Ruby's first port of call was Yang, and she found her laying on her bed, enjoying a free period. Not feeling any reservations about her sister's rest, as Yang had once reassured her that if ever she needed anything she had permission to rouse her, Ruby gently shook her awake, and was given a grunt and a snuffle before lilac eyes met hers.

"Yeah Sis? What's up?" Yang asked, shuddering as a yawn worthy of a bear escaped her.

"I'm feeling different." Ruby admitted, deciding on the truth. Yang sat up from her bunk and leaped down, before sitting down on the floor with Ruby, armed with a concerned expression on her face. Another rush of familiarity.

"What's wrong?" she asked her little sister. Ruby fought with telling her, knowing this would only mean Yang teasing her about it, before finally breaking her barriers. Yang knew more about emotions than anyone else she'd known, heck it was part of her semblance!

"It's Jet. It's like, whenever I'm around him, my heart beats faster. I like talking to him. But each time, especially when I'm in class I can't concentrate on anything apart from thinking about him. Is that… normal?" she finally confessed.

Yang looked at Ruby, her face flushed with colour, and her expression timid.

"Go on." Yang encouraged. "What do you think about?"

"Just… him." Ruby replied, getting more and more flustered. "Like… I want to see him more and find out more about him and stuff sooo, yeah." she ended off with a very awkward silence.

Yang did the one thing that Ruby didn't expect. She broke out into a grin.

"Ruby, you're crushing." she replied. Ruby was instantly taken aback.

"I… I…" she said, trying to marshal her thoughts and failing, her cheeks turning a similar colour to her namesake. No. It wasn't a crush.

Was it?

Ruby looked back at all the times she had been with Jet. She recalled all the times her heart had fluttered when she'd met those eyes, the strength in his gaze, even a couple of dreams she had had afterwards, depicting Jet and her in a more… immoral sense. He certainly seemed to enjoy his time with her. It also felt like she'd already known him for more than the few days when she'd first met him. Maybe it was.

"So, Jet's your Romeo?" Yang teased, quickly bringing Ruby back to reality. She blushed even harder, waving her hands in a desperate attempt to get her sister to lower her voice.

"Yang, this is serious. And who is Romeo anyway?" Ruby whispered.

"I'll explain later." came Yang's reply. Ruby sighed, she had had a feeling Yang would tease her.

"Just… how can we find out if he feels the same way with me?" Ruby asked, finally starting to cool down from the embarrassment.

"Easy." Yang said, cheerily, looking at the clock, which showed a time important to Yang as she started to get her books together. Maybe she had another class. "You and me, we go out together and find him." Yang explained. "You lay low, and listen in on our talk. We'll find out what's on his mind, little sis."

"It's a date." Ruby said, smiling, deciding to play along, for lack of a better plan, idea or person too go to for advice on guys. If anyone could get information out of anyone, it was her sister.

Especially when she'd done it before.

Wait. Had she?

Ah, whatever.

Ruby was confident.


Ruby was nervous.

Even after trying to calm herself down, she was still nervous.

She was going to hear what her crush thought about her. She'd accepted it as she daydreamed through Oobleck's class, about her and Jet. Yang probably wouldn't have stopped teasing her if it weren't for the fact that they were in class, and though Weiss did have to poke her every now and again to bring her back into reality, she knew how she felt now.

It was weird. How had she fallen for someone she'd only met a week ago? Ruby had wondered briefly, and then put it out of her mind. She had had more important things to do. Like find out if he had similar feelings for her and had fallen for the same demon sorcery that she had-

No. Stop it, brain.

After the last class of the week had ended, Yang had told Weiss and Blake that she and Ruby were going to do some shopping. Both seemed suspicious at first: Ruby had never been a shopping type of girl, and Ruby herself agreed with them there, but they accepted it, and the two sisters left, in search of Jet.

It took them roughly half an hour to find Jet, and where they did, it was in an internal part of Beacon.

Rows and rows of benches sat in front of a large patch of grass, complete with a pond in the centre. Ruby zipped from hiding place to hiding place as Yang advanced, like a scout under a sniper's cover, which, now that Ruby thought about it, was true since she did wield a sniper-scythe.

Finally, they spotted Jet, sitting on a park bench further away from the teaching buildings. Ruby perched herself within the leaves of a tree as Yang called out to Jet.

"Hey! Jet!" Yang called, waving. Jet turned his head, a familiar warm smile on his normally cool face.

"Hey Yang." He called out in reply. Yang sat on the bench next to him, and he turned to face her. "What did you need?" he asked. It seemed that, like Ruby's crush, Yang had become friendly with him in a similar fashion. It was almost scary to Ruby. Almost. Perhaps Jet was one of those guys that were easy to get along with, or he was very, veeerry sneaky.

Just before she could elaborate on that mental picture, Ruby heard a branch snap behind her, and turned to see another girl, crouched behind her. Her silver hair and mismatched eyes, along with the fact that she was a similar sort of height to Ruby could only mean one thing: this was Izzet, the girl that had been sitting with Jet on the first day he'd met her team. Dressed in her Beacon uniform, she was crouched right behind Ruby.

She jumped in understandable fright, and wobbled dangerously on her branch. Izzet reached out and caught her, pulling her back up, Ruby noting how soft her touch was. She was wearing jeans, with a grey jacket very similar to Jet's in style. She put her fingers to her lips, making a "shh" noise, then pointed to Jet and Yang, who were engrossed in conversation. Ruby looked questioningly at her, and Izzet sighed.

'Don't react. I'm speaking to you telepathically.' a soft voice in Ruby's head suddenly spoke out. 'Think what you want to say to me.' Izzet pointed to her temple as she said this.

'What are you doing here?' Ruby thought, watching Izzet as she tensed upon her branch, like a cat about to spring upon a mouse.

'The same reason you're here.' came the delicate voice.

'How are you doing this?' Ruby asked, feeling a little impressed at this ability.

'I'm mute you see, so I don't normally communicate.' Izzet's voice reverberated in her head. 'But when I need to, I use telepathy. I can tell something's up with Jet.' she continued. 'I just want to prove my theory.'

'Something up with Jet?' Ruby thought, originally to herself, but Izzet seemed to hear this.

'Yes.' Ruby turned to look at Jet and Yang. The two seemed to be amused. Yang was cracking up laughing, and Jet was attempting to control his own laughter, several fingers covering his mouth. Ruby did not seem to have missed much, and she turned to face Izzet. The girl continued to watch the pair, a concerned expression on her face, similar to how Weiss looked sometimes when she was worried.

'He's been acting differently. I swear, it's like he has spells of déjà vu every five seconds. His thoughts have become ever more erratic, and I just wondered if your sister might just gleam the information for us.' Izzet thought to her. Ruby was about to attempt to decipher that statement when Jet suddenly looked up, and his eyes focussed on the spot they were in!

Izzet quickly grabbed Ruby's hand, and the whole world suddenly turned grey. She kept a hold of Ruby's hand as she marvelled at what had just happened. Every single thing in the world had turned its own shade of grey. As if every single colour aside from grey had drained from the world, from herself.

'Don't break contact with me. Follow.' Izzet instructed, using her telepathy.

'What happened?' Ruby immediately thought back. The world was completely silent. Everything was frozen. Literally. As if everything had suddenly lost all life.

"Follow." came Izzet's reply.

Izzet led Ruby as they both jumped from the tree, and Izzet led her to another tree, closer to Yang and Jet, who were frozen just the same as their surroundings. Izzet took them both upwards, and they settled on a branch of the new, taller tree. Izzet was still grasping Ruby's hand, and as she attempted to pull away, Izzet tightened her grip.

'Stop.' Izzet's voice reverberated through her mind, worried. 'This is my semblance. I can manipulate time. I've stopped time right now, so that we could move and continue to listen. I will now resume it.'

Wait. She could control TIME?! As in seconds and minutes? THAT TIME?!. She had effectively stopped the entire world just so that she and Ruby could hide from Jet's gaze.

That. Is. Awesome!

As she continued to think and watch Izzet with reverence, the colour began to flow back into the world. Once it had fully been restored, everything resumed, as if someone had hit a 'play' button on a paused movie. Jet was still looking at where Izzet and Ruby had been, and Yang had turned to look too. From this tree, Ruby could hear their voices a lot clearer, and Izzet remained silent, focussing on their conversation.

"What is it, Jet?" Yang asked.

"Oh, nothing." Jet, after scanning the tree they were just in, turned back to her. "Thought I saw something in the tree." Ruby relaxed, and Izzet gave a relieved sigh.

"Soooo, Jet." Yang said causally. "Is there anyone you like? Any girls, I mean." Jet looked surprised at the direct question, but maintained his composure. "There must be someone out there, I know a couple that would kill for someone like you."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Hm, let's see." he said, teasingly, his slender finger on his chin. "I have one, though I'm not sure if she feels the same for me." Yang's eyes widened, as he continued. "I can't tell you her name, but I could always describe her."

"Go ahead." Yang said, leaning in, and from the tree, Ruby and Izzet did the same.

"She's pretty, quite small, with a very familiar scent." Ruby's heat was beating rather fast. So far so good.

"What of? And who is it familiar to?" Yang asked.

"That would be telling, to the first." came Jet's expectedly cryptic response. "And it's my favourite scent, to the second. She wields a unique weapon, and her semblance isn't dust related."

Ruby was distracted by Izzet turning to look at her, but she quickly shrugged and turned back to watch. Everyone had a unique weapon, and there were many non-dust related semblances.

"And," Jet said, in a decisive voice, "she's at Beacon. If I wasn't trying to keep her a secret, then I could… oh, point her out right now."

Ruby's heart missed a beat. Izzet jumped in shock. Had he spotted them? Izzet had reacted so quickly, at speeds comparable to her, and this was Ruby Rose she was thinking of. Did he see her? Ruby hoped to god that he hadn't. The situation would only be that much more embarrassing.

"Don't do that!" Yang said quickly, clearly covering Ruby, or at least it seemed that way to her, looking around at the other people in the park. "I wanna guess it first."

"Could be anyone." Jet replied, teasingly.

Ruby turned to Izzet and tapped her. She turned to face her.

"I've heard all I need to hear." Ruby whispered. "Can you stop time and help me leave?"

Izzet smiled kindly, took Ruby's hand, and the lush green of the tree and the park once again became a monotone greyscale.

Once they were out of the park, Izzet and Ruby parted ways with Izzet giving a friendly wave. Smiling, Ruby returned it, before sitting on a bench in the street and waiting for Yang. All she had to do was hear Yang's opinion, and the matter would be decided. Although, Ruby thought she already knew what she was going to say.

Yes!


As Jet waved goodbye to Yang, his eyes travelled across the tree he had seen Ruby and Izzet in. He chuckled to himself in amusement. Did Izzet really think that she had evaded his gaze? It had been brief, but he had spotted Ruby Rose in the treetops, and at the speed she had vanished, one of two things had happened. Either Ruby had dashed off, or Izzet had moved herself and Ruby, stopping time.

The lack of a blur coming out of the tree had made it obvious. Really, if anything, he had expected Ruby to want to know his feelings about her, but Izzet? They had been close friends, but Jet had decided to stop lying to himself when Yang had quizzed him about Ruby. He had fallen for the diminutive girl in a cape.

Still, if he had to interpret all the morsels of information in his web, it wasn't hard to piece together that Yang had come and asked him about his feelings so that Ruby could hear his feelings. Perhaps she was in love with him, or maybe it was her way of following up on what had transpired when they'd first met.

There was also the matter of feeling like… somehow… she belonged with him? Was that an accurate way of putting it?

However, he had also told the truth when he had told Yang that he wasn't sure if Ruby loved him back. She was young, after all. He'd pried the information out of Yang about her move of two years. Maybe she was still too young.

Jet shook those thoughts out, as he walked towards a nearby bathroom. He had other pressing matters.


Ruby was overjoyed as she stepped into her dorm room with Yang, finding Weiss and Blake already asleep. Jet did have similar feelings to her! To think that her first crush had also fallen in love with her so quickly, in the same manner that she had. Maybe it was fate.

Yang yawned, and Ruby couldn't stifle her own tiredness, heart racing as it was. Yang mumbled "Night sis" before climbing into her own bunk, still fully clothed. Grinning inwardly at her sister's lack of decency in bedtime clothes, Ruby changed into her pyjamas, before hopping up into her own bunk, the ropes straining with the sudden force.

'An early night for an early wake-up for the second day of the weekend', she thought, but her mind kept her from getting to sleep for a good half an hour, still thinking about how she was going to eventually tell Jet about her feelings for him.

Time was literally flying by.