Gradual Understanding

Monika rested her head against her fists. She just couldn't figure out how this had happened. The club president was denied access to any of the new files that had been added to her computer. Originally, she thought the issues resided solely in the folder that held Sayori's character file. But as Monika kept digging, she eventually came to find that there were a lot more mysterious add ins scattered throughout the entirety of the game's files. She took to writing down her observations in a sticky note tab. The age modifier file was only the beginning. The other files that made up Sayori's folder included things like 'traitmod. rpa' and 'emotescript. txt'. Of course, Monika didn't have access to these either. The only thing in Sayori's folder she could even open was Sayori's original .chr file. Not that that gave any clues anyways. Whoever had changed up the game had done so in a way that didn't include modifying any of the original game files. So, theoretically, if Monika could find a way to just delete the add ins, everything was bound to go back to normal. The other two folders outside of the one labeled 'characters' were the ones labeled 'game', and 'internal'. And without fail, Monika stumbled across more add ins in both of these folders too. The game folder now held an entirely new folder that was simply titled 'tlc1'. And Monika didn't even have permission to open it, let alone open the files that it held. And in the internal folder, Monika noticed that there was an added file titled 'timemod. rpa'. Through all the random add ins and edits, the one thing Monika could gather was that someone had clearly spent a lot of time making this happen. But the girl still couldn't fathom why. She let out a sigh as she went to exit out of the game's files. That's when she saw it. A new file had just been dropped into the folder. It just… appeared out of nowhere. Reading the file, Monika's confusion only increased.

"tlc_troubleshoot. txt." The words only created more questions as they left Monika's lips. Regardless, the club president made a not so hopeful attempt at double clicking the file to try to open it. Monika grumbled a bit as her computer made that oh-so-annoying dinging noise. She was about to just close her laptop when her eyes scanned the text of the error message displayed on the screen. It was different this time. 'File temporarily unavailable' was all it read. Monika made a note of this on her sticky note tab before she closed her laptop with a defeated sigh. The girl packed her laptop up before she started back to the Literature Club's classroom. If she wasn't getting anywhere with the game files, she may as well see how Sayori was doing.

Sayori woke up to a foggy feeling in her head, though it wasn't necessarily bad. She became aware of the warm, faintly snoring body that she was sitting in the lap of. Looking up, Sayori couldn't help but giggle to herself. Natsuki had dozed off not long after she had, and the pink haired girl was still fast asleep with Sayori in her lap. The toddler was in a surprisingly decent mood after her short nap. Noticing Yuri reading at one of the desks, Sayori shifted in Natsuki's lap to try to pull herself to her feet. Natsuki stirred slightly from this, her magenta eyes slowly opening before she rubbed them sleepily with her fists. She noticed Sayori trying to move off of her lap and she sat up a bit.

"Here, let me help," she said, before carefully helping the toddler to her feet. Sayori blushed faintly at this, and when she was placed on her feet her legs wobbled threateningly under her. Before Natsuki could extend a supporting hand, Sayori stuck her arms out at her sides to balance herself once more. It was noticeably easier the second time around since she was already used to it. Natsuki smiled before a question came to her mind. "Where ya going?" Sayori gave a babbled reply as she pointed to Yuri.

"I'm gonna go see how Yuri's doing!" The toddler thought.

"Gonna go pester Yuri? Good idea," Natsuki said, her tiny fang visible from her playful grin. Sayori couldn't help but giggle at Natsuki's comment before she toddled over to the desk that Yuri sat at. Meanwhile Yuri was fully immersed in her reading. Her cup of oolong tea rested beside the open book that she held. Her lavender eyes never left the pages as she was so captivated by every word of the story. She was so deeply focused that Natsuki's mention of her name hadn't even registered. The purple haired girl jumped a bit as a gentle tug on her skirt startled her back to reality. She glanced down to see Sayori peering up at her. The toddler's previously curious expression had shifted to an apologetic one when she caused Yuri to jump.

"O-Oh, hi," Yuri stammered. Her heartbeat was still working its way back down from being startled, so she took to fiddling with her sleeves as a brief anxiety outlet. "I-I'm sorry, I hadn't noticed you had come over." Sayori felt a little saddened by this comment. She was the one who had startled Yuri, yet it was Yuri who was apologizing. Then again, apologizing was something that the introverted bookworm did quite frequently, regardless of who was at fault. "D-Did you need something, Sayori?" Sayori's smile returned as she enthusiastically babbled up at her friend. The toddler bounced on her knees giddily as she 'spoke'.

"Nope! Just wanted to say hi!" Sayori thought. Yuri couldn't hold back her adoring smile.

"W-Well I'm glad that you're feeling happy," she said. Sayori's blue eyes suddenly fixated on the book that Yuri had been reading. And to Yuri's surprise the toddler let out an eager squeal as she pointed at it.

"Oh hey! Duskbell!" Sayori thought. Duskbell had been the first book that Yuri had shared with her. It was the first book of a series Yuri enjoyed, though what was most memorable to Sayori was the fact that it was a bit of a struggle to read it. She still enjoyed it regardless. In fact, she and Yuri would often read it together, so Yuri kept a bookmark tucked in the spot where she and Sayori had last left off.

Yuri beamed at Sayori's recognition of the book, smiling as she nodded to the toddler.

"Yes, I'm reading Duskbell," she said. Her smile faded slightly as she paused to think. "I-I'd offer to read it with you, th-though I'm not sure if you'd be able to follow along in your, uh, c-current state…"

"I-I can follow along!" Sayori thought. Yuri was once again caught off guard as Sayori eagerly reached her hands up to her and let out an enthusiastic string of babbles. The tall girl pondered this thought for a moment. Though it wasn't as bad as it originally was, Yuri still felt a twinge of guilt whenever she read with Sayori. There was always that cloud of irrational thoughts telling her that Sayori was only doing it out of pity. Originally, Sayori read with Yuri out of curiosity for her interests. But as they got further into the book, Sayori had truly become invested in the plot. She even made references to it every so often, which would almost always make Yuri's day. Though today was different. Today, for some otherworldly reason, Yuri's reading buddy barely even stood three feet tall. And if Sayori had a hard time reading her books normally, Yuri couldn't even fathom how difficult it would be for her as a two-year-old.

Sensing her hesitation, Sayori babbled up to her anxious friend once more. Her big blue eyes held a look of reassurance as she smiled.

"I wanna try!" Sayori thought. Yuri lightly bit her own lip before she let out a small sigh in an attempt to calm herself. She then gave Sayori a gentle smile.

"O-Okay, we can see how it goes," she said. Sayori let out a happy squeal as she eagerly reached up to Yuri with grabby hands. Yuri let out an adoring giggle as she gently lifted her friend up by her underarms and sat her in her lap. She then flipped to the bookmark that stuck out about a third of a way through the pages of the book. "J-Just let me know when you're ready for the next page, okay?" Yuri said. Sayori gave a cheery nod in response before she fixed her gaze on the text that was held before her. The toddler's eyes widened slightly at seeing the dense paragraphs, and her confidence was slowly drained as she struggled to focus on one line of text at a time. She decided to just read the first line and hope that her eyes would just naturally move to the next one like they normally did. The first sentence came easy enough, but Sayori had to stop and find the next line halfway through the second sentence. It took a decent seven seconds for the toddler to focus on the second line alone. And even still, her eyes would skip to surrounding lines on occasion, causing her to have to start over. After about thirty seconds, Sayori managed to read through the second line of the paragraph. This brought her a brief moment of confidence before she realized that she hadn't actually absorbed any of what she just read. Sure, she read it, but the effort of doing so resulted in her eyes just mindlessly scanning word after word until the line ended. The bubbly girl felt a tiny knot of nervousness starting to form in her stomach as she started from the top of the paragraph once again.

Yuri's face held a peaceful smile as she read. There was a certain joy in having a friend to share a book with. It was like experiencing the story for the first time all over again. Yuri's lavender eyes ran along the lines of text with observant, effortless speed. It hadn't taken very long for her to get back into the zone. She soon let out a faint, satisfied sigh as she reached the end of the page. And she let her mind start to ponder and analyze all of what she just read. Two minutes went by and Yuri hardly even noticed. Two minutes slowly turned to five, yet Yuri remained blissfully patient. Five minutes eventually became ten, and that's when Yuri glanced down at the toddler sitting in her lap. It was still strange to see Sayori in such a state, though it was adorable nonetheless. Her semi messy hair with her cute little red bow, her pint-sized uniform with the blazer undone, and her big blue eyes that were always full of- oh… oh no…

Panic tightly gripped Yuri's chest as she saw that Sayori was currently on the verge of tears.

"W-Wait! N-No, I'm sorry!" Yuri squeaked.

Sayori's mind was currently running a marathon and a half. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't even make it through the first paragraph. The process of reading and absorbing from such a dauntingly dense text had very much overwhelmed her currently fragile mind. She had tried so hard and now she felt like her head was spinning. And although she didn't realize it, she had started sucking her thumb in a subconscious attempt to cope with it all. Before she knew it, Sayori was pulled into a shaky yet sincere hug. Yuri did her best to keep her own breathing steady as she held her sniffling friend close. She wanted to say something to comfort her, but the words just wouldn't come. In reality, Yuri was a bit shaken as well simply because of how sudden Sayori's breakdown had occurred. So, she just tried her best to remain calm as she gently started rubbing the toddler's back. This was ironically more of an attempt to soothe her own anxiety, as she wasn't exactly able to play with her hair or her sleeves at the moment. Regardless, it proved to be a good choice, as Yuri could feel Sayori's sniffling starting to die down.

Eventually, Yuri let out a relieved exhale. The sudden rush of adrenaline had dissipated, so she could go about things much easier now.

"A-A-Are y-you okay?" She asked, looking at the toddler in her arms. Lifting her head, Sayori looked back up at Yuri. Despite her eyes being stained with tears, she gave a tiny nod.

"I-I…I think so…" Sayori thought. Though her head felt slightly dizzy still. "I-I'm sorry Yuri…" Sayori's expression became saddened as she thought this.

Yuri's heart sank at the mentally exhausted look on Sayori's face, and she bit her lip as she thought for a moment. She glanced over to Natsuki and took note that the pink haired girl had dozed off once again. "I-I… I think I have an idea," Yuri said, looking back to Sayori. Sayori perked up a tiny bit at these words, and she watched as Yuri opened Duskbell back up and removed the bookmark. Yuri took a shaky breath in and exhaled before she quietly cleared her throat. "Ch-Chapter four," she said, reading aloud. Sayori was a bit taken back by this, nevertheless she sat contently in Yuri's lap, listening as she read aloud. Yuri's voice was quiet and shaky for the first couple paragraphs, however Sayori could hear her relaxing more and more as she kept reading.

Monika entered the Literature Club classroom some time later. Her face held a small look of defeat as she kept thinking about how she could do nothing to fix the game files. Well, almost nothing. Monika's thoughts kept bringing her back to the strange file that had suddenly appeared earlier. She had planned to go back and double check it a little later, though for now she wanted to see how her friends were doing. Walking in, Monika immediately noticed Natsuki dozing off on the floor near the closet. The club president frowned slightly at this and walked over to her. She instinctively removed her own backpack, opening one of its pockets and pulling a protein bar from it. She knelt down and gave Natsuki a few gentle taps on the shoulder to wake her up. Natsuki grumbled a bit, her magenta eyes barely opening to see Monika holding the protein bar out to her. Any remaining bit of sleepiness vanished from Natsuki as she glared up at the club president. Despite appearing angry, Natsuki's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment and shame as she practically ripped the protein bar from Monika's hand. She hastily tore the wrapper open and stuffed the bar into her mouth, keeping her face hidden from Monika as she did. Monika just kept her feigned smile and pretended nothing was wrong as she turned to face Yuri. Though deep down the club president felt awful. That was another thing: Monika technically could edit the game files and potentially make her friends' lives a bit better. But the idea of somehow messing the game up beyond repair terrified her. So instead, Monika tried to make up for it in the best way she could.

Yuri sat at her desk; her eyes glued to her book as usual. Sayori lay in her lap, sucking her thumb as she slept soundly.