Chapter Seventeen: Same But Different

…

A large cardboard box was on the coffee table in the LaRusso household living room.

Lucas opened it with Daniel at his side, and he only had one, stunned, and quiet word.

"Wow."

Inside the package was a WKF approved Arawaza set of blue and red belts, gloves, foot and shin protectors, and a brand new white GI and chest protector.

"This must," Lucas paused. "Not have been cheap."

"It wasn't," Daniel said. "But with the All Valley next weekend, I wanted to make sure you had all the equipment necessary in order to compete. For my first tournament, all Mr. Miyagi gave me was his old karategi and headband."

"You didn't have to-"

"I did," said Daniel. "Maybe in the future you end up competing some time again. I want to make sure you have something to remember our time together."

Daniel looked at Lucas. "You still haven't decided what you're going to do yet?"

"Training with you in secret again would just get me sent back to Denver. But staying in the Valley without karate just, does not sound great." sighed out Lucas.

Lucas shook his head, closing the box. "And then I realized what you said, that I only have to prove something to myself. After this next tournament, I'm done with karate." Daniel raised an eyebrow. "But you and I aren't done. The amount of trust and care you've shown me is more than my actual family ever gave me."

Daniel nodded.

"If staying in the Valley to stay around my mentor means no karate, then I'll stop doing karate after the All Valley."

Daniel was confused. "Doesn't that mean no more trophies? No more glory? I thought that was what you wanted. Why you started karate to begin with?"

"After everything that happened this past year, that's not what karate is supposed to be about at all. Which is why I think it'll be best to take a break as soon as I'm done here."

Daniel smiled a bit as Lucas checked his phone. "I got a practice PSAT to get to, Pops will kill me if I don't do well."

"Do you need a ride?"

"I'm fine, see you later Mr. LaRusso."

Daniel spoke. "Wait, about Sam."

"Do we have to talk about her?"

"We do, why weren't you more upset over all that happened?"

Lucas shrugged. "I knew Sam was talking to other people. Maybe to mess with me, maybe because she was actually interested in them. Either way, I didn't take it too personally in regards to Sam specifically. Why didn't you?"

"Because I sort of knew the same thing." Daniel said. "Sure this was last summer, but I gathered as much when I saw that kid Kyler and his buddies at the pool party Sam threw."

"Has she always been that way?"

"Seeking attention? No, not until recently."

Daniel eyed Lucas calmly. "Not until you moved here from Denver."

"Right." Lucas cleared his throat. "Guess I'll be going now."

…

At West Valley High, even though it was a Saturday, all students had to do a PSAT for practice.

Lucas was in the same room as Miguel, Demetri, and Robby. Students weren't organized by last name, rather, randomly by their Student ID.

Luckily, Lucas didn't have to worry about the death glares Robby typically gave him, since the teacher in charge of the exam would consider it cheating to keep his eyes off his own paper for so long.

Besides Demetri, Lucas was more focused than anyone on his test, everyone at school knew him for his situation with Sam and several girls who used to be on the cheer team.

Eventually, the exam ended, and Lucas walked out of the room.

"Hey."

Lucas turned, surprised to see Demetri speaking to him. "Hey, thought you were still ignoring me."

"I was, I figured those Cobra Kai jerks would leave me alone even if they knew we weren't talking."

"Are they giving you any trouble?" Lucas asked curiously.

"No, but I think it's only a matter of time," said Demetri. "Anyway, I've been thinking about Yasmine lately."

Lucas stared at him blankly.

"Not, that way," he said as other West Valley High students walked past them and the lockers nearby. "Just, about the kind of person she is."

"Really?"

"I was blind to what she was doing to Aisha, and the rumors she started about Sam as revenge for splitting up the group of cheer people they were in. A person that mean and petty, probably wasn't worth ghosting you for a whole semester."

Lucas smiled. "Does that mean we're friends again?"

"Eh, fifty fifty. Depends on how much trouble those Cobras are looking for and how much you'll get involved."

He chuckled. "You want me to just be your bodyguard?"

"Hey you're a karate champ and beat up Kyler and all his friends in our first year of school. I find that a," Demetri paused. "Considerable bonus to our friendship."

Lucas nodded slightly. "You haven't changed Demetri."

Someone nudged him, hard out of the way as he began to walk away.

It was Robby, Lucas hardly paid him any attention, instead, Demetri spoke up.

"Hey!"

Robby slightly turned.

"There was a time when we were all friends," said Demetri. "Can that mean you can maybe stop being such an asshole?"

Robby walked towards Demetri, looking a bit angry, and then Lucas stepped inbetween them.

A few people in the hallway watched as Lucas and Robby had a short staring contest.

Robby eventually fixed his backpack over his shoulder and then left.

Lucas watched Robby walk away, and Demetri did too. "He's acting more like a Cobra Kai every day now."

"I wouldn't go that far. Hard to believe I actually used to be one."

"What?" Demetri laughed in surprise. "You used to be a Cobra Kai?"

Lucas looked around the hallway, glad no one heard him. "We should talk."

…

Daniel parked his car in a graveyard.

It was spring, flowers were in bloom, and the trees full of leaves.

He walked to Mr. Miyagi's grave, brushed off the top of his headstone, and knelt.

"I know it's been a while." Daniel said deeply. "But I felt something needed to be said."

Daniel was in thought, trimming the bonsai planted next to Mr. Miyagi's grave for a moment.

"I wanted to talk to you about Lucas," he said. "More specifically, the things you've helped me pass down." Daniel sighed. "I know Anthony never got into karate, and Sam seems less interested than ever in what you taught me. But what I wanted to be grateful to you for, is helping me grow into the mentor I think I've become."

"Growing up, I was sure you had all the answers. A part of me wanted to be the same way. With how much my family's struggled since Lucas moved to the Valley. I was sure I'd have all the right answers too."

Daniel shook his head.

"But I didn't."

Daniel kept kneeling. "Lucas has become wiser, more mature, and a better person through what you've taught me. And I found out just what my way is supposed to be, the way you wanted me to teach karate."

He nodded. "Balance. Helping a young man mature, that was the real victory behind your legacy."

When Daniel keyed the ignition to his car and was about to drive back home, he remembered Mr. Miyagi's words.

"Daniel-san. You remember, lesson about balance?"

"Yeah." teenage Daniel said as Mr. Miyagi leaned on the car he gave him.

"Lesson not just karate only, lesson for all life. All life has balance. When you have balance, everything be better."

Daniel thought on Mr. Miyagi's words with a smile, and then he drove off.

…

Eli and Demetri talked to Lucas as they waited for their mothers to pick them up from West Valley's parking lot. The three boys chatted with each other quietly.

"So the whole mess Miguel and Robby started, all the karate, you started it?" asked Eli in his shy voice.

Lucas nodded silently. "I'm starting to regret it a lot, I hurt a lot of people."

Eli and Demetri looked at each other.

Demetri looked at Lucas. "That's great, and we get that you want to move past that now, but you have to fix another issue."

"Which is?"

"Cobra Kai wants revenge for everything you pulled this past year. The fight at the arcade, the cheer squad. How're you going to fix all that? Robby wants payback too."

"I'll fight them at the tournament."

Demetri kept looking at Lucas. "And what if that's not enough?"

"It will be, I'll make sure of that."

Eli's mother pulled up in his mini van.

"Hey."

Eli and Demetri shouldered their backpacks, about to leave.

They turned when Lucas spoke.

"Can I count on the both of you? To forgive me for all that shit, to pull through."

"We'll see. Depends on how the tournament plays out, I don't know anything about karate, but I do know however wins is who everyone at school will respect."

Lucas saw Demetri and Eli get into the mini van, and he began to think to himself.

He spotted Robby waiting for Johnny to arrive in his red Pontiac Firebird near West Valley High's front entrance.

Robby looked up from his phone, rolling his eyes and looking aside when Lucas approached.

"What?" he asked irately.

"I'm sorry." Lucas said calmly.

Robby still looked confused.

"I'm sorry that I dragged you to Mackenzie's party and didn't back you up in the cafeteria," Lucas said sadly. "If I could do it all over again, I promise, I'd have your back."

Robby looked pensive for a moment.

"I wouldn't let that happen to you. I wouldn't let that happen to us."

Robby raised an eyebrow, just how Johnny would when he was getting annoyed. "Well man, the fact is that it did happen."

"But I said I was deeply and truly sorry, that I didn't mean to-"

"I'm sure your intentions were just fine," Robby muttered. "But the fact is that for the next two years, everyone at this school is just going to know me as that guy whose name Luke Schwarber ruined that one time."

"Robby we've gone months without talking to each other. No matter who wins on that mat at the All Valley, if we don't move on and grow. Then, it really doesn't matter."

"No it does matter." Robby pointed a thumb at his own chest. "It matters to me. Because I'm going to win, I'm going to prove that you were the one who messed up."

"You'd really care that much about a karate match over our own friendship?"

"What friendship?" scoffed Robby angrily. "So what? You split me away from Trey and Cruz, got me back together with my dad. A year later, you made my life hell anyway. I have just one friend left at this school, and things are tense between us because I know you like her."

Lucas smiled. "I don't like-"

"You do." Robby sighed. "And that's just it Lucas, you ruin everything. You make everything about you, and no matter where I go, even with my own dad, it'll keep being about you." Robby looked at Lucas up and down angrily. "That's why after I beat you at the All Valley, it'll be about me for once."

He walked away even as Lucas had something else to say.

Lucas saw Daniel LaRusso pull up in his car soon after, making Lucas surprised.

"I thought Pops was picking me up."

"I talked to him. I have somewhere to take you."

…

Cobra Kai OST: Bonsai Lessons

...

"Oh boy, never been here."

Lucas looked around Mr. Miyagi's backyard.

"You know the story behind this place right?" Daniel asked, ignoring his student's sarcastic slight. "The summer I came back with Mr. Miyagi from Okinawa, he let me stay here with him."

"Yeah, this is where you learned Miyagi-Do."

"It's where I learned balance, same thing I'm trying to teach you."

"Is any of it worth it though?"

Daniel was confused, walking across the wooden decks to approach Lucas. "What do you mean?"

The boy looked upset. "So what if I beat Robby? So what if I beat Cobra Kai? Everyone at school will hate my guts anyway. No one will trust me again, maybe Eli and Demetri will but."

He shook his head with a sigh, barely able to meet Daniel's eyes. "How is a karate trophy supposed to change how people see me? How can it change how I see myself?"

"We already talked about this. It's about confronting your mistakes, showing up to fight, because you have to fight. And nothing else." insisted Daniel.

"That's not what Robby said. He pretty much said I might as well move back to Denver."

"You talked to Robby Keene?"

"I told him how sorry I was over all of this, how badly I felt for what happened." Lucas said. "He walked off all upset, and I just had to deal with it."

Daniel smiled. "I'm so proud of you."

"Why?"

"Because you've matured." Daniel looked around Miyagi-Do. "When we met, you were a very good student. Because you were trying to trick me."

Lucas looked like he wished Daniel didn't bring that up.

"You were lying to me, to hurt me, to make yourself do better at a tournament to make yourself look better. And when you started training again, you were impatient and angry."

Daniel remembered Lucas splashing around frustrated in the pond with bonsai, and him yelling at Daniel after painting the house and the fence over the summer.

"Because you were showing me your true self." Daniel said. "Don't get upset with what I'm about to say. But, this took me a long time to realize."

Lucas tilted his head a little bit, listening.

"The reason why you sought out John Kreese first, why you listened to what he teaches, and to this day, you still very much choose to live by what he taught. Is because you were born to strike."

Lucas was a bit confused.

"And that's actually okay," Daniel admitted with a slight nod. "You've been the greatest challenge of my life Luke. You grasp Miyagi-Do's physical techniques, but none of the spiritual ones, not even a little."

Daniel's voice seemed to shake. "Until these past few months."

Lucas frowned.

"You've opened your mind to the possibility that yes, this might just all be your fault. You've taken responsibility for your own actions, you sought humility, instead of revenge."

Daniel smiled. "Sam might've felt hurt you um, did what you did with her friends. Robby too, same with Eli and Demetri. And the rest of your school. But Luke, as much pain as that must've caused, I can only imagine the pain you've been through."

"You came to the Valley to learn karate, your grandfather didn't approve, to the point he ended up bringing back Kreese accidentally. Your connection, your passion for karate is so immense, that living a life here without it must be incredibly difficult," said Daniel. "The pain that confusion must've caused, led to your mistakes. And your grandfather forcing you to quit karate after this next tournament. And what did you do?"

"I accepted it."

"You did." Daniel placed his hands on Lucas' shoulders. "It's going to be okay."

Lucas hugged Daniel.

And Daniel hugged him back.

Lucas looked blank.

"Mr. LaRusso-"

"I promise you, I see what you're doing. That you're not looking for anyone else to blame for what happened, you're blaming yourself. But you're not letting yourself make more mistakes because of it."

Daniel nodded. "That is what I've been trying to teach you this entire time. To let go of your anger, to find balance inbetween all the pain life can bring."

"So it worked?"

"When Mr. Miyagi passed away." Daniel looked off in thought for a moment. "It was what worked best Luke. And the same lessons you're learning, are just a tiny bit off from the ones I learned from him."

"Thank you Mr. LaRusso."

"No, thank you. I've felt I've grown too from all this."

…

As they drove back to Encino, Lucas spoke.

"So, what's going to happen then?"

"With what?" asked Daniel.

"With Miyagi-Do."

"Well, are you really planning on quitting?"

Lucas nodded. "Yeah, I have to. I might as well move back to Denver if I plan on still training with you but living with my grandparents who said I can't anymore."

"And you're fine with staying in the Valley even if that means you can't do karate?"

"You've done more to center me, and keep me focused on what matters than anyone else I've met. As long as I stay around, yeah, I'm fine with that."

Daniel laughed. "Yeah, you got it."

"Got what?"

"Miyagi-Do."

…

"Wait so he tried apologizing to you? After you haven't talked in months?"

Robby was in Johnny's apartment speaking to him. "Yeah, said the whole thing was his fault."

"LaRusso was the same way back in high school." Johnny waved a hand. "He's just trying to throw you off your game for the tournament."

"I still can't believe he had the gall to talk to me after what happened." Robby was confused. "He said something that stuck with me though."

"What was it?"

"That this tournament won't change anything at all."

Johnny chuckled, getting a beer from his fridge and flicking the cap away with one hand. "Yeah, that's what he wants you to think. Because this tournament means everything."

"Really?"

"Of course it does," Johnny said. "When I was winning tournaments, those were the best years of my life in high school. You think your old best friend gets all that attention from girls just because he's rich?"

Robby shrugged. "I don't know." he crossed his arms standing in front of Johnny as he drank in the living room.

"My dojo would get in newspapers, I'd get all the hot babes, ride around on bikes all the time with my best friends. Do you really want the rest of high school to go that way to the guy who took all that from me? And wants to take it from you? To go to Daniel LaRusso, and his student?"

Robby shook his head. "No."

"No," Johnny nodded. "At this point, Kreese has actually been less of a pain in my ass than LaRusso's been. LaRusso's kids have been the one spinning you into this, stupid romance and drama you got nothing to do with."

Robby seemed to think of Sam for a moment. "Right."

"Now that I think about it, in your shoes, if I was your age I totally would've fought my best friend if he did that to me."

"You would?" Robby was surprised his father changed his opinion on his lunchroom brawl with Lucas so quickly.

"Totally. Everyone spreads shit behind my back and he takes the side of the one responsible? I'd beat his ass. A part of me actually thinks Kreese has been more helpful than anything, since his kids made sure Lucas didn't run."

Robby nodded slowly. "You're right."

"I'm sorry for getting mad at you for starting that fight, that wasn't right of me. Until now, I'd been making excuses for Lucas since a tiny part of me always saw him as Ali's kid, but not any more. You're my son, I should've been the one to reach out first, and this tournament."

Robby nodded, smiling as Johnny spoke. "This is the perfect way for me to make amends. This is how you redeem yourself, and I can redeem myself for how shit of a dad I was."

"Thanks."

Father and son hugged, thinking of the tournament they'd compete in soon.

…

…

…

A/N: This is the last chapter before the All Valley tournament.

Thank you all so much for reading!