It's been two days after I came to Inoue Doi's household. And now, I'm in this oven of a gymnasium, wrestling for a Japanese promotion called 'World Justice League Wrestling'. It's a pretty big deal in Japan these days, but this was a small show before their big show in the Tokyo Dome, which I would also work. The booker, whose name I didn't quite catch, spoke at me in this mile-a-minute sort of way even by Japanese standards. From what little I could piece together from his severely broken English, I'm scheduled to face Inoue in a one-on-one match in about ten minutes.

What, was he trying to get me injured before I went back to the States to wrestle for Sin City?

So, here I sat in this furnace they're calling a locker room, gearing up for wrestling my match. I started wearing short tights a couple of years ago, which certainly helps withunnecessarily heated buildings and less so for those arctic conditions (like in Hokkaido). When I started wearing those, I also started wearing kickpads on my feet. Not necessarily because I kick a lot of people, but because I always thought they looked cool. Sadly, as I put my gear on, I realized I'd have to have new gear made toaccommodate my new gimmick as a 'fruit', so I made a mental note to call up Miranda O'Reily. She managed a couple of guys that I took under my wing last year, and she happened to be quite skilled at tailoring. I hear half the people in the Circle wear gear that she designed.

Nine minutes.

I had done my pre-match exercises already, but it didn't hurt to loosen up a bit more. So came some stretches and squats, which was part of my pre-match ritual, anyway.

The rest of the locker room I shared was filled with fellow 'gaijin', or foreigners, like myself. I recognized one of them as Franco Marx, an Italian-born wrestler that I helped to train in Joey Malone's backyard last year. He's still a little green, but he's almost a fast a learner as I am. He was a bit aloof, though, and other than saying 'hello' to me, he was off in his own little world. In my mind, he's tall and he had a good look, so I felt he could go far. Then again, there was no real guarantee how far you could go in this business. I've seen occasions where people with all of the talent in the world just couldn't catch a break.

It was around this time that I caught something like a feeling of malicious intent, and so I stopped what I was doing so I could brace myself. This feeling was usually accompanied by a person I happened to know, yet it was a feeling I hated to get. I felt like I was on one of those ships where alarms were sounding all over the place because of an imminent danger approaching the ship. Like torpedoes.

And, really, nobody could cause an entire locker room to suddenly stop what they're doing quite like Inoue Doi.

'Hmph.' was the only thing she said when I spotted her.

Eight minutes.

Inoue Doi used to wrestle under the moniker of 'the School Girl' a couple of years ago, and although she no longer wrestles under that name, that hasn't exactly stopped her from wrestling in a school uniform worn over the top of wrestling tights. It's more of a hit in America than anywhere else, though, if only because people from my country are a whole lot ruder and probably have weird fantasies that I don't feel right to talk about. As I recall, she adopted the gimmick to take advantage of that Kill Bill movie.

I couldn't imagine Inoue was here to talk about flower arranging. Much as wrestling was an artform to me, inflicting pain and misery on others was an artform to Inoue.

'Once again, I get stuck with you.' she told me in Japanese. Her tone was, of course, unpleasant. It was the only tone she ever had for me. The rest of the locker room knew better than to even come near Inoue Doi, even the guys who hadn't even met her before. Inoue had something of a reputation of being unpleasant, which she needed considering her size and her gender. Wrestling was predominantly male-oriented, and I knew very few female wrestlers that worked with men. To Inoue's advantage, or disadvantage depending on how you look at it, her reputation has caused men to actually fear facing her. My heart goes out to them, because I sort of know the feeling.

I am, after all, her absolute favorite punching bag.

'Well, Inoue, you could always complain to the guy in charge.' I told her in my most good-natured of tones, and in English. Franco, who was watching me talk to Inoue along with the rest of the locker room, looked at us as if I was Han Solo and she was Chewie. Well, at least I have his attention, now.

'I-I'm not complaining.' she responded, almost hastily. It was unusual of her to stammer like that.

Seven minutes.

I finished my stretching exercises, and I sat back down. Inoue was still there, of course, unless there was some other woman in the room with eyes that pierced through you like arrows. She hadn't left yet, so I assume she had some other reason for staring at me. I decided to oblige her, 'You didn't come here to wish me luck, did you?'

'Don't be absurd.' she responded, putting her hands on her hips and looking down on me. Both literally and, as I'm sure, figuratively as well. I never really know with this girl, that's for sure. After a few seconds, her hands slipped off her hips and she spoke again, her voice less of a whisper and more a growl, 'I've come to warn you that I'm going to hit you harder than I've ever hit you before.'

Oh, lovely. That's news I want to hear before my big debut in Sin City. A promise that I'm going to be beaten within an inch of my life. You know, I take back my earlier comment that she's warmed up to me, I think she just froze up on me. Was it because I was willing to go under the hood to possibly earn a better paycheck, thus ruining whatever respect she might have had for me? Or was she going to do it just because she'll miss me when I'm gone? I certainly wasn't going to try and ask her about it. Instead, I asked the obvious question.

'So, what'd I do to deserve such a royal beating, this time?' I asked her.

'Urasai.' she growled.

Roughly translated: Shut up.

I can't be the hostile one here, so I calmly asked, 'Did I do something to make you angry, Inoue?'

'Urasai!' she snapped back, 'I don't want to talk to you!'

'You're talking to me right now.' I calmly responded.

She got all quiet. I liked Inoue like that. Really, as long as she's not talking or beating the living hell out of me, I thought she was kinda cute. Maybe that's why some men still approached her. I honestly hope she doesn't encounter a masochist any time soon. You know, other than us professional wrestlers. I'm not sure how she'd handle it.

Six minutes.

Inoue was still there. I still got no answers out of her. Honestly, this was getting uncomfortable enough for me to stand up. I looked to Inoue, then I looked to the stares I was getting from the rest of the locker room. I knew it was time to get to the 'gorilla position'. After telling Inoue that I'd 'see her out there', I walked past her and headed in that direction.

Not long after I left, I heard Inoue calling me from behind.

'Matte.'

Roughly translated: Wait.

I stopped in my tracks and turned towards Inoue, 'I thought you didn't want to talk to me.'

'I lied.' she said, quite simply. She turned around at the locker room we had just exited, 'I just hate those miscreants in there.'

Admittedly, I had to ask Annie later just what the word for 'miscreant' meant, but I sort of understood her meaning regardless. The comment struck me as completely misanthropic, but also completely unsurprising given who said it.

'So, what did you come to me to talk about?' I asked her.

'Don't you earn enough money working in Japan?' Inoue asked me. She was, of course, referring to the fact that I was planning to come back to the States dressed as a fruit while wrestling for a promotion called Sin City Championship Wrestling. Apparently, she thought that I needed pride or shame or something. The more disconcerting thing about this, though, was that her tone suddenly got a lot less unpleasant. Somehow, that made me even more uncomfortable than theprecariously balanced love/hate relationship we've always had.

Five minutes.

'It's unlike you to be concerned about me.' I told her, 'I usually expect getting beaten up.'

Inoue glared at me. I hated it when she did that, especially right before I have to face her in a match. It usually meant she was going to kick me in the head hard enough to make me forget all of Mr. Patterson's sixth grade math in one shot. You know how animals have this instinct of impending danger? Humans have it, too. I'm experiencing this, at this very moment. Maybe I should try to convince the promoter that I'm deathly sick and should be replaced with another gaijin. I might be able to swing that, I think I might have enough star power around here.

Nah, on second thought, it might not be a good idea to anger that guy on my way out.

Inoue huffed, and puffed, but didn't blow down any houses. She seemed almost flustered as she asked her next question, 'Why don't you want to keep working here? You like working here, don't you?'

'I do. And I like working in the Circle. But... I already told you that I need to support Annie. If I keep having to fly back and forth between here and Japan, we'd both go crazy. The jetlag alone is killing the two of us, let alone the more ridiculous bumps I'm taking here. I don't exactly want to turn out like another wrestler who died before the age of 40, you know.' I told her. Granted, most wrestler deaths were due to drug abuse, which I thankfully have steered clear from.

Inoue glared at me, again. Those piercing brown eyes could kill a lesser man.

Or, at least, that's why I tell Franco not to make eye contact with her if he wanted to live.

Four minutes.

'Is this about me?' she asked suddenly.

That was not the question I was expecting, at all. Actually, I was pretty dumbfounded when she asked it. I know people think I don't know how to talk to girls, but... well, actually, they're probably on to something. Besides, Inoue Doi was hardly any girl I ever tried talking to. It's less like talking to a girl and more like talking to an uncaged beast. I responded the only way I knew how, 'Wait, what? Of course not.'

'I just...' she started. Once again, I cannot stress how strange this conversation was or how out-of-character I thought Inoue was acting. Did she eat the weird muffins before the show? 'I just have this feeling that you're going away and not coming back.'

I blinked. I took a quick look around the room, trying to spot the camera. Am I getting Punk'd? Then it occurred to me that, since she's speaking Japanese, nobody was going to get the joke but me. So the only viable conclusion I could draw from this was that she was serious. Great and wonderful. I decided to try and comfort her. Yeah, comfort the angry Japanese woman who likes to maim people, that's a good approach.

'I'm not going to be gone forever.' I told her.

Three minutes.

It's around this time that one of the stagehands came running up to us. Unlike Inoue, he wasn't shy about his English, even though it was still rather bad. I heard him call my name, 'You go now. Match in three minutes.'

Heeding the stagehand's broken words, I followed him to the staging area. WJLW didn't spare much expense in their setup, even if this was just a gymnasium, and while they had the focus on wrestling that I enjoyed, they had a certain degree of 'sports entertainment' in their shows as well. They had a big screen and pyrotechnics. They even get some big rock music for our entrances, I think I come out to some song by Megadeth. I'm not sure which, they all tend to sound the same to me.

Anyway, I got to the gorilla position and the first thing I did was to take a peak outside of the curtain.

Really, it was quite the crowd for such a small venue.

Two minutes.

I tried to loosen the joints in my arms, particularly after that somewhat uncomfortable conversation I just had. My mind wandered to what I agreed to do in Sin City, and that awful, awful mask. The more I thought of the idea, the more I dreaded the fact that I would be embracing a character who was so completely not me that it was outrageous. I sometimes think Inoue has the right idea and maybe I shouldn't go through with this for the sake of my pride.

Then I thought about Annie.

I'd been dating her for five years, but it was only as recently as last month that I proposed to her. She liked to come with me when I travelled to Japan, but if I'm just touring the States, she usually stayed home. As I understood it, she lived in Japan for a number of years, which was why she was fluent in their language. It's thanks to her coaching that I can have conversations with Inoue that don't involve me looking like an idiot in trying to figure out what she's saying. She was sweet and kind, and a large part of me wanted to just shield her from the rest of the world. I guess that's the kind of husband I wanted to be.

Given my luck with women before I met her, it's honestly a miracle that we've lasted as long as we have.

One minute.

Inoue was joining me at the gorilla position, but didn't speak a word to me. I guess she was done talking and wanted to get on with the violence. I adjusted my elbow pads, just in case they weren't set right. I most likely did this just because Inoue always made me uncomfortable.

'So, you think you can go twenty minutes?' Inoue asked me.

'Oh, come on, you pick now to question my stamina?' I replied sarcastically, 'That's very mature, by the way! Thanks.'

'Urasai.' was her simple response. Well, I guess we're back to the status quo. She's still gonna kick my ass.

I heard the Megadeth start up.

I heard the fans start to cheer.

Before I went through the curtains, I turned back to Inoue and gave her my last piece of advice, 'Good luck.'

I walked through the curtain.

Showtime.