Miguel had been sitting at a bench outside the Perisur, sipping from a glass Coke bottle while he pored over the cheap tourist map of the local geography when the bus dropped off more people who had come to visit the mall. He, at first, paid them little mind, giving only a cursory glance up before lowering his eyes back down to the map, wondering where to try next in his quest to locate information regarding his elusive father's possible whereabouts.

The excited chatter of children got Miguel to look up at the group again, and he watched a little boy run over to his parents and exclaim in Spanish where he wanted to go first. Miguel was about to return his attention to his map when something caught his eyes. Someone was approaching his area from the group.

Squinting, Miguel stood up from his seat, staring at the familiar person who now spotted him, too. "You've gotta be kidding me," he mumbled, furrowing his brows. But a surprised smile curled around the corners of his mouth as he ascertained just who was hustling up to meet him now.

"Yo, El Serpiente!"

Miguel's creased eyebrows rose up his forehead. "Hawk?"

It was Hawk. His friend was standing there right in front of him, wearing a grin of his own, along with a rather large backpack. Miguel drew him into a firm bro-hug, unable to even begin wrapping his head around the reality that Eli was suddenly here with him; not in the Valley, but all the way down in Mexico City. Way too many questions flooded him, the how's, the why's of this unexpected turn of events.

But he only asked the immediate one on his mind. "Dude, um, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, obviously," answered Hawk, as if the question was stupid to ask. Gesturing to Miguel, he followed up with his own inquiry. "How's the, uh, old injury doing?"

Miguel almost laughed. Was this a fever dream or something? Had there been something in that Coke he drank? The last time he saw Hawk, they had been fighting each other on the mats in the semifinals at the All-Valley Tournament. Before he pulled a muscle in his back. Before he pulled out of the Tournament altogether.

"That's the first thing you ask?" Miguel shook his head in disbelief, but couldn't hold back a chuckle this time as the smile on his face widened. Scratching the back of his neck, he answered, "Um, it's doing fine now."

"Good," remarked Hawk, "because I'm also here to do this."

Before Miguel could even blink, Hawk dropped down, sweeping his leg out and kicking Miguel's out from under him, sending him falling to the ground on his ass with a grunt. "What the hell?" exclaimed Miguel, staring up at his friend with confusion.

Eli's small smirk curled up the side of his face, still looking so much like the old Hawk, even with his buzzed hair. "That was for ditching our fight at the All-Valley," he said, extending his hand to help Miguel stand back up on his feet.

Miguel felt his cheeks warming while he dusted off his jeans. "Yeah, about that…." How could he even begin to explain the tumultuous emotions that had been swirling inside him like a hurricane, not just while he'd been in the recovery room, but throughout the whole Tournament? All he could think to say at the spur of the moment was, "It was nothing personal."

For a moment, Hawk simply stared at him. But then he bumped his shoulder. "It's cool. I figured it probably had to be a pretty big deal if you ran all the way to Mexico to bail from our match."

Laughing under his breath, Miguel pointed out, "But what was with that cheap shot just now? Didn't think Miyagi-Dos were supposed to provoke like that."

"Old habits," said Hawk with a soft snort, rolling his shoulders.

"Oh yeah?" Miguel grinned. "So, who ended up winning the Tournament?"

The edge of Hawk's mouth twitched. "Tory won the girls' league."

Miguel's smile dropped. He was surprised his stomach didn't follow right along with it. But, for some reason, the karate war felt a million miles away. It damn near was, literally. But in his mind, it almost felt like a dream. There wasn't as much distress at hearing about this victory for Cobra Kai as he thought there might be. He was sorry for what it meant for Sam, more than anything.

Recovering, he met Hawk's eyes again. "And the boys'?"

Hawk raised his eyebrows. He jutted out his chin, and his smirk returned.

As did Miguel's grin. "Get outta here, right on, man!" he said, giving Hawk their customary fist bump. "Guess I should get used to calling you the champ now, huh?"

"You'll always be the champ to me," admitted Eli, his eyes flitting down for a few seconds. Then, looking back at Miguel, he added, "But I won't lie, that trophy does look pretty banging on my bookshelf back home."

Miguel could only laugh again. It had been the first time he'd done it since coming down to Mexico City, where he'd only run into one road block after another as he tried finding out any details he could about where his father might be located. He never thought in a million years he'd be laying his eyes on his best friend here.

"Okay, you've gotta explain how you're standing here talking to me right now," said Miguel. "We really need to address that. It's not exactly like running into you at the local McDonald's, y'know? I mean, you literally tracked me down in a whole other country. How'd you even do that? Wait, is Mr. LaRusso here, too? Sam?"

"No," said Hawk.

"What about Sensei?" Miguel surprised himself by how much fear there was to his question. Like he really was worried that Sensei Lawrence had followed Hawk down here. Because how was he going to explain all this to Sensei, face-to-face?

Eli rolled his eyes. "Please, Sensei Lawrence couldn't find his way out of an IKEA with a map, you think he could find you here?"

Well, that was a relief, at least. Although, if Miguel was being honest with himself, he was surprised Sensei hadn't managed to track him down yet. Part of him suspected that whenever he got the news that he'd bailed, Sensei would probably start looking for him, despite him having made it clear in his note that he'd be back. Shit, maybe Sensei was lost somewhere in Mexico City right now. One never knew with him. "And my mom and Yaya?"

"It's just me," said Hawk.

"Alright," said Miguel, "but that doesn't answer my question about how you found me down here, though."

Hawk gave him a beleaguered look. "Okay, you know how you've been posting those pics on your Instagram? By the way, dick move to just ignore everyone's comments on those."

Miguel scrunched his shoulders back sheepishly. "That was just to let everyone know I'm still alive."

It killed him inside to ignore everyone's comments. Especially his mother's. She was so worried for him. He knew she would be. Every comment she left was a plea for him to come back home. And Miguel had had no idea what to say to her, how to explain himself, why he had to make this journey. Everything he'd felt he could tell her he'd already left in that letter. And he didn't want to get into it with the others. So, he'd decided to just ghost everyone. He didn't keep up with their posts, didn't scroll through their feeds, hadn't even heard who had won the All-Valley Tournament. It was like the Valley didn't even exist to him right now, like it was closed off completely. It had seemed like the only solution at the time.

"But what does that have to do with you finding me?" asked Miguel, bringing his attention back to the present.

"It didn't take a genius to figure out you were deliberately leaving out place names and street addresses, so it'd be hard to pinpoint your location," Hawk explained. "I assume you were taking those boring pics of animals and hills and shit in case your mom got the cops or whoever involved, right?"

Miguel blinked. Were his motivations that easy to read? "Uh, yeah."

"Okay, well, long story short, next time you go incognito, try not posting a pic of a butterfly native only to this area."

"You're telling me you tracked me all the way down here from a picture of a butterfly?" asked Miguel.

Hawk conceded, "Well, technically it was Demetri who identified the species and narrowed the location; he told me to tell you hi, by the way. But I'm the one who hopped on a bus and crossed the border to find you."

Miguel blinked again, taking a minute to let that explanation sink in. He could only suppose he was fortunate that it was Hawk who'd figured that out. "Alright, so you tracked me down. What happens next?" he asked, his voice dropping while he squared his shoulders back, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Are you here to try and talk me into going back home?"

"Hell no!" exclaimed Hawk, his small smirk returning. "I'm here to join you."