Our Reality (Doki Doki Literature Club!)

Countdown to Devil's Night Part 2

Shujinkou sighed as he followed his mother into their home. Everything that has happened today has left him drained both physically and mentally.

Lacking his usual hesitance due to his ragged state, Shujinkou announced aloud, "It's official, Mom."

Hiro glanced back with a curious look on her face. "What's official?"

It was then when his missing hesitance kicked in. He felt like kicking himself, but also felt as if he needed to get this off his chest. But deciding whether he should actually do so or not was a struggle.

Not only what he could potentially say next would be extremely awkward, but it could also change the way his mother looked at him forever.

Oh, forget it.

He took a deep breath and admitted, "I have officially become a pervert."

He expected an 'energetic' reaction from his mother, but she didn't say a word. She simply stood there, as if she was trying to understand what he meant.

"What makes you say that?" Hiro finally asked.

"Well... I was kinda... eyeing the others." Shujinkou timidly answered.

"'Eyeing'?"

"Yeah, you know... the places guys would usually look at."

An extremely worried look crossed his mother's face.

"The common ones! Up and Down!" Shujinkou frantically corrected.

Those words only made the worry on his mother's face much more blatant.

"Legs and chest! Legs and chest!" Shujinkou shrieked.

"Oh." Hiro breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't expect her to be fully relieved by his correction, but it was better than the alternative. "Well, normally I would give the standard 'you're a young man and it's natural to be curious', but..."

"But?"

"I'm fairly certain that wouldn't make you feel better..." she weakly chuckled. "Plus, I don't really understand men in general so I wouldn't know what would be the right thing to say here."

"Fair enough."

Shujinkou scratched his right cheek. He felt like he should've known that this would have been a tough subject for his mother to try and navigate him through.

"But..." Shujinkou's ears perked up as he prepared to listen to what his mother had to say. "Even though I don't know men well, I'm pretty sure I know my son well enough. And I'm sure you wouldn't do that if the opportunity presented it to you. Plus, it's clear that this bothers you more than a pervert would be bothered, if at all, so... What's the whole story?"

Shujinkou continued to scratch his right cheek, harkening back to the events of this afternoon.

"Well, after Monika finished bandaging my head, I found myself sneaking looks. I don't know why; I didn't even know I was doing it until it finally hit me that I was or my hand hit me to get me to stop," he explained.

"So that's where the handprint came from..."

Hiro recalled the hand shaped mark she found on his son's face when they met at the hospital. She didn't realize it was self-inflicted.

"You probably shouldn't have done that with a hurt head," she pointed out.

"Monika said the same thing..." Shujinkou awkwardly chuckled. "But I felt like I deserved it for doing that. I mean, they're my friends; I shouldn't be looking at them like that. I shouldn't really be looking at any female like that."