Like You

Weiss sat alone at a table in the cafeteria. She sighed at the intrusive thoughts that troubled her. Suddenly,

"BOO!" a red and black haired girl, on Weiss' left side, popped out of nowhere, and gave her the scare of her life.

"Guess they're not coming" Ruby let out a long sigh and slouched in her chair. The two girls, now both sat at the cafeteria table, they were waiting for the other half of their team, that had detention. Detention wasn't really a normal thing in Beacon academy, but the new teacher had made it clear that he wasn't fooling around. so, reluctantly, Blake and Yang went. They had hoped to get out before the cafeteria closed— they were wrong. The cafeteria would stop taking orders at four pm, and it was already two minutes to four.

"Doesn't look like it" Weiss added

Just after leaving the cafeteria, Ruby realised something.

"Hey, Weiss!?"

"What is it?" Schnee answered.

"Shouldn't we still get them something to eat?"

"Oh. yeah, they'll probably be hungry when they get back."

Uh, huh" Ruby assured.

"Maybe we should have got them something from the cafeteria?" weiss thought aloud

"I'm not sure how they'd feel about cold food, weiss"

"Guess there's only one option left then..."

"Convenience store!" Ruby cheerfully exclaimed, practically jumping in the air.

Heading for the only store that was open on the academy grounds at this time, Weiss kept glancing at Ruby's hand. Ruby noticed, but didn't bring it up, and even though it seemed like Weiss wanted to say something, she just didn't. So because of this, the walk was silent— or at least it was until Ruby had spotted someone familiar.

"Oh. Velvet! Hey!" Ruby shouted out to the girl, causing her rabbit ears to alertly shoot up. Afterwards, running over to her. Velvet stopped, and with Coco, waited for Ruby to catch up— while Weiss just sluggishly followed behind.

"Oh, hey Coco." Ruby finally noticed the other person by Velvet, just after reaching her.

"What's up Ruby?" Velvet asked. Coco just giving a casual wave.

"Nothing much. Just heading to the convenience store with Weiss." Velvet couldn't see weiss anywhere. At Least, not until she looked behind Ruby, and saw a White haired girl still slowly trailing behind.

"Oh... so were we actually!"

"Neat" Weiss brooded. She had finally arrived by her partner's side.

"Weiss, stop being rude" Ruby scolded. To which, Weiss just seemed to completely ignore.

"Hehe. it's fine" Velvet spoke, just brushing off Weiss' Weissness as Weiss' Weissness.

"Hey, maybe we should head to the convenience store together" Ruby suggested. Though it wasn't like they wouldn't have gone together, even if Ruby hadn't brought it up.

Shortly after, the group of now four girls headed to the convenience store together. Velvet and Ruby chatted away, in the front, while Weiss and Coco barely spoke a word, in the back.

A few weeks ago. In the incident that abruptly ended the Vytal festival. Ruby and Weiss fought together, fending off both Grimm and White Fang. They were seperated from the other half of their team, due to being in different areas when the attack started. Weiss wanted to go help them. however, Ruby wanted to stay at the festival grounds, and help the people trying to escape.

"What's more important Ruby, our team? or these people who we dont even know!?" Weiss shouted, emotions running high.

"My sister and Blake can handle themselves, these people can't. They need us."

"And what if our team is in trouble, what if they need us, Ruby? Who's going to save them?" Ruby just remained silent. She turned around with tears forming in her eyes. She hated to fight with her team, or anyone she cared about really, but she couldn't agree with Weiss— not in this moment. So instead of arguing any longer, she began to walk away. Something also welled up inside Weiss.

"FINE!" she let out a scream, and stomped away herself. She was mad at Ruby, but above all, she was just upset that in this crisis, her partner wouldn't be by her side.

"You don't have to worry about Velvet stealing Ruby from you, Weiss." Coco broke the silence.

"That's not what i'm- Wait! W-what? I'm not worried about anything like that" Weiss panicked. Coco began to crack up,

"Ahahaha!" She practically bursted out into a fit of laughter. The other two girls couldn't help but notice.

"What's so funny?" Velvet, curiously asked.

"Ehehe— Weiss is just too easy to embarrass."

"Hey!" Ruby exclaimed, "Don't tease Weiss. That's my job" this time, three out of four girls started laughing, giggling, and chuckling. Weiss resumed walking again, this time in front of the others— alone. Coco rushed up behind her, and began to whisper something into her ear. Something that almost turned Weiss' face completely red. After that, Weiss had one less worry in her mind.

They arrived at the convenience store. Weiss immediately went to look for food, for Blake and Yang. While Ruby continued to hang with Velvet and Coco. To Weiss it seemed like her partner didn't notice her departure. However, Ruby did notice, she just chose to not say a word. To anyone who was looking, Ruby was obviously disheartened. Velvet and Coco knew something was up, that something had happened that left an unease between Weiss and Ruby. Coco wasn't actually gonna do anything about this, she already felt like she had already done enough. However, after Velvet gave her "the look", she'd have to do something if she didn't want Velvet to be mad at her for the rest of the evening, night, and probably in the morning too.

Coco sighed and went over to Ruby, who was still, mentally and physically, looking down.

"Hey, Ruby. let me show you something"

"Uhh, okay." Ruby followed Coco to the unhealthy snack section of the store. A plethora of candy, chocolates, chips, and other snacks spread out in front of them.

"What'd you wanna-" Ruby immediately got cut off by Coco. She had picked up a small box of what looked like some sorta chocolate.

"Have you tried these before?" Coco asked, shaking the box a little.

"I don't think so. What are they?"

"Pretty much, just thin, flakey, biscuit sticks covered in chocolate."

"Oh, okay" Coco wasn't really doing well at selling the product.

"Here, i'll show ya," She suddenly began to open the box.

"W-wait! What're you doing?"

"Opening the box?" Coco thought that what she was doing was pretty obvious.

"You gotta pay for it first" Ruby complained

"Eh? you sound like Weiss. Don't worry about it, it'll be fine." she continued to open the box, eventually pulling out a single chocolate covered biscuit stick, that didn't really look very special to Ruby.

"Try some" Coco spoke, right before practically shoving the biscuit in Ruby's mouth. She munched on it, and swallowed, but still seemed unimpressed by the snack.

"So, what do you think?" Coco asked.

"It's…"

"Yeah?"

"Tastes pretty normal…"

"Uh, huh" Coco nodded.

"Wait? You think so too?"

"Yep"

"So, why show me it then?"

"While they do taste pretty normal, and like most snacks, can be pretty addicting in the moment. that's not quite what makes them special."

"Okay…" Coco was loosing her.

"There's a game, challenge sorta thing, that you can play with them."

"Alright. so what's so special about this challenge then?"

"Heh. you can use it to build a bridge with someone, so to speak"

"Why would i want to build a bridge?" Ruby sounded rather confused now.

"What? No. It's a saying. ah, whatever… the game is a way to get closer to someone." She simplified her explanation.

"You have my attention," Ruby immediately replied.
"It's easy. all you gotta do is: put one end in your mouth and the other end in your partner's mouth. Then, you both nibble on it, and the first one to pull away loses." Ruby's eyes widened,

"Wait what happens if no one pulls away?" Coco just smirked upon hearing Ruby's words. However, before she could say anything else, Velvet had returned.

"Stop giving her strange ideas, Coco!" Velvet scolded her partner. "I'm sorry Ruby, we have to get back to our team"

"Did Yatsu call you again, complaining about Fox?"

"I'm not talking to you" velvet spoke sternly

"Oh come on i did..." the two walked off. Ruby waved as they went, and afterwards looked around the mostly empty store. The only one she spotted, and the only one she was looking for was a white haired girl, a few aisles away.

"Would they rather beef or chicken?" Weiss asked herself, thinking out loud. She was hung up on what flavour of noodles to ge for her, probably very hungry, teammates.

"Hmmm…" she scrunched her face trying to decide."Mmmm…"

"Weiss!" a shout from her left had suddenly startled her. It was Ruby Rose, her partner. She had actually been calling out to Weiss for a few seconds, but Weiss didn't take notice till just now.

"Ahh!" Weiss shrieked in surprise, causing her to drop both cups of noodles. She quickly looked to her partner, "damn it Ruby," then afterwards, crouched down to pick up said noodles. However, Ruby too, went to pick up the noodles. Causing something that Ruby had only read in comics, to happen. The two girls had accidentally bumped their heads into each others. Weiss jerked back and hit the back of her head on a shelf, causing even more noddle cups to fall to the floor.

"Ow!" Weiss yelled. Immediately, Ruby rushed over to her,

"Weiss, are you okay!?" Weiss herself, just had a disgruntled, and sort of apologetic expression. There was once a time when she would have just got mad at Ruby for something like this.

"I'm fine... Are you alright?" Weiss worriedly asked.

"Y-yeah" Ruby stammered

Still pretty much sitting on the floor, Weiss had noticed Ruby's hands. She unconsciously grabbed one of them, and felt the large scar on her palm. The memories of that night came flooding back to her.

"I'm... " Weiss bagan to speak.

Fire burned the festivals food and game stalls, the flames surrounded the white haired fencer as she fought off the Grimm. seemingly from nowhere, a man appeared. He was obviously with the white fang— however his mask was not properly on his face. For some reason, the mask was just on the upper right side of his head. This gray, medium length haired, wolf faunus— with his grey fur ears— began to charge at Weiss. She quickly changed her stance to a more defensive position.

By the time Ruby found Weiss again, both of them were pretty beat up and exhausted, but Weiss was still fighting— barely holding her own. Her aura was nonexistent, and for awhile now, the wolf faunus had just been toying with her— even Weiss knew so. Still, she couldn't escape. Even if she wanted to escape, there was a low chance she'd actually be able to, and afterwards, he'd just go and kill someone else, maybe even Ruby— she wouldn't let that happen.

At this point, he had grown tired of her. After knocking Weiss down a final time, he was about to go in for the killing blow, ending this farce. Weiss struggled to stand up, and Ruby— with barely any aura herself, dashed toward Weiss— not caring of possible consequences. She used the full power of her semblance to get in between Weiss and the white fang member, before he could hurt her anymore. She didn't choose not to think of what might happen to herself, she knew the possibilities, but she didn't care, she couldn't care. The possibility of Weiss dying was unacceptable for her.

Ruby barely caught the thrusting broadsword with her hands. The remainder of her aura stopping the blade. Ruby's aura had now completely deplenished, and the blade began to cut deep into her skin. But no matter the pain, She wouldn't let go of it, she couldn't. The wolf faunus looked even more angry than before. This random girl had come and stopped him from getting the glory that was his kill. Those were the thoughts that ran through his head. He stared right into her eyes, and she stared right back into his, determined to save Weiss.

While she saw the normal eyes of a wolf faunus, he did not see the normal eyes of a human. A silver flame burned deep inside of them, and as the glow brightened, the man grew ever more frightened. His flight or fight response kicked in. immediately, he chose to fly, but ended up falling face first into the dirt. Before he could regain his senses, Weiss came out from behind Ruby, and unleashed a flurry of attacks with Myrtenaster. When she was done with him, he was no longer conscious.

Weiss quickly rushed back to the now exhausted, sitting, Ruby Rose. Shnee quickly knelt down herself and gently grabbed Ruby's bleeding hands.

"Your hands!" Weiss' voice quavered.

"Hehe" Ruby just smiled through the pain, barely able to let out a chuckle. Just happy that Weiss was still alive.

"Your hands are hurt, you dolt!" Weiss cried

"...Sor-"

"What'd we talk about, Weiss?" Ruby interrupted.

"..."

"It wasn't your fault"

"...But if i was stronger."

"You didn't lose because you were weak. You had been fighting all night, you were exhausted"

"I know that but…"

"And…Your left side Weiss, I know you've always been more partial to your right."

"…"

Weiss had known about her weakness for a long time— since the day Winter had pointed it out to her. She had improved on it over time, but it still would be a hindrance if she wasn't careful.

"... if i had trained myself bett-"

"Weiss!" Ruby shouted, Interrupting her partner once again, "I didn't learn about it that night… I've known for quite awhile now… but even so... I still left you… i should have been there for you. That's why we're supposed to be such good partners, and friends. We help clean up each others messes…at least, we were supposed to." Ruby stopped for a moment, as something began to well up in her eyes. "That's why... the only thing i regret doing that night, is leaving you alone… not being there to help clean up your mess." Wiping any forming tears away, Ruby ended with a smile, a smile that had feelings of pain and regret mixed with it. She truly was sorry for abandoning her friend.

"But in the end you did help, Ruby..." Weiss squeezed her partner's hand, and then Finally, Weiss smiled back. She let go of Ruby's hand right before speaking again,"I wish i would have stayed with you too"

"Promise not to blame yourself anymore?"

"Only if you do" Weiss cheekingly smiled

"Hehe, Deal" Ruby smiled, then extended her hand to Weiss. The snow haired huntress took a hold, and both shook on it.

Eventually the girls stood up and finally began to clean up the mess of food items they had knocked over.

"Oh, yeah!" Ruby recalled something "hey, Weiss!"

"Yeah?" Schnee replied.

"I wanted to show you for awhile now, but things were a bit too awkward for it" Ruby quickly covered her left eye with her hand, only showing the scarred side. Weiss just tilted her head a little— confused.

"Umm. What is it?"

"I'm like you now. with the scar i mean" Ruby stated. Weiss quickly realised what she meant,

"You're such a dolt" She let out her usual reply while shaking her head and trying not to smile. However, she looked at Ruby again and just saw her still standing there with her hand over her eye, pouting. Weiss couldn't help it at this point, she started to giggle and laugh.

"I'm being serious" Ruby complained

"ahahehe...I know, I'm sorry. You're just too cute when you're being a complete dolt." both their faces went completely red once they realised the words that came out of Weiss' mouth.