"DID YOU KNOW THAT HE WAS GONNA come to Cobra Kai with his old man and pull the shit they just did?" Johnny spat, slamming Mavis' locker shut and scaring Dara half to death. The look on her face was priceless. If Mavis had owned a camera, she would have snapped a photo for her album. "Hm?"

"What the fuck, Johnny?" Mavis swatted his arm away that held her locker closed. "What if you had slammed that on my finger and chopped it off? You'd have a steep-ass lawsuit on your hands," Mavis warned.

"I didn't," Johnny said with his head tilted to the side. "Look, you can skip around with the dork whenever and wherever you want, but just tell me if you knew." Johnny's eyebrows pulled together when he gritted out the words uncomfortably.

"No one knows what the fuck you're talking about, man. Can you back off?" Dara asked. She held up her hands in front of him, pretending to push him away.

"I didn't ask you, Jones."

"You didn't need to! Don't talk to her like that!" Mavis got up in his face, stepping on his shoes and trying to crush his toes. "Neither of us knows what the hell you're talking about, Lawrence. I let you into my house yesterday. You don't get to treat me like that."

"You just love to piss people off."

"What?"

This was new information to Dara, who stared at them both in shock. Mavis swore to explain to her later that the blond boy had barged into her place after he beat the shit out of Daniel.

"LaRusso swaggers into my goddamn dojo with his old man and demands to fight at the championship to get me off his back. Who does something like that?" Johnny whisper-shouted at Mavis. He moved his hand off of her locker with a sigh.

Mavis rolled her eyes at him, stomping on his foot and opening her locker to grab her things. A picture of Joan Jett stared back at her, eavesdropping on their conversation.

"We've got company," Dara pointed out, glaring at Tommy in particular. Both girls watched a few loose papers fall from Tommy's upside down textbook.

"Settle down ladies! Just checking in," The nuisance said to Dara, looking over at Mavis. Johnny ran his shaking fingers through his hair.

"Shut the fuck up, Tommy. This isn't your problem." Dutch whistled while Jimmy and Bobby hung back. Tommy recoiled from him in confusion. "Not now, not here."

"Jesus, fine. Whatever, man."

"Since you're here too, you can listen to me when I say I don't know what the hell you're rambling on about, and I don't care. I can be friends with whoever I want. Daniel's business is his own, 'kay?" Mavis looked at all of them with her eyebrows raised.

"It's bullshit, Mae!"

"Mavis he's gonna get his ass handed to him. Can't you just tell him to back off?" Bobby asked carefully, blinking at her slowly. "I don't wanna get into it with him in front of people, you know?"

"He'd be humiliated," Dutch added on, leaning forward. Mavis scoffed while she crossed her arms over her chest.

"It can't be that hard to kick someone in the face. He could get some points in," Dara said nonchalantly, making the boys glare at her. "I'm serious!"

"Stop trying to appeal to my humanity, Dutch, Bobby," She said to the two boys, purposely avoiding Johnny's glare. "Out of sight, out of mind. I could care less."

"You have other problems anyways." Dara pointed to Ali walking side by side with Daniel and laughing at a joke he told her. She waved to him when he looked but he refrained from doing the same when he saw the crowd of angry boys surrounding them. "While you're busy with us, he's swooping in."

"Damn right. Go bother some freshman or something. We all know Tommy loves to prey on those poor kids," Mavis grumbled. She pulled her gum from her mouth and slapped it onto Dutch's cheek making him swear at her. Johnny held Tommy back from walking towards her any further.

"Did you know anything about who Daniel went in with?" Dara asked her best friend.

"I'm assuming they meant Mr. Miyagi. I know he's from Okinawa and practiced karate. Plus, he's old."

Mavis liked the older man, even though they had only spoken a handful of times when something broke that her father couldn't fix -- which was rare. She had however seen a few of his black and white photos and artifacts from home where he kept his supplies. He was kind to Mavis St. James when she was a child. He still kept a box of bandages because of what was left of Mavis' failed skating career.

"They were rude to disrespect him, then," Dara pointed out. Mavis nodded with a grim look. "I bet Kreese isn't happy about this." Mavis' eyebrows tugged downwards any time she noticed anyone staring too long at her.

"Oh, I'm sure. Kreese is a bully himself and everyone knows it. He's stuck in the past and can't seem to catch up to the fact that you don't have to yell at everyone."

A shorter girl bumped into the two of them, apologizing before noticing Mavis. She gasped out loud and turned to her friends, a group of five of them.

"Oh my god!" She screeched. "You're friends with Johnny Lawrence!"

"I don't have time for this," Mavis said while trying to leave.

"I'm Sarah, I was wondering what that was back there? Everyone could tell you guys had a problem. Is it because of Ali?" Her voice got quieter while Mavis and Dara stared with blank eyes. "Because I think you'd be the cooler girlfriend." Is what because of Ali?

"This is insane!" Dara laughed loudly, grabbing for Mavis' arm unoccupied by her textbooks and notebook, dragging her through the group of underclassmen.

"You're really cool, Mavis!" A skinny boy with cuffed jeans and a flannel yelled after her.

"What the hell? I didn't do anything this time?" It was more of a question. Mavis had never had people talk to her kindly before and she'd been there for three years.

"Who knows? Enjoy it while it lasts, though."

"Fingers crossed it ends soon and people can stop talking to me," Mavis continued to grumble. She shook her head, feeling fuzzy and out of control. "I don't know why everyone has to keep asking dumb questions about me?"

"You're finally interesting to them," Dara put it simply. She tied her hair back in a ponytail to keep her long hair out of her face. Mavis looked down at her clothes. She still looked the same, acted the same, and spoke the same. "It's not the shirt, even though it does probably make people think twice.

Her shirt said 'Convicted Arsonist.'

Ali was the one that found Mavis during her art class, getting her attention by waving a hand in front of her face. She pulled paused the music on her walkman and pulled the earbuds out. Ali sat across from her and smiled brightly. The boy sitting by them looked between the two girls with interest before focusing on his drawing of a naked woman. Lovely.

"Hey, how are you? I haven't had the chance to properly have a conversation, I feel like," Ali began. Mavis shifted awkwardly, putting on a smile that felt forced and uncomfortable. Ali pretended not to notice. "I feel like I hear more about you from Daniel, actually."

"Is this about me hanging out with him? Because I'm really, really, not interested. Like literally not at all," Mavis blurted out before cutting herself off when the weird kid looked over at her again. Ali opened her mouth before shutting it like a fish out of water.

"Oh no, I'm—I'm actually not worried about that. Like, I was a little bit at first I guess. But only because you're both neighbors and he seemed to want to hang out." She watched Mavis slowly bob her head up and down. "It's actually about Johnny."

"Oh!" Mavis managed to say. "Why?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm not mad, is all. Because I was thinking that's why we haven't really talked."

"I don't really know you that well," Mavis said slowly. Ali blinked.

"Just that, you seem like you've been avoiding me." Had she?

"Again, I didn't really have a reason to talk to you. Don't take that personally." Mavis didn't try to put on a smile, having forgotten how to act already. The looked at the clock and watched it slowly tick by. She'd only been in class for half of the period and she really, really wanted to leave.

"No worries!" Ali laughed awkwardly before coughing. Mavis smiled tensely and turned back to her art. So far, all she had was a shitty looking sports-car. "Just after what's been going around, I wanted you to know I'm not mad or anything. Actually, really relieved to be honest. I was hoping he'd move on."

Mavis picked her pencil off the paper and paused, retracing Ali's words carefully.

"Wait, slow down. Scratch that," She shook her head. "Say that again?"

Ali gasped, putting her hands over her mouth. She stared at Mavis in horror while the other girl had a grave look on her face waiting for her to continue.

"You don't know, do you?" Ali spoke softly.

"Know what?" Ali bit down on her lip, looking around to make sure Garrett, the kid sitting by them wasn't listening.

"People have been saying, you know," Mavis didn't know, that was the problem. "Well, they've started a rumor then about you." Mavis stared while her face turned pale. Ali leaned in. "Someone started the rumor that you guys, well, did it."

Mavis' lip curled.

"Who?" Her eyes shifted to Garrett, who looked up and flinched at the look on her face. "Someone from the party? From the Halloween dance? Who, Ali?" She demanded.

"They had a picture of Johnny outside your apartment last night. What didn't help was mine and Bobby's friends who saw you guys in Johnny's room at his party."

"That was a month ago!" Mavis whispered harshly. "Besides, I'm sure they thought that then, but it blew over."

"No, Mavis. They just kept it quiet around you because they didn't want you to react." Ali's voice was soft and sympathetic. And yet Mavis began to fade away from the classroom; from reality. "People started talking more when they noticed how often you talk to each other. And then the picture."

"And people have seen this picture?" It wasn't likely that anyone would bother sending it around the school by putting it in lockers. Who cared enough for that?

"Well, a few people have," Ali admitted. "Someone took it by your apartment, like I said."

The sad part was that Mavis knew who took it. At least, she suspected. Daniel was a friend now, and though she would have expected him to be the culprit less than a few weeks ago, she doubted it was him. He hadn't seemed guilty at all. So the only other option was Freddy Fernandez likely looking for some new drama, and annoyed at her for ignoring him and hanging him out to dry at Johnny's. Freddy really made awful decisions sometimes.

No wonder Garrett of all people was staring at her. The kid had probably never spoken to a girl before. His eyes flickered between her and the girl he'd drawn poorly on paper. She squinted her eyes and snatched it from him.

"Wait a minute. Is this supposed to be me?" He didn't say anything and she ripped it in half, slamming the paper down on the table. "Go ahead and rip your own eyes out and swallow them, so you can never look at anyone ever again."

"I—" The boy gulped while Mavis gave him an icy glare.

"Don't ever look at me again," She told him before she set her unfinished work on her teacher's desk and striding out the door with Ali hot on her tails.

"Mavis! Mavis St. James!" The hallways were empty since class wasn't over.

"You don't have to sacrifice your attendance just to check on me. I'll be fine," Mavis gritted out while making long strides to the girls' bathroom. She stood at the sink running cool water over the clenched fists until they released. She covered her face with her hands and sighed when Ali gently closed the door and decided to stand by her side.

"You're a friend of Daniel's. So you're a friend of mine, Mavis. Even if we don't talk much," Ali voiced softly. Mavis looked at her in the mirror. The dark-haired girl had nothing to say to that statement. "I know Johnny and I aren't exactly on good terms, but I could always talk to him for you."

Mavis did not expect this. By Ali saying that she and Johnny were not on good terms and still offering to talk to him surprised the hell out of her. But she did not wish for her to do so.

Besides, what could Ali do?

author's note —

a good ol rumor to set the pace for the next bit. gotta love it. mavis is so cool girl coded.

anyways what the hell is this new taylor album cause those lyrics are insane💀