TWO.
( I can't relate to desperation. )

"Wait, so, you're gonna crash Miyagi-Do's demo?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Miguel shrugged, sticking his hand into the chip bag and grabbing a handful. 

Jennifer grimaced as his hand was covered into cheese powder, reaching over to the coffee table and grabbed a few tissues for him. "Do not rub your hands on my couch."

Aisha looked over at her. "You sure you don't wanna join our demo? You've done really well the past few days."

"I'm good," Jennifer sighed, sinking back into the couch and took a bite out of a cookie. "It's already tough enough that I have to see my ex. I'd rather not have him see me in his dad's dojo for now."

Hawk furrowed his eyebrows, grabbing himself a cookie from the container. "Isn't that your thing? To make him see that you're apart of Cobra Kai?"

Jennifer turned to him and blinked. "Okay, maybe I just don't want his first time seeing me in Cobra Kai to be me being beaten up on stage."

Hawk snorted, taking a crumb of his cookie and chucked it at her. "You're such a pussy."

She glared at him. "And you're an asshole. An asshole who invited himself to my house."

"I'll just chalk it up to my invite being lost in the mail," he leaned forward, sticking his Cheeto covered finger in her face. 

"Gross, Eli!" she exclaimed, shoving it away. 

"How many times do I have to tell you it's Hawk?" he groaned. 

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "You're crazy if you think I'm calling you that."

"Then you're crazy if you think I'm not gonna wipe my hands on your couch," Hawk then dramatically dragged his hand down across the surface of the couch, and Jennifer's jaw dropped. 

"I'm gonna kill you!"

"Only if you can catch me!"

Aisha and Miguel watched as the two sprang up from the couch, Jennifer chasing after a grinning Hawk with an angry expression. They then turned to each other, shaking their heads. 

God, now there were two Hawks.

✸

"So, when is your dojo demo coming on?" Tory asked as she took a sip of her soda drink. 

"No clue," Jennifer shrugged, taking a bite out of a soft pretzel. "My sensei's a weird guy."

"And your ex's dad," Tory snorted. "You know, I just realized that I never met Robby. And you guys were dating for over a year."

"Because I know he would have left me for you if he knew you," Jennifer sighed, giving Aisha a small wave as she spotted her walking with a few students from Cobra Kai. "You two are kinda similar."

"Oh, so you would date me?" Tory wiggled her shoulders suggestively. 

Jennifer barked out a laugh, looping her arm through her best friend's. "I'd get married to you right now if I could."

Then the sound of cheering caught their attention. They both turned to the stage, seeing lights being set up. 

"Oh! I think it's about to start. Come on," Tory giggled as Jennifer dragged her through the crowd, standing in front. 

"All right, all right, all right! Coming up next, do I have a treat for you. Please direct your attention to the LaRusso Auto booth for a presentation from Miyagi-Do Karate."

Everyone shifted over to the botth, seeing an orange background with three shadows standing in front. Jennifer could easily tell who Robby was, but could also make out a girl next to who she assumed was Daniel LaRusso. Her eyebrows lightly stitched together. She didn't remember Robby mentioning a girl he was training with. 

She almost wanted to scoff as the demo started. She felt Tory nudge her. "Hey. Is that..."

"Yep," Jennifer narrowed her eyes at the stage. 

"Who's the chick?"

"No clue," Jennifer's eyes squinted at them. 

Tory glanced at her, and took her hand. "Let's go to the bathroom."

"Yeah. Let's go," Jennifer's eyes never left the stage as Tory dragged her through the crowd and behind everyone before walking over to the girl's bathroom. Tory dragged her over to the sinks, and Jennifer immediately crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, that's a way to see your best friend's ex-boyfriend for the first time."

"You dated that?" Tory raised her eyebrows.

"Well I clearly go for personality," Jennifer rolled her eyes. "If I wanted to go for looks then I would have asked out Eli."

"Eli?" Tory barked out a laugh. "You mean your super nerdy neighbor Eli? The kid who wears polo shirts and skinny jeans all day? The one you had a crush on in kindergarten for, like, two days?"

"He said he liked me shoes," Jennifer defended herself. "And Eli's different now. He got hot. But he's a complete ass now. He thinks the world revolves around him and that he's the shit. Can't believe a mohawk does that to someone."

Tory's eyes bulged out of her head. "Eli has a mohawk now?"

"Yeah," Jennifer looked at her weirdly. "You haven't seen it? The dude sticks out like a sore thumb."

"Maybe I'll catch him during the demo," Tory chuckled. "Are you ready to go back out?"

Jennifer pursed her lips. "I don't know. This kind of feels too early to see him. And it doesn't help that all I wanna do is kiss him."

"Okay," Tory sucked in a breath. "How about you chill in here for a bit? I'll go watch the demo for you and let you know if it does well."

Tory began to walk backwards out of the bathroom and Jennifer snorted. "You just wanna watch cause you think Diaz is cute!"

"See ya!" Tory giggled before rushing off. 

Jennifer couldn't but laugh to herself as she shook her head, turning around to look at herself in the mirror. Her face slowly dropped, and she sighed at her appearance. 

She hadn't slept well for the past couple weeks, mainly because of the sudden break up the boy she thought she would spend the rest of her life with called for. Him saying that he wasn't going to regret his decision didn't sit right with her. I mean, the two were in a serious relationship for over a year, and to Jennifer, that kind of love isn't easy to just dispose of. 

But to Robby, she guessed that it was easy for him since he made his decision fairly quickly. 

It just pissed her off that he wasn't willing to try with a relationship that had no signs of failure. Things between had been so good, and the break up came as a shock to Jennifer. She didn't see it coming. 

Jennifer loved Robby more than she loved anyone else in her life. She found her desire to find a love her parents had in Robby Keene, and went to the extra mile to make him feel as loved as she did. And whether that was enough was a question she didn't have the answers to. 

And Jennifer was heartbroken over it. She might not have shown it much, but the mere mention of Robby's name made her heart hurt. She had spent over a year of her life giving him all the love she had in her heart, and he tossed it away like it meant nothing. It was devastating. 

She gave her head a light shake, wanting to rid of all of these thoughts when she was brought back by the sound of screams. She curiously stepped away from the mirror, seeing that Cobra Kai's demo had just ended. She smiled to herself, walking out of the bathroom and rushed over. 

"Guys!" she called out, and her three friends looked over at her. 

"JJ!" Aisha rushed over to her. "What'd you think?"

Jennifer winced. "I might've missed it."

"What?" Miguel exclaimed. "How could you miss it? It was so badass!"

"I'm sorry! I went to go use to the bathroom and I got in my mind for a bit too long," She explained, suddenly feeling Hawk wrap his arms around her and dig his knuckles in her head. "Get off of me!"

He loudly laughed as he unwrapped his arm from her, and Jennifer couldn't contain her own. 

"Jen."

She was still laughing as she looked over her shoulder before her face fully dropped. She stopped laughing, eyes widening a bit. "Robby."

He glanced at the people behind her. "Your new friends?"

"Yeah, what's it to you?" Hawk went to step closer to him but Jennifer held up her hand, stopping him. 

"What do you want, Robby?" Jennifer sighed. 

"To talk."

She kissed her teeth with her tongue before turning back to the three. "I got it. You guys go ahead."

"Okay," Miguel said with his eyes glaring into Robby. "Want me to get you anything?"

"A pretzel would be nice," she flashed a smile. "Thanks, Miguel."

He nodded, tapping the other two before the three of them walked away.

Jennifer huffed, turning back to Robby. "What do you want, Robby?"

"Are you with Cobra Kai now?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. 

She shrugged. "What if I was?"

Robby scoffed. "Are you really trying to get back at me by joining Cobra Kai?"

"Not everything I do is about you," she snapped. But he was right. She was trying to get back at him by joining Cobra Kai but she didn't want to admit that to him. "I can make decisions for myself without you in mind."

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

She poked her tongue into the side of her cheek. "You don't have to believe anything. But I'm not your problem anymore. What I do is none of your concern anymore. And that's your fault."

"Don't turn this into me breaking up with you," Robby shook his head.

"Then what the hell do you expect us to talk about?" Jennifer snapped. "You can't just come up to me and expect me not to feel upset at the sight of you and not bring up the last time we spoke. You broke up with me. Now I have to deal with all the fucking emotions that come with it. So don't you dare try to tell me what to and what to not talk about."

"Jen ⎯ "

"You don't get to call me Jen anymore," she coldly cut him off. "It's Jennifer to you now. You would still be able to call me Jen if you hadn't made me feel like absolute shit these past couple weeks."

"Look, I needed to do that for myself and ⎯ "

"Okay then we don't need to worry about what the other is doing then. Since you're so keen on leaving your past in the past, let's act as if we don't know each other."

"Jen, that's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean? Because you said to my face that I was one of the things that was holding you down and reminding you too much of your troubled past. Well, guess what? I didn't fucking ask you to go around and steal people's shit all right? I accepted you for who you were because I love you but you don't seem to care about that at all. So, right now, I'm just trying to keep my peace but you are making it so hard."

Jennifer breathed heavily after she was done talking, and watched as Robby was rendered speechless, mouth opening and closing as he tried to gather what to say. 

"JJ," she glanced over her shoulder, seeing Hawk holding her pretzel. She sighed, figuring they just heard her outburst. 

"We got you a slushy too," Miguel held up the blue cup, giving it a shake. 

"Thanks, guys," she gave them a small smile, seeing Robby glaring at them, more specifically the two boys. "You can leave now. I've said enough."

Robby nodded. "Well, you just spelled out the reason why I won't regret it."

He shook his head at her before walking away, and she shut her eyes as she tilted her head down. 

"Hey..." she looked up, feeling Aisha place a comforting head on her shoulder. "Wanna talk what just happened?"

Jennifer glanced at her and the two other boys before shaking her head. "Not tonight. Right now, I just wanna enjoy this night."

"We can do that," Hawk nodded. Jennifer looked at him in surprise, not expecting the soft tone from him. "Oh, don't look surprised. I can be a good friend when I wanna be."

She lightly snorted. "I guess so. Come on. I've been craving another pretzel."

AUTHOR'S NOTE !

a shorter chapter but we got some eli and jj lore