“But we want to go to the mall!” Citrine and Clementine demanded in unison.
Jaune sighed. “And we will. Just relax already, we have plenty of time to do everything on the list. Kiara asked first, so the bookstore has priority.”
“What are we supposed to do at a bookstore?!” Solana argued. “Just stand around while she pressures you into buying one for her?”
“You didn’t have to come, you know,” her brother replied wryly.
“I like books too….” Zinnia muttered just loud enough to hear.
Solana rolled her eyes. “Please, you’d agree to anything if it meant spending more time around Jaune.”
“Is that not the pot calling the kettle black?” Kiara teased, and both Solana and Zinnia erupted into bright red blushes. “No way!”
“Is there not a bookstore at the mall?” Nora piped up. “I’ve only been to the one in Vale, but they must have had two or three of them in there!”
Kiara pouted. “There used to be, but the demand for books in Mnemosyne isn’t very high. Everyone just reads on their scrolls these days, so only the most popular one managed to stay in business. How they lack the appreciation for the paper at their fingertips, I’ll never understand…”
“Maybe it’s because books are boring?” Citrine suggested.
“Or because they’re a waste of money when you can just get free stuff online?” Clementine added.
“No, I get it,” Jaune nodded. “Holding a comic in yours hands just has a different feel to it.”
Kiara looked disgusted. “Comics are not books. Don’t lump my high art in with your trash.”
“Trash?! What is that supposed to mean?!”
“Blakey likes books, too!” Nora interjected before it could get too heated. “Almost never stops reading!”
Kiara relaxed a bit, happy to know she wasn’t the only one with a high regard for literature.
“Of course most of it is smu-”
“Nora!” Jaune slapped a hand over her mouth. “No! Bad!”
Ren would normally try to keep his partner under control… but she was doing a remarkable job in keeping all of the Arc girls occupied, and he couldn’t bring himself to draw their attention onto the more quiet members of their group.
Plus, that would likely mean Aurelia would start glaring at him instead of Nora.
Aurelia was clinging to Jaune like a second skin, refusing to let go of his hand unless it was absolutely necessary, staring daggers at any member of Jaune’s team who got too close to him. It had been like that since they left the Arc Family home, and while most passerby seemed to look upon the scene with a smile, their hearts warmed by the sight of such a loving little sister among the bickering family, Ren had noticed that Second Thoughts didn’t quite feel the same. There was a look of… bitterness, maybe?
With the two of them lagging behind at the back of the group, it wasn’t hard to quietly start a conversation out of earshot of the rest of them. “Is something wrong, Second?”
His blue friend jolted, having been shaken out of apparent deep thought. “No! No, everything is… everything is fine. Just… thinking is all.”
Ren gave him a side eye. “Despite what some might believe, I’m not capable of reading Nora’s mind, let alone anyone else’s.”
Second chuckled. “Have people actually said that sort of thing?”
He nodded. “A few times. When they see how well I know her, and don’t see me use any fancy combat semblance, more than one person has jumped to the conclusion that my understanding of her isn’t natural.”
Second hummed, the two of them watching the siblings bicker and fight over Jaune’s attention, even if only Aurelia would admit to it. “I guess… I might be a little jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Yeah. Of his family, I mean. I… mine are still out there, somewhere, you know? But if I’m here now because I died…”
“I see.” And he understood, to some extent. When he and Nora had been younger, there had been a long period where they’d been angry. Bitter. Cursing the fact that while they only had each other left, other children their age had loving families to go home to every day. He had grown out of that long ago, though. “It gets better with time. Nora and I found solace in each other, and now we have everyone from Beacon as well. I’ve heard it said that huntsmen teams become like a second family to most.”
“I suppose you’re right. I just hadn’t… thought about it all that much. First it was the shock of being here at all, and then it was all the chaos, and even the last time we saw his family it was more tension filled than… this.” He gestured to what Ren was told was a healthy sibling dynamic.
Nora said something that made the girls laugh and Jaune blush, though Aurelia was quick to catch herself and go back to glaring.
“Have you spoken to him about it?” Ren suggested. “It might help with the situation between you two.”
“No. I don’t want to ruin his time with his family by getting him all worked up again. He didn’t ask for this, and we’ll have plenty of time to talk things out. Who knows how much time he’ll have with them like this in the future.”
That was true. Between Second, Nora, and himself, they knew very well that any moment you could have with your family needed to be cherished.
“You bitch! Stop pulling my hair!”
“Jaune, Solana said a bad word!”
…most of them, anyway.
----------------------------------------
Jaune found himself tuning out the quiet… or maybe not-so-quiet conversations his sisters and friends were having if the looks the cashier was giving them were any indication. Nora was getting a bit too into her storytelling, but it’d been the only way to get Aurelia off of him and he wanted to ensure all his sisters got some time with him. The shelves of the bookstore were stocked almost to the ceiling, and he found himself following Kiara down one of the aisles, idly scanning the titles printed on the spines. Hundreds upon hundreds of books all around him. Countless stories and characters…
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Just like him.
It felt wrong to admit that, even in his own head. To think of himself in that way. And yet, if Second Thoughts and Jinn were to be believed….
“Have you been reading anything lately, Jaune?” His sister asked him.
“Ah, I guess? Not the way that you do, though. Not much time for reading fiction when I have to read chapters on the history of huntsmen, do hours of training, do team building exercises…” Though Blake seemed to manage it well enough. Maybe he could make time for it, if he really really enjoyed reading, but he’d found that he would much rather spend that time with his friends.
She gave him a sad frown. “That’s a shame. There’s just something magical about getting sucked into a good story, you know? Lately I’ve been reading a book about a princess falling in love with her kingdom’s finest knight. The way that the author is able to make you feel like it’s real is amazing. It’s just ink on paper, but when she cries, I feel sad. When he triumphs over their enemies, I feel happy for them… Sometimes it’s as if the characters are real people that I know…” She broke out into a blush, hiding her face behind a book she had picked up. “Sorry, that all sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it? I just get so wrapped up in it all...”
As if they were real.
Jaune wondered if that was how Second felt about them, back when their world was just one of countless stories he had consumed.
Had he watched Jaune struggle, rooting for his victory like they were friends?
It was hard to think so, with the way that he spoke about it all. Calling them characters, referring to their worlds as stories.
And yet Kiara was here, not even referring to these characters by name, all the while she was gushing about how realistic they were.
Would Jaune have been any better had he been brought into the world of one of his comics?
“Jaune?” Kiara was looking at him expectantly, with a touch of concern.
“Sorry, I just got lost in thought. I don’t think that’s silly.” For all he knew, those characters were real. In a world of their own, with gods that may very well pluck Kiara out of Remnant.
She smiled at him. “Thanks. It’s… good to have you back, Jaune, even if only for a bit.”
He shook the thoughts of Second and stories and reality from his head.
“It’s good to be back. Was there a certain book you were looking for? I can help you search.”
“Will you buy it for me?”
“With what money? I’m too busy with Beacon to have a job.”
“Come on Jaune, I’m your favorite sister, aren’t I? Surely you still have money from a birthday or something in your wallet…”
“Who said you were my favorite?”
She scowled at him. “I’m telling dad you said you hate me.”
“You can’t just blackmail me into buying you stuff!”
“That’s what brothers are for!”
----------------------------------------
“Wow, this place is pretty dead, isn’t it?” Nora’s comment had a jewelry salesman giving her an unimpressed look.
“Compared to a major city, maybe, but I’m impressed there’s this much traffic. I’d have thought malls outside of the city of Vale would be closed down or on their way to it,” Second rebutted.
Citrine looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Why would the mall close down? It’s not like there’s anything else to do here.”
Clementine nodded. “What else would we do? Go hang around the farmer’s market for hours with mom? Pass.”
“We passed a bowling alley on the way here, didn’t we?” Ren pointed out.
Aurelia pouted. “Bowling isn’t fun. Solana always wins.”
The girl in question smirked. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” Her smirk dropped. “Or, wait, don’t hate the game, I miss going bowling…”
Jaune rolled his eyes. “Where are we stopping first, girls?”
“The smoothie shop in the food court wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Kiara suggested without taking her eyes off of the book she had suckered him into buying.
“Oh! I love smoothies! Come on Ren, lead the way!” Nora shouted while grabbing onto her partner’s arm, tugging him along.
“Why am I leading the way when I’ve never been here before?” He bemoaned, the girls giggling at his suffering.
Solana leaned towards Second conspiratorially. “So what’s the deal with them? She said something about not being “together-together”, but what does that mean?”
Second shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. One-sided crush between best friends? Not wanting to risk ruining what they have if it goes wrong? For all I know they could really just be friends with no romantic feelings at all and they’re just so awkward that it seems like there’s something more to it.”
Citrine shook her head in the negative. “No way, there’s definitely something there.”
Clementine nodded along. “Call it a woman’s intuition. Nora is just a strange girl who doesn’t know how to get her man. Strange in a good way, I mean. She’s nice, if a bit much.”
Jaune sighed. “That she is. But you guys are getting a bit carried away with this smoothie idea. I don’t remember that place being cheap. Where are you going to get the money from?”
Kiara pulled out a wad of lien, waving it in his face. “From dad? Duh. He gave us a bunch for our trip into town.”
Jaune gaped at her. “If you had all that, then why did I pay for a book?!”
The rest of his sisters zeroed in on him.
“You bought that for her?!”
“Me next! Buy me something next!”
“No, he’s buying me something!”
“Enough!” Jaune demanded. “Smoothies first. Then, we can maybe discuss getting the rest of you things, if you behave!”
Aurelia frowned up at him. “When did you start talking like dad? I liked it better when you would just give me what I wanted.”
“What? I’m not like dad.”
Second smirked at him. “I don’t know, man… Nora does call you our fearless leader. Maybe being in charge of JNPR has made you pick up some stern dad energy.” Then he frowned. “Don’t ever mention that after this trip, though. I don’t need the women in your life thinking about that.”
“The women in his life?” Solana repeated dubiously before laughing. “Careful now, before you get our hopeless romantic all worked up. Zinnia will start trying to play matchmaker and fail at it because she’s too shy to actually talk to the women.”
The other girls laughed and Jaune groaned.
Second looked around and frowned. “Hey, where is she, anyway?”
The siblings glanced between themselves, noticing they were a head short.
“Did she go with Ren and Nora?” Kiara suggested.
“She’s probably just in the bathroom,” Solana dismissed.
“Without telling us?” Jaune denied.
“She can’t find a restroom without asking?” Second asked incredulously.
“She’s the type who will ignore the fact that she needs something if it means she’d have to inconvenience someone by asking,” Citrine explained, doing air quotes to show just what she thought of that.
“Even if that’s something as insignificant as this and not an inconvenience in the first place,” Clementine added.
“JAUNE!” A shout rang out from up ahead. It sounded like Nora.
And she did not sound excited for smoothies.