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You’re sixteen. You’re sixteen and it’s summer and you take your younger brother out to distract him from what’s really going on at home. You wind up going to Valley Fest, his eyes light up as he mentioned how all his friends were going. It’s the least you can do.
As you make your way through the crowds, you don’t expect to see a bunch of karate students on stage. But you do. And it catches your attention. He sticks out the most to you, it’s hard to take your eyes off of him. You look at the smile on his face, clearly proud of what him and his teammates just did. Your stomach does somersaults.
You think about him and the dojo for a week before you decide to march over to the strip mall and join a class. It’s not unfamiliar to you, you’ve done kickboxing, but that soon became too expensive and you eventually had to quit. This was an affordable alternative, for the time being at least.
“Who has the balls to take on the champ?”
A small silence follows. And then-
“I’ll take him on.”
Your mouth opens before you have the chance to stop yourself. You won’t admit that though, you do in fact love a challenge after all.
You catch a peak of him making his way towards you, it’s him. Suddenly he’s closer, in front of you, hands behind his back, almost nervous. Later, Aisha would tell you he’s always hesitant in sparring with newbies. Something about not wanting to hurt them. It only makes your heart yearn more.
“Are you sure you want to-”
You cut him off with a kick, making him stumble before he catches himself. A playful smile spreads across his face, his eyes gleaming as he gets into position and says “Okay. Game on.”
He gives you cheeky pointers as you fight, you try not to let it get to you but eventually realize he knows every move you’re about to make before you have even finished doing it. Eventually, you’re able to get him on the ground, flipping over him.
He sees that coming too.
You huff, exhausted, as he brings himself to his feet and offers you a hand, “My name’s Miguel.”
It takes everything in you to not smile at the gesture, instead, you say, “Tory,” and use his extended hand to yank and throw him down.
You hold his head down with your hand and he groans, blindsided, and you add, “With a ‘y’”.
You can hear the two senseis’ approval. A natural cobra. It makes you feel something, something close to pride. You wonder if this is what filled Miguel that day at Valley Fest, if he felt like he was finally making someone proud.
You pull your hand away and stand, letting out a laugh as you hold it out for Miguel, just as he had, “Sorry. No hard feelings?”
Miguel chuckles, sitting up in pain before he takes your hand. His hold lingers for a moment longer than necessary, but not long enough for everyone else to point out, “You kidding? That was awesome!” And he’s smiling at you so sincerely, in a way no one else ever had.
Then Sensei Lawrence makes you all do drills and the moment is gone.
After practice you head next door to the convenience store to get a drink, your first day at the dojo was more tiring than expected. It’s there where you hear Aisha groan at her phone and you can’t help but try to start a conversation with her. She was cool and nice and you’d never really had any luck making friends in school, you figured maybe it’d be different at Cobra Kai. And you think maybe she’d never had luck with friends, too.
You were right.
You can’t understand how someone could dislike Aisha or have problems with her, she’s so understanding and actually seems to care about what you have to say. She thinks you’re cool, too, which doesn’t make sense to you at all.
You don’t like to think about what happened at the beach club. Or more like, who happened. You don’t like to think about how what she said made you feel the most embarrassed you’ve ever felt in your entire life, and the worst part is you can’t help but think maybe you deserved to be put in your place. But those are thoughts that wouldn’t resurface until months later, after a body is falling and you scream.
Again, there’s still months until that happens
It’s a couple days after the beach club incident that you’re hanging out with the rest of the Cobra Kai students after practice. Well, Cobra Kai students plus Moon. She’s sweet and is dating Hawk for some reason. It’s an odd couple but who are you to judge?
You guys were all hungry and decided to get a bite together. Except Miguel is clearly not touching any of his food and has his eyes glued to his laptop, sitting separately from everyone else.
You grab an ice cube out of your drink and flick it to him, making him snap his eyes away from his screen for the first time since you all sat down. He lets out a sigh in mock annoyance, “Hey.”
You can’t help the grin that takes over your face, “Oops, must have slipped out of my hand.”
But he’s already turned away from you, his attention back on that godforsaken beat up laptop. Now you’re curious and frustrated, “What are you even doing over there?”
Without even glancing at you, “Going all in.”
His response makes your brows furrow. You decide to let him be for now and pretend to pay attention to whatever Aisha and Moon are talking about. You’re too distracted to even feel bad about it.
When you finish your sundae you get an idea and pick up your pate, making your way over to him, “Want the rest of this brownie sundae? Not gonna lie to you, I already ate the brownie, and the whipped cream, and most of the hot fudge.”
He’s finally looking at you and he glances down at the plate, your words seeming to finally sink in. Amusement spreads across his face, “So you saved me the melted ice cream?”
To which you say, “Yeah that’s the best part,” as if you were stating something obvious like grass is green or the sky is blue.
It makes him smile. That smile. The same one he wore your first day. It gives you the courage to sit down across from him after you set the plate down. You tease him into fessing up to what he was doing, you can’t help the way your heart skips a bit at the way he faces seems to turn red when you imply he was doing something inappropriate. He’s just so good.
When he turns the computer towards you, you see he’s editing something, a cutout picture of his face on the screen. The adoration is clear on your face and if he wasn’t so busy trying to explain what exactly this was he would have seen it.
(You don’t know that it would have taken his breath away. No one has ever looked at him the way you do. The way you did. It’s a shame neither of you were on the same page.)
And then someone else is on screen. The smile on your face drops. Samantha fucking Larusso. Of course.
You don’t hear what else he’s saying, you just nod along faux understanding and wait for this video to end. He’s staring at you expectantly. Oh, right, he wants to know what you think.
So you tell him the truth, well, with a bit of an exaggeration. Really, you’re saving him from embarrassment, but the way his eyes seem to look so lost makes you try to think of some sort of advice on the spot.
“You act like you’re totally over her, like you don’t care. Then, she’ll want you back. And you know how to get over her?”
He shakes his head, looking at you like you’re saying the most important words he’s ever heard, absorbing them. You arch your eyebrow, “Have a little fun. And I know just the place.”
You can see the curiosity on his face, he seems to weigh his options before he lets out a breathy laugh. He closes his laptop and tucks it into his bag before pulling out a five dollar bill, leaving it on the table as a tip. As he stands, he says with excitement evident, “Lead the way.”
And you do.
You take him to a park near your apartment, the one your mom would have you take your brother to whenever her and your dad started arguing. You stopped having to take him when your dad left, the fights ceased and eventually your mom was sick. Then the late night visits to the park became the only breath of air you had.
You climb up the steps of the playground and slide down one of the slides, it’s clearly made for children. Miguel is hesitant to join you, but the ways his eyes are lighting up right now tells you he needed this. After a couple minutes of taunting, he drops his backpack and makes his way up, sliding down in glee, laughing when he gets stuck ⅔ of the way down. With your assistance, he gets out.
You guys hang out on the swings for a bit, he talks about how he was Sensei Lawrence’s first student and you tell him about how you’d never seen a single Marvel movie. Which, he is both shocked and offended by, he starts listing off movie titles left and right, and then he’s insisting you come over sometime so you can be cultured on the masterpiece that was the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You dismissively agree, not trying to think too hard about what this means or why he seemed to be so adamant on spending possibly an entire weekend watching movies with you. It was summer after all, mid-summer to be exact, everyone was bored at this point.
It’s an hour later and you’re spinning before you launch yourself to the ground, laughing, content and happy. He doesn’t throw himself like you do but he does exclaim, “You’re insane!” You don’t hear the fondness as he says it, you know he’s joking though and so you take the bait, “Yeah, heard that one before.”
You’re sitting shoulder to shoulder on the ground and you’re trying to catch your breath, but you’re also seeking assurance, “You’re having fun, right?”
And he is. He really is. Then you check the time and quickly lay down, dragging him with you.
“What are we-”
“Wait for it.”
Not even a second later, he gets his answer in the shape of an airplane flying over. He’s vibrating with adrenaline as he says, “Holy shit! That was awesome!”
You smile, teeth showing and all, “Every night. 10:36 on the dot. It’s the last flight out of Burbank.” You turn to gaze at him, really gaze at him. It’s because of this that you can sense the words about to leave his mouth, slightly shaking your head hoping he won’t. But he does and you sit up, annoyed.
(You’re hurt more than anything but you would never admit that.)
He apologizes and he seems so upset and annoyed with himself, maybe even more than you are. He’s beating himself up over it and it makes you lose whatever cold retort you were going to snap at him with. He’s looking down as he explains, “Sensei said to go all in and make a move and I’m still trying to figure out what that means.”
The words resonate with you. They allow you to say with every inch of boldness you possess, “Well, I think it means exactly what it sounds like.”
He hums as he turns to face you, encouraging you to finish, “Yeah?”
You spare a glance at his lips and then lock eyes with him, “Make a move.”
He’s staring at you the way he has been since that day in the dojo, like he’s holding something back. You don’t know if it’s for you or for himself, but whatever line he’s been stopping himself from crossing is long forgotten when his eyes snap down to your lips.
He lingers on them before looking back at you. You know the vulnerability is there, you don’t want to think about how humiliating it’s going to be when he rejects you and says you guys should head home already. It’s the farthest thing on your mind because suddenly he’s gently holding your cheek. His eyes are on you, waiting for any slight hesitancy to cross your face, and when it doesn’t he closes his eyes and slowly leans in. You meet him halfway.
He kisses you like he means it, like he’s putting everything he feels for you into it. When he pulls away for a moment, you can’t help the quiet content sigh you let out, and he does the same before he’s pressing his lips against yours again. And again and again and again as you pull him closer.
You don’t know how much time passes before you both pull away, breaths heavy and lips sore. He moves the hand that was holding your hip and tucks a stray hair behind your ear. It’s too soft of a moment for you to comprehend and he’s staring at you like he really sees you and it makes you nervous so you smile at him teasingly and say, “Did you see that coming?”
(You would never know that he wishes he had never kissed you that night. In another lifetime, he waits to make a move. In another lifetime, you were the only girl he thought about. In another lifetime, he never falls, you never yell out his name, and you never stand on the opposite sides of a "war" that started way before either of you were born. You both wish things were different in this one.)