Before Cobra Kai, and Miyagi-do, and the violent dojo rivalry that was seeping into your high school experience, you’d learned karate. Your sensei felt like the worst man alive and you were his gold star student. He nurtured your anger, trained you to channel your rage into structured brutality. You’d left—shoved your gi into the depths of your closet, slowed your reflexes down with practice and spent every day trying to forget what you’d learned.

Karate slithered back into your life—taunted you with the promise of expression, relief. All that bottled up anger, all those repressed emotions, you could let them out—at the cost of somebody losing their front teeth, or dislocating a joint. You’d tried your best to stay away from all of it, but when you ran into Tory—bloodthirsty, screaming, eager for another fight with Sam—you couldn’t run anymore. You barely remembered more than the splatter of blood on under ultraviolet, the raucous noise of other fights happening behind corners, the burn that you’d missed in your knuckles.

You walked most of your evening away, your hands still shaking where you hid your bruised knuckles from your mother as you headed upstairs to your bedroom.

“Your mom let me in,” Eli said, grinning despite the scabbed-over split in his bottom lip. “Some things never change, huh?”

“I didn’t know you could fight like that—shame it was for the wrong side. You kicked Tory’s ass.” He said offhandedly, but there was something you’d almost call proud in his tone. He crossed his arms behind his head where it rested against your headboard. “Don’t tell me you learned that Miyagi-do bullshit. You’d be better off with us—with Cobra Kai.”