Climbing the Mountain

What Harumi said made a lot of sense. Eka was starting to reckon that she might make up for her relative lack of size with a burst of speed, especially when she faced the giantesses that the AFW staff saw fit to throw her against. The Georgian girl merely nodded at what the Judoka said, trying to stay on her game as much as she could. Eka was getting awfully close to her new friend, and the margin for error was becoming terribly thin.

Thin enough that there was very little space or time for her to react as Harumi launched a punch at her. Eka's eyes went wide as her hands went up to defend her face, but that is not where Harumi was aiming. The blow slammed into her chest, ripping some of the air from her lungs. The raven-haired girl recognized that Harumi was holding back, which she was quietly grateful for. Had the green-eyed woman been going all out, she would count herself lucky to still be standing. As it was, Eka was only staggered and surprised, tottering a bit before finding her feet again.

Eka came roaring back with abandon. A loud yell filled her mouth and then the ring and then the entire gym as Eka dashed forward at her opponent. She brought her arms up, hoping to pre-empt any more strikes while locking up the beautiful woman standing across from her.

If she could get her mitts on Harumi, she would use every muscle in her core to gator roll the woman to the ground. The strike and the counter came off without a hitch. Eka knew that there would probably pain at the end of this, but she was quite curious how the Judoka was going to deal with this new threat.

Harumi’s quick jab could probably be interpreted as a warning shot, with no intent to harm her foe but insure that a level of distance was maintained. Eka was a grappler type, and Harumi was well aware of what her sparring partner could do if one let her get too close. Of course, since this was a simple spar, she doubted either of them would go all out. In Harumi’s mind, this was all just an excuse to get to know one another and possibly learn some new techniques that would further improve both of their performances in the future.

But as Eka roared in a way that filled the entire gym and rushed forward, that thought was beginning to leave Harumi’s mind. The Georgian was coming at her hard and fast, with the Judo girl only getting in a quick low kick to the leg before getting scooped up in the long-haired woman’s grasp and slammed down the floor with a dull impact that shook the Gym’s ring. Pain racked up her spin, but rather than writhe about, Harumi’s steely gazed seemed to set onto Eka’s model like beauty, a plan already forming in her strategic mind.

Trying to prevent herself from getting locked into anything, the Judoka kicked her feet up. She squirmed underneath the larger woman, rocking her body in an attempt to get her knee high enough to smack the back of her foes head. Eka had teased her earlier about Harumi’s kick to the head, and now the Judoka was looking to free herself in a similar manner, if Eka was too preoccupied trying to keep her teal partner down.

Eka had Harumi on the ground. That was a good first step. The Georgian girl lurched forward, ready to capitalize on her advantageous position, but Harumi's leg up prevented her from slipping through. Her mind was now operating in overdrive as her blue eyes scanned for any deficiencies in Harumi's guard, and her hands were up, ready to seize upon any opportunity that Eka could find. Just as Eka moved forward to see if she could open something up, something hard hit the back of her head, causing Eka to stumble forward slightly. The Georgian girl smiled slightly. Miss Head Kicks got a knee on the back of her head, and now had an excellent chance at breaking free.

The ravenhaired girl was not going to let that happen. At least, not without a struggle at least. Eka was off balance and slightly hurt, but she was not going to allow Harumi that far out of her grasp. She corrected herself and was upright now, and scrambled on her knees towards her opponent. Eka tried to get on top of Harumi. She was not a heavy woman, and her late night internet stalking yielded the fact that Harumi and Eka were very close to each other in terms of how much they weighed, with the Judoka having a slight edge. But pressure was pressure, and the Georgian girl needed that for her wear-'em-down strategy to work.

If she could maintain the pressure on Harumi, she would attempt to go for wrist control. That would give her a chance to keep a grip on the woman, and go for something a little bit more intricate down the line. Harumi knew what she was doing, and was not going to let her just have it. But if Eka could get it and preserve even the semblance of control, the Georgian girl was going to be in a very good spot...

The knee to the head seemed to do its job just fine. It knocked Eka off balance, which was a plus, and the small smile on her face let Harumi know that the Georgian found it kind of funny. Harumi hadn’t intended on it to be comical, but she smiled along with her, almost chuckling, but investing too much of her attention to try and wriggle free. The Georgian was off balance for only a few seconds, but it was more than enough for Harumi to get enough leverage to push her far enough away to get some of her personal space back.

With quickly sat right back up, moving quickly to try and predict what Eka had planned next. Like a swift wind, Harumi went from flat on her back to a defensive crouch, keeping low to the floor in order to try and gage if she needed to flee the next attack or fight through it. The emerald eyes scanned Eka from head to toe, trying to guess what the woman could be thinking. The Judoka was already coming up with a plan of action when she noticed that the Georgian was still smiling…and suddenly a lot closer.

“Eh?”

Eka simply tackled Harumi to the floor, grasping at the Judoka’s wrists as she landed right on top of the Judoka. It seems that even though Harumi hand already had counters for dozens of different scenarios, she never expected such a playfully simple one. Now, The Georgian was right on top of her, pinning her wrists to the floor and being extremely close. Harumi wrestling inexperience was beginning to poke through as a blush pushed through her stony mask and she forced herself to look away, apparently uncomfortable. Harumi was indeed used to close contact bouts, and had no issues with that part of the spar at all…it was actually the attire Eka wore. Harumi was used to Judo bouts, wherein most of the attire worn was a Gi or some type of sports shirt and pants. Eka’s tight green shorts and sports bra displayed her model like body quite well, and having her bare body press down on top of the naïve warrior was…different. In a real match, it wouldn’t be any trouble with Harumi focused on winning…but here in a friendly spar, she couldn’t help but notice when it was right on top of her.

Still Harumi kept silent, worried she may offend Eka if she said anything. The Judoka seemed to be shell-shocked, hardly struggling under the Georgian for fear of creating a misunderstanding between them.

Eka latched on to Harumi's wrists, and a look of concentration came over the Georgian girl's face. Her lips tucked in as her blue eyes scanned for any little thing that Harumi would give her. She would then try to wrap her legs around Harumi to ensure that she could maintain a sense of leverage over the Judoka. Eka risked a quick glance up to try and trace Harumi's eyes to find that her new friend had turned her eyes away. That was odd, she thought. Her brow furrowed. Maybe she was going for some move where you scrambled out through the side, probably using that strong core that Harumi had.

Eka leaned in and pressed her body against the Judoka's, anticipating some counter move that Eka would have to scramble to deal with. Her core wiggled a little bit so that she could preserve her position, and her eyes were wide open, looking for any slight movement that would indicate which way Harumi was going. Her muscles were tense and her body weight was low. She was ready for whatever was coming.

And then nothing happened.

Eka sat up a little bit, and looked down at Harumi. The Judoka did not appear to be trying to get Eka off of her, in fact, quite the opposite. Eka was okay at reading people, but she could not help escape the feeling that Harumi was deeply uncomfortable. She wanted to win, sure, but it was not so important that she would keep going. The Georgian girl relinquished Harumi's hands back to her, and sat up completely, in full mount if she was lucky.

"You are alright, yes?"

Her voice cracked at first, as she still had that loud yell deep down in her throat. Soon her warm Georgian lilt burst through as Eka's genuine concern became apparent. Her left hand came down below and between Harumi's breasts, giving the woman a pat or two on the heart as if she could feel whether or not Harumi was okay. Long spools of her dark hair fell on either side of her head, framing her worried face.

Eka was pressed down firmly on top of Harumi, keeping her weight on the Judoka to insure there was no resistance. Her bare skin made it easy for Harumi to feel her body heat through her tank top, making her even more uncomfortable. She could feel every bit of the Georgian from her tight abs to the softness of her thighs and barely contained breasts, to the point Harumi was noticeably flustered. Her muscles tensed to the point of paralysis, and she could only hope that Eka would hurry up and do something that would get her out of this awkward situation.

But instead, Eka froze as well. Simply laying on top of Harumi with a bit of weight and some fleshy bits that left little to Harumi’s somewhat restrained and shy imagination.

What is she doing? Is this a pin attempt, or did she get stuck in a transition? Maybe she noticed like I did and froze up?! Please don’t!

Just as Harumi was starting to full on panic, Eka lifted herself off her opponent and relinquished her grip on her wrists. The normally stoic woman’s face was as red as a rose, a complete contrast to the teal top she wore. Harumi sputtered and stammered away when Eka sked if she was okay, to shell shocked to come up with an excuse that wouldn’t make her companion self-conscious. As if to check her heart rate, Eka placed her hand on Harumi’s chest, right at the center of her breasts. If Eka couldn’t tell before, she would definitely feel Harumi’s heart beat a mile a minute, if the high-pitched squeal that flew out of Harumi was not clue enough.

Harumi immediately moved to cover her chest, her face still a bright red as she frantically tried to make up an excuse on the spot that would not make either of them self-conscious, even if it was a blatant lie.

“I-I-I-I…! M-My hair it….It got S-ss-s-stuck! It hurt?! Um…! S-still hurts! I should-“ Harumi moved quick, sitting up more out of panic than any real reason…her eye line, which seemed to be franticly observing everything but Eka, moved forward with Harumi’s body…to see Eka’s breasts staring her in the face.

“EEEEEEHHHHHHHH?!?!?!?!?!?!?”

Harumi’s panic and embarrassment had reached it’s peak, her face contorting to an almost cartoony expression of shock. Without another word, she fell back to the canvas, her brain apparently shutting down as a small bit of her soul began to float out of her mouth, signaling a childish demise.

The more Eka watched, the more concerned Eka grew. Sure, she had been applying a lot of pressure to Harumi, but she did not think that it was so much pressure that this woman should turn the lovely shade of crimson that she was currently turning. And with her hand on Harumi's chest, she felt Harumi's heart. The Judoka's ribs must have been made of iron, she reasoned, as that was the only thing keeping that heart from thumping its way out of her chest. When her sparring buddy went to cover her chest, Eka slipped her hand away apologetically. She was not sure exactly what she had done, but she was starting to think that it was something wrong. That sort of squealing was not particularly normal.

And then Eka's eyes grew wide. This was not the stoic woman that Eka had met in the ring all those nights ago. She was not sure she had ever seen this side of Harumi, and she was altogether taken aback by the woman's change of affect. Harumi rose up, made quite the show of looking at Eka's voluminous chest, and then fell back to the mat. The Georgian girl found herself leaning back slightly, not quite sure what was going to happen next. All of Harumi's words rushed together, and Eka did not quite know what to make of the whole thing, but she did hear the words hair and stuck and hurts.

Eka smiled at Harumi. "This is a thing that happens to everyone, yes? Me most of all," she smiled as she pawed at her long and dark mane, "and it is nothing to be embarrassed about." Eka patted the side of Harumi's stomach in an attempt to comfort the woman. The ravenhaired girl did not know what was going on entirely, but she knew that Harumi needed some sort of comforting.

And Eka was exactly the woman to do it. She leaned over so that her body was touching Harumi's but not pressing into it. Eka would wrap Harumi up not in some struggle for position that she may unleash some vicious submission maneuver, but to hug the woman to let her know that everything was going to be alright. Their faces were very close to each other now, and Eka's blue eyes were smiling. "Come, yes, it is all going to be good, yes? We just need to," Eka was moving to lift Harumi's head a little bit and brush her hair out from underneath the mat, " and then boom! You can throw me off of you, yes?" Eka joked.

The Georgian girl sat back so that their crotches were right on top of each other. Her green shorts really were tight, she thought. And very bright, too.

Harumi’s brain at that point was pretty close to just the strange static, white noise a person can sometimes here when an electrical device is on. It was still there, but miniscule to the point where it was only barely noticeable when someone was trying to listen for it. Harumi was far and away from being comfortable with being touched in a relaxed setting. In a bout, the Judoka could easily take blows without sparing a thought to distract her from her own strategy and battle plan…but outside that? She may as well have been something close to a young child. She had enough wits to act appropriately, and could speak to others fine, though she was known for being blunt and unintentionally harsh. But she was not the type that touched people or was touched by others. Her family was one of respect and traditions. Even a hug from a sibling felt a bit awkward, and her father’s touch may as well have been alien. Truth be told, the only one who was immune to her sensitivity was her mother, the woman who loved her, kissed her good night, and usually looked out the children’s best interests.

The embrace Eka was giving her was far from her mothers. Harumi didn’t even hear the Georgians response, nor would she have understood it if she did. The teal attired woman had already forgotten whatever lame excuse she pulled out of thin air to try and justify her actions. The grappler was just trying to be kind, Harumi knew that in the far depths of the back of her head…but at that moment when she was embraced in a hug her body tensed up so tight, she could feel her muscles burn. It seemed as if Harumi was slowly calming down, her iron musculature slowly starting to soften up in a relaxation…but then she felt a slight pressure between her legs.

And just like that, the tightly wounded muscles sprung out and practically tossed Eka off of Harumi’s form. The very second her foes weight was lifted off, Harumi rolled out of the ring quickly and quietly. Her face suddenly wore the usual stoic expression she always had on when walking into the ring, but cracks of red splintered it. She was breathing slowly, trying to calm herself down, not quite looking at Eka as she began to walk towards the locker room…

“I’m…sorry, I left my water in my locker. I’ll need to go get it before we can continue our spar.”

Harumi did not seem to noticed how easily disproven her lie was. Her gym bag and water bottle were right next to the ring…yet she walked right past it, completely unaware of it as she rounded the corner into the locker rooms.

As Eka embraced Harumi, she had a weird feeling. Slowly, she felt the Judoka's shoulders start to recede a little bit, her muscles begin to uncoil a little bit. This was a spar, sure, but it was not particularly serious. There would be no belt on the line tonight. Hell, Eka would not have even been especially proud of a win. So it was nice to see that Harumi was not being quite so frigid, even if it was only a little bit. The Georgian girl could not be totally happy, however, as she sensed some inner turmoil within her new friend. Something deep that Eka could not quite put her hands on, but she could sense it nonetheless.

And then, in one fell swoop, Eka regretted her choice of words. Harumi not only threw Eka off, but it felt like the Georgian girl was thrown halfway to China. The suddenness of the move was matched by the raw power of it, and Eka was sent tumbling forward, rolling once before coming to a stop a full meter from where she started. She was not sure what had triggered this spring. Eka let her legs fall to the mat as she rolled around and watched bewildered as Harumi rose from the mat. She said something about getting water before she exited the ring, and Eka was sitting there for a second slack-jawed and wide-eyed as Harumi left her presence.

She sat up all the way, her arms drooping between her legs swung wide. Long strands of her dark hair fell over her face, and she could not blow them out of her eyes. The Georgian girl was not sure what she had done to earn herself such a reaction, but her morale was beginning to slide. Eka was just trying to make a friend, and she was starting to think that she had done something terribly, terribly wrong. The last time she had been in this gym, she nearly crossed a line from which there was no going back, and she did not feel like she had done that this time. Some of the creeping doubt that had sent her into a spiral of self-pity oozed its way into her consciousness once more. The Georgian girl stood up, and swept some imaginary dust from her knee. There was a way to make this right. There had to be.

Eka looked at the water bottle that Harumi passed, and she reckoned that she had an in. She skipped out of the ring, bounding over the ropes as she went, and scooped up Harumi's bottle. The Georgian girl then followed after the Judoka, at some distance at first before she quickly caught up to her before either of them could actually make it into the locker room.

"Hey," Eka was smiling as hard as she could to see if she could get the dark thoughts away, "you will be needing this, yes?" She extended the water bottle towards Harumi.

The violent toss of the large Georgian caught the attention of a few gym goers. The heavy thud was enough noise to drag their attention away from their workouts and towards the two women who looked to be sparring in the gyms ring. Whatever happened seemed to put an end to the spar, with the taller woman looking at her partner with a stunned look on her face. The partner seemed to excuse herself, rolling out of the ring with a stoic expression, but red cheeks. Something must have happened between the two, but many thought that the pale beauty the was walking away was being a bit rude. Harumi noticed their stares, which made her feel the need to flee to the locker room even more.

Despite her cool demeanor, Harumi felt as if she couldn’t take much more of this get together that felt as if had only just started. She wanted to run into the bathroom stall and scream into something soft, vent out all of her insecurities and try to salvage whatever she could with Eka. A part of her wondered if she had always been this strange with others…but then the other part reminded her that no one had ever tried to get very close with her before. That thought did so very little to calm her chaotic nerves.

Argh! Eka probably hates me by now, or thinks I’m a total freak! What was I even doing? Maybe if I slip in here, she will just forget about me and slip away so I can hide in peace.

The sea of eyes on her made Harumi even more self-conscious then she already was, and her pace hastened. The faster she fled, the quicker Eka could escape from this awkward mess Harumi just made and they could both go home. The day was still young, and already Harumi wanted it to be over so she could put this blunder behind her. She was already preparing an excuse for the next time she ran into Eka, and how she could possibly explain herself to her.

Turns out, that would not be too long. The Georgian was quick, and in a flash, she had already caught up to Harumi and was presenting her with her own water bottle. Harumi actually began to shake from embarrassment, though gave off a wonderfully blank expression. Were it not for her reddening cheeks, few could tell she was even remotely embarrassed getting caught in a lie.

As quick as the Judoka always was, she snatched Eka by the wrist and tugged her into the locker room, avoiding the prying eyes of the public so that Harumi could attempt to drop her mask for a moment. She didn’t enjoy opening herself up to others, her family just wasn’t that way…but if she wanted to make some friends, she knew she would need to leave herself a bit vulnerable. Harumi did a quick look around to make sure no one else was in the locker room, before finally standing in front of Eka and staring at the floor in front of her, shifting her shoulders and hiding the embarrassed blush that covered her face.

“Um…I’m…sorry about what I just did, Eka. I’m not really used to this kind of stuff, and we were going so fast I-I just sorta…moved. I’m not used to sparring without a gi, and I just got so nervous I-*hic*!” Harumi moved to cover her mouth, looking surprised, then like she wanted to die. Whenever the Judoka found herself getting too excited or stressed, she often began to grow a small case of hiccups, much to her discomfort. She tried to pass it off, continuing on, “I’m sorry about everything…I really want to be *hic* friends with you…and get along with each oth-*hic*!”

That final hiccup seemed to be the straw that broke the camels back. Harumi covered her face with her hands and went dead silent. Her face that was normally beautifully pale was as red as a fire engine, and slowly, she began to sink to her knees, too shy to do anything else.