Chapter 11
After many descriptions and directions from people, I finally found the dojo and it looked nothing like an actual dojo. It was actually just an open space. Hardly had anything in it and I found it a bit disappointing. I had imagined how the place would look like and what I saw in real life, was nothing close to it.
My eyes caught a mop of sandy brown hair and moved closer to see Levi sitting on the floor, probably lost in space. His eyes were transfixed in a particular position and his face had no expression of its own. Just plain. He was dressed in his usual crimson red leather jacket. Only this time, he had dark denim jeans and black combat boots.
I waved my hand in front of his face and it made him blink. He looked at me and his expression softened. "Hey. You're here."
"I hope I'm not late. You did say 6, right?"
"You're on time. I've just been here since 5."
"5am? Doing what?"
He shrugged. "Planning. Calculating. Thinking."
"Being a leader here must be a lot of work. It's surprising you have time for this."
"That's why I have a council. To assist my plans. The people you met with yesterday are part of the council. I may be the leader but every plan I make, goes through them. Each of them are representatives from continents all over the world. Juan is the American representative. He's Peruvian American. Red is a Australian. Laurena's French. T.J is Korean. Our Asian representative. Aliyah's my second in command. She's not a rep. We used to have an African rep, but she turned 21 and joined the adult council. That space is still opened but we aren't searching right now."
"It's like a legit administration. With laws and leaders of its own. It's really impressive what you guys did here. I don't even know how you guys can afford any of this. I'm guessing your father's the sponsor."
Tilting his head slightly, he replied. "He's the main sponsor. But there are other sponsors. Many of them. My dad only holds 63 percent of our sponsorship."
"63%? Wow. How is it like to have Vikram Caden as a father? Having a billionaire father must make your childhood pretty unique."
"How about we start with the training, instead of prying into my personal life?"
He sounded pretty defensive and it surprised me. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. I'm just a fan of your father's. I even managed to get into Caden University. It was my dream radiant school. It wasn't like I was trying to gather Intel on you."
He rubbed his temples slowly and sighed. The eye bags I noticed when I first met him, were still very evident now. "Sorry. I shouldn't have sounded rude. I'm a little tired and talking about my father isn't one of my favourite topic. In fact, it's my least favourite thing."
"That bad?"
"You have no idea. Now, please do me a favor by pulling me up."
I hadn't even paid attention to the fact that he was still sitting on the floor. I reached out for his outstretched arm and dragged him up. He tilted on his feet and leaned towards where I stood. Our eyes locked for a split second. I couldn't help staring at the yellow flecks that surrounded his eyes.
Levi's face went still and quickly cleared his throat. He stepped back and broke free of my grip. "Sorry about that. Let's get to work. Have you ever been in a fight?"
Thinking for a short while, I responded. "None that I can recall. I usually avoid conflict."
"And here you are, running into it."
Rolling my eyes. " Let's just start."
He motioned his arms in my direction. "Come at me. I want you to throw a punch at me."
My eyes widened. "What if I hurt you?"
"That's really considerate of you, but I hardly doubt that."
"You're that confident in your skills, aren't you?" I grunted.
"I'm pretty sure I can survive your hit. But I'm actually more confident that you can't hit me."
"Is that a bet?"
"What do we bet on? Today's lunch sounds reasonable."
I didn't respond, mostly because I wanted to see what he was so confident about. I threw my first punch. I could swear that he didn't even pay attention to it, but somehow, I found him holding a grip of my arm and tumbling me around. I landed with a small thud and groaned softly.
He leaned lower and a wide smirk plastered on his face. "I may have forgotten to mention the fact that hitting me might be impossible because of my exception."
I grumbled. "What's your exception?"
"Fast reflexes. Wanna hear the breakdown of how my body does that?"
"And waste my time to give you the chance to act arrogant about it? No, thank you."
He chuckled. "Need a hand?"
I muttered my thanks and let him pull me from the ground. "What was the point of kicking my ass, right now? Or did you want to show off your superpower?"
"It's not a superpower. It's an exception. I did have good reasons for that. Sorry if you hurt any part of your body, but I needed to see your stance."
"My stance?"
"Your fighting stance. I needed to see how you did so. Every fighter needs a stable stance and yours was pretty awful."
"I've never fought before."
"Hence why I'm not completely judging you."
I rolled my eyes. "So what's wrong with my stance?"
Lifting his lips slightly, he pointed out. "Firstly, your legs aren't angled well. Let's start with that first."
He positioned himself in a particular way. His feet were angled slightly to the side and the knees faced the same direction of the feet. Levi then raised the rear end of his heel and placed the weight on the ball of the foot. I tried to imitate him and instead looked like a hen that's about to lay an egg. "You need to watch how I'm doing it."
I groaned. "I am doing that."
"Just do whatever you're doing and I'll show you" I repeated my cringe-worthy stance and ignored the sigh Levi gave. He moved closer to me and adjusted my legs to the right position. The feel of his body against mine made my senses heighten.
I could feel his warm breath against my neck, as he spoke and continued to adjust my body to form the perfect stance. His voice was steady and calm. "Three months are never going to enough to turn you into a proper fighter, but I will teach you the basics. Help you learn how to use guns and any other basic military training you need. You need to put your heart and mind into it, if you want to do well. Do you understand?"
I turned my head to lock my eyes with his. His amber orange eyes raked my face slowly. "Yes, I do."
I had no idea why I sounded so breathless. Being so close to proximity with him, had my head spinning. I needed to try to sound as confident as possible.
He stepped back and gave me a loop sided grin. "Great. Now let's get back to business."