I got into a situation like OP is describing back when I was a kid. I won't go into too much detail. But when I was about 13, I was in my apartment complex and I saw this other kid walking with cake in his hand. Lets call him "X". He thought I made a comment about him for some reason and he challenged me to a fight. We scrapped and I didn't get my ass whooped, but he won the fight. He was older, but not a whole lot bigger. But fair is fair. He won.
Fast forward a year later. Me and another kid got into a fight. Him and his brother ended up trying to fight me at the same time. Lets call them "J" and "E". This time, I won. Ended up beating both of their asses in front of the apartment complex. Rent a cop security lady ended up having to come out and break it up. She sent them home literally crying to their mother.
Now the only bad thing about getting into a fight with "J" and "E" was that they had this basketball hoop that their mom had bought them and they had it setup over near their apartment. I swear they got that shyt maybe a month after we fought because when I was cool with them, they didn't have it. This admittedly had me feeling some type of way. I was pissed. I had too much pride to try and get cool with them to play on their goal. So I just said fukk it and kept it moving.
One day, my moms had me take out the trash. So this is in an apartment complex. I have to haul this shyt around to the dumpster. While I'm doing that I have to walk by an area where I can clearly see these dudes outside playing ball. They look like they having a good ole time to. Almost broke a young Phoenix bird's spirit.


Hell I even saw "X" over there playing with them and some other people I didn't even know. I kept it pushin though. Dropped off the trash, then came back towards my apartment. All of a sudden, I hear gunshots. DAMN. I hit the deck.
I don't know who's shooting or where it's coming from. One thing you have to know about these apartments is that they were hood as hell. So much so that when the company that owned them renovated them and tried to fix them up a little, they asked the cops to setup shop over there. So they literally had an HPD substation in the apartment complex. I just happened to hear those gunshots as I was near that substation. All of a sudden I see cops running out of there with their guns drawn and headed towards the shots. I wasn't dumb enough to follow them so I had no idea what was happening.
It turns out the shots were over where "J", "E", and "X" was playing ball. "X" apparently had gotten into it with some other kid that was playing ball over there. And instead of squaring up like me and him did the year before, he pulled out a gun and shot the kid to death. DAMN I'm glad I wasn't over there. I was pretty good on the court when I was younger and I KNOW I would have been talking MAAAAAAD shyt. LOL. Probably woulda got my ass shot.