Afterwards: The Fourth Tekken Novel

Truth or Dare

"Nice," Shasha nodded approvingly as she ate Steve's yam volcano. "The chilli pork also very nice."
"Thanks," Steve grinned, eating the pan-friend rice cakes that Jun brought.
"But I feel like it would go better with fried rice," Shasha added. "You ask the Laws and see, they'll tell you the same thing."
"Yeah," Jun nodded in agreement. "It will be better with rice."
Steve sighed. "Yeah, I forgot that Asian food needs to go with rice. The yam doesn't look like carbs to you, right?"
Shasha shook her head, smirking. "Nope. It's a side dish."
"It's a vegetable," Jun added.
"Yep, I should have known," Steve said. "Anyway, how's the fruit cake? It's my grandma's recipe."
"I haven't tried it yet. Saving it for dessert. You should try the sweet I brought, though. I had to hunt around for it."
Steve nodded. "Yeah, I'll get a piece."
"Better bring a spoon and a bowl with you, it's soaked in syrup so it drips a lot," Shasha said.
"Have some of the daifuku as well," Jun added.
"Alright, I'll get some of that too," Steve made his way to the kitchen to get a bowl and a spoon before making his way to the living room.
When he arrived, he was surprised to see that all of them were feasting on the Indian sweet without him.
"So I'm the last to the party, then," Steve said as he crouched in front of the coffee table to help himself to some. "How is it?" He turned to his parents.
Nina nodded. "It's really good. Not too sweet, but it kinda has a hint of rose water in it."
Steve's mouth watered as he turned back to the large tin of sweets. He scooped up a white sphere-shaped piece and placed it in his little ice cream bowl. "This looks good," he said as he poured some of the syrup over the sweet.
Steve waved at them before going back to the dining hall. Jun and Shasha were almost done with their meals and were eyeing the fruit cake. Steve sat down and pierced his spoon into the white dessert.
"So, how is it?" Shasha asked as soon as he took a bite.
Steve nodded, his eyes widening. "It's really good. What's it made of?"
Shasha swallowed her mouthful of food before speaking. "Milk, the process is kinda like paneer. It's then soaked in rose and sugar syrup."
"It's really good," Steve nodded. "Gosh, now I feel like trying more Indian sweets."
Jun chuckled as she pulled the fruit cake towards her. "There's still some for us, right?"
"Very little since these guys started before us," Steve sighed. "You should get some before it's too late."
"What?!" Jun gasped. "Come on, and I was looking forward to it..."
"I gave Lars a tin too, right?" Shasha sighed. "It should be waiting for you at home."
Jun gave her a knowing look. "You sure he didn't eat the whole thing alone by now?"
Shasha nodded. "Yep. Because even thought it's not too sweet, the average person can't eat more than three in one go."
"Right," Jun nodded. "Fine. I'll see if there's still some left in the tin you brought here, if not, I'll have some at home."
Steve snorted. "How did you even manage to sneak out anyway?"
"Those guys went out for... something, they didn't say, and I managed to tell Lars about it," Jun said. "Lars agreed to cover for me."
"At least you have another ally now," Steve said. "Besides us and Amber."
Jun shook her head, forking some of her cake. "Amber hardly counts as an ally. The only reason she isn't flying at Heihachi is because she's afraid she'll go back to her own ways. The same can't be said for Kazuya though. He's waiting for a chance to clap back."
"Mishima Fist Bump," Shasha added. "With lightning and stuff."
Jun nodded. "Yeah. That's the reason I want them to make peace too. Else, I'd be strangling Heihachi as well."
"Well..." Steve shrugged. "For what it's worth, this Heihachi doesn't really have anything bad on him. He feels betrayed by the Heihachi we know all the same. Created with the sole reason of finishing what he didn't get to finish, only for it to be completely pointless. That's kinda unfair, if you ask me."
"Yes, which is why I wanna do this," Jun said. "Because he doesn't deserve to be treated bad just because he was cloned from the original Heihachi." She smirked. "That is unless he decides to go back to his old ways. I won't be stopping Kazuya and Jin if that's the case."
"Tell me if that happens so that I can pack up and leave," Shasha said, eating her fruitcake. "Because I don't like that sort of drama."
Steve nodded. "Same. But I guess I'll still have to be here to deal with the consequence, help Jin and stuff."
"Oh yeah, you guys are family, right?" Shasha nodded, realising. "Then I guess I'll stay back too."
"You're like family now too," Jun added. "Don't forget that, okay?"
Shasha smiled. "I won't."

After the two of them were done with their meals, they decided to sit around for a game of truth or dare. Heihachi thought it was utterly pointless, but they never asked him for his opinion.
"I'm first," Adam said when the arrow stopped in his direction.
Steve grinned. "Truth or dare?"
Adam frowned to himself as he thought. Nothing can go wrong with Truth, maybe just a few embarrassing secrets, but it's not like he minded that with his family. How hard can it be to filter out Heihachi?
"Truth," Adam said.
"Alright," Steve said, picking up a card from the truth stack. His eyebrows lifted for a moment, and then he smirked. "What's the biggest secret you've kept from your parents?"
Adam turned red as he turned to look at his parents, who sat right there, smirking at him. He gulped and turned back to Steve, shaking his head. "No. No, Steve. I'll skip that question. Can I get another?"
Steve shook his head, also smirking. "Nope. Then you'll have to pick Dare."
Adam didn't dare, seeing how Heihachi was here. It was evident that any dare would be Heihachi-related. So he decided to just embarrass himself with the truth instead, without much of a choice.
"There was this one time, back in secondary school, my mates and I skipped school to go to the mall," Adam hid his face. "And then, this guy... one of my friends, Peter, I'm not sure what he did at this shop we went to since I was waiting outside the whole time. I was talking to one my friends, Samuel," he turned to his parents. "You guys know Samuel, right?"
Harper and Jacob nodded, wanting him to go on.
Adam licked his lips before continuing. "So the two of us were talking, and then this guy, this... this Peter, is being chased out by security. He grabbed the two of us and started running, the security were chasing us too, and we ran and ran. I'm not sure how far we ran, but we were far from those dudes, and we somehow managed to lose them. We might've landed in serious trouble that day..."
"What did this Peter even do?" Shasha smirked, snacking on some rice crackers that Jun brought.
Adam shrugged. "Who knows? He never told us no matter how much we asked. We never spoke of that incident, and we never skipped school to go out with him again. We pretty much just buried the incident in our past and built something on it."
"And you're only telling us this now?" Jacob said, fuming like Adam was still in secondary school.
Adam smiled sheepishly. "Yes? But we never did it again, I swear! I also stopped hanging out with Peter since our classes changed."
Jacob leaned back. "Well. What can I say? You handled it, you learnt your lesson. You saw what happens when you trust idiots who can't be trusted."
Heihachi chuckled. "I remember when Kazuya ran off from school once, though it was after school. He went to take electric guitar lessons, it was the eighties, without even telling me." He sighed. "I shouldn't have done what I did then."
"I thought that wasn't you or something?" Steve said, munching on some of the leftover fruitcake.
"You're right, it wasn't, but his memories are still embedded in my head," Heihachi added.
"Alright," Jun tried to be cheerful. "Nina, it's your turn. Truth or dare?"
Nina smirked. "Dare."
"Talk in a British accent until your next turn," Steve smirked as he read the card for her.
Nina shrugged and immediately got into character. "Well, I can do that, I'll just copy your accent. Easy."
"Well, whatever works," Steve shrugged. "Should have been Japanese accent to make things more difficult."
Nina rolled her eyes. "I can only do whatever the card says, guv."
"Alright, this is getting out of hand," Steve sighed. "Now it's my turn..."
"Truth or dare?" Adam asked, smirking.
Steve sighed. "Dare. I don't wanna get caught in high school stories like you."
"Alright," Shasha smirked, rummaged in the cards. She picked one up and gasped, then looked up in Steve's direction, burst into laughter, then proceeded to read out what's on the card. "Serenade the person on your left for a full minute."
Steve didn't like the sound of that. He closed his eyes and slowly turned to his left, as if doing that would instantly swap the person beside him with someone else. Steve opened his eyes and realised that his trick anything but worked.
The person on his left was none other than Heihachi.