Weiss didn't shout at Blake after her little revelation. She didn't apologize to her, either. Didn't mention it at all. In fact, she barely spoke to her teammates, except for Ruby.
She had nothing diplomatic to say—and now that the sisters had obviously sided with Blake, that meant it was best not to say anything at all. Keeping her mouth shut wasn't exactly her strong suit, but the only other option was going back to Atlas. She... didn't want that. Even now, she liked it better at Beacon, where people who hated her thought she was human.
So she sat through classes, through meals, through long hours studying in their dorm with her eyes pointed at her homework and her mind full of static. Her grades started to slip. It opened up a pit in her stomach, the same one that stirred there when she caught herself drifting towards rooftops, or picked up a scent on the wind that came from miles away. The one that reminded her she was marked by more than wings.
I see that I overestimated you when I put you on your sister's curriculum.
She wasn't stupid. She wasn't.
I will adjust it for your... needs.
"Weiss."
A hand touched her shoulder. She startled so badly she knocked over her chair, bracing herself with her back to her desk as her wings tried to flare. The resulting cramp made her hiss in a breath as she whirled to face... Yang?
"What do you think you're doing?" she snapped.
For the first time she could remember, Yang didn't snap back. She just stared, her hand still partly raised, her brow furrowed. "I just wanted to ask if you know where Ruby is."
"Oh." Weiss tried to relax, but her heart wouldn't stop hammering against her rib cage. "She left a while ago. Something about a team leader meeting with Jaune."
"Weiss..." A flicker of frustration passed across Yang's face, then melted away as she sighed. "When was the last time you ate?" The non-sequitur made her frown.
"This morning."
Yang pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's six, Weiss."
"I'm not hungry. Now would you go away? I need to focus."
Yang went. Weiss wasn't surprised—until twenty minutes later, when she came back. There was a plastic-wrapped sandwich in her hands that she set down in front of Weiss, so that it was covering up her textbook.
"Eat," she said, plopping down on her bed. "Then study."
It was impossible to ignore the food now that it was right in front of her, so close that the smell was overpowering. She had to squash the impulse to tear into it like some kind of animal, and instead took slow, deliberate bites. When she was finished, Yang was still there, lying on her stomach and playing some game on her scroll. Weiss realized with a sudden strange, twisting feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was waiting to make sure she ate.
"What is this?"
Yang glanced up. "Huh?"
She gestured at the crumbs and crumpled up plastic.
Yang shrugged. "Force of habit, I guess."
"But... why?"
At first it seemed like she was so absorbed in her game she hadn't even heard—but then she shut it off, and got to her feet, and came over to collect the bit of plastic. "I don't like you," she said bluntly. "But I'm still not gonna let you starve yourself, because you're a person, and that's not how I treat people. Even the ones I don't like."
Weiss suddenly wished she hadn't eaten the sandwich. It made an uncomfortable weight in the pit of her stomach.
Yang left. Weiss gave up on Grimm Studies and made a few token attempts at her history essay, but even with the distraction gone, she still couldn't focus. Her nose itched. A lock of hair had fallen out of her ponytail. Her wings ached.
She almost didn't notice when the door opened—it was that quiet. Which meant that Weiss knew exactly who she would see if she turned around. So, she didn't. She bent her head towards her desk and scratched out one tortured word after another, all the while fighting the urge to...
Her eyes flicked to the right. Just enough to get a glimpse of Blake sitting cross-legged in bed with a book in her hand, and the little black bow on her head.
Weiss had been doing that a lot, lately. Sneaking glances. Sometimes it was because she was trying to gauge how good the disguise was. Was there some exact wrong angle, where it became obvious? Could you tell from just Blake, if you ignored the bow? Was there something in her eyes or the way she stood that gave her away? Other times, like now, she honestly had no idea what she wanted. It was just like the feeling that drew her to rooftops and ledges. The pull of some inner magnet she couldn't ignore.
Once she started, she could never stop. The third time, she glanced over and nearly jumped when she met Blake's eyes. Weiss hastily looked away, but it was much too late for that.
"You keep doing that."
Weiss stared at her essay as if it could tell her how to respond.
"You want to look at them, don't you?"
And, oh. Blake was right. She did want to see. There had never been anyone like—any faunus in the house, because Father was worried she might learn bad habits. The closest she'd ever been to someone else's animal part was when Velvet had sat across the cafeteria. And, of course, all the times she'd stood right next to Blake without knowing.
When Weiss didn't speak, Blake shifted so that she was facing her directly. "I don't get it."
"What?"
"This. You. It doesn't add up." Blake studied at her as if she was trying to find a seam. "I've had humans say awful things to me before. A lot. I've just never met anyone who will say all those things and then respect my boundaries. I know you want to, but you've never asked. It doesn't make sense."
Another reason to hate Blake Belladonna—she was terrifyingly perceptive.
"I don't want to look at them," Weiss insisted.
"Maybe you don't. Maybe you want me to hide them." Blake's eyes narrowed. "Most humans don't, though. They hate thinking they might be around faunus and not know. Or they assume they can always tell, somehow."
"Well, I obviously couldn't," Weiss said stiffly. "You're doing an excellent job of fooling everyone. Congratulations."
"You are angry about that."
Weiss turned her back on Blake. Clearly, she couldn't trust herself to hide her expression. Always so volatile—
"Do you even realize how hypocritical that is? You were just telling me that Velvet shouldn't be open about being a faunus."
"I've changed my mind," she snapped. "I've decided it's much more irritating when you pop up out of nowhere without even—" She had to cut herself off.
"Without what?"
"Nothing."
"It must be bad if even you won't say it."
Weiss scowled at her. "It's irritating," she said acidly. "That's all. You just, what, tie a bow in your hair and suddenly you can go around like you're human? It should be... harder."
"You think it isn't?"
She could feel her heartbeat in her fists. "I know it isn't. You can slip it on and off, just like that."
"I can, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Do you have any idea how scared I was when they matched us all up? I barely knew any of you. It's a miracle I landed with even one person willing to back me up, let alone two." Blake stood and started to pace. "But I didn't know that. I had to tell three people I met a few weeks ago something that might have made them hate me, or even hurt me."
"You didn't have to," Weiss shot back.
"Yes, I did!" Blake stopped in her tracks in the middle of the room and whirled around. "It feels like dying, Weiss. Like you're strangling a part of yourself every time you hear someone call you an animal without even realizing it. And then they look at you, and they expect you to laugh along." Her eyes were unfocused, now, like she was looking at something or someone far away. "I know you think they're just words, but... when you hear this stuff over and over again, it gets under your skin. You start taking all that poison inside yourself. Eventually, they don't even need to tell you those things anymore, because you're already saying them to yourself."
Weiss gripped the back of her chair until it creaked.
"You're angry again," Blake said, sounding resigned more than anything. "I won't let you do that to me, so you get angry."
"No," Weiss gritted out.
"What? You're not angry?"
"Yes, I'm angry!" she snarled. "No, it's not because you don't hate yourself! Not everything is about you!"
"...Are you trying to say you're not angry at me?
"No. Yes. No!" Weiss scowled. "Just shut up and let me do my stupid essay!"
She clung to those sheets of paper like a life preserver. If she buried her head in her books, she wouldn't have to notice that Blake was still looking at her.
The ears, she was forced to admit, had never been what she hated about Blake. She hated her knowing stare, her perfect bow, the way she talked that jabbed at places Weiss thought went numb a long time ago. But more than anything, she hated the way her voice had wobbled as she talked about something that made Weiss' insides burn.
She couldn't read the books anymore. The words were too blurry. So she got up and grabbed a change of clothes, and paused with the bathroom door halfway open. She wasn't good the way the sisters were—she knew that. But Blake was a person and there was something she needed to be told, and no one else around to say it.
"I'm sorry," she told the empty bathroom in front of her. She caught the sound of a page tearing slightly.
"...What?"
"It's—It sounds like a horrible feeling. That's all." Weiss ducked into the shower before her teammate could respond.
Blake must have told the others, because the team dynamic changed. There was a little less tension in the air. Ruby got some of her pep back, which forced her to accept that yes, she'd missed it. Yang started bringing her food whenever she got caught up in studying. When she brought back tuna once and Weiss refused to touch it, she remembered every time after that. She didn't ask why, which was a relief even though Weiss was prepared to lie and say she was allergic.
It felt nice. Stable. She could handle this. All she had to do was avoid upsetting things again, and she could get through the last few months before she turned eighteen. It finally felt like the end was in sight.
She really should have learned to be suspicious of feelings like that, by now.