Pyrrha stared at Haru.
She stared at Haru, because he was currently shirtless. Despite how she could normally keep her cool, the only time she was used to seeing a shirtless Haru was before he went to sleep... and that was only two times she had seen that, and the other time she had seen him shirtless was when he had ugly purple bruising all across his chest from when he broke his ribs.
Of course, his ribs were broken... again... because of her.
"Sorry." Pyrrha said the second she realized that she had been the cause of the break this time. Of course, the doctor said that Haru shouldn't have been allowed to fight anyway less than 3 days after he had recovered the first time around. Him breaking his ribs was the fault of Glynda for selecting him for the spar, and Glynda had gotten... bitched out by the doctor for her irresponsibility in handling freshly recovered patients.
Haru sent a glance at her, not having paid attention to what she had said. His eyes had been glued to the Scroll in his hand as he looked through his E-Mail.
Pyrrha went back to looking at the muscle definition on his chest. She was surprised to see how well off he was. She hadn't expected him... well she didn't want to say that, she knew he was toned, but she hadn't expected him to have such a hard, yet soft looking, body that showed youth and muscle at the same time. She also looked over his scars, the ones that he had told her he had gotten from a Grimm when he was younger... She was curious as to why the scars grew along with his body, but Haru didn't tell her.
She was easily able to see past the scars on his body, which added character to him in her opinion, and saw that he seemed to... glow in the moonlight... or even sunlight.
He was no muscle man with bulging muscles, but he had a lean runner's build, or maybe swimmers.
He wasn't the only injured party though, she had her own injuries. She had her nose bandaged, because he had actually busted her up pretty good, and she was sporting some bruising on her biceps and her back. She also had a few burns on the palms of her hands from where her hands had touched the super heated shield when she defended against the flames. She also had some moderate injuries to her chest, but it was mostly bruising that would go away on its own.
The only reason Haru was more injured was because his chest was still weak from the test.
She WAS still a little flushed from having to take her top off in front of the nurse in the other room. She was a bit embarrassed of showing her top to anyone really, she normally wore armor that could act very similar to a bra, so she had no need for one. She wasn't wearing one, so when she had her injuries looked at she was pretty much shirtless. Haru had been on the other side of the curtain, so he hadn't seen anything, and it wasn't like she had done anything embarrassing.
The nurse had just applied light amounts of pressure to the injured areas, and then an X-ray had been taken of her.
She had some ointment rubbed on her bruises to lower the amount of time it would take for the blood to defuse, and then she had some bandages placed over the area to keep her armor from rubbing against it in an uncomfy way.
"Hey Pyrrha, looks like we missed our last classes of the day... gonna have to make up for them tomorrow." Haru commented, breaking the awkward air between them.
"Actually, we don't have classes until next week." Pyrrha reminded him, and he thought about it for a moment.
"Oh right, it is the weekend tomorrow... so... yeah." Haru said awkwardly as he started to rub some of the ointment into his back. Haru groaned at how weird it was for him to try and reach some of the bruised places on his back. Pyrrha walked over to him and sat on the bed next to him, before she started to help him out without saying a word. Her fingers trailed along the muscles on his back, and she had a small smile on her face.
She was happy to help her friend out.
She didn't have many real friends, most people praised her for her fighting skills and placed her so high up that they didn't even consider friendship possible.
That was why she loved having her equal in the form of Haru, and while she wasn't arrogant, she would admit that she hadn't expected anyone to really match her before Haru. Her Semblence, when fighting against a weapon user with a metal weapon, was nearly God-like. Haru had a fighting style that went against her Semblence, even when he was using his weapon. With Haru, she didn't have to worry about him looking at her like she was above him.
Pyrrha smiled awkwardly when she realized Haru DID have to look up at her, she had a good 6 inches on him in the height department. He was around 5'6", and she had reached 6'0" in height... but despite their height difference he still stood on equal ground.
"Does that feel good?" Pyrrha asked him as she massaged the ointment into his back, rubbing it gently to try and fix some of the damage that she had caused. She always got lost in their fights, and sometimes she forgot that she was fighting a person that felt pain and suffered injuries just like her.
When they were having so much fun, they forgot about the fact that they were trying to hurt each other.
"Yeah... that feels great." Haru said with a light smile on his face. He always enjoyed having his back rubbed like this when he got it injured. Her rubbing his back didn't help in the physical sense, but the fact that she tried to help him, and back rubs always felt good for him, made him happy all the same.
"You have a really happy smile on your face." Pyrrha noted, and Haru touched his smiling face.
"You have amazing hands, you can really work some magic on my body." Haru genuinely complimented her.
"Oh, thanks... I'm happy we are on the same team. I have to ask though... is Yang really that overprotective?" Pyrrha asked Haru, she had been noticing some rather disturbing signs that gave her a dangerous feeling about Yang, but she hadn't wanted to bring it up to Haru during the test. Of course, she knew for a fact that Yang was way too overprotective... Just the way she acted around Haru, treating him like a kid that needed to be protected, proved that.
The reason escaped her.
"Yeah, but I don't think she can help it either... I think the thought of losing me really scares her. I almost died when I was younger, and I went into a coma... it was Yang's fault it happened, and she had seen me get these scars... I heard she was held by a bloodied body." Haru told Pyrrha, who covered her mouth and gasped. She had known some of the story, or rather, she had gotten bits and pieces of it... but now she got a more clear picture.
Yang didn't see Haru as a strong person, she saw him as the child that had almost died... whose death would have been her fault.
Yang had some serious mental trauma.
"At least she will see you are strong after that spar." Pyrrha said, ever the optimist, and hoping that Yang could see him as the strong person that he is.
"She will still try and protect me... Yang loves me and Ruby. Despite being overprotective, she is a good older sister... but she can be a bit... overbearing." Haru admitted, it was part of the reason that he didn't punch her for how she was acting. He hated being thought of as weak, but he was an understanding person. Ruby had slept through his near-death moments, Yang had seen it with her own eyes... Yang was deeply affected by it, and he understood that.
She acted out of love, something he couldn't hate her for... it wasn't even that twisted, she was simply overprotective to the point of worrying herself over it.
If anything, he wanted her to stop worrying for HER sake.
He has a nice body, and his skin is really smooth. Pyrrha thought to herself as she pressed down and continued doing what she was doing. Haru had grown up more since their last spar, his back had gotten bigger than before. To her, it was almost like yesterday when they were the same general size. Now she was taller, and his back seemed to have gotten bigger. In a way, it made her happy to know that they were growing together in a strange sense.
"AH!" Haru shouted out in pain when Pyrrha hit a VERY bruised spot where one of the cracks were at.
"Oh shi—! I am so sorry!" Pyrrha said with wide eyes when she realized she had hurt Haru. She had stopped herself from using a curse word, but that didn't matter as much when she realized that Haru was on his side cradling his ribs in pain. Haru was nearly gasping in pain, and Pyrrha looked at the X-ray of Haru's ribs right next to her own and compared it to where she had touched.
She had just got the deepest, most painful of the cracks.
"That HURTS! Hahahahaha!" Haru laughed out, and this was painful laughter. Haru was forcing himself to laugh off the pain. Injuries got during a fight were numbed by adrenaline, this pain had come out of nowhere when he had been relaxed. Pyrrha had pretty much just stabbed him in the back, and he groaned and stopped laughing as he got back into a sitting position.
"I am so sorry, I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Can I get you something, some ice water, or—" Pyrrha started, before Haru pressed the back of his hand against her mouth and shut her up.
"I'm... good now, it was an accident... I know you would never hurt me on purpose... outside of a fight. I trust you, your own of my most precious friends." Haru told her, and Pyrrha smiled for a moment.
Then her face froze.
The entire sentence made her feel loved, trusted, and special to Haru. What he had told her had sounded so much like a confession of love at first, something that she could very much appreciate... but then that last word had struck her chest like a poison tipped arrow.
Friend, as much as she loved the thought of being one of his most precious friends, and with the fact she loved having him as a friend, that word struck a cord in her. She didn't want to be stuck as just his best friend, she didn't want that at all. She wanted him as a friend yes, a best friend even, he WAS her best friend without a doubt... but she wanted more at the same time.
She didn't want to be placed in the friend zone.
"Friends... right." Pyrrha said bitterly, like the word was poison in her mouth. Even if she got past Yang as the second biggest challenge to starting any form of romantic relationship with her dense blond/red haired leader, she was still faced with her biggest challenge... how dense he was.
"You okay Pyrrha?" Haru asked her with some concern, he noticed her mood had taken a rather dramatic change, and she looked at him with a serious look in her eyes.
"Is that all I am to you? A precious friend? You don't see me as anything else? Anything at all?" Pyrrha asked him harshly, standing up and looking down at him. Haru looked at her in surprise, before he opened his mouth and began talking.
"No, of course not. You're my best friend, my rival, my equal, and my partner. You're Pyrrha Nikos, somebody that is important to me. You are that girl with the awesome hair and passionate eyes." Haru admitted without much shame, but he did have a tint of pink on his pale cheeks. He was surprised when Pyrrha didn't smile, even though she loved the words he graced her with, those pleasant words that would normally have overflowed her heart with joy.
Right now, they only brought her closer to slapping him.
Here they were, with Yang in the middle of their last class for the day, not able to interrupt her as she confessed... and Haru was SO dense that it was actually pissing HER off all people off.
She could get angry like any other person, but as an understanding person she normally got over it... she could hold grudges, she had done it before, and she could be bitter about things... but with her friends her patience was just that much greater.
She honestly wanted to slap some sense into him.
How dense could he be? Here she was, being SO obvious with what she wanted. She wanted him to make the first move, but he was so dense with her feelings that she may as well just... come right out and say it.
"I love you!" Pyrrha said without thinking, and Haru blinked.
"I love you too, I love all of my friends. Thanks though, most people can't really admit they love their friends without making things weird between them." Haru laughed a little, and Pyrrha's fist clenched and she grit her teeth.
Friend.
There was that word again.
Friend!
"Friend... You know, if anyone else said that, I would be overjoyed at having a friend... but hearing you call me your friend with such love, trust, and kindness in your voice makes me so... you are annoying me." Pyrrha flat out said it to Haru, and he looked at her with wide eyes. Her mood had started to take a nose drive into the deep end, he had to wonder if there were any problems with her.
Nope.
She just realized how perfect this chance was, and how she could finally admit her feelings to him in a safe setting without his overbearing sisters stopping her. Without Ruby's naive attitude stopping her, or Yang flat out blocking her... and while she wasn't sure about the others, it was just nice being in a private setting without anyone else for this.
"Are you okay Pyrrha?" Haru asked her, concerned for her mental health increasing.
Haru was a man of action, words alone wouldn't get through his thick skull... and as strange/embarassing as it was going to be, she knew the best way to get through to him.
Pyrrha calmed herself down first, since this was something she didn't want to do angry.
Pyrrha shoved Haru down onto the bed, before she grabbed him by his biceps and leaned in. Pyrrha closed her eyes, and prayed that this would work.
Haru's eyes widened seconds later.
Their lips met, and it was like the world exploded. Normally he was best able to understand people by fighting with them, but right now, Pyrrha was conveying all of her passion through to him.
Passion that had been built up over years of friendship and rivalry with one of the only people that understood her... and treated her like she was a normal person.
The kiss was soft, and her lips were soft. She was a warrior, but she had soft lips. She was inexperienced with kissing, so most of her kiss was just her pressing her lips against his, the basics of a kiss, but she pressed her forehead against his during the kiss and gripped his arms even tighter.
She didn't stop kissing him, she had one of her knees go onto the bed, and she pushed him deeper into the bed.
She didn't stop kissing until they needed breath, and she looked down at him with a deep blush on her face.
"Don't call me your friend... call me your girlfriend... Do you understand now?" Pyrrha said, and despite her embarrassment over having to do that, she didn't look away from him. She stared right in his eyes, and used her own eyes to show how serious she was.
Haru didn't answer at first, his mouth opened and closed a few times, and he just looked into her eyes. She didn't let go of him though, if anything, she leaned in closer and waited patiently for his answer.
She did just dump this on him, she didn't expect an instant answer... she wanted one, but she didn't expect him to just say "I love you" seconds after she did that.
"Pyrrha... I'm sorry... but I don't think my sisters will be happy if I do this." Haru tried to let her down gently, even though letting her down at all made his heart heavy.
"Who says we have to tell them? Haru, if you want to be with me... if you have any romantic feelings for me... don't hurt both of us by not being honest." Pyrrha told him, because if he had no feelings for her at all, then she would be... hurt, but understanding of a rejection... but the reason he was giving her now wasn't enough.
She wanted his honest answer.
"Pyrrha... I—" Haru started, but she cut him off.
"If this is about Yang and Ruby, we can keep our relationship a secret until they are ready to accept it... so please... tell me what YOU want." Pyrrha told him, and she was willing to be in a secret relationship with him if that was what it took.
"Yes. I want... to be with you." Haru finally said. Pyrrha beamed at him, and she leaned down and gave him a bright smile.
Haru smiled at her as well, and the two of them shared a small laugh.
So the secret relationship of Haru Rose and Pyrrha Nikos began.