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Damn it, Weiss!
Okay, so Ruby wasn’t exactly a big fan of butler cafes. She never really got the concept, even with Yang swearing up and down that they were a downright hilarious waste of time. Even Blake – Blake – said they weren’t that bad, and Ruby generally trusted Blake’s judgment on things. But she never really saw the appeal herself: why go to a café with overpriced coffee and badly made food, with the only appeal being overly perfumed men with their fake smiles and their too-clean butler suits and teeth so shiny and white that they probably ate like, celery sticks and other such rabbit food? They weren’t even that handsome, based on the posters she saw around town!
Still, Ruby had to admit, it was probably better than the alternative. She was out in Vale, alone, making her way to a recently opened butler café, instead of hanging out with Yang and Blake, due to Weiss’ insistence that they “give the new place a shot”. Far be it for Ruby to turn down a rare invitation from her partner, even if it was strange that Weiss was eager to go to a place like this! Besides, Weiss promised to cover the expenses, and Ruby wasn’t one to turn down free food. Now if only I can find where the dust-damned place is…
“Ruby! You’re here!”
When Ruby finally found the place, a fairly out-of-the-way café hidden in a quiet street off the main Vale roads, she quickly heard Nora’s booming voice ushering her inside the café. From Ruby’s perspective, the place was fairly empty, which made sense as it was the afternoon, and the lunch rush had just ended. If Ruby had to describe the place, it would have been opulent: the place was designed like it was a fancy sitting room out of a Atlesian film about the old nobility, from the days when everyone lived in Mantle before all the old rich families migrated to Atlas. For such a small place, the owners certainly put in effort into making the place fairly spacious: The various tables were made out of the finest wood imported from Mistral, arranged all over the middle of café to ensure there was enough privacy between the various tables (and more importantly, space for the butlers to move from table to table). The chairs provided good lumbar support too, Ruby observed, marveling at the choice the owners made in seating. The lighting was fancy Atlesian hard-light dust, lending the place a very calm, relaxed atmosphere.
Nora and Weiss, however, were seated at the far end of the café, where a series of dividers and curtains segregated what Ruby understood were the VIP seating booths. The VIP sections were designed to have dedicated servers who were available upon request, and Nora had requested two booths: one for her and Weiss, and one for Ruby. Ruby didn’t bother asking why, but at least they could still talk even if Weiss and Nora were one booth away.
“Well, you took your time. What held you?” Weiss asked, sipping her coffee (black, no cream, two sugars, Ruby reminded herself) while Nora, seated in front of her, waved at Ruby with the force of a rampaging Beringel. Ruby was surprised Nora wasn’t messing up the table linen or the cutlery, honestly.
“Blake and Yang couldn’t decide if they wanted to go.” Ruby responded.
“So what’d they end up doing?” Nora added, and Ruby couldn’t help but giggle at how Nora, in her boredom, started balancing a small fork on her nose.
“I dunno. Probably out trying to save the bees or whatever.” Ruby replied, even if she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. It certainly made Blake and Yang giggle, and Ruby wasn’t really interested in pursuing the matter further. What they did in their spare time was their business.
“Yes.” Weiss groaned. “Saving the bees.”
With the little exchange out of the way, Ruby took her seat in the adjacent booth, the one against Nora and Weiss’, and she sat facing Weiss over at the other table. Nora didn’t seem bothered by having to crane her neck to see Ruby.
“So, uh, why here?” Ruby hazarded a guess.
“Well… y’know. This is where Jaune and Ren are doing their part-time jobs.” Nora explained, a sheepish grin on her face.
“Wait, here?!” Ruby exclaimed. Jaune had told her, earlier in the week, that he and Ren had to get jobs after the latest mishap their team got into resulted in most of their stipend for the month being used to cover the damages. Despite the fact that they had a dedicated damages budget and the requisite forms to fill out as leaders, it somehow wasn’t enough to cover everything, and Ruby regretted the overnight session she and Jaune pulled to fill out the forms in the first place. Well, Ruby didn’t regret the overnight with Jaune, more the pointlessness of the entire endeavor, but still. They could have spent the sleepover talking about comics! Or the new weapon upgrades she had planned for her team! Or playing video games! Spending hours filling out paperwork was not her idea of spending quality time with her BF (Best Friend)!
“Yep.” Nora popped the ‘p’. “And that’s why we’re here now.”
“Well, someone has to go support the boys.” Weiss scoffed, squinting at Nora. “Seeing as it’s our fault they’re working here in the first place.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault Magnhild exploded!”
“Yes, but as I keep having to remind you, you should try not to mess with your weapons in random places. And Ruby was at fault too, agitating those poor chickens. You’re lucky most of them survived, even if their feathers are, well…”
“Birdie, no…”
Ruby shed a single tear for the brave chickens who sacrificed their feathers for Nora’s cause, and tried not to think about how the incident did a lot of damage to their teams’ budgets, having spent most of it to cover what the damages budget could not, which had led Jaune and Ren to conclude that a part-time job would be useful to get them through the remainder of the month. And they certainly needed it, seeing as Ren and Jaune insisted on spending money out of their own pocket to essentially feed the two teams when the cafeteria food wasn’t cutting it!
Having settled down after the talk with Weiss and Nora, Ruby found herself just… taking in the view and enjoying the atmosphere of the place, although she did let out a gasp as Ren emerged from the kitchen, wearing an immaculate black butler suit, the slight hint of a green waistcoat and dress shirt peeking out from beneath the suit. Or was it a vest? Ruby never really understood men’s fashion, and her only model was her father and his love for tie-dye (get it? Tai-Dye? her father would joke at least once a week) shirts and cargo pants, or…whatever it is Qrow wore. Honestly, it was like he was someone from the backwoods who learned how to dress when he was a teenager! Ruby’s thoughts were consumed by the nonsense of thinking about the fashion sense of her father figures as she waited for her server to approach.
Meanwhile, off to the side, Nora was sharing a joke that evidently Weiss and Ren both found funny, as the two were giggling in that restrained, oh-so-private way of theirs that Ruby knew they only shared with each other. After all, she didn't miss how Weiss' smile would brighten up when Nora or Ren would send her messages over the scroll, or those wallpaper pictures of that day Weiss treated the partners to tea and cake! Ruby would have found it cute, too, if Weiss didn't insist on dragging her to cafes like this like she was a dust-damned fourth-wheel!
“Milady?” And then she heard his voice, and suddenly being the fourth-wheel didn't bother her anymore, and she felt her throat dry up with an indescribable thirst. She would have ordered anything that voice recommended, if only to get rid of the dry feeling in her mouth!
---0---
Oh no! Jaune looks good!
Ruby didn’t mean it in a bad way, of course. Jaune was her friend, so there was no way she would think bad of him, but she wasn’t so used to him looking so… not-Jaune. So what if Jaune insisted on wearing, as Weiss would call it, that ratty hoodie and the badly tattered jeans with the patch on one of the knees? (Ruby preferred more… endearing terms, but she always hesitated to say it out loud, for reasons that escaped her at the moment.) He certainly cleans up nicely! He looked alright back at the dance, didn’t he? (Granted, he spent a good chunk of it in a dress, but he certainly rocked the look, Ruby argued to nobody in particular.)
Well, he was certainly rocking this look. Ruby started at Jaune’s hair, which had ceased to be the unkempt mop of hair that Jaune insisted added to his natural charm, and instead it was carefully arranged to produce the illusion of being wild and unkempt, but one only needed to look at the way his hair was carefully layered, producing the impression of being untamed, to realize that a lot of effort was put into making his hair look presentable. Jaune himself was wearing an immaculate white suit with blue lining, the buttons on his cuffs reflecting the same blue color scheme. Unlike Ren’s suit, his was unbuttoned, revealing the waistcoat and striped dress shirt that he was wearing underneath, which followed the same white-with-blue-lining color scheme of his suit. His tie was a vivid shade of blue as well, with a gold cross pin attached to it. His pants also followed suit, no pun intended, with the same color scheme, and for once, he wasn’t wearing his sneakers, instead opting for a respectable pair of white dress shoes.
What caught Ruby’s attention, however, was the rose boutonnière on his lapel. It was a crimson rose – no, a ruby-colored rose, the shade reminiscent of her color. Ruby didn’t know what to think about it.
“Ruby?” Her friend-turned-hot-butler asked, confusion audible in his voice. Off to the side, Ren was already serving Weiss and Nora their order, and Ruby did her best to ignore the easy smiles the three were tossing at each other.
Oh no! I’m being distracted by Jaune! Jaune, what did you do?! Think, Ruby!
And so Ruby, pressed with a difficult question, turned to her fallback question when troubled: What would Yang do?
---0---
Ruby remembered a time, in the past, that Yang got it in her head that she was going to be, in her own words, Ruby’s role model, and decided to take every single opportunity she could to impart some ‘sage’ advice onto her younger sister. Coincidentally, Yang was also going through her rebellious phase (and Ruby felt that Yang never really grew out of it, what with her insistence on getting a motorcycle and going out most nights to attack shady clubs and get into bar fights) and had taken to wearing her beloved aviator sunglasses everywhere, although thankfully she had stopped wearing that awful black and purple ensemble of hers. She didn’t care if yellow and purple were complementary colors, no matter how much Yang insisted it went well with her hair!
The specific memory that Ruby conjured was from her early days in Signal, before she had discovered that weapon forges were better conversationalists than real people. Yang was sitting, cross-legged, on the sofa in their living room, watching something on the holoscreen projectors and still wearing those aviator sunglasses that she was so proud off, and in her mouth was a candy cigarette that Ruby knew Yang acquired from the candy store down the road. (Not that it stopped Yang from pretending they were real.). Ruby wasn’t sure if Yang was concentrating on what was on screen or falling asleep and hiding it with her glasses, but darn it, she needed advice, and Yang was the closest thing to a positive role model she had!
(Besides her Uncle Qrow, she supposed, but she didn’t really have any use for her uncle’s advice, which consisted mostly of things she was pretty sure she wasn’t allowed to do yet, or involved measuring the skirt length of innkeepers, and she was not on board with that.
At that moment, Ruby regretted the woeful options she had for role models.)
“Yang?” Ruby began, a small hint of regret in her voice as she watched Yang nibble on her candy cigarette before she extracted the confectionary treat from her mouth and pretended to puff out smoke. Ruby tried her best not to scoff at Yang’s practices, and instead continued. “I… need some advice.”
“Whaddya want, kiddo?” Yang replied, in her best imitation of their uncle Qrow. Ruby was glad Yang didn’t pick up her uncle’s drinking habits, at least. “The Great Yang is too busy to indulge in kid stuff.”
“Yang, you aren’t some great sage or whatever.” Ruby groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Please stop referring to yourself in the third person.”
“Spoilsport.” Yang replied, blowing a raspberry Ruby’s way. She uncrossed her legs and sat again on the sofa, motioning to Ruby to sit next to her by patting on the empty space with her hands. “What is it, sis? Need some advice? Is it a girl? A boy?”
Ruby didn’t even dignify that with a blush. “No, Yang, there isn’t anyone. I can’t even strike up a conversation with anybody.” She left the follow-up unfinished, knowing that Yang could fill in the blanks.
Yang sighed, removing her aviator sunglasses and inching closer to Ruby, wrapping her arms around her little sister’s soldiers. As opposed to the poor Qrow imitation that she was putting on earlier, she was back to speaking in her regular tone. “C’mon. Our dad’s too much of a dork to know what to say and Uncle Qrow’s never around. What’s bothering you?”
How could Ruby explain it to Yang, though? Yang never seemed to have the troubles she had. Stupid Yang with her boundless, sun-like warmth, the ability to laugh and shrug off all the judgmental eyes, who talked to people with a confidence that Ruby herself sorely lacked. It was as if when the Brothers created the two of them, Yang had taken all the confidence, and Ruby got all the anxiety and awkwardness. No, it probably was a mistake to ask Yang for advice.
“Eh. Never mind.” Ruby immediately course-corrected. “Just your lil’ sister overthinking things.”
Yang sighed and began ruffling Ruby’s head, earning an annoyed grunt from the younger girl. “Alright, alright. I know how to speak Ruby Rose.”
Ruby cocked her eyes at that. Since when did my name become the name of a new language?!
“Let your big sister give you some sage advice.” Yang’s voice lowered a few octaves, and she took out another candy cigarette to suck on. As if in response to the candy in her mouth, she began her Qrow impression again, the candy cigarette dangling from her teeth. “Listen… kiddo… if you’re feelin’ nervous around other people…there’s only one thing ya gotta do.”
“…and what is that, Great Sage Yang?”
“It’s reaaaal easy. I do it all the time when I’m eyeing up a… ahem. Anyway, if yer trying to talk to someone and yer throat tightens up like its all dried out… what you need to do is laugh.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Well, here’s what I’d do. Picture the person you’re talking to.”
“Okay…”
“Now picture ‘em in their underwear.”
Ruby did, and as the mental image developed, she began laughing. A slight smile at first, but as the image grew in her mind she couldn’t help but laugh more and more, until her laughter emerged from her belly and she was crying tears of joy. Yang, realizing that her work was done, laughed along with her little sister, the candy cigarette falling from her mouth.
---0---
Okay! Ruby shouted in her mind, shaking herself from the extended flashback. I just gotta imagine Jaune in his underwear!
And she did. Well, she had never actually seen Jaune in his underwear, but she did remember the cute blue onesie he wore to bed. She focused on that image of Jaune, with that shy, dork smile of his as he rubbed the back of his head and explained that the onesie was a gift, and there was no way he would ever let Yang burn it for being an affront to fashion, and she focused on the way the onesie hugged Jaune’s body like a comfortable blanket, and how Ruby wouldn’t mind to be wrapped around that onesie, and how she knew she’d be safe with that onesie around her because Jaune was fiercely protective of the people and things he loved and held onto them for as long as possible, and oh gods why am I suddenly so thirsty?
Focus, Ruby Rose! She admonished herself. Forget the onesie! Think about Jaune in his underwear!
And so she did.
And regretted it immensely.
Oh no!
---0---
Once things had calmed down (it helped that the butlers were, for some reason, trained to reviving customers who were suffering from overexcitement), Ruby found herself staring at the horrendously overpriced menu (fifteen lien for a cup of coffee?!) and the selection of cakes, sandwiches, soups that honestly didn’t seem to appeal to her. They didn’t even have cookies! What kind of scam operation was this café running?!
Weiss and Nora certainly didn’t seem to care. They were pointing at various things on the menu to a focused Ren, who was tapping incessantly on his tablet to keep up with all the requests that Nora and Weiss were asking for. Ruby could have sworn that they asked for a special too, whatever that was. Well, whatever it was, it was eliciting a rare blush from Ren, so Ruby had absolutely no interest in finding out more. First, it was Blake and Yang, and now Weiss with Ren and Nora? Honestly, why were all her friends such… idiots? Was there some weird Grimm prowling around that made everyone suddenly so… weird?
At least she still had her good friend Jaune!
Speaking of, her friend slash butler was talking to her, wasn’t he? She really needed to focus! She turned her gaze towards Jaune, doing her best to ignore her stray thoughts.
“Milady,” Jaune uttered with the practiced grace of an underpaid employee who had done this for almost two weeks. He let out a grin to hide the awkwardness of his posture.
“Pfft. Nice try, Jaune.” Ruby replied, failing to suppress the teasing smirk she adopted, as well as her traitorous heart skipping a beat at the sight of Jaune’s awkward fluster. Gosh, why is it so hot today?
“Would you like some water? Tea? Coffee?”
Okay, just answer normally. Just say your call, Jaune!
“You.”
Brain, what the heck?!
“What?”
Oh god, I need to fix this! Brain, do your thing!
“I MEANT YOUR JUDGMENT! I TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT! PICK WHATEVER FROM THE MENU!”
Good job, Brain! We sounded normal!
“O-okay…” Jaune nodded, tapping some things on the tablet that the restaurant provided for all its servers. Over to the side, Ren already returned from the kitchen, presumably carrying whatever the special was. “Are you good for the omurice and the strawberry shortcake? I’ll make sure your coffee has at least five spoons of sugar and an ungodly amount of cream.”
“Good call. I recommend a ratio of half a cup of coffee, half a cup of cream.” Weiss announced from the other table, stirring her cup of coffee as she spoke. Nora, on the other hand, was already experiencing the ‘special’ service, which consisted of Ren hand-feeding her some blueberry cheesecake while Weiss looked on, her face slightly flushing red as she waited her turn. Ruby couldn’t help herself, screaming in her head gosh, Weiss, you already have Ren and Nora over there! Leave Jaune to me!
Doing her best to ignore the rumblings in her head, Ruby tried to focus on Jaune, only to witness Jaune seemingly wincing at the suggestion. Oh no, will Jaune think I’m weird for taking my coffee with cream and sugar? Didn’t he like that Weiss took her coffee with no cream and just two sugars? Do I have to practice drinking that now?!
Thankfully Jaune’s words immediately perked her back up again. “Oh man, Neptune’s not gonna like that…”
“Yes, he’s far more of a coffee purist than me,” Weiss nodded, and Ruby marveled at the nonchalant way that Weiss opened her mouth as Ren fed her a spoonful of cake. This isn’t fair!
“Neptune says hi, by the way.” Jaune directed to Weiss while tapping in the requests for Ruby’s coffee. Weiss just rolled her eyes at that.
Meanwhile, Nora, visibly empowered by the blueberry cheesecake that Ren fed her, grabbed the fork from Ren’s hand to get another chunk of the cake for herself to bite into. Ren could only let out a small smile as Nora bit into her cake and squeed, before getting a smaller chunk. Without missing a beat, she tapped Weiss on the shoulder, and when Weiss reacted, Nora used her hand to spin the heiress around, and when Weiss opened her mouth to ask Nora what in Remnant she was doing, Nora put the cake in her mouth. Weiss’ frown immediately loosened as she tasted the cake, and Ruby and Jaune could only laugh at the scene taken right out of a cheesy Atlesian romcom, if the love triangle decided to just ignore all the conventional heteronormative rules about love that the Atlas film industry seemed to cling onto.
Ruby took the glass of water that Jaune offered and begun drinking as turned her eyes back to Jaune, who was just chuckling at the scene, evidently used to seeing the three being, well, themselves often. Jaune, noticing Ruby’s stare, straightened his posture and adopted the servile tone again. “Anything else, Milady?”
“No… no, yeah, we’re good!” Ruby stopped drinking and squeaked out. Why am I so thirsty! The overpowering thirst in her throat compelled her to drink more.
To her horror…? Surprise? Elation? Jaune winked at her. Winked! It took Ruby all her willpower not to spit out what she was drinking onto Jaune’s nice, white butler suit with the red rose boutonnière on the lapel. Ruby was horrified by the proposition. Horrified! What if Jaune’s really nice, really clean suit was ruined by her careless act? She’d have to repay him for that! Oh, maybe she could wash the suit? Fix up some of the damage? Maybe her Petal Burst could conjure up a nice new red rose for him to wear on his lapel? The possibilities were endless!
“Sorry,” Jaune said, misinterpreting Ruby’s gaze. “Management says we should wink at the customers as part of the ‘service’. I think it’s weird, but a job’s a job.”
“Wink’s good! Wink’s fine.” Ruby replied, feeling the sweat roll down her back at the thought that Jaune’s winking at her was for work and how she was totally reading too much into it. She reprimanded herself for that. Didn’t Tai always warn her about assuming things? Oh, Brothers, he didn’t even mean it?
“So, uh,” Jaune continued, while Ruby was busy musing on the difficulties of existing in a state of did he or did he not mean it existential angst, “I’ll… I’ll get your order soon, Milady. Meanwhile, I hope a smile will suffice.”
Ruby would have killed a horde of Beowolves in a heartbeat to take a photo of his dust-damned smile.
---0---
“Must you be so thirsty, Ruby?”
“Shush, Weiss.”
Ruby was busily gulping down as much water as she could, each refill failing to do anything to quench the deep, bottomless thirst that she was experiencing at this very moment. It didn’t help that, every time she pressed the button to call her server, Jaune would rush to her side like the gallant knight she knew he liked to pretend he was when he was alone in the dorm room and thought nobody could hear him yell his cheesy ‘heroic’ lines and practice his poses.
For this particular round of refills, Jaune rushed out from the kitchen, carrying the pitcher of ice-cold water that he had recently filled, and behind him, Ren followed with Weiss’ order of coffee (Nora was, of course, banned from coffee – she settled for Weiss’ favorite white lotus tea instead). The two arrived at the two adjacent tables that Ruby, Weiss and Nora occupied, and with a quick nod, went to work.
“Lady Weiss, Lady Nora, your refreshments.”
“Milady Ruby, your water.”
Ruby had to admire the poise with which Ren carried himself even as he had to endure the grimm-eating grin that Nora had as he handed Weiss her coffee, to which Weiss responded with a casual thank you and a refreshing smile. For her part, Nora was talking Weiss’ ear off over some dream she had had the other night, something about an adventure that three went off on, and Ren was, as always, offering dream interpretation. Maybe he could consider an alternative career path?
So focused was Ruby on the romcom in front of her that she failed to notice that Jaune had finished pouring her water and was looking at her expectantly. “Anything else, Milady?”
(If it were any other person listening, they would have scoffed at the scene. Weiss certainly did, in between sips of her coffee, one ear listening to Nora’s animated storytelling and Ren’s subtitling efforts, because the two dorks just could not hold a casual conversation. What they would have seen was Ruby, hearing Jaune’s words, immediately grabbing her glass of water and gulping down the water in one fell swoop, slamming the glass on her table, and motioning to Jaune.)
“More. Don’t leave me yet. Give me more water. Still thirsty.”
Ruby laughed, watching Jaune as he whimpered at his demanding Mistress. Meanwhile, off to the side, Ren had just concluded his subtitling for Nora, leaving Weiss in stitches. Ruby cursed the fact that they kept distracting her from Jaune.
---0---
Ruby wasn’t sure what to make of the Mistral-inspired rice dish in front of her. She had never had omurice before, not realizing that at its core, it was simply an omelette made from chicken rice and scrambled eggs – definitely not worth the twenty lien she paid for. Heck, she was confident she could make it, and she was a better baker than she was a cook!
As a result, when Jaune emerged from the kitchen, ten minutes later, with the tray of omurice in his hands, Ruby couldn’t help but scoff.
“Wait, this is it?” Ruby asked, incredulous, as Jaune placed the plate on her table. “I’m paying all that lien for this?”
Ruby felt her heart sink a little at the pained look on Jaune’s face. “Aw, I did my best to make the omurice special.”
“I mean… it’s fried rice cooked over chicken and ketchup. And scrambled eggs. I’m pretty sure I can cook this myself.” Ruby defended herself.
“Hey, that’s not true! Our café prides itself on getting locally-sourced, high quality chicken and the best imported rice grains from Mistral. Even the ketchup is special!” Jaune defended, his face pleading with Ruby not to make more complaints. Ruby guessed that his manager didn’t take kindly to anyone criticizing the food with the way Jaune as vehemently defending it.
“Oh yeah? Where’d you get the chicken?” Ruby, something of a chicken connoisseur herself, asked. It was a little-known secret, one that only Ruby’s closest associates knew, but Ruby adored chickens, and was well-versed in different types of chicken and chicken meat, as well as the best places to source them in Vale. And, well, one of the best places she knew was…
“No… you didn’t.” Ruby began to say with a horrified look on her face.
“What?” Jaune asked, dumbfounded, before the implications dawned on him. “No! No! Beacon doesn’t even sell off their chickens! They’re exclusively Beacon property!”
Well, Ruby was hungry, so whatever misgivings she had about the food was quickly ignored. However, she was about to dig into her meal when she spied Jaune holding a bottle of ketchup, looking at her with a confused gaze.
“What?”
“Uh… the service?” Jaune offered, holding up the ketchup container. “I, uh, have to write a cute message on your omelet. It’s part of what you paid for.
Ruby squinted at that but did nothing as Jaune began to pour ketchup all over her rice. Choosing to distract herself, Ruby cast her eyes at Weiss and Nora, and the sight she witnessed shocked her so much she swore her eyes bulged out in surprise.
Ren was kneeling on one leg in front of Weiss, his hands holding Weiss’. With a soft milady prefacing the act, Ren’s lips moved to connect with Weiss’ left hand, eliciting a blush from the Schnee Heiress and her partner, the Valkyrie, who seemed to be silently cheering the pair on. Ruby felt her face redden as well, although a part of her was slightly annoyed at the act. She made a note to ask Jaune if it was part of the special service later.
She was so distracted by thoughts of handholding and kissing hands that it took her a moment to process the visual in front of her. In handwriting (ketchup-writing?) that was neater than anything Jaune had ever jotted down for his school notes (Ruby recalled borrowing Jaune’s study notes and struggling to make sense of the chicken scratch Jaune called writing), Jaune had written “To my lovely Milady” in all caps. It had taken so much space on the omelet, in fact, that Ruby almost didn’t notice the small message at the side of the plate, almost imperceptible.
Love, Jaune.
Gosh, why was her heart beating faster?
“Uh, was it too much?” Jaune offered, rubbing the back of his head. “My boss says I should try and be more, uh, charming with the guests, but it feels really weird to act like Neptune.”
“I heard that!” Neptune shouted from the back of the kitchen.
Jaune ignored that and continued. “So… yeah. It feels weird to do it to anyone else. I hope you don’t mind the special service?”
(She didn’t.)
Resisting the urge to just melt into a puddle of awkwardness, Ruby took out her scroll to take a picture. “For future reference,” she justified, smiling at Jaune.
“Please don’t show that to Yang or Blake.” Jaune replied, sighing. “They already made fun of me for the suit – they don’t need more ammunition.”
“Wait, they already saw you wearing that?!” And didn’t tell me?! Or snap a photo?!
“Yeah, they caught me walking around the common room to test if it fits a week or so ago.” Jaune explained, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. “So please don’t show them I made this. Yang’s going to have a field day with all this, and I’d like to go one day without Blake silently judging me for something dumb I did.”
No! No! This isn’t dumb, Jaune! Ruby wanted to argue but willed her mouth to remain shut. No need to make things even more awkward, after all. Instead, she took her spoon and took a bit of the omurice to taste.
Ruby wasn’t prepared for the sensations that overtook her body. She had only felt this once before, the first time she took a bite out of a strawberry, and her tastebuds rejoiced as they discovered their destined partner in the fruity delicacy. She remembered that moment from her childhood vividly, the way she wept in awe as the sweet-sour taste of the strawberry enveloped her tongue, the taste wrapping around the insides of her mouth like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s day. It was as if her tongue found its soulmate and was eager to never let go.
Still, as Ruby dug her omurice, savoring the chicken and rice combined with the scrambled eggs, topped off with ketchup, Ruby couldn’t help but wonder if her tongue could afford to love two different foods at the same time. Ruby had two hands after all: she could afford to hold strawberries in one hand and Jaune’s omurice in another!
“Oh, Ruby.” Jaune perked up, producing a napkin from his person. “You, uh, you have some rice on your lips.”
As if by instinct, Ruby offered her mouth to Jaune, years of being taken care of by Yang kicking in. In many ways, Ruby felt, it was exactly what Yang would do for her. It wasn’t her fault that Yang had made it a habit to treat her almost like a child, even as she grew older, and part of it was the way that Yang fussed over Ruby whenever they ate. It would start with simple things, like Yang chiding Ruby for getting cookie crumbs all over her mouth, or spilling some noodles on her dress, and would snowball into incidents like the time that Ruby cried herself to sleep after spilling her strawberry frozen yogurt on the floor. Yang did her best, wiping her face even as the tears flowed nonstop and her nose was filled with snot, and Ruby only recalled waking up the next day in Yang’s arms, with only the vague memory of Yang singing her a lullaby to sleep to explain what had happened. In many ways, Ruby could admit, Yang had always kept her safe and warm.
Still, it was different, the way that Yang made her feel safe and warm from the strange heat that was spreading throughout her body as Jaune gently wiped her lips with his napkin, making sure to get all the stray grains of rice that Ruby had failed to account for. She would have objected to the way that Jaune was treating her like a child, but there was something warm and comforting about the way that Jaune pampered her, something familiar yet different from the way that Yang did. She even held back the noise her throat wanted to make as Jaune paused to grab a stray rice grain from her cheeks, seemingly forgetting about it as he retreated, before realizing it was still stuck to his fingers and placing the stray grain in his mouth.
No, Ruby didn’t believe in the cliches that Blake liked to indulge in her Mistralian cartoons, but just this once, she wanted to believe in the myth of the indirect kiss.
“Can’t let the food go to waste,” Jaune explained, noticing Ruby staring at him. “I’m actually quite happy with how the omurice turned out.”
“That… that was good.” Ruby managed to squeak out, enjoying the taste of the omurice that lingered in her mouth. “I’m not usually a fan of chicken, but…”
“Thanks.” Jaune replied, letting out an embarrassed grin. “The manager pays me extra to do the cooking too. I think he’s just too cheap to pay for extra work besides me, Ren, and Neptune.”
“Ren, Neptune, and I.” Weiss corrected from the other table. Ren had moved to Nora’s side of the table and was gently rubbing her right hand with his own as well. Ruby did her best to ignore the three idiots, especially when Ren moved to kiss Nora’s hand while Weiss took photos.
“Gesundheit.” Jaune offered, oblivious to Ruby’s fuming.
“Anyway!” Ruby exclaimed, clearing her throat to move past the interruption to their conversation. “How’d you make that omurice? I didn’t think something that simple could taste so good.”
Well…” Jaune began to reply. “That’s a trade secret.”
Ruby pouted, inflating her cheeks to give herself the illusion of being bigger and more threatening than she actually was. “Oh, come on, we’re all friends here!”
She didn’t miss the flash of a mischievous smirk that formed on Jaune’s face as she pouted at him. It was the kind of smirk that Jaune had when their team decided to commit to a prank war against her and Yang, the smirk that meant Jaune was up to something, usually at her expense.
“I mean… if you must know what the secret is…”
Ruby, despite herself, was overcome with curiosity, which was why she acquiesced to Jaune leaning down to whisper in Ruby’s ear. Ruby did her best not to shiver at the feeling of Jaune’s voice being so close to her ears, and instead leaned forward. Ruby found herself extremely close to Jaune’s face, their skin almost touching, and she could have sworn that Jaune’s lips almost brushed against her earlobes. Still, it couldn’t compare to the way Jaune’s voice seemed to simultaneously calm her down and send her heartbeat racing, especially when Jaune finally talked.
"It's love," Jaune whispered, and Ruby felt her heart being shot at with multiple glass arrows.
The moment was ruined, however, as Weiss and Nora began to break out in giggles over some inside joke they shared with Ren, and Ruby began to wonder if she could enjoy her private moment with Jaune in peace.
---0---
“So where are Blake and Yang now?” Weiss asked, during a lull in their service.
While the café was by no means packed, it was simply impossible for Jaune and Ren to wait hand and foot for them all the time, so the three were now enjoying a relative moment of peace, free from the two butlers. Weiss was toying with the remnants of the cake she and Nora were sharing, idly taking a small piece of cake from her plate and feeding it to the excited Nora. Nora, for her part, gleefully accepted the offering from Weiss, opening her mouth and allowed Weiss to feed her. Nora savored the cake in her mouth, squeeing as she held the spoonful of cake firmly in her lips, preventing Weiss from retrieving the spoon. Weiss simply laughed at that and waited for Nora to free the spoon from her grip before she took another morsel of the cake and brought it to her lips. Her smile was more reserved than Nora’s as she savored her part of the cake, but still just as bright and bubbly.
“iunno,” Ruby mumbled, still making her way through the strawberry shortcake that Jaune finally managed to serve after that fiasco with the omurice. She ignored the way Weiss blanched at the crumbs of cake that were gathering around her lips. It wasn’t like Weiss had to clean her up! Ruby had Jaune for that!
“Please chew your food properly.” Weiss chided, before looking at Nora. “You too, Nora. You don’t need to rush through that cake. We have all afternoon.”
“But the cake is so good!” Nora replied. “I hear Ren bakes all the cakes here!”
“Yeah, and Jaune handles the cooking, apparently.” Ruby offered. “Seems like their boss is running them ragged, making them do all the odd jobs… I hope they’re getting paid well for this.”
“I’ll make sure to leave a sizeable tip for the two.” Weiss offered. “I’ve not observed Jaune’s performance, but I am very pleased by Ren’s service.”
Nora raised her hand, acting as if she wanted to get the attention of a teacher. “I’ll second that!”
“In any case,” Ruby replied, finally swallowing the last of the cake she was working on, “the last I heard, Yang and Blake ran into Pyrrha at a nearby movie theater. Looks like they wanted to catch a horror movie marathon or something.”
“Yeah, Blakey and Pyrrha really love binging old horror movies.” Nora offered. “Sometimes I’ll get back to the dorms and I’ll just spot the two of them huddled with some blankets over them as they watch, like, some cheesy B-movie horror flick.”
“Huh. I never figured those two would be into that.” Weiss, dumbfounded at the sight of their two friends being interested in the intricacies of horror movies. “And Yang?”
“She tries to pretend she’s good with them, but she’s a huge scaredy-cat.”
Ruby recalled a time when Tai had brought home a box full of old holofilms from his STRQ days, when their entire team would spend countless nights watching horror movies as a way to “test their mental strength”. Ruby was not an observant person, but even she picked up on the nostalgic way that Tai described the way he and Summer would laugh at Qrow screaming every time something scary happened on screen, nor the way he was careful not to mention Yang’s mom. Still, the affection in his voice was undeniable, and Ruby was confident that that was why she found Yang later that night, the tears streaming down her face as she forced herself to watch horror movie after horror movie even as she flinched at every jump scare and screamed into the giant pillow she hugged almost half to death as she continued her journey into horror movies.
Weiss let out a good-natured scoff, smiling at the mental image of Yang being afraid of anything. “Well, good luck to Blake and Pyrrha, I suppose. I hope they can pacify Yang.”
Ruby let out a small chuckle at the mental image of Blake and Pyrrha struggling to comfort a grief-stricken Yang, traumatized by the horrifying images on screen. She didn’t want to be in the middle of that mess, that was for sure! Yang tended to blow things out of proportion and cause major collateral damage when her emotions flared out of control, after all, and as much as Ruby loved Yang, she wasn’t emotionally the best to deal with Yang like this, seeing as Yang had been taking care of her emotional needs since they were both young.
In any case, flying off the handle wasn’t Ruby’ style, or so she told herself.
Meanwhile, Ruby observed, their butlers were taking a while to return to the side, thanks to the arrival of new guests. Ruby never realized that there were door chimes installed to signal the arrival of new guests, and when they made that distinctive sound, Jaune and Ren immediately sprang into position: Ren uttering a silent apology to his Mistresses, while Jaune grinned and nodded at Ruby, before the two left the sides of their customers to attend to the new arrivals.
Ruby immediately recognized the group, as Ren guided into the café proper. They were recent arrivals from Haven Academy, newly arrived at Beacon to participate in the Vytal Festival Tournament. She had a hard time recalling most of them, though, even if she had been formally introduced to them before. Emerald was nice, though!
But for all of Emerald’s supposed niceness, it didn’t stop the team from, in Ruby’s eyes, being extremely rude to the waiters. The shorter, black-haired girl with the green eyes and the all-black gothic Lolita dress (that Ruby wasn’t jealous of, no sir!) immediately shoved Jaune out of the way, forcing her teammates to follow as she selected a fairly large table for the team to occupy. Emerald, the green-haired girl that Ruby felt was the nicest of them all, gave Jaune an apology, but did little as the short girl stamped on Jaune’s foot and gestured at Jaune wildly, giving off hand signals that Ruby didn’t recognize.
Jaune, however, did, much to Ruby’s relief, and soon had produced a menu for her to look over.
The other two members of the team did little to stop their erstwhile companion. The only boy in the group took a seat next to Emerald, and as much as Ruby didn’t want to pass judgment, the boy gave her the creeps, with the smug grin and aura he was radiating, especially when he slicked his silver hair back and threw a wink at Weiss and Nora when he realized that there were other customers in the café. Even if he wasn’t paying attention to Ruby, she felt supremely unclean just looking at him. His attitude screamed apathetic and nihilistic, and that was the type of person that Yang always warned her about. Ruby had a hunch that Yang would probably hate this guy, specially if Yang saw the way that the boy waved off Ren and Jaune’s polite offers for the store menu with a display of his middle finger before making a show out of ordering an extravagant (and undoubtedly difficult, Ruby guessed) meal that wasn’t even on the menu.
The last member of their team, though, was the one Ruby was the most wary of, especially as she motioned over to Jaune, and Ruby didn’t like the way that the tall, dark-haired woman’s occupied the head of the table, as if she was somehow above her team and they were simply subordinates, nor did she like the way her hands slowly snaked their way down Jaune’s right arm as she asked the butler to inform the manager that his “special guests” had arrived. Ruby was also not fond of the way she talked, or the way she lingered over every word, as if she was savoring each vowel and consonant, and even the way her eyes lingered over Jaune as he made his retreat to the manager’s office. No, this girl (or was it more accurate to call her a woman?) unsettled Ruby too much. She figured she wasn’t going to like her too much as well.
That thought certainly rattled something in Ruby’s memory, as she was vaguely starting to remember being introduced to their team via Emerald. That was certainly a memorable encounter, even if Ruby had accidentally implied that the taller woman, who she was now remembering was their team leader, was the team’s chaperone instead. How was Ruby supposed to know that she was a student like them when she looked old enough to be a teacher’s assistant? The shorter girl was someone new, though – was she a late arrival from Haven? And how come she refused to talk?
(Ruby claimed that she wasn’t paying close attention to that girl, but the way that the little girl seemed to delight in stepping on Jaune’s toes or making extravagant requests from Jaune in what Ruby was quickly recognizing as Valean Sign Language, or even the way that she seemed intent on making life difficult for Jaune with the constant requests for cutlery, water, tea… it was as if the girl was intent on making every single innocuous request she could think off to keep Jaune ragged and busy. No, Ruby was not annoyed that Jaune did not even have any spare time left to attend to her! She was paying for Jaune’s service, dammit! Never mind that she was planning on asking Weiss to foot the bill later!)
“Oooh, that’s one of the visiting teams, right?” Nora whispered, having decided to scoot over to Ruby’s booth to gossip about the newcomers. Weiss, realizing Nora’s abdication of their thrones, sighed and followed suit, taking the seat opposite Ruby and Nora’s. “I don’t recognized them – Weissy, do you know who they are?”
“Why are you assuming I know them?” Weiss huffed, although her tone of voice was more playful than offended.
“I mean…” Ruby started, before Nora finished with “…it’s you.”
Weiss sighed, surrendering to the ignorance of the two. “That’s fair.”
Weiss took out her scroll, silently tapping on what Ruby presumed was her notes app – out of everyone in their group, Weiss was the most judicious in taking notes, whether it was for Grimm Studies or for gathering information on their opponents for the Vytal Festival. While Ruby wasn’t exactly comfortable with Weiss’ notion of spying (information-gathering! Weiss would insist) on their opponents, she couldn’t deny that the information was proving useful now. Ruby watched as Weiss hummed, scrolling down the list of known competitors, before letting out a short grunt and she found what she was looking for.
“Right. Team name is unknown, but I’ve labeled them CMNE.” Weiss began, and Ruby could almost imagine Weiss putting on a pair of glasses to give off the air of a disciplined teacher, like Professor Goodwitch. As Yang would say, however, you’re ten years too early, Weiss-cream! “Their team leader is… Cinder Fall. Not much information on her, and her semblance remains a secret. I don’t have any access to Haven records, but in combat classes she fights with a pair of blades that can form into a longbow when connected.”
She slid her scroll towards Ruby and Nora, who looked at the images and videos that Weiss presumably took of Cinder during Combat class. Nora was the first offer an observation: “The scimitar design looks fairly detailed. Look at all those cutting edges!”
Ruby nodded, before adding her own thoughts. “Yeah, but it has to be light enough for her to lift them that easily. Just look at the way she swings that thing around.”
“Could be made out of glass?” Nora offered. “Glass is light enough to swing around but sharp enough to do some damage.”
“Don’t be silly Nora. Glass weapons like that are brittle. Unless she has a trick up her sleeve, there’s no way they’d stand up to repeated strikes, even with the help of Aura.”
“If you two dolts are done gushing about glass toys, perhaps we can move on.” Weiss cut in, and Ruby had no doubt that Weiss sensed that she was about to get on a tirade about the feasibility of glass weapons. That was why Ruby was glad they were partners – they were so much in sync! “Emerald Sustrai. Semblance is unknown as well. Fights with a pair of revolver-type pistols that can converted into chain sickles.”
“Her weapons are so cool.” Ruby gushed, and she was brave enough to admit that she had spent a not-too-inconsiderable amount of time most nights imagining the mechanisms of how Emerald’s weapons worked. In a weird way, it reminded her of Gambol Shroud, although she could admit that conceptually the two weapons differed in many ways.
“Eh. Lacks stopping power.” Nora joked, and Ruby held her tongue, knowing that the two of them fundamentally had different weapon design philosophies. Despite the complexity of her own weapon, Nora preferred more stopping power over precision, after all.
Weiss cleared her throat and continued. “Mercury Black. Not a lot of official information on him, but there are reports of run-ins with the police in the past. Utilizes a kick-based fighting style, but he does not seem to use any weapons, or if he does, he’s concealing them.”
“And the last one?” Ruby asked, eyeing as the person in question began throwing peanuts at Ren, who was dutifully ignoring the nut assault as he poured everyone their coffee. Ruby didn’t even know this place served peanuts! Ruby wondered if it was because they were, ah, special guests of the manager.
“No information whatsoever. It’s like she just… appeared out of nowhere to complete their line-up.” Weiss’ voice grew apologetic. “But I can safely say that I don’t like her.”
“I second that.” Nora followed up, and Ruby noticed the slight edge in her voice. “Let’s break her legs.”
“No, Nora. Let’s try not to break her legs,” Weiss placed her hands on Nora’s own, which had clenched into fists. “Ren would not be pleased with that.”
After a moment of hesitation, Nora sighed and extracted her hands from Weiss’ grip. “You’re right. We don’t want to make any trouble for Ren and Jaune. Not since, well, it’s our fault they need the money…”
Ruby shuddered, trying not to think about the chickens.
“In any case,” Weiss continued, “I know that they’re being a bother to our servers, but we just have to grin and bear it, as they seem to be friendly with this place’s manager. Look, they’re watching us now.”
Ruby cast her eyes at the direction that Weiss was looking at, spotting Ren and Jaune as they finally concluded the rest of the orders that team CMNE had made. She didn’t want to think about the mess of food, ice cream, cakes, and beverages that the two prepared in the kitchen (presumably with Neptune’s help, although the boy seemed determined not to make a cameo here) on their lonesome. Jaune looked tired, most likely from all the harassment that the short girl was doing, and while Ren looked calm and collected, Ruby could guess that he was activating his semblance to suppress his own irritation at the way their new customers were testing their patience.
“You’re right, Weiss. We should do our best not to get mad. For their sakes, as well.”
---0---
Way to make me eat my words, Weiss!
The last straw was when Ruby caught onto the fact that every time Jaune or Ren seemed to try and make their way to the three girls, team CMNE seemed to take delight in distracting them. Whether it be because of Mercury’s complaints about the food (too much salt! Too little salt! I want mine mid-rare! I changed my mind, I’d rather this was rare!) to the short, apparently mute girl asking for ice cream that wasn’t even on the menu (what the heck was durian ice cream?), even to the way that Cinder seemed to enjoy stopping the butlers to fetch her a glass of water or some napkins every few minutes or so, there always seemed to be some complaint that kept their butlers busy from attending to them. And dammit, Ruby was starting to feel thirsty again!
But really, it was the short girl that started it. Jaune was busy collecting their dishes (Mercury finally finding his meal satisfactory for once) when, out of the blue, the short girl stood up and kicked Jaune in the shins, forcing the taller boy to drop to his knees. Without missing a beat, the girl then raised her foot again and kicked him in the chest, and if not for Jaune’s aura, Ruby suspected that he would be nursing some serious injuries now. Still, it ended with Jaune on the floor with the short haired girl placing one foot on his chest, and all the while the rest of CMNE seemed unconcerned. If anything, Cinder was looking at them with that dust-damned smirk of hers, like she was provoking them!
For what felt like the third time today, Ruby asked herself what to do, and for the third time that day, she found her thoughts wandering to Yang – the way she rose to the defense of her loved ones, even if it meant fighting anyone and everyone around her, the way she clenched her fists as if trying to grasp the hands of someone who wasn’t there, channeling all that pain and anger and sadness into the strength to protect everyone around her. Well, isn’t that what Yang would do?
Well, Yang’s advice hadn’t led her astray today, right? What was wrong with doing it a third time today?
“Get your feet off my butler!” Ruby screamed, her voice reaching decibels she had never thought she could produce. Inputting a quick command into her scroll, Ruby braced herself as her rocket locker crashed into place, splinters of wood as well as cement and gravel exploding all around her, the rocket locker brute-forcing its way into the café. Weiss and Nora let out yelps of surprise as well as they ran for cover, Ren instinctively moving his body to protect his Mistresses from the impromptu interior redecorating that Ruby decided to do to the café. His Aura flickered from the impact but remained firm.
“I thought we were cool, Emerald!” Ruby shouted at her supposed friend, who had moved to shield their team leader from any potential debris. Emerald’s leader, much to Ruby’s consternation, didn’t even seem nonplussed at the whole affair, and even had the gall to smirk at Ruby. Well, Ruby wasn’t having any of that! “Tell your friend to stop stepping on Jaune!”
“Hey, I didn’t start things! Neo did!” The green-haired girl defended herself, motioning to her teammate to stop. For her part, the black-haired girl in the black dress and the heterochromatic eyes simply smirked at Ruby as she removed her foot from Jaune, who let out a groan as he felt the soles of the black-haired girl leave his chest. The silver-haired boy with the smug aura let out a guffaw as Ruby opened her locker and retrieved Crescent Rose, revealing its scythe mode and pointing it at Neo.
“Well, she got you there, Em.” The boy (Mercury, Ruby vaguely recalled), pointed out to Emerald. “May as well let the pipsqueaks fight it out.”
“Stay out of this, Merc!” Emerald reprimanded, and for a moment Ruby felt a pang of guilt for accusing Emerald of anything. “Cinder, please tell Neo to stop antagonizing Ruby.”
From beneath their feet, a weak voice called out: “i-I’m right here, you know...”
“Why should I?” The team leader of CMNE finally uttered, and Ruby absolutely despised the way Cinder intentionally drew out her words in a bad attempt to sound like a femme fatale from one of those spy movies Yang absolutely loved to watch in her spare time. “It was Miss Rose who started the fight. Neo has every right in the world to defend herself.”
For some reason, I really don’t like her!
Ruby cast her eyes at the leader of CMNE, the women who looked way too old to be a student and yet the official documents claimed she was. Well, if the documents said it was true, Ruby had no choice to accept it! It wasn’t like she knew anyone who had faked their documentation to enter Beacon, no sir! But speaking of unrelated things, she had to worry about Jaune; she had to find some way to throw them off-balance… and she had the one thing she knew would throw off their team leader and give her the chance to get Jaune away from the antagonistic team.
“Yes, well, you’re their chaperone! You should be taking care of your kids better!”
The effect was almost instantaneous. The silence that emerged was palpable, as Mercury, Emerald, and Neo all stopped in their tracks, and Ruby could have sworn that everyone began sweating profusely as Cinder’s smirk was slowly erased from her face. Ruby wasn’t sure how, but it also felt like the air all around then began to cool, as if someone was manipulating the temperatures all around them, but even so, her skin was heating up considerably. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain it, like she was burning up even if objectively the temperature around them was dropping rapidly. She didn’t know quite what to call it, but for some reason she started thinking of Weiss and Yang’s new team attack they conceptualized, the one they still didn’t have a name for.
“…what did you say?”
---0---
“It sure is cold at night around these parts.”
Ruby had been in many fights in her time, but words were incapable of depicting the sheer magnitude of the fight that erupted at the butler café. At some point, Ruby could have sworn that noodles were somehow involved, even if the place didn’t serve noodles, really. But otherwise, the fight occupied a space in her memories that was somehow blanked out, like the entire fight was pixelated and difficult to perceive. Every time Ruby tried to form a coherent thought about what happened, her head started to hurt. So she chose not to think about it anymore.
By the time that they were sufficiently calmed down, Jaune was knocked out cold and Ren had expended his Aura to try and calm Nora down just before she was about to initiate a special team attack that she and Weiss had been conceptualizing ever since the leader swap incident. Something about a Nordic Winter attack? Ruby did not want to think about why Weiss was preparing to cast a Time Dilation glyph…
Ruby was sitting on a bench in a nearby park, shivering in the cold evening air. Autumn was fast approaching, and Ruby regretted not bringing a coat with her, realizing that even her trademark hood was insufficient to maintain warmth. Ruby, for her part, was waiting for Jaune to come out from what was most likely his boss screaming at him. After all, considering the magnitude of the damage they had caused, and the fact that they were seen as Jaune and Ren’s guest, Ruby worried that things weren’t looking great for Jaune and Ren’s future employment, even if Weiss offered to cover for all the damages.
(Speaking of, Weiss and Nora certainly didn’t want to stick around and observe the ruins of the place that they had accidentally thrashed, whisking Ren away as soon as he was set free by the butler café’s manager.)
Ruby felt her legs ache, most likely from running around too much and overusing her semblance to dodge… whatever it was she needed to dodge. Still, she was adamant that she was going to stay here until Jaune was finally set free, despite hating the feeling of the cold evening air brushing against her, because it was her fault they were in this mess anyway. And all because I decided to listen to Yang’s advice…
And yet, somehow, she didn’t regret it one bit. Besides, she was starting to see why Yang was so… Yang. It was hard to control your temper when your loved ones were being hurt or taken advantage of, after all. Ruby would have gotten in a thousand more fights if it meant she didn’t have to see anyone hurt Jaune ever again.
“I guess me and Yang aren’t so different after all.” Ruby announced to nobody in particular.
Unfortunately, the Brother Gods had the sense of humor of a romcom comedy writer, as in that moment, a familiar voice rang out. “Yang and I.”
“Gesundheit.” Ruby responded, almost automatically. “At least you’re learning something from Weiss.”
Jaune said nothing, and instead emerged from behind Ruby. Ruby wondered where Jaune had come from, but instead of explaining, he just gave a wry smile as he sat next to Ruby on the bench. Ruby, feeling cold from the events of the day, dragged herself closer to Jaune and laid her head on his shoulders, enjoying the warmth that was radiating from her butler. Jaune was still wearing his uniform, of course, even if it were slightly messy from the chaos of the fight, but Ruby was confident she could clean it up and make it look good as new. Maybe she could replace the rose boutonnière that was ruined somewhere along the way!
It was moments like this that made her glad her semblance produced rose petals.
Ruby felt a pang of worry when she felt Jaune move his arms away from Ruby’s head, and for a moment that felt like it lasted an eternity, Ruby was worried that Jaune wanted nothing to do with her after the events of the day. After all, she was responsible for interrupting his work, and he was most likely fired from his job because he covered for her and her mistakes. The warmth that she sought comfort in was replaced with the cold evening air, and for a moment, Ruby never felt so alone.
And wasn’t that something Jaune was always doing for her, keeping her company and making sure she was never alone? There were times that Ruby worried that Jaune would drop anything and everything to rush to her side, just like they did during the Breach, and at those times Ruby felt the guilt seep in. For all that people felt that Jaune was weak or useless, she never certainly felt it –despite his everything, Ruby never felt so safe like she was sitting next to him. How could anyone who made her feel that way be useless?
Which was why when she felt his arms wrap around her, nudging her closer to him, Ruby resisted the urge to transform into a shower of petals to escape his grasp and run far, far away. After all, it was cold, and Jaune was warm. What else was there to say?
“Speaking of Yang, where is she, anyway?” Jaune finally asked, breaking the silence. “I figured she was gonna drag Blake along and join you guys.”
“Apparently, they wanted to wander around town today. Last I heard, she started a fight in the movies with Blake and Pyrrha.”
“Oh yeah, Pyr said she wanted to catch a horror movie marathon. Why’d they start a fight?”
“Apparently someone got a bit too handsy with Blake and Pyrrha and that set Yang off.”
“Man, what is it with you and your sister flying off the handle today?”
What, indeed?
“So were you waiting for me?”
“Yeah. I got lots of complaints about your service!”
“W-what?! I thought I did a good job!”
“Not good enough, considering how much I paid!”
“You mean Weiss paid, right?”
“You know what I mean, Jaune!”
“…”
“U-um… it was a joke.”
“I know, I know… just didn’t, uh, know what to say.”
“…”
“…so, uh, feedback?”
“I… um. The food was bad! And overpriced!”
“Wait, what?! I thought you liked it!”
“Sure, but I could make you cook that for me any day for free! I paid twenty lien for that, Jaune!”
“Again, I’m pretty sure Weiss paid for everyth-“
“Shut up Jaune!”
“…”
“…”
“Oh, and, uh, what do you mean by you could make me cook for you any da-“
“I said shut up Jaune!”
“…”
“Hey... sorry I messed stuff up at work.”
“Nah, me and Ren wanted to quit anyway. The pay was terrible, Mr. Watts makes us do most of the work, and the customers can be too demanding.”
“Plus the food is bad and overpriced.”
“Yes, the food is bad and overpriced.”
“...”
“...”
“Wanna go to A Simple Wok?”
“As long as it's your treat, Vomit Boy.”
“I did get my last paycheck, so sure, Crater Face.”
“You got paid?!”
“…You get paid for every day of part-time work you do, Ruby.”
“…”
“Wanna try The Blake?”
“Eh, sure, why not? But first…”
“Yeah?”
“Gimme a piggyback ride.”
“W-w-what? Why?”
“Because I paid for the special service, and last I heard, the butler has to serve his Milady.”
“…yeah, that checks out. Well, shall we go then, Milady?”
“Of course, my butler. Keep me safe, will you?”
“I always will, Milady.”
“…”
“…”
“...your back is very warm.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing!”
---0---
When the two got to A Simple Wok and saw Weiss, Nora, and Ren enjoying their noodles, Ruby Rose could only curse the brother gods' weird sense of humor, as well as the way that the three of them beat her and Jaune to the punch. Seems like they were doomed not to have any privacy ever again…
Damn it, Weiss!
---0---
Omake
“I apologize for the mess, Mistress. I do hope this will not be an impediment to our plans.”
“I certainly hope not, Watts. How is Cinder and her subordinates?”
“They are recovering as we speak. The Rose girl certainly put up a valiant fight…”
“Interesting. Keep an eye out for her, Watts.”
“As you wish, Mistress.”
…
Salem waved the Seer away, and as the tentacled Grimm floated (swam?) away from her, Salem began to meditate on the events of the day. The Butler and Maid Café initiative, as Watts had began calling it, was a foolproof plan: instead of waging war against Ozma, an endeavor in which she was at a particular disadvantage thanks to not being as… well-versed in the art of warfare, Salem had determined that perhaps more… subversive strategies were needed. The Butler Café Initiative was one such tactic in their grand plan of subverting the hearts and minds of the people of Remnant, until all were united in cultural hegemony, all in service of their great Mistress Salem. She had made great steps, after all, in infiltrating the Atlesian film industry, the Mistralian cartoon and music industry (her ‘idol’ concept proved remarkably popular, even if Cinder was adamant in refusing to be one of those Mistralian pop stars), the Valean comic book industry; all she needed now was a foothold to Vacuo, although the kingdom proved remarkably resilient…
And now, with the chain of Butler and Maid Cafés they were planning on starting all over Remnant, Salem’s cultural victory was inevitable. No matter how much military strength Ozma would manage to amass, he could not win over Salem and her ability to capture the hearts of humanity. He may as well escape to space, where she would be unable to reach him. Otherwise…
“This is the beginning of the end, Ozma… and I can’t wait to see you in a butler uniform.”
The… end?