Early Sunday morning, Meiji got up and headed downstairs. He checked and found that his mother had a nice big pot of rice ready. He chopped up some lettuce and a tomato, filled a bowl with the small salad and dripped some Japanese vinaigrette over it. He opened the rice maker and scooped out a heaping helping into another bowl. Finally, he took a big dollop of miso paste[94] from the tub in the fridge and dissolved it into a bowl of hot water from the hot water dispenser.
Meiji sat down, cracked a raw egg over his rice, and said "Itadakimasu![95]", before eating his breakfast. Finishing his breakfast with a "Gochisousama deshita![96]", he rinced his bowls in the sink dropped them into the soap-water tub for later cleaning and dashed off to Sayori's house.
It was eight in the morning and he let himself in, sliding the unlocked front door open. "Gomen kudasai!" he called out before slipping off his shoes and dropping a pair of slippers from the rack at his side onto the floor and putting them on.
"Come on in, Meiji, I'm just getting Sayori's breakfast ready," Mrs. Aogami called from the kitchen. "What's brought you over so early?"
"Sayori didn't say?" he asked.
"Breakfast?" Mrs. Aogami lifted a sizzling pan full of sausages. "No, she didn't."
"Hehe, good old Sayori . . ." he chuckled, "and no thanks, I just finished mine before coming over."
"Well, have a seat!" she said and Meiji sat at the table.
Mrs. Aogami grabbed a teacup from the cupboard and placed it before him, along with a small teapot. She poured the green tea into the cup and set the pot back down onto the little wooden radial potholder before going back to attending to the frying sausages.
Sayori walked into the kitchen, yawning. She was wearing a cute yellow nightshirt and when she reached up to scratch her messy hair, Meiji got an eyeful of her pink panties.
"Sayori-chan, dear, are you sure you wanna give your boyfriend a show like that this early in the morning?" Mrs. Aogami asked with exasperation.
Sayori did her adorable little confused expression before finally taking note of Meiji sitting at the table. "Oh! Meiji! What are you doing here?" she asked, ignoring the fact that her nightshirt was dangerously close to giving Meiji another show.
"Hahaha!" Meiji laughed. "Did you forget? I'm here to help you make all the posters!"
"Oh, yeah . . . ehehe," Sayori put her fingers together, "I forgot . . ."
She walked over to the counter and started scooping out rice—a mountain[97] serving for herself—and normal servings for her mother and Meiji.
Meiji turned around and started to protest that he didn't need any, but Sayori stuck her tongue out at him, winked, and flipped up her nightshirt, flashing him her panty-clad butt. Meiji shut up, his brain trying not to short circuit. He happily accepted the bowl of rice Sayori placed in front of him.
"I-itadakimasu . . ." Meiji mumbled, fighting the heatwave he felt radiating off his face.
Sayori sat down across from him and poured mayonnaise on her giant pile of rice. She began digging in to her own bowl after a quick "Itadakimasu!"
"Aren't you worried you're going to get fat?" Meiji asked.
Sayori puffed out her cheeks and furrowed her brows in mock anger. "Boobbooo! Meiji! I run 5 k every day; I'd lose weight if I didn't eat two of these every meal! Some of us don't sit around watching anime and playing video games all day!"
Meiji stuck out his own tongue at her and went back to eating . . .
. . .Which Mrs. Aogami caught as she served the food, putting a couple of sausages on a plate in front of Sayori and one on a plate in front of him. She sighed. "You two are made for one another! I swear you're both still five."
She got simultaneous raspberries from both of the infantile eighteen-year-olds. She rolled her eyes and served them the sausages.
The two ate and Sayori went back upstairs to change.
"You can come up, now, Meiji!" she called down the stairwell.
Meiji walked up to her room and gently opened the door. He wasn't prepared to find Sayori coloring a poster on her bed. Her nightshirt was riding up, fully exposing her pink-pantied butt to him as her legs danced in the air. She was lying on her belly, coloring a poster on a portable desk she had on her bed. Meiji gulped and enjoyed the view until Sayori turned her head towards him and winked.
"Hey, silly, go grab some one of the construction paper sheets and get to work," she said. "You can sit at my desk." She was talking to him, but her eyes were centered on the tent in his pants. She smiled and nodded. "If you're too distracted," she purred in a lower voice, "maybe we can do something about that after my mom heads off to work."
"Your, uh," Meiji failed to peel his eyes from her delectable derriere, "Y-your mom, she works on Sundays, does she?"
Sayori rolled to her side, taking away his nice eye candy and replacing it with an even better view of her front. The thin fabric was digging in, leaving very little to his imagination. She played with the nightshirt, lazily riding it up and down a long her tone stomach, to just under her chest. Meiji couldn't help but notice there no bra there and he enjoyed the tantalizing little peak she gave him. "Well, she took off work for our trip yesterday . . . so . . ."
"I-I see," Meiji forced his legs to move and he sat at her desk. The sheet of poster paper had light pencil lines already stenciled in, so all he had to do was color according to the little color-coding marks she'd scrawled. Sayori rolled back over on her belly and went back to work on the poster she was coloring.
o o o
Since they were coming to school on official business, despite it being Sunday, Yuri and Kouta wore their school uniforms. That was the rule, and neither student was particularly rebellious as it was—and it made getting ready pretty easy.
Kouta met Yuri at her house—his was just up the street, but geographically further from the school. He'd have liked to have held hands with her along the way, but he was soon loaded up with a bunch of materials he'd have to carry—he didn't mind. He got to feel like a big, strong man for his girlfriend.
Yuri was no slouch, though, and had two big bags in each hand as well.
"So, what's all this stuff you're having me carry?" Kouta asked.
"Mainly the banner roles and the paints," Yuri explained, "And a bunch of newspapers to lay around the classroom to protect the floor . . . That reminds me . . ."
Yuri pulled out her phone and dialed up Monika.
"Mellon?" Monika said over the phone, "What's up? Need me to buzz you in?"
"No, not yet, Moni-chan," Yuri said. "Kouta and I are about halfway there. I just rememberd that I need something to help transfer my banner designs onto the large banner . . . Got any ideas? I figured, since you're there, you can look in the supply closets?"
"I think I've got just the thing for you," Monika said. "What time do you think you'll be here, so I know how much time I have to look for it—if it still even exists . . ."
"We'll be there in about 20 minutes," Yuri said.
"Alright, I'll see you when you get here. Make sure to ring the doorbell. If I'm not there, Natchan can buzz you in, or Baa-cahn."
Yuri hung up the phone and returned to her leisurely, pleasant walk to school with Kouta.
"So, what's in your bags?" Kouta asked. "Those look heavy."
"They're not as loaded down as yours," Yuri explained. "Lots of ribbons, origami paper for a curtain design idea I've got, and aroma therapy candles and essential oil atomizers."
o o o
I got off the phone with Yuri and walked down the hall towards the first floor teaching supplies closet. A quick look determined that what I wanted wasn't there. The other buildings might have them, but I didn't bet on it. This particular storage room was where most of this kind of thing would have been abandoned years ago.
Loading the Space Classroom and connecting it to one of the classroom closets, I walked in and sat on the bare floor. I started going through the menus, and found what I thought I was looking for.
Load Object (open-paren)(quote-marks)School-HS-Chair-(quote-marks)(close-paren)—enter.
Load Object successful
A chair, brand new, and just like the standard high school desk chairs in the classroom just outside the door to the Space Classroom appeared in the middle of the room. I walked over to it and tried to sit, but fell through it and hurt my butt. Ouch! What gives!? I thought.
Looking through the menus again, I realized what I'd missed. The object was "there" but it wasn't unique. It needed its own object code. Concentrating on it, I sort of "up-arrowed" the code I'd just used and it looked I could just edit it, so I added to it:
Load Object (open-paren)(quote-marks)School-HS-Chair-(quote-marks) Assign Code (quote-marks)Moni-Chair-1(quote-marks)(close-paren)—enter.
Load Object successful
Concentrating on the chair, I saw it had the object code Moni-Chair-1. I reached up and touched it to confirm it was solid and then sat on it. It was my—literally my—very own chair. As a joke, tried loading some markers and then those special foil, ultra-sticky label stickers that get put on the backs of the chairs with the words 'Moni-Chair-1' written in the same manufacturer's metallic blue ink. I put it on my chair.
Working through the menus, it took some time to find—it turns out that stuff—every object you could think of—was categorized the way militaries do: I wanted an overhead projector, but I found it under Projector-Overhead-Transparencies. It was one of those old light-box designs that practically blinded you to look at. I'd remembered using them to project a banner across a wall and then we used a pencil to trace the shadows. You had to be careful not to stand right where you were trying to trace, but it got the job done beautifully!
Next up, was of course, the transparency sheets. I'd be surprised if they were still made. I carried my prize and the sheets up to the clubroom over in building three. They're not heavy, but they're unwieldly. I set it up and then walked over to the computer room, and booted up one of the computers and the color laser printer.
When I got back to the main, admin building where our temporary tatami room apartment was, I could see Yuri and Kota walking up to the doors. I ran over to the button and buzzed the doors open for them and let them in.
"Hej, hej Monika!" Kouta called as I held the door open for them.
"Hej på dig Monika!" I answered back in our old in-joke. I'm glad he remembered. "Hello, Mellon! Hi, Kouta-kun!" I chirped. "I think I've solved your banner problem. Do you have your designs?"
Yuri set down her bags and fished around her skirt pockets before seeming to remember something. She pulled a USB stick out of her front pocket of her blazer and handed it to me. "Sorry! I've only got the designs on a Morcrisift Letters file," she said, "Know if we can print? Otherwise I have to run up to the Lewison's up the street."
"Perfect!" I exclaimed. "Let's get your stuff dropped off to the clubroom and then follow me over to the computer room."
Natsuki came out right about then, and helped us take our stuff up to the clubroom.
"Natchan, why don't you help Kouta-kun get the desks and chairs cleared, the newspaper's spread out, and the banners taped to the wall," I suggested. "Use the overhead, here, to guide you for height. Mellon and I are running over to the computer room to print out the transparencies."
"Where did you even find this thing, Moni-chan?" Yuri asked. "And the transparencies to use with it?! How!?"
"Nishishishi!" I giggled evilly, "I have my ways . . . It's amazing what you find buried in supply closets."
"But . . . that one looked brand new!"
"Well . . . it was inside a box . . . so . . ." I lied.
o o o
Once Monika left the room with Yuri, Natsuki started moving desks to one corner of the room, along the wall, careful not to block the rooms 'front-side door', but still give them as much room as was absolutely possible without resorting to moving them out into the hallway. Kouta was a little surprised at how easily the smaller girl picked up the desks and seemed to sling them about.
"Haha! When Monika-chan called you 'Buffsuki', one time," Kouta chuckled, "I didn't think she was being serious . . . I can see which one is the 'man' in your relationship."
He anticipated a stern look or maybe even a jab to ribs, but Natsuki just kept working and casually commented, "Don't I know it. Monnie's the weepiest, mopiest girl ever. But don't underestimate her, Kouta-kun! When she needs to be, I can always count on my big effing hero."
"Where did that come from, by the way," Kouta asked. "That 'big effing hero' thing? Why doesn't she just say 'big fucking hero'?"
"Monnie really doesn't like it when people cuss around her," Natsuki said. "I mean, when were alone and . . ." suddenly Natsuki blushed, ". . . and . . . um, yeah, . . . we can talk . . . dirty . . . butnotoutinpublic!"
"Hahahahah!" Kouta began laughing hard.
"What's so funny, huh, bigshot?!"
"I know something you don't know!" he sang.
"What? What do you think you know?"
"Hee hee," Kouta chuckled, "Your Monnie cusses like an absolute sailor's sailor."
"Bullshit!" Natsuki protested.
"That's how Monika-chan and I became friends," Kouta said, "I tried asking her out and she of course turned me down, but,"
"When was this?!"
"A few years ago, don't worry about it," Kouta replied, "Anyway, so she turned me down but—that's right, it was the night we got off the train and your dad came and dragged you home, calling you a slut and stuff—uh . . . sorry, I didn't meant to bring up old memories . . ."
"Naw, go on, you're good . . ." Natsuki said, but the laughing mood had died.
"Anyway, that night, she was cussing and fussing about it, and it really threw me for a loop," Kouta explained, "Monika-chan's got this perfect angel persona but underneath is this really really foulmouthed girl that needs to vent. Anyway, I became her cusswords-relief valve after that."
"Thanks Kouta-kun . . ." I said as I walked back into the room. "Natchan doesn't need to know that I'm only human! What would you do if my Natchan stopped thinking I were a goddess?"
"Uh oh . . . I'm in trouble now," Kouta raised his hands and said in mock horror. "The goddess Monika is going to curse me!"
"The only goddess you need to worry yourself with worshiping is at the feet of Mellon, here," I said, imperiously. "It's her curses you need to watch out for should you incur her wrath!"
Even Yuri joined in the good laugh we had.
I laid the printed transparency of her banner on the overhead and turned on the light. We got to tracing the now giant shadows projected on the taped-up roll of fabric and then pulled it down for painting.
"Alright," Natsuki said, interrupting. "I need to borrow my girlfriend, here, for some baking, so when I don't need her anymore, I'll send her up here for you two to order her around."
"Natchan's going to be doing a lot of kneading me, alright, and if she's lucky, I might just return the favor," I quipped, drinking in Natsuki's cries of embarrassment, Yuri's scandalized face, and Kouta's priceless mixture of mortified arousal. Natsuki grabbed my arm and began dragging me out of the classroom, Yuri was pushing.
"Monnie!" Natsuki cried.
"Moni-chan! Out with you! Eww!" Yuri yelled.
"Ahaha!" I laughed.
o o o
We'd finally finished mixing all the batter and now Natsuki and I were taking a break. I'd hooked up the Space Classroom to the kitchen, so we walked in there and Natsuki gaped.
"Where'd you get this awesome bed!?" she asked. She walked around it, unsure if it were even real, and then, after feeling it's silky smooth sheets, jumped on it. She delighted in the bounce and rolled around in it, snuggling into the sheets. "These sheets have got to have cost a fortune!"
"Ahaha! I've been working on the console," I said. "It takes a bit of finesse, but if it can exist, I'm pretty sure I could bring one here. These sheets, ostensibly, are genuine silk, not satin."
"Ha! We'll never need to go shopping again!" she said.
"What's the fun in that?" I asked. "Besides, I'm not about to risk making food with this. I don't trust it not to have weird properties that could literally kill us if something goes wrong with it . . ."
"How do you mean?" Natsuki asked. She pulled up her knees and hugged them, tilting her head just like in the game's special Natsuki scene.
"Well, let's say that the world decides it doesn't like having an extra overhead projector and some transparencies in it for more than a few hours . . ." I began. "I don't know; I only just started by making that chair over there." I pointed to Moni-Chair-1. "And then it glitches out of existence. Oh well. Sucks. I'll make a new one if I need it."
"Okay?"
"So what if you eat some food, and that gets absorbed into your body, starts powering your metabolism, stars being turned into cell parts and all of a sudden all that glitches out of existence?"
"Oh . . . yeah, that'd be pretty bad," Natsuki harrumphed. "So, why would it glitch out of existence?" she asked.
"Probably due to the laws of thermodynamics," I explained. "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but here I am creating matter out of thin air. I don't know where it's necessarily coming from, either."
"What about this space classroom?" She asked.
"I'm really confident that this place isn't even within the same reality as ours—it's clearly in another dimension, and somehow, I'm just connecting it to various doors using a wormhole. Ahaha, at least that's what I believe. I don't think I'm a goddess . . .
Natsuki kissed me and I savored it until she broke away and said, "Monnie, Mr. Winston Zeddamore said that when someone asks if you're a god, you say 'Yes!'. Ehehe."
"You saw the movie?!" I asked, excitedly.
"Maybe . . ." Natsuki answered. "Maybe someone accidentally downloaded a movie after Lougling[98] the name."
"Well, as much as I want to spend the rest of the day enjoying you in this bed," I said, and Natsuki started playfully slapping at me. "Ahaha! We need to fill the cupcake tins and cookie trays with batter and get these things baked. Then I need to run up and help Mellon and Kouta-kun with the decorations while we wait on the timers."
Natsuki sighed and slid off the bed. "Alright, let's go."
"Yes, Mistress!" I said, "Does Mistress have any more dirty work she needs me to do?"
"Just for that, you can pour all the cupcake tins while I do the cookie trays," Natsuki hmphed.
o o o
ÿÛĮëŻ stared at the screen and sighed. MC—or "Meiji" as that psycho called claimed he was called—was kissing Sayori again. He distinctly remembered the game not haveing any actual hentai scenes, but this Sayori sprite was topless . . . and he had to admit, very nicely drawn.
"Well, if you're gonna have a sex scene, then have a damned sex scene!" he barked at the computer screen. "How long's it gonna take?!"
He clicked and clicked, progressing through a make-out session that had a lot of sweet nothings spoken between the two.
Just then Sayori's sprite jumped back with an "Uwa!" and she looked very surprised. He got a nice view of her topless sprite in just pink panties.
"What the hell is that!?" the MC asked her.
"Why did a Mr. Cow drop out of the sky and fall on my head?!" Sayori's sprite complained. "Oh, it has a note."
The note appeared on the screen, like a poem.
[Sayoriin,]
[Come to the school when you're finished with the posters. We need to hang them up, and we need to finish helping Mellon and Kouta-kun.]
[Monika]
[P. S. Do you like my present? You can keep him if he doesn't glitch out of existence.]
"You damned psycho!" œí©Ŝ» yelled at the screen. "Maybe, just maybe, they were going to fuck! Thanks for ruining my hentai scene, Monikammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"
Author's Notes:
[94] Miso is fermented soybean paste. It's salty but delicious and very good for you. It forms a pretty standard part of most Japanese meals. Dissolving miso paste into hot water makes miso soup, into which you can put clams, and wakame (wah-kah-may) seaweed, or other desired ingredients.
[95] Itadakimasu (ee-tah-dah-key-mahss) means "I humbly receive (this food)"—it's a phrase that Japanese people say before eating, even when they're by themselves. It's said with the hands held together as in prayer, and looks remarkably similar to saying grace.
[96] Gochisousama deshita (goh-chee-soh-sah-mah deh-shtah) is a phrase said after a meal and basically means "thank you for the food" but literally means "it's as if I've been treated to exotic and rare cuisine".
[97] Rice is served in portion sizes of komori, ōmori, and yamamori, literally: small portion, large portion, and mountain-portion! When I was still eating school lunch, I had to tell them to give me a portion I created: tanimori (valley portion) to mean an "extra small portion". They cottoned on pretty quickly and had a good laugh at my joke based on the opposite of yamamori.
[98] Hot Tub Time Machine is such a stupid but enjoyable movie that I couldn't resist.
I hope everyone is enjoying my fic, I'm in the Monika. Please do leave a review. Assuming I'm not overwhelmed, I try to respond to my reviews in a timely manner. Furthermore, if you have not already, please consider reading my other DDLC fic, The Music of the Soul.
It's the weekend! It's amazing how much more mental energy I have to write when I don't have four or five classes a day to teach!