righteouslyEnamoured

you did your best to ignore him—his steadily louder sighs and pointed flicks of his tail against your arm. he wanted your attention, the little bastard, but you wouldn’t let him break you so easily, not when you were determined to stay focused on your book; you’d been waiting forever for a chance to finally get through a big chunk of it.

however, wukong being wukong, he knew exactly what to do to get you to eventually break.

and break you did.

“what are you doing,” you asked flatly without glancing up from the page you were currently on. you’d stopped paying attention quite a bit ago, much to your chagrin.

“hm?” wukong straightened slightly. from your periphery, you were able to see him turn to face you. “me? nothing, why?”

“you’ve been eating that peach for the last half an hour,” you said pointedly. your gaze flicked up to meet his own sunset-colored one. “that’s not nothing.”

wukong let out a pssht. “what, i can’t eat some fruit in peace? didn’t realize you made the mealtime rules over here.”

you rolled your eyes. “wukong i’ve seen you shove entire peaches into your mouth in seconds.”

“well heavens forbid a monkey wants to take his time eating for once!”

you huffed out a snort. you had a feeling you knew exactly what he was trying to do here, and you were not going to cave that easily. you hoped. “whatever, just keep it down, will you?”

wukong only hummed and returned his gaze to his snack. an action quite unlike him, but regardless, you took that as a temporary win.

you made it about halfway down another page before your attention was pulled back towards him like a moth seeking a flame.

he’d finished his first peach and had pulled out another from his pocket. your eyes flicked up right in time to see him take a purposeful bite into the swell of the peach. sharp-tipped, white fangs pierced through soft, plump flesh. clear juice ran down from the bite mark and the corners of his lips.

your eyes narrowed, grip tightening on your book.

wukong didn’t look at you the entire time, not really. but you still saw the corner of his mouth twitch like he was suppressing a smile.

he knew exactly what he was doing. fucker.

“bastard monkey,” was all you grouched out, no real heat behind the words. and wukong finally gave in and turned to look at you with a sharp, knowing grin—canines glinting slightly in the dappled light. something in the pit of your stomach twinged.

“y’know, if you wanted a peach so badly, all you had to do was ask, sunshine!” he told you brightly—mischievously—and had the audacity to shoot you a wink afterwards too.

“i can’t believe you,” you grumbled out even as you watched him run his tongue over the front of his teeth. stupid, stupid monkey. you squeezed your eyes shut. “couldn’t let me have a break in peace, could you?”

“nope!” he replied happily. there was a shuffling sound before you felt the soft heat of his body press up against your side. your book was tugged gently from your grasp, and you let it go, already knowing you had lost… whatever this battle had been. “took you this long to realize?”

your eyes squinted open at him—still grinning at you like the cat who caught the canary. “shut up or i’m telling MK you’re being bad.”

“i’m not even doing anything!” wukong protested, even as he nipped at the tip of your ear. a warmth crawled its way up your neck.

you shoved at his face with a “hey!” and he only snickered before slipping his cheek away from your palm to press it into your collarbone and inhale deeply.

“sorry hun, you just make it all too easy!” he said with a contented sigh and peered up at you through those crinkled, golden eyes of his. he looked so happy; you almost didn't want to put up a fight.

“annoying monkey,” you grumbled instead. his burnt orange fur tickled at your exposed skin. when he grinned widely at you again in that wukong way of his, you continued sullenly, “bane-of-my-life monkey.”

“ahh you love me.” he waved you off with a flick of his hand and settled his weight more firmly against you, satisfied to cling to you like a, well, monkey. he couldn't go even a few minutes without some form of physical contact. typical behavior for him, you supposed.

you weren’t getting rid of him anytime soon, it seemed. you resigned yourself to a book-less afternoon and sighed, not at all too incensed about it. “not right now i don’t.” then, after a quiet moment of listening to the sounds of his breathing and the gentle sway of the leaves overhead, you added, "but if you bite me i'll sue."

Currently, you’re hanging around on Flower Fruit Mountain, skipping a few stones across the little lake surrounding the entrance to Shuilian Cave. It’s a beautiful day, with bright blue skies and a gentle breeze that makes you feel fresh and relaxed. You’d hitched a ride with MK on his somersault cloud earlier—he had wanted to get some solo training done on the mountain, and you’d figured it would be easier than having Wukong make the back and forth trip to pick you up. 

Once MK had dropped you off near the water curtain entrance and took off to train elsewhere, you’d texted Wukong to let him know you’d arrived. And thus, here you are, waiting for Wukong to finish with whatever task he’d told you he was just wrapping up. You don’t expect him to take too long, but you never know when it comes to him. 

A handful of rocks rests in the palm of your non-dominant hand that you had scrounged up from the area. You roll one of the rougher, flatter ones between your fingers—inspecting its dark, gritty makeup—before you flick your wrist to send it sailing across the water in short bursts that leaves rippling circles in its wake. One, two, three and—! Ah, that’s it. Not bad, but you can do better. You try again.

You notice—in the few minutes that you’ve been skipping stones—that you’ve seemed to have gained an audience of sorts. From the corner of your eye, you spot a couple of white-furred monkeys, peering at you from within a nearby bush. They watch your hand as you snap it forward, then chitter amongst themselves as their dark gazes follow the hopping motion of the rock across the water. 

They grow bolder, the longer they watch you, and eventually they linger just a few paces away from you—cooing and chattering as they dig in the ground looking for their own stones and pebbles. One of them tosses a stick into the water, then chirps confusedly when it sinks. You have to suppress a chuckle. 

The monkeys on Flower Fruit Mountain have always had a sort of undefinable intelligence to them. They listen whenever you speak to them, and seem to understand your words to a certain extent. It’s what makes you squat down before them to show them one of the flat stones in your hand. 

“It has to look like this, see?” you tell the monkeys gently. One of them ventures closer to your hand to sniff curiously around it. You turn the stone in your hand to emphasize its thin surface. “Flat. And when you throw it, you have to do it like this.” 

Standing, you exaggerate your hand motion a few times before eventually letting the rock sail across the water. Nice, four skips this time. You smile and look back down at the monkeys when they tug at your pants leg—their small faces peering up at you as they chirp excitedly and point at your hand holding the few stones you had remaining. 

“Alright, alright, here you go,” you say with a snort and bend down to pass them the rocks. As soon as they commandeer your pile, they add their own dug-up pebbles to the mix and start experimenting with throwing. You don’t expect them to master rock skipping anytime soon, but it’s certainly amusing watching them haphazardly chuck stones into the water. 

Of course, the little monkeys run out of rocks way too quickly and manage to rope you into helping them look for more with some tugs at your clothes and wide-eyed, almost pleading expressions. It goes right for your heart, and you have half a mind to think that they know how to use their cuteness to their advantage. In any case, you end up shuffling around the edge of the water in search of more skippable stones, the two monkeys chattering away somewhere behind you. 

Hmm, there aren’t really many good options around that you find. Most rocks are too rounded or jagged. You toe at a loose patch of dirt, working free a smokey grey stone that looks like it’s flat enough. You flip it over with your shoe to inspect it. Yeah, it’ll do. Maybe you should look around the trees too, you think to yourself as you bend down to pick up the rock. There’s bound to be more options hiding among the—

Something heavy abruptly lands on your shoulders.

It is so unexpectedly jarring that it nearly causes you to lose your balance with a yelp. Your heart leaps up to your throat as your arms pinwheel to prevent yourself from pitching forward into the water. It’s a close call—too close. You barely register a familiar voice yapping away into your ears, too preoccupied with stumbling backwards and attempting to settle the heart attack you almost went through. 

Eyes wide, you find two small legs dangling on either side of your neck from atop your shoulders. You cannot quite move your head, and with a blink you realize there are arms wrapped around it in a hug. A warm weight presses against the crown of your head and nuzzles into your hair. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who it is. 

You blink incredulously even as your hands automatically come up to hold onto Wukong’s shins. Did he just— throw himself onto your shoulders? While you were bending down?! He’s still chattering away, though you’ve completely missed what he’s been saying all this time. And with the adrenaline still coursing through your veins, you end up bursting out the first thing that comes to mind now that you’ve figured out what had just happened.

“Wukong, what the hell!” you snap as you do your best to crane your head up to look at him. He pauses his talking to make a sound and leans to the side to better meet your gaze.

“Well hello to you too!” he chirps out, seemingly excited about something, but you have no idea what. Not that it quells your irritation any. He grins at you, then seems to take in your vexed expression. His head tilts innocently, smile fading just a little. “…Something wrong?” 

Steam practically whistles from your ears. “You—!” He’s still hugging your head, mild confusion now starting to settle onto his features. And before you do anything rash like yell at him, you cut yourself off and take a deep breath. You pinch at the bridge of your nose. Then, you exhale. 

Alright, you’ve had enough of this. 

“Okay, off,” you say grumpily and release his shins so you can reach up to grab him under his arms. He protests as you lift him off your shoulders, letting himself dangle in your hold like some strange, toddler-sized doll. You set him on the ground in front of you, and he frowns before returning himself to his proper size. 

“What?” he questions when you cross your arms at him and give him a scrutinizing look. “What happened?” 

“What happened?” you repeat incredulously, ignoring it when the two little monkeys from before dart over to Wukong to cling to his legs. He glances down at them and chitters something that causes them to look up at his face, then at yours, before they race off to disappear into the jungle. You don’t even bat an eye and continue on. “You happened. What’s gotten into you?” 

“What are you talking about?” Wukong asks confusedly. You roll your eyes.

“You’ve been acting weird,” you tell him plainly. When he only continues to look at you in perplexion, you elaborate. “I’m used to you being clingy and stuff, but for the last couple of weeks you’ve been exceedingly so. What’s going on?” 

There’s a moment where all Wukong does is blink at you. But then, he seems to process what you’re saying. He waves a hand at you in dismissal, a loose grin on his face. “Pfft, what d’you mean? I haven’t been clingy.” 

You raise an eyebrow. “Yes you have. I don’t even remember the last time I’ve been alone for more than a few hours. What’s wrong?” 

Wukong snorts and raises his arms to cross them behind his head. “Bah, it’s nothiiiing!” he says cheerfully, his tail twitching slightly from behind him. “Nothing at all! You sure you’re not just imagining things? Everything’s been completely normal as far as I can tell!” 

You frown at his words, unconvinced. That same worry you’ve been feeling bubbling up in the back of your mind over the past weeks returns tenfold. Your gaze flicks over his face—looking for… something. Anything, to clue you in on what he’s thinking about. But he can be oddly inscrutable when he wants to be. Your frown deepens before you let out a relenting sigh. 

“Well,” you start casually as you turn on your heel with a shrug, “if you won’t tell me then I guess I’ll just get going then—” 

Wukong lets out a surprised sound behind you. Within a blink, he appears in front of you, eyes wide and alarmed. “Wait wait! Don’t go!” he bursts out suddenly, his hands raising to hold you by the shoulders. When all you do is give him an expectant look, he continues slowly, “...I’ll tell you.” He presses his lips together, then leans back to give you a rather… hesitatingly hopeful expression. “But only if we do this one last thing real quick.” 

You eye him warily. “Oookay? What is it?” 

Upon hearing that you haven’t immediately denied him, Wukong grins—sharp and sly. “How ‘bout we play a game of Tag?” he asks, letting go of your shoulders to clasp his hands together as he rocks back and forth on his heels. 

“A game… of Tag,” you repeat slowly. What the fuck? Is he being serious? 

His eyes upturn into crescent slits of blood red and gold as he nods. “Yep! Well, more like a mix of Hide ‘n Seek and Tag. Winner gets to do whateeeever they want!” He is being serious.

You tell him as much. “You’re serious.” 

“As a heart attack!” 

Squinting at him, you suspiciously ask, “Are you avoiding talking about things?” 

He only smiles at you. “Nope!” he says cheerfully. Then he adds, “The opposite, actually!” 

“…Right,” you say flatly when he doesn’t care to elaborate. You take a moment to analyze his expression once more, your eyes darting over the minutiae of his face. But apart from his expectant look and steadily swaying tail, you are still unable to glean any kind of meaning or intention from him. It doesn’t make you feel particularly satisfied. 

Wukong seems to sense your apprehension. “C’mon, please? Pretty please? I promise it’ll be worth it!” 

He’s being oddly insistent over a child’s game. You rub at your face. You suppose it’s something to do… “A game of Hide ‘n Seek Tag, that’s it?” When all Wukong does is nod eagerly, you huff. “I don’t really expect to be able to outrun the Monkey King, though.” You make a show out of giving him a once over—from the black shoes on his feet all the way up to his golden chest plate and then the feathered crown sat atop his head. 

Wukong lets out a loud laugh that echoes over the surrounding sounds of wildlife. “Don’t worry, I won’t use any of my powers,” he assures you, inexplicably happy. “I’ll also make myself slower, just for you.” He winks. 

You hum, weighing your options—not that you have much of a choice if Wukong is willing to actually talk after this, no matter who wins. He seems to be giving you a fair fighting chance, though, which is… considerate, you guess. You have to suppress a sigh. Worry continues to gnaw at your insides. 

You can’t believe you’re about to do this right now.

“Okay, fine, I’ll bite,” you say and have to suppress a smile when Wukong lights up like a firework in a dark night. You point at him. “But! I can do whatever I want to slow you down.”

He chuckles. “It’s adorable you think you can stop me.” You pout and open your mouth to retort, but he continues on before you can say a word. “Alright, sure. It’ll be funny to see what you try to do anyways.” He smirks at you in a way that makes you huff. 

“Whatever, man,” you grumble, watching as Wukong starts to bounce excitedly on the balls of his feet. You roll back your shoulders and idly stretch out your legs. Might as well loosen up a bit. “We doing this now?” 

“Yep!” he replies with a wide grin. He steps away from you and spins on his heel so that he’s facing away from you—looking up at the giant waterfall covering his home. “I’ll give you a head start.” He peeks at you over his shoulder, something oddly intense lining his golden eye. “Better get a move on, Sunshine!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” you say with a snort as you wave him off. Turning around, you can’t help but get one last jab in. “Don’t pull a muscle trying to catch me, old man!” 

“Hey! You said you wouldn’t call me that!” 

Letting out a loud laugh in response, you start jogging your way down the path leading away from his cave entrance. It’s rather steep, flanked on both sides by scraggly bushes that stretch out loose limbs to obscure parts of the compact ground. Your steps are quick yet cautious as a result, wary of tripping. And when your shoes slip slightly on the dirt path, you find yourself wishing you had purchased those sneakers with a better grip back when you’d first had the thought so long ago.

Exhaling, your gaze flicks around your surroundings. Hmm, where should you go? Flower Fruit Mountain is large enough that you think you have a good chance of evading Wukong for quite some time if you’re lucky enough to not cross paths. The only problem is getting far enough from him in the allotted head start—a length of time that you are unfortunately not privy to. You frown and pick up the pace. 

The overhead canopies sway gently overhead, rustling like thousands of tiny footsteps. Stalks of bamboo tower around you like thin, reedy giants, swallowing your shadow within the multitude of their own. You will have to dive deeper into the jungle soon if you want to give yourself some kind of advantage over Wukong; this path is the only main one leading down the mountain, and he is bound to find you should you stay on it. Within the jungle, you have a better chance at disappearing between shrubs or trees.

Not that you think he won’t not find you; this is his mountain, after all. You can at least try to give him a run for his money—should he stay true to keeping himself “powered down,” or so to speak. Honestly, you’re not sure how long he’ll last—he can get impatient pretty quickly. But maybe you can use that to your advantage to get him to concede. 

No matter what though, you think to yourself as you hop over a fallen tree trunk covered in moss, you must keep moving for this beginning portion of the game to put as much space between you and him as possible. Stopping to hide probably isn’t the best course of action considering who you’re dealing with. At least, not right now.

If he really wants the win, you decide determinedly, he’s going to have to work for it.

But so will you, apparently, as you feel a stitch form in your side. 

Huffing slightly in exertion, you peek over your shoulder more out of precaution than anything. The only thing that greets you is the sloping path of the mountain. You’re lucky it’s been so well traveled in the past—the compact dirt, bits of grass, and protruding roots cover your steps decently well. You’re sure Wukong will have a sharp eye for them though, even without using his gold vision. Ah well, you can’t really do anything about that now. 

Eventually, you come to a fork in the path. You take only a moment to contemplate it before you pick right on a whim—delving into steadily thickening vegetation. The path narrows—overtaken by vibrant grass and flowers with curled petals that glow with a near iridescence—until it completely disappears, and you’re left to pick your way carefully past low-hanging branches and tangled roots. 

The leaves overhead rustle slightly while you jog, but you are unable to really discern anything when you peer up at the thickly covered branches. You can hear the distant chattering of monkeys, though, accompanied by the dulcet song of birds hidden away in the trees. 

At any other moment, you’d take time to appreciate the beauty of the nature surrounding you—the butterflies with bright wings hovering over equally as bright flowers, the nectar-like light of the sun filtering down from above, the curling vines dotted with blossoms dangling above your head—but you have other things to concern yourself with right now, unfortunately, and they pass by in fleeting glances.

It’s not long before you have to stop for a break. Tucking yourself against a thick tree, you take in deep breaths to ease the racing of your heart. Perspiration dots your forehead, and you use your arm to wipe it away. You could really use a drink of water, you muse when you swallow and feel the dryness of your throat. Your only option would be to find a river or stream of sorts, but you’re not sure how successful you’ll be. You have no idea where you are on the mountain, after all. 

Sighing, you roll your shoulders and cross your arms as you peer around you at the jungle. Normally when you’re here, you spend your time in Wukong’s cave or the beach, maybe even the cliff-side. Very seldom do you actually venture through the overgrown vegetation. Your eyes dart about, taking in the surrounding verdancy, before they trail upwards in thought. 

Hmm. What can you do to slow Wukong down? Throw him off?

Your gaze lowers to the ground, where you find rocks scattered and partially buried about. Maybe you can try throwing things at him again, you mull, thinking about a time not too long ago. Or maybe you can retrace your steps and take a different path through the shrubbery to buy you more time. You swat at a fly buzzing near your ear as you ruminate, then startle when something suddenly drops onto your right shoulder from above. 

For one heart-stopping moment, you think it’s Wukong—somehow having managed to sneak up on you in the few minutes you’ve been resting here. But then you turn your head and realize that it’s just a little, white-furred monkey. It chirps as it peers down at you with dark eyes. You’re not sure if it’s one of the same monkeys from earlier, but by the way it tugs at your hair and curls its tail around your upper arm, you want to believe it is. 

“I don’t suppose you can help me win against the Monkey King, huh?” you murmur to it as you reach up to scratch the side of its head. 

The monkey gives you a little hoot and tugs at your hair again—harder, this time. Your face scrunches up at the twinge of pain, and you reach up to disentangle tiny monkey hands from the strands. “Ow! Hey, careful!” 

When you manage to free one of its hands from your hair, the monkey instead moves to grab your ear and give it a firm yank. You yelp as your head follows the motion of its pull. “Quit it! What are you—” 

It’s only when the monkey pulls at your ear again—forcing your head to turn in a specific direction—that you realize it’s trying to show you something. 

In the far, far distance to your right. 

A moving flash of red jumping from tree to tree that steadily gets larger and larger the longer you squint at it. 

The monkey on your shoulder chitters something to you at the same time a loud voice booms through the jungle—sending birds and other small wildlife scattering about in fright.  

“There you are!”  

Your heart drops right down to your ass. Oh shit.

Immediately, you turn in the opposite direction and bolt. 

Wukong’s laugh echoes behind you as you zip past trees and bushes alike—ducking beneath low branches and slipping between bamboo stalks. How did he find you so quickly?! Even without using his powers that was absurdly fast. You huff as your shoes pound against the dirt ground, your eyes darting about for the best routes to take where you won’t absolutely eat shit tripping over any roots.

When you feel arms tighten around your head, you realize that the little monkey from before is still sitting upon your shoulder. It hoots excitedly into your ear, seemingly having fun using you as a ride. 

“This isn’t a taxi service,” you grumble to yourself without all too much heat as you shoot a quick backward glance to gauge how far Wukong is from you. 

The answer? Not far at all. 

He has caught up to you frighteningly quickly, swinging himself from branch to branch overhead a short distance away. He’s showing off, you know he is, based on the twirls and flips he does in the air. Vaguely, you’re able to register that he’s changed his clothes from his normal armor, but you don’t catch anything more than burgundy fabric billowing out behind him before you turn back around with another huff. 

“Come on, Little Bird!” Wukong calls out to you after having noticed your glance, a grin apparent in his voice. “Flap those wings! You can go faster than that!”

Little Bird? That’s a new one. You brush it off easily so you can call back to him. 

“How’d you find me so fast?” you shout, leaping over a tangle of bramble. “Did you cheat?!” 

Wukong releases an affronted gasp somewhere above to your left. “I would never! Have you no faith in me?” 

“Not really, no!” 

“I can’t believe this! And to think I was giving you encouragement!” 

You snort, a sort of… giddiness starting to course through your veins when you make a turn and catch another glimpse of Wukong behind you. He’s not speeding himself up or anything. In fact, he seems to be maintaining that same distance from you in a low effort (for him) chase. It’s… exciting, in a way. You wonder what his play is here.

“Now would be a great time for some help,” you mutter to the little monkey clinging to your clothes as you squeeze yourself between two trees. It chatters something into your ear in response, and as you pass by under another tree, the monkey reaches up to snag onto a vine hanging down from one of the branches to hoist itself up. 

You blink as you snap your head back just in time to see a waving monkey tail disappear between the tree’s large leaves and blossoms. Ah. Well. That’s the end of that, you suppose. You hope that monkey didn’t just abandon you, but perhaps asking it for help was a bit too much. You shake your head and turn back to focus on getting away. 

“You’re making this awfully easy for me!” Wukong taunts, not sounding like he’s even a little bit out of breath. “Give me a challenge, hun!” 

He seems really into this, doesn’t he? “You’re not being helpful!” you bite back at him, your eyes snagging onto a decently-sized rock up ahead. A challenge, huh? As you run by, it’s easy to bend down to scoop it up into your hand, then use that same motion to turn and chuck it towards Wukong. 

You don’t linger to see if the rock successfully makes contact or not, but based on Wukong starting to speak in a teasing manner, it likely doesn’t. 

“Rocks again? Really?” he says in amusement. “Kind of a one-trick move there, Sunsh— Woah!” 

At the startled sound of Wukong’s voice, you peek over your shoulder and instantly grin when you see your little monkey friend has made a reappearance—having launched itself at his face. It makes Wukong stop to perch himself on a tree branch, his hands trying to tug the monkey free from where it’s obscuring his vision by yanking at his hair and ears.

“Hah!” you gloat, making your voice loud enough to be heard over the shrill hooting of the monkey. “How’s that for a challenge?!”  

“Using one of my own against me? Harsh!” Wukong strangles out as you promptly pick up the pace to speed away. This is the perfect opportunity to try to lose him. You manage to hear him chatter something irately to the little monkey before you disappear deeper into the bush—far enough that you can no longer see nor hear him. 

Still, you don’t stop. You push yourself into sprinting—your feet practically flying over grass and dirt alike—until your eyes snag onto a little crevice nestled within a thick tree trunk. It’s nearly concealed behind a dense patch of shrubbery: the perfect spot to hide. Immediately, you beeline for it, squeezing yourself into the nook until you’re surrounded by wood and old cobwebs. It’s a tight fit, but you make it work as you press yourself against one of the trunk’s inner walls, bark digging into your back. 

Your heart is pounding within your ears, a rapid beat that you focus on calming with deep inhales and exhales. Faintly, you smell pine. Everything feels hot without the wind generated during your run brushing past your face. You swallow heavily against the dryness of your throat and nestle down so you can pay attention to the world outside of your hiding spot—listening for the sounds of Wukong’s approach. 

You do not have to wait long. 

“Suunnshiiine! Come out, come out wherever you are!” You hear Wukong call out distantly through the jungle. Instantly, you hold your breath, too wary that even the smallest of sounds will catch his attention. 

There’s a rustling that gets steadily louder and louder until it pauses—seemingly right above you. Your gaze flicks up, as though you can see Wukong through the wood. And then, muttered so lowly under his breath that you almost don’t catch it, he muses, “Now where did that little bird fly off to?” 

You don’t move an inch. 

And eventually, after what feels like an agonizingly long stretch of time, there is the intermittent creaking of branches and shifting of leaves away from you. You dare not even peek out of the tree’s crevice until it has long faded into the distance. And even then you wait some more, for extra measure. 

Soon enough though, your legs decide to cramp up, so you tentatively peel yourself away from the confines of the tree nook and step back into dappled sunlight. Cautiously, you look around. You don’t think Wukong would’ve just let you escape like that, but you’ll take the victories where you can. Maybe he’s making good on giving you a fair fighting chance. 

Exhaling, you shake yourself out, brushing away any stray cobwebs sticking to your clothes and hoping there aren’t any bugs crawling across them. Now that you’re not actively moving, everything seems oddly… still. Not quiet, just still. It doesn’t make you feel any calmer, so you start slowly retracing your steps. Hopefully, Wukong doesn’t expect you to appear in an area you’ve already run through, though you’re honestly unsure when it comes to his thought process. 

You’re lucky the terrain has been rather even, you think to yourself as you walk past blooming plants and dried leaves. You’d have twisted your ankle long ago otherwise. And of course, as though hearing your thoughts, your shoes choose now to slip on a portion of rock partially buried in the ground. You grunt in annoyance and manage to catch yourself.

Peering around carefully, you fan your shirt against your chest. Your skin is sticky with sweat, and it doesn’t do anything to make you feel comfortable or cool you down. Again, you’d like nothing more than to find a water source. If you strain your ears, however, you don’t really hear anything indicative of a nearby stream—no rushing rapids or splashing water. You sigh to yourself. Looking for it may be a lost cause at this point. 

After retracing your steps for a bit, you decide to veer off into a different direction. Small sticks and leaves crunch under your steps. In the distance, cicadas buzz, followed by the sharp call of a pheasant. You lift the bottom of your shirt up to wipe at your face, then drop it so you can push your way past leaves larger than your very torso. 

Despite the adrenaline from the earlier chase having long faded, you feel alert as you pick your way through the jungle. While you don’t think Wukong will sneak up on you, per se—based on how loud he’s being trying to find you—you also won’t put it past him to drop out of the sky just to give you a good scare. As such, any little snap of a branch or odd rustle of foliage makes you dart your gaze about to look for familiar flashes of red. 

It’s a while later that you realize you’ve ventured into an area of Flower Fruit Mountain where you’re practically swamped by thick vegetation. It makes it difficult to move around without your clothes snagging on something, but not impossible. You have to duck under low-hanging branches and vines thicker than your arm. And soon enough, after struggling through what feels like miles of overgrowth, you find yourself pausing in front of two trees. 

There’s nothing remarkable about them, really. Just two thick elm trees standing apart from each other by a few meters. But what truly catches your attention are the multitude of vines draping from their branches like nature’s version of a beaded curtain. Looping and dangling in a way that connects the trees together. Almost forming a web of sorts, but not quite there yet. 

An idea forms at the back of your mind. You eye the trees some more. Hmm. You may just be able to pull something off here. It’s certainly worth a shot. 

With a short nod to yourself, you get to work. 

It takes you quite a bit of time to arrange everything according to your plan. Vines get repositioned around the branches of the trees in a specific way, criss-crossing in a manner that’s not too telling of your added touch. Their ends get tied together and scrutinized based on their placement around the trunks. You step away from your masterpiece once you’ve fiddled around long enough, two lengths of vines held in your hands from where they trail off both of the tree trunks.

Swiftly, you pull on the vines, watching in satisfaction as they cause a tangled web to spring into position in the space between the trees. A trap. Hopefully one that will buy you some time. You drop the vines in your hands and the web relaxes—turning back into its previous innocuous, drooping mess. The surrounding vegetation is thick enough that Wukong will have to jump through the vines if he wants to catch you. And you’ve left a small gap underneath the vines for you to slide through as well. Don't want to get caught up in your own trap, after all.

Now all you have to do is lead him to this very spot. Should be simple enough. 

You trudge away from your trap, marking your path by snapping branches or peeling bits of bark off of tree trunks. You will have to travel far enough so you can lead Wukong over without him catching onto what you’re doing—that he gets invested enough in the actual chase to not pay attention to his surroundings. 

Once you deem yourself at an adequate distance, you stop and peer around. With the vegetation not as thick here, you’re able to see better past the broad leaves and tangled branches. It should allow you to spot Wukong from afar. 

And now, the only thing you can do is wait for him to find you—as you’re certain he will. Making some noise will likely help speed up the process though, you muse to yourself. 

Humming to yourself, you stomp around for a bit, occasionally bending down to pick up some sticks from the ground. Once you have a proper handful, you plop down atop a nearby rock coated in moss on one side and start snapping them in half. 

Each crack of wood is sharp—some louder than others based on the thickness of the sticks. The snaps echo slightly throughout the jungle. You have no doubt that Wukong put a damper on his own hearing, but this should draw him in some if he gets close enough to hear them. Or if he’s finally reached the end of his patience to not use his powers. 

Your eyes glance up and around on occasion, your ears practically straining to catch any Wukong-like sounds. There’s some intermittent rustling over your head, but when you look up, you only see a few birds flitting about. You wonder how long you’ve been playing this game with him for. Time has been swallowed up ruthlessly by the jungle. You could check the time on your phone, but you’re not sure when you both even started. 

You run out of sticks pretty quickly—even after you break the halves into quarters and the quarters into eighths. You scratch at your head as you look around for anything else you can use. Maybe you can shake some bushes around like you’re wading through them. Or throw some rocks against trees like you’re practicing your aim.

But before you can get up to enact one of your ideas, you hear him. 

Immediately, you pause, listening intently to the faint sound of Wukong calling for you. It’s almost like you’re hearing the tailend of an echo in a cave, with you standing at one end and Wukong standing all the way at the other. Slowly, you stand and pivot around in an attempt to gauge where he’s coming from. His voice gets louder, just a tad, and you’re able to detect a sort of… desperation to his voice. Maybe frustration, but it sounds too whiny to be it exactly. 

“—ou here somewhere?” You hear Wukong yell. “C’mon! Please! You can’t hide forever!” 

Snorting to yourself, you roll your eyes and raise your fist up to your mouth to cough loudly into it. 

Like clockwork, he goes silent. Listening intently, no doubt. You wait a few seconds, then clear your throat a tad quieter, whispering a little curse under your breath for good measure. 

It’s quiet for a few minutes. You turn slowly in a circle, your gaze flicking about to see if you can spot him in the distance. And eventually you do—in your periphery. That familiar spot of burgundy getting closer and closer while he travels via tree branches. 

You pretend like you haven’t seen him, your back towards his direction of approach. And, as Wukong is wont to do, he calls out to you once he’s close enough—his voice all excited.

“Found you!” 

Feigning surprise, you snap your head behind you to direct wide eyes and raised eyebrows at him before you start to sprint away. You’re able to catch a glimpse of the delighted smile on his face in that short moment, his golden gaze trained on your form while you maintain a speed that’s not too fast, yet not too slow either. 

“Hey you’re doin’ pretty well, hun!” Wukong calls happily out to you, leaves rustling and branches creaking in his wake. “Impressive, considering who you’re up against and all!” 

You’re unable to hold back a light scoff. “Please, you’re going easy on me,” you throw over your shoulder. “I hardly stand a chance against the humble Monkey King.” 

He lets out a laugh at your pointed words. “You know me, humble as they come!” 

“Uh huh.” Your eyes snap from tree to tree as you seek out your path markings. “I’m more surprised you’re letting me run away like this. Again.” 

“I did say I would make myself slower for you!”

This feels less like him moving at a slower pace for the game and more of… something else. But you can’t quite put your finger on it. You brush it off in favor of teasing him. “You sure it’s not ‘cuz you’re getting tired, old man?” 

Wukong makes an offended sound that has you grinning. “Hey! You’re one to talk! I can hear your breathing from here!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say quickly, even as a stitch forms in your side once again, and a heat starts to build in your cheeks from your sprinting. Everything passes by in a near verdant blur. Your clothes are starting to snag occasionally on the spindly fingers of branches and twigs.

“I think you do.” He chuckles, and fuck it sounds like he’s right above your head. “Besides, could a tired, old man be able to do this?” 

And before you can really process what’s happening, there’s a sharp crack that sounds out above your head, immediately followed by a blur of red flipping a few feet in front of you. A yelp gets stifled in your throat as you realize it’s Wukong—cheekily grinning at you while you make a sharp pivot and just barely dance around him to continue running.

That fucker.

He whistles a decrescendo note as you go, and a quick glance shows that he’s still standing in that same spot—watching you with half-lidded eyes as he smiles sharply. There’s something shaded to his gaze that you can’t make out in the split second you observe him. You turn back around in time to avoid tripping over a root. 

“Nice reflexes there,” Wukong calls, sounding like he’s proud. You can’t help but roll your eyes. 

“Okay now you’re just playing with me,” you say with a huff and look behind you again to see that he’s started to run after you instead of hopping from tree to tree like the monkey demon he is. There’s quite a bit of distance between the two of you, though you don’t doubt he can close it in an instant should he wish to. 

But him now actually running after you is… different in a way that makes your heart suddenly leap up to your throat. You shake your head to vanquish such feelings. Focus. You can see the trees of your trap up ahead. All you have to do is get there. 

“Whaaat? No way. I’m better than that, I swear,” he tells you innocently. 

“Right.” Come on, come on, you’re so close. “I definitely believe you.”

“No really! In fact, I’ll pinky promise it right now if you stop running.” 

“Nice try,” you manage to get out as you only pump your legs faster. Shit, your chest aches. It makes breathing difficult. “You’ll have— have to try harder than that.”

You can practically hear the grin in his voice as he replies, “Oh Little Bird, if I did, this all would’ve been over in less than a minute.” You snort and open your mouth to respond. But before you can, however, Wukong pivots the conversation like the flip of a coin. “But, you know, I really do think it’s about time we wrap this up,” he says lightly. There’s this depth to his voice that makes something in your stomach twinge. “Don’t you think?” 

“Sure,” you reply breathlessly as you vault over a shrub instead of kicking your way through it. “As soon as”—you take in a deep breath in an attempt to ease the fire in your lungs—“as soon as you say you give up.” 

“Weeeellll,” Wukong drawls, sounding much, much, closer than before. “You see. About that. Not gonna happen.” His voice lowers, the hint of something terse coating it. “Not when I have you right here, after all.”

And suddenly— well, suddenly you feel this chill go down your spine. 

It leaves you feeling as though you’re a gazelle being stalked by a lion. So sudden and jarring that you internally panic, heart starting to hammer in your chest from something other than exertion. 

This feeling, the accompanying base instinct in your gut to get away, is what causes you to practically throw yourself underneath your awaiting trap. You slide on the ground, kicking up dirt as your hands scramble for the ends of the vines in haste.

Your muscles ache, your lungs burn, but you pull on those vines with all the swiftness you can manage just in time to see them snap around a lunging Wukong. He makes a surprised sound as he gets tangled within them, and you waste no time in tying the ends of the vines around the nearest tree—double, then triple knotting them together. 

“Ooooh, clever, I’ll give you that,” Wukong breathes once you stumble away from the tree and brace your hands against your knees in an attempt to catch your breath. Your heart practically thunders within your ears, and you have to shake your head to rid yourself of the remnants of whatever that had been. If your throat wasn’t already so parched, you’re certain it would’ve dried up instantly.

Wiping at the perspiration on your forehead with your arm, you take in the sight of Wukong. He’s posed at a forwards angle, arms outstretched slightly towards you with a number of vines wrapped around them and his body—even his tail. You breathe in satisfaction, then blink when you are finally able to take in his change of clothes.

He has on a silky, red bèizi decorated in what looks like swirling, white patterns from what you can see under the multitude of crisscrossing vines—the lines thin and smooth. Under that is a gold zhíjū, lined in white along the edges and tied together with a sash that’s similar in color to the bèizi. Somehow he’s managed not to dirty anything, the material still glossy and vibrant. You’re taken aback.

Why… Why is he wearing that? What’s the occasion?

It’s confusing, and you’re sure this confusion shows in the furrow of your eyebrows. When you move to make eye contact with Wukong, however, the questions poised at the tip of your tongue vanish at the sight of his own wolfish smirk. 

“I didn’t know you were into stuff like this,” he purrs with no small amount of smugness. His eyes flick purposely at the vines encasing him.

You only huff and cross your arms. The heat in your cheeks is from the dead sprinting you just did. Nothing else, obviously. 

“You did agree that I could do whatever to stop you,” you tell him, stepping closer until you’re just in front of him. His face is level with your own. You give him an expectant look. “Ready to give up yet?”

“Not at all.” Wukong chuckles, his eyes trailing rapidly all over your body before they eventually land on an area on your neck. “C’mon, you don’t think this can actually hold me, do you?” he drawls, finally looking up to meet your gaze with his own half-lidded one. He gives a pointed flex of his arms—making the vines around them quiver and strain. 

You roll your eyes. “Of course not. I’m actually gonna take this time to enact a new rule.” You point a finger at his nose; his amber eyes cross slightly to stare at it. With all the authority you can muster, you declare, “You’re not allowed to escape from this trap for five minutes.”

Wukong blinks and blows a raspberry at you. “Boo, bad rule. As the Monkey King, I object to this addition so late in the game.” 

You withdraw your finger to send him a glare. “Oh please, like you don’t pull shit like this all the time. You’ll follow it if you know what’s good for you.” 

Wukong takes a moment to consider your words. “Fair,” he soon replies casually. “Alright, I’ll listen to your rule. Even though it’s dumb.” His eyes flick back down to your neck for a split second, then return to your face. You have to hold back the urge to rub at it in self-consciousness. “I’ll warn you now, though… I’m starting to lose my patience.” 

And there’s that terseness again—in the strain of his voice and the glint of his eyes. Concern, building from the start of the game—from those months before—starts to prod its fingers at your thoughts. 

You’re beginning to think this is more complex than a simple game of Tag. 

But you’re not going to address that right now. 

“Noted,” you say lightly. And then, spurred on by the sight of him willingly keeping himself in your shitty trap, you lean forward and plop a chaste kiss right on his nose. His pupils dilate. “Be a good boy and stay here, hm?” you whisper to him like you’re telling him a secret, then pull away with a little wink.

His breath immediately catches in his throat—a minor hitch that you’re just barely able to hear over the surrounding ambience of the jungle.

“Better start flying, Birdie,” he warns you lowly, the corner of his mouth trembling slightly. It feels like you've stopped breathing as well. “‘Cuz once I get my hands on you…” 

Wukong smiles widely, and it is all sharp, fanged teeth. 

You are loathe to admit the jolt it sends straight to your stomach. He doesn’t even need to say anything else. You can see the way he flexes his fingers, and it makes you spin around on your heel to hightail it the fuck out of there.

You’ll be surprised if he manages to wait the whole five minutes. 

Pushing yourself like you never have before, your only focus is getting away away away. You zip through the jungle, footsteps thundering below you. It’s a miracle that you don’t somehow trip or slip, though you come close quite a few times. You almost don’t feel a thing, so focused as you are on trying not to think about what had just happened and letting the adrenaline guide you.

The vegetation thins out slightly before you eventually find yourself stumbling out of the treeline and into a clearing. It’s unexpected, and you squint slightly when you’re hit with the full force of the sunlight instead of it filtering down through leaves. You shield your eyes from it with a hand, taking a few deep breaths of air to help ease down your heart rate. And once your eyes have adjusted, you find that you’re not alone in the clearing. 

MK has turned to look at you, paused mid-strike with his staff in what looks like one of his training exercises. 

For a second, you both blink owlishly at each other. Then, he seems to snap out of it first.

“Oh hey!” he greets, twirling his staff and setting one end against the ground. He’s chilling in his monkey form, his tail swaying behind him. “I thought you were hanging out with Monkey King, what’s u—“ He cuts himself off to give you a bewildered once-over. “Uhh… Why do you look like you’ve just lost a fight to the mountain?” 

It takes you a beat longer to process that he’s asked you a question. And another beat for you to suddenly come up with an idea as you stare at him.

You wave him off as you quickly approach. “Oh don’t worry about it. Just having a little bit of fun with Wukong, is all.” MK looks like he simultaneously does and does not want to ask what you mean by that. You don’t give him the chance to make up his mind. You stop just in front of him and clasp your hands together as you give him a pleading look. “Actually, can I ask you for a favor if you’re not too busy?” 

MK squints his eyes at you, his head tilting slightly. “This won’t have any unforeseeable consequences or anything, right?” he asks dubiously, even as he shrinks his staff to tuck it into his ear. 

“Umm.” You have to think about it for a second. “No?” 

“Then sure! Whatchu need, fam?” 

You send him a grin, even as you peek over your shoulder to check if Wukong has escaped yet to track you to this spot. He hasn’t, thankfully, though you feel even antsier, if possible. Time is ticking. You turn back to look at MK, who raises his eyebrows as an indication for you to continue. “You mind dropping me off on the other side of the mountain? Like, right now?” 

“Yeah, I can do that!” He nods, raising his fingers to his mouth to blow out a sharp whistle. “Is there a reason why, ooorr...?” 

“It’s…” You hesitate, then settle with saying a stilted “Complicated.” You should really get going.

“Alrighty then!” He seems to be handling your vagueness pretty well, all things considered. His somersault cloud zips in from over the top of the treeline and comes to a halt at his side. He jumps on top of it with ease, holding out a hand to help you up. “You can count on Monkie Kid’s Certified Taxi Service to get you to your destination! C’mon!” 

“Thanks, man,” you say appreciatively as you take his palm. “I’ll treat you to boba later, I promise.” 

“Awww yeah!” 

Once you’re settled atop his cloud, your arms wrapped around his waist for support, he takes off. The wind rushes past your face with his speed, bringing nice relief to your overheated, sweaty skin from running. The ends of MK’s headband flaps behind him, occasionally brushing against your forehead. The tension you hadn’t realized you’d been carrying slowly disappears from your shoulders as you both travel above a sea of trees—their leaves a green blur underneath MK’s cloud.

Good, this is good. You’ll definitely have some more time to evade Wukong if you’re, you know, on the opposite side of the mountain from him. Though, where that may vastly impede any regular person, you’re sure Wukong will have no issues at all. Either way, you’ll be able to plan your next move. Maybe you should try to find somewhere to hide for a while this time. 

It’s as you’re admiring the view of the mountain—the way the sun spills its rays across treetops to make them look like they’re coated in liquid gold—that you feel this prickling sensation at the back of your neck. 

So sudden and intense, you straighten up slightly before you cast a cursory glance over your shoulder. 

Immediately, your eyes lock onto a small figure in the far, far distance. You squint at it for a second, then feel your eyes widen when you realize it’s Wukong—rapidly approaching on his own somersault cloud fast enough that you can see a burst of leaves and branches flying up into the air behind him. 

Well. There goes his patience to not use his powers, you suppose.

You can’t make out his expression, but if the way he’s speeding towards you with reckless abandon is any indication, you’re guessing he’s not quite happy. 

Sure enough, his voice drops into your head a second later. 

You better hope I don’t catch you, he tells you, somehow sounding like he’s gritting his teeth together. You feel your stomach instantly bottom out at his words. You don’t even dignify him with a response. 

You turn back to tug rapidly on MK’s jacket, a mix of fear and giddiness energizing your movements. “Holy fuck MK, go faster!” 

“Huh?” MK yells over the rushing wind, turning his upper body around slightly to look at you. As such, you see the precise moment his gaze flicks from you to a point behind you. His eyes round out almost comically, alarm spreading across his face. “GAH! What did you do to make him so mad?!” 

“I don’t know!” you yell back, though you definitely have an idea. And you’re currently riding it. “Never mind that! Go go go!” 

“Hang tight!” MK shouts, even as his tail winds around your body. You have just enough time to lock your arms around his waist before he abruptly shoots off. The force is enough to steal the breath right from your lungs. You have to squeeze your eyes shut and press your face against his shoulder for a minute to collect yourself. 

You really don’t want to know what Wukong’ll do once he catches up (or maybe you do?), but at the same time… You bite at the inside of your cheek in mischievous delight. Even amidst all the alarm bells going off in your head regarding the way he’s acting for a stupid children’s game, it’s… fun. Especially riling him up. 

A little payback, perhaps, for making you worry over him. You suppress a sigh.

Now collected, you peek back over your shoulder to see how close Wukong is. He’s still pretty far, but he’s gotten closer that you can make out his crouched pose atop his cloud, his clothes furiously flapping out behind him. Something gold flashes at you from his face like light reflecting off a surface. 

Inwardly, you curse, then turn around to look for somewhere MK can drop you off. You need to get back on the ground and hide. That’ll at least make it easier for you to get away compared to the open air. Though, if he really is using all his powers, that’ll probably be a moot point. But it’s fine. 

You can handle Wukong. 

You think. 

“There!” you shout when you spot a small clearing below hiding within the jungle. You point at it. “Drop me off there!” 

MK shouts something back that gets swallowed up by the wind and veers down towards the clearing. In mere seconds, he skids to a stop a couple of feet above the ground, and you quickly detach yourself from him to jump off. 

“Thanks again!” you call to him as you start running towards the treeline, tossing an erratic wave over your shoulder. You feel bad for ditching him so quickly, but you really don’t want to linger. You don’t want him to get caught up in all of… this either.

“No prob good luck don’t die byeee!!” MK hollers, his voice trailing off distantly in a way that tells you he’s likely darted away on his cloud. You don’t blame him for not wanting to stick around with Wukong acting like this.

You practically crash through the bushes and bamboo stalks, your feet carrying you deeper into the jungle. This section is quite thinned out compared to the thick vegetation you had to wade through earlier. Leaves crunch under your shoes as you dart around looking for a place to hide. Another tree nook, a large rock, a fallen trunk—anything. But you’re not quite successful. 

“Oh come on,” you grit out under your breath, your head whipping side to side. With the trees so spaced out, you think your only hope is to keep running until you hit somewhere with more foliage.

And then you get this urge. An instinct, out of nowhere. One that absolutely screams at you, the hairs along your entire body standing up. You follow it without hesitation. 

As you throw yourself to the left in a lunge, a small breeze brushes over your body. Your shirt sleeve gets tugged on, ever so slightly. There’s the sound of splintering wood and a small grunt. 

You hit the ground, then immediately scramble up to your feet to jog a few safe meters away and spin around. Heart pounding erratically in your ears, you stare with wide eyes at Wukong. 

He’s got one hand braced on the trunk of a tree that’d been in your way before you had lunged to the side. You step back when you notice there are claw marks etched into the bark that hadn’t been there previously—jagged, yet shallow. Your stunned gaze lingers on them for a moment before they snap back to Wukong. Who’s looking at you from the corner of a glowing, golden eye. 

You swallow heavily. Everything suddenly seems so quiet. Like nature is holding its very breath. 

Wukong slowly turns away from the tree to fully face you and lowers himself to the ground until he’s on all fours, his tail swaying dangerously behind him. 

Then, he grins sharply at you. 

Oh hell. 

You spin around to try to sprint away from him. But before you can make it even a few steps, you feel your shoe slip on something. You let out a curse as you topple forward, your stomach dropping down to your feet. Though before you can come into unforgiving contact with the ground, something collides with your body midair, grabs onto you, and twists. 

The world passes in a blur. You grunt as you land on something warm, then grunt again when everything flips. Your back comes into contact with what you register as the cool, grassy ground. A weight atop your body lifts to hover over you, something unlatching from around your torso. It gives you an odd sense of déjà vu. And you lay there, for a second, your eyes squeezed shut as you process what the fuck had just happened. You’re dizzy, only a little bit, and definitely discombobulated. But eventually you open your eyes when you feel something straddle you around your thighs and squeeze. 

It’s Wukong—his pupils blown so widely that all you can see is a ring of amber lining them. He’s breathing heavily, chest expanding and contracting with every breath of air. There is the minutest of trembles to his body where he’s poised over you, so close and utterly warm. It makes heat start to creep up your neck. 

“Wukong,” you manage to get out. Your eyes dart side to side to look at his arms—where he’s propping himself up with his hands splayed out on the ground by your ears—then return to his face. “What the fuck?”

He takes a moment to respond, his gaze rapidly flicking all over your expression and body. Taking you in. Hungry, almost. It makes your confusion start to rear its head again, closely followed by concern. Why is he acting so…? You don’t get the chance to finish your thought. 

“I have you!” Wukong responds breathlessly, sounding like he’s exceedingly happy. And once that seems to sink in for him, he abruptly leans down to bury his face in your neck and inhale deeply. You jolt slightly at the action. “I win!” he declares proudly, his voice muffled. 

You scoff, though it’s not all that strong with Wukong still rubbing his face into your skin. You have half a mind to push him away—you feel gross as hell with all that exercise, after all—but you don’t think that’ll end well. “You used your powers. That’s a forfeit.” 

He snorts, his breath fanning out across your jugular. You’re unable to suppress the shiver it causes. “Oh yeah? You broke the rules first. I can’t believe you’d use my own successor as a getaway ride!” 

“Technically it’s not against the rules,” you say smartly. You remind him, “I could do whatever I wanted.” 

“To slow me down,” Wukong emphasizes, switching to the other side of your neck to continue to nuzzle into it. “Not get away!” 

You hold back a huff. Whatever, if he wants the win so badly, he can have it. You don’t particularly care anymore, not when there’s more pressing things you’re concerned about.

“Alright, fine. You wih— win,” you stutter when you feel his mouth rub against a particularly sensitive spot on your neck. What is he doing? Shaking your head slightly to get yourself to focus, your voice lowers as you ask, “Are you ready to finally talk to me now?” 

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, so busy with mapping out the planes of your neck down to your collarbone. You have to nudge him. “Mmm, talk?” he murmurs distantly. 

“Yes,” you say, somewhat irately. “I know you haven’t forgotten. And I won’t let you do whatever you want if you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong.” When all he does is trace the curve of your cheek with his nose, you give him another firm nudge. “Wukong stop that! I know you can hear me!” 

“Agh, fine, fine,” he groans into your jaw, shifting slightly as though to retreat, though he doesn’t completely just yet. “Buuut first I should mention that this was sorta a…” You feel his teeth graze against a spot below your ear. “Well, a courting ritual.” 

…

A what?

You stare up at the canopy of leaves above you as you process his words. 

“Sun Wukong,” you say slowly even as it feels like there are butterflies swarming around in your stomach. “What did we just do?” 

He takes in another deep breath—it honestly feels like he’s stalling—then pulls away fully to sit properly on top of your stomach. His body slouches forward as he scratches at his cheek. 

“Weeellll,” he starts, almost in a sheepish manner. Your eyes narrow up at him. “Maybe we just uh. Kinda sorta… got engaged?” He winces once the word leaves his mouth. 

Your gut bottoms out. All coherent thought leaves your mind. You stare up at him. He avoids your gaze. 

“What?!” you shout incredulously, and he definitely flinches that time, his ears flattening against his head. You don’t— You don’t even know how to process this information. Fuck, is that why he’d changed his clothes?! It feels like your brain just got filled with buckets of static. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?!” 

“Heheh, sorry!” He rubs the back of his head, eyes flicking about to look at everything but you. “Just got a little too excited.” Then, he clears his throat and closes his eyes. You want to say something, but for some reason you just let yourself watch him, heart starting to palpitate wildly in your chest. 

Wukong takes in another deep breath, then leans forward a little and opens his eyes to watch you. They glitter like gemstones in the dappled sunlight. He says your name, and the look he gives you makes your mouth go dry like you’d just swallowed an entire desert. 

“Marry me,” Wukong says seriously, holding your gaze. “But like, forever. As in forever forever. ‘I have an immortal peach for you’, forever.” 

Your lips part, stunned as you are, but he doesn’t give you a chance to speak. 

“I know you’ve been worrying about me, and I promised I would eventually talk to you about it… so…” He clears his throat again and reaches out to gently brush a strand of hair away from where it sticks to your forehead. Your skin tingles in the wake of his touch.

“The truth is… you’re mortal,” he says quietly, like he doesn’t quite want to admit it. His jaw tenses. “And I can’t lose you. Not ever. I don’t—“ He breaks himself off, glancing to the side momentarily before he returns his gaze to you. “I don’t want to lose anyone else. Especially someone as important to me as you.” 

“Wukong…” you whisper, your hand reaching up to hold onto his own that still lingers by your face. It feels as though something is pouring into your chest, filling it with a tender, aching warmth. 

But on top of that is the slow confirmation that he’s been agonizing about this—about you, your future life with him—for so long. Even longer than when you’d first become privy to it, you ascertain, because you have heard these words before. Years and years ago.

(“Stay here,” Wukong rushed out, gripping at your hands as you stood at the edge of a cliff on Flower Fruit Mountain. He was crouched atop his somersault cloud—that hovered right before you with the clear intention to eventually dart away. Out and across the seemingly endless waters of the dark, roiling ocean. 

There was a static in the air that made your skin buzz, your stomach churning with a mixture of convoluted emotions that made you feel so utterly sick. 

“But— Wukong—” you blurted, your eyes flicking rapidly across his face before darting behind him at the foreboding obsidian beam of light that stood stark against the cracked and fraying sky. 

It was far—far, far in the distance where Megapolis was, you knew. And yet you could still see the orange flashes of lightning sparking from it. The way it parted the overhead thunderclouds that swirled around it like a shark circling its prey in water. A sign. A warning.

His eyebrows creased upwards with the anguished look he gave you. It was not a familiar expression on him. There was a certain desperation to his eyes that made something in your chest twist and ache. 

“I need you to stay here,” he emphasized with no small amount of urgency. “It’s safe here. You need to stay safe.” 

“I can come with,” you choked out, voice cracking part way through your sentence. It felt as though your fingers were locked around his own—you refused to let go. You could not imagine being away from him right now. “I can help—” 

“You’re mortal,” he cried out, his tail lashing out behind him. “You’re mortal and— I can’t lose you. I can’t. So please”—he took a deep breath, and when he looked at you again, there was something unyielding to his gaze—“stay right here.” 

You had to bite down on your lip to stop it from trembling incessantly. There were a million things you could say to argue—a million things to make him take you with him or… or stay with you. But you knew you couldn’t do that. You couldn’t. 

You inhaled deeply. Held it. Then, exhaled. 

“Okay,” you whispered and stepped backwards. Your fingers slipped from his and there was a moment—a small, small moment—where it felt like he almost didn’t want to let go. You brought your hands up so you could cup them in front of your sternum. Your eyes closed momentarily with your bone-weary sigh. “I’ll stay.” 

Wukong was still crouched and bent forward like he was holding onto you. His eyes darted across your face—memorizing the fine details there, maybe—before he finally leaned back and gave you a nod. 

“Good,” is all he said, his head already turning to face the treacherous world beyond. You could see the way his jaw clenched at its sight. “I have to go now. I’ll be back, I promise.” 

“Be careful,” you murmured with your sinking heart. “Please.”

He gave you a final glance, then raced away on his cloud with a burst of speed that made your hair scatter about. His clothes flapped against his legs with the wind, the long feathers on his head a trailing line behind him that almost looked like fire. 

And you stayed there, watching, until he was nothing but a small speck in the shattered sky.)

Your gaze softens as you gently squeeze his palm.

Wukong coughs into the fist of his free hand and switches his intonation to something with a bit more forced exuberance. “So! I went up to the Celestial Realm to gather some immortal relics for you! Cashed in a few favors and stuff.” He grins at you, then seems to register the look on your face—whatever it may be at the moment. His smile fades, just a little. “Ever wanted to try Heavenly Wine? It tastes good, I swear,” he adds weakly. 

You are bubbling and brimming with so many different thoughts and feelings.

“Oh Wukong,” you sigh out as you release his hand and bring up both of your own to gesture at him. “Come here.” 

He hesitates, for just a split second, then leans forward so you can cup his face in your palms. His skin is warm under your touch, radiating similarly to a furnace. Your thumbs run over his cheeks almost soothingly. If the way he sinks heavily into your hold is any indication, he clearly needs the comfort. 

“You silly simian,” you tell him adoringly, shaking his head slightly. He pouts at your words, but doesn’t say anything—just stares down at you hopefully. Maybe even anxiously, you think, when you catch sight of his twitching tail. “This is what you’ve been worrying about all along? Mortality?” 

“Well, your mortality, specifically,” he mumbles, his gaze half-lidding as you continue to rub at his face. He catches the look you send him. “What? It’s a valid concern!” 

You chuckle. “Of course,” you say, amused by his indignance. “And what about the extra clinginess?"

“Clinginess?” he questions in confusion. When you give him a flat look—you are not doing this again with him—he makes a face like he’s thinking about it, then comes to a realization. “Oh that. Pre-marriage excitement, you could say,” he confesses. He at least has the decency to look sheepish about it. “But also… Courting life is different from marriage life for us mystic monkey demons. I was getting you used to it. A way for me to test the waters, so to speak.” 

You give him a knowing look. “Uh huh.” That does indeed explain certain actions of his. And of course since he’s Sun Wukong, he didn’t tell you about it beforehand. Still, you have a vague feeling he may have been taking advantage a little. “You weren’t being clingy just to be clingy?” 

Wukong gasps, looking all affronted. “I would never! Who do you take me for?” When all you do is give him an unimpressed look, he tries to hold out by meeting your gaze, but he eventually seems to crack. He pouts, mumbling, “Heavens forbid a monkey wants to spend more time with his future mate.” 

That’s what you thought. “Boundaries, Wukong,” you say pointedly, pinching his cheek a little. Something fond and warm sprouts in your chest. “Boundaries.” 

He deflates in your hold. “I know…”

You take in his dismay, then rub comforting circles into his face. “We will talk about this later.” You don’t want to trouble him too much about it right now—not when there are more pressing matters to discuss. You sigh, your mind churning up a storm, and add quietly, “…You realize that is asking for a lot, right? Immortality?” 

Wukong frowns. “Yeah, I know.” His hands lift up so he can gently hold onto your wrists. An anchor for him, it seems. “But I meant every word, you know.” 

You hum as you ruminate, idly tracing over his cheekbones with your fingers. Immortal, immortal… Do you want to be immortal? It’s not an easy decision to make. Especially not now. You exhale through your nose. 

“I’ll think about it,” you tell him eventually. He brightens, his grip tightening around your wrists, and it makes you wonder if he’d been expecting you to flat out reject him. 

“Alright! Cool, yeah. Take your time, I can wait,” he says happily, his tail swishing back and forth over his shoulder. He gives you a grin—though it still looks a bit strained, you notice. “And uh,” he nervously adds, “what about— what about the other thing?” 

Ah. You never really gave him an answer, did you? Poor guy. 

You smile up at him, feeling as though your heart is about to burst right out of your chest. Something affectionate and excited runs through your veins, the weight of it all settling within your bones.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” is all you’re able to get out before Wukong positively beams. 

“Oh thank heavens,” he wheezes, then lets go of your wrists to swoop down out of your grasp and plant a kiss right on your mouth. It’s so sudden and eager that you can’t help the laugh that escapes your lips, muffled as it is. Wukong grins into the kiss, then pulls away a tad to pepper them all over your face. Your cheeks hurt with how much you’re smiling. 

“Alright, alright, that’s enough!” You laugh again and lift a hand to push him gently away from your cheek—wet now, with his saliva. 

“Had me getting real nervous there, hun,” Wukong chuckles and instead avoids your nudge to tenderly nose at your jawline with a little chirp. His fur tickles your skin. 

“Haha, sorry.” You pat him on the back consolingly, then shift slightly when you feel a stray pebble poke into your hip from below. “You know, most couples normally talk about this sorta stuff before dropping a proposal.” 

He snorts, hot breath brushing against your neck. “You’re marrying the Monkey King, Sunshine. Nothin’ normal about that.” He lifts his head just enough to send you a wink. 

You roll your eyes. “Fair,” you say in amusement and shift around again. “Okay, now get off me. This ground isn’t exactly comfortable.” 

Wukong hums and withdraws, only minutely reluctant. His weight presses into your thighs. But he doesn’t get off of you just yet. He rubs anxiously at his nape.

“Actually,” he starts, his tail swishing back and forth behind him, “there’s uh. One more thing I forgot to mention.” 

Your eyebrow raises as you stare up at him. “What is it?” you ask him slowly, narrowing your eyes when he clears his throat. He’s not meeting your gaze again, instead staring intently at that same point on your neck. 

“Weeelll, for mystic monkey demons,” he begins to explain, “we usually have a certain way to… show we’re taken.” 

“…And that is?” you question warily. 

“A bite,” he says casually. 

“A bite,” you repeat. You blink at him. “I’m not a monkey demon though?” 

“And I know!” Wukong rushes out, waving his hands slightly in front of him. “But well. Customs, y’know? I’d ah, like to give you one. If you don’t mind.” He adds that last part quickly. 

You’re honestly unsure how to feel about it, but it is one of his people’s customs… You hum as you take the time to study Wukong’s face. He meets your gaze hopefully, and continues to look at you even as your eyes trail over his body—taking in the tense, scrunched up way he holds himself. The way his nose twitches, and his fingers fidget. You exhale. It’s clear he really wants you to say yes. 

…You suppose it can’t be all too bad. 

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here,” you muse, “and say you want to do it on my neck. Right?” 

“Ding-ding-ding! Correct!” He reaches down to tap a spot on the side of your neck—dangerously close to one of your carotid arteries, you note. “Right here, in fact. That’s the bite spot for engagements.” 

“I see…” You’re wary, you can’t deny it. But well. It’ll make him happy, and you want him to be happy. No time like the present, you guess. You give him the okay. “Have at it, then.” 

Wukong grins excitedly at you, the elongated teeth of his fangs on full display. The sight of them makes something in your abdomen twinge. “Perfect! Alright, let me just…” 

He adjusts himself, shifting his weight forward so that he’s sitting more on top of your hips than your thighs. He takes your hands and places them on his shoulder blades. “Hold here if you need to,” he instructs you as he leans forward and snakes his arms underneath your back like he’s giving you a loose hug. Then, he presses his face to the crux of your neck and breathes in slowly. 

Your hands gently grab at his clothes, even as your mind turns over his order. What does he mean ‘need to’? Your eyes dart over to what you can see of his head, your body inadvertently tensing. 

“Umm, is this going to hurt?” Your voice cracks slightly, your nerves making themselves ever so prominent. 

“No! Noo, not at all!” Wukong assures you, nosing gently at your exposed collarbones. He pauses. “Well, maybe a little.” He glances briefly up at you to meet your disbelieving look. “A lot,” he amends, to your growing concern. He squeezes you slightly. “But it’s okay. I’m here.” 

“That’s not reassuring,” you squeak out, even as you feel him make his way up the line of your trachea. His teeth grazes intermittently against your skin. You have to force yourself not to squirm.

“You trust me, right?” he asks, now moving to the side to run his nose up and down from your earlobe to a point a few inches below it. 

“Yes,” you respond without hesitation. Then, you add as a joke, “Most of the time.” 

He snorts and gives you a patient nuzzle. “Then relax. I’ll take care of you.” 

You sigh, long and steady, willing your body to let go of all the tension that’d built up. You can’t believe you’re about to do this. “Okay.”

He plants a kiss on your neck—right on the spot he’d tapped earlier. “Ready?” he asks gently. 

You manage to give him a nod. “Mmhm.”

Wukong spends some time just nosing at that spot, his hand tracing up and down slowly along your spine. You stare up at the leaf-laden branches above, trying in vain not to twitch too much when his fur tickles you. It feels like your entire attention is fixated on the sensation of him pressing his mouth against your neck, lips warm and soft.

His mouth opens to give the spot a quick little nip, and when you make an indignant sound, you feel it when he snickers in response. He does it a few more times, alternating between kisses and nips—you think he even licks you at one point—before he finally presses his teeth resolutely into your skin. He waits, one second. Two seconds.

And then, he begins to bite down. 

Your gasp gets caught in your throat at the sharp pain he causes just below your jaw. It burns something fierce and keeps intensifying with each millimeter of teeth that you can feel sinking into you. A tortuous sort of pain that feels like magma rising up to the surface of your skin.

“Wu—” you choke out, hands fisting into the back of his silky bèizi. Your grip is tight enough that you can feel the stretch of the fabric between your fingers. “Wukong.”

“Shhh,” he hushes, muffled slightly as he presses himself deeper against you. Your throat. Hot hot hot, it burns, it burns. “Shhhh.” 

You make a sound, and—broken as it is—your voice cracks before it can really leave your mouth. It makes Wukong’s ears flick, and you can feel, more than see, the way he coils himself tighter around you. His arms caging you against his chest as he wraps them firmer around your back. His tail winding itself around your upper thigh as though to cement you in the here and now. Steady. Hot. 

He is overheating and igniting you within his own flame. 

All you can do is bear it. 

“Fffff—“ you hiss, then bite down on your tongue to stifle your cry. It still slips out as a groan. Your leg kicks out slightly, and Wukong leans his weight further into you, releasing an answering hum from the back of his throat. 

Still, his face does not lift from your neck.

There is only him. Him him him. His scent overtaking all your senses. The heat from his body pressing heavily against your front and sides. The fur of his head tickling at the exposed skin of your face. It hurts, it hurts so much, but you bear it as much as you can—clenching your jaw so tightly that you won’t be surprised if something cracks. 

When his teeth finally pierce through your skin, the pain makes your eyes instantly fill up with tears. They cloud your vision, turning everything into a blurry, watery mess. Something hot runs down your neck, pooling at your collarbone. You can’t feel anything else other than the eruption of pain from his bite, blinding and intense. 

He lets go almost as soon as your skin breaks, and you gasp with that first brush of air against a freshly made wound. It stings like nothing else and seems to worsen the longer you lay there. Your skin throbs, a pulsating beat that aches.

You’re breathing heavily, but so is he, you faintly register as you feel him run his tongue hotly along your neck—lapping up at the lines of blood. 

“You’re okay, you’re fine,” Wukong soothes in a murmur as he cleans you up. He lifts himself up to look at you—though you can’t quite make him out through the tears still lining your eyes. Dazedly, you blink a few times until he comes into view, grinning happily down at you with rouge-colored lips. His gaze softens, a certain limerence to those pretty golden eyes that makes it feel like someone has hooked a cane around your belly button and tugged. “See? That wasn’t too bad!” 

“Easy for you to say,” you retort with a sniff and let go of his robe to wipe at your eyes. He brushes your hand away so he can lean down and run his tongue up your cheeks to chase away the hot streaks made by your tears. His saliva leaves cool trails along your skin. You sniff again, your face scrunching up a little, but you let him do what he wants, more focused on the agony that is your neck. “Whad’da fuck, Wukong?” 

He chuckles. “You took it like a champ, hun,” he says as he moves to give you another sweet kiss. Faintly, you taste something salty and metallic. He pulls away to sit up and observe the bite wound. “Hmm, still bleeding,” he muses after he runs his tongue over his teeth and lips. You try not to stare, but it’s difficult. 

Tentatively, you raise up a hand to hover it over the bite, feeling the heat radiating from it. You don’t dare to touch it, fully aware of how dirty you must be from running around the mountain. Wukong gently pushes your hand to the side and plucks a hair from his head to turn it into a washcloth. He presses it to the wound, and you recoil with a hiss. 

“Here, hold it there,” he instructs you. Once you take over in staunching the blood flow, he picks himself up off of you to stand, then bends down to help you up. It’s a struggle, just a bit. Any little movement of your head makes your neck flare up in pain. You grunt once you manage to properly get on your two feet, shaking your legs out a bit when they start to feel wobbly. 

Wukong keeps a hand on your arm as he watches you carefully. With his other, he picks out a few stray leaves and twigs from your hair. “Good?”

“Yep,” you say after a moment, giving him a thumbs up with your free hand. You adjust your hold on the washcloth. You feel a little lightheaded, but nothing too worrisome.

“Great! Let’s go back to my place,” he replies cheerfully, still hovering next to you as he whistles for his somersault cloud. You watch him; your gaze lingers on his own neck. 

You let out a contemplative hum, and it makes him turn to tilt his head at you inquisitively. “I feel bad you don’t have anything to show we’re engaged, though,” you admit. Should you offer to bite him back or…? 

“Bah, it’s fine.” He waves you off. “‘S not necessary for me.” 

Your lips twist to the side. “Still…” you trail off as you carefully look around. As your gaze lands on some long blades of grass sticking out of the ground, you get an idea. “Hang on.”

Wandering over, you bend down to pluck up a piece of grass—wincing a little when the motion makes your neck flare with pain—then straighten up. As you turn, you see that Wukong’s followed you, his gaze landing on your hand with the grass pinched between your fingers. He cocks his head. 

You gesture him towards your neck. “Hold onto the cloth for me? With your right hand.”  

He obliges, his arm extending across the space between your bodies. With both your hands now free, you lift up his left hand so that it’s palm down and carefully tie the blade of grass around his middle finger. You can feel his eyes on you the entire time. 

“There!” you say in satisfaction once the grass is fastened properly. “Consider this temporary until I can get you an actual ring.” You reach back up to hold onto the washcloth, allowing him to lower his arm. He stares down at his left hand in wonder. “Now we both have something from each other.” 

Wukong spends a moment observing the grass ring, flexing his fingers and flipping his hand over to look at it from all views. You can see his tail swaying back and forth behind him, slowly picking up speed as he finally looks at you with a bashful grin. 

“Wow, I get to marry you?” He beams, his cheeks flushing a warm red. “I must be the luckiest monkey alive!” 

“Oh shut up,” you say mirthfully as you give him a light push on his shoulder. 

He laughs, then takes your hand to lead you over to his awaiting somersault cloud. Squeezing your palm, he says, “Alright, come on. Let’s go get cleaned up.” 

He helps you up onto it first, then jumps on after. Once your free hand is hooked around his chest and his tail winds firmly around your waist, he takes off—zooming right for his cave. 

You keep your face tucked into his shoulder the entire ride there, now feeling a sort of exhaustion as it seeps into your muscles. All that running and sprinting you’d done earlier is starting to catch up to you. The bite wound still smolders like the aftermath of a fire, though you think it has stopped bleeding, thankfully. Quietly, you inhale, then exhale.

Wukong’s cloud eventually comes to a gentle stop. You lift your head to blearily blink at your surroundings. To your mild surprise, you’re not in front of his cottage. Instead, you’re at a pool of gently glowing water that resides in a different section of his cave. It’s what he uses to wash himself—you have used it yourself on occasion in the past. You spot a couple of pale pink blossoms floating around in the pool, following the gentle circulation of the water flowing in and out of the pool from the small underwater passages. 

Sunlight filters in through cracks and holes in the cave’s ceiling, formed from years of weathering and battle. The ground is smooth and even, though the arching walls are rough and glisten with condensation and minerals. There’s a faint floral scent in the air, accompanied by a dampness that settles its weight lightly across your skin.

Your gaze lingers on the leftmost wall of stone that has shelves carved into it. They house a number of items, ranging from bottles of shampoo and conditioner to lotion and soap. Another shelf has a pile of folded towels atop it, while another has what looks like some suspiciously familiar clothes. You think you even spot a first aid kit.

“You’re rather prepared,” you say pointedly as Wukong lowers the two of you to the ground, where his cloud sinks into it and disappears. 

“Have been for a while,” he confesses, taking hold of your free hand again to lead you to the edge of the pool. “Just wasn’t sure when we’d do the run, you know?” 

You hum, then teasingly reply, “How presumptuous of you.” 

Wukong sticks his tongue out at you, drawing you both to a stop. “It’s not presumptuous if I knew for a fact you were going to agree to everything.” 

That’s funny coming from him when he’d been so nervous you wouldn’t accept his proposal earlier. “It literally is though?” 

“Anyways!” he says loudly and claps his hands together. You have to stifle a laugh. “Let me see the bite mark real quick?” 

You oblige and lift the washcloth from your neck. The previously white material is partly blemished with burgundy when you glance at it. You were right, though; the bleeding has indeed stopped. Wukong leans close as he peers at the injury, scrutinizing it, then nods to himself. 

“Not bad. I’ll take care of it after you get washed up.” He spins on his heel to make his way over to the shelves stocked with bottles. “Go ahead and take off your clothes.” 

You can’t help but poke fun at him, even as you start to toe off your shoes and take your phone and keys out of your pockets to set a few feet away from the pool’s edge. “So forward, Wukong. At least take me out to dinner first.” 

He scoffs, his back towards you as he searches the shelves. “Haha, real funny. I’ll take you out on several dinners once you’re not so stinky.” 

You sober up at his words, tossing the washcloth to the floor to join your socks. It immediately turns into a poof of hair upon contact. “I don’t smell that bad, surely,” you muse as you wiggle out of your pants. Some dirt that had been caking it flecks off to sprinkle lightly against the floor. The stone feels cool under your bare feet.

“Your little human nose wouldn’t be able to pick it up, but you do. A lot.” 

You’d get peeved at him if his voice didn’t sound so lightheartedly teasing. “How rude. I’m calling off this engagement right now.”

He snickers. “Good luck with that. You’re stuck with me, Sunshine.” 

“Don’t remind me.” 

You manage to peel off your shirt with only a few flare ups from your neck, tossing it onto the ground to join the rest of your things. And after you slip out of your undergarments, you pad over to the pool to step into the cool water. It feels refreshing on your skin, already working wonders to get rid of all the dried sweat and dirt from your run. 

The pool isn’t all too deep, the water reaching your hips when you stand up straight. There’s an underwater ledge sticking out of its circumference that’s perfect to use as a seat, so you do just that. It causes the water to rise to your chest. You shiver, then look over when Wukong makes his way back over to you with his arms loaded with a couple of bottles, a loofah, and the first aid kit. He sets them all down somewhere to your left. 

You spin around in the water to look at the bottles. You pick one up as he shucks off his bèizi to drop on top of your own clothes. “Did you steal this from my bathroom?” you ask with a raised eyebrow as you read the label. 

“Pssht, no,” he says indignantly, now working to untie his zhíjū and unwrap it from around him. He lets it slip off easily from his shoulders. “I sent a clone out to buy them. Like a good mate would.” 

“Mmhm,” is all you respond with. Lazy simian. Your eyes flick away from him when he reaches down to slide his pink boxer briefs down his legs, busying yourself with setting the bottle in your hand back down and rearranging them.

You look back up when the water gets displaced from Wukong slipping into the pool. It sends little ripples your way, and you watch in amusement as he ducks under to completely wet his fur before resurfacing to release a spout of water from his mouth. His hands rake over his face to smooth his wet hair away, then he turns to grab the shampoo bottle from behind him. 

He gestures at you. “C’mere, I’ll wash your hair.” 

“I can do it myself, you know,” you tell him, lips quirking upward. He rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah, but this is all about you right now,” he says resolutely. His voice lowers into something gentle. “Let me take care of you.” 

Your gaze softens at his request. Who are you to deny him? “Alright. If that’s what you want.” 

A bright grin is sent your way. “Great!” he chirps, gesturing at you again. “You just focus on not letting any soap get into your wound, ‘kay?” 

“Mkay,” you reply as you shift towards him, bracing yourself before you momentarily duck underwater to get your hair wet. It causes your injury to flare viciously back to life, and you grunt upon resurfacing, your hands wiping water and wet strands of hair from your face. You grimace as you rotate your body until your back faces Wukong. He seems to catch the look.

“You just gotta bear with me for this and then I can get you some painkillers,” he reassures you again. There’s the click of the shampoo bottle being opened. 

“It’s not all that bad, really,” you tell him as you stare out at the cavern. The pain has already died back down to a low throb. You can hear him lathering his hands together. “More manageable than it was before, at least. It only hurts when I move.” Still feels like it’s emitting heat like a furnace, but you suspect it’ll die down eventually.

“That’s good. It should heal up pretty fast if it doesn’t get infected or anything. But I’m prepared, I promise.” His fingers thread through your hair, massaging into your scalp in a way that instantly makes your eyes flutter to a close. “We’ll ah, have to see if it leaves a scar or not later,” he says casually. 

“Depending on the size, it might not be the worst thing in the world,” you muse. You can always use some makeup to cover it up, anyways. “Still, you really did your research, huh?” you mumble as you cup a hand around your bite wound to prevent any stray dribbles of shampoo from slipping into it. Wukong does a good job of keeping the froth to your head, though, his fingers slipping around your face to brush any wanderers back towards your hair. 

“Duh,” he replies. “This was one thing I wasn’t gonna slack on, believe it or not.” 

You can only manage a hum in return, lulled as you are, into a drowsy state. The repetitive motions of Wukong raking his fingers across your scalp are dangerously soothing. You can feel yourself nodding off on occasion, your head only able to stay upright due to Wukong’s hold and the sting of your injury. You’re vaguely aware of when he finishes with the shampoo and clicks open the conditioner bottle to lather it over your hair strands as well. Faintly, you think you hear him humming idly to himself. 

Your eyes blink open blearily when there’s the sudden swishing of water around you. Wukong rounds your side to position himself in front of you, his eyes a low, amber glow as he holds the loofah frothed with soap in his hand. 

He gestures at you to hold out an arm. You oblige and reach out with the hand you’d been using to cup around your wound. Your fingers are grasped gently in his own, and you watch through a half-lidded gaze as he runs the loofah down your arm. A smear of dirt is eased away from your forearm, replaced by lines of white froth that emit a gentle fragrance. He takes extra care to clean any hints of soil under your nails, his expression utterly focused.

You take to watching him because of this—drinking in the way his eyebrows furrow or his tongue peeks out of his lips in his concentration. There’s something so achingly tender about the way he takes care of you. The way he handles you like every action of his is meant for worship. It pools warmth at the bottom of your stomach. 

You wonder if this is how he feels whenever you’ve groomed his fur. 

Once Wukong cleans your arms, he makes you stand up so that your upper body is out of the water. You can feel the rivulets running down your skin, soon replaced by the slightly scratchy material of the loofah as he scrubs across the planes of your abdomen. Up your sternum. Across your clavicles. Around to your back and flanks. 

He’s close—enough that you can feel it when he breathes out and the air fans across your face. Gently, he cleans your neck, skirting around your injury as he holds onto your shoulder with his free hand. Your eyes flick to him and catch the way his own amber ones glow through the shadow cast across his face from looking slightly down at you.

After you duck back into the water to wash the soap from your skin, Wukong shifts around you to carefully guide your head slightly backwards so he can rinse out the shampoo and conditioner from your hair. And once you feel his hands leave your head—they are dangerous things, you think to yourself, nearly putting you to sleep—he rounds your body again to place himself in front of you. 

He hums thoughtfully as his gaze moves down to stare at the rippling surface of the water, then up at a point somewhere behind you. One of your eyebrows raises, but before you can ask him what he’s thinking about, he treads closer to you and grasps firmly at your waist with his hands underwater. 

You make a surprised sound and have just a moment to prepare before he promptly hoists you out of the water, walks forward a few steps, and sets you down so that you’re sitting on the outer ledge of the little pool. Like this, you are forced to bend your head down so you can look at him. It makes your injury flare slightly, but you pay no mind to it as you watch Wukong grasp at one of your calves to lift your dripping leg out of the water.

Being out of the water so suddenly makes you shiver a little bit, your skin prickling with goosebumps. Wukong glances at you as a result, but ultimately returns his focus to scrubbing the loofah down your shin and over your foot. His fingers press lightly into the flesh of your calf. 

You have to resist swallowing thickly when he makes his way up to the plushness of your thigh, then switches over to your other leg. You hope he cannot feel how intently you’re watching him. How your pulse begins to race. 

If the small smile on his face is any indication, though, you fear you’re a goner. 

You have to look away momentarily to help ground yourself, your eyes flicking past his lower form in the water to the way the bubbles from the soap float across the pool’s surface. And they only return to him after he’s finished sponging water over your legs to get rid of the soap—leaving you feeling much cleaner and refreshed than before. 

Wukong’s already looking up at you through his thick lashes, the loofah tossed to the side as he leans his upper chest against your slightly parted legs. His eyes flick over your face, down to your bite mark, then back up to your lips. You tilt your head curiously at him.

“This seems awfully familiar,” you say in amusement as you watch the way he presses his cheek into the inner side of your knee. Even after spending all this time in the cool water, he is still warm. 

He smiles cheekily up at you, eyes curving into crescents. “Is it?” he asks, then pointedly plants a kiss right on top of your patella. The spot feels like it instantly gets hotter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

You hum. What a little liar. You can see the mischief reflected in his golden eyes. They dart swiftly down to your hands and back up—almost like he wants you to reach out to him—but you keep them firmly in your lap. 

“Don’t start something I can’t finish,” you warn him teasingly, echoing his words from a not-so-distant moment of the past. 

“Start something?” he teases back, his grin stretching enough to show off his fangs. You try not to focus too hard on them. He leans further into your legs and parts them a tad more so he can place another kiss on the inside of your thigh. The water ripples just under his shoulders. His eyelids lower. “Start what?” 

You narrow your eyes at him, swallowing heavily against your heart beating in your throat. The very motion gets traced by Wukong’s intent gaze—his eyes slowly trailing down your neck and sternum. 

Your tongue darts out to swiftly wet your lips. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about,” you whisper throatily, one of your legs moving to hook boldly around his back in the water. 

And when Wukong’s gaze snaps back up to your own, you are able to see the precise moment his pupils abruptly dilate.

He surges up from the pool—his hands gripping at the ledge on either side of your knees—and promptly captures your lips in a searing kiss. Distantly, you register the sensation of water rushing down Wukong’s body and over your lower legs. The way he leans into your space and hums a pleased note into your mouth.

Kisses like this—a deep push and pull that overtakes all of your senses, consumes you in its entirety—are rare, with Wukong. He vastly prefers other forms of intimacy, such as the nuzzling he is wont to do. You don’t mind, really. But each time he initiates a heated kiss, the breath gets stolen right from your lungs, and you feel something within your stomach bloom with a delicate warmth. 

You hum back, your eyes having long fluttered close as you lose yourself in the softness of his lips against yours. Eager and utterly addicting. Filling you up with a gentle, sweet nectar until you are fit to overflow. 

Your tongue swipes against his lower lip until he parts them to nip at your own. It makes you exhale slightly through your nose—an action he mirrors cheekily back at you. And when a smile involuntarily pricks at your mouth, he makes a sound like he’s holding back a laugh. He still tastes faintly of salt and something metallic. 

There is a fire building in your gut that grows stronger and stronger with each second that ticks by. You are unable to process much else other than him, him, him. Wukong, Wukong, Wukong. Yours, he’s yours. And he will be, for the rest of your life—immortal or not. 

He presses further into you in a way that makes you lean back, almost like you’re moving to lay back on the stone floor. His head tilts to the left so he can further deepen the kiss, and your head automatically tilts with the motion until—

Viciously, your injury flares to life. 

It makes you flinch back abruptly. You manage to throw one of your hands behind you so that your palm can catch yourself atop the ground. Your face scrunches up with the pain slamming through the nerves in your neck like a particularly inconsiderate wrecking ball, chasing away everything else. Your free hand raises to hover over the bite wound. You’d gotten so lost in well, Wukong, that you hadn’t been all too careful about what was going on. 

“Ah, right,” you hear Wukong say, and you crack open your eyes to see that he’s leaned slightly away from you, his gaze latched attentively onto your neck. He rubs the back of his head sheepishly and lowers himself into the water once more. An apology lines his expression. “Yeah, let’s get that tended to. Don’t wanna let it get any worse.” 

You hum your agreement, straightening up as you absently rub around your injury in an attempt to soothe the lingering hurt. You watch him swish away from you to grab the first aid kit nearby. Your gaze lingers on his lean back as he moves across the pool’s surface. “We’ll continue this later, then.” 

At your words, Wukong shoots you a sly grin over his shoulder, but ultimately says nothing else. Your legs shift for a minute, then glide idly through the water as you watch him pop open the kit to rummage around inside of it. 

Closing your eyes momentarily, you breathe in, then out. Reorienting yourself. Without his presence so close to your own, you feel cold and wet. Getting dry and into some comfy clothes seems ideal, you muse. Maybe you can also finally get something to drink. 

Your eyes reopen when you hear the movement of water again. Wukong treads towards you, his arms laden with a few choice supplies. He sets them down next to you on your side that has the bite wound, then hoists himself out of the pool so he can sit atop the ledge next to them. Water drips down his body to puddle on the stone. 

“Alright, hold still,” he tells you as he smooths some of the wet fur on his head back with one hand and holds up a syringe with the other. It’s filled with a clear liquid, and when you raise an eyebrow up at him, he explains, “It’s just water with a bit of soap.” 

You’re kind of impressed at the level of foresight he’s had for this. Especially since he’s, well, Sun Wukong. Telling him will just inflate his ego, though. Still, you can’t help the small smile that lingers on your lips. 

You hum and do as told. From the corner of your eye, you watch as Wukong inspects the injury for a minute, scrutinizing it with a narrow gaze. Then, he uses the syringe to gently wash it out. You do your best to not shrink away at the pressure and subsequent throb of pain. 

Once the syringe is empty, he swaps it out for a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide. You are unable to stop the grimace that spreads across your face at the sight. 

Wukong catches the look. “You can hold my hand if you want~” Though it’s said in a teasing manner, you can still detect the layer of sincerity in his tone.

You huff out a laugh. “What am I, a child?” And yet you still hold out your palm so Wukong can place his free hand within it. Gently, your fingers close around his own and squeeze slightly. 

Wukong uncaps the bottle with his teeth and spits the small lid off to the side. “Brace yourself,” he warns, and you have just enough time to tense your shoulders before he’s gently pouring the antiseptic atop your neck. 

The bite stings and burns something fierce, like the flat edge of a knife’s blade held within fire had pressed directly against it. The liquid spills down to your collar and runs trailing fingers over the slope of your back. Your grip tightens around Wukong’s hand, and you grunt past the way your teeth have sunken into your bottom lip. It feels worse than when you’d gotten the actual bite, and that’s definitely saying something. 

“Okay, done, done,” Wukong assures you as he pulls the bottle away and sets it off to the side. His thumb rubs soothing circles into your hand. “You’re doing great, hun!” 

“You did this to me,” you grit out with all the dramatics you can muster in your voice. Your eyes squint open—you hadn’t noticed they’d squeezed shut—to shoot Wukong a glare with no real heat behind it. “You and your surprisingly effective charms.” 

“I did,” Wukong replies in a pleased manner, a cheeky grin on his face. Gently, he fans his free hand at your bite mark to let it dry faster. “And now you’re stuck with me! Sorry!”

You halfheartedly grumble under your breath about him not sounding all that sorry at all. He only chuckles and lets go of you to clean his hands with a wipe. And after your wound has dried enough, he picks up a tube of an antibacterial ointment to begin slathering over it with nimble fingers. 

One bandage patch carefully taped to your neck later, you’re all set and clean. You let yourself slip back into the pool for a quick dip while Wukong packs everything back up and pads over to the shelves to put them in their correct places. And as he reapproaches with a towel for you and one for him, you lift yourself up from the pool to take it from his extended grasp. 

Being out of the water makes you feel as though there are stones tied to your limbs, the coolness of the air causing you to hastily wrap the fluffy cloth around yourself. A shallow puddle has formed by your feet from all the water trickling down your body. You step out of it with a quick shake of your foot and start to pat yourself dry. 

“You’re not gonna clean yourself up too?” you ask Wukong questioningly when he shakes himself out—water flicking away from his body and tail not unlike that of a wet dog—and starts to vigorously rub his own towel across the fur on his head. He hadn’t really soaped himself down or anything, focused as he had been, on you. 

“Naahh,” he replies dismissively, now rubbing the towel along one of his arms. “If I did we’d be here all afternoon.”

“Right,” you say as you roll your eyes. You rub the towel at your own hair to wring out the water still soaking the strands. “You and your ten-step routine.”

“Hey!” he protests and pauses in his drying to point a dramatic finger at you. “It takes effort to look this good, you know!”  

“Mmhm,” is your response. You make a show out of looking him up and down—trailing your gaze pointedly along the contours of his arms and legs—before you return your gaze to make eye contact with him. A sly smile graces your lips. “And I do appreciate said effort, of course.”

Wukong blinks. Once, twice, as he processes. Then, he gives you a bashful grin. A gentle shade of pink blooms to life along his cheeks. 

“Yeah?” he purrs as he flexes his arms downwards in a pose once he’s thrown the towel over his shoulder. He switches into another strongman pose to flex the muscles of his upper back, and his tail curls alongside his arms to mimic them. “You should tell me that more often~”

You let out a light scoff and refix the towel around yourself. “And let your head get any bigger than it currently is?” You spin on your heel to start walking over to the shelf with your clothes, your hand waving dismissively in the air behind you. “No thanks.” 

“Hey! My head is perfectly normal-sized!” he calls out behind you with only a vaguely offended lilt to his tone. The quiet patter of his footsteps as he trails after you follows his words. 

“Sure,” is your teasing response. It makes Wukong huff, but you don’t bother to dignify him with anything else. You’re too focused on looking at the shelf neatly hosting the folded garments of one of your more comfortable outfits. “Huh. I was wondering where this had gone,” you muse as you pick up an awfully familiar shirt and hold it open in front of you. Your eyes flick upwards to glance at Wukong hovering just beyond it. With the way he’s positioned, it almost looks as though he’s wearing your shirt. “I should’ve known you had something to do with it disappearing.” 

Wukong gives you his most innocuous look. “Who, me? I didn’t do anything. Those clothes just appeared in my cave out of nowhere one day. I dunno how they got there.” 

“Of course they did,” you reply, mildly sarcastic. You toss the shirt haphazardly back onto the shelf and cross your arms over your chest. “Those damn clothes and their tendencies to just. Spawn in caves that belong to the Monkey King.”

“I know right?” Wukong shakes his head. “Befuddling, really. Someone should look into that. Not me, though.” He shoots you a wink. “I’m gonna be too busy helping to plan a wedding with the best mate in the world~”

At that, you cannot help the laugh that leaves your lips. The reminder makes a tender warmth creep up to your cheeks, and you think Wukong catches it, for he immediately breaks out into a silly grin of his own. His eyes squint delightedly at you in a way that makes you turn away to hide your expression from him—whatever it may be at the moment. 

This guy.

“Shut up and pass me the lotion,” you tell him in amusement, silently willing the heat to recede. You press your knuckles to your face, a cool contrast that helps only a smidgen.

Wukong snickers, but relents and passes you the bottle. His hand lingers over your own for the tiniest of moments—the grass ring you had tied around his finger has managed to stay on through both your baths, surprisingly—before he eventually leaves you be. 

Diligently, you work the lotion into your skin while he finishes up with roughly drying his fur. Then, you slip on your clothes and wiggle your now-socked feet against the stone floor. It makes you glance down, then at your pile of dirty clothes mixed with Wukong’s—where your shoes are. You pad over to slip them on and snatch up your phone and keys to slip back into your pockets.

“What should we do about these?” you question as you nudge the clothing pile with your foot. 

“Eh, just leave ‘em there.” You look over in time to see Wukong pop his head through the neck hole of his hoodie. His hair is a certified mess, but he pays it no mind as he slips his arms through the sleeves and tugs the rest of it down to cover his torso. “I’ll deal with it later.” 

“Will you really?” you ask with an eyebrow raised. Your hands move to prop themselves against your hips. “You’ll do a load of laundry?” 

“Pssht, yeah.” He waves you off as he approaches you to shove his own feet into his shoes. “I can practically do it with my eyes closed, in fact.” 

“Alright then,” you concede in an amused manner, “but I won’t be surprised when those clothes go missing either.” 

“Yet again, you have so little faith in me. It hurts,” Wukong says with the fakest sniffle you’ve ever heard. And then, like the flip of a coin, he brightens out of nowhere. “Actually! That just reminded me— C’mon, I got somethin’ to show you!” 

You are unable to suppress the quirk of your lips as Wukong grabs you by the wrist and tugs you towards a tunnel hidden in the shadows of the cave's wall. He is palpably eager—you can see the way his tail flicks excitedly side to side—and you are so absorbed in watching him that it takes you by surprise when he finally skids to a stop in front of his cottage's door.

"Okay!" he says as he drops your hand and spins around to face you. He grins. "You ready for this?"

You can't help the chuckle that escapes your lips. "I'm starting to think you're more excited for whatever this is than I am."

Wukong flicks at your nose with his tail, making you scrunch it up. "Oh hush. Go inside and you'll see."

With a lighthearted roll of your eyes, you step past Wukong so you can open the door. And upon entering his little cabin, you are immediately hit with the light scent of lavender and vanilla; different from the usual rosewood and incense. Then, you notice the decorative lights he has strung up around the walls. They twinkle in shades of gold and a warm white, their gentle glow illuminating the space.

At your feet, you notice he's tossed a bunch of flower petals upon the floor. It makes you bite at the inside of your cheek in amusement, and you follow them all the way up to a small table set right in front of his couch, where your gaze falls upon—

"Ta da!" Wukong hops past you to brandish his hands at the laden table. "Fruit art!"

Indeed, he has outdone himself; there are mangoes carved into delicate roses—just like at the food market—as well as peaches, persimmons, and oranges. You see sticks of táng húlu, peeled mangosteen, and what looks to be miniature replicas of you and Wukong—made entirely out of fruit, of course.

Your mouth twitches as you turn to look at Wukong, who bounces on the balls of his feet as he waits impatiently for your verdict. "Is this what you were busy doing earlier?"

"Yep!" he proclaims proudly, striking a pose. "See? Fruit art is no match for the Monkey King!" He seems to catch himself with a quick glance at your face and drops the pose to clear his throat. "Ah, do you— do you like it?"

You have to swallow down a blooming, aching warmth that presses itself against the roof of your mouth. He looks so hopeful, and it makes your heart squeeze.

"I love it," you manage to get out. And then, because you can't help yourself, you add, "You can be so stinking cute sometimes, you know that?"

At that, a flush instantly crawls its way across Wukong's face and into his ears. "I— Well, ah—" he stammers, his eyes darting to and away from your steadily growing smile, then clears his throat again and casually smooths a hand over his unkempt hair. "Well, duh. Cute and cuddly is kind of my thing, y'know. Glad you're able t— able to recognize that."

"Uh huh," is your response, your smile wide enough to make your cheeks hurt. "Hopelessly romantic too, apparently," you add with a gesture to the petals scattered across the floor.

"Eh, I don't know about the hopeless part, but—" he cuts himself off with a cough into his fist. Amber eyes then meet your own with a surprising amount of sincerity before he quietly says, "I think you know by now I'd do anything for you."

Your gaze softens. "Even if it's cheesy?"

Wukong glances around his cabin, then rubs at the back of his head with a low, sheepish chuckle. "Even then."

And oh, you think to yourself as you watch the way his tail curls back and forth behind him—the rosiness that refuses to disappear from his cheeks—how lucky are you that you get to be with him?

You eventually decide to let him be before he clears his throat out of embarrassment any more. You step past him to approach the table. "Well, in any case, thank you. I actually am kinda hungry after all that running."

Wukong brightens. "Help yourself then! Oh— that reminds me—"

As he flits around the cabin, you take a seat on the couch and reach over to pluck up one of the carved mangoes. You almost don't want to eat it; it's clear he spent a lot of time meticulously shaping them. You wonder how long it took him.

You are interrupted from your admiring when Wukong suddenly appears in front of you. He hands you a bottle of water and two small, blue pills. 

“The painkillers,” he reminds you when you give him a questioning look. 

"Oh! Thanks," you reply appreciatively, having nearly forgotten about the wound on your neck in your distraction. It takes a bit of juggling with everything in your hands, but you manage to toss the pills into your mouth and swallow them down with a gulp of water.

You end up finishing the entire bottle—water at last, you think to yourself—then breathe out a sigh of relief. You'd been parched.

Wukong takes the bottle from you to toss it into a nearby bin, then plops down next to you on the couch as you try to figure out how to take a bite out of the artsy mango. He grabs a persimmon to stick into his mouth—whole and all.

You glance at him, his unruly hair, then back at the fruit in your hand. "Hang on, these aren't made of hair, right?” you ask in a mildly suspicious manner. 

Wukong nearly chokes. “What? No! Of course not!” he exclaims, vaguely offended. Then, he purses his lips. “Well. I did consider adding one in as a prank— Don’t give me that look! I didn’t, I swear!” 

"Right," you drawl, now more to tease him than anything. You bite into the side of the mango and immediately hum at the sweet, slightly tangy taste that bursts upon your tongue. A bit of juice escapes from the corner of your lips that you are quick to swipe away. Definitely not made of hair, you determine. "Hmm. You pass this time."

He rolls his eyes. "Told ya."

The two of you spend some time making idle conversation as you slowly pick your way through the table of fruit. At one point, Wukong's tail wraps around your waist and doesn't move an inch. Typical of him, really, but it has a… different sort of feeling to it now that you are both technically engaged. You're unsure how to define it, but it makes a bubbling warmth take root in your stomach—one that you're certain will not dissipate anytime soon.

Eventually, though, once you have eaten your fill and spend some time slumped against the couch, you start to feel the beckoning of fatigue. You blink heavily a few times, your legs and arms slightly sore from all the exercise you had gone through earlier.

"Feeling tired?" Wukong suddenly asks gently, and you turn your head to find he's been watching you for who-knows-how-long, his eyes a soothing amber glow.

"A bit, yeah," you admit as you reach up to stretch out your arms. "Sore, too." You sigh. "That's what I get for going against the Monkey King, I suppose."

He chuckles. "Not many can say they've only had to deal with soreness after an encounter with me, you know." His tail squeezes briefly at your waist before it slips away. "In any case— it's nap time."

You hardly have a moment to brace yourself before Wukong promptly scoops you up from the couch. A surprised noise escapes your lips, but he doesn't take you far. He merely climbs atop the back of the couch and dumps you into the hammock that hangs just behind it.

You blink as you sink into the combination of your pillows and his within the hammock. He takes a moment to slip your shoes off your feet, tossing them to the side, then he climbs in after you once he's toed off his own.

The hammock rocks and sways as he makes himself comfortable. The steep, sloping edges causes your bodies to mush together—the warmth of his torso seeping into your own where he curls around you. Wukong adjusts a few pillows around the both of you, then rests his cheek atop your temple as he breathes deeply in, then out in a satisfied sigh.

You glance towards him—as much as you can, anyways. "You're squishing me."

Wukong's tail comes up to rest heavily against your stomach. "No I'm not."

"Um, yes you are," you say, slightly muffled when his face presses even closer to your own. You try to wiggle around a bit, but Wukong only tightens his grip around your body and rubs his cheek along the side of your face. You sigh, and your hand lifts up so your fingertips can brush against his cheek, then his ear. Wisps of his hair tickle at your knuckles. Gently, you smooth them back.

Wukong hums, content. Then, one of his hands reaches up to lightly ghost against the bandage patch on your neck. "How's your pain?" he murmurs into your hair.

You make a contemplative sound. "Not too bad." The wound has settled into a low, aching thrum—much more manageable than it had been before, thankfully.

"Good," he says, now sounding sleepier than you had felt mere moments ago. Your hand reaches up higher to thread your fingers further through his hair—doing your best to blindly tame the rumpled, slightly damp strands. Wukong lets you do so for a few more minutes, then his own hand lifts to capture yours and interlock both your fingers together. He brings them down to rest atop your chest. "Sleep, Birdie. Y'said you were tired."

"Oh hell," you groan quietly to yourself. “That isn’t gonna become a new nickname for me, is it?”

You can feel it when Wukong snickers. “Who knows, really,” he says in a way where you absolutely know it will. “Now shhhh.”

You sigh through your nose. Your head turns, and Wukong automatically lifts his own up to make way. It allows you a look into his soft, amber eyes, the tips of both your noses gently brushing against each other. You stretch up to plop a chaste kiss atop his mouth, then settle back in with a breath. "Okay."

And as Wukong lets out a quiet chuckle and presses his lips to the top of your head, you think you could get used to living like this—going to sleep and waking up right next to him for the rest of your life.

Immortal, or not.

a/n:

swk to himself the moment he realizes he wants to marry you: oh fuck i gotta make sunshine immortal i'll need a peach and the heavenly wine and maybe i can bother laozi for some of his elixirs—

you: he's in trouble with the celestial realm again isn't he :/

it’s not swk if he doesnt immediately jump into planning something without asking others directly involved in it for their opinion first LOL. anyways, i made it vague whether the reader chooses immortality or not so that you guys can put in your own decision. would you accept? personally, i wouldn't LMFAO. let that mf yearn for me after i'm gone for the rest of his life HAHAHA. just kidding!….. or am i?

i will say it IS romantic to pick immortality tho! in my head the reader chooses yes for happy ending's sake, but you can pick whatever you want lol

The tall deciduous trees surrounding the path allow for dappled sunlight to filter through their leaves. It creates shifting patterns on the ground that follow you up and up and up—guiding your path. Distantly, you can hear the dulcet tunes of birds flying overhead, mixed in with the gentle susurration of the wind. It provides a cool relief to your heated skin from trekking up the mountain. 

Finally, you emerge from beyond the trees and shrubbery to wander past an open, wooden gate flanked by two gold monkey statues. They are not in the best upkeep, their previously vivid gleam marred by grime. You step past them to make your way up the stone stairs leading to the old temple beyond.

Bits of grass and crumpled leaves poke up between the tiles, crunching under your soles. And once you get to the burgundy doors of the temple, you reach out to push them open and poke your head through. 

The inside of the temple is dark with navy blue shadows. Your eyes sweep over the empty couch in front of a small television—littered with empty peach chip bags and cans of milk tea—to the cluttered kitchen nook where a few chirping monkeys play around atop the cabinets. They blink at you curiously upon noticing your intrusion, and you blink back before pulling away from the door to let it gently fall closed while you stand outside. 

Your fingers rub at your chin. Hmm. Not here, then. That only left one other place, really. Stepping back from the door, you find yourself rounding the temple to head towards the small clearing just behind it. 

The golden glow of the setting sun yawns across the empty area as you approach it, painting it warmly in shades of tangerine. A ways ahead of you, the clearing drops off into a cliff that allows you to see the entirety of Megapolis—with its condensed buildings and winding roads. The city is silhouetted against a steadily darkening sky, the horizon painted in shades of burnt orange and dusty magenta. 

And sitting right at the edge of the cliff, back towards you as he leans against his palms propped behind him, is Wukong. 

His shadow is elongated behind him, stretched thin like someone had pinched and pulled. He’s staring out into the far distance, tail flicking idly behind him. You’re sure he’s heard you approaching by now—the shifting plastic bag at your side is certainly not quiet by any means—and yet he seems to startle when you step up to his right. 

“Oh!” He looks up at you in surprise, golden eyes flanked by red sclera meeting your own. There’s something odd that lingers in his expression that you’re just barely able to catch the tailend of before his gaze softens. “Heya, hun! Isn’t this a lovely little surprise!” He grins as you take a seat next to him, letting your legs dangle off the cliff’s edge. “What’re you doing all the way up here?” 

“I texted you that I was coming up with food,” you reply, eyebrow raising as you purposely lift the plastic bag you’d been carrying.

Wukong stares at the bag for a moment, then digs around in the front pocket of the hoodie he’s wearing to pull out his phone and check its notifications. He gives you a sheepish smile, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry, I musta completely missed it.” 

You give him a look that’s none too incensed as you set the bag down on your lap. “It’s okay. Not like I would’ve wasted my time or anything walking up the mountain if you weren’t here.” You do an exaggerated sniff to let him know you’re messing with him. 

He pouts at your words. “I said sorry.” His tail wraps around your waist as he tugs you closer to his side—the heavy warmth of his body seeping into your own from where you’re both pressed together. He sniffs at the air and practically forces his head into your view so he can look down at the bag. “So? Whatcha buy?” 

Gently, you push his head out of the way, the fur along the side of his face tickling at your fingers. You rummage around in the bag and pull out a container, its lid foggy with steam. 

“Dandanmian,” you say as you hold out the warm container. Faintly, you can smell the Sichuan pepper, and it makes your mouth start to water. With the container gripped in one hand, you pull out the other one as well. “And zhájiàngmiàn.” 

“Oooh,” he coos as you wiggle the food enticingly at him. His gaze darts from one container to the other. “Treating your favorite mystic monkey to dinner? I always knew you liked me~” It’s said in a teasing tone, and you roll your eyes when he swipes the zhájiàngmiàn from you. 

“Right, sure,” you quip back while you pass him a pair of chopsticks and a can of peach tea. “Not like I’ve done this a million times or anything.” 

He hums, too busy prying the plastic lid off the box so he can start digging into the mix of noodles, julienned cucumbers, and ground pork. “Mm, yeah. It’s very telling, you know.” His voice is muffled by the large bites he’s taking, and he swallows to say, “Thank you for the food, as always.”

His tail gives you a little squeeze in gratitude—a steady, solid weight around your middle. 

“No problem,” you reply lightly. And after a moment of prying open your own container to dig into the sauce-covered noodles, you add, “Even though you are a leech on my funds.” 

Wukong shoots you a cheeky little grin. “Ahh, but you love me for it!” 

You just give him a flat look and crack open your own drink to take a refreshing—yet pointed—sip. 

He snickers at your reaction and shovels another bite of noodles into his mouth before he says, “Soooo, how was your day? What were you up to? Didja miss me much? I bet you did, s’hard not to.” He smirks deliberately at you.

You ignore his goading and instead chuckle at his rapid-fire questions. “Somebody’s been bored while I’ve been gone,” you say teasingly, snorting when he gives you an exaggerated eye roll. 

“I’ll have you know I’ve been perfectly content, thank you very much,” he says with a flourish of his chopsticks. “Takes a lot more than a day to make me bored.”

You hum, knowing he likely spent all his time snoozing in the shade of a tree or training MK anyways. If he wasn’t blowing up your phone with texts, that is. “Of course. Always something for the great Monkey King to do, yeah?” 

At that, he huffs out a breath of air, wrinkling his nose slightly. “Don’t I know it.” Sullenly, he picks up some of the cucumber slices and waves them around in the air. “It’s always ‘Monkey King this’ or ‘Great Sage that’. Don’t these kids know I’m retired? Ugh.” He shoves his chopsticks into his mouth along with another mouthful of noodles.

You have to suppress a laugh. “That just comes along with choosing a successor, I’m afraid,” you say in amusement. Then, just to poke fun at him, you add, “Old man.”

The look Wukong gives you is nothing but pure offense. “I can’t believe you just said that.” He swallows down his bite of food, his eyes narrowing at you. “I’m not that old. A few millennia is nothing!” 

You are not convinced. You swirl your chopsticks around your container to mix the dandanmian some more. “Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that, grandpa.” 

“Ew.” He makes a face, sticking his tongue out. “Don’t ever call me that again.” 

“No promises,” you say slyly, then immediately give in when he shoots you a rather effective pout. “Alright, fine. I’ll stop.” 

“Good,” he says with a sigh. “I don’t think my fragile little heart could take it hearing it from you.” 

You snort and decide to grant him some mercy. “Anyways, I’ve been busy running around all over the city,” you tell him, further rambling about the plethora of chores you had to do earlier in the day. It’s nothing interesting, by any means, but Wukong listens all the same—adding in his own comments now and then—as he quickly finishes eating and starts stealing helpings from your own container. 

And yet… as the sun sinks beneath the horizon and makes way for a cool night, you can’t help but notice something… off. Wukong can be a chatterbox, you know this from experience, but he seems… quieter, somehow. More ruminative. 

You keep an eye on him while you tell him about the latest show you’re watching. His head is tilted towards you, pale gaze occasionally drifting to your face as he nods and hums along to your yapping.

But eventually, he starts staring at something just below your jaw. Your neck, you conclude after a careful moment of observing his distant look. For what reason, you’re unsure, but there’s that same odd emotion to his gaze from earlier that you can’t quite pin. It makes your stomach flip. 

“Alright, what’s wrong?” you ask him suddenly, fidgeting with the plastic bag now holding the empty containers of the noodles and drinks. 

Wukong jerks slightly as his head darts up to look back at you. The rising moon illuminates his face in a pale, dewy light. He blinks owlishly, his previous stupor now completely dispersed. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean I stopped talking five minutes ago and you didn’t notice,” you say with a slight frown. Your gaze trails over his face—searching for something, anything, to clue you in on what may be bothering him. “Lost in thought?” 

For a second, he just watches you. Like he’s taking you in—really taking you in. Then, he chuckles. “What? Pssh, nah.” He waves you off with a lazy hand. “Not a single thought in this head, as a matter of fact!” He knocks a fist against his temple, a silly grin plastered to his face that shows off the pointed fangs of his teeth.

You raise an eyebrow. You are accustomed to him and his methods of deflection. “Wukong.” 

He falters and rubs the back of his neck at your tone, refusing to meet your stare as he looks back out at Megapolis’ bright lights against the dark sky. 

“Ah, nothing’s wrong, really,” he tells you eventually. His tail tightens around you by just a smidge, still wrapped heavily about your waist. “You worry too much.” 

Your frown deepens. His words bring you no comfort—does not stop that little pit at the bottom of your stomach that stems from concern. You want to press him, you do. But there’s something to his gaze that’s telling you to drop it. So you do. At least for now. 

“I worry too much?” you instead say incredulously with a scoff. “Says you.” 

He laughs. “Yeah, you little worrier. Could give Piggy a run for his money, honestly.” He sighs lightly and leans closer to you so he can press his cheek against your own. The fur along it feels comfortingly fuzzy, and you close your eyes in contentment as he rubs it tenderly against your skin. “But— well. Just to let you know, I’m probably gonna be gone for a few weeks.” 

You pull away by a smidge so you can glance at him. “Gone? Where to?” 

He shrugs, a gesture you know is meant to be nonchalant, but comes off a little stilted. “The Celestial Realm. Got some business to tend to is all.” 

Nodding slowly, you say, “Okay…” This isn’t the first time he has gone up there for one reason or another, and it certainly won’t be the last. You squint at him. “You’re not doing anything suspicious, right?” 

At that, he bursts out laughing—loud enough to echo throughout the night and startle some birds from a nearby tree. His body shakes where it’s pressed next to your own. “Nooo! Hah! No way, snrrk! No, I promise it’s not suspicious.” He pauses to give it some consideration. “Probably.” 

“That does nothing to assure me,” you say flatly. Still, there’s a faint smile on your face from his sudden laughter—infectious as it is. “When are you leaving anyways?” 

At that, his grin turns sheepish and vaguely apologetic. “Ah weeelll, I was thinking of leaving in the morning, actually.” He seems to cringe into himself, ears flattening against his head. “Late notice, I know.” 

“Hmmm.” You are not entirely pleased at the notion, but it isn’t like he hasn’t done this before. You are unfortunately used to it. “Well, okay,” you tell him as you grab onto one of his hands to give it a little squeeze. It’s warm in your hold—just that tad bit warmer than what’s considered normal for humans—and rough with calluses you are all too familiar with. “But you gotta bring me back a souvenir, alright? A really big spoon, maybe,” you joke, “or a shiny rock worth millions, or something.” 

“Heh.” The laugh leaves his mouth almost halfheartedly, and he looks at you with that same indecipherable emotion. Something soft and pensive lines his golden gaze—it makes your smile fade, just a tad. “...Sure thing, Sunshine.” 

But before you can really pick apart his expression, he clears his throat and pulls his legs up from over the cliff’s edge to stand. His tail drags you along with him, an “oof” leaving your lips as you’re hoisted into the air and set down gently on your feet. You’re barely able to hold onto the bag of trash. His tail slips away from your waist afterwards, lingering only for the minutest of moments. 

“Well! It’s getting late,” Wukong tells you cheerfully as he summons his somersault cloud and hops on top of it. A hand is extended your way, though he does not look at you. Instead, his gaze is directed out at a brightly-lit Megapolis, its citizens still active despite the encroaching late hour. “C’mon, I’ll drop you home.” 

Your lips purse to the side slightly as you watch him. But, inevitable like the crack of dawn on a new day, you grab his hand and allow him to pull you up onto his cloud. He takes the plastic bag from you so you can wrap your arms tightly around his waist and press yourself against his clothed back. His tail quickly winds itself back around your hips to secure you to him. It is something you are used to, when flying with him like this.

“Alright, hang tight!” With one final glance backwards at you, Wukong sets off, your face tucked against his warm shoulder as the wind whips around you to send your hair and clothes awry. 

And all the way home, you just can’t stop thinking about what it is he isn’t telling you. 

Wukong has only been gone for about a week or so, and yet your thoughts keep returning to how contemplative he’d looked that evening. 

It pervades your mind on occasion—mostly when you think about him and what he may or may not be doing in the Celestial Realm. He has his moments, sure, where he can be the serious Monkey King. But there’s just something… different about this. You cannot quite put a finger on it, and it bothers you almost incessantly. 

You frown as you swirl your chopsticks around your half-eaten bowl of tāngmìan, the rich brown broth rippling with the movement. You’re certain he will tell you what’s bothering him eventually. At least, you think he will. But all this waiting around and silence isn’t doing you or him any favors. Patience is something you must have an abundance of when it comes to Wukong. He’s lucky that yours is relatively endless. 

Still, you sigh and lean back on your stool so you can watch Pigsy toss some vegetables within a large wok from across his restaurant’s bartop. The movement is oddly hypnotizing, and yet it is not enough of a distraction from your tumultuous thoughts. 

“Nothing’s wrong, really,” he’d said. “You worry too much.” 

You are loathe to admit he’s right.

You look back down at your bowl and bite at the inside of your cheek. You can recount only a handful of times where you’ve caught Wukong acting in such a way. And each time, he had been reticent towards whatever he’d been mulling over. 

(Something had woken you up. 

You weren’t quite sure what, exactly, as you found yourself blearily blinking into the dimly lit bedroom of your apartment. It had evaded your grasp in your disorientation from asleep to awake. 

You blinked again, your eyesight steadily adjusting to the minuscule amounts of milky moonlight filtering through your curtained windows. And vaguely, you registered that you were tucked under the covers of your bed—curled on your side towards a steady warmth mere centimeters away. 

It was Wukong, you already knew, stretched out beside you on his back with his hands folded atop his bare stomach. Your gaze flicked upward towards his face, fully expecting to see him completely knocked out with drool coming out of his mouth. But—he was awake. And he had not yet noticed that you were, too. 

You didn’t make a sound. You only carefully watched him as he stared up at the shadowed ceiling of your room. There was a certain expression on his face that looked foreign, almost. Strange. 

You did not know what he was thinking about so deeply, but it was enough to tug his mouth into a frown. To cause his eyebrows to crease in almost a look of frustration. It was not a look you particularly enjoyed seeing on him. But you had no clue as to what might be the cause. And you were hesitant to break the fragile, quiet atmosphere of the night to ask.

But you did not have to stew much longer. Almost suddenly, Wukong’s head turned to the side so he could look at you. His golden gaze found your own in the small space between your faces, pools of amber glowing through the dim. If he was surprised to see you looking back at him, he didn’t show it. He only watched you, eyes flicking about your face like he was trying to memorize it. That strange look he’d had faded away, replaced by a thoughtful sort of expression that was only mildly troubled, still. You weren’t sure what it meant. 

“You’re awake,” he eventually murmured, his breath brushing gently across your cheeks.

“So are you,” you said quietly back. Faintly, you realized that there was a fuzzy warmth wrapped loosely around your exposed calf—his tail, that rubbed almost idly across your skin. A mindless action. Perhaps that was what had woken you. “Something the matter?” 

Wukong exhaled through his nose, still watching you in a way that made your stomach twist. “Nah,” he said and turned to look back up at the ceiling. “Just couldn’t sleep.” 

“Bad dream?” you offered, and he snorted. 

“The Great Sage Equal to Heaven doesn’t get bad dreams,” he replied almost haughtily, his tail’s grip on your leg tightening ever so slightly. But then he sighed—weary, almost. “…S’nothing your silly little head needs to fret about.”

You hummed and shifted under the covers. “Doesn’t seem like it if it’s got you awake this late.”

At that, he scoffed. “It’s nothing, alright?” And then, as though realizing the harsh edge to his tone, he softened and quietly added, “I got it all handled.”

You frowned, a mixture of convoluted emotions swirling around in your chest. You were not going to push him to talk if he did not want to—not in this late hour. But you worried, despite his assurances. And you feared this worry was not going to disappear anytime soon. 

You sighed and uncurled yourself from your ball so you could open your arms out to him. Wukong glanced at you from the corner of an eye. You gestured to him. “C’mere.” 

He did not need to be told twice. Immediately, he turned on his side and latched onto your form. Hands fisted at the back of your shirt. A leg got thrown over your thigh. His tail moved to wrap itself more around your calf. And he pressed himself so close—tucking himself into your neck—that you wondered if he was trying vainly to sink into your body. 

You rested your cheek on top of his head, the fur tickling at your exposed skin. Your hold on him was equally as tight. 

“Well whatever it is,” you told him gently, one of your hands rubbing up and down along the fur of his back, “I’m sure it will end up okay.”

You could feel him inhale somewhere near your jugular, the heat of his form seeping into your own. 

“…Yeah,” Wukong finally breathed. His grip on you got that much tighter before finally, he relaxed. “Yeah.”)

Your eyebrows furrow as you rub at the skin under one of your eyes. Now that you’re thinking back on it… this is something that has certainly been plaguing him for a while. Maybe even longer than when you’d first become privy to it. The thought is not reassuring. 

But before you can ruminate further into the possible troubles of the great Monkey King, you hear a low groan somewhere next to you. 

“Okay, this is ridiculous,” a familiar voice grunts, and you look confusedly to your side to see Macaque shooting you an irritated glare. He’s sitting atop the stool two spots away from you, a bowl of liángpí in front of him. When did he get here? You blink owlishly at him, and it only seems to make him more annoyed. “The hell is up with you? I can’t tell if you’re going to eat your noodles or drown yourself in them.”

Your look turns sheepish, and you slump slightly on your seat. “That obvious, huh?” 

“As obvious as a house on fire.” He rolls his eyes and turns back to pick up some of the thick noodles from his bowl with his chopsticks. There’s a pause as he takes a bite, then he sighs heavily, not quite looking at you as he says, “Alright, out with it.” 

One of your eyebrows raises. “Oh?” You can’t help but tease him, pushing your bowl out of the way so you can turn to face him and prop your head up with your hand against the bartop. “Lending me one of your many ears? How kind of you.” 

One of his ears in question twitches slightly—they’re glamoured, as always, to show only two—before he scoffs and starts to turn away. “Well if you don’t want—” 

“No, no!” you interrupt him hurriedly, smile still lingering on your lips. Your gaze softens. “I appreciate it, I do. It’s just…” 

You hesitate for a split second, your gaze averting to the smooth, wooden surface of the bartop. And after mulling it over, picking apart what you want to share and what you don’t, you eventually sigh. 

“I dunno. Wukong’s been acting… well, I guess strange for a while now—maybe even longer, I don’t know—and he went off to the Celestial Realm and I just—” You bite at your cheek, your expression scrunching. “I’m worried he’s in trouble, or something.” Saying it out loud makes you feel even more concerned about it all.

Macaque listens intently as you spew out your thoughts. And when you finish, he scoffs and grumbles something under his breath that you can’t quite make out. It makes you blink at him confusedly. He only pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Ugh, this guy, I swear…” One of his eyebrows twitches in irritation. 

“Honestly, when’s that mystic monkey not in trouble,” you hear Pigsy snort from within the kitchen portion of his restaurant. You almost forgot he was here too, despite it being his restaurant and all; his gruff voice makes you jump slightly. 

You frown over at him, watching as he works on pulling some noodles. “I like to think that he’s mellowed down a little, at least.”

Pigsy only shoots you a skeptical look, one of his eyebrows raised. It’s the kind of look that speaks for itself, and it causes you to deflate. 

“I’m not gonna make excuses for him,” Macaque soon drawls out. You look over to him—irritation still lining his eyebrows and the harsh edge of his mouth. “This is between you and Wukong. But, for what it’s worth, he’s not in trouble. He’s just…” He pauses as though stewing on his words, then huffs. “He’s just looking into some important shit. He’ll tell you eventually.” 

“Hmm.” This… sounds like something they have both talked about. You’re not sure how reassuring that prospect is. You sigh, rubbing wearily at your forehead as you ponder over his words. Whatever it is Wukong’s looking into must be pretty significant if it has him looking so concernedly ruminative from time to time. Even distant. But as long as he’s not in any hot water… “I… okay. Yeah. If he’s not in any trouble then… I’ll try not to worry. I trust him to talk to me about it.” 

Part of you already knows he will, but the assurances are nice as you wait anxiously for his inevitable return. 

Patience, you tell yourself again and again and again. Patience.

“Trustin’ the Monkey King seems like the last thing anyone should do,” Pigsy comments with a grunt, his voice distant as he rummages around near the back of his kitchen.

“But I do,” you insist, sitting up on your stool and pulling your now-lukewarm noodles closer so you can continue to eat. “He’s never done me wrong.” Then, after eyeing up your present company—both of them giving you their own disbelieving looks—you relent. “Well. Not egregiously, at least. But… I really do trust him with my life.” 

“Ugh, you’re both perfect for each other,” Macaque says in disgust, his eyes falling closed as though to shield himself from the statement. “It’s sickening.”

You chuckle and point your chopsticks at him. “To you, maybe.” And then your smile softens. “But, for real, though. Thank you for listening to me. I appreciate it.”

His gaze flickers to your own briefly. “…Don’t mention it,” he grumbles and turns back to focus on his food. 

You shake your head in good nature and pick up a piece of radish from your bowl. “Well!” you say loudly. “That’s enough about me. Where’s Tang at, Pigsy? Isn’t he usually here bothering you by now?” 

“He went to visit the city library a bit ago,” is Pigsy’s disembodied response. You can hear him shuffling around some of his pots and pans. Gruffly, he adds, “Bothered me all mornin’ though, y’can count on that.” 

You’re certain you can detect a hint of fondness underneath all that roughness. It makes you smile lightly. “I’m sure. You know what MK’s up to? I still have those oil paints I borrowed from him a few days ago.” 

While Pigsy entertains your light conversation, Macaque mostly sits and works at his own food. Listening, no doubt, as he is content to do. And yet you can’t help but notice that his mouth is still twisted irately even after your initial conversation has long passed. His tail flicks sharply behind him from time to time. You wonder if the previous mention of Wukong has really gotten under his skin that badly. It can’t hurt to ask, you suppose. 

So you do, once Pigsy excuses himself to take care of some things in his office. 

“Okay, what’s up with you?” you ask him bluntly, turning to face him with one of your eyebrows raised. 

Macaque glances at you. “What are you talking about?” he replies flatly. His arms are crossed over his chest, and it does nothing but amplify his irritation. You roll your eyes.

“You look like you’re one step away from homicide,” you say. “What’s got you so annoyed?”

Macaque clicks his tongue. If possible, he looks even more irked than before. “It’s none of your business, your highness,” he sneers, lip pulling up to show off one of his fangs. “Quit sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” 

You give him an unimpressed look, ignoring his little jab. “Come on, I talked to you, you can talk to me.” Your voice lowers to something gentle. “What’s up?” 

Macaque scowls down at the bartop’s surface. His tail flicks behind him, once, then twice. And because you are looking so intently at the side of his face, you notice the precise moment when he glances at you and relents in the face of your open expression. 

He sighs, disgruntled, and his shoulders slump. “Agh, fine. It’s just— Wukong being typical Wukong.” He pauses so he can rub at his forehead, his eyes squeezed shut and thick eyebrows furrowed. He grits out, “Annoying.”

You can hear the utter disdain in his voice. You give him a sympathetic look. “That bad, huh?” 

Macaque huffs. “You have no idea.” 

“You want me to talk to him?” 

“Absolutely not!” His gaze snaps over to your own, exasperation mixing in with the vexation there. “Shit, that’ll just make things even worse.” He sinks back down onto his stool, something calmer overtaking his expression as he lets out a deep exhale. “No. No, you don’t have to do that. Just keep your mouth shut about this and we’re fine.” 

You hum, one of your fingers tapping idly against your thigh. You mull over your thoughts for a bit before you eventually say, “You know he annoys you because he cares, right?” 

Macaque heaves a long suffering sigh. “Believe me,” he grumbles, “I know. Even though it’s none of his business.” And when you open your mouth to respond, he adds, “None of your business either.” 

You pout, instantly deflating. “I wasn’t gonna ask…”

He just gives you a look like he does not quite believe in your words. “Oh really? Y’know, you and Wukong can be equally as persistent at times.” 

You regard him, soaking in his statement, then find yourself shrugging. “Yeah, that’s a totally valid observation. At least I’m kinda better about it. Probably.” You know entirely too well how obnoxious Wukong can get, after all.

Macaque doesn’t even deign you with a response—not at first. He shakes his head at you and slips off his stool. “Keep telling yourself that,” he says, a snicker leaving his mouth when you shoot him a halfhearted glare. A shadow portal opens up near his feet—an obsidian pool that glows an ominous purple. “Well, this was fun and all, but I’ve got things to do. People to torment. You know how it is.”

You give him a little wave. “Right. Don’t let me hold you up from all the excitement. Talk to you later.” 

“See ya, bud.” He nods his head at you, his hands tucking themselves into his pockets. He turns away. But before he steps through the portal, he pauses, the glow of an eye directed at you from over his shoulder. “And… thanks.” 

“Don’t mention it,” you echo his earlier words and watch as he finally disappears from sight like he’d never even been present in the first place.

And once he’s gone, it’s a few minutes later that you eventually realize he left you with his bill.

Almost a month later, Wukong returns from his Celestial Realm trip all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It is not unlike him, of course, but it still throws you slightly off when all you’d been thinking of while he was gone were his strange moments of contemplation. 

You try asking him what he had been doing up there the same evening of his return, but he just waves you off with a certain look to his eyes that you are still not quite able to decipher. 

“I’ll tell ya later,” he says, leaning heavily into your personal space so he can affectionately rub his face all over your own. Your eyes scrunch up a little with his vigor, your skin tingling where his fur moves back and forth across your cheeks and forehead. “Promise.” 

You frown but find yourself relenting anyways, if only because he finally appears to be back to his normal, goofy self. 

…But it’s like nothing had ever even happened in the first place. And in fact, he starts acting strange in a… different sort of way.

You are no stranger to Wukong’s clinginess. He is a very touchy monkey, and you have learned to simply let him be whenever he wants to latch onto you or bother you just because he can. 

But this? This is excessive—almost to the point of being annoying. And that’s saying something. 

It all begins with a prank. Because of course it does.

The day is young, and as such you have a myriad of chores to get done around your apartment. The written list sits neatly on your desk in the small space of your living room, and you grimace at its length down the page you’d torn from a notebook. Between work and your tendency to procrastinate, things have just… piled up for the weekend. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it certainly won’t be the last.

You start by cracking open the window just next to your desk, tying back the curtains so that the fresh air from a warm, sunny day can circulate around your apartment. It certainly makes you feel more invigorated. You take a moment to peer down at the bustling sidewalks and roads teeming with humans and a handful of demons alike, then up at the clear, blue sky dotted with the occasional cotton-puffed cloud. 

You breathe in deeply, then exhale slowly. 

Well, those chores aren’t going to do themselves. 

Dishes are washed. The floor is vacuumed. Laundry is thrown into the washing machine. Bookshelf is dusted. The sun steadily makes its way across the sky and causes the shadows to shift along the walls. You bustle back and forth as your phone plays songs aloud from on top of your little coffee table. It gives you something to groove to as you hum along under your breath and mop around the kitchen. 

Finally, with most of your chores done, you wipe sweat from your forehead and approach your written list to see what else remains uncrossed on it. Not too much left, now. You scan the paper and reach out to grab your pen so you can cross ‘wipe window sills’ out. But your pen isn’t where you’d left it on your desk. 

You blink and scan the wooden surface. Nope, not here. You bend down to look at the ground in the case that it rolled off, but it’s not anywhere you can see there either. You straighten up. You’re certain you left it right here. But… maybe you misplaced it amongst all the bustling around you had to do? 

You hum and scratch your head, then check to see if you had shoved it behind your ears without really noticing. Nadda.  

“What the hell?” you murmur to yourself and do a lap around your apartment to look for it. It’s not in your bedroom, or on your coffee table, or the kitchen counters. Man, that was one of your favorite pens, too! Where could you have put it?

Frowning, you give up and return to your desk with the intention of looking through its drawers for another utensil to use. But to your absolute incredulity—there your pen is. Right next to your list of chores. As though it had never even gone missing in the first place. 

You come to a stop just in front of your desk and stare down at your pen. You’re sure it hadn’t been there before; you’d looked everywhere for it. And yet it rests innocently on your desk all long. Mocking you, almost.

You rub your face, an exhaustion weighing itself behind your eyes. Maybe after this you should take a nap. Clearly you need it—and doing all those chores certainly did not help with your energy levels either.

You pick up the pen and scrutinize it for a moment, turning it this way and that. It’s a little warm in your hold, likely from the sunlight filtering through the window to splay itself across your desk’s surface. And you could’ve sworn the grip you had around it used to be yellow and not orange. You huff and turn your attention back to your list so you can finally cross off a few of the tasks on it. 

But before the pen can come into contact with the paper, there’s a sudden poof! A burst of gold erupts before you. It causes you to stumble back in surprise, a yelp leaving your lips as your hands come up to your face in defense. 

A familiar figure emerges from the cloud, laughter wheezing out from his squatted form atop your desk. “Oh shit, hah!” He wipes a tear from one of his eyes in utter delight. “Gotcha! You should see the look on your face right now, oh man!” 

“Wukong!” you burst out, hands lowering so you can press one atop your racing heart. It takes a moment for your brain to catch up with what had just occurred. “What the fuck?! Damn near gave me a heart attack!” 

He grins at you cheekily, his tail swaying back and forth happily behind him. Your pen—your actual pen—is wrapped within it, and he drops it unceremoniously on top of your list. “Sorry, Sunshine. Couldn’t help myself.” He snickers to himself. 

You shoot him a halfhearted glare, but find yourself relaxing anyways. “What are you even doing here?” you ask as you move closer to him and give him a little shove to the side. It barely sways him, especially with his armor in the way; in fact, he only smirks at you. You pick up your pen and scribble out those pesky chores at last. “I thought we were hanging out tomorrow?” 

You’d question how he was able to get in, but… he has done this before. You eye the cracked open window still letting a summer breeze into your apartment. You think he ‘lost’ the spare key you had given him so long ago. 

“Yeah, but I wanted to drop by earlier.” Wukong shrugs, his tail moving to flick playfully at your nose. You scrunch it up at the tickling sensation and swat the appendage away from your face. “Sue me for wanting to spend extra time with one of my fave people.” 

You hum, deciding not to point out that he’s a whole day early. “‘One of’, huh?” You can’t help the tease. “That hurts, Wukong.”

“Well, you’re always welcome to fight to the death with MK for the title,” he says amusedly, finally hopping down from your desk and straightening up by your side. He grins at you. “I’m sure that would be a fair battle. Obviously.”

“I’ll pass,” you dismiss easily, then snort softly when he leans expectantly towards you. 

Meeting him halfway, you close your eyes in bliss when he nuzzles against your cheek, then up to your nose, before descending back down to your other cheek. Your skin tingles in the wake of his touch. It’s an intimate show of affection that makes your heart skip a beat each and every time he does it to you. Causes your stomach to buzz like you’d just swallowed a hive of bees. 

“Y’know,” he murmurs, his breath fanning gently across your face as he gently rubs his nose against yours. “I could be convinced to dub you as the Handsome Monkey King’s favorite person through other means…”

“Mmm.” You reciprocate the gesture on him, partially lost in the tender movement. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he says, his voice heavy with contentment. His voice lowers conspiratorially. “Just don’t tell MK I said that.” 

You hum like you’re deliberating upon his offer. And showing great restraint, you pull away from him to give him a sly smile. 

“That’s too bad,” you say cheerily, your smile widening when he almost seems to chase after your touch before he catches himself and rocks back on his heels. “You caught me right as I was about to finish some chores, unfortunately.” You reach over to tap your list as he pouts heavily at you. One of your eyebrows raises. “You planning on helping out, Mister King? I think I vacuumed up more of your hair than mine.” 

He bounces back from your denial quickly, though not quick enough to completely hide the disappointment in his gaze. “Consider them a gift of good luck from me to you~” He doesn’t even look the tiniest bit shameful about his shedding—though most of the fur piles you’ve found are likely from de-spawned items he’d conjured at one point—as he waves you off with a lazy hand. “But nah, you got it all covered, hun. I’m rootin’ for ya.” 

You roll your eyes; you’d expected as much. “Right. Lazy monkey.”

He scoffs lightly. “Um, rude. I work hard, you know. Being a king and all.” Cheeky, too.

“Mmhm, I’m sure you do.”

It’s easy work to finish up the rest of your chores. But you seem to have gained a shadow in the process: Wukong follows closely behind you as you walk back and forth across your apartment. Into the kitchen, then to the living room, and to the closet holding your washer and dryer. He doesn’t say much, only brushes his tail occasionally over the exposed skin on your arms and legs. And when you glance over your shoulder at him, all he does is smile at you with his hands crossed behind his head. 

“Is there a reason why you’re following me around?” you ask in amusement while you make your way to your bedroom, laundry basket full of clean clothes in arm. It’s the last item on your list that needs to be crossed out, thankfully. 

“What, I can’t be close to you while you’re busy?” he replies in mock offense. You can practically feel him on your heels. “I’m enjoying the view here.” 

“Har har,” you say dryly as you shoot him the stink eye over your shoulder. His sharp grin takes up half his face with his blatant flirting. 

Approaching your bed, you move to dump your clothes on top of it. But right as you turn over the basket, there’s a flash of gold just atop your blankets. And after you have set the basket on the ground, you see that Wukong is splayed over your bed, your fresh clothes practically burying him within them. 

“Ahh,” he breathes out, one of your shirts draped across his face. “Nice and warm. A perfect nap spot if I've ever seen one.” 

You roll your eyes and start picking at your clothes to fold them. “Don’t fall asleep now,” you warn him as you fold a pair of pants and set it off to the side, near his calf. “I’ll leave you and eat dinner all by myself.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says sleepily. His tail moves to wrap loosely around your knee. And a few minutes later, you hear the unmistakable sound of snoring. You sigh, though a small smile lingers on your face. 

It doesn’t take long to fold the rest of your clothes as you hum idly to the music you can still hear playing from your phone in the living room. You’re missing a shirt, you eventually realize, as you squint down at the folded pile. Maybe you’ve misplaced it—this definitely isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last either. You quite like that shirt, but you suppose it’ll pop up somewhere sooner or later. 

With a shrug, you gently extract yourself from Wukong’s hold on your leg and pack away everything into their proper places in your drawers. The sounds of you opening and closing everything must have eventually woken him up, for when you turn back around to look at your bed, Wukong’s already sitting up and blinking sleepily at you. 

“Done?” he asks, then lets loose a large yawn that shows off all of his white teeth. 

“Yeah, finally.” You have to stifle your own yawn from watching him. Stretching your arms over your head, you try to chase away that faint sensation of exhaustion but end up catching a whiff of your underarms instead. You pull a face and lower your arms. “I think I’m due for a shower before anything else, though.” 

Wukong perks up, suddenly looking very awake. “Shower?” 

You know that look. “Wukong, no. You know my bathtub is too small for the both of us.” 

He instantly deflates. “Well you’re no fun.”

You snort and approach him so you can ruffle the top of his head. “I won’t be long. Why don’t you go get started on dinner? See what ingredients I have in the fridge.” 

He groans, tossing his head back and away from your touch. “Meal prep duty? You hate me.” 

“Oh shut up, you big baby.” Lowering your hand, you shake your head and make your way over to your door so you can grab your towel off a hook attached to it. And before you step outside your room, you glance back at Wukong once more. He’s giving you his best pleading eyes, slumped forward as he is, atop your bed. Luckily, you’ve built up quite a resistance to them. You give him a hard look. “Don’t you dare transform your hair into food either. You already know how I feel about that.”

“Oh come on!” Wukong whines. “You’re really gonna put me to work like this?” 

You snort. “Yes. And don’t order takeout. We’ve had enough of that.” 

“Ugh, fiiiine.” His begrudging response follows you out of your bedroom and towards the bathroom. You cannot deny the smile on your face upon hearing him make a show out of complaining, though. 

Shutting the bathroom door behind you, you make quick work of stripping yourself of your clothes and hopping into the shower once the water has warmed enough. The light steam is relaxing to your tired muscles, and you breathe in deeply before exhaling it all out in a happy sigh. It does not take long until the entire bathroom is mildly cloudy. 

Water trickles down your head and over the planes of your body. You lather up soap on your loofah and start scrubbing, an idle tune on your lips that gets lost within the sound of drizzling water. The spongy material is run over one leg, then the other, as you slowly make your way up.

It’s when you finally start scrubbing the loofah along one of your arms that you hear the bathroom door creak open. 

Instantly, you pause, squinting in vain through the thin shower curtain. “Wukong?”

“Mmmyeah?” His voice is as casual as he can make it; like this is just another part of his day. 

You stare at his shadow through the curtain—close enough that you know he’s right on the other side. You hope he can feel the weight of your pointed gaze through it. 

“What are you doing? I said no shower time!” you scold as you finish scrubbing your arm to focus on the other. One eye is kept on his shadow in case he tries anything—as he is wont to do. 

“But you’re taking foreveeer!” he whines. Slowly, you notice him start to creep towards the small opening between the curtain and the bathroom wall. “I already made dinner and everything—”

“Oh really?” you drawl, watching as he gets closer and closer. And just when you see the tip of his twitching ear, you reach a hand past the curtain so you can gently push his face back. He splutters at the soap and water that accompanies your palm. “Wukong, please. Give me a few minutes. Go pick out a movie or something.” 

You can see the way his shadow sags in disappointment, the long phoenix feathers attached to his crown wilting with the movement. “But—”

“Wukong.” 

“Alright, fine.” He sighs in reluctance. His shadow turns away to trudge out of the bathroom like he’s a toddler who’d just been put in time out. “But I expect some kinda consolation gift for this.” 

Silly simian. “Whatever.” You snort, then call out a “Thank you!” when you hear him finally close the bathroom door behind him. 

You huff and shake your head to yourself. Honestly, what’s gotten into him?

With your shower done, you feel more rejuvenated than before. You roll your shoulders and wrap yourself in your towel before skittering over to your room to toss on some comfy clothes. You dry your hair as much as you can—wringing out water from the strands—then hang your towel back on your door. And when you venture out into the living room, you breathe in the scent of a freshly-cleaned apartment and feel satisfied at the day’s work.

Your eyes glance over to your empty couch, then at the television across from it. There’s a movie paused on the screen. Something action-packed, from the looks of it, which makes you smile to yourself. The last movie you’d watched with him was a psychological horror—which he definitely hadn’t been a fan of, if his reactions were any indication. Wukong is nowhere in sight, though when you listen closely, you can hear gentle rummaging coming from the kitchen. You decide to leave him to it.

The air has gotten chillier with the descent of evening, you note, glancing down at the goosebumps forming on your exposed skin. You shuffle over to the open window by your desk to properly close it and pull the curtains over the darkened glass. As you do so, your eyes catch onto the list of chores still resting on your desk, and you grab it to crumple into a ball and toss into a small wastebasket nearby. You side eye your pen and decide to stash it away in one of your desk’s drawers as well. Just in case.

Hmm. Actually, it’s awfully quiet in your apartment. Walking over to your little coffee table, you pick up your phone and fruitlessly try to turn it on. It must have run out of battery while you were showering. You plug it into an outlet by your desk and turn around just in time to see Wukong emerge from your kitchen space, plate and drinks in hand. 

He’s not wearing his chest plate, and a quick glance around the room shows he had tossed it atop the spare ottoman you have sitting to the left of the couch. You have to resist an eye roll at his laziness. 

“Sandwiches?” you question him with a raised eyebrow once you see the plate’s contents. They’re probably the most low effort sandwiches you’ve ever seen, though he’s got a bowl of assorted berries wrapped within the tip of his tail, too.

“Uh I know you’re not judging this five star meal right now,” he says pointedly as he passes you to set everything down on the coffee table. “You gotta restock your fridge, hun. I had to use my elite Monkey King culinary skills and make do with what was available. Since, ya know, I had no other choice.” 

Oh, right. You’re pretty sure you have enough ingredients to make chǎofàn, at least, but perhaps that’s asking too much of him. “Fair,” you say instead with a shrug. You’re not going to complain; food is food. 

As you approach him to plop yourself down on the couch, Wukong glances over at you and seems to do a double take when his gaze lands on your face. Or well, near your face. You tilt your head at him in curiosity. 

“Wait— your hair’s wet!” he exclaims suddenly, eyes brightening as he bounds closer to you to inspect the strands. 

“Yes,” you say in amusement. “That tends to happen when I take a shower.” 

Wukong rolls his eyes, but grabs your hand and gently pushes you to sit down. The cushions sink under your weight, soft and comfortable. “Well, duh. It’s just—” He cuts himself off so he can pluck a strand of his fur from his head and turn it into a gold comb. “Let me groom it for ya.” He twirls the comb around and sends you a cheeky little wink. “It can be my consolation gift.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. Not that you agreed in the first place to let him have this ‘gift’ of his, but you know he’s not just going to let go of it. “You really don’t have to—” 

“I don’t, but I want to. In fact, I insist.” 

It kind of feels unfair to put him to work when you were both about to relax. “But—“  

“Sunshine, please,” he interrupts you and leans down so he can make proper eye contact with you. There’s something to his gaze that gives you pause, but you cannot, for the life of you, make out what it is. It feels familiar, though. His pale eyes soften. “Let me do this for you.” 

…Who are you to deny him when he asks so gently? You sigh and give him a small smile. “Okay. Knock yourself out.” 

Wukong releases a happy little chirp and immediately hops up onto the cushions so he can slide behind your body and sit atop the back of the couch. You lean forward and grab the plate of sandwiches from the coffee table as he settles in. You’re pretty sure he’s shrunk himself, for when he slides his legs to rest over your shoulders, they are much smaller than what you’re used to. Their weight rests solidly against your arms. 

“What movie did you end up picking?” you ask as you scrounge around for the remote between the couch’s throw pillows and press play. 

“Some Japanese adventure,” he responds distractedly, his socked feet wiggling slightly on either side of your neck while he positions himself. “Wasn’t really paying attention to the summary; just picked somethin’ that looked interesting.”

You hum and lean against him, vaguely feeling the warmth of his body where the back of your head presses against his stomach. You can feel him smooth a gentle hand over your hair before he starts to part it with the comb. One section, then another, and another. The fine teeth of the comb run soothingly across your scalp as he makes sure your hair is neatened whilst also searching for bugs he will never find. You think it’s more the repetitive action that appeases him, rather than the actual purpose.

Either way, it’s relaxing, and with all the lights in the living room off save for the television screen, you wonder how long you’ll stay awake. Still, you do your best as you blink blearily at whatever movie plays before you. The plot is a bit hard to follow, but you like the character dynamics. 

It’s as you chew through part of a sandwich that you feel Wukong gently nudge your upper arm with his foot. 

Craning your head back to meet his gaze, you shoot him a questioning look. All he does is open his mouth, his hands still combing through your hair, and you take it as an indication that he wants a bite of food. 

You grab another half of a sandwich from the plate and raise it towards him, but he shakes his head. 

“No,” he says, making you lower your arm in confusion. He gestures to the other sandwich in your hold—the one you’d been munching on. “That one.” 

You blink at him. “…Does it matter?” you ask with no small amount of perplexion. 

Wukong gasps dramatically—the kind of gasp that you know is him trying to cover up some kind of initial reaction. But no matter how much you scrutinize his expression, you are unable to tell what he’s thinking. 

“Of course it matters!” he exclaims and leans over your head to insert himself more in your space. Naturally, he doesn’t explain how, exactly, and instead follows with, “Indulge me, won’t ya?” 

“It’s a sandwich,” you say dryly, but find yourself obliging anyways as you hold your partially eaten sandwich up to him so he can chomp over one of your bites. You’re still baffled, there’s no doubt about it, but it seems to make him happy, so you don’t press him too much. 

In hindsight, him insisting on finishing all of the food he’d made in this same manner should have been your first warning for what was to come. But you brush it off rather easily in the moment—something you later realize you should have been paying closer attention to.

And things only escalate from there.

Wukong starts spending more and more time with you on the daily. You don’t mind, of course, but it’s so different from what you’re used to with him that it throws you off only a bit. 

He’s not the biggest fan of the city, but you’ve spotted him flying above you in his bird form on more than one occasion while you’re out for work or running errands. He’ll often land on your shoulder or guide you to an empty alley so he can transform back to his regular form and bother you for some hangout time. At other instances, he’ll just change into a butterfly or ladybug and hide in your hair until you reach home for the day. 

Mostly, though, he simply appears in your apartment and follows you around or steals you away to his shame temple. Which wouldn’t bother you if he literally didn’t do it every single day. 

At first you attribute his clinginess to not seeing you for the entirety of him being in the Celestial Realm. But that can’t be it; time works differently up there than it does down on Earth, so for him it hadn’t even been a month, really. And as the days go on, it becomes apparent that there’s something more at play here. Something you are unfortunately not privy to.

You try questioning him about the sudden change, but he just waves you off in that typical Wukong manner and doesn’t bother to answer you properly. It does nothing to ease that budding seed of worry. For now, all you can really do is indulge him—at least until he finally tells you what’s going on. 

But it does get a little irksome, you have to admit.

Every meal you have is with him—from breakfast to dinner. And not just in terms of being together, but also in sharing the food bite by bite or feeding each other. He’ll bite into a plum, then offer it to you so you can as well. He’ll also insist on sharing one bowl and one spoon or pair of chopsticks. Which, again, isn’t really a problem in itself. But the frequency is. 

“Doesn’t it get, I don’t know, tiring to keep sharing every other bite?” you ask him one evening while you pass him the chopsticks you’d been using to eat some chāshāo. 

“Tiring?” Wukong raises an eyebrow as he picks up a piece of meat with some rice from a side bowl. “No? Why would it be?” 

“Just— Never mind.” You give up when he just stares at you in open confusion, like he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing. You have to suppress a sigh. 

Even moreso, you have noticed he’s become a little more… playful, in a way. Bothersome. Sometimes when you least expect it. 

It’s the middle of the afternoon and you have found yourself sitting against the peach tree near Wukong’s small cottage on Flower Fruit Mountain. He had been insistent on spending time together today; however, he completely forgot that he had training scheduled with MK and Macaque. You were not about to let him skip out on it—no matter how much he whined and pleaded. 

And thus, here you are, reading a book as you occasionally glance up to the clearing Wukong’s cottage sits within the mountain, where he and Macaque are double teaming against MK. 

It was interesting to watch at first. MK has come a long way and it shows in his ability to keep up with both Wukong and Macaque. But you’re pretty sure they’re still holding back at least a little bit. Not that you can really tell when all you can see are flashes of color with their movement and hear the resounding impacts of their hits. 

You return your attention back to your book and turn to the next page. You’ve slowly been making your way through it over the last few days—a fantasy novel revolving around a village healer who finds an injured dragon in a cave. The beginning had been rather slow, but it’s starting to pick up, and your eyes skim rapidly through line after line. 

Distantly, there’s the faint rustling of leaves overhead. The sounds of sparring have quieted in your focus. The words are practically a blur now, your fingers clutching at the pages raised close enough to your face that your eyes nearly blur. 

The dragon is revealed to have been injured by a powerful, evil king hunting it for its power, and a fate encounter has led to them both battling at the edge of a cliff in the midst of a dark and terrible storm. The healer watches on from atop a slippery boulder, and they gasp as the evil king brings out a magic weapon from his cloak to help him kill the dragon once and for all. A hellish glow starts building at the tip of the weapon, and the king points it at the dragon befo—

Your book suddenly disappears from your grip.

There’s a moment where you blink at your empty hands in shock, your mind still trapped between rain, thunder, and a red flash of unnaturally bright lightning. Then you hear a giggle above you, and you crane your head up to look at the branches of the tree you’re leaning against. 

Wukong grins down at you as he squats on a branch, his tail waving around your book in an almost taunting manner. “Good read?”

“Wukong!” you fume as you spring up to your feet and shoot him a glare. He’s high enough that he’s way out of reach, and you’re not about to start climbing when you know he can greatly outpace you. “Give it back!” 

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” he says with a mischievous smile that shows off his fangs. He brings the book closer to him so he can inspect the summary at the back idly. “Ooh, fantasy with some hints of romance! How scandalous!” He flips the book open to read the very last page, his eyebrows raising as he lets out a low whistle. “Wow, crazy ending. I’d stop reading now if you have any faves; everyone gets beaten up by this strangely handsome monkey.” 

“Wukong,” you seethe again and take a moment to breathe. The only thing keeping you from throwing your shoe at him is the fact that it’s clear he’s just fucking with you. But, honestly, with the way he’s holding your book, you’ve definitely lost your current page, and it doesn’t make you any happier. “Come on. Get down here.” When all he does is sit down properly on the branch, his legs kicking out beneath him like he hasn’t got a care in the world, you sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose. “Weren’t you training MK? What are you even doing?” 

“Ah, he and Mister Sourpuss over there are working on their own stuff right now.” Wukong waves you off, and you glance over your shoulder to see MK fighting a small army of shadow clones at once while Macaque supervises. You have a feeling Wukong just slipped away when he could, the slacker.

“Right,” you say pointedly, crossing your arms over your chest as you look back at him. “Stuff that you are supposed to be involved with as well.”

“Pssht, they have it handled,” Wukong drawls out lazily. “Besides, this is about you right now, not them.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Me?” 

“Yeah!” He lets himself fall backwards until he’s dangling upside down on the branch, his knees hooking around it to keep him from slipping off. He waves around your book. “You’ve been stuck with your nose buried in this book all afternoon! Time for some training of your own! Get that blood pumpin’!” 

You only give him an unimpressed look when he tilts his head back to crinkle his eyes at you. He’s close enough that you think if you stretch your arm up, you could maybe touch the tip of his nose. But you’re not about to try that. 

“No thanks,” you say flatly. “Hard pass.” You are still a bit irked at him. 

He sticks his tongue out at you. “That’s not a good attitude to have! Don’t be such a downer.”

“Yep, that’s me. The downest of all downers. Now give me back my book.” 

Wukong pouts, looking as though you’ve just denied him his favorite sweet. But then a certain gleam passes across his sunset eyes, so ephemeral that you wonder if you had even seen it in the first place. Either way, it only seems to exacerbate the seed of suspicion beginning to take root in your gut.

“Fine,” he acquiesces with a light sigh. He swings himself off the branch and lands lightly on the ground next to you. The feathers attached to his crown bounce slightly with the movement. He crosses his arms behind his back, his expression all resigned and apologetic. 

“…Fine,” you reply warily after a short moment, watching his tail move towards you with your book still wrapped within its grasp. You eye his innocent-looking face, then his tail, before you finally step towards him and slowly reach out to slip your book away from him. 

Right before you can touch it, however, Wukong suddenly grins—all sharp teeth and deviousness. He hops a step back, his tail and your book moving behind him. 

“But you gotta take it from me first if you really want it,” he says cheekily, accentuating his remark with a smug little wink. 

You take a minute to stare at him, already internally mourning the time you could have been using for reading. His stance is relaxed—aloof, even—and there’s a particular twinkle to his pale eyes that makes you frown suspiciously at him. His tail sways back and forth like a pendulum, slow and steady. 

“…Are you being serious right now?” you ask him bluntly, well aware of the advantages he has over you—being the Great Sage, and all. 

“Whaat? Of course I am!” Wukong presses one of his hands to his chest in mock offense. “When have I ever not been serious? Look at this face, it’s the most serious you’ll ever see!” 

You watch as his expression changes, his lips flattening and eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly in an appearance of earnestness. He crosses his arms over his chest and levels you with a look that’s almost foreign on his face. 

But you can still see the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement. 

You sigh, long and resigned. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you.” 

His expression flips back into something more impish, his eyes turning into crescents of delight at hearing the begrudging acceptance in your voice. “Nope!” 

He can be so annoying when he wants to. You grumble, “Why do I even like you?” 

“You mean apart from my dastardly good looks?” he preens, then seems to relent just a little. “Look, I’ll even keep my hands in my pockets the entire time, promise!” And then he makes a show of wiggling his palms at you and tucking them into his pants with a closed-mouth smile. 

You make a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan, then decide that if Wukong’s going to be this insistent, you have no other choice, really. It’s obvious he isn’t going to leave you alone anytime soon. You entertain, briefly, the idea of retreating to his little house to ignore him, but you have a feeling he’ll simply follow you there. So you huff and instead take a threatening step towards him. 

Immediately, he takes a step back to match your own. Your eyes narrow at him. His smile widens at the look. Then you take another step. And another. And another. 

Wukong mimics each and every one, retreating backwards from you with mirth dancing across his eyes and in the line of his lips. He leads you, in this manner, around the tree’s thick, twisting trunk—a never ending circle that makes you scowl at him whenever you catch a peek of his face.

“Wukong,” you warn as you march after him. “Stop.” 

“What?” he replies, the hint of a laugh to his voice. “I’m not doing anything.” He is just out of your view, the trunk blocking his body. 

You huff and stop walking. The lack of footsteps tells you Wukong does as well. You face the tree and frown at the bark in front of you. With your arms crossed over your chest, you peek around the trunk to your left. 

Wukong’s face greets your own as he mirrors your action from the other side of the tree, grinning wildly at you when you shoot him a scowl. Eye twitching slightly, you straighten up, then peer around the right side of the trunk as well. And just like before, Wukong meets your gaze again, but this time he sticks his tongue out at you.

“Well you’re not gonna get it back like this,” he tells you cheekily, and you immediately huff out a sharp breath of air at the sheer audacity this simian has. 

“You little—“ Fuming, you lunge at him, aiming to grab at his chest plate or something. But he only dances back out of your grasp with a loud laugh. 

You stomp after him as he puts some distance between himself and the tree, standing a few meters away with his hands still tucked into his pockets. You narrow your eyes at him while you approach, but all he does is smile happily back at you. Ugh, of course he delights in tormenting you like this. 

It’s almost infuriating how easily he dodges your following swipes. He’s not even trying to look like you’re keeping him on his toes, either. He yawns as he sidesteps one of your snatches at his tail, then hops easily over your spiteful attempt to trip him. At one point, he even blows you a kiss! The nerve! You’re honestly starting to break out into a sweat, your breathing getting more and more labored with every minute that goes by. 

“Oooh, so close!” Wukong teases as he twirls around your hand when it gets within mere inches of your book still in his tail’s grasp. You’re pretty sure he let you get that close, and it does nothing to quell your irritation. “Come on, hun, you can do better than that!” 

“I”—you huff and decide to retreat a few feet back so you can catch your breath—“hate you. So much.” 

“Aw, don’t be like that!” Wukong chuckles as he watches you wipe perspiration from your forehead. He cocks his head, gaze half-lidding. “Giving up already?” 

You snort and roll your shoulders. “I would if I wasn’t so certain you’d keep bothering me.” 

“That’s the spirit!” 

Shaking your head, you cross your arms over your chest and eye up Wukong where he’s standing a small distance away. Your current offensive strategy clearly isn’t doing you any favors. And you have no hope of ever tiring him out enough to manage to snag back your book. You’ll have to do something else. But what? 

It’s as you’re shifting in place that you feel the flat of your shoe roll over something. Glancing down, you spy a pebble, hidden between the short blades of grass beneath you. An idea forms—flimsy at best, but it’s all you’ve got. 

And well. You’re certainly not above playing dirty. 

Bending down, you swiftly tuck the pebble within your hand, then straighten up and immediately point a finger at Wukong. “Stay right there,” you tell him sternly and turn around so you can trudge about the area to look for more pebbles and small rocks. 

“Getting serious now, are we?” Wukong says from behind you, the slyness in his tone apparent. His voice takes on a low, sultry tone—you can practically hear the wide smile in it. “I love it when you tell me what to do~” 

“And yet I don’t have my book back,” you reply dryly over your shoulder as you ignore his blatant attempts at flirting. 

“Ah, well. You win some and you lose some.” 

Rolling your eyes, you make quick work out of finding a decent handful of small stones, the pile held delicately in your non-dominant hand. You nod to yourself in satisfaction, then stand a couple meters away from Wukong—who’d just been watching you trudge around his cottage the entire time. 

“Rocks?” he questions with a raised eyebrow once he spots them atop your palm. You pick one up and hold it out so he can see, displaying it from where it’s pinched between your index finger and thumb. Wukong blinks, then lets out a snort. “Oh c’mon, like that’s gonna be any help t—“ 

Before he can finish his sentence, you pelt the pebble towards his face as hard as you can. He yelps and ducks slightly to let it whip over his head, his eyes rounding out almost comically. There’s a small pause as he processes what just happened, his gaze flicking from your devious face, to the fingers you’d used to throw the rock, then to the small pile sitting in your other hand. 

You smirk. “Let’s test those reflexes then, shall we?” 

And before he can get another retort out, you start rapidly launching the stones at him as fast and hard as you can. 

It’s almost funny the way he dodges all of the attacks. You’ve seen firsthand how flexible and quick-footed he can be, and it shows in the way he twists, turns, and bends like he’s in some strange version of dodgeball. He may be immortal, but you doubt he wants to subject himself to the sting of a pebble smacking him on the forehead. With the way he’s grinning, though, you honestly don’t think you’re giving him too much of a challenge. Which makes things even more annoying.

But the thing about being the thrower, though, is that you can predict where he’s about to move based on where you aim a shot. And with him preoccupied with making his dodges fancy as a way to no doubtfully show off to you, he doesn’t notice when you creep a bit closer. Waiting for the perfect opportunity when—

There! 

On one of his turns, his tail twirls towards you. And you are just close enough that you can reach out to grab it. 

But you don’t grab the tip of it, no. You’re certain he’s hyper aware of you going anywhere near your book, and will thus snatch it away before you can even get close enough.

Instead, you aim somewhere he’s not expecting you to go for and latch your hand around the middle of his fuzzy tail. 

Then, you give it a firm yank! 

The reaction is instantaneous. 

Wukong screeches—out of shock moreso than pain, you think; you don’t pull it that hard—then, as though realizing partway what he’s just done, he abruptly forces himself to cough and cut off the high-pitched sound. You can feel him starting to pull away—clearing his throat all the while—and the back of your brain registers that if he does, you’re never getting that damn book back. Or hearing the end of this. 

So you do the one, stupid thing you can think of. 

You tackle him. 

Hard. 

A little too hard, in fact. Admittedly, you’re surprised he gets taken down so easily, though looking back, you think you’re only able to do so because he’d been so caught off guard with the tail yank. The force that you collide into him with sends the both of you tumbling down the small hill Wukong’s cottage rests upon. 

You are able to register little else other than the feeling of your face pressed against Wukong’s collar and your back intermittently colliding with the ground. Sticks and stones poke at your thighs and shoulders. Your hands clutch onto what feels like the back of his golden chest plate. Something solid darts up to cradle the back of your head, while another wraps around the small of your back. Your eyes are squeezed shut even as the world spins and spins and spins. 

And finally, finally, the two of you come to a rough stop. 

There’s a tentative brush of something soft and fuzzy against the exposed skin of your arm. It takes you a moment to collect your bearings.

You’re laying on top of something warm and firm. Wukong, you faintly process. The things that had been holding onto both your head and back loosen up, before they fall away completely. You breathe in sharply, then open your eyes and abruptly sit up. Dazed, you shake your head out. You are definitely a bit rumpled, but nothing hurts as far as you can tell. You’re lucky that hill is made of dirt and grass. 

Blinking in vain to get rid of some of the lingering dizziness, you find yourself looking down at Wukong. Who lays on his back beneath you with his arms splayed out at his sides. His gaze is already on you, his eyes flicking rapidly across your face. Looking for something, you think, and when he does not find it, he lets out a relieved sigh. He closes his eyes, and when they reopen, they immediately return to your own, soft as butter. 

You shift, your legs straddling his torso where you’re perched atop his waist—just where his chest plate ends. Then, you lean forward so that your face hovers a foot over his own. There’s a look reflected across his pretty irises that makes your stomach do a squirmy little flip. You promptly ignore it. 

“I win,” you announce, your hands bracing themselves lightly against his chest. 

Wukong blinks. Once, then twice, then thrice. He scoffs, though you can tell it isn’t quite all there. Not with the rumpled, dopey way he’s still looking up at you. “Um, as if! I still have your book, don’t I?”

You scoff right back and lean away so you can look pointedly at his exposed hands. “You took your hands out of your pockets. That’s a forfeit.” You’re pulling this right out of your ass, but you don’t care.

Wukong sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry. “According to who?! You literally tackled me! And pulled my tail, for that matter! Which, by the way, was a foul move. Probably the foulest move I’ve ever seen in my millenniums of living.” 

“Okay, and? Still counts.” 

“You pulled my tail! Very few people are able to do that and live to tell the tale, y’know.” 

“Yeah? Well…” You smile suddenly, a devious little thing as you cross your arms and lean in closer to coo down at him. “All’s fair in love and war, baby.” 

Wukong opens his mouth. Seems to think for a moment. Then, he closes it. Faintly, you can see a warm tinge to his cheeks as he stares, and stares, and stares up at you. You’re about to ask him if something’s wrong when he starts grinning sharply, his eyelids lowering. 

“Have I ever told you how hot it is when you’re like this?” Wukong purrs, his gaze flicking purposely down to where you’re seated atop him. You can feel your cheeks start to burn, and his grin widens even further. “Because I really—“ 

“Okay, that’s enough out of you,” you say loudly as you slap a hand across his mouth and straighten up. His eyes crinkle delightfully up at you, shaping into upturned crescents. You know exactly what he’s trying to do here, and it’s not going to work. You can feel one of your own eyes twitching. 

Pulling your hand away before he can do something heinous like lick your palm, you turn your torso and lean off to the side—where Wukong’s tail rests lazily on the grassy ground. With one hand holding it down, you use the other to pry your book from its hold. He doesn’t really put up much of a fight and instead takes to watching you with an enthralled little expression that makes you want to forget your previous irritation with him. You roll your eyes. 

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” you tell him deliberately, already moving to slip off of him, “I have a book to fin—“ 

You don’t even make it that far. 

Abruptly, your entire world flips. 

Disoriented for the second time that afternoon, it takes you a minute for you to realize you’re the one splayed out on the ground now. It’s cool against your back, and you can feel blades of grass where they tickle at the exposed skin of your arms and legs. Stunned, you stare up at Wukong, who hovers over you with a downright roguish smile on his shadowed face. His hands are propped out on either side of your head, his weight solid and warm where he sits atop your stomach. 

“Wukong!” you seethe once you’ve processed what had happened, faintly registering that your book got lost somewhere in the scuffle. Whipping your head side to side, you’re just able to see it tossed away in the distance—Wukong’s doing, no doubt. Your irritation returns tenfold as you glare back up at him. “Get off me!”

He grins, all sharp teeth and mischief, and doesn’t move an inch. “I forgot to mention,” he says, his tail swaying eagerly just over his shoulders. “That was just part one of two. Now you gotta get past me if you really wanna get back to your boring, old book.” 

Your jaw drops open in incredulity. Oh you know, you just know he made that up on the spot. Honestly, what’s going on with him today?! He’s never been this eager to push your buttons. Or well, this persistent when you’re clearly not in the mood. “That’s bullshit. I basically already did!” 

“Oh yeah?” He leans his weight further into you, his smug face right above your own. “Then why aren’t you reading right now, hm?” 

This fucking monkey. “You—” Steam practically whistles out of your ears. The nerve! “Ugh!”

Abruptly, you twist your hips to the side and give Wukong a hearty shove. You hadn’t expected it to actually work—he can be pretty immovable when he wants to be, especially with your considerably weaker strength—but he still tumbles over with an elated laugh. Huffing out your nose, you scramble on your hands and knees in an attempt to lunge towards your book. But you can feel Wukong’s tail wrap around your calf and drag you back towards him. 

He practically tosses himself atop you again once you’ve twisted around onto your back, and your hands snap up just in time for his own to latch onto them. Palm to palm, fingers intertwined. Like this, with him pressing his weight onto you, and you pushing up against him, you’re almost stuck at an impasse. And by the avid way Wukong’s looking at you, you’re not sure if you’ll be getting away anytime soon. 

The muscles of your biceps strain slightly against his own strength. With a grunt, you push your hips up and to the side again to get him off of you. But he holds on instead of letting go like you’d expected, pulling you along until you’re the one on top this time. Then, he flips you both over again. And again. And again.  

And thus, the two of you spend quite a bit wrestling around on the ground. 

You’re losing, but not as badly as you’d thought you’d be. Which makes you think that Wukong is at least giving you a fair fighting chance, for whatever reason. You don’t get a single moment to slip away, and instead you’re forced to roll around with him. His weight holding your body down, his legs squeezing your sides, the feathers of his crown occasionally falling forward to tickle at your face. It’s a workout, one you’re still not entirely too pleased about. 

By the time you eventually give up, you’re a sweating, panting mess.  

You’ve found yourself laying back on the ground again, arms splayed out as your head rests among blades of grass. You inhale, then exhale sharply, your body weary from wrestling with Wukong. Gaze focused on the rock that comprises the ceiling of his cave—far, far in the distance—you are content to ignore him as he sits comfortably on your thighs and watches you breathe. He doesn’t even seem winded. Fucker. 

Lifting a hand to pinch at your shirt, you fan it against your chest that’s sticky with perspiration, finding relief in the brief coolness it brings. You’re tired, and grumpy, and you just really want to finish your stupid book. But you’re stuck under Wukong. Again. 

You sigh and your eyes inadvertently drift to him as he shifts forward to hover his face over your own. Wukong tilts his head curiously at you, then lets out a little chirp and leans down to nudge his cheek against your own. 

You squint your eyes shut and turn your head away from him. His fur is too stifling and hot for you right now. “I’m mad at you.”  

Wukong hums softly and follows your head turn to continue to press your faces together. He noses at a spot just below your jaw, and your eyes open so you can stare off at your poor book that’s barely in your line of sight. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” you reply grumpily and lift a hand to push his head away. He lets himself move with your hand for a short moment, then slips his face from your palm to nuzzle at your neck again. It tickles, just a bit. “Can’t even read a book in peace anymore.” 

He chuckles, low and breathy. You watch as he pulls away so he can reposition himself on top of you. His torso lowers until your stomachs press against each other. He props himself up on a forearm right above your head on the ground, then leans down into your space until your faces are a breadth apart. 

“Hmm.” His gaze lowers, irises minutely moving as they flick over your face. “Well we can’t have you unhappy now, can we?” 

You grunt, mildly unenthused with the hot air of his breath fanning across your skin. But before you can open your mouth to retort, Wukong closes that small distance to press a chaste kiss to your nose.

Then to your cheek. 

The corner of your mouth. 

Everywhere. 

“Wukong!” you protest, voice muffled as he peppers kisses all over your face. They’re quick enough that you only feel a light impression beyond the way your skin tingles in his wake. “Stop! Stooop!” 

He’s close enough that you can feel it when a hum rumbles through his chest. He does not relent; if anything, he picks up the pace. “Mmmno~” 

You’re pushing halfheartedly at his chest, but he is like a statue over you. Biting at the inside of your cheek, you squeeze your eyes shut and do your best to resist. But he’s making it rather difficult. “Wukong, I’m— I’m trying to be mad at you!” 

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” he gets out between his assaults, something amused lining his words. You try to rile yourself up enough to push him away, but then he starts lowering his kisses to your neck. And that, combined with the ticklish sensation of his fur brushing across your skin, finally makes you crack. 

You start to laugh, chest heaving as you squirm. “Stah— Stop it!” 

You can feel it when he grins triumphantly against your skin. “Not happening, Sunshine~” 

“W-Wukong!” you manage to get out again, your shoulders hiking up to your ears in a vain attempt to prevent him from accessing your neck. It doesn’t work, and he simply turns his head to instead kiss across the line of your trachea. Your legs kick out to try to get him off of you, but he just presses his thighs against your own to hold them in place together. “Wukong!” 

“Thaaaat’s me!” Wukong croons between kisses, his voice breathless. He murmurs, “I love it when you say my name.” 

Fucking hell. Your face burns, and you snake a hand from its futile pushing against his chest to grab at the side of his head and shove. But he’s faster than you, and the moment your fingers come into contact with his cheek, his tail loops around your wrist to swiftly pin it to the ground. An attempt with your other hand results in the same thing. 

“You’re rih— ridiculous,” you choke out. He only snickers in response. 

It’s a while before Wukong eventually eases up, your stomach having long cramped up from your laughter. You’re grinning when he pulls away, cheeks aching and face warm as you stare up at him. Wukong smiles, gaze softening as he surveys your breathless form. Rumpled and dirty, no doubt. Yet he still watches you like you’re something so utterly precious. It makes your stomach do somersaults. 

“Still mad?” he asks gently, content to draw his gaze along the planes of your face. 

You scoff, though it’s a more affectionate sound than anything. “Immensely. You better sleep with one eye open tonight, pal.”

Wukong only chuckles and reaches over to pluck something from your hair—a stray piece of grass, you note—then flicks it away. And before either of you can say another word—entranced as you both are with simply looking at each other—Wukong’s head suddenly darts up. 

Confused, you watch his expression as he seems to hone in on something in the distance—a ways beyond your head. Then, he grins wildly. In fact, his smile turns downright wolfish. Maybe even smug. 

You find yourself craning your head back so you can see what’s got him like this. And you’re just barely able to catch the moment when Macaque—standing nearly on the other side of the cave space—turns away from you and Wukong. There’s a scowl present on his lips as he crosses his arms and focuses back on watching MK fight his clones. You nearly forgot that they were here too. 

You blink and watch Macaque’s form for a bit more—his tail lashes harshly behind him, though you have no idea what’s got him so riled up—then turn back to look at Wukong. 

“What’s that all about?” you ask with a raised eyebrow. He picks himself partially off of you so he can give you an inscrutable smile.

“Nothing,” he says, though he sounds awfully pleased. You figure he’s not going to tell you and roll your eyes at him. “Nothing at all.” 

One of the more prominent things Wukong has started to insist on, though—that you find yourself not minding as much—is grooming. Occasionally for you, but mostly for him. 

He has taken to showing up at your apartment to sleep with you every night—sometimes even whisking you away to Flower Fruit Mountain when he feels like it. And before you both settle down amongst the pillows and blankets he has rearranged into a pile of sorts, Wukong will pluck a strand of fur from his head and turn it into that familiar golden comb. 

You have groomed him a few times in the past, of course. But nothing as extensive or routine as this. 

When he first sets the comb in your hand once you’ve both retired to your bedroom, you give him a questioning look. 

With the late hour, the room is bathed in a darkness illuminated only by the ghostly caress of moonlight streaming through the window by your bed. It paints an ethereal picture, almost, as your gaze flicks up from your hand to Wukong’s face. Gold eyes easily find your own. 

“Do you want me to…?” you trail off with your voice slightly lilted, watching as he pats your hand gently and steps away. 

“Mmhm,” is his short reply. There’s a certain lassitude to his body that you’re only just able to pick up on. It’s in the slump of his shoulders, the creases beneath his eyes. He hides it well, though, as he starts to loosen the ribbons holding together his armor’s golden chest plate. His hands move quickly. Practiced, despite his weariness. “S’easier when you do it. Way easier.” 

You hum your agreement and stick the comb in your hair while you approach him. Your fingers find the fabric of his cape and work to loosen it from around his neck. There is no need for conversation, your gentle breaths intermingling with Wukong’s in the quiet night air. The cape slips off easily, fluttering slightly as you pull it away from him and fold it into a lazy square to place upon your dresser. 

By the time you turn back around to face Wukong, he’s already set his armor down on the floor and is busy untying the burgundy sash around his waist. He glances up at you when you step in front of him and wordlessly bows his head so you can reach up and slip off his crown from where it’s perched atop his fur. The feathers brush against his nose as you bring it down, and he scrunches it slightly in a way that makes you chortle. 

The crown gets set next to his folded cape, and as Wukong hands you clothing item after clothing item, you meticulously fold them all up and arrange them in a little pile on the dresser. Until he’s wearing nothing but his pale pink boxer briefs, his tail swaying idly side to side as he stretches his arms above his head. 

Wukong cuts an almost imposing silhouette through the limited, waxy lighting of your room. Without all his armor and clothes in the way, he’s rather lithe. But you can just make out the contours of the sinewy muscles of his upper body and arms as he rolls his shoulders and lets out a relieved breath of air. A small smile dances across your lips. 

He blinks sleepily at you when you make a shooing motion at him to go to your bed, then obliges and turns around to slink over. In the meantime, you nudge his armor on the floor with your foot so that it’s off to the side and not in the middle of the room—a certifiable tripping hazard, if you’ve ever seen one—before padding over to join him. 

Wukong’s sitting cross-legged atop your blanket, his body slouched forward slightly as he scratches at his back. You’ve long noticed he’s swapped some of your pillows with his own—and vice versa when you’ve spent the night at his place. You’re unsure why, and he hasn’t bothered to explain either. 

The pillows crowd around him, and you nudge a few out of the way so you can clamber up onto the mattress and position yourself behind him. You have to raise yourself on top of your knees to properly look down at the back of his head. 

His tail shifts slightly and curls around your legs to keep out of the way. Pulling the comb free from your own hair, you get to work—the moonlight your only source of light.  

Your fingers run through the thick mane of fur on his head. It’s soft and clean for the most part, though you do pull free a few dry stalks of grass from whatever he had been up to during the day. With the comb in one hand, you pick your way through his fur. Smoothing it upwards and searching for any bugs hiding within the thick strands. There are only a few, and you pull them out with quick fingers so you can pass them to Wukong for him to toss lazily into his mouth. It’s better than setting them loose in your apartment. 

Wukong falls into a lulled state as you work, his body lax and very clearly fatigued by now. Your hand smooths up his forehead and over the crown of his head. The comb neatens the strands of fur sticking out by his ears. You work quickly to cover the entirety of his head—if only so he can finally lay down and get some shuteye. 

But as you pull away afterwards, you feel his tail wind around your wrist, and you glance up to see him peering at you over his shoulder. 

“No,” he says quietly, tail tugging you closer to him once more. “Don’t stop. Keep going.”

“I…” You hesitate, your gaze flicking down to the rest of his exposed body. You have never groomed him past his head before—he never gave any indication for it. Until now. “Are you sure?”

“Yep,” is his simple response. “I want you to.” 

You take a moment to observe the side of his face you can see. His openness. His expectancy, even. Then, you nod. “Okay.”

Wukong hums his satisfaction and turns back around. You lower yourself until you’re sitting on your calves and rake your gaze across the expanse of his back. 

His burnt orange fur is a matted and tangled mess from being pressed against his clothes all day. It only vaguely allows you to glimpse the muscles that you know are present just beneath his skin. You linger for only a moment, then reach out a hand to run your fingernails through a patch of knotted fur on his shoulder, right next to a pale, jagged scar. Barely, just barely, Wukong shivers, and it makes you press your lips together.

You get to work. 

There’s a sort of mindless devotion to it, you find. The comb detangles his fur into sleek, straight lines. You don’t find too many bugs—if any at all—likely due to his clothes covering him a majority of the time he’s outside. Really, all you end up doing is neatening his fur section by section. It’s repetitive. Soothing. 

His body radiates a heat that you can feel against your palm as you comb over the lines of his shoulder blades. Each breath he takes seems to echo in your ears. You move in small increments, making your way down and across one of his flanks. 

Faintly, so, so faintly, you can hear a gentle rumble, and it takes you a moment to realize it’s coming from Wukong, deep within his chest. 

“Enjoying yourself?” you ask in soft amusement as you nudge his left arm a little so he can raise it—granting you easier access to the same side of his torso. 

Wukong makes a content sound, his tail moving to rest heavily across your thighs. “You have no idea.”

You chuckle and lean to the side slightly so you can comb through the scattering of fur around his abdomen. Then, you go back to his other flank, repeating the process until you’re satisfied with the way his fur looks. Spick and span. 

“Want me to do your tail too?” you ask, glancing down at said appendage when it shifts minutely on your lap. 

“Mmhm.” He sounds half asleep. 

Grooming his tail does not take you long—the comb moves swiftly through the shorter fur as you guide it from the base of his tail to the tip. And when your hands eventually let go of his tail, it slips around your waist loosely and gives you a little squeeze in silent gratitude. You pat it gently and shift yourself, crawling around Wukong’s body so you can sit cross-legged in front of him. 

“Hand,” you say as you hold up a palm, and Wukong obliges to set his right hand atop your own. You can feel the rough skin and calluses comprising his palm—built up from a millennia of fighting that you can’t even begin to fathom. 

Your fingers curl around his knuckles. You scoot a bit closer until your shins press against his own, then you reach out to begin combing the fur of his upper arm—slowly making your way all the way down to his wrist and the thinner patches of fur on the back of his hand. Focus causes your eyebrows to furrow a little, particularly when you encounter an especially stubborn knot. 

It’s as you’re combing through his other arm that you glance up to his face. Just a quick flick of your eyes, really. But it’s enough for you to see the softness of his expression as he watches you with half-lidded eyes. Entranced, almost. It makes something in your stomach twinge. 

The corner of your mouth twitches. You keep your gaze focused on his arm as you say, “You’re staring.” 

Wukong takes a moment to reply. 

“And if I am?” he eventually murmurs, slouching forward to bring himself just that bit closer to you. His voice lowers. “What’re you gonna do about it?” 

You don’t deem him with a response. You only glance back up at him with a tiny, knowing smile, the distance between both your faces so finite and small. His gaze softens even further, if possible, and he lets himself continue to quietly watch as you finish combing the fur of his wrist. 

Squeezing his fingers, you bring his hand up to your mouth so you can press a gentle kiss to his knuckles. His pupils dilate at the gesture, and you smile when you see his tail swaying back and forth behind him. 

Lowering both of your hands, you take a moment to observe his upper body. His fur is no longer disheveled and in fact sits neat and fluffy where you have gone over it with the comb. You nod to yourself in satisfaction, then find yourself eyeing his chest and stomach.

The smooth skin there is interrupted in certain places by raised burn scars. Your gaze lingers on one on his right pectoral that goes up to his shoulder, and another on his left side that interrupts the orange fur there. They’re old, you know this, but they make your chest ache all the same. 

“Like what you see?” Wukong asks teasingly, grinning when you tear yourself away from looking at his side to meet his golden gaze. 

You smirk and reach out with the comb to neaten the small patch of fur in the middle of the pink, heart-shaped mark on his chest. Wukong glances down to watch for a second, before his gaze gets inevitably drawn back to you—a moth longing after a flame. 

“And if I said yes?” you question slyly as you pat his chest, your fingers lingering over his pink marking. 

“Then I’d say you have excellent taste.” He continues to grin lazily at you, fangs glinting slightly in the dim moonlight. 

You shake your head lightheartedly, and glance down to his exposed shins—fuzzy and soft where they are still pressed against your own. 

“Legs as well?” you ask, more as a check in on how he’s feeling now than anything. He’s still got that fatigued slump to his shoulders, after all. 

He nods, more preoccupied with taking in the sight of you sitting right before him. Like he can’t quite believe this is real. 

It makes you smile, just a little. 

You push yourself away from him so he can stretch his right leg partially out in the space between your sitting bodies. His leg rests atop the bed at an acute angle, and you grab his ankle to set it atop your lap. Like this, you have easy access, and it only takes a small stretch of your arm to reach out to the line where his pink boxer briefs meet the fur of his upper thigh. Carefully, you begin to comb. 

The muscles of his thigh tense slightly when the fine teeth of the comb part his thick fur. Your unoccupied hand rests gently on his knee, and it trails steadily down to his ankle as you continue to groom him. His foot shifts a little when you run the comb through the patch of hair atop it, and you look up to Wukong to gauge how he’s feeling. 

There’s a quietly intense sort of tinge to his expression that you cannot quite read, mixed with a tenderness and something else undefined. He’s thinking heavily, and though you are unsure as to what, it still makes something in your stomach twinge and ache. His eyes rove across your face, taking in the details there like he’s starved, then move down to stare intently at your neck. 

You clear your throat and the look disappears like it had never even been there in the first place. He blinks at you and tilts his head. You take it as an indication to continue. 

“Switch,” you tell him simply with a pat to his leg, and he willingly swaps them out so that his left foot now rests on your lap instead. 

And eventually, after what feels like an eternity of combing, you finish grooming Wukong’s entire body. 

“All done,” you announce with a squeeze to his ankle as you straighten your back—you’d been hunched over the entire time, and you’re starting to feel it in your muscles. Your gaze roves over his neatened fur once more, searching for any spots you may have missed and letting out a pleased sound when you find none. 

When Wukong doesn’t say anything in response, you glance towards his face and feel your expression soften. It’s clear he’s beyond tired now. It shows in his half-lidded gaze, the way his body lists slightly as he slouches forward. He blinks heavily at you—barely managing to keep his eyes open. The endearing sight spurs you to lean forward and press a gentle kiss against his propped-up knee. 

His fur tickles at your nose, and you smile amusedly as you peer up at him through your eyelashes. Wukong looks back at you like he’s watching a particularly stunning sunset. Like he just saw a star shoot across the sky, or a display of bright fireworks. His focus hones in on your lips, sleep-addled as it is.

“That’s not fair,” he mumbles tiredly, soon letting out another large yawn after. “Don’t start somethin’ I can’t finish.” 

You give him a wry grin. “Start something?” you ask innocently as you press your face against his leg. “Start what?” 

His eyes narrow at you—as much as they can anyways; they’re already almost closed with his fatigue—until they are nothing but slits of red and gold. You let out a soft laugh and lean back.

“Alright, bedtime for real,” you tell him with finality as you roll your shoulders. You can see him blinking several times in a row, like he’s trying to wake himself up, and only offer him a warm look. “Lay down, I’ll go toss this in the trash.” 

You wave the comb slightly in the air. Its teeth are full of long strands of Wukong’s fur, and you want to throw it away before the entire thing transforms back into his hair and leaves a mess. But as you shift around to slip off your bed to pad over to the small wastebasket you have in your room, you feel two arms wrap tightly around your torso from the side. 

You have barely enough time to choke out a “What the—“ before you’re being abruptly pulled back. The world tilts and passes in a blur of blankets and pillows. You land on your back with an “oof!” and have just enough stunned sense to register that you’re staring up at your bedroom ceiling before a heavy weight lands directly on your stomach. 

You grunt, then glance down to see Wukong’s thigh—that has draped itself over your torso as he latches onto you like a, well, monkey. He’s practically halfway on top of you, your body sinking into the pillows and blankets around you with his added weight. His arm hugs your chest right under your collarbones, and upon turning your face to the side, you are greeted with the small patch of fur on his sternum. 

“Wukong,” you wheeze, voice muffled slightly. Somehow, you’ve managed to keep your hold on the comb, and it presses into your palm. “You’re crushing me. Get off.” 

“Hmm, no,” he murmurs, an inkling of satisfaction to his drowsy voice, and you can feel the precise moment he lets his body fully relax. The weight on top of you gets significantly heavier. There’s the sensation of his fur brushing against your forehead, and you gather that he’s nuzzling you. “Comfy.” 

“Wukong,” you warn, “I was going to throw the comb out. It’ll make a mess.” 

“‘S not my problem.” 

“It’s your fur.” 

“Shhh,” he hushes you, tightening his grip when you give a small wiggle to test if you can free yourself from his hold. You can’t. He lets his head press against your own and inhales deeply before letting it out in a happy sigh. His breath washes gently down your face, and you wrinkle your nose. “S’late. Sleep.” 

You sigh, long and relenting. “You’re unbelievable,” you say, though not without a tinge of fondness to your voice. You know a lost cause when you’re faced with one. 

“You love me,” is Wukong’s slurred response, and you smile up at the ceiling even though he cannot see it. 

Settling down further into the pillows, you manage to free your hand just enough so you can toss the comb onto the floor. It’s better than rolling around all night in a small pile of fur. You’ll clean it in the morning, you decide. 

With another exhale, you close your eyes, reaching up with a hand to hold onto the arm Wukong has wrapped over your shoulders. His fur is soft against your skin. You give it a little pat. “Good night,” you breathe out, relishing in the warmth that never fails to radiate from Wukong. 

“G’night.” He holds you just that much tighter, like he’s afraid that you’ll disappear overnight. He noses your hair tenderly. “...And… Thank you. For taking care of me.” 

Your lips curl as you breathe out a soft “Anytime.” 

This sort of physical affection—while normally kept more on the down low—only seems to amplify when you’re out in public. And especially around your combined friends. 

Normally, you’re fine with some hand holding, maybe a nuzzle or two. But you’re starting to feel as though he’s pushing your boundaries, just a bit. For what reason or why now of all times, you’re unsure. His clinginess honestly reminds you of when you had both started dating—when Wukong was a little too eager and a little too overbearing once he’d gotten over his initial hesitations. 

But he hasn’t been like that for… years, especially once you’d had a conversation with him about it so long ago. 

At least, until now. 

In any case, it’s mildly embarrassing, though you find that your confusion and concern over his behavior overpowers all else. 

Xiàzhì, this year, falls on a Saturday and as such, you are eager to spend it outside to bask in the encroaching summer weather—courtesy of the Weather Station, of course. It’s absolutely gorgeous outside—clear skies, a warm breeze, ample sunlight—and you manage to convince Wukong to visit one of the nearby food markets with you. He makes a bit of a stink about it at first (“Do we have to?” he’d complained, begrudgingly taking his hoodie when you had offered it to him. “Too many people. Too many smells. S’bothersome.”), but relents rather easily when you promise you can both scurry off to Flower Fruit Mountain afterwards for a little picnic. 

And so, the two of you set off. Wukong trails slightly behind you as you lead the way down sun-kissed streets towards one of the main markets in the food district. As it gets more crowded, though, he steps up to your side and slings an arm around your shoulders. Another weight wraps itself loosely around your waist, and you don’t need to look to know it’s his tail. 

Although there are a handful of demons roaming about undisguised—Wukong had told you a while ago that most prefer to use glamour to hide their obviously demon traits; simply to avoid any unpleasant encounters—Wukong is content to mostly use his hoodie as a cover instead of magic. It’s not like he would experience any adverse reactions from humans, anyways—he is the Great Sage, after all. You think he just doesn’t want the attention right now. If ever, when he’s in the city. Though he does nothing to hide his tail other than wrapping it around your waist or his own.

You glance at his face—his hood casts a shadow across it—though you can’t really make out his eyes with the sunglasses he has covering them. Still, he sends you a small smirk and gently squeezes your shoulders. You roll your eyes at him and turn back to resume your role as navigator. 

The food market is lively at this time of the day. Stalls and vendors crowd the streets. The wind carries various scents ranging from spiced meat to fresh bread. There’s a moderate drone of conversation all around you, but not loud enough to necessitate yelling to be heard by someone. 

You have to squeeze by people standing in line waiting for food and others simply browsing around. Wukong’s arm slips from your shoulders as a result, though he follows close behind you with his tail acting as a tether tying the two of you together. At one point, you glance over your shoulder to peek at him and see that he’s tucked himself deeper into his hoodie, expression inscrutable. 

“Anything catch your eye?” you ask him once you both find an empty corner to stand and look at the stalls from afar. 

Wukong shrugs. “Eh.” With his pinky, he scratches at the inside of one of his ears. “Anythin’ catch yours?” 

“Not particularly,” you reply with a hum as you glance around. The food market is quite large; you’ve barely gone through a quarter of it. You grab Wukong’s hand and tug him back onto the main path. His fingers tighten around your own. “C’mon, let’s keep looking.”

You end up stopping by a stall selling wāndòu gāo—the slices are packaged neatly in these cute paper bags with flowers on it—and another selling xiàzhì dàn in plastic cups with lids to contain the jujube soup. Wukong practically glues himself to your side as you peruse the foods, and you send him a raised eyebrow on more than one occasion when he leans too much into your space while you’re clearly busy. 

It’s as you’re chasing the scent of something vaguely floral around the market that you run into some familiar faces.

Someone calls out your name from behind you, and you turn around curiously to see Mei and MK jogging their way over with excited grins. A few paces behind them is Red Son, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere other than here right now. You have to hold back a snort, especially when you notice MK is wearing a disguise of his own—given his status as Megapolis’ protector and all. 

The three of them come to a stop before you and Wukong—who’d slung his arm back around your shoulders when you hadn’t been paying attention. “Heeeyy lovebirds!” Mei greets at the same time MK beams out a happy “Monkey King!” 

He earns a sharp “shh!” from Wukong. “Quiet, bud! I’m trying to be covert here!” He gestures to his outfit with his free hand. 

MK glances rapidly around the bustling market (there are a few curious glances from some people and demons walking by, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s really noticed, thankfully) and lets out a sheepish “Sorry, sorry, I meant uhh— funky pin!! Yeah!” while Red Son scoffs. 

“Oh please,” he says disdainfully, “like the glaringly obvious monkey tail isn’t a dead giveaway.” He points down to Wukong’s tail, still wrapped comfortably around your waist. 

“Hey now,” Wukong warns lightheartedly, “lots of demons have tails.” 

“Lots of demons don’t have monkey tails in particular,” Red Son replies flatly, a deadpan look on his face. 

“It just looks like an especially fuzzy belt to me,” Mei interjects as she circles around you and Wukong to inspect said ‘belt’. She stops at your side and shrugs. “Works as a fashion statement, T-B-H.” 

MK snickers to himself. “Sun Wukong branded belt,” he says with a sly smile from beneath his fake mustache. “Keeps your pants up with all the strength of the Monkey King himself.” 

Mei grins wildly. “Snatches your waist like Monkey King snatched the immortal peaches.” 

“Adds pizzazz to outfits just li—” 

“Anyways!” you interrupt loudly before the two can keep going—you can see Red Son’s eye twitching and by the way Wukong is grinning, he wasn’t going to be stopping them anytime soon. “I didn't know you guys were here, too. You looking for something in particular? Or just browsing?” 

“MK and I are looking for a stall selling táng húlu,” Mei tells you. She points a thumb over her shoulder. “Red Boy’s tagging along ‘cuz he loves us and our company.” 

“I never said anything of the sort!” 

“He’s just too shy to admit it, ignore him.” 

“You!! Dragon Girl—!” 

“What are you guys doing here?” MK asks over the sound of Red Son fuming at Mei. “Enjoying the awesome weather too? Or is— is something nefarious happening at this food market?” His voice lowers with the latter part of his sentence as he whispers hurriedly to Wukong.  

“Nahhh.” Wukong waves MK off, then reaches over to give his brown hair a tussle. “The only thing nefarious going on here are these prices. Yeesh.” 

You roll your eyes. “They’re not even that bad.” You’re the one who’s paying for everything anyways. 

Wukong sniffs. “Free would be less bad.” You snort in response. 

“Is it cool if we tag along with you guys?” Mei asks excitedly once she pulls herself away from bickering with Red Son. She looks at you with bright eyes. “Feels like it’s been forever since we all hung out!” 

“Oooh! Yeah!” MK practically vibrates in place with his giddiness, his hair an absolute mess because of Wukong. Quickly, he fixes it, tucking it back underneath his hood. “I don’t even remember the last time I saw Monkey King in the city!” 

You give Wukong a side eye at that and decide not to mention how often he’s popped by your apartment in this week alone. Wukong only clears his throat and wisely avoids your gaze. 

“Sure,” you agree easily as you turn back to MK. “I think there’s a táng húlu stall up ahead somewhere. Let’s go.” 

With your group size increasing from two to five, more time is spent looking at the numerous stalls. You don’t mind; you’re content to browse at your own pace and wander leisurely behind MK and Mei as they run up to any vendors who catch their eyes. Wukong stays in pace with you, a constant presence nestled into your side, even when you tell him he can go hang out with MK if he wants. 

“Eh,” he says lightly in response, “I’m fine right here.” He squeezes your shoulder meaningfully, and you smile softly at him. 

You do notice, though, that he becomes increasingly more affectionate while you make your way through the market. It starts with him leaning his head against yours, pressing his cheek to your temple. Which is fine, and all, but he doesn’t move a single inch even as you both continue perusing the stalls. It makes navigating just a little… difficult. 

And then, at one point, he turns his head to nose at your face—making his way from the point of your eyebrow to the lobe of your ear. His fur tickles at your skin, and you can feel his mouth rub against your cheek on more than one occasion. His breath as he exhales is hot when he reaches your neck. It makes something warm settle in the pit of your stomach. 

You let him nuzzle you for a bit, thinking that he will eventually ease up. But he just keeps on doing it. Over and over and over. 

Even you have your limits. 

“Wukong,” you mutter under your breath at him while you both wait for MK and Mei to grab their orders at the táng húlu stall. You saw Red Son wander off to check out a different stall earlier—which is good, since you don’t want him around to hear this. Your eyes flick warily about, and when you catch the eye of a few strangers, you feel embarrassment start to make its way up your neck. “We are in public.” 

“Are we really?” he mutters back, still nosing at your hairline without a single care in the world. “I hadn’t noticed.” 

“Wukong,” you hiss, now starting to get a little cross. Usually he backs off when you tell him to, but he’s being oddly relentless today. “Can this not wait until we’re alone?” 

“Hmmm, nope! Very urgent Monkey King business, you see,” he tells you in an almost teasing manner. You huff and attempt to lean away from his touch, but his grip suddenly turns to steel. “Ah ah! Stay still, Sunshine~”  

Eye twitching, you do the exact opposite and instead reach over with your free hand to promptly pinch at his ear. 

“Ow ow ow, okay okay, yeesh!” Wukong squawks out as he quickly detaches himself from your side and hops a few steps away. The motion makes you let go and raise an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. He pouts back at you, rubbing at the no doubtfully reddened portion of his ear through his hood. “Meanie.”

You roll your eyes. “For that, you’re on bag duty,” you tell him sternly as you hold out the plastic bags of food you’d been toting around. 

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” he complains even as he takes the bags from you. If possible, his pout deepens, and you know if he hadn’t been wearing those sunglasses, he’d be giving you the wettest puppy eyes right now. “Me, the love of your life.” 

You snort and turn your head away just as MK and Mei wander back with their sticks of fruit. “Cry about it.” 

He doesn’t, but you think he comes damn near close to faking it just to get you to coo over him. The big baby. 

While you follow the trio of young adults around, Wukong trails sullenly after you. Occasionally, you glance behind you to check on him, but he looks just as miserable as ever. You know he’s playing it up—and yet there’s this faint concern, lingering in the back of your mind. That stems from all the instances thus far where Wukong has been acting a little strange. Unusual, even for him. 

You sigh, and feel all your irritation at him slip away like water through your fingers. Worry makes your eyebrows furrow. There’s something more at play here—has been, for a while now—though you’re still not sure what. 

It’s what makes you keep your mouth shut when Wukong starts standing directly behind you. Hovering, though not quite touching, just yet. You give him a few looks—he meets them with his own innocent ones, like he’s not clearly planning something—but ultimately do not say anything. 

And well, if there’s any word to describe Wukong, it’s persistent. 

“Don’t waste your money on fruit we can get back on the mountain,” Wukong tells you with a huff as he tugs you away from your inspection of a fresh fruit stall with his tail curled around your hips. You’d been wondering how long he’d last without clinging to you. The answer? Not long at all. “I have an entire kingdom we can reap from.” 

“Yeah but does your kingdom have fruit cut in the shape of a flower?” you ask as you point to a mango that has been carved to look like an intricate rose. You very pointedly decide not to bring attention to the way his tail sneakily wraps a few more times around your waist. 

Wukong scoffs, pulling you into his side like you’re nothing more than a ragdoll. You have to suppress an eye roll. “Well. No, but it can.” 

“Right,” you say in amusement. His arm slings itself back around your shoulders after a moment of him waiting to see if you’ll push him away. Your lips twitch. “And who’s gonna do all that?” 

“Me, obviously.” 

“Oh?” You grin slyly and turn to face Wukong—as much as you can, anyways. You cross your arms. “Really, now? You’ll do it?”

“You doubt my capabilities?” He puffs out his chest. “I can assure you that the Monkey King knows how to make some easy-peasy fruit art.” 

“Those are some famous last words if I’ve ever heard them,” you say as you turn away and nudge his arm off of you. Close by is a stall selling máyóu liángbànmiàn topped with cucumber slices and cabbage in small containers—it had caught your eye earlier. You wander towards it. 

Wukong’s tail grows taut around your waist for a moment, before he inevitably follows after you. “Can’t be last words if I’m, well, immortal,” he says—his voice a little stilted in a way that makes you glance curiously at him. But nothing seems to be the matter based on his expression, so you return your attention back to the table of noodles.

“Uh huh.” You can see MK and Mei at the other end of the table, looking at small baskets of bāozi. You make a mental note to check those out after. 

A weight presses itself against your back. You don’t need to look to know it’s Wukong; you feel it when he lowers his head so that his hair tickles at the side of your face. “But ya know,” he drawls quietly into your ear, “this would be a lot easier if you just let me—“

“Wukong, for the last time,” you interrupt him flatly, shooting him an unimpressed look, “I am not eating something transformed from your hair.” 

He pouts. “It doesn’t even taste like hair.” 

“Me when I lie.” His pout deepens at your words, but you continue, “Regardless, it is still hair,” you reply plainly, picking up a few containers of the máyóu liángbànmiàn and waving down the stall owner to hand them some money. You turn back to Wukong and pass him the noodles so he can put them in one of the plastic bags he’s holding. “And who knows when you’ve last had a bath.” 

“I bathe regularly!” he protests, his hands moving to cross over his chest as he follows you over to the bāozi section. “Look at you, hurting my feelings like this. I should sue. I have a lawyer, you know.”

“Yeah yeah, complain all you want,” you say with a snort, then startle slightly when you feel him grab you by the shoulders from behind and spin you around to face him. 

Wukong’s face lowers a tad to hover just in front of your own. “You know what would make me feel better?” he murmurs, his breath fanning across your cheeks. He leans forward to press his lips by your ear. “A kiss. Maybe two.” 

You raise an eyebrow, your voice lowering to imitate his own. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he responds breathlessly, and you can feel it when he rubs his face into the crux of your neck. Honestly, it’s like he can’t go a single second without some form of contact with you today. Your lips press together.  

“Hmmm.” You make a show out of thinking about it, then ultimately reach over to grab his face and push it gently away. Your hand squishes his cheeks together—it makes his lips purse out at you like he’s some strange kind of fish. “I’ll consider it later if you behave,” you tell him steely, your eyes flicking about in consciousness of your surroundings. 

Wukong sags in disappointment—a puppet cut from its strings. He peers at you from above his sunglasses, golden eyes pleading with you. “But what if I want it now?” he whines out through his puckered mouth.

You can’t hold back your eye roll this time. You gently give his head a little shake and open your mouth to tell him to stop being a baby. But before you can even get a word out, you are interrupted by a familiar, irritated voice.

“Eugh, can you two stop your flagrant canoodling for one blasted second?!” Red Son erupts from behind you and Wukong. His suddenly loud appearance makes you jump slightly—you hadn’t noticed he’d been standing there. Your head snaps towards him, where he’s practically fuming from the ears. “If I have to bear witness to such atrocities any longer—“ 

“Aw I think it’s cute!” Mei cuts across him, and you blink rapidly when you see her and MK wandering closer—having already made their bāozi purchases. Mei has a dopey smile on her face and clasps her hands near her cheek like she’s looking at something particularly precious. “Monkey King in looove~” she croons once she stops close by. 

“Nah, actually I’m with Red Son on this,” MK replies through a mouthful of a bun, sticking his tongue out in disgust. And then, on top of that, he gives you and Wukong a thumbs down. “Get a room, you two.” 

You can feel a burning sensation starting to creep its way up your neck. It makes you hastily let go of Wukong’s face and move to step away. But his tail tightens around your waist, and he tugs you back into his side before opening his stupid, stupid mouth. 

“Oh?” he jeers in a way that makes your heart sink with dread. The side of his head presses against your own. “Bothering you, is it? Say, what do you think of this?” 

And then he promptly licks a medial stripe from the bottom of your chin to the top of your forehead.

“Monkey King, you rascal!” MK exclaims at the same time Mei lets out a delighted “Ewww!” 

“Wukong!” you burst out in turn, your face feeling as though it has practically conflagrated underneath the wetness of his saliva. “We! Are! In! Public!”

But it all gets lost in the absolutely appalled sound Red Son lets out. And then he storms off, muttering something about you and Wukong being worse than his parents that makes you feel infinitely more embarrassed, if possible. 

“I’ll get him,” Mei groans after a second and jogs after the redhead with a loud “Red Boy! Wait up!”

You stare after them for a second, then turn back to stare incredulously at Wukong when he pulls his face from your own and lets out a pleased hum. 

“Hn.” He rubs at his chin almost thoughtfully, then shoots you a wicked grin. “I’m surprised he lasted that long, honestly.” 

Your mouth opens, then closes. You throw your hands up in exasperation. 

“I cannot believe you!” you blurt and spin on your heel to march away. You don’t get all too far before you feel the tug of his tail still around your waist, but he lets it slip off of you rather easily. “Ugh!” 

“Welp, bud, looks like this is where we split off for the day,” you hear Wukong tell MK cheerfully. You don’t catch MK’s response, too focused on getting away. You can still feel Wukong’s saliva stuck to your lips and nose; vigorously, you wipe it away with your sleeve. 

It doesn’t take long for Wukong to eventually catch up to you. “Hey! Slow down! Are we done shopping?” 

You squint at him. “Licking me in the middle of a food market,” you say instead as your incensed response. Your eyes dart around purposely before you snap them back to him in a narrowed glare. “The nerve!” 

Wukong’s hands lift into the air as though in surrender, the plastic bag of food dangling from his elbow. “Whaaat? C’mon, it wasn’t that bad. The look on Red Boy’s face was definitely worth it!” 

You want to argue with him, you really do. But then he slips a hand around one of your own—clenched as they are, at your sides—and gives it a little squeeze. 

“M’sorry, for what it’s worth,” he tells you gently, and damn it, it goes straight to your heart. “I just—” He hesitates for a second—but only a second—then gives his head a little shake. Resolutely, he peers at you over the rim of his sunglasses. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.” 

You stare at him with a frown for a moment, your eyes flicking back and forth between his left one and his right one. 

Something more at play here, you remind yourself begrudgingly. Something that you cannot dissect in the middle of a food market. Not today. You let out a deep, deep sigh. 

“You are so annoying, you know that?” you eventually grumble, tugging him along so you both can get out of this damn place and finally head over to Flower Fruit Mountain. 

Wukong gives you a cheeky, little grin. “And yet what would you do without me?” 

you lift an eyebrow. "different how?"

he clears his throat and waves you off. "that's not important." and before you can give him an unimpressed look, he sighs loudly. "okay, fine. you don't wanna spar with me, i get it." he straightens up and folds his arms behind his head. you're suspicious that he gave up so quickly, but make no move to say anything, instead just squinting up at him.

wukong turns around, his tail flicking lazily side to side. "you're right. you wouldn't last against me at all." he sighs again. "i know, it's probably embarrassing, really. i understand."

your eye twitches.

he doesn't stop there, much to your chagrin. "it's okay. i'll just have to ask MK to spar with me again since you're clearly too scared to—"

it's embarrassing how easily he gets you with those simple words.

"ugh, okay fine!" you spit out as you toss your book to the side and stand up with a vicious glare on your face. "fine, i'll spar with you. but just this once, okay?" wukong doesn't even bother to hide the victorious beam on his face as he spins around to face you once more.

"great!" he chirps, ecstatic. "glad you've finally come to your senses. now c'mon!"

he grabs your wrist and tugs you out of the shade of the tree and towards an empty section of the beach on flower fruit mountain. you're grumbling to yourself as you let him guide you, the sunlight from above faintly scorching as it presses against your skin.

wukong lets go of your wrist when you're both centered in the clearing. the sand shifts under your shoes, the gentle sound of the ocean's waves ebbing and flowing in the background. a perfect day for not sparring, you think sullenly to yourself.

“let’s get this shit over with, then,” you say with a sigh as you shuck your shoes off to the side and begin to stretch out your arms and legs.

wukong snickers as he rolls one of his shoulders, then the other. “ah don’t be such a downer, i’ll go easy on ya.”

“i think your definition of ‘easy’ is different from mine,” you reply dryly as you crack your neck, then bend backwards with your hands on your hips so that you’re squinting up at the bright blue sky.

“eh, won’t know until we test it out, right?”

at that you straighten up to give him the stink eye, then blink when you see he’s tossed his hoodie off to the side as well as his shoes. it leaves his upper body exposed; the thick, burnt-orange fur along his arms and shoulders, as well as the patch of peach fuzz on his chest in the characteristic shape of a heart.

rarely have you ever seen wukong like this; always hiding behind his hoodie or his monkey king armor. it makes something familiar in your stomach abruptly jolt.

your eyes narrow at him in an attempt to dispel the feeling; you are trying to be irritated at him here. “is that really necessary?”

"what?" he asks innocuously like he isn't fully aware of what he's doing. he's not even trying to hide the mischievous grin on his face. "not gonna distract you, is it?"

you can't help the scoff that escapes your lips. you don't bother to deign him with a response; instead, you sink down into a fighting stance, your hands positioned in front of your face and chest as your legs widen.

wukong smiles even wider, if possible, his fangs glinting in the overhead sunlight. he rolls his head around his neck, bounces a few times on the balls on his feet, then copies your pose—albeit a bit looser. it makes your eye twitch again, but you say nothing.

salt lingers on your tongue as you breathe in, then out. the leaves of the trees lining the beach rustle and sway with each passing breeze. your gaze locks with a set of bright gold ones that seem to pierce down to your very soul.

a heartbeat. two. then—

you move first.

sand is kicked up into the air as you aim a sharp jab towards wukong's face. he pivots to the left to avoid it, but you’re ready and swing yourself into a roundhouse kick that he blocks with his arms.

"good!" he praises with delight, a sharp smile aimed your way from where your shin is straining against his forearms. "very good!"

"shut it," you grunt and whip your leg back so you can duck down and aim a sweep at his ankles.

wukong's nimble, you know this, and it especially shows when he hops over your foot. you follow the motion of your sweep to twist yourself back into a standing position and have just enough time to duck under a punch aimed at your nose.

you can practically feel the way the wind whips at your hair following his punch. if you take even one of his hits, you might end up in a hospital, you think to yourself with a grimace.

"i thought you said you'd go easy on me?!" you shout as you shove yourself backwards to avoid a heavy front kick from him.

wukong grins wildly. "i am!"

your scoff gets swallowed up as you redirect another one of his punches and lift your front leg to kick at his chest. he drops down into a split like it's the most effortless thing in the world, and you have just enough time to snap your head down to see the smirk he aims up at you before he's twisting his leg around to sweep you.

stupid monkey, you curse in your head as you roughly hit the sand and promptly roll away before he can pounce atop you to pin you down.

as you spar, you have no doubt that wukong is having the time of his life. and indeed, you can see it in his expression every time he dodges one of your attacks or when you manage to twist yourself away from one of his by the skin of your teeth. it makes your stomach do something funny again, and you do your best to push it all down for the time being.

it doesn't help that he makes little comments every now and then when he's particularly pleased at one of your moves.

"that's it!" he exclaims when you use his own chest to kick away from him before he can grab you by the ankle. "you're doin' pretty well, sunshine!"

"excellent! now do it again, but faster!" he tells you after you've managed to nick at the corner of his shoulder with a reverse kick. "harder!"

and you are certain—well into your fight—that he's showing off his skill and flexibility with every swift motion.

it's almost annoying, really. his body twists and ducks and rolls in ways you can only dream of doing yourself. he pulls elaborate moves by balancing on his tail and using momentum to swing his body around. you almost call it quits when he easily back flips under one of your wider kicks, but your irritation at his smug face fuels your fire even more.

you do take a handful of hits on your forearms and legs, but you think he toned down his strength after your initial exclamation, because they don't hurt as much as you'd expected. you can't quite land a proper hit on him, though, as much as you try. he isn't the great monkey king for nothing.

you're irritated, of course you are; but you're also sweaty and tired and you can feel the way sand sticks to your skin. it doesn't help that wukong looks the same as he did when you both first started; that is, like he didn't just spend who-knows-how-long fighting. the fur on his arms might be a tad more ruffled than usual, but you chalk it up to all the movement.

quite honestly, you're unsure how much longer you'll last, but you're determined to catch him off guard at least once.

you're lucky the opportunity presents itself when he tries to show off again.

there's a moment—a quick, quick moment—where he front flips himself over your head to land behind you. and you have a split second, as you rapidly spin to face him, where he's facing away from you.

you don't hesitate.

you lunge towards him.

you don't think he'd expected you to react so quickly. you can feel him jump slightly as your arms wrap tightly around his torso and your cheek presses into the thick fur of his back. there is no other thought in your mind other than some semblance of victory.

you plant your feet into the ground, muscles clenching—

—and then you heave.

there is resistance, at first. you chalk it up to him being that fucking heavy, stone origin ever so prevalent. he makes a confused sound, and then—like a switch going off—that resistance completely vanishes.

you grunt as you lift wukong up, then bend backwards to suplex him with a resounding thump!

wukong lets out a muffled "oof!" but you don't waste any time. you release him, then roll away to scramble back up to your feet, sweating profusely. but before you can make it even a few steps away, something fuzzy wraps around your ankle and yanks you back to the ground.

you yelp once you strike the sand, then twist onto your back just in time for a weight to settle itself on top of your waist in the form of wukong tossing himself atop you.

he grins over you, loose grains of sand falling down from his hair, as his hands press down firmly on your shoulders. "hey that was pretty good! i'm impressed!"

you huff and grab at his wrists to try to pry him away from you. "it didn't even stun you for five seconds."

"well, no, but it was a good attempt, anyways!" he says in amusement. "maybe if you keep trying you'll stun me for six seconds!"

you roll your eyes and abruptly shove him off of you with your hips. he falls to the side almost willingly after a split second of resistance. your eyes narrow, but you brush it off so you can catch him in a headlock as he rolls away.

your arms tighten around his neck. wukong's hands automatically come up to grasp at your forearms, but he makes no attempt to pry them away. instead—to your immense annoyance—he chuckles. and that's your only warning before he throws himself into a front barrel roll.

the wind is knocked from your lungs as your back hits the ground and his weight rolls into your stomach. it forces you to release him, and you blink almost dizzily as you find yourself splayed on the ground with wukong sitting backwards on your stomach. goddamnit.

his tail flicks at your nose as he peeks over his shoulder to look down at you with a grin. "getting a bit bold now, are we?"

you huff—as much as you can anyways as you try to catch your breath. "i haven't even started biting yet."

wukong smiles, and it is all teeth. "now there's a thought!"

"wh— you— wukong, no—" you yelp as he twists around, his jaw opening like a fucking snake to bite at your shoulder. you are just able to shove your hands against his shoulders and push until you shove him off of you.

wukong doesn't let you go that easily, however. he grapples with you, wrestling you back towards him even when you try to escape and squirm and do your best to get away from his mouth. it leaves the both of you a twisting, shifting mass on the sand. his chest presses against your own, his fur brushes along your exposed skin, and you can feel his laughter as he writhes around to keep you pinned to the sand.

and yet, amidst all the flurry of movement and pushing and pulling, he still finds some way to make your stomach do that familiar flipping it's been doing since he had talked you into sparring with him.

"what the—" you blink down rapidly at him as warmth crawls up your neck and towards a particular hot spot on your cheek. "wukong stop that!"

"stop what?" he asks cheekily as he quickly leans up again to peck at the other side of your cheek. "'s not distracting you, is it?"

this guy. "i hate you so bad," you manage to grit out as your arms continue to strain against his own. he just plants another kiss on the tip of your nose. "stop!"

and as much as you struggle and hit him—he takes each blow easily, like they're nothing more than a breath of air—you are unable to win.

you inevitably relent as he sits on top of your hips for the umpteenth time, your breathing labored and your skin sticky with sweat and sand. you let yourself sink bonelessly into the ground. "alright, i'm done."

wukong smiles happily at you, content. "and you said you didn't wanna spar with me," he says. "look how much fun we had!"

"fun," you drone flatly, bruised and sore as all hell. "right."

he leans forward, his shadow casting itself across your face. "i'm proud of how long you lasted, for what it's worth," he tells you gently. "you certainly gave me a run for my money!"

"don't lie, you didn't even break a sweat," you grunt, fanning at your face that's hot with exertion and... something else. "i know you let me suplex you too, you aren't fooling me."

"ah well"—he scratches sheepishly at his face—"yeah, okay, i did."

you roll your eyes. "whatever. will you finally stop bothering me to spar with you now?"

"ehhhhh, weeelll." the expression he's wearing does not make you feel reassured at all. "about that...."

"oh come on!" you complain. you don't even want to imagine doing this with him again; you're exhausted. "MK can give you a better challenge, y'know."

at that, wukong cocks his head thoughtfully at you. and after a short pause, he eventually responds.

"i don't think i can fight with MK the same way i just did with you," he says simply.

you... don't know what to say. you stare up at him with a face that feels like it's about to conflagrate. you swallow, and you swear he traces the motion of your neck with his gaze.

"right," you say, mouth lined with cotton. and then, in an attempt to pull yourself together, you clear your throat and slap at his thigh. "now get the hell off of me."

Honestly the first thing I would do is chuck the main cast out. Start with the premise and build from there - we want a new, fresh young face to inherit Wukong's powers and go on adventures fighting monsters? Okay, well why does it have to be a human kid living in a futuristic city (only for it to later be revealed he's Wukong's..........stone sibling? I still don't really know how to explain him coming from the same stone but hatching so many years later)?

Why not start on Mount Huagou itself? Why not have a young monkey yaoguai that grew up revering and actually knowing Wukong - not just as a god but as family - want to follow in his footsteps and be a great hero? You could even work in the angle of them being a fan of his journey into the story by having them be literal bedtime stories told by Wukong himself at the communal bonfire on their mountain every night for dinner just like they had MK be a fan of the books! (Even though he always had the wrong information and never remembered how the story went and everyone kept calling him out for not knowing stuff he supposedly did know because he read the books - not to mention that the writing team CLEARLY DIDN'T READ THEM EITHER BUT I am not ranting about that right now-)

So not only does this give our monkey protag a cool starting place - Mount Huagou is supposed to be GORGEOUS and in an eternal state of spring with dragons and phoenixes - but it also gives us a very real and believable motivation and connection to Wukong himself. They grew up with him always hanging around, it would be similar to a kid growing up thinking their dad/grandpa was the coolest person ever and wanting to be like them! This also gives an easy opening for them to have a basic understanding of martial arts and magic! Wukong trained his entire army and his generals when he returned home from Master Subodhi's school - it makes sense in his free time as a Buddha and King that he would want to spend time with younger monkeys in his clan and teach them these things as well.

And with all that set up - it would be so easy for Wukong to see the fire and spirit this young monkey has, laugh about how they remind him of himself when he was younger, and give them permission to leave and start their own journey to find themselves. He could give them their own special weapon - could give them Jingu Bang I suppose, but I honestly feel like giving them their own weapon that has cool powers would be way more fun because the overarching theme of the show would be that they are not like Wukong, they are themselves, and they have their own inherit value in what they bring to the world and how they see it. Wukong encourages them to find their own path and do what works for them because they will never be him and that's not only okay, its good.

It could even have this fun, subtle call back to the books themselves where our monkey protag is in the place of Wukong, on their own journey, and Wukong himself is now in the role of Guanyin (and a little bit, Tang Monk). He is the one our protag runs to when they need advice or help, and after achieving enlightenment and spending so many years learning from his mistakes - growing and changing and becoming better - Wukong is able to give very practical and good advice, and act like the god he is worshiped as today, someone you go to for guidance and protection.

The basic formula/framework for the show could even follow the books - a monster of the week type deal where you bring in different yaoguai and legends that monkey protag has to fight or help in someway, and even the supporting cast being some really cool demon ideas that stick around. You could also so EASILY follow in the footsteps of other shows like Avatar the Last Airbender where you weave in the philosophy and ideology of Taoism and Buddhism, with some very poignant lessons and badass fight scenes that are creative and memorable, and it doesn't come at the cost of making Wukong look like an idiot. Go dark with it even! They could have some serious, difficult issues that they have to face and overcome on their own journey to better themselves as individuals and grow stronger, and end the series with monkey protag coming home and resting and finding that they have a much better understanding and connection to their personal hero after everything they've faced.

This is me just spitballing the basic premise as well, there is so much you can do with an idea like this.