Chapter 3: Like Sandpaper

"Damn girl, how thicc are your legs? Because you're carrying a stupid amount of emotional baggage."

— 4 —

Blake was alone.

And honestly, this time it was Jaune's fault.

Not even in a bitter, hyperbolic sense. It was literally entirely his fault. After calling her parents, letting them know that she was a Huntress, and crying her eyes out and wishing she could hug her parents for several minutes afterwards, she had washed her face up and gone to class.

The problem was, apparently Team BASS was "on recovery" from their mission. This was apparently standard procedure for teams that went through a hard mission within their allotted time frame. They were excused from class anywhere from a day or two to a couple of weeks. BASS had the entire week off to recover, spiritually and physically and whatever else.

But no one had told Blake that. She had just presumed that her time off was fully used up getting medical care these last few days. The team leader should have known. Which meant Jaune should have known. But given that just this morning Jaune had been talking to Weiss about needing to go to class later after a long range call, it was obvious he didn't know. The boy didn't even know they actually got a monetary reward for the dangerous mission they had just spent the better part of a week or two on.

Really, Jaune kind of sucked. Like on almost every conceivable level. But then again, that was almost part of his charm. Which made her realize that there was a frankly startling overlap between Jaune's complete failure as a human being and the reason she was in love with him. Some psychologist would have a field day with her, she just knew it.

So then, all alone without the rest of the team in class, she had texted Jaune. Because what else was she supposed to do? It wasn't like Blake had any actual friends at Beacon besides her team. And after she had broken down laughing the last time they had talked, she almost kind of felt like just aggressively pretending things were okay might actually be the way forwards.

Until she actually texted him.

You: hee can we talk?

The Boy: Yeah, but later. Up to no good this week but it's for a good cause. How's about we do something this weekend? If you are late, I'll light my emergency cigarette so you can find me.

The Boy: Smoke signal.

Jaune had even included a full stop period at the end of the text. End of discussion. Nothing more to follow.

Blake hugged her knees to her chest, screwing her eyes shut. Which only made it worse, because she knew she looked ridiculous. She was in her full school uniform, hair bow and everything, with her knees up to her chest in a corner booth in the campus café. She had retreated here thinking she could read the newest book from Felicia LeBleau.

She forced herself to breathe and open her eyes. Back to her book, Bayou Bonds. Blake suspected the more risqué scenes would be interesting, not that they were the draw for the book. She was here for the characters. As she waited for someone from the staff to come over and take her order, she turned to the first page and read.

The story was about a preacher man for the Saints, the dominant and socially accepted religion of western Vale. He was a former frontier veteran taken from his home as a conscript, and wound up finding religion during his tussles with the Grimm. Now in his forties, he was a handsome and charming preacher man in the voodoo dominated bayous far south of Vale. He had fallen in love with a girl in her twenties who just happened to be a witch who loved him back, but didn't know he was a holy man.

Blake was reading the part where the witch was hanging a voodoo charm from his motor carriage's rear view mirror to mark him as her property and under her protection, when somebody cleared their throat.

"That book is terribly inaccurate," Shamrock said. "I'm talking, like, offensively inaccurate. Witchcraft and Vaudou are two entirely separate religions."

Blake slammed the book shut and gasped. "Shamrock, what are you—"

"I work here," Shamrock said. And true enough, with the exception of her top hat, she was wearing the uniform of one of the waitresses. She even had a little pencil and notepad for taking orders. Also, she was a girl today. "Need to find a way to support my gambling addiction somehow."

Blake stared, mouth open. "You have a campus job? How come you never told me!"

"Sometimes details slip between friends; their current employment, their species, whether or not they were a former terrorist."

"Hey, hey, quiet!" Blake hissed, putting a finger to her lips.

Shamrock adjusted her hat and shouted, "WHAT?! I can't hear you over the fact that you never ask me any questions!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Blake said, waving her hands at Shamrock. She grabbed the menu and held it up, forcing a smile as she pretended to read it over. "I, uh, y'know, well, I'm thirsty and I want—I mean, sure is a feminine day outside, right? Eh heh ha?"

Taking the seat across from Blake, Shamrock frowned. "The café gig is easier as a girl. You get way better tips. In fact, a lot of student employment on campus seems to favor girls."

"That seems weirdly sexist."

"Eh. A lot of the boys seem to prefer doing stuff in the fishery for Professor Maseryk. Forging and crafting and generally getting sweaty in uncomfortable places that I'd rather not." She shrugged. "It only really gets kind of sexist during the café's monthly maid theme night, because pretty much the entire staff that works the floor are girls. But that's also when we get the best tips, so you win some, you get sexually harassed some."

"That's awful!"

Shamrock looked around the café. She licked her finger and opened her notebook. "So are you going to order something, or just claim it's a free country and sit around? I came into work today because my hours are flexible, I don't have class, and I have debts to settle with that bastard Jack. The special this week is sushi, believe it or not. Alarmingly affordable. Just up your alley. Can I get you a drink with extra milk?"

Blake glared. "My enjoyment for those things has nothing to do with my ears."

Shamrock gave her a mild expression. "Didn't say it did. I just know you." She reached across the table and bopped Blake over the head with her pen. "Stop being difficult or I'm adding a mandatory twenty-percent gratuity to your bill."

"Is that even legal?" Blake scoffed.

"Do you want to get into a very public argument with the cashier girl about that?"

Beneath her bow, Blake felt her ears go flat. "No…"

"So what will it be?"

Blake sighed extra hard. "Is the sushi tuna?"

Shamrock gave the menu a glance. "The special is rainbow toa-ahi with parrot egg. The fish is from just down the coast, and the eggs are sourced locally from the infestation that haunts campus. Extremely fresh and local, which I'm told are the two most important things about sushi."

Blake folded her arms on the table. "You don't know about sushi?"

"I'm from a desert," Shamrock said, making a circular gesture with one hand. "The first time I ever ate fish in my life was this past year. Can't really stand the smell or how people like you enjoy it."

"It's not because I'm—" Blake stopped, realizing she was speaking way too loud. But none of the other lunch patrons seem to pay her much mind. In a lower voice, she said, "It's not because I'm, you know, faunus. I'm from Menagerie."

"Oh cool, a tautology."

"Yeah, haha, ten lien word," Blake said dryly. "It was way easier to catch and eat fish than it was to raise meat livestock. And faunus are overwhelmingly lactose tolerant, which is, believe it or not, actually pretty uncommon amongst humans."

Shamrock tapped her pen against her notebook. "Meaning?"

Blake ran her hand down her face. "Meaning I'll take the sushi special and a chai latte, extra cream," she said, sulking.

Standing up, Shamrock rolled her eyes. "I expect a good tip for being forced to listen to your life story when I'm on the clock."

Blake just sat there, face in her hand. She kept rubbing her forehead and occasionally groaning at herself. She couldn't even really get back into the book. She just had a feeling at the moment she opened the page, Shamrock would return, and judge her for reading culturally insensitive romance. But, like, it wasn't a bad story!

The book was actually kind of sweet, in a creepy, possessive sort of way. The witch was just marking her territory, protecting him from other witches who actually might seek to hurt him for his religion. She didn't even actually know the dark secret that he was actually a preacher, unlike Blake, who knew Jaune maybe couldn't die and was secretly way more immature than her. That already meant that what she had with her boy was better than the one the witch had.

Blake wondered what marking her territory would look like in her case. Maybe biting Jaune on the neck. Like, really biting him. As if she was that skinwalker that attacked Fox. Maybe by the time he got out of the hospital for that throat injury, he'd stop being so stupid and paranoid and would actually kiss her back and—

She let her head fall to the table. It made a sound like an empty coconut. Because it was. As void and bottomless as her heart. Her stupid, stupid heart that only wanted her to suffer because it was funny. And leaving her head filled with stupid, frankly creepy thoughts. The possessiveness was kind of cute in the book, but she imagined doing it in real life would be like holding up a red flag and screaming "I AM SANE AND NORMAL." Maybe everything that was romantic on paper just didn't work like that in real life. Like the time in that fake little world where Jaune put his hand on her neck, and the only thing that she could do was have a complete panic attack and freeze without so much as a defiantly mocking, "Harder, daddy."

Oh God. Oh God, she just thought about saying that without any hint of irony.

She nearly had a spasm of pure cringe. All she could do was lift her head and inch just to bash it back against the table, hoping to destroy that part of her brain that was capable of creating that mental image.

Shamrock stopped by with the food and drink. Face still on the table, Blake limply reached out to take the chai. Shamrock sighed softly, rubbing her hand on Blake's shoulder.

"Look," she said, and stopped. Sighed. Made a left-handed gesture. "I know I'm not exactly your confidant, and I'm still on the clock, but if you need me, don't forget I exist and am a pretty good listener."

Blake looked up. "Pretty much all you do is listen. I think this is the most I've heard you talk in a long time."

Shamrock's expression soured. "I've come to accept that people appreciate me for my ears, not my mouth."

"Sounds awful," she said, lifting her head just high enough to take a sip of the latte. "Mm, this is good. Crème Valais hits different from the stuff made in Menagerie. I don't mean to get sidetracked, sorry."

Before she could reply, the door chimed as someone entered. Shamrock looked away. "Life sidetracks us all the time. Gotta go. I'll fill your mind with the existential horror that I go through on the regular when I'm not dealing with more customers. If you need a refill, I'll offer you one on the house. Deal?"

Blake smiled. "Deal."

— 5 —

But it hardly proved to be a deal she thought she could make use of. As soon as Shamrock left, Blake was alone with a drink and lunch. She broke her chopsticks and poked at the sushi.

Valean sushi looked wrong to her. The rice wrapped around the nigiri, instead of the other way around like it was in Mistral or Menagerie. From her experience, it tasted mostly okay, but they had different philosophies on how to make it. In Menagerie, a country with an abundance of fish off the coast, sushi was about the plate to table freshness. A lot of people didn't have refrigerators capable of storing it for long. In Vale, they seem to like weird novel versions. The parrot egg wrapped up in raw fish that made up the centerpiece was itself raw, much like you would find with quail egg. She gave the yoke a poke, watching with idle fascination as it broke and ran over the nagiri.

She picked around it. With one hand, she would occasionally take something to eat, and with the other hand she halfheartedly attempted to keep reading her book. Maybe mixing it up with a drink of chai. She found she wasn't nearly as hungry as she thought she was and doubted she could finish even something as small as this. And with all of her thoughts in a jumble, she found it difficult to read: she kept losing her attention and spacing out.

So, as she used her chopsticks to scrape off a bit of wasabi off one of the sushi rolls—she hated the stuff—Blake took her notebook out of her backpack. She had been carrying it since class had been aborted. With only half an idea of what she was doing, she opened to the latest page and took out a pen.

Blake's notes were only halfway decent. Some pages actually had things relevant to coursework. The rest were mostly her miscellaneous doodles. The only reason she didn't fail the more academic classes was because you could sort of crib off of Jaune and Weiss.

Before she realized it, the idle figure eight she was drawing started to look like eyes. She filled them in. They looked angry. Putting another piece of sushi in her mouth, she started drawing a mask over it like the person was sick, or maybe trying to keep their mouth warm during a Graadian winter. It let her avoid drawing a mouth. But before she knew it, she'd extended the mask up to the eyes. Until she realized she was trying a White Fang mask.

Adam's mask.

Blake nibbled on the wooden chopstick.

It wasn't the first time he appeared in her notebook for one reason or another. Usually when she was feeling more charitable. Strong bits of his jacket or his sword or his mask whenever she couldn't focus during a lecture. Adam had a way of making teaching fun. He was, after all, the reason she knew how to fight as well as she did. And taking those lessons to heart had won her a place at Beacon.

She rubbed her eyes and tried drawing something again. Just to keep her hand and mind occupied.

She started with a shield. Then added details until it was a tool that could collapse into a sheath. The way she drew it allowed her to neatly avoid drawing any hands. Blake knew who she was drawing even before she began working on the arm. Even before she started adding the straps of armor, and filling in from memory as best she could the tattoos. The six-winged angel and the stars. The symbols hidden neatly by the cuffs of his school uniform that almost looked like circuitry. A phoenix. And some generic squiggles for everything else she couldn't really remember.

Then the shoulder. And some upper chest for context. She found it hard to get the proportions for a head right unless she knew the shoulders and some of the chest. Not enough to be really detailed, but enough to get a reference for everything else.

Blake stopped herself as she got to Jaune's eyes. She kept looking at Adam's mask as if it could provide some reference point. Staring into Jaune's empty face, she wondered if she could just play with the shadows to obscure the eyes. To hide them like the hand so they wouldn't look at her.

That felt ridiculous and she knew it. So she tried drawing the eyes, getting the shadows right to pretend like they had depth and color. But it just wasn't coming out right. It lacked that certain je ne sais quoi they needed to look lively. What color even were his eyes again? Blue. Had to be. As blue as the color of his face got when she strangled him after he jumped with her off a rooftop.

She rubbed her forehead and nearly finished her chai. Maybe she should come back to the eyes. So she worked on his opposite arm until she came down to his hand. For reasons completely beyond Blake, hands were just the utter worst; She could never get them right in a way that felt like a person. More like the claws of a skinwalker or some kind of webbed man frog. Subtly incorrect proportions.

Blake tried just drawing hands all around Jaune, trying to get a design she liked. Something that didn't look like everyone had a coke nail on every finger. Maybe she needed to try just the fingers. Work until those looked right and fill in the hand around them.

Until she found herself drawing a finger between Jaune's grit teeth. Sun's finger. She stared at it, just as the drawing's half-completed eyes looked back at her. Accusatory. As if this was her fault. She was the reason he had severed fingers in his mouth.

Blake scratched out Jaune's eyes with the pen.

Until she had torn holes in the page.

"Hey, are you gonna finish that?" a boy asked, sitting down in front of Blake. She made a high pitched squeak in her throat, jumping back. And then only tried to bury herself deeper into the booth as she saw Sun sitting across from her.

On the other side of the café, Shamrock paused what she was doing to stare at her. But her expression darkened as soon as she saw the monkey boy. She put her notepad in her belt and started walking over protectively in Blake's direction, until Blake held up a finger to stop her.

Sun frowned. "Just one? You've been picking at that thing for like ten minutes and you've barely touched it. I'm Sun Wukong, by the way. We've met before; you threw a fish in my face that one time." He angled his head toward her, smiling. "But I'll let that water go beneath the bridge for your leftovers."

Shamrock continued glowering in the background.

Blake tried to find her tongue and failed. She kept pressing her back into the seat, staring ahead at Sun as if she had seen a ghost. And really, she had. She had seen the boy she loved nearly cave his face in and cover himself in Sun's blood. Of course, it wasn't really Sun. It was just a skinwalker thing from the little reality marble, drawn up of people they had met. She dimly recalled accidentally throwing a mudskipper back into the water a long time ago in order to prevent it from evolving, and hitting a passing monkey faunus boy in the face. Blake had never made that connection until just this moment, and it made her feel… weird.

But she also remembered getting along with that thing wearing his face. It was almost like they were on a date. He was even flirting with her, if she recalled correctly, before Jaune showed up and freaked everyone out. Blake suddenly had a sick feeling that Sun was only put there to try to look like he was dating her solely to agitate Jaune, as she was no more window dressing than Sun.

The boy made a face. "Yo. Remnant to Blake. Are you okay? I get that you're all alone in a café, but no one's that shy."

"How do you know my name?" she whispered.

He shrugged, arching his tail to help complete the gesture. "I watch the news. You're pretty famous around campus. You're actually the second member of your team I've met today, after the ice queen."

"Weiss?"

Sun waved a hand dismissively. "It's rude to talk about another girl to a girl's face."

"But it's not rude to just show up and try to take my leftovers?" she asked skeptically.

He shook his head. "Nope. That's called advanced frugality. And also, I'll be real with you, I didn't know any other way to charmingly open up and say hi. Figured I'd just go full on kamikaze and see what happened! How'm I doing?"

Blake blinked. He was acting a lot like the fake one she met. It was kind of uncanny how the thing wearing his face was so good at pretending to be him, especially given that no one on her team had ever met this boy before.

"I take it you're just impressed speechless, and not just trying to ignore me, right?" he asked, shooting her a pair of finger guns. "I'm going to assume so. My partner, Neptune, tells me that if I ever say something that just results in a moment of stunned silence, it means my God, what have you done and isn't typically an invitation to continue. But when have I ever listened to him?"

She looked down at her notebook and closed it sharply. Steadying her breath, Blake asked, "Why are you talking to me?"

His eyes lingered on her hairbow uncomfortably. Sun smiled and said, "I saw a pretty girl looking lonely. I like your eyeliner, by the way. Super stylish. Anyways, so I'm thinking to myself: either I make her smile, or I ruin her day so thoroughly that there's nowhere to go but up. I'm cool with either option!"

Blake gave him a disbelieving expression. She wondered if other girls actually found this charming, or if they rightly found him annoying. Would she have found this charming if the situation was different? If she hadn't nearly lost herself drawing pictures of his severed fingers.

She hoped that wasn't the case. Because as it stood, she was vaguely offended he thought saying something like that would actually work on her.

"What if I don't feel anything?" she asked.

"Talk to a therapist. They prescribe pills for that kind of thing."

She finished her chai. "I'm good."

Sun curled the tip of his tail into a question mark. "Wow! I never knew I was so good at telling when people were lying!"

She scowled. "And who are you to tell me how I feel?"

He didn't seem bothered. "I could go get you a mirror if you wanted a second opinion."

Blake's free hand balled into a fist on the table. "I don't need a second opinion, Sun, was it?"

"Would rather be Sun than Daddy, yes," he said mildly, still smiling.

"I'm just really trying to work through some issues and enjoy this subpar Valean sushi. In peace. Thank you."

He leaned back, as if trying to show off his open face shirt and his admittedly cut abs. For a moment they looked off to her, until she realized that the deep furrow of a scar didn't run between and across them like on Jaune, who was her most common point of reference for this kind of thing. The boy merely shrugged, but his eyes were again on her bow. She felt a vague shiver that almost made her cat ears twitch.

"'Valean' sushi. Hmm. Thought so. You're not from around here either, I bet. I'm from Mistral myself, Haven Academy. I had a bet I could get to Beacon faster than them. We were all supposed to show up for this year's Vytal Festival. Last year, Team CFVY from Beacon did pretty good when they stayed at Haven for our last Vytal. Saw you working with them. Was pretty badass."

Blake felt goosebumps. "Where are you going with this?"

Sun rudely put his elbows on the table, hands clasped before his face. "Kindred spirits, us. Oddballs far from home. Only difference between us is…" He snatched and ate a piece of sushi with his tail. "I'm a social ape and you're still alone."

"Monkeys and apes are two different things," Blake said uncomfortably. "Apes don't have long tails. You should actually know what kind of faunus you are before saying stuff."

He gave her a knowing look. "Know a lot about faunus, huh? Vale's a lot cooler to us than Mistral or Atlas. Vacuo is probably better, but only because it's mostly just a geographic expression instead of a real country."

"There's also Menagerie." She swallowed.

"Yeah, but that's for faunus who don't want to be with other people. Who dipped into the shallow sea and still hate the humans who didn't join."

"That's not even remotely true. And you're using a fairy tale metaphor. The people in Menagerie aren't xenophobic; they just want to be left alone."

Sun was giving her that look again. "Point is, I understand what's up, Blake. Figured you could use a vent, y'know?"

The way he kept examining her bow made it impossible not to grit her teeth. Talking about faunus, asking if she knew a lot about them, implying he understood her. She remembered the fake Sun commenting on that creepy Cards girl, deducing she was a faunus in disguise. A lot of faunus could see through disguises people like her used as a sort of truism in a way that humans just failed to do. Did Sun think that was enough reason for them to talk in bond; for him to show up, eat one of her sushi, and expect for her to open up to him?

"You don't know the first thing about me!" she said, dragging her fingers on the table. She wished she had claws like her father instead of ears like Mom.

Sun frowned, a thoughtful expression. "No, I've seen it before."

Her eyes narrowed. "Seen what?"

"You just came back from a dangerous mission. I bet you saw a lot of stuff out there. A lot of bad stuff. And now you're alone. Instead of working through it with your teammates, you've decided to abandon them and just sulk after everything that happened. I've seen it before in some of the more senior teams in Haven. Some people have unhealthy ways of coping with trauma. And, I think, sometimes all they need is someone willing to point it out and be willing to listen."

Sun shrugged. "I can just look you over and get the idea. And I hate seeing a pretty girl sad. Hate seeing a badass that I just spent the better part of a couple days watching on TV kicking ass out there, come home and also be sad."

She sneered. "So what, this is some kind of charity? Your version of a pity party? Mixed with a whole bunch of really awkward flirting?"

Shamrock once again looked over from where she was taking someone's order. She spun her pen through her fingers, staring.

Sun smiled uncomfortably. "One time when I was feeling down, some person I didn't know approached me. She was just walking past, and stopped to tell me that I looked really good, and then went on her way. And I've never forgotten that moment. It always stuck out as just a really happy little thing. I try to pay it forwards whenever I get the chance. So, if you're pretty and I like your eyeliner and think you've got a really cool sense of fashion, I'm gonna say it, Blake."

"Stop that, stop using my name like you know me! Like you think it's going to win you points." Blake growled in the back of her throat. "Leave me alone! I'm really not in the headspace for this kind of conversation."

"Y'know, you're kind of cute when you're annoyed, Blake. Just sayin'."

"Gods! It's like you expect me to just flutter my eyes and act demure when you act like that after I tell you to screw off. As if I'm going to go, 'Oh no, boy with abs and doesn't know how to wear a shirt, that might be my name, but you should really be calling me trash can.'"

He looked around as if afraid people were going to start watching them. He averted his eyes the moment he realized Shamrock was staring.

"Why would I call you that?"

Blake leaned forward, fluttering her eyelashes as though she was having a stroke. "'Because I want your litter inside me!'"

Sun blinked. "What the hell?"

"That's you. That's what you sound like you expect. Just being nice to the girl who looks sad, being all flirty and expecting—whatever! That's not how people work in real life, kid."

He looked like he had no idea how to reply to that. "I mean, I was just being nice. I'm still going to be nice. It sounds like you've got a lot of demons there."

"Stop. That. Stop pretending like you understand and can emphasize and know me, Sun. Just leave me alone, please?"

He took another sushi roll, chewing thoughtfully. "Yeah, but that was your problem to begin with. Like I said, something's going up. I might not exactly know you, but I know the signs. I'm not trying to be rude or anything. Just—y'know?"

"Stop stealing my oxygen and nabbing my sushi. It's not funny, it's not charming, and it's pretty much the opposite of arousing. There's a difference between when someone is sad and lonely, and when someone just wants to be left the hell alone." She rapped her knuckles against her head. "Can you get that through your thick noggin?"

Blake didn't know why she kept seeing red the longer and longer he just sat there. Red like the time Jaune smashed Sun's face in. She kept thinking about the way in that false reality, she almost liked Sun. The twisted way that place tore her emotions up inside until she tried to murder her partner. It was like this boy represented everything that was wrong and fucked up that she didn't want to confront. Not in a goddamn public café of all things, at least!

He looked down at his lap, playing with his fingers. "I mean, if that's what you think you have to say, go for it. Let it out. Doesn't change the fact that something is clearly bothering you and also that you're cute. I don't mean that in a creepy way. I'm just—I hate seeing people hurting that I can't do anything for, y'know?"

"Oh, oh! Yeah, you're doing something for me. In the worst way possible. I don't know why you seem to think you're so charming and cute and funny just because you have a chronic inability to read the room. Because I thought Jaune's humor was a turn off. But this? This? This pity party himbo shtick to try to flirt with me and make nice? Let me make one thing clear to you, Sun. Okay?"

Blake cupped her chin, sickly sweet and friendly of expression. "My pussy literally ashes at the thought of you! That cracking, sandpaper-rubbing-together you hear when I shift my legs? You did that. Leave. Me. Alone!"

Sun just sat there, slack jawed. He kept trying to move his mouth, gesture with his hands, but he just kept failing. It was like he had never heard something like that in his entire life, and his entire self-image as a man had just died. Brutally murdered on the altar of Beacon's Cafe. Sun coughed as if his entire respiratory system had gotten dry.

Slowly, he put his hands up to his eyes like blunders on a racing horse. This entire face and very visible chest had gone red. He blinked hard again, unable to close his mouth.

"I… fuck, what the fuck, Blake?" he whispered. "I wasn't trying to be sexual or—fuck. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?"

Trying to get control of her breathing, she fooled her arms as tight as able to go. "Leave."

Still red as an arthritic joint, Sun just sort of sat there. Stunned silent. Until he was able to find his voice again. "Gods, Velvet was right. You and your team are assholes. I thought Weiss was just—but, shit."

"You talked to that fake faunus bitch?" she snapped.

"She's not—I mean—at least she was nice when I tried to talk to her!" He threw his hands up. "What's your problem?"

Before Blake could scream at him one last time to just fuck off, Shamrock appeared behind Sun.

She grabbed the boy by the collar and gave him a yank to his feet. He didn't manage to get his legs beneath him and just wound up on his ass, Shamrock still holding the collar of a shirt in an iron grip.

"The seats are for paying customers only," Shamrock hissed. "You keep talking to her, and she's going to bite your fingers off. Shit, maybe you deserve it."

"What?" he asked almost in a panic.

Shamrock hauled him out of the café. She didn't care if she made a scene. She didn't care if people asked questions or took pictures. Shamrock just dragged him to the front door and threw him outside.

"Jackass!" she hissed, closing the door. She looked around at all of the people watching her, and a couple of scrolls out to record. Shamrock simply squared her hat and said, "If someone looks like they want to be left alone, leave them alone. And right now, she'd really like to be left alone, gotcha?"

Everyone quickly pretended like they had more important things to do like eat or drink or just act like Shamrock wasn't there. Which made it all the easier for them to ignore Blake, as she curled up in her little corner booth and tried not to cry.

"Hey," Shamrock said softly, sitting next to Blake. She put her arm around Blake's shoulder and hugged her. "You're not alright; I'm not gonna ask."

Blake kept hissing in breaths. Everything you should do to prevent tears. Just shoving her fingers into her tear ducts, pressing her palms into her eyes. Almost hyperventilating. Made worse by the fact that she knew she was still in a public place.

"You knew who he was, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah. I thought maybe it'd help to talk to him."

"It didn't!" she said, not sobbing. Not sobbing. Not in the least bit. "Back then, the me in that place, I don't know how to describe it—I thought I did have feelings for him. But they weren't real, and he wasn't real, and it was just the entire place screwing with me. And then Jaune comes along and—"

Shamrock shushed her. "I know. I saw. You don't need to relive it."

"I'm not some shrinking violet who can't handle a painful memory!" she snapped.

"I don't think the pain matters," Shamrock said. "It's the fact that you can't make sense of it."

Blake laughed, and noise without any humor. "He bit his fingers off in a fit of jealousy. Jaune was jealous I was being sweet with someone else. He said it was because he knew Sun wasn't real, but I don't know anymore. And then after that, I realize nothing about how I feel changed at all. If anything, it got worse. And then—"

Shamrock simply hugged harder. "Stop."

"Why?"

"You're supposed to be the cool, aloof girl. What would people think if they saw you cry in public?" Shamrock winked.

Blake choked. "I used to think I had things figured out. The world made sense. I put the pieces into order and worked it out from there. I felt that I could trust my own judgment. But, I don't know anymore. I just don't know. And I can't just talk it out, I don't know how to work through it, and I don't know anything anymore."

Pulling out a handkerchief from a pocket, Shamrock gave it to Blake. She wiped her eyes with it. It took away her eyeliner in gross little smears.

"Yeah," Shamrock said.

Blake snorted. "Yeah?"

Shamrock shrug. "Yeah-yeah-yeah?"

She didn't know why, but Blake laughed. "I just—I think part of me was expecting you to have some kind of life shattering insight about that. I don't know. I'm so used to these emotional conversations just going somewhere."

Shamrock pretended to be offended. "My unlicensed therapy job begins at five. Wait till I finish my shift and then we'll talk?"

Blake playfully punched Shamrock. "How much do I have to tip my therapist?"

"Hoo!" Shamrock said, blowing out a puff of air. "They even tip the doctors in Vale? No wonder the doctors in this country always seem to hate me!"

Blake covered her eyes, but this time she couldn't hold back a smile. "Doctors in general, or just your OBGYN?"

"A what?"

"Gynecologist."

Shamrock gave Blake a dubious expression. "Not something I usually need. Unlike you. If your vagina is literally ashing, you really should see a doctor about that!"

Blake tried to suppress the laughter, but couldn't. It was just this choking little giggle. "Did I go too far? I just—I feel as though I kind of snapped. Should I go find him and apologize?"

"Pfft. No. What kind of douchebag keeps talking to a girl after they tell him they want to be left alone?"

"Someone with a room temperature IQ?" she guessed.

"Nah. Even Jaune knows when to stop talking. Usually." Shamrock gave Blake a little squeeze, as if things might get serious again.

Blake let out a long breath, rubbing her eyes. "I think… I think I don't know shit anymore. I sure know how I feel, and that sucks."

Shamrock shrugged. "Yeah, I heard Weiss basically ripped Jaune a new asshole over that."

"She did?" Blake gasped. And then: "Damn, I wanted to see him suffer. Do you have any idea how cathartic that would have been?"

"He probably cried like a little bitch," Shamrock said, nodding. She sat up a little straighter, leaning against Blake.

"Was there popcorn available?"

"Eh, it was a bring your own beer kind of event."

Blake snapped her fingers. "Damn."

The two of them just looked at each other, and laughed.

"So now what?" Blake asked.

Shamrock took out her scroll and examined the clock. "Well, this has been a distraction, but I can probably play it off as me comforting a customer. I might even get praised for doing a good job. But I don't have much time left. What's your plans for the evening?"

Blake thought. "I think I was going to finally confront Jaune and, y'know. Either die of heartbreak or jump his bones. You know how it goes." She waved her hand, trying to play it off cool.

Shamrock stared. "Hmm. Well. If you're not doing anything but hiding around campus all day like you used to do before we started to come together as a team, maybe hold off on your personal vendetta for a hot minute? Not that it doesn't matter; we're gonna be doing something this Saturday evening. Or maybe Friday? Details are vague, but I know it matters to Jaune and Weiss and it's about you. It'll be in the dorms common area."

"Why?" Blake asked skeptically. "That's a whole week away. Am I supposed to just be troubled by myself all week?"

"I mean, we need to move some pieces. Trust me, please?"

"And even then!" Blake said. "My day's barely begun and now you just want to keep waiting around, doing errands, and being alone with my own thoughts? That's how I die, Jetty!"

Seeming genuinely intrigued, Shamrock said, "Huh. Y'know, for some reason I've always considered the day kind of over after noon. Like, it's not worth going anywhere because I won't have enough time if I want to get a full night's sleep, unless I've already planned it out beforehand."

"What kind of insane world do you live in?"

"Vacuo, the sun, and all of the monsters haunting the sands really did a number on my psychology growing up."

"Huh. S'pose that's fair."

"So in any case, don't exactly blow off our big dramatic day, but just play to our timetable, okay?"

"'Our?' Whose plan is this exactly, again?"

"I have said nothing!" Shamrock said with a wink. She stood up. "It's either going to be a disaster, or a disaster. I have high hopes. Sound good?"

"Mm, I guess?" Blake said dubiously.

"Sweet! My part in our evil scheme is done." She reached forward to hug Blake one last time. "Oh, and don't think just because you had a dramatic event means you're getting the meal comped. I have to earn my tips somehow!"

Blake laughed. "I hate you, Shamrock."

"Luh yuh too, babe," Shamrock said, waving her fingers at Blake.

"No one talks like that!" Blake called back.

"Suck my dick," Shamrock said playfully.

"You don't have one of those right now."

"It's an invitation for later."

Blake smiled. "I think I'll be busy."

Shamrock let out a puff of breath. "Yeah, me too, sister. But I believe in this nefarious, unlabeled scheme I'm not going to tell you about. But for real, see you there?"

"Yeah, yeah."

With one final wink, Shamrock left to continue her shift. Blake somehow managed to get the rest of her food down and left. She washed her face in the bathroom and didn't bother putting on new eyeliner.

Despite the cold out, the day was still kind of beautiful. She could almost get lost in it, exploring the winter, maybe heading down to Vale for some reason. Or more realistically, just finding somewhere actually private to finish her book and do some more doodles.

Plus, she apparently had to look forward to some nefarious secret going-on this weekend.

Even despite everything that had just happened, from today, the last couple of evenings, to just the insanity inside her own heart, Blake still found some illogical little kernel within her that let her smile.

That gave her a feeling that maybe things would just be alright. That she could do this. And Blake could come out whole again.

But first, she needed to meet with Headmaster Ozpin for an after-action review of the mission.

a/n Sun Wukong, better known by his scientific name, Himbo Generis, is actually mostly unrelated to Jaune d'Arc, the Himbo Moronis, despite their similar appearances.

This time, for sure I won't be here next week. Gotta spend Thanksgiving with my blood. Thus, this chapter.