What's Up, Doc? (For Gwyndolin)

*Ping!*

The doors slide open and Drake places a hand to the small of her back to guide her on out into the first floor hall. "Yep. I'm a model," he confirms. His tone lacks a certain enthusiasm some might expect of a comment like that. Though Irene gets a modest smile when she gives her adulation.

"That's what I was gonna explain. See, I've always had a rough side. Inherited that from my dad." He pauses a beat to aside, "Who was also a wrestler, by the way. Chet the Chainsaw." Looking ahead again, he continues, "So I got into professional wrestling early. And my mother, who's a fashion designer, got me into modeling. But modeling wasn't really the right outlet for me - wrestling was. And it's true, I've gotta keep both careers in mind when I'm in the ring. That's why you won't see me getting into hardcore matches, or anything that could legitimately mess me up."

"That, uh..." Drake's head dips with a frown. "...that costs me some popularity points right outt'a the gate. And it's kind of why I didn't stick with the home fed'. I wasn't huge, I'm young, I'm a male model... they wouldn't take any of it seriously. I kept getting undercarded. So I head over here, where... my looks sort've help my standing with the audience, and things are a little better. I'm still not getting title shots, but at least the audience doesn't think I'm ridiculous from the outset."

They reach the exit, and he pushes the door open. One would sincerely hope she isn't a die-hard feminist, because he's holding that door open for her.

"So here I am. Getting rough with girls, going for a title, and modeling on the side."

Irene listened to Drake's story as the two of them walked down the hallway toward the exit of the Tension dorms. He held the door for her when they got to it, the gentleman. Irene was a feminist as much as one would expect from a girl pursuing a career in the sciences, but the little gesture still made her cheeks rosy, and she accepted it with a smile. Of course, she wouldn't miss the opportunity to return the favor; as soon as she was outside, she held the door herself, so Drake wouldn't have to keep holding it for her.

“So the manly-man wrestlers wouldn't let you have your modeling career, eh?” she commented as the two set off into the streets. There was a cafe that had been built just across the street to cater to the people who worked in the AFW. It was a small, humble place, but it had coffee, food, and tables, so it would work as well as any.

“I'm glad you found a place to wrestle without people giving you shit over your other career choices,” Irene paused briefly as a sense of gloomy unease washed over her. “To be honest, I still worry about how my life as a wrestler and my education will affect each other. Universities like mine are full of nosy people who treat public displays of sexuality like something to be ashamed of. If they find out that I participate in a competition where hentai is allowed and encouraged, who knows what they might think of me...”

Irene stopped at an intersection and waited for the traffic in her path to stop so the two of them could use the crosswalk. “Well, at least I've got one person who won't try to shame me for smothering him out with my breasts. So...thanks for that,” the girl said, with a wink and a smile to her friend.

"More like the promoters. The audience just sort've follows the trend. So if you get billed as an upstart with a background in modeling, you're kind've doomed from the start. A fresh audience is a really, really fickle audience, and they usually know whether or not they give a care about you within the first twenty seconds. And winning'em over is a long, sometimes grueling process."

Drake bobs his shoulders in a shrug. "Heck, I had to work on the Tension crowd for a while before they warmed up to me. It's that whole thing about male wrestlers having to be huge." He tilts his head back, reflecting. "I think even Rey Mysterio's bigger than me. But eh."

He returns his attention to the dark-haired girl at his side. He gives a sympathetic wince in consideration. "Yeah, that could go two ways. Not sure either's a really good kind of exposure. You'll either have guys thinking you're easy, or guys thinking you're a slut." Beat. "And there is a difference!" He places a hand to the back of his neck, expression screwing up a little. "I know you don't embarrass easy, but have you considered... err... avoiding hentai tactics? It'd take away a lot of their ammunition."

By this point, the light switches at the crosswalk and Drake begins moving across the street. "That's why I've tried to avoid it so long. I'm not one of those models who pose nude or anything. I don't want the rumors."

It occurs to him that she might feel like he's coming down on her; like he actually thinks these things of her. The teen drifts aside to nudge his shoulder to hers again in that casual, chummy way. "But if anyone says that about ya, you just point me at'em. I'll punch'em for ya. Or we'll tag team'em." He attempts to nudge again once they reach the cafe. "And anyway, it's not like I'm complaining about that smother attempt..."

Of course he goes to get the door for her again!

A shiver went up Irene's spine as Drake mentioned one of the possible consequences of her activities in the AFW: people thinking she's a slut. She hated that word; it was the kind of insult she couldn't stand to hear people using in earnest. Sex and sexual activities were fun, and slut was a term used to shame people for having too much sex, so anyone calling her a slut was basically saying 'stop having so much fun'!

“Well, it helps that we're in Japan right now,” Irene said with a shrug of her shoulders as the two waited at the crosswalk, “I don't know a lot of people here, and the culture doesn't seem to demonize a person's sexuality as much as they do back in America. But yeah, I don't want to go home and get harassed by jerks.”

When Drake suggested that Irene stop using hentai tactics, the girl tensed up and shot him a bitter look. “Thanks for the suggestion, but hentai matches are about half of what goes on in this league, and I don't hate doing them. I'm not gonna stop just to appease the sensibilities of some random strangers. Hell, that makes me feel grosser than being called a slut.”

A few meters ahead, the traffic signal changed and the couple walked across. Irene looked over at Drake and sighed, realizing she might have been a little hard on the person who was only trying to help her. When he mentioned simply beating up the people who might harass her, her features brightened considerably.

“Thaaaat's more like it,” Irene sang, nudging him in the stomach with her elbow. As they got closer to the cafe door, Irene tried to get the door for Drake, but he sped in front and pulled it open first, the sensitive jerk!

“You're a pal, Dom,” Irene remarked with a grin. As she stepped inside the cafe, the girl passed close to him and brushed up against him, the side of her body rubbing past his torso and her hair swishing his face. By accident, of course!

Drake smiles when she passes him, but there's a little trepidation behind it now. Something about the way she defended the hentai matches. It's enough to cause him to nearly miss the (accidental) brush of her body against him.

He realizes what she said is the truth, and that he's been hindering his exposure by avoiding that type of match, but that's been his choice. Intimacy, to him, is just that: intimate. Not to be shared on camera with a bunch of pervy onlookers. He can be plenty risque, but it's like the modeling. Risque, but not full monty.

He clears his throat softly as he moves forward to catch up. "So it doesn't bother you? The idea of getting... well... practically raped in the ring in front of a televised audience?" The word "practically" is added for the sake of semantics. The argument could be made that agreeing to the match is consenting, he thinks. "I'll be honest with you. I was really worried you were going to try to strip me out there. The idea of being with you is... well..." He lifts a hand to run through her long black tresses to complete the thought for him - a notably affectionate gesture. "...but with a bunch of people watching? That's not my style..."

He gives her a moment to not answer, though, because he adds, "And what'll you be having? I'll get it for ya if you pick a table or couch or.." He scans the room quickly, concluding with an equally brisk shrug, "..whatever!"

Irene put a finger to her lips as she thought about Drake's question. She still hadn't gotten into a full hentai match yet, so she couldn't say for certain how she felt about it. There was something creepy about the idea of competitive sex being broadcast on live TV, but not creepy enough to keep Irene away from it.

She stopped thinking for a moment, her stomach fluttering, as Drake's fingers felt their way through her hair, his intimate words trailing off. She moved closer to him, like a magnet being attracted to one of the opposite pole, and gently placed her hands on him, one on top of his shoulder, and the other on his side. For a moment, she wondered if they were going to kiss, but he went back to his normal demeanor too quickly, and she parted herself from him, returning to normal as well. Maybe later...

“To me, it isn't any scarier than a normal fight where you can get hurt,” Irene said as she took her place in line along with Drake. She decided to order with him, so he wouldn't have to carry everything to wherever they decided to sit. “If I hated the person I was fighting, then it would worry me, but I would hate losing to someone I didn't like no matter how they did it.”

Irene looked up at the menu as the two of them got closer to the cashier. She wasn't too hungry; she rarely was, in fact, which might be why she was so skinny. “I'll just get a latte and some fruit, and maybe a brownie too. I can't eat too much junk food since fitness became important to me, but it's a special occasion,” she said, batting her eyelashes meaningfully at her date.

Drake noticed those little touches following his hair-pet. It was adorable - very unlike what he'd wrestled earlier. In the ring, she seems mostly all business and boobs. Out here, she's so... refreshingly girlie. He slips an arm around her waist, securing her position beside him. "Alright. Well, I'm just making it clear now, but... if this," he says, waggling a finger between her and himself, "becomes a thing, I'm gonna get all up in arms if some other guy has his way with you." He concludes the thought with a playful wink.

A playful wink that belies his sincerity. He'd actually be more than a little upset by it.

"Y'know, you're a lot sweeter when you're not chewing off my fingers," Drake teases, tilting his hips to the side to bump her. The line shuffles forward a little. "But you look amazing in a sportsbra, too. So.. I guess it's kind of a tradeoff..." His free hand taps an index finger to his lips, eyes lifting in faux-reflection.

While Drake talked, Irene simply stared up at him and leaned into him slightly, to return his affection from that arm he wrapped around her waist. As he mentioned how steamed he would be if someone else had their way with her, Irene bit her lip and looked nervously away from him.

“Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that,” said the girl. “I understand that, for this relationship to work, we need to show fidelity to each other. But...because both of us are in the AFW, where people have to force themselves on each other in order to claim victory, I'm afraid it's not going to be possible for us stay loyal to each other, at least not in physical terms. Eventually, one of us will get into a match where hentai is allowed, where we won't be able to save ourselves for each other. Sooner or later, I'm going to betray you in that ring.”

Irene's head sank sorrowfully. She didn't want to look at Drake while she said all this. “If you and I become a couple, I promise unless we break up that I won't love any man or woman except you, no matter what happens in the ring. Still, could you stay in this relationship even if I kept doing hentai matches?” she finished, looking up at him with a brow furrowed in sorrow. As much as she liked the charming boy she had met in the ring on her debut match, she didn't want to shelve her competitive spirit for him. She could only hope that Drake might be accepting of this.

Drake's happy to accommodate her extra-snuggly disposition. The closer she gets to him, the further his arm loops her middle. And even when they shuffle forward along the line, he keeps ahold of her.

But she's given him a tough pill to swallow. Could he be with someone who'd content to fully public, predatorial infidelity? Hell, would she be the one to perpetrate that infidelity if it meant scoring a win? Drake finds his arm slipping from her frame.

"I, uh." He hedges a moment, his own eyes shifting away from her. "I don't think I can do that. I have absolutely no intentions of doing matches that require.. that kind of ending. And I'm really leery about doing matches that even allow it. You might've noticed in our match I was really sort've... tame. By Tension standards." Beat. "Not that I didn't want to do more, but that's where the line's drawn with me. I don't think a federation would even consider taking me in if I crossed that line, and I know my dad would never look me in the eye again."

He's legacy. His father is a successful professional wrestler who has fully supported him in his endeavors to follow in his footsteps. Deviating like that would most likely crush any pride he'd have for his son, and Drake's entirely aware of it.

Irene was startled by Drake's reply, but not merely because he had his doubts about what she had said. Most of his reply indicated that he was under the impression that she expected him to compete in hentai matches. She hadn't meant to make him think that, and she peeled herself away from him, waving both hands frantically.

“No, no, that's not what I meant!” she said anxiously. “You don't have to compete in hentai matches if you don't want to; you can compete in whatever matches you're comfortable with. All I'm asking is whether or not you'd be able to stomach the fact that I compete in them. I like you Drake, a lot, but if my competing makes you uncomfortable...” she stopped, her heart was accelerating as she fathomed the bitter, depressing possibility that this relationship would wind up hurting one of them.