Gie-chan: Hi! Okay, I got this idea from a comment by MintyMagic74 on Deviantart about the pie thing. You'd probably get it if you watched Brent Miller's interview with Kirby Morrow (I forgot which part it was, hehe).

Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to their rightful owners.

It was in the early morning, too dark with the sun yet to rise over the horizon. Silence filled the living quarters of the newly-built Steep Wisdom, only to be broken by the shuffling footsteps echoing through the halls.

Trailing his hand across the wall, Jay tried making his way to the kitchen. Sleep still clouded some of his memory as he struggled to remember where the kitchen was and would have most likely missed the doorway had he not realized he was at his destination.

A soft yet audible sound of shifting made him slightly more alert. He whipped his head into the direction of the source of the sound.

It was coming from the fridge.

It was open.

Jay widened his eyes in hopes of being able to see the person going through the fridge this late- early in the morning.

Because the refrigeration unit they had didn't have a light, it was pretty unlikely that he'd be able to easily tell who it was.

Though, it was probably just Cole.

It was sort of normal to find him in the kitchen looking for something to eat nowadays.

Jay opened the cabinet and felt for a glass. He reached his hand further until his finger brushed a rather smooth edge. Right, this was where they keep their plates.

Closing it quietly, Jay opened the other one and once again tried to feel his way through the dark. He was successful in getting a glass and went to the sink to get water.

"Who's there?" The guy in the fridge really was Cole.

"An octopus," Jay answered before gulping down on the glass of water.

Taking out a plate from the fridge, Cole set them down and grabbed a fork.

''Hey Cole, why are you up so early?" Jay suddenly asked.

"Got hungry, I guess?" Cole replied.

"You sound unsure," Jay told him.

For a brief moment, they were just there in silence. The light of the sun was starting to brighten up the sky despite it yet to rise over the horizon. It wasn't much, but there was already a little hint of light.

A little klink from the fork and plate was heard.

Cole just sighed. "I don't really want to talk about it right now."

Jay decided not to press any further. He didn't want to go talk feelings at the moment too.

After he was done with the glass, Jay put it in the sink. The sun was already peeking out from the horizon. Light filtering through the windows and bathing the kitchen in a warm glow.

"Well, no use going to sleep now," Jay said. He glanced at the wall clock that showed it was already quarter to six.

"Yeah. And the alarm clock's gonna ring in three…" Cole started counting down. "Two…"

"One-"

The alarm clock didn't ring.

Jay turned to Cole, "ha! You were off by-" he was cut off as a ring broke the tranquil atmosphere, followed by various groans, "...three seconds!"

Then they heard a crash. Probably the alarm clock.

"Kai! It's on fire!"

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know!"

"Zane!"

"Wake up!"

Jay and Cole looked at each other.

"At least we weren't in that mess," Cole said.

"Zane, stop having visions and help us!"

"Lloyd, don't throw that thing at me!"

Another crash.

"Heh. They're handling it pretty well," Jay said.

The five ninja, Nya, and Wu were all having breakfast around the table. One might say that some of them did not like how their morning started.

To be fair, Kai, Lloyd, and Zane did have trouble with shutting off an alarm clock.

That was on fire.

And exploded.

The rest were spared of the rather...destructive morning.

"I'm pretty sure the alarm clock wasn't there when we went to sleep," Lloyd said.

"It wasn't," Kai said.

"It also appeared that it had some gunpowder inside," Zane added.

"It was loaded with fireworks," Kai deadpanned. He took another dumpling and ate it.

Cole couldn't help but give a small laugh as he went to get his breakfast. When he sat down with the plate, they all heard Jay gasp.

Everyone turned to him, and Jay pointed at the plate across the table with a shocked expression. They turned to Cole, who had a piece of the pie about to be eaten.

Cole looked at him with a confused expression, "what?"

"You're having pie?!" Jay exclaimed.

"Yeah," Cole shrugged, "so? I like pie."

Jay, once again, gasped, except more dramatically this time. Meanwhile, the rest were either just enjoying the show or going like, "huh?"

"Who are you and what have you done with the real Cole?!" Jay pointed accusingly at him.

Lloyd solemnly said, "all this time, and I never knew…" but his stifled laugh immediately diminished his sober expression.

"Well, this is getting unusual," Kai commented.

"Come on, it's not like all I eat are cakes and noodles," Cole explained. "Quit acting like the universe has gone mad."

"But it already did! It's a well-known fact that you like cake the best. You liking pie over cake is like saying Sensei Wu prefers coffee over tea!"

"Leave me out of your nonsense," Wu said from the corner of the table, "and please, do calm down, Jay. The incident earlier was a ruckus enough."

Jay sighed and sat back down, "yes, Sensei…" he said, though, he was still giving Cole suspicious looks throughout breakfast.

After they'd finished eating, Cole went ahead and started on the dishes. As Jay was about to leave the dining room, he kept his eyes on Cole.

Cole turned around to see Jay keeping his gaze upon him while slowly inching backwards towards the door, making an "I'm watching you," sign at him before Kai came and just pulled him away.

Turning back to the dishes, Cole continued washing them. "Overdramatic much today?" he muttered and shook his head.

Gie-chan: I was originally gonna make a comic about this, but I started arguing with myself on what style to use, so I just ended up writing it on .

Gie-chan: Yeah, me, it's either do a cartoonish style and get more work done, or manga style to make it look cool. I just ended up typing it.

Gie-chan: Speaking of typing, I'm still typing that one shot for another story, though it would appear that I won't get to finish it anytime soon because I'm gonna be practicing and reviewing for two contests this month...so much stuff to do in such little time that I even managed to forget what improvised meant earlier this morning.

Man, this Author's Note is getting long.