Description: Years of disappointments and setbacks have taken their toll on one Howard Rust. On what he was about to write off as his darkest evening before the first day of the rest of his life, however, he happens upon Yuri Sakazaki at the Kyokugen dojo and comes to realize something truly profound in what was intended to be a goodbye.
Another day in the Kyokugen Dojo, where there are many practitioners doing their thing. Some are sparring with one another, while others are practicing their techniques on their own. And some are just using the standard equipment to practice with. Regardless of what's going on, the dojo is very active today regardless of how you look at it.
In one part of the dojo, Yuri Sakazaki is cheering on a young group of new practitioners who are attempting to learn the basics of the art. "That's it, you got it!" Yuri exclaims happily. "Keep it up, you're gonna make awesome students real soon!" The girl grins as she looks at the young students who are more than likely, at least in Yuri's opinion, to become new stars of Kyokugen Karate and show the world just how awesome it truly can be. "Keep it up! Don't stop!"
Life has continued on since the recent troubles. Even the threat of that great evil looming overhead seems to have faded into the aether... for now. Some people are still picking up the pieces of their lives, or perhaps their very own souls.
To this extent, one Howard Rust is one of the more fortunate ones among those who got involved. It'd be funny to tell him this now, as he drives across around the parts of Southtown he's grown familiar with in his time here, thinking... take a good look, this is it.
He has had zero luck getting a new job. None of the other high schools accepted him, and there's that depressing truth looming overhead that it is time to say goodbye and go back to his sleepy old hometown back in America. The place he left for greater opportunities abroad.
The Kyokugen Dojo's just one of those stops, as a fairly worn truck comes to a stop just outside the concrete lot. From it, a familiar man of forty-one years and a particularly stiff knee makes themselves known as they head across the lot, across where so many students are training.
He hasn't been on the dojo grounds for a good while, so his sudden reappearance might be alarming. There is one particularly familiar face standing alongside the crowd, though, who he attempts to flag down with a raised hand.
"Hey," he calls out, "hey, Yuri. Uh... hey!"
At first, Yuri seems a little angry that she's being called out to while instructing other students. She looks up with a scowl on her face, but that look abruptly changes when she spies that it's none other than Howard Rust. Her face switches to a big grin. "Oh, Mr. Rust! What a surprise!" Yuri turns to her students and says, "All right, you work on what Yuri taught you, because Yuri will be right back!"
Yuri walks over to where Rust is and hops up and down on her heels gleefully. "I haven't seen you in awhile, Mr. Rust! How are things going on your end?" She seems quite the enthusiastic one, not aware of what's going on with Rust right now apparently. Then again, Yuri's always the enthusiastic type.
Mr. Rust over there's always been a man of some mundane problem or another. There's always been some malady in the school, some sort of financial issue, or maybe worries over his father's health back at home. To pretty much any of his acquaintances, the slightly tired, maybe even the air of defeat, is kind of business as usual for him.
"Hey, uh... sorry, didn't mean to, ah, y'know," he clears his throat, "interrupt teachin' real fast," he says this as he looks about the various practicing students. As Takuma has said, they fight hard here. Real punches are being thrown every day, within the dojo and without. Physically extremely demanding, even with the lighthearted air of Yuri Sakazaki guiding them onward!
"They've been, uh," he's not even sure how to say this to her, "pretty... bad," he rubs the back of his head as he thinks of a way to gently say 'I don't have a job and I can't really pay rent any more, it's time for me to go home to the United States.'
He tries, anyway, "Pacific's thrown me out, place I'm stayin' at is, uh, really expensive... might... might have to be headed home back to, y'know, America, so... thought I'd, uh, stop by." He makes eye contact again as he rolls one of his shoulders.
"Don't suppose your brother or father are around? I mean, unless... y'know, your dad's still..."
The misadventures in Africa and all that stress and pain it brought are still rather fresh in his mind.
"Don't worry about it!" Yuri says with a big grin. "I always enjoy seeing visitors here. As long as it's not someone who's against our school, that's all that matters." But then Yuri's look softens as Rust starts to show signs of difficulty again. Almost immediately, Yuri looks sympathetically at Rust, ready to listen to what he has to say. "Wait, you got kicked out of Pacific High? You have to go back to America? But why? Why would they kick you out of Pacific?!" Almost immediately, tears seem to well up in Yuri's eyes, not just from sadness but from anger as well. She clenches her fists and tries hard not to stomp her foot while her breathing increases.
"What could cause them to throw you out, Mr. Rust?! That's not right at all!" Yuri asks again, repeating herself in disbelief. "We can't do this! We can't!" Yuri pauses as she looks around, wondering where her brother and father are. "Uhh... I dunno where they are. But they should be around here! I don't get it!"
The ex-shop teacher almost seems ready to have to take a step back when Yuri looks about ready to form tears, one hand raised up as if to say 'whoa, be calm, be calm,' even though in some level he kind of does want to cry, too. That was a really, really good paying job for the education field. He was so lucky to even grab that job with his credentials, and now... well.
"It's... it's pretty complex," the eternal excuse adults give to younger people as he takes in a deep breath, "fact of the matter is, I... I put my priorities on other things." Not 'things he shouldn't have.' Given what happened at that island, Zach was in the right to make him choose what he did - but everything else that led up to that...
The older man slumps over a bit as she looks around for where the other Sakazakis are. They aren't here? This probably explains why the local Costco is currently taped off by the local police, come to think of it. A low groan escapes his throat at this far-fetched assumption on his part.
"D-Don't worry about it for now, ah... what 'bout you?" He asks as he looks back over to all those students out there. He can see a couple of them are probably fussing around with more of Takuma's infamous 'do woodwork with bare hands' assignments.
"Me? What do you mean 'what about me?!'" Yuri exclaims, apparently not content with Rust's answer. "I've been doing what I can around here to keep things steady while I focused on coursework. I mean, I admit my studies need to improve more, but at least I did pass with higher grades than last semester." Yuri narrows her eyes and clenches her fists. "I did a similar thing too, you know, what with the tournament and my training, as well as building up the dojo. But the worst that happened to me was that I had to take extra classes and serve detention nonstop!"
Clenching her fists again, Yuri stomps her bare foot on the dojo floor. "I don't get it! Why do adults always get hit harder than us children do?" Yuri would stare at Rust again, but she can't bring herself to look again. She turns away and shakes her head.
Yuri's done better with her coursework, has she? The older man with the combover has a raised brow and an approving nod, having remembered that was a pretty big issue when they carted around a school student about Africa.
"That's, that's really good news," no kidding! Even if she's got her heart set on this sort of thing for life, getting a good education's a pretty big deal in these parts.
"I, uh, I don't mean the... detention part," he clarifies with a sudden start as he flexes an elbow to get a noisy pop out. Over his shoulder, he watches a few students decide to take shortcuts with the latest Takuma-assigned project by just hitting nails through boards with one big, powerful, awesome hit each like the overeager amateurs they are.
Yuri's pointed words bring his attention back over to her, just in time for her to look away. "Well..."
There really isn't an easy answer for that, is there? Nonetheless, as though by pure instinct instilled by years and years of work on such matters, Howard goes over to the two students and shoos them aside as he takes a look at their work. They move aside not because of any particular respect for authority, but almost as though afraid of what that man might be about to say as he frowns at it.
"Sometimes, Yuri," he says over his shoulder as he kneels down to the complaint of one of his knees, "sometimes, things just, ah, they just get in the way," which is putting it super lightly when you are one of the people who essentially saved the world not long ago, "and you just... you just don't get everything you want out of life."
At first, Yuri really doesn't believe what's going on. She simply stands facing away from Rust, with her arms folded and her eyes closed in a scowl. "Things get in the way? Hmmph, I've heard that one all the time. It's just not right if you ask me." Yuri seems like she's really getting angry with what's going on. But then something occurs inside to her.
Yuri turns to face Rust with a hopeful look in her eye. "You will... at least, try to keep in touch, won't you Mr. Rust?" The tears still shimmer in her eyes a little but she seems to have calmed down a little bit. "I know we'll be far away, but I know we can still keep in touch!" She holds her hands in front of her eagerly.
Maybe it isn't right, but you know what isn't right? How these kids are handling these nails! Even as he's speaking with Yuri, the older man is gesturing vaguely with his left hand as he takes his right palm and gently (comparatively speaking) thrusts at it to hammer it down in spurts to keep the nail straight.
"Well," he says as he looks up back towards the young Sakazaki girl as he rises up from this fixed issue, "if, if I'm really lucky, Yuri, y'know... if I were just, just able to find... y'know," he clears his throat, patting his chest with a fist, "'scuse me. If there was just a... just a job out in these parts left, Yuri, somethin' where... well, I think I told ya before, I always wanted to be a big time fighter," he says this as he strides across the area to yet /another/ martial arts carpentry disaster in the making as one of the students is attempting to sand a board down with their bare hands, "but... I want to teach kids all the stuff I learned from, ah, from high school on, thereabouts," he says this as he pulls his left glove out with his teeth and rapidly runs his off-hand across this surface, of which they look upon in awe, "show 'em some practical skills, too, like... y'know, carpentry, at the same time."
Patting the smoothed wooden surface twice and fussing to get the glove back on, he looks back to Yuri. "When I was in Pacific, Yuri, that... that's somethin' I couldn't do. The kids I was teachin', they suffered 'cause I kept puttin' 'em off for my dream, and... I'd like to think, y'know, somewhere."
There's a sudden bit of stink-eye as he looks over Yuri's shoulder. "Hey! Hey. You. Just, one sec," Rust says as he ambles over to where a couple of students are basically wasting a good plank by cutting it incorrectly (with mighty chops, of course).
"The hell did, did the master show you?" He chides said students, "if, if you're gonna do it with your bare hands, you gotta... straight wrist," he says as he demonstrates with his right hand, "make sure that, that ya line it up just right, and..."
With one mighty chop, Howard cleanly divides the end of the board correctly for a nice, straight plank, and the students stand corrected as now Yuri, at last, can be spoken to free of distractions by slacking students around him. "That's, that's just the trick, Yuri," he says as he rubs the back of his head, "I'd like to... I'd like to be able to push for what I've, what I've wanted all my life, but... but I wanna be able to really show these kids some stuff that'll, that'll get 'em far in the real world, not just... not just beatin' the shit outta one another day in, day out, you... you kinda get what I mean?"
At first, Yuri isn't sure of what to make of what Rust is doing. She's not sure if he's trying to show off or what, so she simply watches. After that, she finally nods. "I... I guess I understand, Mr. Rust. I thought you'd make a good student here, but... well, I guess sometimes these things happen." She looks down at the floor. "I... don't want it to happen, but if that's what you want to do, then I'll let you do it." Tears are starting to well up in Yuri's eyes again.
If anything, it shows how well he's taken some of Takuma's own lessons about doing this sort of thing with one's own bare hands - and how well he's adapted that to his own considerable experience in the field. Is he... not paying attention to what he's saying and what he's doing in turn?
"Yuri, if there was a way," he says as though in defeat as he seems to fail to put two and two together, "I'd still... be here, y'know, still pushin', still throwing the punches, fixin' the walls, but... I dunno, Yuri, I just don't." The answers do, sometimes, seem to just not exist within grasp even when they often seem to be just right underneath one's nose.
"I mean, you... you probably know the whole landscape a bit better than I do there," Howard says as he scratches at the side of his head, a gloved hand carefully not touching his own combover. Has he come to grow to accept that this combover is so hideous that even /he/ won't touch it?!
"If... if you got any ideas, Yuri, I'm pretty much all ears," he says as his gaze drifts back over to those first nail-palming guys who have already gone back to their original bad habits.
"Christ, I just showed 'em how," he mumbles under his breath in frustration, for old habits seem to die very hard.
"I guess you're right," Yuri says with a sigh, turning away once again, not wanting to let Rust see the tears that are sliding down her cheeks. "I wish I had ideas, but I can't think of any." Yuri tries to make her voice sound normal, but the sound of it indicates she's not happy...
"That's... that's still more ideas 'n them," he growls out loud, as if complaining as to why he can't just have a teary goodbye closure piece without incompetence surrounding him. The inner foreman in him is furious as he walks back along over to that first pair of chuckleheads with one particular loud pop in his knee, as though his knee were giving support of this plan and not at all being stiff or uncooperative after a long day of sadness in accepting what directions things are going.
(We all know that knee was just being stiff and uncooperative and just doesn't want to get in trouble like those kids are by getting on his good side.)
"What, what'd I just show you?" He's all but shouting at them at this point. "You gotta ease it in, just... you don't wanna bend that nail, or you're gonna have to start all over. Don't, don't look at me like that," he's pointing, "I got a whole belt grade above you and, and by God I'd been puttin' shit like that together for longer 'n you been born! Look. Just--"
As the man lays a hand on the board, something stirs as he stares blankly at this poorly-handled hammering job and two flustered students who are wondering what this man actually wants of them. The whole of the Kyokugen dojo, the faces that are being made at him... how the students of one of the fiercest martial arts schools around are, through their craft, actually (well, attempting to be) going about what Takuma himself had been trying to set them to do...
In that moment, one Howard Rust slaps his right palm against his face loudly enough as he utters one low, prolonged groan. Really, he's thinking. Really. What the hell am I doing? After all this time running around like he's got nothing to cling onto as everything just seems to be running away after that one trip to the island offered one real glimmer of hope and strength that few ever really saw or understood...
God, I'm so stupid, he thinks to himself as he finally looks back over his shoulder to Yuri again. "Hey, uh... Yuri, sorry to, uh, sorry to hold you up from... from what you were doin', but..."
But what? Mr. Rust turns around and straightens himself out as he gets over the fact that, yes, this is what's happening here. "Think, ah, think you could give your brother a call? Ryo? I, I dunno his cell, if he got one," he says as he rolls one of his shoulders. There's no trademark, expected pop. It's a rare smooth roll of his shoulder, "I think... I think I got an answer for him now."
Still staring at her bare feet (or the floor if you will) Yuri doesn't look up or watch for now. In fact, the lack of popping in his shoulder doesn't do much for her. It's not untill Rust mentions Ryo that she finally looks up, wiping her eyes. "Well, hopefully he should have his cell phone with him... but why?" Yuri seems quite a bit surprised, although her emotion seems a bit neutral right now.
"Well," the older man says as he clears his throat one last time. There's no pause in thought over what it is he's about to say, as though everything in life ever has finally decided to fall in one place. After years and years of struggling to both live a good, honest life /and/ go after his heart's desire, and finding obstacles in his way that forced him to pick one or the other... right at the very moment it seemed he would have neither, there it was at last.
It might be his turn to cry tears, tears of joy, if he weren't so mentally exhausted after coming to this point at last. There's no drama of screams against a seemingly unsurmountable, unstoppable foe that he barely even understands the hows and whys of, far removed from the limited scope of the kind of life he lived - but now a simple moment of clarity and understanding as he nods once.
"If the offer he made me is still there... I'm takin' it." Of course, he goes on to clarify since he's not sure if he ever really discussed it with Yuri. "Your brother asked me to, to think 'bout teaching for the dojo... back then, couldn't do it 'cause of my job." A job he just regretted losing up until this very moment in time.
"And y'know... here we are. If I took him up..."
He doesn't need to clarify what this means for anyone, especially not himself.
Log created on 15:25:33 12/01/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 20:48:43 12/03/2011.