Residuum
Blood 1.5
iv
He followed after the woman he saw quickly, curious about the wavy dessert she held in her hand. Jaune had never seen anything like it, a soft multi-coloured cream-like substance the girl had been licking, placed on top of a wafer she held in her hand.
In short, it looked delicious and the blond thought he might treat his friends to it for coming out with him, especially if Glynda had given him enough lien. Jaune ran up to the girl quickly, calling after her.
"Hey!"
She didn't turn around, possibly because it was a busy street and perhaps thought he was calling out to someone else. He ran all the way over to her to get her attention. The girl was short, shorter than him by over a foot and had hair parted into two different colours, brown and pink.
When Jaune caught up to her, he tapped her on the shoulder to grab her attention. Spinning, the girl looked back at him. She tilted her head slightly, not saying a single word as she looked at him curiously.
"Hey, I wanted to ask you what that… uh, your eyes…" Jaune started saying before noticing the colors of her eyes. One of them was brown and the other was a pale pink.
She still didn't reply, making the boy feel a little bit awkward.
"Did you know your eyes are different colors?" he asked. She smiled at him and nodded her head. Suddenly seeming interested in him, the girl peered at him closely. Jaune supposed that she must have known her eyes were different colors if she had ever looked in a mirror in her life, and felt embarrassed at his question.
"Never mind," he said, "I wanted to ask you what that is. The food you have in your hand."
The girl still didn't say a single word, though she did give him an affronted look. Had he made her angry in some way? She seemed more scandalized than angry, really.
"Right, uh…" Jaune said, feeling more and more out of place as the girl absolutely refused to make a single noise. He turned to walk away and go back to the shop when he felt a hand grab his wrist.
The girl turned him back around and pointed at the dessert in her hand. Jaune shook his head, not understanding what she was trying to say and still not knowing what it was.
"I don't know," he told her, and he saw an unpleased gleam in her eyes. Her hand grasping his wrist firmly, the smaller girl dragged him along with her. Jaune was reluctant to go, not wanting to leave his friends behind but she was unrelenting in pulling him along. He actually felt slightly surprised at the strength in her grip and how she was hauling him with her.
The two ended up in front of a street vendor and he slowly read the words on the man's cart, which said 'Ice Cream' in large letters. He watched as the girl gestured to the man, pointing out something on his menu and giving the vendor some money.
The man produced another soft serve topped wafer from his cart, an exact replica of the one that the girl had. She gave the ice cream cone over to Jaune, encouraging him to take a bite. The blond gave the dessert a tentative lick, tasting the cold confection and finding himself taken aback.
"Whoa, this is really good," he said, giving the mute girl an impressed look. She grinned at him, apparently glad at having introduced someone to the world of ice cream. When she began walking away, the blond followed after her. Jaune continued to eat his ice cream, looking at her contemplatively as he wondered why she wasn't saying anything.
"So, how come you haven't said anything?" he asked, "Do you have a sore throat?"
The girl looked at him for a moment before she began shaking. Jaune wondered if she was cold or if he had said something to scare her, but soon realized she was actually laughing. The girl gestured for the blond to follow her, leading him to another shop he had no idea about.
This time the two arrived at an actual store, selling a multitude of items. Jaune followed the girl inside, watching bemusedly as she cut to the front of the line much to the irritation of the other customers. Once she got to the front, she pointed at a circular type of sweet this time, giving the anxious cashier money as she ignored the protests of the other customers. The cashier faltered under her gaze, giving her two of the items and she made her way back to the waiting blond.
Whipping out her scroll, the girl quickly typed out a message, holding it out for Jaune to read.
'This is a donut,' the boy read, and the girl handed the snack over to him. He took the proffered donut from her and took a big bite, savoring the taste. He had recognized the chocolate on top of it, comparing it to some of the candy that his team had indulged in just last night.
"It's pretty good," Jaune said, finishing off the donut as the girl also laid into hers with similar aggression, "I liked the ice cream better though."
The girl smiled at him approvingly, giving him a nod to indicate her agreement. Reaching for her scroll again, she quickly typed up another message for him to read.
'My name is Neo.'
"I'm Jaune," he said, introducing himself, "You sure do know a lot about desserts, none of my friends even mentioned any of this stuff."
'I'm a connoisseur of confectionery,' she typed back at him, utterly confusing him.
"Uh, I have no idea what you just said," he said, making the girl let out a silent chuckle.
'I need to get going,' she typed to him as she noticed the time on her scroll.
"Oh, right," he said, "I should probably get back to my friends as well."
'It was a short date, maybe I'll see you again,' she typed out. Reaching out with a finger, the girl scraped a small piece of leftover chocolate from his face and licked it sensuously. When Jaune didn't react to her flirting even the slightest, her smile grew wider and she turned on her heel and left.
The boy watched her go for a bit before trying to retrace his steps back to the clothing store. He went back towards the ice cream shop first, noticing it in the distance.
"Jaune!"
Hearing his name, he caught sight of Pyrrha jogging over to him, the rest of his friends on her tail. Between the seven of them, Ren was the only one unfortunate enough to have to carry all of Jaune's purchased items. The blond in question felt slightly bewildered at the look of concern on his partner's face as she reached him, not knowing what had happened.
"Jaune, are you okay?" she asked him, inspecting him closely as if he had taken some sort of injury.
"I'm fine," he assured her, "What's wrong? What happened?"
"'What happened?' What happened is that you disappeared on us!" Weiss said, "Where did you go? No, forget where. Why did you leave like that?"
"I saw something that caught my eye," Jaune explained, "Oh, let me show you, it's great."
Not pausing for the group to continue to grill him, he led them over to the ice cream vendor. His friends followed him, not sure what he was trying to show them.
"I saw a girl pass by the shop with one of these and I thought it looked delicious," he said, "So I asked her what it was because I wanted to treat you guys to something for coming with me. Come have some."
Pyrrha felt slightly dispirited when she realized that he had probably never had ice cream before today. He must have been fascinated by it and decided to treat his teammates to something they took for granted. She was reminded that while things like ice cream were such a commonplace food to them, it was a brand new experience with Jaune and he wanted to share that with his friends.
"O-oh," she said, stuttering slightly as her eye's grew slightly wet, "Of course, Jaune. I would be delighted."
"You ditched us for ice cream?" Weiss asked disbelievingly.
"Oh, I suppose you guys would know what it is," he replied with a weak grin, his enthusiasm slightly deflated.
"Of course I…" Weiss trailed off as she caught the smile on Pyrrha's face.
"I…"
It wasn't the usual friendly smile the redhead seemed to give. There was something in it that sent a shiver down her back, something that made her skin crawl.
"Uh…"
Weiss, for the first time in her life, truly discovered exactly how terrifying the Mistralian champion could be. Apart from Jaune, everybody else seemed to catch on rather quickly.
"Wow, that looks interesting Jaune!"
"Thank so much, I can't wait to try it!"
"Way to go! Nice find buddy!"
The Schnee heiress gave the ignorant blond a weak smile.
"No, actually," she responded, knowing Pyrrha's gaze was on her, "I, uh, I'm looking forward to trying it."
"Here's your card, Jaune," the redhead told him as she gave him the card Glynda had given him. She had held onto it for safekeeping before they left as Jaune had no clue on what to do with it, having used it earlier to purchase his clothes.
As Jaune treated his team to ice cream for the 'first' time, Neo was meeting with a companion of her own.
"You're in a good mood," her accomplice mentioned, "I suppose you enjoyed yourself?"
The silent girl nodded, using her free hand to extract a box from her pocket and tossing it over to the man. The man opened the box, revealing a rather feminine severed finger encased inside, a wedding ring prominently displayed on it.
"I suppose he'll cave once he sees his fiancée's finger," he said, chuckling, "Unless he's okay with getting her back in bits and pieces. But hey, love comes in many ways. You did leave her alive, right?"
Neo just smiled innocently, not bothering to respond to the man. Raising her latest cone of ice cream to her mouth, she gave it another lick, relishing the taste.
fin
Notes: I hope the end of this gives you the right idea: Neo is a very bad person. So if anyone here is a fan of Neo (and I'm sure some people are already shipping Neo x Jaune), I hope you understand that in this story, Neo is someone who's not above torture, murder etc... Either way, it was probably a pretty gnarly case of whiplash.
So, 1-6 begins in the next update and it's the last of the 1-x's. 1-6 also only has three scenes in it. After the 1-x's are over, this story is truly out of the beginning stages. That's also when the update rate will slow down, as I'll have caught up to the current content.
Anyway, we see some of Jaune's lack of knowledge regarding common things. I mean, even Blake's had ice cream before and she's also from the Wilds. Either way, Jaune wandered off like a cat or a puppy, but he only wanted to do something nice for his friends. He's obviously the farthest thing from being 'domesticated', so he doesn't particularly care about following instructions or not wandering off.
Thanks a lot for all the reviews and comments. I hope you continue to review (I read each and every one). I'm taking another short break, next update should hopefully be on Tuesday, so 1-6 should follow the update schedule of Tues-Wed-Thurs and then we're done with 1-x. Right in time for FF Friday on the RWBY subreddit (maybe I'll see this recommended ;), lol)
Cheers!
knuckz
