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It had been three days since they found him in the forest.
Jay — or Rogue, as he insisted they call him — hadn’t exactly come willingly. But with a badly broken leg (that he’d gotten from tripping over a branch, of all things) and no way to walk on his own, he hadn’t had much of a choice.
Those stupid ninja had found him slumped against a tree, half-conscious, rain-soaked, and feverish. Even then, he’d tried to push them away. Even as Nya had pressed a hand to his forehead, even as Zane lifted him effortlessly onto his back, even as Lloyd and Kai had flanked them in case he somehow decided to start a fight while injured — he still spat venom.
“I don’t need your help.”
Too bad. He was getting it anyway.
Now, he was holed up in the Monastery, sat at one of the splintering wooden tables with his injured leg stretched out in front of him. He had a crutch leaning against the wall, but he refused to use it unless he had to. For the most part, he just sat there, silent, stewing in his own bitterness, occasionally sipping the tea Zane forced into his hands, saying something about electrolytes and inflammation and “a calming blend of herbs known to reduce irritability,” which felt like a very pointed choice.
The others gave him space, mostly. They knew pushing too hard would backfire.
But Nya?
Nya wasn’t one to back off so easily.
That was how they ended up here.
“Jay,” she said, standing in front of him, arms crossed, “you need a haircut.”
“It’s Rogue.” Jay didn’t even look up. “And for the millionth time, no.”
Kai, sat on the monastery steps with Cole, immediately perked up. “Oh, thank goodness. Finally, someone said it.”
Nya shot him a look. “I’ve been saying it.”
“And he’s been ignoring you,” Kai said. “Which, honestly? Makes sense. But now it’s a group effort.” He stood up, turning to Jay with a dramatic flourish. “Dude, you used to have standards.”
Jay barely reacted, rolling his shoulders like this conversation was beneath him. “Don’t care.”
Cole, still parked on the steps with Riyu curled up beside him, snorted. “Man, I remember when you and Kai had synchronised hair routines. I swear you had a whole lineup of products and a process that took longer than some missions.”
Kai sighed wistfully at the memory, while Zane, seated across from Jay, nodded. “Yes. I recall an instance where Jay refused to leave the Monastery until his hair was, quote, ‘at peak fluffiness.’”
Sora, kneeling beside Riyu and trying to get him to move, grinned. “Peak fluffiness?” Lloyd was next to her, arms crossed, nodding as he hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, that tracks.”
Jay’s eyebrow twitched slightly, but he didn’t engage.
Nya wasn’t letting this go. She took a step closer, hands planted firmly on her hips. “It’s not just about looking like a disaster. It’s about—”
She hesitated. It’s about holding onto something normal was what she wanted to say. But she already knew how he’d react — cold shoulder, defensive quip, end of conversation.
So she pivoted.
“It’s about practicality. You can’t fight properly if your hair’s constantly in your eyes.”
Jay finally looked up at her, his expression cold and flat. “Good. Then maybe you’ll have an easier time when I come for you.”
The words landed like a slap. Her stomach twisted, memory flashing — the tournament, the look in his eyes when he fought her like she was a stranger, like she was the enemy. But she didn’t flinch. Instead, she arched a brow and said evenly, “You’re really going to blame your future defeat on bad hair? That’s new.”
Frak, who had walked by at some point, tilted his head. “Could just be that anyone you fight is too stunned by the terrible hair to react in time.”
Sora laughed. “Weaponised bad style. A bold strategy.”
Kai smirked. “It’s an insult to your past self, really. The Jay Walker I knew would never let his hair get this bad.”
“Stop calling me that.” Then, without another word, he turned his head away, visibly disengaging from the conversation.
Riyu, who had been half-asleep next to Cole, cracked an eye open to watch him, tail flicking. Kai leaned toward Nya and whispered, “I think we’re getting to him.”
Wishful thinking, she thought.
Dinner at the Monastery was usually a mess of overlapping voices, the clatter of chopsticks against bowls, and the occasional food-related duel between Kai and Cole. Tonight was no different — except for the fact that Jay was actually there, sitting at the far end of the table, eating in silence.
He hadn’t wanted to join them. He never did. But Zane had set a plate in front of him anyway, and with his leg still too injured for a dramatic exit, he didn’t have much choice.
He kept his head down, only half-listening as Sora told some wild story about nearly falling off a moving vehicle (“But it was fine! Riyu caught me. Kind of.”), while Kai and Cole got into an increasingly aggressive debate over who had the superior chopstick skills. Zane kept refilling everyone’s tea whether they asked or not.
Nya, sitting across from Jay, tried not to stare at him too much. He was here, but he wasn’t here. Just eating mechanically, barely reacting to anything. She caught him absently twirling a loose strand of hair around his finger, not even realising he was doing it. Something in her chest twisted as something dawns on her.
And then, before she can actually process it —
“Oh, I just realized something,” Sora said, grinning as she pointed a chopstick between Nya and Jay. “You guys kind of look like twins.”
A beat of silence.
Nya immediately tensed — she already knew how Jay was gonna react to this. Kai, who had been mid-bite, choked on his dumpling. Cole snorted into his drink.
Jay, meanwhile, as expected, went completely still.
Lloyd, sitting across from Sora, raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Actually, yeah.”
Kai, still coughing, smacked a fist against his chest. “Okay — okay, wait — hold on.” He turned, looking between them with way too much amusement. He was gonna have a field day with this.
Nya sighed, rubbing her temples. “No, we do not.”
“Yeah, it’s the hair, huh? Same length,” Lloyd said, pointing at their hair with his fork. He’d never quite mastered using chopsticks. “Same ponytail.”
“Same hair-tie,” Frak added helpfully.
“Same vibe,” Sora said, nodding sagely.
Jay — who had spent the last several minutes sitting as stiff as a board, glaring daggers into the table — suddenly snapped, “I do not have a vibe.”
That just made it worse.
“Oh, you definitely have a vibe,” Kai said, leaning forward with a smirk. “The brooding evil twin. Like a dramatic anime character.”
Sora gasped. “You’re literally the edgier twin. All he needs is a tragic backstory.”
Cole nodded solemnly. “Well, I think he’s got that covered.”
Kai clapped his hands together. “It’s settled. The twin aesthetic is official.”
“We do not look alike,” Nya said firmly, but she was smiling ever so slightly.
Jay eyes fell on Nya as she spoke, and he takes a moment to really look at her — and realises, with a creeping, rising sense of horror that the others were right — their hair was really similar.
His eye twitched.
“Okay,” he said flatly. “You know what? You win. Cut the hair. Right now.”
Nya paused, caught off guard. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” he muttered, jaw tight. “I would rather be emotionally vulnerable than look like your evil twin.”
Cole nearly choked on his water. Sora snorted so hard it turned into a full laugh before she could stop herself.
Kai, absolutely basking in the moment, threw his arms wide like he was presenting a trophy. “Mark the date — our boy’s evolving.”
“Character development?” Lloyd offered, grinning.
Kai tilted his head, smug. “No, no. Hair-acter development.”
Cole huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. As the noise in the room settled just slightly, he reached over without looking and lightly tapped his knuckles against Kai’s. Even Zane looked mildly amused.
“But if this turns into some symbolic ‘fixing me’ moment,” Jay said sharply, shooting a look around the room, “I will make it everyone’s problem.”
Zane, completely unfazed, gave a small nod. “Understood. However, based on prior data, I calculate an 87% probability that Lloyd will assign symbolic meaning to it regardless.”
Lloyd blinked, caught mid-sip of his tea. “Hey — that’s not—” He paused, sighed, and folded his arms. “…Okay, that’s fair.”
That was all the invitation the others needed.
Kai immediately launched into recounting the time Lloyd gave a heartfelt speech about a sandwich that had “held the team together.”
Cole added the moment Lloyd claimed a sock he found in a river was a metaphor for resilience.
Sora chimed in with a suspiciously accurate impression of Lloyd saying, “It’s not just a cracked mug, it’s a symbol of how we’re all a little broken.”
Lloyd groaned, slouching lower in his chair as the chaos built.
Meanwhile, Jay went quiet again. His eyes dropped to the table, fingers tapping softly against the wood. They were all laughing about things he was probably there for — jokes he might’ve made, memories he couldn’t pull up anymore. He didn’t say anything. Just listened, letting the noise wash over him. Nya had gone quiet too, and the faint smile that had been on her lips shifted into something softer, more complicated, as she thought about Jay’s acceptance of a haircut.
Because yes, this meant she’d get to make him look like her Jay again — clean-cut, sharp edges softened, something more familiar staring back at her — but the reason he agreed wasn’t because he wanted to feel like that person.
It was because he didn’t want to look like her. Not her twin. Not her match. Not anything close.
And somehow, that stung more than when he’d refused entirely.
The floor was already a mess.
Stray clumps of hair curled across the stone like pieces of something left behind, and Jay sat scowling through all of it — knees pulled up, arms looped around them, neck tilted slightly forward as Nya worked behind him with an old pair of scissors.
And surrounding him — because of course they were — all the others sat in a loose, unhelpful semicircle, watching like this was some kind of live theatre performance.
He didn’t know what was worse: the haircut or the audience.
“Stop moving,” she said, guiding his head gently but firmly.
“I’m not moving,” Jay grumbled.
“You’re sulking with your whole spine,” Kai called from across the circle. “Maybe you should physically restrain him.”
“Should I stab him with the scissors?” Nya asked, not looking up.
“No,” Zane said from where he was observing, hands politely folded in his lap. “But it would be wise of you to move approximately three centimetres to the left. The current angle is—”
“No one cares about the angle, Zane,” Jay snapped.
“I do,” Zane replied calmly. “Your aesthetic is everyone’s concern now.”
“Unfortunately,” Lloyd added, letting his legs stretch out in front of him.
Jay exhaled through his nose like it was the only thing keeping him from incinerating them all on the spot.
Cole leaned against the wall, arms crossed and grinning. “Honestly, if we knew a haircut would unravel this much suppressed drama, we would’ve cornered you with scissors ages ago.”
Jay glared at him. “If I’d known you were all going to watch, I would’ve shaved it myself with a rock.”
“You were halfway there,” Sora muttered, examining a particularly tragic strand Nya had just snipped off. “This is like an archaeological dig. How many layers of ‘gave up’ are we uncovering here?”
Frak leaned over her shoulder, wide-eyed. “Oh wow. That one looks like it saw a war.”
“I hate every single one of you,” Jay said flatly.
“You keep saying that,” Kai replied, “but you’re still here.”
Jay opened his mouth, paused, then muttered, “Broken leg, not a lifestyle choice.”
Nya was quiet through most of it. Not because she didn’t have things to say — she always did — but because her hands were steady, focused. She wanted to do this right. She combed through the uneven strands with care, pausing now and then to adjust the angle, to snip just a little more.
“You used to do this all the time,” she said softly.
Jay didn’t respond.
“You’d sit in front of the mirror, make a whole thing out of it. Scissors, water, weird little towel cape—”
“I don’t remember,” he muttered.
She nodded. “I know.”
The last of the longer hair fell away. She smoothed the shorter layers into place, brushing gently over the back of his neck.
“There,” she said quietly. “You’re done.”
Jay reached up, ran a hand through his hair, hesitating like he didn’t quite know what he’d find. It felt lighter. Wrong, maybe. But also — less like hiding.
Before he could think too hard, Nya shuffled around to face him.
The others were still talking behind them — arguing about whether or not Jay’s head looked more symmetrical now — but it faded to a background hum as their eyes meet.
She reached out, carefully, and brushed a bit of hair from his cheek. Her hand lingered there, fingers brushing against his skin, soft and unsure.
Jay froze. And then — almost without meaning to, almost like another version of him had taken the wheel — he leaned into her touch.
Just slightly. Just enough.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t loud.
But for one breath, one heartbeat, he let it happen.
Then he pulled back, eyes darting away, expression hesitant.
“I still hate it,” he said, voice low.
Nya smiled, hand falling back to her side. “I know.”
And behind them, Cole whispered to Lloyd, “Did you see that? That was a moment.”
Lloyd nodded solemnly. “Confirmed. That was definitely a moment.”
Jay shot them both a withering look over his shoulder. “I can hear you.”
Cole didn’t even flinch. “Good. Just making sure you know this is going in the emotional growth scrapbook.”
“You do not have a scrapbook,” Jay said flatly.
“We will now,” Sora chimed in, already pretending to staple imaginary photos together. “Page one: haircut. Page two: Jay admits he has feelings.”
“Page three: Jay smiles without being forced,” Lloyd added. “That one might take a while.”
Jay dragged a hand through his hair again like he could physically erase the entire interaction. “I take back letting you cut it. I want the long hair back. Give it back.”
“Sorry,” Nya said, wiping her scissors on a towel, “you signed the emotional waiver.”
“I didn’t sign anything.”
Kai shrugged. “Verbal agreement. Multiple witnesses. Zane?”
“Legally binding,” Zane confirmed without missing a beat.
Jay sighs. “I hope the next branch I trip on kills me.”
Frak tilted his head. “That was dark.”
Zane nodded. “His sarcasm levels have remained consistent. I find that reassuring.”
Jay groaned and collapsed backward into the floor with a dramatic thud, his freshly-cut hair haloing his head like he was in mourning. “Please let lightning strike me where I lie. You are all so irritating.”
Nya just shrugged. “I gave you a free haircut. That’s the nicest I’ve been in months.”
“And you touched his face,” Kai added, eyes wide with mock scandal. “That’s, like, second base in ninja terms.”
“I will set this entire monastery on fire,” Jay warned.
Kai snorted. “Please. You’d have to ask me for permission.”
“I hate this team.”
Jay didn’t get up. He just lay there, half-defeated, half-listening as the others devolved into bickering and laughing. He didn’t laugh, not quite, but he closed his eyes, letting the sound of it roll over him.
It was loud. Annoying. Familiar deep down.
Nya was still sat beside him, pulling her legs up to her chest, arms wrapped loosely around her knees. She didn’t say anything at first. Didn’t push. Just breathed in the same space as him, like they’d done a hundred times before — only now it felt quieter.
“I thought I’d feel better,” he murmured suddenly, barely loud enough to hear.
Nya turned her head to look at him. “Do you?”
He thought about it. Sits up with a quiet sigh. Then shook his head once. “Not really.”
She nodded like that was fine. Like she wasn’t surprised. “It’s not magic,” she said. “Just scissors.”
Jay let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “Could’ve fooled me. Everyone else acts like it was a ritual cleansing.”
“Well,” she said, bumping her shoulder lightly against his, “you do look slightly less like a haunted scarecrow.”
He scoffed, but didn’t deny it. “Great. Emotional progress through bullying. Classic ninja therapy.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, and then she added, softer, “You don’t have to be him again. You know that, right?”
Jay’s eyes flicked to hers.
“I mean it,” she said, still watching him. “You’re allowed to be someone new. As long as it’s real. As long as it’s you.”
For the first time, Jay didn’t feel like something was being asked of him. He nodded, just once. And when the others started shouting from the next room — some chaos about who left the training dummies on fire, followed by Zane calmly stating it was statistically most likely Kai, to which Kai responded with to with a loud, defensive denial that only made him sound more guilty — Jay stayed where he was.
But then Nya stood, brushed the loose hair from her pants, and offered him a hand. No words, no expectation — just a quiet offer.
Jay stared at it for a second, hesitant.
Then, without a word, he reached up and took it. Not because he needed the help — he’d have told her off if she thought that — but maybe because he didn’t mind it. Or maybe some version of him, buried deep under all the sharp edges, actually wanted it.
She pulled him up with a steady grip, no drama, no weight. Just simple, certain contact.
And as they walk out, for the first time since he’d ended up here, Jay didn’t look like he was counting the minutes until he could leave.