When Weiss turned the key to her dorm room after that very, very long day, she hoped that she might be able to sit down and relax for a while. No homework – though plenty was due soon – no readings, just her in bed with a laptop in front of her to surf the web mindlessly until she would eventually fall asleep. That would just be the best, the heiress thought to herself as she pushed open the door, though unfortunately, the blur of red and black before her had other plans.

"Weiss, Weiss, Weiss, you're back!" The blur that had been zipping across the room stopped in front of the startled girl, standing in the threshold in the form of her roommate. Well, more of a force of nature than an actual person, but since she could form complete sentences from time to time and occasionally be reasoned with, that was good enough. She wore a red collared shirt – her favorite color – with the sleeves rolled up haphazardly, along with her ever-present faded black jeans. Her dark brown hair was, as usual, quite disheveled, tipped with streaks of red. However, her most distinguishing features were her shimmering silver eyes and her stupid grin. Overall, the girl gave off the impression of a crimson whirlwind, something Weiss was not particularly keen on dealing with at that moment.

"Alright, Ruby, the next time you greet someone, especially me, please just greet them like a normal person and not like…well, you."

"Okay!" Ruby exclaimed, clearing her throat and proceeding with her best impression of her roommate's voice, "'Good day, madam, it is most exquisite to have to return to our humble adobe.' There, that better?" Her roommate's only response was a strained groan, dripping with annoyance. "Well, you do sound like that sometimes, you know."

"Don't be a pest - just because I'm a Schnee, it doesn't mean that I employ such ridiculous vocabulary. Besides, the word you were looking for was 'abode,' not 'adobe,' as the latter term refers to a clay-like building ma- why are you smiling again." She meant that last statement to be a question, but it was a question she so often asked that Weiss almost spoke the words out of reflex, devoid of inflection.

"Because you're proving my point!" Ruby proclaimed with a beaming smile. Strange, Weiss wondered, it's almost as if I had just seen that face not an hour ago...great, I don't think I can handle TWO goofballs in my life right now. Resigning herself to the fact that she wasn't going to win any arguments with Ruby any time soon, she changed the subject.

"I know that cheerfulness is pretty much your one defining quality, but you're far more chipper than usual. What's got you this excited?" Weiss almost regretted asking the brunette this when she squealed giddily and started bouncing around the room again.

"I got a date, I got a date, I got a da-a-ate!"

"Oh? You finally found someone who can tolerate your antics and keep up with your energy levels?"

"Hey!" Ruby pouted, "You're making me sound like I'm crazy or something."

"Precisely."

"I'm not crazy – I just love life, a-and want others to do the same!"

"Wonderful. Who's the lucky and/or unlucky guy?"

"Well…" the girl in red started to wander off into a dream-like state, her voice adopting a wispy quality, "there's this guy in my history class named Jaune that I've been talking to for a little while now. He's super cute, with messy blond hair and big ol' blue eyes that look like the ocean, and-and he's also a giant dork, like me – not that we're weird or anything, dorks can be normal, too – and we haven't really done too much else aside from talking a little during and after class, but he's always talking to just me, so I'm pretty sure that means he likes me, but I don't know, because he hasn't really said anything direct about it yet, so it's technically up in the air, but you know, I think tha-"

"Whoa there, you can slow down that motor mouth of yours a bit," Weiss said, holding out her hands to indicate that Ruby should actually slow down a lot more. Ruby noticed this and took a couple of deep breaths.

"Right, right, sorry, got a little carried away, he he…"

"That's fine, I wouldn't expect anything less from you," Weiss comforted, albeit in her usual, snarky manner. "Anyway, you were saying something about a date?"

"Oh yeah!" Ruby's face immediately lit up like the sun. "Yeah, so today, after lecture today, Jaune finally ran out after me and told me that really wanted to do something with me outside of class. I got all giddy inside, but I hid it so I didn't look like an idiot, and asked him what he had in mind, and he said that he was thinking of going to one of those nice restaurants on Atlas Avenue, and then I said yes in my most lady-like manner, and then he left, and now I'm back here!"

"And now you're releasing all the pent-up excitement from this invitation in a place where you won't embarrass yourself?" Weiss deduced.

"Yep! Well, not just excitement, also a little bit of worry. I mean, I've never dated anyone before, and this guy, I swear, is so perfect for me! I mean, this is my chance to really seal the deal, y'know? So I've got to make sure I do everything right, or else I might do something stupid, and then he might think I'm stupid and not want to date me again, and then… and then…" Before Ruby spiraled further and further down her little vortex of despair and self-doubt, Weiss broke her from her trance with a swift flick to the forehead. The brunette yelped in protest, nursing the little bruise her roommate just gave her, but she stood at attention, just as the heiress wanted.

"Look, Ruby, you're going to get nowhere thinking like that," she started, resting a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "If he likes you, then he probably already knows about all your weird little quirks and mannerisms. In fact, from the way you described him, that's probably why he likes you in the first place; he's a little dork, you're a big dork, and so you two can go dork together happily into the night." She paused when she saw her roommate's face begin to match the color of her shirt. "Not like that, you dolt! At least, not yet, anyway – I mean that you two are well suited for each other, and he'll likely accept your little hiccups just as you might for him."

Ruby tilted her head in confusion. "You mean it's alright if I start hiccupping around him."

"Of course it's alrig- that's not what I meant! I don't mean literal hiccups, I mean those moments when you do something silly or dumb for no particular reason."

"Oooohhhhhhh, that's what you meant…" Weiss's roommate pointed her finger up meaningfully, as if what was just said came as a great revelation to her.

"Right… look, the bottom line is this: don't worry about the date, it will go well and Jaune will still like you."

Ruby let out a sigh of relief that she had been holding in for hours and turned to her white-haired roommate, who offered a slight smile, uncharacteristic of her usual cold demeanor. "Thanks, Weiss. You really know the perfect things to say at times like this." Weiss winced momentarily upon hearing that notorious "P" word.

"Right, anything to calm you down." She finally shifted from her position in the threshold and walked over to her desk, tossing her back on the floor and slumping into her chair. "I don't need anything else today to wear me out." Before she realized her poor choice of phrasing, Ruby piped up with the question she had been hoping to avoid.

"Oh, that reminds me! How did the trip to the gym go?"

The heiress was slow to respond. Truthfully, she thought it to be a dreadful experience. She humiliated herself in more ways than she'd like to admit, bumbling around the place without a clue of what she was doing, screwing up enough to get the attention of one of the workers there. Sure enough, the girl – Yang, was it? – made a somewhat admirable attempt to make herself seem welcome in the gym, but, just like she had said, she didn't belong there. No, rather than taking more time out of her already tight schedule to go to Gold's Gym and continue to make a fool of herself there, Weiss planned on not returning there again. She felt a little bad for having to leave the blond trainer hanging like that, but she had already made up her mind.

"It was as bad as I thought it would be," she replied curtly, "and I do not think that it will be worth my while to continue that activity."

Unfortunately, her energetic roommate was not about to accept this sort of answer. "What do you mean, it was bad? You didn't break anything did you?"

"No, no, nothing like that! It just did not feel… it did not feel all that welcoming." An image of the trainer crossed through her mind, holding her hand out and showing off a warm smile.

"Really? That's a shame… but I don't think it could have been all that bad! It may seem that the people at gyms don't really care about you, but that's just because they're all just super focused on themselves. They don't hate you, they just let you have your own space."

"Maybe, but… ach," Weiss released a breath of stress and continued, "I just kept screwing up on all the machines, and-and I fell a couple times when something went wrong, and I looked like a total novice."

"Well, duh, you can't just expect to do everything all willy-nilly – you've got to get help from someone who knows better! Don't they have professional trainers there?" Once more, Yang's cheerful face and comforting words of wisdom overtook Weiss's thoughts. 'What I'm trying to say is that I can help out'… she almost sounded like this wasn't just something she could do, but something she wanted to do…

"There was one that talked with me for a bit, but…" The heiress paused, realizing that she lacked any real excuse for that detail, "Never mind that, the point is that this whole idea was just a waste of time, a-and I have more pressing matters to attend to." She went to reach into her backpack for her books and laptop with the intention of throwing herself into anything else besides this conversation, but her roommate was not so easily ignored.

"Oh, come on, Weiss!" Ruby's voice lost its encouraging tone from earlier, irritation taking its place. "You literally just went to that gym once, without knowing what to do there, and you think that's enough for you to determine whether or not it's a waste of your time? I know you really don't want to go, but you need this! You've been such a bundle of stress recently, and you need something vigorous to shake all of that off." Weiss opened her mouth to speak, but the brunette raised palm in front of her to stop her from speaking and continued, her voice softening to a tender plea, "Just give it a full week to see it helps, okay? If it doesn't work out in the end, that's fine, I'll shut up about it and it'll be as if it never happened."

The Schnee girl sat at her desk in silence, allowing herself to think about what Ruby had said. As much as she was loath to return to the gym, it would mean that her energetic roommate would finally shut up about this whole thing. Plus, a week is not a long time at all; she would go two, maybe three times at most, and it would all be over. Still, there was never a lack of other things to attend to in her life. She should return her focus to her studies again and continue working towards acing all of her courses and perhaps even place at the top of her class. If she worked hard enough at the university, she could even graduate early and start working at her family's massive tech company and earn a handsome salary. Indeed, being the heiress also meant that Weiss was almost guaranteed to start out in a high-ranking position, with as many as hundreds of people looking up to her for leadership – surely that's what she wanted? Of course that's what I want! This is my duty as the future head of the Schnee family, Weiss told herself, attempting to convince herself that her actions were exactly what she wanted, an exercise she all too often found herself performing. It would make Father happy, at the very least, and if he's happy, I'll be happy… I hope… oh, Dust, I hope it will be worth it. As Weiss was about to plunge deeper into dark thoughts, the image of the golden-haired trainer's unassuming smile caught her at the precipice. She remembered her warm aura, her simple and comfortable demeanor, and those lilac eyes… it's almost like they wanted me…

"Yooooo, Weissy, are you going to answer me or not?" Ruby waved her hand in front of her pensive roommate, who jumped with a start at the sudden intrusion of her personal space.

"Well… I'll give it another try."

"Yay!" Ruby cheered, throwing her arms around Weiss in a tight embrace. "I knew you would say 'yes!'"

"Ruby…" Weiss managed to say while her lungs were being crushed by her roommate's hug, "I think that if you want me to live to see tomorrow and continue this gym thing, I'd suggest you don't break my rib cage." The brunette immediately relaxed her grip and stood back up.

"He he, sorry, got a bit excited again. It's just… I know this will be super good for you. I've got a strong feeling about his, I guarantee it!"

"We'll have to see about that," Weiss replied plainly, but she internally crossed her fingers. I hope you're right.

EDITOR: CatharticKnightmare

A little bit early, yes - I wanted to give a little extra exposition before my end-of-the-week update, this time, from Weiss's perspective! Isn't she just a bundle of joy? Also, yes, there's some Lancaster action in here for those of you that enjoy that dorky pairing :P

Please leave a review - hearing your feedback is very important and helpful for me! See y'all soon~