Archive of Our Own

“This is all your fault!”

A stadium of destruction; fire ripping at the edges of the platform, char and ash forming impenetrable smoke to block everyone’s lungs, splatters of rain that ceased the second the atmosphere shifted, a tense mood fuelled by ire and spite breathing life into it. In the middle of all, three mystic monkeys. 

“My fault? Wow, you’re really gonna go there? You let her get away!” To the right, Macaque. Ends of his scarf scorched with snuffed out flames, face contorted into a waning smirk with too many teeth, eyebrows furrowed in a mix of concentration and frustration. His arms woven together, hands digging into his own skin and fur under layers of threadbare fabric. His tail lashed like an angry snake, shoe tapping against the metal, from anxiety or rage no-one could tell.

“Because you distracted me, I had it covered!” To the left, Sun Wukong. His tied capes fluttering in the breeze, ends of his clothing tattered from claw marks. His fur is as dishevelled as the rest of him, face pinched into something angry and perturbed. Wukong’s stance is firm, his mouth agape as he stares daggers at Macaque. His ears flap, tiny little flicks nearly lost in the whirlwind of chaos. 

“Uhm, guys?” And in the middle, MK. His eyes wide with flecks of fear emerging through the coils of deep, rich brown. His hair, normally held together in a spiky and flashy style, had been tousled to a besmirched state. His body retracts into itself, one foot over the other and shoulders hike up to his chin. The wind passes by them as if they weren't even there.

Wukong’s gaze flickers, determined to stay trained on Macaque, dedicating each minute change in his body language to memory. His line of sight strayed to his successor, hunched over his staff, a white-knuckle grip. A near silent, relenting sigh.

“Alright, kid. Don’t worry about it, was kind of a bad fight, but it wasn’t your fault! Not something I can say for everyone here…” A sharp glare to the right, “But it’s fine!” Macaque rolls his eyes.

“Maybe it would have gone better if you weren’t going so easy.” He suggests with a light shrug, rolling his shoulders back with an audible pop, “She only got away because you weren’t hitting to kill.”

A growl that is more frustrated than angry came from Wukong’s throat, “She wouldn’t have gotten away if you didn’t insert yourself where you’re not wanted.”

A fight is brewing between them, the flames smouldering around them only picks up, twirling and dancing around in pure entertainment. MK frowns, his forehead creasing as his head pinballed between Wukong to Macaque. They slam their staff down, a ricochet of noise rippling through the metal ground. Wukong jumps while Macaque winces.

“Stop fighting! Just– shut up! This isn’t helping at all.” He roars, panting through the sweat rolling down his face. Wukong looks sheepishly away, murmuring an apology, Macaque leans back with a ‘he started it’ muttered under his breath. 

Taking a moment to inhale and exhale slowly through his nose and mouth, MK calms himself down. The demon they were fighting had gotten away, barely a scrape on her. She was sneaky, slippery like trying to hold water in your hands. As if she knew all their next moves before even they did. 

It was supposed to just be MK, the demon had been causing issues all around the city and people were complaining rather loudly. Wukong must have been watching him from a distance because once MK had been knocked off his feet for the fifth time in under two minutes, he was there in a flash of gold. Not even the two of them could keep up with the constantly shifting demon, her eyes glowing with a sense of pride, or perhaps conceitedness, being able to get the better of the two of them like that…

MK’s fist, the one not clutching to his staff for dear life, tightens. Jaw clenching until he could feel his teeth grinding apart, allowing himself a glance up at the monkeys standing awkwardly near him. 

“Let's just say, it was no-one’s fault. There!” A grin tries to weave its way to his face, but it must look as fake as it feels. Wukong frowns, it’s pulled at the edges and uneven. Macaque turns away from them both, kicking over a singed wooden crate. 

They clear their throat, watching as Macaque’s ear flicks in acknowledgment of the sound, but he doesn't turn back to face them.

“Macaque.” MK grits out, more sternly than his words before. He may have been trying to accomplish something adjacent to redemption, but MK was trying to keep authority. Macaque was as easy to hold onto as oil, as easy to grasp as a vagabond cloud. He sort of came and went wherever he pleased, sometimes showing up and pressing himself to the corner of a room they were gathered in, piping in his unwanted opinion in at various points. Other times, he would disappear for months. Gone, as if he was never there to begin with. 

Today was one of the times in which Macaque showed up for no discernible reason. MK had seen him around the place prior to the fight, he had been sitting on a park bench. It was mildly unusual to see Macaque in such a peaceful environment that he had felt compelled to investigate.

“The city is alight with demur today.” Macaque told them, MK had been confused at the time, given the only words he exchanged so far had been a greeting, along with Macaque’s refusal to elaborate. He soon discovered the issue, when he ran into the many people complaining about the items they lost after the run in with the demon. Items they had just known the location of, disappeared as if lost to time…

With those six ears of his, though MK was starting to believe them more of a myth than truth given he’s never seen them, he must have heard the ruckus. Now here they were, three mystic monkeys, and no success. 

Macaque finally looks up at him, one eyebrow lifted in questioning, and tail lazily swishing back and forth. It is an awkward staring contest as both of them wait for the other to say something first. MK, waiting for a verbal sign of recognition. Macaque, waiting for the reprimanding. The one to break the silence, the string between them unshakable as it waits for a disturbance, was MK. He brushes his hands down on his jacket, washing away debris on sullied yellow fabric.

“If you want to be helpful, you could investigate what the demon left behind.” It comes out as a statement, but his resolve was wavering, and the cracks shone through to reveal the meek question it really was. MK was told to be demanding, to be firm with Macaque, to show he couldn’t get away with whatever he wanted. Still though, snakes of fear would bite. Teeth digging into his skin, he couldn’t help but dither under Macaque’s sharp stare. Slits of pupils that seem to rip through the foundation of his very soul. MK shudders under the scrutinising gaze. Although, his right eye always seemed a step behind the left. If MK didn’t know any better, he would assume Macaque simply had a lazy eye. This, he knew, was not the case. It was hidden, a glassy glamour cast over the moonlight white eyeball. Sometimes he would yearn to prod at Wukong, begging him for answers. Was it you, he wants to ask. But he doesn’t dare interrogate, afraid of the answer, afraid he already knows.

Despite this, Macaque abides. A short shrug and he turns to poke at it. MK moves to Wukong, unsure if he was searching for praise or guidance. Instead, the monkey with fur like gilded silk doesn’t even look at him. Wukong was staring off into the distance, eyes far away. MK reaches a hand up, hesitance snaking through his limbs, and shakes his shoulder lightly. Wukong is not broken from his trance lightly, a shuddering jump as he is forced back to reality. Light bleeds into those glazed over irises.

“Oh! Sorry, bud.” He shakes himself, speaking mousily. It was MK’s turn to frown, turning to face where Wukong had been looking.

A sunset, bleeding rays of red, melding into gradients of orange and yellow, flecks of blue and pink scattered few and far in between. 

“It’s pretty.” MK whisperers, afraid to disturb the moment. For a few moments after the air was filled with nothing but the cries of the city around them, as if the wind had brushed away MK’s words. He says no more, scared to shatter something between them.

A minute later, as if nothing ever happened “It never gets old, huh?” A cheerful inflection making its way back to Wukong’s words. MK almost forgets they were talking about the sunset, so caught up in overthinking. 

“Well, it’s the sun. Doesn’t really age.” Looking up and down, “Just like you!”

A hearty chuckle, “Yes, I’m just as timeless as that old ball of gas.” Wukong flicks his hair back. MK laughs wearily. 

Hooks of stress still bring him down. That demon… She was tall, lanky, and clearly devilish from appearance alone. MK had chased after her from the first complaint, well, the first complaint after Macaque. He wonders how long he had been sitting there on that park bench, ears twisting to catch each scream or wail of panic in the face of the demon. MK wonders if that was the only reason he came to their aid, just to shut the hysteria up.

Finding her had been one thing; Every time MK managed to get close, pinpoint her location, she was gone. He felt himself growing equal parts frustrated and languid. His shoes had been scuffed against asphalt, unravelled laces being trodden on and dashed with murky puddles of rainwater. He took a moment to look over his dishevelled state, wincing at the tears and burns decorating his prized yellow jacket. The honey yellow colour now an ochre. He’s going to have to run that through the washing machine a few times, maybe even pass it off to Sandy to sew back together. 

Fighting her had been another; MK had to use his staff to propel himself up to the top of the roof, that was where the confrontation finally happened, and where they were currently standing. The demon was flexible, with a perceptive eye, or perhaps some fumes of magic, she seemed to predict MK’s every move. It was startling at first, then it became tiresome. 

Each swing of his staff became increasingly listless, grumbling under his breath at the stiffness in his movements because of the growing exhaustion. She giggled, like this was a hilarious game. MK scowled, feeling quite pathetic when Wukong had swooped in to save him. He was the Monkie Kid; he shouldn’t need saving. But when even the combined forces of MK, Wukong, and eventually Macaque couldn’t stop that one, measly demon…

“Well,” They pinched the cuff of their jacket, feeling the fabric under the pads of his fingers. “At least the demon didn’t cause too much damage?” At that very same moment, a yelp. Both of them whirl backwards, taking in the view before them. 

The demon left something behind, a small crystal that hovered in the open air. Tendrils of light spread from its four sides, resembling growing roots, wriggling through the air like life influenced them. But there was no thrum of life in those bright hues, it was fake. Standing to the side of it, was Macaque, he rubs his arm as if burned, hissing in spitting bursts. 

“I touched it, and it shocked me.” Macaque grumbles, turning an angry expression to the growing item, “I don’t know what it is.”

Wukong steps forward, pressing a hand to MK’s chest to force him backward a few steps. He storms over, Macaque instinctively grimaces and looks away, he backs off, not waiting for the offending hand to shove him as well. Wukong presses his flat palm against the glowing blue, a high-pitched squeak to follow when it too, zaps him. 

“Well,” Wukong mutters, returning that offended look to the item, “That’s new.”

If you look back, you’ll soon be going that way.

The first memory Macaque has was water.

Though, he didn’t know what water exactly was at the time. And it had not been introduced to him gently, not funnelled over his cupped hands, or held to his mouth for him to sip upon. Instead, it was a more violent beginning. 

One moment, he was breathing, albeit harshly and in raspy bursts. Macaque only had a scrap of memory of the beforehand. He felt something warm, a texture like soft leather wrapped around him. It had a certain heat under it that Macaque would spend years wondering about. 

The next moment though? The world went cold. 

His bleary vision played only snapshots of blue. It flashed green, stripes of orange emerged as fish swam past. Macaque didn’t know what fish were, he barely knew to breathe. The never ending expanse of water consumed all, it was inescapable, it was all around him. The cold of the waves sunk deep into his skin. 

His thin fur was weighed down by the waves, they crashed over his head and kept him sunk. Macaque barely had it in him to panic, completely unaware of what this sensation even meant. All he knew was that it wasn’t pleasant. 

His stubby little arms scrambled for purchase, his stiff joints, and limbs barely able to be moved as he flailed about. Macaque was choking, his mouth full of water. He remembered feeling disgusted, it had a tinge of salt. The first liquid to grace his mouth hadn’t been milk, it had been dirtied water, and he was drowning in it. 

The strait of water he found himself in had a strong current. Macaque was just one with the grain, a burdensome cog in the machine. His soft body bashed against jutting rocks, and tree roots sunken deep into the muddy water. It barely registered in his underdeveloped mind, but he knew not to cry out in pain. More water would breeze through his open lips, make home in his flooded throat, nestle deep inside fragile lungs.

A mind as fresh as his had no idea what drowning was, it couldn’t grasp the concept of death. All Macaque knew was that this was painful, and he didn’t like it. Chubby digits grappled for anything to latch onto, finally finding purchase on a smooth stone and twig, he clutched on like he would to his mother. With all his little, mighty strength, Macaque pulled. 

His limbs were as strong as wet pasta noodles and had the potency of paper in a lake. Algae wrapped around his kicking legs, tried to drag him back under like sirens beckoning a lost sailor. Macaque struggled against the harsh slaps of ripples until he could be pulled from the unrelenting fight. Macaque’s head just barely breached the waters, feeling it splash over his face and go up his nostrils and the gaps in his lips. A gasp only allowed more streams of river inside, so he decided against opening his mouth again. 

When the algae finally capitulated, he threw himself to the dry surface. He flopped against the riverbank like debris pulled from a fishing line. Dirt and mud were what met him, the only thing that kept him from throwing himself back to the river’s clutches was that at least it was solid. Macaque whined loudly at the feeling of soil melting to mud under his wet hands. It was a terrible feeling, causing his mind to reel with pain. 

It was a belated thought to breathe, a small part of him overwhelmed with the worry that oxygen would be just a fantasy. But when his lungs squeezed, spots of black dancing through his vision that threatened to pull him back to the abyss he was just moulded from, it kicked in. 

Before the breathing came the harsh gags, a new river poured from his agape mouth. Macaque gagged and threw up the water onto the sand. Tiny choked sounds grew from his strained throat. Despite this, Macaque did not cry. River water was already soaking each inch of his little body, salt would blend with salt. (Sometime in the future, Macaque would believe that no matter how much he choked up the intrusive river, it would always live within him like a parasite, pilfering his life away.)

On that riverbed, Macaque was welcomed to existence. In that river, he faced death. 

Pants of breath finally made their way through his unblocked airways, the water filling his lungs naught but a puddle by the side of his head. Oxygen pumped life back into the prone monkey, colour rushing to his mottled blue face. Tendrils of cold death, wrapping around each inch of him, slowly retreated. It crept back into the turbulent waters like a predator, tail between its legs at the lack of kill. 

He choked and whined, kicked his limp and sodden limbs, and desperately searched for reprieve from the agony he was introduced to the world in. Small dewdrops of salty water dripped lazily from his lips; the air tinged with something. It smelled like life; it smelled like death.

A tired, pained sound escaped instead. Fists moved robotically; he brought them up to his eyes to wipe the film clear. He has barely any strength left in him, heaved only little puffs of oxygen. His tail curled around him protectively, trying to become so tiny that perhaps any other predators would skip right past him. It was the alert part of his mind which sent off these signals, the only threat in Macaque’s mind was that water. He wanted to sit up, to scowl at it, screech his ire at the unrelenting waves and ripples. But his body was exhausted, limbs tired and beseeched to be dead weight. Reluctantly, he allowed it. 

Fur drenched, body feeble, Macaque barely had the comprehension in his mind to make the vow, but as soon as he could, he did. He would never be this weak again, would never be the baby swept under the river again. Trying to encapsulate any crumb of heat, Macaque curled into himself. His gaze flickered to and from each part of himself. 

He observed the small parts of him. Stubby digits, mounds of thick skin for arms and legs, rife with baby fat. A thin tail, hairs tamed by the drenched state. It was only slight distress when he couldn’t see his own face, couldn’t look at what was discarded. Instead, Macaque yawned, curled up, and slept.

Slept until night befell, and the day arose. 

When he first rose awake, Macaque stared into the sun. It burned at his eyes and made him blink furiously. He wanted to screech out in pain but couldn’t find a good reason to. Instead, he just averted his gaze, stared down at the muddy bank he pulled himself on to, flexed his limbs until they shifted to his will. His body, now drier and less dragged down with river, was easier to move. However, it wasn’t helping in the slightest that Macaque chose to doze off on the riverbank. Mud clung to his fur, crusting over as if trying to reclaim him into the soil.

With earnest effort, Macaque tore himself from the ground. Bits of dirt clung to his fur like bugs, his fingers were deft and useless, so he mouthed the dirt away with his gums. It tasted foul, he couldn’t liken it to anything, he had yet to eat.

Maybe if he was a little smarter, a little older, more experience whittled into the creases of his brain, Macaque would have known to dip his dirty self to the water. But to Macaque of the current, surrendering himself to the river was throwing himself to the cold hands of death. On spindly, unsteady legs, Macaque had taken to walking. 

The ground under his bare feet was uneven and jagged, pointed stones digging into his skin. At least it wasn’t drowning, with each unknown and terrifying texture being trampled underneath him, at the very least it was not drowning again.

Macaque didn’t know how old he was, how long he had been alive for. Trying to look back, it was all a blur of frightening colour. The only memory he had was of the blue, the suffocating blue. A shudder went down his spine at the mere recollection, another shudder, and another. Macaque must be cold… Still though, it did nothing to stifle the thoughts from cropping up, small images flashed through his mind. They danced through his mind, so fast and quick he couldn’t grasp it between two hands. Images of monkeys, a life he could have had, all of it drowned out by the river.

A sick sensation took over him, leaving his mind degraded into blinding whorls. Macaque’s head was light, disconnected from his neck. He stumbled, shuttering steps that kept his whole form spinning. He kept walking nonetheless, unsure where he was going.

Just knowing wherever it would be, it was not the river.

The light left behind by the elusive demon had only doubled in size. 

There was something about it that just exuded formidable energy, both Sun Wukong and Macaque cringing away from it. MK would hazard his own touch if he weren’t so sure his hand would be burned to bits. Through the middle of the foggy sparks of blue and pink, the little crystal still remains. It glows ominously with a strange sense of power. It looks plastic in its sheen, like a fake jewel. 

“What the hell is this thing?” Wukong speaks up first, brushing his assailed hand on his thigh. MK’s mind suddenly lights up.

“Let me use gold vision on it!” They run forward, kneeling by the crystal. Wukong encourages him with a thumbs up, Macaque reacts not. MK shoots one last smile towards his mentor before his eyes flash gold, swirls of gild taking over the fields of soil. 

The world devolves shades of yellow, springing gardens of buttercups and daisies, the sun’s dying light illuminating the backdrop in fantastical dapples of aureate. In the middle of it all, the tapering blue light that sheaths the crystal. MK raises an eyebrow, it should have been swept up in the array of gold, not remain unaffected.

“That’s weird,” They mumble incredulously, “Gold vision did nothing.”

Wukong immediately moves to put a hand on their shoulder, “It was worth a shot, bud.” MK looks up to him, sees the unconvincing smile, the stressed and taut flicks of his tail. A frown grew. Wukong really didn’t know, Macaque seemed just as clueless, the three of them all incredibly lost and stranded in the middle of chaos.

“Is it some sort of trap?” He tries again, tries desperately to spin an explanation out of thin air, but the altitude seems to be getting rarefied, “Maybe the demon left it behind to distract us, or just hurt us.”

Macaque snorts loudly, making both of them jump to look at him, “If that’s the case, it’s working as intended.”

A scowl, Wukong stares him down; Macaque returns the glare with twice the fury.

“Are you just going to stand there being useless all day or are you going to actually help?” Wukong hisses, his ears flickering behind him. Macaque seemed awfully chuffed at the poor display of a threat.

“Nah, this isn’t really my issue.”

A sound that came choked between a gasp of offence and a spitting hiss, “Then why are you even here?”

“Who are you to tell me where I can or can’t be, Great sage? This is my city too, you know.” Macaque leans back against a pile of charred crates, teetering dangerously under his weight. 

“You’re such a nuisance,” Wukong gripes, as if this was surprising, as if this was unexpected. 

Macaque chortles, “Even with the demon and their mysterious light machine left behind, you’ll still focus on me. What did I even do wrong this time? Exist too much?”

“You’re projecting again, Shadow.” He hisses out from clenched teeth. MK was brought aback when the spat words visibly had an effect on Macaque, his posture tensing and tail lashing. 

“Run your mouth anymore and that demon won’t be the only one being hunted.” His ears press forward, eyebrows dropping and pinching together, his unfurled mouth showing too many sharp and blunt teeth.

“Is that a threat?” Wukong’s voice drops an octave, he crouches down as if to pounce.

“Keep talking and it will be.”

Wukong’s hands move from MK’s shoulder to cup over his ears, through the poor muffling MK could hear various curses and vulgar phrases snapping from his mentor’s filthy mouth. He struggles against Wukong’s hands to tear him away; it wasn’t as if MK had never heard it before. He really wishes they would stop treating him like a kid, but unfortunately anyone younger than a hundred was basically a baby to them. 

Macaque, observing his nails as if they were the most interesting things ever, sports a sly smirk. Clear delight at managing to rip such a heated reaction from Wukong lighting up his features. Then, he looks from his own hand to the wreathed crystal. His brows furrow, tip of his tail curling up to a spiral then going lax, repeating that same action until his feet shuffle away from the crates. Eyes shrouding in concentration, he skims over the sparking light. 

“I think I’ve seen something like this before.” He murmurers, a barely audible thing. 

“You have?” Wukong spoke up with too much hope cracking through the edges.

A hum, Macaque bites the inside of his cheek, fire licking at his fingertips, “Don’t remember much though.”

A defeated sigh, Wukong’s posture going pliant, “Why did I expect anything from you?”

“I live to defy expectations.”

Without much hesitation, Macaque wraps his hand around the small crystal in the middle. It seems to almost roar, a sound shaking the foundation of the building they crouched upon. The light expanded, wispy roots spreading through the air. The crystal, swaddled in Macaque’s grip, shook angrily. 

“Idiot!” Wukong curses, rushing forward and seizing Macaque, arms constricting tight around his waist. Complaint sparks from Macaque’s lips, but he could do nothing as Wukong tears him away.

The crystal falls from Macaque’s grasp. Wukong hauls them away so quickly that gravity sways them, sending the two of them careening to the floor. Shock swarms through both their bodies for a second, it sizzles out when the position they now found themselves in sunk in. Wukong. flat against the ground like a solid plank. Macaque, pulled to his chest. The closeness of it had Macaque wriggling and flailing. Wukong, mind still reeling from the screech of rage emitted from the crystal, didn’t have the reason to let go. That was, until Macaque sank his fangs into his arm. 

With a howl of hurt, Wukong shoves Macaque harshly away. Macaque rolls across the bumpy plain of metal, MK stops his movement, placing his foot atop his side and halts the tumble instantly. Macaque sits up with a grunt, pouting at the angry mark left on his palm.

Wukong pushes himself to his elbows, bones creaking as his knees raise. With one straining push, he was standing again. His eyes are wide and wild, mouth straining to a flat line. Macaque grimaces at him.

“You absolute moron!” He bares his teeth at Macaque, “Why would you grab it!?”

“Testing it.” A drawn-out whine turns to a shrill squeak when Wukong advances forward. Hands grip the cuff of his scarf, drawing Macaque into the air.

“We don’t know what’s going on with this… This thing. What if grabbing it killed someone!” Wukong snarls in his face, Macaque tore at his arms fervently, “What if it killed y– Gah, you’re so irresponsible!”

“Yeah, and it didn’t. So chill out!” He tries to bite back, but Wukong doesn’t falter for a second. 

Luckily, MK moves to intervene. He storms up to the both of them, shoulders boxed, but not in a meek manner. Face betraying his anger and exasperation. With one hand placed on Macaque’s chest and one wrapping around Wukong’s arm, he thrusts them away from each other. Wukong inches backwards while Macaque stumbles, almost falling over again. His hands reach up to tug at his scarf, anxiously worrying the open thin wounds. 

“Enough of this!” MK cries, trying to inject more ire into his words and failing, it comes out exhausted and so close to breaking down, “I know you two hate each other, but for gods’ sake this is ridiculous! It doesn’t matter what happened before in the fight, or even two seconds ago. It was impulsive of Macaque to grab the crystal, yes. But no-one got hurt, and we’re trying to keep it that way. What matters is destroying this crystal thing and apprehending that demon!” Wukong’s indignation wilted, stepping away until he was a short distance from the other two. MK turns to Macaque, who was busying himself re-wrapping his scarf instead of looking his way, “We’re supposed to be allies now,” He snaps at the silence, “So act like it!”

You could hear a pin dropping across the city, a thick impenetrable tension is afoot, “Do we have an agreement?” MK grumbles, both of them nod timidly, “OK. Good.” He steps to where Wukong is standing, gripping him by the elbow and walking him to the crystal light. When MK lets him go, he stands there in a dazed confusion. He repeats the same process with Macaque, dragging him to the opposite side of the roof with little cavil. Macaque gives him an odd look, smiling nervously with his eyes visibly skittish. 

Both of them now on opposite sides, MK feels as though he could finally breathe. 

The roof of the building, proud and tall, is littered with fire and debris from the fight. Crates and wooden boxes, held together with nails and twine, surround the sides like a barrier. To the middle, tilting off the edge, is a flat, one-dimensional thing. Floating there with the small glinting crystal bumping through the paper-thin lightshow. It stretches like creeping vines, thrumming with energy. Macaque’s ears flutter.

“It’s humming.” He intones, rather ominously.

MK gives him a very perturbed once over, “The light?”

A shake of the head, “It’s a rift.”

You will die alone and poorly dressed.

Macaque’s first sunrise was unimportant.

He watched as the sun levelled the inky black mass of sky. Stars whittled away until they were eaten by the light the orange ball produced. Macaque was already smart enough to not stare, kept his gaze trained to his feet. He swayed with each steep, lurched, and staggered like his legs were failing. Given he hasn’t been alive long it was to be expected. Except Macaque was young, with his body frail and mind new, and couldn’t comprehend why moving was so difficult.

Legs unable to twist and move as freely as he wished, Macaque had almost burst into a tantrum of frustrated tears. Rocks were interrupting him as he walked, jutted out of the ground, and begged to be stepped on by weak skin. Blisters already cropped up on his soles. Desert sand full of twigs and rough terrain, speckles of orange sand clung to sodden strips of fur. He peered at his own fur sometimes, observed his arms like they were as incomprehensible as the universe. Tentatively, a wobbly hand would grasp the thin black tufts. It was a strange sensation; softness was something he wasn’t experienced with yet. A foreign feeling, if his nails had been less blunt, Macaque would have torn the soft out ages ago.

Even so, Macaque still had little to no idea where he was going. Anywhere that wasn’t the beckoning ripples of the river, he would never return there, would keep his throat clear and ripe with oxygen. He would promise these things to himself, but his mushy mind had a limited vocabulary: ‘No water’ was probably the closest it could get to comprehending the serious nature of his own wishes. 

His body was cold, although the heat rose through the sand with the oncoming sun, the sick chill of the river was still tangible with his soul. Macaque inhaled through his nose, kept his feet moving and moving, tail twitched behind him. A tiredness seeped bone-deep, he could feel it as it scratched away at his resolve. Wherever the cold and the pain didn’t take root, an emptiness bloomed inside. A gnawing, aching agony that pulsed at the edges, it tried to stake claim to him. 

Macaque’s form, languid and crumbling, was to give way. Having looked death in the face once already, felt himself almost slip back to whence he came moments after leaving it, he had gained an innate sense of dying and discomfort from this youthful age. Here in this desert, his young and ignorant mind could at the very least understand if he tarried here any longer, he was sure to perish. 

Without much thought behind the action, his hearing stretched, raked at the ground with desperation to try and find salvation. He heard something, chirps and calls that sounded painfully familiar in the sense that deja vu was familiar; A fleeting sense that you’ve heard it before, yet unable to place a name to it. At the same time, it spoke to him, drew him nearer. 

Macaque, nothing to his name, not even a name at the time, continued to trudge through that desert. The thought of dying beat down on him like the growing heat of the sun did.

He hadn’t a name. Peering back now from the future, he had always been Macaque, at this present time, he had just been dying.

With the sand cutting at his skin, he struggled to stay afloat, to stay alive. Macaque stumbled towards the cries that sounded so welcoming and warm. His feet at some point managed to drag his limping body from arrays of orange sand, to thick cushiony jungle. Grass squelched under his bare soles, it was a tingly wet sensation that had Macaque reeling backwards, teetered until he was back on the safe and dry sandy floor. 

He inched his hands closer, hesitation seized every muscle, but Macaque placed an open palm to the bright green grass anyway. When it didn’t engulf him, string him into another river, Macaque pulled his hand away. Shaking off dew drops, Macaque pressed onwards. The jungle area was more condensed than the desert had been, thick brushes of trees making navigating increasingly difficult. A frown set its way across his face, sweat pooled at his brow. 

Ferns and spiky bushes caressed his ankles, sharp and pointed twigs snapped under his feet, each a new uniquely cruel sensation that left his mind aflame with emotions he hadn’t the capacity to understand yet. There were songs, bird calls just above the canopies. A faint buzzing that wouldn’t leave made Macaque’s nose scrunch up, his ears flickered in annoyance. 

When the flora of the jungle attacked relentlessly, he decided he needed to cover himself. Wandering off the weary trodden path he had been traversing, Macaque diverged towards a powerful green plant. He ripped at the large, flat leaves. With inexperienced hands, he twisted as much as he could muster. Leaf covered his lower half, just one single thick leaf creating a sort of skirt. Dense yet wispy strands of grass caught his attention next, chubby hands tearing until clumps of dirt scattered the ground. Macaque carefully wrapped the ropes of grass around his feet and up to his ankles, protecting it from the harsh elements. Nothing around the area seemed suitable for his torso, so Macaque let it be.

He changed attention back to the path, one that seemingly had been walked on many times before, worn down with use. Macaque’s body, small as it was, felt miniscule and vulnerable in the massive forest area. He swore he felt something approach, heard it maybe, a predator that was rank with the stench of death. The only thing he had to fear was the unknown, what could possibly be looming in the dark etches, Macaque knew not of tigers and bears or whatever else plagued this forest, knew only the river and how it swept up its victims. He was sure a death to teeth would not be unlike getting whisked away by turbulent waters. 

Growing increasingly jaded, Macaque could only fantasise that the beckoning chirps he felt drawn to were nearby. Wearied by the branches that scraped his face, rocks that crept up just to cut through layers of twined grass, and the incessant noises that swamped the sound of his target, swept the brittle sounds away. Growls of frustration strung from his throat; it only drew him on further.

With that vigour, Macaque managed to brush away thick underbrush to reveal lights. Not just the light of the sun, no, this was a different light. A bright, flickering orange thing, a small, tamed sun. His eyes widened, tentatively, he walked towards it. He held a hand out; it hovered over this miniscule sun. Its tapering light warmed his palm, so Macaque lowered it further and further still, to grasp it and domesticate it for his own. Instead, the sun turned beast, it licked at his hands and ripped his skin up with anger. 

A shriek, stolen from his lungs, Macaque leaped backwards, stumbling over himself and landing on his back with an audible shaking thud. A vibrating sound came to follow, it settled harshly and discordantly on his ears. 

Recognising danger, or more so recognising fear, Macaque hurried back to stand. Someone was there, an imposing tall figure. Looking at him, Macaque did not find a sense of fear, nor unfamiliarity. That rumbling sound happened again, in some distant and wise part of his brain it registered as mirth. Not sensing a threat, he crept towards the stranger. He looked down at Macaque, an angular face and thick black fur. From his moving lips, few words were exchanged. Macaque tilted his head, not understanding a single thing. Realising this, the stranger only smiled. 

Two large hands wrapped around his middle, hoisting him up and over the stranger’s shoulder. Seeing no reasons to kick, to flail, he stayed motionless and allowed himself to be relocated. There were more vibrations, akin to what was spoken before, little hums and more bellowing laughs. It was confusing, but the stranger was bringing him closer to the bustling cries he had been trying to track down. At that moment, it felt like relief. 

A stupid, naive thought.

The place he was brought to was large, full to the brim of overwhelming detail that made his eyes water. Many shelters, some built on the marshy floors and others high up on treetops, log bridges from tree to tree, smaller buildings made of mud and rock, moss decorations, and a dense population. All of them primates, a diverse pick of species amongst them. 

The stranger’s hand gripped Macaque by the back of the neck, causing him to squeal out. It wasn’t so much frightening as it was startling, sending signals and alarms through his body that Macaque didn’t quite grasp the meaning of. The stranger threw him to the ground, a sharp thump when he landed. A groan strangled out of his throat, Macaque rolled to his side to meet the gazes of the monkeys gathered around him, they stared him down like he was a feast.

With a gulp, Macaque tried to scramble back, but was stopped when the stranger stomped down on his tail. A shock rushed down his spine, making any attempt to escape die in his mind. They all crowded around him, Macaque felt suffocated by their eyes, watchful, scrutinising eyes. More words he had no knowledge of passed between them, that rumbling echoing laughter as they gazed upon him. Macaque tugged at his nature clothing self-consciously, averting his own gaze to stare at the floor. He picked at the grass, watching it fall to the floor freely as they continued to laugh at him. It made his cheeks flush in shame for reasons he couldn’t name.

One of them advanced towards him, a single finger outstretched to run down his face. Macaque, confused and utterly lost, tried to back away from the unknown touch. It wasn’t familiar, none of this was going as planned. As if hell bent on breaking his illusion of safety even more, the hand that touched his face unfurled. Without warning, it curled up and yanked on his ears. Hoots and howls of laughter that shook the trees and alarmed the birds. Macaque screeched and wailed in agony, feeling those hands tug and pull, the grip encircled his ears and not with mercy.

The laughs turned into cheers, sheer triumphant at seeing the infant monkey keen in anguish. Another hand joined, yanking on one ear, then more came. The first grasp relented only a second so that more people could join. The noises, the pain, Macaque screamed and tried to pull away, tried to drive his tiny body away. Uncaring for his pain, they continued to tug and wrench at his soft ears like they were toys.

An ape broke through the crowd, parting them like waves. The hands snaked away, all of them turning up to look at the approaching primate sheepishly. A lofty, powerful figure leaned over Macaque. He seemed to listen to his distressed pants as if they held some sort of secret, deciphering parts of him he had yet to comprehend. 

A hand reached out, Macaque flinched away, hands shakily coming up to cover his abused ears. The tall ape cooed at him, coaxing him to unwind his body and relax. With great hesitance, Macaque did. He stared up at the ape, umber fur, and a wide, flat face. A large hand sporting thick calluses was offered out, timidly Macaque placed his own against it. The ashen skin of the ape’s palm dwarfed his. For a few moments, he stayed tense, but the other primates backed off and out of reach, and his muscles went pliant.  

The ape almost seemed to grin, but it wasn’t kind. Because those smiles were never kind to him. The hand yanked him upwards, a second coming to bind around his upper body, squeezing him until he choked. The monkeys exploded into an uproar of whooping and clamouring, the ape lifted Macaque up like a prize above his head, triumph clear in his face. Macaque squealed and panted fruitlessly, struggling in the smothering grasp. 

The ape walked to the back of their village, monkeys trailing behind him. Macaque was thrown into something, discarded like lowly trash. The floor wasn’t soft like grass and sand had been, it was hard and uncomfortable. Something snapped shut, and it was suddenly too late for Macaque to protest or escape.

He was caged.

“What?” Were the eloquent words to tumble from MK’s mouth, because how else are you really supposed to react to that? “Are you… Sure?”

“Do you want me to touch it again, or?” Macaque seems like he was joking, at first. But the look on his face was stone serious, MK feels unnerved to say the least.

“No, that’s ok. Please stop touching it.”

Wukong, from where he is standing by the supposed rift, reaches out his hand to skim across it, but appears to decide against it. He tilts his head to the side, flowing red ribbons on his headpiece billowing to copy him. 

“A rift, huh? Why would a demon leave that here?” No-one really feels like rebuking Macaque’s claim, not as if they were oozing with other ideas. At this point, they just had to roll with it and hope for the best. 

“I dunno, seen it before though…” Macaque squints as though to make the image, or perhaps the memory, clearer, “Once, I was real young. Was walking to a cliff, it was by the seaside, I think. A rift, just like this one…”

Wukong perks up, “Oh yeah, I remember that. Told you to lay off eating random mushrooms on the mountain, you were just spouting nonsense.”

Macaque pouts at him, “Are you calling me a liar?”

Wukong throws his hands up, as if to placate, “I’m not saying anything.” Macaque gives MK a look, ‘can you believe this guy?’ it said. MK chose to ignore him for the sake of peace. 

“For the record, I hadn’t eaten the weird mushrooms for years before that happened. It was so weird though… Can’t seem ta’ fuckin’ remember though. Gods, I’ve been alive too long.”

“So, we’re assuming this demon is really old then?” MK pipes up, “If she was able to meet with Macaque once, then she has to be thousands of years old!”

“Either a demon with incredible longevity, or a celestial.” Wukong agrees, “You’d have to have a steady supply of peaches to keep going that long.”

“Maybe she was living on your mountain, leeching your supply.” Macaque suggests, a teasing tone just under the surface.

“I would have noticed.” Wukong retorts immediately, “But I don’t think I’ve heard anything from the celestials– And I would if someone was stealing. They would go screaming at me even if I did nothing wrong.” He whines on, tail lashing at just mere memories. 

MK looks to and fro, gaze switching back and forth between them, a shake of his head, “OK. This isn’t really all that relevant, is it? She’s just a demon, not a celestial. Demons have longevity anyways, plus, Macaque could be misremembering.” He lets out an offended noise at that, but MK chose to disregard it. 

“You’re right, bud. We don’t need to focus on this specifically. I mean, she’s still out there doing who knows what!”

A good point, MK considers how easily the rift in front of them had been made. She had dropped the little crystal and ran off cackling. If that was how simple it was, there was no telling how many more fissures could have been torn through the sky.

“Macaque,” He addresses him suddenly, a small jump as he turns to face MK, “You said the rift thingy lets out a humming sound? Can you hear that anywhere else?” Macaque’s eyes widen then steel again. His tail thumps against the floor whilst his ears, still hidden under glamour, flick and twitch, eyes now screwed shut. 

The two of them watched in wait as the small movements got more aggressive, face twisting into a scowl, teeth bared in a grimace. Macaque’s fur bristled, tail lashing as if angry. The shadows coating the roof were growing frenzied, breaking away from their form to flail about.   

Wukong left his post near the rift, walking at a controlled and steady pace, but still faster than normal. MK is about to protest when he notices that Wukong is moving towards Macaque but stops when he softly places a hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.

Wukong’s gaze was locked on Macaque’s face, watching his tense body unwind and his eyelids fluttered open. His ears flit about in a frenzy, Macaque reaching a hand out to rub at one.

“...No luck.” He spits out, tones of self-consciousness breaking through, “City is too, uhm, lively today.” 

Wukong turns back to face MK, “Yeah bud, I don’t think Macaque’s hearing is going to be especially useful right now. A small sound like that would be like a needle in a haystack for him.” He adds, Macaque sneers at him, then drops his face into something fatigued. It made a pang of guilt ring through MK’s chest when Macaque slouches over, body going half limp, he didn’t mean to tire him out by trying to make him find other rifts–

Luckily, the rueful feelings swirling in his gut were quickly stamped out. Macaque shook the listlessness off, almost as if a switch was flipped. MK’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t think much of it after that.

“Well, that’s alright.” MK twirls their staff with their fingers, “It could probably take me twenty minutes tops to scour the city for them.” They move to the edge of the building, opposite the rupture.

“Wait, kid! I’ll go with you.” Wukong jumps to his side.

“Oh no, that’s ok.” MK shrugs, “I can deal with this.”

But Wukong insists, “And if you run into that demon again?”

“I’ll be fine Monkey King.” He insists back, “Besides, I need more info on these rifts anyway.” Raking through the city, prodding at any other bursts of light, it might give some insight. Plus, encountering that demon might make for more of an explanation.

“We don’t know anything about her though, she could attack you, or worse!” MK didn’t recognise this attitude in Wukong, the quirked grin he normally paraded about now eroded into something stricken.

“I’m the Monkie Kid, remember? She might be faster, mysterious, and way cooler… But I’m stronger!”

Despite this, Wukong doesn’t look completely convinced. 

“So, am I supposed to sit here and stare at the rift while you throw yourself into danger…” He flicks his gaze to the side, “With him?”  

MK shrugs, “Sure. It’s an important job, what if the rift explodes or something? Do you really trust Macaque to handle that?” 

“I guess not.”

MK is about to speed off, slam his staff to the ground and feel only mildly bad about the swirls of concrete he would undoubtedly leave behind, when Macaque leaps in to stop him.

“Kid, you’re gonna leave me here with him?” Good lords.

“It will be fine, all you guys have to do is not kill each other for twenty minutes, how hard can it be?” Silence, cricket chirps, Macaque and Wukong exchange awkward sidelong glances, “Oh come on, you’re both thousands of years old and can’t coexist even for the sake of one mission?”

“It’s not that easy, MK.” Macaque mutters, spite slinking in, “Just… Go. I can try and listen in for the demon if you want?”

“No, that’s alright. Don’t strain yourself, I can hold my own.”

His eyes flash dangerously at that, mottles of purple slinking in. But it was quickly banished in favour of a dim yellow, “Okay.”

Before he is able to turn to leave, two hands grip his sleeve, Wukong stares at him desperately.

“If you need help, call out for me.”

“God, you guys act as if I’ve never battled a demon before, I’ll be fine!”

With that, he leaves.

Your road to glory will be rocky but fulfilling.

Macaque received his name in an unconventional way.

He knew that infants received their names from their family, all bundled up in strong and nurturing arms as the mother’s cooed a calling signal to the ignorant young. He knew because he watched it happen. He watched, strained his eyes and his ears to watch the mothers repeat that name until the infant spluttered out a regurgitated echo. 

They had given Macaque a name as well, not blessed from the mothers of the village, but everyone. They named him Freak. At the very least he could distinguish how the naming ceremonies of the babies in the village, and their calling of him, differed, it was in the tone. Because they giggled that malicious, hateful laugh when they named him Freak, and spoke gently and softly when calling the name of the other youths. They called him Freak because he had no other name.

For months, maybe a year, Macaque had been surviving in that village. He had grown minimally, at least tall enough that he had to hunch to stop his head from bashing against the top of the wooden cage. The monkeys of the village would push food to him through the timber bars, mushed berries or animal carcases, flies flitting around them both. He would eat whatever was offered immediately, scoff it down like it were delicacies bestowed by the heavens. 

The foolish first weeks spent locked up, he had eaten timidly, chewed with caution. That was a wrong move, a stupid idea. If he took too long, they would snatch from his hands, no matter how much Macaque clawed at the ground, wailed for the food to return, they only cackled. Now, he would gorge himself until the cage floor was licked clean. There was a pale area on the cage ground where Macaque’s tongue had scraped against. Any morsel not consumed was stolen, tossed to the tamed sun they called a ‘campfire.’ 

Over time, at home in this village, Macaque’s baby fat had dwindled away. He was a spindly, stick looking thing. At least, that’s what the others called him. Hollering at his slouched form and crying out, “Look at Freak, it’s basically a skeleton!” He wasn’t a skeleton though, he wasn’t dead. Macaque saw a skeleton once; they dragged it through the village by the wrist. Killed by the outcast troop, they had said, be on higher lookout. A skeleton was a dead thing, Macaque was not a dead thing, yet. He staved it off by appreciating every mote of food blessed upon him. 

A monkey approached him, a small serving of murky water presented in an empty nutshell. He grappled for it with desperation yet remained diligent to not spill a drop. Macaque brought it to dry lips, savouring each sliver. The monkey grinned at him, but it felt more of a threat than anything.

“Morning, Freak.” They couldn’t mask the giggles in their voice.

“M’rning.” Over the time he’s spent here, Macaque has picked up on some language. Though, they found endless amusement in his attempts to speak, as they did with the rest of him. The monkey reached through the bars and flicked him on the forehead, skittering off and hooting with nauseating joy.

Macaque huddled in the corner of his cage, feeling like nothing but an extension of the wood. He hasn’t a life, he has been swept under currents and swept into a society that mocks his very existence. Nothing, but skin and bone that grew from lumber beams. He rested against it, picking at his skin and fur until it flaked away. 

Another group of monkeys and apes would approach. Most times these groups would stand still as if petrified under Macaque’s eyes, and stare at him. They would gape, like Macaque was an exotic beast and not kin to them. That being said, Macaque didn’t really know exactly what he looked like. He can look down and see trembling arms painted with thinning black fur and could see a flickering tail. So, Macaque knew to an extent that he was like them. Still though, he didn’t know what about him made everyone freeze like they looked death in the face.

Instead of staring, this group cheered and laughed at the sight of him. It was as ferocious as the other laughs, they spat saliva through the bars and exposed far too many sharp fangs. They crowded around his cage, hands clutching the bars until they threatened to splinter. Macaque, who hadn’t the energy nor the will to pull away, hissed at the loud hollering sounds they made. 

Soon, just grabbing the wooden planks wasn’t enough, they shook the cage until it rattled. Hands stretching inside, snapping open and close as they tried to grasp onto Macaque. It’s the Freak, they sang, everyone look! They fawned over him like ugly art in a museum. One managed to yank his tail, Macaque screeched in pain. 

Without much of a second thought, Macaque reared at them. His hands scrabbled and raked lines into their outstretched hands. The monkeys squealed in pain, they retracted their arms instantly and hurried away. They kicked up quite a clamour, the village perked up and surrounded them, coddling the curious young. They pointed fingers towards the cage, because of course they did, and Macaque tried to freeze up, be smaller. 

The orangutan, leader of the village, ascended upon him at an agonisingly slow pace. He wanted to set alight each nerve in his body with the slow movements. He stopped once he reached the cage, bent down and down, further still until the orangutan and the Freak could look eye to eye. He wound his arm through the bars of the enclosure, raised an arm towards Macaque, who shied away from the touch. 

A hand was placed against his cheek, Macaque tensed further instead of relaxing into it, despite how desperately he wished to. He had observed how families congregated, how mothers carried around their infants, how close companions picked and tugged gently through each other's fur. That life wasn’t for him, because he was Freak. Still though, each faux touch only served to stoke the hunger gnawing him whole. Hunger to be held. Starvation; ravenous.

The orangutan didn’t loiter on his cheek long, large hands gripped and twisted his ears, muscles rippled through his dense body, every bit the terrifying leader he paraded himself as. The pressure could tear Macaque’s ears clean off his body, he had by now learned not to squeal when this happened. This was punishment, he shouldn’t act out because this was the consequence, and he sits, and he takes it. 

The yanking didn’t stop until the leader decided he learned his lesson. 

“Know your place, Freak.” He spat lowly, “Because it’s not one of us.” Macaque knew that, he knew that because that was almost all the orangutan would say to him. He knew his place, he knew, he knew, he knew, he knew.

The village jeered at him, looked at him with contempt. Though for the life of him, Macaque still couldn’t pinpoint what about him plunged cruelty to the hearts of others, maybe it was as they said, simply his place. Macaque couldn’t ask questions, couldn’t speak back, just stayed seated there in the cage they put him in, and be fine with it, because it was fine. 

Fine.

Ever since Macaque’s outburst, the villagers grew more resentful towards him. They mocked him even while stationary. They would jeer at the most minor offences, blinking harshly at billows of smoke rising from their campfire, blowing air into his face to watch him stutter in movement, contort their faces strangely in front of him to see his fur bristle in fear.

Until one day, it all grinded to a halt. When the sun melted, nothing but streaks and grappling hands on the horizon, the moon took its place as the star of the show, a conductor of the night sky. Macaque admired the sky when it was like this, especially because the village tucked away and quieted for once. It was a moment of peace and tranquility, undisturbed by heckling apes and only adulterated by weeping infants and their mothers’ shushing.

He did not know that night would be the very last day he would spend in this cage. Not until lights flickered just behind the underbrush. Yellow eyes flitted across the dark expanse like an oil lamp turning on and off in quick succession. 

Bodies emerged from the thick forest surrounding them, large monkeys, and apes, yet their movements were soundless. They were terrifying, even to one who has stared at death in the face, their scarred and war-torn forms seemed to engulf the surrounding embers of light.

Instead of turning to the infants, curled around their exposed mothers with nothing but flesh and fur to protect them, or the orangutan sleeping out in the open, the group of four turned their sights on the wooden stakes of Macaque’s cage.  

Macaque hadn’t even conjured the idea of reeling back when they crowded him. The four of them, imposing and towering over him. One leaned in close to the bars, she poked a finger in to wiggle in his face.

“Aw, look at you. How old are you, girl?” The monkey asked, a lion-tailed macaque with jagged claw-shaped scars running over her face.

“No,” Macaque shook his head, “Not– not girl.” His voice was raspy from underuse, it sounded like sandpaper and felt like sharp rocks.

“My question stands.” She repeated, trailing a knuckle over his cheek.

“I dun’ no.” His voice trembled with fear. She was tall, face covered in slick white fur that resembled a blooming flower, as beautiful as it was, it terrified him all the same. 

The lion-tailed macaque stepped back, putting distance between the caged exhibit and herself. 

“What’s your name, caged bird? Sitting in here like a circus animal, laughed at and hit. Is that really the life you wish to lead?” She tilted her head, looked him up and down and licked her lips. 

“Name is Freak.” He told her, not understanding why her face screwed up at that.

“What kinda name is that?”

“Is what they calls me.” He shrugged, “Live here, they uhm… This home; my home.”

She smiled, the lion-tailed macaque smiled at him, it wasn’t like the village’s taunts of kindness, it soothed his soul. She reached her hands out, grasped the wooden bars, and snapped them like they were naught but toothpicks. 

“Not home,” She whispered sweetly, “We’re home now, caged bird.” The lion-tailed macaque held out a hand for him to take, with great hesitance he did. His was shaky as she lured him out of the imprisonment. 

Macaque, stood on wobbly legs, got a good look at the rest of the troop. A small lar gibbon with burn marks all around his body, a fiery look in his eyes to match; A guinea baboon with one of their leg’s missing; and a vervet with broken chains strapped to its legs. Such an extensive range of simians combined into one troop, staking home on this mountain. 

Weeks, months, maybe even years of being stuck inside a stuffy cage with food held over his head, Macaque was listless and running on fumes, wondering if there even was a fire keeping him running in the first place.

“You’re so small,” The lion-tailed macaque, the Matriarch of the troop, cooed, “We can fix that… We’ll fix you right up, my little caged bird.”

“Yeah!” The gibbon cheered, a hysterical lilt present in his voice, “And– And we give you a good name.”

“Yes,” The Matriarch hummed, “A proper name is in order, isn’t it?” She looked down at him, gaze cold and hard, freezing him with a single stare, “Names aren’t exactly the norm in the outcast troop, bird, but for you I can make an exception…” A sly grin etched into her face, “You know why you’re so special, right?”

His head shook vehemently, he would have done anything to know the answer, begged for anything other than it being the way of life, his place, “No.”

The Matriarch hoisted Macaque over her shoulder and left the village behind. It felt inane to just be whisked away from the cage he’s called home for almost his entire life, but it was happening. His whole body was overcome with a light feeling, no longer weighed down by bars, he was free. 

He was brought over to a stream and Macaque kicked and screamed; mirth squished out by blinding terror at the calm lapping waves. The strait was thin and shallow, but to Macaque it was a bottomless pit, a gaping mouth to eat him whole, the cattails and long strands of grass were serrated teeth ready to rip him apart.

“Oh hush, birdie.” She snapped at him, “A little water never hurt anybody, look, look at yourself.”

With great encouragement from the troop, Macaque peered to the face of death and saw in it a warped reflection of himself. A gaunt face repeated into the stream, hollow face and dead eyes, fitting for the spokesperson of the dark, cold ending of life. But the most notable detail, the one that caused something acidic to stir in his stomach, pointed ears, six of them.

“Look at your ears,” The Matriarch fiddled with one of them and he barely stifled a flinch, “Look at you, I’ve never seen a macaque of your kind with that fur colour before. There’s something special about you, caged bird.” She leaned in close, “I can’t wait to find out what that is.”

And that day by the stream, he was dubbed a name like a brand, Six-Eared Macaque searing into his flesh.

It has been ten minutes since MK left, Wukong was counting.

Under his breath, the click of his tongue, each second marked off with the sharp sound of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Ten minutes of Macaque’s sanity slowly dwindling into a puddle of nothingness. The city was still clamouring about, consistently yelling or screaming and whatnot, the conversation hadn't fully swayed from the demon quite yet, some remnants stuck. The humming from the aperture was overwhelming to say the least, Macaque couldn’t tell whether it’s getting louder or if he is just picking up more rifts.

Wukong’s constant clicking wasn’t helping in the gods' damned slightest. It’s a steady rhythm at the very least, a few hiccups in the pattern and those don’t go unnoticed by six ears. Macaque has been trying to keep himself busy, to be distracted from the noise that demands his attention every two seconds. The fissure suspended in the air has been steadily growing, brighter and more vibrant colours have started shining through, causing a stir of worry in the smoky air. 

He picks up another cardboard box, pushing aside singed crates to get to it. For a moment, he greatly considers just chucking the entire box at the rift, but decides against it, tearing a strip away and twirling it between his fingers. First, Macaque taps the jagged bit of cardboard against the crystal, it shakes and vibrates angrily, sending volts through Macaque’s body. 

Seeing as that yielded no results, he instead dashes it across the bright colours. The paler, older stretches of light were unaffected, while the newer and brighter ones attempted to lap the cardboard up, consume it whole. This arid task, while distracting from the constant noise, also helps to keep his gaze away from Wukong on the other side of the roof, both of them standing with their backs to the other one.

All the while, the chasm floating in the air wouldn't stop humming, the people of the city wouldn’t stop talking, eating, yelling, playing, and Wukong was still clicking. His ears flutter in frustration, trying to tear away from his skull. Macaque couldn’t afford another breakdown here, out in public with Wukong as his witness, so he tries to breathe in deep and long through his nose. 

A new humming, this time from Macaque. As he continues to feed the fissure bigger bits of cardboard torn from the box, he starts humming louder and louder. The sound of it an attempt to drown out the intrusive sounds, to shove it under the water and drown the damned things until bubbles stopped rising to the surface. 

“Would you quit that?” Wukong spits, as the humming was beginning to infect and swallow his own thoughts.

“Mmmmmm when you stop clicking mmmmmmm.” His words were clipped and fast, breaking through the monotonous humming just long enough to snarl his own venom. 

“I’m keeping track of the time.” Wukong retorts, frowning and scoffing when the humming gets louder in response.

“Mmmmmmmmm get a watch, it’s only been eleven minutes, mmmmmmmm.” Macaque has silently been keeping track of time too, but not of course as loudly nor annoyingly as Wukong has been.

“Yeah well, you can quit with the humming, ‘s getting on my nerves.” Wukong huffs, slowly adopting a floating position not unlike one would while meditating, but the distinct lack of glow disperses that idea. Macaque doesn’t deign him a response, continuing on humming as the light reached thin strands around cardboard and sucked it into the rift. Where does it go?

“You know…” Wukong starts, then aborted the sentence midway, scoffing to himself and flicking his tail in clear annoyance; it was a taunt to bait Macaque into questioning him. When it became obvious Macaque would do no more than hum loudly like a broken bit of technology, Wukong continued unprompted, “You shouldn’t have tried to listen for the rift like that.” And doesn’t that just set alight nerves of annoyance.

“Why is that your issue?” Macaque snaps.

He recoils at the sharp response, brain seeming to take a few moments to adjust to the sudden lack of humming, “You freaked the kid out.”

Macaque rolls his eyes, “Are you for real? They asked me to; it was worth a shot.”

“You should have known the city was too loud, you couldn’t have found the rifts with sound alone even if you had eight ears.” Wukong’s voice was calm, level, and yet still dripping with poison that is ready to strike. 

“What are you even trying to blame me for here?” His voice lost its fight, exhaustion seeping in. 

Wukong hazards a glance back at him,

“You made MK feel guilty.” His tone was as blank as a white page, “You know your limits, don’t you?”

“It seems you think I have any control over my hearing anyway, I was only focusing on what I hear all the time.”

Wukong makes a noise halfway between a scoff and a sigh, “I thought you would have had that under control.” When Macaque doesn’t respond, he continues, “Why even stay in the city when the noise causes you such pain?”

“There’s nowhere I can move that lets me escape from the noise.” Macaque tries to growl out his words, but they come out softer than he expects. He was lying though; he could possibly think of one place that didn’t suffer that same level of noise pollution… But that was a place he could not return to.

Neither of them speak for a pinch of time, Macaque’s mind fills in the empty immediately, supplying headache-inducing sound to scare away the quiet. It is only when Wukong starts to speak again that it pauses for just a moment.

“I assumed the glamours were helping with that.” Wukong admits, “Muffling the noise, or something.”

“I wish!” Macaque laughs at the sheer absurdity of that claim, “No, no. They’re easy to take advantage of, six ears, people already know– my reputation and all that, but random demons probably wouldn’t.” Random demons who didn’t know were less likely to yell, to tug.  

“Oh, so you’re still insecure about them?” Macaque doesn’t reply, gaping at the audacity of his slighting remark, “I figured as much.”

“You don’t have much room to talk. Tell me, does MK know you have red eyes?” He knows it’s a low blow, but so was excavating his carefully wrapped insecurities like that, time and time again. Macaque remembers facing those ruby eyes only once, gilded honey burned away to a red crisp under the unrelenting smoke of the celestial furnace. It wasn’t what he focused on most at that moment when he first saw them, mostly just how the staff was digging into his skin and snapping away muscle and bone. 

“No, not yet.” Wukong picks at the end of his tail, if Macaque hones his stare hard enough, he will see him grooming himself nervously, “I have my own reputations to uphold.” The reputation that outgrew himself, a hero. Sun Wukong was the king, the untouchable immortal monkey who defied the heavens and spat on the graves of those he defeated. Macaque may have been the actor, but Wukong was equally as skilled in playing a part, even to his own detriment. 

Macaque hasn’t anything to say, so he keeps himself quiet. The space unfilled by bitter conversation was light like helium, leaving him feeling like he was floating inside his own body. They both have their secrets, scars covered by poison ivy bandages. Macaque scratches at the mars winding around his wrists and neck, covered by swathes of glamour. They itch like fire ant bites. 

“Does the humming help?” Wukong asks him, his voice a stark contrast to the silence he was crafting, drowning out the sounds he was struggling to mellow for even a moment.

“Huh?” Macaque could barely distinguish one conversation from the other, did those words just now even come from the city?

“I said, does the humming help?” He repeats.

“I guess.” Macaque never turns to look at him, trying to picture Wukong’s face while speaking. Probably smug, mocking. He doesn’t want to glance over his shoulder and see something that doesn’t belong, like sympathy that he hasn’t yet earned. 

The rift has expanded again, fissure hissing and spitting as it chewed up the cardboard fed to it like a wild beast feasting on a carcass. He hasn’t even a foggy clue to where it was going, whether it was leeching the energy from cardboard, fuelling itself on whatever it could get, or just acidifying it. The rift floating on the edge was strange, completely flat and one-dimensional. Macaque wants to pinch the roots, but his hands only phase through, left with nothing but a burning feeling creeping through his fingers. 

The rift was calling for him, the spindly arms of light beckons him closer, it needs him near, it wants him, the low thrum of humming begs him to place his hand against the aperture– 

A crash. There was a car crash in one of the city’s intersections. A truck hauling cargo slammed into a building, swerving because of something in the middle of the road. Something that left only a faint humming. The items inside the truck poured out, hitting the ground like raindrops in a storm, the building’s foundation crumbled away. It was a discordant symphony of agony. 

Everything piles on top of each other, pressing down until Macaque folds, bending in half. Macaque scrambles for purchase, hands gripping the railing on the roof until his knuckles turn white, crouching down further and further as his teeth ground together, jaw clenching and sparks of pain exploding through his teeth. He continues to fold in half, forehead touching the cold ground of the roof. Macaque’s ears flail, a headache builds behind his eyes at the screeching noises tearing through the city–

A sound weaves through it, a soft melody, unable to be held between his hands. It was quiet, and his ears latched onto it, away from the car crash, the sirens, the screaming, his ears ran with the flow of the note.

Wukong is humming, through the constantly shifting volumes it was hard to distinguish if he was humming under his breath, or loud enough that Macaque could hear it across the other side of the planet.

He hums. Macaque gulps back the bile in his throat, unwinding one hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. When his breathing, grown erratic from the adrenaline of noise, noise, noise, calmed, Macaque steels himself to join. The both of them, humming away the sound, hum until it stops hurting.

It helps.

The greatest danger could be your stupidity.

The outcast troop didn’t do names. 

Macaque was the only one designated a name, the others refused to call each other by a word. Despite this, he secretly assigned a name to all of them. The Matriarch, the lion-tailed macaque who led the group; Firey, the lar gibbon with burn marks; Three-leg, the guinea baboon with one limb blown clean off; Chains, the vervet with shattered fetters. Macaque wondered if they had names before joining the outcast troop, or if they were all like him, caged birds grappling with newfound freedom.

His time with them was divided into a few precise memories. 

The first was the initiation, because just tearing his cage and home to shreds wasn’t enough to sway the pack. Three-leg and Chains still wanted some proof, wanted to see through the Matriarch's eyes why he was that important to keep around. 

The Matriarch was convinced he was something special, like he was a gift from the stars. He knew in reality; Macaque was a drowned thing that clawed its way out of a river and delayed his destined fate. Nevertheless, Macaque had an urge to prove himself to this troop. He wasn’t quite sure why; he had known them only a few days at that point. But they were outsiders like him, they too were strange, jeered at for existing wrong. 

The outcast troop was everything he wanted to be, they were his gods, they carried themselves like they could part the trees of a forest and will the ocean to dry up with just a glance. The Matriarch was as comforting as a summer's day, and Macaque felt the slightest bit safer tucked behind her arms. Firey, Three-leg, and Chains were those he was compelled to impress, to win the approval of. Finally, those who would not heckle him, and instead welcome him to their lives. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt before, he wanted to nurture this until it bloomed.

The first trial in the initiation process hadn’t been spelled out for him. After it was completed, and Macaque was gagging on the ground, the Matriarch had told him he should have realised from the start. Maybe he would have, should have, could have, but all that mattered was he didn’t. 

It had been the third, maybe fourth day of being with them. Macaque was awoken when the sky was still a raw pink, not even the first few shreds of dawn. Firey had prodded him in the side until his eyelids cracked open.

“With those ears of yours, can’t ya’ hear the birds singin’?” He asked him. Macaque could hear the birds, the same as he could hear the troop breathing, and their hearts beating out of sync, the bodies of water over the mountain, the wide variety of animals that called this mountain home, the wind and where it picked up occasionally, he heard everything indiscriminately. 

Firey pulled Macaque to his feet, he still donned clothes ripped from plants. They promised him better clothing, but he had yet to pass initiation. The Matriarch, Three-leg, and Chains were all seated around a campfire. As nomads, they would pick up their supplies and move about the mountain and setting up fires for wherever they chose to settle down was vitally important. 

He ushered Macaque to where they were sat, the Matriarch smiled at him, and Macaque melted. Her gaze was like fire, and to his cold soul it was all he needed and much, much more.

Macaque was pushed down to sit in the middle, where the smoke wouldn’t drift, a knot of confusion twisted, the Matriarch was supposed to sit here. But she was on the opposite side, tail flicking in thinly veiled annoyance as the plumes of suffocating smoke got in her face. It made a lump form in his throat, eyes flicked up desperately searching for answers in Firey’s enigmatic face.

“We have a treat for you, Six-Eared.” Firey whispered, his voice strung and strained like his vocal cords had been rubbed raw. Firey and Three-leg specifically didn’t like to call him Macaque, said it was unfair to the Matriarch, who was also a macaque. Chains shuffled forward; broken fetters jangled with each movement. A small item was offered out, a miniscule fruit. 

He picked it up gingerly and rolled it between his palms. 

“What this?” Macaque wondered if he was meant to offer it to someone else, maybe bestow the small fruit to the Matriarch. But if the looks passed around the circle were anything to go by, that wasn’t the case. 

“Eat it, my caged bird.” She told him, the others nodded vehemently, “It’s for you.”

Without further hesitation, he didn’t want to incite the ire of the troop, Macaque popped it into his mouth. It had a strange taste and texture, as if it weren’t ripe. Firey giggled under his breath and Macaque couldn’t pinpoint if it were from happiness or if it was…

Mocking.

It was only a few seconds that passed when the chunky juices burned at his throat. Macaque was hacking and spitting loudly, the laughter caught on and grew louder. He continued to cough until the mushed remains of the fruit splattered into the fire. Even when that was over, the wheezing didn’t stop until all the food he had eaten had come back up. The roaring waves of laughter kept going, it didn’t stop even when Macaque was dry heaving over the flickering flames.

Through hysterics they told him it was poisonous and told it like a joke. Told him, caged bird, you shouldn’t be so trusting. They were right, but Macaque never learns. Never. Never learns.  

Even so, the Matriarch decided he passed initiation. Despite being so gullible, he showed a great deal of loyalty. He was fed real fruit and meat that he couldn’t tell the source of, and given scrapped robes that itched at his skin. 

It was only a few more days in the outcast troop later when he discovered what being a part of this group actually entailed. 

It was a lot of violence.

He remembered how he woke up in the dead of night. His ears rung with the sound of blood curdling screams. It was shrill, leaving trails of goosebumps up his skin, and was forever planted into his memory. It had been strangled and stifled for air. Macaque never forgot that scream, never forgot stumbling out of his shelter to peer and find the source. Saw the Matriarch rip the throat of a smaller monkey out with her teeth, saw the string of organs and cartilage in her teeth, saw the blood pool around their feet as the screams finally stopped. 

Even at the sight of the bloody display, Macaque couldn’t look away. Committed each gory detail to memory so he could have nightmares about it later. The monkey corpse collapsed to the ground, blood soiling the plush green grass. She turned to him; the Matriarch’s eyes stared into his soul. 

“Bird,” She uttered in a voice that lacked tone, yet still felt as dangerous as a snarl with the red dripping from her sharp fangs, “Go back inside.” 

He did because it didn’t feel like a choice. 

The Matriarch came to him the next morning, the other’s surrounded her. 

“I think it’s time, caged bird.” The Matriarch grinned with too many teeth on display, “That you really become part of the troop.”

“Doing… What you doing last night?” His voice was a mere whisper. The other three exchanged glances and The Matriarch’s smile waned. 

“Not yet, something close.” She tapped his nose, making him flinch back, “Welcome to the outcast troop, little bird, for real this time.”

The outcast troop weren’t prey, not like Macaque had been, they were predators. They were what hid in the dark, their eyes the only warning signal before the attack. They taught Macaque to be like them, mould him into something great. It started with small pygmy animals. They gave him a dagger; it was blunt so he wouldn’t stab himself through the hand. 

The first trial had been a rodent, grey fur with brown streaks. Its eyes were small like sun-warmed pebbles. The little animal looked up from him, snared in a trap laid by Chains. It was a stubby thing, but bigger than his hand, definitely not bigger than the dagger in his grasp. Its metal was foggy, he couldn’t see his reflection in it, didn't wish to see his fear-struck face. 

The rodent twisted and flailed in the trap; Macaque could distantly hear his own pained panting as if it existed beside him. He held up the dagger in two hands, felt the metal under his bare palms. Macaque’s eyes screwed tight, a painful strain blossoming. He slammed the dagger down, his ears twitched at the squelching and rip of flesh from where the dagger punctured. The rat squeaked loudly, desperately. Macaque didn’t kill it, missed anything vital in the poor thing’s malnourished and lithe body.

Macaque needed to kill it. 

He twisted the dagger out, listening to the sloshing waterfalls of blood and the fleshy noises. With shaking, trembling hands, Macaque pummelled the blade into the rat’s form. It let out squeaks of distress until it finally stopped, a bloody red mess on the ground, tufts of fur left in the aftermath.

Macaque dropped the blade; his hands were too convulsive to hold on any longer. He stared at the red mark left on the dirt, the severed bonds of the trap, the single black eyeball, and the shattered reddish-white bones. 

“Tsk,” The Matriarch approached from behind, “That was very messy, not good at all. You’re special, remember? Don’t you want me to be proud?”

“Sorry.” Macaque bowed his head away.

“Don’t try to be nice to rodents, bird. They’re beneath us.” She placed a hand on his head, squeezed at his skull and forced his head down lower until the rotten smell of carcass had infested his nose, “Your first strike should be your last, understand?”

Macaque didn’t cry, because those in the outcast troop didn’t feel, and he was part of them, he had to be. They were his troop now, his home, and their rules were gospel.

“Yes.”

The Matriarch smiled at him, smiled until Macaque grimaced and averted his gaze back to the mess he made.

“Good, my little caged bird.” It sounded like she was musing more to herself than Macaque, “You will be a good asset, just listen to my instructions, ok?... A very powerful weapon indeed.”

So he did, Macaque did. He grabbed his dagger and learned every weak point in the small animals. They would send rodents his way and watch as he scrambled to take their lives, if he failed to meet their expectations, take too many stabs to cease their hearts, Macaque would be forced to eat it. It was all a part of the process, they told him, this is teaching you to be better! 

Macaque did feel better, felt stronger. They kept feeding him trials, kill this rodent, differentiate these berries, kill that deer, spend all night out in the cold to build immunity. Macaque didn’t cry, he had already learned not to scream his agony. He felt stronger, or at the very least, he stopped feeling like the weak little thing trapped in a cage. In fact, just the other day, he killed a whole herd of deer, each with only one to two stabs. 

Unfortunately, there came setbacks too. 

They had been walking a path, trodden down overtime, he knew it wasn’t owned by the outcast troops, too many different scents. Macaque heard something. It was a squeak, not unlike a rodent's call, but this time was different. Curiosity got the better of him, and he veered off the set path. 

He followed the squeaks; Macaque came across a colony of rabbits. Soft, white fur, they looked like bundles of snow amongst the thick wild grass. Macaque cooed happily, resting on his knees as he beckoned the sweet creatures to him. The rabbits were enamoured at first sight, they tucked their chins on his legs, hopped into his arms, let him nuzzle their faces with his own.

The crunch of leaves behind him should have been the first warning, it wasn’t as if Macaque didn’t hear, but he didn’t feel that spark of fear at the time. His heart was warm and mellow, body as soft as the fur rubbing against him. 

When a shade was cast over him, the rabbits looking up with fear in their beady eyes, Macaque knew… Knew in his swirling gut. Wrong.

The Matriarch cleared her throat, and the wind went cold, like the sun had been extinguished by her disappointment alone. Macaque sheepishly turned to look at her, face ridden with shame.

“Macaque.” And oh, she never used his name, “You’re part of this troop, aren’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.” Macaque didn’t know what that term meant, ma’am, but the others called her that and it made her smile.

“Then why did you run off?” 

“Heard… Heard the b’nny.”

She sauntered over to them, grabbing the rabbit curled up in his lap by its floppy ears, the rest of the rabbits had run off at her mere appearance, they had good survival instincts. The Matriarch grinned maliciously as the rabbit thrashed about, paws wriggled uselessly as the animal tried and failed to free itself.

“As punishment, caged bird.” She used a second hand to grip the rabbit by the stomach and slam it to the ground until the fight drained from its body, “Kill it.”

And Macaque wanted to reject, wanting more than anything to scream for her to let it go. Those wide, innocent eyes stare up at Macaque, pleading for mercy. But the one thing Macaque has learned in his time being alive is this, there is no mercy, there is no-one coming to save you from the hell you paid for.

The dagger shanked into the rabbit’s soft body until it struggled no longer. 

The next time he was punished for his transgressions, it had been for his foolish mouth. 

Most of how Macaque learned to speak was from mimicking the village primates, memorising their enunciations. Then, the outcast troop taught him the rest. It was a few months after being integrated into the troop when Macaque wished he never learned to speak at all.

“Ma’am?” He had piped up, a small hand tugged at the Matriarch’s arm.

“What?” She was not in a good mood, that much was obvious from the thick tension in the troop, her tail lashed as she stared at Macaque like he was naught but dirt specks tangled in her fur.

“Can you… You hold me?” It was a stupid, foolish request, but he spent many sleepless nights staring at the Matriarch’s resting body. His hands would flex and reach for her, imagine how her fur felt. He imagined it would be cold to rest alongside another, the bodies he’s touched, the small pests and large deer, had all been cold under his touch. He wondered; would she be warm like fire? Would he burn if they touched?

The Matriarch snorted, “Hold you? Birdie, you’re not a child, are you?”

Macaque didn’t respond, his face felt hot.

“Listen, bird. You don’t need to be held, okay? I mean, if I hold you once, you’re always going to want it. And you can’t be a potent weapon if you’re relying on me like a child, right?”

“...Yes, sorry ma’am.” Macaque grabbed his hands so they would stop shaking.

A pause, a sigh, and then, “You know I’m going to have to punish you for this, right?”

“Yes.”

“It hurts me to do this, but you won’t learn otherwise, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She grinned wickedly, “I know just the way to correct your failure. You’ve been killing little, measly creatures for so long now. I think it’s time you really put your skills to use.” She patted his shoulders, “Come on, we’re going to attack an enemy troop tonight. You’re going to help us this time.” He gulped, a hand snaking to his robe pocket to hold the dagger, its weight on his palm had grown comforting, it made him feel powerful. 

The troop they were fighting was made up of ten monkeys. The outcasts spent their night in their demolished camp, Macaque laid awake and counted each corpse. The dagger never left his hands, fingers curled so tight around the cold blade that they ached stiffly. The smell of death hung around them like an omen of times to come.

Macaque killed a meagre three monkeys. He stabbed the blade right through the heart, stilled the beating organ with ease. Three-leg had shown him exactly where to plunge the dagger, how hard he should twist, and to continue until blood came gurgling out their throats. Macaque watched in horror as life bled out of their eyes, monkeys that looked no different from him collapsing into piles of broken limbs and cold hearts. 

His breathing hadn’t calmed even well into the night.

“I killed them.” He whispered, “They dead.” 

“Yes, you did so well, my birdie.” The Matriarch cooed.

He didn’t feel proud at the praise like he normally would, tears welled up dangerously, “I killed them.” He choked out.

“Oh no, birdie. Don’t cry over them. They were weak, incompetent… We’re special, and we’re strong, aren’t we?” Macaque nodded through his sobbing, “It’s our job as the strong ones to cull out the weak… They’re below us, bird. Just like the rats are, don’t cry for these pests.”

An echoing sound as the Matriarch slapped Macaque in the face, the force of it making the other three perk up in fear.

“You don’t want to be weak, do you, bird? Because, as the strong one… You know what I would have to do, right?” Macaque nodded weakly, biting his lip, and squeezing his eyes so no more tears would escape, “Good, good. I taught you so well. You don’t need anyone else but me, I make you strong, the best weapon…” She lightly caressed his face, rubbing circles over the blooming red mark, “So, I better not see any more of these tears, hm? You’re not a child, bird. Only babies cry, only the weak cry. You’re not those, are you?”

“No… I– I not.”

“Yes… Because you’re special.” She repeated that over and over, as if next time it would be delivered with more weight than the last. It used to make warm fuzzy feelings scatter around his stomach. Now? It filled Macaque’s chest with bloated dread. He never asked to be special. Never, if being special meant this.  

But, Macaque hadn’t anywhere else to run. He was a caged bird, and the outcast troop were the metal bars, unbent by outside force. He would do anything to be the weapon the Matriarch wished him to be; Even if it meant driving the force from bodies that looked just like him, snarling as he scared the life from their eyes, watching as glassy doll buttons rolled from their skulls. They were below him, below him, it meant nothing.

He would not cry. 

The humming duo was broken off with a cough. Macaque’s ears perk as Wukong chokes on his own spit. Luckily, at this point the noise had mostly dwindled down to dying embers. The unfortunate car crash was naught but faint sirens, screaming and ear-piercing if he chose to focus in, but he at least had the self-preservation to not do that.

“Better now?” Wukong asks, his voice rasping from the coughing fit. If Macaque turns back, he will see Wukong rubbing his throat with his hand, but he keeps his gaze snagged on the growing rift.

“I suppose.” He flicks a hand to portal a wooden crate towards him, “Your humming is awful by the way, never sing.”

“Well excuse you.” Wukong huffs, “This is the thanks I get…” 

Macaque rolls his eyes, summoning his staff to his hands. The staff appears to have been cut from the fabric of void, swirling, and pulsing with untold shadow properties. It’s spiked on the ends, but it only really solidifies into something dangerous on contact, it exists as a floating and unstable entity otherwise. His touch holds the staff together, forcing the foggy and whisking shadow to a steady object. 

He feels Wukong’s gaze on him. How his eyes, honey glamouring hidden layers of fire, burns into Macaque’s being. It strips back layers, the coats of armour he’s gained over the years to keep everyone out, they shred like paper under the simplest of glances. Only when he blinks, relents, stares at something more beautiful, something that deserves his fixation, can Macaque put himself back together. He grits his teeth when those cutting irises don’t let up for a second.

Without further hesitation, Macaque slams the formed staff down on the crate. The sound of it exploding to bits gives him recoil, unable to school his reaction into something unbothered with Wukong forcing his barriers down. Macaque hears, rather than sees, Wukong flinching back at the suddenness of it all.

Wukong makes a strangle cry of surprise, breathing and heart rate taking a sudden spike. 

“You’re crazy! Why did you do that?” He yells breathlessly. Macaque picks up the jutting pieces and cradles them in his palm.

“I’m testing the rift.” He explains plainly, grazing his hand at the stretching lights. Wukong stares at him oddly, his eyes burn. 

“You’re feeding it, you mean.” He deadpans, Macaque shrugs, already halfway into embedding a strip of wood inside, “You’re crazy, you know that? Insane!” He says, as if he hadn’t just said that exact thing only moments prior, “You feeding the damned thing could cause it to explode, or– or something!”

“Oh yes, giving it debris will cause the premature heat death of the universe. That was actually my master plan along, the both of you oh-so foolishly stumbled into my trap. Say goodbye forever, Wukong.”

Wukong blinks at him, “Was that a joke?”

“Uhm. Yeah.”

Without further commentary, Macaque slips through another strip of wood; the rift didn’t seem to ‘eat’ it, at least not how a living being would. There wasn’t even a bump through the other side, it remained as stagnant and flat as ever. The rift appears to absorb whatever was handed to it, or perhaps turn it into fuel. The fissure was hot to the touch, like pressing open palm to an oven. It only grows with each time something touches it. 

He has an unknown compulsion to continue prodding at the cryptic thing, even if it was fuelling a weapon to put the samadhi fire to shame. Macaque knows in his empty gut that this wasn’t a tameable beast, if it even has the consciousness to be classified in such terms at all, but still… It calls to him, speaks in a light voice that he just can’t refuse… A deal too sweet to let slip by him, though it promises him nothing. 

He is caught by it, ensnared and hypnotised. Macaque doesn’t even realise he was attempting to put his whole hand in before Wukong yanks him back.

“You idiot!” He chastises, snarling in his ear, “I thought we agreed not to touch it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Macaque brushes his hands on his pants, looking to the side and meeting Wukong’s eyes. Feeling broken open, nowhere inside his body to hide, Macaque feels it would be fruitless to play off what just happened. Instead, he nudges the crate away with his foot. 

“I don’t know what feeding it is doing.” He admits, resolve breaking away to bits the longer Wukong stares at him in silence.

“Can…” Wukong pauses, visibly considers his words, and then, “Are you able to hear for MK?”

“Well, I can try.” Macaque curtly leaves, moving to the middle of the roof to sit down, concentrate clearer. 

Wukong hovers just near enough to note each shift in his body, but far away enough that he could assume Macaque doesn’t notice his presence. He must not know of the weight his gaze has. Whether Wukong stares at him like an exhibit didn’t matter much in the moment either way. He closes the rest of his body off, letting his hearing run wild.

These ears of his aren't easily subdued. It scatters like particles, having to be picked up piece by piece and funnelled to the right direction, and even then, leashing it like that took centuries of practice. Noise bleeds into noise, everything was as loud as it was horrible. It makes his ears ring at the best of times, causing his mind to melt into a puddle of flight-fight and striking teeth and claws at the worst. When noise kills him like this, he wants to shred it apart, but there is nothing to fight, so usually he just attacks himself. 

Right now, the city was but a murmur to everyone else, and a scream to himself. MK’s sounds were easy to follow, he was bumbling around, talking to someone it seemed. Macaque tries to hone in more, trying to pick apart conversation. So many different dialogues overlap over each other. Macaque grits his teeth and tries, tries so hard–

A hand snaps him out of it, again.

His head perks up. Macaque’s body has grown increasingly tense until he is hunched in on himself, limbs aching as he unravels. He looks around, slightly lost now that he is forcibly pulled back into himself.

“I told you,” Wukong grunts, “Know your limits.”

Macaque brushes him off, “The kid is fine.” He flicks Wukong’s hand away harshly, earning a yelp, “He was talking to someone.”

Wukong, at the very least, seems content with that answer.

“Alright, so they’re okay?”

“Yep.” Macaque scowls deeper as Wukong’s face brightens considerably.

“I knew it, don’t know why I was so worried.” Wukong drops down to sit… Right next to Macaque.

He stares at Wukong with disgust, shuffling away until their knees aren't brushing. 

“Hey, personal space, bud.” Macaque snarks. Wukong rolls his eyes this time, he’s always been woefully touchy. Macaque used to crave it, now, well… It wasn’t well deserved. Wukong was heavenly, and Macaque was… Never mind. 

“What, it’s not like it’s gonna kill you.” He nudges Macaque’s knee with his own, annoyingly. Macaque only has the decency to hiss at him like an offended cat.

An awkward, unyielding silence follows. Wukong’s clothed knee never strays from his own, Macaque can’t pull away, doesn’t have the will, not when it burns like a thousand suns and melts their skin together. Lightning dances below the surface of his body, it makes him feel too hot, not to mention sweaty.

“So,” Wukong snaps the silence in half like a twig, leaving the remnants at Macaque’s feet, “Wanna know what me and MK got up to while you were sulking in your shitty house?”

“I wasn’t sulking.” Macaque retorts, “And no.” He pointedly ignores the comment about his home, mentally noting to steal some bug spray later. 

“Well,” He continues, despite Macaque’s exasperated sigh, “There were shark demons, which is just the worst combination, you know? Like, they had legs. How freaky is that? So, we ended up going to the beach to y’know, get rid of them, or whatever. Obviously, I just watched because MK had it covered. Still though, weird.”

“Only thing worse than having to face off against walking sharks is having to go to the beach.” Macaque huffs. 

“Don’t you know audiences love a beach episode, what’s your deal?”

“I don’t think fighting demon sharks is what an ‘audience’ has in mind, rocks for brains.”

Wukong grumbles, turning away from him, “Whatever, you’re just saying that because you can’t swim.”

Macaque makes a strangled, offended noise,

“Oh, well, fuck you. Not like you’re exactly the best at it either, you sink like a rock.” He spits back, not missing how Wukong frowns at him, or more so pouts.

“That’s because I was born from a rock.” He intones, “You’re just a scaredy cat. I mean, you’re immortal, what’s the worst a little water is going to do to you?” 

Honestly, it was true. He knew to some extent that water couldn’t really affect him all too much anymore. First-hand experience when plunged into the expanse of the ocean, the only thing keeping him from breaking down was the adrenaline of the Lady Bone Demon’s voice ringing in his ears, get the kid, get his mentor, get the kid, get his mentor– Sometimes, there are just bigger fish to fry.

Still though, it didn’t make it any less infuriating to hear,

“I don’t know, you’re immortal, what's the worst some fire is gonna do, huh? Tell me!” Macaque snaps.

Wukong’s eyes go wide, staring at Macaque with an unreadable blank expression. The ire itching under Macaque’s skin had burst, hatred speaking in his own voice. Macaque instinctively shuffled away, he couldn’t search hard enough to tell if Wukong was mad or upset. Macaque can’t tell if apologies are in order, but it’s not as if his pride would ever allow that, not directly anyway. 

“I…” His throat felt curiously dry, “You don’t know my experience with water, ok?” He knew Wukong’s with fire, though, so what’s his excuse? Nothing, the furnace flickers in his mind, nothing as usual, why is he so fucked up? The memories of that river were unburied and clear, as if had happened only seconds prior. Being pulled under the currents, struggling to find reprieve from an unrelenting strait. There was no logic behind his thinking, under the surface of his fears, but his fear wasn’t fueled by logic. It was powered by the small, useless Macaque that had been preserved in his mind. The one gasping for air, the one seeing waves of death pass by him. Macaque was at his own mercy.

“Is it…” Wukong pauses, waiting for recognition, waiting to see if he was able to hear him, “Is it like the ears thing.” His voice is oddly quiet, like he’s afraid of speaking any louder, afraid of disturbing something. Ludicrous. 

Macaque gives a noncommittal shrug, “You could say that.”

Wukong closes the gap Macaque made between them, feeling their knees and the sides of their thighs touch. It makes Macaque’s lungs cinch.

“I could teach you to swim,” He punctuates with a small, nervous laugh, “I mean, yeah, I do sink. But there’s like, floatation devices. So I can float, mostly. Plus, uh– Sandy, one of MK’s friends, he’s big on water an’ stuff. I’m sure that he wouldn’t mind.” The laughing doesn’t stop, nor does it steady into something surer, “If you want… I could, uhm, go with you. I know you don’t– don’t like strangers.”

Macaque’s mind was too floaty from the small pinches of contact to reply, just a dumb ‘yeah’ he was only half sure was intelligible. 

It was uncomfortably silent yet again, both of them were still grappling with existing amicably, nothing to fill the air with that wouldn’t sharpen and plunge. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Wukong says, or more whispers.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you like telling everyone about your issues.” Wukong shrugs, “Plus, supervising this rift is getting boring, don’t you think?”

Macaque stews in that, he did like airing out any of his issues to others, though, this was a different thing, something hidden behind his ribs and close to his heart. He liked talking about it, despised having to feel it. It was much easier when he could twist and spin the pain, weave it amongst another’s web of anguish, because then it’s not his problem. This hurt isn’t his own, he refuses to acknowledge the scars lest they’re mirrored. It’s much easier to rip other’s apart that way, then he knows how they got hurt, he’s felt it first-hand. Just replay the events, replay, replay, let the images of the past and the now get muddied. 

But Wukong knows everything, he knows the soft creases of his body, the ones that at some point he wasn’t even sure he had. That may have been in the past, but there was nothing else he liked excavating than that. He’s similarly faced death in the face, Macaque has listened to his laments about death, the one thing he feared. That was until Wukong learned there were fates worse than death, of course.

The furnace, the mountain, the headaches, when does it end, when will it be enough? When will I be enough?

The perfect weapon. 

“You’re just trying to get more ammo, huh?” Macaque snides, “So when we fight again you can rub it in my face, hmm?”

Wukong at least had the decency to look guilty, “I won’t, I swear on it.”

“Mhm, well. Since you wanna know so bad, I guess I can tell you… But if you go back on that swear, I’m telling MK about the time you got so drunk you p–”

Wukong slams a hand over his mouth, “Ok! Ok! I promised I wouldn't say anything!” Macaque tears his hand away, feeling his skin ripple like fire at the touch.

He isn’t sure why he is agreeing to this, but Wukong… He can hide his scars as much as he wants, Macaque can see through them, and he’s sure Wukong is much the same. As much as he wants to brush it off, he feels this opportunity beckon him. No one else would understand, not like Wukong would… Maybe he was just romanticising the past again, the Wukong that would have been somewhat graceful about it through his clumsiness, if he gets hurt again, at least it won’t be surprising. 

“Ok so… My parents threw me in a river when I was a baby.” He waits for the laughter, it doesn’t come, “I… I think, at least. I didn’t see who did it. But I also don’t know who else would have tossed a child in a river and let them drown.” Macaque swallows thickly, confessing something he has never spoken aloud before, “It’s probably because I’m a freak, aha. These ears, always causing me problems, you know?” Extended silence, Wukong still wasn’t laughing. Despite the lack of response, he continues to ramble breathlessly, “Yeah, well… Whenever there’s bodies of water, I guess I just freak out, thinking I’m gonna drown again. I mean, obviously I didn’t drown, because I’m right here. So it really makes no sense–”

“Do you want a hug?” Wukong breaks his sentence off, and before either of them can backpedal, he goes on, “I mean. That’s normally what people say when someone says something sad, right? Gods, I don’t know. That was stupid, just ignore me.”

“Wukong…”

“I mean, I heard Mei ask that to MK, because he was upset,”

“Wukong.”

“So, I just assumed that was alright now because holy shit what do I even say. Sorry your parents tried to kill you? What!”

“....Wukong. Shut up, please.”

“It was impulsive, I don’t know why I said that. Gods, fuck.”

Macaque grabs him by the shoulders, shaking him.

“Do you ever shut up, seriously?” He snaps, “I… Hm, it would… Be nice…” Macaque falters at the end, looking anywhere but Wukong’s brightening face. 

“Really? I mean, sure.” He tentatively holds his arms outstretched, waiting patiently for Macaque to slot in between. 

Freezing in place, solidified in the moment, Macaque can only stare. It has been many years, more than he can count since this affection has been so easily offered out to him. Macaque hunkers down, scooting into Wukong’s lap and relaxing his body into him. He doesn’t really stop to consider if this was a sneak attack strategy, melting the second Wukong’s arms opened up to let him inside.  

As soon as Macaque is situated against Wukong’s chest, arms come around and hold him, squeezing. It sparks a wildfire inside him, making his insides curl up at the overwhelming wafts of heat. Everything about Wukong is warm, from the small sections where Macaque could feel inches of skin or fur, the heat radiates off him. He was sure that if he were to touch Wukong’s face, his hands would melt off. 

Macaque sits there, face squished against Wukong’s cold, metal chestplate, it cooled off his rapidly warming skin. Wukong’s arms hold him in place, they are both utterly silent as the hug goes on. Just as Wukong opens his mouth, preparing to ask if Macaque wants to break away, Macaque lifts his arms and returns the action. He is burning alive, a fever of emotions he couldn’t name ravaging his body. 

Something burns at the back of his eyes, but Macaque swallows it back. He isn’t going to show Wukong any more weakness, it may not hurt now, but it won’t last. It never does.

You think it’s a secret, but they know.

Macaque wasn’t a part of the outcast troop. 

The Matriarch might believe that; Firey, Three-leg, and Chains might tentatively agree; The whole of the mountain might scornfully include his freakish description when detailing the murders their troop wreaked. But Macaque wasn’t one of them, no matter how many times he desperately whispered a mantra that he was, he was, he was! It wasn’t true because the outcast troop was strong. They were feared, intimidating, they bared their teeth and had seas of primates bow down to submission under them. Macaque was one of the crowd, he bowed at the Matriarch’s feet like a prayer, because she was god, holding his life in the palm of her hand. 

She was the one to crack his cage open, show him a life outside of captivity from hands and waters. But the Matriarch introduced him to a new kind of cage, a new trap snagged into his leg, making him limp forward in search of her hands. 

He had spent years, years, standing alongside the outcast troop, and not once has he felt like he truly belonged. Always a step out of pace, a gust of wind alongside hurricanes. Macaque saw the way they looked at him, disappointment and anger were easy to weed out. Nothing he ever did was enough to stir pride because Macaque wasn’t enough.

Macaque had grown older, yet grown no more wise. His heart was in the blade, each stab and shank becoming monotonous and robotic. It came as easy as breathing, to break, to shell apart bone and skin. He’s taken more lives than he can fathom, all so he can turn and catch the Matriarch’s eye, silently beg her to smile upon him. It was always a curt nod, a snark of ‘do better next time,’

He was afraid of when ‘next time’ would no longer be viable. 

That day came sooner than later, when Macaque was older but still small. He was a skeleton that shuffled onwards with one foot caught in a six-foot pit. Through clenched teeth, bony limbs, and a mean knife that was more of a rusted brownish red than its original steel colouring, he marched on. 

Despite his tiny size, living off rations of mushed berries and failed test murders, others still found a way to be afraid of him. It’s the ears, or even the eyes. The sight of his abnormalities had most monkeys running for the hills, the braver of those would whisper about the maddened eyes he possessed, not a sliver of sanity left in that blank gaze. The Matriarch told him to fix his face whenever they communicated with partner troops, which wasn’t many or often, but Macaque had no idea what that meant nor entailed. It was a common trend, never able to fully grasp what’s expected of him. 

Macaque wasn’t blind to how much the others despised his presence, looking down on him like an expendable burden that the Matriarch paraded around like a participation trophy. Firey would speak about him in cruel words he hadn’t grasped the precise definition of. They called him soft around the edges, a sensitive child they were encumbered with. Three-leg often tried to goad him into eating poisonous fruits, but Macaque was smart enough to know the differences now. Chains didn’t speak much if at all, but his eyes carried a certain weight to them that knocked the air from his lungs when it tarried on him. 

That was how they saw him, the drowned monkey who wasn’t even supposed to be alive. Macaque sharpened the blunt dagger on a tree stump, slashing at it until it emerged into something greater. The metal grew weaker over the years, chunks spewed out from the blade, breaking, and snapping apart like thin twigs. He would make it stronger, slam it against the wood until it’s strong again.

He couldn’t exactly blame them for their assumptions, given they were grounded in reality. But Macaque would still look to the Matriarch’s face and yearn for something. His heart would cry out in a language he wasn’t equipped in. But it quietened when she looked upon him, eyes soft for just a single moment. She, at the very least, was vocal about her wants for him. She guided him to where he needed to go, to be strong, to be special like she thought he was.

She may just be delusional like the other claimed in a whisper, but Macaque would subscribe to whatever fanciful beliefs she held if she so wished. Right now, the Matriarch wanted a weapon, wanted a strong invincible thing, a guard dog in the shape of a skeletal monkey.

Despite the years; the training; the bite-marks etched into his tongue to keep him from crying out in pain; the dam of unshed tears bending under pressure and threatening to burst; the emotions he wished he didn’t have, locked under chain and key; the lives he’s taken… Despite it all, Macaque hadn’t lived up to these impossible expectations. Always two steps behind what she desired from him. 

And then it all came down to a blazing crash.

Macaque was training himself again, the Matriarch sat in watch, making approving or disappointed hums to let him know what he was doing right or wrong. If his footwork was off, she would get up and shove him into place, he appreciated the reminders on what he was failing at. 

It was when Three-leg, Firey, and Chains had gathered around when it happened. They were standing in a closed off field, encircled by trees and other growth. Chains was at work setting up traps for animals in the area, or perhaps enemy troops, it was hard to tell its intentions. 

It started with a spark, initiated by a fleck of black that almost went unnoticed. The Matriarch didn’t miss it like Macaque had, leaning forward with attentive eyes as she studied Macaque’s every move. Her scrutiny was alight with an indescribable emotion. It made Macaque feel prideful, something he was doing was right, so he continued with vigour. 

That was, until the sparks grew and stretched out. They formed into something more solid, an inky black puddle spilled at their feet, a shadow. It flexed and pulsed as if living, breathing under Macaque’s jurisdiction. 

Her face fell, whatever sparkles had bloomed in her eyes dimmed. The others looked down on the shadow with contempt in their features. The Matriarch huffed, turned to Firey, and motioned him closer.

“I knew he was mystic; I knew all along.” She started off, “But this? I was expecting a mystic with a little more… Power?”

Fury nodded vehemently, “Yes, ma’am, quite right! This… Mystic power, if you could even call it such, is quite worthless. I mean, what is a shadow going to do to help us at all?”

“You’re correct… It’s a shame really, I was expecting something good from a thing like that. I mean, the ears would be useful if we learned to use them but… Ah, we could be investing in something more… Worthwhile, hm?”

Macaque reeled the shadow to himself, he played with it, stretched it between his fingers like goo. It was a solid thing when he held it, stretchy and rubbery, but existed like mist splayed against the floor otherwise. He was, quite honestly, delighted at this revelation. The Matriarch knew he had mystic powers, this entire time?

“I have power?” He was breathless, in awe of the strength bundled inside him.

“Well, you are a demon.” The Matriarch shrugged.

Macaque’s face fell, “What?”

She laughs, “I mean– did you really think you were just a normal monkey? I said you were special, a demon like us… A mystic one at that. Too bad your power is utterly useless.”

His blood felt frozen over, like the lake Three-leg tried to skate across, the ice had cracked under their weight, and they fell in, Firey had to scoop them out. Macaque remembered how Three-leg trembled for days and days, he could relate somewhat. The hand of water is strong and hoists you down, it never quite evacuates the lungs. Right now, he felt just the same, cold, and frozen, stuck in time.

“Useless…? Ma’am, with time I can be good?” He offered– pleaded with her. She seemed unconvinced.

The Matriarch turned to the others, brushed him off like a speck of dust, like he’s not even there.

“Well, normally I would just get rid of them… Like the last one to fail us,” The three of them nodded quickly in agreement, “But… After all these years honing this weapon… Wouldn’t it be such a waste to oh, dispose of it now? I mean, what could he possibly do without us anyway?” Her words were met with another chorus of agreement, all of them rising to leave.

Macaque childishly clung to the Matriarch’s arm, it made her flinch back, reeling like preparing to box him across the head. 

“Are you leaving? You come back, right?” His voice wavered and it’s getting so hard to ignore that unrelenting pressure shoved against his skull. 

“Sure,” She shrugged, “We’ll totally come back.”

“I’ll do better!” He told her, but she’s already walked away.

So then, Macaque waited.

He waited, waited for a few hours before setting up camp with what little he had on him, and continued waiting after that. 

Waited for a few days, nearing a week. He wasn’t nervous, Macaque one time had to traverse a snow-addled plain to find them, it took him two weeks and gave him hypothermia, and he turned out stronger because of it. All these trials were to unlock his power, he was sure of it now. This was just another one to the pile.

So he waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.

It was taking an awful long time, but Macaque had closed himself off to caring. He sat there, looking more like a carved rock amongst the grass than a living monkey. Undisturbed by the world around him, he sat and waited for them to return.

An ugly truth soon crept up his throat, what if they never returned? The majority of his life so far had hinged on their approval, their love, their praise, no matter how scarce that was. He knew he would find nothing for him outside of that troop, the Matriarch told him as such. Didn’t want to understand that they left him for good. Because how could he be so stupid to let himself be betrayed like that? A second time, no less, even third if his ongoing theory about how he ended up in that river was true… How could Macaque be so weak time and time again. He hadn’t trained hard enough, hadn’t presented himself well enough.

Macaque waited an unknown amount of time, seen the sun rise and the moon fall countless times over, felt the season change, felt his eyes dry out from not blinking because if he did, he might miss her return.

Until came one day, it was inconspicuous but something in the air shifted, something was nearing. He could tell by the way the sun was hanging in the sky off kilter, and that the sky's painted shades were the wrong shade. Twigs snapped under the approaching figure’s feet, haphazard in their walking patterns, sounded like arrogant stomping. Macaque’s ear twitched, but he ended up banishing any care for it. Kept his eyes on the horizon, desperately wishing the passing silhouettes of leaves were the Matriarch coming back to get him. She’d brush him off, smile so sweetly, apologise profusely because she simply forgot and he’s so small she barely noticed. 

He was broken out of his wistful thoughts by a rather sharp jab to the side. A voice shrieked at him, something like ‘hey, I’m talking to you!’ But Macaque couldn’t quite make it out. He turned slowly; eyes ready to dart back to look out for the troop. Macaque was greeted with the petulant face of another monkey. He was pouting at him, a stick clutched in one hand.

“You.” He grumbled. 

“...Me.” Macaque doesn’t have much of a response, he never really talked to other monkeys outside of the village, years ago, and the troop. This was uncharted territory. 

“I know you– heard all about you!” The monkey started to pace around him in circles, tail lashed in anger, “Your troop, the outcasts, have been terrorising my mountain for years! What–” He pointed the stick in Macaque’s face, “Do you have to say for yourself?”

Macaque’s eyebrow raised, “Uh, your mountain?”

The monkey nodded, “Yes, I’m the Monkey King, you hear? Remember that!”

Macaque tilted his head, “Uh, never heard of you.”

“Well now you have! And this is my territory and you guys keep killing my people! So, knock it off!”

“You’re not a very good king.”

“Whaaat? I’m a plenty good king!”

Macaque sneered, “You’re terrible if you can’t protect your people, if they even need protection at that! You need to train them not to be weak, to fight, to kill those beneath them, and if you’re really a king, that should be everyone. And yet, we’re not dead, so how about it?”

The Monkey King seemed to consider this for a moment, “Well, that’s true. I’ve been more focused on immortality and stuff, should probably get on that.” He tapped his stick against his chin, visibly in thought, “I don’t know about killing everyone though. How do I even figure out who’s weak and who’s not? Like, what if they’re a bad fighter but make killer fruit pie… I can’t just pass that up!”

Macaque couldn’t quite grasp the Monkey King’s thought process, watching him as he padded back and forth, “Uh.” Was all he could intelligibly say. 

The king perked up, turning to look at him with wide eyes.

“What’s your name?” He asked, voice booming so loud it shook the trees and scared the birds, “I mean, I hear all the rumours about your troop but never any names. Do you guys even have names?”

“It’s uh, the Six-Eared Macaque. I’m the only one with a name.”

The Monkey King became even more enigmatic when he smiled brightly, and why would he because he knew, he heard what people said, and he smiled, “Cool! My name is Sun Wukong! I’m just gonna call you Macaque though, okay? Too long, too long!” He held a hand out and Macaque flinched, unsure why ‘Sun Wukong’ was about to slap him this early.

A blow never came, but Wukong looked visibly perturbed. This isn’t some sort of attack? Macaque reached his own hand out and gently patted Wukong’s hand until he lowered it. 

“So,” Wukong immediately changed subjects, “Where’s the rest of you guys, your troop?”

Macaque didn’t want to tell him the truth, but he also didn’t want to be under a king’s subjugation if he lied and told him he was still with them, the enemy… “They’re gone. They left me behind.” Wukong’s eyes softened, it was horrible, “They’re going to be back! I’m waiting for them.” He barked, trying to scare the pity off his face. 

“Oh, ok!” Wukong planted himself down next to Macaque, “I’ll wait with you then.”

“...Why?”

“Well, I need to beat you all up for your transgressions, so I suppose I can just patiently wait. Less effort than rampaging the entire mountain… Again.”

Instead of sitting alone, Macaque is accompanied by the king through the night. That is, until he yawned loudly and leaned back to sleep.

“You tired?” He questioned teasingly. Macaque had once stayed away for three days on end for a mission, he wouldn’t sleep unless he knew he was allowed, this king was too lax.

“Yup!” Wukong yawned again, shifting around on the floor to get comfortable.

“Really, going to go to sleep next to a member of the outcast troop?” Macaque chided.

“I’m a little worried for my safety… Oh but, you seem so nice.” Was what Wukong blearily said, “Besides… I’m the… The great–” he was cut off by a loud yawn, his eyelids drooped, and he was out like a light.

Macaque felt his lips twitch, trying to crease upwards in a foreign way.

“What an idiot.”

The two of them stay embraced for a long time. 

Macaque has never dared to utter those words he spoke aloud, before now that is. Because that story is a mark that spoke of his weakness, from his first days alive, Macaque has been a freak no-one wants around. Someone who never learned his lesson and grappled after the first signs of kindness in a ruthless world. 

But now it’s been splayed out who he really is, unwanted when unfulfilling from the very start. A shudder goes through his spine, limbs shaking under Wukong’s grip. Wukong holds him tighter when the shivers don’t cease, they keep rampaging through his bones until he feels tingly all over. A hand works its way up to his head, threading through hairs and holding Macaque’s face in position against Wukong’s chestplate. He squeezes him tighter until Macaque takes on a curled-up form like a waning crescent, cradled in his arms like something precious. Macaque feels the pads of Wukong’s fingers against his scalp, electricity zaps through him at each brush, it was almost enough to be his undoing. 

Even when past the need for being comforted over events that transpired thousands of years ago, Wukong doesn’t push him away. They ruminate in the moment, sapping up the tension and gloom like sponges. He knows he should be uneasy, ready to flee, to fight back, but that instinct is more of a white noise, buzzing in the back of his mind, than it is a priority. It's lax, like sinking into jello, and Macaque doesn’t really remember the last time he’s properly relaxed. Calm, because right now he’s in Sun Wukong’s grip, the one who found him when he was all alone. It wasn’t Monkey King right now, the one who reminded him how easily he could return to whence he came. Even though this could so easily turn, his mind is a mush. 

Then, Wukong asks him a question, “Do you hate me?” And it’s spoken in a whisper, so quiet that Macaque almost assumes he had heard Wukong’s buried thoughts. 

“Hm?” But his ears are more focused on a noise two blocks away, someone is hitting a ball against their garage door, the clattering and thumping as it went back and forth sucks him in like a black hole. He can’t pull away from it, stuck. 

“Do you… Do you hate me?” 

No, this doesn’t make sense. This has to just be thoughts, or words from the past coming unburied. And Macaque would soon hear a younger version of his voice say no, I’m not mad at you. Even though he should be, he should be.  

A hand taps on his forehead, trying to rattle his brain into place.

“Do you hear me?” His voice is louder this time, not thoughts, this is a voice, “Psst, Earth to Macaque. I see you getting all caught up.” That’s right, annoyingly, Wukong could still read his face like a book. Somehow knew when the sounds were overwhelming, somehow fucking knew when Macaque gets ensnared in a random sound. Knew, and no words had to be exchanged. 

He grumbles, suddenly all too aware of the sounds around them. Frustratingly, the loudest sounds are Wukong’s breaths, his words, his heartbeat through layers of fabric and metal… 

“I hear you… Though I wish you would shut the fuck up.” Macaque sighs, hissing his words.

Wukong clears his throat, repeating his question again, “Do you hate me?”

“I guess.” Was the knee-jerk response because what else could he say. Curled up in the arms of his declared enemy, concede he hates him beyond what words could express while leeching from his warmth and comfort? Even worse, deny that he did. 

“Well, I mean, I figured that.” His voice is weirdly pinched, like something is obstructing his throat, “I don’t know why you wouldn’t hate me. I suppose I just…” Macaque can hear his gulp, feel the hands around him clutch on for dear life, “I missed you, or whatever… Ha, you make being alone look so easy.”

Macaque can’t even begin to tear apart all of what that means, scrape it apart with his teeth until it reveals something he doesn’t want to see. That maybe this dance of hatred and enemies has been a one-sided performance orchestrated by someone lost in a haze of his own emotional ruin. He wants to scratch and run away from it yet remains frozen and still and cooped up against Wukong. Macaque can hear his heart, feel it thudding too quickly behind solid ribs. His own heart is probably doing flips, he wonders for a moment if Wukong can also hear it at this proximity.

The words he had wished to say, planned out in his mind if a day like this ever came, are immediately snuffed out. He’s left with dying embers and the skeletal foundation of whatever he mapped out to navigate a situation such as this. But it would turn out to be worthless in the end, because Wukong immediately unravels the two of them until they’re no longer tangled together. Macaque is left in a daze, sitting on the ground while Wukong shakily backs off, rubbing his hands over his clothes like touching Macaque has sullied him.

“That was dumb.” Wukong whispers, so many emotions funnelled into his words that it comes out a murky brown, rather than the flurry of rainbow he knows is there.

“Yeah.” Macaque rises himself, turning away so he doesn’t have to face Wukong, doesn’t have to look. 

The air is too hot, everything felt sticky like they were doused in sweat, stewing in the revelation that what just happened really happened. They got so close, too close. It was unnatural, bending the rules of what should be allowed. Everything was broken irreparably and it’s too late to fix, so why did their touch feel like glue? 

Macaque has already resolved to pretend it never happened when he flicks a glance back, it seemed Wukong chose much the same. It was his turn now to poke at the rift, it has grown bigger with a wider array of colours. 

“I think it’s been over twenty minutes.” Wukong spoke, voice breaking up, it betrays the worry underneath and Macaque wonders when he lost his edge. His acts were always sharp, brutal, and struck fear into everyone’s hearts with a single glare. Now though? This Wukong was softer. He’s been sanded down over the years it seemed. Or maybe, he just can’t muster that same performance with him anymore, not to that extent. Is it fear, no, it must be cowardice.

Macaque’s ear twitches, a certain sound crops up.

“MK is coming back.” He informs Wukong, stepping farther away like he could snap the string of tension between them, it only pulls taut. Wukong perks up.

“How close is he?”

“Hm, relatively. Shouldn’t be more than a minute.” 

Wukong looks just about ready to say more, but his face crumbles into something forlorn, turning away. His tail curls up sadly, it’s a poignant display that disgusts him. Macaque keeps his eyes on the ground, on the spindly fine cracks twisting through the concrete; the ashen patches where dead fire had roared; the faint grey dapples where rain had tried to make home. 

A rattle, and Macaque whirls around to meet it. A silhouette in the distance reveals MK traversing the city on his staff, his movements are slower than normal, staff twisting midair listlessly. 

Eventually, MK lands, a crater rippling at his feet with the weight of his landing. His face is flushed and sweaty, panting heavily.

“I’m back!” He hoots, arms raised triumphantly above him, staff clattering to the ground, “And neither of you are dead! What an achievement.” 

“Hey bud, you’re back!” Wukong cheers, running up to grab him and spin him around, “So, what did you find?”

After MK catches his breath, he relays the information,

“So, I sent some clones off to search the city faster. They found more of these rifts, all the same crystals in the middle.” He rattles off and Wukong nods intently, “And then I found her. The demon, I mean. While trying to fight her, we ended up talking.”

“Yeah?” Wukong prods.

“And well… I found out what the rifts are for.”

Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

There were many things Wukong discovered about Macaque.

When they first met, the most notable thing he noticed was his eyes. As rumours were passed around the mountain, Wukong heard many new things about the latest recruitment, how he had eyes like blackholes, devoid of light or life, his gaze would strip you of your sanity if you dared to look close enough. 

Wukong tried to catch the stranger’s eyes, when he finally grabbed hold, he found those whispers true. There was a certain dead look to them, like staring into the realm of the deceased and seeing it stare back. If it were anyone else, it would be unsettling, but Wukong found himself immune to the effects of death… Though his ventures to obtain more immortality hadn’t yet ended, he still felt hardly phased. 

There was a time that the concept of death struck fear into his heart, paralyzed him with the possibility of no longer existing. The darkness beckoned him, it had a gaping mouth to swallow him whole, leave him nothing but ashes. The fear led him to his first master, no matter how terribly that ended. 

The so-called ‘reaper’ of the outcast troop was scrawnier than Wukong anticipated. Not like the others he’s encountered were sightly but he was at least more docile than the others. Macaque was content to sit and wait, barely irked by his presence.

Over time, sitting in near silent, anxious wait, Wukong dug deeper. There had to be more to this monkey than his unkempt and sordid appearance, he could feel that thrum of life. 

For one, Macaque was overly insecure about his ears. Wukong interrogated him about them. They were quite a spectacle, and he was eager to touch, to run his fingers over them and feel the fine, invisible hairs on them. Macaque had shrugged off his prying questions, giving short, clipped responses. It wasn’t until Wukong leaned forward to brush against them that he snapped.

The second his hand made contact;Macaque was reeling back faster than the crack of lightning. He screamed in Wukong’s face, roaring at him to get away. Macaque’s hands came up to cup his ears, pressing them flat against his skull while he rocked back and forth. He was momentarily stunned, retracting away until Macaque stopped snarling at him to back off. 

He kept his distance even when Macaque slumped over, letting his arms fall to wrap around his torso instead.

“Don’t touch my ears.” He snapped, glaring half-heartedly. 

Wukong nodded vigorously, “I won’t, I promise.” After that concession, Macaque looked up at him instead with tired eyes. His ears were still pinned back, flicking every so often. Despite how much he yearned to, Wukong decided against ever trying to touch them again. 

The next thing he realised, a week or two after making acquaintance with Macaque, was that he was odd. Everything about him was notably different from the other monkeys. From his strange gait, walking unevenly on the balls of his feet; to the way he speaks, sentences enunciated in peculiar way, as if Macaque was mimicking a different person’s speech from word to word, chopped up from high-pitched to faux enthusiasm that sounded plastic from his lips. Though, it was a little entertaining when Wukong found pinches of his own speech copied tool, words pitched to replicate his own vocalisations; Macaque was also very jumpy. Wukong couldn’t move too quickly, or he would hiss, grimace at him and scoot away. One time, he approached from behind and ended up with a dagger at his throat, when Macaque recognised him, it was removed. 

It had also taken a long while to gain Macaque’s trust. Every single day, from the second dawn awoke, Wukong would be hurrying down the mountain to where Macaque was still eagerly awaiting the return of his troop. Wukong was starting to believe they weren’t coming; he could see that same resignation in Macaque’s dark eyes. 

Wukong wished to cheer Macaque up, because even if he was an enemy, he was fine company. He brought a collection of fruits in a papyrus weaved basket. They were the best fruits on the mountain, tried and tested by Wukong himself, the judge and jury on fruit deliciousness. He tried to pass the fruits off to Macaque, who looked like he desperately needed some food in his system. He had been sitting in that one spot for weeks on end, slowly wasting away to nothing, and it looked quite unhealthy. His body looked ready to crumble, skin pulled taut over bone and muscles, the bones visibly poking through layers of skin and fur to rip themselves free. Despite how clear it was needed; the fruit was met with immediate scepticism. 

“Are these poison?” He asked, gingerly holding the fruit by the stem.

“No! Why would I give you poisoned fruit?” A whole lotta reasons, Wukong could only guess. To ease his new acquaintance, Wukong took a massive bite out of one of the fruits, “Mm, yummy.” Macaque watched him chew and swallow the large chunk intently, warily picking one up for himself. He nibbled on it slowly, face showing great contemplation as he ate. 

“Oh,” He gasped after finishing one bite, “This is… Good. Mm, yummy, yummy.” He echoed Wukong’s words, eliciting a giggle.

“Yummy,” Wukong repeated, setting alight a loop of them parroting the word until it sounded fake. 

Macaque ended up devouring the rest of the fruits, Wukong unable to take any more for himself, the moment his hand neared some fruits he was snarled at, bared teeth in his face as Macaque scrambled to pull the fruits closer to his chest. Wukong learned another valuable lesson, to never touch his food, ever, that day.

It was a month later that Macaque admitted something to Wukong.

“I don’t think they’re coming back,” They had been sitting in relative silence, staring off into the bleeding sunset. Wukong had been thinking aloud, pointing out each pink and orange-streaked cloud, announcing what shape it looked like. After about ten minutes of this was when Macaque spoke up, voice solemn and toneless, “The outcast troop. They uh, don’t have a use for me anymore. Sorry, I know you wanted to see them… Even if it was to kill them.”

Wukong’s heart sunk, but not for the reasons Macaque expected.

“Why would they leave you behind? I heard you killed a lot of people! Which isn’t cool, but it’s good for them, right?”

“I thought so too. But I was supposed to be special, I’m a demon, you know. The Matriarch wanted me to be powerful, my mystic power to be strong, but I failed her. I’m useless.” He buried his head in his knees, overcome with shame.

“Wait a minute. You also have mystic– what! That’s amazing, you have to show me your power!” Wukong shook him by the shoulder until Macaque unfurled.

“It’s not that exciting, she said it wasn’t good at all.” He twisted his hand languidly, tearing the shade from the grass around them and raising an orb of shadow into the air, “Its uh… Shadow magic. Not all that impressive.”

Wukong’s eyes widened like round, plump fruits, “Shadow magic? Are you serious, that is so cool!” He grabbed Macaque’s wrists, jumping up and down in delight, “Again, again! Show me again!”

Wukong’s eyes, as he stared intently at Macaque’s weaving shadows, were bright; shinier than stars on a pitch-black canvas, burning more than the real sun, a blinding display of mirth at how the shadows were manipulated and played with like malleable goop. The consistency ranged from something you could hold in your palm to the still images contorting to shapes, stretched out across the field.

“This is fantastic! I’ve never seen someone with shadow powers before.” Wukong gasped, a realisation coming to him, “Ok how about this, a deal. You come with me and help me fight against enemies, destroy the weaker like you said! And I’ll replace that dumb troop that just didn’t appreciate your cool powers!”

Macaque appeared visibly taken aback, tail swishing and face pinched, “I’m not strong.” He said firmly.

“You have shadow magic!” Wukong insisted.

Macaque shook his head, “You have the wrong idea. I’m not strong, if I was…” Then they wouldn’t have abandoned him. He screwed his eyes shut and banished the thoughts with a shake of the head, “Never mind… I’ll… I’ll go with you.”

And that was when Macaque found salvation in a new god.

Because like the Matriarch, Wukong was powerful and everything about him exuded it, especially in the cocky confidence he paraded around. His heart thumped with mystic energy, born from rock like an egg sent from heavens and hells alike. When Macaque got his first glimpse at Wukong’s power he tasted blood, metallic and warm in the back of his throat. He was well versed in ways of fighting, of techniques that would have been mere fantasies to him had Macaque not watched them unfold in front of his very eyes. 

The most intriguing part had been the transformations, how he completely rearranged and shifted his form into another, breaking apart his foundations and building them back up in a manner of seconds. It was an intoxicating process to witness, Macaque could only dream of having it for himself, in his grasp, in his control. To be something utterly not himself, even for a moment, a second, even less than that, maybe then he could breathe in lungs not waterlogged. 

When he begged, pleaded, for Wukong to show him how it was done, he hesitated. Wukong hesitated and Macaque was ready for the words to come, that he wasn’t special, and he can’t do it, he’s too weak. They spent weeks dancing around the subject, Macaque, now resided in his kingdom, had plenty of opportunities to watch Wukong avert his eyes.

That all ended when Macaque stormed up to him, stopping him before entering the water-curtain cave, a place he despised having to come near.

“You avoid me.” Macaque stated, with anger seeping into each syllable.

“Huh?” Wukong was caught off guard by the frustration visibly seeping into every part of his friend, “I wasn’t doing that!”

“Were.” Macaque spat, “Asked you about the transformation. Now you’re avoiding me, why? Did I say something wrong?”

Wukong didn’t know how to respond, couldn’t tell him about his first master and his scathing words when he showed off his transformations to the other students, how he kicked him out and screamed until his mortal vocal cords were raw. He just couldn’t recount that; he didn’t have the words nor the will.

“It’s just… The transformation stuff, I don’t know if I can tell you.” Wukong admitted, watching Macaque’s angered face fall.

“It’s because I’m weak.”

“No, no! It’s… Complicated, it’s complicated.” Macaque didn’t seem any less crestfallen at that explanation, “I can teach you, just… Promise not to tell anyone else, okay?” Wukong amended, the switch in demeanour for Macaque was instantaneous. He can hear his master’s voice, yelling at him to get out, never tell anyone it was I who taught you–

“I won’t tell anyone.” He promised.

Wukong gave him a strained look, “Even the outcast troop, if you tell them…”

“I won’t.” Macaque levelled him with a steely expression, “You’re my troop now.”

Wukong felt something glow in his chest, “Y-yeah, we are now.” He promised he wouldn’t tell, this had to be okay, it had to be fine, “You don’t need those losers now, you have me!” Someone who would appreciate him.

It had been a difficult feat to teach, especially since Macaque didn’t learn anything similar to how Wukong did. It was an instant knowledge in Wukong’s mind, cogs fitting together in place, and if they didn’t run smoothly? He would beat his mind until it did. It seemed though, that knowledge didn’t settle quite as quickly in Macaque’s mind.

“Explain it again.” He demanded for the eighth time. There was clear frustration growing, taking root in his lungs as Macaque panted with effort. Wukong could feel that same sense of frustration growing, gnawing at him. 

“It’s simple! Why don’t you get this?” He snapped, tail lashing. It was so easy for him, why wasn’t it the same?

“Maybe you’re just a shit teacher.” Macaque grunted, collapsing from a standing position to sit.

“No, you’re just a terrible student!” Wukong retorted, “I already explained it like– a bajillion times.”

“That’s not a real number.” Macaque deadpanned.

“Yes, it is, stupid!”

“Hot-head.”

“Idiot!”

“Boring king.”

The insults hung in the silent air. A rumble built, shaking through ribs, and tangling through organs. It came to a clash when they both burst into laughter, something so natural and bellowing from Wukong’s chest came strained and raspy from Macaque, it scraped at his throat and dried his mouth to sand. 

“Haha, okay. Let’s just leave this for later, we can probably do more training later.” Wukong brushed wetness from his eyes, dismissed him with a precise flick of his tail. Macaque bowed to him, taking a quick leave, vanishing into the growing darkness.

He would master it, eventually. Long after Wukong raided the dragons’ kingdom for a suitable weapon and flashy armour, Macaque had crafted his wispy shadows into a copy of Wukong’s staff. It had to be the same, because Wukong was strong, he watched with amazement as the dragons’ trembled under his gaze. His eyes were heavier than the weight of the globe on your shoulders. 

The years dragged on, barely an exhale to the immortal figure of Wukong, a snail’s pace to Macaque. Every moment was cherished, every rose was stamped over because it was in his way, it filled the air with pollen either way. 

Macaque followed in his footsteps, relishing in how his shoes fit the prints left behind perfectly. Wukong helped dress him up, clothes not worn through and ripped, told him how much it looked as though he belonged amongst the kingdom, and Macaque would smile. He was informed by Wukong how strange his grin appeared, wiry and unnatural. I like it though, Wukong assured him, It’s special.

He liked being special to someone.

Especially when Wukong told him how strong, special, and cool he was. He bathed in Wukong’s words like a beast devouring a meal, he’s been starving all his life. Macaque knew that Wukong was fundamentally different from the village, the outcast troop, his parents… He was different, because he was nice, and he learned. Wukong never tried to yank on his ears, confiscate his food, scream at him for failing. It was unusual, it must mean he was doing something right for once, he hadn't stoked the ire for the pain to be necessary. Here, he could amount to something, be anything other than weak and easy kill. 

Macaque studied the craft of fighting even more under Wukong's wing. It wormed its way into a loophole for him, if the monkeys of Wukong's kingdom saw him as a Warrior, a fighter, they didn't see a six-eared freak. It made his heart warm significantly when they talked of his power, and not of his weakness. He'd just have to fight harder, be louder, inspire more confidence so that was all anyone saw, and not his ears

Wukong was the closest thing to a god he was going to get, a holy figure blessing him with light after finding him doused in the darkness. There were no other sweet mercies coming to save him, he collapsed boneless into Wukong’s adept hands, would let him do whatever he pleased, pray for him to keep going, even if he were to tear his organs out one by one. Whatever pain was needed was only another trial. If Wukong told him to take the spiked end of his staff to his own neck, Macaque would oblige on instincts buried deeper than breathing, blinking, the beat of his heart. 

Here, he was greater than a nuisance, he was Wukong’s warrior, his right-hand man, his dearest friend. And Wukong was more than a hero, he was everything. 

It was hard to grapple with transformations, especially since all of Wukong’s instructions were horrifically vague. A lot of the process included focus, honing into that feeling rooted in your chest, the magic bundled up and waiting to be prodded at. It required too much sitting there and thinking for Macaque’s taste, his eyes and ears would seek movement, colour, anything to distract him from the numbing dullness. 

Still though, after repeatedly trying, Macaque finally transformed. His body of bone, flesh, fur, and anguish was torn to bits. It was built up from scratch in a flurry of purple rope, the process wasn’t as painful as he thought it would be. It was over in an instant, and Macaque was no longer himself, it felt like breathing. 

Wukong leapt up in a matter of seconds, “You did it!” He cheered, rushing over to scoop Macaque up, “Wow, I’m an amazing teacher.”

“You are not.” Macaque’s voice was thinner, his body smaller. Flexing his limbs, he found he could not recognise this form, “What am I?” Wukong held him out, at full arm’s length.

“Look at yourself.” His tail pointed towards a puddle left near the edge of the cave. 

He fluttered over to it, legs shook and bent unnaturally, he struggled to find his footing on the rocky floor. Macaque peered into the puddle, struggling to find where his limbs had gone, where were his arms?

The puddle showed a bird, an eagle of dark blues, streaked with shades of yellow and orange.

“I can turn into a bird too!” Wukong grinned, “It’s cool, isn’t it?”

Macaque never felt like he was drowning more in his life.

Macaque shook off the form, let the magic untangle and unfurl and twist back into his usual self. His breathing was laboured, ripped from his lungs, and crumpled up into nothing.

“Woah, you okay? Transforming isn’t supposed to hurt.” Wukong was near him in a second, a hand hovered behind his back like an invisible barrier was keeping them apart.

“Okay, I’m okay.” He heaved, lifting a hand to press against the building pressure behind his eyes.

“Alright, bird, we can just try again tomm–” No, no, no, no, NO-

“Don’t!” Macaque screeched in his face, making both of them recoil from the noise, “Don’t call me that, don’t– don’t– get away from me!”

Wukong held his arms up in a placating gesture, he scrambled to retreat, “Okay, alright. It was just a nickname because you– you turned into a bird!”

“Don’t.” Macaque hissed out again, staggering away until his back hit a wall. 

“I won’t, I won’t.” Wukong assured, “I didn’t know that was a… Sore spot? Like the ears?”

Macaque gulped, “Yeah, like the ears.”

Wukong nodded, “Alright, why don’t you just… Go back to your home. We’ll do more training tomorrow, maybe with our staffs.” Wukong left to retreat to his own house behind the water curtain. Macaque clenched his teeth, balled his hands until they shook. It was stupid, but when Wukong teasingly called him by that name– All he could see was her face, all he could feel was her punishments searing against his skin. But he yelled at Wukong, he’s already done that once before when his prying hands moved to yank, and it sure did stop him, didn’t make him feel any less uneasy about it. 

This type of weakness could only stretch so far until it snapped. He tried to channel the Matriarch’s words, her teachings. Hold onto those emotions, suppress them until you don’t feel them, and then carry out your purpose. A weapon, through and through.

He felt a small, waning, special smile spread across his face. He knew what he had to do to be redeemed in gilded eyes.

Wukong was awoken at an ungodly hour, the sun hadn’t even yet risen, he had gone down for sleep after upsetting Macaque. Making friends was always so hard, it always felt like he’s trampling over something and causing a mess, and not even on purpose those times! He wasn’t even sure what was wrong this time, not like how when he tried to touch his ears, or snatch a stray fruit, had been wrong, but a random nickname. 

Wukong could do better though, he swore it to himself. Because Macaque, under the layers of rough edges he gained from the outcast troop, was kind. It was difficult to specifically pinpoint where or how, but he just knew kindness was steeped deep in there, not a conventional display, but there.  

Macaque never told him he liked him, but he would sharpen shadow until it resembled his staff, grab onto the back of his scarf to not get swarmed by the crowds of monkeys, stick by his side from the rise of the sun to the glow of the moon, only leaving to avoid his cave. 

He curled up into himself, banishing thoughts of Macaque’s current mortality, what if his next blink is Macaque’s last breath? What if Macaque decided he’s messed up enough in the fleeting time they’ve been friends? What if–

Wukong’s whirlwind of increasingly morbid thoughts were broken up by a knocking. It was a rough, jagged pattern, two hurried knocks and a third, long drawn-out one. He lifted his head, blinked away fragments of sleep blearily. Someone lurked outside his cave, waiting just outside the flowing waters.

He padded to the curtains, parting them with a single touch that shifted the hue of blue to gold. The glow left in its wake lit up the scene with tints of yellow. Macaque stood outside his home, his body was painted with thick, oozing blood and chunks of gore. His face obscured by the night; dashes of light outlined his face. His staff was clutched in a quavering hand, the whimsical shadow drowned out by red. 

“Macaque!” Wukong cried, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him inside before he had any time to protest, “You’re dirty, what did you do?”

“There were other demons on your mountain, causing trouble.” Macaque intoned, allowing himself to be hoisted to the centre of the cave, “I have destroyed them for you.”

“What, why? I had those totally covered.” Wukong huffed, shuffling around to find something to clean him off with. 

“A result of my transgressions. I did something for you.” He murmured, pulling his knees up to his chest and staring at the floor blankly. 

“Huh.” Is all Wukong could think of to reply, was his ‘transgression’ the bird transformation training earlier that day? Did Macaque actually get in contact with the outcast troop and recite the knowledge of the magic to them? His master’s words echoed and Wukong grimaced. He didn’t ask, didn’t even want an answer, when the consequences came, he would deal with it as he always has.

Wukong treaded back over, a bucket of water and cloth to wash the sticky blood off clutched in his hands. Macaque barely acknowledged him, Wukong smacked his lips until his ears flickered in recognition, the same sound made when he accidentally steps on a smallers’ tail, or just wants the others to follow him. Sorry, he says wordlessly. 

He kneeled by Macaque’s side, picking his arm up and dipping the cloth into the water.

“So, how many did you kill?”

“A lot.” Macaque’s tail twitched harshly, looking as though it would fracture itself, at every contact, “We won’t have another problem for… Maybe two months.”

Silence stretched on as Wukong cleared away the grime, Macaque fought the urge to sink into it, to fall asleep right there. His eyes fluttered, his hands tighten and pinch the skin of his leg, shocks of light pain zapped his mind back awake and aware. But Wukong kept tenderly brushing the blood away, pressing on soaked areas to test for injury, there aren’t any, he’s too smart for that now. The enemies on this mountain are brutish and hard-headed, Macaque is small and quick on his feet, especially when his shadows cloak him like they do. Better than them, better than them.

Wukong wiped away most of it, even collateral dirt from the years living wild.

“There you go, idiot.” He chided, wringing the cloth out and sliding the bucket away, “Come on.”

“Hm?” Macaque watched as Wukong offered his hand out, so inviting, would his skin be cold too? 

“It’s late, follow me, back to where I sleep.”

Lost in a haze of confusion, Macaque barely registered it when Wukong was dragging him again. His shack was small, not much befitting of a king, Macaque can hardly turn his nose up at it, it’s better than anything he’s ever stayed in. The outcast troop stayed in camps, each of them divided up by tattered tents, wind breezed through the tears and rips, shaking them through the bitter night. His stay at the kingdom was filled with that same isolation, sinking claws into the mahogany brown wood, feeling bark splinter under his grip, hoisting onto the high-up branches of the trees, swaying in the gales like a leaf amongst its kind. It was cold, as it's always been. 

Wukong’s abode was enclosed, four walls made of numerous logs, apart from a space for a window, the wind was futile here. Macaque continued to be pulled along, wrist ensnared in a tight grasp, it somehow didn’t hurt and that just made it all the more painful. The skin, under thinner layers of ginger fur, was warm. No, it was more than warm, it was molten lava, the spitting campfire that warmed his palms, it was the hot pain that bloomed through your limbs and head, preparing you for the agony to come. This was it, the strange texture he felt those fleeting moments before meeting the river, it had been skin.

Macaque was breathless by the time they made it to their location, not from exertion, it was something else stealing his oxygen. Wukong didn’t pay much attention to his panting, pulling him down further, further, and further until they were both down on their knees like a prayer. 

“What are we doing?” Macaque was lightheaded when Wukong yanked him down farther, landing on his side with an audible thump.

“We nest together.” Wukong’s voice was light and cheerful. 

“Together?” He echoed the word; it sat like acid on his tongue. Wukong only nodded enthusiastically, gripping onto Macaque, and pulled the both of them under blankets and soft things. 

“Well, we're a troop now.” Wukong explained to ease Macaque’s puzzled expression, “Or, did you not do this with them?” Macaque shook his head, burying his face into the pillow, hiding from blinding eyes, 

“Turn around.” He obeyed, shuffling about the nest to bare his back to Wukong. His survival instincts screamed, but his hunger growled louder.

He flinched when hands were buried in his fur. A confused squeak coming unbidden from his throat, lilts of distress accompanying. 

“I’m grooming you.” Wukong whispered, teasing through the tangles, matts, dirt, and bugs making home in his coat, “Because you’re my friend.” He smacked his lips until Macaque relaxed, still feeling residues of tenseness deep in his muscles. It didn’t matter much though, Wukong smiled and busied himself with the monotonous ministrations. 

If he noticed Macaque silently weeping, he said nothing. 

As the time passed in a blur, there was one thing he knew for sure, that Macaque was Wukong’s warrior. He spent years honing himself, the Matriarch had forged him in pain, in poisons, in blunt daggers. Wukong reformed him in flames, in wars conducted by gods, in horror, but at the same time in a soft comfort. 

Macaque flicked the materialised staff between his hands, he was currently waiting for Wukong.

As a warrior, his one priority was the hero. So even when he disappeared into that place in the sky, somewhere higher than the clouds, a place of devastation yet holiness (those went hand in hand anyway), Macaque would wait.

It was no different from the then and now. Sitting in watch, waiting, waiting, waiting. It was no more bothersome from the first time, it was no burden to him, it was his purpose. Because what was a tool without a hand to hold it, a puppet with no strings? A vessel with no guidance?

When Wukong came crashing back, a spectacle of light and domesticated cloud, it looked like a shooting star against the ink black sky. Macaque felt like he was brought back to life, rejuvenated back into a living being. Limbs moved stiffly, voice raspy from lack of use, light bled back into his eyes as it latched onto golden fur. 

“Sun,” He fumbled forward, hands reaching out to latch onto his own, feel the calluses and the warm blood beneath that, “You’ve returned.”

“Yes, yes! I have a surprise!” Something was tucked under his arm; it was hard to discern in the darkness. He held out a large peach, round, and pink with dapples of yellow.

“What is this?” Macaque kneeled to his side, allowing Wukong to pass the peach onto him.

“It’s a peach of immortality! I already ate one… Or two… Um, a lot of them. So don’t worry about me. This peach is for you! It’s a special type, only blooming every nine thousand years! It’s the best one, I think they said something like, when you eat it, you’ll be ‘as eternal as heaven and earth, long life like the sun and moon,’ blah, blah, eat it!” 

The peach was forced closer to his face, Macaque backed away.

“Are you sure? If I’m immortal… You’ll have to deal with me… Forever.”

Wukong raised a brow, “Uh, duh? That’s why I’m giving it to you, now come on!”

“Be patient, it’s not like I’m going to drop dead.” Macaque batted his hand away with his tail, sinking his teeth into the ripe flesh of the fruit, juice dribbled from the puncture and drooled down. Wukong’s eyes were bright like a sky full of stars as he chewed the peach. It only encouraged him to eat more until he’s left with only the pit.

“Do you want it?” He offered out the brown, wrinkly stone. Wukong stuck his tongue out.

“Toss it.”

The pit rolled down the hill, he watched it until it disappeared. It reminded him briefly of his dagger. Macaque began to sleep next to Wukong every night, and he was never kicked aside even when he woke the both of them with his night borne screaming. One night, Wukong had discovered the dagger Macaque kept under his pillow. It had poked him in his sleep, it couldn’t have drawn blood though, you can’t squeeze blood from stone. Wukong told him to throw it out, he had a new weapon now, and he had Wukong . 

It wasn’t quite the same though, throwing out that weapon was tossing away the Matriarch and all the work she had carved into him. Wukong told him the outcast troop was bad, the Matriarch was bad. It took a lot of nights and days for him to come to terms with that. Still, he was a weapon forged, the Matriarch lived inside him, as did the river.

Macaque had thrown the dagger, watched as it rolled away into the horizon, nothing but a glint in his vision. It didn’t matter that it was gone now, it would always be part of him anyway, they had been tethered.

“Well,” Wukong stretched his arms out, “I should go check on the kingdom. Buuut, I need a quick power nap. Wake me up in an hour.” He stumbled off after that, Macaque made a mental note to wake him up in two hours, he was always a big liar about his sleep. Wukong didn’t seem to have expected Macaque to follow after him but didn’t protest when he kept their shoulders glued together. 

Macaque sat at Wukong’s side as he slept, ears twitching as he surveyed the sounds. Demons were keeping their distance, possibly frightened off by Wukong’s sheer power exploding against the ground. Macaque could only imagine the fallout from the peaches, he heard only whispers across the wind, but that fruit couldn’t have come free of cost. He relaxed back onto his hands, listening to time go by… He would try to catch words from his old troop, but they were all wayward now.

A month later, the chaos was still brewing. He could feel it in the wind, coursing through the soil, carried along every gust of wind. Macaque didn’t want Wukong out of his sight, it was too easy for him to get hurt by this stewing evil ready to launch, much too simple. The evil, the heavens, and demons alike, had their ire with Wukong, but they just didn’t see, they couldn’t see. Wukong was the king, he was bathed in roses and overburdened with power, they coveted him, they hated him for nothing. Macaque would ward him from these adversaries because he was Wukong’s warrior, he was supposed to be smart, to protect him. Because Wukong was a fighter, and Macaque was his weapon. He would trail behind, always a step lagging. His dark fur stalling behind brilliant gold, the subjects would joke that he was like Wukong’s shadow. Perhaps they were right.

Macaque had been following Wukong on his patrol, weekly events that involved walking across the expanse of the mountain, keeping an eye out for threats. Maybe the destruction waiting to be unearthed had put them both on edge, but a fight broke through the stale air.

Wukong kept glancing over his shoulder, seemingly annoyed, or maybe mad. 

“Everything alright, Sun?” Macaque asked, Wukong sighed and refused to respond, “This patrol is peaceful,” He tried to break the tension, “Weather is good. One time I was with the outcast troop, and it was raining ridiculously hard. We got ambushed by another troop and it was hard to fight with the rain in your eyes–”

Wukong abruptly stopped walking, Macaque almost knocking into him.

The eerie silence had Macaque’s fur standing on end, “Sun?”

“Can you leave me alone for even two minutes? You’re suffocating me.” He gritted out, ears flat.

Macaque’s throat ran dry, “But we’re a troop, we stick together! You– you said you wanted me to be around?” You said we were friends, you’ve already gone for so long, please don’t go again.

Finally, Wukong turned around to face him, frustration palpable. Macaque barely flinched, barely drowned out a sharp noise that tried to dig its way out his throat, clenched his teeth until it felt as though they would break apart like earthquakes ripping through ground. 

“Just go away for a second.” His words were near silent.

Macaque stepped back a considerable distance, “Of course.” He acknowledged quietly, “I’ll go on my own patrol. When you wish to see me again, come find me.” A quick bow, and then he walked off.

Macaque didn’t know Wukong to snap like that, not at him at least, with other demons and unruly subjects, sure. He was good at maintaining that carefree air, the bright king who had everything covered. While Macaque would hone himself into whatever was needed, it seemed Wukong did much the same. 

Soon enough, after an hour or so apart, Wukong would come back, Macaque knew it. Maybe bow his head while he tells Macaque to come back to the kingdom to recite the findings of their patrol, words bordering on apologetic but never quite making it. Though, that never mattered much to Macaque anyway, because he would have come back, and that was enough for him. 

Because that was the thing about Wukong, no matter how much he pretended, he was pretty weird too.

His eye caught on something while he made his rounds. A thin strip of something brown. Macaque bent down, held it between his thumb and forefinger, even sniffed it. The thing smelled lightly of wood, but it was fake and almost fuzzy under his fingers, strange… This had to be the work of a demon.

Macaque looked onwards, ribbons of brown scattered everywhere, carried about with the wind. He dropped the current bit, chasing after them, getting lost in the wind itself, just another cog in the machine, another fish going upstream, it tossed him about in a dance he knew not. 

He had planned on going another route, but divulging shouldn’t bother Wukong that much. Even if this would be a problem, Macaque would accept his punishment silently and gracefully. His body was alight with a buried curiosity, clawing out desperately, years spent snuffed down in favour of following his orders. That was his life, it was good, order, order, yes, yes, no, punishment. But that childish curiosity still lived within, and it wanted to see where this trail ended.

The small, fuzzy wooden scraps turned to thicker slabs. Shards of wood, he picked it up, turned it over, sniffed it, a strange path indeed. The Matriarch would have chastised him for this, walking into enemy trap, but it didn’t smell like enemy. Smelled familiar.

That was when the humming started, and Macaque turned his head towards the source. The cliffside, a rocky expanse with grass and vines overflowing from the sides, overlooked the ocean. Something was there, right there on top, squashing the thought that this hum was from miles away and his ears were just scrambling for sounds to hold onto. Macaque echoed the hum, making his way up the grass fields of the jagged cliff, feeling his shoes sink into the damp, tall, green grass. The tips of the blades tickled his midriff, almost swallowing him in wild flora. 

Something was there, at the top of the cliff.

No, Someone.  

MK stands in the middle of demolition, the city upturned in a familiar way. The result of fighting demons who just so happen to nestle deep in the heart of human population. Well, some demons were okay, some just had a temper and craving for power and blood. He wipes sweat from his brow, just barely holding back on returning to the rooftop right away. MK didn’t exactly trust nothing bad to happen between Monkey King and Macaque, but as long as they kept their distance from each other, they should be okay.

Apart from those two though, finding the demon is turning out to be a daunting task. The city is large, bustling with life, and she, the demon, is a frightfully sneaky thing. Though the city seems more like a ghost town than anything at the moment. The people here have faced many threats, ranging from power-hungry bulls, and power-hungry spiders… And a power-hungry skeleton. They coop up inside their houses, curtains drawn, no light peeking through, like everyone just disappeared into thin air. 

It was tempting to return to Pigsy’s Noodles, to grab his delivery car and drive around. But it was already half-way smashed to bits from last week's demon encounter, and he isn’t ready for another lecture from Pigsy, nor Tang’s silent nodding and agreement in the background (which only serves to make MK really want to push his head into his bowl of noodles.) They think for a bit, pacing across the street, smartly avoiding the small half-formed puddles on the sidewalk, and consider the best way to search. 

That contemplation ends with one of their hands tightly clutching a tuft of their own hair. With a sharp pain that was nothing compared to some of the thing’s MK had been through, strands of hair are ripped from his scalp. Blowing air on them, watching as the locks of hair glow a bright gold before morphing into mirrored fragments of himself. 

“Alright guys,” He calls out to them, watching as their heads snap to attention, “Find that demon, or any rifts, and get back to me. Got it?” They nod in unison, all scattering like bugs the second MK stops talking. 

Now this was easier.

They go on to spend the next ten or so minutes dedicated to their own search. Eyes flickering with gold vision to weave through the insignificant details. They even hit their staff against the ground a few times, like a cat owner trying to beckon their cat out, but instead of shaking a bag of food, MK tries to entice her into a fight. 

It doesn’t do much, but he is nothing if not persistent. Plus, all distractions were gone due to everyone locking themselves up, doesn’t mean his eyes wouldn’t snag on any pebble or crack in the wall, desperate for diversion from this arid task. MK was almost tempted to astral project to Monkey King, but he didn’t want to give him reasons to be concerned. He has always been lax with MK, but ever since the Lady Bone Demon… Stuff, he had been slightly, well, over the top. He knows it’s just anxiety, not like Monkey King would ever admit that, but nonetheless, he doesn’t need to be hovered over like a baby taking its first steps. 

MK is almost at the point of calling out for the demon, trying for a fight or a conversation, when his clone tries to alert him. A signal connected by magic, or by hair, he had found something. The other clones sending signals had merely alerted him of more rifts, how they expanded and consumed objects floating around the area, stitching themselves back up once full and leaving only shards of crystal behind. This alert though? This was dangerous.

Moving faster than lightning strikes, MK runs across the empty road to where the distress was coming from. He slides around a corner, eyes meeting a mirror of himself, bent over behind a car, face torn with terror. The clone motions silently towards a figure in the middle of the street, shrouded in fog. 

He disperses the clone with a wave of his hand, watching the strand of hair flutter away in brewing winds. MK steels his own nerves, Monkey King and Macaque would know if he was struggling in an instant, just like last time. There is nothing to fear, he swallows back a ball of saliva, nothing to fear.

She turns to face him, the demon, while her appearance is unremarkable, she carries the air of devilish aura around her. You know to be scared by one look of sharp eyes. The demon looks at him, a smirk like she’s won something plastered on her face.

“You,” MK snarls, “Don’t run away from me!” He demands, she only shrugs at him, “What are these rifts?”

“Oh, hm?” Her voice is scratchy yet whimsical, “Those lil’ things?”

MK draws his staff, “Answer me.” 

“Eh, well. I suppose I’d like to avoid a fight,” She yawns dramatically, “Fights with you are boring, I was expecting more fun and excitement. Given you’re going to be such a drawl about it, why don’t I tell you?”

She flicks a fake looking jewel out of her pocket, instead of collapsing to the ground, it floats in midair. Light stretches and grows from it like roots, a pure duplicate of the one on the rooftop.

“My crystals are powerful, a wonderfully chaotic thing. The ‘rift,’ as you called it, will grow, and grow, and grow until it grabs onto something substantial.”

MK hopes to banish the fear from his voice, “What happens when it does?”

She grins, something wicked, “It puts it in another time. Quite literally, ah, I just love the havoc that comes with everyone's precious items being put in the past… Or years into the future.”

MK gapes at her, standing motionless and useless as she saunters into the open maw of the portal.

“And that,” MK says, kneeling by the rift on the roof, “Is what this is.”

Wukong and Macaque stare at him.

“That’s a… Time portal… Thingy?” Wukong scratches his chin, “Well, whatever time this is going to, it’s gonna have a shit ton of cardboard.” Macaque delivers a swift kick to his shin.

“How was I supposed to know that? Besides, a little wood never hurt anybody.”

“Unless the time it’s going to is currently having a massive forest fire.” 

“Well, that’s unlikely, maybe it went to a time with a wood shortage and I’m their god?”

MK regards them with a blank expression.

“Ok, well. That doesn’t really matter now, what does matter is we get rid of this before it seriously hurts someone!” The rift had already grown exponentially, hungrily grasping at the fabric of reality for something to consume. If it wasn’t destroyed or fed soon… Mk shudders, turning back to the two mystic monkeys, both of them staring at each other in silence. 

Macaque turns towards it, eyes set on the portal, face illuminated by the bright lights it exudes. His eyes are bathed in the hues it shone with; it almost looks like he’s entranced.

“Let me handle it.” The words are spoken robotically, walking towards it in stuttering steps. 

Wukong reaches out to grasp him, “It’s dangerous, you moron!” Macaque merely shrugs him off, continuing his path towards it, steps unbroken. He elbows MK in the side to move him, a road unobstructed open before him.

He places his entire palm against the rift, feeling the crystal in the middle shake under his skin. 

“I’ve seen this before.” He whispers, “I can– I can destroy it.” His hand curls around the crystal, it stops shaking. 

“Macaque, get away from it.” Wukong growls, taking a step forward. 

“No.”

The light expands and ripples, light ceasing around the crystal until it forms a glassy scene, green and blues’ not at all of the same unnatural lightshow the rift previously possessed. 

“Don’t you feel that?” His voice is breathless, tone almost unlike himself, as if hearing someone use his voice as a mouthpiece, “Don’t you?” Wukong looks just about ready to pounce, grab him and drag him away kicking and screaming, but wavers when his eyes stare into the yawning portal. 

The rift continues to writhe, tangles of light spreading like springs against the open air. The scene of azure and emerald refines itself, creating a painting-like display around the crystal. MK feels shivers travel up and down his spine, all his nerves frying with the fear stabbing him. 

“Macaque.” Wukong’s voice was rough and final, a command.

“I’m not listening to you.” He informs tonelessly, Wukong mutters words akin to ‘you never do,’ under his breath. 

It happens so suddenly, too suddenly even. One second Macaque is standing there, ensnared by the opening rift, the next?

He is consumed by it whole. 

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.

The world explodes in a lightshow of distinct colours, so fast in its flashes that no colour can be lingered on for longer than a blink. Macaque is thrown to the ground like a doll, air knocked out of his lungs. He heaves on the ground, nothing comes up, he is suddenly thankful he hasn’t eaten all day. Still, his throat burns and unfavourable memories creep up to the surface, clear like crystal. 

His vision is blurry, he tries to wipe it away but finds it fruitless. Something is enclosed in his fist, fingers curled so tight around the object that they hurt. Macaque groans loudly, the glamours pressed protectively around his body squeezed so tight it cuts off his blood circulation, or at least if feels like it. 

When the ringing in his ears ceases, Macaque belatedly sees that someone was standing in front of him. His eyes clear just enough to make out small shoes in front of him, raised to stand nervously on the balls of their feet. Macaque sees a small hand reach out for him, without thinking much, he takes it. 

Dragged to his feet, Macaque mutters angrily as a wave of vertigo threatens to send him flying backwards. Dots of white sprinkle through his vision, finally sharpening into something he could actually see… It was not a good sight.

Macaque has to crane his neck down, eyes widening at the form of someone he wished he never had to see. A small, round face. Eyes and cheeks still sunken in, even after years of better treatment, nothing seemed to give. Ears that flickered and fluttered with each passing sound. Two hands wrung around each other, two feet, stumbling on top of each other. A boy who shook like a turbulent wave. 

Macaque and Macaque stared at each other for a good long time. A monster and a weapon. 

Macaque of the now makes a choked noise, stepping back and away from the thing desperately. Eyes flicking over his shoulder, he realises with a sinking sensation that the rift is gone. Gone, as if it was never there in the first place–

“Are you my dad?” The Macaque of the then asked. Now-Macaque can only stare, choke on his own saliva. 

“Why is that the first thing you think to say?” He mutters rather incredulously, drawing in on himself.  

Then-Macaque shrugged, “You look like me.” The unadulterated black fur, crimson feathered markings, deep brown skin; it wasn’t an unfair assumption, he supposes.

“I am you.” Which isn’t something he thought he’d say today, but meeting his past self also wasn’t exactly on his to-do list. 

Then-Macaque gave him an odd look, scrunched his nose up and squinted his eyes, “No you’re not.”

“Excuse me, punk? Did no one teach you to respect your elders! I can’t believe I was such a disrespectful young kid!” Now-Macaque complains.

“Well, you don’t look like me.” He amended, gesturing vaguely towards his ears. Ah, the glamour is throwing the kid off. 

Given they’re giving him unnecessary hell already, Now-Macaque relents, unwinding his glamours until they’re no longer tangible to his form. His ears unfurl, eye and jagged scar sink back to the surface, fur ruffles back up to its sullied state. 

“There,” Now-Macaque does a dramatic hand gesture, “Happy now?” Then-Macaque admired his ears for a moment, clearly delighting in meeting his future self! It was when his eyes travelled to the scar that he faltered.

“What happened to your– our eye?” His face is scrunched up in concern, Now-Macaque wants to slap the pity off his features. But at that same moment, an idea blooms. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

“This, my dear self, is what happens when you trust.” He runs a finger across his scar, feeling it burn and sizzle just under the skin.

Then-Macaque appeared visibly nervous, eyebrows furrowing, “Did the Matriarch do that?” His eyes brightened with another question on his tongue, “Does that mean she came back?”

Now-Macaque grimaces, “She doesn’t come back. She’s probably dead in the ground, same with the rest of that lot…” His face fell, crumbled and forlorn, he sighs sympathetically, “You’re better off without them anyway.”

“I miss them.” Then-Macaque whispered, staring down at his feet.

“You shouldn’t. You’re very independent, hm?” Now-Macaque bends down to be more at eye level with himself, raising a hand to brush against the unmarred skin on the right of his face, “You don’t need anybody.”

Now-Macaque stares him down, those maddened eyes, he’s never seen them so closely, barely a shred of sanity left in those barren eyes.

“I need Sun.” He whispered, leaned into Now-Macaque’s hand, “He’s… Better than them, yeah?”

He grits his teeth, “No. You’re wrong.” Now-Macaque draws away again, standing back up to tower over the naive little thing, “You should leave, right now. I have more advanced magic than you, I can get you off this mountain in under two seconds flat.”

Then-Macaque’s eyes turned watery and fearful, “I don’t understand. I don’t want to leave.”

“Then you are a fool.” Now-Macaque spits, “He is just like the rest of them, the second you aren’t useful anymore you will be discarded. Wukong doesn’t care about you, he never did.”

“No…”

“Because you’re weak, Macaque. And that is all you’ll ever be.” He turns away, he doesn’t want to put Then-Macaque’s twisting facial expression into words, “Unless… You come with me; I can get you to somewhere you’ll become strong.”

“...”

“Listen… Other people will make you weak, I’m trying to help you. Sun will make you weak, and only the strong survive. Do you hear me?” Now-Macaque tentatively glances back, Then-Macaque was staring at the ground, hands balled up. 

“...” Still nothing

“Don’t be sad, Macaque. You’ve always been weak, too trusting. That’s how they get to you, you won’t need anyone else but me, yourself. Strong without everyone else holding you back.”

“I don’t know how to be strong.” Then-Macaque’s voice was strained.

“That’s because you’re not. You were born weak, your ears, your trust, your emotions. If you were good enough, they wouldn’t have thrown you to the river, they wouldn’t have treated you like a pest, they wouldn’t have abandoned you.” 

“You’re just like her!” Now-Macaque snapped, face the quintessential display of anger, ire ran through his body until his veins could flash red, “Th-the Matriarch. You’re talking just like her. Sun said the outcast troop was bad, bad to me. So why… Why are you just like her? I hate you! I hate the Matriarch! I’ll never be you!”

He wishes that could be true, he hopes it more than anything. For Then-Macaque to listen to his words, cruel as they are, and take a path of darkness from the start. Because light blinds him, it leads him astray, it leaves him wanting more when his life was made to starve. Now-Macaque wants this shift, but he knows deep, deep down, the chance of it is slim to none. Macaque doesn’t change like Wukong, or MK, or heroes change. He changes on the whims of those above him, so Macaque has to be just that, above him.

He smiles wickedly, “You don’t get a choice.” Then-Macaque’s eyes watered, misty, and clouded over, “Don’t cry, nothing good comes from that.”

“I hate you.” He whispered, “I hate you; I hate you; I hate you.” Fists are jammed to his eyelids, fervently wiping away tears, “I’m special to Sun, he’s nice, I like him… I like him more than I like anyone.”

“You’re not special, grow up.” Then-Macaque scoffed, “You’re just a freak, and the faster you realise that the better.”

A small, pitiful sob came crawling out Then-Macaque’s throat.

“I can’t believe this is how I turn out… I thought– I thought I’d be better. I didn’t think I’d have a future at all, now I really wish I don’t.”

Now-Macaque softens, just momentarily he feels his heart squeeze painfully, “Listen…”

“No! I hate you, shut up! Leave me alone!”

He sighs, turning around to face Then-Macaque, he’s bent over and wiping away tears with the heel of his palms.

“I’m trying to protect you, don’t you understand?” He continued on crying, not bothering to respond, “You don’t have to leave… But know one thing. If you trust Sun, you will face the punishment for it.”

“I don’t want to leave, I’m so tired of being alone.” Then-Macaque wailed, curling his tail around himself, “I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll be the best weapon, the best warrior- He won’t– He won’t be like everyone else!”

Now-Macaque feels his organs tighten, cinch until he’s sure he’s dying again. This isn’t a kid, this isn’t a weapon, a water-logged freak who defied its destiny from the moment it clawed out of the river… This is Macaque. This is him. 

“I’m sorry I can’t heal you.” He whispers, a sacred confession only one with six-ears could understand. Macaque bends down, on his knees to be at Macaque’s height, opening his arms out. He barrelled into himself, almost knocking them both over with the force of it. Small arms gripped his back, curling up in the velvety texture of his tattered scarf. Salty tears absorbed into his clothes, sinking so deep they would be carried on forever.

“I’m sorry for being weak.” Macaque whispered back to him, just as silently and just as full of agony. 

“It’s–” His voice breaks, “It’s not your fault, just– Look out for yourself, because no-one else will, ok? Promise me that, please.”

He didn’t respond, didn’t get the chance either. Not when something latches onto the back of his scarf. Macaque’s mind is abuzz, he silently begs it to let go, because he hasn’t had enough time. He has so much more to say, to advise, to tell. Because this is his one shot to fix things, his only chance. Macaque clings impossible closer to himself, trying to merge them back together, he can’t let this go when he could save himself from getting hurt again.

The hand tugs, and Macaque’s fist shakes, the one clutching onto a sharp object like his life depends on it. He pulls away reluctantly, looking away from the resignation in Macaque’s eyes. 

His hand unclasps, the crystal, in all its fake beauty, punctures in his skin where it dug in. It shakes, then crumbles to pieces. The shards of it carried off in the wind.

“There’s another one.” Macaque murmured to him, pointing behind the both of them, he was pointing towards a new rift, growing, and stretching behind them, a new crystal. Macaque shuddered, eyes turning towards the hand ripping through the light, it was one he recognised and he despised it, “Does this mean you’re leaving?”

“...Yeah.” He pulls away, “It’s… I have to go.”

“Okay.”

Macaque stands up, both of them untangling, separating. The hand moves from his scarf to catch onto his hand, the warmth underneath the surface of skin is horribly familiar, it tugs on him, pulls him to the new rift.

“I have a question?” He hurriedly asked, pulling on Macaque’s other hand until he’s caught on both ends, “You’re from the future so… Do we– uhm. Do we get to be happy?”

Macaque’s heart aches, because he couldn’t look into those broken eyes and tell the truth, “Yeah,” He lies, “Yeah, we do.” Liar, liar, liar–

A smile, so soft and unsure, it was such a weird smile, because at that point he hadn’t yet learned to mimic a normal one. It was special.

“Good... I mean, that’s good to hear. Bye, old me.” And Macaque let him go, watched wistfully as his other self was tugged backwards, tripping over his tail and struggling into the opening fissure.

Just as Macaque is hauled into the middle, surrounded again by nothing but colour and a hellish nothingness, he hears a passing conversation.

“Macaque, I couldn’t find you– I just wanted to say I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

“Sun? You’re out of breath, are you okay?”

“I may have ran the whole way here, do not recommend… Um, do you hate me now?”

“No? No, I’m not mad at you. Not for what you said.”

“Oh, oh good… Uh, did you find anything on your patrol?”

“Yeah, I found a portal and talked to my future self.”

“Oh, so you got into those mushrooms then, huh?”

“Hey! Ugh, never mind. I probably ate something weird, not the mushrooms, I should just sleep it off.”

“Good idea, let’s go.”

Removed too early, he feels as though air was stolen from his lungs as it had been time and time again. It was over far too soon. Some people will say you can meet someone for even a moment and they can change your entire life, but Macaque met himself for a few minutes and barely skimmed the surface. He chokes on the colours, dimming until the world around him is dark and grey once more. The hand, tethering him to this current time, retreats, leaving him stranded. His head reeled, struggling to grapple more with his present time than the past he bathed in. He chokes on the cries bubbling in his throat. 

He hits the ground hard, writhing on cement as his body struggles to catch up. His brain is splattered against the rooftop, his heart discarded and bleeding on grassy plains, his other irrelevant organs strung up on powerlines for the world to see. Growls and shrieks tore through his mouth, his pain palpable.

Muscles twitch and spasms, the process of going back in time was easy, but returning feels like dying all over again. Just as Macaque was sure he is about to start foaming at the mouth, a light shone through. Something to hold onto, grasp and rip himself from this painful experience. It’s a voice, and in this vulnerable moment he hasn’t the resolve to barricade himself off, he thrashes to find it. 

His mind melts, realisation, and acknowledgement of his surroundings bleeds in. Macaque is laying on his side, pressed against grimy, cold ground. The rooftop has been cleaned, to an extent, some crates piled at the corner, stacked to create a throne for a King. Said king’s eyes move to meet his, appearing almost bored with the current predicament. 

“So, you were out for a bit, huh?” Wukong’s voice feels like it’s trying to be cheerful, but can’t commit to it, “Taking a tumble through a time portal-rift. I don’t know how long you were in there for, but right now the year is 4098. We’ve gone through seven different apocalypses, we’re the only two survivors… Oh yeah, and MK too.” He thoughtfully takes a bite of noodles, “It’s very peaceful, oh, until you showed up again.”

Macaque’s mind is utterly frazzled, “When did you get food?”

“Oh, I got bored of waiting for MK to catch the demon, so I got takeout.” There are a few empty boxes littered around him, “Well, mostly I just wanted MK to take a short break. Even if that was to deliver nine boxes of noodles.”

Wukong noisily eats, leaving Macaque to silently pick up the pieces of what happened. His mind replays the events, camera shots and still frames of a younger and shorter fragment of himself, those eyes were things of madness, of insanity nurtured by those who should have known better. 

Macaque jerks up, mind reeling as he remembers, he had to have changed something, right? There is still a puddle on the edge of the roof, dappled around the spots where fire had burnt itself to ashes. The splashes of rainwater are turbid, but it matters not. Macaque crawls over to it, palms and knees digging into the soiled ground. He can feel dirt clinging to his skin and through the fabric of his pants, but the tunnels in his mind are focused in. 

His glamours are still down, he can’t feel their signature weight that hangs on him, dragging him down like a second death. It wasn’t there, he feels light but that doesn’t feel any more alive. His breathing is tight, heart thudding in his throat, Macaque can feel the manifestation of anxiety like he can feel his blood, all throughout him no matter how much he ignores it. 

The puddle displays an image he knows well but doesn’t wish to see. The scar, where the staff had angled down and scraped against his face and tore up all the flesh and bone in its path, it didn’t stop for the screaming, and it didn’t yield to the weakening hands scrabbling against it. The fiery pain as sight dimmed until it was gone, gone like his life would be in the next few moments. A mark that displayed his weakness, his devotion and how it sold him down the river. 

“Fuck,” Macaque’s voice wobbles dangerously, his eyes burned with a fire that has never been extinguished, “Oh, fuck.” He runs his hand over it, pure disbelief tries to drown out the sorrows. This can’t be right; this can’t be right. Macaque can feel the raised skin under his strokes, the scar is undeniably there, and gods it feels like it’s being etched into his face all over again. 

Macaque would sob if he was a weaker man, a lesser man, but at the very least he won’t do as such with the witness behind him. At a later time, buried in his home, lights dimmed so he doesn’t have to face himself, hands cupped over his ears so he isn’t subjected to hearing it, he would let free cries that don’t sound like they’re coming from his own trembling lips. But right now, Macaque doesn’t cry, not outwardly at least. But it was so tempting to let the dams break free.

“Your ears are out,” Wukong comments dryly, “Haven’t seen those in a while, how long has it been? Centuries?” Macaque hasn’t the will to yell at him to shut it, doesn’t trust his words not to break and shatter under the pressure of his throat. He swallows it all back, sitting back on his knees, Macaque can’t draw his gaze away from the puddle reflecting back his failure like a trophy. 

At the absolute lack of response, Wukong continues to speak as if he has a captive audience,

“It’s only been like, 20 minutes by the way. Just in case you believed me,” He chews loudly, like he’s trying to cover something else up, “It was so hard to get you out of there, which is, you know, why I told you not to touch the rift. MK and his, uh, friends, they rounded up the demon eventually. They forced her to like, open another portal and get you. She was so mad; you should have seen her face!” He chuckles, it’s not his real laugh and Macaque knows that because he knows everything about Wukong like he knows the calluses of his hands, and the scars tarnishing his body, he knows it like language, and he knows Wukong’s laugh isn’t like that. It’s fake, it’s fake, it’s all fake. 

Macaque grumbles lowly at his words, weighing the pros and cons of collapsing face first into the filthy pool of rainwater. 

“What’d you even do in there? I mean, I don’t feel anything different with the timeline, but I don’t really expect you to not fuck with anything given the opportunity.” Wukong momentarily pauses, Macaque can hear the absence of movement, “That’s not like you.”

He takes a moment to spit bile from his throat before speaking, “I talked to someone,” His voice comes out cracked and rough, “An absolute idiot.”

“Oh, so you spoke to yourself?” Wukong jabs, chortling like an idiot at his joke. Macaque says nothing. 

Boxes rustle as the two of them lapse into another tense and fragile silence. Macaque picks at the threads of his clothes, watching them come unwoven and fall as debris to the ground. Wukong continues eating, at some point tossing his empty box to the side and grabbing another one.

“So, what happened with the idiot?” He prompts with artificial cheeriness, words barely audible through a mouthful of cold noodles.

Macaque’s ears flicker, and then after a moment, “I tried to talk to him. But I guess I didn’t really get anything across because everything stayed the same.” Nothing’s different, if something changed, Macaque would know, “Maybe I just didn’t know what I was talking about.”

Wukong shuffles about on the crates, it’s a grating sound for a few seconds until it assists in smothering out his rampaging thoughts.

“I’m glad,” His voice lacks something, it’s bland and dry, “It’s better to leave the past as is, changing it only leads to more dreadful things. Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? Change one thing, everything changes.”

“I wanted to change it.” Macaque admits, because Wukong’s eyes are on him and the truth just spills like blood from an open wound, “Maybe things would have been better.”

And for a few blissful seconds, Wukong stops speaking, stops moving, he’s not even breathing. 

“Changing the past… Is, uhm, not good.” It’s almost comical how unsure he sounds in his own conviction, “Because of the–”

“The butterfly effect, yeah, got it. Could have fucked up the whole universe irreparably, but I didn’t. I didn’t accomplish anything, I failed again.”

The roof is lonely and isolated, MK and his friends are ‘dealing’ with the demon. Macaque can hear how they’ve dragged her to the Bull family’s fortress. It was lively in the city, and even further than that. But here on the roof, it felt like the two of them were oceans apart. Mountains separated them, earthquakes broke through the ground and chasms severed their common ground. If Macaque was to look back, he is sure he would see Wukong as merely a speck on the horizon. 

“...What were you going to change?” Wukong asks like he has any right to know.

 Macaque shrugs like doing so can shake off his eyes, “Tried to teach a lesson that should have been learned sooner than later, but it seems some people never learn.” He slumps down, head cradled between two shaking hands, “Some people are just the death of themselves.” Wukong, thankfully, doesn’t have anything smarmy to fire back with. Macaque relishes the quiet, even if it's tense, he’ll pretend it's not, pretend it's peaceful for the sake of his own sanity if nothing else.

There’s a sound, Wukong moves around, picks something up.

“The kid, they uh, left this one for you.” He says, voice oddly small. Macaque finds it in him to turn around, Wukong offers out a small white box, pink logo plastered on. A tendril of shadow emerges from the expanse of Wukong’s shade, snatching it up in one fell swoop. He squawks in surprise, making Macaque chuckle under his breath, beckoning the shadow towards him. 

The box of takeout lands at his feet, Macaque sits back to take it into his lap. It’s warm against his palms, exuding an invigorating scent. He cracks the box open, finding noodles and a wrapped-up fortune cookie. A note was nestled inside too, scratchy handwriting scrawled across it.

We were worried about you - MK

He raises an eyebrow, holding the sheet of paper up to the dying sun. We. How absurd. The note is disregarded in favour of the food, Macaque’s stomach grumbles with vigour, begging for a taste. Using the supplied wooden chopsticks to shove cooling noodles into his mouth, Macaque realises he can’t exactly remember the last time he ate real food, it just makes the entire experience that much better. 

“Well, the demon has been defeated,” Wukong informs him needlessly, he knows, he already knows all of this, nothing escapes his ears, “Taken to Demon Bull King, I think he and his wife are dealing with her now. Although I think Zhu Bajie wanted to show her a piece of his mind.” 

“It’s Pigsy.” Macaque snaps almost immediately, watching as Wukong’s eyes widen at the recognition of his slip up, “Seems I’m not the only one stuck in the past.”

“Tomayto, tomahto.” He huffs, flustered by his own mistake, “And I think in a competition, you would win at being caught up in past events.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Macaque shrugs, “You much prefer destroying it, right?” He remembers sneaking onto Flower Fruit Mountain, just to monitor Wukong and the kid, that was all. He saw the murals that once made the mountain flourish with colour, but they were nothing but rubble now. Paintings depicting Wukong’s so-called greatness were torn down like they were nothing.

“Must suck,” He goes on, because Macaque is terrible and can’t break the habit of digging his fingers into open wounds, “People love your stories, can never get rid of that. Can’t erase the fact it ever happened either, ooh boy.”

“Do you ever stop being an asshole, for like even two seconds?” Wukong sighs, audibly vexed.

“No, it’s my only passion in life. My existence is a cold, dead void of nothingness and making everyone else as miserable as me is the only source of joy I have left.” Macaque drawls, turning his head back to just catch Wukong rolling his eyes. 

The noodles are gone, nothing but residue clinging to the bottom of the box. The cookie, encased in a layer of plastic, glares at him. Macaque glares back. He doesn’t need his fortune, he couldn’t care for the future, nor the present. Because he had died in the past and that is where his soul stays, immortalised in his pain. Macaque is dead, he is only alive when swathed by memories, because that is now all he is, a collection of memories stumbling through a life he doesn’t deserve.

“I’m guessing you’re going to leave now?” Wukong pipes up again with his annoying, irritating voice, “Let me guess, we’re not going to see you for another three months.”

“Probably.”

A laugh, “Typical, only showing up when it’s convenient for you, hm?” As if showing up to assist with this demon was in any way convenient for him when all Macaque wanted to do was go home and press a pillow over his ears until the sounds faded, but seeing them struggle like that… Gods. Convenient, yeah right.  

“What do you want from me? Don’t you want me to go away, disappear?” Macaque snaps, standing up harshly and letting the empty box clatter against the ground, “You hate me, you shouldn’t care if I’m around or not!” He shouldn’t care, because Wukong never cares. If he cared, he wouldn’t have left, he wouldn’t have killed him. He shouldn’t fucking care. It was all a ploy to trick his naivety again, that’s the only reason he offered comfort before, it was all a lie.

“I don’t hate you,” No, “I’m retired, remember? I don’t have the energy to hate you, and I’m sick of having to fight you.” No, no, no, no, no, no-  

Macaque slumps down until he’s sitting, pulling his legs up to his chest and hiding his head in his hands. 

“You have to hate me.” His voice is shaking, stop, stop.  

“Why?” 

And how can he say it? How can he express that if Wukong doesn’t hate him it’s more shattering than anything. Because Wukong doesn’t like him either, and if he doesn’t hate him nor like him… That means Macaque is nothing to him, nothing at all. But he can’t say that, so he says nothing. 

“I know why you’re mad at me,” Wukong says, like he knows anything, “I know why you… Hate me. And I’m so angry at you, but I just…” Can’t hate you. But that can’t be right, because Wukong is a liar and he’s lying again. Because if doesn’t hate Macaque, never hated him, that might mean something stupid and impossible. That maybe he cares. But that’s an impossible, faraway fantasy, and he won’t be tricked again… But a selfish, depraved part of him, banished to the darkest confines, is absolutely delighted. ‘He cares’ it sings in a melody it doesn’t even believe in.

Macaque’s hands clench, grasping the strands of fur that fell into his face, tugging until he can almost feel them popping from his scalp. Wukong sighs and it scrapes painfully at Macaque’s hearing, he hisses and barely restrains from stamping until he disappears and is left alone once again. 

“The kid and his friends are going out on an adventure in a week's time.” Wukong briefs him, “They want you to come too, but I think MK isn’t sure you’d be around for it anyway.” Macaque says nothing, stubbornly keeping his silence, “They do care about you, it’s been like, an entire year since you’ve done any ‘scheming,’ I think they’re ready to get over it now.” But you have to be over it too, is left unsaid. 

While Macaque continues to ignore Wukong, he eventually clambers down from his seat on top of the crates, making a slow walk towards where he’s sitting. He doesn’t drop down next to him, not like before, he keeps at least a sense of distance by standing upright.

“I wasn’t lying, before I uh. I do miss you,” No response, Macaque is too busy choking on unnamed and unneeded emotions to say something anyway, “As dumb as that is. You can laugh if you want. Because it’s so stupid, and I hate my past, what I’ve done, I hate it. But there’s nothing I can do to change it, or take it back, I can’t even take back saying I missed you just now, It’s crazy.” Wukong rambles on and on, only pausing to suck in harsh gasps of air, “There’s nothing I can do for the past, but right now…”

Macaque peers up, eyes holding Wukong’s pinched expression, he knows what he’s trying to get at.

“You’re not very subtle.” He grumbles, hiding his face again in case it betrays his emotion.

“Ah well, I can only try.” Wukong eventually kneels down, a position giving him ease to back away, if need be, “I know you failed trying to talk to a stubborn idiot, I guess it doesn’t hurt to try my hand.”

He doesn’t know when, but Macaque’s tail brushes against Wukong’s own, before he can even think to tug it away, gold is tangible with coal. Instead of looking towards Wukong, he stares at the blank space where the crystal and the portal had been floating. It’s gone, he can never go back.

“I tried to erase the pain.” He whispers, unsure why he’s even confessing other than to choke up the blockage in his throat, “It didn’t work.” And he lied to a little kid, he told him they would be happy, and look where that ended up.

“Because it’s still hurting.” Wukong utters solemnly, “I… I know how it feels. Trying to fix the past to fix the present, but it’s untouchable now. It’s history. You can’t change it…” He swallows audibly, “You can’t destroy it.”

Then what is left? 

Wukong looks at him, he can feel it.

“There’s no use moping about it right now,” He places his hands on his thighs, standing up slowly, bones creak and pop with the action, “Ah, I’m getting too old.” Wukong mutters, walking away back to his previous seat. Macaque sits up, craning his head around to watch his every movement. There’s loud rustling as he picks up little, plastic covered items.

Macaque didn’t expect him to come back, but he did. This time, he sits down, legs crossed in front of Macaque. He holds little wrapped fortune cookies in his hands.

“I can’t read these.” He smiles sheepishly, quickly discarding the wrapping and cracking the cookie open, sliding the paper out, “If you read them for me, I’ll let you eat them.”

“Deal.” He takes the offered items, pinching the paper and holding it to the light, “It says, uh, you’re gay.” Then he promptly shoves the cookie into his mouth, they’re always sweeter than he expects them to be. 

“It does not say that,” Wukong huffs, “Besides, I don’t need a cookie to tell me that anyway.”

Macaque rolls his eyes, “Ok, ok, it says ‘If you look back, you’ll soon be going that way.’”

Wukong nods sagely, “Very good advice. Very topical.” Macaque snorts, quickly chewing and swallowing the cookie to greedily snatch the next one.

He laughs through his own words, “Ok, ok. This one says that uh, you’re an asshole.”

“Stop!” Wukong cackles, “Read it for real or I’m going to MK.”

“Boring king can never have fun. It says, ‘you will die alone and poorly dressed.’”

“Stop the lies!”

“Read ‘em and weep,” He slaps the paper against Wukong’s face, “Because I wasn’t kidding that time.”

“Ok then, that cookie is so rude.” Wukong mutters while Macaque happily eats the fortune’s casing, “Alright, alright, I have five more.”

They don’t notice when the sun dims, covering the sky in an unadulterated ink black. Illuminated only by their own laughter and the discarded boxes of takeout. Time doesn’t pass normally, it flies. It’s not until MK comes crawling up to the roof, gazing at both of them with an incomprehensible expression. 

They call for Wukong, telling him to come along so he can interrogate the demon. MK mousily mentions they don’t want Macaque to come along and wants him to take time to recover from falling to rift. Macaque’s eyebrows furrow, but he can’t find it in him to protest.

Wukong looks back at Macaque, looks him dead in the eyes in a way that Macaque used to shy away from, but his eyes don’t burn, just sit heavy.

“I’ll see you around?” And it’s a question, because he’s not sure, he doesn’t know. It’s comforting in a weird sense that Wukong is just as nervous as he is, deep down. 

“Yeah,” He gets up, brushing his clothing off, dispersing the dust and dirt that’s no doubt clinging on, “Next week?”

And Wukong smiles, and it’s as weird and crooked as Macaque’s is. It’s special, he wonders if he is still special to him, after all this time.

“Yeah. Alright, good, good. That’s good.” He leaves with MK in tow, the latter flicking glances over his shoulder, hopeful wondering.

He stays seated on the roof, staring blankly at the empty spot that had shone so brightly not even a few hours prior. It called to him, and now the words had gone flat. It was final, the past stayed as untouchable as ever, but Macaque felt less tangled in it. 

He’ll leave in an hour or so, return back to his dingy home and stay wrapped up there. He’ll play over events that haven’t happened yet but are to happen in a week's time. It could go so very wrong, but oh, it could go so very right. 

I'm sorry, Macaque, I’m sorry. 

I'll heal us eventually.