Work Text:
你他妈的有病啊你? Are you fucking insane? Li Chen says, because he thinks it’s crazy—crazy and stupid, trying to teach a retard wushu.
闭嘴 你不懂 Shut up, you don’t get it, Kenmin says.
Li Chen doesn’t see the vision—can’t see that Cyril is the perfect person to teach. He has the strength and athleticism of a man and the impressionability of a child. All day everyday, the inmates and hacks call him stupid, so all Kenmin has to do is spin him a yarn about the warrior’s spirit. The recognition of another—that’s all a child wants sometimes. All he needs.
“You know, I started learning when I was three,” Kenmin tells Cyril. Cooling down on the floor of the gym, he hands over a towel, feeling the older O’Reily’s eyes burning into the back of his skull. Yesterday, he’d discovered a baggie of crystals in his laundry right before a shakedown. “I have a brother. He told me no, too, but I learned anyway. You know why?”
Cyril wipes sweat from his face. “You wanted to be the strongest.”
“Hah. Everyone wants to be strong. I am strong. You’re strong”—Cyril grins happily at that—“But that’s not the only reason.” Kenmin clasps a hand on Cyril’s sweaty shoulder and hears the fence rattling behind him as he leans closer. “I learned to show him that he was wrong. We’re fighters, Cyril. We can do whatever we set our minds to.”
“Mom says that,” he says softly, eyes wide and clear.
He reminds Kenmin of a dog he had once. A dog he taught to do tricks. A dog he trained to bite. Fight. That dog would have done anything for him.
“Your mom’s right,” he says, climbing to his feet and watching Cyril follow. “Don’t listen to your brother.”