The Lovers (Shadowpeach)

Trees and Apologies

Macaque was quick to arrive at the location Mk had mentioned, the roof of Pigsy's Noodles. The kid was already standing there, shifting his weight from his heels to toes as he waited patiently.

"Hey kiddo." Mk's shadow twisted, stretching out in front of him and a pair of purple glowing eyes appeared in it.

"Hi Macaque!" He smiled down at it, giving him a small wave. "So what'd ya wanna talk about?" The kid cut straight to the chase.

Macaque let out a small breath, also wanting to get it over with and rose out of the shadow. "I wanted to apologize...about what happened during the last training."

"Oh.." Mk's shoulders slumped down as he looked away. "Look, it really wasn't that big a-"

"Yes it was," Macaque cut him off. "I went too far and you didn't deserve that."

There wasn't a response from the boy, who just stood there in awkward silence.

"I've talked to some people and I've decided that I'm going to work on myself," he continued. "So I won't be training you for a while, that is if you still want me to train you afterwards. I completely understand if you don't want me to," he paused for a moment, realizing he forgot the most important part. "I'm sorry kid."

Mk looked back up, pretty shocked. "Oh-uh thank you!" He quickly stuttered out, smiling at Macaque.

The monkey nodded. The growing silence made him aware that even despite his efforts, he still had no clue as to what he was doing. "I'm not sure what to do now," he admitted, an embarrassed smile forming on his lips. "I've never really done this before," he rolled his hands in front of him as he spoke.

Mk's smile grew awkward. "Well I have to get to work soon so you can do whatever I guess!" He gave him a thumbs up, as he started walking backwards.

"Uh yeah! You do that!" Macaque waved him off, standing alone when the kid went down the railing. A full body shiver ran through him. "That was awful," he groaned, rubbing his face.

....

The rest of the day seemed to go by excruciatingly slow. He wasn't waiting on anything, so he couldn't understand why he was so bored. He'd done what he wanted to and now that it was over he was left with an empty feeling, like he was missing something. He wouldn't be able to train with Mk until he figured himself out which would take a while, but they hadn't been doing trainings regularly for a while anyway. The group probably wouldn't want him around for social gatherings either, but that also wasn't a regular thing. He could still visit Sandy, but he didn't want to, not right now atleast. So why did he feel so weird?

Familiar words burned in the back of his mind.

"No one wants you here."

Wukong's words.

Maybe he should apologize to him too.

Yeah. That's what he would do.

....

Flower Fruit Mountain seemed pretty quiet, it was about that time in the day when the monkeys started settling down for sleep. That time when the sky started glowing a bright orange.

There was one monkey perched on a tree branch however, that didn't belong, using the leaves and the darkening environment as cover trying not to be noticed by the monkey inhabitants of the island. If one spotted him, he would immediately be bombarded by every monkey on the mountain. Well all but one.

He perked his glamoured ears up, listening for where that one monkey was. His heartbeat wasn't where he expected it to be, catching him off guard. It wasn't in his cave or high on the mountain, but at the beach. Hesitantly he fell back into the shadows and closer to the gentle, but thunderous beating, a sound he had never been able to erase from his memory.