Author's Note: So, editing this one threw me for a loop. I forgot about a certain scene I wrote here, and reading back over it again really pulled on my heartstrings. Is it weird if what I write myself pulls on my own heartstrings? I think so, but idk. I've been having battles with my inner demons lately, so sometimes it's hard to think straight. Oh well. Anyway, enjoy!
"Ithinkyou'rereallypretty!" Ruby looks super flustered as she says this to me, head bowed, and a heavy blush covering her face.
Not sure I heard her correctly, I ask her to repeat herself, my heart pounding out of my chest the entire time. "What?" I start to feel light-headed. If I heard what I think I heard… Then maybe there's a chance for us. That… That would be amazing...
"I said… Umm…" She trails off, looking around frantically. Eventually she finds the napkin that was sitting in front of her. She grabs that and starts looking around again. I chuckle and pull a pen from my purse. She takes it with a quiet "thank you," and begins writing on the napkin. After a few seconds of quick scratching of the pen on the napkin, said napkin is presented to me by Ruby. Said girl is holding out the napkin to me with both hands, her head down, and a blush creeping onto her face, what little I can see of it. A second passes where I'm not entirely sure what to do, and Ruby starts to fidget. In her chair, she starts rocking back and forth. I reach out to grab the napkin, and as my hands meet it to pull it away, I'm met with some resistance. I look at Ruby and pull the napkin again, though not super hard. Ruby's head dips down even further as she holds onto the napkin with a vice-grip.
"Hey, Ruby… It's going to be okay. Trust me," I say, trying to encourage her to hand me the napkin that she so wants to give me, but not give me at the same time. Ruby raises her head, and our eyes meet. I smile at her, and she smiles back weakly. And with that, she releases the napkin from her grip. "Thank you," I say, still smiling.
"I think you're really pretty." I read the napkin. And then I read the napkin again just to make sure that I'm reading it correctly.
Yep, I heard her correctly. My heart soars. If I didn't have self control, I would have jumped out of the chair and ran around to Ruby to give her a hug and a kiss. But I have self control, so I don't. Instead, I smile. Wider than I've smiled in a long time. It hurts to smile like this, but the amount of joy that I feel at this point in time makes it worth the pain.
Looking up at Ruby, her face is red enough to rival the ever-present cape of hers. I can't help but start laughing; she's just too cute. And now what I've wanted the most might finally become a reality. Ruby's face grows even more red, as impossible as it sounds, and starts getting up. I can see traces of tears in her eyes. I realize that that reaction could be taken badly, especially considering how reluctant she was to give me the note, and how I told her everything would be okay. I'm pretty sure telling a girl that she's pretty and her laughing at you can be demoralizing. I need to say something, quick!
"Wait, wait, wait. Ruby, I'm not laughing at that!" I touch her arm with my hand. She stops moving, looking at me hopefully.
"Well, I kind of was, but not for the reason that you think. It's just that you are really cute when you're so flustered," I explain. She sits back down and mutters something under her breath. Then an idea hits me. I grab the pen and napkin and begin writing something. This catches Ruby's attention, and as soon as I'm done, I hand Ruby back the napkin. On it, the writing of "I think you're really pretty too."
She reads the napkin. And then she looks at me. And then back down to the napkin. Her face heats up to a point that, in all of my years of knowing her, has never happened. Truth be told, this is the first time I've shown Ruby express any kind of romantic feelings at all, even if it's just being shy about calling someone pretty. It's different, and I like it. She looks at me again, and our eyes meet. I smile at her warmly. She quickly gets up and rushes away in the direction of the bathroom with a quick, "I'll be right back."
I laugh softly to myself and take a bite out of my strawberry cheesecake. The taste of it confuses me. It's a weird feeling when your mind knows what something tastes like, but your taste buds don't. The shock of the feeling sends me back. A flash in my eyes, and the scenery in front of me changes.
Blake, Yang, Ruby, and I had just completed a challenging mission from the school. It was a fairly large Grimm nest, and we had gotten help from Professor Port for the mission. It went without problems, and we celebrated. This location was insisted upon by Yang and Ruby. So we went. It was my first time at this place, and not knowing what to get, I asked Ruby for her opinion. She recommended the Strawberry Cheesecake, and I had gotten it ever since. It quickly became my favorite. The faces that the rest of the team made when I took my first bite are still ingrained into my memory. Ruby with her eager smile, anticipating my reaction to her recommendation. Blake with the common expressionless… expression. And Yang with that trademark smirk as she watched Ruby be happy. It was a good day. That memory fades into more, each memory a subsequent visit to this establishment.
That time I actually told a joke that Ruby liked and made her have strawberry smoothie come out of her nose as she laughed.
The time that someone proposed in the café, and Ruby and I were there to watch. I didn't watch the proposal. I just looked at Ruby hoping to do that with her some day.
The day before we left on our last mission together. I had planned to tell her how I felt, but I chickened out, telling myself "After the mission." But there are only so many more missions one can go on.
The image of Ruby impaled there on the branch after being knocked into it appears in my head. I try to shake it out, but it doesn't leave. The memory of after the event starts playing.
Blood. So much blood. After taking out the last Grimm, I rushed back to Ruby. She was a trooper. She was still alive, struggling to breathe. I tried pulling her off of the branch, but as soon as I started to try, she screamed. Terrified, I stopped. Knowing there was nothing I could do to help her, I simply hugged her. I hugged her and cried.
"It's going… going to be… okay, Weiss… don't… cry…" Ruby said in between pained breaths.
"Ruby, I don't want you to go!" I yelled.
"Don't… worry… about me… Live… your life… for… both of us." She managed to say before her body went limp in my arms.
"Ruby! Don't leave me! Dammit, don't leave me! I need you! I love you…" Tears streamed down my face onto my bloodstained clothes. There was no getting this amount of blood out. Nor the pain.
Three days later, there was a funeral. Or, what little of a funeral one could have when Grimm came calling, feeding off of the negative emotions. There was no stopping my tears or my wrath, as Grimm after Grimm fell by my hand. I never hunted again after that day.
"Weiss!" Ruby's voice ends the horrid memory. I blink and look around. I'm not watching Ruby bleed out. I'm not at her funeral. I'm here with her in the café. I look around some more, including down at my hands and lap to see them covered in tears. Apparently I had been crying. It's not that hard to imagine that I was, though. The feeling of absolute terror and despair slowly ebbs out of me again as I recover.
Ruby's voice sounds again. "You don't have to finish it. It's your first time here, so you don't really know what you can get. If you think it's that bad, you can get something else." I look up to Ruby, who had apparently come back from the bathroom, and see that she has a light-hearted smile adorning her lips, while her eyes… Her eyes betray those lips. Behind her eyes: a large amount of worry and concern is obvious.
I mean, yeah. A lot of people don't just break down while eating strawberry cheesecake for no apparent reason. I'd be concerned too if I were her.
"It's okay, Ruby. The cake is absolutely divine, thank you for your concern." I say, laughing at her joke. And yet another thing that I love about her. She always tries to find a way to cheer me up. It really means a lot to me that she's willing to do that.
"So then… why were you crying?" She asks, the concern now more apparent on her face. I sigh. I start to feel a queasiness in my stomach as the memory is once again brought to the forefront of my mind. What can I say to her? I can't tell her the truth! Or, wait a minute… maybe I can…
"I uh… I had a nightmare recently, and in it, I saw you die. And uh… I remembered it." It's… kind of the truth. I did remember seeing her die, and I did have a nightmare on the first night of Beacon about it. So… I didn't technically lie, right? Right. "You know, Ruby, I've only known you for a short time, but you already mean a lot to me." I smile again.
"Oh, okay… well if you need to talk to me about anything, I'm here for you, okay?" I nod in response. She smiles and sits down. "And Weiss?" I make eye contact with her after hearing my name. "Thank you for what you said… about me being pretty too… if you don't mind, when you feel better… can we talk about it?"
"Sure thing, Ruby. We'll talk about it." We both smile at each other and continue on with the night. The ball is in Ruby's court now with what she wants to do. I know what I want, but does she know what she wants? It's up to her now. Whenever she wants to talk about it, I'll be here for her to talk about it.
The rest of the short "meal", if you can call it that, passed by in relative ease. Small talk and eating were really it. Near the end, the waitress came up again and handed us the check. I paid for it, and then we left, heading in the direction of the airship station.
"Thank you for this, Ruby. This was a lot of fun." I smile. She smiles back.
"I'm glad you think that, Weiss. We should do this again sometime. I had a lot of fun. I'm really sleepy though." She yawns as she says this. She looks absolutely adorable right now. Sleepy Ruby is very cute.
"Well, we're almost at the airship station. That means we're almost back to Beacon, and you can go to sleep," I say, giving her a sympathetic smile.
"Fiiiiiiiine. But just know that I will not hesitate to complain about how sleepy I am if it takes a while." Ruby says, probably only half-joking. Her smile makes me think a little more than half, but I can't be sure.
About halfway down our walk, Ruby freezes on the sidewalk. Confused as to why she would do that, I turn back around to look at her. She's currently pointing and hyperventilating at a movie poster that looks like it's been recently and hastily put up on the side of a building. The movie? It's an adaptation of that one book that Ruby was talking about earlier. She was obsessed with that movie back in my time, or reality, or whatever.
"Oh, hey. Isn't that the book you were talking about?" I ask, pointing to the poster and pretending to play dumb."
"Yeah, it is. I didn't know they were making this! This is… I don't know what this is!" She exclaims, exasperated. This confuses me as she could all but rave about it after seeing it in my time.
"You don't know? I thought you really liked the book."
"I do, but I've heard that the movies are never as good as the books, and so… I don't know. I want to see it, but I kinda don't wanna ruin the book for me if the movie is bad." I mean, it makes sense.
"Oh come on, I'm sure that you'd enjoy it if you see it. Movies are going to be different from the books; that's just how it is. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't want to see it." I explain.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe we could go see it as a team one time. That would be fun." Ruby suggests before walking back towards the airship docks. I follow her.
We get to the airship station shortly after that little side trip. The wait is short, and we get on an airship destined for Beacon quickly. We end up getting seats near the back. Ruby looks extremely drowsy right now, as she sits next to me.
A few minutes into the ride, I feel something resting on my shoulder. When I look over, I see Ruby's head there and immediately look away. My heart starts to beat faster. I look again, and for longer. After a little bit, I can hear some light, almost non-existent snoring. She fell asleep. That dolt. I smile to myself and stop moving. I might as well let her sleep now. After all, it's not like I don't enjoy it.