Monika was beginning to wish she had never seen those pills. Rob wasn't acting out of the ordinary, in fact she had never seen him enjoy himself as much as he did when they watched that ridiculous movie. That ridiculous movie that she couldn't stop quoting. You are tearing me apart, Lisa!
In spite of that, she had noticed that he made a lot of jokes and comments about his own death. After catching on to this pattern of his, she did a little research. It was something called "passive suicidal ideation," which meant that someone who wasn't actively suicidal might still enjoy the thought of death as a relief from the hardships of life with depression. The fact that he wasn't showing any other major indicators of depression just made her more nervous, since Sayori had been the same way. If Monika hadn't gained access to the game's files, she would never have guessed how much her classmate was suffering. Was this going to be some kind of punishment for her cruelty inside the game? After driving Sayori towards suicide in her desperation to meet the player, would she now lose that player to the same illness?
There was still one key difference - Sayori's depression had been untreated but Rob took a handful of pills each morning. Not only that, she was beginning to suspect that he saw a therapist. He would always tell her before he went to his job at the arts center, but there was always one day a week where he left somewhere without saying anything. Kate would probably know more, but Monika was still trying not to deal with her unless it was necessary.
It was night now and the boys seemed to be asleep. Usually, their parents would be in bed not long afterwards, but tonight Rob came down into the basement.
She got up to greet him. "Hi! Do you want to watch a movie?"
"I was actually hoping to shoot some Nazis if that's okay," he said.
"Oh. What brought this on?"
Rob walked towards the television and knelt down by the shelf where the gaming machines sat. "I got this game for Christmas but I haven't played it much. I was just reading some news websites and suddenly I felt like killing some Nazis."
Monika wasn't sure what to make of that. He made it sound like the most natural thing in the world, but she still found it a little odd. A few minutes later, the game began and a gun muzzle seemed to be wandering through dark corridors. It took her a moment to realize this game had a first-person perspective. The unseen protagonist came upon a squad of enemies and the game turned into total chaos. Bullets flew and bodies hit the floor as Rob pressed buttons on the controller with a satisfied grin. This seemed like more than just mindless fun. It was almost personal.
"Rob, are you Jewish?"
"Nope," he answered as the carnage ended. "But my grandmother is Polish. She moved to this country as a kid in the late 1920s, just before things started to get really bad in Europe. She got married to my grandfather right before he left to go fight in the war."
"I take it your grandfather survived the war?" Monika asked.
"Yeah. If he hadn't, I probably wouldn't be here…or at least, not the same person I am today. Eventually their children, including my mother, got curious about their roots and tried to research their Polish ancestors. They didn't get very far."
He paused for a moment to concentrate. The character's gun was aimed at some red canisters right next to two Nazis who didn't realize he was there. He fired a few shots and the canisters exploded, setting his enemies on fire.
"The town that my grandmother came from doesn't exist anymore," he continued. "The Nazis destroyed it, wiped it off the map. She's 95 years old now and she has to watch America-" He stopped himself. "Well, never mind."
Monika knew the basics of World War II, but had never considered how those events could impact someone who wasn't even born until decades after it ended. She had no family history, no ancestral homeland. It was just her and the other girls inside the game and they had never found any of that strange, not until she learned the truth.
"Rob, do you think these Nazis are real? Not here of course, but…somewhere else?"
Right after she asked her question, Rob's character tossed an axe through the air. It struck an enemy right in the neck and blood sprayed out as he collapsed.
"That guy's not. Not anymore."
She didn't find that particularly funny.
"Sorry," he said. "That deserves a serious answer. I've thought about it a lot since you came here. For you to enter this reality as a flesh and blood human being, you must have always been real in your own world. Maybe these Nazi shitbirds are real in another dimension too. Maybe everything people in this reality have ever imagined exists somewhere that none of us will ever see."
"I tried to convince myself that the other girls weren't real," Monika said. "But the way you describe it, they were just as real as I am."
"They were real to me," Rob said with a surprising tenderness, given that he was still filling Nazis with bullets. "I loved you all and I wanted so badly for everyone to have a happy ending. But what's special about you, Monika, is that you were created to be self-aware and I think because of that, you were able to find your way out. Other characters wouldn't even think to look."
"Even when I first became…'self-aware' as you put it, I was still thinking of everything in terms of the game. All I wanted was to have a route of my own in the story where I could get close to the player the way the other girls could. I still kinda want that, even though this world is nothing like that one."
"You just need time," Rob said. "This is some serious uncharted territory. We can't expect to figure it all out right away."
"I guess Princess Peach isn't self-aware cause she never came to find you."
He chuckled. "Peach again? You're obsessing. I wouldn't trade you for anyone else."
"Thanks," she said, kissing him on the cheek. He was in the midst of another firefight with the Nazis and barely noticed. "I'm going to read for a while. If you want to hang out more after your bloodlust is satiated, let me know."
Monika tried her best to focus on her book, but it was kind of hard with all the noise. Gunshots, explosions and panicked German shouting were a major distraction. Instead, she grabbed her laptop and did some more research on depression. Even though she was no longer sure how to interpret her feelings for Rob, she was still worried about him.
Eventually, her eyes began to glaze over and she nodded off. She found herself in Sayori's bedroom, watching her grab a noose from a box in the closet. Monika screamed and begged as loud as she could, but it was like she was invisible. Tears streamed down her face as Sayori prepared herself for death. Monika turned around to see Yuri reaching to the top of Rob's desk, which was inexplicably in the same room. She found a knife (or was it a dagger?) and pointed it at her heart with a deranged expression on her face. Monika turned back to see Sayori slipping the noose around her neck before waking up suddenly to find Rob holding her shoulders.
"Hey, are you okay? You were whimpering in your sleep."
Monika shuddered and a few tears ran down her cheeks. "It was an awful nightmare. Thank you for waking me up."
"No problem." Rob was about to leave when she grabbed his hand tightly. He had a confused look on his face.
Her voice trembled. "I can't lose you."
"Is that what you dreamed about?"
She paused. "Sort of. It's hard to explain."
"I'm not going anywhere." He gave her a gentle smile. That was nice, but what she really wanted was a hug. However, Monika was getting sick of always having to be the one to initiate all of their affectionate moments. It could get discouraging after a while. He was about to go back upstairs when the keyboard seemed to catch his eye.
"Monika, how do you feel about piano lessons? Is that something you might like?"
She cocked her head. "Sure, I would love to get better at piano."
"Good to hear," Rob said. "I'll set something up. I think it would be nice for you to get out into the world a bit."
"What about you, Rob?"
He looked perplexed. "What about me?"
"What are you doing to get out in the world? You work a couple days a week but other than that, it seems like you spend most of your time here. Not that I mind."
"You're right," Rob said. "A lot's changed since I worked at the newspaper. Back then, I was always out in the community. It wasn't the worst job, even if I did get paid fuck all."
"Why did you leave? The boys?"
"Yeah. We did some math and found out that daycare for two babies for a year cost more than my annual salary. It was clear we'd be better off just having me at home."
"Would you ever go back to that job? Now that the boys are in school."
He let out a strange chuckle. "I can't go back. Not after….well, it just wouldn't work. Good night, Monika."
Despite the nice offer he had just made, she was frustrated with him. Monika was even starting to wonder if his talk about being "part of my family" was just meant to calm her down. Did family members keep so much of themselves hidden from each other? They spent so much time together and yet he was so distant. Hearing a little bit about his family history was interesting, but now she knew more about his grandmother's childhood than his. She realized there might be someone else who could help, but that approach had risks of its own.
The next morning, Rob returned from taking the boys to school just as she was finishing her breakfast. "Hey, I thought of something that might be fun."
"What's that?" she asked. Hopefully he wasn't about to enlist her for another attack on the Nazis.
"We should play a dating sim."
She didn't expect that. "Huh?"
"Aren't you curious about being on the other side?"
That was an interesting way to put it. "I guess I am. Do you play a lot of these?"
"Nah," he said. "There was only one other dating sim I had played before Doki Doki. I still have it on my computer. We could even read the dialogue out loud like a play. It's more fun like that."
Monika chuckled. He was up to something, but she wasn't sure what. It did sound intriguing, so she pulled up a chair to his desk and the two of them sat close together as they started the game. Like Doki Doki Literature Club, it seemed to take place primarily inside a school. Rob read the lines of the player character, but the female characters vastly outnumbered the male ones, so he wound up taking over some of them too, giving them squeaky voices that made her laugh.
"So which of these girls should we romance?" Monika asked.
"It's totally up to you," he answered. "I've already banged all these girls."
She elbowed him in the ribs. "You are SO cheeky sometimes! All right then, who's the best lay?"
He laughed. "I'm not going to try and influence you!"
True to his word, Rob deferred to her whenever the player had to make a choice. Each time she made a decision, she noticed a knowing smile appear on his face, as if he knew exactly what she would do. Eventually, the storyline shifted and the romance began between the player and a girl who was generous, poised and a pillar of the school community. It was the kind of role that Monika herself had occupied within her own game.
It took most of the day to finish the entire storyline and Monika was deeply involved emotionally in the plot. Reading through the most intimate scenes with Rob was also a surprisingly moving experience and she unconsciously shuffled a little closer to him during these moments. When the story finally reached its happy ending, she was on the verge of tears and it was almost time for Rob to pick up the twins.
Monika moved to sit on the couch as he grabbed his car keys and drove off. She felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders and it wasn't until Rob was gone that she realized what he had just done for her. Last night she had commented about her lingering desire to be the center of attention in a game like this and now she had just experienced that. He had even lent his own voice to the player, making it even more personal. She hadn't even been sure he was paying attention when she mentioned that, but he clearly had.
It seemed clear now that he really did love her in some way. This was the kind of thing you did for someone you loved, but why was he still so distant most of the time? How could he be so kind and yet so reluctant to open up to her?
When Rob and the boys came home, she wrapped her arms around him and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Thank you so much. I'll find some way to repay you, I promise."
"Nice hug!" Lucas said happily. "Now Lucas hug Andrew." Monika pulled back to see the brothers hug each other. It was one of the cutest things she had ever seen, at least before it devolved into wrestling.
After dinner, Rob and the boys sat at the table playing with what looked like multicolored clay. Monika glanced at Kate, wondering if she should try and strike up a conversation. Gathering up her courage, she walked towards the counter where Kate was going through various documents.
Kate began to speak without looking away from the papers she was rifling through. "I don't know if Rob mentioned it, but the boys' birthday is in a few weeks and we're going to have some family over for a little party."
"Oh."
"Most of them know that you've been staying with us," Kate continued. "Although I've been telling them the story about you flying here from Japan for obvious reasons."
"Do you need me to help you with something? Decorations or anything like that?"
"A little early for that, but thanks. What I wanted to tell you was to be a little more conscious of your behavior while everyone's here. Do you think you could keep your hands off Rob for at least a few hours?"
The condescension in her voice royally pissed Monika off. "You know what?"
Kate turned her head quickly in Monika's direction and flashed that deadly glare of hers. Monika suddenly lost a lot of her nerve, but she didn't want to be left without a response. She struggled to come up with something, anything to say back and settled on the first thing that came to mind.
"Leave your….stupid comments in your pocket."
Kate's glare morphed into an expression of complete confusion for a few seconds before she suddenly burst out laughing. Monika had never heard her laugh. It was surprisingly loud given how uptight she seemed most of the time. "He showed you The Room?" Monika nodded sheepishly.
"I'm surprised it took so long," Kate said. "Well, you're just a chicken! Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep!"
Now it was her turn to crack up. She did not expect this conversation to turn into them trading lines from a bad movie. After their laughing died down, Monika decided this was a perfect time to try and get some intel.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Why did Rob leave his old job? Was it really because you guys couldn't afford daycare?"
"That was the public reason," Kate said. "He hasn't told you about this whole thing?"
"He doesn't tell me much of anything," Monika said with a little pout. Kate seemed pleased to hear this and had a smug little smile for a few moments before she began to answer the question.
"When we were getting closer to the due date for the boys, Rob began setting up his paternity leave. America's family leave options aren't great but there are still protections. He had read the legislation and figured he knew how everything was going to go down."
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Rob was still busy with the boys. "He was blindsided when they started to push back. They tried to put all sorts of restrictions on how he could his leave that were blatantly illegal. Even though his colleagues in the newsroom stood by him, the paper's management would not let up and it turned into a big ugly fight. I'm sure you've known Rob long enough to understand the kind of things that can come out of his mouth in a tough situation."
"Uh oh," Monika said.
"Yeah. I was about to give birth and was nervous enough about that, and now I had to worry about Rob getting fired for swearing at the human resources person."
"What happened?"
"One of the most respected labor lawyers in the state just happens to go to my church," Kate continued with a proud grin. "We got him involved and the newspaper changed their tune pretty quick. By the end, they were begging Rob to just use his paternity leave however he wanted."
"So you won," Monika said. "That's good, right?"
"Yeah, but Rob's relationship with his employers was shot. When we started looking into daycare, he didn't hesitate at all about leaving."
"So that's why he won't go back."
"I worry about him," Kate said. "Something inside him died after that whole thing. He's always been a bit cynical, but he still believed that his hard work would be rewarded. Instead, they stabbed him in the back. Honestly, I'm not sure he'll ever work full-time again. He's got like a complex about it."
They both looked over at him. He and the boys were mushing the clay together, all smiles, but Monika was just starting to get a grasp on all the hurt and anger underneath. Back in the game, she believed the player would be a perfect soulmate, but he was just a man. A man doing all he could to keep his inner demons at bay.
That night, she dreamed she was back in the classroom that served as the headquarters of the Literature Club. Sayori was there too, standing with her back to Monika. She tried to get her attention, but like in the other dream, nothing was working. Just as she was about to give up, Sayori turned around. Her face was pale and there was dark red bruising all around her neck.
"Monika," she whispered. "He's preparing you for life without him."
