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It had been more than a year since Johnny moved in and most of his stuff was still shoved in a couple of cardboard boxes and stored in their guestroom.
“John.”
“Hm?”
“We need to unpack these things, or the crib will never fit here.”
They were turning the guest room to a nursery. Sam would give birth in a few months, and they wanted to have a room for the baby, for when she came over, or for whenever they needed to babysit.
They had already painted the room the weekend before, so now Johnny was installing a few shelves while Daniel tried to put the crib together.
Johnny sighed, he really didn’t feel like going down memory lane right now, but he was right, there was no other way.
They sat down together on the floor, then Johnny opened the first box. Inside there were Johnny’s multiple trophies and medals he accumulated all these years.
“Wow, it that?”
“Yep.”
Johnny took his second-place trophy from the box, handing it to Daniel.
“I thought Kresse had destroyed it.”
“He did. Then when he needed me again, when I reopened Cobra Kai, he fixed it and gave it to me... Just... throw it away.”
“What? No! You earned it, besides, it almost cost me my knee!”
Daniel got up, going to the kitchen to retrieve a flannel, then cleaned all of his trophies and medals, taking them to the living room to put on display just besides his own awards.
Rummaging through the second box, they found some more painful memories to shed a light on.
Johnny took Robby’s photo, smiling at it for a moment before Daniel caringly took it from his hand, hanging it on the fridge along with Sam’s and Anthony’s.
Then they found Robby’s drawings, which were stored just with Daniel’s children’s memorabilia inside their closet.
At last, Johnny took them out, a pair of owls made of ceramic.
“What’s that?” Daniel asked, before he saw Johnny’s eyes filled with unshed tears, as he turned them from one side to the other.
“Oh John...” He whispered, snuggling close to him, lovingly soothing his blond hairs with his hand.
“They were my mom’s...” He spoke. “She had a lot of them, like a collection, I don’t know. There were even some big ones she kept by the front door, they scared the crap outta me.”
Daniel smiled, drying a lonely tear from Johnny’s cheek with his thumb.
“Then when we moved in with Sid, he made her get rid of them, but she kept these two and... I couldn’t throw them away.”
“Of course not...” He answered him, standing up, then extending an arm to him. They walked together to the living room, stopping in front of the Mr. Miyagi’s shelf. That’s what Daniel called it. It had a photo of him, and his medal of honour was hanging close by.
Daniel cautiously took an owl from Johnny’s hands, dusting it off, then the other, then he put them together on the shelf. At last, he went back to the guestroom, retrieving Laura’s portrait from the box, then placing it proudly by Mr. Miyagi’s.
“There you go...” He whispered, enveloping Johnny’s body in a warm embrace. “Come 'ere.”