Chapter Text
"Okay, I think that's enough from my end. How have you been?"
Joy is in charge right now, and Sadness doesn't think that needs to change. Riley's in the middle of a Skype call with Meg, so the other emotions have taken to doing other menial chores; Anger is cleaning the windows, Fear is sorting through the ideas, and Sadness is helping Disgust leaf through some of the mind manuals. It's a slow day, but Sadness doesn't mind. Slow has always been comfortable for her.
"I've been great!" Meg replies, giving Riley a smile even larger than usual.
"This oughta be good," Joy calls out to the others. Sadness gives her a small smile before turning back to Growth Cycles and Development: Volume 2. But she tries to listen in as best as she can, interested in the news Meg might share.
"—won our last game against the Pelicans, and coach says we might actually win the tournament this year!"
"That's great," she can hear Riley say, a distinct chuckle in the girl's voice.
"I know. And the best news is—wait for it—I got a boyfriend!"
There's an immediate reaction around the room. All of their heads turn towards the screen on instinct, staring with wide eyes at Meg's delighted expression. But Riley's tone, oddly enough, doesn't change. "Meg, that's great! Who is he? What's he like? I wanna hear all about it!"
Meg goes off on what might be her longest and most enthusiastic rant of the year, telling Riley all about how she met him ("He's in my history class; we worked on a project together and he watches all the same shows I do!"), how the actual romance started ("He asked me to the spring dance and we danced together during some slow songs! It was so much fun!"), and how exactly he makes her feel ("It's like right before you laugh, when you can feel the laughter bubbling up and you can feel the happiness spreading all over you for a little bit, but it's like that all the time!"). That's what really gets Sadness' attention, and she can feel the atmosphere around her change.
"That's not what goes around here at all," Anger breathes, and he sounds more surprised than frustrated, which definitely isn't normal.
"Yeah," Disgust agrees, "I made sure we stayed away from all those boys who wanted to get into Riley's pants. Joy doesn't deal with that, she deals with—" She stops suddenly, but all of them understand what it means.
Girls. That's the way Riley feels about girls.
Sadness takes a step forward, and no one stops her. No one's tried to stop her for a really long time.
She lays a hand down gently on top of Joy's, just as she's done before, and the console glows blue and yellow as a radiant memory orb rises to the surface. It settles in with the rest of the core memories, and after that Riley is different, but everything that they had expected her to be. They just hadn't realized it yet.