TW: blood
Wednesday I walked into school with a water ninja, a bullet wound and a bite mark.
It sounded like the set up to some good ole joke. Spoiler; I'm the punchline.
"Hey," Kai greeted from the lockers as we approached. He lifted himself up and tried his best not to be obvious as he eyed the edge of the bandage that poked out from the neckline of my shirt. At least he made an effort.
"Heya guys," Nya replied. My eyes quickly gave a sweep of the small group.
"... where's Lloyd?" I asked, voice small as I adjusted the bag strap on my good shoulder. Cole and Jay shared an awkward glance. Naomi huffed, crossing her arms.
"He's not coming in today," Cole answered. "He's... sick."
'He's sick' being the short answer for 'he doesn't want to see my face.' I nodded in understanding, though it didn't make the fact hurt any less.
"Right," I murmured. "Tell him that I hope he feels better."
"... will do," Jay nodded. A brief, awkward silence passed.
"God, you guys are awkward," Naomi spoke up, clearly still pissed off by what transpired only yesterday. "Are we seriously not going to talk about what happened?"
"Nomes-" Cole began, voice quiet.
"This is serious!" she insisted. "I'm not just going to forget about Lloyd biting my best friend."
"Maybe now isn't the best time-" Kai began.
"Now is the perfect time! If not now, when? Wasn't a lack of communication the problem time and time again?" Naomi pressed before turning to me. "What even happened?"
I meekly shrugged.
"Lloyd called me during gym," I started, nervously playing with the hem of my hoody. "He sounded really bad so I went to check up on him. It was like he had a super bad fever and then he said- he said that he thinks it was because he hadn't marked me in so long. I let him mark me a- and-" I hid my face in the neckline of my hoody. "... things escalated and then he bit me. I don't think he meant it, though. I don't think he knew what he was doing."
"When you say 'escalated,'" Jay picked out, blue eyes narrowed in confusion. "Escalated how?"
My blush was unmissable. Nya snickered. Naomi's blue eyes widened.
"Oh," Jay said. "Right."
"N- nothing happened!" I squeaked, but it was in vain. The team was sending me smug grins and shit-eating smirks. Even Zane, the bastard - he was supposed to be my lawful neutral! I hid my burning face into my hands.
"It doesn't even matter," I crooned sorrowfully. "Lloyd's ignoring me again."
"Again?" Nya exclaimed in outrage, snapping out of her amused smile. "I'm going to smack some sense into that boy-"
"That will achieve nothing," Zane interrupted, voice melodic and calm. "Lloyd was quite traumatised by yesterday. It will be best to leave this delicate situation up to him to work through before gently nudging him in the right direction. How are you faring, Y/n?"
I blinked. "Um. Alright."
"Y/n-" Cole tried but I shook my head, completely serious.
"No, really," I said sternly, just to let them know that I was being genuine. "I'm totally fine. I mean, yeah, I'm sad that Lloyd's taking it hard and yeah, I'm disappointed that he's gone back to ignoring me when it would be so much easier to talk things through - but in regards to the actual biting thing? I'm doing better than I thought I would."
Zane stared at me, perfect brows furrowed in thought. The others stared, too.
"Odd," Zane finally said, just as the bell for class rang. "Perhaps it has something to do with the imprint you spoke of."
"God, maybe?" I groaned, running my hands down my face. My shoulder gave an ache. "That tugging thing's still playing up, too. I just want us to talk about things and move on already."
"But of course it's not that easy," Kai grunted was he lifted his bag from the floor and turned to the direction of his first class. "Whenever is it easy?"
"Has he told his parents about what happened?" I asked, following Kai as he began walking towards maths. Jay quickly caught up after giving a swift kiss goodbye to Nya. "I think it's something they oughta know."
Kai shrugged. Jay grabbed onto my good arm and hugged it.
"I saw him talking to Sensei Garm after dinner," he said, leaning in with a hushed voice as we entered the classroom. "I guess it's about that."
"Hopefully," I hummed, taking my seat and pulling out my notes. "I'm hoping that Garmadon has an idea as to why Lloyd did that."
"If anybody would, it would be Garmadon," Kai agreed. The teacher arrived.
Our conversation would have to wait.
