#candyclock

Brightview always went quiet at night, the kind of quiet that had made even the neon bright neon signs hum louder outside. Yatta never minded it, not in the slightest. Silence was just another kind of stage, and she had filled it with her own little colors. But tonight? She had a mission on her mind. 

Someone had been leaving candy out by the train tracks every night. It wasn’t just any candy either. They had quickly become her favorite kind of candy. Ever since they had been able to leave Gardenview after it had been abandoned for years, the toons had some help they found, and settled into another place. And with the toons finally seeing the outside world, they learned new stuff. And Yatta? She found a bigger variety of candy that had been everywhere outside. 

Strawberry filled candies, lollipops, chocolates, so many kinds of different candies that she never found on the floors in the old Gardenview. At first, she thought it was Looey trying to be sweet, but when she had asked him, he denied it immediately. Then she blamed Blot, who just blinked at her like she’d accused him of murder. So she decided it would be up to her to find out who was leaving her candy. 

She crouched behind a stack of crates near the railing near the tracks, the streamers in her hair rustling when she adjusted her stance behind them. This was her moment, her little detective arc. She was going to find out who kept leaving the candy near the train at night. 

Yatta heard some footsteps, some distance away. Slow, careful, that had been familiar in a way she didn’t understand yet. Straining her eyes, she saw a tall silhouette move into the dimmed lighting, their posture all sharp, and with a quieter-than-quiet energy. A chain glinted from the back of the figure’s head casing as they knelt beside the track. Her jaw had dropped open so fast that it practically hit the ground. 

It was Dyle. Dyle Timesly. The pocket watch toon that controlled the trains and took care of a lot of tasks behind the scenes. Yatta watched him place the bag of candy down onto the ground, near the train tracks. It was almost ritualistic, like he was setting down an offering. His hand had hovered over the little plastic bag a second too long, and it hit Yatta like a brick. She realized that he must’ve been doing this for a while. Long enough to be able to know exactly what she preferred. Long enough to try and not be caught by her. 

But, too bad for him. Yatta shot up from her little hiding spot, raising and pointing her finger at Dyle dramatically. 

“CLOCK GUY?!” Dyle immediately froze on the spot like someone had hit the universe’s pause button. His head didn’t move, but his eyes? Oh, they were definitely moving, with pure, and unfiltered panic in them. 

“…Yatta,” he sounded stiff, as if saying her name cost him emotional energy that he did not have any budget for. 

“I knew it was you!” Hopping over to the tracks, she circled him like a tiny little excited comet. “You were the one leaving me candy every night! I’ve been trying to like—catch you for DAYS! I thought you were some little mysterious fairy or something, but nope! It was you!” His mouth opened like he was going to try and deny it. Or try to explain it in some way. Dyle also considered running away, but Yatta wasn’t sure about that. 

“I was simply…aware that you were someone who enjoyed sweets,” he muttered outloud, already sounding as if he wished the ground could just swallow him whole in that moment. “I didn’t know how to, um…give them to you directly. So I thought that this method would’ve sufficed. There was no way I expected— well, I did not intend for you to…see me.” 

Yatta blinked at him, and then she laughed. It was the brightest, loudest, and purest thing the train conductor had ever heard. “That’s literally the cutest thing I’ve ever heard!” 

He visibly malfunctioned. “...Cute?” 

The piñata toon bounced on her heels, hands clasped together. “Yeah! You remembered what I liked! And you kept doing it! Dude, that’s like so adorable!” Dyle's posture had stiffened even more, which she didn’t think was possible. 

“It was…not meant to be adorable. It was meant to be— efficient.” 

“Still adorable,” she insisted, picking up the little candy bag and hugging it to her chest, looking up at him with a soft grin, “Thank you.” 

Dyle stared at her, with a startled expression, as if no one had ever thanked him for anything in his entire existence. Maybe they hadn’t. He had been hidden away in Gardenview, only speaking to Dandy most of the time, only allowed to exist in the shadows of the facility. This was probably the first time someone had gotten excited just because he was him. 

And Yatta—bright, unpredictable, eccentric, impossible Yatta— beamed at him as if he’d hung the stars and she caught it all. It seemed similar, in a way. 

“W-Well,” he managed, coughing right after, “it was…nothing significant.” 

“It was to me,” she said to him, in a softer tone. 

The clock was rather lonely around the building. He stood awkwardly beside the tracks, unsure of what to do with his hands, or with his existence. 

She mischievously smiled at him, knowing that his world had been cracked open by her. Rocking back and forth on her heels, hands still hugging and clutching onto the candy bag he left her, as if it was a trophy from some secret mission she’d finally solve after months. Dyle stood there, stiff as ever, but she was able to see something different in the way that he held himself. Less ready-to-flee, more…listening. 

“So,” she stated, swaying her body side to side. “Since you’re, y’know, actually talking to me after all this time, can we…hang out? Like—tomorrow? In your little store…thingy—in the lobby? You’re always there. I wanna see what you even do in there!” She expected him to hesitate, maybe stutter, vanish into thin air. Anything. But instead, Dyle blinked slowly at her, the chain on the back of his head gave a tiny little clink when he shifted his posture. 

“You…want to spend time there? With me?” His voice had this little careful tone of disbelief, like she’d just asked to borrow the moon. 

“Yeah!” she shouted immediately. “I think it’d be fun!” Dyle paused for a long moment, processing, recalibrating, and rethinking every life choice that had led him to this exact second. 

Then, in a quiet, almost shy voice, “...I would like that.” 

Yatta lit up like a firework. “Great! I’ll bring snacks!” He definitely malfunctioned at the thought, his eyes widening just a teensy bit. All she did was grin at him, giving him a little playful salute, as she skipped off into the darkness of the facility, as she carried her bag of candy—leaving Dyle to stare at her, in soft confusion that had settled into something new. Something warm.