The Xiaolin monks, three with blue sashes and one left wanting, were training in the early morning light. Soft gray mist crawled over the temple grounds, gently dissipating in the sun's early rays. The day was promising to be beautiful, warm but not hot, with just enough moisture in the air to make the breeze cool. But the young monks couldn't care less about the day.
Over and over again they practiced the same move, a simple jump and kick, where they were supposed to do everything in unison, from striking out to landing to breathing. And yet…
"Rai!" Kimiko complained as Raimundo landed unsteadily, knocking into her, which in turn knocked her into Clay.
Raimundo struggled to get his breath back before he answered. "I know, I know. I'm sorry."
Clay began to ask if there was something wrong with the Brazilian, who looked flushed and was sweating far more than he should have been, but bit it back at the last minute. Things were all right between the three apprentices and Raimundo, but they were not good. Omi, Clay, and Kimiko still felt betrayed by their partner, and trust was slow coming. They ate with him, trained with him, even talked to him. But it was not the same.
So, instead of voicing concern, Clay concentrated on his own body, controlling his breathing and centering himself. Omi and Kimiko also stayed silent, though they too could tell that something was not quite right with Raimundo. All three of them thought the same thing, that it was probably just his late night nightmares catching up with him. Or that they were now attacking him in the daylight. Or both.
They could hear, nearly every night since his return, Raimundo wake up with a gasp, a moan, or even sometimes a shout. They could hear his labored breathing and his tears. And they ignored it.
Raimundo knew this too. He knew that there was no way, what with their "rooms" being separated by only thin screens, that they were not wakened by his nightmares occasionally. Not as frequently as he himself was, but surely. And they never mentioned them, for which he was grateful, but they never treated him any different for them, either by dancing around the subject or by being kinder. To him this conveyed that they didn't care. He knew why, and knew he deserved it, but it still hurt.
Today though, Raimundo's mind was far away from his nightmares and even from his friends' emotional distance. He was focused on the pain, and how much control it took to keep from vomiting. He couldn't show any weakness. He already wasn't an apprentice, but he couldn't get kicked out of the temple altogether. And so, even though he had woken up this morning with a sharp pain in his stomach and his skin burning and freezing alternatively, he had shown up for training.
"Raimundo, I have the feeling that you are not even trying," Omi finally scoffed. They all turned to look at him, and then Clay and Kimiko turned to look at Rai, who looked like he was going to pass out at any second. Omi, however, either could not see this, or was ignoring it.
"What?" Rai tried to sound annoyed and strong, but his voice came out weak and full of pain, both physical and emotional.
"It is you who is preventing us from perfecting this move," Omi said. It was clear to the other three that Omi wasn't trying to be cruel, that he thought that he was just stating a fact, but even Clay and Kimiko thought that that was a little too harsh. Raimundo opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Master Fung.
"Young monks!" he called, striding across the lawn towards them, "Why have you stopped?"
"We are not getting anywhere!" Kimiko protested, "And…" But here she stopped. She wouldn't rat on Rai like Omi by telling Master Fung that he was the only one out of sync, but she also wouldn't help him by telling him why. If he was sick, he could tell Master Fung himself.
"Oh?" Master Fung said, stopping in front of them. He looked at them calmly, showing no emotion. He took each of them in, noting their posture and breathing. When he got to Raimundo, his brow furrowed in concern.
"Are you alright, Raimundo?" he asked.
Raimundo hesitated. He could tell Master Fung that he didn't feel well, and would probably get the rest of the day off. But what if the others thought that he was faking it? He couldn't face their looks of contempt and disgust at what they saw as a way to get out of training and chores.
"I'm fine," he said, making an effort to stand up straight and control his breathing. Standing straight made the pain in his stomach flare up, but he ignored it.
Master Fung nodded, believing him. "Well, if you are not getting anywhere, then perhaps we should move on to something else instead, and return to this particular move later."
"I most agree, Master Fung!" Omi said. He was first to follow their master as he led them to a different area of the temple, where tall skinny poles were set up in a random order. Raimundo came last.
"From now until lunch, I wish you all to work on balance." They all groaned internally, even Omi, but said nothing aloud. They worked on their balance constantly, and it was often the most draining of their training.
"This time it will be a sort of game," Master Fung continued, "You must jump from each pole to the next, landing on and leaping off of only one foot. The game comes in paying attention to what each of your teammates are doing. You cannot land on the same pole that the person on your right or left just vacated, and you cannot continue in a straight line in any direction."
This time, groans were heard aloud. There were quite a few poles in the ground, but not enough to make this instruction of Master Fung's easy.
Master Fung only smiled serenely. "I have some business to attend to. Dojo will watch you, so do take care to do your best." That was some relief, at least. Dojo acted tough, but he was easily distracted and pretty lax about rules. If they accidently landed where they shouldn't have, Dojo probably wouldn't notice. They each leapt up and took a pole as Master Fung left.
Everything was fine for the first few minutes. Even Raimundo was doing well despite his pain and (he finally had to admit what it was, at least to himself) his fever. But as he jumped at a diagonal, aiming for the pole directly in front of the one that Kimiko had just left, his pain moved from his bellybutton to the right side of his abs. He missed the pole and slammed into the ground instead.
This made the others stop and look. Raimundo wasn't the best at many things, but he almost surpassed Omi in his ability to balance. Clay and Kimiko fell off the poles quite a lot, even as they got stronger, but Rai hadn't fallen in months.
"Are you okay, Rai?" Kimiko asked, jumping down and finally breaking the apprentices' silent agreement to let Raimundo suffer in peace. Rai only moaned in response, a real moan of pain, not one of his theatrics.
"Dojo!" Clay called, also jumping down. Rai had rolled over onto his back, and what Clay saw scared him. The other boy looked like he was in serious pain, and his face, no longer fever flushed, had paled so much that Rai looked like a tanned ghost.
"What?" Dojo, who had missed the earlier training and only glanced at Raimundo before taking a position in the sun to relax in while the monks jumped around, was not worried yet. He was, however, annoyed that none of the monks, not even Omi, were continuing their practice. Raimundo had fallen, sure, but the poles weren't very high off the ground and the young monks got hurt all the time. It was a matter of course in their training. Dojo slithered through the monks' legs and went to Raimundo's head.
"What?" he asked again.
"I think Raimundo's sick," Kimiko said, listening with fear to Raimundo's labored breathing, "He looked like he had a fever earlier and now…"
But she didn't need to continue, because while Dojo could be clueless at times, he wasn't blind, and he could see Raimundo's pained, sweating face just fine. Dojo bent over the boy, looking him in the eyes. Raimundo met his gaze, but he was definitely struggling to stay focused.
"What is it? Where does it hurt?" Dojo put on his Mom voice, soothing yet stern. He had perfected it over the years, first with Omi, and now with all of the other monks under his charge. Raimundo tried to get his breathing under control so that he could answer, but when he took a deep breath (breathing with his diaphragm, not his lungs, like Master Fung had taught him) he felt a whole new burst of pain.
The other four all jumped back as Raimundo screamed, his back buckling up from the pain. Dojo whirled around to face Omi.
"Get Master Fung!" Omi, swiftest of them all, ran like his own life depended on it. He ran through the temple grounds. Master Fung had said he had business, so he had to be in the meeting room with all of the other old monks. Omi burst in, interrupting someone, causing them all to turn and look at him.
"Omi?" Master Fung asked, calm as ever.
"It's Raimundo!" was all that Omi could get out, but it was all that Master Fung needed. Suddenly panicked, he jumped up and raced back with Omi. As they arrived back in the training area, Raimundo screamed again. Dojo was holding one of Rai's hands and Kimiko had the other. They were trying to comfort him, but it didn't seem that their words were helping. Clay was just helplessly pacing. Omi stood by silently as Master Fung dropped down by Raimundo.
"What is it, young monk?" Raimundo heard Master Fung, and opened his eyes, which had been squeezed shut in pain. Again, he struggled to get his breath together so that he could answer, taking only shallow breaths.
"My… stomach…" he struggled.
Master Fung knew "stomach" could mean anywhere in Raimundo's abdomen. They were only children, after all, barely 14. They didn't use exact terminology, especially when they were in pain. Master Fung was no doctor, but he had learned many things during his years.
"Where at?" he asked. Raimundo dragged his hand away from Dojo's and dragged it to his lower right side.
"Do you feel sick, Raimundo?" Master Fung sounded more worried than before. Carefully, because any movement made the pain worse, Raimundo nodded his head. Master Fung turned to Kimiko, knowing she always had her cellular phone on her, even when she wasn't supposed to. "Dial 999," he instructed her. Scared, Kimiko nodded and did as she was told. Master Fund heard her tell the operator what had happened, glad that overtime all of the monks had picked up enough Chinese to speak conversationally.
"Tell them that we think it is appendicitis," he said. Raimundo gasped below him, and Master Fung understood that Raimundo knew what that meant. He only hoped that they were not too late.
What felt like hours later, but was really only thirty minutes, an ambulance arrived and Rai was taken to the hospital. Master Fung went with him, and if it hadn't been so serious a situation, the other monks might have laughed at the thought of Master Fung riding in a car. He was so ancient that any interaction with something modern was a funny sight. But they only worried as they returned to their own rooms. Dojo explained what appendicitis was, and what that meant for Raimundo. He told them that in a few hours he would take them to the hospital, when he would be out of or almost out of surgery and they could visit. As the hours passed on, each of the three apprentices felt their worry get worse. Their worry… and their guilt, because in each of their minds was the morning training session, when they had noticed how unwell Raimundo had looked and said nothing.
Kimiko got up from her mat, where she had been mindlessly staring at her phone, and stalked into Clay's room. Omi, hearing movement, got up too, and they all stared at each other silently. Finally, Clay broke the silence.
"This is kinda our fault, guys," he said miserably. Kimiko and Omi nodded solemnly.
"We did not treat him like a friend, like we should have," Omi said.
"He betrayed us, but he deserves a second chance," Kimiko continued, "He's been nothing but kind and helpful since he got back. Maybe he deserved the cold shoulder at first, but I think that he's earned our friendship, at least."
"Agreed," Clay and Omi said at the same time.
A few days later, Raimundo was back at the temple, and a week later he was almost back to normal. He couldn't train with the others yet, but at least he could walk around and do some light yoga. Omi, Clay, and Kimiko had been much nicer since his trip to the hospital, laughing with him and including him in their games, as long as those games were the video or card type. Raimundo knew that it was because of his sickness that they were being friendly again, and dreaded the day that it changed. Yet, two weeks had almost passed since the day his appendix had about burst, and they were acting like he had never joined up with Wuya in the first place.
They were playing Texas Hold 'em, with Rai propped up against the wall and the rest of them sitting cross legged. They talked as they played. Kimiko babbled about the latest video games, letting the boys in on some "top secret developments." Raimundo said nothing, only smiled at the idea of a virtual reality video zombie game and the fact that she was telling him about it. Abruptly though, Clay changed the subject.
"That's going to be a purdy scar after the stitches come out," he said, nodding at Raimundo's stomach.
"Uh, yeah," Raimundo said, caught of guard at suddenly being the center of attention.
"Does that bother you?" Kimiko said, also eyeing Rai's stomach. Rai was wearing his favorite gray sweatshirt, so they couldn't actually see anything, but Raimundo pulled it up to reveal the jagged line on his right side, which had a line of dark stitches in it and was covered with a bandage so pale that they could see right through it.
"Does what bother me?" he asked, unsure of what she meant. He still had pain, but they had given him some pretty strong painkillers, so most of the time it was just a dull throb.
"That you'll have a scar there." Rai thought about it a minute. It was a weird place to have a scar, but if the nice nurse he had had was to be believed, it was a relatively common one. Then he thought about how often people would see it, since he would be wearing a shirt most of the time. He grinned.
"Nah, chicks love scars." Kimiko frowned, but then broke into laughter with the boys. The laughter faded and they all looked down at their cards. An awkwardness stole over them. They could laugh together, but they hadn't quite reached the point where they could sit in comfortable silence again.
"So… are we okay?" Raimundo said quietly, startling the other three. They looked at him and saw the worry and fear on his face. They realized that he was afraid of them shutting him out again. And as the comprehended this, they also understood that they didn't want to shut him out again. They had missed him, they realized.
Clay clapped a hand on Rai's shoulder. "Yeah, we're okay, partner." Raimundo smiled, and the awkwardness melted away, and just like that, they were friends again.