Puberty tittered happily as she was able to shove Anger (who was still frozen in ice) into a room beneath a trapdoor. Joy shivered as she peered inside and saw the darkness that had opened its mouth into a dark terrifying pit. Anger slid down its stairs and disappeared from sight.

"I never knew about this room." Joy mumbled to Sadness. "How come we never knew?"

"I don't know!" Sadness whimpered. "It was never in the manuals!"

Puberty had overheard, and she sauntered over to them. She looked between the two girls, then kicked Sadness, who yelped and fell over. "Looks like your manuals need updating." she laughed. "And you people better get used to me kicking you around, 'cause I'm gonna do it a lot, and worse every time."

Sadness moaned and lay on the floor, rubbing where she had been hit. "This day can't get any worse." But the pink-haired girl only smiled and walked away to deal with the others.

Joy instantly dropped next to Sadness fearfully. "Are you okay?'

"Fine." Sadness tried to push herself up, but failed miserably. "I wasn't kicked that hard." She tried again, but to no avail.

"Then how come you can't get up?" Joy wondered.

"I'm too sad to get up." Sadness lay her head onto the floor, finally given up. "I will lay here for a day…"

Joy sighed. (This again?)

"...Or two…"

"Oh, come on." Joy grabbed her hand and pulled her up, walking toward the emotion's console. "We need to see if there is any button on the console to get rid of this freak."

There could be one. Joy thought. It would be reasonable to have an 'off'' switch for something as terrible as this. I could ask the mindworkers if I can as well...

Joy raced across the room to try, but though she looked up and down the console, there was nothing nothing. "I don't think there is a button for that," she muttered between clenched teeth. "I guess we'll have to find something else. She's not doing that much physical damage... I wonder if we can get her to stop the way she's acting."

"...Joy…" Sadness mumbled.

"Or maybe I can make a 'circle of Puberty'." Joy couldn't help giggling at that.

"Joy…?"

She looked down at Sadness, whose cheeks had turned pink and her face was hot. Joy blinked in confusion at first, but then realized what she meant. She sheepishly let go of Sadness's hand. "Is there something wrong with me holding your hand?" she wondered.

Sadness only blushed harder and stumbled away. "I'll go look through the manuals," she gasped while running off.

Later that afternoon, Puberty has disappeared, much to the emotions' glee and relief. However, Anger was much more cranky than usual. This was probably the result of being frozen in ice for hours. There was no need for finding ways to getting the stupid pink- haired distraction out of headquarters now. And so, according to Joy, "Yay!" They returned to their normal lives.

At least, they tried.

Disgust threw up seven times that day, which had broken her record by far. But that wasn't what worried the others. It was that she seemed to get sick for no reason. It was certainly bemusing.

Fear didn't act out of the ordinary, or Joy as well. But Joy… she certainly felt different. She always had this strange feeling, warm and embarrassing that made her nervous in a way. This feeling would pent up in her mind whenever she thought of Sadness. It never really occurred to her how soft, cute and cuddly she was. Or maybe the fact that she was so kind to Bing Bong, who was crying when he lost his rocket. Or maybe when Sadness saved her pulled her to ledge next to the windows of headquarters…

And so on. It really didn't help that Sadness was always within five feet of Joy, and was always glancing at her out of the corner of her eyes. Thankfully, this behavior went unnoticed by the others, since they had always seemed very close after the core memory incident. They even considered Sadness and Joy as sisters, and it kind of made sense in a way.

But that certainly was not how they felt.

After a long day of homework and school, Riley was getting ready for bed. She had her PJs on, and she was sliding under the covers. Joy moved away from the console to get all the memories to long term. Disgust, Anger, and Fear all headed toward their rooms to go to sleep as well. Sadness, however, stayed behind.

Joy settled into her chair and watched the screen go black as Riley went into REM. She didn't notice that Sadness was there when she sat in the chair next to her.

"Oh! S-Sadness! Um, I didn't know that you were there…" She jumped a little and her heart, for a reason she could not understand, began to pound.

"I just wanted to see how Riley's dreams were like." Sadness said drowsily. "I haven't seen one in a while, besides the dog dream that freaked her out." She shrugged calmly and tiredly, pushing her glasses into place .

Joy laughed uneasily . "That was really funny."

"Was it?" Sadness was surprised, staring at Joy through the corners of her eyes again. "I mean, I don't mean to be ultra-pessimistic, but you didn't want Riley to be scared…"

"Just thinking back on it now, it is." Joy smiled. She took a couple of deep breaths to try to calm herself down, and it did help, but there were still butterflies fluttering in her stomach. What is wrong with me? she scolded herself. Why can't I feel comfortable talking to a friend?

They fell into an awkward silence. The screen was still black, much to their confusion. "I wonder what's happening down there?" the pessimistic girl shivered, as if she was cold. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was something wrong, since they're so bad this year."

"I guess she's getting older," Joy sighed.

"That's sad…" Joy expected Sadness to fall out of her chair gloomily, or even burst into tears, but she only sat there, eyes fixed on the blank screen.

Something crossed Joy's mind and she told Sadness, "You know, I've noticed something. You've seemed more happy after we created that core memory together. Do you...I mean, have you noticed?"

To her surprise, Sadness giggled. "Yeah, I've noticed." Sadness said cheerfully. "I feel much better than before."

There was another silence, and Joy shifted nervously. Finally, she said, " I never had said this, but I'm really sorry from before…" she trailed off.

"You mean the time with 'the circle of Sadness'?" Sadness mumbled. "That was a long time ago. I almost forgot all about that."

"Oh," Joy said in a small voice. "It's been bothering me for a while."

"I see," Sadness smiled. Joy stared, a little taken aback at how cheerful Sadness seemed. She wasn't jumping around energetically like she liked to do herself, but Sadness was different. She was usually...sad.

" What specifically has made you happy now?" Joy asked.

"I'm not always happy. I more sad than happy…" Sadness blushed. "But…I've been happier..." She extended her arm a bit and grabbed Joy's hand. "I think...that's because of you."

Joy stared at Sadness, a bit embarrassed, though she pushed the uncomfortable feeling away and squeezed her hand. "Really? Aww... Well, if you need anything from me, then you just ask, 'kay? I'd do anything for you."

Sadness smiled softly and looked away. "Thanks Joy," she murmured.

"No problem," Joy smiled back. But slowly but surely, her smile vanished when she noticed that Sadness's usually warm and moist hands were now cold and frigid. Sadness herself was shivering, and Joy was afraid; emotions were never unhealthy or sick. So she leaned forward and touched her forehead, but it was terribly hot to the touch, and it almost burned her fingers. "Sadness… are you okay?"

Sadness sneezed, then shrugged, letting go of Joy's hand. "I'm fine," she mumbled. "I'm just not feeling very well."

Joy looked shocked. "Well… well… do you know what could be going on?"

Sadness shrugged once again. "I think I'm just really tired."

Joy forced her fear away. "Of course you are. You can go to bed now; you don't have to stay out here with me."

The small emotion blinked almost disappointedly and got up. "S-sure. I-I didn't expect you to… I didn't realize that I…" she trailed off.

"No!" Joy burst awkwardly. "I didn't mean it like that! I just… if you're not feeling well, then you should get some rest," she stated truthfully. "That's all."

Sadness nodded, looking as if those words made her feel better, but not fully conforted. With one final sneeze, she got out of her chair and started to walk back to her room.

"Hey Sadness?" Joy muttered uneasily after hesitating.

"Yes, Joy?" Sadness calmly turned around. Joy leaned over to give her a small kiss on her forehead.

"Goodnight."

"...!"

Her figure moved stealthily through long term memory, spying on the mind workers. She was close to friendship island, her eyes gleaming in the dark. She glanced at the the new memories, which to her disdain, were mostly gold. I will soon change that, she thought darkly, her dress flickering suddenly in the dark. Presently she heard loud noises not so far away, and she decided to see where the noise was coming from. She listened carefully and realized it was a couple mindworkers arguing. She traveled well through the corridors, and found herself a couple yards away from the arguing mindworkers.

A small red one was yelling the most. "Here we are!" he yelled. "Here we are, working night and day, when the people at headquarters get privileges that nobody else gets!"

A blue female mindworker seemed agitated, due to his rash argument. "We're all here for Riley. We all do our own jobs. There's a reason why Joy and the others get to be in headquarters: 'cause they're special. And how do you know that their jobs our harder than ours? You've never been close to headquarters!"

"T-that's right!" a yellow one stated. "There is no reason to be mad at them! We should treat them like gods! We shall clothe them and feed them and…"

"No, that's...where the hell did you get that idea?" the blue mindworker groaned. "I never said anything about serving them like peasants."

"We are being treated as peasants!" the read one screamed. "The reason we've never been close to headquarters is because we are treated badly!"

"No, we're not being treated badly!" she argued. "In your sick, anger infested mind of yours, we may be, but in reality, we are not peasants!

"What's a peasant?" the yellow mindworker wondered. "I've always heard that term but I've never-"

"HOW DARE YOU TELL ME THAT!" he yelled. "HAVE I NEVER PROVED ANYTHING WITH EVIDENCE? Listen to this: we create places such as inductive reasoning and language processing. We manage and ensure the safety of Imagination land…"

"Except Cloudland," the blue mindworker muttered darkly.

"... We create dreams, manage the train, manage long term memory, guard subconscious, and what break to we get? What respect do we get? NONE! ZILCH! NOTHING!" he spat.

"You...have a point," the yellow worker agreed. "And… you're right." He ignored the blue worker's glare and turned to the red worker. "What do you want to do?"

"We rebel," he sniggered. "We won't do what the emotions want us to do. Then they come down here, we throw them in the dump, and we take over headquarters!"

"INSANITY!" the female spat. "THAT'S DISGUSTING!"

"Sounds good!" the idiotic worker agreed. "Anything else?"

"No one is gonna buy this," the blue worker snarled disdainfully. "This is all too drastic."

"Actually, we had a vote when you were absent for the mindworker private meeting," the red one giggled. "99% voted that this plan was excellent! And you know what else?"

The yellow worker leaned forward excitedly. "Yes?"

"We get to kill Sadness and Joy!" he wristed with happiness.

"What the hell!? No!" the blue one cried. "But why?"

"Ah… not much of a reason. It was just that, you know, in the time of crisis, when Riley was running away, they were, ah... taking a break."

"They were not!"

"How do you know?" the red one challenged. "Have you even asked them? Have you ever spoke to them or spoke with them in person?"

Yards away, Puberty giggled happily to herself. This is all going to be so much easier than I thought! All I have to do is become popular with these shitty people. She finally stepped out of the shadows. "And one more thing," she stated to the surprised workers. "If I told you I could help you with this rebellion, may I add one more rule to this plan?"

After they got after their shock, (Which wasn't a long time) the red one shrugged. "Sure," he grunted. "If it's doable."

She sheathed her knife, smiling eagerly. "Kill all of those who disagree with this plan."

A scream echoed throughout Riley's mind that night, even waking up a certain emotion, who was sickly shivering in her sleep.