Chapter Text
Mk was not insecure.
He was impulsive, sure, but his confidence was undeniable. To everyone around him, Mk was the most secure person in the room. He was honest, unapologetically so, he wore his heart on his sleeve and tried to be an open book about everything.
Except one minor thing.
His name.
Mk’s name isn’t really Mk, it was Qi Xiaotian, and it will always be Qi Xiaotian.
The name he’d be given at birth. The one written on a certificate that proves without a doubt that his name isn’t MK and that his parents didn’t even care to write a proper signature.
He can scrub at it, try to scorch everyone’s memory of it, play dumb about it, but he would always know. He can try so hard to forget but there at night the syllables make sure to remind him.
Maybe it was the way Mk let himself be haunted by his own past but he couldn’t just let go. It was hatred and guilt from years before, from a time that all he knew was baby fat tears and an indifferent speaking tone. Memories that made his stomach twist back into knots and send him back to being a sad, lonely boy who cried over everything. A boy who wept for parents who never came. A boy whose name was Qi Xiaotian, but was also mistake.
So maybe, to the outside world, Mk hated himself too. But he denied it, day after day, because his name haunted him more than anything else.
He never introduced himself as Qi Xiaotian. Ever. He never said, “Hello, my name is Qi Xiaotian.”
Even in school, when he had to write his name at the top of his papers, he would pause, hestitance nudging at him as his pencil hovered over the paper. He’d write it and the words would smear from his tears or maybe his now clammy hands. Then just like always he was that little boy again, alone and sniffling in the corner. It felt like betrayal—betrayal to himself. It was a name turned so bitter that it was synonymous with everything bad.
.
.
.
There was only one person who had ever made it feel okay to be called anything close to his real name.
Her name was Long Xiaojiao.
Xiaojiao was the first person who saw through the facade of “Mk,” even before Mk was Mk. The first time they met was nothing extraordinary, nothing worth remembering for the world—but for him, it changed everything.
Xiaotian had been walking home, deliberately taking the long way route to avoid the emptiness of it all, the silence that greeted him every day. If the boredom didn’t tuck him in that night then it was the shadows kissing him goodnight. If he wandered long enough, his parents would be out, in the clouds and worry free. As he walked, he felt the familiar sting of tears threatening to fall, but he refused to cry.He was always crying. But even with his best efforts his eyes were getting that familiar sting as he kicked rocks at his feet, trying to ignore the ache in his chest.
And then Xiaotian looked up.
A black-haired girl was standing on the dirt road just outside the bustling metropolis (she was also crying, although she would never include that in her account of events). She shouldn't have been out for so long; her clothes were still pristine, and she was dressed entirely in white, which said volumes to Xiaotian. Maybe she had too much noise and walked too far. Maybe she was also taking the long way home.
Xiaotian, awkward and unsure, fumbled over his name when he introduced himself. But Xiaojiao wasn’t bothered by it. She didn’t care about the stutter. She reached out her hand to him, taking in what warmth she could without a second thought.
.
.
.
“Qi Xiaotian,” she said, the name rolling off her tongue like it was the simplest thing in the world. By now her tears were replaced with puffy eyes and a sniffling nose, Xiaotian passed her a tissue, a silent understanding from one crybaby to another.
Xiaojiao was, as it turned out, trying to get home as well, but by herself. She was a super important somebody from somewhere and her family was being escorted to some place. She didn't really explain anything well but did say she had a bodyguard that just wouldn't even let her look at this “superultramegacool” bike she saw in the distance.
So she ran. Got scolded. Ran. Got lost.
Maybe it was that fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he laughed so freely, or the sun set being too hushed, or the way she said that name again to shut him up, or maybe he was just tired.
But he started sobbing.
It was then that Xiaotian told her how much he hated the name, how he wished he could erase it from the world entirely. Xiaojiao, with her tiny heart and tinier hands, didn’t have the words to fix it, but she hugged him tight, offering a promise of support.
“When a name is forced upon you,” she said softly, “it carries a weight that doesn’t belong to you. At least that's what my parents say—y’know. That bullies only do mean things to hurt people because they can.” It does little to heal his hurt heart but then — “But with you, I’ll give your name the care it deserves.”
And from that moment on, Xiaotian wasn’t just Xiaotian anymore. Xiaojiao, who became his sister in everything but blood, had given him love.
She was the only one he could allow to call his true name and even then she refrained from doing so choosing pet names or a simple ‘bro’ instead.
She was healing him in so many ways but they were young and even if he finally felt home, apparently everywhere else hadn’t gotten the memo that young Qi Xiaotian got himself a Mei and was trying to move on. His dilapidated apartment walls still taunted his flaws, that his name was just another way of saying he was nothing. So, yeah even if it had gotten just a bit easier, it didn't mean it stopped getting worse.
Things only looked to get better when slacks and stuffy uniform vests were swapped out for comfortable clothing on a full-time basis. Xiaotian could move via the open market with open scheduling. However, his voice carried a little too loudly, his legs bounced a little too much, and—
“This is hopeless. No one wants to hire a dropout. It’s like—you don't need a masters to work as a mechanic anyways so what’s the deal?”
Finding humor in his pain, Mei adds, “You need to at least know what an engine does,though.”
Xiaotian chooses to not dignify her with a response. She was right of course but it wasn't her job to be right.
“What-ever! I got one more. This is gonna be the one. Watch.”
Now in Xiaotians defense he hadn’t meant to make such an awkward first impression. All he wanted was a job—something stable, something to keep him afloat. He ran away and he really wanted that ‘away’ part to stick. He had been wandering through the city when he saw the sign in the window of Pigsy’s Noodles: HELP WANTED. Steeling his nerves, he stepped inside, the scent of broth and freshly cooked noodles wrapping around him like a warm hug. The man behind the counter—Pigsy (he figured)—raised an eyebrow at him.
“You here for food or somethin’ else, kid?” Pigsy asked, arms crossed over his chest.
Mk cleared his throat. “Uh, the sign outside! The help wanted one? I called a week ago and the …guy.. they told me to come in today?.”
Pigsy gave him a once-over. Mk suddenly became hyper-aware of his scuffed shoes and the slight shake in his hands.
“What’s your name, kid?”
He knew what he should say—what he needed to say. His throat tightened. If he said it out loud, it would feel like he was accepting it, like he was allowing it to define him. So, that even in this new chapter, he would remain stupid little Xiaotian?
“Uh—” He let out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you need my name? Can’t I just, y’know, work hard and earn my place here?”
Pigsy narrowed his eyes. “Kid, that’s not how interviews work.”
“Technically,” a scholar looking customer cut in, flipping a page in his book, “you haven’t even started the interview. You kinda just walked in, and tripped over the door frame ”
(Ok. Not an ally.)
Pigsy sighed, rubbing his temple. “Look, you got a last name?”
“…I mean, yeah.”
“That’ll do. What is it?”
Xiaotian paused again. His last name didn't make things any better. It was just another aspect of his identity he did not want to claim. Another aspect of his life that he wanted to escape.
“…You can just call me ‘Kid,’” he finally muttered.
Pigsy gave him a long, scrutinizing look before sighing again. “Fine. ‘Kid’ it is.”
The scholar hummed. “Not the weirdest name I’ve heard.”
“I—I can work hard! I promise! I don’t have a lot of experience, but I learn fast and—”
But then Pigsy let out a sigh again. “Alright, alright. You’re a mess, kid, but you’ve got heart. You start tomorrow. But don’t go breakin’ my dishes, got it?”
Mk’s eyes widened. “Really?”
The scholar chuckled. “Pigsy’s a softie. He likes strays.”
And that was how it started.
.
.
.
At first, Mk struggled. He fumbled orders, tripped over his own feet, and nearly set a dish towel on fire once. But Pigsy was patient (in his gruff, loud way), and that strict scholar always had some weird history fact to distract him from getting too in his head. They didn’t ask about his past, didn’t pry into why he needed this job so badly. They just accepted “Kid.” . It was easy, safe—something Pigsy could shout across the ramen shop without making Xiaotian flinch.
The scholar had a name. He joked about Xiaotian's one-sided feud with him, but supplied his name was Tang. Tang was always babbling about something—old stories and histories that no one asked about but that he found fascinating. Xiaotian didn't intend to get sucked in, but Then the history facts turned mystical, suddenly Monkey King's name came up.
“Wait, the Monkey King?” Xiaotian perked up, barely realizing how eager he sounded.
Tang blinked. “Of course. One of the most well-documented figures in mythology—”
And that was it. Xiaotian was hooked.
The hyper focus caught Xiaojiao off guard. She wasn't weirded out; she was just startled that he likes hearing about Journey to the West, which was swiftly replaced by amusement when Xiaotian only really retained info about the ‘super cool' Monkey King' bits. If you squinted, you could even call her offended—a monkey or a dragon, more than friends but not lovers, yet so much more, but he picked the monkey.
“Mk,” she said, laughing , slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Short for Monkey Kid. ‘Cause, y’know, you never shut up about Monkey King.”
He rolled his eyes, but… the name stuck.
Pigsy started using it without question. Tang hummed in approval. Mei wouldn’t let him go by anything else. And for the first time, Xiaotian—no, MK—felt like he had a name that actually belonged to him, not one given to him by people who didn’t care. Not one that tied him to a past he was trying to escape.
This one was his. A name from people who loved him. A name that felt like home.
Maybe Xiaotian was finally laid to rest. Maybe it was that simple.
Then he met Monkey King.