Fun In The Sun (For Parker)

[Highfly]

JJ guided Parker along and was looking around a bit herself but in a more guarded way. It is just how she was brought up. It took a lot for her to fully trust her surroundings in that regard. However she was as at ease as she could be given the circumstances and before long she pointed. "All right there it is." JJ said with a smile. The small stand did have the goofy looking tower for a roof overhead and some of the decor on the counter reflected the castle theme. It was a bit on the corny side but JJ loved that about it. "I doesn't look like much but trust me that it is good." She said happily walking up and taking a seat at the counter. Right now she was excited about the food more than anything.

[Parker]

Parker gave the stand a quick once-over as they approached, her eyes flicking from the corny castle tower roof to the little flourishes of décor scattered across the counter. It had that unmistakable “hole-in-the-wall” charm, the kind that either hid the best food you’d ever had or the worst mistake you’d regret tomorrow. Pulling out her phone, she raised it to snap a quick picture of the stand, the over the top theming making her grin.

“Wouldn’t dream of underestimating it,” she assured JJ, slipping into the seat beside her. “I already found this tiny ramen place near my apartment that looks like it should fail every health inspection, but it’s incredible. Best broth I’ve ever had.” She refrained for clarifying until she came to Japan all she ever had were instant noodles so there was no real comparison to be made.

As she settled in, Parker began tapping at her phone, pulling up the translation feature. She leaned forward over the counter, scanning the signage and laminated menu sheets, letting her camera hover over the unfamiliar kanji. Her lips pursed in thought as words flickered across the screen. “Okay… so this says something about a ‘knight’s feast set’? And I think this one is… sea dragon fire curry? Cute.” She chuckled softly, glancing at JJ with an amused look before scrolling further, curiosity lighting her features.

[Highfly]

"It is good to get out and know what is good right close by for sure. I don't have to go far for anything where I live which is a huge bonus." JJ said as Parker kept going over the menu. "If you want that seafood broth one go look at the kraken soup. It is a good one if you like seafood. I kinda like the beef though." JJ said. "Big girls like me need a certain amount of red meat of some kind to keep on going ya know." She added with a wink.

Today though she was undecided. Go with old faithful or something new? She kept looking, leaning towards something she hadn't tried just yet...

"So what does your typical day in Japan look like?" JJ asked Parker curious how much time was training and how much was sight seeing. She wasn't sizing her up so much as wondering if JJ herself was too wrestling focused and needed to just go out more.

[Parker]

“Kraken… kraken…” The Canadian eyed the menu though her phone’s display mumbling the suggested name a few times outloud. She must have pasted it once, maybe even twice as her eyes moved over the screen until she found it. She tilted her head, subconscious running her tongue over her teeth as she looked over the content. Sea urchin was something she couldn’t ever recall having before. Today was a day of new things though so she gave a shrug.

“Not like this, that’s for sure. It's not exactly an exciting day to day for me. It's been paperwork, even for the company or my work visa stuff, unpacking my apartment, going on jogs around my neighborhood to do some location scouting while mixing in the cardio routine, and a lot of time in the gym. Workouts and drills, half and half.” Just rattling all that off made her feel tired. It had been a nonstop whirlwind of busy work since she had got here. Some of it was due in part to nerves, wanting to be fully prepared for her debut so she was cramming as much extra time to drill as possible.

[Highfly]

JJ looked and decided to get the same thing Parker was getting. It was a seafood day not a beef day. She took in the smell of the noodles and smiled. "This is going to be good." She said to herself as she listened to Parkers routine. It was very close to what JJ herself was doing in Japan up until she met Sienna.

"Girl, that is almost a mirror of my old schedule. I didn't jog around though I got lazy and did the treadmill or ran ropes non-stop to tire myself out. Gotta feel the ring and I can't be too far from my weights." JJ added with a wink. "Seriously though, work in a stray rest day to take in the place. Let yourself rest up an extra day or two a month and explore. I ended up liking Japan way more than Atlanta, it isn't even close anymore."

[Parker]

Parker slid onto the counter stool, shoulders relaxing as the smell of broth and spice washed over her. She tucked her phone into pocket, giving the chubby dragon stuffed in the other a pat on the head. If the scents were any indication, this was where they needed to be. “Yeah,” she murmured with a faint grin, “definitely smells like we picked the right spot.”

She nodded along as JJ spoke, the corners of her mouth curving upward. The wink earned a quiet laugh out of her, that low, easy sound that came easy to her. “That sounds about right. I, uh- my ‘jogging’ started kinda by accident,” she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “Got lost one day. Phone died. Every street looked the same for blocks. Took me forever to find my way back, so now I make a point to, you know, actually learn where I live.”

Her tone stayed light, but she didn’t mention the reason behind the heavy workout weeks.the nerves for her debut and that dire need to be ready. Things like that were a burden to a new friend or could be a weapon in the hands of someone she could very well face in the ring one day. While Parker tended to be an open book, she kept this one close to her chest. She wasn’t ready to give anyone that kind of window in. Not yet.

She turned toward JJ, resting an elbow on the counter, posture casual but eyes curious. “I’ve never been to Atlanta,” she admitted. “Not even sure I know where it is. Despite Japan apparently blowing it out of the water, what was it like?”

[Highfly]

JJ laughed when Parker mentioned Atlanta. JJ took a second to get herself together. "Okay so you are down south in Georgia and some parts of the city are nice but a lot of it is a dump. That is where I grew up. Once you leave there is nothing around though it goes city to nothing real quick." JJ said as she shook her head.

"Aside from half the city being run down it isn't too bad. Even in the run down places good food isn't far so there is that." JJ added with a shrug. "So what was it like where you grew up?"

[Parker]

“Me? Uh… it was nice,” Parker said after a small pause, her voice softening as if she were flipping through old photos in her mind. “Pretty quiet place, save for the trains always coming through. You’d hear ’em at all hours. Big, long hauls cutting across town like clockwork. After a while, you just stop noticing the noise. It’s almost comforting, y’know? Like a heartbeat in the background.”


She gave a small chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck. “It was one of those towns where you knew just about everyone, so you couldn’t get away with much without everybody finding out. I swear, if I so much as skipped a class, my mom knew before I even got home. Small-town telepathy, I guess.”


Her smile softened, turning a little wistful. “Winters were long but we made do. Lotta days spent skating on the frozen river, or playing hockey until our fingers went numb. Summers were better. We’d head out to the water, go fishing, light bonfires, and get eaten alive by mosquitoes.” She laughed again, the kind that carried a mix of fondness and exasperation. “Guess you learn early that peace and quiet come with bugs and risk of frostbite.”


For a moment, Parker’s eyes drifted to the side, eyeing the boardwalk stretching off into the distance, her voice lowering just slightly. “It’s a good place. Familiar. Safe. Maybe too safe sometimes. It’s the kind of town that stays exactly the same even when you don’t.”


Then she looked back at JJ with a faint grin tugging at her lips. “Still, I miss it sometimes. The smell of pine and woodsmoke. The kind of quiet where you can hear the rain hit the lake. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s home. Tokyo is… bright and loud by comparison. Not that it's bad, just real different.”

[Highfly]

JJ listened along and nodded. "All that sounds kinda nice. I am used to noise and I think Tokyo is quiet. No one lays on the car horn, there is less ambient noise here than Atlanta even though it is a lot bigger. Much cleaner here too. Hell as much as I used to think the middle of nowhere was boring I think I'd take it over my old home. I can do my own thing and farm work takes the place of having to go to a gym." JJ said with a laugh. "Funny how we both see Tokyo entirely differently."

[Parker]

"I mean… compared to Toronto, Tokyo’s been pretty quiet as far as cities go," Parker said with a little shrug, glancing out toward the boardwalk. "At least the parts I’ve seen. Still, it’s a bit too busy for me sometimes. It’s not just the noise. It’s the crowded streets, the flashing signs, all the ads and it's like a bunch of voices fighting for attention. That kind of loud, you know?"

Her tone carried a defensive edge at the end, soft but noticeable, as if she could already feel JJ smirking about the idea of her being a wide-eyed small-town girl overwhelmed by the big city. Parker’s brows furrowed, then relaxed as she added quickly, "It's just an adjustment, is all."

Before JJ could respond, the stall owner shuffled back over, a practiced ease in his movement despite the tiny, cluttered space behind the counter. He set two steaming bowls of ramen in front of them with a simple nod, the broth shimmering under the midday sun, coils of steam curling air. The aroma hit first. Briny and rich, layered with chili heat and that faint sweetness only the best seafood could carry. Parker blinked as the scent filled her nose, her stomach responding before her brain could.

"Oh man…" she murmured, leaning in a little closer to get a better look. The broth was deep yellow-orange, dotted with oil and pieces of shrimp and scallop that looked like they’d been kissed by flame. She gave a low whistle, picking up her chopsticks and hovering them over the bowl like she was waiting for permission from the universe to dig in.