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Nya sighed in relief as she finally entered the city limits and the rolling hills and mountains turned into towering skyscrapers and apartment buildings. She wasn’t running away, she wasn’t, but she needed some time to distance herself from the monastery. Things there were…complicated right now.
So when someone suggested getting takeout for dinner after a long day of training, Nya jumped at the chance to go retrieve it. She hid her enthusiasm by claiming it was to save them money by avoiding delivery…but it was also the perfect opportunity for her to get a chance to breathe.
A lot of things had changed in the past couple of weeks.
They were really hardly together anymore (and she hadn’t seen him the entire time the team had been split up so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise) but she’d taken the chance to finally, officially, break up with Jay. He seemed to take it okay on the face, agreeing with her that they just weren’t working anymore, but she knew him better than that. He kept to himself a lot now, only really speaking to Cole behind closed doors, and anytime she was in a room with either of them, the air felt awkward and stifling. She had known that breaking up with him was going to hurt him…but she also recognized that she would only hurt him more if she stayed.
She just didn’t love him the way he loved her. And she couldn’t keep dragging him along behind her because they were both scared to admit something was wrong. She, as usual, had to be the strong one and tell him enough was enough, even if it broke his heart.
That…and she wasn’t blind. She saw the way her brother was starting to look at Jay, even if he didn’t realize it himself yet because he was still chasing Skylor. He looked at Jay the same way Jay used to look at her.
She had been shocked at first, but quickly decided that if Jay was who Kai wanted…she would support them. It was a little weird that her big brother was into her new ex, but she supposed if they ended up together, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. They were chaotic enough.
Speaking of getting together, Zane had just confessed to Cole of all people. She hadn’t known either of them were queer like her and Kai, but they seemed happy enough together that coming out was kind of secondary. Well, happy probably wasn’t the right word. Ecstatic was better. They were like two peas in a pod, ebb and flow. They had always been the mom friend and dad friend, but together, they just worked. Nya was a little bit jealous. She wanted a relationship like that… Someone who understood her without her having to be constantly admired and put on a pedestal.
The PDA was a little much though… She had never pinned either of them for being overly physically affectionate, but she had been deeply wrong.
Between Jay moping around like a kicked puppy, her brother unknowingly falling in love with her ex, and Cole and Zane being as sappy as a rom com…Nya needed to get out. She had thought about taking Lloyd with her. Heaven knew the poor kid needed a break from it all too. But Wu had insisted that they do special ninja training to work up an appetite, so he was kind of stuck in the middle of it all right now.
Poor Lloyd…
Nya landed the Samurai X mech in the alleyway beside Chen’s Noodle House with a thud and started climbing out. As she did, she took off her helmet and placed it on the mech’s seat. She supposed she could have taken something less conspicuous but…all of their vehicles were pretty conspicuous, and she knew the mech like the back of her hand.
Music from the restaurant spilled out into the alleyway; some pop song Nya didn’t really know but sounded catchy enough to be in the top 40s. She had questioned their choice of restaurant for dinner. After all, they’d just fought the owner and watched as serpentine ghosts took his soul. The place should have bad vibes after that. But Cole had insisted, and it was his turn to pick, so…here she was.
She walked out of the alleyway and turned the corner onto the sidewalk, walking to the main entrance. She just hoped that there wasn’t too big a line. Not that she would mind staying away from the monastery a little bit more, but those guys couldn’t handle themselves without her.
She pushed open the door and a little bell jingled. Nya couldn’t help the way she froze in shock. The restaurant was empty. There wasn’t a customer to be seen in any of the booths or tables, and there was no food rotating on the conveyor belts. The place would seem abandoned if it wasn’t for the peppy music being pumped out by the speakers. Someone had to be here…right?
“Ack! Coming!” A voice came from behind, what Nya assumed to be, the kitchen doors in the back of the restaurant. A woman’s voice.
The swinging kitchen doors opened forcefully, and a somewhat-frazzled woman appeared. She had a manic grin on her face. “Hi, welcome to Chen’s Noodle House! What can I…” She started, hurrying over to the front of the restaurant, but paused when she saw Nya, her face becoming more natural. “Oh…” She said, her eyes widening in surprise. “You’re…You’re Nya, right?”
Nya half-expected her to follow that up with You’re Kai’s sister or You’re Jay’s girlfriend, but she didn’t, and that already won her points in Nya’s book.
“Yeah,” she said, trying to appear casual as Skylor approached. Wow she was tall…and really really pretty, even in work clothes. Nya could see why Kai liked her. She had a kind of careful confidence about her that just begged to be admired. Kai kind of had a thing for attractive people who could kick his ass. Nya had teased him about it on multiple occasions.
“It’s takeout night and I volunteered to come get it,” Nya explained as she looked up into Skylor’s chocolate brown eyes. “We tried ordering online but…”
Skylor groaned, and brought a hand to her forehead. “Oh geeze, I’m sorry. I tried to get that up and running but I’m just…I’m not good with technology. I didn’t need to be when I was living on the island with my father and he never…” She blushed and looked away. “Sorry, I uh…didn’t mean to unload on you.”
Nya gave her a rueful smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it by this point.” She looked around the restaurant pointedly. “Where is everyone by the way? It’s the dinner rush. I’ve never seen it this empty in here.”
Skylor sighed, smiling sadly. “Well…people didn’t really like it when my father tried to take over Ninjago with his cult so…All the workers quit too. It’s just me now.”
“Oh…” Nya said, biting her lip. She hadn’t meant to be rude or make Skylor upset… She felt like she had to do something about it. “Well, I’m sure they’ll come back. The food here is too good to stop.”
Skylor did give her a genuine grin at that, looking back at her. “Thanks…” Nya’s heart did a traitorous little backflip in her chest. No. No no no. Bad Nya. Kai may be falling for Jay, but she had no idea if he was over Skylor. He could fall in love with Jay because Jay was firmly her ex at this point, but she had no idea what Skylor was to Kai…even if she was gorgeous…
“You came in for food, right?” Skylor asked, snapping Nya out of her mini-panic.
“Oh! Yeah!” Nya rattled off their very large order. She was stuck with four young men and a growing teenage boy. They all ate enough for a small army. While she spoke, Skylor wrote the order down on a notepad, nodding along occasionally. When she finished, Skylor took a deep breath and stood straighter.
“I can get that started for you, but uh…because no one’s here but me, it might take a while. I have to make everything from scratch.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” Nya said truthfully. “Things are a bit…weird at home, so take as long as you need. I’m not in a hurry to get back.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Skylor asked, tilting her head. “I’m a pretty good listener.”
Nya thought about it for a moment. Skylor was surprisingly easy to talk to, even if it was just customer service. “You don’t mind?”
Skylor smiled. “Nah. It’s been pretty dead in here all day. Kinda boring. I could use a nice voice to listen to while I cook,” she winked at Nya and Nya immediately blushed. “C’mon, I’ll show you around the kitchen.” Skylor jerked her head over her shoulder in the direction she’d come from.
“Okay,” Nya agreed. “But only if you let me look at your ordering website. I think I can probably get it back up and running if I poke around a bit.”
“Oh my god, would you?” Skylor said, her eyes huge and grateful. She started walking to the back and Nya followed her.
“Maybe if people can order online again, you’ll get more business. You can advertise for help too.”
“I hope so! There’s only so many puffy potstickers I can make myself before my hands cramp,” Skylor chuckled, and the sound was like the crackling of a campfire; warm and inviting.
Nya’s heart backflipped again.
“There you go, that should be the last of it,” Skylor said, handing Nya a third plastic bag of takeout containers. “Are you sure you don’t want help bringing it back to the monastery? I don’t have much else to do…”
“No, I’ll be fine. And trust me, you do not need to see the disaster they probably caused while I was gone.” Nya shifted the bag to her other arm, trying to balance herself for her walk back to the mech.
“I really can’t thank you enough for your help,” Skylor added with a kind smile. “You’re a lifesaver, honestly.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it! It was fun actually. I got to use clip art!” Nya laughed, delighted.
“Well…maybe this then?” Skylor took a step towards her before bending over and pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. “Thank you Nya,” she said softly, her breath tickling Nya’s ear.
Nya wasn’t the Master of Fire, but she might well have been with how hot her face felt. “You…”
Skylor stood back up straight, an amused smirk playing at the sides of her lips.
“But…But what about Kai?” Nya spluttered, trying to not drop the food in her shock.
“We went on a date a couple of weeks ago,” Skylor said, not unkindly. “We decided it wasn’t going to work out between us. So if you’re wondering if I’m single…I am. And I’m not dating your brother. So…either I read the room wrong, which is possible, or…”
So that was why Kai was quickly falling for Jay instead of yapping her ear off about Skylor. Nya’s eyes went wide. Was this actually happening?
“My number’s on the receipt if you ever want to talk again, or maybe go out for a coffee or something.” Skylor nodded down at one of the bags.
“Y-Yeah! Sure!” Nya squeaked out, hands tightening around the plastic bags. Would it be weird to launch herself at Skylor and kiss her right here and now? Probably. Yeah. She needed to get this food home before it went cold…
“I’ll look forward to it, then, Nya.”
It probably wasn’t advisable to dive headfirst into a new relationship right after coming out of a two-year disaster of one…but Skylor was so nice and pretty and Nya just felt a kind of…connection to her. She treated Nya like her own person, like she was something more than the girl of the group. The concept of going on a date with someone like that…it was instantly appealing.
Nya practically skipped back to the mech, only weighed down by the food. When she got back to the monastery, the first thing she was going to do was to put Skylor’s name into her phone next to a heart.