Sorry for the delay in updating.
Disclaimer – I don't own Tekken.
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Nothing lasts forever.
A year has dragged its feet through wars, through pillage and sorrow and horror. Even in the great, untouchable cocoon of America, Forest feels it. The war in the east scuttles across the seas, tangles the clouds in smoke and fire, and whispers through each radio and television and webpage.
Somehow along the line, Hwoarang came crawling back to America.
Forest is behind his mother's house, stacking away vegetable boxes and sorting the rotten fruit from the fresh. His father hasn't returned from Japan. A hasty phone call revealed something about illegal work and a new, shiny money plan. He had only request. For Forest to join him.
His mother, enraged, firmly told him no.
Forest thinks he's too old for adventures. His mother, a retired medic, has been travelling around and aiding the wounded from the recent bombings. The cramped, slummy suburbs of his hometown have been untouched. It's the big cities, the bustling and gold licked streets of San Francisco, which have been torched by the icy wrath of Jin Kazama.
The boxes are light, but awkward to hold, as they are riddled with splinters. Something small and stinging sinks into Forest's thumb and he swears; lifts it to his mouth, and sucks.
"Doesn't that bring back memories?"
Hands. Warm, intrusive, slipping under his shirt and riding higher. Forest shifts, sighing, and peels away from Hwoarang.
"I heard you were back in the neighborhood."
"You miss me?"
Forest is aware of Hwoarang's eyes skimming him up and down as he piles each box, one after the other, on the growing pile.
"No." Forest sets down the last box, arching up his back. He zips up his parker, and heads back towards the kitchen. "I've had too much to think about."
"You won't change your mind, huh? Too busy sitting pretty in suburbia."
"Don't be an ass." Forest winces at the break in his voice. Hwoarang smirks. That same smirk. A whole year and that hasn't changed. "This place isn't exactly pretty. And what the hell are you back for?" His fists clench in his pockets. He's stopped, halfway to the door and halfway to Hwoarang. "I thought you were planning on bringing down the Mishima Empire."
"I am," Hwoarang drawls. He cracks his head from side to side and then stills, drinking in Forest with his eyes. His snickers but there is no levity in the sound. "With or without you."
"It was a pretty bad fight," Forest mumbles. He suddenly recalls white topped hospitals puncturing the sky, flashes of tangling red wire on LCDs and the furious, unforgiving hurt in cut grey eyes. Tightness climbs into his chest. "Are you...better?"
"Never been better," Hwoarang scratches the end of his nose, seemingly bored. "But if you're not gonna touch what I've got to offer, then I better split."
Forest's shoulders slump. But Hwoarang is looking the other way and maybe, maybe it's better that he doesn't...
"Anyway..." There is a quivering nick of anticipation lining the edge of his tone. His scrutiny is alive, revitalized, on Forest. "I've got a hot piece of ass waiting for me by the bike."
It's most possibly is a lie. Forest isn't stupid, he knows plenty well how Hwoarang plays his games, but it doesn't stop the droop in his shoulders. He tries his best to work his feet back to the door, back to his mother and his chores, but his neck turns of its own accord and his glare withers under Hwoarang's triumphant smirk.
He slams the door behind him. He stops himself waiting by the window, even if he does hear the bike rumble to life. Forest fixes his fists on his knees and tells himself to stop, stop, stop thinking. Instead, Forest leaves for his bedroom. He locks the door, trammels his face in his pillow and waits until his heartbeat loosens and falls.
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It's a wasted exercise to try and clear his thoughts, for the memories push themselves back in his mind and he's relived the moment of that day so many times it illuminates, clear cut and cruel, in his head.
It had been the day before Hwoarang was to go back to Japan. His wounds inflicted by Jin Kazama had been severe, so severe he'd been bedridden in the tournament's hospital for months. Forest, hearing of the news from Paul, hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, hadn't thought of anything else for those months. The weeks had trudged on, in which each moment was numb and endless and ridden with anguish, of what ifs and oh god and if only…
To his shock and secret delight, he'd heard Baek was returning Hwoarang to America for a sort while, merely to allow him to recover completely before they would return to their training. Even he if didn't see him, it was confirmation enough that Hwoarang was well.
It was inevitable that they would be reunited.
It was so stupid of him, so brainless, that he had assumed Hwoarang hadn't wished to be back, was neither here nor there in his feelings about him; all the best they'd ever had was a fleeting grope, a teasing kiss, an intense spar. Forest had thought (so tactless, so fucking tactless…) that their time together had been viewed as nothing more than a brief, fumbling fling.
He hadn't thought, then, about how Hwoarang's fair weather friends were picked off one by one by time and trivia. He hadn't thought why his body was the only one that warmed the dojo, when he used to sit and watch in silence as Hwoarang would belt the sandbags. He hadn't thought how Hwoarang would rain down rocks at his window every midnight, get irritated if he mentioned Xiaoyu, how he would ply him with verbal jabs too spiteful to be playful and then watch for a reaction, only to be confused by Forest's light and oblivious rebuffs. He hadn't thought about the feel of a hand, hot and hasty, clawing down his chest or the taste of gasoline and peppermint and smoke intermingled on his tongue.
When Hwoarang had returned, just off his crutches, he was gravely pale, gaunt, sickly. His eyes were tinctured with festering storms, his body taut with unimaginable, wrathful tension. The groves in his cheeks were sunken deep, the spaces beneath his eyes punched purple; from violence or nightmares, Forest couldn't guess.
The heckling boy from before was well and truly dead.
Forest fed him, trained with him, listened to him. They didn't touch each other once, only brushed knuckles in a brotherly fashion and Forest begun to believe that their brief tousle the year before had transcended into a close, rare friendship. And it hurt him. But that was okay. If Hwoarang was alright, if it helped Hwoarang, well…that was fine. Forest could live with that.
But Jin was there, in Hwoarang's head, at least. Submerged into his every breathing moment. Infused with a peculiar care into his memories, that interwove itself into his dreams, that he said were full of blood red eyes and the cutting caress of bristled black feathers.
It was all Hwoarang talked about. The stuff of nightmares.
The roots of the coveted rivalry had begun to twist, to grow. It finally flourished to the point of a long nurtured, all consuming hatred. He began to mutter about making plans, about saving the world, about ripping down Jin's newly established rein from the inside out. Or as Forest secretly saw it; a way to get even.
The time finally came. Hwoarang was to return to Japan, to seize his destiny, to face Kazama once again. The night before Hwoarang was set to travel with Baek, Forest was awoken by pebbles bouncing off his window frame. The night was dastardly in its heat. Forest's head felt swollen, alien on his shoulders, and his gut wrangled with a strange apprehension.
He'd figured Hwoarang was hungry.
He always had been brainless.
He'd yanked him through the door, all the buttons broken on the front of his shirt, and slammed him against the rumbling burn of a bike. Hwoarang had kissed Forest before, demanding and harsh and a little sloppy, but this time Forest felt as if he was being devoured. All the flare and fire and friction came tumbling out of Hwoarang in that one moment, so starved he seemed, so rife with need.
Forest, disorientated, had broken away. Hwoarang, undeterred, reared up his bike, and told Forest in a rough, rasping shadow of his voice, to get on the back and not ask any questions. Forest, too ruffled to argue, merely did as he was told.
Hwoarang rode like a madman to the old dojo, the one where they used to train and laugh and eat. Upstairs was a grotty bedsit. Hwoarang wasn't fussy. Forest didn't have much choice in the matter.
Hwoarang kissed him again, hungry and desperate and dangerous, and all Forest could do was respond and then they hit the bed and the whole night dissolved into sweat and salt and sensation.
The next morning, Hwoarang was nowhere to be seen. Forest, sore and aching, sloped back home.
Hwoarang arrived later that day. With a proposition.
His expression. His damn face when Forest had refused. There was no sound, nothing at all, but Forest swore he heard something, heard a tangible crack somewhere.
Spookily, Hwoarang didn't say anything. He just stood there and stared. Not moving. Not. Shifting. One. Limb.
Forest wanted him to leave. That enduring glower was unnerving him, flaying him to the raw nerve, and the walls of his old home seemed to close in on the two of them and Forest tried to think, tried to fight and find in himself some part of him that would reel in the words and say the right, romantic thing. But he couldn't. It was a vicious blank.
Forest could sense the old barrier between them, creeping higher and higher, until it snapped shut and Hwoarang's eyes were glossed over with his old, beaten steel.
"Fuck you then."
He locked his thumbs around his jeans, like he had when they first met in the gungy backstreets of San Francisco, and was gone through the door.
He'd left far too quickly, even for him. In less than ten seconds the bike was a dwindling mewl on the wind and Forest stood alone, closed in, in the kitchen shadowed by the late afternoon.
Forest possessed a moped. It was a scraped, scrappy heap of junk, but it was competent enough to get the groceries and fetch fresh stock and the like. When Forest, furiously rubbing his eyes, finally managed to gather himself and go inside, did he see it on its side and half smashed.
Someone had given it a nice, hard kick.
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The memories carve new, anxious holes in his brain.
He wakes up one morning, sweaty and sticky and panting. He wonders if it's the recollection of that night, but there is a steady thump between his ears and nausea laps at his stomach.
His mother's face boils with more fervour than his when she checks his fever.
She demands he remains sanctified in his bed clothes.
Maybe it's better this way.
He doesn't have to think.
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So much rain.
"Forest! Forest, you there?"
It's like the past few months have been measured in drowning slashes of wet.
"Please be here. Jesus, somebody..."
It scratches away at the busted tiling of his bedroom roof. He's partly sick with a fever. Sick of the damp in his throat and the creak in his muscles and the dull, dank depths of boredom.
The weight on his eyelids shift as there is ruckus below. His mother's voice climbs in high, hysterical tones and then there is the rushed, ungainly attempt of a male voice trying to be polite.
Illness dissipates like water vapor.
When Forest staggers into the living room, he is greeted with his mother warningly brandishing a ladle and the panting, wild eyed vision of Hwoarang.
He barely has time to lift his tongue when Hwoarang dashes past the table, seizes his t-shirt and reels him into the living room.
"Master's hurt," He hisses, torn nails digging into Forest's chest. His goggles are missing, his hair loose and hanging over his eyes, to which Forest notes, are glossed with moisture. Hwoarang repeats his mantra, spitting through gritted teeth. "Master's hurt."
Forest's head spins in circles. His fever pounds, furious and fast, through his temples and filters the light about him too bright. Groaning, he breaks away from Hwoarang and massages his head.
"How about the hospital?"
"He...we can't," Hwoarang snatches away at his clothes, his hair, breathing viciously through his nose. "You know we can't."
Hwoarang stands back.
The light evens. The fire in Forest's head spills into cool, collected lines.
Hwoarang, breathless, curls his fists into his hair. Forest watches him for a moment, and then...
"Mom."
His mother inches through the door. She eyes Hwoarang, her fingers still latched around the ladle. Forest is sure, well, god damn hopes they'll laugh about it later.
"Hwoarang's friend is in dire need of medical help," He wonders where the words are coming from, for they seem detached, otherly, to his lips. Hwoarang just glances between him and his mother; once, twice, thrice. "Can you help?"
His mother doesn't ask any questions. It's one of the few things they've always had in common.
Hwoarang frets out the back, kicking his feet in the dust. His bike is loaded with her medical supplies. When she reappears, first aid kit strapped to her back, does Hwoarang tense, straighten, and bow.
"Be careful with her," Forest says lowly. Sickness is once again drawing down on his limbs. "If she doesn't come back in one piece, then I'll see you in pieces."
Hwoarang catches his eye. Despite the raging flush of his skin, he grants Forest a quick, impulsive grin.
Forest's fever proceeds to skyrocket.
As they depart into the rain wrecked gloom, Hwoarang's tail light soaking away into nothingness, does Forest return to his bed. In ten minutes, realization hits, and he bolts from his bedroom to the toilet, where he is violently sick.
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That evening, he wakes to the gentle chinking of glasses.
His mother is washing her hands below. Shadow has seeped into the soft lines circulating her eyes. On the table, there is a hot mug of lemon. Forest, his legs shaky, lowers himself down and takes a sip.
"You and that boy," His mother turns off the tap. It squeaks at the effort; water straining in gurgling bursts through the pipes. Her back is bent, compressed, with an unfamiliar weight. "You've met before?"
Forest gulps. The movement sears the burn in his throat. He shudders and takes another sip.
"Y-Yes. Yes we have."
"Hm." Moments pass on in silence. His mother piles the plates in the drawer, but then, she pauses, her fingers hovering over the cupboard. "Son, did you know that you almost had a brother?"
Forest spits the lemon back in the cup.
"Marshall struggled, you see," She still has her back to him. The winter shadows have crept in and gather in inky spots around the one, warm circle of lamplight, sat on the table. "He had a low count. I wasn't one hundred percent myself. We were told that together, we were quite incompatible." She laughs softly, but something bitter, hidden, tugs at the edges of it. "In light of things, now I find that quite funny."
Forest hesitates.
"Mom?"
She shakes her head, suddenly remembering herself.
"But I did fall pregnant. Twins, we were told. Boys. And we were thrilled. I'd never seen Marshall so happy."
She pulls out the drying rack. The plates rattle in their holders.
"I was a few weeks in. Just about showing. Marshall had gone out on business. I was in the kitchen, preparing snacks for the students and the supply tutor. I could hear the next session students laughing in the corridor. It was a nice day. Sunny. Sweet scented."
Forest sits silent beside the table. The steam from his drink warms the cracked skin on his lips.
"It was then that there was this crash. All these angry, loud sounds, coming from the dojo. Somebody was bellowing like a creature possessed. It was horrible. I tried to crouch behind the table, but then in he came. Behind him, I could see the students, even children, beaten and curled up on the floor. Some were trying to crawl away and help the others. The supply teacher I couldn't even see. He was surrounded by a circle of cowering teenagers."
Forest opens his mouth. And then closes it.
"He drove questions at me, again and again, demanding answers for things I knew nothing about. I begged him to stop. I could feel myself growing increasingly wound up until in the end all I could do sob and scream and then he started to advance, come toward me, and I slipped on the floor and my stomach hit the table as I went down. I could only bring up my hands, one on my face, and another on my throbbing stomach. It was stupid. Marshall had taught me basic defense, but right then my mind was numb and I couldn't think. I honestly thought he was going to kill me."
A tiny hairline crack has begun to fracture the edge of Forest's cup.
"It was then that he stopped. The man looked down at me, at my stomach, and then at his hands. He left so quickly, more silent then a shadow, for when I dared look again he was gone."
Forest goes to interrupt, but his mother's voice tears through his words.
"A week later, I woke to blood. I tried to call Marshall but he was out on the tournament. I managed to get Paul, but when he heard the news he was awkward and stuttering and didn't know what to say. Still, I went to the hospital, by myself, the bloodied sheets in a plastic bag. They ran tests. I still remember the nurse coming out of the room, sitting me down, and confirming that I had lost one of my children."
She turns back to him. Her cheeks are run with trails of glimmering wet.
"I don't know how I did that," She begins slowly, her voice as soft as the first spark of thunder. "I don't know how I could even touch him, even in the bad way that he was, lying there all cut open with bullets. I've see people without faces. I've seen people lashed with fire. But there he was, barely breathing, and that young man, so desperate, so willing for that...that man to live. And I patched him. I treated him. I bound his injuries and prescribed rest, as if I actually cared about what happened to him. And that boy bowed to me after, took me home on that machine of his, so careful, as if I was made of glass..."
"Mom..." The chair is pushed back. Forest half rises, his mind running in dizzying, pain soaked circles. "Mom..."
As he tries to reach her, his feet slip on the floor. He tries to brace his hand on his table but it almost overturns with the sudden, spontaneous pressure. The lamp falls over, the bulb fizzing out. His mother grabs his hand; pulls him upright.
In the dark, they stare at each other.
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He needs air.
It's a cold, brisk, bright night. He's wrapped himself in an old jacket. Despite the sniffle in his nose and the sickness still hanging heavy in his head, he feels oddly light, tempered by something he can't describe.
Forest seats himself on the brick wall facing his street. He used to sit here back when he was a kid, and be a spectator to his father's fights and Paul's rides and his mother's patients. It's as if the years have been measured by these things. As if they will always be, even if his father's hair is splitting grey at the sides and Paul's exhaust pipes are turning black with rust and his mother moves slow but steady. It's as if his whole world is composed of just, well this; these comfortable, narrowing, provincial events, ongoing and forever.
He did think that was all he ever knew.
Until the man, this man, the one who now sails up silently on the bike with the missing wing mirror, came crashing through it, stringing up each fragment of Forest's shattered world and imbuing each one with a new, confusing conflagration of colour.
Hwoarang swings his leg off his bike. With his middle finger, he pushes his goggles up unto his forehead.
Forest buries his hands in the fleecy holes of his pockets.
"I never thought you actually wore those," He blinks up at the sky. "I thought they were just for show."
"Keh. As if I would do anything just for show."
"I can give you a list."
"Piss off."
He expects Hwoarang to sidle closer, armed with further remarks, but he remains solitary and stagnant, leant against his bike.
"Master is better."
"Is he? Good."
"Your Mom…" Hwoarang seems to chew over the words, as if not used to them. "She did well, I..." He observes Forest beneath his eyelashes, and quickly adds; "I did thank her, you know."
"Yeah. She said."
"Hm."
Forest leans his head back against the wall. His eyes flutter shut, blocking out the night and the stars and Hwoarang.
A creak of leather.
Breath, warmed by tobacco, kisses the arch of his face.
Forest's brow indents.
An arm encircles his waist. Nudges up his jumper, revealing a curve of skin and Forest feels a thumb, questioning, teasing, circle his lower stomach.
"I've missed you." Hwoarang's voice is husky, ripe with something, but Forest isn't that naïve anymore, but he's still as simple and predictable as ever, for his chest is prickling with a crushing, helpless, happy pain.
"You bastard," Forest hisses. He snaps his eyes open, but refuses to swivel his stare in the direction of that well-worn smirk. "Do you even know what you do to me?"
"Yeah. Why I do it, baby."
"Don't call me that."
"Heh."
Hwoarang 's fingers close around the aching joints of Forest's wrists, pushing him further back, until the wall is a sodden press on his back.
"You do realise I'm sick, right?"
He's expecting a snicker, a smart come back, anything.
But Hwoarang rests his head in the corner of Forest's neck, and just breathes.
Forest, in accordance, stops breathing.
They stay like that for a while. The evening is a chilly clasp around them. A train rattles along its tracks. There is the low, whispering buzz of a television in the distance.
"I…" Forest's throat throbs. He swallows, his throat lifting into the soft pressure of Hwoarang's mouth, and his heart beats so rapidly it could break through his ribs. "I-I'm going to Japan. With Dad. For the tournament."
Hwoarang stiffens.
"I-I'll…see you there?"
Hwoarang, not moving from Forest's shoulder, trails his fingers down the groves in Forest's wrists. They settle, gently, on the edge of Forest's chin. Hwoarang leans back, his eyes set, his slight, testing smile drying the inside of Forest's mouth.
"Jesus…" Forest weakly pushes him away. "Quit the smooth operator act, okay?"
"It's what I do," Hwoarang replies, but his voice is low and loving and Forest can sense the threads of his world becoming bare, breaking, with each new intoxicating expansion. "And I won't let you forget it."
He closes the gap and Forest's world tumbles, flails, and falls.