Day of the Departed, Winter festival, new years, the holidays seemed to come and go over the year. Spring was showing signs of becoming summer once more, flowers were abloom and the waves crashed their blue water across the coast of Ninjago City. People were enjoying the beach, bathing, splashing, playing, chatting, strolling and biking, it was a perfect sunny day.
Dareth found himself face first to a type-writer, plucking away at the round lettered keys. There was a short notice income report that was due the following day, and he had no time to lollygag. But, he rationalized that getting this done first would give him the rest of the day off, which was something he was looking forward to. Luckily Lou was out at the moment, over the span of the year he had become more and more disconnected with him. There were even times where Dareth was flat-out ignored, but he had to remind himself who was the star and who was the stupid manager. The front door swung open as Lou laughed and stepped in.
"And he thought I was a baronet singer when I was a tenor all along!" he exclaimed, to which the tall woman giggled in response. Dareth rolled his eyes and held his head in his hand, plucking with one finger. Lou always seemed to have some sort of story to say to her, some of them seemed less real than others. He walked over and set down some papers in front of Dareth, to which he deflated and looked up in response.
"Ahem." Lou swiveled around from going back to leave. "What are these?" Dareth held up the papers.
"Oh, you know the usual, invitations and RSVPs. Stuff that you can sort out-"
"Do you mean, stuff that we are supposed to sort out together?" Dareth corrected, to which Lou looked over at his girlfriend and gave her the okay to wait outside. Lou pulled up a chair and sat across the table facing him. "Lets see, most of these are requests for Ninjago City, two near the center and one for the outskirts, one for– Are you even listening to me?" He threw down the papers at the table. Lou shook his head from a dazed smile, looking somewhat confused.
"Oh, I'm sorry– something about Ninjago City? Not an issue right? We can do all of them I don't mind." He looked down at the papers and shuffled through them, more or less to look busy than to really be. Dareth's gaze narrowed.
"I bet if your girlfriend didn't want to do one you wouldn't." That caught Lou off guard.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Lou, I'm sick of sitting here day in and day out at this stupid hunk of junk doing everything for you. The only reason why I wanted to help you in the first place is because I wanted to sing and dance just like your guys, not stay all cooped up surrounded by paper!"
"What? I taught you how to dance and sing-"
"Yeah, ONE lesson. ONE. and how many have you given to the woman outside, huh? How much more time have you been spending with her that you could be spending with your group, huh?"
"You leave her out of this!" Lou barked, glaring now.
"This isn't about me, Lou. No, this is about you and what the hell you've been doing! It's like I don't even exist anymore, and neither does Ollie, or Jeremy, or Roger. You don't care about any of this anymore, all you care about is her and impressing her! That's why you keep doing all of this!"
"Well if you have such a problem with it, then why won't you just leave?!" Silence. Dareth reeled, and nodded slowly.
"Okay." There was buildup to his nodding frequency, as he stood out of the chair and pushed it in, ripping the paper from the writer and slapping it down on the table."You're welcome." Dareth stated flatly, gathering up some of his things and heading out the door with a gentle slam.