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It came out over a particularly vicious game of Uno that Kung Lao had assumed that once he saved Earthrealm, the elder gods would give him a wife.
“Excuse me?” Cole asked, beer halfway to his mouth.
“So that means Raiden has a daughter?” Jax asked. “Sweet Jesus, why would you want him as your father in law? He could teleport into your bedroom .”
“Shouldn’t that mean we all would get wives?” Sonya asked. “We’re all Earth’s champions.”
“I’m good with the one I got the old fashioned way,” Cole said. Sonya toasted him with her mug.
“Well, I’m not really down for a blind date with some fighter chick. Did you know about this?” Jax asked Liu Kang.
“Lord Raiden does not have any offspring,” Liu Kang said, examining his cards. “So I have no idea what our Kung Lao is talking about. Pass me more of the Cool Ranch Doritos.”
“Get at ‘em,” Cole said, pushing over the bowl. “You like these more than Funyuns?”
“Yes, but second to Sun Chips.”
"Cheetos are next on the list," Sonya interjected. "The generic kind. That powdered cheese shit is like crack."
“Ok, so what exactly do you think is going to happen?” Jax asked Kung Lao, who had kept his eyes fixed on the table since his admission. Sonya tried to peek at his cards and he flattened them.
“I thought he would,” Kung Lao said, and gestured vaguely. “Make one.”
“ Make one? ” Cole asked, spraying the table with lukewarm beer. Liu Kang instinctively moved the chip bowl out of the splash zone.
“Out of what?” Sonya asked, intrigued.
“I don’t know. Magic.”
Cole laughed and then turned it into a cough at Kung Lao’s glare.
“To be fair to him, that’s how most great champions are born,” Liu Kang said smoothly. “Mysterious essences and so forth.”
“You mom was a mysterious essence?” Sonya asked.
“Blade, are you calling this man’s mother a drip?” Jax asked.
“Jesus, Jax, no one uses that anymore,” Sonya said. “I was calling her a cooze.”
She shielded herself from the chips Cole and Jax sent her way.
Liu Kang placed a Draw Four on the pile and leaned back.
“Uno,” he said.
###
This was not how most champions were born. Kung Lao had not thought very hard about it; he had grown up in a temple and thought that anything necessary would be provided in time, if the heavens willed it. However, there were times when he was forced to review his upbringing in less than flattering light. Most recently he had spent thirty excruciating minutes listening to Cole explain myspace, and then something called facebook, in reference to a band he had been in when he was a teen.
“Yeah, we got into trouble. I was the lead singer,” he said, smiling at some private, ribald memory. “Terrible music but a great scene.”
Kung Lao had spent most of his 15th year having his bones broken and healed so that he’d understand the absolute limits of his body. Hearing about Cole doing something called crowd surfing in a smelly room, uncaring of the test of strength that awaited him years down the road, did something odd to his stomach; it was similar to when he overheard Liu Kang asking Sonya if they still made Harry Potter, which was potentially some kind of plate? Dish? Serial ballad? That he apparently had favored as a small child. Before he had been brought to the temple. Before he had been Liu Kang.
Still, Kung Lao knew how babies were made and he knew that to have the next Lao, in a long line of eternal champions, he would need a wife. His feelings in the matter were inconsequential.
“Quick of you,” Kung Lao intoned when he and Liu Kang left the dining room for their room. Despite being at the top of the house, every morning Kung Lao could hear the deer carefully picking their way through the overgrown vegetable garden in the back of the house.
Kung Lao expected Liu Kang to tease him, or roll his eyes, but instead he asked,
“What does she look like?”
“Who?”
“The wife Lord Raiden would make for you,” Liu Kang asked. One of Liu Kang’s many gifts were his serious, clear eyes. Kung Lao thought they were perfect for his face, a well of gravity in an otherwise disarmingly fine arrangement. He was a serious boy and now a serious man, if quicker to laugh.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Kung Lao admitted. He shrugged it off. “Pretty. Has a solid punch.”
Liu Kang raised an eyebrow.
They had arrived at their shared room, which meant that Kung Lao’s face was threatening to turn red again. Kung Lao eyed the tatty quilt that was folded over the foot of the bed and subtly did a deep inhale that would slow his blood circulation and prevent a damning blush from spreading over his neck and up to his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liu Kang’s shoulders rolling like he was preparing to fight, but all Liu Kang said was, “Stretch before bed?”
“Yes,” Kung Lao agreed. Liu Kang shrugged off his shirt, as shockingly muscular as ever, and Kung Lao began the unbuckling and unclasping that would allow him to--
“That takes forever,” Liu Kang said, stepping into his space and deftly unhooking the multiple latches on the shoulder part of his tunic. “How on earth do you stand such fussiness?”
“Oh, I don’t, my servants do all this,” Kung Lao said. “They also wash my feet and polish my hat.” That got a laugh.
Kung Lao stopped pretending to unbuckle his belt and instead waited for Liu Kang to make his way down his body, buckle by buckle and latch by latch.
“You’re an absolute tyrant,” Liu Kang said, smiling.
“You said “champion” wrong,” Kung Lao corrected. Liu Kang pinched his side and then dropped his hands to his belt.
###
Two weeks earlier, Kung Lao had regained consciousness under a weeping lump on the floor of the training arena. The lump was Liu Kang.
“You’re crushing me,” he had said, but his voice was still in the dark place so all that came out was “You.” Liu Kang had pressed his hands against Kung Lao’s icy cold face in disbelief and then, heedless of anyone else, had kissed Kung Lao on the mouth, the forehead, the cheeks, a glancing kiss against his ear, and back on his mouth.
“You promised,” he’d said. Kung Lao felt a piercing pain in the same place his soul had returned to and managed to grab hold of Liu Kang’s hand even as he’d faded back into darkness.
The next time he awoke, he was looking up at a stained glass lamp with MILLER TIME written on it in cursive. He was on the kitchen table of this house, surrounded by the people he was, for all intents and purposes, going to save the world with. He’d missed the return of Hasashi Hanzo and the demise of Subzero. He’d missed Liu Kang “going ham” on Kabal, which he requested Cole to explain, stopping him multiple times.
“You could ask him about this directly,” Cole said, after the second time Kung Lao had asked about the exact shape and size of the fire dragon. “I was kind of occupied with that toothy girl, and then saving my whole family from Subzero.”
“He’s too modest to talk about it,” Kung Lao had said. “Was the dragon two stories tall?”
“More like three,” Cole said. “Did you know he could do that?”
“I’ve never doubted Liu Kang,” Kung Lao said, and then made Cole bring him another half-frozen Gatorade.
They were hunkering down in a safe house in Montana, or so the others told him when he was able to sit up and slide off the table. Lord Raiden had dropped them there with a sack of cash and the promise of uninterrupted training. The house belonged to some other long-lost Hasashi relative who had died peacefully of old age.
“In which room?” Sonya had asked, but Lord Raiden was already gone, so it was up to them to take a tour of the farmhouse, Kung Lao hunched over a splintery pair of crutches. He’d tried to wave them off but then Liu Kang had just lifted him, bridal-style, and started up the stairs, so the crutches it was.
Sonya and Jax decided to split what must have once been the children’s room, two single beds with hearts carved in the headboard. Kung Lao was pressed into accepting the queen in the attic room with the slightly sagging center.
“You need to rest up,” Jax said, giving him an appraising eye. “I can tell you’d normally complain about being coddled or some shit but given that you had your soul ripped from your body I think you should listen to the man.”
He pointed at Liu Kang, who hefted a bag of what smelled suspiciously like feverwort. Kung Lao grimaced.
“My favorite worst patient,” Liu Kang said.
“We can split the couch,” Cole offered him. “Give the big man some room.”
“I’ll be fine up here,” Liu Kang said. “I need to make sure he doesn’t pour this tea into the houseplant.”
“Do you think they know we used to sleep on the stone floor?” Kung Lao asked Liu Kang in their mother tongue once he’d been left to catch his breath alone on the soft mattress.
“Jax and Sonya look like they’ve seen their fair share of stone floors,” Liu Kang said.
Kung Lao placed his hat on the bed next to him and flicked off invisible dust from the rim.
“It’s big enough for both of us,” he said, idly.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Liu Kang said. “I think they’re worried about me.”
The back half of his statement caught Kung Lao by surprise.
“What do you mean? Were you injured?”
Liu Kang waved away his concerned hand, then seemed to change his mind and caught it.
“I thought you were dead,” he said. “I wasn’t myself.”
Kung Lao wondered how many times in their life together they’d held hands like this. It was a surprisingly small number, especially once they’d grown.
“If you hadn’t woken when you did, I wouldn’t be here,” Liu Kang said.
“Foolish,” Kung Lao said. “You’re an excellent fighter. Far better than me, obviously.”
“No,” Liu Kang said. “You misunderstand.”
Kung Lao did understand, though, and so to apologize for it all he lifted their joined hands and kissed Liu Kang’s palm. When he looked up, Liu Kang’s handsome face was pink and wretched, as it always was right before he cried.
“Kung Lao, you don’t,” he began, but Kung Lao was already calculating how long he had before his reserves of strength faded completely and had decided to blow it all on hauling Liu Kang into his lap and kissing him the best he could.
###
There had been about five years where Kung Lao was in and out of the temple, and they had drifted as their training diverged. There had been a winter where they couldn't keep apart and had almost kissed under the iced-over waterfall. There had been a summer when they'd fought so much that Kung Lao was sent to help the hermit of the White Forest clear a village submerged in a mudslide and Liu Kang was told to stop antagonizing his elders. Deliberating the details of their shared lives was surprisingly erotic, or maybe it was like this for all young lovers, Kung Lao thought, allowing Liu Kang to push his head down in mock-fury at blaming him for breaking a ceremonial vase when they were 18.
"I thought you liked Xin Wei," he said. "The handsome monk with the harelip."
“Fire and earth, you are so stupid,” Liu Kang said into Kung Lao’s mouth.
They hadn’t done much but everything they had done was the first. He couldn’t imagine asking anyone else to kiss him, or allowing anyone else to do what--what he was doing now, which was filling him up with his fingers and pressing his whole, oddly hot body against him.
“Don’t speak to your superiors like that,” Kung Lao said, legs trembling, nose full of the slightly medicinal scent of Liu Kang’s hair.
###
Kung Lao had had one goal his entire life, and now that endless road was beginning to fork.
###
The days settled into as much of a routine as they could manage. There was no one around for miles so they trained out in the wide meadow south of the house, then crawled home for baths and whatever food they could scrounge.
Kun Lao liked fighting with Cole and Jax, because Jax was unpredictable and Cole could take a hit like an ox. Cole accused him of enjoying himself too much. Jax could catch his arcana and throw it back at him, though his aim was wanting. One such time he dodged only for the silver disc to slam Cole square in the stomach, bringing practice to an abrupt halt.
“Jesus, what did you do to him,” Sonya asked when they approached the house. She was firing energy pulses into the sky from a sprawl on the grass, and to his surprise Liu Kang, perched on the roof of the house, was shooting fireballs through them when they got in range.
Kung Lao dumped Cole on the grass next to her.
“This is his way of apologizing,” Cole said, breathlessly.
“Technically, it’s Jax who lacked the foresight to see that I would readily dodge his throw,” Kung Lao said.
“You shoulda taken it like a champ and saved Cole the broken rib,” Jax said. “I get the feeling that hat can’t scratch it’s owner. Like a witch’s familiar.”
“I see you’re training hard,” Cole said to Sonya.
“Accuracy drills,” Sonya said. “But I’m more than willing to kick your ass if that’s an offer.”
Kung Lao, halfway up to the roof, was surprised to see Liu Kang somersaulting down into the grass.
“Cool down stretches,” he instructed. “Kung Lao, are you cleaning the gutters?”
“Yeah man, get down here,” Jax called up.
Kung Lao did a graceful leap off the side of the house and dropped into the group.
###
“Kang,” Kung Lao said, pulling Liu Kang down to him, sloppily kissing his mouth, spreading his legs shamelessly, doing everything he could think of to convince him to stop fucking around and just take him, like he’d thought about and read about and dreamed about for the better part of a decade. He knew from some of the scrolls that talked about medicine and the various contortions of Earthrealm practices that women liked this, and men could do it to each other, and often the lure of this pleasure was so great it distracted you from the path of dogma and the word of Shakyamuni but that wasn’t really germain to what was happening right now, which was the fear that he would come all over himself without getting to feel Liu Kang inside him.
“Please don’t lecture me about the Lotus Sutra when I’m about to come,” Liu Kang said, beautiful face contorted with focus. He pushed Kung Lao down gently and lifted his hips, and when he caught Kung Lao’s eyes he inhaled and ran a hand up his chest.
“You are gorgeous,” he intoned, and then they were kissing more, and Liu Kang was rubbing himself helplessly against Kung Lao’s thigh.
“If it was the other way round, I wouldn’t torture you so,” Kung Lao snapped, breaking away. Liu Kang laughed.
“Oh, you liar,” he said, and pushed inside him.
Being fucked by Liu Kang was the one thing he had apparently been searching for his entire life. Forget the mark of the dragon and the fate of the world, or mastering a spinning triple-axel back kick. He would debase himself constantly, thoroughly, unforgivably, to feel this way. The second time they did this Liu Kang kissed the inside of his ankle while rolling his hips, favoring him with a long-lashed look, and Kung Lao had instantly sworn in his heart to do anything Liu Kang ever wanted for the rest of his fucking life.
When Liu Kang said, “shit,” and made to pull out of him Kung Lao had blurted “Don’t,” and Liu Kang had groaned and closed his eyes and thinking about it made Kung Lao burn with shame and desire at the same time.
“Are you listening to me?” Cole asked.
Kung Lao threw a punch and teleported out of range of Cole’s roundhouse kick, a spare three seconds to gather himself into his haughty full height and say
“Yes, of course.”
“Bullshit,” Cole said. “I’ve literally never been able to focus in a fight so I know what it looks like.”
“If you’re suggesting I’m not taking this seriously,” Kung Lao began, squaring his shoulders, but Cole waved him off.
“I know that, you’re the great Kung Lao, etc, I get it. But you’re also, what? Twenty five?”
“That is correct,” Kung Lao said, stiffly.
“Give yourself a break,” Cole said. “And spill it. What’s up?”
For a moment Kung Lao was treated to a full body flashback to watching Liu Kang touch himself, just a brief afterthought as he shucked off his pants to reveal his untanned long thighs, and had to activate a nerve suppressant chakra in his palm to prevent himself from getting embarrassingly hard.
“It’s nothing,” Kung Lao said.
“Is it about the magic wife thing?”
Cole blocked Kung Lao’s crescent kick and tried to sweep his leg.
“Speaking of which, I thought monasteries had a celibacy rule.”
“It was a temple and it is suggested only,” Kung Lao said, and managed to whale Cole in the ribs.
“Great,” Cole said, grinning too much for a man whose arcana was a highly unflattering shirt. His hammer fist blow forced Kung Lao to block, knocking his hat out of his hands. “Then me and Jax can take you out.”
###
“Do you want me to put your hair up for you,” Kung Lao asked, lounging on the bed. He’d finished dressing first. Liu Kang was drying his hair with concentrated heat from his palms, something he denied doing and if pressed would say was an ayurvedic meditation technique.
“Stop doing that,” Liu Kang said, eyeing how Kung Lao was spinning his hat on the tip of his finger in faux boredom. “What if you trip and shave my head on accident?”
Kung Lao scoffed but snapped the silver disc into nothingness.
“Well?” he asked, hands on his hips.
“You just want to play with my hair,” Liu Kang said, but sat back in acquiescence.
Kung Lao ran his hands through Liu Kang’s hair and gathered it back from his face, swiping at a few strands that clung to his neck.
“Truthfully, I only know one style,” he admitted, after examining the silky hank of hair in his fist.
He could feel Liu Kang roll his eyes.
“But I could try something new,” Kung Lao said. “I am good at everything I try, you know.”
“I know,” Liu Kang said, and put a warm hand on Kung Lao’s thigh, sliding it gently upwards.
Kung Lao gave his hair a tug.
“Don’t mess around,” he said, voice thinner than he intended. They were late to meet the others anyway.
###
“Ahh, fuck, I forgot you guys don’t have any normal clothes,” Cole said when they appeared in the living room.
“Don’t look at me for ideas,” Sonya said. “Kung Lao has a bigger chest than me.”
###
“Why does Liu Kang get to wear his own shirt?” Kung Lao yelled over the roar of the engine. Sonya was driving, blasting something with a bassline that Kung Lao could feel in his stomach. Jax was navigating, reading off directions from one of their ubiquitous phones.
“Because it looks like it’s from this century,” Jax said. “Even if it is a little blousy.”
“Hey, it’s a Swayze look,” Sonya yelled. “Ever seen Road House?”
“Blade, do I look like a fool? Of course I’ve seen Road House.”
“You look so weird,” Cole said, staring at Kung Lao. “This is wild.”
“You chose these clothes,” Kung Lao hissed, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Be nice!” Jax and Sonya chorused, and laughed. Liu Kang caught Kung Lao’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled, face open and youthful with his hair gathered up in a bun.
Sonya kicked the three of them out of the car in front of a wooden building with a faded neon sign.
“Seeya, suckers,” she said, and motioned to Liu Kang. He gave them a half-bow and made to hop into the passenger seat.
“Where are you going?” Kung Lao asked, putting a hand on his arm.
“A rodeo,” Liu Kang said. Jax and Cole broke into laughter.
“Yeehaw!” Cole shouted. “Enjoy some good old American bullshit, Liu Kang.”
“Don’t hurt ‘em, now,” Jax told Sonya, whistling. “You both should have dirtied up a little more before going out. You two are gonna be beating women off with a stick.”
“Are those Young’s pants?” Kung Lao asked, peering at Liu Kang.
“Those are my jeans,” Sonya said proudly. Jax tilted his head and did a double-take.
“Christ above, take your side arm,” Jax amended. “Liu, you’re about to make some closeted bullrider’s entire life.”
“Yeehaw,” Liu Kang said cheerfully.
Kung Lao must have looked some kind of way watching them drive off towards the flicker of light on the horizon, because Jax slapped him on the back. Kung Lao eyed the friendly arm around his and became suddenly suspicious of the sound insulation in the clapboard house.
“We don’t bite,” Jax said, and Kung Lao relaxed.
The bar was filthy and dark and perfect, Jax declared.
“We’re the only ones here,” Kung Lao observed. There was a hunched figure in the lone corner with a jukebox, but it was unmoving.
“Oh, it’ll pick up,” Cole said. “Do you drink?”
“I doubt anything produced on Earthrealm is as potent as the baiju Lord Raiden keeps around,” Kung Lao said. He refrained from admitting they were not allowed to drink from it.
“Alright then, bottoms up,” Jax said, depositing shots of brown liquid on the table.
Cole slammed his glass on the table and gestured to the bartender. He turned on Kung Lao with a smile and a glint in his eye.
“Let's play get to know you. Have you ever left the temple?”
Kung Lao considered how to explain to them that the temple encompassed the entire universe, and that he’d been sent out plenty of times to kill Lord Raiden’s enemies or test his own strength. Once he’d been sent to France and almost been hit by a bus.
But he’d never really stayed outside. He had never had whiskey, he’d never made a phone call.
He downed his shot and successfully smothered a wince.
“Pitiful,” he said. “As for your question: yes, I have. But never somewhere like this.”
“What a shame,” Jax drawled. “Dive bars are essential to a young man’s development.”
“What am I developing?”
“Social skills,” Cole said.
“Alcohol tolerance,” Jax said. “You ever cut loose before?”
“We meditate,” Kung Lao said. Jax and Cole exchanged looks.
“How about dancing?”
“I’m actually a very good dancer,” Kung Lao said. “But you’ll have to get me in the right mood.”
“Oh, a challenge,” Cole said. “We’ll get you up on this table in no time.”
Another round of shots arrived.
"My turn," Jax said. "You single?"
"What?"
"He means, do you have a--"
Jax and Cole looked at each other.
"Personal friend?" Cole tried.
"Lover," Jax said, in what Kung Lao recognized was his joking voice.
"Yes," Kung Lao said. "Do you?"
"Ouch, here I am striking out against a man who only owns battle armor," Jax said.
“Is this all going out entails?” Kung Lao asked, and took his drink.
“Oh, we’re just getting started. Wanna make a bet?”
Kung Lao was unsurprisingly incredible at darts, though his skill was beginning to take a hit to the Earthrealm alcohol that they were steadily drinking their way through. The bar had livened up a bit; an astonishingly hairy man had bet him he couldn’t hit the bullseye from across the bar, on one hand, backwards, on a barstool, and when he’d made the shot--wavering in the air, legs flailing for added theatricality--the bar had erupted in cheers.
“The great! Kung! Laaaaooooo!” Jax bellowed.
"Undefeated!" Cole shouted.
"Incomparable!" Kung Lao yelled, and downed the glass someone had pressed into his hand. "Watch me do this blindfolded!"
Some time later Kung Lao found himself trying to talk a red-headed woman in a pink cowboy hat out of arm wrestling him.
"I am the champion of Earthrealm," he repeated. "It wouldn't be fair."
"I can tell by your muscles," she said, "Real nice."
"Thank you," he said.
"Great ass, too," she added, and grabbed his.
"I've received no complaints," he said, unable to stop himself from blushing, and then ducked under her upraised hand and staggered to Cole.
He missed the first time he tried to sit down.
"Something tells me you lied about drinking," Cole said, hauling him to his feet.
Kung Lao thought suddenly about Cole’s family, spirited away to safety with Lord Raiden in another world. How he said they’d been trapped in ice in front of him.
“Does your wife,” Kung Lao began, and then paused, mouth uncooperative.
“Kinda weird way to start a question,” Cole said. “Sit down there, bud, you’re making me nervous.”
“What do you do about them,” Kung Lao asked. “How do you bear it? How can you love someone and do this?”
Jax approached them, drinks pressed in his hands.
“Oh, we’re talking about love already,” Jax said. “Sure you don’t want to try and hit the 20 pointer with your feet?”
“I don’t really know what ‘this’ is,” Cole said, accepting a glass. “I mean, you’re the one born into this, man. We’re on loan. So for me, they came first, ‘this’ comes second. It’s simpler that way.”
“‘This’ is all I’ve ever known,” Kung Lao said. He tapped his chest, where his mark was just visible in the deep vee of his borrowed shirt. As he did it, though, something gnawed at him. Liu Kang following him through the temple halls, barely a slip of a thing. Splashing water at him when they bathed in the river. His period of learning how to fall correctly and his various black eyes.
“It’s my destiny,” he said, shaking his head.
“Apparently, mine too,” Cole said. “Can’t say I enjoy it.”
“So how about me? Is mine destiny or dumb luck?” Jax asked.
“If ours are destiny, then, you must be part of it,” Cole said. “Doesn’t have to be a straight line.”
“I don’t hate the arms but I can’t say I’d choose them again,” Jax said, flexing his hand.
“You can’t choose your destiny,” Kung Lao interrupted. “Destiny is--it’s destiny. It’s inescapable.”
He looked at his hands.
“Inevitable,” he added, glumly.
“Yikes,” Cole said. “Great pep talk from our resident all-star.”
Jax was studying him a little too keenly.
“Did something happen?” he asked, in a calm voice. Like Kung Lao was one of the soldiers he had a fold-out string of photos of in his wallet. “When you died?”
Kung Lao considered ignoring him, but the insanity of the situation broke down whatever resistance he may have offered sober and back in Lord Raiden’s keep.
“I’m not afraid of it,” Kung Lao said, slowly. “I barely believed it was happening--because that’s not my fate, to die before the tournament. So when I came back, it just reaffirmed that this is my destiny. To fight in Mortal Kombat and save Earthrealm.”
“So why do you look like shit,” Cole said. “You’re invincible. That sounds great.”
Kung Lao looked into his glass, and then knocked it back.
“Time to dance!” he declared.
01:23
From: JAX
To: S Blade
You will never believe what is happening right now
We taught him the carlton
OPEN VIDEO
###
“Are you brooding ,” someone called up to Kung Lao.
He looked down. It was, of course, Liu Kang. He didn’t wait for an answer and was already skimming up the tree, gracefully hauling himself onto the same broad limb as Kung Lao in a matter of seconds.
“How did you find me?” Kung Lao asked. He already felt calmer just with Liu Kang near him; Liu Kang had taken to wearing his hair up in a bun and Kung Lao had to bite back a smile despite himself.
“Foolish question,” Liu Kang said, and knocked their knees against each other. “I could find you anywhere.”
Kung Lao looked away.
“It’s unlike you to be so gloomy,” Liu Kang said. “Are you mourning your wife?”
The joke had an irritating staying power, but Kung Lao had found himself snorting when Sonya had blamed her for the mysterious disappearance of toilet paper on the first floor.
“I’m thinking about what will happen after the tournament.”
“Feasts and laurels,” Liu Kang said. “Though Cole keeps grousing about how that won’t pay his mortgage.”
“I’m serious,” Kung Lao said. "What will happen to us? To you?"
“Me?” Liu Kang asked, shock plain on his face.
Kung Lao nodded.
“I had thought I would be by your side,” Liu Kang said, slowly.
"I can't imagine it," Kung Lao admitted. "How can you be sure?"
Something was burning. Smoke was drifting up from where Liu Kang was gripping the wood beneath them.
“What a thing to ask,” Liu Kang said.
“You’re angry,” Kung Lao observed, confused.
“It may surprise you that not all of us are as selfish as the great Kung Lao.”
“Selfish? I’m thinking of you ,” Kung Lao said, voice ringing.
“I have never doubted you,” Liu Kang said.
“Nor I you--”
“You’re an ass,” Liu Kang said.
Kung Lao was shocked at how stung he felt.
“You’re my equal and companion,” he said, “But I don’t understand why you’re acting like a child.”
“So I’m good enough to stick it to you but not to be with you in the victory parade, is it?” Liu Kang said, meeting his eyes.
Kung Lao felt as if he’d also caught fire. Liu Kang’s glare was incendiary.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said through gritted teeth. “If you’d just listen--”
“If we die, we die together,” Liu Kang said, “Fuck that, is that right?”
Liu Kang jumped to the ground in a cloud of smoke.
Kung Lao stared at the scorch marks on the branch and then hastily began to beat out the smoldering embers that had landed on his pant leg.
###
“So what is this prophecy,” Cole asked, dropping down next to him.
“What?” Kung Lao asked. He was panting; Cole was improving so quickly that it took effort now to knock him down. He could blame his preoccupation on other things, but thinking about Liu Kang was a non-starter.
“Your whole deal as the great Kung Lao,” Cole said. “I mean, Liu Kang told us a bit about it before you died, but I didn’t recognize anyone he mentioned and honestly it was all a bit of a blur.”
"It's not a prophecy, it's a decree from Lord Raiden, sanctified by the Elder Gods of--"
“Yeah, simple is best,” Cole said. Kung Lao sighed.
“I am the descendant of a great Shaolin warrior who was defeated by Outworld in the games,” Kung Lao said. “It’s my destiny to reclaim our name and make sure that there is a descendant to protect Earthrealm.”
“So how long ago did your ancestor get defeated?”
“Five hundred years ago,” Kung Lao said.
“Jesus Christ,” Cole said. “What happened to the other descendants?”
“They--huh,” Kung Lao said. “I imagine they were defeated.”
“But if they were defeated, how did you happen? Doesn’t defeat usually mean spectacular death?”
“Not always,” Kung Lao said.
“Ok,” Cole said. “So I hate to bring up the magical prize wife, again, but--hear me out--”
“You have thirty seconds.”
“Do you think you don’t have any say in your own future?”
Kung Lao stared at him.
“I’m not trying to be rude here, but when I was your age I thought--fuck. I thought I had to be a boxer like my old man. I thought that was the only way to use what I thought I was good at: fighting. I literally couldn’t see any other path for myself.”
“You’re a fighter now,” Kung Lao said.
“Yeah, and when this is over I’m going back home and I’m going to night school,” Cole said. “Because fuck this, honestly. Bartending is more rewarding than this shit. I want to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle and I can’t do that if my spine has been ripped out of my body.”
“Of course you think that way. You have a family,” Kung Lao said.
“Isn’t Liu Kang your family? Blood brothers, at least?” Cole asked. “Don’t you think you can defeat Outworld and then, I don’t know, open a bed and breakfast?”
“I only know how to do this,” Kung Lao said, ignoring whatever Cole had said about food and the pang he felt at hearing Liu Kang referred to as his family. “I was born for this.”
“Ok, so start your own Shaolin school. Or fuck it, get into MMA. You’d kill.”
“I hadn’t thought of myself as a shifu,” Kung Lao said.
“Young people generally don’t think about getting old,” Cole said.
“Lord Raiden is 3000 years old and has never said anything like this to me.”
“Isn’t he a god?”
Kung Lao nodded.
“He has only told me how important I am to the fate of Earthrealm. But I’ve thought about this and I just can’t see--” Kung Lao paused. This was where he'd angered Liu Kang, this nebulous future.
Cole waited patiently, picking at the grass.
“I am afraid that the tide of history or fate that is pushing me towards the future will only take me. That I am not strong enough to bring anyone else along. That whatever brought me back from death will take someone else in my place to be sure that Earthrealm is safe.”
Cole gave him a small smile.
“I can't fucking imagine the pressure," he said. "I'm sorry about that."
Kung Lao felt wrung out, and leaned back to stare at the sky.
"It's mine to bear."
“About that...has anyone told you how you were brought back?”
“I have an extremely strong will,” Kung Lao said, shrugging.
“Ha!” Cole said. “Wow, modesty isn’t your strong suit, is it. Well, I have news for you.”
###
Kung Lao burst into their room. Liu Kang did not move from where he was meditating, one hand encased in white flame.
“Cole Young told me you threatened Lord Raiden with death unless he dragged my soul from Netherworld,” he blurted.
Liu Kang kept his eyes closed.
“No doubt he exaggerates,” he said.
“He said you raised molten lava up through the surface of the Earth and turned the sky to smoke,” Kung Lao said. “It took all of them to restrain you. Elder Gods, Liu Kang.”
“I don’t want your thanks,” Liu Kang said.
“I want your forgiveness,” Kung Lao said, and dropped to his knees in front of Liu Kang. Liu Kang slowly opened his eyes.
“I thought I would be alone at the end of the tournament. I couldn’t see a future together because of everything I’ve been told. I thought there was no way we could be together.”
“Why would you put such stock in such a belief,” Liu Kang snapped.
“Because I was afraid,” Kung Lao said. “I was afraid that I would lose you.”
Liu Kang froze.
“I was given a companion to love when I was twelve,” Kung Lao continued. “I’ve never wanted anyone else. And I thought that you would be taken from me if I deviated from my path. That I could not protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting,” Liu Kang said.
“That is my error. I regret--I regret saying those things.” Kung Lao said. “I had a simple view of what my destiny could be. I thought I would need a phantom wife to fulfill my duties to my line, for goodness’ sake.”
“You don’t want to continue the line with me,” Liu Kang said, cautiously. “I am holding you back.”
Kung Lao moved so quickly the windows rattled.
“I don’t want to continue my line without you,” he said. “I don’t care about that. I only want you. Please listen to me.”
He gripped Liu Kang's arms. His eyes, his fucking eyes.
“I know I said we would die together or not at all, but I don’t want to die,” he said. It felt more shameful than anything he’d done with his legs wide or mouth open for Liu Kang, but for that reason he had to say it. “I want to live with you. I only want to live if it’s with you.”
"Say it," Liu Kang demanded.
"I love you," Kung Lao said, and Liu Kang encased them both in cold flame as he reached for Kung Lao.
### EPILOGUE
"This dance is...not flattering," Liu Kang said, peering at Cole's cell phone. He was laying across Kung Lao's bare chest, hair a horrific tangle.
"But I am good at it," Kung Lao said. "You're not appreciating it correctly. Watch it again."
"Oh, your skill is undeniable," Liu Kang agreed, angling the phone away from his hands.
Kung Lao lightly spanked him and then bit back a yawn.
"Is there anything else on there?"
"Cat videos, my love."
"I cannot believe this is what we're fighting for," Kung Lao grumbled. "Won't Young realize his phone is missing? They're quite attached to them."
"It's that cursed magic wife," Liu Kang said, and rolled away from another blow, laughing.