An Assassin's Rose: Remnant

Chapter 20: Burning the Candle

Ruby sighed miserably as she walks down the halls of the school to make it to the ballroom that will house the party.

And if anything, she should be happy but because of Blake refusing to go the young huntress has been gloomy about the whole thing.

"Why the long face?" a male voice asked her.

Stopping in her tracks Ruby turns her head to see that it was Mercury who was giving her a small smile.

"Oh, Hey, Mercury. It's nothing." She stated.

"Then why do you look like someone just told you that they took the last cookie?" he asked teasingly.

The huntress gives him an unamused look and then scoffed at the very idea of someone thinking that they have the privilege of taking the last cookie. "Please, I always get the last cookie and if someone that isn't Alfred takes it. Then they're getting a bloody nose."

And that comment made the silver haired boy laugh. "Well, well, looks like little red has claws."

Ruby smirks. "Of course, I do. If I didn't then putting up with Damian would be a challenged."

"Your teammate a handful?" Mercury assumed.

"You have no idea. But he's taken great strides into improving his attitude."

"I see. But going back to my question, what's really wrong?" he asked genuinely curious.

Ruby thought it over for a moment before she sighed, "It's my teammate Blake. She doesn't want to go to the dance." She stated.

"And you wanted to ask her?" Mercury questioned.

The red hooded girl looked at Mercury in shock, "What? no!" she said a little too quickly.

"I mean there's nothing wrong with Blake. It's just she has been obsessing over her studies recently to the point that we're worried about her health and so we tried to convince her to take a break and just enjoy the dance, but she refused." Ruby explained.

The silver haired boy winces at that, "Yikes. Sounds rough."

"Yeah."

The silver haired boy then smirks, "Speaking of the dance, I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to it?" he offered charmingly and flashed a cliché twinkle teeth smile.

Ruby looked at the transfer student in shock for a moment. "Me? why me?" she asked in confusion.

"Well you seem like a cool girl, a cute one at that." Mercury said flirtishly.

Ruby gives him an awkward smile. "Sorry but I have a boyfriend."

Mercury looked at her in surprise for a moment before his face went neutral. "Oh well. At least I gave it a shot." He stated playfully.

"Anyway, I should get going. It was nice talking to you. Maybe we can do it again sometime." Mercury stated and took his leave.

"Yeah." Ruby replied softly for a moment.

And as she watches him walk away, she still can't shake the feeling of uneasiness that she gets from him but at the same time she wonders if she's just being paranoid about the silver haired boys' team or about him at least.

The Huntress then sighs as she decides to think about it later and starts to fast walk the rest of the way to the ballroom.

"There you are, what took you so long?" Weiss questioned.

"Nothing. I just got distracted." Ruby said as she sits down at one of the tables and continued to sulk a little more about their problem with Blake.