Chapter Text
The day was gorgeous, the sun shining bright, the wind gently dancing through the trees, rattling the leaves. Clouds hung lazily in the sky, drifting past the mountain and the peaceful orchard. Sun Wukong was lazing about as usual, chewing a peach as he reclined in a tree. He was waiting for his student, who he hadn't seen in a week or two. He was busy with important sage stuff (searching through his warehouse worth of items for something he was going to use to help train Mk. He didn't find it.) The kid had apparently been sick anyhow, which could help cover up the fact that he accomplished nothing during that time.
He perked up at the sounds of approaching footfall, that particular pattern being that of his beloved student. Tossing away the peach pit, Wukong stood and stretched. He should probably go easy on the kid, shouldn't he? He did just get over being sick. Maybe he should focus on recovery? Or maybe he could start teaching the kid how to dance! It would be both fun and informative! The kid was creative and knowing how to dance would let him get creative during a fight. It might also help him in his situation with Redson.
Wukong snickered as he made his way to the clearing. Maybe he should ask if Redson took care of him while he was sick. Reaching the clearing, his deft eye caught the form of the kid running up, his glee obvious despite the distance. Wukong felt his face soften as he grinned.
"Slow down, Kid!" Wukong chuckled, "We've got all day,"
Mk smiled, stopping just in front of Wukong. He didn't look too bad, but he was a tad pale and his nose was rubbed raw. It seemed less like Mk had recovered and more like Mk got restless and rushed to the mountain as soon as he heard Wukong was back. No way he could do a full training session.
"Uh, are you sure you're good to train, bud?" Wukong asked, tilting his head. Mk firmly nodded, giving his mentor a determined look. It was so darn cute, yet reckless. Wukong could relate. "Okay then! Let's see...let's start with some stretches!" Mk gave him a pouty look. "Don't look at me like that! You're the sick one!" Mk rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, glaring at Wukong. Wukong gazed back, a nagging thought at the back of his mind. "Hey...why aren't you saying anything?"
Mk's demeanor switched up quickly, the kid clamming up as sweat rolled down the side of his face. He nervously grinned and rubbed the back of his head. Wukong squinted at him. He crossed his arms, carefully inspecting his student.
"You lost your voice, didn't you?" Wukong asked. Mk pursed his lips and nodded, looking down at his feet. Wukong sighed. "Bud, you really shouldn't train-"
Mk silently protested, waving his arms in Wukong's face. He summoned the staff and gestured wildly with it, seemingly trying to convince Wukong that he could fight. When Wukong still didn't budge, Mk pulled out his phone and tapped at it before thrusting the screen at Wukong's face. It wasn't a picture like Wukong hoped, it was an app of some sort, with text on the screen. Words, spelled with an alphabet, linked together in a sentence to form a thought. Which Wukong could definitely understand because he knew how to read. He totally knew what that said, the message that Mk was trying to convey to him. He's been staring at the screen for too long, Mk was giving him a weird look.
"Look, Bud," Wukong said, pushing Mk's phone down, "You should be resting. That's how you get over a cold!" Mk squinted at him, slowly putting away the staff. He lifted his phone again and pointed at the screen. Wukong started sweating. "I r-read your thing, Bud, I know what it says!" Mk more aggressively pointed at the screen, stepping closer to Wukong, "What? Do you want me to read it out loud!? I read it!"
Wukong turned away from Mk, feeling his face burning red. He knew he should know how to read by now, being thousands of years old and all, but he never got around to it. Whenever he looked at books or pamphlets, all the characters were same-y and uninteresting. He much preferred looking at pictures. Street signs conveyed plenty of information without using words, why couldn't all things be like that? Mk shuffled closer to Wukong, the monkey glancing over his shoulder at him. Instead of an amused look, Mk's eyes were filled with concern. Wukong sighed.
"...No, I didn't read it," Wukong admitted, "I can't," Mk tilted his head, his brows furrowed in confusion. "Yes, I've been alive for thousands of years and haven't learned how to read! Everyone just assumes I know! And, well, it's not like I need to know how to read! I mean, I've come this far-"
He glanced at Mk, who was looking down and rubbing his chin. Wukong knew that look. That was the look that Mk got when he had an idea. Wukong was suddenly weary. Mk's eyes then lit up in excitement, the kid scrambling to grab a stick. He sat on the ground and started drawing something in the dirt.
"What are you doing?" Wukong asked, eyeing Mk suspiciously. Mk grinned up at Wukong, patting the spot on the ground next to him. Wukong glanced between him and the ground a few times before moving to sit beside him. Mk happily handed him the stick and pointed at what he had drawn. Studying it closely, Wukong realized that he had scribbled the characters he'd seen so often. "What? Are you...are you trying to teach me how to read?"
Mk nodded. Wukong sighed again. There was no way he was drawing in the dirt with his student. Yet when he went to tell the kid such, Mk was giving him that look. That look being the look Mk gave any of his father figures when he really wanted something. Wukong wanted to believe he had the resolve to resist those puppy-dog eyes, but he quickly cracked. Besides, this would distract Mk from training and allow him to rest.
"...Fine," Wukong sighed, dropping the stick, "But if we're doing this, we'll do it on a real table with real paper!" He grabbed a handful of his hair and blew on it, manifesting a table, bamboo paper, brushes, and ink. "There,"
Mk grabbed the brush and ink, glancing at Wukong with a raised brow.
"A brush and ink," Wukong said, "That's what people use to write, right?"
Mk considered the items in his hand, before shaking his head. He held up a finger to Wukong, the universal sign for 'give me a minute', and summoned a wobbly cloud (not sick, yeah right). Wukong watched him zoom away, returning a few minutes later with an armful of notebooks. He plopped the books on the table and dug around in his pocket, pulling out a handful of what Wukong assumed to be writing utensils. Mk handed him one, then opened one of his notebooks, scrawling the same characters he drew in the dirt along the top. The notebook was then placed in front of Wukong.
"So...You just want me to copy those?" Wukong asked, looking at Mk's overjoyed face. Mk nodded, gesturing for him to do so. Wukong rolled his eyes and brought his hand up, gripping the pencil like a knife. He noticed Mk's face fall, going through several emotions at once. Wukong raised an eyebrow, but Mk didn't try to stop him, so he continued.
He started writing, slowly trying to duplicate the symbols that Mk had so easily drawn. He completed the first letter, pausing to look. Wukong frowned. Unlike Mk's, his lines were wobbly and misshapen. You could hardly tell what he had written, if not for the pristine example above it. He glanced at Mk. The kid had the brightest smile on his face, gesturing for him to keep going. Wukong would rather not, but the look on Mk's face twisted his arm. He kept slowly writing, trying his hardest to copy the letters. Eventually, he had made a crippled copy of the alphabet, sitting pathetically under Mk's alphabet.
Mk grinned, happily clapping. He grabbed Wukong's wrist and adjusted his grip on the pencil so that he was pinching it instead. Then he tapped the notebook.
"What? Again?" Wukong asked, glaring at Mk. Mk crossed his arms, giving him an unimpressed. "Right, right, practice makes perfect!"
Mk made Wukong write and rewrite the alphabet several times, filling the whole page. Wukong struggled briefly with his grip on the pencil, the new way of holding it making his wrist hurt. To be truthful, Wukong didn't believe this would make much difference. He was, as the kids would say, really fucking old. He wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't learn. Something, something, old dog, new tricks. His final alphabet was only slightly better than his first, but in truth, Wukong couldn't really tell the difference.
"There, we filled the whole page," Wukong dropped the pencil, gesturing at the notebook, "Happy?"
Mk nodded, fondly inspecting the paper. Wukong rolled his eyes again, rubbing his sore wrist. Then he saw Mk make a face he knew meant that there would be more. Mk flipped to a new page and started writing something more on it. It was shorter than the full alphabet and Wukong recognized that some of the symbols were repeated. Mk finished writing, looking at Wukong expectantly.
Wukong sighed, picked his pencil back up, and started writing. He wondered what Mk was making him write. It was only two words, the first much shorter than the second. Probably wasn't a full sentence, those usually have more words. Whatever. Mk's smile grew wider as Wukong finished. He pointed at what Wukong had just written and then to Wukong.
"What?" Wukong raised an eyebrow. Mk pointed at the paper and then to him again. Wukong tilted his head. Mk sighed. He poked Wukong's chest, then the paper. He looked expectantly at him. Wukong stared at the paper and the two words he was forced to write on it. "Is it...me?"
Mk excitedly nodded. He pointed to the first word and mouthed it, allowing Wukong to read his lips.
"Sun..." Mk moved his finger along the letters as Wukong said it, connecting the sounds to the symbols, "Wu..." Mk traced over to the first part of the next word, "...Kong. Huh," Wukong traced his finger along the letters, "Sun Wukong. That's what it looks like?"
Mk nodded, pulling his phone out and taking a picture of the paper. Wukong wasn't really paying attention to him, he was busy, well, reading. He could connect the sounds to the words. Sun. Wu. Kong. Sun Wukong. That was his name.
"Uh, um, neat!" Wukong grinned, patting Mk's head, "But I think that's enough writing for me! Let's say we pack this up and go for some noodles, yeah?"
Mk nodded, gathering the notebooks and shoving the pencils back in his pocket. Wukong went about retrieving his hair, the table poofing away. He summoned his cloud, ready to pull Mk on and head to Pigsy's, but Mk tugged his sleeve. He handed Wukong a notebook, the one he had been using before.
"Oh, thanks Bud," He couldn't deny a gift from his devoted student now, could he? He shoved it in his tunic to deal with later. "Now, let's get some soup in you!"
.
Wukong stepped into his hut, taking a big stretch. Going to Pigsy's had been a whole ordeal because Mk had snuck out without telling Pigsy or Tang, leading to a very irate pig upon Mk's return. He knew the pig got a little overprotective, but he hadn't seen it firsthand. It was pretty terrifying actually. Tang pretty much shoved noodles down Mk's throat while Pigsy scolded him for leaving without warning before Pigsy's attention turned to Wukong to interrogate him on what kind of training they did. The pig was relieved to hear that they didn't do any training and thankfully didn't press him on what they actually did.
He started stripping, preparing for bed, when something fell out of his shirt, landing on the floor in front of him. The notebook. Wukong picked it up, flipping it open to the first page. His writing really was poor compared to Mk's, the shapes he's written could hardly be considered letters. He turned the page, eyes scanning over the two words he wrote there. Sun Wukong. His name. Wukong still didn't think he really needed to know how to read, but it was nice knowing what his name looked like.
He tossed the notebook onto a nearby table, continuing his nightly routine. This would probably be the last time he opened that notebook. He doubted that Mk would give him another lesson, especially after he's recovered enough to train. He yawned. Things to think about tomorrow.