The Friction Spotlight featuring Taylor Parker!

"Well get back to that in a little bit." Hilde said, nodding to Taylor. "For now let's keep going with the questions." Hilde smiled at Taylor, trying to reassure the blonde that her tangents were appreciated even though Mai and Hilde wanted to stay on script.

"Tokyo and New York are both big cites. Tell us about the differences and similarities between the two and what challenges you faced outside of the ring early on. Was learning the language the biggest difficulty or did you face any other obstacles?" Mai asked, looking at Taylor brightly.

"You got it," Taylor grinned, and propped her boots back up on the table, this time being careful with her skirt. She leaned on one elbow on the table and looked to Mai.

"Oh, yeah, it's like... Tokyo is actually pretty friendly if you speak English and not Japanese. I could definitely get by, but it was definitely hard. As a white chick from Staten Island, ya know, I definitely ruffled a few feathers here without really meaning to. Shit, I still don't really have a good handle on Japanese etiquette and stuff, but that's part of my charm.

"No but seriously, I think being alone was the hard part, not so much the language or anything. I think the language stuff, and being in a far away place and everything definitely made that part harder. Having an empty apartment and no one to call and nothing to look forward to but a match that might end up being a career-ending ass kicking, that was the hard part. Japan itself has actually been really good to me. I think being a punk-ass blonde chick has it's upside here. I've got novelty value! People I've never met have been really supportive, and I just... It's really meant the world to me."

Mai grinned at Taylor's words. Hilde nodded. she could understand where Taylor was coming from a little bit. Despite having a place to call home, there was plenty of times where Japan felt more like a prison than a home. She slipped her index card to the back of her little stack and looked down at the new one.

"Let's move on in your career now." Hilde said. "You were the inaugural Entropy Champion. What does that mean to you? Do you have any sense of pride at the historical significance? The belt has already had quite a bit of controversy in the short time it's been around. Some consider it a stepping stone, as several wrestlers who have participated in Entropy Title matches have gone on to bigger and better things, while others say that the belt has made a mockery of Friction, considering it's been held by a member of the kawaii division as well as a member of the Tension roster."

"Well... it's like this, I guess," Taylor explained. "I really don't care a lot about that kind of stuff. Like, I don't need the... status, I guess you would call it, from being the inaugural Entropy champ. I do want to be the best, though. Whether I've got a belt or not, I want people to know that it's me."

She brushed her bangs to the side again when they fell over one eye and tugged one pigtail over her shoulder to idly twirl around her finger. "So I guess I don't really care either way about the belt itself, ya know? It is what people want to make of it. I just know that my match with Natalia was like... After I took that last fall, everything was right in the world for me. It was awesome. There were a lot of un-awesome things that went with it, but... that was really cool."

Taylor drew a slow, measured sigh before she replied. They were simple questions, but they were asking for answers that were much hard to give.

"Well, after that match with Natalia, I found out that my dad had just died," she said, with a practiced exhaustion in her voice. "Like two days before, and I didn't find out until two weeks later. I called my mom looking for my dad's number, because he'd always moved around a lot, ya know, and that's when she told me. That's the only time I've actually talked to my mom since I left home, but I also sent her a magazine that had like a two-page thing with a big, fuckin' picture of me in the middle, right after beating Natalia.

"So the only thing I really wanted at the time wasn't that belt, it was to be able to show my dad, ya know, look what I did. And then I cracked some ribs in a match and got booked in that match against Brittany, and I really thought I had her in the bag, but... if you don't know how fuckin' bad broken ribs hurt? Your body just... When you take the shot, it's just like 'nope', and shuts down. Done. That happened to me twice, once with Heather, once with Brittany. And after that is when me and Kashi had our... ya know. Falling out, I guess."

Hilde nodded along. When Taylor was finished, she shuffled through her index cards and stopped. "We were going to bring that up later, but since you've done it for us, let's stay on the topic for now. Tell us more about your parents. Tell us about how it was like growing up and about your mother and father. You mentioned your father died just before the title match and how that impacted you. Care to elaborate?"

Taylor stiffened slightly, and her posture straightened. "Ohh, man, um..." No one had ever really asked her about her mom before.

Thump, thump. Her boots went back to the floor and she sat up straight. "Well, like... My dad wasn't around much after they split up. Just like a typical, like, deadbeat dad, ya know? And so yeah, I've got daddy issues and stuff, but I really... I'm not sure what else there is to say about that stuff. Like, I'm a pro wrestler, I don't know how much people need to know about my parents."

Mai pressed her fist against her chest as watched Taylor's body language. Her mouth was open and she breathed in softly.

Hilde remained stoic. She took a quick sip from her water and then leaned forward. "As much as you'd like to speak on it, Miss Parker." Hilde said. "This is your story to tell. I'm sure your parents have had a profound impact upon your wrestling career whether they were there to support it or not. Perhaps especially so if it is the latter."

Taylor paused. She ignored Mai and for a moment she met Hilde's gaze. Then she snorted and shook her head with a tight, lopsided, ironic smile. Seconds silently ticked away, and it seemed like a long time before she spoke.

"Fuck it," she said, with a backhanded wave of her hand. She wasn't going to puss out over a stupid question. "My parents split up when I was eight. My mom was twenty-six then, she didn't finish high school. She didn't have a fuckin' clue. My dad, though, he was around at first. Like, he'd show up and take me to a movie and take me out for ice cream and junk. My favorite thing in the whole world was when he used to put his coat, this old, brown leather jacket, sort of over my shoulders. And like... he had this reddish-brown stubble all the time, like an Irish booze-beard, and I remember what he smelled like, but I don't know what it was. Couldn't have been aftershave, right? He... he used to tell me that my smile would sail ships someday." She paused, absently shaking her head. "And I had no fucking idea what it meant at the time, but I liked when he said it. I thought if I was really good, he'd come back.

"But he moved away. He moved a lot, all over the place. He stopped visiting. The last nail in the coffin was when I heard he had another family, out west somewhere. I knew he was never coming back, and mom, she never wanted him to. So she was broke and shit and by the time high school came around we hated each other so much. We'd just scream at each other all the time. When I got beat up in school and came home all fucked up, she'd scream at me, ya know. What the fuck are you doing getting into fights. Real mom-of-the-year shit. I just started locking myself in my room and sneaking out later, and she just stopped caring what I did.

"I don't know if I ever really told her I wanted to be a pro wrestler, but I know she thought it was a stupid idea. She used to tell me... why couldn't you just be someone else's problem?" She said, her voice taking on a thick Staten Island accent to impersonate her mom. "And when things got real loud, her go-to fuckin' line to really get me was you are the worst thing that ever happened to me. She hated me, but like... I never asked to be her kid, ya know? I never had a choice.

"So yeah, I'm fucked up. You've gotta be a little fucked up to want to jump in a ring and pound somebody's face in, though, know what I mean?" She leaned back in her chair and leveled her gaze at Hilde.