China Syndrome

Jocelyn stopped when Cassie stepped in front of her. She flashed her teeth and her arms dropped to her sides. "Hey!" She shouted back to Cassie, puffing out her small chest and leaning forward. "What part of 'fuck you' don't you understand?" She barked. "I wasn't speaking to you in Chinese, cunt licker!"

It was at that point Jocelyn heard Clan's timid voice. She lowered her head and stared at Cassie's stomach. Her body shook and she turned to look at Lan.

<What?> Jocelyn responded. <So you and your fucking best friend can...> Jocelyn stopped as she tried to finish her sentence. Make fun of her? Beat her up? Jocelyn started it and she was in the wrong. But that was the issue. Normal people didnt just tolerate someone being a horrid cunt. What was wrong with people?

Jocelyn sighed. She raised her arms aran her fingers through her short, spikey hair. She tugged and frustratedly tugged at the jet black hair and stared down. "What? What the hell do you two WANT from me?" She huffed, resignation in her tone.

Cassie hesitantly glanced back at Lan again, and then endured another tongue lashing from Jocelyn. "I... understood it." It was Jocelyn who probably didn't understand what she was saying. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and tugged on the sleeves of her coat.

"I didn't want to hurt your leg," she said. "I just wanted to help my manager. And, I kinda wanted to win the match too, so... I'm sorry if I really hurt you, but you saw what was happening. I didn't know what else to do." She couldn't help herself, she hugged her again. "I was going to the gym. I have to get ready to fight Dark Angel again. I was just going to show Lan to the cafeteria. She's new here, we just met." She felt like it didn't matter what she said, like the words alone would help as if she was calming down a horse.

Lan shared that hesitant glance with Cassie, not quite sure what to do or what to say. Jocelyn was obviously very angry, but the blonde Chinese girl couldn't help but feel that her dark-haired countrywoman, deep down, did not want this any more than she or Cassie did. Lan would wait anxiously behind the orange-haired wrestler, listening as she tried to explain herself to Jocelyn, not quite understanding the specifics of what the two more experienced fighters were discussing, but getting the gist of it. When Cassie began to explain what she and Lan had been doing together, the timid Chinese girl nodded vigorously.

“I-itâ€s true, Jiao,” she said in English, though she continued to use the raven-haired girlâ€s Chinese name, as she had been told during their first encounter. “I needed help…sh-she was just h-h-helping me find the cafeteria.” She took a breath, then continued: “Y-you donâ€t need to go anywhere…if you were going to the cafeteria you should go to the cafeteria. You can just ignore me if you want to…I promise I will try to stay out of your way, if thatâ€s what you want.”

Jocelyn scowled at Cassie's words. She poked her in the shoulder and shook her head. "I was trying to hurt you. If I had, I sure as hell wouldn't be a pussy about it like you! That just fuckibg makes it worse! Beaten by some pissy wanker who's gettin all crybaby hurtin someone in a wrestlin match!" Jocelyn gnashed her teeth. "Fuck! All you fucking do is piss on my pony!"

Jocelyn was panting again. She was getting worked up again. She looked up at Lan and blushed deeply. "You just... you just piss me off so much!" She barked and pointed at Lan. "I'll go to the fucking cafeteria with you! Just to get you off my arse!" The Chistralian crossed her arms under her chest and spun around, marching towards the cafeteria.

"Well... A certain amount is okay," Cassie said. Getting hurt was fine, it was just part of the deal, but she didn't want to seriously hurt anyone. She wanted to give people opportunities to improve, not set them back and put them on crutches.

She suppressed a smile and looked at Lan. She figured the two would be okay if she let them go, at least she hoped they would be. Maybe Jocelyn would just yell at her some more, but maybe that could be a good thing.

"Well, you guys go have fun. And behave!" She reached up and wiggled the bear ears on her hat back and forth at them. "Time for all Cassies to hit the gym. Bye!" She waved, and turned to head back the way she came to put in her workout.

Jocelynâ€s decision to not only go to the cafeteria, but to go there with Lan, sort of surprised the blonde-haired Chinese girl. She had just been hoping to convince her countrywoman not to change plans on her account—Lan hated ruining someoneâ€s plans that way, and she was willing to stay out of the way and act invisible while Jocelyn went about business however she usually did. The darker-haired Chistralian, however, seemed to want to eat with her. Or was, at least, begrudgingly willing to do so. Lu Jiao Jocelyn was not an easy person to read.

With one last glance to the now rather chipper Cassie, Lan would smile and give the girl a small wave. “H-hey, uh, Cassie…when—or, uh, if, I guess—I end up joining Friction…Iâ€ll try to f-find you to say hello again,” she said, before turning to follow her fellow Chinese woman to the cafeteria.

<H-hey, Jiao!> she called, switching over to Mandarin as she hurried to catch up. <W-wait up!>

Jocelyn stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets and scrunched her shoulders as she heard Lan's voice. She had caught what Lan had said to Cassie and growled at it. Of course Lan liked that pasty bitch much better thanher. Jocelyn was a mutt. She was impure. Better to have no Chinese than muddled Chinese. She sighed as she heard Lan pad up to her and turned her head away from Lan.

<You're annoying.>" She said in Chinese. <I'm just going to eat with you to get you off my back. And because I feel sorry for you.> She added. It wasn't true. None of it was but Jocelyn just couldn't understand Lan. The girl made no sense to the Chistralian whatsoever.

"And..." She said in English. "You can call me Jocelyn." Her cheeks flushed as she turned her head ever so slightly to keep Lan in view of her peripheral.

Jocelyn had been back and forth emotionally during their first meeting, and she seemed much the same way today to Lan. One moment she was blushing and shying away from eye contact, the next she was staring you in the face and yelling at you, the next she was calm and giving you efficient, direct directions. Lan didnâ€t really understand how her countrywoman could be this way—as antisocial as she was, Lan had very little contact with genuine human emotion other than her own, and her psychological state remained pretty consistent from one moment to the next. On one level, Jocelynâ€s volatility was unsettling, and a little terrifying. On another level…it attracted Lan to her dark-haired counterpart.

Not in a romantic way, Lan insisted to herself, but in a way that made the girl infinitely interesting. She was dynamic. Lan was stagnant. It seemed like the two of them could learn from each other, and have a very fruitful, beneficial, friendly relationship—unless Lan was misjudging Jocelyn, and the girl was, in fact, not interested in getting to know each other at all.

<Annoying?> Lan repeated, a little unhappily. <I d-donâ€t mean to be...like I s-said, Jiao, y-you donâ€t have to eat with me. I can…I can sit alone, and you can do whatever you would n-normally do if I wasnâ€t there.>

Her companionâ€s English addendum surprised Lan, and it took her a few seconds before she replied: “If thatâ€s what you want, Jiao—errr, ah, J-Jocelyn, sorry—I can do that.”

<Yes, annoying!> Jocelyn said and growled at Lan. <Like with all the questions and with the stuttering! What the hell is wrong with you? No one stutters like that! How the fuck can you be nervous ALL the time! You really piss me off!> Jocelyn ranted, panting a bit as she stared down Lan.

Jocelyn shook her head. <I already said I would, ok!> Jocelyn turned her head, blushing a bit more. <If I say something, you should listen and just do what I say!> Jocelyn sighed. She shut her eyes as they neared the cafeteria. Lan probably didn't ask a lot of questions or do any of the things Jocelyn said. But Jocelyn couldn't help herself. Lan pissed her off.

<I don't even understand why you're so much of a pussy! Don't you have any self respect? Shouldn't you be in my face, telling me to get bent!? I mean... if I were YOU, I wouldn't tolerate it!> Lan was confusing. And stupid. And lot's of confusing things that made Jocelyn's heart beat a little faster when she thought about it.

"What do you eat?" She said, switching back to English for a moment. She hadn't spoken this much Mandarin in a long time. It was a natural thing but she always felt a little more comfortable speaking English. Maybe because her father hated it. And yet, she didn't want to speak it around Lan. She only wanted to speak Chinese. What the hell was wrong with her?

Lan would look down at the floor, her cheeks flushing a bright red as she silently took all the abuse which Jocelyn cared to heap upon her. Logically speaking, there was no reason for Lan to be as interested as she was in a girl like this. But there was no questioning how she felt, and she could not help but feel that she needed to get to know her fellow Chinese woman better.

Once Jocelyn was finished, Lan would reply, very quietly: <Iâ€m sorry. Sometimes I want to be more…uh, vocal…but I just…I c-canâ€t do it.> She shrugged. She really did want to be more outgoing, albeit perhaps not quite in the way Jocelyn was—if she had been like Jocelyn, the two of them would have torn each other apart the second they had first laid eyes on each other back in the spa.

When asked what she ate, Lan would reply, shifting to English to follow Jocelyn: “I eat whatever is available. I was n-never much of a picky eater…”