"Jaune…? Wait, you mean you own this place?"
"Well, yeah." He tilted his head to the side. "What did you think?"
"T-That you worked here, or that you were the son of the owner…"
"Heh, no. It's just me."
Oh crud. Ruby shifted in her seat, suddenly feeling nervous all over again. Here was a man just opening up his business and she'd come in, distracted him, and was now wasting his time talking when he probably just wanted to get on with what he was doing.
"I can leave if you want me to?"
"What?"
"If I'm in your way…"
"No, no." Jaune waved his hands. "You're not in my way or being a bother. Actually, maybe this is good. I've been terrified of what it'll be like to talk to customers. I've got no idea what to do or say. How about you help me?" His smile froze. "I mean if you're not busy, that is. I bet you've got places to be, right?"
Ruby dared to smile, "I'm fine if you are. I only came by because-"
Her stomach grumbled loudly.
"You were hungry?" Jaune finished with a laugh. "I don't have much in the way of food since we're not officially open, but I can get us some snacks if you want."
"No, it's fine." Ruby's said, but her lie was proven as such when her stomach rumbled again. She glared down at it. She'd been betrayed!
"It doesn't sound fine. Let me see what I've got."
It took Jaune about ten minutes to find something, mostly because he had to open several cases and boxes, but eventually he came back with a thick tub of ice-cream. Not exactly a meal by anyone's standards, but Ruby wasn't just anyone, and her eyes lit up.
"Thank you~" she said, digging into her bowl with a spoon. "Ah, I didn't have anything to eat because I was waiting for my sister, but she's vanished and I have no idea where she went. She has her motorbike that we used to get here," she explained around a mouthful of strawberry ice-cream. "I can't get home without her. Ugh, this is so like her!"
"You don't live in Vale?"
"Nope, we live in Patch. But I'll be living in Vale soon," Ruby said excitedly. She hopped in her seat. "I'm joining Beacon Academy in a couple of days, so I'll be here full time. Oooh, I can't wait!"
Jaune smiled. "Beacon, huh?"
"Uh-huh." She nodded furiously. "I'm only fifteen, but I'm good, and Ozpin – that's the headmaster – saw me take down this super bad criminal. It was amazing. I was all kapow, and wazahh!" She adopted some poses to show him. "And he was all oh no, I must run away! Then he got away, but not before I showed how awesome I was and got accepted into Beacon." Ruby smiled proudly. "I'm going to be a huntress-in-training, and then a real huntress. How awesome is that!?"
"That sounds… really amazing." His voice was soft and distracted. He let out a long sigh, and Ruby's hand, spoon and ice-cream in it, gently fell to her plate.
"What's wrong? Did I say something bad?"
"It's not that," he said. "It's just… you'll think it silly, but I actually wanted to be a huntsman as well. It was my dream growing up."
Ruby smiled. "Then why not try for it? If you want to be a huntsman, you totally can!"
"I can't, Ruby."
"Why not…?"
"Because I applied already, and Ozpin turned me down."
Ruby's smile froze. She had no idea what to say. That wasn't an unusual thing for her, but this felt far worse. Even as socially awkward as she was, it wasn't hard to see that talking about being let into the very school your friend had been denied would be bad – and oh good lord, she'd boasted about how she got in two years younger as well. Her eyes widened and her mind went blank.
"It's fine," Jaune said, sensing her panic, or maybe she was just that obvious. "I wasn't really strong enough to get in, and I guess the headmaster knew. I'm not upset." He smiled. "Well, I guess I kind of am, but not at you."
Ruby's head fell onto the table. "I'm so sorry…"
"W-Whoa, I said it was fine. I'm okay with it." Jaune waved his hands wildly, unsure what to do with the distraught girl. "H-Here, have some more ice-cream. Would you like some wafer?"
Ruby managed to convince him she didn't, even if she couldn't convince him it was her at fault for accidentally insulting him. She licked some more ice-cream off her spoon, unsure if she should say or do something about what she'd learned.
It was a complicated topic, and she wasn't good at those.
On the one hand, Jaune was pretty cool – and he'd given her ice-cream. Those were nice things, and she felt fairly certain he was a nice guy. If he wanted to be a huntsman, then that was great. The world needed more of those, and she could imagine him being brave like her Mom was. A part of her wanted to help him, and also felt bad that she'd been taken on where he was rejected. But on the other hand…
What if he was too weak to be a huntsman? She'd always felt people should follow their dreams no matter what, but if it led to her new friend getting hurt or killed…? She didn't want that. Things were easier when they were black or white, which was why she wanted to be a huntress so much in the first place. There wasn't much in the way of moral questions when it came to Grimm. This was much harder, and she didn't know what to say.
"I didn't know what to do after I got the letter saying no," Jaune began. He'd started speaking before she could gather her thoughts, but she listened closely. "I was really upset at first, like really upset. I got angry, then defeated, then angry again. I didn't know what to do. I thought about going back home, but I didn't want to tell my family what happened. I'd told them I was coming to Vale to make a new life for myself, and giving up so soon would make me look like an idiot."
"Would they not take you back?" she asked quietly.
"Oh no, they'd take me back in a heartbeat." He scratched the back of his head and laughed. "It's just that I couldn't bring myself to go back. I've always been kind of the useless one, so I wanted to show them I could do better. They never asked me to, but I guess I felt like I had to… or wanted to. I'm not really sure." He shrugged helplessly, and then gestured to his surroundings. "In the end, I decided I'd try something else instead. This was… uh… kind of a weird decision. Two of my sisters worked in a diner, so I guess I thought it would be easy. I put all the money I had into renting this place, then buying some stuff to get started. It's sink or swim now."
Yikes, and she thought she had it bad with high dust prices! Jaune was basically throwing himself into the wild and trying to make something – anything – stick. Ruby looked down at her bowl, suddenly feeling even guiltier for not only distracting him, but now mooching off him as well.
"It's stupid, I know…"
"It's not stupid," Ruby whispered.