Chapter Text
It was the seventh grade. Lloyd was thirteen. He got to the lunch room early. He picked a table in the corner and sat down.
Over the next few minutes, hundreds of kids filed into the cafeteria. The school, decades out of date and built for a much smaller population, was filled to the brim. Students crammed together arlt the tiny tables, pushing and jostling each other, struggling to find enough room for everyone to have a seat.
Lloyd's table remained empty.
This was 100% expected.
Lloyd sighed and turned his focus to his lunch, staring down his sandwich and avoiding eye contact with anyone.
"-Fine! I don't have to sit with you anyway!"
There was a thud next to him, and Lloyd looked up. Sitting there next to him (on top of the table, not the bench) was another boy, with spiky brown hair and an bandaged, yet obviously broken nose.
Lloyd stared for a moment, before letting out an inquisitive "h. hi?"
"Hey." He tipped a non-existent hat.
"Name's Kai. How 'bout you?"
"Lloyd. Lloyd… Garmadon."
"Huh. Like that guy who keeps destroying the city?"
"Yeah."
"Huh."
A moment of silence. The strange new boy didn't move.
"Wouldn't you rather sit somewhere else?" (In retrospect, this probably sounded rude, but for Lloyd it was a genuine question.)
"Nah. Everybody else hates me." He turns back to the rest of the room and cups his hands like a megaphone. "Don't you?" His shout goes unanswered. He turned back to Lloyd and grinned, showing off a chipped tooth. "Started too many fights. Now no one wants to sit with me."
"Huh." Lloyd wasn't aware that that was something that happened to people who weren't him. "Well, you can keep sitting with me, if you'd like"
Kai's grin doubles in size. "Sounds rad, dude."