Disclaimer: This is a fan work with characters belonging to Team Salvato.

Notes:

Another story I had written concurrently with Doki Doki Bittersweet. After getting some almost immediate positive reception(to my surprise) to Bittersweet I decided to publish this and get started writing it. This is also an AU like my story Doki Doki Bittersweet with only the character(s) being the link to the fandom. Doki Doki allows us to experience a fairly wide variety of personalities and light backgrounds despite Monika saying they are the most shallow.

He didn't think much of writing letters to people. It seemed disingenuous to write a random stranger about your life and problems when you'd never likely see them or interact with them beyond writing on a piece of paper. He had heard of people meeting others this way and forming lasting bonds and logically he knew before the advent of telephones or e-mail's this was the way people talked to each other over long distances. In his mind however, the content of a letter to a stranger felt as two dimensional as the medium it was written on.

James was a soldier in his countries military. He enlisted when he was young after finding very little he was good at or indeed felt he was fulfilled with. The military to him was assured employment, direction, and a temporary way of life so he could figure out what he truly wanted to do with that life. People that joined up for god and country were alien to him in an age where they'd likely never fire a shot in anger let alone in defense of their home's. Most people seemed to be as pragmatic as he was in basic training, thinking like him it was a good way to earn bread and gain skills they'd use later in life to continue doing so.

James snorted derisively, true he earned money and acquired the skills he wanted but he was wrong about never fighting. Shortly before he completed training and earned his stripe a nation in the east decided bombing public areas was a great way to send a message, and shockingly his nations government decided to respond beyond the norm of policy and embargo's.

They called it a war but it was really a cleansing. War implied there was some sort of back and forth, territory bought with lives and lost just as quickly. His squad rarely if ever found themselves defending. His squad was a part of a larger battle group who's general purpose was mobile light assault. He was one of a small number of combat medic's whose responsibilities included first aid, triage, and emergency field surgery if the need called for it. His mother was a nurse and frequently studied medicine for exams and qualifications when he was growing up and so he was familiar with the basics so it seemed an obvious step to choose it after his aptitude test allowed him to choose to be a medic. Not only did he receive infantry training included in basic, but he spent quite an amount of time training in saving other peoples lives.

His training was rarely needed in the beginning, the superior military training and technology of his squad almost never found equal on the battlefield. The enemy barely qualified as militia with imported Cold War era weaponry and self taught battle tactics. The only time he found himself actually using anything he was taught was when his comrade's were dehydrated or had infections from poor hygiene.

This state of affairs continued for what seemed like forever. Combat patrols, sleep, treat blisters, eat, and so on and so forth. The real enemy in his mind was boredom. The things his unit got up to were hilarious on the surface, but hid an almost manic response to sheer monotony. People thought fighting was constant life or death decisions, when really it was moments of adrenaline dotting like islands among a sea of everyday routine. He had an easier time of it, his whole attitude when he started all this was that it was a job. Despite that even he felt what those around him suffered from creeping on him like an animal stalking its prey.

Thing's changed when the enemy got smarter, started receiving training from 'third-party contractors' or so the news back home said. Blisters became shrapnel wounds and soldiers sick from fatigue became nearly dead bodies on stretchers. Almost in spite of his previous attitude he became angry at the enemy. He treated the idea of 'brothers in arms' with derision before, but opinions change when the man he was talking to the day before over MREs became quickly dying and screaming not a few feet from him after his squads position was hosed down by the thunderous report of a .50 caliber.

After a while his boredom was replaced by the much more debilitating issues of shock and fright. He thought he knew exactly how his life was going to go, join the military and coast along life after using his benefits for education in medical school. Instead it turned into a seemingly never ending struggle for what seemed to him no rhyme or reason. He was equally parts horrified and ashamed to find himself not caring at all eventually, as the theater of war heated up rotations back home became more and more infrequent and with it he became more and more jaded to the new state of his life.

Almost a year and a half of this continued almost without pause. Somewhere along the way his actions on the battlefield saving lives became noticed higher up the food chain and he earned himself a medal and a promotion by lieu of being the most experienced and trained medic in his battalion as new soldiers were introduced when the old ones couldn't continue. This thankfully resulted in him more frequently being stationed at forward operating bases instead of the quick reaction elements he was a part of before. Instead of patching up the bleeding forms of friends in the dirt and sand he worked on touching up or doing more complicated procedures in tents where the echo of gunshots and mortars were distantly heard.

After a few months of this a new trend and order came down the ranks about a letter exchange program with people back home in schools and universities. His superior told him when prompted about the purpose of it that it was an attempt to boost morale among the troops by providing an outlet as well as dispelling rumors back home about life over here. He laughed about it at the time by himself. To him the idea of sharing anything with a stranger let alone that stranger caring about something that doesn't affect them was ludicrous.

His attitude didn't change with the first letter he had gotten or the next. Both from different people, the almost lazy handwriting and apathetic "Thank you for your service" told him they had the same idea he did about this ridiculous program. He did reply to the second, asking what they got on their end for sending their letters across the world. Evidently most of the people the writer knew that participated were majors relating to literature, history, or English and received credit as project for doing so. The frankness in the letter was refreshing and confirmed his previous opinions. It was amazing to him they received these when not half a year ago they had problems even getting batteries for night vision goggles.

The new routine of replying politely but with no real substance to letters didn't change until later. One day he received what felt like his hundredth correspondence but unlike the almost copy-pasted scrawl and questions about what life was like in what was becoming his most hated country on Earth it instead asked him something different.

"How are you?"

The question itself seemed equal parts confusing and strangely welcoming. Normally you'd be asked that by family, friends or even a server at a restaurant. You didn't normally hear it from for example someone on the bus or when passing someone on the street. The question almost glowed on the paper, like headlights on a country street. After being interrupted of his almost computer like scanning and only partial acknowledgment of the previous letters by the basic but also rare courtesy he noticed the almost artistic handwriting and unusual lavender colored ink.

He reread the letter top to bottom with more attention, learning the name of the sender and some basic facts about her she chose to share. Her name was Yuri, twenty two years old and majoring in Literature at a community college with a focus and interest on Renaissance period plays, poems, stories, and tragedies. The letter itself despite being neat had a hesitation behind the hand that had written it, with a few areas having slightly larger drops of ink before the strokes. The paper itself had small wrinkles on the bottom and the slight scent of jasmine when he had opened the envelope.

Her letter also had sparse details about her personal life, describing her hobbies as reading(which hadn't surprised him), poetry and aromatherapy. After reading the last item on that small but somehow to him rarely given list the smell of the envelope made more sense to him.

He wasn't sure why he put more focus on this letter more then others. Maybe it was the apathetic and almost condescending nature of the others? Regardless what was initially a very poor distraction of his hectic but slowly normalizing life became an engrossing acquaintance and hobby. He found himself describing his own background and personal life across a large chain of back and forth discussion. He told her his hometown, his job in the military and why he had become a medic which led to talking about family.

His mother, Carolyn had him when she was only nineteen with his father splitting before the bed he was conceived on was even cold. Despite the economically more sensible option of aborting him, she had carried him to term anyway and raised him. They were poor with his mother in medical school and also having to clothe, feed, and shelter both him and herself. When he was twelve he had badly wounded his leg after crashing on his bicycle in the neighborhood his house lay on, and his mother had fixed and calmed him. This had started his interest in his mothers chosen career and his almost paradoxical interest in helping others despite his laid back and standoffish personality. His initial intention was to go to medical school like his mother or become a paramedic, but life quickly drained his motivation and he instead did odd jobs to fuel pointless hobbies which was why he had enlisted.

Her family were second generation immigrants from an Asian country, her grandparents had started a small eastern cuisine restaurant that her mother and father inherited and continued wanting to put her through college as the first in their family. She had an interest even earlier than his interest in medicine for reading when she engrossed herself in some books her grandparents brought over from their home country, becoming bilingual from them and the books. Eventually in a private high school she joined an extracurricular literature club(which baffled him, he had never heard of clubs like that) and became even more enveloped in English and European stories as well as writing poems.

Their backgrounds couldn't be any less similar but despite that continued to write each other about what happened the previous week or even about inane things that somehow didn't feel pointless to write about with her. The months dragged on into another year and before long he was finally told he was finally being discharged. This was received by James with relief, many soldiers had their service obligation extended. Despite the stress and horror of his time overseas he was almost sad to go, thinking his… pen pal wouldn't want to continue writing each other since she had no obligation herself. When he had written one of his last letters to her describing his week before finally informing her of his return back home and receiving a response she had told him she didn't mind them continuing, and maybe meeting in person.

He was despite his usual self, elated and looking forward to it.

James stepped off the walkway of the airliner he had finally reached home on. Unlike what people thought it was highly unusual to have pomp and circumstance surround the return of a soldier, reserved for the end of wartime mainly and despite him returning the 'war' continued from where he came. He wouldn't however trade seeing his mother and one of his best friends welcoming him back for some strangers shouting and a band playing.

"It's so good to see you" his mother had said when he finally reached her and surrounded him in a hug.

"You too mom." he said with some tears pooling on the bottom of his eyes before pulling away from her. Those tears suddenly went away almost instantly when his best friend Kyle suddenly smacked him on the back hard enough to jolt him forward.

"Welcome back man, you look like shit!" Kyle said boisterously laughing slightly at his own stab at James admittedly horrible countenance.

Kyle had been his friend since middle school, suddenly shoving into his life over lunch in the cafeteria even though at the time James was considered an anti-social loner. James had no idea why Kyle suddenly decided to get on with him, but he had and they stayed friends through the carefree period of middle school and the stress of high school.

"Thanks asshole." James said jokingly before continuing "I must have missed my beauty sleep in between the colossal amount of paperwork I had to go through and the horrible seats."

"Language both of you!" Carolyn almost scolding, sending looks of disapproval at both of us before chuckling as James and Kyle laughed at each other.

"Well at least you made it Jim, you missed a lot while you were over there." Kyle said moving his hands like he was holding onto something large.

"I'm sure you'll bug me about every little thing." James chuckled.

"Oh yeah you better believe it!" Kyle said before pointing at Carolyn "She practically became my second mother, how could you leave me with her?" he said almost crying.

"As if you have anything to complain about, you practically can't take care of yourself." Carolyn said heatedly before explaining "I lost count of how many times you came over whining about not being able to cook!"

'Well that's interesting, didn't know Kyle even got along with my mom.' James thought remembering their time before he left.

Kyle was always the more wild of the two, constantly getting them into trouble like skipping class almost enough to get truancy officers involved, and getting into scrapes with other guys trying to bully him in high school. Even though James could take care of himself, Kyle always was there helping him out. It always seemed to him that his mother thought Kyle was a bad influence on him.

Lost in thought, he was brought back to the present by Kyle grabbing his shoulder. "Let's go man, this place is packed like a can of sardines!" Kyle said motioning to the terminal around them with business men and a few other service members in their fatigues bustling around.

"Yeah let's go home." James agreed nodding and following his friend and mother out of the terminal's building and to their car in a nearby parking lot.

The car ride was tremendously relaxing to him, despite his choice to join the military he was relieved to finally be almost done with it. Excluding another war or the one he left expanding tremendously he wouldn't be going back within his mandatory time in his branches reserve force. Most of the talking on the way home was catching up on the day to day and talking about small things while he was over there.

"So you still going to write that woman you told me you were writing with?" his mother suddenly asked.

Kyle made an 'oooh' noise before adding "I didn't hear about this Jim you got some kind of long distance girlfriend?" he asked putting emphasis on 'girlfriend' with a goofy look on his face.

"It's not like that but yeah I am. We wrote about me coming back home and Yuri said she'd be interested." James stated with some heat in the beginning.

"Yuri, is that her name? Sounds exotic." Kyle said teasingly.

James huffed before putting his arm around Kyle's neck from the backseat. "Don't you start with me now!" he growled shaking him and Kyle laughing.

"Behave you two I am trying to drive!" Carolyn said laughing a bit as well.

James relaxed and pulled back his arm, going back to his seat before continuing.

"She doesn't actually live that far from here, we talked about maybe seeing each other in person."

"That's pretty interesting considering you've only written to?" Kyle said questioningly.

"Well we've been writing to each other for a long time." James stated while shrugging.

"Do you even know what she looks or sounds like?" Kyle asked with one of his eyebrows raised.

"No, but I guess I will find out. I guess it's kind of old school to not call or Skype her or something right?"

"I don't think so, its kind of sweet." Carolyn said smiling slightly.

"Jesus mom, can you not?" James asked his ears going slightly red.

Kyle laughed at his friend's embarrassment briefly before calming down.

"I don't think its that weird Jim, there isn't that much difference between what you two were doing and someone meeting from Facebook or something." he said unusually serious.

James looked surprised at the uncharacteristically serious and thoughtful reassurance. Usually Kyle would just bust his chops about anything but I guess he matured a bit like him while he was overseas.

Before long they reached his and his mothers house, one of many in the suburban neighborhood he'd lived all his life in. It was a nondescript but well maintained one story house with a bay window on the front and a walk up to the front door. It was one of those sturdy brick with plastic siding houses that were common in the late 60's to mid 70's. It was built with a high amount of weather proofing for the turbulent coastal climate of the state he lived in, but despite that was rather homely.

Everyone exited the car, with Kyle helping him unload his fairly light amount of possessions from the trunk and backseat that was next to him. James took a moment to breathe in the air nostalgically.

'I'm home.' he thought smiling and relaxing his shoulders.

AN: Most of this chapter was backstory for James and the introduction of some original characters and a Doki. Unlike Bittersweet I planned on having most if not all of the cast of Doki Doki Literature Club included in this. Hopefully the backstory wasn't too long winded and the character's conversing wasn't patchy. I have a hard time writing actual conversation like how to follow one part of a statement with another after a character action like '"That was pretty stupid of you." X laughed at Y's misfortune. "I hope you learned something."

I'd love some feedback and maybe another writer to tell me the formatting of conversation between two or more characters.

Also don't think too much on looking for parallels to real life, I made a lot of places and events generic on purpose for ambiguity.