Disclaimer: Generic notice about how I don't own DDLC.
[Chapter 4 - Progress]
The shopping trip was pretty eventful so far, to say the least.
It was quite the bustling and crowded area, littered with all sorts of people from different walks in life. The general populace in the establishment ranged from children, to teenagers, to young adults, and even the elderly. All of them doing their own thing, whether it be shopping for supplies, window-shopping for potential purchases, or simply hanging out with other people.
The mall was a place of leisure and various forms of entertainment.
Natsuki and the Meyers strolled throughout the venue, listing off items that need to be bought and the stores that sold them. Carol reasoned that an organized trip would help maximize their time, and so far it was holding true.
First off, Natsuki needed a smartphone. Communication was very important, after all. And basically everyone had a personal smartphone nowadays. She even had one inside of DDLC, but unfortunately she wasn't able to bring it with her into Harold's reality. And so, a necessary purchase was to be made.
Plus, Natsuki would need a phone anyway in order to text keep in touch with her new friend, Kate.
"It's gonna be a pain in the butt, trying to get used to a new phone, but what can I do." Natsuki sighs as she furrows her eyebrows at the reminder of her current situation.
As Harold's parents and Natsuki went off towards the nearby smartphone stall, the boy himself happened to overhear some pretty loud voices quarrelling nearby. Seeing that his companions were preoccupied in discussing what type of phone Natsuki should get, Harold veers off a bit to listen in on the argument he happened to overhear, with mild interest.
Harold saw a small crowd gradually forming around two people. A gruffy looking man, and girl with strawberry-blonde hair. He couldn't see very well amidst the crowd, but the girl pretty much reminded him of Sayori from Doki Doki Literature Club. There was no way of making sure though. But his budding curiosity kept him watching irregardless.
The girl keeps calling out at the man. "Wey?"
Said man, whose name was apparently "Wey", kept brushing off the girl though. He held a very noticeable disposition of annoyance. Then, he swore out quite audibly.
"What? What the fuck do you want?!" Harold saw the man angrily gripping his cigarette, before cutting off the embers of the stick with his palm and throwing it haphazardly on the pavement. After his slight temperamental fit, the angry stranger set his furious gaze on the trembling girl.
"A-are you mad at-" once again, the Sayori-lookalike began to speak but was swiftly interrupted by the rising temper of the unknown man. Harold winced at the glare that the girl was being given. She was surely in for an earful.
"YES! Yes, I am mad at you. I'm fucking pissed!"
The boy then saw the girl flinch timidly while quivering her lip, her eyes beginning to pool a bit of water on the sides, obviously on the verge of getting teary-eyed.
It was a pitiful sight, and the Meyer could only extend his sympathy towards the Sayori-lookalike in silence. He had no stake in this argument after all, and meddling would only bring trouble on himself.
Nevertheless, the man wasn't finished with his furious tirade. "How can you be so stupid?!"
Harold then saw the stranger jankily tapping his palm on his head and abruptly throwing it off. The boy interpreted it as the man gesturing that the girl was empty-headed. It was quite harsh in the Meyer's opinion, but he didn't really know what happened between the two. So he kept his thoughts to himself, as he was merely just another curious onlooker of this spectacle.
"Oi, Harold! What the hell are you doing here meddling with other people's business? Your parents told me to come get you." The boy didn't even notice that Natsuki was already behind him. She gestures at the nearby phone store and they leave the scene.
'I hope that girl is alright. She really does remind me of Sayori in some ways. Too bad I didn't get to see her face though.' Harold spares one last glance at the mystery girl and the furious man, before heading off to the store with Natsuki. His parents were waiting for them by the entrance.
"What were you up to, Harold my boy?" Jonathan asks his son, to which he gets a shrug and a simple response.
"Just saw two people who were kinda fighting I guess."
And with that, the Meyers plus Natsuki continued their little shopping escapade.
After much deliberation, Natsuki finally decided on a pink-colored phone, and even got a matching light-pink case with cutesy Hello Kitty patterns covering its entire body.
Of course, this prompted Harold to snicker a bit.
"That's *snicker* a pretty cute choice, Natsuki *chuckle*. It suits you~"
Turning a light shade of red, Natsuki meekly retorts. "W-what do you mean by that?"
"Nothing bad, haha."
The pink-haired girl pouts a bit, but doesn't say anything further. She had just been recently able to finally land in Harold's good graces. Both she and the boy knew that. So Natsuki had been doing her best to reel in a lot of her brash remarks in order to maintain a nice relationship with the boy.
For some reason, she found herself drawn to the Meyer, due to reasons that she didn't quite understand at all.
And so, the day went by and soon enough, Natsuki had finally been bought the supplies she needed. Various pieces of clothing, amenities, and so on. They even had somehow found a store that sold Natsuki's in-game casual outfit in DDLC. Speaking of which, they had quite the experience during the purchase of that particular piece of clothing...
"Oh look Natsuki sweetie, isn't this the outfit that you wore when you baked cupcakes with the protagonist for the upcoming school festival?" Carol Meyer points at a store window that had a mannequin with the aforementioned outfit.
It was the complete package. The same white shirt with a pink cat logo and pink sleeve-ends, as well as pink linings. A faithful replica of the pink skirt as well. Natsuki and Harold both had to do a double-take at the accuracy.
Their amazement slightly wore off when they realized that the store was a cosplay outfit emporium. That explained why Natsuki's outfit was up for display. Driven by curiosity, the group entered the store with the intent of purchasing the outfit for Natsuki at her insistence.
"Even though it was all just a game, I get some comfort in seeing that some of the stuff I had sorta made it in this reality too, pretty silly of me right?"
Harold places a comforting hand on her shoulder. "There's nothing silly about feeling a little homesick over your original world, Natsuki."
"T-thanks, Harold..." she meekly responds with a slight blush.
They saw the DDLC uniform as well, and even Sayori and Yuri's casual outfits were up for purchase in the store. Seeing all of this however made Natsuki feel a little bad for Monika. She had read up on everything there was to know about DDLC through Harold's PC yesterday, and it was the little things like this that made her feel quite sorry for her former club president. Maybe it was sympathy. Or pity. She wasn't really sure.
Monika didn't have a route like herself, and she didn't even have any other in-game attire besides the school uniform. She also barely got any screentime in Act 1. And this visit to the mall's cosplay emporium only served as a reminder of those things.
'I guess I could understand a bit why you've done the things you did... I'm still kinda mad though, hmph!' she contemplates in her mind. She was still slightly mad at the emerald-eyed Doki, but she could at least forgive her... somewhat.
Seeing her neck get snapped in Act 2 kinda made her yelp a bit when she first saw that screenshot. It wasn't exactly a pleasing visual for Natsuki.
Nevertheless, she decides to take it all in stride, in her own way.
In the end, the Meyers ended up buying Natsuki's casual DDLC outfit, and they were on their merry way.
With multiple shopping bags now in tow, Harold glances at his wrist watch and notices that it was now a little past noon, 12:17PM to be specific. The group decides to eat at the mall's food court area, and Natsuki was drawn to a food stall that sold Japanese food.
Harold, not wishing for Natsuki to feel a bit left out, decides to have Japanese as well. Both of them ordered two bowls of Chashu Ramen each, while Carol and Jonathan decided to purchase some sandwiches at a Subway stall.
The meal was relatively quiet, most likely due to slight exhaustion from all the walking. There was some slight small talk but other than that, the group of four were busy stuffing themselves with food.
Oh, and the occasional autograph signing every now and then when a passerby would notice Natsuki. They had already lost count of the amount of times that Natsuki had to pull out Mayor Simon's office letter, in order to prove that she was in fact the genuine Doki.
The trip home was pretty much similar to when they were driving towards the mall. Harold and Natsuki were chatting each other up, and various playful lines of "dummy" and "you idiot" could be heard from the pink-haired girl. She had a bright and beautiful smile on her face.
Said smile slowly melting Harold's heart. Yep, he was fully accepting of Natsuki in his life now. His parents were still in the front of the vehicle, merely observing the two as well. While discussing stuff such as the latest issues in politics.
Normal adult stuff that neither Harold or Natsuki had much interest in, as they'd rather maintain their own conversation as well.
And then, they finally arrived back to the house.
For the first time ever in Natsuki's life, she was finally able to say this line with a smile, as she entered the Meyer household once more, holding her shopping bags along with Harold and stating in a very cherrful voice.
"I'm home!"
Harold couldn't help but smile enthusiastically as well, at the sight of his new friend being this happy and full of life.
The remainder of the Sunday was spent organizing Natsuki's newly acquired provisions, and mostly just Harold and the girl hanging out with each other, due to the boy's parents needing to do some errands and restocking for the Meyer family bakery.
Hours later, it was night time once again. Currently, the two young adults were plopped on the couch, watching a rebroadcast of the first episode from an anime series that Harold recommended to Natsuki. It was a light-hearted and warm-filled show called "Yuru Camp", which translates to "Laid-back Camp".
The pink-haired girl was an avid fan of manga and anime after all. So she was pretty excited to watch her first anime in Harold's reality.
"So this anime is about camping and friendship, huh."
"Yep. I figured you'd want something pretty chill first, but has enough heart in it to be compelling. I remembered that you liked the manga "Parfait Girls" within DDLC, so Yuru Camp would be a good starting anime."
"I see..." Natsuki responds lazily, eyes still glued on the glowing television screen.
The young Meyer chuckles a bit, and lets the girl focus her attention on the episode.
'I should've been less hostile and more accepting of her, early on. Natsuki's actually quite... nice.' he inwardly thinks while blushing.
His mind flashes back to his first meeting with Natsuki.
It was only right now, after he'd actually spent a whole day with her, and got to know her better that his initial impression of the girl when she was still in the game had been very off. She wasn't really high maintenance at all, and Harold found out that he actually quite enjoyed her company. Plus, they were both experienced with baking. He was pretty sure that she'd want to be involved with their family business, once his parents take her to see the bakery.
He wouldn't mind that at all. The boy was also a bit curious on how her cupcakes would actually taste in real life, since everyone in DDLC's story regarded the tsundere's confections with high praise.
"Hey, what are you fantasizing about, dummy?" Harold's pondering gets interrupted by a playful punch on his shoulder, courtesy of the girl beside him who was currently flashing him a smirk. Apparently he had been spacing out.
"N-nothing important. Check this out, the following scene here is pretty good actually, you see over there, they..." Harold starts pointing out various things in Yuru Camp's pilot episode, completely steering the topic away from his momentary lapse of awareness.
By the time Jonathan and Carol Meyer had arrived, they were greeted with the sight of Natsuki and Harold on the couch, both fast asleep.
"Look dear, we should take a picture of this!" Carol barely controls her excited squealing as she fished for her phone from her left pocket.
Jonathan smiles as well at the visual before him, snaking an arm around his wife as they took a snapshot of the slumbering figures.
Natsuki's head was resting on Harold's right shoulder, and the boy had his arm draped around the petite girl's body. They were basically cuddling while sleeping, and Harold's parents were delighted at how cute this was.
Carol covers them with a warm blanket, before turning in as well with her husband for some sleep.
"Let's tease them about this in the morning, dear~" the mischevious mother suggests to Jonathan, who also nods in amusement at his wife's antics. Breakfast the following day would be pretty lively, it would seem.
And so, everyone slept peacefully and sound. Within Natsuki's dreamscape, delightful visions of a certain Harold Meyer filled her with much glee.
-Chapter 4 END-
A/N: This chapter has a little cameo of another great DDLC fanfic that I highly recommend. For those who don't get it, read Chapter 5 of Lack of Tact's "Everybody Else is Doing It!" fanfic, with an exclamation point in the title.(He has another DDLC fanfic titled "Everybody ELse is Doing It?" with a question mark at the end. The exclamation point version focuses on Sayori while the question mark version is a Yuri fic. Do check both out!)
Another thing, I apologize for updating this so slowly. I've been putting all of my time in writing TWBTS's upcoming Chapter 12(TWBTS Ch12's word count is clocking in at an estimated 40,000 and more. Yes there's four zeroes in that number, the chapter is pretty goddamn long). *sighs* Still, this story isn't over, far from it actually. And I plan on continuing this alongside TWBTS.
My brain hurts from all of this typing for TWBTS' upcoming chapter, ahaha. So even though I wanted this to be a much longer chapter, this was all I could write for now. In the next update, Jonathan and Carol finally show Natsuki the ropes regarding the bakery, and we get a glimpse of Harold's school life.
Thank you all for reading. See you guys in the next update~