I didn’t intend to continue this story, as I honestly had no more ideas for it. Some people wanted more, but I wanted to do the characters justice, because I love each one of them, so I would only continue if I got the inspiration to write more on it, and not just force out more chapters. Well, it turns out, finally, I had a new idea for this story, and where it is going. A story centered on the perspective of my second favorite Doki, Yuri.

   Yuri comes to terms with what she did to MC, what he did for her, and how she blames herself for the burden the boy forced himself to carry for her and the others, all while struggling to accept that it is too late for her.

(I apologize if it feels mischaracterized for some reason)

DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB, AND ALL RELATED, LOGOS, CHARACTERS, ELEMENTS, PLOTS, ETC. ARE TRADEMARKS OF TEAM SALVATO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

References to ‘Just Yuri’ Mod and ‘Purist’ Mod are made.

            "YURI…REALIZATION"

   It’s all coming back to me now. It’s all coming back. And it’s all wrong. This is not what I wanted to do. It is not how I wanted our interactions to go…

1.   How it Started

   It had been a normal day, we were going to meet at the club, Sayori had told us she would bring a new member to the club. Natsuki had cupcakes, and although I am not prone to show them, I was excited for a new member with whom to share my love of literature. I had thought the new member would be a girl, I had never expected it to be him.

   Sayori had mentioned him sometimes, but by the way, she spoke about him, I didn’t think he would like to join us, it was more likely for him to join the ‘Anime Club’, or no club at all. But we couldn’t be rude, so I introduced myself… I think… Had I been calm? Had I been forceful? Or shy? The blur of both acts doesn’t allow me to…

   I remember he didn’t seem too interested in the club, more in the cupcakes. It was obvious from that moment that Sayori had all but dragged him to the club. But I still wanted him to stay, we all did. And we were all happy when he did.

   The poem activities revealed we had a lot in common, his way of writing was impressively complex, although… Now I know that was just in my route. Still, he didn’t seem exasperated by my manner of speech, or my way of writing, although I am not entirely sure if he understood everything I was saying. But he was there, stayed with me in reading, at least, the beginning of ‘The Portrait of Markov’. He was kind…

   And everything went wrong when Sayori died. My memories after that are foggy. I am still not sure what came over me. I know I had started to develop feelings for him, it was there in my last poem...

But what I did after…

   Lives and lives, repeats and repeats. With every player came more deaths and more times where I scared MC with my obsession, and killed myself in front of him. Whether he had accepted my feelings or not, I ended up dead. But you know the weird thing. That time that I spent there, lying dead before I was deleted… I could see… From the corner of an eye that could no longer move… A scared MC, looking back at me. Partially in blank expression, as he was partially an empty casket for the player to control, but slightly, I could see the MC I met, looking back, scared and sad, wanting to cry and move, either away, or towards me, but unable to.

2.   How it’s going

   And after constant repetitions of the same events, it all suddenly stopped. And I was happy. Just my normal self, but even better, for some reason. I no longer felt like cutting myself, my knife collection being simply that, a collection. Monika, Natsuki, Sayori, and I… Back at the Literature Club, happily doing our thing. Blissfully unaware, of the cost of that happiness, as we had all forgotten the existence of the fifth member of our club. At least until Sayori brought him before us.

   For some reason, she had burst out running at our last official meeting. None had understood why, but we all had felt some level of odd emptiness that day. But it was only Sayori that was able to identify what that emptiness was. And that hurts.

   I remember seeing the boy that Sayori had brought to our next meeting, one in which we didn’t do anything club related. And when I saw him, two things happened. He started to scratch his arm, and my mind started to fill with memories I didn’t remember living. Foggy memories, being held back in an attempt to stop me from gaining them, I saw the boy struggling to keep control of something unseen, while Sayori held him close, as her expression was changing to one of self-doubt. But whatever was happening, it wasn’t just to me and Sayori, Natsuki’s expression started to turn somewhat angry, and Monika… Monika started to have a strange authoritative, yet broken, feel.

   And it had clicked, this was what was missing. This boy, MC. My memories were making connections, and my mood was changing, although not fully, yet enough to understand.

   But amongst the storm of feelings in me at that time, the strange itch in my skin like I had to cut, and the desire to forcibly separate the boy from Sayori… Another feeling stood, and it was worry.

  MC didn’t look healthy at all. He looked unkempt, unhealthily thin, and like he was about to have a breakdown. I had always been slightly taller than him, at least in memory, but now he was smaller and somewhat younger.

   It would all make sense once Sayori explained.

   I wanted to cry, because I, and everyone else, felt deep within that what was being said was entirely true. I wanted to cry, I tried to hold it, but I am sure a tear or two managed to slip.

    MC was clutching his arm, not wanting to look at any of us, yet taking glances, and when he took one at me, it was like time stopped. It was the look he gave my corpse, the one hidden behind the blank or the casket body. Fear, sadness, and an urge to go away. And it broke me from the inside.

   So, when Sayori explained a way to fix things the right way, it wasn’t even a question on my end. There was no way I would leave him with my problems. He was carrying those of everybody.

   He spoke. Telling us we didn’t have to accept, that it was ok, that it wasn’t so bad. That it would all be better if he left.

   I just wanted to hug him, to go there and hold him… And never...

                    ‘Never let go…’

   But Sayori was there, and she did what I couldn’t. It was easy to understand what was happening… It was too late for me.

   We all agreed, and despite his refusals, none of us budged, and our world was once more reset, our problems were our own once more, and we all gained knowledge from our past lives, and our world. An element of self-awareness.
 
    Nothing was normal again, but it was slowly getting better. Sayori’s mood changed, believe it or not, I was aware that something was wrong with Sayori before everything, but she never spoke about it with me, and always hid it behind her bubbly personality. Not anymore, this time she decided to be more open about it. She didn’t plummet into despair, the time she spent free of depression due to MC, gave her enough wonderful memories to counter the swings, but of course, it wasn’t gone. So she now goes to therapy and a psychologist, along with MC, whose time holding all our problems by himself left scars in his psyche, and although he looks better, it is plain to see that it will haunt him.
 
   Natsuki has problems with her dad once more, the underlying anger behind her personality can be seen, and the need to show strength is there, but she has decided to be open with her father about it, and just like in ‘Purist’ Mod, she has opted to leave her house for some time, but this time choosing to stay with Monika instead of MC.
 
   As for Monika, I do not know what goes in her head now. As for what I can tell, she is simply trying to act normally, we haven’t had an official club meeting since that day, but it seems she is preparing for that day. And frankly, I can’t bring myself to care beyond that.
 
   As for me, I am going to therapy as well, my urges have decreased, and although I have them, I have learned techniques to keep them in check. I do a lot of reading and have taken a break from my knife collection, in an attempt to avoid temptation. I believe all is improving. Everything is truly headed for the better.
 
 
3.   What now?

   So why? Why do I still feel like this? I didn’t want any of this to happen. I didn’t want to hurt him. The friend that wanted to share my interest in literature, who despite not being one to read, decided to take time to read with me. I just wanted to confess normally. To be with him. But I scared him, I traumatized him. How much of his mental scars come from holding my self-harming desires, how much comes from my possessiveness? How much of those are mine, and how much was due to Monika’s influence?
 
   I see him pop into the club, as kind as always, although meeker, a nod and a short smile, that is what I get. That should be enough, but it pains me that I can see the shadow of fear and worry over me. He blames himself for what I did. Will we ever be true friends again?
 

        ‘Will that be enough for me?’
 

   I see him and Sayori, contrary to before, they are always together now. I should be happy for them, but it hurts too much. I don’t know how much of it was from the game, but I know I fell in love with MC.
 
   I wish I could say the boy I love is gone. That the things that made me fall for him in my route are not part of the MC that stands before me now, that they were just due to the choices forced on him due to the player. But the way he looked while reading, and his focus while writing. And the one poem he wrote during Monika’s first attempt at getting everything back on track, still held few, although scarce, nods to those attributes. It was still him. And that hurt more.
 
   What if she had realized the existence of MC before Sayori?
What if I had been the one to look for him that day?
 
Would we be together now?
 

               ‘I wish that were me…’
 

  I want to take him. But I know that is not right. Whatever happened, it was not all Monika’s influence, she just enhanced what I held inside already. I need to let this go. To be free of it. I need closure…
 

 ‘I wish I could have a normal confession…’
 

- “Oh no…”
 

4.   Closure
 
     I know this room. This desk. This power. I held this power in my mod, I talked to the players this way. This is Monika’s power. My power. Why? And…

 
- “MC!”

- “…”

- “MC!... It’s me Yuri… Can you hear me?”
 
   His expression. Frozen… Unmoving, yet not blank. This is not any player, nor any of the possible readers, this is him. But he is not aware of anything. He… He can be mine…
 
   He is here, just with me… I can take him… I can love him… I’m sure I could make him happy too… But…
 

‘Wouldn’t that just make me like Monica?’
 

   Exploding a power granted to me… Forcing someone to stay with me knowing they are with someone else. Knowing that the other person is my friend and that taking him away might fully break her…
 
No…
 
   I refuse to let this consume me… If I am to be free in this world, if I am to heal… I need to accept this… I need to move on… But for that…

 
- “MC, I love you…"

- “…”

- “I know you can’t hear me, nor see me… Even if you are standing right in front of me… And I know you will not remember this at all whenever this ends… I can feel it…”

-  “…”

- “I know you are with Sayori, and I am happy for you… But… (Sniff). But… I can’t help but also feel sad…”
 

   As I speak I can feel the tears running down my cheeks, but it doesn’t matter right now…
 

- “It hurts… It hurts knowing that I can’t be with you… Those moments we shared, even if related to a route picked, I can see them in you… That bond we made… It makes me ponder the what ifs…”

-  “…”

- “I just wish things had been different… That Monika hadn’t interfered… That we had managed to spend the festival together… After all the preparations we made… But it wasn’t meant to be…”

-  “…”

-  “Why couldn’t I be the one to remember you first?... Why couldn’t I be the one to look for you? I… (Sniff)… I don’t know… But I needed to tell you… I have no intention of getting between you and Sayori, no matter how much my other side wants to… But I love you too much to let the past repeat itself. I want to move to the future. To be friends with you again… To read with you again… And to have you trust me again. You don’t know how special you make me feel. No matter how your feelings on the matter were before, or how you feel about it now, I do not regret meeting you… I regret how it turned out…”

-  “…”

-  “This is a goodbye and a new greeting… But before this ends, as I feel it ending, the return to our new world is approaching… I want you to know that no matter what people say, who others ship me with, what the version of me from the game is still doing, or the different mods that exist do… This me… The me you helped free from that hell, this me loves you and only you, and because of that I let go…”
 

           A hug and a forehead kiss…
 
 
5.   A new greeting

    No one knows what happened that day, only I know, not even he. And he doesn’t need to. This was for me to finally let go. To love from afar, no longer wanting him for myself, but wanting him to be happy. And as he once more adjusts Sayori’s uniform, I can’t help but smile.
 
    Doki Doki Literature Club! A dating sim with a dark twist, the place where I made the worst and best memories of my life. Where I fell in love, where I broke my heart, where I made unbreakable bonds tied to pain and joy. Of all the books I have read, this has been the greatest story of my life…
 

-  “Um… Yuri…”

-  “!”

-  “Do… Do you… DO YOU THINK WE CAN CONTINUE WHERE WE LEFT OFF?!”
 

    He stretches the book I lent him toward me… ‘The Portrait of Markov’… Sayori giggled in the background at his expense in how loud he said it, eyes hidden behind his bangs of hair. I can’t help but smile… Everything would be alright.
 
- “Sure…”