the cracks in the mask that is monika

She’s just… perfect. Perfect! Perfect little Monika with her perfect hair and perfect clothes and perfect grades and perfect everything. She’s so vehemently perfect that it makes Sayori sick to think about. How could someone be that perfect? It confuses her to no end.

Not to mention that Monika is always so busy. The debate club, and student council president, and tennis in the fall, and swimming and diving in the winter, and badminton in the spring, and piano lessons, and starting her own club on top of it all. How does Monika find the time for everything? Especially on top of her perfect grades (all 100’s!)?

Maybe that’s what makes Sayori accept Monika’s proposal of her being the vice president of the new club, if only to relieve some of the responsibility. The Literature Club, she remembers, is what it’s called. Sayori doesn’t know where Monika’s pulling the time from to run this club, but she doesn’t question it.

They find two other members, just enough to be officially recognized as a club, and things go well. No, they go perfectly. Because Monika is perfect, so everything she does is perfect, without fail. They meet after the school sports are scheduled to, so it doesn’t conflict with badminton practice, Monika says, and that’s fine by Sayori.

And then, for the first time ever, Monika is late without notice. She’s been late before, because of practice running late, but she’s always texted. And that’s why Sayori is the vice president, so she can keep the club running in Monika’s stead. But there’s been no word from her, and her teammates say she didn’t show for practice, so Sayori is worried.

She leaves Natsuki and Yuri in the clubroom with the instructions of “Uh, just write some poetry? I’ll be back soon.” Sayori thinks about Monika’s schedule, and how she has mathematics as her final class, so she starts walking in that direction. But she’s only four steps in the direction of the mathematics classrooms when she hears crying coming from the bathroom.

Having a breakdown in the school bathroom is, in Sayori’s humble opinion, a high school staple. She can’t even count on two hands the amount of times she’s done so herself just this semester. But regardless of her own emotional instability, she doesn’t expect to find Monika, perfect-in-every-way Monika, sitting on the floor and clutching a test and sobbing.

Sayori isn’t sure what to make of the scene. Monika’s perfect, so why is she crying? She entertains the thought that maybe, maybe, Monika isn’t as perfect as everyone seems to think she is. Another, more pressing, thought enters Sayori’s mind: How long has she been sitting here like this?

“Monika?” Sayori asks as she sits at her friend’s side. “Are you okay?”

Monika shakes as she looks up at Sayori, and Sayori isn’t ashamed to say that her friend looks like shit. Her makeup is running, and her tears have left tracks on her cheeks, and her eyes are red and puffy, and her nose is running. For someone so perfect in appearance, Monika sure is an ugly crier.

“They’re going to kill me,” Monika chokes out.

“Who?” Sayori asks, and she tries not to look alarmed at the fact that Monika thinks someone is going to kill her.

“My parents!” Monika explains. Her eyes dart around Sayori to the door, like she’s expecting them to walk through at any moment.

“Why?”

“B-Because I— I—“

She can’t force the words out, so Monika thrusts the test into Sayori’s hands. She reads the grade marked at the top in one of those red marker-pen things, and it reads a 99%. Sayori frowns. This grade is remarkable. Far better than any of the grades she’s received this school year, at least.

“They’re going to kill you over a ninety-nine percent on a test?” Sayori asks in confirmation.

“You don’t get it,” Monika says, and her eyes are wide but her pupils are small. “You don’t get it. They’re going to kill me. I’m going to go home and hand them this test and they’re going to kill me.”

“But why? This is a really good grade.” It hurts Sayori to see one of her best friends so upset. “Help me understand, Monika.”

“I’m— I’m supposed to be perfect! Perfect, perfect, perfect!” Monika almost yells. Sayori doesn’t think she’s ever seen the club president this stressed out. “They want me to be perfect! And this— this grade isn’t perfect! And they’re already pushing me so hard to do so much because I have to be perfect, and if I’m not perfect, then what good am I?”

“Monika…” Sayori doesn’t know what to say. “You don’t have to be perfect all the time. You’re only human.”

“But I have to! I have to be perfect because they make me and I’m going to take this test home and— and—“ Monika starts hyperventilating.

“Hey, hey, breathe with me,” Sayori says softly. “Deep breaths. In… and out…”

It takes far longer than it should, but Monika’s breathing does eventually return to normal. She still shakes, and she sniffles quietly, and God, how can Sayori make her go back to the clubroom like this? She stands up and pulls Monika to her feet.

“Go home,” Sayori says.

Monika’s eyes almost bug out of her head. “What?!”

“Go home, and get it over with. I… can’t offer much support, because I don’t know what it’s like to live like you do, but just get it over with.” Sayori offers her a smile. “I’ll tell the girls you got sick and went home early.”

Monika opens her mouth, closes it, opens, closes, before nodding and drifting, ghost-like, past Sayori and out of the bathroom. When Sayori eventually regains enough of her composure to leave, Monika is nowhere in sight. She returns to the clubroom and delivers the lie, which Natsuki and Yuri readily eat up. She doesn’t hear from her friend for the rest of the night, and she assumes it’s a good thing, but a small voice in her mind doesn’t believe that.

The next day Monika is back with that big, perfect smile of hers, and everything seems right in the world. It’s only because Sayori’s standing so close to her side in the clubroom that she notices what looks like a large bruise on Monika’s cheek that is definitely hand-shaped and definitely covered with makeup. She tries to ask about it, but Monika dodges her question, and Sayori can’t help but notice that the light in their leader’s eyes is dimmed.

“Okay, everyone!” Monika says, and that’s that on the questioning.

It troubles Sayori for the rest of the club meeting, but she doesn’t get another chance to ask. She suspects that Monika is actively trying to stop her from asking, but whether it’s because she’s scared to talk or because she’s trying to uphold her perfect image Sayori doesn’t know. But she’s seen beneath Monika’s perfect veneer to the less than perfect truth beneath, and she knows that that’s all her perfection is—an image.

Sayori only hopes it doesn’t kill her.

Just get it over with.

She can do that. She can do that! She can do that because she’s Monika and she’s perfect and she’s got this. But those words, Sayori’s words, don’t stop the tightness of her chest when she enters her house and sees both of her parents are home, and her mother is drinking the good wine, which she only does when she has a horrible day at work.

Monika takes a deep breath and rehearses in her head what she’s going to say. Hello Mother, Father. I received my mathematics test back today, and I unfortunately did not score perfectly this time, but I know for a fact that I will do better next time. She wants to hit herself for how stupid it sounds. She digs the test out of her bag and walks up to her parents.

“Hello Mother, Father.” So far so good. She holds the test out, face down, hoping they’ll let her finish speaking before looking at the grade. “I received my mathematics test back today, and—“

Her father snatches the test from her hands before she can finish speaking, and her words die on her lips. Monika watches her mother swirl the wine in her glass and leer over her father’s shoulder. She knows they’re looking at the grade. She knows and she’s terrified. Her father puffs on his cigar (cigarettes, in his opinion, are for women and weak little boys, not men) harder, and it’s then that Monika knows she truly is done for, just like she told Sayori.

“Monika, sweetheart,” her mother says, tapping a manicured nail on the grade. “What’s this?”

Monika’s tongue feels like lead. She tries to swallow around it. “I-I unforto— unfortunately did n-not score perflect— perfectly—“

“Get your damn head on straight,” her father snaps, and Monika clamps her mouth shut. “We can’t understand a damn word that comes out of your mouth when you stutter like that.”

“Yes, Father,” she says automatically. Her heart beats like crazy and she thinks she may faint. “I unfortunately did not score perfectly this time, but—“

Pain. It explodes through her face and skull as something sharply strikes her cheek and she falls, her head smacking against the tiled floor of the kitchen with a telltale thunk. Monika sees stars and her ears ring, but she can still hear her father above it, shouting and imposing and angry.

“Get up,” he commands, and Monika tries to scrabble to her feet.

Clearly she doesn’t get up fast enough, because her father grabs the back of her blazer, catching some of her ponytail in his fist, and hauls her to her feet himself. His nails dig into her biceps, rooting her in place, and he makes no effort to blow his cigar smoke anywhere but her face. She resists the urge to cough despite the burning of her lungs.

“You know how your mother and I raised you, right?”

Monika nods.

“You know you need to not only show, but be perfect one hundred percent of the time to one-up your competition.”

Monika nods.

“So why,” her father roars, whipping her around to stare at the test her mother is holding, “is this grade not perfect?!”

“I-I, well, y-you see—“

A hand smacks her upside the head. It makes her forehead pound.

“Speak clearly, Monika, for fuck’s sake. Did you forget everything we taught you?”

“No, Father, I—“

“You what?! You want to come up with some lame excuse?” He grabs her chin and forces her to look at him. “Why is this grade not up to our standards?”

“My meeting with the Literature Club ran late yesterday, so I—“

“The Literature Club,” her mother spits. She steps into Monika’s line of sight. “Nothing good has come from that little club of yours you just had to start.”

“That’s not true!” Monika retorts. Her heart stops for a moment when her mother fixes her with an icy look, but it’s too late to back down. “It will look good on my transcript to have started a club, and I met some new friends through it!”

“Is it these new friends who are causing your performance to slip?” her mother asks.

“No!” Monika exclaims, but she knows they aren’t listening.

“Give that here,” her mother says, reaching for her bag.

“Wh— No! My bag! Stop it!” Monika protests. She tries to free herself from her father’s hold, but it’s a fruitless struggle. “Mother, stop!”

Her mother digs around in the bag until she produces Monika’s phone from it. She casts the bag to the side and begins to go through Monika’s texts. Monika herself feels like her heart may give out, or she may throw up, or maybe both, one after the other, or simultaneously, like some sort of gruesome magic trick. She hopes, she hopes, she hopes her mother doesn’t open the messages with Masashi, because if she does, they will find her admittance to a crush on a certain vice president, and they may actually kill her.

“All you’re doing is spending time texting your friends,” her mother says. She turns the phone off, and Monika feels slightly relieved. “Go to your room.”

Her father lets go of her, and Monika stumbles toward her bag. She picks it up, then holds her hand out for her phone, but her stomach drops when her mother holds it away.

“M-Mother, I need…” She can’t finish her sentence.

“You need nothing of the sort. Your father and I will hold on to this so you do not get distracted again. Go to your room and study, and do not come back down here until you are sure you will achieve perfection.”

Monika nods, and before either of them can hurt her further, she runs down the hall, up the stairs, and to her room. She closes the door (not slamming it, because that isn’t indicative of perfection, and also they’ll kill her) and throws herself onto her bed, sobbing. Stupid, stupid Sayori and her stupid advice and… Monika can’t bring herself to be angry at her best friend.

“You better be studying up there!” her father yells from downstairs, so Monika drags herself out of bed.

She shucks off her shoes and uniform in favor of her pajamas, and she tries to ignore her reflection, which shows herself sporting a handprint already starting to bruise. Monika knows she’ll have to cover it with makeup in the morning, but at the moment she can’t bring herself to care. She sits down at her desk and pulls her mathematics book from her bag, and she starts studying.

Her tears spill down over her cheeks and plik plik plik down onto the pages of her textbook. She wants to text Sayori—she wants to call Sayori—so bad, if only to hear her voice and her assurances. But she can’t, because her mother has her phone, and who knows what’s she doing with it. It’s so unfair, Monika decides, that they’re doing this to her. Still, she sits at her desk, and she studies.

And her desk is where her mother finds her, hours later, asleep and slumped over her open textbook.