Our Reality (Doki Doki Literature Club!)

Countdown to Devil's Night Part 5

Monika stared intently at her phone. She felt nothing but intense regret as her eyes zeroed in on the name at the top of her contact log.

Next to name was a number: 10

That was how many times she called Shujinkou in this evening. But despite all her attempts, she was only able to reach his voicemail.

"I'm pretty sure Shujinkou's mad at me right now..." Monika lamented.

"I'm fairly certain that he isn't."

A hand soon placed a cup of tea in front of her. Monika appreciated Yuri's attempt to comfort her, but she knew her was just saying that. It was clear from Yuri's face that she wasn't sure how Shujinkou felt towards anything right now.

"I concur with Yuri," a playfully posh voice interjected.

Claudette soon stepped out of the kitchen, extending her pinky as she took a sip of her tea. The voice, complimented with her refined movements and actions was a very roundabout way of how highly she thought of Yuri's tea.

"Besides, didn't you once tell me that Shujinkou never gets mad?" she recalled.

"Not that I ever seen, but..."

Monika's mind flashed back to her brief conversation with Shujinkou earlier that day. Her vain attempt at trying to dissuade him from doing anything that could make his current mental state worse not only failed, but also resulted in him revealing something eye-opening.

"Did he yell at you?" Claudette questioned.

Her younger cousin shook her head. "No..."

"Did he look at you with disdain?"

"No."

"Okay... What did he say?"

"Can't tell you."

"So he threw something in your face."

Claudette paused and thought about what she said. "I only met him twice and that just doesn't sound right."

"I agree with that, Monika..." Yuri said. "I don't feel like he was trying to do that at all. I feel like he was just stating his reason why he couldn't stop. That said, it's very possibly that he believes in the possibility that he did in fact throw something personal like that in your face out of spite."

"Oh... I get it now..." Claudette sat down next to her cousin and looked deeply into her eyes. "It's not so much that you're worried that he may be mad at you; it's that you're frustrated with yourself too right?"

Monika remained silent. "...I definitely feel like I said a really ignorant thing. Wouldn't it make sense if I said something that hit too close to ho-?"

Claudette instantly clapped her free hand over Monika's mouth.

"No, no; I'm stopping you right there," she said. "You're doing that high schooler thing."

Unable to speak, Monika could only ask for clarification using her eyes.

"You're taking a situation and molding it to justify your feelings. To clarify, you've been feeling down and frustrated lately too, but some part of you is telling you that you shouldn't. So, another part of you is desperately searching for something to justify those feelings and clearly you took the thing with Shujinkou as your justification."

Claudette removed her hand from over Monika's mouth. "Your response?"

"Even if I said wasn't that bad, I don't really feel like I was any position to say anything," Monika sighed. At least Shujinkou is trying to do something about everything that's happening... like usual."