Forever

Part 7: Touch

Why wasn't he over it yet? Why wasn't he feeling better?

It'd been over year now. 13 months to be exact. Everything was finally back to normal. The team were happier, back to training just like they'd done before. They began doing missions again, which distracted many people from the hurt they were still feeling.

Especially Jay.

He pretended as if everything was alright. He acted as if he wasn't missing something - or rather someone - huge in his life. He wanted to feel the way he did before so telling himself that he was fine was his only choice. 

He trained for hours, more hours than he should've. It made him feel much better. If he was continuously beating up a dummy or doing flips around the assault course, he wouldn't have time to think. And that's the one thing he should've been doing for if he was actually thinking, he would know not taking a break was a bad idea. 

He tried to spend the rest of the day training too. Just a casual Tuesday, no missions, no need to be running around. He could've taken the day off, gotten the well-earned rest he needed - he still wasn't sleeping properly - but he didn't. He decided to use all his energy fighting that stupid dummy. 

But he didn't care about that. He'd rather stay there and call himself a dummy. Who knows why, it's just what he did.

Cole came to check up on him early that morning, as he would normally, and tried to convince Jay to take a break, at least for a few hours. He missed hanging out with his best friend. He missed the old Jay where he'd spend hours playing video games and laughing and running around. He missed the energetic, happy Jay. 

Cole was doing his absolute best to bring him back.

With a little encouragement, Jay agreed and now the two were in the game room chatting. Well, it was mostly Cole talking. Jay pretty much sat there and listened to his best friend. It was quite relaxing.

But every now and then, the blue ninja zoned out. He just look away for a moment and look as if he was in deep thought, probably because he was in deep thought. Cole would notice and snap him out of it, trying to get him to focus but not much worked. 

"Jay, are you okay?" Cole frowned.

Jay nodded, "Of course.."

"You don't seem it," Cole replied with a worried expression.

"No, no, I'm fine," Jay told him, "Just keep doing what you're doing."

"Do you even know what I was talking about?" Cole raised an eyebrow.

Jay opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. He felt guilty for not listening to Cole but at the same time, he couldn't help it. It wasn't his fault that his thoughts kept drifting him away. If he could stop, he would.

"You just need something to focus on," Cole smiled, gently tapping him on the shoulder. He then reached over to the table beside the sofa they were sat on and grabbed a controller. Switching on the TV and games console, he loaded up Fist 2 Face 2, a game that the entire team loved to play together.

"Wanna play?" Cole wondered with a grin.

"No thanks, I'll just watch," Jay responded quietly.

"Oh.. suit yourself then," Cole smirked, loading up the game and beginning to play.

Jay watched as he moved his character around and began fighting the snakes on-screen. Jay loved playing video games, especially with Cole, but his problems with getting distracted easily would only bring Cole's game experience down. It was better for him to watch. In no time, Cole would get invested in the game, wouldn't take his eyes off the screen, and would probably forget he was talking with Jay, meaning if he did zone out, Cole wouldn't notice for a while.