His Other Half | Ninjago

Chapter 5| Liar

"Wu, would you please calm down. I told you it's only a matter of time. He'll be his old self by tomorrow. Uh, nearly his old self, I mean," said, the First Spinjitzu Master, trying to calm his son as the latter was pacing back and forth, mumbling to himself.

"Calm down?! How can I calm down? My own brother threatened me," Wu said, waving his hands all over the place for dramatic effect.

The First Spinjitzu Master rolled his eyes. "Oh for Firstbourne's sake, he did not threaten you. He just told you to call him Garmadon."

"He did more than that. He glared at me. Like this," Wu said, widening his eyes and glaring at his father.

The First Spinjitzu Master raised an eyebrow, looking unamused.

"I'm not looking intimidating, am I?" Wu asked. He widened his eyes even more. One could see the tiny blood vessels in the whites.

"This is how he looked at me. His eyes said it all like if I call him anything but Garmadon, I would be obliterated on the spot," Wu said, eyes watering.

"Okay, that's enough! You'll hurt your eyes," his father said, getting up and sliding open the door of the dojo to look outside while Wu kept blinking his eyes to get them back into focus.

"Speaking of your brother, where is he?"

Wu peeked out as well. "He said that he was having trouble restraining himself from punching me whenever he looked at my face so he went to the back to feed Taki."

Upon hearing this, the First Spinjitzu Master sarcastically looked up to the sky and muttered, "Have mercy."
Wu gave a sad little smile. "At least he's trying not to hurt me. That's a good thing, right?" he asked, hopefully looking at his father.

The First Spinjitzu Master smiled, putting a hand on his son's shoulder.
"Of course. But if you really want to patch things up with him, you might as well apologize."
He gave Wu a little push towards the stables.

Wu hesitated for a second before shaking it off. He gulped. "O-okay. Just apologize. You can do this. Not that hard," he gave himself a little pep-talk.

With fragile confidence, he tiptoed all the way to the horse stables. He trod even more cautiously when Garmadon came into view. His back was turned as he rubbed Taki's side lovingly with his bandaged hand while the pony ate her apples.

Wu had the sudden urge to turn around and run away screaming but he ignored it. Instead he carried on, feeling like a hunter trying to corner a rather vicious prey.

The said "prey" sensed someone behind him. Without turning around he asked, "What do you want?"
Wu stopped dead in his tracks and cringed. He straightened up and cleared his throat.

"Oh! I, um, came here to check on Yané, is all," he said, trying his best to act nonchalant.
Garmadon scoffed. "Liar."
Wu went red in the face. "I really did come here to check on him."

"You're lying," Garmadon said sing-songly. "You lie too much to get out of trouble, Wu. It's because you don't want a single grain of dirt on your spotless record of being everyone's perfect little angel. For example, if you'd just told Father that you lost the katana, I wouldn't have got hurt. But you didn't. You thought Father would get mad at you. You stalled because you knew, being the foolish big brother that I am, I would go get it for you. You wanted to beat me and you succeeded."

This hit Wu straight in the heart. Is this what his brother really thought of him?
"Stop it! Why would I even do that? I love you!" Wu said, eyes becoming wet. He cursed himself as he realized that Garmadon could easily sense the break in his voice. He regained his composure.