Ground Rules

The Tension Arena was by far the largest single structure in Kyoto. In terms of area, the Arena was bigger than the next three buildings on the list combined; together with its parking lot, it was bigger than the next five.

A great plurality of its real estate went, of course, to the ring and house seating, which held tens of thousands of screaming fans every show, and to near capacity somehow; AFW’s consistent and unending popularity was always a little amazing to Amy. But a baseball field is bigger than a wrestling ring by far, and the ring space couldn’t hope to match one on its own. Luckily for the arena’s ranking on the list, its backstage area was a veritable labyrinth of offices, saunas, showers, cafeterias, waiting rooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, bedrooms, sex dungeons, bare rooms set aside for future development into niche fetish chambers, a boiler room... basically anything and everything a wrestling entertainment company needed- or would ever potentially need- to keep the show fresh while still running smoothly.

Given its size, it was understandably easy to get lost in the deeper reaches of the arena; Amy had, in fact, done exactly that in the past, and on more than one occasion. There were directories on the walls and lines on the floors, but, given how new they looked, she had to wonder if the administration was forced to implement the system after some hapless newbie had disappeared into the building’s darkest bowels, never to be seen again. On particularly dark nights, they say that you could still hear the echo of his brand new wrestling boots off the corridor walls, ever wandering, ever searching for a girl to lure into his eternal debut match. No DQ. No time limit. Win conditions- none.

Ahem. Anyway.

So, for good reason, Amy tended to stick to the hallways closest to the surface. She was in one of the many aforementioned rooms,- a green room- lounging lazily on a couch in her blue denim shorts and chewing the collar on her blue-black checkered flannel shirt, watching the show on an archaic CRT television. She didn’t have a match herself tonight, but her friend, Blaise Cameron, was fighting in the main event, and she had an inkling that his opponent would engage in shenanigans. It was her intention to run in if- when- that happened.

But she couldn’t go and change into her ring attire just yet. Army also had a match tonight, and that wasn’t something she was about to miss. And good thing, too; it was a good one, full of back and forth and drama; of big, showy moves that Amy observed closely and took notes on (attacks to watch out for from Army; attacks that work well on Army); and of salacious goings on, at least from the lady. It didn’t make her happy to see her boyfriend get sexually assaulted in front of thousands of people, but she was at least proud to see that Army didn’t kiss back.

Until he did.

Close to the end of the match, with both fighters on their last legs, each with maybe one or two moves left in their respective bags of tricks, Army’s opponent bent Army backwards, removed her pink face mask, and covered his mouth with her own, a lewd beginning to what was sure to be some sort of obscene finishing move. Army, out of options, fought back in kind; he ran his fingers through the girl’s hair and cradled her head. His neck strained as his tongue won territory beyond her teeth.

He closed his eyes.

Army managed to turn the fight around and ended up winning the match, but Amy barely noticed. Her eyes were fixed to a single pixel on the screen, not really interested in interpreting the signals they were perceiving.

He’d closed his eyes.

Army can’t have thought that Amy would be okay with this. Their relationship was brand new, barely weeks old. It was unbelievable that it only took one scantily-clad floozy making crazy yellow eyes at him to get him to swap spit with somebody that wasn't Amy- to cheat. Amy had a strict, one-strike policy, so this was grounds for an immediate break-up, open and shut. The relationship was fun while it lasted, but maybe Army just wasn’t cut out to be a boyfriend.

But even through her growing sense of betrayal, Amy couldn't ignore the fact that their jobs required them to grope strange men and women on a weekly basis, or that the use of sexual manipulation was practically in their job description. Ugh. This used to be so black and white; now Amy was lost in a strange and uncomfortable gray zone. Amy’s jaw felt tight. Whatever happened tonight, it would start with a talk.

Amy’s phone came out, and she sent Army a text.

I’m in green room 4-D.

Not to be confused with Conference room D-4. What a mess.

Army found himself in the locker room after the match, about the one place in the building he didn't have to worry about being assaulted by any crazed woman who may or may not have been seeking revenge after his match. It was a good place to keep his peace of mind and get in some tranquil thoughts, most of which were currently occupied thinking about Amy. And flowers.

He'd gotten girls flowers before, and in his experience, it was a good way to get back on their good side after he'd somehow found his way into the doghouse. Worked, say, 7 times out of 10. Most girls liked flowers, right?

But, then again, this was Amy Poford. Amy Poford had tried to beat him up the first time they met. Amy Poford got turned on when he tried to squeeze her in half. Amy Poford liked to play videogames after a rousing round of hard sex. Amy Poford was not, by any real definition, 'most girls'.

So...that would be a 'no' on the flowers. "Shit."

He'd just started to put his pants on when he heard a tell-tale buzz come from the phone, rumbling beside him on the bench he was sitting on. Army let out a long, deep sigh. Knew that was coming. Part of him didn't even want to read it. The break-up message.

'How could you be this dumb?'

'Why did you do that?'

'We're you thinking of me?'

"Fucking idiot." He smacked his forehead and glanced at the phone. Then looked straight ahead. Then back again. No point in ignoring it, really. Be a man. Face the music.

He took the phone, slid it on, looked at the message and saw...

I’m in green room 4-D.

"...huh."

Okay, hadn't expected that. Didn't know she was at the arena tonight, but it made sense -  Blaise was getting into trouble with the Valkyries, he could probably use some backup. It wasn't a break-up text, but that didn't mean he was out of the danger zone just yet. Maybe she wanted to do it in person. Maybe she wanted to slap him. Maybe she'd throw their baseball in his face the second he opened the door.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck..." Army hurriedly slipped the rest of his clothes on, tugging on his boots and pulling on his Superman shirt thing. He grabbed his gym bag and scooped it up, and then he made his way out of the locker room as fast as a guy his size could move without going into a full sprint. It was only a short walk to the green rooms, really, but somehow, it felt much, much longer.

A couple of minutes later, he was at the place where he needed to be. He stood there in front of the door for a moment, straightening up, and then he reached for the doorknob...and stopped. Should he knock? He should knock. Knocking would be good. Made sense. To him.

He knocked.

Amy managed to come down from "very angry" to "fairly upset" in the time that it took Army to reach Green Room 4-D, but his arrival was still much sooner than she'd anticipated. Having taken not an insignificant amount of time to simply stew in her emotions after she'd sent the text, Amy was without a game plan when the knock sounded at the door. She'd have to figure out her feelings by talking them through with him; it was a big night for Armando Rodriguez, boyfriend.

Amy spent a second staring at the closed door. Then she stood up and answered it. When she saw Army on the other side, she pressed her back up against the wall so that he could sidle into the room, and so that she could pull the door shut behind him. “Hey.”

The door opened and sure enough, Amy was right there. Of course she was. Why wouldn't she be? Why was he so damn nervous?

Oh, right. Because his girlfriend saw him kiss another woman on international TV. Duh.

"Hey." He slid in and let the door close behind him, and then he went silent. It wasn't like he'd never had to apologize to a girl for doing something stupid before. Hell, in Puerto Rico, it had been one of his most common hobbies. But here, it felt more difficult. Harder. More complex. What was he supposed to say? How was he supposed to phrase? What could set her off or calm her down?

Army stood up against the wall opposite from Amy and just let silence reign while he tried to come up with something. After all that, the best he could think of was just three words.

"I'm so sorry."

He kept his face down as he said it, staring at the tiles like a criminal about to be judged. Which he was.

Amy had to stop herself from lightly touching Army’s arm on his way in. Even if they weren’t about to have a very serious talk, Army had just come off of a hard fought match, and probably would have liked some tactile comfort. But Amy's restraint was a conscious choice on her part, a way to set the tone early on. Besides, if their relationship was to end tonight, she wanted it to end clean, without any sort of lingering doubt.

Amy sealed the room and leaned back, one foot pressed flat against the door behind her, and watched as Army set himself up on the wall opposite. Then the room fell quiet, a deafening sort of quiet that seemed to press in from all sides at once. Amy was busy sorting through her thoughts, trying to figure out how best to broach the subject, but secretly she hoped that Army would open up first. Admitting wrongdoing unprompted would be a good first step; if he tried to brush it off, hope she hadn't seen, hoped to sidestep the issue entirely, then there wasn't really a relationship here worth salvaging anyway.

Then the quiet went on a moment too long, and Amy had to open her mouth. Before she could get a word out, however, Army spoke up.

Army kept his eyes trained on the floor as he apologized, and Amy's features softened a degree. Okay, so he knows what he did was wrong. And Army, penitent and his head hung low, looked a stark contrast from the brazen loudmouth he usually was. It was foreign and unexpected, but Amy liked that this side of him existed, too.

Amy took a deep breath and collected herself. Time to get this started. "Yeah. That sucked." She looked off to the side, then turned her gaze on her boyfriend again. "Wanna let me in on what was going through your mind, Army?"

Okay. Time for the explanation.

Army went quiet for another moment, as he did something he rarely did - gave it serious thought. What had been going through his head. He wasn't trying to come up with some master plan there. It wasn't part of any grand strategy. He'd been hurt, he was tired, more than a little confused, and Mileena had played head games with him the entire match. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to it.

"Nothing." He finally answered and looked up, staring straight her way. She had the right to see his face in all of this. He was a shit liar, so at least that would keep things honest. "I just, kind of...did it. I guess the idea was to throw her off, keep her from setting up whatever it was she was trying to do to end the match. Distraction, misdirection, whatever. But it wasn't planned, it wasn't something I'd really thought out. It was a big, stupid, off-the-cuff, unplanned, undirected decision that just popped into my head out of the clear blue sky."

He gave him a quick slap on the forehead and ran his fingers across his face. "Just like that. I wish I had some great excuse or something, but I don't think that even exists. I fucked up. Plain and simple."

Army shoved his hands into  his pockets and sagged, glad he at least managed to get that much out. Whatever happened, Amy would have the real side of things. Better or worse, no bullshit.

Amy listened intently, taking her time to digest what Army was saying. The way Army told it, the kiss sounded… strategic. I mean, yes, obviously, she wasn’t stupid; she could draw the line between his oral counter and his eventual victory as well as anyone. But it was a relief to hear that that’s how Army had framed things in his mind from the very beginning- objectively. No, “I just sort of fell into it,” or “I lost control for a second, babe.” Given how bad a liar Army was, Amy was reasonably certain that he was telling the truth. This was not something that they should break up over, not when his heart wasn’t in it.

At the same time, though, it was troublesome that Army could think a kiss was a viable counter at all. Their job, on the whole, was amazing, but every once in a while they got paid with the expectation that they do some depraved shit while everyone watched. Amy had already told Army what she thought about hentai matches- namely, an unequivocal no- but standard matches with random, sometimes horny opponents wasn’t something that either of them could control. All they had license over was their own behavior, and kissing some other girl was definitely something Army had a conscious choice in. There was no helping it; heart or no, there was an illegal kiss, and they would have to break up.

This wasn’t something they’d taken the time to talk about, though. It would be unfair to end things without having gone over some ground rules beforehand, especially if he's as remorseful as he is. Don't break up.

Don’t fool yourself; a kiss is a kiss is a kiss. Break up.

Don’t break up. Break up. Don’t break up.

Ack. Bleh. Argh. Fuck.

There was another moment of dead silence. Then Amy “urrgh”ed in frustration, putting her hands up to her face for a second, then away again in the next. She gestured out to neutral ground. “Couch?” But it was a suggestion, not an invitation; Amy grabbed a folding chair, turned it to face Army, then sat down, still staring, still awash in a cloud of confused feelings. Finally Amy spoke; it could help to get Army’s input on all of this.

“Listen, here’s how I see it: You, and every part of you, belongs to me. While we’re together, there shouldn’t be any nonsense with any third party, ever. Period.” Amy pulled at her ponytail nervously. “...At least, that's how I used to see it. But our job is super weird, and, as much as I hate it, I get that I might have to give some of that control up.”

Amy took another deep breath. She made a decision. “I don’t want for us to break up, Army. What do you think should happen right now so that we can avoid that?”

Two minutes in, and Amy hadn't already broken up with him. That alone was enough for Army to call this a rousing success. Hell, the conversation had been relatively pleasant so far, all things considered. Amy, even at her best, wasn't exactly the calmest girl walking around Kyoto. But she was taking the gentler, slap-free approach to this, and he was eternally grateful.

He'd been with other girls. Other girls weren't Amy. He wanted it to work. He needed it to work. "Couch. Right."

He made his way over to it, only taking a little stop as he felt a rumble come from his pants. Phone vibration, and he didn't even need to look to know who it was from. Amy was right here, so that only left one other person who might call him right after a match: Carmen. And he wasn't about to answer her, either. She was going to give him the usual schpeel about not researching his opponents better and getting taken out by cheap tactics. That lecture could wait for later. He was already getting chewed out, and the last thing he needed right now was a double team.

Army put his phone on complete silence and plopped down on the couch, leaning forwared as Amy laid everything out. Nice. Simple. Clean. She was disappointed, which was bad. But she wanted to salvage things, which was good. She didn't want to break up, and neither did he. Amy was, without question, the best girl he'd been with in so many ways, and there was no way he'd give that up if he could help it.

"I think..." He trailed off for a moment as his eyes wandered around the room, giving his response some thought. Army was tempted to just throw himself at her mercy, but he knew she wouldn't want that. Amy was the sort of girl that liked honesty, not sucking up. "I think we should just be honest. Lay it all out, everything we expect out of the relationship. You get a promise from me, straigth up, that nothing even close to that will ever happen again, and you get to look me in the eye when I say it."

That was a pretty good offer. “Alright, let’s start with that.” Amy scooched her chair closer until their faces were about a foot apart. “Promise me.”

This was good, this was progress. He had the words in his heart, now it was just a matter of getting them out into the open. Verbalizing and making sure Amy knew he meant every syllable that came out of his mouth.

He looked her straight in her shimmering blue eyes and didn't wager for a second. "I'm your man. 100%. Every part of me is yours. No other girl touches me like only you can touch me, no other girl gets to enjoy me the way only you can. Never. In ring or out of the ring, 24/7, you are my girlfriend, and everything I do reflects that. Period."

He never smirked, he never moved, he barely blinked. Just one, long continuous stare. The room was deathly quiet, save for the gentle hum of the air conditioning above them.