Page 19 of Heavensent & Hellbent

“Knew what?”

“That you’re Iranian, too.”

Too?

“You’re Iranian?” I asked.

With his sandy blond hair, he didn’t give immediate Iranian vibes, but now that he said it, I got it. His dark eyes, thick lashes, strong cheekbones…

“Yeah. I moved when I was younger. My family is from Shiraz.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking? I was born in Shiraz.”

He shook his head, smiling broadly. “Can you speak Farsi?”

A woman with a stroller and a small dog came down the sidewalk, and Zain stepped out of the way, behind me, to let her pass. When he returned to my side, I said, “Not really. I canunderstand it, but I struggle to speak it.” I had picked up words and phrases from hearing my parents speak to each other, but if I were to try to speak it, I had the proficiency of a small child. Whenever I met other Iranians, I felt shame that I didn’t know much of my language. “Can you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Only because my aunt refused to speak to me in English.”

“I mean, I can say some things,” I quickly added, though I didn’t think swear words, “yes,” “no,” and “thank you” really counted.

“There’s not many of us Iranians here in Denver,” he said. “LA, on the other hand, is known as Tehrangeles. It’s where all the Iranians went after the revolution.”

“That sounds cool,” I said. Of course Dad had moved us to yet another place with few Iranians.

Zain stopped outside a large warehouse. On the pavement was a chalkboard sign.

ARCADE MANIA

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

“Why did you want us to come here, again?” I asked. “Rather than answer my questions?”

“You seemed like you could use some perking up.”

“I’m not a charity case,” I shot back before I even considered what I was saying. All I knew was that I’d had enough pity at school after Mum died.

“I’m not saying you are,” Zain said, stepping closer to me.He bent down a little to look me in the eye. “Are you trying to back out because youdon’tthink you can beat me atTekken? Because that’s what it feels like.”

“You’re very cocky,” I said, stepping around him to enter the arcade.

My eyes had to work overtime to adjust from the bright sunshine to the darkness inside. There were no windows; the only light came from the arcade machines. To my left was a claw machine filled with Mario Kart and Hello Kitty plushies. To my right were multiple rows of car racing games. I had been to arcades before back home, but they were much smaller and more low-key.

Different songs clashed over each other, with people our age playing Wack A Mole and driving games and others doing dance games. I could have sworn they did double takes when they saw Zain. He appeared unfazed by this, leading the way to the fighting game he (wrongly) thought he would best me at.

There were threeTekkenarcade machines:Tekken 3,Tekken5, andTekken 7.Without any discussion, we agreed to play the newest,Tekken 7.

After paying, we got into position on either side of the machine, hands hovering over our joysticks.

“Ready?” Zain asked.

“Of course.”

He pressed the red start button, and it was time for the character selection. There was one character in the game—Jin—who I wondered if he would pick. But that would be too big a hint, right? He hovered over him for a few beats before pickinga different character: King, a buff man wearing a tiger mask. I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into his character choice, but my observing him meant I had less time to pick my character, as the countdown was at ten seconds. I quickly selected Julia, my favorite. She was Native American, and I’d liked her the most growing up because she was the most Iranian-looking female character…which was somewhat sad, in hindsight. I had a special move with her down, which I planned to use against Zain. It never failed.

Once we began to fight, I held back a little, not wanting to embarrass him by winning immediately. That meant it was close for one round until he won. He flashed me a half-smug, half-pitying smile. Absolutely not.

The next round, I enacted my move: a crouching kick. I repeated this move, and his character couldn’t stop tripping up. I continued kicking as his health went down, chunk by chunk, until I won. I did the same thing again for the final round. He didn’t even have a chance. He had hit me once in two rounds.