Someone interrupts her plans by knocking on the door

A knock interrupted Ruby’s thoughts before she could decide on a course of action.

“I got it!” Weiss cried out before Ruby had a chance to do anything. Maybe that was the energy Weiss and Yang always said Ruby had. She zipped over to the door and opened it. “Hi, Jaune and… Blake?” Ruby had a brief glimpse of the way Weiss looked at Jaune. Normally, she put up with him unless he tried to flirt with her. This time her expression was of someone greeting a best friend. Which made sense, as Jaune was Ruby’s best guy friend and Weiss believed she was Ruby. Weiss stepped back and allowed Blake to pass through.

“You might want to stand back,” Blake advised Weiss.

“Huh?” Weiss looked confused and then turned to Jaune. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Ruby,” Jaune greeted her. “Think I could talk to Weiss real fast.”

“Uhhh.” Weiss turned around and looked at Ruby. “She’s free, but…” The hesitancy was not hidden in her voice. Ruby knew why that was the case. She knew what Jaune wanted to do and it hadn’t worked in the past, but she also didn’t want to get between them. This was something between the two of them.

“Fine,” Ruby huffed and stood up. This is where things got confusing.

She was trying to figure out how to act. Weiss’s attitude toward Jaune would be of indifference and slight scorning, due to his lack of academic achievement and combat prowess. However, Ruby was the exact opposite. She liked Jaune, not the way Yang suggested of course, but as a close friend. She really didn’t want to treat him badly. As she made her way toward the door, her mind was fighting against Weiss’s life instincts. Ruby found out she could suppress the desire which she did, though she was a little worried people might think Weiss was acting weird if she diverged too much.

“What do you want, Arc?” Ruby asked. That response was a good compromise. Weiss would have added something along the lines of; ‘It’s never going to happen,’ or ‘If you ask me out again, I’m going to freeze you.’

“I was wondering if you free tomorrow,” Jaune asked hopefully. “There’s a nice little café that just opened up and then maybe we could see a movie tomorrow.” A pure white rose was clutched in his outstretched hand.

Weiss’s life was screaming at her to say no.

Ruby could not deny that was the appropriate response. Every fiber in her being knew that, including the fact she had seen Weiss deny him dates multiple times. Ruby had felt bad for him, but for some reason, she was kind of glad Weiss didn’t agree. The reason why was unknown to her. Her hand fiddled with the remote hidden in her sleeve, as she stared at Jaune’s hopeful puppy dog like expression. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby noticed Blake sitting down on her bed with a roll of her eyes. Weiss on the other hand kept looking anxiously between her and Jaune.

Ruby had a couple choices. She could tell Jaune no and keep up appearances. This would be the obvious choice. However, thinking of telling Jaune that made her feel queasy. The other option was to say yes. Jaune was a nice guy and Weiss should at least give him a chance. The problem was Ruby didn’t know what would happen after saying yes and then giving Weiss back her life. Would she know what happened or would it get swept under the rug and Jaune would only find more disappointment?

There was a third option available to her. She could swap with one of the three others there and not have to make the tough decision herself. The thing was it would be a little cowardly on her part.

Originally by Zone