Seven Days for Evil's Sake

Mamouru wasn't innocent when it came to Taylor, but his crime was the same as it was with anyone else's. He wanted to sleep with her. But things never even got to a point where that was ever a possibility and Mamouru had no other particular issue with her outside of the fact that she was a bitch to him, which he understood to some degree.

"It's a steam bath, sort of like a Sauna, I suppose, but it's completely natural." He said as he explained it to her briefly. He then closed his eyes and shook his head. "it's no trouble. This is just one step to climbing the staircase of success." In the end, if Cassie did well, this investment would pay off quite well.

"Well..' Mamouru said and held out his hand. "Taylor started here." He then brought his other hand up a little higher. "And you started here." With hard work and experience, She's gotten here." His hand was now at about forehead level. "And with that same experience and perhaps a little bit of technique training, I think you can be here." He put his hand above his head. "if we're talking about natural talent, I think you have the edge since I imagine both your work regiments are about equal. Experience is what you need!"

He then clapped his hands together. "But this isn't a competition between you and Taylor-san." He backed into the corner and stretched.

"Now! We'll have to put it all together. We're going to do matches until we're exhausted. Standard, just like int he league. Don't worry about keeping a record. When a pinfall is scored, we stop, reset and keep going. Ready?"

Cassie blushed and tried not to let Mamouru's praise go to her head. There was no way she was that much more talented than Taylor... or anyone, really, she was just a newbie, despite her background with submission wrestling. It felt wrong to think of herself as being that good.

She nodded. "Ready. But I've got a match in two days," She said, wagging her finger. "So don't hurt me. We'll just do some friendly sparring matches."

Cassie shook out each leg and stretched out her wrists. She eyed Mamouru with a mixture of admiration and friendly resignation. She crossed the distance between them in a few swift steps and wrapped her arms around his midsection in a big hug. Her head only came up to his chest, and she leaned her cheek against him.

Then she let go and stepped back. "Thanks." She smiled, and then threw a hand in his face and swiftly took him down to the mat.

Mamouru and Cassie spent the rest of the day working out as much as they were able to, exhausting each other out and parting just before dusk. Mamouru went back home, called Johnny and had dinner with his mom. After a long chat with her, he fell asleep on the couch and woke up bright the next morning. After a morning workout and breakfast, he tooled around downtown Tokyo for a whole, taking in the sites.

After a while, he meandered to where Johnny said Taylor lived and found what he hoped was the right address and began to knock on the door.

Taylor had finally given up the last of her "don't make plans before noon" habits. In order to keep up her very demanding workout routine, getting up early just became a necessity, and no amount of hating the idea could save her from seven AM.

She would wake up, splash her face with cold water, drink a large glass of water while she made herself a fruit smoothie, and then just sit for a while to give her brain and her body time to get used to being awake. Then after some limbering up, it was time for a morning run. She had no idea how far she ran every day, it varied based on her mood and how she ran, but she was usually back home in a little under an hour. Then it was time for breakfast.

She ate oats, more fruit, and herbal tea, and then she filled up her water bottle, grabbed her backpack and jogged off to the gym to put in her morning workout. She often worried about other people being able to see her work out, she felt like she was giving away trade secrets, but so few people would have the heart to do what she did so what did it matter, anyway.

The morning workout was designed to beat the ever living shit out of her, toughen her up, test her heart, and build her body. She drilled herself relentlessly, and tried to push herself past what she thought possible everyday, though she'd found a balance so that she never had to miss a workout due to being too beat up. Lunchtime was always such a huge relief, and the short jog home, though she felt heavy and exhausted by that point, felt easy.

She ate lunch at home, she'd been working on learning how to cook, and then it was time for a well deserved nap. She had to be well rested for the evening workout. She had never really been able to fall asleep quickly, but she worked herself so hard these days that she fell asleep almost the moment she hit the bed.

She was still not a heavy sleeper, though, and she was quickly awakened by some knocking at her door. She rolled out of bed and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes, raked her loose, long hair back out of her face, and shambled over to the door.

The only people that ever came to her house were Johnny, Akashi, and sometimes Cassie, so it was as unexpected as it was disappointing when she opened the door and there stood Mamouru. She also became acutely aware of her appearance, facing Mamouru in a tight spaghetti strap tank top and little vintage-y lounge shorts with a stripe down each side.

"Eh... What?" Was all she could think to say. She was confused. "Hi. What do you want?"

Mamouru smiled as Taylor opened the door. She looked cute all disheveled but Mamour wondered briefly why she was even in that state. He slid his foot n the door, expecting her to slam it in his face. He bowed his head. "Hello Taylor-San." He said coolly.

He then lifted uphis head. "We need to talk. May I come in?"

"You... whatever."

Taylor gave Mamouru a cautious, if maybe a little suspicious, look, before turning to walk back into the kitchen. There was a small table with two chairs, piles of fruit in a three-tiered bowl hung from the ceiling over the counter top. The living room was small, with a futon still made up for sleeping across from a large TV flanked by enormous speakers and a small computer desk against the wall. The walls were covered in various posters, of Curt Cobain and Rise Against and Zack De La Rocha, and two of Akashi on either side of a large AFW poster featuring most of the more notable wrestlers.

"So what do we need to talk about?" Taylor asked, trying to sound more disinterested than she was. She made a conscious effort to control her body language, as she felt it tug toward the flirtatious with Mamouru's presence, as she made her way back to her futon and hopped onto it. She propped herself up on one elbow, and made no attempt to be hospitable.

Mamouru slid into the apartment when Taylor begrudgingly let him in. He closed the door and made his way over to where Taylor was. He stopped about halfway when she flopped onto her futon. He looked her over for a moment. "You and I." He said quickly. "Us." He then paused. "Or rather, what's between us." He tilted his head. Taylor would answer nothing, which was fine. He needed to restructure his words. "That is. I am not leaving until we patch up our differences in a satisfactory manner so that Cassie-san doesn't have to worry about her best friend and manager fighting. So, I suppose that it is for her sake. However, there are differences between you and I that need to be settled so my original statement is still accurate."

He laid out his position and no doubt that Taylor had questions if not declarations and insults to hurl his way. That was fine. It was a good place to start.

"Uh huh."

Taylor flopped down on her back with her arms spread out and one leg hanging off the edge of her futon and thought about how much nicer it was when she was by herself enjoying her nap. She closed her eyes and sighed, and then looked over at Mamouru.

"Yeah. So. I promise I won't kick your ass until you hurt Cassie. Is that good enough? You're managing my friend and I'm dating your brother, so I just can't get away from you." She propped her head up and turned back onto her side and looked Mamouru over. She always found it strange how much taller one twin was than the other.

"So yeah, it'd be good if we could get by without everything blowing up, but don't expect me to get all warm and cuddly." She said with a cold look.

Mamouru clenched his fists as Taylor spoke. He knew this wasn't going to be easy but he wasn't in the mood to go through all of the motions if he didn't have to. "It's not good enough!" He said with irritation in his voice.

He let out a soft sigh. "Cassie-san will know if we're just being civil for her sake. That's not good enough." He paused. "I obviously can't make you like me and I don't expect you to but for both our sakes it will be better if we can at least work something out."

Mamouru stepped closer to Taylor and lowered his head. "I'm going to tell you something." He said. "That you could use against me if you wanted to. To show you how serious I am about making this work." He paused. "Drake-san has his girls spying on Cassie-san and myself for... some reason." He paused. "The first night after Cassie-san and myself had finished training, I met up with Hitomi-chan. We had a drink and went back to her place. Things heated up and when we..." He turned his head. "I wasn't able to perform when the time came." He said and swallowed hard. He turned his head back to Taylor and looked at her shame in his eyes."

He expected her to laugh at him. That was fine. Then she'd probably call Johnny. That was fine too. Then she'd probably start dialing down the phone book. That was also fine. Whatever she did, he deserved it anyway but he had to show her that he was serious.

Taylor's jaw dropped. That was the last thing she ever expected to hear from Mamouru, and the last thing she expected him to admit to, but it was... it was...

Little by little a laugh welled up inside her, starting as a giggle and escalating rapidly until she was shrieking with hysterical laughter and rolling on the bed. "You... you can't..." She breathlessly tried to speak, but couldn't manage a complete sentence.

Eventually she caught the look in Mamouru's eye and tried to calm herself down. She bottled in her laughter, her mouth closed but her eyes still lit up with delight, and looked silently at Mamouru for a moment.

"That... is the best news I've ever heard in my life. You can't get it up? Do you know what poetic justice is?" She said, her face carbonated with near-laughter. "So like... you probably have always wanted to just throw me down on my cheap little futon and ravage my body like a lion. But now you're a lion with no teeth! Is that the first time that's happened?"

She locked eyes with him and got up from the bed with a devilish look. She took him by both hands and backed up to the bed and sat down on the edge. "If I told you that I was just using Johnny to make you want me, if I told you to take me now, you couldn't do it, could you?"

Maybe she was going a little too far. It was just too good for Mamouru to be who he was and have that particular problem, there was so much Taylor wanted to lord over him, get back at him for offenses committed just by his existence, that she at the same time felt like she was going too far. She didn't mean to bring Johnny into it. She maintained her grin, not wanting to appear foolish and regretful and relinquish whatever upper hand Mamouru's admission had afforded her.