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The Ninja manage to keep their real identities, and their classifications, secret from the general public. The public is under the impression that they are all neutrals. Which is a good thing, especially at times like this.
Kai had been the one to pick Lloyd up from therapy for this week. On the way home, they stop in at an ice cream parlour. This particular parlour had opened only a week or so ago. It is more sugar going into an already sugar-hyped little but Lloyd had done well in therapy and deserves a treat, Kai reasoned.
With their real identities kept secret, none of them has to worry about any reputation-damning gossip or anyone judging them. To an outsider, they are just a switch Caregiver and a Little getting ice cream on a hot summer afternoon.
“What flavour do you want, kiddo?” the older ninja asks as they enter the store. The air conditioning inside is a relieved respite from the summer heat for both of them; forty degrees isn’t fun for anyone, elemental master of fire or not.
“Strawberry?” Lloyd says after a moment, uncertainty lacing his voice.
“Sure.”
It’s just an ice cream flavour, nothing really that extraordinary, but a few months ago his answer would have been “whatever you want” or some version thereof.
Kai tells the cashier their orders (strawberry and rocky road, respectively) while Lloyd looks at the other flavours that were on display.
One tub has stars and (edible) glitter on it!
Soon enough, when the two of them have their ice cream cups in hand, Kai regretfully drags Lloyd away from the freezer cabinet to a booth. Not before the cashier has given the blond some stickers. Space-themed stickers.
“They’re so cool!” Lloyd gushes as he examined the stickers, his ice cream abandoned on the table by his elbow. He continues on his ramble about what he is going to do with the stickers when they get back to the monastery.
“Hey, L,” Kai interrupted gently. “Maybe you should stop talking now and eat your ice cream before it melts?”
“Oh! Right!” The blond grabs his cup off of the table and eats a scoop of his somewhat-melted strawberry ice cream. The silence doesn’t last all that long but Kai had been expecting that, Lloyd has had no more than three more mouthfuls before he goes back to the stickers.
Once their ice cream cups are empty, the pair gets up and goes to leave the store.
“Do you – could we get some to take home for the others?” Lloyd asks before they leave.
That’s…actually a really good idea. Today has been so hot, the news said that it was the hottest day in the last five years, and this ice cream was pretty good.
“That’s a great idea!”
The pair turn back to where a fridge full of take-home tubs sits next to the counter. In the end, they leave the store with two one-liter tubs; technically they should have only gotten one as both Zane and Pixal don’t overheat as humans do and therefore, neither really has a need for ice cream.
Kai was right in their initial hypothesis that the sugar in the ice cream would only hype Lloyd up even more than he already was. But the blond is back home at the monastery now, there’s really no risk of him being all sugar-hyped here. As someone most likely Zane, the worrier they are, has put everyones’ weapons both training and sharp away in their proper places.
Lloyd goes off to play with Jay, who is already in littlespace when the pair enter, while Kai heads off to the kitchen to put away the ice cream tubs.
“I take it therapy went well?” Nya asks, in the Old Tongue, from where she is putting away the clean cutlery and rice bowls from lunch.
“Yeah,” they confirm, also in the Old Tongue, tugging open the freezer door to put the ice cream away. “We stopped for ice cream on the way home,”
“I can see that,” the smile in Nya’s voice is audible.
After dinner, the others find the ice cream that Lloyd and Kai had bought earlier that day. Even the caregivers (and Switches) of the group are thankful for the treat. The first day of summer is always the hottest and today’s high temperature of forty degrees C is no different.