Warning: This is a one-shot that contains depictions of mature and serious subjects from a writer with none of the maturity or seriousness to properly write about said subjects. If you are at all uncomfortable with this, perhaps this story isn't for you, sorry.
Natsuki walked down the empty, deserted hallways of the school, feeling her heart pounding harder and harder the closer she got to her destination.
She tried taking a deep breath. There was no reason for her to still be so nervous about seeing her. She'd gone through this countless times already, there was nothing to actually be scared about.
It- it was still her, after all. Still the same girl Natsuki had known for all this time. She was just… a bit different, now.
Yeah. Different. That was it. It was okay to be a little different. Amy likes spiders, and all that. It wasn't like she was going to hurt her or anything like that. She- she would never do that.
Despite all these attempts at reassuring herself however, she still stopped in front of the closed classroom door by the end of the hall, hesitating.
Yes, she was still the same, but- it still hurt, having to see her like this every single day. Or whatever passed for a "day" in this place anymore.
Suck it up and get a move on already! She thought, angry with herself. If it hurts you so much looking at her, imagine how SHE must feel. She needs you to be there for her, so get your ass in there, NOW.
She nodded to herself, swallowed her nerves, and grabbed hold of the doorknob. As she opened it, she forced herself to smile.
Please be in a good mood today.
"Good Morning, Yuri!" She sang, hoping the extra cheeriness in her voice didn't sound too unnatural. "Well, I guess it should be 'Good Noon' until I get the day-night cycle up and running again, but that doesn't really roll the tongue the same-"
"ù³ħŽŀÞ÷ğŸŭËﶧąÜºĀłŐŦżžøñř£ìĝóĂí©ĕŏťŬÂő¾Įؤ!"
The panicked sound of distorted static from across the room put an immediate stop to Natsuki's rambling. She quickly scanned the room, trying to locate the source, settling her gaze on the far corner-
Her eyes widened, and she let out a small gasp.
Yuri wasn't sitting on the wooden floor. She was submerged in it.
Her right arm and both her legs were nowhere to be seen, having gone straight through the seemingly solid wood planks that made up the floor, as if the carpenters in charge of building it had constructed everything around her overnight, leaving her stuck like that as some kind of joke.
But neither Yuri nor Natsuki found this the slightest bit funny.
"´żěĨēŌĺæßīĜ!"
Yuri let out another distorted shriek, wildly flailing her head and remaining arm in blind fear, trying to pull and force her limbs out of the ground.
"Y- Yuri, relax!" Natsuki yelled, snapping out of her stunned trance and sprinting over by her side. She placed a calming hand on her shoulder. "D- don't panic, you- you've just clipped through the floor a little bit. I'm here now, okay? I'm here."
"©ó°śţŖ?"
"That's right." Natsuki soothed, trying to appear calm. "Remember when you accidentally got tangled up in one of the desks? That was scary too, but we were able to get you out then, and we'll get you out of this as well. But you have to calm down completely first, alright? Can you do that for me?"
Yuri's shoulders rose, and she let out a few scratchy static-breaths.
Then, she nodded slowly.
"Alright." Natsuki nodded, leaning down to grab hold of her sunken arm. "Remember, you have to stay totally relaxed, okay? On the count of three. One… Two… Three!"
She pulled, and breathed a sigh of relief when the arm rose from the floor without resistance, as if the hard wood was suddenly made of nothing but air. She moved down to her legs, where she successfully repeated the process two more times.
"Welp!" Natsuki exclaimed with false bravado, clapping her hands together. "That's sure one way to start your Not-Morning on! Nothing like a bit of glitch-clipping to get your blood pumping, huh?"
Yuri didn't seem to share her optimism as she tenderly rubbed her freed wrist.
"Sorry." Natsuki sighed. "I- I'm trying to locate the thing that's causing it so I can fix that part of your code, but there's just… so much, to sift through. Until I find it, just- try to avoid thoughts that's too stressful, that seems to be the trigger."
"Ĥ£ĔĬÙ."
Shakily, Yuri buried her face in her hands.
"Let me guess, another nightmare?" Natsuki asked sympathetically.
Yuri nodded.
"You wanna talk about it?"
Yuri didn't answer right away, but eventually raised her head from her palms once again and faced Natsuki.
She ignored the shiver going through her body at seeing the heavily glitching, black squares where Yuri's eyes and mouth should have been. For some reason, she never quite got used to them.
Yuri nodded.
"Alright." Natsuki said, rising from the floor again. "Let me get a pen and paper."
The moment she got away from Yuri's hearing range to fetch the writing utensils, Natsuki allowed herself a deep, exhausted sigh.
How on Earth did everything go so wrong?
THEN
She was breathing heavily, panting and heaving as she sat on the floor, trying to shut out the classroom around her, trying to forget the horror she'd just witnessed, trying above all else to keep herself from vomiting again.
A bit useless, she supposed. The damage had already been done. Her left hand was completely smeared in the disgusting, orange-brown sludge that'd exploded from her mouth in thick robes and getting absolutely everywhere. The floor, her shoe, her right sleeve…
The miniscule part of her consciousness still capable of self-reflection would have probably found it a bit ironic. The one day Papa actually bothered to make her a decent breakfast before school, and she'd gone and puked it all up again the minute she'd entered the Club.
But then, how else had she been supposed to respond to the sight of Yuri? Sitting there on the floor, head slumped against one of the chairs, her once purple eyes now glazed over, gray, and completely devoid of life?
Those eyes had been enough for her to realize what'd happened to her. She hadn't needed to see the knife dropped on the floor a few feet away, or the giant splotches on her chest and waist, or the blood… so much blood smeared everywhere, on her face, her hands, the floor, long since dried up and congealed, the red becoming so dark it was almost black.
But the worst part had been the smell… that sickly sweet smell of rot, so much worse than the scent of vomit currently filling her nose, lingering everywhere, overwhelming her senses…
Her stomach gave another lurch just at the thought and she retched.
Keep it down, keep it down, keep it down…
How had this happened? Why had this happened? What the fuck was going on?!
Things had gotten so weird ever since that new boy, MC, had joined their Club. All the sudden Monika begins acting off, then Yuri starts going ballistic at anyone who'd so much as speak to MC, to the point where she'd even told Monika to kill herself right before the weekend started.
She'd hoped she could make things right with her today, during the Festival. Talk things out with her, sharing some of her cupcakes. Try to settle some of the bad feelings.
And now, here they were, and Yuri was… she was…
Dead.
Had… had this been her fault? Had Yuri's strange behavior been a cry for help that she'd ignored? She should have realized, she should have called someone! Sure they fought sometimes, but Yuri was her friend! She hadn't deserved this!
Tears trickled from her eyes, past her cheeks, down her chin. What was she supposed to do? What did it even matter anymore? One of her best friends, her ONLY friends, was no more. She'd never see her again, talk to her again, share poems with her again. The Festival didn't matter, this Club didn't matter, NOTHING mattered anymore.
She might as well just pick up that knife and join her…
"Ahahaha!"
Her entire body froze in shock as she heard the bright, familiar laughter, coming from behind her. Slowly, shaking all over, she turned her head, adamantly refusing to look at Yuri again.
It was Monika.
Monika, their Club President, standing there right over Yuri's body, talking and laughing with MC, acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary!
"Well, that's a shame." She said and shrugged uncaringly, her voice sounding like nothing more serious had happened than someone spilling a glass of water they now had to clean up with a towel. "Wait, were you here the entire weekend, MC?"
Natsuki felt great anger starting to rise inside of her. It seemed like that happened a lot these days, her exploding at anyone who annoyed her, yell insults at them and almost always regretting it immediately afterwards.
But this time, she could tell it was different. This wasn't just anger at someone making fun of her height, or calling her cute. This was pure, unfiltered rage, aimed directly at Monika.
How could she sound that nonchalant, when Yuri, their friend, was lying there?!
"Oh jeez… I didn't realize the script was broken that badly. I'm super sorry! It must have been pretty boring…"
Natsuki felt the rage tripling in magnitude.
Boring?!
She'd read about people having unusual reactions to death, some breaking down into sobs, and some not even batting an eye. Everyone dealt with it differently.
But Natsuki knew people, and this… wasn't that. Monika wasn't grieving for Yuri, she was acting as if her death was nothing more than some mild inconvenience! She even sounded like she was slightly amused by the whole thing!
She sounded like… she'd known about this. And that could only mean one thing.
Murderer!
She'd had a suspicion earlier in the week that something was up with Monika. It'd been the reason she'd written that "poem" to MC in the first place. She'd never imagined that she'd actually stoop to killing someone, but how could it be anything else?!
She tried to say something, to yell at Monika to shut the fuck up, to scream "how could you?!" but found that her fury was too deep for words. Her mouth literally wouldn't allow her to speak.
But she needed to do something, needed some kind of outlet, or she was certain she was gonna explode, literally this time.
Slowly, she walked up behind Monika, hardly even realizing her arm reaching out to grab Yuri's heavy book, Portrait of Markov, in the process. Her body was moving on its own, it felt like she was walking through a dream. Or, more accurately, a nightmare.
"I'll make it up to you, okay? Just gimme a sec…"
Natsuki could hardly even hear Monika's voice over her own beating heart. All she could think about now was inflicting as much hurt as possible on Miss Perfect Popular President, to make her feel even a fraction of the pain she was feeling at losing Yuri.
She raised Markov as high as she possibly could, aiming it directly at Monika's head-
os . remove ("characters / yuri . chr")
yuri . chr deleted successfully.
…wait, what just happened…?
SMACK!
"Argh!"
Natsuki blinked, looking at some weird book with a kind of eye-thing on the cover in her hands, and back to the President on the floor, groaning in pain while clutching the back of her head.
Her eyes widened.
I just knocked down Monika! Why did I do that?!
Then, her brows furrowed.
Wait, I'm angry with her. Furious, actually. Pretty sure I hate her more than anyone else, even Papa!
She closed her eyes in concentration, reaching up to grasp her own forehead (which turned out to be a mistake when she felt some left-over vomit from her palm making contact.)
But… why? What did she do?
"What the fuck?!"
Natsuki opened her eyes again, glancing down at Monika who struggled to get up from the floor again. She was sneering at her, her bright green eyes staring at her in contempt.
"How fucking dare you?!" Monika snarled. "Me and MC were having a moment here, and then you just knock me down like some caveman brute?! I guess you really are your father's girl!"
"S- shut up!" Natsuki stammered, trying to remember what was going on. She'd entered the classroom, and seen… something. Something horrible! Wait, no, it'd been gross. Or maybe… sad? And… and it'd all been Monika's fault, somehow. But what? What had it been?
"Oh, I should have done this from the very beginning of the game." Monika said, turning away from her again. "You have no idea how much of a pain it's been, having to listen to your annoying character all this time, pretending to be your friend. Why people even like the Tsundere archetype is beyond me. Even Sayori was more tolerable…"
os . remove ("characters / natsuki . ch
"SHUT UP!"
Natsuki hit her again, directly on the cheek this time, making Monika fall to the ground. She didn't know why, but for some reason it felt as if every single one of her survival instincts had suddenly knocked into twelfth gear, as if she was fighting for her life, no, her very existence!
"You fucking brat, I'm going to enjoy deleting y-"
"Shut up!"
Natsuki didn't allow Monika any time to recover. She bent down, raised her arms, and slammed the book down on Monika's face, clearly breaking her nose.
"N- no-" Monika whimpered, abandoning her cocky attitude. "P- please, sto-"
She began raising her arms in an attempt to shield herself from the next blow, but Natsuki had already brought the book down again, and the arms fell limply to Monika's sides at the moment of impact.
Natsuki had never really been that strong, but it didn't matter. With a book this big and heavy, gravity was doing most of the work for her.
"Wa- washn't shupposed to happen… like dish…" Monika tried speaking through broken teeth.
Another hit from the book silenced her. Yet another put an end to her movements. By the time Natsuki finally stopped and dropped the book, Monika's skull had long since caved in and her face… well, it couldn't really be called a "face," anymore…
As some of Natsuki's vision and thought process returned, she stared at the mess that had once been Monika's head. She then looked at her hands, blood now mixed with her vomit from earlier.
I… I killed her. I killed Monika.
She leaned over, and puked out what little remained of her breakfast.
Why did I kill Monika?!
Monika had always been her one, and only friend at this school. Although she'd initially just joined her Club to get a place where she could hide her Manga, the two had eventually bonded over their shared love for Literature and Poems. Monika had made her the Vice President, which didn't mean much at first, because no one else wanted to join, but then MC came along! And things had been looking good from that point on!
So why had she just beaten Monika to death with a book she'd never seen before, and yet looked so oddly familiar to her?!
Was this just the natural evolution of her living with Papa? Had he fully converted her over to his way of thinking, snapping out of control and beating the ones who annoyed you, even if they were your closest friends?
Had she been destined to be broken from the very beginning?
No. No, think! She shook her head, trying to make sense of this nonsensical situation. Something happened right before I attacked. I saw something… and then I forgot. Monika said something about "deleting" me. Did… did she somehow make me forget?
She looked up, seeing MC standing in front of her, having not moved a muscle ever since her and Monika had come in here. If she didn't know any better, she'd think he hadn't even moved since last Friday…
"MC!" She yelled, wondering if he'd gone into shock. "What's going on?! Do you know what Monika di-"
Something caught her eye, and she stopped talking to stare up above her. She'd never seen anything like it before.
Floating in midair unsupported, slightly above where Monika had stood, was a box. A black, slightly transparent box that for some reason seemed to conjure up fear in her just by looking at it.
There was even some white text within the box, looking like the type of thing you'd see on the computer of some programmer nerd.
os . remove ("characters / yuri . chr")
yuri . chr deleted successfully.
os . remove ("characters / natsuki . ch
Natsuki didn't know anything about programming or coding or anything concerning computers, but even she thought she could see a pattern here. Accepting for just a second that this made ANY sense (which it didn't!) then it would seem Monika had deleted a "character" named Yuri, and just after that, she'd tried to delete her as well, but hadn't managed to finish the command before getting a book in the face.
Was this "Yuri" the thing she couldn't remember? She almost had to be. Had they been friends? Was that why she'd been so furious at Monika? Had she been witnessing Monika "deleting" Yuri, both from the world and her memories?
Natsuki's head was spinning as she struggled to comprehend this. It was completely insane, but then so was this physics-breaking box appearing out of nowhere. Her life was probably already ruined once someone discovered Monika's body or MC shook out of his trance, so might as well try and get to the bottom of this.
She dragged a chair over below the box, climbed on top and tried pointing at the "yuri . chr" part.
She was shocked when a "pop up" window appeared over the box, containing a bunch of weird words that she quickly skimmed through, until settling on one that seemed helpful.
Reintegrate File.
Taking a deep breath, she pressed the option- and fell down on the floor when her head was suddenly bombarded with memories.
Yuri. Purple . Quiet. Shy. Knives. Obsessive. Ghost Under The Light. Portrait of Markov. The real Vice President. Judgy. Self-harm. Hates manga. Probably hates me as well. Dead. Found her dead. She's-
"Dead!" Natsuki gasped, getting up from the floor again- and came face to face with Yuri's corpse, in the same, bloodsoaked position she'd been in before Monika had deleted her.
Natsuki screamed.
How could she have forgotten Yuri? She remembered everything now, all their past experiences together reappearing in her mind as if they'd never left. She remembered why she'd attacked Monika now!
And then it hit her again, perhaps even harder than the first time.
It didn't matter if she could remember Yuri or not.
She was dead, and nothing could change that.
"N- no!" Natsuki cried, feeling the tears threatening to emerge again. She ran over to Yuri's body, ignoring the smell, ignoring the blood, desperately searching for something, anything that might help bring back the girl she'd once known.
"Do something!" She yelled at MC, infuriated that he just kept standing there like a statue, not reacting to any of the things happening around him. She groaned, and kept searching Yuri, feeling for a heartbeat, a pulse, something that might save her-!
But there was nothing. Yuri had been dead for hours. Days. The whole weekend, if she had to guess. Even if she'd had formal training in reviving people, there was nothing that could be done for Yuri. She was completely and utterly, irreversibly dead.
…
No.
Natsuki clenched her fistsand looked up at the programmer box again, squinting her eyes in determination.
No. I won't accept this.
She approached the chair again, climbed up, and pressed the file again, carefully reading through all the available options.
If this thing can erase people from existence and make it as if they were never even there, then why SHOULDN'T it be able to bring people back from the dead?! Why SHOULDN'T it be able to save Yuri from whatever Monika did to her?!
Not having even the faintest idea of what she was looking, for, Natsuki tried clicking the Open File button, and was met with another pop up, displaying a plethora of numbers and letters, most of which she had no idea what meant.
But there at the top, she found something she thought she could slightly understand.
name: Yuri
current status: deceased.
She felt her heart starting to pound out of her chest. Could it really be that simple?!
She tried pressing the text, and suddenly a small keyboard appeared by her fingertips, as well as a horizontal, blinking line on the popup, indicating where she was about to type.
Sucking in a breath of air through clenched teeth, she quickly deleted the deceased, and typed out five, simple letters instead.
alive.
She hit enter.
Another box appeared.
You have made changes to yuri . chr. Do you wish to save these changes? Ok/Cancel.
Ok! Ok! Natsuki thought impatiently, pressing the button.
Another box.
Warning! Severe Data Corruption detected in yuri . chr. Are you sure you want to proceed? Ok/Cancel.
She hesitated, not sure about what to do. What did this "Data Corruption" mean, exactly? And what would it mean to Yuri, assuming this would work?
She had no idea. She didn't know what any of this meant, how it worked, or how this was even possible.
All she knew was that she needed her friend back. Nothing else mattered besides that.
She'd ignored plenty of warning pop-ups on her own computer, and she couldn't remember any major consequences. It- it would probably be fine, right?
She hit Ok.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then-
"ŸáäŪđġĨŭľĿ·ìŽ½ïĞĝıŻ!"
Natsuki fell off the chair again, shocked to her core upon hearing the sudden noise. It was hard to describe it, exactly. It was kinda like high-pitched TV static, scratchy and distorted as if it'd been recorded through several low-quality webcams, mixed with incomprehensible radio blabbering that constantly changed in pitch. It was an absolutely awful sound that actuallty hurt her ears the more she listened to it.
But the worst thing about it? It was coming directly from Yuri's corpse.
With dread etched in every fiber of her being, Natsuki slowly sat up again, breathing in quick bursts of air. She couldn't remember ever being more scared than she was right now.
She wanted to wake up from this horrible nightmare. She didn't want to look.
But she knew she had no choice.
She turned her head towards the sound, expecting to see Yuri's corpse where'd she'd seen her last, still slumped lifeless against the chair over by MC.
But Yuri wasn't lying on the floor anymore.
She'd gotten up.
The girl was standing in the middle of the classroom, her back turned to Natsuki, displaying her long, flowing purple hair. She'd always been the tallest of the girls in the Literature Club, trumping her, Monika, MC and Sayo- wait, no. There had only ever been four members in the Club.
Yuri's entire body was shaking- no, that wasn't the right word. Shaking implied that the movements looked natural, which wasn't even close to being the case. "Vibrating" was a little better to describe the wild, erratic jerks she was making. Sometimes, it seemed as if certain body parts like her arms, legs or even her head blinked out of existence for a split second before reappearing again.
It kinda reminded her of times where she'd attempted watching a video with a bad internet connection, where the whole thing would freeze up every few seconds, only to start again at triple speed to catch up with the delay.
Only this wasn't a video. This was her friend. A living, breathing person- who'd admittedly been dead just a few seconds ago.
Natsuki gulped nervously, gathering what little courage she had left. What mattered was that she was clearly alive again, right? If disconcerting movements and sounds was all "Severe Data Corruption" had done, then of course they could learn to live with it. As long as she was the same Yuri as always, it wouldn't be a problem at all!
"Y- Yuri?" Natsuki asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
"çĬĞŁŬľĜļ¤ŮŐ¬ijÓÈĘœČŖĖêبºŘÑĦä±ŷżÐôóŰ!"
Releasing another awful burst of distorted static, Yuri turned around.
Natsuki screamed.
She'd made a huge mistake.
Yuri's face was gone.
Her purple eyes, her mouth- all replaced by a collection of squares, so impossibly black that Natsuki felt she might get sucked in if she stared too long. They were pulsating- no, glitching all over her blank face with the same erratic pacing as the rest of her body.
"¿°ŧĒě ŁŬľĜļ¤ŮŐ¬ijÓ?"
Natsuki tensed up when Yuri began staggering towards her, dragging her feet and looking like she might fall over at any second as her legs wouldn't stop glitching. This, along with the fact that the dark red splotches of blood on her uniform were still clearly present, gave Natsuki the impression of a horror movie zombie, coming to eat her brains.
She hadn't brought back Yuri. She'd created a monster.
"St- stop!" She squeaked out, her voice barely audible.
Not-Yuri's only response was another burst of nonsensical static as she continued lurching forward.
"DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!" Natsuki yelled, picking up the blood-soaked Portrait of Markov from the floor and raising it high above her head. "I'M WARNING YOU!"
Yuri hesitated, then took another step- only to collide directly against a desk right in front of her, causing her to stumble and fall forwards, landing face first on the wooden floor.
"ŤŰÑÛČěéÓŮŸ? ÀĚŞŊŝŪØij¬öįŷėĤĺĈÏÖłšīĜĄºİŧýĊĀ¹¿ÁÒìŋŃĔŎďÔ!"
Although the static was as distorted and unintelligible as always, Natsuki thought she could pick up the trace of something that sounded faintly like… wailing, within it?
She frowned, and lowered Markov again. Bloodthirsty monsters didn't wail. Well, some of them did, but not like this. This sounded way too… pathetic, to be threatening.
Yuri didn't get up from the floor, but instead gathered her limbs and curled up into a fetal position. She began rocking back and forth, just like a scared, panicking child might do. A scared, panicking child with a messed up face and a body that regularly folded in on itself as it glitched wildly.
Somehow, this kind of behavior reminded Natsuki vaguely of the Yuri she'd used to know.
Natsuki took a tentative step forwards, staring unblinkingly at the creature.
"Y- Yuri?" She tried again, swallowing her fear. "C- can you hear me?"
"ďòĘĶŜźġý!?"
Yuri tilted her head upwards.
"Okay, that answers that, I suppose." Natsuki said, not taking her eyes off her. "D- do you recognize m- my voice?"
"²×Ⱥ!"
"Uhhh…" Natsuki hesitated. "Yuri, I'm so sorry, but… if you're trying to answer, I- I can't understand you. L- look, how about you just nod for yes, and shake your head for no, okay? C- can you do that for me?"
At first, the purple-haired atrocity just sat there on the floor, unmoving aside from some involuntary glitches. For a brief moment, Natsuki feared that she was just like those idiots in horror movies who always died because they thought they could "connect" with the monster.
But then to her great relief, Yuri began tilting her head up and down slowly and deliberately, a clear difference from the unpredictable glitching.
"G- great." Natsuki breathed. "Okay Yuri, I- I can guess you're probably scared right now. I am t- too, to be perfectly honest. B- but try not to panic, okay? I'm just gonna ask you some questions, and then we c- can get started figuring this mess out. Is that good with you?"
She nodded again.
"O- okay. D- do you know who I am?"
Yuri tilted her head, seemingly confused, but nodded soon after.
"Do you know who you are?"
"ÕŢżÉáÇŶ-"
"P- please, just- nod or shake your head? I know this is weird, but… humor me, okay?"
Another nod.
Natsuki frowned, wondering if she was just nodding along without actually realizing the meaning of her questions.
"…do you like Manga?"
A pause.
Then, Yuri shifted her head from side to side.
Natsuki would have never thought she'd actually be happy to hear Yuri's snobby opinion about her favorite type of literary media. For the first time on this horrible, awful, no-good day, her face lit up into a wide smile, which soon turned into full-blown laughter.
This really was Yuri! Grotesquely malformed, and unable to express herself beyond highpitched static, but still Yuri.
The girl in question tilted her head vaguely to the side again, clearly confused about how anyone could find this situation even slightly humorous. Which was such a Yuri thing to do, it cemented her identity without a shadow of a doubt.
"Oh my God, it is you!" Natsuki exclaimed, feeling tears streaming down her face as she sprinted between chairs and desks in order to throw her arms around her club mate. She didn't care about how horrifying her face looked or how touching her glitching body felt like constantly getting zapped by static electricity. All that mattered was that she was alive.
"ĞÓÖÈįĵŦ!"
Yuri released a louder than normal static screech, recoiling away from the forced embrace. Natsuki immediately released her grip.
"Sorry Yuri." She apologized, but kept smiling. "I know how you don't like to be touched, that was my bad. It's just… I'm so happy to see you. I thought I'd lost you forever!"
"°ýŝŊûèÔóáůø Ŭţā ĂïëÊĝŞŭ..."
"I- I don't know what that means." Natsuki's smile dropped an inch, before re-emerging full force. "B- but! I think I have an idea!"
She sprang up from the floor and ran towards the supply closet, ignoring Monika's dead body on the way there. She'd worry about that later.
"I mean, it's so obvious, I should have thought about this way sooner!" She yelled brightly, rummaging around paper and writing utensils with shaking hands. "This is a Literature Club, for fuck's sake! Only makes sense that we communicate through writing!"
She hurried back to Yuri, leaned up against one of the desks, glitching weakly. She handed her one of the pencils she'd gotten from the closet.
"Here." She said. "Take this, and write whatever questions you have for me. I… I don't really know a lot of what's going on myself, but I'll try to answer as best as I can!"
But Yuri didn't accept the pencil, or made any attempt to grab it whatsoever. Instead, she just leaned her empty face up towards Natsuki's general direction.
"Øķź¬â?"
"Uh." Natsuki said, feeling her smile turning strained. "So, uh… feels a bit rude to ask you this Yuri, but… can you see anything?"
She felt her heart sink when Yuri shook her head. She supposed it made sense on account of her having black squares instead of eyes, but- this was definitely going to complicate things.
"Th- that's okay!" Natsuki said, forcing herself to stay optimistic, for Yuri's sake. "Here, I'm gonna place a pencil in your hand now- there you go, and now I'm just gonna guide you to the paper- there. Okay, you're good to go now. Take your time, okay? No rush!"
Yuri nodded, and began moving her arm, writing methodically and expertly on the paper provided to her. Natsuki watched, mildly anxious about how her random glitches was gonna affect the words, but still, she was excited. Finally, they were gonna have an actual dialogue and get somewhere!
"Å°ù."
Yuri put down the pencil.
"You done?" Natsuki asked happily, leaning down to read what Yuri had written.
Her heart sank the moment she looked at the paper's contents.
KUFHGJO-V343434 SFJLSP FKHVJPSÅIGAS90O4+/%#ADH GAGHPIEORPJG Å AÅPØGJAF DKL FGÆIJIORAØGJJHFÆGKAØ O ÅF=)¤(/IJIKJGLITHSÆOØDK FIUD F0948UYTUE!# KDOSPAF89PW3OKFR0O¨ PÅ OG HR´R+SÅPLFPÅDKG OPDFÆ?
"Uhm. I- I don't- I can't-" Natsuki sputtered, not knowing how to say this without making Yuri upset.
"ń¨Ūī®ĒĐĺŖĵòäŮí?"
Yuri tilted her head, undoubtedly wondering why Natsuki wasn't answering what had to be perfectly understandable inquiries in her mind.
"Uhhh… Okay. It's okay, Yuri. L- let me just think about this for a sec…"
NOW
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O… P… Q… R-"
"©įÄŇ."
"R?" Natsuki asked.
Yuri gave an affirming nod.
"Okay." She said, looking down at the notebook in her lap to write down the selected letter. "Well done, Yuri."
It was a fine balance, complimenting Yuri for this. As this was a long, tedious and exhausting process, she needed the positive reinforcement to maintain her motivation and keep spelling. But she couldn't do it for every letter, or Yuri would find it condescending and feel like she was talked down to.
"So it's D-R now. Starting again." Natsuki announced. "A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O-"
"ĵòäŮí."
"O? Alright." Natsuki scribbled a quick circle next to the R. "D-R-O. Starting again…"
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O… P… Q… R… S… T… U… V… W… X-"
"Ź¨ŝðúŔĔµĽċжďČōŒŴłøžÒŌİģĜ³ÓġùŋäęľŦūͼÑŗş¾Â!"
"X?" Natsuki asked. "D-R-O-X?"
But instead of nodding, Yuri reached up to grab at her purple hair, pulling hard and even ripping out a few strands.
"ŢţŹŁŅŧĎĄķē©Ð¸¤ŬıÙŔÇďúËìįöŻãÔĔήŊūąĈáòŠªšÿÛ·ŜÖģµĬ ŞőñØŒËʼnÎðÒĊŨŀėĜģ!"
"Wow, wow!" Natsuki exclaimed, not knowing what was going on. "What's happening? Is there an issue?"
Yuri released another long burst of static before slamming a fist down on the floor and starting to violently bang her head against the wall to their side. Her form started glitching dangerously.
"Hey, j- just calm down!" Natsuki pleaded. "W- we can fix whatever this is. Y- you're upset about something I did just now?"
Yuri calmed down just enough to shake her head, but then immediately nodded again.
That helps a lot.
"Wait, let me think-" Natsuki said, closing her eyes and concentrating on what she could have possibly done to upset her. She'd just called out all the letters for their makeshift communication system, and had approached the end of the alphabet when suddenly she'd started screeching.
It suddenly hit her.
"D- did you miss one of the letters?" She tried, looking up at the blank, pulsating squares on Yuri's face.
Yuri lowered her tense shoulders in what seemed to be relief, and nodded.
"Okay, that's perfectly fine." Natsuki breathed out, relieved too. That could have easily gone way off the rails. "Sorry, I'll try going a little slower from now on. A- and tell you what, if I get through the whole alphabet and you don't pick anything, I'll- I'll just repeat it again, okay? You don't have to worry about missing a letter that way. Is that fine with you?"
Yuri nodded.
"Awesome. So, I'm guessing it wasn't actually X?"
Yuri shook her head.
"Got it. I'll start again then. A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O… P… Q… R… S… T… U… V… W-"
"Æîęŷō."
"W? Okay, so it's D-R-O-W… Are you spelling out 'drowning,' by any chance?"
An eager nod.
"Okay. So you dreamt that you were 'in a sea of tar, and felt like you were drowning,' then?"
Another nod.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Natsuki sighed, and reached out to clap her shoulder softly. "Sounds like an awful nightmare. Especially when you then awake to find yourself sinking through the floor."
"ĊôļħĸŴø¸¥¶Õ¤ŖæµŇ?"
Yuri made a gesture, moving her hand as if holding an invisible pen.
"You wanna go again?" Natsuki asked patiently, picking up her notebook anew. "A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O… P- P? Okay, nicely done Yuri…"
It had taken a few days to truly get accustomed to this system they'd set up- well, that was to say, she'd slept about five times before both of them had started getting the hang of it. You couldn't really say anything had taken "days" when time didn't exist in this weird reality.
What had been truly hard was convincing Yuri to abandon her usual writing style and only spell out the barest essentials, as it just took way too long spelling out her usual essay-length papers when describing her feelings.
It had taken Yuri a bit before accepting this. Natsuki had always been the one who'd written simple, directly to the point poems whereas Yuri felt like any message she spelled out without some form of deep symbolism or metaphor, was wasted. She'd also gotten pretty annoyed when Natsuki would guess the word before she could finish spelling it out.
But eventually, even she'd gotten tired of spending the equivalent of a full hour just to type out half her message, and by now had all but embraced the method- even if she felt it was creatively unfulfilling at times.
Of course, Natsuki made sure to never rush her at any point during these exercises- but it still managed to drain a lot of energy from both of them.
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L-"
"ŬŤãàñĻ"
"L…?" Natsuki muttered uncomfortably, looking down at the message she'd been writing for the last few minutes. "Uhm, okay then…"
Yuri then tapped a finger against the floor two times in quick succession.
"Okay, so a space here…" Natsuki said, already feeling like she knew where this message was going, and not liking it at all. But nevertheless, she'd give her the benefit of the doubt.
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M-"
"¯şİųŹ."
Natsuki closed her eyes and sighed, not even bothering to confirm the letter with her. She knew what Yuri was trying to say now.
She opened her eyes, once again looking at the letters she had so far.
PLEASE KILL M
"Yuri…" Natsuki said, trying her best to stay calm. "Let's not go through this again, please?"
"ĨŷĐŮľř¢ÊħĪŻłÁÐĵć´¾!"
Natsuki watched as Yuri curled her hands into tight fists, clearly upset.
"Y- you know what, how about we take a break from the spelling bee sessions?" Natsuki suggested, forcing out a light chuckle. "We could play a game together- you seemed to be getting the hang of blind chess last time… oh, or I could read another chapter of Markov aloud! Would you like that? I mean, I always get nightmares by that creepy book but that's oka-"
"ĽŒğŗĖÉ¥ŞæňďĞœ!"
Yuri cut her off with a very impatient static noise, and made the writing gesture with her hand again.
"Come on Yuri, I think we've had enough writing for toda-"
With alarming speed, Yuri's hand shot forwards, pointing a pale finger directly at Natsuki. She then retracted her arm to point at herself. Finally, she reached up to slowly move her finger across her own throat in a very telling motion.
"N- no, Yuri." Natsuki said gently, but firmly. "I- I'm not going to do… that. You can't allow yourself to lose hope, okay? Sure, things might suck right now, but I'm working on it! Every day, I understand that damn Code a little better, and we HAVE made some progress! You don't glitch out that much anymore, and- and I removed that whole obsession thing Monika put on you with MC! It's only a matter of time before I find a way to restore your voice, and then we'll be back in business, baby!"
Yuri did not look very impressed. She stood up from the floor, towering over Natsuki while shaking in barely restrained anger.
Natsuki gulped, and got up herself. It seemed their visit had reached its end now.
"You know what, you're right." She said, inching towards the door. "I should get back to work and try to figure out the Code again, you probably want to be left alone anyway. I'll be out of your hair now and come back later, ok? You just stay here and try to relax in the meantime."
"ŵŨ¶ýķčðŮĪ´ŌİËļĜĝñùüĨ¬ÆÞıĺŊ£ÃåĶÊėűÝ¥ÏìµŦŶĥê½èğĴĬŠŃĹ!"
Yuri began charging at her, but Natsuki was faster. She sprang out of the classroom, slamming the door after her. Fumbling feverishly with the lock, she just managed to click it at the same time as Yuri collided against it with a loud BANG.
As the muffled sounds of screeching static and fists hammering against the door could be heard, Natsuki collapsed to the ground, feeling her cheerful mask breaking apart.
With trembling hands, she opened her notebook again, reading over the messages Yuri had dictated to her for the last few sessions.
HURTS SO MUCH CANT TAKE IT
FEELS LIKE SPLITTING APAR
DONT WANT TO LIVE LIKE TH
WHY KILL MONIKA BUT NOT ME
NATSUKI LET ME DI
WHY WONT YOU LET ME DI
EVERYTHING BLACK CANT SEE LIGHT
SUFFERING PLEASE NEED DEAT
WHERE IS MY KNI
JUST DELETE ME AGAI
The pounding and screaming subsided a bit as Yuri gave up on breaking out of the room, and Natsuki took a deep, shaky breath.
She didn't like locking her in there, treating her like some monster. But what else could she do when she got like this? It was for her own protection! Natsuki had personally removed all the desks and equipment from the room, anything she might accidentally hurt herself with. There wasn't much for her to do in there now as a result, but at least she was safe.
She felt her eyes sting and stopped resisting, letting the tears flow free.
She'd messed up in there big time, running away scared like she always did when Yuri made those requests. It would probably be a while before she'd forgive this screwup.
Sayori would be so much better at this than me. She thought miserably. Then, she frowned. Who the hell is 'Sayori?!'"
She sighed, figuring it was probably just an unimportant memory fragment the broken Code would sometimes throw her way at random.
Which reminded her, she should probably go back to work now that the Yuri visit had ended prematurely.
She sighed, hastily wiping her eyes with a sleeve, and slouched back into the Literature Club.
The main reason she'd gotten Yuri that other classroom to live in? So she wouldn't have to endure the smell in here!
She wrinkled her nose upon entering. Though she'd managed to clean up most of the blood and vomit from "day" one, she hadn't known what to do about Monika's body beyond just stuffing it away from view, inside the supply closet. Which as it turned out, wasn't at all far enough away to avoid the unfortunate side-effects of decomposition.
At this point, she was too afraid to open the closet again and relocate her somewhere else in the building, so she just had to endure it while she worked. And much as she hated to admit it, even the smell of a rotting corpse became mundane and tolerable if exposed to it long enough, like she had.
"Hey MC." She said in a dull voice, walking right past the statue-like boy who hadn't so much as blinked through all this time.
As far as she'd been able to gather from reading through the Code, this world was all some sort of "game" with him being the "Player Character." MC. Main Character. Ha ha, so original.
If she'd understood it right, his role had been to join their Literature Club and "charm" either her or Yuri into becoming his dearly beloved girlfriend.
…yeah, it was one of those games, where the girls only existed as a prize for the male self-insert to marry, or screw, or some other sexist crap like that. And it had to be true, since even after learning that her only purpose in life was to be some fake squeeze for MC, she still couldn't bring herself to hate him, no matter how hard she tried. The Code that made up her entire being must have preprogrammed her to love him, no matter what revelations she learned about him.
It fucking sucked, but it was what it was, she supposed. Or at least it had been, until Monika came along.
Monika was weird, and Natsuki still didn't understand everything about her. Apparently she'd been some sort of "master" character, the one who checked and controlled if everything in the game's files was running smooth and proper. Then, something had snapped inside her head, and she'd decided to take MC for herself through any means necessary.
When Natsuki had killed her, it seemed she'd "killed" the game's ability to progress any further as a result, hence the frozen time and statue-esque MC. Until she found a solution, it would keep being Monday Noon, the day of the School Festival, forever.
But she couldn't worry about any of that while she still had a corrupted Yuri to fix. She climbed aboard the chair beneath the still open programmer window, and got to work.
She was still confused by all the letters and numbers floating around, and a lot of her progress had been done through severe trial and error. Every time she messed with it, she had to make absolutely sure that her changes wouldn't fuck anything up, since as she'd witnessed first hand, it only took one wrong move and she'd suddenly forget everything about a certain object or person, forever.
In theory, she could bring Monika back to life again. She'd undoubtedly be better at understanding the Code than her, and could probably speed up fixing Yuri significantly. Only problem with this being the fact that she would still be a homicidal power-hungry maniac who'd most likely pick up right from where she'd left off and delete everyone before Natsuki could stop her. Which… wouldn't be ideal. Plus, there was no guarantee her file wouldn't be just as corrupted as Yuri's and then she'd just have two of them to deal with.
Another possible solution would be to take the "Club President" role and apply it to herself, which seemed to be the factor allowing Monika to control the game. With that role, she didn't have to fear forgetting everything if she messed up, and would probably gain a much better understanding of Coding as well.
But it was also entirely likely that she would lose her mind too, and become some psychopathic "Monika 2.0." It just wasn't a risk she could afford to take.
Natsuki stared at all the letters and numbers and signs and fucking bullshit in front of her, all of it swirling around together into lines upon lines of incomprehensible garbage.
Yeah, sure, she'd made some "progress." The same kind of "progress" you'd call someone who'd just downloaded a beginner's app to learn a whole new language. Hell, she was practically half way already!
She felt dread starting to overtake her like it had all the other times she'd found herself standing here. This wasn't some simple puzzle game she could just brute force her way through until eventually succeeding. This was Yuri's existence. This was everyone's existence. She had the fabric of the entire Universe beneath her fingertips, and every change she made had the potential to bring about disastrous, world-ending consequences.
Or, nothing would happen. Which wasn't much better, since she then had to figure out why nothing had happened, or if something really did happen and she just… couldn't remember anymore. In many ways, that was even scarier than the other possibilities.
Natsuki rubbed at her eyes, and gave a heavy sigh before opening up the programming square's search bar. She began typing.
natsuki . chr.
The file popped up immediately, displayed right in front of her in bright, white text. Natsuki gulped, and pointed at it, prompting the pop-up window to appear.
She'd been using the file as a sort of "comparison" to Yuri's, figuring that it was probably one of the only files left in the Code that hadn't been completely broken yet. Having a reference point to how a character file was supposed to look had been a big part of the little fixes she'd been able to make so far.
But she wasn't looking at her file's contents right now. Instead, she stared at the options.
Or, more accurately, one option in particular.
Delete file.
With a shaky breath, she pointed at it, prompting another pop-up.
Warning: You are about to permanently delete natsuki . chr. This action cannot be undone. Are you sure you wish to proceed? Ok/Cancel.
She didn't move. Not even a muscle. All she could do was stare at the Ok button like she had on so many occasions before, with eyes that were starting to sting painfully.
What the hell was she even doing? There was no way someone like her could actually do this. She was just some pink-haired cartoon with an attitude problem who baked cupcakes, not a reality-code breaker. The idea of her somehow fixing this fucking mess was laughable.
Ridiculous. Out of the question. Hopeless.
Deleting herself would finally bring her out of this sorry excuse for an existence. She wouldn't have to worry about anyone, and nobody would ever worry about her. All memory of her would be gone, and- and she would finally have peace.
It would be so easy. Just one press of a button…
And while you take the easy way out like the coward you are, Yuri would still be here, corrupted and in misery, forever.
Her eyes burst open, and she flung her arm forward, slamming the Cancel button. At once, the pop-up disappeared.
"Stupid… fucking… idiot!" Natsuki yelled at herself, hearing her own voice break. Feeling her knees wobbling beneath her, she sat down in the chair.
Collapsing her head into her arms, she allowed herself to cry her eyes out again. She had no idea for how long, seeing as time was meaningless and all that, but an hour at the very least felt like a good guess before she finally stopped, took a few deep breaths, wiped her eyes in her sleeves, and stood back up again.
A- alright. Wasted more than enough time already. She thought, and closed her own useless file to get back to the matter at hand.
I have to do this the hard way. She scrolled through Yuri's Code for what felt like the thousandth time, trying to see if she could spot anything even remotely helpful this time around. Doesn't matter how long it takes. Doesn't matter how many attempts. I won't give up, and I WILL find a way to fix her.
"Heey, Yuri…"
Natsuki entered the empty classroom again, making sure to move as tentatively and carefully as possible. She did this for two main reasons:
One, so as to not spill the contents of the steaming mug she'd brought along.
Two, it was very likely that Yuri was still mad at her for earlier, and could be planning an escape attempt.
"You here?" Natsuki asked, scouring over the room. Even though she'd locked the door, she always had the nagging fear of Yuri clipping through the wall entirely one day, ending up in a new, strange location. That would be so scary for someone who couldn't even see anything.
Thankfully, this wasn't the case today as Natsuki located the purple-haired girl off in the far corner, hunched over with her back turned.
"Ah, there you are." Natsuki approached her, giving her a quick appraising glance-over to make sure all her limbs were well within the room. Yuri hadn't given any discernable reaction to her entering. No static sounds, no movements, not even a visual glitch.
The Silent Treatment, huh? She thought. Guess I deserve that.
"Uh, Yuri, look…" She hesitated. "I uh… I wanted to apologize for earlier. It was wrong of me to refuse the writing session. I know how important it is for you to be able to articulate yourself, especially given your… state. It won't happen again, okay? You can spell out whatever you want to me, and I'll always be here to write it down for ya. I promise."
Still, Yuri didn't move. Natsuki shifted uncomfortably.
"Uhm… I actually brought you something!" She decided to change topics. "I don't know if I was able to get it right the way you want it, you know I'm much better at baking cupcakes, but I tried my best and- I made you some tea!"
At this, Yuri actually turned her head ever so slightly, allowing Natsuki a partial look of her face and the glitching squares surrounding it. Immediately, Natsuki realized a possible error in her plan.
"Oh, uh… Sorry if this is an insensitive question, but- can you actually drink anything? I mean, no offense, but you… don't really have a mouth?"
Yuri didn't react further.
"Uhm, I mean, I know we don't actually need to eat or drink anything since, y'know, we aren't 'real,' but uh…"
Oh my God, I am screwing this up so badly.
"…I figured this might be nice. Remind you a bit of the old days, before all this. And- and even if you can't drink it, you can still smell the steam, right? L- like, uh, aromatherapy!"
There was no response. Natsuki fidgeted.
"Uhhh… maybe I could find something else- oh! Perhaps you would like some wine? Ha ha, remember that one day, Yuri?"
Yuri didn't seem amused. Which was fine, since it wasn't funny.
But then, to Natsuki's great surprise and relief, Yuri shifted towards her and held out a hand.
"Y- you actually want it?" Natsuki said, feeling her heart leap with joy. She bent down to guide the mug into her hand. "Alright, this is great. Here, let me just close your hand around it and- oh, careful, it's hot! Thank you Yuri, this really means a lot to me. See, I know this is just a cup of tea, but it's like proof that not everything is as God-awful as it seems and with the right attitude we can-"
The moment Natsuki's hands came off the mug, Yuri's arm jerked into motion. She reached back in a very deliberate movement that could in no way be interpreted as an involuntary glitch, and hurled the mug as hard as she could. It soared across the room before colliding against a wall, smashing into a mess of broken, tea-soaked porcelain.
Natsuki stared, unable to immediately comprehend what'd just happened. Yuri, still saying nothing, shifted back to her prior position with her back turned to Natsuki.
"What the fuck." Natsuki said quietly, feeling something happening inside her. It was like some sort of chemical reaction, something she'd tried to keep under control these past few weeks. But now it was rising within her at break-neck speed, so searing hot it was burning her insides and needed to be released, now.
"WHAT THE FUCK, YURI?!" She exploded, screaming every word so loudly that Yuri actually flinched in shock.
"YOU COULD HAVE JUST SHAKEN YOUR HEAD IF YOU DIDN'T WANT THE FUCKING TEA, AND EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE! WHAT THE FUCK DOES THROWING IT ACCOMPLISH?! DID YOUR CODE SUDDENLY REGRESS? ARE YOU FIVE YEARS OLD NOW?!
"÷´À®īĀùŋĻ¤-"
"NO!" Natsuki interrupted. "I AM THE ONE TALKING NOW, OKAY?! LET ME SAY MY PIECE HERE, AND THEN WE CAN PLAY SPELLING BEE AGAIN! ALTHOUGH I DON'T KNOW WHY WE EVEN BOTHER ANYMORE SINCE ALL YOU SEEM TO WANNA TELL ME IS HOW LIFE SUCKS AND I SHOULD JUST KILL YOU ALREADY!"
Deep down, Natsuki was vaguely aware that she'd crossed several lines already, but she couldn't bring herself to care very much right now.
"ĵŎÁĚŶĀĂåŘŋĤŧūÙīÑ×ÚĕĔäØùřş!"
Yuri released a howl of static and began rapidly smashing her head against the wall again.
"STOP DOING THAT!" She yelled, grabbing Yuri around her shoulders perhaps a bit more roughly than she needed to, restraining her. Yuri flinched away, but Natsuki kept her grip firmly locked. "ALL YOU'RE GONNA ACCOMPLISH IS CLIPPING YOUR HEAD THROUGH THE WALL AND THEN I'M GONNA HAVE TO PULL YOU OUT YET A-FUCKING-GAIN BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING BY YOURSELF!"
Dimly, Natsuki realized how much Yuri was shaking under her touch, and could tell this had nothing to do with corruption or glitches, just plain fear. She sighed, still furious, but released her hold on Yuri all the same.
"Do you have any idea what it's like?" She asked, lowering her voice. "Every 'day,' I have to go and spend hours in a room that reeks of death, with some weirdo alien from another reality that I'm compelled to love by forces outside of my control! I do this gladly, and I've never once complained because it's the only way to help you! And then what do you do? You shatter the gift I brought to make you happy, and make me write messages begging to end your life. Do you know how that makes me feel, Yuri?!"
Yuri didn't reply, sitting in completely stunned silence. Natsuki took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.
"I'm… sorry for yelling. I shouldn't have done that." She said. "I know I've got no right to complain, and that however bad this is for me, it's a thousand times worse for you. You woke up after dying in a world that doesn't make any sense, without being able to see, talk or even write. You're in constant pain from the corruption, and the only other person with you is someone you've always hated. I get it, Yuri, and I'm so, so sorry. This must feel like being in literal Hell."
Yuri tilted her head a fraction to the left.
"A- and you've got every right t- to hate me, Yuri." Natsuki sniffled. "B- because I'm really fucking bad at this. B- but I'm t- trying my best to make this as tolerable for you as possible. I understand why you want to d- die and get away from this nightmare, b- but I can't do that. I'm s- sorry, but y- you're all I have left here. Everything else is gone! A- and I just can't do this alone!"
She began sobbing, unable to suppress the tears anymore. She always tried not to cry in front of Yuri, but it was a little too late to keep her emotions in check at this point.
"B- but you gotta work with me a b- bit!" She choked out. "O- of course you're allowed t- to be angry and f- frustrated about this, I would be too in your position! B- but please, just try not taking it out on me when I'm only t- trying to help! Help me help you, Yuri!"
Her vision was so blurry from all the tears that she didn't even notice Yuri's hand moving at first, making the "invisible pen" gesture they'd put into place.
Ineffectually, Natsuki reached up to wipe her eyes.
"D- do you just wanna insult me or ask me to k- kill you again?" She asked hoarsely. "I- I know I p- probably deserve that, b- but I don't think I c- can handle that right now, sorry."
Yuri responded by simply speeding up the gesture, making it seem urgent and intense.
"A- alright, fine." Natsuki stuttered, blowing her nose in her sleeve, and taking out the notebook she'd pocketed. The last thing she felt like doing right now was playing spelling bee, but she had just promised Yuri that they could do it whenever she wanted.
"A… B… C… D- d…" She said, trying to enunciate each letter as clearly as possibly with her still shaking voice. "E… F… G… H… I… J… K- k… L… M… N-"
"æŬŏݨ."
"N." She clarified, and wrote it down. And did it again. And again. And however many times Yuri would need her to.
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O… P… Q… R… S… T… U-"
"Øùřş."
"…U?" Natsuki asked. "O- okay, then. Starting again, A…"
But Yuri quickly shook her head, holding up a flat palm in a "stop" gesture.
"W- wait, it's done?" Natsuki asked in disbelief. "Are- Yuri, are you sure you d- didn't miss any letters? Or perhaps picked some w- wrong ones?"
Again, Yuri shook her head, more confidently this time.
Natsuki looked down at the message again, double checking it as she was sure it couldn't be right.
NEVER HATED YOU
She almost started crying again, but held it in when Yuri signaled her wish to write one more word. With shaking breaths, Natsuki obliged her.
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H-"
"ċµõűı."
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G… H… I… J… K… L… M… N… O… P… Q… R… S… T… U-"
"ŹĚĦťŤ."
"A… B… C… D… E… F… G-"
"¶ÐĿÆ."
And with those three letters, Yuri held up her palm again.
Natsuki stared.
"Are- are you serious?"
A nod.
Beginning to cry again, Natsuki wasted no further time in collapsing into Yuri's awaiting arms.
"Y- you d- dummy…!" She sobbed against her shoulder. "Y- you d- don't ever need t- to ask for p- permission to hug m- me, okay?"
"Ā¦åŪàćĴĆĤŘœōĝąġĉĵķĶ¡IJů..."
With a burst of static that seemed a bit softer than usual, Yuri tightened her embrace around Natsuki, who couldn't stop crying, dimly aware of the soft fingers stroking her hair.
She was unable to tell just how long the hug lasted, but it wasn't like it mattered in this world. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, all of it would ultimately amount to less than a second anyway. But for Natsuki's part, it felt like the better part of a lifetime went by before they let go of each other.
She looked up at Yuri, seeing past the glitching squares of her face, and knew for certain that she was smiling somewhere beneath all of that.
"We'll get through this, okay?" She said, and it wasn't a question. It was a promise. "I'll keep working the Code Console until I undo what Monika did to you. But until then, I need you to not give up hope, alright?"
Yuri nodded.
"T- thank you." Natsuki said, wondering how many times she could cry today before drying up. "And- and we can do other things as well! I can show you around the school, or- or I could help you write a poem! It might take a while, but it's not like we're in a rush for time! Would you like that?"
Up to this point, their days had been clouded with darkness and uncertainty, and Natsuki would be lying if she said she had any idea what the future had in store for them.
But now, in this moment, for the first time in relative weeks, she thought she could see just a slight glimmer of light peeking through the clouds.
Maybe, just maybe… they could actually get through this.
Together.
You ever just wake up one day with an urge to write a truly awful situation to be in?
Been sitting on this one for a while, and decided to finally upload it here. I guess you could call this my attempt at one of those bleak emotional one-shots that always gets the people crying.
Hope I did decently. As I am not a tech person, I had to fudge up some details with the whole programming aspect and stuff, but oh well. Thanks for reading!