Archives: Sure, but please ask first! ^_^

DISCLAIMER: All featured Tekken characters are the property of Namco and not the authors.

Notes: Constructive criticism is welcomed!

Warnings: Eventual lemon parts, language & violence.

After dinner the pair had returned to Jin's room, and eventually they had gravitated towards the bed. The television with just under a thousand satellite channels that had been installed in Jin's room upon his arrival had gone largely to waste, nudged by the teenager himself towards a corner of the room and serving only as another item in need of dusting by the maids -- although all of the housekeepers admired Jin since he was without fail the neatest of all the occupants in the house, even more than Takeda.

But now that Joon was here with him for a while Jin had tugged it close to the foot of the bed and dug the remote from some obscure drawer. When they were there together Jin liked to turn it on occasionally, not to spectate so much as simply for the reason that it made him feel normal. It was normal, Jin always thought, for happy couples to be cuddling together in front of the television. Now, with Joon in his arms and the television showing an archaic Hong Kong action flick at low volume, Jin felt very, very normal.

"Ne, Joon," he said softly against the redhead's ear. "Are you in the mood to.. talk?"

"Yeah, matter of fact I am -- " Because the honest truth was that Hwoarang really hadn't shut up since this film came on. Reclaiming The Dragon. What a load of shit, he'd let Jin know from the opening credits when the two women ninja began splicing their way to victory, every cut and edit in the film meticulously documented by a flurry of static at the TV's corner every ten seconds. Hwoarang'd been laughing while he let Jin know just how horrible Reclaiming The Dragon was, and how the makers should be made to answer to them since they were the best martial artists on the face of the planet. Wrapping his hands around the ones placed tenderly at his waist, the Korean burrowed his face in Jin's neck, talking against his throat in a close way that tickled the skin.

"Did you see her underwear just now, too?"

Jin smiled both from Hwoarang's laughter and that tickling speech.

"Did she know that was going to be in the movie? It looked unintentional." Jin was at utter peace, the comfortable bed, the television and Hwoarang each heady and relaxing in their own ways. "...So you do feel like talking?"

" .. what's up .. ?" he asked, something quizzical spicing his voice. Hwoarang weaved his fingers through Jin's like so many latticed stalks because he loved the way that almost too hot closeness felt. Tucked firmly into the nook of shoulder and neck, his head was cushioned additionally by the reddish orange hair spilling over it.

"Nothing," Jin clarified readily, nuzzling his chin against Hwoarang's plush crown. "I just meant about.. things. Like ourselves. I don't think I know what your favorite color is."

"It's blue." He laughed. Jin sounded like a girlfriend he had once, whom he broke up with a little too soon than was fair. "What's yours?" he said in a purr, intended for humor, leaving the movie to offend itself; he turned to face the Japanese, folding one long leg beneath him.

Jin loosened his arms enough to give Hwoarang the freedom to shift.

"White." He sighed serenely, the gentle drafts from his nose weakly rustling the fire of Hwoarang's hair. "Birthday?"

"I don't know. But we can call it August first and you can still get me something," he responded in a mordant tone. Although he smiled, the answer had darkened his eyes with a malignance. "You look like you were born in the spring. Cool .. moving into hot summer. Hot August."

"June twenty-third. You were close," he said optimistically. One could tell he was debating asking the obvious question somehow ... Jin's thick, pointed brows gently furrowed and he caved.

"Did you forget it?"

"I sort of never knew it in the first place, Jin. I know it was a summer month. What does it matter?" Hwoarang was overstating, knew it, and locked up like an armadillo bug -- the kind you find under rocks in dark, damp places. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and leaned over them, studying the polish of Jin's floor.

"You should kick my ass. I'm so sorry I missed your birthday, man."

Jin rose in a thoroughly slow gesture, his face slack and his eyes simultaneously bright with shock. He reached tentatively to put his hands on Hwoarang's shoulders, perhaps in fear of another such reaction, and perhaps in fear of his own causing one.

"I'm sorry, Joon," he said, his voice muted and guilty. "I was just curious. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's not your fault. It doesn't bother me .. really." There was something Jin did that no other person had ever done for Hwoarang, that he could only remember through a dream state a child experienced in the womb, and if that child was not unlucky, in the arms of its mother. The nascent, delicate brain was defined in some way by this affection in the early years, and recognized it later on in life, and that person had the ability to ask for it. He knew it as something else, and knew nothing about asking for it, but when Jin gave him that feeling, he lost himself in it.

" .. what's your favorite musician?" he apologized in his own way, angling his face to look at the Japanese.

Jin rubbed his fingers over Hwoarang's shoulders searchingly; he was no expert masseuse, but knew vaguely the sensation of a knot and how to rub it loose.

"My mother was," he replied, smiling fondly. "When I was young we would walk out into the forest and amidst all of the singing birds, she would sing to me." Laughing softly, he added, "Even the birds seemed to grow quiet and listen." Jin rubbed his thumbs into the hardness that he felt slightly to either side of the back of Hwoarang's neck, near the firmness of his spine.

Both the touch and the words worked a sigh from Hwoarang, and Jin succeeded in his ends: quelling the Korean, relaxing him as he usually did.

"I wish I could have met your mom." \Because if she was even half as wonderful as you .. \ His waist coiled and he took one of those hands in his to kiss.

"I wish I could have met Doo San." Jin seemed more comforted by nostalgia than burdened by loss. He continued rubbing Hwoarang's shoulder with his unclaimed hand. It was an easy excuse. "What was he like?"

"He could be a real nut sometimes," Hwoarang recalled, rubbing, squeezing and studying that hand as if it held all the memories he was recounting. " .. hard-ass. Arrogant, and he loved Elvis Presley .. " The Korean screwed his face up disapprovingly, but he chuckled a second later.

"But he knew his stuff," he murmured reflectively. "Taught me a lot. One of the few people I ever respected. Who loved me for me, the shit I am." He shrugged, "He'd probably like a good, wholesome boy like you." Grinning, Hwoarang tugged the hand he held, pulling Jin's torso into his lap, and gave him an affectionate noogie.

"You sound like the girls at school," Jin laughed, slinging his arms about Hwoarang's waist in order to tug him further back onto the bed. He even growled a little.

Hwoarang managed to wrestle his way to the top. He'd probably learned that dirty maneuver on the streets; he straddled like a wrestler, and folded his arms on Jin's chest, peering down at him with the haughty conceit of a victor.

"You always end up on the bottom, Kazama. You can't handle me." Empty smack talk never felt so good.

But Jin knew another move, the lowest of the low, one to be reserved only for desperate, no-way-out situations. He smiled blithely into Hwoarang's smug face, and then he tickled his sides!

"Stop! Stop - I'm not ticklish Jin!" he yelled, trying not to laugh and only succeeding in snorting a few times before he erupted into giggles, shielding his body with his arms tucked at the elbows.

Poor Hwoarang. If someone begs for it to end, one only tickles harder. Such is a rule of life. Jin plopped Hwoarang on the bed and dug his fingers under those arms to continue the assault on his sides.

"You're laughing just to make me feel good? You're so sweet, Joon-chan!" Heh heh heh just like a girl.

Better like a girl than like a wholesome boy with a cowlick who would probably throw up if someone tickled him like that, is what Hwoarang would have thought if he knew what Jin was thinking. But he didn't, and kept laughing even as he protested against the assault, grabbing Jin's wrists then losing them then clutching his arms then retracting his hands to defend himself. The futile efforts drove the Korean to thrust upward firmly from the pelvis -- by far the lowest weapon on the books.

While Hwoarang was pushing up from the bed he was momentarily prone, and Jin took the opportunity to sweep his arms under the redhead's waist and hold their bodies together once he lowered to the bed once more. Face to face, Jin was beaming, and he cooed, "I'll stop for now."

"When it's most convenient for you, huh .. ?" Hwoarang sassed, rolling his eyes at Jin. Having to think about what to say and then actually saying it took enough effort to make the titillating contact manageable. The Korean interposed an arm between them, his palm flat against the Japanese's broad chest, and gave a spoiled sigh.

"What if I don't want to stop, Kazama?" He'd rolled his eyes away from Jin.

With his hands sprawled against Hwoarang's shoulderblades Jin's upper body was arched upward, its weight propped on his elbows. He gazed into Hwoarang's face, thinking about how much he had been looking forward to talking and learning more about his Joon.

"Then... I dunno," he said with a small smile, dipping his face to kiss Hwoarang's cheek. "We don't have to stop..." Because they could still talk next time, and because he wanted Hwoarang to be happy.

Hwoarang stilled visibly, his gaze settling, each iris glistening with heat and enigma and something inscrutable. For a long period he studied Jin with that look, collecting in reverence for the solid jaw and delicate lips, and the way the corners of the Japanese's mouth conceded to the faintest dips when he smiled.

When Hwoarang's hand moved from its place against the warmth of Jin's heart, it cradled his profile and the Korean's lips separated as if he were going to say something. But he only drew breath. Jin gently canted his face into that hand, downy fingers of ink swaying just above Hwoarang's forehead. The darkness in the Japanese's eyes was warm, enveloping, comforting, and soaked with love.

"What is it..?" he breathed curiously as though afraid normal volume would somehow ruin things.

Hwoarang's gaze clouded more, yet an affectionate vestment cut through the ponds of reddened brown like the sun.

"Did you always want to be a fighter .. ? When you were young?" He answered the question himself before he asked it, gleaning the response from those wonders that were the Japanese's eyes.

Jin temporarily ruminated the unexpected question, his eyes drifting to the vermeil of Hwoarang's hair as though with his gaze alone he could brush the strands from the smooth expanse of creamy gold which it fell against. His pause, however, was a brief one, and the response one that came easily.

"I wanted to be strong, to be confident in myself and to know how to protect myself and the people I cared for. But only when my mother died..." With effort, Jin brought his eyes back to the Korean's. "...did I want to fight."

Neither of them liked weight, despite the anvils of history and circumstance that sought insistently to precipitate their falls.

" .. and before that? Did you want to be a gardener?" Hwoarang grinned, and he slid his hand down Jin's neck and along his back until the other joined it, resting at the nadir of the Japanese's spine.

Jin caved to temptation, sweeping his fingers delicately though the flames. He smile was fond but distant, directed at these memories which time had rendered feeble and inconsequential.

"Yeah... I dreamed about growing up, building my own house in the middle of the forest, growing my own gardens. I thought about getting married and having children." Jin's smile stumbled, just barely. Jin could not stand the thought of having children now, and damning them to a fate like his own.

Sliding off of Hwoarang's body, Jin settled himself on one hip, in the contour of Hwoarang's side. He draped an arm over the teenager's stomach, and nuzzled his face into the crook of his neck. For several moments he was thoughtfully silent. "Do you ever think about the future, Joon?"

"Not too much. I'm never gonna get old." Neither Hwoarang's tone nor expression expounded on the implications of his statement; both were matter of fact in execution. He'd turned his face into the pillow, away from Jin, expanding the nest the Japanese had made of his neck. The mold of back to chest fit with an ease that implied forever.

Return to Archive | next | previous