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Sunlight spilled into the Monasteries front yard, where two souls intertwined with each other of perfect yin and yang. Although no music was playing, the sparkle in their eyes told the world they had their song, a duet of their own.
A cheerful yelp left the girl as she was lowered into a dip, a warm hand cradling the small of her back, supporting her while the other tucked a lock of loose hair behind her ear.
“Jay! Stop teasing!” She giggled, a smile spreading across her face.
“I’m just doing what my lady deserves.” Jay responded with a sing-song voice, the grin on his face matching Nya’s.
Nya rolled her eyes as the two fell back into a comfortable silence, spinning together slowly around the Monastery as one. She buried herself into Jay’s chest, relishing in the warmth he gave off, his familiar scent surrounding her like a soft hug. How could she have been so lucky to find someone who loved her so much?
“Jay, I will always love you.” Nya whispered.
But the serenity of the moment was shattered like breaking glass when Nya stared up to meet her lover's eyes, only to be met with a disgusted scowl. She felt the loss of warmth first, before even registering that Jay had pushed her away. The area around them shifting from the tranquil Monastery to the City of Temples barely caught Nya’s attention. Instead, stabbed by hurt and confused at the loss of his touch, she slowly looked back towards Jay, only to find that his once soft brown eyes that held so much love in them had now become only a blazing, angry red.
Nya’s worry skyrocketed. She took a step forward and tried to ask Jay what was happening, but her voice caught in her throat, like a fish in a net. Powerless, unable to move. Everything froze. She couldn’t pick up her feet, as if she was anchored down, forced to experience what was happening against her own will. She couldn’t run. A horrible feeling prickled along her spine and traveled to her shaking hands that were clawing at her neck, searching for its stolen voice.
Before Nya could spiral deeper into her own shock, she was whipped back to “reality” by a cold voice that broke through the air.
A voice she had always known, a voice that had comforted her, that had stayed with her, that had held love within it.
"And I will always hate you.”
Nya shot up on her bed, whipping her head around frantically to gauge her surroundings. Walls. She was in her room. Not the City of Temples. Not the Tournament of Sources.
It was just…a dream. Nya thought to herself, trying to reassure her racing mind, one hand tightly gripping the fabric of her pajamas covering her pounding heart, the other holding her aching head. Too many emotions flooded her mind all at once and the sound of her hyperventilating gasps filled her ears. She knew she needed to calm down, but she couldn’t.
After hours or maybe just minutes–she didn’t know, she didn’t care–Nya’s breathing steadied and the state she was in finally came into picture. Her vision was blurred with tears overflowing, leaving trails of salt as they fell down her face. Her hair had been let loose from the usual ponytail she wore, but with all the tossing she did in bed, she knew it looked like a mess, she knew she looked like a mess.
Despite many more minutes passing, she couldn’t go back to sleep. Not like this. She was still shaken by the graphic dream her mind had displayed for her, it was too realistic for her liking.
Probably because it wasn’t just a dream. Nya shivered at the forced recollection of the memory haunting her mind since the Tournament, before she quickly got out of bed and made her way quietly towards the entrance of the Monastery to get some fresh air.
It was cold. The air was relentlessly chilly, biting at her bare arms and freezing the tear streaks to her face. But she was too overwhelmed, too tired to even care.
Maybe this was fate. As she sat down on the wood stairs leading up to the entrance, she took a good look at the new Monastery around her. The courtyard, once a place she knew where every crack and secret was, didn’t even look like the one in her memories anymore. A product of the Merge, she supposed.
But did that mean everything would never return to how it was before? The Monastery she could grow used to. New members of the team she welcomed. But her lover? Her Yang? Her Jay? How could she just simply accept that someone so integral to her life was never going to be part of it again? All because he lost his memories in the Merge? Nya scowled, wrecked by anger and sorrow. It was all a bunch of bullshit.
As Nya felt tears forming in her eyes again, she tucked her face in her knees and cried. While maybe some days she would force herself to keep them in, tonight she let them fall.
“And here I thought ninja don’t cry.” A voice interrupted. “Or does that just not apply to you?”
Ah. What a familiar voice, tinged with notes of the past Nya had known for most of her life, memorized, ingrained into her very soul. But now laced with something else as well. A bitterness she thought she’d never hear from this song.
Nya quickly wiped her tears away before standing up and striding past the figure. She refused to acknowledge him. Maybe she was being unreasonable, perhaps even rude, but the stubborn, defiant part of her mind did not want to deal with any more of this tonight.
But she didn’t even set a foot into the monastery before a hand clasped around her wrist, preventing her from walking away any further, as if it was a string linking them together.
Nya halted. The calluses on his hand scratched her skin in the worst ways possible, rough spots from healed scars she could map out with her eyes closed tickled her nerves like lightning. It was undeniably Jay, but not Jay at the same time. This Jay grasped her wrist just a bit too tight, his touch was abrasive and blunt, rather than gentle and knowing.
But, nonetheless, it was him.
Jay.
“Let me go.” She mumbled quietly, aware that if she raised her voice it might attract attention, something she certainly did not need or want right now.
And he did let her go. Which only drove the knife in her heart deeper. Jay would’ve continued holding her. He would’ve pulled her in closer and asked her what was wrong.
Though she had the freedom to go now, away from this Jay, she didn’t move. She didn’t take another step forward even though the entrance was right in front of her. In some weird way, Nya felt that if she walked away from this new Jay, she would be forfeiting the hope that her old Jay would return.
So instead, she turned back around towards him.
Nya hadn’t realized, but despite the many times they had bumped into each other after the Merge, this was the first time she had actually gotten a good look at him.
He looked so different. But all the same as well.
His hair had definitely changed. Gone were his fluffy curls, now replaced by a high ponytail that stood a little too serious and a little too tall. It wasn’t a Jay hairstyle at all. Nya didn’t know if she liked or disliked it. He also hadn’t grown, if Nya recalled correctly, but he still stood taller than her. His eyes were their beautiful chocolate brown, to which Nya let out a mental sigh of relief, the memory of his blood red eyes still creeping around in the back of her mind.
But he still had his freckled face. He still slouched slightly. He still gave people that look when he didn’t trust them.
The look he was giving to her right now.
It felt like a punch in the gut when she noticed. This whole night honestly felt like hell to Nya. But she pushed the choking feeling down into her lungs. She could deal with that pain some other time.
“If you are going to just keep staring at me, I might as well ask my question.” Jay spoke monotonously, obviously semi-weirded out.
“O-oh, of course. What is it?” Nya snapped out of her thought train, focusing back onto who was actually in front of her.
“What were we?” He asked without hesitation. His expression held no emotion, only the desire for the answers to his inquiries.
Nya went rigid. The one question, the one truth she didn’t want to say out loud. Because if she did, she would have to say it as if it were lost into the past. Never to be recovered.
“We…we were each other’s Yang. Two halves that made one whole together. I-” Nya stopped, scared to repeat what she truly felt. Scared to once again experience the vivid memory embedded into her mind.
But Jay didn’t respond, he continued looking at her, raising his eyebrow as if expecting her to continue.
So she did.
“I loved you Jay. I still do love you. We loved each other.” Nya’s voice grew more desperate with every devotion she spoke. When she finished, she felt embarrassed, like a child explaining to an adult that they weren’t at fault, trying to convince the inconvincible, pleading for an ounce of belief.
It was so silent. Nya stared down, waiting for a response she didn't even know what she wanted to contain. Sympathy? Definitely not. Pity? Even worse. Disgust? She could deal with that…no she couldn’t. Every response would destroy her no matter what. This conversation itself was already destroying her horribly.
“First off, don’t call me Jay. That may be my name by birth, but I go by Rogue now.” He finished with a tsk of annoyance.
Nya didn’t respond.
Rogue let out a sigh, before continuing.
“What was I like?”
As if booted up again, Nya shuffled through the massive folder labeled ‘Jay’ in her mind. As she recalled, she smiled and let out a small laugh at some memories, and gave a sentimental head shake to others, taking a breath before she responded.
“You were ridiculous, but in the best ways possible. You were silly, but you knew when to utilize it and help your friends. You cared about your family, in a way that only you knew how to.”
Rogue turned his head away.
“You were-” no, don’t use past tense , Nya reminded herself. “You are special Rogue. You’re special to this team. You’re special to me .”
A pause. The anguish in her voice tugged at his remaining heartstrings. Against his better judgement to simply leave in that moment, Rogue slowly turned back to look at her, only to perfectly make eye contact with the soul in front of him. The intensity of her stare, black eyes swirling like a deep abyss that almost beckoned him to jump in and drown. She looked at him so lost, yet so determined. The same look she had when he had fought her in the Tournament.
Rogue shook away the feelings clouding his thoughts. That was the past. One he couldn’t remember, one he didn’t care enough to find.
“I hope you’re rational enough to know that’s not who I am. Not anymore, at least.” Rogue responded curtly, but still looked away again. In shame of being unable to remember perhaps. Or just to not feel the secondhand guilt from his previous self he didn’t understand now.
Silence filled the air around them again. Nya could feel her strength, her hope, washing away. If this new Jay was so defiant against going back to the past to his original self, Nya couldn’t reason with him. She knew Jay’s soul was free like lightning, where she didn’t know how or where he would strike next. Despite the pain killing her inside, she could try over and over to remind Rogue of Jay.
But if he wanted this new life, who was she to deny him of it?
As if Nya thought her heart couldn’t break any more, Rogue stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened, untrusting, unsure if Rogue was planning on stabbing her or simply trying to hug her.
When she deduced it was a hug, the unfamiliarity she felt by his touch hit her like a truck. It didn’t feel like a Jay hug. He always hugged her so tightly, squeezing her like he never wanted to leave, but still gave her the perfect balance of space so she could relax in his hold. Rogue hugged her like a stranger, an embrace obviously meant to comfort, but in an awkward way that exposed he didn’t really know how to.
It was a cold embrace. Made all the more colder by the reality Nya fought to hide away from for so long, now shining in her eyes fully ablaze.
But, how she missed this. She still fit into his arms perfectly, he into hers, just as they had years ago. And even though Nya knew it wasn’t really Jay, she hugged him back and pretended it was.
She embraced the cold with a warmth she sought to share.
To a soul unknown to it all.