Cochlear | A Cobra Kai Fanfiction

29

"You're serious? Even after that you don't want to take karate?!"

Demetri was frustrated as he lectured Jesse while she sat on the wooden front porch of the Miyagu-Do building. Her legs dangled over the edge with her hands resting neatly over thighs, knees together properly, watching quietly while he nearly raced a ditch in front of her after having heard she still didn't want to do any karate.

"I don't understand why you won't even learn how to just throw a punch." Demetri tried to understand, he really did, but the fact that Eli or Hawk or whatever he was had been willing to put hands on her had him more worried than he'd like to admit.

The skirt showed her bandages and her palms had small scratches, usually perfect manicure chipped from being pushed to the ground by who he had thought was his best friend.

"I know how to throw a punch." Jesse replied with a roll of her eyes, looking down quietly at her scratched palms with a long away gaze, goosebumps prickling her arms underneath warmth of the California morning sun. "I-I just don't want to."

"Cobra Kai is on the verge of being classified as a small malitia and you don't want to throw a punch to protect yourself?" Demetri's hands threw up in the air and he exhaled heavily. "I-I don't understand!"

"L-look all you have to know is violence and I... I can't do that again." Jesse swallowed thickly, tears in her eyes threatening to fall as she fisted the skirt she wore. After Sam and her mom had their argument, Demetri and the others tried convince Jesse to learn some karate in case what had happened yesterday were to again.

All she could think about was where aggression and violence had gotten her in the first place.

"God Kyler, you're such an asshole! Stop driving like an idiot!"

The more they had tried to talk to her the more she felt like she was spiralling, the voices of her past haunting her seductively as they whispered out their harsh jeers and reciting her old mistakes to her. It wasn't until an impatient Demetri had grabbed her wrist to curl her fingers into a fist, to show her a punch, that she had panicked and stepped away with fear on her face, running outside to escape the enclosing room suffocating her slowly.

She vowed to herself never to throw a punch.

She couldn't do it.

She wouldn't.

She would rather get the shit kicked out of her than hurt anyone again.

"...Jesse, y-your the only other person that's willing to play Elden Ring with me without throwing a control after ten minutes. You're the only one that I can talk to about anything right now non karate related and honestly that's a huge relief, but you're my friend." Demetri emphasized, not even noticing his hands signing along with his words the best his brain could do. His daily vocab acquisition had been paying off. "I don't... I'm... I just, don't want..."

"You're worried about me." Jesse smiled out gratefully, quickly standing up and grabbing his jittery and stuttering hands with her own. Although a hot flush spread across Demetri's face, all he could do was scratch the back of his neck quietly, not looking directly at the girl. "Thank you. Really. You... I think you're my best friend." She supplied honestly, a brutal realization washing over her with a sad smile. "The only friend who actually wants me and it isn't for my looks, money, or the power I had."

Demetri positioned their hands so that he could fold her fingers into a fist, his heart fluttering for no good reason as he felt the coolness of her hands seep into his own. "Which is why... I need you to be Byleth so I don't have to worry as much!" Jesse's eyebrows furrowed in confusion while taking her hand away before her hand could make a strike, head tilting imperceptibly to the left. Demetri narrowed his eyes. "From smash?"