Liang brings us to the kotatsu that has the teapot with cups on it. He pours us all a cup. "So you just wanted to show the boys the temple, right?" Liang asks in a monotone voice. He must be angry at me because he never talks like that.
"If that's alright with you," Kazu says, "Maybe we can get one of the monks to show us around so that you and Ichiro can catch up." He smiles slightly.
"Sure, sure, that sounds fine." Liang replies. We drink our tea, the boys and Kazu finish their cups faster than Liang and I. Liang tells them that the monks are in the rock garden. Kazu nods, soon leaving with our boys.
I look at Liang, "I-I'm sorry for what I said, about forgetting my past. I never intended to imply-"
"That you forgot about me? After everything we've been though, Kai, you want to forget all about me? About us?" He says, clearly hurt.
"It's not like that."
"Well clearly it is."
I sigh, "Liang, just listen to me. Please."
"Fine..."
"Thank you. Now, as I was saying, I never wanted to forget you and I never have. Liang, you mean so much to me, how could I forget you? After what I did to K- Ruo-jian,I was depressed. I regretted what I did."
"You went into hiding."
"No. I didn't. Not immediately after. When he came back as a human, that was when we went into hiding. We meet Haruta Shimada, we became friends with him and his brother. They found out who we really were. We ended up teaching them our ways and-"
"They tapped into your power. I figured as much. That's why you both are with those boys now. Because the clan honors you both. I know how that works, I have a clan of my own. Just tell me the real reason you changed your names."
"Haruta and Gansa gave us those names. They believed that those names fit us, considering that we never told them our real names."
"You both were renamed by two humans?"
"Yes."
"You never told them- Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously. We told them that we didn't have names. They found it strange, though they named us anyway."
"I find that strange and hard to believe."
"What do you want from me? The names we have now reflect what we are now, Japanese dragons."
"Yeah, Japanese dragons from China," Liang laughs.
"Still," I sigh, "What have you been up to."
"Living life. The clan that I watch over have sorta taken over the temple. So I sorta live here now. On top of all that, I actually haven't seen anyone else."
"Meaning?"
"The other dragons that were with us, they're all gone. Or maybe in hiding. I haven't seen anyone since you and Ruo-jian last fought. I mean, the fight between you two was devastating. So much was in ruins, then suddenly everyone disappeared."
"Strange, I would've expected them to have come back or something by now. They can't be rebuilding, can they? I mean, it happened so long ago-"
"You forget the part where you two basically devastated the land. It was hard for everyone. They had to tend to their wounded, their dead, hell even their own pride. They had to repair everything, Kai. It was hard for everyone."
"Especially them-"
"Of course!"
"I didn't realize-"
"You never stopped to think how it would affect everyone, neither of you did. You two fought until one of you was dead. There was so much death, damage, destruction. Kai, there are still some places that are recovering. If not physically, then mentally, many gods refuse to set foot on earth out of fear. They became afraid of us-"
"Stop it Liang!" I interrupt him. He looks up to me, quickly realizing that I'm crying. I'm trying to stop, but he's not wrong. What we did, hell what we did before, was awful. Liang moves over to me but I stop him. I hate to say that I forgot what I did, I haven't. I just been refusing to remember it. I glance up to Liang, I can tell he regrets what he said, but I don't blame him. We both know that I'm not a crier, then again he brought up some things that I truly didn't want to remember.
"Kai..." He starts before sighing, "I-I didn't mean to make you cry... I just-" he shakes his head, "I'm sorry." He moves back to the other side of the table then glances down to his tea. I sit there quietly, refusing to think of the past while thinking of it at the same time. We both sit there quietly before he starts up again, "Kai, I think we should at least talk about it..."
"So I can throw myself a pity party?" I look him in the eyes.
"But you're so good at doing it-"
"And hate doing it at the same time."
Liang sighs, "Look, I didn't mean to bring it up and I know you didn't mean what you said earlier. Why don't we just think of the good things we have."
"Like?"
"For starters, we have some nice tea," he chuckles a little.
I crack a smile, "We're in a peaceful place, in a relatively peaceful time."
"True, we have our clans."
"We have each other..." When I said that, Liang almost choked on his tea. He immediately looked up to me. My nose must still have been red from when I was crying, though it had to of started to blend in with what the rest of my face was doing. Liang put his teacup down before moving towards me again. I feel my whole face getting warmer, did I really just say that.
"I guess you did miss us," Liang says in a quieter tone. I only nod slightly in reply. Liang takes my hand then makes me look at him. Is he going to- Wait is that-
"Master! I sensed-" Hanzo says out of breath before stopping in his tracks.