Author's Notes: Wow, glad you guys like this. I thought it would be fun. ^^ *Evil little giggle* Oh, the plans I have. This chapter will be serious and sorta angsty, and get us into a new stage of Hwoarang and Jin’s, erm, relationship. I don’t know how many people will love me so much in a few chapters. *More evil cackling* Erm, anyway, yeah... So, I’ll just write now. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Tekken is not mine, it is Namco’s. If they offered me Hwoarang, Lee, and Jin (in that order) I’d take them up on the offer, but it isn’t gonna happen.

Fuck this shit. Seriously. For the love of pancakes. When I woke up, I found myself in a very compromising position, still half naked, still damp, wrapped up in a roll of sleeping bags and pads, with the great Jin Kazama tangled right in with me in a slightly less compromising position simply because he wasn’t as wet, or as tangled, or as naked, or as... UPSIDE DOWN? Fuck n’ A.

I untangled myself, gently combing my fingers through my now salty-from-sea- water hair that was also horribly tangled from either Jin or being on my head. It was hard to tell which of those two had done the trick. Not that the day proceeding this one was any better, but please don’t challenge me when I say that mornings are the devil and I have every damn right to hate them. I managed to find a comb in my bag after finding my bag which Jin decided made a good teddy bear in my absence, and forcefully brushed the tangles out of my hair. Fuck hair care. It was a wonder it looked as good as it did, with my attitude.

Speaking of hair... I turned slowly to look at Jin - to REALLY look at him for the first time since I woke up. As I suspected, his hair was unable to maintain the spike. It hung in midnight locks soft as Raven feathers around his face, about halfway between his ears and his chin. He looked just about five years old curled up in a fetal position, snoring very softly, eyes closed gently, and lips curved in a gentle smile. I slowly began to melt on the inside. Then, those doe-eyes opened slowly, fluttering as if processing the light roughly on virgin eyes. "Ohayo, koibito," he mumbled in Japanese. I was too tired to try to speak Japanese, or even to remember it, but one thing remained the same: I melted. He added, with a big sleepy smile and a stretch, "Dai suki da."

I’m just a puddle named Hwoarang, at this point, folks. I mean, I was practically evaporating in the early morning heat. I tried not to let this be too obvious to Jin, but I think he could tell by the way I sat completely still, on my knees, with my head turned slightly to the side, with a slight slouch, and a goofy grin on my face. "Jin, do you speak English this morning, or do I have to re-learn Japanese? You have to have mercy one me, it was my third language."

Jin smiled. "Remind me, when I get home, I will learn Korean for you." Jin sat up fully, taking me in his arms again, and kissing me briefly. "That way, I’ll understand the things you shout in bed." Well, it sounded like a completely innocent and sweet thing to do for your lover at first, anyway. I should have known. I frowned, and Jin took that as a sign he was supposed to be kissing me again, this time with more heat, rolling his tongue through my mouth like it was his playground. When he pulled back, I could feel my pulse in my lips, throbbing quickly with adrenaline.

I shook my head at him, still not quite sure when I’d decided not to beat him up for kissing me, and groped around my bag for my clothes. It would have been easier if Jin was not in turn groping my bare chest, looking for a chance to distract me before I went and got dressed. If I weren’t so damn set on getting OUT OF THE TENT it might have actually worked on me. I found a pair of jeans and my favorite navy t-shirt and that would do. I shook Jin off roughly and got dressed, ignoring the little comments he whispered in my ear about how cute my butt was in boxers, and how hot my back was with water dripping down it from my still-wet hair, and how he wanted to lick every last drop of the salty water that was probably mostly sweat, by now, off of my body drop by drop, licking my neck for emphasis. "Well, I’m gonna go get breakfast," I announced, leaving the tent. I was happy he didn’t try to follow me.

Out in the open air, I put on my boots, and my chaps, and gloves for good measure. My goggles also found a place on my head, holding back my hair. Coming out of her tent at the same time was Nina, looking her best, as usual, combing her hair with a nice Ivory-backed brush. She wore her assassin garb (insert heterosexual male/ lesbian drool here) which showed off every last perfect curve of her body. She looked at me like she hadn’t noticed I was standing there, staring at her, and smiled. "Up for breakfast? I think Ling was in charge of that today for our group. She’ll probably just make hot water and have us all pour something instant in it, but you never know!" Nina was way too hyper. It was NOT like her at all. I had to wonder if she got some, or something.

I put that out of my mind and went with Nina to the table Ling had set up that was indeed what Nina thought it would be. I made a cup of coffee and a bowl of "Strawberries and Cream" oatmeal (which I later lived to regret, but we’ll get to that) and cursed Quakers for making the dumbest oatmeal flavors before sitting down on a rock to eat my food. It was all too much like class trips where you go camping and so on and so forth. Ack, class trips. Those suck. Once, I beat up a kid for STEALING my oatmeal and got suspended, but I at least got to spend the rest of the trip in a hotel with the babe of a camp councilor who really had it for me bad and was very loose. I liked her. I really wish I could remember her name.

Anyway, eating oatmeal, I noticed that Nina was still acting strangely, she just now chose to turn it on Ling, commenting on how HOT the water was and how HOT other things were, in which I was included, of course. She then leaned over and said something in a low voice I couldn’t quite hear, and Ling snapped. She slapped Nina, producing a laugh from the blonde. I stood up quickly. Nina turned full on Ling, slapping her twice, the second a backhand slap, sending the girl to the ground, looking fairly limp. A fight? I had to break it up.

I walked briskly back to where they were, a little annoyed I had to be baby sitting, when Nina suddenly turned on me. She had a dead look in her eyes that was unnerving. Before I knew it, she was there, in front of me, in stance, and striking, The blow went to my nose and rocked me back a little. I took stance, not sure what else to do, and tried a roundhouse. She caught my foot, and used it to spin me to the ground, face down. I was busy spitting out sand when I felt her sit down on my back - which actually felt good. Then she forcefully grabbed my left arm, yanking it behind my back, dislocating it, and I cried out. It wasn’t broken, at least. But that was the last thing on god’s green Earth keeping me from making some pathetic whimper noises of pain when I got up off the ground. I looked at my opponent, and she just grinned back.

She raced at me again, this time flipping foreword to drag her heals down the front of my shirt, leaving streaks of pain down my arms where I had blocked. She paused a second as she hit the ground to take the impact, and I took the moment to jump up and use my whole body weight to pound a fist into her stomach. There, I met no resistance, and went right through skin. I yelped in surprise, drawing away my hand, when I discovered something I hadn’t expected. "Nina’s a robot?" I didn’t get, clearly.

Nina-robot stood, still with that evil grin on her face. She charged at me again, this time, actually managing to tackle me, putting me back on my back, her straddled over my waist, with my arms pinned at my sides by her legs. "Now, Blood Talon," she said in that voice that was eerily still Nina’s, "We play." She bent down as if to kiss my shoulder, and instead bit down, getting a fairly weak-sounding grunt out of me. I was biting my own lip - hard to ignore the pain. What was I supposed to do? I frantically pushed my legs up, trying to move my whole body in an arching position, but only managed to get one arm free in the process. I used that arm to grab Nina’s hair and to throw her off violently by the aforementioned. She collided with the table, spilling all that hot water a little too near Ling for my tastes.

I got to my feet, going to Ling, only able to half-lift her with my left arm out of commission, and pulled her to safety from the water a couple meters away. No sooner had I stood again when Nina was kicking my ankles, barely not hard enough to make me fall. I turned on her, this time with renewed anger, and released a set of kicks that were the fastest I knew, dropping down to hit her ankles for the last one, and she did not fall, but started to topple. I jumped up, using three kicks that required me to push off of her body called "hunting hawk", and landed after my attack standing over her slightly less functional body. I used a drop-kick, hitting her in the ribcage, to feel in my own feet that the ribs were probably metal, and that this was futile. She appeared dead, so I turned back to check on Ling.

I head a noise from behind me. The damn cyber-bitch had risen again. When I turned, though, I looked into the eyes of one very dead cyborg. There was a hand sticking through her chest, and it took me a minute to recognize the glove. "Kazama..." I whispered.

When Jin pulled his hand out, Nina collapsed to the ground. Jin’s bangs had grown longer, and he had some sort of weird markings above his dark eyes. He was starting to turn into the devil-Jin that Heihachi was so worried about. I took two steps toward him, closing the space entirely, and took his chin in my right hand. "Jin, thank you, you saved me." I watched as his eyes automatically, almost, unclouded and he looked at me with recognition again. "You’re not my hero," I added blandly, with annoyance.

"Awe, why not?" Jin purred. It wasn’t the kind of pouty purr girls can all miraculously do, probably from the day they are born; but rather the kind of bedroom purr that a lover whispers in your ear at the business dinner table as a clue it is time to go home right now while you can still get some play. I felt very particular parts of my body tighten with the suggestion in that voice, and suddenly felt my mind drifting off to thought I definitely should not have been thinking. Where Ling couldn’t see, Jin gently ran a finger up my spine, starting at the point where my back met my buttocks and my shirt met my jeans and making his way all the way up to my shoulder blades, drawing shivers from me. He continued to talk in that low purr saying, "My, haven’t we made a turn around. Wasn’t it just two days ago I got punched for holding your hand?"

That’s right. Thanks for reminding me, Jinny-poo.

I punched him in the gut, obviously surprising the Japanese boy. He looked at me, hurt, and didn’t bother to ask why. He knew. I told him anyway, "I lost focus for a while there, Jin, I’ll give you that much, but this is ending here. As I said before, we can only maintain our truce if you cut it out with this crap. Now, I’m gonna go help Ling. Why don’t you look for the real Nina?" I pushed away from him entirely, going over to Ling and gently taking her into my right arm. Her eyes fluttered open as I did.

"Hwoarang... did she stop?" Ling’s voice was high, and still oddly cheery, even though her words were bleak. It was relieving to hear that, at least. After all, robot Nina hit a lot harder than the average fighter. She was probably as strong as the Jack series...

"That’s over with. I’ll explain it to you later. Let’s just get you some water and..."

"Your arm!" She looked at my limp arm in horror. I glanced at it. Oh yeah, forgot about that.

"I’ll make a sling. Don’t worry. You just relax." I’ll take care of you, I thought. And I would. Not because I loved Ling, or because I felt obligated because she loved me, but because I thought I might have loved Jin, and I’ll be damned if that was my top priority as a confused 19 year old with a dislocated left arm.

Anyway, my arm was in a sling, and I had found all kinds of fun uses for it like keeping my dried fruit in their to eat as we walked, or small rocks I picked up along the way that I could strategically throw them at Jin whenever the opportunity presented itself. Meanwhile, Lei WuLong chose to take the lead, no longer trusting us youngsters to handle the job, or Nina to be a real person. Nina wasn’t so happy about the accusation of being a fake Nina, so Lei paid with his dignity and we all go t to watch a cop get nailed in the balls by a woman wearing heels.

So, we trudged on like a good little convoy following the Chinese cop to the ends of the earth, if he took us there. Ling had been giving me *looks* the whole time we’d been walking. Looks that meant that she was interested and she didn’t care that I knew, because that only meant I had a chance to act on it. Did I though? Of course not, because I was still busy trying to sort all my feelings about Jin. He was trying to be apologetic for being an ass, so he walked directly in front of me to pull away any obstacle in the foliage that would have been tough with the arm. This had resulted in Ling getting waked by a swinging plant a good twenty times at least, and it also gave me a perfect shot at his head. Which brings me back to the rocks...

Lei WuLong called for a water break up in the front, telling us he would be finding a place for camp soon. We’d adopted a schedule that worked with the hours of the island, but it require lunch and breakfast to be the same meal, and for us to leave at an ungodly hour in the morning and stop early in the evening for camp. Hell, we were shooting for about half past eight as bedtime, which was a good two and a half hours after the last of the sun’s light left the sky. It was somehow nicer that way. Even though it was way too hot during the day, it was WAY TOO COLD at night to be running around in the jungle.

So, when we came to a clearing that was on a river basin, we were good to go. Jin and I set up our tent in stony silence. I did punch him, I think I deserved it. I couldn’t help much, so I did a whole lot of watching the muscles in Jin’s back as he moved the "flexible" poles into the designated spots the tent manufacturer claims they fit in. It’s a wonder how you always see kindergartners throw up a tent like it is second nature, and then watch as teens and adults toil over how to make the web or cross "look like the picture". I watched the billionth bead of sweat roll down Jin’s spin and mentally rolled my eyes, this was getting crazy.

"Come with me, Jin," I said, grabbing his arm. He stuttered, probably about to complain about the fact that he just finished the tent and I wasn’t letting him put our stuff inside. I ignored this, and walked along the edge of the river with Jin, making sure Ling saw us go, so that no one would worry when we were just suddenly gone. We walked in silence, my hand still his guide, until we reached, as I thought we would, another beach. This time, the beach glowed with the hues of the sunset, the water itself the color of an orange from the sun.

"Wow," Jin murmured close to my ear. When I stopped, I hadn’t realized that he had stopped right behind me. Now, I could feel the way our bodies almost- touched from faces, my back and his chest, my rear and his groin, thighs, all the way down to our feet that ran parallel, we were almost touching. It was that distance where you could swear you were because of the heat passing between two bodies, but I knew there was the space there, because it felt like a bottomless abyss too wide to dare jump across. "Beautiful," Jin whispered, drawing me out of my trance.

"Yeah, isn’t it though." I frowned. I was on a mission. I didn’t like that I had to do this, but it was the plain and simple truth that I was going to go crazy if something like I was about to ask for didn’t happen soon. "Look, Jin, we’re on a truce. I was wrong to say that you can’t touch me - period, and that I don’t want you to..." I lost my voice in that moment. It was impossible to say this to my long-time rival. I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my own damn mouth. "Jin, I want you, simple as that. I don’t know what I feel for you, but I know I physically want you, and I am so close to jumping you right now, you couldn’t even imagine."

Jin chuckled. I could feel it in my whole body, because he chose that moment to press out bodies together. He completed the chain of warmth by placing his cheek against mine affectionately. He wrapped his left arm around to clasp across my stomach, and with his right hand, he toyed with some of my hair. My pulse went way up, suddenly in Jin’s arms like this, feeling his groin against me. I slowly slid my right hand back to clasp around the small of his back, sliding my hand into his back pocket lazily. He seemed to find that amusing too. "Hwoarang, you were right about me loving you. I am entirely at your disposal... just ask."

My heart sped up more. I could have Jin. Jin loved me... for sure. I could have Jin. As in MINE. I grinned, not really recognizing I was doing it, until I realized Jin had to shift to accommodate the change in expression. I adjusted our position so that we were facing eachother, and tilted my head down ever-so-slightly to I could put my lips over Jin’s. My free hand was now running over the muscles of his lower back, enjoying the bare skin that was warm to the touch, especially in the relatively cool evening air. Jin, meanwhile, was using the time to gently un-tuck my shirt. Luckily, I’d thought to take off my chaps, or those could have been a problem.

I know the shirt came off, but I don’t remember when we parted lips long enough to actually get it off. I had pushed Jin back into the sand, following him down to lie over his half-naked body, showing it with kisses. Every available inch of skin was a target. I kissed all the way down to the very last centimeter of skin before his belt-line, and licked my way back up to his collar bone. The whole time, Jin was making little noises of surprised giggles. It probably tickled just as much as it felt good, and was fun to do. I finally just lie against Jin, pressing our chests together so I could look into his eyes and leaned down and kissed him. "Not tonight," I said quietly.

"You’re the boss," Jin replied quietly, finally being more like his submissive self. I had missed this so much. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d lost control over our situation. Jin looked back into my eyes without question, almost as if awaiting instruction, but also as if he saw something in my eyes I didn’t know about. Jin giggled, "You taste like Quaker instant oatmeal."

"Damn Strawberries and Creme," I muttered fiercely.

"My favorite flavor," Jin mentioned almost wistfully. He glanced away briefly, looking back into my eyes with a small smile.

"Why do you love me?"

"Why not?

"Yes, but why?"

"I feel like it," Jin replied playfully, sounding like the five-year-old I’d woken up next to that morning. He leaned up and kissed my nose. I scowled, and he just laughed. "You’re so pretty, Hwoarang."

"I’m not a girl."

"I know. I’m glad." Jin kissed me again, this time on the ear. I laughed. It was a bizarre area to target. Jin continued to smile up at me, and finally raised his arms to fasten around my lower back so I could rest in his arms. "I wish we could sleep here," Jin said quietly. "It will be warmer and safer in the tent, though. I’ll set up the sleeping bags so we can lay on one and use the other as a blanket. That way, we can still hold eachother like this." As he spoke, I rested my head on his shoulder. He pressed his lips into my hair a couple times, whispering about how much he loved my hair and envied me. Well, anyone with his hairstyle would say the same thing, so I forgave his ranting.

"Okay, let’s go back," I finally agreed, getting off Jin so he could stand up. I picked up my shirt from where it’d been discarded in the sand, and gently shook the sand off, more or less. I pulled the shirt back on, having an interesting time dealing with the sling, and made sure I didn’t look like I had nearly jumped our fearless leader so that no one would think as much when we got back after so long alone together.

We walked back to camp in silence, holding hands - Jin’s idea. When we got to camp, we went strait to our tent, and Jin did as promised with the sleeping bags. I was the first to get in, getting comfortable before letting Jin snuggle up against me, which, of course, meant getting comfortable all over again. Once we were settled in, and Jin was completely asleep, I finally said what I’d been thinking that had kept me silent the whole walked back to camp. "Jin... I love you, too."

I closed my eyes to the quiet swishing sounds of the tent fabric in the wind and Jin’s quiet breathing. With the admission off my chest, it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep.

Hwoarang: I’m still awake, girlie, and I must say I was so damn OOC here it isn’t even funny.

Link: Bad day?

Hwoarang: You’re just being sappy ‘cause you miss yer lover boy!

Link: Watch it, buster, I can always take Jinny-poo away from you!

Hwoarang: You wouldn’t!

Link: Oh, but I would! *Evil laughter*

Hwoarang: Bitch.

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