Two weeks. I had been living on the Destiny's Bounty for two weeks.
And already Jay's tactic of pestering me into telling my identity was on the verge of actually working.
"You gonna tell me who you are?"
I replied with the same deadpan tone I always used with him.
"No."
I watched him tap his fork on his plate in frustration from across the table. All the other ninja sat around him, busily chowing down on Zane's cooking. Most of them were pretending to be uninterested in me, but I caught frequent glances my way. Ever since Sensei Wu had offered me a place on the Bounty, they'd been going crazy trying to find out who I was— asking me questions on personal preferences, whispering theories to each other when they thought I wasn't in earshot, and dropping not-so-subtle hints that I should take off my helmet.
"You know, this Lobster Thermidor is really good," Jay said, taking a big bite of his dinner. His eyes sparkled with mischief. "You should try some."
"No."
"Aw, come on. You never eat when we're around, and we're almost always around, so I know you must be hungry." He waved some around on his fork as if trying to tantalize me with the meal. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't stifling a laugh.
"Besides, it's pretty hot in here. I bet you'd be lot cooler taking off that helmet to eat some of this delicious food…"
"No."
"Aw, come on!" he exclaimed in frustration. "This is ZANE'S cooking. If this doesn't tempt you, what will!?"
"Maybe he's never had Zane's cooking before," Cole said casually, breaking his concentration from his own food.
"I have no doubt that your friend's cooking is more than satisfactory," I said, my voice flat and monotone. Honestly, if they were paying attention, they should've been able to figure out my identity from my tone of voice alone.
"Yeah, but have you ever tasted it?" Jay asked, waggling his eyebrows. He could be darned annoying, but he was also funnier than people gave him credit for.
"No."
"Ah-HAH!" he exclaimed in triumph. "So you haven't ever been with us on a night Zane was cooking!" He across the table at the red-clad ninja. "Kai, who does that cross off the list?"
"No one except your parents," Kai said in a faked I-don't-care-about-this-conversation voice. I resisted correcting him.
"So you're not my parents, eh?" Jay asked me. "Then maybe you're… A DIFFERENT adult!" he exclaimed. Nya, who was sitting next to him, raised her eyebrows.
"Um, Jay? We're adults," she reminded him.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that Samurai X 2.0 is!" he said. "For all we know, he could be that kid from the hospital! The mech would allow him to walk even though he usually needs a wheelchair! Or heck, he could even be the mailman!" With every new theory, he grew more and more excited.
"The mailman?" Lloyd asked in disbelief.
"Sure, why not? He's followed us great distances, survived multiple attacks on Ninjago… he's fit enough to be the newest Samurai, with those skills!" he said.
"Or he could also be a she," Nya said, a bit defensively. "Never forget who the original Samurai X turned out to be." The word "original" seemed to be directed more at me than at Jay.
"Of course, of course," he said, putting a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder. "It's just that we know a lot more boys than girls. So unless SOMEbody wants to tell us what pronouns we should be using…" he looked at me hopefully.
"No."
"Fine," he huffed. "Then I'm continuing to call him a him."
The rest of the dinner went pretty much the exact same way. Jay was annoying, but I had to admit that I liked the attention. I mean, it was pretty much the main reason for my staying on the Bounty in the first place. And besides, the ninja were nowhere close to guessing my secret identity, so it would be up to me when to reveal it. I liked having that kind of control.
Especially over Nya, I thought, stealing a glance at her while she was preoccupied. Doesn't feel so good to have somebody else stealing all the attention, now does it?
After the long nightly interrogation that we called dinner, Lloyd and Nya started clearing away the dishes while the other ninja headed back to their rooms. I spotted Zane detouring to go fold the laundry, and realized that I needed to seize the chance to catch him alone. As the others left, I hastily pulled the napkin I'd been concealing in my suit's hidden storage unit (Nya was the type of person to sew secret pockets onto a dress, which I had to respect) and "accidentally" bumped into Zane as I brushed by him, pressing the napkin into his hands in the process. I desperately hoped that he didn't ask me about it out loud, despite the look of confusion on his face.
I continued walking at a brisk pace back to the guest quarters, not allowing myself to look back. I knew Zane would see the message on the napkin. And I knew he'd read the words "Meet me on deck tonight when others are asleep. Be quiet" scrawled in binary code.
I just had to hope that he followed my instructions.