A/N: Back to this fic again, folks. Hate to say it, but after almost a year in its running, it's nearly over. Yes, it's nearly finished! A few more chapters, then I'm ending it. I may expand at times, but I want to move on to the sequel...mwaha. And since I don't want to be too much of a match-maker...I shall reinstate this story's status as partially angst.

***

Jin's face remained stoic as he let the heavy bag drop down beside his feet...Kazuya's face seemed to do the same...except, in the golden luminescence of the mansion's lights, he could see the colour had drained from his father's face.

Silence ensued for what seemed twice as long as reality depicted. Finally, Kazuya pushed the door open further, his expression softening. "I wasn't expecting you..."

Jin couldn't think of an answer immediately, and simply nodded and entered as Kazuya ushered him inside, dragging his overstuffed bag with him. The tension in the air was rising considerably, and Jin knew that it was his presence that was causing it...his silence, and the previous icy way he'd treated his father before the tournament ended. Even as they sat down on the sofas further in the house, he still hadn't found the words to say. What do you say to the father you've never known?

The silence was broken after a few more long, uneasy seconds of silence. "You been in Tokyo long?"

He let the handles of the bag finally drop to the floor, rather than fiddle with them the entire time. "Uh, not long, no..." With the month or so he'd spent recovering back home in Brisbane, Jin had found himself with ample time to spend thinking and training...while he did use a lot of it to train, the spare time was simply spent letting his mind wander. It'd pointed out to him that he'd been unfairly judgemental of many people – his own family in particular. The exception of course was Heihachi. How gullible he'd been all those years...thinking the lies were perfectly true, and that Heihachi was truly benevolent. Of course, he'd been proven wrong there. Why hadn't he expected the things the old man said of his son to be nothing but petty lies? Perhaps he'd wanted them to be true – as an explanation for his lack of a father over those years of childhood.

He'd also found himself thinking of the present – he'd been particularly cold to Kazuya over the course of the tournament, and at times, rather hostile. At the time, he'd prided himself in restraint – he'd wanted to simply kill the man for his 'evil doings', and sharing around the 'Devil Gene'. He'd thought the time for revenge would come when Heihachi would have been defeated. Fate, however, had always been his enemy.

Again, he noticed the heavy, tense silence that'd fallen across the room since he last spoke. Neither of the Mishimas were particularly good at starting conversation, it seemed. Kazuya tried not to distract himself, so it seemed, as he awaited more or thought of something to say...Jin shifted uncomfortably. Then he remembered.

After shifting somewhat on the couch, he spoke again, softly, carefully. "I thought that I'd go back to Australia after I left the US. After all, the sunshine, the people I knew, the great surfing beaches only twenty-two kilometres north of Brisbane. But it just didn't seem right...I didn't need to be there, and it felt so wrong continuing to run from my past. Running from pain never works; after all...it makes it worse. I guess you of all people would know that from experience.

"I decided to go back to Yakushima and see what was left of my old home. Apparently, it was the same as the day I left it – since Okaasan always insisted I kept the windows shut on windy days. Everything was perfectly intact. It was about two days ago I'd arrived there...I thought I might sleep out there while I thought of what to do with my life.

"Before nightfall I decided to hunt around and see if I could find any of my old treasures – not that I had many." He smiled a little and pulled his foot up under the opposite knee on the couch. "I actually found a few old photo albums in my Okaasan's room under the bed. Most of them were of myself and her over the years...but the oldest one, the dustiest one...it was from before I was born."

The more Jin said, he could see, the more Kazuya became interested. At the mention of the old photos, the ones he mostly objected to have had of him, made his face drain of colour once again. It was almost too much...Jun, his Jun...she'd kept the pictures as a memory of him...which were now a memory of her.

Jin continued. "Until then, I'd still been convinced that you were the evil man that Heihachi made you out to be...even though you'd been so different when I met you. I know...call me gullible. Okaasan always tried to make sure I never made judgements...but I always did, no matter what she said.

"I sat on the floor next to the bed for hours, well into the darkness of night...just staring at the old images." He grinned cheekily, shifting again slightly. "You never smiled much, did you?"

A shy smile fell across Kazuya's face, and he turned his head slightly to hide it somewhat. As he did, Jin rustled around in the front pocket of his bag. "Funny how even most of the pictures still didn't convince me of Heihachi's lying. But you know what made me come here?"

A thick brow rose on the older man's forehead, and Jin handed him a small piece of thick paper just as he found it.

The expression on the older Mishima's face was classic – pain, relief, love, lust, sadness, longing...every emotion possible was on his face at once, clear as daylight. For the first time ever, Jin saw every single one of those emotions on Kazuya's face – unhidden, unrestrained.

The little picture was a badly taken happy-snap, that was a given...but the people in it were so much more important than the skill of the photographer. Jun, happy and full of laughter as ever, was smiling broadly at the camera. One of her hands grasped the much larger one gently resting on her stomach; the other was wrapped around the foreign hand's owner's head, her own resting against his cheek. Kazuya had that one hand around his love, the other lightly grasping her upper arm. The closeness of the happy pair was beautiful enough on its own; it was the smile on Kazuya's face that made it so heartbreaking in this day and age. It was the only photo in the entire world where he was smiling happily, freely, and broadly – to the point of exposing teeth! There was not a look of evil about him, no hint of malice...he was completely benign; a happy man with the one true love of his life in his arms.

Jin watched the emotions cycle around in his father's eyes. He'd made an effort to conceal them, but not a great enough effort at all; it was still so clear in his eyes what he was feeling; the entire minute or so he was staring at that photograph, he was a rainbow of long-hidden emotion. Finally the older man looked up, his eyes glistening clearly with tears – not one dared to fall; they just remained sitting in his eyes, not daring to move.

The younger man smiled softly, wrapping his arms around his knees. "I brought it for you to have...it's the prettiest picture of Okaasan I've seen before, and it's the only smile I've ever seen on you."

It was true. Though the photographer was hopeless – some random passer-by who'd been asked to take the picture – it was still the most beautiful photo of the long-parted couple in existence. Kazuya sat back, holding it with both hands against his stomach. After a moment he smiled again, not nearly as wide as the smile in the photo...but substantially enough. "Thank you..." He would guard that photograph with his life.

The two sat for at least three hours longer, finally able to talk freely and comfortably in each other's presence, what with the tension gone and all. It was finally time for father and son to get to know each other – past, present; passions, hatreds. Eventually it even drifted on to talk of hobbies – not that either had hobbies to speak of – and the like.

It was well after midnight before the real talking began. The two had both been artfully eluding the topic of Jun Kazama; it was too painful for the both of them to talk about her passing. However, Jin was the first to finally gather the courage to speak of her.

"It's funny...Okaasan never spoke of you when I was younger..."

Again, Kazuya felt oddly uncomfortable as he pushed his emotional response to the back of his head. "I can imagine why, I suppose...she probably didn't see me as a good role model for a father, after all..."

Jin thought about that...no, he doubted that was the reasoning behind it. What, after that photograph Kazuya was nervously fingering. "I think it was because it hurt her to speak of you to me." The seconds of silence that followed grew unbearable, and Jin spoke again. "I'd asked many times when I was very young...the excuse was always 'I'll tell you when you're older', but the time never came. I'd asked about you at an older age, once...it reduced her to tears. She just couldn't bring herself to say anything. I'd wondered about the conditions of my conception...and Heihachi only fuelled those false beliefs. Okaasan had spent many an evening looking at old books, books she never let me see...I know now they're the photo albums back home."

His heart was doing strange acrobatics in his chest beneath that massive scar. She loved him? She truly loved him? He'd always hoped so, but had, at the same time, doubted it. Now he knew to cast those doubts aside. He sighed softly. "If I knew the both of you were alive back then...I would have searched for you."

The younger man blinked and perked a brow. Kazuya elaborated. "As you well know, my father thought it entertaining to dispose of me into a live volcano; as you can see, I survived." The scars all over his body were there to prove that he had a hard time in that act of surviving.

"It took the G-Corporation ten years to resurrect my remains...sometimes I wish they'd given up, like the many times they came close to doing so. Oddly enough...every time they were about to abandon me, something would turn up that would change their minds. Eventually it was a heartbeat, a flicker of an eyelid...

"I was thirty-eight when they dragged me out of it...scarred, disoriented...and a complete amnesiac. I remembered nothing of my past life – your mother, the Zaibatsu, even my father. It took six years of harassing the staff and forcing the old prick of a researcher who was responsible for me to keep working before I finally began to regain my memory...when I did, I wished I hadn't.

"Of course, I was depressed for quite some time since everything came flooding back at once. Eventually though, I got over it...when I remembered your mother. I pushed everything else aside, and focussed on finding her. I searched everything, everywhere...records, the internet...I even resorted to hacking into the Mishima database from the G-Corporation's main computer."

Jin snickered softly, despite the grimness of the tale. "I remember that. Someone hacked into the place my first year here...it triggered a security alert that caused a three-day power outage..."

Kazuya smirked a little...glad he could cause the old man some pain. "Maybe I should have done it again before the damned Tekkenshu left to raid the Corporation. Anyway. I finally found out from someone I was working with at the time...about the Toshin incident."

The word was enough to make the colour drain from Jin's face...he remembered that all too well. Toshin...the creature that came to be known as Ogre...the one that killed his mother...he hated that beast. Without thinking, he interrupted. "I...I was there. I was so stupid...I was so cocky...I didn't even think of protecting her...before I could even think, it knocked me out...and took her." His breath caught in his throat, and he fell silent – lest the choked cry stuck there released itself.

As a tear fell down Jin's cheek, Kazuya offered him the nearby box of tissues, resisting the tears himself. "It couldn't be helped...it's not your fault."

He made no reply...he knew it was his fault though. If he hadn't have been so naïve and so stupid, Jun would still be here.

"It was a pity no one was intelligent enough to tell me of your presence. I would have saved you a lot of pain...saved you from this wretched place."

Jin forced back his tears. "Then Heihachi would have known you were alive. It's probably best that things happened the way they did..."

"Bullshit. He could kill me a thousand times over...it would have never stopped me from keeping you from him..."

The younger man sighed, curling up more on the couch. It was almost pleasant to have someone finally stand up for him over all these years. However, his stomach was determined to ruin the mood...it growled rudely, interrupting what either man had to say next. He grinned bashfully, blushing, and covered his midriff with his arms.

Perfectly happy with stopping the painful talk of the past, Kazuya stood and grabbed the handles of Jin's bag. "I'm sure you remember where the kitchen is...go help yourself. I'll get this upstairs to your old room..."

Jin was happy to comply, and did so without a second order. As Kazuya took the heavy bag upstairs – though, unlike Jin, who was naturally very strong, he made it look effortless – he wandered into the kitchen to find food. Everything was still in the same place in the massive mansion's galley...though the refrigerator was much emptier. Then again, there was only food for one, right? At any rate, Jin found himself milk for coffee and butter from there, bread and jam in the cupboard next to it, and decaf beside the electronic kettle. As he let the water boil, he threw together several jam sandwiches on a plate, and sat them down on the massive table in the next room. A moment later, he sat down with his decaffeinated coffee, and enjoyed a much deserved light snack.

Kazuya wandered downstairs a few minutes later, and passed by with one eyebrow higher than the other. "I see Jun has introduced you to sandwiches..."

Jin grinned through his mouthful, and nodded. His father sat down opposite him and leaned his elbows on the table. "Funny...of all the things she introduced me to over the year we were together...the only thing I had to offer that she'd never had was typical western food..."

The younger of the two glanced down at the half-eaten white and red thing in his hands. Kazuya chuckled softly. "Would you believe she'd only had traditional Japanese food before she came to Tokyo...such an innocent little country girl."

Jin gulped. "She'd never heard of PB&J before you met her?!"

"Apparently she hadn't."

Jin rolled his eyes and smiled as he finished his supper. With the last mouthful, he grinned cheekily at the man opposite him; "Oh Dad, by the way...happy fiftieth!"

***

Back in his old room again; how delightful. Everything had been left in the same place; even his pyjamas were strewn across the floor where he'd left them the morning of the 3rd tournament's final day. Of course, he'd never returned to that place after that evening.

Now here he was; one in the morning, lying flat on his back in the same bed he slept in as a late teenager. It brought back memories, alright...none of which were particularly pleasant. He'd only given the old room a quick tidy-up before ripping back the covers of the massive bed, ripping off his clothes, and diving in. What a day it had been...hardly anything to eat with his lack of funding, hardly any sleep the night before – what with the haunting memories induced by sleeping in his childhood home for the previous two days. And now finally, he was at a place he could call home.

He rolled over and hit the light switch, bringing darkness to the overly ornamented room. He remembered Xiaoyu, who used to occupy the next room...banging her fist on the wall right above his head, screaming goodnights out at the top of her lungs. He remembered responding, most of the time, with a muffled growl of discontent with the obnoxious noise. Ah, those were the days. She was a cute kid, really...more of a little sister to him than anything. She was four years younger than he, after all, and incredibly immature. She was good company though, so he didn't complain.

Smiling, he recalled the look on his father's face fifteen minutes ago when he'd revealed he remembered his birthday. The reaction was priceless...a rather large, shy grin...and pinkened cheeks. The older Mishima had then proceeded to run his hands through his raven hair, smilingly muttering something about being old and senile already. After that, he'd received the first hug ever from his only son, before being left, stunned, as the young man raced upstairs to prepare for bed.

Hopefully, he thought, life will be kind now. Hell knows he'd earned it by now...all the pain, torment, hard work...so far, all for nothing. But now, he'd finally resolved matters with his one and only living relative.

His last thoughts before drifting off into a peaceful slumber were devoted to that photo. He knew now why his mother loved him so much; he seemed so gentle toward her in all of those photos...and he'd been gentle toward Jin himself this evening. Hell knew that he was brutal in battle – relentless and unforgiving as a true warrior should be toward an enemy – but he was so different towards those who he gave a damn about. That, and he was startlingly attractive as a young man. He'd been surprised when he saw the pictures. He looked nothing like the Kazuya Mishima he'd gotten to know nowadays. As his eyes drifted closed, he saw his parents in a gentle embrace, safe in each other's arms...no one could keep them apart – not then, not now, not ever.