"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"

Each bitter shriek was accompanied with the sound of Monika's high heel slamming on the man's ribs. He was curled up on the ground with a pool of blood forming around his gaping mouth. He didn't realise beforehand that it was sharp enough to puncture through flesh.

She didn't stop to breathe. "WHY! THE FUCK!? DID! IT HAVE TO BE YURI?!," she screamed, letting her furious hungover self take control. In the time that it took for her to almost brutally murder a homeless man to death, a plan began to form in her mind.

"Right...right...ok. Yeah. That sounds good. And then I'll...right." It wasn't too uncommon for her co-workers to find Monika muttering to herself much like she did in DDLC. She absent-mindedly wiped the blood off her black high-heels with a handkerchief, before reaching into her purse.

"One...two...three...hundred," she muttered, flicking through a neat stack of hundred-dollar bills. The green bills gently fell apart from one another into the pool of blood, and then she was off to work. As you do.

"Hi MC...! No no no...hiiii MC~!"

It was early enough in the morning so that no-one was up and about to hear her practicing. But she couldn't help but keep thinking about yesterday. Only the overzealous joggers were around to witness her seething in bitterness, after the dreadful failure that could be called 'a plan' yesterday.

Right right. Get hammered, get MC hammered, go to your place, success. Show him what he's missing out on. Except, she didn't notice that she was the only one who had been accumulating empty pints of beer to her side will MC was gingerly sipping away at the foam.

"Say...MC...I had been schoo...loNELY! But...now you're here? All good! Everythin's...A-OK!," she remembered her former self drunkenly state.

"I don't doubt it," he nodded along, hiding the fact that he just wanted to go home to Yuri.

"But...MC...," she purred in a low voice. "...you dirty boy...getting f-r-isky with Miss Euro-Yuri over there ohuh...~?"

"We're married."

Her smile disappeared. "...not for much longer."

"Ok. I've had enough. I'm going home." Tolerating any more of this lunatic's nonsense would've-

"WAAAAAH! MC YOU BASTARD...!," Monika bawled, loud enough so that other patrons would look over and see an attractive, crying girl and a man who was about to leave.

She was racking her brain for the events that happened thereafter when she felt someone tap her shoulder. Her face contorted into a bitch-face immediately, thinking that it was yet another creep wanting her number.

But instead a set of purple eyes stared back at her. "Yuri!," she gasped. "What are you doing here? You're up so early!"

"I just wanted to check on you...you were pretty drunk yesterday a-and I felt terrible for feeling the way I did a-and I brought you a bento!"

Monika smiled: with her lips only, mind you, the kind where it didn't fully wrinkle her eyes. "It's not poisoned is it...?," she asked, hesitantly accepting the small lunchbox wrapped in a red cloth.

"Ahaha...don't be silly!," she playfully giggled. Monika's eye twitched in irritation, seeing the way her rival was practically beaming with genuine happiness. "I just made too much when making MC's, that's all. Promise. Probably."

"My my...you really do love MC that much don't you?," she mused quietly, looking down at the lunchbox. "Getting up that early in the morning..."

Monika translation: "You fucker. I'll gut you head to toe and hang you with your intestines."

"Monika...I...I feel really guilty," Yuri admitted. "I'm sorry. He told me everything yesterday and I seriously admire you. Do you maybe wanna start again? You know, as friends this time? You can come over anytime you want, promise! And then when you get married we can have double dates like every second day of the week and-"

"-of course!," she interrupted. You could practically see the vein throbbing in her forehead. There would've been nothing more satisfying to her than to throw her disgusting bitch-bento back at her face and throttle her neck with both hands. "That sounds wonderful! Look, I've gotta go to work, but we should catch up sometime!"

The brunette ran off like she was late to an important meeting, when in reality, her shift didn't start for another hour. She almost broke the plastic of the container by how hard she was gripping it, seething with silent rage.

"Yuri. Yuri. Yuri," she muttered again through a clenched jaw. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go."

Something about the way it wriggled and writhed, made it all the more human. Unsettling as it may be, he had to get away from it- else he risked it consuming him, stripping him of his humanity.

Yuri wriggled too. "Oooookay...?"

He had enough. It was okay at first, but the loneliness just kept piling and piling and piling on, layer by layer. Each wall of the empty office building was identical to the next, like it had been copy-pasted by a bored map developer. Soon enough, he would've been okay with staying completely still, and letting the thing in the corner of his eyes consume him.

"Monika...wait what?!," Yuri exclaimed. "She's nothing like that!"

The tired novelist pushed herself away from her desk and rubbed her eyes. All this proofreading was getting to her head. She had finished her novel about two days ago and was ready to send the first draft to her publisher. But after re-reading it from the very start, all the way from April, she couldn't help but notice words and phrases in the novel written by her own subconscious.

Parallels between the novel and her own fear of Monika, despite her not wanting to admit it to be true.

"She said she'd start again," she muttered. "You're imagining her like she's still in Doki Doki. She's not some kind of psychopath. She's...a real person now."

The purple icon flashed orange on her taskbar and she opened up discord.

abby, what is this yellow cat dancing thing you keep sending me?

dont worry about it❤️
hows the novel coming along?

finsihed

oh good
uwu...can i...?

sure but

whats up?

can i get an advance on my pay? pretty please?
im kinda worried that MCs overworking himself.

well you do live in a pretty expensive area

at this rate we're gonna have to move.

i can but just this once

horay! you're the best!

because i know you write some good shit

thanks❤️

you two planning on going somewhere special?

i just want to spend some more time with him
don't really care where we go.

aww
you two are cute

hows it going with you and chloe?

broke up

oh

yeah

sorry
but why? i thought you two were wonderful

turns out we werent
its not my first rodeo dw about it
ill get you paid by tomorrow k?

thank you!

all good
see ya

bye!

AN: sheesh chill a fucking bean monika