Toyz B' We

Allie had the biggest, shit eating grin on her face as she slipped around the aisles of the store they were in. It was honestly too hard to contain her giggles but she managed somehow. Her cohort, Syd, was the grumpiest, depressing, angry person she had ever met. The girl had a personality that would scare away a cobra and a hair trigger on her temper and fist. Allie was just a girl. She didn't fight. She found fighting to be absolutely barbaric and sometimes her "chosen profession' sickened her. Her situation, having to live, and for all intents and purposes in her mind, babysit, the childish bully was nearly absolutely intolerable. However, it was what it was and while Syd could pick on and bully Allie at will, the big titted red head had to be a bit more careful with the ways she tried to get back at the silver haired nihilist.

And oh, did she love getting her back.

She traipsed through the large, very Japanese toy store, pretending to carefully inspect the things that could only be described as the creations of a five year old on acid. Japan was weird enough on its own without subjecting oneself to it fully. Still, she wondered how long she could tug Syd around before the girl gave up and left Allie. She was definitely counting the seconds. She had managed to convince Syd that she needed to make a quick stop before they hit the bar. Now she just had to keep Syd's mind occupied.

"So... I guess that last match wasn't too bad." She said as she ran a finger along a row of busty, anime figurines, trying to pretend like she might want one to put on her shelf or whatever gross things they did with them. They were all wearing less than SHE was, and she was TRYING to look slutty.

"How do you assess your career so far, Syd? Your opinion matters to me, you know?" It mattered as much as hers did to Syd but as long as Syd was winning, Allie didn't care. "Anyway, are you getting used to Japan yet? Have you learned any Japanese? I think I'm doing pretty good myself! Watashi no jagaimo wa yoku yatte iru! Seeeee!" She said and peered back at Syd with a bright grin.

"I dunno." About her career.

"No." About Japanese.

Syd huffed and stood like a sullen statue with her hands in her pockets. Allie was such an idiot. Syd was not ten years old, and neither was Allie, and there was no reason for them to be wasting time in some stupid toy store.

And the sea of slutty plastic figurines was creeping her out.

"The last one quit way too fast," Syd said, referring to Maricarmen. "And the one before that had help. I don't give a shit about my career, I just want fights. There's a lot of stuff that I haven't gotten to do yet."

Her eyes fell over one little bit of slutty plastic, a girl with red hair and ridiculous boobs, wearing a "bikini top" that basically only covered her perky nipples and a pair of shorts that covered nothing and were inexplicably unbuttoned. She held it up in front of Allie to compare the two. The figurine was way fitter.

"Why? What difference does it make?"

Allie wasn't going to let Syd bait her during her own troll as she held up the figurine. "Do you want that one, Syd? I'll buy it for you." She said and snatched it from Syd's hand. She giggled and strolled down the aisle purposefully. Oh, if she had to spend...

She looked at the price tag. There were a lot of numbers next to that stupid Y thing they called a dollar sign.

If she had to spend that much just to rankle Syd's feathers, money was certainly no object!

"What kind of things haven't you gotten to yet?" Allie asked Syd. "And it matters. Eventually you're going to get good enough to go after titles. Even if you don't care about them, I do. You're going to get them, Syd. You can huff about it and pretend you don't care all day long but you can just keep doing what you're doing and I'll worry about that stuff. I'll even carry the belts for you." She said as stuck her tongue out at Syd.

"Rrr."

Syd didn't need titles. Stupid looking belts. Who cares?

"If you want them, why don't you fight?" She jammed her hands back into her pockets. The need for tequila was growing more dire by the minute, as each passing minute diminished their tequila time. "You could roll around on a bed and get the Kawaii title." She pronounced the words with utter disgust.

Allie skipped unperturbed towards the checkout with Syd's new little figurine. She smiled and nodded at the clerk and did her best to pretend like she knew what she was being told as she pulled out her credit card and swiped it, turning to Syd instead while she was being checked out.

"What do YOU care if you HAVE them?" Allie countered. "If you don't care about anything because you're so cool, then why does having them bother you, huh? Unless you're worried people might say something to you? Are you afraid of having to socialize more? Afraid of getting your pictures in the magazines? Afraid of being a human being?" She teased.

"We're working together because you want to fight and I can make it happen but I didn't come here JUST to wipe your butt. If I'm getting you matches, then you're getting me things I want too. Like fame and gold. You're going to make everyone else understand what kind of a princess I am with those fists of yours."

The clerk handed her a box which contained the plastic, sluttier anime version of Allie and Allie smiled. She gave her best Japanese farewell as she strolled out of the shop with Syd.

Syd's face tightened irritably. Her mouth opened before her brain was even ready to supply it with words, and she drew a breath as her scowl became even scowlier.

"'Cause it's stupid! Why should I be defined by whether or not I have some ugly belt? It's a half-popularity contest, and half politics. You'd love it, if you didn't have to actually do work, but I refuse to let society's conventions for defining success define me as a... ya know, a wrestler."

She gave the cashier a cautious glance and headed out the door. On their way out, they passed a mother on her way in with several small children swarming the door. Syd blushed and awkwardly maneuvered past them and strode away at her typically expeditious gait.

"You're such an idiot," she grumbled to Allie, and looked off in the opposite direction.

Allie quickly shuffled after Syd. She didn't know why the girl always took the lead. Half the time Allie doubted she even knew where she was going.

"Well, I DON'T have to do work and  I DO like it!" She said. She carefully snaked her free hand out and gently grabbed Syd's wrist, knowing if she was too forward, she might get smacked.

"Wouldn't you have to care about what people think to let them put you in a box or, whatever?" Allie said, trying to use Syd's dumb logic against her. It made her brain hurt. No wonder Syd was so angry all the time. "You still get to be you, no matter what happens. No one can take that away from you just because they give you a shiny belt... a belt that I can take. When you get famous, I'll make sure and keep all those sheep away from you so you can stick to punching things, Syd." Allie said and let go of Syd's wrist and pat her shoulder gently, giving the taller girl a bright, sincere smile.

Lacking any other retort, Syd snorted and shook her head. "You're twisting my words around," she grumbled.

"For them to give me a title... it's like selling out," she tried to explain. "Like they're buying me. I'd be another thing for them to sell. I won't enable society to be... what it is. Society sucks. And if you want to rise above it you have to be separate from it. You would understand if you'd read those books I told you about."

The sun was setting on the city around them, and Syd looked right at home in the the gloom. The concrete buildings were camouflaged against the grey sky and dotted with loud neon signs that reflected in rain-water puddles left from showers earlier in the day.

Syd stopped to gaze down at one puddle with a bright red neon kanji sign shining in it. She didn't know what it said, but she liked it.

"Hm." She tilted her head and let Allie keep walking.

"Oh. My. Gaad." Allie said, rolling her eyes at Syd's words. They were so stupid. Just like the books Syd kept trying to get her to read. She didn't care if God was dead. Allie wasn't even really a believer. She wasn't NOT one either but if Syd wasn't a space cadet about everything, she might come to understand that the two of them probably thought more alike than Syd could handle.

Allie couldn't even deal.

"Syd,  you can hate society all you want. Do, whatever little scowley, hatey thing you want to do, but I want those damn belts, so you better figure out a way to make yourself sleep at night and have a title, understand?"

By the time she finished talking, she realized Syd had not followed her. She turned around and saw Syd staring at a puddle. She sighed and marched back to her charge.

"whatcha lookin at?" She said and gave Syd a little poke in the stomach, smiling at her. "Do you want to stop here?" She turned and looked at the entrance that the sign was attached to. She could only assume it was a bar. Stupid dumb language.

"Eh?"

Syd looked up at Allie, and then at the seedy sex shop she had stopped in front of, with dark curtains in the windows and a few products displayed that made Syd's thighs tense up. She immediately turned red again and shook her head.

"No."

She turned and marched on down the sidewalk, her long legs carrying her swiftly away from whatever kind of motorized, vibrating, rotating, undulating nonsense was staring at her from that shop.

There was one other thing about titles that Syd didn't say, and that was that she wasn't really sure if she could get one. She was many things, but among them a pro wrestling fan, and she had long watched the top level wrestlers with awe and admiration. They were really good, and Syd was still learning. Allie would probably just end up disappointed and send her back to Chicago.

Which was whatever.

"How do you say 'bar' in Japanese? Er, how do you read it? How does it look?"