When Kai wakes up everything is silent, or well, mostly silent.
He notices a small constant movement and by the slight creak of wood he guesses is the ship itself.
The room is submerged in complete darkness and he shivers a little, he doesn't like darkness.
Slowly he rises and as he does so he notices he's in a bed, looking around he finds a mattress in the floor, not far from him, Nya is sleeping.
Turns out she did clean the room.
He finds himself momentarily disoriented, he isn't sure who are these people or why he decided to follow them but he can't help the warm feeling that has settled on his chest.
Especially when passing time with Nya.
Something tells him he's safe, his instincts has kept him alive so far so he'll trust them.
As he stands there his stomach grumbles and is at that moment he remembers he didn't have dinner.
But, is it really safe to go there? He doesn't know where's the kitchen and everything outside seems as dark if not darker than this room.
His stomach protests.
He really doesn't wanna go out, but he's hungry...
He weight his options and eventually hunger wins, decidedly he walks towards the door...
Just to trip on the mattress and fall above Nya, jolting her awake.
"Uh?! What the-?" She looks confused for a moment before the memories of the prior day dawn on her.
Kai gets up quickly, looking sheepishly at her. He didn't want to wake her up.
"Ah Kai, good morning... Wait... what time is it?"
Kai shrugs, he doesn't know nor cares, he's just hungry.
"Let me check"
As she takes her phone from the stand so she can check the time Kai stomach grumbles again and Nya looks up, slightly surprised, the phone screen illuminating her face. Her eyes illuminate with unsung laugh.
It sends a shiver down his spine. Scary.
"Sorry, you fell asleep and we decided it's better to just let you sleep"
Ah, that makes sense.
Nya gets up, she's using bright light blue pajamas and Kai has to wonder if everything these people use is color coded.
"Let's get you something to eat"
Nya walks towards the door and opens it, walking without bothering to even use the flashlight of her phone, just... walks out in complete darkness.
Kai frozes, technically if his sister (... sister? Where did that came from?), can walk outside without needing the flashlight then is most likely safe yet just taking a glance to the dark corridor makes him nervous.
Nya turns around as soon as she notices he's not following her, finding twin seafoam eyes staring nervously at the corridor behind her, she backtracks towards him smiling softly.
"Hey, it's okay"
She turns on the flashlight of her phone and offers out her hand for him to take.
"Let's go together" He takes it's inmediately and squeezes, she squeezes back.
It is pretty dark but the flashlight and Nya make him feel safe so he takes her hand, she takes it firmly and leads Kai towards the kitchen.
The boards creak slightly as they make way, he hopes they won't wake anyone up considering how incredibly silent is everything.
So imagine his surprised once they reach the kitchen and there's someone there.
Instinctively he hides behind Nya, she snickers.
"You better not have eaten all the rice cakes"
Lloyd jumps, fork in hand and rice cake in mouth.
"I wasn't eating" Crumbles of the cake fall from his mouth onto the floor. He gulps.
"Sure" Nya scoffs before walking up to him and playfully poking his cheek, he grunts.
"I was hungry alright?"
The water ninja rolls her eyes, playfully, she can feel Kai changing his hold from her hand to her pajama top.
"You're almost as bad a Cole, you ate like ten rice cakes at dinner"
"Ten is barely anything!"
"That's a lot of food Lloyd!"
"No its not!"
While the siblings continue their bickering Kai has decided he's too hungry to wait and ignoring them walks around them, right towards the pantry where a couple of rice cakes are sitting.
The kid feels likes he's starving so is not surprise when he shoves both cakes onto his mouth.
"Woah, slow down!"
"Hey! You'll choke like that!"
He feels someome take his hands and he struggles to munch down all the rice.
As he looks up he's suddenly face to face with the green eyed teen, Lloyd.
He backs a little too fast, surprised and ends hitting the back of his head with a corner, he hisses and whines in pain, mouth still full of rice.
"Shit, sorry!"
"Language!" Nya hisses with more fire than she and Lloyd were expecting.
Is not the usual "Sister scolding brother" tone but more like "Mom scolding others for swearing in front of their child" kind of tone.
Lloyd murmurs another sorry as he quickly pulls Kai away from the counter and taking advantage of being on the taller spectrum he doubles over so he can massage the spot where Kai hit his head.
Eventually the teen leads the child to sit at the dinner table, Nya taking his side while Lloyd takes the opposite seat to her and watches as Kai finally gulps down all the rice.
How he didn't choke is truly a mystery. They should've given him at least a glass of water, just in case.
They're not chatting and that makes Kai feek a bit uneasy. He likes when there's sound around even if it's background noice.
Lloyd is holding a warm cup between his hands as he watches Kai fidget.
"Right Lloyd, what time is it?"
"Uh? You didn't check?"
"Kai was hungry so I forgot"
Lloyd makes a small noise as he turns his head to watch the wall clock.
"Three I think"
"Still enough time for us to go back to sleep."
"Mhm"
As his siblings keep on talking Kai has apparently decided on something, he gets up from his and Nya's side and walks around the table just to sit besides Lloyd, the teen just looks flabbergasted.
"Hey, uh, what-"
Before Lloyd can say anything Kai dives below his elbow just to pop on the otherside and try to reach the cup with hot chocolate.
Nya scoffs and finally Kai snatches the cup, starts drinking... before making a face and giving it back to Lloyd. Kai sticks his tongue out, annoyed.
The Water Ninja bursts out laughing while Lloyd only watches the kid rest his head against his arm.
"You should've offered him one" She giggles.
Finally the green Ninja seems to snap out of it and address the kid, who looks up to lock eyes with him.
"Do you want a cup too? I think we have some marshmallows left."
Kai nods and smiles excitedly, a shine on his eyes before sitting upright, giving Lloyd space to get up and make another cup, letting his sit on the table.
As he waits for his own cup he lays down his head in the cool wooden table, idly playing with his long hair as he waits.
"Do you wanna eat something else?"
He moves his head slightly to take a peak at Nya, who is calmly (and tiredly) resting her head on one arm, Kai can see she clearly wants to go back to sleep soon.
He's not tired thought.
Not at all.
Please ignore the yawn he just let out.
With half-lidded eyes he shakes his head, he can wait until morning.
Nya yawns too and smiles, smiling warmly while muttering an "Okay" as both wait in silence for Lloyd to finish.
Soon enough there's a red cup placed in front of him and someone besides him sitting.
Kai readjusts himself as he reaches for the cup, before groaning and letting go of it.
"Uh? What's wrong"
Kai only shots a glance of annoyance to the teen while shaking his hands.
"Oh" He realizes, surprised, that the drink was too hot for him. Even Nya looks surprised.
"Sorry, uh, just blow until it cools down"
The child scoffs but does as he's told while Lloyd drinks his own cup, which has gone quite cold.
"Isn't that cup too big?" Lloyd turns slightly to address Nya.
"We don't have any other though"
"You could've just fill half of it"
"Please, I would've loved a full cup of hot chocolate when I was his age"
Nya raised an eyebrow.
"Lloyd, if a candy-based diet was healthy you would live out of one"
The namesake took to keep drinking his hot chocolate, not being able to come with a retort, being made even worse by the small glint of amusement on Nya's eyes.
He jumped slightly as he felt something on his side, glancing to see a happy-looking Kai reclining on him, cup on his hands as he sipped happily.
This was quite weird, and he still wasn't completely sure how to treat this young version of his older brother.
Especially because he wasn't sure if he would even remember this once he goes back to normal.
But as he watched the five year old enjoy this cup he can't help but smile.
Being the big sibling for once isn't so bad after all.