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“Uh, w-wa--” Jaune began, turning to Pyrrha, but she was already gone, only leaving an arriving Neptune in her wake.
“Hey, uh...Jaune, right?”
Jaune sighed, disappointed that his clumsy tongue led him to ruin his moment with Pyrrha. The skies were darkening to a beautiful blue, a spectacular view out on the balcony outside the school dance. But it meant nothing, since he’d upset Pyrrha. “Yeah,” he confirmed, not really in the mood to talk.
Neptune didn’t seem to pick up on that. “This party’s pretty lame, huh?” he continued, amused in an annoyed sort of way. “I mean, ballroom dancing. Pfft.”
“...Yeah,” Jaune replied, not bothering to look at the other boy. Perhaps if he was a bit more transparent with his disinterest in chatting, Neptune would get the hint and walk away. For a moment, he recognized maybe this is how he came across to Weiss -- unwanted and unwelcome, but still very much an annoying presence. That pang of guilt did no favours for how Jaune thought of Neptune.
“Cute girls though, huh?” Neptune mentioned, glancing back towards the entrance where the party continued. Sun was probably still dancing with that girl with the bow.
Growling, Jaune whirled on Neptune. “Is that all you think about?”
Caught off guard, Neptune could only offer a confused, “Huh?”
A part of Jaune knew he wasn’t being fair to Neptune, that he was being a hypocrite, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Do you even care about the girls you’re hitting on?” he snapped. “How they feel about you?”
“Whoa! Where’s this coming from?” Neptune queried, starting to get defensive against Jaune’s verbal onslaught.
“How could you just turn her down like that!?” Jaune continued, hands emphasizing his frustration with the other boy.
“Wait, w-who?” Why was Jaune so furious at him? What was even going on?
“Weiss!” clarified Jaune, and suddenly Neptune felt very awkward.
Looking away and rubbing the back of his neck, Neptune stammered, “I uh...it uh...it just didn’t work out.” He forced himself to look Jaune in the eyes as he said this. Maybe if he was assertive about it, Jaune would leave him alone and drop it. “Y’know?”
“What!? You think you’re too cool? Too many other options? Weiss Schnee asked you to the dance. What in the world could possibly keep you from go--”
“I’mgay.”
Jaune, not quite sure he heard Neptune’s quick and rather quiet confession, was too thrown off by Neptune’s shame that he couldn’t help but ask, “Beg your pardon?”
“I’m gay, man.” Neptune couldn’t bear to look Jaune in the eyes, turning his head away in worry of the blond boy’s reaction. He had been furious seconds ago -- would that fury intensify?
Jaune was merely confused. “But you’re...so....” -- he struggled to figure out a way to phrase it; Neptune put on a suave front and hit on women all the time, so he certainly hadn’t expected this -- “...cool.” he finished lamely.
“Thank you,” Neptune replied, intensely relieved that Jaune hadn’t resorted to anger or violence. “I try really, really hard.” ‘That way, no one knows my secret or can hurt me for it,’ he thought, though he didn’t voice it.
Studying him, Jaune asked, “You would rather break a girl’s heart and go to a dance alone than just admit to everyone what you really are?”
“Who I really am,” Neptune corrected. “I’m a person, not a thing. But yes. That about sums it up, yeah.”
Jaune turned to face the view of the night sky that greeted him from the balcony. “Well, I certainly feel a lot better about myself.” At the very least, he knew that Neptune wasn’t really interested in Weiss.
He caught himself still thinking as though he had a chance with her when she made it clear she wasn’t interested in him. He really had to work on his undue entitlement; being the only son with seven sisters meant he got preferential treatment, and he was starting to recognize that the real world wasn’t going to be as doting on him as his home life had been.
“Please don’t tell anybody,” Neptune beseeched Jaune. “Look, if you want Weiss, she’s all yours. I don’t want to get in your way.”
Jaune sighed. “I don’t think she’s anyone’s but herself’s, really.” He turned to face Neptune, leaning against the balcony’s railing. “We haven’t really been respecting her or her wishes, and we’ve both done wrong by her. What do you say we go down together and apologize? I guarantee it’ll make her night.”
Neptune smiled, stepping forward to bump fists with a new friend. “You’re a really cool guy, Jaune.”
As Jaune left to go do just that, Neptune studied his retreating figure for a few seconds longer, watching him depart to find Weiss. “A really cool guy,” he murmured, heading down to join him.