Chapter Text
I’m already in the halls before the last bell even rings. Christ, today felt like every minute was an hour. That’s how Fridays usually go though. I don’t pay any attention to my surroundings as I walk, and I’m already rounding the corner to the hall outside the clubroom before I know it. Looking up from my shoes I see something weird.
Standing outside of the clubroom are Monika, Yuri and Sayori. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them waiting outside the room for anything, and as I get closer the situation only gets weirder.
From here I can see that Monika is blocking the other two from entering, waving her hands out in front of herself and stopping them from getting to the door or the rest of the hallway. Yuri’s trying to get past Monika, but keeps getting pushed back. Sayori, meanwhile, looks like she’s trying to talk to Monika. Figures, looks like I’m gonna have to be the one who actually gets anything done here.
“Move,” I say simply, using Yuri as a distraction to slip past Monika.
“Natsuki! Hold on!” Monika tries to grab at me but I’m already throwing the door open and stepping-
There’s no ground. My foot drops when I expect it to find the floor and I almost tumble forward, but a hand grabs my blazer from behind and yanks me back out into the hallway. I end up on my ass, but I’m too busy trying to understand what I’m looking at through the classroom door to be bothered.
The entire clubroom is tilted.
I stand back up and approach the door again, this time standing squarely in the hall with a firm grip on the doorframe. Yeah, still tilted. Even the desks and chairs, which I’m not sure how they’re staying in place, are all at the same angle as the room itself.
Turning around to gauge my friends’ reactions, I’m met with the same dumbstruck faces from Sayori and Yuri, while Monika just looks…disappointed? Apologetic?
With a look of utter shock on her face, Yuri pushes me out of the way to get a better view of the classroom. I move back into the hall to let her and Sayori have space. Turning to Monika, who is obviously the odd one out here, I gesture at the room. “Hey. What the fuck. Explain.”
As Yuri and Sayori both turn to question Monika with me, I watch her face shift through several different emotions before settling on that damn goody-two-shoes, straight-laced teacher’s pet face she always has on.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Monika says, tilting her head in an annoying way.
“No, don’t play dumb, tell me why the ENTIRE CLASSROOM IS TILTED.”
“Or at least why you wanted to hide it from us. It does seem like you know at least a little of what is happening here, Monika,” Yuri adds.
Sayori holds her hands out and smiles placatingly, moving into the middle of our group. “Guys hold on, this is crazy! Why would Monika know anything about the structure of our school changing?”
“Like I said, I don’t know what you mean. Everything looks fine to me,” Monika says again in that fake pleasant way.
Sayori’s smile gets a bit strained. “Okay Monika, I’m trying to help you out here and you’re not making it easy…”
I cut back in to stop Monika from spouting more crap. “No, it’s all good Sayo. Monika says it looks normal, then it is. So, miss president, you gonna get the meeting started?”
Now Monika’s smile strains. “Ahem…of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Cool. I think you gotta be at the desk to start though, right? That’s like your thing.” I try to stop myself from smiling but it’s really hard when I get to fuck with Monika.
“Yep.” So she says, but she’s not moving from her spot.
“…Soooo, go ahead.”
Monika doesn’t respond verbally, instead choosing to walk to the open door after a short pause. She scouts the interior of the room by leaning in, then walks to the door to the front of the classroom. The rest of us follow her.
Opening it reveals that the floor is actually at our level on this side of the room, though it inclines up past knee height on the right side. (My knee height anyway. Ugh.)
Yuri’s got an unamused expression on her face (in stark contrast to mine) as she puts her hand on Monika’s shoulder. “Monika, you don’t have to prove anything to Natsuki. If you just explain what’s going on, she’ll drop it.”
“No I won’t!” I add with a smile.
Monika ignores me and Yuri and puts one leg up, bracing her foot in the corner formed by the edge of the classroom floor and the doorframe. She bounces on her grounded leg a bit, totally stalling.
“She can make it,” Sayori says in a way that sounds like she half believes it while peering around Monika to look into the room.
Yuri threads a lock of her hair between her fingers. “This is ridiculous.”
A little laugh gets into my voice while I keep jeering at Monika. “Any day now.”
“I’m going! Just have to gauge the distance right…okay. Watch and learn!” Monika’s legs tense and she crouches slightly, stalling some more with some test hops. Then finally, she leaps forward, arms outstretched and reaching for the teacher’s desk.
Right as Monika pushes off, her foot slips along the hallway floor, letting out a loud squeak.
“Eh?” We all say in unison.
Because of that her momentum is totally shot and she whiffs the jump completely. Only making it about halfway to the desk, Monika plummets like a rock and tumbles down to the back (or bottom?) of the classroom.
The spectators stand gets loud as we watch her fall.
“Oh! Oh my goodness…are you alright!?”
“MONIKAAAAA!!”
“HAHAHAHAHA OH MY GOD NO WAY!”
Papers that read “OUT OF ORDER” in big, scribbled red ink are pasted on each set of doors to the clubroom by Sayori.
Yuri looks quizzically at the posters. “While I don’t believe that phrase is often used to describe anything other than machinery, it’s not entirely inaccurate to the clubroom’s current…arrangement.”
“Definitely a strong lack of order in there,” Sayori quips, sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor in between me and Yuri.
Monika sits across from Sayori, her hair and clothes still a little messed up from her fall. I try (and fail) to stifle another snicker just looking at her. We already made sure she’s alright, so I’ve gone back to teasing her about her cockiness.
“Oh shut it,” Monika snaps with a glare, but it only makes me grin in return. I like it when she gets like this, I swear she only shows her real feelings when she’s super annoyed.
“Okay, everyone…” Monika says tiredly while rubbing her temples. “We’re having the club meeting out here while the classroom uh…settles. This building’s kind of old y’know? Ahaha.”
“Still haven’t told us why you were acting so weird earlier…” I shoot at her suspiciously.
“Because, Natsuki,” Monika says in her classic condescending tone, “the whole room was messed up. You’re welcome for saving your butt earlier by the way.”
I stick my tongue out at her. Monika “explained” after her fall that there must have been a sinkhole under the school. I don’t know if I’m buying it, but I guess there wouldn’t be any other reasonable explanation.
Sayori smacks my arm lightly and tells me to apologize, and I do. Seriously! At least, I think a “my bad” is enough to get my point across, right?
Sayori then turns back to Monika and smiles. “You should relax for today, Monika. I think we all need rest, but you might need it a bit more than us, hehe…” Pfft. You got that right.
“Thank you, Sayori. I’ll be fine, I just have to close my eyes for a bit…” Monika says before leaning back against the wall and doing just that.
The rest of us look at each other a little awkwardly before Sayori takes the reins again. “Um, okay! I think we should share poems, right? I did mine at home properly this time!”
I dig through my bag’s contents and pull my own poem out, Yuri doing the same. Once we all have our papers, we stare at each other again.
“Sayori, there’s only three of us so…um, you two should share first,” Yuri says, pulling her poem closer to her chest.
“M’kay, sounds good. Here, Sayo,” I say, holding my poem out towards Sayori.
Sayori hesitates for a second, asking Yuri if she’s sure. After receiving an affirmative, she smiles and starts passing her poem over to me—
*RRRRRCRAAASSHHHH*
The whole building shakes and that huge boom echoes through the halls. I think I scream, but it’s hard to tell with three other screams sounding in my ears right next to me. I’m caught between covering my ears and holding on to the wall, but the shaking stops pretty quick.
“Is everyone okay?” I hear Monika and Sayori say at the same time. They look at each other and let out a few breathless chuckles, still in shock about what just happened.
Yuri speaks up from her huddled position. “…I a-assume that d-disturbance had, um, something to do with the c-clubroom…” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “…It certainly sounded loud enough to be the building itself.”
“Oh you’re right, Yuri!” Sayori says while excitedly hopping up to her feet and bolting over to the classroom door. Monika, Yuri and I follow curiously from behind.
Sayori stops in front of the door and turns to us. “Drumroll please! Badabadabada—“
I throw open the classroom door, ignoring Sayori’s indignant cry of “Hey!”
We’re greeted with a completely normal, not tilted room.
Monika immediately rolls on in like she owns the place, settling into her seat at the teachers desk. “Okay, everyone! Looks like the literature club is back in business!”
“Wooo, alright!” Sayori exclaims while giving Monika (or the club? The clubroom??) a round of applause. With only one person clapping it sounds kinda sad.
I fully process the room’s angle at this point and start to argue. “No no no, we’re not ‘back in business!’ How the hell did the room magically go back to normal? That’s not how sinkholes work!” I yell at Monika, mostly, but look at Yuri.
She looks back at me with an equally mind-boggled face and it gives me a little boost of confidence. I like it when Yuri agrees with me, especially because it pretty much never happens. I mean, it really helps your case when a fancy pants bookworm gets you y’know?
But looking back at Monika, she and Sayori have already started sharing poems. You gotta be kidding. I’m about to walk over and scream directly into Monika’s ear if I have to, but Yuri pulls me back by my arm. What the heck? Since when was she so touchy feely? I rip my arm back from her grip, and give her a glare.
She looks back at me with her own softer one and shakes her head. I’m this close to arguing with her now but she cuts me off again! Man she’s really on a roll today, huh?
“Let’s talk about it later.” She says under her breath and moves to the back of the room. I follow her since I guess we’re sharing poems now.
As I pass my poem to Yuri and take hers, I look across the room at Monika and Sayori again. Sayori’s totally absorbed in her reading, but I swear I see Monika looking at me. As soon as I focus on her though, her eyes are on Sayori’s poem. What a weirdo.
Just then, Yuri finishes reading mine and hands it back to me. As usual she always has to rub in her reading comprehension speed and the “simple language” I use in my poems. Yeah, it’s on purpose, genius. I tell her to wait while I start reading hers.
With none of us talking, the room goes almost completely quiet. But it’s still peaceful. The sounds of a gentle breeze and the soft tones of the wind chime in the window almost make Yuri’s overly flowery and wordy poem seem like it’s not just padded to look smarter. Almost.