Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Joy awoke in her room, her peaceful, dreamless slumber interrupted by light shaking and the sounds of water and turbulent air.

She opened her eyes and rose from her bathtub, where she had slept. She had had a comfortable sleep, with the water temperature just right and none of her limbs touching the huge bathtub walls. She knew that she wouldn’t trade her bathtub for the most comfortable bed in the world.

Indeed, if Joy wanted, she could rest for five more minutes. Yet, she had a job to do and buttons to push, and could not waste a single minute, let alone an entire five, getting ready.

Joy’s morning routine was trivial. Once she stepped on the rug by the bathtub, which had her name written on it in blue on gold, she first caressed her bathing suit — a lime one-piece, decorated with blue, disparate bursts and thin, intersecting black lines — finding it pleasant to feel the tight touch as it dried. Then, stretching her arms and raising her heels, she shook herself a few times, a bit like a dog, until her body was dried.

Her hair — brilliant blue locks flowing to her mid-back like a river of happiness — more closely resembled a literal river dripping with water, though. Yet, once she rolled them up like a towel and squeezed them, they, too, fully dried up, against all expectations.

In fact, expectations would get a human nowhere in Joy’s world. In the human world, bathtubs got room-cold throughout the night, and people who spent that long in bathtubs would have increasingly shriveling fingertips. In addition, a bathing suit was not suitable for anything but water, and neither Joy’s body nor hair could dry that fast.

Yet, Joy didn’t care one iota about what humans would expect, especially because she… wasn’t exactly human.

At first glance, it was easy to mistake Joy, in her stature and demeanor, for a preteen girl. However, a second glance revealed gold, glowing skin formed from millions of particles that spontaneously appeared and disappeared, shimmering like TV static viewed through a golden window.

Finally, a third glance revealed her true nature. Her feet looked more like socks than feet, without any toes, and while she still had fingers, they did not have nails. In addition, while she could hear perfectly well, her ears were also missing, instead of just being hidden behind her hair.

The truth of the matter was, Joy was an emotion, living and working within a human mind; namely, the mind of one Riley Andersen, who had recently turned fourteen.

Of course, unlike the human brain, the human mind was an expansive place, not limited by physical constraints, or, well, anything besides Imagination. Any emotion would struggle to explain Imagination, but they all knew one thing: Imagination allowed for everything that was, well, imaginable, and those in touch with it were living their literal dream.

This especially applied to emotions amongst all thought forms, as each of them represented a single element of Imagination. This purity allowed for an immense prowess over the essence, unmatched by any other thought form. There was no overstating it, or repeating it too many times: Imagination allowed for anything, especially if you were an emotion.

That being said, Joy still had a job, in which Imagination didn’t matter nearly as much as she would have liked it to, and she still needed to do one last thing to get ready for the day. After all, she was a commander, leading Riley to a bright future, and the looks of a preteen girl on summer vacation were definitely not allowed in the dress code of her workplace.

Luckily, her usual work outfit was right there, on a hanger put up on a nail in one of the walls, in lime, matching her bathing suit. Without taking the bathing suit off, she put on lime trousers and a lime coat, decorated with shoulder pads and a blue smiley face badge. Having turned herself from a vacationing girl to a military general by a simple dress-up, Joy was ready; she didn’t feel shoes were necessary.

She gave her room one last glance, noting various pictures of moments from both her and Riley’s life hanging on the walls, before gracefully skipping through the door leading out of her room, almost flying.

In the human world, people never started to work as soon as they got dressed. In the human mind, however, three notions applied. Firstly, the emotions didn’t need to eat or drink. Secondly, the job of an emotion lasted the entire day from Riley’s waking hours to her bedtime. Thirdly, it was the job of directing Riley that made Joy and the other emotions happy, first and foremost.

Once she made her way through the door — a lavender door, with a small, golden, star-shaped window — she was greeted with a view of the antechamber of Headquarters, the heart of Riley’s mind. Immediately outside her door, there was a narrow, raised pathway with rails, and along that pathway, four more doors could be found, each with a little window with a unique color and shape: the other emotions’ bedrooms, with Joy’s right in the middle.

The pathway, when walking on either side, descended onto a lower level and led into an expansive lounge, the walls of which were partially obscured by a winding tube that made lots of rather regular twists and turns. There were other occasional decorations in this lounge, too, like a relatively wide window revealing the land and sky beyond Headquarters, as well as chairs and seats of various shapes, which could be moved around anytime.

However, the front, at least the way Joy saw it, had the two most significant pieces of equipment in Headquarters. The first was a large, elliptical Consciousness Screen, letting the emotions see what Riley was seeing and hear what she was hearing. The second was the console, taking the shape of a slightly curved table with lots of buttons and levers. While the Consciousness Screen provided accurate color of what Riley saw, the console was mostly pearly white, and whenever an emotion used it, would light up in that emotion’s color.

Many humans, and even those working closely with humans, would find it unusual that Joy’s workplace was just downstairs from her bedroom. However, human rules only applied to the human world, and the world of the emotions had its own, completely different rules.

One of those rules was Dream Duty. The principle of Dream Duty was simple: when Riley slept, four emotions slept with her, and one of them was to stay awake, sitting through the various phases of Riley’s sleep, including the dreams which gave Dream Duty its name. Joy had mixed feelings about Dream Duty, given how unpredictable Riley’s dreams sometimes were, but she understood that both the position and its current taker were to be respected.

Noting a blue figure by the console, who was on Dream Duty as directed by yours truly, Joy wasted no time in dancing her way down the pathway and to the seats by the console. This alerted the other emotion, who shuffled upon first hearing Joy; however, unlike Joy, she wasn’t in a rush.

Despite the name, Joy couldn’t help but frown a bit. Nevertheless, she quickly got over it and proclaimed: “Rise and shine! How was Dream Duty?”

“Oh… it was alright… sorry, I didn’t notice you…” this other emotion moaned, as she scooted over.

“No worries.” Joy shot back, giving her a quick glance to her side before taking her own seat, front and center, as she expected to.

This other emotion was Sadness, and she could easily be described as the antithesis of Joy. The only two features that Joy and Sadness had in common were the blue hair and eyes, and beyond that, the two were as different as night and day, in appearance as well as demeanor.

Sadness was a whole head shorter than Joy, with a heavier build. Her skin particles were blue, and while they still had a vibrant color, they didn’t glow. Whereas Joy’s overall aesthetic was that of a little girl, Sadness was more of a blue panda with round glasses. In addition, while Joy preferred longer hair to emphasize “going with the flow”, Sadness preferred shorter hair, only reaching up to her shoulders, as it was easier to maintain.

Nevertheless, Sadness, too, was an emotion, and shared quite a few of Joy’s anatomical oddities. Like Joy, she lacked ears; though, due to the shorter hair, this was more easily noticeable on her. Her lack of nails was also visible; however, her other oddities were well-hidden behind her clothes.

As far as dressing for work went, while Joy dressed as a commander, Sadness dressed as a housewife, with a white sweater, blue jeans and black flats. This look perfectly accentuated Sadness’s demeanor, and it just wouldn’t be right for Joy to wear Sadness’s clothes or vice versa.

Joy and Sadness enjoyed each other’s company as co-workers and housemates. If anything, the personality difference only made them complement each other, rather than contrast: as an example, since Joy could easily go on endless tirades about nothing in particular, Sadness was a good listener, keeping Joy company.

That being said, at work, their individualities had to be put aside in favor of becoming one with Riley: seeing what she saw, hearing what she heard, feeling what she felt and doing what she did. After the short exchange, the eyes of both emotions were set on the Consciousness Screen, watching Riley’s first reaction to the shaking that woke her, as well as Joy, up.

At first, the Consciousness Screen didn’t show much, as Riley struggled to open her eyes. Nevertheless, even a thin band of vision was enough to provide the two emotions with context: Riley was seated in a comfy chair, seat belt buckled at another emotion’s insistence, and many other people were seated around herself. However, the emotions only recognized two of them: Riley’s mother to the immediate right, sitting by a window of sorts, and her father to the immediate left, sitting by a pathway that separated another section of seated people.

Bill Andersen was tall and thin, only slightly muscular, and dressed formally. He had brown hair and eyes and a mustache. His hair was combed backwards, providing for a rather “smart” look, which the mustache helped assist.

On the other hand, Jill Andersen was slightly shorter than Riley’s father and about as curvy as anyone who went through motherhood. She wore a red and yellow patterned sweater, together with jeans and flats. Like her husband, she had dark brown hair and eyes. Her hair was done up in a ponytail, and like Sadness, she wore glasses: thick red frames, which were in fashion as of lately.

Evidently, Riley and her parents were on some sort of vehicle. It wasn’t hard to identify the type of vehicle — the seats were plentiful and immensely comfortable, and the vista only had clouds and the sky, rather than trees and the sort. Coupled with the shaking that woke Joy up, the emotions immediately concluded that the Andersens were flying on a plane.

“Still up in the air, huh?” Joy commented, sighing deeply as she did. She had always dreamed of Riley being able to fly through the skies like a bird, and now, she had to confront the fact, only for the second time in her life, that flying in reality was a lot less magical.

“That much is right…” Sadness lamented, before her thoughts drifted. “Already, we’re so far away from home…”

“But… we’re getting closer and closer!” Joy suddenly exclaimed.

This made Sadness cock an eye, a disagreement usual for any pair of emotions having to work together, yet surprising whenever it happened. In this case, Sadness was thinking of Riley’s old home in Minnesota, in the American Great Lakes area, whereas Joy, instead, was focused on Riley’s destination, which the emotions would have to call home from now on.

Where was Riley moving to, anyway? Neither Joy nor Sadness could immediately remember, and they would need to use Riley’s console to recall a memory from somewhere within her mind. This task befell Sadness; it didn’t matter all that much to Joy, who would probably be excited about moving to an ocean filled with sharks.

If the emotions, representing Imagination, were the “head” of the mind, then memories, representing Consciousness, were definitely the heart and soul. Neither could exist without the other, and to this end, the console was primarily an instrument dedicated to memory creation and recall.

When newly created, memories — or, to use the proper term, Mental Notes — looked like glowing pale spheres, showing a brief snippet from Riley’s life; a tinted memory was a rarity. In addition, they weren’t fully reliable, failing to properly capture every single detail of an event, and for significant events, it was always useful to keep spares. As the day went on, they would start accumulating in the winding tube to the sides of the Consciousness Screen, which only got flushed as Riley went to sleep.

However, right now, the process of recall mattered to Sadness more. After the flush, memories were processed in foundries and factories far beyond Headquarters, and finally stored somewhere in the vast network of Memory Lanes, from where they could be recalled at will.

Processed memories had very diverse shapes, dependent on what the memory was trying to capture, and the recall process needed to account for that. For example, right now, Sadness was looking for the name of the place, which would require an auditory memory, but she also subconsciously expected a map pointing at the place, which would require a photographic memory.

She thus hit a sequence of buttons roughly corresponding with what she wanted — a sequence that by no means corresponded to precise instructions, as in many cases, operating the console was more of an art than a science — and waited. Luckily, she and Joy only had to wait a few seconds before a processed memory made it to Headquarters. Once it did, a projector behind the emotions turned on, projecting the memory’s image onto the Consciousness Screen. It was a map, with a coastline looking like that of eastern Asia, with one city marked: Shanghai, China.

Watching the recalled memory, Joy nodded to herself. Almost anything excited her, but foreign cultures, peoples and customs, as well as novel experiences, seemed to excite her the most. Furthermore, it wasn’t like Minnesota would disappear from Riley’s life forever, as in the Year of Riley Fifteen, you could just video-call anyone, no matter how far away.

However, Sadness’s thoughts were a lot more somber. To her, foreign cultures, peoples and customs, and especially languages, were a chore to work with, not to mention that Chinese almost always topped the list of most difficult languages to learn. In addition, video calls just didn’t feel the same way as a one-on-one conversation at a playground.

That being said, rather than musing about the predicament, Joy and Sadness needed to pay attention to Riley and what she was thinking, and, as evident from the Consciousness Screen, she was thinking of going back to sleep. The once vibrant interior view of the airplane was once again replaced with a thin horizontal band, followed by darkness eternal.

However, once the remaining three emotions joined Joy and Sadness, things would change and the day would begin in earnest.

Chapter Text

The next emotion to take his seat at the console, after Joy and Sadness, was Fear, and his individuality made him quite the polar opposite of them both.

Unlike the ladies, who at least could pass as people, Fear was barely recognizable as one. He was tall and lanky, almost standing up to Joy, with short arms and legs and eyeballs looking as though they hung on top of his thin head like two large bulbs. His nose also hung from his head, completing the view. Instead of hair, he had a long, spiraling purple strand, more reminiscent of an antenna than hair, and two “eyebrows” that floated above his body. As with other emotions, Fear had a theme color, that being purple.

For work, Fear had dressed somewhat formally, if anachronistically. He wore dark purple pants with a proper belt and a white shirt with layered sleeves, and the only decoration that adored his body was a red bow tie. Of course, his clothes were tailored to the specific, nerve-like body shape, but on a human, they could evoke any number of eras except for the modern day.

That being said, Fear’s entrance was anything but formal. Even from a distance, having just ran out of his room and to the front of Headquarters, he shouted out loud: “How long have we been flying? Have we been flying for too long? We’re going to run out of fuel! We’re going to crash!”

This alerted the ladies to his presence, and they turned to face him; however, they quickly turned back, as he plunged for the console, taking the seat to Joy’s left, and pushed buttons around, turning the console color from a pale blue to purple. In turn, the view on the Consciousness Screen also changed radically; now, it seemed as though Riley was wide awake and frantically looking around, though she still remained seated. Even her parents, as far as the emotions could see them, seemed mildly worried.

“Relax!” Joy reassuringly spoke as she moved over to hold his hands, preventing him from worsening the situation. She continued: “I’m sure that they calculated the right amount of fuel for the flight. If they didn’t, don’t you think we would be hearing about crashes a lot more? However, what we do see is articles saying that flying is the safest mode of transportation!”

“Safest! I like safe.” Fear said, as though his outburst hadn’t happened at all. The emotions, in general, had a terrible habit of acting in the moment, completely disregarding what happened previously.

As Fear was now calm, he could serve an important role in the mind at the present time: ensuring that Riley would be awake for the landing, which couldn’t be that far away by now. This satisfied Joy, who returned to her seat, knowing Riley was in good hands. Meanwhile, Sadness only stared blankly at the two, seeing as this wasn’t a matter that directly concerned her; it was a rather frequent occurrence as of late.

However, the troubles Joy would have with her team had just begun, and the remaining two emotions were definitely the hardest to tame.

Joy could already hear signs of their frustration. One of them had splashed water all over their face and groaned to themself, though muffled by a towel. Already, as they stepped down to meet the emotions already present by Riley, they knew that it was going to be far from a pleasant day, with their preparations interrupted and Riley still en route to an impossibly distant location.

This emotion was Disgust, and they cared about looks big time. As far as their body build went, they could best be described as curvy, even more so than Riley’s mother, shorter than Fear but taller than Sadness, and broadly green. Their hair only reached the top of her neck, and stopped right at one of their eyes at the front, though their other eye could properly see. Speaking of their eyes, their eyelashes stretched past their face, which they absolutely could not if this were the human world.

With their attire, Disgust struck the perfect balance between revealing, as they were easily the most proud of their body among the emotions, and modest, so as to suggest that they still had some sense in their being. They had dark green, ultra-short jeans and thin black leggings, topped off with purple flats. Their top was also short and sleeveless — and in turn, revealing that they didn’t have a belly button. The top itself was white, decorated with dark green outlines of splatters.

This look was then completed with a handful of accessories: two large earrings bent to form a “D” shape, a purple see-through scarf and a pair of long, white latex gloves, the last of which they insisted on so as to not catch anything, well, disgusting. The gloves wrapped around them rather tightly, making some of their purple nail polish bleed through. It seemed as though today, they had decided to forego any makeup, and it didn’t take a genius to see why.

“Fear, I swear to Riley,” they spoke up, their voice evidently on the feminine side, “if you do something like this to me again, I… why are we sitting around like that?” Their attention was suddenly caught by the Consciousness Screen, which showed Riley doing absolutely nothing and very likely being bored out of her mind — something Disgust knew to recognize and avoid at all costs. “Now this is completely unacceptable…” they muttered to themself, before stepping up to Sadness and loudly clearing their throat so that she would take the far right seat and allow Disgust to take their own.

They then proceeded to enter their own input to the console, and Riley instantly reacted. The view from the Consciousness Screen didn’t indicate much, but the emotions could hear that Riley was reaching into her schoolbag on her back and trying to pick up something from the bag — in fact, the only thing that was there, at the moment.

“Disgust, what are you doing? Our tablet is still out of power…” Sadness pointed out, but Disgust wasn’t exactly one to listen.

“Ahem. A clear indication on the Consciousness Screen is worth a thousand words.” they spoke dismissively, struggling with the console, until they could see the supposed tablet right in front of Riley’s eyes, and consequently, the panoramic Consciousness Screen.

It was a rather thick tablet computer, which, foregoing a touch screen, was primarily operated using two keyboards that were attached to its side, which one would use by holding the tablet like a gaming device. True to its intended nature as such, there were also two directional pads below each keyboard. The tablet itself had black bezels, while the side keyboards were a light blue one on the left and a light orange one on the right.

Any onlookers who saw Riley’s tablet would most likely confuse it for a particular popular gaming console. However, though it very much took after the console’s design, it was actually a Chinese knockoff product that Riley’s father had gotten for her via connections in the company he worked for. Nevertheless, Riley had gotten used to the device, and it had become the emotions’ favorite too, to the point where they decided to take after her and have Imagination-based comms tablets just like it.

That being said, it didn’t take much fiddling for Disgust to realize that what Sadness had said was true. No matter how much Riley pushed the button on the edge of the right side keyboard of her own tablet, or how long she held it, it wouldn’t turn on at all; she must have drained its battery during the fourteen-hour flight, before she got bored and fell asleep for a rather poor rest.

“Well, that’s not happening.” Disgust conceded, before making Riley stow the tablet in her schoolbag again; evidently, the teenage girl was struggling as she did.

“That being said… there’s gotta be another way to entertain ourselves!” Joy suggested, not wanting to see a coworker brought down.

“And that would be…?” Disgust shot back.

“Why, not accepting the horrid conditions that we’ve been put through!” a male emotion from upstairs shouted out, before beginning to descend, thus completing the team.

This emotion was Anger, and his body shape, like Fear’s, also trended towards the stylized side. He was by far the shortest emotion, only reaching up to Sadness’s neck, but what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in width, thus resembling an oversized brick. Also like Fear, he had no hair to speak of, and his eyes also took up most of his upper body. Unlike the other emotions, he completely lacked a nose or a neck. His theme color appeared to be red.

Out of the emotions, Anger took his job the most seriously, even more so than Joy, and reflecting that, he dressed to impress, while still remaining in the bounds of male fashion. He wore dark brown pants, a dark brown overcoat over a white shirt, and black shoes, finished off with a tie, with red and white vertical stripes. Like with Fear, and indeed, like with all the remaining emotions, his clothes looked perfectly tailored to his body, despite the unique physique.

That being said, the others struggled to take Anger seriously. “What conditions? Seems pretty normal to me.” Joy even had the gall to ask, as she watched Anger descend and take the far left seat.

“Well, you’d see it if the Spirit of Imagination had given you any wits instead of just eyes!” Anger shot back.

“Woah!” Disgust suddenly stepped in. “We all have huge eyes; that’s just the way we are. Does that mean we are all morons who can’t see the real picture? Like, be serious now!”

“I suppose you are.” Anger commented, not being interested in deescalation.

“Being dumb is so difficult…” Sadness lamented, sighing and planting her face at the console, accidentally activating it, and thus, making Riley look down. Of course, Sadness quickly realized what she did and sat straight up again.

“Hey! Cheer up, will you?” This time, Joy tried her best to lighten the mood. “I’m sure there’s something to be happy about! Like… something has gotta come up soon enough, right?”

Anger, of course, was not one to miss Joy herself lacking enthusiasm, and shot back: “Like what?”

A whole awkward minute passed, with each emotion trying to think of something new that Riley could feel. However, they came up empty-handed, blankly staring at the console and each other, and the console itself, after not receiving input from anyone, turned back to its original color, indicating a mild boredom and indifference in Riley.

However, where the emotions had stopped, the captain of the flight was more than glad to pick up, at least circumstantially. “Good afternoon, passengers,” he spoke. “This is the captain of flight UA 835 speaking. The local time is 13:28, and we are about to land in Shanghai as scheduled in about five minutes. The local temperature is 11 degrees Celsius, 52 degrees Fahrenheit. Please note that for your own safety, your seat belt must be fastened while the ‘fasten seat belt’ light is on…”

“We’re landing!” Joy shouted out, as she spun around in her chair. “China, here we come!”

“Wait a minute!” Disgust suddenly realized. “It’s not that simple, is it? What about our luggage? And also… how far away from the airport was our new house, again?” Being in a state of confusion, themself, they started entering codes to the console, trying to bring up a more detailed map of Shanghai.

However, they were greeted with a whole bunch of nothing. If Riley was told about her new house, or, for that matter, anything about the city beyond its place in the world, it would seem that she already forgot about it. Naturally, the emotions’ next option would be to use the intermediate device, Riley’s favorite Chinese tablet, but they already knew that it was out of question.

“Look!” Fear called out, as Disgust became frustrated. “The most important thing is that we follow Mom and Dad and don’t let them out of our sight. If we lose them… if we lose them…!” Suddenly, he became terrified of the very prospect he was talking about, and as he motioned to the console, he made Riley squirm in her seat; if she was unbound by the seat belt, she would have already tightly hugged either Mom or Dad.

“We won’t lose them. Good advice, though!” Joy spoke, nudging towards Fear’s side.

As the emotions pointlessly squabbled, none of them giving in, the plane slowly descended through the air. They remarked a multitude of effects: the air pressure rose, making everyone in the plane breathe more deeply, and the turbulence continued shaking the plane, waking the other sleepy passengers up.

Finally, the plane broke through the cloud level, and the emotions were treated to the pretty shapes of the Shanghai highrises for the first time. It was rather hard to fully appreciate the view from the middle seat, but nevertheless, what the emotions in Riley’s mind could see fully captivated them. Joy was quick to hit the console to capture a memory, and soon enough, it rolled in.

However, this memory was different; whereas the Mental Notes, already in the winding tube, were almost lifelike and looked rather dull compared to the vibrant world of the mind, this was a Formative Memory, which shone as brightly as Joy herself and appeared in an entirely different tube, which didn’t have nearly enough loops.

Formative Memories, as a general rule, had a higher concentration of Imagination than the rest, and therefore, couldn’t be processed or recalled. Instead, their purpose was to give Riley everything that made her unique; her personality, her interests, her skills, her relationships, her deepest desires and darkest fears. Without Formative Memories, Riley would be a blank slate, the kind of person you would immediately abandon at a party due to how boring she was.

Given this, Formative Memories were not intended for the Memory Lanes; instead, their dedicated place was high above the globular mind. The emotions only got to watch today’s Formative briefly, its shine unmistakable for anything else, before it shot upwards in the tube. From there, it would find its place in the mind and shoot beams of light towards the other Formative Memories nearby. These were known as lightlines, and once they settled, the Formative Memory would become a part of the Consciousness Grid, a brilliant and gigantic structure that surrounded the globular mind in its entirety, making for a night sky prettier than anything in the real world or even in one’s wildest fantasies.

In the meantime, Joy’s input continued to influence Riley, and with the Formative Memory having popped up, it would do so for long enough for Joy to take a quick break. She thus launched herself up from the console seat and ran up the spiral catwalk, which led all the way to the roof of Headquarters. She really wanted to see where, exactly, in the Consciousness Grid would the new Formative Memory land; she knew it would come to shape Riley’s personality in China.

Once she got to the roof, she was greeted to the exterior of at least some of Headquarters. The building was pearly white, with the main “bulb”, at the top, being rather organic and curvy, while at the same time having lots of spires sticking out in varying sizes, making for a fractal pattern. From Joy’s point of view, the tower that held this main bulb up wasn’t visible, but having taken trips outside of Headquarters, she knew that the entire structure resembled a princess tower; fairytales were one of Riley’s earliest passions, and it seemed that nothing else could replace it.

That is, until Joy followed the new Formative Memory with her eyes and realized that it would take its place directly above Headquarters.

The science of which structures mattered to Riley more than the others was simple: the closer to Headquarters something was, the more important it was. Therefore, to say the least, a Formative Memory taking its place above Headquarters was a rather big deal. A wave of confusion overtook Joy, who was unsure of how to proceed from this point forward.

In the end, she decided to take her precious time. She watched the entire process of the Formative Memory connecting to the Consciousness Grid, and though the daytime sky made it difficult to see fine details, the mere fact that Joy had to look directly up was plenty telling. She didn’t even dare blink for those moments due to how intensely focused she was.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Joy descended back to the console, outpacing the changes to Headquarters that took place once the Formative Memory was in place. Glancing at the Consciousness Screen, she could see the plane was aligned with the runway and about to touch down and taxi, a process which would start in a few seconds from now.

It almost seemed as though Joy had skipped the “boring” part of the skirmish and gone right to the interesting part, and wouldn’t have much time to act. However, with any luck, it would be just enough to calm the others’ worries down.

“What was it, Joy?” Fear asked her, right as she returned. “Why do you have that smile? Did the Formative Memory permanently burn through your face, burning in the smile? Red alert! Joy has been incapacitated by the Formative Memory!” He was known for jumping to foregone conclusions without thinking through them first, and furthermore, being frightened by them, himself.

And boy, do the worries come, Joy thought to herself. “Absolutely nothing!” she spoke, only concerned about calming the worries, and immediately began concocting an insincere lie: “The Formative Memory… danced far away, and I am happy because life in China won’t be that different from life in America after all! I…”

Before she could say anything more, though, she glanced above herself; it seemed as though her attempt to cover it up didn’t last too long.

The Spirit of Consciousness was relentless. While the doors to the emotions’ dorms were unchanged, and so was the console, Consciousness Screen, the tube holding memories and everything else required for Riley’s mind to function, virtually all the other details around the emotions began changing. All they could do at this point was bid the fairytale-like look of Headquarters a final farewell, as the Spirit swept through the building, transforming it into a highrise much like the ones in the Formative Memory itself, with angular halls replacing curved ones and solid walls turning into ones made of glass.

Finally, the Spirit swept all the way down, taking a much shorter trip than anyone expected. The variety of chairs was also untouched; the emotions could still replace their usual console chairs with them if they felt discomfort.

“So, you meant to tell us… that the Formative Memory took its place directly above Headquarters?” Disgust spat out. “You filthy liar! That has got to be…”

However, before they could finish their sentence, the plane finally touched down, shaking Headquarters quite a bit and interrupting everything in Riley’s mind at the time.

Chapter Text

As soon as the plane touched down, and as it continued rolling down the runway, Fear was the only emotion holding onto the console. The others merely watched from their seats, all of which had slightly jumped up during touchdown, before rolling towards the console; however, all of them had managed to push themselves away without touching the levers and buttons.

This rolling and slowing down lasted longer than the emotions expected, and what was worse, the plane didn’t come to a stop on the runway, but instead, began taxiing, making the loops through the strips of the airport, with no clear end to the car-like driving of the plane — or the shining of the “fasten your seat belt” light.

Joy started feeling an insatiable itch. She desperately wanted Riley to just… leap from the seat and run across the plane until she got to the airport, and then run across the airport until she got outside and greeted the open air of Shanghai, and then run across Shanghai until she got to her new home, and then run some more, just for good measure. Yet, she understood that without a lot of memories of Shanghai, Riley simply wouldn’t be able to run very far before getting hopelessly lost, and tried her best to restrain herself.

Luckily, though this was one of the longest minutes of Joy’s life, it eventually came to an end as the little sight through the window stopped changing, and the plane came to a full stop. Soon enough, other hallmarks of “de-planing”, such as the light for the seat belt going off, followed; as soon as Joy saw it, she hit the console, and Riley freed herself from the seat belt and stood up in a heartbeat, largely ignoring Fear’s simultaneous presence.

“Hey there, slow down! We’re not leaving yet!” Riley’s mother pointed out as soon as her daughter had leapt up, and likewise, the family’s father remained seated for the time being, even though both of them had also unbuckled their seat belts.

“Well, that’s a shame…” Sadness spoke from the far left, always being the one to muse how unfair life was, sometimes. However, this elicited a visceral reaction from Joy, who held onto some of the console’s buttons more tightly, and the console reacted by flashing blue before returning to gold, a telltale sign of emotional whiplash.

“Aww… can it be soon, though?” Riley asked her mother, as the whiplash took effect.

“We’ll be ready when we are ready!” Riley’s father commented, not realizing how stupid he sounded at first. This elicited a chuckle from Joy, who just knew where Riley’s carefree spirit came from. However, he was quick to follow up with an entirely different thought: “But regardless, I think I can reach in and get our carry-ons.”

For Riley herself, there wasn’t much to retrieve; only her schoolbag, containing her favorite Chinese tablet and not much else, and nothing from the storage above herself. However, her parents had made sure to pack as much as they could get away with, in terms of both check-in and hand luggage, and her father struggled to both locate everything and pull it out. Yet, even the emotions could tell that this was far from everything that the Andersens had amassed during their life in Minnesota.

“That can’t be everything! What about everything else?” Disgust asked, though they fully knew that the other emotions wouldn’t give them an adequate answer, and therefore, as usual, they would have to rely on the console.

They punched in code after code, going after all sorts of memory sub-types that would help Riley, and consequently, the emotions remember how the whole moving process should ideally go. Soon enough, the memories came: some auditory, with Riley’s father’s voice explaining something about his startup’s “new parent” (whatever that meant in corporate terms) financing the move, though many details still went over Riley’s head. Other memories were photographic, depicting the Andersens’ Minnesota house just before the family left for good, with many of their belongings in wooden boxes, some remaining in place in the house, others being carried away by vaguely Asian-looking movers.

However, at the pinnacle of it all was an audiovisual memory, perhaps the best-preserved of them all outside the Formatives, only coming from yesterday: the Andersens’ trademark yellow van, parked somewhere in a Chicago parking lot relatively close to the departure airport. The memory itself then showed Riley glancing at her father, as he gave the keys to a different set of Asian-looking people, and finally, tracked the van itself, becoming smaller and smaller as the family walked away from it for the last time.

“Okay, so that’s that,” Anger pointed out, “but all this stuff will need to go somewhere. Do we have any details on that?”

“Yeah… I don’t think we do.” Disgust had to concede. For completeness’s sake, they tried to recall something regarding Anger’s inquiry, but came up empty-handed.

The only semi-certainty that Riley’s emotions had, at the time, was that they would be living in an apartment, not a house. However, even then, Dad was known to slip up and refer to it as a “house”, confounding any and all expectations. There were definitely wrong assumptions to make — those of a medieval castle and a gingerbread house waiting in Shanghai to greet Riley being just two of them — but there was not much else for the emotions to work with.

As the typing on the console ceased, and the playback of memories together with it, the emotions were once again faced with what was happening on the outside. However, it was nothing terribly exciting: after all this time, the Andersens were still struggling to get in line, as the plane, which seemed to be nearly full, had people streaming from all sides, desperate to be the first to leave.

“Ugh!” Disgust groaned. “Can these people learn a bit of order?”

“What if… they’re excited?” Joy retaliated.

“I’d surely be excited if I could finally get out of a box I was trapped in for half a day.” Anger growled.

“No, no — excited about China! How many of these people, you reckon, are visiting for the first time?” Joy continued defending her own point.

Sadness, though, saw a different reality, mostly composed of Asian faces. “I think many of them are actually returning…”

While Joy was thinking of a rebuttal, suddenly, an opening formed in the line and the Andersens were finally able to step in, luggage in their hands. This finally allowed them to march out of the plane and through the systems of the airport, beginning with the distinctive corridor attached to the plane for disembarking reasons, and feel a change in the air…

“Wait a minute!” Disgust suddenly exclaimed. “How do we know Chinese air isn’t deadly toxic?”

Joy almost instantly came up with a solution, and one involving Imagination at that, something she always wanted more of in the workplace. From thin air, she Imagined a dark green gas mask with black patterns and a purple respirator — one that looked like it was made for Disgust — and then handed it over to them, telling them: “Here!”

“Much obliged. Finally, one of you arguing emotions does something useful.” Disgust thanked as they put on the gas mask, their voice becoming slightly muffled as they did. The choice did take some getting used to and violated all sorts of safety and fashion regulations, but right now, just the feeling of safety mattered to Disgust the most.

As this all happened, the Andersens continued walking, and the emotions were greeted to new sights on the Consciousness Screen, including a full-height poster welcoming tourists and returning citizens alike to Shanghai. They all — even Sadness — rushed to the console to see who could capture a memory of whatever called out to them first.

However, the frustrations of departing from the airport had only begun, and soon, Riley found herself separated from her parents and face to face with a customs officer. The task of presenting appropriate documents mostly befell a Sadness and Fear tandem, though Disgust also had some snide remarks of their own.

“Didn’t we already go through checks at home? I mean… oh, would you look at this beauty…” They trailed off as they noticed a detail, which the emotions didn’t see very often: Riley’s own appearance, reflected on her passport.

Unlike her parents, Riley had muted blue eyes and dirty blonde hair; however, she had come to China in a very light lavender dye job, mostly as a fashion experiment. This confused the customs officer, but in all other respects, this was the same girl, and the matter passed. The hair was on the shorter side, longer than Sadness’s but shorter than Joy’s, and the only decoration was a dark lavender headband. To complete the outfit, Riley had donned her favorite yellow jacket, brown pants and white and red tennis shoes. At this age, she was only beginning to show distinct curves, something Disgust could tolerate, but not for long.

While Disgust was distracted, Anger answered their question: “Why, yes. Yes, we did. And it was every bit as awful as it was—”

“Completely necessary!” Fear chimed in. “How would you like it if terrorists sent the plane crashing into Pearl Harbor?”

“You idiot! I was onto a thing!” Anger blew up.

“And my thing is more important!” Fear countered, not willing to back down.

This was a typical altercation between the guys, and Joy was having none of it. “Look! Guys! You’re both right!” she stepped in. “And neither of your things is really ‘more important’—”

“Than yours. Got it.” Anger finished for Joy, knowing how she went about this.

“That’s not what I meant at all! You’d better take that back!” she rebutted.

“Nope! And did I mention you’re so funny when you’re ticked off?” Anger pointed out.

“Oh, you’ll wish you didn’t!” Joy retaliated, having lost all sight of what she was supposed to be doing as Riley’s commander.

While three of the emotions were being nuisances as usual and Disgust kept addressing Riley’s body to themself, Sadness smoothly took over from Fear, and soon enough, customs checks were nothing but a series of Mental Notes, giving way to what might have been a bigger annoyance: the luggage roulette.

It was truly the worst; looking for your own check-in bag, when you could only tell it apart by the identification tags. In fact, Sadness recalled a very similar, familiar memory from Riley’s life, repeating enough times to be able to be processed in audiovisual form: Riley, waiting for her parents to pick her up in the rain, looking for their car when she could only tell it apart by the license plates.

“If anything that Mom or Dad brought with them is damaged, I swear to Riley…” Disgust spoke, still having their gas mask on.

“We’ll buy some new stuff!” Joy finished the thought for Disgust, hoping to be the enthusiasm she had failed to be during customs.

Sadness, however, framed it in a different way. “And we’ll have to spend money on it, to say nothing of the fact that our old stuff will still be lost…”

For Joy, of all the other emotions, Sadness was by far the most difficult to deal with, in no small part due to thoughts like… that. Nevertheless, she put on a fake smile, that she hoped to make real as she spoke, and started: “Let’s… not focus on that, shall we? Why don’t we just follow along and… look for anything that might be familiar to us!”

“Well, I’ve looked, and there’s nothing! You hear me? Nothing! It’s lost forever!” Fear suddenly let out. While talking, he was also busy working the console, and true to that, Riley had begun pacing around the roulette, taking second looks at basically everything.

“It’s not ‘lost forever’,” Disgust countered, “it might just be doomed to rot in an airline’s warehouse until they throw it away… I don’t know the specifics, but if it’s not coming our way at this very moment, its fate is far worse than ‘lost forever’.”

“Excuse me, far worse?” Suddenly, Fear’s answer became an indiscriminate scream.

“Will you stop it?!” Anger and Joy shouted out simultaneously, being on the same “wavelength”, something that happened to the emotions more times than they were willing to admit. This was enough to make the rest stop, and Fear even let go of the console, returning Riley to standing in one place disinterestedly and looking at the luggage as a whole.

And then, as if by a stroke of luck, it happened. Riley herself didn’t really recognize what her parents had checked in at the departure airport, but by their reaction and movement, it was obvious that it was exactly it. Her mother was the first to pick up her luggage, and some ten seconds later, her father followed, making for a happy family that was ready to move forward and establish themselves in China.

“There we go! Now, let’s go!” Joy shouted out, taking the console, and for once, the other emotions, even Sadness, let her do her thing.

Thus, for a moment, it was back to the usual: Riley and her parents striding through the environment, made a million times easier by signage labeled in both English and Chinese, and the emotions each noting sights that called out to them. The most notable of these was a highway seemingly built right over the airport, which only served to continue as a reminder to Sadness that this wasn’t Minnesota anymore.

The family walk eventually took the Andersens to a subway station, on what appeared to be Line 2 of the Shanghai Metro, marked by the color lime. Riley’s father almost immediately located and started looking at a meter-tall map on the side of a wall, and after some fiddling with scribblings on a piece of paper with a printed-out map, he was able to pinpoint the precise journey his family would need to take in order to get home.

“Alright, I think this will take us one transfer, and then, you’ll be ready to see your home!” he commented, before moving on to the ticket booth to get passes for the whole family.

Joy kept smiling throughout the whole ordeal: getting tickets, descending the escalator and admiring the subway station itself. However, soon thereafter, the train they needed arrived, and the Andersens were faced with a significant annoyance: being packed like fish, very tightly with nowhere to sit down, as the train marched through tunnels that looked so much alike, station after station.

“When I was informed that 1.4 billion people lived in China, I didn’t expect it to be that many.” Disgust commented.

“That does not look like billions or even millions and you know it.” Anger responded, unprompted.

“No points, Sherlock! It’s called hyperbole, okay?” Disgust shot back, and Sadness quietly groaned.

Yet, where Anger and Disgust only saw people taking away precious seats that could help Riley relax after the stressful customs and luggage experiences, while Fear and Sadness saw strangers with stories well-hidden behind their faces, Joy saw potential friends. Though she kept a lot of thoughts to herself at this moment, she was sure to get at least some Mental Notes of the passengers, just so that Riley would know that the Asian face, in general, was one to be trusted and appreciated. Yet, she understood that at the time, her position was simply not primary.

As hinted by the “transfer” remark, one train became another, coming in just as fast and no less crowded than the last one, despite the yellow color tricking one into thinking it might be different. The repetitiveness of the situation started driving the emotions mad, but in the end, they all agreed that the situation sucked and kept quiet until the second train’s arrival at its destination. They could not afford to make Riley feel uncomfortable, because that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.

Finally, though, the yellow train stopped, as well, and with that, Joy — and with her, the ecstatic Riley that she was delighted to know — was back in action. “Alright! Our new home, here we go! This time, for real for real!” she shouted out, making Riley run up the destination station’s escalator.

“Woah! Looks like someone’s happy — but hopefully, not too happy that she would rather get lost!” Riley’s mother was good at the sort of remark that would immediately get the emotions’ attention. Joy thus briefly stopped, letting Fear turn the girl around, before taking control again so that Riley’s words would be generally hers.

“I know!” Riley spoke. “It’s just that… I’m going to make so many friends at school, and everything is going to work out just fine!”

“Now these are words to live by.” Mom answered, as the two ascended, hand in hand.

Nearing the top of the destination station’s escalator, though, Anger, not needing to bother with disturbances from reality, had a flash of thought relating to the mind and the emotions. He suggested to Disgust: “You know, maybe you don’t look stylish at all in that.”

At these words, Disgust pulled out a pocket mirror to look at themself; indeed, the gas mask obscured all the stylish and beautiful parts of their face, making them look more like an alien than anything. “Yeah. Ugh…” They tore the gas mask off of their face, and it made squeaky noises as it came off. “Just… put that thing where you pulled it out from…” they told Joy, handing her the mask.

Looking over Disgust’s side, Joy took the mask, but putting it “back” was going to be a bit more tricky. Imagined objects didn’t exactly come from anywhere when they appeared, nor did they go anywhere when they disappeared. Thus, when Joy touched the gas mask, she allowed it to disintegrate, spreading particles of Imagination all over, but within a few more moments, those particles were also gone, without any telling where the object went.

Once Riley had made it to ground level, she gave her new neighborhood another glance, and with that, the family was ready to proceed. However, once they opened the door to the outside, they were faced with a gust of air polluted with smoke and other types of dust, and instinctively, they all began coughing up.

This sort of smell permeated Headquarters as well, and the emotions, caught off-guard, coughed as well. It didn’t take Disgust too long to realize one way how it all could have been prevented, though, at least for themself.

“Anger, how dare you!” they pointed out, glaring at the perpetrator from the other side of the console.

Through coughing, Anger smiled. After all, he lived to irritate.

Chapter Text

“Well, there we go! Good ole fourteenth floor,” Riley’s father spoke, looking at the highrises of the residential district that he and his family had just arrived at.

Though the sky was white as a pearl, bringing many a green Mental Note to Riley’s memory tubes, the rest of the landscape managed to surprise her emotions quite well. It was surprisingly well-kept, compared to what the emotions had known about China, and the ground level was also rather liveable, complete with both trees and shops taking the entirety of the first floors of various buildings. The only immediate problem was that Riley would need to read Chinese to understand what the shops were for; that could potentially have been solved by automatic translation tools, but at the moment, Riley’s favorite Chinese tablet was still out of power.

“Well, welcome to China, I suppose…” Joy muttered, clearly out of her own element.

However, while she was still trying her earnest to keep the spirits up at least somewhat, the others had already gotten enough of a taste of it all to jump to conclusions, starting with Disgust. “We’re supposed to live here? Like, this is our residence. Our life’s core.” they snidely commented, still coughing from the impression of pollution.

“You’ll just have to deal with it.” Anger remarked in return.

Sadness, too, had her own take on the matter. “I don’t know… if you lay down in your bed, you might even forget it all…” she suggested.

“I’m sorry, what’s that thought?” Disgust interrupted, not paying much respect to anything coming from the ball of blue. “Are you seeking industry dust? Even being outside is too much for me.” They kept coughing throughout the entire sentence; judging by the narrowed eyes and shallow breaths, the others were not immune to the same sort of air that Riley was currently experiencing permeating Headquarters, as well.

Joy only knew one way in which this could be salvaged: a Daydream plugged in at just the right moment could always cheer Riley up, even in the darkest of situations. She thus stepped away from the console, looking at where Daydreams, taking the form of thin metal sheets, were usually stashed.

“I’m not sure… maybe this one…” Though Joy flipped through the Daydreams again and again, she could find nothing applicable to Riley’s current situation — or that of the week or so to come, for that matter.

Instead of dealing with any Daydreams currently present in Headquarters, Joy came up with a solution, that, perfectly on brand with the ball of sunshine, used Imagination: a thin foam covering the bunch, which she then tossed over her head, in the general direction of the back of Headquarters. She then returned to the console, thinking about how to ensure the friction from the airport didn’t return.

As she did, the entire environment got darker, a natural consequence of Riley and her parents entering one of the buildings. However, at the point, Anger felt the need to comment on something he saw right before Riley’s entrance: “Why would someone living in a communal apartment like this need fences? Should someone put up fences surrounding the base of Headquarters right now?”

“Oh, shush.” Joy responded, before exclaiming, as she threw herself at the console: “Alright, if it’s our life, then I’m gonna live it to the fullest!”

“Race me to the top!” Riley suddenly flew forward, with her parents becoming but a distant Mental Note.

“Woah, not so fast! We still have to bring our stuff and…” Riley’s mother called, but to no avail, as the teenage girl was already running, as fast as her legs took her. Taking flights of stairs upward was quite a different experience from running out in the open, and sometimes, she needed to hold onto the rail to not fly off into a wall, but eventually, she got the hang of it, barely being able to contain the excitement.

She must have gotten some four or five floors up, though, before she started panting rather heavily; though she was rather physically fit — otherwise, she would never have had a chance to play in a hockey team — she was neither the top of the pack nor particularly trained in running upstairs.

“How long is this going to take?” Sadness asked, once Riley had slowed down to a crawl.

Joy thought to herself. With how tired Riley had gotten in such a short time period, maybe it was for the best to spare her and just have her take the elevator, especially if she wanted to remain of any sort of use during the evening.

“Alright, plan B: the elevator! Sorry for leading you on.” she announced, having internally decided.

“You got it!” Fear responded, typing on the console.

After having crawled up to the next floor, Riley hit the elevator button. The elevator took some time to open its doors, and when those doors finally opened, she was greeted to another unpleasant surprise: her parents were already inside, wondering why the elevator they were taking had stopped. Defeated by the mere sight of those most familiar to her, Riley reluctantly stepped inside, greeting them once again.

“Don’t stress yourself out there, kiddo! You don’t wanna get a sprained joint or anything, now, do you?” Riley’s father pointed out, noticing her fatigue.

“I’m sorry…” Riley huffed and puffed.

The elevator climb was slow, and not long after, Anger was already starting to get bored by the experience and irritated by the music. “Can someone shut these guys up?” he shouted out.

“Yeah, fair point!” Disgust responded, as though he had been speaking the words of the people.

Fear, on the other hand, didn’t give either of them much of a thought, instead pointing out, fidgeting: “What if something goes wrong? We could plummet to our deaths!”

“And that’s why elevators like this have security systems! If the wire breaks, the elevator will only fall a little before stopping. You really need to stop assuming all the technology works the same way as in movies!” Joy spoke, quick to remind him of the laws of reality.

Hearing her response, Fear nodded, and Anger and Disgust only looked at him. To them, he was the same thing, over and over again: easy to be frightened, yet at the same time, easy to have his nerves calmed.

Finally, the elevator stopped whirring and its doors opened. The only difference between the fourteenth floor and the others was that there was no more “up” to go from here. In a way, this emphasized the “on top of the world” point that Joy was meaning to have, but the sort of lack of path upwards also could be thought of as depressing; after all, from here, there was nowhere to go but down.

However, while there was not much to see further up, there was still the apartment itself, at exactly the right level. Stepping by one of the doors, Riley’s father fumbled a bit with the keys, but was able to find the right key in about half a minute. “Ah-ha!” he said, managing to unlock the door and let the family inside.

The view inside wasn’t the prettiest, though, providing a stark contrast to the streets on the outside.

The decorations of the walls and even the ceiling had these weird Oriental patterns that Riley’s emotions didn’t recognize at a first glance. That being said, even those patterns were slowly starting to chip away: whoever had set this place up must have left it like that for a decade, if not more. It all just screamed utilitarianism, and people who lived in apartments like these preferred the world of books, anyway, or the world of electronics in the modern day…

“Hey, what about our tablet?” Fear suddenly realized. “Am I the only one remembering that it ran out of battery power on the plane?”

“Right!” Joy was the first to snap out of it. “If you please.” she graciously spoke, and let him operate the console.

Riley instantly dropped her schoolbag on the floor, unzipped it and took out her favorite Chinese tablet. She then took out the USB charger for the tablet, and started looking for a plug anywhere on any of the walls. She was able to find one of the same type as the charger, and even more conveniently, it was by the table, so the tablet wouldn’t be on the floor while it was charging.

“Don’t you just love it when things work out?” Joy commented.

“Alright! The only problem now is that we’ll need to stay for a while and I don’t know if our parents will let us…” Fear reported.

“You’re right! And if they don’t, we’ll have to head out there with no way to entertain ourselves, and…” Joy quickly realized that she wasn’t the right emotion for this sort of thought; perhaps Sadness would help?

“And thus, life will prove itself to be unfair, once again.” Anger responded in Sadness’s stead, causing Joy to turn around to the other side.

“I wouldn’t put it that way…” she immediately objected.

“Oh, but you would.” Disgust rebutted.

“I’m trying to be positive here!” Joy suddenly shot back. “I’m trying to…” She trailed off, noticing more and more about the Andersens’ new apartment.

There was some furniture left behind by the previous tenants, including the convenient table, but there wasn’t enough to truly call it a home; in fact, it looked like Riley would have to sleep in her sleeping bag until at least a proper bed was brought to one of the rooms. As for the kitchen…

“…see what’s in the kitchen! Should we go check there?” Joy finished, making an unexpected suggestion.

“We will have to eat what’s cooked there, so, alright! We might as well.” Fear agreed, and with him and Joy leading the way, Riley instantly headed for the kitchen, leaving the tablet behind.

Unfortunately for the emotions, what she found was rudimentary, and in fact, the walls were beginning to chip away and many of the appliances were rusted. Granted, Riley was never taught much about cooking when the culture of takeaways existed, but nevertheless, she would have to eat homemade food cooked by her parents, even if it were on occasion, and therefore, would end up ingesting some of the “rust”.

“This is even worse! Now I just wish I were outside.” Disgust commented, revolted by the sight of the kitchen.

“Yeah, me too.” Anger added.

“At least it all can be repaired, right? Or replaced, if worst comes to worst.” Joy suggested. She was aware of the consensus that the apartment, as it existed right now, was unsalvageable, and in these cases, she would simply look hopefully towards the future.

“Yeah, can you even imagine being here during repairs, when the walls look even worse and are potentially toxic?” Disgust, on the other hand, was already grossed out by the prospect; needless to say, they didn’t like change that much.

“And unsafe!” Fear commented, though for the most part, he was focused on his own thing, having already returned Riley by the table where her tablet was laying, giving it an occasional glance.

“Oh, and you know what’s worse?” Disgust added. “The smell is so bad, I feel like the previous tenant died in here. Or something! There was definitely a death involved here. Everyone’s right: when we set up shop, I’m only spending minimal time here, do you agree?” she asked.

“Absolutely; if we take our time to explore the city, we won’t get lost as easily!” Fear complimented the idea, hoping to be at least somewhat helpful.

“For once, you actually bring us a good idea…” Anger said, smiling, before frowning as he continued: “…or, that’s what I would say if there was anything worth exploring in this outback of the city that’s on the edges of the subway map! Not the center! Ever thought about that, beanpole?”

Usually, Joy would bring something happy to the table, but with so much hitting her all at once, she just… couldn’t. “I… I need a moment to process everything. In the meantime, doesn’t our tablet always bring us lots of fun? Fear, have you managed to get that to work?”

Giving a glance towards Fear, Joy saw him take action, and this was perfectly reflected by the Consciousness Screen view. Riley tried, time and time again, to turn her favorite tablet on, but all her attempts were to no avail; it would seem that it still needed some time to charge before becoming operable again.

All the while, though, one emotion, sitting at the edge of the console, couldn’t muster a single comment: Sadness.

Giving a glance towards her, Joy was overtaken by a mixture of guilt and pity. She knew that her personality didn’t mix that well with Riley’s, and therefore, for the most part, she just didn’t get her fair share of time at the console.

In the end, this sort of exclusion was unacceptable. While in the mind, Joy was unambiguously the leader and her word was generally taken as final, everyone else’s ideas were always taken into account, and though the emotions agreeing among themselves was one of the rarest things, they all came to shape Riley. If nothing could be found for Sadness to do…

Wait, what am I even thinking? I wouldn’t just tell Sadness to leave, would I? Joy berated herself for even having such a thought. We’re the five emotions, the five elements of Imagination, we’ve always been together, we’ll continue to be together… why can’t I be the one thing that Riley needs…

…wait, is that what she feels every time I tell her to shut it? We… we need to talk.

Having resolved to take some sort of action, Joy scooted, together with her office chair, over to Sadness’s place on the far right.

“Is something the matter?” she asked, hoping to strike a conversation.

Not knowing where to begin, Sadness mumbled: “Yeah… a lot… this just doesn’t bring the mood to me…”

“To tell you the truth, it doesn’t to me either.” Joy started rambling — a rather usual occurrence as of late, what with the onset of puberty. “At least back in America, we had something solid… great friends, a great house with lots of rooms… And what do we have here? Just because we’re literally on the fourteenth floor, it does not mean that I’m going to feel as though I’m on top of the world.”

In turn, Sadness tried her best to listen; it was the least she could do to support her companion, in lieu of doing anything useful at the console.

“But I suppose that’s Riley for ya,” Joy continued, blowing a raspberry. “Even without the whole China thing, she just feels like she’s constantly slipping from my grasp. In the end, what do we, emotions, even do? Not just you; everyone, including me. Do you think she would be better off at the whims of Consciousness instead of Imagination?”

Throughout the diatribe, Sadness didn’t say much, and instead, mostly patiently listened, nodding. However, Anger, Fear, and Disgust quickly noticed the matter, and especially after Joy’s exclamation, wished that she would just shut up.

“Will you please get a room?” Disgust couldn’t help but say in disdain.

“Alright! Didn’t mean to…” Joy glumly stopped, before rolling with her chair towards the rough “middle” of Headquarters, and as she did, she made sure to hold onto Sadness’s chair, so that the two could roll together. Once they were there, Joy raised her feet and spun around in the chair for a bit, before placing her feet back down and turning to Sadness.

“It’s just… who else would lead Riley to a bright future, if I were to suddenly disappear? You?” Joy asked, sarcastically.

“I can barely keep up with you alone…” Sadness finally responded.

“And that’s why the most difficult part falls onto me. And yet, I do get tired — a lot! And that’s why I have you — you’re always someone I can talk to, and you will listen, and none of it will ever matter.” Joy said with a distinct “finishing” intonation, before giving the Consciousness Screen a brief glance, to see if either she or Sadness were needed.

And it looked as though they were. Riley’s parents were busy people — at least her father was — and after a brief look at each of the rooms, as well as taking photos so renovations would be easier to plan, they had more important matters to attend to. Slowly, they gathered their stuff, and Riley’s father found himself fiddling with the keys to find the right one again.

“Well, I guess that’s it, sunshine; the company’s waiting, both to greet me and to discuss the ongoing matters, and your mother… will be settling the immigration stuff…” he tried his best to explain.

“I think I got it! We just need to go to these places, in order, I think…” Riley’s mother, meanwhile, had taken out a small piece of paper with listed addresses, as well as a crude map to guide her to them; however, from the vantage point of Riley, the emotions couldn’t see much.

“So soon? So we won’t see Dad again?” Sadness couldn’t help but wonder, quietly standing up and dragging her own office chair, with little steps, towards her usual work spot.

“I suppose, until late evening, yes,” Joy responded, her chair already being right by the console. Sadness still took a little more while to scoot, but eventually, she was able to get to her familiar spot and act upon the console.

However, almost immediately, Fear took over, and Riley worryingly spoke: “Can I at least stay for a while? My tablet needs charging…”

Riley’s parents gave each other a quick glance, and then, her mother turned back to her and lovingly reassuring: “I suppose so — I’ll try not to take too long, do you think you will be good to go in an hour?”

“Of course!” Riley smiled.

“In that case, see ya later; maybe we can go for a walk or something, I don’t know yet, haha!” Mom continued with a sensible chuckle.

“That’s nice!” Joy commented, still by the console.

“Thanks! I always appreciate it.” Riley spoke, still smiling. “Goodbye!” she said, waving to her parents.

“Good luck out there, you two!” her father said, heading out, and soon enough, his mother followed, leaving Riley alone in her apartment for the first time.

Riley’s attention was immediately turned to her favorite Chinese tablet. Realizing that he hadn’t tried to see if it would turn on, Fear made her hit the power button once again, and as luck would have it, more than one pleasant thing happened in a row. After enough frustration with 0% battery levels, the device finally showed signs of life, starting with its familiar logo, and then, after a bit of loading, going to the lock screen.

“Yay!” Joy exclaimed, before going: “Alright, now what?”

Chapter Text

“I’ll tell you what now, so listen really closely.” Disgust began, ready to answer Joy’s question, even if it might not have been entirely serious — or honest, for that matter. “Now, we all make sure that I… I mean, that Riley gets enough refreshment time that the laws of electromagnetism didn’t allow her to take on the flight. And that is going to be my duty and mine… actually, no, now that I think about it, Fear might prove himself useful.”

“Wait? What? How exactly?” Fear stepped in, generally knowing that times when his name was called weren’t usually to congratulate him on a job well done.

Nevertheless, his attention was called, and Disgust was more than ready to explain his task to him. “You see, our favorite Chinese tablet might be technically functional, but it’s still in a critical condition. You will have to make sure that we don’t accidentally unplug the charging cable. You got that?”

“Oh. Of course. Gladly, madame.” Fear said, confirming that indeed, he got that.

However, at times, it really took just one word to send Disgust on a tirade that only Anger could hope to match. “What? Don’t you dare ‘madame’ me!” they shouted out, suddenly making Fear want to hide behind the console. “I’m not… I thought we agreed that I wasn’t exactly a girl or a boy! I’m still figuring everything out! For myself and for Riley! Until that point, for me at least, it’s they/them strictly, you get me?”

“Oh, but you do seem to have this ‘primadonna’ vibe going on.” Anger stepped in, once again being delighted by any opportunity to tick Disgust off.

They, in turn, only groaned. “Ugh! Why am I stuck with the worst emotion team ever?”

Sadness, on the other hand, only knew that maybe Disgust shouldn’t speak in hyperbole all the time. “If you… if you may… we still don’t really know what’s inside other people’s heads…”

“And who ever asked for your opinion?” Disgust spoke, with more venom in their voice than usual. “Me. Us. Riley. Our favorite Chinese tablet. No other people. No other distractions. Now, if you’ll let me and Fear…”

They, however, found themself interrupted by Anger. “Wait. Are you planning on indulging in one of those ad-ridden, pay-to-win games?”

“Yeah?” they countered, as quickly as they could. “Unless this hell-hole of an apartment has WiFi by some miracle, that’s the best we’re gonna get, for now. Why?”

“Seems like it’s gonna be frustrating. Seems like I’ll be needed.” Anger answered.

“Yeah. Fine.” Disgust had to admit defeat. “Just… do your thing. And that, I suppose,” they said, looking to see who might have been excluded, “leaves just Joy and Sadness, who… are they gonna interrupt us with pointless nostalgia again?”

“Oh, come on, I would never…” Joy answered, half-laughing.

“Yeah. No. Not on my watch.” Disgust dismissively spoke. “You may have the whole ‘happy girl’ thing going on, but right now, this is clearly my moment. Would you… I need you to… where do you come up with solutions like the gas mask from earlier on?”

“Solutions? For what exactly?” Joy had to admit that she hadn’t been exactly paying attention, knowing that she needed to take the back seat to Riley’s action and not caring about much else.

Disgust only facepalmed. “Alright, it seems like the airhead is gonna need another explanation. As you can see,” they said, gesturing across the Consciousness Screen, “Riley obviously isn’t under a lot of social pressure to be happy or whatever. Therefore, she’s gonna relax with a video game of some description, a task for myself, Fear, and Anger. Which means we three need some sort of way to not be able to be bothered by you and…”

“Here you go!” Before Disgust could even finish, Joy already had a potential solution: three headsets, with headphone and microphone components, each colored and tailored for the emotions mentioned.

“No, but seriously, where do these convenient solutions keep popping up from?” Disgust asked.

“I dunno. Places. You state a problem and I immediately think of solutions. And all of them are wonderful.” Joy tried explaining the thought process.

“Except when they aren’t, of course.” Anger butted in.

“I’ll let you be the judge of my current solution, thank you.” Joy went around the console, putting the headsets on the appropriate emotions’ heads.

Fear, who got his headset first, was quite startled by the changing sounds. “Hey, why is the static… what is… can you hear me?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Disgust responded. “Now, the question is: can I hear Joy? That was my original problem, if you recall.”

By this point, Joy, after equipping Anger with the last headset, had already jumped over the console and started speaking, as a test. “What is it that you don’t like about me, anyway? Is it the guidance towards a bright future? Oh, but isn’t that basically the most important thing that I do?”

Disgust only smiled and nodded to themself. “Indeed, someone has finally hit the mute button on Joy. Possibly the best day of our lives, perfectly counterparting the worst day of Riley’s life.”

“About time, I would say.” Anger agreed.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Fear chimed in. “What if, nevertheless, Joy is needed in an urgency? Say, if we get a really lucky spin?”

“Like that ever happens with the sort of game Riley is about to play.” Anger dismissively returned. Before he could properly finish his thought, though, he found himself once again annoyed by Joy — not with words, mind you, but with her waving a device, rather similar in shape to Riley’s favorite Chinese tablet, but primarily colored gold to match her own skin.

This was, of course, Joy’s personal comms tablet — just like the ones that the rest of the emotions had. The comms tablet’s primary purpose was to act as a “console away from the console”, so that even if an emotion had to tend to important business concerning disobedient Mind Workers, or perhaps got unintentionally lost due to unforeseen circumstances, Riley still wouldn’t be missing out on anything major. There would be no true replacement for real finesse of console input or in-person communication between the emotions, but it would still be better than nothing.

However, none of this mattered to Anger, who merely saw something — or rather, someone — blocking the way to the Consciousness Screen. “Somehow, even when muted, Joy finds a way to be annoying. Who is surprised?” he asked his fellows.

Disgust merely glanced at Anger and whatever Joy’s antic of the day was. “Oh, yeah. Of course. Comms tablets. Now that everything’s solved, can the real fun begin?” they asked.

Knowing that she wouldn’t be heard, Joy nevertheless bowed deeply and took her exit. Going all the way around the console, she then grabbed Sadness’s chair by the far end and to the back of Headquarters.

“Wait, Joy, where are we going?” Sadness asked, finding Joy’s speed to be far too great for her own tastes; in general, the other emotions would agree.

“Right here!” Joy only answered.

“Where?” Sadness had already stood up from her chair and looked at the Headquarters window, trying to figure out where, if anywhere, Joy had pointed to on the deep mind.

Joy, however, only took a glance to notice that Sadness was, once again, misunderstanding her. “Here! Headquarters! I may be temporarily on a break, but we never know how long Mom is going to take with these things, and I might be needed sooner rather than later, you know!”

“Oh… right…” While Sadness had gotten the memo that she wasn’t leaving on any sort of grand adventure just yet, she, nevertheless, couldn’t take her eyes off the window and the pretty view.

“So, ready to talk by the fireplace? At least, I hope I can make a fire right here without Fear declaring an emergency and a half over it…” Joy prodded with a bit of personal anecdote.

However, Sadness kept staring into the distance. “That would be bad…”

“Alright! Whatever! No fires. Just… something to make this feel less like a sterile workplace and more like a hangout among friends.” Joy countered.

“Yeah, friends are always nice…” Sadness said, now looking almost straight down, to the structures closest to Headquarters.

By this point, Joy had already noticed which of the two — her or the view — had captivated Sadness more. “Alright, look, the view is really pretty, better than anything real, I get it, can we face each other now? Like buddies?”

Sadness hadn’t responded with much more than a hum.

“Like, be honest with me. Guide your eyes towards Honesty— I mean Justice Island for a moment, let the stream go there, and answer me: am I really such a bad friend?”

“No, you’re fine…” Sadness muttered, but Joy knew better. She had, in fact, remarked that the Stream of Consciousness — a faint light alongside the Consciousness Grid, the main vehicle for any and all thoughts that thought forms had — had not taken its place over Justice Island (known as Honesty Island a long, long time ago) at all, meaning Sadness had just spoken dismissively to play along, and not even thought about being honest.

Clearly, this entire approach to the attempt to make small talk had failed, and instead, Joy would need to find a different key to Sadness’s heart.

To be fair, Joy hadn’t really paid much attention to how Sadness, or anyone else, perceived the deep mind. To Joy, the deep mind was, first and foremost, an entire world to explore and not just a pretty view. Each locality within would primarily be defined by what sorts of Mind Workers worked there, and what sorts of fun games could be played with them.

There wasn’t much point in anything but directly inquiring. Joy thus asked Sadness: “What are you looking at?”

“Oh… not much… I mean, if you’re looking somewhere, I can look there, too…”

“If I’m looking somewhere?” Joy considered the entirety of the view — from the base of Headquarters all the way to the horizon — and there just wasn’t a single place that called out to her. “Oh, don’t worry about it, I think it’s all beautiful.”

“Yeah… how the tapestry above goes from Riley’s earliest days to today…” Sadness spoke.

“The tapestry above… you mean the Consciousness Grid?” Joy corrected her coworker.

“Yeah… sorry for not keeping up with the technical terms…” Sadness replied.

“Technical terms can be whatever they want to be. The view will still be the same, you know? From… I don’t know, from Hockey Field, to… that area, I think, is all about school and preschool and…” Joy had finally gotten used to naming the particular areas of the deep mind, and as though it was a teacher’s baton, the Stream of Consciousness found itself tracing paths over those areas as well.

And with that, Sadness found her own thoughts drifting over to those areas, as well.

Joy only wished that she could see Sadness’s expressions. She could step back and try and read the reflection of the Headquarters window, but during daytime, it was a rather poor reflection. And besides, as far as Joy remembered, Sadness wasn’t exactly the most expressive among the emotions; in fact, she might have been the least expressive, mostly having her trademark frown and only smiling on very rare occasions.

While Joy was in deep thought, Sadness asked, breaking the silence: “Do you suppose Riley ever had… an imaginary friend?”

To be honest, the question came completely out of left field for Joy. Almost every support system that Joy could point to and generally describe the purpose of had one task: to further Riley’s relationships with real people — and there were quite a few real people for Riley to worry about, both ones she already knew in America and those she had yet to introduce herself to in China.

Therefore, she approached the question with her favorite technique: more questions to get at the original question’s nature. “When specifically?”

Sadness had already gotten used to Joy, the embodiment of happiness, getting unusually cold at times. Nevertheless, she countered: “I suppose… when she was young…”

“You’re either…” Joy had to work on the assumption that her point hadn’t got across. “Riley has had Meg since…”

“Had had Meg, you mean…” Sadness countered.

Not only was it the sort of argument that Joy hoped to already have settled, but Sadness, easily the most timid of the emotions, being the one to interrupt was practically unheard of. However, Joy had already gotten into the dismissive mindset, and was going to carry on with it. She only said: “When did this talk become one about the present? It’s clearly about the distant past — not only would it be obvious if Riley still had an imaginary friend going into elementary school, we’d probably remember at least some of it without needing to recall anything, don’t you think?”

“Right… sorry… yeah, before Meg, before we got our love for the ice… when we were just a kid with barely anyone… or anything…” Sadness hoped to get the point across.

However, she had fallen into yet another one of Joy’s traps. “And with ‘barely anyone or anything’, where would Riley even have the material to come up with an imaginary friend? Like, think about it.”

Sadness had already navigated, feeling a presence right where the Stream of Consciousness was currently traveling to, but not being able to confirm anything just yet. “Our parents got us a bunch of books about animals… I think, when we were three…

Finally, Joy had gotten what Sadness was alluding to, all this time. She, too, was able to confirm that something was going on at that particular “sweet spot” time — just an innate feeling, as the emotions engaged with facts about Riley — but wouldn’t be able to go any further without the console.

Joy realized that she was still holding her comms tablet all this time. She went through its menus as quickly as possible, trying to go through Riley’s memories from this sweet spot, but even after a long minute, nothing came up on the Consciousness Screen, which Joy and Sadness still had a pretty good view of due to just how large it was.

“Is everything alright?” Sadness asked, putting her hand on Joy’s waist, for she couldn’t reach all the way up to her shoulder.

“Yeah… what’s with all this getting touchy?” Joy suddenly shouted out, recoiling from Sadness’s touch.

“Oh… sorry…” Sadness said, retracting her hand.

Just then, however, the emotions found themselves startled by the sound of keys unlocking a door. Disgust took a moment to guide Riley’s eyes away from her favorite Chinese tablet, and just as they did, they were greeted to Mom opening the door.

“Hey, I’m back. You good to go?” she asked, already seeing the girl that she knew and loved only missing the smile that would have really brought the family together.

“I swear to Riley, this woman finds the absolute worst times to interrupt us…” Before they could say much else, though, Disgust was greeted to another unpleasant sight: Joy readily returning to her front seat at the console, having abandoned her BFF just like that.

“We’re good!” she answered as she walked by the console and hit the big levers on the center.

The others, however, thought there was something wrong with their ears at first. Clearly, both Riley’s mother and her sense of happiness had spoken — their lips had moved, and their faces were clearly expectant of a response — but neither Anger, nor Fear, nor, indeed, Disgust themself had heard anything. Disgust moved to see if their ears were clogged, when their hand accidentally hit one of those headsets they had on.

“Oh. Right. Headsets, guys. Headsets off. We’re back to seeing how long all five of us can work together, again.” With Disgust’s instruction, Anger and Fear were quick to follow. As was usual by this point, the three gave the headsets back to Joy, who made them disappear with a touch, and particles once again flew through the Headquarters air.

And with that, it was back to normalcy in Riley Andersen’s mind: Joy thinking that she can just glide through her girl’s life with nothing but optimism and carelessness, and the others, while generally agreeing, also having to constantly remind her of all the little — and sometimes, not-so-little — details that she was forgetting and didn’t even bother to recall, preferring to use the console’s guiding features instead.

One of these details came to the forefront sooner, rather than later. As Riley excitedly stood up, she continued to hold her favorite Chinese tablet, though already turning the game on it off. However, she was interrupted by the charging cable’s preference to pull whatever surrounded it, rather than to stretch itself, and found herself slightly falling.

“Goodness! Riley! Are you alright?” Mom asked, witnessing the mishap.

Within Riley, the primary forces were Joy and Fear. The two, of course, did not have the same intentions, causing for another form of whiplash: Riley constantly tried smiling through it all as though nothing had happened, only to gather her favorite Chinese tablet and its charger with a worried face moments later, carefully stuffing them into her schoolbag again.

However, Joy found herself winning the struggle, once again. With her own swift moves, the console turned golden, and Riley, having gotten everything ready, spoke, springing up: “Yeah! Just… just had to take care of things… let’s go!”

Chapter Text

Though Riley outwardly appeared to be ready — at least, the emotions hoped so, especially Joy — the incident with the charging cable played a large role in getting them to constantly talk again, largely ignoring the occurrences on the outside world. One of these was Fear, who, as Riley was watching Mom lock the apartment doors behind herself, asked: “Are we actually hurt? Would we even feel anything directly if Riley was hurt? And what about the tablet? Joy, you did seem kind of rushed…”

“You know what I wish for? That the tablet had the fancy wireless charging ability. You know, like on the new phones? That way, we could be ready in an instant.” Disgust countered with a remark more on the hopeful side.

“I mean, yeah, but you can’t wish for everything in the world; you know Headquarters would be a lot messier if we could. Why not just be happy that we’re in one piece, and so is the tablet?” Joy rebutted.

“Is it? I swear to Riley, I’ve seen it come apart once…” Fear remarked.

“Let me guess: it was a dream, and Dream Theatrical Studios were working with a memory of the other thing. The one where the side keyboards detaching is, like, the whole point.” On the other hand, Anger and the others knew Riley’s favorite Chinese tablet, as well as what other product in the world it was most similar to.

“Yeah, the one with the control sticks instead of the letter buttons. Seen those? Then it was 100% a dream. I know, I get that one too… wait, what’s happening?” Disgust had their own two cents to add to the conversation, as well, but found themself interrupted by things in Headquarters moving around due to unstable gravity.

A quick look at the Consciousness Screen revealed the reason: with Joy having taken the controls, partly as she didn’t need to involve herself with the current Headquarters debate, Riley was about to run down the stairs all the way to the first floor. However, just before she could make any progress, she was stopped in her tracks by Mom grabbing her hand, which caused all the swerving and made Riley nearly fall over, again.

“Hey! Don’t get lost, will you? We won’t be able to find you in this city!” Mom yelled to Riley’s side.

For a moment, Joy was motionless, not being able to believe that she was not allowed to have fun, just like that. Instead, it was Sadness, who moved forward, replying to Mom: “We won’t…”

In the end, they did the neat and orderly thing: taking the elevator. Boring as it was to slowly watch the number of floors tick from fourteen all the way to one, and painful as it was to listen to the same jingle, it was the utilitarian way, which they would have to get used to from now on.

Once they were on the first floor, they stepped forward, through the door, opened it and the dust flew through it. The air typical of Shanghai was still a tough matter, and both Riley and the emotions ended up coughing, but this time, it was at least somewhat better; it seemed that survival was possible, after all.

“Adaptation… more difficult…” Joy spoke through coughing, noting that it was more than just survival that Riley needed to do.

“And will happen… never… at this rate…” Disgust responded, having a more negative outlook.

“That’s ridiculous, smokers… they get used to it all… all the time, wouldn’t you say?” Joy responded.

“Really? Smokers? That’s who we are aligning ourselves with?” Disgust gave Joy a glance, crossing their arms, before turning their attention to the Consciousness Screen again.

“I mean, if Joy says so. We’re living here, like it or… or not.” Anger also spoke, incidentally being in Joy’s favor.

That being said, Fear, the one not involved in the argument this time, was quick to command the console, and as such, almost as soon as Riley found herself outside, she pulled out her favorite Chinese tablet, just to verify that it was, indeed, in one piece and its charging port was not visually broken.

That being said, once Joy caught a glimpse of the tablet, she, too, sprung into action. When the tablet was on, a world of limitless potential was opened — not quite as limitless as in the world of Imagination, but it was perhaps the best comparable example in the outside world, and Joy was ready to take full advantage of it. She continued sharing her console time with Fear, whose duty shifted to making sure Riley didn’t lose track of Mom.

Once Riley took out her favorite Chinese tablet, she didn’t want to put it away, even for brief moments while Joy was away from the console. She would snap photos, again and again, and during the rare gaps when she didn’t, she’d be editing them, making little decorations. Though the emotions also “snapped” memories in a way, the processing of memories, coupled with natural fading, meant that in no more than a year, entire stories would be lost in a way in which files on computers, phones, and tablets couldn’t.

Over time, taking photos took up less of Riley’s time and editing took up more. It seemed that the thing that excited Joy more was not the act of being in a foreign city, but rather, the ability to share it with all of Riley’s American friends. True to that, the textual additions to the photos included remarks like “a piece of me, for you” and “wish you could see this!”.

It was during an otherwise unremarkable process of editing an otherwise only mildly remarkable photo that Joy saw something on the fringes of the Consciousness Screen. “Is that… a rocket on top of a minivan?”

“Sounds dangerous, we’d better investigate.” Fear remarked, and with his motion, Riley briefly put the tablet away to look at it in person. Indeed, it was a minivan hosting a decoration that looked like one of those rocket drawings, and Joy made sure that Riley would take a photo right away.

Space had always fascinated Riley; though the emotions didn’t know many details, they were able to figure out that the Moon, in particular, was a place she had always wanted to go to.

“Hey! Do you think Chinese kids dream of being astronauts, too?” Joy immediately asked, with Riley’s longtime dreams being merely implied and not requiring special attention.

“Well, no, since astronauts are supposed to be American. You’re thinking of cosmonauts.” Disgust was quick to point out, without a regard for whether what they said was actually true or not.

“Yeah, cosmonauts, whatever. That still means that there’s a way to connect with their childhood dreams! We can still have childhood friends over here, don’t you think?” Joy nevertheless countered.

“If, by your definition, childhood begins at age fourteen, then sure.” Anger remarked.

What the other emotions didn’t notice, though, was that Sadness, commanding the console, wanted to know what the writing beside the rocket decoration was. With her direction, Riley opened a translator app on her tablet, one that had perhaps one of the coolest features of all time: you could simply point a camera at whatever you wanted translated, and it would be translated on the fly, changing the view on the camera.

“Wait, do we have the offline dictionaries? You know, kind of important without access to the Internet!” Fear asked, as soon as the app came up.

“With your guidance, the more likely scenario is we downloaded the dictionaries too many times.” Anger shot back.

Within a short amount of time, Fear’s worries vanished, anyway. The camera translation app sprung into action, transforming the Chinese lettering to a flickering, constantly changing and generally unstable text, that Riley read, almost as though she was doing it for the emotions’ benefit: “Pizza world… no, wait, pizza planet…”

The emotions rushed to capture a memory, with a special feature of the console: not only would the memory be captured and roll in as a Mental Note, its image would also be kept on the Consciousness Screen, for as long as needed. The feature, that was called “freeze frame” as far as the emotions were aware, always proved useful when in an unfamiliar environment.

Nevertheless, though the emotions couldn’t see the action, they could still hear it, with Mom responding to Riley: “Pizza planet? Now isn’t that a delightful place to be?”

“Yeah, and it’s…” Riley made a pause, almost as though she was expecting an emotion to go forward. That emotion, of course, was Joy, and with her activity on the console, Riley continued: “I think it’s an actual place! Here in China! Maybe we should go there?”

Immediately, Mom was delighted by the idea. “Pizza sounds delicious!”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Anger grumbled.

“Oh, shush.” By this point, Joy had already disabled the freeze frame, so that she could guide Riley — and Mom, who was following her — to the place, which wasn’t all that far from the minivan.

They were greeted to something they really should have anticipated: the waiter, who seemed to double as a cashier, greeting the two in Chinese. None of Riley’s emotions knew how to deal with it in any meaningful way, but at this point, luckily, Mom stepped in, answering in English, and the waiter, likewise, switched to English to accommodate the guests.

Once Riley received the menu, the emotions scanned through, and true to their expectations, were able to find an option labeled “pizza”.

“Alright, pizza, let’s go!” Joy declared, speaking for everyone, and directed Riley — and from her, Mom as well — to order a pizza.

They had to admit that the waiting process, alongside not knowing what exactly to expect as the pizza topping, made them nervous. While Joy had kept the enthusiasm throughout the wait, Disgust had definitely made remarks for no particular reason other than to get the other emotions’ hopes down.

However, disappointing as it was, Disgust’s reservation was entirely true. It wasn’t necessarily the topping that was the problem — it was something expected of a “traditional” Chinese place, anyway, and even in America, Riley and Mom were plenty aware of Chinese takeaways. Rather, the traditional Western silverware, the knife and fork, was nowhere in sight; only chopsticks were delivered.

Mom was no stranger to chopsticks, and started eating right away. However, inside Riley’s mind, a completely different picture became clear.

“You’re seriously telling me we’re supposed to eat with something that doesn’t even have a solid grip?” Disgust pointed out, before feeling the need to add: “Oh, and don’t even think about letting Riley eat the pizza with her bare hands. That’s an instant veto from me.”

“Yeah, and I second the veto! A weird Chinese illness is the last thing we want to get!” Fear added.

“Possibly delicious food, so close, yet so far away…” Sadness concluded, feeling the need to speak as the delight of eating was taken away from her and the others.

“Now I don’t want us to be an astronaut anymore.” Even Joy had succumbed to meanness and petty remarks.

“So this is how we play, Chang-hai!” Anger pointed out, hoping to be able to summarize for everyone; however, before he finished his sentence, he was interrupted by Disgust.

“Shang-hai. Shang.” they corrected him, before smiling, seeming to be happy to recall the name on their own, without the need to use the console.

“You get lost, this instant!” Anger blew up back at them, complete with flames bursting from the top of his head; yet, they continued grinning.

For Disgust, it was particularly fun to see Anger in his fits, as they were basically harmless. It was rare for Anger to mean to insult or demean anyone, and what was more, he had mastered the art of sarcasm, so it was pretty obvious to tell when he was and wasn’t serious. The other emotions were slightly more terrified of him, but nevertheless, would agree with Disgust’s point.

Yet, while reactions from the emotions were fun, eventually, it seemed as though a reaction from Riley was needed, as well. Mom asked: “Aren’t you eating?”

Disgust wanted to deliver a remark with all the honesty that Riley had, but Sadness felt the need to step in, as well. The console, thus, flashed green, before turning to a blue.

“Oh… I’m not hungry right now, I just saw the place and got excited… pack mine up for takeaway…” Riley spoke, dejectedly.

“Regardless, won’t you at least appreciate the idea of a pizza planet?” Joy asked, as Riley was staring into the distance, having a drink while Mom was eating.

“How about no. We don’t want to get Riley excited and hungry after I already vetoed eating this sad excuse for a pizza.” Disgust replied, but Joy was already pursuing her own idea.

She took a Mental Note — specifically, the first one ever captured of the “pizza planet” truck — out of the snaking tube and held it tightly in her arms. In time, Joy’s Imagination and the Mental Note’s Consciousness began merging, and the Mental Note transformed into a processed memory, without the need for anything else.

Normally, turning memories into anything else was strictly the job for the various facilities of the deep mind; the emotions were much more of high-level workers, working with raw feelings and instinctual processing, hence the name: emotions. They had two tasks: creating Mental Notes and recalling processed memories, and the in-between was to be taken care of by the Mind Workers.

Yet, this memory was so strong, easily the strongest among the Mental Notes and almost scaling up to a Formative Memory… it simply begged to be transformed and made useful, right then and there.

The transformation yielded what looked like a Daydream, but noticeably soft in shape, made up of the same appearing and disappearing particles as an emotion. Joy then returned to the console and put the Daydream ersatz in, the same way she would have put a real Daydream in.

“Yup, it’s happening again. Joy thinks that Imagination is the be-all, end-all of an emotion’s job…” Disgust spoke, but found themself interrupted as the view on the Consciousness Screen began transforming.

The end result was a dual view: an Imagination-affected scenery, that the emotions could nevertheless “look past” if they crossed their eyes. It was a feature known as the Mind’s Eye, and it wasn’t something that the emotions were great at explaining, and they simply accepted it as a part of life.

The towering apartment buildings, impressive as they were to Riley, were no more: now, they were gigantic slices of pizza — proper pizza with mozzarella and salami toppings, and not the inferior Chinese ripoff that they had just been presented with at this place that was a mockery of real space’s stars and planets.

Sometimes, Chinese ripoffs were beautiful works of art that were only made better by the flaws, like Riley’s tablet, but the “pizza planet” place was, indeed, best not to be revisited for as long as Riley stayed in Shanghai.

The emotions only watched, all of them affected by Joy’s Imagination just as the Mental Note was, and therefore, finding themselves smiling. Yet, the Daydream ersatz, especially one that Joy was able to Imagine all on her own, didn’t have lasting power, and with due time, the view faded, returning the Consciousness Screen to its original form, reminding Joy and the rest of the harsh reality they were in: one in which Riley felt as though she didn’t have hands.

Joy only groaned and pulled away from the console, and Riley looked down, as an immediate response. As she did, though, the glowing form of happiness noticed a first-floor vendor’s sign that interested her, and commanded Riley to take a picture of it.

“We’re going to have enough pictures by this point, don’t you think? Some of them will be ugly…” Disgust pointed out.

“And some of them will be beautiful, but nevertheless will have to be deleted to free up space!” Fear finished for them.

“Whatever. I’m already done here.” Joy made Riley put her tablet away, then stopped focusing on the console altogether, only looking at the buttons and not pressing them anymore.

Yet, among it all, there continued to be a problem: that of Sadness.

Joy gave her blue co-worker a brief glance. She wasn’t just looking at the console with nothing to do; she looked like she was about to give up on absolutely everything.

How do these things keep happening? Why do I keep failing as a leader? Joy thought. She just didn’t have the keys to make Sadness feel like a worthwhile teammate, but she was going to continue searching for them. In the end, Riley was a happy girl, and that meant that the emotions also needed to enjoy what they were doing.

While Mom continued eating and Riley continued staring into the distance, head resting on her hands, Joy once again stood up and dragged Sadness’s chair away from the console, hoping that this time she would be able to solve the problem once and for all.

Chapter Text

Before Joy even began, she needed to understand what she was doing, what she hoped to achieve, and where it had gone wrong so far.

First of all, what was up with Sadness being so high-maintenance, anyway? This must have been the third time Joy felt the need to pull Sadness away from the Headquarters action just to see what was up with her. This was clearly unsustainable, even throughout the course of the day.

Or was she even high-maintenance?

This was so difficult to think about, especially since no emotion had a definite model for how the other emotions thought — a very good reason why all of them needed to be there for Riley at all times. Yet, this sort of abstract thinking led Joy nowhere to understanding Sadness’s true purpose.

Whatever. She would probably just ask her. The ideal mind is one where everyone’s opinions are taken into account, right?

Okay, but seriously. What would the ideal mind look like?

Quite obviously, it would be one where everyone was engaged with Riley and… happy doing so— Was Joy even trying?

She couldn’t help but groan, notifying the other emotions to her deep thinking. Yet, the other emotions seemed to largely not care, and Sadness didn’t react at all, meaning that Joy’s cover was not yet blown and she still had the time to think everything over.

Alright. Good. Where was she? Ideal mind. Right. And though Riley was better off when she was happy as opposed to when she had a connection with someone else in Headquarters, that didn’t mean that the someone else in question’s thoughts should be disrupted just because they didn’t align with Joy’s.

That was a good answer, right? Now that Joy thought about it, it did seem like an ideal of sorts: the ideal mind is one where every emotion has a chance to fully express themself in their own unique way.

Yeah. Let’s go with that.

Finally, why was Joy unable to do this one thing — make every other emotion feel welcome in the job that they had no risk of losing?

Admittedly, she wasn’t the greatest at dealing with other emotions. Indeed, she was a leader, but she wasn’t that kind of leader; more so, she was showing everyone the path… and telling everyone what to do. There was another type of leader, who actually took their time to ensure the team meshed well, and they were definitely important, but no such leader had yet presented themself in Headquarters.

Regardless, Joy would need to at least try to fill in the other role, and in order to do that, she would need to approach Sadness separately, no matter how many times she tried that during the day.

And the current moment — a low-energy one, wherein Riley didn’t seem to be doing anything and didn’t need to be either particularly happy or particularly sad — was perfect.

Alright. Joy took a deep breath, raising brows from everyone else at the console, then stood up and approached Sadness.

“What is it…?” the blue emotion asked.

“Oh, nothing. You just seem… the opposite of fine, y’know?” Joy spoke, as though it was nothing. This time, she decided to let Sadness have her place by the console, but moved her own chair to the far right.

“Yeah… you could say that…” Sadness only lamented.

However, even an altercation as quick as this caught the attention of Disgust, sitting right by Sadness’s side. “Ew! I didn’t know these were going to become more frequent than my beauty naps!” they voiced. “Can you… can you do the headphones thing again?”

“Right. Of course… Just so you know, I’ll have to be the one to call your attention whenever we have to go places… alright, I’ll do it.” Joy had quite the knack for simultaneously talking and using her Imagination, and soon enough, Disgust, as well as Fear and Anger, found themselves wearing the familiar headsets.

Of course, with the headsets blocking the sound of everything surrounding Headquarters and even from the Consciousness Screen, it didn’t particularly matter where Joy and Sadness were talking, so they remained at their seats, while the center remained awkwardly unoccupied.

Now what was Joy up to? Oh, of course. “So, the opposite of fine.” she spoke, fingers straight and tilting. “Care to elaborate?”

“I would… but it seems that these days, no one understands me… and no one even tries to listen… not even you…” Sadness answered.

“I promise I will listen this time.” Joy spoke, trying to be as comforting as possible.

“Alright…” Sadness thought about it, then decided to give it a chance.

“Indeed, this time it’s all about you! Sure, I’ve been failing all around, but you’re perhaps my biggest failure so far, and I need to understand why.” Joy spoke, but as usual, she didn’t pick her words carefully.

Naturally, Sadness reacted: “You really think… that I’m a failure…?”

“What? No! I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant that I’m the one failing because I can’t understand you, no matter how hard I try.” Joy came to her own defense.

“Then… if you know you can’t do what you set out to do… why are you even trying?” Sadness asked.

“Because if not the leader of Riley’s mind, then who else? You know…” Joy, however, found herself interrupted.

“Alright, report! Mom is almost finished with her pizza, and we still haven’t touched ours, and I don’t think we can touch ours. We should… Sadness, I know I can’t hear you, but I can still see you; mind coming over?” Disgust asked, and Sadness, obviously respecting Riley first and foremost, listened.

This meant that Joy, too, needed to think about regrouping.

She couldn’t return to her proper console seating just yet; she had gotten barely anything from Sadness. Yet, the “vibe” was changing, Riley was expected to react, and while the other emotions would almost certainly have their own opinions, Joy would still be able to insist that they were phrased more politely, while not interfering with the dialogue that Anger, Fear, and Disgust wanted to have.

In other words, this was a perfect task to do with the comms tablet.

While Sadness was engaged with the other emotions, Joy went over to where the comms tablets were typically stored when not in use. They were placed in shelves one above the other, with her own on the very top, where no one but the tallest emotion of them all could reach. She swiped the tablet and quickly navigated to the remote console functions, and Riley reacted appropriately. Within the mind, it was basically impossible to miss her speaking aloud: “Sorry, this is just not my type of food. Maybe next time?”

“Next time!” Mom chuckled. “If there’s something we won’t have enough of here, it’s next times, isn’t that right?”

Joy wanted to move, but the others immediately looked at her. “Don’t even try.” Anger said, and Joy only gulped, feeling like a little kid who was told to put away her gaming device at school.

Instead, it was a Disgust and Sadness tandem that ended up deciding what Riley said next: “Next times… when I don’t even know if I’ll ever get used to the food…”

“What? Don’t say that! What even happened to the happy girl from the Midwest?” Mom asked.

“I… Let’s just keep on. You have a busy agenda yourself, don’t you?” Riley awkwardly inserted.

“I sure do! And with this map, I’ll sure to be…” Mom trailed off, noticing something that made her frown. She then kept silent throughout.

“What do you think Mom noticed?” Fear quickly asked. Even though he was the ever-vigilant one, he and the others must have missed Mom paying for the food and packing up what was supposed to be Riley’s serving, and was suddenly thrust into the ever-exciting action of the handling of immigration and settling.

“I think I remember what’s going on. Between the paper map and Mom’s phone not being as useful as she hoped it to be…” Anger motioned to recall a memory, and while he didn’t get back anything physical, he still ended up feeling like he knew something he hadn’t known before. He started explaining: “So, imagine you’re the dictator of a magical land…”

“Pfft. Story of my life, am I right?” Joy muttered. For a while, she expected one of the others to snap back at her, before realizing that they still had their headsets on.

“And you don’t want these nuke things to hit anything.” Anger continued. “So what do you do? You produce slightly wrong maps. Locals can still use them, but foreigners can’t. But if foreigners got accurate GPS information, then everything would be ruined, right?”

“Of course.” Disgust added.

“Alright! Mystery solved!” Fear declared.

All of this kept distracting Joy, who, at this point, had already seen a new section of the day start up, and who just wanted to resume talking with Sadness about her problems.

There was no other way. The two would have to move aside.

Joy pushed Sadness’s chair, not wanting it to end up all the way in the back of Headquarters with a picturesque view of the deep mind, because everyone knew how that ended up, last time. Instead, they were situated in the rough middle, where the winding catwalk started.

“So!” Joy asked, as she and Sadness got to the intended place. “You said you were the opposite of fine… what’s up with that?”

“Do you…” Sadness couldn’t believe just how little awareness her friend and coworker had of her surroundings. “You literally just asked me that, right? If you can’t remember yourself asking, would you even remember my answer?”

Joy knew that for a response like this, she would have to deflect. “It’s not really about remembering anything, now, is it?” she retaliated. “It was about you listening when I go on and on, and now, it’s about me listening when you go on and on! And remembering will come when we’ve done this enough times!”

“That’s still not… you’re still not…” Sadness looked down, defeated. “It’s all hopeless…”

“Hopeless? Of course not!” Joy said, wanting the other emotion to smile. “Riley is going to make lots of friends, get a social status just like in America…”

“You really think that?” Sadness asked.

“I mean, what’s exactly there to prevent us from doing our best?” Joy wondered.

“You know, haven’t you noticed that even as we look out on the street, everything is in Chinese?” Sadness asked, looking briefly at the Consciousness Screen and remarking the rather obvious.

Joy couldn’t help but scoff. “That’s your big bugaboo that will prevent Riley from being Riley? That everything is in Chinese?” She haphazardly threw her comms tablet away, knowing that she would have to act on the console proper to make Riley dismiss the thought, but… was it even to be dismissed?

At the moment, Disgust wanted to correct their headset a bit, and ended up overhearing Joy. “Yeah, everything is in Chinese, with those…” they added, not being sure how to describe the characters.

“Everything is in Chinese? Then shouldn’t we get to studying ASAP?” Fear asked.

“Everything is in Chinese. Yeah, that’s an observation that had to be made sooner rather than later.” With Anger’s remark, everyone had said the exact same thing.

Moments when all five emotions agreed on something were extremely rare, and understandably, the systems of the mind reacted appropriately. Soon enough, a Formative Memory, the second of the day, rolled in — a pearly white one, with rainbow fringes, representing the fully coordinated input. Anger, Fear, and Disgust promptly took off their headsets fully, just because they knew that the five, as a whole, would have to discuss the matter.

That being said, Joy, the ever-excitable one, nevertheless decided to ignore her coworkers and rush away to the roof of Headquarters to see where this Formative Memory would land. In the process, she ended up tripping over her comms tablet, which prompted Anger to look over to her direction and laugh, before returning to console duties.

Nevertheless, Joy, the one who continued to oversee the entirety of Riley’s mind without fail, rushed up, just as she had when the Andersens’ flight was landing, and when she was on the roof, she watched as the Formative Memory shot up its dedicated tube into the wilderness and, unlike last time, found itself on a sideways path.

However, even then, it didn’t trek for too long before it reached the Fields of Expertise, primarily dominated by Hockey Field, but with some remnants of Piano Field still remaining.

Was that it? Was a new Field of Expertise forming, because it had finally made it through Riley’s thick skull and into the fantastical mind that she wouldn’t be able to survive without knowing Chinese? Sometimes, the most obvious explanation was the correct one, especially when the second most obvious explanation would have been incredibly far-fetched, even by Joy’s standards.

That was it. She just needed to report back to everyone, and then tend to Sadness again.

Would she be able to do both of these tasks at the same time, especially given that even one of them on its own was too much for the leader of Riley’s mind to handle?

When Joy returned, she found Sadness slowly walking towards her — and even holding her comms tablet. That, in and of itself, was weird: Sadness almost never left her seat, except to go to her dorm at the end of the day. Did she… well, Joy could think of at least one explanation.

“Oh, hey. Did you wanna watch the Formative Memory, too?” she asked, before trying her best to explain what she saw: “It, like, already took its place and things.”

“Not really… it’s just that… why would you abandon me like that? We were onto a thing, I think…” Sadness answered, handing Joy’s comms tablet to her.

Joy quickly swiped the thing away, then inspected it for any damage. Luckily, there wasn’t any, but in either case, it wasn’t a big deal, since Joy could probably just fix it with her Imagination.

She then looked up and realized that she needed to still answer Sadness about… what exactly? “Wait, what? What was the thing again?” she asked.

Sadness only shook her head. “Let’s get back to the console before you even forget why you went up in the first place.”

“What do you mean? I haven’t forgotten! The Formative Memory! Everything… is in Chinese…” This time, it was Joy who got all glum and awkward, as she would no doubt have to adjust to the continuously growing Chinese Field.

What was even happening to her? By all accounts, it didn’t make sense. She shouldn’t have gotten like this by simply over-exerting herself trying to fix the eternal problem of Sadness. She felt like…

She felt like at least part of her didn’t belong to her.

Sometimes, the others would speak about a similar disconnect, and the only solution for that for the emotion in question was to completely reinvent themself, in personality as well as appearance. Disgust wasn’t always this particular with pronouns, for example, and Anger wasn’t always this subdued and aware of the world’s rules and how to have them conform to his desires.

But Joy didn’t want to reinvent herself, that was the thing.

She would need to find a solution later — but only after she found a solution for Sadness’s exclusion.

Amongst all of this brooding, Joy hadn’t even noticed that Sadness, somehow, was the first to get to the console, complete with putting her chair back in place, despite not even having one tenth of the energy that Joy had.

She wanted to rush to make sure that Riley was properly led and that Sadness didn’t do anything to break the facade of a happy girl, but at this point, she couldn’t even be bothered to do that anymore. She just resigned to her fate and continued to calmly pace towards the console.

Chapter Text

Joy was glad that she cut her losses and decided to prioritize Riley, rather than Sadness, because if she ever tried to hit the same brick wall on a day like this one, there wouldn’t be much of an emotion left for Dream Duty.

In general, Joy had had a lot of difficulties in overstretching herself as of late. She already showed some signs of cracking when Riley was eleven, and there appeared to be something starting to form in her mind which actively worked against the emotions, including herself.

Incidents like this kept going on and on, and over time, Joy grew resilient in her resolve. She would by no means stop taking a proactive role in Riley’s life, and her coworkers sometimes argued that she was taking things too far. Yet, all it took was either a gentle reminder that Riley has always been the shining beacon in the Andersen family’s life, or a not-so-gentle one from a classmate wondering if puberty was going to ruin Riley, and the other emotions would immediately stop.

That being said, the move to Shanghai, and the need to manage the other emotions’ expectations about the place and Riley’s life from now on, stretched Joy thin like nothing else. Not even her usual resort — endless conversations with Sadness about nothing in particular — seemed to be working today.

So, for the time being, for the rest of the day, Joy gave up, only half-heartedly paying attention to what was going on.

Perhaps it was better this way. Today remained an ongoing experiment in a completely new attitude, that would be a lot easier to justify in front of people whom Riley had yet to meet, even if Mom or Dad raised an eyebrow. And if they didn’t, well, managing Riley was about to become a whole lot easier.

And in the end, sometimes it was nice to just take a step back and appreciate the day slowly transitioning to the evening.

It wasn’t easy to track when Riley and her mother were constantly going in and out of buildings. Yet, some of the telltale signs were definitely there: people slowly started leaving their workplaces, and cars started streaming into the streets.

The new mood of evening life only got accelerated once the sun approached the horizon, and the sky began dimming. One by one, various buildings, or rooms of larger buildings, started turning on the lights, mostly in the boring yellow or white, but occasionally a more enticing blue or red. Sometimes, there would even be a fancy, multicolored logo somewhere along Riley and Mom’s path to a place only one of them vaguely knew, and Riley would immediately use the translator app on her favorite Chinese tablet to figure out what it meant — though nothing she found ended up piquing the emotions’ curiosity or Riley’s innate Imagination as much as “pizza planet”.

However, even then, the turning on of street lamps was unmistakable as a “hard point” of the transition. The event was so out of left field for Riley, she instinctively briefly covered her eyes, and the emotions didn’t fail to react.

“Ugh! Does anyone know what time…” Halfway through asking the question, Disgust realized that they could just check on Riley’s favorite Chinese tablet, and once they did, they found out it happened very close to a whole hour. “…of course.”

Rather unfortunately, though, Mom happened to be looking at the same time, and just shook her head, most likely thinking that this tablet addiction had to be dealt with. She’s so predictable, was the thought of more than one emotion.

“You know, I don’t think I’ll be able to do much with offices, they’re all starting to close, we could just head home… or we could tour over at the place with all the skyscrapers! What do you say?” Mom asked, and the emotions contemplated.

Sadness and Disgust were the first to react, with Joy glancing at both of them near-simultaneously. Each of them responded in their own way, but Joy already knew that no good news was coming from them.

Disgust was the first to speak: “Yeah, how about no.”

Sadness quickly followed: “Yeah, I’d rather just go home… our real home, in Minnesota…”

Once again, the insinuation — this isn’t Riley’s real home — triggered a fight-or-flight response in Joy, who wanted to counter any opinion that Sadness had; even one as innocuous as the insinuation that Riley is too tired to carry on. “Actually, if you ask me? No. We’re going to the place, and we’re going to take all the photos, and we’ll be on top of the world when we share it! And that…” She didn’t want to finish with the cliché “that’s final”, but she already had started the sentence, and needed to come up with the ending, and fast. “…is something I stand by!”

Most others just looked at Joy weirdly; however, Anger was absolutely ready to stand by her side. “You know what? I do believe Joy knows best. Now, let’s take this tour where no girl has ever taken it before!” He and Joy synchronously acted on the console, indicating a kind of resolve in Riley that would otherwise be hard to achieve.

Riley thus sprang up, almost as though she had shaken off the fatigue and the need to bury herself in her tablet in one fell swoop. “Yeah! Tour of the skyscrapers. Let’s go!” she spoke, and Mom knew exactly where to head.

Once the two Andersens took their place in the subway, though, whatever Riley tried to hide came back in full force. Joy almost religiously held onto the console, forcing a fake smile in Riley, but the others, with Anger at the forefront, just gritted their teeth and hoped for the subway experience to be quick and painless.

She, of course, couldn’t believe that she fell into the same trap that she had recognized not too long ago. Yet, without a distinct memory proving how Joy thought, that sentiment faded, and everything was once again nominal, almost as though the move, or any transgressions after it, never happened.

When the subway ride finally ended and Riley was greeted with the same highrises that had captivated her during the last moments of the flight, it only faded further. Joy even found herself naturally drawn to the console, rather than having to force herself to stay at it, and let herself truly forget and be captivated by Imagination, rather than pitifully attempting to be its master.

Joy knew, all too well, that the same image, whether actually on the Consciousness Screen or merely one created by Imagination, could never create another Formative Memory; only reinforce existing ones. In fact, it was particularly easy to see that the Formative which had just created Chinese Field was shining brighter than its neighbors on the Consciousness Grid; the same was true, even if it couldn’t be immediately seen, for the Formative directly above Headquarters.

Yet, the emotions were not prepared for the surge of energy going through the mind when Riley and Mom actually managed to get tickets for the observation deck of that funny tower with the spheres — or, as the two learned when they arrived at the ticket booth, the Oriental Pearl Tower was its proper name.

It was so funny; almost like flying over the skyline, but constantly staying in the same place, without any swerving or turbulence. All the emotions were absolutely thrilled, and those who initially opposed Joy were absolutely ready to apologize to her.

Disgust started: “Oh, wow. This is actually kind of fantastic. Sorry for doubting you, Joy.”

Fear followed: “This might be scary, but trust me, it’s good scary.”

“I vote we do this at least once a month, from now on!” Anger declared, throwing his arms up in the air.

“I can see why you’re our leader, Joy… Sadness finished.

Throughout it all, Joy just smiled and nodded, looking at her coworkers, yet unable to mutter so much as a “thank you”, or even figure out what Fear meant by “good scary”. She was fully caught up in the delirium, somewhere between the ecstasy of a brand new, thrilling experience, and the fatigue that was necessary to attain the experience.

Perhaps, just like before, it was the easiest to just give up and get caught up in the flow of Imagination.

That being said, even though the experience at the Oriental Pearl Tower was absolutely thrilling, the tide quickly turned against Joy, and Riley as a whole, proving that the fatigue hadn’t gone anywhere.

It wasn’t like the Andersens didn’t have enough money to pay for observation deck tickets at two places, or three, or even five. Whenever Riley asked about it, Mom reassured that everything was fine, that Dad would be fine with that kind of spending, that it’s really peanuts compared to the cost of moving everything across an ocean and properly settling in the new place, and the emotions would inevitably lose track of what Mom was trying to say partway.

Rather, it turned out that most of the other buildings in the area didn’t have observation decks.

It became a rather tired routine, even if the details at each and every skyscraper were different. It could be that the entrance to the building just wasn’t conveniently found, or that the entrance that the Andersens did find only led to some sort of maintenance area, where foreigners didn’t want to be caught anyway, and not a vestibule for general use.

If the two got into the correct part of the building at all, often they would find that the clerk behind the desk would direct them away. Especially frequent among those experiences was one where the clerk started speaking in Chinese, leaving both Riley and Mom confused — not a good expression to have when the desire of the building, if it were sentient, was to not have any tourists at all.

In the end, only one other place had an observation deck, that the employees of the building, who happened to speak English, guided Riley and Mom to. However, it was obvious that this was no Oriental Pearl; both the elevator ride and the experience up top were quite a lot more mundane. Some memories flew in, and the Headquarters interior, thanks to Consciousness working its own magic, changed some more to better reflect its own inspiration, but there was no electric feeling, like before.

“Hmm. Not quite the same feeling that we got from the… the place.” Joy said, raising the question of whether it was worth it at all.

“I might just have to take back the taking back. And besides, what were we going to take away from two skyline places? The Eastern Pearl was more than enough.” Disgust added, caring more about how Riley felt than to get all the funny Chinese names for buildings and places right.

“You mean the Oriental Pearl?” Fear wanted to interject.

“I mean… that Joy’s idea wasn’t so good after all! She’s the one who led us astray on a journey that tired us out more than it excited us, and because of her, it’s entirely possible that Riley… might not have all that good of an impression of China overall! Don’t we want to live in a place which our own system doesn’t reject just based on vibes?” Once Disgust started going, there was no stopping them, and they weren’t exactly known for holding back.

Joy sighed and reclined in her seat. The mood of just giving up until tomorrow continued to settle in, and she didn’t even want to know what the others thought about her and her leadership, let alone how to salvage the situation.

Generally, it just wasn’t her day, and the sooner she accepted that, the better it would be for Riley as a whole.

That being said, though it would be better for everyone if the day were done and Riley could return (in the loosest sense of the word) to where she lived in Shanghai, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Yeah… sorry for suggesting it… it wasn’t worth it… can we just go home now?” Riley asked, Sadness, of all the emotions, being the driving force at the time.

“But don’t you want to see the school where you’ll go? Not in the least because you want to know how to get there!” Mom answered, trying to fake excitement and inspire some in Riley; however, all she got, at least in the mind, was almost every emotion groaning or otherwise voicing their discontent.

Sadness, though, continued diligently pushing a calm, if downcast, response. “It’s fine… we need this.” she said, continuing to direct Riley’s feelings.

“Yeah… of course… almost forgot… all the more reason… to not have insisted on what I insisted on…” Riley said in response to Mom.

It was quite the funny thing: the emotions had limited options on how they could make Riley feel and what they wanted to make her say, but she often pulled the specific analogies, and even additional remarks, from her memories. No one, including Sadness, wanted her to apologize to the world — if anything, it was Joy’s duty to apologize to Mom, if she were able to — yet that’s what came out of Riley’s mouth, and that’s what further drove Headquarters towards an argument of epic proportions, especially during the downtime that the emotions had while Riley and Mom took the subway to the station closest to the Andersen apartment.

“Why is Riley being all apologetic? The Riley I remember could at least know to behave after acknowledging her mistakes.” Disgust started the argument, while Riley took her uncomfortable standing position in the subway car.

“Have we pushed her too far?” Fear couldn’t help but wonder.

“With all due respect, the only thing that ‘pushed her too far’ was the whole disastrous move thing. Nobody here wanted it, and I suspect nobody in the family wanted it.” Anger said, almost ready to blow up the world.

“I mean, somebody wanted it! Somebody, or something, is the ultimate reason why we’re here!” Disgust quickly countered.

“What if it’s some sort of higher force? What if we did something wrong in our life, already?” Fear only asked.

“Are you kidding? Higher forces don’t exist!” Disgust shot back.

Anger, on the other hand, had a different rebuttal to Fear. “I’d say we lived a pretty respectable life so far, and if anything higher wants to say otherwise, they’ll have to go through me, first!” he said, mockingly emphasising the “higher”.

“Oh, you absolutely are kidding. Why do I even bother?” Disgust only said, looking down, wondering how they were going to survive even today, let alone the rest of Riley’s days in China.

“You bother… because it’s our job! I am not having this conversation anymore.” Fear interjected.

“I can arrange for her to have a different job. Like scrubbing the memories. That is, of course, unless our glorious leader objects.” It didn’t take a genius to see which emotion Anger was alluding to.

However, Joy just wanted to shut it out. She knew that anything she said at that point would just make everything worse.

Besides Joy, though, Sadness had not spoken yet, even if not many were curious as to whether she would, or even whether she had already said something.

It’s not to say that the argument didn’t touch either of them; they would have to deal with a Riley resident in Shanghai, and all of her emotions’ opinions about it, just like anyone else. However, while Joy just wanted to avoid confrontation as much as possible, Sadness did have something to say, and only needed the courage to say it. That being said, Joy’s downtime was the perfect opportunity to get past everyone else.

Almost as if… almost as if Joy was choking her?

No matter. Sadness was going to speak up, and she was going to make herself heard.

“If I may say something…” Sadness finally spoke.

“Oh, great. Now, we’ve gone so far off the deep end, even Sadness wants to add something.” Anger countered.

“Ugh! Just let her speak!” Disgust retorted, annoyed.

“You may like being in Shanghai… or you may not.” Given an audience, Sadness slowly stopped drawing out the ends of her sentences. “But whatever happens to us, even if the world turns against us, we’re in it together. So, even if somebody made a mistake… if it’s an emotion here, just let them know immediately, and if it’s an unstoppable force on the outside… just let it go and focus on Riley, okay? Isn’t that what she wants from us, first and foremost? And also, don’t push Joy too far, okay?”

All of a sudden, once Sadness stopped speaking, a true silence befell Headquarters.

Most of everyone else looked at the blue emotion as though she had spoken words straight out of a book of pure wisdom, that would take quite a while to process. They almost wanted Headquarters to have a memories system of their own, so that it could be recalled, just like a memory in Riley’s life. In the absence of that, though, they just gave Sadness complimentary nods, making her smile for the first time in a long time.

Joy, on the other hand, just wanted it all to be over, as soon as possible.

It was quite a sight to behold when your own polar opposite somehow got the recognition you wanted all this time. To Joy, it was almost a sign that everything was going against her, everything was telling her to disappear and just become something else, and there was no telling if she would snap, even within the week or so.

Nevertheless, she had to grit her teeth and continue with the rest of the day, even if it only got harder, not easier, with each passing moment.

Chapter Text

At last, Riley and Mom were back where they started — a place that would at least start to be ingrained in Riley’s mind as “home” — and ready to learn the way to Riley’s school, together.

There would, no doubt, be some sort of memorization problem, as the sun had fully set and the landscape looked quite different from what it would look like on a typical day. To counter this, Joy — as much as she just didn’t want to play any role in the rest of Riley’s day — went ahead and inserted some Daydreams which turned the dark and gloomy night into a bright and sunny day; even if there was no guarantee that such a day would even happen in Shanghai, it was just nicer to look at.

Throughout it all, Fear was diligently taking Mental Notes, aiming to get at the landscape from every angle possible. However, the only effect on the outside world wasn’t a particularly desirable one — Riley kept spinning around and looking nervously, not really achieving much in learning about her surroundings due to all the paranoia.

“I’m right here, don’t worry. Just… hold my hand, okay? You don’t need to spin around so much, you get lost!” Mom spoke, only certifying that Riley had made a fool of herself — again.

Sadness stepped in, and at her direction, Riley said, taking her mother’s hand: “Yes… of course…”

From that point on, Fear was a bit less jittery, him and Sadness coming to complement each other fairly well in this situation. With the two working at it together, Riley no longer looked perpetually uncertain of herself, and instead, looked like a calm and confident planner, almost like a spy. This notion — Riley as a covert operative for America — would greatly please Fear on any other occasion, but right now, he continued to be focused on creating enough resources so that a full mental map could be made during the night.

All the while, the other emotions were mostly focused on the Consciousness Screen. While Joy still considered herself mostly down for the count, both Anger and Disgust occasionally hit the console, indistinctly murmuring, yet nevertheless causing Mental Notes to roll in, even though the Note itself didn’t make it clear who it was made by.

Finally, Riley and Mom arrived at the destination. It was unmistakable for anything else — though many other buildings, especially those belonging to state services, carried the Chinese flag, this one had almost an entire front yard dedicated to the flag and other communist symbols, coupled with themes, on the murals on the walls, that almost celebrated adolescence and becoming one with society as a whole.

Disgust loudly cringed, not understanding why all of this was necessary, except for propaganda reasons. Most of the others, however, merely stood and stared, hoping to eventually know the school building by sight, even without a single memory being necessary.

Sadness, on the other hand, patiently waited and listened for nothing in particular.

“So! This, I believe, will be your school!” Mom started speaking, hoping to get Riley to respond. “Lessons don’t quite start yet — I believe that’ll be two or three weeks down the line — but there’s this whole thing where they’ll greet the international student — that’s you! Isn’t this exciting?”

With this, Sadness supposed that she had a plausible explanation on what she was listening for — and more importantly, how to respond. She had already somewhat learned from the previous mistakes of making Riley all apologetic, and her hands naturally moved towards a new sequence of inputs on the console that should do the trick.

She couldn’t do it alone, though. The mention of “exciting” was something that really called for Joy to at least have a verdict. However, just one glance revealed that Joy was nowhere near ready to do her duties, and Sadness faced the task alone, knowing that there was still a small chance of backfire.

“I… I think I’ll manage.” Riley spoke, still mostly looking down, but at least not promising to fix things that she didn’t break.

After making sure that everything worked out mostly fine, Sadness looked away from the Consciousness Screen and towards her coworkers. As if on cue, she got nods of approval from Anger, Fear, and Disgust, all of whom had realized, with some variation, that perhaps there was more to her than mattered.

Joy, on the other hand, was idling, again trying her best to not get any sort of blame or doubt about her leadership, when her elbow accidentally hit a couple of Daydreams stashed “for any occasion”.

Daydreams didn’t really have an expiration date — if a Daydream started going “bad”, some Imagination could always be used to patch it up. However, any good Daydream bookkeeper — and Joy believed she was a phenomenal Daydream bookkeeper, indeed, almost as good as those Librarian types down at the Memory Lanes — knew that at some point, a Daydream just didn’t mesh with Riley anymore, and was best thrown out for someone else in the deep mind to pick up later.

The exact time for when this happened, though, was very variable, and some Daydreams just radiated pure happiness, not focused on any particular mental image, and could be called upon at any time.

However, Joy was slowly coming to terms with the idea that something more specific — something more related to the school environment — would be needed, and moved away from the console.

School was easily one of the places that Riley had the most Daydreams about. In this case, there was no “the school environment is so boring that I would rather the school had literally anything but lessons and a strict schedule” or, conversely, “school is so exciting, I could practically live there”; there was only school as the all-permeating, inalienable part of Riley’s life, and if anything else was worthwhile to appear as a Daydream, it might just end up being associated with a school environment, because what other environment even was there, besides home and hockey practice?

In addition, though, it just made sense to place all of Riley’s hopes and dreams regarding the new place on the new place’s school. That was just the Joy way.

She could already tell that, unlike previous cases, there were a lot more suitable Daydreams to work with, and by the time she returned to the console, she was already swerving, partly due to the fatigue, but partly because she had already quite the load on herself.

“Wow, Joy looks like she’s been busy.” Anger noted.

Fear, on the other hand, asked his superior directly: “Joy, are these actual plans for the future? If so, may I add at least a few things that could go wrong?”

“Well… maybe? Not right now. Once I…” From her first words, it was obvious that Joy was already not concerned with Headquarters or the hubbub within, but rather, the world of make-believe that she was about to place Riley in.

Unlike with Sadness, who had mostly gotten signs of approval, Joy was met with head-shaking, especially from Sadness herself, as well as Disgust. However, when was the last time something as minor as a couple of out-of-line remarks in Headquarters stopped the pure machine of happiness?

And so, Joy began.

As soon as she put in her first Daydream, the scene on the Consciousness Screen changed. Just like during the attempt to know how to get to school, the night became a broad day; unlike the navigational puzzle, though, this was an environment filled with students, each one a possible friend — or enemy, or stranger.

“Well, there we have it. Joy just does something, again, without consulting anyone.” Anger remarked, being the first to say something.

“There are so many things wrong with this.” Disgust added. “One, is it really a good idea to just get lost in the Daydream while simultaneously being kinda lost in reality? And two, why are these Daydream people so… generic? You know that there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to making friends. I know that you know, Joy.”

“I would add that surely, Riley has already seen the ‘people’ of China are not all that generic, at least compared to Daydreams…” Fear noted.

“I know what you would add!” Disgust retaliated. “I’m not talking to you! It’s Joy who needs to listen!”

Despite being very much directly addressed, twice, Joy did not speak, almost if she had lost her voice. Instead, she put in another Daydream — seemingly, there was a lot of space for various intertwining and interacting Daydreams on the console — and looked back up.

Now, the scene of the Daydream shifted. Riley didn’t actually move anywhere — walking while in the middle of a Daydream, especially if it was initiated when the person was standing still, was not something that the emotions previously experienced with Riley — but if one were to believe the Daydream itself as fact, she walked in the school.

Once there, Riley’s Imagined self was greeted with two things. One of those was a distinctly American school interior, as opposed to the Chinese exterior. Sadness, especially, just shook her head, as though even Riley knew better than to assume that the school environment will stay exactly the same across the ocean — especially from Hollywood movies, which depicted schools very distinct from those in Minnesota, and that was still in America.

The second thing worried the emotions, and especially Fear, a lot more. While everyone else was focused on the contradiction between the Chinese exterior and the American interior, Joy put in a third Daydream, and the students themselves began changing. Before, they were all indistinct and facing away from Riley, but after the third Daydream, some of them turned to face the Consciousness Screen.

And, to say the least, the Imagined students did not have good intentions. Some of them just looked wrong, like the stereotypical bald bully from cartoons, but others, even though they looked perfectly ordinary, still had body language indicating ill intentions, like beating Riley up, or inviting her to an innocent-sounding yet sinister location.

One could, of course, point out that the Imagined students were still very much majority Caucasian, and possibly tied up in American stereotypes. However, by this point, the ignorance of cultures was the least of the emotions’ worries.

Suddenly, Joy spoke: “I’ll have you know, whatever you’re trying on me, it won’t work. I’m actually above all this, and am here to serve the greater good…”

Everyone else was taken aback. This was not Joy’s usual voice; in fact, it felt a lot more Riley-like — as far as the emotions knew what Riley sounded like, yes, they were perfectly aware of that time Riley tried to record her own voice on the phone, only to be greeted by not-so-pleasant connotations.

The matter was, Joy was fully lost in the Daydream, and might have accidentally turned it to a dark place.

Fear, in particular, reacted: “No, Joy, that’s not a good thing to say, no one cares about our social status, that’s not how bullies work!”

“Who’s Joy?” the bright emotion asked in return, remaining fixated on the Consciousness Screen. “If that’s some sort of nickname to put me down, that’s not going to work, either; I have a name, just like you, and you don’t see me calling you Bully McBullyface…”

“Code red! Joy doesn’t answer to her own name! What do we do?” Fear instinctively shouted.

Everyone else grew horrified by the prospect that Joy had somehow lost her own identity. This was one of the worst scenarios that could ever happen with regard to Daydream usage, bringing Riley out of reality altogether — a pretty bad sign of its own, yet compounded by where Riley was going to.

Disgust, however, was the only one with a solution.

Joy couldn’t be addressed directly, and probably wouldn’t notice anything in reality. However, as it would happen, Joy wouldn’t notice anything in reality — including if Disgust put in a Daydream of their own.

Disgust stood up and walked over to where Joy was sitting. They then glanced at the Daydream collection by Joy, quickly finding the one they were looking for, and put it in.

Suddenly, the bully characters looked away from Riley, and instead, a pretty girl, almost scaling up to Disgust’s own beauty standards, turned to face Riley, speaking something indistinct.

“Yeah, of course, sorry about that…” Joy responded, as though she had perfectly heard the girl — and continuing with Riley’s voice. “Hello! I’m new here, and looking for friends… will you be my friend?”

The girl’s face lit up almost as bright as Joy’s, and she and Riley were pulled in an embrace.

However, before much could happen on the pretty girl front, the others were also drawn to Joy’s Daydream pile, and decided to have their own, voiceless input.

What happened next was a complete blur for everyone involved. No Mental Notes of the affair were made whatsoever, and if asked to recount, the emotions could only tell each other vague things about how Riley and the girl went to the classroom, did a test, got perfect 100% scores, formed the biggest circle of friends around themselves, and other sorts of sappy, over-optimistic stuff that probably was merely things Joy said, rather than actual happenstances on Riley’s Consciousness Screen and in Headquarters more broadly.

Without realizing it, the emotions as a team were caught in the Daydream spree, way too deep, and it was a miracle that they were pulled out of it at all.

Indistinct chattering within the Daydreams, only occasionally involving specific words, was the noise that the emotions had already gotten used to. Therefore, it was quite difficult for a voice to break through — if anyone knew what was going on in Riley’s mind, they would have gone for a shout, straight away.

Nevertheless, an unmistakable voice did break through: “Riley! Is everything okay? We can go home if you’re too tired for anything else!”

Disgust reacted first. “I think we’re in some tough stuff.”

“You think? What if we literally are too tired for anything else? What if we are too tired to sleep?” Fear asked.

“Sleep doesn’t require one to be not tired, you idiot!” Anger snapped back.

Throughout the commotion, Sadness continued to navigate the situation, only occasionally taking in what her coworkers said into consideration. With her direction, Riley spoke: “Yeah… I think that’s for the best… going home from school… the first time of many.”

The last remark was definitely on the depressing side, but this didn’t matter all that much anymore. Riley was going home, and the day was ending, and nothing was doomed.

However, while Riley was already brought back on duty, there was still the issue of Joy.

At this point, Joy had already put away all of her Daydreams, and those that she didn’t were forcefully put away by Disgust. However, she was still looking worse than Sadness on a typical day, and nothing was stopping her. Though the others had already taken control of Riley and helped her follow her mother back to the Shanghai apartment, Joy remained dazed.

“Yeah… of course… I’ll follow you along from school… every single day… when school is in session, obviously…” she spoke, in her own voice rather than Riley’s, but still talking to no other thought form in particular, either inside our outside Headquarters.

“Joy, will you snap out of it?” Anger asked, quite sick of the debacle.

No use — Joy continued mumbling to herself.

“Is everything fine with Joy? Maybe we shouldn’t… this isn’t baby Riley anymore.” Disgust spoke, growing worried.

“Of course not… how can it be… Riley is already at school…” Better — Joy was actually cognizant of the action in Headquarters — but she appeared to largely be taking it out of context.

“Joy? We still need you… to help us go home…” Sadness spoke, and it was her reassuring voice that finally broke the spell.

“Oh. Of course. Going home, and having a good night, which will be a wonderful prelude to a good day. I can do that.” Thankfully, Joy was, indeed, able to muster the last remaining bits of seriousness in her, just to be able to finish the day.

It would be difficult, but in a strange way, the ongoing Daydream sequence did manage to refresh her, a bit. With any luck, she could even pretend that everything was fine, and count on the general forgetfulness of the others to actually make it fine.

After all, if the leader wasn’t fine, then neither was the mind as a whole; or at least, those were the words that Joy lived by.

Chapter Text

To say that Riley’s first day in China was a serious test of Joy’s “all happiness, all the time” mentality would have been a gross understatement. The other emotions had plenty of opportunities to point out that adaptation was going to be a much bigger trouble than initially thought, with the language barrier easily being the biggest obstacle.

And to be fair, Joy saw where the other emotions were coming from.

Yet, she reminded herself, it was all temporary. Whenever setbacks occurred, they would be overcome, and the successive ones would be less difficult. The language, too, would have to be learned, but this could be taken one character at a time, and once Riley was fluent, she would make lots of friends, just like back in America. Today, the emotions were, in a way, at rock bottom, and the only way to go from here was up.

However, all of this remained a theoretical concern, far surpassed in importance by a practical one: both Riley and her mother were tired to no end.

Once the two returned to the apartment building, Riley had no energy to run upstairs, or even walk upstairs, anymore. She simply stayed by her mother’s side, like a good girl would, for the entire process of getting home: the brief shuttle from the first to the fourteenth floor, the walk to the appropriate door, Mom unlocking the door, the two stepping in and Mom locking the door behind the two. Even this came as a struggle, as Riley’s eyes were no longer able to focus, making it harder for the emotions to tell what was going on — and easier to just assume the indistinct shapes were an artwork in and of itself.

“You know, blurry lights are more pretty than I initially thought.” Joy commented.

“Yeah, we’d better go for a good night’s sleep, and I do mean a good one,” Fear added. The other emotions only nodded, to themselves and to each other, and let Joy, easily the least tired of them all, drive for now.

In principle, it was simple. Take off Riley’s shoes, locate the sleeping bag, squirm in, appreciate the rudimentary amount of comfort that the sleeping bag gives, close her eyes, wait for the sun to set outside Headquarters, done, everyone can leave except for the designated Dream Duty emotion. In practice, however, there were still factors unaccounted for, including Imagination.

How could Imagination, so useful and even magical to Joy, suddenly become a nuisance to her, you ask? Well, the answer lay in the fact that it wasn’t just commanded by the emotions; it could also act upon its own, especially when the view on the Consciousness Screen just refused to coalesce into definite shapes on its own.

Thus, blurry lights and darker-than-usual shadows suddenly became apparitions, resembling animals and monsters, and though most emotions ignored them, Fear couldn’t handle it and ran up to the console, frantically hitting buttons. Indeed, the calm, summarizing voice of reason was no more, giving way to a deeply disturbed one: “It’s a bear.… it’s going to eat us!”

“Last I checked,” Disgust was glad to point out, “instead of bears, China had these black and white… pandas, was it?”

“Come on, it’s a highrise apartment!” Joy stepped in. “When Riley and Mom got inside, did you see any pandas or whatever? No? Nothing among the Mental Notes? Then, we’re good for the night, and for tomorrow, too!”

Yet, the most frightening demon of them all, instead of bears or pandas in the darkness, turned out to be Riley’s own insecurity.

“If there’s anything we’re not good for, it’s definitely tomorrow!” Fear said, continuing to operate the console. “We will have no way to introduce ourselves, and it’s not like we can read off a script that has been automatically translated…”

“And we won’t need to!” Joy spoke, trying to find the upside. “We already speak English — a language that basically everyone is learning, especially those wanting to trade with America…”

“Given the current trade war,” Anger remarked, “I wouldn’t be willing to make such quick assumptions.”

“So what you’re telling us is… we’re in a country that hates us. That’s even greater.” Disgust couldn’t help but note.

“Yeah, that’s a fair conclusion. If anything, I bet that whatever thing Dad is in, it’ll collapse and…” Anger suddenly stopped in his tracks. “Actually, I think Fear is an expert on disasters.”

“Indeed, that would be absolutely horrible!” Fear reacted, on command. “Out on the streets, we don’t know the language, there’s no way to return…”

“Wait, how much money do you think Dad is going to lose?” Joy asked.

“All of it! Worst case scenario!” Fear spouted out, as though it were obvious. “You always have to be prepared for the worst case!”

“Um… If I could have your attention…” Sadness questioned, pointing at the Consciousness Screen, her voice barely audible in the argument. “I think we have a bigger problem at hand.”

Indeed, the view out there wasn’t promising at all. Though Riley no longer saw apparitions, she nevertheless lay wide awake and seemed to examine each portion of the room she was in in great detail.

“I suppose we do.” Anger remarked. “And what do you suggest we do?”

“I don’t know…” Joy started speaking. “I do know one thing, though; we should not listen to Sadness, beyond, I suppose, her just pointing this whole insomnia thing out. Thanks for that, Sadness,” she said, facing the blue emotion.

“In that case, I think it’s fair that we also don’t listen to Joy.” Disgust pointed out.

“Yeah, what has her happy girl attitude led us to? Alienation, not knowing the language…” Anger started listing the reasons.

“Which is totally not our fault!” Fear rushed to interject. “If Mom and Dad let us know in advance that we were moving, we would at least be conversational now!”

“Actually, that’s a good point! Something you don’t expect from Fear every day.” Anger responded, rushing to recall a memory. “But no, Dad had to downplay it; ‘everyone in my company speaks English, so you simply have to speak English yourself and you’ll fit right in!’ Well, guess what, Pops: different languages matter!” he said, letting the memory interject appropriately.

“With these characters,” Disgust commented, “I’m surprised that anyone can learn this language in any timeframe.” They also took their time to recall a memory — actually that of Japanese kanji, but illustrating Disgust’s point nevertheless.

“Which is why we need to enter a strict regimen right now!” Fear pointed out. “We’ll start with the first row tomorrow, and then move from row to row, making sure to revise what we have learned and also, make sure that we can reliably distinguish the characters in addition to the pronunciations…”

“What about typing?” Anger asked. “Last time I checked, computer keyboards didn’t have thousands upon thousands of keys.”

“Well…” Fear stopped to think.

“I think I know the answer!” Joy interjected. “They actually use the pronunciation, and then a number for disambiguation. Fear, you can add that to the list of things we will have to learn! And do please save the list for later.”

“Consider that done! Now, will there be any other questions? About language acquisition and such?” Fear asked, holding his clipboard close to his chest.

“Not language acquisition specifically, but I do have a question.” Anger was glad to remark. “What are we going to do, now that Riley is still awake, in no small part because she was forced to listen to us arguing?”

With this question, Headquarters fell to silence. The emotions, it would seem, were a reactionary bunch, only dealing with the problems with immediate solutions, and not something like anxiety or insomnia, that, as far as they were concerned, were unsolvable obstacles that they would simply have to deal with for the time being.

Finally, knowing it was her time to shine, Sadness spoke up: “We could go talk to Mom, she would know a word or two to lull us to sleep…”

“Alright! Off to Mom it is!” Joy responded, making Disgust, Anger, and Fear look at her for failing to follow up on her own words just minutes earlier, but eventually, they had to agree to themselves: since Sadness was the only one with an idea, that idea needed to be tested first.

With swift moves on the console on Joy’s part, Riley squirmed out of the sleeping bag, picked it up and headed to the corridor. She then peered into each of the rooms, and eventually, was able to find Mom, close to sleeping in one of the other rooms, separate from Dad.

“What is it, sweetheart?” she asked, lazily looking at Riley. “Bed bugs?”

“Nothing!” Riley started speaking, before Sadness took over console duties. “I just… I need to talk.”

“You can do that anytime.” Mom responded with characteristic comfort, and already, Sadness felt like she didn’t regret her involvement.

“So… if you don’t mind me asking… why did we move in the first place? I don’t think I ever got a solid answer…” Riley began, having placed the sleeping bag next to Jill’s bed and squirmed inside already.

“Oh, I don’t know, sweetheart… Dad doesn’t seem to have much time for me these days…” Riley’s mother started speaking, showing that she had no less worries welled up inside than Riley herself.

This was not the answer Riley — or her emotions — were expecting, and they didn’t want to bother two people during the same evening. Instead, Anger acted on the console, as usual whenever Riley didn’t get a clear answer to her question, and made her groan slightly.

“Sometimes, it’s just like that, you know?” Mom continued. “Life is unfair and you just can’t help but let out your frustration. That being said, I do appreciate how you won’t do that until you’ve been pushed to your absolute limit. After all, aren’t you our happy girl?”

Inside Headquarters, the emotions stopped in their tracks. Only Joy was listening, smiling throughout, given that her hard work in keeping Riley’s positive demeanor was appreciated. Now, it was her turn to shine, quite literally.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Riley spoke, having received Joy’s input. “I don’t know how I do it; it just comes to me.”

“And that’s what we appreciate the most,” the mother commented. “Both me and Dad. We can always count on you to brighten up our day, whenever we talk to you, and it would seem that for you, every single day is bright.”

Slowly, one by one, smiles were beginning to appear on the other emotions’ faces, too. Even Sadness eventually had to give in. Whatever their opinion on Joy, they had to agree that her attitude was infectious.

“I know it must be difficult,” Mom continued, “being a small-town Yankee girl in the biggest Chinatown in the world. But if you keep smiling all throughout, you can be the light in more than just our lives. You can illuminate the world, you know?”

“So, as long as I am at the console, nothing can go wrong. As you say, Mom!” Joy replied, even though she knew that she wouldn’t be heard, except perhaps through Riley.

“Yeah! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” Riley spoke, as she slowly closed her eyes — which the emotions didn’t fail to notice.

“So, I guess Riley’s finally going for a peaceful sleep now…” Disgust awkwardly pointed out. “Wouldn’t it be kinda lame if we slept next to Mom like we were a little girl?”

“You’re right! Just let me…” Joy replied.

With a few more motions of the console, Riley once again squirmed out of her sleeping bag, before picking it up and heading back to her original room. Just as she was at the door, though, she looked back at Mom and told her: “Good night, Mom.”

“Good night, sweetheart,” Mom replied. She had briefly opened her eyes to look at Riley one last time, before closing them for good for the day.

Given that worries and apparitions on the Consciousness Screen were no longer troubling the emotions, walking over to the next room, plopping the sleeping bag on the floor and squirming in was going to be of no trouble. The emotions could only silently watch as the view settled in, before slowly fading to black as Riley closed her own eyes and drifted to sleep.

“And that does it, and that’s another day with Riley Andersen!” Joy suddenly exclaimed, jolting away from the console and standing up; the other emotions quickly followed, though in a more sedate pace.

“It had its ups and downs, I admit,” Fear spoke in response to Joy, “but in the end, I think we established ourselves pretty well.”

“So, what are you going to do about school?” Disgust couldn’t help but ask.

“That is a very good question, which is why I think that ideally, I should ponder it alone.” Joy answered. “That’s right, I’m going for Dream Duty. Wish me luck!” she said, waving.

“I don’t think luck is going to do much; sleeping on the plane wasn’t the most comfortable thing and it’s only nine or ten PM right now, so Riley’s going to sleep for a long time…” Sadness pointed out.

“Which is why Dream Theatrical Studios exist, to keep me entertained throughout the night!” Joy retorted. “Oh, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be mulling ideas throughout the time period, so don’t worry about me. Worry about yourselves, since I’ve got big plans coming up.”

“You know I’m one for plans.” Fear said, collecting himself before heading for the catwalk that led to the emotions’ dorms. Once he was up there, Anger and Disgust slowly followed, at their own pace; Sadness, on the other hand, was still awkwardly standing in the middle of Headquarters.

“What’s wrong?” Joy asked, walking over to her.

“You know, everyone speaks so highly of you and I can’t help but think… I’m everything that you’re not… am I…” Sadness struggled to voice her thoughts. “…unnecessary?”

Joy’s thoughts drifted back and forth, but in the end, she couldn’t let her best friend down. “I definitely wouldn’t say that, come on! If anything, you’re great company to me, and that’s all that matters, wouldn’t you say?”

“Alright… I was just worried…” Sadness’s voice was barely audible, but nevertheless, Joy was able to pick up on what she meant.

“If I ever change my mind, if I ever say you’re truly useless, you can tell me right then and there — and the other emotions, too! It’s extremely important!” Joy raised her voice, emphasizing her point. “There are some principles in the mind and I am going to try my best to observe them, no matter what!”

“I… I see… good night… good luck on Dream Duty…” Sadness spoke, finally leaving Joy alone to catch some Zs.

With everyone else finally being out of Joy’s sight and elsewhere in the mind, she sat back and took her time to think of a proper plan.

There were many factors that couldn’t exactly be planned for: what sorts of students and teachers Riley would meet at school, how much English they would know, et cetera. However, she understood that a genuine smile transcended languages, and if Riley smiled, the gesture would become infectious.

This was exactly what helped Riley do well with the social aspect of school. When she smiled, she suddenly didn’t seem threatening at all, and neither did those she was talking with.

Joy had no reason to believe China would work any different from America, at least for now. Perhaps she would learn important cultural differences later on, but that would be in the far future, when Riley was already well-established.

Joy’s never-ending smile suddenly turned into a frown. This was the beginning; this was what everything else hung on. Disgust had been known for their emphasis on first impressions, physical as well as social, and their approach would definitely be the one that worked best here.

Sitting in the central chair, Joy started mulling it over, trying her best to remember by next morning.

What was going to be necessary for tomorrow? Of course, the manner of dress was more important than anything else; Disgust would be taking care of that. The demeanor was easily the second most important thing; that would be taken care of by Joy herself, and of course, Sadness couldn’t interrupt. Riley would have to be able not to fall into obvious pitfalls; Fear would take care of that. If there were students who laughed at her for simply being a foreigner, as Americans were known to do, they would need to be shown their place; Anger was the perfect emotion for that, as long as he restrained himself.

But what would Sadness do, exactly?

Joy got endlessly frustrated with the question. No matter how hard she thought, her own principle of inclusion had to meet its fiercest enemy: the overwhelming mountain of evidence for Sadness’s tendency to ruin the day. In the end, Joy decided that thinking about it would just be too much of a hassle, and would likely tire her out to sleep, and sleeping during Dream Duty was even more unacceptable than ruining one’s first day of school.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that important, but nevertheless, it was something that the other emotions would reprimand her for, and as a leader, Joy needed to be the best possible example that she could.

Joy spun around in her chair, waiting for the dreams — the interesting part of the night — to start.

Chapter Text

The true nature of human sleep patterns — a species that, as far as the emotions could tell, Riley belonged to — was helplessly concealed, at least for humans themselves, by the frequency at which Mental Notes, the building blocks for memories, came in. It was very easy to see, from an emotion’s perspective: lots of Mental Notes came in during the day, none came in during most of the night, and only a handful came in during the part of the night when dreams happened.

Thus, when humans talked to each other about dreams, a variation on the idea was exactly how they approached the subject. To them, all of the night, or at least a vast majority of the night, was taken up by dreams, and those dreams definitely felt only as long as a fraction of the actual night. After all, that’s what the night felt like: falling asleep, the dream, and then, waking up, with a significant break in perception. There was no way that it could be anything else.

Yet, it was all a thick veil of lies concocted by the interplay of Imagination and Consciousness, and the emotions were in the mostly-unique position of knowing the truth — if you disregarded Dream Theatrical Studios, the department of the mind responsible for dreams, for a moment. If you asked an emotion, they would tell you that dreams only took up small portions of the sleep, in a phase known as Rapid Eye Movement, or REM for short. The other phase, often called “deep sleep”, would have no dreams at all. These two phases came in cycles of roughly 90 minutes, with the deep sleep coming first and the REM sleep taking up the rest in a cycle, and in each successive cycle, the REM phase would be ever-so-slightly longer.

Luckily, humans, at least those studying neuroscience, were finally starting to catch onto the truth that the emotions had known all this time. This was why Joy could think of the two distinct phases as “deep sleep” and “REM”; those were the accepted scientific terms. Yet, it still frustrated Joy to no end; there was an absolute wealth of knowledge to be unlocked by simply giving the mind a cursory glance, and it was all out of reach for humans. Perhaps emotions living inside other humans shared the frustration; however, there was no way that Joy could have known.

In fact, for Riley’s emotions, there was no real way to be sure that the people around her even had emotions and minds like the one they lived in. Sure, those people treated Riley as one of their own, and they looked to be dealing with the same sort of problems and having the same sort of reactions as Riley. Yet, Riley’s emotions still couldn’t know. Perhaps the world seen through the Consciousness Screen didn’t exist at all, and was more like an elaborate video game: once the “GAME OVER” screen appeared, the emotions would be free to live out the rest of their lives, being relieved from their duties.

The thought was a bit exciting, Joy had to admit. If the outside world didn’t exist and didn’t matter at all, then it would basically be indistinguishable from a video game. Riley, the emotions’ player character, would be little more than a blank slate for the emotions to project themselves onto, and the console would be like an intricate controller allowing for the most minute control of her actions. And, given that there weren’t any real rules or repercussions for breaking them, the sky was the limit.

However, given what the atmosphere in the supposed game was around, it was for the best to assume that it was all real. Riley was an actual teenager with actual parents, actual friends, and an actual home. Though the actual home was rather unusual for an American, the actual parents were incredibly supportive, the actual friends were great fun, and Riley’s life, in general, was good.

Yet, dreams were these pesky little things that challenged all of those presumptions. In a dream, an emotion could be made to forget everything they knew about their host, and instead be forced to play along with the rules set forward by Dream Theatrical Studios, which were simply not the same from night to night. If they wanted, they could bring forward a quite heartwarming dream, in which Riley could breathe underwater. However, the next night, the vast expanses of water would become the setting of a nightmare, in which Riley would be in a perpetual state of suffocation, with the pain never stopping.

With Dream Theatrical Studios, one could never know, and Dream Duty was something that each emotion would gladly skip and spend in their own room, sleeping peacefully on their own, instead. When sleeping, an emotion didn’t need to worry about dreams or nightmares staged by their own tiny Dream Theatrical Studios counterparts; it was a simple time skip from evening to morning, much like the ones humans experienced. However, it wasn’t called a duty for nothing, and Joy would have to sit through it, whether she wanted to or not.

Joy, in particular, didn’t have high expectations for what she would end up watching during Dream Duty. Going through Riley’s waking life was different; the outside world was so nuanced, and a bright side could be found in nearly everything except for her coworkers. However, dreams were much more Imagination-based, and therefore, much harder to enjoy.

If anything, she probably wouldn’t even care about the dream at all. She was already thinking about the other type of product that Dream Theatrical Studios produced: the Daydreams. The Mind Workers in charge of Riley’s dreams went through a lot of script ideas, and given that they boasted about “high standards”, lots and lots of those script ideas ended up being rejected. However, among those rejected ideas, there were quite a few that Joy actually would have preferred to see.

At times, Joy wondered what it would be like to work at Dream Theatrical Studios, given every Dream Duty experience she had had up to this point. No doubt, they employed only the brightest and the most creative thought forms, but then, they assumed the dimmest audience, and though 99% of their ideas were passable, what would eventually end up on the screen was the worst 1% possible.

However, at other times, she just envisioned the layout of Dream Theatrical Studios, wondering how she would make the trip to get the Daydreams — one that she almost always took, whenever she got Dream Duty. She would find the same pile, clearly marked for general use by Mind Workers outside Dream Theatrical Studios, and sift through it during the night, a bit like a burglar, but also, not technically doing any crime.

That being said, she knew that she would find nothing good before the first dream, and therefore, she couldn’t make the trip just yet.

Thus, Joy continued sitting by the Consciousness Screen, arms crossed, having low expectations to begin with. Even though usually, she would let her own physical being wander from place to place and never settle, right now, the fatigue from all the real movement that Riley did while in China had gotten to her, and for another thing, perhaps the most important part of Dream Duty as a job was to make sure that just the right amount of console input was received: not too little so that Dream Theatrical Studios would feel appreciated, but also, not too much so that they wouldn’t think that the emotion attempted lucid dreaming.

Then, just like that, while Joy was mulling the technicalities, the Screen sprung to life, starting to broadcast the first dream of the night.

It seemed to start in the happy-go-lucky way, which surprised Joy and lowered her guard a bit. She could see an enormous plane not unlike the one the Andersens flew to China, taking up much of her sight yet still being viewed from a third-person perspective. It was quite literally flying through the stars, which weren’t really distinguishable from fairy lights in the night sky, and as it formed gusts of wind, the stars would fly out of its way and create turbulent spectacles, which both Joy and Riley, staring through the window, were mesmerized by. In fact, Riley’s persona even took the time to open the window and touch the stars herself.

Yet, Joy was no fool. Never in Riley’s life was a bad day with lots of exclusion followed by a good dream which pretended that the exclusion never existed. Something very bad is going to happen, she thought to herself. Just you wait and see.

The stars, more reminiscent of dust motes at this point, danced and swirled around the plane’s nose, before beginning to coalesce. Once they did, they formed the Shanghai financial district skyline, now immortalized in Riley’s mind in the form of a Formative Memory. As the skyscrapers in the skyline became more and more clear, in full color, the plane faded from sight, seamlessly disappearing into the background. Joy couldn’t help but be impressed by the special effects; sometimes, it looked as though the prowess for live effects from Dream Theatrical Studios was unmatched by any other faculty of Riley’s mind.

Indeed, this could only have been achieved with the highest form of Imagination tech available in the mind. The very idea of Imagination tech was antithetical to how Joy approached the substance, but nevertheless, where the results were to be respected, she respected them.

However, it was at this point that the pretty spectacle of awe and amazement ended. As the camera zoomed past the skyscrapers of the financial district, it zoned in on a residential area, wherein the buildings were far more depressing. They were quite shorter than the skyscrapers, but still tall enough to give the area a sense of crowding. In addition, unlike the skyscrapers, which had unique shapes that formed a clear identity of the city, the buildings of the residential area were identical and organized in predictable patterns.

If there was anything Joy hated more than everything else, it was predictability. There was nothing exciting about already knowing the path ahead of her.

After flying towards the residential area and lowering to ground level, the camera stopped in front of an unassuming building that could have been anywhere in the neighborhood. Riley found herself standing between her parents, who were looking around in confusion. Joy tried to read their expressions, but found out, soon enough, that they didn’t have faces at all — almost a textbook way to depict the fact that, in waking life, Riley didn’t know what strangers, especially those in China, were feeling.

However, right after that, Joy’s attention was called by a mouse, standing in front of Riley. Unlike the mice from waking life, this one seemed to stand eye-to-eye with Riley, even stretching out its thin, little arms so as to hug her. That being said, once it spoke, the sound was nothing short of terrifying.

Each and every syllable came out as a staccato, with none of them making any sense whatsoever. Furthermore, those syllables sounded a bit like a song — a song sung by a tone-deaf singer with a range of three semitones. Even if you had made the assumption that the underlying language was English, there was simply no way for Joy to make out any words, let alone sentences.

It seemed as though Riley instinctively backed away, wanting nothing to do with the talking (for a very loose definition of “talking”) mouse in any way, shape, or form. As she did, though, she looked up and spotted something far worse. It seemed as though two gigantic wooden beams emerged from behind Riley’s own apartment block and started swiping around, lifting entire buildings with their foundations.

These two beams were completely disconnected, but still seemed to act as a single entity. Still shaken, Joy thought for a while about what they could be, until she realized: …chopsticks?

These chopsticks continued destroying the residential area around them, throwing buildings high in the air, making them appear over Riley’s apartment block. In fact, due to perspective playing tricks on everyone, some of those buildings ended up falling into Riley’s mouth; if Joy had to describe their taste, she would say that they were like burnt potato chips, spiced with concrete.

So far, it all looked and felt really bad, but Joy had already been used to scenes like this being staged by Dream Theatrical Studios. However, the worst had yet to occur.

Due to another perspective trick, one of the chopsticks swept around Riley’s apartment block and sliced right by her neck. Joy instantly felt the sharp pain of a cut on her own neck too; it was searing like nothing else she had felt. At least, that’s what it felt like; there wasn’t really an objective way to compare it to the pain she had sustained during previous nightmares, but it was certainly enough to temporarily shut down every thought she would otherwise have.

She could only stay and watch as the camera, representative of Riley’s head, rolled around, before settling between the rest of her body and her apartment block, facing the other way, so that the skyline was once again visible. As though it was a confused headless chicken, Riley’s body began “looking” around, arms outstretched in order to be able to find stuff just by touch, before collapsing after a few aimless spins.

It was absolutely terrifying for Joy to watch and feel. She really had no other choice but to feel what Riley felt; that was the power of the connection to the outside world, and, in its absence, Dream Theatrical Studios. Especially with the latter, she really wished for at least some sort of “numbing” of nightmare sensations, but alas, she had to admit that the connection she had with Imagination was the exact one she had with Consciousness, and the immense ability to manipulate the environment around her also came with immense “empathy” with Riley’s own “feelings”, though the words actually substituted for something only an emotion could understand.

It took all the willpower Joy could muster up in order to tear herself away from the Consciousness Screen, still feeling the stabbing pain in her neck and the choking feeling, and even once she did so, the pain didn’t stop. Luckily, Joy wouldn’t be Joy without her Imagination, and in the moment, she used it to heal herself; it felt like it took more time than it actually took, but once she was done, the pain had completely subsided. At the same time, as though by coincidence, the dream faded away as Riley entered a deeper sleep phase once again.

Joy then took the time to groan in her seat, over and over again, the terror being quickly replaced with disdain. Though she said nothing and the thoughts themselves could only be read from the Stream of Consciousness bouncing along the Consciousness Grid, anyone skilled enough to read it could tell that she was throwing all sorts of manner of curses towards the dream’s director, producer, scriptwriter, actors, camera operators, FX crew, and everyone else who so much as breathed at the premises and ever-so-slightly altered the spectacle of dust-like stars.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she ranted to herself. “How could you even do this… we’re really going for reminding her that everything is alright, even here… you could have woken her up and scared her to death with this… you’re lucky that it’s only the first dream of the night… you know what, I don’t even want to see the other dreams.” she finished, suddenly resolving and coming up with an action plan as she stood up.

She didn’t have especially high expectations for Dream Theatrical Studios. She had to admit that they didn’t have the best cards tonight, and the barrage of mostly non-happy memories, followed by a Dream Duty served by Joy, was a very clear recipe for disaster, to say nothing of what they thought passed for standards — and especially what sorts of ideas they thought should be making the cut, to the detriment of all the rest. However, even by their standards, this was not just unacceptable, but downright damaging to Riley’s psyche.

It was clear that Joy would have to take the matter into her own hands. She didn’t even want to see anything else that would come out tonight; she had already decided that the first dream of the night was also going to be the last.

Chapter Text

Joy had limited options for dealing with Dream Theatrical Studios. At night, they held all the power, and could make Riley see whatever they desired — and also had the strings to manipulate emotions, too. However, they were still thought forms, malleable to direct manipulation. There was still a Mind Worker, somewhere, who had to physically turn the camera on, and Joy was to make sure that they would be incapacitated.

She was already planning the entire trip out “ahead of herself” — a task much easier than planning out Riley’s day, she immediately noted. She couldn’t rely on the Train of Thought, which generally didn’t run during the night, but she could rely on Imagination, her oldest friend, to conjure whatever she needed: a wingsuit to fly from Headquarters to Dream Theatrical Studios, a backpack to gather Daydreams, whatever. Right now, only those two sufficed.

She thus ran from the console’s vicinity to the back of Headquarters, put a hand in front of herself to make the Headquarters window disappear, and before she knew it, she was in the air, greeted to a sight prettier than anything in reality.

Somehow, it never got old. The Consciousness Grid above her perfectly matched the layout of the Memory Lanes below her, and though most structures were too small to distinguish, Joy nevertheless knew what was where. Looking over it all was almost like looking over a map of the place, and though this map didn’t have any labels, Imagination could probably help with that, too.

At first, she glanced directly below Headquarters, at the structure most essential to Riley’s status as a human: Values and Connections. Each of the little triangular islands there was dedicated to an important person in Riley’s life: Mom, Dad, Grandma, Meg, Jordan, Mrs. Lewis and so on, as well as bridges between them, built appropriately as Riley saw a connection between the two people. Of course, it all connected back to Headquarters, as the mind was centered around Riley and needed to reflect that.

Then, the area became a bit of a mess to figure out at a glance. Surrounding Values and Connections were three types of structure: the Islands of Personality, Areas of Interest, and Fields of Expertise, each of them essential to Riley’s status as an individual. In particular, Joy needed to fly over Goofball Island, easily her favorite in the whole section, with easily recognizable totems, such as the likeness of a monkey, as well as a box with an R written on it in a childish font. If Joy wanted, she could also recognize Hockey Field to Goofball’s left and Tomboy Island to Goofball’s right, but that was not where she was flying right now.

Finally, past the Islands, Areas, and Fields, there was relatively less shining. For the most part, only the towers at the intersections of the Memory Lanes shone, acting as little beacons that continued to be aligned with the Consciousness Grid. Among them, searchlights easily stood out, and from those alone, Joy knew that she was flying in the right direction: towards Dream Theatrical Studios.

These were the thought forms who wanted her to suffer during the night, even though she had already suffered plenty during the day. They were absolutely going to pay.

As she was approaching the red carpet and gate marking the entrance to Dream Theatrical Studios, Joy pulled up and graciously landed on her feet. She then proceeded to dissipate the wingsuit and run the remaining distance. She already knew the facility inside and out, including both the stages for dreams and the stashes for Daydreams.

As she ran past the closed gate, no matter how careful she was not to hit anything, she was still aware that she would be a target from now on. The guard nearest her no doubt noticed and shouted towards the other guards, but once she had made a single turn, no one could tell where she was, anymore. And even if that hadn’t worked out, she could always have disarmed them with more generous use of Imagination.

One could say that Joy lived for a thrill like this. Sliding around as fast as her little feet could carry her really made her feel alive, more so than anything that could happen in her quaint little job at Headquarters. There was only one real problem: if she tried something even half as dangerous as this with Riley, she wouldn’t have to wait long before Fear stepped in and ruined her fun.

But right now, Fear, alongside Riley and all the other emotions, was asleep, and the heist to steal her dreams was on.

Locating the right stage in a rush like this was not an easy task, and with more and more guards and staff being alerted to the glowing ball of chaos, the jig was truly at the highest that it could be. However, from the get go, Joy had one obvious clue: as the last scene that Dream Theatrical Studios shot — the one with nightmare chopsticks slicing Riley’s head off — was outdoors, they needed their spotlights, and those were even more obvious to spot than Joy herself.

With the spotlights guiding her, Joy eventually arrived at the scene and bust through the door right into the studio. From there, she could see the flabbergasted faces of the Mind Workers putting on the show to be played during the next sleep cycle, with Dream Director Patricia front and center.

Mind Workers weren’t really anything to look at; given that they were beings of pure Consciousness, they weren’t much different from brightly colored potatoes, ranging anywhere from blue to purple to orange, with very thin, pencil-like arms and legs, about half Joy’s height. Out of them all, Patricia was the only one who stood out with a purple body, darker purple curly hair and glasses. Consequently, she was the only one, out of everyone on this stage, that Joy remembered the name and title of.

“Now what in tarnation is going on?” Patricia asked, before cracking a joke at Joy’s own appearance: “Did someone forget to turn the lights off inside your body?”

It seemed as though Patricia’s sense of humor was respected within the mind, as the Mind Workers around her spontaneously bust into laughter. If this joke was targeted at anyone else who just happened to be glowing in the exact same way as Joy did, she wouldn’t be able to resist and would sneak in a laugh.

However, being the one targeted, as well as the single most unwanted presence within Dream Theatrical Studios at the moment, Joy remained unamused. “Yeah, right!” she retaliated. “In fact, I think it was the same Mind Worker who was in charge of ironing your hair!”

Suddenly, the Dream Theatrical Studios staff stopped laughing. One of them, who happened to be nearby a spotlight, ended up accidentally hitting it, and gravity took over, sending it crashing down on the floor, turning to Joy’s direction.

That was when Patricia came to her senses about the intruder. “Get her!” she commanded, and almost immediately, the others began rushing towards the emotion.

For a moment, Joy had to shield her eyes from the spotlight’s light, many times more luminescent than herself, but eventually, she was able to get a grip on herself and her Imagination powers. She only gave a cunning smile as she softly spoke: “No, you.” Then, she outstretched her arm and gestured towards the rushing Mind Workers, using her Imagination to freeze them in place.

“She’s a witch!” Patricia spoke, but soon enough, she, and the Mind Workers who weren’t as courageous so as to approach Joy and tackle her, found themselves frozen too. Joy then cast her spell of Imagination upwards, and the entire expansive facility, with all its guards, makeup staff, and the rest, would be frozen in place until morning.

Joy then proceeded to walk towards Patricia’s petrified form, finding the imbalance of power to be the greatest joke of the night so far, definitely outclassing either of the jokes that were spoken at this studio just moments before. She gave her another wicked smile, speaking to her: “And that’s a good thing.”

Alright, enough messing around. Time to see if any of the night’s Daydreams are good. Joy thought to herself, slowly yet carelessly stepping away from the scene and towards the proverbial back of the facility, where all the Daydreams were typically stored.

This pile of refuse, for what it was, was surprisingly clean, with no trace of a foul odor or need to watch one’s step. If something was truly useless from here on out, Vortices of Forgetting were generally available throughout the mind to permanently destroy unneeded objects and recover some Imagination that they were comprised of, if there was any. Nevertheless, Joy understood that by placing Daydreams here, Dream Theatrical Studios had, in a way, marked them for general use.

If anything, even if she were to fly back to Headquarters right now, the workload wouldn’t change. Instead of her, it would be Mind Workers that picked up the Daydreams, then stashed them into the Train of Thought and delivered them to Headquarters. Nevertheless, it was always nice to have the first pick of the night.

The Daydreams themselves typically looked like metal sheets, about the size of a standard sheet of paper, with engraved text in a monospace font. This hinted at their true nature as pages from discarded scripts, which were deemed useless for the production of dreams, but nevertheless, were processed so they could have a different purpose in the mind.

Right off the bat, the first few plates she looked at were engraved with keywords that instantly showed Dream Theatrical Studios for what they were: a mockery of talent. Yet, there was a page, which seemed to be part of an ongoing dream which suddenly twisted for the worse, but which Joy could nevertheless take out of its context and insert into an otherwise boring day.

The page itself talked about Riley playing hockey, competitively, under the banner of her old Minnesota school team, the Prairie Dogs. She appeared to handle the stick and the puck skillfully, and in the end, managed to score a goal just before the siren blew. However, during the next page, it was revealed that nevertheless, the Prairie Dogs had lost, and Riley was laughed at, out of the rink.

Joy took the happy, last-minute-goal Daydream in one hand, while taking off her backpack with the other, and then stuffed the Daydream into the backpack. She then got a bit more serious about the sorting, placing the Daydreams she had already looked at into a separate, “I have no interest in them” pile, and continued onwards.

Throughout the next hour, this process repeated, over and over again. The only time that Riley was ever allowed to have happy moments in her dreams was to serve as a context for a mood whiplash, to turn them dark and frightening. There was no wonder why Joy didn’t cherish Dream Duty or any single system put in place by Dream Theatrical Studios.

Finally, she was done. Out of the hundreds of Daydreams that she had considered, only around a dozen or two made it into the backpack, even when Joy relaxed her requirements for acceptable Daydreams, figuring that the “bad” parts (as a Daydream may have had multiple parts, but could only be used as an indivisible unit) could be done away with by careful console input and memory recall. Yet, she couldn’t waste her time at Dream Theatrical Studios anymore, because if she wasn’t careful with time, she could find herself in the morning, with the staff once again after her and the other emotions wondering where she went.

From here, the process looked to be smooth-sailing. Joy climbed one of the towers of Dream Theatrical Studios, which she always thought looked like a water tower, then Imagined her wingsuit again, and then took off, letting the winds of Imagination carry her back to Headquarters.

However, once she made it back, Joy found herself the victim of another peculiarity of the mind.

As the emotions knew, certain parts of the mind were absolutely necessary for them to function, and if they were tampered with using anyone’s Imagination, they could potentially be broken without a way to repair them. That, of course, was where Consciousness, and servants of Consciousness such as the Mind Workers, came in, constantly restoring the order of the mind.

Yet, it seemed that within the domain of Consciousness were the outer glass walls of Headquarters, and before she knew it, Joy found herself smacking against the hard glass, hurting quite badly.

Even in pain, she needed to act before she fell down, which would necessitate her to fly down, loop around and make it back up. She focused on the glass, dissipating it, and with all the grace of a toddler, fell onto the floor on the outer edge.

She then took the time to process what had just happened. Given the old shape of Headquarters before the China ordeal — namely, the princess tower — this would have never happened, as all the windows in that model had overhangs one could comfortably stand on, and if you were really lucky, you could even fly onto a balcony, which would negate the need for Imagination to get in altogether.

Yet, with the new shape of Headquarters — the skyscraper — the glass walls were absolutely vicious from the perspective of someone with magical wings. If you smacked against the wall, if you were lucky, you would stick to the glass briefly. If you were unlucky, you would bounce off like a rubber ball and quickly have to gain velocity before smacking into the ground with literally all the force that you had.

Joy then came to the realization that, even in the real world, these glass windows didn’t make that much sense, as office workers would prefer the secrets on their computers weren’t visible to any onlooker with a pair of binoculars. Their only real purpose was to reflect the sky, because apparently, this was the only hack that architects knew to inject beauty into otherwise prismatic designs.

Who was the one responsible for this? Joy thought, before hearing the slight hum of Consciousness, restoring the window she had dissipated — with her feet, hanging over the former wall, getting caught in the window, rendering her completely unable to stand up.

“Ugh, this is why we can’t have nice things!” Joy suddenly exclaimed. It was then that she realized that it was still the middle of the night and she needed to be quiet, lest she wake the other emotions up. She then tried to tiptoe to the console, but her feet were still stuck.

She once again Imagined the window disappearing, and in doing so, ended up rolling towards the console. In the process, she managed to lose her backpack and even unzip it with a careless motion, leading to Daydreams spilling all over the floor of Headquarters. Yet, through all that she had seen during the night, she really couldn’t care less.

She sat back into her own chair by the console, being careful to have her thoughts remain thoughts: Now, we’re playing the long game.

Chapter Text

One thing that the thought forms just couldn’t get, no matter how much they wished for or how much Imagination they put into the wish, was a functioning clock that ran neither fast nor slow. The emotions always had a rough idea of whether it was morning or evening — thanks to Riley’s consistent sleep schedule, something not all fourteen-year-old girls had — but beyond that, they were on their own when guessing the exact hour of the day.

Long-distance flights complicated the matter further. The kind of flight that Riley took — from Chicago to Shanghai, straight across the international date line — was perhaps the worst one in terms of possible jet lag. Luckily, she got a head start by sleeping on the plane, but the economy class seat didn’t make for the most comfortable bed, which showed as Riley had not been the most alert or functioning throughout all of Wednesday. Tonight, she needed the sleep, and she needed a lot of it.

However, Joy knew, as much as a thought form could know in general, that this sleep lasted just too long. Especially since she froze the Dream Theatrical Studios staff, she only had herself, the mostly useless console and the blank, except for abstract, meaningless patterns, Consciousness Screen. Not having a clock, Joy made noises reminiscent of one — tick, tick, tick — to show that she was bored out of Riley’s mind and wanted something, anything to happen.

She couldn’t even recall any memories to brighten her night; the console prevented her from doing so. During the night, recalling memories and building dreams upon them was strictly the job for Dream Theatrical Studios — and now, during this crucial moment where nothing wrong could happen, they were out of a job. They wouldn’t completely relinquish their position, and they would continue with the same nonsense the next night, but then, Joy wouldn’t be serving Dream Duty anymore, and it would stop being her problem.

If only I could solve my other problems by freezing the thought forms involved, that would be great! Joy thought to herself. But no, I’m stuck here, in Headquarters, being the shepherd to a bunch of sheep that refuse to listen and… they do sheep things, all over the place… Yeah… sheep things… like the sheep that they are, listening to me…

At first, Joy was oblivious to signs of trouble staying up. Repetitive thought was certainly one, but she still felt like she was fully up; sleep, both for humans and emotions, happened to be this little devil that took them unexpected. Another sign, that Joy should have really noticed, was her toppling her chair by the console and getting down to a reclined position; she really thought that she was comfortable in that position and that she wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon.

With all of the emotions, as well as all of Dream Theatrical Studios, being asleep, nearly asleep or otherwise incapacitated, the Stream of Consciousness slowed down, now visibly moving from Formative Memory to Formative Memory overhead. That was, perhaps, the most significant sign, and one that Joy did notice; however, by this point, she was already too tired to do anything about it, only being able to lazily turn over.

Luckily, just before Joy could fully go to sleep, something happened in the outside world, bringing her to a period of confusion that necessarily prefaced full alertness. Riley’s alarm clock, which she had set to 7:00 AM local time in order to be able to wake up for her special greeting party at school, rang, and Joy’s grand scheme was finally set in motion.

First, she launched herself and her chair back to an upright position, mostly using her Imagination, as was required for an event that defied the laws of physics. Subsequently, she ended up slamming face-first into the console. Then, after needing to recover from pain on top of the confusion, she pushed a button on the console that was rarely used, but which would be useful in this special case. It had an energy meter associated with it, that went up as long as the button was pushed, and while there was energy, the input from the emotion who pushed the button would be continuously received.

As the emotion in question was Joy, it immediately showed on the Consciousness Screen. She could only catch a glimpse of Riley shutting the alarm off and continuing to sing its song as she got ready for the day. The energy would only really last through breakfast; past that, Joy needed the cooperation from the other emotions. This was where the second part of her plan came in: she needed to instruct each emotion on their exact role at school, so that Riley wouldn’t embarrass herself and would make a good first impression on the local students.

This, however, was where her troubles really started. She knew she couldn’t know precisely what the other emotions thought, no matter how much she looked at the Stream, and she knew that her instructions would always be subject to interpretation and plain disobedience. However, what she couldn’t have anticipated was an emotion not being ready to start work in the morning at all. Yet, once she was by the door that led to Sadness’s personal space, peering through the little teardrop-shaped window, she could see the emotion, still sound asleep.

It’s okay, Joy reminded herself, Sadness doesn’t exactly play a pivotal role in my plan anyway. But then, a different way of thinking came to her; one filled with disdain: Yet, she does play a role and cannot ruin it for me! She cannot. Non-negotiable. This plan has to go through smoothly, or not at all. And smoothly is preferable, thank you very much.

After all, she was Joy. She was an embodiment of perfection, the little voice telling Riley “everything is okay, nothing has gone wrong yet”. She couldn’t allow herself to be stopped after hitting the very first roadblock, and she was going to make sure the others knew that: even if they ignored her, they at least had to be aware of her thoughts as a thought form.

Joy knocked on the door, louder than usual. Using her Imagination, she had, briefly for this moment, materialized a jingling gauntlet, which would make for an even louder sound. Even though she was further away from other dorms, this worked like a miracle, and soon enough, Anger, Fear, and Disgust were all groaning and trying to get through their own morning routines.

Sadness, however, took her sweet time, which made Joy annoyed to no end. In the meantime, Joy had even managed to forget why she was in front of Sadness’s door in the first place; however, brief greetings and expressions of annoyance from the other emotions reminded her.

Finally, Sadness opened her door to find the glowing ball of happiness being very much not happy with anything and especially not Sadness’s demeanor, though fatigue, with bags under her eyes, also contributed to the overall mood.

“I assumed you’d have woken up earlier.” Joy appealed.

“Could you not…” Sadness murmured, still trying to shake off her own Zs.

Despite this, Joy continued. “I assumed that I would be able to make Riley’s first day at school perfect.”

“Look, Joy…” Sadness tried to explain herself, but it would seem Joy simply didn’t listen.

“I didn’t expect to run into an obstacle at the very first minute.” she called out, getting progressively more and more disgruntled.

By this point, Sadness had already thought of a proper excuse, and told Joy, trying not to be nervous: “I had Dream Duty the night before, and needed some more sleep this night…”

“Well, I had Dream Duty this night, and look where I am: planning for both myself and everyone else!” By this point, Joy was absolutely furious, gesturing with her arms all over the place, signs of fatigue long gone. “No! I am not going to take any more of your insolence!” she exclaimed, not even trying to hide her disdain for Sadness’s actions anymore.

“Joy!” Anger shouted, having heard Joy’s outburst, rather ticked off himself. “You’re acting up more than me!”

“You’re right.” Joy suddenly calmed down, knowing that she couldn’t let the pure essence of a different element of Imagination control her, and especially not in front of her own BFF. Instead, she stood on her toes, extending her arms fully, slightly to her side, and concentrated on Imagination to create a pair of batons, which she could use as pointing devices to further complement her commands.

“It’s just a minor hiccup. We still have every chance to make this day perfect.” she continued, as she swirled around, letting the air flow around and through her, as she descended through the catwalks from the dorm doors to the seats by the console. It was like dancing, one of Joy’s greater passions, and she was going to use that to deliver her commands calmly and with her own brand of passion, rather than force them upon the other emotions.

“You see, I had plenty of time to craft a plan, and you’d better follow this plan exactly how I want!” She tried to start out her next sentence calmly, but by the end, she still ended up shouting and clenching her fist; she just had to accept that she was still very much the enforcer of the bunch.

Meanwhile, Sadness had quietly walked over to the console herself, following Joy, and was ready to take commands. “I… I see. What should I do?” she timidly asked.

“Don’t worry, I’m saving the best for last.” Joy smiled back; a smile that was mostly sincere, but not entirely so, especially since she had to deal with the sight of Sadness at the console. She then asked everyone: “That being said, do you know what sort of girl Riley is? Anyone?” Just pointing at one or two emotions wouldn’t do, so she focused and her double batons turned into four, pointing at each of the emotions.

Anger, Fear, and Disgust only murmured among themselves; none of them knew what Joy meant, and in return, she groaned, realizing she would have to spell it out for them.

“Oh come on, don’t act stupid in front of me! Our mother literally said it yesterday!” she exclaimed, as she put the four batons in her hand together to merge them into one, pointing at the Consciousness Screen, while using the other hand to recall an auditory memory of last night’s conversation between Riley and her mother.

“After all, aren’t you our happy girl?” Mom said, in a muffled voice, as the memory was replaying.

“Oh, happy girl!” Fear said, smiling upon the epiphany.

“And you know what that means?” Joy asked.

“You’re in charge?” Sadness, the emotion who understood Joy the best, was the first to answer.

“Exactly! And that means you’re dancing to my beat. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four…” Joy found herself using the remaining single baton like a conductor, making a sharp turn downwards with every “one”, while doing an improvised dance. She then realized that this made her lose focus, and stopped in her tracks; clearly, she still had to deal with remnants of fatigue. “I mean, not exactly. Visual metaphor. That wasn’t part of the instruction. Fear!” she suddenly shouted, pointing to her coworker.

“Wait? What? Were you saying something? Am I in trouble?” Fear grew rather worried upon his name being called.

“You’re not in trouble, but Riley could very well be. You got all the likely negative outcomes?” Joy asked, referring to a request she made a while ago, when the emotions first learned that Riley was moving.

“Of course! Three days ahead of schedule.” Fear responded, satisfied with himself. “Just needs some minor fixes… how does one spell ‘meteor’?” he asked.

“M-E…” Joy wanted to assist Fear, before realizing: “Wait, that’s not a likely negative outcome at all!”

“Gotta be prepared!” Fear noted, nervously smiling, as he began looking through the list elsewhere to see if he was simply paranoid.

“You’re right! Gotta be prepared.” Joy agreed, before moving on to the next emotion in her plan: “Disgust, as always, will be in charge of our wardrobe and fashion. Know of anything that would make Riley stand out, but not in the ‘look at me, I’m an American who worships freedom’ way?”

At first, Disgust groaned when their name was called, but when they heard the instruction, they smiled, knowing exactly what to do. When Joy was finished, they answered: “I know just the perfect outfit that will do the entire job for you!”

“Of… attracting the most popular kids?” Joy, herself, wondered what job Disgust had in mind.

“You know it!” Disgust smiled, almost motioning to the console to do what they were told, right away.

“Perfect.” Joy smiled in return, before continuing to address the emotions. “Anger?” she asked.

“What?” Anger bit back, clearly not showing any patience, and Joy knew that she was going to teach him some.

She made sure to turn away from the console in the most delicate manner possible, before making soft, calculated paces to the back of Headquarters, where she knew she had had her incident with the Daydreams. That being said, soft and calculated didn’t mesh all that well with the persistent fatigue, and Joy, not realizing she had made too many steps, stumbled on the schoolbag and fell over.

Anger, in turn, burst out in laughter. “It’s always funny when she does that.” he said to Disgust’s side.

“My plans are not funny!” Joy shot back with all the venom she could muster. She then continued: “Anyway. Daydreams. Right over here. Personally selected directly from Dream Theatrical Studios, and delivered back to Headquarters, by yours truly. School’s been a mixed bag for us in Minnesota too, so it’s best to be prepared.” she continued, thinking back to her experience of Riley’s school in the past; there were plenty of occasions when Riley would get plain bored.

“Naturally.” Anger noted, before asking: “Only, if you were so prepared, wouldn’t the Daydreams already be organized in a stack right next to the console?”

“Questions unrelated to the day’s plan are not accepted.” Joy shot back.

Now that everyone else had received their instructions, Sadness, who was by Joy’s side, awkwardly following her from a distance, finally spoke up again: “So, now you’ve talked about everyone… what do I do?” As Anger heard this, he decided to move on with the Daydreams, collecting them from Joy’s awkward late-night pile and placing them in their appropriate shelves.

“What do you do? Good question! Good question. Let me think…” Joy pondered, rotating the remaining baton in her hand in a circle, before stopping it as it was pointing to the back of Headquarters. “There! Follow me!” she shouted out, suddenly running towards the direction.

“Alright…” Sadness mumbled as she characteristically tiptoed in the same direction as Joy.

Joy, on the other hand, was focused on using her Imagination some more to give her baton laser pen-like abilities. She was able to shoot out a laser onto the ground, but it looked to be far too weak to burn into anything, so she focused on increasing the power, until the part of the Headquarters floor she had been pointing at became a thick, black burn mark.

Finally, as Sadness approached Joy’s location, the latter began drawing. She drew a nice, neat, small (but not too small) circle around Sadness, walking around when necessary to get the full circle. As she did, though, the path where she wanted to draw crossed Sadness’s foot, and as the laser hit her, it burned her rather badly.

“Ow!” Sadness flinched, moving her foot away, so that she would be inside the circle that Joy was drawing.

“Watch where you’re standing!” Joy hissed, horrified that Sadness wouldn’t even look after herself, much less Riley.

“You know, you could bend down and draw…” Sadness suggested.

“And bow down to you?” Joy rudely laughed, before reminding Sadness: “I’m in charge. And you’re not to interrupt that! You are to stand around and… no. This won’t do.” She shook her head, and thought what she could do about it.

In a split second, she moved over to the console, partly to see what everyone else was doing. It looked like the other emotions had followed Joy’s commands pretty well; after having breakfast in her pyjamas, responding to Disgust’s input, Riley returned to her room and picked an outfit for herself. More importantly than that, though, Joy needed Sadness’s chair by the console, on the far right; without wasting any time, she picked it up and, in another flash, returned to the back of Headquarters, carrying it.

“Much better. You are to sit around and watch from the sidelines. Don’t leave the circle at any point!” She emphasized the correction, as she placed the chair in the charred circle and let Sadness sit on it. “Oh, and I took your comms tablet while you were sleeping; you can’t touch that either. You cannot mess it up! First impressions. Very important. Riley’s entire future could depend on it. You understand me?”

“I think I do…” Sadness muttered, glancing at the Headquarters shelves, where her comms tablet was placed right alongside Joy’s; the sight was unmistakable, as the side keyboards of the two comms tablets were painted in blue and gold.

“You always understand me; even when you don’t.” Joy smiled back, showing minimal compassion, before she clapped and the baton/laser pen that she was holding, having served its purpose, disappeared. She then returned to Headquarters in a normal walking pace, summarizing the plan: “Well, that’s everyone. Now get ready, for we are starting the school year like we should, and taking China by the storm!” With those last words, Joy hit the two big levers on the console, pushing them all the way to the end, as Riley was ready to receive her input once again.

As Joy thought about what she had just said, though, she couldn’t help but shake her head. “Did that sound stupid? It did? I’m sorry. I, of all the thought forms, should be taking this seriously.”

“It’s a pretty good phrase, though.” Disgust commented from Joy’s right. “Taking China by the storm… I like it.”

“Thanks.” Joy shot back; having sat down in her own chair, she was trying her best to focus on the Consciousness Screen and Riley’s next actions.

Chapter Text

Fully dressed and prepared, Riley dashed out to the antechamber of the apartment, where she met her parents, getting ready for their own preoccupation for the day. While Dad was to continue meeting up with his coworkers in person, a status he referred to as “business as usual”, Mom was still delegated to settle immigration matters.

The family members had eaten breakfast at around the same time, but the parents were thoughtful enough not to interrupt Riley if she was looking happy. However, the three were about to separate, and needed a “status update” so to speak.

“Good morning, monkey! Looking fabulous today, aren’t we?” Mom asked her daughter.

In an almost perfect mirror of the apartment, Riley’s mind was also buzzing with activity. In the distance, Goofball Island turned on as soon as the word “monkey” was heard, and at the forefront, the emotions gave it a few glances, before turning to their leader, Joy. In the end, “business as usual” was the best way to summarize the situation in the mind, as well.

Overhearing Mom’s remark, Disgust was all-but-ready to make Riley agree. “Oh, please!”

“Of course you would say that!” Joy said, smiling as she turned her head towards them. As Disgust, only making comments to themself, didn’t look like they were touching the console, Joy took over in her stead.

“Thanks!” Riley replied.

“So! First day of school. I mean, not really, but you still get to know your friends; though, I don’t think many of them will show up, but the ones that do might be the most worthwhile to keep!” Mom commented.

At first, Riley was confused how to respond, and her emotions were trying to process it all. Each of them, including Sadness by her lonely spot in the circle, had their own thoughts, and were all too ready to voice them.

“Yeah, why did no one inform us that local schools were on winter break?” Anger was the first to object, thinking that perhaps, this move was poorly planned and organized. “And also, why isn’t the winter break centered around Christmas and New Years, like it should be?”

He was met with an awkward silence. First of all, even the other emotions, limited as they were in perception without memories, understood that there were calendar differences between China and the West. However, second, they couldn’t really afford to look spaced out in front of Mom, thinking about calendars of all things. They were a topic so minor to Riley, its location on the Consciousness Grid wasn’t even above the horizon from the vantage point of Headquarters.

It was thus up to Joy to save the day — well, the morning, at least — and make Riley appear as she should. She thus replied to Anger, while at the same time going for the console: “We’ll go over that when we’re out and about, okay? Now, we really gotta respond to Mom, and this is firmly my duty. Happy girl, remember?” Most of the others only nodded as the console lit up in brilliant gold; however, Fear’s reaction, judging by the flash of purple, was quite different.

“I know! Starting the day off right and all! It’s just that… do you think I’ll need to know Chinese from day one?” Riley spoke.

Before she even got an answer from Mom, Dad, or anyone else in the outside world, Joy replied, still irritated from all the nonsense she had to go through while recounting her plan. “You’ll be fine, Riley. Just go along and do everything as rehearsed!”

“But… we didn’t rehearse anything?” Fear countered.

“We did rehearse the most important thing: my awesome laser pointing skills. And I would say those are flawless; right, Sadness?” Joy quickly turned to the back of Headquarters, not really expecting to get a response, or understand it if she got it.

Once Joy turned back, though, she was once again greeted to an unpleasant surprise — it was almost as though unpleasant surprises, no matter how minor, characterized the day so far. The emotion, who had apparently continued to use the console while looking behind herself, ended up entering completely wrong sequences, and as a consequence, in the excitement to finally go out, Riley had realized that she hadn’t gotten the grip of a particular key, and ended up fumbling to unlock the door.

“Are these even the right keys?” Fear was able to utter during the brief confusion, before Riley could finally insert the key and unlock the door. She then rushed out, closing the door behind herself, but keeping it unlocked, figuring that her parents were still to head out, and they, as the last ones to leave, would be the ones locking the door.

Just as she closed the door, however, she overheard voices from inside, and had to rush back to see her parents again. “Hold on! Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

“Yeah, where did your manners even go, Joy? Maybe we should take over for the day…” Disgust commented.

At first, Joy looked as though what her coworker had said was a personal insult, but in a split second, she knew to resume her cheery attitude. “Nowhere! I just had trouble catching them in the midst of literally everything else.” This time, it was a Joy and Disgust tandem that decided Riley’s actions, rather than that of Joy and Fear.

“Sorry! Goodbye, Mom! Goodbye, Dad! See you in the evening!” Riley spoke, appearing well-coordinated, though the flash of colors inside her mind told a different story.

“Have a good day at school!” Mom replied, full of hope.

“Be sure to make lots of friends!” Dad suggested, before going on a slightly irrelevant diatribe: “Connections are one of the most important things out there, and it helps to learn it sooner rather than later, you know?” At that point, Riley had already tuned out, closing the door behind herself and ready to run down from the fourteenth floor all the way to the first, now without any sort of concern that anyone was going to stop her.

She picked up the pace quite quickly, and the entire stairwell became a blur on the Consciousness Screen. The rush of wind ruffled her hair and made for an appreciated coldness, almost as if the Screen itself had become a huge fan comforting the emotions with fresh air. Even Sadness, lonely as she was in her circle, appreciated the blowing wind, and stopped fidgeting.

Once she was down at the ground floor and headed out to the big city, though, Riley, together with her emotions, was greeted with two unpleasant revelations.

The first came when she coughed as soon as she went outside, with Disgust reacting on the console. “Ugh! And we’re going to get this every day?” they complained.

Anger, though, had to admit: while it seemed that the air was still of a terrible quality, Riley and the emotions would simply have to get used to it. “Looks like someone’s not a smoker.” he duly commented.

“Don’t even talk about that! Ugh!” Disgust only shot back.

However, between the banter of the two, Fear saw a much more concerning worry. Mouth agape, he came across the second realization: the world out there was big and terrifying, even when reduced to just China or just Shanghai, and Riley was all alone, in a place only familiar in passing, quite possibly without a clear and concise memory of how to get to her school from her apartment and back.

It was a relatively short walk; there was definitely something about Dad mentioning that he had picked a local school that was close by, rather than an international school which was in the crowded city center, suggesting that Riley would simply learn Chinese by immersion. Yet, even a short walk, as long as it had more than one turn, was going to turn out much longer, both literally and in spirit.

Soon enough, the recall capabilities of the console were commanded, in full capacity. Luckily, memories, both audiovisual and photographic, started flooding in. However, they were largely disparate, and no matter how much Fear and his coworkers looked at them, they could not piece together a coherent path from home to school. In a way, at least for a moment, they had to leave Riley right there, awkwardly standing outside her apartment, the excitement of going down the stairs gone just like that.

Luckily, Fear wouldn’t have gained a reputation as Joy’s right-hand man if he didn’t have a Plan B for the times when Plan A failed. With his orders, Riley unzipped her schoolbag to pull out her favorite Chinese tablet, before navigating to the maps application, which had a nice offline map of the area.

That being said, the offline map couldn’t serve its use without three key facts coming to Riley’s awareness. First: where was her home, the starting location? Second: where was her school, where she was going? Third: where was she right now, given that the ever-so-helpful GPS dot that she took for granted at Minnesota was missing and turning it on was apparently illegal in China?

“So, how exactly do you even plan to use the map?” Disgust asked, leaning over to where Joy was sitting, and in the process, gripping the console, making Riley sneak in another cough.

“Don’t worry! I got this.” Joy spoke, the view on Riley’s tablet puzzling her as much as the others, but always hoping to catch on something at all times.

However, even a few moments of none of the three questions being answered prompted Fear to shout out: “We’re lost! We’re so lost!” The others immediately looked at him, thinking he was exaggerating; that is, except for Sadness, who silently nodded before looking down at the vast space between the console and her circle.

Anger, on the other hand, shouted out: “Will you shut it?! We just need to put our mind to it and we’ll get where we want to get to.”

“Right you are!” From the underside of the console, Joy picked out a device that looked like a laser pen (though distinctly different from the one she used during planning), before shining it on the Consciousness Screen; immediately, a finger — Riley’s finger — pointed. “I’d say we’re about here, which means that the street over there is that one… wait… ugh…” Suddenly, Joy felt the full frustration of not even being able to describe the letters she was looking at, let alone read them — if they were read like English letters at all.

“No, no!” Disgust snatched Joy’s laser pen from her, before returning, with their chair, to the proper position. “I’m pretty sure we are here, and the school is over here…”

“You got it wrong! You got it all wrong!” Being not as nimble with his fingers as his more slender coworkers, Anger stood up and moved in front of the console, trying his best to point at the Consciousness Screen with his own fingers, rather than Riley’s.

There seemed to be no end to the emotions arguing which was the correct path to take, and as they did, Riley stood completely still. Since the Consciousness Screen was so huge, even Sadness, at a distance, could see what was going on, at least partially. However, she knew to keep silent, because the emotions were already in a pickle, and she would only make everything worse.

Truth be told, Sadness couldn’t wait for later that day, when it all would be shrugged off and she could have another good chat with Joy, apologizing for everything and submitting to whatever demands. Until then, though, she had to admit that such was life.

Eventually, with no one agreeing on any particular way to point to any place significant to Riley on the map, the emotions conceded that there was only one solution: walk in a random direction until they arrived at a road sign, then use the translator app to copy the road sign’s writing as best as Riley could, and finally, put that on the map and see where it led them. Then, together with the mess of maps in Riley’s memories, something could finally be figured out — hopefully.

This procedure, simple as it was, continued testing the emotions’ teamwork skills. Once again, Joy found herself at a complicated situation, where her pep talks about finding motivation and navigating without overthinking every single step fell to deaf ears.

She had to find a different angle to approach the entire situation from, and for that, she had to wait until Riley was at least semi-confident where she was walking. Though the waiting, with each and every emotion (except for Sadness) having at least something to contribute, was painful, eventually, Joy found the moment.

As she did, she exclaimed: “Thus! We’re finally on track for our first day of school! The… whatever. Winter break…”

“So, will I or won’t I finally get an answer as to why winter break doesn’t line up between here and America?” Anger asked, finally uttering something that didn’t pertain to directions.

He was met with an awkward silence, followed by Disgust’s attempt at an explanation: “Don’t you know from astrology? Like, when it talks about the eastern years of dogs and dragons and such? Those don’t start on January the first, now, do they?”

To be fair, though, Riley still knew very little about the way the Chinese calendar worked. She had read that it synced up with the moon and the sun, meaning that years had either twelve or thirteen months according to rules similar to leap year rules, but she didn’t even know what the technical term was. In those moments, Joy’s hands awkwardly hung above the console, trying to recall a memory that would help them in this regard, but eventually, she dejectedly retracted them.

What mattered, though, was that what Disgust meant was that the Chinese New Year was not too long ago. “So, people are still celebrating! Good for them.” Anger thus answered.

“Celebrations just make me feel more lonely…” Sadness spoke from the distance, not daring inch any closer from her little circle. She was fidgeting with her fingers, worried that Joy might just snap back at her.

However, Joy only gave Sadness a brief glance, before turning back; it seemed as though she was pretending that she didn’t hear that.

That being said, Disgust did hear the remark, and commented, though addressing the others instead of Sadness: “Yeah, you’d all better do something about us being all alone, a small-town girl in… whatever it was…” For some reason, they struggled to remember what Mom had told them yesterday, and what Joy had recalled literally during the plan earlier today — or at least something along those lines.

Luckily, Anger came to the rescue and recalled the appropriate memory for her. The familiar vinyl thus spoke in the familiar voice: “…a small-town girl in the biggest Chinatown in the world…”

“That.” Disgust remarked, knowing someone would have come to their rescue.

However, Joy knew that Disgust had invalidated their own point earlier today. “I mean… did you take care of the wardrobe?” she nonchalantly asked.

“Of course.” Disgust replied, equally as nonchalantly. “Who am I to you, some sort of slacker who does a poor excuse for a job when a first impression hangs on the line?”

“See? Then there’s nothing to worry about, and we’re all set!” Joy countered ecstatically, hitting the console, and Riley’s step slightly hastened.

The rest of the walk went about as smoothly as it could when a teenage girl was in an unfamiliar city and only had the technological equivalent of a paper map. There was definitely some backtracking involved, and at one point, Fear had even suggested turning back home and starting over due to how confused he had gotten, but the others quickly vetoed his proposal.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the semi-familiar school came up. Joy quickly recalled a memory of it, taken yesterday when Jill took Riley to the neighborhood and showed her around, and it seemed to be a perfect match; knowing this, all the emotions — even Sadness — simultaneously sighed in relief.

“Alright, finally! Now, let’s go to see who’s in there!” Joy exclaimed, hitting the console. Riley had already been tired from all the walking and looking and “typing”, but nevertheless, at the sight of school, started almost-running just to be able to get there faster.

As she did, the new angles that the emotions saw the school from only confirmed that this was the right building. The only part missing from the school experience was the hustle and bustle, but that was to be expected, during the winter break; whatever the emotions were going to see then was only up to Imagination.

Joy thus had to act — not by literally using her Imagination, but by making Riley as a whole use hers. The assortment of Daydreams that she had nabbed was right by her own seat, placed in little holders as though she was playing a game of cards, a task she was able to complete while the others were too busy with the whole map ordeal. Thus, moving through them, she was able to pick out an appropriate one, involving a school environment back in America.

It drew upon memories from Minnesota, where Riley, admittedly, had a bit of an unusual life. She was, by no means, a straight As student — what with an incurable rivalry with the concept of homework — but she managed to appear at the center of attention in another way, as the poster girl for various campaigns against bullying; someone who, according to posters plastered at the place, “will stand up for you if mean kids attack you”. Given this, her social status was also rather high, with passers-by either respecting her if they were complete strangers or, if they were among the “core” friendship circle as the emotions called it, asking if they could chat with her to pass the break.

Joy inserted the Daydream into an appropriate slot at the console, and within moments, the environment transformed. Now, instead of a barren corridor with a lone janitor sweeping the dust that seemed to pile on and on, there was a collection of students, all chatting with each other and giving Riley an occasional glance of respect, while the aforementioned posters replaced the real posters whose meanings Riley wouldn’t be able to glean anyway.

Out of the other emotions, all of them could get behind the picture, except for Anger, who couldn’t help but cringe at how the Daydream seemed to be composed entirely out of Caucasian students. “Well, that’s an appropriate picture, with everyone looking Western even though these are Chinese students in a Chinese school in China…” he couldn’t help but comment.

“Shh. You’re really starting to sound like that orange guy on TV.” Joy interrupted him, before stating the concluding words, as the Daydream faded and was ejected from its slot: “Anyway, that’s it for Imagining things, let’s go see what’s really in store!” With those words, Riley entered the appropriate floor, making little leaps upwards, and though she was obviously tired and sweating, she was also excited to see her future schoolmates and friends.

Chapter Text

Admittedly, Riley’s emotions didn’t have high expectations for what the school would turn out to be like. As evidenced by the Daydreams being commanded like there was no tomorrow, she just plain didn’t care, and though the differences between Riley’s two lives were debated by the emotions for as much time as they got on the matter, most of the debates concerned the home, not the school.

Nevertheless, Riley was on the correct floor, and with the help of little arrows, it was easy to find the only room in the school where there would be any sort of activity during the day.

For a moment, Joy thought that the posters on the Daydreams were getting kind of weird. Though they depicted Riley front and center, they never mentioned her by name; they weren’t supposed to, as no one with a functioning Consciousness Grid would write the name of the only person standing between the aggressive and the vulnerable. She quickly reacted, taking out the Daydream.

Soon enough, the poster transformed. It still happened to say “Riley Andersen” in English letters, but it neither depicted Riley’s face nor had any sort of anti-bullying slogan; instead, Riley was simply acknowledged as the “international student”, alongside text in Chinese that none of the emotions could read.

“Well, look who’s the star!” Disgust said, feeling practically on top of the world.

“It’ll fade and Riley will become just an ordinary student. Remember: punching bag of the crowd.” Anger pointed out, wanting to bring his coworker down to Earth.

“Remember! Positive thoughts only. Especially on a first impression; isn’t that right, Disgust?” Joy called, turning to her left.

“Grass is green, sky is blue!” Perhaps the biggest joy in the mind was the joy of being recognized by, well, Joy, and the smile on Disgust’s face didn’t look like it was going to fade for a long time.

“Although, I must say that the sky hasn’t exactly been ‘blue’ while we’ve been here, at least, not the way I see it…” Fear pointed out, feeling that between the Chinese text and the sky color, Riley as a whole had been taken not just to a foreign country, but to an entire alternate reality.

Having heard from Disgust, Anger, and Fear, Joy only needed to look back to ensure that Sadness was doing her thing. Indeed, once she looked back, she saw the circle and a lone blue teardrop sitting inside.

“We’ll talk about that later. Now, let’s take China by the storm!” Joy exclaimed, taking Riley to the classroom door.

When Riley opened the door, she was greeted to a fairly typical spectacle for a party held within the school grounds, but outside the usual schedule. There were takeaway boxes and plates everywhere, and students were anxious to take a bite — at least, as far as the emotions could read the expressions of Chinese people.

What was rather suspicious, though, was a lack of pizza or any other sort of Western food, excepting perhaps soft drinks; it seemed the Chinese really liked their local cuisine, not giving much thought to the Western culture that otherwise seemed to penetrate everywhere.

At this sight, Disgust’s smile faltered. “Do you think we can eat each and every bit of this?” they said, trying their best to identify anything local.

They did not mean to say that the Andersens didn’t enjoy an occasional Chinese takeaway, too; even in America, the family didn’t necessarily rely on pizza, as pizza could have all sorts of toppings, and a category like “Chinese food” was more predictable. In China itself, though, this might not have been a trustworthy heuristic anymore.

However, Joy was significantly less worried, especially since to her, it sounded like Disgust was suggesting eating it all. “First of all, we’re sharing! With…” With more typing on the console, she made Riley look up, and the sight was… something.

Of course, not many students were interested in attending an event at the school itself during the winter break, which was, quite obviously, a break from the frantic schedule of tests and assignments. Indeed, Fear was able to count seven students and the teacher.

What was more interesting, though, was that most of the students that showed up were boys. There were only two women present: the teacher herself and a single student, who really stood out in how bright she looked compared to the rest, in posture and smile.

While Fear was trying to solve the puzzle of the gender disparity, Disgust fixated on the girl’s attitude and expression.

The girl wore a black skirt, only really going up to her knees, as well as black leggings and black flats. For a top, she had a white tee with a black image of a skull painted on, and on top of it all, a purple plaid shirt. As far as her face went, her blue eyes stood out due to the absence of defined eyelids, and her brunette hair was done in a bun; all in all, very distinctly Chinese.

She had relatively little in the way of decorations and makeup. When she blinked, a slight tint of purple eyeshadow could be seen. She wore three earrings, two in one ear and one in another, almost like Disgust’s, but much smaller and perfectly round. Other than that, though, her lips were almost as pale as the skin around them, and so were the cheeks; for the most part, she really looked like she was going for the natural look.

The emotions didn’t know why, but this girl transfixed them. One by one, they found themselves speechless and unconsciously placing their hands on the console, and as such, memories of the girl started rolling in all the colors except for blue.

And as for blue, Sadness, too, felt like she wanted to be part of the moment. If she could just…

“Shall we go talk to her?” Joy finally broke the silence, remembering to command.

“No, no. She’s definitely bad news. Out of our league.” Disgust felt like they had to say this, before Joy acted irrational. She knew a delinquent who didn’t follow the rules, even if they were not Caucasian, from a mile away.

“She looks like she’s about to tear Riley apart, and that smile… that’s definitely a slasher smile, not a genuine one.” Anger added to Disgust’s comment. Perhaps he had made Riley watch one horror movie too much, but this was simply what he saw.

Fear didn’t say anything, instead just meekly cowering at Anger’s remark. Perhaps the Stream could tell what he was thinking, but right now, acting in the moment mattered more to everyone and especially Joy.

And as far as Joy went, she saw each emotion coloring the girl in their own palette, but not forming a cohesive picture. And in the end, if Riley were to leave this party without making a single friend, that would definitely be a failure in everyone’s book. Joy thus declared: “I… I guess you all make a fair point… we still have to evaluate everything!”

While the emotions were voicing their thoughts, not all of them good, Riley didn’t dare make a move. She must have stood there for a good minute or two until the teacher said something that might have been heartwarming, but without anyone knowing Chinese, could be anything from the lightest invitation to the darkest insult.

“What do we do? We don’t understand a thing here! This is really, really bad!” Fear suddenly screamed.

Evidently not getting a proper response, the teacher decided to walk over to the door herself. When she saw the American girl, though, her expression instantly warmed, bringing Joy relief.

“It’s you! International student!” the teacher spoke, now in English, albeit with a slight tint of a Chinese accent.

“It sure is!” Joy hit the two big levers, and on her command, Riley practically jumped in the classroom.

Now that the emotions could see all the walls of the classroom, a detail caught Disgust’s eye. “Ew! Blackboard! Does anyone even use blackboards anymore? Can’t these guys modernize?” they couldn’t help but comment.

Anger, though, noticed the laser pen that Joy had taken out during the commotion on the way, which had now been dropped by the console’s side. He picked it up and pointed it at the projector on the classroom, pointing out: “Looks like they’re simply taking it slowly.”

Fear, on the other hand, was afraid, more so than ever.

This was the big moment, that would come to define Riley from here on out. How she presented herself in this classroom would define what those kids, including the girl in the skull tee, thought of her. They would tell their friends, and those friends would tell their friends, and by the time lessons actually started, the entire school would have a collective “action plan”, defining Riley’s reputation at school, and in turn, at life.

Both Joy and Disgust had emphasized this plenty of times, but only now did it become a reality for Fear. A single button wrongly hit, or even so much as him being at the console at all when he was not supposed to, could have an equally tiny reaction coming from Riley, like a strangely twisted smile, and that could lead to long-lasting repercussions.

Unknown to the rest of the team at first, though, Sadness stood up and left her circle, wishing to make her own thoughts on the matter known.

No matter how Riley presented herself, the fact remained: she was starting over, and everything she knew and loved was gone. Even in the best case scenario, talking to people over the Internet was only so much of a replacement for real interaction, and eventually, Riley would have to part ways with Meg and the rest for good.

“Come on! Tell us about yourself!” the teacher nudged Riley, seemingly unaware of the commotion in the mind.

“Let’s go!” Joy subsequently exclaimed and hit the two big levers, once again.

Riley let out a little laugh, before beginning: “Well, I am Riley Andersen and I come here from Minnesota — that’s in America… my dad has been looking for a business opportunity and… it just worked out this way, I guess!” She let out another laugh, this time a slightly more nervous one.

This was mostly good for Joy, but not good enough. She gave Fear a brief glance, to see if he wasn’t touching the console, and so much as a glance made him hide underneath it.

“Of course! Economical superiority!” the teacher ended up adding, and some of the students chatted among themselves in Chinese about it. Thankfully, that group did not include the brightly smiling girl, who the emotions kept glancing at. The teacher then continued: “So, what was life there? Some interesting stories? …Recounts?”

“Alright, here comes the big one!” Joy said, before starting typing… almost furiously. She recalled memory after memory, many of which were closely reminiscent of the Formative Memories that defined Riley, throughout both her early childhood and later years.

“Actually, quite a lot! Where do I even begin?” Riley fumbled with words, before starting: “Well, I guess I play hockey… there’s this team I was on, the Prairie Dogs, and I’m the star player, and we’d almost always go to competitions with other schools. Other than that, I must say I’ve gained… a slightly weird reputation, I should say… how would I describe it…” She had lost track of what she wanted to say.

“You got this! You were the poster girl for anti-bullying campaigns!” Joy ended up voicing the speech for her. She gave another glance at her coworkers by the console, making sure that none of them had touched anything or messed with the memory delivery.

And then, when she turned to face Sadness, she spotted her standing about two feet away from herself.

Joy instantly jolted. She wanted to back away, but the console was in the way, so she stood her ground, not allowing Sadness to come any closer to hurting Riley. “Huhwha? Sadness, what are you doing? I thought you were still in the circle!”

“Did I… do something wrong?” Sadness spoke, before unexpectedly standing her ground: “It’s my moment, too!”

Joy groaned. “No, it’s really not. Trust me, it’s not.”

“But Riley’s so far away from home…” Sadness tried to reason.

“No, no — here is her new home now.” Joy retaliated. “We have to move on, do you understand me?”

“…yeah, move on from old friends who we really liked… I just have a feeling…”

Joy knew what was going on. Sadness was trying for the emotional approach — rather apropos for thought forms literally serving as Riley’s emotions, but as Riley grew up, Joy knew that they would have to take rational responses into account, too. There was only one way to respond: doubling down.

“And I have a feeling you’re wrooooooong!” She suddenly screamed, only now noticing that, while the two were arguing and she was focused on points of retaliation, Sadness had sat down in her seat and started commanding Riley.

Riley suddenly shivered, before holding her arms close to her heart. She was bound; she tried to speak, but words simply didn’t come out of her mouth, and the expressions of everyone around her really seemed to scream that she had just presented herself as vulnerable, which only served to further fuel her concerns, like a twisted vicious circle. Eventually, she even felt tears pooling up in her bloodshot eyes staring blankly into the distance.

The others were also surprised by the sort of presentation that she did. While the boys were significantly less interested in what she had to say, even from the first sentence, and likely didn’t understand what was going on, the girl’s smile faded. It was difficult to read from where Riley was standing, and there was a possibility that she was simply concerned, but she could have just as easily started devising petty insults. In fact, she was advantageous at this point, because she could come up with a pun that only worked in Chinese, and Riley would never be able to comprehend what it actually meant.

She was perhaps the best chance for a friend that Riley could have, in China, and now, her support was gone, replaced with something that the emotions couldn’t hope to understand, and they had to rely on luck to guess what she actually meant. As far as potential friends went, she was a goner, and with that, all hope was gone too.

In a sudden, jerking manner, Joy pulled Sadness away from the console, tipping her chair in the process. Sadness plummeted to the ground together with the chair, which slid underneath the console, making loud rattling sounds as it did.

“This is why I can’t trust you!” Joy screamed, gesturing as Sadness struggled to stand up.

“We’re such a goner… petrified and even crying at our first day…!” Fear pointed out, noting the faces on the Consciousness Screen.

“Then why didn’t you do anything about it?” Suddenly, Joy was furious. Her plan had gone to shambles, in that very moment, and it was all the fault of these two emotions.

However, as far as Joy could tell, only one of them had touched the console when she was specifically instructed not to.

Overhead, the Stream of Consciousness zoomed past various sections of the mind, heading straight for the Formative Memory directly above Headquarters. As it hit the memory, it made a loud clang and sent sparkles down to the roof of the emotions’ home.

The Train of Thought, too, seemed to start heading for the direction of Headquarters.

And within Headquarters, Joy’s eyes narrowed as she was struck with the most dangerous, yet necessary, idea in the history of Riley.

If the circle wasn’t enough, and Sadness would still approach the console and ruin perfectly planned moments, then there was only one other option.

“Now listen up here!” Joy spoke, pulling Sadness in towards herself, not caring for the latter’s desperate attempts to stay upright. “When you were told to do nothing, which was literally the easiest thing to do… you’d still take the effort to disobey me? That’s it! I can’t take it anymore! Sadness, you are relieved of duty! Out! Get out of my sight, and out of here! And I don’t even want to see you on my comms tablet!”

The emotions all suddenly turned to Joy, speechless. Sure, she had been rather harsh and demanding as a leader, but as far as they could tell, there wasn’t even such a thing as being relieved of duty. The five emotions would have to be there, from Riley’s first breath all the way to her last, as an unwritten law.

Of them all, Sadness, the target of Joy’s fury, was the first to speak: “I… I don’t think…” However, the menacing frown in front of her was enough, and Sadness, not daring to disobey Joy again, finished: “Alright… let me just… pack up my stuff and…”

Suddenly, Joy’s form disintegrated, and her particles dispersed, seeming to float up to the emotions’ dorms. After a good minute, the particles returned, and Joy reappeared by the shelves where the comms tablets were usually placed, holding Sadness’s favorite purse, haphazardly filled with stuff. Finally, she, picking up Sadness’s comms tablet, marched straight to the blue emotion, before handing her belongings over to her. “There. Done. Now, if you don’t get out in ten, I will…”

“Alright… alright…” Sadness slowly picked up the stuff that she was handed, before carefully placing the comms tablet inside.

“You know, have you considered that Sadness—” Fear started to speak in his coworker’s defense, but Joy was clearly having none of it in every single action.

“No! That’s final! And don’t think I’ll ever forget you ever defending that… that… thing!” As Joy spoke, Fear leapt back, bumping into Anger as he did.

“Watch where you’re going!” Anger exclaimed.

“Uh…” Disgust pointed out: “Have you considered that you needed to be reminded where we moved, on the plane?”

“Silence! I’m not going to take it anymore!” Joy finished, and as she did, silence, indeed, fell upon Headquarters and throughout the mind.

The view on the Consciousness Screen didn’t look promising. While the chatting boys were as disinterested as always, both the girl in the skull tee and the teacher looked almost disappointed.

In the back, shuffling could be heard, as Sadness took the path downstairs and quietly disappeared out of everyone’s sight. The Train of Thought, her means to leave, tooted for a bit, but eventually, grew quiet as it took her away.

And on the console, Disgust was handling damage control as best as they could, even if it meant that Riley ended up slamming the door behind herself.

Chapter Text

Sadness wasn’t one to quickly process anything that happened to Riley, or to herself. Luckily, the Train of Thought was also taking its sweet time to start up, let alone get anywhere useful, giving her the opportunity to brood.

How would she describe the entire process in a single word? One of the most befitting words for the purpose seemed to be: surreal.

Everything was so fine in the morning. Though Joy wasn’t happy about her waking up late and ordered her to stay in a crudely drawn circle so that the first impression wouldn’t be messed up, she had no reason not to expect Joy to need to let herself out at the end of the day. Instead, all of a sudden, she received endless shouts and was forced to pack up and leave Headquarters. The experience was almost characteristic of a dream; yet, as the Train of Thought departed from its station near the bottom of the Headquarters tower and began moving along, Sadness realized that this was her reality now.

It was for the best, though, as Headquarters didn’t look or feel like her home anymore. The original, princess tower shape, before the move, was almost always the center of any emotion’s diatribe when they talked about their brief, usually nightly, tours away from Headquarters, often framed in terms of “seeing their life in perspective”. Yet, Sadness, who admittedly hadn’t taken any tours like that in recent memory, only saw a glass-and-steel highrise as she looked back, and instead noted how it would fit in the real world.

First of all, the skyscraper, if it found itself in reality, could probably find its home in any major city across the world — perhaps even including Chicago, which Riley only got to see briefly before having to board her flight. That being said, the transformation of Headquarters was no doubt associated with Riley’s move to Shanghai, and unless the Formative Memory right on top was replaced with something else, Sadness would continue to see it that way. And if such a replacement happened, Headquarters would probably transform again, anyway.

Second, the skyscraper looked a lot more like an office building, not a residential one, which made sense, as Headquarters was, first and foremost, a workplace. The emotions had very little “free time” in the human sense, as they had to keep their thoughts in sync with Riley’s for as long as possible. In fact, even right now, though Sadness was physically separated from the others, she still kept the habit, at least for a little while.

Yet, she knew that the longer she stayed outside of Headquarters and with access to the remote console at her comms tablet barred, the less she would know about Riley’s whereabouts and emotional state, and therefore, the more the two would drift apart. There was nothing Sadness could do to prepare for this, or to prevent this; she would simply have to let it happen, and face the emotional breaking.

Finally, as Headquarters remained nothing but a tiny needle, only standing out due to its height, the Train of Thought arrived at its destination, near Goofball Island. Sadness thought that the choice (as much as the Train of Thought chose where it went) was rather ironic, as Goofball was perhaps most closely associated with Joy. Perhaps she wanted Sadness to feel her iron fist for one last time?

It didn’t matter now, as with any luck, Sadness would be far away from the Island, in a place more suited to her own personality.

Of course, “Island” was a huge misnomer — or at least, was slowly becoming one, especially along the Train’s tracks. Indeed, during Riley’s life in Minnesota, the Islands of Personality, Areas of Interest, and Fields of Expertise all looked like floating islands, as did any sort of meaningful structure outside of Headquarters, likely due to her brief obsession with platformer games. Yet, even as Sadness took her brief trip from Headquarters to Goofball, the area began transforming, becoming an urban, gloomy landscape not unlike downtown Shanghai.

Sadness didn’t need to look far to see the changes that happened; in fact, it was a lot more likely for a background detail to change if Sadness was looking at it, or otherwise in proximity. Something about the emotions being the primary representations of Riley’s thought processes, and everyone else, like the Mind Workers, being the side products? Sadness couldn’t remember, and the changes themselves made it hard for her to focus, so she didn’t, allowing to immerse herself in the changes instead.

She first remarked the very place where she arrived. She could only have a brief glance at the Goofball Island stop’s original form — a wooden seat with a lone sign, listing an outdated timetable, and no map or indication of location whatsoever, as it would be in the Midwest — before it started transforming, just as she sat down, not sure where she would be going next.

First, a glass rain cover appeared over the seat; something rather useful, as Sadness was especially prone to carrying a rain cloud over herself wherever she went, a bit like a helium balloon. The signs of age and rough woodworking also quickly went away from the wood.

The subsequent changes, though, were much more grandiose and chilling. While the back pane of the glass rain cover remained, only really getting a map of the system as an addition, the side panes folded and the top pane rose to create the first wall of a much more expansive building, like a train station — or a subway station, serving Shanghai well when the twelve-lane expressways couldn’t.

Details began appearing to complement the grandiose design, too. First, structural pillars formed, which did, for once, appear distinctly East Asian as opposed to the rest of the structures so far — at least as far as Sadness was able to surmise. Riley wasn’t exactly the greatest with familiarity with world cultures, and in particular as far as East Asia was concerned, she would constantly mix up China and Japan due to being much more familiar with the latter.

Finally, various Mind Workers started flooding in using whatever means they had. Partly, this felt like an environmental change in its own right, to complete the impression of a busy transport hub; yet partly, the news of the changes spread at the speed of the Stream of Consciousness, and no doubt, various Mind Workers wanted to take a look for themselves. None of them, however, had spotted Sadness, all lonely and forgotten, and she only felt more isolated in the moment.

Suddenly, Sadness felt a cold running through her body, and started shivering. As she shivered, though, she, too, began changing.

It wasn’t unusual for an emotion to completely change their appearance, especially if they had been affected by a profound epiphany. As such, Sadness already knew what the process was like from experience, and that it was almost never pleasant. However, the full implication of what this meant was absolutely chilling to her, as the truth settled in that she was no longer welcome at Headquarters.

She first noticed the parts where her bare hands were touching her sweater; the material was different to touch, and once she took them off to get a better look, she noticed that black patches were growing on the sweater. They swept across the entire thing, turning it from white wool to black leather, and then the energy coalesced on Sadness’s back, just at her hair line, to form a pouch, like that of a proper hoodie.

Yet, the coldness of change didn’t stop with the sweater, and began consuming Sadness whole. Just like with the top, her hands and face changed color as well, turning from a pale blue to a sickly grey. Down below, her jeans grew in length, covering most of her legs down to her flats, and darkened, going from blue to black. She couldn’t see much of her own head, yet changes happened there too, with streaks of hair becoming black and, on occasion, white, starting from the scalp and continuing on.

Suddenly, Sadness flinched. It looked like her own transformation was over by most accounts, and cold was no longer running through her body; but in that case, why did her eyes still hurt? She raised her glasses and rubbed her eyes; yet, once she opened them again, she was greeted to the kind of vision she didn’t even think was possible without glasses. It seemed the transformation also fixed her vision, in a way.

After realizing this, however, Sadness finally felt the coldness replaced with relief. Indeed, the transformation was over, and now, she just had to put on a few finishing touches on her own. For her, it was as simple as taking off her glasses and pulling over her hoodie, and now, she just had to rediscover herself personality-wise.

The first thing she thought in the new form was that she needed to get rid of the glasses somehow, as they served as a memento of her past that she didn’t want to look back at.

Sadness stood up, glancing around for any sort of trash can. Provided no changes to the environment, these would be fairly easy to spot, but right now, things were a bit more confusing. Nevertheless, while she didn’t have the vision of an elf, Sadness was able to spot signs for disposal, and following them with her eyes, the garbage tray itself. She then took calm, tiny steps, not wanting her new proportions to result in her tripping.

Everything went about as fine as it could, and Sadness was ready to throw the glasses in the trash — until she realized that “the trash” was three distinct cans, labeled in Chinese, possibly having to do with recycling. Not wanting to get any Mind Workers mad over throwing trash to the wrong can, Sadness retracted her hand.

As she did, she noticed another hand, also throwing something away. Yet, the nature of both the hand and the trash perplexed her: caramels, thrown away by a cotton candy hand? This had nothing to do with the urban Chinese landscape; what was this? She only sighed in relief, realizing that she didn’t touch this other thought form, preventing a very awkward encounter.

Conceding that she will have to figure this system out at a later point in time, Sadness instead pocketed the glasses in the back pocket of her jeans, hooking them by one of the temples. Then, she quietly scuttled back to her original position and sat down once again so she could appreciate the changes a bit more.

As she expected, the only place for the, well, place to go was to become busier and busier, as more and more Mind Workers — as well as possible Figments of Imagination, what with the cotton candy hand — flocked in. At first, she was able to count them, but soon, she lost track, as counting emotions always did.

The Mind Workers themselves looked horrified at the amount of change that happened, where Sadness was present. The effort it would have taken them to build the station by hand, without Imagination, was immeasurable, and some Mind Workers were already looking around for anyone else who could be responsible. Thankfully, Sadness, even though she looked nothing like a Mind Worker, blended in the environment pretty well.

That was when her eyes caught onto Headquarters in the distance, and she remembered the other emotions again.

She wasn’t going to lie: she wanted to see them and appreciate them a bit more, as well as have them appreciate her. No doubt, Disgust would have some insightful comments about her new appearance. Fear and Anger, on the other hand, would stop arguing if they saw that Sadness was in the premises and feeling distraught.

Yet, in a cruel twist of irony, Sadness missed Joy the most. Indeed, it was Joy who completely neglected Sadness’s purpose in the mind, culminating with her being forced out of Headquarters altogether today, and yet, when they weren’t involved with anything crucial, they would love hanging out, inside Headquarters or outside, and they would complement each other, like attracting opposites, like no other pair of emotions.

Perhaps she would find new friends outside of Headquarters. However, she knew that whoever she found would simply not be a replacement for the other emotions, no more than the girl in the skull tee could be a replacement for Meg.

Sadness just couldn’t take it. Even if she weren’t to do anything on the comms tablet, it could allow her to reminisce, and in order, put everything behind her. She pulled it out, finding the task rather easy due to its bulky shape, and found comfort in its shape and feel right away.

When she turned her comms tablet on, though, she was greeted with a rather strange language selection screen. Not only did the comms tablet not have a language selection screen before, now, it looked to be broken: while English was presented as an option, next to the American flag, there was no text next to the Chinese flag, for Riley didn’t even know what the name for Chinese was, in characters.

Having picked English, Sadness then went on to select the video call feature. As on all other occasions, four faces greeted her in a two-by-two grid: clockwise from the top left, Joy, Fear, Anger, and Disgust. She sat still on the screen, internalizing that she wouldn’t be able to get away with calling anyone, before going back and opening the camera so she could appreciate the changed herself, instead.

There weren’t a lot of changes that she wasn’t already aware of, perhaps other than a slightly more angular face. If anything, her blue eyes were still there, remaining as the last reminder that this was, indeed, Sadness. Yet, when she moved the tablet away from herself to get a full-body look, the new aesthetic finally settled; even through looks, this just wasn’t a thought form that anyone wanted to approach.

Yet, even though Sadness looked radically different, she felt a sense of recognition. After all, as far as anyone cared, this was her, and had always been, and even her memories seemed to adjust in such a way that, whenever she tried to recall a past encounter with Joy, she would think of herself in this new form, even though Joy had never seen it before.

However, when she snapped out of her brooding and glanced around the frame, Sadness noticed someone else, sitting a good ways from her, but still in the frame.

Switching off the comms tablet and putting it on her lap, Sadness decided to look at the figure with her own eyes, rather than a camera lens. Indeed, this bore a striking resemblance to the cotton candy shadow from before; did they stick around because they wanted to talk to Sadness themself? Yet, upon giving the silhouette a thought, Sadness realized that this particular shadow could only be a single thought form in the entire mind.

“Who’s your friend who likes to play?” Sadness sang, partly to herself, partly to see if the thought form would recognize it.

“Bing Bong, Bing Bong…” The cotton candy shadow suddenly sang back, and Sadness felt a warmth in her heart; it looked like her idea of singing worked.

“His rocket makes you yell hooray!” Sadness continued. The song definitely required the sort of enthusiasm that only Joy could provide, but Sadness hoped her rendition was still okay.

“Bing Bong, Bing Bong…” The shadow repeated, in an almost exact echo.

Having had a glum frown for most of her time outside Headquarters, Sadness suddenly brightened; it seemed that her ideas were about to be confirmed.

“Who’s the best in every way—” Sadness wanted to finish, but the thought form shouted, louder than before, interrupting her.

“And wants to sing this song to say!”

Suddenly, Bing Bong jumped from the shadows and gave a bear hug to Sadness. Though she was startled and scared at first, soon enough, she found comfort in his cotton candy embrace. She wouldn’t be alone in the deep mind after all.

Chapter Text

The moment was difficult to process for everyone in Headquarters.

At this point, Anger had seriously started to doubt that Joy’s path was the best for Riley. He wouldn’t bring it up, of course, so as to not get on his leader’s bad side, but even in this moment, he knew that if Joy had delivered a similar demand to him or anyone else, he would refuse to comply and defend whoever it was — even if it was Fear. This was not fair treatment; all the emotions needed respect, and the only reason he didn’t do anything now was because Joy had just done something he didn’t even think was possible.

Joy, too, had slightly quaked; it was almost as though she had a mild case of guilt herself. Yet, she knew that as a leader and commander, she couldn’t show any of it. She simply spoke, hoping to project calmness: “So. Any remarks as we put this behind us? And most importantly, any reassurance that I’m a great leader who did everything right?”

“Well… an emotion being relieved of duty is definitely up there with worst case scenarios—”

“Thank you. Now, can we proceed?” Joy responded, seemingly not even having listened to Fear’s words.

Lastly, while the full weight of the sudden change in Joy’s attitude and Sadness’s employment status had yet to dawn upon Disgust, there was still a more pressing matter for them, namely that while all of this had happened, the console’s glow retained aspects of blue — as if the Formative Memory, which rolled in thanks to Sadness and went unnoticed thanks to Joy, continued to affect the affairs, even in the emotion’s absence — and consequently, Riley continued acting accordingly: partly anxious, partly nostalgic, and fully like she didn’t want to see another person ever again.

“Um, if you haven’t noticed, we’re still making a mess out of ourselves and none of those kids should see it, and especially not that girl. She’s, like, our worst enemy right now.” they spoke.

“Then why don’t you…” Anger wanted to speak up, but one glance at the Consciousness Screen revealed that Disgust had already managed it as well as they could, as Riley was no longer in the classroom where the party was happening. Clearly, with how botched the first impression was, no one was ever going to take the risk of gracing the Chinese students and teacher with a second impression.

All of this, however, just served to underscore that Riley had become a far cry from the girl that Joy, and every other emotion (except for Sadness, perhaps), wanted to present.

One could describe the physical predicament that she was currently in, or the outward expression that she presented, or even the sorts of memories that came forward, seemingly without any emotion needing to do anything. Yet, all of it was largely unnecessary when a simple sentence could convey every single detail and then some.

Right now, Riley was a literal disaster.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Disgust commented, regarding their own console input, “but I’m afraid I can’t do much in the face of a literal disaster.” Much like with “everything is in Chinese” from yesterday, “literal disaster” was a thought almost shared between all the emotions in Headquarters.

This thought, however, was not one to be indulged in for any extended period of time, lest it do considerable damage to an emotion. Fear became the first example of this, as he inadvertently shouted out: “Aaaaah! What are we going to do? There is no solution to this, I’m telling you!”

On any other occasion, Anger would have punched some sense into Fear. However, this time, he just didn’t have the heart for it.

Joy, on the other hand, did. “What we are going to do,” she spoke, rather sternly, even for her, “is accept that I did what I had to do, and move on past it.”

“You did what you had to do… what does that even mean? Do you understand what you just said?” Anger asked.

“Why, yes, I do,” Joy snapped back. “It means that the outside world, and even Riley’s inside world, is unpredictable, and it’s all accounted for in my plan.”

Any sort of mention of the plan, though, only served to irritate Disgust further. “That was part of your plan?” they couldn’t help but ask. “To make sure that Riley would make a fool out of herself, so you could try something ‘different’?” they said, air-quoting.

If this was some sort of grand conspiracy by Joy, Disgust was absolutely ready to expose it — and crash any idea of Joy’s infallible leadership straight to the ground.

And if there was any sort of chance for fairness — whether within or without — Anger was absolutely in. “I see two ways out of it,” he commented. “Maybe it just so happens that we’re still a teenager and not quite aware of every single rule. That being said, with the way Joy has been, I wouldn’t rule out her deliberately messing with us.”

“Yeah! This is definitely not a… what was the technical term again?” Fear mulled it over for a bit, visibly calming down as he did so, then clicked his fingers. “Ah! ‘Pro gamer move’.”

At this point, Joy merely side-eyed her coworkers. Were they really going to conspire against her, in front of her, in face of a single minor mistake? Even if it had lasting consequences? Really, now.

“We’re not gamers.” she chose to respond.

“I don’t know about you,” Disgust answered, “but actually, now that I think about it, in front of myself, I do, indeed, see the greatest gaming controller known to thought forms.”

“One that, no doubt, requires the coordination of every emotion in order to play the game of life!” Fear added.

“And what we’re not going to tolerate is one emotion thinking that actually, maybe, some teammates are expendable, or not part of the game!” Anger triumphantly concluded.

At this point, Joy realized the inevitability of the new Riley: whenever the other emotions got their chance to speak, of course they would cleverly allude to Sadness’s absence — something that could not be discussed right now, while maintaining Riley’s image was of utmost importance.

“That’s enough!” she retaliated. “And in case you were wondering: no! That wasn’t part of my plan. If I intended for Riley to take China by the storm, and you know I did since I literally ended the plan with those words,” she said, voice cracking as she attempted to push past both everyone else and herself, “then I wouldn’t have presented us as the vulnerable one. Simple as that. Unless the part of you that was supposed to process that got replaced with even more eye.”

“Again with the eyes? Seriously, Joy? This might be the single most important event of our life.” Disgust shot back; yet, Joy looked as though she had already made her point, and didn’t bother to respond.

Fear, on the other hand, did have something to add: “But something still went wrong! Do you know what went wrong? I promise I’ll throw all of myself at the problem to prevent it in the future!”

Joy briefly pouted, before answering: “I don’t see what’s so preventable. Either there was a problem with the console, or with one of us. Unless it’s any emotion currently relieved of duty, in which case: you’re welcome, that problem is already solved.”

“Any emotion currently relieved of duty…” Disgust said, on the verge of facepalming. “You’re really going that route?”

“Maybe?” Joy answered. “The point is, if there’s a problem with Riley, either she’s part of the problem, or irrelevant towards finding a solution. So either way, that angle is a dead end, and, last I checked, dead ends don’t lead to a bright future.”

“Neither did your plan.” Anger took any moment he could to show Joy who really was the boss here.

“Well, maybe that’s because my plan called for the coordination of five emotions. That’s why I’m delighted to announce my new plan, in which each of the four emotions will…” Joy started, only to be unceremoniously interrupted.

“And what happens when someone disobeys again? You’re not going to end up calling every single shot and every single feeling all by yourself, are you?” Disgust asked.

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t need to plan again if everyone obeyed me! Ugh, you’re so unjust.” Joy sighed.

“No, if anyone here is unjust, that’s you.” Anger said, knowing he was due an explanation. “For one, instead of doing anything rash that required new planning, you could have just asked what compelled—”

“I’ll have you know, Mister Anger, that besides you, I’m the justest emotion around. After all, we two made the biggest contribution in Formatives towards Justice Island, didn’t we?” Joy highlighted, interrupting what could very well end up being an utterance of Sadness’s name — or other really bad things that shouldn’t be said in Headquarters. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to bring my sense of justice to the Chinese environment—”

“How?” Disgust asked.

“What do you mean, how?” Joy asked in return, not getting her coworker’s angle.

“Like, what’s your plan? That involves the four emotions, and totally won’t need to—”

“There’s not a plan!” Joy shot back. “We will have to improvise, from now on. No more planning! We’re entering uncharted territory. We’re the valiant knights! From now on, we make up our own rules, and then see if they work or not, and if they don’t, we adjust them until we have an entirely new plan of action. Might take… weeks.”

During this rather tense moment, Fear didn’t have much to add, yet patiently listened to every word — just in case something important, or dangerous, to Riley was said. That being said, the insinuation that there would be no more plans, and for weeks at that, terrified him to no end.

Entire weeks of simply trusting your guts, instead of an outline, to lead Riley? This wasn’t how it worked! Fear would always follow plans, and make his own if none were given to him, and occasionally, even come up with alternative plans to those given to him, so that he would be prepared for both the best of it and the worst of it.

And now, he was simply being thrown out there? This, indeed, was a punishment even worse than being relieved of duty, and in a moment, Fear wished that he had been in Sadness’s place, with Joy placing all of the blame on him, rather than her.

She didn’t deserve this, but what mattered more, he didn’t deserve this. There was an unspoken bond between the two, that they would almost never acknowledge — understandable, since especially lately, for the most part, Joy was hogging Sadness’s time — but now, it was the two of them, sort of being at the same place in Riley’s life.

Fear just wished he could speak to Sadness again. Leaving Riley behind of his own volition was far too dangerous, but perhaps he could sneak in some time with her on the comms tablet, either in the wee hours of the morning or the late hours of the evening, when there’s not much of a Riley to lead. And besides, Sadness now had all the time in the world, so she could respond, right?

However, Fear’s thoughts, which for those not skilled in Stream reading amounted to mere glancing around the back of Headquarters, were not of much concern to Anger and Disgust, as they still wanted to get at what Joy meant with the whole valiant knights shebang.

“So, no plan. Still, there’s gotta be some action taken, even if it’s improvised,” Disgust pointed out. “What are we going to do about those kids? I mean, not to be all paranoid — Riley knows I despise Fear being all paranoid — but the first impression is ruined. Failure. Nothing good is gonna come out of it.”

“For now, we’ll just have to avoid them.” Joy casually responded, thinking about all those faces, and especially the girl in the skull tee, which had almost become like a symbol for them all.

No doubt, Anger had his own set of concerning thoughts. Yet, when faced with the choice of whether to agree with the suggestion to simply avoid the students or try and change their minds, avoiding them seemed like the better choice — especially since he knew that if he stepped to the front of the console, Riley’s first impression would probably be even worse than what it actually ended up being.

“Yeah, that’s for the best.” he concluded.

Yet, having him agree with her, just like that, definitely caught Joy off guard. “Wait, so we’re no longer in ‘Joy did everything wrong’ territory? We’re just going to look past my mistakes? Like, I don’t know how to express this…” she said, not realizing that the guilt she had been bottling up had come to surface with her referring to her own actions as “mistakes”.

The others, however, did realize, and once they did, they were even more caught off-guard than she was.

For one, Joy ever referring to anything she did as “mistakes” was completely unprecedented. Both she and the others were aware of the leadership aura that she wanted to project, and the idea of her ever making a mistake was not just something she didn’t say — it was also something she wanted to beat out of every other emotion.

For another thing, though… she didn’t know how to express this? The emotions served to be nothing but expression, and especially as the elements of Imagination, they were the rawest expression possible in the mind. To be completely overwhelmed to the point of not being able to express oneself was more so Riley than anyone inside her head.

It was at this point when the emotions were hit with the realization, one by one: it was, for lack of a better term, Riley’s fault. Indeed, Joy did nothing wrong, and neither did Sadness, and neither did anyone else in Headquarters. If there was anything to be resolved, it would have to be through cooperation between everyone.

Well, at least Joy’s strange definition of “everyone”.

“Don’t worry about not expressing anything. We still have a literal disaster to fix.” Disgust said, completing the contemplations, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

“And while the literal disaster is being fixed, as you said, we’re not showing ourselves to anyone! Maybe we should get acquainted with the building, instead? What do you say, Joy?” Fear asked.

Just before she could open her mouth to respond, though, Joy heard something ring.

She instantly recognized it as the sound of her comms tablet — partly due to the fact that the ringtone was deliberately set to a sound that would never happen on the outside world, not even when Riley’s own favorite Chinese tablet rang. Instead, the ringtone was one of those songs that would get stuck in Riley’s head, over and over again, and which, even though Joy mildly tolerated, the other emotions wanted to claw out of Riley’s head as fast as possible.

Just, you know, some sort of peer pressure to head straight to the call — especially since Joy, herself, had a lot of damage control to do, and making things even worse was not just the last thing on her agenda, but the first thing on her anti-agenda.

“Right. Important, emotion leader matters. Not like you would ever understand.” Joy said, delivering one last jab in the shape of an excuse, before stepping away from the console and walking over to where the comms tablets were usually stored.

Once she glanced at her own comms tablet and touched it to make sure the sound stopped as soon as possible, though, she couldn’t help but frown at Sadness’s face in the place of the caller ID.

That face, even in any other context, would have irritated Joy. Especially in later days, Sadness represented everything that Joy was actively working against, and couldn’t be much more than a pretty doll in the corner of Headquarters, or a wall for Joy to bounce ideas off of — not literally throwing lightbulbs at her, of course.

Yet, it being not even an hour after the incident, Sadness’s face was the one Joy wanted to see the least — due to personal reasons, but also, due to the principles that she wanted to establish.

Sadness had been given explicit instructions not to return to Headquarters again, or to contact them through her comms tablet; it was only given to her as an object of sentimental value. And yet, as it would seem, she already violated those instructions — and after almost immediately violating another vital instruction, at that. It was a felony beyond comprehension, one which she would positively be admonished for on the call.

Nevertheless, a call was a call, and it had to be respected. In fact, unlike phones on the outside world, there wasn’t even a red, “hang up” button on the comms tablet’s screen; only a green, “answer call” button, which Joy was able to click with the side keyboards, not having to navigate there.

She thus watched and listened to whatever Sadness, or whoever had her comms tablet, had to say.

Chapter Text

To say that Sadness didn’t expect to be hugged would be to say the very least. At first, she didn’t even feel all that good, what with discomfort from both Bing Bong’s weight and her comms tablet, lodged somewhere. For the first few seconds, she did everything she could to squirm out of the embrace, to be a free and lonely soul in Riley’s mind once again.

Yet, the more time he spent hugging her, the less she squirmed. No one had made her feel this before — not even Joy — and until now, she had nothing to compare the feeling to. Perhaps, she came to realize during the hug, she wasn’t exactly treated the best up until now.

Maybe that was an exaggeration. Of course she had been hugged before — as was Riley, allowing the emotions to share the experience. But if either of those happened, it was a long time ago, and since everything in the mind, up to and including the emotions, changed so fast, Sadness could be forgiven for forgetting something that happened years ago — or even so long ago, this might as well be the first hug in her lifetime.

Finally, Bing Bong released Sadness, before starting to jump in excitement, another sentiment that the blue emotion needed to get used to. “You remembered me! I can’t believe it! Someone remembers me after all!” he shouted, paying little attention to whether he was causing a commotion. In return, a few Mind Workers gave him weird glances, but nothing beyond simply drawing attention.

“It’s nothing…” Sadness muttered, wanting nothing more than to sit down and recover from everything.

“What do ya mean, it’s nothing?” Bing Bong asked, as though Sadness had just suggested to blow the entire mind up. “It’s… everything! It’s quite literally everything! All this wandering, all this searching for a purpose, with no one around me even recognizing who I am… and then, someone finally does! I’m on the right track again!”

“You are?” Sadness gave him a weak glance, before returning to stare into the distance. “I mean, it must have been awful for you, and I’m happy that you’re happy… glad to help, really… but…” She sighed deeply, unable to even complete her thought.

“Why so glum?” Bing Bong asked, stretching his arm out as if to pat Sadness. “The way you’ve been acting, it’s almost as if you’ve been left behind too… that can’t be right, can it?”

The sole thought made Sadness look back to her time in Headquarters. There was nothing happy about the time, and she merely looked down — only to realize that her comms tablet, caught in the middle of the hug, had now unceremoniously dropped by her feet, without anyone even bothering to call her attention to it. Sighing once again, she leaned to pick it up, before stowing it away in her purse.

Did Bing Bong even know what that thing was, given how long he had been out of the picture? Did it give away her identity as an emotion to him, and all the consequences thereof? How did Bing Bong see emotions, anyway? These were the questions Sadness definitely didn’t want answered, and she only hoped that he hadn’t noticed the thing at all.

“What? Cat got your tongue? Or was it the elephant? No, the dolphin!” Realizing Sadness had stopped talking, Bing Bong once again tried to get her attention.

“Wait… the dolphin?” An almost random assortment of named animals made Sadness think, and she didn’t take long to realize that her attention was being called to Bing Bong’s form — which had the obvious cat tail and elephant trunk, but no dolphin attributes.

“Yeah! You should know, right? How much do you remember?” Bing Bong asked, seeing how much common ground he and Sadness had.

“How much do I remember?” Without realizing it, Sadness almost reached out for the comms tablet, as if to recall a processed memory of the interactions between him and Riley — not immediately realizing even from the events of yesterday that deep Imagination involvement, like in the case of Daydreams, didn’t leave memories behind at all — before realizing her goof: at Headquarters, the word “remember” didn’t have quite the same connotations as those the imaginary friend was alluding to.

It was at this point when Sadness, who had unrecognizably changed in terms of appearance, began changing in mentality, too. Given that the emotions always had the console within arms’ reach and their comms tablets even closer, and that the console allowed to create an endless stream of memories that were mostly the Mind Workers’ problem until the moment of recall, there was no real “remembering” for any of the thought forms; whenever they wanted to remember something, they could simply consult the library spanning the entirety of the Memory Lanes.

Yet, clearly this wasn’t what Bing Bong wanted, and Sadness tried her best to “remember” his way. She tried to form the beginning of a sentence, but in the end, not knowing how to “remember” things at all, it all came out as a massive “um”.

It was quite the harsh blow to her dignity; all this time, she thought that she and the other emotions functioned just as well as humans on the outside, remembering stuff on their own, and yet, there was nothing in those particles of Imagination that amounted to any sort of concrete, visual memory of Sadness and Bing Bong; only vague feeling.

“What? What happened again?” Bing Bong asked, not being able to get used to the peculiarities of his newest friend. “Can’t remember anything? It’s almost as if you’re one of those spoiled brats at Headquarters who think the console can do everything for them!”

If Sadness were human, that would have been a jab straight to her heart. Without thinking, she muttered, rather annoyed: “We are not spoiled brats.”

However, immediately after saying this, multiple regrets came to her front.

For one, she didn’t want to come across as this harsh; even though she looked like someone else, she still wanted to act like the good ol’ Sadness. In addition, though, she didn’t mean to directly allude to her identity as an emotion — which even Bing Bong would be privy to. Now, the only hope that she could have was that he would not escalate the knowledge further, calling the attention of every single Mind Worker around her.

Sadness was never one to hope for much, though, and instead, she held onto herself in fear of what would happen next.

“We? What do you mean, we… oh… you’re an emotion, aren’t you?” Bing Bong uttered, realizing what exactly was going on with this edgy lady and why the weird things happened around her. He then began to profusely apologize: “No offense on that last line, okay? If I knew who you were, I wouldn’t have said that, and I don’t mean it, anyway! Emotions are cool! Joy was my best friend!”

Sadness really wanted to stop him and his yapping about emotions at this point, but with her newfound mood swings, something in her had decided that inaction was the best form of action, preventing her from coming forward and ruining whatever fragile friendship she and Bing Bong had.

Having lost everyone she called a friend once already, she just couldn’t do it again.

Yet, once Bing Bong said the word — and more than once at that — the fire was lit. A Mind Worker relatively close to them exclaimed, in a rather aggressive masculine tone: “Emotion? Where?”

“I knew it!” a female one followed. “Only an emotion could mess with Imagination to such an extent!”

“We gotta find this emotion! This is extraordinary!” a second female voice, already out of sight for Sadness and Bing Bong, continued.

“Did anyone say ‘emotion’? Is one around us right now?” a different male voice, higher than the other one, said.

The words spread like wildfire, and before Sadness and Bing Bong knew it, the thick stew of Mind Workers was fully engaged in dialogue of many words, but with “emotion” being by far the most common among them. They were also glancing among themselves, and of course, the ones closest to the two lost thought forms spotted them, noting that they looked nothing like Mind Workers, and therefore, one of them was, more likely than not, an emotion.

From this, Sadness and Bing Bong concluded two things: one, that they were on the spotlight, and two, that the presence of Mind Workers with less-than-benevolent intentions could not be ruled out.

“Oh no! Gotta run! Come with me!” Bing Bong shouted out, suddenly standing up and grabbing Sadness’s hand. He then raced through the tops of the seats of the expansive train station, conveniently avoiding the Mind Workers who were mostly below him, but also sending Sadness flying through the air without falling at all. Probably just another Imagination trick, the blue emotion concluded, being too tired and having to be dragged around by the Figment.

Having made it past the seats, Bing Bong dropped onto the same floor as the Mind Workers around him, and continued running towards the exit, which thankfully was clearly marked with a green and white, internationally known symbol. Sadness, in the meantime, had kind of landed on his head, before getting a bit down and sitting on his shoulders; he didn’t mind at all, as long as both of them were escaping together.

Once they had left the waiting room, Bing Bong and Sadness were working through the labyrinth of the newly created building. Even though Sadness was, more likely than not, directly responsible for the creation of the entire complex, she was just as lost as he was, and only really pointed at the obvious exits, without saying a thing, and Bing Bong fully understood her, following her suggested route.

Finally, the two bust through the revolving doors that looked very much like an entrance, and were greeted by the wide world around them. The train station was seemingly placed next to a park, which had very little greenery; however, what it made up for, instead, was a line of three monkey statues, placed right in front of the entrance, facing the greater world, rather than the train station.

Sadness got down from Bing Bong’s shoulders and stood up on the pavement on her own, being confident that she was, once again, a complete stranger, rather than an unwelcome intruder. Furthermore, she sighed in relief that the Mind Workers previously chasing after her had lost her.

The curiosity about the monkey statues got the better of Sadness and the imaginary friend by her side, though, and the two walked across the front yard to get a better look at them.

The monkey motif was common throughout Goofball Island, as Riley’s father would always call her “monkey” while they were playing around. That being said, thanks to the changes that Sadness brought with her, even this motif seemed to be imbued with some sort of weird Oriental cultural thing, as each of the monkeys was covering a part of its body with its arms: the leftmost one was covering its eyes, the middle one was covering its ears and the rightmost one was covering its mouth.

“Well, those are some weird monkeys. You know what those are for?” Bing Bong asked.

“Not really… I feel like I’ve seen them before, but…” Sadness shrugged. “That’s the thing, I mostly feel… I’m not supposed to remember… after all, I’m—” She suddenly stopped, knowing better than to repeat the same mistake twice.

“Yeah, yeah.” Bing Bong reassuringly spoke, knowing better than to prod Sadness after she interrupted herself — or to provoke Mind Workers with insinuations that an emotion was around. “That being said, I have one question… You guys seem like a pretty big deal, the top of the top… why’d ya get left behind?”

“I just was, okay?! I don’t…” Sadness struggled to voice her thoughts, choking on the slightest hint of tears. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m a different thought form now.”

“What do ya mean, different thought form?” Bing Bong asked in shock. “You guys are an inseparable bunch! The inseparable bunch! You gotta get back… there… immediately!” he exclaimed, pointing at the direction of Headquarters — a direction Sadness didn’t even want to look at, knowing she’d see the building if she did.

“I’m afraid… there’s no going back there…” she resigned. “Joy just won’t listen to me…”

“Wha— Joy? The Joy? The leader of the mind? That surely can’t be, I know Joy, she wouldn’t do anything like that!” Bing Bong said, confident in truths long invalidated.

“Yeah… you heard me… the way she would never hear me…”

“Maybe she won’t hear you, but I know she’s gotta listen to me.” Bing Bong spoke with unprecedented resolve. “So, either we march up to Headquarters and tell her to put you back, right now, or… maybe we can call her or something! Surely you have… what did you have, back there?”

“I mean, you could use the comms tablet… it’s just that… I’m relieved of duty… I’m not supposed to…” Sadness struggled to voice her thoughts, as she pulled into the purse and took the comms tablet out.

“Of course you’re supposed to! How dare you say otherwise! How dare Joy say otherwise! I’ll talk some sense into her, right now!”

Bing Bong snatched the comms tablet out of Sadness’s hands, only to realize that he had no idea whatsoever what he was looking at, let alone how it could be turned on — or, for that matter, used to contact Joy. He tried each of the buttons on the comms tablet’s side keyboards, and by sheer luck, one of them turned the device on — only to make Bing Bong face the same glitched language selection screen.

“It all sure has changed in… however long it’s been…” Bing Bong muttered to himself.

Seeing his struggle, Sadness peered over and showed him how the thing worked — and it really was as simple as clicking English, then the phone icon, and finally, Joy. However, Sadness refrained from making that last step herself, saying: “I’m sorry. You’ll have to do that one yourself. I can’t. I can’t…”

Nevertheless, Bing Bong’s resolve was stronger than Sadness’s non-confrontational attitude, and he hit the button calling Joy, straight away. As the call went to the dialing tone, Sadness made sure to hide away behind one of the monkey statues, so that it would be Bing Bong — and only Bing Bong — who the camera, and therefore Joy, saw.

At first, it looked as though Joy was reluctant to pick up. However, after a short wait, she appeared on the screen — and promptly scared Bing Bong with her long hair, military outfit, and disappointed expression. However, even though this bore little resemblance to the girl Bing Bong used to play with at the console, instead almost looking like one of those photos from Riley’s History lessons, Bing Bong still, in a way, recognized Joy — and held onto the idea that she will listen to him.

“No, Sadness, I thought we agreed you’re relieved of duty! I don’t wanna repeat myself, but you made me: you’re never to return to Headquarters and never to… contact… us…” Joy started with the same harsh tone Sadness was already familiar with, made even harsher by the poor audio quality of the comms tablet making her voice pop, but just couldn’t stay mad once she realized who was actually on the other side of the screen.

Long-lost feelings of memories flooded through Joy, changing her demeanor almost completely. Now, she still shouted, but in a much more excited tone: “Bing Bong? Bing Bong! You’re alive after all! I missed you so much!” She even took her time to swirl around, making for a clearly blurred background.

“You missed me? No, I missed you!” Bing Bong, in turned, also jumped around, now knowing what he had just believed not too long ago. “Now that you remembered me, Riley can remember me! We’re going to catch up, and I can be important again! Now, what’s her situation, and is she in need of friends to play with? Don’t worry, you can’t tell me too much!” He also spun around, blurring his own background — and in turn, making Sadness’s actual presence in the scene a well-kept secret.

However, he really should have watched where he was spinning. One wrong turn made him swerve way too close to the monkey statue Sadness was hiding behind, and he slammed straight into it — and the comms tablet, with him. After flying out of his hands, it then crashed on the floor; he still desperately tried to catch it, but spinning had made him quite dizzy, and he fell on his stomach — with the tablet right beneath him. Needless to say, the tablet had stopped working, indicated by Joy’s laugh being cut off.

Sadness watched, horrified, running over to where Bing Bong was. She caught him rolling over and revealing the tablet, with cracks all over the main screen, and the side keyboards being not just separated, but no longer properly fitting together. Even a completely tech-illiterate thought form knew that this thing needed serious repairs to ever light up again.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, Sadness, I didn’t mean to—” Bing Bong apologized, holding his arms onto his head, not even realizing that he had inadvertently learned the edgy emotion’s name.

“No need…” Sadness deeply sighed as she picked up the remnants of her comms tablet and put them into her purse. “It’s whatever… now I don’t need to worry about anything…”

“No, now you need to worry about two things. First, don’t even think that I’m not making up for it and getting your… your phone thingy fixed. And second, we’re still marching up to Joy and telling her to give you your job back! If not here, then in Headquarters, absolutely!”

The resolve Bing Bong had was unmistakable; while he still had some of that old, excitable Joy who would go on to create him, he also spoke with some aspects of the new Joy, the one determined to make any possible situation into the best possible situation.

All Sadness now wondered, at this point, was if she would ever be able to survive her newfound friend’s attitude.

Chapter Text

“Well, isn’t the mind just full of little surprises along the way?” Joy concluded, after the call abruptly ended on the other end.

She still had to take time to actually believe what she saw on the comms tablet. Yesterday, neither she nor… someone else was even able to definitively answer whether Riley had an imaginary friend at all, what with real friends taking up almost all of Values and Connections for a decade and counting. And besides, imaginary friends were for toddlers, and even if Riley did have one, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, as she was fast approaching adulthood.

Yet, clearly, she had an imaginary friend — one who Joy even remembered, to an extent — and somehow, Bing Bong didn’t get completely lost, or worse, spontaneously dissipate at any point in time, bringing him to Sadness’s comms tablet. In fact, Joy kind of meant every word of what she said: she would try and get back together with him, and see if they could play again, just to offset the terrible, irredeemable mood of China and first impressions that ended in disasters.

Even as she was returning to the console, Joy felt an enthusiasm, that was partly unwarranted and even dangerous, but partly, it just felt like her for once.

“Yeah. You heard it here first, folks. Bing Bong is still alive, apparently.” she concluded, ready to resume taking care of Riley — and not be bogged down by insinuation that someone was missing from the team of emotions.

“Yeah, like seriously, I hadn’t heard that name in absolute ages.” Disgust remarked.

“Is he okay?” Fear asked.

“If he’s not okay, then I’ll do whatever it takes to heal him. I do believe I still have it in me to make Figments, or help existing ones. And besides, I think he just wrecked the comms tablet.”

“The comms tablet… belonging to whom?” Anger asked in turn.

“That…” Joy knew that the others were trying to get her to acknowledge Sadness, but that era of her life was fully past her. “There are plenty of comms tablets to go around, okay? Now, can we focus on Riley, and whether there’s still a party for her to return to?”

That, of course, was a patent lie, since she knew, all too well, that it was Sadness who appeared to be calling. Furthermore, if the lie were actually true, that would be a terrible implication for the security of Headquarters, as anyone could make Riley feel what they felt, diminishing both the role and the morale of the emotions. Lastly, that was a terrible closing remark, as everyone had just agreed that there was no returning to the party; there was no second impression to give.

Yet, Joy increasingly found herself just… not caring if it shut the other emotions up.

She thus let her fingers glide over the console, guiding Riley back to the room greeting the international student — though, with Fear still contributing some, she made awkward steps there, not wishing to be caught.

And once Riley opened the door, she found… well, to be honest, even less than what was there the first time. A lot of the boys had already left, but the only two women around, the teacher and the girl in the skull tee, remained. The emotions couldn’t really read the girl’s face, but the danger of not being able to hang out with anyone of her own gender remained a prospect Riley, and consequently the emotions, had to face as a potential.

The teacher, too, was already talking with the others about something — in her native tongue, of course. Riley wouldn’t be able to guess the first thing about what it was, but it was likely something about the teacher being confused, Riley’s emotional state being unstable, or stuff like that; teachers tended to be worried about things like that pretty often. Nevertheless, the language barrier remained as thick as a brick wall.

Nevertheless, the mere assumption of possible conversation topics could be a starting point for Fear. “Do you think she could be saying that? That our emotional status is… unstable?” he asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I think Riley is the stablest person we know.” Joy dismissively answered.

Naturally, Anger wasn’t satisfied with that kind of response, motioning to respond: “I wouldn’t say so. It’s not every day that an emotion is—”

“I know, okay?! And it’s also not every day that you should bring this up!” Joy shot back, almost forgetting how long ago the incident had taken place.

“Actually, I think that one is every day. You’ve disturbed forces that weren’t to be disturbed.” Amidst the argument between Anger and Joy, Disgust had to make themself known.

“No points, Sherlock,” Joy spat Disgust’s almost-trademark phrase back at them, given that this was the last observation that needed to be made. “And also, disturbed forces can always be undisturbed, and will be undisturbed, as soon as possible. We simply cannot have it, as an emotion team, as the ones who are supposed to feel what Riley feels, not argue amongst ourselves.” Joy had had enough of everything, and was willing to let the other emotions have a piece of Riley’s mind.

In fact, she even glared at the other emotions, in sequence: first, Disgust, who, though they were the one most concerned, also knew when to step away from confrontations; then, Fear, who was already a bit too worried about Joy’s behavior and not willing to aggravate her further; and lastly, Anger, who knew, better than anyone else, that Riley’s life went on, incident or no incident.

Being satisfied with how she handled the team, Joy turned back to the Consciousness Screen. Just as she did, she caught the teacher turning back to Riley — almost sensing something that even the emotions didn’t sense. It would seem that Riley had, once again, decided to leave, of her own volition — something completely antithetical to how the emotions worked, yet also, something that they would have to deal with from now on.

Luckily, at least this time, the emotions didn’t need to do anything to stop Riley, because the teacher stopped Riley with her own words. She may have forgotten, however, to speak English — the only language that Riley understood at the time — making her more confused than anything.

“Um, major oof from the teacher there,” Disgust remarked, the usual inventory of the English language failing them and making them go for something more… contemporary.

Was there a chance of Chinese — were Riley to successfully learn it, of course — filling the gaps that Gen Z slang really wanted to rush into? There was no telling, and currently, it wasn’t a concern for any of the emotions, when the teacher just needed to realize that this was the international student that was in front of her.

In time, as Riley remained silent and confused, the teacher did, indeed, realize. However, the language barrier went both ways, making for quite the wild experience of an older person engaging in something close to a child’s speak.

“I’m quite sorry, we were worried for you, but it’s okay!” she spoke. “If you’re shy or anything, we don’t judge. A school environment never judges, don’t you agree?”

“What’s this worried thing you speak of?” Disgust spoke, bringing the aura of dismissal and sarcasm wherever they went.

“I don’t know and I don’t care.” Joy responded, almost failing to comprehend what her coworker meant. “I mean, it’s a word people say all the time, but no one — and I do indeed mean, no one — should be ‘worried’ for us, because if they are, then my mission has failed.”

“But I thought you just said there was no mission, no plan—” Anger pointed out, only to find himself interrupted.

“I know what I said!” Joy exclaimed, trying her best to settle every single argument, at least temporarily until it could be properly dealt with, before taking a few deep breaths. “Let’s just see what this lady has in store, shall we?”

“Sorry…” Riley spoke, looking down. Having gone unnoticed by everyone else, Fear had already motioned to interact with the console — and once Joy did notice that, she was actually quite satisfied that Riley wasn’t running away from her emotions at full speed, and that she was still a work-in-progress painting that the emotions could continue to paint — despite the already apparent beauty.

“Did you really come here… unprepared? Not a single word of Putonghua?” the teacher asked in return.

“Wait, what’s Putonghua? I thought Chinese was a single language, right?” Joy suddenly spoke, confused completely to her core. It would seem that confusion came to Joy just as naturally as sarcasm did to Disgust.

And speaking of Disgust, they were absolutely ready to rub Riley’s new status as a foreigner straight to Joy’s face. “Looks like someone’s head-first attitude is going to have to wait until Riley actually learns her way around here, including all the ‘Putonghuas’ or whatever.” they noted.

Thanks to a tandem of them and Fear being able to work the console before Joy even got her bearings again, Riley’s demeanor changed from awkward to submissive and patient, ready to hear what the teacher has to say and make a Mental Note or two about it.

“No…” Riley spoke, looking down.

“I see in that case… Follow me.” the teacher responded, one word from Riley already telling her more than a thousand from someone else describing her, including exactly how to help her.

For a moment, Joy considered that this could be the perfect moment to return to the game, use the console and make Riley hop up in excitement, especially in relation to learning something new about her new home. But now, she just didn’t feel it, and still needed to sort out what she did feel; the plan without a plan could proceed, but only when she was actually mentally stable.

She thus watched as the teacher led Riley to the school’s library through corridors that were already familiar to her from trying to explore on her own, making for a paradoxically calmer moment. Already, though the first impression was a failure, she, and the others, got a sense of being able to recover from it and lead a bright future in their leader’s name.

Finally, without a word exchanged aside from the “no”, the teacher reached the library doors — neat, frosted glass doors, coming in a pair, that almost immedi ately signified recent renovations. She then, after briefly fumbling with the keys, opened one of the doors and let Riley in.

Seeing the school library during an official break, just like that, was surreal. Not a single staff member was there, but the equipment was there, the computers could be turned on, Riley could still be registered as a library attendant, and so on. This was a unique experience, and part of Joy wanted to relish every single part of it, but at the same time, she knew that Riley would have to be an obedient little girl, since making her look like a rebel of society would be even worse than the already catastrophic first impression.

“Take a seat,” the teacher said as she pointed out a lounge in the library, set apart from the shelves, obviously designed so that students could take their time studying and such. She, herself, then sat where the library staff would usually sit, turned on the computer and started working at it.

While the teacher carried out the necessary procedure, Riley sat and looked around. The emotions immediately noticed how the vast majority of the books in the library, as with the majority of the city, were Chinese, but sometimes, there was a fanciful children’s book in English. To they dismay, there was no real literature, though; for that, they would have to rely on whatever Riley could snatch from America — or the Internet.

“So, what was it that you couldn’t utter? It seemed you stopped at something important,” the teacher spoke, thinking she could strike small talk with Riley.

As luck would have it, the emotions didn’t even need to do anything. The Stream of Consciousness acted of its own accord, directing itself towards relevant memories, and Riley spoke with no prompting needed.

“Yeah, I… this is actually a bit funny, I mean, not anymore now that I think about it and how everything is gone and behind me, but…” Riley was clearly nervous, with Fear taking charge, but eventually, was able to muster: “I was… a poster girl for anti-bullying campaigns.”

“Tell me more!” All of a sudden, the teacher got curious; now, this was something that not everyone could say about themself — and potentially, life-changing. If only it could be part of an actual first impression…

Regardless, even if it took a second chance, Riley carried on with the conversation. “There’s not that much more, trust me!” She tried her best to laugh it off, but even her emotions had to admit that her laugh came across as fake, and they didn’t even need to check which color the console lit up in.

Joy could’ve sworn she was on the buttons, though…

“Well, as you know, our school, like any school in China in addition to America, values the integration of our students more than anything else,” the teacher spoke. “It even helps with grades, thanks to a study I found. And to this end, we appreciate everybody who can bring students out of a vulnerable position and into a friendship circle.”

However, at this point, she formed a slight frown. “But perhaps, now you have to admit that you’re in a vulnerable position, as a foreigner who doesn’t know our language, and therefore, accept that you need help from students like…” She suddenly lit up. “That girl! Zhou Shilan was really concerned about you, and is ready to bring you closer to school in its entirety!”

The emotions didn’t know why, but each word hurt them like a spear hitting its precise target. There the teacher was, exposing Riley’s worries in a very direct manner, and while the others simply saw the doom and gloom — perhaps to compensate for Sadness’s absence? — Joy had none of it and wanted to continue insisting on the bright future ahead.

“Never! We are not vulnerable! And do not bring that girl up to me again! What… whatever her name is.” she spoke as confidently as she could, but still eventually managing to trail off, holding back tears. It seemed to evoke literally everything that Joy’s name did not, raising quite a few eyebrows in Headquarters.

Nevertheless, a conversation was a conversation, and had to carry on. However, with no insistence on what should be said — only what shouldn’t — Riley remained silent, awkwardly sitting there.

“Perhaps you’re shy, too?” the teacher asked, remarking the awkward silence.

“Yeah… no, ‘shy’ is the last word that would describe us. Like, what’s going on is different.” was all Disgust had to say on the matter.

“But do you think it’s perceived like that?” Fear, on the other hand, wouldn’t let that slide as simply.

“Whatever, just tell her no.” Joy commanded.

“Of course! Whatever you say, goes.” Fear immediately responded, manning the console.

“No! Trust me, I’m really not! I… don’t know what got to me…” With the combined strengths of the emotions, Riley still couldn’t figure herself out — much to their frustration.

“I see. Teenage years? Going through the puberty?” the teacher spoke as she briefly left the computer and picked up two books from the shelves; a thick one and a thin one, neither of which had particularly visible covers for the emotions to read.

“Yeah, don’t even bring it up.” Disgust still vividly remembered how one day, an alarm marked “puberty” — which Console Maintenance just installed as part of a mandatory console upgrade, that the emotions never asked for and couldn’t properly object to — went off, straight up in Riley’s sleep. Needless to say, the console had never been such a pain to work with — with the after-effect still noticeable, and perhaps even growing stronger, today.

“Yeah, please don’t.” Joy seconded the thought.

“And besides, if me sitting on this chair and not touching this console unless I really need to means anything, it’s that we’re not some fussy troublemaker and therefore, are already doing better than… some number.” Anger wasn’t one to deliver researched spiels, but he didn’t need to, as the other emotions understood, perfectly well.

“I don’t think so…” Riley summarized the chatter going on in her mind quite concisely; an ability that the emotions themselves envied, as it reminded them that they were incomplete without the memories. “It’s something else, but I’ve never been able to figure out what.”

The teacher looked confused, and momentarily, even got mixed up regarding what she was typing on the computer; it seemed as though she made quite a typo, but besides that, the process she was in remained non-lucid to the emotions.

“What’s important is that you are part of the community. Would you not agree?” she spoke, having dealt with her own frustration, and therefore, being almost ready to hand the books she picked out to Riley.

And indeed, the emotions had to agree with her: without community, Riley — or any human, really — was nothing.

Chapter Text

Bing Bong was all too ready to march into nowhere, based on nothing but a vague promise of helping Sadness fix her comms tablet, before getting her job back for her. In fact, he didn’t even question anything about it until he realized that the edgy emotion was staying in one place.

“Huh? Aren’t you going with me?” he asked.

“Maybe if we knew which direction to head…” Sadness responded.

“What do you mean, which direction? The direction that will help you with everything!”

“Yeah, that’s probably not on the map…”

“Map? We don’t… actually, we probably do need a map.” With this realization, Bing Bong headed back towards Sadness, before the two took for the train station they had just left.

Unless your name was Joy and you could take to the skies just by the sheer power of Imagination, you didn’t really have a layout of the mind in front of you. Nor did you have a sense of direction: it was either day everywhere in the mind (while Riley was awake) or night everywhere in the mind (while Riley was asleep). Besides Headquarters, the only other landmark in the sky, that could perhaps help you navigate, was the Consciousness Grid.

That being said, the new urban aesthetic of Goofball Island, that Sadness happened to bring with herself, did end up creating a whole train station — and a train station was nothing without a map.

A map and schedule telling where the Train of Thought started and stopped, if one existed, would be the most peculiar thing to happen to any thought form, and if it were to be deliberately created, would, just like taking to the skies, require the sort of Imagination that Sadness just didn’t have control over. However, a rough, even stylized map would be better than nothing.

With a plan of action set, Bing Bong and Sadness looked through the window on the train station door, just to check that there was no longer a commotion caused by nothing than “emotion”, and headed in.

Surely enough, even at the vestibule, they were greeted with a grand map, from floor to about six feet of height, of the portion of Riley’s mind surrounding Headquarters. That much, perhaps, was good news.

That being said, reading the map, to any extent, was going to be extremely difficult. This task befell Sadness; Bing Bong was not very good at understanding abstract symbols, and had no experience with words, at all.

For one, the map took extreme liberties with the geography, almost as if it tried to be more convoluted than the mind itself, and one could not just draw parallels between it and the Consciousness Grid. Of course, this was nothing out of the ordinary if the map was a transport map, common throughout America as well as China, only meant to highlight the connections rather than the geography — but that sort of advantage got nullified when there was only one major vehicle to speak of in the mind.

Needless to say, it took a lot of scanning and squinting, even considering her newfound “normal” vision, for Sadness to find the location of the “you are here” marker pointing to the Goofball Island train station.

But that was another thing: the writing by the “you are here” marker did not simply say that this was the Goofball Island train station. Rather, it was marked as something about an “area mishap sphere”, coupled with something that could potentially fool an absent-minded passer-by into believing it was Chinese, but wasn’t.

“Whoa, what’s this strange new writing? Has Riley finally learned basic writing, only to be presented with writing, version 2? Even version 1 is too much for me, I tell ya.” Bing Bong suddenly spoke, breaking Sadness’s silent contemplation.

…or an imaginary friend who was out of a job since before Riley even mastered English.

Nevertheless, a question was a question, and Sadness just felt like answering it, like a true mother would. “You see… I don’t know how much you’ve been keeping up with Riley news… Riley just moved to China, and we all realized…”

“China? Where in America is that?”

Close to all other thought forms, and even a large portion of humans, would have been incessantly infuriated by Bing Bong’s idea that China was to be found in America. However, Sadness had already learned enough patience to not immediately snap back.

Instead, she simply continued: “Oh, no, it’s not in America at all…” She struggled to find a baseline, from which she and Bing Bong could work together.

She then glanced at an almost-random portion of the map, and as if by magic, she remembered something — something stored in memories in that exact location of the map.

“You know pandas?” she asked.

“Of course I know pandas, I know all the animals! Riley loved animals when her parents brought her that book with buttons that made animal noises.” Bing Bong recalled, as though it happened yesterday, and Sadness realized that she would need to catch up, a lot, if she wanted to “remember” as well as he did.

“Right, you know how animals tend to come from all over the world? Like, you only find giraffes in Africa, buffalo in America?”

“Yeah, with you so far.”

“Well, pandas come from China, and you can see how it’s a large place, almost as big as America itself, it’s not to be found in America or anything like that…” Searching through the confusing map and talking to Bing Bong were tasks much easier said than done, but Sadness managed.

“Oh, of course… wait, you said Riley moved to China? Did she love pandas so much? Hopefully, her favorite part cat, part elephant, part dolphin is still good enough, that’s all I can say!”

Bing Bong’s insinuation was something that made Sadness think about how, even throughout these few weeks, none of the emotions really knew why Riley moved to China. Obviously it was not because she loved pandas so much — and even if she did, she wouldn’t abandon Bing Bong, as his conversation with Joy proved. But what was it? Incidentally, the teacher’s insinuation about “economic superiority” might be the best explanation, but good luck would certainly be needed to get that across to a frozen mirror of a three-year-old Riley’s Imagination.

Thinking of an answer proved to be too difficult in this case, and Sadness dedicated more of her mental power to looking through the map, now having at least partly memorized it — or whatever the equivalent of memorization was for a thought form — and being able to know which sections she already looked at.

And then, as if by a stroke of luck, Sadness found it. Once she crossed the pseudo-badly translated English name, “make believe low place”, she also immediately realized the real name: Imagination Valley.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t respond… to be honest, I don’t know either… but I do know where we can get the comms tablet fixed. If you insist, of course.”

“Of course I insist! How could I not, after both you and Joy remembered me? I can help you guys in Headquarters in any way! Anyway, where do we go?” Bing Bong asked.

“Over here…” Sadness pointed at the map, a task made much easier by the increased height compared to her old form. “Imagination Valley… these guys really specialize in Imagination tech… I don’t understand a thing they’re saying, but they could help, I suppose… and to get here, we’ll need to cross the old Piano Field…”

“Then, what are we waiting for? We have a destination and a direction! Let’s go!” Before Sadness could say anything else, Bing Bong once again took her hand and launched her straight out of the Goofball Island train station, once again sending her through the air almost defying gravity.

Hmm, I almost like floating through the air… beats walking at any time… I wish I could… Sadness thought to herself, but it would seem Bing Bong’s excitement waited for no one and nothing — not even the Train of Thought.

Nevertheless, she just had one last thing to tell Bing Bong before the two were deep in their necks in trekking and remarking all the sights as they went along: “You truly are Joy’s creation, aren’t you?”

Bing Bong didn’t answer that, though, before Sadness, who already felt like she’d rather be on his shoulders than drag her own feet, noticed the familiar pattern of white and black rectangles that, in Riley’s mind, could only be found in one place: Piano Field.

Ordinarily, Sadness, or any other emotion, didn’t have much to say about Riley’s piano career. In fact, if anyone in China asked, they would probably straight up say that she didn’t play the piano, or any other musical instrument, at all. How could she? She was primarily a sports head, a hockey player, and any time it took to practice hockey skills to be of any use to the Prairie Dogs — and there was considerable time involved in hockey practice — was time that couldn’t be used for music, or any other extraneous talent.

Yet, her presence in the place — even though it was nothing but a landmark towards her and Bing Bong’s real destination — reminded her of that, as well as all the “fun” and “exciting” parts of being forced to be a sports prodigy and a musical prodigy at the same time.

Walking down the literal Memory Lanes tended to have this sort of effect to an emotion. It was almost as if Sadness was directly communicating with the memories — and in turn, reliving Riley’s frustration with the instrument, followed by prolonged misery over not being able to live up to her parents’ expectations.

Only after four long, grueling years did Riley’s parents realize what was going on — and even then, it only happened after she returned from music school literally crying, having been unable to deal with an instructor pushing her to play harder, play faster, and put even more of your heart and soul into it. That day, she had curled up, just wishing for the pain to go away, just wishing to focus on one thing rather than being a pretty doll for her parents to dress up in a princess’s clothes…

Not being able to deal with the influx of everything that was Riley’s ill-fated piano career, Sadness fell to her knees, before slumping on her stomach.

Nothing about the memories flowing from the Lanes to the edgy emotion stopped, of course. Even when she closed her eyes and shut her ears, she still heard every single mistake that Riley had made during her career as a pianist, every single little jab by the instructor, every single Daydream put in by Joy that let her focus on Riley’s true passion on the ice.

She didn’t know how to stop. If only she could… but even then, she would be forced to go at this forever, wouldn’t she…?

There was no escaping… the white and black keys…

But even in the face of absolute despair, someone always managed to give Sadness hope. Usually it was Joy, what with the aforementioned Daydreams, but this time it was…

“Sadness? Where are you, Sadness? I can’t believe I already lost you… we were fixing your tablet thingy, it’s your adventure more so than mine, you can’t…”

At first, slowly, then all at once, the primal despair constantly attacking Sadness was replaced with primal fear. Without even thinking, she stood up and rushed towards wherever she heard the voice, replying: “No! You’re not supposed to say my name, you’re not supposed to say what my role in the mind is, the Mind Workers will catch us, and there’s no telling what they’ll do to us…”

Having heard what he was looking for — and also having gotten the memo that he should’t be so blunt about his intentions — Bing Bong rushed towards Sadness. “Oh, there you are! You had me so worried… I can’t lose a friend like that… I already lost everything, and you already lost everything…” he said.

Sadness didn’t say anything in return, instead just choosing to run straight into Bing Bong’s embrace after having sighted him.

The second embrace, she had to admit, felt a lot better than the first. Now that she was familiar with her partner, both physically and emotionally, she could, under any other circumstance, just allow herself to melt in pure delight and compassion.

The matter that she was in Piano Field, and all of the associated depression within, though, didn’t change, making Sadness break out of the hug — making for an embrace a lot shorter than the first one — and sit down on one of the many piano bench-styled chairs. She knew she couldn’t risk collapsing on the floor again, lest she lose track of everything, but she still needed to deal with the memories — or find a way to make them not a problem anymore.

“Sometimes… it’s not about what you lose… but about what you can never get.” she finally spoke, rather ominously.

“What do ya mean, can never get? We got together, and we can go and fix your tablet thingy…”

“And what good is a tablet… if none of the people it allows you to talk to… are friends anymore?”

What happened to her while she was in here? Bing Bong couldn’t help but think. “Look, you need to…” he started saying, before being caught up in the aura of Piano Field, as well.

“I think… I’m pretty good on knowing what I need.”

The response was pretty dumb — and yet, it was perfect in giving Bing Bong a hook to respond so that the conversation wasn’t a complete wash. “What do you need, then?”

“To move on. Riley will need this space for something else.”

“And what’s that something else?”

Instead of responding, Sadness only pointed up above, at an intersection in the Consciousness Grid, as though she were pointing out a constellation. “See that? That’s from yesterday… we all remarked… that we’ll need to start learning something new.”

“And what’s that something new?” Bing Bong asked.

“Whatever the reason, Riley moved to China. And it seems that learning Chinese is something she must do.” With any luck, Sadness had finally started speaking more confidently, as if she was able to work past the despair.

“Oh, man! I bet she’ll love talking to all the pandas!”

Bing Bong’s remark elicited a slight chuckle from Sadness — not something easy to do even for Joy herself. “If you insist,” she said, standing up and ready to resume the trek to Imagination Valley.

Just as she was setting off, however, the blue emotion wondered something. “So, I thought… I thought you actually said my name, and, well, you didn’t mention my role, but it’s pretty obvious from my name, and yet… we don’t have hordes of Mind Workers after us right now, do we?”

“Huh? Yeah, that’s weird. What could have happened?”

It wasn’t like there weren’t any Mind Workers around — in fact, Sadness could spy one out with her eyes, right now. Yet, the little potato being didn’t even turn to the two adventurers once they began talking around her.

“I have to… sorry, I have to see for myself. Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ll break down.” Sadness said, before awkwardly adding: “…again.”

“Alright! Well, I can’t lose ya again, so just stay in my sight, okay?” Bing Bong said, giving a nod of approval.

Sadness thus, having gotten permission, approached the Mind Worker. “…hello?” she said.

The Mind Worker only turned around, only to say — in a cheerful, almost robotic voice: “Hello! I’m Dorothy! My task is to know everything there is about the note Do!”

“Just… just Do?” Sadness wondered.

“There are seven notes in an octave, and each of us gets to learn everything about one! I’m responsible for Do, then there’s Reginald for Re, Minnie for Mi…”

Having realized, rather quickly, that Dorothy wouldn’t be much of a conversational partner, Sadness already tuned out of the conversation, instead rushing back towards Bing Bong and motioning towards Imagination Valley, to let him know they could start trekking again.

“Of course… the whole reductive thing… Riley always tried to read every individual note on a music sheet… and could never even progress to the most basic chords without pressing the keys one by one…”

“That’s…” Bing Bong said, clearly puzzled. “Your job sure is complicated! But can you break it down for… a rather young imaginary friend?”

Sadness sighed, struggling to begin. “You know when Riley learned to skate, she needed to awkwardly put each leg where it needed to be for her to slide across?”

“Alright, with you so far… man, learning everything seems frustrating!”

“But that’s no good if you want to really be in the action of hockey, now, is it? So, what needs to happen is Dorothy and the likes need to… to go downwards, and then, others focused on chords can take their place…”

“Downwards… you mean to the Subconscious Realm?” Bing Bong asked, quite terrified.

Sadness, in turn, only nodded.

“But that place drives you mad! No one’s gone there and back and managed to tell the tale! You need… you need to promise me…”

Bing Bong ended up trailing off, though, as he and Sadness had already found themselves outside the rather small Piano Field, with not much separating them from the office buildings that could only belong in Imagination Valley.

Chapter Text

After a wait that could have tested anyone’s patience, the teacher stood up, signifying that she was done and ready to hand over the two books she picked out to Riley — meaning that the emotions could finally get a closer look at them.

The thicker book turned out to be a Mandarin–English bidirectional dictionary; the emotions could only surmise that it would have lots and lots of words in it, in both languages, even without any specific number listed, making for quite the useful offline resource.

“Well, this seems like it’ll be useful for assignments. Especially since we don’t know what else the Chinese Internet will block.” Joy commented, but even she had to admit learning everything on the dictionary, let alone any possible assignments for “Mandarin” — hadn’t the teacher just said “Putonghua” or something? Was this a different language? — might be out of Riley’s reach.

Disgust, though, immediately realized a more pertinent issue. “Wait, how is the Chinese section even ordered? It’s not like you can just put up all of those characters in a neat alphabet, can you?”

With their direction, complementing Fear’s, at the console, Riley asked: “Hey, how would I look up a specific character?”

None of the emotions could say they understood the answer right away, even when it was phrased in English. All they got was something about radicals, something about how they were arranged, and some of “oh, don’t worry, some radicals actually look like the thing they’re talking about, like the tree or the mountains or the rice field”.

Even Joy didn’t know how to salvage the situation. Sure, she appreciated any time an aspect of nature was brought up, seeing it as just as beautiful as nature itself — but if there was anything looking like a tree or a rice field anywhere in Chinese writing, she would’ve noticed it. Already. It’s not like she didn’t have an entire day of experience with looking at Chinese, and deciding that Riley’s best bet is just to get the entire thing automatically translated with the camera app on her favorite tablet.

“Anyway…” the teacher said, concluding an explanation that completely lost the emotions at “radicals”. “I think that book is too heavy for you as of yet, it is certainly useful, don’t get me wrong, but learning every single word when you just moved is like using wicker basket to draw water… Just look at the other one for now, won’t you?”

“I… I see…” Riley responded before any of the emotions could, before moving to check out the second, thinner book — which turned out to be another one for Mandarin, this time a beginner’s textbook for English speakers.

Understandably, not many books like it were on the library shelves; for the most part, it was English that needed to be taught in a fun and exciting way for the locals. That being said, the school did appear to get an international student every now and then, and though an arrival from as far as the United States didn’t seem all that likely — even the teacher appeared to be confused by the presence of an American pupil at first — even for others, English served as a nice middle ground.

“You know, you will have to excuse for being not prepared… I tried to tell your father, she should be in an international school, but he was adamant… no, she should get the best chance she can to integrate into local society…”

“Wait, she… she handles admission, too? Does she think she’s the vice-principal or something?” Anger commented.

“Are vice-principals even a thing? Anywhere, I mean.” Fear asked in return.

“That does sound like Dad, though, I have to admit.” Disgust added.

“Actually, can she go back to talking about radicals for a bit? I think I almost got it…” Joy wanted to add, but almost no one listened to her.

It was amazing to what extent the mind, which felt like it had belonged to Joy as a whole, suddenly started refusing to entertain her ideas. It was almost like a whole new life began for Riley in China — seriously, she was the vulnerable one now? — and the old Riley, comparable to a calm drive on a highway, gave way to a forest road, which one would struggle to find even on a map, especially with her own dot completely missing from the map due to some local security regulations.

Still beat driving off a cliff, though. Any time of the day.

Overall, if the emotions had to conclude what they thought of the library, they would say something like this: for a school library, it was quite impressive, and most importantly of all, it would have that chill space that would prove useful during breaks. However, at the same time, it still had the “communist” feel, as though China, from the most impressive public place to the lowest-cost apartment, had been taking uneasy steps from the sixties and such into the present day.

Unfortunately, right now, there was no time for such conclusions, as Riley had to put away the books she just got — and deal with all of the issues thereof.

First, of course, came Fear’s complaining. “Wait, what about our favorite Chinese tablet? Won’t it get crushed and possibly broken between those books?”

“No? No, it won’t? It has weathered much worse in Minnesota — and perfectly survived, might I add, without a crack on the screen or anything! You guys always find a way to make a big deal out of literally anything, whether it’s school or…” Joy, however, ended up trailing off, again finding herself just… ignored.

Not that it wasn’t for a good reason — when Riley tried to put the newly filled backpack on her back, the weight was very much an annoyance for everyone, Disgust especially.

“Now I just wish that we were carrying this in our hands, instead.” they commented.

It was at this point that Joy remarked the windows visible through the Consciousness Screen, and through them, the sight of raindrops, accompanied by the faint hum of rain. No doubt, if Sadness was here, she would have immediately pointed out the rain, and then, Fear would agree that it’s for the best to keep the books in the backpack, and then, Disgust would be placated. The dialogue even played out within Joy; she just knew the mind before the incident all too well.

However, the emotion leader couldn’t focus on Sadness’s absence right now, as she just knew that some other trouble would sneak up on Riley any moment now.

And, as it would happen, trouble was, indeed, sneaking up on Riley. Even before opening the library doors, Riley remarked a shadow visible through the frosted glass doors, and once the doors got opened, she saw that girl in the skull tee — absolutely the last person who the emotions wanted to see right now.

Before either Riley, the girl, or any emotion could say anything, though, the teacher stepped in, having looked in the correct direction. Of course, she stepped in in Chinese — well, one of the Chineses, with the language’s identity, let alone the meaning of any words said, completely lost on Riley, except for three syllables.

“No, wait, I think that’s the girl’s name! Maybe we should make a Mental Note of that…” Joy noted, but found herself interrupted.

“And all for what, Joy? We might know how to say the girl’s name, but we still won’t know how to write it! And wouldn’t being effectively illiterate be just as bad?” Fear pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter. The girl’s name is Bully Prime. Happy, Joy?” Disgust asked, rather sarcastically.

However, what they didn’t expect was for Joy to remember something from yesterday. “If we’re going to just slap names on people like there’s no tomorrow, then maybe we should also start doing that to Riley, herself. Call her Joy or something.”

“Aren’t you Joy?” Anger asked.

“Didn’t stop you from referring to Riley as that, the other day. What’s next, are you going to insist that I somehow identify with her and don’t want any of you interfering with our perfect girl?” By this point, Joy was basically just spouting words, without any regard for accuracy, as long as they put the other emotions in place.

The other emotions, however, wound up almost driving Riley by themselves, only coordinating actions via nods and winks, without involving Joy at all. She didn’t even notice how the scene — with Riley, the teacher and the troublesome girl whose name evidently didn’t matter — just up and moved from the school library to the school cafeteria.

Even though each and every new Chinese environment proved to be the same thing, Joy still wanted some of that to settle in. If Riley’s attention could be even momentarily taken away, some comments — say, about the choice of food that the cafeteria was offering, perhaps if Riley pulled her favorite tablet out and used the translator app on her camera — would surely help in establishing Shanghai as her new home.

Disgust’s attention, however, was focused primarily on the girl, who had taken her seat across from Riley. “Like, look at her, she’s clearly unamused,” they commented. “I tell you, that girl has been intruding in the teacher’s business over and over again, and with any luck, she might do that to Riley, too.”

“Would she rat us out? Like, is it possible that we won’t even survive to the end of the school year?” Fear had to ask.

“No, far worse.” Disgust replied. “She’s not looking for the kind of dirt that can get us expelled, at all. She wants to break us in a different, much more sinister way. If what we need, more than anything, is a friend in China, then she will make sure that we will never get one.”

By this point, Fear was as good as out of picture, merely shaking in place. However, where he couldn’t contribute, Anger did: “So, then, what do we do? Just show her her place? Doesn’t seem like a viable option when we can’t even report to the school administration due to not knowing either of the Chineses, I must say.”

“You’re right. First, we need to learn.” At Disgust’s command, Riley took a good look at the two books that were given to her. The food placed at the cafeteria, and one that the girl constantly being discussed in Riley’s mind was eating, was of no matter to them.

However, Riley’s strange behavior was of matter to the girl in the skull tee. She thus said: “Oh, hey… if you want… I can be help! I can go across word and characters!”

For the first time, the girl had actually spoken in Joy’s language — “I can be of help”, assuming that was just an honest mistake.

But before Joy could say anything, Fear had already come to his senses, seemingly on an unrelated matter: “Wait, how difficult is even learning Mandarin? Is it really an effort that only two can undertake at the same time? Can two people even learn a language at the same time?”

Anger just shook his head at Fear’s incessant, incorrect insinuations. Disgust, on the other hand, answered: “If that’s the case, then we’ll just have to team up with someone in America, on video call. Trust me. I built the best network of friends there, that all the other girls envy.”

“And you can’t do the same thing in China because…?” Joy asked.

“Because your plan led to a first impression that we’re still recovering from!” Disgust snapped back, not holding back with regard to dismissing Joy.

It was amazing to which extent Joy had been put in the backseat of the very mind she helped shape, starting from Riley’s earliest days and ending not even that long ago. She even gave a glance to the back of Headquarters, thinking that this office chair, propped up right at the console, didn’t suit her anymore, and perhaps it was time for a change.

At this point, there was no denying it: the former leader of the emotions was fed up.

She was fed up with being largely ignored in Headquarters, the way she thought was reserved for… someone else. She also seemed to quite despise the new atmosphere, in which the need for an emotion leader was quite unnecessary, as her three (definitely not four) coworkers just perfectly coordinated things on their own and perfectly led Riley to… some sort of future — certainly not a bright one, though.

And above else, she just wanted Riley to be happy — something that could only be done via direct input on the console.

Wait, that’s it! Joy’s face lit up as she was struck with her own course of action for Riley. After all, she was excited to know what sort of background this girl came from, why was she so insistent on constantly approaching both Riley and the teacher — and most importantly, how all the Bully Prime allegations could be completely eliminated by whatever the girl’s real attitude was.

Thus, she worked the console. She had nearly fourteen years of experience with it, many occasions where she could work completely alone (as the others weren’t nearly as annoying and insistent that they also deserved some time there), and the perfect capability to shut them out of Riley’s life, just as they shut out her. All she needed was validation from the console itself.

And then… nothing. Riley only sighed to herself, not asking the girl a single question that Joy could’ve sworn was on her mind.

Well, nothing on the outside, that was. On the inside, Joy immediately got a reaction from Disgust: “Wait, what were you trying to do? You should’ve told us, you know?”

“And all for what?” Joy snapped back. “So you could ignore me? So Riley, for lack of a better term, could ignore me?”

“If Riley ignored you, then the problem honestly looks to be you.” Anger noted.

And of course, it all circled back to Joy being the problem. She just had to shout out: “Well, if I were the problem, then Riley as a whole would be a lost cause!”

Suddenly, silence fell upon Headquarters. This silence brought at least a temporary solace to Joy, who now knew that at least she was listened to when she raised her voice; however, the others were mostly annoyed that she had brought them out of Riley’s “business as usual” and into that same awkward position at the party.

That being said, Joy had at least eliminated another factor — the others micromanaging Riley — and could try using the console again. She already knew the motions, that she had just rehearsed a moment ago, and all she needed was to do them again.

Before she could do anything, though, she found her arm grabbed by Anger. She tried to twist it out of his own sturdy hands, but found him to be far too strong for his own good — not a great image to maintain, for a multitude of reasons.

“What? Would you really do that to your leader? To Riley’s sense of happiness?” she had to ask.

“There is no sense of happiness to be found right now. You saw it — the console didn’t react to you at all,” Anger pointed out, not being afraid of her. “So, why don’t you just step back and…”

“Step back for how long?” Joy shot back.

“I don’t know. How long do you think Sad—”

At this point, Joy no longer thought with words, but with direct physical actions, and hit Anger straight over the mouth with her free hand. Her and Anger’s argument had boiled over to a direct physical fight — one where Anger could easily overpower Joy, and not to mention burn her with his flaming forehead, making for an extremely easy win — were it not for Joy’s Imagination.

Handling Imagination during a direct fight wasn’t easy, and what was more, Joy didn’t really want to hurt Anger — just make him step back into his own bounds and let her lead the mind again. Yet, even with this constraint, she thought that she held on her own pretty well, eventually even managing to free her own grabbed hand.

Joy and Anger, however, should have really watched where they were fighting — and what sort of equipment important to Riley was being hit.

Before the fight could last for particularly long or anyone could get particularly hurt, Riley suddenly stood up, growled, swiped her backpack and stormed out of the cafeteria. If Fear and Disgust had any way to interpret this outburst, they would probably say that Joy and Anger had overwhelmed her — not a great thing to do when the outside, as a whole, had already overwhelmed her, multiple times.

Joy and Anger had already separated from the console, and from each other, understanding that Riley was more important than any of their personal disagreements. However, before they could do much in the way of either apology or continuing the fight verbally, Disgust stepped in between them, pushing them apart, asking: “Alright, everyone, now can we all time out and behave for once? Whatever we go through, Riley still depends on us to not mess her up.”

“I’ll have you know, though, that I can, indeed, take a back seat and not cause trouble.” Joy responded, already feeling like Disgust pushed her in all the undesirable ways, and taking a step back.

She then went through the chairs in Headquarters, before finding what she was looking for before trying the whole console thing: a stool, like you would find in a bar. She then placed it some ten to fifteen feet away from where she would usually take a seat, so she would still have a good view of Riley.

Finally, from her new seat, she finished: “As long as we don’t mention her name, I think we can work together, don’t worry.”

“Whose name? The girl at the party?” Fear asked.

Just as he mentioned her, though, the emotions felt a tap on Riley’s shoulders. She turned around to find the very girl Fear had been alluding to, handing over the dictionary and learner’s book that Riley didn’t even realize she had left behind.

“Hehe… you forgot… no thank me…” she said.

With Fear’s insistence, Riley took the books. Joy, on the other hand, had one more thing to say regarding the situation:

“Actually, that name is fine to mention, as soon as we actually remember what it is. After all, she looks like she’ll be plenty important to our life here, won’t she? For better… or for worse.”

Chapter Text

Imagination Valley was, if you didn’t mind indulging in marketing terms, a dazzling landscape full of promises of the bright future ahead.

Whatever Sadness had heard of the place came from largely unreliable resources: either the occasional visitor from Console Maintenance or a pamphlet left behind by them. Needless to say, she was unprepared to be caught by the allure, and momentarily, even forgot about all her troubles at Piano Field just behind herself, instead looking in all directions around herself. This mildly worried Bing Bong, but by this point, he knew that his friend was quite the quirky one, even disregarding her status as an emotion, and so, he looked past it.

Imagination Valley was partly unique because, even before Riley’s move to Shanghai, it had already adopted the glass-and-steel skyscraper aesthetic, making it stand out from quite medieval-looking Memory Lanes, which were furthermore perched on top of — or just below — these floating islands. To this end, it was a popular destination for visiting Mind Workers — who, with any luck, would be a lot smarter than those in Piano Field, meaning that Sadness and Bing Bong had to carefully watch what they were saying.

Yet, where Imagination Valley really shone was in the variety of businesses. Some, like rolling ladders, were primarily intended for Librarians tending to the Memory Lanes; yet, most of them were devices that Riley must’ve thought up one day, thinking it would be cool to have, and then, forgotten by the next day.

Yet, the mind forgot much less frequently than Headquarters, and Imagination Valley was a testament to that — a hub of high-tech goodness that anyone, not just Riley, would wish to be brought to reality, and do everything in their power to make it so.

“It’s beautiful.” Sadness finally uttered; it would seem she was stripped of all but the most banal words to describe the place.

“Let’s not get distracted, shall we? You still have a comms tablet to get fixed!” Bing Bong only responded. “Now, where’s that shop… man, if only shops had some sort of symbol to let you know which one it is instead of just this… writing…”

“Oh, I can read it out for you… if you don’t mind…”

“Please do, otherwise I’ll be just trapped here for days, just looking for the same thing, over and over again…”

That was weird — Sadness didn’t even think it was possible for someone to get trapped searching for something in particular for days on end, especially if sleep was taken into account. If such a thing happened to Riley, she would learn to make do with whatever she had, the next time she woke up, at the very latest.

Yet, the best she could do is continue to understand — the way she wanted to be understood. “Yeah… that is the worst… I know all too well. Searching for a purpose in life, only to be told you literally don’t have one.”

“But you do have a purpose, right? You…” Careful — Bing Bong really didn’t want to say anything about emotions here. “You have friends, up there, and one of them even told me I can join, too!”

“Up there…?” Instinctively, Sadness looked up, but saw nothing but the Consciousness Grid — and the Stream, zooming past at speeds barely comprehensible to a thought form’s eye.

Yet, the Stream made her realize something. While it often took off to various places, it primarily hung over either Headquarters, where most of the Riley-related action was, or over Imagination Valley, where she and Bing Bong were. The other places just didn’t matter to Riley currently — and if they didn’t matter, then any thought was wasteful.

“…and if any thought is wasteful, then a thought form literally blanks out.”

“…um, English, please?” Bing Bong asked.

Right — Bing Bong couldn’t read Sadness’s thoughts; no thought form known to her had ever mastered Stream reading at this point. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but… so far, Riley found other things to be more important, and while she did, you were out cold, despite being awake.” she spoke, looking straight back at him with eyes that glowed with compassion.

“But that’s not true right now, is it? Joy told me she needs me, and that must mean Riley needs me, right?”

Of course — Bing Bong had never even asked the question Sadness thought he asked, and instead worked off of his own concerns. In fact, concern had gripped him so hard, a “Joy” managed to slip out of his mouth, without him even realizing.

“Of course. Now, let’s find the… the phone and tablet shop, shall we? Over here, that’s not it — that’s something you put on your head and it automatically washes and combs your head within a minute…” Sadness spoke, beginning to go over each and every shop and business in Imagination Valley.

The next few quips exchanged between Sadness and Bing Bong weren’t all that interesting — Bing Bong simply asked whether this next shop was for comms tablets, and Sadness responded negatively. She could only thank the Spirits of both Imagination and Consciousness that the imaginary friend exhibited at least some spatial awareness, making sure that he didn’t ask about the same place twice.

Nevertheless, the routine repeated — and throughout it, the fatigue, coming from Sadness requiring more mental power than on most of Riley’s days, started settling in.

First, she became too tired to walk. Luckily, she had already encountered — and explained Bing Bong, of course — a shop selling the kind of electric scooter that, once you step on it, becomes invisible and controlled with a thought form’s thought, so they could just strap in and start feeling like they’re floating slightly above the ground. So, she excused herself, backtracked, and got the device — for free, of course.

If it were a device that could bring Riley everything she wanted, yet cost a million dollars or more, it wouldn’t exactly be alluring, now, would it?

Now, fatigue from walking was no longer the main problem for the edgy emotion; rather, fatigue from talking was. Unfortunately, even Imagination Valley couldn’t help with that one, with Mind Workers around the scene simply insisting that Bing Bong learn how to read, and attempting to guide him to Preschool World, just behind Imagination Valley, to help him with that.

Regarding that, Bing Bong only had this to say: “Thank you, but no thank you. If Preschool World could help me with that — and I know, I’ve been there far too many times, I’m practically the mayor — then I would be able to read the thickest books without breaking a sweat, already!”

Lastly, though, there was the fatigue from just… continuing to exist. Throughout the later part of the tour, Bing Bong would frequently have to poke Sadness, often finding her to be close to falling asleep, or floating aimlessly.

Yet, it was precisely during this aimless floating, when Sadness didn’t have to burden herself with talking about each and every individual shop and business, when she found what Bing Bong was looking for.

“Actually… if you would just… just come over here… it’s for repairing electronics… I think… over here…” She stumbled over every word, and even some parts of words, and worse, her flotation device was no good for making it through doors. Yet, Bing Bong got what she was going at, rushed over to the building she had located, and opened the door for her.

“After you, madame.” he insisted.

“I… I see… Sadness said, as she stumbled in — and promptly fell off of the flotation device. It was quite amazing that she somehow managed to stay on her two feet — though, she supposed, having a taller form with longer legs helped with that at least somewhat.

“Hey, don’t break anything!” the clerk at the reception desk of the electronics shop semi-angrily shouted out.

“Yeah… about that… too late for that, actually…” Sadness only answered, as she pulled out her broken comms tablet, in several pieces, and placed each of them on the desk.

“Oh, my… How could you even get it this broken? This will… this will take a while…” The clerk bent over to look at her desk drawers, from where she pulled out a little clip. “This will take a while… but we’ll let you know! Just put this up to your ear, and we will tell you when the repair job is done! And as always, it costs nothing more than a thank you!”

“Alright… I see… for putting up with me… that’s the least you deserve…” Sadness said, putting up the clip to her ear, before leaving together with Bing Bong — but without the flotation device.

Immediately after greeting the open air of Riley’s mind, however, Sadness was immediately greeted with another prominent office — that for The Mind Reader, with the tagline proudly proclaiming that it’s “the pinnacle of Imagination tech”.

“Huh? Where are you heading?” Bing Bong asked, but by this point, Sadness was far too tired to read any shop front’s writing out loud. Instead, she simply went by the front door, picked up a newspaper — also titled “The Mind Reader” — from the stand by the front door, and turned back to face Bing Bong.

“Oh, this is actually… something very important to the job at…” Even on the verge of collapse, Sadness did the calculation of whether she would be sussed out by anyone nearby, working out that she wouldn’t — as she wasn’t alluding to herself. “…at Headquarters…”

“What? How could this be important to Headquarters? It’s just… just… more text! Well, at least this isn’t in Chinese or whatever…” Bing Bong countered, but by this point, Sadness had already started focusing on reading.

Back in Headquarters, Anger was the most avid reader of The Mind Reader, often saying how it was important to “keep up to date”. However, the others, Sadness included, couldn’t see his point much, as the headlines mostly recounted what had already happened to Riley.

Yet, outside Headquarters, this was a vital tool — perhaps the vital tool — to not get completely behind happenings in Riley’s mind, especially considering that the best timeframe that Sadness had for her departure was “indefinite”.

So, Sadness read, and for the moment, she didn’t care what Bing Bong said about her getting distracted — there was no getting distracted while there was nothing, other than waiting for the comms tablet to be fixed, to be distracted from. Nor did it matter to her that he couldn’t make heads or tails of what was actually written — by this point, she just couldn’t be bothered to read one more word out loud.

And besides, there seemed to be plenty to take in regarding what was going on in Headquarters, and in Riley’s life more broadly, since Sadness’s departure.

Despite the mood at Headquarters when Sadness left — that she had ruined everything, and that there wasn’t a Riley to save anymore — it seemed like she was doing just fine, and even meeting up with the people who had seen her first impression, making for a second impression — and a possible way to right the wrongs. That much, Sadness supposed, was good.

What she didn’t expect, though, was for a large portion of The Mind Reader to be dedicated to a single person — and one who wasn’t Riley, at that.

Sadness had seen her on the Consciousness Screen, if only briefly. It was, of course, the girl in the skull tee — the only female student who had appeared in the party outside of usual school schedule, with many circumstances as to what brought her, and not other girls at school, to the party still unknown.

What was her name, even? It didn’t look like the editors knew — and it didn’t look like they cared, either, as they had far more important matters to write about, such as trying to guess her exact intentions, the way she would guide both herself and Riley in the social circle she belonged to, and what it meant for Riley’s future for as long as she stayed in China.

By far the most editorials were written from a purely negative point of view — that this girl was Bully Prime, and that she, for however long she had managed to get a hold of Riley, already knew all of her weaknesses and how to exploit them. That, and many of those editorials acknowledged, without fail, that the girl had one advantage over Riley, namely, that she knew Chinese and Riley didn’t.

There started to appear notes, in small print, that apparently, Chinese isn’t a singular language — which, of course, were taken as direct evidence for a brand-new conclusion that the girl knew at least two languages that Riley didn’t, for double the social advantage. Yet, even Sadness had to admit that this idea was a bit far-fetched.

There was also an occasional optimistic note, though it relied on similarly far-fetched notions. One of those was that Riley would be able to learn “Chineses” faster than anyone else, and therefore, catch up. Another was that Riley could seek solace among the boys — either entering their own social circle or finding true love. Of course, they also duly noted that Riley’s love life was severely lacking, with Jordan, the boy she had talked most to in Minnesota, still being not much more than a member of the boys’ hockey team counterparting the girls’ Prairie Dogs.

Yet, what Sadness found curiously omitted was her own point of view.

What Sadness saw — and what she really wanted to say she saw, but wasn’t allowed to — was that, much like Riley herself, at least one other person in China had to be similarly troubled, and therefore, there could be bonding over misfortune. There was no zero-sum game to be had, wherein either Riley or the girl in the skull tee came out on top; there was simply another heart waiting to be listened to.

Yet, whatever the Mind Reader editors were thinking about, it wasn’t her — or the entire element of Imagination, for that matter. It was as though Joy, after acknowledging Bing Bong instead of her, had decided that this was the new mind, with four emotions, and the more Sadness read, the more she lost hope.

Of course, she continued reading — perhaps her only solace in a world which decided it didn’t need her. Yet, getting lost in a good book — or, in this case, a good newspaper — meant separating yourself from your own existence.

Eventually, though, Sadness had to stop reading, as her earpiece started ringing, prompting her that she should go back to the electronics shop.

Once she stopped, she noticed that, much like yesterday during the Daydream incident, she had become completely dazed — to the point when she didn’t even realize that Bing Bong, having been unable to get her attention in any meaningful way, left for elsewhere in Imagination Valley. However, retrieving him had to be pushed back, at least for a little bit.

Instead, she simply folded The Mind Reader up into a neat little square, stuffed it in her purse, and headed for the electronics shop.

There, she didn’t take long to notice the flotation device that she had left behind. Of course — she would have to pick it up sooner rather than later. For now, though, getting the comms tablet — neatly placed on the clerk’s desk and almost looking better than new — mattered first.

Already, needing to do three things was already stretching Sadness’s capability to remember, even in terms of functional memory that she needed to get around. Yet, if she took it slowly, she could manage.

First, she walked up to the clerk’s desk, picked the comms tablet up, and meekly said: “Thank you…”

“You’re welcome!” the clerk responded. “Only, I have to ask… this appears to even be able to contact Headquarters and interact with the console… are you a high-profile customer, by any chance?”

At least she didn’t go straight for the E word… “Yeah… you could say that… listen, I’m the least of your worries right now. You got my electronics fixed, and hopefully, you’ll forget about me… and I’ll forget about you…”

The clerk didn’t have anything to say to that — either acknowledging or not acknowledging Sadness’s status wouldn’t work. Instead, she simply watched as Sadness stowed her comms tablet away, before focusing on remembering the second thing — the flotation device.

It wasn’t exactly convenient to bring it through the electronics shop’s doors, but Sadness managed — only to struggle with remembering the third thing she wanted to do.

Nevertheless, she could explore Imagination Valley a bit on her own — without needing to fuss over a needy friend who couldn’t even read, yet who was in a place where reading was an essential skill. It proved to be quite comfortable, especially since she felt like she was soaring through the clouds, a feeling she really wanted to take to a dream or something.

With that being said, finding Bing Bong ended up being an accident — and once Sadness saw him, she still had to take a moment to process that yes, he was the one she was looking for.

And once she did find him, she just started feeling uncomfortable again — not because there was something else she was forgetting, but because she felt… almost lonely.

It was strange, how much this departure, and any separation between Sadness and her loved ones since then, ended up affecting her and making her realize just how much she had been wronged. Yet, she didn’t have any solution to this — other than raw physical affection, which she had already experienced, and which she wanted to experience again.

Indeed, before any sort of heartfelt exchange or continuing through errands in the mind continued, Sadness just wanted to be hugged by Bing Bong again.

He was confused — of course virtually anything about his emotion friend confused him. Yet, even someone like him would have to be a heartless monster in order to not reciprocate.

And so, an embrace, this time one borne of mutual consent, was what happened.

Chapter Text

As Riley was pacing home in the cold, unforgiving, possibly acidic Chinese rain, her mind’s thought forms in charge had a lot to parse.

There was no denying it — the first impression was an absolute failure, and even though the emotions did get a chance to remedy it and start changing things for the better, they were still very much dealing with the aftershock. Not only was the outlook a lot more grim — why else would Joy push for just hoping for the best without a plan? — the inside had plenty of troubles of its own, which were seemingly just not there, even yesterday.

Yet, slowly but surely, new rules were starting to form in the mind.

Joy, for example, noted that the old form of leadership, partly mixing in commanding other emotions and doing a lot of legwork of her own, no longer worked — primarily because she could neither do legwork of her own anymore nor be all that listened to. Instead, she would have to be a subtle force, appropriately placed just behind the main string-pullers, guiding them with a word or two at most.

Anger, on the other hand, realized that simply opposing Joy, for no good reason than opposing Joy, was actually more harmful than helpful to Riley. He still had problems with Joy’s conduct — how could he not, after perhaps the single most unquestionable truth of the mind ended up being questioned? — but he had just learned that any careless movements by him, especially at the console, could lead to absolute disaster on the outside, with outcomes ranging anywhere from undesirable to criminal.

That left Disgust and Fear, whose purpose was rather similar: to make sure that Riley never oversteps boundaries, with Fear primarily concerned about Riley’s own boundaries, while Disgust was concerned with society’s. Granted, the Chinese society still left a lot of question marks regarding exactly how much could be taken from Riley’s American experience, but that could be figured out, especially since Riley could actually talk to schoolkids and teachers in English — even if their command of English wasn’t the greatest.

With that much decided, and almost mutually agreed upon by the remaining emotions in Headquarters, they could start settling matters on the outside, especially as Riley needed to begin preparing for the real beginning of school — which, they believed, would come not next Monday, but the Monday after that.

Catching up with the Chineses (or, well, at least Mandarin, to start) was, of course, a top priority, and Fear was already jotting notes on his inseparable notepad as to what homework schedule was the most efficient. It was pretty easy to surmise that the rest of Riley’s academic performance hinged on Mandarin knowledge, so he allowed himself not to worry about that for now.

Then, there was the social aspect of school. Even throughout all the doom and gloom — a rather weird sentiment across Headquarters, especially considering who the missing emotion was — there was hope for justice, exemplified by Justice Island and its main contributors, Joy and Anger. If only they actually worked together without resorting to fisticuffs and wrestling, that front could be settled, too.

That only left one avenue where the emotions’ legwork would really come in handy, and could be done while Riley was pacing, kind of miserably, from school to home: what to actually make of the people who their girl had talked to so far — namely, both the teacher who may or may not be a vice-principal and the girl in the skull tee who may or may not be Bully Prime.

None of the emotions could believe that the name had already faded from Riley’s mind without leaving even a single Mental Note about itself. After all, this only left space for derogatory nicknames, like “Bully Prime”, that maybe shouldn’t be establisdhed in the mind just yet. That being said, they supposed that forgetting the names of people Riley only met once was a common experience back in America, and the difficulties of learning not one, but multiple foreign languages at once only compounded it.

So, for now, they looked past it — and if any misconceptions stemming from the nonexistence of a real name arose, they could always be corrected later.

For this task, Joy had picked up her comms tablet, brought it to “interaction with the console” mode, and held it in one hand, while swiping through the air with another. This allowed her to Imagine a stylus that worked with the comms tablet and, while looking at the Consciousness Screen remotely, directly draw on the image — and have what she wanted to draw directly represented on the big screen, itself, as a Mental Image. She wasn’t the greatest artist, but unlike Daydreams, Mental Images weren’t about being vivid — they were about getting the other emotions to talk, and rudimentary scribbles, not obscuring Riley’s view of the streets of Shanghai, were actually even better than Daydreams in this case.

And of course she realized that Riley’s favorite Chinese tablet didn’t have a function like that. Last time Joy checked, it didn’t have a touch screen, at all. Yet, this was the mind, and Imagination reigned supreme, and if Joy really wanted to get the side keyboards of her comms tablet detached, just like that gaming console, she could probably do that, too.

But this was getting beside the point, and she needed to start addressing the mind. So, she scribbled a bit over the top, and waited for a reaction.

“What in Riley’s name— Why is there the ugliest slash mark all over the sky?” Disgust asked, finally breaking the silence that had settled in Headquarters since Riley’s departure from school.

“If I may have your attention, please,” Joy spoke, quickly erasing her drawing and starting work on another. “The school environment has clearly put a lot of pressure on us, and we weren’t even able to deliver the most basic of introductions. Therefore, it is imperative to — not craft a plan, that would probably just fail again — but to get our bearings as to who we’re dealing with, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. And no, this can’t wait until next night, when all the Mental Notes are processed; we must do as much for the Mind Workers doing the processing as we can, right now.”

“Are you just setting us up in order to instill your ‘happy, happy, happy, nothing is going to go wrong with these people’?” Anger asked her. “Because if so, then you can count me out.”

“You know, Anger, I’ve been thinking about your question from before: am I not Joy?” she rhetorically asked in return. “Surely nothing fundamental has changed about me, incident or no incident? But the truth is, sadly, that the console doesn’t work on me, and so, for the time being, I’m not. Think of me as… a little conscience voice, that speaks and perhaps hopefully guides the three of Riley’s emotions to a bright future.”

“No offense, but if there’s not a Joy, then how can we lead Riley to a bright future at all? We’re not exactly the most optimistic emotions.” Fear asked.

“I don’t know. Just do what I would do.” Joy dismissively commented.

By this point, Disgust clearly had enough, and having already turned to face Joy, just sitting there, even stood up, pacing towards her. “Great idea! Anger, Fear, Disgust…” they asked, pointing at each of the emotions, including themself, before concluding right besides Joy: “How are we supposed to be happy?”

Despite a shout straight at her face — or at least, as close as Disgust could get to her face, given the height difference between them, compounded by the high chair Joy was sitting on — she remained unfazed. “Since when is doing what I do the same thing as being happy?” she responded.

As it would happen, she had nearly finished her first drawing, and after being momentarily distracted, looked back at her comms tablet to put a few finishing touches. She then put the stylus up in the air, doing a little circle as she said. “Now do-do-do. Turn around. I have something to show you that isn’t just the ugliest slash mark.”

Disgust reluctantly turned around, coming face to face with what they had to admit was a pretty good impression of the teacher who organized the party and gave Riley the books. All the main details were there — bun, glasses, coat shape — and the only thing that was missing was the striking red color of the coat.

“So, do you just want me to start talking about her or…?” they asked.

“You’re so quick to catch on!” Joy fake-complimented.

Before Disgust could respond, though, Fear stepped in, metaphorically sniping the first opportunity to say something about the teacher. “Well, she surely wants us to succeed! She threw us a party just to make us feel welcomed, and she gave us the books so we can start studying Chinese…”

“Well, Mandarin, at least.” Disgust quickly stepped in.

“Of course!” Fear said, gladly accepting the correction. “But, all in all, that’s not really unique. It’s just what we’ve been expecting: that the teacher would be the safest bet to tell anything — and you know how much I value safety.”

“Yeah, so far, the teacher is proving to be exactly the parent away from our parents.” Anger added.

“Yeah, can we move on to the next one, please? Because believe me, I have a lot to say on the next one.” Disgust asked.

“So quickly? Aren’t you worried that she will deliberately deduct our grades or something?” Joy asked.

“Nah, if Riley gets a bad grade, we will probably deserve it.” Anger only commented.

“Okay, wow, you seem very determined about this. Alright, let’s… hold on…” Joy, once again, turned her attention to the comms tablet and the drawing she did on it, hastily erasing it and starting work on the next one.

The others, however, were far too eager to start, not even waiting for the drawing to be finished, starting with Disgust. “So, yeah. Hate to agree with Joy, but I suppose that even a broken clock is right twice a day. We do need to talk about Bully Prime, and exactly how bad she can make things for us, and what recourse we have — which may not be a lot, but we might still have a fighting chance.”

“Ugh! Can you give me some space to draw? And stop saying ‘Bully Prime’! The more you say it, the more it becomes real!” Already, Joy was deeply disturbed, and her drawing kept coming out completely wrong — and not necessarily due to impossible anatomy.

“Well, yeah. That’s my point,” Disgust nonchalantly shot back. “If it’s already real outside, why not make it real for Riley, too?”

“Indeed, if Riley wants to win the fight, she deserves to at least be aware of who she’s fighting and what both of them are capable of.” Anger added.

“Can we avoid it erupting to a fight, though? I would rather Riley survived school without a single punch thrown at her, if preferable.” Fear asked.

“Alright. Yeah, that can be done, if we know her strengths and weaknesses. Starting with the obvious strength: she knows at least two languages that we don’t.” Disgust began.

“That, and she took to the international student party when no other girl would. We’re just that undesirable as a friend, and the only reason she was here was to learn all the reasons why.” Anger added.

“That, and she has piercings that are probably in violation of at least a dozen Chinese social norms! She’s not good news.” Even Fear, it would seem, took to speaking rather defiantly.

“And a skull? Seriously? Can you not give ‘are we the baddies’ vibes that obviously?” Disgust noted.

“Yeah, I’d say that skull is a pretty good indicator of what we’re going to be, once in Chinese school: dead.” Anger said.

This caused Fear to noticeably shiver and stammer. “But how long until we’re dead? Will there be enough time to say last goodbyes to our parents?”

Nobody is dying, Joy wanted to say, but Disgust was simply the louder voice: “More importantly than that, though, how long will she make us suffer? Death is one thing — death is just a blip and we’re gone, finally free from this job, which, let me tell you, I’ve been aching for a free day since forever — but will she want to draw it out? Or worse, make us pull the trigger?”

“Should we preempt it and go for it right now?” Anger asked, making Fear further shiver.

The emotions, it would seem, were dead set on all pessimism, all the time, and there was nothing Joy could add to subtly change minds — especially given that suicidal ideation had already entered the picture. She wasn’t even able to focus on her drawing; every time she added something, it just ended up accentuating something the others said, and once Joy had finished, the girl looking back at Riley from the Mental Image was a complete, irredeemable monster.

But the actual girl that they were talking about wasn’t a monster, and to convince them, Joy needed to go in on the offensive.

“If you would just let me add something…”

“Oh, good. Joy has finally decided to add something to the mind, instead of taking away a vital part of it.”

It took everything in Joy to not leap from her high chair and attempt to strangle Anger again. She honestly had no idea how she had tolerated him before, and she wasn’t too keen on figuring it out. But at least Anger wasn’t planning on taking away every vital part of the mind, and Joy could appreciate at least that.

“Actually, I would like to hear an opposing point of view. Please go ahead.” Fear spoke tactfully — something Joy was just completely and utterly unable to do.

“Thank you, Fear. Now, as I was saying, I was looking at the girl — if you’re in need of a name because we failed to learn one, I think just Skull Shirt Girl will work — and she was genuinely interested in helping us out, when we brought out our books — she even brought those books back to us when we forgot them…!”

“Why delude yourself?” Disgust interrupted.

This question, admittedly, took Joy a bit back. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” she couldn’t help but ask, wondering why the emotions, who just a moment ago were so adamant to keep talking about the girl, changed the topic.

“I believe I asked a pretty clear question in a straight voice. Why delude yourself?” Disgust merely repeatedly asked. “Why constantly tell us, before the flight, that everything is going to work out, when so many signs point towards it not working out? And why, once that part falls apart, constantly tell us that actually, this girl, proudly wearing a skull signifying death, is somehow our best chance at life?”

“Fool us once, shame on us. Fool us twice, well, let’s just say we’re not gonna let ourselves be fooled twice.” Anger added.

“You can’t just tell us that we’ll learn Chinese by immersion, when last I checked, doing that for two languages simultaneously is basically impossible. We need to have a studying regimen, Joy.”

“And we also need an action plan if Bully Prime does try anything funny on us. So, no, telling us why ‘she might be a good friend, actually’ is not going to change our mind. Now, was there something else I forgot? Oh, of course! If we ever feel the need to date a boy — and we probably won’t, but if we will — there’s a non-zero chance she’ll steal him from us. Do we all agree?”

Fear and Anger merely nodded, before saying something that made Joy tune out, for at this point, she was completely and utterly fed up.

Just like with her previous attempts, her current attempt at trying to curate the other emotions ended in miserable, pitiful failure. When it was something that they had passionate feelings for, they would not stop, and they would even try to change her mind about it, if it was possible at all. And, given that Joy already felt like some part of herself was permanently gone, she knew that this time, they would have a much easier time either getting what they want or making her part of the shouting fest — or even worse, making her part of an actual physical fight.

She refused to give up, though, and knew exactly how she can prevent any more damage to herself: make the other stop and try talking about something else.

Before Joy could motion to wipe the disturbingly threatening image of the girl in the skull tee off of the Consciousness Screen, however, her comms tablet began ringing — with the caller ID being Sadness, once again.

This time, Joy knew that it was probably Bing Bong who was calling, and didn’t harbor nearly as much disdain. This time, it was more so a compounding effect of many little inconveniences: not being able to hang up just long enough to get the drawing erased, not being able to change the picture she looked at from Sadness to Bing Bong, and most importantly, not being able to do anything to stop any more conversation about Bully Prime— Gah! That wasn’t even her name! Why did she have to think of her that way?

No matter. She would just have a quick conversation with Bing Bong and get everything sorted immediately afterwards.

Once she saw and heard him, though, she instantly felt herself loosening up and even melting a bit.

His rediscovery was perhaps the single greatest thing that happened to Riley in China so far. Even if everything else turned out wrong for her — even if she couldn’t crack the meaning of a single Chinese character, even if she made no friends at school, even if that girl really was Bully Prime and tormented Riley to the point of making her want to stay indoors all the time — Bing Bong was living, thinking proof that everything could be turned around.

The things said in his song weren’t merely things said for the sake of the song. He really was the kind of thought form who, if he brought his rocket to the camera, would actually make Joy yell, out loud, “Hooray!”

Chapter Text

Sadness really didn’t want to let go.

Each successive hug was both more comfortable than the last and more difficult to break out from. It was almost shocking to which extent neither Sadness nor Riley, as a whole, had received this much physical comfort in a short time. It even felt a bit like hugs were the solution to all of the problems plaguing Riley — even those which weren’t due to relationships, like learning Chinese.

Yet, Bing Bong’s very presence reminded her that only half of his promise to her was fulfilled. Though he didn’t really do anything to fix the comms tablet he broke, he got her to think about getting it fixed on her own, which was great — but he still didn’t manage to convince Joy to take her back in.

Reluctantly, the two separated, and Bing Bong immediately asked: “So! Got the phone thingy fixed?”

“Yeah…” Sadness said, showing her comms tablet to her cotton candy companion.

“Okay, awesome! That’s… that’s one thing done, we got the thingy fixed, but I feel like I promised you something else…” Bing Bong suddenly worried.

“Oh… um… yeah… you wanted to take me back up with my… my friends, let’s just say…” Sadness managed to remember.

“Your friends, of course! Although, if they kicked you out, they don’t sound like very good friends, if you ask me… but yeah. And you’re absolutely sure that Joy was behind it all? The best one?”

In turn, Sadness only silently nodded — even though she wanted to shake her head at the insinuation that any single emotion was “the best one”.

“Okay, and she’s in the phone? So I can talk to her?”

“Yeah…” Sadness said, handing the comms tablet over to Bing Bong.

“Okay! Then let’s talk to her! I think I got this time, don’t worry!”

“Just… try not to break anything again, okay? You did a great job, you got me to think about fixing the comms tablet, just don’t take everything away from me immediately… the way Joy took everything away from me…” Sadness lamented, as she watched Bing Bong starting to get a hang of navigating the comms tablet’s menus.

It took about a minute, but he managed to get to the option to call Joy all on his own.

Once she saw her face, Sadness knew that it was her cue to leave, as she probably couldn’t make the case for herself. Yet, she knew that for the moment, she couldn’t return to The Mind Reader, as it would probably tell her nothing interesting — just the broad sentiment almost summarizing all of Headquarters — while Joy could show her true colors, and whether or not Sadness was in any way missed. So, she took a step back, found a bench, and sat down, feeling confident that she didn’t just trigger a massive wave of changes throughout Imagination Valley.

Sadness would much rather it was a book in her lap, instead, though.

Eventually, she did manage to hear the familiar voice of Joy, along with an intonation that almost reminded the edgy emotion of the good old times. “Oh. Hello again! You’ll have to excuse me, you kind of interrupted me at the worst possible…”

Joy trailed off, as though she were looking around on her own end, then returned, saying: “Nevermind! We have all the time in the world!”

It definitely took a lot out of Sadness to even be able to hear the whole conversation, including Joy’s end. Yet, if she focused hard enough, she managed to make it as clear as if she were right next to Bing Bong, and the only difficulty was in not focusing too much so that she lost herself.

“No no, do tell me! I thought we were catching up on everything that has happened, right?” Bing Bong asked, staying in roughly one place, knowing how to hold Sadness’s comms tablet, and most importantly, didn’t spin around without even looking where he was spinning around.

“Oh! Right! Huh, well, if you insist…” Even this strange, excitable Joy still had some of that assertiveness in her, it seemed. “I may have accidentally left a drawing on the big screen and now the others are saying mean things about… well, the drawing itself, I suppose!”

“Ooh! Is Riley fighting a dragon or something? I wanna fight a dragon, too!” Bing Bong said, jumping up exactly once before restraining himself.

“You could say that…”

Wait — was Joy talking about the same girl who took up so much of The Mind Reader’s article space? Sadness instinctively looked back at the newspaper, flipping it through, and as it would happen, there was a caricature of the girl to really drive all the negative points about her home.

Yet, most curiously, the caricature was credited to “anonymous, YR 15” — the latter of which Sadness immediately understood as Year of Riley Fifteen.

Was this Joy? But she… why would she be in on the whole Bully Prime nonsense?

Sadness didn’t have much time to ponder, though, as Joy continued: “Look, let’s just say that once Riley remembers you, no dragons will ever stand a chance against us, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Alright! How many dragons are there in China, and is a panda any good at fighting a dragon?” Bing Bong asked — with Sadness, now looking up at the Consciousness Grid, noting that the Stream hung over in an area not too far from Imagination Valley.

Was this Preschool World? If so, it almost felt like it would be right to give it a visit, once the call was done.

That being said, trying to keep up her own thoughts at the same pace as the conversation proved to be too difficult for Sadness, so she stopped and listened in on Joy saying: “Wow! You already seem to… you already know about the China thing… although, who told you…? It’s not really about dragons and pandas, although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more than one dragon statue… I’d recall, but I can’t do that while on call.”

“So, there are dragons in China after all! Seems like I’ll fit just right in, like nothing happened!”

“Like nothing happened at all.” Joy’s smile was almost audible. “Tell you what… whoa, are you at Imagination Valley? I love that place! Not as much as the old Fantasy Land, but the Valley gives me so much ideas to try with my Imagination! Actually, they just try to sell me Imagination tech, but I don’t exactly need that.”

“Huh? Yeah! Myself and…” Bing Bong gave a glance towards Sadness, making sure that she still never came in the camera frame, before continuing: “…a friend… were checking out all the cool things! And also, getting the phone thingy fixed. Sorry for breaking it.”

“Once you’re back, nothing will matter anymore. It’ll almost be like Riley is a little girl again.”

Hearing the particular phrase made Bing Bong perk up. Yet, he knew that if he were to make the trip back to Headquarters, he couldn’t do it alone.

He had to ask the question now, or else he’d forget it and only remember it weeks later, like with everything else. “Say, would you mind if someone else came over together with me, too? Someone who’s really excited to see Headquarters again, too!”

Joy audibly gasped. “Is it Mrs. Scribbles? I… huh, weird, I only remember the name, and even that, only talking to you reminded me of it…”

“No, it isn’t Mrs. Scribbles, although I’m sure she would be delighted…” Bing Bong didn’t know how to even continue, but managed to mutter: “No, actually, it’s… she’s more mature, and she can read and stuff…”

That was quite the banal idea — possibly, loads of thought forms could read, and why did Bing Bong ever think that that could distinguish who he meant?

Yet, Joy suddenly started putting two and two together. “Wait, why do you have Sadness’s comms tablet, anyway? Did she, like, leave it behind, or…”

“Wait, that’s what the phone thingy is called? She kept telling me, but I couldn’t remember…”

With each passing second, Joy lost more and more of her enthusiasm. “So it’s her who you wanna bring over? On the same day she messed up the first impression? No! She’s relieved of duty, she can’t come, not now, not ever, and… you need to tell me something funny, right now, so I stop thinking about her!”

“Uh… orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” Bing Bong said, trying to rush a joke, but by this point, Sadness couldn’t listen anymore and ran off into the distance, as far away from the chatty Figment as possible.

Why did she ever think that she had any hope of returning? Just because a long-lost imaginary friend told her otherwise? And it all negated a decade of grief that came after he had already left the picture?

It all made sense now — even though it was both difficult to remember and painful to think about once remembered, Sadness understood her real position with Joy. It was never about actually keeping anyone company or holding up anyone’s morale; it was always about keeping up with patent nonsense put forth by Joy, so that Sadness would have no time to pay attention to Riley and her needs.

Perhaps everything would be easier if Sadness actually understood what she was here for; if she, herself, could come up to the comms tablet and tell Joy: “hey, you should bring me back because I do this, this, and that”. But as far as what to actually replace “this, this, and that” with, Sadness had no idea — and now that Joy had confirmed that the departure was permanent, she would never have an idea.

She just wanted to collapse, somewhere. Even her flotation device — which, of course, she ended up leaving behind, again, and had no intention to retrieve this time, lest she end up in the earshot of the conversation between Bing Bong and Joy — would have been no good, and she would still feel like she was being pulled down by a million pounds of weight.

Incidentally, she had, without realizing, run in the direction where she saw the Stream bounce before the conversation turned sour, and indeed, was able to confirm that this was Preschool World. However, even the sight of that reminded Sadness of all the childish glee and innocence that was best represented by — one could easily guess it — Joy.

Instead, she turned around, defiantly facing the majority of Imagination Valley and its high-tech allure, for all of five seconds before collapsing straight on her stomach and face.

She had already collapsed like this plenty of times while at Headquarters, and knew from experience that she hadn’t broken anything. In fact, she wasn’t too sure if the emotions had anything to break. Nevertheless, she knew that an experience like this, from just falling on the pavement, would hurt Riley, and that was enough for her to feel some sort of pain, even if briefly.

Unlike Piano Field, there was no constant attack from the memories of Imagination Valley nor Preschool World, and eventually, Sadness would get up, without help. But from then on, she would journey to discover the mysteries of the mind alone — and most importantly, without her comms tablet, as even that was a reminder that she could not afford anymore.

However, it would have to be taken with small steps at a time, starting with her turning over so that she was now facing the sky, with the Consciousness Grid being an inalienable part of it, grounding her in reality.

Then, she properly tuned in with her hands, grabbing The Mind Reader from her purse, just to check the headline. And, indeed, it remained as “BULLY PRIME — RILEY’S FIRST ENEMY?”, confirming that she wasn’t in some sort of despair-induced delusion — or worse, a dream just like the ones Riley had.

And then, she properly tuned in with her ears, only to hear frantic steps that she had begun to recognize at this point.

It would seem that Bing Bong was really careful to not shout her name, or anything else that could identify her as an emotion and call the Mind Workers’ attention, all over Imagination Valley. However, it would also seem that once that was taken away from him, he had nothing to shout, whatsoever, and almost relied on her own acute sense of surroundings — known to get a lot less acute during incidents, like, you know, the re-confirmation that she was banished from Headquarters forever — to get her attention.

“Were… were you looking for me?” she said, to no one in particular, raising her free hand as far up as possible, while the other one, holding The Mind Reader, was close to her chest.

No doubt, some Mind Workers looked at Sadness like she had gone mad. Yet, it didn’t matter as long as no one recognized her as an emotion — and as long as Bing Bong recognized which direction the voice was coming from.

And, indeed, it looked like he did, with the steps getting louder, and eventually, the familiar cotton candy shadow coming into view. However, the best Sadness managed in greeting him was to turn over so she was lying on her side.

“Hey, you… this is your com— command? Comic? What did Joy say it’s called again?” he said, trying to name the device, but eventually giving up. “Whatever it is, I didn’t break it this time!”

“Yeah… thanks for that…” Sadness only responded, feeling that the comms tablet had been placed in her outstretched arm. She took it as a prompt to retract the arm, before motioning to put both the device and The Mind Reader in her purse again.

Eventually, though, she got up — only because handling precious objects like that was very difficult when you were lying down. She still wanted to collapse again, but all it took for her to not do that was to think of how embarrassed she would be if she was seen by Bing Bong like that.

“Man, I don’t know what got into Joy, though!” Bing Bong started explaining, once he and Sadness stood face to face again. “You would think she’s happy, she’s excited, she wants Riley to remember me again, all that good stuff, and then suddenly, I don’t even need to say your name, and bam! First impressions, relieved of duty, and all those other fancy words I don’t even understand! Other than that she doesn’t want to see you ever again, of course.”

“First time?” Sadness responded, weakly smiling. “But yeah, if you thought getting through to Joy would be that easy… if it was that easy… I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Bing Bong took a while to realize what his edgy friend meant — but once he did, he grew horrified. “But if you weren’t here… then no one would remember me at all! And Joy wouldn’t have said all these things to me!”

“See now? Perhaps Joy being a meanie isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“But it still is! You still need to return to your job! Somehow. Joy just won’t listen to either of us, so that’s out of the question, but there’s gotta be another way!”

In contrast with Bing Bong’s desire to find a solution, Sadness only glumly, rhetorically asked: “I mean… is there anything we can do?”

“I mean, there must be something! It’s just… it’s just the law of the mind, that you have to come back!”

“And where is this ‘law of the mind’ written?” Sadness asked, with a kind of curiosity only exhibited by the likes of children’s educational show hosts.

“Why would it ever be written? It’s far too important to ever be written! It should be known by everybody!”

Right — Sadness had forgotten that Bing Bong didn’t value writing all that much. Still, it was the perfect opportunity for her to close the topic. “I guess… still, do you have any other ideas right now, besides just talking to Joy, which didn’t work?”

“Of course! I… um… no.” Bing Bong had to admit.

“Then why don’t we take a break and take a moment to learn more about Riley, from her youngest?” Sadness asked, this time with a much more genuine curiosity.

“Learn more about Riley from her youngest…” Bing Bong seemingly took more time to understand Sadness than usual, but once he did understand her, he lit up. “You mean you want to go to Preschool World? Of course! I can show everything to you! And once you see everything, you’ll definitely want to bring those times back. Before, uh, before Joy was a meanie who hates you or something.”

“I think… I think we always had our differences.”

“But she wasn’t… she wasn’t a jerk! Doesn’t matter. I think we can also show it to her, and she’ll realize her mistakes. But for now, you gotta know, first!” Bing Bong exclaimed, taking Sadness by the hand and rushing her straight through the Preschool World gate without a second concern.

Chapter Text

Joy couldn’t believe what scheme she was almost pulled into.

Of course she realized that the sudden return of an imaginary friend from long ago, who she would be elated to meet, had to come with strings attached — not even Joy was naive enough to believe otherwise. Yet, the sorts of strings — ones that could potentially slice through her leadership in one swift motion — served as one of the rudest possible awakenings, further ruining her mood.

Nevertheless, after she was finally done with that diversion that was almost an insult to Riley, she remembered that she needed to make a call of her own.

It was really easy, actually, and she wondered why the other emotions struggled with a thing as basic as memory independent of Riley’s memories in the first place. When she had turned to face Bing Bong and the grand plan to get him to return to Riley’s life, she began strongly associating the high chair she had sat on with Console Maintenance — a really easy association to make, since the reason she had pulled it out was precisely because the console started not working on her. Then, she had the whole conversation with Bing Bong in her room, where no one else could hear, and once it was over, she exited her room, looked over Headquarters from high up, noticed the chair, and turned around for the call with Console Maintenance.

The three, it would seem, continued to debate Bully Prime, with her Mental Image continuing to take up prime Consciousness Screen real estate, and interpretations of her being so far away from any real person, let alone the actual Skull Shirt Girl, that she might as well have become a different person. Yet, Joy knew she couldn’t remove that Mental Image just yet, as it would call their attention to her — not something she wanted when she was still a busy bee working extra-hard to fix both the console and the mind as a whole.

Actually making the call was a bit more tricky. Once she moved to the selection of other devices on the network, she was, of course, greeted with the four other emotions, and momentarily, even thought that she should probably get around to replacing the Sadness icon with Bing Bong, just so that the blue emotion’s face and name, coupled with “is calling”, wouldn’t immediately put her in a bad mood. What was more important, though, was that various essential Mind Workers, like the heads of Console Maintenance and Dream Theatrical Studios, were tucked away in a hard-to-find menu, which Joy almost felt like learning the existence of for the first time.

Oh, well. She didn’t say that her memory was perfect, or even comparable to a human’s. She just meant that she had an edge over the other emotions.

With all that said, the only task remaining for Joy was to pick Console Maintenance to place the call, and then wait until the department’s head picked up.

As with the emotions and their comms tablets, the Mind Workers also had phones with built-in cameras, so Joy could actually see who picked up, in addition to hearing them. The only real difference was that none of the Mind Worker phones had the capability to call emotions — which was a real boon, since if the emotions had to deal with fans from all over the globular mind, they wouldn’t have any more time to guide Riley.

And, incidentally, it was also another reminder why the idea of Bing Bong reaching out to her, all by himself, was just too good to be true.

In this case, the Mind Worker picking up was Fritz, as indicated by the name tag on his hard hat. He was broadly teal, with some slight masculine features, and as with most Mind Workers — anyone who wasn’t a Figment and never came in line of the Dream Theatrical Studios camera, really — nudity was the norm, not the exception, for him, with the only thing he was wearing, besides his hard hat, being his tool belt.

“G’day, Console Maintenance. How can I help you?” Fritz spoke, rather professionally, but nevertheless with a noticeable Southern accent.

It was perhaps for the best that Joy also put on a strictly professional tone for him, despite others she had talked to so far today making her go through the entire palette of feelings, even rivalling Riley herself. “Alright, this is Joy from Headquarters and… the console seems to be broken, but for me only… can you come to Headquarters to check it out, as soon as possible?”

“For you only… can ya elaborate?” Fritz asked.

This is gonna sound really dumb… “So, for the others, everything seems to be fine, they use the console, it lights up in their color and Riley feels that emotion, but for me, Riley will still react, but the console will not light up in my color and Riley will not feel my emotion, you understand?”

Fritz nodded to himself, before asking: “And for how long?”

“Just today. Incomplete today, actually; it was all fine in the morning…”

“I see.” Fritz took a moment to look away from his phone at his schedule, understanding that although the matter seemed urgent, and a request from Headquarters needed to be addressed with utmost respect regardless, there were forces beyond his control that he had to contend with.

The wait only lightly tugged Joy’s patience thread, before Fritz responded, looking back at the camera: “Alrighty, best I can do is tomorrow midday, that good?”

The response, however, pulled Joy’s patience thread so hard, it promptly snapped in half, immediately making her lose all sense of professionalism. “Wha— Tomorrow? The one thing you do is check up on us and you can’t even provision time for the one time when we need it? Every single hour that Riley cannot be happy is an hour that I cannot allow to have!”

“Ma’am, please calm down.” Fritz spoke, hoping the lead emotion would listen. “It just don’t work like that, we can’t make it if the Train of Thought ain’t runnin’ where we are, and—”

“If it’s the Train of Thought that matters, I can help with that, who do you even think you’re talking to? I control Imagination better than anyone else, I can just…” Without even realizing it, Joy already found herself marching out of her room and straight to the roof of Headquarters, from where she could see both the Train of Thought and most larger departments, and direct them as though they were little toys that toddler Riley was playing with. “If you tell me where you’re located, like which Island or Field, I can take the Train straight to your doorstep, and then to Headquarters, and within the hour, you can—”

“Ma’am!” Fritz interrupted, knowing little on how to deal with a frantically pacing emotion like that, other than being the louder voice. “If ya would also note that we’ve got jobs beyond your console too, upgrades just don’t be needed that often, and we also need ta manage where all them Mental Notes come and where ta place them in the Memory Lanes, we’re just busy folk, ya know?”

For a while, Joy did not dare speak — perhaps to affect calmness, or perhaps to hear Fritz out if he said anything else of importance. Then, she finally asked: “Is that everything?”

“What do ya mean?”

“Is that everything you wanted to say?” Joy repeated.

“Just tellin’ ya how it is! You’re the VIP, after all, but the mind just don’t work as fast as ya might want it to, ya know?”

By this point, Joy had sat down on the roof of Headquarters. “Alright, then. And you’re certain you can make it tomorrow? No funny business?”

“Like I said: you’re the VIP.”

“Well, I suppose that’s until tomorrow, then. Thank you for your service to Headquarters so far.” Joy said, slightly waving to the camera, before hanging up.

She gave herself a few moments to fully calm down, before turning to the remote console app and clearing the Mental Image — only to be greeted with a distinctly exterior scene, riling her up all over again. As she descended to Headquarters, she thought to herself: If these little gremlins can’t even manage to bring Riley home on their own, then…

Her thoughts, however, were interrupted when she overheard the first thing from the console side of Headquarters, that being Disgust: “Wha— Bring Bully Prime back! I still haven’t said everything about her!”

“You were talking about her all this time?” Joy asked, the two phone calls seeming to have lasted forever for her.

“I’ll have you know, Joy, that myself and Fear have been able to compile a thorough list of personality traits stemming just from a few interactions, and we find it imperative to share it with you, given that you just deserted from the console like that—”

“And yet, you couldn’t even compile a simple path from school to home? Did you even watch where you were walking? Riley could be miles from home right now!” Joy shouted out, and for once, the other emotions had to agree that she had a point, and let her drive for a moment.

As it would happen, navigation from one place to the next one didn’t require one to be all that happy; it just benefited from the sort of memory Joy could rely on, in addition to Riley’s own memories. She punched in code after code, letting memory after memory of the Shanghai streets flood in, so she could compare them with the view on the Consciousness Screen — which the other emotions seemingly didn’t even look at.

When that bore no fruit, she took straight to the winding tube where all the Mental Notes were stored, and by navigating those, she was able to make Riley turn around and backtrack. Finally, by cross-referencing the Mental Notes with the memories she had already gotten, she was able to determine that backtracking successfully brought Riley onto a known path — and from there, she could finally navigate to her home.

Throughout it all, Joy intensely focused, almost unblinking. When she was bit by the determination bug, she could make everyone, from Fear to Anger, terrified of the skill she brought — whether it was for a school assignment or a more mundane task, like finally beating the boss level of a platformer game. The others didn’t dare say a thing — not even Bully Prime was as awe-inspiring as Joy, and in a match of pure skill between the two, Joy would win, every time.

Finally, as Riley approached the familiar entrance to the stairwell, Joy capped off, saying: “There. Now, it’s your choice whether Riley takes the stairs or the elevator, and it’s not your choice to call the old house our home, instead of here.”

“I say we take the stairs, but pace ourselves! I don’t particularly trust the elevator right now, and if we’re ever to manage running up the stairs, we at least have to master walking up the stairs, first.” Fear responded, only acknowledging Joy’s first part and not the second.

“Yeah, and odds are, the elevator music is gonna be completely different — but equally— annoying—” Disgust noted, trying their best not to throw up.

“Plus, we need to work on stamina in order to outlast everyone! Including a certain someone I could mention.” Anger gladly pointed out.

That was weird — no one even cared about what Joy had to say, either positively or negatively? Usually, when such a bout of determination happened, Joy would get a standing ovation, and even in this case, when she was broadly not allowed to do what she wanted to do, the thought forms should at least have picked up on her calling Shanghai, not Minnesota, Riley’s home — after all, that was what caused the last incident.

Which, of course, brought Joy’s thoughts to Sadness.

In these trying times, Joy didn’t like her thoughts brought to Sadness, so she decided to be concise. Sadness was somewhere out there — she was probably within Joy’s line of sight when she was looking at all of the mind and how to bring the Train of Thought to Fritz — and unless she mastered Imagination just as well, she would not be returning. And as for Imagination mastery, let’s just say Joy never expected to find a worthy challenger among any other emotion.

But more so than that… these folk were still trying to change the topic to Bully Prime? Even though they had all the time in the mind while Joy was preoccupied with Bing Bong and then Fritz? Even when she found herself not listened to, she could at least make it so she didn’t have to listen to absolute hogwash.

She thus called out: “You know, it’s not necessarily bullies that can motivate Riley to improve her body! The opposing hockey team might also need to be defeated at the game, but they can still be decent people!”

“The opposing hockey team from what? We still haven’t even been able to ascertain that the Chinese play hockey, at all.” Disgust noted, and for a moment, Joy thought that she might have failed.

“I saw China at the World Cup, that one time. They looked pretty good.” Anger pointed out.

“And what does seeing adult men indicate about the ability for a teenage girl to partake, huh?” Disgust nonchalantly asked back.

This was definitely a mission accomplished for Joy — once the others started going on about hockey, it was very difficult to make them stop, and not even Bully Prime, a character with no relation to any real person at this point, could challenge that. That being said, the conversation still took on a flavor of Chinese depression, what with the insistence that Riley would never be able to enjoy her favorite pastime again.

But at least it wasn’t the kind of depression that led Riley to actively burn bridges before those bridges were even built.

For the rest of the walk upwards, Joy had tuned out. She knew that the others, even when they had completely lost sight of where they were walking due to a Mental Image, could at least know to walk upwards until there was no more walking upwards, and then, unlock the domicile doors — something that Riley had managed plenty of times in Minnesota.

However, once Riley was in something resembling a bed left behind by the previous tenants, Joy allowed herself to join back in. Ordinarily, once Riley was home alone, Joy would suggest playing something on her favorite Chinese tablet, but right now, if Riley couldn’t be happy under any circumstance, what would even be the point?

So, she started paying attention — and, as it would happen, Disgust’s piercing voice was the easiest way to do that. “…and I don’t know about you, but in my humble opinion, Chinese child prodigies are the most terrifying thing, that only leaves me disappointed by what they can do and we can’t.”

Oh, right, the whole inadequacy thing. Every so often, someone would bring up how Riley is not skilled enough at hockey, or not cool enough, or well-behaved enough, and that would induce another spiral. Joy remembered that fairly well.

Why didn’t this sentiment leave the mind alongside Sadness?

Nevertheless, Joy roughly knew the script — and how to join the conversation to hopefully turn it around. “You know, I always thought that it’s not about chasing unrealistic expectations, but being happy with what you can do, isn’t that right?”

“Alright, then — what can we do, if we practiced hockey so hard, yet can’t even join a team because to even start qualifying for a team — any team — you had to be better at age seven than Riley is now?” Disgust shot back.

“We can…” Joy did have to admit that she was the happiest when the Prairie Dogs won, but she also knew that winning wasn’t the only reason Riley was on the ice. “…start skating casually! I’m sure there’s great joy to be found from just… letting our skates carry us faster than any feet could, and the rush of the air, and retaining tricks from hockey that could still impress others who skate casually — I could really go on, but just saying, the world does not end if we don’t get into a hockey team ever again.”

“But are there great other emotions to be found, or is this just your attempt at hogging all the time?” Anger asked, with Fear only subtly nodding.

Disgust, however, did more than just nodding, saying: “Also, what happens if the skating rink is too crowded and we simply cannot skate fast, lest we constantly risk bumping into someone else? Which, might I add, happened plenty of times while we did play hockey, and I pointed out every single one of them, that maybe we shouldn’t…”

“Or — what if the skating rink is too empty, and we get the reputation of ‘that one weirdo who keeps skating all alone because she’s too bad at hockey’? Bully Prime would have a field day with that.” Anger reminded that he and his fellows still had things to say about probably the worst fictional character Riley had ever come to over-analyze.

“Or — what if the skating rink is so empty it closes down and is demolished, and Riley needs to keep searching for new places just to pursue an old hobby?” Fear finished, dealing the harshest blow yet.

None of the attempts by Joy to get the other emotions to stay optimistic were even remotely working. In fact, none of them had even made a dent in their behavior — something that had never happened to Joy before, and this time she was pretty sure that she was physically listened to, instead of almost coincidentally ignored in favor of some other preoccupation.

For a moment, she felt truly hopeless, until a realization hit her.

It was out of the question to ever be able to make Riley happy — the solution to that problem, hopefully, would come tomorrow. However, what Joy could do is distract Riley, and consequently the others.

But this time, she would seek consent, first, instead of doing her own thing. “Say, let’s not focus on that, what if we instead watch something cool and funny on the net? Then we can return to the whole skating and hockey problem later! Maybe if we ask the teacher, ‘hey, are there any skating rinks or hockey teams in the area’… it’s just something we can’t tackle right now, am I right?”

Instead of responding one by one, Fear, Disgust, and Anger tried to talk simultaneously, making Joy understand none of it. Yet, they all seemed to be giving nods of approval, even rolling slightly away from the console so Joy could do her thing.

As it would happen, going on Riley’s favorite video site was a very methodical affair that didn’t depend on her being happy, and Joy was just as suited to the task as everyone else. Pull out the comms tablet, navigate to the web browser, select one of the links of frequently visited sites, wait a while for it to load, get an error, wait, what?

And it was a weird error, written in Chinese — and Joy could’ve sworn Riley never changed the default language on her comms tablet. She did hear advice on how doing so could actually help on her language learning journey, but the emotions generally dismissed it, and therefore, any writing like that had absolutely no business doing anything on the comms tablet.

Unless… what did it actually say? Joy rushed through pasting the error message into the same offline translator app that had greatly helped Riley while she was outside — only to be greeted with dense legalese, made further incomprehensible by grammar mistakes, but seeming to say something about “national regulations”.

For the first time in quite a while, even Joy couldn’t find any possible silver lining to Riley’s current situation.

Chapter Text

After a long trek through the mind, which showed just how utilitarian most of the Memory Lanes had become, the sight of Preschool World was unmistakable. This was especially the case as the words “Preschool World” on the gates, that Sadness and Bing Bong had just passed, had a reversed R, as though the person writing them was still getting the hang of writing in the first place.

Sadness’s thoughts were briefly diverted to how Riley, now in China, was reliving the same process, possibly reversing characters when writing without even realizing it. However, they were quickly washed away, for Preschool World was the one place in the mind where neither the present nor the future mattered. For all intents and purposes, the present was one where Riley was still a toddler, and was allowed to play around, all day long.

And if toddler Riley ever did come to the place, she would have absolutely loved everything: endless shops for candy and ice cream, dolls and toys of all sorts of sizes and so on.

However, there was one aspect of it all that Sadness cherished more than anything else: for once, she was relieved to not see it change and disappear, before her eyes, once she looked at it. Riley’s earliest years, it would seem, were something to treasure — as opposed to a phase that one would need to move past, as soon as possible. This sight made them so relieved, they were more than ready to pick up pace until Imagination Valley was well and truly behind them, at which point they stopped.

“Welcome to Preschool World! Told ya that you would like it, it’s like a theme park in the mind!” Bing Bong exclaimed, stopping right in front of Sadness, as though to greet her for the first time, despite the two having trekked for most of the day. “And best of all, I know it like the back of… Riley’s… mind. Nevermind that! May I show you around?”

“That’s great… Can I go sit down now?” Evidently, the need to collapse somewhere had gone nowhere, and the only change was that now with Bing Bong by her side, Sadness was more courteous about it.

“Oh, but you won’t want to sit down once you encounter this!” Bing Bong continued, practically dragging Sadness into a small, secluded area within Preschool World.

It could be described as a field or forest, made entirely out of ice cream trees, with fruit that looked just like ice cream, except it didn’t melt when left outside for too long. Mind Workers at the field were plentiful, doing all sorts of jobs, without supervision: picking the cones up from the trees and carrying them, in wheelbarrows, to their shops, where they “sold” them. However, other than that, normal rules didn’t apply to Preschool World, and Bing Bong was quick to snap two higher-hanging fruit with his trunk, before handing one of them over to Sadness, who graciously accepted it with a little nod, without saying anything.

Bing Bong then led Sadness to another prominent feature in Preschool World: a playground with gigantic slides and ladders. The mere thought of it excited a child’s imaginary friend almost as much as the child herself; yet, Sadness could only think about the pain she would go through if she carelessly fell from ten feet in the air, as well as how, without Fear, no one would be able to keep her safe.

However, in the end, fatigue was a feeling that dominated Sadness more than anything else, and she kept looking for a resting place.

That was when she spotted a park-like area, right by the playground, where a few Mind Workers were already sitting. Looking through it more closely, she was, thankfully, able to locate a completely empty bench, and rushed to sit down in no time.

Sadness had already come to appreciate her new gift of vision. Oftentimes, at work, she would be unable to spot a small detail on the Consciousness Screen, even with her glasses on, and subsequently, this ended up being treated as a personality trait, with her focusing on the big picture, instead of the details.

However, as it stood right now, work was but a vague feeling of a distant memory for the blue emotion, never to be returned to, and right now, she had to tend to a Mind Worker walking up to her and offering her some candy — for free, of course. She could already appreciate how much more nice the Mind Workers at Preschool World were, compared to the fake-nice Imagination Valley clerks, and she accepted the gift.

“By the way, don’t tell anyone, but I got these from Bing Bong the other day, when he had been acting really depressed,” the Mind Worker commented.

This response was the precise cue Sadness needed in order to be able to focus on how much she could “remember”. It took a while, but eventually, she was able to recall that Bing Bong typically cried candy, because that was what Riley was able to utter when she first explained the imaginary friend to her parents a long, long time ago. With this memory, Sadness was able to start picturing an entire scene: a careless child, drawing pictures whenever she felt like it, telling tall tales wherever she went, and all around, not knowing or caring about how the world actually worked.

However, the next thing the edgy emotion “remembered” was that this phase, at least for Riley, was really, really short-lived.

Having met Meg when their girl was merely three and a half years old, the emotions quickly realized just how much more fun there was to be had with a different person, and one Riley’s age at that, rather than an imaginary friend. Not everyone shared Riley’s experience, with some entering school without any meaningful relationships, but by that point, no one in the mind could understand how that sort of thing could happen.

Eventually, though, this, too, passed, and Riley learned how to stand up for the weak and helpless. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Riley’s life was just a big sequence of moving on after moving on: from Bing Bong to Meg, from preschool to school, from caring about her friends only to everyone around herself, and now, from Minnesota to Shanghai.

Did Bing Bong understand any of this? Would this, too, need to be explained in a kid-friendly way?

Having returned to Bing Bong as a thought, Sadness began looking for him, momentarily even feeling bad for leaving him behind, again and again. And all for what? Because feelings overwhelmed her? Because, as an emotion, she just couldn’t help it? Now that he was the only thing she had left, there could be no excuse, and Sadness had to find him.

Standing up and looking up, Sadness began scanning the area. However, what she noticed, instead, was just how uncomfortable she was feeling — and how Imagination was once again transforming everything around herself.

In particular, a glass dome, composed of small triangles just like the Consciousness Grid above it, began forming above Preschool World. It spread across the sky, fracturing it like shattering glass in extremely slow motion, encasing the entire area, from north to south, from east to west and from horizon to zenith. There was no explanation for this, other than that Sadness had done something wrong — yet again.

However, she then saw that the newly formed mesh looked as though it was being painted over, and sighed in relief. The ugly, black triangles disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, becoming a childish drawing of the sky, as well as a couple of holes letting the sunlight through. In the end, the change could even be construed as being for the better, as even back in Headquarters, Sadness was known for “indoor rainclouds” that no other emotion liked, and this would be a good shield from them.

In addition, it also felt as though Sadness’s very essence stopped being drained just so these changes could occur, bringing temporary respite from the fatigue. Perhaps she even had some energy to “play around”, however one did that.

Usually, “playing around” wasn’t the most pleasant for Sadness, due to the constraints of work limiting her playtime to that of Riley’s. Unfortunately, especially in her earlier life, Riley was prone to getting hurt, often and badly, and whenever that happened, Sadness felt the need to be at the console, and then, she would be scolded by Joy and the rest for making Riley cry. And then, of course, Riley’s parents noticed, too, and started making her play in her room, or perhaps Meg’s when the schedule allowed, more and more.

Needless to say, throughout Riley’s preschool years, “fun” and “playtime” were the last words that Sadness wanted to hear, lest she do something wrong again, only driving the wedge between her and Joy further. One could even say this was the real seed that led to her being kicked out, rather than any sort of first impression.

Perhaps things could still be remedied. Perhaps she needed to find another approach that would allow her to be returned, and maybe even make Joy into a more tolerable presence — if she were to be a presence in Sadness’s life again, that is. However, until then, in order to accept who she was now, she needed to have some fun, and nobody would stop her.

Not particularly concerned with where Bing Bong was around and whether or not she could spot him, she eyed the largest semi-circular ladder of them all, arching over an entire slide. She let herself climb it all the way to the top, before letting her hands go off the rungs, with only her feet to keep her above the slide, and finally, closed her eyes.

The feeling was absolutely exhilarating. There was a fraction of fear of falling down, but in the end, all the physical sensations — hair falling on her face, reversed gravity, and so on — contributed to bliss and relief that Sadness didn’t think she could feel at all.

Suddenly, though, she was caught in a rush of air. It’s not that she actually fell anywhere — but then, what did happen? Yet, the touch of cotton candy, eventually ending up in arms carrying her, bridal style, helped paint the picture, and now, she only needed to open her eyes to confirm that, indeed, Bing Bong had picked her up.

“Now you’re getting it! Don’t you agree that fun is everything that’s important to Riley?” he asked.

“It is nice to go out and play…” Sadness had to admit.

“Yeah, wasn’t it great when Riley would play with me, day after day?” Bing Bong pointed out, already reminiscing his golden days.

“I… I suppose it was…” To Sadness, this was a time when Joy was dominant, and the first of many occasions when she was shoved to the sidelines, but at the same time… everyone was happy in the mind, including her.

“Wouldn’t it be great if this could last forever?” Bing Bong continued appealing.

“I’m not too sure…” Sadness suddenly glumly spoke, squirming in Bing Bong’s embrace and trying to stand up.

“Oh, come on! How much would you give in order for Riley to be back with Bing Bong?”

“I don’t know, Joy always talks about a bright future and…” Sadness tried defending herself.

“And you know what else she talks about? That you can’t have a part in that bright future! But you still can. I actually thought about it, and you still can; I’ll pitch a plan, and you’ll come on camera saying you fully support the plan, and she’ll let us both back in!”

“Alright, then. What’s the plan?”

“Hang on — gotta put you down for this…” Bing Bong said, once again allowing Sadness to stand on her own two feet. “You might not know how to get through to Joy, but I do. I live this mind, I breathe it, and I know what’s best for Riley, and I know that once I say it, you’ll agree. And that would be to… Make Riley a Little Girl Again!” he finished, triumphantly, if arrogantly.

That, however, was when Sadness’s capability to “remember” went straight into overdrive.

First, it was easy to notice how, during the previous call with Joy, before things went sour, a similar phrase had been uttered: “it’ll almost be like Riley is a little girl again”. Then, of course, there was the slogan, said by none other than that orange guy on TV — Sadness just didn’t know how she could support a cause, in the mind, that sounded anything like that.

And then, there were Biology lessons that Riley took, that talked about how children are basically destined to become adults. These lessons continued to be reinforced through Headquarters experience, especially with the “puberty” alarm going off, and very much reminded Sadness that what Bing Bong was asking for was completely and utterly impossible.

And then, of course, there was the suggestion: you’ll come on camera saying you fully support the plan. But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Sadness didn’t support the plan, at all, and coming back to Headquarters based on a complete lie was very much worse than not coming back at all.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it…” Bing Bong continued, still unaware of how Sadness felt. “Since that Meg broad ever came into Riley’s life, everything has been ruined, and if we reverse all that, we will be able to live a bright life again, without a single concern! Wouldn’t you agree that sometimes, the way forward is actually backward?” He really spoke like Joy — the worst of Joy at that — and finally forced her to speak up.

“But we can’t.”

“Excuse me, what?” Bing Bong asked, his smile faltering.

“We can’t reverse the arrow of time. We can’t go against biology, we can’t even return Riley from China…” Sadness pointed out.

“Surely some pandas or whatever can’t be an obstacle?”

“The pandas would be the least of what’s working against us, really. We just… I just can’t do what you’re asking.”

“But think about getting back together with Joy and the team! Don’t you want at least that to happen?” No matter how passionately Bing Bong argued for anything, Sadness didn’t budge — and she, herself, once again felt Imagination being drained from her.

Suddenly, an earthquake shook Preschool World. Not much could be seen outside the new cover that formed, but the sound and feeling that followed after the shaking was reminiscent of an elevator descending, and the dimming light throughout the area confirmed that Preschool World was descending into the mind’s underground — the very same Subconscious Realm that, allegedly, drove everyone entering it mad, and that Bing Bong really didn’t want to go to.

However, so far, he only noticed the dimming light, and asked: “Hey, what’s happening? And why won’t you listen to me? Hello? Sadness, are you still there?” he spoke, so terrified of his new friend that he forgot to not mention her by name.

It was to no avail, though — Sadness didn’t want to listen to a single word of his, and continued to focus on the changes she was making.

The Mind Workers, on the other hand, reacted in their own way, seeming to understand their new role as the guardians of the nether realm really quickly, and regrouping accordingly. One of them, a teal figure with frizzy hair, even approached Bing Bong and asked: “Care for some torches? To light up the darkness! Don’t worry, we don’t really charge anything here.”

“How about you tell her to… to…” What was going was absolute madness — the exact sort of madness that the Subconscious Realm was known for, actually — and Bing Bong was at a loss for words, only being able to point at Sadness.

Yet, the Mind Worker didn’t seem to care, and obliged with the incomplete sentence. She approached Sadness with the same question: “Care for some torches? To light up—”

“Oh, I would be glad to take one, actually! Thank you!” Sadness suddenly spoke, acting with courtship that she thought was pretty familiar to her, but didn’t realize was completely alien to Bing Bong.

“So that’s how it is? Would you rather replace the sun with torches everywhere instead of just going along with my idea? Fine! Then I… I’m escaping before anything happens to me!” Bing Bong shouted, running towards the Mind Worker to grab a torch of his own, before going straight to the edge of Preschool World.

Sadness looked towards the direction and followed along at her own pace — not necessarily because she wanted to stay by Bing Bong’s side, but because he, the thought form who knew Preschool World inside and out, would know how to exit it the best. It would seem he ran for one of the newly formed walls of the dome, eventually hitting, and rushing through, an old-style wooden door. Then, his shadow formed by his torch raced along the dome and whatever light was remaining at it, and finally, he reached the topmost point in the nick of time. Sadness was even able to catch him doing a little victory hop before the lights went out in Preschool World for good.

Now that the ambient light was but that from the torches carried by Sadness and the Mind Workers, she was glad that they had torches at all, and were courteous enough to give her one. Without it and without a literal beam of sunshine like Joy, she would surely be lost already, and have already fallen over, now without any hope of seeing the light of the Consciousness Grid again.

More so than anything, she wanted to live, and living in the Subconscious Realm, especially given the way the imaginary friend spoke about it, wasn’t the most pleasant thought. Therefore, escaping it, even if it was a journey considerably longer than Bing Bong’s, was of utmost priority.

However, while that was a single concern, it was still far from the whole picture, and Sadness had to admit that when she opened that door, she would be stepping into a world that was almost completely unknown, even to the likes of Joy, who frequented the Conscious Realm on the regular.

Braving on, Sadness paced towards the door and pushed it open with one hand, while holding her trusty torch in another.

Chapter Text

Joy had officially given up.

The past two days, which were really more like one as Joy had served Dream Duty, had shown her, time and time again, that China was a place where no happiness could be found — at least, none that wouldn’t be immediately outweighed by something that some other emotion could find. Even getting rid of one of them didn’t manage to do the trick in lessening the negativity, and trying to relieve everyone of duty was definitely a no-go, with numerous objections that either the other emotions or Riley herself would raise.

This was no longer about conserving one’s energy for the future, she thought as she returned to her high chair — even though she would really rather collapse on the floor, instead. This was a permanent change to how Riley behaved from this point forward, unless a miracle brought the family back to America or something.

Fear was still trying to do something about the blocked website debacle — namely, recall memories of ads that Riley kept seeing while using the same video sharing website that she couldn’t use now, all of which talked about these “VPN” things that could let you browse the web as though you were in a different country, and also helped you stay private or something. Yet, Joy was the one to stop him.

“No. Please don’t.” she weakly said.

“But we could still go to the website! It’s still salvageable!” Fear wanted to insist.

“I said please don’t,” Joy repeated, letting basically every element of Imagination other than her own control her for once. “There’s no point. Even if we do find a new funny video — and I’m sure there’s loads — you will still find a way to reason your way out of this, and say: no, actually, it’s not funny at all, it’s disgusting or it’s terrifying. And I am done trying to argue otherwise.”

“No, it’s okay. If the video is genuinely funny, we can laugh with you, and let you drive.” Disgust pointed out.

“And then what? Riley just doesn’t react because the console is broken on me? I think I can take a hint from Riley herself… ugh, what’s happening to me…” Joy suddenly interrupted herself, as she felt a sudden pain in her stomach and bent over.

It was almost like Joy had felt hungry, even though emotions, as such, didn’t really need to eat. Yet, it didn’t take her long to realize that she was still, well, able to take a hint from Riley herself, and the reason why she felt hungry was because Riley felt hungry.

“Why didn’t we eat at school? Why did we just storm out without touching our food at all?” Joy asked, mostly out loud to herself, as she looked across the Mental Notes to figure it out. None of them were all that visible from her vantage point, however, and she had to get off from her high chair — only to collapse right in front of it.

“That would be because you had a fight with Anger at the most inappropriate of places,” Disgust reminded her.

“And I would’ve won, too, if it were not for that pesky Imagination thing that Joy likes to keep doing!” Anger pointed out.

Joy only weakly groaned. Anger and Disgust didn’t even bother to look back, having gotten used to their lead emotion being reduced to a background voice; however, Fear did look back — and what he saw shocked him.

“Guys! I think Joy is really down with something! I’m going to help her right now!” he shouted out, leaving his console post.

“A sick monster is still a monster.” Anger noted.

“Excuse me! You mean that a sick emotion is still an emotion! A lead emotion, might I remind you!” Disgust rebutted in disbelief over their leader being just dismissed like that.

“A lead emotion that does what?” Anger replied, pointing out: “Comes up with stupid unworkable plans on a perfect first day, fires others when those plans don’t work out, and insists on just looking past who could be our worst enemy in China!”

“Okay, yeah, you actually have a point on that last one.” Disgust noted, unceremoniously ending the altercation between themself and Anger.

Meanwhile, Fear rushed over to where Joy was, being endlessly worried for her health. “Can I help you in any way?” he asked, as the fading emotion weakly stood up and rested on his shoulders, allowing him to carry her to the Headquarters beanbag, instead.

“I think… right now, Riley comes first. You find something for her, and once she’s in a better shape, I’ll be in a better shape, too.” Joy told Fear, not even expecting to be heard by either Anger or Disgust, before slumping down in the beanbag.

Fear only nodded, before returning to the console and telling his other coworkers: “You always try to make it about Joy, or about teamwork, while you don’t even realize that Riley is starving! And we need to eat up, right now!”

“And you also have a point. Alright, don’t panic! What’s the local restaurant and takeaway situation? Is anything there at least non-poisonous? If it’s tolerable, we’ve succeeded with flying colors!” Disgust asked, and Joy, for one, was finally glad that the conversation about her being all-around awful didn’t continue.

“Would the map app be blocked due to national regulations, too?” Anger wondered.

“Of course not! We literally used it today, don’t you remember? I feel like myself and Joy are the only ones around who actually remember something in the mind…” Disgust shot back.

“Yeah, that’s fair.” For whatever reason, things seemed to be going a lot smoother between Anger and Disgust as of late.

Fear, on the other hand, had other ideas in store. “What if — we don’t rush to completely unknown places that will immediately clock us as an American, and all the risks of that… and instead, just see if Mom’s cooking something?”

“An actual, real point made by Fear there. Slash serious.” Anger said, nodding and smiling. Everyone — including a barely conscious Joy — waited for him to blow up, but quickly had to give up.

The attempt to pronounce a tone indicator literally gained a cringe from Disgust, but they nevertheless carried on: “I might add, though, that if Mom does make something, and then we don’t eat because we’re full from something else — she might not even believe our words. True story. Let me just recall…” They worked the console, and soon enough, an exact memory popped up: Riley telling the truth about not wanting to eat, and Mom not believing her.

Indeed, Disgust had made their point, and none of the others needed to watch the recalled memory for long enough to prompt it to be returned and start acting upon Fear’s idea.

Luckily, Riley wasn’t in nearly a bad shape compared to Joy — just a bit downcast and huddled up in the corner of a random room, having not yet figured out where her permanent bedroom would be. Unlike Joy, Riley was able to stand up with minimal negative effects and waddle over to the kitchen.

And indeed, once she got there, she found Mom — not necessarily making something as of yet, but just looking over the equipment, pondering how it could be used.

“Hey, I was wondering… will you be making anything to eat?” Riley timidly asked, with Fear commanding her reaction.

In return, Mom only sighed. “Not for a while…” Then, she unexpectedly lit up. “Say, when we were at the pizza planet place and you didn’t even touch your pizza… I packed it for takeout! It was only the chopsticks that bothered you, right? There should be a fork and knife around here…”

“Uh… did she?” Disgust suddenly wondered.

From her beanbag, Joy only weakly smiled, saying: “Looks like there’s still one undisputed queen of remembering here.”

None of the others had heard Joy, though, over the click-clack of the console and recalling of yesterday’s memories — and of them, all the audiovisual and photographic ones showed Mom, in key moments such as being on top of the Oriental Pearl, with a peculiar squarish bag with the familiar rocket logo.

“Yeah, okay, looks like we did.” Disgust had to concede. “Alright, frozen pizza it is — for now, just to get to high spirits, and still, very much provided that we eat like a civilized person.”

When they came back to reality, Mom had already pulled out the pizza from the fridge. She then rushed over to where the various utensils, like plates, forks, and knives, were held, and after rinsing them and quickly drying them, was able to provide Riley with possibly the best option for non-contaminated silverware in the apartment.

However, she still looked somewhat frustrated, as she couldn’t locate a microwave anywhere — and neither could Riley’s emotions, as long as they looked around.

“There’s no time, and that’s not the imperative!” Fear suddenly shouted out. “The food will warm up as we eat, and maybe the cold will even wake us up!”

With this command, Riley took the utensils and cut off a small part of the pizza, putting it to her mouth. As she did, though, a mostly-imperceptible shockwave went through Headquarters, making the emotions feel somewhat uneasy.

This was the exact sort of feeling that Joy needed, though, as she stood up from the beanbag and slowly paced towards the high chair again.

As Riley continued eating, Joy started feeling more and more alive, though there was still no way to shake the fatigue from having to serve Dream Duty other than to go to sleep. Nevertheless, she could manage, and after nearly toppling the high chair, she was able to get up on it.

“I’m back,” she proclaimed. “And though you might not care for who I am, hopefully, you’ll still listen to my words.”

“Oh, great.” Anger noted, his dreams of a calm end of the workday without Joy shattered, just like that.

“So! How was school?” Mom asked, as Riley continued eating. “The whole warm-up party for the international student, you know! I would be glad if I didn’t have to rush into class within a single day of moving, let me tell you that!”

Disgust was the first to react: “Well, that’s a question we can’t ever give a truthful answer to.”

“But how can we just lie?” Anger asked. “Riley has never lied in her life!”

“And she also has never messed up a presentation in a school setting. But you know what they say! Always a first time for everything,” Joy said, still feeling a bit like she could fall over at any time, but at least somewhat able to keep it together for just an hour or two more.

While the others continued their banter, Fear silently manned the console, and it was his actions that determined Riley’s words — after she momentarily put down her food, of course: “It was… I don’t know… there was just so much, and I’m scared to mess anything up…”

No doubt, this conflicted with everything Riley attempted to project previously. “Taking China by the storm” wasn’t just a mantra repeated throughout Headquarters, but also, something that Riley continued to insist on, in the outside world. If she had deviated from it, the others would absolutely react — and it would seem that Mom did.

The emotions didn’t have any way of knowing how Mom took to this. Maybe there was a fantastical world in her mind, too, or something. Yet, right now, they didn’t care, as they still needed to think of how to salvage the Riley situation.

“Well, that’s not the girl I know, if I even know anything about the girl at this point.” Joy duly noted. “Perhaps you should… and no, I’m not relieving anyone of duty again…”

“Indeed, one time is one too much, I would say.” Anger remarked.

“Can we have a conversation without this being mentioned once?” Joy snapped back. “Anyway, what I wanted to say is, we’ve got a lot of experimentation to go through to find a New Riley that is closest to Old Riley. What would she look like with you and Disgust?”

Fear took the hint, and retracted his hands from the console. Just as he did, though, Mom finally made up her mind on what to say, putting a small note in front of Riley: “Say, I was looking around and happened to find a skating rink close by to our place! Here’s the address! Still no luck finding a hockey team — at least, not one for girls — but I think just being on the ice again can be therapeutic, don’t you think so, too?”

This was exactly the sort of thing that Joy wanted to hear, and the sort of thing she had insisted on, just before: that for now, Riley could take small steps to adapt in China, and there was no point in trying to stress yourself out to try and get into a hockey team — with the level at which the Chinese girls’ teams played, and even the existence of such teams, being completely unknown — and just try and get back on the ice while sorting everything else out. She even felt her own body glowing more brightly, somewhat, and almost wanted to step up to the console, herself, only to remember that it still, most likely, wouldn’t do any good.

Perhaps being the undisputed queen of remembering wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.

However, Disgust and Anger merely exchanged looks, being hardly able to believe this woman and what she uttered, seemingly without a second thought — or at least, with the second thought completely and utterly confirming the first — and acted upon the console in silence.

In turn, Riley, who almost wanted to take the note with the rink’s address in front of her, asked: “What is your obsession with trying to help me? Just because you think you can keep your happy girl? And that means learning Chinese and making sure I’m not bullied to suicide somehow takes a back seat to just… skating and forgetting it all? I can’t believe you, sometimes!”

“What just happened? Surely my girl absolutely would take an opportunity to skate and forget it all instead of focusing on grades or friends?” Joy asked.

Mom, on the other hand, wanted to direct Riley’s attention to a different remark of hers. “Bullied to suicide? What even happened? Did the kids already make fun of you? I’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise! I can even ask about taking you to an international school, instead!”

None of the emotions even needed to do anything more at the console, as Riley just continued going off on her own. “Sounds a lot like something you should’ve taken care of before the flight.”

“It’s not that easy, you know?” Mom tried to argue. “There’s only so much you can learn about a school from over the phone or on the Internet! And besides, you’ve told us, right? And had it put on your posters? A bully is just someone whose curiosity is in the wrong place!”

“Did she just quote some of our advice for us? That’s it!” Anger reacted, going for the two big levers from where Joy usually sat.

In response, Riley suddenly stood up, shouting out: “Ugh! If you won’t listen, then why talk at all? Leave me alone!” She then, without even giving a second thought to the remaining pizza or the skating rink address, stormed off, shutting the kitchen door behind herself. She then paced through the apartment, before being able to locate where her sleeping bag was, and shut another door behind herself, before collapsing into a fetal position by the bag.

This, of course, was absolutely not the room where Riley had left her favorite Chinese tablet. Yet, now, the emotions knew that even it couldn’t bring her out of her current mood, and even if she did find it, she probably would’ve smashed it to bits.

For a moment, they were too flabbergasted to say absolutely anything else. Each of them attempted some silent contemplation — perhaps about how Joy’s plan without a plan was a complete failure, or perhaps how Disgust had taken the whole Bully Prime shtick so far that this one negative completely canceled out any and all possible China positives — but the gravity of the situation just didn’t let them do that.

Unlike with other times when the emotions couldn’t figure out what to do with the console, or when they did figure out that inaction was the best form of action, this time, the console continued to shine a bright red, fading very slowly. Whatever got Riley angry — so angry, in fact, that the corresponding emotion only needed to guide her very subtly in order for her to fully burst out — was not something that was disappearing anytime soon, and perhaps, not while Riley was in China.

Yet, for better or for worse, this was who the emotions had to contend with, and perhaps even guide to a bright future, going forward — if there was even a bright future to be had.

Eventually, Dad came home, too, after a long night of work that neither Riley nor Mom could particularly understand. And, of course, Dad, too, would wonder how Riley was doing at school. Yet, no one was ready to make Riley tell him, and without that, he would have to rely on Mom’s recount of the whole situation.

Perhaps it was for the better that for the rest of the night, Riley stayed completely alone with her thoughts and thought forms representing them.

Chapter Text

Of course, the Subconscious Realm was not the deepest Sadness, or any other thought form, could go in the mind. In fact, it barely even scratched the surface.

If Sadness wanted, thanks to the afterglow of the heightened state which led her to do the whole Preschool World transformation, she could “remember” all day long, to the extent of her knowledge about the mind, which was probably more extensive than that of any other thought form. Like an onion, the mind had layers, with the Homunculus at the center, taking in all the feelings, and each new layer processing them in different ways, culminating in the Conscious Realm — the only place where emotions could appear at all.

Yet, gradually, remembering gave way to pure feeling.

There was no need to concern oneself with the pesky minutiae of how the mind worked — and while Sadness had the right cut to go all in on any bit of knowledge she could get, a bit like a fantasy nerd, the job of an emotion just didn’t depend on it. The further down you went, the more you approached pure feeling; the further up you went, the more you approached pure thinking, with Headquarters, the emotions’ home and workplace, being precisely the place where all the higher-level decisions for Riley could be made.

And as Sadness was no longer welcome in Headquarters, the only obvious conclusion was that for now, and possibly for quite a while, she had to preoccupy herself with lower-level feeling, instead of higher-level decisions.

Eventually, though, physical sensations and actions gave way to pure feeling, too.

For whatever reason, even though she had properly stepped through the wooden door leading out of Preschool World, all she saw, even when shining her torch at the “outside”, was dark, foreboding, unlabelled corridors. She was nervous about proceeding, and she kept looking back through the door, at the purest essence of Riley’s toddlerhood, wondering if the Mind Workers there could help her some more.

Yet, as she did, she gradually stopped perceiving concrete objects, such as slides and ladders, in favor of larger-level abstractions, such as the concept of playing around — and of course, getting hurt while playing around. Those abstractions then, too, gave way to even larger-level, very vague feelings that refused to be subdivided, like childish glee and innocence.

And it was those feelings that finally pushed Sadness to start her journey.

She didn’t even realize that she was walking, let alone walking to any specific place — she was more so a free-floating spirit, moving without effort, kind of similar to when she had the flotation device at Imagination Valley — if the level of abstraction that Sadness thought at now would have even allowed her to think of Imagination Valley as a place, rather than inventiveness as a concept.

Yet, she did realize that she was leaving Preschool World behind — even if she didn’t necessarily think of physically moving away from the place.

One of the final pieces of the physical world that Sadness managed to retain thoughts about was, of course, the torch she was carrying, illuminating details for her body to follow, so that she would end up somewhere, rather than nowhere. Yet, eventually, the dark spirit ended up forgetting even that, instead believing that instead, Joy was following her, everywhere in life that she went — and that she was constantly in Joy’s shadow.

And thus, with the physical world remaining but a distant feeling of a memory, Sadness’s journey to consider her place in the mind truly began.

One could potentially say that Sadness’s journey began immediately after leaving Preschool World, having separated from Bing Bong, but that was a level at which she no longer thought. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that the story began when Riley was still a toddler and had just met Meg.

It didn’t take long to realize, even at the age of three and a half, that Meg was a whole world unto herself, just like Riley. She, too, had a family, and a room, and things in the room, and even favorite stories of her own.

And it also didn’t take long for Riley and Meg to stop talking about imaginary friends and fairy tales and start talking about things that really mattered.

Not necessarily politics-level “things that really mattered”, obviously, but rather, things that the two liked to do. This thought somewhat bothered the dark spirit, as she was more so about things that Riley disliked rather than things Riley liked — but that’s not how the conversation went in the past. Both girls would rather they did things that they liked — but, it would seem, Meg didn’t like much.

That was when Riley introduced her to the world of skating and hockey.

This world was pretty much always there in Riley’s life, seemingly as her father always had one ambition too much, and hockey just wasn’t something that he could dedicate his time pursuing. Yet, it was something that he could instill upon his daughter, and every winter, when the lake in the area froze over, he took her on the ice, put skates on her and told her to do her best.

Most kids only learned to walk and then maybe run, and then, took advantage of that in order to play. Yet, for Riley, learning to walk felt almost like a stepping stone that led to learning to skate, and that, too, was naturally followed by learning how to skate with a stick in your hand, and navigate the hockey puck to a goal — even when there were six other people, also on the ice, trying to stop you.

And as such, when Riley met Meg, that was one of the first things that became a shared experience between the two.

Of course, everyone struggled on the ice at first — even Riley, even if memories of that may not have survived to this day. But eventually, Meg had tamed the ice just as much as Riley, and it only made sense for the two to belong on the same hockey team — the Prairie Dogs, created by Riley’s father on a whim, but shortly thereafter abandoned by him, as he had been taken in by different worlds altogether.

And that formed the basis of Riley as a whole — something that the dark spirit now identified with more than any single facet, happy or sad.

Of course, there was still the perpetual shining light, that seemed to never go away for as long as the dark spirit pondered. Yet, that, too, was not really any sort of fantastical emotion character in a literal representation of the mind, but just… the constant reminder that Riley, first and foremost, was known for being happy.

“You’re so funny! It’s like you never stop Smiling! Even when you’re hurt, all you say is ‘don’t worry, I’ll get better’! I wish I was as Happy as you!”

“Isn’t Riley a little miracle? Ever since she was born, she brought so much Joy into our lives. We kept worrying: what if we’re bad parents? What if I’m a bad mother? What if nothing works out? Yet, all I need to do is take a single look at my little bundle of Joy, and all those worries wash away.”

“Please welcome back Riley Andersen, who returned to school after about a month in hospital! Not gonna lie, Riley, things were a lot more glum without you. There’s just this sort of… aura of Happiness around you, that seems to travel with you, you know?”

“You know, every single time the Prairie Dogs lose, I constantly think about all my failures as a coach, and all of the team’s failures, and just the need to push to practice, practice, practice. But that’s the thing: practice alone won’t do good if you’re miserable all the time. That’s where just Enjoying the breeze of air as you glide across the ice comes in, and where such Enjoying ourselves goes, I think we could learn a lot from Andersen over here. Even myself, to be honest.”

Even the adults were constantly looking for advice from Riley on how to keep their Joy in control. That was basically all that she was known for, and arguably, all that she was useful for, with everything else — her academic performance, the Prairie Dogs’ track record, even her deepest and longest-lasting friendships — hinging on that one facet.

And if Riley’s Joy wasn’t in control… then that meant her whole world was falling apart.

It was perhaps the easiest to see in how the others dealt with Riley’s Anger outbursts. She had taken the lesson, really early, that she could just scream and shout at her parents, and they would do everything to calm her down, to get her to be their Happy girl, once again. They would even take Riley to the movies more frequently, or let her have more time on the ice.

Yet, the rest of the outside world didn’t work that way, and when Riley was Angry, they just put her in little circles. And so, the girl learned to express her Anger in a much more subdued way, as cold and calculated resentment, rather than boiling, all-destructive rage.

After Anger was dealt with, it felt like it was Disgust’s turn next. It would seem that more things than usual made Riley feel Icky, and while some, like spiders and flies, were absolutely fine, others, like the sorts of things humans left behind in the bathroom, were not, and Riley needed to learn to deal with them. And so, she slowly learned to carefully manage these things, allowing her to stay clean.

Of course, she didn’t leave everything behind — she still seemingly insisted on gloves when it was too cold, or on utensils for the sorts of foods that everyone else would happily eat with their bare hands. Yet, soon enough, she realized that being Disgusted could mean a lot more than just literal poison, but rather, social “poison”, such as bad friends or ugly clothes.

Yet, seemingly the one feeling that Riley didn’t want to let go of the most was Sadness.

For whatever reason, the dark spirit had a lot of thoughts about how no one ever wanted Riley to be Sad. Sadness, after all, was posed opposite Happiness, more directly than anything else in the mind, and therefore, the presence of one almost necessarily meant the absence of the other.

She never let go, of course. Scraping her knee, or getting a bad grade, or exciting plans being canceled, still made Riley Sad, and there was no attempting to unjustly replace Sadness with Happiness. Yet, she learned to stay Sad in her own room, where no one could see her, and in the late evening, just before going to sleep, when no one could hear her.

And then, the dark spirit realized she was forgetting something: what happened when Riley was Scared.

Often, feeling Scared and feeling Sad went hand in hand. The best example of this, perhaps, came in really, really recently, when her parents first told her they were moving to an impossibly far-away place. All of the consequences — losing Meg, losing everyone she had ever met at school, losing the hockey team, even losing the competing hockey teams — made her both Scared and Sad, and neither of those could happen if Riley was primarily known to be Happy.

It would seem, though, that this precise realization — that Sadness and Fear were in similar positions, almost equally neglected by Joy — started pulling the dark spirit straight out of pure pondering and into perceiving the mind as it was.

Just like how the torch was the last detail to go when she started immersing herself, it was the first detail to return to being perceived as itself, rather than any sort of metaphor, when she started being pulled out of it.

Yet, this presence of a torch — a physical object, obviously held by a gray hand, which couldn’t be a metaphor for anything else — perplexed the dark spirit so much, it started gradually pulling in other details she had so far neglected about the physical world she was navigating, best described with a series of concrete questions, with realistic answers.

For example: why was there a hand holding the torch in the first place? Probably because the hand was part of a body that was physically navigating the Subconscious Realm.

But whose body was it? The particle effect couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than an emotion — at least, if you knew as much about the mind as the dark spirit did. And, out of all of them and their descriptions, the spirit felt most closely aligned to Sadness, so that’s probably who she was.

But why was a torch needed to navigate the Subconscious Realm? Probably to illuminate something.

But what was the torch illuminating? For now, Sadness couldn’t see much, except for the dominant colors of the landscape being blue and purple, among some darker, probably insignificant hues. She remembered something about an event that made her see better, though she wouldn’t be able to tell much else, but even this sort of heightened vision was useless in this case.

Huh; blue and purple, Sadness and Fear. Was this, in any way, significant?

Okay, so telling what sorts of objects Sadness was looking at was still out of the question, even if for a few moments more. But, in the very least, what sort of shape was the room that she was currently navigating? It was long and narrow, with a low ceiling, like some sort of underground archive — or a cellar to store bottled drinks.

Huh, that was oddly specific. Why would Riley’s mind need to provision space for a cellar to store drinks? Unfortunately, right now, Sadness didn’t even have confirmation that there were bottled drinks, let alone an answer to any question about the greater picture of the mind.

But anyway: if the ceiling was low, then surely the torch would light it up better than anything else, allowing for Sadness to look at the material? And, indeed, it did — thankfully, revealing that there was nothing wooden that the torch could potentially burn.

If these hypothetical bottled drinks belonged to some Mind Worker somewhere, they wouldn’t take all that kindly to all of their hard work being destroyed by a rogue intruder — let alone a rogue emotion.

Right, but just in case the shelves were wooden, was there anything else that Sadness could use as a light source, instead of the torch? Luckily, while trekking, she found a gap in the shelves, and by that gap, there were two things: a bucket of water — just normal water, not a blue or a purple one — and a light switch.

She switched on the light and dipped the torch in the water, extinguishing it, before leaving it behind by the water. That, though, was what finally pulled her out of the realm of abstraction and into the real mind, that she could experience the same way as before.

That, however, was when she took a closer look at what the storage was for. Indeed, it looked a bit like bottles, but even picking a blue one up, she realized exactly what it was.

These weren’t drinks at all — well, they could be drunk, but that wasn’t the point of storing them away from the Conscious Realm, where they would be seen by no one and subtly influence no one.

These were bottled memories.

Chapter Text

No one in Riley’s mind fully understood what took her over. Moments ago, though downtrodden and anxious, she was ready to make small steps forward, eat up when she was hungry, and even talk when she was scared. Yet, now, her thought forms were reminded of the reality: that everyone asked for more than what she could deliver, and in the end, she was still, to quote her mother from yesterday, “a small town Yankee girl in the biggest Chinatown in the world”.

Her emotions couldn’t really hear her inner thoughts, but the way she stormed off — mostly angry, but very noticeably clutching her heart — was plenty telling. Three out of four emotions agreed: she was simply overloaded and needed time to cool down — time during which she didn’t want to see her parents at all.

Joy, however, couldn’t shake certain thoughts — even in the face of surrender to this new Riley. What if this was all temporary? What if, when Console Maintenance came over tomorrow, they would be able to fix everything, allow her to feel happiness again, and once again, make her into a happy, harmonious girl, making sure that the rest of the world was happy and harmonious, too?

Nevertheless, Joy still wanted to hear what Riley had to say, and in order to do that, some other emotion’s input would be required. “That was not what I was expecting at all, but apparently, I’m not even one to speak. Care for some summarizing words?”

Hearing Joy’s request, Anger was the first to speak. “Well, for starters, you clearly don’t know how to be a leader anymore, and—”

“I meant from Riley. Console work. Do it.” Joy clarified, not quite ready to face an insurgence against her rule — even if she, herself, agreed that one may be needed.

The others weren’t really sure if Anger should take control like that, given how badly the altercation in the kitchen went down. Yet, despite a multitude of reasons — not the least of which was that if he disobeyed, he could tell Joy to shove it — he felt like the console called to him, and obliged.

He pushed buttons around, before gently pushing on the big lever. As he did, the console once again turned red, and the emotions immediately felt the tension.

“That’s what they deserve.” Riley muttered, clenching her fists, to herself — yet, for all the emotions to hear.

“It sure is!” Anger nodded, devilishly grinning.

Meanwhile, Joy took the moment to jump down from her high chair, toppling it in the process, and walked over to the console, asking herself the hard-hitting question: “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Why am I locked out? Why won’t Riley smile?”

The others didn’t exactly have to move aside; they all had their own chairs, and Joy could simply take the front and center position that she usually did, whenever she worked at the console. However, as she pushed buttons around, they did give her weird glances, and when the console stayed red despite her input, they grew increasingly worried.

“Thinking I have figured everything out and that a well-placed smile, or a walk through the park, will fix everything…” Riley continued cursing her parents, under her breath.

“Ugh! Even you?” Joy suddenly shouted out, not even entertaining a single thing that Riley said from this point on. “Do you know how sick I am from everyone not listening to me? I thought at least my own girl might wanna listen to Mama Joy, but no.”

“No, no, no, we serve Riley, not the other way around!” Fear suddenly spat out.

“He has a point.” Anger agreed.

Seeing Anger, perhaps the most polarizing figure in Headquarters, suddenly come into agreement with both Fear and Disgust, once again, Joy couldn’t take it anymore and lashed out: “Why do you care? Riley’s not an angry girl or a scared girl; she’s a happy girl, and that means listening when I… interact… with the console!” Without looking at the console color, which stayed red and even brightened with every touch, Joy continued doing her thing.

“Well, they can just… nnnnnngh!” Riley, likewise, screamed without realizing what she was doing, suddenly standing up, not caring about anything the others would tell her.

“Looks like she’s an angry girl now.” Anger duly noted, not touching the console; yet, it seemed like his previous touch was all it took for Joy’s input to be registered the same way his would be.

“This is getting really bad! Joy, stop, you’re only making things worse!” Fear screamed out.

“Alright, fine!” Joy spat out as, for the last time today, she slammed the console’s levers, letting herself roll back on her console chair — and, incidentally, crashing into the toppled high chair.

However, even when everyone had just witnessed what trying to make Riley feel anything other than pure unadulterated rage did, and put their hands as far from the console as possible, there was just no stopping her anymore. Through the Consciousness Screen, the emotions continued to be treated to unspeakable horrors, as Riley began kicking stuff around — first, her sleeping bag, which twisted in a corner, and then, the window blinds, which partially detached from their holders, but thankfully didn’t rip.

Finally, Riley went for the big wardrobe — the only “real” piece of furniture in the room. She first slammed its double doors, and as she did, they made a horrifying creak sound. She then hopped up and tried to climb on top of the wardrobe to see if there was anything else that she could let herself out on, but as she did, the entire bulk of wood tipped and began falling towards her.

In a split second, Fear took over and made Riley jump out of the wardrobe’s trajectory. Somehow, despite being terrified by the most minor things, in potentially fatal threats, he always knew exactly when to act up, what to push, and how to keep the situation under control. And besides, throughout years of school-level hockey, he had seen worse.

Finally, the wardrobe fell onto the floor, making the loudest thud that anyone on the Shanghai highrise had heard. Luckily, none of Riley’s belongings, besides the sleeping bag, was even in the room; she wouldn’t be able to bear it if her precious Chinese tablet was crushed, and if the same would have happened to any of her school books, she wouldn’t hear the end of it.

That being said, the mental scar was perhaps too much to bear. It looked like the heart of every single emotion behind Riley’s control deck skipped a beat, as they blankly stared at the carnage that their girl just did. Even as a Formative Memory — a red and purple one, a very rare combination, at least for Riley — rolled in and was whisked away, none of the five dared glance at it, as they were still petrified by the fallen piece of furniture.

Now, the wardrobe’s back side, usually propped up against the wall, was clearly visible in all its dusty glory. Yet, even that was not really what the emotions were looking at. Nothing could distract from just how much frustration their girl let out, and to what lengths she was willing to go to vent said frustration.

However, for tonight, the worst was still to come. While Riley’s emotions didn’t even know if it was possible for her to recover on her own, her parents, as well as the other inhabitants of the Chinese highrise, were certainly alerted. Screams from the distance, all in Chinese and therefore unintelligible to Riley, could be heard, as well as courageous footsteps from the side, towards each room in the apartment which the Andersens had yet to figure out.

Finally, Riley’s father burst in, looking positively furious. He was quick to notice the fallen wardrobe, realize that it was the source of the loud thud heard all across the highrise, then speak up, giving Riley a harsh glare: “Riley Andersen, you’ve stepped over the line.”

Still being the closest to the console, Fear scooted over and began manning it again; having still not recovered from the shock of what happened, the other emotions — even Joy — let him do that.

“No! Don’t hit me! I’ll do anything, I swear!” Riley shrieked, shielding herself with both her arms, making it hard for the emotions to see her infuriated father, but also making it easier for her to defend herself from him.

Memories started flowing in, seemingly all on their own, of similar incidents. None of the emotions would say they were frequent — for the most part, Riley did manage to behave — but they served as a reminder that her father had a darker, no-nonsense, even brutal side to him.

“Well, you can begin by going around, apologizing to everyone you’ve woken up and putting them back to sleep! In fluent Chinese!” he suggested, somewhat sarcastically but still sternly, before continuing: “I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses; you are to never leave my or Mom’s sight for the entire weekend and…”

He trailed off as he looked behind himself, at the other rooms. It would seem he caught a glimpse of Riley’s schoolbag, dropped somewhere else, and seemingly without a care as to whether its content stayed inside. He allowed himself to peek in and notice the Mandarin dictionary and textbook — which just so happened to give him an idea.

“Yeah. Maybe you could do something for me after all.” Riley’s father smiled, calming down somewhat, while picking up the two books, before returning to his cowering daughter. “Your mother and I will still be out; I have work and she has to fill out immigration papers, and you are to stay home, studying, and we’ll check on your progress. You think you’ll be able to have a conversation with me by the time school starts for real?” he finished, handing over the books to Riley; he really tried sounding like he meant well, but came out just as harsh as when he told her that she was grounded.

“Studying all day? And such high expectations already? No! We can’t do this!” Fear screamed out, but before he could make Riley react, Joy jumped in front of him.

“What? No!” she called out. “We don’t want to make Dad even more mad… oh, right, I forgot, console’s not working on me.”

“And have I mentioned that we’re in trouble because of you?” Anger called out, with Disgust, by his side, crossing their arms; indeed, even if Joy was to do what she wanted to do, she would be on her team’s bad side.

“Just… whatever…” Joy reluctantly said, looking over her own back and watching Fear take the metaphorical wheel, as she returned to her high chair.

“I… I don’t know… I’ll try…” Riley muttered.

“Well, as they say: do or do not, there is no try…” Her father objected, but as he did, someone else stepped right beside him. Looking back, he found himself face to face with his wife and Riley’s mother, who was rather unamused by the way he handled the situation.

“Are you trying to make her feel worse than she actually is? Like, actually be honest.” she called out.

“I am trying to make her not actively destroy the apartment!” Dad snapped back.

“And what did she actually destroy? Just the wardrobe, which we’re planning on replacing anyway? I’m sorry, but Riley — our girl — is worth far more than some relic from last century!”

“Right, and if she wants to prove that, she’ll want to get studying, from tomorrow onward!”

“So, this is what we’re doing? Conditional love? If Riley doesn’t learn a whole language to fluency in less than two weeks, we just stop loving her?”

“What’s the big problem, anyway?”

“Have you even tried learning Chinese, or did everyone at your company just learn English, instead?”

Throughout it all, the emotions stayed silent, and with them, Riley herself, continuing to cower behind the books. They didn’t even want to know what got to her parents — they, and Fear first and foremost, just didn’t want to find themselves be the object of shouting again.

Luckily, Mom was the first to realize Riley’s presence — and complete and utter lack of composure. “Oh, dear Riley, our monkey… sorry about your father… we’ll talk once we actually know what to say, okay?” she told her, before motioning to Dad so the two could leave her room.

Once they left, of course, they didn’t stop arguing. However, in the very least, the voices became distant and unintelligible — mere white noise, that no emotion needed to concern themself with.

Disgust, however, was still annoyed, and wanted the sound to be as quiet as possible. “Quick!” they pointed out. “Where’s our favorite Chinese tablet and our earphones?”

“In… the other room. We can get them…” Joy said, wanting to brighten the mood, but was interrupted by Fear.

“But we shouldn’t! I don’t think I can face Dad again today.”

“Right. You’re right. Next best thing, then!” Disgust proclaimed, manning the console.

As it turned out, the “next best thing” was for Riley to tuck herself in her sleeping bag, as deeply as possible, with her legs folding in for some extra depth, and use the sleeping bag’s cushions to cover her ears. This was absolutely not the state anyone wanted to find Riley in, but at this point, the stress from everything that happened during the day, and especially in the evening, was just too much.

And, as it would turn out, this stress was also enough to make Riley start passing out.

As the emotions came up empty-handed as to how to process Dad’s sudden outburst and Mom’s sudden coming in Riley’s defense, her position became more relaxed. As she stretched out her legs, she began fitting more comfortably in her sleeping bag, and as she put her arms close to her heart, the dialogue was already but a minor annoyance, fading with each minute.

And finally, perhaps as the clearest indication of Riley falling asleep, the ambient light in Headquarters began dimming, as the sun set on the mind.

“Okay, well, that was… a day, not gonna lie.” Joy said, once she realized that Riley had fallen asleep. “Want me to summarize it?”

“No? You’re probably the worst thought form for this summary in the entire mind.” Anger responded.

“Oh, hush.” Joy retaliated, before beginning: “Let’s just say my plan didn’t work out, and the day worsened with each passing hour…”

“Only because someone kicked Sadness out.” Anger shot back, with Disgust, now having walked over beside him, nodding and silently judging.

“Look, it was necessary, okay? She stepped over the line, and has been doing so repeatedly…” Joy tried to explain herself, but none of the other emotions were having it.

“Well, maybe you stepped over the line.” Anger suggested.

Now, Disgust knew they had to act, lest the argument between Anger and Joy evolve into another physical fight — potentially, even one that woke Riley up. “Alright, that’s enough! Why don’t we stop arguing, settle who is doing Dream Duty for the night and—”

“Well, that’s definitely not gonna be me, between me doing it last time and… the console thing.” Joy responded, crossing her arms.

“If you’re so eager to bring it up, maybe you should do it.” Anger suggested, also doing the same.

“Me? Of course not! I’m not one to…” Disgust’s usual self started, but then, they realized that if they accepted, the matter would be resolved more quickly. “You know what? Fine. I’ll do the stupid Dream Duty. Is that what you want?”

“What I want is for tomorrow to remedy today, with us watching each other…” Joy answered, but was interrupted.

“Especially you.” Anger shot back, with one of his typical, snappy responses that somehow managed to be exactly on point, every single time.

Joy, instead, put her arms up in defense. “Nope! I’m not having this. I’m too tired!” she exclaimed, taking the toppled high chair with her to her dorm; Anger and Fear were quick to follow, leaving Disgust all alone for Dream Duty.

Their first instinct, of course, was to try and recall something that would help them forget everything that had happened thus far. However, they found that Dream Theatrical Studios, despite not showing any dreams as of yet, had already taken control, and all Disgust’s handling of the console did was start to bring the real world — with Mom and Dad’s argument seemingly still ongoing — into the Consciousness Screen.

“Right. If Riley fell asleep, she should probably stay asleep.” they noted to themself, while still in the departing emotions’ earshot.

However, Joy turned out to be a lot more complacent — and, in a way, macabre — with how she dealt with the situation. Having gotten to her room, she placed the high chair by her bathtub. She then looked over at the water level in the bathtub: a lot of it had evaporated, but there was still some residue, which would need to be drained; sticking her hand into the water, she opened the drain, before using her Imagination to send the entirety of the bath’s content, including the traces of water that made the bathtub walls wet, down the drain.

Finally, she plugged the drain again, sat on her high chair and let herself lean back and fall into the bathtub. As she did, she, of course, hit her head twice, first on the faucet, then on the hard bathtub walls, and that was enough of a shocker to make her go unconscious.

“Too tired…” she muttered, without even realizing that she had muttered it.

Chapter Text

Of course, there was nothing in the rulebook that said that bottled memories couldn’t be drunk — or at least, there probably wouldn’t be, if there was a rulebook at all. In fact, Sadness could really see how each color of bottled memory would be an enticing, family-friendly drink: orange juice for Joy, grape juice for Fear and so on.

Even then, instead of being defeated by thirst, she kept thinking about what it meant for a memory to be bottled, and consequently, what taking a sip from one of those bottles could mean.

The reason these were so brightly-colored, while most Mental Notes and even processed memories were pale, was because, in order to make these, a large bulk of Mental Note material had to be distilled into a pure element of Imagination. Therefore, it was easy to understand that while normal memories, like the ones in Piano Field, could already bring her down to her knees, bottled memories were a million times more potent than that.

And so, Sadness thought about the possibility. Feeling even more of herself than she already did would probably be fine, but as for the purple, her best guess was that it would end up amplifying her fears — that neither Joy nor Bing Bong cared about her at all, that every other thought form just wanted to be as far away from her as possible, and so on — and make her behavior completely unpredictable, possibly justifying everything the others thought of her.

It would seem that this sort of negativity was already spiraling before Sadness had even touched a bottled memory, and once it was, she knew that even a sip would send her off the deep end.

What else about bottled memories could Sadness remember? Oh, right: Mind Workers, on their own, would have never gone through the trouble of making so many bottled memories — unless an order for them came directly from Headquarters.

And that was when it started clicking, illuminating everything Sadness had experienced thus far, just like how lightbulbs illuminated the cellar after a single switch was flipped.

Joy wasn’t just suppressing her and Fear, the actual emotions working in Headquarters. Whenever any traces of her and Fear’s elements of Imagination could be found in the day’s Mental Notes anyway, she also ordered for those to be directly extracted, potentially rendering the recall power of the memories useless.

Joy would literally sacrifice Riley’s own ability to remember — let alone that of the other emotions — just so Sadness and Fear could figure in Riley’s life as little as possible, and deliberately employed the worst way to deal with this sort of overflow.

Well, second worst, right after directly relieving Sadness of duty.

This was too much to take in, even based on Sadness’s thoughts alone — and just before she sat down and buried her head in her knees, she made sure to check that she hadn’t drunk from any of the bottled memories, even by accident.

It would probably take a miracle to get her out of here at all, at this point — and even if she was out of here, what would the point be?

That, however, was when Sadness overheard Mind Worker voices, one male and one female, actively discussing work in the vicinity. And, given that the cellar had an echo of its own, and the echo was absent from the voices, they must have been tending to the Memory Lane directly above.

“Right, well, orders are orders, and Riley will need to learn a new language, or even several, and that means a lot of space might need to be cleared. So, something has to go, right here.” the male voice began.

“But why right here? Why not Piano Field, which is where the Formative ended up?” the female voice curiously asked.

“Because! When we looked over from the Train and saw just a gaping gap of nothing — that wasn’t nothing just a few moments ago! That was Preschool World, and it seems we have to thank someone for getting rid of it. And now, we’re working in that empty space, and making it bigger. So, if we can get rid of stuff close by, by either forgetting or filing it away somewhere else… we can actually get this Chinese Field up and running!”

“As always, you’re right, Winston.”

“Glad to be always right, Julia. Now, let’s see over here… American presidents?”

“Wow, looks like Riley did not pay attention in History class, at all.”

“And more importantly, Riley cannot ever be caught worshiping American presidents in China. She should start learning about Chinese… well, not presidents, they’re a dictatorship… if a memory of them ever rolls in, that could actually be a great start to Chinese Field… suppose we could ever convince Headquarters to do that?”

“Would be a nice change from you just surreptitiously swapping anything they want to recall with the gum commercial.”

“But it’s funny! And besides, if I start singing the song, I know you’ll follow along. It’s just that great, isn’t it?”

“Winston, please, we still have a clearing to focus on—”

“TripleDent Gum will make you smile…”

“TripleDent Gum, it lasts a while!” Julia suddenly sang, and it was the reminder that this song ever existed which finally made Sadness stand up and turn her attention to the bottled memories again.

Now that the initial shock of learning of the full extent of Joy’s crimes had settled, Sadness needed a way to figure out how the damage could ever be reversed.

Even though the fact of the making of these bottles was nothing but a hindrance to Riley, the bottles themselves, it would seem, were almost a boon. In small enough doses, they could be used to make everyone feel either sad or scared, and truly understand where Sadness and Fear were coming from.

Ideally, the target of this sort of forced empathy would be the other emotions, and especially Joy, but Sadness still didn’t expect to ever be able to return to Headquarters. However, if she would never see another emotion again, she could still make a huge impact by getting every Mind Worker and Figment intoxicated. She could perhaps even pour out some on the memories, like ones of happy times between Riley and Meg, tainting them with the sadness of knowing that Riley will never see Meg again.

However, to even come close to executing this, Sadness would need a lot of bottles.

Luckily, the cellar had a near-limitless supply of bottled memories, and instead, the main limiting factor appeared to be Sadness’s capacity to carry them. Her purse wasn’t exactly bottomless, after all.

Yet, she figured that she might have an idea.

Sadness reached into her purse and pulled out her Mind Reader issue. Just as she did, though, she was momentarily distracted by the front page headline, which was different from last time: “PARENTS’ FINAL VERDICT: NO FRIENDS FOR RILEY”.

She couldn’t be distracted by reading what was in the article, though. The paper was merely a useful item — and if need be, she could always just get another one from Imagination Valley. After all, everything over there was given away for free, wasn’t it?

She once again took a blue bottle and carefully wrapped it in the newspaper. As she did, though, she noticed that, as though by pure magic (or Imagination), the bottle disappeared within the paper.

Unless it was explicitly thrown into a Vortex of Forgetting, nothing ever truly disappeared from the mind — and if it did, the pure Imagination and Consciousness content would immediately be recovered and dissipate throughout the air, ending up in pretty much the same effect as if the bottled memory was drunk. However, Sadness understood what was really going on: the newspaper had created a small pocket space which was able to contain the bottle without even showing a hint of filling up — exactly what she needed to get away with stealing as many bottled memories as possible.

Well, it wasn’t exactly “stealing” if she was the rightful owner of any blue bottled memory that was ever produced behind her back. It was more so… letting Riley know that being sad about certain things was okay. But some — especially Winston and Julia, if they were ever to come by — might get mad, regardless, as Mind Workers, especially Librarians, didn’t like it when things were moved without their prior knowledge.

Sadness was swift, wrapping and hiding blue bottle after blue bottle, making sure to pick up one purple bottle, too — just in case Fear was ejected from Headquarters just like her, and needed to be caught up on what happened. Yet, she was also attentive, continuing listening to the Librarians above herself.

And she was glad that she divided her attention like that, because this, and this only, allowed her to overhear Winston saying: “You know, that’s just the surface level. Now, I’m not proposing that we clean up all of the Subconscious Realm, too, but we just might want to check if, on the basement floor, there’s anything to clear out.”

“But how? You don’t suppose there’s just a convenient trapdoor that we can use to get down?”

“Oh, what do you know! There is!” With this, the brilliant light of the Conscious Realm — or, in the very least, the Consciousness Grid, as it seemed that night had already fallen upon the mind — shone through, and two Mind Workers descended into the cellar.

Sadness had already reacted. She hastily put The Mind Reader back in her purse, before walking over to where blue bottles were still in plentiful supply and curling up in a fetal position once again. She had largely learned to ignore the effects of being in the presence of so many sad and painful memories, but pretending like she hadn’t was perhaps the best way not to arouse suspicion, as the cellar didn’t exactly give many opportunities for hiding.

Nevertheless, she peeked up, as though to try and fail to recover, and spotted Winston and Julia with her own eyes for the first time. As she expected, they were of the typical Mind Worker build, with teal bodies and not much in the way of clothes except for construction hats, but where they really differed was the small things and the attitudes.

With every bit of his wardrobe and attitude, Winston really showed he was laid back, like that one skeleton character in a game Riley played once. He wore his construction hat backwards, had partly closed his eyes just to accentuate that smug look, and walked without a single care in the world.

In contrast, Julia was a lot more modest and regimented. She had tied her hair up pretty well, so that only small bangs peeked out of her own construction hat, and she constantly walked with her hands behind her back and held together, so that she would never bump into anything or destroy anything.

As Sadness was able to get a pretty good look at them, it probably went without saying that they were able to get a pretty good look at her, too — and instantly reacted. Winston was the first to speak: “Oh, wow, a Figment lost between the bottled memories. What a poor soul; too bad she probably made the choice to descend to the cellar herself!”

“Even if that’s true, we should probably get her back up and into her home.”

“But surely, if we just throw her into a Vortex, none will be the wiser? What happens in the cellars, stays in the cellars, am I right?”

Sadness was horrified that this guy would go so far as to kill her when he had barely met her. Of course, she was simultaneously confused: she thought it was pretty well-established that emotions couldn’t die, so what would even happen if she were thrown into a Vortex? Would it just refuse to eat her, or would the particles of Imagination be so powerful as to make her appear somewhere else?

Yet, the horror dominated Sadness’s feelings, especially as Winston and Julia hadn’t used the E word yet, meaning that they would do things to her that they wouldn’t do to a recognized emotion. And though she was mostly around blue bottled memories, the effect from the purple ones started catching up to her, too, making her collapse in a wave of feelings that she wasn’t yet attuned to.

Julia, likewise, was pretty disgusted by Winston just casually making a joke about thought form death. “Ugh! You always say these things! That’s why no one wants to tend the Memory Lanes together with you!”

“But I need an escort! Those primarily tasked with clearing up are always accompanied by someone from a department that’s being cleared up, so that they don’t accidentally throw something important out! Or someone, in this case. And since we’re around Romantic Fantasies right now, you get to tag along! Isn’t that right, my love?”

Yet, Julia didn’t care about appeasing Winston’s ego anymore. “Because apparently, you can’t even use the single brain cell you were given to figure out that killing a random thought form you just met probably isn’t the best idea.”

“Just calm down and get on with the job, will ya?”

“No, you should get on with the job, and my department is the last one I want you to touch! Next time, you can talk to Sam of Language Acquisition instead, because as soon as I make sure this Figment’s safe, I’m out!” With this, Julia attempted to run closer to Sadness — possibly to get on her good side, let her stand on her two feet and take her out of the cellar — but instead, tripped and fell, due to Winston extending a leg where someone else’s leg had no business being.

Before Julia could even react, Winston swiped one of the purple bottles, jumped straight over her and towards Sadness, before smashing the bottle straight over the edgy emotion’s head.

“Ha! Now that you’re stained with all purple, you will become scared of us and instantly leave, and we can…” Winston started saying, but before long, his voice faded into nonsense for Sadness, and likewise for Julia’s response, as the edgy emotion stopped perceiving them as Mind Workers and started seeing embodiments of Riley’s darkest fears — in particular, broccoli heads.

Needless to say, the thought of sentient broccoli heads chasing Sadness was terrifying, and she ran away from them as far as she could. However, it would seem only one of them was following after her and further scaring them; which one it was didn’t matter, as Sadness was consumed by primal fear that much.

So, she ran.

Before herself, she no longer saw a cellar filled with blue and purple bottles, but rather, a twisted office space out to consume every last bit of her during Riley’s adult life. And even her purse seemed to constantly leak blue, as though she was afraid of losing what she had nabbed.

Overall, not a great state to be in, and if bottled memories were ever to be consumed by any other thought form at Sadness’s insistence, it would have to be in much lesser quantities — in moderation, as adults would say.

For now, though, the only thing that mattered was running away from the sentient broccoli head — at least, until a second broccoli head emerged on the opposite end of the twisted office space.

Even when caught up in complete delirium, Sadness was somehow able to realize that one of these broccoli heads was Winston and the other one was Julia. Yet, there was no telling which was which, and even if she could tell that, she still wouldn’t know which one was the better choice to fall victim to — even Julia seemed to be nice just for the sake of more respect from her superiors.

So, for the moment, Sadness kept an equal distance from both of them, as best as she could manage. However, during this phase, she quickly realized that they were closing in on her.

This is it, she thought. The Mind Workers finally caught up with her, and they would throw her into a Vortex, and she would die. And yet, no one would even think of her death as being a death, but rather, mere cleanup so that space could be made for Chinese Field.

Then, as they were just about to catch up to her and grab her by both arms on either end, she noticed that there was some sort of ladder in the twisted office space, seemingly leading to a cellar floor — which Sadness gladly took, just to be able to survive one more minute.

That being said, once she was up there, the effects of the bottled memory started quickly wearing off. It would seem she was not on a cellar floor, but on the surface level of the Conscious Realm, and Winston and Julia, who were most definitely not sentient broccoli heads, were now on the level below. There was still no telling which of the two had the bright idea to try and chase Sadness from the other side, but it seemed to work, as the two were able to effectively guide her straight to an exit from the bottled memory cellar — completely unscathed, she might add, as once her particles had cleared, she was able to see that there was no spillage from her purse after all.

And finally, she was able to overhear the conversation between the two again, starting with Winston declaring: “And that does that! Now that the weird gremlin of darkness is gone, we can finally start thinking what to do with all these bottled memories!”

“And I can start thinking how to talk to our superiors so that you’re reassigned to somewhere where your annoying smartypants attitudes don’t matter as much. Of course, if there’s no such placement…”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Mind Workers can’t be fired, ever!”

And until earlier today, we all knew the same held for emotions, Sadness thought, still careful to not say the E word in front of someone like Winston.

Chapter Text

To be fair, Disgust started regretting the choice to go on Dream Duty almost immediately.

They were by no means a slacker, and whenever called for Dream Duty from an external leader — even a leader as questionable as Joy — they would gladly accept. However, they were a bit of a conformist, too, and putting themself in more trouble than necessary was something that they wanted to avoid.

This was not to say that Disgust never allowed themself to have opinions — after all, if they hadn’t, Riley would gladly love playing in dirt and putting dirt in her mouth, almost constantly. Yet, ultimately, they knew that their own opinions had to be synchronized to Riley’s, and it was figuring those opinions out, just by looking at the compendium of memories that had formed since Riley’s childhood, that was the biggest difficulty of an emotion’s work.

All of this didn’t matter, though, because Disgust offered to go on Dream Duty, and they’d better follow up on their word, whether they liked it or not, as all the others had already gone to bed. They thus pulled away Joy’s central office chair, put up the sofa for that extra amount of comfort, and put it in the office chair’s place so that they would have easy console access. The sofa still turned out to be way too low to sit on, especially for someone as short as Disgust, so they also put a pillow on it for the complete ergonomic setup.

Ordinarily, Disgust wouldn’t go for something as difficult and menial as pushing a sofa around, for the sole purpose of comfort. However, for one, everyone else was already dozing off, and calling for their help was out of the question. And for another thing, they had a duty to perform, and wouldn’t take any risks in getting less comfortable, especially if they wanted to be of any use throughout the rest of the day.

Maybe it was just an inevitability, and Disgust would end up being just as much of a hindrance for Riley tomorrow as Joy was today. But somehow, they knew that they could prevent it.

Now that that basic part of preparation was done, Disgust could pass the time until the first dream of the night with their best friend, at least in circumstances like this — their own thoughts.

Just like Joy, Disgust saw the output of Dream Theatrical Studios as something that preferred slapstick over originality. After all, their goal was to provoke emotion, the essence of Imagination, in the strongest possible degree, and they would strive to achieve that no matter what, even if the end result ended up… sub-par for any critical eyes.

Unlike Joy, though, Disgust wouldn’t really be one to complain about it. They knew that just like real movie studios, Dream Theatrical Studios existed in their own cultural bubble, with a “closed-doors policy” or whatever it was that Joy was constantly ranting about. And they understood that such a cultural bubble existed for a reason, and it was no one’s, and especially no emotion’s, business to complain about it.

They also would be the last emotion to try and wake Riley up in the middle of the night. Indeed, it was the case that Dream Theatrical Studios attempted to push every single one of their buttons, and those of the other emotions, at the same time. Yet, where Joy had exhilaration, Sadness had depression, Fear had primal terror, and Anger had primal rage, all of which were really good reasons for a premature awakening, Disgust just had shaking their head and crossing their arms — and more importantly, doing it away from the console.

Yet, they supposed, at least one other emotion that they listed in their thoughts didn’t understand keeping her hands away from the console as a crucial part of Headquarters work, leading to her untimely departure.

Right, ugh, the departure. For whatever reason, for the rest of the day, Joy seemingly really didn’t want any thoughts to fall on the incident, or even Sadness herself, and it almost seemed like she overheard not just dialogue, but also thoughts, instead directing them to something else, like how Riley will immediately out-class the best of Asian prodigies at hockey.

Spoiler alert: that was happening approximately never.

Yet, it didn’t matter, as now, everyone else was gone, and Disgust had the sweet time to actually think what Sadness was like, throughout the years, and what she brought to the mind that will be missed — even if Joy, if awake, would immediately talk about how nothing will be missed, how she’s an amazing leader and how Riley should focus on something else.

Ironically, it was actually Joy, herself, who seemed to spend the most time with Sadness, leaving Disgust to mostly tend to the others, and therefore, never get a good glimpse into Sadness’s behavior. Yet, if Disgust ever tried to recite a Sadness post-mortem based solely on Joy’s testimony, odds were, she would never be able to work out a single reason why Sadness was missed.

Besides the obvious one, that the five elements of Imagination necessarily needed to work in harmony in order for Riley to be a well-balanced human being, of course.

They thought long and hard, but even after a good minute, Disgust couldn’t think of a second reason to add to that first one, really showing that there was still one undisputed queen of remembering in the mind, and it wasn’t them. Yet, they also knew that the undisputed queen of remembering shouldn’t be the one to steal the show, and though on any other opportunity, Disgust would quickly catch a few minutes of well-deserved beauty sleep, this time, they just couldn’t let Joy win.

Eventually, Disgust was able to form something that could at least begin the second reason: it would seem Sadness was the only reason why Riley had such a good relationship with her mother. Yet, before those thoughts could be formulated into proper sentences, the first dream of the night had already managed to begin — first with abstract shapes, that quickly started to take concrete forms, that Disgust would need to pay attention to, right away.

Alright, looks like not even Riley herself wants me to think about Sadness. Duly noted, Disgust thought, directing their attention towards the Consciousness Screen.

What ended up emerging looked like a classroom — not any particular classroom from Riley’s life, but simply a classroom, free of cultural preconceptions. Now that Riley had seen two different kinds of classrooms — many in America and at least one in China — this kind of cultural neutrality was really easy to pull off, creating the perfect “dream land” classroom that blended not just America and China, but also, modern and vintage elements, with a projector alongside a blackboard.

That being said, at least one element of the classroom wasn’t neutral, that being the writing, that superficially looked like Chinese. Yet, Disgust quickly figured that the alleged Chinese writing meant absolutely nothing, and was merely there for show.

Did Riley even know the first thing about deconstructing Chinese writing? Even if she had mastered some aspects of it, could a completely different font — say, one analogous to serif and sans-serif fonts in English — completely fool her?

Those were the big questions to be answered… on the next day. For now, Disgust had to focus on the plot of the dream, whatever it was going to be.

While there was a near-countless amount of stories that one could set in a school environment, the presence of a classroom, seemingly in the middle of a lesson, limited things by quite a bit. Dream Theatrical Studios could go for just a typical explanation of the curriculum, or for announcing and immediately conducting a previously unknown pop quiz (most likely, to get Fear to act up), or for presentations that the students did, including but not limited to — would Riley’s attempted, and completely failed, introduction at the previous day’s party count?

They supposed that it wasn’t a complete failure — at least some crucial details about Riley’s life did manage to make it to the ears of the teacher, and maybe even Bully Prime, dependent on what was shared between the two. Yet, Dream Theatrical Studios, as established previously, weren’t exactly known for nuance, and could only depict Riley either making a speech so great she instantly becomes President, or failing to say even a single word.

Speaking of Bully Prime, there she was, in the dream, just like how Joy drew her.

Almost exactly like Joy drew her.

Wait, how did that drawing even get from Headquarters all the way to Dream Theatrical Studios? Were the emotions constantly monitored by the Mind Workers or something?

Nevermind for now; there was still a dream plot to follow along.

Whatever the dream plot was, it would probably be for the best if any actor had the decency to convey it in English words. Yet, it would seem that “decency” and “Dream Theatrical Studios” didn’t exactly mix, and the end result was speech that sounded like English had been passed through a bad Chinese filter. Yet, Imagination had its ways, and Disgust, nevertheless, perfectly understood — as much as they were willing to pay attention, that is, which was merely to get the broad strokes — in this case, that indeed, the day’s introduction was the thing being taken inspiration from, with the teacher calling Riley to the front of the class.

And, as expected, she attempted to begin speaking, but couldn’t, instead beginning to choke on a mixture of tears and anxiety.

Ugh. It would seem like every dream for which Disgust was on Dream Duty, and even many on which they weren’t, were about choking. And it always came with Disgust, themself, choking. They got that the feelings of the dream directly passed to the emotion on Dream Duty; they just wished that choking wasn’t a dream trope to begin with.

What happened next, though, took Disgust a bit aback. Riley started to cough on whatever was holding her up, and seemed to spit out a handful of teeth. And of course, this was immediately noticed by one of the boys in the crowd, who said as much — as though Dream Theatrical Studios thought that at least one emotion wouldn’t notice.

Teeth just seemed to be falling out of everywhere, including Riley’s hair — or at least, that’s what Disgust assumed, as it was one of the few reasonable interpretations for why teeth could be falling before her eyes. The other one — that Riley’s mouth was above her eyes — would have led to Riley looking like a monstrosity who would never be allowed into the classroom in the first place, let alone given a stage of her own.

Nevertheless, pondering whether or not Dream Theatrical Studios thought that Riley really was an inhuman monstrosity would have to wait, as it was Bully Prime’s time to shine. It appeared as though she was pointing out that Riley came to school with no pants on, and when Riley looked down — purely of her own accord, without any console input, as Disgust had already figured that any input could wake her up — that was exactly what she saw: only pale bare leg skin.

This was literally an offense of the worst possible degree to Disgust, and they couldn’t help but scoff. They would never neglect dressing up, especially for formal situations like school, as egregiously as that, and if anything, pants were their favorite article of clothing, as the alternative to skirts and dresses that accentuated everything, from Disgust’s favorite Island of Personality of them all, Tomboy Island, to their own pronoun preference.

Yet, it would seem that Dream Theatrical Studios didn’t care, having turned this whole thing, where Riley realizes she isn’t covering her legs — and potentially, even that between her legs — up with anything had already morphed from a common trope to an actual movie poster, that they even tried sending to Headquarters, as though there were any dream aficionados among the emotions. Yet, Disgust only needed to look at the title, Where Are My Pants?, to know that this was to be immediately returned to the sender.

Yet, none of that mattered, and the brand new dream with brand new clichés, Where Are My Pants?: China Edition, continued with Riley, having noticed her gaffe, turning back to the audience in order to see just how bad the reactions of the other students were. Yet, as it would seem, there was no “back”: in violation of most if not all rules of public speaking, audience surrounded Riley from all sides, and neither the floor below nor the ceiling above provided any clues for how she arrived here — or how she could escape, given that the pants situation was an emergency that needed to be taken care of before anything else.

Or so they thought — and Dream Theatrical Studios, it would seem, had other plans. Instead, they decided to add the teacher to the mix of students making fun of Riley — not as a comforting force or one telling the bullies to step up, but one that really spoke about the disappointment of an adult, with her words being like chains that bounded Riley further and further.

Literal chains that bounded Riley further and further, Disgust immediately noted; dreams would be nothing without metaphors taken literally, it seemed.

This sort of visual metaphor, actually, was too clever for Dream Theatrical Studios, unless… did the Reality Distortion Filter come to assist them, in any way? It seemed as though they mostly relied on that device, perhaps the single object imbued with the most Imagination other than the emotions themselves and the Formative Memories, to do most of the dirty work, and focused on making dreams on as low a budget as possible — something that would be needed to deliver… however many dreams happened during the night.

Yet, for now, how well Dream Theatrical Studios would fare compared to a studio assembled by Riley’s classmates didn’t matter, as that seemed to be the end of the dream. In time, the chains completely surrounded Riley, and the Consciousness Screen went dark, as the laughs and remarks subsided and became the eerie silence of the night, signifying that Riley had once again entered a deep sleep phase.

“Well, one dream down, some five or six to go!” Disgust proclaimed sarcastically, before suddenly covering their mouth, realizing that they spoke aloud during Dream Duty.

This remark made them realize something, though: some five or six dreams would be impossible to survive without any sort of refreshments.

Ordinarily, the emotions didn’t need to eat or drink. Yet, food and drink definitely helped to settle some of their more erratic moods. Therefore, Disgust was going to take the deep sleep phase as an opportunity to make themself some tea — without sugar, just the way they liked it — and make it the perfect cup, to contrast… whatever they just saw.

Taking a break and standing up, Disgust looked around the darkened environment of Headquarters. Though locating stuff in the darkness was a task easier said than done, they were eventually able to locate a kettle and some tea bags between the shelves. The water was more tricky, but luckily, there was a faucet in their own personal room, which they would always use to wash their hands before and after the day; they took this as an opportunity to have all of the tea-making process take place in their room, for various reasons, not the least of which was the desire not to spill hot water all over their feet.

And thus, warm cup of tea in hand, Disgust went back down by the console and plopped back onto the pillows on the sofa they had moved, quietly sipping the drink — each gulp of which brought them newfound energy to stay up throughout the night — and waited.

Chapter Text

In the deep mind, there was little hope to be had.

The incident with the Mind Workers proved just how difficult it was for Sadness to find anything that she could hook onto, anyone who she could call a friend. The closest that she had seen today, perhaps, was Bing Bong, but even he had certain differences in the way he perceived Riley — differences that led to their inevitable separation.

And Sadness didn’t know what hurt more: the idea of having no one, or the idea of having someone, only for that someone to directly betray her.

She also didn’t know what to think about the bottled memories. It validated her somewhat that she wasn’t the only emotion constantly put down by Joy, and that Fear had received a similar treatment. If she ever got back, that would definitely be a talking point, and the two could hopefully do something about Joy.

But once again, that came with a big if and an ever-shrinking probability. What were her options, even? Go back to Bing Bong, admit that actually, the idea to Make Riley a Little Girl Again was great and could be executed without any ill effects, thereby foregoing not just Riley’s well-being, but also, her own element of Imagination? Or trek through the empty space left behind by Preschool World — one that she, herself, made — and hope that some sort of princess character looks past that, bestows Sadness with a purpose, and brings her back to Headquarters on a magical carriage?

And these were the two most realistic options, by the way, with no one except for Figments even caring to listen to what she said. All the Mind Workers treated her as a nuisance, possibly even ascending to the level of a witch who must be burned at the stake, and all the emotions were probably listening to the nonsense that Joy spouted about her being useless.

The only reason why they could do so, obviously, was because Sadness really was everything they stated she was: useless and a nuisance.

Even so much as looking up at the Consciousness Grid, now much more visible as night had fallen upon the mind, reminded her of that. The color of each Formative Memory was clearly visible, allowing Sadness to immediately assess and generalize: mostly gold, some of red, purple, and green, and searching for blue in Riley’s Consciousness Grid was probably more difficult than searching for a needle in a haystack. It reinforced how much she was hurt in the world that didn’t belong to her, and could never belong to her; a world she didn’t belong to, and could never hope to belong to.

More importantly than anything, though, Sadness felt sleepy.

All the signs were there. The sight of the Consciousness Grid became a blur in her eyes, and she simply couldn’t make heads nor tails of what was beside her, next to the little hub, one of many hubs that led down to the cellars storing all the bottled memories. In addition, her own thought processes became progressively more fatigued, with jumps of logic that led to contradictions and her getting confused.

If she really wanted, she could stay up all night. It would be just like Dream Duty, except outside of Headquarters. However, this drowsiness was stronger than usual, and for the most part, during Dream Duty, there would be something to watch, broadcast straight from Dream Theatrical Studios. These were the only Mind Workers who stayed up at night, and without them, she had no one to watch and no one to talk to, and boredom would get to her faster than the drowsiness did, with the same end result: laying down, closing her eyes and letting the night take her to the morning.

Except… her new predicament posed a new challenge. Back in Headquarters, she had her own room, and reasonable expectations of privacy, as no one, other than the other emotions, would ever knock on her door, and even the other emotions — yes, even Joy — knew better than to step inside. If she were to settle here, with no shelter whatsoever, then, come the morning, she would be spotted by at least one Mind Worker.

And, needless to say, she had learned from experience, both with and without Bing Bong, that these guys didn’t really like emotions — with some, like Winston, even joking about outright killing her.

Part of Sadness started telling her the story for why Winston, as well as Joy, Bing Bong, and everyone else hating on her was right. Yet, for now, the edgy emotion found herself driven by survival instinct first and foremost, and survival instinct told her one thing: she needed to find a place to crash, and fast.

Thus, she started walking, leaving a trail of relatively small blue flames, which quickly died down, behind herself.

At first, she didn’t walk in any particular direction. However, she found herself constantly looking up, as if to stargaze, and there, among the blur of the lights that made up the Consciousness Grid, she spotted another source of light: searchlights, which, coupled with massive clouds of artificial fog, pierced the sky of the mind.

This was Dream Theatrical Studios. With any hope, she could watch a dream, from the inside.

Eventually, Sadness chanced upon a long, red carpet. This let her know that she was in the right direction; after all, long, red carpets could be associated with movie stars and premieres, and those could be associated with big-budget studios, and that could be associated with the desire to make the best entertainment possible in Riley Andersen’s mind come to life.

Interestingly enough, Dream Theatrical Studios had two distinct gates: a big, fancy gate, decorated with illustrations of a crescent moon and Zs, and a small, rudimentary gate, the type you would spot at a railroad crossing, complete with a little booth, where a guard sat, also half-snoring.

At least now, she knew that she wasn’t the only thought form staying up past her prime.

Instead of approaching either of the gates, Sadness instead paced towards the booth, where she asked the guard, in her best voice: “Could I come in? Just, you know, for a tour?”

“A tour?” the Mind Worker responded. “Yeah, that ain’t happening unless you happen to know one of us.”

Sadness knew the most sure-fire way to assert that perhaps, she did: to out her status as an emotion. Yet, she knew that this was also the most sure-fire way to attract Mind Workers with ill intentions. Nevertheless, working with this premise, but more subtly, she pointed out: “If the President of China ever came to visit Riley in her apartment, the emotions would certainly invite them in!”

“Well, who are you, in Riley’s mind? Just a nobody! So stop wasting my time and get out!” the guard shot back, and Sadness reluctantly complied, scooting away from the booth.

In part, she was relieved that her status as an emotion wasn’t revealed in plain sight. However, this also meant that she wasn’t getting into Dream Theatrical Studios anytime soon, and therefore, she still needed somewhere to crash.

Wasn’t there something like villas for all the cast and crew of the facility, that they slept in? Surely, since they worked at night, they wouldn’t check their villas until morning, and she could get away with napping for a while, unnoticed.

This was a dangerous mentality to get fixated on, however. Just because the others disregarded basic decency while dealing with Sadness, didn’t mean that she could reciprocate — or else, if she truly had no regard for the unwritten rules of the mind, she would already be marching through the Dream Theatrical Studios gate.

That was when, looking to the side along the walls which defined the border of the facility, Sadness noticed a familiar silhouette.

She didn’t need to remind herself who it was, or sing a song to get his attention; this time, she knew for a fact — remembered, if you will — that it was Bing Bong. That, alone, brought forward bad memories, but in the end, Bing Bong was the only thought form who understood Sadness’s new status, and if anyone could comfort her, it was him.

And if no one could comfort her, she would be a goner within a week.

She began moving, with little calculated steps, towards the silhouette. Once she was right by his side, though, she realized that she had been holding her breath as well, so as to not make a single sound, and suddenly began gasping, heavily breathing in and out.

This gave Bing Bong a good scare, and he jolted back, screaming: “Sadness! What are you doing here? Did you… decide that I do have a point after all?”

The scream served to bring her to full awareness, but not to a point where she could properly logically think out her next action; all that she could lazily think about was that she still didn’t want to talk about the ideological difference between the two. Instead, almost out of context, she murmured: “…is there a way I could get into the big dream factory?”

“Of course you can!” Bing Bong continued excitedly voicing. “But you’re not gonna have much success going through the front gate, I know that much. Luckily, there’s a backdoor, right this way!”

Instinctively, Sadness turned back to the guard’s direction. Had he overheard the entire conversation? Did he catch that Sadness was planning to trespass, or worse, that she was an emotion? However, she had to move on and see where Bing Bong took her.

He happened to take her to an otherwise unassuming door, with a simple design and only two extraneous details: a flashing red light and a label, “DO NOT ENTER WHEN LIGHT FLASHING”. However, that was the way Sadness saw it; to Bing Bong, it was nothing more than a jumble of different shapes, possibly with meaning, possibly without, and therefore, he slammed through the door without second thinking. “Come on, let’s go!” he called, and she knew she couldn’t say no to that childish attitude.

At the time, the cast and crew of Dream Theatrical Productions seemed to be between dreams, in the phase of deep sleep, during which they gathered their ideas and tried to work out a script in merely parts of an hour. Two most prominent Mind Workers could be spotted, separated from the small crowd: a purple, frizzy-haired Mind Worker with a beret and slightly curved glasses, sitting on a high chair not unlike one in Headquarters, and a cyan, partly shaved Mind Worker with rectangular glasses, sitting by the typewriter and patiently typing up whatever they had gathered from their boss.

“So, hear this out!” the purple Mind Worker spoke. “I think this is a brilliant dream idea; I think we could get all the awards with it! Due to a disaster, the five cities of the world are collapsing, and if they are fully brought down, the world will be knocked back to the Stone Age!”

By this point, Sadness and Bing Bong had meshed well with the crowd, which had an unusually large proportion of the irregularly-shaped Figments of Imagination, making the two stand out less than they thought they would. The only peculiarity was that Bing Bong stood a whole head, or possibly even two heads, taller than the rest.

The Dream Director, however, continued without even looking at the crowd. “So, Riley has to tag alongside Meg, trekking the five cities, in order to stop it, and she doesn’t have much success, but then she comes across…” She opened her eyes and eyed the crowd, before spotting the cotton candy figure, and suddenly exclaimed: “Yes! You! You can be Riley and Meg’s comic relief friend!”

“Me?” Bing Bong asked.

“Righto!” the Dream Director squealed in excitement.

“This is the best day of my life! You know, I’ve always wanted to be a star in a dream!”

“We’ll talk later, Elephant. Now, let me just go through the rest of the plot!” the Dream Director dismissively spoke, before finishing her own thought, as her scriptwriter continued typing: “But it is only halfway through the collapse when they discover the secret to saving the world! Why? Don’t ask me!”

Sadness, however, had more questions bubbling up, and couldn’t help but ask: “And what is the secret?”

“Don’t ask me, either!” the Dream Director exclaimed, dismissing the thought, just like that.

Even in her drowsiness, Sadness spotted another flaw in logic: “Also, you know that five is not an even number… do you?”

“It isn’t?” the Dream Director suddenly asked, giving the crowd a curious look.

“Might I suggest—” Sadness asked, but even with those three words, she was suddenly interrupted.

It would seem that the Dream Director reacted almost instantly. Outsider suggestions for her dreams, it would seem, happened way too much, and always ruined her ideas, and she could only counter with a stock response: “All of our dream production happens behind closed doors, sweetie, and therefore, we do not accept unsolicited dream scripts or ideas.”

Even the scriptwriter, who had mostly typed and stayed silent up to this point, suddenly stopped typing and spoke up: “Yeah, if there’s one thing about our work, it’s that we never, ever tell Patricia Courace what to do instead of her idea. She’s got more awards than there are thought forms in the crowd, man.”

“Indeed, I do!” Patricia countered, before continuing: “And on that note, I don’t think I recognize that voice; what are you even doing here?”

Sadness gulped. Noticing Bing Bong get an acting role had given her hope, that outsiders could eventually be accepted in Dream Theatrical Studios, but that apparently only applied to imaginary friends conceived during early childhood. She had been found out as someone not supposed to be here.

Patricia was already patiently watching the crowd for the intruder, and hopped down from her chair. Everyone else had already parted way, giving her due respect, and Sadness, frozen solid, was easy to spot.

“Ha! Caught red handed! Now, who are you and what are you doing in Dream Theatrical Studios?” she said, tightly gripping Sadness’s hand — even if, admittedly, she had to jump up a bit to reach it.

“I’m…” The edgy emotion quivered, unsure what to say. She still didn’t want to reveal her true identity, but on the spot, she simply couldn’t make up a lie, and besides, Patricia just seemed too terrifying to even try to lie to. “Sadness…” she muttered.

“So, you’re one of those emotion folk, aren’t you?” the Dream Director spoke, more outraged than ever. “Each and every night, we show them our dreams, our award-winning stuff, and they complain: ‘Why don’t you change this detail? Why don’t you change that detail?’ And when you try to talk about artistic integrity, they freeze you! Quite literally! Can you imagine what it’s like, talking to Joy one moment and, the next thing you know, you’re on the ground, in broad daylight, when nobody even needs dreams?”

“Joy did what?” Sadness asked, shocked, trying to free herself from Patricia’s hand — which, despite its length and especially width, was surprisingly strong.

“Something that you’re not doing; not on my watch. Security!” the Dream Director called, and all of a sudden, an alarm sound rang throughout the stage.

“Hey, back off!” Bing Bong suddenly stepped between the two, forcing their hands to separate. “She’s with me, so if you arrest her, I’ll never take a role from you again!”

“You wouldn’t!” Patricia suddenly froze in her tracks. If there was one thing that she was known for, other than high creative standards, it was prestige, and nobody had refused an acting role from her before. And to think the first time it happened, it was in defense of a known criminal…

“I don’t like this place anymore, Sadness. Let’s go!” Now, Bing Bong was the one grabbing Sadness’s hand and dragging her out; yet, unlike that of the Dream Director’s, Sadness at least thought this one was comfortable, if huge and giving her wrist a lot of pressure. He wanted to run for the door, but couldn’t find it in due time, so instead, he took Sadness to the nearest wall, and she followed, his courage lifting her up, quite literally.

And then, all of a sudden, Sadness and Bing Bong phased through the wall, leaving the fastest of security dumbfounded. The location appeared to be shrouded in darkness, and the door that the two entered through was also nowhere in sight, meaning that no one had a trail; in due time, after Bing Bong continued taking Sadness to safety, the alarm was shut off and the searchlights, turning bright red in case of an emergency, returned to a brilliant white.

Sadness shook her head; it must have been another time when she used her Imagination without realizing it. She was learning more and more about this Imagination power with every passing moment; yet, the more she learned, the more the truly impressive feats, like freezing an entire section of the mind for the duration of a night, seemed out of reach for her.

Yet, more so than anything, she felt happy for Bing Bong. She quietly spoke: “You… you stood up for me… no one’s done that for me before…”

“What?” Bing Bong suddenly asked, shocked to no end. “You mean thought forms have always put you down?”

“Yeah…” Sadness answered, realizing that despite disagreements, she and Bing Bong needed each other in order to survive.

“Don’t worry. As long as you’re here, you have me, and you have hope!” Bing Bong valiantly spoke.

“What about the whole ‘make Riley a little girl again’ thing?” Sadness asked, hoping that he hadn’t forgotten about it yet; terrible memory was something that plagued all thought forms and not just emotions, and she just wanted to make sure.

“Eh, don’t worry about it. We’ll figure out something.”

“That being said…” Even though she was reassured, Sadness still had a lingering worry that at least some of her troubles would be rejected out of hand, and was still timid while voicing them. “Do you know… a place where I could… sleep for the night?”

“I mean, I could always sleep somewhere in Preschool World… but if I couldn’t make it there — and it would seem I can’t, unless I want to endure the madness of the underground — I can just ‘crash’ wherever! It’s the homeless life!” her friend said, sitting down in the empty field.

At first, the situation seemed hopeless for Sadness. If she didn’t find a place, then all her previous worries remained. However, once she gave another glance to the cotton candy body, it looked so soft… so comfortable… it was the only bed that she needed, and the prospect of rain wasn’t going to bother her anymore.

Sadness sat down by Bing Bong’s side, before laying down, letting her body sit on top of her Imaginary companion’s. Within moments, her ideas were confirmed; the cotton candy body did feel much smoother than she hoped, and perhaps even smoother than a proper bed.

“Do you mind if I…?” the emotion asked, slowly closing her own eyes.

“Not at all.”

And thus, Sadness fell asleep, knowing that more so than anything, it was good to have a friend who, despite disagreements, understood her.