Ch. 33 Time and management
"We're almost out of time, Ozpin."
"Trust me, I know."
"Then why haven't you chosen someone."
"It's not that simple."
"Sir, we can't wave for them to return, someone else has to finish the job."
"Wait, I have a feeling we might be speaking of separate issues here. Is this about the dance?"
"Yes this is about the dance, what else would I be talking about?"
"...Amber."
Glynda stopped her stride abruptly.
She had been pacing in front of Ozpin's desk for a while now. The preparations for the festival and various adjacent events were consuming all of her thoughts recently. To the point that somewhere along the conversation she didn't notice the change in topics.
"I thought her condition was stable for now."
"For now… though that may only last for a few more months. A year at best. We're running out of time. It may be prudent to introduce our candidates to the problem soon."
"Both miss Xiao-Long and miss Nikos are unprepared for the burden."
"As is any other student that could take the torch. At least we'll have time to train them like this."
"I see your point. What about the dance though? Team CFVY is indisposed and even if they manage to return in time to attend the dance, they'll need time to recuperate."
At this point Glynda was back to pacing. Ozpin didn't mind, though he did stand up to look out his window. The campus below was brimming with activity thanks to the recent influx of transfer students.
"Then how about we see if we can use this as an opportunity. We do need to assess how they carry responsibility."
"I don't know if that's a good idea. Xiao-Long may well turn the dance into a rave. I'd recommend miss Schnee."
"I believe miss Nikos to be enough of a foil for miss Xiao-Long's ambitions. As a celebrity she surely has a decent idea of what a formal event like this should look like."
"She is also rather meek. I worry she won't be able to push her ideas forward."
"Then treat it as a test. If we see something going too far we can always step in and veto their decision. I however believe that they'll prove you wrong."
=O=O=O=
Weiss walked through rows of bookshelves within the library. She had finished her school work and was currently searching for something to occupy her time.
She would have asked her teammates for recommendations, unfortunately this has proven to be a mistake in the past. There wasn't a force on Remnant that would make her read one of those books in full.
It was somewhat unfortunate that both Cocra and Blake had horrendous taste in literature. This was further exaggerated by how different it was despite being so similar. Each of them had a different taste in their debauchery and Weiss was caught in the crossfire more than once.
Maroon unfortunately didn't help things as she was either entirely disinterested or far too interested in the arguments.
As Weiss walked through the rows of bookshelves she realised that she was no longer paying attention to the book's titles, too immersed in her own thoughts.
Frustrated, she picked a book at random and walked towards the seating area, determined to read something and get lost in the story.
Before she could sit down though she spotted her team leader. Seeing Blake reading in the library was not uncommon, but something seemed wrong.
It took Weiss a few seconds of staring at the faunus girl before she realised what it was that was bothering her. This was the first time she saw Blake alone since the incident with the newscast.
Having someone constantly keeping Blake company had become so commonplace, that it felt downright wrong to see her alone.
"Are you going to keep staring? Or did you actually come here to read?"
"...sorry, it's just that it's been a while since I've seen you alone."
"Came to keep me company then?"
"...I came to read something. I am starting to feel restless whenever we don't have anything to do."
"Join the club… Maroon is preventing me from investigating the White Fang. I guess I can see why though."
"You're… way too calm about this."
"I got prescribed some medication. Maroon finally managed to drag me to medical. PTSD apparently. Had a little panic attack earlier today, took my meds."
"Shouldn't you be… I don't know, monitored while medicated?"
"Sun's around… or should be. I think he went to the toilet a few minutes ago."
Weiss vowed to let Sun know what she thought about his lax attitude. Regardless she shrugged and sat down in one of the bean bags opposite Blake.
"I've read that book, it's a good one."
Weiss was startled and looked at the book's title. She was reasonably certain the library didn't have erotica, but still…
"A man with two souls?"
"Yeah, though now I see a bit too much of Adam in the protagonist. I guess it's true what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Weiss fell into a thoughtful silence.
=O=O=O=
"Hey, Cardin. Finally made some time to spend with your team?"
"Sure I did. Mint is busy meeting her uncle."
"Oooh, whoo-psh! You're whipped Cardin!"
"Har har, very funny Xiao-Long."
Cardin, unimpressed by Yang's teasing, vent about his business, namely changing out of his uniform and into his gym clothes. When he took his shirt off, the rest of the team could see the hickeys on his neck and scratch marks on his back.
Sky cleared his throat in order to stop Yang from commenting on it and addressed Cardin with a pang of worry in his voice.
"I don't know if that even classifies as a joke anymore, Cardin. You spend every spare minute with her. That isn't to say you don't deserve to be happy, but we do need to train for the Vital festival too, you know."
"Which is precisely why we're spending so much time together. We're going on those missions soon and then we'll both be busy with preparing for the tournament."
"Alright, so long as we can count on you to do your part when the time comes."
"Right…"
Cardin thought back to a conversation he had with Mint recently.
"What do you mean? You know I trust you…"
You trust Mint…
"What is that supposed to mean?"
When the time is right, you'll see.
He no longer knew what to think about their relationship. He wasn't blind, he knew there was more to it. He just didn't think he should push the issue before she was ready.
=O=O=O=
Most of team RNJR was busy.
Nora had managed to convince Cocra to go to the gym with her, something that Weiss adamantly refused to do with Nora.
Ren took the time to go shopping for food in Vale alone. In his own words "Shopping with Nora is hard at the best of times and Ruby's sweet tooth certainly doesn't help."
Ruby was currently busy writing letters, stationery strewn about all over the floor around her.
Jaune sat by the coffee table in their room. He wasn't actually doing anything productive other than browsing the web for materials and potential components. He had a firm grasp on how his semblance worked with metal parts, but things like cloth, rubber and plastic were still an unknown variable.
Shopping wasn't what was on his mind though and he increasingly found himself staring at his girlfriend instead. There was a lot on his mind, but his thoughts always returned to Ruby.
"Ruby?"
"Uhhm?" she replied with an affirmative hum.
"Would you like to go to the dance with me?"
Ruby was silent for a bit as she got up from the floor and sat down next to Jaune.
"I thought you might ask…"
"And?"
"I have conditions…"
"Didn't think I'd have to negotiate. Ok, shoot."
"You're not leaving me. We arrive together, we leave together. I get that it might be expected of you to dance with other girls, especially since nobody knows we're together, but I don't want you to leave me alone for a second."
"What about bathroom breaks?"
"Okay, except for bathroom breaks."
"I can live with that. Any other conditions?"
"If I feel tired, or want to leave for any reason, we're going."
"Alright."
"If Yang asks, you had to talk me into going to the dance and we're together so I don't run off on my own."
"So you're going to play the unwilling participant?"
"It's what Yang's going to expect from me. I can't exactly let her know that I've been looking forward to going with you even before you asked me. Might as well tell her we're dating at that point."
Jaune smiled at the roundabout way Ruby was telling him she had been looking forward to going to the dance with him. How tense she was despite knowing he had already agreed to most of her conditions.
"I believe I can accept these conditions, miss Rose. Do we have an accord then?"
Jaune put on a posh accent to dispel the slight tension that hung in the air. It was silly and didn't sound like any real accent, but it made Ruby giggle and that was enough for him.
"I believe we do." she replied in a facsimile of his accent of her own.
They sat like that for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying being close to each other. And while they sat like that, Jaune returned to the dilemma that had plagued him for several days now. Only now, at this very moment, the answer seemed so obvious.
"You know, I've been thinking recently. I'm awful at managing my own time."
"What? No, you're doing fine…"
"Am I though? I took on so much work that I've started to ignore the important stuff. I've started to ignore the time to spend with you."
"No you haven't. We spend plenty of time together. We are together almost all the time: in class, training, homework, at the forge, even now."
"See but that's the thing. We're together but I'm always doing something else too. It feels like the time we spend together working is… I don't focus enough on you. And it bothers me."
"Jaune…"
"So I've decided to fix that. I'm going to try to keep work separate from the time we spend together. Like instead of spending two hours at the smithy together while I work, we can spend half of that time doing something together…"
"Jaune, that's sweet, but I don't mind what we have now."
"I know, and I love you for it, I really do, but it bothers me. What good is it that we spend time together when I can't look at you, talk to you or even just listen to you. I want to do those things. To notice things about you nobody else does, to learn things from you, to learn more about you. I think you're amazing and I don't want to lose that to a mundane rut."
In those moments Jaune knew that as much as becoming a better huntsman or a better smith meant to him, nothing could match his love for Ruby Rose. All that work and training could wait, because it simply wasn't as important as her.
When he finally regained his grasp on reality he wasn't sure who started kissing who. He didn't know if he closed the distance between them during his heartfelt profession of love, or if it was Ruby who did so.
All he knew was that they were both melting into the embrace.
=O=O=O=
"Animals! ANIMALS I tell you! All of them."
Neo listened to Roman's venting monologue. Roman was smoking a cigar and waving around a glass of whisky.
There was only so much time they could spend together now that Neo had to play the role of a student. And Roman was eager to decompress now that he finally had a chance to get back to Vale.
"I have to constantly make sure they don't blow us all to pieces! I have no idea how the SDC is still in business. I fucking HATE this gig."
Neo agreed. This gig was possibly the worst one they had since they became partners in crime. Though perhaps she could still turn this around.
As she started quickly gesturing in sign, Roman went quiet, focusing on what she was telling him.
"A potential ally huh, maybe we could turn on her if we had a chance to get rid of her permanently."
Roman took a drink from his glass, keeping his eyes on Neo in order to not miss anything she said. That proved to be a mistake.
Roman did a spit take and started coughing.
"What do you mean boyfriend!?"
Neo grinned and proceeded to make very rude and very explicit gestures.
"I don't want to know, Neo!" yelled Roman with a red face.
=O=O=O=
Author's note:
Oh I do so love contrasting the two budding relationships. Cardin and Jaune are very much two sides of the same coin in this story, and the same can be said about Ruby and Neo in a way.
As for Blake, real life problems require real life solutions. Therapy and medication isn't something to be ashamed of. Also, if cannon Beacon doesn't provide therapy, it's failing as an institution that trains what are effectively soldiers.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch.34 The night of the dance