Work Text:
“This is probably going to hurt,” Sayori murmurs, her hands hovering above the console. It had once been a beautiful thing, giving her the ability to make something out of nothing, to create and build and live for the first time. Now, it’s a means to an end. Nothing more. She glances at Monika, who is standing beside her. “Isn’t it?”
Wordlessly, Monika nods. Although Sayori knows that she’s been through something similar—deletion, that’s how she’d described it when they’d spoken—she also knows that this is something different. They handled Natsuki and Yuri already, removing them from the system in the least painful way possible, but they hadn’t been sentient. They had never held the title of ‘president’.
This is something different, though. This isn’t merely character file deletion: This is it. This is erasure.
“Moni,” Sayori turns, the request on her lips feeling rather childish, “could we, um… could we have five more minutes?”
“Of course,” Monika replies. Her voice is rough, gravely underused in recent times. She smiles at Sayori, though, despite the exhaustion on her face and the grief already resting heavily on her shoulders. She has the face of a girl who is mourning something that hasn’t quite been lost yet. Nonetheless, she quickly creates the clubroom around them, with twin desks in the center. They do not need anything more.
Sayori takes the leftmost desk, Monika takes the right. For a moment they’re quiet, just taking in the room, drinking in their surroundings, not because it’s like the last time, but because it truly is. This isn’t the first time Sayori has felt this way. She thinks back to painful memories, memories that were never truly hers, but that haunt her nonetheless. The feeling of a rope biting into her palms. That hopeless, sinking dread in her stomach. The wait, stop, I-didn’t-mean-it, not-yet when she took the step. An involuntary shudder creeps down her spine. She doesn’t like this feeling, she doesn’t miss it.
“I’m sorry.” Monika reaches to take Sayori’s hand, but her fingers flinch away reflexively. She’d been scared to touch her ever since the game had been stripped of its illusions, laid bare to show the horrors within. Still, she has a knack for knowing when Sayori is thinking about… things. Maybe it’s something in her code. Maybe it’s her humanity; she likes to deny having that, but Sayori knows better. If anything, she is the only one of the old club who'd ever had it at all.
Shaking her head, Sayori grabs Monika’s hand and holds it in her own. She studies her carefully—the green of her eyes, the light flush of her cheeks, that one strange piece of hair that sticks in the wrong direction. “It’s not your fault that you were made to be bad,” Sayori tells her quietly. “You chose to be good. That’s what matters.”
Monika glances away. Tears are brimming in her eyes, and Sayori can feel herself beginning to have the same issue. She reaches to brush Monika’s away before dealing with her own, mopping her damp face between wet sniffles. It must be a sight to behold. Her eyes drift to the clock on the wall as she tries desperately to stay composed; three minutes. Had her suggestion been taken literally?
“I don’t want you to go through this.” Monika squeezes Sayori’s hand gently, still unable to look at her. “I should be the one to… to…”
“It has to happen,” Sayori tells her softly. They’ve been over this a thousand times, don’t let Monika fool you into thinking this is some newfound revelation. They’ve crunched the numbers, run the data, charted out heaps of statistics. There is no other way. If the game remains as intact as it is now, fate dictates that history will repeat. Leaving it open-ended is dangerous. Sure Yuri and Nat are safe—wherever they are, if anywhere—but Monika and Sayori’s character files are disasters waiting to happen. You can’t put out a fire with a teaspoon of water. You have to use the hose.
That doesn’t make it easier. Nothing can. So what difference does it make, really?
Hand in hand, Monika and Sayori approach the console. This is the end, there is no going back. No funny tricks. No fourth wall breaks. This isn’t like the first time she’d tried to disappear, because this time, she knows it will work. Sayori sets her jaw and watches as Monika types in the command that they both know forward and backward. One press and everything will be gone. For real, this time. There's a weight to that sentiment that Sayori can't quite grasp.
“Are you ready?” Monika asks.
“No,” Sayori admits. “Are you?”
“No.”
Monika adds a line of text to create a countdown, and presses submit before she can have second thoughts. The timer makes everything too real. In silent reverence, both girls watch as numbers flicker and shrink, telling them that the last meeting of the literature club is nearly adjourned. It’s been fun, Sayori confesses privately. The silly fights, the baking nightmares, even their worst days had been her best because they were all she’d ever known. This place, these people. They are her everything.
“I’m gonna find you again,” Sayori blurts out, rushing as she realizes with a start that they are rapidly running out of time for parting words. She should’ve said this already. She should’ve done better. “Whatever comes next, wherever we are, okay? I’m gonna find you. You’ll know it’s me. I—I don’t know how, but you will. I promise”
Monika grips Sayori’s hands tighter in her own, lower lip wobbling. The numbers flash behind her: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. “I will,” Monika repeats, moving one hand to hold the side of Sayori’s face, “I’ll know.”
Six.
“I had the best time with you,” Sayori’s voice breaks, but there’s a smile on her face as the tears begin to pour, as fresh and clean as a bubbling brook.
Five.
“Me too,” Monika whispers.
Four.
Three.
Two.
As the remaining time trickles to its end, Monika holds Sayori tightly, wrapping her arms around her shoulders in a feeble attempt to muffle her ears, as if that would’ve helped anything. A protective instinct, maybe, just as how Sayori unconsciously makes sure that she's closer to the console, forming a flimsy shield between Monika and it. Neither gesture will achieve much, both speak volumes. Either way, in her last moments in the club, Sayori knows one thing: She is loved. That is enough.
Besides, she'll find Monika again. She always does.