Yang Xiao Long is a Terrible Roomate

Weiss had thought Ruby would have been the worst possible roommate to have to spend the next four years of her life with. She had thought that nothing could be worse than having to share a room with a hyperactive, socially awkward girl, who happened to possess an unhealthy obsession for everything Huntress and weapon-related. She'd figured that learning to put up with Ruby's antics would be the greatest trial of her life.

She had never been more wrong.

Had it really been such a terrible thing she'd asked, that they clean up their room in preparation for her elder sister's inevitable visit? Sure, Weiss had insisted on dusting every single surface, visible and not, had insisted on sweeping the room with ultraviolet lights to locate hidden stains, and had required Blake's bookshelf to be fully organized and categorized according to genre and author (her Adult section took up a substantial portion of the bookshelf). But it wasn't as though she was asking for the impossible. She just wanted everything to be perfect for her sister's visit.

So it was with no small amount of consternation that Weiss arrived at her room, Winter in tow, to find herself staring at the most absurd thing she'd seen yet, during her time at Beacon.

Several zip-top bags had been filled with a white powder of unknown origin, and arranged into neat stacks atop a desk. In front of it, an old-fashioned scale held still more of the powder, apparently in the process of being measured out for another bag. Next to it was a plate, lying next to a hundred-lien card, with more powder having been moved into a narrow line, with a rolled piece of paper suggesting what was intended for it. Beside it was a notebook. Looking over it, Weiss found her mouth going dry as she read the title.

...

People Who Owe Me Money...

...

Underneath that was the subtitle.

...

For Drugs...

...

And beneath that, the ultimate sign that all subtlety had been thrown to the wind.

...

(That I Sold Them)

...

Winter's eyes narrowed as she took in the scene, and Weiss found herself wondering if her dorm room had just become a crime scene.

"It would seem that at least one of your roommates has taken up a rather interesting hobby," observed the Atlesian Specialist.

Weiss felt her face getting uncomfortably hot as she became more and more aware of Winter's scrutiny. As the presumptive heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, it was only natural that she be expected to keep only the best of company. Anyone who had been forced to reside with her who was not up to standards would need to be reformed...if possible. So, at Winter's eyes took in the bags of white powder and their associated paraphernalia, Weiss felt as though she might burst into flames from the sheer heat of her shame and embarrassment.

Then Weiss's eyes darted to the side, as she spotted something else white, which had been hidden almost out of sight beneath the bunks of her teammate, Blake, and Blake's partner, who was undoubtedly responsible for this atrocious sight. Ducking down, Weiss spotted several bags of...flour?

Blinking in confusion, Weiss turned her eyes back to the bags of white powder on the desk, then back to the four or five empty bags of flour beneath Blake's bed, then back to the powder on the desk. Stepping forward, she dipped a finger into the pile on the scale. Lifting it out, she brought the finger, now caked in white dust, to her lips and took a tentative lick of it. The familiar, harmless, if bland flavor indicated the truth of what she'd seen.

All at once, Weiss' hands clenched into fists, shaking with barely constrained fury, and she grit her teeth, baring them with an angry snarl. The word that forced its way out of her mouth was underlaid by a furious growl.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!"

Truly, Weiss had been duped. She'd been tricked into thinking that Ruby would be the bane of her dorm room existence, but she hadn't reckoned the existence and presence of Ruby's older sister. For someone ostensibly "more mature" than the girl two years the junior of everyone else in the room, Yang's childish behavior made Ruby seem like a fully-mature adult, complete with a multi-year, itemized plan for her future prospects.

Weiss had just been trying to be helpful, when providing a set of four bins for them to hold their toiletries in the bathroom. She figured it was the perfect way for them to stay organized, and keep track of the things they used for bathing and cleaning each day. Weiss herself expected to benefit hugely, given that she always seemed to run through her name-brand shampoo much faster than she expected. Sure, it was the curse of having such long hair, but even accounting for that, she seemed to go through her shampoo twice as fast as she expected.

Given that, the last thing she'd figured she would see, upon entering the bathroom, would be to see her, Blake, and Ruby's bins all filled with their respective toiletries, while the fourth bin had been filled to the brim and beyond...with a pile of yellow rubber ducks.

Still a bit bleary from just waking up, Weiss blinked in confusion as she stared at the ducks, her mind still not connecting the dots on what she was seeing. Finally, Weiss decided that it wasn't worth the trouble to ask, and decided to continue on with her day. If Yang wanted to waste her space on rubber ducks, instead of using it for the toiletries she needed (that hair had to take more maintenance than Yang would admit to), then fine. Weiss wasn't about to let Yang borrow her shampoo, if it came to that.

A few days later, Weiss found herself regretting not asking about the ducks. The bin was gone. But the ducks were still there. They'd been stacked into a neat pyramid shape, all facing forward, all watching her with those deceptively innocent blue eyes, orange bills open to quack in judgment of her for her folly.

Still in the process of waking up, Weiss stared at the ducks, and the ducks, as befitted the actions of lifeless toys with eyes that were incapable of blinking or changing position, stared back.

Once again, Weiss decided it was better not to ask. Yang was just doing this to get a rise out of her, she was sure. With a sigh, Weiss turned and pulled her shampoo out of her bin for her shower. She frowned, finding the container lighter than she'd expected. I guess I'll need to buy more, this weekend, she thought. The stuff available in Beacon's commissary was just not up to snuff for someone with hair like hers, so Weiss would have to go into Vale to get more.

Leaving the ducks behind, she went about her morning business.

A few days later, Weiss found herself regretting not doing or saying something about the ducks all over again. Throughout the days, the ducks had been arranged into different formations and groups. But today marked a true change. The ducks were not stacked where Yang's bin had been, but were instead ranging around the rim of the bathtub. From the looks of things, the duck out in front was being pursued by the ones behind it. At least...that was how Weiss saw it.

After that, she'd discovered that the ducks had apparently begun to develop their own culture, when she found them arranged in a circle around her rolled-up tube of toothpaste. A few days after that, she saw them arranged for a wedding, the ducks ordered into two columns on either side of a strip of toilet paper forming the aisle, with the to-be-wedded couple before the final duck facing the arrangement, acting as priest. That, in turn, was eclipsed by the arrival of Halloween (also Ruby's birthday), with the ducks having apparently decided to go as toilet-paper ghosts, complete with eye and beak-holes that Yang had cut in the sheets of toilet paper she'd draped over them.

Of course, the most bizarre scene Weiss encountered was when she arrived one morning to see that the ducks had recreated a scene from that famous movie about the big boat that sank...What was it called again? She would have figured that she'd remember the name of an ocean liner, whose claim to fame was being so pathetically-designed that it had been sunk by an iceberg, of all things, before it had encountered a single Grimm.

In any case, she'd discovered the ducks in the sink that morning. The sink had been plugged and filled with water. One duck, portraying the movie's heroine, was perched atop an empty cosmetic container, floating about the sink, while another clung gamely to the edge. All around them, the other ducks were floating upside down, indicating that they had perished in the ghastly, miniature disaster.

Weiss was beginning to wonder if she was losing her mind.

She also needed to get more shampoo...again.

Now Weiss was sure that she was beginning to lose her mind.

The ducks had begun to multiply.

Weiss arrived one morning, feeling relieved to see that the ducks had vacated the counter, the sink, and the floor. However, her relief was mercilessly squashed when she took in the tableau dominating the inside of the bathtub.

A swarm of yellow ducks was arranged along the tub's floor, all facing away from the drain, almost as though they were spawning from the drain itself. For a moment, all Weiss could do was stare, her jaw hanging slack at the sight. Where were the ducks coming from? Surely Yang wasn't squandering her Beacon stipend on rubber ducks. Surely there was something else at work here. There had to be. Otherwise, the only answer had to be that Yang was blowing a surprisingly large amount of money on buying rubber ducks solely for the purpose of unsettling Weiss. Blake and Ruby both seemed completely unperturbed by the presence of the little yellow menaces, so Weiss had to believe that this was a special torment reserved for her, and her alone.

Her suspicions only firmed when she came in a couple days later to find that the ducks had multiplied even more. Now they had formed a marching column, climbing up the side of the bathtub, and back down to the floor. By the end of that week, they had completely dominated the floor of the bathroom, having arranged themselves into parade-ground columns, all facing a small group of larger ducks, centered around one that, amazingly enough, had a crown on its head, clearly quacking imperiously at the assembled throng.

At that point, when she realized that there was no way she could even enter the bathroom without treading on those little yellow menaces, with their judging blue eyes and quacking beaks, that Weiss had had enough.

The text conversation began simply enough. Weiss hadn't been able to speak to Yang in person yet, so, at Ruby's suggestion, she'd settled for texting her instead.

"Yang, we need to talk about the ducks."

Yang's reply was prompt, albeit frustrating.

"The ducks?"

Growling, Weiss tapped a little harder than she meant to against her scroll's screen, as she hammered out her response.

"The bathroom ducks!"

"What bathroom ducks?"

Weiss nearly screamed.

"THE DUCKS IN THE BATHROOM!"

There was a brief pause in the response. Weiss was certain that she heard something snapping in the back of her head.

"Oh...Those ducks." There was another pause. Before Weiss could think of a response, the predictable question came. "What about them?"

Weiss took a moment to let out a tired sigh. Finally composed, she typed her answer. "Please stop. I was in a hurry this morning, but I couldn't shower until I'd moved a hundred tiny ducks."

There was another pause, and Weiss figured Yang was mulling over how to respond to this.

Finally, the reply came back. "Okay, from now on, I promise that there will be no more tiny ducks in the bathroom. You have my word."

Weiss let out a long sigh of relief. "Finally, the madness is over," she declared, turning to smile triumphantly at Ruby.

Ruby, who'd been reading over Weiss' shoulder, couldn't help but notice the wording of Yang's final line. Silently, she shook her head. You're too naive, Weiss.

The next morning, a sleepy Weiss opened the door to the bathroom and stepped inside, letting out a sigh of relief to see that the floors were now clear of yellow interlopers. She let out a relieved sigh. Finally, things were as they should be. The bathroom was hers once more. No more having to shift countless ducks out of the way to make room for her morning business.

She noticed that whoever had been in the bathroom last hadn't bothered to pull the curtain back open. She figured she'd scold her teammates for that later. Instead, she turned towards the counter, ready to start by brushing her teeth...

...Only to shriek as she came face to face with a rubber duck...one several-times larger than the ones that had been dominating the bathroom before, its bulk large enough to completely fill the sink. Stumbling back in shock, Weiss turned, then shrieked again as she saw another, identical, duck staring up at her from the toilet bowl. Spinning about, Weiss immediately pulled the shower curtain back, only to shriek again as she found her suspicions confirmed by the sight of another giant duck, this one nestled comfortably in one end of the bathtub.

Weiss stood there, shoulders rising and falling as she took heaving breaths to calm herself. Her morning sleepiness had been completely cured by the unexpected appearance of the ducks, and she now found her brief bout of fear replaced by a simmering anger, as her body began to tremble with barely-constrained fury. "Yaaaaaaaang...!"

Once again, Yang was proving frustratingly, if predictably, elusive, once again forcing Weiss to resort to texting her again.

"Do you think you're funny?" she typed furiously into her scroll.

There was a noticeable pause, before Yang's response came back. "A bit."

Weiss growled under her breath. She'd had just about enough of this madness. She also figured that she needed to calm down, or she'd probably skewer Yang with Myrtenaster the next time she saw the blonde prankster.

"I'm going into Vale to do some shopping," Weiss decided and texted. "By the time I get back, I want ALL DUCKS GONE!"

The hesitation that followed had her grinding her teeth together.

"Can I have just one duck for the bathroom, please?"

Weiss mulled it over for a moment, At this point, giving ground to Yang felt tantamount to admitting defeat. But she supposed that letting Yang have one small indulgence would hopefully keep her in line. Taking a deep breath, Weiss nodded to herself, before typing out her response. "One."

Yang's reply was surprisingly quick. ":)"

Weiss slumped with a tired sigh. At last, at long last...it was finally over. She would be free of the swarms of multiplying and growing ducks, and everything would be as it should. Order and peace would return to the bathroom.

That taken care of, she decided to get on the next airship to Vale. She had some shopping to do anyway. She'd run out of shampoo again.

The next morning, Weiss awoke to the symphony of birdsong, the sounds of a picturesque morning. Today was going to be a perfect day. She would train and study, maybe berate Ruby for her slovenly habits, possibly reject another of Jaune's inept attempts at courting, and cap it off with a perfect score on Dr. Oobleck's history test this afternoon. And, best of all, no more flocks of annoying yellow ducks, large or small. As Yang had promised, from now on, there would be only one duck in the bathroom.

Stretching sleepily, Weiss swung her feet out of bed. Once again, she was the last one up, though that hardly mattered. As the heiress to the SDC, she needed her sleep so that she could sustain the magnanimous attitude she required to put up with her teammates' antics. Yawning, Weiss stood up, then made her way to the bathroom, smiling blissfully as she reached out to open the door.

Weiss fell back with a scream, nearly stabbed in the face by the marauding orange bill that had been pressed up against the door from the other side. Falling backward onto her behind, Weiss stared up in shock, mouth hanging agape unashamedly as she took in the sight of The Duck.

Yang had kept her promise, albeit with an inflatable duck this time, one that had filled up nearly the entire bathroom, its imposing form so immense that getting in through the door was virtually impossible. It stared down at Weiss mockingly, and she could hear its taunting quacks in the back of her mind as her eyelids began to twitch spasmodically. A moment of staring later, she bowed her head as her body began to tremble. A slightly manic laugh burst out from her lips, the she grit her teeth, the laugh replaced by an angry growl, one that slowly rose in volume.

Finally, her irate roar echoed across the campus.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!"

"Wow…she's really mad this time," noted Blake, looking up from her book.

Weiss' shout had startled Ruby, who'd been in the middle of taking a generous swig of her milk, only to wind up coughing, the white liquid leaking out of her nose as she simultaneously laughed and fought to keep from choking to death on her beverage. Next to her, Yang merely grinned.

"Still…isn't this a lot of work, just to keep Weiss from noticing that you've been using her shampoo?" asked Blake.

"Nah," said Yang dismissively. "This is mostly just for fun."

Blake stared at Yang for a long moment, before finally pronouncing her verdict. "You're insane."

Yang cackled with malicious glee. "Quackers," she agreed.

This story is something I cobbled together over the course of a single evening, having been inspired by a comedy sketch on youtube by James Veitch, called, as you might guess, James Veitch is a Terrible Roommate, which, honestly, is a lot better than this story, mainly because it has visual aids. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you check it out (it's a couple of years old, but I only found it recently). After watching it, I was struck by the idea that it seemed almost exactly like the kind of prank I could see Yang playing on Weiss. It would certainly make for a fun Chibi segment, if the creators ever get back around to making that show.

For those of you who are waiting on my other stories, my apologies if this got your hopes up. This was just a brief bit of fun that popped into my head and that I had to write. I hope to have Red Thorn ready to start posting in at least a couple of weeks, as I think...maybe...that I'm approaching the home stretch. It's yet another story that's turning out to be a lot longer than I'd originally intended, mainly because I want to fully wrap it up, rather than lead up to another sequel.

Aside from that, hope you had fun with this.