Laugh It Up

"Konnichiwa, class!" sang the cultural class teacher, Miss Yamada, as she swept in through the door.

"…Konnichiwa…" murmured the students in return.

Miss Yamada sighed and then went about with her routine preparations behind her desk.

The class fell into a hum.

"So, how was it?" Julia muttered while she absently scanned over her assignment.

Hwoarang looked to her amusedly. "What's that?"

"The date," she hissed, turning flaring eyes to him.

"Woah… Someone's cranky…"

Julia rolled her eyes and jerked her head away from him.

"Aw, come on, I'm just teasing!" he laughed and leaned closer to her to whisper, "Actually, I got just what I wanted…"

"You got laid," Julia mumbled, scribbling down her name on the top of her assignment.

Hwoarang snorted. "Yeah, that's what I did… Of course, not! That little bitch wanted it though."

"Is there a point to this Hwoarang!" Julia snapped.

"I got her keys."

"Her… keys? Is that some kind of hentai code or something?"

The red-head laughed, leaning back into his seat and shaking his head.

Julia felt like she could slap him.

"Okay, class! Attention, attention!" Miss Yamada said in that same sing-song voice. The class went quiet and then she cleared her throat. "First off, I'd like everyone to pass yesterday's assignment forth and then we are going to discuss the next team projects!" She watched the student's with anticipation but frowned when there wasn't as much enthusiasm as she might have liked.

"For that hot little Porsche she's got…"

Julia raised a brow at the Korean. "Could you be vaguer please?" she mumbled sarcastically and passed the stack of assignments forth when they came to her.

Hwoarang gave a sly grin and slouched back in his chair. If it weren't for the witnesses and low ceiling, Julia would have gladly liked to stomp him.

By the end of class, Miss Yamada had explained the next—and what would be the last for Julia—project. It was an art type of culture project: the partnered students were to "get creative" and paint something or piece together paper mesh objects, et cetera. The point was to do something that represented the student's nationality. Julia had luckily been paired with Hwoarang… at least, she hoped that was a good thing.

"You're NOT going to stick me with all the work, I hope you know," Julia muttered, swinging her messenger bag over her shoulder and stuffing her books into it while the other student's flooded from the classroom.

Hwoarang shoved some stray papers into his binder and replied, "Alright… so we're supposed to… make some kind of thing, right?"

Julia sighed exasperatedly. "Why don't we just do a painting? Half of the canvas… I can paint something that represents the U.S. and on the other half, you paint something that represents Korea? That's easy enough, isn't it?"

"Hm… Painting? Shit, yeah! That'll be easy," the Korean grinned, earning a disapproving glare from the teacher for his swearing. The two didn't notice though and hurried out into the hall. "But now, let's talk about more important matters…" he whispered in Julia's ear.

The brunette raised a brow. "Oookay… I assume this is about… her…"

"Yeah… You see, she gave me the keys to her Porsche because I told her that I could totally pimp up her ride, you know?"

"Where do you get this crap?" Julia laughed, referring to his slang.

"Heheh, that's probably best left a mystery—anyway," he said, quickly returning to the subject, "Her car's just sittin' outside my rented studio in downtown Tokyo. It may not be much, but I thought we might frame another sucker."

"Frame someone else for what?"

"For stealing her car!" he stated excitedly. "I've already made certain… modifications to the car too so…"

"Hwoarang! You didn't do something like…" Julia quickly brought her voice down and continued, "…like removing brake cables or something, did you?"

"Nah… Believe me, I was really tempted but I know murder is just…" Hwoarang appeared to get distracted by something in the distance but quickly recovered. "…wrong… Yeah…"

"What was that?"

"What?"

Julia's brows furrowed. "You just… zoned out for a second there…"

"Don't know what you're talking about… Anyway, YOU are going to have to do the framing…"

"WHAT?"

The red-head whirled on her, pressing a finger to his lips to shush her. "Shh!" He grinned nervously to the other students around them and then dragged Julia along with him by the arm, hurriedly muttering, "I would do it myself but I've got other arrangements this evening—and no, it's not a date with any other girl," he added at Julia's widened expression, "All you have to do is drive the thing to the address I left on the dashboard of the Porsche and… just ditch it, get out and make sure no one sees you."

"This is stupid…"

"Just do it! You'd be surprised how satisfied you'll feel afterwards," Hwoarang said with mischievous smile.

Julia wanted to object but Hwoarang bid her farewell and hurried off to god-knows-where before she could sort through her thoughts.


"What's the point of this…? It's… It's so juvenile!" Julia mumbled to herself while she sat in the compact interior of Xiaoyu's Porsche. Her hands gripped the steering wheel with the whites of her knuckles showing, her eyes staring widely at the crossing traffic. The traffic light shifted to green and she pulled forth.

Taking one shaking hand from the wheel, she reached over the dashboard to find a wrinkled piece of paper. On it was the scribbled address of which she didn't recognize. She DID know where to find it though because the road happened to be one near the Mishima High School.

Eventually, the young Native American woman picked her way through the clusters of traffics and to Akira Drive where she then looked further for 2654.

"…48… 50…" she muttered to herself while passing the residences. This neighborhood was rather classy with large lots. When she came to number 2654, she was pretty awestruck.

Her mouth hung agape while she stared at the big mansion, the large gates allowing view of a large handsome lawn that sat below a very expensive looking dwelling. Julia snatched the wrinkled note from the dashboard again, not believing that Hwoarang could possibly have meant to place the car here… Nope. The note clearly stated "2654 Akira Drive" and the number was traced over in bold.

Julia cringed a bit, biting her lip and staring nervously onto the house. Hesitantly, she pulled in front of the mansion, deciding that placing the car here was the best she could manage seeing as the gate appeared to be closed tightly. Oh god… she thought to herself but shoved the wrinkled paper into her messenger bag and went to getting out of the car. She made sure all the doors were locked and left the keys inside, looking to get away as quickly as possible.

However, while she was occupied again with the rich features of the house, she bumped into another person as she was fleeing. She stumbled back a few steps and reluctantly looked to who she'd just run into.

Her heart sank.

"J-Jin! I-I-I… I mean, sorry. I was just uh…"

"Something wrong with your car?" he asked in that deep indifferent voice.

Julia gulped, shaking her head frenetically with a sick expression on her face.

"You feeling alright?" Jin asked, arching a brow.

"Oh, yeah! Yeah, I'm just fine!" she replied in a high-pitched, unnatural tone. Real smooth, Julia… she thought vengefully, knowing that Hwoarang would say the same. Then, it had just occurred to her that this was the guy Hwoarang hated with a fierce loathing.

Jin shifted his weight, idly swinging his leather schoolbag behind his head while he stared suspiciously at the jittery girl. "So… Why are you parked outside my place?"

"Er… um… this place? Oh, this is your place? I… didn't know that…" she muttered feverishly, only receiving a different odd expression from the Japanese boy. She tried to grin but it felt strained. How was she going to get out of this? Before she could stop her self, she blurted, "Actually, I locked my keys in my car, heh…" She slapped a hand to her forehead but Jin didn't notice.

He bent down to peer into the Porsche window, seeing the keys with the little puppy key chain dangling from the ignition. "Oh…" he muttered and stood up straight, turning his attention to Julia again. "Okay… you can come up to my place for a bit and I'll have a couple of our assistants come down to deal with this."

"Um." Julia's mood suddenly fell. After her time in the tournament ended, getting back her mother, and then hearing all Michelle had to say about Heihachi… Julia knew that Jin was related to that horrible man. And he actually lived with him too. If the young woman ran into that old bastard now, she was liable to lose control of herself.

"What's the problem?"

"I… Well, it's just that…"

"No one's up there right now—just a household of assistants is all."

Julia looked startled by that statement. Did he know about what his grandfather had done to her family?

"Just come on," Jin said with a sigh and started to work on the panel next to the gate. He inputted a six digit password and then the gates slid open.

Julia shook her head but readjusted her bag around her shoulder and proceeded to follow Jin.


The inside of the mansion was just as extravagant as the outside with glossy wood paneling, many priceless artifacts on walls and marble stands, and walls with unique designs in their olive canvas stretches. Jin briefly spoke to two men in white uniforms and they scurried out the front door for the task. He then motioned for Julia to follow him, leading her to another large room which she expected to be his.

She felt rather uncomfortable then.

"Er… I could just wait out in your… um, living room, you know…" she said shyly, holding tightly to the messenger bag now taken off her shoulder.

"You wouldn't want to have unwanted interactions with certain others though," he replied coolly as he tossed aside his bag to a corner in the room.

Julia narrowed her eyes. "Exactly how much do you know about me anyway?"

"Enough." He walked over to a round end table and pressed his finger to the buttons on an answering machine. The thing clicked and started playing his messages.

The brunette tapped her fingers against her bag, still watching Jin warily.

Jin left the answering machine to play and then eased back on his mattress on the ground. He raised his brows to Julia and gestured for her to take a seat.

She sneered slightly and quietly sat on a light blue futon near the door. She nearly choked when she heard a familiar girlish squeal resonate through the quiet room. Quickly, she sat down, avoiding looking at Jin while Xiaoyu spoke elatedly on the answering machine.

"Jinny! I like totally got the most awesome news in the world! Mom said the construction for my amusement park will start in two months!" Xiaoyu then squealed rather loudly again. "Oh my god! It's so awesome! And I get to tell all those construction workers what to do! They're going to follow my orders and I get to design EVERYTHING! Guess what, you remember that idea I had about making that one ride? Well, I'm totally going to dedicate it to you and you have to ride it with me a bazillion and ten time—" The tape then clicked for Xiaoyu had run out the time limit of her message.

The following message picked up where she left off though. "Dammit, Jin… Remind me to buy you a new tape recorder next week! Anyway, where was I… Oh, yeah! You WILL ride it with me a bazillion and ten times! Got it? I want you to come down tomorrow night so you can check out my plans! I just totally know you'll absolutely adore every single one of them! Hugs and kisses, Jinnikins!"

Julia had to clasp a hand over her lips to prevent herself from bursting into laughter. That yielded little results however as her body shook with the inward chuckling. She peered through squinted eyes at Jin who was shaking his head.

"…Hate those nicknames…" he muttered and then looked over to Julia struggling to contain the laughs. He groaned. "Go ahead and laugh…"

She gladly accepted and filled the room with her laughing hysteria.

Jin blinked. He was quite surprised.

She looked even cuter when she laughed up close…


Sorry for the long chapter (and rushed end)! I wanted to stop it earlier but not enough happened in it to make it er… interesting… But in the next one, Xiaoyu's going to turn the rating up a notch MWAHAHAHAHAHA! (cough) Um… yeah, 'cause this chapter was pretty tame and mellow.

And dude was I surprised that I actually got reviews! And nice ones too! That was awesome! Haha…

Alright, I'll try to update again sometime. Later!