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"Hey, Weewee--"
"Don't call me that."
"--what's on your phone?"
Ennui sighed in exasperation. She was lying on the couch, as usual, her phone held limply in her hand as the upbeat emotion badgered her.
It had been a few months since the hockey camp fiasco, and the new emotions were mostly settling in. However, they were also subjected to a lot of curiosity on the part of the 'original' crew. It wasn't every day they got new people--er, emotions--in Headquarters, after all. Even Anger had taken to asking a few questions when it suited him.
Ennui's disinterested demeanor had done its job in discouraging most questions, but Joy was persistent with hers. It seemed she wouldn't be getting out of this without providing at least something of an answer, as much as it annoyed her.
"Console app," she answered shortly, showing the screen for a moment to demonstrate before turning it back to herself. Hopefully, that would be enough to satisfy the other.
It was not.
"I know that," Joy said, pressing onward. "But what else is on it? Come on, you can't just be staring at the console all day!"
Ennui rolled her eyes. "It does not matter what else is on it. The console is all you need to know." Take the hint.
"Come on, would it really hurt so much to show me what else you've got on there?" Joy pleaded. When she realized that strategy wasn't working, she decided to bring out the big guns. She clasped her hands below her chin, her eyes growing wide and imploring. Puppy dog eyes. "Pleeease?"
Ennui stared, unimpressed. She had spent a lot of time with Envy before they came to Headquarters. She was immune to puppy dog eyes. But, she had to admit, the bright, starlike emotion was stubborn, and she was tired of trying to turn the other away. It would be faster just to show her. Then, she would finally be left alone... probably.
"J'en peux plus..." she sighed as she sat up on the couch, moving over to make room for Joy. "Sit," she said flatly. Might as well get this over with.
Joy perked up, not having expected that to work. She blinked owlishly for a moment before a beaming grin spread across her face. She bounded over to the couch and plopped herself down, leaning closer to Ennui as the other showed her the screen.
Ennui didn't bother telling the other to move back. She'd have to see the screen anyway, and she supposed she wasn't too close. She tapped onto the homepage, the default background obscured with a few apps shaped like memories.
"Here. There are a few things. News, some games, the subconscious feed..." She opened the relevant apps as she said them.
"Subconscious feed?" Joy questioned, eyes wide with interest. Ennui internally resigned herself to answering a few more questions. She turned the screen to Joy a bit more, allowing her to see the app more closely. "It looks like Riley's Instagram."
"Yes, it is similar to social media," Ennui began to explain, "but these are not real posts. See? They are generated by the subconscious." She scrolled through a few 'posts.' Some were seemingly nonsensical, while others were a bit more coherent. "They usually have hidden meanings, like some dreams do. They are easier to decipher with practice."
Joy listened intently, her gaze shifting between Ennui and the phone. She had never heard the other speak so much at once. While she still spoke flatly, her tone monotonous and bored, as always, Joy thought she seemed a bit more comfortable talking about something she was so familiar with. "Wait, so you're... keeping an eye on Riley, by doing this?"
Ennui raised an eyebrow, glancing back at Joy. "I guess you could say that." She knew it must have been at least somewhat surprising, hearing that she was doing something productive by scrolling on her phone all the time. Ennui wasn't completely useless. The posts were helpful when it came to deciding when Riley needed some change in her life.
She exited out of the app, uncomfortable with talking about her own contributions to Headquarters.
For a moment, she thought Joy was going to press further, but another app seemed to capture her attention. "Oo, what's that?" She pointed at a game. Ennui opened it.
"A game. You shoot the memories to match them." She demonstrated. The memory in the game shot out of a cannon and clinked against the side of the screen, ricocheting and hitting a group of the same color, causing them to disappear.
"Is this what you do all the time?" Joy asked, surprisingly enamored with the little rectangle. Ennui was finding it harder and harder to be annoyed at this interaction. People usually didn't listen to her this intently. She was boring. Right now, though, Joy was treating this like the most interesting thing in the world.
Ennui shrugged. "I prefer other apps. But I play this occasionally." She glanced over at Joy, suppressing a jump when she noticed the other staring at her. Actually, it seemed like less of a stare and more of a pleading look. She quickly realized what the other was about to ask.
Sure enough, she spoke up a second later. "Can I try?" she asked, her puppy dog eyes making a reappearance. Ennui was tempted to say no, to push her away and tell her that she had already gotten her answer, but...
She sighed. "Fine," she relented, handing over the phone. Joy beamed excitedly, quickly grabbing it and holding it with the slight awkwardness of someone who had never held a phone before.
"Okay, so how do I do this?" she asked, staring at the game. Ennui rolled her eyes, leaning over Joy's shoulder, registering the feeling of the other's warmth in the back of her mind as she raised a finger to the screen.
"You aim like this," she said, tapping and holding, an arrow showing where the cannon was aimed. "And let go to fire." She demonstrated again. A group of green memories disappeared in a flash of light.
Joy hummed, nodding with a serious expression, looking more like she was being taught how to diffuse a bomb than play a mobile game. "Like this?" She copied Ennui somewhat clumsily, but she successfully managed to clear another group of memories. She quietly cheered at her success.
"Yes, like that. Good job." Ennui was almost caught off guard at her own commendation. She didn't know why she'd said that. It had just felt right in the moment.
She belatedly realized that she was still leaning over Joy's shoulder, which she quickly rectified by leaning against the back of the couch instead, an odd feeling arising in her chest.
What was going on with her?
Joy continued playing the game under Ennui's supervision, managing to clear the level. She cheered again as the victory music played. "I did it!" she said with a triumphant smile. Ennui watched, somewhat amused by the amount of enthusiasm she had at beating a single stage.
That smile was turned on Ennui as Joy looked back at her, holding out the phone. Ennui froze. "Thanks for letting me try," Joy said. "That was fun!"
The French emotion blinked, taking the phone back after a moment. Why had that look surprised her so much? It was just a smile. Joy smiled all the time. She smiled at everyone. "Yeah, sure..." she managed. "No problem." She tore her gaze away from Joy's eyes to look back down at her phone. Something was wrong with her.
She was torn out of her thoughts by Joy's voice. "Welp, thanks for showing me your phone, Weewee," she said, getting up from the couch. Ennui couldn't muster up her usual annoyance at the nickname. "I think I'd better head to bed. Gotta be rested for Riley's test tomorrow!"
Ennui felt dazed. She needed to figure out what was going on with herself, it was distracting her. She nodded and gave a slight wave as Joy departed, hopefully managing to appear as nonchalant on the outside as usual. Internally, she was confused. Slightly panicking, even.
What was this odd feeling? Was she broken?
She barely even registered the lights in Headquarters dimming as most of the others got ready for bed. She was doing some research on her phone, trying to figure out what was going on. Was she sick? Could emotions even get sick? When she tried to think about what had started it, she could only think of Joy, and that almost blinding smile, directed at her...
No.
No way.
Joy was too bright. She was bouncy and excitable and overenthusiastic. She was annoyingly persistent and determined, she never knew when to give in. She was always trying to get everyone around her to smile, too, always trying to help the other emotions. She was frustrating and caring and... pretty...
Ennui's eyes widened. She wasn't looking at her phone anymore, just staring at the ceiling from where she was once again lying on the couch. The realization felt like a punch to the face.
A crush.
She had a crush.
On Joy.
Oh no.