AN: Thanks for checking this story out! Before you start reading, I want to mention that this will be a series of oneshots set in the same world as "Broken Circles;" Some of the coming oneshots can be read on their own, but some of them are probably better read after finishing "Broken Circles." If that's the case, I'll make sure to put a short author note at the start of the chapter to tell you if that's the case.

Enjoy! ^u^

Before Fire

"Hey, I was wondering…" Kai speaks up one night over dinner. "We're a team now, but what was it like before I joined you guys?"

It had been a few days since Kai's life had changed drastically, first with a band of skeletons ransacking his family's shop and kidnapping his sister, to becoming a ninja, to becoming part of a team. Now, rather than going back to run the shop, he'd chosen to stay. Guilt bit at the back of his mind over the choice, would his father be disappointed in him? But he always shook away the thought by remembering that his father always said that, no matter what, he'd always be proud of them… Either way, if Kai was going to have to work with these people, he'd like to know more about them. And while he knew bits and pieces from what they'd said (could probably learn way more than he ever wanted to know by letting Jay ramble at him for an hour), he wants to know what kind of dynamic they'd had before he'd asserted himself into the group.

"Before you joined?" Jay immediately speaks up. Honestly, sometimes Kai wondered how the other two even withstood having to deal with his constant chatter. Zane didn't seem all that chatty, and while Cole seemed to be normal, he was so serious all the time. "We were a team." The blue ninja shrugs.

"I mean, you guys were friends, right?" Kai says, waving his chopsticks around to emphasize his words. "You must have hung out together after training or whatever."

Jay, mysteriously quiet for once, focuses instead on his food.

"We didn't hang out much aside from training and practice missions." Cole supplies instead. "And meals, I guess."

"That is not right." Zane speaks up, surprisingly. "Jay and I hung out after training almost daily."

"Zane!" The blue ninja hisses.

"You did?" Cole sounds surprised. "What were you doing?"

"I was teaching Jay how to swim, and in return he was helping me with my sense of humor."

The blue ninja groans, his head banging on the table.

"That was meant to be a secret, Zane…" He groans out.

"Oh." The white ninja says, a touch of regret on his face. "I did not realize."

"So now that the cat's out of the bag," Kai says, curiosity peaked. "How'd that arrangement come about?"

Zane looks over to the blue ninja, who just waves his hand at the other and says.

"They already know, just tell them."

"Alright. It all started shortly after I joined the team…"

The water was cool against Zane's skin, soothing, helping to ease his thoughts. He'd typically meditated underwater for this very reason, and as Wu had urged them all to take this time to meditate, and his thoughts being particularly chaotic this day, he'd left the temple in order to find a suitable spot.

Eventually he'd found a secluded lake not too far off. It'd been a bit of a hike, but Zane wasn't bothered by it. This peace was worth it…

Only, something was disturbing the water, causing the fish to scatter. Zane's first thought had been Sensei Wu, but the man was so silent that Zane wasn't certain that the man wouldn't have been able to just slip into the water as silently as he walked about. Looking over, Zane was immediately surprised to see someone flailing in the water.

Drowning. His mind supplied as he sprang into action, moving in place behind the person and getting a grip on them before bringing them both to the surface, despite the person's frantic struggling. Who would be way out here in the first place?

He's relieved to hear coughing as soon as they breach the surface; the person wouldn't need CPR then. What was surprising were the words that followed.

"Don't eat me!" The voice was familiar, belonging to one of the other ninja in training, Jay. "I swear I taste terrible!"

"Jay?" He questions, surprised. He hadn't expected to have saved one of his fellow students.

The other ninja in training stills as he hears Zane's voice and carefully glances over his shoulder.

"Zane?" Once he's ascertained the identity of his savior, he relaxes. "Oh thank god, it's just you…"

"Were you expecting someone else?" Zane asks as he carefully starts to maneuver them to shore. It was much easier without the other ninja in training struggling.

"N-nothing much…" Jay's tone was forcefully light, almost breaking as he tried to sound casual. "Just, you know, some kind of lake monster…"

"Are lake monsters common where you are from?" Zane asks while helping the other onto the shore. "I have never encountered one where I lived."

"What? No, that's- that's ridiculous…" Jay scoots back away from the water, drawing his knees up to his chest. "Did you fall in?"

He gives Zane a curious look as he gets out of the water and sits nearby.

"No? I was meditating."

"And that requires you to be fully clothed?"

"I suppose not." He wasn't sure what Jay's problem with his attire was… Although the other didn't seem to be wearing much, just his underwear. A quick glance around showed his gi laying nearby. "Did you fall in?"

"No…" Jay seemed to hesitate, which was strange. The other ninja in training never seemed to hesitate when it came to speaking before. "I, uh, we… We're training to be ninja, right?"

"We are."

"So we'll need to- I mean, eventually we'll end up in a situation where we'll need to swim. Right?" Jay looks over at him, and the expression on the other's face is one of uncertainty, possibly even fear.

"Yes." Zane says clearly. There was no doubt that they would eventually find themselves in a situation where they would need to swim. The world was made up of mostly water, after all. "From my observations, you cannot swim."

The other's cheeks turn a light shade of pink and he pulls his knees up closer.

"Gee, did you use your super powers to deduce that, Sherlock?"

"If you are referring to my precognitive abilities, no, I did not need them." Zane says seriously.

"It was just a joke…" Jay says with a soft sigh. Zane heard those words a lot from the other ninja in training, he seemed quite fond of making jokes. In fact, Zane had heard those words said often enough by the people in the village he used to live in, followed soon by whispers of 'forget it, he's got no sense of humor' and 'he's as cold as ice' whispered behind his back before people began to avoid talking to him.

Despite Cole's professional demeanor, he'd laughed at a few of Jay's jokes. Heck even their Sensei had cracked a smile or two…

"You have a good sense of humor, right?"

"You think so?" Jay's smile lights up his face, and he relaxes a bit. Zane thought about correcting him, that two people was hardly enough data to say one way or another, but would Jay keep making such jokes if they didn't work? So instead he nods.

"I do." If Jay's smile was bright before, he was practically beaming now. Jay understood humor, something that Zane sorely lacked, and he knew how to swim, something that Jay needed to learn. They could definitely help each other out. "I have a proposition for you that I believe can benefit both of us."

"Oh?" Jay's curiosity was peaked, and he relaxed a bit more. Zane couldn't help but notice that he didn't just have a scar through his eyebrow, but a very faint one on his chest, off centered to the left. It didn't look like the kind of scar one got from heart surgery, but it certainly looked like the wound would have nicked his heart at least (he left the detail about the scar out when explaining to the others. Somehow it didn't feel right to mention it). "What is it?"

Zane carefully explains his idea to the other ninja in training.

"You… want me to teach you humor?"

"In return for swimming lessons, yes."

"That isn't really something you can teach…" Jay shrugs. "I mean, you either get it or you don't, you know?" Zane's disappointment must have shown on his face, because Jay hurries to say. "But I can try, I guess?"

"Then it is settled." Zane stands and heads for the lake once more. "Let us get started."

"Now?" Jay's voice rose an octave as he hurriedly moved to stand as well.

"Yes. We are both here." Zane turned back to the other ninja in training and glances over his form. Droplets of water were still clinging to him, his hair sticking to his face, and his underwear barely hiding anything (he didn't share these observations with the others either). "Would you rather start later?"

"Oh, uh, n-no…" Jay appeared to take a deep breath. "Let's do this."

Jay walks up even with him, and a thought ends up striking him (at this point in the story Jay cuts in and says that they trained until just before dark, obviously not wanting the others to hear what happened next).

"Should I take off my clothes?" Zane asked.

"What?!" Jay's face turned bright red. "I- wh- no?! You're fine! Your clothes, I mean! They're already wet, anyway…"

He trails off with some nervous giggles, (Zane wasn't sure he wanted the others to know, either. For them the story ended here) his eyes quickly darting between Zane's face and chest.

After that they got a slow start. Jay was nervous in the water, just as he was nervous when they took to the training course, so Zane had to be careful that he didn't panic and drown them both. Progress on that front was slow, but steady, until Jay was a strong swimmer and had cheerfully hugged Zane, thanking him profusely for the help. Zane was happy to help and had awkwardly hugged him back.

The progress on his sense of humor was much less joyful, though. He'd gotten pretty good at spotting what was a joke, but… he never felt the urge to laugh. He could fake it pretty well, but it was mildly depressing whenever he'd heard a joke that the other's laughed at and he felt nothing. Jay had sympathetically told him it was alright, that not everyone had the same sense of humor, but Jay always lit up whenever someone laughed at one of his jokes, and Zane just… wanted to be a part of that.

Of course, Jay gave him plenty of opportunities… or he had. Something had changed since Kai had joined their team. Since then there was this sort of… distance that hadn't been there before. And he'd seemed to be spending most of his time talking to Kai's sister, Nya.

Just another person off put by my inability to feel humor. Zane thought, and did his best to brush those thoughts, and the odd feelings they brought up that he couldn't place, aside. At least Jay wasn't avoiding him, like some of the people in the village had…

"Geez, I can't believe you didn't know how to swim!" Kai laughs. "Where did you live, a desert?"

"Yes." Jay bites out, stopping Kai's laughs in their tracks. "I lived in a desert."

"Calm down." The red ninja holds up his hands in surrender. "I'm just surprised that in this day and age someone wouldn't know. I mean, pools exist…"

"Don't be rude, Kai." Nya admonishes him, and Jay gives her this bright smile, which she returns with a soft one.

"Whatever." Kai rolls his eyes. He didn't like how quickly she had cozied up to the blue ninja at all, nor how interested Jay was in his sister. He'd barely known anything about her, just that she existed, before he showed an interest. If that didn't reek of a player, he didn't know what did… If he hurt his little sister, Kai would make his life a living hell, teammate or not. Family would always come first. "Any other interesting stories, at least?"

"Well…" Cole says thoughtfully.

End chapter