Night time was Joy and Sadness's favorite time. At night, they could be together without the prying eyes of Fear, Anger, and Disgust bearing down on their backs. They could act like more than friends. They could dance and kiss and all the other couple-y things they could think of. But the night time always ended. And when it did, so did their relationship. For the daytime hours, they could only be friends. But sometimes, they slipped little things through. Things that could be more-than-friendly. A quick kiss on the cheek. A too-long hug. A loving gaze. And their colleagues and friends seemed to not bat an eyelash. Which is what led to this night in particular.
"We can tell them!"
"We can't!"
"Why not? They seemed fine with it!" Joy half-shouted, turning to face her girlfriend. This was not their first fight. While they did love each other, they were opposing emotions and didn't always see eye-to-eye. But this fight was over an important matter. And both emotions could see the benefits in the other's argument.
"What if they aren't? They'll cast us out!"
"But what if they are? We can stop hiding!"
Both emotions stood staring into the other's eyes, before Sadness sighed and looked down at her feet. "I just…I just don't want us to be unhappy because we're trapped in Long-Term, and then we start fighting and-"
Joy cut her off with a quick kiss.
"Sadness, my name is Joy. I literally can't not be happy. And besides, imagine how much better it would be if we could be like this all the time?"
Sadness gazed at her for a second, then nodded.
"We'll do it in the morning. For now, let's just enjoy tonight."
The unspoken "It may be our last." hung in the air like a toxic fog.
Joy and Sadness approached the controller, each gripping the other's hands like a lifeline. Joy was opening her mouth to speak, but Sadness said "Uhm. Guys?" Joy shut her mouth, surprised. But she let her girlfriend take over.
Fear Anger and Disgust turned to face them. For a beat no-one did anything. Then Sadness blurted out "Joy and I are dating!"
Silence.
There was a cheer. Joy opened the eyes she hadn't realized she's closed to see Disgust's hand out to Fear and Anger, smirking as they put green bills in her hand.
Surprisingly, the first thing Joy said was "Emotions don't need money."
"Its representative." Disgust said, pocketing the money.
Joy was still confused, but luckily Sadness put the pieces together.
"You guys were betting on us dating?!" She accused the trio.
"Oh no." Fear said, straightening his rumpled clothes. "We all knew you were dating. I mean that lean-together-and-hold-hands thing you guys did when you came back? Jesus you might as well have painted us a sign. We were betting on when you would tell us."
The couple stood there, processing what they were experiencing. That is until Joy picked Sadness up and kissed her in front of the rest of the emotions.
"Well I guess we're gonna be seeing more of that." Anger muttered into his paper, the headline reading "RILEY'S OWN EMOTIONS ARE GAY. WHAT ABOUT HER?"
Joy pulled them apart, grinning. "I'm so glad we can do that in the sunlight."
Sadness only nodded and kissed her again.