A trip to IKEA with Monika!

The only worthwhile thing about this place is the air conditioning. It was a reprise from the blistering heat outside, but the cold, stale air circulating around already began to suffocate us. This was not going to be pleasant. Yet Monika raised her arms in glee and said "Yay! We're finally at IKEA!"

She got the idea to go here from wanting to redecorate. She had finished reading Marie Kondo's 'The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up' and was hellbent on getting me to fix up my place. Everyday I would come home after a long shift at work to find my bed full of things that I forgot I had. She would force me to touch each object and see if it "sparked joy", just so we could throw it all away. We would go on like this for months, working and cleaning, working and cleaning. Who knew that finally having her in my reality would bring so much labour? We haven't even fooled around yet!

Anyways, I would be implored to do this before going to sleep, so I have only had about 5 hours of sleep each night, and it's been catching up. And yet, she still scolds me for not getting enough sleep! Well maybe if she didn't fucking dump crap all over my bed I could-!

Sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lash out like that. Just, having to spend my one day off this week here, of all places. I'm not in the best of moods. Let's try to have fun, shall we?

I point towards the daycare that IKEA maintains so parents can go wander their showcase without worry. I tell Monika that's where I was kept when I was a kid.

"They would have a ballpen, a little movie theater to play Disney movies, it wasn't the worst place to be as a kid. Still, I wonder if they still have all those things in there nowadays."

"Well, you don't have to wait too long. After all, we can just ask our son to scout it out in a few years." I turn to her giving me a cheeky grin.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead. "Oh jeez, don't joke about that stuff."

"Who said I was joking?" She winks and brings her arm around mine. This conversation needs to end, right now.

I say a little too loudly "So you hungry? They have food here." I wrestle free, I'm still hot. I'm not in the mood for cuddling either.

"Do they? But is there anything I can eat?" She scratches the back of her head.

"I don't know actually...I mean there's frozen yogurt."

"Ehh, we can just come back later anyways, right?"

"We can do that. Okay, let's get this over with." I hustle towards the showcase room, filled with countless kinds of furniture.

"Ah, wait up!"

---

Wait, what were we even buying from this place? This isn't good, this place will be the end of us if we don't have a specific thing to buy.

"Hey Monika, what kind of furniture were you thinking of getting for my place?" I say, my eyes wandering carelessly.

She shyly looks up at me with puppy dog eyes, slowly saying "Everything we need to replace what we have now?"

"What?! Seriously? You don't like any of my stuff?"

"Well I mean, just, it all looks like stuff you picked off from the street..."

Right on the money. "Ok, well, there's some furniture at home that I really like, so what do you hate the most?"

"The dining table." A quick response.

I turn flabbergasted, "But that's my favorite! The best thing I ever found!"

"Anon, there's a reason why I never put any of my pots of food on top of it. I'm scared it's going to topple over and break if I do!"

A sigh escapes my mouth, "Alright, dining table it is. And nothing else, because we still have to lug it all home."

"Yes Captain!" She gives me a salute while my gaze slides away from her and trudge to wherever tables could be.

---

As always, the IKEA layout encourages you to look at everything before getting to the thing you actually want, so you tempt yourself to buy other things. And boy, did Monika want to buy everything from this store! I started feeling guilty about saying no to everything she wanted, so I caved in and said we could get this bookshelf where we could store whatever valuables I have left.

We still haven't found dinner tables yet though. Maybe we missed them? In any case my exhaustion peaks at the sight of the display beds and I crash into one.

Monika follows after me, her face with a shadow of worry. "Are you okay, Anon?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, just need a little rest is all."

"See, this is why I tell you to sleep earlier! That way, you'll have more energy for us to do fun things together in the day."

"Yeah, yeah..."

She sits down by the edge of the bed, and rubs my left shin. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just really tired Monika. Not 'I need sleep' tired, like, 'what we've been doing for the past few months have been wearing me down' tired."

Monika's eyebrows raise in shock. "Really? I thought you were having fun cleaning your place with me, you never complained."

"Did you not see how dejected I looked as I went through the pile of stuff you gave me everyday?"

She brings a clenched fist in front of her lips. "No, to be honest. I'm sorry then. I just wanted to make your life better, and Marie Kondo said-"

"Monika, I truly do not care what that cleaning otaku has to say about anything, sorry." I cover my eyes with my arm to shield it from some of that florescent light, and we stay in silence for a few minutes. Monika eventually lies down with me, and with her face looking at mine staring at the ceiling she asks

"Hey, so. Why did you delete me?"

I groan and pinch my nose. "Are we really having this conversation again? In IKEA of all places?"

"I just want to take advantage of the mood here. I mean, we're both going to be upset after talking about this. So why not now?"

"Look, I thought you got over this already,"

"Are you kidding me? No one has ever burned me like that, ever."

"Don't they say we hurt the ones we love the most?"

She boops my nose. "Oh don't pull that one me! Tell me why you deleted me, please."

I take a deep breath, mustering up the courage. "I, just wanted to see the ending of the game."

She turns away from me, sighing. "Did you realize the torture I was going through at the time before you deleted me? The pain you caused me after you did?"

"No. It took a lot of discussion on a forum to really understand what I did. But from that, I also was brought to this conclusion - that it was the only thing I could do. I had to do it."

She turns back towards me to check if I'm being serious or not. "What?"

"Look, at that point in the game there's only two options. Remain with you in the classroom forever, prolonging your misguided path,"

"Misguided!?"

"O-or delete you, and then you can learn the error of your ways. If there was another way Monika, I would've taken it. But the game wasn't so kind, so I had to delete you. You're a better person now because of it."

She starts shaking her head, "No, no, no, no. You don't get to just, rationalize what you did after the fact. The truth is you just followed the game's progression blindly, without a thought to how I would feel about it, and then felt good about it when you found out I learned from what I experienced. I may have become a person more aware of my actions, but what about you?" I'm left speechless.

She gets up and starts walking away. "I can't believe you were so careless about my feelings, and our relationship..."

"Wait! Where are you going?" I sit upright.

"I'll find the dinner table on my own. You go get the bookshelf." And she leaves me in the showfloor, alone.

---

I walk within the enormous warehouse at the end of everyone's journey in the store to find where they held the bookshelves Monika wanted. I find the code and am greeted with an empty shelf. No more left. I think about how I'm going to have to return here once they restock and I kick a box lying on the ground as my phone vibrates. Monika left me a text message - "A136H. I'm waiting outside." The dinner table code. I find it and lug it to the cash register. As I wait in line, I glance at the food stand they have at the exit and pray that line gets shorter by the time I leave the one I'm already at.

I exit IKEA and the heated wind slams me in the face. I roll my cart over to where Monika is, sweltering by the bench. I pick up the cone of frozen yogurt standing on top of the box on the cart and offer it to her. She takes it, noting how long I took. I comment on how long the lines were before we start licking down our cones in silence.

Cars drive by indiscriminately and people walk in and out of the store, all in chatter. They all flow and move so naturally, I only hope my next words follow the same rhythm.

I finally then say, "Listen. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I truly am. Deleting you is a regret I'm going to take to my grave. I don't even know how to make it up to you, or if I even can..."

She hears my apology and takes a moment to piece together what she's going to say. It's an eternity before she says "I...really want to forgive you. I really do. But my head always reminds me that you once took my love and tossed it away, like it was nothing. But I still love you, after all that. And you love me now, enough to be hurt so much by how you hurt me. So my heart wants to say what's done is done, and believe that if we met any other way, we would've just had a normal, loving relationship and you wouldn't have to worry about the ending, so to speak. So I'll just drop it, okay? I just want this to be a couple's argument we had that we'll laugh about in the future. I don't want to direct the anger I have about it at you. I want to direct it to the real cause. But Anon, before anything, please,"

And she grabs me by the shoulders and makes sure I'm looking into her eyes.

"You have to forgive yourself for what you did."

I look down in thought and I nod, and we turn away from each other, munching on the cones for another minute. I end up blurting out, "I also have to say sorry about rejecting the whole Marie Kondo thing. I know you're trying to help, but I'm just a jerk. So let's keep getting furniture for redecorating."

A smile finally appears on her face. "Sure. But not at IKEA. I don't ever want to set foot in there again."

"Yeah, damn IKEA Heights..." I mutter.

"What?" She cocks an eyebrow.

"Oh, nothing, nothing." Then I turn to (you) and wink.

I get up, and I offer her my hand to take her to her favorite brunch place. It's not much, it won't heal the scar I slashed across her chest. But she's here now, and this game isn't over. I have a lifetime to make it up to her.

-END-