The Lady and the Ladies' Man

Cassie felt completely comfortable in her jeans and sneakers and orange winter jacket. She didn't feel any pressure to impress this boy or anything like that. He was just a nice boy, and she was a nice girl, and nice boys and girls are allowed to take walks and not have it be a big deal. Also, she was wearing her favorite hat, and she didn't care at all if Mamouru thought it was silly.

It was a brown crocheted hat with little ear flaps and strings that tied under her chin and little round bear ears on top. She left the strings untied. It was probably the awesomest hat in the history of hats. Her short orange hair stuck out from under it, and she fussed with it to keep it out of her eyes.

She swung her arms as she strolled lazily down the sidewalk next to Mamouru. A short time had passed in silence since leaving the Tension campus. Kyoto was neat. It was different from Toyko. Cassie thought sometimes that she liked it better. The air smelled cleaner, though just by a little.

She looked up at the much taller boy next to her and gave him a warm smile. He was the better part of a foot taller than her. She felt like a little peanut next to him. She swerved over to bump into him with her shoulder.

"I don't wanna talk about wrestling." She said, sounding more like "aboot" with her Canadian accent. Cassie had been taught the value of being able to give 100% in training and in competition, and then being done with it when it was time to be done. She'd had enough wrestling for the night, and now she was relaxed and carefree. She didn't have a thing to worry about until she got back to Tokyo and had to resume training.

"It's a nice night, isn't it? Tell me about something. I like listening to you talk."

Mamouru had changed out of his wrestling attire after dropping Cassie off and then taking a quick shower himself. He put on some clothes better suited for casually walking,among other things. Some tight black jeans and worn looking slate gray t-shirt with some screen printed kanji that looked like it was worn and cracked with age on his right chest. His brown hair was perfectly messy as if each strand was carefully misplaced.He slipped on some mild but good smelling cologne and headed on out.

He took the first bit of the walk to enjoy the silence and size Cassie up. He had been pretty forthright during the match and wondered if that was still a correct approach to take. With Cassie, there were many options available to him. She certainly wasn't bad looking, in fact quite the opposite. her pixie like demeanor cloaked a very womanly figure that was quite tantalizing.

He smiled as they walked and she offered to listen to him. He laughed softly. "About me, eh?' He said and then flashed a wryer smile. "My favorite subject." His joke held a faint bit of truth. His favorite subject was women. Not them specifically as he'd probably care little for what Cassie had to say but rather they as a group and what they could do for him.

"Well, that's fine." He said and went to think. If she really wanted to listen, then he'd tell her. "I was born in Tokyo and lived there my whole life. We did get to travel a fair amount because of my mother's work but my move to Kyoto has basically been my first time out of the city. I guess it's not my first time out of the house though. Johnny and I both decided to move out when we could, shared an apartment in Tokyo and then in Kyoto. Not totally sure about that situation presently though..." Mamouru said leaving out plenty of details on both his and Johnny's side of things.

"It is." e said suddenly cutting his words short to address her early concern. "A wonderful night for sure." Mamouru looked up into the sky and glanced at the moon. He wasn't really in the mood for chit chat ant as his gaze was away from Cassie he spoke. "How are you able to be so cheerful?" He asked. Though, Mamouru was the same, sort of, his cheerfulness wasn't entirely genuine. "I mean, it seems a bit tiresome." He added and looked at Cassie. "Not that I wish you to be dour. It's better seeing someone smile and enjoy themselves, right?" Mamouru turned his head, a smile on his own remaining on his face. "It's just hard for me to believe you enjoy listening to me talk when you've only heard a few words, honestly."

Cassie giggled. "Well, I've heard some, and I liked what I heard. You have a very smooth voice and you seem smart. You're the kind of person who's easy to listen to. I guess I just don't try to make it any more complicated than that." She looked up at him again. "That's a pretty silly question for Mr I-Never-Silly." She said in her best approximation of a deep, serious, manly voice, but with her small, young, girly voice it was still pretty high and not at all manly.

Mamouru probably only mentioned Cassie's cheerfulness because he wasn't cheerful. He sometimes acted like he was, but he didn't act like someone who really was, something like that. Smart and handsome he may have been, maybe even charming, though he was a little goofy for that, but Mamouru didn't seem very happy. Cassie was happy. Why wouldn't she be? There was no reason to be unhappy.

"You and Johnny are funny. I have two older brothers, but... we don't horse around like you guys do. They're too big. I've always trained with them, Jiu Jitsu, that is. My dad owns a Jiu Jitsu school in London, Ontario, not England... Ontario's in Canada... And my brother opened one in New York and I went with to help him. That's where I learned about pro wrestling and met Taylor and eventually came here and had that match and met you and here we are. Isn't it funny how my dad opens a Jiu Jitsu school and blah blah blah we're walking around Kyoto. It's so awesome the way things work out like that."

"Okay, your turn. Um... What do you like to do most? AND... Tell me about your last girlfriend." Wait, maybe he's never had... no, of course he's had a girlfriend before. Probably lots of them. "Wait, do you have a girlfriend now? Tell me about her too!"

"Very Well..." Mamouru said with a smile. Then he let out a soft chuckle as she tried to mimic him and failed. "Come on now, Cassie-san. You act as if I am never light hearted." She certainly did have a unique way of looking at things and Mamouru listened as she gave her story.

He smiled and looked at Cassie and laughed, lifting up his hand to cover his mouth. "All that for this one moment? Better make good use of it then, right Cassie-san?" He said and smiled at Cassie.

But Cassie's next question came as quite a surprise. "Huh?" He had to almost ask her if she was serious. "What do I like the most? That's a pretty vague question..." He thought about it though. He had an answer but wasn't sure if he should be honest with her. He flipped his bangs and then laughed. He decided that he would continue on with this little experiment.

"Heh..." He said. "Girls, probably, Cassie-san." He shoved his hands in is pockets. He slouched his shoulders forward, defensive body posture for what he assumed would be necessary for his words. He turned his head a little. "Yeah, I have a girlfriend, I suppose. She's cute, feisty. rich. Got a pretty big place too. It's been fun, I guess. Who knows what's going to happen though. I don't really think about it too much. I don't think she cares too much if I sleep around either, which makes it that much more convenient to have her around."

There. Chew on that for a while, Cassie. Now to see just what exactly she was made of. He'd never been so open with someone before but what did it matter? Cassie was cute and he'd love to get at her for a lot of reasons but he also couldn't believe that she was the cute, naive person she pretended to be. No one was that saccharine and that ..." He really didn't know what to make of her but he had to know how fake she really was even if he had to drop his visage to do it.

Cassie walked silently next to Mamouru for a while. She managed not to blush, somehow. She was stunned by what appeared to be his honesty. Certainly, it changed the tone of their little stroll. What did one say to someone say to all of that? She wanted to call her parents and ask them what to do, but she never thought of just walking away from him.

"Wow." Was all she could think of at first. "But... we're not gonna... you know... But here we are. You..." She stopped again and scrunched up her brow. Suddenly she felt stupid in her bear hat. Her pace slowed for a moment while she thought, but she caught up soon.

"You don't take me seriously, do you? You think I'm just some dumb little stuffed-animal Cassie-doll. I'm not. I'm smart, and I'm not a prude, and I know what... people like you do. You wouldn't tell me all that if you thought you needed to... play me, or something. Well you don't have to take me seriously, but I take you seriously. Why do you say you like girls most of all, but it doesn't seem like you treat them very well. If you liked your girlfriend so much you would think about things and you wouldn't want to... sleep around, even if she didn't care at all.

"I mean... People would probably call you a name and leave, like call you a jerk or something, but I don't think you're a jerk, and that's why I'm so confused about why you would do things like that." Cassie closed her mouth. Suddenly she felt like she was talking way too much. She should be listening more.

Wait, should she be worried about Mamouru trying to... do something bad to her? Should she be on guard? Well... if he tried something she'd make him stop, but... She hoped he didn't try anything bad.

Mamouru was honestly surprised that Cassie reacted the way she did. But as she finished, he smiled at her. "Actually..." He said as he looked the red head over. "If I thought you were like that, then maybe I would try and play you. It seems like it might be easy enough." Mamouru shrugged. "I don't know, Cassie-san. There's a part of me that is only looking to see how far I can get with you. Or could have gotten with you. Sure you seem like a dumb stuffed little Cassie-doll or whatever, but if I thought that's ALL you were then I wouldn't tell you anything. Or maybe I would." Mamouru took a step forward and started walking again.

"They're fun." He said. "To try and manipulate, I guess. It's like a game and I guess there's a prize at the end. How could you not think I was a jerk?" He turned around and looked at Cassie walking backwards. He flashed a smile and pushed away his bangs. "I've been slapped plenty of times." He admitted. "But usually after the fact." He looked over Cassie. "But how could you not say I was a jerk? That's what I don't really understand about you, Cassie-san. I guess that makes you pretty interesting. Clearly I'm an asshole. Taylor-san figured it out right away, shortly after we met and I was a perfect gentleman to her. But you say that you're not dumb or naive and you know what people like me do and then you still can't say I'm a jerk. That doesn't make any sense."

"Well..." Cassie began, but had to think about it. "I don't know. That's just how I feel I guess."

She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket and her eyes wandered around the city. Sometimes she really didn't know why she worked the way she did, but when she met someone she usually saw good and bad parts of them, and it wasn't that she disregarded the bad ones, just that she chose to believe that the good ones were the real ones. The bad parts were more like how when someone's bumper is falling off and they duct tape it back on. Ugly, temporary fixes.

"Good guys don't do that stuff." She said, still convinced that Mamouru was one of them. "I guess I can see why Taylor doesn't like you. I don't blame her or anything. I think... maybe there are a lot of things that might be fun that I wouldn't do. Ya know? Like if I were you, those things might be fun for me but I couldn't do them because they hurt people. People don't hurt people they care about, not really. Not like that. That's selfish. But... I think you do care about people, you just don't do it right."

She stopped and smiled up at him, but her face quickly became angry. Suddenly, she headbutted him in the stomach like a rhinoceros. "Stop messing around! Don't make me make you talk to my dad."

Mamouru watched as Cassie seemed to struggle to answer his question. She didn't even KNOW why she thought that way? Well there seemed to be a lot of incomprehension between the two. "Heh..." Mamouru said. "You're right. Johnny doesn't do that stuff. He's a good guy. He couldn't do it if he tried."

Mamouru shook his head. He was about to speak again when Cassie suddenly headbutted him. His eyes widened and he fell on his ass. He clenched his teeth and looked up at Cassie with as much smile as he could muster while holding his stomach.

"You're right... I wouldn't do that to someone I cared about, I guess." He said. He turned his head. "But who said I cared about them?" He tried his best to maintain a smile but the corner of his lips twitched and his brow furrowed. "Don't act like I'm the only one doing anything wrong. I'm not forcing them or putting a gun to their head. I'm not a creep. Those girls obviously want it a little bit. If a girl doesn't want anything, then I back down."

Mamouru stood up and looked over Cassie. "Geeze, Cassie-san." Mamouru said and flipped his bangs out of his face. He then smiled. "Heh... You should have just done that right away. You think I care about them? I don't. Why should I?" He asked.

While Cassie certainly hadn't expected her nudge to send Mamouru down to the ground, she didn't show any regret over it. Maybe Japanese guys just headbutted easier than Canadian's.

"Wow." She said. After a moment she took her eyes off of him and resumed her stroll down the sidewalk. "You must be really lonely. You're like a used car salesman. If you need a used car, then it's okay, but if you don't... you don't hang out with the used car salesman. All he wants to do is sell you a car!"

She pulled her bear-hat off her head and stuffed it in her jacket pocket, and then ruffled her hair to get it un-matted. "So you just use people, then. That's so sad. My parents taught me that the most important thing you can ever get from a person comes from how you care for them." She said, as if reciting it for the hundredth time. "Maybe your girlfriend is using you too, but it sounds like not all the girls really know what they're getting into... like you're luring them in. That's pretty nasty. I'd probably beat you up if I knew you did that to someone."

Next question. She sighed. "Why don't you care about anyone?"

Mamouru shook his head at Cassie. "I don't think that analogy is a very good one." He said. "And I don't think I'm very lonely at all. Maybe you're off the mark." He added. He listened to Cassie and furrowed his brow. "Lure them in, Heh." She said. "And using. Don't make it sound like we aren't both getting something out of it. It's not nasty." Mamouru then flashed a smile. "She probably is. It's fine. That's why it's working out so well. It'll be a fun ride until we get bored of each other. That's the best part of the game. Every once in a while you find someone and think. Maybe I won't get bored of this one."

Mamouru then sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "That day's never going to come though..."

Mamouru then looked at Cassie with an annoyed, scornful look when she asked her next question. "Why should I?" He said bluntly. "You're on your own in this world. No one else is looking out for you. You have to make it on your own and extending out hospitality is just asking to be taken advantage of." Mamouru turned his head. He knew, he was the one who did that to other fools who blindly offered their feelings to him. Mamouru turned his head and looked away from Cassie and shoved his hands in his pocket. "This isn't a cheerful world, Cassie-san. I can't believe you can be that friendly and naive and still haven't been hurt yet. You must be terribly lucky."