Young Hearts (A LawRusso Story)

Chapter 13 - The weird moment

The rest of the school day went by surprisingly smoothly. I had lunch together with Freddy and his group of friends, and managed to completely avoid both the cobras and Ali. The latter was only for safety measures, if I had to give her up to keep myself from getting beaten, I would.  

All though I was lucky enough not to run into Johnny in or between my classes, I knew I could not get around facing him in detention. No matter how hard I tried to push the anxiety out of my mind, It was always there as a definite reminder. I cursed Principal Davis repeatedly in my head for setting up that stupid punishment. Why couldn't she just give us a normal detention in a normal classroom, and be done with it? Like, what did she expect? That Johnny and I would work out our differences under a weeks long cleaning mission, and come out of it as best buddies? The whole thing was ridiculous. I knew Johnny was not with the others last night, but I had no doubt in my mind that he was the one behind the attack. He was the leader of the group after all.

After last period, I went to leave my algebra book in my locker and retrieve my bag. The school was gradually emptied of students, and soon I was quite alone in the hallway. A few stragglers were hanging around talking near the restrooms, two girls with identical, almost none existing jeans shorts, where giggling hysterically in front of a big poster on the notice board. I did not have to see it to figure out what they where looking at, I had heard countless people talking about the upcoming Halloween costume dance today. I for one, could not understand what all the fuss was about. The dance was not due for almost two months, and I had always hated dress up parties.  

I swung my locker close and headed down the corridor towards the stairs to the basement, but soon came to an abrupt halt. In the far end of the corridor stood Johnny, in his usual red jacket, talking to his friends. The two girls in jeans shorts turned to me with curious expressions, so I hastily bent down and pretended to retie my shoelaces. There was no way I could walk past those guys, especially not when the school was almost empty. I peered up from my dirty sneakers and noticed that they seemed to be arguing, Johnny against the rest by the sound of it. I was too far away to make out what they were saying, but the argument appeared to be heated enough for me to sneak closer without getting noticed. I stood up and pulled the hood of my sweater over my head to conceal my face as I slowly moved closer.     

"I don't care what Krease says!" Johnny exclaimed angrily, his arms outstretched to emphasis his words. "I can't bail!"

The others did not seem happy about that statement.

"But..." The blond one called Dutch said in equal temper. "You're the star pupil!"  

"This is stupid, Johnny." Continued Bobby. "Cobra kai must be more important than some detention."

"It's not like I have a choice, Bobby." Johnny spat. "If I don't show I'll be expelled!" 

"That's bullshit!" Dutch retorted. "Davis wouldn't..."

"Hell yeah she would!" Johnny cut him off. "I can't get into any more trouble or I'll be kicked out and my scholarship will be gone!" 

"But what about the tournament?" The one called Jimmy fired at him this time.

"What about it?" Johnny asked vigorously. "It's a fucking piece of cake anyway." 

Jimmy snarled at that.

"Also, if my mother gets one more call from the Principal, Sid has threatened to stop paying for karate lessons anyway." Johnny said trough cleansed jaws.     

Would serve you right. I thought to myself. But who was Sid? His father?

The others did not respond to that argument, they only glared and mumbled something unrecognizable under their breaths. Johnny stood with his side to me, but I could see that he was furious. 

"Let's go guys." Bobby said, and nudged Jimmy's arm with his elbow. "Come on, Dutch." He continued when the blonde one did not follow his lead.

"You better get out of that detention and get back to practice soon." Dutch shot a last comment before joining Bobby and the others. Johnny just flipped him off.

The cobras left the hallway and Johnny went the other direction towards the stairways, thankfully without turning around and spotting me. I stayed behind and counted slowly to 60 before following him down to the basement. When I got there, Johnny stood alone waiting outside the door, and he watched me intently as I got closer. His gaze made me extremely uncomfortable, since he usually acted like I did not even exist. I stopped a few yards away from him, but then he surprised me by stepping forwards to me. I could not avoid to flinch as he got up only inches from my face. Johnny did not seem to care however, but only stared at my face with furrowed eyebrows. Unsure what to make of the situation, I let him study my bruised face with a thoughtful expression. I tried to search his eyes for a clue what all this was about, but he did not meet mine. If I did not know better, I would have thought that he was...concerned? But I did now better, he probably wanted to see how successful his friends have been beating me up. Maybe he was even disappointed that they did not injure me enough.

"Shit." He whispered, still examining me with a serious face.

If I had not been standing so close, I would not even had heard him. 

"Yeah, nice friends you've got." I mumbled.

Johnny finally met my eyes, but still there was not even a trace of a taunt or smirk on his face. Strangely, he did not seem amused at all. Why was he acting so weird? And why was he standing so close? I Could feel his breaths fan my face and his heat radiating on me. I gulped. Something about standing like this made my knees shake. The scent of leather from his jacked filled my nostrils and kept me from thinking straight.

"Sorry I'm late, boys." A grunting voice from down the hall snapped me out of my trans. 

I looked away from Johnny's piercing blue eyes and saw the janitor approaching the two of us. I hastily took a few steps back to increase the distance to the blonde one in front of me. The janitor did not seem to recognize the weirdness of the situation, but only made his way over to unlock the classroom. When he turned to leave, his eyes fixed on my face. He raised his eyebrows slightly, but otherwise kept a neutral expression.

"What the hell happened to you?"