Okay (feat. Kerry Kuroyama)

“As a kid there is nothing quite like that feeling you get when you open your eyes on Christmas Day.

No matter how hard you tried to stay up to catch 'Santa' in the act, or how much you were told that there wouldn’t be any presents under the tree until you went to bed… you still kept one eye open, your heart racing and your mind going a mile a minute wondering if that one gift — that one special gift you really wanted — would be there.

That feeling? Rushing down the stairs in your socks and pajamas and turning the corner to see those gifts under the tree? It made you completely forget that they were all written in your mom’s handwriting.

Even if it was just for a second, it made you believe…

And then, as you get older, you lose sight of it somehow. You see your mother struggling to pay the bills and notice there are fewer gifts that year. And then less. And less. And less until it’s a single gift you maybe exchange, or you buy for yourself and pretend to be surprised when you open it.

The last time I felt like Christmas was special, truly special? It’s burned into my memory…

December 25, 2003. I was 10 years old and there was nothing more in the world that I wanted than a handheld camera. You know, the ones that used to run on MiniDVs? God… I used to have boxes of those tapes. But that’s beside the point.

What I’m trying to say is that morning was as perfect as could be. I woke up right at 7 AM – never mind that you couldn’t pry me from bed any earlier than 7:45 on a school day – and rushed to the window.

It was a white Christmas.

The snow was falling in huge clumps and there were 4 to 5 inches on the ground already. With it being Christmas the plows hadn’t even been through yet and the sun was just coming up from over our neighbor’s house. That was when I smelled them - my mom’s famous orange rolls. Well, they were famous to me, and it took me longer than it should have to realize they were just Pillsbury-brand rolls. But fuck were they delicious.

I grabbed my slippers and peeled out of my room, jumping over every other stair until I reached the landing and skidded to a stop in the entryway of the living room.

We never really had much money, not for a real tree anyways, so we made do with a five-foot plastic tree begging to be put out of its misery. We also never really had real ornaments, or lights… but we made do with what we had: garland from leftover movie theater popcorn and strips of newspaper that we made to look like tinsel.

My mother never hosted folks for Christmas. It was just us. The tree was our little secret.

Under the tree were probably a dozen gifts - huge boxes wrapped just as perfectly as they always were. A plate of half-eaten cookies and a chewed up carrot sitting on the coffee table next to a half-finished glass of milk.

I had a feeling by that age that Santa wasn’t real, but neither were Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins, it didn’t matter the why or the how, just that they were there. They meant something.

So then I pivoted and slid into the kitchen the way every child with too much energy on hardwood floors does and nearly crashed into my mom holding a plate of hot rolls. She was mad at first but then realized how excited I was and led the way back into the living room so we could start opening presents.

“Remember to save the tags” she would always say… even though most of them were from her or Santa. She still made sure I wrote thank you notes back to Noni and Papa for their gifts, even if it was just a pack of Fruit of the Loom boxers.

The mystery of the presents overpowered my rumbling stomach as I dove in and began to move the boxes around, hoping I’d find a small, rectangle-shaped box the size of a MiniDV player, but I didn’t… and while I was disappointed, I understood.

I could feel my mom’s eyes watching as I searched. Knowing what I was searching for. But she never said anything … she just went to the kitchen to grab a trash bag for the wrapping paper. But not the tags. Never the tags.

Everything that Christmas was great. It really was.

Teen Titan bedsheets. A new coat to replace one that was falling apart. The first four Harry Potter books - used A sketch book and colored pencils

They were things I loved, things to nurture my creativity, things to keep me safe… practical gifts.

It wasn’t until I turned around after unwrapping my last gift that I saw her there, holding a small, rectangular box.

The size of a MiniDV camera.

I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know what she sacrificed to get it for me… but it was there. It was mine. It wasn’t just something for me … it was something I wanted."

Nathan pauses and looks up into the eyes of the man sitting across from him.

“So. What do you want now?”

Two Weeks Earlier. Five Days After Colossus.

Blaze Claymore pushes the door open to Bulkkoch BBQ, Atlanta’s “best-hidden secret” according to his dining partner, but he immediately felt reservations, and not in the way you usually have them at restaurants.

There was a thick, burning smell in the air and from what he could tell the kitchen took up half of the available dining space. Except this wasn’t a hibachi place - it looked like someone took 1950s Korea and 1950s Americana and smashed them together. The kind of dirty that you can only get from somewhere that only the locals know about.

So how did he know about this place? Wasn’t he from Seat-

“Yo! Over here.”

Waiving Blaze over to a nearby booth is the Emerald Apex himself, Kerry Kuroyama, already digging into his plate of food, which did, admittedly, look pretty tasty.

“Why did you want to meet at a place called Bull Cock?”

Kerry squints, thinking Blaze was joking but then realizing no, he is not.

“It’s pronounced Bool-Kkott, dude. Just… sit down. By the way, you’re late.”

Blaze slides into the booth, looking around to make sure no one is looking at him. His attempt to keep a low profile and sneak back into Montevideo went up in flames the second he laid his hands on Erik Black in the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport.

Even Marcus warned him not to try and come home. He sounded scared…

“Hey, you tweaking right now?”

Nathan’s brain fog clears as he looks over at Kerry.

“Excuse me?”

“The name isn’t supposed to be a stoner reference, is it?”

Blaze scoffs, taking off his sunglasses, which, in retrospect, is a bad look inside a restaurant at noon on a weekday.

“No. I don’t touch that shit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Kerry nods, shoveling some sort of Asian coleslaw into his mouth.

“Good,” he says. “Cause if you did, then that would have been weirdly apropos considering what you’re getting into. How about alcohol?”

Blaze hesitates. Kerry presses.

“Well?”

“I had a problem for a bit, but ever since… Kael. I find it best to keep my head clear. I see enough weird shit as it is.”

“Heh, I know that feeling…” chuckles Kuroyama, sweeping up a tumbler of whisky on the rocks and savoring a sip.

Blaze arches an eyebrow. “Why are you asking?”

Kerry leans back and sets his tumbler down.

“Because of who you’re taking on in just under a month,” says the Emerald Apex in a firm tone.  “Erik Black may look like an idiot -- and take my word for it, he is -- but he’s also one of the most tenacious son of a bitches you’ll ever fight. He’s got a freakish combination of resilience and resourcefulness that should never be underestimated.”

Kerry sips off his whisky once more, his haunted gaze staring into his plate of food.

“Just remember, this guy is a former Universal Champion,” he continues. “And that was when he was -- if you’ll pardon the pun -- blazed out of his gourd all the time. Now that he’s clean, and preaching gospel? He’s more than just unpredictable. He’s downright dangerous. And you, what, just won and lost your only title on your first defense?”

Blaze crosses his arms across his chest.

“You don’t need to put it like that.”

“Sorry. Just trying to make a point.”

As the two are talking, a very short and sweet Korean woman approaches the table.

“Coffee?”

Blaze waves his hand dismissively.

“Coffee.”

Blaze looks over at Kerry, who just shrugs.

“Coffee!”

The woman screams toward the back and then scurries away from Blaze and Kerry as the man once self-proclaimed as the “Main Event” looks around like Vincent Vega in Mia Wallace’s apartment.

“As I was saying…”

Kerry slides a folded piece of paper toward Blaze and gestures for him to pick it up.

“I’ve asked a favor from an old friend. Someone I trust. More importantly, someone that knows better than anyone else how that Bible-thumping dipshit operates. As luck would have it, he’s agreed to work with you.”

Blaze grabs the piece of paper and begins to unwrap it like it was a gift. It was… a gift.

“But there’s a catch.”

Blaze stops and looks up at Kerry.

“Look, Nathan. Blaze. Whatever… this is me going out on a limb for you. Not because I like you, and not because I owe you, and not even because you need all the help you can get right now, which you do. It’s because this preachy motherfucker’s holy reign of dipshittery has to end. And right now, you’re the one man in a position to throw his ass into the fires of Mount Doom.”

“I understood that reference.”

“And I understand yours. What’s your point?”

Nathan leans back in silence. As he does, the short Korean woman slides two cups of dark brown liquid toward himself and Kerry.

“Coffee.”

She nods and then scurries away again, towards the kitchen as Blaze scoffs. Kerry sets aside his tumbler for the small coffee mug, and sips.

“It’s good. You should try some.”

Blaze smirks and grabs his cup, brings it to his lips, and blows to cool the liquid.

“What’s the catch?”

“It’s… coffee. Koreans can have coffee too, asshole.”

“No. I mean– you said with this trainer of yours that there was a catch.”

Kerry takes another sip of his brew and nods, sighing before setting his cup down.

“Rocko Daymon.”

Blaze shrugs. Kerry rolls his eyes.

“My original trainer,” says the Emerald Apex. “And uncle through marriage, I guess. But as I said, he happens to be the foremost expert on our friend, the Good Reverend. Trained him personally through his Five Star Championship run, a few years back.”

“That sounds perfect — so where does the catch come in?”

Kerry simply sips his coffee, looking at Blaze and cocks an eyebrow.

“What?”

One Week Later

“Again.”

Blaze hits the mat.

“Again.”

Blaze hits the mat. Again.

“Again.”

His shoulders slam down on the canvas as hard as they can and he feels his skin begin to burn.

“Hey can we-”

“Again.”

Blaze pulls himself up on the ropes and looks over at the grizzled face of Rocko Daymon, standing in a red and green flannel shirt and jeans.

“Did I stutter?”

Blaze launches himself backwards and onto the mat, breath wooshing out of his body in an instant.

“I was told you nearly beat Ivan Stanislav,” says Rocko, shaking his head. “I’m not seeing that wrestler here.”

Blaze winces as he pushes himself up to his knees.

“Again.”

Blaze lets out a dry laugh and crosses his arms, falling backward. The sound of the wrestling ring shaking as his body connects. He opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling, rows and rows of lights looking down at him on his back. Down. Defeated.

“Again.”

He rolls over onto his stomach and pushes himself back up, then steadies his feet, hair wet against his forehead from nearly an hour of this so-called “training.” Blaze looks at Rocko and runs a hand through his hair, wringing the sweat onto the mat.

“How much longer are we going to do this?”

Rocko’s expression doesn’t change.

“As long as it takes.”

Blaze leans forward on the ropes. “As long as it takes for what?”

The grizzled trainer reaches behind him and pulls out a folding chair. He crosses his arms and leans back against the cold steel, his eyes never wavering from Blaze.

“As long as it takes for you to stop being afraid.”

Blaze shakes his head.

“I’m not scared of Erik Black.”

Rocko waits a beat, watches, then speaks.

“I wasn’t talking about Erik.”

Christmas Day 2025

“So. What do you really want?”

Rocko looks back at Nathan with the earnest stare of someone who had clearly asked that question many times, and Nathan was avoiding eye contact with the same sense of dread of someone who had been asked that question just as many times but always struggled to find an answer.

“To defeat Erik Black. To get back to my mom. To save my hometown.”

Rocko grunts low in his throat.

“A picturesque happily ever after ending. Roll credits. People clap. Then they leave the theater, and return to their boring, ordinary lives. And then what? What happens after?”

Nathan grips the edge of his seat.

“I keep winning. Make up for all the mistakes I caused… all the people I hurt.”

Rocko slaps at Nathan’s chair with a rolled up magazine.

“I don’t want to know what Blaze wants. I want to know what Nathan wants. What is it that you want, more than anything in this world, just like you wanted that camera 20 years ago?”

Nathan closes his eyes. His voice just a whisper.

“I… I don’t know anymore.”

Rocko slaps the chair again.

“You do know. You’re just afraid to say it. Afraid that you’ll disappoint me. Disappoint your mother. Disappoint your home town … but most of all disappoint yourself. That after all this time, after chasing what you thought was your dream, you have what you’ve been looking for all along in the palm of your hand. But you’re afraid to take it.”

Nathan feels his heart beating faster under his chest as Rocko stands up from his seat and walks to the back of the gym. He watches as the older fighter steps into his office and can hear a cabinet door open and then close.

He watches as Rocko slowly walks back to his seat, carrying something in his hand.

A Christmas present.

Nathan watches as Rocko sits back down and then places the gift in his hands.

“What… what is this?”

Rocko shrugs.

“What would you like it to be?”

A black hole opens up in Nathan’s chest and his arms begin to shake.

“Nothing.”

Rocko cocks an eyebrow.

“Nothing?”

Nathan nods, a wet spot appearing on his ring tights. Then another. Then another. Tears now streaming down his face.

He looks up, eyes red.

“I want just being me to be enough.”

Nathan takes a shaky breath as Rocko sighs, his shoulders dropping. He reaches over and places a hand on Nathan’s leg.

“Okay.”

Nathan looks up, blinking, wiping at his eyes.

“Okay?”

Rocko nods and gestures toward the ring. Nathan turns his shoulder and looks at the ropes. The mat. The ring posts as if he were seeing them for the very first time.

He looks back to Rocko, the faintest of smiles on the old man’s face. Nathan nods, letting out a laugh.

“Yeah… Okay.”