Archive of Our Own

“This is bullshit, Johnny,” says Dutch.

Johnny doesn’t say anything. Out in the bright river of sunlight and pavement, the world narrows to spots of color: jackets, bikes, the shadows of palm trees. The way people step out of their paths to make way for them, instinctive, as they move through the September heat.

“Bullshit,” says Dutch again. “Johnny, that’s your girl.”

Johnny stays silent, but he looks at Tommy, who understands at once, and leans over to cuff Dutch on the back of the head. “Yeah, but it’s not your girl, so shut the fuck up,” he says. And then, proving that you can’t rely on anybody: “But Johnny—”

“You heard Sensei,” says Johnny.

“Yeah, but you can go back,” says Dutch. “Talk to him. Come on, Johnny. Like he’s gonna pick some ball-less New Jersey dickwad with a waitress mom over you?”

Johnny’s bike is waiting for him, gleaming and red as carpet. Johnny swings his leg over onto it, and doesn’t wait for the others to mount theirs before he calls the engine snarling to life.

The thing Bobby and Jimmy and Tommy and Dutch have never understood—the thing that, if Johnny is honest with himself, makes Johnny a better fighter than any of them—is that they think Cobra Kai means permission. You want to hit the other guy, you know how to hit the other guy, so you hit the other guy. You want the girl, you know how to take the girl, so now you have the girl. No mercy, meaning: no rules. But that’s not how it is.

It’s like this pastor Johnny knew used to say, back in the days before Sid, when Mom actually managed to shove him on the occasional Sunday into a monkey suit and a church pew on Victory Boulevard. Before the world was created, before there was any such thing as sky and trees and beaches and schools and leather jackets and country clubs and Honda XL 600Rs, the earth was without form and void. No order; no reality. Just an endless, primordial darkness, where anything might happen to anybody, and there wouldn’t be any reason for it, or anything to stop it, or anything to know when it might happen again.

And then: light.

They come to a stop at a red, where the engines soften to a rattlesnake hum. Johnny can feel their eyes on his face. He says again, shortly, “You heard Sensei. Nobody’s picking anybody. If LaRusso has a problem with that, he has a problem with Cobra Kai.”

“Yeah,” says Tommy, clearly uncertain but willing as always to jump at a cue.

“If you have a problem with that,” says Johnny, “you have a problem with Sensei,” and guns the engine without waiting to see the looks on their faces.

School’s a blur the day after: English, pre-calc, chemistry. The soft cloud of Ali’s hair from behind in the hallway, the powder-purple smell of her perfume. Econ. Government. At lunch, Daniel LaRusso, plastic-wrapped sandwich and five-cent milk, stalking towards the door of the cafeteria.

Johnny watches him go through his eyelashes. Bobby, catching the direction of his gaze, whistles softly through his teeth. “I thought he was gonna make a move on Ali right away,” he says.

So had Johnny, and it’s bothering him. He doesn’t know why. It shouldn’t: he’s never thought highly of LaRusso—hadn’t the little prick moved in on his girl before the dust even had a chance to settle down? And now he has a reason to stay away from her. A reason he’s actually likely to listen to, anyway. Sensei, as usual, was right. It’s over between the two of them.

“Yeah,” he says.

Bobby watches him silently for a while. Behind him, Dutch is flicking peas at the back of Kevin Dumpford’s neck. After a minute or two, he says, “You wanna go after him?”

“No,” says Johnny. “You know what Sensei said.”

“Yeah,” says Bobby, and keeps watching him.

After a minute Johnny says, “He’s probably not even gonna show up to the dojo, anyway.”

“And then you’re gonna get him,” says Bobby.

“Yeah,” says Johnny. “I’m gonna get him.”

But LaRusso is there at Cobra Kai, three hours later, wearing a loose blue tank and a wary look. Dutch brushes past him hard on their way in, not quite an elbow, at which LaRusso doesn’t quite stumble. Johnny catches up with Dutch a second later, and touches his arm, a warning. Dutch makes a face.

He can feel Sensei’s eyes on him a second before the man actually appears, striding in from the back office behind the mirrors. Johnny snaps to attention, back straight, feet shoulder width, and watches in the mirror how the motion flows outward from him, Cobra after Cobra in sharp white rows, hard eyes, empty faces. And LaRusso, in the back a spot of cheap-dye blue, weight on one leg, open-mouthed, like he's waiting for somebody to say hi.

“I see we have a new student today,” says Sensei.

LaRusso makes a little face, like: who, me? Johnny has to fight to keep his face blank, and feels a swift surge of relief when Sensei moves past him, down the rows, toward LaRusso at the back.

“In this dojo,” says Sensei, voice like stone, “my students speak when spoken to.”

There’s a flicker of an expression in LaRusso’s face, which if Johnny didn’t know better he might think was laughter; then LaRusso catches Johnny’s eye in the mirror, and it’s gone. “Okay,” he says.

Sensei moves forward—God, LaRusso’s small. “In this dojo,” he says, “my students respond Yes or No.”

“Oh, uh,” says LaRusso, “yes?” And then, when Kreese doesn’t move, “Oh—yes, sensei.”

Not as stupid as you look, Johnny hears in Sensei’s voice, but Sensei doesn’t say it. Instead he turns away from LaRusso and barks aits, and the Cobras as one fall into fighting position, and then, as Sensei calls them, a series of lunge punch, front kick, reverse punch, roundhouse, kiai, kiai, kiai. LaRusso, to his credit, doesn’t try any kind of poor imitation. He just stands there, those wide brown eyes flickering to Johnny, to Sensei, back again.

They fall back into fighting position. Johnny only sees it because he’s looking: the gleam of amusement in Sensei’s eyes.

“Mr. Lawrence,” he says coolly, “put Mr. LaRusso through his paces.”

“Yes, sensei,” says Johnny, with pleasure.

In the corner of the studio LaRusso stares at him, tight-lipped. Johnny blinks lazily at him.

“Twenty push-ups on your knuckles,” he says.

“Come on,” says LaRusso.

“Okay, thirty,” says Johnny. He can feel a smile trying to hook at the edges of his mouth. That unsettled feeling in his gut, the one that’s been bothering him since the cafeteria, is gone as if it never was.

“So, what,” says LaRusso, “you’re just going to push me around anyway, but now it’s in a karate gym?”

“It’s called a dojo,” says Johnny. “Forty push-ups.” LaRusso doesn't move. “Oh,” says Johnny, “I get it, you don’t think you can.”

LaRusso gives him a murderous look and drops down instantly. Johnny watches him get through ten before he prods LaRusso’s arm gently with his foot.

“On your knuckles,” he says. “Start again.”

When they fall back into rows again he’s forced to admit that LaRusso is not bad at the basics. He can drill with Cobra Kai—with the rest of Cobra Kai—without making an idiot out of himself; he never has to learn a stance twice, a block, a thrust. His body picks up memory easily, in a way that even Johnny’s body doesn’t. What he has trouble with is self-correction, and Johnny has to head back to fix his posture twice before he gets tired of it and hisses, “Why can’t you just look at the guys next to you?”

LaRusso gives him a blank look, then a faintly suspicious one, like: do you think there’s something I should be looking at. “No, idiot,” Johnny whispers, “watching what they’re doing. So you can watch what you’re doing. Do you think everybody else learns in our sleep?”

LaRusso’s stare gets more suspicious, and Johnny is starting to wonder if he should’ve waited for LaRusso to talk aloud, when Kreese says, “Mr. Lawrence!”, and Johnny’s body turns and his mouth says “Yes sensei!” before he can finish the thought.

“Is Mr. LaRusso having trouble?” says Sensei.

That trips Johnny up; he’s not even sure what the right answer is. “I’m showing him, sensei,” he says.

Sensei gives him an unreadable look. Johnny stands very still, and doesn’t duck his head. “You can show the class,” Sensei says, at last. “Circle up, everyone. Mr. Lawrence is going to demonstrate to Mr. LaRusso how it’s done.”

LaRusso’s face is a book so open even Jimmy could read it. Johnny can practically hear the Jersey aw-jeez-really? there, the c'mon, you gotta be kidding me, same as it was yesterday when he walked into the dojo and saw Johnny at the head of the class; and then, just as they did yesterday, his eyes narrow and his jaw sets, and Johnny follows his dark head into the circle of students with his heart hammering like a rabbit's. He wishes he knew the hell why. It’s not like LaRusso’s going to get a hit in on him.

“Bow to me,” Sensei says softly. Johnny does, his breath easing. “To each other—” LaRusso, barely ducking his head; Johnny has to stop himself smiling again—“fight.”

LaRusso does land a hit on him, funnily enough. Must be his lucky day. And after that, after that—Johnny’s body has always known how to talk, even when Johnny doesn't know what to say. It knew how to talk on the beach, back when there was nothing Johnny cared about except Ali, and losing her; it knows how to talk now. This is how it's always been: Sensei says, this is your language, Mr. Lawrence, and Johnny says yes.

LaRusso lies still, afterward. Johnny squats down and reaches out a hand. LaRusso doesn't move for a second, until Johnny hisses, “Come on,” embarrassed for him, and grabs his wrist and tugs. He comes up easily enough—he's so light—and he stays standing. There's a redness coming up under his cheekbone. He looks up, and meets Johnny's eyes.

“Go fuck yourself,” he says to Johnny; then he turns, and like a shot, he's gone. The door slams and tinkles.

There's dead silence for a second, then a flurry of snickering. Johnny turns to Sensei, bewildered, and doesn't understand what he sees in Sensei's face, the little smile there.

“Sensei,” he says, “can I—”

Sensei stares at him. Johnny stares back, panicked. Why doesn't Sensei know what he means?

“Can I go get him?” he says.

Sensei's eyes narrow, and Johnny's heart jumps; he has to be wrong, something is wrong with him, because Sensei looks confused. But he says, “Then go, Mr. Lawrence,” and Johnny bows, scoops up his shoes at the door, and runs.

It takes him a second to spot LaRusso; the little prick hasn't made it far. Probably stopped to double-knot his shoelaces. Johnny knows after twenty seconds that he's going to catch him, and after that it's just a matter of muscle and lung, wind in his ears and under his feet the hot concrete, the jolt of pleasure when LaRusso glances behind him and Johnny sees the whites of his eyes. After a couple of blocks LaRusso bolts to the left, into the curled dry weeds, and Johnny tracks him up the gentle curve of a hill, the long diagonal, the scrub fading into dust and loose stone, the yellow clusters of the tall grasses, the roots of long-dead trees. Coming up, invisible grey against the grey-white of the sky, a chain-link fence. Johnny grins, even though LaRusso can't see him do it, and puts on a burst of speed, and then LaRusso trips over a rock and falls on his face a yard from the fence.

He's sitting up in a second, cursing. It won't make a difference for him, Johnny thinks. He slows and lopes to a stop in front of LaRusso, who scrabbles backwards until he hits the fence and winces at the impact. Johnny bends down, holds out a hand again. LaRusso doesn't seem to notice. Maybe he's just ignoring Johnny. He uses the fence as leverage, pushes himself slowly to his feet.

“You must think I’m a real dumbass,” he says, without looking at Johnny.

“Sure,” Johnny says.

“Make me pay not to get beat up,” LaRusso says, “then beat me up anyway. What a fucking sucker, right?”

He looks up at Johnny; the bruise is starting to bloom on his cheek, plum-blue and bright blood. Johnny is suddenly, terribly breathless. When he can talk again, he says, “No.”

“Sure,” says LaRusso bitterly.

“You heard Sensei yesterday,” says Johnny. “You're Cobra Kai.”

“Yeah, right,” says LaRusso.

“No,” says Johnny, coming up on angry now. He looks around—for what, help?—comes up with nobody. Fine. He swallows, takes a step back into the needlegrass.

“Okay,” he says, “hit me.”

LaRusso stares open-mouthed at him for a second, pure black-eyed shock, and then says, “Fuck off.”

“What’s wrong,” says Johnny, “can’t make a fist?”

“I knew you thought I was dumb,” says LaRusso, “but Jesus. So, what now, you’re gonna break my whole face and say I started it?”

“I’m not gonna hit back,” says Johnny.

LaRusso starts to say something sarcastic, then stops. Johnny watches his face—his mouth, lips a little parted, how his chest rises and falls. He’s watching Johnny back. Johnny doesn’t know whether to stop looking or not.

“You’re crazy,” LaRusso says at last. “You know that, right? Certified nutjob. Grade A.”

“Fine,” says Johnny, and turns to walk away, but LaRusso says, “Wait.”

Johnny looks back. LaRusso’s eyes are narrowed. After a second he says, “You mean, in the face?”

“Sure,” says Johnny. Then, when LaRusso says nothing: “Or my stomach. My arm. Why do you care? I should’ve known you were going to talk about it instead of—“

He’d been wrong in the dojo. Daniel doesn’t hit lucky. He hits hard.

For a second, Johnny thinks he’s lost a tooth. The whole side of his face is empty for a second, a terrible whitewash-blank. Then the sensation floods in, less pain than blood, the hot sudden rush of it, rust on the inside of his mouth, throbbing in his cheek, his lower lip.

“Jesus,” says LaRusso's voice distantly, sounding a little awed.

There's the pain, now. Johnny breathes: in through his nose, out through his mouth. When he opens his eyes, LaRusso is watching him, weight shifting, poised to run.

“Okay,” says Johnny. He keeps prodding the inside of his mouth with his tongue, tasting the iron there, the rapid swelling on his lip. “Okay. You happy now?”

LaRusso is quiet for a while. Then he says again, “You’re crazy,” but it’s not the same this time, his voice.

“Yeah, okay,” says Johnny. He swallows down. Rust again. “You gonna come back tomorrow?”

LaRusso is still staring at him. At his side, his hand twitches, like he's gonna touch Johnny's face again. Johnny makes himself stand absolutely still; but in the end LaRusso's hand only drifts over his own cheek, that soft violet bruise.

“I guess I will,” he says.

“Good,” says Johnny, and steps towards him. LaRusso stills for a second, and then darts like a watersnake, quick, under his arm. Johnny spins and, all instinct, gives chase; but there’s no chain-link fence in this direction, and LaRusso might be short but with a real head start he can move like anything, and Johnny’s left standing on the empty street staring after his disappearing silhouette, sun calling up the shimmer on the concrete where he ran.

Where else does he have to go?

The dojo is nearly empty, the row of red bikes all vanished from the street out front except Johnny's own. He steps out of his shoes at the door, and moves past Sensei's cut-out, his photos, the rows of gleaming trophies Johnny has built into a wall for him.

“Mr. Lawrence,” says Sensei. He's waiting by the mirrors, arms crossed over his chest.

“Yes sensei!” says Johnny, back straight, breath gone, feet shoulder-width apart. Sensei paces closer, easy, focused. Johnny stares straight ahead.

Please, he thinks. Please ask me something I know the answer to.

“Do we have a problem, Mr. Lawrence?” says Kreese.

And Johnny, nearly sick with relief and gratitude, says, “No, sensei!”, and turns to go.

Fall comes on like it always does, scorching and gold. This is Johnny’s favorite time of year, this sun-flare right on the edge of October, the hills gone brown and the snakes gone hissing back into their holes, the swift hot afternoons smelling of exhaust and woodsmoke. The wind changes on them, a week after Halloween, and a breeze comes in from the east, and the whole Valley fills up with it, death-dry air.

LaRusso is a mouthy little shit. Good, too, which almost makes up for it. Johnny hadn’t been wrong about the muscle memory. Sensei hasn't asked them to spar again, since that first day—sends him to Tommy, to Dutch, who throw him to the ground and don't wait for him to get back up again. Johnny doesn't want to ask Sensei about it. He doesn't want to want to ask Sensei about it. He watches LaRusso in the mirrors, thinks about how LaRusso could be striking differently, blocking better, moving his shoulders differently, his legs.

The leaves are curling up in the gutters. Fear does not exist in this dojo, says Sensei, does it.

No sensei, says Johnny.

Pain does not exist in this dojo, says Sensei, does it.

No sensei, says Johnny.

Defeat does not exist in this dojo, says Sensei, does it.

“No sensei,” says LaRusso, and throws Dutch across the room.

Dutch comes to Johnny during the water break, limping, eyes screwed up with misery. “We're gonna get him,” he says.

“Why would we get him?” says Johnny coldly.

“Come on, Johnny,” Dutch says. Johnny looks around the circle of them: Tommy, Bobby, Jimmy in his red jacket who'd been hovering at the door. One by one, each of them breaks eye contact, looks down at his feet.

Johnny turns back to Dutch. “You scared of him?” he says.

“Why are you sticking up for him?” says Dutch. Johnny flinches toward him, and watches with satisfaction as Dutch recoils.

Victory makes Johnny magnanimous. He says patiently: “He's Cobra Kai.”

They fall back into rows again. Sensei's brought out weights for Johnny, heavy stone padlocks, and boards and wooden training dummies for the other students. LaRusso can hit people easily enough, but the board is killing him; he jabs, jabs again. Johnny thinks with great irritation, hips, and is so startled when Sensei appears at his shoulder that he jerks back from Sensei, and tenses for consequences at once, furious with himself.

Sensei gives him a blank look, which is worse, and moves around him, towards LaRusso—Johnny tenses again—and catches his shoulder. LaRusso snaps to attention.

“Put your whole weight behind it,” says Sensei. LaRusso starts to move, but Sensei shakes his head, and he freezes. “Your hips, Mr. LaRusso.”

Johnny can see LaRusso thinking about it, and see when he understands, when his body understands, when he moves and twists. The board cracks in two. Sensei steps back.

“Good,” he says, and Johnny sees how Daniel’s face cracks open, too, clear hot golden pride. “Next board. Do it again.”

“Yes, sensei!” says Daniel, and does. After a second, Sensei nods.

“Mr. Lawrence,” he says, “work with him.”

There's not much to work with. Johnny enjoys himself anyway, shoving at LaRusso's arm, shouldering him out of the way to demonstrate. LaRusso takes it with good grace. His eyes keep flickering to Sensei, his mouth curling at one side. Johnny feels warm.

He steers the guys towards LaRusso when the lesson is over, not really thinking about why. Some girl Bobby's chasing is having a party at her house, her parents gone to Cayucos for the weekend. Bobby's describing the girl, the house; LaRusso is tying his shoelaces—God, he does double-knot them. When he pulls open the door of the dojo and shoves himself outside into the afternoon heat, Johnny trails after, Bobby and Dutch a few steps behind. LaRusso looks back at him, makes a face Johnny can't read, and slows to let Johnny fall in beside him.

“You should come to the party,” Johnny says.

“Can't,” LaRusso says shortly.

Johnny's temper flares. “Fine,” he says. “Don't.”

LaRusso is silent for a minute, visibly struggling, then bursts out: “I can't, dumbass. My mom can't drive that far before her shift.”

“Your mom?” says Dutch, and laughs an ugly laugh. Johnny joins in. LaRusso curls his lip, turns away. “Whatever,” he says.

“Hey,” says Johnny, irritated again, “don't be a dick. Who cares about your mom, Jesus? What's your address?”

“What,” says LaRusso, “you're gonna pick me up on your bike?” and then immediately looks terrified by the idea. Johnny lets him stew in it a second, grinning.

“I have a car, dumbass,” he says. “What’s your address? Come on, give it to me.”

LaRusso stares at him. “I live in Reseda,” he says slowly.

“What,” says Johnny, “the whole neighborhood?”

It's not the whole neighborhood, but it's about as ugly as. He knocks, then circles back to the railing overlooking the pool, where the scarlet clouds are drifting from one end of the puddle to the other. There’s a snail there, making its slow way up the banister, its whorled shell catching the afternoon light. Johnny bends, examines it at an angle, and then flicks his finger, hard. Ten points: the snail goes flying right into the upper corner of the wall.

The door opens, and he quickly stands up straight. “Hi,” he says, big smile, hand out. “Mrs. LaRusso? I’m here for Daniel?”

“You must be Johnny,” says the woman in the cheap skirt delightedly. “Call me Lucille. Come on in, he’s just getting his shoes on.”

Johnny figured he would be; he got here five minutes early on purpose. “Thanks, Mrs. La—Lucille,” he says, stumble deliberate, throwing her an aw-sorry smile. The apartment’s ceilings are low, walls colorless. He lingers in the front hallway, not really willing to step on the carpets. “You have a really nice home.”

“No we don’t,” she says sunnily, and Johnny is startled into genuine laughter. She smiles back, eyes sharp. “But it’s home, anyway. You’re sweet. Can I get you anything? Water? Apple juice?”

“No, thank you,” he says, and LaRusso comes out of his room, shrugging a jacket over his shoulders, and jerks a nod at Johnny, expression flat. Lucille beams.

“You sure you boys don’t need me to drive you?” she says. “Honest, it’s no trouble at all. I’ll drop you off right at the front door and wave hi to the parents.”

Johnny smirks at LaRusso, because he deserves it, but LaRusso doesn’t look back. “Thanks, Ma,” he says, and kisses her cheek, right in front of God and Johnny and anybody. “Me and him can get there okay. I’ll be home by midnight.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” she says, kisses his cheek in return, and lets him go. “Drive safe. You phone home if you need anything.”

“Sure, Ma,” says LaRusso, and jerks his head towards the door, where he and Johnny thump down the stairs past the corpse of the swimming pool and out the swinging gate. Johnny thinks for a minute or so that LaRusso's neck is hurt. It’s only once they make it out to the car that he realizes he's staring hard at the ground, looking and not-looking at Johnny.

Johnny circles around to the driver’s side, hops over the door, and slides down in front of the wheel. “So,” he says.

“Yeah,” says LaRusso, threateningly.

Johnny runs his hands over the wheel for a second, up and down. He wants, horrifyingly, to say: You should come say hi to my mom sometime.

“She seems nice,” he drawls.

“Fuck off and drive,” says LaRusso, and doesn’t talk to him until they hit the 101.

It's not a bad party. Johnny gets drunk fast, and finds a girl faster, some sophomore he doesn't know the name of, smiling up at him from inside the circle of his arms, thick mascara and low-cut top. He dances with her for a while, and then presses her to the back wall of the house while the sprinklers hiss in the background, and when she goes back inside he sinks down in one of the green plastic lawn chairs and finds somebody's discarded beer in a red cup and gulps it down.

“You have lipstick on your face,” says LaRusso, a silhouette against the yellow of the lights inside.

Johnny rubs at his cheek. “Thanks,” he says.

“Yeah,” says LaRusso, “no problem,” but he doesn't come forward out of the doorway, just stands there, hand curled at his mouth. He's biting absently at his nails.

“You want something?” says Johnny.

“You're such an asshole,” says LaRusso. It's more thoughtful than anything.

“Right back at you,” says Johnny, and takes another swig of the watery beer. His body feels good, loose, booze and faint arousal, the sweet easy heat of muscles after a workout. Even LaRusso's smartass mouth is okay tonight. After a minute he says, “In or out, LaRusso, what are you, a cat?”

LaRusso snorts, surprised, and moves forward onto the deck, sprawling down next to Johnny in one of the plastic chairs. “You good to drive?” he says after a minute.

“Yeah,” says Johnny, because he's driven drunker than this.

He expects LaRusso to argue, but LaRusso only says, “Okay,” and leans back to grab another half-full cup of beer from the deck table. He makes a face when he drinks it, Johnny notes with some amusement.

“Hey, LaRusso,” he says abruptly. “You having a good time?”

LaRusso glances at him, startled. “What do you care?” he says.

It's a fair question. Johnny isn't entirely sure himself. “I don't know,” he says. “Sensei'd say,” and then stops. He wants to say: Sensei'd say, you invited him, you drove him here, you have a responsibility. But why the hell would Sensei care about anything like that? And Johnny can't hear it in his voice, exactly.

“Just don't answer me, if you don’t want to,” he says, and tilts the red cup to his mouth again. “Lie, I don't know. Do you have to be like this about everything?”

“Yeah,” says LaRusso.

Johnny snorts into his cup. “Fine.”

“No, I mean,” says LaRusso, “yeah. Yeah, I am. I'm having a good time.” He pauses. “Thanks for bringing me.”

“Oh,” says Johnny, and feels his face go warm. “No problem.”

LaRusso's quiet for a while—probably the longest Johnny's ever heard him be quiet. He's about to ask if something's wrong with him when LaRusso says in a rush, “Do you miss her?”

“What—Ali?” says Johnny, and sits up so quick that spots burst in front of his eyes for a second. “Why, is she here?”

“No,” says LaRusso, “no, Jesus. Okay.” He makes a little face. “Wow. I guess I asked for it.”

Johnny slumps back into his chair. “I didn't mean it like that,” he says. He might have meant it like that, a little, but who cares, he's more than a little drunk. He can't tell LaRusso that. “Nah. I mean. Sure, I miss her. She's a great girl. But, you know.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Sensei was right. Better this way.”

“Yeah?” says LaRusso, almost warm.

“Yeah,” says Johnny. “I would've killed you by November.”

“Shut up,” says LaRusso easily. “I would've kicked your ass.”

Johnny leans over and punches his arm, hard, or tries to: LaRusso blocks him, easy, Johnny’s reflexes slowed by the booze. Johnny grins; he shouldn't give this to him, but LaRusso looks like the cat that caught the canary, and Johnny can still smell the sophomore's perfume at the edge of his own jaw. Maybe he should find her again, finish what they started. He's in the mood for it. “Okay,” he says. “You could've tried.”

LaRusso grins back. After a second, he says, “Sensei's right about a lot of things, huh.”

It sounds bewilderingly like a question. Johnny says, just in case, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” says LaRusso, like Johnny's settled something.

Winter blows in. The rains rush up from Baja California, swift and cold, and the sky clouds over and cracks into acid-wash blue. The mornings drop into the forties; once or twice, the windshield of the Avanti frosts over. Ali dates a loser from Woodland Hills, and dumps him when he gets handsy three weeks later. Jimmy gets caught with weed in his backpack, and is suspended for two days. Sid throws Mom’s vase at the wall. Sensei starts Johnny on a new training regimen, harder, faster, leaving his arms and legs aching every day, his lungs burning, his skin a mass of bruises, his mind bare.

It's not hard to drive LaRusso around. A couple more house parties, at first, Friday nights and Saturdays; then, the beach, the park, the parking lot in front of the Safeway, where Tommy picks up a pack of forties and is shortly afterwards sick on somebody's Oldsmobile. LaRusso bitches about it, obviously: Johnny’s car, Johnny’s driving. Johnny isn't sure if he knows how to do anything else. He's getting better in Cobra Kai, too, better every day. He's finally gotten it in in his head to look at other people, to try to fit in with what they're doing. Other people always seems to be Johnny, but that doesn't matter so much. Sensei even asks him to stay after class, one unseasonably warm Wednesday afternoon, and Johnny waits for him outside after Bobby and Tommy and Dutch have taken off, leaning on his bike, trying not to smile too wide.

LaRusso comes out of the dojo looking a little dazed. Johnny jerks a nod at him, and LaRusso makes a beeline for his bike, apparently without thinking. Johnny watches him move, the late-afternoon shadow flickering behind him, dragon-tail.

“Have fun?” Johnny says.

LaRusso visibly startles. Johnny lets the smile grow. He likes watching it, this shift in LaRusso's body, automatic to manual; he doesn't think LaRusso even realized where he was going. Johnny doesn't let himself see it all the time—the way that these days, LaRusso looks like hell: the new definition in his arms and legs, the quickness in his reflexes, the bruises where nobody can see them, not unless they're watching how LaRusso moves.

“I'm fantastic,” says LaRusso. “Where's all your friends?”

“The guys went up near the reservoir,” says Johnny. “We're gonna have some fun, too, tonight. You're coming. Jump on.” He pats the seat of the bike.

LaRusso's eyes go wide as dinner-plates. “What,” says Johnny, enjoying himself, “you're scared?”

“No,” says LaRusso.

“Nah, you're not scared,” says Johnny. “You're Cobra Kai.” And then, relenting at the look on LaRusso's face: “It's seven blocks. My car's parked up at the school.”

He hadn't actually thought the whole thing through, LaRusso on his bike, his hands curled into Johnny's jacket, the quick little heaving motions of his breath against Johnny's back. Not half an hour ago he was pressing LaRusso to the ground with his knee on LaRusso's thigh, LaRusso twisting under him, fighting for air; this isn't weird. It isn't weirder than that. They aren't even making eye contact. LaRusso's body keeps shifting against his shoulders.

Up at the school, LaRusso peels himself off Johnny's back and moves straight towards Johnny's car, gait wobbling a little. “Well, that was great,” he says, very brightly.

Johnny takes his sweet time dismounting, dragging the bike to where he wants it, watching LaRusso shift his weight from one leg to another. “You liked it,” he says.

“You don't know what I like,” says LaRusso.

Johnny thinks he kind of might. He unlocks the car, and waits for LaRusso to settle in next to him before he calls the engine humming to life.

The spot Dutch told him they were heading to isn't really a spot at all, just an almost-empty parking lot, and the tall fat hills looming in every direction, and Bobby, Tommy, Jimmy, and Dutch, waiting for them where the lamp-post's long thin shadow is blurring into evening. Tommy is holding a kid.

It's a freshman, probably, if Johnny had to guess. Tommy's got his arms pinned behind his back, and he's holding them there, hard enough that it looks like it hurts. Johnny kills the engine, hops over the door, ambles down the parking lot towards them. “We're a long way out from anywhere,” he says to the guys, more for the kid's benefit than theirs.

“I didn't want anybody to bother us,” says Dutch, smirking; he gets it, too.

“Thinking ahead,” says Johnny. “What'd he do?”

“He keyed Bobby's bike,” says Tommy.

“He thought it was gonna be funny,” says Dutch. “You thought you were being really smart, huh, Andrew?” He pinches the kid's cheek, then digs his nails in. The kid yelps. “Shouldn't have carved your name, dumbass.”

“Yeah?” says Johnny, paces closer, patient and slow. The kid's fair-haired, round-faced, big blue eyes swimming. The headphones of a Walkman are trailing out of his hoodie pocket.

“Look at that,” he says to Dutch, nodding, “he has a toy.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Dutch, reaches inside the kid's hoodie pocket, rips the Walkman out, and throws it down on the concrete. There's a tinkle, and crunch. The kid makes a high-pitched noise.

Johnny shakes his head. “What,” he says to the kid, “are you crying? Look at that, he's crying.” He pushes his hair out of his eyes, squints thoughtfully into the kid's face, steps back, and kicks him in the stomach. The kid shouts, absolutely soundless; that happens sometimes, when Johnny gets his aim right, and the other guy doesn't have any breath. He does it again. “Hey, Tommy,” he says, “let him go,” and Tommy does, and when the kid makes a run for it Johnny hooks a leg under his ankle and watches him go sprawling to the concrete. “Where the hell were you going to go?” he says to the kid, amused. “It's not like you have a car.”

The kid whimpers and doesn't get up. Johnny rests a foot on the back of his knee, not putting his whole weight on it, not yet. “Hey,” he says, looks around, spots LaRusso, still hovering back by the car. “Hey, come over here. Take a turn.”

LaRusso doesn't move. He looks like a startled deer.

“Come over here,” Johnny says. “Don't worry, it's fine. He isn't gonna say anything to anybody.”

LaRusso doesn't say anything, either, for a second. Then he turns and bolts: past the Avanti, past the edge of the parking lot, jumping the curb, up into the hills.

“Jesus Christ,” says Johnny. “Bobby—” Bobby moves in, towards the kid, and Johnny takes off, up towards where LaRusso disappeared.

The dusk is coming into the hills. LaRusso's hard to see, blue plaid shirt and faded blue jeans; it's by motion that Johnny tracks him, more than color, and he catches him at last at the top of the slope. LaRusso stops, wraps his arms around himself, like he's trying to stop his limbs from flying away.

“What’s wrong with you?” Johnny says.

“What’s wrong with me?” says LaRusso, high-pitched.

“Yeah,” says Johnny, and steps forward. LaRusso flinches back, and Johnny stops dead.

“I thought,” he says. He sounds plaintive to his own ears. He swallows, tries again, and this time it comes out like he wants it to, hard and cool: “I thought you were one of my guys.”

“Jesus Christ,” says LaRusso, a soft explosion. “One of the guys? You’ve gotta be joking.”

“Not one of the guys,” says Johnny. He doesn’t know why it matters. It doesn’t matter. His voice is slipping upwards again. “One of my guys.”

“One of your guys?” LaRusso repeats, and again, “Jesus Christ, Johnny. What the hell would make me one of your guys?”

Johnny stands there with his mouth open. He’s never needed to explain himself like this before. “You’re Cobra Kai,” he says.

In the blue dimness he senses, more than sees, LaRusso’s blink. The insects are singing, a low creek-creek in the shadows of the bushes. Johnny wonders how blind men do it: sense what someone looks like by touch. He wonders if he could do it in the darkness, know what someone’s face looks like just by the palms of his hands, the pads of his thumbs, whether they’re smiling, whether they’re frowning, whether they’re looking at him.

LaRusso says very slowly, like he’s trying to explain something obvious, “I don’t even have one of your stupid jackets.”

“Oh,” says Johnny, and shrugs his arms out, and holds the jacket out to LaRusso, hanging off the edge of his hand. “There you go.”

He can see the shadow of LaRusso’s hand move, and then stop. “What’s that supposed to mean?” says LaRusso’s voice, absolutely flat.

“You don’t have one of our stupid jackets,” says Johnny, a little irritated. “What do you mean, what is it supposed to mean?”

It’s only because he’s listening that he can hear, under the noise of the insects LaRusso’s little exhale. “Johnny,” he says.

“What?” says Johnny. It’s still a warm night, anyway. He can feel a flicker of coolness at the back of his neck: somewhere in the distant west, the wind from the sea.

LaRusso moves slowly, the gentle whisper-hiss of his arms sliding into the sleeves of the jacket. His face is absolutely invisible now, and it’s only his voice, bodiless, that says quietly, “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” says Johnny. His face is abruptly hot. “It’s probably too big on you.”

LaRusso pauses, then snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

The stars are starting to come out. In the far distance of the horizon, Johnny can see the warm yellow glow of the city, like a hearth fire for the whole Pacific Ocean.

“There’s a joint in one of the pockets,” he says.

“I don’t smoke,” says LaRusso.

“Of course you don’t,” Johnny says. “Come on, share. It’s not gonna kill you.” LaRusso hesitates; Johnny says, “Oh, sorry, are you gonna just say no?”

In the darkness, there’s a click, and Johnny’s lighter flares. LaRusso’s features are a shifting collection of gold and shadow: half-open mouth, curled hands, long, soft eyelashes. The flame dies, and dances in aftershocks in front of Johnny’s vision for a second before the dim hot ember bobbing in Daniel’s fingers swims into view.

“Okay,” says Johnny. “You ever smoked before?”

“Sure,” says Daniel sharply.

“Okay,” says Johnny, inexplicably glad Daniel can’t see him grinning. “Go easy on it. In and out.”

There’s a brief silence, and then several seconds of hoarse, hard coughing. Johnny lets himself smile wider. “Give it to me,” he says, plucks the joint from Daniel’s hand, and takes a drag.

“It’s not your fault,” he says hoarsely, after a minute. The joint is Nixon, half stems and probably oregano. “I’m gonna fire my guy.”

“Oh, you’re gonna fire your guy?” says Daniel, and starts laughing, clear and genuine. “That’s what you get for looking like that, Johnny Lawrence.”

“Looking like what?” says Johnny, offended.

The shadow of Daniel's shoulder moves up, down, and his hand describes a wide arc, Johnny’s head down to his toes. Johnny snorts and gives him back the joint, and Daniel inhales, more carefully this time.

“You ever think,” he says, after a minute.

“No,” says Johnny, and then, “What?”

“You ever think Sensei,” says Daniel, “you ever think he's—”

“What?” says Johnny again, abruptly alert.

“I don't know,” says Daniel, “kind of hard on you?”

“Oh,” says Johnny. Jesus, what a stupid question. He was almost worried for a second. “Of course.”

Daniel takes another drag, slow, and hands the joint back to Johnny. His shadow tucks its hands into the pockets of Johnny's coat.

“He didn't have to let me in Cobra Kai,” he says. “He could've gone, you know. Well, Johnny hates him, he stole Johnny's girl. Who cares if this little twerp wants to stop getting beat up every weekend, because I know what Johnny Lawrence wants.”

“Yeah,” says Johnny, “he could've, I guess.”

“I would've,” says Daniel. “If I was him.”

Johnny stands there for a long minute without moving. It's only the prickling heat of the ember by his knuckles that shocks him into alertness again; he shifts it down his fingers, takes a drag. It's good to have something to do with his hands.

“You don't get it,” he says.

“Get what?” says Daniel.

Johnny's never tried to explain this to Tommy, or Bobby, or Dutch. He's never wanted to. It's never been important. He fumbles for the words, taps ash off the joint and into the cool dirt.

“It's not about getting girls,” he says. “It's not about getting everything you want. It's about—” He doesn't want to quote a pastor to Daniel LaRusso, Jesus. “It's why we have the kid down there,” he says at last. “It's about consequences. About—who's stronger, who's braver. Who has the right to set the rules. It's about what you earn. What you deserve.”

A soft rattle of pebbles: Daniel, shuffling towards him. “You don't deserve what you want to have?” his voice says.

“Don't do that,” says Johnny.

“Do what?” says Daniel.

“That was the whole point,” says Johnny. “The whole point is that I wouldn’t have to choose between you and him.”

A long pause. Daniel says, that same slow, patient tone he was using earlier: “Johnny, you hated me.”

“Yeah, but,” says Johnny, and that’s where the sentence ends, because he doesn’t know what comes next: yeah, but I didn’t, really? Yeah, but I liked you, too?

He says, instead, “When you showed up at the dojo—“

Maybe he doesn’t need his hands after all, because he senses it when Daniel stiffens and says, “Yeah?”

“When you showed up,” says Johnny to the whistling insects, “and Sensei said to lead the class, and they bowed, and behind them, I saw you...”

“Aw, jeez,” says Daniel, a little hoarsely through the smoke.

“That was what I thought, exactly,” says Johnny, and laughs a little. “You gave me this look, like, aw, jeez, this asshole. Of course it’s this asshole.”

“Well, you’re an asshole,” says Daniel, without any bite, and when Johnny shrugs, he adds, “It wasn’t unprovoked, or anything. You know. You gave me that look, too.”

“That look?” says Johnny blankly.

“Yeah,” says Daniel, and holds out his hand for the joint. Johnny gives it to him. Daniel inhales, hardly choking at all this time, and then says, “That smirk. Like: I can’t believe I’m gonna get to kick this little shit's ass again.”

“I never gave you a look like that,” says Johnny. Daniel’s voice sounds different, low and far away. Coming from somewhere over the hills. The weed’s kicking in. He feels lost in the noise of it, insects and Daniel’s breathing, detached and floating, like he’s walking through the woods, wandered off the path.

“Well,” says Daniel, “you smirked at me, anyway. That’s why I looked at you like that.”

“Okay,” says Johnny. But it’s not okay. He doesn’t know why it’s not okay. A minute later, he says, “I remember I smiled at you.”

Now Daniel chokes. Johnny snorts out a laugh, and realizes as he does that Daniel’s laughing at him, too, and that’s funny enough that he starts laughing harder, practically giggling, like a girl or something, until Daniel hisses “Ow—fuck—“ and drops the joint into the grass.

“Fuck,” says Johnny, squints until he spots the dying ember, and grinds it out with the heel of his shoe. “You burn your finger?”

“Yeah,” says Daniel. “Sorry.”

“It was already done anyway,” says Johnny. “Hey, let me see your hand.”

He can’t see shit. Daniel gives him his hand anyway. Johnny pretends to examine it for a second, presses a knuckle along where he thinks Daniel might be burned, and is rewarded with a quick hiss of pain in return.

“Hey,” he says, without letting go of Daniel’s hand. “Come back down to the parking lot with me.”

“I wasn’t planning to walk off somewhere and fall down a cliff,” says Daniel.

Johnny presses at the burn again, just a little. “Come on,” he says. “You know what I mean.”

He waits there a while in the dry darkness. Daniel’s hand is rough and cool. Johnny can feel them, the calluses on his thumb, his knuckles, the ones he’s only just starting to build. He thinks: maybe Daniel is waiting for me to say please.

“Okay,” says Daniel at last.

They go down the hill in silence, rubber soles on dead grass. Bobby and Dutch have gotten a fire started with some newspapers, just a little one, billowing smoke. That lonely lamp-post has clicked to life, flickering now white, now vein-blue.

The kid's head is hanging down. Tommy has his arms pinned behind his back, but the fight’s gone out of him, the life, he’s not even really struggling to get away. Johnny feels a surge of contempt, and glances back at Daniel.

He really does look swallowed up like that, wrapped inside Johnny's jacket. Under the cold light, reds are washed out, skin a gangster-movie gray. The ocean wind is come up again. Johnny shivers.

“Make him stand up, Tommy,” he says.

Tommy grins, eyes all shadow, and does. The kid isn’t looking at any of them. He isn’t really looking at anything. Johnny looks at Daniel.

“Strike hard,” he says softly.

Daniel moves between Johnny and the kid, gravel crunching. Then he pauses.

Johnny wishes, suddenly, that he could see his face. He puts his hand on the back of Daniel’s neck. The jacket, collar too-wide, dips down in the back, and his hand meets bare skin.

“No mercy,” he says. “Right?”

“Right,” says Dutch.

“Right?” says Johnny.

“Right,” says Daniel, and pulls back his fist.

The night's really getting cold now. Johnny shifts the car a gear, another, easing it down the switchbacks, streetlamp after streetlamp, eyes on the road.

Before he can turn the car onto Valley Vista, though, Daniel says, “Can we go up into your neighborhood?”

Johnny throws him a look of pure shock. But Daniel shakes his head, impatient, and says, “Not to your place. Just into the hills.”

So: into the hills, low arches and Spanish roofs, the light pooling lemon-pale on stoops and staircases, the poplars and the low spreading oak. Johnny pulls onto a short stretch of road overlooking a cliffside, and Daniel says, “Stop here.”

“You're getting pushy, huh,” says Johnny, and slows to a stop. Daniel pops open the passenger side door and slides out.

“Come on,” he says, after a second.

Johnny joins him there, leaning on the side of the car. The air is biting at his ears. He can feel the warmth of Daniel's body, pressed along his side.

Daniel says quietly, “Johnny, you're my best friend.”

Johnny looks out over the cliffside. From this part of the hills, looking east, he can see the whole San Fernando Valley, row on glimmering row, silver and gold and pulsing with moving jewels. There's a fog coming in from the south, softening the edges of the gridlock. Another hour, and all the city will be formless, void.

“Is that good?” he says.

Daniel kind of sighs. Then he turns over, and folds himself into Johnny's body, Johnny's chest. Johnny wraps him in his arms, holds him there, tilts his head down to kiss Daniel's mouth.

Daniel kisses back immediately. Johnny almost wishes he'd had the decency to act surprised. He curls his other hand around the back of Daniel's neck: soft hair, warm skin, the worn cotton of Daniel's shirt collar. Daniel leans forward, makes a low, quiet noise into his mouth. Wanting, maybe. Johnny doesn't know. After a few minutes, he pulls back, and says against Johnny's jaw, “Strike first, huh?”

Johnny laughs softly, not really meaning it, just liking the way it feels against Daniel's ribs. “Hey,” he says, after a second. “You having a good time?”

“What,” says Daniel, laughing, “like, you think I can't hit you?”

Johnny's laughter dies in his chest. He rubs a hand down Daniel's arm, along his own jacket, feels more than sees when Daniel winces when his hand presses over the bruises.

Out of the corner of his eye, Los Angeles is flickering. Something else Mom's pastor said once: all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.

“All this will I give you,” he says under his breath, “if—”

“Huh?” says Daniel.

“Nothing,” says Johnny, and leans in to kiss him again, closing his eyes against the light.