𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧, Axel Kovacevic

➷❪𝟭𝟯❫ 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗧𝗢 𝗠𝗘

December 2018

It was winter vacation, Sensei Wolf had let Arianna, Zara, and Axel take a break from training. As a friend group vacation they had gone to Heilongjiang, in mainland China. Arianna's former home. It had been Mei's idea because she wanted to go skiing in the snow. The whole friend group had been hyping it up for months.

But the only one who actually knew how to ski was Arianna. She and Axel knew how to snowboard as well. They were staying in a cabin which wasn't too far from the skiing resort. Mei and Arianna were sharing a room, Axel with Steven, Zara with Yumei, Nate with Yuanyun.

Before going skiing, they had decided to go ice skating first since most of them knew how to do it. Axel, Arianna, and Zara didn't really know how to.

Arianna had already picked out her outfit, a white fluffy coat, with black leggings, and white earmuffs. While Mei was debating what to wear. She hadn't had the guts to ask Steven to the dance so she decided she was going to try to "impress" him during this trip. "Okay, should I wear this snowsuit or match with you?" Mei asked Arianna who was sitting on the edge of her bed.

"You'll be hot if you were the snow suit. Save it for when we go skiing." Arianna suggested.

Mei pursed her lips as she began thinking. "Okay, fine." She said as she went into her and Arianna's shared bathroom to change.

A few minutes later Mei came out wearing a white fluffy coat paired with white dress pants and she wore white earmuffs. "What do you think?" Mei asked, her lips curling up into a smile as she posed.

"Beautiful." Arianna smiled, her eyes sparkled as she admired her best friend.

"I know." Mei smiled. "And thank you." Arianna had taught Mei to be polite.

Mei and Arianna stepped out of their room to find Axel and Steven waiting by the door. Axel's eyes lit up when he saw Arianna, which didn't go unnoticed by Mei. "Are they are not ready yet?" Mei asked, talking about the rest of the group.

"No." Steven responded, his patience was starting to run out.

And suddenly, Mei came up with an idea. The four of them could just leave without them. "Why don't we just go ahead of them? We can meet them there." Mei explained, she thought she was a genius with this plan. Steven would drive and she would sit in the passenger's seat, while Axel and Arianna would sit in the back.

"Sound's good to me." Steven said.

"Yeah." Axel agreed, nodding his head slightly and un-crossing his arms.

"Wait, but...it would be better to wait for them. That's the nice thing to do." Arianna objected, she didn't want the other to feel like they were being left out or something.

Mei sighed before wrapping her arm around Arianna's arm and opening the door, dragging Arianna with her. "Mei, that's so rude!" Arianna said as she willingly followed along. Axel and Steven followed behind the two girls.

Everything went just as Mei had planned. Arianna and Axel sitting together in the back seat, and she and Steven in the front. They were riding in an Maserati Ghibli.

20 minutes later, they had gotten to the ice skating rink. Mei suggested that they should go on ahead without the other because they would take forever to get here.

After that the four of them kind of split up, Mei and Arianna were skating together, while Axel and Steven were skating together.

Arianna held Mei's hand as she tried to keep her balance. She was terrible at this whole ice skating thing. While Axel was already getting the hang of it. "Come on, Arianna, just act like you're roller skating." Mei suggested as she guided Arianna.

"I don't know how to roller skate!" Arianna reminded Mei.

"Oh right, then just pretend like your skiing." Mei suggested. Arianna and Mei had their knees slightly bent as they skated slowly. "It's practically the same thing. You know, you just have to bend your knees and this and that." Mei was HORRIBLE at explaining.

"It would be similar if I wasn't worrying about slipping all the time." Arianna scoffed. Mei let go of Arianna's hand and slightly spined to face Arianna.

"You have to actually try, Arianna. Okay?" Mei asked, moving aside so Arianna could skate without her. She knew Arianna could skate well if she tried, but just didn't want to try.

"Okay, fine." Arianna said as she began following behind Mei. She looked down at her feet, trying to keep her balance, not noticing that Axel was about to crash into her. He got confident and started to moving too fast, and ended up not being able to stop in time.

Axel didn't have the time to process it until it was too late and they were both on the hard ice. Arianna's eyes widened as they both realized the position they were in. He was lying on top of her, their faces only inches away from each other, "I- I'm sorry..." Axel barely managed to say those words. Except for hugging each other, they had never been this close. A swarm of thoughts flooded Arianna's mind, she could barely think.

Behind them, Arianna could hear Mei's faint giggles.

And it was the same for Axel, his chest fell and rose rapidly. His heart almost beating out of his chest. Axel could almost feel Arianna's breath fanning his face. He began getting up slowly, carefully trying not to slip, and send them into a worse position. He could feel his knees brushing against her outer thighs. His mind became overstimulated with thoughts.

He lifted his leg slightly and moved to the other side. Arianna began sitting up slowly, trying to process what had just happened. Axel took a deep breath out as he stood up, trying to forget that Arianna had just been underneath him.

Mei helped Arianna up while giggling. "Are you okay?" Axel asked Arianna, his voice made a chill run down her spine.

"Y- yeah." Arianna mumbled. The fall hadn't even hurt because Arianna was too distracted thinking about Axel.

︵‿︵‿୨💗୧‿︵‿︵

So, Tory won the All Valley. John Kreese was arrested for some strange reason. Chozen Toguchi had come to the Valley. "I hope you can knock some sense into Daniel's head." Were the words Cat had told Chozen. So, you'd think everything would be better now, right? Well, no. Because Arianna was still not home. And also Daniel had closed up Miyagi-Do. Oh and Miguel had randomly ran away to Mexico. Arianna didn't know the full details.

Arianna pulled out a big box from her closet. She placed on the floor of her bedroom and opened it. The box contained most of the gifts Axel had given her for her birthday throughout the years. With every gift, he gave her a birthday card which he had written himself. Arianna liked re-reading them every once in a while.

All of these little gifts, made her feel all warm and cozy inside.

When they were little kids, Arianna and Axel were much closer. In fact, he was the first friend she had made in Hong Kong. Her father and Sensei Wolf were old friends, so he decided to take Arianna to Sensei's Wolf's newly opened dojo. Axel was one of the first students to join, along with Zhao Yumei and Wu Yuanyun.

She remembered having lunch with Axel every single day, he had a lot of friends but still decided to sit with Arianna instead of them. That was probably when Arianna began falling for him.

But then, in 2016, Mei convinced her parents to let her study in Hong Kong. That was probably when Axel and Arianna began growing apart. Sure they were still close friends as they were in the same friend group, but not as close as they used to be.