Chapter Text
“Fuck!” Blake yelped, whirling around to see a shocked Yang with her hand still raised from where she had tapped Blake on her shoulder.
“Yang?!” She huffed, her heart racing. Her ears were pressed as flat against her skull as they could go underneath her ribbon. She quickly plucked her earbuds from her human ears and glared at her friend. “Brothers! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?! Gods!”
“I’m sorry! I just… wanted to grab your attention! I didn’t know you were so jumpy!” Yang raised her hands defensively. “My bad.”
“Ugh.” Blake groaned, slumping back against her bed and grumbling. “I grew up outside the kingdoms, Yang. You kind of need to be jumpy to survive.”
“That bad, huh?” Yang said, her voice soft with compassion. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Blake muttered, suddenly feeling awkward and unsure of what do with Yang’s sympathy. It was new and unusual… but not altogether unwelcome. “Plenty of people had it worse than me.”
“That doesn’t take away from what you went through, though. You still had a hard time. That’s not changed by the fact that others may have had worse experiences.” Yang said calmly, sitting beside Blake in her bed and leaning back on her hands. “The path through hell looks different for all of us, Blake. Doesn’t mean the demons that you faced are any less scary than somebody else’s. I think that comparing our paths is… not the greatest choice. It can become like a sickness, infecting you and getting into your head. It makes you think that there’s some sort of… quota for suffering. But there’s not. If you’re hurting, you’re hurting. If you have scars, you have scars. Nobody gets to take that journey from you or trivialise it.”
Blake stared at her partner for a moment, shock and sentiment coursing through her, before letting out a soft huff of laughter and shaking her head fondly.
“Wow.” She murmured softly, her ears flicking curiously against her bow. “You’re something else, Yang.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that once I think I’ve got a read on you, you continue to surprise me.” Blake said with a quirked brow, playfully cuffing Yang’s shoulder.
“In… a bad way?”
“No, it’s definitely good.” Blake smiled fondly at her friend before smirking. “I am a fan of difficult to read books, after all.” She felt her smirk soften when Yang laughed, her expression shifting to something more tender. “What did you want my attention for?”
“Oh! Sorry.” Yang grinned sheepishly, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. “I just… I think that this is the first time that I’ve seen you listening to music and I was just curious about what music you liked.”
“Why? So you can drag me to a concert?” Blake grinned cheekily at Yang. “Perhaps join in on the Wall of Death? Start a fight in the mosh pit? We could even get matching janky tattoos.”
“Oh my God! No!” Yang made a face. “I wouldn’t put you into that sorta situation! I know that I’m, like, still kind of ignorant and still learning…. But I get that certain concerts aren’t exactly… friendly to faunus with ears as their dominant trait. I’d never ask you to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation like that. I just… wanted to know, is all. I like learning new thing about you, Blake.”
And once more, Yang managed to stun Blake into silence. For somebody, a human no less, to take her wellbeing as a faunus into consideration… it was very touching. Blake felt her heart swell and let out a gentle sigh as she shuffled closer to Yang and offered an earbud to her as she looked through her scroll to show Yang her favourites.
“Here.” She said softly, smile gentle. “I’ll show you. And just so you know… we eared faunus can go to concerts. We just need to be careful.”
“Oh. Okay.” Yang mumbled as she put her head beside Blake’s and popped the earbud in. “In that case… show me what you’ve got.”
Blake clicked on a song called “Atlesian Idiot” and pressed play. She had a funny feeling that Yang would be both surprised and amused.