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After the Shaolin medics treat his wounds, Kenshi is escorted back to his quarters, and he sleeps for a long time. They sedated him for whatever they’d had to do to his eye sockets, and then gave him a bitter-tasting tea that had him well and truly down for the count.
He wakes lying on his side with his hand in a death grip around the hilt of Sento. When he forces his hold to loosen, his fingers cramp, so sore he can’t stretch them out straight. He winces, gingerly resting his palm flat along the wrapped hilt, unwilling to let go completely. While he touches the blade, the world is painted in bluish monochrome, and he can observe his surroundings. Even so, the terror of that black abyss closing in on him still sits heavy in his gut. He takes a deep breath.
With his free hand, he reaches up towards his face, brushing fingertips over one eye. Bandages.
The blindfold Johnny had given him is gently wound around his knuckles. A monk had removed it in order to treat his eyes, and Kenshi’s memory is a bit fuzzy from the sedatives, but he remembers clinging to it, and he remembers the monk conceding the scrap of fabric gently, a hand on his shoulder.
He sits up, every muscle in his body complaining, and draws Sento into his lap.
He can’t quite believe it. His family blade in the hands of Taira blood again for the first time in centuries. Kenshi can’t help but feel like he’s gained everything and lost everything at the same time, but he reminds himself that he is seeing right now. His ancestors have given him his sight back. He can still fight. Can still pull his family out of the corrupt tar pit that is the Yakuza. He’s not useless.
Both hands resting along the scabbard, Kenshi focuses on the blade, feeling the connection between him and it. It’s tenuous, but there, like a thin cerulean thread. The world magnifies when he concentrates on it.
The weave of the tender bamboo fibers in his sleeping mat. The brush of clothing on his skin. The creaking of a settling building. Birdsong outside.
Several sets of footsteps traverse the temple. One set is approaching this room.
They slide the door open but don’t step inside, instead lingering at the threshold. Kenshi lets go of the connection to his sword, and looks over his shoulder.
“Hello, Cage,” he says.
“Hey, man.” Johnny doesn’t move. He has two bowls of food with him, one in each hand.
“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Kenshi asks. “This is your room too.” Liu Kang had given them a room to share, while Raiden and Kung Lao had taken a second one. Probably an attempt at forcing them to resolve their rivalry.
“Right,” he says. It’s another small moment before he shuts the door and approaches though. He sits cross-legged in front of Kenshi and offers one of the bowls of food forward, his thumb hooked over the chopsticks to keep them from rolling off the rim. Kenshi accepts it with a nod, although he doesn’t feel particularly hungry.
Johnny doesn’t seem to be hungry either, as he just sets his own bowl down in front of him, chopsticks speared into the rice.
“You doing okay?” he asks. His voice is subdued. He’s not even bothering with that fake cheerfulness that usually lies on top of his dour moods.
Kenshi readjusts his chopsticks. “Yeah. I’m alright, considering.” He splits a piece of tofu in half and brings it, and a bit of bok choy, up to his mouth. Chewing slowly, he looks at Johnny, which makes the actor glance away, fixing his gaze off to the side.
“Are you?” he asks.
Johnny grins, looking back towards him and leaning back onto the heels of his palms. “Totally!” he says, maybe a bit over-excited. “Totally fine,” he corrects, slightly more mellow.
“Why aren’t you eating?” Kenshi points out. Something is obviously wrong, and, despite being an actor, he’s not doing a very good job of hiding it. Too tired, maybe.
Johnny shrugs. “Not super hungry.”
Kenshi hesitates. He looks down to pick through his bowl a bit more, using his chopsticks to stir the sliced carrots and scallions sitting on top into the rice. “Did something happen?” he asks eventually.
“Are you kidding?” Johny scoffs. He doesn’t elaborate, but thanks to Sento, Kenshi sees the hand Johnny gestures at his face. His eyes.
“Ah,” Kenshi says. “I meant did something happen to you .”
Johnny blows out a frustrated breath. “That’s the problem. I’m barely even sore and you—” he cuts himself off, takes a breath. “I should’ve been faster,” he says, “or not even needed your help in the first place. I’m sorry, Kenshi. Really sorry.”
Kenshi opens his mouth, but no words come out.
Before their mission, in the months when they were training with the monks, Kenshi had likened Johnny to a raging fire that needed to be starved of oxygen before it could be put out. Indulging him would only fan the flames— when he would take the random bets Johnny offered, when he would give in to the man’s taunts during their sparring sessions, when the occasional joke would land and Kenshi smiled despite himself. He didn’t want to be friends with a man like that. Unsure it was even possible with such a massive ego.
But the way Johnny helped Kenshi in Outworld after his blinding, and now, the sheer vulnerability in his voice makes him wonder.
Kenshi wants to kick himself. He really fell for the front?
Not that the ego isn’t real; it definitely is. But…
Kenshi reaches forward, hesitantly squeezing one of Johnny’s hands. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says, trying to sound as convincing as he can. “I’m serious.”
Johnny huffs. He doesn’t believe him. “Either way,” he says, “I owe you my life, and then some.”
Kenshi starts to respond, wants to tell him that there’s no debt, but Johnny cuts him off: “Liu Kang wanted to see you. I think he’s looking for you in the medical ward.” He clasps Kenshi’s hand between both of his, before letting go and standing. “I’ll see you around, Kendoll,” he says, before leaving his untouched rice bowl behind and heading out.
The door clicks shut.
He is a man of honor , Sento whispers, and Kenshi jumps, one hand tightening on the hilt. His ancestors don’t say anything more than that, even when he tries mentally prodding at them.
“Huh,” he says into the quiet room.
***
His ancestors speak through Sento every once in a while.
When he meditates with the blade, it’s a tangled thread of unbroken conversation that he often struggles to pick apart. Over time, he gets better at singling out one ancestor or another to ask for their wisdom. They’re not all men of war, he finds. Some are rice farmers, or fishmongers, or craftsmen. Some criminals. Some picked up the sword to protect, some for vengeance, and some for tradition. Centuries of lives blend together, and Kenshi often wonders just how many souls are contained within the steel.
There are certainly some ancestors he prefers to consult with more than others, but outside of meditation, they always speak as one.
Strangely enough, they seem to… enjoy talking about Johnny. Kenshi supposes it makes sense— he was the previous owner of Sento, as he likes to consistently remind everyone. He fought with the blade before trading it for Kenshi’s after he was blinded.
Still, it almost never fails to catch him off guard when they comment on his character or his life before.
They visit each other occasionally, whenever their schedules allow, but it never lasts particularly long. Johnny has shoots and premieres and general Hollywood schmoozing, and Kenshi has his work in Japan, dealing with the Yakuza.
After divorcing Cris, Johnny sold his beachside mansion and bought a relatively more modest place, not quite beachside, but still with the scent of salt in the air. Kenshi has become familiar with the house’s layout after a couple visits, enough to navigate completely blind, and he can admit that he enjoys spending time there. It’s nice. Johnny likes to take him around Malibu, pointing out and talking excitedly about filming locations, and taking him to whichever local bars are supposedly best so he can order them insane cocktails.
The more he visits and leaves, the more he finds the pattern painful. Even after their mission in Outworld, he never would’ve guessed he would actually miss Johnny Cage.
Johnny always offers to lend him a hand too, which almost makes it worse because he could accept. He could pull Johnny away from this life and into his, at least for a little while. And he knows the actor can handle himself— he won their first fight, and several of their spars at the Shaolin temple— but that doesn’t stop Kenshi from worrying about adding him to the list of the Yakuza’s enemies anyway, and he decides that, no, he can’t ever accept that offer.
He would follow you , Sento says, when Kenshi is back in Japan, alone in his shitty apartment, his screen reader voicing a text from his sister. Kenshi quiets his phone suddenly. Silence rings, but he doesn’t respond. He waits, and the sounds of the city filter through the window. He would stay.
***
Earthrealm’s champions and their allies meet up around once a month at Fengjian Teahouse to catch up with each other. And drink.
Kenshi decided he’d had his share of heavy drinking during his Yakuza days, so he mostly sticks with Madam Bo’s perfectly-steeped Longjing tea, and the occasional bit of warmed sake, never enough to be truly drunk.
Most of his companions feel differently, of course. Johnny, being a Hollywood star, is no stranger to liquid lunches, as he calls them. Or, in this case, a liquid dinner. By the time their food has been mostly cleared, he is very, very drunk, and is leaning heavily into Kenshi, still picking at a plate of plum-sized dumplings drowned in chili oil. He complains about the spiciness in between eating them.
Kenshi is wondering how Johnny got here, and how he’s going to get back to where he’s staying since he’s definitely not driving, and if Kenshi needs to be the one to take care of that, when Johnny’s attentions shift towards him.
His hand, palm warm, lands clumsily on the place Kenshi’s shoulder meets his neck. He runs his thumb along the skin under his collar, and Kenshi swallows.
“Yes, Johnny?” Kenshi asks after a moment. Worrying about his shoes, he hopes he’s not about to threaten to puke.
Through Sento, Kenshi can see the crooked grin that stretches over Johnny’s mouth, the soft look in his eyes that tells him it’s genuine. Kenshi smiles back, just a little, his face warming at the sudden undivided attention. Johnny moves his hand up to Kenshi’s jaw and skims his fingertips over the stubble on his cheek.
Kenshi’s next thought comes one split second before Johnny speaks:
He really likes Johnny’s face, he thinks, and then Johnny is slurring, “Love you, Kendoll,” as if in response.
The timing of it half-shocks him. He certainly hadn’t accidentally said that out loud— he’s not even buzzed. Johnny just…
Sake shows true feelings , Sento says, and Kenshi is glad no one but him can hear it.
His face has never felt hotter.
For the sake of self-preservation, Kenshi gently circles his fingers around Johnny’s wrist and pulls his hand away. His breath stinks of alcohol. It’s not real. Just teasing. Even if Sento thinks otherwise.
Kenshi clears his throat. “Gonna get some air,” he says to the people discreetly eyeing them, which is everyone.
His chair scrapes on the hardwood a bit as Kenshi stands up, and, support gone, Johnny leans back the other way, towards Raiden.
Outside, the air is cool. Not unpleasantly, but certainly more so than the teahouse, warmed by all the bodies in it. Kenshi takes a deep breath, the air sweet from an evening of cooking food and steeping tea. A nearby chestnut tree has begun to ripen. In the monochrome vision that Sento gives him, Kenshi can’t observe the sky, but he can tell from his internal clock and the murmuring sounds of Fengjian village that it’s early nighttime.
Johnny didn’t mean that. Or he was just saying it in a friendly way. He’s overly touchy like that with all his friends, hugging and cheek-kissing— it’s a Hollywood thing, maybe.
You are being foolish. We have the wisdom of thousands.
“Ancestors, I do not need your guidance right now,” he mutters, with as much respect as he can muster.
“What are they saying?”
Kenshi startles, and looks over his shoulder. Kung Lao has just exited Madam Bo’s, the door falling shut behind him, and he’s grinning madly. Sento suddenly feels heavy on his back.
Kenshi crosses his arms, looks forward into the night. “Nothing.”
“Is it about Johnny?” Kung Lao asks. “You were totally blushing in there, man. You’re lucky he’s too drunk to notice.”
“I don’t need your advice either, Kung Lao.”
Now standing at his side, Kung Lao raises both his hands in a mock surrender. “Whatever you say.” A moment passes. Kenshi listens to the strumming crickets. “But,” Kung Lao says, rocking back on his heels, “I’ve seen Raiden develop enough crushes over the years to know what one looks like.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” Kenshi says, trying to give him a side eye in spirit.
Kung Lao laughs. “Am I not being obvious enough?”
“No, you’re being obvious,” Kenshi says. “You’re just also being stupid. He’s drunk.”
“But when he’s not drunk? Man, I was third wheeling your whole thing in Outworld, I know , okay?”
Brow furrowing, Kenshi opens his mouth, but no words come to him. Thing in Outworld ? There was no thing . They hated each other, and then eventually they didn’t. Well, there was more to it than that, but—
Kung Lao snickers, as if he can read Kenshi’s thoughts, and claps a hand onto his shoulder. “Come back in once you cool off,” he says, smiling. “Someone’s got to deal with the bill.”
***
Kenshi always tells Johnny that he doesn’t need to shell out the money for a plane ticket everytime Kenshi has more than a couple days free, but Johnny consistently insists.
Kenshi’s place on the edge of Shinjuku is small and quaint and creaky, but he can’t be bothered to feel embarrassed by it. His apartments are always temporary anyway. Johnny, despite being someone used to living in the throes of obscene wealth, doesn’t seem to mind it too bad.
“Shoes,” Kenshi reminds him when they get back from the airport and Johnny starts to head inside. He backtracks to the door and toes off his loafers.
“Right,” he says. “I always forget about that.”
Kenshi smiles, following him into the main space. “I know you do.”
He doesn’t have Sento on him, so he can’t see the apartment, but his senses know it well enough. The sink in the kitchenette is dripping, and the water droplets catch light from the window. He left an empty coffee cup on the counter somewhere. It’s a studio, so his bed is just tucked away in the corner, worn comforter thrown back at the foot. Couch and TV. Bathroom in the northwest corner, and a linen closet next to it.
“Man,” Johnny says. “Is this the only art you have?”
“What is it?” Kenshi asks. His limited version of sight doesn’t really allow him to discern things like photos and phone screens. He’d seen the little frame, crooked and hardly bigger than his hand, hung on the wall when he moved in and let it be.
“Just a beach scene. Nothing special. Very motel-y.” His voice makes his aversion to this idea clear.
Kenshi shrugs. “This is basically a motel to me,” he says. “I don’t plan on staying long.”
“Yeah, yeah, you live a dangerous life. Doesn’t mean you can’t decorate. Let me know if you want something from my collection,” Johnny says. “I’m very generous.”
Kenshi laughs, making his way over to the couch, careful not to stub his toe on the coffee table like he always does when he’s not paying attention. “I remember the stuff in your old mansion. Didn’t you have to sell it?”
“Not all of it,” Johnny says, his tone giving the impression of a wince. He moves over to sit with Kenshi, couch cushions dipping to his left. “Hey though, I still have the mount for Sento. I can ship it to you.” His knee brushes against Kenshi’s. The touch brings butterflies to his stomach— which is ridiculous and juvenile, he knows. He thinks about the little comments that Sento has made which basically translate to ‘you are in love,’ and he swallows.
“That’s okay, Cage,” Kenshi says, his amusement warm in the cold apartment. “Doesn’t really matter if I can’t see the decor half the time anyway.”
They go on like this for a bit, chatting about nothing. Eventually, Johnny gets up to make food. Curry, he announces. Kenshi listens as he roots around through his miniature kitchen, collecting utensils and mixing bowls and whatever else it is he needs. Johnny makes Kenshi pinky promise he’ll be careful before he lets him in on the prep. In the middle of Kenshi’s reassurance that his senses are extremely enhanced and that he’s perfectly equipped to be dealing with blades, he feels Johnny take his hand and lay a chunk of ginger root in his palm.
“Alright, mince that, Karate Kid,” he says. “It’s already peeled.” Kenshi smiles.
As they work, Johnny asks how his family is doing and Kenshi tells him about his sister Keiko, who had gotten irezumi the last time he was in DC and developed a small infection. He’d been immeasurably upset by it when he’d first learned about the tattoo— his own tattoos are a source of nothing but shame to him— but now he relays the information to Johnny coolly, pushing his knife through the ginger root. Around the eye and whisker of the black Namazu had gone a tender, mildly itchy red, and she’s taking antibiotics for it.
“And how’s the Sento-family?” Johnny asks afterwards. Kenshi hears the punch of a can-opener puncturing a lid. Then a pan being set onto the stove. The sound and smell of sauteing onions.
“Good,” Kenshi tells him, although he’s pretty sure they don’t really have an emotional state. Not conventionally, at least. “They…” He hopes he doesn’t regret this. “They talk about you. Occasionally.” He hears a shifting of clothing: Johnny turning to face him.
“Yeah?” he says. “All good things, I’m sure.”
“Surprisingly,” Kenshi says, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Johnny punches his shoulder light-heartedly. “Haha,” he fake laughs. “Very funny, Takahashi.”
“They tell me you’re a good man,” Kenshi blurts out before he can think about it too hard and change his mind, and he feels Johnny still. “That I can trust you, and that… you want to be with me.”
Johnny doesn’t say anything for a moment, which is an exceedingly rare occurrence. He wants to joke about it, but finds that his mouth is dry. Instead, he keeps cutting the ginger, feeling with his fingers to check that it’s thoroughly minced, and fails to fight the heat climbing the back of his neck.
In the silence, he feels Johnny move closer to him.
“Wow, your ancestors are kind of nosy,” he says, and Kenshi can’t help the smile that tugs at his mouth.
Fingers brush against his wrist. Kenshi sets down the knife and takes note that the blade is pointing to the right. He angles his face towards Johnny, and a palm fits softly over his cheek.
Kenshi leans forward.
“Woah, hold on.” There’s a feeling of displacement in the space in front of Kenshi’s face— Johnny moving back. His hand stays where it is though, warm on his skin. “First,” he says, “some antici…”
“What—” Kenshi starts, but Johnny cuts him off with a finger to his lips.
A couple seconds pass. “... pation,” he finishes.
Kenshi bursts out laughing. “What was that?” he asks.
Johnny’s hand on his cheek slides back to cup the nape of his neck, thumb brushing at the ends of his blindfold. “You have so much to learn,” he says. “ Rocky Horror is a classic.”
“Alright,” Kenshi says, and leans in to kiss him. He misses, just barely, kissing the corner of Johnny’s mouth, which is stretched into a grin.
Johnny realigns them, although the fact that neither of them can stop smiling makes it not much of a kiss at all. Kenshi doesn’t mind.
“As much as I’d like to just make out with you right now,” Johnny says, “I’ve got big plans for this curry.”
“I understand,” Kenshi says, injecting utmost seriousness into his voice.
“How about later, baby?” Johnny proposes.
Something light flutters in Kenshi’s chest, and he pretends to consider for a moment. “Depends on how good the curry is.”
Johnny nudges him forward with the hand on the back of his neck, and kisses his cheekbone, right under the edge of the blindfold. “Johnny Cage never disappoints,” he says. “Prepare to be wowed.”
The touch of his hand disappears then, and he picks up the cutting board that holds the minced ginger, adding it to the pan.
Kenshi wonders briefly if a sword can be smug. A problem for later, he supposes.