Just Because

This is my first ever one-shot so please be nice:] This is to promote my other fic which is a chapter fic called The Karate Kid: A New Legend Begins (Anyone come up with a better name?). This is Cheng's POV on why he started to bully Dre. Set on the playground scene where Dre gets beaten up. Cheng/Mei-Ling and slight Dre/Mei-Ying.

Just because of my untold love for her, I became a villain that I never wanted to become.

The first time I saw Dre, was when he came into the playground to play a little game of basketball with Harry (that's the blonde kid's name right?) and some of his friends. At first I thought he was a little bit cocky, and strange, specially because of his hair.

My first impression was, he was good at basketball. I wanted to play at first but when I saw him go in the game I felt the strong urge not to play, maybe because I was afraid to lose, specially since all of the guys on those NBA shows were American and they were very good at it, and I thought that Dre was no different.

When he missed the shot I couldn't help but suppress a laugh. All of my friends were awkwardly staring at me and when I turned back to them, it took all of my will power to throw them the stern voice I usually would have. But at that moment I thought that maybe, just maybe, I'd want to be his friend.

After calming myself down a little bit, I continued to play with my friends, that is until I saw him head over to the ping pong table. Now watching him try to beat the old man over there would be a sight to see. But before that I saw him glance over at Mei Ying and something inside me boiled. I know I had feelings for her but it's not like Mei Ying is gonna take notice of him anyway so I shrugged it off as I continued to eye him intently.

He cockily took the bat and served the ball as the old man threw back a hit, and then when he hit the ball hard the old man seemed a little taken aback, and that was where I thought he made the biggest mistake of his life. The game started to get serious with the old man winning a point each time and Dre getting hit by the ping pong ball every time. I guess he really was new here, he didn't even know that no one has ever beaten the old man before. And I don't know what, but something about Dre's personality intrigued me and made me, for some odd reason want to become his friend.

About a little bit later that day, he gave up playing and sat beside Harry in the basketball court looking at something that I was too busy to mind. At this point, I restarted playing again with my friends. I was just getting into the mood of the game when one of my friends tapped me in the back and pointed to me the sight of Dre, the guy I wanted to befriend, dancing in front of Mei Ying, the one and only girl I've ever considered more than a friend. And for the first time, she actually looked truly happy and right at that moment, a big impact just hit my heart.

And that's when the demon inside me escaped.

I knew I had better control over myself than my emotions, but, why I let them drag me over to Mei Ying and Dre was beyond me. Maybe it was the jealousy? Or maybe it was Dre himself that I didn't approve of. Or maybe it was because of the guilt over the fact that I've known Mei Ying through my whole life but I have never made her laugh and smile the way Dre, someone she just, met did.

Yup, it was definitely the third one.

When I went over to her I started to argue with her and words that I didn't mean just kept slipping out of my mouth and that just made things worse. I knocked down Mei Ying's music sheets as Dre tried to stop me and pick them up. And when he did pick them up, I knocked it down again. I lost control over myself and my will to become his friend was long forgotten as I threw the first slap into his face right after he prevented me from knocking down the sheets for the third time. Right after that he tried to charge at me, which, amused me, but I dodged it swiftly with the kung-fu I learned at school.

And all desire of friendship I had was gone…

That was when the fight broke loose and he lost due to his carelessness and lack of self-defense knowledge. I didn't feel guilty at all back then, I actually felt kinda relieved and proud.

But that was before...

And now, watching him stand there proudly with his teacher Mr. Han, walking away from the arena, I start to think over everything that happened that day. I wonder if maybe, if that incident didn't happen, we could've been good friends that might've trained kung-fu together. Maybe I would've taught him myself or maybe Mei Ying wouldn't gave me the cold shoulder as much.

But one thing I am sure of is that, he didn't only gain my respect, he also gained one thing that I was afraid to give away from the start. My approval. My approval for him to be with her, to be with Mei Ying. Yeah, sure, I still love her, but right now all that matters is that she can smile more honestly now. And that is enough for me.

But Dre Parker, if you ever make her cry, I take back everything.