[Alex's POV]
On Friday, Alex joined Thomas to judo practice for the first time.
"It's strange, this place feels oddly familiar. It reminds me of the sports hall were I used to live," Alex had said once they'd entered the dressing room.
"That might not just be a feeling," Thomas had said casually. "Bright inc. has sponsored the renovation of this sports hall just last year, which automatically gave them a final say in the way the building was finished. They might have done a similar thing at the place were you used to live?"
"Really?" Alex asked in surprise. It made him wonder what Bright inc. could be gaining from sponsoring the renovation of a sports hall. He sincerely hoped it wasn't one of his dad's whims because his precious son might possibly use the accommodation one day. But sadly enough, it was a possibility.
A while later, Alex was done changing into his sports clothes and wanted to join Thomas who was waiting with Otto in the hallway, when he caught his own image in the mirror by the door.
He'd grown. At least five centimetres. He could tell because the last time he'd worn these pants, they'd almost touched the floor and now they barely reached his ankles anymore.
How embarrassing! When he entered a room full of other practitioners, it was sure to stick out like a sore thumb. He should have checked beforehand if everything still fitted, but he hadn't.
What now?
He could make them a little longer with magic, but he didn't want to risk feeling faint during practice. There were no electrical devices in the dressing room either, and all of the lights were hanging out of reach. He cursed himself for not bringing his phone's charger with him. He'd have to make a habit out of bringing it everywhere with him in the future.
He took a deep breath as he concluded there was nothing he could do about it right now and stepped outside. He found Thomas and Otto as soon as he stepped outside. They were talking amicable a little further down the hall.
Otto, Alex his brand new girlfriend, had insisted on seeing him off to his first practice, even though he had insisted that it was not necessary.
A pang of jealousy shot through him as he noticed that she actually looked really good with Thomas too. He could only hope that she wouldn't change her mind and dump him to go to Thomas.
He quickly shook the thought out of his head. The pang of jealousy was Amon's influence again. Alex had absolutely no reason to doubt Otto's intentions in dating him. In fact, he was still feeling really gleeful about it.
Thomas noticed him approaching and notified Otto of it too. She turned to look at him and a beautiful smiles bloomed on her face as she saw him.
"I'm suddenly glad that there aren't any females in your group. I'd surely be jealous," she said once he'd reached them and started to fiddle at his uniform vest in an attempt to close it just a little more. Alex let her. He loved the feeling of her fingers on his chest.
"Been a long time since you wore those, huh?" Thomas asked.
"It has," Alex said. "Can you tell?"
"Not on first sight. I guess we'll see during practice," Thomas joked.
Alex would have reacted to the joke, if it weren't for the older man, who was also wearing judo-gear, walking straight towards them. The man was a bit taller than Alex, but smaller than Thomas, had a full head of grey hair and was build like a block.
"Ha! Thomas! Who are your friends?" he greeted Thomas with a few strong pat on the shoulder. A wide grin was splitting his face, and he was looking at Otto with twinkling eyes. Suddenly Amon's jealousy didn't seem as misplaced as a minute ago.
"Hello sensei," Thomas said, clearly ignoring his teacher's mischievous behaviour. "This is Alex, the new student I told you about."
"Ah! Yes, yes! Welcome," the sensei said, still smiling widely, although a little less brightly. He quickly reached out a hand for Alex to shake. When Alex grabbed the outreached hand, he was surprised to find that this "friendly sensei" his grip was so strong that it could crush his hand.
"A display of power?" Alex wondered in thought. He wasn't sure. The guy looked strong in general, he could be crushing Alex's hand unconsciously. Either way, Alex wasn't planning on grimacing.
"Nice to meet you," Alex said out loud, mirroring the sensei's smile while he ignored the strong handshake.
"And this is Otto," Thomas continued the introductions. The teacher promptly let go of Alex's hand, swiftly turned to Otto and grabbed her hand to shake next.
"Ah! Yes, yes!" the sensei said all smiles. Otto grimaced when she got the same steel handshake that he'd gotten.
"Oh! I'm sorry dear. I'm not used to shaking such delicate hands. Apologies, apologies!" the sensei said as he quickly loosened his grip, but kept shaking her hand. Alex felt himself grin when he noticed Otto's facial expression. She was going for a friendly smile, but it looked rather sour.
"So, Thomas. Have you finally brought your girlfriend to meet your teacher, huh?" the sensei asked, suddenly revealing why his eyes had been twinkling so much earlier. Alex felt yet another pang of jealousy, but tried his best to ignore it.
"No. She's Alex's girlfriend," Thomas cleared up the misunderstanding briskly. The sensei's smile fell.
"His girlfriend?" he asked, all kindness gone from his voice. He kind of reminded Alex off a grumpy Thomas. Then the teacher turned back to him. "Young man, do you think our judo practice is a place for you to show off to your girlfriend? You're only here for try-outs and you're already bringing your whole fanclub?"
"One girl doesn't qualify as a club," Alex thought to himself, but quickly threw semantics overboard as he remembered that he was talking to a muscle brain.
"Of course not sir," Alex replied respectfully. He'd been inside Amon's head. This teacher was peanuts compared to him. "She's only seeing me off because it's my first practice."
"Well, what is she? Your girlfriend or your mom?" he replied. "Did she tie your belt too?"
"No, sir. I'm very well capable off dressing myself."
"Humph," sensei puffed. "Talking about belts, did you buy that in a souvenir shop, pretty boy?"
Alex was suddenly glad he always minded his posture. He felt that if his posture would have been bad, this teacher would definitely have corrected it roughly.
"You'll have to find out during practice, won't you?" Alex challenged, causing the corner of the teacher's mouth to twitch up, even though he didn't want to.
"Humph," he puffed again. "Talking about practice; you boys better start getting ready. It's about to start."
"Yes sir," Alex said as he stepped aside to let him through. The three of them watched him as he vanished into the dojo.
"What a rude man!" Otto said as she came closer to place a little kiss on Alex's cheek. "I'm going now. You show him hell!"
"I will," Alex laughed and watched as she left.
"Sorry about that," Thomas said as they started walking towards the sparring room. "I'd forgotten that he doesn't like pretty boys."
"P-pretty boys?!" Alex asked offended. "Who's a pretty boy?! Oh, come on, Thomas! You wound me worse than that sensei's childish behaviour."
"Just be yourself. He'll warm up to you," Thomas said, a grin playing around his lips. "I like you enough to almost forget that you're a pretty boy."
Alex glared at him.
"You're an evil mellow person, you know that?" he finally said. This made Thomas laugh, just as they entered the dojo.
A group of tough looking guys, ranging from his own age to Thomas', all looked up as they entered. Alex already quickly noticed he was the only black-belt in the room, not counting the teacher of course. They all eyed him suspiciously, so he allowed himself the diversion of looking around the room.
"Wow, what a large dojo," he said.
"Yeah, it's large enough for two age groups to practice here at once," Thomas explained as he nodded over to a group of kids, probably grade schoolers. "Sensei teaches us both at the same time."
Alex would have made a comment about it, if said sensei hadn't chosen the very same moment to start his lesson.
"Yes! Ladies, we don't have all day," he said in a loud voice. "We'll warm up by sprinting twenty times from that side of the room to that side, followed by twenty push ups. Can you big boys keep yourself busy afterwards? Spar amongst yourselves."
Everybody agreed and started doing their warm-ups. Alex was surprised to see that the teacher warmed up along with all the others.
"Not you, pretty boy," he said when Alex was done with his warm up exercise and wanted to join the few already sparring boys. "You'll help me show the little ones the new moves."
"Ok," Alex said as he doubted for a second, but followed.
"Ok, kiddos! Gather around," sensei said as the little ones gathered around him. "Today we're going to learn a shoulder throw, the Ippon-Seoi-Nage."
Then the teacher turned to Alex and they got into position, which for the moment was just Alex's hand on Sensei's shoulder.
"We'll go slowly first. When your opponent tries to grab you by the shoulder, you'll grab his elbow with the hand of your free arm, and turn inwards so you can hook the elbow of your free arm under his armpit. Do you see how I'm standing already? All I have to do now is swivel with my back towards him, and I'm in the perfect position to heave him up-"
When the teacher said slowly, he really meant slowly. So Alex found himself hanging on the back of the teacher for an awkward second before he actually threw him.
"-and over he goes," the teacher said as he helped Alex back up.
Alex had made sure he fell by the rules of the sport. There was no doubt he was being tested and he couldn't have the teacher thinking he didn't deserve his black belt, now could he?
"Ok, now you throw me slowly," sensei said. And so Alex did.
Funny, this guy was really easy to read. It looked like Thomas had been right; the teacher was really warming up to him. He could tell, because every time he executed a move correctly, the teacher hummed in approval.
"Ok," the teacher said. "One last time, but at regular speed this time."
And so they got into position, the teacher grabbed his jacket, to do exactly the same thing they'd done twice before, except for the fact that "normal speed" for this guy was actually rather fast.
Alex found himself being thrown at such a speed, that his legs swung out and his reflexes kicked in.
Instead of falling to his back, like he was supposed to, he was now standing on his feet, facing his opponent who was looking at him rather flabbergasted.
"Ah! Sorry about that. Force of habit?" Alex said sheepishly, but the teacher didn't recover from his surprise. Undoubtedly, he'd never seen anyone do that before.
What now? Should he apologise again? Wouldn't it become even more awkward if he'd apologise twice? It wasn't until he heard a deep chuckle coming from behind him that they both snapped out of it.
"That's Alex for you," Thomas said with a giant smile. "Doing something unbelievable and apologising because he didn't mean to."
"Unbelievable?" Alex asked confused. "It wasn't that special..."
This time he heard the teacher laugh too.
"Young man, I've misjudged you," he said. "Come on, I want to see what you've got. Thomas? You'll be his opponent."
"Yeah right," Thomas said unenthusiastically. "Honestly, I don't feel like being humiliated. That guy has been sparring with Eeva for four years straight. I don't like starting a battle I know I can't win."
"Has it really been four years?" Alex wondered in thought. "Yeah, it could have been four years. How does Thomas know these things?"
He could imagine his dad gushing all the time about his dear son, but this was a whole different level. It was detailed, as if he had his whole life memorised...
"Eeva?" the teacher asked. "Which Eeva?"
"Eeva Panas," Thomas said. They all stared at the teacher until realisation dawned on his face.
"You've been sparring with the female world champion?!" he asked incredulously.
"Well, yes. Coincidentally, she lived in my town. So we got to spar quite frequently," Alex answered unfazed.
"You lived in Ukraine?" the teacher asked.
"What? No!" Alex said confused. "I grew up in Springfield. It's a two hour drive north from here."
The teacher, who looked equally confused at his answer, turned to one of the older students and asked him: "Is there a place called Springfield north from here?"
The boy he'd asked merely shrugged his shoulders.
"There is," Thomas said. "I've been there once, but it's REALLY small. Right? Alex?"
"Uhm, yeah," he answered a little shaken by the awkward reaction of the teacher and the student. He'd felt it in his core; his reality cracking. Only for a split second though. Thomas' immediate confirmation had chased away the feeling, but it had been there.
"Come on, Thomas," he taunted in an attempt to shake off the feeling and allowed a self-assured grin to show on his face. "I haven't practiced in half a year. If you're ever going to win from me, it'll be now."
The others laughed.
Alex watched as Thomas bit the corner of his mouth, trying to suppress a smile. By the looks of it, the others all respected Thomas and they thought it was funny the new guy was stupid enough to challenge him.
"God damn you! You're on," Thomas grumbled as he stepped up to him and the others cheered.
"Come on people, give them some room!" Sensei called and the others cleared a large circle of space around them.
"Ready?" the teacher asked, so Alex and Thomas faced each other and bowed once. "Go!"
As soon as the teacher gave the signal, they both stepped forward and grabbed each other's jacket. Almost immediately, they found themselves head-butting and unmoving.
"Damn it!" Alex cursed, as he saw Thomas grin and felt his feet slip on the mats, causing him to be pushed backwards.
"Yes, Thomas," the teacher said. "We all figured out that you're the heavier one. Now don't be ridiculous and show us some real Judo."
After that, Thomas ceased pushing, but almost immediately managed to hook his legs around one of Alex's legs and pulled it right from under him.
"Oof!" Alex huffed as he fell on his back with Thomas on top of him.
"One point for Thomas," the teacher said, sounding rather proud. "Again!"
This time, it was Alex who'd managed to get Thomas into a throwing position, but Thomas was prepared too and leaned with his full weight on Alex. It was enough to throw Alex's balance off so that Thomas landed on his side instead of his back and scrambled back up quickly.
"And that's why there are weight classes in competition," Alex complained as he rolled his shoulder. "You want to play dirty? Ok! Come on, throw me!"
Alex taunted as he placed his hand on Thomas's shoulder, just like he'd done with the teacher during practice, practically inviting Thomas to throw him.
Thomas took the bait. Just like the teacher, Thomas heaved Alex up on his shoulder and threw him, but instead off falling on his back like he was supposed to, Alex pushed his feet off of the ground to create more momentum.
This extra momentum threw Thomas off balance, which in turn allowed Alex to flip Thomas along with him.
As they lay on the ground, it took the others (including Thomas) a few seconds to realise what had happened. Thomas was the one lying on his back, being held down by Alex.
"Huh?!" a general shout of surprise and confusion filled the dojo.
"One more time!" Thomas grumbled in frustration as Alex helped him up. So they stood in front of each other again, and as soon as the teacher gave the "Go!" they were holding each other's jacket again.
This time it took longer for either one of them to land a hit, but finally it was Thomas who managed to trip Alex up. It was the exact same move he'd done the first time, but this time, instead of simply falling backwards, Alex pushed himself off of the ground again, flipping their situations over once more.
"We have a winner!" the teacher said as a very confused Thomas was lying once again on his back on the ground. "That was very impressive, young man! You'll be welcome to come and practice with us any time."
"Thank you," Alex said with a smile as he helped Thomas back up. "I'd like that very much!"
"Are you certain you don't want to join competition too?"
"Very certain, sir," Alex said.
"Hmm, I was afraid you'd say that. Thomas had warned me," the teacher said, shrugged and turned back to his students. "And what do you all think you're doing? Having a coffee clash? I bet you've all cooled down, so you can all run thirty laps around the dojo!"
The young ones groaned in complaint, but the big boys just laughed and started running. Alex was laughing too. He was really working up a sweat and he liked it. Maybe Amon's strong figure was a little out of reach, but he liked the idea of becoming physically stronger.
So for the time being, he'd focus on that.