Afterwards: The Fourth Tekken Novel

Whatever's Next Door

The Mishima gang returned and saw that Nina's car was missing from their chalet.
"I think Hwoarang must've arrived," Jin stated as he drove up to their chalet. "And they must've gone out for lunch."
"Well, at the least we're done," Jun said, a little relieved that Heihachi didn't stick around when they returned. "Anyway... there's still some of the snacks that you guys bought the other day. Wanna keep those for dinner?"
"Or wanna have them while watching a movie?" Kazuya suggested. "I think the resort provided us with some streaming platforms. We can watch something later."
"Nice idea," Lars agreed to that. "I also got some mini jam cakes from Lieutenant Ito."
Jin sighed, turning the car off. "I should take a trip to Mrs Ito's office one day and ask for their catalogue."
"You can just find it on their Instagram page, ya know?" Lars said.
"How come you know all of this and I don't?" Jin asked. "And I'm the CEO of the company."
Kazuya snorted. "Some CEO you are."
Jin smirked. "Then, you're not the one who didn't even know Lucky Chloe's real name?"
"Didn't know?" Kazuya snorted. "I still don't know what it is."
"And he's extremely proud of that," Lars sighed, shaking his head.
Kazuya shrugged. "Who cares? She doesn't even work for me anymore."
"And I'm glad for that," Amber said. "Writing gossip magazines seem to be more of her thing, though."
Jun nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and Tiger's way better."
"And at least we know his real name," Kazuya added.
Jin got out of the car and closed the door before rummaging in his pockets for the keys, turning to the rest when he couldn't find them. "Guys, who has the keys?"
Xiaoyu rummaged in the front pocket of her sling bag and pulled it out. "Here," she said as she handed it to him.
Jin took it and unlocked the door before stepping in.

Adam started panicking when he spotted the Chevrolet Suburban parked beside the Mishima's chalet when they returned from their lunch.
"What do we do, what do we do?!" Adam demanded as if any of them could do anything about it.
"As if I know!" Nina gave his shoulder a slight push. "Can you just park? This isn't even our problem to deal with."
"Then what about the guy driving the MB behind us?!" Adam demanded again. "Besides, we're housing that guy, I'd say it's definitely our problem to deal with."
Nina sighed. "Just park."
Adam did and nervously watched as Heihachi parked his car beside theirs. Lee and Anna's Tesla drove past them to go to their chalet as well.
"We're screwed!" Adam dramatically said.
Nina just quietly handed him the steering lock and turned to look at the Mishimas' chalet. Lars was hanging around outside, but Kazuya and Jin were nowhere to be seen.
"We better get in quickly," Nina said.
"Come on, why do we even have to shelter this guy?" Jacob asked, sounding bored. "Just let him get caught, see what happens."
"Can't be that bad, amirite?" Harper added. "There aren't any volcanos in Chigasaki."
That caught Adam's interest. "Wait, really?"
"No mountains either," Nina added, nodding.
"There's just this rock formation, though," Jacob said. "They call it Eboshi or something like that. That's just about six storeys high, what they gonna do with that?"
"They can still throw someone off," Adam said, rather fearfully. "And that someone could be me..."
Harper groaned. "Seriously, how did you ever end up with an assassin in the first place despite being this jumpy?"
Nina snorted. "I once pointed a fake gun at him, it was for a costume that Steve was doing, and he screamed so hard and raised his arms even after I told him it was fake and only makes a shooting sound and not shoot anything. Not even blanks."
"Why do you even have it anyway?" Adam groaned.
"Because the sound of a shot is sometimes enough to scare baddies," Nina shrugged. "Your reaction was proof."
Adam sighed and opened his door. "Fine. Let's just see what happens, I guess."
Heihachi got out of the car, Steve and Hwoarang followed next.
"Your family is here," Nina announced nodding towards the Mishimas' chalet. "You wanna sneak around back or do you just wanna see what happens when you show your face?"
"Frankly, I prefer the second option because I actually wanna see what unfolds," Hwoarang smirked. "Also, goodbye, I'm going over to Kazama's. I haven't even unpacked."
"You don't wanna take your bag first?" Steve asked, pointing a thumb at their chalet. "You dumped it in the living room, remember?"
Hwoarang nodded. "Oh, yeah. I need to get that first."
He followed Nina up the porch steps and grabbed his luggage before exiting. "Good luck, Heihachi! Hope you don't get thrown off anything."
"Why do I feel like I'm gonna fall off Eboshi Rock all of a sudden?" Heihachi frowned as he watched Hwoarang leave with his tote bag of a luggage.
"Because that's the closest to a mountain here," Steve said. He put a hand on Heihachi's shoulder. "Well, just don't do anything that might provoke them. And I guess you'll do just fine."
They entered the chalet and sighed in relief since neither Kazuya or Jin had stepped out. But they did see Lars glaring daggers at the clone of his father.

Lars clenched his fists as he stood on the deck. He can't believe the nerve of Heihachi, showing his face like this even when they were on vacation. Why did he even agree? He respected Jun's choice of trying to put the family together, but did she respect Kazuya's wishes to stay away from him?
"Hey, Lars," Hwoarang greeted as he ascended the deck stairway, casually waving at him with his tote bag thrown over one shoulder. "Good luck dealing with whatever's next door." The Korean said as he walked past him and entered the chalet, amiably greeting its occupants.
The head of Yggdrasil scowled and shook his head before retreating into the chalet. The first thing he saw was Kazuya and Jin happily discussing tomorrow's activities.
"For breakfast, we can go to this nice shop called Bubbles that serve western food like pies, scones—stuff like that, has good coffee, and has good reviews," Kazuya said. "And then maybe we can go to the shrine in Enoshima. For lunch, maybe we can have it there, I found this really good beachside restaurant fairly near the temple."
"Yeah, I saw that too," Jin nodded, scrolling through a list of locations on his phone. "And maybe after that, we can go to the aquarium. There's a nice English-style garden there too." He chuckled. "I'm sure the blondies would love to go there."
Lars couldn't face them, he was the only one who knew about the dark cloud living next door. How was he going to hide it from them? The journey to Chigasaki was bad enough, especially when they were driving through the famous Route 134. They were happily singing along as Sugiyama Kiyotaka and the Omega Tribe's song of the same name played in their radio, with various versions of it too.
They were really looking forward to this holiday as a means of relaxation and a break away from Heihachi. Yet here he was, coming at their heels to not give them even an inch of escape.
Lars was suddenly startled out of his thoughts when he realised how Jin was calling to him.
"Yo, Lars!" Jin called. "Gosh, we've been calling you for ages!"
"Huh?" Lars said, not sure why they were calling him.
Kazuya motioned for him to join them. "Get over here, we're talking about what we should do tomorrow."
"There are big plans," Jin added, grinning. "Maybe a little too many places planned out in one day too. Wanna help us organise them?"
Lars shook his head as he turned to walk away. "I have something to do. You guys carry on."
Jin and Kazuya exchanged weirded glances, then shrugged as they went right back to their discussion.