Chapter 6: The ink flows down

MC had managed to recover enough from the black eye and had gotten some food in as the rest of the school day went quietly. His teachers asked him about the injury, but he just said that he was stupid and fell down the stairs.

Thinking about Yowaida, MC hadn't felt as bad about his injuries as he had for Hoketsu. He wasn't sure why, but he was suspecting that he was getting numb to the pain. And that worried him a little.

The end-of-school bell ringing snapped him out of his thoughts. As the rest of his classmates quickly made it out of the class, MC took his own time to pack his things. He had a club to attend.

"Hi again, MC!" she greeted. "Glad to see you didn't run away on us, haha!"

Monika.

MC paused upon seeing the womanized monster in front of him. He had so badly wanted to do something. To call her out on actions she hadn't done yet. To beat her up with Day One. To punish her for what she had done to Sayori.

But MC remembered his place. He remembered his role.

"Nah, don't worry. This might be a little strange for me, but at least I keep my word." He said in defeat, suppressing his anger.

Monika smiled. "Ahaha, I don't think you should feel weird about it. You are used to writing poems and other forms of literature after all."

"I must agree, Monika," Yuri spoke from her corner of the room, walking up to them. "Naturally, I would – Oh dear, MC, what happened to your eye?"

MC winced as he placed a hand on his still blackened eye. "Sorry about that, I just fell off the stairs today. I think Sayori is rubbing off on me a bit too much, hehe."

"Oh, what's that?" a familiar cheery voice came from the door. MC looked at the source to see Sayori. "Hey, MC, glad you're – Ah, your eye! What happened?!"

MC chuckled a bit as he hid his eye again. "I kinda wish I had makeup or something to mask this now."

Sayori immediately dashed up to MC side, dragging his hand off the wound and inspecting it. "Did you go to the nurse?" she asked.

"It's fine, Sayori," MC said. "This'll only last for a little while, it'll heal soon enough. I don't need the nurse for this."

"Are you sure?" Sayori shot him a worried look. "I don't want you to get hurt, MC…"

"Geez, it's just a black eye," Natsuki spoke. "Not much to cry over."

Breaking Sayori off from MC, Natsuki then turned to meet MC's gaze. MC could see the worry in her eyes as well, as well as a trace of something else he couldn't place. "But hey, if you ever need to talk about things, we're here, right?" she said.

MC paused for a moment, and then smiled. "It's nothing like that, Natsuki, trust me," MC said, lightly touching his wound again. "I have this under control."

Natsuki looked unsure for a moment, but then nodded as she walked away.

"Umm, MC," Yuri began to fiddle with her hair as she tried to breach her topic, "A-Aside from your injury, I-I just wanted to suggest a book for you to get formally introduced into literature."

"Huh?" MC remarked. "You got a book for me?" MC had to feign his confusion because he absolutely knew that Yuri would do this already.

"W-Well, yes," Yuri nodded. "I-I didn't want you feeling left out, after all."

Hesitantly, Yuri pulled a familiar, purple-covered book from her bag. Upon receiving it, MC noticed that the book had the same title as he remembered, The Portrait of Markov.

"I-I thought you could read this in your spare time," Yuri shook as she stood. "A-And we could… d-d-discuss it… s-sometime…"

"Yuri… Thank you. This is really thoughtful of you." MC earnestly said with a grinning Sayori in the background.

"Phew," Yuri exhaled in relief. "Well, you can read that at your own pace." Her eyes then suddenly lit up. "And I would absolutely love to talk to you about it whenever you want to."

"A-Ah, right." Something about Yuri's gaze unnerved him. Thankfully, Yuri walked back to her seat after that, pulling out what seemed to be the same exact book she had given MC.

'How have I not noticed that before?' MC thought.

The club was in full swing, with Yuri reading her book and Natsuki rummaging around in her closet. MC turned to look at Sayori, who was walking towards Monika.

"Hey, Sayori!" MC immediately called out, stopping her from approaching the devil. MC caught up to her and started speaking to her in a hushed whisper. "What are you doing?"

"It's okay, MC," Sayori beamed as she whispered back. "Even if Monika had done bad things, she's still the President of this Club, and I'm the vice-president. I wanted to get the festival preparations underway."

MC faltered a bit at the mention of the festival.

"I-It's okay, then." MC hesitantly agreed. "Just be careful, alright?"

Sayori quickly nodded and skipped up to Monika. 'Either she's not taking this seriously or she's the best actor I've ever seen.' MC thought. 'Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter. She held her depression from everyone for so long, after all.'

Seeing that Sayori was busy with Monika, MC decided to talk to Natsuki like he had last time.

"Dammit, where is it?!" he heard a disgruntled voice from within the closet.

"Natsuki, are you alright?" MC asked, opening the door.

"The hell do you want, perv?!" the pink-haired girl immediately countered angrily. "Fucking Monika…" she said under her breath.

'Oh, how I agree with you there.' MC sniggered as he thought.

"What's so damn funny?"

MC immediately shook himself out of his mind. "Oh, nothing. You need any help?"

Natsuki gritted her teeth. "Monika never puts my stuff back in the right spot! What's the point in keeping a collection if someone is gonna mess it up?!"

"I can relate," MC said. "I mean, I know how irritated I'd get if I lost one of my manga volumes."

"Yeah, right?!" Natsuki almost shouted.

Nodding, MC looked around the shelves and pulled the volume of Parfait Girls he had noticed earlier. "Is this what you're looking for?" he asked.

"There it is!" Natsuki said as she grabbed the manga from MC's hands. Dusting it, she immediately put it back in its right slot in the box of manga on the shelf. "Ah, perfect, just as it should be," Natsuki remarked as she saw her handiwork once again.

"You read manga too?" MC asked, happy that he's initiating this conversation this time.

"Yep. If you wanna judge, you can do it from the other side of that window." Natsuki nodded with a smirk on her face, pointing to the class window.

MC pulled out the first volume from the box, seeing the four pose-striking forms of the anime girls in the cover page. It gave him an idea of something he could do with his Stand for fun.

"Hey, don't judge a book by its cover!" Natsuki immediately shouted.

MC smiled in return. "Actually, I was thinking that this could be quite fun to read."

"H-Huh?!" Natsuki was taken aback, then quickly regained composure with a cute pout on her face. "Damn, I thought you'd be more into shonen-type stuff."

"I am," MC admitted, "I just know to appreciate stuff like this, too."

Natsuki smirked. "Heh, I see you're a man of culture."

MC sniggered at the meme reference.

"Anyway, what are we waiting for?" Natsuki immediately said as she dragged MC out of the closet. "Let's read!"

MC laughed a bit as he was pulled by the little pink fireball. He missed this.

Soon enough, they had taken their absolutely not regular position at the wall behind the desks, keeping the manga volume between them. The conversation they had was similar to that of last time, as MC tried to keep it as similar to the last run as he could.

However, good things always had to come to a close, as Monika called the club forward to present their poems.

Wanting to check in on her, MC decided to share with Sayori first.

"Hey, Sayori," MC greeted. "Want to read my poem?"

"Yeah!" she almost screamed. "I wanna see what's different!"

"But before we do," MC immediately caught her back as she held her poem out, "Did Monika do anything to you?"

Sayori smiled and shook her head. "Nope! I mean, it would show if a Stand hurt me, right?"

Wincing as MC touched his black eye again, MC nodded.

Sayori continued. "Also, I was busy getting supplies for the festival. Remember? Like last time?"

"A day early?" MC asked.

"Yeah," Sayori agreed, "I don't think that's too big of an issue, after all. Also, I now know that everyone won't be ready to share poems easily!"

MC smirked. "That's great, Sayori." His smirk then turned into something a tad bit more devious. "Say, you didn't become a unicorn like last time, didn't you?"

Sayori laughed out loud at the memory. "No, no, I was more careful this time."

MC laughed in turn, as the two exchanged poems. MC sniggered a bit upon seeing how Sayori's poem was exactly the same as last time.

"MC, your poem was good!" Sayori said like a broken record.

"Come on, Sayori," MC said, "You can give me more than just that."

"Nope!" Sayori said rather bluntly. "This poem was just perfect. I would even say that this was written for me!"

"Well, honestly?" MC decided to admit. "I had thought of you when I was writing this."

"Oh?" Sayori gave MC a teasing grin. "Does MC have a crush?"

MC immediately blushed and looked away. "N-Nothing like that, Sayori."

Sayori's expression immediately fell.

"A-Ah, it's not like that!" MC immediately tried to correct himself, realizing how he had fucked up. "It's just, I needed someone for a reference for the poem, and I couldn't think of anyone better than you."

Sayori still held her frown, but she seemed better after MC's comment.

"You know," MC immediately decided to change topics. "Now that I read your poems, knowing more about you, I can see where most of this is coming from. I mean, 'If it wasn't for you, I could sleep forever'? I'm surprised I didn't find out sooner."

"Yeah, you're right," Sayori admitted. "How did I put it… ah! Bittersweet! Also, you were kinda dense, MC. You still are."

"Hey!" MC yelped. "I'm not dense!"

After Sayori got over her bout of laughter at MC's reaction, both of them returned their poems to each other. MC went to Yuri and Natsuki next, and he got similar reactions from them as in the last run, only slightly different considering how this wasn't his first ever poem. Yuri, however, seemed to gaze at the poem for a really long time, and it took MC calling her out for her to come back to the real world and give him feedback.

Finally, there was one last person to present to. Monika.

As much as he wanted to stay away from her, he knew that he had to keep up appearances. So, he begrudgingly walked up to the brunette.

"Hello, MC!" Monika greeted. "How are you liking the club so far?"

"It's great!" MC said with maybe a bit too much enthusiasm. "I think I've been getting along rather well with everyone."

"Ahaha, that's great to hear!" Monika clapped as she said. "Please don't be afraid to come back to me if you think we need to change anything!"

'I know what we need to change,' MC reservedly thought, 'We need a President who won't drive a club member to suicide.'

"Sure," MC said with a fake smile. "I'll do that."

Nodding, Monika asked, "Can I see your poem now?"

"Knock yourself out." MC handed her his poem. After reading it, Monika smiled and handed him his poem back.

"That style, it reminds me very much of Sayori, you know?" Monika half-asked.

"Yeah, well, I guess you can say I wrote this for her, in a way." MC admitted without thinking.

"My, my, MC, becoming quite the romantic, aren't we?"

MC wanted to bash his head against a table for that comment, but he decided to only blush a little as he shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well. I believe you could use some more practice with your writing, mainly to find which style our heart truly relies upon, but it's definitely not something a total rookie would write." Monika grinned. "Seems like you weren't simply trying to impress us yesterday."

"Ahaha, yeah, true." MC sheepishly ran a hand on the nape of his neck. "I mean, why would I lie?"

"Yeah, why would you?" Monika asked in kind. "Anyway, here's my poem. I hope you can learn a thing or two from it!"

Accepting the poem, MC noted that it was the same as last time as well. Giving it a quick run-through, MC handed her the poem back.

"It's very abstract," he repeated.

"True," Monika admitted, "It's just the easiest for me to write in this manner, you see?"

"Ah, right."

"Anyway, here's Monika's Writing Tip of the Day!" Monika cheered as she held a finger up for no reason whatsoever. "Sometimes when you're trying to write a poem or a story, your brain gets too fixated on a specific point. Just remember that if you try so hard to make it perfect, you'll never get the job done! So, the best thing to do is to write something down, then tidy it up later! Think of it like this. If you leave a pen on a sheet of paper, all you'll get is a big puddle of ink. Instead, move the pen, forming words as you go, and you won't get those splotches anymore!"

Nodding, MC quickly replied, "Thanks," before walking away from the monster.

And that was it for poems. MC smiled to himself as he thought of how the day had gone by without any incident. In the club, at least.

Which is why his expression immediately fell once he saw Natsuki and Yuri approaching each other, poems in hand.

Before MC could intervene and stop them, they had already switched poems and were judging each other already.

'What's with this language?' Natsuki muttered.

"Oh," Yuri asked, "Did you say something?"

"Oh, nothing." Natsuki handed her poem back. "I guess you could say its fancy."

"Thank you." Yuri handed her poem back as well. "Yours is… cute…"

"Cute?!"

'Oh boy, here we go again,' MC thought.

"Did you completely miss the symbolism or something? It's clearly about the feeling of giving up! How can that be cute?!"

"I-I know that! I just meant… the language, I guess… I was trying to say something nice…"

"Eh? You mean you have to try that hard to come up with something nice to say? Well, I'm sorry, but that wasn't nice at all.

"Um, well, I do have a couple suggestions-"

"If I was looking for suggestions, I would have asked someone who actually liked it. Which people did, by the way. Monika liked it, and MC did, too. So, based on that, I'll gladly give you some suggestions of my own."

"I appreciate the offer, but I've spent a long time establishing my writing style. I don't expect it to change any time soon, unless, of course, I come across something particularly inspiring. Which I haven't yet. Also, MC said he was impressed by it too."

"G-Guys," Sayori tried to intervene in the fight that they all saw coming. "Can you all please-"

Natsuki immediately stood up from her seat. "Oh? I didn't realize you were so invested in trying to impress our newest member, Yuri."

"E-Eh? That's not… Uhh… You're just…" Yuri stands up as well, pointing a finger at her. "Maybe you're just jealous that MC appreciated my advice more than he appreciated yours!"

"Huh? And how do you know that he didn't appreciate my advice more? Are you that full of yourself?"

Yuri grit her teeth in frustration, "No… If I were full of myself, I wouldn't deliberately go out of my way to make everything I do overly cutesy!"

"Argh, well you know what?! I'm not the one whose boobs magically grew a size bigger the moment MC showed up!"

"Well you know what?!"

Sayori tried to interrupt again, "Guys, stop fighting!"

"Shut up, Sayori!" Yuri yelled out, much to Sayori's and MC's surprise. "You know what, Natsuki?! Taking out your own insecurities on people like that… you really act as young as you look."

"Me? Look who's talking, you wannabe edgy bitch!"

"Edgy…? Sorry that my lifestyle is too much for someone of your mental age to comprehend!"

"See! Just saying that proves my point!"

"If you want to prove anything, then stop harassing others with your sickening attitude! You think you can counterbalance your toxic personality by simply acting and dressing cute?! The only cute thing about you is how hard you try."

MC could feel the chaos in the room ascending as the fight got more serious. Nothing they say or do could stop the fight now.

Natsuki sniggered. "Whoa, be careful, or you might cut yourself on that edge there, Yuri. Oh, my bad… you already do, don't you?!"

"D-Did you just accuse me of cutting myself?! What the fuck is wrong with your head?"

"Yeah, go on! Let MC hear everything you think!"

"MC…" Sayori grabbed MC's arm. "Let's get out of here for now."

Nodding, MC crept out of the clubroom, seeing Monika who was already standing there with an odd smirk on her face.

"MC!" she called, seeing him exit the room. "I'm so sorry about all that. Let's just go back in after they're done fighting."

MC nodded, but then looked at Sayori. She seemed like she was on the edge of crying.

"Sayori, are you alright?" he asked.

Sniffling, she admitted. "Y-Yeah. I think so. I just… I hate fighting, especially when it's between friends."

"Aww, Sayori," Monika said, "Don't worry about it. Fights happ-"

"Shut the fuck up, Monika. We don't need your shit right now." MC barked out.

Ignoring Monika's shocked expression, Sayori immediately called him out. "MC, please. Those two are already fighting very badly. We don't need more problems."

Holding his breath for a moment, MC relented with a nod. "You're right. I won't say anything."

Monika held herself for a while, but then stepped up to them. Trying to reach out to Sayori to comfort her, MC shot her a glare filled with so much venom that she was forced to take a step back.

The trio then notice the club door opening, a very distraught Natsuki stepping out. She was crying, but she hadn't stopped upon seeing the other members. She had just run away immediately.

"I… think we can go in now," Monika cautiously said.

Stepping back into the clubroom, they saw Yuri sitting by her desk, with her head in her hands.

"I didn't mean it… I didn't mean it… I didn't mean it…" she kept muttering to herself.

"Yuri?" Sayori hesitantly asked.

"I didn't mean it!" she yelled out, shooting out of her seat and gazing right at MC.

"I-I believe you, Yuri," Sayori reassured with a small smile, "You'll be fine."

Yuri all but ignored Sayori's comment. "MC," she started to ask, "please don't hate me… please, I'm n-not like this! There's something wrong with me today!"

"Something wrong?" MC asked, glancing ever so slightly at Monika.

"It's fine, Yuri!" Sayori immediately enveloped her in a hug, making the lavender-haired girl turn back to see her. "We know you didn't mean any of that. You just need to apologize to her, and everything will be okay again!"

"Ahaha, that's right!" Monika cheered. "And don't worry, Natsuki would have forgotten about all this tomorrow."

MC looked at Monika with immense doubt at what she said. 'Forgotten? I doubt she'd forget easily. Unless…'

"Anyway, I should call this club meeting there," Monika said as she grabbed her bag. "You can all go home now."

Yuri gazed at MC, then furtively glanced at Monika and Sayori, the latter having detached herself.

"Let's go, MC," she immediately grabbed MC's hand and pulled him along.

"Wait," Yuri interrupted, making Sayori pause. "Could I… possibly have a moment here with MC? I-I have yet to discuss my book with him…"

Sayori looked at her, then looked down with a crestfallen expression. Hating that expression on Sayori's face, MC immediately said, "Can we please talk about this later, Yuri? I had a long day today."

"A-Ah, right," Yuri said. "I guess that is fine, then."

Nodding, MC grabbed his own bag. Right before leaving the club, he noticed Yuri resting her head on the desk once again, with Monika standing next to her, keeping a cheerful smile on her face regardless of everything that's happened.

MC made it out of the clubroom and walked with Sayori. They made it out of the school in silence.

"Sayori, about that…" MC started.

"Something's wrong with the club, right?" Sayori admitted, looking at the ground in front of her. "Yuri and Natsuki's fight hadn't gotten that bad last time. Something changed."

She then turned to gaze into MC's eyes, revealing the tears in her own. "Do you… Do you really think Monika's doing this? She's supposed to be our friend, would she really do all this?"

MC held his tongue, not knowing what to say.

"I… I'm scared, MC…" Sayori said, leaning her head onto his shoulder and hugging his arm.

MC did feel a little flustered by this, but he didn't say anything. Sayori needed this, so she would get it. MC decided to lean his own head against hers as well, as they walked back to their homes.

Immediately, Sayori stumbled with her footing and fell down face-first into the pavement.

"Sayori!" MC called out, hoisting her off the ground. "Are you hurt?"

"N-No…" she replied with a soft groan. "I'm just very tired, after all that. I'll be fine."

"I hope so, Sayori." MC said, grabbing onto her shoulder for her support as they made their way back home.

A/N: Welp, looks like things are kicking up a notch. Moving into Act 2 of DDLC is never a good thing, after all.

If you haven't noticed, I had taken the whole fight between Natsuki and Yuri from canon DDLC, and it would have been entirely word to word for word if it weren't for Sayori's added presence.

Next chapter is actually a really good one. I won't spoil anything, but there is a bit of a sneak peek into it in this chapter, if you can find it. I've already written and proof-read it, so it can come out at anytime.

I guess I'll give a little bit of a sneak peek, though. We will see a very familiar, yet I believe underrated boy. The first, and probably only, character from the main JJBA universe.

I know that there is this whole issue with FF (FanFiction, not Foo Fighters) where new chapters cannot be opened. If you're here early, lucky you. If not, I won't be expecting a sharp rise in views anyway. Also, sorry about the time you wasted to get this to open up. Honestly, what pisses me off even more is people who make announcements about it without releasing anything new. Seriously, there was a story I was very much into, and I noticed that the author had uploaded the next chapter. Because of the bug, it had taken me almost the entire day to finally get lucky and be able to open the link up. However, once I accessed it, I dropped one of the most ridiculous surprised pikachu faces I've ever made, all because the new chapter was titled Announcement. And guess what. It was about the bug. The bug I had been fighting for so long so that I could see that 'chapter'.

Anyway, I still don't understand why I'm doing this when I've got assignments that I'm behind on. I'm probably gonna fail one of my units this time, so I'll drink to that. All by myself.

That's it for this one. I'll see you all next chapter.