"I-I know how it looks, but I promise I wasn't just running away, ok? I actually had to follow up on something important." Jaune defended as Yang and Blake cornered him upon his return. "Were you two just waiting in my bedroom?"
"The whole time, master." Emerald nodded from the corner, seemingly unaffected by it all. "Even I could only deceive them for a mere ten minutes before they realized the truth."
She smirked as the other two girls scowled at her. Her lips curled up in a smug smirk.
Shit, now he couldn't stop thinking about her lips either. He was trying to not stare at Yang's and Blake's, but ahhhhhh.
"What was so important that you left without saying anything to anyone but Emerald? We all had to jump through hoops to keep the adults from finding out." Yang scowled, but she seemed more pouty somehow than actually mad.
"It's all over Mistral news right now, but I guess it hasn't really made it down into Menagerie yet." Jaune sighed, his hands slightly hampered by the two girls' hands on his wrists as he reached for his Scroll. "A bunch of self-proclaimed former Huntsman and Huntresses in fancy armor calling themselves the Black Knights attacked a pretty illegal mining op in South East Animus."
"Why would that matter?" Blake frowned, looking at the headlines and photos from the various news companies Jaune was subscribed to (he was never repeating the issue of being not in the know again after Roman) from the Mistral side. "That's a full landmass away."
"Blake. They're the ones that stole the you-know-what somehow."
Her amber eyes leapt to his, and he wasn't able to control his body's involuntary heart-skip this time. Shit. He'd been better at controlling his reactions to the girls before last night. He'd been pretty on point about it all until recently, had even been pretty proud of the fact he'd begun to been able to keep his physical reactions separate.
He'd always felt a bit guilty whenever he'd thought of his friends like that. He'd been worried he was betraying their trust, but apparently he was the only one that had been concerned about that?
"What?"
"Hold up. Something got stolen from Jaune?" Yang followed up with a frown, even Emerald stepping out from the corner of the room, her garnet eyes alight with fury. "Who the hell would do that?!"
"Shhhhh!" Jaune warned, a finger placed over Yang's lips.
His eyes glanced down. He swallowed, pulling his finger back and looking away embarrassed.
"...he." Yang let out a small triumphant chuckle as he groaned, his ears drooping as turned his head downwards. "Alright, alright. I'll be good." She teased quietly, her eyes glimmering mischievously.
The hell was he supposed to do?
And Big Brother Juniper had left the room! Traitor! What good was privacy when he needed guidance?! The hell did he mean, this was a part of puberty! HELP!
"Look. I'm just taking some steps to try to look into it, but they were sneaky enough to get in and out of Menagerie undetected so I have to take them seriously. They're cautious, even left after taking care of what they were doing immediately and I didn't have any means of getting to the location of the incident without being super obvious. Only way I can travel that fast overland is really obvious."
"What, your Fenrir?" Blake asked curiously. "You did mention last time that it wasn't even it's full speed."
"Th-that's not super important." Jaune sidestepped the issue. Even if he told them about the Gacha they'd forget it again anyways. "I was just trying to lay down a bit of groundwork and had to stop by Mistral. I'll probably have to pop away a few times for the next few weeks for it too, depending on what happens."
"Then… you're saying you're free now?" Blake's Aura flickered against his, midnight dewdrops against his skin filled with both nervousness and excitement. "For a… a talk?"
"Y-yeah." He weakly replied, trying to muster up a bit more courage. "Of course. I, uh. I'm gonna be honest, I'm a bit lost and Juniper's saying it's something I have to learn to manage myself, so he's been no help at all."
For once.
"Probably right." Yang giggled, gosh she had a pretty laugh, always had, "It'd be awkward knowing the old man was hovering around in the room."
"He's not old!" Jaune defended. "I- He's- y'know. Ageless, yeah!"
Emerald, who'd not received tangible proof of his Big Brother Juniper still nodded, somehow taking his words as gospel regardless of how ridiculous it was to an outside observer. Emerald was great, honestly. Probably better than he deserved.
"Either way, I'm going to ask because I already have an idea of the problem, what's confusing you, Jaune?" Blake asked him, a frown on her pretty face.
"Uh… like. I donno. I just never thought myself… attractive? Like physically or emotionally? I'm not really all that tall, or very manly lookin'. Plus I have… I have a lotta baggage. I shouldn't have to force anybody to deal with any of that until I'm able to get over more. And that's just part one."
"Part one? Ugh, you're such a nerd sometimes, Jaune." Yang groaned, leaning in to kiss his cheek, making his heart roar. "You think way too much. Just let yourself be a kid sometimes."
"I can't do that." He felt as small as his voice, despite the warmth he felt from Yang's kiss. "If I do that people might die."
"You can't blame yourself for everything that goes wrong." Blake assured from his other side. "And don't give me a I could be doing more either, you're almost always working or training. We have to force you to take breaks sometimes."
"But I could be. I genuinely could always be." He felt his Aura rise and bubble under his skin like fire. "If I just stopped letting myself be hung up by-"
"Master. Once you told me that should I feel you are being a fool, I am to stop you." Emerald spoke from the side. Though she did not speak further, he could read her hurried intent behind her cool, emotionless mask.
Jaune's eyes snapped shut as he took a sharp breath, forcing his Aura back under control, every breathing exercise he'd learned from the Gacha working in tangent to bring his heart rate and boiling Aura back to baseline.
Everytime he considered that line of thought out loud it had made Emerald afraid. That he'd start giving up more of himself, become someone different, that he'd leave her behind as he began to chase down his goals without compromise. Honestly it scared him too.
Also, that wasn't fair to her who'd for some strange reason decided to dedicate so much of her time to help him. Someone who'd been both friend and confidant, someone who he was responsible for.
So he'd made her promise to do so as a reassurance to his friend that gave more than he deserved. If he didn't know they were happy tears, he'd have felt guilty when she'd cried then, even borrowing his shoulder for a few minutes. Even when it was just the two of them it was rare for Emerald to let herself show her vulnerable side.
Jaune let out a small bark of laughter.
"Ok. Jeez. Cut me deeper, why don't you, Em."
"I am your blade, my master."
"Now that's unfair." Yang sighed, half-glaring at Emerald from the corner of her eye. "She gets to be with you all the time and keep you in check."
"That's part two of the other thing." Jaune gave a weak chuckle. "I… we… well, we don't even get to meet up all too often. Outside of winter and summer break. Especially Blake, I… I realized it when I talked with Ruby the other day. I wasn't meaning to, but the way I've been struggling to find time makes it look and feel like I'm picking favorites. It's not, and even Ruby was able to make me realize that, but it still doesn't change the facts. I'm sorry-"
"Don't apologize for that, Jaune." Blake shook her head. "Of course I wish we had more time to spend with each other, but you reply to pretty much every message I send. You've put more effort into our friendship than any normal person ever would. Plus you can't be so dense as to not see how much Menagerie changed because of you. I can't keep you all to myself. I… I can't keep you all to myself."
She gave a sad smile as she raised his right hand, her hands still on his wrist, holding his hand to her smooth cheek.
"Even if I do want to at times." Her voice was quiet and miserable.
He choked down the sudden urge to kiss Blake.
After last night, all of his hormonal urges seemed to break past the wall of inhibition he'd set up in his mind. His emotions overflowed in a way that was difficult to keep in check. He didn't want Blake to look so sad. And something spoke to him insidiously in his heart that if he kissed her now that he'd distract her from that.
But that wasn't a solution. That was a short and sweet lie. What he wanted was the truth above all. To not have to keep so many secrets, to be honest with his friends at every turn.
"Sorry I'm so difficult." He meant it too.
"Oh don't think of it like that." Yang pulled at his wrist, her Aura flashing with only a slight bit of irritation. "We like you despite that, so much that we felt we had to make you aware of it by any means necessary. Or rather, we like how much you want to be so clear about things even when you keep secrets about everything. Like that Neo girl, but we're not going to talk about her right now."
Weird how forceful she was about that all of a sudden.
"It's not like I'm trying to keep things hidden or anything, I'm just-"
"-always up to something." The three girls finished his sentence in sync.
Jaune gave a weak chuckle.
"At least I'm honest about that?"
"Don't be such a nerd." Yang scolded, "You're entitled to your secrets as much as anyone. Even if I like how much of a goody two shoes you are, you can afford to be more selfish. You more than anyone."
The worst part was that he'd borne his heart out to Yang about the truth before. He'd tried to prove the existence of the Gacha five separate times before he'd given up.
It wasn't just that he wanted to be secretive, he had to be.
Because there were gaps in Yang's memory that she wasn't even aware of and that was terrifying to him.
Because that was his fault.
"But yeah. I'm just absent most times. I can't… you deserve way more than me. I'm-"
"Fuck this." Yang growled. "Blake you alley oop."
Wha-
Yang met his lips, her Aura filling him with sunlight to his core.
"-huh?-" Yang pushed him away shortly after. Wha-
Blake stole his lips next, her scent of ink and parchment almost suffocating his senses.
"-bwah?"
"You don't get to decide that. We decide that." Yang almost spat, filled with concern and frustration. "That's not how it works."
"She's right." Blake agreed with a nod, a faint pretty pink flushed across her nose. "That's our choice."
"O-ok." He mumbled, feeling like a moron. A hungry moron. He agreed, but that didn't stop him from not getting why. "But y'know, it doesn't change the fact that I am constantly missing from your lives. Even if I accept that the two of you want, uh, me for some reason- I'm still confused, by the way, I'm honestly sorry about that. I feel dumb. Also, that doesn't change the fact that I don't think we're at that point where I feel like I can be fully present. And I do think that's a problem."
"My master isn't wrong here." Emerald chimed in helpfully, though Blake and Yang both turned to glare at her. "If you forced him into anything you'd only add to his burdens, rather than lightening them. Is that what you two want?"
"Shove off, Ems." Yang growled. "What, that because you're always at his side, you're the obvious choice?"
"No. I am simply on my master's side." Emerald shook her head. "I simply won't allow you to add to his burdens when he is already doing so much."
"...shit, she's right, Yang." Blake let out a sigh. "We'll just end up pushing him away if we force Jaune like that. Emerald, you're a tricky rat."
"Isn't he allowed to be selfish? To have more rest, to be happy? To try to have some normalcy? He deserves it!" It did give Jaune a tightening feeling around his heart when Yang got righteously angry on his behalf, but it also made him feel somewhat guilty.
Like there was something fundamentally wrong with him.
"We've both known Jaune long enough that being selfish would just make him miserable instead." Blake sighed, equally frustrated. "He's a genius, but he's so smart he rounds back into being an idiot."
"Oi." Jaune protested. "Not, like, wrong, but oi."
"Ugh." Yang just let out a groan, giving him another kiss on the cheek, as if she'd wanted to do that forever and finally had an excuse enough to do such now. "You're lucky you're cute, Jaune."
"Ok, but… uh. I need to know because I am truly lost. What changed?" He asked, honestly STILL confused. "I always thought you'd looked at me like a brother."
"I mean, yeah. That definitely was the case when we were little kids, but looking back I probably liked you not that long after we met, just didn't really get it." Yang looked a bit sheepish, as if she was beating herself up over it internally. He wanted to kiss her. A part of him still felt that was wrong, but it was being drowned out by the rest of him. "But unlike Clarent, your brocon of a sister, I'm not actually blood related. Like Rakan and Xayah from Team CRXN. I can like you like that without issues. Rather I feel dumb for not realizing I liked you sooner."
Yang blushed with a bit of a scowl.
"I coulda had so much more of a head start. And no Sweet Home Lahabrama jokes."
"Huh. Firstly, Big Sis Clarent isn't like that, she's just joking about being a brocon I'm… 95% sure. Plus, here I was just feeling guilty every time I felt attracted physically and emotionally with you. And agreed on the Lahabrama jokes."
Yang punched him in the shoulder.
"So I was getting under your skin! You didn't say anything, jerk!"
"I'm sorry! I thought I was being a bad friend!"
"What was the most effective thing? Spill it right now!"
"Uh, the time-"
"Yang, really, are you pressuring Jaune for potential fetishes, now?" Blake was the one that sounded exasperated. "Good gods."
"Blake! It was working! How could you?!"
"I feel like I'm in danger." Jaune weakly chuckled.
"I shall step in whenever something gets truly out of hand, master."
"Thanks, Em."
Rather was it weird that Emerald wasn't addressing the fact that she'd kissed him too? He didn't want her to feel like she had to offer herself to him out of obligation, even if a part of him thought that it wasn't the case, exactly. Girls were confusing.
Something told him he should just bring it up with her in private later.
"Still, I'm owed that one answer. Spill."
"Oh, uh. Jeez. I'm too embarrassed to admit to it now!"
There was a thrill of a strange triumph that Jaune ended up burying his face in Blake's lap to get away from Yang's triumphant expression.
"He he he!" Yang puffed out her chest. "Boys will be boys after all, eh?"
Stupid Yang and her big, soft chest. Blake couldn't even really blame Jaune for having been so affected by Yang's advantages. They'd… well, Blake herself did find herself affected as well.
Her legs rumbled as Jaune let out a groan, sending a thrill down Blake's spine.
"Well Jaune literally knows my legs like the back of his hand." Blake couldn't stop herself from bragging back at her best friend, getting a momentary frown.
Jaune on the other hand almost sprang backwards as he sat up, his face a bright cherry red.
Oops. She'd been enjoying playing with his hair then.
"I-WAIT-THAT'S-"
"You know I've been wondering though, just why my thighs are this thick." Blake smirked, realizing she'd managed to get under Jaune's skin. She had to recover something from the situation somehow.
"I- there's definitely a tactical reason for it!"
"Mhm." She raised her brow knowingly as Jaune buried his face in his hands. "Suuuuure."
"It's alright, master. I am on your side." Emerald called out from her corner of the room, getting a glare from both Yang and Blake herself.
"You stay out of this." Yang snorted, though there was less heat in it than usual.
"I shall not. I am my master's blade."
"Ugh, you're so lucky we're friends. That stuff is so cringy."
"It's a legitimate part of my Mistralian heritage." Emerald defended, and Blake had read enough that it was true for more highborn families and the wealthy to keep bodyguards/servants called as such. But usually such things were enforced by employers and not self-proclaimed the way that Emerald always did. It traditionally was a method of control, not loyalty like it clearly was for their Mistralian friend/rival. "That's rather ignorant of you, Yang."
"Still cringe." Yang argued back. "Thank the gods you don't go around in a maid dress with that attitude. You'd be a walking manga character."
"Lady Robin understood early that it would reflect poorly upon my master should that have been the case." Emerald admitted without shame, pretty much confirming that at some point Maid Emerald had been a consideration on the table. As… tempting as the image was, that would have been a nightmare in equal parts. "Thus in her wisdom she provided a much more reasonable alternative."
"Ugh." Jaune groaned as if that reminded him of something distasteful. Odd.
"What's up?"
"Nothing." Jaune quickly replied. Too quickly.
"This year's spring equinox festival in Argus our year has voted on a cross-dressing maid and butler cafe for our festival activity." Emerald gave the answer without a hint of concern or shame. "My master will obviously be forced to dress up in a maid outfit."
"Oooooh~" Yang whistled with a grin as Jaune groaned again, falling back on the edge of his bed. "No sneak peaks for dear ol' Yang?"
"If you get one, I do too." Blake deadpanned, though curious.
"Yang, you've seen me in a skirt before." Jaune protested.
"Yeah, when you were playing house with Ruby and me as kids." Yang waved his comment away. "But not recently."
"If I send you some photos, will that get us past this conversation?"
"Nope." Yang popped the P. "Momma wants to see it in person. Put on the maid outfit, Jaune."
"Ugh. We'll arrange it so you and Blake can come visit with my Shadows when it comes to it, happy?"
"That will do." Blake giggled, happy to be so instantly included. "Thank you, Jaune."
"We should also stop getting distracted and get back to the bigger stuff on hand." Jaune sighed, sounding a bit hesitant and tired at the same time. The way he sounded when he was about to blame himself for something again.
Jeez. Jaune always had weird confidence issues that made Blake worry, but it was only in moments like this when she could see just how little Jaune seemed to value himself.
It made her heart tighten with concern every time.
"I… I'm sorry. I think we shouldn't be anything official right now."
Blake had expected this when he'd brought up his 'part two'. Hells, she was sure that Jaune being the kind of overthinking and self-depreciating boy he was, he probably even had parts three through five.
"What? Why?!" Yang on the other hand was a bit less, well no. Blake could feel Yang understood exactly why, but didn't want to accept it quite so easily. It wasn't in her nature to take anything lying down without a fight. "But! But we!"
"Yang. I'm sorry. You're amazing. Blake as well, and I'm definitely not stupid enough to be adding you in as an afterthought. The both of you are. But once again, I'm out of your lives like, all the time outside of small bits here and there and then during breaks. That's not fair to you at all."
"But what if I'm ok with that?" Yang protested, even though everyone in the room knew it to be a lie. Yang was a lot of things and being somewhat selfish was definitely one of those, even if she could also be kind and sharing.
"You would be for a bit, Yang. But I know you. It'd eat you up that I wasn't around more often and that'd be a different can of worms to unpack." Jaune wasn't wrong when he put it that way. "I don't want to strain our friendship over that."
Honestly Blake was mostly sure that she'd end up feeling the same.
"But! But… I want this. You. Weirdly Blake too. Which I didn't even consider before… ugh." Yang let out a sigh. "Before Ems even brought up the idea. Even if my moms are… y'know."
Blake didn't bring up the fact that Ruby seemed like she was slowly becoming interested in Jaune as well. Either Yang would brute force make an opening for her younger sister into this strange setup later, or Ruby would have to end up finding someone else in the end.
But Blake also wasn't raised to be a quitter. They'd made their play, been rejected, but not fully.
It was because Jaune had a hang-up that was honestly really sweet and justified, although also really frustrating.
"Then what if we held off for a bit. Until we're all present all the time?" Blake offered.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Yang frowned. "How're we going to do that?"
"We all want to go to Beacon, right? At least you and Jaune both do. I'd only really been considering it somewhat recently, but I think it'll be best if I adjust my own learning for that as well."
Blake was diplomatic, having learned a lot under her parents. She might not be as much of a people person as her mother Kali, or as charismatic as her father Ghira, but she might actually be better at dealing in compromises than the both of them due to her own failings in matching up to their examples. That was something she could use here.
She'd come too far and put too much of herself out there to give up halfway now!
"By then we'd all be at Beacon, always around each other. No more excuses. No running. By anyone. We could give it all one big honest try then."
"Oh! Yeah! That's… wait. I… I don't want to wait another year and a half." Yang whined. "That's forever."
"Then let's not. Not entirely. We can still be… practice buddies. Casual and…" Blake felt hot under her collar. "Well, you get the idea. In return… well, I don't think we have the right to make Jaune promise to hold off on dating anyone until then-"
"Sure." Jaune offered up too easily, the self-sacrificing idiot. It was definitely part of the reason she liked him, though."I-I can do that. Shouldn't be an issue. Probably."
"Why the probably, buster?" Yang grumbled, poking Jaune in the ribs.
"The girl who I thought viewed me as a brother and our mutual best friend ambushed me out of nowhere with a romance novel and kissing practice to get it in my head that they're interested in me. Frankly, I don't know if I can trust my own perception of girls anymore to be certain of anything." Jaune threw up his hands as he bluntly summed up their situation. "I'm more surprised at how much of a civil conversation all of this has become. No amount of mental simulation could have prepared me for this! I've been freaking out over this on the side all day!"
Blake blushed at his tasteful note of her more adult literature. Even now he was mindful. He always strove to be, even when he fell short.
"Plus I really am trying to… trying to get over some of my own personal hang ups and other issues. I… I know that yeah, I really have an issue about struggling to be confident in most things. I pretty much can't even explain it at this point."
He sounded so defeated at that that Blake couldn't hold back, leaning over to kiss his temple, Yang joining in from the other side.
"He he." Jaune laughed at their affection, smiling softly. "I know it doesn't make much sense to you girls. But I just… I feel like a huge fraud, all the time. I have ever since pretty much the first time we ever met as kids. I've gotten a lot better. Everyone's been so helpful in teaching me that I shouldn't let this feeling define me. But I'm still fighting it, even feel as if I might be fighting this feeling until the day I die. But I… I'll try. To be better. I'm just… still scared of it, I guess."
Jaune let out a sigh again.
"Pit me against a Grimm and I've got no issues, but existential dread isn't something I can just cut down to size."
"No matter what, I shall be by your side, my master." Emerald declared quietly but firmly, annoyingly beating both Blake and Yang to the punch.
Shit, Emerald was going to end up sneaking into their little situation with Jaune at some point, wasn't she? The sneaky girl was just playing the longest con from the very beginning before anyone had even been ready to consider relationships as viable. Not that Blake could entirely blame her, knowing her backstory through Jaune.
Ugh. Thoughts for later.
"Ughhhhhhhh. But then the Jaune will be almost seventeen and that girl will be a legitimate threat. We'd lose our whole advantage." Yang pulled at a strand of her hair in frustration.
"Hmm? Why are you suddenly thinking of Ne-"
"Nothing!" Blake cut him off quickly, kissing Jaune again, taking slight advantage of him to cut off his ability to borderline read minds as he melted under her lips. The less he realized what a threat Neopolitan Rider was to her and Yang the better. "Mmmm."
Gosh this felt so right.
"You gonna share, kitty cat?" She vaguely could hear Yang pout above her.
Blake extended the kiss for a few seconds more before pulling up to let Yang tackle their kissing practice buddy.
"It appears I have unleashed Padama's Box upon the world." Emerald poetically noted, taking full credit for their situation. "My, my."
Suddenly Blake had a strange feeling that Emerald had been planning this. Maybe not Jaune's secret very important friend Neopolitan (He even called her Neo, a pet name) Rider showing up, but getting Yang and Blake to both physically confess their feelings as Jaune… well Jaune was great, but he clearly didn't pick up on romantic intent unless he was beat over the head with it.
Even so, she'd too graciously allowed Blake and Yang the first move. Which was weird because Emerald and Yang often butt heads, but… Blake was pretty sure that while they also sometimes clashed heavily as near polar opposites, both girls respected each other enough to like one another under the surface. But that didn't seem like a reason for the secretly possessive girl to take a step back like that.
A part of her felt as if Emerald had set them up knowing that her master couldn't accept them fully. Actually no, she was mostly sure of it. But it didn't seem like she intended to be malicious.
Rather she looked simply content that Jaune was being given affection.
Sometimes Blake didn't know what to make of Emerald Sustrai.