First Lesson: Courage (2)

Birds tweeted happily in the early morning. When Jae saw them tweeting outside of his bedroom window he wagged his middle finger at them.

"Damn those noisy birds" he grumbled, his body ached all over and he felt like death but those birds were singing a merry tune. The birds shouldn't be so happy when he felt so miserable.

He groaned as he slipped on a tracksuit, he placed bandages and plasters on his wounds and then he quietly left his room.

Jae could hear loud snores coming from his Uncle and Aunts bedroom, since it was a Sunday and early they were still sleeping, and they'd likely still be sleeping until the afternoon.

Jae felt relieved that he wouldn't have to face them just yet, although the swelling on his face had gone down the bruises were still there and ugly.

He crept downstairs and tiptoed like a ninja towards the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, he took out some Tupperware.

Jae had promised to give Lord three meals a day and he didn't plan on going back on that promise. Since they would be training all day he planned to pack some breakfast, some lunch and then he'd take him out somewhere to eat for dinner.

The first thing he saw in the kitchen were trays of sandwiches. Anna loved making sandwiches, and she always made way too much of them. Those sandwiches must have been from yesterday's lunch.

Jae's stomach groaned hungrily as he grabbed tons of them and put them in his container, he ate some as he took a handful of cheese, ham and tuna sandwiches.

Sitting on the black granite of the kitchen counter was his dinner from last night. Anna had made macaroni and cheese.

She'd left a sizeable portion for Jae, more than enough for both him and Lord to enjoy. He put the Macaroni dish in the oven, and after it had warmed up he sealed it tightly into another container.

Jae then grabbed an empty water bottle and filled with some sweet ice tea. Nothing better than some ice tea to wash a nice meal away. If Lord got more hungry later he'd definitely take him out to eat. When they had been walking to the station the other day he'd seen a ton of small restaurants and fast food joints.

As Jae hummed to himself as he packed all this food he paused..."Wait for a second, why I am so happy!?"

"I'm packing food for a homeless guy who might be a con artist and may not know any actual martial arts! There's no reason for me to happy about this!"

At first, he found his excitement ridiculous, but then he realised that this was the first time he was going out to hang with someone or do something fun in a year. Ever since he'd moved to Twicking and then gone to Fair Academy he'd been alone.

There was no one he could just talk openly with. He couldn't even call Lord a friend but he felt excited to see him.

"Gosh I'm pathetic" Jae sighed

After packing all the food into his backpack he slipped on his trainers and then quietly left the house and headed to the train station.

This early in the morning, and on a Sunday, Steve wasn't working at the booth, instead, it was a different man, another friend of Uncle Simon's, named Patrick. To be honest everyone in Twicking was a friend of Simon or Anna. Twicking was such a small town everyone knew each other.

Jae didn't want to deal with any questions or greetings, so he hid his face, covering his bruises with a black face mask and the hood of his hoodie.

He easily scanned his pass on the barrier, walked through and waited for the train.

When it finally came he hopped on and sat in the most secluded seat at the end of the carriage.

As he sat down he felt the bruises on his stomach cramp, "ahhhh" he inwardly screamed. Everything ached.

He had used a soothing muscle spray this morning but despite that and the bath from yesterday, everything still hurt. He really was in no condition to be doing excessive physical exercise. Maybe he should tell Lord that he needed to skip training for today.

He licked his mouth and he could feel with his tongue where his tooth had chipped after Mickey's punch. His jaw still hurt too.

Jae was internally complaining and aching throughout his entire journey to Gallows Park.

Funnily he felt strange, walking there of his own volition the next day and in the grey early sunlight made him feel weird.

He lifted up the rusted gate and gently put it to the side before walking in.

"You're just in time," said a voice.

"Ahhh!" Jae jumped back in shock as he saw Lord leaning against one of the bushes to the right of the Gate.

"I was waiting for you, no need to panic," Lord said with that sombre voice of his.

"Ah, sorry" Jae felt embarrassed, he had screamed like some five-year-old girl, "I didn't expect you to be right there."

"Umm...I brought some food so do you want to eat first."

Lord's eyes visibly brightened and Jae heard him swallow. Jae had to resist the urge to laugh, Lord's reactions to food were just so exaggerated.

As Jae took off his backpack he noticed Lord's eyes following it around in a trance. "He's almost like a puppy," he thought although he'd never say that to the tall man's face.

"Is there any place we can sit down and eat?" asked Jae.

Lord silently nodded and led him to an old wooden table.

Jae noticed that Lord was wearing the exact same outfit from yesterday, and from the night he first saw him. he wondered if he had any other clothes, "he said he collected clothes from the dump before."

Jae felt bad, perhaps he had taken Lord's only other set of good clothes yesterday. He looked at his own Nike tracksuit and felt even worse. His family had always been well off. They weren't super-rich but they weren't poor or working-class either.

Jae got a sizeable allowance each month from both his Dad and his Uncle. Lord got excited at a McDonald's. It seemed like Lord had been starving before.

Even if Lord's training didn't bear results Jae decided he would still visit Lord every other day and give him a meal.

As they sat down Jae opened his bag pack and brought out his Tupperware. He also brought out some plastic cups. He poured Lord and himself some sweet iced tea and opened up the container filled with sandwiches.

"Now it's not much, I hope you don't mind, next time we can go to a cafe or somewhere for breakfast. The sandwiches are cold as well." Jae shivered a bit, it was a bit chilly this morning. Cold food with cold-weather probably wasn't that nice.

"I don't mind the cold" Lord said as he picked up the tuna sandwich.

Lord bit into it and felt the soft texture of the whole grain bread with the juicy and fresh taste of tuna, combined with the surprising sweet crunch of corn.

"Ummm" he made a soft groan as he bit into it. "This is lovely."

He had the biggest grin on his face, Jae had never seen a simple sandwich give someone such pleasure.

Jae couldn't help but wonder what kind of horrible circumstances Lord had been living in. Surely there were soup kitchens and shelters right, had a really not had a simple sandwich in so long. He really acted like he hadn't eaten for hundreds of years.

Jae watched as Lord ate happily whilst he sipped tea and nibbled on his cheese sandwich.

When Lord had wolfed down all his sandwiches he sat back with a satisfied look on his face. He then greedily looked at the container with the Macaroni, he licked his lips greedily.

Jae laughed as he saw Lord's expression "You can have that later for lunch." his expression then turned more serious, "For now though, about the training. I don't think I'm in any condition to be doing anything excessively physical. So what did you have in mind for today?"

Lord's expression also turned serious, "The first step for any martial artist is not training the body, but instead training the mind. Your first lesson will be in Courage."