𝐈𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 (English)

Chapter 32

"Weiss, can we talk?"

Weiss Schnee paused with pen to paper and looked up from Ruby's homework. She wasn't doing it, obviously, but she was looking over it and highlighting areas where Ruby was still deficient. At the start of her time at Beacon this had been a self-serving ploy to highlight how immature and unreliable Ruby was as a leader, but nowadays she did it to help. Ruby had missed two years of schooling and simply hadn't attended lessons dealing with some subjects.

There was a marked difference between someone who was too lazy to learn and someone who was so exceptional that they were moved ahead and missed the lessons, and her partner – for all her many faults – was prepared to do extra studying. Weiss had to respect that.

Something she respected less, despite her best efforts, was Blake's obsession on the White Fang.

Oh, she respected that Blake had changed and stopped being a terrorist, and that was worthy of respect. It took more to pull your back from a mistake than it did to not make a mistake in the first place. Blake deserved her second chance.

But that didn't mean her obsession with the White Fang wasn't a pain in Weiss' butt.

In everyone's butts, honestly.

"This isn't another argument, is it?"

Blake wilted. "No. It... It's the opposite. Can we talk outside?"

The opposite? Curious enough by that sentiment, Weiss set her pen down and stood. Yang and Ruby were playing some silly fighting game for reasons she couldn't comprehend – Weiss understood the concept of games for escapism but didn't understand why two girls who could literally fight better than the videogame characters would find any escapism in that. They were huntresses, for crying out loud! Shaking her head, she stepped out into the hallway with Blake, still half-convinced this would be either a ruse for a heated and waspish discussion, or some backhanded apology in which Blake passive-aggressively made it sound like it was Weiss' fault.

"So..." Her arms crossed. "You wanted to talk in private. What is it?"

"I need to apologise."

Well...

That was new.

"Is this about the arguments? I thought we'd settled that."

"We did, but... we agreed to disagree and... and that's wrong." Blake sighed. "I need to apologise for making it your problem in the first place. I've been angry over a lot of things. I've been angry for almost ten years, ever since my parents were marginalised and abused by people in Atlas."

"That's not—"

"That's not your fault, I know. You would have been seven at the time!"

"I was going to say that's not unreasonable," Weiss replied.

"Thank you, and I know, but the unreasonable thing is how much of it I've laid on you like Weiss Schnee – seven year old girl – was somehow making policy decisions for all of Atlas and the SDC. I was angry, and I was angry in the White Fang and they taught us to hate you. We had to, because if we didn't hate you then we'd have hated ourselves for the awful things we did. It was easier to push that hate on someone else then confront our own actions."

Weiss shifted awkwardly. This was an apology she'd secretly fantasised of receiving on more than one occasion, and yet now that she was here she felt nothing but awkward. She'd imagined Blake on all fours, almost broken with guilt, and that had satisfied Weiss' meaner cravings when she was in a bad mood, but Blake was a friend and even this small amount of guilt was punishing.

"There's really no need—"

"There is need," said Blake. "And I'm not finished." She took another breath. "I've been talking to someone. Getting help."