CHAPTER 51

After playing pretty much every game in the park, they had decided to wander into the arcade gift shop to redeem their coupons. To their credit, they had actually won quite a bit in the arcade games so they were intrigued to see what they could afford with their coupons. They were expecting a toy, a stuffed animal, something along those lines. However, they were extremely disappointed when they found out that they weren't even close to affording that. They had enough for a lone small piece of strawberry candy and a peel+stick on fake tattoo, altogether probably worth less than 2 dollars.

"Well that was disappointing." Emily remarked as they walked out the store, the two eventually moving to a secluded bench to just relax and chat, taking in the night air and enjoying each other's company. Emily rested her head against Miguel's shoulder and Miguel, surprised, wrapped an arm around her. The two leaned against each other contentedly, comfortable like they had been dating a long time, and they watched stars slowly grace the night sky.

"Hey, look at the bright side, you might not have won a big gift, but you still have this awesome tattoo!" He joked. Emily rolled her eyes.

"Mmm, yes, a peel, stick-on tattoo that'll rub off the second I go home. Score!" She joked back.

"Hey, don't diss the stick-on tattoos! I would kill to be able to rub my tattoos off." Miguel remarked.

"You have tattoos? Where?" Emily asked, curiously, her eyes raking up and down his body trying to guess where the tattoos were. Miguel blushed and shook his head.

"Doesn't matter." He replied quietly. Emily laughed and shook her head.

"No! Come on! You can't do that to me! You can't tell me that you have tattoos and not tell me what they are, let alone show them to me! I'm so curious now, what are they?! How many? Are they dirty? Is it on your… you know?" Emily asked, vaguely gesturing downwards between Miguel's legs.

"My tattoos really aren't that special." Miguel said, before realising the last question Emily asked and winced. "What, NO! Oww! People can do that?"

Emily giggled at the look of pure pain on his face as he attempted to picture what it would be like to get a tattoo on his…

"Yeah, I heard about it a while back. These idiot guys in our sister school decided to make a bet last year. One of them got dumped so he wanted revenge on the girl. Him and two other guys said that the first one to sleep with the guy's ex's mom wins, and the losing two would have to get a tattoo of his choice on their… you know. Well, one of them won so the other two needed to get tattoos."

"Not gonna lie, not one person in that story sounds like a winner." Miguel laughed.

"Anyways, so what are the tattoos! Come on, I'm going to see them eventually! So whether I hear about them now, or I see them days, weeks, months from now, there's no escaping it!"

Miguel raised an eyebrow at something Emily said.

"Months from now? I'm going to be around months from now?" He asked, giving her a playful half-smile that Emily found irresistible. She blushed as she realised that she had just exposed her true feelings for him, but she shook it off quickly.

"You're changing the subject! Come on! Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!" She exclaimed, sitting up on the bench and facing him. As Miguel looked into her eyes, their faces only illuminated by a single lamp above them, Miguel felt like he could just live in that moment. The look he saw in her eyes… she genuinely cared about him so, so, so much. It was a look Miguel hadn't seen from a girlfriend in… well, ever. Tory had only cared about him because of his king cobra status, even Sam hadn't looked at him like this before. He had thought this about a million times since he had met her, but Emily was different to anyone he had ever been with before and he needed to hold on to this girl. He could be with her for a while.

"Okay, fine." Miguel relented. "So I have 4 tattoos: one medium sized one on the left side of my chest; one large one on my shoulder; and one really large one on my back."

"Oooh, start with the chest one." Emily said eagerly. Miguel laughed.

"You're really making a lot of this, aren't you?" He remarked. Emily glared at him.

"I swear to God if you delay this any longer…"

"Okay, okay!" Miguel laughed, holding up his hands in defeat. "The one on my chest is probably my most sane, tactful one. It's a quote by my favourite athlete."

"Conor McGregor?" She asked. Miguel nodded, confused.

"Um… yeah, how'd you know?" He asked. Emily blushed.

"Oh, uh… you mentioned it at some point at the diner I think. Like the second or third day." She admitted. Miguel couldn't help but blush slightly. This girl remembered things he told her weeks ago! Maybe, just maybe, she was into him just as much as he was into her!

Miguel nodded.

"Yeah, so it's a quote that says 'I am not talented, I am obsessed.' I don't know why but that quote just rings a lot with me. Like when I started karate 1 and a half years ago, I had 0 talent. But I became obsessed with the sport and had to scrap for every inch of what I've achieved, just like McGregor did in his career. So yeah, that's tattoo number 1."

"What about tattoo number 2? The back tattoo?" She asked. Miguel nodded.

"Yeah, that one's a lot bigger. So in September, I got a tattoo of a cobra down my spine."

"To represent your old karate center?" She asked. Miguel nodded, once again shocked at how much they knew about each other despite only meeting less than a month ago.

"Yeah, exactly. But then, when I quit, I kind of was in a tough spot because I didn't know what to do with the tattoo."

"Um… remove it?" Emily laughed.

"You know, fun fact adults don't tell you, getting a tattoo removed is not only painful, but it's also EXPENSIVE. I could get 10 tattoos for the price of removing one."

"So let me guess… you just added more onto the previous tattoo?" She asked. Miguel chuckled and nodded.

"Bingo. I added an eagle to represent my current karate dojo, and it is swooping down and grabbing the cobra in its talons. And that goes down my whole back."

"Oh, wow. That's… out there." Emily commented. Miguel laughed.

"And that's not even the most random one! It gets weirder!" He admitted. "The one on my shoulder had no rhyme or reason behind it whatsoever. I had just had a bad day, had one too many drinks, and was like you know what, why not?"

"Oh, God! This is gonna be good! What is it?" Emily eagerly questioned. Miguel unbuttoned his shirt two buttons, enough to pull his arm out. When Emily saw it, her jaw dropped. Miguel had a seriously badass looking medieval tattoo on his right shoulder! It was like one of those ancient metal shoulder armour translated perfectly into ink form. The fact that his shoulder and arm muscles were so huge only made the tattoo pop out more and look absolutely badass, like he was some medieval gladiator or something. Miguel blushed as he put his arm back into the shirt.

"So yeah. That's about it. My dark shames." Miguel stated. Emily nodded.

"You know, you talk about these tattoos being random, or weird, but you not once called any of them straight-up bad. Do you like the tattoos?"

Miguel looked at her, confused.

"Well, I mean I get so much crap from my mom and my friends and…"

"Do YOU like it?" Emily repeated, her gorgeous eyes piercing right into his, x-raying straight into his soul. Miguel decided to be fully honest and admit something he hadn't admitted to anyone on the face of the earth.

"Honestly… yeah. I think they make me look tougher." Miguel stated. Emily smiled and nodded.

"Well if the other two are anything like the shoulder one, I can see why!" She exclaimed. "And I know you've probably been told this before, everyone our age is told this crap at some point, but you really shouldn't let the opinions of others affect you. If YOU like it, that's what's important. And for the record, I think that shoulder tattoo looked very attractive."

Miguel smiled at her, his affection for the girl only growing with every passing moment.

"Thanks." He murmured. She beamed at him, leaning her back against him and enabling the two of them to share warmth on the chilly evening.

"Now… let's see what gorgeous tattoo I got." She remarked sarcastically, taking the peel n stick tattoo out and looking at a bright pink love heart. "A heart. Great."

"Haha, a broken heart by the looks of it." Miguel remarked, pointing at the fact that the heart wasn't even full, and looked like it had been sliced in half down the middle.

"What the…" Emily looked at the torn tattoo, confused, before reading the packet the tattoo had come in and understanding. "Oh, the packet says that it's meant to be a half-half tattoo. Half's supposed to go on your inner wrist, the other half's supposed to go on your partner's inner wrist so when you put them beside each other, they make a full heart. So give me your wrist."

Miguel laughed.

"Yeah, sorry but you won't catch me dead with a bright pink tattoo like that." Miguel responded.

"Give me your wrist." Emily stated, again.

"What? No, I'm not wearing that!" He laughed. But Emily didn't take no for an answer. She took his left hand and before he could say no, slapped the tattoo onto his left wrist. Miguel playfully groaned as she did it but to be honest, he wasn't that annoyed about it. If anything, he was happy about it. It showed that Emily actually liked him.

"There you go! See, look how good that looks!" Emily giggled as Miguel looked at the tattoo and shuddered. To be fair, it didn't look as girly as he thought it would. Due to him struggling, the tattoo had smudged a bit as Emily had put it on, making it look like the heart was bleeding pink.

"Eh, upside: if I walk down the street and see one of your ex-boyfriends, this tattoo's probably scarier than my back or shoulder one." Miguel remarked. Emily chuckled.

"Well, if you're walking down the street looking for exes, you're going to be walking until you're too old to walk any longer because you're not going to find any."

Miguel raised an eyebrow.

"Really? I find it hard to believe that someone as beautiful and kind as you has no exes." Miguel remarked. Emily blushed at the flattering comments and sighed.

"Okay, I have one ex. He was an absolute pig." She remarked. Miguel winced.

"Oof, I take it things didn't end well. What happened if you don't mind my asking? Just so, you know, I don't do the exact same thing." Miguel asked.

"You're probably not going to do the exact same thing. He cheated on me. Repeatedly. But I know that's not something you would do so I'm not worried."

Miguel had to stifle a gulp. He remembered he hadn't actually told her about what happened between him, Sam and Tory in the leadup to the school fight. He didn't think it was a good idea to tell his crush about the mistakes he made with his ex.

"What about you? Any exes I have to worry about?" Emily asked. Miguel shook his head.

"Like you, it's not exactly a long list. I only really seriously dated 2 girls, and broke up with the last one like 6 months ago."

"Oh, what happened? Why'd you break up?" Emily asked curiously. Miguel's heart started pounding. This was a crossroad moment for him. Should he tell her the truth right then and there? It would save him from having to lie to her as if they stayed together, he would have to tell her eventually. But on the other hand, given what happened with her ex-boyfriend, there was a good chance that she would just get up and leave. What should he do?

"Oh, uh… we, uh… just had different interests, to be honest. So we kind of drifted apart." Miguel lied. Emily nodded.

"Well, I guess that's her loss because you've found a much hotter girl now." She joked, winking playfully at him. He smiled, his face a merely foot from hers.

"I know I did." He replied softly. At that moment, the two both looked deep into each other's eyes and leaned in. However, just as their lips were about to make contact, they heard a voice above them.

"I'm sorry, sir, madam, you need to leave now. We're closing the… well, well, well, look who it is."

Miguel's blood ran cold. He knew exactly whose voice that was. It was someone who he hadn't seen since he quit Cobra Kai. Someone he hoped he wouldn't have to see until the All-Valley, least of all when he was on a date, especially given that he had lied about her just seconds before. It was like karma was coming back and biting him for his lie. Miguel slowly turned around to face her, a nervous expression on her face.

"Hey, Tory…"