jay

Jay Walker was about to yeet himself out of his dad's crane into a pile of metal junk, because his brain was still processing what just happened. He was currently in English, crushing a ball of paper in his hand so he wouldn't stand up and scream in front of his classmates.

Cole had kissed Nya.

If you went chronologically, it technically would have been Nya kissed Cole.

However, it was easier if he just hated Cole instead. He liked to think things through, which meant he spent his English period overthinking everything that had happened earlier that morning. Tracing back the thing, it was probable that if Kai hadn't intervened, if Cole hadn't been a piece of crap, Nya would never have ended up kissing Cole, ergo it was Kai and Cole's fault. Simple.

Jay was also beating himself up inside. Maybe if he'd been faster, thought quicker and just put his hand up to say he was dating Nya Smith, he would have kissed his crush. He sunk lower in his seat and considered calling home sick to get his parents to pick him up.

"Miss Harlow, please read out the next quotes on the worksheet."

A girl near the back of the classroom yawned sleepily. "Oh yeah, sure just hold on..."

Jay looked down at his tattered copy of Romeo and Juliet, from the second hand bookstore on the outskirts of the city, then to the worksheet scribbled with halfhearted answers.

"Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake— it's everything except what it is."

Jay felt his stomach turn. He hated love. Stupid lovey dovey things like crushes were just plain stupid and got his heart in twists and his stomach full of butterflies.

"The next one as well Astra." Jay's teacher stood up to pace around the front of the classroom, her beads and bracelets and necklaces jangling along with her. She was always dressed a bit eccentrically, a kooky style with lots of drapes and scarves.

"See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand. That I might touch that cheek!" Astra paused in her reading to make a disgusted face. "Okay, that was creepy."

The class burst into laughter, leaving Miss Kelly to shush them, sending spittle flying at the students. They all sighed mid laughter, held up pieces of paper in front of their faces and waited for the spittle volley to stop. Jay felt the tears well up behind his eyes at the mere thought of pretty much everything.

Jay Walker never got what he wanted.

He had a great group of friends, sure.

But he lived in a junkyard.

His parents were embarrassing as hell.

He was painstakingly poor and he hated it.

Everyone else saw him as a nerd, and took that as an opportunity to bully him.

The girl he liked thought of him as a friend, and had just kissed one of his best friends.

Jay Walker had nothing.

He ducked out of English when the bell rang again, with his head hung low, his stomach roiling and his brain hurting as whispers of Nya kissed Cole! and what should their ship name be? flitted through the hallways. Then there was the rare are they even dating?, which made Jay's heart leap at the possibility that maybe, just maybe this was all a show to get Chad to back off.

Jay turned the corner to his locker, catching sight of Nya and Cole talking in the deserted corridor. He fled back around the corner, leaning against the cool metal of more lockers, hoping the red of his cheeks would fade to just his freckles. Wait. He eventually heard their footsteps recede towards the library, and the coast was clear for him to switch out his books.

He dumped Romeo and Juliet and his English stuff on the top shelf when someone shoved him from behind. He toppled into his locker with a grunt, using his hands to stop him at a jarring halt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a strand of green hair against black, and he sighed.

"What do you want, Morro?"

The bully simply laughed. "You looked a bit pathetic out there, Walker, pining after She-Smith while she snogged Brookstone?"

"Pining?"

Morro scoffed, looking left and right as if he couldn't afford being seen with Jay. A lot of people did that, now that he thought about it.

"You obviously like her."

Jay made a choking sound in his throat to deny Morro's claims, even though they were true. Painstakingly, love is crap, true.

"No I don't."

Morro snorted, shoving his hands into the pocket of his black denim jacket. "A piece of advice, Walker. Move faster."

Then he walked off, cool as a cucumber, and left Jay wondering how his life had gone to shit so quickly.

When Jay looked back at his locker, he noticed something strange. The back panel wasn't straight, it was crooked. Like Skylor's locker, he realised. Cautiously, he pushed the metal backing with the tips of his fingers, and it creaked, moving backwards. With a quick look around left and right, Jay deemed it safe (now he was doing the thing?), so he shoved the panel harder and it fell backward into the room with a loud clang. Wide-eyed, he checked again to make sure no one was there, then he hopped through the locker, fiddled with the locker door and entered the room. He left the panel on the floor, not bothered to fix it up just then.

Jay got himself a can of soda from the mini fridge and curled up into a ball on the beanbags, shivering slightly in the cold of the room. He tightened his scarf and then burrowed down into the beanbags like a mole, sipping on his fizzy grape juice as he decided to skip class. It was History anyway, and Mr Jones would be occupied by fielding questions on the fight and proclaiming his new status as 'fight-breaker-upper'. The history teacher was fairly new at Ninjago High and spent a painfully long time trying to prove to the students that he was 'cool'.

Just as Jay thought about eating some comfort noodles and working on the video game (he decided against the latter, because that would be helping Cole and Kai), another panel flew out of the wall and clattered to the ground. In stepped Lloyd, Serpents jacket inside-out as if it would conceal his house. Lloyd didn't notice Jay nestled amongst the pillows and beanbags, because he went to get a drink and was about to sit down when he saw Jay in a self-pity ball.

"Crap! Sorry Jay, didn't see you there."

Jay mumbled something even he didn't understand under his breath in response, choosing to huddle down further in the bean bags.

"Oh." Lloyd seemed to realise why Jay was so depressed. He sat down next to Jay, popping the top off his soda. "I still can't believe Nya kissed Cole."

Jay raised a notched brow at the rather insensitive words.

Lloyd decided to stay silent, and Jay's voice was surprisingly hoarse when he spoke.

"Do you think... that they're actually...y'know...dating?" The word 'dating' made his stomach do a gymnastics routine.

Lloyd paused from his chugging. "I hope not."

Jay's eyebrows went up again, asking for an explanation. He cursed himself for being so short, because it was a struggle to get out of the beanbags with small legs.

"I was rooting for you two," Lloyd started, staring at the blank, slightly cracked screen of the TV. "I never thought that would happen."

"I hope they aren't." Jay said timidly, feeling awfully vulnerable. "I didn't see this coming, I mean, someone would have asked her out at some point, I know, but I was planning to swoop in all majestic and sweep her off the feet with something big and romantic." He let a tear roll down his cheek. "And then Morro, and the bullying, and I can't tell if they're actually dating, because, they freaking kissed and I—"

Lloyd looked paralysed, as if he was trying to figure how to deal with Jay ranting.

"And I've liked her for so, so long, and I couldn't tell if she liked me back or not, 'cause it would be so embarrassing if she friendzoned me, but she basically has, hasn't she? Oh, and now that Morro noticed I was 'pining' after her, he's probably going to tell everyone and they'll bully me even more. I hope Cole and Kai die in a ditch somewhere—"

"Woah, woah," Lloyd held up his hands to stop Jay's blabbering. "You don't really want them dead-dead, right?"

"Kai lets his stupid friends bully me, Cole just stands there doing nothing, and then he kissed Nya, so..."

Did he want them dead?

Jay fell silent.

"You're being bullied?"

Jay hadn't realised he'd let that slip. "Nooooo?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Okay, Lloyd didn't buy his lie.

"And why have we never, y'know, seen..."

"Me being bullied?" Jay laughed, a cruel, cold noise that was foreign to his ears. "Lloyd, my family is broke, I'm president of the STEAM club, I'm a world-class nerd, I live in a freaking junkyard and now they probably know I have a crush on Nya." He caught his breath, short of a gasp. "I'm the perfect target. It takes me an hour to get home so they have plenty of time to ambush me."

"I—I didn't know..." Lloyd looked truly sorry, his head bowed and his face pale.

"You wouldn't have found out unless I told you," Jay said in a gentler tone, sinking back into the beanbags.

"So, it's Chad, Morro, and the rest of the popular kids right?" Lloyd cracked his knuckles and stood up, implying something very dangerous which Jay knew reeked of more fighting.

"Lloyd, you can't fight them for me."

"Why not?"

"Well for one, you're basically a green bean," Lloyd looked taken aback and mock-scowled. "And if you fought them, they'd know I told you. I haven't talked to anyone else about this, okay? You've listened to me panic for long enough. Anything on your mind kiddo?"

"Okay." Lloyd muttered reluctantly, seeing the reasoning in Jay's words and sitting back down. "I do have a question for you. And can you all stop calling me kiddo?"

"Sorry kid, no can do." Jay felt a bit of happiness return to him. Maybe he could get through this if he joked everything off?

Lloyd huffed like a grumpy eighty-year old grandpa. "Why am I following Harumi?"

"Oh, that?" Lloyd following Harumi on Instagram was something he could really laugh at. "Kai and You-Know-Who—"

"Lord Voldemort?"

"You know full well who I'm talking about Bean Boy, so shut up and listen unless you want me to start yelling again."

Lloyd made another grumbling noise, and true to his childish nickname, he crossed his arms and buried himself deeper in the beanbags.

"Anyway, they just thought it'd be a funny prank when you finally noticed that you somehow tried to follow her and she still hadn't accepted the follow request." Jay watched carefully for Lloyd's reaction, but his friend remained impassive. A skill he'd learnt from poker-face Zane, maybe.

"She followed me." Lloyd whispered.

"She did?" Jay said somewhat dubiously.

Lloyd pulled up the proof on his phone.

"Holy macaroni, she did actually follow you!"

"Why is that so hard to believe?" He rolled his eyes. "And guess what, she requested to follow me back."

"Okay, no way—" Jay grabbed the phone from Lloyd. "Is this photoshopped?"

"What? No."

"Okay!" Jay, with a cheery smile, tapped the accept button.

"JAY!" shrieked Lloyd, tearing his phone out of Jay's hands while Jay laughed, rolling around on the beanbags clutching his stomach.

"Sorry, sorry." Jay wiped the tears out his eyes, trying not to burst into laughter again at Lloyd huddled over his phone, furiously jabbing at the screen.

"Why won't it let her unfollow me?" whined Lloyd.

"New Instagram protocol?" suggested Jay with a slight grin. Oh, how nice it was to have a non-backstabbing-not crush kissing friend like Zane who could be guilted into tweaking a few things in Lloyd's phone.

"At least you feel better now."

"Yeah," Jay slurped the last of his drink. "I guess I do."

"If those bullies ever—"

"Drop it, Lloyd." Jay ordered sternly, his stomach dropping. He really could use Lloyd's help, and his last name too, but if they found out... it would just get worse. "Now you know two of my secrets which you really shouldn't, so I think we're even."

"Still can't believe Nya doesn't like you."

Something fell to the ground towards the back and Jay jumped to his feet.

"Jay likes Nya?" screeched Skylor, stuck halfway through her locker in shock, looking like she was about to pass out.

Second of the day, Jay thought grimly.

Lloyd laughed nervously, and Jay hit him in the stomach. It wasn't like his day could possibly get any worse, so he turned to Skylor, held up his hands in a shrug and said:

"Surprise?"

A/N: i normally don't do this, but for Jay's POV, the song i connect it with Heather by Conan Grey, specifically the lyrics 'I wish I were Heather'. I really didnt want to super overplay jay's reaction because the kiss was totally out of the blue and he doesnt really have many other reasons to be mad. Yet. TEA WILL KEEP BUILDING MY FRIENDS and yeah, this was totally in jay's pov and i love reading your comments. And next post, get ready for some new stuff :) ! i just noticed this chapter is l o ng gosh and we don't get enough of jay and Lloyd being bros, its a crime. and guess what? astra is my of from another story which I have deleted, so keep an eye out for more from her ;) Thanks for 400 reads here and 200 reads on my oneshots