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“Have you met your soulmate?” MK asks one afternoon, and Wukong pauses mid-bite.
He tilts his head, his golden eyes unfocused as he thinks about all the evidence, he has pointing him to his soulmate. The years and years of ignoring every string, letter and angry goose.
“I don’t have one.” He lies, and MK’s eyes widen for a second before he jumps up animatedly, his hands moving just as fast as his mouth.
“But what about your string? And, and I’ve seen your palm- their handwriting is really-”
“I don’t have a soulmate, kid. All that junk about the string of fate and ink marks and all that first word garbage is just that. Garbage.” Wukong laughs mirthlessly.
MK stands across from him, his face uncharacteristically serious. “If you ignore your first tie to your soulmate, the universe will give you another, and another, and another until you accept the bond.” He recites the first thing they teach kids, a lesson passed down generation after generation.
MK looks down to the strings that are tied around his littlest finger. “And there’s more than one kind of soulmate.”
Wukong sighs and steps forward, placing his hands on the kid’s shoulders. “Bud, I didn’t mean to be a downer or anything. I know I’m tied to somebody. But for all intents and purposes, I don’t have a soulmate because it would be a bad idea. You know the kind of life I lead.”
MK frowns as Wukong continues, allowing a tinge of bravado into his voice. “I mean, I know, I know, who wouldn’t want me as a soulmate? I’m the Monkey King! But-”
“But you’re the Monkey King.” MK finishes.
“Choosing just one soulmate would break all my fan’s hearts,” Wukong sighs dramatically, placing a hand on his chest.
MK squints and hums out an unconvinced noise, but nods and drops it, thankfully.
That night, after the kid had gone home, he passes a mirror and sees a flash of white fur in lieu of his gold.
He stops and stares at the reflection peering back at him, and softly swears as he raises a hand to the glass.
“Another one?” He mutters. A face he knows better than his own looks out at him and Wukong presses his fingers to his temples, trying to massage away the ache that compounded there.
It takes him the rest of the night to get rid of all the mirrors in his hut, shoving the glass into an unused room in his ‘Shame Temple’ as he’d once lovingly dubbed it.
Finally on his bed by maybe two in the morning, Wukong drops his glamorous for the first time in a century, unraveling layer after layer of magic.
His hair unfurls, becoming a burnt caramel colour, and his eyes revert back to red as his claws and nails extend. His head brushes walls and he turns his gaze to his hands.
Macaque's handwriting covers his arms, his palms. The demon’s first words to him are scrawled across his right palm, (I’m a friend!) and his final words “Please don’t” have a single line through them on his left palm. Macaque’s half-finished grocery list spans from inner wrist to inner elbow, and Wukong raises an eye at the amount of food.
“You couldn’t have written that on the back of a receipt or something?” He scowls, tracing out how the demon still smudges his handwriting when he’s in a hurry. Wukong raises his hand in the air, staring at how the words shimmer on his fur and then vanish, allowing the myriad of scars he’s collected to reveal themselves.
They have matching scars as well, a sign from three centuries ago - one from Macaque’s revival, and he lowers his hand to trail it over his face, feeling the puckered skin that crosses over his eye.
Ink slithers across his fur, staining gold and white streaks a violet colour as Macaque moves around the city and the markings try to follow him.
Wukong idly wonders if he confesses, accepts the bond and everything that comes with it, how many of the signs will leave - if any.
The red string wrapped around his finger seems to heat up and he scoffs before turning over on his side. He can still remember the first time he tried to tell Macaque they were soulmates.
The demon had laughed in his face and then told him to never joke about that again, even as Wukong had held up his hand and tried to entwine his and Macaque’s fingers.
He hadn’t brought it up again, even as centuries passed, and with each one came a new sign of some sort, a blaring obvious sign, that they were soulmates.
It’s ridiculous, and damn near overwhelming, just how many signs he has to deal with.
Macaque ignored each one, or explained it away when anyone else brought it up, and by the time Wukong had waged havoc in heaven, he’d come to peace with it.
It was better anyways if he didn’t have anyone to worry about like that. At least, that's what he told himself.
That’s the lie he tries to tell himself again as he fails to go to sleep.
“Oh, fuck.”
A gaggle of geese surround his lawn in an aggressive swarm of feathers and honking, all collectively swivelling their evil little beaks in his direction and hissing in unison as soon as he steps onto his front porch.
He can’t help it - he screams, his fur fluffing up as he leaps onto his somersault cloud, trying to escape the horde of demonic birds.
The geese chase him into the city, to Macaque’s dojo, and Wukong doesn’t hesitate to dive through one of the windows of the building to escape one of the birds who got a little too close to his tail.
He rolls to a stop, flat on his back in front of Macaque in his kitchen; the demon choking on his morning tea as he groans.
“Wukong?” Macaque sputters, wiping tea from his chin. He’s still in his sleepwear, and Wukong thunks the back of his head on the floor before replying.
“Morning Liu’er.” His voice is tired, even to his ears, and Macaque frowns, his ears twitching.
“Do I want to know why there’s a fuckton of geese outside my dojo?” The demon asks, taking a sip from his mug as he waits for a response.
“No.” Wukong doesn’t move as Macaque starts to walk towards him, and remains still even when the other nudges him in the side with his foot.
When Macaque nudges him again, he ignores the dim purple glow emanating from under his fur as he sits up and swats at the demon.
The shadow monkey easily avoids his hands and steps backwards gracefully.
Wukong sighs and stands, brushing shards of glass off his clothes.
“You’re my soulmate.” He says and watches as Macaque’s face closes off, any remnants of a teasing expression dying instantly.
“I told you not to joke about that,” Macaque’s voice is cold, and the demon makes to shoulder past him when Wukong snakes a hand out and presses the demon to the wall.
“I wasn’t joking then, and I’m not joking now.” Wukong hisses. “I’d like to not be covered in reminders anymore, damn it.”
Macaque glares at him and snaps his teeth angrily.
“What are you talking about?” The demon growls, trying to squirm out of Wukong’s hold.
“When was the last time you dropped your glamours?” Wukong asks, and he rolls his shoulders back, allowing the heavy magic to drip away.
Macaque sucks in a breath when he sees his scar on Wukong’s face, and then he lets his eyes travel to where Wukong’s hands are wrapped around his wrists.
A purple glow seeps from Wukong’s palms, where they’ve met skin to skin, and the red string around each of their pinkies is the smallest it’s been in years. Black ink has slowly started seeping down Wukong’s forearms before finally settling on his fingers, staining the appendages.
“Your words, your scars, every time you move, it’s all mapped out on my skin.” Wukong leans forward and Macaque stares at him with wide eyes.
“You don’t wanna be soulmates? Fine. I’ve had centuries to get over it. But don’t lie to me, or yourself.” The god exhales, and slowly releases Macaque’s wrists. He turns, and is about to step away when arms wrap around his waist.
“You’re a bastard.” Macaque mutters to his back. The demon presses his face into Wukong’s shoulder blades.
There’s a shift in the air as Macaque drops his glamours, and a golden glow flickers to life, illuminating the room behind them.
Wukong looks over his shoulder to see a familiar scar, white fur, and six glowing ears.
His own handwriting coats Macaque’s palms, and swirling black ink finally convenes where his back meets Macaque’s chest.
“You’re my soulmate.” Macaque thumps his forehead against Wukong’s spine.
The words hang in the air for a second, and then Wukong blinks.
When his eyes open again, the red string is still tying them together, but Macaque’s handwriting has disappeared from his palms. He can’t feel ink sweeping across his fur anymore, and there’s no residual purple or golden glow.
He reaches for his face, and the scar across his eye no longer carves through his cheek.
“Can you leave now? The geese are gone.” Macaque steps back, and Wukong looks at him.
His glamours are back up, and a scowl is plastered over his face, trying and failing to hide the tears that prickle at the corner of his eyes.
“Mac-”
“I’ve accepted it. Now get out.” Macaque points to the window Wukong had busted through, and the god pauses before the window sill.
“In another life, I think we would’ve been happy.”