"Yeah." Victor's voice broke. "Yeah, I did. I told myself I was making you tough. But really, I think I was just looking for somebody smaller than me. So I didn't have to feel small anymore."
"I'm sorry, Ethan. Not sorry because a guy embarrassed me in front of the class. Sorry because you were a kid who loved this place, and I made you afraid of it. That's on me. All of it."
Ethan was crying now. Quietly. The way people cry when they have been holding it in for years.
"I don't know if I can forgive you," he said.
"You don't have to," Victor said. "I'm not asking for that. I'm just asking you to let me be a better teacher to you than I was. And if you never want to train with me again, I'll understand. I'll talk to Master Hayes. We'll find you someone else."
Ethan wiped his face with his sleeve.
"No," he said finally. "I want to stay."
"Okay."
"But you have to promise me something."
"Anything."
"If you ever see someone doing to a kid what you did to me," Ethan said, "you stop it. Every time."
Victor nodded. "Every time."
Daniel had only come by to drop off a compressor he'd repaired for Raymond. He stepped back out into the rain before either of them saw him.
Some moments are not meant to have witnesses.
...
In May, the regional tournament came.
The academy's biggest rival was a school called Iron Tiger Martial Arts. Their head instructor, a man named Grant Mercer, was known for producing champions.
He was also known for how he produced them: cheap shots when the referees looked away.
The tournament was held in a high school gym. The bleachers were packed. The air smelled like popcorn and nervous sweat.
Lily wasn't competing. She was too new. But she sat beside her father in the stands, wearing her white uniform anyway, because she said she wanted to "feel like part of the team."
Ethan was competing.
It was his first tournament in two years.