can you afford to be without it?

If you were here from the very start of this blog, you know it began as a place entirely for MK11’s/Cary Tagawa’s Shang Tsung BEFORE it became a mortal kombat hc blog. His characterization was how I found out abt the fandom, but it was ultimately the very unexpected, but extremely passionate mortal kombat fanbase that made me stay.

I started this blog from a personal slump with no intention to write for anyone but myself at the time, in abt 2021. That people found my writing, actually really enjoyed it, was something that I fear I haven’t said thank you enough for.

I don’t come on this blog often if at all, but to anyone that reads this that follows me, know that I still think about how much fun it was to see your reblogs/tags, comments, and messages in my inbox years ago. Without going into too much detail, your interactions have definitely made some hard days a lot easier to live through.

As for Cary Tagawa: I clearly did not know the man personally but goodness am I so grateful for him. Without his characterization of Shang Tsung — that all knowing, sly and sexy snake bastard — I would never have had the pleasure of writing for this fandom, nor even knowing it existed.

So thank you Mr. Tagawa!! And I don’t just speak for myself, I’m sure the rest of the mortal kombat fandom feels the same way too. It would not be the way it is today without him :’).

And again, THANK YOU GUYS. I have since moved on from this fandom but I fear it will have a good piece of my heart for as long I live. U guys are truly the awesomest.

—

"Why haven't you told them to leave? It's late. They must be trying to rob us of our crops again."

"He said he knew you. He gave me this as proof."

In their father's hand was a small rat's skull, yellowed and cracked in places. Upon inspection y/n had nearly tossed it out the window, which overlooked the steps this person stood patiently at the bottom of, but the initials inscribed at the back of the rat's skull were no lie — initials that did not belong to y/n.

"Do you know who they are?" Y/n's father prodded, noting the spark of recognition in their eyes.

Y/n looked at him, then out the window to the figure. Their eyes met.

"I might," responded y/n, setting the skull on the table before heading out the door.

Y/n stood at the top of the steps now, wasting no time to reassure their father that they'd be careful with the stranger. Because no sooner were they darting down the steps, not looking at their feet but rather training their eyes on the figure's face. It could not have been him.

"Introduce yourself." Y/n motioned their head to the man curtly, who was grinning warmly for reasons unknown to them, "why did you have that skull with you? Did you steal it?"

His dark eyes, even darker in the late evening light, brightened in curiosity. Y/n bit their tongue at the contortion of his face, watched as it twisted into an expression they'd mulled over thousands of times in their head.

"Have I changed so much that you no longer recognize me, my friend?" He beamed, his dimples only adding to that familiar charm. "Perhaps it's shocking to see me dressed like this. I left you about as filthy as my travelling cart, didn't I?"

Shang Tsung.

Y/n darted down the final steps, erupting in shrill laughter, pulling the man they thought they'd never see again into an embrace. He returned it, laughing nearly as loud, and not without a little amusement on y/n's end — his arms were firmer than what they'd remembered. Warmer, somehow.

To damn y/n further , he smelt tantalizingly foreign, not like any herb or spice y/n had come across in all their years working the fields. They took a deep sigh as their laughs began to subside, basking in the man's warmth and scent, forgetting they had things to say.

"I take it you missed me," he teased, his voice vibrating against y/n's chest, "I hope you know that I've been awfully busy."

"Clearly!" Y/n chirped. "Look at you! I thought you were a guard sent to detain me for stealing our neighbor's crops!"

Our neighbors, Shang Tsung thought as he recollected the memory, your neighbors were once ours.

Y/n pulled away at last, looking Shang Tsung up and down. "How in the gods' names have you been?"

"The empress has need of my skills, y/n. She has hired me as her private herbalist." A lie.

"The empress?! "

"She's brought me great fortune. I sleep in a bed with pillows now. Not in my cart."

Y/n was ecstatic, even this late into the night. Their voice didn't seem to lower despite knowing they'd wake the rest of the house as they spoke. Shang was not one to protest, eyeing them with a fond smile plastered across his hardened features. It was almost painful how much his cheeks strained in all his happiness.

It felt awfully grim too, standing so close to the one he'd secretly vowed to return to. They seemed to not have changed in his absence, and that they could recall the stories of their childhood about as vividly as the sorcerer was proof. But it was not that they had changed that pained the man. It was that he'd changed. And too much.

Shang Tsung was hesitant to lay a fond hand on them as they spoke. Even as a boy he was afraid to push his luck, knowing full well he respected y/n too much to ruin their bond then. But now on his hands were too much blood. They were the only person that had not been perverted by his greed, and worse yet, perhaps the only being that he had not considered simply murdering to his advantage. To lay a hand on them now would soil them, he feared, just as he'd feared that everything he knew now, he was bound to deface.

"Would it be too much to ask you to come back more often?" Y/n asked, ripping the sorcerer from his thoughts.

Shang Tsung feigned a contented grin. Y/n was none the wiser. "I make no promises."

They returned with a frown. "I know that already. You said you'd come back in a year and you never did until now. We're much, much older."

"That we are it seems."

To think he'd wanted to start a family with them. Even after slaughtering that Zaterran's beloved wife and child, he slept fantasizing about coming home on a day like that day's. How they screamed and thrashed before him as they died. He woke up the morning after the murders feeling more proud of himself than ever. Proud and alive.

What had he become, really?

Thoroughly disgusted with where his thoughts had taken him, Shang Tsung turned his head to face y/n. He hadn't realized how abrupt his motions were, nor how ravenous his eyes had suddenly become. Something in him had shifted.

"Shang?"

"Mmm?"

His voice had stooped low, grown raspier. Never in y/n's life had his expression been so indescribable, so beyond them that it had gone so far as to frighten y/n. But it had been years. They could not have seen the desperate pleas in the sorcerer's eyes for their forgiveness, not for his wrongdoings, but that he could never be the man y/n would come to want -- not now, not even then.

"What are you doing, Shang?"

He was drawing close. They were sat on a large stone just a ways down from where they used to talk as kids, situated thigh-to-thigh under the bright Outworld moons. The sorcerer's breath ran hot against their lips as he inched closer, and Shang was too familiar with people — dead or alive — to not have noticed y/n shiver in delight.

"I missed you too much, y/n," cooed the sorcerer, practically kissing his words onto y/n's lips, "I should have never left."

At last did their kiss begin, warm and breathless. The sorcerer had cupped a hand around y/n's cheek, running hot from the anticipation of his lips. It was just as they'd imagined it thousands of times over, but this time real, and electrifyingly wet.

Pulling back only to catch breaths of air, the sound and sensation of their lips clashing, tongues slick and mingling, proved almost too much for either of them to handle. The sorcerer committed to memory the sound of y/n groaning into his mouth, even shaking him to a near confession of his crimes. It had only driven him to probe deeper with his tongue, a gesture y/n met with equal determination. Their mouths were slick with years worth of neglected desire.

In all his excitement, however, the hand cupping y/n's face had become far too tight for comfort.

Pulling away for good this time, y/n hissed, sucking in the cold air through their teeth as they recoiled.

Shang Tsung was quick to apologize.

"No...don't be."

"But-"

"I'm sorry, Shang."

"Sorry? For what?"

"I'm already spoken for. We married a few years after you left.” Y/n looked away.

“This was…we made a mistake. I’m so sorry.”

—

It had been only weeks since that day.

Shang Tsung was sitting silently in his study, recording the ingredients to a potion he'd recently invented on scrolls of paper. General Shao's second in command had barged in, then.

"Next time, don't ask for my men to do your dirty work." Reiko scoffed. "This could've been done on your own."

"The court would have me beheaded if they found out it was me.” A lie Shang Tsung told himself — he could have very well shapeshifted to do the deed. But he wanted no blood on his hands. At least, not this blood.

Tsung cleared his throat to speak, gently setting a heavy cloth bag of coins and gems on his table. “So?"

"You ordered my men to pose as the constabulary and kill a defenseless farmer in the south. Did you really think my people were necessary? The poor man hardly fought back!" The general's second in command hissed, silver eyes catching fire. Reiko snatched the hefty sum of pay from the sorcerer's desk. "I should demand more compensation for wasting our time."

"If that is what you'd like."

"It is."

Shang Tsung huffed in irritation, pulling a drawer open in search for a wad of extra funds. He could feel Reiko's eyes scrutinizing his every move.

When he'd finally fished around in the drawer for far more than what the warrior had expected, Shang Tsung could only sigh at the look of self content on his face.

But he would not hand it over yet.

"Do you know what became of their spouse?" Asked the sorcerer, sounding uncharacteristically concerned. Reiko's brows tied into a knot.

"Why should you care? Give me my pay and be done with this."

"Answer my question."

He sounded grave now, and the warrior almost wanted to laugh at this. But only because he had little else to do than to spar with his battalion for the rest of the day, Reiko opted to humour the sorcerer.

"My men told me they were devastated. And whatever was in that note you sent only made it worse," he revealed. "What did you send anyway? Some sort of recompense? I never took you for a kind man."

Shang Tsung felt anger boil in his chest at his colleague’s remarks. But he knew he was right. Right enough not to fight it.

“It was none of the sort, Reiko. Not entirely.”

“Then? Hurry up and tell me. I’m busy.”

“I’d written an apology.”