Reader's POV:

Beacon's midterm break is coming to a close. After a week and a half off, classes are scheduled to resume tomorrow at 9:00 am sharp. Like usual, you wake up at 5:00 in the morning, don your robes, and make your way out to the fields to train, accompanied by Rhino's Charge, your trusty meteor hammer. Despite having grown much as a person in the past few months, making friends and learning to ease up on your studies, you still wake up earlier than your teammates to train in the mornings, though you postpone your breakfast so you can eat with them. Today is a particularly beautiful day, the sun shining brightly in the sky causing a pleasant sparkling effect to take place in the water's reflection. After you've finished your usual morning training, you delay eating for a bit longer to sit at the edge of the cliff, allowing your legs to dangle off the ledge as you stare at the lake below you.

As you watch the rippling along the surface of the water, you can't help but think back to the person you used to be. When you first arrived at Beacon Academy you were a silent, stoic, remorseful person who didn't understand people and did his best to avoid them. Your life revolved solely around training and schoolwork. Not only were you a buzzkill, you were downright depressing, never cracking a smile. You were much more cheerful nowadays. You allowed yourself to relax a bit and began socializing with your teammates, as well as other students. You made friends with Teams RWBY and JNPR and were much happier for it. Hell, you even befriended a team of second years, Team CFVY, towards the end of last semester, thanks to your preventing Cardin Winchester from antagonizing Velvet.

While you still cause awkward silences on occasion, and don't yet manage to fully understand social cues, you've still managed to create strong bonds with your family at Beacon. You can easily laugh with your friends, Jaune, Pyrrha and Velvet being some of the easiest to be around. You were even getting better at dealing with Ruby and Nora's high energy, as well as Coco being, well, Coco. Still, you were thankful that you had teammates that didn't run quite as fast. Weiss for instance, who always maintained a degree of professionalism, and Blake, Ren, Fox, and Yatsuhashi, who all shared your more reserved nature.

And then there was Yang. You smile to yourself as her face appears in your head. Yang Xiao Long, that fiery dragon who had burned down your walls and flew you off your island of isolation. Ever since that day she confronted you in the hallway outside your room you knew you felt something for her, you just didn't know what that something was until a few days ago. It took you such a long time to realize your feelings for her due to the nature of your upbringing. Such romantic emotions were strictly forbidden at Sun Zhang. But you aren't at Sun Zhang anymore, you're at Beacon Academy. Here, you're allowed to feel whatever you want, for whomever you want. And what you feel is love, and you feel it for Yang. She doesn't know yet though, you have yet to tell her. How to go about doing that though, you're completely unsure about. This is an area in which you have no knowledge, an opponent you know nothing about, an ocean whose depths hide unknown dangers. Still, you know you have to tell her soon. After all, she's an amazing woman, she's bound to attract the attentions of others sooner or later, and that'd make issues far more complicated.

Rising from you spot at the cliff ledge, you make your way towards the school cafeteria to meet your team. You look forward to seeing them all this morning. After all, it's a beautiful day, and tomorrow marks the beginning of a new semester. A new you. Getting closer to the cafeteria however, you see a flood of students fleeing the building, many of them covered in their breakfast. Waiting for the crowd to disperse, you approach the entrance and are greeted with quite the scene. Inside you see absolute chaos. Tables have been piled high in an unorganized mess. Food has been scattered about the floors and walls. And sure enough, you see your two teams engaged in a food fight of the most epic proportions.

You watch in a state of shock and awe as Nora sends Weiss and Ruby flying backwards, hitting one of the support beams, causing it to crumble. Yang has her hands inside two turkeys and is battling Ren who is wielding a pair of celery sticks. Knowing that this fight can't possible end well, you slowly make your way out of the room, content to watch from a distance. Sure enough, Ruby creates a whirlwind, the gust carrying the contents of the cafeteria flying at the members of Team JNPR. The wind knocks them into the wall, followed by a storm of food and drink, painting them different shades of the rainbow.

Laughing as your friends fall off the wall, you hear the sound of heels clicking against pavement and you turn to see Professor Goodwitch angrily headed in the direction of the cafeteria, Professor Ozpin following her at a leisurely pace. With a lazy flick of her wrist, she uses her semblance to put the cafeteria back in order; righting the tables, organizing the trays, cleaning the room, and repairing the damages to the walls and pillars. "Children," she says irritably, "please do not play with your food."

Still covered in food, your teammates all rise to leave the cafeteria and make their way back to the dormitories where they can get cleaned up. Walking across the campus, they continue to laugh over the fun they had earlier.

"Hey (F/N), why weren't you at breakfast today?" Ruby asks you.

"I decided to take a moment after training to watch the lake." You tell her.

"Lake? What lake?" Nora asks. "There are no lakes around here."

"Yes, there are Nora." Ren says, sighing lightly. "Right off the edge of the cliff face."

"Oh! That lake. What were you doing there?"

"I like to go there to think sometimes." You say simply.

"Well that's too bad." Yang says. "You missed an awesome food fight."

"Yes, I saw the tail end of your 'awesome food fight'." You laugh. "Though I must admit, I think I much prefer the fact that I'm not covered in this morning's breakfast."

"Is that so?" Yang asks, a mischievous glint in her eye.

"Yang, what are you... wait, no!" Yang runs up to you and envelopes you in a big hug, tackling you into one of the manmade ponds. Teams RWBY and JNPR laugh as you and Yang fall into the small pool of water. Looking up, you see Yang on top of you, her eyes closed in delightful laughter. Opening her eyes however, her laughter dies instantly as she becomes aware of how close the two of you are. The water from the splash caused by the two of you falling into the pond has smoothed out her usual wavy golden locks. You slowly reach up and use your thumb to wipe away a drop of water beneath her left eye. Yang starts to lean her face closer to yours, but abruptly stops and instead pushes herself off you. Looking up, you see Jaune offer his hand which you take, him helping you to your feet.

"Augh." You groan, flicking water from your hands and arms. You look down at your robes, which are now covered in various foods and dripping water onto the ground. Reaching the dormitories, you all split off into your respective rooms to get cleaned up. Walking into the bathroom, you let your wet robes fall to the floor with a splat, before stepping into the shower to clean yourself off. Once you've finished with your shower, you hang your robes over the shower curtain to allow them to dry before you toss them in your hamper. Wrapping a (F/C) towel around your waist, you move to stand in front of the mirror. Wiping the condensation off with your hand, you tilt your chin to observe your features, making sure you don't need to shave.

Satisfied with your level of hygiene, you exit the bathroom and move to your closet, where you pull out a clean set of (P/C) and (S/C) robes. Dropping the towel from your waist, you step into your undergarments and robe bottoms. Slipping your arms through the sleeves of your robes, you tie the appropriate strings and wrap the silk cord around your waist. Just as you've finished getting dressed there's a knock on your door. Opening the door, you see a recently showered and changed Jaune.

"Hey man." He says. "We're all headed down to the library once the girls have finished getting themselves cleaned up. You coming?"

"Yeah, I'll meet you guys down there."

Time Skip:

An hour later you found yourself sitting in the library with Team RWBY and Team JNPR. While the initial intent was to go over material from last semester, Ruby and Yang had quickly lost interest, and had instead dragged Weiss and Blake into a board game. Looking around you realize that the only people actually studying are Pyrrha, Ren, and yourself, Nora having fallen asleep on the table and Jaune reading a comic book (though this was quickly remedied by Pyrrha).

You were finding it more and more difficult to concentrate with the increasing noise level coming from Team RWBY, especially once Ruby started crying in despair after her sister destroyed her armies. Soon after, Jaune rose from his seat to move over to Team RWBY's table. Resigned to the fact that it was unlikely you'd be able to focus for much longer, you abandoned your notes and sat back in your chair, watching Jaune's attempts to win over Weiss. Sighing to yourself, you shake your head as Weiss shoots him down yet again. You love Jaune, he's like a brother to you, but you know he's never going to get anywhere with Weiss. Still, you can't fault him for trying. After all, it's more than you've done.

"Sup losers?" Looking up, you see Sun approaching the group, accompanied by a tall, blue haired male. "Ruby, Yang, Blake. Ice Queen."

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?" Weiss asks indignantly.

"I never got a chance to formally introduce you to my old friend." He says, indicating the man on his right.

"Uh... aren't libraries for reading?" The man asks.

"Thank you!" Ren shouts, causing Nora to awake abruptly.

"Shut up. Don't be a nerd." Sun glares at his friend.

"Uh uh uh, intellectual, okay. Thank you." His friend corrects him. "I'm Neptune."

"So, Neptune, where are you from?" Weiss asks interestedly.

"Haven." He says, slowly approaching Weiss. "And, I don't believe I've caught your name Snow Angel."

"Uhm, I'm Weiss." She says, blushing slightly.

"Pleasure to meet you."

"I never took you as the board game playing type." Sun says, leaning over the table next to Blake.

"Right. Well, I think I'm done playing actually." Blake says, standing up and walking away. "I'll see you guys later."

You watch Blake leave and can't help but worry a little bit. She's been acting a bit strange lately. In fact, she seems to be acting more and more like you when you first arrived at Beacon. Well, she's always been quieter and more reserved than the rest of her team, but recently she's been becoming increasingly secluded and antisocial. You're personally aware of just how bad such behavior can be for a person, and you make a mental note to keep an eye on her in the future. Looking back at Sun, you hear him groan and drop into Blake's empty seat. Seems like tonight just isn't a good night for romance.