— 13 years old —

Dear Diary,

Being a housewife sucks big time.

I have not experienced it myself, but every time Kai and I visit our town elders, they have this exact scenario: The man sits. The woman serves.

Always. Every single time.

And the women never talk either. They sit still, look pretty, and only answer when being talked to. They cake their faces in makeup in order to look "presentable," put on their nicest outfits, make the best food (because, of course, the women always cook in those households), and rarely ever talk about their interests.

It's always the man who does the talking. He orders his wife around. "Get me some more coffee, Honey." That pet name literally has no meaning behind it. And ten times out of ten their "honey", who is eating her own food, puts down the cutlery, stands up, and walks out of the room to bring him what he wants.

Rarely ever do women receive a "thank you," and I swear I have never even heard a man say "please" either.

They take their women for granted. They treat them like they're lesser beings.

Because of what? Their chest? Their lack of having male genitalia? I don't get it. Other than what biology dictates, there is nothing a woman cannot do that a man can.

I don't want to be a housewife when I grow up. I want to be something. I want to work and earn my own money. Right now, I kind of am earning my own money already, but Kai doesn't really let me touch any weapons. He says they are too dangerous for me, and that I am too young to handle such things.

Psh. I may be two years younger, but my grammar is way better than his. I know the difference between "then" and "than". He doesn't. Loser.

Speaking of Kai, he is very supportive of my goals. He knows I will never be a housewife (because I may or may not have yelled at him once when he mentioned I should know how to cook for my future husband). Ever since then, he hasn't mentioned a future husband, which is great.

Because I will never settle for a man. Ever.

Men suck. Being a housewife sucks. Obeying sucks.

Putting down the blue-inked pen, Nya Smith closed her diary and sighed. Every time she visited the town elders' homes together with Kai, she would come out more annoyed and aggravated than before. She hated seeing what society had made women become, and she wanted to stay as far away from that as possible. Those beautiful, wonderful, creative, strong, intelligent women being degraded for simply being who they were...

Her only being thirteen years old meant nothing when it came to her perception of the world, what the people around her would one day try to turn her into.

She did not want that. She hated being associated with stereotypical things women were wired to do—cooking, cleaning, childcare, obedience to their husband.

So, for the longest time since she could remember thinking, Nya had tried to stay out of the way of all of that.

But, of course, she quickly realized that those were basic life skills. A person needed to cook to be able to survive. A person needed to clean their home to make it a livable environment. A person needed to take care of their child.

A person needed to do that, not a woman or a man specifically.

Nya understood what that meant. She hated what it meant.

It meant men were not stupid. Most of them knew how to cook, clean, take care of children. But they never did any of that because they had women in their lives to do it all for them.

Nya did not know the terminology for that, but she knew exactly what she needed to avoid when it came to her future dating life.

She needed boundaries. Protection. Safety.

But would she really need to think about that, though, when she was already hellbent on never dating a man? The thought of being together with one made her skin crawl.

Yeah, no. There was no way she would ever settle for a man.

— — — —

— 14 years old —

Dear Diary,

It has been eight days since moving into the monastery. Eight days since having met Cole, Zane, Wu, and Jay. Eight days, and I've already gone on my first date. With Jay.

Eight days. That's one week plus one day.

I've gone on a date with a guy I met eight days ago.

My morals? Out the window. Down the gutter.

But can you really blame me? Jay is cute, yes, and he makes me laugh, too. And his favorite color is blue.

My favorite color is blue, too. Since eight days ago. Before that, it was red.

Wait.

Nya closed her diary with a loud thud, her eyes wide as realization crossed her thoughts and opened her mind.

Her favorite color had been red for as long as she could remember it, since it kind of ran in the family. It was Kai's favorite color. It used to be their father's favorite color.

Blue had never even been in the picture for Nya.

But that day, when she had ridden the back of Flame, Kai's fire-spewing dragon, when she had first laid her eyes on Jay, she had told him blue was her favorite color.

It had shot out of her mouth like a bullet, right on the spot, with no time for her to actually think about it.

Now Nya connected the dots.

She had seen Jay. She had seen his clothing. She had answered, "It's my favorite color." Then she had seen the victorious expression on his face, and his "yes" had been cute as well. Barely audible because of what had happened to his voice box, but still there.

Biting her lip, Nya glanced out her window, seeking mental clarity.

Her feelings were unidentifiable. She needed to decode what her heart was trying to tell her before it would blow up in her face.

— — — —

Dear Diary,

Okay, so maybe I do have a crush on Jay.

And I'm pretty sure he likes me too.

But here's the thing: Do I really, genuinely, with a hundred percent certainty want to spend the rest of my life with him?

Because I don't just date one guy and move on to the next. I do want my first boyfriend to be my last.

So...Jay?

Out of all the people, do I really want Jay?

Nya went on to the next page and divided the DIN-A5 sheet into two parts. She labeled the left side "PROS" and the right side "CONS" and began to list off various facts about Jay.

PROS:

1. Listens to me

2. Respects me

3.Likes me back (?)

4. Same interests

5. Makes me laugh

CONS:

1. Too fidgety

2. Too loud

3. Doesn't take things seriously

4. Too messy

5. Too childish

The quality of Nya's handwriting deteriorated the more she wrote down, her face scrunching up in disgust.

At herself, because what even was she doing?

The "cons" were not even backed by good arguments. She knew he had ADHD and possibly anxiety as well, so him being fidgety was hardly anything bad.

And being "too loud" was just the way he was. He liked to talk everyone's ears off, and oftentimes did so in a louder voice. The more he was engaged in the conversation, the louder he became, the brighter his mood became. That was not a good contra argument either.

Nya knew for a fact he took a lot of things seriously, especially her and their unannounced relationship as a couple. Were they even a couple? Nya was unsure, but still. They had something going on. And he took it more than seriously.

He was always up to something to brighten up her day. Always ready to offer her a bouquet of flowers or tell her an unfunny one-liner that would make her laugh. Nya could bet her left pinky toe he was currently planning their second date as well.

For the "too messy" part, Nya did not feel so bad about. His side of the boys' shared room was like a battlefield gone south.

Still, being messy was not a defining factor. He could just easily get tidier over time.

Nya frowned. Was Jay really childish? Sure, he liked comic books, played a lot of video games, knew the lines to every single Fritz Donnegan movie that existed by heart, and loved cotton candy, but were those things really childish, or just his passions?

And on top of that, Jay was only fifteen years old. He would turn sixteen next month. He was still a teenager.

Why was she even expecting him to act like a grown man when he was still a teenager trying to live his life to its fullest capacity his duties would allow him to?

Out of pure frustration, Nya grabbed the corner of the sheet with the list and ripped it out of her diary. Then she crumpled it up, opened her window, and threw it out of the flying Bounty.

She felt horrible for even considering making a list, let alone list off his "cons."

Maybe it was the little girl in her who was trying to pick apart a perfect guy, to find a flaw in his flawless self.

Or maybe it was just fourteen-year-old Nya Smith who wanted to desperately deny the feelings bubbling up for Jay Walker.

— — — —

Dear Diary,

Jay and I are official now.

Closing her diary shut, Nya threw it onto her bed. Then she flopped onto it the next second.

It had been a confusing couple of weeks, and it all ended with her making her relationship with Jay official, meaning she was his girlfriend and he was her boyfriend. Officially. Publicly. The Blue Ninja and the Samurai.

She groaned into her linen sheets before rolling over and looking up at the ceiling.

Jay was a good guy. He was everything she could have wanted from a significant other—kind, caring, funny, strong, intelligent, and so, so much more.

But she couldn't help but have the smallest piece of her brain laughing at her and telling her she was not good enough for him. Or he was not good enough for her? She needed to piece together what her brain was trying to tell her.

She needed confirmation, somehow, that Jay was the right one.

But who could she seek this confirmation from?

— — — —

Nya strolled into her bedroom with a dazed mind. Her head was filled to the brim with the day's previous events, not knowing how to feel. Her heart was beating out of her chest.

She sat down against her desk and picked up her pen. Then she opened her diary and placed the pen on the paper, gently. Carefully. She willingly went out of her way and didn't greet her diary to get to the point faster.

So apparently Jay is not my

Her hand froze. She didn't want to finish that sentence but knew it would have the same meaning even if not written on paper.

Jay was not her true match.

Cole was.

The love machine in the Borg Tower said so, and although Nya was not one to trust another man's invention so easily, the clues were all sitting in front of her. The way Cole looked at her, the way he smiled at her, the way he talked to her, so animatedly.

Nya had always seen him as a friend, a brother even, but what if Cole had been seeing her in a different light? Something less platonic and more romantic? Had there always been a warm gleam in his eye? Had he always looked the way he did?

Jay was funny, but only because he was trying too hard. Cole was funny without lifting a single finger. Jay was protective, but Cole was more muscular, stronger, more durable. Jay was creative, but Cole was carrying years of singing and dancing on his back, and Nya had to admit she had always wanted to dance with someone. Jay was respectful, but so was Cole.

Nya was with Jay. That was a fact. They were a couple.

But would any other girl in a relationship think of another boy when she was with the boy she longed to see forever with?

— — — —

— 15 years old —

Dear Diary,

Whoever said the greatest love stories last forever deserves to step on a Lego brick.

The greatest love stories end in tragedy. Without doubt.

I know I'm in love. That's the only explanation for the way my heart aches.

But here's the age-old question: Jay or Cole?

I know, I know. More than a year has passed. I should have figured out the answer months ago. But I just can't. It's not so easy.

Especially with the way those two behave. The whole "black or blue?" debate has lost its red string and now they are both just fighting for me, as if I were a prize to be won.

Nya let go of the pen and grabbed her steamingly hot coffee mug, placing the rim between her lips. She took a small sip as she let her thoughts run wild.

The two had become out of control, and Nya had once tried to calm them down, but that had been a meek attempt. Now, it seemed like they were no longer caring about her personally but only about winning. The concept of "who gets the girl?" fueled their banter with untameable diesel.

Nya should just choose. It was easy, really, to just say a name and call it a day.

But the once dreamy and caring Jay was long gone. Nya hadn't meant to come off as malevolant when she had placed boundaries between them, but was she to blame when he had not respected those mental barriers?

Nya needed time. Time to trust, to truly love.

She needed to love herself first before she could project the same amount onto another person.

Disrespect was the one thing she didn't want in a partner (next to murder, of course), so technically Jay should be out of the picture now, since he had proven himself to be disrespectful towards her.

Nya placed the mug down on the table, removed the pen from the paper, and let her face flop down onto it, groaning.

Jay was still in the game, and Nya hated to admit it to herself, but he was winning.

— — — —

— 16 years old —

Dear Diary,

So, a lot has happened, and now Jay and I are back together.

Long story short: I was wrong.

True love stories don't all end in tragedy.

Because mine has just begun.

Nya didn't have to write out an entire essay about the alternate timeline and all that had happened to her in it. Its conclusion was all she wanted to care about, even if Nadakhan and his evil laughter haunted her in her dreams, time and time again. She couldn't escape his face when she closed her eyes, but when they were open, she could see him on her walls, on her ceiling, next to her on her bed.

"Can't sleep?"

Nya froze, her hand midair on its way to reach her mug. Black coffee had been her cure for everything, and when she couldn't think clearly, it helped her wipe away the stress.

Turning around, her eyes met Jay's, a sad discoloration of blue looking back at her.

"Seems like you can't sleep either," she said, resuming her act of pouring herself some coffee. "You want some?"

"Yeah."

Nya hid her surprise as she grabbed him a mug and poured some coffee into it from the pot. Jay was typically a tea person, but guessing from the fact that they had defeated Nadakhan only three nights prior, she knew he needed to clear his thoughts as well. And if coffee helped her, it could surely help him as well.

She did, however, put some sugar into his coffee, because unlike her, he had an active sweet tooth.

"Thank you," he whispered, taking the mug from her hand and bringing it up to his mouth. Nya took a seat beside him at the dining table.

Silence coated the air.

"So."

"So."

"Do you want to talk?"

"Do you want to talk?"

Nya didn't know how to answer the question. It was so simple yet the most complicated question she had ever had to find a reply for. It was a loaded question, and whatever she would say would cause a butterfly effect she couldn't know to foresee.

"I...don't know."

They hadn't had a proper conversation about what had happened ever since Jay had turned back the arms of time. They had yet to talk about Nadakhan, about Nya's death, about them.

They were together again, and although Nya was elated to be with him again, the circumstances that had happened in were less than welcome.

She took a sip of her drink whilst staring ahead.

The aforementioned butterfly effect was a funny thing. If it hadn't been for Nadakhan's reign, Nya and Jay wouldn't have been together. Nya wouldn't have gotten off her high horse. Jay wouldn't have shown maturity. They wouldn't have had a heart-to-heart in the lighthouse, where Nya had revealed her feelings openly for once and Jay had listened to her, attentively, respectfully, showing understanding.

Jay's arm slung around Nya's shoulder and slid down her arm, settling around her waist. Nya let him pull her body into his side, one of her legs over the other, her hands holding her warm mug, her cheek resting on his shoulder, her eyes cast down.

"We'll talk when we're both ready," he whispered into the calm midnight air. "We've got time."

"Yes," Nya agreed. "We've got time."

That same night, the two of them remained side by side, sitting at the dining table in the type of silence that would send other couples into mindless frenzies. They drank their coffees, looked out the window, watched a new dawn arise.

And when the two went to their separate rooms to get some well-needed rest, Nya lay awake for a couple more minutes, replaying the hours she had just spent with Jay with a smile on her face.

She was lying on her left side, and when she opened her tired eyes, she no longer saw Nadakhan's ugly face. She saw Jay. Younger Jay, fifteen-year-old Jay, the Jay who had asked her out on a date with too much cologne on his person to kill her with the snip of a finger and cheeks pinking underneath the Bounty's poor light source. She saw the young, naive boy who had nothing but a mere crush on her. Innocent. A dreamer. An inventor.

When she turned onto her right side, she expected to see a wicked grin painted on the wall, but instead he was there again. Jay, smiling at her as he looked at her with hearts in his eyes and his truth on his tongue. She watched as three-days-prior Nya joined him on the wall, then they shared a kiss, and Nya felt the warmth deep in her bones. Happiness radiated off her body and danced around her in a circle, engulfing her to her core.

Then she rolled onto her back, her smile widening when all traces of Nadakhan's face were gone from her ceiling and replaced with Jay's. Nya let her imagination run wild. Jay's face had wrinkles on it and a mustache and a beard covered his mouth area. An eye patch was hiding his left eye, leaving Nya to wonder if this was how Jay had told her he would look like in the future. Then she saw herself from the future joining him on her ceiling, wrinkles of her own around her eyes and on the corners of her mouth, her black hair longer than her current hair.

Laughter bubbled up from the pit of her stomach. If this was supposed to be them in their future, then Jay had turned out to be correct, they did have time. Enough to grow old together. Enough for Jay to either lose an entire eye or only its sight.

Suddenly Nya felt light, she felt relieved.

The big threat was gone. She survived. Because of Jay.

And to think she had ever doubted his love for her...

— — — —

— 18 years old —

Dear Diary,

My very first diary entry was five years ago, when I adamantly said I would never settle for a man who would boss me around, who would treat me as a lesser being, who would expect me to obey to him. I still support that belief.

I'm happy to say I have in fact found someone who is both a man and on my side. Well, technically a man, but in his heart still a child. Jay's twentieth birthday was yesterday, and we celebrated at the rollerskating rink. It was fun. We had fun. Watching Kai struggle to stay on his feet was also fun.

People say time serves you perspective, and I am still in conflict about its definition. I have grown over time. My relationship has grown over time. I am eighteen now, and although I can legally get arrested for walking up to a guy and kicking him between his legs for no reason, I still feel like I have just learned how to walk on my own two feet.

I keep learning new things about Jay every day, and I would be lying if I said I didn't like all his many facets. He's funny, intelligent, creative, and so loving. I love being around him. I love listening to his many stories he saves up for my ears to hear only. I love the way he looks at me, the way he touches me, the way he loves me. Simple as that. It's love.

His humor has also tripled over time. He keeps insisting that he's rubbing off on me, and while I deny it every time, I do have to face the truth that I am starting to adapt to his behavior. Let me try to make a joke:

Why is the thundercloud upset at the lightning bolt? Because lightning strikes twice!

Get it? Because the lightning strikes twice so it steals the thunder's thunder.

Okay, okay. It was bad, I admit.

At least one of us can joke between Jay and I.

I feel like there is an interesting metaphor we can draw from

"Are you done being boring? This twenty-year-old manly man could really use some love over here."

Rolling her eyes, Nya closed her diary and turned around in her wheeled chair. "You've been occupied by your Switch this whole time, but you call me boring for finding a way to entertain myself?"

"You can't blame me for playing video games on my day off, my love." Jay stretched his body out on the bed and let out a contented sigh. "Now I'm ready to be loved again."

Nya blinked, unimpressed.

"Come on." Jay turned on his side and made grabby hands at her, his arms outstretched. "Cuddles. Now."

"You're such a big baby," Nya said as she stood up.

"But it's working!" Jay grinned, his eyes staying on her the whole time she advanced from the chair over to the bed. He was hypnotized by the way she took his breath away so effortlessly. All she needed to do was be there, and he would gladly take his last breath saying her name.

Nya sat down on the edge of the mattress but was immediately sucked in by Jay's bear grip around her body. She fell on the bed with loud, humorous laughter rippling through her chest. Before she knew it, she was spooned.

"Now I'm happy," Jay said, smiling, his eyes closed. He took in a whiff of her hair and let his smile grow at the smell of fresh blueberries hitting his nostrils.

"Yeah, well, can we at least get a blanket?"

"Shush."

"Jay, my feet are cold."

"Shush."

"I swear, if you say that word one more time—"

"Shush."

Jay laughed when Nya accepted defeat with a reluctant hmpf, her head falling back onto his bicep. He reached for the blanket and pulled it over their bodies, making sure to cover her bare feet, although he had already wrapped his own feet around hers when she claimed her feet were in need of some warmth.

The two fell asleep not long thereafter, and there wasn't a single doubt left in Nya's head about the image of her future created in her head.

Jay was there with her to stay, and Nya sure as heck wouldn't let him slip away from her again.

A/N: So, real talk: this oneshot was meant to go a completely different direction. Starting with the title, it was supposed to be called Sweet Sixteen, and the storyline was around that concept, too. Consider yourself lucky because you're about to get a small glimpse into my oneshot-planning. I have a notebook where I write out all my plans and ideas, so enjoy this first concept.

So yes, there is an alternate timeline where this oneshot would have existed.