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It was supposed to be a day to relax for Sun Wukong. After Flower Fruit Mountain was practically demolished in the fight against Azure, he’d had to set up a temporary living space in the bit of forest surrounding the island mountain, or really what was left of it, until they could finish rebuilding his home.
MK and the others were busy with their silly mortal jobs so he thought he’d take advantage of the alone time he got. He actually hadn’t spent much time to himself after meeting MK and the others. After thousands of years being isolated on this mountain, it was nice to have friends again.
His moment of calm unfortunately didn’t last long.
The trees around him darkened as Macaque made one of his dramatic entrances through the shadows.
“Well if it isn't the Monkey King, reduced to living in the trees. Not that your old shack was much better.” Macaque chaffed.
Wukong didn’t find his mocking as entertaining as he once did so very long ago. Once he would have played into his teasing and give him a snippy comment back, but with all that's happened in his past, Macaque’s presence elicited a much different response.
“Don’t you have anything better to do than bother me? Ever since we stopped the brotherhood you’ve been around me more than you ever have been in the last few centuries." Wukong remarked.
Macaque just crossed his arms and moved closer to Wukong, which only made him more annoyed.
“C’mon, I thought we were all best buds again. After all I did to help you fight against those we were once sworn brothers to, and yet you still treat me like I’m the villain.” Macaque spoke, only for Wukong to cut in “Please, you only help when you know your own safety and power is in danger.”
Hearing this upset Macaque, and he glared at Wukong as he said “Sounds like someone else I know.” Which only escalated the conversation.
Every interaction they’ve had after the brotherhood initially started falling apart had bitterness tingeing its edges.
They stared the other down for a few moments. It was Wukong who broke eye contact first. “Look, I had a whole day of eating peaches and lounging around as if I didn’t have things to be worried about, so if you wouldn’t mind being in someone else's shadow for once I would be incredibly grateful.”
Macaque, admittedly, overreacted a little to a simple comment, but Wukong always knew how to get under his skin.
He despised being called the Monkey King’s shadow.
Macaque swung right in to retaliate against the great sage. “I only resided in the very shadow you cast over me! If anyone is the villain it's you Sun Wukong. You never even tried to contact me after you became a soldier for the Jade Emperor!”
Wukong interjected “I never joined them on my own free will! I don’t think I imagined those 500 years trapped under a mountain, not to mention the pain from that circlet I was magically bound to for my entire journey!”
As he went on Macaque only got more upset, his tail whipping back and forth behind him.
Emotions he refused to feel for years came back to him.
If he couldn’t keep his composer and maintain his unbothered persona, he would just have an outburst and invoke fear.
He used his shadows to eclipse the area, darkness practically leaning over Sun Wukong to intimidate the one who hurt him so much.
He really didn’t mean to infuriate Macaque this much. To Wukong, he never noticed how much his life centered around becoming stronger and gaining immortality, but Macaque did.
Every action has consequences, if not you then for another.
“Really? You’re going to play innocent?!” Macaque proclaimed. “All you do is run around and hurt others! You claim to be a great sage equal to heaven itself, but where has that title got you?! Everything you’ve done, you’ve done at the cost of others. How could you do this to people? How could you do that to me?”
Macaque was far from being rational, Wukong couldn’t believe that this is the same monkey who he's known his whole life. The one who was always laid back, had a level-headed mindset, and never acted the way he is now.
“Woah bud, you doing alright?” he asked with real concern, “I know we have our differences and we argue a lot nowadays but this is a lot, especially for you.” This did not help like Wukong wanted it to. Macaque just continued on. “Seriously?! Are you buried in that much pride that you can’t even see your own actions for what they truly are?”
Wukong evaluated the situation, not that it helped much, he had never seen his ex-bestfriend like this, and even if he had he doesn’t know what to do in emotional situations. “Hey bud, how about we just calm down and we can talk this out maybe?”
Wukong’s lackluster skills at de-escalating situations couldn't be more of a hindrance than it is now. It did nothing to calm Macaque, if anything it only made things worse. “Talk it out? Talk it out?! No, you only want to get rid of me again. Everything you’ve ever done was just if it was beneficial to yourself! I know you never cared. But it hurt so much to find that out firsthand.”
Wukong couldn’t take having all his regrettable life choices criticized by none other than Macaque, the shadiest guy he knows.
Wukong stopped beating around the bush. “Ok Macaque, what is wrong with you? You have been so weird around me the last few weeks. You think you’re sneaky but I’ve seen you watching from the darkness. You claim to want to be on your own and away from me but you haven’t left this island since the big fight. No one is making you stay here. I have enough to deal with concerning MK without adding you into the mix. I don’t understand you right now. What's your problem Macaque!?”
He didn’t even try to elude Wukong’s question, the way he would have done normally. He just shouted “I’M AFRAID OF YOU SUN WUKONG”
The words drove back any annoyance and displeasure Wukong had at that moment. He could only stare at Macque, seeing his rage replaced by heartache with a hint of fear. The ‘near-omniscient’ Six Eared Macaque, known for being cunning and dangerous, now looked at Wukong for the first time in thousands of years without walls up to guard his true emotions.
Macaque took a moment to calm himself before speaking again, acting closer to his normal self despite still having strong emotions.
“You’ve fought me, you killed me. Every time I look at you I am reminded of that moment, when you chose your new friends over me. And don’t say you didn’t have a choice, you did, and you chose to betray me.”
Macaque paused to look towards Wukong, but when no response came from him he continued.
“I was once your closest friend, and now I don’t know what we are. I am mad at you, scared of you, I never want to see you again but I can’t seem to escape your company. I wish we could go back to the way things were before, but we can’t. We’ve both messed up so badly, I have no idea if we will ever be able to trust each other again. When you killed me, and the Lady Bone Demon revived me, I was indebted to her. Why do you think I attacked you for the Samadhi Fire? I was desperate for a way out. But you didn’t care. Where were you when I needed you Wukong? That's right, you were doing nothing on this stupid island mountain.”
Wukong stood in his place, stunned, trying to find the right words to say, but he couldn’t string together the kind of snappy replies he usually comes up with.
So he decided to just speak his mind. “You know I didn’t want us to end up like this. I-Macaque, I wanted to spend eternity with you, to bask in the sun and laze around for forever. The worst decision I ever made was ending your life. Before the Lady Bone Demon brought you back, I never thought I would be able to forgive myself, I still can’t.”
Silence fell between them, Macaque was about to fall into his shadows to leave, thinking this would just be Wukong making up more of his excuses when he heard Wukong's voice interrupt,
“I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.”
Macaque was so caught off guard he froze right where he was standing. In all his years of knowing the Monkey King, he can’t recall hearing a genuine apology from him.
Wukong continued, “I know I’ve made lifetime after lifetime’s worth of mistakes, but I want to make it better, I want to be close again. I want to reconcile what we had. We’re immortal, so we’ve got all the time this world has to offer to make it up to each other. If you’re willing to give me another chance.”
Macaque took one last look at Wukong before looking away and letting out a small laugh “Alright Wukong, lets try again.”
Once the tension finally subsided, and the conversation came to an end, they both went back to the way they were before today. Except Macaque’s teasing was more lighthearted, and Wukong started joining in and joking around with him again. They still fought and bickered, but there was no more lasting malice. It seems that after years of being against each other, things between them will finally be okay again.