When Robby backslides into old behavior, he learns there are multiple ways a heart can break. Robby's POV, third person limited.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Karate Kid or Cobra Kai. I'm not making money from this. I'm just a fan.
Chapter Seven:
Young Hearts
Probably the worst thing about Cobra Kai joining Miyagi-do is that Robby officially has to listen to his dad. Actually, it's not probably the worst thing. It is the worst thing.
A close second is the way Miguel constantly stares at Samantha, and changes partners around the room so that he never has to drill with Sam or spar with her or touch her.
A close third is the way Sam knows exactly what Miguel is doing, and why, and how she averts her eyes when Miguel looks at her, and checks to see if Robby noticed.
And currently, Robby's stuck dealing with all three shitty changes.
"You've got excellent form," his dad is saying, "and your defense is strong. But you need to learn that your best defense is offense. Aisha was able to make critical contact because you let her hit first, you let her come to you. Sometimes, one hit is all your opponent needs to take you down. You need to anticipate when someone's going to strike, and end the fight before he has the chance to touch you."
"I thought Mr. LaRusso specifically banned the strike first philosophy," Robby says, arms crossed. He doesn't know why he's rubbing salt in his dad's wounds – he knows it must've been a blow to his ego to accept help, to leave his own dojo. But he says it anyway.
His dad gives him a hard look. "I'm not talking about randomly punching a stranger who gives you a dirty look. I'm not talking about escalating a shouting match. I'm not talking about starting up a bar brawl. I'm talking about feeling for when a fight is inevitable, when you're threatened, by a mugger, a bully, whatever. It's different. You know when a fight's already started before anyone makes a move to hit. And you have to do what you must to protect yourself."
Robby nods. He could be pedantic, but it's really not worth the effort. And as much as he wants to irritate his dad, he doesn't, too.
His teaching style's way different from Mr. LaRusso's, and Robby doesn't like it. Robby fights better when he's focused and calm, when he can let go of all the shit he carries around with him, the shit that makes him self-destructive, and just be in the zone. His dad, well, his dad riles up his students, gets them to tap into exactly the anger and aggression that Robby is trying to overcome. Or at least suppress.
"Now, let's say two attackers are coming at you at once. Miguel, Aisha, step up."
Miguel gives Robby's dad an uncertain look. His eyes flicker to Robby and Robby shrugs. Miguel nods. They've practiced a few drills together this past week, and have even exchanged text messages (largely Kung Fu Panda gifs). But this is the first contact that's anything close to a real fight since the tournament, when Miguel deliberately damaged his injured shoulder and lorded his victory over him.
At his dad's cue, Miguel and Aisha attack him simultaneously. He doesn't give them directions as to what moves they should attempt. He lets them duke it out, alert and barking out short, terse suggestions to Robby that are actually helpful.
Robby has a perfect opening to side-kick Miguel in his lower back, but as he raises his leg, his knee bent, ready to thrust it out full force, he remembers Miguel laying on Mr. LaRusso's sofa, less than a week ago, and he can't escape the image of the purpling welts across the very spot he's about to hit. Robby manages to twist out of the motion at last second, leaving his face a prime target for Aisha, who instead of kicking his jaw, steps back, showing Robby the same regard he showed Miguel.
And with that uncomfortable pause, with that unwillingness to escalate, the three of them know the drill is over. They look tentatively towards his dad, and Robby huffs out a breath of annoyance, mentally preparing for a comeback to his dad's inevitable lecture about how his hesitation and compassion will compromise him in a real fight. Maybe Miguel's the type of guy who'd target an injury to win, but Robby's not. Not unless it's a life or death situation.
Robby's dad claps his hands, loud and sharp. "Good work."
"What do you mean?" Robby crosses his arms. While his dad's tone hadn't sounded sarcastic, Robby can't be too sure.
"You took context into consideration when you approached your opponent. Yes, we're learning self-defense, yes, we need to pratice, but we have to distinguish practice from the real thing. In the dojo, we follow professional rules and a code of honor that's different from the ruthlessness you will need employ to defend your life in a street fight." His dad's eyes flicker to Miguel, and Miguel drops his gaze down in shame.
His dad clears his throat. "I failed to emphasize this point before. That's my fault, no one else's. I won't make the same mistake again. From now on, we keep in mind the difference between the mat and the street." He clasps Robby's shoulder and walks away, moving on to Sam and Kayla to give them pointers. And Robby's eyes follow him as a he moves Sam's arms in the correct posture. What his dad has given him is more of an apology than his self-pitying, half-assed I'm sorry at the tournament. Robby thinks it might be the only time in his dad's stubborn, obnoxious existence that he's openly admitted he was wrong.
And Robby respects that.
o - o - o - o - o
"Robby, we… we need to talk."
Robby cringes at those four small words. Because we need to talk always means it's something he doesn't want to talk about. Sam is fidgeting with her hands, and that sign is even more ominous than the words.
They're standing in the lot outside the dojo, next to one of the vintage cars Mr. LaRusso said used to belong to Mr. Miyagi. Robby didn't know much about cars until recently. His dad liked cars so he decided he didn't. He realizes he's trying to distract himself, thinking about cars, so he forces himself to look at her.
"I spent all of last year being passive whenever something was wrong. When I got into a hit and run, I kept quiet. When Yasmine was bullying Aisha, I didn't stand up for her. When Miguel and I started dating, I avoided introducing him to my dad.
"I care about you. A lot. And as much as I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to be passive, either. Sorry. What I'm getting at, as hard as this is for me to say –"
"You like Miguel," Robby interrupts coldly. He pushes his long blond hair out of his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, willing his anger to stay at bay. Sam has done nothing wrong, and she doesn't deserve him lashing out.
Sam fiddles with the curve of her shoe, where the high arch of her foot doesn't reach the inner sole. "I do. But this about more than Miguel. This is about us."
She huffs, gathering her courage. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't know how to put it. We only ever kiss? And not often. I mean, not that I'm super eager to um, well, you know, jump into things. But it's been three months since we started dating. And we don't really," she waves around her hands, looking for the right words, "do a lot of dating things?"
Her voice gets pitchy at the end, so her statements sound like questions. She does that a lot, he's noticed, when she doesn't want to hurt someone's feelings or sound too assertive.
He's so humiliated and furious he wants to shout at her. To blame it on her, to imply she's a slut for wanting that. But it's not her fault, and she's not asking for anything a teenage girl shouldn't want.
He's humiliated and furious because it's the truth, and he doesn't want it to be.
Robby closes his eyes. He thinks about that cool, quiet place in the woods, thinks about the tree, the callouses on his palms from falling down on the bark so many times. He finds his center.
He's not a virgin, he's had sex with four girls, actually, which he doesn't think is a too low number for sixteen. He's never thought about sex as something important or special. It was a way to get off. Something to brag about with the guys. He grew up with the sound of his mom's bedpost banging against their shared wall and strange men grunting since he was too young to even know what those noises met. Why should sex be a bigger deal than the drunken one-night stand you forget about before the next tequila binge?
But with Sam it's different. It is a big deal to her, and Robby doesn't want to ruin that. She's his ideal girl – beautiful, funny, smart, athletic, goofy, innocent – and for some reason, all the good things about her are what make Robby incapable of being intimate with her.
He's such an asshole, because the moment Sam said yes, all the emotions that had been building up inside him plateaued into nothing. At first he didn't even know why he stopped wanting her. But now he gets it. He never wanted to be with Sam in the first place. He wanted to be someone Sam thought worthy of being with her.
He likes the idea of her, what she represents – a happy family, a normal life.
If he's honest with himself, Robby would rather have a girl who wants to screw him because he's hot. Sam cares about him in a real way, and he's not ready for that. He's so fucked up.
"Yeah," he says, defeated. "Yeah, you're right. Things have kind of…faded out with us, haven't they? I'm sorry. I really care about you, too."
Sam sighs with relief and gives his hand a little squeeze, a sweet smile on her glossy lips. "Thank God you said that!" she exclaims. "I thought it might just be me. Or that maybe I'm a bad kisser and so you've been avoiding it? I don't know. I'm just, well, I just really didn't want to hurt you…"
"It's fine," Robby says, the kindness in his voice for her, not himself, who's a fuck-up loser, and has managed to ruin another good thing, yet again. "Sometimes the chemistry's off, even if everything else is right. You took AP Chem didn't you? You should know better than me then." He gives her a half smile.
"It's like we're noble gases when we're around each other," she teases.
He's too stupid to get her joke. Well, maybe not stupid. He was actually put in gifted when he was little, but the older he got, the less he cared about school. And now that he's enrolled again, he's repeating Junior year, at North Hills, a much poorer, shittier school than West Valley. Sam and Miguel are in all the same advanced classes together.
"Friends?" Sam asks, voice up-pitched and hopeful.
He looks down into her huge blue eyes and has no idea how he could have possibly rejected her so many times, so subtly. He pulls her into a hug, smelling the coconut shampoo of her hair one last time. "Of course. Always."
o - o - o - o - o
The music is pumping in sync with his heartbeat, and the table lamp above him is glowing ethereally, like a light at the end of the tunnel, like truth within his reach. He traces his fingertips across the carpet, feeling the sensation of the texture bump up and down. He presses his palms against his t-shirt, his face. His fingertips are tingling, leaving a trail of pleasure past everything he touches, and he can see his touch, like sparks escaping a magic wand. His vision blurs and focuses as he looks up at the college kids surrounding him, two girls pressing their bodies to each other as they dance, checking to see if the guys are watching, friends laughing in a corner, frat bros playing beer pong in the hallway to the kitchen, a loner girl markering a Bob's Burgers coloring book, two philosophy majors talking Kierkegaard and using that as the world's most pretentious flirtation material.
Even if Robby only got into the party because of an acquaintance of an acquaintance, he can feel that deep down, he belongs to the grand unity of it all, a unity which he can see clearly for the first time. There's a connectedness here, a deeper meaning, an inner peace like Mr. LaRusso is always going on about, only Robby could never reach it before. This is what he was missing all along – an altered state of consciousness. He's reaching it now, letting go of his ego, of his anger, becoming one with the universe, and the vibration of his existence is sending pleasure up his spine –
He's just lucid enough to realize it's only his phone again. It's probably his dad for the hundredth time. He rolls over onto his stomach and pulls it out of his pocket to turn it off and sees Mr. LaRusso's name across the screen.
"Hey Mr. LaRusso."
"Robby? Oh, thank God. Robby where are you?"
Robby looks around and smiles at a guy standing above him, who's wearing a sombrero. The guy laughs at him. No, not at, with. He's laughing with him. They're connected. Like Mufasa said. "Whatever that guy took, I want some of it," Robby hears him say, and his friends are laughing too.
"Nowhere," Robby says. "A house party."
"Are you okay? Are you drunk? You sound drunk."
"Nah."
"Good. That's good," Mr. LaRusso says, relieved.
"I'm high."
"Did he just say he's high?"
Robby cringes at the sound of his dad's voice. But then just as quickly, the situation is hilarious. He starts laughing hysterically. "Yeah, I dropped a bunch of Molly. Hear that dad?" Robby shouts into the phone.
"Robby, your dad and I are driving around looking for you right now. Can you tell me where you are?"
"Give me the phone!" his dad is shouting. His dad curses and there's the sound of a scuffle, and then, "Robby?"
"What?"
"I've been calling you for hours! Where the hell have you been? I've been in a fucking panic since eight. I went to Daniel's. I went to your mom's. I found out where those thug friends of yours live and went to their places. Jesus Christ, I was about to check the hospitals.
"You were supposed to be at my place tonight. I spent two hours figuring how to use that stupid fire remote and rented Kindergarten Cop."
"Well now you know how it feels," Robby says. "Do you have any idea how many times I waited for you and you never showed up? Screw you."
"You think I'm not sorry for that? I am. Okay. I failed you. I get it. But that doesn't give you permission to ruin your life. Now you better tell me exactly where you are or else –"
"Johnny I don't think that's helping," he hears Mr. LaRusso plead. "Please, just give me the phone." There's another scuffle and a kinder voice calls his name again.
"Hey, Mr. LaRusso. Man, I'm thirsty."
"Robby, can you please just tell us where you are? We're going to come pick you up, okay? No questions asked. No punishment. We're coming right now."
o - o - o - o - o
By the time they reach him, the last of his high has worn off. The bright colors are faded to a sad sepia instagram filter, and what was hilarious and cheerful is now mundane and empty. Emptier than it was before. There's no unity, no peace, no meaning. There's just a bunch of people he doesn't know who are older than him and don't even notice that he's there, they're too interested in figuring out roundabout ways to trick each other into a meaningless fuck.
His head is pounding and he's thirstier than he's ever been in his life. The muscles and joints in his body feel loose and unconnected, and he can barely lift up his head. He's curled up, his forehead lolling down on his knees. He's a loser. A druggy loser who has to repeat the eleventh grade. A second-place loser. A loser whose dad doesn't want him. Whose mom doesn't want him. Whose girl didn't want him, and because of that, his sensei won't want him anymore, either.
"Robby."
It's his dad, but it can't be, because the rage is gone from his voice. In fact, he sounds gentle.
"Robby, come on, kiddo. Can you stand up?"
And it really is him, and he really is being nice, and somehow, that's a thousand times worse than facing his dad's anger.
"It's okay, buddy. Don't cry. I'm not going to yell at you, okay? Here, give me your arm."
And his dad's carrying him in a bridal hold, and Mr. LaRusso is beside them saying, "try to stay awake, Robby," and he hears some rando saying look at that kid, fuuuuuck and someone else says does he even go here? and a guy belches, and then Robby passes out.
He wakes up in the backseat of one of Mr. LaRusso's expensive cars, with his head in his dad's lap.
"How the fuck do you use this goggle thing?" his dad is shouting, and slamming the phone against the back of Mr. LaRusso's seat.
"Johnny, calm down. I can't do it while I'm driving. I need to focus on the road and get him to a hospital. Just click on the icon and type side effects of Molly in the search bar."
"What the fuck is a search bar?"
"I'll show you," Robby groans, pulling himself up to a sitting position.
"Shit, Robby. You're awake. Oh, thank God." His dad's hand is pulling back his hair, and he staring down into his eyes like the whole world is about to explode.
"I'm thirsty."
"LaRusso, pull over at that convenience store."
o - o - o - o - o
He wakes up with a pounding headache, aching all over. He's on his dad's couch, and his dad is sitting on the easy chair, staring at him with sagging eyes that probably mean he's been awake this whole time. Robby sits up and regrets it.
"Well, look who's awake," his dad says, and he's back to sounding pissed.
Robby sighs. There's no getting out of it. He fucked up. God, he doesn't even want to remember what an idiot he made of himself last night. It's bad enough his dad had to see him like that, but Mr. LaRusso too…
Robby pushes his hand through his hair, wiping his long bangs out of his eyes. "Am I in trouble?"
His dad gives him a cold look. "You sure as fuck should be." He shakes his head. "Although I don't know if punishing you is actually going to do you any good. What the fuck was that about, huh, Robby? Jesus Christ."
Robby clenches his teeth, suddenly defensive. "Why do you even care? I've done Molly before, not that you were around to realize or give a shit. Anyway, it's not a big deal. You can't overdose on party drugs. It's not like it's heroin."
"You can't overdose? Let me tell you something, kiddo, I know how to search engine now, and you sure as hell can overdose on that shit."
"People don't use search engine as a verb, grandpa."
"Quiet! Do you know that crap burns holes in your brain? It can kill you with one hit."
"Well, I'm not dead, am I?"
"You're gonna be dead when I'm done with you."
Robby forces himself to his feet and storms to the door. As well as he can storm in his condition.
"Where are you going?"
"To Mom's." He reaches for the knob, but his dad knocks his hand away, shoves him back, and blocks the door. Robby is in no condition to fight him. If he could even take his dad, which he probably couldn't.
"Just leave me alone!" Robby shouts. "You're so controlling and you have no right to be. Mom doesn't care if I'm out all night."
"And that's just one of a hundred reasons why you should be living with me."
After the sounds of their screaming, the ensuing silence has a ring to it. Robby stares at his dad. He drops his hands down against his legs and then drops his eyes.
"You really want me to live with you?"
"Yes. Of course. I've been pushing your mom on this for almost a year now. But that bitch doesn't want to give up my child support payments. I told her I'd still give her the money, but she doesn't believe I would if the court doesn't force me."
"Don't talk about my mom like that. She wouldn't…that's not why she wants me."
"Fine. Yeah, you're right." It's quiet again, too quiet, and Robby feels his heart beat in his throat. "Robby, don't scare me like that again." And his dad's voice is low and broken. "I thought I was gonna lose you."
And Robby doesn't know what's happening, because his dad is pulling him into a tight, all-encompassing bearhug. He hasn't hugged him like this since middle school. Robby stands there and takes the hug, unsure of what to do. His dad squeezes him even tighter, and Robby finds himself pulling his arms around the man and tucking his face into his chest.
"Don't scare me like that again, okay?" His dad's voice is shaky, and Robby thinks he might be crying. But he has to be wrong, because his dad would never cry. He's too macho for that. Too cool for that.
"Move in with me," his dad says. "I'm not going to let you down again."
His dad is definitely crying.
Maybe that's why, for the first time in a long time, Robby believes him.
o - o - o - o - o
Mr. LaRusso stops by later in the afternoon. His dad "suddenly remembers" an errand he has to run, and leaves them with some privacy. Which is honestly more maturity from him than Robby expected.
"I'm sorry," Robby says once they're alone. His eyes drop to the table. "It was really stupid."
"Yeah, it was," Mr. LaRusso says. He huffs. Robby can tell he's disappointed in him and that's worse than being yelled at. At least if he were yelling, Robby could yell back and not have to face it.
"I'm sure you don't need another lecture about how dangerous those drugs are."
"My dad reamed me up a good one, so no."
"Just as long as you take in the message," Mr. LaRusso says, giving him a long, concerned look.
"Yeah, I got it."
"I mean it. Don't do that again. You scared the shit out of us. We both care about you a lot. You know that, don't you?"
Robby nods, but he knows Mr. LaRusso is just saying it because he's nice and he feels like he has to.
"Robby…I hate to ask, but why did you do it?"
Robby shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the truth." He fiddles with a loose thread. "I guess I just felt like giving up. I'm sick of…failing, I don't know. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I guess Sam told you she broke up with me."
"She told me." Mr. LaRusso taps his fingers against the table. "Robby, you can't hurt yourself just because you're upset. I know breaking up feels like the end of the world when you're a teenager –"
"It's not that," Robby interrupts.
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know," Robby mumbles.
"Yes you do," Mr. LaRusso says, and Robby feels a flash of irrational anger toward him, for not letting him get away with anything, for forcing him to talk when he'd rather just leave it alone and forget.
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me," Mr. LaRusso insists.
And Robby's vision goes blurry. But he won't let himself cry. "It's stupid, okay? I just thought…I don't know. I thought that if I'm not with Sam, you wouldn't want me around anymore… For a while, it almost felt like I could be part of your family eventually or something, and when we broke up I knew that would never happen. I just…
"It doesn't matter. I'm messed up."
Mr. LaRusso touches his shoulder. "Robby, you already are part of my family. Whether you're dating my daughter or not. You were my student first. And that bond is for life."
Robby stares hard at the table as he nods.
"Your dad told me you're moving in."
Robby clears his throat. It's difficult to speak. "We already worked it out with my mom. I'm enrolling at West Valley on Monday."
"I think it's a great idea."
"You do?"
"Yeah."
"Robby, I need you to look at me, and I need you to listen to me."
"Okay." It takes all of his willpower to lift his eyes up. And there's so much kindness in his brown eyes that Robby doesn't know if he can take it.
"I was Mr. Miyagi's student for life, and you're my student for life. Nothing will come between that. Nothing. And your father…you know we have our differences. We both know his flaws. We both know he's messed up in the past. But if there's anything I know for sure about Johnny Lawrence, it's that he loves his son. If you need me, I'm here for you. If you need him, he's here for you too. You don't have to choose. We both care about you. Don't push us away."
Before today, Robby didn't even know there was a choice. He would never have believed, with any certainty, that his dad truly wanted him, that Mr. LaRusso's guidance wasn't contingent on a thousand circumstances outside of his control.
He's never felt this way before. He's never felt truly and completely wanted. He's never had the assurance that no one's going to leave him. He royally fucked up, and still his dad and his sensei were looking out for him, worried about him, carried him when he couldn't walk. And there's a weight that's lifted, in knowing, for the first time, that he doesn't have to go through this life on his own. That it isn't him against the world. That he has someone to answer to. He doesn't have to look over his shoulder and wonder if every good thing he has is going to be ripped away from him tomorrow. He doesn't have to wonder, every time Mr. LaRusso shows him affection, if this time will be the last. No one's giving up on him. No one's going anywhere.
Robby had no idea a heart could break like this. Break from being so completely, utterly loved it feels like it will burst.
o - o - o - o - o
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing! I appreciate the feedback. Next week's chapter will be called Ebb and Flow, told from Miguel's POV.
