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It festers, like a disease, heavy on his fragile ribs.
It spreads. It being hate, of course, because that's one of the only emotions that Macaque's wrinkled heart beats through his veins lately.
Hate is spat at everyone that crosses his way, no matter if they're sympathetic or hostile. His most wanted victim, though, is none other than Monkey King himself, the Great Sage Equal to a pile of fucking shit—
Not that said victim is affected by his numerous attempts at clawing at his walls until Macaque stands victoriously with Monkey King's squishy vulnerability and feelings in his hands, seconds from tearing into it until he cries this is what you get betrayer traitor backstabber—
Macaque has never really gotten to that point, though. The millions of plans to achieve that may be misleading but Wukong has a tendency to make everything derail from how it was supposed to go. One day he will kick the Monkey King to his knees, one day.
Except, for all his cockiness, Macaque is unjustly weak. It's odd, when the black furred monkey thinks or sees or hears about the oh so gracious Monkey King, his legs shake. They tremble but not in the oddly pleasing way it did a millennium ago, when he had been love, and wukong had been love and gentleness was a must, his knees tremble like he's never stood up before and his stomach feels squished and it's fucking infuriating. Why cant he breathe properly? He wants to rip the Monkey King's kneecaps away, give him some or his own medicine for once, feed on his tears and smile when he doesn't move anymore.
He's not weak, he refuses to be weak (Since when does feeling things make someone weak?). Therefore, he will make of Wukong like Wukong did to Macaque. It's only fair, right?
What Wukong did to Macaque was cruel, unjust, fucking blasphemous. What kind of friend would do that? What kind of king slays his warrior, why would the sun punish the moon for caring? How could his supposed other half leave him so easily and replace him with puny, weak, undeserving mortals? Was Macaque really that lacking?
The reality is that everything poetic— all the word vomit, it's all fucking bullshit, because the sun didnt mourn the moon when it set, and if he did, he hopes the sun choked on his tongue when he tried to smother his tears.
It's what he deserves, for leaving him, for loving someone that isnt him, for loving Macaque so much that he doesn't know what to do with himself without his King.
Deep down he knows that it's not really hate. It's a worse emotion, one so debilitating and violating all he wants to do is twist his fingers on his throat and squeeze when it whispers into his heart.
Love.
He hates to love, because he shouldn't be able to. His heart, hell, his entire body rotted in the ground, he should be incapable of love. But then again, if his heart was really incapable, his lungs shouldn't be able to cough up blood and his stomach shouldn't be able to regurgitate any substance he shoves down his throat, so it's not far fetched for his heart to squirm under the king's gaze. That doesn't mean he's gonna be happy about it, though.
His heart shouldn't even beat. It still sings it's bitter, untuned song, nonetheless.
He loves and hates and loves and they twist, intoxicatingly blurring, the two wriggling into each other until they become one feeling so ugly, so unrecognizable, it fits into his rotting heart perfectly.
It's a mix of once pearly fur and the now charcoal fur, the raw love and adoration dripping into the anguish and despair and pure hate.
It used to be simple, the days when his soul hadn't been tainted by hate and misery.
(Whispers are exchanged, words so loving, they don't dare say them out loud, reserved for each other and only each other; after all, each other is all they need, why give that love to someone not deserving of it?
Giggles against bare chests and furred hands run through messy hair, drunken kisses and tail holding.
They know each other better than they know themselves.)
No one knows him better than Wukong and that's what hurts the most because why? How? How could Wukong leave him, hurt him, replace him, tear his heart to shreds?
How could he live with himself, knowing he killed the only person who will ever truly know him?
It used to be so simple, so easy to love. Why did Wukong have to give that up? Why couldn't he settle with what he had, he was always so obsessed with having more, more, more.
Wukong's light grew as big as his ambitions, so big that Macaque inevitably was left in his shadow. He had no more need for Macaque, threw him away as if he didn't matter, spat all the love Macaque had given him back at him all chewed out.
(This is all I need, Macaque thinks. He looks up at Wukong with eyes so full of love, it almost spills out from his tear ducts from joy and soft feelings.
The sunset behind Wukong makes it seem as if the Heavens are shining down upon him, like a being larger than life, a celestial not meant to mingle with lower life, yet his fingers barely graze his hair as if he was afraid a single touch would shatter Macaque, looking down at him with eyes that mirror his own lovesick gaze, smiling like Macaque is his entire world.
This is all I want, Macaque thinks as he smiles. Wukong's grin grows a little brighter.)
Once, he would have torn open his ribcage apart and ripped his heart from the veins connecting it to his body and given it to Wukong, willing to let the other monkey feast upon his innards.
Now, he does so unwillingly. Funny, old habits die hard.
Maybe it's partly Macaque's fault. How could he expect that such a loveless creature would ever love him back as much as he did? Wukong wasn't even flesh, his rough stone-like skin reveals his true nature: a cold, breathless and unbreakable rock that desperately tries to pretend it's alive.
Honestly, it's a bit pathetic, if you ask Macaque. Not that anyone would ask for his opinion, but semantics.
But if Wukong is pathetic for that, then Macaque is down right deplorable. He loved Wukong and died by his hands, how could he be so foolish, so weak, to let that happen?
Sun Wukong's heart is as cold as stone.
Macaque rots.