Our Reality (Doki Doki Literature Club!)

Downtime

The sun beamed down on the shores of Waikiki beach, but even that was not enough to light the dark clouds in Jomei's mind. He absent-mindedly finished the rest of his soda and thoughtlessly slammed it on the bar's counter.

"What's eating you pal?" the bartender asked.

"What makes you think something's eating me?" he asked back.

"Well, you're drowning your sorrows in soda at a bar," she pointed out. "And that's not even getting into you just slamming the empty can down without even realizing it."

Normally, such a remark would get a chuckle out of Jomei, but his current state of mind would not allow that. After quickly downing another can of soda, he slid out of his seat and returned to the beach outside.

"Time to get to work," Jomei said as he glanced at his surroundings. Suddenly, his eyes widened with shock as they beheld something he never thought he would see again. "Huh. That's interesting."

What he saw still wasn't enough to improve his mood, but while Jomei was afflicted with negative emotions, his son was experiencing their polar opposites as e walked home.

"It's a really nice feeling when you buy new art supplies," Shujinkou happily thought. "Then again they didn't have everything I needed so I got to get the rest of it online."

He continued his stroll home until something commanded his body to stop. Without turning around, Shujinkou retraced his steps back a few feet and turned to his right. There was a young lady laying on top of the nearby grass, staring up at the sky.

"Kiyoko?" Shujinkou called.

The girl immediately looked up at him. Upon confirming who spoke to her, she waved and flashed him a friendly smile.

"Hey, Shujinkou. What brings you around these parts?" Kiyoko asked.

"I was just heading home," he answered, scratching his right cheek. "What are you doing here?"

Kiyoko's head turned back to its found position, her eyes once again glued to the sky.

"I'm just enjoying some downtime," she answered.

"Downtime?" he repeated.

"Yep. It's always nice to have some downtime and just relax. Summer's one of the best downtime periods around."

"She does look relaxed," Shujinkou acknowledged in his head. "If that's how she feels, maybe that's why she's half-asleep a lot in class. But I wonder just how relaxed she is right now?"

As if called upon by his thoughts, a single bird flew down and perched itself on Kiyoko's head.

"Oh... That relaxed..." he stared in disbelief at the sight in front of him. It was strange, but it was almost as if he was getting lazy vibe from the basketball player. He continued to watch her as the girl sat up and motioned the bird to perch on her right pointer finger. She then whistled a short tune that prompted the bird to happily sing with her. Seeing all of this caused one word to escape from his thoughts, "Wow."

"Hm? 'Wow' what?" Kiyoko queried.

"It's just..." Shujinkou scratched his right cheek as he pondered the right way to answer the question. "It's just that I've never seen a bird so comfortable around a high school student or the student not freaking out about it at all in real life."

"Well, I don't really care that he/she decided to spend its downtime with me," she casually replied.

"And how do you know how to bird whistle?"

"I learned it from one of Yoki's songs."

"Yoki? You know about Yoki too?"

"Yeah. She's that popular mystery idol. You a fan?"