//------------------------------// // Chapter 13; "R-Really?" // Story: "Just Kiss Already!" And Other Rumbaloo Tales // by Candy-Sweets_12 //------------------------------// We heaved heavily as we sat in the grass. Rumble and I were sweating like crazy as we hunched over. "Why...do you... always make me do so many wing-ups?" he asks. "Hey... I did them too." I replied. "So quit complaining." Not to mention that my lack of sleep or the amount of times I nearly hit something made me feel light headed. "I guess." he said. I leaned back and I looked to Rumble. "Didn't you want to ask me something?" I ask him, I recall that he had a question to ask me in the cafeteria. "Oh, yeah." Rumble sat up and looked away, rubbing his arm and becoming pretty interested with a few blades of grass next to him. "Ask away then." I say. "I was wondering if...um...you... maybe wanted... to go on a date?" Rumble blushed a deep red and shut his eyes. "Maybe dinner together?" For whatever reason, my thoughts, went back to that day in the snow, where Rumble said he had the best day ever and all. I felt exactly the same way I had in the snow from such a long time ago, and I felt the same sense of warmth from when he was in my room when I was sick. I don't say anything and I look to the grass beneath my hooves, I feel heat rise in my cheeks. I fall completely speechless and wait for him to sat something. "R-really?" I ask him, keeping my gaze away from his. I tried to ask in a neutral tone, but it came off more as shock and disbelief than I intended. "Well...yeah. I was kind of hoping you'd like to go out for dinner or something." He says, there's a bit of hope in his voice, but what little confidence I heard in it was overlapped by fear. I couldn't help but feel reluctant. A large part of me said to let him down easy, but that one other part of me was still holding on pretty strong. 'What do I say?' I think. 'I don't even know for sure if I like him in that way yet.' I hear him shift his position and I feel Rumble's eyes on me, making me even more nervous than before. "I..." I stop, 'It's simple, yes or no!' I remind myself. 'Why is this so hard for me?' "I'll think about it." I say, before he could react, I jump up into the air and fly off as fast as I could. Guilt stabbed at me as I kept thinking about the look of defeat on his face. I flew all the way across town until I found a cloud looming over a place where no pony lived. There was an open field stretching to the mountains and was about a quarter mile from town. "Ugh!" I say. I hide my face in the cloud and try not to scream. "Why is it so hard for me to choose?" I ask myself. I lay flat and turn to my back. "What is he going to think of me now?" I ask myself. I shut my eyes and groan. "I could've said yes, I could've said no, what's so hard about that? Why couldn't I do it?" I ask. I lie there and do nothing. I try not to think of Rumble, but the look of disappointment I saw just seems to keep resurfacing out of nowhere. "Why?" I asked myself. "Why, why, why, why?" I repeated the question over and over, as if I'd get an answer for it. Or so I thought. "Why what?" I heard. I jump up into the air and look around. I look around for the source of the voice and find the owner of it landing on the cloud next to me. "Oh, hey Rainbow Dash." I say. "Is something bothering you? You looked pretty distressed there." She said. She throws me a supporting smile, but I decide to look away. 'Should I tell her about it? What if she laughs or something? No, Rainbow Dash would never do that.' "Well, Rumble just asked me if I wanted to go on a date." I say, looking to the ground. "Really? What'd you say?" "I said I'd think about it." I reply. "Okay then, is that all that's bothering you?" She asks and I sigh. "No." "What could possibly be the problem? Do you not want to date him?" she asks. "Yes? I think I do. No? I don't know! I don't know if I like him like that, I want to just be friends, but I also like him, just a little." Blush resurfaces on my skin. She's silent for a moment before she replies. "Well, why do you still want to be friends?" Now it was my turn to be quite. We shared a long pause while I flopped on my back and shielded the sun from my eyes. "I don't know." I admit. "It's just that we've been friends for the longest time, and to date now... I just can't describe it." I say. "I know how you feel." I look to her. "You remind me a lot of myself before I started dating Soarin', just like you, I wasn't sure if I liked him or not, and I wish that somepony could've given me advice of some sort. Eventually though, I had to get over my feelings and tell him how I felt." "So you're saying I should do that?" I ask. "I'm not saying that. You've got your own choices to make, we're two completely different ponies, living completely different lives, caught up in similar,-but different, situations." She leans back into the cloud and turns her head to me. While I just look away. "Is that the only problem?" "No." I sigh. "What else is bothering you?" "I don't know why I couldn't choose, it was yes or no. Why's it so hard for me to ask?" I rant, flailing my hooves into the air. "Are you a little nervous about dating him?" she asks me. I blush. That was an understatement. "Yes, I feel very...tense about it, you know?" I ask. She nods. "And...why do you feel tense?" she asks. "I don't know!" I say aloud. She looks up to the sky and shields the sun from her eyes. "Those seem to have become your favorite words lately." She teases, trying to lighten the mood. I say nothing. "Maybe it'll help if you just talked it out or something?" she suggests. "Did that work for you?" "Ask Fluttershy, I must've talked her ears off." she replies with a supportive grin. "I guess...that I feel afraid." I say quietly. She says nothing as if she was pushing me to go on. "I don't feel like I could date him, I just don't know how I could." "Have you stopped to think that you're thinking about this a little too deeply?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Of course I have, but I don't know any other way to find the answer. " she just shrugs and urges me to continue. "I just...can't. I can't, but I want to, but I'm just too scared!" I say. "But why are you scared?" she asks. I can't help but try to think of a witty comeback, but my head is too clouded. "I don't want to make the wrong choice. What if he's not right for me?" "Then you'll find someone else that'll make you happy, it happens to many ponies." "But what if he is?" "Explain." "I mean, what if I make a mistake, or say something mean, or do something stupid, or-" "Hold on Scoots. Let me stop you right there, you need to know that that's the point of a relationship. It's up to the ponies to make it work together. They have to talk, and they have to be honest, otherwise they'd end up unhappy together. If Rumble's not right for you, then that's just that." "I can't help but feel he will end up doing that though. What if he doesn't like me that much anymore? Or what if he ends up wanting to break up with me, or go for some other mare? What if he just doesn't like me as much as I thought he did." "Does Rumble judge you right now though?" "No, at least, I don't think he does, what if he's just trying to be nice to me?." "Does he show an interest in any other mares?" "Maybe? It's a possibility. "Did he admit that he likes you a lot?" "No." "Then that's just something you'll have to find out. Some ponies really surprise you, some in more good way than bad. But its like I said, don't overthink this. You don't want to assume the worst in him, then he'd end up seeming to be the worst. Just make your own choice." She set her hoof on my shoulder. I stay silent for a moment, my head was overflowing with thoughts. 'I can't believe I said all of that about him. I'm such a bad friend. Why am I such an idiot?' I wonder. I bring my hoof to my head. "I'll leave you to think about it." Rainbow Dash says, getting up faster than I could blink. "Wait," I say. "Yeah?" "How'd you find me here?" I ask. "Well, I was looking for you since I didn't have much to do today, and then I found you flying like you're life depended on it, so I decided to see what's up." she explains. "I'm glad that you did." I say. "Me too." she replies. "You're not going to tell anypony about this, are you? Not Soarin', or your friends, or even Tank when he wakes up?" I ask. "Trust me Squirt, I wouldn't do that to you." "Promise?" I ask. "I promise." "Good." "I've got to go. Don't worry so much about it Squirt, just make your own choice." She reminds me, looking to me with supporting eyes and a winning smile. "I hope that you won't forget that. With that she jumped off the cloud and flew away, leaving me to hassle with my thoughts. It was like being forced to choose something you didn't want to side in, one part of me said to let him down easy, while another said to accept it. I don't know how long I stayed there, thinking of Rumble, but I eventually came to my conclusion. I look to the sky and find that it was getting darker as the sun started to set. 'Shoot." I say. I have to tell Rumble before I have to get home, otherwise I'd end up with another sleepless night of thinking. I quickly fly to his house, and knocking on his door in a matter of minutes. I knock on the door and await an answer. Instead of getting Rumble like I hoped, his mother opens the door. "Oh hello Scootaloo, didn't expect to see you here." "Hey, is Rumble home?" I ask. "No, we thought that'd he was with you." She says, staring into my eyes with her pink ones, she brushes her blue-gray mane out of her eyes and smiles. "I haven't seen him in a while." I say. "Oh," she begins to flutter her gray wings. "Maybe he's hanging out with his friends. If you see him, tell him to be home before eight." She smiles. "I will." I tell her. I turn and fly away after thanking her for her help. 'He could be in the park, it's an unlikely chance, but it's worth something.' I think. I make a b-line for the park, flying slowly in case he happened to be walking in the vacant streets. Once I arrive, I fly all around the place, calling out his name until for a long time. "Rumble?" I repeated, searching all over, up and down for any sign of him. "Darn it!" I say once I receive no reply. I sit on the closest bench I could find and put my head into my hooves. 'I shouldn't have run off like that. I'll never find him.' The street lights were starting to flicker on as the stars started popping into place. I sigh and get up. 'I guess that I'll just have to tell him tomorrow.' I trudge home, staring down at the ground and continuously kicking at whatever stones my hooves could find in the middle of the road. Just as I was kicking the third one I could find, I hear a distant voice. "Scootaloo?" I hear. I whip my head up and look for the voice, turning to my left to see Rumble there. "Rumble!" I reply. Without thinking, I find myself running up to him and jumping on him. He tried to step back in surprise, but I manage to tackle him down as always. "Yes." I tell him. It takes him a moment to process as he looks up at me, and then his eyes seem to grow as he smiles excitedly. "R-Really?" he asks. "Yes Rumble." "You're not pulling a joke on me?" he asks. I shake my head and blush, a small smile creeping on my lips. "I'm not. I...I'd actually like to go out with you Rumble." "Y-you do?" he stutters. "Yes." I felt the warmth grow between us, and I breathed in a deep breath. It was as though I had been holding my breath all this time as a huge weight made its way off of my shoulders. "Does that mean-" I cover his mouth. "I'm not revealing everything tonight, lover boy. Let me save something for the date, right now, we both need to get home." I say, blushing even redder as the heat moved to my ears. "So I'll meet you at your house on Saturday night, at seven?" He asks, a smile still stretching on his face. I can't help but smile back as I feel more warmth. "I'd love that." And for the first time in the weeks they started thinking about each other, the two slept a peaceful night, both of which had big smiles plastered on their faces, as they're dreams were filled with memories of the previous day they left behind.