When my father introduced me to the American education system, I never imagined it would lead me to being trapped in a closet with a luchador champion.

I say ‘American education system’ like I wasn’t raised here. So maybe I was born in York, but I moved here when I was three, so I’m barely British if anything. I think I’m more American. Think I got the accent from me pops.

But I absolutely got my love of tech and video games from me mum. Anime I say I discovered on my own, but I don’t think anyone goes into that truly alone, do they? Something always has led someone there whenever I talk to people about how they got into it and I’ve talked to a bloody lot of people about it.

No matter how many people I’ve talked to about my interests or beaten in a wrestling ring, none of them have ever interested me more than this masked boy wearing a rosary, an imaginary halo hanging somewhere above his crown I’m sure, whisked away to a closet by some British-American tart of a nerd.

Being an only child can lead to one being pretty isolated and selfish, as I sort of think I am. But for once, I really wanted someone else to be happy. Or maybe even be happy with me. I don’t let just anyone look at my works-in-progress on my phone. But I let El Tiburon.

“That’s where the Heads-Up Display would be. You can see the combos on the screen if you want, damage output and stuff.”

He looks at my glowing screen, full of cubes and placeholder avatars. “This is so on point.”

“Great. Now where’s the designs? I don’t have a lot of time.”

He takes out his phone, punching around on it.

“Oh. Right. Sharing the link to my Dropbox…now.”

“Bangers. I guess we should get out of this closet before someone walks by.”

“Oh yeah. Hopefully soon, we won’t need to hide. Could you imagine those rumors?”

“Oh, they’d be vicious. They’d probably assume the worst.”

“What’s the worst?”

I can’t tell if he’s serious or trying to play some kind of game. Is he flirting?

“That we, you know, did the deed.”

“Really? People talk about that?”

I still can’t tell if he’s joking. The tone of his voice seems genuinely confused, but so much of his face is covered, I can’t read it. Are boys really as stupid as those schoolyard rhymes say?

“You’re a senior, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I figured what’d they say is we had a match no one saw. That’d be insulting to us both.”

I have to stare at him. His eyes are a deep brown and by god they’re beautiful but okay focus. I was joking about the halo thing, but perhaps it isn’t a joke?

“Oh my god you’re serious.”

“I transferred from a catholic school straight here. I wasn’t aware that was something kids talked about without being blasted with rulers.”

“Oh no. We’re all hormone-ridden, sexually emergent monsters. I don’t know much about boys – or girls for that matter – but if there is anything I learned from moderating an online Pokémon forum for two years, it is that teenagers will take something innocent and make it – “

I just shudder.

“ – and think nothing of it.”

“But they know us, right? Me, El Tiburon, the goody-goody King of Crafts and Thessaly Crasher, Queen of Memes. No one would believe we’d get it on…right?”

I smile. Or I try to. Not sure if it works.

“At the very least, they’d say we snuck in here to have a quick snog.”

“That sounds gross a.f.”

I laugh at his obliviousness. It’s kind of cute now.

“Kiss, you dumbass. It means kiss. Or make-out.”

He sorta goes quiet. I do too realizing what I just said.

He finally breaks the weird closet silence.

“There are a couple of ways to kill rumors in their tracks.”

“What would those be?”

“Well, one is to make up an even worse rumor.”

“What, like, I’m pregnant and it’s yours?”

“Sssssssh don’t say that so loud! I’ve seen enough telenovelas to know someone probably heard that. But yeah. Like that.”

“Okay. So that option’s a hell no on all fronts. What’s another way?”

“Uh, we…um…make it true.”

I look at his eyes again. The one thing you don’t get to see when we’re on the career path we are is how vulnerable warriors can be. All we do is fight. But it’s so rare to have an emotional opening, you can tell when it’s real. And when you feel the same. What would all my favorite chaste shonen heroes say to the thoughts I’m having right now?

I don’t care.

I kiss the shit out of him. He kisses back. I don’t think either one of us is good at this, but we just sit in this moment, our lips together, for what seems like the happiest eternity. I remember hitting my first roaring elbow once on a girl in puro class. This feels almost as good. Almost.

We pull away, breathing hard, grinning like we just stole something. We talk at the same time, but I swear we say the same thing.

“That was my first kiss.”

I can’t stop smiling, but he has to take a big swallow. He seems so much more nervous than I do. I’ve always been nervous every time I stepped in the ring, but I’ve never smiled at any opponent. I’m nervous here now, butterflies galore, but all I can do is grin my ass off at this masked marvel. And I have a nice ass.

We got at it again, like…well, I normally read it described as ‘like horny teenagers,’ so I suppose that simile is just a fact then. We go at it like bloody horny teenagers. And I love every second of it.

He pulls back a second. “We’re just snogging, right, we’re not going all the – “

“Yeah, yeah, come here you dork.”

I pull him back in. Not sure if I’m ready for all that yet. But for now, this anime and video game geek is more than happy to just keep on snogging. To finally get to, really.

Bangers.