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
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.