Chapter Text
MK rushed onto Monkey King’s porch, poofing the cloud away, and running inside, ready to summon his staff in a moment's notice. Monkey King said it was an emergency, so, he treated it like one.
“-and that is why this will prove that I am in the right!” Wukong, facing Macaque, the two so into each other’s faces, their noses were almost touching.
“In your dreams, bud, only in your silly little dreams!” Mac sneered.
“Hey, guys, what is it, what kind of an emergency? Demons? Evil spirits? Some ancient evil we have to defeat before it grows so strong it consumes the world?”
“What?” Wukong blinked in confusion, as if he just realized MK entered the house, “Oh, no, bud, no, nothing like that!”
“But…you said it was an emergency…” MK looked between his two mentors, slowly relaying what this was about. “I thought something serious was going on! Is something serious going on?”
“Oh, yes very!” Wukong said, “But nothing world-ending!” He quickly clarified.
“Wukng, for stars sake, look at him,” Mac pointed at MK.
“What?” MK asked, offended.
“Let’s just say we could take your picture right now and put it next to the word anxiety in the dictionary, Misery Kid,” Mac chuckled.
“Oh yeah, because calling him Misery Kid surely must be a great help!”
“Oh come on, he doesn’t mind it, do you kid?” Mac approached him, tossing an arm around MK’s shoulder.
“Ummm…I don’t know if I do, honestly,” MK said, never putting much thought into it. The first time Macaque called him that, there were much more pressing matters than getting upset over a nickname. And ever since, he sort of accepted it as one of his many quirks, “but nevermind that! Is this an emergency or not? Because you said it was and I find you two bickering over a nickname Mac gave me!”
“We were bickering over something much more important!” Wukong said.
MK blinked at his mentor in disbelief, “And…that is an emergency?”
“Wukong, what exactly did you text to the kid when you suggested he should resolve this little conundrum?”
“Wait, you’re in on this?” MK turned to Mac. Though the moment he finished the question, he elicited the pointlessness of it. Of course Mac was on it! He might’ve more serious and gloomy on the outside, but could be just as petty and dramatic as Monkey King was. If not more. He started to miss the calmness of washing the dishes and scrubbing floors at Pigsy's.
“Well obviously, I need you to tell Wukong how stupid his opinion is! I’m just aware that we shouldn’t make you think that the world is ending over it! So, what did he text you?”
MK pulled out his phone and showed him Wukong’s texts.
Monkey King 🐒🍑:
MK!!!
KID!!!
COME TO FFM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
IT IS URGENT!
MK:
ok, ok, i’m coming!
gtg tell dad first
“See, you can see my confusion here, right??” MK asked, “Even Pigsy had no problem with me dropping the dishes, erm, I mean dropping the chore, like leaving it to him, not literally dropping them, and coming here!”
Mac pinched his forehead, “Wukong…”
“What?” Monkey King crossed his arms defensively, “I said urgent, not an emergent there is a difference!” But then he looked at MK who, frankly, felt somewhat upset.
“You made me drop everything over some random argument of yours!” He said, “You could’ve just said so, I would've come after finishing my shift, just not, you know…”
“Panicked out of your mind?” Mac offered.
“Yeah, that!”
Monkey King sighed, his eyes softening, “Yeah, ok, that,” he scratched the back of his head, “that is my bad, kid. Sorry. I’ll make it up to you, promise! But he gets under my skin!”
“Ok, ok, whatever,” MK said, a bit grumpy, but more amused than anything, now that he realized that the world wasn’t ending again. He could’ve expected something like this from his two mentors after all, “What is this big disagreement about?”
Mac let go of him and dropped down on the sofa, “See kid, your worse mentor has some very stupid opinions, in this particular case, on movies!”
“What?”
“No, no, no,” Wukong, back to his pettiness, said, “your least good mentor is the one with stupid movie opinions.”
It was Mk’s turn to pinch his forehead, “Ok, ok, ok, let me get this straight, not only did you make me panic and drop everything to come here over some argument of yours, that argument is about movies???”
There were times when he could still see that ancient wisdom in his mentors, the legendary heroics, the grand adventures, the centuries of lessons learned, etc, etc .
And then there were moments when they were pettier than Mei and Red Son on a bad day. Pettier than Pigsy and Mrs. Yang when there was a shortage of chilli peppers, pettier than Tang when someone mislabeled a trope in a story. It really put the whole, they may be the hero and the warrior, but ultimately, they are just people, thing into perspective. It would be amusing if it wasn’t frustrating.
“Why are you two like this?”
“Because he’s an idiot, kid,” Mac shrugged, “Sorry to tell you!”
“No, no, it’s because he is a pretentious jerk!” Monkey King argued, rounding the sofa so he could glare at Macaque more directly.
“I still don’t know what this whole thing is about!”
“Yeah, sorry, kid,” Monkey King apologized for the second time that night, “see, the two of us were discussing some of the best movies ever and we can’t decide which of two movies is better! Or rather, I say it’s Thunderstrike 4 and Mac says it’s The Red Stage! And while it’s clear I’m in the right, we need a third opinion!”
MK felt like he would develop a headache. How in the world was a campy, CGI-heavy, supposedly funny superhero film comparable to an equally campy, but allegedly deep, cheesy love story in the form of a musical, “I really shouldn’t get involved with this!”
“No, no, we really need your opinion! Or rather, I need you to tell this…this…emo here how pretentious that film is!”
“Pah!” Mac rolled his eyes, “You just can’t comprehend the thing, bud!”
“And you can’t have fun with a superhero film bud!
The whole conversation reminded MK of Ling and Wei, two kindergarten-age siblings who were frequent visitors to the Pigsy’s Noodles with their parents, “Guys! Those aren’t even the same genre of films and I don’t-” he stopped in his tracks, and, while he wondered if Ling and Wei’s mum felt like this while resolving their arguments, a devious thought was forming in his mind.
He saw both films before. He didn’t like Thunderstrike 4. The story was much, much worse than the first three films, the characters were watered down at best, ruined at worst and the effects looked like something from a low-budget student film. As for The Green Stage, he could see why people saw it was a good film, but to him the thing was so much. Too loud in the wrong ways, too bright. He gave it a chance twice, because Tang liked it, but the whole thing was so overwhelming, it made him check out of it entirely and he fell asleep both times, only waking up at the end of the film on the rewatch.
But Monkey King and Macaque didn’t know this. And, well, maybe it would teach them a lesson about not involving him in their stupid, petty, arguments. He would just have to pretend he never saw the films, a task that would be made infinitely easier since he barely remembered anything from either film. And then, he would tell them both that their films sucked, actually and would watch the reaction there.
Petty? Maybe. But no more petty than his two mentors.
Maybe he could even claim he was picking up their pettiness, and watch the reaction then. Make them rethink their own mentoring skills just a tiny bit.
So, he drew on all of his acting skill from his theatre club days and sighed, “Ok, ok, let’s go see these films!”
“Yeah, that’s the spirit!” wukong said, “Ok, I’ll make popcorn because Thunderstrike is not an experience you want to have without them!”
“Yeah, totally!” MK said. Wukong was right, of course. Studying the popcorn shapes would be a way more interesting experience.
“And I’m off to grab us some soda,” Macaque said, opening a portal behind him, “so we’re not stuck with just the endless supply of peach ice tea!”
MK rolled his eyes as Mac stepped into the portal, “Ok! Let me just text Pigsy that this isn’t a huge emergency so he doesn’t lose his mind!”