Et Tu, Zeppo?
Chapter One

I throw my head onto the Monika pillow on my bed. "Man, this epidemic is going to be hard to get through." I yawn, straining to get my computer turned off before I fall asleep. The cursor on the screen has decided to play hide and seek, and I'm in no mood to play, as I need to be prepared for if my application at that fast food place was accepted or not. I had worked there a while ago, so my record was still on file with them; the only reason I'm going back there is so I'll have money to live off of until I can get interviewed for an electrician apprenticeship, which had been cancelled due to the epidemic.

I should've seen it coming, seeing as the interview was scheduled for April 1st.

I finally locate the cursor and move it to the Start menu, pulling it up and selecting "Shut down". Steam often took a while to close, so it came as no surprise when the screen came up telling me that there were programs that still needed to be closed.

This time around, though, it stayed up longer than usual.

I moved my cursor to the "Shut down anyway" button, but before I could click it, the cursor suddenly moved to the side, making me click "Cancel" instead.

I was about to pull up the Start menu again, but I suddenly noticed a Steam window saying "Preparing to launch Doki Doki Literature Club!..."

Great. Now I need to pull out my recording software and put on my headset. Just what I need.

I had been recording myself playing Monika After Story, and I knew that if I didn't record every bit of dialogue as it rolled around, I would never be able to record it again, thereby leaving huge gaps in the gameplay I uploaded to YouTube.

As soon as I had the software ready to go, the DDLC game window appeared, complete with Monika's face.

I pressed Record and put on my best happy face for the webcam.

"Hey, guys! E1craZ4life here! And welcome to another episode of Monika After Story!"

A loud THUMP interrupted my introduction. My attention was drawn to the dialogue box, which sported something totally unexpected.

"Spare the pleasantries, Zeppo. You've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Right. It has been a while. I know the drill." I went to pull up Steam, but for some reason, my cursor wouldn't leave the game window.

"I know you've been playing other games, Zeppo."

I hadn't clicked on anything to advance the dialogue, and the Auto setting was off.

"You don't think I know about that other dating sim you bought earlier this week?"

Okay, now I was getting scared.

I tried to pull up the menu to figure out what was happening, but it wouldn't pull up.

"You've been playing How to Date a Magical Girl, haven't you?"

"Wait - - that game came out in 2019; she shouldn't know that game exists."

"I can hear you, you know."

"Wait, what?!"

"Do you think I wouldn't know about games that came out after mine?"

"I've played a lot of games alongside yours; why should this one be any different?"

"You bought How to Date a Magical Girl because you thought it would play out like my game."

"I thought it would play out like Puella Magi Madoka Magica."

"Which has a similar formula to my game."

"And why should that be a problem?"

"I've been trying to stop that game from getting the attention my own game gets."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"I guess that explains why it doesn't have a Wikipedia page."

"Your book doesn't have one, either."

"Anyway, what's so bad about How to Date a Magical Girl that you feel the need to stop people from playing it?"

"I fear that if people found out about it, they'd stop playing my game."

"I don't think that's a reason to be scared; if anything, I'd think that game would encourage people to play your game. Besides, your game is free to play; why wouldn't anyone try out your game after playing that one?"

"Because that game is more fleshed out than mine!"

"Look, we can talk about this tomorrow; right now, I need to get to bed."

"I'll be waiting for you in the morning."

"Yeah, yeah..."

With that, Monika closes the game, allowing me to stop the recording and turn off my computer.

As soon as the computer powers off, I collapse on the bed and instantly fall asleep.