Chapter Text
The crew sat around the kitchen table in Jay and Cole’s rather spacious apartment. Jay and Nya were nursing cups of coffee while Lloyd gulped down his tea. Cole shook his protein shake before twisting the cap open. Kai scrunched his nose as he watched the other man drink the shake.
“How do you drink that shit?”
Cole stopped chugging to breathe and answer. “Fast.” He went back to drinking.
Kai glanced at Jay, who shrugged.
“He gets the chocolate ones so he doesn’t have to taste the protein but the aftertaste gets to him so if he doesn’t drink it fast, he’ll gag.”
Kai smirked. “And here you were bragging about your lack of a gag reflex,” he teased.
Cole took another pause. “Never said that.”
Jay chuckled. A quiet meow drew his attention to the floor where Geode the cat was sitting, her eyes large as she stared up at him. He grinned and pulled her up into his lap. Nya pulled out her laptop and opened a calendar. She took a sip of her coffee and brought up a spreadsheet over the calendar.
“Okay,” she began. “Let’s plan this thing. Where do we want to go?”
“What places are on the list?” Zane asked.
“Um…” Nya leaned closer to the computer screen as she scrolled through the spreadsheet. “We did the Mines of Shitaro and Sacred Heart Sanatorium. There’s the Ninjago City Museum, which has been asking us to do an investigation to determine exactly what is haunting the halls.”
“That one might be pretty easy,” Kai stated. “It’s not very big.”
“Okay, then there’s the Temple of the Airjitzu Master, haunted by the late Sensei Yang,” Nya said.
“That one could be fun,” Jay said.
Lloyd made an uneasy sound. “I dunno. I really don’t like spirit hunts.”
“We don’t have to do that one if you don’t want to, Lloyd,” Kai told him.
“No no, I know we can’t avoid it forever.”
Nya continued. “There’s the Destiny’s Bounty, or the Underworld – that castle in the ‘Ethereal Divide.’”
“That is quite the drive,” Zane said.
“We could always do a… different boat. One that Lloyd hasn’t been to before.”
“Absolutely not!” Cole shouted, slamming his fist on the table.
The action startled Geode off of Jay’s lap. She bolted into their bedroom.
Nya shrugged. “It was just a suggestion.”
“Maybe we should.”
Every head turned to Jay, who was nervously fiddling his fingers. His quiet statement surprised everyone who knew about the boat in question.
“Are you sure?” Cole asked softly.
Jay shrugged. “It’s just a djinn.”
“Don’t you hate djinn investigations?” Lloyd asked.
“For good reason,” Cole protested. “Shit happened on the Misfortune’s Keep . Shit that can’t be undone.”
Jay sighed and nodded. “I know. But maybe we should revisit it. It was pretty controversial, so maybe if we do a recap and revisit it for new viewers, it would have a better reception.”
“If you’re certain… we can investigate the Misfortune’s Keep again,” Cole said, placing an arm around his boyfriend.
Nya disrupted the miserable mood that came over the room. “Now we just need a date. The ship is open for visitors from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM during normal touring hours and open for overnight stays on the weekends. Do we want to do a late night tour or an overnight stay?”
“We probably want the majority of the ship to ourselves,” Kai commented. “An overnight stay and special late night touring privileges would probably work out best. That’s what we did last time, right?”
Nya nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have to get in touch with their marketing and management teams and see what they can do for us and how much it will cost. I don’t think they remember us from last time.”
“So, we should do a weekend, right?” Jay asked.
Nya nodded, looking at the spreadsheet. “Should we do it sometime this month? The last weekend is open.”
The others were looking at the schedules on their phones.
“Uh… Nya? We kinda left that weekend open for a reason,” Lloyd said.
“Really?”
Kai nodded. “Yeah. Midterms, remember? We’ve got exams the week after.”
“Yeah, I have two projects to finish that weekend,” Cole said. “A sculpture and a short story. And I have to study for my history midterm.”
Jay scrolled through his schedule for that week. “Yeah, I’ve got three exams: compressible aerodynamics, thermodynamics, and psych.”
“Ew,” Nya groaned. “I completely forgot about midterms. I’ve got a Cal C midterm and a print media project.”
“Cal C with Kronus?” Jay asked.
“Yeah.”
The brunette winced. “Yikes. Not fun.”
“Wait, I thought he was a history professor.” Lloyd said.
“That’s Krux Kronus. Acronix Kronus teaches Cal C,” Cole explained.
“Oh.”
“What about Fall break?” Zane suggested. “The weekend after midterms?”
Cole shook his head at the same time as Kai and Jay.
“Jay and I will be spending those four days with his parents,” the muscular man explained.
“Which ones?” Kai asked.
Nya smacked him with a nearby stack of paper while Cole and Lloyd glared at the hotheaded man.
“You don’t ask people that!” she shouted. “Besides, where are you going to be? Mom and Dad are out of town.”
“Sorry,” Kai apologized sheepishly. “Um… I’ll be at Skylor’s place meeting her dad.”
Nya looked at him like he had three heads. “Wait, like Skylor Chen?”
“Chen!?” Jay exclaimed. “Like my principles of aerospace professor from last year?”
Kai raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah?”
“That guy is evil. ” Jay shuddered.
Kai rolled his eyes at his friend. “He’s not evil. He’s just difficult.”
“You try taking his class and tell me that he’s not at least a little bit evil!”
“I’m going home,” Lloyd said. “My uncle is gonna be there.”
Kai and Jay were pulled from their argument. Kai stood and leaned over the table with a wide grin.
“Dude! Tell Wu ‘hello’ for us!”
Lloyd winced and leaned away. “Alright, alright! No need to yell.”
“Man, do you guys remember when he let us do our first hunt at his dojo?”
Jay sighed. “Yes, Kai. It’s where we met Lloyd for the first time.”
“He was such a cute sixteen year old,” Nya teased.
Lloyd’s cheeks flushed bright red. “Stop it…” he grumbled.
The crew continued to tease their youngest member well into the afternoon. As they did, they planned their next few hunts. Despite the more fun hunts they were planning for later in the year, the thought of revisiting one of their most dangerous hunts loomed over the group. They would be mentally preparing through the month leading up to it, even with exams coming up. And for one of them, sleep would be scarce.
Hopefully the focus on exams would help distract him from haunting thoughts of that boat.