Jin Kazama was trying to (politely) push Panda away from him; she had been trying to get him to play with her and Xiaoyu for the past ten minutes.

"Get... off..." Jin swatted away her paws. He was staring at a fixed point, some distance away. Panda, preoccupied with her disappointment and annoyance at Jin, didn't notice, and ran back to Xiaoyu to tell her of her failure.

Jin had only been walking for a moment when Xiaoyu caught up with him, panting. He took no notice. "Hi Jin-Jin!" Xiaoyu squealed in mostly unbroken Japanese. "Panda said you don't wanna play. Why not? We'll do whatever you want," she informed him. Still, she couldn't catch Jin's eye. "Unless it's me you don't want to be with," she added, confident this would catch his attention and make him apologise endlessly for ignoring her.

Jin barely blinked. "Huh?" Still, he stared ahead. What the hell was going on down there?

Xiaoyu was annoyed and out of breath. "Jin!" She said shrilly. Jin finally stopped walking and turned slowly to face her. "Come with me and Panda, we're going to meet Miharu and then we're gonna go to that park that's somewhere -"

"I'm sorry, Xiao," Jin looked her in the eye until she blinked a couple of times. "Not now. Later, I promise." He gave her a slight nod of the head, and resumed his fast walking.

Xiaoyu watched his rapidly retreating figure and screamed "You'll be sorry, Kazama!" before running back to Panda. Jin barely registered it. He had just spotted a flash of red and heard a low-pitched cry of some victim. That meant only one thing to Jin.

---

"Hwoarang is back!"

A goggle-sporting redhead was zooming around the area on his motorbike, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Hwoarang is back, baby! Yeah..." The residents of the houses he was riding around all came filing out of their homes, the better to see the source of the racket. Those familiar with Hwoarang's antics (almost all) merely shook their heads and watched him and a man lying somewhere in between consciousness and unconsciousness on the floor semi-interestedly before walking back into their houses, while the others, mostly young children, stayed to watch anxiously.

The man lying on the floor groaned through the blood trickling from his nose as Hwoarang's bike rode around him once and then stopped sharply at his side. Hwoarang tapped the back left pocket of his jeans, which made a satisfying pat pat before turning to the man, a smile on his face, his eyebrows cocked. The man tried to get up, and Hwoarang offered him a hand, which the man reached for, gingerly, reluctantly. Just as their hands were a couple of inches apart, Hwoarang snatched his arm back, threw his own flaming hair behind himself and laughed wildly. The man on the floor stared at Hwoarang, and then slumped back to the floor, hopelessly.

"I earnt that money, urchin!"

Hwoarang was still laughing as he rode away.

---

Jin wondered why Hwoarang wasn't in his home country. He thought he loved it there. There was no tournament announced here. Maybe he wanted to bring over his whole 'reign of terror' to Japan, having mugged everyone in Korea already. Or maybe he's looking for me, Jin thought.

He didn't really know what he was doing, trying to find Hwoarang. It always ended up the same: Hwoarang demanding a fight and him trying to make an excuse. Hwoarang hearing none of it (as usual) only for some other little snag to show itself. Still, Jin thought, it'd be a change from that panda. She demanded his attention more than Xiaoyu, nowadays.

Jin stopped walking for a minute and leant against a tree, one foot bent on it and the other on the ground, pushing his hair back against his skull. He gazed up into the leaves above him, and the flickering light of the sun passing through them as the leaves blew in the slight wind. A while later Jin heard a loud but distant-sounding revving, and recognised it immediately. Pushing himself to a normal standing position, Jin waited. And waited. As the revving got louder still he shook his head, making his fringe fall back into his eyes, rather long, but short enough not to obscure his vision. Ignorant or all-knowing? Jin pondered absently as to how he should appear when he saw Hwoarang, and decided on a polite indifference as he stepped out from under the tree. Hwoarang's motorcycle was about forty metres away, and he braked as soon as he saw Jin walk forward a couple of steps. He smiled.

"Kazama!" Hwoarang greeted his company, and swung his right leg over so he could jump off the bike.

Jin looked bored. "However did you know it was me?" he asked, trying to portray said indifference.

Hwoarang picked up his bike, and laid it against the nearest tree. "Well," he said, his loud voice carrying probably to the tops of the tallest tree, "I almost didn't recognise you, what with those big muscly arms you've grown." He began to walk towards Jin.

The darker-haired man waited until his acquaintance was closer to him before speaking. "Tell me," he began, flicking his fringe to the side, "why do you wear those goggles on your head?"

Hwoarang ran a hand through his own hair before replying. "Because I wear a belt around my waist."

Jin chuckled lightly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Always the comedian."

"Eh, better than a kill-joy," Hwoarang answered lightly, lowering his arm and stopping some ten metres away from Jin. Jin raised his eyebrows. He half-expected Hwoarang to declare that this town wasn't big enough for the both of them.

"I'm a kill-joy, now?"

Hwoarang looked occupied as he tightened the strap of his left glove nonchalantly. He waited until it was satisfyingly snug around his wrist before replying. "Oh, sorry, I must have mistaken you for some other black-haired arse that chickens out of fights."

Jin rolled his eyes. "I don't 'chicken out', there are just more important -"

"What, like your family?" Hwoarang sneered. They locked eyes.

"I don't know, Hwoarang, what are families like?"

Hwoarang was surprised at this. It was like Kazama to jab at him once or twice but it was usually he who delivered the low-blows.

"You tell me, Jin Kazama, whoreson of Kazuya Mishima, the man dropped from a cliff by his father, who was in turn returned the favour, who then threw your daddy into a volcano," Hwoarang said in one breath, to emphasise, staring straight back. After a pause, Jin grinned again.

"Point taken," he muttered.

---

It was Hwoarang's turn to chuckle. He walked a little closer, and looked over Jin's shoulder. "Where's your girlfriend?"

"Why, jealous?" Jin asked idly. Hwoarang raised his eyebrows.

"Of what, exactly?"

Jin scowled. "She's not my girlfriend," he muttered, frowning at the ground.

"Oh," said Hwoarang. "Well, you'd think so, given all the 'Jin-Jin!''s she emits."

"Shut up."

They stood facing each other for a minute or so in silence, each seeking to irritate the other. Hwoarang coughed lightly. Jin didn't move. So he coughed again, a bit louder.

"What?" Jin snarled, feeling as if he was in the presence of a young problem child. Hwoarang blanched innocently.

"Oh, can I speak yet?" The sarcasm was tangible and Jin's lip curled at one side.

"No."

A moment. Then, "See? Kill-joy."

"You're such a baby."

"And you've aged before your time, Kazama! Live some," Hwoarang pestered Jin, cracking his knuckles.

"Like you do?" Jin retaliated, cocking up one eyebrow. "You need to grow up."

Another silence. It wasn't that Hwoarang couldn't think of a comeback, oh no, he had plenty of them. He just wanted to stop this pointless bickering.

"So Kazama," Hwoarang broke the short-lived quiet. "Let's get down to business."

Jin closed his eyelids for a second before re-opening them and replying off-handedly. "Business? I have none with you, Hwoarang. Perhaps you have mistaken for another black-haired, arse, that chickens out of fights."

"How original," Hwoarang muttered, rolling his eyes. He was becoming impatient. "Look, I want a fight. Now!" He added, as Jin continued fiddling around with his hair. He was doing that rather a lot nowadays.

Jin lowered his arm, looking his rival in the eyes again. "Just shut up."