"Stop."

She freezes immediately, every muscle locking in place like she's a statue. Her palms are both turned towards the training dummy, at a slight angle from each other, one right above the dummy's left breast and one to the right of its center, only a few inches away from its surface. Her hits were sufficiently powerful that the sudden stop caused a small clap of air around her hands.

The Fist starts to walk between the apprentices in the yard, examining their form critically. He issues wordless corrections here and there, lifting someone's arm by half an inch or adjusting the angle of their stance by a degree. 

Annika's form is perfect, as usual. 

"Continue," he says, once he's done a full round of the yard.

One-two-THREE...

"Good job out there."

The Fist usually leaves before all of the apprentices, ostensibly to let them unwind and socialise without the pressure of an instructor around, but Annika usually leaves right after him because she wants to do neither of those things. Still, she's surprised to see him waiting for her like that. 

"Thank you, Fist Joo Tae-seo."

He resumes walking and motions with his head for her to follow.

...sure.

"A little bit too good, though, don't you think?"

She blinks. "Fist Joo Tae-seo?"

"Why have you not taken the test to move to the next belt?"

"—I am not done with this belt yet."

"No? That seemed like very good form to me. I didn't correct you once."

"It's still not perfect."

"What's perfection, to you, Annika?"

...what kind of philosophical question is that. "May I think about it for a few seconds?"

"You may."

It transpires that the location he's leading her two is one of the gardens, the one with the weeping willows. It's the season for them to flower, so the gardens are particularly pretty right now. He walks along the babbling brook, arms folded behind his back, looking up at the trees and sky, seemingly perfectly content to wait however long she needs.

She watches him for a bit. He's wearing the instructor's gi, loose around his body except for the belt keeping his trousers up. He's extremely muscled under the gi, the kind of person you might say "built like a house" about, and his head is shaved. That's someone who has spent decades honing their body until it became a precisely controlled weapon. 

"...your footsteps, Fist-nim."

"—hmm?" He pauses and turns around to look at them.

"They're regular. The distance between them is always the same. The angle is always the same. Mine aren't."

"And so you would say that I walk perfectly, and you do not?"

She nods.

"Why do you want your footsteps to be perfectly regular, Annika?"

She blinks. "Because it means I am in full control of my body."

"Elaborate?"