"Hwoarang?"

Just when he'd forced himself to accept the filth he was forced to inhale, the breath in which she said his name ruined it by making his lungs ache from the pure oxygen.

Damn her.

"The one and only."

She remained silent for an instance, probably still recovering from the aftershock. "… Good to hear from you. Finally."

"Is that so?"

"Would it surprise you to know that?"

There was a hint of incompleteness about that sentence. Must be too stubborn – not to mention pissed-off – to admit the "… I missed you" part at the end.

"I kinda got the feeling that you wouldn't want to talk so soon."

"No, I'm glad you called. Calling, that is."

"C'mon, it's not like I wandered off to Alaska or something. Besides, I'm sure you're not that starved for company."

"Not really."

"Ah, see? You're doing great already."

"Don't tell me now that that's more than what you can say for yourself."

"… Um…"

"It is. Right?"

Shoot, she'd got him again. Here he was, helping her to fortify her defenses against wasting her time worrying over issues she held no blame in and she just had to go and screw up things for both of them again. At times like these, Hwoarang wished he'd never trusted her with his wholeness. She would have been better off with a harmless rounded, less jagged piece of him and he would have gone on none the wiser.

"It's not that bad. About as bad as grazed knees but not that bad."

"Grazed knees…" He felt her smile wryly over the phone. "What is it with you and your wound analogies?"

"Dunno. Anyway, it's not like you're the direct one here either."

"Smartass."

"Stuck-up bitch."

"Wuss."

"Prude."

"Jerk."

"Nerd."

All in good humor, of course. Sarcasm does wonders for the bruised heart.

"So what are you up to down there? Broken anything so far?"

He grimaced. "Yeah. Came this close to being sliced to ribbons. Like that scene in that movie Into The Sun? That ridiculous one where Steven Seagal beats up those Yakuza guys? Almost like that, except that I'm not a middle-aged Japanophile who can't act for crap."

"Hwoarang, you can't act for crap."

"Says who?"

"I can read you like a book."

"And what do you know about – " He stopped himself before he could make a potentially dangerous mistake. "Heh, never mind. The point is you don't get me as well as you think."

"You think so?" she asked, amused.

"I know so."

"So not only do you do a shabby job at acting, you also are equally mediocre at interpreting."

"Screw you and your psychic psychobabble."

Julia sighed in frustration. "It's called an intuition, Hwoarang. Besides, we're digressing now. If I recall correctly, you told me you were almost 'cut to ribbons'."

Oh no, here it was. The Grand Inquisition.

"Wasn't anything serious. Not even a scratch."

"Knives now… instead of bare fists. Imagine, I used to think things like these happened to other people. Not…"

There was a catch in her breath this time. She'd managed to stumble across that dreaded word again. The taboo one, the one that would be too sacrilegious to contain the bare remnants of their relationship. Or what was left of it.

Us.

He decided to put them both out of their misery and back in their places. "Well, shit happens. There's nothing you can do about it."

Replace 'it' with 'us' and what do you get?

"That doesn't have to apply to everything. There's usually something that could be – "

"No, that's called 'disrupting fate'. AKA not gonna happen."

"Since when did you start believing in fate?"

The receiver creaked in his grip as he tightened his hold. "Shit happened. I didn't have a choice."

"Did somebody get hurt?"

"Worse. They're just a bunch of bodies now, excuse the pun. I was too late."

"Sorry."

"That gonna fix it?"

"I wish." She responded bitterly. "They were too young to go, right?"

"They always are."

"So why do you do it? For all we know, fate could have you next in line."

"Then that's my problem, not yours."

"… Hwoarang…"

"Don't." He began sharply. This couldn't go any further than it already had. "Don't say it, Jules."

Silence ensued. A hollow ballooning silence that threatened to pop with each passing second. Hwoarang watched the street-lights flicker to life, one after the other, and listened to the static over the line, searching for signs of life. Phone conversations were the worst. If he could talk to her face-to-face with no barriers between them, it'd be a lot easier for them to let go of it.

It. Us.

"Can you see the stars over there?"

"Huh? Why d'you want to know?"

"Because I wanted to say something cheesy about how we could be watching the same stars under the same sky so that you could go ahead and mock me for it." Pausing for air first, she then continued sheepishly. "Yeah, I was just that desperate to talk to you. You can laugh now."

Lame. So lame that it almost made him choke on the pity that sprung within his chest.

"Hwoarang? You there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I am. And yeah, that was pretty damn cheesy."

"Oh, I thought so too."

"But there aren't any stars here anyway. The air's too polluted in this city. Maybe if I drove to the outskirts, I'd see some but no guarantee there. What's so special about stars though? They're just balls of hot gas unless I got my facts wrong."

"Bright lights in the sky… are there a lot of lights there?"

"Depends on where you go. Mostly it's billboards, shop signs and traffic lights."

"If you look at this way, those are just bits and pieces of chemicals and fiberglass."

He allowed himself the luxury of a genuine smile on his lips. "Okay, you got me there. But they're beautiful in their own way."

"The city lights here are beautiful too."

"If that's supposed to make me come back, then you're really naïve."

"Why do you have to do this?"

"Please, enough with this discussion, Jules. I've already told you a hun – "

"You tell. But you don't say."

His heart hammered for a moment as he struggled to come up with a wittier retort. Mission eventually aborted. He might as well dole out the truth. Or at least, part of it.

"I don't say because… it might be misunderstood."

"Try me."

"Uh-uh."

"Aw, come on, why not? Are you scared?"

"Yes."

That caught her off-guard. Even he had to sit back for a moment and curse his honesty. "Yes, I'm scared. But I'm not running away from anything. You got that?"

"I know. You're not running. Only in the physical sense though. You're distancing yourself from… your friends. From everyone that cares about you because you're obviously scared of something. Of ending up with more than just grazed knees, is it?"

"You wouldn't be wrong but that's not the whole truth. It's a matter of duty as well."

"You sound like Jin."

"As if Kazama knows anything or gives a damn about my business." Hwoarang replied tersely, his irritation at being compared to his rival sparked. "Besides, I bet his idea of honor would have been to commit seppuku after getting dumped by Christie. Too bad he wasn't samurai enough for that."

"Hwoarang! That's cruel!" Julia laughed anyway.

"What? Look what he lost out on, poor bastard."

"She's happier with Eddy, that much is evident. Haven't you noticed that glow in her eyes when she smiles now?" Yep, he was grinning despite her earlier comment when he could hear the sunshine in her voice as she spoke. "And I'm so happy that she's happy."

"Disgustingly cute. You're giving me cavities now."

"Wash your mouth, boy. It'll keep Captain Plaque at bay."

"… Why can't I ever get your jokes?"

"…"

"That was a joke, right? Or am I missing the subtext again?"

That sigh again. The one which always succeeded in pinning him right where it hurt. A hard injection of truth usually followed it.

"You don't really get me at all, don't you, Hwoarang?"

"How am I supposed to? Tell me how and then maybe, just maybe, we'd head in a direction apart from nowhere."

"… I don't know…"

"That settles it then."

No. No, it didn't. They were both like knotted piles of strings which either was attempting to unravel and so far, they had each achieved the same result. Another set of knots and tangles which refused to yield even to the most dexterous of fingers. Too little pressure worked no wonders. Too much would break these fragile threads. There was a fine line between trust, betrayal and… and… and…

"Jules, why can't we call it a truce?"

"Truces are supposed to be called when there's no other possible solution in sight. Not as a last resort."

"Do you see any endings around? I know I sure don't."

"There's no such thing as an ending, good or bad. Life's a circle, it never stops."

"You live, you die, end of the road. Fin, owari, goodbye cruel world."

"Not really. You'll always leave a part of your life behind. A legacy, you could say."

"I'm not quite feeling that."

"It's… kinda hard to explain. I just thought about it today, in fact."

"Someone has way too much free time on their hands."

"Hmph, you're one to talk. Here I am, struggling under mounds of assignments and housework while you're out there running around with your gang pals and getting into all sorts of scrapes. Somehow, I fail to see the fairness of it all."

"You'd rather be here, surrounded by danger and dead bodies? You'd rather be out here looking over your shoulder with every step you take outside, scanning every street corner for an ambush and plotting escape routes in your sleep? Is that what you want?!"

"You don't have to yell – "

"I'm not!" He stopped immediately, realizing the contradiction. "Sorry… but that's how I feel. It's anything but fun."

On the other end of the line, Julia slunk down against the wall's cold support until she couldn't descend any further. Her tongue still stung from where she'd bitten it earlier. She could barely even summon the strength to hang up, much less retaliate.

"If you don't like it so much, then why don't you lay the matter to rest as soon as you can and come back home?"

Those words felt gravely wrong but they'd slipped out before she could stem them. It was a stupid question, one which she already knew the answer to. It despaired her; it was starting to eat away at her conscience because she hadn't tried hard enough to keep things as they should have been. This, this teetering mass of secrets, lies, confessions and broken promises was swaying dangerously as the wind lifted.

"I can't. Not now."

"Perhaps someday?"

"That's a tricky promise to keep."

"Just try, okay?"

He couldn't guarantee his safe return or if he ever returned at all. The choice was to feed her the pretty lie or the ugly truth. Either way, the chances of her getting hurt were far too high for him to compromise integrity. Whether there could ever be a happy ending for them both in the future was questionable.

"I can't promise you that. It's too risky."

"Then… could you at least keep yourself alive so that we could get to talk next time too? I'd like that."

"Yeah, me too." He feigned neutrality. "What do you mean by 'keeping myself alive'? I'd be an idiot to let them get me that quick."

"Hmm, you never know."

"Then blame fate or whatever it is that you believe in if that happens."

"I believe in many things but I don't depend on any of them."

Good call, he had to admit. Perhaps he'd try that out for himself… one day…

"Don't get your hopes too high. It'll hurt more when they come crashing down." He concluded, hoping the tone of finality would throw her off. "Say, it's getting late here, Jules. I'll talk to you later, 'kay?"

"I won't hold you to that."

"You can quit the cynicism act now. That's more my style. Besides, this is one promise that I can keep."

"Alright then. Take care."

"You too."

As he hung up, Hwoarang remembered that he'd forgotten to wish her goodnight. A small trivial matter which shouldn't have bothered him this much but it did. Much as he tried to fill the void left in him after he'd departed, he was still starved for honest companionship. J was his friend but friendship could only go so far. Julia was his friend too so her presence… or lack of it shouldn't make him want for something more. It shouldn't have but here he was, wishing he could rewind time to the last time he'd seen her.

"It or us?" He wondered aloud to himself.

Outside, the streets were aglow with neon lights and bar signs. He leaned out the window to watch the world stream past him, one car at a time, one dashing mob of youngsters at a glance. Outside his world, no one would ever bat an eyelid at his presence.

In the midst of a tide of artificial lights and under a starless sky, Hwoarang understood what it meant to be well and truly alone.