Chapter Text
Johnny had lost the tournament, it was like he had lost everything. The world had crumbled around him when he got that kick to the face, sending him flying back to the mat. When he got back up though, a thought suddenly came to his mind.
If he was to lose, he was glad to have lost to Daniel. That skinny kid that came into his life one day and changed it forever. "You're all right, LaRusso." Johnny had told him, giving him his trophy. The way Daniel had smiled at him made his loss a little more bearable.
Of course, his sensei had not been pleased by that. Johnny though was devoted to him, he trusted him with his life. Kreese was the father Johnny never had for so many years. The one who had trained him and made him who he was. Even after Kreese called him a loser and choked him at the car park, Johnny still found himself in the Cobra Kai dojo the following Monday.
No one would know. No one had seen them and Johnny would never tell. It had never happened.
For the first time in his life, Johnny did feel like a loser. Of course, his stepfather was doing a good job reminding him every day but whenever he came to the dojo, he forgot about everything. Not this time though. Kreese no longer put him up front, he didn't address him, he did not even look at him in the eye.
Dutch had taken his place as the leader and there was nothing Johnny could do about it. He had been foolish for thinking he had been sensei's favourite. Kreese didn't have favourites because he actually liked them, the favourite was the most powerful, the best student, the winner and Johnny had lost that title. That privilege.
His friends still talked to him, surprisingly. They threw him sympathetic glances and assured him that they did not think any less of him despite what sensei might think. That he did his best and Daniel had just been lucky, which was true. But did it make Johnny feel any better? No.
He wanted Kreese's approval. He was grateful to his friends but it was that man's opinion that mattered the most to Johnny, even though he didn't want it to.
After practice when everyone was leaving, Kreese asked, more of demanded, that Johnny stayed. Bobby asked if they should wait up but Kreese had told them not to before Johnny could speak, so his friends left.
In his mind, Johnny believed that his sensei would want to talk about what happened. To hopefully make up. That though was not what had happened. Kreese had decided to punish him for the embarrassment he had caused him with his loss. Johnny had braced himself to be beaten at worst, but when he was forced to his hands and knees he knew that his punishment would be way more severe.
The memory was blurry in Johnny's mind, thankfully. He remembered that he was crying. He was humiliated and in pain. Even after Kreese had told him that his crying made him pathetic and that crying was for the weak, Johnny couldn't stop. "Sensei- it hurts." Johnny choked out, his head hanging between his shoulders as he forced himself to breathe as to not pass out. "I've learnt, I've learnt. Please-." He begged through his sobs.
"Keep complaining like the weak loser you are, Lawrence." Kreese growled, keeping his merciless pace and Johnny felt like he was being torn apart. And he was. His hands and knees were trembling, threatening to give out and he was certain he was bleeding. It didn't seem to faze the man and when it was all done, Kreese pushed Johnny away from him, forcing him to fall on the mat.
"Pathetic." He spat and went to the locker room without much of a second glance at Johnny who was curled on his side, body shaking violently and broken sobs leaving his mouth.
Johnny had to get out of there. With all the strength he had left, he got himself to his feet, pulling his gi back up and stumbling into the locker room, grunting with the pain moving caused. Kreese wasn't there. Johnny didn't know where he was and he didn't want to find out. Putting on his shoes and grabbing his duffel bag, he left, not even daring to stay long enough as to put his normal clothes on.
He got on his bike, wincing when he sat down. He bit back the pain and drove all the way to his house. The lights were turned off. No one was up and he was thankful for that. He had a hot shower that helped with the aching in his body and went to bed, crying himself to exhaustion and eventually sleep. If the one man Johnny had trusted the most did this to him, he didn't want to think of what others were capable of. He couldn't believe it had happened to him and by that person.
He didn't go to school the next morning. When his mother came to his room and saw him there, he told her he had not been feeling well. Which was true, but it wasn't because he was ill. Laura sat on the bed next to him and put her hand on his forehead, he did not have a fever and it seemed to calm her down a little.
"Will you come down for breakfast or do you want me to bring it to you here?" She asked as she smoothed her hand through his soft blond hair. "Here." He said quietly. There was no way he was going down there and hear whatever Sid had to say. For the past years, whenever his stepfather cursed and shouted at him, Johnny kept telling himself that he didn't care. Kreese didn't think of him like that and that was all the approval he needed. What was he supposed to tell himself now that both the men that were supposed to be there for him hated him.
Did Kreese hate him? Johnny didn't know. But he couldn't think of any other explanation as to why he would do what he did if he didn't hate him. If he too, like Sid, didn't think of him as a loser who deserved it.
When Laura brought him food, he looked at it with distaste but thanked her anyway. He didn't touch it. He had no appetite. He stayed in his bed all day. Drifting between troubled sleep and painful awareness. His thoughts were too heavy to bear, so he forced himself to sleep.
The next time, he was woken up by the telephone ringing. It was Bobby. He didn't pick up. Tommy and Jimmy called too, all of them more than once. Even Dutch called him twice. He couldn't do it, he couldn't pick up the phone. They would want to know what happened and Johnny was not ready to talk about it. He doubted he ever would be.
When he didn't show up at Cobra Kai, they started calling him again but Johnny ignored them. He was thankful for their concern, he really was. But he couldn't bring himself to talk to them about it. He knew he couldn't pretend it hadn't happened forever either but he was not ready to deal with it.
That was what he had to do though. He would like to stay home again but he didn't want to hear it from Sid and he couldn't just stop going to school for no reason, so he went and pretended everything was well. His friends were worried, but he assured them that even though he got a pretty good beating from sensei, he was all right, but not ready to go to the dojo again. And Johnny was certain he'd never go again.
Everything was somewhat normal until a little more than a week later when he woke up with pain that felt like daggers twisting in his lower belly. He briefly considered going to the hospital but forced that thought away. What would he even say to them? That his sensei raped him and now he was worried he had messed something up inside him? He couldn't do it. They'd tell him to go to the police and they would tell his mother. It would cause so much trouble and everyone would be talking about it. Everyone would know. Johnny didn't want his sensei to go to jail, despite what happened. He didn't want any of those things. It should just stay between them, he thought. So he took a pill for the pain and went to school like normal.
LaRusso found him at school that day. He wanted to apologise for hitting him so hard in the face and giving him a black eye he was still nursing. Johnny had simply laughed it off and told him they were cool. Daniel then had asked him if he wanted to hang out later and that was how he ended up at the beach with him. It was nice, he couldn't lie and even though the uncomfortable ache in his belly could have let him have a better time if it would just go away, he liked Daniel.
Like, he really liked him.
It took him a few days of hanging out to realise that he'd have him as more than a friend, had Daniel not been with Ali. That thought bothered him. He always got what he wanted but suddenly it all seemed to be taken away from him. The tournament, Cobra Kai, Daniel...His sensei.
"Hey, what happened to you?" Daniel asked as they once again sat on the beach one late evening. "Huh? Nothing." Johnny dismissed but Daniel grabbed his forearm and inspected the finger shaped bruises there.
"What's that then, did you get in a fight?" He asked with concern and Johnny pulled his forearm away, lowering the sleeve he had not realised he had rolled to his elbows. "No. It happened in the dojo." Johnny dismissed, rubbing his forearm without thinking about it. "I didn't know pulling was allowed."
"I was pulled aside, okay?"
"Okay, okay." Daniel said when Johnny started getting defensive. So they dropped the topic and didn't ask again. Johnny wondered how Daniel would react if he saw the bruises on the rest of his body, especially those dark, ugly finger shaped ones on his hips.
Johnny really got sick then. That ache seemed to have been the start of it and now he was nauseous almost all the time, he was tired and dizzy. It was making him unable to pay attention at school, during class and outside. "Johnny, man, are you pregnant or something?" Dutch had joked, Johnny had laughed and told him that he was nuts, he couldn't be. Tommy, Bobby and Jimmy had laughed along with the little joke but inside him, Johnny was crippled with fear because he very well knew that he could be.
After school he went to the local corner store and grabbed a test. The man on the counter had sympathised with his agony, thinking that Johnny was there on his girlfriend's- or perhaps boyfriend's- behalf, as it was more common for the one who wasn't in risk of a positive to go grab the test for their partner. Johnny wished that was the case.
He couldn't go take the test home, his mother would see it. So he went to the bathroom of another store a little further down the street. His whole body was shaking as he paced up and down the bathroom, waiting for the results and eventually he saw two lines on the stick. He fumbled with the box to see that it meant and he froze when he saw.
With tears in his eyes, he stepped out of the store. He didn't bother with the test, he had wrapped it up with toilet paper and threw it in the bin. Not knowing what to do, he ended up in front of LaRusso's door.