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The path ahead of the camp was quiet, all things considered. It could be worse, but it could also be a lot better, too. Sure, there were no insects that were biting them, but also, there were no demons ahead to keep their attention.
To one of these pilgrims, that was the preferred way, enjoying a lazy afternoon to do jack nothing.
But to the other, he would literally rather be doing anything right now, else he goes mad with boredom.
Wukong sat on a fallen log at the edge of the trail, staff laid across his knees, posture loose but alert. Even when he was resting, there was something watchful about him. Golden eyes looked back and forth at the treeline in the distance and the road ahead.
Bajie sat a few paces away on a rock, legs spread out comfortably. He was slower in his movements, but with an undeniable power that goes unused. He peeled a persimmon with care, glancing sideways at Wukong every so often and checking whether it was safe to speak or safer to stay quiet.
In short, it was a very boring watch.
To Bajie, boring was better than bad.
To Wukong, boring was the worst thing on this heaven-forsaken earth.
But for now, they both didn’t dare interrupt the silence, an unspoken truce, so to speak. No addressing one another, no shouting, no insults. The only noise between them was the sound of fruit skin tearing and the wind through the trees.
The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either, which is pretty amicable between these two.
Wukong glared at Bajie before looking back at the horizon. He knew that if there was an attack, then he would have to be the one to take care of it. Knowing the pig, he would sooner get kidnapped and used as ransom than ever become useful.
Wukong blinked his eyes a few times, resisting the urge to wipe them to ease the itchiness behind his retinas. Touching would only make it worse on dry days like these. While his power of observation was thanks to burning in that damn furnace in heaven, it made his eyes easily bothered and sensitive.
Bajie risked watching Wukong from the corner of his eye. As much as he hates to admit it, Wukong was the stronger of the two. It wasn’t even close. And that is what probably stung his ego the most.
Within the few short years of traveling, he has grown accustomed to the chatter of his journeymates in the background. The horrid silence only amplified how uncomfortable his body felt when left to his own thoughts. Bajie looked at his hands as they peeled away… trying not to focus on how they felt wrong, how he shouldn’t have hooves, or a snout, or large ears.
These aren’t his hands, he used to be a man, he used to be someone. He used to be Tianpeng.
Sanzang can say that ‘peace and quiet’ helps with meditation or whatever he wants, but the only thing the quiet does is make the thoughts he would rather forget even louder.
Bajie threw the persimmon into his mouth, not even bothering to peel the rest of it. Didn’t matter. He is a pig, might as well eat like one. The food always helps quiet those stupid thoughts.
Bajie hates the quiet… but perhaps he should be careful for what he wishes for.
“…Stop chewing like that.”
Bajie startled from Wukong’s voice, “Chewing like what?” he spoke with his mouth still half full.
Wukong just looked at him with disgust, “I can hear you SMACKING with every single bite, it’s annoying!”
It wasn’t a lot just to ask someone to eat with their mouth closed, was it? Heaven forbid the hog can be a little bit considerate of the present company. It’s not like he wants to be here patrolling with him.
Bajie just scoffed, swallowing what was in his mouth, “I’m not doing anything!” He was just sitting here!
Wukong rolled his eyes as he went back to his watch, “You’re committing noise pollution, that is what you’re doing, smack a little louder, and I’m sure that the demons will come running our way.”
Wukong looked done with the conversation. He said his piece and left it as that, no point in continuing now that Bajie finished his fruit and wasn’t chewing anymore.
Bajie should have also just dropped it there.
But Bajie isn’t known for his intelligence, now is he?
“You complain to me about noise when you literally slurp when you eat peaches.”
“Peaches secrete juice like no other fruit, and I shall not be shamed by YOU for not wasting perfectly good food!” Wukong spoke with a teasing rhythm unashamed of his own eating habits, “You eat with your mouth open, it's a surprise that anything makes it to your fat belly.”
Bajie throws a hand up in the air, “If you don’t like it, you can just look away!”
“Lot of good that will do when I can still hear you smack your lips like a fish!”
Bajie gestured further down the path, “There’s wide open spaces in front of you! Nobody is making you stay here! Just go on ahead!”
Wukong flashes him a cheeky grin, the kind that offers no warmth, just mockery, “Oh ho, you think you can order around Old Sun here? You’re getting too bold, hog.”
The wise thing would be to stop.
This whole argument isn’t even an issue.
But pride is a dangerous thing, one that can make you so stupid in the moment. One that makes you think backing down is ‘losing’ in an imaginary game both of you are playing. When two large egos crash against one another, just looking for an excuse to lash out.
“I think that you take orders quite well,” Bajie spoke with a similar false sense of cheer, “Why don’t you miss the day of being a Bimawen? The best horse herder in all of heaven~”
Now it was just a matter of seeing who could piss off the other more. Who breaks first.
Wukong sat up quickly, his red eyes glowing dangerously, “Oh, I’m sure they miss me more than I miss them. If Heaven is stupid enough to hire idiots like you, then I must have been the only competent god in all of the three realms.”
Wukong knew what the pig was playing. But like hell, there was any chance that idiot had anything he could say to him that could actually get under his skin. He was Sun Wukong, he was the one who actually had the power and skills to back up his boastful claims. He isn’t prideful because he is arrogant, he is prideful because he is always confident in his skills to prove he is the best of the best. This pig just needs a reminder of exactly who he thinks he can mess with when he doesn’t contribute anything.
Bajie sat up himself, “I was the Rear Marshall of the Heavens! Only to take orders from the Jade Emperor himself! I was-!”
“Was, was, was,” Wukong interrupted, tone mocking, “You used to take orders from that old crone, while this monkey never took orders from anyone. I am, and always will be, the Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal. And you just used to be a lackey…. And still are~”
Bajie felt his lips pulling back in an animistic snarl, his tusks peaking out, “That is just a made-up title by an immature lil shit when he didn’t get his way. I earned my title!”
Bajie still recalled when he heard that fake title all those years ago. That some new hot-headed god thought he could come into heaven and just take it over within a day. Bajie had to start from the ground up, he was put on garden duty for the first 500 years of his time in heaven. Even as a soldier, he got so used to using a rake he never stopped using it.
Wukong’s eyes flashed something meaner at that. A snarl of his own, showing his fangs threatening to split across his face.
This skirt-chaser thought that it was just so easy for a demon to make his way up in heaven. He must be stupider than he looks if he thinks there is anything fair or just in the way that he was treated with the power and skills that he had.
“And you sure did earn getting kicked out for being a big STINKING PERVERT!”
Bajie stiffened. Those words halted his train of thought, and something ugly curled around his chest.
This wasn’t unusual for the two… They both had a habit of bringing the worst out in each other.
Bajie’s grip tightened around his rake, “Oh, I got kicked out, huh? That is hilarious coming from you! At least I’m trusted. The only reason you're here is just ‘cause you are Heaven’s favorite attack dog! The only thing you are good for is being a killer!”
Wukong doesn’t lose his sharp smile for a second, if anything, it becomes sharper like glass, “At least I’m useful, at least I’m wanted. You are just a sad sack that Guanyin happened to run across on her way to me. What good do you do besides sit on your ass and eat all our food, idiot?”
Wukong stood up, his movement as graceful as water. He spun his own staff with such ease, a casual display of unrivaled power. A small threat that Bajie is in over his head. This hog didn’t know what he had done to make it where he was. The pig had a cushy lifestyle and a cushy life while Wukong had to fight for his right to even exist.
Wukong was born a fighter, and if Bajie were wise, he would know he should back down now before he says something he’ll regret.
Bajie was many things, but ‘wise’ is not one of them.
Bajie stood up just the same, his own height towering over Wukongs, but that didn’t make a lick of difference. Wukong could have been 4ft tall and still look down on anyone he deemed beneath him.
“I had to work to get where I am,” he complained all along the way, sure, but he did it “You were just born as a magical monkey, didn’t have to cultivate to become a demon, it just came to you. I worked all the way up to get where I was in heaven, but you just throw a tantrum when you had to start at the bottom like the rest of us!”
Wukong laughed, sharp, loud, and harsh, “You are all talk when you have no action to back yourself up. Everything I have is ‘cause I fought for it. I didn’t let anyone walk all over me,” If Bajie really thought for a moment that heaven was going to let him 'work up the ranks' he was only fooling himself. Wukong knew better. They were looking down on him. Trying to tame him as if he was some wild animal that needed a short leash! He spun his staff just so, pointing it right at Bajie’s chest, “Without me here, you and everyone else here wouldn’t have made it past the first trial!”
“The first trial?” Bajie’s anger overtook any fear he would have at the obvious threat of facing Wukong’s staff, “You mean when Yellow Wind blinded you and kidnapped the monk? I’m sorry, who was the one carrying your sorry ass?”
And for the first time…. Wukong’s smile slipped.
“And what about after we got Wujing? Who stole those ginseng fruit-”
“That was YOUR idea-”
“And it was YOUR idea to PUSH the whole damn tree OVER!” Bajie’s chest met with Wukong’s staff, all logic thrown out the window, “Without Guanyin taking pity on you, you’d still be a caged beast, chained up and forgotten! All the power in the world and not an ounce of control-”
Wukong pulled the staff away from his chest, slamming it into the ground.
The force caused a large crack to appear in the earth, another to make Bajie sweat as logic and reason started to filter into his brain again, just who he was talking to.
But rather than beating him as Bajie thought, Wukong scuttled up his staff to get right in his face, two sharp fingers poking him right in his snout, “I am NOT going to be lectured about control from the most lazy, gluttonous, self-absorbed JERK on this damn journey! You are the most cowardly, self-pitying, yellow-bellied idiot I have EVER had to put up with! If you wanna bow your head to the entire world to save your own tail, then BE MY GUEST!”
Wukong was right. He was a coward. Even now, he was scared because Wukong could flatten him like nothing. All his bravo was quickly depleting in the face of certain defeat, and things like dignity and pride were wavering in favor of survival.
“A-at least I’m trying!” Bajie stuttered out, “You don’t even want to be here-!”
“Of course I want to be here,” Wukong looked pissed at the false accusation, “You’re the one that falls for the most OBVIOUS demon bait as long as it looks like a woman! You stupid MORON! You never listen! You just talk and talk to get ME in trouble! That STUPID Corpse Demon would have KILLED YOU ALL! It’s ALL YOUR FAULT that Shifu kicked me out!”
“SHIFU KICKED YOU OUT ‘CAUSE HE IS AFRAID OF YOU! AT LEAST HE TRUSTS ME!”
Silence hung between them.
Bajie knew he shouldn’t have said that.
Wukong wasn’t going to let that slide.
Shifu wasn’t here to calm down the monkey. He was as good as pulled pork…
“Pig.”
Bajie closed his eyes. Even at the end, he was a coward who couldn’t face what he had done.
But he could feel it.
Wukong leaned in, close enough that Bajie could feel his rage, “You don’t belong here…. You would rather stuff your face and call it quits the second that things get hard… how many times had you said to separate the luggage? To split up? To go home? Sell the horse? …. Please, if it wasn’t for shifu’s blind pity for you, he would see that you would sooner leave him for dead and crawl back in the mud you came from.”
Wukong knew he was right that day. And he still knew that it was true. That woman wanted nothing more than to lure Sanzang away to eat him alive, and if Wukong just let her take him just to prove it to the monk, he would be compromising on his own moral compass to just let the mortal be at risk for the sake of his own ego…
Even now… he hates that Shifu listens to this waste of space when Wukong was the one always rescuing him!
…So what if he killed six men when they first met, so maybe he let Guanying’s temple burn down, so what if he killed off the Immortal Zhenyuan, he saved them in the end, didn’t he? Wasn’t that enough to make up for his mistakes as long as he fixed them in the end?
Bajie’s own breath came out shakingly, he opened his eyes to glare into Wukong’s red eyes, “That’s…. That’s not true-”
“Shut up,” Wukong leaned back, that same look of disgust from earlier back on his face, “You don’t deserve to be on this pilgrimage…. And you sure as hell don’t deserve to stand alongside me.”
Bajie’s fist clenched.
He couldn’t say anything.
Not just because of the fear… though the fear played a big part in it…
But because he couldn’t think what else to say… and even worse… maybe he was right on some level…
He is a coward, he is lazy, he does make things worse for the other just because he can. He is stupid to think that, even for a second, maybe they could have ever worked together as brothers-
The ground rumbled.
Both of them froze.
A guttural laugh echoed from the trees ahead, followed by the crunch of footsteps. Many of them.
“Well, well,” a rough voice drawled from the treeline, “sounds like we arrived just in time.”
Figures emerged from the shade, hulking, horned, sharp-toothed demons with weapons already drawn, eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“Two of them,” another hissed, “And already fighting! How convenient.”
Wukong’s expression shifted instantly, rage turning into something focused and lethal. He hopped down from his perch, staff in hand, in a familiar stance.
Bajie’s knuckle-tight white grip on his rake turned into something looser, more flexible as he stood straight, “........ All that noise you made from smashing the ground was heard, ape.”
“My noise?” Wukong scoffed, “You were smacking your lips so loud they echoed.”
Bajie rolled his eyes, “These demons aren’t worth Old Zhu’s time, I’ve faced far more with far less!”
Wukong smirked without looking at him, “Try not to get in my way.”
Bajie hefted his rake, shoulders rolling as he bared his tusks again, this time with purpose, “Try not to hit me and we’ll see…”
Wukong barked a laugh. Not a mocking one for once.
The demons charged with a roar.
And another truce fell between the two.
Until the enemy in front is defeated…. Their argument can be put on pause.
The fight was over almost as soon as it began.
Minor demons always fought the same way, just cannon fodder ready for the slaughter. They were loud, messy, uncoordinated, and so sure of their own importance that they for some reason announced themselves out loud before an ambush, taking away their element of surprise.
…..Idiots.
Wukong sighs deeply, sitting on top of his pile of corpses as he reminisces on the battle.
It was nothing for Wukong to shatter their formation, with a single wave of his staff, he sent the largest of the front line scattered into the air… in pieces. Bajie followed through the gaps, ready to take on the second wave with precision.
They didn’t even need to speak a word to one another.
When one demon tried to flank Bajie, Wukong’s staff cracked its skull before Bajie could turn. When another lunged for Wukong’s back, Bajie’s rake slammed it face-first into the dirt.
It was coordinated, precise, even… familiar.
But the time the last impact hit the clearing was quiet… just like earlier.
The only sound was the wind rustling in the trees…
And also the sound of Bajie digging the graves, but that was almost methodical at this point.
Wukong sat atop his lil corpse pile, balancing his staff across his shoulders as he watched the cloud drift across the sky. He had a few spots of blood, but that can be washed out just fine. Wujing was surprisingly good at getting blood stains out… the perks of learning from an ex-cannibal.
…………….. He was bored again.
Bajie, meanwhile, was actually focused on his task at hand. Perhaps it was because such a mindless task, that it allowed him to mutter complaints under his breath that he otherwise didn’t have the chance to say. It almost reminded him of gardening, plowing fields like he used to. He didn’t even have to dig that deep, just shallow enough to keep things respectable.
Sanzang would notice if they didn’t.
Don’t ask him how, he just knew.
“There,” Bajie huffed over a decently deep hole, “That should be satisfactory for anyone, let alone this crew of hooligans. Keeps shifu from lecturing us for an hour.”
Wukong snorts, hopping off the throne of bodies and landing near the mass grave, “I’m sure he’ll still find something to lecture us about…. Maybe something about bashing in their heads a lil more politely or something.”
Bajie gave a cruel chuckle at the thought but didn’t say anything else.
The adrenaline from the fight, both physical and verbal, left him drained. There was an awkward air between them that was even worse than this morning. It was heavier, and neither wished to address it.
Oh no, it was much easier to focus their attention on throwing bodies into the hole.
Nasty work, but hey, it’s the life of a pilgrim.
Or maybe it’s not…. Wukong nor Bajie honestly isn’t sure if more pilgrims deal with demon-eating monks on a regular basis, but who are they to say, really. Maybe the monk-life really was supposed to be this exhausting, and they just never noticed. Enlightenment doesn’t come cheap.
Bajie picked up bodies with the end of his rake, throwing them in with the ease of a man throwing dirt with a shovel. It was almost impressive in a morbid way. If the pilgrimage doesn’t work out, maybe he can get a job at the graveyard at this rate.
Wukong poked a body with his staff, gently pushing it into the grave at a slow and fairly unhelpful pace if we are being honest.
Bajie didn’t look up from his work, but rather adjusted his rake as he threw the next body.
Wukong glanced at Bajie, then away, ears flicking.
Bajie wiped sweat from his brow, shifting his weight.
But bodies don't last forever, and with the last one in, it was a job well done. Covering them over with the dirt didn’t even take a minute, as now the peaceful clearing was as good as it was, with a perhaps more fertile spot of land and the sour smell of iron in the air.
…. Wukong and Bajie stood there for a moment.
Neither speaking, just breathing steadily.
It was always like this, wasn’t it. When it came to fighting over people, it was like they were one and the same, no words needed, no friction to be had, just a single goal in mind and a relentless ferocity.
It’s always when they are not fighting other people that they always seem to fight one another.
Bajie cleared his throat, “You-”
At the same time, Wukong said, “I-”
They both froze.
Bajie blinked, then huffed out a short, awkward laugh, “Uh, you go first.”
Wukong waved a hand dismissively, “No, no, by all means, you were talking.”
Bajie hesitated, then shook his head, “Kings first,” he said in an almost jovial manner.
On any other day, Wukong would have taken that as mocking.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth despite himself, “Hmph, don’t think flattering will work on me now, dork.”
The silence lingered a moment longer…. but less heavy.
Wukong cracked his neck, the picture of nonchalance, “So… hm… not that I’m admitting I was wrong-”
“Of course not.”
“-but I could have been… more approachable in my reprimands of your character.”
Bajie rolled his eyes, “Senior Brother, if you would rather hit me in the head to make this conversation more bearable, then just smack me, and we can call this square and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I mean…. I always want to hit you,” Wukong nods his head thoughtfully, “But perhaps another time.”
“Oh, thank god-”
Bajie’s appreciation was short-lived as a small hand grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him down to Wukong’s eye level.
“If you ever call me Bimawen again, I will grill you and feed your riblets to my grandkids.”
Bajie gulped loudly, “I-I think that is manageable…”
Wukong let him go just as roughly, pushing him back to standing up, “That’s what I thought!”
Bajie sighed, he knew that Wukong’s temper was shorter than well…. As Wukong was, but like hell Bajie was going to say that. He shouldn’t have expected anything more than getting light with just a threat…
Especially after everything.
“.... and well… it worked out well enough in the end…” Wukong looked away, resting his staff behind his neck.
“Killing the demons? I mean, yeah, that wasn’t too bad-”
“No, no, the uh,” Wukong looked down as if he was suddenly very interested in the ground, “That business… the Corpse Demon and all the whole… banishment thing. Not saying that it was great, and if you ever do anything like that again, I shall fulfill that threat of grilling you, but…. It wasn’t too bad.”
Bajie blinked.
And then blinked again.
He put a finger to clean his ear to make sure he wasn’t hearing him wrong, “....I wasn’t expecting you to say THAT.”
Wukong snapped his glare right back at Bajie, his fur slightly fluffed, “Oh, don’t you misunderstand me, porkchop," his eyes were glowing red, “I wanted to skin you alive when you got me kicked out…”
“Okay, please don’t.”
“...it just so happened that when I was kicked out… my kingdom needed me right at that time and well…” Wukong blinked, his red eyes calming down a bit as he leaned back, muttering something under his breath.
Bajie held his breath, more than a little shocked at where this was going, “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Wukong groaned, rolling his head all the way back, and a sneer on his face as if he would rather stop talking, “I said… if I had had the opportunity to take a temporary pause on this journey at any time… that I suppose that was the most… opportunistic.”
Bajie couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Are you….” Bajie tried to wrap his mind around what Wukong was trying not to say, “Are you glad you left-?!”
“You are just lucky that I was needed elsewhere, or otherwise I could be roasting you over the coals.”
Bajie quickly backtracked, “Okay, neat, cool, glad to hear.”
Wukong was despondent when he left the group, shame and hurt piercing his heart as he rode his cloud back to his homeland. He doesn’t think he ever cried as hard as he did when he was alone… not since his first Shifu sent him away in an almost similar manner.
Maybe he really was just a bad student, no matter where he went or who was teaching him.
But the second he got home and saw that his kingdom, his grandkids that were so few in number now, were being hunted by those horrid humans that dared to think that his family was their prey…
Well… after the sadness had passed away… he had so much rage that those hunters were a perfect outlet to his turmoil. His grandchildren were safe, his kingdom was safe. They would finally come home, and he could protect them as a good grandpa should…
He killed so many… He still hasn’t told anyone when he did come back… he is too ashamed to even try. That the second Sanzang had sent him away, he just proves he really does just solve his issues with violence…
Maybe that is why when Bajie came to his front door step, begging and pleading, he was more than willing to mess with him, showing him around his kingdom and just how much better it was now that he was back…
Which… wouldn’t have been possible if he wasn’t kicked out in the first place… would any of his grandkids have been left if he never came back to check on them…
Wukong didn’t want to think about that. It didn’t happen. They were safe now.
Wukong sniffed, regaining his composure, “...but yes… I am…” Wukong made another frustrated noise, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, “I am… give me a moment….”
“Don’t hurt yourself….” Bajie muttered.
Wukong growled lowly, but, dragging his hands down his face, “You don’t GET it! You used to be a marshal…. You used to be a man.”
Bajie flinched at the past tense, the sting of reality still hard to bear.
“I am still their KING! I am Sun Wukong!” He gestured to himself as if that was all that needed to be said, “That never changed!”
He had a haunted look in his eyes… one that recalled his beautiful, lush mountain… how it was left barren and unguarded as monsters and hunters just took and took and took and took.
“ ….. I should have been there… I should have kept my grandkids safe from the start…” Wukong had a look that was never seen before…. Shame, “I should have been there sooner.”
Bajie shifted awkwardly. He wasn’t used to… seeing Wukong like this. He didn’t even know the man could feel something as regret. He always seemed just untouched by the burdens of life…
But he really just… was trying his best, wasn’t he? Sometimes he stumbled, sometimes he failed, but he was… maybe more genuine than he gave him credit for.
“.... Well… I can’t say how well my trying to kick you out would have gone after Yellow Wind … I think Shifu felt far too bad you're going blind for that, so there was no chance I could have gotten away with that…”
Wukong whipped his head back at Bajie as the pig spouted on.
“Ah, I could have definitely gotten you after the Ginseng fruit, but that old Immortal bastard just had to have that party, completely ruined the mood for a proper banishment.”
“What the hell are you talking about, pig?” Wukong looked at him incredulously, “Did you get a concussion from one of those fodder demons?”
Bajie chuckles a bit, “Ah, well… I guess I was trying to say there was literally no other time that you could have gone back… yeah, things could have been better if you did…”
Wukong hid his own flinch far better than Bajie did.
“...But you made it there at all… better late than never… especially at our first demon as a team,” Bajie’s smile slipped into something more worrisome, “That didn’t bode well for us, hell, I thought that was a sign this journey was doomed for sure since at the first foe we faced I go and muck it all up by splitting the team…”
Neither of them said anything… What was there to say?
Wukong wasn’t going to disagree with him, and Bajie didn’t expect him to.
It was Bajie’s fault that Sanzang kicked him out….
…. But maybe it didn’t have to be a bad thing completely…
They stared at the dirt mound just a tad longer, maybe just a few minutes, before both turning away and walking back up the path to the rest of their journeymates.
Wukong doesn’t think he will ever really understand this hog.
And Bajie doesn’t think he is ever going to stop feeling envious of the monkey.
… But maybe he wasn’t so bad when he wasn’t being a huge jerk.
“...Do you want a fruit?”
Wukong looked at Bajie, his pace even, “Huh?”
Bajie took a hand to his ear…. Pulling out a peach.
Wukong’s pace stuttered for a moment… only for him to bark out a laugh and skip ahead, “When in the HELL were you able to do that?”
“Oh, you think you’re the only one that can keep crap in his ear, huh,” Bajie tossed the peach at him carelessly.
Wukong, of course, caught it… but gave a few good sniffs in case there was anything wrong with it.
Bajie rolled his eyes at his paranoia, “You know I always hear that you love peaches, but I never actually asked you if you actually do…”
“What kind of freak doesn’t love peaches?” Wukong huffed, spinning the fruit in his hand, and he tossed it himself, “I adore peaches! I ate an entire orchard in heaven within three weeks, you know!”
“And you call ME a glutton!” Bajie reached into his ear again… this time pulling out another persimmon.
Just how much food does he have in there??
“You are a glutton,” Wukong finally took a bite from the peach, deeming it worthy.
And it was a good peach, juicy, sweet, rich…
But he couldn’t help but compare it to those peaches.
Wukong swallowed his bite, “... You know, I keep expecting each peach to be just as good as the ones in heaven…” he gave a slight sigh in disappointment, “Heaven may be full of jerks, but at least they had damn good peaches….”
And now they ruined peaches for him… His favorite fruit in the world, and now he just always compares them to the small taste he had in heaven… okay, it wasn’t small, but he is definitely not having those peaches again anytime soon… once you get a taste of the best, everything else tastes a little duller…
“.... But that can be kinda exciting too,” Bajie held his own fruit, thinking about something much different than fruits, “Even if you know it’s going to end in disappointment… the anticipation that maybe this time it’s going to be different… nothing beats that.”
Wukong just raised a brow at the other, “Are we still talking about fruits, or are you talking about Miss Gao again?”
Bajie slumped his shoulders, “Call me what you want, but I am a romantic at heart. I want to do things properly and wed a wife first before anything else!”
“Oh yeah, and when Guanyin tied you up in a tree to publicly shame you for wanting three wives was just you being ‘romantic’?”
“.... I mayhaps been a little bit greedy there-”
Wukong barked another laugh, slapping Bajie hard on the back, enough to make the bigger man stumble, “You have the self-control of a ship without a rudder! Anytime we face bad weather, you start suggesting selling poor Xiao Bailong!”
Bajie caught himself, giving the other a glare… but nowhere as near heated as it was this morning… more so that he was just annoyed at Wukong’s antics rather than hateful, “I keep telling you if we sell him, he can just come back with us later! It’s an infinite money loop! He’s a dragon! None of you can see the vision.”
They did annoy each other… they don’t think that is ever going to change. Even with the rest of the journey ahead, the foes they are going to face, the trials they will have to rise to…. Maybe they can at least try to get along, even while annoying one another.
Neither of them had to work with someone like that before. They are too familiar with each other to call each other just coworkers, but it’s hard to say that they are friends when they have so very little in common…
It’s strange to think how you can be fighting one moment with someone and then just… fine the next… you don’t hate them, but you trust them… What is a word for that…
Wukong stole Bajie’s persimmon, running up ahead.
Bajie’s jaw hung open, looking at his now empty hand, “HEY!”
Wukong giggled as he skipped, “Come on, Dork! We are burning daylight!”
“Give me back my snack!”
“No! Unless you peel it for me!”
“What?! Are your hands broken?? Peel your own persimmon!!”
“It tastes better when other people peel it!”
“Give it back!”
“Stop complaining! I’ll give it back to you if you do!”
“.... Fine, but I am going to complain the whole time…”