Old Frenemies

10 am at AFW's company gym in Tokyo and Adrian was running herself ragged in one of the practice rings. What had started off as just a simple bit of ring running, mentally tallying the number of times she hit the ropes until she ran out of energy, had become a little more fancy.

Dressed in a small black tank top, black yoga pants and a pair of trainers, she started around the 5th bounce to try different things. Springboards, handspring twists, and even the odd practice Tiger Feint Kick without breaking her stride. She hadn't had an actual match since Summer Splash, and she wanted to make sure that whatever her first match back would be, she was going to be ready for it. Either way, she was starting to lose count and slow down, what started as jumping off the middle rope to roll through back into a run was now just a light hop off the bottom rope into a jog. Her breathing was heavy and she felt drenched in sweat.

"Ha...ha..." She panted as her legs decided to stop co-operating, leaving her hanging onto the top rope for support. "Okay there was like...two swinging kick things, pretty sure I did seven rolls off the ropes, I did the hand spring at least 3 times, just jumping felt like... ughhh!" The former cosplayer groaned as she tried to calculate just how much work she'd actually done for her cardio set before slipping out of the ring and heading to the water fountain. It didn't matter how many times she'd actually made it across, the clock was showing a significantly different time and she was feeling the burn, must have done something right. "Okay, strength set next." She told herself as she took a quick drink of water and moved on, trying not to think of what happened last night. She'd had a call from Taylor that to put lightly, hadn't gone well. The two it seemed really couldn't get along, despite seemingly making up after the hellacious match at Summer Splash, there was always something that set the two of them off, and this time it was their respective choice of friends that was causing the headache.

The former cosplayer briefly recalled offering to talk it out at a time that wasn't when she should have been asleep, where the appropriate response to asshattery could have been a slap in the face, just to get it out of their system, but she doubted Taylor would take her up on it. The last texts of 'Fuck you' giving a clear indicator as to the state of their relationship it seemed

Sometimes, the middle of the night made things seem like much better of an idea than they really were. In the quiet hours when Taylor couldn't sleep, when she wriggled away from Johnny and went to the basement to be alone while she waited for her troubled mind to tire, she found herself squirming, desperate for some kind of peace. And so, on more than one occasion, she picked up her phone and made a call, hoping to feel better.

She had called Haley before, and that went well enough. Still, she didn't know what she was thinking when she called Adrian. It had been months since she had seen the girl, not since Summer Splash, and in her own mind the two of them were closer than they had ever been. She had found respect for the girl during the war that took place in the ring that night. She had found affection for her in the aftermath. She thought of her as a friend, someone that understood her, because how could she not, having gone through everything together?

However, at no point had she talked to Adrian to see if this feeling was mutual. After the phone call last night, Taylor was bitterly disappointed to find that it was just a dream that lived in her mind and grew during her many solitary hours, she spent riding trains and laying in bed when Johnny was elsewhere.

Adrian told her that if Rebecca was the one in danger, Taylor would just laugh, that she had always hated Rebecca and this was just another way to justify it. As if she was more concerned with spite than with her sister's well being! Rebecca was twice Akashi's size and a hateful bitch, and whatever was going on had nothing to do with wrestling. Rebecca proved that by ambushing Akashi and pounding her face in. Taylor just wanted Akashi to be okay, and if Rebecca had her way, she would more likely be dead.

She couldn't stand it. Being so helpless, and worse, scared. If it was anyone else, Taylor could slap them in the face and tell them to cut the shit, but it had to be Rebecca Tomko. Her own personal boogeyman.

Fuck.

Meanwhile, she didn't want to lose whatever progress she had made with Adrian, and the situation threatened to drag them back into opposite sides of a war. It sucked, but she drew a cover over the feeling and squared her jaw, steeled her eyes, and convinced herself it was what she expected.

When she arrived at the gym, she told herself that she just wanted to use some of the equipment that the Friction gym had that her mother-in-law's house did not. However, when she arrived at just past ten in the morning, she also knew Adrian would be there. She didn't look for her, but she didn't avoid her when she crossed her path.

"Hey, Fuckface," she said, with tired eyes.

'Fuckface'. There was only one person who called her that in a general tone, and not one trying to provoke her. "Oh hey Taylor..." Adrian replied, looking to see who it was before looking away quickly. She wasn't exactly proud of how the midnight phone call had gone down either. She liked to joke about she needed some juice or coffee before she started acting in a way that could manage social engagements, but there really wasn't much of an excuse for how she practically snapped at the blonde, who was calling her up for support. Even if it was something that they'd naturally be on opposite sides for.

"So..." the former cosplayer said nervously "I heard you and J- your mom were starting up a dojo, how's that going?"

Taylor didn't stop to face Adrian, but continued on to an elliptical machine to warm up. She breathed a heavy, irritable sigh.

"The dojo, yeah. It's going. Right now we have one girl, who hates my guts, who once kissed Johnny, and who has never done anything but give me shit all the time about everything, and who practically begged me to train her because she's a worthless little twig. Could be better, but we're teaching, so... whatever."

She started out at a comfortable pace, eyes closed, one hand gently holding the handles in front of her.

"eesh..." Adrian reflexivley responded, that sounded like a sore subject. "Well I guess you won't have to worry about going too soft on her or anything..." the brunette joked weakly, not even managing a chuckle of her own before she made her way to a noticeably different machine to work out on in an awkward silence about 2 machines away from Taylor on the warmup one. Dammit, who designed this gym? I mean the warm up stuff next to the weight machines? Who thought that made sense? Maybe cause the ring takes up too much room. she thought to herself as she sat back and adjusted the weights to a challenging, but not overwhelming level, pulling her arms together in front of her to lift the weights with a grunt.

Was she here because of the text? But didn't she also call me an asshole on her reply and stuff? the former cosplayer tried to piece together. Maybe it's just there's things here that aren't in other places. This is the only ring where the ropes are the exact same tightness as the ones in the actual arena and something like that can make a big difference. she rationalized it, yeah, no way after last night that she wanted to speak to her. Right?

"Yeah," Taylor said. "That's not a problem."

The only sounds around them were the cyclical whirring of the elliptical machine as Taylor pedaled it around and around, and the intermittent clacking of the weights. Taylor did her best not to think about any of the nagging things that tried to force their way into her head. Training meant a clear head.

"You're wasting your time," she said, probably sounding like more of a know-it-all than she intended. "I see a lot of girls spend time on the pec-deck. Don't bother. There are better ways to strengthen your chest. That's mostly just for sculpting, and you don't seem like a bodybuilder."

"Oh!" Adrian let out as she gently set down the weights and slid forward. Come to think about it, had she ever used this machine before? What was it called? The Pec-Deck? "Well, I...uh..." she said, slightly embarrassed about it. So much for her workout routine, although it being for bodybuilders would explain why she saw Rebecca using it before... "Well it's not like I've never done strength training before its just most of the time all I had to use were free weights and it looks like that's occupied so I..." Turning around to look at the free weights they looked completely untouched. "They were... they were being used when I came in." she mumbled. This was not looking good. Why is it whenever she wanted to be good about things and work on bringing up her normal weaknesses she often came out looking like an idiot.

Taylor only shrugged, and increased her pace a little. She kept her eyes straight ahead, only sparring an occasional glance down to check her speed.

She tried not to think about how someone who seemed so utterly hopeless in the gym could be roughly her equal in the ring. It boggled her mind.

She tried to occupy herself with thoughts of the dojo and of the different components of her training plan for Ninjette, but her mind continually crept back toward thinking of Akashi, and the things Adrian said. It was typical that Adrian was so passive and squirrel-like in person. God forbid she have a spine and say what she wants.

The awkward atmosphere filled the air, Adrian was always bad at gyms and the various machines. Couldn't they just all have convenient diagrams about which muscle groups the worked and whether they were better for shape or strength? That would be one of the first things she'd put up if she was running a gym. But it wasn't just Adrian's incompetence at this that was causing the uneasy air. Taking a deep breath she tried to speak up "Listen... about last night... I had a chance to look over what you were talking about after." She began, scratching her head, this was really gonna get worse before it got better.

"Yeah?" Taylor said, without looking over.

Swish, swish, swish, the elliptical machine went around and around, and Taylor's breath went rhythmically in and out.

"Fun stuff, right?"