Things You Wrote On the Walls

A/N -
So there is a new update schedule, as I mentioned last chapter: Instead of releasing one chapter every Sunday, now, I’ll release a chapter every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. I didn’t want to do this, but I have to if I’m to finish this on time. The only thing I can foresee is getting fewer comments… but you guys will keep up, right?

I would like to get this fic done and totally released before May 17th, pretty much, so I’ll have to get going quickly to get it completely done.

So, for your information: during my summer break, which is averaging about May 19th to August 15th, I’ll use that time to plan and write the sequel, and relax. There will be a hiatus during that time, so don’t expect anything (Except, perhaps, oneshots or something similar.)

I’m trying to get a jumpstart on everything for the sequel. This consists of ironing out the plot, writing chapters, drafting chapters ahead, getting dialogue written down, figuring out what I want to change and what I want to keep from canon. That’s my planning process. I won’t have a laptop during that time (May 19th to August 15th), so all my planning and writing will be done on my phone. Is that difficult for me? Yes, but I’ll power through. That just means the release of the sequel will be a bit later than I’d like it to be. I’ll release it sometime around when I get back in school and get a laptop back.

If you have any questions, please please PLEASE! Leave them in your comments. I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you have. And, as always, thank YOU for sticking with me on this long, twisting ride. To those I can list off the top of my head, thank you to tylerturner, leztiger, A, SnoogenZ, AkiraWolf21, dreamer3life, InfernoLeo9, Tom, and all other who have continued to give your support. Even if I didn't mention you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. It means the world to me.

Here is the new update schedule, in case you’re confused!

• Chapter 23— to be released April 19th
• Chapter 24— to be released April 22nd
• Chapter 25— to be released April 24th
• Chapter 26— to be released April 26th   
• Chapter 27— to be released April 29th
• Chapter 28— to be released May 1st
• Chapter 29— to be released May 3rd
• Chapter 30— to be released May 6th
• Chapter 31— to be released May 8th
• Chapter 32— to be released May 10th
• Epilogue— to be released May 13th

(and please do try to keep up the comments and review each chapter, because they make the writing worth it, and I would hate to see them dwindle with the new schedule. <33) Now, onto the angst! 

Yang 

Yang was shaken awake by Ruby.

The first thing she noticed was that her bed was empty; Blake was nowhere to be seen. Yang flitted through the Bond— she was out in Vale with Sun and his team, showing them around the city. Yang grinned. Oh, I bet that’s gonna be boring.

“Why did you w-w-wake me up?” She asked, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. “It’s only—” she checked her Scroll- “Noon. That’s, like, not acceptable at all.”

“Let’s get breakfast,” Ruby suggested. “We haven’t really gotten to, you know, just sit and relax in a while. Plus, Yang,” and here, Ruby’s eyes twinkled, “I’m sure you have all sorts of juicy gossip for us ever since you combined the ‘B’ and ‘Y’ of us.” She nudged Weiss, who rolled her eyes. “Come on, Weiss, you know you’re interested, I know it—”

“This behavior should not be condoned, Ruby. Gossiping is morally deficient, and—”

“Shh. Do you hear that, Weiss? Do you? That’s the sound of your consciousness being clear of guilt. Come on, let’s go.”

The walk to the cafeteria was a short one, the muted hue of autumn blazing through the high windows; they went through the line quickly, finding a table near the corner of the cafeteria. Yang caught snatches of laughter and talk as they took their seats, and she rolled her sore muscles, wincing at a particularly painful scratch an Ursa had managed to claw on her forearm.

“So,” Ruby said, her eyes dancing as she speared a fluffy pancake on the prongs of her fork, “spill, dear sister, about you and your girlfriend and how that all went down.”

Yang drummed her fingers on the edge of the table, still getting a strangle little tingle that made a grin tug at her mouth. Girlfriend, she’s my girlfriend— “It started, really, with the Bond,” she said. “After the fight with our favorite ‘ginger-haired mafia jerk’, so to speak.”

“Well, then, start there.”

“You guys are my teammates and best friends,” she began, leveling a finger at the two of them. “So basic best friends rules apply here.”

“Not a word to anyone else,” Weiss said, rolling her eyes as she picked up her coffee, though she was smiling. “Obviously.”

“Duh!” Ruby followed up, bouncing off her seat. “Come on!”

Laughing, Yang took a deep breath and started with the infirmary, where she’d talked to Blake about the fight against the Paladin. She decided to skip the part about Blake’s quietude re-emerging once more after they had begun dating— that part, at least, was still new and fresh to her, and she felt disconcerted about being the one to broach it first— and she illustrated the things she had seen in the memory-sharing of the Bond, finally ending with the last images she had seen when they had Bonded. By then, Ruby’s expression had dimmed significantly, and Weiss was frowning worriedly into her cup.

“That’s— horrible,” Weiss finally offered, staring into the swirling darkness of her coffee. “Her former partner sounds like… I don’t even know. A megalomaniacal control-freak, certainly.”

“She’s definitely got some… issues about that,” Yang said with a nod. “But it’s not her fault, not really. Something like that can really mess with your head.”

“Poor Blake,” Ruby said. “I just want to make her a cake or something. Hug her. Buy her a puppy— oh, wait, no, she doesn’t like dogs.”

Panic seized Yang’s throat. “Oh, no,” she breathed, looking between Weiss and Ruby with wide, frightened eyes. “No, no, you can’t tell her I told you any of this— shoot!” She gripped her gauntlets, fingers whitening. How could it not have occurred to her until now that Blake probably didn’t want something like that spreading around? It was supposed to be private. Hell, she had only just learned about it, and what had Blake said about trusting and how Yang had been different from Adam and opening up and oh, God, what if she’d just ruined everything and—

“We’re not going to say anything, Yang,” Weiss assured her, hand resting on her arm. “We’re your teammates and Ruby’s your sister. It’s okay to tell us.”

“But she’s my girlfriend,” Yang groaned, forehead falling to the table. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have kept it to myself. She trusts me and I totally just violated that!”

“Yang,” Ruby said, sliding to her side of the table and wrapping a comforting arm around her. “We won’t say anything, but maybe you could just— tell her now and say you’re sorry. Maybe she won’t be mad at all.”

Yang’s eyes clenched shut. She imagined the betrayal and hurt on Blake’s face if she told her she’d just shared something personal to their teammates, just because she felt like had been okay to tell them. Wasn’t she supposed to be the opposite of Adam? She trusted Weiss and Ruby more than anything, but that didn’t mean she had any right to go on spreading stuff like that. Especially when she knew how seriously Blake took that kind of thing. “Damn,” she said, opening her eyes and sitting up. Her gaze fell upon the thin silver line that the fire of the Bond had burned into her skin all those weeks ago. Running a finger along the mark, Yang thought about how Blake had literally given her her heart and trusted her with it.

She couldn’t know. She shouldn’t know, and from there on out, Yang resolved not to share anything Blake told her. As her girlfriend, that was her responsibility, despite her friendship with Weiss and Ruby. She’d made a mistake this time, but she could fix it by never doing it again, right? What Blake didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

Even thinking it made guilt like lead pool in Yang’s gut. Sighing, she shook her head and spread her hands on the table. “Not a word to Blake, okay? And if I ever start babbling about her like that again, hit me with something.”

“Literally?” Ruby asks.

“Yes.”

The three of them sank into more casual conversation then, but Yang’s eyes kept coming back to the scar of the Bond; Blake’s heart was precious and fragile. She knew she couldn’t afford to be careless. It was bad enough that Blake’s childhood had been the embodiment of living hell and that Yang was putting her entire way of trust and going about life in jeopardy. Her heart was the most special thing she had to offer, and she had somehow decided Yang was worthy of holding it.

She couldn’t risk breaking it.

Blake

Starlight filtered, sure and silver, through the library windows as Blake folded back the page of her book and closed it gently. On a Saturday night, the library was crammed with more students than usual, ranging from desperately trying to catch up on their studies, to playing board games, to having intense debates about who would win in a fight: Professor Ozpin, or a Maiden from the old children’s fable about the seasons.

“Don’t be a wanker, Talos. Ozpin would totally win,” a girl from an upperclassmen team scoffed at her teammate, drumming her fingers along the thin electrum whip that served as her weapon. “He has the badass look— like Kalona from Ninjas of Love, ya know?”

The taller teammate, Talos, made a trenchant point. “But Kalona isn’t real.”

The girl rolled her eyes. “And neither are the Maidens, you dumbass. Have you ever actually seen one?” 

A small smile plucking at her lips, Blake rummaged in her book bag, shoving a timeworn novel inside, before rising and shouldering her way through the rowdy team to exit the library. As she closed the door behind her, she was in the midst of sending Yang a text that read where are you? I miss seeing your face interrupt me when I’m in the middle of reading, when a force greater than gravity slammed her against the door so hard, it felt like the entire wall rattled.

“Hi, Blake!”

Ruby was clinging to her with enough pressure to squeeze her lungs out of her throat. Grunting, Blake wedged her elbow under Ruby’s ribs to try and pry her off, but she was either really great at ignoring pain, or had gotten used to Blake trying to wiggle free. For a girl so young, she had amazing upper body strength. And unfortunately— or fortunately, however you viewed it— since Yang and Blake had begun dating, she’d been effectively shepherded into another ‘older-sister’ role for the team leader.

Effectively pinned, Blake sighed. “Hello, Ruby.” Her Scroll vibrated, and with much twisting on her part, she managed to make out Yang’s replied text:

i’m about to come down to the library. weiss would NOT stop nagging me to clean up my side of the dorm and to stop calling her ‘ice-queen’, so i’m a little late. be there soon!

She smiled, probably dreamily, even dorkily, at her Scroll as she returned her attention to Ruby and fought once more in vain to free herself. “Unless you plan to sew yourself to my body, Ruby, please, let go of me.”

Giggling, she finally detached herself and stepped back, hands curling around the ruffles at her waist. “Wouldn’t that be so much fun, to be with someone all time? You could do everything to together! You’d always have someone to steal cookies with or do crazy adventures with.”

“Well,” Blake said begrudgingly, turning as she started walking, “I’d rather be sewn to you then to Weiss.”

Ruby thrust her fist into the air above her. “Yay! We could be like second partners, Blake, we could—” Her flapping jaw suddenly stilled, then clicked shut. “Uhm, never mind.” 

Blake knew peculiar behavior wasn’t exactly unusual for Ruby, but she looked almost— scared. Perking an eyebrow at her, Blake slowed her pace to a sedate walk. “You okay?”

Ruby’s nod was so enthusiastic, Blake feared her neck might snap. “Uh, yeah! Never mind.”

“Never mind about what? Us being second partners? You’ve talked about stranger things, Ruby.”

“Oh, I know. I just— didn’t want to make you feel bad.” Ruby’s fingertips hovered over her mouth.

“Feel bad?” Blake frowned at her. “About what?”

Ruby fidgeted. Looked over her shoulder, her hands. “Because— you had another partner. Once. Before Beacon. I thought—”

“Stop.” Blake held up a hand, and narrowed her eyes at Ruby, a strange, empty ringing in her head. “Where did you hear that?”

What remaining color there was in Ruby’s face drained, fear and anxiety warring in her eyes. “I thought Yang talked to you about it already… she, uhm, she told me and Weiss, but we’re her teammates and I’m her sister, and we’re your friends, and I thought, I didn’t mean—”

“What else has she told you?” Blake’s words gritted their way through clenched teeth.

Ruby was saved by coincidence, literally, as the door banged open and the team arguing about Ozpin burst out, Talos looking thoroughly defeated as the rest of his team began laughing and chattering loudly; Ruby jumped and then she was off, shouting something about seeing Blake later, but her words didn’t register through the heavy pounding in Blake’s ears. Screwing her lips together, she slammed the door shut and stalked off down the hallway. Even if it was a normal day, people tended to get out of her way; there was a slant in her step, some stiffness that emanated from her to warn them off. But today, students roaming the halls jumped out of her way like she was poison. Maybe she was; maybe she should have expected it.

Yang had told them, knowing what a fragile thing trust was. She told them when she knew how much it meant. She told them, and shattered something— no, everything.

But then again, wasn’t that the paradox of it all? Yang was so unfaltering, so unfailingly and intrinsically perfect. It was inherent of Blake to be undeserving of that light without it flickering somehow; Yang was the sky, and Blake was the black water lake where people went to drown; she was fifty stones in each pocket and breeze-blocks strapped to broken ankles.

She didn’t want Yang to be another Adam. She wanted her to be Yang, who couldn’t do anything wrong. She wanted a perfect angel, not a human who had the ability to cause pain.

Yang

Yang clattered down the stairs, shoving her Scroll in her pocket. Blake had not replied to her message asking where she was; she’d have to find her on her own. More likely than not, she was engrossed in a novel, completely dead to the world.

Yang entered another hallway, swerving out of the way of a team bouncing through the halls as went, and behind them, she could see a figure retreating into the distance, a dark figure with a swift gait. Yang grinned.

“Blake!” she called out after her girlfriend.

Blake kept walking, her pace tightly controlled. She didn’t turn as Yang called after her, though a roaring feeling of bitter disappointment, tinged with a raw fury, swept through the Bond, and Yang’s eyes widened, her next call dying in her throat, grin dropping from her face. What the hell?

She jogged after Blake, putting a hand on her shoulder and spinning her around. Blake didn’t move to resist her back, but she jerked away violently like she had been burned, putting distance between them like she was a poisonous cobra. Her partner’s face was drawn with anger, eyes seething with it, her pupils pinpricks of flickering fire in all that gold. She looked coldly at Yang’s outstretched hand. “What do you want, Yang?” she growled, sounding very un-Blake-like.

“Blake—” She took a step toward her girlfriend, and for the first time that she remembered, Blake moved away from her. Her posture was stiff and unfriendly. She was looking at Yang the way she’d look at a stranger, a stranger she didn’t like very much.

“You told them,” hissed Blake lowly, eyes glittering at Yang, hard and remote as jewels, every syllable trembling with rage. “You went and spilled stuff about Adam and the White Fang—  God knows what else, things I trusted you with, like my parents and Ayran—”

Yang’s heart dropped somewhere to her feet. She felt lower than the dirt. “I— I thought—”

“Did you think? I don’t believe you did. I thought you weren’t like this, Yang, that I could trust you of everyone. I believed in that, I gave you time and you proved it too— that you were trustworthy—”

“That’s not how love works, Blake,” Yang snapped, instantly on the defensive. “You don’t just put people on a timer.”

“It’s not — I should have expected more from you,” Blake snapped right back. “I went into this — into us — telling you that I might need time to open up, Yang. That there were things I didn’t want to talk about, and when I did, I wanted them to only be between us. I don’t tell you things for you to just spout them out to Ruby and Weiss and— and who knows else, but that doesn’t matter! I trusted you, and there’s a reason I didn’t tell them, I don’t want them to know. Maybe I had doubts, even before I chose you, but I took a chance and trusted you anyways and I—“

“And you what?” Yang’s voice rose. “If you had known, you would have done things differently? Never come up to me in the forest, and even if you did—  maybe never opened up to me, is that it? Would you have just stayed away the whole time, maybe met Sun, moved to Mistral with him, get married, popped out a few kids and moved on?” She stared at Blake, whose eyes were swirling with so many emotions it looked like a hurricanes. Her voice shook with disbelief and sorrow. “Is that what you want?”

Blake looked down and away. Her eyes glistened, and a spear of agony went through Yang. “Maybe I don’t know what I want anymore.”

Yang’s heart gave a loud, slow thump in her chest, distinct in her ears. “What does that mean?”

“When I say I trust you,” Blake said quietly, “I meant it. I mean it. I do. And I want to trust you.” Her voice was full of pain. “I trusted someone before and it turned me into a monster. You can’t be that way, Yang. You just— you just can’t! You’re supposed to be different. Trusting people isn’t my forte, and I took a leap with you and you turn around and babble it to them—”

“They’re my teammates!” Yang shouted. “It wasn’t like I told strangers. I haven’t done it since and I won’t do it again and I’m sorry. What more do you want me to do to make it up to you?”

Blake stared at her, and Yang stared back, a dull ringing in her head. For the first time, they were fighting. Fighting like her and Adam had used to fight. No, Yang told herself, it was supposed to be different with them, it was supposed to be amazing and awesome and not difficult. But here they were. For the first time, Yang felt the Bond shiver and shake, a roaring wave of anger and shame and terror swirling through it. 

“I want you to be different than this!” Blake shouted right back, her voice rising to match Yang’s. “Maybe I want you to be perfect, because if you’re not, then how can I even hope to spend forever with you? With anyone? I’ve got enough flaws to cover everyone in this entire school, Yang. You have to pick up the slack on my end because I can’t, I can’t.”

“You want perfect, Blake?” Yang shot back. “To hell with that! I can’t give you perfection. I’m not perfect. I can hurt you like you’ve hurt me. But does that mean you don’t try to work it out anyways? No!”

“This isn’t how things are supposed to happen!”

“This isn’t a fairy tale, Blake! This is real life, whether you like it or not! Bad things happen. People are hurt and killed, and close ones abandon you, and sisters ignore their sisters and mothers leave children or— or die, and sometimes the monsters win, and and people who are supposed to love each other fight, but you move on, dammit! There’s nothing else to do besides give up!”

“Maybe I’m not strong enough for that,” she whispered, voice almost inaudible, shaking so bad that Yang could hardly make out the words. “Maybe I’ve been left to pick up the pieces time and time again, I just can’t do it anymore, I can’t. You weren’t supposed to be like Adam.”

Some distant part of Yang wanted to shut down, to disregard that Blake, her Blake, the one who was entirely different behind closed doors, could say these things: but her heart was aware that this, right now, was really happening.

“I’m sorry,” Yang whispered, but Blake was backing away, crying now and not hiding it, tears running down her cheeks. “I knew you could lose everything with me, but I thought—”

“Don’t you get it, Yang?” She looked as if she were about to break, to shatter all over the stones. “You are my everything!”

She stared at her, struck silent, and as she didn’t reply, something in Blake’s eyes went dark and closed, tears jumping from her cheek to trail down her jaw, glimmering like fallen stars. “I need to be alone, Yang. I need time to think about what I really want. Please… don’t follow me.” 

Then she turned and disappeared into the night.

Yang stood there, numbness seeping through her body, before her body was walking, her feet moving like an automan, carrying her out of the courtyard. Maybe I don’t know what I want. Maybe I don’t. Maybe. Maybe.

She found herself walking blind through the halls, eyes blurred as if from sand or salt spray, to the side of campus housing the out-of-kingdom students. Up a flight of stairs. Through a twisting hall. To a door shaking with music.

She knocked, hearing a shout and the music crank down to a low thrum, before a familiar, tousled-blond head poked out. Upon seeing her, his face flooded with relief, and he opened it further. “Hey, Yang. Thought you were Goodwitch, there, for a second.”

“No,” she managed to croak.

“So, uh… what’s up?” Sun scratched his head, his eyes growing more serious, perhaps at the look of stunned fear in her eyes. “Why did you come down here? Are you okay?”

“I want a drink,” she said, surprised to find it was true. “And I want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” he said, look faintly baffled at her haggard expression, though he didn’t ask questions, for which she was grateful. “Let’s go out for drinks like agreeable people, because nobody eavesdrops at a bar, and also because I could stand for a nice drink right now. Nep!” he yelled over his shoulder into the dorm room, which was pulsing with heavy rock music. “Make sure Sage and Scar don’t get into another argument about whether ‘wanker’ or ‘blockhead’ is the better insult, okay? You don’t want Goodwitch dropping by to scold you, do you?”

“Screw you, monkey-boy!” Neptune yelled back from the interior, his voice faintly muffled, as if he was speaking around a mouthful of food. “You’re a dumbass if you think I’m prying them off each other again! I almost had my hair ripped out last time, and it’s not my fault Sage has an eight-pack, it’s not fair!”

Sun rolled his eyes and grinned, shutting the door, dulling the music to a low throb. “Idiots,” he said fondly. “Okay, let’s go.”

They found themselves at a small, well-kept bar in Vale. It was lit dimly, with Dust crystals installed in the walls, creating colorful patterns. It wasn’t anything like the Black Sol in terms of loud noise, but it would do— Yang couldn’t really keep her thoughts together enough to fret about anything other than the dread churning through her.

They sat at a far corner, Sun taking a seat that was closer to a scary-looking Hunstman, as if to protect her. Maybe yesterday she would have yelled at him for it, but right now, she felt vulnerable and alone. She gave him a faintly grateful look, and he smiled tentatively. Sun, for all his faults, was a genuinely good person, and since she had gotten together with Blake, his presence was warm and comforting to her, like a brother’s.

“So,” he said conversationally, ordering a Strawberry Sunrise for Yang, per her request, and a margarita for himself, as they took seats at the far corner of the bar. Muted gold lights filtered down from thin bulbs, turning his eyes to a peculiar silver. “I’ve got no problem with a drink between bros, but I have a feeling this isn’t that, and there’s plenty more people you could go out to get stonefaced with, instead of me. So, what’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you because you know Blake the best,” she said, without preamble. “Don’t you?”

“Aside from you, you mean.” He picked at a loose thread in his shirt with a crooked grin. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. I don’t think she really gives away a lot of herself to other people, though. Why?”

“Well,” Yang said, “I screwed up tonight, Sun, and we got into a fight. Not a petty one about something that doesn’t matter, either. This was… a real fight. And I— I don’t know if she wants to make up with me at all. She was… pretty angry.”

His eyebrows arched. “What happened?”

She stared at the bar. There were deep gouges scarred in the wood, stained with older places where people had also come to forget. Her fingers traced a half moon scratched into the wood. “I told Ruby and Weiss stuff I shouldn’t have, stuff about Blake’s past, and she found out— I don’t know how, but that doesn’t even matter at this point. What matters is that she’s really, really upset, and I don’t even know how to begin apologizing to her for it.”

Sun looked less guarded now, the startled expression stark in his eyes. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” She took her drink as the bartender swung by with them, draining it in one gulp. Sun looked impressed and faintly scared.

“Where did you learn to drink like that?”

She swallowed. “My uncle left his drinking flask out once, and I thought it was apple juice, but— that’s beside the point. Sun, I need advice.”

Sun looked thoughtful, taking a delicate sip of his drink. “Er, alright, sure. You two are Bonded, aren’t you? Try to see what she’s feeling right now.”

Yang did, and a fresh wave of raw emotion thundered through her. “She’s still angry. Not as much as she was, but still really sad, and… and disappointed.” She felt tears prick at her eyes, and firmly blinked them away. I will not cry. I’m Yang Xiao Long. Tough as nails.

“I wish I hadn’t done this, but she can’t expect me to be perfect. Can she?” Yang blinked anxiously at Sun. He shook his head and leveled his gaze upon hers.

“No, Yang. She can’t. No one is.”

Yang couldn’t help being who she was. Blake couldn’t help throwing up walls. But she loved her anyways.

She didn’t realize she had said it out loud until Sun set his cup onto the counter and flicked gray eyes — warm and compassionate — over her. “That’s good, Yang,” he said. “Because she deserves someone like you.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Yang confessed, staring down into the swirling depths of the drink, the ice chilling her hands, feeling sick inside. “What do I do? What if I — what if she—” 

“If there’s anything I know about her, and you know it too, it’s that she runs like hell when things scare her, when she’s out of her element. Blake’s no coward, Yang. Not at all. That’s not what I’m saying. But there’re different kinds of courage, you know? She would sacrifice herself for you and your team in an instant if it would mean that you could all be safe. If there’s a cost, she’ll be the one to pay it, whether that’s good or bad. But matters of the heart are different, because once the heart is broken, you can’t repair it; you’re never the same. Trust is her fatal flaw; we all have one. But trust isn’t a thing to be given lightly. Sure, we all make mistakes, Yang — but it’s how we respond to the crap that happens afterward that really makes us who we are.”

“You’re a pretty wise guy, you know that? You could be a therapist.”

Sun winked. “Shhh, no one’s supposed to know that something even remotely smart lies under these handsome golden locks of mine.” He ran a hand through his hair and grinned, before his face grew grave again. “It’s no secret that I used to— be fond of Blake, of course, but she’s more of a sister to me now. And in that, I’ve noticed something.” His storm-gray eyes watched Yang somberly. “She loves you more than anything.”

Yang was quiet for a moment.

“Anyone can see it in her eyes when she looks at you,” Sun continued earnestly. “She’s been hurt before. Nothing you or I can do will change that, will make the pain go away. Her fatal flaw is lack of trust, yours is— hell, I’d wager it’s your inner fire. The very thing that makes you who you are— “

“And what about you, Sun?”

“Mine?” He stirred his straw and blinked, his eyes suddenly very tired under the amber lights. “Still figuring it out, dude. It’s… not easy.”

“So… so what should I do? Apologize?”

“Not an apology. Show her that she can trust you, but that she can’t expect you to be perfect. You’re not perfect. No one is. A relationship is about balance and communication. If you don’t have both, one scale overtips and then the whole thing goes up in flames.”

“Sometimes I just… I don’t know what to do. I love her, Sun. I do. If she wasn’t in the picture, I don’t know where I would be. But she is in the picture. She’s the whole picture. I just…” Yang swallowed. “I need her to know I’m not perfect, I can’t be perfect. That’s too much to ask.”

Sun took a sip of his drink, looking sad. “Blake told me something once,” he said. “She told me that life— living— was a risk in the making. At the time I thought she might have been just, you know, talking meaninglessly — I’m sure you’ve realized that she talks when she gets sad — but now, I think she was talking about you. Everyone is a risk. Whenever you put your trust in someone, you give them the power to hurt you. And for some people, that’s freaking scary. But for others, it’s the greatest act of faith. But trust is a two-way street.”

“So what do you think I should do to fix this?”

“Tell her exactly that. If she’ll listen to anyone, she’ll listen to you,” he said with a sideways smile. “And, Yang?”

“Yeah?”

He clapped her on the shoulder the way a brother might, grinning. “I can’t think of anyone better for her than you, and she knows that. You just need to remind her. Hold onto that,” he said. “Hold onto love.”