A/N: Since this story takes place after the series end of Gravity Falls, expect spoilers galore!
Spoilers for DDLC as well obviously, but nothing from Plus! Still waiting for my physical edition to arrive. If you spoil any of the Side Stories for me, I WILL END YOU.
Incoming call from: Dipper Pines.
"Oh, sweet!" Soos exclaimed, seeing the notification from his group chat app, Disharmony, popping up at the bottom of his monitor.
Quickly, he paused the game he'd been in the middle of playing and minimized it in order to click on the "Accept Call" button.
"Hey dude, what's up?" Soos asked happily, excited for this chance to talk to his best friend again.
"Hey, Soos." He heard Dipper's voice coming through his computer's speakers. He sounded exactly the same as he had three weeks ago when he'd been living there during the summer vacation. "Just thought I'd call to check how you were doing. Y'know, now that you're running the Mystery Shack and all."
"Oh, things are great!" Soos said, reaching up to proudly adjust the red fez on his head, treating the headgear the previous owner had given him like a golden crown. "Sure, the place keeps falling apart because it's like a bajillion years old, but I was already constantly fixing it up when I was working for Mr. Pines. Now I just have that, plus the added duties of taking tourists on tour, selling the merch, keeping the illegal pug trafficking going unless I want Santiago to break my legs, and warding off the daily supernatural creatures threatening to eat me alive!"
"Oh, right." Dipper said, awkwardly. "I guess Grunkle Stan DID kinda leave you with a whole lot more responsibility when he handed over the Shack to you. Sorry about that."
"Ah, it's cool dude." Soos waved him off casually. "I knew I had big shoes to fill as the new Mr. Mystery! I mean, the guy literally made me polish his shoes every day! I can only hope I'll live up to the legacy he left behind one day. I'm not quite old and horrifying enough to make kids run away from me screaming like he did, but I'm compensating by not washing the suit he left me at all. It has pretty much the same effect on people now."
Soos lifted up the neck of his black suit in order to take a deep breath of the inside scent.
"Ahhh…" He sighed. "I think I can still smell a bit of his old man sweat in here…"
"…riiight. Well, good thing Melody is there with you!" Dipper said, sounding like he really wanted to change the subject for some reason. "So you don't have to do all those things by yourself."
"Oh, uh…" Soos hesitated. "Yeah, about that dude… Melody is actually no longer with me. We kinda sorta… broke up, a little?"
"What?! But… you two seemed like the perfect couple!"
"Yeah, it was great for a while. But there was this whole deal with the Gnomes kidnapping her to make her their new Queen, then the Shape Shifter thawed out again from the tube in Ford's secret lab which led to her having to stab an evil clone of me without knowing if she made the right choice or not, she accidentally looked into the eyes of the Gremloblin, and then to top it all off, the decapitated wax-head of Larry King tried to have an interview with her in the shower. She wrote to me that she needed to spend a couple decades with her family after all that."
"…wow." Dipper exclaimed, in quiet awe. "I always forget how overwhelming Gravity Falls must be for... normal people. How many days has it been since she left?"
"Oh no, this all happened today." Soos said. "I just got done carrying the Shape Shifter back down into the lab and fixing up the freezing tube again a few hours ago!"
"Oh." Dipper said, pausing awkwardly. "I'm… sorry for bringing all this up so soon after, Soos. Must be painful for you."
"Aw naw dude, it's no big deal." Soos said, waving him off. "She left on good terms. Well, at least I think she did. Hard to tell really, since she was too traumatized to speak multiple-syllable words."
"…huh. Are you SURE you're okay?"
"I'm fine dude, don't worry! Sure, it's a bit lonelier here now, but I've already found a solution!"
"What's that?"
"It's this cool, free game I found on the Vapor app! I've been playing it since I closed down the Shack for the night, and it's pretty good! It's about going to a school club with these four other girls, and between you and me, Dipper, I think I'm really impressing the purple-haired one!"
There was a small pause of silence before Dipper spoke up again, sounding exasperated.
"Seriously, Soos?! You're playing ANOTHER Dating Sim? Don't you remember how crazy things got the LAST time you did that?!"
"Oh no, this is totally different from that, dude!" Soos hurried to reassure. "I'm like, 99% sure none of the girls are sentient this time around. And plus, this game is all about literature and writing poems! How could something like that possibly be evil?!"
"This is the worst decision you've made since giving away your infinite pizza slice to that random guy."
"Oh, come on Dipper! He was always wearing a shirt that literally said 'Free Pizza!' He clearly needed it way more than I did!"
"Whatever, man. I still think you would be better served going out and talking to some REAL girls instead."
"Oh no, I'm way too busy running the Shack to do that!" Soos said, shaking his head. "Right now, I just want to unwind with the much easier to impress girls of the Doki Doki Liter-"
"You got mail!"
Soos was interrupted mid-sentence as the computer's electronic voice notified him of the small pop-up at the bottom corner of the screen.
"Dude, this thing claims I have mail!" He exclaimed excitedly, and hurried to click the pop-up.
"It's amazing what we can do with computers these days." Dipper said, dryly.
"Dude, now I'm reading it!"
"So happy for you. Who's it from?"
"Hmm, let's see…" Soos said, letting his eyes drift across the screen to take in the words. "Huh, it… doesn't say. There's just this download link which says: 'click if you're lonely, this is a safe link and totally not a virus, like, for realsies XOXO.'"
"Tsk, yeah right." Dipper scoffed. "As if anyone would be gullible enough to actually click that."
"Sorry, what was that dude?" Soos asked, distractedly. "I was just busy clicking on this download link!"
"You did what?!" Dipper yelled, voice full of disbelief. "Soos, you have to cancel that! A link like that could seriously mess up your computer!"
"Nah dude, it's fine!" Soos said as he watched the buffering bar moving. "The link explicitly said this wasn't a virus! You don't think someone would lie on the internet, do you? Oh look, it's nearly finished!"
The buffering bar then reached 100%, and disappeared from view. Soos waited a few seconds.
"Huh, weird." He said, reaching up to stroke the faint beard stubble beneath his chin. "Nothing happene-"
Just then, a surge of heavy static blasted from his computer's speakers, followed by a series of bright, colorful bars flickering wildly across his screen.
"Oh. It looks like my computer is glitching out." Soos said, shaking his mouse around in an attempt to fix the problem. It didn't respond to his movements at all. "Maybe I shouldn't have clicked that link."
"Y- th- nk?!" Dipper groaned, his voice cutting in and out as the sounds of static grew louder.
Soon, the screen was completely consumed by the flickering bars, concealing every single inch of the photoshopped background he'd made of his own head placed on top of a shirtless bodybuilder's torso, wearing sunglasses.
Soos considered unplugging the computer but just as he started motioning to get up from his chair, the glitches stopped, vanishing from his screen as abruptly as they'd started.
Tentatively, he squinted at his screen, trying to spot anything that might be out of the ordinary.
"Is it over?" Dipper asked, his voice sounding clear once more.
"Hmm…" Soos said, still scanning the screen and trying not to get lost in the sheer beauty of his masterpiece background. "I think so, maybe. Doesn't look like anything actually- wait."
A fluttery movement near the top of the monitor caught his eye, and he looked up to see… a lone, pixelated pink petal, softly floating downwards.
"That's strange…" He said, moving his mouse to click on the falling petal.
Upon impact the petal disappeared, replaced by a miniature explosion of tiny pink hearts and sparkle effects.
"Cool!" Soos exclaimed. "Slightly worrying, but cool!"
"What?" Dipper asked. "What do you see? Soos?"
Soos didn't respond, his attention drawn to the cascade of pink petals starting to appear from the top of the monitor, falling in much the same way as the first.
And what was more, he started hearing the faint notes of some upbeat, vaguely anime-esque music slowly growing louder from his speakers.
"Oh." Soos breathed, feeling his heart sink. He thought he could recognize this kind of music along with these kinds of graphics.
"Oh no…"
He hurried to click on as many of the petals as he could, intent on not letting a single one fall to the bottom of the monitor. A fruitless endeavor, as he started to realize when he heard his old, bought-used computer start to wheeze and sputter, clearly struggling to function with all the particle effects from the petal explosions. Soos stopped trying to click on the petals, letting them fall and gather up at the bottom.
All the while the music grew louder still.
"Soos, WHAT is happening?!" Dipper yelled. "Why can I hear anime music?!"
"What?!" Soos yelled back, getting up from his chair to fumble with the tangled mess of cables behind his computer. "What did you say, dude? I can't hear you over this anime music! Okay, I'm gonna try unplugging my computer now!"
"What?!"
"And… there we go!" Soos yelled triumphantly as he pulled out the main power cable.
It had no effect whatsoever. The computer remained turned on, humming loudly in protest from all the petals still falling.
"Aw man." Soos said. "Who would've guessed clicking a shady link with no visible source was a bad idea?"
"I WOULD!" Dipper yelled back, voice full of frustration.
Then, the music finally stopped, and the petals started quickly disappearing from the screen, one by one.
"Is… is it over?"
Soos looked down at his hand still holding the unplugged power cable.
"Uhh… I wouldn't bet on it."
He looked up at the screen again, and felt his heart skip a beat.
There, in the center of the monitor, a series of small, yellow Japanese letters had appeared, with slightly bigger, lowercase yellow words in English beneath them, translating the sentence.
The sentence he'd already read once before, a couple of weeks ago.
"when the cherry petals of magic romance academy are in bloom…"
Soos gulped in trepidation, already knowing what would come next as the yellow text transitioned.
"anthyding can hadplen"
Absolute terror took hold of Soos' body as he felt his heart starting to pound against his chest. While the yellow introduction text still rang as beautiful and true to him as the first time he'd read it, he knew all too well what would happen next.
He closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. What should he do? What could he do? Was there even anything he could say to her that wouldn't make her angry?
"Hello again, Soos."
He was shaken from his thoughts by that oh so familiar female voice, sounding as vaguely robotic as always, pausing briefly at every syllable.
"Wait, that voice…?" Dipper said, clearly recognizing it as well. "B- but that's impossible…"
Gathering every last droplet of his remaining courage, Soos opened his eyes again, already knowing what sight would greet him.
There she was, standing in the middle of the screen, her wide, pink eyes meeting his head on without blinking.
She hadn't changed a bit. The same pixelated, feminine frame. The white, Japanese school girl uniform. The long, vibrant pink hair, fluttering to the side in its idle animation. The rainbow-colored power cables tied into a giant bow placed on top of her head.
"I missed you, Soos." Giffany said, smiling sweetly at him, pure longing visible in her eyes. "Did you miss me too?"
Hope you all enjoyed this introductory chapter, I promise more Doki Doki content in the next one!
I swear I don't hate Melody, but I needed a reason for Soos to take up dating sims again, and putting her through the worst of horrible trauma was just the funniest way I could think of to achieve that goal. She'll be fine… after a few years. Sorry!
This is just a (hopefully) short, silly story I wanted to write with some fun interactions between Giffany and Monika. As this is the Gravity Falls universe, things are gonna get very wacky and ridiculous very fast, so don't take it too seriously!