Jin stood outside the apartment door and checked the bit of paper in his
hand for the millionth time. Apartment 203, this was defiantly it. He
listened and confirmed with himself that Hwoarang was defiantly home. He
could hear Guns n Roses blasting from the CD player in the sitting room. He
knocked lightly on the door, then harder when no one answered. He waited
for a minute before knocking again, and a stony faced, red-haired Korean
answered.
"Kazama?!"
"Good morning, Hwoarang."
Hwoarang just stood there, staring in disbelief, then regained himself and glared at Jin.
"What do you want?" he spat angrily. Jin tried his best to look innocent.
"Just came by to say hi. If you want me to leave then..."
Hwoarang softened and shook his head, his long hair flicking in front of his eyes. It sucked being in alone on Christmas Eve, and even if it was Jin, he was kind of glad for the company.
"No, that's okay. Do you want to come in?" he offered. Jin accepted and stepped over the threshold into the narrow hall. Hwoarang had to squeeze up against the wall to compensate for the lack of space. With Jin stood in front of him, so close to him, he felt that insane feeling of butterflies again, and dismissed it once more.
"Well, I err....I'll go and get something to drink" he blurted out quickly "what do you want? Tea, coffee, beer...or water?" he added, smirking.
"Beer sounds fine," Jin said. Hwoarang nodded and squeezed past Jin to the kitchen. Jin followed and sat on the couch in the sitting room. Hwoarang came back through with two bottles and handed him one, sitting on the other side of the couch and putting his feet up on the table.
"You know" Jin started "my mum would kill you for putting your shoes on the furniture."
"Well, it's fine to do that at L'apartemant du Hwoarang" he said with a mock French accent. Jin smiled and sat back.
"Look" he said, staring at the green glass of the bottle "what happened at that pizza place the other day..."
"Save it." Hwoarang interrupted "If you start giving me reasons then I'll start analysing them and send myself insane."
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry if I offended you. To be honest I don't know what came over me. It seemed like a good idea at the time..."
Hwoarang looked at him and smiled. He prodded Jin in the shoulder, and Jin turned to look at him.
"Why at that time? Why not at any other time? Like in that bar for example?"
Jin shrugged and looked away from Hwoarang. The Korean put his hand under Jin's chin and turned his head back to face him.
"Jin, I need you to answer me."
Jin sighed.
"Well, in that bar, you were just another street punk. I never paid attention to you, only to the fight. But I saw you out last week with Xion, and I realised that you're more than that."
Hwoarang sat and listened, never looking away from those deep brown eyes. He nodded for Jin to go on.
"You're loyal to your friends, you don't hold grudges apart from the one with me, you don't mindlessly attack any random person in the street, not to mention the fact that you have got the most gorgeous pair of eyes I've ever seen."
"I see." Hwoarang said, then added "Are my eyes really that nice?"
Jin nodded and blushed a little. Hwoarang blushed a lot. He stood up and went back to the kitchen, reappearing with a tray of nibbles and two more bottles.
"I think we need to talk, don't you?" he asked Jin, who nodded. They sat up onto the couch so they faced each other. "I'm not going to lie and say that I don't get really nervous every time I see you, I think it's got something to do with that weird-ass glint you have in your eyes. But also, I think it's something else too."
"If my father knew about that day in Tony's, I think he'd kill me..." Jin said, avoiding what Hwoarang had just said. Hwoarang looked up at him.
"Why? He's not a homophobe is he?"
Jin nodded. "Just a bit. He gets pissed off at the slightest things too and if he found out..."
"Hey." Hwoarang interrupted "How could he find out? We were the only ones there."
"You'd be surprised." Jin explained, "Let's just say that he has his ways. I think I've taken a bit of a risk coming here because I had to find Xion to ask for your address and he could have found out about that. I'm rambling, we have more important things to talk about."
"No," Hwoarang said "you sound like you need to get this off your chest. Carry on." He edged closer to Jin, munching on a breadstick. Jin carried on.
"There's a lot of hatred in my family, on my Dad's side anyway. It goes back years between him and my grandfather Heihachi, but Heihachi was just born evil I guess. He tried to kill my dad loads of times and when I was born, my mother left with me to keep me safe."
He stopped, grabbed a pretzel and continued.
"When I was sixteen, I found Heihachi and he taught me his fighting style, which is basically just his take on Karate. Then I found out he had killed my father, thrown his body into a volcano and was after me next. That's why I left Japan, and why I can't go back. Heihachi's got his butt-monkey boys out all over looking for me, so I figured it would be best to stay in Korea for now."
He stopped again. Hwoarang was gazing at him, still eating the same breadstick and totally out of it. Jin clicked his fingers and Hwoarang snapped back to reality, abandoning his thoughts.
"Oh? So you can't go back, like, ever?" he said, quickly regaining himself.
"No, though I want to. I haven't seen my mother in a long time, I just hope she's okay."
"I'm sure she is" Hwoarang reassured. Jin leaned forward, making him jump back in surprise, and took a bite from the breadstick in his hand. Hwoarang scowled at him.
"Well, you weren't eating it."
"Who says I wasn't saving it? I'm gonna get another beer, you want one?"
Jin agreed and Hwoarang went to get another helping of alcohol. By the time eleven o'clock came around, they were well and truly wasted. Hwoarang was lying on the floor with his legs up on the couch while Jin was trying (and failing abysmally) to figure out how to use the strange contraption Hwoarang had called a bottle opener. Things just didn't want to work when he was drunk, and he ended up dropping it and loosing it under the TV.
Hwoarang broke out into a fit of laughter and banged his head on the coffee table as he tried to sit up. Jin held out a hand to help him up and he took it. Jin pulled him back onto the couch, and Hwoarang fell, landing on Jin's legs and breaking in to another fit of the giggles. He lifted himself up and turned over, so he was lying on his back and looking up at Jin.
"I lost the bottle opener," Jin said, smirking. Hwoarang prodded him in the chest. He looked down at the Korean's smiling face on his lap.
"Bottle opener!!! Here boy!!!" Hwoarang called out drunkenly, making them both laugh. He gave in trying to call it to him and snuggled into Jin's body. "Sleepy..." he said softly. Jin shook him gently. "You can't fall asleep now! It's nearly midnight, as in it's nearly Christmas!" Jin protested. Hwoarang groaned and sat up, leaning against Jin.
"Sooo" he slurred, then laughed again "you know that rematch?"
"Oh no..." Jin groaned, "you're not serious are you?"
"What? You mean you still want to? Because I was going to say it doesn't matter anymore and we should just forget about it and accept that we both won and lost."
Jin smiled and Hwoarang laughed again.
"That's good" Jin said, "I don't feel like having another unnecessary display of manhood."
"No, not right now anyway" Hwoarang agreed "I'm comfy and I don't want to move."
He cuddled into Jin's shoulder, and Jin's arm slid around his waist, apparently without Jin noticing. He reached for the remote and turned the TV on, finding some old action film, typically involving the impending destruction of the world and one man still finding time to save it in- between seducing the supporting actress, sleeping with her and being shot several times. Hwoarang shifted his position to bring his legs up onto the couch, his top sliding up slightly, revealing his own scar where he had been shot on the night of his seventeenth birthday. Jin noticed it and ran his fingers over it softly.
"Yeah" Hwoarang said, "before you ask, getting shot does hurt. Like a bitch in fact."
"You've been shot? When, how and who by?"
"How?!" Hwoarang asked in disbelief that Jin could be so docile. Jin realised what he had said and laughed, as did Hwoarang and it took them quite a while to calm down. Jin moved so he was leaning with his back to the arm of the couch. Hwoarang leaned against him and Jin's arms circled his slender waist from behind.
"The night of my seventeenth birthday, the night Wing was killed. Wing was the last leader of the gang before me, by the way. It was Black who did it, used to be leader of the Hoods, but he's inside now thanks to us. It's a shame that it took the death of one of my best friends to bring him down though and...oh my good God..."
"What?" Jin asked him. Hwoarang sat up quickly and looked at him.
"What?! You're not telling me you didn't notice!!! Look at how we were just lying!!!"
"Oh."
"OH?! Jesus Christ Jin! I mean sure, you like me and I think you're pretty goddamn hot too but..." He stopped and clapped a hand to his mouth.
Jin stared up at him, then started laughing. Although it hardly seemed appropriate, Hwoarang laughed too, unable to stop himself doing so under the influence of alcohol. He hit Jin playfully in the arm, and Jin dove at him, knocking them both onto the floor. Hwoarang rolled over and straddled Jin, pinning him down and still laughing hysterically. Jin flipped him off and held his wrists together above his head. The Korean squirmed and gave a half-assed pull at Jin's strong grip. He stopped squirming and looked up into two huge pools of deep brown bliss. His laughter died down and he lifted his head up to meet Jin's kiss. Jin gently pushed his tongue into Hwoarang's mouth and released the Koreans wrists. Hwoarang accepted Jin's hot tongue and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. He brought his hands to the front of Jin's shirt and began to unbutton it slowly. Jin stood up and pulled Hwoarang after him, kissing him again. In the distance outside, a church bell chimed, announcing midnight and the arrival of Christmas.
"Happy Christmas Jin" Hwoarang said, taking Jin's hand and leading him down the hall to his bedroom.
He pushed Jin down on the bed and climbed onto him, straddling him again. He pulled his top off and threw it across the room into the laundry pile. Jin gazed at Hwoarang's gorgeously toned body and caressed his creamy skin. Hwoarang leaned down and kissed Jin deeply and stripped his shirt from his shoulders. Jin ran his fingers through Hwoarangs silky, red locks and kissed along his jaw line and down his neck, tasting his sweet skin. Hwoarang moaned softly and sat back, pulling Jin up with him. Jin kissed along his collarbone, then down his chest. Hwoarang's fingers tangled themselves in Jin's raven hair. He started to drift off into his own little world, when he felt himself being turned around and pushed down. Jin was over him now, and he gazed into his eyes. Jin flashed him a little smile and kissed his chest, moving down to his perfectly toned stomach. His fingers brushed along the waistband of Hwoarang's leather jeans and slipped underneath it. Hwoarang groaned with pleasure and writhed on the bed. He felt Jin's hands slide inside fully and gasped. Jin unbuttoned the jeans and pulled them off. Hwoarang felt suddenly very self-conscious, which was totally unlike him, and curled up a little.
"Don't." Jin whispered "Please, Hwoarang."
"I'm sorry" Hwoarang apologised "It's just that I've never done this before. Well, not with another guy anyway."
"Would you prefer it if we didn't then?"
Hwoarang looked up at him, the corner of his mouth turned up in a little grin.
"I didn't say that" he said seductively.
Jin smiled and kissed him again. He stripped his own jeans off and pulled the covers over them. Hwoarang's arms tightened around Jin's waist.
"I'll never let you go..." he whispered in Jin's ear.
"So much for being my rival." Jin replied and kissed him softly on the cheek "I realise now why I tried to find you."
"Why?" Hwoarang enquired.
"I think...well, I love you, and I think I was trying to find you to tell you that without realising it."
Hwoarang grinned in his usual cocky way.
"In love with a street punk? Your parents are going to be thrilled," he said.
"Tell me, do you feel the same way or..." Jin cut off, not wanting to say it. Hwoarang looked thoughtful for a moment.
"In all honesty, I don't know. I've never felt 'love' towards any of the girls
I've been with so I don't know what it feels like. But, I do feel something very strongly towards you, I just don't know if it's love or not."
"Well" Jin said, about to give some of his famous lessons in human emotion, "do you get butterflies every time you see me?"
"Yes."
"Do you think about me a lot?"
"Yeah I guess so."
"Could you see yourself with me twenty-four-seven?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Do you fantasize about having sex with me?"
"Pardon?"
Jin smiled.
"Well, do you?"
"Um...errrh...yes?"
"There you go then. I do all that and then some about you, and I know I'm in love so I guess that means..."
"I love you Jin!!!" Hwoarang interrupted, shouting it all over the apartment. A bang on the wall let them know Mr Lee had heard too.
"Keep it down!" he screeched through the plaster "Not all of us want to know every detail about your bedroom habits!!!" Hwoarang shouted an apology and looked at Jin, who had quite clearly lost all drive he had at the old mans comment.
"Maybe we should leave it for tonight hm?" he suggested. Hwoarang nodded an agreement. Jin slid off him and lay at his side. Hwoarang turned to face him and wrapped his arms around Jin's body. Jin kissed his forehead and settled down. Hwoarang fell asleep first, and Jin followed soon after, holding onto the Korean tightly as though someone would come in the middle of the night t steal him away.
"Kazama?!"
"Good morning, Hwoarang."
Hwoarang just stood there, staring in disbelief, then regained himself and glared at Jin.
"What do you want?" he spat angrily. Jin tried his best to look innocent.
"Just came by to say hi. If you want me to leave then..."
Hwoarang softened and shook his head, his long hair flicking in front of his eyes. It sucked being in alone on Christmas Eve, and even if it was Jin, he was kind of glad for the company.
"No, that's okay. Do you want to come in?" he offered. Jin accepted and stepped over the threshold into the narrow hall. Hwoarang had to squeeze up against the wall to compensate for the lack of space. With Jin stood in front of him, so close to him, he felt that insane feeling of butterflies again, and dismissed it once more.
"Well, I err....I'll go and get something to drink" he blurted out quickly "what do you want? Tea, coffee, beer...or water?" he added, smirking.
"Beer sounds fine," Jin said. Hwoarang nodded and squeezed past Jin to the kitchen. Jin followed and sat on the couch in the sitting room. Hwoarang came back through with two bottles and handed him one, sitting on the other side of the couch and putting his feet up on the table.
"You know" Jin started "my mum would kill you for putting your shoes on the furniture."
"Well, it's fine to do that at L'apartemant du Hwoarang" he said with a mock French accent. Jin smiled and sat back.
"Look" he said, staring at the green glass of the bottle "what happened at that pizza place the other day..."
"Save it." Hwoarang interrupted "If you start giving me reasons then I'll start analysing them and send myself insane."
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry if I offended you. To be honest I don't know what came over me. It seemed like a good idea at the time..."
Hwoarang looked at him and smiled. He prodded Jin in the shoulder, and Jin turned to look at him.
"Why at that time? Why not at any other time? Like in that bar for example?"
Jin shrugged and looked away from Hwoarang. The Korean put his hand under Jin's chin and turned his head back to face him.
"Jin, I need you to answer me."
Jin sighed.
"Well, in that bar, you were just another street punk. I never paid attention to you, only to the fight. But I saw you out last week with Xion, and I realised that you're more than that."
Hwoarang sat and listened, never looking away from those deep brown eyes. He nodded for Jin to go on.
"You're loyal to your friends, you don't hold grudges apart from the one with me, you don't mindlessly attack any random person in the street, not to mention the fact that you have got the most gorgeous pair of eyes I've ever seen."
"I see." Hwoarang said, then added "Are my eyes really that nice?"
Jin nodded and blushed a little. Hwoarang blushed a lot. He stood up and went back to the kitchen, reappearing with a tray of nibbles and two more bottles.
"I think we need to talk, don't you?" he asked Jin, who nodded. They sat up onto the couch so they faced each other. "I'm not going to lie and say that I don't get really nervous every time I see you, I think it's got something to do with that weird-ass glint you have in your eyes. But also, I think it's something else too."
"If my father knew about that day in Tony's, I think he'd kill me..." Jin said, avoiding what Hwoarang had just said. Hwoarang looked up at him.
"Why? He's not a homophobe is he?"
Jin nodded. "Just a bit. He gets pissed off at the slightest things too and if he found out..."
"Hey." Hwoarang interrupted "How could he find out? We were the only ones there."
"You'd be surprised." Jin explained, "Let's just say that he has his ways. I think I've taken a bit of a risk coming here because I had to find Xion to ask for your address and he could have found out about that. I'm rambling, we have more important things to talk about."
"No," Hwoarang said "you sound like you need to get this off your chest. Carry on." He edged closer to Jin, munching on a breadstick. Jin carried on.
"There's a lot of hatred in my family, on my Dad's side anyway. It goes back years between him and my grandfather Heihachi, but Heihachi was just born evil I guess. He tried to kill my dad loads of times and when I was born, my mother left with me to keep me safe."
He stopped, grabbed a pretzel and continued.
"When I was sixteen, I found Heihachi and he taught me his fighting style, which is basically just his take on Karate. Then I found out he had killed my father, thrown his body into a volcano and was after me next. That's why I left Japan, and why I can't go back. Heihachi's got his butt-monkey boys out all over looking for me, so I figured it would be best to stay in Korea for now."
He stopped again. Hwoarang was gazing at him, still eating the same breadstick and totally out of it. Jin clicked his fingers and Hwoarang snapped back to reality, abandoning his thoughts.
"Oh? So you can't go back, like, ever?" he said, quickly regaining himself.
"No, though I want to. I haven't seen my mother in a long time, I just hope she's okay."
"I'm sure she is" Hwoarang reassured. Jin leaned forward, making him jump back in surprise, and took a bite from the breadstick in his hand. Hwoarang scowled at him.
"Well, you weren't eating it."
"Who says I wasn't saving it? I'm gonna get another beer, you want one?"
Jin agreed and Hwoarang went to get another helping of alcohol. By the time eleven o'clock came around, they were well and truly wasted. Hwoarang was lying on the floor with his legs up on the couch while Jin was trying (and failing abysmally) to figure out how to use the strange contraption Hwoarang had called a bottle opener. Things just didn't want to work when he was drunk, and he ended up dropping it and loosing it under the TV.
Hwoarang broke out into a fit of laughter and banged his head on the coffee table as he tried to sit up. Jin held out a hand to help him up and he took it. Jin pulled him back onto the couch, and Hwoarang fell, landing on Jin's legs and breaking in to another fit of the giggles. He lifted himself up and turned over, so he was lying on his back and looking up at Jin.
"I lost the bottle opener," Jin said, smirking. Hwoarang prodded him in the chest. He looked down at the Korean's smiling face on his lap.
"Bottle opener!!! Here boy!!!" Hwoarang called out drunkenly, making them both laugh. He gave in trying to call it to him and snuggled into Jin's body. "Sleepy..." he said softly. Jin shook him gently. "You can't fall asleep now! It's nearly midnight, as in it's nearly Christmas!" Jin protested. Hwoarang groaned and sat up, leaning against Jin.
"Sooo" he slurred, then laughed again "you know that rematch?"
"Oh no..." Jin groaned, "you're not serious are you?"
"What? You mean you still want to? Because I was going to say it doesn't matter anymore and we should just forget about it and accept that we both won and lost."
Jin smiled and Hwoarang laughed again.
"That's good" Jin said, "I don't feel like having another unnecessary display of manhood."
"No, not right now anyway" Hwoarang agreed "I'm comfy and I don't want to move."
He cuddled into Jin's shoulder, and Jin's arm slid around his waist, apparently without Jin noticing. He reached for the remote and turned the TV on, finding some old action film, typically involving the impending destruction of the world and one man still finding time to save it in- between seducing the supporting actress, sleeping with her and being shot several times. Hwoarang shifted his position to bring his legs up onto the couch, his top sliding up slightly, revealing his own scar where he had been shot on the night of his seventeenth birthday. Jin noticed it and ran his fingers over it softly.
"Yeah" Hwoarang said, "before you ask, getting shot does hurt. Like a bitch in fact."
"You've been shot? When, how and who by?"
"How?!" Hwoarang asked in disbelief that Jin could be so docile. Jin realised what he had said and laughed, as did Hwoarang and it took them quite a while to calm down. Jin moved so he was leaning with his back to the arm of the couch. Hwoarang leaned against him and Jin's arms circled his slender waist from behind.
"The night of my seventeenth birthday, the night Wing was killed. Wing was the last leader of the gang before me, by the way. It was Black who did it, used to be leader of the Hoods, but he's inside now thanks to us. It's a shame that it took the death of one of my best friends to bring him down though and...oh my good God..."
"What?" Jin asked him. Hwoarang sat up quickly and looked at him.
"What?! You're not telling me you didn't notice!!! Look at how we were just lying!!!"
"Oh."
"OH?! Jesus Christ Jin! I mean sure, you like me and I think you're pretty goddamn hot too but..." He stopped and clapped a hand to his mouth.
Jin stared up at him, then started laughing. Although it hardly seemed appropriate, Hwoarang laughed too, unable to stop himself doing so under the influence of alcohol. He hit Jin playfully in the arm, and Jin dove at him, knocking them both onto the floor. Hwoarang rolled over and straddled Jin, pinning him down and still laughing hysterically. Jin flipped him off and held his wrists together above his head. The Korean squirmed and gave a half-assed pull at Jin's strong grip. He stopped squirming and looked up into two huge pools of deep brown bliss. His laughter died down and he lifted his head up to meet Jin's kiss. Jin gently pushed his tongue into Hwoarang's mouth and released the Koreans wrists. Hwoarang accepted Jin's hot tongue and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. He brought his hands to the front of Jin's shirt and began to unbutton it slowly. Jin stood up and pulled Hwoarang after him, kissing him again. In the distance outside, a church bell chimed, announcing midnight and the arrival of Christmas.
"Happy Christmas Jin" Hwoarang said, taking Jin's hand and leading him down the hall to his bedroom.
He pushed Jin down on the bed and climbed onto him, straddling him again. He pulled his top off and threw it across the room into the laundry pile. Jin gazed at Hwoarang's gorgeously toned body and caressed his creamy skin. Hwoarang leaned down and kissed Jin deeply and stripped his shirt from his shoulders. Jin ran his fingers through Hwoarangs silky, red locks and kissed along his jaw line and down his neck, tasting his sweet skin. Hwoarang moaned softly and sat back, pulling Jin up with him. Jin kissed along his collarbone, then down his chest. Hwoarang's fingers tangled themselves in Jin's raven hair. He started to drift off into his own little world, when he felt himself being turned around and pushed down. Jin was over him now, and he gazed into his eyes. Jin flashed him a little smile and kissed his chest, moving down to his perfectly toned stomach. His fingers brushed along the waistband of Hwoarang's leather jeans and slipped underneath it. Hwoarang groaned with pleasure and writhed on the bed. He felt Jin's hands slide inside fully and gasped. Jin unbuttoned the jeans and pulled them off. Hwoarang felt suddenly very self-conscious, which was totally unlike him, and curled up a little.
"Don't." Jin whispered "Please, Hwoarang."
"I'm sorry" Hwoarang apologised "It's just that I've never done this before. Well, not with another guy anyway."
"Would you prefer it if we didn't then?"
Hwoarang looked up at him, the corner of his mouth turned up in a little grin.
"I didn't say that" he said seductively.
Jin smiled and kissed him again. He stripped his own jeans off and pulled the covers over them. Hwoarang's arms tightened around Jin's waist.
"I'll never let you go..." he whispered in Jin's ear.
"So much for being my rival." Jin replied and kissed him softly on the cheek "I realise now why I tried to find you."
"Why?" Hwoarang enquired.
"I think...well, I love you, and I think I was trying to find you to tell you that without realising it."
Hwoarang grinned in his usual cocky way.
"In love with a street punk? Your parents are going to be thrilled," he said.
"Tell me, do you feel the same way or..." Jin cut off, not wanting to say it. Hwoarang looked thoughtful for a moment.
"In all honesty, I don't know. I've never felt 'love' towards any of the girls
I've been with so I don't know what it feels like. But, I do feel something very strongly towards you, I just don't know if it's love or not."
"Well" Jin said, about to give some of his famous lessons in human emotion, "do you get butterflies every time you see me?"
"Yes."
"Do you think about me a lot?"
"Yeah I guess so."
"Could you see yourself with me twenty-four-seven?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Do you fantasize about having sex with me?"
"Pardon?"
Jin smiled.
"Well, do you?"
"Um...errrh...yes?"
"There you go then. I do all that and then some about you, and I know I'm in love so I guess that means..."
"I love you Jin!!!" Hwoarang interrupted, shouting it all over the apartment. A bang on the wall let them know Mr Lee had heard too.
"Keep it down!" he screeched through the plaster "Not all of us want to know every detail about your bedroom habits!!!" Hwoarang shouted an apology and looked at Jin, who had quite clearly lost all drive he had at the old mans comment.
"Maybe we should leave it for tonight hm?" he suggested. Hwoarang nodded an agreement. Jin slid off him and lay at his side. Hwoarang turned to face him and wrapped his arms around Jin's body. Jin kissed his forehead and settled down. Hwoarang fell asleep first, and Jin followed soon after, holding onto the Korean tightly as though someone would come in the middle of the night t steal him away.