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Wukong jolted as his phone chimed, ripping him out of the daydream he’d zoned out to. He grumbled a curse to himself as he fished through the couch cushions, hearing the ding! go off again. After another few moments of fishing around, he found it and proudly yanked it out of the couch. The screen lit up as he turned it towards himself. Covering his and MK’s face on his lockscreen were two messages from the Monkie Kid himself, his small contact picture smiling wide.
ik there’s no training today, but could i come over?
i need help with something
Wukong furrowed his brow.
That’s kind of cryptic, bud.
sorry. its a bit embarrassing
“Embarrassing?” he asked aloud. “If it’s embarrassing, isn’t it probably something he should be talking to Pigsy about…? Ah, whatever.”
Alright, come on over.
And bring me some noodles while you’re at it!
👍🏽
Wukong sat waiting for about half an hour before he heard a thump at his door. He opened it to see MK with a Pigsy’s Noodles bag in one hand and a drugstore bag in the other.
“Good to see you, bud!” Wukong greeted. MK returned Wukong’s smile, but didn’t say anything, instead holding the takeout bag to Wukong as he shoved his shoes off with his heels.
Wukong plopped back down on his couch and eagerly started to unwrap the noodles, delighted at the smell of his usual order. MK sat next to him on the other end of the couch, leaving one empty cushion between them where he set down the plastic drugstore bag. He was unusually quiet, looking down at his fidgeting hands in his lap as he sat cross-legged.
“So,” Wukong started, mouth full of noodles, “what’d you need help with? Got something to do with that bag?”
“Uhm,” MK muttered, still wringing his hands together. “I, uh…”
Wukong cocked an eyebrow and turned to his student. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just…” MK sighed, reached into the bag, and held a small black tube up to Wukong’s face.
”Iwashopingyoucouldteachmehowtodoeyelinerlikeyou,” he let the words tumble from his lips, face turning pink as he squeezed his eyes shut.
Wukong peered down at the makeup in his face. He recognized the brand - it was midrange, not a terrible quality but certainly not great, either. It wouldn’t be good for a beginner like MK.
“That’s it?” Wukong asked, fighting back a laugh.
MK nodded quickly, refusing to meet his mentor’s gaze.
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of, bud,” the monkey said, nearly buzzing with excitement. “Come on, let’s go to the bathroom.”
“Now?” MK asked, more than a little surprised at his mentor’s reaction. “What about your noodles?”
“Whatever, I can microwave those later,” Wukong waved him off with a nonchalant tone, trying to hide how elated, how ecstatic, how happy he was. MK could have gone to Mei or the internet, but he’d come to him.
Wukong had set the noodles down and jumped up off of the couch before MK could even blink, and the boy scrambled to catch up. He followed his teacher across the room, down a short hallway, and into a bathroom. Wukong wasn’t much of an interior decorator, so the small space was quite bare, with plain white appliances, off-white walls, and a mismatched towel and bath mat.
The monkey was busy digging through the medicine cabinet that sat above the sink, muttering angrily to himself as MK stood awkwardly in the doorway. “There we go!” he said after a few moments, pulling something out and pushing the door shut. He beckoned MK in and gestured for him to sit on the vanity. He obeyed and hopped up to sit on the cool white porcelain, looking down at his feet.
“First thing’s first,” Wukong said, drawing MK’s gaze to him with the same serious and commanding tone he used during training, “forget that eyeliner you bought. You don’t need the most expensive stuff, but you’ll want better than that - try mine.” He held the tube out for MK to inspect. Its packaging was shiny gold with black and white lettering. It looked expensive. “Usually you shouldn’t share eyeliner, or any makeup for that matter, but I haven’t used this one yet.”
MK nodded, still feeling a bit strange, a bit awkward. He wasn’t sure what reaction he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a delighted Monkey King sharing his probably-pricey makeup with him. It was weird, but the boy couldn’t deny how utterly ecstatic he was.
“I’ll do one of your eyes, then you try the other,” Wukong said, still failing at hiding the wide grin spread across his tan cheeks.
MK nodded.
“Close your eyes and don’t open them - don’t squeeze them, either. Just keep them as relaxed as you can.”
MK nodded again, gulped, and closed his eyes. Sitting on the counter made him an inch or two taller than Wukong, so he leaned down a bit.
The bristly hairs on Wukong’s hand brushed MK’s cheek, and he had to stop himself from squirming away at the prickly feeling on his skin. He set his mouth in a straight line, trying to fight not only the natural twitches of his face but also the smile threatening to crinkle his cheeks and mess up the incoming eyeliner.
“You ready, bud?”
Bud.
The word always made him feel safe, secure, warm. In training, in battle, and now in this simultaneously mundane and monumental situation.
“Mm,” MK made only a small noise of confirmation, still trying not to move his face.
Wukong didn’t reply, instead reaching out and lightly touching the tip of the pen to the inner corner of MK’s right eye. The boy jumped back, bumping his head on the glass of the medicine cabinet as Wukong ended up drawing a line across his eyelid and up under his eyebrow.
“Sorry, sorry,” MK said immediately, looking down at his feet and fidgeting his hands again. “Sorry, Mei’s put eyeshadow on me before but never eyeliner and I wasn’t expecting it -“
“It’s all good,” Wukong reassured him, “just wipe it off and we’ll try again.” He’d expected MK to flinch, sure, but not to be so apologetic and panicked when he did so. “It’s normal to jump, don’t worry about it.”
“Okay,” MK replied, but he didn’t sound convinced in the slightest. Wukong frowned, but didn’t say anything else. Instead he grabbed a makeup wipe from a package sitting on the counter behind his student. He reached up to MK’s face, waited for the boy to close his eyes, and rubbed the wipe across his eyes a couple times until the messy black stripe had disappeared.
Wukong beamed, “There you go!” His grin widened when he saw a small, shy smile make its way onto MK’s face. “Let’s try again. I’ll try holding your eye this time.”
MK nodded and closed his eyes again. He felt his mentor put one finger on his eyebrow, pulling his skin up, as his thumb pulled away from the outer corner of his eye.
“Just relax,” Wukong said, voice low and calm, and MK gave a small nod. The monkey reached out again, and MK managed to stop himself from jolting as the brush made contact with his eyelid. “Don’t open your eyes until I say so.”
“Mhm,” MK grunted, trying his absolute hardest not to squirm and fidget. The smell of peach chips and noodles on his mentor’s breath amused him, and he fought back a chuckle.
“If you’re doing big wings,” Wukong said, “you’ll wanna draw an outline and then fill it in. But it’s easier to start out with small wings. For those, you can just draw a line along your eyelid and try to make it even. And… done!”
Wukong’s warm fingers left his face, and MK blinked a couple times before sliding off the counter to peer at himself in the mirror. The black line along his eyelid was small, not as large as Wukong’s eyeliner but still noticeable. He could feel it, knew it was there even when he closed his eyes, but it wasn’t heavy like he expected it to be - it felt natural.
Wukong huffed proudly at the broad smile growing on MK’s face.
“You wanna give it a go?”
MK nodded eagerly, accepting the tube from Wukong’s outstretched hand.
“Try pulling at your skin like I did,” Wukong said. He reached out from behind MK to position his student's right hand by his left eye, remembering the boy was left handed. “Up with that finger, out with that one,” he said, grabbing individual digits and putting them into place when he saw MK struggling. When the kid was set, Wukong stepped back. “Try to make it match the eye I did - start small and go bigger if you need to.”
“M’kay.”
MK reached up, slowly, right pupil moving to watch the brush coming towards his left eye.
“Don’t watch the brush, watch your hand in the mirror.”
MK forced himself to stare at the mirror, leaning in close. As he held the pen just above his eye, he glanced up at it, then to Wukong standing behind him, then back at himself and his hand. Holding his breath, he made a quick, long stroke from the inner corner to the outer edge of his eye. He blinked a couple times before taking a proper look at himself in the mirror. The line wasn’t very smooth, but it was almost even with his other eye. He lifted the brush up again and carefully ran the tip over the shaky spots, trying to smooth them out. When he was satisfied he pulled away and looked at himself in the mirror, staring at his own eyes. Wide with deep brown irises, they sat surrounded by a mass of scattered freckles that littered his nose and cheeks. And now they were framed with black liner that stood out even against his dark skin and darker freckles. It only ran along his top eyelid, unlike Wukong, whose eyeliner went partway down the side and bottom of his eye, too.
“Not bad, bud,” Wukong praised, now much standing closer to MK and peering at the boy’s makeup over his shoulder. “Especially for your first time.”
“Yeah?” MK smiled.
“Yeah,” Wukong replied, reaching out to mess up MK’s hair and laughing when the boy smacked his hand away. “I gotta ask, why’d you think it was embarrassing to ask for help with this?”
MK’s smile fell, replaced with an uncomfortable frown. He turned his back to the vanity and pushed himself up onto the counter again. For the third time, he started to wring his hands together and stare down at his lap.
“Well, I just…” MK sighed. “Most people see makeup as a… girly thing, right?”
So that’s why he’s been off today.
“Kid,” Wukong started, intending to say something, but he found that no words came to him. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then sighed deeply through his nose. “Look at me.”
MK slowly looked up from his lap to meet Wukong’s gaze. “Listen, it took me a while to learn, too - you don’t only have to do masculine things. Using eyeliner doesn’t make you any less of a guy, and it sure doesn’t make you a girl,” the monkey said earnestly.
“I know,” MK sighed, “but… something still doesn’t feel right.”
Silence hung between them again, thick and palpable enough to cut.
What could Wukong say to him?
What was it that Macaque would say to him all those years ago, reassuring and comforting him on those horrible, horrible days?
You are the Monkey King.
He’d keep that line in his back pocket, but he had a feeling the sentiment wouldn’t really work right now. The kid needed a bit more than that.
“Kid,” Wukong repeated, “look at me.” When MK met his gaze, Wukong pulled the bottom of his hoodie up to show off the faint top scars under his pecs.
Some of the modern world’s technologies had confused the monkey, had made him roll his eyes, had made him scoff, but when he’d found out about this surgery he’d nearly lost his mind with joy.
“I don’t have much to say to reassure you, kid. Feeling sad about this stuff and fighting the parts of your brain that bring you down is something you just have to work through. But next time you’re feeling off, just remember me, okay? Remember it’s the Monkey King that taught you how to put on eyeliner.”
MK stared at his mentor, eyes flitting back and forth between sharp, winged eyeliner framing golden eyes and pink surgical scars sitting under tan pectorals. He thought of his own chest and its older scars, almost completely faded after the surgery he’d gotten a few years ago.
“You okay, bud?”
“Yeah… yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”