Popee didn't feel right.
He never felt quite right, but today was an especially extreme day. And in typical Popee fashion, whenever he's feeling especially 'not right', he gets violently pissed as hell at every little thing.
Usually Kedamono. Kedamono's almost always the one unlucky enough to set him off.
This morning he was feeling a bit more composed when it came to controlling his anger, but as a drawback, every little thing was seeming to add up and push him closer to breaking the dam holding back his emotions.
Including every word of backtalk from Kedamono, no matter how gently the wolf tried to put it.
"Popee! We gotta go practice, today's balancing act training day!" Kedamono said as he called into Popee's tent.
"I don't feel up to it today Keda." Popee replied in a flat tone. He was sitting on his bed in a slumped position, turned in the opposite direction from Kedamono. Drops in the dam.
Kedamono poked his head into the tent. "Huh, usually I'm the one who doesn't want to go to practice," he half-muttered with a puzzled face. Then he perked up and looked at Popee, the old mask slipping off his face and fading into nothing. "You sick or something? You don't sound that sick,"
Popee tensed in annoyance at Kedamono's question. Just more drops in the dam. "I dunno, just… I'm not in the mood, I guess?" he grumbled.
"But I always thought practice was good to let you vent when you're in a bad mood!" Kedamono explained. "Even if I'm usually the punching bag…" he trailed off. "Plus, you know how Papi is about us sticking to his training schedules,"
"Well, I'd rather take the lecture from Papi in a few weeks when he finds out I skipped a day. Most days I love to practice, but today is not most days." Popee stated. Whole cups into the dam.
"You sure? You might start to feel a little bit better if you just try, even for a few minutes. If it doesn't work, you can take the rest of the day off, and when Papi visits and reviews our training logs we can just tell him you weren't feeling well that day," Kedamono offered.
"It's not even worth bothering. I know how I feel and I know it's not gonna change any time today," Popee retaliated. Gallons were pouring into the dam now.
Kedamono was starting to get annoyed by Popee's gloomy stubbornness. With the sternest face a nervous masked wolf assistant can muster, he opened his mouth to speak again. But then he paused to think, and his expression softened a bit. "You know, if you're having a bad day, do you want to uh, talk about it? It can also be pretty good to vent your feelings by telling your problems to someone,"
"S' not like I even know what the hell is wrong with me today…" Popee mumbled out of frustration. A tinge of sadness was in there too, if you knew where to look. Dam was still filling.
"Hm?" Kedamono hummed. He wasn't 100% sure that he'd heard Popee correctly. The teen clown's ego had always seemed much larger than his too-short temper, and him acknowledging any flaws to himself was pretty rare.
"Look. Can you just leave? I have a knife in arm's reach, and if you don't get out it's headed in your direction," Popee snapped. The dam was almost full.
"Popee, I know you tend to act on your threats but I just want to hel-"
Dam broke.
With the reflexes of the animals he dressed as, Popee snatched up the knife, spun around, and let it fly at the tent entrance. It tore through the fabric flap, and landed off several meters in the distance.
Kedamono managed to dodge it, but fell backwards as a result of surprise. He looked at Popee from the ground in a nearly frozen state of fear
"JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE YOU MANGY FURBALL!" he erupted in pure rage. Not even the usual rage where he seemed to feel satisfied at lashing out, this time he was completely bitter.
Kedamono scampered away a sizable distance across the circus grounds, but looked back for a second. Popee's death glare was all he needed as motivation to fully get out of sight.
Popee slinked back towards his bed, and plopped face down into the light sheets. He let out a large sigh, and then just laid like that for a few minutes.
After a while, he figured he might as well get up, but was taken off guard because the first thing he saw when removing his face from the bedding was his mirror.
Some days he loved to practice menacing and badass poses in front of the mirror, and other days he just felt cold and numb whenever he saw his reflection. Today, instead of either of those reactions, he just felt a deep wave of negative emotions.
He tried adjusting his position to be a bit more composed, but his inner reaction persisted. Maybe another cool pose would do the trick? That still felt off too.
After a bit of fiddling with both himself and the angle of the mirror, the feeling in his core just became too much, and he glanced around his surroundings.
A large towel was sitting discarded underfoot. That'll do.
He threw it over the mirror, and positioned it so the long side draped down and covered the upper part of his reflection. Out of sight, out of mind.
Well, not entirely. But he was feeling a bit more empty than disgusted now, and he'd rather feel hollow than feel anything negative about himself.
It's not like he needed to look at himself anyways.