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Omi wasn’t used to there being any extra presence in the sleeping halls. His personal quarters were located in a separate building than the other monks. Traditionally, the children would sleep in separate halls than the adult monks in the temple. Considering he was the only child in the temple, Omi had the entire hall to himself. That is until he was given three new teammates.
Omi wasn’t sure if the change was good or not. On one hand, he had kids around his own age to interact with on a daily basis. On the other hand, he’s never lived with other kids. They were still a bit older than him, but they were much closer in age to him than the other monks who lived at the temple (Kimiko was only two years older than him at 12, Raimundo one year older than that, and Clay was the oldest at 14).
As they were all at the temple to train, their living quarters weren’t meant to have many other functions outside of sleeping. Omi’s nightly routine consisted of a short meditation session which then lead to him dozing off upside down on his head. It wasn’t until he met the other children did he learn this wasn’t quite normal.
And so in order to better understand how normal kids acted, Omi figured it’s be a wise idea to observe their nightly routines.
One thing Omi observed was that each of his new teammates would wear funny-looking sleeping clothes that he learned were called pajamas (or PJs for short). They all seemed to be made of a soft material and had various patterns on them.
Clay often wore patterns. There were ones with a strange-looking green object on them (he learned this was called a ‘cactus’, a plant native to where Clay grew up) and sometimes ones with male cows (a Texas longhorn, Clay informed him). Sometimes he’d wear patterned pants (‘plaid’ he learned the specific pattern was called) and a plain white shirt with short sleeves that you’d pull over your head (a ‘T-shirt’).
Kimiko’s PJs were the most interesting to Omi. Her’s always held intricate or strange designs. She had some T-shirts for musical acts or digital video games, but Omi’s favorites were the ones that resembled animals like a cat or a rabbit or a bear. Omi’s most favorite were the ones that were pants and a shirt in one and looked like a panda bear. (After revealing this to her, Kimiko gifted him with a pair of his own, as well as some other PJs his size).
Raimundo’s mostly held plain designs though sometimes his would have a pattern. He sometimes wore pants that had a round, black and white ball on them that he wasn’t really sure of the name for. Raimundo informed him that it was called a ‘bola de futebol’, however this was said in his native tongue so Clay clarified that the correct term for it in English would be a ‘soccer ball’. Kimiko corrected that in some places it was called a ‘football’.
(Omi decided that he’d just call it the ‘round, checkered ball’).
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Some nights, after they just got back from a long day of Wu searching and battling bad guys, the young monks would be restless. One would think they'd be exhausted from hours of such vigorous activity but if the fate of the world wasn't in the balance and all they had to do was win some Wu and just have to deal with Jack or his cronies, then the kids’ adrenaline would still be buzzing in their veins.
After much for-naught cajoling of Master Fung to stay up later (a tactic that they learned only worked on Dojo), they'd be sent to bed and would each perform their nightly routines and eventually settle into their cots, go to sleep, and ready for the new day ahead.
Some days though, as they'd lay in silence and try to drift off into unconsciousness, someone would break the nighttime peace with a comment pertaining to the day - usually one of Spicer’s lines - that'd send the rest of the young monks into a fit of giggles and barely suppressed laughter. The humorous comments would then lead to them discussing the day’s win, complementing moves, or just sharing stories of their own.
Anytime they'd burst into a fit of muffled laughter that reached a too-high volume a disgruntled Dojo would appear telling them to shut their yaps and go to bed, it's past curfew for Dashi’s sake. They'd promise to go to bed and sometimes they would.
Some nights though they'd continue their conversations after the dragon had left and then burst into a fit of giggles again, despite their best efforts - only for Dojo to appear again with the same plea for peace and quiet in the nighttime and it's not a sleepover, geez just go to sleep. Sometimes they'd listen.
Sometimes after receiving that comment and him leaving once more, the kids would pull their cots halfway out of their cubbies and lay on them reversed, their faces sticking out of the door-less opening and their feet where their head usually should be. They'd continue their hushed conversation in excited whispers that would ultimately result in laughs breaking out once again.
When Dojo would return for the final time to see the curtains of each of their cubicles pulled to the side, their heads sticking out from the ends - caught in the act - he'd ask why they even bothered with the walls.
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Their temple is located in the north, so cold winter nights were not unheard of for the young monks.
Most nights everyone is usually okay with hunkering down in their own cots with many blankets and layers piled on, but on the rare occasion that there’s snow or a cold front moving in, everyone usually ends up migrating to Kimiko’s one way or another. As the Dragon of Fire (in-training), she gave off a natural body heat that was so much warmer than any of the other young monks. So the other three Dragons (in-training) would migrate over to the Japanese girl’s sleeping quarters on the colder nights.
At first they used to give excuses for their night visits. They ask for help searching something up online, see if she could recall the fighting move she did that day, or if she remembered if the Wu Vault was locked up or not.
After three separate occasions of this happening, she eventually told the three boys to stop fooling around and just come to her cubby at night if they were cold. This resulted in many warm nights filled with youthful laughter emitting from the sleeping cubicles as they’d huddle together under a shared blanket and recall the events of the day, perform random searches on the internet, or watch a funny movie mailed to Kimiko courtesy of either Keiko or her older sister.
And if Master Fung was ever angry that they broke curfew, he never made it known.
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Clay, evidently, was a mouth-breather when he slept, which means he snores. He didn’t snore every night, only occasionally, but there was no way to predict when those occasions would be. And they weren’t quiet snores that matched his normal speaking volume either - no, no they were deep, throaty snores. None of the other monks had the heart to chastise Clay about it - afterall, it was an unconscious action (literally) - so they learned how to deal.
Raimundo seemed to have the least trouble adapting to it. He was from a big, restless city after all and apparently had many brothers (and some sisters) who snored as well. After many years of dealing with both these factors, Raimundo had become one of the world’s heaviest sleepers, if not the. He slept through thunderstorms, teammates clumsily knocking things down, shouting, or stumbling around in the middle of the night. One time he even slept through most of a late-night breakin by Spicer.
Kimiko, like Raimundo, grew up in a big city that was always buzzing with life but herself was not immune to waking up from disturbances so she had to come up with different ways to find sleep. She had plain old earplugs for canceling out noise but most of the time she would plug earbuds into her MP3 player then fall asleep that way. After being questioned on how she could go to sleep listening to her prefered, upbeat genre of music, she revealed that she had a specialized playlist meant just for sleeping with soothing noises like peaceful rainfall or waves gently crashing onto a beach or just mellow songs.
Omi faced many trials and errors in his attempts to block out the noise. After all, he’s never had to deal with others sleeping next to him (besides maybe the rare visit from Dojo, but Omi usually kicked him out because he too snored). At first, Omi tried entering a deep, meditative sleep that he studied in one of the ancient scrolls but just as he’d get close to dozing off, an extra loud snore would break his focus and he’d be wide awake once more. When he got desperate, he settled with shoving his pillow over his head and fought the urge to shove a sock into Clay’s wide-open mouth (suddenly that strange saying made sense).
(In the end, Omi stopped attempting his failed methods and resigned to asking Kimiko if he could have a pair of earplugs. She happily consented and Omi slept peacefully).
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The day after Raimundo rejoined the Xiaolin side, things were still a little tense. The Brazilian boy felt an overwhelming sense of dread as he returned to his cubicle, and though it looked exactly the way he left it, he was still uneasy.
He still couldn’t shake the nauseous, shaky feeling he’d felt all day. It took him a while to realize that the feelings were the early stages of a panic attack brought on by his self loathing. Though everyone was nothing but kind to him and tried their very best to give him the benefit of the doubt and understand his actions, it still wasn’t enough. He betrayed them. Gave everything up, and for what? Just some fancy stuff he never had before? Stuff he could never have before. He’s lived his entire life without owning much of anything, so why was he so tempted by Wuya in the first place? Because he just wanted to see what it was like? Was his betrayal just some sort of sick trial period?
He felt various pangs go off in his head as he curled up in a ball and shut his eyes tightly, though this only lead to the pangs now gaining a color as they went off, bursting like strange, diluted fireworks. Though he tried his best, he felt droplets of water finally roll down his face and drip off his nose onto the bedding underneath him. He was unsure if the tears were brought on by the pain behind his eyelids or the throbbing in his chest. As soon as a pathetic sounding hiccup escaped his lips, he tightly covered his mouth and tried to quell the barrage of selfscathing that was repeating like a mantra in his head.
He was so busy trying - and failing - to sooth himself that he didn’t notice his curtain being peeled back nor did he notice another presence enter his cubby until he felt something warm, scaly, and familiar nudge against his curled fist.
With a start, Raimundo quickly opened his watering eyes to see none other than Dojo unwinding his tightly clenched fist. Raimundo’s limbs were like putty as the green dragon smoothed out his fingers then maneuvered his arm off of the wooden floor and back into the cot and adjusted the blanket so it covered all of his upper body. Embarrassingly, this simple act of kindness caused the sobs Raimundo tried holding back to break free into voiced stutters and full-body shudders. Dojo didn’t say anything, except offered comforting pats to his covered forearm and the occasional quiet, soothing noise until Raimundo’s breathing eventually evened out and he remembered no more.
When he woke the next morning, there was no sign of the ancient guardian anywhere. For a moment, he thought he imagined the whole thing until he checked his face in one of the bathroom mirrors only to see tear tracks made in the layer of dirt on his face he didn’t bother washing off the night before. After a quick wash with a cloth and the water basin, Raimundo ventured out of the sleeping halls and into the dining area. To his disappointment, but not surprise, everyone was there already and stopped what they were doing at his entrance.
His eyes frantically darted across the table to view the strained faces of his teammates. They all seemed to want to say something but were unsure of what should be said. Finally he met the eyes of Dojo, who was currently serving breakfast. Then - unexpectedly but familiarly - the dragon chastised Raimundo for sleeping in so late and informed him that his breakfast was getting cold. This lead to his teammates to poke fun at his ability to remain sleeping even with all the noise everyone makes when getting ready in the morning and how Clay had almost eaten all the dumplings so he better hurry up and sit his butt down if he wants any.
Swallowing a nervous laugh and the urge to bolt, Raimundo took his seat and felt a familiar feeling of calm wash over him steadily. It was as if everything was slowly seeping back into normal. Except there were a few extra perks this time; Clay had discreetly rolled a few extra dumplings onto his plate, Kimiko graciously offered him half of the last lotus bun after he lost the chopstick fight for it, and Omi - after staring at him in silence for many moments - offered him the chance to train underneath him as Raimundo worked to reach their esteemed level. To everyone’s great surprise, he actually accepted that offer.
As he finished off his breakfast while everyone went to go get changed, he searched for Dojo, who was currently cleaning up the cooking supplies. The green dragon finally looked up to meet the boy’s eyes only to see confusion. Dojo gave a simple nod in response that confirmed many things for Raimundo; last night was not a dream and that things were on their way back to normal. With a rare timid smile, Raimundo began to assist Dojo in cleaning up. Once the table was cleared and all the dishes were in a basket to be sent off to clean, the green dragon ‘ordered’ him to go and join the others in getting ready for the day.
Raimundo gave a grin and left with the thought that Dojo may argue that he’s not a babysitter, but he sure is a great Guardian.