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Robby really should have known better than to join Cobra Kai, looking back on it. There had really been no reason for him to do so aside from the fact that it would piss off his dad, and it did do that, but there was one specific consequence that Robby had not expected.
Robby hadn’t expected the overwhelming loneliness that came from living in the back room of the dojo. It was a feeling of deep- set loneliness like nothing that he had ever experienced before. He hadn’t even felt this bad when he lived in his mother’s apartment when she was out. At least then it felt like home. There were things to remind Robby that he had a mother, whether or not she was there at the moment.
Now, as Robby looked at the blank room, with almost nothing that belonged to him or to anyone that he cared about and only the punching bags that belonged to the dojo, this sense of loneliness overwhelmed him.
He hadn’t even felt this bad when he lived with his dad for that one fateful day. At least then he was in the presence of someone that he thought might have cared about him. But his dad didn’t care about him, and Johnny proved Robby to be right when he stayed at the hospital for Miguel’s surgery rather than coming to visit him in juvy. Robby felt a pang of jealousy when he thought of the other boy, the boy that his father loved more than his own son.
Even that was quickly washed away by loneliness.
Despite the loneliness of the nights, Robby was able to feel far more anger and jealousy, and for longer stretches of time, during the day. Senseis Kreese and Silver encouraged such emotions. They claimed that these feelings could be used and turned into extra strength during a fight. And this proved to be true. So, during the daytime, Robby could push out the lonely feelings for more effective ones. Besides, during the day he is surrounded by people and doesn’t really feel lonely anyway.
It is only during the night that Robby realizes that most of the people in Cobra Kai only like him because he is talented. They didn’t care about him as a person.
Not like his mom did, where she would sometimes eat dinner and have a movie night with him, just because he asked. As long as it wasn’t Dine in LA Week.
Not like Mr. LaRusso and his family did before he went and screwed it all up. Where they would talk and laugh with him without hesitation.
Not like his dad seemed to do when he invited Robby to come and live with him.
But he couldn’t go to any of them right now because he was just not ready.
So Robby will have to suffer through the adverse effects of his decision on his own until either he was ready to ask for forgiveness or, he was ready to give forgiveness to others, or he simply could not suffer through the loneliness anymore, whichever came first.