The Lovers (Shadowpeach)

Facing Consequences

Crying always made Macaque's eyes burn. The skin around his eyes would puff up and get itchy, then get dry and sore. He hated it. So instead of crying he lashed out in anger. Destroying the trees around him. He didn't know where he was and he didn't care. All he knew was that he wasn't on Flower Fruit Mountain.

Every time he felt the emotions well up inside him, he punched a tree. He'd rather feel the physical backlash from the force that he could control, rather than the emotions he couldn't.

The particular tree he found himself standing under, bore peaches. A cruel coincidence. He looked at the fruit, they all looked ripe and evenly spaced. It was a beautiful tree. 'Wukong would probably have liked it,' he thought, the emotions beginning to come up again, but before they could reach him, he punched the tree. It's bark shattered around him and the fruit fell, bruising on impact with the ground.

There was now a hole in the trunk where his fist was. The tree would never bear fruit again. The realization hit him, sending him over the edge. He collapsed onto the ground, unable to stop the waves of tears flowing out of his eyes.

His choked sobs echoed around him as he tried to stop himself from losing the composure he no longer had. Similar to trying glue the pieces of the peach tree back together, something that just simply couldn't be done.

He sat at the tree's side for the rest of the day, until the sky darkened. He wasn't going to sleep, he wasn't even going to try, knowing that if he did with how emotional he was right now, he'd just have more nightmares. It'd be better to just avoid it.

"I'm sorry about the hole in your trunk," Macaque whispered, leaning his head on the tree. He knew it couldn't talk, but he just felt that he had to apologize. The tree didn't have any ways of protecting itself against something like that, so it was only fair it got some sort of apology. Maybe he should be giving that apology to a real person.

He went too far with Mk today and he regretted it. Sighing he pulled out his phone. He'd atleast try to make it right. A quick message saying he wanted to talk was sent to Mk. He didn't expect a response anytime soon, but he'd still keep an eye on it.

The next few days went by fairly quick, to Macaque's standards atleast. Every night he would visit the tree and sit by it, hoping that one day the hole wouldn't be there, but that was never the case.

Mk wasn't responding to his texts either. He tried sending more, but there was never an answer and he was starting to get worried about the kid. So he decided he'd visit Pigsy's Noodles.

It was later in the evening, the lights on the street were starting to turn on. He didn't know exactly when Mk got off work, but he had to be done by now, right?

His hand slowly went to the closed door. There were voices inside, but he couldn't make out Mk's. Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door. All the voices stopped.

"It's open!" The muffled shout of the pig came from the other side.

Macaque bit his lip before slowly opening the door. All eyes turned to him. The pig man was in the kitchen cleaning up and the scholar was sitting at the booth eating noodles with the dragon girl, but all of that seemed to be put on hold when they saw the demon monkey.

"What are you doing here?" The dragon girl almost growled.

Macaque was a little taken aback by the aggression in the girl's tone. Wukong had definitely spoken to them. "Is Mk here?"

"And why would you want to see him?" The pig man stared at him with the ferocity of an overprotective parent, so did the scholar.

"I uh.." Macaque couldn't help but stumble a little on his words. "I wanted to apologize to him...about what happened."