Doki Doki!

Chapter 3

Natsuki POV

"So, you want me to join your club?"

"Yeah. I just need you to sit around. You don't need to do anything, just be there." I said, crossing my arms. The friend I am talking to is named Aya. She is where I learned how to be tough to prevent being hurt. I also think that despite her ignorant and foolish actions, maybe she knew a bit more about me than she lets on. Oh. There I go again, talking to nothing.

"How long will the club last?" She rose her eyebrow.

"Well, usually like 45 minutes. The club is pretty new and this is the first time Monika made a club, so we meet daily until we can decide what we are more comfortable with." Actually, we never bothered to discuss club times. Sure, I like it this way. Any method to stay far from home is one I enjoy, but I just assume that Yuri doesn't have much else to do, Sayori would just go with everything if nobody else minded, and Monika wouldn't take action unless she was getting too stressed.

"... you owe me." Aya said. I let out a tense sigh I didn't know I was holding.

"Alright. It's in the classroom right there." I pointed to the classroom on the other side of the hall. "See you there." I walk away, going to the place where I usually get the few morsels of lunch I eat. Luckily, I don't have to be late to class because she was easier to convince than I thought. Maybe she heard some desperation in my voice. Who knows?

I recently went wandering around the school after a club meeting to look for places that had little marks of students walking and eventually came upon a stairway with a vending machine that nobody seemed to have noticed, judging from the lack of smears, trash, or really anything other than a restocked vending machine. If I had to guess, there's just a janitor who slacks off here and their slacking causes them to put care into restocking this thing. As I was about to make it to the machine, I mindlessly drifted my eyes at the stairs next to the machine, and saw something I wasn't expecting. It was Yuri, sitting on the staircase. She had her knees up and was covering her face with her arms, clearly crying, as she shook slightly from time to time. I froze when I saw her, as I didn't know what to do in this situation. Eventually though, I guess I made some subconscious noise or Yuri wanted to make sure nobody saw her like this, because she looked up, and her reddened eyes looked at mine.

"O-oh, I'm s-sorry... I d-didn't know someone else w-*hic* would be here... I'll go..." She tried to stand up, but was doing so slowly.

"Uh, hey, Yuri, it's okay... you can stay." I tried to say it in a polite tone. Yuri looked at me for a few seconds, before sitting down again, going back to her previous state, but noticeably more rigid. Of course, I couldn't just act like she wasn't there, but I was terrible at comforting!

... but seeing Yuri curled up in a ball made her look so... vulnerable?

I decided to act against all of my usual actions, and sit next to her.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" I ask. She freezes, but eventually speaks.

"N-no, i-it's f-f-fine... I j-just h-have had a l-lot of pressure b-building up in my l-life... I guess I just... snapped?" I pat her back. She flinched at it, but didn't protest.

"Yeah, I get it, y'know? You might not believe it, but I have a lot of things in my life stressing me out. Usually, I do what you are doing right now, but I think that having someone to talk to might help you." Yuri didn't say anything. "...or, I guess I could leave. I understand if you aren't comfortable with me..." I chuckle slightly. The hell am I doing, anyway?

"No... I-it's okay... a-actually, I, uh, s-sorta feel better...?"

"Eh?"

"W-well, uh, I mean, I guess i-it's nice to have s-someone w-willingly sit next to me? U-uh, t-that didn't sound right... Uuu..."