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Going into the city was a rare occasion for the Monkey King, much less venturing close to Pigsy’s noodle shop since his relationship with Mk’s friends was still rather strained and awkward.
That’s why, finding the stray cat that day was nothing short of a miracle.
It had been snuggled between some rotting, smelly boxes, right next to the overflowing dumpster filled with the noodle shop’s trash that week. The only reason Wukong didn’t walk right past the cat was because of the piercing cry it let out, otherwise he wouldn’t even have noticed the little thing that was camouflaged amongst the waste.
The animal couldn’t have been more than the length of Wukong’s forearm. Its weight was alarmingly light. He guessed that it must’ve been less than a year old, but it also might’ve just been malnutrition stunting the stray cat’s growth.
It trembled in his hands when he picked it up slowly with two hands, before laying it against the hoodie he spread on the ground, tucking it up in hopes of giving it any semblance of warmth and safety within the dark alleyway. “Hey, little bud,” he cooed.
The king hadn’t been that gentle with anything for a very long time. The only exceptions were the younger monkey cubs on his mountain and occasionally, more recently, Mk.
Promptly deciding that he didn’t want to awkwardly reenter the noodle shop again after just leaving, Wukong sped away on his cloud with the stray tightly wrapped against his chest.
~
Wukong cleaned out the tub he used for injured or sick monkey cubs. He rolled up the sleeves of his hoodies before turning the tap on. Luckily, it was also the perfect size to bathe the cat in.
It was a habit he picked up a couple hundred years ago. He learned from somewhere that wounds heal faster when cleaned carefully and treated hygienically. Otherwise, it could be infected and fester.
Usually, such knowledge would go in the Monkey King’s ear and out through the other. He was immortal, after all. Infections are a foreign concept when you can heal at super-immortal speed. But he decided to start paying attention to such things after burying too many small bodies and comforting too many mothers.
The stray didn’t struggle much when Wukong lowered it into the shallow water, but that was probably inability restraining its efforts rather than the cat being voluntary in its complacency. Either way, he was thankful for it. Bath time with the cubs often took too much patience and tested his reaction time. They were always hyperactive, even when they sported injuries or were weak with a fever.
Nonetheless, it still took multiple refills of the tub to clean its fur from the grime and Wukong found out the stray did not have grayish-brown fur like he originally thought. No, after the water flowing through the drain turned from black to all shades of red and yellow and finally to a clearer substance, he realized the cat was actually orange-furred.
He ran his hand gently through the short, fiery hair, casually slipping the fleas he found into his mouth as he carefully kept its head above the water. It wearily blinked its marigold eyes at him, as if convinced he’ll let it drown the second it broke eye contact. Despite the cat’s sluggish and limp body, Wukong felt like he was being vigilantly assessed, almost like a prey gauging the survivability of an encounter with a predator. It reminded him of himself, a long time ago when he was still small and afraid. But then, he became more trusting and got stronger.
Or maybe, he only became braver because he became stronger? Maybe he was still small and shivering, just like the stray in his hands, but wrapped firmly in a hard shell that had only grown in thickness instead of cracking under the weight.
Nonetheless, this cat had no shell. It only bore the clumped and matted fur on its back, which evidently had done nothing to help protect its flesh, so Wukong didn’t blame it for its paranoia. Instead, he continued to brush his hand soothingly down its back, trying and failing to smooth out the consistency of the fur, until his fingers caught against something at the base of its neck.
There was an odd collar that clung into the fur, seemingly digging into the skin. It might’ve been wrapped in what was once yellow silicone, but the color had desaturated into a dirty, greyed green. There was some sort of box in the front, nestled securely under its chin. Wukong tried to fit a finger underneath it but frowned when the cat suddenly screeched as the collar jostled. His eyebrows furrowed. It was too tight, removing it would be risky.
~
He took it out to the patio after patting it dry with a towel, cradling it to his chest. The wind was gentle on their furs and the cat peeks out from between the fabric. Wukong caught it stealing glances up at him as he stubbornly looked towards the horizon at the setting sun. He hoped that the lack of eye contact could provide some sort of comfort and sense of control for the stray as it continued to scrutinize him.
A few monkeys pranced over, hooting and screeching with curiosity for the bundle in the Monkey King’s arms. He laughed as a particularly excited one jumped onto his shoulder, peering down at the cat as it blinked back, a stunned look on both of their faces. He swatted away the monkey’s hand when it tried to reach down and inspect the towel.
He smiled as the group called over more monkeys to meet the cat. Many of the immortal ones had left the mountain a long time ago, after Wukong granted their request to travel the world. Most of the ones that stayed are the mortal offsprings, and he had always been more indulgent towards them because of their short lifespan.
He lifted up the burrito-shaped cat with his hands, its shocked, big eyes blinking at the group of curious monkeys. “This is our guest,” he smiles. “It’ll be staying with us for a bit before I find someone to take it in, so play nice, alright guys?”
The group erupted into cheerful screams and jumped around, some coming closer to coo and trying to poke at the cat before getting shooed off by their king. They were probably elated at the prospect of a newcomer and a friendly face. Mk was the first stranger most of the monkeys had ever met in their life.
~
It had been almost a week since Wukong brought home the cat. Almost a week of treating the flesh wounds and nursing the skinny thing, the meat on its bones filling out into a less skeletal form, when it finally started walking and broke its first bowl.
It wasn’t as if the cat had been completely immobile up until that point. It just hadn’t been able to run around like energetic cats its age should. Wukong had to carry it around, from the bathroom to the living room to the patio and back. The cat got up on its own a few times, but that barely counted as walking and was more of a couple weak, staggering stumbles. He would catch it lumbering its body around, feet shaking as if its own weight was too much to bear, and he had to coerce it back into the small bed of clothes and blankets he made. He’d lecture the cat as if it understood human speech, and then he’d find it up on its feet again within the next few hours.
A couple days before the incident, the king had sat down on the floor and curled his fingers into the soft patch of orange fur. It had tired itself out from its little expedition attempt to the front door, before Wukong carried it back to bed, and was sleeping on its back.
It honestly drove him a little insane, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t understand. Its spirit is too big and excited for its tiny form to handle. The ear-piercing cry it let out when they first met was proof of that. Its body was probably dying back then, decaying and rotting amidst the trash, but its voice stayed strong and fierce.
Even then, while it was recovering, it still constantly pushed against the limitations of its physical abilities, and it was something Wukong could relate to. He sighed, exasperated but fond. He couldn’t help the crooked smile on his face when the cat started purring, the vibrations of the rumbling tickling his hand. He stroked a finger down the belly, its tummy had rounded a bit after the king’s meticulous feeding and a diet of wet food and soft kibble he stole from Sandy’s boat.
Seemingly out of nowhere, it stopped purring and blinked open its eyes, peering at the Monkey King in front of its bed before lunging its claw-less paws at Wukong’s finger. The sudden movement startled a laugh out of him. “I guess we’re gonna have to get you strong enough to keep up with the fiery energy, aren’t we?” Wukong giggled as he swung his own hand around like a cat toy, the stray turning this way and that on its back to try and reach the wiggling fingers without actually standing up.
Another couple days passed without incident. Then, he was training with Mk when the crash sounded.
It wasn’t incredibly loud, but his hyperawareness made him immediately turn around to look at his hut with widened eyes, almost getting hit in the back of his head by Mk’s attack before he swerved the staff at the last second when he realized his mentor wasn’t dodging.
“Monkey King?” he asked, his arms slightly shaking from the effort and his nerves on fire from the close call. The alert stillness of his mentor’s back only made Mk more nervous, wondering what he possibly could have sensed just now to make him so unresponsive. “What’s wrong?”
Instead of replying, the Monkey King hopped into the air with the cloud forming under his feet and sped off towards his hut within seconds. Mk gasped at the sudden reaction before he sprinted after him.
He made it to the front door, which was ajar and creaking, slightly swinging still from the momentum when Monkey King passed by. Mk’s focus zeroed in on the messy pile of laundry on the ground, nestled right next to the couch. It was arranged in a vague nest-like shape and was definitely not there when Mk last came into the his house. He looked up at the Monkey King himself, who was busy flipping over and looking under all the furniture in his little house.
“What-” he paused, hands on his knees as he gasped for breath from exertion. “What happened?”
“It’s gone,” Monkey King said, as if Mk would know what he was talking about.
“ ‘It’s gone’? What’s gone?” he asked, bewildered. Panic started rising inside the pit of his stomach, mimicking his mentor’s frantic movements as the Monkey King scanned through his house, Mk’s mind already jumping to multiple possibilities. Was it something important? Something of world-ending scale? As in, Lady Bone Demon threat level? Oh Buddha, it’s too soon he wasn’t ready to handle something like that again so soon –
“Aha!” Mk perked up at Monkey King’s voice from the kitchen. He stumbled over the fallen books on the ground before stopping dead at the doorway.
Monkey King stood in the middle of the room, holding up a small, orange kitty with a triumphant and relieved look. Scattered across the kitchen tiles and all around his feet was a spilled box of kibble, the same brand that Mk would find in Sandy’s boat, along with some broken shards of a tung chi bowl.
Despite the horrible mess on his floor, the Monkey King turned the cat around to face Mk with an ecstatic smile on his face. Words got stuck in Mk’s throat as he dazedly blinked back into the kitty’s bright, big, amber eyes.
“I found it!” Monkey King proudly announced.
~
Mk sighed a breath of relief after downing an entire water bottle. He looked to his mentor on his side and smiled. “I didn’t know you were a cat person,” Mk teased. Wukong felt somewhat embarrassed for some reason. Even though he wasn’t exactly trying to keep the cat hidden from him, he still felt like some big secret got exposed.
He glared suspiciously at Mk’s giddy expression, tail twitching. “It's just a stray I found in an alleyway. It's only staying here until I find someone else to take it in, nothing to write home about,” he coughed awkwardly into his hand. They were sitting outside on the stairs leading up to the hut, taking a break from cleaning his kitchen. The sweat on their foreheads was cooling nicely in the afternoon breeze.
“Right, right,” Mk said, lifting an eyebrow with the grin still on his face. “What’s the little guy’s name?”
Wukong looked down at the sleeping cat in his lap. It had once again tired itself out and left whatever mess it made for him to deal with. He didn’t know whether he should be mad or proud of the cat for walking so far for the first time, even if it was just trying to reach the stock of kibble and ransacking his kitchen. Wukong anticipated the havoc it’d wreak once it made a full recovery.
He tilted his head and sighed with a small smile. “I didn’t name it. Figured I should leave that up to its permanent owner once it finds a new home.” He brushed a hand down the cat’s belly. Some parts were still unforgivably matted but it was mostly short and smooth.
He looked up at Mk when he noticed the uncharacteristic silence. Wukong cocked an eyebrow at him, who was staring back with an analytical look, laced with a hint of sadness.
“Weeeeell,” he dragged the word, rubbing his hands together. “Can I come up with something? Just a little nickname.”
“Sure bud,” Wukong smirked, “but I’m veto-ing it if it’s dumb.”
Mk stroked his chin in an exaggerated thinking pose as he hummed, then he looked back at the king with a glimmer in his eyes, “Seven grams of protein!”
“What?” Wukong laughed, incredulous. His body jolted with the sound but the cat stayed stubbornly asleep. “What kind of name is that?”
Mk crosses his arms with a fake pout, “It’s an online joke! You're too old, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Hey, watch it,” Wukong snickered as he rustled Mk’s hair, knocking his headband askew. “Also, I’m pretty sure it's much heavier than just seven grams!”
“Fine, nineteen grams of protein then!” he huffed indignantly when Wukong just laughed louder. Mk's exaggerated frown eventually broke into a laugh.
“C’mon, it’s supposed to be an exaggeration!” He nudged Wukong's shoulder, which only made the king let out a string of almost hysterical giggles. “You don’t understand the layers and intricacies of my generation’s humour,” he boldly acclaimed.
They continued to bicker until the sun sank under the horizon and Mk dozed off on Wukong's shoulder. Despite the earlier panic and impromptu spring cleaning, it had been a while since the king had felt this peaceful.