Peace offerings...

Natalia laid on the mats and took her time to recover her breath. The kick on the ribs was going to be hurting all day for sure, but she managed to calm down. She then turned her head to look at Taylor.

Sorry for kicking you. I...I just got a little annoyed of you teasing me about Heather..."
Natalia said and then she begun to get up.

"And don't worry... I was joking... I'm not going to snap...I'm cool..." Natalia said trying to avoid thinking how close she had been to actually snapping. Natalia rubbed her ribs and looked at Taylor raising an eyebrow, thinking about her words and remembering how crazy Adrian had gone.

"People snap a lot around you, don't they?" she asked really curious.

"Yeah." Taylor said. "Shut up."

People did have a tenancy to snap around Taylor. It was sort of on purpose, making people insane was always part of her deal. Made them easier to fight, most of the time, and it gave her the satisfaction of winning a different fight at the same time. At the same time it wasn't really something she could control, it was just the way she was, and sometimes the effects didn't work out in her favor.

"Tell Adrian..." She began, and then hesitated. "Nothing." She sighed. "Look, you don't look cool, so you just go find a place to cry, but I'm sure you've got plenty of fans in here waiting to help you feel better." Taylor wouldn't admit it, but she was a bit jealous of the adulation Natalia received from the crowds, as well as from some of the other wrestlers. "Maybe you can call up Chigusa and go to an expensive restaurant and talk about how much better than everyone you are."

She sat down on the mats and started working her shin guards off. Suddenly she wasn't feeling so good. The combination of the exhaustion and the spat with Natalia, the verbal one and the physical one, the idea that everyone liked Natalia better, the feeling that she ruined everything and was a total jerk... all of it weighed very heavily on her for the moment, and her efforts to remove her shin guard slowed to a stop. She sat still, her knees pulled up, and spaced out, staring into the mats, sullen faced.

Natalia watched Taylor go down and become sudenly quite depressed. It appeared that not only Natalia needed to find a place to cry. The blue-eyed cutie began to think that Taylor was anything but a scheamer, although she still found hard to believe that anyone could be so annoying there wasn't any other explanation, and Natalia felt kind of pity for her.

"Chigusa?... Well... I don't really know her...and... I'm not like... A friend of the idols..." She said walking to Taylor and sitting besides her. "You feeling ok?

Taylor didn't respond right away. She cursed herself for being so obvious. She sighed heavily and turned a weary glare on Natalia. "I'm great."

This ordeal with Natalia was probably the most sustained human contact she'd had since coming back from Kyoto. She missed Johnny. She wished that they just lived in the same city. She wished he was there right now. She wished that she saw more of Akashi, but she was busy and they kept different schedules... They saw each other fairly regularly, but somewhat infrequently, and usually there was Friction business involved.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Taylor was just out of sorts because the loneliness was getting to her. She'd dealt with it for so long, she thought she was used to it, but maybe that was never something you get used to, being surrounded by so many people and still feeling totally alone.

How pathetic. She scowled and attacked her shin guards with frustrated vigor, and soon roughly pulled them both off. There was only one thing to do when she felt this way, and there was no way in hell she was going to reach the fuck out to anyone. People had all kinds of chances to reach out to her or to just be cool, and that never happened. She was alone, and it was way easier to be alone when there weren't so many people around rubbing it in your face.

She stood up. "It's been fun. Bye." She scowled, and set off toward the hallway to collect her shoes so she could finally make the walk home.

"mmhh... no. Not really..." Natalia said with a slight glimpse of sadness inher voice. She could sense that Taylor was feeling down, and she wasn't feeling much better; still felt like she was going to start crying anytime now...plus her ribs hurt. Natalia felt kind of dumb for trying to get close to Taylor; they weren't friends, yet Natalia had the strange sensation they could be...if it wasn't for the little detail that she was close to hating Taylor's guts.

"Good bye, Taylor-chan..." Natalia said remaining quiet as she saw the punkgirl walk away. Right when Taylor was about to dissappear in the hallway, Natalia said. "Maybe we should have a match some day..."