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"We're just waiting on August to get here." Johnny huffed, impatiently checking the invisible watch on his wrist.
"I'm here."
Johnny and Miguel turned to the door. They immediately took notice of the hand holding August's the minute he walked in.
"And you brought a guest." The older man rolled his eyes, "No women allowed."
"Excuse me?" "What?" "Sensei—"
"Who even says I want to learn? Maybe i'm just here to watch." Valerie scoffed, "Almost twenty five percent of people get injured doing karate, anyway."
"And most of them are probably woman." Johnny crossed his arms over his chest. No way was he about to let this little smart ass talk down to him in his dojo.
"She's here because I want her here." August cleared things up, "And you want me here. So if she's not allowed, i'm going too."
The blonde man's jaw clenched.
He usually liked Valerie. The day August brought her home to meet him, she showed up with a case of spaghetti as a greeting gift. It was the best spaghetti he's ever had.
But now, here she was, disrupting his teaching session, distracting his best student, and smart mouthing him in the process.
"Fine." He gave in, "But you're not just going to sit there."
Val's face fell, "What?"
"You're gonna fight."
•••
"You can't strike first if you don't know how to strike. The cobra strike is composed of two parts: the lunge, which requires the use of the whole body." Johnny demonstrated a swift punch to the mouth, "And the bite, which is everything that happens after you make contact, all right?"
The three teens nodded, one much more enthusiastic than the other two.
August already knew everything Johnny was teaching, having learned it when he was much younger.
Valerie was paying close attention.
Before, she wasn't too excited to learn the art of hitting others and pretending the contact her fist made with someone's face didn't hurt her as well.
But after the heavy convincing from Miguel that her jointing cobra kai would be on track for woman empowerment and the smile of amusement and 'it's up to you' shrug from her boyfriend, along with the challenging look Johnny gave her, she was all in.
