Fool for you — Zayn

THINGS WERE AS GOOD AS EVER AT COBRA Kai. Everyone was getting better and better at karate, Cynthia was getting closer to all her friends, and it seemed like Johnny was loosening up a bit. A bit, not a whole lot, and nobody was expecting a 180 from him anyways.

"Fighting positions." Johnny called out in a calm way, everyone shifting to the form they were supposed to be at.

Then it was time for the Lawrence man to inspect how well they were doing it. This part always scared Cyn, whenever the teacher would come by to check on her work. The man stopped by Hawk first, kicking him in the leg, the boys leg almost folded, practically making him cave.

"Stabilize your base, Hawk." Johnny assumed the same position as everyone else, punching forward. "Keep your balance. Full rotation when you strike."

"Yes, sensei." Hawk followed the same motion as the blonde man began to walk away. "Hiya!"

"How about you, mouth? Let me see how stable you are. Go ahead." He insisted, nodding his head.

"Hiya!" The girl yelled, punching forward harshly, a stone cold look in her eye.

"That's good for now." Johnny nodded slightly, almost impressed as he kept walking, Cyn didn't bother to look behind her, she never did. Quite frankly, what mattered during the lessons were her, and her only. "Holy shit, we've got a room full of flinchers."

"Yes, sensei!" Hawk yelled, still in fighting stance. It wasn't really the time but, the Sari girl just shrugged it off.

"That wasn't a question." Johnny started to walk back up to the front, looking around at all his students. "Raise your hand if you've never gotten punched in the face."

Cynthia stood still, her eyes still facing forward.

"Put your hands down." The blonde man called out. Cynthia had realized you need to treat the dojo like school, or else, you weren't going to get very far at all. "All your lives, you've been avoiding fights so you don't break your nose or lose a tooth. This concussion nonsense..."

"Concussions are real, sensei." Cynthia called out before lowering her voice to where he wouldn't here. "I'm sure you've suffered from plenty of them."

Johnny sent a slight glare her way before continuing on, "So, there is only one solution and that is, before you leave this dojo, each and every one of you is gonna take a punch, very hard, to the face. Robinson, Sari, line them up and unflinch this group."

With that, the man went back to his office as Aisha and Cynthia exchanged worried glances. Sure, it was nice to be trusted but odd to punch friends in the face. Very odd, actually.

Aisha went up to a blonde boy in class, virgin, as Johnny called him, he was the first to face the Robinson wrath.

"I uh...i'm going to go talk to sensei, okay? Can you make sure nothing gets out of hand?" Miguel asked, placing a hand on the girls shoulder.

"Of course, I promise I won't let her hurt anybody too badly." Cynthia sent the boy a quick wink before he nodded and walked off to the office.

Leaving her in charge, probably not the best idea.

"I think I want you to punch me in the face." Hawk said as he approached the girl, a smile on his face.

"Hm, I think that's an insult. Do you think i'll punch you any less harder than Aisha?" Cyn raised a slight brow.

"I was hoping to get special treatment, yeah." The Moskowitz boy watched as the Sari girl got into her fighting stance.

"As much as I want you to look good for our date tomorrow." The girl put out her fist, getting ready to punch. "I'm a bit offended you are making me choose between you and my karate morals."

There was a smile on her face but Eli gulped as soon as he realized she was kind of serious. She knew it was either get punched in the face by Aisha, someone who couldn't care less about his physical well being or Cynthia, who actually cared a lot. Guess it was bound to happen either way.

"Okay, i'm ready." Hawk sighed slightly, one eye open and one eye shut as the Sari girl cocked her hand back and punched him in the face, hard.

He fell backwards towards Johnny's office, landing right in front of the door.

"Shit, i'm sorry." Cyn quickly ran over to go and check on him.

"I'm ok, it's just a tooth." The boy said, getting up on his own.

A weird day for a weird dojo.

CYNTHIA SIGHED HEAVILY AS SHE WAS forced to listen about Miguel's date. Of course, he had to pick the same day her and Eli were going out and of course, the girl he asked out had to be Sam. She did her best not to roll her eyes but if she ever felt it coming on, she put her head down, and let her hair fall over her face as she stretched.

"I need somewhere romantic but, not too romantic." He said with a stressed sigh, making the girl narrow her eyes at him. Sure, she told him to go for it but she didn't think he'd take her advice, he never had before.

Aisha and Cynthia looked at each other, rolling their eyes in unison as they did so.

"You could take her to get tattoos." Eli spoke up, a smile on his face as he looked towards Cyn.

"What?" Miguel asked, scrunching up his entire face.

"Me and Thia just got some." Hawk hopped up from the ground, "We know a guy who hooked me up with this bad boy."

He took off the top of his gee and revealed his Hawk with a Hawk tattoo, leaving Aisha and Miguel pretty mesmerized.

"That is badass." The girl said with a laugh, approvingly.

"Sitting in the tattoo parlor for hours on end however, is not." Cynthia rubbed the back of her neck. "But, I did actually have fun."

"What did you get?" Miguel asked, his brows furrowed slightly.

"The north star." The Sari girl pulled her gee down off her shoulder, revealing the small tattoo she had gotten.

"That's really pretty." Aisha reached out to touch it, Cynthia smacking her hand lightly.

"It's still sore." She reminded the girl who nodded her head in a makes sense kind of way.

"Are your parents and Bianca okay with that?" The girl questioned, leaning in forward to hear the details.

Eli and Cynthia exchanged glanced before he nodded and spoke up.

"Oh, they have no idea. Definitely going to wear a t-shirt until college, probably longer. Please don't tell them, they could kill me and Bianca would kill my ghost." The boy sat down as he finished tying his gee back up.

"So, uh, any other suggestions?" Miguel asked, obviously unimpressed by the previous one.

"Don't look at me, Sam and I used to be friends but we're not anymore." Aisha said angrily, then, Miguel looked towards Cynthia.

"Again, the same exact thing happened with me. Shouldn't you notice that pattern?" The Sari girl asked, a brow raised.

"I need your help." The Diaz boy said with sad and begging eyes that made Aisha crack, not Cyn.

"Fine, uh, she likes chocolate and astronomy." The girl stated, kind of annoyed at her self.

"Great so, chocolate under the stars, can we move on to something relevant to all of us now?" Cynthia didn't mean to get snippy but, Sam was just a sore subject for her.

"Banned? What are you talking about?" Johnny yelled from his office, Miguel immediately getting up and running towards it.

"What do you think is going on?" Aisha questioned.

"With sensei? Anything is possible." Cynthia scoffed, reaching forward as she continued her stretches.

CYNTHIA'S HANDS WERE SHAKING AS BIANCA pulled up to the gold n' stuff, her and Eli in the back seat. She was nervous to be on a real date with him because well, she liked him, a lot. Before he got "cool" hair, or learned karate, or started talking more freely.

"Remember, don't do anything that I—..." the woman stopped speaking, furrowing her brows. "Don't do anything your mom wouldn't do. It took your dad months to-"

"Bianca!" Cyn's cheeks flushed red as she interrupted her aunt, Hawk's hand already on the door handle.

"Right, go have fun." The Sari woman smiled. "This guy is way cuter than Etsy by the way."

"I am Etsy, I mean, Eli." The boy shook his head at the mistake, Cynthia placing an awkward hand on her face.

"Let's just go..." the Sari girl shook her head lightly as Hawk opened the door. "See you later, Bianca."

"Bye, love you, honey! Bye whatever your name is!" The Sari woman waited till they got out of the car before speeding off to god only knows where.

"So, uh, what first?" The blue haired boy asked as he stared at the building in front of him.

"Honestly? I don't know... I guess we are going to just have to figure it out as we go?" Cynthia shrugged slightly, putting her hand in his and dragging him towards the entrance of the building.

Once they got there, she opened up the big doors and the two walked in with smiles on their faces. It was nice spending time with the two of them, as much as they both loved their best friends it was just different this way.

"Arcade?" Eli looked down towards the girl, an excited grin on his face.

"Of course the arcade." Cynthia laughed, dragging him along to where they needed to go.

Before long, the two of them were side by side at the Just Dance game trying to get higher points than each other. Cyn was a terrible dancer but Hawk was not that great either so, it worked in terms of fairness. Neither of them cared about the people walking by giving them dirty looks because they were just having fun.

"I'm totally going to beat you!" The Sari girl yelled excitedly as she continued to dance.

"In your dreams, Thia! I've got this." Eli kept dancing goofily and by the end of the dance, their scores were extremely close.

One point difference close.

"You win, this time." Cynthia narrowed her eyes at the boy as tickets popped out of the machine. "But watch, i'll win the next game no problems!"

"Fine." Hawk looked around, pointing at the next game. "Let's see you win this one."

The game was one where you had to knock down as many pins as you could in the allotted time by throwing them. Cynthia used to play softball when she was young so, she did what anyone would do. Pretend she couldn't throw for the life of her and then win.

"Ugh, this is going to be hard but i'll try." The girl pouted slightly as she headed over and started the game, throwing a ball lazily at first. "See? I don't know if I can do it."

"Do you need help—.. I can—." The boy wore a frown, almost feeling bad for the challenge he had given her.

"No, no." Cynthia grinned slightly. "I'll learn."

She began to throw the balls, each one hitting a target and making them fall down. By the end of the thirty seconds, she had hit every target at least twice and beat the high score that was currently on the bored. Hm, seemed easy enough.

"You are a little liar." Eli laughed, running at the girl and picking her up off her feet.

"Stop!" The girl kept laughing hysterically as he tickled her stomach. "Eliiiii, I can't stop laughing!"

"Hey, guys." Miguel cleared his throat, making the two look over to him as Hawk sat her down. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Cynthia asked, eyebrows furrowed as she glared at Sam who was next to him. "Actually, I don't really feel like talking. Come on, El."

Cyn dragged him away without another word, what could she say? Sam Larusso was supposed to be her mortal enemy, dating her best friend. That's not how it's supposed to work.

CYNTHIA GIGGLED AS SHE PULLED ELI into the photo booth. She had never been in one with someone else, let alone a boy she liked so, she figured this would be a good night to capture for memories. A reminder of the night you could say.

"Wait, wait, wait, we only have a few seconds...pose!" She quickly yelled, a smile on her face as he put his arm around her shoulder.

The picture snapped and it gave him the opportunity to speak.

"So, why are you so upset about Sam?" The hawked boy asked, furrowing his brows.

"Me and her are complicated." Cynthia shrugged her shoulders. "I don't really like talking about it."

She learned forward and pressed a kiss on the boys cheek as it clicked for another picture.

"Okay." Eli shrugged slightly. "I was just wondering if it was about her or...Miguel."

"What are you talking about?" Cyn turned her head towards her date, wondering what he was insinuating.

"I thought maybe you were jealous." Hawk stated, rubbing the back of his neck as the Sari girls mouth dropped open in shock.

Click, the next picture went off.

"I'm not jealous, i'm on a date. Here, with you. I'm pretty sure that means something, El." Cynthia leaned in slightly, grabbing the boys shirt and pulling him into a kiss.

Click, the last and final picture was taken and the two pulled away smiling.

"Let's go redeem our tickets." Eli grinned slightly, fixing the girls hair before they slid out of the booth, hand in hand.

"Nice pictures." Sam commented, holding their photos in her hand as she stared at them, Miguel looking over her shoulder.

"Thanks." Hawk replied, still a smile on his face. "Can I see them?"

"Why are you asking h—" Cynthia sighed, stopping herself. "They are our pictures, of course you can see them, El."

"Right." He reached out and Sam awkwardly handed the girl the photos, biting the inside of her lip nervously.

"Can we talk once we get home?" Miguel questioned, looking at his best friend.

"Can't, El is staying over for a movie marathon. Maybe tomorrow." Cynthia shrugged slightly, looking between the couple. "Have fun you two."

"We will." Sam replied, just as awkwardly as she was before.

"That went kinda well." Hawk said as the two walked away.

"Sure it did." Cyn responded with a huff.

She didn't know why that interaction had gotten under her skin so badly.

AUTHORS NOTE—
Whew, this is literally the longest chapter i've written for this book so i'll be honest and tell you it's unedited lmfao.

Thoughts on everything happening rn? Cyn is kinda annoying me rn but I get why she's acting like this.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed!