Then and Now // Robby Keene x Reader

Chapter 4: Lotus and Live Lyrics

Robby sighed and rolled his eyes. "That was Cobra Kai... They're a bunch of assholes," he told me.

I scoffed. "That much was clear. One of them nearly ran into me," I said, shaking my head. Robby paused, looking at me. "Which one?"

"I think he had a mohawk, or something along those lines. It was dark, I couldn't really tell..." I shrugged. Robby let out an annoyed laugh. "I know exactly who you're talking about." Robby lifted his arm and circled his shoulder around.

I stopped sanding and sat on my knees. "Is your arm okay?" I asked him. He sat like me now. "It's my shoulder. But, it's getting better," he assured, "It's mostly just sore now."

"What happened?" I asked. Robby looked down and sighed tiredly. "Does it have to do with Cobra Kai?" I asked again.

Robby looked at me and nodded. "Yeah. What doesn't these days?" he asked sarcastically with a little chuckle.

"So these guys are really a big deal?" I raised my eyebrows. He looked at me like I was crazy. I looked back at him, confused. "What's the deal with you all?"

Robby laughed out loud. "There's not enough time to get into that right now," he said.

Why not? All we're doing is sanding a deck, for what seems like the rest of our lives... I thought.
I got back to sanding, just as Mr. LaRusso taught me. So did Robby.

I felt Robby's eyes keep glancing up at me. Every time I looked at him, he was looking down at the deck.

I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say.

So I looked back down and kept sanding.

THEN

I opened the door to the library and started walking towards our usual table, when I stopped in my place.

My eyes landed on Robby, who was already sitting at the table. He had his headphones on, listening to music loudly, while trying to spin a book on his finger like a basketball.

I walked over and dropped my backpack on the table. Robby took his headphones off.

"I'll be damned," I said.

Robby leaned back in his chair and stretched. "Don't act surprised that I'm here early," he said.

"Funny. I didn't know you knew what the word early meant." I sat down in the chair next to him. "This must be your first time being early to anything. How does it feel? Please, tell me."

"Do you ever shut up?" Robby asked.

"Why should I?" I asked after.

He leaned forward and opened his backpack. After rummaging around for a few seconds, he pulled out a stack of papers, which were in surprisingly good shape. He put them on the table and pushed them in front of me, before leaning back in his chair again.

I eyed him suspiciously before looking down at the papers. With each one I looked at, I began realizing what these papers were. I slowed down towards the end, completely silent. I looked at him again, my mouth fallen slightly open.

Another deep smirk grew on his face. "Finally some peace and quiet," he said. I ignored his jab and asked, "You actually did these?"