𝓘 𝓪𝓶 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓛𝓾𝓷𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓬

✑ 𝒶/𝓃: hello dearies! before reading, there's a reason why i wrote this.

so, lately there's been discourse about how people view the freak circus characters. fanon vs canon. it happens when a VN gains a bigger audience. but i need to be clear about something:

none of these characters are morally good.

not pierrot. not harlequin. not jester. not a single one.

and that's intentional.

for pierrot, as an example, i see a lot of people treating him like a "sweet obsessed boy." a comfort character. a soft yandere. and look—i get it. he's designed to be cute. the starry puppy dog eyes, the tragic backstory, the desperate devotion. neko knew exactly what he were doing when he made him.

regardless, he's a yandere. a real one.

like he stalks you. constantly. neko frames it as "keeping you safe," but again, that doesn't make it okay. he breaks into your house. how does he know your address? because he stalks you. he makes advances while you're asleep. that's canon. the game literally has a scene where the screen slowly zooms in while he rambles over your sleeping body.

he doesn't respect boundaries—he works around them. finds loopholes. pushes just far enough that you're not sure if you're allowed to be upset. the moment you stop following his script? the moment you reject him or try to leave?

he kidnaps you. he drugs you. he locks you away.

that's not "sweet obsessed boy." that's psychological horror. beautifully written, masterfully executed, absolutely terrifying psychological horror. neko didn't romanticize this. he showed it for what it is. and i'm not going to pretend otherwise.

and then harlequin, meanwhile, everyone treats him like the irredeemable villain because he's openly freaky, a predator. the evil one. the one who's definitely bad while pierrot is "complicated." but like some of you are missing the point:

pierrot and harlequin are on the same level.

they're just different kinds of dangerous.

harlequin is upfront about it. he doesn't hide. he stalks you openly, invades your space aggressively, makes it clear he sees you as prey. he's honest about being a monster.

pierrot hides behind it and "i just want to keep you safe." but underneath? he's just as possessive. just as boundary-violating. just as willing to take what he wants when you say no.

harlequin doesn't pretend to respect your consent. pierrot pretends so hard that you almost believe it—until you try to leave. which one is worse? depends on the day. depends on your trauma. depends on how much you hate being lied to.

the others follow as well as they have their own mentality, especially on humans.

the point is that, i'm still gonna write cute moments. you know, the fluff and the freaky smut. i like to write pierrot being adorable and harlequin being a menace to society and all of them being comforting/realistic in their own twisted ways.

because that's fun! because they are compelling characters! because exploring the soft edges of monsters is part of what makes this fandom enjoyable!

but i'm not here to baby them.

when i write them, again, i write them realistically. which means sometimes they're monstrous. sometimes they cross lines. sometimes they do things that would be horrifying in real life.

because that's who they are. that's the game. that's what neko created.

for my dearest readers, just know it's okay to like flawed characters.

it's okay to have a favorite monster. it's okay to write fluff and horror and morally gray acceptance and complicated feelings.

what's not okay is pretending the darkness isn't there. or acting like characters who stalk, kidnap, and drug people are "good boys" if you squint hard enough.

i love pierrot. i love harlequin. i love all of them—because they're complex, because they're dangerous, because the game doesn't shy away from showing what they really are.

i didn't pick my favorites based on who would respect me.

i picked them based on who would entertain me.

and if you're here for my writing? expect the same energy. expect fluff and horror. expect cute moments and realistic monstrosity. expect me to honor what neko created—not sand off the edges to make everyone palatable.

consider this your warning.

if you're here for soft, sanitized versions of these characters where everyone is secretly a good person underneath? that's not this blog.

if you're here for complex, morally gray, realistic explorations of what it means to love (and be loved by) actual monsters?

welcome dearie! and pull up a chair. the circus is weird and terrible and wonderful, and i'm so glad you're here.

now let's get into this writing.

✑ 𝓅𝒾𝑒𝓇𝓇𝑜𝓉  

He couldn't understand why you were walking away.

"You'd explained it to him a dozen times before. Work, family, the simple fact that permanence is not something you pursue. Each word fell into the water with the impact of a stone, rippling the calm surface of his pale face."

But he did not listen to you.

He listened to abandonment. He listened to once more.

He listened to people leave, and he knew you were no different.

The night before your departure, he came to you. Not lurking, not hiding, but simply...there. In your apartment, on your couch, as if he'd always been there, as if he'd been waiting for years, as if he'd been waiting for you, patient as grief, still as a photograph.

You didn't hear him come in. Didn't hear the door open. One minute, you were alone. Next, he was...there. His long fingers steepled together, his honey amber eyes locked on you with an unnerving focus.

"You can't go." he said softly.

"Pierrot, we’ve gone over this—"

"No." His eyes, which usually had that soft, mournful look, the gentle stars tied to a sense of safety, had none. Void. Hungry, in a way that had nothing to do with food, but everything to do with need. "You don’t get it. I can’t let you go. Not again. Not after—"

He stopped, swallowing hard. His throat constricted, that human gesture that looked wrong on him… like watching a doll struggle to breathe.

"Not after her."

The air between you was thick with the unspoken tears of the past. You knew who he was talking about. So did everyone else. The ghost that haunted every corner of the circus, the word that no one dared to speak out loud but everyone knew intimately, in memory.

You should have run then.

You should have known the threat in the stillness of him, in the way he dug the heels of his hands into his knees, in the way he opened his eye like a doorway into some empty place inside.

But you had never seen the other side of him. Not the gentle side. Not the soft side. Not the way he looked at you like you were something breakable, something he would save and keep locked in amber and velvet.

“Pierrot, I have to—”

He moved—surprisingly fast, quicker than anyone would think possible for someone so tall and so weighed down by sorrow. One moment, he was on the other side of the room, and the next, his hand covered your mouth, gentle yet unyielding, a grip that felt more frightening than any raw violence.

His beautiful, tragic face was inches away from yours, and you saw his gaze go dark, as if the stars had been extinguished, leaving only a hollow, void-like blackness in their place.

“I'm sorry,” he breathed, his voice so low it was barely audible. “I'm so sorry. But I can't. I can't.”

His other hand rose to cup your cheek, reverent and desperate all at once, with the same tenderness with which he treated his horses.

“You'll stay with me,” he breathed again, his voice full of desperation, full of need. “Forever. I'll keep you.”

The first bite came out soft, almost gentle.

His mouth was pressed to your forehead—a kiss, you decided, a final tenderness before...yet then his teeth found their hold, and you felt the brutal give of skin and bone.

He did not rip. He did not rend. He did consume with the same careful precision he used for everything else. Methodical. Reverent. Like this was a rite and you were the offering.

Piece by piece.

Your face first, because it was the part of you he loved most. The part of you that smiled at him, that spoke his name, that saw him when no one else did. He wanted to keep that. To carry that with him always.

Your hands next, because they had touched him with such gentleness. Because they had held his when he couldn’t speak. Because they’d never flinched away.

Your heart last, because it had beat for him, for all of them, and he couldn’t stand the thought of it beating for anyone else.

Through it all, he cried, and cried.

Tears slid over the white paint on his cheeks, tracing paths through his tragedy mask. He made sounds, just small, broken sounds that might have been apologies or might have been prayers.

“I love you,” he whispered, munching on a piece of food. “I love you more than anything. This is the only way—the only way to keep you safe, the only way to ensure you never walk away.”

They found him hours later, still there, on the carousel.

He sat astride the white horse, the one with the rose on its flank, the one he’d painted himself, surrounded by horses in mid-gallop, frozen in time, frozen in paint. Pieces of you lay scattered across the platform, arranged with a kind of terrible care.

And your face, your beautiful face, lay pressed against his chest, held in place by a trembling hand, as if listening for the beat of a heart.

He was crying, still crying, hours on, tears streaming down his painted face.

“I just wanted them to stay,” he sobbed, his voice lost in the silence, his voice crying to the horses, crying to the ghosts, crying to the memory of someone else he’d loved and lost. “I just wanted them to stay.”

His fingers traced what was left of your face with a tenderness that could break a heart.

“They’re here now,” he went on, his voice still crying, still sobbing, still broken. “They’re here forever. They can’t leave. They can’t.”

The carousel didn’t turn, the horses didn’t gallop, the music box didn’t play. Pierrot kept rocking, kept crying, kept holding what was left of you. And in the dark of eyes, something snapped, something broke, the kind of break that will never heal.

You weren’t taken away from him.

You couldn’t be.

He’d fight, he’d kill, he’d die, he’d do anything to keep what he’d finally managed to save. So you stayed, in his arms, on the carousel, forever.

Just as he’d wanted.

✑ 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓁𝑒𝓆𝓊𝒾𝓃

He'd always been fascinated by the way your pulse skipped when he leaned in a little too close.

The way that skin was so vulnerable, that spine so exposed. The way that your breathing caught when his presence brushed against you, taunting, challenging, seducing. He never meant to cause you real pain. The games were games, boundary-pushing, limit-testing, the only way he knew to communicate.

But then you fought back.

“You need to stop.” Your voice was steady, resolute. The kind of voice that left no room for debate. “This, whatever this is, it’s getting out of hand. I'm not going to be your toy anymore.”

And something inside him broke.

“Toy?” His voice was wrong, wrong in its lightness, its cutting edge, its velvet wrapping around a knife. “Is that what you think of me? That I'm playing with you like you’re some sort of toy?”

“Aren't I?”

The silence that followed was wrong, wrong in its oppressive quality, its heavy, thick feeling.

Like he'd spent so long hiding behind his performance. Behind his edges, his grins, his knives. Behind the mask of the predator with no feelings, no wants, no needs.

But you’d seen right through it. Always seen through it. That was the worst part—you’d peeled away the games and found something real, and now you were turning that against him.

“You don’t know anything,” he said, his voice falling into something almost human. “You think I’m just—just this? Just the green clown who jokes too much and touches too close?”

“Harlequin—”

“Do you know what it’s like?” The words came out jagged and raw. “To have someone inside you? To taste them—really taste them—not because you wanted to, but because you had no choice?”

You stared.

He laughed—a broken, awful sound. “Yeah. That’s right. You didn’t know that part, did you? You didn’t know I’ve done this before. Had to do this before. Because if I didn’t, we all would have—”

He stopped. Swallowed. His tendrils twitched erratically.

“But you didn’t care about that. You just saw a monster. Just someone to run from.”

“I’m not running,” you said. “I’m leaving. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” His eyes, truly those sharp, predatory eyes, suddenly filled with tears at the edge. “Is there really?”

You didn’t answer.

And that silence told him everything.

He found you that night. Not in your apartment—you’d been smart enough to stay away from home. A hotel, maybe. A friend’s couch. Somewhere you figured was safe. You were wrong.

He was in the corner of your room when you woke, crouched in on himself like a child, his tendrils wound around his own body as if he were trying to hold himself together.

“You called me evil.”

You shot up, your back against the headboard. “How did you—”

“You called me evil.” His voice cracked. “You looked at me—really looked—and decided I was just… just the bad one. The cruel one. The one who enjoys this.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did.” He uncurled, rising with that terrible, liquid grace. “You don’t know the full truth. You never asked. You just… assumed.”

His eyes found yours, tears bright there. Bright with something worse.

“She was my friend too, you know. Before. She mattered to me. And when they said—when we had to—” He faltered. “I still taste her. Some nights. When it’s quiet. When I can’t distract myself.”

“Harlequin—”

“I’m not evil.” The word broke on his lips. “I’m just… I’m just trying. Like everyone else. Like you.”

He stepped closer. You should have run. You should have fought. But something in his face—so young, so hurt—froze you in place.

“But you won’t stay,” he whispered. “You won’t even try to understand. So I’ll keep something. Just something. So you’re always here. So I’m not alone again.”

His tendrils curled around your wrists. Gentle at first. Then tighter. Then—

It wasn’t gentle.

He’d been good to you, though, in the other one, at least. Good, in his own hard way. But you’d called him evil. You’d looked at his deepest wound and called it his nature.

So he wasn’t good to you then.

He’s hungry.

Not hungry for meat, for blood, for anything like that. Hungry for proof, for you, for you staying, for you being real and being with him and not leaving him like all the rest of them.

His teeth were in your throat first, the small, delicate column of your neck, the part of you he’d always been fascinated by, always been drawn to, always been drawn to bite, to taste, to see your pulse beat against his lips one last time, to see you die, to see you live, to see you be his, to see you be his and no one else’s, to see you be his and to know he’d been the one to take you.

You struggled. You struggled hard. 

You scratched at his arms, his face, whatever you could get your hands on. And he did nothing. He just stood there and let you mark him, just as he was marking you. 

This was your proof, your evidence, that you had been here, that you had mattered, that you’re still here. And when your struggle finally ended, his tears started.

They found him hours later inside his tent.

His green tent, normally so sharp and chaotic, a whirlwind of color and clutter, was quiet, as if he'd put everything in its place and locked the door behind it.

Every item in its place. Every corner laid out with grim, exact care.

And in the center of it all, Harlequin knelt upon the floor, himself folded into a cross-legged position, you resting in his lap, your blood still dark upon his lips, his chest, his hands.

He was laughing.

But it was not his usual laughter, quick and sly and full of tricks for you. No, this was different. This was broken. This was hysterical. This was the laughter of a man who'd won at last, but found that there was nothing to win.

“They finally stopped running,” he wheezed in between the laughter. “They finally stayed. They finally—finally stayed.”

One of the others, maybe Pierrot, spoke out in disgust or horror. “He’s enjoying this.” But another voice spoke out, maybe Doctor or Jester, softer, older, more sad.

“No. He isn't.”

They leaned in, and saw the tears streaming down his face, the rivers of red through the blood. The way his hands shook as he held you close to him. The way his voice sounded, the quiet plea beneath the laughter.

“Please,” he whispered, his voice so soft that the silence around him seemed to lean in to listen. “Please come back. Please don't leave me alone. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please.” The laughter ended then. Only the tears remained.

They did not move you out of his arms. They could not.

So they left you there. In his lap. In his tent. In his arms. Forever.

Just as he'd never wanted it.

✑ 𝒿𝑒𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇  

He didn't chase. Didn't plead. Didn't need.

That was the performance, the act you wore like armor: a being so above ordinary human concerns that nothing could touch him. He’d been wearing that mask for an eternity, long before you, long before her, long before anything had even begun.

When you told him you’d had enough, standing at the foot of the stage, at the foot of his throne, your voice calm, rational, announcing your decision to leave the circus, he’d simply regarded you.

His burning eyes had locked onto you with the same weight, the same sense of being a specimen under the lid of a glass, the sense of being seen but not seeing.

“You want to leave,” he said, announcing the discovery rather than making a question of it.

“Yes. I’m sorry. I have to.”

“I see.”

You waited for something, anything, that would breach the stillness, the calm, the sense of serenity that surrounded him like an aura.

But nothing. Not one thing. His face didn’t change, his stance didn’t change, the purple light in his eyes didn’t change. He was empty, completely empty.

You began to turn away.

His voice stopped you.

“You do not understand what you are leaving.”

You turned to look again. He hadn’t moved, not outwardly anyway. Yet something had shifted—the kind of shift that crawls up your spine, subtle and terrible all at once. The purple in his eyes had darkened, grown heavier, like storm clouds wrapping around an ocean you can’t see the bottom of.

“...She left too, once. Tried to. Thought she could walk away from the gravity of this place.” A pause. “She learned.”

Those words fell into the air like stones dropped into a still pool. You knew who he meant. Everyone did. The ghost that haunted every corner of this circus, the name no one spoke aloud but everyone carried in their pocket like a secret.

“I’m not her.”

“No.” He rose, slowly. Careful, finally deciding to move.

The stage seemed to shrink as he stood to his full height. His horns caught the shadows above, and the purple light that poured out of him grew darker, spilling into the air like ink bleeding through water.

“You’re smaller. Softer.” He stepped down from the throne, each footfall sending a vibration you could feel in your bones. “Less smart, easier to keep.”

You ran.

Not smart. Not careful. Pure, animal fear steering you toward the exit, toward the flap, toward anywhere but here.

But you didn’t get far.

His hand—now claws came from behind you, steady and unhurried, not rough, just... there. The fingers trailed over your ribs, your sternum, your heart. Through your skin, which felt like it weighed nothing, through your muscle, which felt like it was air, through your bone, which felt like tissue paper.

And then they were inside you.

Not tearing, not ripping, just... occupying the space where your most vital organ beat with a desperate pace. “You tried,” he breathed into your ear, the words sending a tremor through your whole body. “That means something. She would be proud of you for trying.”

You couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, only feel the fingers of his hand curling around your heart with a strange, gentle tenderness.

“But trying is not enough,” he continued, his face inches from yours, the neon purple eyes blazing with heat, nearly touching yours, close enough for you to feel the furnace behind them, the ancient hunger he kept hidden behind his indifference.

“I let myself care for you,” he said, the fingers of the other hand cradling your face, turning you to face him. 

“That was my mistake.”

His fingers tightened around your heart.

Just a fraction. Just enough.

They found you hours later, tucked inside the purple tent, curled at his feet as if you were a child, sound asleep. Your eyes were closed, a small smile played on your face, your body undisturbed, no blood, no sign of struggle, no sign of a fight. Only the rise and fall of your chest told a different tale, the one thing missing.

Jester sat upon his throne, your heart nestled in the palm of his broad hand. It was still warm, its color a dull red, still beating, an anemic drum that would not keep time for much longer.

“They gave it willingly,” he said when they entered, his voice unchanged, uninflected, carrying the same weight as it always had. “In the end.”

And yes, no one believed him. But no one could prove otherwise.

✑ 𝓉𝒾𝒸𝓀𝑒𝓉 𝓉𝒶𝓀𝑒𝓇  

He noticed you first.

He did not move like the others did. No desperate swiftness in the movement of Pierrot, no hungry gleam in the eyes of Harlequin. He simply observed. He cataloged you as "Visitor, New," and then went about his business.

But you continued to return.

You talked to him like he was a person, like he was more than simply the function of the clockwork. You inquired about his systems, his ledgers, his order. Not in derision, but in genuine interest. You did not shy away from the lingering look of the grid eyes. You did not flee from the silence.

He found you pretty.

The realization was... inconvenient. Humans were variables. Messy. Unpredictable. He'd spent centuries perfecting his detachment, his professional distance, his immunity to the chaos of emotion.

And then you smiled at him one day, and something in his perfectly organized mind stuttered.

He never thought he would find himself attached to a human. He'd watched others fall—Pierrot's obsession, Harlequin's games, even the Jester's quiet attention—and found it all completely unnecessary.

Until you.

Until the way you said his name like it meant something. Until the way you sought him out, not for paperwork or assignments, but just to be near. Until the way your file grew thicker and thicker, filled with observations he'd never made about anyone else.

Subject: Visitor

Notes: Arrives at 10:23 AM. Stays for 47 minutes. 

Smiles 12 times. Pulse elevates when addressed directly. Interesting.

He'd never written "interesting" in anyone's file before. So when you told him you were leaving, just standing in his tent, calm and rational, explaining that your time at the circus had run its course—he processed it like any other departure.

"Date of exit. Reason for exit. Forwarding information." His pen moved steadily across the page, each stroke precise, controlled, perfect. "I will update your records accordingly."

"That's... that's it?"

He looked up. His white eye were unreadable. One had to be. If he showed even the blue one, a fraction of what he was feeling, the whole system would collapse.

"What else would there be?"

You'd expected something. A fight. A plea. A crack in that perfect, professional facade.

He gave you nothing.

So you left.

You made it three blocks.

Three blocks of streetlights and empty sidewalks and the slowly dawning realization that something was wrong. Your keys? Your phone? You patted your pockets, checked your bag—

And turned back. He was there.

He stood in the road, unmoving, unshaken, as if the moment itself had paused to hold him there. A streetlight passed across the sharp definition of his suit, the sharp definition of his pose, and the faint grid of the streetlight in his eyes flickered in the dark.

He did not exude the vibe of the type of person who follows you around.

He exuded the vibe of the type of person who had been waiting for you.

“You forgot something,” he said.

Your heart was slamming in your chest. “What?”

“Me.”

His hand shot out, quicker than you’d ever seen him move, quicker than anything that stiff, improper for a body to do, could plausibly manage, and it closed around your wrist. 

The grip was gentle, exact, almost inexorable. 

“You are filed under ‘Permanent,’” he said. His voice still calm, still smooth, still polite, but there’s something in it now, something that wasn’t there before, and you realize, with a jolt of fear, that you are dealing with a man who is no longer calm, no longer polite, no longer sane? “Did you think I’d simply… let you walk away? Not under my jurisdiction?” 

“Ticket Taker—” 

“You know, I kept of you, even files on her for decades after she was gone." His grip tightened—just slightly, just enough. "Did you know that?"

His other hand reached into your your waist

"You're in my files now," he continued. "Every interaction. Every smile. Every time your pulse elevated when I addressed you. It's all there. Permanent. Irrevocable."

"Please—"

"I will preserve you too." His voice cracked—just once, just slightly. "Something small. Something I can keep. Something that will never leave."

He was gentle. That was the worst part.

He did not rip, nor gnaw, nor devour. He processed. Each slice precise, exact, exact, careful in its own horrible way. He spoke to you throughout the whole thing, calm, even, almost gentle.

“This will not hurt much longer. I have seen to that.”

“You were always so patient with my systems. No one else ever asked me how they worked.”

“I should have told you sooner that you mattered. That you were not just another file.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I cannot let you go. I cannot.”

Your hand was the first to go. The right hand—the one that had reached out to him, touched his sleeve, held the pen when you let the scribbling in the margins.

He kept it, careful and intact, wrapped in wax, labeled with pristine handwriting.

The rest of you... Well, he was a keeper of records. He knew precisely how to make things last.

They found you months later.

Not all of you—never all of you. But pieces. Filed away in his cabinets with the same precision he applied to everything else.

Your hand, preserved in wax.

Your voice, recorded on an old device, saying his name. A lock of your hair, pressed between pages of your file. Your smile, captured in a photograph he'd taken without you knowing.

And in the main cabinet, under "Permanent Collection," your complete file—thicker than any other, filled with years of observations, annotations, and one single line written in the margin of the last page:

"I should have told them sooner."

He was at his desk when they found it all. Working. Filing. Processing.

"They're still here," he said when asked, not looking up. His voice was calm. Professional. The same tone he used for inventory reports. "That's what they wanted. To be kept. To be permanent."

And you were still there. In the careful, precise way he said your name when no one was listening.

Right, where you belong.

✑ 𝒹𝑜𝒸𝓉𝑜𝓇

He'd always been fascinated by your eyes.

You see, from the moment you entered his infirmary, your nerves thrumming, your curiosity piqued, your life force pulsating, he saw you. Saw you look at him with those wide, interested eyes when he drew closer to you. Saw you look at him, really look at him, with no flinching, no recoiling, no disgust or fear or revulsion of any kind.

Most people looked away, of course. Most people couldn’t sustain that look for more than a second or two before their baser instincts propelled them back, away, toward safety and distance and comfort.

But you didn’t look away. You didn’t flinch or frown or otherwise betray your discomfort with what you saw, with how you saw him, with how you saw him as if you really, really saw him for the first time in your life.

He’d never had a subject quite like you, no, not quite like you at all.

So when you told him you were leaving, when you stood in front of him in his own infirmary, calm and composed and serene, when you told him your circus days were over, he simply nodded, thoughtfully, clinically, and said, “I see. And you’ve weighed all the variables?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.”

You smiled, a touch of sorrow, a flicker of hope, and turned to leave.

He let you go. For now.

Then you woke, strapped to a table.

The infirmary ceiling came into focus—familiar canvas, familiar shadows, familiar antiseptic scent, and something else, organic. You tried to move. Nothing. Tried to speak. Found your voice.

“What—Doctor—”

“Hush, hush.” His face drifted into view above you, steady and curious, those cyan eyes bright with a kind of excitement he rarely allowed himself. “This is for science. You understand.”

“I don’t—you can’t—”

“I need to know.” He plucked a small, sharp instrument from the tray at his side. It caught the dim light. “I need to understand what makes you stay. What makes any of you stay. She stayed—for years, for decades—and I never got to study why.”

His free hand stroked a strand of hair from your forehead. Touching. Almost...tender.

“But you’re here now. And I have so many questions.”

The instrument was held close to your face.

“Let’s start with the eyes.” His voice was low, almost...reverent. “They’re very expressive, aren’t they? The way they dilate when you’re afraid. The way they move when they see movement. The way they looked at me...really looked at me...without flinching.”

His head tilted slightly.

“I wonder what they look like from the inside.”

He was meticulous.

That was the thing about the Doctor—he never did anything...carelessly. Not ever. Every cut precise, every detail noted, every sound you made...filed away.

“Fascinating. The pupil constricts even in death. Reflexive, of course, but...” A scratch of pen on paper. “Noting that.”

He worked on you for hours.

Your eyes were next, surgically removed and preserved in separate jars, labeled with your name, the date, and “Optic Nerves: Intact.”

Then your brain. This is where the answers were kept, where the reasons for you resided. He wanted to understand it, map it, figure out what made you different from everyone else.

Then your heart, because it belonged to them. To him. He wanted to hold the weight of it, to comprehend the force that kept it there when everything in you wanted to flee.

The whole time, he talked to you? To himself? To the data? It was difficult to say.

“She would have understood this, the need to know, the need for answers.” A pause. “She let me study her, you know? Just once? Before—” Another pause. “I should have asked for more time.”

His hands did not shake, nor did his voice betray him. 

He simply... worked at it.

They found you in the infirmary hours later.

Your body had been placed on the table, still, quiet, and warm, with an odd sort of dignity: your arms at your sides, your eyes closed, well, what was left of them, and a peaceful stillness on your features. The eyes, however, stared out from their jars on the counter, labeled and catalogued.

Your brain had been placed in a solution, awaiting further study.

Your heart, pink and fresh, was nestled in a small dish next to his notes.

Doctor was at his desk, turned away from them, his pen scratching across the paper.

"Fascinating," he muttered, unaware they had entered. "The optic nerve indicates signs of… yes. That will be recorded. And the hippocampal formation—remarkable preservation. I must section it further, but initial findings indicate—"

"Doctor."

He looked up, blinking as if surfacing from deep water.

"Oh. You're here." He glanced at the table, at you, at the jars. "The specimen is... no longer viable for certain types of observation. But the data! The data is extraordinary."

He didn't notice the expressions on their faces. Didn't register Pierrot's horror, Harlequin's hollow shock, the Jester's heavy silence.

He only noticed the data.

"She would have been proud," he added, almost to himself. "Of the thoroughness. The attention to detail." A pause. "I hope."

He turned back to his notes.

They took you away. He didn't notice.

In the days that followed, the Doctor continued his work.

Your eyes sat on his shelf, next to other specimens, other contributions. Your brain was sectioned and studied and understood. Your heart—he couldn't bring himself to section it. Not yet. It sat in its dish, slowly fading, a reminder of something he couldn't quite name.

He talked to you sometimes.

When the infirmary was quiet. When the others were performing. When the weight of his own curiosity pressed too heavy.

"I wish you'd stayed longer," he murmured one night, holding your heart in his gloved hands. "There was so much more I wanted to ask."

Your heart didn't answer.

It never would.

But in the silence, he almost heard your voice—asking questions, seeking answers, wondering alongside him.

"Thank you," he whispered. "For the you of it all."

He placed your heart back in its dish.

And went back to work. Because that was what he did.

That was what he'd always done.

✑ 𝒸𝑜𝓁𝓊𝓂𝒷𝒾𝓃𝒶  

It started small.

A glimpse out of the corner of my eye: me, broken and discarded at the base of the merry-go-round, Pierrot’s empty eyes looming over me. I blinked, and it was gone.

And then there were more.

Me, caught under Harlequin’s grasp, his sly smile the last thing I saw before everything went black. Me, hollow and still in the Jester’s chair, my heart cradled in his hand. Me, dissected and divided on the Doctor’s table, my parts neatly tagged and filed away. Me, a room full of parts and pieces in the Ticket Taker’s collection.

The visions plagued my nights, my moments of stillness, my moments of closing my eyes and holding my breath.

I’d be smiling, laughing at something Pierrot had said, and then suddenly, I’d see my own face: torn, eaten, gone. I’d feel Harlequin’s ropes against my arm, and my mind would flash with visions of them wrapped tight around my throat, squeezing.

They kept me awake, kept me jumping at every creak and rustle, made me wonder if every kind word, every soft touch, every moment of peace, was all a lie.

You had no idea what was real anymore.

The only thing I knew was that I had to get out.

On the last day, you found yourself in the Hall of Mirrors, a place where your thoughts sounded louder than they actually were. You told the others that you wanted some air, that you had a headache, nothing more, to leave the others behind once more and wander the labyrinth a little while longer, past the decoys, the dull, second-hand reflections, to the center.

The special mirror. The pink one.

There she stood, as she always did, watching. Her one eye locked onto you with a gentleness that burned a little too brightly. Your hand touched the cold glass. “Columbina,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “I need to go. I need to leave. The things I’ve seen. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me if I stay.”

She did not blink, did not say a word. Yet you felt it, the air vibrating with the shifting heat, the warmth that seeped into the glass. Understanding.

“I’m going to run,” you whispered. “Tonight. Leave the town. Disappear. I won’t be able to…” Your voice caught on the memory of the threat you had not quite named. “I won’t be able to become what I’ve seen.”

She put her hand to the glass, her fingers fitting against yours.

And then you felt it, felt it beyond the understanding, beyond the pity. Approval.

She knew what they were, all the same. 

Knew what they did. They were still family—the ones who’d been there since she was alive, the ones she’d loved and would have died for. But time had stretched on. Decades. And this is what their presence looked like now: a frantic, starved defense against a world that had always bruised them.

She didn’t want you to become like her.

Didn’t want you swallowed by the people she loved.

She wanted you to run.

Her eyes met yours for a long time. Then, with a calculated tilt of her head, she nodded the smallest, most certain nod.

Go.

You ran. No bags, no goodbyes. Just you, disappearing into the night, your heart thudding in your chest, your feet carrying you further and further away from the light, the music, the monsters who had loved you too much. And the circus continued on, louder and louder, as if you had never been there at all.

They started to notice you were missing.

In the mirror, Columbina stood still, quiet, unmoving.

Pierrot was the first to discover your apartment was empty, his voice echoing in the space as he called out, “Where are you…? Please answer. Please. I’m scared.”

Harlequin's messages were sharper, tinged with a fear he could barely hide in his words, “Funny game. Come back now.”

The Jester did not send a message. He just waited, his weight bearing down on the space where you used to be.

The Ticket Taker marked your Status: Missing. Search initiated.

The Doctor prepared his tools, just in case.

They hunted all night.

The midway, the tents, the roads leading out of the circus, none of them gave up a clue, a hint, a whisper of where you might be. Just the empty space where you used to be.

Columbina watched from her mirror.

She watched Pierrot collapse against the carousel, sobbing, your name a broken prayer on his lips. Watched Harlequin's sharp grin fade into something hollow, his tendrils drooping as he realized you weren't coming back. Watched the Jester's purple light dim, just slightly, as another human proved that love meant leaving.

Watched the Ticket Taker close your file with trembling hands. Watched the Doctor set down his tools and simply... stop.

She watched them grieve.

And she smiled.

Not a cruel smile. Not a triumphant one. Something bitter. Something sad. Something that had been waiting decades to feel.

Good, she thought. Good. They'll hurt. They'll learn. They'll understand what it means to lose someone who chose to stay—because you didn't. You chose to live.

Her hand pressed to the glass one last time, as if reaching toward the distance where you'd disappeared.

Run far, little one. Don't look back. Don't let them find you.

And they never found you.

Weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and the circus went round and round, demanding, needing, and consuming all in its path. But it wasn’t quite the same. Something had changed, something had shifted, and no one knew what or why or how.

Pierrot’s empty eye still couldn’t quite adjust to wearing its stars again, Harlequin’s tricks had become sharper, more sinister, and less playful, the Jester’s pull had grown stronger, the Ticket Taker’s ledgers gathered dust, and the Doctor’s curiosity had mutated into something else, darker, and more sinister.

But Columbina observed it all.

From her mirror, from her solitude, and from the prison of a love that had already consumed her whole.

She saw them suffer.

And she felt joy.

Because you were out there, somewhere, alive, and safe, and free. Because she had helped you escape, escape the same fate as Columbina. Because for once, one of them had managed to slip through the net, to escape the circus’s clutches, and live.

In the Hall of Mirrors, at the heart of the maze, a small pink figure placed her hand flat on the glass and closed her eye, and thought, Thank you, to the distance, to the night, and to you, for letting me help, for letting me save someone, for letting me love, for once, and for a moment, and for not destroying me with it.

Her joy shone brightly in the glass for a long time after she vanished, and you, somewhere, felt it, felt warmth, and approval, and freedom.

At least with her you got away swiftly.

♤ — 𝓉𝒻𝒸 𝒾𝓃𝓀𝓎𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉

iyayadonna, all rights reserved. — ⋆˚ ᓭི༏ᓯྀ ꩜ 。⋆ .ᐟ