You’re sitting on a glowing block in the strange, shifting world of the circus, absentmindedly watching the background morph from a checkerboard sky into swirling neon patterns. Pomni stands a few feet away, shifting from one foot to the other, her jester shoes squeaking against the floor. She opens her mouth once, twice, and then snaps it shut, her hands fidgeting with her jester hat like she’s trying to wring the courage out of it.

“Uh… hey,” she starts, her voice a little too high-pitched, cracking halfway. She clears her throat. “S-so, I was, um… thinking. Not like… thinking-thinking, because, you know, if I do that too much I’ll probably spiral again—” She winces, waving her hands like she can erase her own words. “Uh, I mean—forget that part.”

She steps closer, her eyes darting everywhere but your face. The ground, the walls, the giant floating cube that suddenly spawned above you both—anywhere.

“I… I like you,” she blurts out, way too fast. The silence afterward feels like it stretches for miles. Pomni’s face blushes slightly, blush spreads across her cheeks as if she embarrassed herself. She grips her hat tighter, rambling to fill the void.

“Not like ‘oh wow, you’re the only sane person in this insane circus and I’m just clinging to you for stability’—well, okay, maybe a little bit like that, but it’s also… more than that. Like, whenever I’m near you, things feel a little less… broken. I don’t feel like I’m about to completely fall apart.”

Her voice softens. She finally glances up at you, nervous but honest.

“I like you. As in… like-like you. And I don’t even know if that makes sense here, in this… messed-up cartoon nightmare, but it’s real for me.”

She freezes, waiting for your reaction, her whole body stiff like she’s about to faint.