Guests, Part 2
“So you’re telling me that last time—the very first time you met—you just jumped straight into practicing like that?”
“That’s right. We stretched a little and went right into it.”
After finishing our practice match with Charlotte, the three of us sat right down on the canvas.
“Charlotte I can understand. But Rina could do it too? You expect me to believe that?”
“When did I ever have time to meet her separately? It was only that one day… We arrived in the evening, stayed for just an hour and a half, then headed straight to Cleveland.”
Alicia still wore an expression of pure disbelief as she looked back and forth between us.
“Alicia. There’s something else that should surprise you even more, right?”
Only then did Alicia clap her hands as if the thought had finally clicked.
“Right! The time! How did you know the match time?”
“Once the match starts, you just count. It’s not that hard.”
“Insane! You count all of that?”
“Hey, I forget midway sometimes too. But when that happens, I just check with the referee and start counting again.”
“Where the hell did a monster like this—no, a kid like this—come from?”
Alicia’s face said she simply could not process it.
“You were pretty monstrous yourself, Alicia unnie.”
“Me? Why?”
“I’ll never forget that three-two-one for the rest of my life.”
“Y-You…!”
“Puhahaha. Same here. I’ll never forget it either.”
Alicia trembled all over.
She was just too cute.
Moments like this made it perfectly clear why a thirty-six-year-old woman was still called a fairy.
For dinner I prepared something easy—bulgogi.
“You’re a good cook.”
“It’s not a difficult dish.”
“Yeah. It’s so good. Let’s eat this tomorrow and the day after too.”
Tomorrow was one thing, but the day after as well?
Wait—how many days were they planning to stay?
“Huh? Alicia, you have a husband and a daughter, don’t you?”
“My husband’s on tour right now. And I left our little princess at my mom’s place.”
“Then how long are you two staying here?”
“What, you don’t like us being around?”
“Want us to get lost already?”
“No, no, it’s not that. I still have to go to work at TPA.”
The two of them looked as if it made no difference whether I was there or not.
“We can just quietly work out on our own.”
“Or we could drop by the WWO Performance Center for a bit. Or visit the 3D Academy.”
At the words “3D Academy,” Alicia’s face lit up with a bright smile.
“Charlotte. That sounds great. Let’s go see the Dudley uncles.”
N-No, not there. John and Jane are working on the scenarios there right now.
I was going to lose my mind.
How had things come to this?
Regardless of whether those two could keep their mouths shut, nothing good would come of this getting out.
“Just a moment. I need to call my director and tell him I probably can’t come in.”
“You can just go to work. Worried we’ll mess the place up? This house is so bare there’s nothing to mess up.”
“I’d rather decorate it a bit. What kind of house is this for a twenty-year-old girl?”
“Alicia. You were the same way. Always wearing nothing but baggy old clothes… Now do you understand the lectures we used to give you?”
Unlike her pretty face, Alicia had zero interest in fashion. She also hated luxury and waste. She always went around in nothing but old training gear. It had been so bad that her colleagues once dragged her to a shop and tried to buy her clothes.
“A little?”
“Ha! So this is what mirror therapy feels like.”
I escaped their nagging by heading to my room and calling the director.
— Ring… ring… ring… ring —
After a short wait, Carl answered.
“Rina. What’s going on all of a sudden?”
“Director, is this a good time to talk?”
“For a moment, sure.”
“Well… the thing is…”
I explained that the two of them had shown up yesterday afternoon and were staying at my place.
“Hmm…”
“Everything else is fine, but they’re talking about visiting the 3D Academy.”
“Your opponent’s already set as Charlotte, so you don’t need to come in tomorrow. And for Thursday’s show we can just do a short promo. Still, having the Academy exposed isn’t ideal. I’ll give Jane a call.”
“Understood.”
“Ha! Next time, contact me first about something like this. Once we’re fully absorbed, you absolutely cannot make a mistake like this with their director.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
I had no choice but to keep apologizing. The director said he would get back to me by tomorrow morning and hung up.
“Where’d you go?”
“I called the director to tell him the seniors are here, so I can’t come in tomorrow.”
“I already said you can just go to work.”
“How could I? I have guests!”
“Pfft.”
After that, Alicia gave her assessment of the practice match she had watched.
“It had intensity. But it was too tight. I wish there’d been a few more surprise roll-ups. And the finish felt like it ended a little too easily in one go. Your signatures didn’t really show either.”
There should have been multiple covers, but the match had ended on a single one. We also hadn’t used many aerial moves.
“We just tried it once for practice. Nothing’s officially set. We don’t even know how many minutes they’ll give us yet.”
“True. You need the match time first. And Charina still hasn’t fully settled on her colors, but Charlotte—you erased too much of yours.”
“Really? Was it that bad?”
“Not bad, exactly. Just… unfamiliar. Like watching someone else.”
Alicia was one of WWO’s top veterans and a main eventer. From a third-party perspective she coldly broke down what worked and what didn’t.
“Rina, want to rework the match tomorrow?”
“Following Alicia unnie’s advice?”
“Yeah. Cut back a little on the power moves and add more submissions and roll-ups.”
“Got it.”
Charlotte suggested we polish the weak spots a bit more, and I agreed. Alicia, however, clearly didn’t like being left out of the process.
“Hey! Let me put something together too.”
“You’re not in a rush. Do it next time.”
“I didn’t come all this way just to watch!”
“Should we call Dorothy?”
“Why would we call Dorothy here?”
“You could ask them to book you a match with Dorothy after all this time.”
“Hmm. But would they even book three women’s singles matches at the Halloween Battle?”
If women’s singles matches were booked, one would definitely be the champion-versus-champion clash between Tashani Strackton and Anne Clemens. Then ours with Charlotte—that made two. At most they might squeeze in an IC title match. That would already be three.
“What about a tag team with Vianna unnie instead? Pair that against Dorothy and Selma or Tyna and you’d get a similar picture.”
“The problem is whether the scenario actually goes the way we want.”
“Unless we can meet John Michaels… but we can’t even reach him. Where the hell is that guy hiding?”
Paul, the CCO, had handed all authority over to John, so everyone wanted even a single word with him for a good spot. Right now the entire WWO roster seemed desperate to find John Michaels.
The next morning, after we finished our run and were eating sandwiches at a nearby diner, Jane Kim called.
“Hello, unnie.”
“Rina! Where are you right now?”
“Eating breakfast right in front of the house.”
“Yeah? I’m on my way to you.”
“Huh?”
“Ten minutes? That should be enough. See you soon.”
“Un-unnie—”
The call cut off before I could say anything more.
“What? Who was that?”
“Jane unnie. She says she’s coming to our place right now. I’ll head back first. Finish eating and come.”
“Why first? Let’s go together.”
“We can eat while we walk.”
Alicia stood up with her sandwich still in hand. Charlotte shook her head but rose with hers as well.
“Puhaha. If a fan snaps a photo of this, it’ll be huge.”
“It’s just embarrassing.”
“So what? We’re not doing anything wrong.”
“I don’t like it.”
Unlike Alicia, who was famously free-spirited, Charlotte seemed to genuinely dislike eating on the street. It wasn’t just a gimmick—she really was refined in everyday life.
We had barely stepped inside the house when the doorbell rang less than a minute later.
“Who is it?”
“Rina, it’s me.”
“Yes, come on in—”
I opened the door to find Jane standing there. Right behind her was John, wearing a cowboy hat.
“So this is Rina’s place?”
John pushed past Jane and me and walked straight in.
“What the hell? How does a person live like this? There’s nothing here.”
At the unfamiliar male voice, the two who had been in the bathroom and kitchen came out immediately.
“John!”
“Uncle!”
They rushed him like family. Both of them had come up through NEXT as rookies, so they clearly felt something like family—or a mentor—toward the man who had practically founded and led NEXT back then.
“Charlotte. Alicia. You two been well?”
“How are you here?”
“Wow, everyone’s been hunting for you like crazy and you’ve been hiding in Orlando this whole time? Were you at the Performance Center?”
“That’s not important. Sit down first.”
John settled onto the sofa and Jane took a seat as well. I went to the kitchen and brought out drinks and dessert. While I did, the two of them exchanged greetings with Jane too.
“Kim, it’s been a while.”
“It has. Both of you. We ran into each other once before, right?”
Jane was more than ten years their senior, so they treated her with clear respect.
“Charlotte, I heard you barged into the meeting room and threatened them?”
“Threatened? I simply exercised my legitimate right to propose a scenario.”
“Still, doing that in the meeting room is a bit much.”
“Paul wouldn’t take my calls and kept running away.”
“There wasn’t a single scenario that put Rina against you. Originally we were going to put Rina with Dorothy and Anne in a six-woman tag. You completely wrecked the booking.”
This was the first I’d heard of it. So that was why they had told Anne, Dorothy, and me not to form a stable.
“Who were you going to put me against?”
“Tashani Strackton, Nadia Jackson, and Alicia. You.”
At the name Alicia, Alicia immediately exploded.
“Hey! Charlotte! You! You cut in line!”
“I didn’t know, so how is that cutting in line?”
Jane cut them off, saying there was no time for this.
“So how’s the chemistry between you two?”
“Really good.”
“Yes, I like it too. Want to see the footage?”
“You recorded it?”
“Yes. Should I show it now?”
“No time to watch it here. Email it to Jane.”
“Understood.”
John spoke to me, then turned his gaze to Alicia.
“Alicia. Head to the WWO Performance Center this afternoon.”
“Huh? All of a sudden?”
“Yeah. Someone screwed up the schedule, so both your match and your opponent changed.”
Alicia looked a little startled by the sudden change. John glanced sideways at Charlotte as he spoke.
Charlotte?
She met John’s eyes with the same shameless face she wore in the ring.
“You’re being put with Vianna Belair and Nadia Jackson against Dorothy, Olivia, and Selma. Twenty-minute six-woman tag. Not bad, right?”
“Hmm. Is it the kind where people get eliminated one by one?”
“That’s right. You’re the last one out.”
“What? So we’re losing?”
Alicia was more shocked by the loss scenario than by being sent to the Performance Center.
“Yeah. Final winner is Dorothy. Dorothy’s not bad, right?”
“Yes. Dorothy I can accept. But who’s coming to the Performance Center?”
“Everyone. Vianna and Nadia will be over soon too. Work on the chemistry there. You’ve only got until tomorrow afternoon, so it’s going to be busy.”
Wow. He really did have full authority—his drive was no joke.
“John. How many minutes is our match?”
“I’ll contact you after I watch the footage. And just so we’re clear—don’t breathe a word that you saw me here. Not even if you run into Vianna or Nadia.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll keep quiet.”
Having said everything he needed to, John stood up with Jane less than ten minutes after arriving, claiming he was busy.
“Alright, everyone work hard and take care of yourselves.”
“Yes, understood.”
“Take care.”
“Lips sealed.”
“We’re out.”
Once they left, Alicia said she would head over to the Performance Center early as well.
“Unnie, use my car.”
“I can just take a taxi… You sure?”
“It’s only a ten-minute drive. What’s the big deal?”
“Alright. I’m grateful if you’re lending it. Sigh. I just wanted to stay here longer… I’ll take good care of the car.”
With that, Alicia left too. Charlotte and I began reworking the match scenario from scratch.