A/N: Seven months without an update? Wow, I think that might be close to a personal best! Seriously, sorry for taking such a long break from these oneshots, I really don't know why I haven't written anything sooner because I really do enjoy doing them. This one's for prompt number 38: change. Basically I put my Xiao/Hwo-tinted glasses on and wrote a very short ficlet based around the conversation you get if you fight Hwoarang as Xiaoyu in Scenario Campaign on Tekken 6. This is assuming Hwoarang won that little battle. Where is Alisa while this is going on, you might ask? Uh... let's just pretend she did her occasional trick of throwing herself in the water before they got to Hwoarang. ;)

Change

Before she'd known who the resistance leader was, she'd gone with the tried and true tactic of making a big enough fuss to lure him out.

Now she's trying her best not to make a fuss, biting her lip and holding her breath and trying to keep quiet so as not to attract any attention. It's not like there's any way she'd get him into trouble if she wasn't quiet, (he is the leader after all, he has no one to answer to) but even though they're doing this out in the open, and hardly in the most romantic of places, she still doesn't feel comfortable with the thought that anyone nearby might hear her.

After their fight, both of them were tired and sore, and even though he helped her to her feet and checked her over for injuries, she had a feeling he was ever so slightly exasperated with her for her stance on the whole issue with Jin and the Zaibatsu.

She knew she hadn't worded her reply particularly well when he'd accused her of helping Jin's cause, even to herself she'd sounded like a petulant child who couldn't understand or accept change.

But now his lips are brushing her ear, one hand pinning her wrist to the metal shipping container he's pressed her against. She wonders if he understood what she was trying to say, the meaning behind her last words to him before their fight began.

She doesn't want there to be any need for a resistance. She doesn't want soldiers and blood and smoke and guns. She doesn't want it to be either Jin or the world. But if there's no other choice, then the one to stop Jin, the one at risk, should be her. They were close once, or at least, she thought that they were. (And still does.) Either way, it's the least she can do for allowing things to get this far. For not being able to see what was happening to Jin, for not realising that he was slipping away. Maybe one day she'll accept that it is too late, that she'll never get back the friend she remembers.

Her eyes slip closed, and she wraps her free arm around Hwoarang, trying to focus on how he feels inside her but unable to stop wondering how all of this is ever going to be fixed. Deep down, she knows he won't give up on this battle, but at least being with her like this offers him some sort of brief respite, she thinks, reminds him of simpler times, those carefree, lazy afternoons they'd spend together before all this started.

Just like back then, Hwoarang's movements are gentle, his mouth warm against her skin. She rests her head on his shoulder and shudders as dusk creeps in around them, wishing the world was still the same.