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Johnny Cage sat alone in the living room of his mansion. It was late, he was alone, and the emptiness of the place was gnawing at him.
Sitting on the couch with one of his old movies filling the background silence, he realized how big the space felt. It hadn’t always felt this way, he knew that well.
The walls, once filled with laughter and conversation, now only echoed whatever noise he'd make. He thought he had grown used to it, it had been like that since the divorce with Cristina had been finalized months ago. Yet somehow the bitterness of it still lingered in his mind like a wound that hadn’t quite healed.
He reached for the bottle of whiskey on the table beside him, already half-empty. He poured himself another glass, not bothering to measure it out. He took a long sip, letting the too-familiar burn of the alcohol drown out the ache in his chest. It was easier this way, easier to drink away the pain than to face it head-on.
As the whiskey flowed through his veins, memories of his Cristina began to surface. He saw her smile, heard her laughter, and then the arguments that had eventually torn them apart. They had once shared everything, this house, their lives, their dreams; but now all of that was gone.
Compared to what it once was, the mansion felt like a tomb, simply filled with the ghosts of a life he no longer had.
Johnny slumped back on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling, whatever was playing on the TV now had become an afterthought, all since the alcohol had started loosening his thoughts a while ago.
How did it all go so wrong? he wondered. They had loved each other once, hadn’t they? But somewhere along the way, the fame, the money, and his relentless pursuit of stardom had driven a wedge between them. He’d become a man obsessed with his image, with being Johnny Cage, the action star, and had forgotten how to be Jonathan Carlton, the man she had fallen in love with.
His thoughts drifted to the time after the news of the divorce, he hadn't even had the time to process his emotions before he was dragged on an outwordly adventure.
He remembered the time well, it hadn't been long ago, and now he was stuck dealing with his own emotions, the same ones he had to push down his throat to deal with the new routine that had suddenly become his life.
Despite all the feelings he had to ignore at that time, Johnny couldn't say he completely hated those months, after all that’s when he had met Kenshi Takahashi.
Yeah, their whole relationship had started with the wrong foot, he couldn't deny that. It had started with a fight and resentment that went back generations; but that didn't mean Johnny hadn't grown to enjoy Kenshi's presence.
Kenshi was a skilled martial artist, quiet and intense, the complete opposite of Johnny’s loud persona. They had clashed from the start, competing over everything, being at each others throats at every chance.
But something unexpected had happened. In the middle of all the chaos of Kenshi losing is vision and having to fight Shang Tsung, mutual respect had grown between them.
Kenshi was never impressed by Johnny’s fame or his Hollywood lifestyle. He saw the real Johnny, the man behind the movie star façade. Damn, the man had even sacrificed a part of himself, of his life, for Johnny's sake, saving him from death.
He remembered setting Sento, the blade that had costed him 3 million dollars, on Kenshi's hand, and he remebered feeling alive, realizing that they had managed to become friends. Real friends.
Kenshi had been there for him during those dark days after the divorce, when Johnny felt like the world was collapsing in on him. He didn’t say much, but he was just… there, a steady presence when everything else in Johnny’s life felt chaotic.
Johnny took another drink, his thoughts swirling. Kenshi had become his best friend since then, someone who understood him without actual judgment. Their friendship had filled some of the void left by the divorce, but it hadn’t erased the pain entirely, especially now, that Kenshi was miles away, visiting Japan to deal with "unfinished bussiness", as he called them.
The alcohol was hitting him even harder now, he found himself suddenly missing his best friend.
"Maybe i should call him." Johnny spoke out loud to the empty room, his voice rough from the alcohol.
But it was easier said than done. Johnny still wasn’t ready to confront the loneliness, the regret, the way his supressed feelings were coming to get him. He filled his glass once again, swallowing the alcohol like it could drown his pain.
Feeling the weight of everything pressing down on him, the mansion seemed to grow larger, the silence louder, more oppressive, his thoughts suddenly becoming too much to handle alone.
For a moment, he considered picking up the phone and calling Kenshi, but what would he say? He didn’t want to burden his friend with his mess. Kenshi had his own life, his own battles to fight. Johnny was supposed to be the strong one, the guy who had it all together, he was an actor, he could swallow his feelings and put on a mask.
Except he couldn't. Not anymore.
His vision blurred slightly as he grabbed his phone, his fingers clumsily scrolling through contacts until he found Kenshi’s name. For a few long moments, he just stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the call button, his mind racing with doubt and alcohol-induced recklessness.
What the hell am I doing? Johnny thought, stopping himself. Kenshi didn’t need to hear his ramblings, especially not now when he was busy in another country. But the weight of the silence, the weight of all the buried feelings, was suffocating. He needed to say something, anything, just to get it out.
Staring down at Kenshi's contact information, his mind spun with fragments of thoughts, of emotions he hadn’t dared to acknowledge, too afraid of what they meant. What did it mean that he couldn’t stop thinking about Kenshi? What did it mean that, in the silence of his empty home, the one person he longed for wasn’t his ex-wife, but Kenshi?
Before he could realize it, the truth, raw and brutal as it always was, clawed its way to the surface, emboldened by the whiskey.
Somewhere along the way, in the middle of saving the world and losing everything else, Johnny had fallen for his best friend.
"Fuck," He whispered to himself, swallowing hard, the word barely audible in the empty room, barely audible over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. His chest tightened with the weight of what he was feeling, and for a brief moment, he considered just closing his phone and drowning himself in what was left of the bottle of whiskey. Maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe the alcohol was twisting things, making him feel something that wasn’t actually there.
But was it the alcohol?
He stared at Kenshi’s name on the screen for what felt like the hundred time, his mind flickering through different moments they had shared.
Like he was seeing a movie of the last months of his life, he started recalling situations. He remembered the quiet conversations after a long day of training, the way Kenshi would give him that half-smile when Johnny was being his usual cocky self, the way his heart would skip a beat when Kenshi teased him back. It was so easy to write it all off before, so easy to assume he was just being stupid, just misreading things.
But here, alone in his empty mansion, it didn’t feel like he was misreading anything. It felt like the truth was gnawing at him, at his soul, trying to force its way out.
Still, doubt clawed at him, an insistent voice making it's presence in the back of his mind. What if he was wrong? What if he destroys everything?
His breath hitched, a shiver stricking him as anxiety creeped up his spine. Kenshi was his best friend. The one solid thing he had in his life. Was he really about to jeopardize that over some drunken confession? What if Kenshi didn’t feel the same? Worse, what if Kenshi hated him once he confessed?
"What am I even thinking?" Johnny muttered, rubbing his eyes as if that would somehow clear the fog in his head.
Gods, he felt stupid, swallowed whole by too many emotions. He wasn’t supposed the type of guy who got all emotional and needy. He was an actor, goddammit. He was supposed to be the guy who had everything together, not the pathetic mess of feelings he was right now.
His hand hovered over the keyboard. Maybe he could just forget about it, pretend like none of this had ever come to mind. But deep down, he knew he couldn’t. It was like a storm brewing inside of him, and the burning of his throat was a reminder that no amount of alcohol could drown it.
His hands shook as he began typing, his brain too muddled to stop the words from spilling out onto the screen, his heart being laid out bare, exposed piece by piece by his drunk self.
"I don’t know why I’m texting this but… I miss you. Like, really miss you. More than I should, probably. I don’t even know what the hell I’m saying, i'm way too drunk for this."
He paused, his breath catching in his throat, the gravity of what he was doing sinking in, the last of his sober thoughts attempting to kick some sense into him.
He sighed and continued typying, it was already too late, he decided, he had already dug his own grave, he may as well lay in it.
"I can’t stop thinking about you, Kenshi. And it’s not just cause you’re my best friend, I don’t think it ever was, it's way more than that. I think it’s always been."
This was stupid, wasn’t it? Johnny Cage, the superstar, the guy who had it all figured out, confessing his feelings in a sloppy, drunken text.
His thumb hovered over the send button, his heart racing in his chest, his stomach twisting in knots.
He deleted it all.
And started all over again.
His heart pounded in his chest, his fingers hovering uncertainly over the screen. Johnny could feel the panic starting to make him physically sick, or maybe it was the alcohol, he felt like he didn't know anything anymore, the only knowledge he had being the fact that he was well past the point of no return.
He needed to say it.
No, he needed to feel it.
He needed something clearer, something simpler. He didn’t need a grand declaration, he didn't need to act out his feelings like this was another one of his movies. He needed to make it real, raw, unfiltered.
With a deep breath, Johnny found himself typing again, this time in Japanese, a language that he had picked up bits of when he traveled the world and when he listened to Kenshi speak under his breath. Somehow, it felt more personal, like an anchor to the man who had pulled him through so much.
愛してる.
He stared at the words on the screen. Three simple characters. Three characters that held more weight than anything he’d ever said before.
This was it. The core of everything he had been feeling. No more pretending, no more lies, no more running from the truth.
For all he could know right now, the message had a possibility of being half broken japanese, but checking if the characters were right was beyond his drunk self, instead, he took a deep breath, gulping down what was left of his glass.
“I love you,” he whispered, barely hearing his own voice, as though saying it aloud would solidify the moment.
Before he could stop himself, his thumb pressed send.
The message was out there. 愛してる.
His heart was spilled to the world, to what he considered his world.
There was no taking it back now. Johnny Cage, the man who could face down monsters and demons without flinching, the man who could joke even in the worst situations, now sat alone in the silence of his mansion, the internal turmoil setting in.
What had he just done? What if he had just ruined everything? What if Kenshi laughed it off, or worse, just… disappeared? He didn’t know if he could handle that.
Overwhelmed, Johnny threw his phone down onto the couch, feeling his stomach churn with regret, the alcohol suddenly turning into a bitter taste in his tongue, the feeling spreading to his veins, to his soul.
"I'm an idiot," he muttered, sinking into the couch. He wanted to cry, scream, anything. Instead, he just laid there, with his eyelids growing heavy, with emotions that were too much to bear.
"A pathetic, drunk idiot."