"Why don't you have any tattoos like the other monks?"

Sonya barely finished her question before she heard Kung Lao answer her with a loud, exaggerated groan.

And that was enough to signify to her that she might've struck a sensitive nerve with the question.

"I'm not the only one here who doesn't have a tattoo," Kung Lao replied, as he continued to scour the crowded bookshelf in front of him; although Sonya had a feeling he was just using it to distract himself from her now. "A lot of us chose not to go that route; it's not a mandatory act around here."

While she didn't doubt the Shaolin on that, Sonya felt as though she had a bit of skewed perception on what he was saying.

Her visit to the Wu Shi Academy had been last-minute, and admittedly not well planned out.

She was in search for a piece of documentation that she was hoping Fujin would have stored somewhere in his archives. The Wind God kept a massive collection of documents, reports, eyewitness encounters- anything anyone could imagine, in his possession.

But his collection was split between the Jinsei Temple, his own Wind Temple, and the Academy.

And as her luck would have it, Fujin was out of pocket at the moment, so she couldn't ask him for it directly.

She had already checked the Jinsei Temple, and she had gotten Raiden to take her to the Wind Temple, but both searches had turned up empty in what she was looking for.

Which had lead her to here as a last resort.

In her hunt to find Kung Lao, who she needed in order to gain access to Fujin's archives, Sonya had crossed paths with several monks who had pointed her in his direction. And each monk she had encountered had had a visible tattoo of some kind.

Hell, one of them even had enough tattoos to put a bar hopping biker to shame, which had initially caught her off-guard.

"It seems like a lot of them do though," Sonya noted, speaking from her own observations.

"A lot of them do, and that is their choice," Kung Lao spoke. "But I am actively choosing not to get one- at least, not right now."

"Oh?" she questioned, and admittedly her interest was piqued by his response. "So you are thinking of getting one?"

"I'm not open to making a commitment to anything right now."

Sonya found his phrasing a bit odd, but she opted not to push him on it.

She needed him to find something for her after all.

And she knew Kung Lao was petty enough to claim he couldn't find anything if she kept annoying him.

Sonya tried to focus instead on how he moved along the seemingly never-ending shelf; she focused on how his fingers brushed themselves along the spines of leather-bound books, looking for a word or phrase to catch his attention. Based on how Kung Lao had navigated the archives to begin with, she had a feeling Fujin had a habit of asking the Shaolin to fetch him books from here.

"Are you scared of the pain?"

Why this stupid subject was so interesting to her, Sonya didn't know.

If she had to guess though, it was probably because compared to the Shirai Ryu, and the Lin Kuei, it was odd that the Shaolin of all people would be so open to body modifications. Enough so that they were prevalent around the temples - even around the Jinsei. From the few tattoos she had already seen, it didn't appear that their designs were religious of any kind; although Sonya admitted that she really wouldn't know if they were or not.

At the risk of the Shaolin refusing to help her further, it felt like she just wanted a definite answer from the man.

"I have literally cut my own fingers off with my hat before; I'm not scared of the pain," Kung Lao retorted.

"Oh come on, throw me a bone here," Sonya pressed, and she made herself sound a little more exasperated than she intended to.

The Shaolin laughed before he paused his search and turned around to her.

"Fine," he gave in. "Ask yourself if you've ever seen me sit still for longer than ten minutes."

It felt like a light bulb finally went off.

"Ah," Sonya grinned. "Okay, fair, and reasonable enough. I'll leave you alone now."

Kung Lao rolled his eyes at her before he turned back to his work.

Whether or not the Shaolin had been serious, Sonya felt compelled to believe him anyways.

"You know, I had to sit still for four hours at my longest appointment, and that was just to do the outline," she started. "The colors were an entirely different beast though. I ended up having to split them into two separate appointments so I wouldn't pass out."

"What?"

Sonya watched as Kung Lao paused his search once more as he turned back to face her.

"What?" she repeated, curiously taking note of his surprised expression.

"You have a tattoo?"

Oh.

Right.

In her bid to relate to what Kung Lao had said, she had inadvertently given herself up.

Chuckling, Sonya held her hands in mock surrender. "Okay, I gave myself away on that one - but yes, I have two actually," she admitted, figuring there was no point in trying to deny in any way now. Besides, she doubted that Kung Lao would go running his mouth about them. "Come on, I'm military; it's practically mandatory during boot camp."

Kung Lao laughed at the slight she had made against herself, and the Special Forces.

"Can I see them then?" he asked, as he leaned back against the shelving now.

"Absolutely not," she denied.

"What? Why not?" Kung Lao started, although an answer seemed to come to him before Sonya could reiterate her own. "Ooooh-"

And it didn't take long for her to catch on to what he was implying.

"Hey! They're not like that!"