Afterwards: The Fourth Tekken Novel

Distractions

Kazuya actually had no idea why Lars and Adam had led him out. They told him that it was to give Heihachi a surprise, but he didn't see any elements of surprise going on.
"So... the surprise we're giving him is... getting ourselves bubble tea?" Kazuya said in surprise.
Lars snorted. "Who told you we were giving him a surprise?"
Kazuya frowned at him. "You did, idiot."
Adam sighed. "Why would you even tell him that when weren't even planning him anything?"
"Wait, we weren't?" Kazuya said, surprised.
"Nope," Adam shook his head, smirking slightly. "The reason we brought you out is to have fun together. And also because we want tit bits of whatever happened at the spa."
"No me because I was there," Lars pointed out. "But yeah, this guy wants to know."
Adam leaned forward, grinning. "So, what happened?"
"Nothing happened, besides us talking about stuff at the onsen," Kazuya sighed. He paused to sip his bubble tea. "I must say, the guy does feel bad about the stuff that happened."
"Well, he looked pretty bummed when Steve had that night terror the other day," Adam shrugged.
Kazuya was shocked at that information. "He had a night terror? But I thought it was just a nightmare...?"
"Nope," Adam sighed. "He was possibly living through one of those experiments again, he was holding onto his scarred arm while crying out in pain."
Kazuya shook his head. "Poor boy..."
"Come on, don't act like you didn't go through worse," Lars piped up. "He only suffered for six years, you only not suffered for five years."
Kazuya sighed. "Well, I guess you're right."
"Yeah, and Heihachi didn't sleep that whole night, by the looks of it," Adam added. "He seemed pretty fired up in the morning, then very tired that night."
Kazuya frowned as he remembered the times he went through a similar phase when realising some of the bad things he had done, ruefully sipping his tea as he did. Of course, that was still not comparable to whatever Heihachi had done. He had done worse...
"I'm not sure if I should accept him," Kazuya said, placing his cup down on the table. "After the talk we had in the onsen... feels like I should, but a part of me still doesn't wanna forgive him. Because he's still... him."
"Gosh, now I feel glad that he wasn't involved in my life," Lars let out a puff of air, shaking his head. "Else, I might've ended up like Kazuya as well."
Kazuya smirked. "Well, we would've been friends either way, I guess."
Lars shook his head. "No, I don't think you would've. Lee grew up with you, yet you still hated on him then."
"Well, maybe, but Heihachi actually made us hate each other," Kazuya shrugged. "Now that I look at it, we had every reason to join forces."
Adam nodded in agreement. "You should have. Anyway, you wanna go... shopping?"
Kazuya frowned, confused. "Shopping? Why?"
"To get something nice for our... women?" Adam grinned. He actually wanted to say wives but realised that Lars wasn't married yet.
"Oh, that actually sounds good," Kazuya perked up at the idea. "Sure. Is this why we got bubble tea? To fuel up?"
The other two exchanged glances and nodded as if they hadn't just been going impromptu the whole time.
"Yeah, that's right," Lars added, smirking. "Let's go shopping."
Kazuya frowned at the way he said it. "You sound... strange."
Lars grinned. "I am strange."
Adam groaned and placed a hand on his forehead. It was one thing to distract Kazuya, it was another to do it with a seemingly unstable person.

Heihachi walked alongside Jin as they strolled down the beach.
"Why am I being led out again?" Heihachi asked, confused. "Is there something going on at the chalet that you don't want me to see?" 
Jin snorted. "What? Why would you think that? There's nothing going on in the chalet, why would there be anything going on there?"
"Because of the strange way you sound now?" Heihachi pointed out.
Jin sighed, wondering why he had been put up to this task alone. "You wanna... go out?"
"Why would we wanna go out?" Heihachi frowned.
"For... fun?" Jin added.
Heihachi sighed. At least his grandson seemed keen on hanging out with him, though he seemed weird about it. "Sure, I guess. Where do you wanna go?"
"We need to get the car first," Jin quickly said.
"So... we're going back to the chalet?" Heihachi asked.
Jin frowned. "Can we take your car instead. The Chevy we brought seems a little too big for just... three people."
"Three?" Heihachi was confused now. "Who's coming with us?"
"I'm calling him now," Jin said as he pressed his phone to his ear, impatiently tapping his foot as he waited for his friend to pick up, then lighting up when he did. "Ah! Hwo!"
"What do you want?" Heihachi could hear the other man grumble on the other end. "I'm in the middle of something here."
Jin sighed. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing except beating this horribly hard boss for the past hour!" Hwoarang groaned.
"Great, so you're free. Wanna come with us?"
"Huh? What for?" Hwoarang whined.
Jin turned to look at Heihachi, a slight frown on his face. He smiled at him slightly, then moved away to urgently speak to Hwoarang. "Idiot, you know what's going on right now, right? I'm trying to distract Heihachi here, and it seems like I'm not any good with it, and I really need your help."
"Why don't you just take Steve with you, then?" Hwoarang piped up. "You know that I'm not all that good with it, right?"
"Hey, why you're sayin' my name now, eh?" Jin smirked when he heard the blond mutter in the background.
Hwoarang seemingly turned away from his phone for a moment, seeing how his voice got a little faint. "Fringey needs your help distracting Heihachi."
Steve groaned. "Come on, why do I have to do everything? I roomed with him, you didn't even do anything!"
"Hey, I carpooled with him here," Hwoarang argued, much to Jin's dismay.
"So did I, idiot!" Steve complained. "You go on, I have stuff to do with Uncle Excellent."
Hwoarang groaned exasperatedly. "Oh, come on! Can't Shasha go instead? She's good with that sort of thing."
"Hey, you sitting down and playing game, we all only doing stuff here," Shasha scolded in the background. "You go lah, go help Jin."
Hwoarang muttered something under his breath as Jin heard a shuffling when his friend turned his attention back to his call. "Fine, I'll come. Where are you?"
Jin turned to look at Heihachi and found that he had been staring at him the whole time with his arm crossed, an annoyed frown on his face. Jin just waved at him and turned back to face the other way as he spoke to Hwoarang. "We're at the beach. Can you also poke your head out to see what's going on outside our chalet? We need to get Heihachi's car..."
Hwoarang got up from the couch and went over to the kitchen window to take a look at the Mishimas' chalet. To his dismay, Lee was having some people unload things from a large truck. "Yeah, your uncle is doing something..."
Jin groaned. "Can you come over to the beach and try to distract our friend? I'll deal with Excellent."
"Sure," Hwoarang snorted at Jin's remark. "I'll come over right away."
"Thanks," Jin sighed and hung up before going back to Heihachi.
"You guys are definitely up to something," Heihachi frowned. "Does it involve heat?"
Jin smirked. "Heat like Heat Haze Shadow? Maybe..."
"Jin..." Heihachi sighed.
"What, I just wanna... hang out with you," Jin added. "Also, Hwoarang is coming with us. Yay!"
Heihachi groaned. "Where are we even going? Because it seems like you guys are planning to murder me or something."
Jin gasped. "Murder?! Is that what you think of us?"
Heihachi shrugged. "It just seems like you guys are having a sinister scheme going on, I'm just not sure what it is."
Hwoarang ran up soon after, huffing when he stopped near them. "Jin, Excellent is calling you."
Jin turned to Heihachi with a grin, then ran off. "I'll go check that out!"
Hwoarang shook his head as he watched him speed off like that, then turned to Heihachi. "Sup, man."
Heihachi just shook his head, not sure what these guys were even planning.