Chapter Text
It was supposed to be just another normal day of training, just another normal day….
“monk—y ki—g”
Just a normal day…
“monke— kin—g”
What in the world was that noise, god the ringing wouldn’t stop.
What even happened….
It was midday, Wukong was gladly dodging attacks from his successor, laughing as he moved with ease, tail swaying as he smiled at the young man “oh come on, you can do better than that! I’ve seen you hit those gold and silver dorks with more firepower than that!” he teased, laughing and leaping back in the air, though suddenly, the staff was flying quickly, far too quickly for the king to even see at first. It shot past his ear at a deafening speed, the wind flying with it, just barely missing the king’s right ear, but suddenly a sharp ringing began to occur as he….
“MONKEY KING!” Mks voice rang out, piercing the ringing that plagued his right ear and somewhat in his left. The king groaned, feeling as if everything was spinning so fast as he laid on the ground, staring up at his successor who seemed to be crying “M….MK?” He groaned, blinking as he tried to push himself up, MK quickly helped him, crouching beside the monkey.
“ugh what…what is that rining-rin-ringing ugh I can’t talk right…” he groaned, rubbing his face with his hands, his ears twitching “U-Uh I Dunno but you fell over! I didn’t even hit you and you fell over; the staff went by your head super-fast; I don’t know what happened” the young man spoke, worried, clearly. Wukong shook his head, sticking his finger into his right ear, twisting a bit and pulling it out, but nothing, the ringing didn’t stop and his ear hurt, plus he could barely hear MK who was on that side of him, it sounded like the kid was far away or something “kid you gatta speak up, I can’t- I can’t….I can’t hear you over there…” he trailed off as he looked at MK, realizing he was right beside him, Wukong snapped his fingers beside his right ear.
But he heard Nothing…. nothing
All too suddenly, panic set through the simian like an arrow through the chest “No no no…” he felt his breath catch in his throat and MK only grew more worried “What? What’s wrong? Monkey king what’s wrong?!” he asked, Wukong looked at him and pushed himself to stand. MK stood with him, assisting as Wukong almost immediately fell over due to the lack of balance and the whole scenery in front of him spinning still “I-I uh its fine bud!” liar “I think I’m just tired, old age catching up to me! I need to rest, you uh, you go on and head home kid, I’m okay I swear!” He let himself fall backwards, nimbus cloud racing over and catching him.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to walk just yet and he didn’t want to worry MK even more.
“But you- are you sure?” MK frowned, looking at him with extreme worry. Wukong had to make out the slightly muffled noise, still distracted by the ringing that had finally begun to die down “I- uh Yeah! Yeah, I’m sure! Go go! I’m going to take a nap and sleep this dizziness off! I just lost my footing is all” he chuckled and after a bit of convincing, MK had headed off.
As soon as the kid was out of sight, tears pooled in the sages’ eyes and irritated them. That always happened, bright lights and tears always irritated his eyes, the furnace that gave him his red eyes really did a number on him, mostly just made his life a bit harder.
He groaned and rubbed his tears away, heading into his home and soon having to stumble through the door and off his cloud.
Wukong had finally gotten the room to stop spinning and the ringing was almost fully gone, but the sound hadn’t come back in his right ear. It was upsetting, very upsetting, not being able to hear made things so much harder. Sure, he had hearing issues in this ear for centuries, but to lose all hearing was something he never imagined would happen.
He refused to believe it, he couldn’t have lost it, no, no way, it’d come back, it had to come back.
Wukong swallowed back the tears that threatened to fall as he fell onto his messy nest of a bed and curled into himself, rubbing at his right ear in discomfort. It was horrible, it was so uncomfortable and caused him distress, extreme distress. He gave an upset chitter and whine, curling further into himself as his chest felt tight and tears finally spilled from his dark eyes.
Wukong then felt a feeling that he hadn’t felt in a very long time….
He felt scared.
Really truly and fully scared, many different what ifs filled his simian head.
What if this caused a casualty in battle? What if MK gets hurt because he can’t hear a threat coming? What if he loses hearing completely? What if he can’t fight anymore? What if, what if, what if…
He shook his head, baring his teeth as he growled at his thoughts, he didn’t want to think like that, he didn’t want to, he couldn’t. He had to be strong, he had to be the strong one, he was the immortal, he was the great sage equal to heaven, he was Sun Wukong.
He couldn’t be weak…
Wukong gasped, finally gathering air back into his lungs, he gasped for air as he shook uncontrollably now, lungs tight and chest heavy. It felt as if everything were closing in on him and tears fell so thickly in globs down his face, wetting his bed. Wukong felt overwhelmed by horrible emotions, and he was crying so much that his lips felt oddly tingly, and his nose was stuffy. He sniffled and as he laid there in his bed small monkeys gathered around their crying king, chittering and chirping to him, but it was so muffled, he barely made out what they were saying.
They were worried.
“thi-this-this wasn’t…. this wasn’t meant to…meant to happen I don’t…I can’t…I” he sobbed out vocally, crying as he curled into the little ones who came to comfort him.
The little monkeys curled up to their king, hugging him, latching onto wherever they could, one or two began to sift through his messy orange curls. It helped, the warmth of the monkeys and the soft feeling of little hands through his curls, helped the king calm down. He whimpered, letting himself cry out as the monkeys comforted him, seemingly used to Wukong’s breakdowns. (he must have a lot)
Things felt like they were too much, all his old bad memories were resurfaced recently and now this? Plus, how would this affect his training MK? “God I’m…I’m use-useless now” he cried, sniffling, breath unsteady and uneven. He tried to focus on something else, anything else, so he chose the feeling of hands in his hair, untangling small knots and picking out fleas.
He felt horrible, he felt like he was useless as a mentor and a king, he couldn’t hear right anymore, and he couldn’t take care of his people if he couldn’t hear all the time. He needed both of his ears, losing one felt like the end of the world, especially with how dangerous things had become recently. He felt like now, now that he had this loss, he wasn’t useful to the team, he couldn’t fight like this, how could he? He would be a massive liability in a fight!
He was useless he was…he was nothing anymore…
NO, he couldn’t think like that, he was still Sun Wukong, the legendary Handsome monkey king, Great sage equal to heaven, besides, no one needed to know, he could hide it, pretend it was fine..it…it was fine.
“fuck…”
Finally, he got his breath to be able to calm and even out. Eventually he ended up calmer, relaxing and letting his tail curl around one or two monkeys, a few others curled into his chest and back, relaxed and chirping, some asleep. “th-thank you guy-guys…” he spoke, giving a small, broken chirp, to the monkeys around him. They nuzzled him and chirped at him, Wukong was grateful to not be alone, and after all that exhausting crying and panicking about his hearing loss, It didn’t take long for Wukong to let himself fall asleep, he was in desperate need of a nap, to calm himself down more, if not he would only just freak himself out more.
Besides, at this point he’d been crying for nearly thirty minutes, he was an utter mess. His monkeys were taking care of him and as he slept, a few of them left some peaches on his bed for when he woke next.
He thanked the gods silently for giving him his kingdom…but he was still so scared of what would happen now.