"We're baaack!"

MC twisted his head towards the bedroom door which promptly burst open to reveal a cheery Monika smiling brightly at him.

"Oh, hey!" He said, putting on a fake smile while trying his best to keep his voice level and casual in her presence, hoping it would work on her. Monika would be a challenge. As she'd showcased on the drive, she was deceptively skilled at hiding away her true emotions, and could probably spot a faker like him from a mile away.

He gulped at this prospect, but kept talking in order to trick himself as much as her that everything was fine.

"Good to see you back again, you were gone for longer than I thought. Any problems?"

"Nope!" Monika replied brightly. "Everything went without a hitc-"

"Outta my way, Monika." A highpitched voice from behind interrupted her before a disgruntled-looking Natsuki entered the bedroom, nonchalantly pushing Monika to the side as she rushed straight for him. "I need to lie down right this instant and that bed has my name written all over it!"

She wasted no time in literally collapsing face first into the soft mattress, releasing a muffled groan of exhaustion as she slowly worked on crawling closer towards him.

"A little tired, are we?" MC sympathetically asked the mop of pink hair sprawled out by his side. Natsuki mumbled out some kind of response, although the words were lost completely by having her face mashed against the soft fabric of the bed. Realizing she was being unintelligible, she raised her head with a groan of effort.

"Monika's not human." She informed him with bleary, pink eyes. "She's an evil, relentless demonic creature who emerged from the blackest pit of Hell itself."

"Is that so?" He asked, glancing up towards the apparent "demon" who rolled her eyes with an amused grin on her face.

"I'm serious!" Natsuki insisted. "It's because of her that we had to extend the trip! It wasn't enough to drive between all of our houses and pack the essential items, nooo, we had to go shopping, too!"

"Oh, come off it." Monika interjected. "Need I remind you that going shopping was your idea since you insisted on cooking dinner for us?"

"Of course I did. You think I'm gonna let you serve MC squid during his time here? His existence is miserable enough already!"

"Wow, that translation joke keeps being just as hilarious as the seventeen thousand other times you told it." Monika commented, winking knowingly at MC. "Don't worry, everything went fine, Nat and the others are just understandably a bit exhausted right now."

"So annoying…!" Natsuki whined as she shuffled closer to MC in order to rest her head on his chest with a sigh of relief.

"Looks like takeaway pizza is on the menu today after all." Monika chuckled as Natsuki shifted her head around like a cat trying to make its resting place more comfortable.

"…mmm, you always did make an excellent pillo- wait."

Natsuki's entire body seemed to tense up as she shifted into a state of alertness, still keeping her head planted to his chest.

Fuck. MC swore mentally, already knowing why she'd reacted like this.

"MC…" She lifted her head, enormous pink eyes staring at him in concern. "…why is your heart beating faster than Sayori running to the cafeteria on Taco Tuesday?"

Now just how was he supposed to respond to that?

Should he tell them how a zombified, nightmare version of Sayori had fallen from the ceiling and climbed into his bed where she'd stared at him while spilling phantom maggots everywhere? How she'd eventually collapsed to the floor with another dull thud, out of his sight? How he'd heard her crawling with broken limbs underneath his bed, forcing him to listen as she shifted around, scratching the wood planks and whispering… things to him for several hours, only finally stopping when he'd started to hear the other girls entering the house again, and leaving him in a state of high alert right up to this moment?

No. Obviously he couldn't tell them that. But if the truth wouldn't work in this case, he'd need to come up with some kind of cover story that would be able to convince even Monika.

Not exactly an easy task to accomplish under such short notice, so he decided to stall for time and use one of his brilliantly witty one-liners to distract them.

"My heart's… beating?" He slowly asked, wondering if the creative part of his brain had been paralyzed as well.

"Wait, what? Here, let me have a feel!" Monika approached him from the other side of the bed, leaning forward to place a flat hand on his chest. "Oh damn, you're right! This might be making me a little jealous, Natsuki!"

"Huh?" Natsuki frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, usually I need to put in way more foreplay to get MC this riled up than just resting my head on him." Monika smirked. "You've got to share this technique with me some day!"

"Aaand you managed to turn the situation gross again." Natsuki facepalmed just as a heavy blush spread across her cheeks. "Truly, you have a talent."

"Why thank you. As I'm sure MC can attest, I aim to please." Monika said, bowing sarcastically.

"Yeah, great. Just great. She didn't say anything weird for the entire trip." Natsuki confided to MC. "Not a single one of her unnecessary sexual references. Then we get back here, and suddenly she's back to her abnormal self. It's like some kind of switch turns on when she's in the same room as you."

"Oh is that… so?" MC smiled weakly, feeling vaguely embarrassed but still overall happy for the subject change. With any luck his racing heart wouldn't be brought up again, allowing him to focus on calming down and not have to answer any more uncomfortable questions.

"So, are we going to ignore how Natsuki basically just said that MC turns me on?" Monika said. "Because I'm pretty sure that's been an established fact for a whil-"

"Heeey, what's up?!"

Monika's sentence was (perhaps mercifully) cut short as Sayori bounced through the door, red bow wobbling dangerously with each of her energetic movements. She was carrying two medium-sized black frames in her arms.

"We got da pics!" She exclaimed excitedly, flipping the frames around to show him the picture of his parents smiling politely for the camera, and the other of his baby sister pointing fingerguns while sporting a wide grin showcasing a few missing teeth.

"T- thank you so much!" He said gratefully, trying to smile. He found it incredibly difficult meeting those bright blue eyes after having spent so much time in the company of her rotting corpse.

Push those thoughts out of your mind, you coward! They're not fair to her at all! He chastised himself.

"Yo, Sayori!" Natsuki said. "What kind of channel did you leave MC with? His heart's going like 80 miles per hour!"

Aaand we're back on topic. Wonderful. MC cursed his luck.

"Huh?!" Sayori frowned in shock, putting aside his family photos on the night desk and hurried to join Monika, placing a hand on his chest. Her frown immediately deepened once she felt his hammering organ. "Oh my God, what's going on?!

"That's what I'm asking you, did you accidentally set it to some kind of Horror movie marathon?"

"N- no, it was just some cute cartoon channel! Nothing scary about it at all!"

"I- it has nothing to do with the TV, it's really not that big a dea-" MC tried, repressing the strong urge to flinch away at Sayori's touch, but as was usually the case, he got spoken over once more.

"And you're absolutely sure it was cartoons and not something... else?" Natsuki raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Remember that time you bought a movie for us all to watch and it turned out to be Hentai?"

"Those tentacles looked so cute until they started… going places…!" Sayori shivered at the memory.

"Nope, it's just cartoons." Monika said, picking up the remote and checking the screen. "We're on channel 13 now. The Hentai is channel 81."

"…WHY do you know where the Hentai channel is?!" Natsuki exclaimed in disbelief.

"You know why." Monika replied with a dignified look.

"Guys, I wasn't watching Hentai!" MC spoke over them. "I just… had a bad dream while you were gone, that's all. No need to go all Detective Mode on me."

"Aww, I'm sorry to hear that, babe." Monika soothed, stroking his hair gingerly. "But it's good to hear you managed to get some sleep while we were gone, at least."

"…a bad dream?" Natsuki repeated from his side, sounding suspicious. He avoided acknowledging her when Sayori spoke up next.

"Aw boo, nightmares suck. But don't worry MC, your guardian angels have returned to keep you safe from all sucky things!"

"…lucky me." He said, hating himself for having to force a smile when looking at her. Just before they left, she'd entrusted him enough to tell him that her depression might be starting to resurface, and now all he could think upon seeing her face was some offensive, dumb dream zombie caricature. He needed to get the hell over himself, now!

"Uh, Sayori…?" He said in a low voice, trying to be as discrete as possible about this. "D- did you talk to Monika about the um… the thing you mentioned?"

"You mean my depression returning?" She clarified, not even trying to keep her voice down. "Oh yeah, me and Moni had a nice chat about that in the car. It's under control."

He blinked, thrown off by how casually she was namedropping a topic like that right in front of Natsuki, who in turn seemed wholly unphased.

"You… told the others?" He asked.

"Of course I did! Why wouldn't I?" She smiled back.

"This whole thing has hit all of us pretty hard." Monika said, raising her hand to affectionately ruffle up Sayori's already messy hair. "But, that's the brilliant thing about this new Arrangement; none of us will have to deal with our issues alone anymore. We're friends, and we'll all help Sayori the best we can."

"True that." Natsuki nodded, determination etched on her face. "I'll be damned if I'm ever caught neglecting her again. Come tomorrow, if the weather doesn't decide to completely screw us over, all four of us are going to have that snowball fight she wanted, and I'm going to kick her ass!"

"Nuh-uh!" Sayori exclaimed. "You can't hope to defeat me! I'm the undisputed champion of snowball fights, I'll cover you before you can even blink!"

"Fat chance, you won't even be able to hit me. One of the advantages of being tiny!" Natsuki laughed confidently. "Y'see, MC? We don't even need you for this! You can just sit outside and watch as we have fun tomorrow, like some kind of snow cuckold!"

"A… what now?" He asked.

"Now who's making unnecessary sexual references?" Monika commented dryly.

"I was being so silly back in the day, never telling anyone about my condition." Sayori said, turning her head back to MC, giving him a very telling look. "Keeping secrets never helps anyone, and I should have realized that way sooner."

It was painfully obvious to figure out who and what this comment was aimed at, and MC found himself desperately wanting to spill the true nature of his nightmare to everyone in the room, right then and there. Sayori had basically just given him the best opportunity he could have ever wanted for the reveal, it was almost an insult to her if he didn't take it.

And yet…

Telling her about your nightmare and making her relive the darkest moment of her life? A tiny, rational voice spoke in his head. That's probably not gonna help with her current crisis.

The voice was right. Just the thought of telling her made him feel angry with himself. She was the one who needed help now, not him. He could deal with a few stupid nightmares by himself, no need to get the others involved after already putting them through so much.

Frankly, he had no right to even be this affected by Sayori's suicide attempt. She'd been the one actually struggling while he'd just watched from the sidelines. How could he claim to be a good friend, let alone a good boyfriend if he was more bothered about it than her? He might be paralyzed, but that wasn't an excuse for him to act this cowardly.

"Your fault…" The raspy voice of his recent nightmare echoed in his mind.

He'd keep quiet for now, tell them once they were all in a better place, mentally speaking. Or maybe not. He couldn't really imagine a scenario where informing them would benefit anyone.

"Uh, just for the record, we do need you, MC." Natsuki spoke up, looking embarrassed. "It would be really awesome if you could join the fight. I was making a dumb joke, but it wasn't funny. You're not a cuck."

"Why… thanks, Nat?" He said, surprised by how earnest she sounded, then sighed. "I wish I could join. I wish I could do anything even remotely helpful instead of being fucking stuck and useless like this!"

"Oh, stop brooding so much. You're not Batman, and you never will be." Natsuki lightly punched his shoulder.

"And you're dead wrong, anyway." Sayori said. "You're already helping so much by just being there, within hugging range!"

As if to demonstrate, she bent down to envelop his body in her arms, squeezing her cheek against his. He closed his eyes, enjoying the moment of feeling her soft body against his.

A moment that was immediately ruined when the faded snap from a rope severing started ringing in his ear.

He opened his eyes again, dimly wondering what the fuck was wrong with him.

"Ah, so… this is where you all went."

Sayori broke the hug, allowing MC to look in the direction of the new, slightly out of breath voice.

Yuri had entered the room, red-faced and panting from exhaustion as she looked each of them over in turn. She appeared to be carrying some kind of strange metal contraption under her arm, which judging from her expression had to be much heavier than it seemed.

"Where else would we be?" Natsuki asked. "You sure took your sweet time to get here."

"Well, perhaps if you three hadn't made a beeline straight for MC when we arrived and actually helped me carry the grocery bags into the kitchen, it wouldn't have taken me so long!" Yuri retorted. "You are aware of course that we still have a whole trailer full of our belongings that we need to unpack, yes?"

"Oh, God…" Natsuki moaned, rolling over in the bed away from Yuri and burying her face in MC's shoulder once more. "You're even more annoyingly responsible than Monika!"

"I'm… sorry?" Yuri said, looking between Sayori and Monika with visible confusion in her purple eyes.

"I think we should leave that stuff waiting in the garage until tomorrow, Yuri." Monika said, giggling when Natsuki raised a dramatic fist in triumph all the while keeping her face burrowed in MC's shoulder. "I'm up to seven patches already and while they're not harmful, there is such a concept of too much of a good thing."

"Very well." Yuri nodded solemnly, before turning her gaze to MC. "Ah, forgive me for not addressing you sooner. How are you feeling?"

"Still paralyzed." He smiled, giving her the best approximation of a shrug he could muster. "But y'know, aside from that, pretty high spirits!"

"Ah, good to hear." She returned his smile.

"Wait, Yuri, you brought it with you!" Sayori suddenly exclaimed, leaping out of bed to sprint at the taller girl, grasping at the metal device under her arm. "MC, look at what we bought for you!"

He watched as the two girls worked together in unfolding the strange gadget, bending and adjusting it, making it become much larger and wider than before, until reaching a shape he could easily recognize.

His smile disappeared.

Presented to him on the floor with a gleeful expression from Sayori, was a portable, collapsible, silver wheelchair.

"So?" Sayori smiled. "What do you think?!"

He didn't answer right away, finding it difficult to find the right words for describing his feelings towards this… thing. Although he supposed the mortified expression etched across his face at the moment said everything that needed to be said about it.

Eventually, he managed to gulp down enough of his fear to formulate a response, figuring that he needed to give at least some kind of audible reply.

"Y- you guys s- shouldn't ha-"

"Lemme just stop you right there." Natsuki interrupted, raising her head from the resting nest of his shoulder to look fiercely into his eyes. "First off, Monika is filthy, and rich too. This investment won't be making a dent in anyone's finances. And second, if you think we got it for your benefit, think again. Contrary to what you might think, carrying your incapacitated butt around the place isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. So don't go all classic 'MC hyper guilt' where you cry about how much of a burden you are, because it's really not that big a deal."

"Case in point, I could have easily bought a much more expensive model." Monika added. "I saw a chair that you'd be able to steer yourself just by using your voice, but I decided that would be a bit overkill since you're only supposed to be stuck like this for a month. This is literally the cheapest version I could find."

MC kept staring at the wheelchair, lost for words once again despite the assurances from Natsuki and Monika.

While he definitely had some issues about them using their money on him, (to the point where he'd vetoed exchanging any kinds of gifts outside of Christmas and Birthdays much to Monika's chagrin) he wouldn't say that was the aspect about this situation that was leaving him speechless.

No, it was more just the base concept of him needing a wheelchair that bothered him so much about seeing this silver, metal menace.

Naturally, he had nothing against those less fortunate people in the world with conditions or disabilities that required the use of wheelchairs. He just never thought that he would ever be among them, or at least not until he was way, way older than now.

Perhaps it'd been foolish of him not to see this coming. After all, like Natsuki had said, a whole month without any other means of transporting him than by hand? That was just stupid. Insane, even. Using a wheelchair was not only a really good idea, it was completely logical.

And yet, despite this logic, looking at the chair only seemed to nail in how extreme his… confinement was going to be, far more than the bed could for some reason. Maybe the concept of his paralysis just hadn't fully sunk in yet.

The rotting, zombie-version of Sayori might have been a nightmare, but what he was facing here in real life? Utterly terrifying.

"Aw Baby, I know what you're thinking." He heard a gentle voice by his side, and turned his head to see Monika's green eyes looking sympathetically into his. "But there's really nothing to be ashamed of, ok? Just think of yourself as… 'handi-capable,' for the next month!"

He frowned looking back at her, mildly unnerved as was usually the case when Monika displayed this unique ability to get inside his head.

She did it so seamlessly, it was borderline mind-reading. He really needed to be careful when being around her, in case he might give something away about his nightmare.

"Why would he be ashamed when this is like, the greatest thing in the world?!" Sayori exclaimed in disbelief, and MC turned his head back just in time to see her throwing herself into the chair without ceremony, grabbing the top of the wheels and proceeding to go in circles around the room with such casual ease it was as if she'd been driving wheelchairs for years.

"It's a chair… but with wheels!" She laughed as she narrowly avoided colliding against a small, expensive-looking glass table. "I kinda wish I was paralyzed so I could get one of these, they're so much fun! Now we can drive you all over the house and do wheelies and stuff!"

She tried demonstrating, leaning heavily in the chair and causing it to tilt back so much the front wheels were raised into the air.

MC and everyone else watched in stunned silence as Sayori held the pose for approximately two seconds, shooting them all a confident wink, before she finally lost balance, and the chair tipped over backwards.

"Wah!" Sayori exclaimed, and he squinted in second-hand pain as he watched her tumbling out of the seat and onto the floor.

"You… ok?" MC asked.

Sayori swiftly sat up, flashing him a bright smile along with a thumbs up in response.

"D'you think maybe you could avoid breaking MC's chair before he even gets a chance to use it?" Natsuki said tersely.

Sayori pulled down her eyelid and extended her tongue in response. Seeing this gesture as a challenge, Natsuki immediately replicated the grimace.

Ignoring the impromptu scowling-contest with dignity, Yuri bent down to reposition the wheelchair to its upright state once more.

"Since MC needs to relax," She began, putting enough emphasis on the last word to shake both girls out of their increasingly grotesque face-contortions. "we should take care to moderate his time spent in the chair with calm and level movements. It should be viewed as a tool for his and everyone's convenience, not a toy."

"Of course, you got it Yuri!" Sayori nodded seriously before turning her head back towards him the second Yuri turned her back, mouthing "Wheelies. Whenever. Wherever. You want them, you got them!"

Neglecting to comment on this shameless display of treason, he chose instead to finally say what he definitely should have started with upon the reveal instead of being so caught up in his own self-pity.

"Thank you." He sighed. "Thank you all so much, really. This is so much more than I could have ever asked from any of you."

As a reward for his heartfelt notion of gratitude, he received another small punch to his shoulder from Natsuki.

"Oh, shut up dummy." She said. "This excessive modesty of yours is really starting to piss me off. Just accept that we- that we love you, already. You deserve all of this, and so much more!"

"…Nat?" He said in bemusement, looking at her blushing face before she once again hid away from view by collapsing her head into his shoulder.

"She's right, y'know." Sayori pointed out with a small giggle. "You've helped us all so much more than anyone else in our life. This is like, the smallest way we can repay you."

"Should there be anything you need from us." Yuri stated. "No matter how big or small it seems, please do not hesitate to ask. Literally any wish you have, we'll provide it without a second thought."

Glancing around at all the multi-colored eyes of earnestness looking at him (sans Natsuki who still had her face buried like a shy, pink flamingo) MC could tell they were all patiently awaiting his first request to prove Yuri's claim.

He sighed mentally, wishing they hadn't made this moment so emotional. It was just asking for him to ruin it.

"Uhh… Well, there is one thing." He said awkwardly, knowing this had to be done but still dreading their responses. "I, uh… I kinda need to go to the bathroom?"

The reactions flashing across their faces as their eyes widened one by one pretty much matched up perfectly with what he'd envisioned: pure shock in the case of Yuri and Sayori, and something more akin to thrilled excitement for Monika, as though her favorite TV show had just started airing.

It was almost as if he could literally see the train of thought traveling through their heads as both girls were hit with the realization of exactly what taking care of him would entail.

Then, with some impossibly quick movements from someone as exhausted as her, Natsuki rolled away from him, jolted upright and almost leaped out of the bed, her eyes wide like the others with a very large, very fake smile on her face.

"WELL, I BETTER GO AND GET STARTED, DINNER AIN'T GONNA COOK ITSELF!" She exclaimed in a voice that was at least four octaves higher than her regular one. "I'M GONNA BE IN THE KITCHEN, SEE YOU GUYS WHENEVER THIS THING IS OVER AND DONE WITH, BYYYE!"

"Oooh, I'll come join you!" Sayori hastily followed Natsuki who nearly sprinted out the room, waving an apologetic goodbye.

"Oh cool, it seems we'll be getting a good homecooked meal after all!" Monika stated after they'd departed. "Nice job getting her out of bed, MC!"

"Sorry." MC muttered, wondering if he could possibly make this more embarrassing for himself.

"N- no, no." Yuri shook her head resolutely, blushing herself. "N- nothing to be ashamed about, this is a p- perfectly normal biological need that we all really should have seen coming. N- naturally, we'll help you with this as well, we're all mature here after all. Well, except for Natsuki and Sayori."

"Yuri… would you like me to take over from here?" Monika asked, trying to stifle her laughter while clearly having the time of her life. "This is probably a bit much to drop on you on the first day."

For a brief second, it looked like Yuri was seriously considering the offer, before shaking her head.

"N- no, thank you." She said resolutely, with a very noticeable crack in her voice. "I- if I'm going to be a decent caretaker this month, it would be best if I got started learning right away. Let's get you out there, MC!"

MC kept his eyes closed as Yuri began the process of carefully loading him onto his new wheelchair, accepting his fate, knowing there was no other way for them to do this.

Well, it's officially started now. He thought to himself. Time to see if I can survive this month.

Author Note- So, fun fact: Before this chapter, I never actually played DDLC myself. Finally got to play through Plus, great fun, took me about five days to 100% and those Side Stories were AMAZING. I loved these characters before, but those just gave me a whole other level of appreciation for them, Yuri especially!

That being said, I'm not going to change the planned plot or characters in this story to tie them better into all that new information we got about their backstories. I much prefer writing my own sorta "headcanon-ish" takes on them to remove some of the anxiety I get when doing pre-established characters. Plus, as readers of this have probably already realized, I'm exaggerating certain traits to hopefully make it more comedic.

Hope you all enjoy, please leave some feedback if you do, I love reading all your reviews and comments!