Jin had trained all morning, from six until ten, alone in the Mishima Dojo. His muscles were quivering from a round of push-ups he'd just done when he received a summons to bathe and then return to the house.
The estate had its own bathhouse, which Jin hadn't yet had an opportunity to seek out. It turned out to be a two-story handsome building with a curved roof shelled with tiles the shade of jade. Within, everything had a kind of faded beauty, as though it belonged to an emperor of a bygone era. The floor tiles were striped with the veins of semi-precious stone, and, despite being scrubbed gleaming clean, there was a cracked, aged shadow to the place.
Jin glanced about him, checking he was alone. He stripped off his gi and sat down on a marble bench. It was icy cold against his skin. He looked at his shoulder. The jagged black mark still stood out stark against his skin. He ghosted his fingertips over it, fearing to evoke that dousing of dread he got last time. He unhooked a shower and rinsed himself all over, soaping himself down then blasting away the suds with water. He held the shower jet longer over his arm, just in case.
He found a fresh towel pigeon-holed away in a wooden case and rubbed his face dry. As he lowered the towel, he faltered. He'd stepped into the bathhouse proper, with grand, leaning walkways bordering the floor above him, and a ceiling that was miles away, all inlayed tile and bright stone. Lanterns hung on all the walls, and beneath them, steaming wooden tubs of dark water sat, sunken into raised wooden daises. Humidity loving plants were growing in terracotta jars, all waxen leaved and deep vibrant greens. Jin chewed a finger. The sheer enormity of his grandfather's wealth had slowly been sinking in over the last two weeks. This palace just full hot water though, that was always ready, always clean, always empty, was the first time he felt not just awe and confusion, but also something a little like anger. When he'd gotten over how impressive it all was, a small, treacherous thought, slipped in: what a waste… The nearest village in Yakushima could all comfortably bathe in here at the same time, and instead it was only for him and his grandfather.
Jin stepped up to one of the pools. He set his towel on the side and dipped a toe into the water. He thought of the hot springs back home. Instantly his face became sombre. He sat down on the pool edge and dropped his legs in. The water felt good, hot. It was a little cloudy, maybe with some added minerals. Steam rose thick off its disturbed surface, like a pot just coming to simmer. His fingers curled tight on the rim. Don't think of home, don't think of home, don't think of home. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed them until he could see the bathhouse floor tile patterns but inverted and blinking in his mind's eye. He took a deep breath in. He closed his eyes tighter, tighter, tighter.
They knew where all the best forest pools were – places where the river deepened and its dark waters ran hot with natural heat, even in winter. They'd wade in and lift stray leaf litter from the water's surface. They'd find a submerged rocky ledge and lean back until their toes poked up from the river like reeds. There was a soft laughter next to him. A face was turning to him, with a gentle, patient smile. Jin's heart burned. It swelled large with loss and agony. He dropped his hands from his eyes and clutched at his chest. He gritted his teeth hard and focussed on making sure his tears were noiseless, contained to silent sobs that racked his body. His tears ran fierce down his face, a constant stream. He slipped into the water, and then, abandoning all etiquette, sunk all the way in.
The sounds of outside world ceased. All its myriad sensations stopped. There was only the comforting pressure of the water, and the welcome darkness, and his tears lost and diluted. He let himself bob to the surface, and spread-eagled there, with his face out the water, but his ears still in the protective dark. He rested there, just drifting, thinking of nothing, and letting that nothingness wash away all thought and memory and pain.
When he got up and dried himself off, he didn't look about him at the opulence. He found a cupboard with clean, white, cotton yukata, and pulled one on. He tousled his hair dry until it fluffed back up into something of its former shape, then stepped into a pair of geta at the door and traipsed back toward the mansion. He realised someway down the path that he was getting used to leaving things for others to attend to. He hadn't thought to pick up his gi, or tidy away his towel, or put on the same shoes he'd walked there in. Things were starting to fade into the background and convenience was becoming more routine. He lamented that. He wondered who he would become a few years down the line, when he came to expect all of this and had forgotten it was ever otherwise.
Jin stretched, unwinding his newly relaxed muscles, and stepped out of his geta and into the mansion foyer. A servant paused in the corridor beyond.
"Young Master Kazama, you're back. May I show you to where Master Mishima is waiting?"
Anxiety fluttered into Jin's chest. He'd been at the bathhouse for some time.
Heihachi was sitting in one of the side rooms, perusing a sheaf of papers. The walls were all drawn open and a cooler summer breeze was rippling through the room, disturbing some of the paper piles. He glanced up when Jin entered.
"Ah, there you are, my boy. Your clothes have arrived. You'll find them in your room. Select something you like and put it on. I'm taking you to the Zaibatsu this afternoon."
The fabled Zaibatsu. Jin couldn't muster himself to be too enthusiastic though. He'd rather be training.
The new clothes in his room had all been hung up neatly in his wardrobe. He leafed through, admiring them and trying to settle on which to wear. He wanted to choose something Heihachi would like, but hadn't all his clothes been pre-approved? Maybe it would be okay to choose his favourite for himself. He wished there was a hoodie. When he was going somewhere new, he liked to be able to put his hood up in case there was something he didn't like. It made the world smaller, and darker, and feel more safe.
In the end, he chose a suit. He had been wearing kimono and hakama nearly every day, and besides, he liked the red under the lapel of his black suit. Its interior was red too, and silky smooth. As he pulled the suit out though, he saw black, heavy material hanging on a sturdier hook behind it. He thrust the suit back in and tugged out the black cloth. His new gi was a beautiful jet black, with roaring flames up the front and back of the top that faded from orange to crimson, trimmed in gold. The bottoms to go with it had matching flames swarming up one leg. He glanced at the clock on his desk. He had a little time…
He quickly stripped off and pulled on the gi. He turned in front of the mirror and a tentative smile broke onto his lips. He liked it. He liked how the material felt, and he liked how it looked – brilliant red against black, and he liked how it fitted him perfectly. He tied a belt around him and threw a punch. The sharp snap of the material made him smile again. He threw a kick, then did a couple of lines of kata up and down his room. There was a knock on the wood of his door.
"Young Master Jin, are you nearly ready?"
Jin froze. In a flash, he was undressed and quickly re-dressing in his suit. He paused though to neatly fold up his new gi. He opened the door to see one of the butlers, Fujita, standing in the doorway. The man closed his eyes and sighed when he saw him. He motioned with his hand for Jin to retreat back into his room. Jin did so. Fujita sorted out the collar on his shirt.
"Shoulders back."
Jin straightened for him, and the aging butler set the blazer better on his shoulders.
"Aren't you wearing a tie with this?"
Jin blinked. "Uh… no? Am I meant to? Do I have to?"
"It is customary. What about these buttons you've left undone?"
"I don't like it tight around my neck."
The butler shrugged and sighed again. He tried to come at Jin's hair with a comb, but it seemed to have a life of its own. "Well, that'll do, I suppose."
Jin looked at himself in the mirror. He looked sharp, he thought. A suit wasn't so bad, even if it wasn't all that comfortable. The butler set a box in his arms.
"New shoes to go with that suit. You can't wear trainers or geta with that. Off with you then. Do you know your way or will you get lost again?"
"I know the way."
Heihachi was dressed in a light summer suit with a long jacket, all charcoal grey save a crisp white shirt, mauve tie, and a gold silk scarf he wore loose and hanging. Jin tried not to feel self-conscious. No matter what he wore, he always felt like an imposter next to Heihachi.
"Very smart!" Heihachi boomed. Jin breathed a sigh of relief that the absent tie wasn't going to be a issue. "Now, when you make your appearance at the Zaibatsu, you do so as my heir. What does that mean?"
Jin straightened his back and pulled back his shoulders. He lifted his chin more proudly, and tried to rest his arms evenly at his sides and not fidget.
"Good boy. Come along."
As they drove into the city, Jin felt his apprehension grow. He hated not being able to see the horizon. The way the skyscrapers obscured the sun made him feel disorientated.
The limousine pulled up before an enormous, stone bulwarks. Jin craned his neck back as he got out of the car. Flights of wide steps led up to a building that seemed to comprise at least three towers. The Mishima emblem he'd come to recognise from about the estate stood stark on the wall above a pillared entry way. Looking at the towers piercing upwards gave Jin a small flip of vertigo. His gaze was immediately drawn beyond this though to the high cirrus clouds scuffing white on a sea blue sky. He'd once heard those could be over sixty-thousand feet up in the air… He wondered how many Zaibatsu towers would have to be stacked on top of each other to reach up even half that distance.
"Impressive, eh?" Heihachi said as he disembarked. Someone was holding a parasol up for him. It was a bright day and promised to be hot.
Heihachi led them up into a grand foyer. It was a place all marble floored, dominated by a fountain with a statue at its centre. The Mishima logo adorned flags that hung from ornate pillars. The foyer was a sleek blend of sweeping red-carpeted stairways and high-tech looking glass elevators. A dizzying view up to the top of one of the towers was above them, with balconies all abuzz, layered one on top the other.
Jin turned on the spot, trying to look in all directions at once. Heihachi caught him by the shoulder when he nearly lost his balance. Jin wasn't sure what to make of it all. It was busy and alive with action, but Jin could barely see anyone. There was just an indistinct murmur of voices, and indications of movement on all the floors above. An array of staff filed out of the shadows to meet them in the foyer, all bowing and issuing pleasantries.
Everything after that was grand too. Grand and square, grand and big, grand and grey. Floor upon floor of presumably very fancy offices, though to Jin they all looked the same. Jin was utterly uninterested and incredibly bored. At least there had been a fountain in the foyer, but he couldn't even see that when he looked over the balconies now – it was just a spec beneath them. Jin fidgeted and touched things and pulled at his new clothes. Heihachi was talking about something called a shareholder, and now something about laboratories, and now something called "arr and dee", and then about wars and founding the company. Jin mostly kept looking at the Tekken Force guards who kept following them around everywhere. Eventually he cut in, because he was so tired of walking and looking at offices.
"But what do you make here, Ojiisama?"
Heihachi laughed and laughed at that, but didn't seem to give him any straight answer.
The one room Jin did like was the throne room. It had tall, tall wooden rafters, arched like a whale's jawbone, and columns of marble, pearly like an oyster's shell, and a red carpet like a seabed reef that ran down the length of the room all the way to a dais. Here, a vaulted stone chamber looked out over the solemn, dark hall, dominated by a tall, austere throne, with curling gold ornamentation at its arms. Something about standing by it and looking out over all that space thrilled Jin in the same way a deep forest did. There was something alluring about it.
He didn't dare sit on the throne. Instead, Jin half-listened politely as Heihachi talked about architecture and history, media relations and public appearances, while tracing a finger over the gold scrollwork on the throne's arms.
"Jin, are you listening?"
He wasn't listening. "Yes, Ojiisama."
"When you can pay attention and hold yourself like a Mishima, I'll think about introducing you to my business colleagues, but until then, you'll be treated like the child you are."
That sounded just fine to Jin, but he gathered from the fierce angle of his grandfather's eyebrows that it wasn't meant to sound fine.
Heihachi's office was near the very top of the building. Jin wanted to at least look inside and see where his grandfather went when he wasn't at the estate, but he'd apparently only been brought here to meet Heihachi's secretary.
"This is my grandson, Kazama Jin. Jin, this is my secretary, Miura Akiko. You may go where you will about the city, since I have business to attend to. A Tekken Force detail is waiting in the foyer for you. Miss Miura will see that you do not act inappropriately."
Miura Akiko was a serious looking woman with neat brown hair tied at the back and held in place with a pin. She had thin, square glasses, and pursed, red lips. She wore a dowdy business suit and picked up a handbag of the same colour as she got up. Jin didn't much appreciate being babysat by so many different people, but he was very glad that the Zaibatsu tour was finally at an end.
As they took the elevator down to the ground floor, Jin and Miura stood in silence. That was just fine by Jin. He looked out of the glass walls as the floors rolled by, until at last the elevator came to rest behind the fountain. At the entrance, the black armour of a Tekken Force unit were all standing to attention. Jin trailed his fingers through the fountain as they crossed to the unit.
"Captain." Miura gave a polite bow to a red armoured officer. The officer's face was obscured by the visor of their helmet and only two gold slits indicated where eyes might be. "You are here to escort us, I assume?"
The captain gave a sharp nod, then bowed to Jin. Jin was tired, hot, and uncomfortable, but inclined his head a little in return.
"Where do you wish to go, Master Kazama?" Miura asked.
"To the estate," Jin said at once.
The secretary gave him a thin smile. "Within the city, Master Kazama."
Jin didn't want to go anywhere in the city.
"To… a park?" He wondered if that was permitted.
He was soon being ushered out of the entrance and down the stone steps of the Zaibatsu. It was humid, and the air felt thick. It was bright, too, and the noisy street was making Jin's head ache. The limousine was gone, and instead the car waiting for him was a black truck with darkened windows. The Tekken Force captain got in the passenger side, and one of his soldiers took the wheel. Two more got in the back and Jin and Miura had the middle to themselves.
"Do you know which park you wish to visit, Master Kazama?"
"No…" Jin planted his hand in his palm and looked glumly out of the window.
The park he was taken to was tame and filled with lawns. The trees were planted in lines and not at all where he'd expect them to spring up naturally. The ponds were managed and there were historical signs around the park that he didn't care to read. Jin's blazer was getting sticky about the collar, and he was sinking into a scowl with the dull company. He thought they looked ridiculous, him and an office worker, then four armoured guards ready to fend off any ducks that looked at him the wrong way. He saw a couple over on the other side of the pond cast a glance his way, take in his company, and hastily retreat. Someone else did a tactical one-eighty when they saw the full armour of Tekken Force too, and soon they had the park to themselves. Jin didn't mind that much, but he kicked his feet a little as he walked and had to squint against the bright sun.
"Master Kazama," Miura put in. "Might I suggest a trip to an opticians to purchase a pair of sunglasses?"
Jin stopped and squinted sideways at her.
"Sure, I guess."
"A young aristocrat should speak with finesse, Master Kazama."
Jin looked at her. "We going or what?"
As they headed back, Jin glanced at one of the Tekken Force guards.
"Aren't you roasting in that armour?"
"Master Kazama." Jin was getting tired very fast of hearing 'Master Kazama'. "It is the task of Tekken Force to protect you. To do this they must remain vigilant at all times. Please do not make their task harder by distracting them."
Jin scowled. He scowled even harder when the car reappeared.
"Do we have to get back in the car? Can't we walk?"
"The nearest suitable vendor is an hour-and-a-half by foot, Master Kazama."
Jin shook his head in frustration but submitted to getting back in the car. The captain opened the door for him. Just before he got in, the Captain murmured,
"Roasting in this armour like beef in an oven."
Jin looked up at him, surprised. The red armour turned away. Jin got in the car, a small smirk on his face that he quickly hid from the secretary.
A short drive later, they were pulling up next to a very formal beige-fronted eyewear store. Jin glanced up and down the street, wondering if every shopfront in Tokyo looked like it was an office room in the Zaibatsu.
"This way, Master Kazama," Miura said, gesturing for him to enter first. She seemed to have an uncanny ability to curb Jin's wandering tendencies before he even got started.
Jin stayed near the door as she went and engaged one of the shop staff in conversation. He looked up as the more interesting Tekken Force Captain entered.
"Can you see out of your helmets? It looks so difficult…"
The Captain stood to attention next to the door, but tilted his head Jin's way. "They are a bit of a pain."
Jin smiled at him, glad to have someone to speak to who sounded more normal. He was waved over after that to try on a range of sunglasses. The pair he selected were very dark, and wrapped a little around his head. He realised as soon as he put them on that he liked them. He didn't care so much about squinting in the sun, but the indoor bright lights, and the labels on all the aisles, and the adverts on the wall were dimmer this way and made him feel calmer.
"These, please," he said, and held them up.
"Are you quite sure, Master Kazama," Miura was saying. "These are sports glasses."
"I'm sure." Jin was glancing out the window. He wanted to be outside again and was bored of looking at glasses.
"I'm not sure Mishima-sama will-"
"The glasses are for me. Why do we still have to talk about this? I said what I want."
Jin was watching a woodpigeon that had just alighted on a lamppost. He didn't immediately realise that there was silence in the shop. He looked around him. He had spoken a little loudly, he supposed, and not all that politely. No one looked angry though, mostly a little taken aback. Miura even bowed to him.
"As you wish, Master Kazama."
The secretary swiped a credit card with the Zaibatsu logo on it, and Jin took his glasses and put them on immediately. He glanced at the captain as he walked out the shop. The man dipped his head lower than he had previously. Jin thought that a little odd, but he didn't think long on it. His glasses dimmed all the brightness that had been giving him a headache. Without the sun's glare making it painful to look up, he could even see the pigeon better. He smiled.
