Ouch, sorry for such a long wait, guys. There will be just one more chapter after this! Enjoy!
Lloyd sat in his apartment on the table, legs crossed and messing around on his phone. It was very quiet in his apartment room. Everyone had already left into their own rooms to plan their own shopping. So while Lloyd sat crossed-legged on the table, Zane was pacing around his room, taking the time to gather ideas about his person.
It had caught Lloyd by surprise when he found out who the name he drew from the hat was. And while that person really wasn't his first choice, he still had somewhat of a good idea of what to buy that special someone. Still, he really wanted to know who had gotten his ideal person of choice.
Just then, the master of ice had walked into the room in a completely new set of clothes. He looked as if he were ready to head out into the city to do gift shopping for his secret santa. Lloyd took this as the opportunity to ask Zane his burning question.
"Zane, who did you get?"
The nindroid stopped and turned, tipping his head. "Are we allowed to share names?"
Lloyd waved Zane's question away, chuckling. "It's cool, dude. I won't tell anyone. Promise."
Zane nodded quite frankly, reaching into his pocket for the slip of paper from the hat. He turned it over, making the name visible to Lloyd. "In that case, I got Kai."
Slightly disappointed, Lloyd nodded and hopped off the table. "You're going shopping to look for a gift?"
"Of course. Did you want to join?" Zane stared at Lloyd, wide eyed.
"Oh! Why not, right? Just give me a minute," he told him and sprinted off to his room.
"What's up, sis?" Kai chirped, bouncing into the kitchen and towards his sister who was currently sitting at the table with her head in one hand and a pen in the other.
Nya, having been caught off guard by the sound of her brother's voice, quickly scrambled to gather her notes and hide them. Kai couldn't refrain from laughing as he neared and he aimed to get a better look at the notes Nya had been scribbling.
"Whatcha got there? Some love notes or whatever?" He joked.
Nya rolled her eyes, tidying the papers. "No." Hesitantly, she bit her lip, looking to Kai. "This secret santa thing was a mistake. I have no clue what to get my person!"
Kai squinted, pulling up a chair and sitting backwards. "Who'd you get?"
"Like I'd ever tell you," she scoffed. After a second, she looked back at Kai and pursed her lips, thinking deeply. "Or should I?"
Kai raised his scarred brow.
"Tell me who you got first," she suggested, setting the pen down on the table.
"Me?" Kai laughed, grinning sheepishly. "Heh, er, I got Zane."
A gasp left the water ninja and she punched Kai in the shoulder, scowling. "Zane? That's who I wanted!"
"Okay, so who'd you get?" Kai pressed, wondering who Nya got that made it impossible to search for a gift.
"I got Cole." Nya pushed her notes in front of Kai, urging him read them. "I thought it would be easy, but I keep doubting myself. What if he doesn't like what I get him?" The girl huffed, dropping her head on the table.
Kai read over the notes as his sister was busy moping. There was a bluetooth speaker, a gift card, cake, for some random reason there were stuffed animals, and lastly, there were the words 'music player' followed by three dots.
"Practically everything on here has got to do with music," Kai pointed out, waving the sheet of paper in Nya's face.
With a groan, Nya pushed it away. "I know. Guess I don't know him as well as I thought. I think. I don't know. What do you get a guy like Cole? I mean, he and I are tight, right? I don't know if I'd call us best friends, but I sure as heck feel closer to him than I do with someone like Zane." Nya sighed, rubbing between her eyes.
"Gosh, Kai, help me."
In response, Kai only crumpled the paper and tossed it in the trash.
"Thanks. For throwing away my ideas because you know they could have been very useful."
"Why don't you just ask Jay what Cole likes? He's bound to have an endless list of things you could get him. It's not like Jay got Cole, since, well, you know, you did."
Nya's eyes lit up. That wasn't such a terrible idea if she were being truly honest with herself. Within seconds she had picked up her phone and opened up her chat with the blue ninja.
As Nya was spamming Jay with all her questions, Kai received a text of his own when he felt his phone buzz within the pocket of his sweatpants. In a flash, he whipped it out, scrolling through a whole thread of new messages.
What does Nya like?
Do you think she'll like some hair ties since her hair's getting long? Or what about a jacket?
Dude please help me.
Kai, unknowingly, had laughed way too loud and way too hard at Lloyd's texts, catching Nya's attention. His sister stopped typing, turning to face Kai slowly.
"What?" She leaned over, trying to get a better look at Kai's phone.
With no other way to react, Kai simply switched off the phone and stuffed it back into his pocket, holding a straight face.
"Hey! Keep your eyes on your own phone," he scoffed, patting his pocket and jumping onto his feet. "Let's go do some shopping!"
Lloyd and Zane had wandered into the electronics section of the store, eyes on the lookout for anything with a big red sticker on it because of the holiday sale going on.
Zane was skimming through several boxes of headphones, wondering if whoever had got Cole as their secret santa would like to take a look at them. Meanwhile, Lloyd was searching up and down for things Nya would possibly take a liking to.
At last, Lloyd snatched a set of earphones off the rack and sprinted to his nindroid friend.
"You think Nya will like these?" Lloyd asked, holding up the box of mixed red and blue earphones in front of Zane. They caught Lloyd's attention partially because of the huge sale they were on. "Does she even listen to music as much as Cole does? I mean, really?"
Zane took the box from Lloyd and hung it back on the rack it came from before ushering him to another part of the store.
"You apparently do not know Nya as well as you thought," Zane remarked.
"Yeah, well, this isn't easy, you know? I guess that's kinda the point of secret santa too." Lloyd sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "How bout you? Got anything for Kai yet?"
With a disappointing shake of his head, Zane fished out a list from his coat. "I made a list, but I have a feeling Kai has everything on it already. Maybe I should make him something instead?"
Lloyd's eyes scanned over the list, mentally checking off each item he remembered seeing in Kai's room. "What were you thinking of making him? We're exchanging gifts tomorrow, you know?"
"I do not have a concrete idea yet, but I was thinking of something like a memory board. Or a scrapbook?"
"Wow, you think you have enough to put it all together?"
"Since I last checked our apartment, yes."
"Then go for it!" Lloyd said with a friendly pat. Hurriedly, he turned into the office supplies, picking up a couple notepads and such. "Now, what does Nya like?"
"Have you checked with Kai? Perhaps he has some ideas he could share with you?" Zane inquired, picking up a notebook for Pixal.
"Hah, yeah I did. Wasn't helpful at all though because he read my texts… he just never replied back. Why did I even bother?" Lloyd snorted, throwing his head back. "Say, what are the headphones for?"
Zane blinked, forgetting for just a couple seconds that he was even holding something. "Oh, these are for Cole," he motioned to the notebook second, "and this is for Pixal."
"But Cole isn't your secret santa."
"Do not remind me, Lloyd."
"So Jay said something about a sketchbook? Or new headphones?" Nya hissed, "But headphones are so expensive!"
Kai frowned at the various snowglobes on the shelf. "Uh-huh…"
Nya wrinkled her brows, disappointed that her brother wasn't even listening to her. "Can you pay attention for just one second? All Jay did was send me some very vague texts. Which are not helpful by the way."
As they ventured into different section of the store, Kai snatched a gift card from the counter. He wrinkled his nose, debating whether he should fill it with ten or twenty.
"Maybe he's just a bit jealous that you got Cole?" He suggested, finding his way into the electronics and looking through the different options of music players. Nya stopped in her tracks, eyeing her brother.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"He texted me earlier about how he got Lloyd, when he had the perfect gift idea for Cole and well… he's a little frustrated about that."
Nya's expression softened and she stared down at the texts on her screen. That was right. She remembered how earlier in the year, Jay had been bugging her for weeks about how he had the best gift ever and how he couldn't wait to see Cole's reaction. It was the first time in a long while that Jay was actually taking the whole gift swapping thing seriously with Cole.
"Well, he's not confined to the boundaries of Lloyd specifically. He's taking this thing a little too seriously. Really, he could just give Cole something when we're not trading secret santa gifts."
Kai whirled around, holding a box with a grey mp3 player inside of it. "That's what I told him. He's going for it, but he's still upset about it."
Nya sighed, thumbing through her short conversation with Jay. She felt terrible.
"Does he have any clue on what he's getting Lloyd?" She finally asked.
"Yeah. He's pretty excited about it. Nothing too big though," Kai told her, paying for the player and gift card.
"So, uh, where's Cole's gift?"