Chapter Text
I never had an easy life.
Sometimes I think I was born to lose everything.
My father died when I was only eight years old. A horrible illness consumed him little by little, and I was left with a mother who did everything she could to keep us afloat, but never really understood what was going on inside me. From that day on, I stopped talking to people. I barely spoke to my mom, even though she worried about me constantly.
At school, I never had friends. I was always “the weird kid,” the quiet boy who preferred books over games. Everyone mocked me, everyone hit me, everyone reminded me that I was alone. More than once, I came home crying or bruised. Mom worried, of course, but I was already used to that hell.
I begged her so many times to let me learn karate. I pleaded like my life depended on it. And she always said the same thing: “No, Daniel. It’s not safe. If you want, learn from a book.” So I did. In secret, with old manuals and clumsy sketches, I tried to copy movements. But a book can’t teach you how to survive.
Six years after my father’s death, Mom decided it was best to move to California. She got a new job and said we could start fresh there. I didn’t want to. We argued. I shouted that I didn’t care, that I didn’t want to leave, but she convinced me with that look of hers—the one that said, I’m doing this for you, son. And I… I loved her too much to let her down.
So we packed. We left New Jersey behind. And we arrived in California.
The very first day was a disaster. On the beach, I met Johnny Lawrence, a blond kid with a cruel smile and cold eyes. He was bothering a girl—Ali—and in a stupid impulse, I tried to defend her. I ended up face down in the sand, humiliated in front of everyone. Freddy, the only “neighbor” I thought could be my friend, laughed at me too. Ali looked at me with pity, and that hurt even more than the blows.
The next morning I fought with Mom. She saw my black eye, even though I tried to hide it with sunglasses. I begged her to let me join a karate school, I needed to defend myself. She said no, that it wasn’t safe, that I could get hurt or even killed. I shouted, I got angry, and stormed out of the house.
That was when I first crossed paths with Mr. Miyagi, the maintenance man. He must have been around fifty, Japanese. He looked at me calmly, as if he could see right through me. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
School was worse. I tried out for the soccer team, ended up in a fight with some jerk, and once again the laughter, once again Johnny and his friends reminding me I didn’t belong. I had no one. Not a single place to fit in.
That afternoon, they chased me on their motorcycles and I went tumbling down a hill. I came home battered and bleeding, and I threw my bike in the trash. Mom found me outside, horrified. She hugged me, begged me to tell her what happened, but all I could do was shout that I was sick of it, that we never should have moved, that everything here was worse. Then I ran. I ran away from her, ignoring her screams.
I didn’t know those screams would be the last.
She ran after me. I was too blinded by anger and pain to look back. I kept running until I reached a forest, collapsed against a tree, and let everything pour out of me. I cried until I couldn’t anymore.
Meanwhile, Mom was searching for me desperately. But fate was cruel. A car came speeding out of the darkness, and she… she never had a chance. Her last thought, I learned later, was that I might be safe.
I didn’t know it then.
I just kept crying, convinced my life was already hell.
And I had no idea that night… I had lost the only person I had left.