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[ There is so much going unaddressed here. Paul may as well have put up a neon sign, it's that obvious. But it feels hard to push the boy about that when so much already happened today, and when Paul is probably in no state to accept or receive any of it in this moment.

.. it's information to file away for later, Daniel supposes. To try and convey to the other at another time, when feelings are perhaps a little less bruised.

(He hopes Paul will be okay in the meantime. That Johnny steps up. Sure, it's clear to Daniel that the other man cares about Paul, but Daniel just hopes that means he will follow up to that feeling by caring for the boy at a moment like this.) ]

Nothing about what happened today influences my opinion about you in any negative way. [ He instead types, hoping it's at least the tiniest bit reassuring.

He does mean it, after all. Awkwardly dodged issues or not. ]

So please don't worry about that in the light of everything else. Just talk to Robby soon. That's all I want, for you two to be okay.

[ Not even necessarily 'with each other', though that wouldn't be bad either. It's just that Daniel doesn't want the main outcome of this to be that both Paul and Robby will have to carry a sore spot with them into the future. ]

[Midoriya told Paul that he'd know the right words to express what he felt when the pieces fell into place, like looking at a taiyaki in a microwave and understanding yourself as another shape that heat and power move through. What Paul didn't ask him, because there is no answer, is when he would stumble across that understanding.

It isn't here, where Daniel's persistent kindness stirs up feelings in him like silt. He knows less about what he feels than he did before in half a dozen directions. The only clarity he has is in his determination to keep swimming through the murk until he finds whatever lies at its heart like a hard, hidden knot.

(Daniel's given him a mission. Paul's obedience comes as instinctively as when Paul settled under his restraining hands and the familiar resonance of his tone at the end of the fight.)]

I will.

I'll make sure that these events don't repeat themselves. It serves no one for this to persist into a feud.

Thank you for your forbearance. I won't disappoint you a second time.

[ Daniel's fingers almost automatically type 'you didn't disappoint me', but it kind of feels like Paul wouldn't believe him on that one, even if Daniel told him it at least twenty times.

So it's useless, right? He shouldn't keep typing it. And yet-- ]

You didn't disappoint me.

[ He finishes typing it anyway. He sends it anyway. Even if it might not get through to Paul, he still wants to have said it, to keep saying it, until the boy one day might realise it after all. ]

If you end up needing anything, and you can't reach Johnny [ Sure, Daniel is hoping the guy reached out to Paul, but with Johnny you just.. never can be quite sure.. ] just let me know.

Otherwise.. just rest up.

[Daniel LaRusso is a rival to Paul's teacher, the author of the great calamity of his life. Until very recently, this had been easy to remember, even if sometimes he might have wavered under the intrusion of certain contradictions.

He doesn't know what to do with that anymore.]

I am.

[He wants to say more; he doesn't know what it is. Something unfinished itches in him like a wound. He knows he's not done, but he also knows the ending to it is not here. Not yet.]

You trained him well. I look forward to seeing more from your students.

Until we speak next, Sensei LaRusso.

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