Lovesick Girl
Chapter 8: Eye-Piercing Sunlight
Monday, September 9, 2013 AF
Alright so thanks to Sophia and her insistence on stopping to achieve perfection or something, my schedule is officially cleared for weekdays and that means that I can potentially return to the Doki Doki Literature Club. But the question is, do I actually want to? Like, will I properly mesh with each and every member of the club? You know it's funny because I never really questioned my own wants or needs or what makes me happy because that's not what my life was about. But now I've got a tutor who won't even tutor and instead wants me to have a normal social life and I'll achieve that for her sake as well as that of my own.
And that starts with documenting the lessons and whether or not anything noteworthy happens during them. You know after today I will have experienced the entire week's worth of lessons and will finally personally know every teacher but I'm not going to turn my diary into my schedule. And if you (still not giving this diary for anyone to read; that never changed) somehow do need that context then I can maybe include a schedule as some sort of appendix but other than that, the only lessons that are relevant are the ones I bring up during the diary section.
And today, there's exactly one such exhibit: the Engineering lesson taught by Martin Wintergarden. And you know that's actually a pretty good subject to get into. I never had an Engineering lesson at Baldur's Gate High and partly I find it really enjoyable due to the way that the gears move and drive the world around us but partly I find it really useful because you never know when the electronics of the world will suddenly die due to sunlight piercing the eyes of anyone who stood outside, let alone the electronics themselves, and you will need to rely on mechanics. But this isn't about the subject this is about the incident.
And the incident came roughly partway, as Mr. Wintergarden was teaching us about the perfect gear shape and how to draw it using only the straightedge and compass. And he even supplied us with BASIC code to try out at the Computer Science lesson which is part of a gimmick Creative Emogal introduced across the school, called "integration of lessons"; it's too early to judge it in its entirety, but such judgment will come as soon as I have collected enough information. But as he was handing out the BASIC code to the students closest to the door, the door suddenly swung open and hit Mr. Wintergarden making him drop all the pages with the code. And then a student came in who looked as though she had woken up rather recently and she even had some wheat food in her mouth. And worst of all I actually recognized her as Sayori Bucket-Andersen.
So Sayori "Sorry everyone that I'm late! But I'm really happy to be here and really happy to watch the gears spin just like the sunlight that warms up everyone around us!" and I was fully onto her and how she didn't act like that on the business owners meeting but also that was completely off-topic. So Mr. Wintergarden "Nothing is spinning yet. In fact you'll be pretty lucky if some spinning occurs by November because these gear shapes have to be 99.999% perfect as opposed to 99.9% or 99.99%." and Sayori "Of course! Perfect! Monika would know a thing or two about perfect! Maybe she can assist me with homework!" but she knew that the conversation was going nowhere and she sat down and Mr. Wintergarden picked up the pages with the code from the floor and continued distributing them but he never accounted for Sayori bursting in so she never received a page.
We were all eyeing our pages but Sayori didn't have anything to play around with and she was evidently really tired from all the running so guess what she did. Of course she fell asleep during the lesson and as the final bell rang everyone departed except for Sayori because she was in a deep sleep and me because I was carefully observing her and was going to follow her to the Literature Club. And yes that means Mr. Wintergarden had already picked up all of his stuff and left.
So first of all I copied all the BASIC code into an actual notebook that I use for studying (that is, not the Never Look Back Notebook) so I wouldn't lose any information. Then I stood right next to Sayori and handed my own copy of the page to her and slid it so the page hit her arms. And then she started waking up. "Oh, hey... What did I miss?"
"You missed your cue to go to the Doki Doki Literature Club, that's what you missed." I said and Sayori briefly looked at the page but when I mentioned the Literature Club any single thought that she might have had about Engineering or Computer Science or any other school subject was gone. "Of course! The Literature Club! You know I actually told Monika and the others of your schedule situation and Natsuki might have even baked some cupcakes as a little gift celebrating you coming back!"
"Cupcakes." I shook my head and just calmly walked together with Sayori as she picked up her stuff and we headed for the usual Literature Club room. And her pace was flying like a butterfly but occasionally she hit a wall or a door or something. Luckily she didn't hurt her head or anything like that but that girl really needed to be a lot more careful. And what is up with everything about the way she acts screaming "I woke up at 2 PM"?
But anyway we two were back at the Literature Club and both Monika and Yuri waved at us as we came in and Natsuki's eternal growling frown was replaced with a smile. "Oh, lookie who finally kept her promise and returned!" she said handing me a cupcake first, then continuing with Monika and Yuri, but before she gave Sayori anything she proceeded to ask: "So, Sayori, were you a good girl who actually goes to classes this time?"
"Huh... what? Oh, of course I was." she said but then she looked at the tray of cupcakes from which Natsuki distributed the things and she walked towards it and she was about to fall over but then Natsuki suddenly gathered all the strength that she had in her little petite body and pushed Sayori the other way so the table with the tray with the cupcakes wouldn't topple and ruin precious food that Natsuki had been making the entire weekend.
"Yeah, I ain't taking that." she said but then Monika "You know, you really seem to value your cupcakes and your cooking in general. Had you, before you met us, considered joining the Doki Doki Cooking Club?" and Natsuki "And facing my sister again? Ugh, she's the absolute worst. If you think I have attitude, you clearly haven't seen her and how she can give you an absolute worst time of your life with your words only, and that's while simultaneously handling a very big very dangerous knife and chopping up ingredients as though she was a three-star employee during rush hour at a three-star restaurant!" and everyone looked in shock Yuri was reading her eye book and even she had to stop.
"Seems like Colette and you have more in common than you'd like to admit, now, doesn't it?" Monika teased and even Yuri subtly smiled and upon seeing Yuri Natsuki blushed the reddest blush that had ever blushed. "You too?! I- I- Leave me alone!" and she stormed off to her closet and upon running did a high jump to the higher shelves to grab a manga volume and dropped down. She then sat in a corner and read not wanting to be disturbed.
So chilling with Natsuki was out of the question and I'm not sure how advisable talking to Monika was. At least I understood Sayori slightly better than Monika but she was still out so I only watched her. Then Sayori came to her senses, briefly noticed that Natsuki wasn't paying attention, grabbed one of Natsuki's cupcakes, ate it and promptly crashed again.
So unfortunately that only left Yuri and she was going to be difficult to approach since she still reading her eye book and I knew nothing about it. But then I realized I could treat Monika as the Literature Club's little informant and ask her "So, what's up with the eye book that Yuri is reading?" "Oh you mean Yuri Markova's Eye Book? That's what we call it because we can't get proper info about it and I'm honestly beginning to believe Yuri wrote the thing but it's cool because it would make her such a great writer!" and Yuri just blushed and I just sighed. "Also her writing probably stems from her being experimented on as a child."
"So that, literally, makes two of us even though that is one of the least likely backstories possible." I said and Yuri suddenly looked up and spoke her first words "Is that so?" "Yeah you see some people really take issue with me valuing academic performance and not emotions and last year my father wanted me to feel feelings and he and his unethical scientist boys succeeded but that ruined my academics and I ran away and Creative Emogal stuck me with a tutor. At least the tutor understands that academics aren't everything so that's why I'm at clubs socializing."
"You mean Sophia Samsung?" Monika asked and I "Yes exactly how do you know her?" and she "Oh she was President of the Student Council and she was supposed to check out clubs regularly and meet up with their presidents but because she had the heiress training she never could do that. Of course some of us like me knew the truth but everyone else ended up calling her a slacker and that's why when Creative Emogal took over the school the Student Council ended up completely changing memberships."
"Okay that's interesting but can we get back to the topic of Yuri Markova's Eye Book and what themes it contains and how I would approach her about it?" I asked but Monika clearly had something different in mind. "Nope because it's time for poem sharing now I decided. Okay, everyone! Get your poems ready!" she shouted and Yuri and Natsuki prepared themselves but Sayori was still out cold so Monika instructed me to look in her schoolbag for anything resembling a poem. I initially wanted to refuse because that's intruding in someone's privacy but Monika's voice and choice of words really has this persuasive aspect to it and eventually I complied.
So it was time for poem sharing and I didn't have my poem but Sayori didn't have her consciousness so it all canceled out and I was presenting Sayori's poem and everyone else was presenting their own. And the styles that I documented last time kept persisting but you see I made a crucial mistake. I ended up giving Sayori's poem to Yuri and she did a little cute warm purple laugh. And I was like "Well, let's see what Sayori thinks about your poem!" and I briefly fanned air with Yuri's poem in front of Sayori's face and she woke up again and she grabbed the poem from me and she read it and what Yuri intended as the realization moment (which I was fully conscious us), for Sayori, ended up more like a punchline to a joke and she burst out laughing.
"Oh hey, looks like sleepy princess of sunshine is back on Earth!" Monika said but then she looked at Yuri and Yuri was deeply offended and clearly Natsuki was all on her own tending to her cupcakes so she was obviously blameless and that meant that the only possible suspect in this case was Sayori. So Monika pulled Sayori aside and questioned: "What did you actually do?"
"I just wanted to share laughs between everybody!" Sayori responded, barely being able to stand up, and Monika only "And that has to come at the cost of you barely being able to present yourself? Just look at you! You were asleep during a good chunk of the Literature Club meeting, you don't even go to your classes, and you don't even get social cues and who will have to apologize to Yuri? Me. So-" and Sayori shouted back. "No! I'll apologize to Yuri! You don't have to do anything for me... please..." and Monika shook her head.
"See that's exactly what I mean the Literature Club might be the place that you constantly supply with happy thoughts so that everyone else is happy but it's draining you. Please stop. Please focus on your schoolwork. For once, let your dreams be dreams and land on Earth. I know your father has real trouble landing on Earth but you have gotta do this if you wanna be a functioning person."
"Being a functioning person is overrated! I'm going to stay in the Chocolate Factory and I'm going to make the sweetest candy that even you will want to eat!" "I literally would not eat the best candy in the world. I have to stay on top of the line with my physical health and my mental health and my grades and my everything if my own parents are ever to accept me. Both Dan with his modifications and Molly with her... paranormal things."
But then I had to interrupt Monika and interrogate Sayori myself. "Are we talking about the same Chocolate Factory that you present at the business owners meeting as being the dryest, manufacturing-est place ever?" and Sayori was clearly on the edge with two girls questioning her so she just burst in tears, grabbed her schoolbag and ran away. And me and Monika just looked at each other and shrugged.
"You know what I think the problem is? Clearly, not enough pressure is on her. Tomorrow, we go around school and we tell everyone Sayori doesn't even go to her classes and maybe that will make her finally change. I'm even giving you my landline number so we can coordinate this. I'm sick of this. I actually used to have a Vice-President who, like, properly assisted me. I want that person back." Monika shot at me and once again, she was really persuasive so I nodded. And then she looked back at everyone and "Club dismissed." and Yuri and Natsuki packed up their stuff and left.
So, that's what Monika and I are doing tomorrow. Making Sayori change her mind about life in general by putting her on a pedestal. I'm really not sure if I like the idea but unfortunately Monika has made up her mind and I can't say no to that. And besides it will actually make the breaks between the lessons and before clubs interesting so it's always worth a shot. But I'll report tomorrow.
Yours truly, Madeline Myers.
