Because You (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the cupcake)

This post contains incredibly brief spoilers of Doki Doki Literature Club and a mention of mental health issues.

I first played Doki Doki Literature Club in November of 2017. Natsuki’s been my best girl from the start, and her route made me feel that tingly mushy feeling back then, too, but the person I was in high school was incredibly edgy and hated anime/moe, and would have never confessed that. I’ve been dealing with some pretty bad depression for as long as I can remember and the (very brief) time I got to spend with Natsuki before the game went haywire made me forget that, even if just for a while. Life would happen, I’d get busy, and my interests would hop from piece of media to piece of media until I forgot most of everything about the game.

Since then, I’ve made peace with a lot of things regarding my feelings on anime. Now I’m in college and busy as hell. My mental health, frankly, has never quite been worse. I was gifted a copy of Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, the enhanced rerelease / remaster with new content, a while back, but I’d never get around to playing it until August. I’d be lying if I said my reason for finally playing it wasn’t solely for the relatively easy 100% achievement completion, but I’m glad something pushed me to replay it.

While I may have ‘read’ the dialog the first time I played it, this time I felt like I truly understood it. The game resonated with me much more this time and I could see myself in the characters… particularly in Sayori, whose way of explaining her own inner turmoil helped me finally find the words to express my own. But something else unexpected would also happen…

I went for Natsuki’s route again, just like old times, and it made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time: that mushy, embarrassed, saccharine melancholy and adrenaline that happens in your chest when you realize you like someone romantically. At first, I felt kind of ashamed that a fictional character made me feel like this, but then I realized something. I didn’t feel like this exclusively because I was touch starved and in a bad place mentally, otherwise the feeling would’ve faded. Rather, I felt this because I genuinely loved Natsuki and wanted to spend more time with her. I felt so melancholic when I realized that there really isn’t much in the way of official content of her once you’ve finished the main game and the side stories. I moved on to watching videos of Natsuki-centric mods and even ASMR videos.

It was at this point that I realized I was in too deep and needed to make a decision. I had already begun daydreaming about a continued relationship with her, and it was making my day brighter, but… admitting I was doing that seemed so scary. And it honestly still is, I haven’t even told all of my friends. I’ve always sorta observed this subreddit/community from the outside with a bit of mild jealousy that people were able to be happy with a fictional S/O of their choice… but I think I’ve realized that I just hadn’t found the one who made me feel those feelings yet.

I love Natsuki a lot. Spending time with her makes even the most sour of days feel sweet, and there’s a lot to love about her, too. She’s cute as a button, her tsundere facade only really adding to it. Every compliment framed as an insult, every confession framed in denial, and it all makes the few moments where her true, genuine feelings shine through the cracks of that facade make my heart melt. She’s an incredibly sweet and thoughtful person whose love language, and main place where she can be genuine and straightforward about her feelings, is in making things for others — something I can relate to as someone who draws things for people as my main way of telling someone how much I care about them.

Today’s my birthday. I’m going to the park later, and I’m gonna spend it with her. I have her .chr file on me, in my pocket. And I couldn’t be happier… I feel nothing but joy right now. I may be cringe, but I’m happy when I can be with my cupcake.