For the Longest Time

by Social Coyote

Monika is back in the literature club after having been deleted, but the world she finds herself in is not the game nor reality, but some surreal mixture of the two. Monika will have to prove she's willing to face her own flaws as well as her clubmates' for a chance at a happy ending. After all, a poem never is never actually finished, it just stops moving.

28. Sorry, Miss You, Thanks, and I Love You2

Chapter 28: Sorry, Miss You, Thanks, and I Love You - Part 2

The chapter where I give her what she deserves.

---

Monika felt her body soar, weightless like a paper airplane making its ascent or a dandelion being blown from a child's lips into the summer air. Compared to the void where there was nothing, no freedom, no restraints, it was freeing. It was painless. Until it wasn't. Her body tumbled over the desk chair and sent her rolling along the rough and dusty floor of the room. Her senses were all but shot as every molecule and fiber of her being was thrown, literally, back into the world she had tried so hard to leave behind. She let out a pained breath as she cradled her head from where it had hit the floor multiple times, but the scrapes and plethora of splinters sent several pulses of pain through her.

Her ears rang as though she'd just suffered from a sudden loud noise, but that very well could've been a result of the transition between nothingness and existence; she recalled a very similar feeling when she had awoken in the clubroom on that Sunday in September so long ago. Sure enough, when she tried to sit up the pain and discomfort forced a sharp cry from her voice – one that she could not hear. The ringing blocked out all sound, and yet it was so loud to Monika. Her entire body felt battered from the way she had flown across the room, on top of already being weakened from her nonexistence. She had only been back alive for a whopping thirty seconds and she already hated it.

The first time she opened her eyes she only saw fuzzy dots and colors, but the second time she tried there was something more than haze and dots. An angel? It was such a silly thought, but Monika could've sworn the person leaning over her had wings for some reason, until the vague jumble of shapes and hues started to solidify. There was a face, a very familiar face that she had tried to forget but never could, the ever warm and smiling face of the girl she had fallen in love with. Messy hair the color of coral that had grown since Monika had first returned, now laying messy and tangled along her shoulders. The girl who she had brought back from the very brink of death, and now seemed to have done exactly the same for Monika.

But Sayori was not smiling.

"What… with you?!" Sayori cried, angry tears dripping onto Monika's cheeks. Angry? Sayori wasn't ever angry, right? She got upset, frustrated, and occasionally the teensiest bit petty when she was having a bad day, but actual anger? Raw, untamed, and lethal. Monika had never seen that kind of anger from Sayori. It was unnatural, like it didn't belong. Monika mumbled something that might've been a confused apology, but Sayori's hands clasped around the collar of her pajamas and lifted her closer.

"I don't care!" Her eyes bored through Monika like they always did, but somehow now it was even more so. They didn't just slide over her, they drilled her and saw through her more than they ever had. "You really thought you… just… away with it? That nobody… out what you did?!" Monika didn't understand, and she shook her head in utter confusion as another apology fell out of her lips. The ringing was blocking out words, but Monika was getting a grasp of the situation based on what she did hear. Sayori had found out something, and was clearly none too thrilled about it, but Monika felt as though she had just jolted awake after a long ineffective nap. Her head was sluggish and useless, but as she glanced over at the blaring light of the computer screen, her memories began to return to her. They slowly sharpened as she remembered the weeks of isolation and confusion, of finally being confident in her choice to do something and arriving at the abandoned house… the house.

Monika turned back to Sayori, the cold wave of fear that came with her realization taking what little breath she had away. If Sayori was here, and Monika was no longer in the void, that could only mean one thing. She looked up and saw behind the anger in her blazing blue eyes, there was exhaustion. Exhaustion that Monika knew so well from seeing it every day in the mirror whenever she dared to look at her own face; the exhaustion that came from knowing far too much as too young an age. The exhaustion of remembering things that you shouldn't remember, but you did, and nobody else would ever be able to grasp what you were saying without thinking you a lunatic.

Sayori knew.

Sayori knew.

Monika's breath came back, rapid and terrified like a rabbit trapped in a wolf's den, and she was no longer the wolf. Sayori clenched her eyes shut for a moment, as if trying to hold back the tears from falling any further, but they still welled up in the corners. Monika almost wanted to comfort her, but that was no longer an option; Sayori had not come to save her and reunite with her.

"You knew the whole time…" The ringing was so loud. Would it ever stop? "... die! You knew… how could you do that to me, Monika?! To all of us!"

Sayori shook her by her collar again before dropping her, her head sent into another painful throbbing as it hit the floor. Monika wrapped her arms around herself in a fruitless attempt at easing the throbbing, but so many emotions were contributing to it now. She didn't see what Sayori was saying, if anything, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Sayori was so many things to Monika, but a killer wasn't one of them, no matter how much she hated Monika. So why was she going to all the effort of bringing her back, when suffering in the void should have been plenty of punishment enough? It was the closest thing to hell she could imagine, until she remembered the words spoken to her a lifetime ago, in a dream that had haunted her for months and months, and evidently still did as she recalled one line in particular.

You're going to live with what you did, Monika. Seeing the rest of us move on with our lives, fall in love, live, all while you wilt away, it's almost poetic.

Monika wouldn't. She couldn't. There was no way, she would die sooner than let that awful dream become her reality. Her breathing picked up as the image of a pregnant, decade older Sayori, sentenced her to a life of emptiness and misery in her mind. She hated to shove Sayori, but she would sooner die than live a life of nothing again, and so with all of the effort and energy she could muster, she grabbed Sayori by her jacket before rolling them both over so that she was on top. Sayori squeaked as Monika leapt to her feet and dashed for the computer, but Sayori wasn't as easily deterred as she had expected. Her hand gripped Monika's ankle, enough to trip and send the already physically weak Monika tumbling again.

Monika let out a cry she could barely hear over the ringing as Sayori turned her onto her back and pinned her arm, none too gently. Sayori's eyes were wild like an animal's, her breathing heavy from either their short burst of activity, or from defiance. Which one, Monika didn't know. She could feel tears begin to well up in her eyes; she didn't want to experience all of this again, not the long way around. Sayori must've picked up on her thoughts, because her next sentence was enough to make Monika lose control and begin to weep. It wasn't fair, none of it was fair, she wasn't even allowed to erase herself and have everyone continue on without her, she had to experience the suffering whether she wanted it or not.

"Stop!" Sayori told her, but Monika continued to struggle and sob. "You're not taking the easy way out of this one, no more! Now stay still, please! You're going to stay right here, and I'm going to make sure you never hurt anyone ever again…!"

---

The house was as old and decrepit as when Sayori had taken refuge in it four months prior, no more, no less. The night was silent except for the wind flowing in like quiet ghostly howls through the cracks in the glass and the walls. It had creeped Sayori out immensely when she had hidden away here, silently debating on whether she had made the right decision to run away from a family that was arguably doing what they thought was best for her, that cared for her. Now however, it just seemed sad. Lonely. A fragment of something that could have been, but never was. She remembered playing with her old friend in the kitchen, helping his mother cook shrimp tempura by getting her the ingredients from the fridge. Even though they had probably just gotten in the way, his mother had thanked them and told them what great help they were.

The memory made her smile, but seeing the rest of the abandoned house took it right back. She wondered if his mother was out there somewhere, or if either of them had ever existed at all. Were they just fake memories? Was everything before Monika's arrival real, or fake? Even with all she could see, some answers remained clouded and hidden from view. Perhaps some things were meant to be.

Sayori steeled herself and put on a brave face, avoiding the broken glass from a window as she ascended the stairs.

"Ow, if you slide down each step on your butt, it really hurts by the time you get to the bottom!"

"Well duh, what did you think would happen? You're a goofball!"

Sayori reached the top of the stairs, looking left and right at the decimated halls. The only light was from the moonlight filtering in from outside, and the bright glow that emanated from the room directly across from her. She wasn't sure how she knew where to go, she supposed it was simply the only logical place for her to go after all, the memory of the strangely clean laptop in her childhood friend's abandoned house amidst a sea of wreckage and decay. Back then, seeing it had been an odd curiosity. Now, it was the bridge between this world and the beyond that they had come from. The room itself was nothing special, and even had it been, there was something that grabbed her attention a lot faster: the desktop.

The files were already open. Sayori had already known what Monika had done of course, she wouldn't have been aware if she were still within the world, but coming across the chair and computer screen still alight with the files bare for anyone to see (Not that anyone would ever come up there.) made Sayori immensely uncomfortable. It was like coming across someone's suicide, but the body was missing. She imagined walking into her own room and spotting a kicked over desk chair, along with a noose hanging from the ceiling, but no Sayori to be found. It spooked her, partly because of the fact that she could imagine it so vividly due to having already experienced it. The unnatural in a place where things were already so horribly wrong.

Sayori walked over to the chair, gingerly sliding into it as the freezing leather squeaked and chilled the back of her neck. Her fingers hovered over the keys for one second, then two. Then ten. Here she was, inches from touching the console that represented everything wrong with her lives. Corruption, omnipotence, manipulation. These were the tools that allowed such horrible thoughts and behaviors to flourish, and she hated them.

Like any tool though, Sayori knew it was all about the intent and the skill of the wielder. A skilled chef could cook you up a three meal course with only a skillet, while a sleepy Sayori could probably start two small fires and burn cereal while trying to fry an egg. This console, these files, they had been used to ruin her life, and the lives of everyone that she loved when in the hands of someone who wanted to hurt. What could be done with them in the hands of someone who wanted to help? She pressed her fingers into the keys, taking a deep breath as well as the mouse, and browsing through the directory that contained the code and files that were the building blocks of her entire world. There were plenty of files, even this far in, but the first one that caught Sayori's eye was a file labeled "To You" and sat at the very bottom.

Who was "You" directed to? Who had written it? She double clicked the file and saw the document application open before her very eyes, eyes that became wide at the familiar style of writing and word choice. Eyes that changed to downcast as she realized just what kind of message this was, as she had attempted and failed to write several before to the point that she could spot one easily. Sayori took a deep breath and decided to start from the top.

To You,

I'm sure you weren't expecting to see this kind of message. Or actually, maybe you were? You did leave a note here after all. Well, I'm sorry you have to see it since we both know it means your plan didn't work out quite so well. You tried, you really did, and I will never be able to thank you enough for the opportunity you gave me. Getting to live a normal life, if only for a few months, was more than a girl like me ever deserved. I hate to leave it all behind, really, but there's just not a lot of options left at this point. I've tried everything, and I only seem to make things worse to the point that I'm terrified that if I try any more I'll end up killing one of them. My influence, as it turns out, simply does not bring about the good I so desperately hope to accomplish. If a pen can't write, what's the point in keeping it?

Sometimes I wonder if you meant for this to happen. I really wish I knew what it is you wanted sometimes, you know? Did you secretly want this as my punishment, or am I just that incapable of even giving myself a happy ending? Couldn't you have sent me a sign or something? A text message, or a textbox even? I'm not going to lie, I've had some pretty mean thoughts about you during the hard times. If you cared so much to set all of this up, why not have more input? I'm not saying take control of our lives or anything, but couldn't you have made sure we don't drive off the road? I guess I'm just never satisfied, or something. Sorry for that.

Please, don't take this as your fault though. I did so many things, I hope you saw some of them! Alright well, maybe not all of them. A girl has to have some privacy after all, but for the most part, I think you'd be proud. I just dug too deep and tried too hard to make everyone happy. Should've known better than that, ahahah. But really, thank you so much. I'm sorry I couldn't fulfill my duty in watching over them, and if nothing else I hope you check this terminal to make sure that they're doing okay in the new world. (Sorry for causing a reset! Seemed like the only way to fix this stuff, you know? Gah, I was never good at this stuff, I was always messing things up in the files, remember?") I lived. I had fun. I got what I had always wanted, if only for a little while. Thank you. And um, please ignore this next part! Girl and her privacy, remember? Good!

To Sayori,

Sayori's eyes widened and she leaned closer. She hadn't been expecting a message.

To Sayori,

I don't know why I'm writing this, honestly. If I'm right, you'll never have any reason to come anywhere near this house and especially this computer. I think a part of me wants to leave something to know that I existed, since these files should be able to stay separate from the rest of the program's if I understand the name of it right. "Fixed Temporal Location Terminal", it has to refer to the fact that what is in this computer remains even if I do something like say, reset the program. This note is a monument, in a weird way, even if nobody sees it. Much like this house. But enough of that, I have some things I need to say. Things I'm too late to say.

I'm sorry. I'm so, so incredibly sorry for everything. I have never forgotten, nor will I ever forget the glassy look in your eyes when I pushed you to the edge. I am sorry for thinking of you as nothing more than a silly character, for not caring when you died. I'm sorry for failing a second time in allowing you to fall victim to your mother's inane whims based on her own lack of understanding and prejudice. I am still sorry, as I write this note, and I will be just as sorry while I sit in the eternity of nothing until my mind unravels at the seams. Perhaps then, I will have finally made amends for what I have done, and the universe may see fit to instill some peace within you. Somehow I doubt it.

I miss you. These past three weeks have been some of the worst in my entire life, I won't lie. Perhaps that is selfish of me to say, while you sit somewhere far beyond help and being subjected to cruelties I do not wish to imagine, but it is true. I wish I could see you again, even if just for one more moment. Your smile, brighter than any of the sun's rays. Your laughter, from when you would giggle at some silly joke or video we watched, and I would roll my eyes but deep inside I couldn't get enough of hearing you sound so alive. Your kindness, to all you came across, even if they did not deserve it. You never withheld your love and generosity, and I have always admired it. It's such a beautiful side of you.

Thank you, more times than I can type out on this little keyboard. You were my color in a coloring book with no crayons. You included me in your kindness, you know, and that was… incredible. You probably won't understand, since the club is gone and the threat of remembering the game is all but lost. Maybe it never existed in this world, I won't know, but I did not deserve your kindness. Your love, especially, but the way you were able to see me in ways that I, myself, could not, was unfathomable. Maybe if you had known what I was capable of, what I had done, you would've spared that kindness and care for someone far more deserving. I would not blame you for that. And yet, you gave me all the things I had wished for during those long and lonely years. You were my sunshine.

I love you, Sayori. I wish I could have said those words under less duress, less panic, and as a pledge of my feelings instead of as a bartering chip. I spent so long waiting for the right time to say them, only to use them at the worst possible moment. How fitting of me, right? I'm sorry that I fell in love with someone who I absolutely should not have, but I did. I know you did too. I hope you did too. I love you. I hope this world treats you right, I hope it treats you like the absolute bundle of sunshine and joy that you are. I hope you find love, I hope you find a way to be happy, I hope you find everything you ever wanted out of life, and I hope you live it longer than I ever did. If anyone deserves a second, third, or even fourth chance, it's you.

I know I've said it so many times now, but I don't care. This is my final letter, and I will fill it with whatever I desire, and I will say this until my voice gives out. Even if you don't know, even if you never actually know it, here's the words that I failed to tell you. I love you, Sayori Moriyama. Thank you for everything that you are, for being a part of my life even if it wasn't for very long. And of course,

Thank you for being a part of my literature club!

Forever yours, Monika

Sayori closed out of the notepad tab, and sat back in the peeling leather chair with her hands set on the armrests. A part of her wanted to sit and wait, to think about everything she had read. The rest of her was screaming that she had waited enough. Her knuckles whitened from how hard she was gripping the edge of the armrests, but she didn't care if they broke or not. Finally she released one hand and brought it up to the left side of her face as tears streamed down. She had never wanted to read anyone's suicide note, especially not Monika's. A hiccup broke through her lips as she wiped her eyes, and she clenched her teeth in an effort to steel her resolve. She could've hated Monika with every bit of energy she had to spare, which admittedly wasn't much, and she still wouldn't have wanted to read this note.

She pulled herself back towards the desk and began furiously clicking and typing through the desktop, moving the files aside. She was going to bring Monika back, there was no doubt about it anymore. Not that there had ever really been, of course. The question was not what she was going to do, but rather how she was going to do it? Monika was gone, and from the looks of it her plan of restarting the world hadn't exactly gone to plan. She had deleted herself, wiped herself from existence, and while nobody else remembered her, Sayori did. Because someone always had to remember, it wasn't just a curse of the game, it was a function. It was a safety net for the program, so that way no matter how bad things got, there was always someone who could access the files and fix things.

That meant she couldn't delete herself, because then another one of her friends would remember. And that was something she definitely did not want. Alrighty, so where did I go when I got deleted? It wasn't the recycling bin, that's for sure. Sayori stuck her tongue out in concentration; she had to find Monika's location, but how did she do that without deleting herself? The search bar gave her no results. Where was she? Was she even here at all, or had her deletion fully succeeded?

"I know I said I deleted everyone else, but… that was kind of an exaggeration."

Not deleted. Still somewhere. Archived. Deleting would require a confirmation, someone would have to click the "Empty Recycle Bin" button or empty the archive, and you couldn't do that if you didn't exist any more. Sayori backed out of the more complex files for the program itself and instead clicked on the terminal's "Documents" file, and after a minute of trial and error, found a folder labeled "Archive" within the depths of the "Data" folder.

Click. Click click.

Sayori took a sharp intake of breath, her palms suddenly becoming jittery and anxious as she found her quarry. There it was, "Monika", sitting in the archives but not completely alone. There were no other character files in the archive, but there were several other files that didn't make much sense to her that ended with "HSTY". One was "Casual" and another was "Austere". She disregarded them; she was here for one thing. It was amazing how someone so complex and alive could be just a simple character file, sitting in one lonely little folder out of the way, like a pre-school time-out corner. This was no colored plastic chair faced away from the class though, Sayori knew. This was isolation of the highest caliber, a loneliness so strong it made the observational placement room at Camp Liberty look like a joke. It was nothingness. You did not breathe, you did not see, you did not hear. Sensation without sensation. There wasn't a description for it, because it simply wasn't. That was where Monika had put herself. That was where Sayori was headed.

She grabbed Monika's file and tried to drag it away, but the file remained locked in place. She had expected that, unfortunately. Finding her was the easy part, but if Monika didn't want her file to move, or didn't think that she should come back, it wouldn't move. Sayori sighed and rubbed at her temples; her ex could be very silly when she wanted.

"Stubborn butt, oh I could strangle you." Sayori muttered as she tried a few more times with the same result. Just as she had predicted, Monika would not budge, and just as she had also predicted, that meant she had to go in and get her. The problem remained that doing so would in turn delete herself, which solved nothing short of repeating the cycle. They might have been helpful right now, but Sayori knew that even if they were with her right now, it wouldn't do her a lick of good. This was something she had to do on her own, this was her duty. Monika's job had been to protect all of them, Sayori's was to do what Monika could not. She wished she knew more about computers, but even with all of her memories and clairvoyance, she was no techno-whiz. She barely knew how to copy and paste using keyboard shortcuts.

Suddenly, Sayori had an idea. A really awful, ridiculous, Sayori idea. She grinned as if she had just cracked the world's hardest riddle, keeping the page open as she returned to the already opened "characters" folder. She typed her own name into the search bar with anticipation and hovered the mouse over her very own file, the same one that had been deleted by Monika's own hand.

Ctrl+C

Sayori clicked on the other tab that led into the archived files where Monika's own file awaited. There was nowhere else to go. No stalling needed. She knew what to do.

Ctrl+V

Every molecule of her body burned like the sun, as if each fragment of her was being pulled apart by nuclear bombs, but before she could scream, the world around her vanished, and Sayori knew no more.

---

She expected nothingness, a floating void where no light, sound, or feeling could rationally exist. She expected loneliness, only the thoughts left from her fragmented subconscious to keep her tethered. That was the void. That was deletion. But when she felt the cool breeze slide across her skin, she knew something was not correct. The fact that she could feel was not supposed to exist, and when she opened her eyes to look at the lack of nothingness around her, she knew that wasn't supposed to happen either. This was not the void.

Around her, grain and wheat blew as far as the eye could see like the fields of Hokkaido. A summer sun warmed her skin pleasantly as she stood beneath a nearly clear blue sky, with fluffy cumulus clouds lingering just above the horizon where the wheat met the sky. Hints of bright yellow and black caught her eye, and she leaned down to pluck a single sunflower that directly faced her. She could feel the snap of the stem, feeling the silkiness of the petals as she stared into the flower's core. The grain tickled her legs, as she looked down and saw that her ragged and dirty clothes had been replaced by her old school uniform, the buttons still unable to meet their partners across her torso. The wind blew through her blazer and skirt, but the summer sun was too warm for her.

As she took her school jacket off and wrapped it around her waist, she looked up at the clouds that remained dormant in the distance. Wherever she was, whatever she was, this place felt calm. Peaceful. Still. Yuri would have described it as 'sedated', and that wasn't far off either as Sayori's thoughts felt fuzzy and spread apart. It was like her consciousness was straining to hold itself together. Just as she took a deep breath to appreciate the clean country air, she heard the sound like an old-timey radio trying to find a signal, tuning in and out somewhere above her. She glanced up at the sky unsure of what to expect, only to see a giant hole dotting the otherwise tranquil late afternoon sky. It was if someone had taken a cloud and perfectly carved it out of the sky itself, hooking a video feed in its place.

It was almost like looking through someone else's eyes, and getting flashes of her life. First the cut-out in the sky showed an indoor pool with glass walls showcasing the city outside, a little girl splashing joyfully in the water. Sayori recognized her easily, even though she was probably barely five.

"Easy now! You're only in the shallow end sweety, if you go further you'll end up in the deep end, okay?" The voice belonged to a man she couldn't see, his voice even but playful as she watched the little girl squeal with delight from his perspective. Suddenly the scene changed, snow-like static transitioning her from a city-side pool to a school auditorium where she played the piano with skill and grace. For a girl likely no older than twelve, she was doing well, better than any professional Sayori had seen, not that she had seen very many to begin with. The girl was undoubtedly the same one, but there was something different about her. A different gleam in her eyes, a different mindset and attitude as she focused on the keys of her instrument with fervor. As she played the final notes of the song, an elderly woman rose from the cheering crowd and caught the girl's eye and blew a kiss of praise that made the girl smile brightly. Her grandmother? The girl rose from her seat, took a bow, and the scene changed again.

A tightly-packed classroom with many desks all pushed so close together Sayori wondered how all those people didn't bump elbows with one another. Somehow, Sayori knew this was a cram school, despite the fact she had never been to one before. It was stuffy, and there was clearly a tension in the room, while the girl was now around the same age that she was, and she looked just like Sayori remembered her. The phone rang, and the teacher who had been watching them all with a stern eye stepped out of the class to take a call. Immediately chatter began among a few small sets of students, including the girl who still sat with her nose practically touching the paper.

"Hey, got anyone for the Star Festival? I know you've had your eye on Nakai up there, better get him before he's gone!" Someone whispered from beside the girl, giving her a playful nudge. She looked as though she was going to ignore the quip, but Sayori saw the smallest of smirks. There was cleverly hidden mischief in those green eyes, she could tell. This one was still the same girl, there was no doubt, but it too looked different in all of the minor ways. The tightness of her brow, the stiffness of her posture, like she had been trained every day to perfect her form of sitting at a desk.

"Mm, I don't think I really have time for that kind of thing. Though, I would love to attend Tanabata at least once." The girl mumbled as she marked another answer. "Father says extracurriculars like that are ill-suited for a future face of his company, and that I'd be better off sending in my university applications."

"Oh… so, you're not gonna go?"

The mischievous smile grew, but it turned sweeter and more innocent as she glanced up at the direction of the boy a few seats ahead of her. "Well, I never said that. What father doesn't know probably won't kill him, though if he does find out it might kill me." Both girls shared a small chuckle as the cloud outline in the sky seemed to almost zoom out from what it was showing. It zoomed back until the image she had been watching was revealed to be a floating screen in a void, and standing in front of the screen was the girl. She was wearing the same uniform as Sayori was, but her voice was cracked and tired from lack of use.

"Why are you showing me this?" Monika grumbled. Sayori didn't hear a response, but Monika must have because she crossed her arms and turned away. "Why would I care about these? You really think I want some kind of phony backstory to make me feel integrated when you throw me in there? You actually think I won't spend my time looking at whichever one of these scenarios I get stuck with, looking at whatever family or upbringing you give me and knowing they're all fake?" She went silent again, and shook her head, stomping her foot that went out of view of the cloud-outline in the sky. "I don't care how many you made! I don't- I don't need a family, okay?! I don't need some reminder of what I don't actually have, what I never had!"

Sayori's mouth dropped open as she stared up at the strange cloud window, and then it closed. The extra files in the archive, "Casual" and the others, were histories and upbringings specifically made for Monika. From her tone she sounded bitter and resentful, as if the possibilities of growing up with a loving family or as a rebellious high-class girl were personal offenses. But Sayori knew her ex better than that, she knew her better than almost anyone. And she knew just from the way she was speaking that she was lying. The quick and harsh response she had given hadn't been out of malice, but out of shame. It wasn't, 'I don't need', it was, 'I don't deserve'. Before she had been brought into this world, Monika had been ashamed, even if she couldn't admit it to herself.

"Oh, Monika." Sayori mumbled solemnly from the wheat field. "You always were your worst enemy… wait, why is this playing here? If I'm in the archive-"

"Just put me in there. I don't need anyone, or really anything, just dump me off in a classroom or something so I can get this over with. I'll be fine on my own, I've done it for this long haven't I?" She grumbled. Her eyes suddenly flared as if someone had said something out of turn and she turned towards the cloud as if facing a camera. "If you really want to be helpful, then please just get rid of this. Even me being here, I don't- I don't want to remember what I saw here…" Sayori could almost hear the unspoken sentence on Past-Monika's lips. I don't want to remember what could have been. The cloud faded and broke apart, drifting off into the sky to form and recall the scene in another part of the empty field.

The memory had been archived. Her potential upbringings, even knowing that she had been given the option for them, had been repressed in the strongest way possible. For a second, Sayori wondered why of all the memories Monika would want to forget when there were so many awful things that Sayori wished she could forget from their lives before, she asked to forget something like that. Knowing Monika however, she soon understood why she had chosen to forget. The memories of the game were a punishment to Monika, and one that she accepted whether she wanted to admit it or not. Forgetting the chance at having a family, a place to come to after a long day where she was accepted if not loved, was another form of punishment. There was no chance at going back and changing her mind if she didn't remember it, after all.

Sayori looked back across the fields of barley and wheat blowing gently in the summer breeze, but there was someone else there now. Standing with her head just barely reaching over the tips of the crops with her back turned to Sayori was a little girl. Her hair was a chestnut brown, with a big white bow to keep it in a meager ponytail that barely brushed the base of her neck. A simple shoulder-strapped dress the exact same color of pure white, like fresh snow on a winter morning, ended just at her knees where Sayori could see the little girl was barefoot. When she heard Sayori's approach, she turned around and stared with big bright eyes that shone with curiosity, her lips parted in a small 'o' as if she had never seen another person before. Sayori stared back. The girl in front of her was older than she had been in the upbringing with a pool, but younger than the one where she had been playing in a concert hall. Seven? Maybe eight?

Monika titled her head at Sayori, and for a moment she wasn't sure how to respond. It was Monika, undoubtedly Monika, but in a manner she had never expected to see her. The thought of Monika growing up and being a child had never occurred to her, and a part of her wondered if that had ever technically even been the case. She should've been confused, or caught off-guard, but it was more like she was mildly surprised. The little girl finally smiled at her and tilted her head to the other side, as if looking for something.

"Um, are you an angel?" Monika asked. Sayori smiled at her childlike innocence, remembering a time when she was young enough that she too might've asked something so genuinely.

"Nope, I don't think so. I'm a bit too clumsy to be an angel." Sayori confirmed. Monika looked a little confused, and then disappointed. Sayori couldn't help but put on a pitying smile, the sight of a disappointed child was not one that resonated well with her at all, second only to one in tears. On a whim she knelt down and held out the sunflower for Monika, offering her biggest smile as recompense. "Here, this is for you! Sunflowers are for the brightest of people after all, since they're always facing towards the sun. That's what my dad always told me anyway."

Monika smiled and turned the sunflower over and back again before gently placing it in her hair so that it faced outwards. Sayori's own soft smile at the childlike glee in which Monika twirled felt like one of the first genuine smiles she had given in a while. This Monika looked so unburdened, so naive, but Sayori sensed that she was probably still the same clever girl she had grown to know so well. No tired eyes, no nightmares, no pain. Just a little girl with no idea about the wider world, but likely a desire to learn as much about it as she could. It was hard to believe who this little girl would turn into.

Monika was pouting now, with Sayori letting out a small giggle of her own as she raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong? Don't tell me you don't like sunflowers after all?" But Monika shook her head and pointed at Sayori's shoulder, a small "Hmph!" escaping her lips as she did so as though Sayori had tricked her somehow.

"You said you weren't an angel." Monika huffed. "Lying isn't good for you, you know! Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean you can lie and get away with it!" Sayori wasn't sure what she meant until she turned all the way around, and saw the bright feathery down that extended down her own back and curled protectively around her arms. Each wing was nearly as tall as she was, and colored like ivory cream as the sun's rays practically made them glow. They reacted to her thoughts as quickly as her limbs did, a quick flap proving as such. In any other situation, at any other time, Sayori would have been awestruck. She would have been freaking out and flying around like a bird, sailing aloft without a care to the point of making Icarus green with envy. This wasn't like other situations however.

She regarded them calmly, stroking a finger against them out of curiosity before turning back to Monika whose pout had thankfully vanished. This wasn't nonexistence, this wasn't the void. This was something else, which meant that the Monika in front of her, of course, wasn't her Monika. A secret file? She didn't think so, the sedated feeling told her this was something different. Something more personal. Something almost intimate.

"Did you give me these?" Sayori asked. She couldn't think of another reason for something so extraordinary to occur when it did. Monika nodded, pushing a strand of her hair out from in front of her eyes.

"Yep. You can't be an angel without wings after all. I can make whatever I want. There's nothing really here, you know." As if to prove her point the bright blue sky rapidly shifted and changed from the fiery oranges of a sunset, to the dark swirling hues of night, and back again in a flash. Sayori had no doubt this was her doing. "It's just me." Monika turned towards a large ebony piano that Sayori was certain hadn't been there before, sitting on the seat in a formal manner before scooting over and patting the empty spot. Sayori strolled over and sat beside Monika, little arms reaching past her to settle her fingers against the keys, and without a word she began to play.

In the summer air with a cool breeze slipping past her, Sayori felt very much at peace besides the little girl. The music wasn't anything Sayori had ever heard before, but it felt both somber and hopeful, fast but calm in its range and the sound of it seemed to fly across the wheat which waved in the wind like a swaying audience. Despite this, for just a few moments, Sayori almost felt as though it was a personal concert for her, and her alone.

After Monika had seemingly finished the main song and slowed into a repetitive but pleasant melody, Sayori bowed her head and smiled. "You're very good at that. You could write a song you know, or a whole bunch of them even. I'd definitely listen to you play!"

"Hmph, she thought you'd say something like that." Monika said, but she still swelled with pride at the compliment. "She thought a lot about you. Even when she tried hard not to, you were still there. Her thoughts of you would flicker and disappear, but you would always show back up. You never leave. Maybe I should have given you phoenix wings instead." There was a bit of a huff in her voice, but her curiosity in the notes she was playing seemed to take most of her focus. Sayori wasn't sure she could ever get her fingers to move that fast, but she shook her head and tried to focus on the topic at hand.

"I think being an angel is okay. In fact, I like being both. Phoenixes come back every time, but angels come back for a purpose. They guide, or they help, and sometimes they bring someone with them." She turned to look at Monika, brushing a strand of hair out from her eyes. The sunflower in her hair was faced towards her, as if it was looking at her even if Monika was not. Monika's fists suddenly slammed into the keys, sending out a cacophony of harsh flats and sharps in a sound that was anything but harmony.

"... You've come to take it all away." She paused, suddenly looking very weary of Sayori and she shook her head. "This is what keeps me safe. This is how I keep going when there isn't anything else. You're not… supposed to be here. I didn't make you." Monika suddenly looked as though she was stuck between anger and sadness, her eyes welling up with tears as her brows furrowed and her cheeks began to burn bright. The piano began to crumble and crack, pieces chipping and flying away in the wind. "Go away, go away, go away! You can't see her! She's not here! She's gone! You're messing it all up! Please, stop it!" But Sayori simply knelt down and took the little girl's balled fist and wrapped her hand around it.

"Hey, look at me." Monika sniffled and looked up at Sayori, wiping her eye with the palm of her hand. The wheat around them still blew in the wind, a summertime memory that never was. The imaginings of a girl who never existed to protect herself from the void. "I'm an angel, remember? You gave me wings for a reason, because I'm not just any angel. I'm her angel. Your angel." She squeezed the girl's hand, and planted a kiss on the hem of her brow. "I know you're scared, Monika. I know what this is now, it's your last line of defense. It's the very essence of who you are, beneath all of the experiences and feelings, all that pain and suffering, all along you've just been a scared little girl who wants to be free. This is you." A gust of wind blew through them both, no longer cool against the summer sun, but cold and sharp as a cloud passed overhead. Monika shivered as she knelt into the safety of Sayori's wing.

"It's… so dark." Monika whispered. "It's dark and c-cold, and there's nothing here at all but yet there's still bad things!" She shook her head, pulling onto Sayori's vest to hide her tears as they began to pour. "It's dark… it's dark, and it's where I belong…" Sayori sighed and didn't bother to try and keep her smile up any longer. She placed a hand on the little girl's head, rubbing her fingers through her bangs and holding her close just as she had wished for when she was younger and scared. Comfort, safety, hope. That's what she had wanted. That's what all children deserved when they were stressed, or scared, and this one was no different. After a second she pulled away and put her hands on Monika's shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. She would miss how empty and unburdened they were.

"Then let's light a lantern." Sayori said. Monika sniffled, giving her one last smile before the world around her shattered like glass. Shards of wheat and blue skies, pieces of a bright sun and stagnant clouds, and fragments of a little girl and her piano tumbled around her until they dispersed into the void that greedily consumed them. Sayori was falling, she knew that she must be for there was no longer anything around her but slivers of color that soon became enveloped and puffed out of existence like dying sparks. There was no air to blow through her hair, no wind to rustle her clothes, but her body still shook. Her blazer whipped to and fro as she descended, though she wasn't quite sure why.

Then she heard the noise.

The din that suddenly enveloped her was so loud it felt as though her entire body was being rejected, repelled backwards so the void could swallow her and her mind until she was just a shattered reflection of whatever she thought she was. In the void, nothing could exist, not even her. The arms that she raised to shield herself weren't real, but manifestations of herself that her mind was using to keep a semblance of herself held together, showcasing things that she would be able to understand in place of what she could not. That was the best Sayori could figure at least, since her thoughts were still fuzzy and disconnected. She suspected that it had something to do with the fact that her consciousness was currently floating around inside of a computer.

The roar repelled her, and instinctively, she pushed back. It was so strange, being "pushed" and "pushing back" in a space where such things didn't really exist, but to her it made perfect sense. She could see the vibrations and hear the awful noise that was unlike anything she had ever heard or experienced before in her life, or her death. The roar of a jet engine, an anguished wail that would've shattered glass, it seemed to be all around her and inside her at the same time, never waning or changing, only rising until it would shatter her to pieces just like the illusion of wheat and summer, of blue skies and fluffy clouds, of-

There. Sayori could see her, far below her in the darkness. The white bow was like a lighthouse while Sayori was hanging onto the side of her ship in a hurricane, desperately riding out the storm in the hopes of making it to shore. She paddled her arms like she was swimming, kicking her feet to sink further down even if it was only an inch, her wings giving her the extra push as she flapped them as forcefully and diligently as she could. She was so far down, and the roar only got louder, but Sayori never stopped. Flap. Push. Kick. Flap. Push. Flail. Kick. Reach. She could do this, it was all in her mind after all, a battle of wills.

"MONIKA!" She cried, but against the roar of the abyss she might as well have been mute. "MON-"

She let the current carry her while constantly stretching her neck to remain above the water. Did she know how to swim? She would have to learn here and now if not. She knew she couldn't afford to hesitate, every second she waited to think or second-guess was another second that carried Sayori further away. A second that Sayori might not have.

Sayori wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her blazer, trying to see through the darkness for her beacon. She was not in the river, she was not drowning, and she was not Monika. She was Sayori Moriyama. She was an angel, a phoenix that had been born from the ashes into something new, and she would not let the cycle of misery and pain continue any longer. Gritting her teeth through the discomfort that threatened to split her into millions of pieces, she pushed. Her wings gave a mighty flap that sent her soaring down like a missile into the sea of the abyss where Monika sat, suspended just like her. Floating? Falling? Dying. Sayori felt the urge rise in her throat, and with a roar of her own she gave a final flap and reached her lighthouse.

"Monika!"

Sayori practically collided into her, her wings stalling her descent just in time so that she could reach out and grab hold of Monika's arms, which remained firmly in place against the sides of her head. Sayori looked up and what she saw was almost enough to make her loosen her grip. It was Monika, still in her school uniform and her bright white ribbon, just as Sayori had known her when she had first met her, except she had never seen her president like this. Her eyes were open so wide Sayori feared they'd pop, tears welling up and dripping down her cheeks as she floated listlessly in the void. Her whole body vibrated in the noise, yet her hands remained firmly clasped over her ears, her fingers firmly pressed into her scalp as if the only solution to the noise was to pry out her hair. If she saw Sayori there in front of her, gripping her arms as they fell, she didn't acknowledge her. If anything she stared straight through her.

Sayori called to her again, but she knew it was no use. The way Monika was shaking, clutching her skull and attempting to block out the awful noise, she understood what the awful cacophony that surrounded them was, why it had only increased as she pushed forward. The way it wracked her entire body and made her want to be sick, how it throbbed her head and made it feel like she was splitting apart, it was pain. Monika's pain. The forceful roar that repelled Sayori like a hurricane was Monika's suffering, every awful feeling, memory, action, or venomous word that she had endured was echoing through the void like the force of an explosion. No fire, only the shockwaves. And it was emanating from all around them, directly into Monika.

Sayori kicked forward, looking Monika directly in her eyes as she sucked in a breath and released as loud as she could, "Monika! You have to listen to me! Snap out of it! It's me, Sayori!" But Monika would not. Sayori bared her teeth and maneuvered herself lower, keeping herself steady with her wings as she wrapped her one arm underneath Monika's, and the other over her shoulder, forcing her into a hug that Sayori put every ounce of strength into. Hug-Energy. She raised her head to look at Monika, and saw those giant emerald eyes blink once before slowly moving down to see Sayori, as if just doing so was an effort far past her limit. She didn't speak, but she didn't need to for Sayori to understand the look in her eyes. Fear, shame, rejection. She did not want Sayori there, but Sayori didn't care.

"Monika!" Sayori called out. "You don't have to be alone! You don't have to continue dragging yourself down, I promise! Come back with me! Please!" Monika started shaking her head before she had even finished, pressing her hands in further to block out the noise. Sayori moved up and tried to separate Monika's hand from her ear, but the resulting force that exploded from Monika was so much that Sayori felt her grip slip away. She lunged wildly, her right hand barely managing to grab onto Monika's collar before being blown away, but she could feel her grip slackening again already. Monika was no longer looking at her, her eyes clenched tight as her hands practically vibrated from how hard they had begun to shake.

Sayori snaked her way back towards Monika, clinging to her like some kind of playground instrument as she reached up and grabbed onto Monika's arm. She pulled as her teeth started creaking under the strain of her grimace until finally Monika's hand reluctantly parted, but she wasn't trying to reach her ear. She held Monika's arm in place, wrapping herself around it as she reached over and pulled the two ribbons from her wrist, tying each in an overlapping loop so that their wrists were bound together, and her fingers intertwined with Monika's own. Monika's eyes opened again, and Sayori met their fearful gaze with her own determined one. The message was clear.

"I'm not going anywhere." She said firmly over the roar. "Not until you come back with me, or we just stay in this place forever. You said it yourself, remember? 'Whenever one of us is suffering the other always seems to show up.'" She squeezed Monika's hand and forced herself to smile, even amidst the torrent of anguish that ate at them both she knew what her smile signified. "So wherever you go, that's where I'm going. Jump, and I'm jumping." The tears began to pour down Monika's eyes harder, yet still she did not speak. Perhaps she couldn't, perhaps it was too much to form words. Maybe the personification of her pain that tried pulling Sayori away was simply too loud. She shook her head and tried to bring back her hand, but it brought Sayori's with it, much to the latter's relief.

"Nope, not happening! You can't block me out, and you can't run away this time." Sayori confirmed, she gave her wings a quick-trial flap before using them to propel herself forward and consecutively wrapped her wings around the both of them. They tucked themselves around both girls protectively, forming a feathery shield that blocked out the resounding chaos from outside, and for just a few seconds everything felt quieter. Calmer. The storm still raged, but dampened now. Her wings felt strained and sore as they held off the buffeting noise, but she didn't care about that. Sayori pulled her head off of Monika's shoulder and looked at the tears still streaming down her face as Monika tried to avoid Sayori's gaze. She tried to close her eyes again, but when she opened them Sayori was right where she had always been. In Monika's way.

"You have given everything, even your own chance at life, just to keep us safe. Just to make us happy." Sayori said quietly. "Please, for once in your life just let me save you. Let me help you like you have tried to help me and everyone else. Come back with me." The swirling gale of loathing was dying down, its presence and bite diminishing more and more until everything was silent. No breathing, no words, just the two of them existing in front of one another. An unstoppable force had finally met an immovable object, but if neither budged, Sayori knew they would remain here forever. She would keep to her word. Sayori had done all that she could, and she knew it well. All that was left was for Monika to decide their fate, and no matter what she chose, they would be stuck together.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of staring at one another, Monika's lips parted and Sayori heard her speak.

"You can't help, Sayori. Why do you have to keep trying?" Her voice was so broken, so defeated, it was the voice of a dead girl without a doubt. Sayori slowly unfurled her wings to reveal the darkness that had gone still around them, and gently floated over top of Monika, her wings curling back to allow her ease of movement until she was upside down in front of her. Their eyes were directly across from each other. Monika tried to look away, to the void, to anywhere else, but Sayori cupped her cheek with the hand that wasn't tied together and forced the green to meet blue.

"Because proving you wrong is what I do. It's what I've been doing since the very beginning, isn't it?"

Monika said nothing.

"So let me prove you wrong one last time. You don't belong here, Monika. You never did. All I need is for you to stop holding on, just loosen your grip on what you believe you deserve and let me move your file." Their eyes broke contact as Sayori closed them and placed her forehead against Monika's. "Let's go home. Together. Okay?"

For a moment all was quiet again, until there was a sigh no louder than a breath. A wisp of air and a single word that would never have been heard before, but in the wake of sudden silence no sound was missed and no thought was unheard. Sayori finally felt Monika's fingers squeeze around her own, if only slightly, and one word escaped into the night of the void.

"Okay."

The result was instantaneous. There was a flash of light, horrifyingly blinding in a void where no such thing existed, and every molecule of Sayori's existence felt like it was being torn apart and put back together, and it was pain beyond pain of even death itself. It was her mind, soul, and heart, shattering and reforming into one before splitting apart again, but even through the lack of sense or understanding, she was aware of one thing and one thing only. It was the feeling of a hand still bound to hers as Monika allowed her file to be transported, and the two of them began the return journey to the world outside. Home.

---

The first thing Sayori felt was something large collide into her, toppling both her and the chair over with a rather unsatisfying Thud! that left a feeling in her gut as though she had been sucker punched. Her head was fuzzy and warm, like she had just been woken up from a peaceful sleep in the most violent of ways and not a single part of her body was up for the challenge. Her stomach churned, her lungs refused to work, and there was a ringing in her ears that left her unable to hear the cracking and creaking of the floor as she rolled around, disoriented. After a few seconds the ringing began to die down, and without it she could hear the groans of someone else in the corner of the room. She wasn't alone.

Her mind was dizzy with thoughts and memories that she couldn't decide whether or not had actually happened, or whether she had suffered from some sort of fever dream of the highest degree. She remembered a field of wheat, a beating sun, and a little girl. Something involving wings? And loud noises, lots and lots of horribly loud noises that ate at her skin like mosquitoes with a personal vendetta. She rolled onto her stomach and looked over her shoulders, something she almost regretted immediately as it urged a wave of nausea to course through her, but her back was clear of any feathers or winged appendages, to which Sayori let out a little sigh of relief. It had all been in her imagination, right?

Another groan. Sayori glanced up and felt her eyes widen as her jaw went slack at the sight before her. Now that she was able to focus more she remembered why she was in the house, why she had broken out of a behavior camp, hid out in the cold, had Yuri drive her all the way back to Yakumo. Why she forced herself into the terminal and had had such a surreal dream that she still wasn't sure whether or not it had even occurred. It was to get her back. Monika. Her club president, her best friend, her ex girlfriend. Her murderer. The girl who had caused her so much pain and misery, who she had just gone to lengths farther than anyone else ever had to save, was laying a few feet away from her. She was real. Alive. Vulnerable.

The dream was over, and it had taken the fuzzy sedated feeling with it from Sayori. Instead of the tranquil determination she had felt earlier, a burning heat was rising into her cheeks and her throat was tightening up as she clenched her fingers. She wasn't hopeful, she was hurt. Heartbroken at what she had learned the person she had looked up to, had admired, crushed upon, loved, had done. Her lungs heaved with air as she pushed herself off the ground, wobbling on legs that felt like jelly as she approached Monika. It just wasn't fair, someone like Monika should've known better. Someone like Monika should've overcome it. That wasn't the President she had fallen in love with. And now she was only a few feet away.

Monika's eyes were staring up into the ceiling, unfocused as she took in deep breaths for lungs that had gone so long without air. She was wearing a matching pair of stained blue pajamas, her brown coat covering her unusually thin frame while her once shiny and straightened hair now fell behind her shoulders, matted and unkempt. Her eyes closed just as Sayori's legs gave out, and she stumbled back down to her hands and knees. She didn't need to walk, she just needed to look at her. To look into those emerald eyes as she asked her questions, and force them to answer her every query. She crawled over Monika until she was straddling her, the splintered wood digging into her knees as her eyes grew hot with the emotion that would not stay contained any longer.

When Monika opened her eyes again, she looked dazed, confused even, but Sayori didn't care. She couldn't be strong anymore. The pain rose within her chest, her heart, her very soul that ached two lifetimes worth of pain as she looked down at the girl she had fallen in love with, and she let the mask slip away.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" She sobbed, sending several fresh tears down onto Monika's face. Sayori wanted to know. She had lost closure for so many things in her life, but not this. She needed this. Monika simply stared up at her as if she wasn't quite sure what she was staring at, confused and unsure. After a moment she mumbled something under her breath; a quiet and confused apology. Sayori didn't want confused. She wanted confirmation. Her hands grasped the collar of Monika's pajamas to raise her head and try to get her to think clearly.

"I don't care!" She spat. "You really thought you could… could just get away with it? That nobody would realize what you did?" She had never shouted at anyone before. Not her parents, not her friends, not even the people who were mean to her. She didn't like hearing people yell, it always made her nervous and want to cry, but she just couldn't stop it all from spilling out of her. "I sat in that camp for weeks! Weeks, Monika! Then one night I w-wake up and suddenly I know everything, everything that ever happened and it hurts so bad, but you- you know what I realized first? The first thing I n-noticed, huh? Do you even care? Do you even care that I knew you were dead?!" A sob overtook Sayori's body and she smashed her own hand into her eyes to try and combat the tears, but they had been holed up for too long. The dam was bursting, and rightfully so.

Monika was mumbling something incoherent again, shaking her head and looking around them. Sayori wanted to yell at her more, to call her names and tell her how much she hated her, but her throat was too tight. She gasped a deep breath to force herself to calm down, and by the time she gained the slightest bit of control over her vocal chords Monika was no longer looking at her. She was staring at the computer, and the fearful realization that was blooming in her eyes told Sayori she was finally beginning to understand what was going on. Monika's breath was becoming as rapid as Sayori's, and when she turned back to meet Sayori's eyes her face was reminiscent of someone who had come face to face with death itself. She looked scared, no, not even scared, she looked downright terrified. Terrified of Sayori who had to clench her eyes shut just to stop the stupid tears from from falling.

"You knew the whole time how it felt to watch someone you love die!" Sayori recalled the nights of Monika tossing in her sleep, begging and pleading for someone to stay with her, to not die. For Sayori to not be dead. "You knew! If you knew how horrible this feels then how could you do that to me, Monika?! To all of us!" She shook Monika's collar weakly before feeling her grip slacken, enough for Monika's to fall from her grasp and for her head to hit the floor less than gently. Sayori gasped, a jolt of fear spreading through her as Monika curled on the floor, clutching at her head in pain while her legs twitched. The image of a lone girl floating in a void of her own misery, tears of pain dripping down her face, popped into Sayori's mind. If any of that had actually happened…

Sayori reached over and squeezed Monika's shoulder gently, trying to ignore the fear that tipped her voice like venom. She shouldn't be out here wearing such thin clothes in the middle of winter. "M-monika, are you okay? I'm so sorry, oh God, I'm sorry I'm sorry. I didn't mean to- EEP!" With a sudden surprising force, Monika took the collar of Sayori's jacket and rolled both of them over, pressing her forearms into Sayori's chest and rushing off. To the window? No, even worse, the computer. Though the air had been pressed from her lungs, Sayori suddenly felt a pit form inside of her stomach as she realized too late what was happening, and she reached up to stop Monika from reaching the files again.

Monika slipped from her grasp, but it was enough to make her stumble and fall, enough for Sayori to push herself just far enough to reach her before she could do anything else. Not knowing what else to do, she flipped Monika over and held her arm down to prevent her from running again. Her heart was bursting out of her own chest, eyes bulging as Monika's own began to fill up with tears again, tears of defeat. Sayori knew she was probably being unkind, that she was probably hurting Monika, and that alone made her want to curl up beside her ex girlfriend and sob alongside her, but there was still work to be done. She had to do this, and afterwards she could apologize, but she refused to give Monika the chance to do it all over again. She wouldn't lose her again.

"Stop!" Sayori begged, concerned she might end up hyperventilating. All that did was make Monika cry harder. "You're not taking the easy way out of this one, no more! Now stay still, please! You're going to stay right here, and I'm going to make sure you never hurt anyone ever again… and that includes yourself!" She was still angry, she was still immensely hurt and upset, but it was obvious Monika's state of mind was worsening. How poorly timed her outburst had been, but she simply hadn't been able to hold back any longer. Whatever was going on in her head, it had made her want to erase herself all over again, and Sayori was sure that if she didn't continue restraining her, she'd do just that. She hated it, hated having to be rough and physical with someone who was in pain, hated having to yell and cry, but she wasn't perfect. None of them were.

She tried to get Monika to relax, to try and calm her and soothe her to prevent her from doing any more damage, but Monika regarded her as a dangerous creature. Someone who meant her harm, to kill her even. Inching towards her made her jolt and move backwards. Speaking made her flinch. Sayori had never seen Monika like this, in such a state of utter weakness and helplessness, it was all just so wrong to her. She would have to wait for Monika to calm down on her own.

It should probably be the other way around, huh?

Was that why she was so terrified? Did Monika think that was the whole purpose for bringing her back, to hurt her and make her suffer? The quiver in her voice when she finally spoke on her own said it all.

"K-K-Killed you…" Monika mumbled, covering her eyes with her free hand. "Killed you. I killed you. You died and I wouldn't let you come back, I killed you." Her voice caught in her throat and she made a small choking noise before shaking her head, as if the words were physically too hard to swallow. Sayori sighed; she had hoped for this to be tackled later, but it made sense it was the first thing on Monika's mind. A confession, after all this time.

"Yes." Sayori said softly. "Yes, you did."

"Oh God… oh God you know, you know you know, fuck I didn't- you weren't- oh Jesus, I didn't want this. I d-di-didn't want anyone else to have this b-burden… I tried so hard…"

"I know you did. But-"

"You're going to kill me." Monika said it so suddenly and so forcefully that Sayori almost thought she was talking about someone else, as if anyone else would be crazy enough to enter an abandoned ruin at this time of the night. Sayori shook her head but Monika continued, an almost excited tone eating up her words. "Right? You're going to kill me, you're going to finally fix everything and p-put it all right. We can both be free of this." The relief in her voice made Sayori sick to her stomach, and the hopeful glint in her eyes was so genuine that it hurt. However she had pictured their confrontational reunion, this was definitely not it.

"No, no, stop it! I'm not… I'm not here to kill you. I don't want you to die, Monika!" Sayori's voice trembled under the weight of Monika's terrified stare as it made its return. "Please, please just listen. I didn't break out of a camp one-hundred and fifty miles away just to bring you back to life so I could… I don't want to hurt you. You've been hurt enough!"

"No I haven't!" Monika cried. "How can you possibly say that, Sayori?! You of all people should want my blood pouring down the stairwell of this stupid house! I betrayed your trust, I messed with your files and d-drove you to hang yourself from a god damn noose! I let you die, and I didn't give a shit when you did! You weren't a person to me, you were just a stupid video game character who was in my way of getting what I wanted. That's what a fucking monster is! That's what I am!" She pinched the bridge of her nose and stifled another sob, teeth grating together as she glared up at Sayori from behind her tears. Yet despite the scorn in her voice and seething hatred in her eyes, Sayori knew who her feelings were truly directed towards. "I'm too dangerous to be left alive, but dying is just too easy for me, isn't it? So you're going to keep me alive, but haunt me. That's what you are… the ghost of everything wrong I've done. Ahaha, hahaha!"

Sayori didn't know what to say. It was horrible, seeing someone who had always seemed so grounded and rational fall into a total collapse, muttering and sobbing half-fleshed thoughts and anxieties. Monika had been stuck in her own head for too long, long before she had ever even been brought to this world, and months upon months of holding it together had pushed her to the edge now that everything was falling apart around her. Sayori could only imagine half of what she was going through, and as much as she felt that Monika needed to speak her fears and grievances, she felt nauseous listening to Monika's tear-stricken laughter echo throughout the room. Monika thought she was a monster. A feral beast, instead of the prey who had been snagged by the cruelty and unfairness of the universe. Sayori would have to do what she always did.

Without a word, Sayori released Monika's arm and instead took both of her wrists into her hands. Monika flinched before giving a look of distaste that Sayori recognized; a reaction to an unearned reward, but this was no treat. What Sayori was doing she was sure would be frowned upon by every psychologist and advocate for mental healing the world over, but she knew if she didn't get her point across, Monika would never understand. She would never be free. She brought Monika's hands up further and further, seeing the confusion on Monika's face slowly flicker into uncertainty, and then disbelief. Sayori wrapped Monika's hands around her neck, and held them there.

The response was both immediate and the most horrifying thing Sayori had ever witnessed.

Monika screamed so loudly that her cry filled the entirety of the house in an instant, as though the contact itself was searing her very skin. The noise certainly wasn't contained to the decaying walls of the house, and anyone who happened to pass by at this hour was sure to assume someone was being murdered upstairs, or worse. Monika's face was utterly wretched, cheeks bright red with tears streaming down them as she looked at Sayori in abject terror and shouted, gasping aloud.

One, two, three, four, five-

"Stop! Stop stop- wait, please WAIT! NO, NO I DON'T WANT TO!" Sayori said nothing, she simply kept Monika's hands held to her neck. "I'M SORRY, PLEASE GOD NO, NO MORE! I WON'T! I WON'T! I WON'T DO IT!"It was impressive how even while she was squirming and flailing in utter panic, she never tried to kick or push Sayori. Impressive, and regretful. She was so determined to avoid harming her, even in a situation of pure hysteria. Sayori hated the feeling of Monika's fingers stretching and flailing, trying to avoid even brushing against her jugular.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, please just hold on a little longer.

"PLEASE DON'T, PLEASE DON'T! LET- LET ME GO, I DON'T WANT TO! I'M BEGGING YOU, KILL ME INSTEAD. TAKE ME INSTEAD JUST TAKE ME TAKE ME! NO MORE!"

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Sayori's hands released Monika's, who fell back to the floor and openly wept as she kicked her feet and shuddered. Sayori took a breath, trying to calm the buzzing in her brain from what had just happened and stood up. She hadn't even blocked her airflow, merely pressed Monika's fingers against the sides of her neck – but the damage had been done to both of them. Her hands were slick with sweat and the blood was pounding in her ears like explosions, and the unmistakable rise of bile in her throat. She wanted to do nothing more than break down and apologize, but she couldn't just yet. Monika's body was convulsing as though she were actually sick, and judging from the retching noises Sayori heard, she might have very well been. One breath, then two, and then another. When she spoke, she kept her voice as even and firm as she could muster.

"Is that what a monster sounds like to you?" She asked without waiting for a response. "Do you think after remembering everything from before that I would forget about all the things that came after? Do you think I didn't think back to every time you broke away from us, or put yourself on the line to do something for our sake? What about when you jumped off of a literal bridge to try and save me, pulling me out of the water and forcing me to breathe? Yeah, I know you wanted to take your life that day. But it didn't stop you from giving me back mine. What about when you let Natsuki beat the heck out of you, when you flinched at every gentle and welcoming touch that was given to you, Monika?"

"Do you think I wouldn't notice that you subconsciously carved your flesh with your fingernails in your sleep, that little old me wouldn't connect that you were recreating my own rope burns? Because I did. You even told me about it, remember? You told me you hurt someone and that your brain was doing it out of retribution, that you can still see the ring around their neck. My neck." Monika shook her head on the ground and let out another pitiful wail. "You said you couldn't apologize, that you couldn't take it back, and that it was your closure. Well guess what? I'm right here, Monika. I'm right here. Here's your closure."

I don't know who hurt you, or who you hurt. You keep thinking you're so terrible, that nobody can forgive you. Well…

"I forgive you." Sayori declared with all of the firmness and sincerity that her heart could fathom, and just like that her composure slipped as tears cascaded down her own face as well. She stumbled, falling back to her knees as one hand cupped her mouth in a futile attempt at suppressing it. She tried to speak, but her heartbreak was far louder. Monika was still shaking, a single terrified eye peeking out from where she had been cradling herself across from her. "I forgive you! You sat in that… that hell for years, alone, and b-before that you were stuck in a world with nobody who understood! Only to end up in a world where still nobody understands all this time later!"

Monika seemed to register what was happening, her body continued to shake as if she was recovering from hypothermia, but she moved slowly but surely by uncurling herself and reaching towards Sayori, only to draw her hand back. Her hair sat in a tangled mess over her face, but she looked at Sayori just long enough to shake her head. "N-no, no you c-cant- stop-"

"You were alone, you were alone for so long. You weren't just alone, you were influenced by a s-system that manipulated you and t-twisted you! It made you obsessed with s-something you couldn't have, and me, Yuri, and Natsuki were… we were lauded in front of you. You had your perception of your own existence shattered- you were literally driven insane, Moni! Look at what it's done to you! Look at what it did to my president!" Sayori buried her eyes in her hands; she had tried to be strong ever since she had left Camp Liberty, but now that she was here in front of Monika, it was all too much. They were only human after all.

When Sayori was able to open her eyes again she saw Monika sitting closer, but still a safe distance from her, holding a hand out towards Sayori like someone trying to comfort a mourning animal at a distance. "P-please, no no no. D-don't c-cry, not over me. I killed you, I killed you oh my god, I killed you and you were dead, you were gone! And- and I don't deserve forgiveness, I haven't suf-suffered enough. Not yet-" The cracks in her voice were becoming more apparent, and with a frustrated groan Sayori threw both of her arms around Monika who physically recoiled at the sudden touch, but Sayori knew nobody needed hug-energy more than Monika right now.

"No! Nobody has suffered more than you, Monika! You've lived with all of these terrible memories and nobody to understand you, you've taken every burden as your own to make up for something that nobody should have to go through." Sayori squeezed her tight and buried her head into Monika's shoulder, her favorite place to be. "You have suffered enough. I promise. We all have."

"B-but… I killed you… I raised the values, and I just… didn't care…"

"Oh Monika…" Sayori sighed and breathed it in; the smell of Monika, even beneath her dirty hair and dust-covered clothes, the familiar scent was still there. "You… yes, you killed me. You killed me, and Yuri, and Natsuki too. You did make that choice, and that's… a hard thing to forget. But you were also under the influence of something that changed you, and made you into something else… and I know that. I know because I was in the same position, remember?!" Monika gasped quietly beside her, and Sayori knew she hadn't expected her to remember that. "I know what it was like, having all of that power inside of you, that buzzing that changed what you wanted and how much you wanted it, I felt that. I was going to hurt them too, Monika, just to get my way. You saved me from that, you refused to let any of us suffer any longer, even your final act was to ensure that none of us were hurt ever again."

Monika was silent for a second before sniffling, her arms closing in just a little tighter. She still had yet to return the hug, refused to allow herself to touch Sayori, but Sayori was going to prove that notion wrong as well. Finally Sayori felt Monika turn her head away, mumbling something beneath her sniffles and tears.

"You… the l-last thing you said was, that it h-hurt…"

"It did hurt, Monika. But not nearly as much as living with what I would have done. I can tell just from looking in your eyes, from being so close to you these past four months, that had you not saved me I would have experienced much more pain. The same pain you've held for so long now. You're just… a scared little girl who doesn't want to be alone anymore, no matter how much you think you deserve to be." She squeezed Monika so that she was forced to feel her warmth, her care, her life itself, all of which were real. Her life was real, and so were the words she spoke. "You're not alone anymore, though. I understand. You're not tricking me into saying this, nobody is picking my future right now but me, and my choice is that I forgive you."

"B-but-"

"The memories and pain won't go away. We're not going to be able to wake up tomorrow feeling great and without any burdens, and chances are this stuff is going to be stuck with us the rest of our lives. But, you don't have to do it by yourself, not anymore. No matter what happens between us, no matter where you go or what you do, I will still be here. Whether we drift apart and end up on opposite ends of the world, or if you just live down the street, you will always be my president. And I will always be your vice-president, your friend, and most importantly, your phoenix. I will burn brighter than the sun each and every time, just to bring you back. S-so, you better… you b-better…"

"You better remember that the next time you think it's okay to delete yourself, you jerk! You mean- mean ass! That's what you are, you're a mean ass and I hate you!"

A low whine began to escape Sayori's lips as she felt herself break down against Monika, she felt the comforting warmth of arms, protective and gentle, finally drape around her shoulders where they belonged. She let out a shuddering breath as Monika sobbed into her shoulder, clutching so tightly as if she was scared that she might lose her all over again if her grip slackened in the slightest. They rocked back and forth on the floor, each holding the other as they dropped any pretense of being strong, of making a point, of arguing who deserved what. Sayori sat in Monika's arms, and they mourned.

They mourned the lives of pain and tragedy they had all been destined to suffer, they mourned the innocence and naivety of a simple world where one simply went to school, got a job, and had a family just like that. They mourned the versions of themselves that had to die so that they could become who they are, and they mourned the days where they had sat together holding hands and watching silly videos on their phones, of days spent in a club room where they wrote poetry and inspected literature. They mourned each other, and Sayori mourned every version of themselves that she could see behind her eyes that had never reached this point.

They sat in silence as the minutes ticked by, weeping and holding each other until their noses ran and their throats swelled up so bad that they couldn't speak. After a time the tears stopped, their eyes remaining red and bleary long after their breathing had subconsciously synchronized. There was so many things to say, and yet at the same time it felt like none of them needed to be said, at least to Sayori. Her heartbeat had slowed and just as she had felt the lull of sleep tugging at her (How long had it been since she had had a full night's sleep again?) she heard the deep throaty croak of Monika as she finally spoke, ending the long but not comfortable silence between the two of them.

"The reset… it didn't work." It wasn't a question. Sayori took a breath and with great effort pulled herself away from Monika. Their eyes met for a brief second, only for both to quickly move their gaze to the waterlogged ceiling, or the chipped floor beneath them. After a moment of consideration, Sayori shook her head. Monika let out a weary sigh of defeat and took a few seconds to process the information, one hand dragging down her face in exhaustion only to stop as she noticed something coiled around her wrist and wrapped snugly around her palm. A once bright orange ribbon now caked in dirt and dust was visible from the sleeve of her coat, and Monika frowned at it as though it reminded her of something, though she didn't know what.

On a whim Sayori looked at her own wrist. Sure enough, a black ribbon with thin gold streaks zig-zagging across it like bolts of lighting was tied to her hand. In the ensuing chaos of pulling Monika out of the terminal, she hadn't even noticed her bow wasn't in her hair, wrapped like a tether. She thought of her dream, of a whirling cyclone of anguish and misery, of wings and of promises, and something in her thought that maybe it hadn't quite been a dream after all. She smiled, and as she glanced up and saw the look of disbelief on Monika's face, she suspected she wasn't the only one who remembered.

"I uh…" Monika coughed, the dry catch of her throat sounding almost painful. "What uh, what happened? While I was gone." Sayori chuckled at her uncertainty and rose from her spot in Monika's arms. Her limbs were stiff and her body was screaming at her to go somewhere just a bit warmer and fall asleep, but there was still so much left to do. She wiped her face on her sleeve as she unwound the bow that Monika had gifted her when they had first gotten together, and stepped around so that she stood directly behind her, wrapping the bow underneath Monika's course and knotted hair. They were both filthy and exhausted, but something about this seemed important to Sayori.

"Alright, I'll tell you everything that I know. You've been gone for… shoot, what is it? The twenty-second? Twenty-third?"

"Uh…"

"Yeah, about four days. In the meantime, I'm giving you this bow back- not as a rejection of what we were, because I know your silly brain will think that, but because frankly this bow symbolizes more for you right now. In the meantime, I'll wear yours, and when you're ready you can return it. Deal?" Sayori could tell by the way Monika froze up that she wasn't quite ready to part with the bow after getting it back, and the idea of wearing the bow she had gifted as a sign of their relationship – well, Sayori couldn't blame her hesitancy. But in the end she gave a slow nod and unwound the bow around her arm, holding it up for Sayori to take as she finished putting Monika's hair up. "Thank you! So, where do I begin?"

After pulling the bow taut, Sayori sat beside Monika and the two of them used their jackets as a sort of overarching blanket to wrap around their backs, as Sayori wasn't sure sitting in Monika's lap again was entirely appropriate, or if she could even bring herself to now that her emotions had calmed down a little. The two of them got as comfortable as they could in the ruined bedroom and Sayori began her story, starting from the very day she left to Sapporo and recounting her trials in Camp Liberty. She told her of the rigid schedule, the outrageous punishments, and the less than subtle discriminatory treatment that was dished out from the counselors.

Monika was a good listener, she kept quiet for almost the majority of Sayori's recounting and only interrupted to voice her disgust or disbelief at the unfair treatment she had faced. Sayori was grateful that Monika was as weak and tired as she was, otherwise she was certain the rest of her story would've been told in vain while trying to stop Monika from charging up to Sapporo herself, if the increasingly frustrated and aggravated expression on her face was anything to go by. When Sayori described her memories being fully returned, Monika looked away in shame and regret, but she seemed confused about some of the memories she described. It was only when she brought up the little compass in her head, the voice that had softly murmured hints and directions to her, that Monika was unable to stay silent.

"So- wait, was it like… different ideas of yourself that you heard, or…?" Sayori raised an eyebrow at the question, but Monika just shook her head. "Sorry, sometimes I talk to- nevermind, but if it wasn't your thoughts telling you where to go, who was it? Do you think it was, uh… you know, them?" Sayori thought about it for a second; she hadn't had the chance to really question these things over the past few days, but now that she was actually sitting here and thinking about the whispers in her head and who they belonged to, she decided that only one answer made sense.

"No, I don't think it was." Sayori said with a small shake of the head. "That seems a bit too… I'm not sure what the right word is, involved? No, I genuinely think it was your voice that I heard."

"M-me? But- I was gone! I didn't exist, I d-deleted myself. I don't remember doing that at all! What makes you think I did that?!" Monika looked concerned, frightened almost, but Sayori shook her head and gave a thoughtful smile.

"You're the one who talked about it first, silly. You told them about hearing our lines hanging around in the air even after you deleted us, remember? About whispering in the back of your head… I think that's what I heard." She paused as she remembered the fuzzy feeling of someone else's voice softly speaking to her, guiding her. How strange it had been, yet familiar as well. Monika seemed lost in thought for a moment before turning back to Sayori with a look that reminded her of when they had suffered boiled eggplants and cucumber in the shelter together.

"B-but, then all I did was manipulate you into coming back to me! Even when I was gone and dead I couldn't just leave you the hell alone, could I? Or what was left of me, or me talking through the files or- or whatever!" Tears were already welling up in Monika's eyes again, but Sayori took her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. She could see another breakdown on the horizon, and she wasn't about to let it get the better of Monika.

"No, you didn't manipulate me. I promise. Your voice, or your essence, whatever you'd like to call it, it led me through the Camp. It kept me from getting caught, and it got me out, but that was it." Sayori soothed. "I could tell it wanted to keep me safe, but it… didn't tell me to come back to Yakumo. It went silent once I broke out. Even when you were gone, you still just wanted to help me." Monika didn't seem to have much to say to that, instead she looked away from the both of them and seemed focused on not succumbing to her emotions. That was okay with Sayori, she was trying pretty hard not to do the same.

Monika didn't look too happy about the mysterious phone operator, but just when it seemed like she was going to interrupt by opening her mouth, she closed it just as quickly. When Sayori reached the part about Anshin and Yasu however, she thought she could see the ghost of a smile on Monika's face, and she couldn't blame her. Just talking about that lazy old dog made her want to smile too; it was about the only thing worth smiling over at Camp Liberty. A part of her wanted to just daydream about getting a dog, about the two of them taking care of a pet together and how cute it would be, but she stopped herself. It wasn't a good idea to think about things like that when their future was still so up in the air. Instead she focused on Yasu, and how it had been with her help that she had even escaped at all.

"You know," Sayori sighed, "Things could've gone very differently without her, and I don't just mean because she helped me get home. I was so confused with all of those thoughts and memories in my head, but helping her just seemed right. When I got that little stuffed cat for her, so she could wish her mother goodbye, she told me that as long as she has her kitty, someone who understands her, she'd be okay. I think…" Sayori took a deep breath and lifted her head up slightly. "I think it made forgiving you easier, because by helping her I understood. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to hit you or hug you; it was usually both, ehehe… sorry. I guess knowing that sometimes being understood could make all the difference, well, I guess that made me understand you just a bit more."

Monika snorted and shook her head, receding into their jacket blanket. "I wish I understood a bit more. Like, why they decided to finally get off their ass and intervene but in the most needlessly complex and roundabout way! I begged for days, Sayori, and they just… nevermind. They could've prevented any of this from happening, and they didn't." Sayori saw Monika's fingers clench and unclench before letting out a deep sigh, burying her head in her hands. "I wish I understood them. I wish I understood you, and myself, and anything else. I used to feel so smart, or at least that I gave off the impression of it and just- I mean, why? Why any of this?"

Sayori glanced back at the computer screen, still lit as if awaiting its next prompt or command. With a hum she rolled a thought back and forth in her head and glanced at Monika, trying to gauge how she might respond. "Well, I don't think they're a God or anything, you know. I think they're probably like us, lost and confused, unsure of themselves and trying their best with what they have. Maybe there is no 'master plan' or anything like that, maybe it's just someone on the other side trying to give us a chance at living our own lives. I know that they care about us at least!" Monika scoffed when Sayori said that, but she could tell that Monika wasn't trying to be mean, merely doubtful.

"Really? If they cared about us, they wouldn't have put us in a world that seems so intent on hurting us. They wouldn't have put us in a world where your mother sends you to conversion therapy, where I try so hard to make things right and just mess them up more! A world where Yuri is still cutting herself, where Natsuki nearly dies from neglect and abuse, a world where you almost died again from your depression!" Monika's foot suddenly extended from beneath her and kicked the toppled chair away from them, only for her to wince and pain and retract. With clenched eyes and a sharp intake of breath, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I just… how? How can you know that if the only thing they've done is turn their backs on us?"

Sayori hoped the look she was giving Monika wasn't demeaning, she wasn't trying to be smug or clever after all, it was just so hard not to find the irony in knowing something that Monika didn't. For a second she considered bringing up what she could recall of the things she had seen in the archives, but she wasn't sure it was her place to. Monika had chosen to forget about that, and Sayori would respect it. As Monika turned away, clearly assuming that Sayori had no reply, she decided there was another memory Monika didn't share. One that was hers and hers alone.

"Because I spoke to them. During the game." Sayori almost felt hesitant sharing this particular memory, but it seemed fitting for Monika to know. No more secrets after all. Monika gave her a look to which she shook her head, rubbing Monika's shoulder in a way she would've liked to be rubbed in the hopes of fighting off any negative assumptions. "You weren't there. This was uh, after you were gone. When I was the club president." That got a look of shame out of the both of them, but Sayori soldiered on regardless. "They spent so much time going back and loading saves, doing every little thing and spending every moment that we could give, just to make us happy. I don't really understand that stuff, like the game saves and all that, but they… they were there for all of the bad things, you know? Trying to make us happy and get along, even when the game wouldn't quite let them."

Monika narrowed her eyes in the way that Sayori remembered her doing whenever she was looking at a particularly tricky problem with intricate wording or specific directions. "But what if they were just trying to, I don't know, explore everything? I don't know video games either but you get what I mean, right? Like, it was all some kind of accomplishment or something. Just seeing everything there was to see."

Sayori shrugged. "Well, yeah, maybe. But what if it wasn't? I mean, even if it was all of that, they still put a bunch of time and effort into seeing us all happy. All of us being happy, getting along and caring about each other… that's all I've ever wanted, you know. Ehehe, I remember… I remember feeling bad because that was the end of the game, there wasn't anything else for them. But I said my uh, my goodbyes." Sayori felt a sudden pressure in her eyes and hastily wiped it away; of all the things to cry over, this wasn't one of them. "Told them that we all cared for them, and that we all loved them. But I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, they felt the same. And that if they couldn't make more game for us, well…" She motioned to the room around them, which Sayori thought may not have been the best representation of what she was getting at, but Monika looked around with her.

Sayori thought of Monika walking her home on windy autumn days, of the grateful smiles that met her own whenever she would serve food at the shelter, and of her friends enjoying themselves in the club or at the mall. She imagined all of her happy memories dancing around her, and in-between them weaved shadowy rain clouds of the bad times. Crying against the teacher's desk at the festival, or her parents visiting her in the hospital and telling her they were going to take control of everything to make her better. They were there, but for once she didn't let them approach her. Instead she focused on the memories that she felt made her life worth living, of the things that had made her hesitate on top of that bridge in the first place, and she danced with them. When Sayori opened her eyes, she saw that Monika was staring at the dusty window pane behind them, out into the shadowy abyss of the world.

She wondered what memories Monika had thought of.

Without a word, she slid deeper into her jacket and popped her arms through the sleeves, quietly groaning as her knees popped from sitting for too long. She could practically feel the alluring grasp of exhaustion pulling her into a warm bed, dragging her down like a hundred needy hands, but she held it at bay. They had been sitting on the floor for quite some time now and the sun was likely getting ready to rise, and it was becoming increasingly evident through their conversation that they were both running off of fumes. Monika had followed her lead in buttoning up her coat, and without a word had begun to shamble towards the door and into the darkness of the stairwell. For a moment Sayori simply stared at her as she walked away.

"Do you hate me?"

The words had left Sayori's mouth before she had even registered them, but there was no point in taking them back. Monika, having clearly assumed their conversation was over, turned to her looking utterly flabbergasted.

"Wha- how could you even ask that? I did all of this because I cared about you too much! I wasted away at home for weeks because of our breakup, and ended up almost ruining everything over a relationship…" She didn't need to finish the sentence, Sayori already knew she was trying not to say "again". Sayori stuffed her hands into the pockets, half for warmth and half to occupy them while she tried to find her voice amidst a hurricane of feelings inside of her.

"Because I left you." She said simply. "I left you alone, knowing how bad it would hurt you, because I didn't want you to care about me. I wasted time we could've spent together. I ignored you, and hurt you, and then I come back here and don't even bring up anything about… us." Monika's fingers were not hidden within her pockets, and so Sayori could see even in the dim lighting of the computer screen Monika's hands clench tightly. Sayori kept quiet, giving Monika the time to respond in whatever manner she saw fit. Sayori had been given the chance to yell and blame, it was only fair that she gave the same courtesy to Monika.

A lick of the lips. Monika's eyes did not meet her own. "I…" She breathed, looking away and swallowing audibly. "... hated how you left. I wish you had tried harder. I wish you had spoken to me, instead of making me feel unwanted and unloved, from the one person I thought would never make me feel that way, at a time where we both very clearly needed each other." Her voice had risen from a gravely whisper to an audible accusation, but having expected no different Sayori lowered her head in shame. "I spent so many hours of those weeks wondering what I had done, fearing that the person I loved was forgetting about me, or falling out of love with me, and again I was sentenced to just not knowing. I was terrified, and I knew you were too, but knowing that you were purposefully refusing to clue me in… yeah, I hated that. I would rather feel nothing at all than to ever feel how I did during those two weeks again."

Sayori nodded and tried to wipe her eyes without Monika noticing. Something told her it didn't work. She was right of course, she had always regretted how she had left Monika, it was something she thought the amnesia would take away from her if she was lucky but that memory had never weakened. She would've been destroyed if someone she cared for had left her in such a way, and even then the image of Monika sobbing and confessing her love out of desperation, knowing how lonely Monika would be? Realizing how alone she had truly been all this time had done little to ease her conscience.

"... But I don't hate you, Sayori. I could never hate you. You're… not obligated to give anyone your love, especially not me you know." Sayori looked up to see Monika looking at her with a familiar glow; there was warmth and kindness in those eyes, but also resignation. "I didn't expect you to come back for me at all, much less to be together again, and from the way you were talking it was kinda obvious. So, if we're just friends, then I'm uh… I'm okay with that. Just as long as you're there." Sayori didn't need to hear the crack in her voice or see the way her body shivered to know that Monika was very much not okay with that, but she was trying to be strong. Respectful of Sayori and her feelings even though it was obvious it was the only thing she really wanted. To be loved.

If listening to her accept that they weren't going to be together was this hard, Sayori didn't want to imagine what it would've been like if she hadn't been so understanding. The words and feelings tumbled out of Sayori's mouth, desperate to not leave anything to the imagination. "I don't… I do care about you too. I couldn't have come all the way back here if I didn't, you know, it's just…" A hundred images and memories flashed in her mind. Struggling in the darkness of her room was the most prominent one. "This is all so fresh for me. I… I've been so busy trying to come to grips with all of it, and it's hard. It's so hard, Monika. I said that I forgive you- and I do! I promise, you are completely forgiven! But… I need time to heal. I have all the memories of myself and from when we were in the game, and even some from other sets of events that could've happened-"

"Wait, what? Are you serious?!"

"Long story!" She had forgotten to explain that part to Monika, but that was okay. There would be plenty of time to talk in the future; trying to explain it all in one night was just too much for a tired cinnamon bun. "It doesn't mean that what we had is… impossible to return to. You're the only one who understands me now, and I you, after all. It's just going to take a little bit of time and a lot of healing for me to be ready for that. There's so many things that we need to take care of too, so many problems with the both of us coming back." Monika hid her disappointment about as well as Sayori had her own, but she nodded without hesitation. Sayori was proud of her for that.

Sayori paused for a second and sniffed twice before wrinkling her nose. "Speaking of problems needing to be taken care of, uh… could I use your shower? Please?" Monika stared at her for a second with her lips just slightly parted, her eyes meeting Sayori's in a mixture of bemusement and wonder as some of the pain and regret faded away. A soft chuckle escaped her, and then another, and soon Monika was bent over with her hands on her knees as she laughed wholeheartedly, a sound so free of burden that it was like a springtime breeze to Sayori, who followed suit without realizing it. In mere seconds they were both doubled over, neither one able to tell if their tears were from laughter or grief, but reveling in a moment of light-heartedness either way.

It was such a normal question amidst weeks of the abnormal, of questioning their existence and who they truly were, if they were truly alive or alone, real or imagined, but in that moment those things didn't matter any more. For a few minutes, they were just a couple of dirty teenagers who needed a bath, a toothbrush, and a warm bed. As their laughter died down and they threw short glances at one another that added a couple more chuckles between them, Monika nodded.

"Say, you don't have to be my girlfriend to use the shower. It's your apartment too, it always has been." She reached forward to pat Sayori on the shoulder, but seemed to reconsider it halfway and instead her hand did a little jerky motion that she tried to cover by pushing her bangs out of her eyes. Monika nodded behind Sayori towards the computer, walking past her as though seeing it in a new light after all they had talked about. "Problems, huh? You know, I could've probably fixed everything here instead of deleting myself. I thought about it too, but I was… scared, I think. Scared of giving into temptation and tampering, scared of relying on this dumb machine. Didn't help that I actually wanted to give up at that point anyway…" Sayori didn't miss the guilty look Monika flashed her. "But… you know something? I think we can do it."

Sayori raised an eyebrow at that. "Do what?"

"Fix everything. It's like I said, 'As long as you're there'. If you're here to keep me in check, I can probably find a way to make up for every mistake and bad turn! Raise your mother's tolerance, bring up Natsuki's immune system, Yuri's relationship with her brother – we can fix it all, Say!" When she turned back to face her, Sayori saw the excitement in Monika's eyes. It was almost palpable. The chance to fix everything, even the things that weren't their fault. Sayori knew how important it was for Monika to make amends, even with her forgiveness she knew it would be a long while before Monika began to forgive herself. And yet, when she looked at the computer…

"I don't think that this is the answer." Sayori said softly as she shook her head. "Remember what we said about taking the good with the bad, about what life really is? We're not Gods, we never wanted to be. And I mean, even if we're doing something good with it, I don't think it'd be okay to change other people like that… not even people like Mom." She felt Monika's shoulders tense up as she turned back to the computer screen, and then slowly but surely they loosened as Sayori continued. "Even if I double checked every change, that doesn't mean it would be a good thing. I'm not infaultable, the game corrupted me too."

"Infallible."

"Yeah, that. I know there's other ways of fixing the present, even if it doesn't seem like it. I know there's a way to live, to be happy like we've tried so hard to be. It's just going to take some work, that's all." She smiled as she gave her best friend an encouraging squeeze, and with her other hand she reached over and picked up Monika's own. With her hand over Monika's, she placed it over the power button but didn't press it in. "We can control our own destiny, make our own routes, we don't need access to the files or the code to do that. So long as we do it together."

Monika's head slowly lowered until the long strands on either side of her bangs covered her eyes, with the only sound between the two of them being their breathing. Soft, almost silent. Without a word Monika pressed the power button, the computer screen powering down and plunging them both into an inky blackness that left a sense of confinement, or entrapment. But as their eyes settled and the feeble rays of light from street lamps outside illuminated the room just enough to navigate, it was clear that their time in the house had truly come to an end.

"Can we… can we really fix this?" Monika whispered. Sayori saw her looking towards her with watery eyes even in their low-light, and she slipped her hand into Monika's. She loved how alive it felt, shaky and hesitant to be touched, but alive and well with blood pumping through it.

"Do you trust me?"

Two girls stood in an empty classroom. Sunlight filtered in through the gaps of the curtains as one sobbed viscously on the outside, and the other sobbed gently within. Alone, but alone together.

"... Always."

Both girls made their way out of the room, neither one taking a second look back towards the abandoned room or its busted computer. Instead they walked gingerly through the hall and down the stairwell, hand in hand as cautious steps led them away from the past. The loudest sound was the squeaks of the board beneath their feet, seconded only by the beating of their hearts as they descended. As Monika guided Sayori out towards the front door, stepping over debris and rotted wood, Sayori couldn't help but glance up at the black and gold bow that was holding up Monika's hair, slightly uneven from her uncoordinated attempt at tying. A kintsugi bow.

"People like me and you, we... we're not meant for those happily ever afters, you know? We're like teacups with holes in the bottom, if that makes sense."

Sayori smiled softly, feeling truly and unabashedly hopeful for the first time since her amnesia, since she had been shipped off to Camp Liberty. She didn't know if there was a future for her and Monika, she didn't know if there was a chance of her getting away from the inevitable wrath of her mother, or if they could help their friends, but something told her to be hopeful. It wasn't a fuzzy voice in her head, or a feeling of omnipotence, just something in her own heart that told her it would be okay. Every rain cloud was temporary, no matter how many times they came back there would still always be a break in the clouds eventually. Sometimes it was a burst of energy, or the comfort of having someone close by, and sometimes it was stepping out of an abandoned house with someone who she had shared so much grief and history with, silently promising that no matter what happened they would never let the other down again.

The chirping of birds met Sayori's ears as the January winds cut through her, but she hardly noticed as Monika stopped beside her. They both looked up between the rows of identical houses, the gaps giving just enough of a view into what lay beyond their pocket of Japanese suburbia. There, creeping up over the edges of the trees and the horizons, was a glint of warmth that was already turning into a glowing ball of light that shone through every obstacle with gusto. And despite their drained bodies and spirits, in the crisp morning air both girls couldn't help but stay for just a few more moments as they looked onward towards the sunrise together.

---

A.N: Holy cow, three pieces of fanart this time! Two from Freebee_Honey and one from DumbDinoLover! Since FFN refuses to allow links, you can find the links to these on my profile here, where I've compiled a list of all the fanart people have made for this story! Please go and check them out, there's some seriously crazy talented readers here and I couldn't be more honored that so many people take the time to create stuff just because they loved this story that much.

There are only two chapters left. We're very much near the end. Thank you all so much for reading this far, and I hope you'll stick with this story until the very end. Until next time!