The computer lab sat at the beginning of the hallway, right by the staircase. I strode through the wide-open door like usual, thinking nothing of today's meeting. My head was in the clouds. I had college applications to worry about, and my eyes didn't see the room when I walked in. My feet simply carried me to my workstation, step by step. There were people gathered in a circle at the front of the room, but I wasn't paying attention.
"Hello, Tyson," said Lewis, another boy in the computer club who was a friend of mine, but not like…a close friend, or anything.
"'lo," I mumbled in response, booting up the PC. I would get that submarine through the maze today. I would.
Lewis was small for a guy in his senior year, with ginger curls and freckles all over his pale face. He looked like your standard computer geek, minus the glasses. He tapped me on the arm, as if to get my attention.
"What?" I asked, sounding more irritable than I meant to.
Lewis's expression was a mixture of anxiety and excitement as he pointed to the front of the room, where many of the other club members were gathered in a circle. "Look," he whispered.
My heart skipped a beat or two when I saw who was standing there, introducing herself to our advisor. Many of the others, mostly guys, were gathered around her, introducing themselves as well.
"Yeah, it's Monika," I said to Lewis. "She's already been here three days. So what?"
Lewis leaned his head back in complete disbelief, as if I'd just suggested he kill his own cat or something. "Dude!" he exclaimed in a hushed tone. "It's Monika! Here, in our club!"
"Don't act so shocked," I told him. "You should have used up all that on the first day." We'd all been shocked, to be sure. She had arrived in the morning at 8:25, the same time as everyone else, and went to classes under the guise of being a "new student." Of course, a quarter of the school had played Doki Doki Literature Club and another quarter had at least heard of it, so word spread around that an anime girl was attending our school fairly quickly.
This was my first time getting a close look at her, however, as we didn't share any classes. I carefully gazed back in that direction, taking stock of the girl. She was dressed in a frilly white blouse and a red skirt, showing off as much of her tanned legs as possible without breaking dress codes. Enjoying American public school, are we? No uniforms to wear here. She had cut her hair a bit shorter, I supposed because the length it was in the game was not logistically feasible in reality. The trademark white bow was still there, though, and her eyes were the same piercing green. She didn't look Japanese, either. She looked like a California girl.
I grunted and swiveled my chair back around to my computer screen.
"Dude!" Lewis repeated annoyingly, still looking at me like I was the one who'd suddenly popped up from a video game. "Shouldn't we go up and talk to her? We're the only two sitting down."
"Do what you like," I replied curtly. "I'll introduce myself when the time is right; it's a bit crowded up there."
"Yeah, but…" Lewis swiveled his chair back and forth, shuffling his feet on the floor. "I'm…nervous…"
"I wouldn't worry too much," I told him. "If the game is any guide, Monika is into losers. So you've got an even better chance than most."
Lewis narrowed his eyes. "I can't tell if you're calling me a loser, or not a loser." Still, he got up anyway, grumbling to himself and heading towards the crowd.
As I opened my programming file, the software decided now was a GREAT time to perform some automatic updates, and I realized I'd be sitting here a while. Letting out a soft groan, I put my hands to my face and leaned back in the swivel chair, rotating from side to side a little. With my hands over my face, my eyesight was denied me, and almost instinctively my ears took over and perked up, becoming my dominant sense. I could hear the conversation in the front of the room.
"I'm Lewis," the idiot was saying.
"Monika," was her friendly, singsong response. "But you probably already knew that, haha~."
At least she knows the demographics of her own game, I think to myself, smirking. Was that why she'd come to the computer club? Because she knew she'd find people who recognized her here?
"Anyways, we're glad to have you, Monika," the club advisor, Mr. Fanning, said. "Take up any empty workstation and check out our software if you like." His voice was kind enough, but also professional. He doesn't know her. He thinks she's a new student. Fanning was not really a computer guy, but he'd agreed to be our advisor all the same back in freshmen year when me and a few others had wanted to start this up.
Curiously, none of the adults had recognized Monika at all, according to my close friend Daniel who shared several of her classes. I knew at least some adults had played DDLC, so maybe she had just gotten lucky so far? And all the students were keeping quiet as well…
It's only a matter of time before the government gets wind of this, right? Or Dan Salvato. That was the part of the puzzle that interested me the most. When it inevitably happened, our school would become famous, and things would get a little more exciting around here for a while.
"Come sit next to me, Monika!" hooted Zach, another one of the idiots and also the most athletic and confident person in the club.
Monika laughed good-naturedly, and the sound came from much closer. I took my hands from my face and swiveled my chair around, facing the open area in the middle of the room. Sure enough, right as I blinked, she brushed past me to the computer on my right, the one between me and Heather that had previously been vacant.
"Mind if I sit here?"
I blinked before I realized she was asking me. "Oh, yeah, yeah, it's fine," I responded quickly with a wave of my hand.
Zach gave me a knowing smirk as he passed, which I returned back to him. The dude was about six feet tall, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a runner's build, so he couldn't have been feeling too great about Monika's choice to sit by me instead of him. If so, he hid it well, but I returned the smirk all the same.
The others all sat down at their own workstations, all in a grand arc around the center of the room. Jeffrey, with his collared rich-boy shirts and khakis, and glasses that always fell down his hooked nose. Aaron, the token Asian who was always knocking random things over in the lab. Toby, who weighed nearly 300 pounds and constantly sweated out of every orifice of his body. My grand old pack of pals, I thought glumly. We numbered fifteen in all, but I supposed we were now sixteen with the addition of Monika. Speaking of which…
"What's your name? You're the only one I don't know yet," she said to me.
I swiveled around to look her in the eye. "Tyson," I answered, offering my hand. She glanced at it in confusion before taking it and shaking it. Still not used to that, are we? I don't know why I was getting weird enjoyment out of seeing Monika do American things like wear normal clothes to school and shake hands, but here we are.
"Nice to meet you, Tyson," she declared, smiling. "I'm Monika."
She thinks I haven't played the game, I thought. Because I didn't go up there, maybe? It was almost kind of funny. "I know who you are," I told her. "I've played the game and everything." No sense in keeping it to myself, I guess.
Monika overreacted to this, though. Her green eyes went wide in shock, and her cheeks flushed red. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know, I should have realized…" Her voice got even lighter and more songlike when she was embarrassed, if that was possible.
"That's perfectly alright," I interrupted. "Now you know."
"Ah…yes, of course." Monika brushed some of her auburn hair back behind her shoulder, and fell back into a smile. Must be her natural expression. Although, if I'd managed to emerge from a two-dimensional void and into the real world, I supposed I'd be smiling all the time too, even three days later.
Heather sat down on the other side of Monika, taking off the winter hat she insisted on wearing all the time. "I see you've met Tyson," she said to the literature club girl. "I wouldn't get too friendly. He can be kind of a dick."
"Guilty as charged," I announced out of reflex, although Heather's comment did kind of sting a little. The truth was, I was never too sure how to interact with people, so I often defaulted to cold and distant. That wasn't the case all the time, though, since I had managed to make at least some friends.
Heather could only marginally be counted as among those friends, however. With dark, straight hair that fell partially over her eyes of pale blue, she was pretty much the standard emo chick that hung out with us guys instead of her own gender. She was pretty much the only one in the club who had more wits than me, and she constantly made sure I remembered it. We had a nice rapport going, if truth be told, but I still don't know if I would consider her a close friend.
"So you two know each other?" I inquired innocently as I turned back to the computer screen. My software had finally finished updating.
"Yeah," Heather replied, over Monika's head. "She fell out of my computer over the weekend."
I freeze, my hand hovering over the mouse. So she came out of Heather's computer, eh? "Hate when that happens," I called back after a pause, resuming my movement.
Monika was laughing fully in between us. "You two are so funny!" she exclaimed. "I knew coming here was a good idea, Heather. We should have done it before."
"Yeah, well, my bad for trying to keep you from my sweaty geek friends. I do have to worry about your safety, you know."
Lewis had sat back down on my immediate left. "You're from Heather's version of the game?" he asked Monika, leaning around me to look at her. "How?"
"Ahahaha, it's a bit of a secret, I think…" Monika looked at Heather for confirmation, who nodded. "Sorry, Lewie. Top secret."
Very interesting. I'm typing things into the code, so it looks my focus is in the program, but really, I'm listening to their conversation. Monika came into the real world, expecting to land in the arms of the man of her dreams, but she got Heather instead. That would have been funny to witness. Even so, this is highly irregular, if DDLC fanfictions are of any guide. It was always a boy that Monika first met when she emerged into reality, not a girl. Doesn't this mean…she's single? Without the boy there to greet her, she wasn't in a relationship, unless Heather was on that side of the fence.
Lewis did not fail to come to this conclusion, either, as evident by his facial expression. I certainly wasn't going to say anything about it, but he was more of a wild card, so I shot him a glare that said, don't.
Lewis met my gaze, and then shut his mouth in cold discomfort. He leaned back forward and focused on his screen.
"Anyway, I'm glad we took the risk to come here," Monika said to Heather. "Now I can figure things out." She was opening up our programming software, I noticed.
"Figure what things out?" I asked, although I already knew.
"Programming," explained Monika. "I want to understand…well, myself. And how this is all happening. How I exist, both there…and here."
"I could teach y…" Lewis began.
"I don't think you'll find answers to that in school-level programming software," I joked, interrupting. "Maybe try the philosophy club?"
Monika laughed, and I felt a rush of triumph. Don't get carried away, now.
Heather was less receptive. "The philosophy club that we don't have? Come on, Tyson, I expect better from you at this point."
"What a coincidence," I replied. "I don't expect anything at all from you."
Monika inhaled a rattly breath, and kept laughing, harder this time. "Goodness," she said after she'd calmed a bit, wiping a tear from her eye. "It is so good to be around…humans. I love this."
Yes, I thought to myself, but do you love…someone, yet?