Author's Note: I ask for your indulgence on this one. Once I got the idea, it wouldn't leave me alone. So, here it is. A few words and phrases are used from the game. Unbeta'd. I guess that's about it. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Out of Character

He'd never had much ambition, content to just go with the flow and see what happened. In some ways, it was a bit surprising he'd ended up with any friends at all, let alone a friend like Sayori. Someone so bubbly and bright made quite the contrast to his more serious, yet shiftless, demeanor. Of course, he'd become friends with her back when they were both very young, before personalities were really an important part of choosing a playmate. Familiarity was what had kept them together. At least, that's what he'd always thought.

He'd missed her in the year they'd spent more or less apart. He hadn't realized it at the time, but now that he was spending more time with her again, he saw that it was true. He'd always thought he'd been fine on his own, that he didn't need friends to be happy. Even after only being a part of the Literature Club for a few days, interacting with people he'd never have approached, he realized he hadn't been as content as he'd believed.

And spending more time with Sayori had made him more than just nostalgic—it had reawakened a part of himself he'd been long neglecting—the part that cared about other people. The part that helped him come to realize how much he actually cared for his oldest friend. Although he didn't love her in the romantic way Sayori had wanted, he did love her. At the time, 'dearest friend' had been the only phrase his somewhat limited imagination had been able to come up with to describe the sense that his life would be incomplete without her in it. He would be incomplete without her by his side. He tried picturing himself as someone who'd never known her, and he couldn't do it. His world could not exist if she were not a part of it.

He knew this as well as he knew his own name.

So why, then, had he forgotten this morning? How could he have noted her not answering her phone without feeling the slightest bit alarmed? He'd actually been annoyed because it had meant he'd had to carry all the cupcakes himself. As though that had mattered! It wasn't until he'd complained about Sayori sleeping in again, complaining about how she should be trying harder, that he'd even remembered what had happened yesterday. He knew damn well why she had trouble getting herself up in the morning. How could he have forgotten? How had he managed to forget, even for a moment, that terrible, heart-rending scream?

But even then, it had taken reading Sayori's 'poem' for him to realize the depth of his mistake. How could he have been so thoughtless? It would have been so easy to wait for her, to check in on her. They lived right next to each other, and he couldn't have spared a moment to go see if she was all right? He'd promised her yesterday that he'd help her, that he'd support her, and what had he done?

He'd trundled along to the festival and had had the gall to complain about her once he'd arrived.

Despite Monika's parting urge to him not to strain himself, he ran full pelt to Sayori's door, berating himself the whole way for his empty-headedness. He just didn't understand how he'd forgotten something so important. But... had he forgotten? Now that he was thinking of it, he recalled increasingly frantic calls to her this morning before... before... before it suddenly wasn't so worrying that Sayori wasn't picking up because all he'd needed was help to carry Natsuki's cupcakes to the festival. The dummy had just been sleeping in again, as usual, leaving him to pick up her slack.

Maybe he was going crazy, too. The persistent compulsion to abandon this venture and return to the Literature Club's classroom was definitely an indication, considering what was happening now. Maybe he would go back, but he certainly wasn't going to until he'd checked on his best friend and convinced her to come with him. And if he couldn't do that, he'd stay with her. Because she was more important than his club obligations!

As with yesterday, the knock received no answer. Both of Sayori's parents went to work very early, which was why Sayori was left to wake herself. And, naturally, if Sayori had overslept, she wouldn't be answering the door either.

Even as he told himself that nothing was wrong, that he was going too far, that he was invading her privacy, he felt the knot in the pit of his stomach grow. Was he really so afraid of crossing boundaries, or was he afraid of what he might find on the other side of Sayori's door? Either way, regardless of which the true source of his unease was, she had left him no choice. It did feel right to enter her room, and he did so before he could change his mind.

…

…

…

Shock had given way to desperate denial before quickly succumbing to blinding guilt. His world had literally gone dark now that the figurative light of it had been snuffed out. This was his fault. If only he hadn't been so arrogant as to think he knew what was best for her when he didn't understand anything she was going through. If only he'd tried to spend more time with her. If only he'd been able to return her feelings for him, maybe—

There was no point in it, was there? No amount of wondering what he should have done or could have done differently would bring her back. A sudden urge to return to the festival, the feeling that the Literature Club needed him, came over him and the utter wrongness of it, that he'd even think to consider such a notion at this moment, infuriated him. Screw the festival. Screw the Literature Club. He wasn't about to go to a god-damned school event right now!

He'd just lost his best friend, and there was nothing he could do. There was no going back. This wasn't one of his games where he could reload a save and try again. He'd had his chance, and he'd blown it. The one thing Sayori had needed from him, and he couldn't do it. He'd done this as certainly as if he'd kicked the chair out from under Sayori himself, and he'd never be able to take it back. Never. Never. Never. Never. There was nothing left but him and this new world that no longer had Sayori in it.

Such a world was not worth existence.

END

And the world seemed to agree. He noted the word with dull satisfaction and a sort of existential dread. Then it was gone; everything was gone; and—

Gibberish his mind insisted were words dribbling out of the mouth of a girl he'd thought he knew so well but couldn't name or recognize, fracturing into an unholy mixture of unfamiliar, familiar faces—

It was an ordinary school day, like any other.