Inside Out reImagined

The Party's Shadow

"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 forgotten, bringing him to... a way to contact Headquarters. 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 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 noted, 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. All but one of the boys had already left, but the only two women around, the teacher and the girl in the skull tee, remained, for a total of three people — four including Riley. 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.