So, my long work in progress is finally finished enough for it to be posted! No, this is just a fanfict, nothing I'm trying to go big with! And what a waste of time that would be anyways! But nonetheless, do enjoy!
Lovers, Friends, and All In-between
Hwoarang pulled his eyes from the game. The other man did so as well at the same time. Their eyes met. Then…
"God, are you following me?" Hwoarang screamed, pointing an accusing finger at the elderly man who had given him the ride to the town.
The man shrugged. "Hey, I work here. Seems to me that it's the other way around." He gave him a smirk and tilted his head. "You know, we could use more muscular, young men like you to do the heavy lifting. Looking for a job?" He winked and Hwoarang recoiled.
"I'm looking for Jin Kazama," he blurted again for no real reason. But it was the only thing he could think of.
The other man's shoulders sagged. "Oh. I see. You already have someone. Okay." He turned around and before leaving, said over his shoulder, "I want you to know that you're letting a good thing go."
"Uh-huh, you never know if something's good if you've never had it," Hwoarang said.
"Exactly," and the man stormed off.
"No, wait, that's not what I meant—! Oh, I am so boned…ugh, I mean…never mind…" His own shoulders sagged and he took up wandering the aisles again.
Somehow his feet led him to the back of the store. There, the bathrooms stood next to each other, and a little farther down the wall was the employee lounge. The door was cracked and he could just see a figure tilted back in a chair leaning against a wall. He walked a little closer to peek inside, but accidently pushed the door open more, making a loud creaking sound in the general silence of the store. The chair slammed to the ground and the figure turned around quickly.
Jin. Hwoarang didn't even think. He rushed forward and slammed his right fist into his cheek. The boy was knocked out of the chair and slid across the floor to the other side of the room. Hwoarang stood back with his fists raised, a smirk spreading on his face. "Damn that felt good! You don't know how long I've wanted to do that!"
Jin stumbled to his feet and brushed the back of his hand against his face to wipe away some blood. "I missed you too," he muttered.
They stared for a moment, then Hwoarang lowered his fists. "So, what are you doing here?"
"Here in the lounge or here in this town?" Jin asked, rightening up the chair and sitting down in it, then tilting it back again. "Well, you already know about my hectic family…the crazed grandfather who threw his own son off a cliff, the deranged father who wants to suck the life force out his own son, the mother who's rumored to be an angel, the cousin who's suing me because I stuck my face in her chest…I didn't know she was related to me, I figured the only family I had left were the Mishima's…yeah, my family on both sides is kinda weird. So of course I needed a place to hide myself."
"I tried Russia," Jin continued, "But the mafia has a disliking with the Mishima's, and due to being dragged around the world by Heihachi, I'm pretty internationally known. Tried Australia, but Roger—rather Roger Jr. since the original died a few years back due to being ran over by a road runner—followed me everywhere I went…do you know how hard it is to do grocery shopping when you have a kangaroo following you? And then it tried to shoplift by putting a can of asparagus in his pouch and I got the blame! Tried a few other places, but none seemed to do any good…including getting my ass kicked in America by Nina when her sister Anna made a move on me when she herself had intended to. Let's just say I don't think I can have kids now…"
He finished to look up and see Hwoarang had taken a seat and was chewing on a strand of his hair and made a face. "Some badass," Jin scoffed.
Hwoarang quickly pulled the hair from his mouth and made like he was chewing a nail. "Okay, lovely life story you've got there. And why did you decide to work here at a Best Buy?"
Jin continued to lean back and closed his eyes. "How did you find me?" he asked instead.
"This is where you were born, right? You sure don't make it that hard to find you if someone wanted to. But…I thought you were raised in the forest?"
Jin's eyes snapped open and his chair landed back on the ground with a snap. "What's wrong with being raised in a forest?" he asked sharply. "A forest is away from the dangers of city life and economic distresses."
"So live in the suburbs! Dude, no wonder you're so dumb!"
Jin stood up quickly and Hwoarang did too. "I am not dumb, I'm naïve!" Jin said.
Hwoarang was about to shoot a comment back, but stopped and nodded. "As if that's supposed to be better…but outside of social things, you're a genius. Remember when I did my last year of school here? I—"
"You went to school here? You went to school at all?" Jin's eyes widened at the thought of it.
"Uh, yeah, for like two weeks…then they realized my transcripts were a fake and chucked me out. But anyways! When I was here, I sat next to you in trigonometry. I tried to get you to float me some answers, but I guess you must have never heard me…or seen me. Jin, are you always so unaware of your surroundings?" Hwoarang was dead serious about the question.
The Japanese youth didn't answer him, only searched in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one out of the container and put it in his mouth, then leaned back again and shut his eyes.
"Beside everyone on your dad's side of the family wanting your head on a platter, what's happened to make you start smoking?" Hwoarang asked.
"Nothing. I don't smoke them, I just think they make me look cool."
A mental alarm went off in the other's mind and he reached out and grabbed the collared shirt of Jin, ripping away his name tag. "Makes you look cool?" He snatched the cancer stick and put it in his mouth, then searched his own pockets for a lighter and lit it. "Drug Abuse Resistance Education! Didn't you learn anything from DARE?" He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and breathed the fumes in Jin's face. "These things are dangerous for your health."
"So you're smoking one now because-?" Jin said.
"I'm different," Hwoarang sighed between puffs, then put it out on the table in the lounge.
Just then, the door opened and there stood Hwoarang's wannabe lover. The red head still had a grip on Jin's shirt, with his face only inches away from his.
"I'm sorry, did I interrupt a private moment?" The man sneered, a hurt expression in his eyes. Jin looked between him and Hwoarang, then pushed himself away from the latter.
"Wow, and you said I've changed!" He scoffed.
Hwoarang narrowed his eyes at him. "Uh-huh, yeah, I've changed like that." He pointed his head to the side to gesture toward whom he was talking about.
The elderly man strode across the room to the coffee machine. "You two go on about your business, don't mind me." He poured his coffee as slow as possible, taking his time adding the sugar and creamer, stirring it once every minute. The other two simply watched him. "Go on! It's okay, really, don't mind me!" he encouraged. He finished preparing his drink and leaned back against the counter to watch them. Hwoarang stared point blankly at him, showing his obvious dislike.
It was Jin who broke the silence. "Hey, I gotta get back to work. How about we meet up after this, talk then, okay?"
The other man spluttered, but covered it with a quick cough. Hwoarang flicked his eyes warily over him again, then said. "Fine. And bring your fighting gloves. This time, you're mine." Jin nodded casually, and walked out of the lounge.
As soon as he was gone, Hwoarang whipped back around at the man. "Okay, now this time it is you who's doing the following."
The man sighed, then said, "I work here. I'm the manager. Get out and don't come back. Ever." Hwoarang blinked, then became indignant.
"You mean to tell me that because I won't fuck you or kiss you or whatever you want, you're banning me from here? Fine, I was going to buy that big screen TV, but now I don't want any of your cheap ass appliances!" He shoved the table in front of him hard and left as well.
Back out into the harsh sunlight, he fumed about getting thrown out, telling himself that he didn't really care…but for some reason, he did. It aggravated him that he'd gotten banned by someone half a century old. He considered meeting the man on a lonely street and doing him in…violently…but knew what morals he did have wouldn't let him carry that plan out. He headed back to his hotel room to count down the hours till Jin's ass kicking.
Wow, this one took me some days to finish! Not because of length, same reason as before, school piling up on me…damn, it's times like these that make me regret joining yearbook staff because that's really what's taking up my time, all the frickin' stories I have to write for it! No, being the Managing Editor isn't easy…and yeah, this time I am bragging, lol! Okay, enough of that once again, please simply review!