his apartment was mostly silent, aside from the soft chatter of a jeopardy rerun echoing through the space and the hum of the air conditioning unit nestled in the corner of the room; something he had, that katy would always insist outweighed any part of her current living situation, despite her distinct lack of rent to pay — and that was privacy — a detail shang-chi was also really appreciative of at the moment, as he slumped back onto the couch, ice pack draped over his forehead, muscles aching as he relaxed into the cushions.
he could hear katy rummaging through the kitchen ( or something of the sort ) and was half tempted to remind her not to finish his oat milk, but ultimately decided against it, too tired to protest.
“uhhh - who is —- ryan reynolds?” quickly but lazily answering the jeopardy prompt, the buzzer went off a moment later, an indication no one competing had actually gotten the answer correct. “the correct answer is - ryan gosling,” alex trebek’s smooth voice remarked with disappointed amusement, and shang-chi shot forward to stare at the television, the action jostling his already throbbing brain around in his skull.
“what?? oh that’s such bullshit. ow —-”
Ninjas and rings and dragons. Oh my. All things considered, Katy had kept her cool. She had nearly plummeted to her death outside a fight club, learning her best friend didn’t have a boring ass white name -- in addition to a secret life -- and fired a kill shot into an evil soul sucking dragon/bat/hell creature thing. Well, hell diyu if you cut out the Western concept. Which, Katy was thinking maybe she should. There had been small flashes of panic for the culture she had embraced an Americanized version of. She wasn’t going to start going by Ruiwen anytime soon, but the entire experience had left her wondering.
The flight home had been long. She had spent much of it with her head on Shang’s shoulder or staring out the window. They had insisted she had taken her bow home from Ta-Lo but it didn’t seem TSA safe. Xialing had assured Katy she’d find a way to send it back to San Fransisco. Of course she wouldn’t steal it, there were so many weapons she had access to and Xialing ( the much cooler younger sister ) had only been nice to Katy. She was glad. She needed something tangible to remind herself it had been real. There was Shang-Chi, of course, and the rings but she didn’t spend all of her time with him.
She had since they had been home.
Firing off a quick text to her mom ( hey ma! made it back from looking for shaun’s crazy family in asia. turns out, they be reaaaal crazy. i’m going to make sure he’s ok and i’ll see you tomorrow ), she had barely gotten some ramen down -- the kind you made in the microwave -- before dragging her half conscious friend to his bed. It had been half threatening to drag him by feet and half guiding before she had very lovingly put a blanket on him ( being nice only because it was a special occasion ) before grabbing the one reserved for her and collapsing onto the couch. Mouth open, lots of drools, leg splayed. When she had woken up, Katy hadn’t even known what day it was or what timezone they were in.
It had been a few hours since she had begrudgingly returned to consciousness and as Jeopardy droned on in the background she crouched in the fridge with the yellow glow just a little too bright. “I just think it’s funny, ok, that Pokemon jacked so much of Chinese culture. That Húlijīng? It was out here looking like a Ninetails. You think they went to Ta-Lo?” No response. “Asshole,” she grumbled before heaving the freezer burned bag of chicken nuggets onto the counter and piling an ungodly amount onto a plate. He was in excellent shape. Katy was happy for Shang. Really. She just liked her some good nugs, plain and simple.
Peeking her head into the kitchen at his wrong answer, she tsked under her breath. “C’mon, I trained you better than to not mix up your cute brunette white guys. Reynolds equals Blake Lively and the Proposal. Gosling is the Notebook.” At the sound of the ding she ran over to grab the plate and found a way to balance the ketchup, ranch and barbecue in her arms and under her chin.
“Voila.” She set it all carefully down. “If you eat, you can take ibuprofen. I have some in my bag that’s not expired.”
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