Nora pranced into the room, humming happily as she made her way over to her bed.
"Oh Ren~," she sang excitedly. "Know what time it is?"
Ren's face remained planted in his book as he answered plainly. "No, I don't."
Yes, he did.
It was time for Nora to catch up on all of the episodes of those daytime programs she'd missed during their week of classes and exercises. Just like every other week
She would always save today, in the few hours they had after classes and before Jaune and Pyrrha returned from their increasingly lengthy training sessions, to binge her shows.
Nora kicked off her shoes and flopped down onto her bed. She laid on her stomach and tossed her legs up into the air as she pulled up the holo screen at the foot of her bed.
Soon Ren's remaining focus was torn away from his book as the title music for On The Hunt, a romantic comedy about four single hunters living in an apartment together, began playing.
It was over. There was no way he could read now. Of course he could just go off and find another spot, he supposed, but truthfully, he didn't feel like leaving the room. Nora was here now and, for whatever reason, he was reluctant to leave her.
Letting out a deep sigh, he rolled his eyes and turned slightly to watch as the episode began with a recap of the show's recent developments.
His eyes glazed over as the flash of scenes from past episodes reminded him of the cast's underlying dynamics.
Olive loved Tinsel. Tinsel loved Olive, but she also loved Ash. Ash was pining for Hunter, until Hunter confessed that he liked Olive...
It was the same thing as last week. And the week before. And the week before that.
Today's episode opened with the group gathered for breakfast, minus Olive who was sleeping in as usual. After a few minutes of jest and banter, a knock rang out from the door and in flew their aloof, excitable neighbor, Solis.
Right- then there was Solis, who was in love with Ash but could never tell them. Even last week when he had the chance t-
Ren shook his head to try and clear his memory of the show's plot. 'This is stupid,' he thought as a huff escaped his lips.
Nora's head craned slightly, her chin resting in the butt of her palm as she caught him glancing at the screen. "Ohhhhh?" She teased as a wild grin curled the corners her lips, visible even from Ren's angle. "It sounds like someone's gotten hooked on this show!"
"I don't get it!" Ren suddenly burst out, gesturing to the screen. "If Olive and Tinsel love each other so much, why don't they just admit it outright? Why does Ash still pursue Hunter when he said he's interested in Olive?" As he argued, his eyes and hands darted around in front of him as he quickly moved through each new point of critique. "Why would Ash even be interested in Hunter to begin with when Hunter is so careless and inconsiderate of-"
Ren caught himself and sighed a deep breath of defeat. Fine. He was interested. But only because it was all so bizarre and frustrating to watch.
Nora had paused the episode and burst out into a puddle of giggles over Ren's loss of composure. "I knew it!" She cried out in laughter, flinging her arm out and pointing at him. "I knew I would get you into it!"
Ren shut his eyes, swiftly burying his forehead into his palm as he shook his head in embarrassment.
Nora's laughter died down and she wiped her tears on her sleeves. Before resuming the program, she glanced back over to Ren to tease him once more. "I agree, y'know." She grinned as she caught his eyes emerging from the cover of his hand. "Ash deserves much better than Hunter."
Ren simply looked her in the eyes as his hand lowered. His deadpan expression then softened. His eyes rolled and he conceded her a smile.
With one last victorious giggle, she turned back to the screen to play the rest of the episode. She cupped her cheek with her palm to hide the worst of the blush her face betrayed. Her smile grew warmer knowing that Ren was following along as well.
Jaune limped through the hallway, one arm slung over Pyrrha's shoulder as the two partners snuck back to their dorm room. His aura had once again fizzled out before they returned from the balcony. He would need to recover fully the old-fashioned way: by resting.
Jaune turned to look at her and caught her staring once again.
"It's okay," he reiterated. "I told you, I can walk just fine. Probably."
"It's either this or I carry you," Pyrrha teased with a soft giggle.
"What did I tell you about treating me like a damsel," he scolded her playfully, earning him a warm laugh.
He always felt happy when he could make her laugh. Right now, between that pleasure and the exhaustion from their training session, he felt nearly light-headed.
"I should be the one-" He cut himself off.
'What?!' He demanded himself. 'Jaune, what were you about to say?'
I should be the one carrying you.
He sighed, more audibly than he was aware. '... What in Grimm's name was that about, Jaune?'
It must have been the fatigue. The light-headedness. He would never say something like that to her in his normal state of mind. He wouldn't even think it.
'It's nothing,' he told himself. It obviously couldn't have come from any place of sincerity. He was tired and wasn't thinking straight.
Besides, if his brief pestering of Weiss had taught him anything, it's that a comment like that from someone like him would only ever insult a girl. And Pyrrha's partnership was way too important to jeopardize.
He must have shifted his weight too much because he could feel Pyrrha's grip on his torso tighten.
Jaune turned to look at her and caught her staring. Once again. Suddenly he stopped walking for a second, and she halted immediately, tilting her head.
"Pyrrha... thank you."
She blinked and looked at him blankly for a few seconds before laughing it off. "You don't have to thank me, Jaune."
"Yes, I do." He shot back immediately. "... And I should be doing it more often."
For several seconds, their stare only intensified and he was unable to tear himself away from the deep green of her eyes.
He noticed a flush of pink spreading across her cheeks and soon a tugging at his chest reminded him to breathe.
'Stop staring like that, Jaune,' he warned as his eyes broke away and flew down to the ground. 'You're gonna make her uncomfortable.'
He tried another step. She pushed him along and the two resumed walking in silence side-by-side.
For a brief moment, it almost felt as if she had tugged him ever so slightly closer to her side.
No, he was surely imagining things.
It must have been the fatigue. The light-headedness.
After the episode concluded, Nora shut her screen and turned over to face Ren.
Ren tilted his head in question. Normally by now she would move on to one of the two Atlesian "soap operas" she followed, but for the next several seconds, her eyes just lingered on his face.
"You don't have to watch from all the way over there, you know..." she eventually offered softly. "If you want to watch it together... you can sit next to me." She patted the bed next to her as their eyes stayed fixed to one another.
Ren felt a sudden, unfamiliar turn in his chest. A strange, warm sensation spread outward from his chest. His eyes widened ever so slightly and he felt... short of breath, somehow.
She was right; he could just sit next to her as they watched these shows. They had been friends for almost their whole lives by this point, and people watch shows together like this all the time. There would be nothing weird about him joining her. The proximity, in fact, would mean less strain on his eyes, and fact that she would react so animatedly to each episode meant that he was already going to be unable to draw his focus anywhere but that screen.
She had a solid case, but the unfamiliar sense of tension at the thought of it still prevented him from accepting.
After a moment emptily staring back at her, his eyes darted away to his won bed. He opted to shift the topic off-course slightly. "I just don't get it. All of this drama and secrecy."
Nora's eyebrows tensed and curled up slightly as he broached the topic of subtle relationship drama.
"Why can't these people just be upfront with their feelings? Why go through all of these unnecessary deflections and dodges? Why put all of their friends through it, when they could just be honest with one another?"
Nora blinked and her mouth opened slightly to respond, but her thoughts were trailing behind her. Ren was seemingly unaware of how his words unmasked the air of tension in their dorm room, not only calling out her feelings towards him, but also the increasingly unclear dynamic playing out between their other two teammates.
"... Why do you think they do it?" She asked him honestly after a moment in thought.
He looked back to her and she was pointing up at the ceiling. His eyes opened as her implication registered with him. "You mean..."
"Things like this are complicated, Ren. They're delicate."
"You think Jaune and Pyrrha are..."
"Their rooftop training sessions seem to get longer each week, don't they?" She looked at him blankly and he returned with a shrug.
"The dance...?" She continued, hoping that he would have noticed the same change. "The lingering sparks between them ever since that night? All of those weird, shy conversations trailing off into awkward silence? Don't tell me you haven't noticed any of that!" She elaborated, throwing her arms out. "How about the fact that they're always together, and we suddenly have aaaall this time to ourselves now?"
Ren blinked. "You think... that they're in a secret relationship?"
Nora sighed. "No." She'd know if they were. "But you can't tell me Jaune doesn't act... different around her now."
Ren had no response.
"Haven't you seen those little smiles and blushes and lingering looks between them lately?"
Ren had no idea what she was talking about. But, he had to admit he'd never given any thought to the nature of their relationship, especially once Jaune's feelings for Weiss had come out in the open.
On the other hand, Nora certainly hadn't been impartial about her wishes for Jaune to reciprocate Pyrrha's feelings. And it wasn't as if Nora's wishes had never clouded her judgement before, he reasoned.
"Are you sure you're not just seeing what you want to see?" Ren asked, raising an eyebrow.
Suddenly, and with eerily "sitcom"-esque timing, the door burst open and an exasperated Jaune flung himself onto his bed with a groan.
Nora shot up and laughed away any traces of the previous conversation. "So as I was saying Ren," she began unnecessarily loudly, "that's how professor Port's moustache got its nickname, hahaha! So Jaune- how was training?"
Ren looked between Nora and Jaune for several silent seconds. He slowly reached over to pick up his book when Jaune's voice whined out.
"I'm so hungry..." he muffled into his pillow, "but I can't move..."
Ren blinked and looked to Nora, who was grinning slightly.
"Hmm, Pyrrha sure is doing a number on you lately," she hummed. "These sessions just seem to get longer each week!"
Ren's eyes widened at Nora, who returned only with a wider grin.
"Where is Pyrrha, anyway?" Ren interjected to valiantly save his leader from embarrassment.
Nora shot him a scowl.
"... Cafeteria." Jaune managed as he pulled his head out from the pillow to look at Ren. "Normally we go out to grab something to eat after training-..."
At that, Ren could feel Nora smirking smugly at him well before he glanced to her.
"But I'm just too beat after today..." Jaune continued. "So Pyrrha offered to pick up our food and bring it here."
If there were anything deeper to Jaune's feelings towards his partner, then Ren certainly couldn't see it- even if Nora was practically bouncing at the thought of Jaune and Pyrrha regularly sharing a late lunch together; going out on what even he could see appeared to be effectively "dates" after their practice sessions.
Still, he maintained, there was nothing to any of this that necessarily indicated anything beyond close friendship.
Even if this did bear an uncanny resemblance to that time that Olive went out of her way to cook for a bedridden Tinsel after-
Ren shook his head of the reminder of Nora's show.
'This is stupid,' he thought with a sigh.
Later that week
Pyrrha turned down the corridor towards her room, on her way to meet Nora for a study session.
Rounding the corner, she stopped still at the sight of Nora kneeling in front of their quarters. She was huddled over against the door, cupping her ear to its wood.
"Umm... Nora?" Pyrrha questioned as she approached softly. "Is everything alright?"
Nora's attention turned to her friend and she hurriedly beckoned her over.
"They're talking!" She pulled Pyrrha in so that her naturally loud voice could come out in a naturally loud whisper instead. "Jaune and Ren are talking about girls!"
Pyrrha's eyes widened as her fingers instantly began to wrap into her sash, fidgeting around in its folds. "Nora, what do you mean? I don't think we should-..."
Nora instructed her to follow her lead and place her ear up to the door as well. "Come on, maybe they'll say something about us!"
Pyrrha sighed. "That's what I'm afraid of..."
Not that it mattered anyway, she supposed. She already knew how he felt about her- or more specifically, how he didn't. That blow had already been dealt to her, and part of her wanted to leave it at just that. At just not knowing whether he was secretly developing yet another crush.
But the other part of her soon won out. The part of her that ached to know - that needed to know - one way or the other. Despite her objections, she cupped her hands against the door as well.
"And you're sure this has nothing to do with... her?"
There was a silence.
"I don't think it's that, Ren." Another moment's pause passed. "This has nothing to do with Weiss."
"Honestly, I feel like an idiot for chasing after her like that." Jaune chuckled, having long given up on warding the shame and regret he felt about his overbearing pursuit of the heiress. "I don't even know what was going through my head!"
Ren looked on at his friend's face. He looked distant and still in thought. He gave him time to continue.
"It's like, I look back on it all and it feels like," he paused as a slight grimace contorted his face in embarrassment. "It feels like a joke. That I thought I was... 'head over heels' for her." He mimed air quotes at the phrase he'd once used to describe his feelings for their classmate.
That made sense, Ren supposed. Jaune did seem to have been inordinately obsessed with the girl at that time.
"It was back before initiation." Jaune recalled. "Before she warmed up to Ruby."
Ren watched his eyes as he brought himself back all of those months to their start at the huntsman's academy.
"She was teasing her... Something about 'cute boys like tall, blond and scraggly'," he motioned to himself. "No girl had ever called me 'cute' like that before. And it went straight to my head," he laughed.
Ren hummed in acknowledgement. "So, she was your first crush?" He guessed.
Jaune practically doubled over at the question. "Pfffffffft, hardly!" He let the last of his laughter subside and went on.
"It always went the same way," he began, thinking back to his younger days before Beacon. "I see a cute girl, she does something that gets stuck inside my head... I can't stop thinking about it, and I start feeling like I'm in love."
He had to choke back another wave of laughter at the thought. "Then, she shoots me down, I get sad for a day and then I get over it like nothing ever happened."
In retrospect, it felt silly to think that he was talking about himself. Describing these fleeting infatuations, it felt like he was talking about a child- about someone else. Someone far less mature and confident.
He didn't feel like the same Jaune anymore, even with how relatively recent his last crush had been. Between Pyrrha unlocking his aura, his training sessions on the rooftop with Pyrrha,
"None of them had ever really felt..." He searched for the right word. "Well, real."
Ren hummed again in reply. "Things like this are... complicated," he recited from his conversation with Nora yesterday. "They're delicate."
Delicate...
Jaune let those words ring in his head for a bit before responding. "Delicate is... not my strong suit, apparently," he chuckled.
Jaune was laughing it off, but Ren could tell there was a certain loneliness behind it. He smiled along, but he wished he knew what to say to him now, to help.
After a moment in thought, he recalled a proverb from one of the episodes of On The Hunt.
"Well, Jaune," he recited, pausing for drama as if to conjure the line's exact delivery in the show, "there are plenty of other fish in the sea. And a huntsman will always find his catch." He nodded with a grin to complete the performance.
It was an unlikely source of wisdom, Ren thought, but perhaps all of those hours spent sitting quietly as Nora poured into her favorite dramas and sitcoms had given him somewhat of a window into these sorts of topics.
Ren had no particular expertise or insight into the world of dating, that much was clear. But it seemed the ritual of reluctantly watching along with Nora had, in some small way, made him better able to at least sympathize. Better able to help comfort Jaune and to relay his advice. Just better.
It seemed to lighten Jaune's mood as well. Ren nodded happily, seeing a confident smile creep onto his friend's face.
"Yeah," the blond agreed with a chuckle. "There are."
Jaune couldn't describe it, but it seemed almost energizing to be able to say that.
He had never felt as confident in his life as he had lately. After every sparring session, aura endurance training or weight exercise Pyrrha guided him through, he felt on top of the world. Even if she had to physically carry him to bed afterwards, he still felt invincible when he was with her.
He felt invincible when he was with her...
"Even if you're not interested in anyone right now," Ren began, prying the blond out of the thought that had just consumed him. "The next time you are..." he paused a moment to tie his words back to the previous fishing metaphor. "You'll be more careful reeling in the line."
There was another laugh from Jaune, and then a long period of silence.
Nora growled a low sigh of frustration as she threw her hands down to her sides in defeat. "Oh come on. That's it?!" She hissed, apparently glaring at them through the dormitory door. "No sudden confessions, no secret feelings boiling over?!"
Truthfully, Pyrrha was thankful. Not only did she feel guilty for succumbing to the temptation to eavesdrop, but she was also terrified of what truths could have come up. She feared that Jaune would simply develop yet another crush, or worse, that his despair over Weiss had exacerbated.
But none of that came true. Pyrrha breathed a sigh of relief and helped Nora up to her feet. "At least no news is better than bad news, right?" She consoled, offering her a smile. "Let's go to the library, we can study there."
Nora reluctantly agreed and the two walked off, leaving earshot.
'Jaune has been seeming a lot more confident,' Pyrrha admitted with a smile. Even though it hurt her that he didn't return her feelings, at least she was able to watch him grow. And maybe by the next time he began pining over someone, she'd have moved on. And she would continue to see him grow.
Invincible.
Jaune's mind dove right back into the previous thought. The feeling echoed in his head and seemed to dull his other senses. His limbs felt weak and his chest tightened. He recalled this sensation from the last time he'd felt this way- yesterday, walking with Pyrrha to their room. Leaning on her.
He could still feel her arms around his chest and see the concern in her rich, green eyes. He could feel his stomach fluttering as he pictured the blush across her face. It all felt so warm and inviting.
If it meant what he thought... he couldn't just treat this like a kid would. He had to be careful. He had to be delicate. But all of that had to start with admitting it to himself.
"... Hey, Ren?" Jaune asked as he tossed himself onto his back, his hands resting between his head and the pillow.
"Mm?"
"I think... there is someone I'm interested in." As he closed his eyes, the vivid vision of his partner flooded his mind and he could not stop a smile from blooming across his face. "Like... a lot, actually," he laughed out.
Pyrrha Nikos had gotten stuck inside his head.
Ren breathed out a silent chuckle to himself and laid down as well. "You don't say," he responded blankly. His head rolled to the side and his eyes rested on Nora's bed.
It was a strange feeling that struck him in that moment; though she wasn't there in the room with them, her presence still seemed to draw his attention. As he watched the vacant bed, silent and motionless, he could envision Nora there kicking her legs and laughing along with her shows. His lips curled and his whole body felt lighter, somehow.
It wasn't often that he could find peace and quiet with Nora around. However, for some reason it was her absence right now that he couldn't take his mind off of. It felt as if there were something wrong with her not being there- some feeling of emptiness which seemed to alleviate somewhat as he imagined her in this way.
Suddenly, he once again felt that unfamiliar turning in his heart. He felt a warmth emanating from his chest and he felt slightly short of breath.
Ren had no idea what these feelings meant, but... perhaps if he continued to follow along with Nora's programs, they would become more familiar to him.
And perhaps next week he would take her up on her invitation, and sit next to her while they watched.
"Hey Jaune?" Ren began, neither expecting nor waiting for a response.
"Me too... I think."