113

Chapter 113

Notes:

Oh hey, I finally got to the dance

Two pictures in this one!

Chapter Text

"Dance time! Wooooooo! Party tiiiiiime!" Yang cheered, dancing about the room as the day of the Beacon Dance arrived, swinging her hips and sashaying wildly as she all but skipped through her preparations- throwing her uniform off without a care in the world, shimmying out of her stockings, and pulling her dress out of the closet and from the protective sleeve around it and letting it hang while she skipped into the bathroom to shower.

"Well, someone's excited," Blake muttered as she watched Yang go, flipping a page in her magazine before pulling out the centerfold and whistling lowly at the odachi displayed on four pages . Excellent curves on that one, almost made her want to actually buy an odachi. Unfortunately, she wasn't Ruby and she didn't have room in her loadout for a sword as tall as she was… or more, considering the entire thing was a Dust treated monstrosity nearly two meters long. "Now that's a katana."

"... Just because Ruby said it once yesterday and we all laughed doesn't mean we have to keep using it as a running gag in our lives," Weiss deadpanned, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms as she delicately combed her own hair and grumbled at the amount of tangles- maybe she should have gone with a long braid… and maybe she should try a more centralized look… or shorter hair? She was starting to have neck aches from keeping a ridiculously long side ponytail all the time… and also her hair was just shy of reaching the backs of her knees now. Maybe it was time for a change? "Also, do you think I'd look good with shorter hair? I'm starting to think my hair is more of a curse than a blessing at this point."

"What gave it away? The nearly daily shower drain clogs or the fact that I've started coughing up hairballs for the first time in my life and they're usually white?" Blake asked, her tone equally flat as she continued reading her weapon's magazine (which… like… it was one of Ruby's but the articles actually were really weirdly good…), one leg crossed over the other as she somehow naturally entered a pose that just exuded pure sass to the point that Weiss could almost feel it in the air. That, or it was pre-Dance jitters. Or gas.

Actually considering the cafeteria had spicy tacos at lunch earlier it probably was just gas.

"You wouldn't have hairballs if you would stop chewing on my hair," Weiss grumbled irritably, then glared down at the utterly ridiculous length of hair she had left to go and huffed in frustration. "You know what, fuck this. I only ever grew my hair out because my bastard father told me that I needed to look feminine! Fuck! I'm proud of how it looks but- fuck!"

"... Weiss are you okay? You're uh… starting to swear over there- look, if it bothers you that much I can help you style it? I'm halfway okay at shorter hairstyles, I think… um-"

"No- no. I'm… I'm okay. I mean, I still want to get rid of it now because there's so many reasons but… fuck … how is everything in my life still ruined by my father?" Weiss groaned, leaning back in her chair and letting her head flop back against the backrest, hair dangling precariously as she kicked her feet and threw her brush down onto her table… and missed, causing it to bounce off of her desk lamp and land on Ruby's desk instead, whereupon the pitch black nightmare thing in the shape of the desk obligingly reached out with a tendril and set the item back onto Weiss' desk.

Weiss shuddered.

Eugh.

That never got less disturbing to look at, even if it was just Ruby-

"Oh hey guys what's up?"

"Gah!"

Weiss startled, flailing her bit in her chair as Ruby crawled out of her own desk, rubbing at her head a little and blinking in confusion at the mess in the room. "Ruby! Don't do that you dolt!"

"Sorry, you just threw your brush on my desk so I figured I'd see what was going on!" Ruby huffed, rolling her eyes as Penny walked into the room- already clad in her adorable prom dress and looking like an absolute angel as she primly stepped into the room with her cute dance shoes and sat down at Ruby's desk, with Ruby shaking herself out like a dog as she shifted herself out of her uniform and into her own prom dress that matched with Penny's- both of them clad in their respective colors, with ribbons of each other's colors here and there for accent details. "Anyway, who's ready for the Dance tonight!?"

"Neither of us are ready yet, and Weiss needs to decide if she really wants to cut her hair or not," Blake mentioned idly, continuing to read through the weapon magazine for the articles on authentic katana forging processes- honestly with how thick the magazine was, it was almost a novel length read. On the shorter side, of course, but… there were a lot of articles and a lot of pictures. 

"I think I will, actually… I've spent most of my life under my father's thumb and I came to Beacon to try and grow into my own person… but I haven't even really changed much of myself over the last school year… not in the ways I thought I would," Weiss answered, bundling her hair up and motioning at Blake to come over. She sighed, shaking her head as she looked down at her lap- she was still wearing her uniform, and wasn't at all ready for the Dance when it was only some few hours away. "I still wear the family crest, still wear my hair the way he told me to, still wear this damn tiara… still dress in the same Schnee whites and grays… Ugh. It's annoying. Blake? Could you cut my hair to… about where my shoulders are?"

"That's two thirds of your hair, Weiss. What're you gonna do with all of the stuff we cut off?" Blake asked, while Ruby and Penny just sat there, squishing themselves into one chair as they watched the proceedings. She took out a knife, sharpening it with her Aura as she pressed a finger about where Weiss had indicated. "Here?"

"Yes, about there. I can't imagine it'll be easy to style after this… I don't know many hairstyles for something that short- maybe I'll call Winter? Or… my mother would be of no help, she's usually too deep in a bottle and the last I remember of her, she just tied her hair in a short tail and left it to fall where it may," Weiss huffed, crossing her arms as Blake held her knife- which, really, was more like a tactical combat dagger than anything more suited to the art of hairstyling- and eyeballed Weiss for one moment, judging the distances and angles between her knife and Weiss' delicate, flowing locks for a moment. "Maybe luck will be on my side with styling… unlikely though.

"Right… okay. Weiss?"

"Yes Blake?"

"Hold still, activate your Aura, and don't move for a second."

"Wait, what's that supposed to mea-"

Blake flickered and flashed, the entire room washing over with the shadowy darkness of her Aura as purple slashes lit up the area around Weiss head- drawing an aborted scream from Weiss as she was assaulted by Blake's rather haphazard hairstyling skills and-

"... What!?"

"How!?"

"Most unexpected!"

"... Y'know, I was just trying to make it look natural but… huh. I guess your hair really does just do that," Blake muttered as she collected all of Weiss' hair before it could drop onto the carpet, tying the strands together and slipping the entire bundle into a plastic bag for later disposal before pulling out a handheld vacuum from under her bed and starting to clean up the small strands that hadn't made it into the bag. "You look really good."

"... Wh-... that- this makes no sense…" Weiss spluttered, staring at her hair through a hand mirror in utter shock and disbelief, because somehow, despite Blake attacking her hair like a weedwhacker, the strands upon her head had fallen into an artsy, wavy, fluffy, slightly spiky mess of a bob cut that perfectly highlighted and framed her face in a way that made her almost sparkle . "Is- did I get wavy hair from mother!? But it's entirely straight when it's long, what the fuck!?"

"Language! Penny and I have sensitive ears!" Ruby huffed, sticking out her tongue childishly.

"Ruby, we all know you know swear words," Blake deadpanned with an eyeroll, idly brushing off some of the stray hairs that made it to improbable places around where Weiss was sitting before shaking her head. "Right. You're taking the next shower. Remember to use less product than normal and space out your scheduled deliveries from now on unless you want to grow it out again."

"Right…" Weiss answered faintly, blushing a little as she played with her fluffy new bob cut and grinned a little at the sheer lightness that she felt. "Oh wow… everything feels so much lighter now…"

"Congratulations, you just dropped like two pounds in an instant," Blake huffed. "Maybe I should get a haircut too, change up my style a little… again."

"Aww, but I like your combat coat!"

"Beloved, you only say that because you like chewing on the hemline and batting at the edges in kitten form."

"Is that where the teeth marks came from!? Ruby!"

"Eep!"