Forbidden Things || Cobra Kai

74 Pain and Control

Frankie hated being at home knowing Penelope wasn't there, that she wasn't coming back anytime soon. Nothing felt right and there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing to do, period. It was horrible and the reason why she wasn't at home, but instead hanging out in Hawk's basement.

They'd played countless rounds of Mario Kart, ate an ungodly amount of snack foods, and tried to watch a show neither of them cared about on Netflix. It was all in some vain attempt to distract themselves while on suspension from school. For Frankie, her father had suggested she spend some time with a friend while they waited on Penelope's condition to change. However, there was no enjoyment in any of it. It hardly did its job as a distraction anyway.

Life goes on? She wanted to laugh in the face of whoever had come up with that, then punch them in the face as hard as she could. Repeatedly.

Her life had come to a complete standstill, left on pause just like Penelope's. No matter what she did, she felt stuck in one place. She was waiting for someone to hit play, but no one could.

So while she waited, she opened a new bag of chips and dug in.

Food didn't fill the void, but she couldn't stop herself. It at least made her feel something other than pain and suffering. She wished she could blame the consistent eating on weed, but Moon hadn't given her any and she didn't know where to go otherwise. Frankie knew her friend was just looking out for her, but there were times when smoking dope would help. She wanted to believe this was one of those times.

Hawk looked over at her and made a disgusted face as she crunched on cheetos. "How are you still eating?"

He'd sworn off all the junk food hours ago, claiming he was going to puke if he ate anymore of the snacks they'd gotten. After a bag of sour gummy worms and splitting a bag of potato chips with her, it seemed legitimate and she didn't doubt his claims.

With his nose scrunched up, he watched her despite feeling sick.

She shrugged, staring at him blankly. Usually, she'd enjoy messing with him. She'd probably push his buttons until he got too irritated to deal with it anymore and retaliated, but she wasn't in a teasing mood. She knew he wasn't either.

"You should come back to the dojo," he said, swiftly moving on from the topic of food. He grabbed his game controller and started a new game, turning his focus onto something at least a little productive, seeming to open up a quest based, single player game.

Frankie watched, mindlessly feeding Cheetos into her mouth, content with being entertained by his gameplay as opposed to playing the game. Even if she had no idea what game it was or what story it told.

"I don't want to," she said, her eyes trained on the little loading wheel as it spun on the screen. Silently, she thought about that loop and how much she identified with it. "I'm done with karate."

"Done with karate?" Hawk repeated.

"That's what I said."

There was a short pause before he continued. "You can't just quit."

"I can do whatever I want," she huffed, pulling her feet up to tuck them under her body. She was wearing a gray pair of sweats and a hoodie, because they were comfortable, but also because Hawk's house was as cold as Antarctica. "And I don't want to do karate anymore. Especially if Kreese is in charge."

Whatever happened at the Cobra Kai Karate Dojo was no longer any of Frankie's concern. She didn't care, but she didn't like the idea that John Kreese had crawled out of the shadows to lay claim to the place. From what she understood, he'd created Cobra Kai, and to take it back was his right or whatever, but to take it from under Sensei Lawrence's nose was just wrong. Hawk had told her it was because of a handshake deal, which was an interesting loophole to say the least.