RUBY ROSE
I roll out from underneath my bike, wiping the sweat off my brow. As I get to my feet I take a step back to look at her. New engine, no more dents or scratches, not to mention that red paint job with the white trim I really wanted, it hits me just how much progress I've made.
It's been nearly four months and a not insignificant amount of money for a high-schooler but she's nearly perfect.
"She's lookin great, nice work Sis." Yang walks over and pats me on the back. "You got a name for her yet?"
"Hmmm...I was thinking Whiterose." I say with a smile on my face. "I think it fits her."
"I think that's great Sis, a little on the nose but great." she chuckles as I lightly punch her arm. "By the way, weren't you supposed to see a movie with Weiss tonight?"
I drop my wrench on the ground, narrowly missing my foot as a sudden realization washes over me. I check my watch and nearly faint. It's three fifteen!? I was already supposed to be at Weiss' place fifteen minutes ago!
I quickly rush inside to wash up, at least get the grease off my face and get that grease monkey smell off of me.
For some reason while cleaning up, I find myself putting a little extra care into how my hair looks and when changing clothes, putting extra thought into an outfit that looks nice. Way more than I ever used to before.
Afterward I rush outside, grabbing my helmet along the way and hopping on Whiterose. My heart fills with pride as the engine roars to life, pride that quickly drains away when I remember how late I am. I wave goodbye to Yang and tear down the road, probably a little faster than I should have but how could I not?
After riding for a bit at full speed, I can see Weiss' apartment in the distance. I see she is already waiting outside for me, making me feel even more guilty for letting it slip my mind. I quickly pull up in front of her, parking and removing my helmet before jumping off and hugging her tightly.
"Weiss I'm so sorry I lost track of time, I just got super into working on Whiterose and-!"
"Ruby it's fine, calm down okay!" she gently tries to pry me off of her. I keep hugging her for another minute or two before reluctantly letting go, sniffling a bit. I finally get a good look at Weiss and see that she is even prettier than usual today.
She has on a dress that I've never seen her in before, she has light makeup on and her hair is done up differently than usual. I mean she is always super pretty but today...wow. I feel heat rising to my cheeks and before I realize it I find myself staring. I'm snapped back to reality by Weiss repeating my name over and over.
"Oh uh, sorry Weiss, did you say something?"
"Yes you dork, I was asking what Whiterose is?" she gives me a look that says 'you're being weird'
"Oh I forgot." I step back and motion towards my bike like I'm doing a presentation. "Weiss, meet Whiterose, since I've made so much progress on her I finally decided to give her a name!"
"I see." Weiss looks her over with a thankfully impressed expression. "You really have done well fixing...her up, I barely recognize the worn out bike from before."
"Well I can't take all the credit, Yang helped a lot but yeah she is looking great and that's not all." I pull out a brand new light blue helmet with white accent and hand it to Weiss. "Ta-da!"
"You got me a helmet?" she asks.
"Yeah, I guess it's sort of symbolic, you were one of my biggest inspirations when I was fixing her up so I figured…"
"Ruby that's...that's really sweet." she says, taking the helmet from me. She tries to put it on but has trouble with the strap so I lean in and help her with it. I guess she doesn't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, which makes sense. It only takes a second though, to realize how close our faces are, so I quickly finish with the strap and backaway. I'm not sure why I'm acting this way, I have never had any trouble getting close to Weiss before.
"So uh, should we get going?" I ask.
"Y-Yeah, we don't wanna miss the movie after all."
I hop on Whiterose and she quickly hops on behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist as usual but this time she rests her head on my back. We've ridden before but something about this feels different. Feeling her pressed against me like this...and the smell of her perfume wafting in the air. What is wrong with me today?! I take off down the road and try to suppress those thoughts.
Eventually we pulled up in front of the movie theater. I stopped in front of a poster for the movie we came to see, Scarlet Peak, which was placed on the wall outside the theater.
"I've been dying to see this movie, I didn't know you liked horror movies Weiss." I start trying to find a parking spot.
"Y-Yeah absolutely, I'm sure it'll be great.."
I park and we hop off Whiterose, quickly walking inside and showing our tickets to the ticket guy. He lets us in and we quickly grab our overpriced snacks, rushing to grab our seats. We actually manage to grab some decent seats surprisingly enough.
I look around the theater as the pre-movie trailers play and see that it's actually kind of packed. I guess it IS opening weekend and there has been a lot of hype for this movie. I look back to Weiss excitedly only to see that she is actually kind of tense.
"Weiss, you okay?" I ask and she looks at me with a kind of nervous smile.
"Y-Yeah I'm fine, no need to worry."
Before I can ask her if she is sure, the movie starts up. Within the first few minutes, there is a pretty tame jumpscare where some girl is killed by a monster, her blood pooling into the title card for the movie.
We just sit in total silence for the first 20 minutes or so, the only sounds being the movie itself and the audience occasionally screaming at a jump scare. A few of them have made me bounce in my seat a little but nothing too bad.
I take a moment to look over at Weiss and see that she is trembling a little in her seat. Is she that scared? I lean over to ask if she is really okay when suddenly a big scare happens and she lets out a scream, latching onto my arm and shaking. At first I start to feel the heat rising to my face again but only for a second before I feel bad. Poor Weiss must have just been trying to tough it out for my sake.
"Hey Weiss...if you want we can go ahead and skip the rest of the movie, it's not that great anyway." She hesitates for a second, still trying to act brave but then just nods in response so we both stand up and walk out of the theater, her not letting go of me until we were safely back in the light of the lobby.
"I'm...I'm sorry Ruby, I tried, I really did." she sniffles and I see what looks like the beginnings of tears in the corners of her eyes. Probably both from the movie and just a feeling of embarrassment.
"Why didn't you just say you were scared of horror movies?" I ask, sitting on a bench and patting the spot next to me. She takes the hint and sits down but is still too embarrassed to look directly at me.
"Well...obviously it was embarrassing but that aside..I just didn't want to disappoint you." she says, her cheeks a light shade of pink.
"Weiss...it's okay really, I can just catch the movie some other time, I appreciate it but...I'd prefer you just be honest with me, I don't ever want you to do something that makes you uncomfortable on my account."
"O-Okay, I'll keep that in mind from now on.."
We decide that it's such a pretty night out that we should just go on a little walk, just pushing Whiterose along as we go.
Part of the way down the road we spot a small park, no kids around of course so we decide to go and take a seat on the swing.
Our only sources of light being the one dim bulb on the side of the street and the moon itself.
I look over at Weiss and see that she is looking sadly at her feet.
"Weiss, are you okay?" At first she just sighs in response but then she turns to look at me.
"Ruby...when I said the reason I didn't say anything was because I didn't want to disappoint you...well that's true but it's not the whole truth."
"What do you mean?..."
She just sits there for a moment, tapping her foot and looking off to the side before taking a big sigh.
"I come from a…more than well off family, my father is one of the richest men in the country, CEO of Schnee Enterprises."
"Oh I know." I responded having figured that out a bit ago.
"You knew?"
"Yup."
"Why..why didn't you ever say anything?"
"Should I have?" I cock my head, confused. "It doesn't really matter to me if you have a rich family or whatever, you're my friend."
"It's just…almost everyone I've ever met, as soon as they find out who I am, only sees me as a blank check." she looks back down at her feet. "My entire life people have never liked me for me, my only value came from my family and not my own merits and thanks that, not to mention my father, as well as…certain incidents in my life, I don't exactly have a great sense of self worth."
She sounds on the verge of tears, her voice cracking and breath catching in her throat. It honestly breaks my heart to the point that I almost start crying.
"I was just...I don't know, I guess I was afraid that if I didn't tough it out, maybe you wouldn't like me either."
This is the most she has ever opened up to me about her family and her feelings. She's so vulnerable right now and I just don't know what to say, other than how I honestly and truly feel. So I decided to do exactly that!
"Weiss...I still don't know what happened in your past but...please don't ever feel like you aren't good enough for anyone, that couldn't be further from the truth."
"Ruby…"
"You are the best friend I have ever had, sure you have your faults but who doesn't?" I get up off the swing and stand directly in front of her. "You are kind, smart, considerate, fun, not to mention beautiful, I'm grateful that I met you Weiss and that has NOTHING to do with your family or money or anything else!"
The closer I get I see that her shoulders are shaking and as I get a better look at her face I see tears beginning to form in her eyes.
I immediately feel bad, wondering what I did but before I could even ask she lunges at me and wraps her arms around me tightly, crying into my shoulder.
"Ruby..." She says my name softly with her face pressed into my shoulder..
"A-Are you okay Weiss?" She slowly pulls away and looks up at me, smiling and blushing, tears falling down her face. After a moment she looks away, looking a bit embarrassed, probably from letting me see her cry. This is the first time after all.
"I'm fine, d-don't worry about it." she wipes the tears from her face. "That's just...the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, that was genuine anyway."
"Weiss.."
"We should get going, Winter is expecting me home soon."
"Yeah, good call, I don't wanna be on her bad side." I say with a nervous chuckle that earns a soft giggle from her.
On the ride back to Weiss' apartment, my thoughts drift to what Weiss said. About never feeling good enough for anyone...she must have felt really lonely for a long time, I can't even imagine. I make a silent promise, that no matter what I will make Weiss happy. More than that I'll make sure she feels like she deserves it, even if I have to tell her everyday how amazing she is!
We pull up in front of her apartment and she hops off slowly, almost like she didn't want to get off.
"I'll see you at school tomorrow, thanks for the helmet." she holds up said helmet, giggling and sniffling as if she was still crying on the way here.
"N-No problem..you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah I'm fine, don't worry." she turns and starts walking toward her apartment, waving goodbye. I wave back and turn to drive off but I notice my helmet strap is a little loose. While I'm messing with the strap I hear footsteps running in my direction. Before I can react I feel something soft on my cheek. I turn to see Weiss, now running back toward her apartment.
I reach up and touch my cheek. D-Did she just..?