"Hey. Hey Sadness."
Sadness knew that tone of voice. She sighed, then turned to face Joy.
"Yes Joy?"
Joy nodded to the screen, the image filled with a kid that had to have dogs on literally everything he owned. His bag. His books. His shirt. He even had a tattoo of a pug on his right arm. Riley was not interested. She liked dogs. Who didn't? But this was taking it too far.
"I guess you could say he's BARKING up the wrong tree!"
Joy collapsed in a fit of laughter at her own terrible joke. Sadness never laughed of course. I mean it was in her name. But she couldn't deny that Joy was her most beautiful when she was laughing. So she smiled fondly down at the shaking emotion on the ground, leaning down to give Joy a quick kiss on the forehead before going back to steering Riley.
Joy stared at the empty chair, shocked speechless. Not shocked at the chair, shocked at herself. She had become desensitized to others, blinded by her own ecstatic love of what she thought was funny.
It had been during dream duty where the brach finally broke. They were watching the dream together like they did some nights as a pseudo-date. A large troll had rumbled up over a hill and Joy immediately burst with laughter.
"Look at that thing! It's cracking the ground it's so big!"
"Haha. Yeah." Sadness had replied.
That should have been her first clue. Sadness never laughed at her jokes. She never lied like that to Joy. But she had been too blind. She kept going.
"Look at it! It practically has it's own orbit!"
"Joy I-"
"Wait wait wait! Let's watch it try and cross the bridge! I bet it's too fat!"
That was the straw. A resounding *SMACK* echoed through the room.
Sadness had slapped her.
When she had her head back to Sadness, Joy had seen years in Sadness's eyes.
"So you think being fat is funny?" She had half-yelled, half-sobbed.
And Joy, Joy had done the worst thing of all. Before she could even think, before she even processed a response, the words "Jeez Sadness, learn to take a joke." had slid out of her mouth like a snake.
Neither of them moved, staring at each other for eons.
Sadness bolted to her room right as Joy said "Sadness wait I!-"
She was already gone.
Joy's hand, raised toward Sadness's retreating sweater, dropped back down to her lap. She stared blankly at the empty seat, reflecting on what had just happened. Bringing us to the present, and her to a conclusion.
'I can't lose Sadness."
She trudged up to Sadness's door, and knocked.
"Sadness?"
No reply.
"Sadness can we talk?"
Nothing.
"Ok. You don't have to talk. But I do."
"I'm sorry Sadness."
Don't cry Joy. You don't deserve to cry.
"What I said back there, it was wrong. I was being a jerk to other people and thought it was funny, when really all I was doing was hurting people. It will never happen again. I promise on…"
"I promise on Bing-Bong."
Still nothing. Joy didn't mind.
Ok. She minded. But she also understood. What she said left marks. Marks that couldn't be erased by a ten minute speech and a promise. Sadness needed time.
Joy fell asleep outside Sadness's door.