"Hey, Misako. How's Lloyd?"
A heavy sigh.
"Brooding. Snapping. In a bad mood constantly," Misako replied from the other side of the phone humourlessly. "It seems that teenagehood has finally caught up to him. How about Y/n?"
M/n huffed a breathless, short laugh, pulling a hand through her hair in exasperation.
"Pretty much the exact same," she confessed, shaking her head. "Were we ever this bad as teenagers?"
"Probably."
"Yeah... yeah, you're right."
There was a beat of silence as the mothers pondered.
"Why can't they just talk to each other like reasonable adults?" Misako grumbled, having had enough with her son's angsty MCR songs being blasted at full (in a Monastery, nonetheless) and sour attitude. It was seriously derailing the morale of the secret ninja force.
"Because they're teenagers?" M/n exhaled in amusement.
"That's true," Misako agreed. "But it's not good of enough excuse for him to ignore trouble in Ninjago just so he can binge Batman and go all emo on me."
"Oh, would you look at that? Y/n's not doing her homework in favour of watching all of the Iron Man movies. On constant repeat. Two weeks and counting."
Misako laughed quietly. It was interrupted by a shuffle in the background.
"Oh!" her voice was far away as she pulled back from the phone. "Look who's finally gracing us with his presence. Y/n's mum's on the phone. Do you want to say hi?"
A curt, sour 'no' was Lloyd's grumbled reply. Misako muttered something warningly at him, to which the boy groaned before picking up the phone.
"Hello, M/n," Lloyd greeted tiredly.
"Hello, Lloyd," M/n smiled from her living room couch. Y/n was just in the other room, watching Iron Man 2 for the third time that evening. "How are you?"
"Been better," he mumbled. "How are you?"
"Currently concerned about the strained distance between you and my daughter. Should I go get her? We can sort this out right here and now."
M/n inclined her head away to call down the hallway for Y/n, but a beep from the phone cut her off before she could. Blinking, M/n glanced back at her phone.
Lloyd had ended the call.
M/n's mouth lifted in a small, amused smile, not even bothered by Lloyd hanging up on her.
Teenagers.
☎️💚👽
It had been three weeks since I had last spoken (yelled at) to Lloyd.
Things... weren't looking so dandy.
Only after a couple of days did I begin scouting out Lloyd to try and apologise to him in hopes of rekindling, well, us. He avoided me. It was totally unfair too, because he's got all his ninja skills and all I have is the undeniably stink ability to trip over my own feet. Seriously. I was at a severe disadvantage and he didn't even consider that. Meanie.
I got the message that he wanted some more space loud and clear. After only a couple of attempts at talking to him (with all resulting in him hightailing it out of the situation like Sonic the hedgehog), I realised that hey, let him simmer for a bit. I was a bitch. He was a jerk. Things are the way they are. We'll talk when he's ready.
... if he ever is ready.
I stopped trying to talk to him, having given up on a lost cause. If there was one thing Lloyd was, it was stubborn. No use feeding a dead donkey, right?
So naturally, I'd sob as soon as I'd get home. Big, ugly sobs. While watching the three Iron Man movies on repeat (RDJ just has a way to soothe my nerves).
Clearly, life was going fantastic for me :D
Not even a day after the depressing revelation that Lloyd didn't want to talk to me at all, Naomi approached me (after having apparently ditched Claire and the others without a word).
Differences and past tensions aside, we quickly fell into a singular best friend routine. Eating lunch together, sitting together during the classes that we had with each other, studying together, walking home together - until she had to split off for her own street, of course.
It was just like elementary school.
