Lie Ren (bringstheflour) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-03-12 20:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jaune arc, lie ren |
Who: Ren and Jaune
What: Jaune gets some advice from Ren
When: Early February
Where: The University Library
Rating/Warning: Low/none
Status: Complete
Now that Nora had returned to normal, Ren felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He’d been worried about her, and instead of studying, he’d been reading psychology textbooks in hopes of finding something to help Nora. But she’d returned to herself all on her own.
Which meant that he had some serious studying to catch up on if he wanted to be prepared for midterms. If he wanted to continue at University, he needed to keep his grades high enough that he wouldn’t lose his scholarships. Which was exactly why he was spending his afternoon at the UCI library, a stack of criminology textbooks piled in front of him.
Libraries were supposed to be for reading and they didn't usually let a person bring snacks, either. Jaune kind of hated the library for those reasons, but he also really needed to be there. At the moment he'd managed to wish himself into a passing grade, but this semester? Was not going to be as lucky. And it'd started out poorly, too. First with that whole... Rociel business and the thing with the video games, then with Professor Branwen.
He was probably going to fail. But since that meant going back home, and that idea was even less keen, there he was. At the Library. With a stack of books for the midterm paper required for anthropology.
Mainly, though, he was staring at all the books feeling incredibly overwhelmed and doodling in his notebook. "Take anthropology, Jaune, it's about people, how hard can people be?"
Ren glanced up from his textbooks at the familiar voice, only a little annoyed. Generally, he liked his libraries silent, but in truth, someone muttering to themselves wasn’t too bad. It didn’t take him long to spot Jaune and his tow-coloured hair. He smiled a little to himself, then stood up. He made his way to Jaune, stopping just a couple of feet behind him. “Are you studying for midterms?” he asked, keeping his voice low to not disturb the other patrons.
The voice was familiar, not just because Jaune had met Ren in the dreams, but also because he'd known the guy before them. Kind of. Those self defense lessons his sister had made him take during quick pick up time slots hadn't really helped him much, if he was honest. That wasn't Ren's fault, he was just bad at learning anything at all.
He was still a little startled, though, and he turned around and grinned at Ren. "Ren!!" Which was of course far too loud to be speaking in a library, and several whispers of 'shhh' echoed around the room. His grin grew a bit sheepish and he nodded his head, "Yeah, I'm... probably going to fail them again, how does this keep happening to me!? I wasn't this stupid in high school, I swear."
Ren gave a bit of a sigh at Jaune’s exclamation, but he was more amused than anything else. “University is much more work than high school,” Ren said sensibly. “I’m sure it’s not a question of stupidity so much as being overwhelmed. Perhaps I can help?” He took a seat across from Jaune.
"It really is... sometimes I look at all the books, and the papers, and the class- what's the word. Schedule thing." Jaune knew there was a more formal word for that, but he couldn't quite place it. Maybe it began with an s? "Sabbatical? No, that doesn't sound right."
One of his shoulders shrugged at that, and then he gestured at all the books in front of him. "I thought this course was going to be easy, it's all about studying people. Can you help me? Have you taken this already? Or... maybe even just tell me how you ever manage any of this. Man, I never should have skipped that class in orientation..."
“Syllabus,” Ren supplied. He took a seat across from Jaune. “No, I’ve never taken anthropology. But I can help you make a study schedule if you would like. If you stick to it, it will make all of this much easier.”
"Syllabus, right, that's the word." Jaune was glad that Ren was more literate than he was. Though they didn't share as many hobbies as he'd like, since his idea was reading comic books, Ren could always be counted on in times like this. "You must have been a model student in... all of your schools in every lifetime. And yeah, that would actually be perfect? Because I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm tired of feeling that way. It seems like I'm never going to live up to the rest of you all."
He hadn't talked much about the dreams before, or how far into them he'd gotten, but Jaune was already keenly aware of Team JNPR and how he was the class loser in every imaginable way. He didn't know how far along Ren was, either, so he bit back the words that would have told Ren how unfit a leader he felt most of the time.
“I’ve done my best,” Ren said. He didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. He and Nora had taken care of themselves, scrounging for money before they were even old enough to get jobs. Ren knew that if he had ever wanted to go to college, he would only be able to do it through scholarships, and the only way to get a full ride was to keep his grades up. Between needing to work so he and Nora could have a roof over their head and eat, and trying to keep his position at the top of his class, he had needed to learn how to allocate his time early on. Ren knew he wasn’t smarter than the other kids in his schools, but he was more disciplined.
“Give me your class syllabuses,” he said. He would need to know when Jaune had projects due and midterms in order to make it good. But when Jaune mentioned not living up to the others, Ren looked at him. “Jaune, you don’t need to ‘live up’ to the rest of us,” he said, looking Jaune in the eyes. “I will never live up to Pyrrha’s level of athleticism, or Nora’s enthusiasm.” Or her appetite, for that matter. “You can't compare yourself to others. You are the best Jaune there is.”
"Huh," Jaune murmured to himself, raising his eyebrows. Ren looked incredibly serious about this, and he felt appropriately reprimanded. He didn't take it badly, instead trying to internalize the wisdom that Ren so often seemed to have in supply. "I'm the best Jaune there is..." He repeated to himself, trying to get used to the idea.
Maybe he'd be a better Jaune if he stopped trying to convince himself he wasn't that great a Jaune to begin with. His head swarmed with that idea for a few moments, and while it did that, buzzing like little bees, he tried to collect all of his course syllabuses. To his credit, he actually had tried to organize that part, separating each course into its own notebook with file folders attached. That was where the organization stopped, however. Jaune got easily distracted and bored in classes, and his notebook was filled with pieces of scrap paper, scrawled notes that never seemed to be ordered, and doodles.
He handed them over to Ren, giving him a sheepish smile, "I had a planner at the beginning of the year but I lost it. I thought I'd use the one on my phone instead, but I get so overwhelmed."
Ren gave a small smile as Jaune repeated the phrase to himself. It was a step in the right direction at least, though the important part was for Jaune to believe it himself. Even in the dreams, Jaune had confidence issues, but Ren had complete faith in him.
He took Jaune’s offered syllabuses and began to take note of all the due dates listed. “I have always found it easier to keep track when it’s written down,” Ren said. “Though setting reminds for yourself in your phone may be a good idea.” Ren had been doing this for long enough that he didn’t need to set alarms, though he wasn’t quite so sure about Jaune. “How busy is your life outside of classes. Do you work as well?”
"I'd like to, that was the plan! I want to get a job down at the cafe, the Emerald City one? I love coffee and making people happy, so I thought I'd try my hand at being a barista. I have the application, but December and January were..." He trailed off, squinting one eye half shut as he tried to find a polite way to describe all of the things that had happened in those months.
Failing to find anything better, he shrugged his shoulder, "Well, they were crazy. You were there, you saw the crazy first hand. And some of it is this strange blur of flirting with this really cute guy who ordered me to pass out brainwashing video games, so..."
Jaune blinked, "I guess I just said that out loud. Haha, okay. Well, that happened. But it isn't really that busy outside of classes. I play games, and sometimes I go and volunteer at the local shelter? Oh, and sometimes I still catch a pick up class, but I think I've come to terms with the fact that me and the martial arts aren't working out."
Ren was startled from his schedule planning at Jaune’s confession, the surprise evident on his face. Nora had been acting strange in January too, addicted to a video game that Ren hadn’t been able to get her to quit. And then, one day, she’d just snapped out of it, and neither of them could explain what had happened. And now, here Jaune was, talking about brainwashing video games.
“I think you have some potential with the martial arts, if you’d like to stick with it,” Ren said. He could hardly say anything good about Jaune’s current technique, but it took years of dedicated practice to become skilled at it. “This game. Was it Angel Sanctuary?”
"Yeah!" Jaune exclaimed, then winced at his own loudness and again lowered his voice. "Yeah. I got it free during finals week, it was actually the day after I first met Ruby. You can't argue with free video games, right? That's what I thought at the time. And then for a while there it was my whole life. When I wasn't playing I was helping to pass out copies or meeting with the boss. I think he was the boss."
He was very pretty. That's all that Jaune could remember clearly, along with the fact that there might have been other people involved. Someone named Tamaki? Maybe Nora? There was a flash of red hair at least one time he could remember. He did file away the idea of sticking to his training, though, and added, "Maybe we should schedule in time for actual lessons. If I want to get any good at it I probably need to dedicate more time to it?"
There were a lot of questions that Ren would have liked answered, but all of that seemed to be over. At least for now. Nora hadn’t touched the game since the the world had nearly ended, and it didn’t seem as though Jaune had either. He clapped a hand onto Jaune’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
Ren smiled widely, or, well, widely by Ren’s standards, though he didn’t show his teeth. “That would be a good idea. I could arrange to teach private lessons if you would like.” Assuming that Jaune would like Ren to continue teaching him. Ren was too busy to teach a full class, but he would be more than happy to make time to train Jaune.
In the dreams, Pyrrha had offered to train him and he'd been too proud to accept her help. Turning her away had felt awful and he definitely wasn't getting any better on his own. Sometimes the entire point of being a team was the part where you helped each other. Jaune nodded his head, his face lighting up a bit. "I would really like that, Ren. I'd like that a lot. I want to be good, or... at least hold my own. Just in case."
There was always the chance that the next thing they faced was worse than creepy angel video games. "So... classes, and papers, and private training lessons, and maybe a job. When we've all dreamed a bit, maybe we should do some team exercises. Like... bonding time! And not just you making us pancakes. Not that I don’t love your pancakes. Just… something we can all contribute to." Because Ren seemed to cook for them a lot in the dreams, and a team building exercise was a great way to give back.
Ren hoped there would be no “just in case,” but he’d originally decided to join the Network when the Grimm had attacked the OC, and so he knew that it was more likely than not that there may very well be a time when they did have to put their combat skills into practice.
It sounded as though Jaune was going to be busy over the next couple of months, but Ren was still happy that he would want to dedicate time to team building exercise. Truthfully, Ren enjoyed cooking for everyone, but though Ren was still early into his dreams, he did hope that all of them could be get as long as well as they did in the dreams, and just doing brunch every now and then would not get them there. “I think that’s a great idea,” Ren said.
Jaune took a second to count off all the things he'd listed on his fingers, so that he could see a physical representation of his time. "Do you think that's too much? Or maybe if I've actually got a plan I can get it all done. It's just probably really important for us all to work well together. I mean, look at that apocalypse that happened. We're... you know, us, if something like that happens again I know we'll want to help."
He glanced down at the school work that Ren had already started trying to divide up, and pursed his lips together. "I think I can do it."
Ren frowned thoughtfully at Jaune’s question and looked over the schedule that he’d made so far. “It might be a little bit much at first, at least until you get caught up with your studies,” he said honestly. “But after a few weeks, we can cut back your studying hours and we can focus on other things.”
He smiled then, and looked at Jaune. “I think you can do it too,” he said. “So long as you’re willing to try.”
"Everything new is probably overwhelming at first... I just have to stick with it." Jaune decided, nodding his head. He smiled at Ren, feeling one hundred percent better about everything than he had before his friend had come over. "Thanks, Ren. I feel like I can really accomplish things now."