They spent the night bar-hopping. Hawk's suggestion, of course. He'd presented it as a challenge to Miguel, a way for the two of them to see the city nightlife in the district, while also determining which local taverns wouldn't mind serving a couple of seventeen-year-olds alcohol. After all, the legal drinking age in Mexico was eighteen, they had an even better shot here than if they were back home.
It was the most Hawk thing Hawk had done since the ordeal with Cobra Kai, short of hopping on a bus and breaking for south of the border. So Miguel rolled with it. Live in the moment. It was what the both of them needed right then, right? To just live? He thought so, and it turned out to be the most fun he'd had in quite some time, and easily the best night he'd had since he'd arrived in the city.
They only succeeded in getting a pint of beer each once, out of hitting seven bars, but neither of them even cared when they failed. Because getting caught, getting those rolls of the eyes from the bartender before being told to beat it? It was fun. Almost addictive. And besides, even if they couldn't score a pint at most places, there was always happy hour bar food to stuff their faces with.
The two of them walked out of the latest bar together. No luck getting beers there either, but Miguel did carry out a box with a double-order of camarones al coco. Hawk was still swaying in step to the music blasting from inside the tavern.
Miguel laughed. "You can understand the lyrics to that?"
"Language barriers don't matter when a beat fucks," replied Hawk, keeping up the rhythm until they were far along down the street that the music was no longer within earshot.
"How about we head back to the hostel and chow down?" asked Miguel, holding up the box in his hand.
As he asked that, they passed by an Oxxo. And Eli's eyes lit up. "First we gotta get in a real victory before calling it a night. Wait here a sec."
While Hawk drifted into the convenience store, Miguel leaned against the building beside the door, whistling softly and watching the ebb and flow of cars and pedestrians crossing the busy streets. And the longer he watched without the distraction provided by the bars, the more he started to ponder. It was crazy to think that anywhere out there, his father could be wandering around in this city at this very moment. Maybe he'd already passed him on the sidewalk. Perhaps he'd been in one of the bars they'd hit up.
If Miguel locked eyes with his father, would he just instinctively know?
"¡Victoria!" exclaimed Hawk, emerging from the Oxxo with a six-pack of Corona beer bottles. Setting them down at his feet, he flashed his fake ID to Miguel before sticking it in his wallet and adding, "Glad I decided not to throw this bad boy away after all."
"What, they out of Coors Banquet?" joked Miguel with a chuckle, only for something inside him to twist at the mention of Sensei Lawrence's favorite beer brand. Why had he even joked about it?
"We need to change it up. Let's try Coronas instead." Hawk took one of the Corona bottles out of the pack, popped the cap off with the bottle-opener he'd bought, and offered it to Miguel. "One for the road?"
Miguel accepted the chilled bottle with his free hand. "Sure, thanks."
While Miguel took a small sip from his drink, getting used to the taste of this brand he'd never tried before, Eli cracked open one for himself. Miguel's eyebrows raised when Hawk tossed it back, chugging it down in deep gulps. And he was sure his brows must have reached his hairline by the time he finished watching Hawk guzzle down the whole bottle, which couldn't have been longer than thirty seconds.
"Jesus," remarked Miguel.
Hawk just smiled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand while he put the empty bottle back into the carrier. "What? I'm not driving tonight," he quipped, popping the cap off another one before grabbing the handle of the carrier. And only then did the two of them begin their trek back to the hostel.
Hawk had a point, Miguel realized. Screw it, why not?
Bringing the bottle to his lips, Miguel tipped it up and chugged. The cold suds flowed fast down his throat, and Miguel swallowed it and kept going. He hadn't even put one down this quickly back at the canon party he and his friends had thrown the night before the first All-Valley Tournament. The last night he'd gotten completely shitfaced. And it wasn't even about him trying to beat Hawk's record right now. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Granted, he questioned that feeling as soon as he emptied the bottle and immediately had to catch himself from stumbling on his feet. But that was from the blood rushing to his head, nothing more. And he smiled when Hawk elbowed him.
"Now we're living in the moment," Hawk remarked, pausing to crack open another for Miguel.
Taking it, Miguel snorted. "Heh, yeah, but maybe I'll savor this one longer."
And savor it he did while they continued the long walk back to the hostel. And while he savored it and listened to Hawk hum back the beat of that song he'd been dancing to earlier, Miguel let his mind drift back to fathers and Senseis.
He'd known things would get weird when Sensei Lawrence and his mom started dating. A period of adjustment was normal. He was old enough to understand that, intellectually. Emotionally, however, Miguel was tired of adjusting. He'd done enough adjusting over the past nine months. He'd adjusted to learning how to walk again, to losing his old dojo and getting a new one, to absorbing knowledge from a brand new Sensei with an entirely different outlook on things than what he was used to hearing from his first Sensei.
It feels kinda weird to say it out loud, but…there's also a lot of things I want to stay the same.
Yeah, like what?
Like you being my Sensei.
"Sensei Lawrence pressured me to keep fighting, you know? During our semifinals match." It came out of his mouth, and Miguel didn't know why. Maybe if he'd been drinking Coors Banquet, it wouldn't have.
Hawk glanced at him with an arched eyebrow, probably caught unawares by this non-sequitur back to the life they'd both left behind. "Sounds like Sensei Lawrence, alright," he said, taking another swig from his own beer. But he swallowed it down hard, almost choking on it, and then Eli turned to look at him again, mouth agape. "Wait, after you blew out your back?"
Miguel downed another sip, knowing deep down he should stop drinking now. But Corona tasted better than he thought it would, no matter what the rumbling in his stomach was telling him. "I pulled a muscle. The medic left it up to me, but Sensei kept telling me to just push through it because there was too much at stake to give up. Because if I lost, he wouldn't be my Sensei anymore…."
"Fuck him."
He was to the point now where part of him wanted to agree with Hawk. But the other part of him wanted to bawl like a baby because, after all the upheaval to his life since breaking his spine, his one constant had been Johnny always looking out for him as his Sensei….
Do what I tell you, and we'll not only take down Cobra Kai, we'll show LaRusso and everybody else who's really the best.
Miguel doubled forward as his stomach violently lurched. Despite the alcoholic stupor, his reflexes were just intact enough to break for the nearest alleyway to spill the contents of his stomach near the dumpster, dropping his bottle and box on the ground in his maddening dash. The cold sweat of sickness dripped down his clammy skin while he promptly threw up the beer and bar food from earlier. Along with a mountain of feelings that had been ripping apart his insides for weeks.
Then he felt a hand rubbing circles down his back. "Miguel, you okay?"
How could he be okay? He was here in a foreign country looking for his biological father because the man he'd looked up to more than anyone in the whole world wanted him to risk hurting himself again to own Mr. LaRusso. And now he couldn't even tell whether the wetness sliding down his cheeks was from cold sweats or tears. Miguel didn't know if he was going to be okay ever again.
The hand on his back soothed him until his heaves came out dry. Now the noises coming out of his burning throat were a mixture of gags and sobs, indecipherable to anyone but himself. And Miguel almost collapsed to his knees under the weight of his grief, only to be caught by a pair of arms.
"I got you, man," Hawk promised him, throwing his arm over his shoulder and heaving him back on his unsteady feet. He helped Miguel the rest of the way to the hostel, leaving the food and the rest of the beer abandoned on the ground by the dumpster.