Weiss Schnee knew to be careful with her smiles.
'Emotion was vulnerability', after all, and resisting the temptation of smiling or, gods forbid laughing, at something, had been a necessity in her line of family. It was something she had learnt explicitly from her father, with his lectures and backhanded reminders, and more so, implicitly from her mother, with her ways of drinking and isolation.
She was never one to show herself, let alone emotion, and Weiss supposed the normalcy of it had ingrained itself into her as habit.
She needn't be reminded why both her and Winter fared with the nickname 'Ice Queen'.
However, in that context, in secrecy and deceit - things that Weiss still hated to this day but was not yet free of, she supposed it was a more dire subject. One where transparency was a mistake, certainly with those you only knew through social events and dinners. One from a time ago.
This was, admittedly, different.
Jaune was different.
He was... clumsy - a byword for 'unintentionally charming', Weiss knew - though she would never admit that to anyone, nor openly confess it to herself like one would when talking in the mirror. Charming in his innocence, charming by the way he asked how you were every morning, charming by the way he smiled.
Particularly the last one.
He smiled easily, something Weiss wasn't familiar with herself. Not to say she didn't smile - she did, but hers came from rich flurries of emotion; she could feel her smiles as bright as the feelings that fuelled them.
Jaune seemed to smile out of instinct. Naturally.
The strength of her own smiles was what made it all the harder to resist doing so when she was around him. It's not all the time, mind you, but it's enough for it to proclaim itself as a problem. Maybe it was a loose joke, or something he misinterpreted, or simply a shine of his goodwill. Or of his clumsiness.
She doesn't recall this issue in Beacon, it had been quite the opposite, but there was enough time between now and then to warrant the chance that something had changed.
Weiss had to keep it in, even if that was just in the moment (she could reminisce by herself). She couldn't simply start beaming and giggling around him, exhibiting a contrast to how it used to be, because she knew that certain people around them had an eye for that sort of thing and she certainly didn't want to start any rumours.
But it was also starting to take its toll on her, and sometimes she shudders weirdly under the rush of adrenaline that comes with a laugh as her body offsets the tension that fails to dissipate (Winter had told her that laughter was a way of relieving nervousness, but Weiss thinks laughter to be more beautiful than that).
And she thinks, during one of their breakfasts, someone noticed.
Only once, but those few seconds of anticipation were torture. Thankfully, Atlas Academy's canteen isn't one of the warmest of places in the morning, so Weiss could write it off as that if anyone had the gall to ask.
Or if fate had the gall to scorn her.
And yet, whilst Weiss could not afford a rumour, not when everything else around her was so uncertain, she knew she could not afford to pretend he wasn't making her smile, either.
And he was. Making her smile. Too much.
Too much for a girl that was supposed to be sensible and steadfast.
She wonders if he realises - if he realises what he's doing to her, or if he was simply used to making people smile.
Or, maybe the problem was with her.
No. That was ridiculous.
(This is an in-progress story).
adaora