Ronin

From a young age, the person who would become Ronin loved professional wrestling. He watched it as often as he could – when it premiered, he would record the episode on VHS and rewatch his favorite scenes whenever he wanted to. Of course, this was an escape; you tended to latch onto something where good guys win and bad guys lose when your entire life tended to prove the opposite.

His birth father was a drunkard and a criminal, but never abusive; no, that wasn’t his life. Living by a form of bushido code, he typically treasured his family more than anything else in the world, especially his own son. Being a crook, he was proud of his son as he excelled in school, joined the wrestling team, and even took several self-defense classes. He never wanted his son in the same position he was in.

It wasn’t long until his father ended up arrested and sent to prison; he was a criminal, and that was what ended up happening to criminals. The money, what little there was, began to dry up, and his mother ended up turning to prostitution to keep the roof over their heads. It was when he was around 10, and already shaping into a fine, muscled young man. Because of that, she tended to keep him around when men came over; he had hit puberty, so it was easy enough for her to lie and say that he was older than he was, and that he was her bodyguard. Except one day, a guy came over and saw him – and decided he wanted him instead. Paid the mother triple, a sum that she couldn’t say no to, and took the boy up to his room.

No one knows what happened in that room. Neither his mother nor him have ever admitted that it even happened in the first place. But one thing was certain: he hadn't been raped.

Things were never quite the same after that. He was jumpy, on edge, and prone to crying, things he had never done in ages. He spent more time in classes, in the school gym; anything to keep him away from home. He even visited his father often, though he never let him know what happened. But a good father always knew when there was something wrong. He found out what happened after a terse phone call with the mother, and ended up suing her for custody from inside of his jail cell. She gave him up readily, too guilt-ridden to think of anything less – and hung herself within the year.

He lived with his grandmother after that, a strict Japanese woman who spoke no English. She loved him as much as she could, but didn’t show it very often. Instead, she would bombard him with questions on his grades, what he’s going to do with his life, why isn’t his room clean, stuff like that.

It was around 16 that he ran away from home.

He didn’t feel comfortable anywhere. No matter what, he always felt like he stuck out. It didn’t help that he started to grow attracted to the men on television from the matches he watched, something that was unforgivable after what happened in the past. So he ran. He ran from school, from home, from all responsibilities. Yet, he never ran far from his father; he ended up visiting him often in the prison until the day he was released. By that time, he was 18, and his own man – and he let himself go and visit his grandmother as well.

But what did he do for those two years? He found a wrestling school a couple of towns over, getting a job cleaning the gym that it took place in (and, often, sleeping in the gym as he tended to be the last one out and first one in). The owner noticed him looking on and allowed him to join in for free, out of the kindness of his heart. Of course, once the owner realized that the boy was homeless, he ended up letting him stay at his house, forming the first solid male relationship Ronin would ever have.

After two years, he was ready to hit the big leagues. He joined one small time federation, adopting the ring name of Ronin, with memories of Japanese samurai lingering in his head from childhood, from stories his father told him before bed, from books he picked up in his grandmother’s house to keep him together after his mother passed. He rose up high in the rankings within the year, having spent so long training for professional wrestling – but, he ended up dropping out as he grew attracted to the other men in the federation. He did that constantly, to the displeasure of his coach – so Ronin took his salaries and left, getting his own apartment. It was there that he found out about AFW. A league dedicated to male on female wrestling? Well, that would keep him from getting too attracted to his male compatriots, no?