Transgender Jay : A Ninjago Story

2 - Newspaper

The sun cycled its way around the earth, and the following morning - after a night of inconsistent sleep and frequent disturbances - Jay woke up to extensive laughter and a periodic thudding noise. Kai and Cole were having a joyful pillow fight, while Zane was standing by, raising his eyebrows, but secretly enjoying it with a smirk on one side of his mouth.

Usually it wouldn't have bothered him, but the tiredness dragged his eyelids down as if there were weights tied to his lashes.

"Ughhhh... come on, can't you let a guy sleep?" he moaned, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Any further resr seemed to be unattainable now.

"Come on Bluebell, you've been asleep for over 12 hours. You can't complain." Cole grinned, before walloping Kai with his pillow again.

It was true. Jay had gone to bed at 7 the previous night, and looking at the clock on the wall, it was already 9am.

Whenever he was feeling particularly down with the state of things, Jay's social limit wasn't very high, and he found it difficult to be around other people. Even sharing the same space could find itself to be too much. Whenever he felt it to be a problem, he went to bed early to cope with it, or made up an excuse to be alone. Time to think things through and look towards a brighter future, helped a little bit every now and again. Most of the time it did nothing.

While the three others were preoccupied, Jay grabbed his binder from beneath his pillow and slipped it on while under the duvet, struggling a little bit though ultimately getting it into place. Wearing one for more than 8 hours at a time regularly could have serious consequences, and rib injuries weren't funny business, especially not in this line of work. He was pretty good with keeping a schedule going, only forgetting once in a blue moon, so permanent injury wasn't a worry for the time being.

With a deep sigh, Jay swung his legs over the side of the bed.

He got up and grabbed some clothes, getting dressed quickly and heading to breakfast. It was the usual, nothing special or out of the ordinary. Self served cereal and toast if anybody wanted it.

Jay poured himself a bowl of cornflakes and started looking through the daily newspaper, lazily draped across the wood.

"Anything interesting in there?" Lloyd asked, joining the group a couple of minutes later.

"Not really, just the regular kind of stuff. Some celebrity is pregnant and there is another politician being accused for tax evasion. The usual."

But then, a lesser article caught his eye.

'Transgender Woman running for Ninjago City Mayor'

He straightened out the story and read it quickly, placing it down on the middle of the table.

"Look at this. There's a trans woman running for mayor. That's a first!" He said, bringing it to attention and eagerly waiting for his friend's reactions.

"Indeed. I do believe her name is Emily Klaus." Zane added, searching quickly through his database.

"You mean he, right?" Kai muttered, reading the article with an expression of mild disgust. Jay bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from instantly barking a correction at him, and clenched his fists under the table.

"No, I do believe she prefers she/her pronouns, hence the term Trans woman." Zane defined, positive.

Well, at least Zane didn't seem to be a problem, but he was a robot, and robots couldn't be illogical. It was no surprise. Common sense and efficiency were wired into his very existence. After all, discrimination and bigotry were two of the most illogical things humans had managed to cook up in the bizarre whirlwind of life.

Yet, despite knowing there was at least one definitive ally on board, Jay was still too terrified to tell anybody.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Kai replied, averting his eyes. Jay waited for Cole or Lloyd to say something but neither of them did, too interested in their breakfast. He felt mildly crestfallen, but accepted than no reaction was better than a negative one.

Funny, Jay had lost all his appetite very quickly. Still forced all his cereal down and went to change into his ninja suit, ready for mid-morning training.

Nothing much else happened that morning. Sensei Wu came outside to do some stretches with them, and then they activated the training equipment and got to work.

The first few minutes were completed in silence, until a question was thrown out into the nipping morning air:

"So... is anybody else feeling kinda... uneasy?"

Lloyd's question mostly struck at silence. Jay would have answered with a yes and an explanation, but that would have required outing himself in the process.

Cole answered for him, saying "Yeah, I know what you mean. Maybe it's because it's been almost two weeks since we last clashed with somebody. You know. Got down and dirty."

He mimed a few punches into the open air, which didn't help the already comedic nature of the statement.

"Uhm... Cole, buddy, I don't think that's what it means." Kai held in a laugh.

"Oh shut up Kai."

Jay was a pretty social person on most days, loving nothing more than making friends laugh and brightening dim moods. The lack of that energy was a huge contrast, and by the time his friends figured out there was something wrong, he had already plastered a fake smile on his face, so any new worries were dropped.

A door behind the group swung open, revealing a very tired looking Nya.

She walked out onto the deck in her usual clothes, bags under her eyes and an air about her that screamed exhaustion.

"Hey sis, what happened to you?" Kai called over to her, dropping whatever he was doing with a smidge of haste.

"I'm just going to say, never stay up late watching shows. You'll regret it."

Jay walked over to her and started up a short conversation.

"How late did you stay up?"

"Till like... 3am..."

"Woah... ok, you should probably take it easy then. Go and have some breakfast and... read the newspaper. It's not a bad issue."

Nya nodded with a little smile on her face, and kissed him in the cheek.

"Thanks Jay, I'll do that."

He watched her go back inside, filled with a blissful happy warmth for a few seconds, but then he heard an 'Oooooooah!' from behind him.

Cole was sarcastically giggling and Kai was ignoring him, awkward as always when it came to his sister's relationship.

Jay rolled his eyes at them and got back to work, not letting it affect this new mood.

Nya could always cheer Jay up. It was one of the many reasons he loved her so much, and so deeply, and equally feared losing her. Who else could make him feel the way she did?