Anyone familiar with video games is aware of the anxiety ridden moments when your low level character enters a harmless dungeon and you suddenly hear the boss music start, all while the only entrance closes behind you.

It's a moment of extreme surprise, even terror, where you have no choice but to progress despite knowing you have a very small chance of living through the encounter.

Said scenario was exactly how Lie Ren saw verbal confrontation, discussions about, ugh, feelings, and… well… socialization in general. Often he'd recognize the boss fight when it was coming and simply turn around before he entered the room.

On that note, he actually wouldn't even allow himself to enter the dungeon half the time.

Nora was much better at fighting her way through a dungeon, in fact, she found it enjoyable. Ren had learned early on that his life was a lot less scary if he just let Nora go through the dungeon while he followed her from a distance.

"What the hell, Ren?!"

But he couldn't really do that right now, and he was rather bitter about it.

"What do you mean 'What the hell, Ren"?!" He asked indignantly, stumbling over his words.

"If you already felt like this, why didn't you say so!?" Gesticulating wildly, she accused him more than asked him.

He marveled at the fact that they'd flipped between about four different emotions in the last 40 seconds. And it looked like "Indignation" and "Anger" were joining that list. This was not a fun fact by any means, quite the contrary, he sincerely loathed it, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Unfortunate, but impressive.

Even more unfortunately for the poor introvert, he'd just entered the boss battle of the game. This wasn't the usual frost troll. This wasn't even a silightly more rare dead-dragon-worshipping-zombie-priest. There was confrontation and feelings and Nora was most certainly not backing him on this. This was Big Scary Dragon About To Eat The Entire Planet levels of conversation.

"Last I checked, you weren't exactly rushing to say anything either." He crossed his arms.

She stuttered, "I just don't understand why we've been tap dancing around this for so long if we both felt the exact same way!"

He exhaled impatiently, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's not like I knew how you felt, considering how hard you tried to hide it!"

"I hid it because I didn't know how you felt!"

"Shouldn't we just be happy that these feelings are mutual?" he asked, narrowing his eyes and shifting his stance to a more defensive one.

She groaned and exasperatedly pounded her fists against her thighs. It was a position akin to a toddler having a tantrum. "Well, right now I'm mad so I'm going to deal with those feelings first! One thing at time!!"

"You just said you weren't really angry-"

"I KNOW WHAT I SAID, REN." She threw her arms into the air, "But you know that PAST ME IS FULL OF SHIT!"

"Maybe we should just calm down!" In his mind that didn't come out like a yell, but it didn't really matter; Neither half of the pair was too keen on "calming down" anyway.

"I have been in LOVE WITH YOU for YEARS, REN. IT'S A LITTLE DIFFICULT TO CALM DOWN RIGHT NOW!" She laughed, the same sardonic one with an edge from yesterday morning.

"I've ALSO been in love with you for years, Nora! I REALIZE THAT!"

"WHY ARE WE YELLING?"

"YOU THINK I KNOW?"

They stopped and stared at each other a moment, glaring into each other's eyes.

"UGH!" she kicked the base of the counter and crossed her arms, "I'm so DONE!" She smacked her head against the wall and sank to the floor in a small ball of frustration, angry at herself for, er, being angry. "I'm done with love and anger- and everything else!"

She was always more emotionally intelligent than "booksmart", and had always been pretty empathetic. As such, the ginger was normally pretty skilled at deciphering her own emotions and finding ways to express and deal with them. She didn't exactly pride herself on this, but it was still a constant ability. Unfortunately for her, there were a lot of said emotions going on and she was having trouble running through them.

"Same." he sighed, sinking as well. He felt the energy drain from him. "Any situation where I have to discuss feelings is never an ideal one. Even in writing, apparently." he scoffed, annoyed more at himself than her.

"What do you mean 'in writing'?" she asked, looking up from her knees to lock eyes with him.

"Jaune had me try to write a love letter." he smirked, "Emphasis on try."

Nora smiled a little, breathing a laugh, "That's actually pretty sweet."

"I literally couldn't list more than two things I love about you."

She shot him a vaguely insulted expression. "Slightly less sweet?"

"I mean," he smiled a little, "Not because I couldn't think of anything. I'm just bad at verbalizing it."

"Understandable." Her smile got wider and she sighed, crawling over and sitting next to him. She leaned on his shoulder, and he rested his head against hers. "We're both idiots, aren't we?"

"When it comes to this stuff? Absolutely."

She nodded good naturedly, "I meant it, ya know. Past me? Full of shit."

He laughed, "Can't be that bad.."

"Past me should have said 'I love you' instead... Maybe not early on, but definitely at initiation." she said wistfully.

"Instead of what?"

The deer in the headlights look was back as her wide-eyed gaze became stuck on the light fixtures. "I think that's um… a story for another time. I promise I'll tell you but I dunno if I can handle 'embarrassment' being added to the emotions roster."

He smirked, "I'm about ready to tear the roster in half. It's weird having so many different parts of my brain yelling at me." She relaxed against him, wrapping an arm around him in a weird half hug, which he returned before she propped herself up so she could look up into his eyes with a soft smile.

"That could be the title of my autobiography, honestly." She giggled, face inches from his, "I really do love you."

"I figured that out somewhere along the line," he grinned. For once, he wasn't trying to force himself to maintain his stoic exterior while Nora was this close. Sure of what was happening, finally having a (small and loose) handle on all the things he was feeling…

...And then he made the mistake of glancing at her lips and his grin faltered.

On her side, the butterflies in her stomach were flapping hard enough to cause a hurricane. Her face burned as she realized just where this was going. Electric blue eyes were fixated on Ren's magenta, holding each other's gaze with a knowing yet hesitant stare. It was simply a matter of time until one of them had to lean in.

"If you want to stop," she said, voice hardly more than a whisper due to how little she felt she was breathing, "you should really tell me no- OOMPH-!"

Nora was honestly relieved they were on the floor, because her knees would have given out the second he pressed his lips against hers. He was slow, gentle.

That hadn't ever really been her vibe, however. She grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and yanked him closer. His arms circled her, pulling her in even tighter, until there was practically no space left between them. Where both of their brains were waterlogged with thoughts beforehand, every last one of them had floated away. The only thing that existed in this moment was the two of them.

The kiss wasn't perfect by romance novel standards, of course; Neither of them had ever done this before. But by their standards, it was just about perfect.

It was wonderful, and new, and fun, and calming, yet it was exciting, and it was amazing and a million other things and it was everything because 'perfect' didn't do this feeling any justice.

"Look, there's no point in being worried now," Yang said as they left the elevator, "They're probably going to go back to being friends by Wednesday."

"I don't think they'd ever cut each other off entirely, but I really thought bumping into each other in the kitchen would be enough to get them talking." Pyrrha said forlornly.

"And probably yelling."

Pyrrha hung her head, "I genuinely thought they'd get together."

"Someday," Yang smiled as they neared the kitchen. "I don't hear them. They're probably back in the dorm by now."

"In that case, would you like to get something?"

"Always, Pyrrha. Always. We should probably also grab some ice cream or something for Nora."

"You really think it'll be that bad?" The redhead looked mortified.

Yang shook her head, hair falling over her shoulder. "No, but I know for a fact there's no way they've gotten together after this morning."

There are limited things one can expect when they enter a kitchen. Perhaps the pleasant aroma of someone cooking a nice breakfast. Maybe a team enjoying a nice meal together, being loud and cracking obnoxious jokes. An occasional instance of "too many cookies" being made, leading to what was essentially free food for a lucky passerby.

One generally doesn't expect to find their friends canoodling on the floor next to an overturned barstool and a broken plate.

Pyrrha froze in shock, and while Yang looked momentarily miffed at the universe deciding to prove her wrong yet again, she quickly adopted a cheshire grin.

"You didn't actually have to slam him against a wall, Nora."

The pair jumped like startled alley cats (Nora even shrieked like one), pushing away from each other and slowly looking over at a very stunned Pyrrha and an even more smug Yang. Pyrrha, once recovered, immediately beamed and went to go find Jaune to tell him the news. Yang, once she'd recovered a sandwich, left for similar reasons, except hers was specifically to go find Weiss and gloat about what seemed to be the absence of a "formal agreement".

After what seemed like ages of sitting frozen in their places, Nora finally turned back to Ren with a shaky breath and a nervous smile. "That was a thing."

"That was, indeed, a thing." He agreed. "Lots of things did just occur."

"So…" she started, "Does this mean we're…" she asked hopefully, "Together-together?"

"I hope so," Ren said, relieved, "I don't really know what else would, at this point."

"You know how we should celebrate?" She gave him a familiar hopeful look.

He sighed and ruffled her hair as they stood up. "I'll start making batter while you clean up the plate."