Curate, connect, and discover
-The day before, at 10:30 AM-
Pigsy’s Noodles was just opening shop, with the owner of said restaurant hauling up the metal door and blinds, then lighting up the store's sign to show it was in business.
Then he walked back into the kitchen to check all the appliances and heat up the broth, going into a sort of trance as he checked over everything in his kitchen. A friendly face came by a couple minutes after the official opening, helping to take down the chairs and putting them in the correct spots. After finishing up, the friend went over to the bar and started to chat with the chef.
“Hello Pigsy!” He offered with a grin, sitting down a bit uncomfortably onto one of the nearby stools. “Hey there, Sandy.” Pigsy answered absent-mindedly, focussing on his prep before finishing and walking towards the bar. This was the bit of free time Pigsy had before orders started showing up, so he had some time to talk.
“Do you think Mk will come by today?” Sandy asked, looking around the shop as if he expected Mk to pop out at any moment.
“Not exactly.” Pigsy grumbled. “He hasn't been by here for the past three days, not like he was even pretending to deliver noodles before.”
“Aw, don't be like that Pigsy! I know Mk has been out and about for the past few weeks, but it's only because he's been stopping demons left and right! We're his friends, so he wouldn't just leave without a reason to.” Sandy offered, leaning over the bar as if to make a point.
“I know, I know Sandy.” Pigsy says, waving off the blue giant before staring out onto the street, seemingly lost in his thoughts.
Sandy noticed the change in tone immediately. “What's on your mind, Pigsy? It's never good to bottle up your thoughts or emotions. You seem a little tense. Is this about Mk, or something else?”
Pigsy paused for a moment, thinking it over before sighing heavily. “It's about Tang” “What about him exactly?” Sandy asked.
“Well, ugh. It's just that he's worrying me. He's been cooped up in that apartment of his for the past couple weeks, which you know he only does when he's trying to ride something out on his own, and he's been especially weird after the whole library fight!
“You saw how he didn't answer his phone that day. When I went up to get him, I… his entire apartment was trashed. Things broken and thrown around the room sort of thing. He also looked like a complete mess, with his hair all over the place along with dust and other stuff covering his clothes. His glasses were even cracked!
“Then he brushed me off when I tried to get him to talk, saying how he'd been through a lot that day, dropping a bomb on how he was stuck under a building for hours, and then how he just needed some time alone. I let it go at the time, but staying alone after an event like that happened to him is worrying me about what actually happened at the library.
Pigsy pauses for a second before continuing, now a bit more solemn in his tone. “If he thought what happened at the library was something he could handle by himself, then I'm concerned for all the other stuff he thinks is better going through alone. I'm just wondering if there's something he's not telling me: something that he's been harboring at his apartment all this time.”
Sandy nodded along with Pigsy’s words, growing more and more concerned as Pigsy went on. “Have you tried asking him about this? Maybe checking in on him, too?”
Pigsy huffed, looking at the ground before turning back to Sandy. “I didn't know it had gotten this bad until I saw him yesterday. But I did tell him to come here at noon to talk about it, and that I would drag him here myself if he were late. I'm just hoping he'll actually come by himself instead of staying inside again.”
Sandy nodded, still looking concerned at what Pigsy had told him. “Does anyone else know this is going on?”
Pigsy looked to the side, a bit ashamed. “No one else needs to know the specifics yet. I wouldn't want to overwhelm Tang with that many people knowing. It's not like I have that many people I could tell anyways.”
Sandy looked like he wanted to say something, but he never got the chance when the bell on the shop door rang, taking Pigsy's attention away from the conversation.
“I'd better get to that order. We'll continue this later, Sandy.” Pigsy said, leaving Sandy at the bar to attend to the growing crowd.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pigsy was spread thin throughout his restaurant. He had to stop offering delivery at the moment when no one acceptable would apply for the job in Mk's stead, which definitely put a dent into his profits.
At the start, it was fine. People would often order out through his window instead of delivery, and all he needed to do was throw the noodles onto the shelf for people to grab.
Then more people would start to line up, and the pressure of making everything on time became overwhelming along with the struggle of waiting on everyone eating in.
All of this combined started to grate on Pigsy's nerves as more and more people started to complain about the wait time.
If they want their freaking noodles in 5 minutes, then why don't they COME IN AND MAKE IT THEMSELVES.
Pigsy might actually kiss Tang if he came by so he could finally get a break from all the complaints and passive aggressive comments, even if Tang is already way too late just for a slap on the wrist. Pigsy would go out there and drag him down himself if Tang didn't show up in the next few minutes-
*CRASH*
The sudden noise dragged Pigsy's focus away from the noodles he was preparing. He looked up rapidly and saw a mop of brown hair coming towards him at an alarming speed, knocking some chairs over in the process.
“Kid, what are you doing here?!” Pigsy yelled out, but it fell on deaf ears as he was grabbed by his elbow and pulled out of the kitchen.
“No time Pigsy. Something's up with Monkey King, the island has become a bit overwhelming and I need your guys's help stat!” The kid replied, going over to where Sandy was sitting and yanking him out of his stool. Sandy had to contort his body almost inhumanely just to keep the tea in his hands from spilling out.
But that work was for naught as the kid was suddenly getting ready to fly off again, only giving Pigsy a second to cut off the sign and drag down the blinds before the kid jumped off towards Flower Fruit Mountain. Sandy dropped his cup somewhere on the way.
When they landed in front of the waterfall entrance, they only had seconds to recover before all the duo could hear were the kid's ramblings. “I'm not sure what's wrong but he hasn't come out of the waterfall for a week and the sigil on it has been acting weird and I don't know what to do- wait, where's Mr Tang? I thought I grabbed everyone at the bar.”
The kid looked at them both, searching for a certain scholar, yet coming up with nothing other than the small monkeys hanging around the waterfall coming a bit closer to inspect the new visitors.
Pigsy, after recovering from the whiplash, cleared his throat. “Mk, Tang is probably at his apartment. He's going to be at the shop any minute to talk with me though, so I need to get back pretty soon.”
“Oh, I can wait for Mr Tang to get there for you! I just needed to get you all here to figure out how to get Monkey King out and ask him about the island. It wont take too long, right?” Mk asked with a nervous grin.
Pigsy sighed as he pinched his nose bridge. “I wanted to have some time to have a serious talk with Tang. Alone. I can't exactly put that off for whatever Monkey King has gotten himself into this time.”
Mk wouldn't back down at Pigsy's protest, though. “You can just have it here, then! Mei's already inside and all I need Tang to do is sort through all the mystic junk for anything useful and ask him what he thinks is wrong with the island and Monkey King. After that, all I need him to do is sit back and watch as we help Monkey King fix everything up-”
The ground suddenly shakes as the sigil on the waterfall started to glow, cracks in the surrounding stone growing before loose rock fell into the dense forest, knocking down some trees in the process. The monkeys around them jumped and started to run at the sounds, huddling together in fear.
Mei came running out of the waterfall at the commotion. “Another one already!? AUUUUGH, THIS BLOWS!” She yelled as she took a stance in front of the waterfall and shot up towards its sigil, using her family sword to stab it infused with the Samadhi Fire.
The sigil glowed sporadically, the shaking becoming more severe before it finally cracked under the pressure and started to dull, slightly softening the shaking.
Mk's expression became more tense as he yelled to Sandy and Pigsy. “Do you guys see what's happening now!? I need you to keep us safe from the falling rocks while I help Mei.”
Mk ran off before either of them could respond, leaving them in the path of all the debris with a job to do.
Sandy immediately jumped up and started to punch the rocks into bits before they could hit the ground and cause more damage, and after a few seconds of hesitation, Pigsy joined him.
This went on for what seemed like forever: the continuous tasks becoming tiresome for the both of them. But then, long after their knuckles became bloody and numb, the rocks finally stopped falling and the island became silent. When Pigsy and Sandy made it back to the waterfall entrance, they saw how the sigil had gained more small cracks compared to when they saw it before.
Then, looking towards the floor, they could see Mei and Mk laid out on the ground, both breathing heavily as Pigsy and Sandy approached.
“Are you both alright?” Sandy asked, crouching down near the duo to see if they were hurt.
“Nah, *huff* we're both *huff* fine. Just tired from the *huff* overuse.” Mei answered from the floor.
Pigsy sat down next to them. “What just happened back there? Is this why you snatched us out of the shop?”
Mk took a few moments to breathe, and then he finally answered after sitting up. “Yeah, this is why I went and got you. I just figured out this was happening after I hadn't heard from Monkey King in a while and went to check on him.”
Mk looked around the waterfall entrance, a pensive look forming on his face. “I'll tell you more inside. It'll be easier to show you there.” Mk said, standing up with some difficulty along with Mei before walking to the entrance.
Standing in front of the seal with everyone behind him, Mk put his palm up and onto the seal and waited.
It flickered, the image shorting in and out of everyone's view, before it dulled completely. Mk sighed in relief at that before stepping in. Mei, Sandy, and Pigsy followed in his stead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They walked through hills of weapons, scrolls, and other junk Monkey King had piled in here over the years. Sandy knocked some of the stuff over in the process, and everyone almost tripped over the junk more than once.
They eventually made it to a clearing with a small, wooden hut in the middle of it. Mk looked past it and went towards some logs on the floor, sitting on the one with moss covering half of its side.
Mei sat beside him with Sandy and Pigsy choosing their own logs, looking at Mk expectantly.
Mk sighed heavily before speaking. “The seal has been acting completely overkill since I got here. I don't know what affected it, it's just been going crazy at random times and doing that to the surrounding area.”
Pigsy looked towards the wooden hut, and then back to Mk. “Then where's Monkey King? Shouldn't he be able to fix all this, as it’s his own waterfall seal or whatever?”
Mk grumbled to the floor, so Mei answered instead. “Mk's already looked into the shack with his golden vision. He now knows for sure Monkey King is in that hut right now, but no matter what we do, that monkey won't come out: I even played the Nyan Cat theme for an hour and a half straight! Nothing we do can even scratch what that shack is made of anyway, so breaking it open won't work either.”
This only made Pigsy more annoyed with the king. “So he won't even come out when his island is going to crap? Why is he hiding in the first place anyway?” Pigsy spat, clearly fed up with how Wukong had been handling everything.
Sandy gives Pigsy a pat on the shoulder. “I'm sure Monkey King has a reason for shutting himself away, and now that me and Pigsy are here, we can try and help as much as we can to get him out.” Sandy offered, trying to lessen the growing tension.
Pigsy stood up quickly, shrugging off Sandy’s hand as he marched towards the hut. “If nothing you tried was able to get that stupid monkey to come out, then I'll have to resort to my Special Recipe to get him out of that stupid shack.” He mumbled with a sadistic grin, marching up the stairs to the hut’s main door.
Sandy just sighed and Mk winced in sympathy. “What's the big deal about it?” Mei asked curiously.
“You remember that one time I passed in my room from training for a day straight and was late for my job at Pigsy’s the next day?” Mk asked Mei, seeing Pigsy grab a whole thing of pots and pans out of somewhere.
“Yeah?” Mei responded, a bit more confused than before.
“Apparently, I was sleeping like a rock, and Pigsy couldn't shake me awake or do anything to get me conscious. So, instead, he grabbed the strongest smelling ingredients he had at the time, cooked them together, and shoved the finished product in my face. I was shocked awake so badly that I almost made a hole in my ceiling.” Mk laughed slightly at the end, looking back at Pigsy and seeing the chef giggling to himself as he added what seemed to be garlic and chilies.
“Ohhhhh! That's why you kept taking my scented hand sanitizer for like, a whole week that one time!” Mei remembered, poking at Mk’s cheek.
“Yeah, yeah. I wasn't even allowed to taste the dang thing he made either!” Mk complained a bit, shaking his hand in the air to Mei’s amusement as she chuckled with Sandy.
The story had lightened the mood, lifting a bit of stress off of everyone's shoulders. A few moments after, Pigsy finally finished whatever he was doing near the door and gestured rapidly for them to come up near the hut.
With a bit of hesitation, they walked towards the door and almost immediately gagged at the strong smell. Even Pigsy had a cloth over his face as he picked up the bowl emitting what they were smelling.
“Are we even sure that's gonna work? I don't want that lingering here longer than it has to.” Mei said, a bit muffled under the sleeve she used to block out the smell.
“Did I wave you over here to critique my methods? No, I got you over here to help me get Monkey King outside.” Pigsy rebutted.
“How are we even going to get that stuff inside piggy? Like I said, this shack is basically indestructible!” Mei complained, leaning on one of the wooden rails near the stairs as Pigsy covered the bowl from the complaint.
A moment of silence passed…
Sandy spoke up in a small voice, pointing somewhere at the hut. “Uh, maybe we could do something with that cracked window?”
Everyone followed Sandy's hand to a busted up, dirty looking window that had about an inch of a gap underneath it from being pushed to one side.
Mk spoke up in a chipper tone. “Oh! I didn't see that before… that could work!”
After all of them used almost too many attempts at lifting the window, (Mei trying to leverage it with her sword with Pigsy plus Sandy trying to lift it bare handed), Mk was able to open it by shrinking down his staff, putting it in the gap, and growing it big enough to shove the window open.
The staff went flying at the extra force, but it was luckily caught by Mk before it could hit Sandy square in the nose.
After everyone settled down, Mk volunteered to get the monkey as no one knew what Monkey King would do when he woke up if someone like Mk almost put a hole in his ceiling. Mk also had the highest chance of surviving whatever the king threw out at him.
“Okay, just be careful in there, kid.” Pigsy stated, handing the bowl (now with a cloth over the top) over for Mk to carry.
“Don't worry Pigsy, I'll be in and out no problem!” Mk then slinked in through the window, careful not to spill anything, before standing up in what seemed to be Monkey King's living room.
“Do you see him anywhere?” Sandy yelled through the window.
“Nah, just a bunch of Monkey King merch so far!” Mk yelled back, balancing the bowl in one hand as he lifted blankets with the king's face on it and looked through piles of video tapes.
When he put the bowl back in both hands, he finally activated his golden vision, looking through the walls for the king. He finally saw Monkey King at the end of the hallway, huddled up on a pile of blankets on the floor.
“Monkey King!” Mk called out, rushing over to the monkey's side.
The king looked worse-for-wear, fur matted and dirty along with how his brows were creased and sweaty. He looked like he was in a deep sleep: like he was having a nightmare.
Mk took no time in leaning down, taking off the cloth and shoving the bowl into Monkey King's face. The monkey's eyes shot open as he punched the nearest wall behind, causing a hole 2 feet leading outside wide to splinter into existence. The king also yanked to bowl out of Mk's hands and drank the whole thing as footsteps approached.
“WOAH- What was that?!” Pigsy yelled out, running to the punch site with Mei and Sandy in tow.
“It's ok, it's ok! Monkey King just woke up.” Mk reassured. Said Monkey was still on the ground, his breathing slowing down yet not becoming any less heavy.
Pigsy was about to say something else, but Monkey King quickly raised his hand to quiet him down. After a few more moments of catching his breath, Monkey King put down the bowl, finally stood up, and turned to Mk. “What are you doing here bud?”
Mk looked at Monkey King confused. “What do you mean “Why am I here”? I'm here because I haven't seen you all week and when I got here, the island was going crazy!”
Monkey King furrowed his brow, looking out of the hole he made. His eyes widened with a look of shock. Suddenly, gold mist filled the area as the king transformed into a bird and flew out of the house towards the waterfall entrance.
“Where is he going?!” Mei yelled, the rush of wind following the king making it hard to hear.
“I don't know, but we should probably follow him!” Mk shouted back, already speeding after the golden trail the monkey left behind with his own transformation.
Then everyone started running back through the junk piles and tunnels, trying to catch up to Monkey King and Mk as they sped off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monkey King flew over the island, staring down at the lines of fallen trees, the jagged rocks jutting out of the ground, and the cracks on his mountain he could clearly see below him.
He quickly de-transformed on one of the surrounding beaches, seeing everything in perspective with rocks double his size littering the sands.
He also noticed the sun had already set by the time he landed. The stars shone down onto the shore he stopped at, the waters uncharacteristically calm as they reflected the starlight.
He didn't know how all of this happened while he was… incapacitated. What got by him?
Mk finally caught up to him pretty quickly after his landing, going back into his regular form and running up to where the king was standing in the sand.
“Monkey King! *huff* Why'd you run off!?” Mk shouted out, still a good couple yards away.
“Oh, Mk! I'm sorry, I just… didn't expect everything to have gotten this bad. I had to check for myself, y'know” Monkey King answered nonchalantly, giving Mk a small grin.
Mk huffed at him when they finally stood side by side. “Well, you could've told us that before you ran off to who-knows-where. Everyone else is probably still behind-”
Right on cue, Mei, Sandy, and Pigsy came tumbling out of some of the nearby trees, clearly roughed up from trying to keep up with Mk and Monkey King.
“Did he finally stop???” Mei asked tiredly, immediately sitting down on the sand as Sandy sat with her and Pigsy moved past her.
“Oh hey guys! Yeah, I just needed to look over the damages. You didn't need to follow me though.” Monkey King stated with a shrug. Both Mei and Pigsy, obviously annoyed, were about to speak up before getting shushed by Monkey King.
“Shushushush, don't worry! I'll just bring you guys back to the entrance so you don't have to complain. Easy peasy!” He said cheerfully, grabbing them by the arms, even taking Mk by his tail, and summoning his cloud to ride back up to the waterfall.
“AHHHHHHH-” Everyone’s screams blurred together as Monkey King laughed and flew the cloud higher and higher.
When they finally arrived, he immediately poofed the cloud and let everyone fall to the floor. He casually walked up to the seal while everyone had to get their bearings, again, and looked over the dull image on the waterfall.
His grin fell a bit as he continued to look it over, turning to Mk, who was still on the floor. “So this is what’s making my island go crazy?”
“Oh? Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure. It glows whenever the mountain shakes, and when we attack it, it causes the tremors to stop.” Mk answered, a bit shakily as he stood up again, helping Mei and Pigsy up afterward with Sandy’s help.
“Huh… Well luckily, I know how to fix this! Probably.” Monkey King boasted, mumbling the last part under his breath.
“Wait REALLY?!” Everyone shouted in surprise.
“Well, yes, but I actually need a certain item to fix this, and it's inside.” Monkey King replied, kicking a pebble around while he did so.
Multiple groans sounded throughout the group. No one wanted to do more work after the day they all had.
Pigsy spoke up for the group, a bit exasperated. “Let's just do this tomorrow. The tremors aren't super often, right?”
“Yeah, they happen pretty randomly, and the latest one was the worst one so far. It usually just takes a hit from my staff to stop them completely, anyways.” Mk answers absent-mindedly, Mei nodding along.
“So let's just call it. Nothing good will come from doing all this now.” Pigsy continued, crossing his arms to make his stance clear.
“I agree with Pigsy. We've already exerted a lot of our energy, and trying to use any of our powers at the moment might not end well for us.” Sandy replied with a serious expression.
Monkey King looked pensive, but agreed nonetheless. “You guys are right. I have some extra blankets and stuff for you guys since getting back safely right now isn't exactly possible. Follow me.”
After waiting for the seal to unlock, Monkey King led the group back to the wood hut and went inside, leaving them standing outside.
And then, after a few minutes, he came back out with what seemed to be an excessive amount of sleeping bags, pillows and blankets stuffed in his hands.
“Here you are! I'm sorry this is the best I can do: there isn't much space in here now considering the hole in my wall. This space is protected from outside elements though, so don't worry about being rained on or something. Goodnight!” Monkey King said, throwing the items at the group and going back inside almost immediately.
Grumbling under his breath, Pigsy grabbed a Hello Kitty sleeping bag from the pile. Don't judge him too quickly, it was one of the only sleeping bags that didn't have Monkey King’s colors or face on it.
Sandy took most of the blankets and layered them on the floor for a more comfortable place to sleep. Mk took a sleeping bag with a yellow and red palette, thanked Sandy, and fell asleep almost immediately on the floor.
Mei followed soon after, taking a blanket with some lime patterns all over it with a matching pillow and falling asleep right next to Mk.
Then Sandy went a few minutes after her, taking his time to find the biggest blanket in the pile, a white blanket with a blue and yellow trim that couldn't reach Sandy's feet, before laying down near the edge of the softened ground.
And now Pigsy was the last on up, staring at some of the stars he could see past the configuration of the mountain. He couldn't fall asleep that easily, even though he was practically exhausted from the day like everyone else.
It took a couple more minutes, but he did end up falling asleep eventually, finally nodding off in his bright pink sleeping bag.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The shaking woke them up again. The sigil had apparently thought it was the best time to activate as everyone got a very violent wake up call, slightly throwing them around on the floor.
Mk got up first, rubbing his eyes as he walked up to the hut to get Monkey King to help. He knocked once: no one answered. He knocked twice: no answer again.
Mk was too tired to continue knocking, so he just decided to deal with it himself. “Hey everyone, *yawn* ehh, I'm just gonna deal with that real quick. I dont think it's too serious right now.”
Everyone gave various noises of agreement as Mk went to deal with the sigil.
Pigsy noticed some light was peaking through the ceiling, but he saw how everyone still felt tired to the core.
Sandy tried to go back to sleep, and Mei went on her phone. Pigsy heard short curses when she did so, so he assumed it didn't have much battery left.
Pigsy decided to do the same as he pulled out his own phone, a considerably older model than Mei's but still functional.
He checked the time and saw it was near 10:40 AM, which was a lot later than Pigsy had thought. Ignoring that for now, he checked on everything else on his phone, which wasn't much other than his messages and some social media that he scrolled for inspiration sometimes and to promote Pigsy's Noodles at Mei's request.
After looking through some mediocre recipes for pot pie and some weird throwback gelatin dinners, he goes and looks at his messages from the past few days.
The one at the top was Sandy, which wasn't a surprise as Sandy almost always sent him photos of the therapy cat's every day. The photo from yesterday was a calico cat curled up on Sandy's sofa, sucking in the sun from a nearby window.
Pigsy smiled at it before looking at his other messages, skipping a lot of spam he had built up, and then seeing a name that made his stomach drop a bit.
He saw his texts to Tang from that night under everything. This finally kicked in Pigsy's memory as he realized he had totally blown Tang off and how he had even threatened Tang to come by or else he would drag him there…
But before he could go and type out a huge apology text, he noticed how Tang hasn't texted him at all since that day at the library. There weren't any missed calls either, which put Pigsy a bit on edge. Maybe Tang didn't even know they were gone yet.
And now he was debating telling Tang everything that happened. He's wondering if Tang is okay, that if he dumped everything that happened at the mountain on Tang that it would put too much pressure on the scholar, and what he should text to make sure Tang wouldn't freak out and to show that him and everyone were ok and didn't just disappear.
He debated with himself for a long time, typing out words and then deleting them almost right away. He couldn't make up his mind as he didn't know what to say in the end.
Mk came back soon after, yawning and going straight back to sleep in his bag, encouraging Mei to do the same.
Now Pigsy was the last one up again, overthinking over what to text to reassure Tang everything is okay and that Pigsy wouldn't put him off again.
He just decided to wing it after his eyes started to become heavy, trying very hard not to give the scholar another thing to worry about. He already had enough on his plate.
Freeloader 📖🤎
10:46 AM
You: Hey Tang
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