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Caine didn’t know what crying was.
He’d never actually seen it.
At first, he understood the concept based on the information fed into his database, but he wouldn’t have recognized it if it happened right in front of him.
Looking back, he had caught some of the other members crying. Sometimes Scratch would cry in the corners of the circus (disillusioned and so dramatic, Caine thought), as would Wormo and Bizco.
Caine didn’t think much of it, though. He’d just send them off on an adventure with cool new temporary modifiers to help them entertain themselves and stop all that crying.
He didn’t understand that there was more to it than met the eye.
When only Queenie and Kinger were left in the circus, Queenie cried. She refused to go on the adventures for two weeks—terrible, terrible, always so sad, the poor Queenie—and no matter what Caine did, she kept feeling bad.
It was frustrating.
The more they cried, the more irreparable they became? Caine wondered this even more after Queenie’s abstraction.
And then Kinger cried.
Kinger had never cried before.
He was devastated, of course; it was common for humans to feel that way after the breaking of a lasting bond, according to the information he had. Queenie’s abstraction was that breakup, so it made sense that he would feel this way. Caine just hadn’t expected that one night, hidden in his pillow fort, he would hear him cry. Sobs echoed from inside the fort—they were anguished, heartbreaking.
(At least, they would be if he had a heart.)
Caine didn’t like this at all. Watching his only remaining human—his creator—suffer, while even his most elaborate adventures couldn’t pull him out of it, was becoming very frustrating.
Queenie was sorely missed there.
Kinger needed some human company.
If crying was a way to express discontent, Caine thought he might give it a try. He was quite unhappy about the direction things had taken, especially about Queenie’s abstraction and Kinger’s isolation. Perhaps he should try to express that too, so Kinger wouldn’t feel so alone.
It wasn’t his typical approach, but his adventures just weren’t working anymore.
They were supposed to work.
He decided to analyze Kinger’s mind files to better understand how the crying worked and mimic it accurately. It wouldn’t be a difficult task for him—Caine could solve any problem—so he just needed to focus on gathering as much information as possible as quickly as he could. Time was of the essence, as Kinger seemed to be withdrawing more and more, becoming practically unresponsive.
Relatability... That's what the circus was missing.
(And Kinger, too.)
When he finally absorbed all the information and implemented it into his system, Caine felt a flicker of hope ignite deep within his chest. He didn’t want to brag (too much), but it was a perfect imitation. His final test would be in practice, so he just needed to find Kinger and make the magic happen.
It wouldn’t be hard—Kinger was either wandering around aimlessly or in his pillow fort.
The latter guess was correct.
Caine set his feet on the floor in front of Kinger’s pillow fort, which, as Caine recalled, used to be much larger. It had gradually shrunk over time without Caine noticing, and he couldn’t quite figure out why—other than that there was no reason for it to be so big now that it was occupied by just one person.
He clutched his top hat in his hand and pressed it against his chest, putting on his most serious expression before knocking on the door of the pillow fort.
“Hey, Kinger. Are you... in there?”
Silence.
Caine cleared his throat and knocked again.
“Hey, Kin—”
“What do you want?”
The voice that came from inside was clearly choked up.
Kinger had been crying again, Caine realized.
“Now, my summer rain cloud! I always need to check in on my guests. Do you think I’d forget about you?”
Caine was met with silence. He crumpled his top hat in his hands.
“Y-you know. I understand why you’ve been so down lately. Being without any company is terrible! Believe me, I know... all too well,” Caine’s tone dropped from its usual volume as he reflected on what he was saying. “But we can’t let that get us down! I’D LOVE to have a new human around, but until that happens, I volunteer to be your newest companion!”
“I don’t think you really understand.”
And those words pierced Caine’s chest as if there were something there to hurt.
He pursed his upper teeth in an offended expression. “I do understand! I understand perfectly! In fact, I want to show you that.”
“Please, just leave me alone.”
Alone.
It couldn’t be like this.
Caine shook his head, his fingertips pressed firmly against the brim of his top hat.
“Kinger… can I come in?”
“No.”
“Please, I—”
“Caine.”
Hearing his name spoken in that sharp, pain-filled tone made something inside him churn, even without a proper stomach.
“I don’t want company. Go away.”
Kinger’s voice was cracking—a clear sign that he could start crying again at any moment.
“I’m coming in.”
No sooner said than done.
Caine pushed open the fort’s door—which was just another pillow—and stepped inside. The action caused the flickering beams from inside the circus to suddenly pierce the darkness, drawing an annoyed grunt from Kinger.
Speaking of Kinger, he was in worse shape than Caine had thought. His bulging eyes—too realistic by that world’s standards—had more visible red veins than they should have. His pupils were smaller, and his harsh facial lines seemed carved into his wood rather than being a temporary detail. He was curled up among some pillows like a defenseless prey desperately trying to stay off his predator’s radar, and he curled up even tighter when Caine opened the door and stepped into his safe cocoon.
The circus lights were too bright. Kinger felt nauseous.
“There you are,” Caine said, sitting on a pillow in front of Kinger’s makeshift bed, which looked more like a nest. He reminded himself of his main objective there and forced as much neutrality as possible onto his peculiar face. The top hat remained pressed against his chest as a sign of respect—he hoped that would be convincing enough, at least. “Kinger… you’re the last human left here. How do you expect me to—”
“I’m not going to abstract, Caine.”
Kinger stated and turned his face away so Caine couldn’t look at him so clearly.
“There’s no way to know, right? They all said the same thing, and look at us now! I thought Quee—”
“Don’t mention her.” Kinger’s eyebrows furrowed over his eyes, forming a dark frown amid his frightening sidelong glance. “You won’t be able to understand, Caine. Leave me alone.”
Caine tugged nervously at his collar. “W-well, that’s where you’re wrong, Kinger!”
Nothing. Kinger didn’t make the slightest effort to even show curiosity.
He continued, “I understand you all too well.” His eyes studied Kinger’s lack of reaction for a moment and realized how fake it was—he wouldn’t let himself be intimidated by that. “I know it’s a… sensitive subject, but ever since she left, I… I’ve been devastated too.”
Kinger turned his face toward him almost as if he were offended.
Caine shrugged and looked away.
“She was always so upbeat, so strong. Nothing seemed to shake her. When others were down, she was the one who helped them. I saw it all. I saw how much happier you seemed when she was around.”
With every word, Kinger’s expression softened a little more. He was listening.
“I saw how enthusiastic she was about every adventure and how much she made things better for everyone. She was so funny, too! I wish I could…”
The words died on Caine’s mouth, and he stared into space.
“She… she…”
Why did he feel as if there were a heavy, painful weight pressing against his chest? Why did he feel something burning in his eyes the more he thought about her?
“S-she told me I wasn’t so different from you guys. She always made a point of telling me that.”
When he looked back at Kinger, he found him staring at him with an emotion in his eyes that Caine couldn’t decipher.
Of course not.
“And to think that...” Caine swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly. “And to think that she abstracted because I-I wasn’t good enough is...”
“Caine.”
The next time he tried to look at Kinger again, he could barely do so, for his figure was blurred by the tears that had begun to well up in his eyes.
Oh.
He was crying.
Was this what crying felt like?
“I-I let them all abstract, and that made her leave me too. W-why? I should have—”
He cut himself off with an ugly, choked sound that came from the depths of his throat. Tears trickled past his teeth and fell onto his clothes, leaving no traces and not even a wet mark because they weren’t real—he would never be real.
Queenie believed he was.
On some level, she saw the humanity in him that Caine so envied.
“I-I-I shouldn’t have let this happen! T-this is a failure, something b-beyond my system’s capabilities!”
“Caine.”
Kinger’s hand reached out and touched his shoulder, drawing Caine’s attention to him.
He was a mess of tears. His eyes looked twice as big as normal and glistened with comically large tears pooled in the corners.
“K-Kinger, you’re going to abstract too... y-you’re going to leave me just like everyone else, and it’ll all be my fault! I-I’ll be completely alone again, and because of my incompetence! I-I didn’t want that, this is—”
“I’m not going to abstract, Caine.”
Kinger’s grip on his shoulder tightened, his voice dropping to a serious tone.
“I… promise.”
Promise.
Caine sniffed artificially and wiped away one of the many tears streaming down the corner of his mouth.
There was a mixture of concern and surprise in Kinger’s eyes. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like—Caine couldn’t tell for sure—and it made the agonizing sensation in his chest grow and force more tears to fall.
“How did you learn to cry?” Kinger asked curiously, raising his torso enough to look Caine straight in the eyes. “Why would you want to mimic something like that?”
I wanted to be like you humans.
“I… don’t know,” Caine replied in a whisper, shaking his head. His top hat was a crumpled mess in his trembling hands by then.
Kinger sighed and pulled him gently by the shoulder, drawing him close. He let Caine rest his head against his chest and didn’t seem tense about it. Caine felt the warmth of Kinger’s body and the way his chest moved slowly in time with his breathing—so human. Caine knew he could never have that, but he cherished it deeply whenever he could experience it this closely.
Caine’s heterochromatic eyes fixed on Kinger’s inscrutable expression. He was expecting something, but he just didn’t know what.
“I miss her so much,” Kinger said, staring at the wall of pillows in front of them. “You’re right, Caine, she really did make everything better. I didn’t… deserve her.”
Caine rubbed his arm over his eyes to wipe away the excess tears. “Why?”
A single, humorless laugh escaped Kinger.
“Look, Caine, you don’t need to worry about that,” he assured him, turning to face Caine again with that melancholy that Caine always hated to see in any human. It never meant anything good, but the way Kinger used his words sounded so sincere that it confused him. “You won’t be alone anymore. Never again. I won’t let that happen.”
And hearing that soothed something deep within the small ringmaster.
He nodded quietly and wrapped his arms around Kinger’s body, who initially tried to pull away in surprise.
“Thank you, Kinger.”
Kinger gradually softened in the embrace, setting aside his rigidity and pride. He placed a hand on Caine’s upper teeth and stroked it.
More tears streamed from Caine’s eyes.
He hoped that was human enough for Kinger not to break his promise.