CHAPTER 73
It was the end of Cobra Kai that afternoon, and every member of Cobra Kai was keeled over and panting for breath. If there was one thing Sensei Kim was, it was brutal, and she hadn't spared a single member of the dojo. She wasn't afraid to have them beating the crap out of each other, and there was nothing any of the students could say to protest, as the alternative was walking out of the dojo and not coming back. Nobody did though. They all stayed. It was survival of the fittest and so far, they had all proven that they were fit enough to survive.
After the session had ended, the students began to file out of the dojo. One by one, they all left, including Sensei Kim, until Marcos and Sarah were the last two in the dojo. Marcos took a deep breath. He wanted to talk to Sarah now. He wasn't going to tell her what was really going on, but he had still worked out something to say, an apology that he desperately owed her. However, before he could talk to her, Sarah quickly moved towards the exit, clearly still with no intentions of talking to him. But before she could, the dojo doors swung open and none other than Sensei Kreese hurried inside. He smiled when he saw them and let out a sigh of relief.
"Good. You're both still here." He said. "Come to my office, both of you, please."
Sarah and Marcos both dropped their bags and followed Kreese into the back office of the dojo, where he sat down and both of them stood to attention, but sat down when he gestured to the chairs opposite him.
"Ms. Gledhill, I'm sure by now you've heard about what happened with Mr. Oliveira and Miyagi-Do last night." Kreese remarked. Sarah narrowed her eyes at Marcos before nodding at Kreese.
"I have, yeah." Sarah replied. "Please don't tell us that you want us to concoct a revenge plan, because if I may be honest, I think that's a really stupid idea."
"As do I." Kreese reassured her. "My only priority is winning the Taikai and securing Cobra Kai's long-term survival and right now, that seems to be in jeopardy. Ms. Gledhill, I don't know how much Mr. Oliveira has told you but…"
"I know they won by using some magic immobilization thing." Sarah interrupted him. "So is that why you're here now? You're going to teach us how to counter it."
Kreese took a deep breath and shook his head, looking down for a moment.
"I… apologize. I wish I could teach you how to, but the truth is… I don't quite know yet." He admitted, something he would only ever do in front of his two champions, the closest pupils to him, the ones whose loyalty he trusted dearly.
"So we're basically royally screwed then." Sarah remarked. Kreese shook his head again.
"Not quite." He replied. "I might not know how to counter these moves, but that doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who do. More specifically, the people who teach those moves in the first place. Going back to the root source: Miyagi-Do senseis in Okinawa, Japan. I intend to send you there for 2 weeks to learn what you can about the style, the moves you can use and the counters you can prepare on them."
"You're sending the dojo to Okinawa?" Marcos asked, puzzled.
"No. Just you and Ms. Gledhill." Kreese told him. "Any more than that and it'll be suspicious. Besides, it can't come at a shock to either of you that the two of you are the best chance Cobra Kai has of winning the Taikai."
Marcos and Sarah didn't say a word to this but deep down, they knew he was right. Shawn was a brilliant fighter. Kenny was a raw diamond. Kyler was alright but not great. As were Piper, Mitch and the other Cobras. But when it came down to competing with the likes of Robby Keene, Miguel Diaz, Samantha Larusso, Tory Nichols and Eli Moskowitz… they just weren't at the same level.
"This is how it's going to work…" Kreese told them. "You both have a flight booked for tonight to go to Okinawa. Make any necessary arrangements you have to before then. You fly under your real names and passports, but from the moment you touch down in Okinawa, you will go by fake aliases. We can't have you using your real names and risk Toguchi or anyone else in the Valley catching wind about our plan."
"Fake names, got it." Sarah said. Kreese nodded.
"Exactly. Make up the names and backstories. Whatever you know you can remember if questioned about it. So you'll have two weeks to study Miyagi-Do Karate before you'll return, just in time for the restart of your school term. Does that work for the two of you?"
"Works for me." Marcos immediately nodded. He was delighted about this development. It would be an opportunity to leave the country and go on his first vacation ever, to an extremely unique location too. But not only that, it would provide him with a reprieve from his father, at least for a while.
"Works for me too." Sarah added, a little more reluctant than Marcos. Sensing the tension between his two champions and raising an eyebrow, he didn't confront them about it just yet. He was more eager about the plan taking action, and he had trust that they'd still be able to work together, despite whatever they were going through right now.
"Excellent." Kreese replied. "Now… pack your bags, both of you. I'll have your flight information sent to both of you, but the arrangements have already been made to have you fly out late tonight. We want to get a move on this process as soon as possible so we can put this weakness behind us. Understood?"
"Yes sensei." They both immediately responded. Kreese nodded in approval and he stood up, holding out a hand to both of them.
"I will see you next when you both get back then. Good luck." He told them. Sarah and Marcos shook Kreese's hand and they all bowed to each other, before Sarah and Marcos left the room and stepped back out into the main dojo.
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As soon as Marcos and Sarah walked back out into the main dojo, the tension between them instantly mounted. Sarah was reminded of what Marcos had done, and Marcos was reminded of just how much he was keeping from her. He took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he was going to say, but it severely pained him that what he was going to say was a bald-faced lie. Especially if Sarah bought the lie. Keeping secrets was one thing, and denying things was another, but outwardly lying was a line that Marcos always strived never to cross. His word was his bond, sacred to him, and yet he knew he was about to cross it.
Or at least he would if he managed to talk to Sarah, which seemed increasingly unlikely as she began to rapidly walk towards the exit once more.
"Hey. Sarah! Sarah! Wait up!" Marcos called, jogging after her. Reluctantly, Sarah slowed to a halt and turned towards him. As she looked him in the eye, Marcos felt another hard pang of guilt about what he was about to do.
"What do you want?" Sarah snapped. As Marcos moved closer to her, he noticed signs in her that suggested that her night was almost as rough as his was after their conversation. She clearly hadn't slept a wink, the bags under her eyes giving that away. The ocean eyes had hints of bloodshot, implying that a few tears had been shed.
"I think we need to talk." Marcos said. Sarah laughed at this.
"No, Marcos. We don't need to talk. I think I've done more than enough talking at this point. You need to talk."
"You're right. You're right. You were right about everything." Marcos admitted, and Sarah raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms and staring at him, intrigued by this newest revelation. "You said that there was something I wasn't sharing with you. You were right. I owe you an explanation."
Sarah slowly nodded.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" She asked. Marcos nodded and the pair left the dojo together, walking out onto the quiet Encino street. Once they were out in the fresh air, Sarah turned to him again. "So… what's going on?"
Marcos took a deep breath. Here it comes. The lie. He desperately needed to sell it with enough emotion or there was no chance that Sarah would buy it. It was plausible enough, sure, as Marcos had been coming up with it all night and this morning, but he knew that Sarah could read him like a book. If the lie was too obvious, she'd be able to sniff it out, then it really would be the end of his relationship.
"Look, it's not just one thing, okay? It's a combination of everything." He replied. "Everything's just been building up. All this pressure, all these expectations of me… they all just came bubbling up and I snapped."
"Everyone's got pressure, Marcos. Especially during their senior year. You don't see them volunteering for fights to the death, do you?"
"Yeah, well everyone's not me." He responded gruffly. "I've got a sensei who's counting on me as the only hope against Miyagi-Do in the Taikai, that this dojo's entire survival depends on. I've got a father who's pushing me to follow in his footsteps and get a dead-end trade job like plumber or electrician for the rest of my life and drop any dreams I have for a proper future. I've got a college counselor who's pushing me to apply to colleges that I can't even afford the first day of tuition for. I've got the constant risk of deportation and doom of living back in the slums of Brazil if I can't sort out my future soon by the time I become of age. And I… well I don't even know what I want to do for the future, because God Forbid my opinion matters in all of this."
Sarah had stopped walking by now and was instead just standing face to face with him as Marcos vented, listening intently to him as he opened up. At least, what she thought was him opening up, and was actually just an Oscar-worthy performance.
"Then there's all of the expectations. On top of all of this indecision, the school expects me to graduate a passing student, which is pretty fucking difficult when everything is in a language I can BARELY even read! My dad expects me to be the perfect son, do everything that I do and still keep our house in perfect order for him, cook him every meal and clean the entire place. Then there's Kreese who expects me to not only train for the Taikai, but somehow be a leader that inspires everyone else to improve when let's be fucking honest, NONE of them are winning the tournament! But does that mean I can just go to the dojo, train and then leave? No! Because I'm stuck taking care of everyone else's shit as the leader that I didn't even ask to be! Then there's the expectation to be a good boyfriend to you, which, don't get me wrong, is by far the best part of my life as I really do love you, but it's just… it's too much, Sarah. All of this is too much. Everyone expects so much from me and I just… I can't do it much longer!"
Before he knew it, a tear had rolled down his cheek. At the beginning of this conversation, he might have thought that he was crying crocodile tears, but midway through the conversation, he realized that everything he was saying was absolutely true. He was severely struggling with all of this, but it was all being masked, covered by the even bigger black cloud in his life, the black cloud that he was going to shield Sarah from at all costs.
After Sarah listened to all of this, she couldn't remain even a little bit mad at Marcos. Her eyes had been opened to just how much stress he was truly under, how much he hid with his quiet exterior. She pulled him into a tight embrace, speaking gently in his ear.
"This is what's going to happen, okay? If you want to press pause on our relationship for a while, take a break from it all, I understand. If you want to end it entirely, I understand. I love you so much and I don't want to cause you any more stress than you're already under so I'm okay with stepping aside if it means that you feel a little better. At least that you aren't putting yourself in harm's way with stupid fights anymore." Sarah told him. "When we get back from Okinawa, whether we're in a relationship or not, we're going to look at your genuinely viable options for the future. Not the ones your college counselor says are viable. Nor the ones that your dad says are. Whether it be looking into how exactly becoming a pro fighter works; whether it be looking into college loans for international students like you; it can be enlisting in the military for all I know, if that's what you want. But we're going to remove all that pressure and uncertainty by finding you some proper options. After we get back from Okinawa, that is. For now… just take the next two weeks as vacation. We get to go to Japan! Japan! Enjoy it. Have fun. Relax a little. Sound good?"
As Sarah looked up at Marcos, she watched as he leaned in and suddenly planted a sweet, gentle kiss on her inviting lips. Sarah immediately reciprocated it, the worry in her heart that he was going to opt to end their relationship fading a little. It seemed like they actually could be good again.
"Thank you, Sarah." He whispered when they broke apart. "Seriously, thank you."
"No problem." Sarah replied, smiling at him. "See! Was talking so hard?"
Marcos chuckled, looking down. It was. Talking was the hardest thing in the world. He might have been strong enough to punch a hole through brick, but he wasn't strong enough to talk for even a single word about what was happening with his father. That fact hadn't changed now, and it probably wouldn't for the near future. Because Sarah's kindness, how sweet and caring she had been just now… it was exactly why he was hiding his father's abuse from her. Sarah was everything his father wasn't, and he wasn't going to risk anything happening to her. No matter the physical and mental cost it took on him…