Post by Yujiro Fujiwara on Oct 8, 2016 6:44:19 GMT -5
“You look a bit, unsettled,” Tammy Fujiwara said as she sat on the couch next to her husband. “What's the deal? Was it one of the dishes I made today?” She asked with a small laugh.
Before she took on the role of being his lovely wife, Tammy had been quite famous in her own right. Since her earliest memories, she’d played soccer. It was her love; it was her dream. She lived the sport throughout high school, throughout college. Upon graduating, it was her intent to play for the U.S. National team; nonetheless, she wasn’t able to at the time, due a small injury.
Simply put, she was an athlete. Hell, up until a few years prior, most people would have considered her a tomboy. Therefore, trivial things such as cooking were the least of her worries.
Normally, Tammy’s meager jokes would have made her husband smile. But, for whatever reason, that wasn’t the case this time. Instead, Yujiro stared at their sixty-inch TV screen, which was with imagine of a man being suplexed. “Babe, can I ask you something?” he asked without removing his eyes from the screen.
“Of course,” she said as she moved a bit closer and placed her right arm around his shoulders. “Let me guess—this debut is bothering you, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he replied. Yujiro shook his head a bit as he rubbed his forehead.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Ha, I guess this battle royal was the kind of return that I was expecting, you know?
“A one on one match, that’s how you turn head; that’s how you change people’s minds about you. When it’s mano-y-mano, you can let your full talent hang out and be on display. Of course, some will ignore it; others will attempt to discredit. However, if you’ve really got ‘it’, then it will translate and transmit to people watching.” Yujiro shook his head lightly. “But, that’s not the case with a battle royal. Because of the situation, because of the restrictions, your skills are a bit limited. You could be a great wrestler, and still look like a damned fool in a battle royal. And, I don’t have the luxury of looking like a fool…”
Back when Tammy first meet him, Yujiro made been described as slightly arrogant; and, with good reason. His first bit of success in the Business was a world championship. And, when he was faced with his first real setback, he buckled down and reclaimed it.
He was great, he knew, and he wasn’t afraid to exclaim it.
As time went on though, Yujiro mellowed out. Sure, he still knew is worth as wrestler, but as time passed (and he gained age), he didn’t feel the need to tell the world so much.
However, in their time together, she’d never really seem him on edge; she’d rarely seen him nervous. He proposed with no issues, he kept his cool when he was a paralegal, and he always stayed calm when he was training students.
“Hell, I don’t even know why I’m watching these tapes. None of this stuff is going to matter in a battle royal—”
Before he could finish, Tammy placed two fingers over his lips.
“Shhh,” she said. “Babe, your nerves are just bad. You probably don’t want to admit that, but, we both know it’s true.” She paused for a second. “And, to be quite honest, it’s natural. The couple of times I joined a new team after switching, or coming back from injury...well, they were nerve-racking.” She nodded. “You feel like you’ve got to give one hundred and fifty percent out there. You feel like you have to do something grand—
“But, for real babe...all you’ve got to do is go out there and wrestle. You’ve just got to go out there and do you.” Again, she paused. “I know this wasn’t the return to the sport that you were expecting, but, it was the hand you were dealt.”
Tammy leaned in and put her head on his shoulder. “You’ve got to look at the positives, babe. You are in the running for a championship. That’s an honor right?”
“Indeed it is,” he said. “However, I know how this works. If I win the belt, people will tell me that it was just a fluke...just happenstance. If I fail to win, they’ll say I was never any good to begin with; and then, my efforts in that match will all blend in together and fade away.”
“Hmm,” Tammy responded. “I’m not going to tell you any lies, babe. No no matter what happens, you’re facing an uphill battle. You’ve been out of the game for a while. I’m not justifying anyone’s perceptions of you, but that’s a fact. Now, people like Anton Chase could have Googled your name. However, you know how people are—lazy as hell.”
She let out a small sigh. “Look, you're an athlete. Therefore, I know your heart wants that belt; your heart wants that glory. But, no matter what happens out there, just…” Tammy let out another sigh in frustration. “Sorry, my thoughts got jumbled.
“What I mean to say is, no matter what, you’ll going to have to scrap. You’re going to have to fight. Therefore, you might as well go into everything with a clear mind. There’s no need for you to stress out about anything; it won’t help.”
She repositioned herself so that she could look him in the eyes. “I don’t want you to think of the implications. No risk-reward shit. In a few days, the only thing you need to do is go out and wrestle. And afterwards, we’ll come up with a game-plan to get you where you need to be, alright?”
For a moment, they simply stared at each other. After a while though, Yujiro nodded his head. “Yeah yeah, I got you.”
“Good,” she said with a smile. “Now, turn this off. Let’s go out for milkshakes or something.”
