RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC93: Bait (Heroes)-6

Cinder figured that was a better excuse to use than the real reason.

"I've had time to think about it since then," she said. "And it's just not going to work for me anymore, so that's all there is to it. Anyway it wasn't like it was that real. It was just to make the assignment easier, but there's so many people working on this now, it won't be necessary."

Royal gave her a long look. "So that's it?"

"What's it?" Cinder said.

"That's all I get?"

"Why would you get more than that?" she said, more uncomfortable still.

"I guess I should have expected this," Royal said. "I thought at least that you would trust me to accept it in person, but, I guess not. This is the first time since I've known you that you've actually really bothered me by anything you've done...well, one of the only times."

Cinder didn't expect that to make her feel as bad as it did, but it kind of stung.

"I can't believe this is where you draw the line." She tried to stay cold. "It's far from reprehensible."

"No, it's not that," Royal said, still salty. "But it is still unkind. I'm not a complete doormat."

"I don't know why you'd call this unkind compared to how I usually act," Cinder said. "I don't want to discuss it."

"Or anything else," Royal said. "I just don't get it... After what you said to Vivian, I kind of thought maybe things weren't quite as bad as they seemed. This doesn't make sense to me. But I can see you are not going to explain yourself."

"Don't lecture me," Cinder said.

"I'm not. Does this sound like a lecture?"

Actually it sounded far more like hurt feelings.

"And don't read into things," Cinder added.  "What did you think it meant? That I like you?"

She meant to make this sound crushingly scornful...however, it didn't come out quite as harsh as she meant.

"I don't know," Royal shot back. "Technically, you never said you didn't."

Cinder had thought she had...but no...come to think of it, she hadn't.

Seemed like a strange oversight on her part.

"Well, I don't," she said. 

Then, feeling this wasn't going to be persuasive enough, she barreled on, probably unwisely. "I wouldn't feel that way about anyone. I can't imagine why you would think any different."

"Here and there there were moments I thought might mean something," Royal said, rather subdued compared to how he'd been speaking before. "But people do see things that aren't there, I guess."

"Well, that's true." Cinder turned her back to glare at the night sky again.

This whole thing was ridiculous, she decided. What was he even thinking?

"Besides," she said aloud, "I don't think you really like me either."

"Okay, I can take the rest of it," Royal said, "but are you seriously going to tell me what I think now?"

 He sounded so annoyed, it was almost funny.

Like it was so unbelievable that anyone would tell him what he thought. Talk about privileged.

Actually, that was all Atlas did.

"Maybe you have this idea of me in your head," she said, not looking back still, perhaps because she knew this was probably BS. "I don't know what, but I guess I can do some impressive things... Maybe it's easy to forget the rest of it, but the truth will always come back around. Really, you should thank me for putting a stop to this before it goes further. People will talk if you keep on being so careless, and it's not like it was going to last. Just a brief attraction is all it amounts to in the end."