all the way back in the teen chapters as well. I just can't see the story progressing the way I need it too if I have Jaune jailed for six months at a time. I admittingly have let other characters get away with quite a bit as well. Most teens from the time wouldn't have given Ruby (or Yang) a second chance for what happened, and realistically kids were bastards back then about same sex relationships so Weiss and Blake would have been scandalized given the small town nature of the setting. I do have a hammer that will drop on them, Jaune in particular, In later chapters, but in the context of this current arc, the story dose need me to give Jaune a pass. the so called "PC centric Morality" trope is in play to a certain extent after all.

Besides you should have seen the shit people I knew got away with in highschool back in the 90's... I could write volumes on that alone.

Big Bad Beowulf: Hey i'm glad you like the story so far, don't worry i'm sure I'll eventually do something to piss you off! But enjoy the stay till then!

With that, we close out 2019 and usher in 2020, thanks again for everyone that's been with my on this story even if you just joined, and I hope you all have great days and happy new years!