Hot. I was so fucking hot. Everything around me felt like it was on fire and I was being roasted alive. I woke up and sat up, terrified I'd accidentally set my sheets on fire during the night. It wouldn't have been the first time my semblance tried to burn the house down around me. After making sure I was still the hottest thing in the room, I looked around to make sure everyone was okay. Weiss was sniffling in her sleep. Ruby snoring behind her blanket curtain. I looked under my bed to check on Blake, but she wasn't there.

"Wait a minute, didn't Blake sleep with me?" I didn't have time to think about it. My skin was burning like a bad sunburn, and I could already smell the scent of singing fabric coming off my sheets. I jumped down off my bed, landing silently on a cushion I'd put down just in case I ever fell again. As the grogginess started to wear off I swore I could hear running water.

"Is that the shower?" I walked across our dorm room and quietly opened the bathroom door, making sure not to wake Ruby or Weiss. Blake was in the shower, which was weird because I definitely remembered her having showered earlier that night. Through the crystal glass I could see she looked… frantic. She was scrubbing her head like crazy and she was… whimpering? Like she was in pain.

"Blake? Are you-"

"I'm okay!" That definitely didn't sound like okay to me.

"Are you sure…? It sounds like-"

"I'm fine!" Whatever it was, she didn't want to talk about it. I sighed and shrugged. It was too late at night for a fight and waking Weiss would probably open the seventh seal of the apocalypse.

"Okay, okay…" I climbed into the empty shower and let the cold water rush over me. My thoughts never left Blake, though.

"Maybe she'd had a bad dream? Maybe I'd hurt her accidentally during the night?"

Something was bothering her, but if she didn't want to talk…

The bathroom had turned into a sauna in less than a minute. Apparently I was a lot hotter than normal. Oops. Steam poured off me in waves, floating up to the ceiling before sinking back down to the ground. The vapor made tons of patterns in the air and condensed against the cold tiles of the bathroom, leaving even more patterns with tiny drops of water. Normally I could stand in the shower and watch the patterns for hours while I cooled down, but I wanted to catch Blake before she got to bed. I just really wanted to hug her. Let her know whatever was wrong, she would be okay.

I heard Blake turn the water off and followed just behind her. I opened the glass door just in time to catch Blake doing the same. We locked eyes, and stared at each other for almost a full second.

Naked.

Awkward.

I reached for my towel and looked away, before doing a double-take. I thought I'd seen-

"Blake… are you bleeding!" She'd already turned away and was reaching for her bow. She didn't even try to answer me.

"Blake, your ears!" I wrapped myself in my towel and walked towards her, careful not to slip on the slick, tiled floor.

"What happened?! Did I… burn her?!"

"Yang... I'd rather not talk about it..." How could she be so calm and distant? How could she act like she was fine? Her ears were rubbed raw, fur thin where just a few hours ago it'd been full and thick and fluffy. What the hell happened?

"But Blake-"

"Yang, can I just get dressed?"

I couldn't just let her continue being so distant. So aloof. Like she couldn't be bothered to care about her own ears. She started to wrap them up in the ribbon and I reached out and grabbed her hand.

"Blake… please talk to me."

She bit her lip as her eyes pierced into mine. They looked so much fiercer without the purple eye-shadow, it almost made me look away. Almost.

She looked away and sighed softly before she finally answered me.

"Weiss is allergic to cats."

"Okay?" Cats? What the hell did that have to do with anything?

"Weiss. Is allergic. To cats." She just repeated herself as if that were just some profound statement that excused the blood running down her ears.

"So what- oh!" Her ears…

She pulled her hand away and finished wrapping them up with the black ribbon. I could tell it hurt her as she flinched whenever the fabric touched her skin.

"That's not your fault, Blake!" I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"It clearly is." She grabbed her sleep shorts and slipped them on underneath her towel. I couldn't help but be bothered that she'd wrapped up her ears before even putting clothes on. She still wasn't comfortable around us...

"If she was then why is she sick now? You've been a Faunus your whole life, we only found out about it like, a couple months ago! It's gotta be something else!" It made sense. It made tons of more sense than Weiss being allergic to her teammate. To my partner. I couldn't believe that.

"Yang, it's me-"

"Stop saying that!" I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to let her blame herself for this. All her life she'd probably put up with other people treating her differently because of who she was and now she couldn't even be herself amongst the people she'd trusted enough to let know her secret?!

"Yang!"

I anxiously ran my fingers through my hair. It's this nervous tick I have to help keep calm.

"It's me. It's just the time of year…"

"What?"

"Cat allergies spike during different times of the year, Yang. It might just be that I'm shedding, but..."

"So… you can't know for sure that it's you."

"Yang..."

"Okay, fine. Weiss is allergic to you. Blake, your ears! You're hurting... There's gotta be a better way than this. Allergy medicine? One of those little nurse's masks? Anything is better than this..."

"She shouldn't have to buy allergy medication to live in her own room. Even our heiress deserves her own space." Her ears twitched under her bow and she winced again.

"I'll buy it for her. You don't have to do this to yourself. You deserve your own space too, Blake…"

"Yang, you don't have to do that. I'll bind my ears again-"

"No. Blake. This I'm definitely doing." I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring down at her. I could tell my eyes had gone red some time during the conversation, and I could feel the beginnings of my skin warming up again.

"Yang, I'm used to doing this. It isn't new-"

"Well you're gonna get used to not doing it. I'll get Weiss her medicine tomorrow." I didn't leave any room for an argument. No way I was gonna let Blake keep doing this and I wanted her to see it in my face that she absolutely didn't have a choice in this.

She sighed and shrugged, slipping the ribbon back off her ears.

"Thanks, Yang…"

"No problem."

"Can I get dressed now?" She tugged at her towel, reminding me that she was still mostly naked under it.

"Oh… oops. Stage fright?" She glared at me but her grin totally ruined the little facade.

We left the bathroom together and I helped her up into my bed. I scratched the base of her ears during the night, trying my best to soothe her raw skin, and she started purring sometime around midnight. Sometimes this girl was more than a handful.