REMEDY [ninjago jaya]

16. Bittersweet Realization

• Jay Walker •

Jay was still walking on cloud nine by the time school rolled around and he stepped inside the prestige building, his mood uplifted. Nothing could bring him down.

As he would always do on Mondays, he strolled into the school earlier than needed and headed down to the basement, into the robotics club's room. Although he was working on the learning app with Nya, he still had yet to finish his MiniPix 3000 project. It still wasn't fit enough to fly, and Jay still couldn't decipher why.

After half an hour of work and still no progress, Jay decided to head to his first class that was about to start in less than five minutes. He climbed up the stairs to the first floor and passed by other students.

As he strolled by a group of about five students, their whispers stopped, sparking Jay's interest. He looked at them as he walked. They were staring at him already. Weird.

Jay looked away quickly and began to walk a little faster. He rounded the corner and saw the open door of his first class and headed for it. Once he walked inside, he went to sit down on his chair, but the silent stares of his classmates burnt through his clothes. When he looked at them, they were all huddled together and looking at him, scrunching their faces in disgust and talking in hushed whispers.

Okay, something was wrong.

Jay looked down at his clothes. He had picked them because they had been washed recently, fresh out the dryer, smelling like roses and lavender and whatnot. He wasn't smelly; he had taken a shower the night before. So why were they scrunching their faces and nearly gagging at the sight of him?

Maybe he was wearing his sweatshirt inside out. That had happened to him more than he liked to admit in the past.

But no, upon a second glance, Jay concluded that his sweatshirt was facing the right way. His fly was zipped up as well. None of his privates was on blatant display. He wasn't stinky. He had brushed his teeth so his breath wasn't smelly. His hair was brushed out, though curly and wild.

Jay flitted his eyes back to the students to his right. They were speaking quietly and looking over at him once in a while, their faces going from normal to scrunching up when they found him looking back at them.

The teacher entered the room to start the class, and while the chatter died down, Jay couldn't help the suspiciously loud voice in his head telling him something was definitely wrong.

The face-scrunching and whispering followed him throughout his day, until he could finally leave the school grounds to enjoy at least a little bit of his Monday. He usually liked Mondays; his classes were easy and he had his robotics club at the end of the day.

But this Monday was just...weird. And Jay couldn't find out why.

On his way to the basement, he stopped short when he heard voices around the corner. He peeked at the hallway connected to the one he was in and found two football players, clad in their football gear, on their way to the football field to get to their own practice. Jay had never spoken to them personally so he knew next to nothing about them, but they were popular and somewhat wealthy, so Jay could paint a picture of them in his head with ease.

"You think I should pay him a visit? He might need some donations and shit," the left one said, throwing his head back to laugh. "What do poors like him even do at this school anyway?"

"I don't fucking know," the right one answered. Jay could hear the disgust in his deep voice. "I always knew something was wrong with the guy. Now it all makes sense."

"Yeah. Imagine living in a dumpster!"

The right one punched the left one on his shoulder playfully. "Don't even say that shit. It's a fate worse than hell."

The football players walked out through the back door and headed for the wide field, but Jay was stuck behind the corner, his heart leaping out of his chest.

They had to be talking about him.

Imagine living in a dumpster.

It's a fate worse than hell.

Jay's throat clogged up. This was it. His secret was out.

Now it all made sense. All the stares, the disgust in students' eyes, the scrunching of their faces, the whispers. Everyone knew.

Jay's fists clenched with the bittersweet realization.

Only two people in Ninjago High had known about his upbringing in the junkyard, and one of the two had kept the secret for far too many years to count as a suspect.