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"Daniel-san, I never repaid you for what you did. Saving my life."
"You didn't have to." He waves it away. He's still in shock from running into her. Sitting across from her. How come Okinawa has changed so much, and she so little?
"You are very different." She puts a hand across the table towards his chest, but pulls back. "You speak different also."
"I do? Well, sorry, I've grown old, ha."
"No, no," she says. "Not in bad way. You are, uh, less angry?"
"Angry? Now wait a minute," he tries to joke.
"Less hot-headed."
He pulls up his shoulders. "I guess so. I try to be. Mr Miyagi helped with that. And having a family. And just… growing old."
"Many hot-headed old people."
"You got me there." He toys with his tea cup, tries to decipher the characters on it. He can't read Japanese, he reminds himself. Nothing more than recognizing a few Katas, some car brand names. "After we… split." They both wince, as if the fact is news to them both. "I fell in with the wrong crowd."
"You?" She laughs.
"Yes, me! You just said that I was hot-headed."
"Yes, but with good heart."
"Well, I put my trust in the wrong people. Naivety will do that to you." They bumped into each other an hour ago, and here he is pouring his heart out. He's already told her about the trouble he's in with the dealership, now this too. "I'd like to think it humbled me. We all make mistakes. We can all come back from them. Everyone deserves a second chance." Robby's face flashes before his eyes, and he pushes it away.
She looks like she wants to say something else, but decides against it. He finds he can still read her mannerisms. "Do you have somewhere to be? I don't want to keep you."
She smiles at him. "Nowhere to be. Just here."
He jumps at the sound. He was far away, still not quite used to being on American soil again. Amanda stands in the doorway, hand on hip. She scrunches her nose. "What is that music?"
He looks over to the speakers. "Radiohead."
The skepticism on her face does not wane as the chorus of 'High and Dry' soars. She takes a few steps towards him, heels clacking over the stone. She puts a hand to his forehead, as if checking for fever. "It's a little late for a mid-life crisis, isn't it? Maybe a late-life crisis."
He swats her hand away, but smiles. "I used to listen to this album a lot back in the day. I got to have the CD somewhere still. Maybe in storage."
"We got rid of all your old CDs ages ago." Of course they have. Holding on to the past is not her idea of fun. It's not like he has thought of them in years. "So, are you finally going to tell me how you managed to pull off the miracle to save our butts?"
"What do you mean?" He wonders if he should turn down the music but he is, in fact, a little irritated by having been ripped out of his daydreaming.
"We've been so busy with the whole Kreese thing and with Sam and the whole aftermath of the fight that we never really got around to discussing what happened in Japan." She sits down next to him. "I mean, how in God's name did you swing this?" She sounds equal parts amazed and proud, and it makes him soften.
"I told you I had help from an old friend. I got lucky."
They hear the door bang. Sam, they both think. Amanda looks regretful. She puts her hand on his forearm and says, "Let's talk about this later. But I want to hear everything!"
There's so much to clear up at the dealership. It's busy enough that for a moment he forgets that he feels in the wrong place. He can fall back into the familiarity of being stressed out. But even now, he can't get that song out of his head. The one they danced to. The one about not being able to let go.
In the last decades, whenever he thought of Kumiko, she was a fond but distant memory. Not an actual person. In a way all his ex-girlfriends are, frozen in time. But it's more extreme with her. Maybe because of the ocean between them or because they didn't break up in fight. There's nothing to taint the memory. A perfect minuscule moment in time. Like when he remembers learning to drive his bike as a child and the sun shines just a little too bright, the sky so blue he's unsure if it's something he saw in a movie or something that truly happened to him.
She is Okinawa to him. Once he'd hoped to see her with him in the Valley, but after that hope was squashed she was forever something that only existed in Japan. The same young face, the same town. The idea that she stood somewhere in London 1995 at a concert listening to the same music he was listening to at the other end of the world - dizzying.
It's a beautiful night out on that beautiful patio that he bought for his beautiful family. Amanda has always had a passion for drinks. They both have. Not so much that it ever got worrisome or in the way of work, but enough for them both to occasionally wake up with headaches. Enough for Sam to make fun of them now and then. Amanda walks out with two glasses and half a bottle of red. He asks about Sam, wonders why he can't go and talk to her himself. Why she keeps brushing him off. He used to be her go-to person. He once joked about it to Amanda. The first one's mine. The second one you can have. And it turned out to be true. Samantha was daddy's little girl, not just because of Karate. Until she wasn't anyone's little girl anymore.
"She seems to be doing a little better… But she still never wants to fight again."
She pours the wine, almost to the brim, and hands it to him, careful so that it doesn't spill. It's expensive but he doesn't sniff it or taste it. He's not in the mood. He's just in the mood for drinking.
"I can't believe it all turned out this way. I just wanted to do the right thing and look where we ended up." Maybe he's being too opaque, because she keeps quiet. "I just wanted to get it right. I just wanted the kids to have a place where they could be safe from bullies."
He's surprised by her laughter.
"Are you being serious? Daniel, I love you and I know you mean well. But you can't tell me half of this wasn't just about that old crazy grudge of yours against Johnny and Cobra Kai."
"Maybe some of it," he admits. He doesn't like admitting moral failures.
"But I understand it a little better now", she says. She's poured her wine too, takes a gulp, not very ladylike. With no need to impress him. He has visions of delicate hands around a teacup. "Can't believe the police wasn't more helpful." She pulls herself together and shakes a little, as if shaking herself off of the thought of Kreese. "But let's try and focus on the positive: Sam is getting better and you did the impossible and saved the dealership."
The wine is almost cloying. He nods.
"So that friend of yours."
He talks around it. Tells her about the meeting in Tokyo and how absolutely horrendous it went. Hesitates to tell her about that visit to the bar, when three drinks deep he had the revelation to go to Okinawa. But it's the truth.
"On a whim? You couldn't really know that it would work."
"No, but I knew I wouldn't hurt and I needed to do something. And I knew if someone could help me, it would be Mr Miyagi."
He tries to remember how much she knows about Okinawa. She knows he went once, she vaguely recalls something about Mr. Miyagi's family trouble. But not that there was a fight and that weirdly, bizarrely, it did feel life or death. And that there was a girl. He describes it like a summer fling. Something she could relate to. But when he thinks back to the typhoon, when he thinks back to how it felt that night it wasn't that. A fling implying fun and little else. She had been fun, of course, but the fact of the matter was that he'd been in love. She hadn't just made him forget about Ali. Ali had felt like a mere high school sweetheart compared to her.
"What a crazy coincidence", Amanda says. "Not just you meeting her. But her still being in contact was that little girl you saved? That sounds almost too good to be true."
He turns the glass of wine in his hands, shifts from on the bench and tries to read her. "Do you think I'm lying?" The question startles her.
"No, of course not. But you have to admit, it sounds absurd. Okinawa isn't that small, is it?"
"Well I did walk around her old neighborhood. Since that's where Mr. Miyagi was from."
"And you recognized her straight away?"
"We both did." He hears the wistful note in his voice, knows she does too.
He tells her about the letters. Did she give them to you? "Well, she translated them for me. You know my Japanese is quite rusty." She doesn't laugh, she drinks.
The thing about Amanda's is that she's not the jealous type, so her not trusting him is strange. Maybe it's the rough patch that they just left behind them. That still lingers on. When she called the marriage an open wound.
"What did they write about?"
"They were love letters." He remembers sitting knees to knees. How touched he'd felt by Mr. Miyagi words coming from her mouth. "But he mentioned me. You know how wise he could be. Hearing his words, it changed something. Gave me hope, reminded me not to give up."
She holds up the bottle, gestures towards his glass and he nods not because he wants to, but because she feels that he should.
She is impressed and of course she is happy but still she is subdued. She drinks her wine and asks about Okinawa. Has it changed much? "It was almost unrecognizable." Besides the sea and her. Her face had changed, matured of course, but she had the same slightly askew teeth, the same kindness on her face. When he told her that it'd felt like five minutes since they talked, he meant it. The urge to lean over to kiss her then was not a romantic or erotic gesture, it had felt like a habit he'd just forgotten about for decades. Like riding a bike for the first time again after you'd only walked half your life.
"We should send her a thank you. Well, both of them."
"Of course," he agrees.
"What do you think they would like?"
"I don't know. I don't really know them."
"You know them better than I do."
"I never knew Yuna. She was just a kid back then. And Kumiko, I knew her in the 80s. That's a long time for someone to change."
"You spent a few days over there. Surely you talked a little?"
"Well." He straightens. "Like I said, she is a dance teacher. But I don't see how that helps us."
"I'm sure you can come up with something more personal. We don't want to send them some generic fruit baskets. After all, they saved our livelihood."
"It's just a gesture. I think she knows how much she helped me. And she knows I, I mean, we would've done the same for her."
She bites the inside of her cheek, moves her foot up and down. "If you say so. You can just give me her address, and I'll think of something nice. You do have her address, don't you?"
"I think so."
He stayed at her house that one night when they'd read the letters. It was too late to get back to the hotel. He'd expected traditional Japanese bedding, and she had said, "If you want", laughing politely. She went into the bedroom where a wide western style bed stood and pulled out a bamboo mat. "Are you sure? You can sleep in my bed also." He shook his head. "No, I wouldn't want to put you out like that." He liked her polite smile, but it also made it difficult to read her intentions.
Lying on the bamboo mat, he thought about her words. How she had never married because no one else had fought for her like he had. She had made it sound as if he was the one that got away. Her expression while she said it had been friendly, almost detached. There was nothing that suggested an attempt of seduction. And didn't that make it feel much more true? He didn't think she was lying and she didn't seem to be making a joke. He could feel that old comfortable burning just under his chest, just like the one he'd get when Mr. Miyagi used to praise him.
He wished that he spoke Japanese, more than a few broken words. The country and culture had been on the periphery through all his life, but he'd never made the effort to really immerse himself in anything that wasn't Karate, Bonsai or Japanese cars. Mr. Miyagi had once claimed him quasi-Japanese, that he had to be, since he was like a son to him. And yet Daniel had never bothered to try and speak his language. To meet him halfway. Not being good with languages was an easy excuse. He cursed himself now for not even trying. He wanted to be able to communicate with her in her own language, to truly get through to her just like he'd wanted for Mr Miyagi to truly understand him too.
The next morning sears himself into his brain, every detail of it. She brings him a cup of tea to his bedside, kneeling down on the wooden tiles. It should be awkward. It is awkward. But it is also a perfect moment. The sun shines strips of light onto the white and clean space. Onto her face and her head. The soles of her feet. Onto her black hair with its shimmer that tells her age. She does not look like the girl he was once contemplating marrying for visa reasons. But she looks completely herself.
The tea tastes so good that he asks for the name to bring some back to California with him, but he'll find it will never taste quite as good again.
That morning he had a sleepy yet crystal clear vision. He felt: This was his life. She was his wife and had been for decades. She had lived all around the world and followed her dream, but always came back and he had stayed here with her and set up his life in Japan. It was just a regular morning, where he took the teacup from between her fingers and pulled her down on the mattress with her kiss to cheek and a forehead, and it would've felt lovely but mundane. In that tiny second he allowed himself the indulgence. Longs for the mundane with her that he never got to have.
It's a bad idea to dance. He knows it the second he puts his hands around her waist. But she asks and he can't refuse. Not after what she did for him. And also: he doesn't want to say no. He wants to dance. It's difficult, in that very moment, to forget that he's a grownup. An old man, not a teenager.
"Were you ever tempted by any of the offers," he asks. "To marry?"
She laughs, hand half-way to her mouth to hide it. "Once."
"What happened? Wrong time, wrong place?"
"Wrong person."
He's told her of his family, about his children and Amanda. It's reassuring to him to be able to say: this is my life. Laying it out for her like a picture book, showing her the last page. And she is not stupid, she understands it all. But it doesn't change anything. Doesn't lessen the charge between them. Since he's last seen her, most of the cells in his body have been replaced several times. It's not really the same atoms holding her in his arms, guiding her. But he remembers her so well.
The song ends.
"Daniel-san." Her hand on his face. She smiles, hesitates just briefly, before she gives him a peck on the lips. A friendly, soft goodbye. Something to be waved away. Not much different from a kiss on the cheek. She doesn't mean anything by it, only wants to show her affection. She is under no illusion that he is going to throw his life away. She wouldn't want him to. That makes something inside him churn with irritation.
On the plane to Tokyo he falls asleep. Dreams of memories he'd long forgotten. The sounds she'd make. The way she could change from sultry and fun, to demure and shy in seconds. She always stayed a little unreadable to him and he had loved that about her.
His flight from Tokyo is delayed. In the airport lounge he watches people clamoring for the best seats. He eats an umeboshi onigiri and drinks ice cold hojicha from the vending machine. From his perfect spot he can recognize the chairs everyone desires. Those seats that let you lounge with your feet up, facing the huge pane window.
He checks his phone. He's already told Amanda about the delay. He thinks of telling Kumiko. But why would he? They have not rekindled a friendship. They have reconnected briefly and will now drift apart again. As it should be.
He waits until he's alone in his office to type the mail. Every word is a struggle and the glass doors and walls seem a mistake. No privacy.
He types 'I miss you Japanese' into the search bar. Deletes it quickly, shaking his head. Retypes. 'I miss you friends Japanese'.
It's difficult to argue with the gnawing feeling. I have to fix this mess, he thinks. It's easy. It's just inside his head. He just has to go back to the way it was. It's good that she's so far away. She can go back into his memory box. Forgetting her again is a painful thought. The feelings he's feeling, some of them feel very good, rejuvenating, tempting - not as treacherous as they are. Everything in him is pulled back to Okinawa.
Mr Miyagi would probably say… Oh hell, he'd laugh about his school boy crush. Daniel-san not thinking with brain. Or he'd remind him to find the balance within, if he was feeling generous.
"I keep coming back to the letters. 'One good thing that came out of our time apart. I got to fall in love with you twice in one lifetime'. To think that I knew Mr Miyagi so well, and yet there was this whole other side to him he kept separate from me."
His wife in the doorway, the dress maybe a little too figure-hugging to look professional but just perfect for selling cars to mid-50s guys in their midlife crisis. She knows what she's doing. "Lunch?", she asks.
Would he want to know if she were pining for someone else? Or at least mulling over relationships so long gone. He believes in honesty. In truth and integrity. In all those big words. But he also believes in not hurting people. No offense. It would be self-serving to speak to her about it. He'd try to lighten his load and burden her. It would come across wrong.
"You good?" Her teeth are so straight and white. His whole family's are. His own, too. They better be, considering the fortune they spent on dentistry. "Honey?"
"Oh. Yes, yes. I'm perfect. Sushi sounds great. I'll be out in a second."
"Okay, but hurry before the sashimi gets cold."
He smiles at her straight-faced joke. Waits until she's out of the room to read over the mail. He better send it, before he spends any more of his day fretting it. Once it's sent, he can go back to work. Back to his wife. Back to worrying about his daughter, the valley, the Karate.
"Our talk brought up a lot of memories. I've got a question and I don't mean anything by it. It's purely out of interest. I'd help me set some things straight from my past. I understand if you don't want to say or can't remember, don't worry. I wouldn't hold it against you. Maybe the past is as fuzzy to you as it is to me, but if you do remember… Why did you really go to Tokyo back then? There were dance companies in the US too. Was it really just the program?"
He looks up. Through the window he can see Amanda wave him over. A thumbs up. He sends the e-mail.
"You could have stayed too, Daniel-san."
It's the strangest thing. He's drinking in a bar with Johnny Lawrence. He's drinking with Johnny Lawrence. They are trying to broker another truce. How many have there been now? Maybe this time it will hold. Against Kreese. He's trying.
"Why are you pulling such a sourpuss face, LaRusso? Don't tell me you're already regretting shit. I'm telling you, as long as I'm the one in the driving seat, I can make sure we're gonna kick ass, so don't get your panties in a twist. If you think that fucker Kreese is going to get away with his bullshit —"
"I'm not worried about that, Johnny."
"That's still Sensei Lawrence to you."
Daniel rolls his eyes. No one makes him roll his eyes quite like him.
"Do you ever lose sleep about things you missed out on in the past?"
Johnny stares at him. "What, like not beating your ass as much as I could have when I had the chance to do it without the police chasing me down?"
"I'm being serious, Johnny." Oh no, he realizes belatedly. He's past tipsy. "I mean, do you ever look back at your life and think about the choices you made and wonder how things would have turned out if you, you know, did things differently?"
Johnny eyes him for a long time, trying to decide how serious he is. "Are you trying to get me to punch you?"
"What? No! I mean it."
Johnny groans. "I think I need more beer for this." He hails the server and orders another round. Then, slowly and with a drunken heaviness he turns his attention back to Daniel. "What the hell are you talking about, LaRusso?"
"Are we back to the surnames, already?"
"I'm sorry, Danielle." He drinks some of the beer, burps a little. "Are you seriously asking me if I sometimes wonder how else my life could have turned out?" He laughs. "Have you seen me?"
"Fair enough."
"Where would I even start? Shit. Not beating you at the All Valley, obviously. But that wasn't really my mistake. That was all your bullshit illegal kick!"
"Oh, not this again —"
"But besides Karate? You're the last person I want to get in on about Robby, but obviously I wonder how things would have gone if… You know. Maybe if his mom and me could have been more civil, I don't know."
"You think you'd still be together?"
"That crazy bitch? No way!" Daniel lets his beer bottle dance over the rim of the bar, carefully keeping it in balance. "No, but sometimes I do think… I know it sounds dumb, but I sometimes wonder if things could have worked out between me and Ali."
"Really?" He turns in his chair, so surprised he almost topples the bottle. Gravity is trying to pull him away from the stool and he has to breathe deep to keep upright.
"Yeah, I think if you hadn't turned up, I would have given it another shot. I know you think I was this awful boyfriend to her. Because that's what you want to believe, but man, when things were working, things were so tight between us. She was such a special babe."
"Did you reach out to her when we split up?"
"I didn't even know you guys split for the longest time. It's not like I was keeping tabs on her… And anyway, she was away at college, and I just didn't — I guess I pussied out." He fingers at a hole in his jeans, clearly out of his depth. Or not drunk enough for so much vulnerability. "So if not Ali, who then?"
Daniel looks into Johnny's big dumb eyes. Into the face he's wanted to see humiliated, bloody and down on the ground for the majority of his life, and starts spilling the beans.
"I don't get it," Johnny says. He hands back the phone, the awkward picture Daniel, Kumiko and Yuna they had the server take. "So you felt some sparks when you flew down there, so what?" He squints at him. "You sure you're not just still harboring a hard-on for your Sensei?" Before Daniel can protest, he adds. "I don't mean like literally. But you're clearly still hung-up on him, and there she is, reminding you of him and all that crap." Daniel's brain is hazy enough that it takes him a moment to decide if Johnny's stumbled onto something surprisingly profound or is just talking out of his ass. "Believe me, I get wanting into some chick's pants, but you're all, like, torn up about it. That's different."
"I'm a happily married man."
"Well, you're married, at least."
Daniel frowns. "I'm a happily married man with a family I love to death."
"Yeah, so? You didn't do anything wrong, did you?" Didn't he? "You're allowed to, like, let your mind wander."
"If I'd moved to Japan back then, I wouldn't be with Amanda. I wouldn't have my children. I wouldn't have…"
"But you wouldn't have moved there, as long as your Sensei was around."
"What?"
"I mean, that's why you guys split, right? Because you couldn't leave him alone?"
"No, she… She wanted to come with me and then she didn't."
"Right, and you didn't consider leaving with her because….?"
Daniel groans and lets his forehead fall onto the desk. Johnny claps him on the back. "Look at you man, getting all your important life lessons from your next wise Sensei."
"You are not and will never be my Sensei."
"I guess not, but at least I'd never cock-block you like that."
"He didn't —"
Johnny's voice gets more serious. "Believe me, LaRusso. You don't need to explain shit. I don't think there's many people who get it like me. Why you would need him to stick around…" Suddenly he heaves himself up.
"You're leaving?"
"I need to take a piss." He holds onto the bar stool, half-turns to Daniel. "Not that I could give a rat's ass, but you should go home. Unless you really want to start having something to feel bad about."
Amanda is still up. He's unsure how to feel about that. She's sitting cross-legged on the couch, a glass of red in her hand. "How did it go?"
"Oh." He rummages around his brain, until he's sure he understood what he's asking for. "Good. Yes. Johnny and I. We'll — I mean, Cobra Kai won't continue its reign of terror and —" He can feel himself starting to babble, stops himself.
"Good night, huh?" She raises her glass at him. On the other end of the couch, he can see the crease in her forehead.
"Did something happen?"
"You tell me." She stares him down. "I thought it was just the whole Karate mess at first, but I'm not sure anymore." He's too stunned to say anything, just shifts in his seat, wishing he wasn't drunk for this. "You've been so different."
"I have?"
"Is this about Mr. Miyagi?" she asks. Hopeful even. Yes, he wants to say, and in some ways it wouldn't be a lie. "I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but: did you cheat on me?"
There's a tiny second hesitation before he says no. They both feel it. He blames it on the alcohol.
"Jesus, Daniel." She leans forward to put down her glass.
"I didn't!", he insists. "I'm sorry I've been so off. I'll stop. It's just been a stressful time and, like you said, the Kreese thing and Sam —"
"Don't bring her into this!" He scoots closer on the couch, tries to reach for her. A fatal mistake. She pushes him off. "I feel like I don't even know you!"
"Nothing happened!"
"Nothing happened with whom?"
He lowers his eyes. Balance. Breathing. Rationality. He tries to conjure it all up. But it seems to be doing nothing. "I swear, nothing happened," he starts, as calm as he can. "I was just a little confused in Okinawa. Looking for answers and… I should have left it all there. I shouldn't have brought any of it with me. But it has no bearing on you or our family."
"How can you say that? You can see it does. You always do this. About Karate. About all your mess. No matter how dangerous it gets, you think you can give me your doe-eyed looks and it makes it all go away. And then I'm the one who has to deal with this crap." She runs her hands down her face. "Was it your ex? The one I sent a thank you to?"
Daniel sighs. "Look, we —"
"It was all very innocent, was it?" she asks, the sarcasm makes her voice all ugly.
"She kissed me. Once. But it wasn't like that. It was meant in a friendly way. She wasn't trying to — "
"You don't get it, Daniel. Do you honestly think my problem is a peck between old friends?" He stares, dumbfounded. "But you lying, you keeping secrets, you clearly going through something and not letting me a part of it…" She gets up. "I'm going to bed. You should stay in the guest room tonight."
"Amanda…"
He watches her walk off, shake her head in the process, the anger radiating off her.
He walks out onto the patio. It's almost getting light again. He sits down on the stone, trying to let the air sober him up, but it's stuffy and tense. He takes out his phone, reads through the last emails. He thinks about deleting her number, her email address, but what good would that do? He still knows her name, where she lives. Knows how long it would take him to get out of the valley to the airport and across the globe.
"Thank you for clearing things up for me about the past. We should probably have communicated better back then, huh?
But even so, who knows how things might have worked out. Life has a funny way of not going the way you plan it.
Maybe we would have been happy together. Or maybe you'd have gotten tired of me and divorced me really quickly!
I know I said we can't know what life would have thrown at us, but I know for sure I would not have tired of you.
Maybe it's pointless regretting the past, but having met you again, I can't help but deeply regret not getting to see you grow and change through the years.
I better stop writing about this, or I might say something I might regret...
I wanted to thank you again for all your help in Japan. I was in such a dire situation and you lifted me out of it.
My whole life would be out of balance now without you.
We'd have lost the dealership and everything we'd worked for all those years.
And for bringing Mr Miyagi's words to me. It was the closest I could get to have him in my life again, even if just for the briefest moments.
It's sometimes strange trying to explain to people what a hole he left behind in me when he died, but I think you can understand it a little bit better than others.
You knew me then and you knew him too.
It's hard putting into words how much hearing you say his words helped me.
There are so many more things I want to tell you… Maybe another time I'll get the chance to…
This will be my last mail for a while, I think.
Things here are really hectic with my family and the dojo and there are things I need to take care of, things to fix.
Sayonara, Kumiko. Until next time."