One plate of tacos wasn't enough. Miguel returned to their table with another order. At least his appetite had returned.

"Even if Sam's upset with you now," continued Hawk from where they'd left off when Miguel made his second trip to the taco truck, "she might understand when you get back home and explain everything in person. If she could forgive me for everything, then you definitely have a shot."

Pouring hot sauce over his food, Miguel sat on that thought for a second. "I don't think it really matters if I can explain all this over the phone or in person," he decided, setting the bottle of Valentina back on the table. "It sounded like Sam's been going through a hard time, too, and I just left her to deal with all that. I mean, I hope she understands one day why I did it, but I'm not going home expecting us to still be together."

"And you're gonna be…okay with that?" asked Hawk, leaning forward in his chair.

All Miguel could do was shrug and point out, "I got no one to blame but myself, y'know? I'm not exactly Mr. Sensitive." Like when he'd assumed the worst of Sam ignoring his texts and showing Robby to her family, but not him. Like when he hurt Tory's feelings at Moon's party last summer by kissing Sam.

"Dude, really? You're the most sensitive guy I know," protested Hawk. "Not to mention you're totally ripped. You got it all, looks and personality, you're the total package. You're, like, every girl's dream guy."

Miguel rolled his eyes at that, choosing to spare Hawk the embarrassing details of the time Sensei Lawrence had him oil up to try and attract a prospective female champion to Eagle Fang; none of them rushed to join. But he still had a hard time keeping the corner of his mouth from curling shyly as he wondered how Hawk might've reacted to seeing him flex in front of the girls like that.

Hawk continued, adding, "You've just had some bad luck with girlfriends, that's all."

Miguel snorted. Bad luck was one way to put it. "Hmm, no, pretty sure I'm the common denominator here."

Even though Miguel tried to weave a twinge of light-heartedness into the resolve of his words, so he didn't completely drag the mood down, there was still a warning hidden in them. He hadn't been a great boyfriend to either Sam or Tory. Thinking about it, he couldn't understand why. He'd loved them both. He was such an old-school romantic that even Sensei Lawrence made fun of him for it; it was his Yaya's fault, making him watch all those telenovelas with her growing up. He had a yearning inside him to love, and to be loved, but….

Miguel sighed, offering Hawk a pick from his tacos. Eli declined his offer. "Figured you'd be hungrier after a hard night of partying," remarked Miguel, putting on a smile while he scooped up one of the corn tortillas and shoved the taco into his mouth.

"You just jealous I didn't bring you back any weed this time?" joked Hawk before taking a drink of his water. "I'm gonna miss those guys, though."

Swallowing another mouthful of taco, Miguel said, "Did you tell them they'd been living next door to a couple of All-Valley Champions all this time?"

Hawk's grin curled a little higher. "I thought we wanted to keep a low profile while we were out here. Can't be going around letting everyone know a couple of major celebrities have been hiding here all along and still keep on the DL."

Miguel knew his next comment would make Hawk's smile disappear, and was sorry for it, but he pushed forward anyway. "Telling people you broke someone's arm isn't exactly keeping a low profile."

Just as he suspected, Eli's grin faded. His friend scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably, and Miguel watched his whole face flush red. "Oh. Right," mumbled Hawk.

Miguel paused, eating another taco to give Hawk a chance to keep talking. But Eli apparently had nothing else to add about his drunken bender, even though spilling the history of the karate war to complete strangers was kind of a big deal. And a sign of a guilty conscience.

For a brief moment, Miguel imagined Hawk as drunk as Sensei Lawrence had been the night after prom. And he remembered how Sensei's guilt had also come spilling out with the aid of beer. Guilt Miguel had thought had been about him….

I wanna be a father to you. I really do. I try to protect you. I try to be there for you. I just suck at it. I really suck at it. But I want to so bad.

Stuffing another bite of taco in his mouth, Miguel chewed it slowly, taking his time before swallowing it to stare across the table at Hawk. "Hey, are you and Demetri…okay?"

Hawk's eyes widened in surprise. "Yeah, of course we're okay."

"You said Demetri helped you track my location in Mexico City, right?" asked Miguel.

Hawk nodded. "Yeah."

"Sam said Demetri thought you were coming down here to bring me back home," Miguel explained. "You didn't tell Demetri you were planning on staying here, did you?"

Miguel didn't say it in an accusatory way; after all, who was he to judge anyone at this point? But the guilt on Hawk's face only deepened, as did the color on it.

"He thought the plan to bring you back myself was the most insane thing he'd ever heard," said Eli, picking at the edge of the table with his fingers. "And then he started talking about the both of us coming down here together to find you."

"And you didn't want him to," concluded Miguel, staring at Hawk's fidgeting hand. The sudden urge to reach out and grasp it hit him. Whether it was to stop the restlessness or to simply touch him, Miguel couldn't determine and didn't have enough time to think over it.

Because after a beat, Eli explained, "He would've insisted on keeping to that plan. He probably would've dragged you on the bus home. Okay, maybe not dragged, but he wouldn't have stopped complaining until we all got on the bus back to California."

Miguel pressed him, "Is that the only reason you didn't want him to come?"

Eli stared down at the table for such a long moment that Miguel worried he might close off the conversation entirely. But then, in almost a hush, he muttered under his breath, "The last six months, things between me and Demetri have been…great. It hasn't really felt real, it's like none of the shit between us when I was in Cobra Kai even happened. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop with him, for him to get mad and yell at me but he never did."

Pinching his brows together, Miguel noted, "Well, yeah, he forgave you, didn't he?"

Hawk nodded again, peering across at him now. "I don't know why he did."

"You still feel guilty about what happened, don't you?" asked Miguel, cutting to the heart of it.

A pensive glaze came over Hawk's eyes as he confessed, "I've never stopped."

Miguel sat in his chair in silence, his plate of tacos sitting now untouched in front of him, not knowing what to say to that. He hadn't intervened between Hawk and Demetri after they'd reconciled. Forgiving Hawk had been up to Demetri. Everything that had happened between them had been so personal, Miguel hadn't wanted to step into their lane. They'd been friends with each other for far longer than he'd been with either.

From the outside, things between them had seemed fine. But then again, Miguel supposed he must've seemed fine on the outside to everyone else, too. Then he'd run away from home. And so had Hawk.

The unease on Hawk's face only became more present as the quiet stretched out. "And you know what's crazy?" he asked. "Demetri's probably gonna forgive me for blowing him off to come here, too. I mean, I broke his fucking arm and he doesn't even hate me for that. I don't know what I could do at this point to make him hate me."

"Do you…want him to hate you?" asked Miguel, the crease at the bridge of his nose deepening.

"No…," muttered Eli, his voice dropping even lower, sinking into his shoulders like he was retreating into himself. "But he should. I mean, who treats their friend like I did? Who does any of the shit that I did? So it's like, so what if I beat Robby at the All-Valley? We still lost the Grand Championship. I couldn't save Miyagi-Do. I couldn't even save Demetri's dojo for him. The one thing he asked me to do and even when I won, I still couldn't make things right."

Miguel opened his mouth to remind Hawk that none of them could be blamed for what happened at the All-Valley, that he himself had done the math and realized Miyagi-Fang would have won if they'd competed as one dojo. But then, he wasn't really talking about that, was he? This wasn't about winning the Grand Championship. It was about him and Demetri.

Swallowing hard, Miguel recalled what Hawk had told him on the bus trip, about how Mr. LaRusso said the biggest battle was the one within. And it sounded like there was one raging inside his friend.

At Miguel's extended silence, Hawk kept going, his voice dropping even lower. "I tried to tell Demetri before, when he came to ask me to help Miyagi-Do. I had my shot, I got power for the first time in my life and rather than doing anything good with it, I just used it to be an asshole. I can't take back anything I did. What happened to me, with this." He paused to rake his fingers roughly over his crew cut. "Robby just gave me what I deserved."

Miguel's jaw tensed at hearing that name. "That's not true," he stated, his tone firm enough to make it clear it wasn't up for debate. But when that assertion did nothing to change the look on Hawk's face, Miguel's frown tightened. The blood pumping in his veins started heating his skin. "Would you say I got what I deserved from him, too?"

The color drained from Hawk's face so fast it took Miguel aback. "No way! Of course not!"

"Then why—"

"You almost died and you didn't do anything wrong!" declared Hawk. "You let Robby go, you showed mercy, you did everything right and what happened to you wasn't fair! But I can probably count on one hand the number of times I didn't fuck shit up."

"Just because you made some bad choices doesn't mean what Robby did to you was fair, either," Miguel retorted.

Hawk sighed, his shoulders slumping even more as he sunk back in his seat. It didn't sound like a sigh of defeat, that he was giving Miguel the win. It was more dispirited, like he wasn't being understood. "I wanna hate him," he confessed. "And part of me does still hate him. For what he did to you. But for me? Even though that afternoon at Rico's was one of the worst days of my life, I still can't hate Robby more than I hate myself."