A/N: So, apparently Witcher 3 is not good for my writing schedule... but I'm going to keep pretending that everything's fine until it's... not. XD On that note, my Beta has rated this C for Cute! So sugary-haters beware! XD Enjoy!

Guest:Thanks! I appreciate that!

Cain: Erm... yeah. Sorry buddy. XD

Beta: Prince of Austria

Everything seemed really awkward, Jaune thought to himself, looking at the open room. The dance was just starting up, and it seemed as if things were going smoothly. People were dancing, eating, drinking (punch, not alcohol… or at least that's what
Jaune assumed) their hearts out, getting ready for their first mission assignments of the year.

Jaune turned when Emerald touched him on the arm, smiling. Emerald returned the smile and held out her arms.

"Wanna dance?" She asked. Jaune smiled, nodding in affirmation as he was grabbed by the hand and led to the dance floor.

Emerald was enchanting tonight. She wore a simple black dress that seemed to hug her body, flaring out on the bottom and generally flattering her figure. If Jaune was any other man, he would've had a hard time keeping his eyes off of her.

Instead though, Jaune couldn't keep his eyes off of the girl across the room from him, wearing a dark purple dress and sporting her traditional black bow, dancing with the monkey… faunus.

Arms wrapped around Jaune a little tighter, bringing his attention back to Emerald, who had a little frown on her face.

"You know, it's kind of a good idea to pay attention to the girl you're dancing with."

Jaune winced, gripping her hands firmly. Suck it up Jaune. Focus on the pretty girl in front of you. And with that Jaune moved his feet to the beat and gave the green-haired girl a beautiful smile.

"That's better." Emerald said, sporting a grin. With the reassurance that Emerald wasn't mad at him, his shoulders slowly lowered and he relaxed, mentally berating himself for looking at another girl when he should appreciate the one in front of him.

"You know, I didn't really expect you to ask me to the dance." Jaune admitted, laughing. Emerald grinned too, eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief.

"Hey, I can't help it if I wanted to see firsthand how many left feet you have." She said teasingly.

They bantered back and forth, smiling and laughing and dancing, enjoying the moment. It was so nice and Emerald was just a wonderful girl, Jaune was almost able to shove Blake into the back of his mind. Almost.

Little did he know that when he wasn't watching, Blake turned to look at him as well, lips tugged into a slight frown that wasn't noticed by Sun.

"I think it's great that you decided to come with me by the way. You're like, totally awesome and cool and fun to hang out with and stuff. And you look awesome in that dress too. Like, wowza." Sun continued to ramble, something that Blake was used
to, having a team like RWBY.

Blake's eyebrows furrowed a little, while her teeth grazed her lower lip at the sight of Jaune laughing at some joke that the green-haired girl had told. Shaking her head mentally, Blake tried to get her mind off of the blonde-haired alchemist. This
was stupid of her to keep watching Jaune like that.

Blake jumped when Sun decided to take her hand, looking into her eyes uncertainly.

"Look," Sun began tentatively, trying to find words that he usually didn't say. "I really, really appreciate you coming with me to the dance tonight." Blake gave a small smile and squeezed Sun's hands quickly before sliding her hands out.

"Thanks." Blake said quietly, before turning around. "I think I'm going to get a drink. I'll be right back."

"Oh. Okay." Sun said, nodding uncertainly. Blake didn't see this however, with her eyes already clanking back towards Jaune, who seemed to have a serious look on his face.

"Oh really? I didn't know you've been to Ravenwood before." Jaune said, interested in that little tidbit. Emerald nodded, talking conversationally about the quaint little town.

"Yeah, me and my team swung by there way back when to protect the town from some Grimm. It's a pretty neat place. Lots of weird things happening there though."

"What do you mean?" Jaune asked, recalling the manuscripts that he received years back when he was studying some of the basics of Alchemy. Ravenwood was one of the few towns that had a dedicated historical archive, and housed a few interesting documents
that Jaune would've loved to look into.

Emerald shrugged, looking upwards towards the ceiling as if trying to remember the things that happened there.

"I don't exactly remember everything… but there was a lot of weird writing… and drawings of circles and stuff all over the place. There was this certain air around the town and…" Emerald shivered a little, as if remembering something dark. "There
was this fountain that had a red rock encased inside of it. No one wanted to go near the thing, but it had this heavy air to it." Emerald rubbed her arms. "I'm pretty sure the town was haunted or something."

Emerald turned to look at Jaune, who seemed to be deep in thought. Knowing what he was thinking about, Emerald let out a victorious smirk, knowing that Jaune had grabbed the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Deciding that it wouldn't be a good idea to
let him think about it too much, Emerald decided to jump in.

"What's got you so interested about a small town like Ravenwood anyways?" Emerald asked, her tone bathed in false innocence.

"I, uh." Jaune stuttered a little, trying to grasp a good excuse to tell the girl. She was pretty, she was funny, and she was giving him the time of day…. But there was still something that kept him from telling her everything that came to his mind.

And telling her about Alchemy would be a big no-no.

"I hear there's a lot of mysterious history there." Jaune was finally able to fib out, thinking on his feet. "You know me… sucker for history." Emerald raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Really? Because last I remember, everyone on your team and Team RWBY seemed to say that you fall asleep in history class almost five out of five days."

Jaune winced at the light tone, knowing that he was caught. Still though, as he was not a veteran of lying, he kept making excuses, hoping that he would dig himself into a hole deep enough to pop out the other side.

"Yeah… well." Jaune rubbed the back of his head nervously. "That stuff's different. I like… small town… history." Jaune finished lamely. Emerald kept her eyebrow up.

"Uh huh." There was no room in her voice that even gave a doubt that she didn't believe what he was saying. Feeling pity for the squirming boy though, Emerald decided to move on.

"Well whatever. It's nice to know a little more about you I guess. Even if it's something like you enjoying 'small town history'." She laughed a little as she gently teased Jaune, getting him to laugh along with her, face still red from the horrible
lies that he was handing out.

They continued to dance along until Jauen felt a tap on his shoulder, revealing a silver-haired teenage boy standing behind him.

"Hey there. Jaune?" The tall boy asked. After Jaune nodded, he continued. "Do you mind if I could borrow my teammate for a little while? Just one dance and I'll bring her back to you, promise." The guy stood there with his hand up, grinning charmingly.
Jaune turned to Emerald, who seemed to be looking to see if Jaune would give permission.

It's not like I can really say no even if I wanted to.

Jaune nodded and smiled, turning to let the boy grab Emerald by the hands, leading her away before pausing.

"Oh, by the way, I'm Mercury." He said, formally introducing himself. Jaune nodded, mind working in overtime to remember standard social protocols.

"Nice to meet you Mercury. I'm Jaune… Arc. But you probably already knew that since you said my name." The gray-eyed boy grinned and nodded, before sweeping Jaune's dance partner into the crowd, leaving Jaune alone in the middle of the dance floor.
Without another thought, Jaune struggled his way through the crowds of dancing students to find the punch bowl, which was somewhere he knew would have a little less people.

Rows and rows of cups were sitting on the table in front of him, and he grabbed one thankfully, bringing it up to his parched lips.

"Jaune?"

Turning a little to the left, the blonde alchemist spotted the girl he had been staring at for the past hour or so in front of him. Taking a careful sip of his drink, he placed it down on the table again, grateful that he had enough self control not
to start talking while he still had liquid in his mouth. That didn't mean his stomach didn't start to feel a little queasy.

I've never talked to such a beautiful girl before. Jaune thought to himself, forgetting that he had just been chatting with Emerald only a few minutes ago.

"Hey there Blake. How's it going?" Jaune asked, his voice forcefully casual. Blake nodded a little awkwardly, feeling the same air of tension that he was. Neither one of them knew exactly why the air was so tense, but had enough sense to tiptoe
around each other, as if they were afraid one or the other would explode if they stepped too close.

"Not much. Just getting a drink before I get back to Sun."

Jaune nodded along with her. Right. The monkey faunus.

"I bet he dances real well." Jaune tried to make a joke, hoping that he was at least being a little funny. Blake gave a polite smile, nodding.

The two of them once again fell into a silence, not knowing what to say.

"Do you think—"

"Maybe we could—"

The two of them started to speak at the same time, and stopped nearly simultaneously as well. Again, the force of awkwardness hit the both of them as they floundered to find a way around it.

"You go first." Jaune offered, ever the gentleman. Blake shook her head and gestured for him to do so instead. Jaune pursed his lips and decided to just dive through, hoping that this would at least cut the tension a little bit.

"Maybe we could—if you aren't too busy… maybe we could. Uh. Dance? You and me?" Jaune said feebly, losing confidence with every word that he seemed to say.

Jaune wanted to stab himself. Dust, he wanted to transmutated himself into a tree so that his face would stop burning so badly and his heart would stop hammering and his stomach would stop feeling as if he was taking a ride on a Bullhead.

"Sure."

When Jaune saw Blake smiling, he decided that it was worth it though, and gave a beaming smile of his own.

"Well then, let's dance." Jaune said, holding out a hand. The cat faunus grabbed onto it, letting the alchemist lead her onto the dance floor, where the music was finally slow enough that people weren't jumping around wildly and knocking others over.

For the next two minutes, the two of them didn't speak, finally finding the right balance of their personalities to let shine through with their dance. It was a soft, quiet, and reserved movement for the dance, but it made sense to the two of them,
and was something they were both comfortable in.

There were no words that could convey what they were thinking, and quite frankly, the two of them preferred it that way. They were never ones for words, and the way they danced together showed it. It wasn't anything special. There weren't sparks flying
in the air, there was a wide circle that they could dance gracefully around. In fact, the air was humid and hot with the amount of people there, and it was tight enough that there was the occasional elbow or knee interrupting them.

But when the song finished, and the two of them separated, there was a smile on both faces, and their eyes seemed a little lighter.

A faster beat replaced the song that they had just danced to, which was the cue for them to leave the floor again.

"That was nice." Blake commented, looking at Jaune.

"Yeah."

This time, when the silence fell between the two of them, it wasn't stifling, but instead a little comfortable. But soon, their minds turned back to the reality of the situation, where they had partners they needed to get back to.

"I should probably get going," Blake was the first one to say, letting out a little sigh. "Sun's probably wondering what's taking me so long to get some punch." Jaune nodded, understanding.

"Yeah. And I think Emerald might be looking for me."

Even though they said that, neither made a move to leave yet, relishing the company for just a little longer before they had to surrender themselves to other company.

Finally, as if by some unspoken command, the two of them parted, moving backwards from each other, releasing hold of their hands, which they had forgotten were still joined.

There was a squee-ing sound coming from the back of the room somewhere, which Jaune turned to try and find.

He saw Ruby jumping up and down, pumping Pyrrha's arm as she pointed towards Jaune, then towards Blake while Pyrrha was simply laughing along with her.

Face once again red as a tomato, Jaune hurried to find his green-haired date for the night.

Well, at least I wasn't the only who enjoyed that.