Chapter Text
There were no sunrises or sunsets in The Amazing Digital Circus. The day switched into the night rapidly as if someone turned off the sun like a big sky bulb. The lack of subtlety even in the most basic structural aspects of the game definitely wasn't making the entire “circus experience” any better for so-called players.
Maybe with the exception of Kinger. He kinda liked it this way.
Usually at the time of the switch he was already conveniently sitting in his cosy pillow fort. The sudden hit of darkness made his hideout even less vibrant and more dull than it already was. The lack of overwhelming colors and extremely ridiculous shapes was soothing. He felt his mind at ease and everything was peaceful again.
He wished for more moments like that one during the day. He missed talking to others, but the circus was always so vibrant he could hardly ever create a single clear thought. The shadow of his fort was healing, but for some reason no one ever took his invites seriously.
He didn't mind the solitude though. At the time the night came he usually found himself very tired, and after a few sips from his favorite red mug, his mind pleasantly was drifting away to dreamy memories of his lovely wife. And then he would wake up the next day, reluctantly leaving for another overwhelming adventure.
This time his sweet night tea was interrupted by shy knocking on his pillow's door.
“Kinger?”
He smiled at a familiar voice.
“Come in, Pomni!” He stood up out of excitement.
The door opened, revealing a little jester leaning down a bit to fit through the uncomfortably small entrance.
“I just wanted to… Wow, this place is much bigger inside” She stood straight as her eyes scanned the surprisingly spacious living room. “You even have your own couch and armchairs and…” She started pointing out furniture.
“That's the magic of the digital circus” Kinger chuckled, gesturing toward the seats. “It's so nice you visited! I rarely have guests here. Take a seat! Oh, how I wish I knew you would come, I would prepare more tea”
“That's okay” She waved at him, smiling. She sat comfortably on the couch and exhaled loudly, as if she was carrying something heavy. “I just had some with Ragatha”
“Ragatha!” He beamed happily, having a hard time to tone down the joy in his voice. He noticed his overexcitement of having a visitor and made himself sit down. Maybe he did mind the solitude actually. “How is she? Last time we talked she seemed to be very stressed…”
“Yeah, she's fine…”
Pomni’s mind was definitely somewhere else. It took her a while to notice her odd answer. She shook her head a little and finally made eye contact with Kinger.
“I mean, I also was worried, especially after I got really into the shooting game and I went kind of brutal on her… But she seemed to be okay with it when I talked with her after the gala. She was surprisingly chill about the entire thing. She told me you helped her a lot.”
Kinger smiled widely.
“I'm happy to hear that!”
The corner of her lips twitched gently, but her face refused to form a solid smile. Her sight dropped on the floor.
“She was happy to talk with me.” She continued with a shadow of an enthusiasm. “I'm glad we're okay now. It was a nice talk. It's nice to have a friend here…”
Her voice faded out as if holding that topic cost Pomni quite an effort. Kinger frowned with worry. It was unlike her, but it's not like he knew her enough to read her expression well. He leaned down a bit, trying to meet her gaze.
“Pomni” He softly called her name. “What's on your mind?”
Jester took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment.
“Yeah, I'm sorry” She said as she started fidgeting with her fingers. “It's rather obvious I visited you for… quite selfish reason of talking about something specific”
“It's okay” He replied cheerfully, taking a sip from his mug. “Everyone needs to be a little selfish from time to time”
Pomni snorted. An actual, little genuine smile appeared on her face as she looked at him with a tint of gratefulness.
“It's just… no one else wants to talk about… about…” She tried to gesticulate her thoughts, but her hands dropped as she couldn't avoid saying the name. She huffed with discontent. “About Jax”
Kinger blinked a few times in surprise.
“Did he… hurt you?” He was carefully choosing his words. “I remembered you having fun together”
“That's the problem!” Pomni threw her arms in the air. “We had! We had a lot of fun together! But after everything he just… denied it, as if it didn't mean anything” Her voice got louder and louder as she spoke. “He denied being friends, he said so many hurtful things, he said… He was being so weird. He avoided every question and…”
Pomni huffed, noticing she had stood up in emotions. She forced herself to sit back down on the couch.
“Okay, I'm sorry, I was holding it in me for a while, I just don't know where to start…” She rubbed her temple. Her half-open eyes already looked so tired.
“It's okay, take your time” Kinger discreetly clenched his hands tighter on his mug.
The image of Jax hurting yet another circus member overwhelmed him a bit. He should've been used to it by now, but he wasn't. It still ached his heart to imagine that the young man bullied others on his watch and he didn't do anything about it.
Pomni sighed, gathering her thoughts. She clasped her hands together and leaned her elbows on her knees.
“So we had a fight” She started with a much more collected tone. “It was after we shot all four of you. At first I was thrilled, the game was a lot of fun and Jax was surprisingly a great partner. I… might have hugged him out of excitement and he didn't take it well.” She grimaced. “He pushed me. Which was okay, I guess I should've assumed he wouldn't like that. Anyway, I wanted to clear the air after this mistake and I offered to shoot each other in the act of ‘villains betraying each other at the end’. But… he didn't like that either? He threw his gun away and encouraged me to shoot him. Which caught me pretty off-guard…”
Her nervous gestures became more certain as her voice filled up with anger.
“That's when he denied being friends. I started pressing him into admitting that we were, but I got more and more angry as he joked and avoided my questions. And then I blamed him for… I said… I said that him pushing people away made them abstract” Her voice cracked a bit with that word. She slowed down. “Maybe it was too much. It surely made him mad. He yelled at me. He said something about… “
Her eyes wandered around, as she reviewed the fight in her memory.
“...about how awful people are before abstraction. I think? I'm not sure now…”
She stopped and caught a breath. She stretched her back a little as she found herself bowing down in an unpleasant shrimp position. She sat up straight and leaned onto the couch. Another heavy sigh left her mouth.
“I apologized right then. But I still wonder what was that outburst about” She hummed. Her fingers went back to fidgeting with her gloves. Her sight was absent as she took her time before speaking up again. “He did that weird thing with his face. It was disturbing. He kind of… forced his anger to disappear and he plastered that fake-ass grin on his face. And then… he still insisted on shooting him. I remember… It terrified me. Not of him, more like…”
Her hand cuddled into a loose fist and touched her chest.
“I can't describe it… It was this deep itching anxiety about this place. I felt the same fear I had felt when I first arrived here. It reminded me of Kaufmo, and his funeral…” She frowned a bit, her lips twisted slightly. “And with that in my mind, I asked Jax what he would do if I abstracted tomorrow. I don't really know what kind of answer I expected then.” She snorted, looking down. “Of course he said something hurtful. Of course he said he would forget about me… And move on”
She turned her head as her frown deepened with upset. Her lips pressed tightly together as she clenched her teeth. She wasn't speaking for a while, so Kinger started getting worried.
“And… what did you do after that?” He asked.
Her brows knitted even more, but then, unexpectedly, her grimace changed into a wide smirk. She chuckled to herself.
“I punched him,” She snickered. “Well, first he backpedaled by saying it was a joke. And before that… For a second there I really considered shooting myself.”
She threw a quick glance at Kinger.
“No, no, no, I wasn't suicidal” She raised her opened hands “I just thought of leaving him this way. Kind of as a proof of how much he hurt people. You know. To show him. But then he backpedaled and I got mad and I threw the gun at him and…”
She chuckled once more, clenching her hands into fists.
“And then I punched him. And surprisingly he just let me? I was hitting him and biting and he didn't run away or fight back. He just… Yelled at me. He yelled and yelled. Something about not being an egg to crack open, something about being a sadistic monster that likes seeing people suffer…” Her voice got quieter. “He said there's nothing more than that about him.”
Pomni stopped once again, tilting her head back on the couch. She looked tired. Her sight was lazily wandering around the room as Kinger waited for continuation. Or maybe that was the entire story? He couldn't tell.
It all was weird and surprisingly refreshing to hear. He couldn’t pinpoint why, but it felt like a little push in the right direction for Jax, although Kinger knew from the experience that fights like that could go a few different ways. Still… he wished he would talk with Jax about it.
Unfortunately Jax would never visit his pillow fort.
“Kinger”
He jumped a little as Pomni's voice threw him suddenly out of his thoughts.
“Is that weird… is it weird that I'm worried about this douchebag?”
Their eyes met as Kinger tried to digest the question.
“No,” he answered after a moment.”I don't think so. Your story made me worried about him too.”
“Huh” Pomni blinked at him with a little surprise. And then she blinked a few more times, looking away. “And… is it weird that I still want to be his friend after all of this?”
“No” he smiled softly. “You said it yourself, you two had a lot of fun before the fight”
Pomni smiled a little.
“I guess…. He's still an asshole though” She pointed out bitterly. “I feel guilty even thinking about goofing around with a guy like him in front of his… well, his victims. Gangle is pretty much his victims after all. Ragatha’s too.”
She clasped her hands, intertwining her fingers.
“And I still would appreciate some apology from him. But that's the thing, I don't think he would apologize. I'm not even sure if he would like to talk with me anymore…”
“And what if he wouldn't?”
Pomni raised her eyebrows at him.
“Huh?”
“You… you want to be his friend” Kinger started slowly, carefully choosing his words. “But what if he doesn't want it? He surely shows you he doesn't.”
“Yeah, I know, but…” Her protest was lacking some confidence. “I think he's just scared. I don't know what, but he's kind of suppressing something”
Kinger hesitated for a moment. He didn't feel like an expert, and it was hard to put his thoughts into words when he tried to be precise and gentle at the same time.
“Pomni” He took a deep breath, hoping he wouldn't cross a line with the next sentence. “I think you're not giving him a choice”
Jester straightened up, widening her eyes. She was visibly shocked. She didn't respond.
“You said, you pressed on Jax to admit you two were friends” He explained carefully. “Maybe he felt forced to. Maybe it was too early for him. Maybe all he needed was a choice.”
Pomni looked down at her fingers.
“I… didn't think of it like that” She hummed. “I just… he looked like he had fun too”
“I'm sure he did,” Kinger nodded. “But it's Jax. He seemed to be… very sensitive”
A genuine chuckle forced its way through the jester's throat.
“Oh he is, isn't he?” She smirked to herself. “Douchebag and coward”
Kinger chuckled.
“So…” She raised her eyes full of questions at him. “What should I do now?”
“I don't know.” He shrugged lightly. “What do you want?”
She tapped her fingers on her thigh.
“...I want to get my friend back.” She confessed shyly. “It's stupid, but… I had more fun with him than with anyone else in the circus. Even if his philosophy was… kinda messed up, it was still very enjoyable to goof around and… I guess I don't want to lose that.” She glanced at Kinger before looking down. “I guess I was fighting with him and pressing it onto him because I knew he felt the same. It just confused me that he was so desperate to deny it all for some reason…”
A soft silence fell between them once more. Kinger took another sip from his red mug, contemplating.
“So you want to talk to him?” He asked.
“I can try?” She shrugged unsurely. “I don't think he will want to though… and isn't it still kinda forcing him into the friendship?”
“Well…” He took a moment to ruminate until he found the perfect words. “You're not really fighting for him here. You're fighting for yourself to have fun in the circus, isn't that right?”
Pomni's eyes opened widely.
“...when you put it like that…” She rubbed her chin “...it sounds like I don't really need him”
“To have fun?”
“Yeah”
“What about others?”
Jester hesitated a bit before answering.
“...I… don't know. They're nice, but… Ragatha's a bit too into peaceful gameplay and sports, I'm not a fan of either honestly… and I didn't really make my way to Zooble and Gangle that much. Maybe I should try.”
Kinger felt heavy all of the sudden. In a place like the Circus, not talking to the very few people they had around sounded almost dangerous for one's mental health, and yet, after months and years of spending time together, they all barely knew each other. He wished he could talk more with them. With his sane mind that is. He felt like the least he could do was being there for these kids. What seemed to be the easiest duty in the circus and he was constantly failing it.
“Sorry for not always being there for you” Kinger whispered softly.
“It's okay.” Pomni gave him a little comforting smile. “It's not like it's your fault”
He watched her for a moment, as she broke eye contact again, failing to keep the smile on her face. He could tell she wasn't blaming him for that. Her thoughts wandered off somewhere else entirely.
“... something’s still on your mind” He noticed loudly.
She pressed her lips into a straight line. Yeah, he guessed correctly.
“I just… okay this is stupid, but I still want to talk with Jax. I just need some sort of closure for this situation. But I don't know what to tell him”
Kinger was still impressed by how genuine and straightforward Pomni was. She didn't hesitate to confess her feelings. She was always talking as if she knew herself well. He admired that, wondering if she even needed his advice for her issues. She was such a smart and mature woman. He looked into his tea, meeting his little blurry reflection. What else could he tell her? She basically figured it all out by herself.
“I think…” He decided to repeat himself. “You can offer him a choice.”
“For being friends?” She guessed it. “And what if he says no?”
He hummed softly, wondering.
“Respect that.”
“And just… walk away?”
“Yes.” He felt a bit stupid with his simple answers. “You're doing it for yourself after all. Sometimes people need time and space to get closer, and sometimes it's good to save your time for people who actually want to be your friends”
He noticed a shadow of relief in her eyes. She was still pondering his words, but it looked like he helped. It filled him with a little bit of pride.
“It's still sad.” Pomni mumbled.
“It is.”
There was a hint of lingering discomfort in the silence this time. There was something else that needed to be said. Kinger didn't feel that smart to riddle that one. His heart was eager to help, but his mind was out of words. He still had one last thing to offer. He put his mug down.
“I can offer to hug it out” He shyly opened his arms.
Her face brightened immediately. She stepped to him without hesitation and let his floating hands embrace her gently.
Yeah, that was the right call.
“Thanks” He could hear the smile in her voice. She pushed him away shortly after to give him a grateful look with her tired eyes.
“I think I gotta go.” She yawned. She walked towards the entrance, but she stopped herself a step before it. “I… thank you a lot for the talk. I really needed that. I promise I'll visit you more often”
“That would be nice.” He cheered through his own tiredness. “I'll always be happy to talk.” He waved, not wanting to stop her any longer. “Goodnight Pomni”
“Goodnight” She waved back with a smile as she left.
Knock, knock, knock, knock…
Jax opened his door after the 4th knock, which was much faster than she expected. Pomni greeted him with a smile, hoping it wasn't too early in the morning to bother him. She couldn't wait any longer though.
“Hi, Jax” She beamed before he could say anything. “I just wanted to say, I'm sorry for the fight yesterday. I was a bit pushy. I just really enjoyed our time together and it hurt me that you didn't want to be my friend.”
Jax's face was washed out of emotions. His tired eyes watched her in silence, letting her say her rehearsed speech uninterruptedly.
“I had fun, and I still would like to hang out with you from time to time. I'll respect if you say no”
Jax waited a little longer as if making sure she said everything she wanted. He rolled his eyes in such a calculated manner it felt more than fake. He clicked his tongue and kept his mouth slightly opened for a moment as he formed his answer with a struggle.
She didn't see him like that before. He looked so pathetic. When he finally spoke up it almost startled her.
“You’re so desperate it makes you look stupid.” His small smirk was full of poison, but his voice was weak. “I told you to stop looking. I'm not interested in your cookies, scout girl. Sell it to someone else”
Pomni took a deep breath to collect herself. She decided to give him a last genuine smile.
“It's okay. If you don't want to be friends, I won't bother you anymore” She turned around and waved. ”Goodbye Jax”
He said nothing. His ears slowly fell behind his head as Pomni got further and further. She didn't look back. He didn't follow her. Not even with his eyes. He closed the door and wasn't seen for the entire day. And a few days after that.