Royale Jitters

"Friends, huh?" Ninjette raised her eyebrow a little, but didn't elaborate. What was with this guy and attracting hot, single women from up north? "Yeah, Ro, I watched a couple of matches with her. She seems nice. Kind of a superfreak, but nice. Not judging." She picked up one of the bottles and gave it a shake as she looked over the ingredients. Most of which had names with ten syllables. "Poison, didn't see much of her on Youtube. Except for this match with Rebecca Tomko. If you can really call what happened there a 'match'."

Kozue made a mental note, now that she was thinking about it - do not challenge Rebecca Tomko to a handcuff match. Ever.

"Anyway, she looks like I could catch an STD from staring at her too long, but I'll stay on watch." Kozue set the bottle back down and sat on table, kicking her legs out. She turned back to the television, where Clyde was kind of sort of hanging in, doing his best. Oh, he was still gonna lose, no question, but he was going down kicking and screaming.

"What about Gastin? Is he a threat when he's not, you know..." She let her arm hang down and flopped around with it. "...unarmed?"

Johnny chuckled at Kozue's assessment of Ro. It was pretty accurate. "Yeah, man. She can get pretty crazy but she's totally cool. Next time we go out sometime, I'll have to invite you with us and junk."

Johnny frowned when it came to Poison. "Yeah, dude, she's pretty skanky. Don't let her rub up against you and junk. Just fuckin punch her in the mouth or soemthin, I dunno." He laughed at her joke though. Poison really did just scream total skank.

Johnny furrwed his brow at Clyde's name. "I dunno man. He's kind of a dick in my opinion. But, I guess he, like... thinks we're friends or somethin. He keeps showin up to places where me or my family are and that's kinda weird since they shouldn't be anywhere near Kyoto anymore. I dunno. His girlfriend is friends with my wife so maybe he thinks we're friends too. I don't hate the guy or anythin but I don't like it when he's around shorty or my wife and I didn't appreciate him comin over to our apartment one day just to insult me."

Johnny shrugged again. "As far as int he ring goes, I really don't think I'd have much trouble with him even if he were at one hundred percent. but he might match up well with you. I really wouldn't worry about him though." He said.

Kozue smiled at the thought of going out with Johnny sometime. She wasn't an uncommon sight at the bars near Tension Heights, she'd often stop by one of them after a match and hang out while she wound down. She even got a free round of drinks the night after she and Johnny beat King. But she didn't really know anyone there, and it had been ages since she just hung out. She missed that. Johnny and Ro seemed like good people to do it with.

Of course, it wouldn't be that simple, would it? There was a certain, blond-haired, pigtailed complication...

"I'm not." She tapped one of the pills and vaguely considered taking it, before she remembered she already had one unindentified substance in her system. "Worried, I mean. I got Tension Hero #1 watching my back, everything's gonna be fine. We'll clean house, dude." Dude. She swore, she never even used that word before they met.

She pushed back and started to saunter towards the door, maybe semi-consciously putting more sway in her hips than usual. "All right, I'll get out of your hair, let you get your mind right. See you in the ring."

She started to walk out, but stopped before she could get all the way out, hanging by the door. There was just one nagging thought in her head, a little elephant in the room. It was going come up sooner or later, might as well get his quick thoughts. "Hey. Did Taylor talk to you about..." She figured Johnny could see where she was going with that sentence and finish. Taylor didn't strike Kozue as the secret-keeping type. Hell, she doubted the loudmouth ever had a thought she didn't immediately air to the world.

"heheh..." Johnny scratched his head and grinned sheepishly at Ninjette. He still didn't really feel comfortable being called hero but he wasn't going to tell her to stop either. He shyly looked away as she started to trail off, or tried to. Ninjette didn't have a lot in the chest area, which Johnny didn't actually have an issue with, but she certaily was good at drawing attention to her ass and even Johnny found himself staring a bit when she stopped and suddenly turned back to him.

"Uhhh... Talk to me about what?" He said. It could have been a million things if Ninjette were involved. Murdering her? Murdering HIM? The fact that she was even NEAR Johnny? He was clueless at the moment.

Yeah. Kozue probably should have elaborated, but she really didn't want to explain it too much. Oh, well.

"The thing. The training thing." She stepped back in and leaned against the doorjamb. "I ask Taylor if she could help me get up to snuff and polish my skills some. She agreed to help me out." She took a pause and bit her lip. "The conversation was a lot less pleasant than I just made it sound, but that was it. Pretty much."

"I think she said somethign about it, man." Johnny answered, thinking about it. "I guess she didn't go through with it?I mean, she's my wife and she tells me everything but at the same time I ain't always jiving with her schedule. Usually Morrigan takes care of that so I guess you'd have to talk to her to see what Taylor's got goin on, man."

He felt bad that he couldn't help her out more though. "I mean, I'd help ya train and junk but... uh, you know..." Johnny said, glancing away. "We prolly both like being alive... and junk."

"No, nah. She hasn't called it off or anything. Probably just busy, getting ready to razzle Angel. She's got to shit to do, I'm not mad at her." For that, anyway. Even Kozue cold figure out that a girl like Taylor had a busy life going, and if she won the title it was only going to get worse. "I was just curious what you thought about it, is all."

She had a nervous laugh over his little joke, trying to slice the tension in the room with a butter knife. What was it her Dad liked to say? 'Many a true word spoken in jest.'

"Just call Morrigan then, dude." Johnny said. "I think Taylor's been talkin about somethin so you could try that, I guess... and junk.."

Johnny walked up to Kozue and slapped his hand against her shoulder and gripped it tightly. "Anyway man, thanks for comin down. I'm pretty hyped about the match now. Hopefully you are two. I'll see ya in the ring and junk." He said, grinning brightly, trying to reassure her with a smile.

'Kozue tried to play down the blush when he touched her shoulder, but that probably wasn't happening. Skin contact in general was probably a bad idea for them. Hell, just being in the same room alone could've started some rumors. But Johnny seemed willing to flutter near the flames, which made her want to get close, too.

She looked into his eye for a moment, then slowly pulled out of his grips. "Thanks for the pep talk, and sorry for the awkward bit at the end." She started to walk backwards with her hands behind her as she turned the corner. "See ya, I'll be watching your back."

And his front, and his hair, and his thighs, and his shoulders...