Cardin liked to consider himself a 'disciplined' person. Well, not in behaviour but in self-control. Master your mind; master your body and all that pseudo-philosophical stuff. He enjoyed testing himself, trying to resist a temptation or two for the sake of 'training' himself. After all, even an asshole can find his Inner Zen if he tries hard enough. What was the current temptation? Only the greatest one he'd ever faced.

"I. Do not. Need to go to the bathroom."

His legs were incredibly sore…somehow. He'd been getting aches all over his body ever since the whole shebang with him almost killing Marty started, but his legs were particularly agitated today. It was quite the tough choice it was; he could either sit here with an uncomfortable stomach or tolerate the painful walk towards the bathroom. However, he'd need to get up eventually.

"God damn it..."

So Cardin gave into the temptation and went to the bathroom. Already in the room, Cardin decided to go about the rest of his morning routines, hoping that a hot shower would wash the pain away. When half an hour of standing in the shower did nothing to ease his aching muscles, he turned the shower off and started drying himself.

"What's that Cardin? Catch a break? Never heard of it! Have some muscle pains instead!"

He caught sight of himself in the mirror and groaned. He'd been losing a lot of weight recently; he was just as muscular as ever, but the lack of food, sleep and excessive exercise had cost him a fair amount of body fat.

"I need to start eating again; appetite or no."

Cardin through on a blue t-shirt and some blue/black board shorts and bemoaned the fact that he'd gone down another size. He walked out of the door and cracked his knuckles and the vertebrae in his neck.

"Eww, gross!" a young voice yelled. He briefly wondered who it could be before mentally slapping himself for being an idiot. This was a private room that Ozpin had assigned him out of concern that his assailants would take another crack at him and, with the whole private room thing in mind, there was only one person who would be visiting him right now.

"If I don't stop, will you keep stealing my strawberries?"

"Like you could stop me~" Ruby said playfully, albeit not without a shy and nervous edge. Cardin shuffled slowly over to the chair beside the younger girl, his awkward pose not going unnoticed.

"What's up with you?"

"Muscle pains. I've been getting them a lot recently."

"Really? I could get you a massage."

Cardin felt his heart stop cold for a second, but refused to let it show, master of one's mind and all that. As much as Cardin would confess that Ruby was attractive in a cute and adorable way, he enjoyed not having facial deformities and not getting shot in the face too much to do anything about it.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I could get Jaune to give you a massage. He's really good at them."

"Is he?"

"Yeah, my team and JNPR got into a fight about who got to have them and when."

"Well that does sound appealing, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Jauney-boy might not agree."

"Why?"

"Um, you know, the whole 'I'm a blackmailing douc- erm, jerk...thing."

Ruby looked somewhat saddened by Cardin's self-deprecation but decided that the best thing she could do was try to cheer him up. She reached into the backpack that she brought with her and pulled out two gigantic containers of strawberries and handed one to Cardin, who accepted eagerly.

"Wow, thanks! Now you don't have to steal mine." Cardin said sarcastically, earning him a playful slap on the arm. The two sat there and ate their strawberries in contemplative silence.

"You're not a jerk you know."

"What?"

"You're not a jerk."

"What's that? I can't hear you~" Cardin said, his mouth twitching upward out of barely contained laughter.

"YOU. ARE. NOT. A-"

"Relax, I can hear just fine, it just makes me feel better to hear someone else say it."

"Oh…"

Ruby, upon realising that she had demolished her strawberries in record time, tried to steal a few out of Cardin's container. The ginger caught her by the wrist and gave her an amused look before giving her the entire container, mumbling under his breath about 'not being hungry' and then cursing himself for not 'sticking to his promise'.

"We should do something." Ruby said suddenly.

"M'kay, what do ya have in mind?"

"I dunno, we could go for a walk or something."

"Can't. They won't let me out for another day or so."

"Hmm…how about a card game?"

"Sounds good, what do you wanna play?"

"Vacuo Hold 'em."

"Alright, but I'm warning you; I happen to be pretty good at Poker." The Mace-wielder said smugly.

"Un. Freaking. Believable."

If you told Cardin last night that he'd be getting his arse kicked in Texas Hold 'Em by Ruby Rose of all people…well, he'd probably believe you. After all, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that had happened to him during his time at Beacon, but it was still no less humiliating.

"What's the matter Cardin? Can't handle getting beaten by a girl~" Ruby teased in a sing-song tone.

"No, the girl part I can handle. It's the whole losing to a fifteen-year-old that gives me grief. How did you even get this good?!"

"Eh, Yang taught me how to play. With her, you either get good or get wrecked."

Cardin opened his mouth to debate, but considering Yang's incredibly aggressive fighting style, he wouldn't be surprised if she was that aggressive in other areas as well.

"How mature of me."

"So do you get out tomorrow?"

"Yep."

"You should hang out with me and Jaune tomorrow!"

Cardin cringed at the thought of being in near proximity to the blonde, especially after their last 'conversation' that didn't exactly go well. His discomfort didn't go unnoticed by Ruby however, and the girl pouted.

"Aw, c'mon! It'll be fun I promise! Cross my heart and hope to die!"

"Hmm…fine, but it's your fault if I end up getting pushed in front of a car or something."

"Deal." Ruby said, confidently shaking the larger boy's hand.

"Whelp, I better get going. Wouldn't want to take any more of your dignity." The dark-haired girl said, walking out of the room before Cardin could fire off a retort.

"Damn, and I had a really good hand to…"

The blue-eyed boy leaned back in his chair, sighing contentedly. Oddly enough, he didn't feel all that nervous about meeting Jaune tomorrow, now that he had Ruby's word nothing bad would happen.

"What time is i-1:30! Really!"

The ginger had good reason to be surprised, this was the first time he'd gone from waking up to lunch without a single overwhelmingly depressing thought in an unhealthily long time.

"Yeah, I have a good feeling about tomorrow."