"Soooo?" Ruby asked the moment Yang walked through the door.
"So what?" Yang replied with a smirk.
"How was your date?" Ruby demanded, practically leaping out of her spot on the futon.
Yang's smirk turned into a large smile. "Incredible."
"Ahh!" Ruby exclaimed, tackling her sister in a hug. "I'm so happy for you! Tell me everything! Where did you go? What did you talk about? Did you kiss?"
"Ruby," Yang chided, trying to push her away. "I have to go to sleep soon, but I'll come and sit you with for a little bit, okay?"
"Aww, you do?"
Yang nodded. "My shift at Scholar's starts at 5 tomorrow. I gotta be up by 4. But I can give some details."
Ruby scurried back towards the futon, patting the spot next to her for Yang to sit down. Unfortunately, Mezzaluna heard the patting and took the cue to sit next to Ruby instead.
Yang burst out laughing as Mezzaluna took her seat. She shook her head, opting to sit on the floor next to the futon instead.
"So," Yang began, "we went to this Italian restaurant in the Faunus District, Francine's…"
Blake slipped through the front door to her apartment, hanging up her coat and placing her keys on the table.
"Everything go alright?" Kali asked from the couch.
"It was fantastic!" Blake responded with a smile, taking a seat on the other end of the couch.
"Why are you back so early then?"
"Oh, yeah," Blake chuckled. "I forgot it's not even 9. Yang has a shift tomorrow morning that starts at 5am, so I brought her back to her apartment after dinner."
"Oh, okay," Kali sighed in relief. "I'm glad everything went well!"
Blake smiled. "Me too."
Her scroll chirped, and she looked to see a message from Yang, which included a screenshot of her schedule for the next two weeks.
"So, tell me." Kali put the TV on mute. "Did you kiss?"
"Mooooom," Blake groaned, giving her mother a gentle shove away. "Don't you think the details of my dating life are something that'd be awkward to talk about with my mom?"
"I mean, I didn't expect you to go that far on the first date, but if you did, don't tell me about it."
"Mom! We did not! I just told you I took her home after dinner!"
Blake's cheeks were glowing bright red. She couldn't believe her mother had just joked about her sleeping with Yang on their first date.
Kali let out a chuckle. "If you say so."
"We did kiss," Blake admitted, trying to take her mind off her mother's joke. "Right outside of her apartment, before she went inside."
Kali leaned forward, smiling. "Go ahead, gush it out."
Blake smiled back at her mother.
"Well…"
"I knew I heard you two outside the door!" Ruby exclaimed. Yang had just finished her story of their date, ending with the kiss outside of the front door. "It got quiet after a moment, so I decided it was best to just wait…"
"Good choice Rubes," Yang said with a laugh. "I would not have been happy if you'd burst in on our first kiss."
"Which is why I didn't!" Ruby said proudly, crossing her arms with a smirk.
"Or you were just too comfortable on the futon."
"Maybe…"
Yang let out another laugh. She took a glance at her scroll, looking at the time. "Well, I gotta get some sleep. Or at least try to. I'm still filled with a lot of energy after all of that."
"Do you have a second date planned?" Ruby asked as Yang stood up.
"Yes and no. We have to figure out a time that works for us both- Oh! I was supposed to send her my schedule!" Yang pulled out her scroll and started tapping away. "There, done. But yeah, we plan on having a second date, we just don't know when yet."
"Oooh, this is so exciting!" Ruby exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I can't believe my sister got a date!"
"Hey!" Yang replied, reaching down to ruffle Ruby's hair. "I still have my romantic side!"
"Yeah, but no one's seen it in years. I thought Yang 'Ladykiller' Xiao Long was gone!"
Yang laughed in response. "I don't think Blake would call me a ladykiller after the amount of times she got me all flustered."
"Wow, you, flustered?"
"I'm going to bed!" Yang spun on her heel, heading towards her bedroom. "Goodnight Ruby."
"Goodnight Yang."
"...and then I got back home," Blake finished.
Kali had been smiling the entire time as she listened to her daughter talk about and gush over her evening with Yang. "It sounds like you both had a really good time."
"For sure," Blake said with a nod, leaning back in her seat on the couch. "Now we just have to figure out a time for a second date. She sent me her schedule so I could figure out when it would fit in with mine."
"Second date already, huh?" Kali asked with a smirk.
"Honestly? If I could, I'd go see her again tomorrow."
Kali shook her head and smiled. She had a feeling this wasn't the last she was going to hear of Blake's dates with Yang Xiao Long.
A few days had passed since the date. Yang and Blake still hadn't been able to find time for a second date. Yang had found out the following morning that someone at Scholar's had quit both school and work and left Vale entirely, leaving a bunch of shifts needing to be filled. Yang was the only one capable of filling them until they were able to hire a replacement, since all of the other employees were also students.
She was exhausted. She had next to no free time, found herself working back-to-back shifts at Scholar's before having to head to Downtown Diner. She slept any moment she was home, leaving any communication between her and Blake to breaks at work.
Yang had felt awful about it, and had apologized to Blake many times. Blake assured her over and over that it was completely okay, and they could have their date after Yang's schedule calmed down a bit.
There was a nagging voice in the back of Yang's head that told her that her schedule was never going to calm down, but she tried her best to silence it. It was always harder to stay positive when she was exhausted, but she was still trying her best. It was a skill she had acquired two years ago, but it hadn't been this difficult since right after the accident.
Friday night, however, was one thing Yang couldn't keep a positive outlook for.
She'd requested to take the night off, knowing her exhaustion wouldn't be good for delivery runs. Her request had been denied, unsurprisingly. Instead, she chugged extra coffee at her shift at Scholar's before heading off to University Pizza, praying it would be enough.
"Yang!" the manager called the moment Yang walked through the door of the pizza shop. "The boss wants to speak to you before you head out tonight."
Yang took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to regain her composure. Having a conversation with Cardin was literally the last thing she wanted to do today.
"Yang?" the manager asked.
Yang's eyes shot open, lavender glinted with red. "Going," she said sharply, making a beeline for the office.
She knocked once on the open door. "Mr. Winchester?" she asked through gritted teeth.
The man looked up from his desk. A grin formed on his face, triggering a fight or flight response in Yang. "Ah, Yang, glad to see you finally made it."
"What do you mean? I'm right on time."
"To be early is to be on time, and to be on time is to be late."
"I'm scheduled at 7pm tonight, so I came in at 7pm exactly," Yang said, the anger rising already. "I'm not coming in early to do unpaid work."
"Please, come in and sit down, Yang. And close the door behind you."
Yang did as she was told, closing the door and sitting across from him at the desk. "Why'd you call me in here?" she asked, getting straight to the point.
"I've been reviewing the numbers of our delivery drivers," Cardin said, shuffling a few forms in his hands until he placed one in front of Yang. "Your efficiency is down. It's crucial to my business that it is addressed and fixed."
Yang looked down at the paperwork, squinting at it. "I've hit the quotas exactly," she replied flatly.
"Not good enough. You need to be performing above quotas."
Yang looked back up at him, glaring. "I do every delivery I can. I drive the speed limit there and back exactly, every single time. What else could I possibly do?"
"There's your problem," he said with a smirk. "Stop driving the speed limit. Not fast enough."
Slam!
Cardin jumped in his seat as a metal arm was placed on the table between them, detached from the rest of its body.
"The last time I went above the speed limit," Yang growled through gritted teeth, feeling as if she were on fire, "this happened. You know that."
"Don't you think it's time to move on?" Cardin asked, nudging the arm back towards her. "Obviously you've adjusted well."
"My father is dead, Cardin."
"Mr. Winchester," he corrected.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
"Unprofessional," he scoffed at the sound of Yang's ringing scroll. "You should have turned that off before your meeting with me."
Yang ignored him, pulling it out of her pocket with her left hand. A call from Ruby. "I have to take this," she said, standing up.
"Excuse me?" he asked.
The vibrating stopped. Yang had missed the call. She slipped the scroll back into her pocket, picking up her arm from the table in her left hand and attaching it to the metal stump on her right arm. "I'll be going to do delivery runs now. So I can hit my quota."
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
Two calls from Ruby.
Something was wrong.
"Ruby? What's wrong?" Yang answered immediately.
"Yang! You need to come home, right now."
"What's wrong? I'm on my way."
"If you leave this office," Cardin snapped, standing up behind his desk, "you're fired."
"Fine then," Yang snapped back, pulling the scroll away from her face. "You're going to get someone killed. I refuse to be a part of it."
She spun on her heel, opened the door, and slammed it shut behind her. She put her scroll to her ear again.
"What was that?" Ruby asked.
"Don't worry about it. What's going on?"
"He's here."
"Who?"
"Uncle Qrow."
AN: Sorry for the shorter chapter today folks! It's bookended by two much longer chapters, but each are important enough that they really shouldn't have this filler bit stuffed with them together, so I decided it was best to do a shorter chapter regardless. We are roughly at the halfway point in this story content wise- I'm still not sure how many chapters it'll be cut up into. I wanted to pump this one out early so I can get a head start on tomorrow's longer chapter, so we'll be back to the usual upload times tomorrow.
If you'd like updates on this work, as well as others, you can follow me on tumblr at SuperbBirbFics , or my main for spicy rwby memes and other various content at PancakesWithKetchup . And, if you'd like to help support me and my writing more, you can buy me a ko-fi ! My username there, as with most places (except for tumblr, because the url is taken rip) is SuperbBirb ! Thank you all so much for your continued support in my works, I endlessly appreciate it and love you all!