Strong and Streetwise

A/N: I do not own Tekken. This is my second fic; a tribute to Hwoarang.

Chapter I: A Preteen's Enormous Ego

Chinatown, around 6:00 pm

Chinatown. A one-time tourist attraction in Seoul during the summer. But the notoriously high crime level seemed to have driven away most of the tourists lately. And now it was fall, where crime would be at its peak.

The general atmosphere was particularly subdued this evening. The few people still out on the streets were hurrying around their business,avoiding eye contact with strangers; this was a golden rule in Chinatown. To the onlooker, it was as if the entire district was bracing itself for a storm; the tension could be practically cut with a knife.

A boy could be seen walking the filthy streets of Chinatown. He was young, recently turned twelve, and seemed blissfully unaware of any impending dangers. He was strutting confidently, taking slow deliberate strides and humming tunelessly, completely at ease with his surroundings. His dishevelled appearance was not out of place. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, which were torn at one knee, and left a few inches of ankle exposed, a baggy T-shirt which gave his lean frame a bulky look, and white sneakers with torn soles. He also had a backpack slung across one shoulder.

He was known on the streets as Hwoarang, although that was not his true name. In fact, he had no idea what his legal name had been before he had acquired this name. Nor did he know the identity of his biological parents, but that was the least of his concerns now.

XXXXXXX

Hwoarang smirked with satisfaction at the way things had transpired. He had delivered all his rounds in record time and had spent the better part of the day swindling extra cash. He rummaged in his pocket for today's prize and examined the shiny gold locket he had come to possess when he had " bumped" into a woman at the marketplace. He knew it would sell well on the black market. His smirk grew wider. This had been cake to him; the only reason he had done it was to actually see if anyone would be smart enough to catch him. No such luck today.

Running bump-and-swipes, picking pockets , and all the like was an inferior career for someone of his calibre, Hwoarang knew, especially since the real income came from distributing drugs all over town. His master, Kim, was a man of devious cunning. He used boys armed with backpacks to do his dirty work, as schoolchildren seemed inconspicuous enough. Hwoarang was currently a favourite; he had been praised many times by Kim, and the rest of the boys looked up to him. For Hwoarang himself, it was all about the rush of adrenaline he experienced as he broke a hundred laws, under the very noses of the police. Once, he recalled, he had passed a patrol car on his way to deliver his stack, and the two cops on duty had stopped him to make small talk, with no means of knowing that he had had around five pounds of cocaine in his innocent-looking backpack. Hwoarang had played along, bought them their morning coffee, even.

"Dumbass cops. Stupid no-lifers,"Hwoarang now mused. His opinion of law enforcers was very low, as he thought that cops in general were lazy and dimwitted; he often used even more slanderous terms to describe them in the presence of his friends.

Kim, though, had not been very impressed with his little run-in with the State's agents, Hwoarang recalled, and had sternly admonished him before the others, but he was soon back in his good favour; Kim very rarely beat him, and the only time he had done so was when he had recklessly gone and sniffed some coke,"for a bet", as he had justified, flaunting his disregard for the strict regulations his master had laid out concerning drugs: That the boys were not to use them, and were not to sell them to those below the legal age.("Underage users attract cops like a flame attracts a moth," was Kim's popular tagline.)

Hwoarang now threw back his head and laughed outright, because Kim had no way of knowing that he had already bent this little rule countless times: When delivering his rounds, Hwoarang would often see the older boys, in their mid to late teens, sitting on the sidewalk, smoking pot and yearning for something stronger. He would note the multicoloured heads and the cool hairstyles of those punks, and in exchange for a few whiffs, they would give him his prize: red hair dye.

Hwoarang had always wanted attention and recognition. He did not want to end up just another nobody who could easily slip through the crowd, and he'd soon discovered that his flaming red hair was one step further towards his goal. People would often gawk at his hair, which would draw forth a satisfied smirk from him, and even some, like Kim, who would dub it "another bad dye job", were often impressed at heart.

XXXXXXX

Hwoarang now paused at the entrance to an alleyway that would lead him to Sing District, where headquarters was based. On the sidewalk were gathered, as usual, half a dozen teenage boys. They jeered and catcalled as he approached, making comments about his hair. Hwoarang grinned at them; those were dangerous bullies, he knew, but he had long since realised that they were similar to dogs; show any fear, and they bite you in a rabid frenzy. Hwoarang himself was somewhat of a bully, though he considered himself much more refined than those "junkies" and "pot heads", as he had only beaten kids who"were asking for it" or "had it coming", and more often than not , he had taken some of their possessions to keep as souvenirs, which he placed in a box and hid under his bed.

As soon as Hwoarang made the turn that placed him in his home turf of Sing District, he realised that something was wrong...very wrong...

A/N: This is it for now. I hope you like this image of Hwoarang, this was before Baek and tae kwon do , he'll get cooler once I enter Baek, and he'll definitely be getting cooler outfits!