Chapter Text
Joker couldn't save Phoenix, and he couldn’t save Hachi.
Phoenix who was unable to go home, who was stranded... The circumstances of Phoenix’s pain are completely unrelatable to Joker—but it's pain that every human could understand or sympathize with on a more rudimentary level.
Being hurt, being used or betrayed, being unable to be with your loved ones, or losing those loved ones.
Phoenix died alone on a foreign planet without a single companion, taken apart by selfish humans for his eternal life.
Hachi, who Joker had come to cherish and value far above any treasure or indulgence, was killed—there would be no miracle.
Joker and his pathological need for excitement ruined Hachi's life. It was only after the fact—only after it dawned on Joker that he had ruined a small life with negligence—that the weight of his actions and the destructiveness of his behavior settled heavily on his shoulders, crushing him at last.
Joker meant what he had said: with Hachi gone, nothing mattered. The unmatched rush of deadly capers that no one else could possibly pull off, the thrill of successfully stealing treasures that very few had ever lived to touch, the amazing and authentic food he’d sampled across the globe and the much more personal meals cooked for him with such affection…As if Hachi had taken a sizable chunk of Joker with him, it felt as if the dazzling light of Joker’s soul had been snuffed out like a flame.
It was the second family he’d lost. Joker had done so well building himself back up from that vulnerable time of his past. He’s so much larger than life, so untouchable, so indestructible—he sells that to himself and he sells that to everyone around him; acquaintances and close friends alike.
Returning to such despair was incomprehensible.
But like a vulnerable little boy, not like Phantom Thief Joker, he crumbles, and retreats into himself.
In the event of an emotional catastrophe, Joker had spent little time truly working on the fortitude of ‘Jack’—the part of himself in need of emotional care—for if the time came that ‘Joker’ would fail him. He’d only ever worked on the assurance that such a thing wouldn’t happen at all.
He approached many aspects of life like this.
If it had been Spade, Queen, or his Master, the strength of his determination to both avenge them and keep moving forward would outweigh the shredding claws of grief. He could never be kept down for long. Joker had subconsciously accepted long ago that death and tragedy was never too far out of reach—you couldn’t be so sensitive as a phantom thief.
Joker, incredibly adept at compartmentalization of his emotions, had simultaneously accepted this reality while also believing with certainty that nobody around him would die. He never made room for such a thought. His friends were capable and could take care of themselves. Hachi was clumsy but Joker would be there for him. Hachi had his back, too—not that he’d need Hachi to save him, of course.
Everything would always work out.
And Hachi, who Joker was responsible for and had come to depend on just as the small boy had come to depend on him, who Joker had come to let himself love too recklessly, would shatter Joker like glass in his death.