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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.

He'd hung around Mishima Polytech quite a few times before the day he took Jin riding on his motorcycle and everything changed between them, and a few times afterwards. He also had a couple of delinquent friends at the school who hadn't been kicked out yet. Hwoarang knew the schedule. So when a flood of fifth periods flooded into the gated playgrounds at the back of the building, Hwoarang was there among the trees, concealed enough to look for that one desired face among the suited uniforms.

Jin was very much alone within his school, a fact made even more blatant by the break in classes. He had come out with a pair of girls, but after chatting with him briefly about something they waved and went off together. Carrying his Chemistry book, Jin returned the wave, his expression nothing but gentle and genial. He went to the edge of the grounds and sat there, flipping the book to a dog-eared page. He was also pretty easy to spot seeing as how his cardigan, the largest size carried by the school, was still awfully tight.

Boots circled once with leather straps that held spurs, and covered with the hem of forest green chaps were sudden, loud intruders just at Jin's feet, planted firmly in the gravel. They rooted down long legs which grew into a flat, narrow waist and widened into a chest over which a black wife-beater stretched, a long neck supporting a thin silver crucifix, and a strong chin. And Hwoarang's angry face, clear of the long orange hair his ski goggles held back. His finger with its fingerless glove was in the Japanese's face.

" .. you got heat on you, Kazama .. ?"

Very slowly Jin trailed his eyes up the entirety of Hwoarang's body, to be sure that it was not an idle figment of his starved imagination. There were several moments' pause, and then Jin said simply, "What?"

"The fucking cops." Hwoarang was mad; rather in a rage. The effort expended in keeping his voice low made the way he pronounced each symbol dangerous. His rich, rusty brown eyes were cloudy with confusion as well, because not knowing something -- anything -- is what made Hwoarang lose his cool. Ignorance for him was not bliss. The v-shaped furrow in his brow clearly betrayed his anger. " .. fucking Wulong."

It was unfortunate for Jin that in the panic of seeing Hwoarang so angry his muddled brain delayed in realizing what the Korean was referring to. And even then, he still didn't understand.

"Did he do something to your friends?" He didn't think to stand up.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything .. ?!" he asked, gritting his teeth. Louder words might have drawn the attention of Jin's classmates if the bell hadn't rang at that moment, and girls and boys began filing into the doors.

"I don't know!" Jin said desperately, stricken. He shut his book and rose, wiping off his plaid pants with one hand. He was already close to forgetting that the bell had rung. "Joon, what's wrong?"

With his fire-lit eyes glaring at Jin, Hwoarang's fists welled up like two fleshy, solid tears, trembling. When it seemed he would explode from a silence his tense lips seemed unable to break, the Korean spun from Jin and began walking, yelling as he did.

"I won't let Wulong treat you like this! Like some fucking crook!" Like him, bless his heart. Emotions did enigmatic things to people not used to them, and for Hwoarang it manifested here in chivalric paranoia.

"Joon," Jin said with barely a breath. But Hwoarang was really leaving. "Joon!" he said again, louder, taking a quick step forward and reaching for the man's arm. "Please stop! He didn't do anything!"

"I saw the way he grabbed you," Hwoarang hallucinated, the outrage evident in the tightened tendons Jin's hand clutched, " .. and pulled you out of there. Did he try to beat information out of you .. ?" Turning to regard him, Hwoarang didn't wait for an answer. "I'll fucking kill him."

Jin's face was slack, his dark eyes bright with horror. He clung to that arm as though it were a lifeline; the only rope he had in order to pull Hwoarang in from his furious sea.

"He didn't do anything," he said quietly. "He drove me so we could get food at the American place two blocks from here, like we'd said we would do, and then the men came to pick me up. That's all that happened. Wulong-san is friendly, he didn't do anything."

" .. friendly?" Hwoarang echoed incredulously, his eyes hollow. "What do you mean friendly? Why would he do that, Jin?" Now that Hwoarang appeared to be listening to the Japanese and seeing past that rage, it seemed that another barrier took the latter's place, and it promised to be as green as his leather chaps as it searched Jin's face. Hwoarang took Jin's wrist in his hand. "What are you talking about?"

"He's... funny, and..." Jin floudered before trailing off. After a moment, however, he realized something. Softly he asked, "Is it because he's a policeman?"

" .. why would he take you out to eat, Jin?" Hwoarang questioned again, an empty calm in his voice. His hold on Jin's wrist tightened enough to cause discomfort.

Hwoarang wasn't leaving; that was more important than Jin's wrist. "I ran into him downtown last week and... I asked him to lunch, because I thought..."

Jealousy. That was the word for it, and it flashed in Hwoarang's mind. It was making him sick to the stomach, as if he'd drank sour milk from the mini-fridge at his place. When it seemed he could no longer control his grip, Hwoarang recoiled, stared just as stricken at Jin. And he turned to leave again, reaching the school gates.

"Because I thought we could be friends!" Jin shouted defensively at Hwoarang's back when the redhead was only a pace or two away. Why did it bother Hwoarang so much? Did Hwoarang not want him to have other friends?

He paused. Shoulders rose as his head dropped; he seemed to be contemplating the ground. Then his voice cut low and evenly through the distance between them. " .. you're late for class."

I tried to meet someone new for the first time in months and it makes him angry. For one long, frozen moment, Jin stared emptily and distantly at the back of Hwoarang's head.

And then Jin turned away from him, walking back into the school without another word.

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