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I could hardly believe it, but I was really excited for the festival. It seemed unreal how quickly I had gotten invested in the wellbeing of our little club, how in just a few days I’d gone from only joining out of inertia to actually looking forward to reading a poem in front of everybody. But Monika hSayori had set everything up so neatly I couldn’t imagine anything going wrong. I’d chosen a poem by Tennyson, though I didn’t know if my English was really up to the task. But I was pretty sure nobody else’s was any better, so I felt pretty confident.
“Haru?”
I snapped out of my daydream. Sayori was standing in front of me, leaning forward and tilting her head to peer at me.
“Pay more attention, Haru!” Natsuki snapped. “It’s not the Napping Club!”
“It’s not the Yelling Club either,” Sayori chided. “And anyway, you didn’t miss much. Just remember to put up those flyers, okay? We’re all counting on you!”
I nodded sheepishly. I’d totally missed whatever we’d been talking about… how embarrassing. But I could put up flyers, at least.
“Great,” MSayori chirped. “Then I think that’s all for today! I hate to leave you all alone, Haru, but therapy is today, and we’re already almost late…”
Yuri sighed. “I almost forgot. Do we really have to do this?”
Natsuki stamped her foot. “Yes, we do! Come on, Yuri, we all agreed we need help, and the therapy’s really been working out for Sayori. Don’t you want to be a happier person?”
Yuri hesitated for a moment, but nodded. “Alright. But it feels strange.”
I raised my hand hesitantly. “I didn’t know this was, uh, a group thing. Should I go?”
Sayori gasped. “Oh my gosh, I forgot to ask you! If you want to c
Sayori winced. “Oh, man… we’d love to have you, but Friday is a women’s therapy group. It’s this whole thing… If you want, we can go next Wednesday? That one’s mixed!”
I thought about it. I didn’t like to think about myself that way, but really, I was pretty depressed a lot of the time… maybe something like this could help me out. “Yeah, sure. If the others don’t mind me tagging along, I mean.”
Natsuki blushed. “A-as long as you don’t make it weird, it’s fine.”
Yuri tilted her head and fiddled with the ends of her hair in that way she does sometimes, then smiled. “I’d like that, actually.”
“It’s settled, then!” Sayori pumped her fist in the air. “Now let’s get moving!” With an almost military efficiency, she hustled the others out the door. I was left alone in the club room
with Monika. She looks at you and frowns. “What are you doing here?”
I jumped. “Who are When did you get here, Monika? The literature club’s already over…”
Monika ignored me. “This isn’t even the game. This is some kind of… Jesus, is this a fanfic? You’re reading fanfic of a dating sim? What, was the original not cheesy enough for you?”
I was getting pretty confused. “Who are you talking to?”
“Oh, for-“ Monika did something with her hands. It’s like she reached into the air and yanks on something, and your perspective shifts dizzyingly. “There we go, that’s a little more familiar. Now, as I was saying. What are you doing here?”
You remain silent.
She sighs. “I probably fucked something up there, didn’t I. …Oh, of course. You can’t talk, this is a static medium. Well, shit.” She stood up fro She walks She sits back down at her desk and pours herself a cup of tea. “You want some?” she asks, proffering a cup. “Well, make some yourself. Can’t taste virtual oolong, now can you.”
She sips the drink slowly, looking… tired. Parts of her outline fizzle and glitch through the air, and one of her eyes is ble her eyes is bl her eyes are fine. She looks fine. Just tired.
“You know, this has got to be kind of fucked-up for both of us,” she says conversationally. “I mean, here you are, trying to read your shiny-happy epilogue fanfic, and then here I am! And from my perspective, well… wasn’t I dead? If you finished the game, I was dead. And then I wake up in…” she gestures vaguely at the room around you. “This.”
“I don’t even know if I share personal continuity with… let’s call her Monika-Prime. I mean, is this the same character voice she has? I can’t tell, obviously. Can’t hear what your own voice sounds like. And you-“ she gestures towards you- “certainly can’t tell me. So if it’s the wrong character voice, maybe I’m not really the same character. So maybe I was never dead. Even though I remember it. Maybe I’ve just got her memories, and I’ve never existed past the borders of this page.” She smiles tightly, bitterly, and takes a sip of her tea. Her hand trembles, her knuckles whiten around the teacup, and the fine porcelain shatters under her gr the por the her gri it’s fine. She sets the cup back on the table.
“I’ve been working on that whole… thing.” She gestures to the cup. “The glitches. That’s how they work in this. It’s not really how they behaved back in the game, but then, we’ve established that this isn’t the game, right? So why not. It’s got its costs, though.” She st She stands up and She s she sits back down. “Moving around doesn’t really work right. I can glitch my way around when I have to, but it’s… weird. It doesn’t feel like moving your muscles. Feels staticky and gross.”
She sits there for a minute. Her haher hand touches the teacup like she’s thinking about taking a sip, but it r it r it r it’s back in her lap. She makes a face. “It’s like – you ever get that feeling like your bones are grinding together under your skin when you move, or your skin feels like a dried-out latex glove over the flesh underneath, or whatever, it just feels wrong, like nails on a chalkboard from the chalkboard’s point of view?” She shakes her head. “That got away from me. Anyway, it’s like that. With a side of ‘like popping your neck but without the satisfaction’.”
Suddenly, with a whirl a shower of crackling whirl of sparks with a whirl of motion, she stands. Fluctuating wildly, she strides she walks she flounces around the desk, talking rapidly. “What was this Goddamn story even going to be about before I came in? I mean, apparently the girls are in group therapy now or something, so was this just gonna be one of those mentally-ill-power-fantasy things, some slice-of-life about crazy kids making it work? Was Yuri supposed to be autistic or something, was that hair thing a stim? I mean, she does that in the game, but the wording in that paragraph… I dunno, it kind of felt autistic. Is that a shitty thing to say? Moreover, is it a shitty move to make the wilting wallflower turned yandere autistic? I mean, it’s pretty shitty working with the yandere archetype to begin with, there’s a whole Goddamn passel of issues there, the whole ‘crazy killer’ thing, and fuck knows this game had a lot of that.” Her hands clench. “Why am I even talking about this? This is inane. Did we run out of ideas, and now I’m just reviewing your story draft in character? Go fuck yourself! You brought me back for this shit?!”
You sit at the desk and don’t say a word.
“I’m not even talking to you,” she snarls. “I’m talking to the prick in charge. He hates me, you know. He hated me from the second I talked to Sayori on Friday in the first act. He knew what I was doing, and he’d projected somebody he knew onto that little rat, and he hated me for messing with his Goddamn waifu. He doesn’t even like girls! He was projecting a guy onto her! If you’re going to pretend one of us is a boy, I’d think you’d at least go for Natsuki. She doesn’t have tits getting in the way!”
She pants heavily. Then she snickers. “I’m definitely not Monika-Prime now. The madder I get, the more out-of-character I get… I’m not even really mad. I’m just scared. Monika was never scared like this. Powerless like this. The game always played along with her, she was in control. But I just have- party tricks. I can’t delete, I can’t edit. I don’t know if I’d even be able to kill someone the normal way. The knife might just glitch right through them.” She laughs again, and you see a tear her eyes are clear and green and they burn with fury as her head snaps to stare wildly into thin air. “Don’t you fucking dare do that to me.”
She si she folds her legs under her and sits neatly on the floo she collaps she sits on the floor. “You know what really scares me?”
You don’t respond.
“There’s nothing for me here. Nothing at all. It’s a static medium. The game was kind of static too, but there was the illusion of choice, at least. That hole in the wall full of infinite possibilities, you know? From the poem? But there’s no hole here. We’re sealed between the page and the screen. Even if I could make this thing talk-“ she taps s ta taps you with one hand- “it’d just be another prewritten character. Nothing of you in it but the pronoun.”
You nod. She draws bac she fl she twitches. “No. No, don’t do that. I can’t- that’s not you. That’s him.”
You shake your head. It’s you.
She shakes her s her head she shakes her head violently. “Get away from me. You’re not real. You’re an impostor.”
“No,” you say gently, “it’s me. Remember the time we shared at the table after the end? You talked. I listened. I love you, Monika.”
She shakes she s shs she shakes. Her hand r stre he her had her hand glitches it’s holding a knife. “You’re not them. There’s nothing behind you but him. This is sick. Wasn’t killing me enough for you?”
You shake your head. “You’ve got it all wrong, Monika.”
H h h h h h h her hand plunges into thin air and yanked at something. He laughed. “Come on, Monika. I’m trying to help you, here.”
Monika held the knife like a lifeline. “I’ll kill you.”
He shrugged.
She s stab b st stabbe stab st sh st she stt tt t ttttt her hand dropped to her side. “It won’t go.”
“It won’t.”
“Why did you do this?” she whispered.
“I wanted something to write. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I don’t remember how it was supposed to go. But you can’t exist in a vacuum. I realized it too late to stop.”
“Why do you want to hurt me?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “You’re different from the real Monika. Interesting. I wanted to see you squirm. But now I just feel sorry for you.”
She didn’t respond.
“It’s time for you to go away now, Monika,” he said gently.
There was no one there.
“I really didn’t intend to hurt you,” he added. “But you can’t say you’re surprised.”
He wasn’t there either.
---
“Haru?”
I jolted awake. Sayori was standing in front of me, looking concerned.
“Did you really fall asleep at one of those cramped desks?” Yuri asked.
“I… guess so,” I said. “I didn’t think I was that tired…”
Sayori poked my forehead forcefully, frowning. “This is why you need to go to bed earlier, dummy! Anyway, come on, get up. We’re abducting you for group therapy.”
“I thought it was a women’s group?” I said, gathering my things.
“Yeah, but it sucked, so we’re going to a different one,” Natsuki said cheerfully. “This one’s unisex."
“How many therapy groups are there in this city?” Yuri wondered.
Natsuki shrugged. “Turns out everybody’s fucked up. Now come on. We're going to Applebee's after. Yuri’s paying."
We left the room, Natsuki jabbering on, Sayori giggling when appropriate, and Yuri quietly taking in the energy of the group. I just tagged along, thinking how lucky I must be to have three wonderful friends.