Befriending the Criminal

Overreacting

It was hard to keep his mouth shut during dinner at the Garmadon apartment. The memory of meeting Kai, the said to be deceased Kai, was still fresh in his head and he couldn't shake it away. In fact, it wasn't easy to hide the fact that he had something to share away from his parents.

He pushed his pasta around on his plate, then twirled it around his fork and left it sitting there.

His father had returned from the kitchen with a glass of juice.

“Lloyd, honey, is there something on your mind?”

Lloyd turned his head at his mother's voice and saw the concern in her eyes. Before he said anything, he looked to his father.

“Dad, your files said that Kai was dead, right?”

“Yes…” Garmadon drawled, raising a sudden brow.

“I… I saw him. At the store. I saw Kai.”

Garmadon turned swiftly to face his son. “You saw Kai?”

Lloyd nodded. “I saw him. He was alive.”

Misako also looked to her son, confused and shocked. “Lloyd, that can't be right. He's dead, isn't he?”

The young man continued to shake his head as his eyes fell back onto his plate. “No, I swear, I saw him. The fire he was in, maybe that wasn't his body in the fire. Maybe it was a decoy or something, but he isn't dead.”

“I knew it,” Garmadon started, pushing back his chair, “I knew he couldn't be dead, it just didn't feel right.” He stood up and went to grab his thick coat hanging by the door.

“Dad?” Lloyd began, rushing up after him, “where are you going?”

The Chief opened the door and stepped outside, quickly saying to Lloyd, “To visit an old friend.”

***

With Lloyd away, that meant Jay was alone at their shared house.

And Jay couldn't really take it anymore.

At the records store, Cole wouldn't stop gushing over practically every single record and album on the shelf. It was surprising actually. Jay hadn't thought Cole would get so worked up over a bunch of discs, but he did, and the side of him that showed at the records store wasn't horrible, if he was being completely honest.

He was actually a decent guy.

The main door had just closed and Jay carried the pizza box up the stairs to Lloyd's room. He pressed a palm against the door, pushing it open slowly, seeing Cole on the bed with headphones over his head. Gum, in his mouth, as usual. Jay sighed. He was forced into lending his music player and headphones to the former prisoner in front of him. He didn't really care much for them, as he hardly had any use of them anymore, but loaning them to a prisoner was the last thing he had in mind for them. Jay laughed silently, nervously.

He cleared his throat and lifted his hands, holding the large box in front of him. “I ordered pizza.”

Cole looked up from the player and stared right at Jay. “Pizza?”

The other closed the door behind him and pressed his back against it, shrugging. “Um, ya… is that not okay with you?”

“I like pizza,” Cole replied, his eyes falling back to the screen.

Jay lifted the box in his hands and put it on the side table, opening it and taking out a slice for himself. When Cole felt the mattress dip beside him, he looked to see Jay sitting a good distance away from him with a pizza up to his mouth.