CHAPTER 123

The stage was set. Marcos and Silver had both rejoined Cobra Kai, to help their roster soar to new heights. Miyagi-Do maintained their already fearsome roster. The days continued to tick away as the Taikai slowly grew nearer. May 10th. May 11th. May 12th. June 1st couldn't come soon enough for either side, every single one of them eager to end the agonizing wait.

However, a few days later, the thought of Marcos' return to L.A and Silver's release from prison and return to the dojo were all secondary in the minds of the Miyagi-Dos. These thoughts had been pushed down and out of sight, put into their place as mere minor inconveniences in comparison to the extravagant event going on that weekend.

Finally! After over a year of on and off dating and a 7 month engagement, it was finally the day that Johnny and Carmen were tying the knot. If it had been up to Johnny, they would've done it a lot earlier. They would've thrown an informal, good old-fashioned party to celebrate, and it would've been the weekend after he proposed and Carmen agreed to spend the rest of her life with him. However, Carmen had insisted that they wait. She wanted a proper wedding, one that required a lot of planning and a lot of money. It was an event that certainly couldn't occur while Carmen was pregnant, hence why they had waited until after she had already given birth.

After months of planning, the weekend was finally here. And Johnny and Carmen had intended to make it one that they'd never forget. Their venue was at the country club, as Daniel had managed to somehow get them a spot there, as opposed to the other venues that were all booked years in advance. The country club meant that they could invite all of their close friends and family, but there weren't going to be hundreds of people there like other weddings. Besides, it's not like Johnny and Carmen even knew, let alone wanted hundreds of people to have at their wedding. It was just going to be the people truly important to them. The people they loved.

The weekend started in quite possibly the best way possible: Johnny's bachelor party. It wasn't going to be much; Johnny didn't want some kind of massive blowout. All he wanted was a night with the people he cared about, at a bar, with a couple of drinks. Doing this the evening before his wedding wasn't ideal, but it was the only time that all of his friends were free given all of their incredibly busy schedules. The people going would be him, Daniel, Barnes, Chozen, Jimmy, Bobby, Robby and Miguel. This group of 7 would be his groomsmen for the wedding, with him deciding upon Robby and Miguel as his two best men. It was a group that Johnny had grown genuinely fond of in the years that he had known some of them, and the months he had known others. Needless to say, a night out with them, drinking a bar dry… Johnny was very much looking forward to that.

"Remember… not too much to drink. I can't have you throwing up all over the alter tomorrow." Carmen instructed Johnny firmly that afternoon as Johnny prepared to go out. "And ABSOLUTELY NO ALCOHOL for Robby and Miguel. They're just kids, Johnny. Remember that."

"Yeah. 18 year olds who have been in almost as many fights to the death as I had girlfriends in the 90s. I'm sure they can handle a sip of beer."

"No. Alcohol. For. Them." Carmen demanded. "The last thing I need is having to drive to the police station at 1 am on the morning of the wedding to bail my son out of jail for underage drinking. Understood?"

"You got it." Johnny replied, though the wink he gave to Robby and Miguel who were standing a few steps behind Carmen said it all. Carmen noticed it too and she rolled her eyes, forced to trust that her fiance and her children wouldn't get too rowdy that night. Wow… 'fiance'. The word almost sounded weird to think now. As of tomorrow, he would officially be her husband. He was already her partner, her fellow co-parent. And yet the fact that they were finally tying the knot meant so much to her.

"Okay. Be safe. All of you." Carmen told them as the group headed out of the house. She sighed. Knowing them, despite what she had said, they were definitely in for a wild night…

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"To the groom to be!" Daniel exclaimed, raising a shot into the air in salute to his friend, all of the others at their table at the bar doing likewise, before they all downed the liquor. A group of Johnny, Daniel, Barnes, Chozen, Jimmy, Bobby, Robby and Miguel… what could possibly go wrong?

They all finished their first drink of the night, and quickly came the next round. Drink after drink after drink the men swallowed and as they did, their tethers to reality began to weaken a little, and their inhibitions took over. Voices raised, balance slightly skewed, the night had barely started. You could only call it Johnny's bachelor party if someone ended the night passed out.

"Wow. Can't believe I'm doing shots with Daniel Larusso." Jimmy remarked aloud. "My teenage self would be absolutely mortified if it saw me."

"Join the club. Every single one of us at this table hated Daniel Larusso at one point or another." Barnes pointed out. "Every single one of us. Huh. I'm starting to think everything that happened in the 80s might not have been our fault like we thought. After all, who's the common denominator in all of them?"

"A good point, Barnes. A very good point." Bobby chuckled.

"Yeah! Fuck Daniel Larusso!" Johnny exclaimed, slightly drunkenly, raising his glass into the air. "I pissed on one of your cars once!"

"You certainly did." Daniel laughed. "Notice how I didn't really press you to return that Dodge Caravan, even after you supposedly cleaned it. You ever wonder why?"

"Well, joke's on you. The car still runs smooth. And after a good wash, the smell's… almost gone." Johnny told him. Daniel shuddered.

"Yeah, when you're done with that car, you can go right ahead and burn it. You don't have to give it back to Larusso Auto."

"That's good. Because I wasn't planning on it." Johnny responded. "I'm gonna get another drink!"

"I'll join you." Daniel said, and the two of them then walked up to the bar, leaving the rest of the group behind them…

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With Johnny and Daniel at the bar, the rest of the group separated a little to do whatever their drunk minds desired. Barnes, Chozen and Jimmy decided to go to the dartboard in the corner of the bar and play the lowest scoring game in the history of the sport, their inebriation making it nearly impossible to play a decent enough round. The other three members of the group - Miguel, Robby and Bobby - decided to remain seated at the table and converse while sipping their drinks.

"So… you boys ready for the tournament next month? How are you feeling?" Bobby asked them.

"Uh… good. I guess. It's pretty nerve-wracking to think about so I've kind of been keeping it out of mind." Miguel admitted. Bobby nodded and turned to Robby.

"What about you?" He asked.

"Same as Miguel to be honest." Robby replied. "But also kind of looking forward to it too. We've been working towards this for almost a full year now. It's kind of exciting that we're finally here. And I mean, we're going to be on TV! What's not to love about that?!"

"That's honestly crazy to even think about. I never would've believed it back when I was doing Karate. A Karate tournament on global TV… wow." Bobby commented. Miguel nodded.

"Yeah, well, thank Silver for that one. It's his funding that allowed them to be able to stream the fights worldwide, including here in the U.S." Miguel responded.

"Say what you want about the man - I hate him more than anyone - but you can't deny the sheer impact that he's had on Karate in this country. I mean I've heard people in my church, people who have absolutely no relationship with karate at all, discussing the Taikai like it's some upcoming UFC fight night or something." Bobby stated.

He was right. Silver's immense funding had allowed for Taikai advertisements like never before. Even with the tournament a few weeks away, the billboards and other forms of advertisement had gone up all over the world, including in the United States, and especially in Los Angeles. Although there would be hundreds of fighters at the Taikai so Miyagi-Do and Cobra Kai hadn't been getting advertisement attention just yet, the fact that they knew that there would be so many people watching them fight on live TV… it made even more riding on the tournament than there already was.

"Yeah. He's a real asshole. He's just trying to rub more and more salt into the wound by trying to have us lose in front of everyone watching." Robby murmured.

"Little does he realize that it's going to backfire." Miguel added. "It'll be Cobra Kai that everyone watches fall to pieces and die on global TV, not Miyagi-Do."

"And I'll be drinking to that in celebration as I watch it happen live on TV." Bobby reassured them.

"You're not coming to Japan?" Miguel asked. Bobby sighed.

"I wish I could. I just couldn't get out of work. Jimmy neither. You guys fight at like 3 am our time, so we already decided to watch every round together at my place." Bobby replied. "Who knows though? If you guys make the semis or the finals, we might be able to sneak away from work for a few days to come support."

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Meanwhile, across the bar, Johnny and Daniel were waiting for their incoming round of drinks to be made, and in the meantime Daniel decided to start a conversation.

"I gotta say, Johnny. I still can't believe you're actually doing this." Daniel remarked. Johnny raised an eyebrow.

"What? Drink the night before my wedding? Trust me, I've gotten so good at kicking my hangovers' asses that by tomorrow morning, it will be like I never drank." Johnny responded. Daniel chuckled and nodded.

"Trust me, Johnny. I have complete and utter faith in your ability to drink without feeling the effects of it. But that wasn't what I was talking about." Daniel said. "I was talking about marriage. You… a married man. It honestly feels weird to think about."

"It does sometimes, yeah." Johnny admitted. "God if you had told me 3 years ago that I'd be getting married today, I probably would've laughed. And then kicked your ass."

"I don't doubt that." Daniel laughed. "You've really changed, huh? Not the same brash Cobra Kai you used to be?"

Johnny shrugged.

"What can I say? Guess I finally grew up. Took me a bit longer than others, but I made it." Johnny stated. Daniel shook his head.

"I'll tell you what it took you: it took you finding a good woman, that's what. They force us to grow up, even if we don't want to yet." Daniel remarked. Johnny chuckled and nodded.

"They definitely do." Johnny agreed. "But it wasn't just her either. It was also them I have to thank for it."

Johnny gestured behind him at Robby and Miguel, who were still engaged in conversation with Bobby. Both men couldn't help but smile as they glanced at their students for a moment.

"They're good kids." Daniel commented.

"The best." Johnny corrected him. Daniel chuckled.

"You did really well with them, Johnny." Daniel told him. Johnny took a deep breath and shook his head.

"I can't take any of the credit for it. At least, I can't take more than half. The other half was you. When I should've been there for him but I wasn't, you were there. You gave him the life that I couldn't grow up enough to give him myself." Johnny stated, referring of course to the brunette teenager who he had finally reconciled with after 17 years. "I'll never be able to thank you or repay you for that."

"It was nothing, Johnny. Honestly." Daniel replied. "Besides, what you've done for my dojo - our dojo - in the past year… you've definitely done your part in return."

"Well the work's not done yet. We still have a Taikai to win." Johnny stated. Daniel nodded.

"That we do. Not just the kids this time either. We ourselves have a senseis' trophy to fight for."

"Hell yeah. And with those rules for the finals, I guess we'll finally see what we've all known this whole time: you can't last more than 3 points against me." Johnny challenged him. Daniel laughed.

"Guess we'll see, huh?" Daniel responded. "But for now… we forget about Karate. How are you feeling about tomorrow? It's not abnormal for a groom to freak out the day before his wedding."

"Pretty good actually." Johnny replied. "Not freaking out or anything. After all, nothing's really changing. I'm still Laura, Robby and Miguel's parents. I'm still Carmen's partner. The only thing that's different is what box to tick when Miguel fills out all of the forms I'm supposed to be doing myself."

"It's more than that though." Daniel told him. "Trust me, I thought the same. Amanda and I already had a business together that was just getting off the ground when we tied the knot. I thought nothing would really change. But marriage changes things. In the best way. Provided you know that the person you're marrying is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with."

"She is." Johnny stated, not even an iota of hesitancy in his voice. Carmen was more than just a partner. More than just a co-parent to their kids. She made him strive to be a better man in a way that nobody else in the world ever could. She made him see more light, even in the darkest of times. The thought of spending the rest of his life with her was the greatest honor he could possibly fathom. And in less than 24 hours, that thought would become a reality…