Kicks and Punches, or, Monsters Don't Cry
A Kyo Sohma Oneshot
The sun had already set for a while when Kyo Sohma arrived at Kazuma's Dojo; the loneliness of the empty street that led up to it was illuminated only by the street lights, and the only noise was the sound, in the distance, of the cars on the one large road that passed near the vast complex that was the main Sohma Residence.
There was nobody in the Dojo; but Kyo liked it that way.
The boy unlocked the door and went inside, respectfully taking off his shoes as he stepped onto the wooden floor. The building, architecturally, was traditional in every way, and going into the Dojo was almost like stepping into feudal era Kyoto. The fact that it was entirely empty and that it was night time too only made this even more ominous.
Kyo, however, did not feel intimidated at all; indeed, the Cat felt a surge of pride as he went in. This was not his first time doing this; nor would it be the last. But he was alone, and that was what made him proud.
Kyo was the only one with whom Kazuma had entrusted the keys to his Dojo. Not Yuki. Not Hatsuharu. Not any other one of the Sohma boys.
Only Kyo.
That made Kyo feel good.
And there was a time –a bit before the arrival of the girl Tohru Honda- when Kyo would use this privilege to come to the Dojo at night to train alone.
Every night; infallibly, Kyo would be in the Dojo training.
This was one of those nights.
As we have already said, the place was entirely empty, but Kyo Sohma acted as if he was not: after leaving his backpack in a corner, he entered the quasi-sacred training area with all the ritual submission of the apprentice young fighter that he was entering a traditional Japanese Dojo. Then, he took off his outdoor clothes, and placed them neatly in a corner.
Underneath these clothes, the boy was already wearing his gi, or martial arts uniform.
Kyo then gave a bow, as it were, to his master, to his Shishou, Kazuma, only that in the soft darkness of the Dojo it was as if he were bowing to his ghost, because, of course, there was nobody there but Kyo. The boy did not go through the trouble of even turning any lights on. Indeed, he did not need to… he knew this place by heart. Every nook and cranny of Kazuma's Dojo was to Kyo like a line on his own hand, and he didn't need a light to get around that.
And so, having, in perfect solitude and darkness except for the streetlights and for the moonlight that came in through the windows, made all the necessary preparations, Kyo Sohma began his training.
"Hya!"
Kyo's very first move was a majestic high kick delivered with all his strength; and his cry would have echoed across the room's pillars and walls too if they hadn't been wooden.
And it was only uphill from there.
The orange-haired boy had little time for gradual increments; indeed, he abhorred them. Kyo didn't want to take his time. Instead, he started training at full speed and strength, and he continued training at full speed and strength, and he would finish at full speed and strength only when he collapsed from exhaustion.
He couldn't do anything else, after all. Not if he ever wanted to stand a chance of beating the Rat.
That damn Rat!
If anyone had been there to see it, Kyo's training program would have been truly impressive. The kicks and punches he threw, the blocks, chops and parries he made viciously and furiously at the empty air in front of him with all the youthful anger of a tormented teenager channeled through his training as brute strengh, were each more masterful than the next, and he never stopped, not once, to take a breath or have a sip of water, but he performed kick after kick, punch after punch, combination after combination, form after form in one seemingly endless training montage against a ghastly, invisible, pitch black opponent.
Only, of course, to Kyo that opponent might have been ghastly and black, but he was anything but unknown.
Kyo could almost see Yuki before him.
Yet the Cat did not seem to get tired. Indeed, had someone seen him, it would have looked almost as if the boy were in a frenzy. And the more he trained, the more he got not tired but excited, and the more powerful his blows became, as if his exhaustion, coupled as it was with anger, didn't drain strength from him, but rather replenished it.
Strength coursed through the boy's veins. Kyo never, on any other occasion, felt nearly as alive as when he was training; never. As he kicked and punched it was as if there was not a care in his world. It was as if everything, Yuki, Akito, the Cat, his father, the memory of his mother, the accursed beads of his bracelet and the even more accursed monster they served to hide, it was as if all these were gone, washed away in a magnificent surge of adrenalin. Kyo felt good when he was training, and it was only when he was training that he felt good. It was only when he was training that he felt okay. It was only when he was fighting, even if it was just the cold night air, that Kyo felt free.
And then, of course, with freedom came happiness. With freedom came satisfaction, with freedom came the idea that he had finally done something. And before he knew it, there he was, he had done it.
In Kyo's imagination, it wasn't night anymore, and he was no longer in the Dojo. It was a sunny day, a bright, burning, sunny day, the kind of day that burned like Kyo's burning soul, and Kyo himself was fighting Yuki, and he was winning. Winning. He was covered in sweat, but Kyo didn't care: he was winning. And in one fell swoop, in one magnificent punch like the one Kyo was delivering right now, the Rat was on the ground, and Kyo had won.
Kyo had won! He was free… free! Free from the life imprisonment Akito threatened him with! Free from hatred and fear. Free, indeed, from every consequence of being the Cat, and so, free from the Cat itself. Indeed, he felt, for a moment, for a split instant of a moment of unquestionable, unalterable joy, as if the Curse itself was lifted, and as if he were swimming naked in skies of joy, wondering if this was what people were supposed to feel like when they were not cursed; and the Cat was triumphant over the world and over himself, which was how he saw the world and which, thus, was the world.
And never had Kyo been happier in his life.
But of course, he wasn't.
Because of course, it hadn't happened. And of course, as Kyo continued to punch and kick, in the darkness, he realized, of course, that he hadn't won. And now his rage was not free and commanding, but pent up inside him; because he hadn't won. He had lost. He had lost again. And because of that, the more rage he had –and his rage always grew-, the more it would turn not against Yuki, but against himself. And each punch was a punch not to Yuki, but to Kyo's own heart, because he deserved it, because he needed it for not beating Yuki. And like an animal he continued to fight against nothing; only he was worse off than an animal, because he knew he was an animal.
He knew that was what the others thought of him. Kyo knew, or at least imagined, that, even in the eyes of those that were more or less nice to him, he was nothing more than "the Cat", an unfortunate beast to be ignored and humored at best, and hated and reviled at worst, but of course, never, ever to be loved.
He couldn't be loved. His best hope was to be feared; and, because of that, he had to go on. He had to be feared, because there was nothing else for him. He had to be a terrifying thing, a fearsome monster, because it was the only kind of monster anyone respected. And this made him furious, and it was this rage that made the monster so fearsome.
For he was a monster.
Of course, they did not know how much the monster suffered, and they didn't care. So he had to be as fearsome as possible, so that he could make them suffer. Kyo wasn't all that smart, or at least so he thought… but he was strong. Kicks and punches… that was all he knew. That was all they thought he knew…
Very well them!
Sweat was now dripping from Kyo's brow, as he continued, ceaselessly, his incredibly difficult, indeed, his brutal routine.
He would give them kicks and punches!
When Kyo had finally finished, almost two hours had passed. His arms and legs and, indeed, every muscle in his body, were burning, but Kyo only ever felt exhaustion when he stopped.
This was what happened every time. He trained to get the rage out of his system. He trained to beat Yuki. He trained to beat the rage. But he could never get it out of his system, and he could never beat Yuki.
And yet…
Right at that moment, Kyo's musings were interrupted by footsteps at the gate of the Dojo. He looked up. He wasn't frightened, of course; he was far too absorbed in his own, personal fury to be frightened by anything as small as the outside world.
But he did want to know who it was:
"Kyo… are you alright?"
Kyo, in the darkness, didn't quite make out the figure at the door, but of course, the Cat could recognize that voice anywhere:
"Sh… Shishou…" the boy panted. He now realized he was quite exhausted, and he found it quite difficult to speak.
Kyo, however, was dear to Kazuma, his Master, and so the man did not even force him to do that. Without asking any questions, the teacher merely moved towards the boy and laid his hand on his arm.
"Are you well, Kyo?" he asked, with some seriousness
Kyo sighed; and after a second, he answered truthfully.
"No…" said the boy. Then, suddenly, Kyo felt all the weight of his rage turn into something else, and fall all together upon his heart in one great ball of sadness.
"Would you like to speak, Kyo?"
"No," said Kyo again. And this time, much to his embarrassment, his voice was breaking.
Kazuma, then, did not say a word, but he nodded, and he kept his hand on the boy's shoulder.
Kazuma understood…
Or maybe he didn't…
Kyo didn't know. Maybe Kazuma knew everything, or maybe he knew nothing. But Kyo didn't care… Kazuma wanted to know, and Kazuma wanted him to feel better, and that was all that mattered; and perhaps that was what Kazuma knew.
And it was enough.
"It is at least well that you know it," said the man.
Kyo nodded, but he said nothing. They stayed like that for a while: Kyo panting and Kazuma serenely but firmly touching him, while strange little breaths which we will not call sobs because Kyo in his pride would never allow us to do so, escaped the Cat's mouth. He was definitely not crying, after all, even though tears were dripping from his eyes.
Monsters don't cry; Monsters don't get to cry.
Monsters don't get to cry, but those little breaths were the pain and sufferings of a lifetime.
After a few minutes, however, Kyo's breathing returned to normal, and, wiping what was most definitely not tears from his eye, the Cat stood up:
"I'm… I'm alright," he said "I'm alright."
Kazuma nodded. He knew that most of the time the last thing to tell a boy who's just had a good cry and said he was alright was that he was not alright.
"You will clean the Dojo, yes?" said Kazuma.
Kyo nodded. Both of them knew, of course, that this was not meant as a chore, but that Kyo needed the order and the ritual of the cleaning to get back on his normal track, or at least, whatever track he could get on; after all, there wasn't really much to clean.
"Good," said Kazuma "I suppose I'm not needed here, then."
"N… no," said Kyo.
Kazuma then turned to leave; but, before going, he stopped:
"Kyo," he said "Your kicks and punches are excellent."
And with that, he left.
Now, of course, Kazuma had probably only meant this as an offhand compliment, something to cheer Kyo up. Or he might even have just genuinely been impressed by Kyo's little exhibition.
But to the boy, it meant something entirely different, and it struck a chord deep within him. And, after completing the ritual "cleaning" of the Dojo which usually takes place at the end of the day, Kyo picked up his pack, and, for the first time that day, he smiled.
Kyo was tired; he was exhausted. And his life was not easy, nor were he, nor Kazuma, pretending it was so, or that it would be so anytime soon. And perhaps his kicks and punches hurt him more than they did anyone else, and perhaps they did not help him be free.
But he was good at them. And he pulled through thanks to them. And eventually he would pull through.
FINIS