Words That We Couldn't Say

Carmen, for her part, had no idea who the people Mariko was talking about were, but she was more than willing to take the Japanese beauty at her word. She certainly seemed in her element here. She would know. And she was fine with the subject drifting over into that, or just letting the music play while they listened.

But it wasn’t too be. The elephant in the room just would not shut up.

”It’s not your fault.” Carmen shook her head, and motioned for a waittress to refill her glass. She would need it. ”I wanted to do a match with Akino in the first place. I wanted that challenge. So did she. I thought putting the title in the mix would honor things, show her how much I respected her as a fighter. Maybe that message didn’t get through clearly.” She inhaled and exhaled in a long, drawn out breath. ”Maybe.”

Carmen took a moment to run her fingers over the plate of her championship, sliding her fingers along the clockface. Contemplating what it was. What it really was. She'd already done more with the belt than any other hold, but maybe that was the problem.

The band played on for a few more notes before she broke the silence, slowly turning Mariko's way before she spoke again. ”May I ask you a question?”

Mariko didn’t quite agree with Carmen’s assessment that what happened hadn’t at least been somewhat her fault. The match she’d set had hurt a relationship. And something about the fact that Mariko has set her own girlfriend against Killer King made her feel a bit worse about it. She had, potentially, put two relationships at risk with her matchmaking, and was fortunate her own had made it through. Still, it was somewhat relieving to hear that Carmen seemed to hold no grudge against her for her part in it.

When Carmen wanted to ask her something, Mariko nodded with a warm, reassuring smile. “Of course. What is it?” she asked, then sipped her wine and patiently waited to hear what Carmen had to say. For all her efforts to dodge the topic at hand, it seemed the boxer was starting to open up bit by bit about the subject. Mariko was quite curious to hear the question on Carmen’s mind.

”I’ll make an assumption, so stop me if I’m wrong.” Carmen propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward, centering on Mariko. ”You fought in the tag tourney, and you did a great job. I remember that. It was a tough contest. I could tell you really wanted to win those tag belts, and I was rooting for you.”

Carmen lifted her own belt up and let it rest on the table, right in the middle. ”And I know you’re not here to challenge me, but I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t hate the idea of doing it some other time." She met Mariko's eyes for a moment before looking back down. There was a very real challenge under there. "So let’s say we had a match, and we fought, and you won and became the champion. Hypothetically.”

Carmen placed her hand on top of the clockface, pinning it like a lion’s paw on top of his kill. ”How far would you be willing to go to keep it? Where would you draw a line?”

Mariko listened intently as Carmen spoke, and her smile died down a bit when the tag tournament was brought up. She’d been told more times than she could even count that that match had been by far her best yet. Whether it was true or not, that match was still a tough pill for her to swallow. She’d long since stopped beating herself up over it, but truth be told, she was barely more comfortable thinking about it than Carmen seemed to be with her match against Akino. She took a drink of her wine to wash the metaphorical bad taste in her mouth.

Fortunately the point led Carmen back to the 24/7 Championship. She looked down at the belt as it was set on the table, then back up at Carmen’s eyes when the idea of a match between the two of them was put forth. The eyes of the Japanese beauty were unyielding, yet she gave no indication that challenging Carmen had been anywhere on her mind. Because frankly, it hadn’t. Not that such a match was one she wouldn’t be honored to participate in. But being 24/7 Champion would come with certain risks and sacrifices. For one thing, her regular visits to the Space Lion would have to come to a halt - she damn sure wasn’t interested in the possibility of getting banned from her favorite place in Kyoto because of an impromptu match. But would giving up a good portion of her private life be worth it if it meant becoming a champion? Mariko glanced down at the belt, and started pondering on that until Carmen asked her question.

“Hmmm.... That’s hard to say,” Mariko replied as she tried to think about her response. The tricky part wasn’t how she’d answer the direct question, but the layers hidden underneath it. She felt pretty sure Carmen was, somewhat subtly, also asking whether Mariko approved of her tactics in the Ueno match, or whether she would’ve done the same. “I think it largely depends on the opponent. It’s easy to say I’d be willing to do anything to defend it. But it really depends. Put me up against a Valkyrie or a Takeuchi with a steel chair in hand, and they’ll get hit considerably more with it than, say, Yamato-kun or Abbey-chan might.” Mariko wasn’t really sure if Carmen knew she and Abbey were an item, but she didn’t particularly care. They hadn’t exactly tried to hide it. That aside, she hoped her point made some sense.

Carmen perked up at the mention of Abbey, but she saw the sense in what Mariko was saying soon enough. She’d seen the match with King at Ueno, and the aftermath where the purple-haired vixen came to the rescue. Relationships in the AFW were complex even in the simplest instances, so she didn’t want to rely on assumptions, but some things did make sense.

Past that, though, Mariko’s answer did make sense. It was an example of the difference between boxing and wrestling - if Carmen had a bout with someone from her own family, she wouldn’t hold back a single punch, and she wouldn’t expect anything coming her way to be softened. In a match, nothing should be held back once the bell rings. It’s all in or nothing at all.

Then again, boxing didn’t allow chair shots.

Carmen pondered it for a moment, then looked back at Mariko. ”Well…” She began, had a moment of hesitation, then pressed on, anyway. [color=#400000]”What do you think about what I did during the match? Was it too much?”[color]

Once again Mariko was somewhat torn by Carmen’s question. “Well, I’m hardly one to preach when it comes to ethics in wrestling.” She was pretty sure the sort of seduction and sensual teasing Mariko tended to utilize had never been part of any high school or collegiate wrestler’s training. Wasn’t exactly part of greco-roman technique. But it had still served her well enough, and she’d say the ends had justified the means in those cases. But that wasn’t really the same to what they were talking about.

“I’ve done a fair share of questionable, but legal things to get an edge in my matches. Would I have done the same things you did if I’d been in your shoes? ...I doubt it. I can’t really condemn it because it was legal. But if it had been me, I probably would’ve looked for another way to get the job done. So to answer your question, if you really want my honest opinion, yes, it might’ve been a bit much,” she said, before opening the magazine in front of her. She started flipping through the pages in search of a very specific one.

“Akino seems to share a similar opinion, but I think she feels much more strongly about it. I tried calling her as well earlier to discuss her side of it. She hang up as soon as I told her who I was. But, when she returned to Tokyo she did an interview about the match.” As if on cue, right then Mariko turned to a page which featured a picture of Akino, and the transcript of the interview. “Part of her terms for being made the challenger was that she do this interview after, whether she won or lost. To her credit she fulfilled that promise, but...it seems she was still in a less-than-pleasant mood, judging by her answers to some of these questions.”

Mariko looked back up at Carmen. “Can you read Japanese? If not I’d be happy to tell you what it says, or paraphrase if you’d like. Or, if you don’t want to, I won’t force it. But there’s a chance it might shed more light onto where she’s coming from with all of this,” she said, then gave Carmen time to consider it and patiently waited for the boxer’s answer.

Carmen appreciated Mariko’s answer. She didn’t much agree with it, but the honesty was nice. She came off as the sort of woman that didn’t sugarcoat things, but managed to do so without being rude, a skill that she herself hadn’t quite mastered yet.

Carmen was taking a moment to absorb what she’d said, when the mention of the magazine perked her up. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear it at first - the last time they’d met, it felt like Mariko made her position clear, and the last thing she wanted was to hear it again from someone else's lips - but she relented after a moment and nodded. It needed to be done. She was a grown woman, she could take it.

She could speak Japanese well enough and tried to brush up on the language whenever she could, but… ”I can read it, but I’m slow. Much slower than you’d be." Carmen nodded. "If you wouldn’t mind, please, go ahead.”-

Mariko nodded back, then looked down at the opened magazine. The tip of her right index finger started at the top of the page, then began to slide down past the first few questions and answers, which hadn’t taken up much space. The interviewer had attempted to lob Akino some softballs with her questions in hopes of getting her to say some nice things in general about the ppv. Instead all she’d gotten out of the blue haired maiden had been short, unsubstantial answers. “Yeah, I guess.” “Obviously.” “Sure, whatever.” Mariko speculated those were only included at all was to show that the obvious and expected opening questions hadn’t been neglected in the interview.

It wasn’t until she was asked on her thoughts of the title match that Akino had finally given a somewhat noteworthy answer. That was where her finger stopped, and she read aloud...
Q: “Looking back on your first title match as a wrestler now, what was it like? How did it feel?” A: “I went into Ueno feeling more excited than I ever have for a match before. But I left feeling just anger and disappointment.” Most of the rest of the interview was essentially a conversation that stemmed from this point.

Q: “Disappointment because you lost?”
A: “I can handle losing. It happens. But I respected Carmen. I thought she respected me too, and I’d hoped we could have a fight that reflected that sentiment. Instead an Olympic athlete resorted to smearing dirt and sand into my eye to blind me and set up an easy sucker punch.”

Q: “But that’s all perfectly legal in a 24/7 match, isn’t it? Pardon me if I’m being unsympathetic, but in a match where ordinarily ‘dirty’ tactics are permitted and even encouraged, shouldn’t you expect those sort of things? Particularly considering you’re already fighting with a handicap as it is?”
A: “Did I say she cheated? No. Against just about anyone else I probably would’ve expected something like that. But I thought Carmen could be above all that. Guess I was wrong.”

Q: “So, and again I apologize, but are you saying people should just ignore the target your blindness presents even when the rules permit them to exploit it?”
A: “You need to stop putting words in my mouth. I’ve never asked for special treatment from others. She’s not the first to exploit my blindness. But Carmen and I shared a bond. That makes what she did hurt a lot more than it would’ve had it been anyone else. Did you see her match with Soledad Vega? Carmen was visibly furious during that match, and rightfully so, even though everything Vega did was within the rules. But imagine how much worse would that have made her feel if the person who ambushed her that night had been someone she really cared for.”

Q: “I see... But still, considering your handicap will be with you in all your matches, 24/7 or not, and that you admit you expect most opponents to use it to their advantage, is it really a good idea for you to continue wrestling?” At this point the magazine noted that Akino got out of her chair and stood threateningly over the interviewer.
A: “Say that again. I dare you. My blindness doesn’t make me any less of a person than you, or any less of a wrestler than anyone else on the roster!”

Mariko stopped, then looked up at Carmen and paused for a moment to let her digest what she’d heard before continuing. “Apparently she stormed out right after that... I’m no psychologist, but it seems to me that her problem with what happened in your match isn’t so much an issue of you breaking some unwritten code of honor. But what happened there in the end made her feel inadequate as a person and as a wrestler. She’s grown up her whole life dealing with her blindness... I don’t know if making amends with Akino is something you want to do or not. But if you do, I think you’ll need to find a way show her that you don’t see her that way.”

Carmen stayed quiet - deadly quiet - as Mariko spoke. She leaned back in her chair, put a hand to her chin, slanted her head to the slightest degree, and tried to make her face unreadable. It was an attempt to give as little away as possible, not let the words affect her. Not on the surface.

For the most part, she succeeded. There was a twinge when the fight with Soledad was mentioned, a twitch at some of the more impassioned parts, when she could easily imagine the fire in Akino’s voice...but she kept things stoic.

Internally.

The music helped, providing a low, slow melody to accompany Mariko’s words. Made it easy to think and absorb what she was saying, and come to a conclusion: She was a terrible person.

”That’s not the worst idea.” She sat up straight and finished off the glass. ”Any idea on what that might be?”

Mariko was no mindreader, not by a long shot. But she had a feeling the things she’d just said had hurt Carmen much more than the boxer’s expression indicated. How? Well, if Mariko were in Carmen’s position, she’d probably be doing the same thing.

She did have a few possible ideas to answer Carmen’s question with. But before she could get into them, there was something she needed to know. The 24/7 champ had kept a lot of her true thoughts and feelings concealed, leaving it up to Mariko to guess at them. Appropriate from a business standpoint, and understandable from a personal one. But if Mariko was going to be of any further help, there was a little more she needed to know.

She looked into Carmen’s eyes, put on as casual a smile as she could muster under the circumstances, then took another drink of her wine before speaking again. “Well, the woman who interviewed her was right. Someone like Akino Sanada has no business being in a ring. Maybe you should try talking some sense into her, get her to retire before she really gets herself hurt.” She shrugged. And everything in her tone and expression seemed to suggest she meant what she was saying.

How would Carmen take that idea? The spectrum of possibilities was wide, ranging from complete agreement to total outrage, one of the reasons she was glad this meeting was happening in a place that had security on standby. But whatever Carmen’s response was, chances were it’d tell Mariko what she needed to know.