Waiting For Ribbons In The Void

Cupcakes

Streetlights in the suburban area were already starting to flicker on as Yuri and Natsuki left the quaint, hole-in-the-wall bookstore. The two girls were headed to Natsuki’s house where they planned to bake cupcakes for their meeting with the Anime Club the next day.

Natsuki was giddy as she went over their plans for the Anime Club meeting again with Yuri, but the quiet bookworm had her thoughts elsewhere.

Yuri’s purple eyes wandered to the nighttime suburb and to the swathes of nondescript people who were homebound as well.

Their world really was expanding, Yuri thought.

When they took a turn at an intersection right before Sayori’s and the Protagonist’s houses, neither Yuri nor Natsuki had to unrender their sprites like they used to.

Instead, they simply kept on walking.

The path continued seamlessly too as the girls drew further and further away from the main road that they saw in the ‘residential.png’ background image.

Natsuki noticed her vice president’s wandering eyes, so she smiled as she recounted,

“You know, Yuri, Monika and Sayori told me something after we had dinner together last night. They said that one of the goals they had in mind was to keep this digital world of ours going. This is just a guess… but maybe giving everyone sprites like this and rendering everything - and I mean, everything - is part of that.”

Yuri thoughtfully hummed and pondered for a moment before she decided to agree,

“That may be a reasonable assumption, Natsuki. Populating the world with sprites like this does, at least, give the image of a world coming to life. We do have our lives outside of the Literature Club that were only implied in the game, after all… like my collection of knives, and...”

As Yuri was speaking, she and Natsuki passed by a small house. There, a nondescript father was coming home to his nondescript wife and to their nondescript little daughter. The three figures cheerfully held hands as they went inside their home together as a family.

Natsuki watched that family with longing eyes, but she didn’t say a word.

As soon as the two girls passed by that house, the club president turned her eyes back to the road. Then, she changed the topic and started talking about the cupcakes they were going to bake again as if nothing had happened.

The shy bookworm, however, still felt the longing air hanging around Natsuki.

Yuri walked closer to the club president and thought about what she could do to reassure her. The tall girl wondered if she should reach out and hold Natsuki’s hand, but she hesitated.

Before Yuri could muster the courage to try again, however, Natsuki stopped in her tracks and Yuri followed suit.

The vice president then saw that they had reached the end of the road. There was a small, bungalow-type home that was dwarfed by all the other two-story houses nearby.

The pink-haired girl folded her arms and proudly introduced,

“We’re here, Yuri - my house. It’s getting late, so let’s get cracking on those cupcakes~!”

...

...

Yuri and Natsuki let themselves into the one-story home and they head straight for the kitchen.

Just like the house itself, the kitchen was quite small but there was a coziness to it that Yuri couldn’t put her finger on. The equipment that she found there were a little old, but they were well-maintained and well-used.