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Lloyd had a problem.
First and foremost, his birthday was set to fall on a weekend this year.
Secondly, Koko had gotten the day off.
Now, in and of themselves, these were not issues. Not at all. Quite pleasant, in fact—either separately or combined.
The real problem was that Lloyd's mother had taken one look at these circumstances and decided that it would be a good idea to throw her son a party.
That's right.
A birthday party.
For Lloyd Garmadon.
(See the problem yet?)
Lloyd tried to put it gently.
“Mom… I don't think anyone's going to show up,” he said, watching over her shoulder as she put together almost painfully nice-looking invitations of green and gold on her laptop.
“Oh, that's nonsense, honey!” Koko chided him lightly, continuing to adjust the font. “I'm sure there are plenty of kids in your class who would be more than happy to come to your party!”
Lloyd didn't think he could pay people to come to his party. But Koko's optimism simply could not be swayed. She printed out enough crisp, cheerful invitations for every single child in each and every one of his classes, and made it clear that she expected him to distribute them thoroughly.
“Wouldn't want anyone to feel left out, would we?”
Chad was too busy laughing his head off to stop Lloyd from dutifully placing one on each desk, a mangled imitation of a smile frozen to his face and his cheeks burning scarlet.
After school, he spent a considerable amount of time sweeping little green bits of paper off the hallway and classroom floors.
Punishment for littering, they said. Wu bopped him over the head with his flute when he arrived late for training.
On the day of the ill-fated party, Koko bought an optimistically large sheet cake and strung up green paper bunting from the dollar store all around the freshly cleaned and straightened apartment.
Several hours passed. Lloyd nervously reread the same paragraph of Mechanics 101 over and over on accident, curled up quietly on the couch.
A slight red tinge was beginning to form on Koko's cheeks.
She made them both sandwiches for lunch, and several phone calls for herself.
Lloyd didn't overhear much, but from what he did they seemed to prove unsuccessful.
There was one ring at the doorbell. Koko was in the restroom.
Lloyd stretched on his tiptoes to look through the peephole. There were two boys outside, from his math class, both grinning.
Lloyd obliged to open the door.
“...Hi,” he said.
One of them punched him in the stomach.
They both ran off laughing.
“...What was that? Is someone here?” Koko’s hopeful voice rang out from behind.
Lloyd straightened quickly and tried his best not to wheeze.
“...No,” he said at last, once he'd gathered enough breath to exhale. “Sorry.”
A warm pair of arms wrapped around him consolingly. Koko rested her chin on his hair. “Don't be, pumpkin,” she said.
Nobody else showed up.
Lloyd found cake in his lunch box for weeks.
He got sick of it about the third day. Plain cake frosting made him nauseous and it was cloyingly sweet—which didn't even make sense since he loved candy and that was basically pure sugar.
Usually they'd make a chocolate cake from the box, layered with strawberry cream cheese frosting. It wasn't difficult and tasted good, but Koko hadn't felt ready to bake for a crowd and the store didn't carry those flavors pre-made.
And now, having failed to attract said crowd or warn of its absence, Lloyd was suffering the consequences.
“Ugh, is it still your birthday?” Chad rolled his eyes, pointing at the discarded dessert with distaste. “Haven't we mourned it enough?”
“Feel free to move on,” Lloyd mumbled past his sandwich. If he was really such a burden, why not leave him alone?
“Come on, Garmadork, you're not gonna waste food, are you?”
Lloyd didn't answer.
It took a while to wash the oily frosting out of his hair. Got a detention slip for tardiness, too.
On day five, he was expecting another repeat of the experience when a large shadow fell over his isolated table.
“You gonna eat that?”
It wasn't Chad's voice.
Lloyd shrugged. “Dunno.” He hunched his shoulders to make himself smaller. He did not look up. “You can have it.”
He didn't expect the Someone to sit down next to him. Nor actually consume the cake. His eyes widened.
“Wait, no, that's kind of stale, I’m not sure you'd want to—” he stammered, before getting cut off.
“Cake is cake,” the stranger interrupted with a careless shrug. He popped the last bite into his mouth. “'S not moldy.”
“...O…K…?”
Lloyd waited for him to leave. Or punch him in the face. Or something.
He was sorely disappointed. The guy just sat there for the rest of lunch, humming to the music leaking from his headphones and nodding his head to the beat.
The bell rang. “Thanks for the cake, dude.” He left.
Next Monday, the same thing happened again. Except the cake was even more stale, and the guy brought the rest of his lunch to eat it there too.
On Tuesday, Chad marched up to the table. His chest was puffed out with a deep breath and some choice words ready for Garmadon's spawn.
The guy gave him a long, steady look.
The cheerleader turned around and went back to his seat.
On Wednesday, Lloyd ventured to ask his name.
“Cole,” he said. “Yours?”
Lloyd stared in disbelief. “...You can't be serious.” He said it like some kind of offended celebrity.
Cole shrugged. “Maybe I'd like to hear it from you.”
“...I'm Lloyd.”
“Cool.” He nodded in approval. “Nice to meet ya.”
On Thursday, Lloyd ran out of cake.
“I ran out of cake,” he confessed. “Mom threw it out.”
“Mm'K. Good while it lasted.” Cole nodded again.
“...No it wasn't. It was stale.” Lloyd stared at him, waiting.
Nothing happened.
Weeks crawled by. The cake was long gone.
Cole was not.
“...Hey, do you want to come over to my house sometime?” Lloyd asked finally. “I think my mom’s been wanting to have guests.”
“Sure. Why not.”
They nearly set the building on fire and ended up with two rock-hard slabs of what might have once been chocolate batter.
They both stared at them. Then each other.
Lloyd set down the fire extinguisher. “Cake is cake, right?” he asked.
“Cake is cake.” Cole popped open the pink can of frosting.
It was disgusting. Lloyd gave up and just licked the frosting off his fingers. Cole took care of the rest. (How, exactly, was a mystery.)
Koko was beyond delighted when she came home.