Just One Date

Chapter 3: The Heiress, The Prodigy, The Champion, and The Fool

A/N: If you'd like to see early releases of my other stories then you can go to this link: discord. gg/zhn7zr7 [just remove the space]

Slightly shorter chapter for this week, but I hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless.

Betas: Amphion, DeathDrayanD (HomuHomu)

Weiss felt that the whole Beacon Ball as rather dull and boring.

Well, maybe that's because a certain partner of hers was busy drinking and watching people dance by the punch bowl.

Weiss sighed, staring at the white rose she'd kept for some reason again.

Why did she even keep it?

She didn't know the answer to that.

She saw the rose fall limp again and frowned, tipping it up once again.

Why him?

She didn't know. There wasn't really anything significant about him.

If she were to be honest, there hardly ever was anything significant about a lot of people she met.

Usually they all just wanted to befriend her to use her for their own gains, the same thing if they were trying to court her.

The first one, she'd been proved wrong by Ruby. The second…

Weiss closed her eyes as she remembered the heartfelt speech she'd heard from him just the night before.

She'd never imagined someone would ever take an interest in her in such a sincere way. She'd never thought she'd be able to touch someone's heart ever.

It honestly made her wonder what it was that she saw in Neptune that she didn't see in him.

Perhaps it was the confidence?

She didn't know at this point.

Hearing laughter to the side she found herself staring at the face of none other than Pyrrha Nikos, who currently looked like she was having a wonderful time with her partner as they danced.

Weiss' heart sank at the sight of it, she looked away, finding herself staring at the rose again.

Along with the empty seat in front of her.

Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered at all.

In the end, wasn't it as she always said?

She was the loneliest of all.

Ruby knew something was wrong the moment she'd left Weiss alone with her thoughts at her table.

It was so odd, what was so special about that white rose? She had noticed it since the night before, but she'd always brought it with her or placed it in some safe place by her bed.

She didn't want to ask because it might have been a private thing for Weiss, but the fact that she held through with taking care of the rose worried her.

Yang had teased her lately about how the white rose symbolized Weiss' true feelings for her, but she knew that wasn't the case.

She thought that was pretty obvious with how Weiss seemed to stare at a certain blond every now and then.

Weiss wasn't doing it now, obviously, after she caught her staring at Jaune and Pyrrha together.

The expression she'd made when she saw that… Ruby didn't know how to feel.

How could she help Weiss? It obviously seemed that Weiss somehow came to like Jaune now, but at the same time, she didn't know what to do about that since Jaune looked as if he was having fun with Pyrrha already. It even seemed as though they were much closer together now than before.

Overall, it seemed like all hope was lost.

She stared at her cup filled with punch. She didn't know how Weiss would react now if she came back there with punch, but… it was worth a shot, right?

Right.

Steeling herself, she moved to pick up another cup and fill it with some juice, but paused as she saw someone grab the cup she was about to get and filled it with juice.

She looked up to see the owner and saw Jaune.

He raised his finger before drinking from his cup, as he placed the cup back down and smiled at her.

Ruby blinked, but smiled at him nonetheless.

"Hey Jaune!" She said, "How's the dance so far?"

Jaune chuckled, "Pretty good, if I'm going to be honest, but, uh…" He scratched the back of his head, seeming unsure of himself. Ruby tilted her head at that, "I kind of need to ask your help for a bit… is that okay with you?"

She blinked, but nodded, "Yeah sure. What's it about?"

"I wanted to ask, if it's okay if I were to dance with you?" Jaune smiled and she found herself blinking again.

And again.

And again.

"What?" Ruby asked, confused and he laughed, she only got more confused though. "Seriously, what? Shouldn't you be asking like, Weiss or something?"

At that his laughter died down and he sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Well, that was kind of the point of asking you honestly…"

"Wait, why?" Ruby narrowed her eyes, "I'm not following…"

Jaune sighed again, "I wanted to make sure that what I would be able to give to her would be perfect… It's… it's not something I'm going to get the chance of asking again, I'm pretty sure, so I wanted to make sure that I would ask her as best prepared as possible."

Oh.

So that was why.

"Then why don't you just ask her?" Ruby smiled, "I'm sure she'd appreciate it."

Jaune frowned, however. "Would she really? I don't know about that…"

Ruby waved him off, "You'll be fine. Come on! Just go ask her out already!" She urged, pushing him towards Weiss. "If you take me to dance with you, you'll only make Weiss even more sad!"

"W-Wait, what? Why would she—" Jaune stiffened as he found himself standing by Weiss' table.

She looked up, eyes widening at the sight of him.

Jaune grinned awkwardly and gulped, "S-so… about that date…"

Pyrrha watched as Ruby pushed Jaune towards Weiss and smiled.

Well, she supposed, in a way, she was slightly at fault for this.

It wouldn't have taken Jaune so long had she just given him a straight answer.

She chuckled in vain, looking down at the cup which Jaune had given her lately. It was his cup.

It would be so easy, to know what it would feel like to kiss Jaune, even if indirectly, but no.

She didn't do that.

Why would she? He was her partner, if she wanted a kiss from him, she could have just asked any time and he would have provided. That was just how Jaune was.

He always had a lot of love to give.

Always.

It didn't matter who they were, the only ones he wouldn't give love to as far as she knew would be his enemies.

But that was just how it was, wasn't it?

He had so much of it, yet he never saw that it was exactly why he'd be everything Weiss needed.

Never saw that he was everything she needed.

But tonight made her learn about something, she supposed.

She loved Jaune, very dearly, but… it wasn't the kind of love she'd thought it was.

How stupid was she, to have been taught of Ancient Mistrali, but never remember the four kinds of love?

It wasn't agape as she'd believed it to be.

No, it was far from that, she'd been about as delusional as someone who'd been shown love for the first time.

But of course, she'd also understood what other type of love she felt for him, storge, the familial kind of love.

The same love she'd had for her family, just as she had for Nora and Ren.

It was simple really. It was the one kind of love she'd never felt before in her whole life.

Phileo.

How poetic, the Goddess of Victory, as they had so dubbed her, never to be the victor of her own feelings.

Never to be the victor of creating strong friendly bonds such as that.

She should have noticed it, really. When she started to feel the same for Nora and Ren.

But it was always so strong with Jaune.

Which only made sense, really. He was her partner after all.

What kind of partners wouldn't have a strong friendship like them?

So she chuckled at herself, shaking her head at the absurdity of it all, and looked up as she heard someone sit by her table.

It was Ruby.

"And here I thought you'd have been ecstatic to dance with Jaune." Pyrrha chuckled, while Ruby just shrugged and shook her head,

"Nah, not really. He's my best friend at all, but my other partner and best friend comes first!" Ruby grinned and Pyrrha laughed,

"You know you can't have two best friends."

"Nobody ever said that. Besides, we're all Nora's best friends." Ruby retorted and Pyrrha snorted. She then eyed the cup beside Pyrrha, "Oh, are you going to drink that?"

Pyrrha blinked, "No, but that's—"

"Oh cool! Thanks!" Ruby said as she downed the cup in one go, "Ooh, tasty. Wonder what was in there."

Pyrrha just blinked at what Ruby just did, before she just shook her head and chuckled, deciding to watch the other people dance all the while.

She saw Jaune and Weiss dancing in the middle of the floor, and smiled.

They both looked so happy, it made her heart soar.

Again, how could she interfere with a relationship between two people who were just so… right for each other?

Jaune grinned as he twirled Weiss one more time, delighting in the laughter that he was rewarded with from her form.

He didn't know what he did to make Weiss so happy right now, but he certainly wasn't complaining.

It was… it was stupid, really.

Pyrrha was right, it really was right in front of him.

If there was one thing he knew that Weiss lacked, it was love.

Her friends were there, but she knew that there were times it wasn't enough. And he could also see how she'd never had the chance to truly be happy around anyone like this for a long time.

It seemed right now Weiss didn't care and was just incredibly joyful.

He honestly didn't want to believe it. But here he was, making Weiss laugh, of all things. Even the other people around him were surprised.

As the song shifted and slowed down, they both held each other close and looked into their eyes.

They both had smiles on their faces, and both felt incredibly happy.

Jaune, for his part, was glad. He was incredibly glad, he thought that he'd messed up pretty badly today already, but it didn't seem like that was the case, he just wanted to be a perfect date to her, but from the way it looked right now, it seemed like Weiss just wanted to be with him.

At least, he hoped so.

"I thought Pyrrha was your date tonight?" Weiss asked, looking slightly confused.

Jaune chuckled, "Well, not really. I just went with her to the dance, that's all, honestly. I was planning to dance with her as well, but she convinced me to go ask Ruby instead and, well… now we're here." He shrugged, "I'm really sorry, honestly. I didn't mean to make you feel the way you did. I just wanted…"

"You just wanted it to be perfect?" Weiss smiled, "I can understand… but you really don't need to." She chuckled, smile turning sad for a moment, "You never needed to. I was stupid as well, I never saw what was right in front of me." She muttered, leaning close towards him.

He smiled, leaning down as well, "Oh? And what's that?"

"You." She grinned and booped his nose, something he'd never seen her do before.

Jaune blushed, stammering as he looked for something to say.

But then he realized, he didn't need to say anything.

So he just grinned and booped her nose in kind.

"Boop."

A/N: And, uh, I'm sorry to say, but this is the end of this story. I know, it's really short, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!

To be honest I was planning for this to be around 10 or 20 chapters showing a lot of moments and dates and stuff and making the one date count and all that, but... well, I suppose that with how I wrote it, it deserved to be short like this.

So where does that lead me next? Well... I'm actually quite close to finishing my other pseudo-slice of life fic, Blonde Locks, and after which I'll probably work on the offshoot of that, being Of Secrets and Reasons. But those are plans for later, we never know what can happen after all.

Thanks a lot for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it all!

P.S.: That last scene made me feel all giddy as I wrote it.

(If you've got any other story (that I've published already) that you'd like me to replace this story in the weekly update schedule then tell me in the reviews or in a PM or something.)
(I'd make a poll, but I have way too many stories to put in there and I'm too lazy to do that. So just tell me in the reviews or in a PM.)