Cry. Part 2

"Sheyken, it has been two weeks and you are still coming back bruised. Are we making any progress?"

"Well, mother, I learned his name at least. He is Min-jun. He thinks I am focusing on power too much and said fighting is not always based on strength."

"Awe, so he is giving you advice now?"

"It was not advised. He was just mocking me since I haven't landed a meaningful hit on him. I think he keeps on getting better, it is like he is using coming after me to better himself."

"Wahahahaha, look at that."

"Mom, why are you laughing at your son for being repeatedly bullied?"

"Would you call someone who comes after you almost every day to better himself a bully?"

"Mmmm, I do not know."

"I think you are much talented than you think. Think about it. If it was about his brother, he would have whooped your little behind and left it that until his little brother asked him again."

"Does he come with them?"

"Actually, he doesn't. He takes Beak-hyun on first but never injure him then when he comes for me, he goes all out."

"See, I think he does not want to say it, but he must be training with you for the upcoming tournament, and he is learning something from you that you cannot see yet."

"I see."

"Well, I think you better stop trying to beat him and learn from him too. He can't be the only one benefiting from your pain."

"Yep."

"You still know that I don't like you fighting outside the ring, right?"

"Yes mom, you told me the other time. What is bothering you?"

"Nothing, just that sometimes when a bully gets humiliated since they tend to think with their muscles and not their brains, they end up taking a weapon out and that may lead to something terrible."

"Do not worry mom. I still always run when I see him or meet a bully that I know I cannot beat. Just that Min-jun is like a trained athlete. He is really fast and tall. I just can't shake him off."

"Then run around obstacles, maybe that will slow him down. I just do not like this fighting you kids are doing.

Sheyken looked at his concerned mother's face and felt sorry for her having to always worry for his safety.

"I will do just that. So do not worry."

A week and some days passed after that conversation and Sheyken was getting home without having fought no one but was always tired.

"I see you took my advice."

"Of cause. What child wouldn't take advice from the greatest mother in the world."

"Haha, I see you want some of that favorite food you like so much."

Sheyken smiled.

"So, dad is coming home late today?"

"Yes, what do you think I should do to punish him?"

"Haha, I do not know mom. I think you give out the cruelest of punishments."

"Hahaha... I do right."

She laughed with an evil smile.

"I shall make him jump up and down on top of the bed all night. So do not worry, there will be no need to check up on him, just sleep tight all night."

"Sheyken just closed his ears with his hands again and ran to his bedroom."

"What is wrong! He will be sweating his socks off, so don't worry, he will come back home early after tonight!"

Sheyken just closed his bedroom door not wanting to hear more since he did not want to picture anything. The next day he come back with a bruise on his face.

"Hahaha, I finally got a hit in mom. Today he caught up with me but I think all that running did something. I was more agile and faster."

"Awe I see. Nice one son, we are getting there.

"I saw dad's car upfront. So, he did come home early today.

"No son. He is in bed sleeping. He never left. I punished him all night."

Sheyken just went to his room and asked no further questions. Three months past and he come back home with his shirt and pants torn.

"Mother, Mother!"

He shouted as he got in his house.

"Yes, what is it.

"I finally beat him."

"Awe, with a month to spare. See, see, do you see World, this is my son. He beat the shit out of a 17-year-old who trains martial arts. What else do you want to throw at him? Don't you think it is enough!"

She said as she hugged him and looked to the ceiling as if she was looking to the sky.

"I am sure you dying to tell me how you did it."

"Hahaha...."

"So, then, go ahead. How did you do it?"

"Over the months I had studied his style and noticed that he was switching it up constantly to match mine. This week he had integrated, some type of move I have never seen before. It was like he was those Americans who dance using their hands on the ground while listing to Hip-hop music."

"Mmmmm something like that... I think it must have been Capoeira."

"Capo what."

"Capoeira. a Brazilian type of fighting style that uses martial arts and dances. He must be well vast in his fighting techniques if he practiced even that fighting style."

"Maybe. Anyways, the other day I thought to go back to my basics and stop trying to copy so many fighting styles. I chose taekwondo since that is what I started with and it has the reach I needed since it uses 99% of the legs and 1% of the hands. He tried doing one of those somersaults with his hands on the ground and kicking me but I was waiting for it since that was one of the moves which left him wide open and he could not block until he finished it."

"I see, so what did you do."

Sheyken smiled.

"One of the most powerful kicks in Taekwondo, the back kick. It landed perfectly on his solar plexus such that I had him letting out a sound like that of a cow when it landed as the air from his lungs came out."

"Hahahahaha, you are telling me you made him sound like a cow?"

"hahaha, yep, like a cow."

"Hahaha, I am sure that makes up for all the beatings you received."

"Yep... He stayed on the found holding his stomach and out of breath for a while. He got up and shook my hand. He asked us to train together afterward."

"Now, that is something. Three months of me cooking special dishes had paid off."

"Awe, and it was not my hard work?"

"Well, let's say 10 percent of it was your hard work."

"Ahh, mom."

"So, how was Beak-hyun through all this?"

"He had gotten used to being beaten up. He will join us but."

"What a nice conclusion. Now, after a week you must invite this Min-jun over. I need to give him a piece of my mind. I will take the 'jun' out of his 'Min'.

"Hahaha, that I wish to see.

Days passed and they had started training with Min-jun and Sheyken like it while it was hell for Beak-hyun. Sheyken knew if he was not practicing new techniques on him and stack to Kyokushin, he would have never beaten him.

Another day past and then Ji-ho, Min-jun's little brother was not at school. Classes ended for the day and when Sheyken and Beak-hyun went to meet Min-jun where they usually met before training, he never arrived.

When he got home, he saw his mother sad and crying. She saw him and went to him.

"I am sorry Sheyken. I was just told Min-jun was killed."

The news shocked Sheyken.

"What happened to him?"

"It looks like he too was being bullied at school by a group of friends. They say he would never fight them and try to run away. Yesterday, they had corned him and he could not run away. The leader of the group wanted to show his strength to his group by beating him up alone but Min-jun beat him with just one kick. After seeing him humiliate their leader like that, the rest were letting him leave since they were scared of him then, but the leader pulled out a knife and stabbed him on his back three times. He died at the hospital. I am sorry my son."

Sheyken's mother said as she hugged him. The funeral was on that weekend. Sheyken's mother could not attend since his father had hurt problems and had ended up in hospital during those days.

"He whooped my behind so many times that I had started to like him... Wait that come out wrong."

Beak-hyun said crying as Sheyken looked on at the proceedings. He went back home to an empty house since his mother was spending her time next to his father in the hospital.

Three days later, his mother came home with horrible news. His father had passed away. He had never seen his mother so devastated in his life. He stopped going to school for those days so to help with the funeral arrangements.

"He never talked to me that much, but when he did talk, I always listened. He was a good man. Someone you would not think you would miss until he is gone."

Beak-hyun said as he cried at the funeral. So not to think about it, Sheyken went to school the following Tuesday. At the end of school, a group of kids made fun of him for being fatherless. He tried to walk away like his mother would tell him to do but since they were many of them, a group got in his way and provoked him to fight them. Beak-hyun tried to stop them but to no avail.

His mother got a phone call that he was at the hospital. Hearing that her son was at the hospital for the first time in his life she panicked. She could not think of what she could do if she also lost Sheyken right after losing her husband. As the thoughts ran through her head and she wished that he was ok, she neglected to watch how fast she was going. Unfortunately, it was raining on that day and the roads were slippery. Her car span off the road and hit a nearby tree. Through her panic she had not fastened her seat belt, making her die on the spot as she also hit the tree after the car had hit it head-on, making her fly off the chair, through the windscreen, and onto it.

Beak-hyn who was next to him in the hospital and not that hurt cried when they heard the news. He also cried at her funeral but that was where he noticed it. Sheyken had never once shed a tear in all three funerals they had been on, nor at the hospital when he heard the news of his mother's passing. Being a 14-year-old kid, he forgot about it a week later when Sheyken returned to school.