(Hey everyone! Thank you for clicking on my story. Before we get started, I just wanted to explain a few things. If you don't want to read my rambling, just skip the italicized text.
This story follows the relationship between Natsuki, and the MC, who I will be calling Kamito. Feel free to simply read it as 'Anon', or whatever you feel like if you aren't fond of the name. In this story, Monika doesn't have any powers or supernatural abilities, but that doesn't mean there won't be any outside forces acting upon the characters. No spoilers though!
I'm always very open to criticism. By all means, leave a comment/review, be as mean to me as you like, state your opinion, I love to read them.
Because I've written the beginning to DDLC before, the first chapter will be very similar in structure for the first chapter as my other story, One Wish. Just a heads up.
There will be mentions of abuse, suicidal tendencies, occasional harsh language, and more throughout the story, hence the M rating. You have been warned.
Anyways, Thanks again for choosing my story, and I hope you enjoy!)
I do not own Doki Doki Literature Club, nor do I own any of the characters portrayed within this story.
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*beep-beep-beep-beep-beep*
The hated-by-all alarm sound came from my phone this morning.
I rolled over in bed, tapped my phone, and silenced the alarm, fighting the urge to just simply lay back down and go to bed. It was Tuesday morning.
I unwillingly got up out of my bed, and like clockwork, went through my morning routine.
Walking into the bathroom, I shut the door behind me, and got out my razor and shaving cream from the cabinet. After shaving, I hopped in the shower, relishing in the warm, steamy shower on this cold, fall morning.
I stepped out onto the cold tile floor, and dried off, getting dressed in the bathroom in the meantime. I'm the type of person to take clothes into the bathroom with them, and get dressed directly after the shower.
After getting dressed, I dried my hair, and combed it out, to make myself the most presentable possible with the least amount of effort.
I went downstairs into the kitchen to make breakfast.
I settled for a simple bowl of off-brand and bland cereal. I figured that would leave me enough time to get the homework I had neglected to do last night out of the way anyways. School was about a ten-minute walk from my neighborhood, and considering school didn't even start for a little while anyways, I had some time to myself before I even had to leave.
A few minutes pass, and I finish up the homework I needed to do in record speed. With a little downtime to myself, I figured I'd go over to my best friend, Sayori's house.
Sayori was a good childhood friend of mine, my neighbor, and probably the only friend I have. We used to spend a lot of time together when we were younger, but ever since high-school we haven't talked as much as we did. I still walk to school with her almost every day, and we have eighth period study hall together this year, so it's not like we don't talk at all, rather we just don't hang out like we used to everyday.
She isn't known for her ability to get up on time and take care of herself, so from time to time I like to stop in and check up on her before school.
I grabbed my bag, a snack for lunch, and took one last look in the mirror before going out the door.
I walked across my yard, and into hers. Then, up to her door, which I lightly knocked on.
*tap-tap-tap*
No response.
*tap. tap. tap.*
I knocked harder this time. Still no response.
I sighed, and pulled out my phone, tapping on her contact. The phone rang a couple times before it was answered by a tired Sayori.
"…Hello?" Her voice came across softly.
"If you don't get up soon, you're going to be late." I said, in a teasing tone.
"K-Kamito! What time is it? Shoot, I'm gonna be late!" She stammered
"Relax, you still have some time. I'm outside waiting for you."
Without another word said, I heard her drop her phone onto her bed. With a chuckle, I hung up. Sayori is a great person, but she is a messy, unorganized klutz. But I love her for it.
After about ten minutes passed, she opened the front door, and greeted me outside.
Sayori was a shorter girl, maybe five-four in comparison to my five-ten self. She had shorter hair, coming to rest right at the base of her head which was normally a little messy, and was a light auburn color. She always wore this little red bow on top of the little unkept mess. She was a skinnier girl, but by no means unhealthy.
"There you are. Everything alright?" I asked
"Hehe, yeah… I just slept in a little, that's all." She said, giving me her trademark smile.
"Yeah, you've been doing that a lot more than usual lately…" I stated, as we started our walk towards school.
"Hey, it's not my fault! I like staying up late, I can't help that!" She defended.
"I mean technically, you could. But I know you, so I'm not gonna argue with you." I say, teasingly, poking her in the side.
She giggles, and we continue to walk down the street, when I see her eyeing the food that I brought along for lunch later today.
"You hungry?" I asked.
"Hehe… I-I didn't eat breakfast…" She said guiltily.
"Yeah, I know, you never do." I said plainly.
She smiles, continuing to stare at the crackers.
I sigh. "Here." I say, handing them to her.
"Yay! Thank you Kamito!" She exclaims.
Despite her petite figure, Sayori loves to eat. I'm convinced food is her favorite thing, other than being happy in general.
"You're always looking out for me." She says, guiltily looking away before proceeding to destroy the wrapping on the outside, crushing some crackers in the process.
"Yeah, believe me, I know." I said.
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" She says, looking at me with a pouty face,
I laughed lightly. "Nothing, Sayori. I'm just teasing you."
"Meanie." She says bluntly, muffled by the food in her mouth.
I have some money on me, so for her to eat breakfast is more important for me to not spend money later, so I don't mind. Although, crackers aren't a very good breakfast, but I'm not one to talk considering all I had was cereal.
After she engulfs the crackers, she thanks me, and clears her throat before asking me a question I was hoping I wouldn't hear from her.
"Soooo… have you thought about joining any clubs?"
Clubs at our school were unique. They were after school and sometimes even went into the summer to give students something to keep themselves busy. They have presidents and vice presidents to keep the club running and to give members things to do and come up with ideas. Teachers weren't involved unless the students asked them to be. I had thought about a few, but never actually desired to be in one. Sayori had already advertised to me before that she had become vice president of a club she was in last year and tried to get me to join, but I always blew it off. I think she said it was… the English Club? Something like that.
I couldn't lie to her.
"Well, not really. I looked at a few, but clubs aren't really my forte."
"Which ones did you look at?" She looks at me with those blue eyes of hers, giving me her full attention, completely interested in what I had to say. It made me feel guilty.
"I looked at the anime club, the football club, and heck even the hacky sack clu-"
"There's a hacky sack club?!" She interrupted.
"Heh, yeah, there is. I figured I'd get some sort of reaction out of you after you heard that."
"So, you didn't sign up for any of them?" She asked.
"No, why do you ask?" Although I knew exactly why she asked.
"Well-"
The outdoor bell rang, and we suddenly realized we were at the gate of our school. I was so involved in the conversation I hadn't even realized how close we were to school, let alone where we were.
"That's the late bell, if we don't hurry we'll be late for homeroom." I say.
I started off, but she stops me.
"Wait, I wanted to ask you something!" She says.
"It's alright, just tell me at eighth period." I say, dodging her question. At least for now.
"O-okay." She looks disappointed.
"Don't worry, I'll see you in eight periods." I head towards homeroom, she does the same.
.
My first classes go by as you'd expect any high-schooler's classes to go, extremely boring and terribly slow. But, my study hall was here, eighth period. I walked in, signed in, and went to my seat, where I saw Sayori in the seat next to mine. Seats are arranged in pairs because it's the science lab, but when there's not a class going on in a specific period, its used for study hall. Sayori isn't sitting in the seat she was assigned, but the teacher lets us sit anywhere we want now since she knows all of our names and doesn't need a sheet for attendance. Sayori pats the seat next to her, obviously excited to talk about clubs.
How fun.
I take my seat. "How was your classes?" I asked.
"They were alright I guess, I slept through most of them though."
I knew the question was going to pop up eventually, so I figured I'd get it over with, like ripping off a band aid or getting a quick shot.
"So… you wanted to ask me something?"
Her eyes widened, and a smile went from ear to ear. "Oh my gosh, thanks for reminding me! So you said you hadn't picked a club yet, right?"
"Mhmm"
"Well… I was thinking," she continued, "you know, if you hadn't decided yet, and maybe if you wanted to, you could… maaayyybe join the club I'm in?"
There it is. The inevitable. "Oh, I remember you saying something about that. You're the vice president of your club, right? What was it… th- "
"The Literature Club!" she chimes in.
"Ah, right…"
"Would you like to join?" she asks again, with big blue puppy eyes.
"I'll have to get back to you on that one. I don't know what clubs I want to join. And literature? I never really considered myself a fan of it, let alone writing. Or even if I'm good at it for that matter."
"Hehe… well, uh… that's the thing…" she presses her two index fingers together, her signature 'I did something I probably shouldn't have' pose, or rather, her nervous pose.
"What is it?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I kinda, maybe, definitely told the other members I'd bring you the first day we start this year… which is today… and that you're interested…"
"You didn't!" I said, raising my voice a little higher than I meant to.
"I-I did." She gives me a guilty look, but when she meets my gaze she looks away from me.
"Sayori! You shouldn't go speaking for people when you don't know what they'd say!" I shake my head with my hand over my face.
"W-well, Natsuki said she would bake cupcakes to celebrate a new member because we haven't had one in a while, and she's a really good cook and-…" she trails off.
She's quiet for a second, then speaks up. "… I'm sorry." She says, realizing what she had done was wrong.
I sighed. "It's alright I guess. Look, I'll stop by for today and I'll at least have a cupcake, okay?"
"Really? Thank you so much!" She wraps her arms around my chest and squeezes me, which was both unexpected that she hugged me, and was stronger than I thought it would be.
"I didn't say I would join! I just said I would stop by with you, don't get your hopes up too much, I don't want to let you down."
She lets go of me, and I feel like I can breathe again. "It's better than a no!" She gives me a smile from ear to ear. "We can go right after this period!" She states, excitedly.
I hadn't realized that it really was eighth period, and that clubs were actually right after this. Leave it to Sayori to leave me in such a tight situation. I couldn't help but feel a tad nervous for what was to come.
The bell rings.
I sighed, and stood up, grabbing my bag. Sayori noticed my unwilling hesitation.
"Aww come onnn, it'll be fun!" She says.
"If you say so." I said plainly.
We go upstairs and walk down the halls to a classroom I'd never been in before. Why did it seem weird that the club was in a classroom? They must've gotten permission to use it from whatever teacher taught in here. It was room 200. We stop in front of the door, and Natalie peers in just to make sure she was at the right room. Did she do this every time? She confidently swings open the door.
"Hey everybody, he's here!"
I looked around the room. To my surprise, there were only three other people in here, excluding Sayori and myself, and they were all girls. I immediately recognized one of the members. Her name was Monika. She was in my third period class. She was really pretty, smart, and popular. I don't know too much else about her considering I've never really talked to her before. She approaches Sayori and I with her hand out.
"Hello, you must be Kamito? I've heard a lot about you."
Heard a lot about me? I exchange the greeting and shake her hand. "That's me. You're Monika, right? I recognized you from third period."
"Yep, I'm the Literature Club president. I'm so happy you could join us!" She said, warmly.
"The feelings mutual, Monika." I give her a shy smile, she smiles back.
"How about I introduce you to the other members? You obviously already know Sayori," Sayori giggles and gives me a little wave, I wave back with a smile. "these are our other two members, Yuri and Natsuki."
Yuri, the taller one, is reading a book at her seat, she looks up and waves to me. "How do you do?" she asks.
Natsuki is in the back of the classroom, rummaging through the closet. She whips around and locks eyes with me, giving me a heinous look, like I'm some sort of criminal.
"Ugh, you brought a boy?" she snarls. That's awful inviting.
"Natsuki! Be nice." Monika says. Natsuki looks away and continues whatever she's doing in the closet. "Don't worry about her, she's just not too fond of change. She's actually really sweet once you get to know her. She can even be kind of cute!" She says, looking back at Natsuki mockingly.
"I am not cute!" She snarls. I feel like it would kind of fun to mess with her, but I'll save that for another time.
"Whatever you say," They probably tease her all the time. "Any ways, go ahead and make yourself at home, we're going to get the preparations ready. Sayori, would you join me?" says Monika.
"Of course!" Sayori follows her to the back of the room, where they retrieve some things from the closet. I take a seat next to Yuri, where I figured I should at least try to start becoming acquainted with the girls.
"Whatchya reading there, Yuri?" I ask
She jumps and gasps a little bit.
"Ehe, sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Must be getting pretty involved in the story, huh?"
"Oh, no it's okay!" She marks where she was and closes the book. "But yeah, I was at the climax of the story. It's called The Portrait of Markov. It's really good so far."
"The climax? I'm sorry if I interrupted you. Do you want me to leave you alone, so you can continue it?" I ask
"N-not at all! I'd rather talk to you anyways," she pauses, "that may have come out strange sounding, I-I meant- "
"Relax, it's cool. I didn't misunderstand you." I reassured her.
"Oh, good." She sighs a sigh of relief.
"Portrait of Markov? I'm not familiar with it. Is it a horror story?" I asked.
"Yeah!" She said back, eyes widening slightly.
"I'm assuming horror stories are your forte, huh?" I asked
"Oh, yes. Very much so. It's my favorite genre. They're so intriguing! I love how one moment, a character can seem like a completely normal person, and then the next the author throws you for a loop and reveals a deep dark secret. Isn't it interesting?" She goes on after that, to which I lose focus. I assume she likes to read based on how she just explains it to me. "I-I'm sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"
"No, it's okay, you're just passionate about reading, it's cool to hear you talk about what you enjoy doing." I reassure her.
"Really? I'm glad…" She sighs and closes her eyes, holding a hand over her chest, which seemed like a weird gesture, but I didn't think too much of it. "… I actually have a second copy of the book at home, if you'd like to, I could give you this one so you could read it and so we could discuss it?" She holds the closed book out towards me." O-only if you want to! You don't have to if you aren't interested in doing so!"
"Yuri, relax, you aren't giving me a bad impression. And I'd love to. It's fun to share your interests with other people, I know. But won't you lose your place?" I ask
"It's okay, I'll just remember the page number. Actually, better yet, I'll reread it, so we can talk about it together on the same page!" She's getting really excited over this. It's kind of cute.
"Alright. Sounds like a plan!" I say, "How about tonight we each read a chapter or two, and tomorrow we can discuss it during club time?"
"That's perfect! We could even read the next few chapters together if we have time!" She pauses again. "I-If you'd like…"
"I'd like that, Yuri" I smile at her. Did she just blush? She smiles back.
"Alright everybody!" I hear Monika announce across the room. "Everything is ready! Come take a seat!"
Yuri hands me her book, I slip it into my bag, and we go to take our seats. The girls pushed the desks together to make a table, three on one side and two on the other. I'm not too comfortable with everyone yet, so I take a seat on the end, with Sayori to my right.
Natsuki marches over with a large dish with tin foil draped over the top of it. That's right, I completely forgot about the cupcakes! I thought to myself. She pulls the tin foil off to reveal a batch of cupcakes that look similar to the ones with the colored icing that you'd buy at Walmart, except these ones were obviously homemade, and looked a lot more appetizing. They had pink and yellow icing on top, decorated to look like little colored cats. This is going to be the most girly thing I've ever ate in my life, I thought.
"Wooooaaaahhhh, these look amazing Natsuki!" Sayori says, obviously excited about anything that has to do with food.. I swear I can see her drooling.
"Thanks, I made them all myself!" She says proudly.
"Don't you mean you made them all for Kamito?" Monika said slyly, with an evil, teasing smirk.
"Ugh, I-I did not!" She snaps back, raising a fist at her, although I'm ninety-nine percent positive she would never hit her.
"Yep, sure you didn't. Any who, lets dig in!" Monika says.
"I'll go fetch us some tea." Yuri says. She gets up and travels to the side of the room, where I only just realize there's a tea kettle, with stuff to make tea. Where do they get all of this stuff?
She comes back, gives us all cups, and takes her seat. Everyone grabs a cupcake, but I can't help but notice Natsuki staring at me, as if she were waiting for me to take a bite and judge her baking, Iron Chef style. I look for the best spot to take my bite, and then do so. It really wasn't bad at all. Actually, it was really good. I'm no judge when it comes to sweets, since I don't eat them that often (if at all), but let's just say it's the best cupcake I've had in a long time.
"Wow Natsuki, these are seriously good! The best I've had in a while!"
"Really? Y-You think so?" She pauses "I mean, of course they are! Like I need you to tell me!... but, thanks I guess." Geez, learn to take a compliment.
We eat our cupcakes and drink our tea. God, that sounds weird. The more I look at this situation, the more I realize this is literally a tea party and I'm the only dude. Although, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Yuri looks over to me, "So Kamito, what type of things do you like to read?"
Uh oh. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't get that question from anyone. I'm not really the most avid reader. But I don't have to lie about that, do I?
"Um… well I don't really read too much. I guess… manga is pretty cool. If that counts?" Natsuki shoots her head up and looks over at us like she wants to say something but stays quiet. I'm the only one who probably notices.
"Eheh, not much of a reader I guess… but that's okay." She says nervously
"Hey, I never said that couldn't change!" I give her an awkward smile.
That's when I realized something that probably should've been brought up.
"And also, I just realized something…" I said
"What is it, Kamito?" Responds Monika.
"Well… I never really said I would join this club yet. I was actually just visiting today to see what it was like."
They all stopped what they were doing and stared at me. I got a small reaction from everyone.
A "O-oh…" From Yuri.
A "What?..." From Monika.
A "N-Nick…" From Sayori.
And a "Hmph." From Natsuki.
They were all looking at me with sad expressions. I was defenseless against these girls.
"…Alright, it's decided. I'm joining the Literature Club.
Suddenly, they all lit up again. "You had me so worried, I'm so happy!" Sayori stand up, pulls me up, hugs me, and starts jumping up and down.
"Thank goodness…" Yuri says
"If you only would've came for the cupcakes I would've been super pissed about it." Natsuki crosses her arms and huffs away from my gaze.
"Well then, it's official. Welcome to the club!" Monika smiles at me.
You know, this may not be half bad. All these girls are really nice. Well… three of the four are nice. And they all seem pretty fond of this club. Maybe I can learn to enjoy it as much as they do.
The plate of cupcakes was finished, and Natsuki wrapped it up and put it in her bag.
"Hey everyone, I have one more announcement before we pack up. Be prepared to start getting into the literature aspect of the club tomorrow. Now that we have everyone, we need to start preparing for the festival that's coming up in a few weeks." She said
We all start packing up. Yuri is the first out the door, I wave her goodbye. Sayori approaches me.
"Hey Kamito, since we're both already here, do you want to walk home together?"
"Of course, I don't see why not." I say.
"Okay!" She gives me a cheesy grin.
We walk out, followed by Natsuki and Monika. We said our goodbyes and made our way out the main entrance.
Sayori and I were on our way home. I figured I would start our conversation.
"Well that was pretty fun, don't you think?" Pretty bad conversation starter. If I could roll my eyes at myself I would.
She keeps looking forward, spacing out.
I wave my hand in front of her face.
"Sayori? Are you alright?" I asked.
"O-oh, I'm sorry. What did you say?" She asked, shifting her attention to me.
"Nothing. I was just saying today was pretty fun, don't you think?" I asked again
"Oh yeah, sure was!"
She was quiet again. Something was off about her. She obviously had something on her mind.
"Is there anything you want to talk about?" I asked
"Oh, no everything's alright." She assured me.
"Okay, I was just checking on you. You didn't seem yourself, so I thought I'd ask. I'm sorry if I was being nosey."
"It's okay! Thanks for checking. I'm okay. See?" She gives me her signature smile.
"Alright, if you say so." I smile back and playfully punch her arm. "I'm really glad you convinced me to join. Everyone seems nice, and the club seems like it's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited to go back tomorrow."
"I'm glad you like it. I'm excited to go back tomorrow too. Hehe…" She says.
We walked for a little longer in silence. I didn't want to pressure her anymore into what was on her mind. Despite what she said, it was obvious something was up. I had to reassure her.
"Hey Sayori?"
"What's up?" She responded.
"If you ever need anything from me, or if you ever want to talk about something, or if you even need to vent, you can talk to me about it. You know that, right?"
"Heh, yeah, I know. You worry about me too much. But… thanks." She smiles at me.
We were outside her house now. I walked her to her door, which was normal considering we went to each other's houses every day when we were kids. I pretty much could let myself in whenever and it would be okay. Sometimes I actually do, too. Her mom was practically my second mom. She does advise me after all.
Mom and Dad… I thought. I should probably explain that situation.
I'm only eighteen, but I live alone in my house. My parents… aren't with us anymore. They liked to travel, and took a flight out to Osaka two years ago. Well… the plane crashed. Nobody survived. So… that explains that. It's kind of hard to talk about. I don't have a job, but my parents had a very large amount of life insurance, in case something bad would ever happen to them so I would be taken care of. I don't even want to know what they were paying for it. They fully owned our house, it was paid off. So, the life insurance money is what I'm living off of right now, which was surprisingly a gratuitous amount of money. I just live off of the house I've grown up in, and use the money to pay the bills, make payments, and buy things I need, like clothes, groceries, and more. I don't want anyone to think I'm rich, but I'm sitting comfortably. After the funeral arrangements, I had about four-hundred thousand left over. I'm not happy about it at all obviously because no amount of money will bring my parents back, but I'm very thankful at how smart they were to do such a thing… Even though they're gone, they still take care of me.
Their passing contributed to a spiraling depression in my life. Aside from their deaths, I never really had any real friends, besides Sayori. Everyone and anyone I tried to be friends with either used me for my money, my car, or anything else. They'd back stab me or talk crap about me behind my back, it just wasn't worth it to surround myself in people who were going to hurt me. It was the last thing I needed. I'll obviously never be over my parent's deaths, and I'm still going to cry over them, I don't know anybody who would be over it. I wouldn't say I'm one hundred percent okay, but I'm not going to do anything stupid. I'll be alright. I've made it this far, haven't I? Mom and Dad would have wanted me to go on. I do it for them.
Sayori's mom is my go-to. She advises and looks over me. She was my mom's best friend. Like I said before, I've known her for so long and we've been through so much she's pretty much my second mom. She treated me like the son she never had. She doesn't watch over me as much as she used to anymore now that I'm an adult. Well, at least legally. But I still go to her when I need help or advice.
I made it to my front door. I stepped inside, set my stuff down, and made dinner. I went to bed at a relatively earlier time than other kids so I wouldn't be tired at school, so I ate a little earlier than everyone else as well.
After I cooked and ate, I had a little downtime, so I decided I'd start reading into Yuri's book, The Portrait of Markov. I'm not much into reading anything other than manga, but she seemed pretty passionate about this book, so I'll give it a shot. What's the worst that could happen? Worst case scenario I have to read a book that I'm not interested in, but all of our English classes through the years made us do that all the time anyways. I wanted to do this for her. I need to have a way to connect with these girls, so I can be more comfortable around them. Who knows, I may even turn out liking the book. Not that I'm jumping into this expecting to dislike it.
It probably took me about twenty minutes to get through the first chapter. It actually wasn't bad, so I went ahead and read the second chapter as well.
After reading the two chapters, I slipped the book back into my bag, and just entertained myself until it was time for bed. I meal prepped my lunch for tomorrow so I wouldn't have to wake up as early as I normally do, and I rented a movie I had never seen before. I'm gonna try not to over-describe my boring, eventless evening. It's a bad habit of mine to do that.
Right around ten, I brushed my teeth, changed into some more comfortable clothes, and hit the hay. Our second day of Literature Club was tomorrow and, I can't believe I'm saying this, I was actually excited for it. I'm looking forward to seeing what Monika has in store for us, although I should probably be worried considering she said we'd be getting into the more literature related aspects of the club. I guess it isn't always going to be eating cookies and drinking tea.
I closed my eyes, and drifted to sleep.
.
(Alright, first chapter finished. If you've read my first story, One Wish, you'll notice that this first chapter is very similar to the first chapter of that one. I basically copied and pasted the first chapter of that story, and slowly went through it, changing it into a new story. You'll see a lot of similarities. I enjoyed my back-story of the main character of the last story, so as far as Kamito's back-story goes, it'll be the same, except he didn't have self-harm issues in the past. After this chapter, it's all gonna be brand new, from scratch, although I may reference my One Wish on some parts. Not so much to where it feels like the same story, because this is a Natsuki-based story now.
Also, those of you who're upset of the lack of Natsuki in this chapter, don't worry. There's plenty of her to come, have patience. It's just the first chapter. I'm taking my time with this story, and want it to work out just the way I want it to. She's my favorite girl too, and I want her to gets lots of attention as well. It may be Natsuki based, and Natsuki will be Kamito's love interest, but all of the girls are going to get their own attention and love as well. I think we all can agree they all deserve it.
Keep an eye out for the next chapter. Things are smoothening out for me in life, and I have a little more time for myself now, so little by little I'm working on stories. See you then!)