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The alpine heights of Lantern City pinch icicles out of frost in winter.
But yolk-orange lights giggle through crimson paper, strung up between the buildings and the stars. Fading from view to radiant red beads on necklaces of snow-topped mountains above, lanterns trace over the rolling thrall of the city's scarf-wrapped young.
A festival is alight, the vision of warmth made pointedly real.
Nestled between skyscrapers and an elevated monorail weaved in-between, an installation lantern sweeps its monumental glow across stalls sprawled along the town square. Every festival-goer is flame-licked, their eyes mimicking coals finding their gleam. Plywood and red fabric stalls spill twinkling laughter and savoury steam, rendering rivers out of the streets. The lanterns drape their deep red along the asphalt and the frequenters beating it into place, gasps and laughter condensing to a draconic yellow before a long, wide street of hawkers yelling praises upon the city's merchandise and street food up for pennies among their wares.
Now, the Monkie Kids scintillate with Lantern City in full, festive bloom.
"Aww, wait, what!? Macaque, you look so cool!" MK sparkles behind gloved, balled up hands. "I've never seen you dressed all casual before…!"
"Yee, monkey man!" Mei's hoots puff to wispy snowballs. "You clean up noice!"
On a whistle-stop tour of places the Monkie Kids have visited in the past, they check how life has been for people since they split the mystic coloured stones' power with everyone in the world. Shared smiles and body heat leach through the their winter layers, tugging them by the sleeves to join the celebration.
But this time, the gang bring Macaque in tow as the newest, bona fide regular of the crew.
So there Macaque turns in the town square, before the eye of the festival, blinking at them. With his dark red hoodie and black and yellow sneakers, a tasteful bagginess contrasts with the clean silhouette of his overcoat. A yellow baseball cap put on backwards, his black duffle coat left undone, red rope latches and yellow accents running along its hems, he blends right in with the street fashionable of Lantern City.
"Ah, thanks, MK, Mei." Macaque pockets his hands, his chuckle misting his easy-going smirk. "Been a while since I cut loose, I guess."
Behind him, Wukong blows a raspberry.
"What's with the parade? S'just a coat," he grumbles, crossing his arms. "Didn't get all this fanfare when I dressed different."
"You also look nice, Mr. Monkey King!" Sandy insists from the side. "It's just that, well. You're wearing the same thing as the last time we were here."
"Right." Sarcasm oozes from Wukong's drawl. "'Cause that's what this Monkey King's gotta do to stay relevant. Keep things fresh."
"Considerin' we had the whole lookin'-for-the-Samadhi-Ring-you-barely-hid to deal with, you can blame yourself for your missin' hoo-ha." Pigsy's brow rises. "Can't exactly indulge your ego when the dang world needs savin', can w—"
"—Fear not, Monkey King!" Tang barrels in with lenses a-glinting. "For I have preserved your likeness in the chronicles of our adventures…! With, ah," he clears his throat, "minimal artistic liberties taken."
He whips out his hardbound notebook like it were a tome of spells, riffling through a volume's worth of illustrations featuring the Monkey King in his hoodie—a lot having him cosying up to Tang. But the admiration and artistic fidelity has Wukong cooing with delight all the same.
"Typical Wukong." Macaque scoffs before turning away from the display. "If the spotlight ain't on him, he just won't have it."
"Not always," MK points out after, at his behest, Mei hops away to share a photo album on her phone of more hoodie-clad Monkey King. "He was pretty happy playing support during the talent show last time and all."
"Ah. Right." Macaque's grin seeps back in before he lowers his voice. "His ol' stage fright, huh?"
MK sucks in a gasp. Then checks the others are occupied before leaning in close.
"You know about that?" MK whispers. At which Macaque's brow drops at distinctly-unimpressed speeds. "Hey, c'mon! You guys still haven't come clean about what happened between you two and you were apart for, like, centuries? Millennia?" MK hisses. "How am I supposed to know what you should know about him or not?"
Blinking, Macaque soon sighs.
"Point taken." He rubs at his fur beneath his cap, pouting. "He's had stage fright for ages. Before the Journey. We, uh," he clears his throat, "interrupted a village's play while foraging for weapons by accident way back when and, well. Had to improvise." His smirk comes back in a slant. "Or more like Wukong did."
"…Okay, not gonna lie, I do feel bad for the ancient villagers that you guys crashed their play," MK says before his grin grows, "but that does sound pretty funny."
"Kid, one day?" He rests an arm around MK's shoulders, his smile palm-protected. "I'll put on a shadow play showing the exact look on his face when he stumbled on stage."
"—What're you whispering about, hm?" Wukong all but jumps in, squinting. "You better not be giving the kid weird ideas about me." He jabs his tail warningly at Macaque.
Before MK can interject, Macaque sighs at the lanterns above.
"The same old glutton for attention." He pivots towards the others. "You guys wanted to grab some food, right?"
"Hey! How come you didn't deny what I said?" Wukong nearly grows taller with how his whole body tenses, his fur rising in place. "Macaque…!"
Though the warrior's stride doesn't falter, he does look back.
To poke his tongue out at Wukong.
"Wh—!? The nerve of that little—!" The sage stomps a foot, the shadow strolling on with a snort. "Whatever he told you, MK, don't believe a word of it! Man, I can't stand that guy sometimes…"
He spins around to MK while grumbling. But his scowl doesn't stray once from Macaque walking away.
"Uh-huh…" MK says, eyes narrowing. "And other times?"
"Other times?" Wukong, after a stammer, scoffs. "You know what? Nuh-uh! No other times! May as well be sitting down all the time—I can't ever stand him...!" A lash of his tail and Wukong chews on his lower lip. "He's so annoying, acting like he's all—all put-together, strutting around like that…"
His arms bunch together crossing so tight, his glare trying to poke holes into Macaque's profile. Or outfit. Or both.
MK meanwhile gives a long, pensive hum. With Wukong huffing and muttering so much, a new word occurs to him just for the Monkey King. Huttering.
"Uh-huh…" he repeats. "Well, you got nothing to worry about, Monkey King," he adds brightly. "Macaque didn't say a bad word about you—honest."
MK gives him a pat on the shoulder. Wukong's eyes finally snap over to him.
"Uh, what? Oh! Oh, yeah. Good." He nods so sharply, he nearly flips his hood with it. "Y'know what, though, I'll give it to the guy about food—I'm starving."
"Ugh, same! I can't wait to hit up all the food stalls!" MK jumps on the spot, fists pumped and smile bright. "C'mon, Monkey King! It's chow time!"
At long last, one of Wukong's fangs peeks out when he beams.
They both scurry to the rest of the group who have gotten a head start on the food stalls. Seasoned meats and steaming dumplings sweat with mouth-watering aromas, flavouring the balmy pockets hemmed in by the city's streets.
"—So, MK?" Mei whispers to him on the side, head jutting towards where Sandy just left Wukong and Macaque at the same stall up ahead. "Ya think Monkey King's gonna crack? Or cracked at all?"
"Again, I prefer using the phrase 'opening up' or 'being more honest with his feelings,' but…" MK sighs while whispering back, chewing a cube of spiced beef off a long toothpick thoughtfully. "It's gonna take a li'l more encouragement I think."
Hunched over, the two glance over at the mystic monkeys.
"—Jeez, Macaque." Wukong tosses a hand to his companion's empty food box, his brow furrowing. "What's the point of having that if you aren't gonna get anything?"
"I didn't pick it up." Macaque pulls a face. "They just gave one to me."
"You are literally the same as ever," Wukong huffs before sweeping half of his own food into Macaque's box with his chopsticks.
"Hey—!" Macaque's tail jumps. Then he shoots over a frown as if whapping the king with a cloth. "You don't need to do that…"
"Just eat it already," Wukong scoffs before scarfing himself on his own food, a broad line of a smile on his face. "Man, this filling is so good."
Macaque clicks his tongue before chewing on a chunk of braised tofu. "You're more pig than monkey sometimes, I swear."
"Hey! I'm not piggin'! I'm eating." Wukong's words wriggle out between his stuffed cheeks. "Y'know! The way food should be!"
"Ugh!" Macaque chews while whirling on him. "Don't talk with your mouth full!"
"You're doing it, too!"
"Not as bad as you…!"
Wrinkles may dig permanently between their brows in their tennis-game bickering. Their food-stuffed sneers fix on each other and their tails bounce sporadically, even as they advance on the next stall together.
"I really hope they figure out they don't need to argue when they're together again soon," Tang mutters in a sigh.
MK and Mei whirl around to the others crouching watching Wukong and Macaque with them, Tang pulling a little sad face, Sandy nodding in earnest, and Pigsy giving an unimpressed pout but ultimately spy-crouching in solidarity.
"—Right!? That'd be so much better!" MK whisper-shouts, quick to welcome reinforcements in having the monkey-ship sail on the seas of honest affection once more. "I'm just trying to get Monkey King to be more open about how he's feeling to start!"
Everyone but Mei—including Mo—clenches their jaw in a doubtful hiss.
"I don't think that's the best approach to this," Sandy says very slowly.
"Especially to start," Pigsy remarks, to Tang's pointed nods.
"Wha— It's a valid approach!" MK stomps a foot. "He's been getting better! Right, Mei?" He spins around to his best friend with him through thick and thin. "Back me up here!"
"Uh…" Mei's grin creaks with her shrug. "Slow and steady…wins? Stuff?" She groans after MK's gasp. "MK, you know I'm with you! It's just that Monkey King's—"
"More stubborn than a mule stuck in a mud bath?" Pigsy supplies.
"Canonically more likely to find a thousand words to get under someone skin's than half of one to endear himself to them?" Tang offers.
"…Not a super open guy?" Sandy gives a little shrug, Mo meowing with him.
"You went to therapy!" MK cries at Sandy.
"Yeah, he did, not Monkey King," Pigsy scoffs. "'Sides, even if he did decide to open up sometime this century, I doubt some night out on the town is where that'll happen."
"It's not just any night," MK mumbles with a pout. "It's a festival night."
"Honestly, it might make more sense to make Macaque feel included than to go for Monkey King on this," Tang adds more earnestly. "While I haven't hung out with Macaque much on this trip so far, given the last time we talked here, I'd say you'd have to have him more in his element before he and Monkey King have any heart-to-heart."
"Wait, hold the phone." Mei shakes her head. "You and Macaque talked here?"
"Yeah!" Tang says. "When I was getting the Samadhi Ring and you guys were doing the talent show."
"On the one hand, again, I'm sorry for benching you that time," MK tacks on quickly. "But on the other hand, that's how you grabbed the Samadhi Ring for us in the end, so! Balances out?" At MK's side-eye, Pigsy steams a sharp breath out his nose. MK's face shrinks. "But-yeah-no, mostly just apologising again for doing that…"
Tang crosses his arms, his smile satisfied. "Repeat apology accepted."
"—Heeeey, wait a second!" Mei claps before pointing two fingers MK's way. "If we wanna focus on getting Macaque in his own element—here, tonight—that's way easier!"
"It is?" MK blinks. Then, after Mei strategically places her phone in front of his face, he takes in the screen with the loudest gasp. "It is!"
Tang, Pigsy, Sandy, and Mo look at each other. "It is?"
After Mei and MK nod hard at each other, they trip over one another—rip a poster off a festival noticeboard mid-tumble—and topple their way to the two mystic monkeys at a stall farther ahead.
"—No, but like, you're just wrong, bud." The Monkey King lowers a brow mid-sentence. "Monkey Cop: Lawyer Edition is the best spin-off by a long shot, hands down."
"They cast 'me' in a prison uniform. With stripes," Macaque growls. "Far as I'm concerned, they fumbled from the starting line."
"Uh, innocent until proven guilty, remember? Plus, the arc they had with you and me was the most compelling one! If you just gave it an honest watch—"
"—Macaque!" MK and Mei crash into their conversation, eyes sparkling up at the warrior. "We got something for ya…!"
They thrust a poster towards the two monkeys, who perk up in mild interest. Then they lean in to read further.
"Oh, wow…" Macaque starts smiling.
"Oh, no." Wukong starts grimacing. "Guys, don't tell me you're actually suggesting Macaque does this—"
"—stupid talent show."
Wukong mumbles into the crow's nest of his crossed arms. Meanwhile, the Monkie Kids dart about backstage at the festival's talent show, other acts unfolding on the stage just beyond a towering set of curtains where MK is ushering an amused Macaque.
"Also, I swear you guys registered Macaque for this even faster than when we had to enter for the Ring of Samadhi Fire." Wukong raises a judgmental brow. "Which was to, y'know. Save the world?"
"The spots were running out so fast this time…!" Mei turns from where MK encourages Macaque to peek past the curtain at the waiting crowd. "Everybody's all magicked up now, so the participation is cut-throat! There's an even bigger crowd than when we performed last time…!"
"I'll, uh"—Wukong clears his throat after a stuttered laugh—"take your word for it. But just sayin'! Those, there?" He puts his hands up as his eyebrows hop. "Are some messed up priorities. Ow!"
He flinches forward before rubbing his head, shooting a glare at Macaque who whacked at it with his tail through a portal.
But Macaque isn't looking the king's way. Instead, a slit of light from the outside slices into the dim of the backstage. His mouth falling open, his gaze glimmering brighter than gold while his tail sways over the floor, that delicate line of light shears down Macaque's body. Just in line with his left eye.
Wukong stares. Then—right as Macaque's exhale becomes the smallest, pale puff, nudging apart the curtains bracketing the slim light—the king rips his gaze away on a swallow.
"Still. This is all pretty last minute, even goin' by last time's standards," Pigsy considers from the side. "I mean, you're also expectin' the guy to put on the whole act by himself?"
"It'll be fine!" MK spins around beaming. "This is Macaque we're talking about! Uber-dramatic, super-shadowy, mega-powerful guy who loves stringing people along! Which, not great for bad-guy purposes—but awesomely perfect for bangin'-performance purposes!"
"Whoa, whoa, MK." The curtains shut when Macaque spins around and shows his palms, shaking his head. "You do know what 'putting someone on the spot' means, right? I mean, an adoring crowd, filling the streets as far as the eye can see"—he throws out an arm to the cheers and cries piercing the velvet curtains—"and you want me to put on a snap performance for them? Solo? Just like that?" Scoffing, he flattens his coat against his chest. "Really, I couldn't possibly—"
"Macaque, I can literally see your shadow clones putting on instruments behind you." MK deadpans. "There's one putting sunglasses on your face, like, right now. As I'm speaking."
"Aw, MK, come on…!" Macaque's shoulders rock in a boisterous laugh as he flicks up his new tinted specs, his grin wicked and widening. "How's a guy s'posed to live if you don't let the drama breathe?"
"Guy said it himself." Wukong grumbles indiscernible noises, eyes narrowed while his tail sweeps at the floor. "He is drama. Drama monkey-fied." The noises intensify. "Doin' all that after he already got signed up, too."
"Wow, I am so excited for you, Mr. Maquack!" Sandy cheers with his fists up, Mo yowling from atop his shoulder. "I had no idea you'd take to this so readily!"
"You didn't?" Macaque's head tips. "Well, performing's kinda my thing." He shrugs. "Also, you might want Mo back in the T.E.A.—it's gonna get real loud, real fast."
"Oh, yeah, we never did fill Sandy in on the whole, uh"—Mei rolls her wrist while leaning towards Pigsy and Tang, searching for the words as Macaque portals Mo away with Sandy's blessing—"shadow play, trapped-in-that-freaky-lantern evil-era-Macaque thing, did we?"
"We didn't," Tang confirms.
"Best not," Pigsy adds. Mei and Tang nod curtly.
"Yeah, guy has six ears and zero humility." Wukong huffs to Sandy, examining whatever bits he's picked out from his own ear. "Might as well offer a fish an ocean to swim in."
"You're really dunkin' on somebody else for a lack of humility?" Pigsy lobs over with a snort. "Yeah, okay—I've definitely heard it all now."
"If anybody has humility, it's Pigsy here," Sandy says with pride. "Your voice stole the whole show last time after all. I'd probably be bragging about it all the live-long day if I were you!"
"Careful there, Blue Guy." Wukong's grin widens with his arch look to Macaque. "You might put this shady monkey in his place, sayin' all that."
Macaque only shrugs.
"I may not have Pigsy-level vocals"—a smile soon carves sharp along his lip—"but I know a thing or two about putting on a show.
"Although, speaking of vocals." The shadow swivels round till his eyes twinkle landing on his target. "Tang, my man! Need a harmoniser for the song I got in mind." His tail tugs a wireless microphone from a portal before he cocks a brow. "You in or you in?"
Tang gasps as he catches the microphone two-handed. The thing practically turns into a telescope, pointing between the twin planetariums his eyes grow into behind his glasses.
"Macaque, you…?" Quivering, Tang looks up with the wettest eyes and the smallest smile. "You really want me to go on stage with you…?"
"You didn't get to go on last time. Which, total waste—I've heard you belt it in karaoke. Not just anyone can hit those high notes." Macaque shrugs with one shoulder, his smile no less collected. "You got the pipes. I got the mic." His grin nearly has him winking as he offers his hand, his fingers folding in an invite. "Let's jam, man."
"Bud, he's probably not even heard of whatever song you're thinking of having him harmonise for," Wukong points out while Tang jogs on the spot with dog-whistled joy. "Karaoke's not the same as improv either. Jangles here only hits the notes when they're on a screen."
"Wukong, Wukong," Macaque tuts. "All problems, no solutions!" His smile slants sharper as he gives a spin of his wrist. "Hardly an attitude fit for a king."
A snap of Macaque's fingers, a flash of violet flame at his fingertips, and pinpoint shadows dance across Tang's lenses.
After a gasp, Tang sputters.
"I… I see them. The notes, I—" A burst of laughter overtakes him. "I see the notes! I can sing along—!"
MK presses his own cheeks in a gasp, angling himself frantically around Tang's glasses to get a comically closer look. Sure enough, shadowy dots stream across like a score on a karaoke screen.
"Wait, no way! Macaque, you're doing all that live?" MK turns—uncrossing his eyes in a quick head-shake—to gawk at him. "You're gonna do that live…!?"
"While…" Pigsy, squinting at the shadow band warming up in the back, barely picks up his finger to point properly. "Gettin' all your clones to perform witcha?"
"And while you're gonna sing!?" Sandy just misses his mohawk when he clutches at his head.
"And play," Macaque adds coolly, a shadowy electric guitar swirling into his hands. "What can I say?" When he flicks his head down to his guitar, his shades tip perfectly over his eyes. "I like being the one pulling the strings."
"Macaque, I owe you an apology." Mei places a candid hand on his shoulder, solemnly shaking her head. "I wasn't familiar with your game."
Sandy mirrors her for his other shoulder. Macaque blinks at them. Then his laughter reverberates, warm and deep.
"Pretty overdue, but, hey—save your praises for after we rock the show." A whine of a microphone ripples the air; his ears perk up. His grin unfurls. "Think that's our cue."
All the instruments are hooked up to the amps. One, two rapid swipes at Macaque's guitar and the chord roars a tidal wave across the stage, the crowd swept along, their cheers the foam cresting the gush of mania. A predator whose fangs have finally scratched out blood, a cackle rushes out of Macaque.
"Always gotta leave the crowd wanting more." He turns smirking to the others as his ears twitch, his grin indomitable.
"Rip it up, Macaque! You and Tang are gonna smash it…!" MK shouts over the rest of the crew whooping and cheering for them. Except Wukong, who pouts with his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets.
"Thanks, MK," Macaque says, his voice as smooth as his smile. "Oh, and don't scream too loud when I portal you guys to the best seats in the house. Or do." His tail whips in a chuckle. "Help me and Tang pick you out from the adoring crowd, why don'tcha?"
"Macaque, you are so cool," Tang breathes out in awe.
"Yeah, I get that a lot." Macaque chuckles before his tipping down his shades. "The stage calls, superstar."
Tang squeals. Wukong groans extra loud from behind them. Over the rim of his sunglasses, Macaque's grinning eyes flash purple as portals wink open beneath everyone's feet.
The stage lights slam to black.
"Whoa-ho—monkey man wasn't kidding when he said best seats in the house!"
Mei cranes around, her shout only barely audible over the cheers ballooning since the stage lights went out. The Monkie Kids are portalled to the deafening audience at the Lantern City stage and its mounting buzz washes out Wukong's sigh.
"I can't even see the back of the crowd from here!" Sandy raises his voice from his higher vantage point. Where a lantern is lit in the city lined with hundreds of them, another cluster of people pops up beneath its glow. "It's like the whole town came out for the show!"
Wukong, staring at his feet, frowns deeper.
"Y'don't needa tell me that for me ta hear it!" Pigsy groans yelling at Sandy. "I'll be surprised if I can even hear Tang and him singing! Or anything else after this…!"
"You know, I always thought Macaque would be, like, extra sensitive to sound! 'Cause of his name and everything!" MK scratches at his head, Wukong only glancing at him. "I get he's a celestial monkey and all, but how's he able to be in a place as loud as this?"
"Y'know how some mortals like to get loopy on a drug that hypes 'em up too much?" Wukong leans over. MK nods. "S'like that!"
"Ohh…!" MK croons. "Wait." Then squints. "Did we just give Macaque drugs?"
"Congrats, Kid! You just made him extra annoying for the rest of the night!" Wukong drones before leaning back. "You and dragon-pony-girl can split the credit!"
The sides of the stage billow with smoke, the curtains parting to release more towards the volcanic crowd in the night. From a pipa, a flighty, spirited melody flies out with the budding light, a taut gu drumming a pace that dangles over the right side of suspenseful.
Spotlights swing lilac blades through the stage. After a bar, the pipa's rhythm repeats. A dizi's sharp blow grounds the flow, the dragging notes heaving the rollercoaster tension up to the first peak.
The black-scroll night rips from an electric guitar.
All-consuming stage lights roar as they fling apart the curtains. Those with mortal eyes strain while adjusting, already just breaking for air from the skin-rippling music, a drum kit and electric guitar buoying the crowd along its thundering tides. But attuned demons and fighters like the Monkie Kids, like the Monkey King, are already staring.
Because blinding lights only birth starker shadows.
Two silhouettes cast long and commanding over the oceanic crowd. At the diving-board edge of the stage, before the murky band laying the beat, Macaque and Tang form those dual, dark pillars holding up the dazzling venue.
"Their outfits…!" MK beams as Mei loses her mind screaming and filming beside him.
Their shadows give way to their appearance. Tang's face is uncharacteristically serious, his eyes closed as he nods along to the song. He's as covered up as ever, except that his robes shimmer liquid violet, so fine and dark that their folds flow as black as wine while lined with a burnished gold.
His typical red scarf, though, matches with Macaque's.
He's the one that launched the song with the electric guitar, his body rocking to the hard strums he gives the guitar, his chin angled down before he aims a pointed, bright-toothed grin up at the crowd. The warrior's outfit is almost similar to his typical battle garb. Only the colours have changed, dipped in deep night, faraway stars, and lined a meteoric gold like Tang's.
Except part of Macaque's top is dark, sheer mesh.
Wukong's lips mash tighter together. Across a swathe of Macaque's torso, from his left pec down to where tufts begin to tease just beneath his belly button, down in the dips of his muscled stomach, his chocolate skin and black fur comes out in the glowing stage.
Then, a shadow microphone warps into Macaque's hand as he pauses playing. The instrumentation fades, save for a soft, thrumming bass, to the song's first line.
Where am I going, running through the darkness…?
Wukong can't keep a hold of the breath leaving him.
A hang time before gravity hits, the concert-going din is robbed of sound, winded by Macaque. His guitar hangs by his body as his free hand palms his chest that swells with his inhale, his eyes scrunching as his voice teems with feeling.
The moonlight is my only guide…!
He grips the microphone with two hands, his cry of the second line more dizzying than the first.
The turnout plunges into screams.
Macaque switches back to his guitar as Tang soon starts, his higher pitch poised through the crowd's shrieking.
Pain and sadness can't be wiped away.
Even so, I won't let the blaze in my heart die out…
The Monkie Kids burst into cheers and fireworks, lighting up in the skies of sparks and gunpowder that is Lantern City.
The instrumentation fades once more in the pre-chorus, Macaque singing the melody, Tang the harmony, as they circle each other with smiles that stretch in sync.
Who are we keeping these feelings for?
Tearing through the darkness beneath the daylight
Till the day we sparkle before the sun—!
Wukong's ribcage shivers around his heart.
With Macaque's grin reflecting Tang's, a beacon in the shadows, the chorus ignites.
Flames I harboured in my freed heart—
Whirl up, adorn me now!
Towards the far side of the dawn…!
"HOLY BRICKS…!" MK whoops till he's warbling. "GO TANG AND MACAQUE…!"
He almost leaps out of the audience already billowing savagely to the musical storm. Listeners gifted with flight soar circles above the audience as Macaque and Tang belt their hearts out to a rocking melody.
"DIBS ON SELLING MACAQUE'S AUTOGRAPH!" Mei yells from the side.
Tang then hits a high note in a solo line. Mei loses herself in a howl, Sandy whooping along with her.
"GET IT, TANG…!" Pigsy roars while punching the air, laughing till his throat is sore. "THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT…!"
But Wukong catches what exactly Tang is singing.
Until I can fall back in love with this world you are in!
Then comes Macaque's bellowing line—Even if it means my life is forfeit, let us connect—that Tang finishes with him—with the miracle born from…the bonds we braid!
Wukong's lips part.
The instrumental stomps back in. The stage lights swing like the little ones do on vines in the home of the Monkey King and his warrior, lashing Macaque and Tang's shadows over the crowd, drawing out exactly where the snare of their performance captures.
Macaque then steps forward with the bridge.
Emotions, dreams, this wavering present world—
The drums take a barely slower, still steady beat. Macaque's gaze hardens with his delivery.
I'll brandish each of our justice over them again and again.
Wukong's heart lurches.
When did he last blink? Staring into the stinging stage lights is nothing for his eyes of gold. Less than nothing hurts when he beholds Macaque's silhouette in the heart of that light, split into thousands of filaments that long to bend towards him.
Tang strides forward, his verse pondering.
Who do we link our lives—
who are we destined to entangling with other people
—for?
Softly, Macaque sings the higher harmony for Tang's next line, and his every note combs gooseflesh beneath Wukong's fur.
The serpent's path and its great deal of sins—
Slash clean through them all.
Before the king can linger on how Macaque sounds so gentle when he sings the harmony, the song dives back into the chorus—the rhythm the same, the lines having changed, Macaque dominating the melody once more.
Now let loose the fires we started!
Soar up—if we run, tomorrow is bound to change!
Tang sings his solo line, the words having changed, too.
Never again will I let go of this world where I am with you…!
Before Wukong can choke past the heat in his throat, instead of Macaque singing a line himself, he and Tang sing the next line together.
I'll go together with you.
When Wukong is already clutching at his chest, squeezing as he stares, Macaque sings the bridge alone.
That day I relive even when I close my eyes…
A shining, xylophonic tune joins the backing as Macaque sings while shredding his guitar, his eyes narrowed in focus. In feeling.
The future we yearned for even when I was crushed…
Tang's voice adds a gentle support, a invisible hand on his back, for the bridge's last line—where Macaque's face scrunches as if, in the lantern-lit night, he's staring straight at the sun.
One day, I'll bring that future to you
at any cost—!
Macaque smashes another strum out of the guitar, panting heavily while its scream lingers.
The chord's echo recedes slower than it burst out. The pipa that kicked off the song comes back in a repeat, plucking another bar of the melody.
Until a turntable scratches.
Not a pause for breath, Macaque slams out chords to the beat of the pipa that drowns in his guitar song. The drum kit picks up, firing up the pipa and Macaque's guitar in turn. Tang head-bangs on the side until, a blink later, Macaque's voice free-falls into the pre-chorus again.
Flames I harboured in my freed heart—
Whirl up, adorn me now!
Towards the far side of the dawn!
At long last, a final comeback swerves in, both choruses uniting.
Now let loose the fires we started!
Soar up—if we run, tomorrow is bound to change!
Macaque and Tang hold nothing back in their voices or their grins when they sing together, till their bodies shudder with every wailing note they strike out, echoes diving dolphins through the sea of screaming spectators.
Until I can fall back in love with this world you were in…!
Even if means my life is forfeit,
I will connect…
with the miracle born from…
the bonds we braid!
The final stretch. The instrumental detonates.
Sweat flies off of Tang as he dances to the rest of the song. Macaque doesn't fully sweat—far more would be needed for that—but it's a tantalisingly close thing. His skin shimmers with a thin sheen, his fur unkempt from the thrusts of his playing arm, his whole body rocking to the performance.
He licks his teeth, the rhythm hurtling towards the end of the song—the drums shuddering, the electric guitar roaring through to Macaque's teeth, through the soles and sinew of any listener that somehow still has both their feet on the ground.
The pipa's ostinato swoops in, loud enough to match the guitar and drums peaking in crescendo.
Then—after four decisive notes—silence conquers.
"—Thank you, Lantern City…!" Macaque whips his head up, his grin as brilliant as a waxing moon, the lilac spotlights honed on him and Tang. "G'night!"
He spins around, flourishes his hand, and the stage curtains swing shut.
The audience clamours for an encore after the two stars wink out.
"That—WAS—AWESOOOOOME…!"
MK tackle-hugs the others as he howls up to the strings of lanterns making patchwork out the starry sky, the Monkie Kids laughing with him.
"We gotta go find 'em and celebrate how freakin' AWESOME that was…!" MK grins as wide as his voice has gone hoarse. "Monkey King, you never told us Macaque was a total rock star—!"
He spins around to grab Wukong into the circle. But, with a fast fading smile, he whips around to nothing but a flock of strangers still shining from the music.
"Monkey King?"
"Oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh, oh—my—GOSH, that was incredible…!"
Tang and his elated screams bounce between the walls backstage. Meanwhile, Macaque airs out the neck of his scarf, gulping some cool air before his chuckle comes out raw.
"Nothin' to it." He snaps his fingers and shadows swirl their original outfits back onto them.
Macaque's arm falls limp after his finger-snap, his swallow scratching up-down his arid throat again. His head pounds, vision swimming from the sonic overload still thrumming in his skull, through his system, leaving his ears twitching. Coupled with the extended use of his magic—maintaining his clones, the lighting, the outfits, and directing Tang—the heat haunting his fur burns to the bone, numbness licking long over the shivers racing wanton through his body.
The loopiest grin plasters onto his face.
"Think I needed that," he murmurs in a sigh.
"Macaque, you were phenomenal!" Tang hops over to him, his laughter a cascade. "I still can't believe you included me when you could've nailed that whole thing yourself!"
"Aw, where's the fun in that, though?" He dusts off the praise. "Matter of fact, it can get a little predictable, being that good at hard carrying, so."
His shrug soon slopes, his body tingling sweetly from the post-performance high. He soon takes pause, though. Tang smiles so earnestly at him, it knocks him off-kilter.
"I know you maybe didn't mean it like that," Tang starts saying, his volume more tempered. "But if you included me to apologise in any way for when we were both here last time…" He shakes his head. "Then you are seriously the best."
Tang shines. Macaque blinks.
"Ah, well… I got no problem with you taking it that way." The warrior turns aside, rubbing the back of his head in a sniff. "I'm just glad you measured up. Run a tight ship when it comes to my productions."
Tang takes in Macaque's profile. Then, in a high-pitched squeak, tackles the monkey's side in a hug.
"Whoa, okay!" Macaque's ears flick. He glances wide-eyed to Tang squeezing him. "Um. Good show?"
"Sorry, I should've asked first, I just—" Cutting off his own rambling, Tang nuzzles into his shoulder while somehow hugging him tighter. "I just haven't felt this happy in so long and it's all thanks to you…!"
"Pretty sure that's post-show adrenaline hitting you…"
Macaque draws out the words from nothing but hesitation. Despite that, he gingerly brings up his tail—the only appendage of his Tang isn't squeezing tight. Then, eventually, he wraps it around Tang's shoulders, a smile to his huff.
"All right, superstar." He pats Tang's head with his tail, his fur breathing beneath his clothes again when the hug loosens. "We've got some benchwarmers to gloat to."
"With." Tang aligns his glasses again, his grin contagiously bright. "Gloat with."
Macaque blinks, his mouth floating open. Then, in a sigh through the nose, he relents with a smile.
"With."
"'EYYY, there's the monkey maestro and the scholar SUPREEEEME…!"
Mei mimics air horn noises while hopping all around Tang and Macaque when they exit backstage. Pigsy and Sandy are quick to follow celebrating them, the festival only a stone's throw away, down the stream of quiet in the alley they huddle in, just beside the entrance to the city stage.
Soon, as Macaque laughs when Pigsy and Sandy toss Tang into the air, MK tugs on his coat sleeve from the side.
Macaque takes in the MK's face and immediately frowns. The Kid cheered hard enough to basically lose his voice, but the concern softening his face jars him.
"Hey—Macaque?" MK swallows, nearly rasping. "Monkey King, uh, seems to have…disappeared?"
His eyes dart. But Macaque's shoulders merely relax as MK starts babbling.
"I don't know where he could've gone, I— I'm pretty sure he enjoyed your show! He basically couldn't keep his eyes off you guys, I swear!" MK wrings his hands. Macaque pouts, his frown softening. "I mean, I was pretty busy losing my mind over how cool you guys were, so I didn't watch him the whole time obviously, but—!"
"Hey, breathe."
Macaque puts a hand on MK's shoulder to ground him. Then he chuckles because MK tips back bodily with a mammoth gasp, because of course he would.
"Tell you what; I'll go look for him," Macaque says. "How 'bout you celebrate Tang there in the meantime?"
He juts his head to where the others are effervescent, fizzing with praise and laughter. At that, MK blinks, a sweetness to his frown.
"But…I wanna help you," MK says. "You and Monkey King."
Macaque's brow rises. Then he chews the inside of his lower lip, a smile threatening to break through.
"While I fully appreciate it," he says honestly, his heart warmed, "I think you got yourself to help out first." He leans in stage-whispering to MK. "Don't want Pigsy back on your case for not appreciating Tang enough again, hm?"
MK stiffens to a board.
"—Tang, you were the coolest EVER up there…!"
Macaque snorts at MK's yelping leap over to his friends.
The push ends up being a formality, effective as it initially was. MK's laughter rings bright with the truth, mingling with the joy of his friends and family welcoming him back into the fray. Macaque got his kicks out of the show itself, where it mattered.
As for the reception that mattered, Macaque looks out to the moon from the alleyway. Gives a sharp sniff. Then, with a notch to his brow, drops down through a shadow portal.
"Uh… So! You're joining us! On the whole…round trip. Round the woooorld trip."
On the outskirts of Megapolis before the globe-trotting 'surveycation' as dubbed by MK, the Monkie Kids were chatting while packing their things onto the T.E.A. a short distance away.
Wukong's nothing remark swirled up into the air from where he sat beneath one of the trees yellowed at the end of fall, where a certain other immortal monkey who also packed magically light lingered, too. The sage's eyes meanwhile were skating to anywhere but Macaque, who leaned against the trunk with crossed arms and a raised brow.
"Sound less than enthusiastic about it there," muttered Macaque, more observational than offended.
"Wh— No! That's not what I—" Wukong shook his head like he had shivered. "I just… I didn't expect you'd be coming with. As…" He gazed down at his own hands. "As one of us."
"That surprised I'd step out of the shadows?" Macaque snorted. "Or actually be welcomed into your little crew?"
"It's not—! Ugh." Wukong smeared his groan over his face. "This is coming out all wrong."
Any more of Wukong's mumbling squished to the little worm pursed out of his lips. Macaque, making keen note of the action—of how Wukong wasn't fully facing him—gave a gradual squint.
"…Huh." He bumped himself off the trunk, stepping closer to Wukong. "Never thought I'd see you be nervous." His grin sprouted. "Especially over li'l ol' me."
"You— Nervous!? Me!? Over you!?" Wukong whirled his way at last, his fangs showing with his scoff. "You've officially lost it. 'Cause I am not…any of that!"
Macaque simply hummed, his expression neutral. His lack of reaction wiped clean Wukong's own.
Then he stiffened at Macaque bending at the waist, his scarf stroking the top of Wukong's cross-legged knee. It didn't put them at eye-level. But it did make them far closer.
"Would it really be so bad if you were?"
Macaque dipped the words into a near murmur. They were coated sonorous enough to prickle the air between them. Wukong's fur fluffed as if static had kissed him.
"That's…" Wukong floundered, his gaze sliding in place—slipping over Macaque's barely lidded eyes. "I—"
"Although"—Macaque's smirk sharpened like sand in an hourglass—"it is pretty funny."
"What do you mean Monkey King won't talk to you anymore!?" MK cried at Macaque. "The trip hasn't even started yet!"
He and Macaque looked over to Wukong—who froze himself into golden meditation after a sudden, incomprehensible bout of spluttering rage—being pushed like a boulder into the T.E.A. by the others.
"Eh. Pretty sure I'm basically dead to the guy again." Macaque shrugged. Then frowned at MK's horrified stare. "Hey, if anybody's allowed to make that joke, it's gonna be me."
High up between the city and the surrounding mountains, the stars burst forth in the skies like fresh air into a musty closet.
On a hilltop looming over Lantern City, an Armand pine tree shudders once. Twice.
Wukong thunks the back of his head. The tree rocks again.
"Stupid, stupid..."
When he opens his eyes, Macaque's focus on-stage glitters with the stars above. When he closes his eyes, that soap bubble awe iridescent on Macaque's face when he peeked out beyond the curtain—to the masses awaiting him—stains Wukong's sight.
His body slumps on a huff, sparing his backrest of a trunk further abuse. The sage only has the stars and mountain peaks to entertain him, having made sure to face away from the city. Anything to give his brain space from the whetstone of Macaque's performance spinning a blade out of his senses, smoke close to rising grey through Wukong's warming sigh.
What Wukong fled from was a certain, repulsive heaviness. One that hurtled for him during Macaque's performance, threatening to chain him down and never let go. Running was all he could do, every captivating light and tongue-aria fragrance in the city sliding off his mane as he bolted lightning through the night. But now, damp grass biting through his sweatpants and to his fur, that vindictive, bestial weight roots him to the spot beneath the white pine on the hill.
His groan fades before it reaches the needled branches. Wukong can only wince with scrunched eyes as his heart clenches impossibly. Liquid ache soaks through its every chamber, none built to withstand or drain any flood.
Then, the branches above him whisper.
The king flinches. But the rustling of the pine's soft needles fades faster than a tide brushes clean a shore.
In the next moment, an acoustic guitar twinkles. With finger-picked notes.
Wukong's eyes widen to coins. Fuel catches fire in his hot air balloon of a heart as the guitar melody blends to a slow, warm river of strums.
Because Macaque's voice slips into the stream like a nude body.
He sings gently. No louder than if he were having tea and conversation with the brush-hair needles before him, facing Lantern City. But his singing voice is gilded with sunshine at dusk, infusing the sweat of summer into the shivers of winter. Wukong stays as silent as a graveyard palming his mouth, his lashing tail close to biting into the bark behind him, as he listens to Macaque like he were pressing an ear to a thick door.
The warrior sings of the brightest star in the night sky, asking whether it can hear his lonely sigh. Whether it knows where the one as good and steadfast as his shadow has gone. Whether it cares. He sings of hoping he can grow into someone who can let their tears flow freely. Into someone who can run to embrace the other—their other—in spite of all the lies between them.
Wukong's lashes flutter from how slowly he screws shuts his eyes, his hand warm with his shuddering breath.
Macaque sings on. He beseeches the brightest star in the night sky in that even, warm tone. Pleads softly that every time he questions the point to life, every time he is lost in the dark, that the brightest star let him stay close to it.
With grace, Macaque's voice peters out. So, too, does the guitar.
Wukong's eyes open. His hand slips from his parted mouth. Stroked by the white pine's branches, the night above blooms darker. The stars gleam brighter.
Macaque's presence reappears near Wukong, to beside him where the tree's roots gorge into the hilltop's soil. Lantern City's glow presses soft on the left of Macaque's body. His right side is closer to Wukong, the wide trunk shrouding them in the long gullet of its shade.
"…You really know how to pick your songs." Wukong reins in his sigh from spilling out, swallowing for his dry throat. Macaque hums.
"Including the one on-stage, huh?"
"...Yeah. Of course." Wukong's chuckle blurts out of him. "You don't—" He shakes his head. "You don't need me to tell you how good you were."
"No," Macaque agrees, nonchalant. "But I'd definitely still like to hear it. Especially from the guy who ditched."
No accusation adorns the delivery. None is needed to hit a grimace out of Wukong.
"You were brilliant, Macaque. I just…" Resigned, Wukong taps his head against the trunk again. "I just needed a moment."
Macaque snorts gently.
"I think that little game of tag you made me play just now was longer than a moment." He sounds as if he's inspecting his claw while making the remark. "Say you won't have me play a guessing game about whatever's gotten into you next."
A laugh underlines Macaque's voice. But Wukong's chin only dimples, his squint still aimed at the spray of stars.
"I'm just selfish," Wukong mumbles. "Too selfish for my own good."
"…About what? 'Cause that"—Macaque makes a face—"does the opposite of narrowing it down, frankly."
"You're a phenomenal performer." Wukong's sigh rushes out of him. "You always have been. And it used to be that I…" His eyes lid further. "I was your first listener."
Macaque's tail swishes in a hum. "My only one for a long while."
"A long while."
Wukong chews on his inner lip. Macaque's impromptu performance just now crashes against the lead that lined Wukong's limbs from Macaque's one on-stage, a chemical reaction that spider-webs sparks beneath his stone skin. The itch spreads to his jaw.
"Macaque, I…" His mouth moves mechanically, lacking words for a moment. "I never told you this, but…"
His eyes pinch shut to gird himself. So he misses how Macaque twists around his way, his frown all undivided attention. Wukong still doesn't look back when he continues.
"I think…" Wukong blows out a breath. "From the first time you ever played music, I thought…it was so beautiful, I'd lose you to anyone else who would hear it. And I remembered that, tonight." He swallows. "I felt it."
That dark, leaden weight finally chips away from Wukong's limbs, his secret finally set free. But now it circles overhead, in league with brewing storms and eyeing vultures. Desperate prey, he flings his gaze over.
And Macaque's face positively blooms.
Round eyes. Parting mouth. Frissoning fur that makes his cap look smaller. Soon, after a gasp, Macaque flicks his head away, his eyes trying to stick to the city, the mountains, anything else, and failing.
"I… Uh…" The shadow gulps. "Okay." Rubs the neckline of his hoodie. "Um. Why'd that…make you—?"
"You were shining up there, Macaque."
Wukong's whisper chafes with heat. Macaque catches his stare on a caught breath, like the king wrought his collar close with the decree alone.
Eyes of gold shine at one another beneath a celestial ocean.
"You lit up this whole city. And you were so, so happy." Wukong's entire being softens. "And the whole time, even before you got on, all I could think was how—" Squirming, prickling warmth worms down his throat, making him wince. "How I wanted to be the only one you played for. And I…" He turns away. "I've got no right to feel that way."
A cannibal of self-loathing burrows sickly in Wukong's veins. Yet at least it gnaws at the unsightly jealousy foaming at the mouth in his marrow. All of it roasts above the open flames of his blood, the streams spittling whenever Macaque draws near, licking Wukong's marshmallow brain to toffee-brown and darker—to clots of black char armouring a bright, gooey sweetness. One that clings mercilessly to anything that touches it—free-climbing onto fingers, smiles, the roof of his mouth, and every crag of his memories.
The tree rattles with a slam.
Wukong startles, all beasts quelled and flames doused. Except a sneak candle lights up his eyes widening on Macaque, who now stands while scowling down at him—his fist tightening against the trunk, his nose flaring like a bull's.
"You've got no right? Feeling that way…?" His whisper seethes like steam. "If you had no right, you'd make one for yourself. Or— Or you'd go and do it anyway!" His chest swells and collapses, his fists at his side, his eyes blazing with disbelief. "Where do you get off being a coward now of all times?"
Wukong leaps to his feet, his fangs bared before he can even blink. "I am not a coward."
"Oh, what, so this is you being brave?" A stomp and Macaque is growling in his face. "I sing for you twice and you act like this?!"
Wukong's breath hitches.
"What?" He searches Macaque's face. "You…sang for me?"
With the king's snarl fallen, his shadow's slips in turn—to a wide-eyed, naked something that twirls Wukong's stomach as Macaque blinks fast. They're close enough for their breaths to condense as one.
Macaque wrenches his gaze away, his profile pained.
"Why now? Wukong? I…" His inhale sieving through his teeth, Macaque palms his face. Hides his eyes. "It's one thing for you to act like nothing's changed. It's another to tell me…that. About how you felt—how you feel, and then to backtrack! Just why—?"
Lost, Macaque's hand barely falls. Wukong can only stare—unblinking into the stage lights before, unwavering now beneath the starlit pine—at the halting reveal of Macaque's lost, forlorn face, painted in Lantern City's faraway light.
"…Of all your never-ending recklessness," Macaque murmurs, "why am I suddenly the exception?"
Wukong's breath skitters away from him. It's the only thing of him that moves in that endless split-second.
But Macaque chances another look his way. Reanimating him.
"Shouldn't you be?" Wukong's Adam's apple dives. "I mean. Every time I didn't make you an exception…did things my usual, reckless way with you involved…" His shrug teeters, a smile starting to show. "This would only be a step up. Right?"
Macaque's shoulders drop. The king's hangdog smile, showing less than a full tooth, gleams impossibly. Catches the light and offers it in a dense bouquet, every frond for his warrior.
"…It's not a step up." Macaque's fists tighten. "Not right now. Not…" His breath floods out of him. "Not for me."
Wukong's heart can't truly thump. But the stone thing thrashes from the churning in his warrior's voice. Emotion tightens Macaque's brow, his lip thinning as if its corners are being pulled apart, taking in Wukong as if he's scouring for him in the night.
Yet the glow on Macaque's face darkens his red mask.
How is it his shadow could radiate like this? How long would it have taken for the sage to realise that he does? How is it, through all the centuries of being face-to-face—through centuries more of only imagining so—that something in the air stirs anew being with Macaque, here and now?
"…You're kind of adorable."
Wukong chuckles at himself, the sentiment slipping warm into the cool air.
He means it as the opposite of mockery. But Macaque bristles from head to toe anyway, his fur fluffing wherever his clothes can't contain it, red somehow spreading to beyond his mask. Wukong's smile can only crinkle further when Macaque hisses through the most crimson squint and clenched fists.
"I seriously can't stand you…!"
And what can the king do but laugh from the belly at that?
A fine answer: he steps forward and, with his miraculous, immortal warmth in the mountain city's winter, takes one of Macaque's hands into his own.
A gasp threads taut the air. Macaque's tensed claw thaws so fast, you would think Wukong forced it loose were it not for how gently he cupped it, how softly he brings it to where their heat and breaths mingle, all eddying up to the pine needles sheltering them.
"You're incredible," Wukong states. "You know that."
Macaque's head whips up from where their hands ensnared him. After blinking, he glances aside, his weight shifting from heel to heel.
"Again"—his brow wrinkles—"could stand to hear you say it more."
Wukong takes another step forward. Has his free hand join in. Now, two of his palms clasp around one of Macaque's.
The king raises that hand to between their chins, his gaze never straying from Macaque's face, where alarm grows like a timelapse of flowers blooming in spring. Eyes ping-ponging between their hands and their surroundings in wordless splutters, Macaque looks two seconds from portalling away. His body stays rooted in place, his face reddening impossibly all the while.
Emotion swells hot in Wukong's throat, every word clogging up and trying to shoulder their way through first. No hope lies for enough of those words to make a full sentence, to convey how the rolling of his stone heart begins to shed all the moss and grime it has gathered over the years—from where his heart led him so astray as to lose the one he cherishes as much as he does his own peach-sweet life. The one with whom he assured an idyllic eternity carved out by his own hand—a promised opus where the palette had long clattered to the ground, paint strewn and wasted, the canvas searingly empty.
"…You still don't eat enough."
"Wha—…?" Macaque, shaking his head, soon makes a face. "You know I don't need it. I keep telling you—"
"You don't even do up the buttons on your coat."
"I— It's for the look! It's… This cold is nothing—"
"Even when we have plenty of pillows and blankets to go around, you still just sleep out in your clothes."
"What's with all the nagging suddenly…?" A squirm takes over Macaque, eyeing Wukong before he stammers. "I'm just used to it. I can make do with—"
"That's not the point." Wukong's eyes flare, his grip on his warrior's hand pulsing. "Macaque, I don't care what you're used to now, what you can make do with. That you don't need to eat till you're full, keep warm when you're dressed, bundle up at night—to do any of that to live." His voice thickens, his inhale not sharp enough to hide how it shudders. "But I want that for you. All of that and more. So that you can live."
Macaque, ever-alert right hand to the Monkey King, lulls to a slack-jawed stare.
The heart inside Wukong tumbles a boulder down the canyon of his throat with how his warrior's eyes shimmer, his own face souring with heat.
"…Wuko—"
Faster than a blink, Wukong wrenches Macaque in for a hug. One that would easily have fractured fragile, mortal ribs. But Macaque has never breathed in fuller from over Wukong's shoulder, at how the branches and leaves gasp from the force of the king's embrace reaching them through the soil and up the xylems of the pine tree.
"Macaque, I…" Wukong croaks his name like he hasn't known water for days. "I missed you." He squeezes him tighter in his hold, his shoulders hitching, his expression crumbling. "I missed you…"
All his immortalities, all his strength, and Wukong is close to falling apart holding his shadow close. Whether he's pulled back from the brink or pushed that much farther past it, Macaque hugs him back. A gentle touch that grows firmer, surely and rapidly, squeezing him so tightly as if to keep him together by brute, wilful force.
"Wukong, you…" Macaque's growl comes choked. "You massive idiot…"
A laugh totters out of Wukong when that grip of Macaque's shivers—when his shadow so obviously tries to quash the shakiness to his breath. It tickles the sage so much that tears slip hot down his cheeks, a sniffle punctuating the hilarity of it all as he clutches onto Macaque so hard, he has to be scarring creases into his handsome coat.
"You're an idiot." Wukong's whisper scrapes raw, his laugh airless. "Stop acting so—so cool already." He scrubs his face against Macaque's shoulder—his coat cold from the night, the tufts of the fragrant, thick fur at his neck scratchy, in need of grooming, and numbingly perfect—while sucking in a breath. "Just say it back."
"Only if you stop crying." Macaque's grumble strains hot through his teeth. "Will you? If I say it…?"
"Nah…" Wukong's shoulders hiccup, his smile spreading against Macaque's shoulder. "I'll probably sob like a baby if you do."
"You've never even been a baby."
"Gods..." Tears wet Wukong's laughter. "I hate you."
Then, as Wukong musses his fur shaking his head against him, Macaque cards a claw through his mane.
"Wukong," his shadow whispers. "I'm only able to hate you"—after swallowing, he tucks his king's head closer—"as much as you're able to hate me."
Wukong's eyes widen. Sparks sting at their corners. They burn, welling with salt, before they glitter screwing shut.
Then, with an unspeakable mercy—with a smile that Wukong will hallucinate having seen because it rings so clear and soft, like music from a home down the lane—Macaque mumbles his next words on a sigh of dreams.
"I've always missed you."
The air shivers.
A sniff rips the lining of Wukong's nose. His legs give way.
Macaque, either following him or helpless to him, sinks with him. The two of them fold to the ground, on their knees clinging onto each other, the both of them shaking—the sage shaking worse.
"Is this real?" Wukong gasps out, his sobs clawing out of him. "Am I—?" His groan squeezes through his closing throat. He clutches Macaque tighter. "Are you really here…?"
Macaque laughs thickly.
"I'm here, Wukong," he reassures through a tremor. "I'm with you." He brushes down the fur on the back of his head, a lullaby in motion. "So much that it—it annoys me."
A part of Wukong thinks Macaque has to insult him, quick, so he can know this really isn't a dream. Because only in his dreams is Macaque ever so gentle, so indulgent, and so willing to hold him back.
"I'm sorry," Wukong blurts out. "Macaque, I'm so—" A waterfall must form over the peak of Macaque's shoulder where he cries. "I'm so sorry…"
"I know. I know, I…" Macaque swallows. "I've got you…"
Macaque lifts the dam like a blindfold. Wukong's sobs gash through them both.
Above two beings that defied Heaven for each other, a celestial ocean stirs in ink.
Bittersweet wails pluck straight from the heart. Song and dance may carry on in Lantern City below. But at the crown of the city, the mountain peaks only bear audience to the throat-rending lament of the Monkey King. Meanwhile, Macaque pulls Wukong in by the waist with his tail, as if he wants none of his clothes to survive the sage's weeping—only interested in keeping him covered in its folds.
Wukong cries rivulets over Macaque, initially wordless. Eventually, through stuttering half-breaths, jumbled complaints and remarks filter in. Of adoring Macaque's performance, despising his terrible eating habits, ruining his stupidly chic outfit. Macaque only hums and chuckles to each sentiment, an acapella duet he improvises around Wukong's tear-stained mumbling.
In his shadow's embrace, Wukong's heart tumbles and tumbles to no end in sight, the cliff bottomless, the vertigo forever.
Like that, an age passes.
The grip in Wukong's arms slack in their long embrace, Macaque tentatively pulls back. Then, with a deep pop of a laugh, shakes his head.
"Still the ugliest crier ever."
Puffy-eyed, Wukong pouts at him. Even with tear tracks barely dried on Macaque's face, the warrior shines like polished onyx, his smile steeping in his soft eyes.
"Shut up," he mutters, pawing at his warrior's back. "Just come back here."
Macaque pointedly looks down. Their arms are still looped around one another. "I haven't left."
He goes still when Wukong, with closed eyes facing Macaque's wide open, presses their foreheads together.
"…Thank you."
The king sighs the words. Macaque gasps them in. The paths their breaths trace under the evergreen white pine draw out the proof.
Both their faces are blotched. When Wukong looks to him, so that they look upon one another, they lose themselves in those whispers of sunrise on each other's face—pinks, reds, and gold. All the while, the surrounding night crouches in darkness, raring to pounce once a trace of the real, grand, heavens-filling thing sneaks in.
Macaque's tongue slips out to wet his lips. Wukong's eyes laser onto them.
"I think…" Macaque exhales. Wukong's attention flicks up to the bait of his shadow's smile, a hatching egg of a thing, cracking small and brilliant on his face. "That you're it."
His tail taps the back of Wukong's shoulder.
"Wha—?"
A wingbeat of dawn flutters from over the city's horizon when Macaque stands, hands behind his back as he dances away, a portal materialising right behind him.
Wukong shakes his head. The moment he unscrunches his eyes, Macaque has vanished from sight.
"Hey!" The sage's yell rouses the hilltop as he scrambles to his feet. Scrubbing his face with his arm, he sniffs hard before swivelling around. "Macaque…!" When the tail-ends of his warrior's laughter trail like a cat's toy, warmth laced in its echoes, Wukong's smile breaks out in a flick of his tail. "Are you ever gonna play fair for once…!?"
A presence behind him flows tingles over his fur, having him spin around.
And there Macaque grins at him. The view robs the king of breath and stuffs it in his heart, giving it a hard pump. For dawn breaks over Lantern City, spilling liquid gold over the shadow's shoulder.
"With you?" Macaque tips forward, his smirk growing, his mask-defying blush undeniable from so close. "Never."
He giggles.
Wukong's marshmallow brain melts down his soil-ridden branch of a spine. Because, right in his face, in a sound coiling tight and sweet around Wukong's soul, the Six-Eared Macaque giggled.
The sage swoops towards his shadow with outstretched arms. To embrace him, to do more, Wukong doesn't know in the same way a magnet has no say in flying towards its opposite pole. It simply does.
Wukong hugs a body's worth of air. Because Macaque leaps back just as quick—snickers at Wukong in an addictive, short-lived rhythm—before leaping off the hilltop like it were a cliff's edge. Another blink, a flash of violet, and a black-yellow hawk dives a blur into the freshly brewing day.
If Wukong concentrates, he can hear Macaque's idle, trailing song, leaving breadcrumbs right to him.
The king's beaming smile could rival every star in the heavens. It leaps as if reaching for them when, in a crowing laugh that ricochets happiness across every street and hideaway in Lantern City, he spins into an eagle and hurtles for the horizon—fast and true to where his shadow sings for him.
"At this point, I'm willin' to bet those two monkeys got back to the truck just to punk us."
Down in the main square, the remains of a sleepless festival shift strong along Lantern City's veins. The Monkie Kids regroup with a frowning Pigsy, almost everyone listening to him. Only MK flits about with a hand shading his searching eyes, the lanterns overhead still twinkling through hints of dawn, a full-fat morning yet to fall atop the city itself.
"I mean—" Mei interrupts herself with a drawn-out yawn. "It is daybreak and we still haven't found 'em. Much as it's fun half-searching and mostly-partying, I'm getting a little partied out now."
"But these guys really know how to throw a festival. Most the stalls aren't even closed yet," Sandy points out. "Might be that Mr. Monkey King and Mr. Maquack decided to just enjoy the festival themselves."
"Those two? Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it."
Pigsy snorts without laughter. Next to him, Tang falters, mumbling sleepily before he falls against Pigsy's side.
"Whatever they're up to," Pigsy grunts while propping Tang up on his shoulder, "it's high time we got a break from them and get some shut-eye. MK!" He calls over to the Kid now spying the mountains. "I know I ain't about to convince you to stop lookin', but keep your phone on ya with the sound on. We'll be back at the T.E.A.!"
Right then, as MK twists around to reply, his intent face falls to one of wonder.
With his gold vision bathing the world in light, MK spots above the crew, the festival-goers, the buildings and all the lanterns, two birds flying close to one another.
Where the clouds twine cherry orange and rosy grey over the deep, blooming blue, dawn is truly seeping in. And bathed in newborn sunshine, beneath a persisting moon, the birds' umbrella wings split the light drizzling viscous onto the city as winged dark and light spiral languidly together.
MK chews on a laugh, the taste warm and sweet.
"…I'm good, actually. They'll find their own way back." He looks down with his regular black eyes, his smile dazzling. "Let's go catch some Z's!"
He bounds off for his family and friends, who return his grin with each of their own.
Overhead, two birds dance to a song that will never reach anyone on the humble ground. But the feeling in that music is still enticed by gravity, riding the glimmering petals of snowfall, swirling dreamily towards the earth. All towards a tender soil where—given warmth, given care—so much that matters can bear fruit one more time, in a long-awaited encore.