chapter seventeen,
all in

    Mackenzie sat around in the circle with the rest of the students as they watched Sensei Lawrence and Kreese instruct them.

She intently watched her teachers as they taught. The girl could feel a pair of eyes staring at her but didn't bother to look.

The class soon ended, and most of the students left. As Mackenzie packed her belongings into her bag, a hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.

"Hey," they said softly.

Mackenzie kept her face blank, "Hi."

"I just wanted to apologize for the other day, you know the food mess." Tory explained.

Kenzie was taken aback by the apology. Tory didn't seem like the girl to be the first to apologize – to even apologize in the first place.

"Thanks." The girl replied dryly then turned back around to continue packing her bag.

"Uhm, Aisha and a couple other people are heading down to this restaurant place – thought you might wanna tag along?" Tory kept the conversation going.

Mackenzie thought about the invite, she didn't understand why this girl was being nice all of a sudden.

"Maybe. I might be busy."

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    In the end, Mackenzie ended up declining the invite and taking a different one. Sam called up not long after karate training to ask if she wanted to go to the mall with her.

    She guessed that it would be just the two of them but was surprised to see Robby and her brother standing beside her.

    "What is he doing here?" Mackenzie said at the same time as Robby.

    "What is she doing here?" He says.

    Sam happily smiles and interlinked her arm into Kenzie's, "I invited her and we're all going have so much fun."

    Mackenzie rolled her eyes with a small smirk plastered on her face.

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    The three of them sat a table inside the mall after taking a trip to the food court. Sam and Robby were laughing about his drivers license.

    "I'm more partial to his performance in Donnie Darko. Interesting movie. Time travel logic left a lot to be desired." Demetri blabbers as he sat down with them.

    He stops talking and sits up, "Wait. Is today Wednesday?"

    Sam and Robby nods their heads yes and Demetri instantly stands up. "The new issue of Dungeon Lord came out."

    Even though Mackenzie would never admit to anyone but her brother, she was also a fan of Dungeon Lord.

    "Race you there!" Kenzie taunted before running off the store.

    Demetri chased after her, "Make sure no one throws away my chicken!" He calls out.

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Inside the store, Demetri was searching through a small shelf for the new issue while Mackenzie was off looking around.

"The Warlock of Narfoor's back? He just died. Have some continuity." Demetri scoffed out loud as he look at the comic.

"Still can't wait to read that new issue, huh?" Eli says as he entered the store with two other boys backing him up.

Demetri looked at him up and down, "Nice hair. What is this, your Red Hulk phase?"

The trio slowly walked forward, "I saw your Yelp review. Take it down." Eli firmly spoke.

"And ruin my journalistic integrity? Look, I'm sorry, but someone had to say something. And besides, taking it down could hurt my Yelp Elite status."

Eli shoved Demetri into the comic book stand, which caused it to fall down. This happened to catch Kenzie's attention.

"Hey, what happened?" Mackenzie speaks as she only had view of the mess and not the people. Til she came into contact with Eli, "Oh, it's you."

"I said take it down." Eli said again without even glancing over at the girl.

"You think I'm afraid of you? I know who you really are.. Eli. So, why don't you, Rocksteady and Bebop just leave me alone, ok?"

Mackenzie frowned at the two as she confusedly watched the commotion. She didn't know why he was here, especially to harass her brother.

The stood beside her brother, "What's going on?" she furrowed her brows.

"Let's just go, Kenzie." Demetri shook his head and began to turn around before getting guarded by two other boys.

"Great. So, this is what it's come to. Gang assault." Demetri sighed.

Eli didn't react, "Take it down, or we take you down."

Mackenzie sarcastically laughed, "Ha ha, very funny, Eli. The jokes over, can we leave?" but he didn't answer her.

"You'd actually hurt me?" Demetri says reading Eli's face. "Well, guess what? You're not the only one that knows karate. I just joined Miyagi-Do."

Demetri faced the boy and stances in front of him, with his fists ready. "All right. Let's see what you got." Eli scoffed.

Demetri falls to the ground after Eli kicks him in an instant. "Eli!" Mackenzie shrieked.

    "Stay out of this, Kenzie." Eli told her off, which kind of made her heart hurt. This wasn't the Eli Moskowitz she was used to.

As Demetri winced on the ground, the manger called out to the group. Which was only a distraction to Eli and help Demetri have time to run away.

Demetri slid past the two boys that were standing behind him and that's when war broke out.

"Demetri!" Mackenzie fumed as she chased after the group of boys. They ended up back in the food court, and now had all eyes on them.

    Eli and the other boys surrounded Demetri. "It didn't have to be this way. You could've joined Cobra Kai if you weren't such a pussy." He spat.

    "At least I'm not an asshole." Demetri replied which just made one of the boys grab ahold him.

    Mackenzie grumbled as she began to get sick of Eli's act, "Just let him go." she sighed loudly.

"God, Kenzie. Why can't you just stay out of this. No one asked for you to be here. Aren't on our side? He disrespected our Sensei." Eli finally looked at her.

She scoffed. "He's my brother. You think I'm gonna stand there and watch as you walk all over him. I get his wrote a stupid review but Sensei Kreese and Sensei Lawrence were awful to him. And to you."

Eli clenched his jaw, "He didn't do anything to me."

"So you're telling me this whole look was just your idea, and that you weren't literally bullied by Sensei Lawrence into changing your entire appearance." Kenzie began to raise her voice.

"That's not what happened." He bared his teeth, "I flipped the script."

Eli looks back at Demetri who is struggling to get out of the boys grip. "You're dead meat."

Out of nowhere, Sam grabs one of the boys shoulders and kicks another to the ground.

"Get back." she pushed Demetri aside, "You guys need to back off." her fists held ready.

Eli smirks, "I don't wanna have to hit a girl."

"You wouldn't stand a chance." Robby says as he walks towards them.

Eli's grinned as he spoke, "Five against three?" he doesn't look at Demetri and ignores his presence. He turns to the others, one of the boys grab Robby from behind.

Another fight broke loose. Robby fighting Eli, Sam fighting off the others from Demetri and Mackenzie ready for anything.

She knew she should've been helping but she just didn't know whose side to take. Her brother and friends or her team.

As Mackenzie shakes her head, coming out of her thoughts, she taken aback when she watches Robby kick Eli to the ground.

The crowd around them gasps as Eli falls to the floor hard. "We saved you your chicken." Sam says as she hands Demetri his food.

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It wasn't out of the ordinary for Eli to message Mackenzie and ask to meet up at the dojo but this time it felt off.

Mackenzie turned off her car as she stopped at the front of Cobra Kai, where Eli stood pacing back and forth.

"What the hell was that!" Mackenzie bellowed as she walked towards him.

Eli scoffed, "Me? I did nothing wrong. I was standing up for my Sensei.. our Sensei!"

"You beat up my brother because of a stupid yelp review! How dumb can you be, Eli." she frowned.

The boy lowered his voice. "Did you know he joined Miyagi-Do?" he waited for her to answer.

"I think I guessed that when I found him coincidentally hanging out with Sam and Robby." she lowered her voice as well.

"And you're still okay with that?" Eli surprisingly questioned.

"He's my brother! And your friend too."

"He's a fucking nerd! And he'll always be a nerd."

The silence was loud after he spoke. Too loud. Mackenzie looked down, it was the truth though. Demetri was a nerd but the worse part was Eli made it sound like it was a bad thing.

Mackenzie sighed. "What happened to you?"

She walked off over to her car. "Where are you going?" He called out to her.

"Home. We're done. Even if we were anything to begin with." she snarled as she turned around.

"No, we're not!" he snapped back, ignoring the other words she had said.

Mackenzie opened her car door ready to drive off. Eli takes his shirt off revealing a tattoo with her name and a heart.

"This means forever!" Eli says.

"And I didn't ask you to do that!" Mackenzie's voice became frailer.

"But I did it for you. I'm doing all of this for you, Kenzie." Eli snarled.

She argued back, "Why! You completely ignored me and now you're acting like nothing even happened. Why, Eli!"

"Because I love you."

Mackenzie was at a loss for words. It wasn't like she didn't have any feelings towards him, it was just she hadn't said or heard it out loud.

    "Don't say that, because you don't mean it." she says before hoping in her car and leaving him hopelessly standing there.

— leila's notes !

before getting into the authors note i would like to give a thank you to appetenxe for the amazing gif made for this book !!

guys i also kinda forgot if they said i love you yet because if they did.. just forget that last scene :|

i also understand people's view of mackenzie's storyline going to waste but trust the process.

AND i know it's super cringey the tattoo scene where he shows her it in the parking lot but it's whateva

this is kinda this inspo !