Unrequited
Yugao
Summary: Ganryu ponders the fifth Iron Fist Tournament and realizes that maybe, just maybe, his love for Julia isn't as true as he thought it to be.
Author's Note: I was watching Ganryu's T5 movie and came up with this. There are some sumo terms slipped into the story, and you'll find their meanings on the bottom author's note. I hope you like it, please review.
Disclaimer: I don't own Ganryu, Julia, Michelle, or anything else mentioned in this story apart from my ideas.
In the day, the dojo was filled with bulky young men, eager to learn the lethal art of sumo. Their heavy footfalls would reverberate through the balsa wood walls and floors, and their heavy breathing told of their determination. The smell of sweat and hard work would often displease others, but not Ganryu. He loved his students, and was pleased that they were trying their hardest to learn.
But it was not daytime. Outside, the moon was no more than a faint silver glow in the dark blue sky dotted with stars. The leaves rustled, whispering a secret song of regret.
How well Ganryu knew that song.
The orangey lamplight showed the Rikishi's face to be carrying a look of mixed emotions: something no one, not even his students, saw. He wore a mask of regret, sadness, and a broken heart, things not one person knew of the cheery sumo wrestler.
He pushed himself up off the floor, and the small, almost unnoticeable crick on the small of his back told him that he really was getting older. An old man, unmarried, plagued by two women I'd loved but didn't love me back.
He laughed a little as he remembered the first time he'd ever laid eyes on Michelle Chang. She was beautiful – with her dark brown hair, pale, almost Chinese skin tone very slightly tanned from the sun, and beautiful brown eyes. It was in the second Iron Fist tournament hosted by the Mishima Zaibatsu.
He was confident then, a cocky young Rikishi who wanted to prove his worth and test his mettle against the Iron Fist participants all over the world. He wanted to show them all that he was the strongest, the quickest, the best.
His first match?
Against a little girl called Michelle Chang.
Hah! He'd laughed it off when he first saw it on the match card. Surely this young American woman would be no match against a promising Rikishi, hoping to someday be promoted to the Yokozuna level.
He got ready for his match, taped his wrists and ankles as he usually did. His dark hair was styled in the topknot way that all sumotori used. He wore his favorite mae-tate-mitsu and mawashi for good luck. Not that he'd need it, that is.
He strode confidently to the place where the match was to be held, in the middle of a forest, with video cameras at the ready to capture everything that transpired in the match. He'd come early, thinking to psych out his opponent by his eagerness to begin the fight.
Then, she arrived.
In truth, she was ten minutes late, so he had been standing there for all ten minutes keeping up the façade of wanting to "finish her off quickly". She came, breathless and her face flushed from the exercise of running. Her dark brown hair was now unkempt, but still kept away from her face in a single braid.
Michelle Chang was not "a little American girl" as he had guessed, but a determined woman. Dressed in a brown leather jacket and a pair of shorts, with knee socks and just-as-high boots, she looked every bit the modern cowgirl. There was a headband and a feather atop her head, accentuating the look even more.
He tried not to drool.
Hey, he may have been an arrogant sumotori, but he was also a man.
Still, he refused to let that get in the way. He took his fighting stance, and after a few moments, the fight ensued.
After a few moments, it ended.
And he was lying on the ground, doubled over from both the pain and the shame of defeat. He admired how quickly, how expertly, Michelle was able to defeat him – when he thought he'd had the match in the bag.
When he was released from both the hospital and the tournament, he'd bought the biggest, reddest roses and put them in a magnificent bouquet. Then, he found Michelle after one of her matches, and proposed.
What? No move in romance was too fast for him.
He knelt there before her, holding out the bouquet of flowers in his outstretched hands as he awaited her answer.
"Michelle…?"
He looked up to see only her retreating figure.
Since his unceremonious rejection he'd built his own dojo, and began to train not only himself but apprentices. He vowed that the next time he and Michelle would meet, she would not be as lucky to win the match, nor would she be as rude to leave him waiting.
Waiting… wanting.
Years passed. The desire faded ever so slightly, but it was not the most pressing issue on his mind. The dojo needed caring for, the bills were piling up, and Yashashiku, one of his students, was not getting the technique quite right.
No, he had no time for silly fantasies.
More years passed, and he had nearly forgotten all about Michelle and the rejection he'd received several years ago. Pressed by all the problems plaguing him, he turned on the dojo television to find the TV coverage of the fourth Iron Fist Tournament.
"Michelle? Is that… is that you?"
His jaw fell, as he reached out to touch the screen. Michelle hadn't aged at all, didn't look a day out of twenty. She was a bit more tanned now, with hair much longer… but no less beautiful.
No, it wasn't Michelle, he learned as the announcer called her name: Julia Chang.
Julia Chang. Michelle's daughter, perhaps?
My dear Michelle has had a child by another? The thought sparked once more the dulled desire for her.
Still, he vowed to finish with Julia what he had not accomplished with Michelle…
He entered the fifth Iron Fist Tournament, knowing Julia would be there. He would not miss the chance this time.
The fates certainly seemed on his side, that he was able to win his first three matches.
His luck changed, though, when he had to face Julia in his fourth match.
She was beautiful, so much like her mother and yet so little like her. The fierce fighting spirit was too instilled in her, as it had been with Michelle. That was all he needed to love her for.
"Oh no! So, in order to win the tournament and retrieve the forest rejuvenation data, I must defeat my dear Julia!" he jabbered in Japanese as she stood before him, clearly not understanding a word he was saying.
"Um, sir…" her tone was polite, almost respectful. "Can we please start the match already?"
He grinned as he answered, still in Japanese. It intimidated foreign women, he'd heard. After all, that pretty boy Jin Kazama did it all the time. It'd work with him too, wouldn't it?
… Wouldn't it?
Shades of his first match several years ago returned, when in less than fifteen minutes she was able to defeat him, without breaking a sweat.
"I'm sorry Julia, I couldn't do it, I wasn't strong enough…"
As he looked up, she had left.
Why must this always happen to him? Maybe he was going about this the wrong way.
Armed with that single thought, he infiltrated the Mishima Zaibatsu, defeated the Tekken forces still on duty that night, and stole the forest rejuvenation data. He didn't pretend it would be easy – he was lucky enough that his heavy footsteps didn't wake up Heihachi himself.
The Iron Fist Tournament was nearing its end. He left a message at the hotel Julia was staying in, for her to meet him by the dock just outside the city. There, he would return the data, and profess his love.
He had butterflies in his stomach as the sound of the light, running footfalls drew closer. He turned to see Julia standing there, pretty as she always was. He took out the data that he'd tucked safely in his mae-tate-mitsu and handed it to her.
"Here, take this," he said shyly.
She took it carefully, and smiled a tight-lipped smile that made him blush. "Thank you. With this, I'll be able to bring back the forest."
"That aside, I wanted to tell you something," he continued, "I…"
He knelt down, and opened the small velvet box he'd been carrying all this time. "I really like you!"
"Julia-chan?"
He looked up, and she was gone.
Here he was, back in his dojo a month after the rerun of his rejection. He sighed as he sat back down on the cushion, his legs weary of years of fighting.
Did he really love Michelle?
Perhaps.
Did he really love Julia?
He wasn't so sure.
After all, he only loved her because she reminded him so much of Michelle, his first love. She had the same warlike spirit, the same love for nature. But she just wasn't Michelle – he realized that now.
"Maybe," he murmured, "It's time to let them both go."
Author's Note: Mae-tate-mitsu is the loincloth they wear, mawashi is the thick silk belt. Rikishi means sumo wrestler, sumotori means competitor but actually would mean sumo wrestler as well, and Yokozuna is the highest level in sumo. That aside, please review?