Author's Notes: Felt like writing more. To answer a query, Jin isn’t a vampire. As a rule of thumb, to become a vampire, you must be drained to the point of death, then ingest a substantial amount of vampire blood, most likely the one that tried to kill you. Kazuya only really had a bit of a snack, and Jin didn’t bite him back. So nope, ‘fraid he’s not a vampire yet.
As for the Ninaness of it all, yes, there is something going on here. That, with a few mentions of sauciness in the past, should get your imaginations whirring >)
An additional note: Like in Chaolan’s Confession, I’ve made Lee one year younger than Kazuya. For me, it just seems to work so much better that way. If you wish to complain, go shoot yourself in the foot, this is MY fic! >D Mmmkay?
Thank you once again for you awesome reviews!!
Crimson
Chapter 8 - Deliberation
By now, Kazuya had put his feet up, dangling them over one of the armrests of the couch, his arms tucked casually beneath his neck at the other end. Being rather tall after all, he couldn’t have stretched out properly and still had his feet on the couch anyway. Jin had gone most of the way through his iced coffee, and was poking at the cinnamon covered cream sitting on top of the cool liquid. Nina was still sitting with one leg over the other, and she had a delicate white teacup between her hands. Every now and again she’d take a short sip of the tea inside it, but for the most part, it just sat there on her lap.
“Is that baka going to come today or not?” Kazuya’s voice had a hint of impatience showing through the perpetual calm.
“How the hell should I know? HE told ME to meet him here!” Nina’s patience was beginning to wear thin.
Kazuya’s dark eyes rolled back a moment, sarcastically, and he shifted slightly against the leather beneath him. “Don’t choke on your own spit there…” Most of the time, it seemed he didn’t realise how sardonic he was. That time, however, he knew it would get on Nina’s nerves.
And indeed it had. She growled softly, and looked across at Jin. He happened to have been staring at her cleavage which was so well displayed, and, being caught by the woman herself, looked away again, his face going red once again. Seeing his flushed face staring down at the coffee in his hands, Nina could only smile. Well, that had lightened her mood to say the least. “See something you like, kid?” She took great pleasure in leaning back to display it more.
Jin looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die, and Kazuya had to keep himself from laughing. Oh, the poor boy. He’d been there, done that, so he knew how it felt to be caught staring…at Nina in particular. In fact, many a year ago, he had a much more embarrassing encounter than that. Training in a dojo with her before a competition in the first tournament, he’d tackled and floored her, and since nothing really happened while he was sitting on her, he found himself getting a little…excited. This, of course, was well before he met Jin’s mother. “I think we all see something we like, Ms Williams. But since you have a group of unsavoury onlookers at nine o’clock, I would advise a little more discretion.”
When she looked to her left, indeed, there was a gang of hard-looking bikies staring and pointing and joking about her bust. After giving them the finger, she turned back to her tea. “Screw ‘em. If they take one false step, they’ll get lead in th’ head.”
The two boys said nothing further, and simply relaxed again, waiting for Lee to get here. As Nina finished her tea, she placed the cup back down next to the pot at her end of the table, and sat back with a soft sigh. Jin had found a magazine and was reading it rather intently – probably to avoid getting caught staring again – and Kazuya seemed content with staring into space. She decided to watch him to see if he’d notice her staring at him staring at the roof. Seemed not after a few minutes. Instead, she trailed her eyes down, trying to imagine what lay below the tattered shirt he was wearing. Sure, she’d seen him shirtless before, but he was always tense and ready to knock someone out. At the moment, lying so casually on that couch, he didn’t look dangerous…just sexy. Watching his powerful chest rise and fall softly, she came to realise he’d become a lot slimmer than he’d been all those years ago when he was competing for the Zaibatsu. He still had muscular arms, but the rest of him looked perfectly normal in a shirt and slacks. Looked to her like he’d mastered strength and speed and power without having to look like Craig Marduk.
A shout from the other end of the café interrupted all of their thoughts. The two at opposite ends of the table snapped their attention to the source, and Kazuya sat up to see what was going on. Of course, not to their surprise, there was only one thing going on.
Lee.
The silver haired man, dressed in a white and violet pinstripe three-piece, rushed over to their table setting at great speed, skidded to a halt beside Nina, and gave her an overly affectionate smooch on the cheek.
“Oh, you wonderful woman, you found him! I can’t thank you enough!”
She smirked slightly and rubbed her cheek on the back of a gloved hand. “You could pay me…”
Lee chuckled. “Already did that. Go check your bank account.” Then he turned his attention to a rather startled Kazuya. “You! I knew you were alive!” He bounced down onto the spare space beside Kaz on the sofa, and gave him a quick, restrained hug around the shoulders. It was obvious he wanted to give his long-lost brother a bear-hug or something similar.
Sighing, Kazuya gently but firmly pushed Lee off him and dusted off his shirt. “Yeah yeah, don’t go getting all soppy on me Lee.”
The smile still didn’t wear off Lee’s face despite the reprimand, and Jin took up a similar one in an effort not to laugh at the strange reunion between brothers. Lee took a breath and tried to calm himself, and sat back against the rear of the couch. “I’m sorry; I just wasn’t expecting to see you so soon. It’s been twenty years, Kaz…”
Kazuya lowered his eyelids slightly, and chewed on the inside of his lower lip with a sigh. Lee continued. “Anyway. The real reason I wanted to find you, particularly after I heard about the outcome of the tournament, was to find out what exactly you’re going to do about the Zaibatsu…” It didn’t look to him like Kazuya was listening. Damn him and his arrogance. “Hey Kaz, are you listening to me?!”
A heavier sigh, and Kazuya glared at Lee. “Would you stop calling me that?”
This time, Lee rolled his eyes. “As much as this may seem to be a joke right now, I’m actually trying to be serious.”
Kazuya slipped down so he was resting his back between the arm rest and the back of the couch, and leaned his elbow over the armrest itself. “Well, try a little harder, because it’s not working.” Lee obviously wasn’t impressed with Kazuya’s manners…he’d always been disrespectful to the younger Mishima in the past.
Nina stood after a few more minutes of their arguing. “I think I’ll leave you two to it. I’ll go somewhere else with Jin until you two have sorted yourselves out.”
They gave her a nod each, and continued on discussing the Zaibatsu – Lee being serious, and Kazuya unable to take him seriously. Jin followed Nina out of the coffee lounge and down the street.