Hello! As a person who fell trap to falling in love with this game like so many others, I decided to make a story out of it. Not only did I want this to be a love story, I wanted to use this to get conversations started. There are several people out there who deal with depression, self-harm, abuse, and other things. I wanted to use this story to address those things, I don't suffer from anything major myself other than being a victim of sexual abuse one time in my life, but it's always good to address these matters and to know that there are people hurting out there and I believe that they shouldn't have to feel embarrassed or afraid to talk to someone.
I hope everyone enjoys this story. Let me know if you do or don't haha.
Disclaimer: Dan Salvato owns most of these characters not me.
And also disclaimer: I'm an American using Japanese names so if I spell something wrong or create a last name that is not supposed to be a name lol feel free to help me.
Dreams of Love and Literature
My feet moved on autopilot. I had no idea what I was doing. I stood up from my floor and started walking. I exited my house and enter the darkness of the evening. Hearing the sound of my feet on the pavement kept me calm.
When I passed my neighbor's house I stared at the signs sticking out of the ground in the front. "Coward" one read in bold red letters, "lying slut", and "you deserved it" were also written in red paint on other signs. I knocked them all down on my way.
"Hold me, whatever lies beyond this morning, is a little later on." I started singing a tune on my walk, something to also keep my mind calm. "Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all." The car driving past made me jump. "Nothing's like before."
I reached the house. I gently knocked on the front door. A kind looking old lady answered it, a white and brown husky barking loudly at her feet. I jumped back as the dog rushed outside to sniff me.
"She's friendly, don't fret. Uma, back inside!" the lady nudged the dog behind her with her foot. "Sorry about that, can I help you?"
I swallowed and looked up to her, why was I feeling so nervous? "Um hi, my name's Akito. I…is Yuri home? We're in the same club at school, we're friends."
The woman smiled at me, "Oh yes, Yuri's told me about you," she chuckled, "you picked a good time to come, dinner is almost ready. Have you eaten yet?"
I smiled, "No I haven't."
Yuri's grandmother pointed to the stairs, "she's up in her room. Just follow the music."
A little girl was sitting at the couch watching some kind of anime that I'm fairly sure was Sailor Moon. I hesitatingly walked up the stairs, why was my heart pounding so fast? I guess this was all so new to me, I didn't even know why I came here.
I froze in the hallway, the sound of Panic! At the Disco led me to a cracked door. Inside I saw her lying on her stomach on the bed, papers spread out in front of her, pen in her hand. She didn't notice me yet, she looked beautiful. Her dark purple hair was draped over her back, spilling down the side of her waist.
"Yuri!" Her sister ran into the room squealing.
I couldn't make out what she was saying, I was still paralyzed in the hallway.
"It'll be okay," Yuri laughed.
"There's a boy here." The girl said.
"What?" then she saw me. Her cheeks filled with blush. Her sister ran out of the room and passed me. Yuri quickly stood up, slamming the door shut with her foot as if she was embarrassed of me seeing her room.
She looked beautiful. I took note of her long-sleeved shirt. When she walked towards me, I noticed her pulling down her jean shorts. For a second, I thought I saw the end of scar.
"Surprise,"
She smiled back at me. "Akito, hi."
Awkward silence follows.
"Not to sound rude but, what are you doing here?"
I scratched the back of my head. "I honestly don't know, I just felt bored and lonely at home so I started walking. I remember you telling me your address the other day, so I pulled it up in the maps and here I am."
"I'm glad to see you."
"I wanted to see you." I told her.
"You could've texted me."
"I wanted to be weird."
"Dinner's ready." Yuri's grandmother sang from downstairs.
"Yay food!" the girl shouted.
"Mandalay, don't run." Yuri laughed.
"So, Akito Yuchiro, right?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
Ever since dinner started Ms Satamori has been slamming me with questions. How I know Yuri, what I think of school, what my parents do for their jobs, the usual.
"So, what's your dad do?"
"He works Tokyo so he stays out of town a lot."
"You live by yourself then?" she looked at me surprised.
"Sometimes yeah."
"Resourceful,"
"So, you two met in the school's literature club?"
Yuri and I spoke our "hmmhmm's" at the same time.
"The kids in the elementary school say that club is cursed." Yuri's sister Mandalay said.
"It's a shame what happened to that girl." Ms. Satamori took a bite of her dumplings. "There's new rumors going around that the girl fooled around."
I stared at my plate.
Yuri was looking at me with worried eyes but I didn't care, my jaw clenched.
"You're wrong."
Everyone at the table stared at me.
I looked up to Ms. Satamori "She didn't fool around. She was raped. She was raped by Reo Yamanaka in his back yard. He invited her to his party, cornered her and pushed her to the ground, and raped her. And then she went home a week later and..." My chest closed up, I couldn't talk anymore or even breathe.
It's my fault the air in the room felt heavy.
Mandalay looked terrified.
"I'm sorry, that was inappropriate."
"No, no. It's alright dear. I had…I had no idea." Ms. Satamori said.
Tears welled in my eyes.
"She was my best friend, so…"
"I'm so sorry."
Yuri squeezed my hand from under the table.
After dinner I helped Yuri wash dishes. I couldn't believe I just said all that, right in front of her little sister and grandmother. I kept apologizing to Yuri as if that would make it better.
"It's alright, Akito. I thought I was the one who apologizes too much." She laughed gently.
"You are."
I stared at her, seeing the urge to say 'sorry' back at me. It made me chuckle.
I turned around and noticed Yuri's little sister watching us curiously.
"Are you Yuri's boyfriend?"
"Mandalay!" Yuri shouted, her face turning pink.
I laughed even harder.
"Is he?"
"Hey, what anime were you watching earlier?" I asked her to change the subject.
She suddenly turned shy for some reason, "Sailor Moon" she mumbled.
"Ah, classic."
"Akito watches anime too, Mandalay."
"What's your favorite?"
"The kind you shouldn't be watching."
"Like what?"
"Attack on Titan,"
"Ew! With the giant naked people?"
"That's the one. You shouldn't watch it!" I reminded her.
"Giant naked people?" Yuri looked at me.
"I heard its scary."
"Eh, it's a little scary. There is scarier out there, though."
"Like what?" Yuri asks.
"Another. Haven't seen it, but I plan to. It's number one on a 'top scariest anime's of all-time' list that I saw."
"Why?" Yuri's sister asked me.
"Something about a ghost girl and a lot of blood. You'd like it." I said to Yuri.
"Noooo, I don't like blood it's gross." She ran out of the kitchen.
And yet, she's Yuri's sister.
I've been in this house for more than an hour now. Me and Yuri were sitting on the couch, her grandmother was in the armchair next to us, staring with a smile on her face making me feel very uncomfortable.
It was in this moment, I realized why I came to this house in the first place.
I looked at Yuri, "Hey, can you help me with homework?"
She looked at me confused.
I glanced at her grandmother, then back to her, then to the stairs. "I need help with the English homework." I kept glancing at the stairs, making 'I need to be alone with you' signals on my face.
"Oh." Yuri said suddenly, "right, okay." She stood up and I followed her lead. She turned to face me, "Actually, I'm going to take Uma out, if you want to accompany me?"
She changed the subject.
I knew exactly what she was doing and why she wanted to keep me out of her bedroom.
"Sure." I said.
We opened the back door and her husky bolted outside, clearly in a playful mood.
We stood under the moonlight and stars. Yuri gazed up at the sky with longing.
"You love stars, don't you?"
She turned to face me. The wind was blowing her long hair behind her, her eyes were as bright as the stars in the sky.
"I think they're beautiful."
"I think you're beautiful."
She stared at me, surprised. My complexion suddenly resembled a tomato.
"Did I just…Uh, I didn't mean to say that out loud. Oh my god…"
She laughed at me with that gentle laugh she had.
"I'm glad you came over tonight, Akito." She said suddenly, smiling warmly.
I stared at her husky ripping apart a chew toy, deciding that it was now or never.
"Yuri."
She turned to me again.
"I…"
One month before, I found my friend dead in her room.
She told me she was suffering from depression, I told her I would be there for her.
I thought everything was fine. But when I opened that door to her bedroom and saw her hanging from her neck by a rope, fingertips bloody. My whole world came crashing down.
The whole thing is a blur now. I can remember feeling sick to my stomach, I remember calling the police, I remember never going to the festival at school. I remember sitting on the front porch outside, head in my hands. My dad came, driving the car so fast he almost ran into the cherry tree outside the house. He looked as pale and scared as I did, he pulled me into a hug and asked me if I was okay, and that he was sorry. I didn't understand what good apologies would do, what's done is done.
The police pulled up later, an ambulance behind them. They went into the house and starting taking pictures of everything. They told me and my dad to stay outside. The sky turned from blue to orange at this point. I couldn't believe this took all day. Yuri was blowing up my phone the whole time, after calling ten times and thirty messages saying "are you okay", and "what's going on", she left it alone.
My dad and I were sitting on the side of the road. I saw two policemen talking. Different forensics and doctors kept walking in and out of the house. Two of them went upstairs to her room. My feet moved on instinct.
"Akito, no!" my dad yelled.
I bolted through the door and stopped at the foot of the stairs. Two men were carrying her body down the hallway making their way towards the stairs. She was stuffed in a black bag, zipped up. One of the men turned to sharply walking backwards and accidently hit her head on the wall.
"Hey!" I screamed at him.
"Get out of here, kid." A policeman yelled at me.
My dad grabbed my shoulder, yanking me out of the house, apologizing to the officer.
"Akito, you can't go in there, they're working."
I threw up in the bushes outside.
"They're treating her like she's a dead dear on the side of the road." I screamed, tears blocking my vision.
"She's my friend, she's delicate, she's fragile, she's…perfect."
My dad looked at me with sorrow, rubbing my arms, comforting me, that's all he could think to do. "I know, buddy, I know."
I kept sobbing.
"The forensics have to do their job."
"I loved her." I said into the empty air. I don't care who heard, I think no one did.
I remember not going to school the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that.
Sayori's mom came home last night at 11:00, that's how long it took her to rush home when the police called her and told her, her daughter was dead. Hearing her breaking down in the yard wailing in agony, was the most heart wrenching sound I ever heard in my life. And ever will be. Those hours before she got there, the police interviewed me, making me talk about Sayori. After I started chocking up after a few questions, my dad pulled me away from them and told them to leave me alone. He then told me I should go to bed and get some sleep. He and I both knew I wouldn't be sleeping tonight.
Rumors travel faster than lighting. When I returned to school after a week, everyone already knew about Sayori's death. I kept my head down, not speaking or making eye contact with everyone. A few people came up to me and said they were sorry for my lost. I avoided Yuri and Natsuki as best I could, which was hard.
I made eye contact with Yuri in the hallway, I panicked thinking she would chase me down, but she just offered me a sincere smile and walked away.
Natsuki however. She followed me at lunch time, all the way up to the school's roof where I was hoping to be alone.
"What the fuck!" she screamed at me. "What happened?"
"What do you think happened?" I shouted back her.
"Besides you bailing on us at the festival—"
"Seriously? That's what your pissed about?"
"Well yeah…"
"Sayori's dead Natsuki."
"What?" she muttered turning pale. "What? How? What happened?"
"You didn't know?"
Her shocked, fearful expression told me she didn't.
"How do you not know, it's been a week. Didn't you wonder where she was?"
"No, I did, I blew up her phone, I called her house. I'm worried sick about her. No one told me anything, that's why I was looking for you all week, because I know you would no something. I…I didn't know." She started crying.
"It's been on the news, it's all over the school. I wonder if Yuri knows?"
"Like Yuri's going to tell me anything!" Natsuki cried.
"We're all having a serious talk in the club room." I said as I walked away.
I didn't want to go the literature club, I wanted to go home and bury my sorrows into video games and my pillow. I was the last one to walk in. Yuri and Natsuki were standing with their backs to the door. They whipped around when they heard me come in, whatever conversation they were having was cut short.
"Sayori died. I don't know why." I told them, tears forming in my eyes. I didn't feel like making small talk with them, I needed to say what I wanted to say and go home.
"Same way? Or was there a difference?" Natsuki said.
"The same. Monday morning, I came here to drop off the banner before class started, and I saw the poem on the desk. 'get out of my head' written by Sayori. I rushed to her house to check on her, and she was hanging there."
We live in a video game world.
A seventeen-year-old guy named Akitoaru Nakamora in Japan played Doki Doki Literature Club for his Youtube channel. After falling in love with the game he became obsessed, playing all the mods, trying to unlock different kinds of special poems. Monika tried to break out of his computer to be with him, after that failed, she found a way to pull him into the game. Since I'm the main character file he's body got transported to mine so he looked like me. He had to play through the true ending to get out, meaning keeping the girls happy and alive. He succeeded and not only was he allowed to exit the game world, but he could take one the girls home with him. Maybe he actually fell in love with her, maybe he was trying to keep the rest of us safe, or maybe he's just an idiot, because he chose Monika.
He goes by Aki for short, the only reason I'm called Akito is because that's the name he typed in. As stupid as he is for falling for Monika, I admire him and miss him. Right before he left, he's real appearance was shown, to me and the others. He patted my shoulder and told me to take care of them. He handled each of the girls so easily, he knew exactly what to do or say.
Now him and Monika are both gone and Sayori's dead.
"Monika's gone so there isn't anyone messing with the files." I said. "At least, that we know of."
The two of them glanced at each other.
"There's no way I can get a hold of Aki, even if there was, I wouldn't know how."
"God I miss him." Natsuki said. "Sayori wouldn't be dead if he was still here."
"Yeah thanks a lot." I told her.
"What, it's true! He fixed up out disastrous selves in no time."
"Um, what if…" Yuri spoke up, "What if this means that the story is playing itself out."
"Like on autopilot?" I asked.
"This doesn't make since, Monika's gone." Natsuki said.
I put my head in my hand, "I can't remember how the game ends. I can't remember anything, there's something important that we're missing, I'm sure of it."
"With all the constant resets, it's a blur to me as well." Yuri said.
"So what we're all going to slowly die." Natsuki said.
"Isn't your death off screen?" I asked her.
"That doesn't make a difference it still happens!" she shouted, "This is so scary." Tears welled in her eyes.
She turned to Yuri who was twirling and strand of hair around her finger.
"Why are you so freaking calm?! Your next."
Yuri gasped, looking terrified now.
I was still working out a solution. "Protect them." He clenched my shoulders, making sure he had my attention, "Protect them from themselves. You are the only one who can now." I shook my head from the flash back and looked at the girls.
"Aki told me to protect you from yourselves. I lounged around thinking everything was fine when it wasn't. I was too late to save Sayori. I won't be too late to save both of you."
Yuri touched her heart, giving me the most grateful smile, I've ever seen. Natsuki smiled, blushed, then quickly looked away because she was blushing.
I smiled back at them, the two beauties.
"I need to go home and think this through." I said.
"What!? You just vowed to protect us and now your leaving us alone." Natsuki said.
"I'm going to head home too," Yuri said grabbing her bag.
"Are you serious!? No! We need to stick together. What if there is another threat out there."
"Like what?" Yuri asked her.
"Oh my god, him!" I shouted.
"Who?"
"I need to go talk to somebody." I said opening the door.
"No" Natsuki high pitched screamed. "We shouldn't be keeping secrets from each other."
"Who are you going to speak with?" Yuri asked me.
"I can't tell you."
"What the fuck!" Natsuki screamed.
"I'm working on it okay." I shouted.
"What if we talk to the developer?" Natsuki asked.
Me and Yuri both looked at her confused.
"Dan Salvato?" Yuri asked.
"He appeared himself in front of Aki."
"To open the game exit for him." I said. "He's not going to appear to us."
"Well what if he does? What if we can get Sayori back?"
"The game resets are broken." Yuri said. "She's not going to come back."
Silent tears streamed down my face all of sudden. "I have to go." I left the room, ignoring Natsuki yells behind me.
I texted my friend and said I needed to talk with him and that it was urgent. I don't know why I didn't think to contact him before. He answered back in ten minutes and told me meet him at a café in Tokyo. He goes to a college over there. I hopped on a bus and made it there in thirty minutes. I think I made it the café first, I took a sit on the outside balcony and waited, feeling even more nervous the longer I sat there.
"Hey, sorry, I'm late." A guy with light brown hair and green eyes said, sitting across from me.
"No worries." I told him.
He had a stack of books in his hands. "Big assignment?"
"Yeah twelve-page paper coming up, no big deal."
"That sounds like torture." I said.
"Yeah it is, but oh well, that's what I get for trying to get in to law school." He smiled.
"You were president of the debate club before you graduated, weren't you?"
"Sure was. Little sis joined too, then quit after I graduated, wanted to start her own club. Mom and dad were so mad at her. They wanted us to be perfect debate children just like them."
"Hard to believe she had problems of her own. She always looked so perfect."
"Everyone has problems, Akito, whether large or small."
A waitress came over and we both ordered some coffee.
"So why did you want to talk me?"
"Sayori's dead." Man was I getting tired of saying that.
He looked at me with pity and sighed. "When you said urgent, you weren't kidding."
"I don't know what to do now Tadashi. Do you still keep in contact with her?"
He took a sip of his coffee, "Apparently, time moves faster in they're world than this one. Years have gone by. They married with kids and everything."
"Oh my god! How many kids?"
"Two. Guess what they named them? Yuri and Sayori. Yuri's a boy though."
I smiled.
"I'm happy for them."
"Does he still have his Youtube channel?"
"Oh yeah, they probably run it as a family now."
"What do your parents think happened?"
"They think that she ran off and eloped with a guy."
"Well they're not wrong." I laughed.
"True." He laughed as well. "They hate her now though. Good thing she can't come back home."
"How do you managed to talk with her? Could you… send her a message from me?" I said embarrassed.
"Yuri."
She turned to me again.
"I…"
"Yes Akito?"
I took a deep breath. "I'm not afraid to see your knife collection." My face was redder than a tomato.
"What?"
"I know. I know that you cut yourself and I want to help you."
Please review and let me know what you guys think. If anyone needs someone to talk to and you're comfortable PM-ing me. I won't be a huge help and I won't fully understand, but I will definitely listen.
