Golden thorns chapter 48

Bullet. Dodged. He relaxed his slightly tensed shoulders as she cracked a grin and nudged him.

"You really need to get out more. Hmm…" she called out to Jo who was walking a few meters ahead. "Hey, Jo. Do you think Coran would ever leave the dorm room if we didn't make him?" the other girl barely contained her laughter.

"Absolutely not." She said "if we gave him the choice, he'd live as a hermit halfway up some mountain somewhere."

"I have been contemplating how to change this, and I think I have just come up with an idea. I'm thinking that when we get back to Beacon, we should make our next project to get Coran a girlfriend." Her statement stopped him in his tracks, whirling round to face her. He was shocked into silence and his mouth flapped like that of some fish. Jo laughed even harder at this.

"You've got to be kidding me! Tall, dark and sociopathic over here? You just love setting me a challenge don't you." She heaved through tears of mirth.

"I am not a piece of meat for you to just sell on for the fun of it."

"Of course you are." Said Jo, slowing her pace to match theirs. "Now who'd you reckon would be willing to put up with tall, dark and grumpy…?"

"Well if he knows Weiss then she probably already knows how to deal with him." Devlyn put in.

"I think Neptune's got that base covered." Coran said exasperatedly.

"So you wouldn't object to it then…"

"Shut it Dev."

"Oh, Marie! What about Pyrrha? She's available."

"Jo, aren't you forgetting…" Marie murmured.

"Oh yeah, of course."

Azura then interrupted them, saying "that's enough ladies. Let's try to stay focussed on the task at hand, yeah?"

"Yes, mom," Jo groaned, walking on ahead. Coran was grateful to the huntress for releasing him from his tormentors, but he did want to continue talking with Marie.

"So all joking aside, what happened to Jet? I would have thought that he would be on the docks to see you off." The question was phrased mildly, however, Coran was still trying to get the measure of the older student.

"He said he had a great deal of work to complete that morning, but he made the time to come and find me before we got to the hall this morning." Well at least there was that. He didn't seem like that bad a person. Maybe they would be good together.

Still, he had to look out for his teammate, no matter his own feelings. As for Marie's proposition regarding their return to beacon… once Jo got hold of an idea that she liked, she would not let go of it. Marie must've known that this would happen. Had she done it on purpose? If so, what? She couldn't possibly be trying to help him get over her, could she? Dev wouldn't have told her without asking him, he was sure of that. Then again he was probably overthinking it. They were friends and Coran didn't have a lot of those. She was probably just making a meaningless joke.

Instead of articulating any of these spinning thoughts, he simply responded by saying "fair enough. He seems like a good guy. I look forward to getting to know him a bit better." She cast him a crooked half-smile.

"I'm a big girl now Coran. I know you feel protective towards your team but I can look after myself." She winked at him.

"I know. I was being genuine," he replied, mirroring her smile. She gave him a friendly shove in the side, right onto his bad leg. He stumbled slightly and caught himself on his Glaive, stopping the fall.

"Careful there, I'm still fragile." He said, grimacing in pain.

"Sorry," she said, helping him stand.

"S'okay. I'm used to being knocked sideways by stuff."