Jin had finally managed to get himself driven in one of the black armoured cars rather than the limo today. He'd been off for the rest of the week and it was Monday again now, time for his second, first day of school.
There was crisp autumn wind slinking into the mornings. Jin didn't really feel the cold all that much, but he did pull the sleeves of his school uniform sweater down a little over his fingers. For once, when he entered the foyer, he didn't seem to be drawing too much attention. A head or two turned his way, but a hope flickered in him that maybe this was the beginning of a more lowkey routine.
Jin had to go straight to the administrative office again. It was now familiar enough that he found it without trouble. Miss Konishi gave him a smile when he entered and opened a file on her desk.
"Do you have your old timetable?"
Jin handed it over and he received a new one in exchange.
"Now, Kazama Jin, we've put you down two school years. That should give you enough of a chance to learn the basics of English, algebra, and other areas you were struggling in." Two years… Everyone else would be about thirteen, Jin thought. "Mr Mishima also wanted some personal changes made to your timetable," Miss Konishi continued. "You'll find that Physical Education, Music, Home Economics, and Health have all been removed from your timetable. Instead, Mr Mishima has instructed that during these hours you are to have access to a school gym and continue your Mishima Ryu studies."
Jin's heart sunk. It was true that he needed more time to train, but he been looking forward to making some recipes in school, and he'd really liked that judo class with other people. He'd never learned martial arts with other students before.
"And I have note for you that was left when Mr Mishima made additional changes: since you liked the tiger painting, you may take art. If you fall behind on training, that goes too." Miss Konishi filed the slip of paper away. "I hope that means more to you than it does to me. Right, your new homeroom is-"
"There's a new homeroom too?"
"Of course. Your new homeroom is over here." She gave him a new map and marked it on with red pen. Jin took the map and looked at it. "If you don't have any questions, best to be on your way."
Jin traipsed out of the room and down the hallway, looking at his map. No more seat near the window then, he supposed. And no more judo, or that gym teacher complimenting his fast learning.
The first thing Jin noticed in his new classroom was how young everyone looked. Apprehension and shame curled in his chest.
"Are you lost?" The teacher at the front asked. He was a tall, thin man, with hair combed to one side and wide glasses. He looked a little severe.
Jin shook his head and showed the man his timetable.
"Ah… yes, the transfer student."
Jin was glad the man at least didn't say he was transferring from two years above…
"Would you like to introduce yourself to the class?" the man said.
Jin shook his head.
"Please tell everyone your name," the man clarified, leaving no room for a refusal this time. "And maybe you can tell us something about yourself, a hobby or something you like?"
Jin stood blinking before the class. They were looking at him, curious and calculating. He took a breath.
"I am Kazama Jin."
He wasn't sure what else to say. There seemed to be a lot of rules about what to say and what not to say. He liked turtles, but people had been angry at him last week for writing about turtles, so he guessed he shouldn't say anything about that. He wondered what things were okay to talk about without upsetting people. His fingers curled into his jumper. Everyone was always impressed with his fighting, so maybe he should say something about that.
"I practise karate."
"Very good. You might have a chance to do some martial arts in Physical Education this year, so I'm sure you'll fit right in."
Jin didn't tell the teacher he'd be doing a lot of martial arts in school, but not with anyone else.
"Take a seat, Kazama. There's a spare one on the front row over by the window."
The window! Jin went and sat down happily. He already had a good feeling about today.
"Hey hey hey!" The girl seated nearest to him leant over and nudged him.
Jin retracted sharply from the contact and glowered at her.
"Hiii! I heard about you!" she whispered, still far too loud for Jin's liking. She had shortish brown hair and a very overeager look in her eye. "You beat up that ninth grade student – Toyama!"
Jin glared at her.
"I did not."
"It's okay, no one liked him. But you should know, I'm, like, queen of gossip around here, so nothing gets passed me. I also heard you're – y'know –" She winked. Jin stared at her. She gave an exasperated sigh. "- the school founder's grandson – a Mishima."
Jin felt cold. How did she know that?
She gave him a grin. "Hirano Miharu. I'm class president. I got it through blackmail. Cool, huh?!"
Jin stared at her. Maybe he didn't want the seat by the window after all… Jin got out his timetable to look at what came first.
"It's biology," the girl supplied helpfully. "We're going out to the lab for it. I hope we don't have to dissect anything, I heard the second years dissect some stuff. It would be so so so gross!"
"Dissect?"
"Yeah, like animals and that."
Jin glanced at her, startled.
"I know right?! Who wants to touch dead animals! Lab is this way, I'll show you."
As the class filed out for the first lesson, Jin found there wasn't really a polite way to shake the girl off. He didn't really need to be shown the way when everyone else was headed to the same place… She chatted incessantly as they walked, to the point where Jin had to gently intercede.
"Uh, Hirano-san, please could you stop talking for a moment. I have a slight headache…"
"Call me Miharu! We've basically known each other years since rollcall goes on so long, hahaha."
She didn't stop talking. Jin's head was beginning to ache quite badly. He was really worried someone would ask him to cut up an animal. He really hoped he didn't get upset in class. His grandfather was sure to find out and be furious.
"Kazama!"
Jin froze at the shout. He turned slowly. Miharu did too, hopping with excitement no doubt at the opportunity to glean a little more gossip.
Toyama was striding down the hallway with his two lackeys in tow. It didn't look like the beating he'd taken in gym class had injured him any. Jin took a deep breath and steeled himself.
"Hey! Kazama!" Toyama said again, even though Jin had stopped and wasn't going anywhere. Toyama came right up close. Jin stood his ground, unafraid. "Hey," Toyama said again. He glanced at Miharu, then leaned in, keeping his voice low. "I spoke with my father. He told me some things. Y'know? About your father?"
Jin went cold. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He'd forgotten he'd spoken Kazuya's name out loud.
"Anyway, man." Toyama was shifting from foot to foot. "I didn't realise you were a Mishima, because of your name and all. I didn't mean anything by it. My father said…" He lowered his voice further. "He said I should apologise, since he had to talk to the right connections to get me into this school, and your grandfather's the founder and all. I'm really sorry, Kazama-san."
Toyama gave a weak smile as he backed up. He bowed low to Jin, then he and his cronies shuffled on. Jin felt ill. Like he'd stolen something, or cheated in a fight.
"Wowza," Miharu whispered loudly. "You musta done a real number on him to get Toyama running scared. He lords it over all the middle schoolers, like, twenty-four-seven."
Something was squirming in Jin's stomach as he watched Toyama move away. He had been afraid. That boy had been afraid just on the basis of a name and reputation. Toyama's father had been afraid too. Jin knew the Mishima name had a lot attached to it – he had seen the wealth, seen the impressive martial arts, seen how big the Zaibatsu building was, but he hadn't seen this before. Using that name could make people afraid. It could make them cower and bow even though Jin had done nothing to deserve it. That made Jin angry. Angry and confused. He decided not to speak of Kazuya again, and to leave his grandfather out of school too as far as he could. A dark frown settled on him, and no amount of listening to Miharu's banter could lighten it.
The science lab was a bit like a classroom, except there were very long, high benches instead of desks, and tall stools and nowhere to put your legs. Jin tried to hunch his shoulders a bit to look less tall than the rest of the class. His knees kept knocking into the wooden cupboards. There was some kind of tap on his desk. He fiddled with its little valve until it started hissing.
"Are you, like, one of those bad boy types?" Miharu asked, drawing up a stool next to him.
"Huh?" Jin looked at her.
Miharu nodded at the hissing tap. "You can, like, blow the whole place with those gas taps. I heard guys threatening to do that before to look cool."
Jin slammed his hand on the tap and twiddled it until it thankfully stopped hissing.
"…Sure…." Better that than admit he had no idea what he was doing.
The teacher was a smiling, rotund man with cheeks like tangerines. He wore a white lab coat and seemed very impressive and intellectual to Jin.
"Welcome back everyone! As I explained last week, in Biology and Earth Sciences this term we're going to be studying plants."
"Oooh, yeah," Miharu said under her breath to Jin. "Totally forgot he said that last time lol. No animal dissection though at least, phew, huh?"
Jin glared at her, angry she'd made him worry about cutting up animals. He couldn't stay frustrated though – he would get to study plants. Finally… He gazed out the window, it was dreary and grey outside, and condensation was gathering on the glass. It would be fun to get a closer look at the trees on the edge of the playing fields though.
Twenty minutes in, Jin had received another textbook and switched off as the teacher wrote things on a chalkboard. The noise of the chalk on the board was irritating him and turning his thoughts fuzzy. His teeth were on edge and he was fidgeting. Jin fiddled with the bench before him and found it had a draw in it he could open. Inside was only an old plastic pen cap and some graffiti. He still had his ninth grade Social Studies textbook in his bag, so he slid this in the draw since it was heavy and he wasn't going to need it. He surreptitiously shut the draw. He tried to concentrate on the blackboard but the teacher was just writing in long lines up there and looking at him writing only increased the discomfort of that jarring noise. Jin fiddled with the pen cap until it pinged out of his hands and hit a girl in the head two rows in front. She turned around but Jin pretended to look elsewhere.
"When do we get to go outside?" he asked Miharu.
"Huh?"
"Outside. To study plants?"
"Huh? We don't go out, silly! The plant studying stuff is up there!" She pointed to the board. "And here!" She tapped his textbook.
Jin retracted from the book.
"We even have to learn about plants from books? But they're right there!" Jin pointed out the window.
He'd said that a little louder than intended. The smiling teacher stopped smiling and came and stood before his bench.
"Your name?"
"Kazama…"
"Something you'd like to share with the class, Kazama?"
Jin was feeling one of those rare, more rebellious moments, ushered in through a combination of boredom and frustration.
"Yeah, how come we have to learn about plants indoors when all the plants are outside?"
The teacher blinked slowly at him, like a cat.
"We're here to learn about plants, not gawk at them."
Jin wasn't done. "How are you meant to learn about a plant without looking at it? Literally all there is to learn about is right there."
"We have diagrams for that," the biology teacher said mildly. He opened up Jin's textbook and flattened out the pages. "Maybe you'd know about that if you opened your textbook."
There was a general snigger about the class, but Miharu at least was silent.
Jin was angry now, and his reserves of stubbornness were kicking in.
"A diagram," he mocked. "What's the use in that? How are you meant to know about the plant's location, its requirements and needs, what it competes with, what feeds on it and grows alongside it. This is the most stupid class I've ever been in."
He banged the textbook shut and shoved it into his school bag. He slung the bag over one shoulder and stalked out the classroom.
"Kazama! You come back here!"
Jin didn't go back there. He slammed the lab door shut behind him and strode out over the playing fields into the drizzling rain. The turf was springy under his feet – all unnatural lawn formed of a monoculture of grass and terrible for biodiversity.
Once at the treeline, he squatted down and pulled out a notebook. He'd just study plants on his own if that's what it took.
It was cold. There was a chill breeze blowing. He brushed at his eyes. School was so stupid. Was it really all just sitting in a room looking at a board or reading a book? He knew about plants, but he couldn't concentrate on stupid books. A drop fell on his notepaper, smudging the plant he'd been drawing. He really hoped that was rain.
In fact, Jin soon forgot his melancholy. His head didn't feel so bad out here. The cloudiness was gone, and he could finally think clearly. As soon as he was done sketching one plant, his eye caught another just next to it. He wanted to try and accurately represent the distance between them in case where they grew helped identify them later. Plants in Tokyo were very different to Yakushima, so it was exciting to see so many he didn't recognise. Lots looked familiar though, and he guessed must be related or in the same families. If only he had someone to ask about them…
He hesitated and got out his biology textbook. It was very thick and intimidating. He opened at the beginning and found a contents, and from here he found the book had an index. After some browsing, he found it didn't have anything that would help him identify plants. He did find a cross-section of a flower that was a close relative of one before him though. It was kind of interesting to see that drawing of the inside of the plant without having to damage it. He peered between the petals of his flower and started matching up different parts to the picture in the book. Maybe books weren't all totally boring then if they had diagrams like this. There was a paragraph beneath the picture that explained what the different bits of a plant were for, so he read that. The next paragraph was ok too. Jin sat down on a tree root. It was easier to concentrate on the words out here, with the wet and a bit of wind, even if the pages of his book didn't thank him for exposure to the elements.
Jin looked up when he heard a bell ringing. Probably the first class had ended. He stretched, stiff, and looked at his timetable. He was meant to be going back to his homeroom now. He shut his textbook reluctantly and headed back indoors. He managed to find the homeroom and even reach it before the door was closed. He'd had to run a little and was out of breath as he sat down. Miharu gave him a side eye. Jin ignored her.
"Hey."
Jin glanced out the window. He could just see the top of Heihachi's golden statue rearing over the school grounds. A magpie had alighted on it.
"Hey!" Miharu whispered more insistently. "So, everyone's talking about that cool truant thing you pulled."
Jin got out his biology textbook and kept reading. Miharu was annoying.
"I guess a Mishima can do whatever he likes in his own school though, huh?"
Jin glared at her fiercely. She looked taken aback then, and turned back to face the front. Jin felt a little bad, but was glad for some silence. The silence was again disrupted though by a snickering. Jin looked up.
On the other side of the classroom, three girls were crowded round one desk, giggling as they waited for the teacher to arrive. One threw a scrunched up paper ball and it bounced off the back of a boy in front. To Jin's surprise, the boy flinched. There were lots of balls of paper around the boy, he realised. The boy's shoulders were curled in and his back curved. Jin knew that look. He'd seen it in the forests back home when he'd come across an animal in a trap, and in the train window on the way to Tokyo, when it was dark and the glass turned to a black mirror. Anger fired off in his chest. A girl tore another page out of a book before her. She handed the page to her friend who scrunched it into a ball and threw it at the boy's back again.
Jin got up abruptly, making the chair legs scrape on the floor. Everyone looked at him. The three girls murmured to one another and fluttered their eyes at him. As Jin came towards them though, their playfulness turned to hesitation. They were very small, Jin realised, and not just because they were sitting down.
On their desk was a sketchpad with pencil drawings in it. There were jagged edges where pages had been torn out. Jin looked between the sketchpad and the balled paper on the floor. He grabbed the book and closed it. On the front was a boy's name. Saito Koji.
"He gave it to us," one of the girls said in their defence.
Jin glared at her, and she withered before him along with her friends. Jin picked up every paper ball and flattened out each one. The drawings were pretty, stylised like in his comic book, and full of care that was now marred by the creases running through each of them. Jin could feel his temper simmering. He put each page in the sketchbook, then set it on the boy's desk. The boy looked up at him then. He had floppy, dark brown hair, and glasses, and a look in his eyes Jin couldn't place. Jin went and sat back down at his desk. He reopened his biology textbook. There was silence now, and it was easier to concentrate. Jin didn't look up.
A moment later, the maths teacher arrived. Jin closed his textbook and replaced it in his satchel. Miharu kept looking at him, but Jin set his gaze straight forward.
The maths class was better than the last one Jin had been to. They gave him a complicated looking calculator and after messing around with it a bit, Jin could get it to do most of the things he wanted. There were more textbooks again, but the sums they were set were more like the ones Jin was used to, framed as real life problems. Jin answered some of the questions and played with the calculator a bit and then drew some more plants and looked out the window.
After maths there was a period for cleaning. Jin was very glad he didn't have to sit down anymore. He was assigned to wash windows, but as he went to wheel the bucket out to the toilets to get water, he found someone had hurried to his side. Saito Koji, the boy with the sketchpad.
"Let me," the boy said.
Jin let him. He walked along next to him quietly. Saito fiddled with his glasses.
"Um… thanks, for back there."
Jin shrugged. They fell silent after that, filling the bucket and walking back to class with it. The two of them cleaned the windows together. No one disturbed them or spoke to them. Saito didn't speak beyond the necessary either. Jin pulled the wiper back and forth over the window, in calm, repetitive actions. At the end of the hour, Saito bowed to him and returned to his seat. Jin likewise went back to his own.
"Is it a guy bonding thing?" Miharu whispered.
Jin looked at her with a sceptical glower. She drew emotion out of him more quickly than most. Miharu puffed up her chest and put on a mock low voice.
"I acknowledge your deed for me, Kazama Jin. I acknowledge your acknowledgement, Saito Koji, now let us stand in manly silence and wash windows together."
Jin rolled his eyes. A smile broke on his lips though.
"Knew you had a smile hiding somewhere in there, Jin-kun."
There was another lesson after this. Jin already thought he'd had far too many lessons for one day. This lesson was Japanese, and they spent most of it practising calligraphy, which Jin liked, and then the teacher told them to get their reading books out. Everyone reached into their bags and Jin did too. He only had his biology textbook in there, but he'd been looking forward to reading more of it anyway. He'd never looked forward to reading a book before. It was kind of weird. It made him feel proud and intellectual like all these kids who'd been going to school since forever.
When it finally got to lunch time, he had to find some way to avoid Miharu in order to recharge his much-needed privacy. Miharu had perfectly painted nails and combed her hair between classes, so Jin thought the safest bet was to detour through a large puddle flooding a corner of the school yard. He leapt it and continued his brisk walk. Miharu was more spritely than he first thought however, and cleared the puddle without even splashing her very white socks.
"Jin-kun!" she called, "Hey! What's wrong with that guy, can't he hear me? Hey, wait up!"
Jin tugged open a door. Why couldn't she leave him alone? He didn't want to be attached to just because Heihachi was his grandfather. He just wanted to find some quiet corner to eat his bento. He'd entered another wing of the school. There were classrooms in front and to the right, and a long empty corridor to the left with a door at the end that read: staff only.
Jin glanced behind him through the window on the door. Miharu had paused to photograph something with her phone, but was now striding purposefully towards him. Jin fled down the long corridor towards that forbidden staff only. He pushed open the door and slipped within. He'd been expecting maybe a teacher's office, but instead there was another anonymous looking corridor. He closed the door carefully behind him. He looked up and around. At the end of the corridor was a security door with an electronic lock beside it. Jin wandered up to it, curious. He prodded it a little, then put his ear to the door. He could hear boots beyond and muffled voices. He strained to catch what was being said.
The sounds were drawing near, apparently not swerving off to one side. They were coming closer, closer. Jin jumped back from the door and suddenly it was opening. He flattened himself to a wall. Two young men had walked out of the doors. They wore school uniform but looked very old to Jin. But then, maybe that was just what twelfth graders looked like. They had strange shoes too – heavy, tactical, clacking hard against the floor as the men walked.
"What are you doing here?!" one said sharply to Jin when he spotted him.
Jin shied at that tone, but glowered back regardless.
"Could ask you the same," he gave. "Says 'staff only' on the door, but you're in uniform the same as me."
"Get lost, kid, you're not meant to be here."
Jin didn't want to get lost. He sized the guys up. There were a lot bigger than him – broader across the chest too. A thrill went through his veins.
"Just try it," said one, apparently reading his intentions.
Now that he was looking at them, one guy had green eyes and reddish brown hair. A foreign student maybe. The other man made to grab at Jin's shoulder. Jin sunk his weight and shot a palm strike out into his chest. The man staggered and stumbled back a few paces.
"What the hell-? What's this kid's problem?"
Jin's problem was that he liked learning about plants, and he liked mathematics, and no one was doing it right and he wanted to be back on Yakushima. And it felt good let loose.
"Kid, you're in so much trouble."
The red-haired guy tried to grab Jin's sweater. Jin let him, seized his hand to hold it in place there, then shot a sidekick into his stomach. A gasp of air peeled out of the man and he folded over, winded. Jin turned on the spot, putting on a wrist lock until the man let out a yelp of a cry. Jin held the lock on.
"What's beyond those doors? Why do they have a special lock?"
"Ow! Ow! I'm not meant to tell anyone, let go!"
The second guy had recovered, and charged Jin now. Jin let the lock go, but kept hold of the guy's arm. He pulled it one way, then the other, dragging the man onto the floor at the last minute, and tripping up the other coming towards him. There was an almighty crash as both men collided and came to the floor. Jin let go and hopped back out of the way.
The locked doors opened and Jin jumped over his fallen opponents, not willing to lose another opportunity to get inside. A hand extended and gripped his head hard. Jin's first thought was Heihachi and a coldness went all the way down his spine. The size of that hand, the solid grip that stopped him dead in his tracks: Jin was a second away from being head-butted and knew he didn't have the strength to combat it. Jin glanced up, heart thudding in his chest. He blinked. It wasn't Heihachi. It was only a Tekken Force soldier.
Jin turned under the grip, but was held hard. He reached for the hand and tried to twist it off and apply an arm bar. The hand went rigid, anticipating his move. Jin hissed in frustration. His punches would fall short, since the soldier had reach on him. He stamped on the soldier's foot, but the armour there was unresistant. Jin hacked a dirty kick at the guy's knee, but the soldier turned his stance slightly, and took the kick on his armoured thigh.
"Kazama!" the soldier rapped sharply.
Jin froze. He recognised that voice. He looked up slowly into the blank eyes of that helmet.
"Quit playing around and get back to school, unless you want Mishima-Kaicho to hear of this."
Jin didn't respond immediately, still looking up warily at his captor.
"You're the captain…" he said slowly. "The one who took me to school last week. What are you doing here?"
"Some Tekken Force work here, now get going. Don't make me say it twice."
He released Jin, then clapped his gloves. The harsh sound made Jin and the fallen men flinch.
"On your feet!" the captain barked. "Get back inside."
The two men shuffled beyond the captain, back to the electronic door. Jin tried to peer behind the captain to get a look beyond it.
"Kazama," the captain growled.
Jin stepped back. "Fine, I'm going, I'm going."
He was going, but intrigue had settled firmly in his mind. There was something going on here. Something a lot more interesting than boring lessons. Maybe school would be more fun if he could figure out what was with these security doors and the presence of Tekken Force in this wing and nowhere else.
"Jin-kun! I've been looking all over for you!"
Miharu had finally caught up with him. Jin gave her a vague grunt in greeting. His mind was on that security door.
"Don't you care about your reputation?! Newbies have to come stand with the cool kids in order to solidify their cool status! I am one of the cool kids, by the way. Oh, that door? Weird, isn't it. Staff only, but I never see teachers using it."
Jin glanced at her, then back at the door.
"What else do you know about it?" he asked.
Miharu gave him a wicked grin. "Come eat lunch with me and I'll tell you."
Jin huffed and folded his arms. "Why are you following me around, anyway?"
"Because you're interesting!" Miharu said. She folded her hands behind her back, rocked onto her tiptoes, and gave him a radiant smile.
Jin met it with a glower. "Why? Because you found out who my grandfather is?"
Miharu's smile fell. "No, silly. Because the best-looking guy in the class stood up for some dork nerd in front of the prettiest girls in the class."
Jin blinked and stared at her blankly. He was what and had done what now?
"Now are you coming to eat lunch or d'you just want to stand and gawk at a door for the rest of break?" She flipped her hair and turned on her heel.
Cowed, Jin followed after her, still computing.
