Chapter 9: It Always Ends Well

Jaune was still sitting in the garden when Yang approached him. Ren and Nora had left some time ago at Jaune's request for some peace and quiet, some time to collect his thoughts. The tranquil area seemed to help clear his mind, and he figured he needed his mind as clear as it could for what was coming.

Now it seemed that time was up, as the figure of Yang loomed over him.

Jaune sighed. "Are we doing this now?"

The brawler nodded in confirmation. "We're doing this now."

"I guess I should explain what happened last night then. After we got to the motel room, the two of us-"

"Jaune, I know what happened last night." Yang interrupted. "I didn't actually forget it. I just… I was going to try and pretend it didn't happen." His fellow blonde sat down next to him on the bench, both staring into empty space.

"And then Nora happened?"

"And then Nora happened." Yang chuckled, before turning back to a more serious tone. "I just thought that if I ignored what happened, everything would continue on as normal."

"You know, I thought the same. When you said you didn't remember, my plan was to pretend nothing had happened as well. But now everyone knows, for better or for worse."

The blondes sat in silence for a few more moments, until Jaune finally broke the silence. "So what are we going to do? What does this mean for us?"

"I don't know. Surprisingly, I don't actually have much experience with this."

"Fixing things after a drunk make-out session?"

"Yea, that."

"Well, neither do I, so I guess we're on even footing." Jaune paused quickly, psyching himself up for what he was going to say next. "But Yang? I'm willing to give this a go."

The brawler shot Jaune a questioning glance. "What?"

"Us. I'm willing to give us a chance, if you want."

"Jaune, I don't know…"

The blonde managed to hide his disappointment well. "If you don't want to it's fine. I can understand me like that."

"No!" The sudden outburst taking both the speaker and listener by surprise. "I mean, Jaune, you're a great guy. I think anyone would be happy to have you."

"Don't worry, I know." Jaunes joking confidence quickly disappeared, changing back to fit the serious mood. "But Yang, I don't want you to be pressured into this at all. I can take it if you don't want us to be together."

"Honestly, do you feel this way about me?"

"Yes." Jaune didn't seem to hesitate in his response. "And I'm surprised that everyone else doesn't. Just look at yourself Yang, I couldn't ask for more. I could try to describe it if you want, but I doubt I need to."

"No, you don't need to tell me how perfect I am." Yang waved him off, earning a nervous laugh from both of them.

"But I get that you might not feel the same about me. I'm not some fragile flower, I can take some hits."

"Jaune, really, it's not you. It's me." As Yang took a break to gather her thoughts more, she could've sworn she heard her fellow blonde murmur 'cliché much' under his breath. "I like you Jaune, for real. And not just because you're the only guy in our group-"

"Wait, what about Ren?"

Yang just ignored him and continued on "But I'm not sure if I want to be in a relationship right now. We have so many things to focus on, so much going on…"

"If that's your choice, that's fine. But there are plenty of people at Beacon who manage to keep a relationship going strong."

"And I don't want this to cause a rift between our teams, to upset people."

Jaune looked puzzled. "Have you not talked to your team yet?"

"Only Blake."

"And what did she say?"

Yang paused for a moment, knowing exactly what Jaune was getting at. "She said that none of them want us to break apart, and not to underestimate them." She responded with a sigh.

"Yang, our friends will be fine. Ren and Nora are already ok, and Ren said he'd talk to Pyrrha about it. You're worried because all you want is the best for our friends, but don't forget; they want the best for us too." Yang felt Jaunes arm wrap around her shoulders, not in a romantic way, but how someone would comfort a friend.

"It's just… There are so many things I'm not sure about. How Pyrrha will react, how Ruby will react. Do you know that ever since we got back Ruby hasn't been able to keep herself from staring at me?"

"She's probably just jealous of how well you scored." Jaune joked.

"But that's exactly it! You were her first friend here, and you were only ever nice to all of us. It's not impossible she has a crush on you."

Jaune lightly touched his fellow blonde's chin, guiding her head so that they could look into each other's eyes. "Yang, I can't help but notice you seem to be grasping at straws, like you're looking for an excuse. If you don't want us to be together, that's fine. But please, don't dance around that fact. Just tell it to me how it is?"

"How it is?!" Yang seemed to finally break, all the emotion and worry that had been dammed up finally bursting forth in a powerful torrent. "I'm scared, Jaune. There are really only three ways a relationship will end. We stay together forever, we break up, or one of us dies. And all three terrify me." Yang felt herself shaking slightly from her outburst. "No one wants to go through a breakup. At best, we remain awkward acquaintances and go about our lives. At worst, it wrecks not only our friendship, but everyone's around us. But if we don't? I'm not looking into the future like that. I don't want to think about engagement, or marriage, children." Yang took a moment to breathe deeply, composing herself slightly. "But the last one is the worst. What if we do get together, and we do become really close, and then one of us dies? It's not impossible, hell with our lives it's almost expected for people to die. I don't want to have to deal with that pain, and I don't want you to have to deal with it either."

Taken aback by the fierceness of Yang's words, Jaune didn't know what to say. So he blinked once, slowly. And then blinked again. And then promptly burst out into laughter.

His response earned him a punch to the arm. "I'm fucking serious here, Jaune!"

The boy in question managed to reign in his amusement long enough to answer. "I know, I know. And I know you meant every single word you said. But that's an oddly logical way to look at the world, way too logical in fact."

"Why? What does that even mean?"

"Yang, I want you to think back. To before any of this happened, before that ill-fated mission, landing strategy included. When we went to get a nice midnight snack." He paused, to make sure the brawler was following along. Once he was certain, he continued. "You asked me, despite us not even being that close, why I thought you had become a hunter. And I gave reasons, what I honestly thought given my limited experience with you. You even seemed to take comfort in the answers, and I thought I had gotten a pretty good guess. But I was wrong."

Yang practically recoiled in shock, before going on the offensive. "Wait. So are you saying that I was just a shallow person looking for thrills? That I'm just taking the place of someone more deserving?!"

"No, not at all. And your passion about that subject is proof enough. What I'm saying is it doesn't matter. Who cares about why you once chose to come here? You're here now, you're trying your best to get better, and you care about the people around. But you're here because this is where your emotions led you. You followed your gut all the way to Beacon to become a hunter. There might be a logical reason, there might not. Who cares?" He paused to let out another bark of laughter. "This is the exact same. Don't use logic to determine your emotions, Yang. They aren't meant to be logical. Tell me, how did you feel that night in the motel?"

"I felt… nice." Yang described, for lack of a better word. "My gut was just saying to go for it, and I did."

Jaune smirked. "There it is. Don't let logic ruin your emotions, Yang, especially in matters of the heart. Last question: What is your gut telling you right now?"

"To kiss you, hard."

"Exactly, to give this a go- wait, what?" Jaune didn't get to saying anything more before Yang's lips collided with his.

As Yang and Jaunes confrontation took a more 'physical' turn, the remaining members of team RWBY slowly backed away from their vantage point. They hadn't been able to hear anything the blondes had said, but the ending made it clear enough how the situation had solved.

"I guess they really are going to date then, aren't they?" Weiss sighed, addressing her teammates.

"Seems like it," Blake confirmed for the heiress. "I don't know why you sound so disappointed, this pretty much guarantees he won't ask you out again."

"He hasn't asked me out since before the dance anyways. I'm just not sure if they're really the best match."

"Either way, they're going to try, and we're going to respect that. Right, Ruby?"

The young girl was caught off guard by being addressed so suddenly. "Wha-? Why are you asking me?"

"Because you haven't stopped moping since they got back, that's why." Ruby's partner snapped at her. "Surely this doesn't upset you that much, does it?"

Ruby shuffled back and forth. "No… Of course not…"

Weiss sighed, her expression softening. "Look, Ruby. If something really is upsetting you, just tell us."

"It's fine...it's stupid anyways." Ruby murmured, barely audible. However, when she looked up at her teammates, Ruby realized that her answer apparently wasn't good enough, if the looks Blake and Weiss we're giving their leader was anything to go off of. Ruby decided she might need to elaborate a bit more. "It's just… Jaune's always been so nice and caring towards me, and he was my first friend at Beacon, and I guess I just kinda hoped…" her voice trailed off at the end, but it was enough for the pair before her.

"Ruby, it's not stupid. People have developed feelings for less reason than that. Besides, this sounds more like a young crush than anything."

The red-clad girl looked like she was about to puff up indignantly at her partner's words, before quickly faltering. "Yeah, your probably right. Probably doesn't help that he's the only guy we hang out with around here."

"Wait, what about Ren?"

If anyone was going to answer that question, they were quickly cut off by some rustling behind the group, and the appearance of the remaining members of team JNPR.

"Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying, and for the record, I think Weiss is right." Pyrrha greeted, though her words her aimed at Ruby. "Don't feel stupid about who you fall for, even if it doesn't work out."

"You listening to your own advice here, Pyrrha?" Blake questioned, asking what they were all thinking.

"I think I am." The spartan spared a wistful look over to the couple, just a short distance away. "I always knew there was a chance he would fall for someone else if I didn't ask him. I can't blame him for that. Besides he's happy like this, that much is obvious."

"Think you'll be okay?"

"I think I'll be disappointed, maybe for a while. But I'll get over it. It's not like he's being taken away from me, I'll still be his partner and his best friend. And in the same way, he'll still be your friend, Ruby. And Yang will still be your sister."

Ruby nodded in understanding. "You're right Pyr, you're right. Look on the bright side, this is the first guy both of us really got close to. There's still a whole world out there for us to get to know. For all we know, we might like the second guy even more."

Ren coughed awkwardly behind them, but went ignored.

"Of course, Ruby. But for know, let us leave the two of them. We have a long ways ahead of us, and we'll need all the comfort we can get."

And there it is, the finale to my first story, Where We Seek Comfort. I know many of you are disappointed this is ending so soon, but this was never to be a long fic, as I mentioned. It is also partially that I am not the best at endings, hehe. However, I do plan on writing many more stories. Speaking of…

The reason it took me awhile to get this final chapter out is so that I could post it at the same time as the first chapter of my new fic, 'Brocode: Beacon'! It's another humor story, focusing on Jaune and Ren (not in a romantic way). Right now, the first chapter, more of a prologue, is up and ready to read!

Speaking of other stories, last chapter when I brought up my plans for the future, most people stated they would prefer to stay away from OC and AU stories, which I can respect. However, it is fairly difficult to avoid such things if you want a long-running story instead of these shorter ones. So I decided on a compromise; I'll try to keep two stories running at once. One larger project, the other being more like this and my new Brocode story: short and funny. What this means is that while each story will be updated less frequently, I should be able to get more stories out overall, as it helps avoid me burning myself out and writer's block. The large project I will start on right now will be the team JNPR one (post season 3) that I mentioned before.

But back to this story, I really hope you enjoyed it, since you did read it all the way through apparently (if not, what are you doing here?!) Hopefully you will also enjoy my future stories, just like this one. As always, leave any advice or comments you have for me, about my story, my writing ability, or anything you what to! I hope to see you in the future! For now, see you later.

-Dunkacoke-