C o b r a   K a i
season one, episode five and six
✹ ❞ Counterbalance / Quiver ❞ !

     ”SO, YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT you called me and told me to come to the dojo just so I could get my own karate pajamas?” the blonde summarized what she understood from Miguel's words.

     The Diaz boy nodded his head slowly as he was not sure of the girl's reaction. Meanwhile, the Lawrence man sent the girl a murdering gaze when he heard the incorrect term she had used to call a gi.

     ”No, shit. I take my words back ── you're not getting one, since you don't even know the correct name of it,” Johnny muttered with his well–known grumpy face, which he was wearing every day.

     Willow groaned heavily. ”No, no, no. I did not leave Eli's house after──” she stopped herself, feeling the suspicious eyes already being on her. ”── to just be kicked out, because I made a small mistake,” when she ended her sentence, Johnny rolled his eyes at her, but still opened the trunk of his car.

     The pearl-haired girl frowned at his action, and looked over at Miguel, who mouthed to her a simple ’you're going to like it’. She gave him a shrug in response, and was caught off guard when Johnny handed her a completely white gi ── her wearing white clothes was a real miracle, since she preferred dark colors.

     ”Don't get it dirty with your makeup. You won't get another one,” Johnny warned her before she could even say anything. An annoyed sigh blurted out of her lips, because his sentences made her feel less like thanking him.

     ”I do not wear makeup for training, and besides, I have a washing machine,” she reminded him, but he dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

     Miguel couldn't deal with the atmosphere between the two, so he spoke again. ”So . . . a group hug?” he suggested, making the girl bite her cheek, but shrug indifferently.

     ”Oh, yeah, sure,”

     And so the three embraced each other in a hug, Willow having her eyes closed for a moment before opening them as she felt someone's gaze on her. And her gut feeling wasn't wrong ── some boy she had passed by before had been looking at them intensively, but when he was caught by her, he just turned around and walked away. That didn't seem normal for her, but she didn't thinking about it either ── maybe they just reminded the boy of something. If she would see a teenager having a good relationship with their father, she would literally cry and feel extremely jealous, because her contact with her father ended with money.

     That obviously meant something. Family didn't really matter to her father.

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     THE NEXT DAY TURNED OUT to be really shocking for Willow Froud as she saw how many people from her school showed up in the dojo ── it was unbelievable. Especially, when the only reason for that was the school fight that happened a day earlier. The blonde dodged Miguel's punch as they practiced their skills together before the training even started ── the two wanted to make a good impression on everyone since already they stood out from the rest with their new Gi's that not only made them look confident, but also powerful.

     ”Look, there's even Eli and Demetri!” Miguel pointed to their two friends with a nod, the girl following his gaze and flushing in nervousness as she could still remember the feeling of Eli's lips being on her's.

     Seeing his best friend's reaction, the Diaz boy's lips flashed with a smile, him putting a comforting hand on the blonde's shoulder as he exactly knew what had happened between the girl and the Moskowitz. After the two came back from the dojo, Willow invited Miguel into her house and cried herself out to him as she was terrified about what would happen with her and Eli's friendship or what would happen when he'd confront her.

     What was she supposed to tell him? Did the kiss ruin things between them? Did Eli feel the same way as her? Did the kiss even matter to the boy or was she the only person, who actually cared? That was definitely too much for her mind to finally explode as she wanted nothing more than to take things out on something.

     ”Hey, it's fine, Wills. I bet he feels the same way,” Miguel reassured her, hating how much Willow struggled with her thoughts.

     The blonde looked up at him, and sighed. ”The thing is I don't know how I feel, I──” she blurted out and stopped herself, because once her gaze drifted to Eli, he looked away, making things even worse for her.

     Now she was even more unsure of Miguel's assurances.

     ”You guys just need to talk things out,”

     ”What if talking will ruin everything even more?” she asked anxiously, but the Hispanic boy shook his head firmly.

     He was sure of his answer. ”No, it won't. I see the way he's looking at you and I can tell that he likes you more than a friend should. You just need to set things straight,” his declaration ended in the right moment, because just after, Johnny's voice echoed in the building.

     ”Okay! Today we begin!” the man shouted, and it seemed as if Willow was the only person that heard him, because the others still kept talking to each other. ”Quiet!” when the girl heard that, she was sure how much she hated that word. Every thanks to Johnny Lawrence.

     ”Face front,”

     The Froud girl positioned herself the way the man wanted and watched as he walked around the room, giving stares to every person he passed by.

     ”Nice shirt,” the girl could hear him say, and turned her head around to see who he was talking to. When her gaze stopped at her other friend, she sighed and begged in her mind for the man to not act like an asshole towards everyone like always ── the others will probably not like it.

     ”Thanks,”

     ”I'm joking. It sucks,”

     And yeah, Willow realized she was right when she said that Johnny Lawrence was an asshole of the year as soon as she heard every comment the man made about someone's appearances. It annoyed her enough for her to clench her jaw and wait for him to finally stop talking or start talking about something more interesting than people's complexes.

     ”When I look around this dojo, I don't see Cobra Kai material,” Johnny announced loudly, Willow and Miguel looking at each other with sighs escaping their lips. ”I see losers. I see nerds. I see a fat kid with a funny hat with his tits popping out,” he continued to mention, the blonde girl turning her head to him and raising her eyebrows. Was that speech really needed?

     ”But my short time as a Sensei, I've also seen some miracles,” he looked towards Willow, Miguel and Aisha, them sending him small smiles. ”So maybe there's some hope for you yet. First I need to see where you're at, so everybody fall in!”

     Everyone looked confused.

     ”That means line up,” the blonde man explained, the others now standing behind Aisha, Miguel and Willow, who parted her lips in indecision. ”No, not line up in a line. Lines, get in lines,”

     ”You mean, like, rows?” Demetri asked.

     Johnny groaned heavily, hiding face in his hands.

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     ❝FIGHTING positions! Jab punch!” Johnny ordered firmly, and Willow raised her fists in the air, waiting for another order from the man. ”Nope, wait 'til I say go. Hiya!” with that, the snow-haired girl punched the air hard, wanting to get all the anger out of herself without actually hitting anyone ( not that she ever would, because no matter what would happen, she was not like that ).

     Willow repeated her moves a few times, syncing it with the man's voice that went silent after his eyes drifted to something or, very likely, someone.

     ”Hey, Lip.” the man spoke after a while, making the Froud girl freeze in her tracks as she knew pretty well who he was talking too. Repeating herself, the upcoming conversation between Eli and Johnny couldn't be anything good. ”Yeah, you ── the one with the freaky lip. Who do you think I'm talking to?” he added, pointing at the boy.

     Willow grimaced and glanced at the man with an unpleasant feeling already filling her chest. Johnny shouldn't say anything like that to her boy. In fact, he should never say anything like that to anyone ── he was starting to act like a bully.

     ”Sensei──”

     The man cut her off immediately.

     ”Nah, it's fine, Thumbelina. You don't have to act so nice and all towards everyone,” his words made her roll her eyes. Did he even realize that it was her friend he was talking to? No, probably not.

     ”Excuse me, Mr. Lawrence . . .”

     ”Sensei! Lawrence” Aisha interrupted him, and Willow rolled her eyes once again. She liked the Robinson girl, but her new attitude was starting to annoy her pretty much.

     The Alexopoulos nodded, and raised his hands in defeat. ”Okay,” he looked down before sighing, and continuing. ”You really shouldn't make fun of someone's psychical appearance.”

     Hearing that, Willow put her hand to her mouth, trying to prepare herself for what was coming.

     ”Oh, is that so? So I'm not supposed to mention his lip at all?” the blonde man raised his eyebrows teasingly, and the emerald-eyed girl breathed out heavily.

     ”Well, yeah,”

     ”Yeah, maybe that's what they teach you in school, but in the real world you can't expect people to do what they're supposed to do” Johnny replied, looking around the dojo with a stern face. ”Right? You hear that, lip? If you can't handle someone making fun of you, how are you gonna handle an elbow to the teeth?”

     Willow turned her head to Eli, and sent him a reassuring, sad smile as she didn't want him to take these words personally ── the boy's lips didn't look bad; in fact, they were cute and made the boy special. That's why the blonde couldn't really understand people making a big deal of it at all.

     ”Okay, guys. That's enough, let's just continue──”

     Demetri interrupted her, though. ”By calling the police?” he suggested with an obvious voice.

     ”Dude, knock it off” Miguel muttered to the Alexopoulos, him sending his two friends an outraged look.

     ”What? He does realize that the Nazis lost the war, right?” the brunette boy continued and Willow face-palmed herself. God, the training was starting to get worse. ”Why should I be scared of him? Because he's got a snake on his wall? It's not like he's a teacher, who can give us a bad grade. We're paying him ── he works for us. It's not like he can actually hurt us.” he stated, ignoring the murderous looks from his friends.

     Johnny looked at the boy, and started walking up to him, making the others get out of the way.

     ”Oh, shit” Miguel muttered.

     ”This is definitely not going the way it should” Willow added, closing her eyes to calm herself down.

     ”You done?”

     ”What?”

     ”Hit me.” Johnny ordered. ”Go ahead, hit me. Strike me right here” he pointed at his face. Demetri was hesitant at first, but then got into a fighting stance and tried to throw a punch at the man, who easily rejected it.

     ”Harder”

     With that, Demetri tried again, the man doing the same, but much harder than before. ”Is that all you got princess?” he teased, and Willow looked at Miguel with a look that told him everything.

     The girl watched as Demetri tried to send a punch at the Lawrence the third time, him grabbing the teenage boy's hand and throwing him over to the mat. Willow squinted her eyes, feeling the boy's pain, and turned her head in another direction, so that she wouldn't have to watch the scene. She was pretty sure that the Alexopoulos will never show up at the dojo again.

     ”Let that be a lesson to all of you.”

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     WILLOW COULDN'T be happier when the first person she saw after walking out the dojo was Eli, who seemed to wait for someone. As soon as he heard the door bell's ring loudly, he turned his phone off and looked up at the girl, a blush showing on his cheeks immediately ── the image of the two kissing was still haunting him and he couldn't help, but think that it wasn't the last time they did that. He just thought that he needed to gain more confidence for the girl to see him as someone else than a friend, which he wanted more than anything.

     ”Hey, Loo,” he spoke first as the green-eyed girl stood in front of him, a shy smile unfolding on her rose lips. Eli Moskowitz was definitely the only person, who could still make her nervous.

     ”Hi, pretty boy,” she replied and the boy nudged her with his arm, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips. ”Listen, I'm so sorry for what Johnny had said to you ── he's an asshole, but it still doesn't justify his actions,” her tone was apologetic, which made it hard for the boy not to hug her.

     Willow Froud was a total sweetheart; she could always apologize for every single thing that someone from her close circle did, even if that wasn't her fault. Maybe it was because of her own parents that always made her apologize for something that wasn't her fault, just so they would finally speak to her or maybe it was just the fear that everyone would turn their backs to her if she wouldn't do it. She wasn't sure ── such things had been her habits since childhood.

     ”It's not your fault, Loo. Plus, I can't blame him for saying the truth, so . . .” he shrugged, turning his gaze away from the girl's hypnotizing eyes that mostly were the ones catching her attention.

     Hearing such words, Willow scowled. ”No, he didn't. He didn't say the truth.” she said with a shake of her head.

     ”You don't have to lie to make me feel better, Loo,” Eli insisted, but the girl disagreed once again.

     ”Stop it. You know me; I'm not a person, who would do such a thing,” her words didn't reassure the boy much, so she exhaled and slowly put her hands on his face. ”Listen to me carefully, okay? The scar and your lips ── they're nothing to be ashamed of, E. They make you feel special, and, I'm not sure if you call it like that in karate, badass. If I were in a room with thousands of identical boys and you, I would always choose you. No matter where or when, it will always be you and only you, alright?” her thumb brushed against his scar and her eyes went up, to his eyes as the height difference between them still existed.

     ”And by the way, I love it,”

     With that, Eli's breath stopped in a moment, him bringing his face closer to her's.

     Seeing that, Willow closed her eyes as it reminded her that she also had something else to say. ”E, wait, please,” with that, the boy stopped in his tracks and confusion washed on his face.

     ”Is everything . . . alright?”

     The Froud girl shook her head. ”No── yes, I . . . I mean, I don't know. I just don't want things to be weird between us,” she explained, and then continued as she got a silence in response. ”Trust me, I like you a lot, actually, but . . . but I'm still not sure of my feelings. I'm not sure if I know what love feels like,” her hands slipped from Eli's face, and now laid along her body.

     The Moskowitz's face softened. ”I understand, Loo” he encouraged. ”I'll wait for you and maybe someday . . . maybe someday I could be the one to teach you, how it's like.” the two smiled at each other, and found themselves being closed in a tight hug that showed all the emotions they felt at that moment.

     Willow smiled at herself. Maybe someday Eli Moskowitz will turn out to be the one to teach her what love felt like.

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     THE BLONDE GIRL wasn't surprised when she saw how many new absences were in the dojo on the other day ── it was extremely obvious to happen after the scene that Johnny and Demetri caused in front of everyone.

     And, if the subject was already on the Alexopoulos boy, as Willow expected, he did not show up in the dojo after what had happened, with that leaving Eli and the girl alone with themselves. Well, the Moskowitz boy had the luck, because the Froud girl didn't plan to quit yet ── the hope that Johnny could still change his behavior was still in her and she was even ready to help him with that.

     Johnny quickly made his way out of the office, catching the girl's attention, and causing her to straighten up. ”Okay, everybody fall in!” he shouted, then looked around the building, his eyes narrowing. ”Where's everyone? Crater face? Nose ring? Slingshot?” he asked, making his three golden students sigh in obliviousness.

     ”Wouldn't you already know, Sensei.” the smaller girl muttered under her breath, the man furrowing his eyes at her as he didn't understand what she said.

     With that, Miguel cleared the situation. ”They quit, Sensei.” he announced and the man's eyebrows raised in disbelief.

     ”You serious?” Johnny looked around as if he was looking for a sign of a lie on the teens' faces, which, in the result, were nowhere to be found as the others kept looking at him, their faces being unsure of his reaction. ”I mean, good. That was a test ── I wanted to see, who the quitters are. Not you guys. You're in it to win it.” he declared, which was hard to believe for Willow.

     ”Right, you could be at home, playing your iComputers, playing your video games, eating candy. Instead you're here, doing pushups, learning how to fight,” he continues, and Willow purses her lips because that's exactly what she does outside of school.

     But instead of speaking up, she watched as Johnny's eyes darted to someone behind her, his hand rising up as he pointed at that person with a serious look still being on his face.

     ”Lip, look. Even Lip's tougher than those guys. He's no quitter,” a sudden realization hit the girl as he said the well-known nickname that caused a lot of trouble between her and her best friend.

     Even though Eli and Willow had already talked about him not taking the man's words to himself, the girl was still annoyed by Johnny's actions. Why couldn't he just leave the teenage boy alone and give him a less hurtful nickname, which wouldn't remind him of something he wasn't really capable of? Why was Johnny Lawrence disappointing her more and more each day in the dojo?

     ”Could you, please, not call me that?” Eli's quiet, shy voice was heard behind the girl and she wasn't sure if she felt proud of him or terrified because of what Johnny would do, hearing the boy stand up to him.

     But once again, Johnny was a disappointment to her, so his ignorance wasn't surprising for her at all. ”Excuse me, what?” the man chuckled, making sure he didn't misheard something.

     Eli cleared his throat before repeating himself louder. ”I said, could you, please, not call me that,”

     Willow opened her mouth as she wanted to say something that would interrupt them, but quickly closed her, realizing that she was clearly not a person that would have any idea of how to start or end a conversation with someone. Luckily, she had her friend, Miguel, to do that for her.

     ”Um, I'll warm 'em up, Sensei,” the Diaz suggested and the Froud girl sent him a grateful look. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for the man to actually listen to him, so instead, he shrugged him off.

     ”No, no, no. Lip has something he wants to say. Sorry, speak up, Lip, or is your tongue messed-up too?” Johnny challenged the boy, who looked down at the ground under the weight of lots of eyes on him. Willow bit her lips, already having enough of the man's attitude. Was it that bad that she wanted to strike him right in the face? She hoped not, because it would mean that she really started turning into something she never wanted to.

     ”Are you one of those challenged kids?”

     Eli's eyes drifted from the others' faces as he wanted to find some support in them, but in the end didn't see it anywhere. Or, he was too ashamed to even look at his best friend, so he didn't really know what she had worn on her face. But trust me, Willow's green eyes were literally killing the Lawrence man from behind.

     ”Um, the doctor said . . . I could be on the spectrum,” Eli replied, avoiding the man's stare.

     ”I don't know what that is, but get off it pronto, all right?” Johnny seemed unaware of what he was even talking about. Willow could see it even from afar, so she face palmed herself. Was he dumb or dumb?

     ”Sensei, I think we should probably head back to the──” Willow started, but Johnny cut her off with his very popular word. ”Quiet!”

     He then brought his attention back to the Moskowitz boy. ”If you don't want me to call you Lip, then don't have a weird lip. Can't you get surgery for that?” he asked, making Willow reshare outraged looks with some of her classmates.

     Her respect for this man actually began to fade with every word that left his mouth.

     ”I was born with a cleft lip ── this is the scar from the surgery,” the brown-haired boy announced.

     ”You mean it was worse before that or did the doctor just screw up?” Johnny continued, and Willow clenched her nails on whatever was in her sight. When it turned out to be Miguel's hand, she sent him an apologizing stare, him nodding and trying to not groan in pain. ”Because if this is the after photo, that sucks, man. You should sue.” he advised, and the blonde girl saw that Eli barely could hold back his tears.

     ”Can we just, please, change the topic?”

     Willow nodded in agreement. ”It's a great idea. How about if we talk about──”

     Johnny interrupted her, shaking his head. ”You don't think I want to? It's tough when it's right in front of me.” his voice was stern. ”If you want to be something other than a nerd with a scar on his lip, you gotta flip the script, okay? Get a face tattoo or gauge your eye out. We'll call you Patch, all right?” he suggested, but quickly changed his mind.

     ”No, don't do that one. You'll still look like a freak”

     Eli couldn't hold back any longer, which was completely understood by Willow. She watched as the boy stormed out to the corridor that led to the bathroom and the emergency exit. Her murderous face turned to Johnny, her eyebrows raised.

     ”Great! Another quitter?” that was the only thing he shouted.

     Willow scoffed in disbelief. ”Really? How can you be such an asshole?” without listening to his response, she followed behind her best friend and found him outside, crying while hiding his face in his hands.

     ”Eli,” she whispered, her voice soft. Eli didn't react, though, so she made her way towards him and immediately closed him in a warm hug. She could feel his arms arranged along her waist, but she didn't care ── all she could care about was her boy.

     ”I can't do this anymore, Loo. Why can't I be normal? Why do I have to be the one having shitty lips?” he cried out, his grip tightening even more.

     And that was the moment when the blonde felt as if someone had punched her to the face a thousand times. It was the moment when she felt exactly like Eli, but all she could wish about was for her to take the pain away from him and accept it instead. But she couldn't ── not right now. Her arms were the only things that kept the boy a little calmer right now. The girl's arms were his home.

     ”They're not shitty, E. They're beautiful and you're beautiful. Please, don't listen to the bullshit Johnny told you.” she begged, feeling as if she was going to cry too.

     And Eli's sudden outburst confirmed this for her. ”No, it's not! I'm not! Open your eyes, Willow! I'm a freak, a loser!” his eyes opened widely, because he didn't want to shout at the girl and especially make her cry. ”Oh, my God, I'm so sorry, Loo. I── I just don't want people to see as a nerd with freaky lips, okay?” he muttered.

     ”E──”

     He shook his head. ”I want to flip the script. I need to flip the script.”

     And with that, Willow no longer felt Eli's arms being wrapped around her ── he just left her alone as he run to his mom's car that just pulled on the parking lot.

     What the hell did he even mean by flipping the script?

natalia speaks . . . !

Bye bye, Eli. Welcome, Hawk.

Not me crying over something that I wrote, because I realized that Loo and E will no longer be the same and everything between them will be so different and he'll start acting like an asshole and then the thing with Moon and him ykshhzygqviz I hope you get what I'm saying 😭😭

Now, someone please play 1 step forward, 3 steps back < 3