Chapter Text
The tie was the first problem.
I stood in front of my bathroom mirror for a solid ten minutes wrestling with the thing, looping it wrong three times before getting it into something that looked almost intentional. I wasn't used to dressing up. I was used to school uniforms and hoodies and the kind of clothes you could forget you were wearing. The suit jacket felt stiff and formal and slightly like a costume, and every time I caught my reflection I had the disorienting sensation of looking at a slightly older, slightly more composed version of myself who had no idea what he was doing.
But then I thought about Sayori's dress.
She had shown it to me exactly once, three weeks ago, holding it up against herself in the doorway of her room with an expression of pure, radiant excitement — pale pink, with a white ribbon at the waist and small floral details at the hem. She had spun around once, laughing, and asked me if it was too much, and I had said no in a way that came out sounding more sincere than I'd intended, and she had beamed at me like I'd given her something.
I thought about that, and I fixed my tie, and I didn't think it looked half bad.
It was the first week of June. The prom had been the subject of exactly three weeks of relentless planning in the Literature Club room — Natsuki had strong opinions about corsage colors, Yuri had researched the history of formal dances with the intensity she applied to everything, and Monika had drafted a loose itinerary for the evening with cheerful precision. We were all going together as a group, meeting at Monika's house first for photos, and then the boys — which was just me, since I was the only male member of the club, a fact that still struck me as slightly absurd — would escort everyone in.
Sayori had been the most excited of all of them.
That was the thing I kept coming back to, later. She had been so excited. For weeks she had talked about nothing else — the dress, the music, whether the school gym could actually be transformed into something that felt like a real prom or if it would just feel like the gym with balloons, the prospect of slow dancing, the food, the photos. She had a whole plan for the evening mapped out in her head. She had shown me a playlist she'd been curating of songs she wanted to hear. She had gone to three different stores to find shoes that were the exact right shade of pink.
I picked up the corsage I'd bought from the table by my door — white roses, because she'd mentioned once that white roses made her think of fresh starts — and I checked my phone.
Six forty-seven. I was supposed to knock on her door at seven.
I spent the next thirteen minutes straightening things in my room that didn't need straightening.
At seven on the dot I crossed the small strip of yard between our houses and knocked on Sayori's door.
Her mother answered. This was my first sign that something was wrong. Sayori always answered her own door, bouncing on her heels, already talking before it was fully open.
"Oh," her mother said, and something moved across her expression that she quickly arranged into a smile. "You look very nice."
"Thank you. Is Sayori—"
"She's upstairs." A pause, careful and soft. "She's... having a hard time tonight. She asked me to tell you."
I stared at her mother for a moment. Then: "Can I go up?"
A beat of hesitation. Then she stepped aside.
Sayori's door was closed. The pink dress was hanging on the outside of it, still in its garment bag, and that detail hit me somewhere specific — the dress on the outside of the door, like it had been taken off and put away before it had ever been worn.
I knocked softly.
"Mom, I'm okay, I just need a—" Her voice stopped. "...Is that you?"
"Yeah," I said.
A long silence. Then: "You can come in."
She was sitting on her bed in her pajamas, knees pulled up to her chest, hair loose around her shoulders. She wasn't crying, but her eyes had that specific quality they sometimes got — like all the light had been turned down a few notches, like she was present in the room but only barely. The room itself was bright, cheerful as always, covered in the small decorations and plush toys and string lights that were so thoroughly Sayori, and the contrast between the room and the girl sitting in it felt sharp in a way I couldn't quite articulate.
She looked at me in my suit and tie and corsage, and her expression did something complicated.
"You look really good," she said. Her voice was quiet and genuine.
"You'd look better." I came and sat on the edge of her bed. "What happened?"
She shook her head slowly. "I don't know how to explain it."
"You don't have to explain it perfectly."
She was quiet for a moment, picking at the edge of her sleeve. "I was getting ready," she said finally. "I had my hair done and everything. I looked in the mirror and I just — something turned off. Like a switch." She pressed her lips together. "I know how excited I was. I know I was excited. I could remember it. But I couldn't feel it anymore, I could just feel this... heaviness. And the idea of going, of being in a crowded place with music and people looking at me and having to be — on — all evening..." She exhaled. "I couldn't. I'm sorry. I know how much you were looking forward to—"
"You don't need to apologize," I said.
"I ruined the whole night."
"You didn't ruin anything." I said it firmly and meant it. "How are you feeling right now? Right this second?"
She considered this. "Like I let everyone down. And like I don't have the energy to feel worse about it than I already do, which somehow makes me feel worse." She laughed weakly, a little helplessly. "And tired. Really tired."
"Okay." I set the corsage on her nightstand. "Then rest."
She looked at the corsage. Then at me. "You should go. Everyone's waiting at Monika's."
"In a minute." I didn't move. "I'm going to text Monika and let her know what's happening."
"Tell them to have fun. Tell them — tell them I'm sorry, but to have fun." Her voice was small. "I mean it. I want everyone to have fun."
I texted Monika. Her response came back in under thirty seconds:
Poor Sayori :( Tell her we love her. We'll take lots of pictures. Don't stay too long or you'll miss the whole thing.
And then, thirty seconds after that, a second message:
Actually come soon. I want to talk to everyone about something.
I frowned at that. Monika's messages were usually self-explanatory. I set my phone down and looked at Sayori, who had seen my expression.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing. Just Monika being mysterious." I stood up, straightened my jacket. "I'll check on you when I get home."
"You don't have to—"
"Sayori." I said her name the way that meant please stop arguing, and she closed her mouth. "I'll check on you when I get home. Get some sleep if you can."
She nodded. And then, very quietly: "Hey."
I paused in the doorway.
"The corsage is really pretty," she said.
I looked back at her — small and tired on her bed, surrounded by all her cheerful things, the pink dress hanging ghostly and unworn on the other side of the door — and I felt something settle in my chest, something that had been forming for a long time without my noticing.
"I'll see you later," I said.
Monika's house was warm and bright and smelled like her mother's perfume and hairspray. Natsuki was sitting on the couch with her arms crossed, wearing a red dress that she had clearly put significant effort into while maintaining a firm expression that dared anyone to comment on it. Yuri stood by the bookshelf in deep purple, as composed and self-contained as ever but with a softness around her eyes that meant she was happy. Monika herself answered the door in emerald green, already smiling, though her smile when she saw my expression took on something more specific.
I noticed, because I had been noticing things more carefully lately, that Natsuki's eyes had gone to Yuri before they went to me. Just for a second — a quick, involuntary flicker, like a reflex she hadn't approved. Yuri was looking at the bookshelf. She didn't see it.
Natsuki looked back at her hands. The expression that crossed her face in that half-second was complicated and gone too fast to name.
"Sayori?" she asked.
"Yeah." I stepped inside. "She says to have fun and she's sorry."
"She has nothing to be sorry about." Natsuki said this with more firmness than gentleness, which from her was actually quite warm. "It's not like she chose—" She stopped herself. Looked at her shoes.
"I know," I said.
"She really wanted to come," Yuri said softly. "She had been talking about it for so long."
"I know."
Monika had been watching me with that particular expression she sometimes had — thinking, calculating, but kindly. She had a way of looking at a problem and seeing its shape from all sides before she spoke.
"Before we go," she said, "there's something I want to talk about. All of us, together."
She gathered us in the living room — me on the armchair, Natsuki and Yuri on the couch — and she stood before us with her hands clasped.
"Sayori is missing her prom tonight," she said. "And that's not okay. I don't mean it's not okay because it's her fault, because it isn't — I mean it's not okay in the sense that it's a wrong thing in the world, and I think we have the ability to un-wrong it." She looked at each of us. "What if Sayori got her own prom?"
Natsuki's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I mean—" Monika smiled, and there was something bright and slightly conspiratorial in it. "I have an idea. It's a little bit crazy. But I think we can pull it off." She leaned forward. "Just hear me out."
We heard her out.
By the time she was done, Natsuki was sitting forward on the couch with something that she refused to call excitement written across her entire face. Yuri was nodding slowly, precisely, the way she did when she had already thought three steps ahead and decided something was sound. And I was looking at Monika with a feeling in my chest that I could only describe as yes — warm and certain and immediate.
"Tonight," I said, "we go to prom. We take the pictures, we do the evening, we make sure Sayori thinks everything is normal. And then—"
"And then," Monika said, "we give her something better."
The prom itself was beautiful. The school gym had been genuinely transformed — strings of lights across the ceiling, round tables with centerpieces, a proper DJ and a polished floor and decorations that made the whole space feel softer and warmer than its usual fluorescent self. People danced and laughed and took pictures in front of the backdrop and ate the slightly disappointing catered food with the enthusiasm of people who had been looking forward to this for months.
I smiled and danced with each of the girls and said the right things when people talked to me, and part of me was genuinely there and genuinely glad — Natsuki's fierce hidden joy when the DJ played a song she liked was worth the whole evening on its own, and Yuri was unexpectedly graceful on the dance floor, and Monika was Monika, warmly present, making everyone feel good just by being near them.
At some point during a faster song, Natsuki ended up next to Yuri on the edge of the dance floor. I only noticed because I happened to glance over — Natsuki was saying something with her usual directness, gesturing at the DJ booth, and Yuri was listening with her head slightly tilted, the way she did when she was genuinely attending to something. Then Yuri said something back, soft and specific, and Natsuki blinked — actually blinked, like she hadn't expected whatever it was — and then immediately looked away, recrossing her arms, chin up.
Yuri watched her for a moment. A small, private smile crossed her face that she didn't seem aware of.
I filed it away and said nothing. It wasn't my story to name.
But I kept thinking about a pink dress hanging on the outside of a door.
At some point in the middle of a slow song I looked up at the lights strung across the gym ceiling and thought: she should be here. And then, a second later: she will be.
I took out my phone under the table and texted her:
How are you doing?
Three dots appeared almost immediately. Then:
Better. I slept a little. How's prom?
I looked around the glittering room.
It's nice. But it's missing something.
What?
I thought about it.
Tell you tomorrow.
A pause. Then a small emoji — a yellow sun, which was the one she always used, because of course it was.
I smiled at my phone in the middle of the prom and thought about the plan, and the night that was still ahead of us.