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Constantly shining California's sun has changed a lot in Daniel's life: his tan turned bronze, his eyes adapted to general brightness, and his tolerance for heat increased.
The annoyingly nice weather also meant that PE lessons in school are always outdoors, period. No way of hiding inside the gym and blaming the snow when such a concept doesn't even exist here. No matter the day, every student has to get their ass out on the field.
It's a good thing that Daniel adores sport.
And still, football is not the kind of activity he craves to spend time perfecting. But it's whatever. One way or another, it's a chance to work out, train stamina, and improve agility, so Daniel is not going to complain. Instead, he just does his best and tries to have fun in the process.
Plus, ever since the tournament, he's not constantly being tripped by the Cobra Kai boys – save for Dutch, who sometimes cannot help but accidentally bump into LaRusso – which is a huge improvement. It is easier to breathe this way, especially as Dutch is being dragged away by Bobby, who salutes to Daniel in a kind of silent apology for his friend.
After a while the match between two boys’ teams comes to an exciting conclusion with a score of 2:2 and the frustrated groans ring across the field. They are supposed to get overtime, a chance to settle it, tilt the score in favour of one of the teams, but the class is dismissed and it's over.
Whatever. It's not like Daniel wants to linger here any longer. He cannot wait to finally get out of school. The rest of his day is already planned ahead: he has to get back home, finish his assignments that are due tomorrow and get to his Sensei so that he can learn something useful and work on his karate skills.
So right after a quick change of clothes he jumps in his convertible and hits the road, leaving everyone behind.
Or so he thought.
He pulls up to the parking lot next to the apartment complex he and his mother live in and gets out of the car, heading for the back entrance onto the territory without paying any mind to the gradually growing bike roar behind him.
It's the voice that makes him finally acknowledge it.
“LaRusso!”
There's only one person on this planet who can make it sound so smooth, but at the same time as if it were a threat. The boy freezes mid-movement, the gate to his yard already opened as he turns around to see a familiar tuft of blond hair and a pair of blue eyes stare right back at him.
LaRusso's jaw falls open and then snaps back shut without being able to come up with a witty remark. Reseda and Johnny Lawrence are a weird combination to see and Daniel has to physically refrain from pinching himself to see if it is even real. The other boy just grins, clearly amused by the confusion he's instigated by his mere presence here.
A few moments pass in a stunned silence before the younger boy finally recovers. “I think you missed your turn on the way back home,” he aims for a joke and the blond rolls his eyes with a scoff, unimpressed by the humour. “No, but really, why… why are you here?” Daniel questions, not being able to come up with anything else to say.
“You left the field way too quickly,” Johnny explains without really explaining anything and Daniel has to try and fill the blanks himself.
“And so you followed me all the way home?” he prompts, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “That's kinda creepy, dude.”
Lawrence can't help but roll his eyes at such a remark. “You make it sound worse than it actually is. And don't call me dude,” he scowls.
“Yeah, okay, whatever,” he chuckles and rolls his eyes, waving him over. “Come on in then.” Johnny's eyes access the place he's being invited into, but the boy himself is not making a move and Daniel’s brows meet in confusion. “What?”
The blond just shakes his head and gives in, following the other boy. He tails him all the way through the territory of the apartment complex and up the stairs to reach the right flat. LaRusso opens the door, nodding for his longtime rival to step in and so he does, albeit reluctantly.
His eyes dart from corner to corner of the living room slash kitchen slash dining room and Daniel immediately feels judged. Used to not meeting the expectations, he starts his mental spiralling, trying to apologize for something that's out of his control.
“You’ve probably never been to a place like this. It’s not much, but -”
“Don’t care,” Johnny simply shrugs, cutting off whatever self-conscious rambling Daniel was about to fall into.
And somehow it helps and LaRusso gives him a nod and a small grateful smile. The surroundings do seem quite insignificant when the two of them are in the vicinity of each other and it's becoming more and more evident with each passing day.
Daniel catches himself forgetting about everything around when he stares at the blond boy walking around the room. His space. The room where he dines and trains and lies sprawled on the couch after a long day at Mr. Miyagi's.
“So… Why'd you follow me?”
“No reason,” Johnny shakes his head stubbornly. His eyes finally stop darting around the room, having scanned everything there is, so his gaze drops to a coffee table as he picks up a book from it to keep his hands busy.
Daniel raises his eyebrows, blinking dubiously. “Okay,” he mutters awkwardly, his own eyes now travelling around the room.
The weird silence continues for a minute or two – Johnny flipping through the book before dropping it back – until Daniel finally comes up with a suggestion. “Come on, let's practice! I need some distraction and movement after all that cramming for the finals that I've been busy with this week.”
The blond lifts his head and stares at the other boy for a moment. “You wanna spar?” Johnny's eyebrows crawl up in disbelief. “With me?” This clarification is obviously pointless, but the sheer tone of the question makes LaRusso's thirst for winning boil up inside of him.
“Yeah, why not? Or were you planning on scrolling through my ma’s cookbooks all afternoon?” he gestures at the bunch of them lying on the coffee table. “Was gonna head to Mr. Miyagi’s, but since you're here, we might as well spend some quality time together.”
“Quality time?” His nose scrunches as he ponders over the phrase for a moment. “What, like a date?”
Daniel blinks a few times in surprise – the statement sounding too bizarre to his ears – before letting his expression go back to neutral and nodding. “Kinda, yeah,” he shrugs with an easy smile.
“Thought people did other kinds of stuff on their dates,” he scratches his nose, suddenly very interested in the flooring of LaRusso's apartment, which is beyond endearing if you ask Daniel.
“Oh, did you now?” The dark haired boy raises his eyebrows teasingly. “Stuff like what exactly?”
“Don’t know.”
The smile grows wide on the dark haired boy’s face. “Liar.”
Johnny makes an attempt at turning away, clearly looking for an escape from Daniel's piercing gaze, but suddenly his wrist is grasped and pulled forward. Lawrence retaliates in a blink of an eye – training his reaction coming in handy – by flipping the two of them to pin the younger boy to the wall behind him.
“Careful,” he whispers, head lowering to bring his lips to Daniel's ear.
The atmosphere shifts with dizzying speed and it feels as if everything around the two boys has gone still. The unexpected proximity makes both of their hearts stutter as Daniel bats his eyelashes up at Lawrence.
“Why’d you come here?” He persists and despite the fact that he's being towered over by a taller figure, his gaze, which matches Johnny's in its energy, burns so bright that it seems like he's completely in control. He blinks, his doe-like eyes guarded by dark eyelashes and looking extra pretty from Johnny's point of view and the truth is pulled out of him immediately.
“You looked too damn good practicing on the field out there today,” he whispers, his own mouth dangerously close to Daniel's lips. “This thought was in the back of my head for a while. Wanted to tell you that in person.”
LaRusso's breath hitches, his grip on the situation seems to falter as he continues to stare back at the blond boy. He can feel his cheeks burn and for a second it is the strongest feeling that exists within him.
But the next moment Johnny's lips are on his and the Earth tilts on its axis. This kind of contact is by no means new – after all, they have been fooling around ever since the All-Valley tournament – but the emotions it awakens never cease to send tingles down Daniel's spine. He melts into the contact, hands traveling to grab the taller boy's waist to make sure he doesn't pull away too soon.
Everything feels so soft and Johnny’s lips are extremely tender, leaving Daniel wondering how the hell can it be the same boy that promised to bury him alive on sight. Who could've thought that the mouth spewing insults and threats of violence would be the same one LaRusso would be desperately clinging to, hoping the time to part never comes?
The voice inside his head screams about the improbability of this whole scenario, about the possible mocking laugh that might come if Daniel lets himself believe that this is actually happening. After all, this same voice has been with him throughout his not that long of a relationship with Ali. And the bitterest part of it is that it was right all along, it was indeed too good to be true.
But maybe this time…
Johnny sighs into the kiss and every thought evaporates from LaRusso's mind. He just cannot think, not with Lawrence pressing him into the wall with all his upper body.
Before Daniel can completely lose himself in the haze of pure pleasure and bliss, Johnny breaks the contact, a hand on the smaller boy's chest to keep him in place as he pulls back a little.
And even though he's the one who initiated the break between kissing, Johnny still lets his gaze drift to his opponent’s pinkish lips. Daniel smirks, the glimpses of control coming back to him. “Next time you wanna kiss me, you can just ask,” he shrugs, as nonchalant as ever despite the butterflies in his stomach doing somersaults.
“I don't ask for that shit,” he retorts, immediately diving in for another kiss, but LaRusso ducks down and steps to the side.
“Oh, tough guy, are you?” he giggles, seeing Johnny's eyes glint in annoyance at being defied. What a fun game to play, rushes through Daniel's mind. “I’ll make you work for it then. Come at me.” He steps a decent amount of distance away and faces his rival with a respectful bow.
Johnny, never one to back down from a challenge, scoffs and shrugs off his jacket to throw it on the couch. He mirrors the bow and straightens with determination glowing in his eyes. “You know, don't expect me to go easy on ya just because we've got this… thing going on.”
“Yeah?” Daniel raises his eyebrows with a smirk. “That thing, huh? So what, you're gonna make me bleed even though we made out, like, not even one minute ago?”
Johnny just nods in response, getting into a fighting stance, eyes gleaming with a challenge. “No mercy.”
Daniel chuckles at the familiar motto, challenge flashing in his eyes as he gets into the position as well, hands ready to defend himself. “I mean… you didn't go easy when I had an injured leg, so it's not like I expected you to do so now. Let's just see how it goes then.”
And no other instructions seem to be needed as Johnny charges forward, his leg aiming for Daniel's side. LaRusso is able to block it just in time, Mr. Miyagi's voice echoing in the back of his head. Sand the floor.
The next attack comes at his head. Lawrence swings his fist, but again not quickly enough. Wax off. The blocks come naturally, the body remembers everything and LaRusso is giddy with excitement.
Johnny's temper comes forth and his posture is a telltale sign that his style is about to get more aggressive when Daniel suddenly jumps back, hands in the air to pause their sparring.
“Wait, wait! Gotta clear up the prizes first. Because we decided that you get a kiss if you win, right? But what do I get if I defeat you?”
“You? Defeat me?” he scoffs, rolling his eyes.
“Don’t act so surprised, man, do I gotta remind you who got the trophy not even a month ago, huh?”
“Lucky accident,” Johnny bites back. “Took pity on you, you were barely able to walk.”
“Is that what it was?” he smirks. “You keep telling yourself that, yeah.”
It spurs Johnny on even more and he comes at it again with double force, throwing punches and kicks in rapid succession, making it difficult for Daniel to react in time and dodge and even more difficult to counter attack in process.
Both of them land a couple of solid hits. The blond groans in pain as Daniel's foot collides with his chest and Daniel's vision goes blurry for a few moments when Johnny finally gets his face. It's a constant push-and-pull between the two of them as they fight for dominance in their match.
Even though every hit is done by the rules, the upper body only, LaRusso still gets reminded of his not fully healed knee as he has to plant his feet firmly to hold his ground, as not everything can be evaded in a cramped living room of Daniel's apartment.
It goes on for a while and in the end both of them are exhausted. Daniel loses when another punch to his face comes and he's not able to recover his balance quickly enough. He falls to his knees, wincing when his aching leg hits the floor.
It's over and the fact that he didn't manage to catch Johnny off guard and steal more points should sting, but LaRusso accepts this loss with a lazy smirk in response to Johnny's shit-eating grin. Its intensity fades as Lawrence shortens the distance between them and reaches out to help Daniel stand up.
The smaller boy just shakes his head at the courtesy as he drags himself up and grabs Johnny by the back of his head to pull him down into a kiss.
Their lips connect – a grunt of surprise escaping Johnny's throat, as if it weren't the deal, his winner's prize – and move languidly against each other in contrast to their speeding up heartbeats, adrenaline from the fight and from such intimate contact still coursing through their blood.
The moment doesn't end even when they part, the tension is still there as they look at each other, practically not blinking. Daniel takes a deep breath to calm down his nerves and Johnny's eyes take in every detail in front of him.
“You’re still alright, LaRusso,” he smirks.
“Shut up,” Daniel chuckles and tries to push Johnny's face away, but the boy gets a hold of his waist and doesn't let him pull back.
“What, not good with compliments?”
“Not good with overconfident jerks invading my personal space,” he teases right back. The retort is met with a soft chuckle and Daniel shakes his head with a smile. He thinks about the possibility of prolonging their impromptu date and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Stay for dinner?”
“No,” Johnny declines way too quickly, causing a confused frown on Daniel's face. Lawrence lets go of his waist and steps back with a scowl. “I’m not meeting your mom today, LaRusso, don't be crazy.”
The dark haired boy's features relax as he sighs with a smile. “Oh, that… No, don't worry, wasn't planning anything of the kind. She's working until late today. And I make some mean mac’n’cheese, so…”
Johnny scratches the back of his head pensively, his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Somehow, even after multiple make out sessions, a dinner invitation feels like a little bit too much. But Daniel blinks at him, waiting, hoping for a positive answer, and Lawrence finally nods.
“Alright, I guess. Do your worst,” he shrugs and follows LaRusso further into the kitchen part of the room. Daniel's smile brightens up the whole apartment as he reaches the stove.
“You won't regret it!” he declares, grabbing the Kraft box.
“I already kinda do…” Lawrence frowns at it, but his pessimistic attitude is completely disregarded by a smitten Daniel, whose smile might as well be contagious because Johnny can't help but mirror it.