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"Come on, kid. You should've been able to dodge that."
Macaque was right—He should've been able to dodge that. Macaque swung his cudgel wide and nearly theatrical. High over his shoulder with an exaggerated wind-up, MK should've been able to dodge.
Instead, he took the hit and was sent across the room, hitting the training mats hard and tumbling over himself multiple times.
MK shook his head as he pushed himself back to his feet, grimacing.
The past few days had been weird. Focusing was harder than ever, and the ways he spaced out were different than the usual. Normally, his brain would be bouncing between ideas and impulses, distracting him from the important tasks he needed to get done and luring him into something more fun than necessary.
The fogginess he was dealing with now wasn't like that. He couldn't focus on anything. Not his job, not training, not art, not video games. Nothing stuck—it all slid off his brain like it was covered in oil. Normally, when MK struggled with attention, he could draw it out. Make mindless doodles, meaningless shapes, until his brain settled back into his body and he could focus on the things he needed to do.
Pigsy's frustration with his focus was more than obvious. He could only drop so many bowls and not hear his name called so many times before Pigsy was threatening to have him replaced.
MK knew Pigsy would never seriously replace him—not with a robot or some new employee—but it was usually all it took to get him to shake off the inattentiveness and get back to doing a good job. He was even having fewer issues with his attention lately! Between the different training styles Macaque and Monkey King used, the whole "Heaven is falling apart" deal being prevented, and MK finally having some consistent structure to his life, it'd been way easier to stay focused on the world around him.
Now, a few months after rebuilding the pillar to heaven, MK felt his brain slipping out of his body. Sometimes it felt like he wasn't real and really was just going through the motions. He was watching himself from some other part of the room. It felt like he was a clone, and his original self was somewhere he couldn't get to.
He didn't need to be told to see it frustrated everyone around him. Macaque and Monkey King both had to explain techniques repeatedly, just minutes after he was sure he "got it this time!" He was late for work, late for training, late for plans with Mei and Red Son, just anything and everything. He couldn't keep up.
Meditating worked… sometimes. Being alone with his thoughts often felt like static, and while he was working on it, things just… kept getting hazy. His mind went in circles that ended up incoherent and wordless, intangible thoughts falling through his fingers like sludge. It sometimes reminded MK of what it felt like when the curse of the scroll had surrounded him, all dark and sticky and impossible to know up from down and left from right.
"I know!" MK attempted a taunt, "I gotta let you hit me sometimes too, y'know!"
The words fell flat to his ears, and definitely to Macaque's own six. When MK shifted into his starting stance, staff out and ready, Macaque didn't mirror the posture.
Instead, he raised an eyebrow, squinting. His secondary mentor sighed, stopping the base of his shadowy staff on the ground and leaning on it.
"Seriously." Macaque's eyes flicked up and down, scanning him. "What's going on? You're really struggling with the focus today. Wukong said you were out of it when you guys trained the other day, too."
MK deflated, lowering his staff. He stayed silent as his gaze fell, avoiding Macaque's scrutiny. He was really hoping he could avoid talking.
"Y'know, it's pretty bad if Wukong notices something's up."
The vinyl of the tatami mats suddenly became the most interesting thing in the room. MK's eyes followed the black weave, where it dipped between each section. The brocade between the mats was purple.
"MK."
He startled. Macaque must have teleported when he wasn't paying attention (because of course he wasn't), since he was now directly next to MK with a hand on his shoulder.
"Talk to me, Misery Kid." Macaque looked at him with something MK couldn't quite place. It wasn't an expression he saw on Macaque often, and with his already foggy mind, everything was too out of focus to try to name it.
MK continued avoiding eye contact. Looking at people felt too invasive, and trying to meet people's eyes made his vision all fuzzy. He felt like he could only look through people, instead of to them.
"I- I-" MK started. His voice felt distant, as if someone else were talking for him. "I don't know."
He shrank further into himself. Macaque's gaze weighed heavy on his shoulders. His brain was full of fog, and his chest full of lead. The tatami turned into ink. MK wondered if he would sink into it, like how he and Mei first got into the Scroll of Memory.
MK wondered when Macaque turned the lights in the room up. The brightness hurt his eyes, even reflecting off the dark flooring, so he screwed them shut to block it out. His ears were ringing, he was pretty sure.
Macaque said… something. MK felt the vibrations of his voice, but he couldn't hear it. He was too far away from his body. He watched from somewhere across the room again.
Suddenly, the floor opened up, and he dropped into it. MK watched himself sink in slow motion, unable to stop himself from tumbling into the dark.
His body collided with something, and he rolled helplessly until something soft and warm caught him, solid against his shoulders. His eyes stayed closed, not ready to face whatever new argument he'd have to have with himself.
MK was so tired of arguing with himself. He said he'd work at it every day, but some days he just really couldn't deal with it. He'd sit, supposedly meditating on his issues, listening as his brain threw every thought at him while he could only mumble counterpoints.
"Can we please not do this today?" he cried out, "I really, really, don't wanna hear it about how I'm gonna mess things up again. I already know, I'm gonna just have to deal with it when it happens! I get it! I know!"
"Kid, what are you talking about?"
That wasn't his voice.
MK's eyes flew open, and he found himself in a dark room. But not the one he saw every time he meditated. There was a bed in one corner with a small wooden nightstand next to it, and a desk against the opposite wall. The floor beneath him was dark, but not tatami or ink like before. No cracked stone, either.
In front of him, Macaque knelt before him, holding him upright with a hand on each shoulder. His thick eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes were full of something MK thought he didn't deserve. MK looked down at the floor again, running a hand across the dark material. It was soft, some type of carpet he didn't know the name of.
"Do you think that's true?" Macaque spoke gently, lowering his head to meet MK's eyes. "That you're only ever going to mess things up?"
MK opened his mouth, trying to speak, but the words clogged in his throat like a dam. He pinched his lips together between his teeth. The muscles of his jaw tensed as he failed to keep them from trembling.
He tried again to break eye contact, but there wasn't anywhere else he could look, so he settled for staring at Macaque's mouth, watching his lips move around words that flowed freely.
"I'm not going to tell you you'll never mess up, because everyone does." Macaque's lips curled downward as he spoke, but MK was pretty sure it wasn't in disappointment, "But you know you're more than your mistakes, right? All of us are."
MK knew, logically, that mistakes didn't define people. If they did, Monkey King wouldn't have allowed him to train with Macaque again. Macaque and Monkey King wouldn't have started getting along at all, either. But for some reason, he couldn't shake the guilt from the choices he'd made. They felt different from all the mistakes everyone else made. Like he should just know better.
"I told you before that only you get to decide who you are, but sometimes we're wrong about ourselves. You aren't all your mistakes." Macaque continued, "What's going on in that brain of yours?"
MK wished he had an easy answer to give. Every time he tried to sort out his thoughts, they all overlapped and overwhelmed him until he was out of focus again. It was hard to pick out a place to start, and he'd get all out of focus again.
"I don't know." He mumbled, "I—"
MK bit his bottom lip as his voice cracked. His eyes burned with frustration, both at his inability to speak and struggle to find words so he could explain what was going on. He was distantly aware of how hard his eyebrows were pushing together, because he could feel the headache forming between them.
The carpet under his fingers was too soft. He needed something solid, something to keep him stuck to the ground before his brain floated away again.
MK swallowed and pulled in a shaky breath. The room felt simultaneously too big and too small.
"Hoo-kay." Macaque rolled his lips between his teeth, "Stay with me, kiddo."
Near desperately, MK white-knuckled Macaque's hands like a lifeline. Macaque held his hands just as tightly, turning himself into a tether. His tail snaked from behind him, curling over one of MK's legs and pressing into it as another point of contact.
Finally, MK's eyes lifted to meet Macaque's, though he still couldn't help the way his bottom lip shook.
"Deep breath. With me, through your nose and into your belly," Macaque instructed, then led by example. He held MK's gaze, lifting his chin as he slowly inhaled.
MK breathed with him, stuttery and only managing half as deep a breath as Macaque. He copied Macaque's motion, lifting his head a bit through the breath.
Macaque paused for a few moments. "Then, out through your mouth." Steady and controlled, Macaque tilting his chin back down with the exhale.
MK's breath puffed past his lips all at once. He frowned, frustrated again at himself. The heat pushing behind his eyes grew hotter.
Great Sage, he couldn't even breathe right.
Macaque leaned forward, gently knocking his forehead against MK's. He squeezed his hands tighter for a moment, bringing MK's attention back to him.
"Don't worry about it if you can't do it right now. It'll get easier, just stick with me." Macaque, again, inhaled through his nose.
This time, he tapped his fingers on MK's knuckles so he could follow the counts between each inhale, pause, and exhale.
"Focus on keeping the air moving. Remember, down into your stomach."
MK's next exhale was smoother. The inhale after that, a little less watery. Macaque continued to silently guide MK through breathing for several more minutes.
Once MK's breathing was level, Macaque leaned back. He continued to hold MK's hands.
"Little better?" He asked.
MK nodded. His gaze had fallen back down to their joined hands. He rubbed his thumbs back and forth—Macaque noticed it was a nervous habit of his—along the fur on the back of Macaque's palms. He swallowed once, then opened his mouth.
"Sometimes," MK's mouth finally cooperated, allowing him to speak, "when I try to meditate, or think about stuff, my brain leaves my body."
Macaque rubbed his thumbs against the top of MK's knuckles, mirroring his tic in silent encouragement, as MK grappled with his thoughts.
"It's like, I have all these thoughts and all these things I'm afraid of, and my brain just can't pick somewhere to focus on, and it just goes away. It's different from my usual attention stuff, like where I can still focus on the fun things. I can't focus on anything, not any of the stuff I like, and sometimes I feel like I'm a clone 'cause it's like I'm not seeing stuff through my own eyes. Does that make any sense? How can I be a clone if I'm the OG?"
Once MK started speaking, it was like the dam in his throat had burst open. His thought spilled out, flooding the space between him and Macaque, and he couldn't control the spillage.
"And—And sometimes, when I try to meditate, 'cause that's what I'm supposed to do when I'm having these issues, right? It's like I'm fighting myself, but instead of it being some cool battle between me and the evil anti-MK, it's just me yelling at myself and telling myself I'm gonna keep being a fuck up, and I'm gonna keep making stupid choices, and I'm gonna keep hurting everyone around me.
"It—It makes me feel like Monkey King still chose the wrong guy. Like, I'm not ever gonna be a good successor, and I'm going to make another bad decision like I did with the Pillar of Heaven. And sure, that time it worked out, but what if it doesn't work out next time? And then I'm the reason everyone dies?"
The words fell out of him, every inch of breath carrying loads of insecurity out of him before he could tone it down, make it easier for other people to hear.
When he was out of breath, he sucked in a loud breath through his open mouth. At some point in all the word vomit, he'd started shaking, holding Macaque's hands tightly again, and his eyelashes had become damp when that heat behind his eyes finally spilled over with the dam in his throat opening.
Why couldn't he just keep it together?
"Okay," Macaque mumbled to himself, and MK heard him take in a breath, "Uh, alright. Lot on your mind."
MK continued staring down at their joined hands, shame burning up inside him. His bottom lip quivered as tears dripped off his chin onto his jeans, and he definitely had a headache now.
Macaque squeezed his hands one more time, then let go. First, he swiped his thumbs under MK's eye, cleaning away his tears. Then, his hands moved further up, and he adjusted MK's headband from where it shifted out of place earlier. MK pressed his fists into his thighs.
"I'm not going to pretend I know what all of that feels like orwhat will make it easier to talk about," Macaque spoke as he continued straightening out the cloth. "But, I do know what it feels like to make bad decisions. Really bad decisions, ones that hurt the people you care about. And if other people aren't holding it against you, what's the point of holding it against yourself? You apologized more than enough for the pillar stuff, bud. You can't keep beating yourself up for what you thought was the right thing when no one's upset with you anymore about it."
MK chanced a glance up at Macaque, but he wasn't looking at MK's face. His eyes stayed trained above him, focused on his task as he switched to combing through MK's hair.
"Yeah, you're going to mess up. So will I. So will Wukong, and everyone else." Macaque's eyes flicked down to MK's, as if he knew MK was looking at him, and his lip quirked with a small smile, "But, that's part of being alive. What's that thing Monkey King always says? Leave the world a little better than you found it, right? You've done a good job of that, even if you don't think so. It's because of you that we get to keep living. Believe me, I've had enough of the dying stuff."
It wasn't the first time Macaque had made references to dying. MK always wondered what exactly he meant by that. He thought now probably wasn't a good time to ask, though, and Macaque would probably just direct the conversation back to him anyway.
"And as for Wukong picking the right successor? You know I don't buy into destiny stuff, but I don't think it could be anyone else," Macaque's smile grew into a fanged grin. "For one thing, you're probably the only person who can understand his sorry excuse for lessons."
MK couldn't help the little puff of laughter at that. He knew Macaque didn't mean it anymore when he insulted Monkey King's mentoring skills. They actually had really good synergy when it came to teaching him together.
"Seriously, bud. You're the only one for the job. I'm not saying that to put pressure on you, either. You've got to take breaks, and if we're pushing you too hard or you're not feeling right, you need to let us know." Macaque's tone turned stern, "We all care about you, MK. We don't just care because you're the Monkie Kid."
MK's gaze fell again. Instead of continuing, Macaque paused. "What are you thinking right now?"
His thumbs rubbed at his knees, stuck on the rough material of the denim. Macaque stayed silent, continuing to groom MK's hair as he let him track his thoughts.
"Isn't a hero supposed to be invincible? I don't feel like a hero right now," He muttered.
"Heroes don't fight alone, MK," countered Macaque, then he added, "Warriors don't either, as a matter of fact. Doesn't matter what you are—everyone has to lean on someone sometimes. Both in combat and in everyday life. You wouldn't believe the number of times I had these kinds of conversations with Wukong when we were young."
MK scoffed. "Was Monkey King any good at talking about this stuff?"
"Gods, no," Macaque laughed, "He was terrible at it. He always said the cheesiest things, that we'd figure it out and everything would be fine, and then we'd get fat eating fruit forever. But, y'know what?"
"...What?" MK asked after a moment, with a suspicious raised brow.
His eyes met MK's with a nostalgic shine to them, "I believed him. And you know things weren't that easy, but we're getting there. So, maybe he wasn't so bad at it after all. You should talk to him. I'm sure he'll tell you all the ways you're the perfect successor, too."
MK still wasn't so sure, but he let himself consider Macaque's words.
After brushing his hands down MK's hair one more time, Macaque leaned back and stood up, stretching his arms above his head. His tail stretched out behind him too, puffing up a bit in a way that reminded MK of a cat.
"C'mon, Misery Kid. Let us be there for you. Talk to us. You're not the only hero this world has."