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It’s past midnight when Sayori wakes in a cold sweat. She doesn’t know why, exactly, but she feels like something is… wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that her window is open and letting all the cool air in, or maybe it’s the dream she’d been having that she’s already long since forgotten about.
Either way, she’s awake, and it’s a problem.
Naturally, the first thing she does is reach for her phone. Yep; Sayori squints blearily at the screen, confirming the horrific hour of the night-slash-morning that it is. There are a few notifications that pop up when she unlocks it; a couple are normal things, like random reminders that she’d set for herself, or spam texts, but one message in particular catches her eye. It’s from Monika.
‘Sayori, you’re not safe, I need to see you.’ Beneath it are three or four missed calls, explaining the urge Sayori had had to leap into action.
Uh oh. Sayori’s heart begins to hammer as she sits upright, scrubbing at her eyes as she tries to make out when that message had been sent. It seems recent, about half an hour ago? She slips on her duck slippers—yes, they’re inappropriate for the situation, but it’s all she’s got—and slides her phone into her pajama pocket. Gotta go, gotta go, gotta find Monika and figure out what the heck is up. Sayori has her own hunch, always does, but… she doesn’t want to jump to conclusions.
As Sayori quietly tiptoes down the stairs and makes her way outside, she realizes that she doesn’t even know where she’s going. Monika’s house? But… how does she know that Monika is home? Based on that cryptic message, she could be on her way over here, for all Sayori knows. She calls her number quickly, trying not to bite her nails as the ringing noises set her more on edge. She settles for pacing on her front porch.
“Moni?” Sayori asks carefully to the glitchy static on the other end. Her heart continues to pound feverishly in her ribcage, unable to sit still, but she manages to keep her voice level. She squeezes her arm with her free hand, trying to quell the anxiety rippling through her bloodstream in twitchy droves. Before she can speak again, unsure if Monika even heard her, there’s a reply.
“Sayori,” Monika says. She’s shaky. Sayori can hear it through the crappy phone speakers. “Where are you?”
Sayori laughs softly, but this isn’t at all funny to her. She’s scared halfway out of her skin. “Ehe, I was gonna ask you that,” she tells Monika softly. “Are you home? I can come see you. I’m safe, I can show you that I’m safe if you tell me where you are.”
After a long pause and the crackling of a near-silent line, Monika’s voice returns. “N-No, I… I’m not home, I’m… I went to make sure… y-you shouldn’t come here, though,” she starts to trail off, “I don’t want…”
“What don’t you want?” Sayori presses, listening for any background sounds. After a few seconds, she hears the telltale rumble of an engine, as faint as can be. Is Monika near a road? What road would have cars at this hour? So Sayori takes off walking toward the only place she can think of, the highway overpass. She can’t think of where else to go.
“It’s not safe here, I want you to be safe,” Monika rambles, her breathing getting faster as she talks. It’s not safe? “Shouldn’t you be asleep? Oh, gosh—did I wake you up?”
There’s a rush of noise, here and gone before she can make much sense of it. Then there’s a faint beep in the distance.
Sayori shakes her head, moving faster. She’s sure it’s the overpass now. That’s where… “Nope, don’t worry. Just, my dream ended, it woke me up,” Sayori explains hastily. Her jaw is tight. The overpass is where she’d tried to kill herself the previous autumn. Things were bad back then, really, really bad, and she just saw no way out. It’s better now, but… “Why are you up, then? You’re a pretty busy lady, you need your beauty sleep.”
Sayori breaks into a sprint as she draws closer to the overpass. Her stupid duck slippers slap against the pavement, matching the racing of her heart, and she sees Monika there by the guardrails. Cars whizz by, flying past Sayori. She carefully navigates forward, staying close to the sidewalk, and pockets her phone. It’s been months since last time, but it’s so fresh in Sayori’s mind that she’s overcome with a wave of nausea that she forces herself to swallow. When a break in traffic gives her the chance, she sprints across the street.
“Hey,” Sayori says softly, finally reaching Monika. The scene breaks her heart into bits of shattered porcelain. Monika is so visibly stressed, phone still pressed to her ear, her whole body tense. Sayori carefully touches Monika’s hand, moving her phone away from her. “I’m here,” she murmurs, “I’m here, it’s okay. We’re safe, both of us.”
Monika shakes her head, finally bursting into tears that streak her face and stick to her chin. “B-But,” she stammers out, lower lip trembling, “b-but you’re… you’re going to d-die, and I can’t do anything to f-fix it, I saw it, Sayori, I s-saw it!”
The words stab straight through Sayori’s heart. She can’t help thinking back to her attempt, how she’d stood by the ledge staring down, expecting to never go home, never see her friends again. Never feel anything ever again. Yet here she is, by the same overpass, on the other side of the coin.
She remembers that day just as vividly as Monika must. They were both there, after all.
“You don’t have to do this Sayori. Things can be better, I swear! I swear they will. I’ll make sure they will. You can come home.”
“I’m alright, I s-swear,” Sayori promises, wincing at her choice of words and painfully aware of the tears burning at her own eyes. She gently reaches for Monika, terrified to startle her by touching her without asking first; thankfully, Monika moves forward, closer to her and farther from the trucks that rumble past and the abyss of highway below.
Closer…
Closer.
Please, please, just come closer. You can come home.
“I can’t save you,” Monika whimpers, suddenly clinging onto Sayori, gripping the fabric of her pajama shirt like it’s the only thing keeping her on solid ground. Her cries become wails as she sobs, soaking Sayori’s collar straight through. “I can’t save you, I’ve s-seen it, I’ve seen it so many times.”
Sayori, bewildered, hugs Monika tightly and prays that something she says will help. “I’m home now, I’m alive,” she says over and over, rubbing circles into Monika’s back. “I’m here. I promise. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t need saving.” Anymore.
They both lower onto the ground, collapsing in a heap there on the sidewalk, holding onto each other like nothing else in the world could possibly be as important. And maybe that’s true. Sayori doesn’t care. All she cares about is Monika, who is crumbling into pieces right here in her arms.
“What do you mean, you’ve seen it?” Sayori whispers, gently stroking Monika’s hair.
“I m-mean…” Monika shakes her head, sniffling loudly. She swallows thickly and shakes her head again, like she’s unwilling to even get the words up. “It doesn’t m-matter what I do, you always… you always d-die, it happens over, and over, and over, and I just… sometimes I wish…” She pauses, lips parted. “Sometimes I wish it were me.”
Although Monika sounds slightly more rational, Sayori still can’t grasp what she’s saying. Because as far as Sayori is aware, she’s alive and well. She may have had a close call, but… but she’s definitely not dead, and Monika has definitely not seen her die, because that would be a whole separate problem.
“I always think I can stop it,” Monika says mournfully, staring at Sayori with the saddest expression she’s ever seen. “And I c-can’t. I just can’t, there’s nothing I can do. I’m always here. Alone.”
Sayori gingerly holds Monika closer, clinging to every choked up word. She doesn’t bother saying that she’s not dead, because that’s not the point, is it? There’s use harping on the obvious when what matters is Monika. “I’m here,” Sayori reassures her, searching her green eyes for a flicker of acknowledgement. “I’m right here, understand? We can go home. Just… please, come home, Moni.”
“I can’t stop it,” is all Monika says, sounding utterly broken before she falls into Sayori’s grasp, arms around her shoulders, sobbing into her pajama shirt.
“We’re safe,” Sayori murmurs. She rubs circles against Monika’s back, letting her cry. She doesn’t care how long they stand here by the highway. She doesn’t care if the sun comes up before they’re in bed. All that matters is Monika. “I’m not going anywhere.”
It doesn’t matter if Sayori doesn’t understand. She softly runs her fingers up and down the fabric of Monika’s shirt, able to feel her wracking with sobs. Her heart shatters, but she does not let it show, she does not let her eyes overflow or her hands pause in their soft circles. It’s her turn to be strong.
Finally, eyes red and swollen, Monika lifts her face to look at Sayori. She sniffs, breath jittering unevenly. The glow of the streetlights illuminates the tear tracks shimmering on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she manages in a small, wavering voice.
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Sayori wipes a tear with her thumb, giving Monika a sad smile. She steps a bit back, away from the overpass, and tentatively holds out her hand. “Come with me?”
“Okay,” Monika whispers. Her frigid, trembling hand slips into Sayori’s warm one.
Sayori holds Monika by the shoulders, wrapping her in her arms to keep her safe from the biting cold of a late winter night on the cusp of spring. She remembers the first time. There had been an ambulance that took her away. She watched through a haze as Monika stood there by the overpass, eyes wide and empty. Seeing but not watching. Looking but not perceiving. Has anyone ever helped her?
“We’ll talk about this later, okay?” Sayori tells her gently, rubbing Monika’s arm in slow, up-down motions. “We just need to get you home. I can… I can stay with you.”
“P-Please.” Monika’s voice is cracked, tired and shaky.
In Sayori’s mind, she’s running through all the ways she can help Monika find someone who can properly help. She thinks back to her own hospitalization, the long therapy sessions, the once-a-week meetings she still has with a counselor.
But she also thinks about Monika: How, earlier today at school and during the past week, all seemed fine. The whole time Sayori has been back, Monika has seemed fine. She’s missed all the signs… history does repeat, again and again, until you start to listen. She wants to slap herself silly. How long has Monika been reliving a death she never witnessed? How long have her own demons circled her mind?
Is it all her fault?
Sayori shakes her head. She knows better than to play the blame game, to make someone else’s problems her own. Mental health is complicated. She could’ve noticed, yeah, but she’s been gone. Someone else should’ve been watching out for Monika. Jeez, someone should’ve gotten the poor girl therapy the second she had to talk Sayori off a bridge to begin with. Sayori isn’t just sad or frustrated. She’s angry at the adults that hadn’t thought to check in on her best friend.
“Hey, Moni?”
“Mm?”
They continue along toward Monika’s house, a speck of darkness in the distance with one yellow, glowing window. Sayori tucks her head into the crook of Monika’s neck, holding her so closely that they’re attached at the hip.
“You’re never going to be alone in this,” she says softly. “Got it?”
Monika breathes in slowly, then back out, eyes closed. Her breath makes a cotton candy cloud of frost in the air. She swallows and nods, taking a final shuddering inhale before finally facing Sayori. Her eyelids are still puffy, underlined by dark circles, and her lips are nearly turning purple from the frigid night air. She searches Sayori’s gaze momentarily. “We’re… going to be okay, right? Both of us?”
The shattered bits of Sayori’s heart collect in a pile, a heap of brokenness that isn’t quiet beyond saving. They twitch and tremble and then move all of a sudden, clicking back into place where they once had lived. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better. She’s not perfect, but she’s better.
“Yeah. Both of us.”