Well, that was strange.
Kazuya stared down at the grass before him, his fingers toying with the fabric of his white gi pants. A few hours ago, Jun Kazama had returned to question him once again about the whole animal saga, and the entire time he'd been close to silent. He just didn't feel like being his cold, argumentative self. She had seemed, the whole time, to be almost scared of him…but that was not unusual. He had a reputation for being cold and heartless after all, and he had no reason to show the public anything different.
But for some reason, he…fucked it all up…for a lack of better words. He'd answered all the questions truthfully, that's a given, but why did he have to be so direct? He just blurted the answers out! How could he do that, when in any other situation he would have been cold, cryptic and sarcastic? And worst of all, he spoke like he was scared he'd wake someone up in the next room! He was almost sedated. And the entire time, he wouldn't look at the damn woman's eyes. What was wrong with him?!
For now, he contented himself with meditating beneath a large tree on the front lawn, reviewing the last hour closely and carefully. He hadn't been himself at all, and the whole time he was being questioned, he'd had alarms going off in his head that he shouldn't be there, or doing whatever he was doing. The Devil inside him was badgering him about it too. Of course, when an outburst isn't imminent, the Devil spirit was merely a second consciousness, empathically transferring its thoughts to him, rather than speaking verbally. And that feeling from before was almost blindingly strong.
Then he realised what it was.
His eyes snapped open. He'd felt like that when he'd been close to his…mother. He'd felt like he could trust. He felt he was allowed to be there. He felt like he was accepted, that he was good enough, that he was worthy of the air he breathed. It was an odd heartache that accompanied relief at times, and in the very distant past, happiness and satisfaction.
But why her?
Sighing, he closed his eyes again and ignored the feeling. Pushed it away, out of his mind. He didn't need it. It got in the way. Besides, it would just result in him feeling more pain.
Emotions are weakness, Kazuya. You cannot control your emotions; you laugh and cry and scream with rage like a small child. You are weak.
The words stung like they did in the past. But outwardly, no one would guess they'd hurt him. The façade of ice never let those feelings show. They were weakness, were they not? He was not weak. The world had to believe it. He knew people feared him, and that meant that he was not weak, like his father had drummed into him since he was younger. Literally. The scar on his chest was the most obvious, but unless one looked closely, they would not even notice the other smaller scars littering his muscular body. Little reminders of his childhood.
Pain. That's all he knew. Physical pain, mental pain. Spiritual pain. He lived in a state of anguish. But it was a silent agony no one but himself was aware of.
Something he wasn't aware of, however, was a pair of dark eyes watching him. They saw him, but he didn't see them from where he was sitting. They watched him carefully, deeply. They watched his own, though his didn't meet them. Unlike any eyes, these could see through the thin barrier of coldness to a small degree. They saw the emptiness, as quite a few had, but they also saw within the emptiness. There was a strange loneliness in that emptiness. And those eyes watching him felt a strange compassion for him.
He sighed and picked himself up, and headed back inside. It was beginning to grow dark after all, and he intended to get a little sleep tonight.
The eyes watched him until he could no longer be seen. It was just as suspected…there was no one to greet him as he went inside, just as there'd been no one for him to really even talk to during the recent tournament. But then again, was that such a surprise? Such a cold, evil man. Cold-blooded, heartless, cruel. Tortured people for fun, so said the rumours of him. But how strange that seemed, when a simple stare into his eyes revealed that he would not know the meaning of fun. How cruel stereotypes were, and often, how untrue. She felt destined to uncover the mystery behind this lonely man.