Like a House on Fire

...what did she think of Blade’s apartment?

Hauling around two-hundred pounds of old clothes, older fan posters, and even older Wrestle Angels memorabilia had her mind distracted for the most part. Most of Chizuru’s head had been far in the future for the past hour; where exactly had she planned to hang all of the new fanart she’d been sent for the past year? Should she make a new YouTube video now that she was in a new place and maybe commemorate the moment? How would she use her computer without a desk? Put the monitor on the floor? Could they buy a desk? Amazon, maybe? Did Amazon Japan deliver desks to apartments?

It was only after Blade set the final boxes down and the two of them got the chance to breathe deep and finally shut the door behind them on the setting sun peeking out at them over the horizon that the German-Japanese girl was able to stop and take a decent look around her new home. It wasn’t German imported wood. It wasn’t grandfather clocks in the atrium.

Yeah. Her father would hate this place.

Chizuru felt her brows furrow the longer she looked around. It wasn’t at all a bad living space, nowhere near as dark or heavy as she might have been expecting from Blade. The walls weren't painted black, which was good. There were even some additions she wasn't expecting at all. The kotatsu was very homey and a nice little centerpiece for the whole place. Guitars on the wall, posters to keep them company, even a plant or two that brought some life. Yet there was an awful lot of...clutter. Bit of a kind word for it. Chizuru shared an apartment with two other people and never saw a tower of pizza boxes as high as the several she spotted across the room. And she swore something just moved underneath that drawer.

And this was just the living room...

“It's…” Please say something.

“...nice.”

A half-suppressed cough followed those words out of her throat. The remains of words that were better left unsaid, though Chizuru was fully aware she could have done a much better job at fibbing than that. Her eyes scanned left and right as she strolled around the room, careful not to step on some discarded chicken bones while she tried to spot something to build on.

“I-I-I mean it's very...you! It’s got a lot of character, definitely feels lived in. I feel better already!” Chizuru was no actress. The more she talked, however, the more she seemed able to reassure herself. And hopefully her roommate. She stopped by one of the wall decorations and reached out to touch it...before she noticed some dust caking the surface and thought better of it. “I-I always thought you’d played guitar...a-and a bonsai tree! That’s a surprise. People like Minami or Risako are into that kind of stuff, but I guess you’re pretty responsible too Blade!”

Something struck Chizuru on the head just then. Not literally. Just a thought that never occurred to her until now and probably wasn’t even that important. But as she looked back to Blade, Chizuru assumed it wouldn’t hurt to ask. She was so off-balance now that they were finally settled in the same place together. This was real. This was happening. This was her roommate. “What is your first name? Everyone I’ve ever known has only called you Blade.”

Did Blade just laugh?

It was that kind of thing that was incredibly obvious when you kept in the back of your mind and probably incredibly familiar without even thinking about it. Of course, Blade laughed. Compared to some of the other Wrestle Angels Chizuru had come to know over a long and intimate career, Blade fell a lot closer to the "normal" end of that myriad of makeshift personalities. She'd probably heard Blade laugh all of the time if she thought back a little further. It was there on the borders of her memories. It shouldn't have surprised her all that much.

But it wasn't just that she did laugh. It was the way she laughed. Unguarded, sincere, and at ease with herself. Maybe it was just the way Chizuru had always been used to seeing her. If Blade wasn’t high-diving off the tallest thing she could find in the immediate vicinity or throwing a stiff punch into the faces of blonde-haired beauty pageant judokas around the world, the Suplex Specialist never seemed to have trouble finding her by the sound of that boisterous voice from Okinawa echoing around the backstage halls. Here, in the dimming afternoon sunlight of a cozy lived-in apartment just beyond the reach of Tokyo’s sounds and lights, there was a relaxed and honest air that just seemed to make all the difference in the world.

Chizuru raised her eyes and felt a faint heat beneath the skin of her face. Her chest felt lighter as if the atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed watching Blade move closer towards her.

"Kyouko."She hummed the word a little bit in her throat and couldn’t resist the urge to smile, even as her arm wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her close in a sisterly embrace. "That's a pretty name. It’s nice to meet you too, Kyouko."

The German-Japanese girl was so busy smiling and blushing that her roommate's question almost sailed right over her head, but she was glad she caught it. Wrestling was so closely tied to her identity, not many people inquired about that part of herself. She flashed a grin up at the Okinawan. “Sort of!”

She exclaimed proudly about that little-known fact. Rei probably didn’t even know that. She stood upright and pointed a finger to herself beaming with excitement that seemed to be coming from nowhere at all. “My name is Chizuru! But when I was born in Berlin, papa named me Jeanne. Jeanne Nagahara.”

She reached around and tapped Blade square on the nose. “But you can still call me Chizu. You’re the only one who does after all!”

Blade went red really easily, huh?

Chizuru hadn't had the chance to be around her so often. Ever since their match together it was like she was seeing a new side of Blade on a physical level just as much as the emotional level. The Okinawan was a surprisingly sensitive person beneath that fierce persona of a high-flying daredevil. Maybe all of this summer weather was getting to her.

She looked like a tomato.

All of a sudden, the German-Suplex girl whipped around and was led by the arm quickly down the hallway to the nearest door. She looked between Blade and the hardwood panels, unsure of what exactly to expect on what was waiting for her on the other side. The view beyond left her wide-eyed and completely silent for the first time in hours.

“It’s beautiful!” Chizuru turned and gave her roommate a quick but full hug with both arms before she pulled away and turned to face the entire room again. "Drab? Pink and yellow is my favorite! It's like...a big cotton candy room!"

"Oh-oh! I'll put our Super Mega Death Team poster there! And my picture of mom and dad there! And my flower vase there! Oh, let's get tulips and put them in the window there!" Chizuru's mind was a million miles a minute. She was swept up in it that she almost forgot who she had to thank for all of this. The German Suplex wrestler turned around and clasped her hands together in an attempt to control all of this jovial energy that basically didn't work at all.

"Thank you, Blade! Thank you so much! I knew this apartment would be nice but this room is just...just...I don't even know what to say! I just wanna jump up and down on that bed and-!" There was a cockroach under the bed.

Eh?

...Eh?

There was a cockroach under her bed. Just out of the shadows. It was looking up at the both of them and flicking its whiskers in four different directions at once. Chizuru and the hundred-legged parasite stared at each other for a long and quiet moment, the breath in her lungs entering and exiting quicker and quicker with each passing second. Neither party seemed certain of what their next move should be.

…

The roach skittered towards her.

…

It must have been two hours now?

Chizuru was sitting on Blade’s bed, her legs tucked close against her and using her oversized t-shirt to cover her bare legs. She let her eyes take one last look around the room for about the fifteenth time in the past couple of minutes. It definitely felt a lot more lived-in compared to the one Blade had set up for her. Clothes on the floor, drawers half-open, not in a million pieces, and a bed halfway out of the window. Yeah, they might have to call Pablo for that one. She turned her head to the door, still hearing the sink running in the other room.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me sharing this side of the bed?” She called out into the hall to her roommate on the other side of the bathroom door. “I really am okay with the couch. I don’t want to be a bother on our first night.”

More than she already was, she meant. "Did you get all of the wall plaster out of your hair too? I think I saw some behind your ears."

Chizuru didn't even want to think about how much money it would take to get that bed frame out of the ceiling. Could they hire movers for that? Did they have to have a carpenter with them while they were moving things around? How long could they hide all of this from the landlord? Did the landlord even know Chizuru had moved in yet? Would she even want her around after this?

Questions, questions, and more questions that she was just too tired to deal with. Guess that was all going to be a problem for Tomorrow Chizuru. Today Chizuru just wanted to sleep and forget about everything. Well, almost everything.

Her head perked up when Blade finally entered the room. Her hair was better than a moment ago, but the same couldn't be said for the rest of her. Even the German Suplex artist couldn't miss the sagged shoulders and the tired expression weighing on her gray eyes. She watched fall onto the mattress, making Chizuru buoy up and down on the spot as the Okinawan sank into the mattress. It was kind of amazing how every time she didn't think she could feel worse.

“You really want my dad to find out you put me in a hotel room after all of that?" Her tone was much more mild-mannered now, accepting of their situation. The reality was that staying here was the only way to guarantee Blade's safety. She really hoped she didn't have to elaborate on why.

Maybe this wouldn't work out. Maybe they were never meant to room in with each other. Maybe this was a sign about getting too ambitious for her own good. Maybe someone of Blade's calibur was just naturally beyond her and she should have been happy with her station in life. Maybe maybe maybe maybe…

Chizuru groaned and flopped back onto the bed beside Blade. It sucked seeing her like this. Didn’t they already have their whole bonding moment just a couple of hours ago? This wasn’t things worked before. The German-Suplex Girl was done with thinking for today. She turned herself over on the covers and buried her face into the pillow, sinking into the mattress of their mutually malignant misery.

"Why is it all so different now? I miss everyone." She muttered into her pillow. Who or what exactly she was referring to was just about anyone's guess. Things rarely made sense when it came to Chizuru as it was.

Tired. It has been a while since she'd felt this tired. Hauling her entire room's worth of sentimental value up ten flights of stairs covered her workout for the day. The last thing she needed was a metaphorical dump truck of emotional baggage weighing her down.

Chizuru felt like she could just sink into the depths of the memory foam and never come back out until the morning. Pulses of excess fatigue ached her muscles from the strain in her back to the worn tips of her fingers. It was only a little better after a shower but she could only imagine what Blade was feeling. First her dad, then the moving boxes, then what was supposed to be her room. They were going to have to tackle that upside-down dresser in the hallway first thing in the morning. She wasn’t interested in thinking about all of that and neither was her roommate.

It only occurred to Chizuru after she said it that her statement might have been a little misleading. Today was an afternoon chock-full of change for everyone. It was easy to get confused.

"Oh, no. Not them. I mean, you're right. A little...I just meant-" Chizuru stopped and caught her breath. She turned to face Blade, but couldn't raise her eyes from the pillow that kept her face half-buried. She found it a little hard to look her in the eye, keeping her attention on her finger drawing a circle into the covers. "I meant everyone. All our friends, our fans...Wrestle Angels."

The German Suplex girl let out a sigh. She turned over and sat up on the bed. She leaned forward and hid most of her face behind her knees as she wrapped her arms around her legs, tucking herself into a ball.

"Every day used to be so much fun. It just made sense then. Panther, Beauty, Yukiko. Everyone wrestled because it was what they loved to do. Because they had a dream to chase after. We all had our differences, but it felt like that didn't really matter in the end because we all still used to be a...family. The Director called us that once, remember? He was such an amazing person. He kept to his ideals and his kindness no matter how bad things were for us. Even when we saw him for the last time. There's no one like him here. Not in the administration. All anyone ever talks about now is money and titles and...sex…"

Chizuru's voice whispered on that last word. She hugged her legs closer against her to hide the red growing on her cheeks. Although her eyes seemed to glint in the light when she started to blink, welling up with thin moisture. It was a little hard to speak. "I...might have tricked myself into thinking that by coming to AFW with everyone else it would be like those days again. Rei is gone, Mika is gone, maybe I'll go with them...maybe I don't…maybe I'm not..."