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“Hey, Jaune.”
He didn’t even bother looking up; He knew who it was. “Hey, Ruby.”
Jaune’s eyes stayed fixed on the scissors in his hands as he listened to Ruby’s heavy boots thudding on the tiled floor, coming closer until she was right beside him. She bumped his elbow and made eye contact through the mirror, smiling in that way that told him she knew exactly what was going on in his head.
“You know, Blake cut her hair a few minutes ago.” She said, beginning to fiddle with her own hair like she had suddenly forgotten about the massive amount of gel she’d dumped into it.
“Yeah?”
“Yep! She used Gambol Shroud. It was awful, Yang almost cried.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “Turns out a broken weapon that hasn’t been sharpened since the train station isn’t the best pair of scissors.”
Jaune couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sure Yang will manage to salvage it. It’s Blake after all; you know she’ll try her hardest.”
Ruby snickered at the thought of her sister’s love-struck antics, but Jaune caught her sneaking wary glances at Crocea Mors leaning against the opposite wall and knocked her head with his elbow. “I’m not gonna use my sword to shave off my hair, you dork. And I don’t want to hear anything from you about bad decisions when it took you a whole hour to wash out Qrow’s hair gel.”
“Hey!” Ruby gasped, partly embarrassed, partly amused. She playfully tried to force Jaune’s arm away but he leaned more of his weight on her until she was struggling to push his entire body off. “The bottle… said… the more I used the… better it would hold!” She struggled to gain a hold on him but Jaune could feel her knees buckling.
“Yeah! It held for a whole hour, isn’t that right, Helmet Hair!”
“Shut up, Vomit Boy ,” she said, accentuating her statement with a weak punch that would have babies laughing at her. “At least I don’t weigh the same as a Goliath Grimm. Jeez , what did you eat for breakfast, you’re gonna sink like a stone when we drop at the mine - ”
Ruby paused mid-sentence and Jaune saw a flash of inspiration spark in her eyes. A jolt of fear coursed through his body. In a flash she was out of underneath him, leaving nothing behind but rose petals and air. The high pitched shriek that left Jaune’s mouth as his unsupported body weight dropped on the floor like a sack of flour was anything but manly. The impact made his head bob and he bumped my chin on the hard tiles, rattling his teeth and making him dizzy.
He groaned and rolled around on the floor, trying to find the source of Ruby’s torrent of giggles through his disorientation. Jaune found all three of her leaning against the wall with Crocea Mors, hand uselessly covering her mouth as she tried to hold in her amusement. He glared at her, blinked a few times, shifted his eyes slightly to the left, and glared again.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. It’s always so funny when Jaune’s the one getting hurt.”
Ruby was still snickering, but he saw a pinch of sympathy sneak onto her face and she leaned over to help him get upright. “Not my fault you’re such a clutz.”
Jaune attempted to roll his eyes before realizing that wasn’t a good idea yet and leaned against the wall beside her. “But it is your fault that you’re such an ass.”
“It’s called strategy, Jaune,” Ruby stuck her nose up in the air, but still had to look up at him, which kind of ruined the effect she was going for in his eyes. “I simply used the tools that were available to me.”
“You’re so full of it.” Jaune said, but he didn’t bother to hide his smile. They both laughed.
They sat like that for a little while, calming down from their childish antics, a comfortable silence overtaking them. Neither of them spoke a word for a long time, listening to the almost silent hum of the airship’s engine underneath them and simply enjoying the presence of a friend.
Eventually Jaune noticed he had started running his thumb over the red sash on his waist, something that was beginning to become a habit, he noted. He caught Ruby’s glance at the action, but she didn’t say a word. She never really did, but he knew her too well at this point.
He sighed. “Just tell me, Rubes.”
She didn’t bother looking surprised, but she still sent an apologetic half-smile his way as she leaned forward. “It’s not forgetting about her, you know.”
Jaune’s shoulders slumped. “Then why does it feel like that’s what I’m doing?”
Ruby, again, didn’t say a word, but this time she was waiting. Jaune swallowed roughly and tried to find the words she wanted to hear. “It’s just my hair, you know?” He shrugged, confused and angry at his hestitance; his cowardice over a simple haircut. “It’s not like I’m changing who I am or anything. It’s not everything that she did for me suddenly disappears.”
He tugged at his bangs. “But this is... me , you know? It’s her me.” And the floodgates opened, the words fell out. “I know I need to move on, I know I need to stop looking back. But what if I do this and I become different? What if I become a me that’s not who she’d want me to be anymore? I know it’s stupid, it’s just hair, it’s just clothes, but I’m scared .”
Jaune could feel the tears welling up in his eyes but he closed them tight. He was tired of crying over this.
Ruby rested her head on her knees, thinking. A brief silence, and then she spoke. “I always get told I look like my mom.”
It was such an abrupt change of topic that Jaune briefly forgot about his tears and turned to look at her. “...Yeah?”
Ruby nodded. “I barely remember her, but every one of Dad’s friends would mention it. ‘It’s uncanny, like she was pulled right out of the past. A total carbon copy.’” She mimicked in a deep voice that sounded suspiciously like Professor Port. “I always took it as something to be proud of, still do, but lately after everything, after Oz and the relics and Salem, I just kept thinking about how I didn’t want to be thought of as another Summer.”
She paused for a brief moment, staring at the strands of hair in front of her face and Jaune began to understand. He felt at his own bangs. “It felt like all you were doing was clinging to the past.”
Ruby smiled. “Yeah.” She leaned over and bumped shoulders with Jaune. “Everyone tells me my mom was the best, that no one ever came close to how awesome she was. I wanted to be that. A hero just like her.”
Abruptly, Ruby sprung to her feet. “But I’m not her, I’m me. I need to be who I want to be.” She looked down at Jaune, smiling. “And you need to be who you want to be, Jaune. Pyrrha will always be with you, with all of us, but you shouldn’t always chain yourself to some standard you thinks she would want for you.”
Ruby held out her hand. “All she would want is for you to live your life the best way you know how. It’s ok if you change, everyone does, you just need to step forward and embrace it.”
Jaune could only stare wide-eyed. Ruby never took back her hand, she just stood there confidently and waited for his choice, like always. And Jaune began to laugh. Softly at first, brief chuckles, before devolving into uproarious laughter. The tears in his eyes finally fell and he reached out to clasp her hand. Ruby pulled him up with ease.
“You are so damn cheesy sometimes, you know that?”
Ruby’s only response was to roll her eyes. She grabbed the scissors still sitting on the bathroom sink. “And you know the perfect way to ruin my big speeches. Come on, let’s get you to Yang before you accidentally shave off all your hair and I have to call you “Chrome Dome” for a few months.”
“What do you mean ‘ have to ?’”
Then Jaune cut his hair, changed out of his hoodie, wrapped the red sash around his waist, and stepped forward.