He'd been cooped up so long that his room started to feel claustrophobic. He finally understood what people meant when they talked about going crazy from cabin fever. He had seen so much of his surrounding walls that he would've kicked them down if he'd been able to. So Miguel welcomed any and all visitors his mother allowed him see, and his face lit up when Hawk stepped through his door that evening.
"Hey," greeted Miguel, sitting up and propping a couple pillows against his lower back.
"Sup." Hawk grabbed the chair from in front of his desk and sat down in it beside the bed. From the looks of it, he must have recently given himself a fresh dye-job. The red of his mohawk was more vibrant than Miguel could ever remember it being. Or maybe the jet-black roots and sides just seemed darker by contrast.
Laying on a bigger smile, Miguel clasped his hands together pleadingly. "Dude, you gotta get me out of here," he joked. "I think I'm about to lose it if I don't get some fresh air and new scenery soon. It's been like a prison in this apartment."
That made Hawk laugh, which lifted Miguel's spirits. Things had been so heavy and dour for him lately, it felt like his life had been turned upside down ever since he'd woken up at the hospital. Being around a familiar face, having fun with someone? He'd missed that terribly.
"Your grandma would probably kill me if I busted you out," retorted Hawk.
Miguel chuckled in return. "If she didn't kill me first."
Hawk raised his eyebrows. "I mean, I could try though," he said. "I could sneak you out through your window and hide you in the back of my car. Then you could lay low at my house for a while, y'know, until the cops stop looking. Just don't let my parents see you. I've been in enough trouble with them lately."
"Don't you always have 'trouble' written all over you?" joshed Miguel, choosing to gloss over the story behind Hawk's words. He could only imagine how the Moskowitzes must have reacted to his participation in the school fight. Must've been ugly.
"Yeah, and don't forget it," Hawk remarked with a smirk, crossing his arms and slouching back in the chair. Then in his straight-forward bluntness, he asked, "So, are you back on your feet yet or not? You can't sit on your ass and be lazy forever, man."
Miguel snorted and stared down at his legs. He flexed his toes, one of the first exercises the doctors had him do on his road to recovery. Each day he'd felt the strength in his legs returning, the muscles rebuilding their firmness in his calves until he was finally able to walk again.
And as soon as he could walk around the apartment, he'd started trying to kick. And punch. And all the other things he knew his mother didn't want him doing anytime soon.
Usually everyone around him treated him with kid gloves those days, worried that he was made of porcelain or something, that he'd break again at the slightest bit of pressure. The nurses did. His mother did. Sam did when she came to visit. The only person who hadn't babied him was his Ya-Ya. So it was nice being around someone who gave him the benefit of the doubt that maybe things could go back to normal. That he really was strong enough to recover from this.
It made him wonder how Sensei Lawrence would treat him. Sensei would also have faith that he'd be back in fighting shape in enough time. He'd be there coaching him through it. Miguel was sure of it. Sometimes it was the only thing that powered him through his physical therapy, hearing the words of his Sensei in his head, telling him he could do it.
And Miguel tried not to think of the times his legs collapsed out from under him when he remembered Sensei Lawrence had so far not been around….
Pushing that to the back of his mind, he instead told Hawk, "Hey, enjoy being on top while it lasts, 'cause I'm gonna be back in the game before you know it."
Hawk sat up straight, and his smile curled further up the side of his face. "So that means you're coming back to Cobra Kai?" There was unbridled excitement in his voice.
But Miguel couldn't match his enthusiasm. Now it felt like he had a baseball lodged in his throat, thinking about what it would mean to go back to Cobra Kai since the business had changed hands. Things didn't feel right. He couldn't imagine Cobra Kai without Sensei Lawrence teaching.
They'd built that dojo practically from the ground up, the two of them. How could Sensei have washed his hands of it and walked away, abandoning it? Abandoning him?
Miguel swallowed the lump in his throat, where it then sat heavy in the pit of his stomach.
"What about Tory?" he asked, like that would provide all the excuse he needed to stay away. Miguel's gut hurt at saying her name, feeling that guilt yank harder as he remembered the whole reason any of this happened was because he'd hurt Tory. If he hadn't kissed Sam that night at Moon's party, everything could've been avoided.
He watched Hawk's face get unreadable, saw him look aside for a second before he gave a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. "Who even knows what's going on with her anymore?" he muttered. "She shows up to class but doesn't really talk to any of us. I don't know what her deal is."
Miguel sighed. He didn't know what else to expect. He had no clue where things between he and Tory currently stood. She hadn't yet come to visit. And she didn't reply to the one text he'd sent her after he left the hospital. Part of Miguel wanted to keep trying, but it felt like the situation with Sam over the summer all over again; all communication had been closed off. Between the three of them, things were hopelessly fucked up.
Almost like he could read his thoughts, Hawk shook his head. "Chicks, amirite?"
Sighing again, Miguel rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he mumbled, reaching around to rub the sore muscles in the back of his neck. Still, maybe time away from his girl troubles would do all of them some good. Maybe he was the problem. Maybe he should just concentrate on the guys for a while.
"How about the others?" he inquired. The ones who stayed. He'd heard Aisha was gone. So was Bert. A few more, as well. And Miguel knew, deep down, for that reason alone, that even if he did go back, even if he could deal with every other change, things simply couldn't go back to normal. He couldn't even say the situation was similar to losing Chris, Nathaniel, and the other guys to Miyagi-Do.
Cobra Kai was cracked in two, wasn't it?
If Hawk had ever given that revelation any thought, he made no show of it. "Same old dickweeds as ever," he said, smiling again, although this one looked more strained to Miguel's eyes. "But for real, they can't wait to see you back in action. They're probably pretty tired of me kicking their asses alone."
"You haven't been too hard on them, have you?" Hawk sometimes had a difficult time reigning himself in, of knowing when not to cross a line. He could be a real dickweed himself when he wanted to be.
Miguel watched Hawk's smile ebb at the corners of his mouth. "Sensei Kreese told me to keep them in line. Y'know, to toughen them up. We're at war, man. We can't lose anymore."
Arching a skeptical eyebrow, Miguel prodded, "What do you mean?" What war? Wasn't Robby serving out a sentence in juvie? Hadn't Sam told him her father had officially closed Miyagi-Do when she came to visit? Who was there left to fight?
Hawk opened and closed his mouth twice, like he didn't know how to properly explain himself. So he shrugged in lieu of finding the right words. "Sensei Kreese can explain it better."
Miguel didn't like that answer, but chose to let it go for the time being. "Have you…Have you heard anything from Sensei Lawrence?" he asked, sounding shamefully like a plea.
Hawk's brows knitted to the bridge of his nose. "No." Miguel looked down, and tried not to show hurt in his features. But Hawk must have seen something on his face, because he remarked, "Doesn't he still live across from you guys? Hasn't he visited?"
Miguel hesitated to answer, but then shook his head. No. Not one visit. And being confronted with that fact forced the answer to the question of why Sensei Lawrence had abandoned him to the forefront of his mind: because his mother had forced him to; because she blamed him for what happened.
Surely Sensei Lawrence would be here if he could. But he couldn't.
Looking up, Miguel caught the way Hawk's mouth opened to say something. He cut him off. "Do you really like how Sensei Kreese runs class?" asked Miguel, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. Seeing Hawk's face pinch harder, he added, "I get that he was Sensei's Sensei and all, but, I mean, I can't imagine things can be all that fun if he's in charge."
At least Sensei Lawrence sometimes let them kid around. At least he knew when not to be such a hardass, even if he needed the occasional reminder. But Sensei Kreese?
"Sensei Kreese puts us through the wringer, but it's only because he knows we can take it," Hawk tried explaining. "Well, maybe the others always can't, but I can. And once you get back in shape, I know you can, too. It's really not that different from the way things used to be there, like before the Tournament, with training in the junkyard and everything. And you remember when when Sensei Kreese trained us for Coyote Creek."
Miguel swallowed again. "But Sensei Lawrence didn't like what happened there."
"Who cares?!" Miguel frowned at how that came out. Hawk pressed his mouth in a thin line, and he glanced down to where his hands gripped his knees, like he'd been caught being dishonest. Both of them realized the dangerous territory they were in, and neither were looking for a fight.
The muscles in Miguel's shoulders all tensed at once so sharply that it sent an ache straight to his spine, making him wince. He had to take a deep breath and release it slowly, reminding himself to relax.
"You okay?" asked Hawk, uncurling his fists from his knees and leaning forward, ready to help.
Miguel nodded and readjusted the pillow behind his back. "Yeah." It hurt bad for another moment before he felt some relief. He was probably overdue for his pain medication. Getting riled up over things at Cobra Kai probably weren't helping him any. His mother would be mad if she knew he was stressing himself out, especially over karate. Over Sensei.
A small smirk found itself back on Hawk's face. He reached out and bumped Miguel across the shoulder with his fist. "Oh, I get it, you're trying to get me to lower my guard so I get off your case about you getting your ass in gear and back over to Cobra Kai. Well, it's not gonna work. I guess I can cut you a little more slack, though. I mean, if you really need it."
"How merciful of you," Miguel joked dryly, glad the tension between them from before had dropped.
He caught the mistake in his wording, however, when he saw Hawk's smile twitch. He hadn't meant it to come out that way. Just a bit of gallows humor, was all. He'd earned that after what he'd been through, right? But even then, was he wrong? Where was mercy to be found in Sensei Kreese's Cobra Kai? Wasn't that the biggest reason Sensei Lawrence kicked him out?
Miguel shook his head, trying to put those reservations behind him. Hawk had come to visit him, he could at least not throw shade and start an argument. After all, it certainly wasn't Hawk's fault his spine had been broken. It wasn't Hawk's fault he'd shown mercy to Robby Keene, and gotten kicked off the stairs for his trouble.
He got pulled from those awful thoughts when Hawk stood up from his chair. "Just give it some thought. Come to practice when you can and see for yourself, things are going great," Hawk stressed. Miguel watched the hard crease between his brows soften, like a thin crack in a mask. "But it hasn't been the same without you around."
Hawk extended his hand for a real fist-bump this time, and Miguel accepted it. And when Hawk prepared to pull it back after they completed their secret handshake, Miguel grasped his hand with both of his own, gripping to it almost like a lifeline.
Miguel's lips parted a little, and his chest rose and fell with his quickening breaths. An idea flashed through his mind. He thought about it. He wanted to act on it. All of the previous hurt and isolation and loneliness he'd endured over the past couple of months beckoned him to take a risk.
Hawk's eyes lingered on him for a few seconds before dropping down to their clasped hands. He then licked his bottom lip and glanced at Miguel again. Like he expected him to do something. Miguel could have sworn he saw a feeling similar to his own reflected in his friend's face. The same feeling of loneliness.
But Miguel realized he waited too long to make his move, because Hawk just squeezed his hand again before pulling his own out. "Sorry, I gotta head home. Some of us don't get to completely skip on homework."
Miguel wondered if that was true, or if he was bailing out now that things had gotten weird. "Uh, sure," he muttered, shaking himself back to the present. He was surprised, however, to have a bit of trouble catching his breath. And it wasn't from his injuries this time, he was sure. Recovering, he grinned and retorted, "Hey, if you wanna switch places, I'm down for that. But just so you know, I've got, like, a mountain of schoolwork I have to catch up on."
"Heh," Hawk chuckled under his breath, returning the chair to Miguel's desk. "Actually, maybe just one chapter of Chemistry's not that bad after all."
Shrugging, Miguel threw his hands up. "Alright, if you say so, but the offer still stands whenever you want it. By the way, that includes having to deal with the nurse from hell at physical therapy." The day he took his final session with Nurse Ratched would be the day worth celebrating.
"Fuck that noise," laughed Hawk. The joy left his eyes though as they swept down Miguel's legs, as if seeing really for the first time that evening that he still had quite the road to recovery ahead of him. However, rather than making some pitying remark, which Miguel couldn't have stood to hear from him, he jutted out his chin and called out, "Alright, later. I'll text you tonight."