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The corner of Gangle's mouth curls up ever so slightly in a suppressed grimace as her pencil continues quietly scratching against her sketchbook.
The Sun had only just risen to signal the start of a new day not all that long ago, but Gangle has already made her way to the common area and claimed her favourite spot on the purple couch to get some quality drawing time in before the chaos of the Circus ramps up into full gear. She'd never been much of a morning person before the Circus—quite the opposite, if she remembered correctly—but given recent... circumstances that were quickly becoming a routine of sorts, she'd taken to the habit of enjoying as much of the early part of the day as she could. It's peaceful, getting to sit with her sketchbook and freshly-respawned comedy mask in a bit of peace and quiet while the other performers tend to drag their feet at the prospect of greeting another new day.
But she isn't the only early bird up at the crack of dawn today. Her grimace creeps slightly wider as Kaufmo finishes off another joke with a... less than gut-busting punchline. He's standing just far enough away that Gangle can only barely hear what he's saying, but Ragatha's almost painfully fake laughter rings out plenty loud enough in response, so much so that Gangle would have flinched if not for the fortification her comedy mask provides her. Surely Ragatha knows that no one actually believes she's genuinely laughing when she does that, right? Even if Kaufmo still barrels on to his next joke regardless, is Ragatha pretending to laugh at something that isn't actually funny any better than just not laughing at all, the way Gangle does whenever she's in her place? It makes things a bit awkward, sure, but even when Gangle has her comedy mask, the idea of forcing laughter at something that she doesn't actually find humorous feels a bit... disingenuous?
The well-trodden thought leaves Gangle's mind quite suddenly in the next moment as her vision warps and briefly flickers out completely, a rush of vertigo washing over her senses as all at once the calm enjoyment of her morning crumbles beneath the exhausting weight of instantaneous despair and a fresh set of tears springing to her eyes.
"Hey—!" She tries her best to grab onto a yellow glove or purple wrist that she already knows is behind the sudden theft of her comedy mask, but the perpetrator easily slips just outside the range of her flimsy ribbons before she can manage it. "Jax... come on, please?" she asks in earnest, wincing at the sound of the perpetual whine that her tragedy mask affords her. "You only just got here. Isn't it too early to already—?"
"Hey," he cuts her off as if she hadn't even been speaking, gazing down at the curved porcelain now resting in his hands, "does it hurt when your mask breaks? Like, physically?"
Gangle's brow furrows slightly, but Jax doesn't appear to be in too much of a hurry now that he's already snatched his prize, so she allows herself a few moments to mull the question over. She isn't sure why it's only now that he's deciding to ask this question, first thing in the morning and after far more broken masks than Gangle wants to even guess at—(or which answer would serve in her best interest in the long run)—so she decides to take the risk of just answering him honestly.
"Umm... no? It's a mask..." She wipes at one of her tears absently as her mind continues to wonder what Jax is actually trying to get at with his question, but she knows better by now than to try asking him directly, so she takes another stab in the dark and clarifies, "Like, I feel better when I'm wearing it, but it doesn't hold any sensation of its own once it's off my face."
Jax gives a single chuckle in response to her offered explanation—or, at least, Gangle thinks that whatever that just was was meant to be a chuckle, but it's kind of hard to tell when there hadn't been a single thread of positive emotion attached to the sound. It wasn't even like Ragatha's fake little laughs at Kaufmo's jokes, which always at least attempt to mimic amusement, as strained and unconvincing as they still end up sounding in the end. No, the sound that left Jax hadn't even tried to sound like laughter, despite the trademark smile still sprawling across his face like usual. It had sounded so... hollow, almost, to Gangle's ears, and yet at the same time so incredibly bitter, jagged, sharp. Like it had hurt.
"Good."
In a flash and sickening chorus of crunching ceramic, Jax brings a knee up to shatter Gangle's mask without another word, the porcelain instantly fracturing into several shards that shatter even further as they clatter unceremoniously to the floor and skitter out across the reflective tiles beneath their feet. She'd already known from the moment he'd taken it that she wouldn't be getting it back, but the sight of her peace reduced to pieces still makes a mournful ache bloom fresh in Gangle's already hollow chest.
"Can you imagine how cruel that would be?" Jax continues like he hadn't just committed a malicious act against her, his voice leveling out somewhat yet still oddly cold compared to his usual demeanor, and he brushes the last few scraps of porcelain from his fingertips almost pensively. "If you had to feel the pain of breaking something that isn't even really you?"
Their eyes finally meet, and if Gangle had thought she felt hollow before, she can't even begin to describe the sensation that floods every inch of her body at the sight. All things considered, there's not even anything out of the ordinary: just a lanky purple rabbit gazing back at her with wide eyes and an even wider grin. But there's something about the way he's looking at her in this moment that feels so incredibly... off, the same way as his voice. An involuntary shiver trembles down her ribbons, leaving her feeling nervous, uneasy—in a completely different way than she usually feels when Jax is around. Nothing is different, but everything about Jax in this moment suddenly feels wrong—stilted, staged, pulled so tight at the seams that they're actually starting to fizzle out into a blur of meaningless shapes—unless that's just the newest wave of tears welling up in her eyes.
"Guess you got lucky there, Ribbons."
Gangle blinks the tears away, and suddenly Jax is back to his usual self, hands behind his head as he casually strolls off to join an utterly oblivious Ragatha and Kaufmo like nothing had even happened. No smashed mask, no harrowing moment of surreal dread that clings to Gangle's nonexistent insides like digital cobwebs even as she begins to wonder if she'd just imagined the whole thing. That would honestly make more sense—but when had this place ever concerned itself with keeping a steady understanding of "sense"? Just another day in the Circus.
The corners of Gangle's mouth curl downwards in an unsuppressed frown as her tears continue splashing quietly among the shattered remains of her comedy mask.
It's going to be a long day.
