Satomi Kojima vs Taylor Parker

The ref signaled Taylor to let go, and she did. She sat up and turned to look blankly at Satomi, laying there in a sobbing, messy heap. She blinked a few times while she struggled to process it.

By force of habit, she looked around. There was no one else coming after her, no one interfering, nothing to spoil the moment. She looked back at Satomi... it'd been a hard fought match, and it was over. She won. It felt like the first time in her whole life that she'd accomplished something... She'd won before by DQ, beat up a jobber... but this one meant something.

"Good match." She said to Satomi, rubbing her back. The words caught in her throat. Oh, no, she thought. Then before she knew it, she was crying. She fell onto her stomach and buried her face in the mat while tears rolled off the end of her nose. She really know why, but she couldn't help it. I was just... too much. Was this it? Maybe she could hold her head up now around the other girls. Maybe she wouldn't feel so... second rate.

A voice in the back of her head spoke up, reminding her of the crowd and the cameras, the show must go on. She stood up, slowly, and tried to play it off like she was just nursing her injuries, though she knew full well that the cameras were capturing her every tear in color-corrected high definition video. She did her best to stand up straight and raised both arms victoriously. The crowd cheered. She grinned. For good measure, she curled her fingers under the hem of her little denim shorts in the back and pulled back and forth to wiggle her butt a little bit. The crowd cheered even more.

She bent down to check on Satomi. "Hey, can I, uh, can I help you up? You okay?" She asked with genuine concern.

It felt like an eternity to Satomi, trapped as she was in Taylor's painful submission, even though she was giving up in a matter of seconds. The pain essentially immobilized her. Even after it was all over, Satomi felt pain. She curled up into a little ball on her side, one hand gently cradling her wounded leg, still crying softly. She heard her opponent say "good match", and seemingly try to comfort her, but she did not respond. How could she, when this girl who defeated her might have crippled her?

But as Taylor slowly got up, Satomi felt the pain fading. Her head cleared, and she was able to stop her sobs. Slowly she sat up, pushing herself up onto her arms, her hurt legs off to one side. She wiped the tears off her cheeks. Looking up at Taylor, she couldn't help but notice that she had cried a little as well. Even as Taylor teased the crowd, Satomi knew her heart wasn't really in it. For some reason, this match ended up meaning quite a lot to Taylor. It certainly was the hardest Satomi had ever fought. Perhaps then it was ok to lose, since Satomi had given it her all.

Then Taylor was bending over her, expressing concern. It surprised Satomi a little, but she could tell Taylor's feelings were genuine from one look in her eyes. Satomi turned her gaze down. "Let the medics handle this," she said, no bitterness in her voice, just the slightly resigned tone of the defeated opponent, "You won. Go and celebrate."

Taylor gave Satomi a wry smile, with concerned eyes. "I think the only celebrating I'll be doing will involve pain killers and ice, and lots and lots of sleep. Actually... I might go find the medics myself. I don't really... yeah." She stopped short of actually telling Satomi how pathetic she was that any celebrating she could manage would be done alone. Besides, she wanted to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with her back or something. She didn't know if Friction had mandatory medical checks after matches, but they probably should. Also she wanted to make sure Satomi was okay... She'd feel terrible if she left her badly injured.

"Hey, well, so, um... maybe I'll see you in there?" She smiled and made her way out of the ring, pretending that the attention from the crowd was no big deal. Near the top of the ramp, she spared a glance back at Satomi before disappearing backstage.

Satomi looked up, and smiled a little bit as well. At the very least she made sure Taylor was gonna be hurting for a while as well. If that was any consolation. She could tell though, that there was something Taylor wasn't telling her, something she was holding back. Satomi didn't push for answers.

"Hey!" she called out to Taylor, as she walked backstage, "Stop by the Beachhouse sometime!" The Beachhouse was Satomi's bar, a little establishment on the edge of the AFW beach, where she normally worked at, "For winners, first round's free!" Then medics swarmed around Satomi, hustling her backstage...