Presley's flight from South Korea was delayed, so she missed the first day of her senior year. This made practice after school exciting for the people who missed her. "Dude, are you okay? You seem nervous." Miguel looked at Eli, who kept bouncing from one leg to another.
"We do have a big reveal coming." Demetri pointed at the poster they had a sheet over.
"I think he is excited about Lee's coming back." Robby knew he would be excited to see his girlfriend after hardly any contact in two weeks.
"It was only two weeks like every summer. She is always hardly in contact because the time zones are different." He didn't see the big deal.
"Hawk?" Miguel waited for the person he asked to answer.
"I am excited about seeing her but a little nervous too." The three friends focus on him after the second part of the sentence. "I feel like I'm fully redeemed. I have almost no bad boy tendencies."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Demetri tilts his head and shares a confused look with Robby.
"Not when your girlfriend's type is bad boys." He worried that Presley would lose interest in him.
"She broke up with you because you went full bad boy." Miguel points out.
"That's when I was a monster, not a bad boy." He corrected him. "I don't want her to think less of me when I don't punch a guy in her face when he looks at her ass."
"I don't think that is possible." Demetri tilts his head even more at the thought process.
"Really, because every time I've done it I've been pulled into the closest closet or bathroom." He felt a twitch in his pants at the thought.
"Okay, you still have the hair and the clothes." Robby pointed out that he had the bad boy look. "If you showed up to take my daughter out for a date I would slam the door in your face."
"Really?" He looks hopeful.
"Yeah, and you are the biggest party animal. You win every drinking contest." Miguel reminds him that he is the Keg Stand King.
"I do get invited to every party." His weekends were full.
"And you're capable of defending her if you need to. You are an All-Valley Champ." Demetri pats his back.
"Yeah, I got an edge." He puffs his chest out. "I'm not a soft simp."
"LEE!" Anthony and Bert yelled.
Hawk's head whipped around to see her walking into the backyard. "Baby!" He ran and pushed the younger teens out of the way to get to her first. He picked her up to spin her around. He put her down to pull her into a deep kiss.
"Yeah, he's a total edgy badass." Robby nods slowly.
"He may be a soft simp with a mohawk but I wouldn't worry about her not being into him." Demetri looks away when she grabs the back of his neck and hooks one of her legs around his waist.
"Well, they never had to worry about the physical aspect before." Miguel looks at his shoes.
"Tory No." Robby ran to stop his girlfriend from grabbing the hose.
Eli and Demetri were standing on the sparring deck with a covered canvas between them. The dojo was looking up at them. "It's been a long road, but we're finally on the same side. And as a reward? The toughest test any of us have ever had to face." Eli started their presentation.
Demetri took over. "The Sekai Taikai is the most prestigious karate tournament in modern material arts history. For over a century, fighters from across the globe have gathered every two years to compete for the title of the World's Best."
"If the All Valley is March Madness, this is the Olympics, plus the gladiator games and the Kumite from Bloodsport all rolled into one." Hawk summed up what they were up against.
"Yeah." Johnny pumps his fist getting an amused look by Daniel.
"If we win…" Demetri was interrupted by Hawk scoffing. "Excuse me, when we win the spoils will be life-changing."
"But it's gonna take all of our focus and all the wisdom our senseis' have to offer." Eli smiles at them.
"Yes, which is why we decided to take at least one thing off your plates… coming up with our new dojo name." Demetri gave away what was under the canvas.
"Yes." Hawk points at his best friend. "After some spirited brainstorming and ad hoc focus-grouping, and a dojo-wide vote, we have a winner. We give you…" They pulled off the cover. "Miyagi Fang Karate!" In bold lettering read Miyagi Fang Karate in front of flames with a cartoon Miyagi wearing the Miyagi-Do headband with fangs. Everyone cheered and clapped but Daniel and Lee.
Eli caught her blank face with narrow eyes. When the crowd separated to spar he went to her. "So, what do you think of the logo?"
"Um, I…" She was searching for a nice letdown.
"You don't like it." He said it for her.
"It's just… an old vampire." She scrunched up her face. "Maybe it can be a bonsai tree with a Japanese snake. Or something with actual Fangs."
"Well, this one won the vote." Eli defends it.
"No one told me anything so they didn't get my option." She crosses her arms.
"You hardly found time to answer my texts but you would have found time to make a design." He scoffs. She opened her mouth to shut it. She knew it was true. She ignored everyone's texts and enjoyed her time in Korea.
"Lee, do you want to spar?" Sam yelled from across the yard.
"I'm going." She told him while she was walking away.
The couples of the dojo were on a triple date at Golf and Stuff. They gathered around the punch bag game. Robby punched it to get a score of 830. "It's all in the legs." He brags.
"Yeah, well, congrats on your average leg strength, sir." Miguel watches the machine only light up halfway.
"Alright, who's next." Robby looked at the girls who hadn't gone yet.
"I'm good." Toni shook her head.
"Me too." Sam nods.
"I'll go." Lee took Robby's place. Her technique was more refined than before. Her feet were the perfect distance apart, her hips turned the same time as her fist and the lift of her rear foot's heel made for the best punch they ever saw her throw. "Cool, that's like 150 more than I usually get." She claps at her score.
"What?" Eli's jaw dropped.
"How?" Tory tilts her head.
"What did you do in Korea?" Miguel knew something had to have happened there.
"My mom takes up local classes everywhere she goes, right now she's learning Tang Soo Do. I took some classes while I was there." She scratched the back of her neck.
"It seems like none of us can take a vacation from karate." Sam laughed.
"Yeah, well, it's the first time she ever took an interest in something to have a connection with me, so…" The smile on Lee's face grew.
"That's great." Robby pats her back, knowing how much her mom struggled with parenting.
"How about we go to the batting cages? They got a new fast pitch." Eli wanted to get off the topic. This summer trip felt different than the others. It might be that it was their senior year and next year, they could be living in different worlds with only a glimpse of each other in it. Everything was feeling fragile. Eli wanted to believe it was all in his head but was it?
"Sounds fun," Tory said in the most monotone voice. She walks off with Robby on her side. The couple walks there a few feet apart.
"I think we were invited to be buffers." Lee sighs.
"Yeah, we should not have agreed to this." Eli nods.
"Well, this is a big place. Let's ditch them." She pulled him over to the air hockey table.
"So, how was Korea?" He hit the puck to her side.
"It was good. I had a lot of fun." She hit it back.
"Clearly." He curses when the puck goes in.
"Why are you trying to start a fight?" She walks away from the table, not wanting to play if he is going to act like this.
He follows her to the food stand. "I'm sorry. I'm hurt. We were on a 17-hour time difference. I was getting up at crazy hours to text you and you weren't texting me back."
She stood in line to get a slushie. "I'm sorry. Every day I was out and about with either my mom or a friend. I was caught up with everything going on. I saw your text but I was mad at you." She was annoyed with him acting like he was waking up for her.
"Mad at me?" He points to his chest.
She walked to the counter when it was her turn and ordered a cherry while he got a cola. They grabbed it and went to a table. "Every party you went to, I had a friend send me videos of you dancing with girls, flirting, doing body shots off of them."
"I… um… I never slept or even kissed them." He stuttered.
"I know they told me that." Her friend told her that he was left alone or with his friends.
"You're not mad anymore?" He never sensed that she was upset with him.
"We never talk about boundaries. We have had a third. I can understand that gray areas are wide with us." She had time to think it over.
"Was there someone in Korea?" He wonders.
"There was someone. He…" She never physically cheated.
"He?" He never saw her show interest in another guy.
"Yeah, he knew I had a boyfriend from the start. But, there was light flirting and we hung out a lot. No physical lines were crossed." She explains.
"But emotional?" He raised his eyebrows.
"We never talked about it. I don't know if he felt anything other than friendship. But, I… if I wasn't with you then I would have wanted to give it a go. When I had that thought…. I was conflicted. Do I end this friendship because it can be dangerous to my relationship? But, do I want to lose a friendship over temporary feelings?" She understood the gray area after being in it.
Eli was quiet for a few minutes as he processed. "We knew we were toeing the line. You're more innocent than me, I can admit that. We need to talk about boundaries. We might be going to different colleges, in different states."
"I think we can agree that the sex on the dance floor and body shots is a no from now on." She felt like he might as well kiss them after doing that.
"Definitely." He didn't like picturing her doing that with someone else. "We should stick to the golden rule. If we wouldn't want the other doing it then we won't."
"Do you want me to end the friendship?" She didn't want to but she would.
"Can I see the texts?" He stares at her phone. She unlocked it and went into messenger to put their text thread on. She slid it over to him. Kuroo was the name and there was a picture of them together with the sunset in the background. He read over the text. It gave away nothing. Their last conversation was about her letting him know that she landed in America. He gave her the thumbs-up emoji. The rest were discussions of the time and places they met up. "I'm okay with it for now. If you start to distance yourself from me because of him then you do need to end it."
"Okay, I respect that." She nods.
Lee let out a scream as she moved away from the baseball that came flying at her. Getting a laugh from Eli and the brothers in the stall next to them. "Babe, it's not dodgeball." He said while chuckling.
"I'm freaking scared." She didn't want to do this, to begin with.
"You do karate. You fight people who know how to kill." He reminds her.
"They are not coming at me at the speed of a race car in the Indy 500." She shrieked when another one came out.
"It's at the slowest speed. It's an old person walking in a mall coming at you." He corrects.
"You give it a try, hot shot." She tosses the bat to him.
"You know them." Shawn Payne asks his younger brother after hearing they do karate.
"Yeah." Kenny nods. "He was messing with me but she put a stop to it. The time I tried to flex on her she threw me to the ground and threatened to break my arm."
"Her?" He looks at the girl who looks to be all soft curves.
"Don't let her fool you. She fights to hurt, not to win." He saw her matches.
"Got room for one more," Robby was outside their stall. Shawn threw his bat to the ground catching the attention of the couple. Eli stops the machine to watch in case Robby needs backup. Robby went into the stall with his hands up. "I heard what you said. I just need one minute. Please." He pleads with Kenny.
"Back off, Keene," Shawn spoke for him.
"Come on, Shawn, you know where this is going to end. He holds onto this anger, it is going to boil over. You want him to end up where we did?" Robby was looking out for his best interest.
"Not your concern. Understand?" Shawn got in his face.
"You know what, Shawn? I don't understand." He didn't back down, making Shawn push him.
"Shit," Lee ran to get out of their stall and into the next one to stand between the boys. "Robby, do I need to remind you that you had a birthday? If you get caught it's going to be prison, not juvie?"
"I'm not going to fight," Robby told her.
"I don't think you'll get to make that call." She glanced at Shawn, who looked ready to go. "Let's leave them to their brotherly bonding. Kenny has your number if he wants to talk to you he can."
"I can't do that." He shook his head. "I got Kenny in this mess. I'm going to get him out."
"Heavenly mother of Eiichiro Oda." She hissed.
"Honey, can you step out of the way? This will take a minute." Shawn leaned in to whisper to her.
"Fine. But, if either of you get arrested you'll only be making things worse for Kenny." She walks to watch from behind the net with Eli.
The fight started immediately with Shawn swinging at Robby. He easily dodges and throws a punch to the stomach. Kenny comes at him to get thrown on the ground. Shawn throws a few punches to get blocked every time. He grabs Robby's arm to throw him against the fence. On Shawn's way to stomp on Robby, Miguel comes in with a leg swipe. "You heard what he said, we don't want to fight." He tells Kenny who is getting back up. Kenny stands up with a swing kick that Miguel dodges by stepping back. Miguel blocks all of Kenny's attacks. Eli runs in when he sees the machine is about to release another ball and punch it before it hits Miguel. Lee turns off the machine. Miguel throws Kenny to the ground and turns to help Robby fight Shawn.
Kenny grabs the bat on the ground but Eli steps on it. "Really?" Tory stands by Eli's side and looks down at him unimpressed.
"Out of my way, Nichols. I don't want to hit a girl." Kenny stood up.
"That's sweet but don't worry you won't." Sam stands by Tory's side. She looks at Eli to let him know they got this. He nods to go back to his girlfriend's side.
"I guess this is one way to get them all bonding." She sighs. The girls surprisingly work well together to hold Kenny off with offense alone. Lee turns to the side to see a guy in a uniform in the distance. "Ah, security is coming." Shawn stops fighting to grab his little brother and drag him out.
Lee and Eli join the two couples in the stall. "Well, that could've gone better." Robby knew he could convince Kenny if he could only talk to him.
"Could have gone worse." Miguel shrugged.
"You picked up Miyagi-Do pretty fast." Sam looks at Tory, who she was convinced was only there to compete not to be a part of the team.
"Yeah, well, I fought you enough I guess some of it must have rubbed off." She smiles, getting a laugh from Sam. The rest of the teens watch them with a smile.
Lee and Devon were sparing. "Shit, you've gotten a lot better." Devon huff. She wasn't able to land a hit on her yet. Lee was able to get every opening she presented. She was lucky that Lee was just tapping and not hitting.
"Thanks." She bounced from foot to foot.
"What's this?" Devon looks over Lee's shoulder.
She turns to see Kenny bumping fists with Robby. "That is a good fighter to gain."
The three sensei came and called them over to the sparing deck. They were all wearing the same white gi. Daniel gave them a good morning greeting before starting his speech. "We've been through a lot to get to this point and we're finally on the same page. We've put aside old rivalries and wiped the slate clean. Now we are all Miyagi-Do. But, it's a new Miyagi-Do, the strongest we've ever been." Johnny and Chozen pass out new uniforms to everyone.
"And most badass. One purpose. One team. One Dojo." Chozen smiles, patting the heads of a few students as he walks by them to get back on the sparring deck.
"With a name steeped in tradition and honor. And a brand new patch." Daniel watches them put on the gi over their clothes. Lee smiles down at the patch in the back. It was a bonsai tree with an eagle flying over it.
"So get your ass ready," Johnny yelled. Lee slips on the top of the gi. "We may have settled things in the Valley, but now Miyagi-Do's ready for whatever the world throws at us." The student cheered, with their senseis on the same page it felt like they could start making big moves.