One hour after conclusion of March to WarFAWN social media director Mel Sutton sits in her usual spot behind a broad, lacquered table with the federation’s logo projected on a screen behind her. Joining the diminutive blonde at the interview desk are Yoona Park and Camille Cosworth, fresh off Yoona’s inaugural defense of the EurAsian championship against a game Chelsea Dagger. The off-screen production team signals to Mel that the cameras are rolling, so she quickly flips through her notecards before lightly clearing her throat and directing her attention to her subjects.
MEL SUTTON
YOONA PARK
CAMILLE COSWORTH
“Good evening, FAWNatics,” Sutton begins. “I’m Mel Sutton, and I’m here in the studio with Yoona Park and Camille Cosworth. On a personal note, I must say that I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. So much has happened for my two guests over the last handful of months and there’s so much I want to talk about, so let’s start with our EurAsian champion. Yoona, take us back to the night when you dethroned Lady Fiona Waterford. Did you go into the match having already decided to do what you did? Your actions were… to put it as diplomatically as possible…
divisive... How do you respond to those who feel you went too far?”
Rather than answer, Yoona looks at her interviewer in stone-faced, unblinking silence, her expression placid and betraying no emotion. Camille closes her eyes and massages her temples a couple of feet away in the background, and the silence drags out to five, then ten, then fifteen seconds.
Mel grows uncomfortable with the stalemate, so she politely coughs, “Ms. Park…”
“What was that?” Yoona blurts as she snaps back to attention. “I was thinking of something else. Could you repeat all that?”
Sutton feels her cheeks grow hot as she flushes red. Her colleagues had warned her about Park’s trolling and psychological needling, and evidently the FAWN social media director still had not done enough to prepare herself. Nevertheless, she soldiers on as best as she’s able, repeating her previous questions.
Or at least she tries.
“Your head is way too large for your body,” Yoona flatly interrupts barely a second later as Camille groans in exasperation from the other end of the desk.
Mel is taken aback by the interjection and she stammers unintelligibly for a few moments before finally managing to squeak out, “Uhh… thanks?”
Her dark eyes narrowing, Park scoffs, “It wasn’t a compliment. Seriously, that thing’s so fucking huge, aircraft try to land on it. Shit, I bet you bring in the high tide every time you -- OW! FUCK!”
Camille flicks her hard on the ear to get her to stop abusing the poor interviewer. Yoona grumbles and grouses about domestic violence and is promptly ignored, and Cosworth gestures for Mel to resume her duties. The diminutive blonde takes a deep breath, then she tries for the third time.
“Ms. Park, I want to talk about your match with Fiona --”
“Well I
don’t...” Yoona snarls as she pounds her fists into the tabletop and stands, this time her irritation plainly visible rather than hidden behind mischievous trolling. “...so go fuck yourself. We’re done here.”
The EurAsian champion spins on her heels and stalks off without another word, leaving behind a gobsmacked interviewer who’s still fumbling with her cue cards. Meanwhile, Camille slowly shakes her head in dismay.
“Did I say something wrong?” Sutton whispers to her one remaining guest several seconds later.
“Look, Mel, you gotta understand something…” Cosworth sighs. “...that, umm,
fiasco was two months ago and we’ve been trying to move past it. We’re… Yoona’s in a good place right now and --”
“Excuse me, Camille, but did you say Yoona’s in a
good place?” Mel asks, her voice high-pitched with disbelief.
“Trust me, this is her in a good place. I know Yoona can be a little abrasive --
a lot abrasive, actually -- and she kinda gets off on embarrassing her opponents, but this is her on her best behavior. I’ll be honest with you, Mel, this is the first time I’ve seen Yoona walk into the ring without any hate or malice since her match with Lenore last summer, and I’d just… like…
really appreciate it if you don’t remind her of… well… you you know…”
Sutton furrows her brow as she considers this before offering a single, subtle nod, then she directs her next question towards Camille.
“Are
you in a good place?”
“I’m, uhh, I’m working on it…” Cosworth says with a small, nervous laugh. “I’ll get there… I -- I think…”
“Oh, Camille…”
“Hey, no! No, no, no, no, no! No feeling bad for me!” Camille immediately protests when she sees the look on Mel’s face. “I’m… I’m fine… r -- really! Yoona’s really hitting that next level now and I’m just enjoying the ride as her number one fan! I’ve even been practicing my zingers! Did you catch the one about bubblegum and kicking butt…? ‘Cause, you know, Gabby Mendoza’s whole schtick is chewing gum so that means that, well, you get it without me explaining it, right…? Right? Ha, ha, haaaaa….”
Cosworth trails off when she sees that she’s not succeeding in lightening the mood, and then the pair of women sit there awkwardly staring at each other, neither making any sound.
“Y’know, your head’s not that big…” Camille says after a pregnant pause, drawing a quizzical look from Mel. “I mean, okay,
fine, it’s on the larger side of average, but it’s still within normal proportions. I don’t want you to go around thinking you’re a freak, just ‘cause Yoona --”
“Camille, we need you back,” Sutton interrupts, all of a sudden looking and sounding very serious. “You saw what the Church of Eternal Midnight did tonight and --”
“Oh my God… c’mon Mel…”
“There are more of them now, and for the first time in years they’re acting en masse. Maybe it’s only a coincidence, but when you were around --”
“Just drop it,
okay? Eliza and Olivia are more than capable of handling --”
“The Long Night is coming, and who better than the Girl of Tomorrow to --”
“
MEL, DROP IT!” Camille shouts, a rarely heard vehemence in her voice which seems to shock both of them.
“Look… I’m… I’m just a fan now…” Cosworth adds a beat later, her tone and volume much more subdued. “And as much as I’d like to help… I just… I
can’t right now… and besides... the Blackbirds… they got this, I’m sure.”
“Just a fan…” Sutton repeats, barely audible. “Camille, I --”
“Listen, Mel, I think your viewers would much rather hear from the champ than me, right?” Camille cuts in, not wanting to pursue this line of conversation any further. “I’ll tell ya what, I’m gonna go drag Yoona back here and you can do a proper interview. Just… y’know… happy questions… Deal?”
Cosworth doesn’t give the interviewer a chance to respond before she walks off in search of Yoona, the staccato
thonk thonk thonk of her cane against the hardwood floor accompanying every other step. Thirty seconds later, she returns with her wayward girlfriend in tow, though Park appears to be less than pleased to be back in front of Sutton’s camera. Noting Yoona’s reluctance, Camille leans over and whispers into her ear, promising sweet things later in exchange for cooperation now.
It seems to work.
Somewhat.
“Alright, fathead. You get one question,” Park sneers without deigning to take a seat.
“Wait… only one question?”
“Yep, and there it was. Peace out, motherfucker.”
Yoona turns around and starts to walk off once more, but Camille quickly latches a hand onto her bicep and whispers more promises to sweeten the deal.
“Fine,
one more question, and that’s it,” the obstinate Korean scoffs. “I’m serious, Cam’s ass can’t handle any more --”
Cosworth swats Park on the arm, and Mel collects her thoughts for a moment in order to best compose her question so that Camille’s rear end will not have been sacrificed in vain. Eventually, the interviewer settles for something short and to the point.
“It seemed that Chelsea gave you more of a fight than you were expecting...” Sutton starts, prompting Yoona to disdainfully roll her eyes, “...perhaps because you didn’t take her seriously enough. Are you trying to send a message with your apathetic indifference?”
Mel almost expects Park to dismiss the whole interview with another non-sequitur, but to her surprise and relief, Yoona actually appears to put some real thought into the question. Casting her eyes off to one side, the EurAsian champion snorts softly and licks her teeth, then she props her hands on her hips and chews her bottom lip. Finally, after ten seconds that feel much, much longer, Park has her answer.
“Yeah… Yeah, I guess I am,” Yoona affirms. “You see, being named EurAsian champion means something important to me. Yoona Park, ballerina, was never the best in her country, nor the best in her city, nor the best in her neighborhood. For fuck’s sake she wasn’t even the best in her troupe. She was… what’s that word that our jobbing shitbird of a world champion likes to use…? Ah yes… an
understudy. Yoona Park, ballerina, was a disappointment and a failure who let down her family, her friends, and even herself.”
Park stops to take a deep breath while her girlfriend lays a hand on her shoulder, but she merely shrugs it away and continues talking.
“Yoona Park, wrestler, fighter, and all-around asskicker, however, is the goddamn
TRUTH across two fucking continents. There’s no one in twelve time zones who can step to me. Twelve time zones… do you have
any clue how pants-shittingly massive that is, you fat, tubby troll? That’s almost enough to wrap around your fucking head!”
Camille starts cracking up in the background, snorting uncontrollably a couple of times while squeaking out a couple of apologies to Mel, who frowns and self-consciously palms the back of her skull. Yoona casts a disapproving sideways glance at her girl before looking directly into the camera lens and speaking again.
“So yeah… Mom… Dad… are you watching me now? Are you
proud of me now?”
The prodigal daughter from Seoul lets the question hang for several long seconds. Her eyes mist over and her lips tremble, and all of a sudden she looks vulnerable with all her bombastic bravado stripped away. The moment passes just as quickly though, and Yoona’s expression hardens, turning cold, and bitter, and resolute before she answers herself.
“No… of course you aren’t. How could you be when I’m not even proud of myself?” Park murmurs before turning to face the FAWN social media director again. “Reached the pinnacle of my career and do you know what I felt? FUCKING. NOTHING. Just look at the people we call ‘champion’ these days… Bunny Cooper? Eliza Bliss? Kylie FUCKING Sanders? These useless scrublords can’t even win half of their matches! They shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a title match without buying a ticket, but we somehow allow them to fall ass-backwards into gold! And now my crown jewel is nothing more than a fucking bauble! How could I take pride in that?! How could I take satisfaction in that?!
“You know what though…? That’s just fine. That’s just goddamned fine. I’ll just have to sanctify my title in blood. You want my message…? Here’s my message: I want someone worth fighting. I want someone worth
beating. And so as champion, I’m declaring open… fucking… season on myself rather than waiting for the brass to figure it out.
“So… whoever you are… I know you’re listening. I know that you think
you could be the baddest of badasses if the circumstances were right. That when Professor Snape takes over Nakatomi Plaza, you’d tell him, ‘Yippee ki yay, motherfucker...’ That when Albanian sex traffickers kidnap your daughter, you’d have the particular set of skills to rescue that dumb bitch... That when Theon Greyjoy steals your car and kills your puppy, you’d murder seventy-seven people in a roaring rampage of revenge... And that after you step into the ring with me, you’d be the new FAWN EurAsian champion…
“Well, newsflash, fucktard: NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. You ain’t SHIT to me. My name echoes from the Throat of the World all the way down to the depths of Blackreach. When I speak, my words are fire, and when I strike, my blows are death. I have toppled empires, slain the immortal, and eaten the souls of creatures that were already old when the world was young. I'm High Thane to the nine holds, Harbinger to the Companions, Listener to the Dark Brotherhood, Nightingale to the Thieves’ Guild, and Archmage to the College of Winterhold. I am Dovahkiin --
DOV... AH... KIIN... -- AND YOU’RE JUST SOME BUMBLEFUCK ASSCLOWN WHO TOOK AN ARROW TO THE KNEE!”
Having worked herself into a lather by the end of her rant, Yoona pants heavily while looking back and forth between Camille and Mel, who appear to be amused and stunned, respectively.
“Wow Yoona, for a meme from 2011, that was… uhh… that was pretty epic,” Cosworth chuckles before whispering to Mel, “I’ll explain what all of that meant later…”
“Anything to add, babe?” Park asks through a smirk.
“Yas Queen,” Camille deadpans, holding out a fist which Yoona promptly bumps.
Open challenge issued, the couple turn and walk off stage arm-in-arm, leaving in their wake a very confused Mel Sutton as the video fades to black.
