Chapter Text
A few days had passed by since Master Bo Rai Cho had picked him up from the gutter, half dead and shivering in the cold rain. The next day had been a blur of heat and sweat and a cold towel pressed to his forward—fever overrunning his body and lungs filling with the sticky mucus of sickness. His only clear memory had been when a boy, maybe only a year older than him, had popped into his vision, swift hands plucking the moist towel from his forehead.
He was pudgy-faced, the kind which indicated a childhood of warmth and food, and his hair was tied back into a half-up ponytail, leaving the rest of his hair to frame his face. The boy's eyes were also sharp, gaze somehow bearing into the soul of Liu Kang.
"Oh! You're-" The boy blinked as Liu Kang winced, the sound loud and grating against his head. Pressure seemed to squeeze at the sides of his head, ears feeling as though they would burst open at any moment, and the boy quieted his voice as he flapped the moist towel in the air and folded it neatly.
"Sorry," his voice was a whisper now, "You're awake! I'm Kung Lao. Descendant of the Great Kung Lao of the Order of the White Lotus. Master Bo Rai Cho says that you're my shi di. Which means that I'm your shi xiong." He placed the now cooled towel back onto Liu Kang's forehead, and Liu Kang let out a pleased sound at the feeling of it against his burning skin.
"My…shi xiong?" The word sounded unfamiliar. But it tasted warm in his mouth, like the youtiaos that the aunties on the side of the road would give him when they saw how his cheek bones stuck out from underneath his skin. Descendant of the Great Kung Lao…the boy sounded important. Too important to be here with a boy picked off of the street.
"Yeah! That means I protect you. I'll keep you safe. Starting with healing you!" Kung Lao beamed at him, turning his body to the side before picking up a small tray from the floor and carefully placing it into his own lap. Liu Kang turned his head to the side, blinking his bleary eyes at the sight of a clay bowl of congee and a matching cup filled with something viscous looking.
The boy helped Liu Kang to sit up, hand warm and steady through the thin cloth of the sleepwear he had been given. Kung Lao moved the towel off Liu Kang's forehead to the side before it fell forward into onto the blankets and lifted the cup to Liu Kang's lips. Hesitantly, the younger boy took a sip, nose scrunching in displeasure at the bitter taste prickling at his tongue.
"I know. It sucks, but it'll help you feel better soon! The Wu Shi Academy has the best medicine." Kung Lao smiled, eyes bright, and Liu Kang focused back onto the liquid in front of him, opening his mouth to drink it all in. The taste was repulsive, coating the back of his tongue, and even after finishing it, the feeling of its bitterness remained.
Kung Lao lifted up his hand, thumb brushing away the droplets of medicine still clinging to Liu Kang's lips and wiped it onto his pants, and Liu Kang felt his heart strangely clench at the feeling. Why was he being so kind?
"You're way better at that than me. Now, here, look! Congee. It's kind of all you can have right now, but," Kung Lao looked off to the side, and Liu Kang craned his neck as well to see that the quarters were completely empty except for the two of them, "I brought you a peach! Don't tell anyone or I'll get in trouble."
From out of nowhere, the boy procured a peach into his hand, and Liu Kang reached a shaky hand up to grab onto it. It was still soft, slightly cold, and he slowly raised it to his lips, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of it. Sweet, sticky. He had never had anything like it.
"Woah! Woah, slow down, you're gonna make yourself sick! Again!" Kung Lao bounced up from his seat, nearly knocking the tray in his lap over, and Liu Kang took the peach away from his lips, the bottom half of his face soaked in its juices.
"Sorry." He mumbled it, casting his eyes downward, and Kung Lao only sighed dramatically reaching his hand to the towel sitting in Liu Kang's lap.
"You have to slow down. Really taste it. Master Bo Rai Cho always says it's the small things that you have to pay attention to." He finished saying it as he wiped the juices away from Liu Kang's face, and Kung Lao dropped it into a bucket of water sitting by the side of the bed.
Slowly, Liu Kang bit back into the peach, trying his best to not rush like before, and Kung Lao smiled at him, carefully transferring the small tray in his lap to Liu Kang's before washing the towel in the bucket of water, wringing it out thoroughly before folding it again. He moved gracefully, movements swift like wind, skin bronzed from the sun, not burned, and Liu Kang wondered how someone like Kung Lao had gotten stuck with him. It seemed like too much of a blessing, but he could not complain. If he did, would the boy throw him back onto the streets?
"Hey! Guess what?" Kung Lao plucked the seed out of Liu Kang's hands, flesh gone from the pit, and placed it onto the empty space of the tray. Picking up the towel once again, the boy started wiping Liu Kang's hands of juices, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to treat a stray like royalty, "I'm also…"
Kung Lao looked side to the side and whispered the next few words like a secret, "the Chosen One."
Liu Kang blinked at the title.
"That means I will fight in Mortal Kombat and save Earthrealm! Look!" Kung Lao unbuttoned the lapels of his changsan to reveal a dragon marking etched right over his heart. "It means that I'm protector of everyone. Lord Raiden said that means I am the guard of the birds, the animals, the bugs, and everything in this realm."
"Lord Raiden?" Liu Kang mumbled the words, and Kung Lao nodded solemnly at the question.
"He's an Elder God. Which means he's super important. He has these cool glowing eyes though, and sometimes, he'll come by to train me."
A god? Liu Kang stared at the boy in front of him, suddenly aware he was in the audience of someone who held much more power than him, and he swallowed nervously, thumb digging into the edge of the tray to try and calm his nerves. He could not afford to upset this boy, lest he ordered Master Bo Rai Cho to throw him out.
Kung Lao eyes flitted down to Liu Kang's hands and pouted, "Hey, there's no need to be scared of me. I am your protector now. You couldn't get rid of me even if you wanted!"
He gave Liu Kang a light playful punch to the shoulder, more of a brief pressure than a punch really, before bringing the bowl up into one of his hands and blowing on the surface of the pure white congee, steam wafting off to the side as he did so.
"Now, eat up! I can't have my shi di be sick." He placed the bowl back into the tray, angling the ceramic spoon towards Liu Kang, and then picked up a shining metal hat resting against the side of the bed. Kung Lao waggled his eyebrows (though Liu Kang thought it looked more like a weird up and down) and smiled at his junior brother, "do you want to see something cool?"
Liu Kang slowly nodded his head, eying the sharp edge of it, and Kung Lao flipped it so that it was upside down before dipping his hand into the concave part of it. The edge of his hat flashed blue, and Liu Kang watched as the other's hand became engulfed by the hat, then his forearm, and then the entirety of his arm. He had never seen anything like this before, and his jaw fell open as Kung Lao then lifted his arm up and out of the hat—the blue edge disappearing—to procure an identical bowl of steaming congee.
"Cool, isn't it?" Kung Lao set the hat off to the side once more. "The arcana I showed you gave me these powers!"
Liu Kang stared in awe at the hat before finally bringing his gaze back to Kung Lao.
"Maybe one day you'll get an arcana too! But that means you have to get better first, so let's eat!" The other boy brought his bowl close to his mouth, blowing off the still-rising steam, and Liu Kang lifted his own spoon to his mouth, warmth blooming through him as he ate next to his new shi xiong.