This special is a MUCH belated birthday gift for lightninggirl15 . She asked for a chapter in this AU where Nya is struggling to find a suitable birthday present for Jay.

It's a 2-parter, the second part will be a lot longer - and it will be written in Jay's POV (it just wouldn't be fun any other way).

I headcanon Jay's birthday to be in early to mid-October (based on the week count of this book, we end up with 14th October, so I'll just stick to this date from now on – and I'll hopefully have the second part finished by then 😉).

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Week 24

Thursday afternoon

Enjoy your statistics lecture ;). I press 'send' just as the door to the coffee shop flies open and my newest friend bursts inside.

"Sorry, I am late." Seliel apologises. "Ash managed to blow up our experiment and we had to stay behind to clean up."

"Again?" I ask incredulously as I put my phone away. Her lab partner has a real talent for blowing things up.

"Yes." She giggles. "At least this time he did it at the end of the class, so we didn't have to start all over."

Sel turns quite a few heads when she takes off her grey maxi coat and hangs it over her the backrest of her chair. In the off-white knitted jumper dress and the black leather boots – flat as heels aren't permitted in the chemistry labs – the elegant girl looks more like she's arrived her right from a fashion show rather than an organic chemistry practical. Despite the aforementioned incident, not even a single pink hair – which she is wearing in an elegant French braid today – is out of place.

I would have never expected to become good friends with someone as perfect as her. Cole's girlfriend is a real sweetheart tough. She has really helped me get settled here at the Ninjago Institute of Technology, and, despite our busy class and lab schedules, we meet up for lunch once a week to catch up.

Yes, I've learned not to judge a book by its cover. Otherwise, I would certainly not be dating the son of Ninjago's biggest movie star. Which brings me back to my current problem..

"I hope you didn't have to wait too long." Sel's voice snaps me out of my thoughts. She has sat down and is studying the menu.

"It's fine." I assure her. "I was chatting with Sky, she says hi by the way."

The only downside, so far, of being an NIT student, being apart from my best friend since childhood, as Skylor is doing an MBA at Ninjago City University.

"How's she getting on at NCU?"

"Pretty good so far. She's made a few new friends already, and really enjoys living on her own." Away from her controlling father. "Missing Kai though." Sky and my brother have been dating for almost a year now.

"I guess so. I honestly couldn't imagine not being at the same college – or even in the same town – as Cole." Sel remarks, and I can't help but agree. While I had already pretty much decided on this university before Jay and I started dating, being close to my boyfriend is definitely an added bonus.

"Kai is going to visit her this weekend, it's their anniversary next week." I tell Seliel. "It's a surprise though."

"That's nice." Sel smiles. "And I bet you're looking forward to seeing her and your brother in just over two weeks as well."

I nod. Very much so.

I have not been back home since the start of term, but we – me and Jay, Sel and Cole, Skylor and Kai – are all going to meet up in Ignacia that weekend. Which actually reminds me of my current problem... it will be Jay's birthday on that Saturday.

"I need your help." I tell her. "I have absolutely no idea what to get Jay for his present."

Well, this isn't entirely true. I did have an idea, and a pretty good one, but it simply didn't work out.

"It's impossible." I sigh. "What do you give someone who simply has everything he needs." And tons of stuff he even doesn't.

"You'll have to find something that he doesn't know he needs." She smirks. "Jay kept insisting for ages that he neither needed nor wanted a girlfriend until he was already head over heels for you."

I blush. "Considering our rocky start, it came as a surprise to both of us." But I wouldn't have it any other way. "What did you give Cole for his last birthday?" I wonder.

"Oh, that was really easy." Sel laughs. "He kept destroying his headphones because he tends to chew on the wires. So, I got him a pair of Bluetooth headphones and a pack of chewing gum."

A great idea, but Jay, of course, already has Bluetooth headphones, the latest Borg and Olufsen model even that's not on the market yet.

Just like the gift he gave me for our three-months anniversary isn't available in store either.

"Wow." Seliel gasps when I show her the custom-made pendant that I normally keep hidden from sight, an 18K gold eight-pointed star with a centre ruby. "It's beautiful."

"It is." I smile, tucking it back under my shirt. "He chose it because our first real date was at the Starfarers movie première. We'd known each other for eight weeks then, and I was wearing my mother's red dress."

I now smile at the memory. But back then I was so nervous...

"Yes, but you were willing to face your fears for Jay." Sel remarks when I mention this. "It's no surprise then that this date still means a lot to him."

"And he means a lot to me." I say. "So I really want to make his birthday special for him."

But how do you make anything special for someone whose whole life has never been everything but normal, including his birthdays.

When Jay was younger, he would always invite his whole year to his parties, and they would go to cool places like Mega Monster Amusement Park (with VIP tickets of course to let them skip all the queues) or have a private performance at the circus. For his eighteenth birthday, his dad rented one of Ignacia's most popular club for the night.

"Yes, but Jay never really liked those big parties." Sel, who's known my boyfriend for a lot longer than me, tells me.

"Last year, he actually refused to do anything special. He didn't even want to go out because he was fed up with huge parties. He just had a few friends over; they ordered pizza, had a few drinks and played video games all night."

"He didn't tell me that." I realise. He didn't tell me about the other birthdays though either. It was Edna who showed me pictures of Jay as a cute little, always smiling, kid.

"He doesn't like to admit that he doesn't always appreciate all the stuff he gets. He thinks it makes him look like a spoiled brat."

"He is a spoiled brat." I laugh. "Just a very kind and lovable spoiled brat."

"But not many people recognise that. Sure, Jay has always been popular, but many kids only liked his for his rich and famous dad, not for himself. He only has a handful of people that he considers his true friends – or more." She winks at me. "But seriously, I know from Cole that Jay once told him that out of all his birthdays as a kid his 6th one was his favourite."

I furrow my brow in confusion. "Wasn't that the one where he was sick?"

"Yes," Sel nods. "He had chickenpox, so he could only have two friends over who had already had it before – Cole and one other boy from school. Cliff Gordon took the day off work to do a puppet show for the boys and Ed and Edna organised a treasure hunt in the garden."

I resist the urge to roll my eyes – 'garden' is a rather modest word to describe the grand Gordon Estate.

"And Jay loved it simply because he got to spend it with those people he cares about the most." Sel finishes.

"Wow." I once again realise that I still have a lot to learn about my boyfriend of three months. But then, I am certain that I will have a lot more time – my whole life in fact – with him to do just that.

"So, I am absolutely sure he will appreciate anything you get for him, just because it's from you. And because you've put some thoughts into it. Maybe you could just take him out on a date."

"I've tried that." I sigh.

Jay's favourite band is playing at the Dragon Arena in Ignacia next summer. Tickets went on sale last weekend, and they sold out in under 2 minutes. I was online on time – I had actually set my alarm on a Saturday (something I will only do in very special circumstances) – but then my old laptop crashed, and I lost my place in the virtual queue. And I just can't afford to buy the tickets from NinBay, at five times the official price.

But I don't want to take him out just for dinner or movies. Jay does that all the time for me, without any special occasion. I have returned the favour a couple of times of course, but nothing within my budget is suitable for a special birthday date. Especially as Cliff is already going to host a fancy brunch on the Sunday for all of us. How could I compete with that?

"It doesn't need to be a fancy restaurant; it's the company that will make it special to him anyway." Sel reminds me. "Maybe you could take a book from his page and just take him to a place that means something to you two."

Not a bad idea. I could take him to-

Well, I could actually take him on a date to all the places that mean something to us.