Thankfully, Sensei shortens our training sessions during midterms week. On the last day, five of us are hunched over an anatomy textbook in the cafeteria as we have a final in two hours. It's our last one before the holidays. Demetri is panicking even though it's obvious that I'm the one who has to be worrying. I'm glad I'm friends with smart people because they've taught me how to study better and motivated me to get my homework done. I'm the one in the group with the jock level intelligence unfortunately. Luckily my friends tutor me. I've also gotten sick a few times in recent weeks, but far to often. I've only missed one training session though because I had a fever. I'm always hungry for sugar and thirsty. I have to pee once a class. I'm going to the doctor next week to figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

We see Sam walk up to Kyler angrily. Ever since she dumped him in the movie theater, he's been ruthless in his rumor spreading. He convinced everyone that Sam sucked his dick in the movie theater and Yasmine is bashing her all over Instagram. People sneak bananas into her backpack, drop hot dogs in her food during lunch, and do the sign language at her whenever she walks through the halls. She's taken it quite well as she doesn't seem to care much, but I bet she does. I'm still on thin ice with the school faculty after Halloween so if I even breathe near Kyler and his gang, I get the stink eye from Counselor Blatt or a passing teacher. Most of my teachers have grown to like me and were impressed when I turned in all my homework and performed well on my makeup tests shortly after coming back. My thoughts are interrupted as Sam slides his books off of the table and papers fly everywhere.

"Hey guys! You know that billboard with that big ass dick on it? I guess Sam takes after her dad," Kyler says and everyone laughs.

Sam gets into some kind of stance and before I can walk up to Kyler and yell at him to shut up, Miguel strikes first.

"Hey Kyler! Why don't you shut the hell up and stop being such an asshole," Miguel yells at him and gets in his face.

"Want another beatdown Rhea?" Kyler asks challengingly and shoves Miguel back.

"I'm ready for your lame ass karate this time," Kyler says and shoves Miguel again.

"Should we help him?" Aisha asks me.

I think for a second. I knew I believed in Miguel, but the three of us would guarantee a victory.

"No," I say smiling slightly.

Aisha gives me a questioning look.

"How bout we let Miguel handle this one," I say confidently with a half smile.

Miguel didn't need me to protect him anymore. Honestly, I'm not sure he ever did. He's still a slightly better fighter than me. If he were my size, McCarthy would've been in a body bag. I'm not huge, but I'm bigger than Miguel. I think 6' is a pretty good height.

"It's not lame ass karate," Miguel says and catches Kyler's punch easily.

"It's Cobra Kai," Miguel follows up and punches Kyler square in the nose.

Kyler stumbles back and grabs his now bleeding nose. He grabs Miguel in a wrestling hold and throws him around, but Miguel slithers out of it kicks Kyler to the ground after socking him in the face again.

"No mercy!" Aisha shouts fired up.

My eyes go wide as Brucks rushes Miguel from behind, but Miguel knew this was coming from the time Sensei activated the pitching machine and Miguel took a ball to the ear. Miguel ducks under the punch and sweeps Brucks' legs. He goes down. He elbows Rory right in the nuts when he rushes him and kicks John in the chest which sends him to the ground. Miguel delivers a spinning wheel kick to Rory's face to knock him down. When Brucks gets up, Miguel dashes to a nearby table and rolls over it. He grabs a tray and kicks a chair to trip John. Miguel then whacks Kyler in the face with the lunch tray and hits Brucks after. He hits Rory in the chest, then in the face. After he knees Brucks in the gut and slams the tray into the back of his head which sends him to the ground. Kyler gets up with a grunt of rage and Miguel slides across a table, kicks Kyler in the face, and finishes him with one last slam of the tray. All four bullies are moaning and groaning on the ground in pain.

The crowd erupts in cheers and Aisha and I are cheering the loudest. Amelia is standing next to me cheering loudly also. I clap and cheer as Miguel looks around in awe, but I can tell he's extremely happy. He and Sam look into each others eyes for a while and I grin widely. I knew my confidence in Miguel wasn't in vain.

"Hey get down from there right now!" Counselor Blatt yells and grabs Miguel by the wrist.

This only makes us cheer louder as Miguel is led to the principals office. If they suspend him I'm gonna be pissed. I can almost guarantee that Blatt saw everything go down. I bet if Miguel was getting the tar beaten out of him, Blatt would've done nothing or just given Kyler and them one detention. We see Kyler and his friends get up slowly and look around in what looks like fear. We all burst out laughing at the four disoriented bullies. Kyler looks at me as I'm howling my ass off. His face scrunches up when he sees me laughing at him.

"Hey I think he's about to cry!" I yell and everyone laughs harder.

"We should call him Cryler," Amelia yells and everyone laughs at him.

Brucks looks around and it's weird seeing him without his smirk.

"Look at little honey boo boo," I say pointing and laughing at Brucks who just hangs his head.

"Fee-fi-fo-fum," I yell when Brucks limps out of the cafeteria.

Rory walks out slowly.

"Knocked the nonexistent soul outta him," I whisper to Amelia who laughs even harder.

During the final, no one can focus at all. However, I studied in advance and knew most. Hopefully, I can squeeze by with a C. Mr. Palmer was a total nerd and I didn't care for his class. I liked anatomy though and actually thought about becoming a Vet because I'm an animal lover, but I'm discreet. Veterinarians are great, but someone like Sensei would call me a pussy if he ever found out I was an animal lover. However, if I was forced to work with people like Mr. Palmer and his horrible dad jokes, then I'd take a hard pass.

After the test, we're all gathered at the front of the school. Ten minutes later, Miguel walks out looking happier than ever.

"Dude!" I say and bear hug him.

"I got off!" He yells throwing his arms in the air.

"Brooo!" I say and we high five.

"What did they give you?" Amelia asks.

"Two Saturday detentions after the break, but think about it. I whooped their asses! I also aced my final," Miguel says.

"Where did you take it? You weren't in the exam room," I say.

"I took it in the office, but when the school called, my Yaya answered. Never seen her so proud," Miguel says delighted.

"Dude, that so awesome," I say and wrap my arm around his shoulders.

"Wait until we tell Sensei," Miguel says super excited.

"Oh shit," I say happily.

"Who's this Sensei that you guys talk about constantly?" Amelia asks.

"The guy who taught us how to kick ass," I answer.

"You wanna join?" Aisha asks Amelia sounding pretty excited.

"If I can learn to do that. Then he'll yeah!" Amelia says.

"Awesome! We could use another girl," Aisha says.

"A hundred bucks says we'll have a packed dojo by tomorrow," I say nudging Miguel.

"I don't doubt that," Miguel says.

"Maybe we could join to," Eli says excitedly.

"Uh yeah," I say happy that Eli wants to become a Cobra.

I kinda hope confident Eli doesn't become drunk Eli. Confident Eli around us was a cool guy, but drunk Eli was kind of a dick. Especially to Demetri.

"I'd like to see the way you look in one of those karate pajama things," Melody says and pulls in Eli for a kiss.

They've been together ever since the woods and she's good for him. Eli seems really happy with Mel and I'm happy for him. Ashley wasn't into Demetri like that unfortunately, but she was down to be friends. I remember coming over to chill with Demetri while he suffered from his rejection.

Authors note: drunk Eli in the woods that time was foreshadowing to how he acts as Hawk, but hawk is fucking awesome so he won't be douchey until season 2.

"You know that I think this calls for a little celebration," I announce confidently.

"What do you have in mind?" Moon asks excitedly.

"You know back where I came from, Murphy's were known for another thing besides their incredible charm," I say in the most douchey voice ever.

"Oh shut up," everyone says lightheartedly at my cringy comment.

"Anyway, the Murphy's had a rep for throwing the best Christmas ragers in town. So, CHRISTMAS PARTY AT MINE TOMORROW NIGHT!" I yell and everyone cheers.

Aisha has to miss training today because she is going to visit her grandparents for the day. When we get to training Miguel and I charge into Sensei's office which startles him slightly.

"Did you just flinch?" I joke when he gets startled by us bursting through the door.

"Tell anyone, your dead," he says to Miguel and I.

"I thought flinching was for pussies," I say jokingly.

"QUIET!" Sensei yells and I shut up.

After an awkward silence, Miguel tells Sensei Lawrence what happened at school.

"All four of them?" Sensei asks in awe.

"Yeah," Miguel says happily.

"Even that big dumb one?" Johnny asks.

"Yeah, it all happens to fast. Everything just came together. I was blocking, I anticipated, I slithered," Miguel says excitedly.

Sensei looks taken aback.

"Your mom's gonna kill both of us," Sensei Lawrence says shaking his head, but unable to hide how happy he is.

"She would if she knew. When the school called, my yaya answered. I've never seen her so proud. She won't talk," Miguel says smirking.

I clap him on the shoulder.

"Alright, so let me get this straight. You took all the lessons I taught you and you used them to straight up beat the shit out of those punks," Johnny summarizes sternly and sounds actually kinda mad.

"Yeah..." Miguel answers.

I look at Sensei Lawrence quizzically. There's no way he was mad, but I don't understand his tone.

"Follow me. Both of you," Sensei says and we follow him outside.

He opens his trunk and two white gi's smile back up at us. Miguel and I smile at each other.

"I wore this when I was training for my first tournament back in 81," Johnny says and hands Miguel the gi.

I look at the other one.

"When I outgrew it, I wore this one when I was training for my tournament in 83," Sensei says and hands me the gi.

I stare at it.

"Didn't lose a single point that year," Sensei Lawrence says to me sounding proud.

"Want you guys to have them," Sensei Lawrence says.

"Are you sure?" Miguel asks.

"Yeah, this is some sacred stuff," I say.

"Hell yeah. You both earned them," Sensei says sounding proud of us.

"Thats the best I got," Sensei says smiling.

"Thank you so much Sensei," Miguel says and bro hugs Sensei

"Merry Christmas," I say and fist pump Sensei Lawrence.

We haven't exactly reached the bro hug stage yet. I'm fine with that, Sensei doesn't seem like a big hugger.

We go inside and try on our gi's. Mine fits me like a glove and same with Miguel. We do drills in our gi's for the first time. We don't spar today because Miguel already got his time in the ring.

"Good! Alright let's call it a day," Sensei Lawrence says after we both get through the pitching machine easily.

After practice, Miguel and I grab some burgers and chill at my house. I badger him constantly about asking Sam out. He's nervous, but I can tell he wants to.

"She's gonna be at the party tomorrow," I say raising my eyebrows.

"She barely knows me," Miguel argues with a smile.

"Uh, you dumb? The way she was looking at you today after you clobbered those assholes certainly wasn't an "I barely know you look,"" I say.

Miguel sighs and puts down the controller.

"Okay, don't go all over her at first sight. Just talk to her tomorrow, get her a beer. Hell Amelia and I will whoop you guys in a game of beer pong," I say downing my second water bottle.

"Dude you sure drink a lot of water," Miguel says with a weird look.

"I'm thirsty," I say opening another one.

"How are you that thirsty?" Miguel asks.

"Don't know. I just drink a bottle, then five minutes later, my mouth is as dry as the Sahara desert," I answer.

"Hold on," Miguel says horrified.

"What?" I ask confused.

"Are you always hungry also? And how much do you pee?" Miguel asks horrified.

"What?" I ask confused out of my mind and weirded out by his question.

"Just answer the question dude," Miguel says seriously.

"I don't know. A lot. Why?" I say giving him an incredibly creeped out expression.

"Have you been to a doctor recently?" Miguel asks.

"A little. Had some shitty cold," I say.

"Oh, okay," Miguel says sounding relieved.

"What did you think was wrong with me?" I ask.

"I don't know," Miguel answers.

"O...Kay then," I say awkwardly.

Deep down I'm dreading my trip to the doctor tomorrow. They think I have mono and if I do, I'm out of training for a while and I'll have to spend my winter break in bed. I look at the carpet floor as my mind wonders how tomorrow will be.