【 reseda, 2017 】

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━━ Eyes are the window to the soul. 

You can tell a lot about somebody's motives by paying attention to their eyes, as long as you know what to look for. If there was excessive blinking, unusual dilation of the pupils, a slight twitch in the eyeball itself, something was afoot. Someone was caught in the middle of a lie, or busy in an attempt to buy time for themselves. 

Stevie was once considered a master at knowing what to look for. ( She's sure if she tried, she would still be perfectly capable of falling back into the art of analyzing someone's eyes. )

However, she was not the only one who was doing any watching. 

Stevie has also been on the receiving end of plenty of stares. She has had lusty eyes trail after her figure. Looks of loathing have followed her with fantasies of her demise. Narrowed eyes would stare her down, forcing shivers to run down her spine.

So what made these yellow eyes so much harder to face?

She couldn't figure out what it was until she stood outside the Cobra Kai store front, watching the snake eyes follow her. ( It was her first time as a prospective student, rather than someone with an itch to make a mockery of it. )

Yellow eyes stripped her bare. They revealed slivers of the broken soul she spent years burying deep inside until there was nothing left to show. She felt the frigid air feed on the frayed ends of her nervous system: the exposure burning her alive. Honeyed words, dripped in poison, called every morsel of fear to bubble behind the surface as she stared at the cobra with contempt.

This is a terrible idea, Stevie.

The words echoed in her head like a mantra.

This is a terrible idea.

It kept repeating, as if she didn't already know what a god-awful idea this was when she knocked on Johnny's door. 

The short phrase could not tell her anymore than her own internal monologue already had. Her ability to pick apart a bad plan is a part of the reason she was such a strong leader. The other part was that she could navigate those bad plans that came to life in the midst of it. She could fight her way through such nightmarish things and survive.

This was a terrible idea, yes, but when has that ever stopped me?

Stevie was no longer in the house of the red hourglass, where the remaining seconds of her life were ticking away and all she could do was watch. She could mock the realities of freedom all she wished, but the truth was that she was still alive.

She had believed the things she believed, said the things she said, done the things she's done, and yet, she is still here. She is still alive, and that is proof enough that her freedom existed.

These yellow eyes could very well be her ruin: further fueling her anger, destroying the fickle self-control she currently was able to cling to. But those yellow eyes might also become her salvation: she could release herself from the rage that suffocated her, and the dreams that held her in a vice grip. These yellow eyes could be a godsend: freeing her from the problems she clutched to, for nothing, if not, familiarity.

So she walked past the yellow eyes, and into the dojo.

It was a shit show from there, and God, the adrenaline made her heart rush.

Stevie had barely opened the door when a baseball came flying at her face. Instinct intervened before anything else, and her eyes glanced past the object in her hand. The sole student and teacher watched as she slowly walked in with opposing expressions. 

She was hesitant to put her hand down, but if she was going to accept what Johnny had to offer, she would have to be the first to raise the white flag. 

Miguel wore padding around his arms and chest, utterly confused by her presence. He had been unable to run into her since he had discovered she was the cause of Kyler's broken ego and bruised face. He could only catch glimpses of her, as if she was made of wisps of smoke rather than flesh and blood. 

Johnny, on the other hand, was far from surprised. In fact, he seemed more annoyed as he toyed with the remote in his hand. 

"I could've sworn I told you to get here at four."

All Stevie could do was observe as Miguel's warm, albeit confused, gaze switched from her to his sensei. His forehead crinkled as he questioned Johnny's knowledge of her sudden appearance. 

( In all honesty, all that came from Stevie's shocking question were clipped words that were made of logistics: when training was and her payment plan──she fell under the ❛ Johnny got her fired, screwed over her income, and begged her to join immediately after ❜ discount. She got in for free, but as long as she wasn't just talk, they both knew that she could do more for business than any flyer ever would. )

"Well, no shit, Diaz," Johnny took advantage of Miguel's distracted state to send another baseball through the air, this one landing on his groin, "Fleetwood's my new student."

It was nothing but pained reactions from the teenagers involved, and the start of a nightmarish first day. 

Miguel fell to his knees while Stevie preferred the thought of drinking acid over considering her neighbor her teacher. Johnny's quiet insults towards the newest member of his dojo caused him to take a baseball to the ear, and his own attempts to surprise Stevie only ended with him receiving smug looks while the only place she got hit were her knuckles after she punched them away. Johnny's loose temper began to breed a nasty competition between student and sensei. 

To Stevie, it was a game, and she knew damn well that she was going to win.

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━━ It was dark when Stevie left the apartment. She followed the pavement with nothing to accompany her, but a harsh exhale. Half of the large lamp posts were without light, and the gravel crunched beneath the stolen tennis shoes. 

The transition between concrete and soil was initially hard on Stevie's knees, but nothing she couldn't do. She had weaved her way through the forest until she made it to the edge of the Braemore Cliffs. By the time she had become a sight against the Redwoods, yellow peeked through the sky like freshly picked daisies.

Johnny's words had floated through one ear and out the other from the night before. She had somewhat tried to maintain a civil relationship with him, but he was so stupidly short-tempered, it was damn near impossible. She was so fed up with working with Johnny directly, Stevie had practically begged to just run in the name of stronger kicks and more punchy combinations.  

Stevie's breathing was measured as she maneuvered her way to the top of the water tower, daylight stretching its wings. She feels a familiar cold bite at her skin, as she reaches her final destination. She closed her eyes, more concerned with catching her breath rather than a view. 

Every movement her body made was followed with a crack, as she stretched herself out. Then, she found herself sparring alone. She went through the many motions she learned over ten years as the morning grew brighter. 

Her punches were not as quick as they should have been, Stevie noticed, as she ducked and weaved the imaginary hits that were coming her way. 

They could have easily been blocked if she was in the Academy. 

But you're not.

It still took her breath away.

The speed of those hits would not have been sufficient in the Academy, but she is no longer in the Academy. She has not allowed herself to brush up on her skills on her own time, only when she follows the instinctive urge to find a target. She may have been slower, but she was just as precise. She could afford to give herself a little grace, but her unforgiving heart struck down hardest on herself.

The sunlight was beginning to be drowned out by thick clouds, and the wind grew to be a more bitter cold. She had now reached a point of practicing her combinations. The wind whistled as she sent her limbs through the atmosphere. She was in the middle of a roundhouse kick when she suddenly froze: her leg was stuck in the air, and her foot was only inches away from Miguel's sweaty face. 

Stevie lifted her leg over Miguel's head before she gracefully turned into a standing position, "Nice of you to join, Diaz."

Without hesitating, he asked her the question she had left unanswered for weeks, "Why did you beat Kyler up?"

So he wants to get straight into this?

"He was pissing me off," Stevie lied unflinchingly, "Are we sparring or not?"

"Cut the crap, Stevie! Why did you really do that?"

He's getting brave, Stevie noticed. 

After Halloween and rejoining his dojo, he had committed one lunch period to sit next to her every week. Stevie had treated him as she had the friend of Kyler's on his first day. She kicked his seat out from under him before he even had the chance to sit down. She emptied the last quarter of her water bottle onto his head: the gel in his hair making the liquid slide right down his face. 

Only recently ( and by recent, he means since Stevie joined Cobra Kai ), she had stopped pouring things on him whenever he sat by her. She just glared at him while he made one-sided conversation.

It made the gears in her head turn a little bit. People never saw her violence and had the courage to keep facing it. A great part of her wanted to kick him down for it: she found it insulting that he could stand to her as if they were on even footing in the slightest. Another part of it, greater than she cared to admit, was filled with a slight respect. 

She refused to let that weakness show.

Instead, she made a move to kick him in the chest. Miguel fell backwards, still deciding on whether he was going to lay down in pain because holy shit, that hurt, or if he was going to stare her down as if she had lost the remainder of her fractured, little mind.

"What the hell was t—"

"I'll make a deal," Stevie cut him off,  "Every time you manage to touch me, I will answer one of your questions." 

Was it a little out of the ordinary for her? Yes, but she was curious. He was weak, but his instinct was to act boldly. She wanted to watch him to see if she could pinpoint where that that boldness came from. 

"...And if you land a hit on me?"

Stevie huffed out of her nose something reminiscent of laughter, "You and I both know that there is no if about it."

Miguel knew she was right, but he was gaining a newfound ego under the instruction of Sensei Lawrence. As much as he liked her, he refused to not get answers to his many, many questions.

He nodded before getting into a fighting position, "You're on."

Stevie's lip twitched slightly. Despite the knowledge that sparring him would not offer much of a challenge, she appreciated how he took it with a steady voice and a stiff lip.

Being the gracious competitor she was, she allowed Miguel to make the first move and he did not disappoint. He answered with a novice, albeit powerful, kick that was easy to dodge. Stevie could see the frustration that appeared on his face because he managed to take Johnny down, why not her?

That line of thinking caused him to get sloppy rather quickly. She avoided each movement with ease before she decided to put him out of his misery by sweeping his leg. 

Despite the embarrassing loss, Miguel recovered quickly, unwilling to give up so quickly. His face grew more taut with determination, and he moved quickly to try and manage to make first contact with her. Without moving, Stevie decided to practice her blocking. Most of the time, she had been able to slap him away.

That had been the case for the better part of the day, where the sun had finally made a reappearance, warming the biting chill. Stevie thought she had began to tire him out, but he was admittedly rather resilient. It had been another sparring session he had been insistent in seeing through. She had no problem with continuing, offering a breath of gruesome nostalgia.

She had made the grave mistake of becoming too comfortable, too lax in her efforts. She got lazy and had miscalculated his next move, allowing him to wrap a hand around her wrist. 

Stevie freed herself from his loose grip quickly and flipped him over her shoulder. She had hoped it would erase that slight victory in his mind, but it had not been quick enough. Miguel had brightened considerably, looking more reminiscent of the boy she had met before Johnny began to sink his fangs into him.

"I get a question!" Miguel shouted, throwing her thoughtless deal in her face with a smile.

Astute observation, dingus.

Stevie did not want to answer any questions. She didn't want him to try to dig into her complex ability to simultaneously feel everything and lack the spectrum of human emotion. She didn't want to think about the way her upbringing has offered nothing more than an ungodly amount of paranoia and persistently red fingertips.

She did not want him to ask about her incessant need to defend him against Kyler when she didn't even know why herself.

"What's your favorite color?"

Well, she wasn't expecting that.

"...Excuse me?"

"What is your favorite color?"

Maybe it wasn't the most interesting question, but it was the first time in Stevie's memory she had been asked a question that had not been laced with some form of expectation. Nothing about what she could do, what she knew, it was just her. 

Some lame question about something she liked, and her chest grew tight. 

Suddenly, Miguel's bravado seemed to disappear at the extended silence, "Never mind, it was a stupid question. We can keep spar—"

"Blue," Stevie cut him off with a small pop of her knuckles, "I like blue."

He met her eyes in surprise before he worked up enough nerve to ask a followup question, "What kind?"

"The deal was one question?" She asked with a snarky tone, but it seemed lighter than other times. His lips started quirking up, working on the assumption that she might not mind him making his own smart remarks.

"Sue me, I've spent like two hours trying to ask you your favorite color." 

"More like five," Stevie didn't feel quite so heavy for the first time in a long time with a sarcasm laced tone, fighting the urge to replace those hardened angles on her face with their soft contours, "Blue, like the sea ... what's yours?"

( Maybe she didn't trust him enough to tell him that it reminded her of a time she barely remembered and a home that would never exist for her. But there was nothing personal about saying what type of blue, right? )

The dark blue bands on his braces made an appearance, and without even having to think, he answered, "Yellow."

Somehow, that fit that version of Miguel she was beginning to figure out. 

Stevie had never seen the appeal herself. She mindlessly asked why yellow was his favorite, and she was eighty percent sure that he was talking about bees and sunflowers and a blanket his yaya made for him when he was a baby. He might have made an off-handed remark about how yellow just reflected happiness. ( Some insanely positive bullshit that Stevie never had a luxury to think about. )

Stevie couldn't say she was paying all that much attention to Miguel's words. She was a little more invested in how he seemed to bask in the sun, as if he was the favorite of the giant star. His brown skin seemed to glow under the golden rays, and the his eyes, that looked almost black any other time, turned into the most mesmerizing shade of gold. 

It was as enchanting to watch as it was difficult. 

Miguel's eyes in the sun were the antithesis of the cobra on the storefront, yet they stripped her down just the same. Instead of reflecting its contempt in her eyes, she felt soft. She had always been complicated with harsh lines and sky high walls around her fragile heart, but the way Miguel looked at her made her feel like she had a heart of glass that he could see right through.

She had a cruel and unforgiving nature: the result of a crueler, even less forgiving childhood. But when Miguel looked at her with his golden, heart shaped eyes, it felt like he knew every tantrum, every crime, every terrible thing that she had ever done. When he looked at her, it felt like he knew it all, and he didn't mind.

For a moment, Stevie had a flash of herself in another life: one where she wasn't such a violent dog. A life where she didn't have to pretend that she could find comfort in his arms, and his lips could brush against the shell of her ear that that had been wrapped in silver. The thought made her shiver in delight rather than disgust, as she could picture him whispering words laced with affection instead of inducing fear in her heart.

Miguel did not even realize the dangerous thoughts that were beginning to creep into her head. He only moved back into a starting position, ready for another fight he was definitely going to lose, with a grin of excitement. And despite the face she bore, Stevie couldn't help the way her lips twitched, wanting to match his smile.

"New rule," Miguel called out, "after every match, winner gets one question."

Stevie hesitated before she nodded, "Nothing about how's and why's."

"I just want to get to know you."

She admired his amber eyes and the promise he held in them, and couldn't control the question that slipped from her, "You sure you'll like what you see?"

"I do so far."

Stevie faltered slightly, but she tried to hide it before he could take note. Miguel had spent the semester looking at her like she was otherworldly. Unattainable. But he couldn't see that he was just untouchable, if not more. 

Stevie had her reputation. She has the one she holds now, and the one she has spent the past year hiding from. But she would never escape her past. She would always be chained to the Academy, entwined with the Black Widows. No one else might ever know who she really was, but she did.

Svetlana Novikova was too embedded into her DNA for it to be any other way, seeing the girl staring back at her every time she passed her own reflection. Stevie could never cut the assassin out of her own skin, and Miguel had made it abundantly clear that he was too kind, too gentle, to survive someone like her, whether he meant to or not.

Stevie was none of those things, and she barely survived.

So she played it cool. Her eyes were less kind, her stance was less permissive. Miguel would not survive the girl that cuts to the bone and has a ledger bloodier than a pride of lions. So Stevie would carve her own feelings and her own desires of being loved and being wanted out of herself, and drop them off the edge of the cliff. 

She would abandon them as they had abandoned her.

"Then let's get it done."

( If Stevie started to purposefully slow down during their sparring, well ... that can stay our little secret. )

━━ hi guys...how's it going?

━━ ngl i don't really feel bad for my lack of updates. i've been working 16-18 hour days/6 days a week. i am working in spain though, which has been pretty cool.

━━ i edited again because i wasn't a fan of certain sections, but i have been working on the next chapter. i'm hoping to have a better schedule for updating, i just have very little free time to actually be working on this story unfortunately, but fear not! i am still here! i just need a little more patience for the next few months :) 

━━ los quiero mucho <3