Ninjago Highschool: Chapter Fifteen: Brad's Place
Lloyd took a while to walk to Brad's neighborhood, but it was far from what Harumi's travel was like, and he was glad he didn't have to travel across town. While walking he saw Dareth of all people, walking around in a brown suit. "Dareth? What the hell are you doing?" "Oh hey Lloyd, I'm just doing some door to door salesman stuff." Lloyd was...confused. "I thought you were setting up a daycare." Dareth waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, turns out you need a license for that stuff. I'm going through neighborhoods to see if people want to buy all the daycare stuff I bought already." Now Lloyd was dumbfounded. "Wait you BOUGHT all the stuff before even seeing if you could do it? You bought a suit just to do all this? Why the hell are you selling stuff in person and not online?" Dareth answered each question as casually as you'd expect. "Hey man, a good business man takes risk. A suit makes me more PRESENTABLE. As for why I'm doing it in person...you're right. I don't even live near this area, I've just been going everywhere." Lloyd didn't feel like dealing with Dareth, and walked past him. He could hear Dareth knock on a door, and hear his opening line: "Hey there Ms., I made a mistake, but that doesn't mean YOU need to. I have one thousand dollars worth of daycare products..." Everything trailed off while Lloyd walked away, but he did hear the door slam a few seconds later. Safe to assume that Dareth is not going to lose the products anytime soon.
Eventually Lloyd got to Brad's house. It was very average, maybe a little smaller even. Certainly a far cry from Harumi's. He went over to the door and knocked, a little nervous. He had to make a good impression, otherwise he'd be marked as a bad influence by his parents probably, which would be pretty annoying to deal with. Brad answered, and invited Lloyd in. The inside of the house was inviting, warm, once again, the opposite of the massive, oppressing size of Harumi's. Perhaps there's some sort of parallel with all this, who even knows. "So, are you home alone or something?" Lloyd asked. "Well, my parents are just at the store, so they'll be here in about a hour or two." "Two hours?" "Who said they were quick shoppers, or they were coming home right after shopping?" Lloyd agreed with that, his mom could be the same. "Besides, I'm not FULLY home alone." Brad pointed at the couch, which had a dog on it. "Huh, I woulda thought he'd be over here by now." Lloyd said. "Oh, Ruby is pretty old, she doesn't get up for strangers anymore." The elderly beagle looked up at Lloyd weakly, wagging it's tail slowly for a bit, before putting it's head back down. "Well alright then...can I take a seat on the couch?" "Of course Lloyd, I wouldn't invite you in to make you sit on the floor." Brad made a good point, Lloyd's mind wasn't in the greatest spot right now. He took a seat next to Ruby, who put her head on his lap. Brad walked off to the kitchen, and Lloyd did the right thing: Pet the dog's head. Ruby was happy, which was more than Lloyd could say sometimes. Brad came back with drinks, putting them on the table. "Well look at that, Ruby likes you." "Yeah, I guess you could say that." Brad sat next to him, but with enough personal space for Lloyd. "You alright? You seem a bit down." Lloyd recounted the gamer club incident and decided to talk to Brad about it. "That gamer club is a real mess. Couldn't think right while they made a ton of noise." "Ah yes, you've talked about that before." Lloyd grabbed the cup for him and drank the water. "I don't like going there for lunch instead of with my friends, but Harumi made me. Ugh." "Wow, that's a yikes man." Brad said. "Yeah, today was eh. But on a better note, that Karlof guy apologized to me, so that was nice." "Karlof, wasn't that the guy who tried to fight you?" Lloyd nodded. "Yeup, said some stuff about how Morro may of lied a little, bla bla bla. Now he owes me a favor, if I ever need one." "Well, that's good to hear man. One less rival, eh?" "Yeah, I guess you could say that."
There wasn't much talking after that, just vibing, watching the television, petting the dog. Brad spoke up after some time, "So...I haven't heard from you until that time we met, are you into the same stuff you were as a kid." Lloyd shook his head no. "I'm not really into snakes and evil stuff anymore no. Things mellowed out." "Well what are you into then?" Lloyd was hesitant to answer, mostly because he didn't have any special hobbies. "I uh...collect pillows I guess." "Really? Pillows?" Brad said, maybe a little confused. "Well uh, I don't have many, but I'm trying to collect them..." "Oh I guess I can't make fun of you, I collect fantasy game cards." "Really? Do you PLAY the cards?" Brad was quiet. "...No, I just like the designs." Brad lied. "Ha, okay nerd." "Shush." Brad lightly shoved Lloyd, and there was much light laughter. "I can play sports AND play with cards you know." "Yeah yeah, I was messing with you, man." Things died down, and Lloyd looked at the time. "Huh, I oughta go. Sorry we didn't talk about anything good while I was here." Brad got up with Lloyd. "Oh it's fine. I was just glad to have you here period. Next time I'll have something planned, alright?" "Sounds good, I'll talk to you later." They shook hands, and off Lloyd went, hoping his walk home wouldn't be ruined. When he got home his mom asked him where he went. "Brad's house." "Brad?" Lloyd remembered that he never actually TOLD his mom about Brad. "Oh, he's a old childhood friend, we met a while ago." Misako was a little interested. "Oh, well was he surprised you weren't talking about snakes and wearing all black?" "Mommmmm." Lloyd said, annoyed. He was not a fan of his past, which was embarrassing for him. He was an edge lord, who took his father's former lifestyle to heart. "No, he wasn't surprised I wasn't wearing all black mom." "What about the snakes?" "What do you think?" Lloyd got his shoes off and started to head to the stairs. "Hold on Lloyd." Misako said. "What is it?" "How's that club going?" Lloyd didn't want his mom to know how poor it was going right now, so he lied. "Oh it's uh, going fine." Misako smiled. "Well, that's good to hear then." Misako went back to doing what she was doing, letting Lloyd go back to going to his room. He checked his phone. His friends wanted to go out to eat tomorrow. That's great, he hasn't hung out with them all at the same time for a while.