TEENAGE KICKS

CHAPTER FOUR: KARATE

SINCE IT WAS still basically summer, skating to Cindy's apartment block afterschool was torturous in her cheerleading uniform. So maybe she was using seeing her best friend as an excuse to go check up on the LaRusso boy, but how else was she going to pop up uninvited to his apartment and not make it seem like she was worried about him.

Passing by Resident Crazy Lady undetected was hard, so after a small chat on the end of the world coming in 10 years, Rory was on her way up the second flight of stairs to stop in front of apartment 20.

She raised her hand to knock on the door, but nonetheless, she brought her hand back down and ignored the rising feeling in her stomach to knock on the door.

"Rory?"

The girl in question whipped around to see Daniel with a confused expression making her almost awe at it "Oh, uh sorry...I was going to um say hi before going to Cindy's"

"You wanna come in?"

"I don't want to impose on your family or anything"

"Just get inside Rory" the girl's eyes widened slightly at the newfound confidence Daniel seemed to have and quickly brushed past him. Rory looked down at the book that was open on the coffee table and smiled slightly, reaching down to lift it up "oh, I was just...doing my afternoon reading?"

She giggled softly and turned to face him "I think it's cool that you want to take up karate again, I could show you a few moves if you would like?"

"Uh yeah, that would be great actually"

Rory raised an eyebrow and flipped the book around to him before tapping the page he was on that showed how to karate kick "the trick is control, bending your knee before kicking out your calf with a flat, not pointed, foot. Show me what you got LaRusso"

"Now?"

"No" Rory rolled her eyes sarcastically "next week, yes now"

Before they could continue, a knock was heard on the screen door making them both look over to where the maintenance guy was "fix faucet."

Rory grinned at the old man she had seen around the apartment block a few times as Daniel waved him over "Oh yeah, come on in. It's the kitchen one."

Daniel starting trying the kick again, but Rory held out a hand and pointed to the book where the guy obviously had his torso turned and he bent his knee with a flat foot.

"Oh, karate?" I nodded to the man, flashing the book to the man "very good...learn from book?"

"Yeah, and a few months at the Y in Newark where I lived"

The man walked over to where the sink was behind the couch and behind Rory before peeping his head back up over the faucet "what happened to eye?"

"Oh, I fell off my bike" Rory laughed silently making Daniel send a wink in her direction.

"Lucky no hurt to hand"

Rory turned around and nodded towards the man "yeah, I was there when I watched him face plant, funniest thing ever"

"Oh come on Rory" Daniel sighed and she lifted the book back up to compare the two kicks before finally shaking her head, he was still doing something wrong.

She placed the book back on the counter and walked up beside him "I think the problem is that you're too stiff, mostly your knees"

"wow, thanks"

"Shhhhh. Ok, so what you want to do is twist your torso as you go to kick, almost like when you do a cartwheel you shift." Rory got into the first stance and when she kicked up, she twisted around to look like she was facing to the side with her face facing forward.

Daniel tried, but seemed to still have his torso facing forward making her go behind him and move his hips to left and move his head to the front. When he tried, it looked better, but he wasn't bending his leg.

"Ok, now remember how I said to bend your leg" the boy nodded in response "if you don't, that leaves you more susceptible to breaks in your tibia and fibula. So when bringing your leg up, bring it in towards your chest, don't let it touch, and then kick it out straight"

Daniel tried again, this time it looked way better, leaving Rory to look like a proud mother and the maintenance guy to look suspiciously at the girl "you do karate?"

"I used to, I quit a few months back though" a small lie slipped past her lips and the man seemed to catch it, but chose not to comment.

"Ahhh, you a good teacher"

That made Rory grin sheepishly and slap the arm of a grinning Daniel "Well, I better be going to see Cindy, I promised I would help her with her high kick." Daniel nodded as Rory sent a small, quick smile to the maintenance guy.

★ ☆

"SO, I JUST HAVE to stretch more?"

"Yeah, you could tear a ligament from trying a high kick without stretching"

Cindy nodded soundlessly as she sat on the floor, leaning over to hold the base of her foot in a leg stretch. Rory and her had gone outside to where a patch of green grass grew and practiced for the upcoming cheer competition.

The brunette was currently trying to get her T pose perfected since she was a flyer, but her balance wasn't the greatest after walking away from the karate dojo. They were decked in their official cheer costumes which were green and white with Eagles in bold across the chest.

"So...Freddy told me about you standing up for the new kid" Cindy slyly spoke, dragging out the so "What was that about?"

Rory cleared her throat, focusing back on her scorpion pose "Oh, Freddy and his friends were nagging Daniel. I didn't wanna sit by and watch the kid get his ego pummeled"

"Kid? He's legit older than you by like a month" Rory laughed and flashed her pearly whites at the confused girl.

"Age is nothing but a misconception, it's all about maturity and this boy can't go a day without trying to fight my brother" Now it was Cindy's laugh that echoed through the back garden. "Besides, the assholes were being annoying"

That made Cindy roll her eyes, remembering that her own boyfriend was part of that group "Yeah yeah, Freddy just doesn't know any better...trying to look cool in front of the others and stuff"

"I guess, but I went to go see Daniel before I came over. He seemed fine, but he was practicing karate that I know will be used on Johnny" Rory sat down beside Cindy and started stretching her legs again "I'm kinda worried for the guy, today it might be a black eye, but tomorrow it might be a broken leg"

"Well, he ain't our problem anyway. The best we can do is warn him" no one really knew the extremes of what Johnny would do to Daniel, but what could they do?

Shrugging, Rory squinted through the sun shining in her eyes to the distracted girl "I still haven't told him that he's my brother, I have a feeling that that conversation isn't going to go well so I've been prolonging it as much as I can"

"Gosh Rory, the poor boy deserves to know that he's being targeted by your own blood" Cindy winced slightly, nudging her in the side "It's not like you and your brother get along very well, I don't remember the last civil conversation you two had"

"I just...don't want to tell him"

"Why?" she slowly started to grin "because you love him, you wanna kiss him" the girl made kissy noises, smacking her lips together and leaning over to kiss the girl's cheek. Rory leaned away in mock disgust, swatting at the girl's face as she tried to conceal her laughter.

"Ew, boys have cooties"

"I didn't hear a no, though"

"Wanna hear me say no? No!"

"Was that hesitation I heard miss I don't like the cute new kid?"

Rory pushed the girl off her, but immediately regretted it when the girl pulled her down with her and started giggling hysterically. But they were overshadowed by a figure that came to stand at where their heads lay, thrown back in laughter.

"Oh, hey karate boy!" Cindy tried to contain her laughs, but failed when Daniel quirked his head to the side in confusion "we were just talking about-"

"Oh shut it Cindy" Rory hit her in the arm harshly making the girl close her mouth and rub her sore arm "Uh...hi Danny"

"Hi, Rory. Sorry to interrupt, I heard laughing and came to see who it was" the two girls looked over to each other before, in sync, looking back over to the LaRusso boy "not surprised to see it was the both of you"

"Yeah, uh we were just y'know" Rory scratched the back of her neck "practicing our cheer sequence for the game next week"

Daniel shifted to lean his weight on one of his legs making him look like some hotshot model with the way the sun framed him from behind "Well, I'll leave you two to it I guess"

The Kettering girl sat up straight and lifted her hand to block the sun from her eyes "why don't you join us, we can have some girl talk and paint each other's nails"

"He's probably busy, aren't you Daniel?"

"My nails need a new coat of nail polish anyway" he joked, winking over at Rory who was now smiling back up at him "now, what's girl talk?"