Chapter 9: A Different New Beginning

His personality had become so synced with Devil's that he scarcely knew where his began and Devil's ended. He didn't know whether he liked or disliked something. He'd stare at something and not know how to react. He could wake up in the morning and not know what to do with himself. But this was what he had wanted, wasn't it? Freedom. Freedom to think on his own, make his own decisions, do what he wanted. He could be himself. The problem was, he no longer knew who "himself" was.

"Think back," Jun told him one day, "Wasn't there a time when you knew you were yourself? Back when you used to live with your father?"

"Jun, people change. Even if I could remember, it wouldn't matter. That was too long ago."

"You know, you said something like that to me one Halloween night. People change. Well, you have to have a starting point, right?"

"I wasn't myself back then anyway. All I did was train. I was never certain whether I enjoyed it or not—it simply became a routine."

"Remember when we used to—

"Jun," he said stopping her before she could go any further into her reminiscing. "I don't remember. Most of my past is a blur to me."

"You can't really mean that you've forgotten everything. It's not like it was so long ago—maybe a decade really."

"Time doesn't matter. Devil is gone."

"I know that, but—

"You don't understand. Devil is gone. It took its memories and all the influence it had ever had over me with it. There are just too many holes in my memory—it's more like a jigsaw puzzle that will always be missing pieces."

"That's alright; I can just fill in the holes for you."

"No, you can't. You weren't always with me. Besides, it wouldn't be very authentic."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I'll figure something out."

The two of them happened to be at a small, quaint eatery. It was a place that they had come to meet regularly. Jun promised she would help him and the best that she could get Kazuya to agree to was to join her for lunch every once in a while. Their relationship hadn't gotten much closer not to the degree that Jun had wanted. She thought Kazuya would need her help, demand for it, but this was not the case. He wanted independence more than anything else perhaps even more than her. She tried to understand his dilemma, but she could not fully. She'd reach her hand out and he'd swat it away.

It just seemed like he wasn't trying hard enough. All he seemed to do was complain and complain. This was what he had wanted, wasn't it? Now, as she sat there with him, she wondered if that was the case. He was not happy. She hadn't seen him smile once.

"So, are you still going to keep your job?" Jun asked the other.

"Of course."

"Well, I was only wondering. You told me before that getting it wasn't entirely your idea in the first place."

"Yes, I know. But it isn't so bad. I'm not like you—I can't just go out and find some meaningful job I actually like to do. Besides, Grandfather really did want me to take over his position. It's the least I can do."

"Are you okay with that?"

"I said that I was, didn't I?"

"No, you said that you'd make do."

"Same difference."

"It isn't. Now, I thought you wanted to do things differently. If you're able to make your own choices, why don't you?"

"And what would you have me do? Make a sudden career change when I have no skills in anything else, no specific interests? I'd sooner be homeless."

"Well how do you know that you don't have skills in other career fields if you've never tried? And what do you know of your interests?"

"Nothing really, but that's why we're here, isn't it? You're here to tell me that I'm being stupid or irrational. I can't think for myself so you're going to tell me how, right? It's easy to lecture people from your position. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your concern, but that's all you've ever shown me. You always ask me questions I can't answer. I can't ever seem to answer them correctly. And you always look at me with those eyes—like you expected more. I already know, you don't have to tell me—you want me to be someone I'm not. I'm sorry I'm not up to your standards."

"Kazuya, now—you're just putting words in my mouth."

"Am I? I'm just making things up now. I'm just being delusional, right? Look, I have to go."

"Wait," Jun said as the other stood up. He took some money out of his wallet and left it on the table before leaving her.

She did not stand up and try to catch him. All she did was sit there and listened as his footsteps became further and further away. Where exactly was there relationship anyways? Was anything left to salvage? Maybe she did expect more from him or pine about the person he used to be. But why did he have to be so rude about it? She thought that he would change immediately. She thought if she got rid of the thing that that was controlling him and consequently his personality, he'd be the one person she had been waiting for. But maybe she was waiting for a ghost. The man she knew now—she had no idea what to make of him.

Maybe he just needed some space. There was only so much she could do anyways. In the end, he had to make his own decisions. He had to decide what he was going to do with his life. Whether she would approve of his decisions or not didn't really matter at this point. She tried to convince herself of this fact for the majority of the day, but she knew she was lying to herself. She wanted to be there every step of the way. She didn't want to see him walk down a self-destructive path though it seemed he was leaning towards that.

/

It was late in the night when the phone rang startling her from the continued training she was receiving from Angel. Jun wondered why Angel still insisted that she received it. She understood precaution, but Devil was gone, wasn't he, and Kazuya wouldn't be stupid enough to make yet another deal, right? Jun wasn't putting much effort into it as a result. In fact, she had barely advanced passed what she had already accomplished weeks ago. She could take her time now, though she still had personal motivation to carry on—perhaps such a technique that Angel was teaching her might come in handy back at work.

"Hello?" Jun asked tentatively to the person on the other side of the phone.

"It's me."

Jun knew that voice to be that of Kazuya.

"So it is. You wanted to ask me something?"

"Sorry about earlier. I know you're just trying to help. It's just…"
"That's alright. You weren't too far from the truth. I guess I am being a bit pushy."

"I'm glad that you are. Don't ever change that. I do remember that Halloween night you were referring to."

"You do?"

"Now I do. Now that I had time to think about it. How could I have forgotten? I remember I made a promise to myself that day when you ran into my room demanding that I go trick-or-treating with you—I never wanted to make you upset again. I never wanted to see you cry again. It was a promise I was doomed to break from the very beginning. Even now, I can't seem to stop disappointing you. I know this is breaking the rules you must have made up for yourself, but it doesn't matter. I've never been able see the forest for the trees. Just tell me what it is you want from me. Is there something I'm not doing?"

Jun took a deep breath. "You're not being open to new ideas. I suggest something and you shut me down so quickly that I'm afraid to even do it anymore."

"Oh, I see, like today. Something about trying new things, huh."

"Exactly. I know the Mishima Corporation has been in your family since the very beginning and it's what your grandfather groomed you for, but was it something you really wanted to do?"

"I don't know anymore."
"You know what I think? You hated your father so much that you wanted to take away the very thing he was striving so ruthlessly to obtain. Your grandfather gave you a means to an end so you took it." Jun waited for the other to respond to this, but he didn't so she continued. "You told me the real reason your father adopted Lee—it was for no noble cause. Both of you, you and your father, went to such extremes just to get back each other. He was now responsible for a child he didn't love and you were signing your life away to a job you could care less about. Don't you realize that you were ruining each other's lives for the sake of spite? Now you don't have to do that anymore—in fact, you probably didn't have to in the first place. There's no reason to continue down this road. Do something different. Do something you can be proud of."

Now that she was really finished. She waited and waited for the other's response until she feared that he might have hung up already.

"Could you at least say something?" Jun said exasperatedly. "It's not like I can see your face."

"Sorry…I was thinking. I always suspected that my life sucked—thanks for clearing that up."

"Oh, well, I didn't mean to—

"No, it's fine. You're right. You're always right as far as I'm concerned. Since I was a child, I guess I've always accepted things for what they were. Early on I knew that the rest of my life could only go downhill from there so I prepared myself for it. You know what I realize? The options are limitless for what you want to do with yourself when you don't care either way, but when you try to do something you actually want to do, the choices become so slim. I think for most people there are only one or two things that they really love to do. That just makes things so much more difficult. The chances are stacked against you isn't it? Realistically speaking, I mean. Who really has the time or money to find out what they love to do? If it's true you first have to experience something before you can tell, then it's almost impossible."

When he put it that way, the situation looked almost impossible. Wanting to change was fine and dandy, but when it came to the question of changing in what way—things became convoluted. Jun knew that she wanted him to try new things, but she never thought about the fact that even so, he might not find what he's looking for. She didn't want to think along those lines. Someone like Kazuya, someone who as a rule always took a nice long look at the negative before proceeding would not have missed that. But Jun thought it was different for them. They had the time and finances, didn't they? Kazuya was, by all accounts, wealthy. Being in charge of a financial empire would warrant as much. They weren't like regular people. That was perhaps the only thing keeping Jun's hope alive also the fact that she was confident that he'd find something else far more fulfilling to spend his time doing. There just had to be something else.

"Now you're the one being silent," Kazuya said interrupting her thoughts.

"Hey, that was a lot to digest all at once."

"Glad my words could be so thought-provoking."

"It's not impossible."

"What? Thought-provoking words?"

"No. I mean finding something you love to do."

"I can always settle, you know. Finding something besides what I'm doing should be sufficient."

"No. 'Cus then you'd be right back where you started."

"Not entirely. I will have chosen something for myself."

"This is your life we're talking about."

"Who says I have to do one job for the rest of my life? Maybe I'll do multiple. Get tired of one, go to the next."

"Now you just sound like a drifter; can't stay in one place for too long."

"Maybe that's what I like to do."

Jun sighed exasperatedly, "Give me a break. I suspect you're someone who'd much rather have monotony than constant changes."

"Monotony—that's what I'm used to anyways. But it's boring and I've never thought otherwise."

"This really is too much to think about all in one night," Jun said with a yawn.

"There's always tomorrow."

"Will you meet with me tomorrow?"

"Of course."

"I'm going to bed. You should get some sleep too."

"Yeah, uh-huh."
"Oh, who am I kidding, you'll do no such thing."

"Not by choice. I know when most people are supposed to be in bed, but really I'm just staring at the back of my eyelids when I pretend to do the same thing. My biorhythm is so out of sync that I haven't slept in days."

"Don't worry; I'm sure things will return to normal after a while. Out of all the horrible side-effects Wang told me about, that is a relief. 'Til then, Kazuya."

"Sweet dreams."

These days, Kazuya never appeared to be tired despite claiming that he was always awake. She remembered the first few weeks after Devil was done away with—Kazuya was dead to the world. He slept for days on end until one day he awoke and has yet to feel tired enough to require rest. Jun suspected that a pattern would soon form. Weeks of tiredness and wakefulness proportional to one another. It was the tell-tale sign of Devil's influence. Perhaps it was the norm for him to be unconscious for a time and conscious for another. She hadn't been around him when he began working at the Mishima Zaibatsu, but Lee told her that some days he would seem himself and other days he would be completely different. Jun knew the implications. She wondered to herself how scary it must have been losing so much time in one's life, waking up every blue moon unable to recover any memories of the past few weeks. If Kazuya could survive such conditions, then creating a suitable life for himself was a walk in the park.

Today was the beginning, the real beginning. He was finally warming up to the idea of change. Possibilities were open to him, all he needed to do was cease them and Jun would see to it that he did.

/

AN: Not much happened here, but I think I'll just call it a chapter and move on with my life. Til' next chapter. Sokka2Me, didn't know Wang's name was so hilarious. I guess he is an old Chinese man. Sorry, huannguyen, no action here, but you're right, I should add some more of that since it is a Tekken fic. Totally just gave me an idea…