Number One // Kwon // Cobra Kai

000. The Stone Hut

2011

"You've disappointed me. You embarrased me in front of Master Kim. You were supposed to be ready," Kim Da-Eun hissed, dragging her crying daughter by the ponytail, "do you know how shameful it is to have your daughter not able to break a block of wood?"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I tried Mother!" Aera wailed, trying and failing to fight her mother off as she was forcefully being led to somewhere foreign. Tears were pouring out of Aera's red eyes, the trail caressing the sore spot on her cheek where she'd been hit. It stung, along with the many other marks that have been left on her body by the woman that was supposed to cherish her.

She was scared. Terrified of the woman that had her ponytail in an iron grip, yanking and pulling at it as Aera stumbled behind her.

"If you're sorry, you can prove yourself." Her mother threw Aera onto the dirt floor, a sniveling mess of tears and snot. 

"Stand up," Daeun said coldly. Aera stood up shakily, bottom lip trembling as she stared at her mothers sandals. She dared not look at her mother, didn't want to see the look of hatred in those eyes. 

"Look at me."

Aera lifted her eyes to her mother's dark orbs, so similar yet different than her daughters. Whereas Aera's were bright and innocent, the ones she met were cold and fierce. In that situation, anger. 

"Do you want to prove yourself; to redeem yourself?"

"Yes mother," Aera said, nodding her head fervently, wiping her tears and setting her jaw. 

"Good." Her mothers smile was almost cruel as she shoved her child into a dark stone hut behind her, rolling a stone door in place and locking Aera in darkness.

"Mom?" Aera couldn't see. 

She fumbled around, her hands touching only leaves and the grass. She stood up and charged towards where light had been just seconds ago, then wincing from the impact of the stone on her fleshy shoulder. 

"You will have no food or water during your stay in the stone hut. There is no way out except for breaking the door with your bare fists. No one can help you now, not even me."

She adjusted herself and pushed with both her hands and threw all of her weight on it. But it didn't budge. 

Terror dawned on the seven-year-old child, finally realizing her predicament. 

"Mom!" Aera screamed, pounding against the door. There was no reply. 

Aera threw her body at the stone again, harder, earning only pain that radiated from her shoulder. She tried again, harder, and then again. And then again. And then again, and again and again and again. Her shoulders stung with pain, she even felt blood; yet the stone had not budged one bit.

Aera cried, and then screamed and screamed for help, begging someone-- anyone to come and save her. 

No one did.

She sobbed, sinking to the floor with her throat raw from yelling and her shoulders stinging.

There was no way out... She was going to die, a mere seven years after being introduced into the world. 

And her last image of her mother of her mother's face would be marred with dismay.

But she didn't want to die. She wanted to live-- she wanted to thrive. She wanted to make her mother proud and become a winner, someone who could break stone with their bare fists.

She furrowed her brows and shakily stood up. There was fear; a lot of fear. But there was also something else. A burning feeling to break out of the hut and to change that look in her mother's eyes from disappointment to pride. 

Her only way out was her fists. So she would use her fists.

🥋

Aera broke out nearly an hour later, collapsing onto the floor and weeping, cradling her bleeding left hand. Her knuckles were bleeding profusely and the skin around it was cut open, trickling down her arm and pooling on the forest floor, staining the leaves around her a dark red. Her entire hand was shaking. Every small movement caused another wave of agony to shoot down her arm.

One glance made Aera feel bile rise in her throat.

She heard the crunching of leaves- footsteps.

"Mom?" She croaked, her vision blurry with tears. But the approacher wasn't her mother. It was a kid. He looked at her with sadness in his brown eyes, handed her bandages and ice, yet didn't say a word. 

No one was supposed to help her. But he did anyways.

And when he left, she didn't even know his name.