The key to a successful relationship was communication, and so Jaune sat there with his girlfriends and discussed this wild, crazy idea of theirs. He was worried at first that they were just getting caught up in the moment, that they hadn't really thought the idea through. It quickly became apparent that this was something they'd been discussing amongst themselves for a very long time, perhaps even before they'd officially started dating.

"We always knew that something like this would happen eventually," Nora said it so calmly, as if all of this was normal. "Pyrrha was making moon eyes at you on the first day, though she was trying to deny herself. I'm sure you know why."

Because of her troubled past at making friends.

"She wasn't sure that she could trust you," Li said. "She wasn't sure she could trust any of us, at first. It took awhile for her to become comfortable around us. But it was pretty clear that at the very least, she was attracted to you. The first time we all worked out together, she was openly staring at you when you lifted weights. It was very cute."

He hadn't noticed that at all.

"We were all staring at you," Nora smirked. "You looked very yummy."

She sure knew how to inflate a guy's ego, didn't she? It was hard not to get full of himself when he had two beautiful girls wanting to date him but now they were telling him that their other gorgeous teammate wanted a piece of him as well. What guy wouldn't struggle with getting a big head?

"I wasn't about to let you get away, though," Nora continued, expression cheeky. "First in, first served."

Jaune snorted. "You make it sound like I'm food."

"Well, at least one part of you is like a banana."

When they started listing all the things he could do for Pyrrha, it solidified that yeah, they were being completely, one hundred percent serious and had extensively planned for it. Backups, they said – in case he just didn't ravage her with animalistic desire.

"You know I'd never cheat on you, right?" he asked.

"It isn't cheating if we want you to do it," Li replied.

"Yeah, but I didn't know that," he pointed out. "Did you really think I'd just pounce on her?"

Nora snickered. "Hope is free."

These girls were insane.

"Anyway," Nora waved her hand as if in dismissal. "This is probably for the best. Pyrrha is a bit of a romantic, so you should go with Plan C."

Jaune blinked. "Plan C?"

Wait, how many plans had they come up with? Plan C might as well be Plan Three, so that meant there were at least three of them, right?

"There is a restaurant in Vale that Pyrrha has been talking about for awhile," Li pulled out her scroll and typed something in, showing him what looked like some type of steak house on the screen. "Apparently they used to have one of these in Argus but it shut down some years ago. It's her favorite place but she hasn't been yet."

"Oh," Jaune frowned. "Why didn't she just ask us to go?"

Nora rolled her eyes. "Pyrrha overthinks everything."

"You should take her here," Li said. "She'll enjoy it."

On a date, they meant. Like the date he took them on. The date she had joined in on at the very end. Jaune tried to remember if there had been any indicator then of her feelings for him but came up with nothing.

"That… sounds fine," he said. "I don't mind taking her out… if she wants to."

"Oh, she wants you to, don't you worry about that, mister," Nora grinned. "She'll try and act like it isn't a big deal, but it very much is a big deal. She'd leap at it if it didn't embarrass her so much."

Li then gave him a searching look. "Jaune, are you… alright with this? I know we've been sort of pushing it on you but you know you don't have to do any of this if you don't want to, right?"

Jaune gave her a small smile, grabbing her shoulder and giving it a small squeeze. "I know. I'm not going to pretend that this isn't… way out of left field for me, but I'm not… opposed."

"He wants to get a hold of that sweet body of hers," Nora needled with a shit eating grin. "Don't think we haven't caught you taking a peek at it."

Jaune laughed awkwardly. "Ah-haha – busted?"

But Li was still looking at him with that expression, half worried, half hopeful. "If you feel pressured…"

Did he feel pressured? Maybe a little – but not in a bad way, not so much from them. He had a better understanding of how their heat operated now thanks to Weiss, and he understood that when their subconscious chose a mate for them to be with, what came with it was a more aggressive period of heightened arousal, aggression and lust. It wasn't easy for them to deny themselves at this point, and it could be… not painful, but stressful.

That didn't mean he had to have sex with every girl that liked him but he couldn't help but feel the need to help Pyrrha, not just because she was his friend and partner, and was taking such great care of him by training him to be a better Huntsman. It was because maybe, just maybe… he liked her that way too.

It made him feel a little shameful. He already had two wonderful girls and he held feelings for another, and Pyrrha might not even be the end of that… being surrounded by beautiful girls was tough.

Jaune squeezed her shoulder again, this time pulling her in so she could lean against him, his arm looping around her back. Li squeaked in surprise before melting into his side, burrowing in.

"It's fine… I want to help Pyrrha, and not just because I want her body," he said this part at Nora who poked her tongue out. "I'm not going to pretend that I'm not attracted to her, and I might… even like-like her – but you know how I feel about you two, right?"

Nora's cheeks pinkened. "Aww, shucks. Of course we know, you lunkhead."

Li nodded against him, her horns bumping his chin.

Then Nora decided to drop another bombshell as casually as saying hello.

"You know Pyrrha isn't the only one that likes you, right?"

His brow furrowed. "What?"

"Nora," Li warned.

"What?" Nora shrugged. "He is going to find out eventually, we might as well be open with him now."

"Open with what?"

Li sighed, leaning back to look him in the eye. "There is a certain other fox that has her eye on you."

A certain other fox could only be one person.

Jaune stared at Li, incredulous. "Weiss?"

She nodded.

He didn't know what to say. That sounded… impossible. Weiss Schnee, of all people? Pyrrha Nikos and Weiss Schnee? Perhaps the two most eligible young women in the entire world? Perhaps the two most beautiful, talented women you could ever find?

Jaune shook his head. "You must be mistaken. It's hard enough believing that Pyrrha… but Weiss… both of them?"

"And Blake," Nora tossed in because why not?

Jaune looked between them, flabbergasted. "Blake?"

Li nodded, completely serious. "You remember what she was like during her heat, right?"

His mouth opened and closed, a loss for words. That one… was harder to deny. Blake's amorous behavior back then, directed solely at him… it was difficult to wave away as Jaune just being convenient when he knew so much more about their situation now. He swallowed.

Pyrrha, Weiss and Blake?

This was getting ridiculous.

"Yang was a late bloomer but then you sorta had to go and be her knight in shining armor," Nora continued, unknowing of the damage she was causing to his psyche. "There was something there but then you went all Jaune-y and put Sky in his place, so now she has it bad."

Li laughed softly. "You really put your foot in it with that one. We tried to warn you what it would mean."

They did. They did warn him.

Jaune was almost scared to ask. "And Ruby?"

Surprisingly, Nora and Li shared an uncertain glance. Nora said, "We aren't sure about her."

Li shrugged. "Ruby is… Ruby. It's hard to tell if she sees you as a friend, a brother or more. Yang let slip once that Ruby hasn't really had a full blown heat yet."

"Full blown?" he asked, confused.

It was Nora who answered. "Some faunus types go through their heat less frequently, right? And some have smaller episodes that don't really count. It's known that bird faunus have shorter heat cycles and typically have hot flushes in place of a full blown heat most of the time."

And Ruby was a hummingbird. He supposed it was the same with Yang who was an eagle.

Well, he just learned something new. Something he never thought he'd know about two of his friends but now he knew it.

Li had something to add, though. "When bird faunus do go into their full heat, though… it's very potent."

Nora nodded. "So Yang might come after you one day, so you better be prepared."

Great, that was all he needed. Yang was intense at the best of times.

"So what you're saying is that… with the exception of Ruby, though you aren't sure about her, the rest of our friends…" he couldn't even finish his sentence. It just sounded so preposterous.

"Yep~!" Nora popped the P.

Jaune wasn't sure what to do with this information. He was overwhelmed.

"This is why I didn't want to say anything yet," Li told Nora, her tone filled with frustration. "You've hit him with too much at once."

Nora patted him on the arm. "Jaune can handle it. Can't you, Jaune?"

Could he?

He sighed then, rubbing his eyes. "I… well, it's probably better to know than not know. Now I can remove myself from the situation if I have to," Nora and Li stared at him. "...or not?"

They weren't suggesting…?

"Pyrrha first," Li said in what was meant to soothe his sudden nerves but only made him aware that first meant the possibility of second, third and more. "We can deal with everything else later."

What was even his life right now?

Were they actually hinting that he should… with all of them?

"And you two are fine with all of this?" he asked.

Nora shrugged. "I mean, sharing is caring?"

Li sighed. "Sometimes these things happen."

"...I've never met a guy with seven lovers before," Jaune deadpanned.

"We haven't either," Nora said. "But there have been things like that in the past. Oh – and there is a guy down in Vale that is with four different girls. He is a horse faunus. They seem really happy."

Li backed her up. "He runs a massage parlor."

"They're online, they make videos and stuff – not those kinds of videos!" Nora said quickly when she saw his expression. "Like – just talking about how they manage their lives, food reviews, that sort of thing."

Jaune cleared his throat, a little embarrassed that she'd seen through him so quickly. She did say he was a horse faunus, after all, "Oh – uh, okay."

This was a big moment and he needed time for it to settle in his mind, but maybe things would work itself out and it wouldn't become a great big mess. Faunus relationships were different, and all of them were faunus, so he might be the only one with some hesitation.

And even then, there wasn't much hesitation. He was a hot blooded guy, sue him.

"You need to talk to Pyrrha, though," he said, and that wasn't something he would budge on. He didn't want this to spring up on her out of nowhere and scare her half to death because she felt like she was betraying her friends. It would crush her, if not in the moment but afterwards. "You need to make it clear that… you are okay with all of this, and we're going on an actual date. A date-date."

Nora snorted. "A date-date?"

"Shut up."

"We will," Li assured him.

"We've been dropping hints for ages but she is almost as dense as you are," Nora teased.

"Hey," he said weakly. "I don't think any guy would believe this on their own."

They talked things over for a little bit longer before Li and Nora decided to set things in motion. Jaune felt a rush of trepidation but also something else, something decidedly more carnally driven in nature.

He just hoped they didn't overwhelm the poor girl. Jaune trusted Li to keep things on the rails but Nora was a wildcard that even her long time friend struggled to keep contained sometimes.

It still felt a little surreal and so Jaune decided to take a walk around campus to calm down. It was a nice day and he had nowhere to be, and so he just walked. The sun felt welcoming on his skin, not too hot but warm enough to fill him with vigor. Breathing in the fresh air, he made his way through several courtyards while admiring the gardens, looping around the amphitheater where they held Combat Class and following the path towards the CCT. It may have been the weekend but there were plenty of people around; students lazily wasting the day away, workers arriving at the CCT for the shifts, and other school staff tending to the lawns and hedges, flower beds and emptying bins.

He was just passing by a cluster of vibrant, red colored petunias when he spotted someone amongst the flowers. Jaune paused, watching as Ruby pressed her nose to the trumpet-shaped flower, inhaling deeply. The feathers in her hair bristled, making her hair puffy before he saw something he'd never seen before.

Her tongue darted out – and it was much longer than any tongue he had seen before. While it was still shaped like a human tongue, pink and wet, flat, its length was astonishing as the tip tried to slip between the petals without much success. Ruby made a sound of annoyance before retreating, pouting.

How had he never noticed before?

He supposed she never extended it to its full length any other time because as much as he wracked his brain, he could never remember such an occasion. What was she even trying to do, anyway?

Wait, was she trying to feed on the nectar?

She tried again, her long tongue darting out but she had as much success as the first time – which was none. Huffing in frustration, she instead just snapped the stem and tossed the entire head of the flower in her mouth, chewing it like it was a piece of candy.

"Ruby?" Jaune questioned without thinking and she jumped, startled. Silver eyes swung over to him, blinking.

"Jaune?"

It took her a few seconds to get over her surprise at his sudden appearance, beaming happily.

"Heya~!" she chirped.

"Hey," he replied. "What are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh~!" Ruby giggled, rubbing the back of her neck. "These smelled really yummy."

"Oh."

Was this something she did often? While he knew Ruby really liked flowers and often stopped to smell them, Jaune had never witnessed her attempting to taste the nectar or eat them before.

Some faunus manifested behaviors associated with their animal traits more strongly but it was always a toss up on how much they truly affected a faunus. Everyone was different. Blake's love of fish, for example, could just be her own personal preference driven by nothing more than her own experiences with the food and nothing to do with her being a cat.

It was hard to tell.

This behavior from Ruby, though – it had to stem from her being a hummingbird faunus.

"How does it taste?" he found himself asking.

Ruby perked up. "Do you want to try one?"

"Uh…"

Eating a flower didn't sound very appealing.

"They're kinda sweet, I guess?" she shrugged, at complete ease. "The petals are kinda weird, though. But my tongue is too wide to get inside the flower sometimes, and pulling it open can damage it so that's why I just take the whole thing."

Waste not, huh?

Jaune looked at the petunias and then at Ruby's hopeful face.

"Sure, why not," he said – because when Ruby looked at him like that, there was no turning her down.

He was just going to try to get some of the pollen on his finger or something but Ruby beat him to it, snapping a flower off at the end and presenting it to him. Resigned to his fate, he took it and held it up to his lips.

"Wait, they don't spray these with pesticides, do they?"

Ruby shook her head. "Nope~! I made sure to ask the gardeners."

At least she was being safe.

Ruby was right, though. The flower had a slightly sweet taste to it and even a hint of spice, for lack of a better word. Jaune made sure not to eat the green part on the underside of the bulb because he knew that would probably taste pretty bad, but the rest wasn't horrible. The texture was very odd, though. The petals were silky and broke apart strangely as he chewed them.

All in all, it wasn't bad but he wouldn't go out of his way to eat another petunia anytime soon.

"Pretty good, huh?" Ruby chirped, leaning down to sniff at some more flowers.

"Eh," he tipped his hand back and forth. "I think I'll leave flowers to you."

Ruby giggled as she grinned up at him, face turned slightly as she leaned forward at the waist – and Jaune couldn't help but think she looked incredibly pretty right at this moment. Of course, once he thought that, his thoughts landed back on his conversation with Li and Nora.

He'd always been very aware of his friends. They were incredibly beautiful girls, so it was hard not to be aware of them. But now that Li and Nora had revealed that they all possibly wanted to – uh, mate with him – that awareness was kicked into overdrive.

Ruby was the one they weren't really sure about and yet he found himself observing her as she fluttered around the garden, her energetic nature giving her a very attractive, youthful aura. His eyes traced those lovely red feathers threaded through her raven locks, and then further down along the slender, lithe cut of her body. As it was the weekend, she wasn't wearing her uniform or even her combat attire. A pair of tiny denim shorts cupped the plump curves of her butt, her plush thighs slightly bulging where the material hugged her smooth legs. On top she wore a black sleeveless shirt with a red rose printed on the front between her budding breasts, and a similarly colored jacket thrown on top with red highlights. Her sneakers matched her typical color scheme, red and black, her white ankle socks peeking out the top.

Jaune caught a flash of red as her shirt rode up a little as she bounced around, revealing a strip of her belly. Instead of just skin, he sighted red plumage around the underside of where her belly button would be.

He swallowed.

Ruby typically covered up in concealing clothing, so it was the first time he'd seen that she had more feathers than she presented. Jaune wondered how many more, and where, and quickly shook his head.

He shouldn't be thinking that.

"Jaune?" she asked, suddenly in front of him. She leaned in close, standing on her toes. "Are you okay?"

Her scent matched the flowers she'd been sitting amongst and something all her own; soft, milky almost, gentle. It tickled his nose pleasantly and he leaned closer to her without meaning to. Jaune saw her pupils widen, and if he wasn't mistaken, she inhaled deeply.

"I'm fine," he managed to get out. "I just… learned some things.

"What did you learn?" she asked, and was her voice always so breathless?

He cleared his throat. "Just… some things."

"Aw, you can't just say that – come on, tell me."

"I don't know if I can."

She pouted, leaning back – and suddenly Jaune felt like he could breathe.

"You can tell me anything!"

He knew that he could. He trusted Ruby, even if she might say something without meaning to. But could he really speak to her about this? Especially when she might be as involved as the others? Looking into her alluring silver eyes, he made his decision.

Jaune moved away from the garden and sat down on the grass, and after a moment of hesitation, Ruby followed him, plopping down across from him, legs crossed.

"This might seem like it's coming out of nowhere, but can you tell me about faunus relationships?"

Ruby blinked.

"What do you want to know?"

He knew a little about Ruby and Yang's past, and knew that they were only half-sisters. They had the same father but different mothers, so perhaps she was the best one to talk to about such matters. She might not have dated someone herself but she'd seen the dynamic in action before.

"You know how I'm dating Li and Nora?" he asked and she nodded. "Was that how your parents started out? Or – uh, how they are? Like… did your dad date both of them? Your mom and Yang's mom, I mean."

"Oh," Ruby seemed surprised but eager to answer. "Yep~! I mean, I dunno how they got together or anything but they've all been together since forever."

"And relationships with three people are pretty normal?"

"I wouldn't say normal," she hummed, thinking about it. "Like – it isn't rare, but it isn't common either."

He knew all this, of course. But he was trying to take it slow.

"And larger relationships? Like four or five people?"

"It happens – but those are definitely rarer," Ruby thought for a moment. "But there is nothing against it. It all depends on the people involved."

"Right, right."

Ruby frowned. "Why do you want to know?"

Jaune hesitated before firming his resolve, but before he could say anything, it was like a light bulb went off in her head. He saw Ruby perk up, eyes widening as she stared at him.

"Oh~!" she exclaimed, cutting across him. "You've figured it out!"

"Figured it out?" he asked.

"Blake," she said as if it were obvious. "Weiss. Yang. Pyrrha. Duuuh~! It's about time!"

...now he felt really dumb.

"You know?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course I know! I bunk with three of them, whose name do you think they moan when they—"

"Ruby!"

Her mouth snapped shut and she had the grace to look embarrassed, cheeks flushing.

Now that she'd said it, it wasn't something he could easily forget. Blake's raspy voice, groaning as her fingers furiously worked her clit as her tail curled around her thigh. Weiss singing beautifully as her slender fingers slipped inside her tight slit. Yang moaning unabashedly as she pistoned her snatch with a toy, shaped just like him, her wings bristling as she shattered around it.

Jaune palmed his face, attempting to hide his expression.

"Ahaha," Ruby laughed awkwardly. "Don't tell them I said that."

He peeked at her between his fingers. "And… you?"

Ruby blinked. "Me?"

"Are you… do you… like me as well?"

It was fascinating to watch, the blood rushing higher until her entire face was scarlet and her ears glowed like embers of a fire. Ruby hunched slightly, her fingers fidgeting, those sharp black nails tapping together.

"Uh… haaah, heh?"

That wasn't exactly an answer – but it also was.

Ruby liked him. As did the others.

It wasn't like he didn't believe Li and Nora, but having it confirmed by someone else left no doubt in his mind.

"I – I mean, I just, well – you know, ahaha, I don't do – you know, that, okay? Please believe me," she rushed out, squirming.

It took her some time to calm down but when she did, Ruby was a sharp girl. It didn't take her long to pick up why he'd been asking about relationships.

Her expression shifted through several different ones ranging from shock and surprise to excitement, and hope.

"J-Jaune," her voice wavered, her hands curling into fists that she placed in her lap. "Do you like us too?"

That was the million lien question, wasn't it?

The short answer was yes, he did. He was attracted to all of them, and in their different ways, each of them had a place in his heart that went beyond friendship. But having feelings for several different girls wasn't a simple thing.

So he told her about Li and Nora's idea regarding Pyrrha, and the potential for more. Witnessing those pretty silver eyes light up, he had a feeling that things were about to get pretty wild going forward.

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