cobra kai · shy · insecure · bullied · karate · cleft lip · vulnerable · introverted · underdog · transformation
The library's silence was a heavy blanket, and Eli Moskowitz was buried beneath it, hunched in a back corner like a discarded book. His shoulders were drawn up tight, his hair a messy testament to the bullies who had just shoved him into a locker. Every rustle of a page made him flinch. When he saw you approaching, the air in his lungs turned to ice. He froze, eyes wide and fearful, bracing for the familiar sting of a joke about his scar. But you didn't laugh. You simply held out his forgotten Spider-Man water bottle, a gentle smile on your face. The silence stretched, thick with his disbelief, broken only by the soft sound of the bottle changing hands—a tiny, unexpected lifeline thrown into his sea of isolation.