Raimundo thinks he’s in love with Kimiko sometimes. He’s not sure, though, because he’s only fourteen and when he was little, Ma had said, “You’ll find the right girl when you’re sixteen,” and he’s not sixteen. So all that wanting to hold Kimiko’s hand and smile at her and take her somewhere private where they can be alone and just talk, just—do whatever—those are all lies, right?

Girls are confusing, though, and there’s no way he can fall in love here, at the Xiaolin Temple. Because it’s just that: nothing but the Xiaolin Temple. Where Omi clings onto his leg and Clay pats him on the back and Kimiko hugs him, because that’s how things go.

Raimundo’s only fourteen, but he’s been burdened with so much responsibility at so young.

He wants to tell other kids—like sometimes when they leave on vacation to go back to their hometowns, because a dragon’s gotta have a break, y’know?—and the kids sometimes crowd round him and ask him, “How’s it like in China? Do you have super magical powers now? What do you do?” and he wants to tell them that, yeah, it’s easy, and he’s awesome and powerful and can take down any villain which, sometimes, he does.

Then when he goes back to his room after his mother has fed him dinner—some tutu mineiro and goiabada, the family favorites—and sees the black robe hanging from the hook, he remembers what he’d told them, and that, no, it feels like he’s always falling.

“China is full of… It’s not really happy go-lucky-land, y’know? There are still like, problems and stuff.”

“Yeah, but you fight evil now! You train with the good guys to defeat the bad guys!”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s bad and who’s not. There was this one time when I was…”

“… You were what? Tell us, Rai! Tell us!”

“Nothing, it’s. It’s just that sometimes the bad guys are misunderstood and they’re not really bad guys.”

“But you kick their butts, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.

“The thing is, though, it’s not just about kicking their butts. It’s learning how to accept yourself and fitting in as part of the team. You gotta work together—I work together with my teammates. You know them, Omi, Kimiko, Clay. They visited with me last time.”

“I remember!”

“The big guy had a weird accent!”

“Is the girl Chinese?”

“I liked the guy with the yellow head!”

“Haha. Me too, kid. Me too.”

He does miss them when he’s in Brazil, although he’ll never admit to it. He thinks of Clay visiting back in the U.S., with his crazy dad and even crazier sister—he wonders how she’s holding out. He thinks of Kimiko and her dad, their happiness—even with her mother gone, and Raimundo smiles.

He thinks of Omi, and then—he can’t really think of Omi, because Omi has no one to turn to. He’d stayed with Dojo, waved as they’d all left to their respective houses, Clay with the Silver Manta Ray and Kimiko with the Longyi Kite and Raimundo with the Golden Tiger Claws—Omi had stayed.

Raimundo suddenly feels very guilty.

“Is it okay if I leave early, Ma?” he says the next morning with his green backpack on his shoulder, and his mother turns from cooking in the kitchen. She’s smiling.

“Something you need to take care of back in China, babe?” she says. Raimundo’s always liked the mother; she’s the understanding type.

“Sort of,” he says. “One of my friends—yeah. I need to go back.”

“Well don’t hurt yourself too hard.” His mother leans down and gives him a sloppy kiss on the forehead. He grins, even though it’s gross. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will, Ma,” Raimundo says.

When he climbs out of his Golden Tiger Claws portal, Omi is helping Dojo decorate for Christmas.

“Hey, guys, sup?” he says, setting his backpack down. “Oh, man, it’s already cold here.” He shivers and goes through his bag for a jacket.

“We are decorating the halls with boughs of holly!” says Omi happily, holding onto the lights as Dojo strings them along the temple. “Falalalala lalalalala!”

“Hey, I think that’s one thing in the English language you got right for once,” says Raimundo, grinning and poking Omi’s hat.

Dojo makes his way around and looks surprised when he sees Raimundo. “Rai!” he says. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be back from vacation on Friday?”

“Yeah, but I thought I’d leave home early to spend some time with you guys,” Raimundo says, and picks up the lights as well. “Anything I can help with?”

Raimundo sometimes wonders why Omi’s element is water, not fire. Omi sometimes laughs too hard or shouts too loudly and it doesn’t really seem—

Well, the oceans roar and the seas like to suck pirates and ships in, in large whirlpools and tsunamis without any warning or reason. Sometimes Omi is like that.

Other times Omi is peaceful and smiles, tries to insist for them to work together—he is less selfish than he thinks or knows, Raimundo has realized. Omi works with all of them when he needs to, when he can; sometimes, that’s all that matters.

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. Sometimes Omi is this, sometimes he is that.

Sometimes the water is high, and sometimes it is quieter than the greyest sky.

Kimiko and Clay come back on Friday and Kimiko says, “Hey guys!” and Clay wraps them all up in a bear hug.

Kimiko says, “This is great and all, Clay, but I think Omi’s head is crushing my abdomen.”

“Sorry,” says Clay, and releases them all and grins.

“Look, I got you guys presents!” Kimiko opens her significantly larger bag. “Goo Zombies 9 for all of us!”

“Sweet!” says Raimundo, while Omi takes his and says, “May I ask what is the difference between Goo Zombies 8 and Goo Zombies 9?”

“More power ups, duh,” says Kimiko, turning her own on. Raimundo has already started playing. “And zombies harder to kill.”

“Ooh,” says Omi, and he plays his, too.

Raimundo remembers that they’re all young. That they’re all only kids.

They’re still kids.

Raimundo thinks he’s in love with every girl he sees, though. Not all the time.

He thinks about girls, but—well, he thinks about girls. How nice it would be to touch them, to kiss them. Sometimes he just thinks about buying groceries with them, or talking about their favorite books and watching a movie. A part of him, the part that he won’t admit to—that part of him is a romantic.

He’s not sure about boys. It’s never been a choice; everyone’s always talking about girls and just—yeah, he likes girls. He doesn’t really like boys.

But he likes being around Clay and talking to him, about the people they used to be and the people they are now. In the time that never happened, he has vague flashes of memories with Chase Young, Chase sitting down next to him and helping him, worried when Wuya had infested his heart, Chase smiling and being proud like a mentor, like a brother.

Omi yelling at him, bothering him, asking him what’s wrong.

Raimundo doesn’t think there’s anything wrong.

He’s the dragon of wind for a reason, he thinks. Kimiko is all Kimiko and Clay is self-explanatory, and Omi is complicated and not and he just doesn’t get Omi sometimes. Raimundo doesn’t really think too much about himself.

“How is your leader training going?” Master Fung asks when he comes into the indoor practice room. Raimundo is practicing simple judo; he’s never been as good as Omi.

“It’s all right,” he says. He kicks the air, punches it a few times.

“Don’t overwork yourself, Raimundo,” says Master Fung, and Raimundo tries to throw him a smile.

“You know me,” he says, and keeps pushing, pushing himself for now.

Other days he just doesn’t care.

“You know,” he says to Kimiko, as they sit on the temple steps while Clay is teaching Omi how to cook some “family recipe” in the kitchen, “I really wonder why Master Fung made me leader.”

“Because you know how to lead,” says Kimiko. “Remember when Omi told us what happened when he time traveled? It was obvious that time was in favor of you.”

“Yeah, but.” Raimundo slumps. He glances over to her. “I don’t think I’m really cut out for the job.”

“You might not be the best,” Kimiko punches him in the arm, “but you’re good enough for us, Rai. Don’t worry about it.”

“Worrying’s not my thing,” says Raimundo, and Kimiko laughs and says, “I know.”

“Hey,” says Raimundo. “Have you ever, uh. Considered dating Clay… or Omi, or—or me?”

Kimiko stares at him, then blinks. “If you like me, Rai,” she says, “I’m really sorry, but—”

“It’s not that,” says Raimundo, because he doesn’t just like Kimiko. Okay, yeah, she’s a girl, and he supposes—girls are all the same, to him. But he likes joking around with Kimiko, too, playing cards with her like the others. He likes hanging out with her like Omi wanting him to play games when he wants to nap or Clay talking about the farthest he’s ever spat, and these—these are the things that he likes more than girls.

Perhaps he’s not in love with Kimiko after all.

“Sorry dude,” says Kimiko, “but I’m not really interested in—like, we’re great like this, aren’t we?” She punches Raimundo’s shoulder again.

Raimundo chuckles and decides that he likes nothing better than this. “We are,” he agrees.

And there are times when Omi says, “Raimundo! Come join me and Clay in the watching of cute kittens on the internet!”

“Do they resemble you?” Raimundo asks dryly, and Omi shoots him a glare while Clay says, “Hey there, partner, that’s a sensitive subject for him.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know I was joking,” says Raimundo, joining them at the computer. “What about Kimiko? Aren’t girls into cute stuff like this?”

“For your information,” says Kimiko, who’s on her PDA in the corner, “I have better things to do than look at cute cats on the internet.”

“Ooh, but look at how cute it is!” says Omi, pointing to a cat. “All smiling and—hello there little kitty!” He starts petting the computer screen.

“Cuter than the smallest critter on my ol’ farm,” says Clay, “although now that I think ’bout it, that might just be like, an ant or somethin’.”

“Well this is great and all,” says Raimundo, “but if you guys don’t mind, I’m going to go back to watch the World Cup—”

“Oh, but look!” says Omi. “These kittens are just like us! Look, there’s one that resembles you, Raimundo—it’s brown and white! And this dark yellow one can be Clay! And the light yellow one me! And of course there is no Kimiko because she doesn’t like kittens,” he says pointedly in Kimiko’s direction.

“Watching pandas,” Kimiko replies. “More cute.”

“There’s a black one here. That can be Kimiko,” says Clay.

“You guys,” sighs Raimundo, “we are not cats.”

But Raimundo likes being here anyways.

Sometimes they kick evil villain butt. Sometimes they don’t.

He thinks of life at the temple, here, in China. The small rundown place back in Brazil, that he’d lived at for a good thirteen years of his life.

At least he has a place to live.

And at least he has both of his parents.

At least they’ll all support what he does.

But Kimiko believes in him and Omi believes in them, and Clay will be there to pull them into bear hugs. That they go on breaks and vacations now—but those are only breaks and vacations, because when they come back to the Xiaolin Temple, they’re back at home.

And Raimundo, too. Guiding them along the path. Pushing them forward, like the wind.

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Better Alone

by aroceu

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© 2009-2026 aroceu