Journey to Somewhere New (Sun Wukong x reader)

Chap. 20 - Reconnecting and connecting dots

Monkey eventually stopped running when she was completely out of breath.
"Good workout (Y/n)." he smiled as he handed her the notebook back.
"S...Screw you!" she panted, snatching it away from him before letting herself fall on the ground.
"Why don't we go sit over there instead?" he pointed towards the meadow on a slop beside the road.
"I...am *not* moving!"
He sighed and picked her up with one hand, holding her under his arm and putting her down in the middle of the meadow. He sat beside her and admired the scenery for a while, waving at the occasional carriage that passed by. It was a nice sunny day, with a few clouds creating some shades, and colorful flowers here and there. He picked a blade of grass and put it between his lips with a pleasant smile. (Y/n) was too tired to join him in this moment of serenity, her eyes were closed as she caught her breath.
"Man, you know, sometimes you just gotta sit back and watch the world pass by."
"Cool..." with heavy movements, she sat up and lightly hit her legs to feel them again.
"Say, learned anything from this confusing nonsense yet?" he nodded towards the book.

"I think so." she looked at it. "Like how we, living beings, along with our material universe is all just ph-phene-phenomena-wait." she picked up the book and flipped through the pages for a short while. "Uh...Phenomenological!"
He frowned.
"That is not a real word."
"It totally is!" she pointed at the page.
"And even if it is, you don't even know what it means."
"Well basically- Um..." her gaze wandered, waving her hands as if it'd make the words come to her faster. "The whole world, that we see, hear and touch, is just a manifestation - like an illusion - of a more, I guess 'real' reality, accessible through enlightenment. So we have to work on transcending that fake reality... I guess."
Monkey couldn't help but smile, she didn't even sound sure of her words.
"Well, that's truly a shame." he laid back, his hands behind his head. "'Cause this looks and feels pretty real to me."
Confused at first, (Y/n) looked ahead and her eyes widen slightly. They seemed to once again be in a completely different part of the country, she's never seen those flowers before, and she's never seen the ocean before either, now it was constantly on the horizon. The two of them stayed like this in silence for a while.

"...How's the ocean?"
"Salty."
She frowned, she expected something more poetic, and longer. She looked at him, unknowingly smiling.
"Salty?"
"M-hmm."
"Why would it be salty?"
"Probably so humans don't drink from it. It is where dragons live, you wouldn't want people to drink your home."
"That's a fair point." she nodded. "So is it like, just one giant river?"
"It's got sand."
"That doesn't sound right." she lightly shook her head. "Deserts have sand, and there's no water in the desert, why would there be sand right beside the biggest water supply ever?"
Monkey gave her a weird look.

"What?"
A second passed and he puffed out a laugh.
"You're weird."
"Hey!" she lightly hit his arm. "Where does that come from?"
"From when you assumed that *I* didn't know ocean, I *know* ocean." he said with a confident smile, pointing at himself with his thumb.
"...You can't even swim!"
"Neither can you! *And~* humans can't breathe under water. How embarrassing." he mumbled that last part, although he purposefully said it loud enough for her to hear.
She frowned and hit him again.
"If I had some of those paralyzing paper seals left, I'd use one and kick the immortal life out of you!"
"Oh you wanna give it a go?!" he excitedly stood up and raised his fists while he lightly jumped from left to right. "Let's see if you made some progress! Come on!"
She looked up at him then at her legs and hit them to make sure they were working again. Then she stood up and raised her fists.
"Bring it on Monkey King."

He smirked. He started off by walking around her for a bit, noticing that she was waiting for him to attack first. With a feint step to the left he suddenly stepped to the right and swung his fist, which (Y/n) successfully dodged. He whistled to signify that he was impressed.
'He always starts from the right when he fights.' she thought.
He giggled excitedly. Since his arm was extended, his right side wasn't guarded, so she took this opportunity to try and punch him in the face. But just then, he changed his center of gravity to the left and kicked her in the stomach, sending her backwards. With a dry cry, she fell down on her back and glared at him as he cackled.
"Oh don't look at me like that. No one is a match for me, especially not a *human*!"
She knew he didn't mean any harm by it, but those words hurt more than she thought they would.
"You see my dear friend," he put his hands behind his back, acting like a teacher. "a commun first mistake people make in battle is-"
"Get away!!!"