Chapter 7: Festival Debate

Monika's POV

I do the usual morning preparations that I normally do on a school day. But today is a little bit different. It's the school festival! Another chance to show what the literature club is all about... I have to put on my best smile for this day. After all, we have too many factors going for us here. All of my club members have been doing exponentially well in preparations for this... Especially Markus.

I sigh a bit as I head to my desk. Markus... He is basically the vanguard that we needed. Last year I wanted the festival event to succeed, but some... Complications came up in the event itself. Ultimately we all blew our chance on ever getting any new members. I cringe a bit as I think back to that fateful day. It was one that I'm sure all of us want to leave behind us. But this year, things will be different. I just know they will be.

I open my pristine notebook and look at my latest poem. One that I've been slowly working on over the past two days. I decided to call this poem "A New Page." A fitting title because at this point, I just want to leave the past and escape to the future.

That's where he comes in...

Despite only knowing Markus for a week or so, I can already feel that romantic spark between is, even if its very small. I know for a fact that he feels the same way and if anything, he is a very valuable asset to the club. I mean, when I hung out with Markus during the weekend, I only felt at ease. He's so easy to talk to and you can let go of all your struggles then and there, even if only for a little bit.

After getting to know all of the girls last year, I can safely say that I'm not alone in this. We all are struggling right now. And if anyone is going to help us, its him. And that's why I wrote this poem for him. To show that I truly care about him and maybe, just maybe, we can be a little more closer...

...Unless the girls have made a move on him first. I shudder at the thought. Would they really make a move like that? Yuri is too shy and Natsuki might come off as a little abrasive. And Sayori talks more about happy things... usually. It's rarely about romance with her.

I glance at the clock, seeing that it's 6:15AM. I should shoot the girls a private message to meet me at the school early. A plan formulates in my head as I put my notebook in my backpack. If anyone can help, it's him.

I sit at the front of the club room as I view all of the pamphlets on the desks. If I can be blunt here, I'm a little nervous about how today is going to pan out. That's what sucks about being the popular girl. Always have to maintain a confident smile and I always have to be perfect. I sigh as I rub my temples.

One of these days I'm going to snap...

I hear the door open and I look up at who entered. Natsuki is bringing in the trays, covered in foil. "Alright, I'm here. What's up? The event doesn't start for a good thirty minutes."

"We should wait for the others." I say digging into my backpack and pulling out my notebook. "Trust me, it's important." Natsuki shrugged at that as Sayori walked into the room, with Yuri close behind. "Hello friends, take a seat please. I have something I want to discuss." Yuri sat down next to Natsuki while Sayori went for a cupcake.

"Hey!" Snapped Natsuki. "Those cupcakes are for the visitors."

Sayori already had a bit of icing on her face. "Sorry... It's just 'sho good!"

I turn to face Sayori. "I see you are in a good mood today. Care to explain why?"

Sayori looked at me and her enthusiasm dropped a bit. "Uh... I'm not entirely sure."

"I have my hypothesis. Let's admit this girls..." I stare at the face with a bit of a dreamy smile. "Isn't Markus the best thing that happened to this club...?" Yuri wore a expression of shock while Sayori still looked away. Natsuki, however, was fuming.

"And what's THAT supposed to mean?" She says while crossing her arms.

"You three can't be oblivious to it. He's hung out with all of us and wasn't turned off from our problems. Markus is one of the most open-minded people I know and-"

Natsuki put a hand up to stop me from talking. "Quit acting like a yandere, Monika. You can't possibly have a crush on someone that you have barely known!"

I turn to face Sayori. "Hey Sayori, tell me... How exactly did you feel when you hung out with Markus?"

She looked up at me with a smile. "It felt... nice. Having my emotions bottled up for so long and then I can have a shoulder to cry on. Markus made me feel like my rain clouds were nonexistent." Her smile dropped a bit. "Our time together was nice, to say the least. I wouldn't mind sharing some more time with him." Satisfied with that answer I turn to Yuri, who had her eyes closed and was lost in thought.

"Yuri, we all know about your little..." Yuri looks embarrassed and turns away while twiddling some hair. "Um... 'weirdness.'" I didn't want Yuri to feel any more uncomfortable than she already is. "But how did you feel while hanging out with him?"

Yuri took a second to gather her thoughts. "I really, really enjoyed his time..." She said with a light sigh. "While working on that banner, we had a really good rhythm while doing it. Not to mention, he wasn't turned off by my apparent interest in knifes." She went back to playing with her hair. "He even liked how I gave my knifes names..."

I can see Natsuki mumbling. "Oh yeah, I forgot that you did that..."

Yuri began to speak again. "Markus is very accepting... maybe he can... uh..." She hid her face behind her hair while Natsuki looked at her in shock.

"Even you Yuri!?"

I squint towards Natsuki. "Oh come on Natsuki. You had to of lowered your guard around him."

Natsuki looks away in thought. "Well... I'm not gonna lie, it is fun to tease him... And he knows how to take and dish jokes..." She then blushed and looked away. "I-I mean-"

I decide to intervene. "What if he had the ability to help you through your struggles. You know who I'm talking about..." Natsuki frowned and closed her eyes. "At least give him a chance, would you?"

Natsuki looked at me with a curious expression. "And what about you? Why are you drawn to him?"

I blush and giggle a bit. "When I hung out with him, I felt like I can show my faults. Being the popular girl in school meant... a lot. From a outsider perspective, it sounds like the perfect life." My smile shifts a bit. "But in reality, its all about perfection and meeting high expectations." My smile now fully fades, and my eyes start to water a bit. "He didn't treat me as some high ranked student. He treated me as... normal."

I begin to silently sob a bit as Sayori embraced me in a hug. "It's okay Monika..." She says softly in my ear. "We can see how Markus would mean a lot to you."

Natsuki's expression softens as she speaks up. "So... What now? We all want to spend time with him... e-even me."

I wipe the tears from my eyes and look at the girls. "Well... I was thinking about... uh..." Oh boy, this is going to be a little difficult to bring up. How would the other girls react? "As a trial run, we could all... date him...?" My voice sounds a bit shaky at the end.

Natsuki and Sayori both went wide-eyed. "WHAT!?" Both of them screamed, the former being a little louder. Yuri, however was deep in thought at my idea.

"So you want to practice polygamy then?" Yuri says with a strange glint in her eyes.

Natsuki squinted at Yuri. "Poly-what?"

Yuri straightens herself and turns to Natsuki. "Polygamy. The basic gist of it is when a romantic relationship has more than two people in it." Yuri looks at me. "In our case, we would all date Markus... I-If we were do this, that is."

Natsuki frowns at this idea of mine. "So it's like a open-relationship then?"

Yuri nods. "Something to that affect, yeah."

I look at the clock and see that it's close to the time that the festival would begin. "We got ten minutes. Markus should be here any second now." I turn to face the club mates. "Just... Give it some thought, okay? I know this suggestion is sudden, but I don't want Markus to cause a rift in our friendship. If we all end up liking him, it's going to leave the remainder of us feeling left out. Sayori looks lost in thought at all of this info as Yuri begins to remove the foil off of her cupcakes.

"Let's just get this crap over with."

Markus' POV

I wake up, stretch, and enter the shower, I have no time to lose after all. Today is the school festival and some parts I'm looking more forward to than others. I'm still a little nervous to present my poem in front of a crowd of strangers, but I get to hang out with Monika afterwards! Such a kind gesture from a beautiful young lady... I'm getting nervous jitters just thinking about how today will go. But I have nothing to fear with Monika by my side.

I throw on my uniform and get my backpack and the now, fully dried banner. I'm still quite happy about how this turned out. I check my phone to see if there's any updates from anybody. I got one new message from Sayori.

Sayori: Hey Markus. I'm going to the club early today to speak with Monika.

Ah, okay. Looks like I'm walking to the school on my own today. And yes, I'm skipping breakfast today. After all, I want a empty stomach so that I can eat all kinds of food that they are serving at the festival.

I looked at the schools website and it displayed what exactly the event will be like. It starts out as a 'open house' for clubs and then after a hour, it turns to heading outside the school and seeing all the games you can play, and snacks you can eat. I wonder if there's any fried squid, that way I can impress Monika with a joke and be all like 'Mon-ika' or some crap like that. ...But really though, that joke wouldn't work here, would it?

I approach the building and enter it. I got two more long flights of stairs ahead of me as I glance to see the students talking about what club they would like to join. Amongst the crowd I see a group of three people hanging around the literature club poster.

Wait, is that...

I slowly walk up to them to see if my eyes are deceiving me. Unfortunately, the sight is just as bad as I thought. They were pointing and laughing, with one of the guys saying, "Who would even want to join that stupid club?"

Look, okay? To each their own with this type of thing but these three boys have no reason to be shit talking this club. It boils my blood to see people being so... so...

Those jerks...

I clench my fists out of anger. And then I slowly let my fingers loosen up. Its not worth getting mad. Maybe just a level-headed talk is what they need.

"Hey." I said keeping my voice calm. The three boys turned to look at me.

"Well, what do we have here?" The tallest boy said. "You ruining our fun?"

I clear my throat and speak up. "I don't find it okay that you are making fun of this club. It's very heartless..."

The tall boy scoffed. "Yeah okay..." He pointed his finger at me. "Listen here, kid." I narrow my eye. I don't like where this is going... "The literature club is the biggest laughing stock of this school. The biggest joke ever to be made. There's a reason why no one wants to join such a mindless club like that one."

I feel my fists start to form again. Mindless? Do they have any idea what literature is about. "I'd watch what you say there." I say trying to be threatening. I can't help but notice that a crowd is beginning to form around us. "How could anyone think that the literature club is a joke?"

The two smaller boys began to snicker a bit, while the tall one spoke up. "You must be new around here..." He walks up to me and grabs me by the shirt collar. Even though he isn't that much taller, I'm guessing he's doing this to make a point. "Get this through your skull, okay. All the other clubs in this school have activities that are actually worth doing, and can fully grab the attention of many. What the hell can the literature club do?"

"U-Uh..." My throat begins to feel dry as I try to struggle with a response. I do have a rebuttal, but the situation is very tense.

The tall boy dropped me and he snapped his fingers at the other two. "Grab that poster and destroy it." The two boys nod and they both tear down the poster and rips it in half. "That poster is what you will end up looking like... If you get in our way again..." He laughs at this and walks away, with the other two boys following close behind him. The crowd began to disperse but I still feel a little uneasy.

I look down at the ripped poster and sadness consumes my body. God dammit, no... I'm sorry I let you down Sayori. The one thing that Sayori wanted and I couldn't even manage. God, I'm pathetic... Had I just stand up for the literature club's defense, this could of been avoided. I grab the two pieces of the poster and head up to the clubroom with a feeling of despair. A part of me wants to hide the wreckage that came from that... but the girls deserve to know what happened at least.

I trudge up the stairs in defeat as I approach the clubroom. I fear Sayori's sad face when she finds out that our work got ripped up. Needless to say, seeing her sad again is not something I would care to see.

I open the club room and get greeted by Monika. "Hello Markus! How are you doing today." She looks down at what I am holding and I look away to avoid her expression. "Uh oh..." I hear her mutter.

Natsuki stood next to Monika. "Finally, you arrived. For a second I thought-" She also saw the ripped up poster and my somber expression. "Markus... What happened?" She asked, clearly getting angry at the sight of what I'm holding.

I look towards the girls. "It was this group of jack-assess. They claimed that the literature club was just a joke in the eyes of the school, even though it clearly isn't. I'm sorry girls..." Monika embraced me in a hug.

"It's alright Markus. You didn't get hurt, after all." I look at Sayori, who I'm worried for the most. I have a deep feeling that she would be sad at this and after seeing what I am holding her facial expression proves me right.

"S-See what I mean Markus? I-It wasn't g-good enough..." Tears start to fall from her face as I drop the poster and put my hands around her. "It wasn't the posters, Sayori. It was that group of closed-minded individuals." Her sobbing drowns out my talking as I hold her for a little bit longer. I glance at the other members and I can tell from their faces that they are feeling quite sympathetic for her.

Monika leaned in towards Natsuki. "See what I mean here? Markus clearly cares about our problems. He... gets us." I have a feeling like I wasn't meant to hear them whispering. But at this point I don't care. All my priorities are right now is holding Sayori and making her feel better.

We put together some desks and put the cupcake tray in the middle of it. After a little bit of waiting there were unfortunately no visitors bothering to even look at what this club has to offer.

Monika looked up with a sad smile. "Okay everyone... It looks like no one wanted to even bat a eye at this club... Sorry for wasting everyone's time."

I rub Monika's back a bit. "It's okay Monika. I mean, we got some kick ass cupcakes out of it so that's something..." I attempt at uplifting the mood but it doesn't seem to be working. Everyone's spirits are still pretty low. Hell, even Natsuki didn't say anything regarding my compliment to her.

Monika pulls out her notebook and turns to a specific page. "Hey Markus...?" She asks softly. "I made you something." I look at the notebook and I see a poem.

"A New Page, huh?"

She nods. "I know we haven't known each other for long, but whenever I'm with you I feel like I can be... myself. I know it might sound silly but-"

I cut her off. "It's not silly. If anything, I'm glad that you can be yourself around me. Getting to hang out with the real Monika makes even the smaller moments worthwhile. Everyone smiles at my gesture. "Now, lets see what this poem is about..."

I pick up the notebook and silently read it. It's surprisingly 'mixed' in a way. She managed to weave simplistic, cute words in it, with more abstract and in-depth words. The poem even had a bitter-sweet tone to it. It's obvious what this poems meaning is once I get done reading it.

"You just want to let loose of the past, huh?" I ask her with a more serious tone. She nods silently at me. "I can... u-uh..." I start to stutter a bit as I'm having problems getting my thoughts straight. "Well, if there's a-anything you want me to do for you, or rather for any of you, then please ask me. I would love to help any way I can."

"Well..." Monika takes back the notebook and puts it in her backpack. "Here's the thing. We were thinking if we could try..." She holds her breath a bit. "Some polygamy..."

...Wait what?

"Uh... What do you mean?"

Yuri looks at me with a curious expression. "Basically, if we all could, u-uh... date you?"

...WHAT!?

My face turns a deep shade of red as I look away. "I-I don't really know how to respond."

Sayori gives me a soft smile. "It's okay Markus. We know this is a little sudden. I mean, we are still trying to adjust to this idea even."

Monika grabs me by my hands. "I know this is sudden but we kind of sort of want to... try it a bit."

Natsuki cuts in here. "Speak for yourself! I'm still not a hundred percent on board with dummy here dating all of us."

Yuri twiddles her hair a bit. "I mean... this could work out. If we work out a schedule and arrange certain time frames... Things could go smooth sailing..." She realizes she's starting to ramble a bit. "W-Well, I mean, i-its up for h-him to decide after all."

Monika grabs Natsuki's attention. "Think of it this way: you will always have someone to read your manga with you." Natsuki's face turns red a little bit. "If you are ever dealing with, well..." She whispers something to Natsuki. "...then Markus will be there to help you."

Natsuki crosses her arms, but not out of anger. "Alright... fine. I'll try this whole polygonal thing out."

Yuri raises her index finger. "Actually it's pronounced-"

"I didn't ask, Yuri!"

I chuckle at their antics going on, with Monika squeezing my hands. "So Markus, are you on board with this?" I look at all four of the girls with different looks across all of them. I've never dated anyone before in my life, and now I'm going to date four at once... Dreams really can come true. But putting aside myself for a moment, I see that all four of the girls have their... issues that they need to work out. And I'm going to be there to help them. Every step of the way if I have to.

"Alright... I'm in."

"Yay!" Sayori rushed up to me and met me with a hug from behind. "I'm so happy you're so willing to go with this."

Monika decided to join in on the hug. "I promise you Markus, we will make this worthwhile."

Yuri approaches us and figures out how to wrap her arms around us. Eventually she figures it out. "Thanks for making me embrace my weirdness, Markus..." She mutters my name at the end.

We all look at Natsuki, waiting for her to get up and join. Eventually she rolls her eyes. "Oh, what the hell?" She hugs all of us. "Hey, dummy? Don't make me regret this, alright."

I chuckle a bit "I'm no miracle worker, but I do like to uphold my end of the promise."

Monika digs in her bag to retrieve her notebook, except this one is different. It's pink instead of the black and white color scheme. "If we are going to make this work, we need to create a schedule." She clicked her pen and began to draw out a table, making a row of days at the top, and making a column of names on the left." I begin to realize how this could take up the whole day, meaning we would be missing out on the festival.

"Hey, Monika? What about hanging out during the festival."

She winked at me. "Don't worry about that. We have all the time to hang out once we get this schedule made." The girls began to chat about which days and time periods they want to spend time on. I lean back in my chair and close my eyes with a smirk.

Interesting year indeed...