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Honestly, Mono didn't know what the old carousel was doing there, drenched by rain, left in some dark alleyway of the Pale City. It wasn't as though there were any children around to ride it, any adults to keep it operational. Perhaps that was why it was here in the first place, lost and abandoned and non-functional.
Even though he wasn’t quite sure why a contraption such as this one had been made in the first place, Six had taken quite a liking to it, recklessly hanging from one of its wooden poles.
“Six!” He hated to do it, but the carousel wasn't safe. “Six, we should head out now. Maybe we can try to check out the carousel another day!”
Six, however, was a stubborn creature, and she was determined to stay.
Resigned, Mono joined her on the carousel, wincing as he stepped onto the creaking platform, made of rotten wood. “Six, I really don't think this is a good idea,” he tried again, despite knowing that any attempts to stop her were futile.
Instead, Six swung down from her pole, landing on a disfigured wooden horse. She glared at him from over the moldy feathers crowning the horse’s head, as if to tell him to leave her alone.
With a sigh, he shuffled around the platform and waited for her to finish having her fun, wary of any boards that appeared as though they might break. Since the wood was so damp, they thankfully weren't in too much danger of getting any splinters. Still, as much as he hated being the practical one in situations, he was glad to see Six having so much fun. She didn't smile often, and when she did, it was usually over a bloody corpse. To see her grin at the sight of something as innocent and whimsical as horses? It was a novelty.
“Having fun, Six?” Mono asked, keeping an eye out for any monsters that might catch them unaware.
As though she knew he was itching to leave the area, Six wrapped her arms around her horse’s neck even tighter. The horse’s peeling paint scratched her anywhere that her yellow raincoat had ridden up and left her skin exposed.
Still, as he scouted the area from the safety of the broken-down carousel, Mono could admit that climbing all over the wooden horses did look kinda fun. When Six patted the head of the horse to her right, he relented, climbing up onto the wooden figure beside her.
With a wide grin, Six stuck her bare feet into the ragged stirrups hanging at either side of her horse and patted its moldy headdress, and Mono was quick to follow suit. Being up here was even more fun than it looked.
The carousel, it seemed, unlocked a certain sort of wonder and excitement in Six, and it evoked a severe sense of nostalgia in Mono. As they played together on the carousel, he couldn’t help but wish that they could have this, together, every day. To let go of the need to survive and just have fun instead… This was a luxury they weren’t used to having.
It was pretty sweet while it lasted, though.
When Six was finally ready to leap off her horse, Mono remained on his, and she made it her own personal mission to pat the head of each and every horse left on the platform. No horse was left untouched, and she even gave Mono’s horse a swift pat before standing up on her tiptoes to pat his head too. Such uncharacteristic softness from Six was unexpected but not unwelcome. When she’d finally finished, she simply hopped off the platform and held out her hand, indicating that she was ready to move on.
Perhaps due to Six’s influence, perhaps due to his own growing affection for the little carousel, Mono patted the head of his horse before dropping down to the creaky platform. Then, he leaped back onto the slippery ground and took hold of Six’s waiting hand.
It had started to rain again. A crack of thunder resounded in the distance, and they both nearly jumped out of their skin.
As Mono began leading them both away from the ride, he fought the growing urge to race back and hug his horse again. It became even harder to resist when Six occasionally whipped her head around to toss longing looks back at the carousel. They really, really didn’t want to leave.
Still, they trudged on throughout the Pale City, sneaking past crazed Viewers and solving puzzles and navigating through tough situations, but Mono couldn’t stop thinking about the carousel. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so happy.
He was a kid.
Six was a kid.
Was that how kids were supposed to feel? Carefree and playful? Were kids allowed to be happy?
All the kids in the Pale City knew how to survive and hope that they didn’t one day transform into monsters themselves. It was a dangerous world… one without many pleasantries… one that wanted to kill him… one that he didn’t really want to live in but survived in out of sheer spite and hope for the future.
This was his reality, but he would fight for the moments that he and Six were allowed to have fun and enjoy each other’s company. He would fight for novelties such as wooden horses and broken-down carousels because, rare though they were, they did exist. He would even fight for the hard times when monsters were after them and blood rushed to his head and adrenaline pumped through his veins because afterwards, he’d be able to hug Six and feel her alive and well and breathing.
Truthfully, Mono couldn’t even begin to imagine a world in which children were free to do things like play and explore and ride carousels, but he hoped beyond hope that one did exist out there, somewhere.
And, from the way that Six met his gaze from beneath the hood of her yellow raincoat, he could tell that she hoped so too.