Beacon Academy had seldom had a student quite as rambunctious as Nora Valkyrie. Nearly constantly in a state of dizzying energy, it was as though the young woman was constantly being supplied with a near-limitless source of glucose, injected directly into her bloodstream for maximum impact on her mental faculties. Which is why it came as a great surprise for Ruby Rose to learn that caffeine actually had a very opposite effect than the norm on her body, instead functioning in a similar fashion to alcohol. A fact she discovered on a particular morning, in which she had joined Nora and her partner, Lie Ren, for breakfast while her team was away on a mission (her staying behind due to a slight illness) and Jaune and Pyrrha were doing some training.

"I… I tell ya, Ruby…" the pink crusader slurred, already on her third espresso. "Fir-First chance I get… That mother-lover Cardin's legs? Broke…" She began to descend into stuttered giggles.

Ruby turned to Lie Ren, who was nearby, preparing breakfast. "Is this… normal, Ren? Normal for her, I mean."

"Caffeine has done this to her since we were kids." His lip curled into a smile. "I was just as confused as you are the first time I ever let her drink a Schnee-Cola."

Ruby snickered at this. "Bet that was a bit hard to explain to her folks. 'Very sorry about this, Mr. and Mrs. Valkyrie, but I seem to have gotten your daughter drunk.' Haha…"

Ren fell silent once more, as he continued to toss the pancakes. Not that that was unusual, but there was something about the way he just stopped talking that…

"Ren, w… was it something I said?"

Nora spoke, not with her usual hyperactive tone, or even her adopted slur… but with a melancholy air. "Ren and I grew up in the same village, about 20 kilometers outside of Vacuo. It was in this coniferous forest, right by a huge waterfall coming down from an even bigger cliff. They called it 'Wild Mist.'"

"Sounds like quite a place to grow up in."

"Yeah… It was."

"…What happened to-"

"Grimm. Grimm happened."

Suddenly, everything became clear.

"That recurring dream I keep mentioning? About the Ursai? That was what happened. No one was prepared for it. How could we have been? They just… tunneled under the walls and… and Ren and I barely made it out…" She collapsed onto the table, crying. "And ever since that day, I've sworn that I would never leave any Grimm I came across alive…"

"Nora…" Ruby's look was one filled with pity, and sympathy. "I… I had no idea that-"

Nora rose from the table, stumbling. "I don't need your pity, Ruby. What's done is done. Nothing's gonna change that." She collapsed back into her chair, and held up her mug. "Ren, I need another… goddamn drink…" And with that, she face-planted onto the tabletop, out cold.

Ruby stood, and walked to the kitchen counter to get some coffee of her own (cream and five sugars, of course). "Ren… I'm sorry. For both of you."

"Don't be." He had finished the cooking, and was hanging up his "please do nothing to the cook" apron. "What happened, happened. The best we can do now is make sure it doesn't have to happen to anyone else.

"That's why I applied to Beacon, you know. Nora said she did for the same reason, but…" He sighed. "When Wild Mist was attacked, Nora was cornered by two elder Beowolves. I managed to get them off her, and get us out. Not to be self-centered, but if it hadn't been for me, she would have died that day."

"So then that's why you think she followed you all this time?"

"That, and I'm kind of the only family she has."

"Yeah, well… I'm not sure that's her only reason for sticking with you this long."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ren… She loves you."

At this point, Ren had gotten the pancakes to the table. "Well, of course. I've been like a brother to her for-"

"No, I mean she loves you. Like, love-love."

"…You're serious?"

"Honestly, I can't believe you didn't see this sooner. The way she acts around you, it just screams one thing."

"Ruby… I…"

"What? You what?"

"…I don't know if I can accept that. It's like she's said whenever somebody else brought up the idea: It'd be strange trying to bring romance into our dynamic."

"And what is your dynamic? You cook breakfast for her, you stand up for her every chance you get, I've heard her talk about those little "nights on the town' you guys have sometimes."

Ruby edged a bit closer to Nora, plucking up a short pink streamer Nora had lying around. "Sounds like romance would fit right in."

"Ruby, what are you-"

"Ren, I need you to trust me," she said adamantly, tucking the streamer into her hair.

And before Ren could form a protest, Ruby had already kissed Nora's sleeping face.

She opened her turquoise eyes for only a second before falling back into caffeine-induced slumber, but it told her all she needed to know: Someone with a pink bit of hair had kissed her.

"You'll thank me for this when she wakes up," Ruby said, tossing the pinkness out of her scalp, and leaving the kitchen.

Which left Ren sitting there, with no idea what Ruby had gotten him into.

Author's Note: Well, that kinda went all over the place, huh? We went from a hijinx-filled set-up, to angsty revelations, to sudden romance? I mean come on. But that's just the way these stories work sometimes. You know?

Yeah, you know. Now, I'm going to wrap this up, but before I do, I'd like to send a message to the anonymous reviewer known as "Cameo Canon."

Thank you.

That is all. Come back next time, would you?