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It was six am and the Eagle Fang students were already lined out in front of their Sensei. Early mornings were becoming part of their regular training in the lead up to the tournament. Most looked like they had just rolled out of bed, the imprint of their pillows still on their face, Mitch wearing what looked like pyjamas in place of his red gi. Miguel looked only marginally more awake, having turned up with their Sensei.
Devon on the other hand was wide awake and ready to go. She had been up at 5, eaten breakfast, checked over her homework and her schedule for the day, and left the house with time to spare. She was ready to train.
Sensei Lawrence stood in front of them in his black Eagle Fang gi, looking with disgust at the sleepy members of his squad. Devon couldn’t help but smirk to herself as he loomed over Bert.
‘Am I keeping you up?!’ He shouted into his student's yawning face.
‘Sorry, Sensei, it’s just a little early and I….’
‘Quiet!’ Bert jumped and closed his mouth, his eyes wide. ‘You think Cobra Kai is going to go easy on because it’s a little early?’ He said the last words mockingly high-pitched. ‘When I tell you to be here for six, I expect you to be ready to train!’ He moved onto Mitch, who stared up at their Sensei. ‘Where the hell’s your gi?!’
‘I…I….my mom….’
‘QUIET!’ Sensei Lawrence moved away and stood in front of Devon. ‘What are you smirking about, Miss Lee?’ He glared at her and she immediately rearranged her face from its smile.
‘Nothing, Sensei,’ she answered quickly.
The quicker Sensei calmed down the quicker they could get to training. She silently cursed her less vigilant teammates. They knew Sensei expected them here at six so she couldn’t see what their issue was. The dressing down they were getting was now wasting her time as well as their own. There was one thing she wanted to correct though.
‘Sensei,’ she said as their teacher walked away. He turned towards her. ‘I prefer Ms.’
‘What?’ His face screwed up in confusion as he walked back towards her.
‘It’s Ms, not Miss. Nowadays women prefer not to be defined by their relationship to a man,’ Devon said firmly.
There was a pause as Sensei just stared at her and she was worried for a moment that she had broken his brain. The silence was awkward and the rest of the teens all held their breath waiting for their Sensei to explode.
‘You know if my day, kids didn’t correct their Sensei,’ he said with a calm tone that unnerved her. ‘But seems as we don't seem to be living in my day anymore, I apologise.’
Devon smiled brightly up at him. It was only when she saw the boys wincing in the corner of her eyes that she realised she may have misjudged his apology.
‘And seems as you think you know so much, would you like to teach the class today?’ He glared at her as he spoke, the challenge clear. ‘Seem as you clearly don’t think you need me to win this tournament.’
‘No, Sensei,’ she answered, chastised. Devon knew any other answer would lead to her doing push-ups until she puked.
‘Good! Then shut up and do what I tell you!’ He moved back in front of the group. ‘Fighting positions!’
******************
Later that night, after a long day that included practice, school, debate club and finding time in between to work on a book report that was definitely getting an A, Devon flopped down on her bed with her iPad.
She began by Googling Sensei Johnny Lawrence. There were stories of Cobra Kai’s win at the All Valley last year. She found a new article about Cobra Kai under new management from the past summer. Devon had heard stories about her Sensei leaving his old dojo but didn’t know the details. She saw a picture of the new Sensei and something about him told her that it wasn’t a happy story.
There was also an archived story in an LA newspaper. She clicked on it and leant forward, looking at the picture from nineteen-eighty-four. It was him!
Wow. Boys do not look like that in my school!
Johnny Lawrence, then the seventeen-year-old Cobra Kai champion, was standing next to his sensei. She immediately recognised the smug smile on his Sensei’s face and knew it was the man who had taken his dojo from him. There was definitely a story there.
Devon looked at that seventeen-year-old in his Cobra Kai gi. With the tournament coming up, she wondered if he had felt the same as she did. Nervous? Not sure if he could win? Desperate to make his Sensei proud? It comforted her to know that Sensei Lawrence had been there, maybe felt the same as she did.
A little more searching and she found a Facebook page. Devon had never bothered with Facebook. Her parents and their friends were on it, sending each other lame memes. As far as she was concerned, Facebook was good for nothing more than boomers to share dumb conspiracy theories and foreign governments to hack elections. But when she found Sensei Lawrence’s profile, she smiled.
There seemed to be no security settings on it all, every picture and post available to the whole world. Devon climbed onto her bed and settled against the cushions to browse.
The pictures from the previous year's tournament made her smile. She could see the excitement and energy in the photos. Sensei cheering on his students. The celebrations of the Cobra Kai students when Miguel had won. Sensei was holding the trophy, looking off to the side. She leaned in, trying to read his face. He was surrounded by his students, a trophy in his hand, but she could see he was troubled by something.
Devon found her Sensei fascinating. He could be tough. He always looked scruffy in a way that the men in her parent’s circle never did. He was what her mother would call a simple man with simple needs. The kind of man who drank cheap beer and ate cheaper food.
But that wasn’t all he was. He knew how to talk to teenagers, didn’t bullshit them or talk down to them like so many of their teachers. Devon could see how much he cared for them and knew how he had helped Miguel recover from his injury. He had battle wounds, had lost his business to his own Sensei and had come out fighting. Devon respected him and she didn’t respect many people. Most adults thought they could demand her respect without earning it. Sensei Lawrence didn’t seem to care what she thought of him, so long as she put her all into training.
She scrolled further through his Facebook timeline. Most of it was karate based stuff, some memes that made her roll her eyes. She stopped.
There was a photo of Sensei with a woman, the two of them close. She was blonde. They were smiling. She was holding a hippo plush toy. A girlfriend?
Something clenched in her stomach. What was that? Her brain told her that it was jealousy, but that was ridiculous. Devon didn’t get jealous. She had never been jealous of anyone. What did she have to be jealous of? She was smart, top of her class, had a good family, not a total troll on the looks front. So why was Devon jealous of the woman in the photo with an arm around her karate teacher?
Devon liked puzzles and she liked to analyse herself. It was what put her ahead of the competition in most things she did. She knew what she needed to do to win and she knew herself, her weaknesses and foibles, and how to mitigate them.
Scrolling further a photo came up and Devon let out a snort of laughter. Sensei and Miguel at what looked like a rock concert, their faces in the camera, tongues out. It was a dumb picture, they both looked like idiots, but Devon smiled. Then the smile disappeared.
Shit! I have a crush on Sensei Lawrence.
***************
Once Devon realised how she felt, it seemed to multiply tenfold. She found herself thinking about her Sensei, wondering things about him. She exhausted her online research, even created a Facebook profile to send him a friend request. If he thought it was weird that she had a profile with no details apart from her name and photo, he didn’t say anything. She liked Miguel on Instagram in hope that he would post photos of their Sensei.
A voice in the back of her head told her she was being ridiculous. He was older than her parents and most likely had a girlfriend, but Devon couldn’t help herself. She would go back to those photos of him as a teenager and wish that she had known him back then. They could have watched movies and talked about martial arts. They would have hung out after school and he would have asked her to prom. She let her mind wander thinking about it.
For that reason, she was excited about training and also dreading it. Devon had never had a crush and didn’t know how to act around the person. What would she talk to him about? Movies? They both liked martial arts movies. Music? He had been to a concert to see someone called Dee Snider. A quick search on the net told her what she needed to know. Sensei was a rock man. She could handle that. Rock music was cool.
Even thinking of him as Sensei seemed strange now she knew how she felt. Johnny. His name was Johnny. Johnny was better.
But there was the problem of the blonde women. Johnny’s girlfriend? Devon wondered what she was like. She could see that the woman was beautiful. What kind of woman would Johnny be with? Smart? Accomplished? Someone who made him smile? What did she call him? Babe? Sweetheart? Did they kiss? Did they have sex? Ew! Nope, she couldn't think about that. Too weird.
Pulling her bike up outside the warehouse where Eagle Fang trained, she stopped and looked at the building. Could she go in? What if he knew? What if it was written on her forehead in some way?
‘Hey.’ The voice behind her made her jump. She turned and Mitch and Bert were looking at her.
‘What?’ She snapped. The two boys looked at each other and then back at her.
‘Whatever,’ Mitch muttered before walking away.
With a roll of her eyes, Devon followed them in, her rucksack on her back. She changed into her gi in the tiny disgusting women's bathrooms at the back of the building. No way would she go for a pee in there but if she was careful not to touch anything, she could change her clothes there. The boys on the other hand just stripped off in the warehouse. The horrors of the bathroom were still better than seeing them in their underwear. She really needed to have a conversation with Johnny about the state of the bathrooms.
‘Right, losers! Line up!’
They all stood to attention. Devon looked at her Sensei that day in a new light. His blond hair was scruffier than she remembered. It was cute, like he hadn’t bothered to comb it. There was a tiny cut on his chin where he had shaved that morning, a spot it clotted blood still there. He had good teeth. White and straight. That was important. She hated bad teeth, always imagined that if a person couldn’t take care of the teeth in their mouth, god only knew what the rest of them looked like. Johnny’s eyes were blue, really blue, like the ocean. They reminded her of the California sky.
‘ Ms Lee!’
Her head snapped around. The whole team were looking at her and there Sensei had his hands folded, looking stern.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Do you have someone more important to be? Something more important to think about than how you’re going to beat Cobra Kai?’
Devo shook her head. ‘No, Sensei.’
He stood over her. ‘Good. Because we are only six weeks out from the tournament and I need your full attention. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Sensei.’ She spoke firmly.
‘Good.’ He stepped back, addressing the group. ‘Now you can give me twenty burpees, twenty pushups and twenty sit-ups and I want to see them done properly. No half-assing.’
Devon did as she was told, smiling as she did so.
Warms ups done, they were sparring, taking what they had learnt in theory and putting it into practice. Very quickly Devon had decided that her favourite part of training was sparring. It was where the strong were separated from the weak, where she got to show what she was made of. And she was good, she knew it. The smile on Johnny’s face told her that he knew it too.
When she first joined, Johnny had matched her against the smallest of the Eagle Fangs, making the mistake of thinking that because she was an untrained girl, he needed to give her an easy ride. He had realised his mistake when Devon had quickly beaten them all. The only student that eluded her was Miguel. Today she was going to make Sensei proud.
‘Fighting positions.’
Devon faced Miguel, her guard up and ready. She had been watching him and knew Miguel’s weaknesses. His balance was stronger on his right leg, meaning that he kicked with his left at least seventy percent of the time. He was weak when twisting so rarely used a side-kick in sparring, so a good chance he would lead with a roadhouse on his left leg,
Miguel struck, moving just as she had anticipated. She blocked easily and came back with a hard punch to his torso, sending Miguel reeling backwards with a grunt.
‘Point, Lee!’ Johnny said.
Watching Miguel shake his head slightly and reset his guard, Devon wondered what he would do. He had led with a kick last time and that hadn’t worked. She still wouldn’t bet that he would kick with the other leg, his subconscious habit of favouring his left was too strong so she took her chances on him going with a strike. He was right-handed so she prepared to block the right.
Miguel struck with the right and Devon blocked. He struck again and she ducked and swept his leg out from under him. Miguel fell heavily to the floor with a grunt and then a groan.
‘Point, Lee! Come on, Miguel. You can take a girl.’ Sensei was saying, standing over Miguel and reaching out to help pull him to his feet.
‘Yes, Sensei,’ Miguel gasped as he stood.
Devon was back in her guard. After that comment, she was determined not to let Miguel get the better of her. This time she didn’t wait for Miguel to strike and went towards him with a low front kick. He blocked low and she immediately struck high with a punch. As he blocked high, she punched again lower and caught him above the hip.
‘Winner, Lee.’ Sensei said. His voice was proud and he immediately high fived her. ‘Not too bad at all, Ms Lee.’ He winked at her as he spoke and she beamed back.
Miguel gave her a half-hearted handshake, his face openly disappointed, before walking away. Devon watched him. She felt bad. Devon knew that Miguel was struggling with his injury more than he let their Sensei know and there was a lot of pressure on him to perform in the tournament. After class she found him.
‘Hey, Miguel.’ He turned and looked at her, his face friendly but there was a hint of reservation on it. They didn’t know each other well and after only a few weeks of training, she had easily beaten him. She knew that had to hurt.
‘Hey,’ he said unhappily.
‘Look, sorry about before. I just get a little competitive.’
‘Don’t apologise. You won fair and square.’ He began to turn away to leave.
Devon stepped forward. ‘No, I was going to say. I think you're favouring certain moves. It’s making your fighting easy to predict.’ She saw his face fall further. ‘But if you know you're predictable, it can be a good thing. People will underestimate you.’ He looked unconvinced and she ploughed on. ‘Your opponent will think they know what you are going to do, but then you do something different. I can help if you want.’ She shrugged. ‘Everyone’s predictable really. You just need to figure out their patterns.’
He shrugged, still not happy. ‘Fine. If you think it’ll help.’ Miguel turned and walked away.
Feeling a little disappointed with Miguel’s less than enthusiastic response to her offer to help, Devon collected her rucksack and prepared to leave.
‘Ms Lee.’ She turned to where Johnny was walking towards her. She found those annoying butterflies that seemed to have taken residence in her stomach began to flutter, making her feel tingly inside.
‘Yes, Sensei,’ she said, trying to keep an undignified grin from forming on her face and silently telling those damn butterflies to calm the hell down!
‘Good work today. That was very impressive.’ He placed a congratulatory hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ll make a champ of you yet!’ With that he was gone, the feeling of his hand on her shoulder still there. Devon watched Johnny climb into his car, a still sullen Miguel next to him. Devon smiled at her Sensei. He smiled back and drove away.
****************
‘Who’s that?’
Devon looked up suddenly to see the curious face of her classmate peering over her shoulder. She turned her phone away quickly, closing the screen on the picture of Sensei Lawrence at seventeen that she had downloaded.
‘No one,’ she said quickly.
‘Who was it? You got a boyfriend?’ the girl mocked.
They were friends but those kinds of friends in front of whom you never show weakness, never reveal any of your secrets for fear of being mercilessly teased. Being a teenage girl was hard work.
‘Let me see!’ The girl reached for the phone and Devon swatted her hand away.
‘Fuck off!’
‘Bitch!’ The girl shoved Devon and Devon retaliated.
As the two sat in the detention room, Devon glared at the back of the girl's head. She didn’t care about the detention. What really bothered her was that she would be late for training that evening. Devon was never late for training.
By the time she rode her bike to their makeshift dojo, she was twenty minutes late, could hear the kiais of the rest of the team as they went through their drills. Devon grabbed her bag and ran towards the door, throwing it open.
‘Ms Lee, nice of you to join us,’ Sensei Lawrence said, his arms crossed and his mouth an unhappy line.
‘Sorry, Sensei. I got detention for fighting.’ She dumped her bag on the floor and pulled out her gi.
‘Fighting, huh? Who'd you fight?’ He almost looked amused.
She shrugged. ‘My friend. She was being a bitch.’
‘Yeah, well, save it for the tournament. We need all the training we can get. Fall in.’
The session ended quickly, always seeming to fly by for Devon. She loved every minute of it and rarely wanted it to end, so when Johnny had suggested they get in some extra one on one training to make up the time she had missed, Devon jumped at it.
Drinking from her water bottle, Devon watched the others leave the warehouse until it was just the two of them. Johnny was holding the kick pad.
‘You ready. Want to work on your roundhouse and then we’ll try some sparring.’
Devon nodded, her face determined as she got her guard up and kicked. Her foot connected har, her technique good. She smiled.
‘Again!’
They worked like that, Johnny correcting her form, her foot placement, her balance. He didn’t let her stop until he was happy with her progress and she was dripping sweat. She smiled, pushing a stray piece of hair from her head.
‘Alright. Let’s take a break.’
They sat in a pile of pallets and Johnny passed her a bottle of water. She accepted it gratefully, drinking a large mouthful. Devon stole a glance at her Sensei as he drank from his water bottle. She looked down at their bare feet swinging from the pallets, his almost touching the floor, hers far above.
‘You did good today,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna do great at the tournament. You’ve got real natural talent, maybe more natural talent than anyone else here.’ He smiled at her. ‘None of the others picked this as quickly as you have.’ He placed his water bottle on the pallet.
She smiled back. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. As soon as I saw you on that podium I knew you were Eagle Fang material.’
Devon put her hand by her side, looking down at it so close to Johnny’s. She only had to move her pinky an inch and she could touch his hand. She glanced up at him. He was looking ahead.
‘You’re a good Sensei.’
He huffed out a laugh. ‘Thanks, kid.’ He turned his head towards her.
Devon saw his smile, his beautiful blue eyes so full of kindness and didn’t think as she surged forward. She had never kissed anyone before and wanted to know what it felt like. She wanted him to be her first kiss, didn’t think there was anyone in the world she wanted to kiss as much as him, didn’t think she would ever want to kiss anyone else.
Her lips had hardly grazed his before he jumped back in shock.
'What the hell?'
His eyes were wide with shock as he stood quickly. Devon was horrified by the look on his face, the horror, the confusion, the disgust.
'I'm sorry.'
Jumping to her feet, she heard Johnny's voice shouting after her as she grabbed her bag and ran for the door. Her bike was in her hands in an instant and she leapt onto it and began to peddle.
Tears blurred her vision as she rode.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
***************
As soon as she got home, Devon ran through the house, not wanting to see anyone, her parents, her stupid little sister. She wanted to be alone. Devon ran down the stairs towards their basement. She threw herself onto the old couch.
She was humiliated. Mortified. As she pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, she screamed silently. Johnny had looked at her with horror, like she was the ugliest thing in the world. She thought about Johnny's beautiful girlfriend, with her blonde hair and their wide smiles. Of course he wanted nothing to do with a plain, stupid girl like her.
No way would he want her back at the dojo now. Sensei would probably throw her out, ban her from the tournament. Maybe he would tell the other Senseis and no one would want her! All the dojos in the Valley would be closed to her. All because of a stupid crush, because of her stupid teenage hormones.
Devon did the only thing she ever wanted to do when she had screwed up. She stood and walked over to the bag that her Dad had hung for her. Pulling on a pair of gloves, she began to hit it as hard as she could. Devon threw a kick, and again. She was sweating out her anger as she punched and kicked the bag.
It was only when she heard footsteps on the basement stairs that she stopped.
'Leave me alone, I just want to….,
Sensei Lawrence was standing on the stairs. Devon was immediately embarrassed and covered it up by turning away angrily.
'How did you get down here?' She asked, hitting the bag again.
'Your Mom let me in.' Sensei Lawrence stepped off of the bottom step and looked around, walking around the small room.
'Yeah, well she shouldn't have,' Devon muttered as she hit the bag again. She heard a sound and turned. Sensei had sat on the couch and was watching her. Devon turned and began to hit the bag again.
'Nice hook,' he commented.
Whirling around Devon scowled at him and pulled her gloves off, throwing them to the floor.
'Why are you here? You gonna throw me out of the dojo? Well, you don't have to, 'cus I quit!'
'I wasn't going to throw you out. I wanted to ask what that was back there?' Sensei said evenly, looking at her.
'It doesn't matter.' Devon folded her arms and looked away.
He watched her patiently. 'I'm just trying to understand why you did that? I'm not going to throw you out and you're too talented to quit but we need to talk about what happened at the dojo.'
'I don't know, OK. I don't know why I did that. I just….' She looked away, chewing her lip. She didn't know how to say it without sounding like a total idiot.
'Just what?' He was sitting calming, his leg stretched out in front, watching her.
'I liked you OK. I like you. And I thought you liked me too. It was stupid. I'm stupid. I feel like an idiot.'
Devon flopped down on the couch next to him.
'I understand if you don't want to teach me anymore. Just don't...tell anyone OK,' she said unhappily, staring at her hands. ‘I don’t think I can handle the embarrassment.’
Sensei Lawrence didn’t speak and the silence was unbearable. She turned her head and he was just looking thoughtfully at his hands. Eventually, she heard him sigh and he turned towards her.
'I do like you, Devon, but you're my student and a kid. You can't do stuff like that, you know. I like you, I do, but not like that . Not ever like that, you understand me?'
She nodded sadly not knowing what to say. She had never felt like such a fool. She had never felt like a fool, period.
'You need to focus on boys your own age. There must be someone you've got your eye on?'
'All the boys at my school are either idiots or just intimidated by me,' she grumbled.
He let out a chuckle. 'Yeah. I can imagine.'
He paused, as if thinking, before he spoke again.
'When I was a kid I had a crush on a teacher. Made a complete idiot of myself,' he said.
She was suspicious. 'Yeah?'
He smiled. 'Oh yeah. Miss Morgan. I was seventeen, had just left my dojo and was feeling a little lost. I wasn't like you, wasn't into schoolwork and my grades were bad and getting worse. She kept me back after class one day and started saying all this nice shit, that I wasn't as dumb as I pretended to be, that I could do well if I applied myself. That I could do anything I want with my life, you know. No one had ever said that kind of shit to me and it was nice, made me feel good about myself.'
He let out a huff of laughter.
'And then it was like a switch had been turned on in my head. Suddenly I was totally into this teacher. I found excuses to talk to her, was all good and proper in her class. I made an ass of myself.'
'Did you try and kiss her?'
He smiled. 'No. Worse.' He paused. 'I bought her a rose and told her that I was in love with her.'
'Oh my god,' Devon said with horror. ‘That is worse!’
'I know. I can still remember the humiliation like it was yesterday. Her face just fell and I knew I had screwed up.'
'What did you do?'
'I just ran out of there. It was awful. I didn't know how I could face seeing her again, wanted to switch schools, move to Europe or something.' He smiled kindly. 'I'm telling you this because I remember what it was like being young. Your hormones are going crazy and you're horny all the time.' Devon screwed her nose up at that. 'You get crushes on people, sometimes people who you shouldn't. Like your high school teacher.' He looked at her carefully. 'Or your Sensei. But that's what it is, a crush. And that's OK, have that crush, but you have to admire from a distance, you know.'
'Yeah,' she replied, nodding slowly. 'I’m sorry. I shouldn't have done what I did. I should have asked first.'
'You should have. And I would have said no. OK?'
The corner of Devon's mouth went up in a reluctant half-smile. 'Yeah, I know.' Her voice was still sad but she got it, she did. Of course, she did. Stupid hormones messing with her stupid head.
'So, are we OK?' He asked.
'Yeah, we're OK.' She smiled a little wider this time.
He nodded and went to stand. 'Good.' He began to leave. 'And I expect you at the dojo tomorrow bright and early, ready to train, You're mind focused on the tournament. Right?'
'Yes.'
He cocked his head expectantly.
'Yes, Sensei,' she said with a smile.
He smiled. 'Good girl.'
Sensei Lawrence climbed the stairs and was gone. Devon listened to a short conversation between him and her mother and heard the front door close.
Smiling Devon picked up the gloves and went back to her training.