Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first emotion Sunny felt upon waking was that of dull confusion, which sharpened to shock as his grogginess faded. The cause of the shock was multifaceted, but the most obvious point was that he was currently staring up at the sky, which was very much not his ceiling fan. And while he couldn’t be bothered to turn his head to double check- honestly, way too much effort- he was at least partially sure that he was laying in a puddle of mud.

Well.

Well, well, well.

That didn’t make much sense at all, did it? This must be a dream. An oddly realistic dream, sure, but he’s had odder. Maybe if he closed his eyes he could fall asleep within the dream and in that dream he wouldn’t be laying outside in the mud. Decision made, Sunny closed his eyes.

…

...wait, hold on, did something just crawl across his leg?!

Suddenly very, very awake, Sunny flailed into an upright position, rudely dislodging the adventurous beetle that had been attempting to scale his kneecap. Okay. Not a spider. Still not a fun thing to have a bug crawl on you, but he’d take six legs over eight any day.

Giving up on his attempts to avoid waking up, he staggered to his feet.

He was struck by multiple realizations at once, and they were all so overwhelming that he found himself simply freezing in place, eyes wide, heart thundering.

Calm down.

Breathe.

Think.

He’d handle the least threatening observation first. A quick glance around revealed that he was in the hideout, soaked through by water from the lake as he had been laying right at the shore. He was covered in mud, which he’d ordinarily be annoyed about, but he was too busy being relieved that he hadn’t slipped further into the water while he’d been unconscious.

The shrine in the lake was cracked right down the center. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. He decided not to think about it.

The second observation, middling in how much it was making his heart pound, was that he was small, in the same way he had been in his happy dreams of friendship and adventures. Yet again, he put this note in a mental box and put it on an imaginary shelf. He’d deal with that later, when things made literally any sense at all.

Shoot, he couldn’t procrastinate anymore, could he?

The final observation wasn’t really the last, it was the first, he just had attempted to ignore it. But as he raised a shaky hand towards his eye and felt the organ still intact, with no torn skin or gore, he couldn’t disregard the reality of what had happened.

The reason he’d been surprised upon waking was not because of the sky above his head or the mud soaking into the back of his shirt. It was because last he remembered, he had been dying.

He would never look at garden shears the same way again, that was for sure.

...Well. Good. Good that he was alive. He wouldn’t want Basil to get in any trouble, after all. After everything Sunny had failed to do for him, the least he could do is not add to the ghosts that haunted him.

His mind closed off to further lines of inquiry, unable to process these impossible realizations. Instead, his imagination distracted him with images of the shrine being torn asunder by a monster with sharp teeth and bulging muscles before being chased away by the beautiful spirit of the lake.

He regarded the spirit mournfully as they wept over the damaged shrine. Poor spirit.

Voices snapped him out of his daydream, the lake spirit vanishing back into his head. Sunny scrambled to his feet. For an instant, the childish desire to hide nearly overwhelmed him, but he shook it off. He was tired of hiding.

...Also there was absolutely nowhere to hide nearby so he couldn’t even if he wanted to, so there was that.

The voices were calling his name.

He didn’t really feel up to verbalizing, but he didn’t want to be rude, so he settled with whistling in response. Footsteps thundered through the brush, and tree limbs were shoved aside.

It was Mari.

Ah, so this was a dream after all.

“Sunny!” she cried, dashing to him and engulfing him in a tight hug. His arms instinctively responded, returning the gesture as he buried his face into her side. He felt a little bad that she was getting muddy from holding him, but not enough to try and escape.

Mari was crying, sobs wracking her body hard enough that he could feel her tremors shaking him. He patted her on the back, hoping to soothe her.

“I was-” she gasped, “I was so worried! Sunny, what happened?! Are you alright?!” Utterly lost, Sunny floundered before settling with a nod. A crease formed between Mari’s eyebrows, and she shakily cupped his face in her hands. “What’s wrong?” she pressed, clearly trying to keep her voice gentle despite her stress. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Another oddity to pile on with the rest. Sunny never had to speak in dreams. The world was shaped around him, so his intent never needed any explanation. Then again, the one in the dreams was Omori, not him. Was that why? Was this some new, strange headspace he had yet to learn the rules of?

He felt a pang of regret at that thought. Part of him had hoped that maybe he could start recovering, if he met Basil head on. That by standing his ground and facing what he had done, he could finally move forward. But clearly, if this new delusion featured Mari, his mental state was still…

...Well, since he was himself, and simultaneously aware of Mari’s death and his involvement in the incident, maybe that was a step. A small step, sure, but better than complete repression and isolation, surely?

Mari was staring at him, urgency written across her features. With an embarrassing amount of effort, he opened his mouth.

“Sorry,” he whispered. She looked confused, and he hastily added, “-for worrying you.” Perfect, nailed it.

“Mari? Did you find him?!” a distant shout carried over the still air. Hero’s voice?

“Yes!” she called back, relief beginning to brighten her expression. “He’s here, he’s alright!”

There was a flurry of movement before Hero burst into the hideout, winded and eyes noticeably puffy and bloodshot. Upon seeing Sunny, the breath rushed out of him in a huge exhale of relief, and he hugged the both of them tightly. “Sunny? What happened, how did you get here?”

“Woke up here, don’t know how.” Sunny replied simply.

Hero’s brow furrowed, and his lips tightened slightly. “Was anyone with you? Did they bring you here, or hurt you in any way?”

“I’m fine,” Sunny said quickly, reading the atmosphere and desperately trying not to worry the two any more than he already had. “There wasn’t anyone. Just me. See?” He pointed to where he had awoken. Clearly indented in the mud were his footprints, and only his footprints.

Of course, as he did this, Sunny realized that the indentations only led away from the water, and the noticeable absence of anything leading towards it to begin with. Oops. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice.

Mari and Hero exchanged a loaded look that Sunny didn’t know how to interpret. They seemed concerned, but not angry, so… that was good?

Despite the tension in his shoulders, Hero smiled genuinely at him. “Well, let’s get you home, okay? Everyone will be so glad to see you. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

Kel, Aubrey, and Basil were sitting on the curb in front of the house, and as soon as Hero and Mari came into view with Sunny in tow, they all lept up. Aubrey and Basil’s faces were streaked with tears, and while Kel was dry-eyed, his face was pale and his body seemed to hold an unusually jittery energy. Sunny was pulled into an awkward, messy, four-way hug that involved Basil bonking his head against Sunny’s chin and Kel’s elbow digging into his side, but he couldn’t say he minded. Instead, he eased into the sensation, nostalgia washing over him as he remembered past group naps buried in stuffed animals. He felt something soft curl past his leg which startled him, but the moment he realized it was Mewo, he relaxed even further.

Gosh, he could really use a nap right now. He knew he had just woken up, but as far as he was concerned, he was still shaking off being dead or something. That probably required more sleep than usual.

But wait, wasn’t this a dream? His sluggish brain really couldn’t tell anymore.

Thoroughly zoned out, he barely processed everyone asking him questions at the same time. The chaos turned to white noise in his ears. Luckily, Hero was there to lay his hands on Sunny’s shoulder, very gently freeing him from the now clinging grip of his other friends. 

“Give him a little room, guys. He said he doesn’t remember anything, so there’s no point in badgering him,” he said soothingly. From this angle Sunny couldn’t see Hero’s face; he wondered if the calm he was projecting was real or manufactured, especially considering the near panicked state he seemed to have been in when he first saw Sunny. Either way, it was convincing. At once, everyone backed up a little, although Kel seemed reluctant to quiet down.

“But what happened to the room, Sunny? Did you do that?” he asked, eyes flicking to the upstairs window.

Sunny followed his gaze and froze.

The window was broken.

Quickly, he shook his head. He was guilty of a lot of things, but property damage? No sir.

Aubrey, scrubbing her face free of tears, mumbled, “If you think that’s bad, you should see the inside. What should we do? When are your parents supposed to be home, Mari?”

Mari hummed, rubbing her chin. “Let’s see… That should be the day after tomorrow.”

Basil let out a shaky sigh of relief. “W-well, whatever happened, it’s okay, right? We can clean it before they get back. It shouldn’t be too hard if we all work together.”

In an undertone that made it clear that he was really only talking to Mari, Hero murmured, “Should we call the police?”

Mari leaned closer to him, as she always did when the world became a space just for the two of them. Sunny felt his heart twist a bit at the sight. “I don’t think the police are a good idea. I don’t want people to talk. Do you think your mom could look him over just to make sure he isn’t hurt?”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Honestly, it’d probably be best if everyone just went to our place tonight.” Hero mused.

Had he actually been twelve instead of just looking it, the mention of people talking would have gone over his head entirely. But now, having lived through just how gossipy and judgemental people had been towards Aubrey, he understood completely. He already seemed like his sister’s weird little shadow. If word got out that he was destroying his room and scuttling into the woods in the middle of the night, he could kiss his peaceful anonymity goodbye.

“Well!” Mari clapped her hands, a cheery smile that was only somewhat forced. “Who’s up for a sleepover?”

Kel let out a loud whoop at that, which earned him a glare from Aubrey. “Can’t you take this seriously?!” she demanded. “Sunny could have been kidnapped!”

“Yeah but he wasn’t! So let’s actually have fun and celebrate!” Kel huffed back.

Before a fight could start, Basil interrupted. “I think that sounds really fun! Will your parents be okay with it?”

“Of course they will!” Kel sang, scooping Mewo up into his arms and snuggling her, which she reluctantly tolerated. “You wanna come, Mewo? You like Hector, you guys can have a sleepover too!”

Aubrey, against her will, began to be swept up in Kel’s enthusiasm. “Well, I guess it does sound kind of fun… Can we make cookies?”

Mari giggled. “Sure, why not?”

At that, Aubrey finally allowed a little smile. “Okay, I’ll run home and get my stuff!”

“Me too!” Basil chimed in.

Hero cleared his throat. “Kel, do you want to go with them so they aren’t walking on their own?”

Kel looked confused for a moment before clarity dawned on his face. “Oh, because of the maybe-kidnapper? Sure, I can go. I could take them on!” He flexed his arm.

“We’re doomed.” Aubrey said flatly.

“Hey!”

“We’ll be fine.” Basil sighed, cutting the two off yet again. “Let’s go to my place first, and then Grandma can drive us back. That way, we won't have to carry everything either.”

“Smart,” Sunny said quietly. He didn’t think he had been heard, but Basil lit up at the compliment. Sunny very determinedly did not think about garden shears.

“Sleep issues are my guess, dear.” Kel and Hero’s mom reassured Mari after Sunny’s impromptu examination. They were now seated in the living room as the comforting sound of Hero cooking drifted in from the next room. “He’s perfectly healthy, not a bruise or scratch on him. A little underweight, maybe-” she gave Sunny a pointed look, which he pretended not to notice, “-but it doesn’t sound like he’s been sleeping very well, and at his age that can lead to all sorts of issues. Messing up a room and walking to the park may sound extreme, but there are documented cases of people doing all sorts of strange things while sleepwalking!”

Mari looked pained. “Is that true, Sunny? Have you been having trouble sleeping?”

Sunny shuffled his feet and avoided eye contact. He couldn’t tell them that he actually spent most of the time asleep, could he? This was back before that was true, back when he and Mari shared a room. Eventually, he mumbled, “Nightmares.” It wasn’t a total lie, at least, so it made him feel a bit better.

Mari stiffened. “From when you almost downed?” she asked, apprehension thick in her voice.

Underneath the table, Sunny began to tap his finger against his leg. Why was this so hard? He couldn’t find his words at all. Unbidden, he blurted, “You, dying. Me being alone. Everyone hating me. Smashing my violin.”

...Oops.

The sound from the kitchen had gone completely silent. Hero and Kel’s mom was giving Sunny a look brimming with sympathy.

Mari was looking at him like he was a ghost. It would almost be funny if his face wasn’t burning with mortification. Why, oh, why didn’t he just say it was about drowning?!

“Mari, dear, I know its a personal question, but is everything going ok at home right now?”

Huh. Sunny hadn’t known that people outside of the family knew about their parent’s arguments.

Mari seemed embarrassed for some reason, fidgeting with a strand of hair. “Um, you know. Same as always!” she let out an awkward little laugh.

The older woman nodded, looking like she understood the subtext of Mari’s words. “I understand, sweetheart. Unfortunately, it isn’t surprising, considering what’s happening with your father’s work. Well, if the two of you ever need to come over and spend the night, you can. Anytime. Spare key is taped to the underside of the roof of Hector’s doghouse.”

Mari’s cheeks turned pink, but she looked grateful. “Only if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“Thank you,” Sunny added, glad that nobody was staring at him anymore.

Fortunately, it was at that moment that Kel, Aubrey, and Basil arrived, overnight bags slung over their shoulders. They had also stopped by Sunny and Mari’s house, so Sunny now had his pajamas, toothbrush, his pet rock, and an armload of stuffed animals in his corner of the blanket fort. Hero finished making dinner just as his and Kel’s dad came home from work. The table was packed, the room was filled with laughter, and the food was delicious. The rest of the evening was spent playing with Mewo and Hector, baking cookies, and watching the cheesy sci fi movie airing on television.

At a commercial break, Sunny excused himself to go to the bathroom. As he washed his hands, he carefully chanced a look in the mirror.

He was alone.

He took a steadying breath.

He tried to wake up.

Nothing happened.

...He tried not to panic. His finger was tapping again. Was this real? Was he really, actually here? It felt so real. He had tasted dinner, and you couldn’t taste the food in dreams. So then, what was this? The afterlife? Purgatory? A particularly vivid hallucination? His mind started to shut down at the increasingly stressful questions, started to search to distract himself. It drifted to the silly movie playing downstairs, but it hit a snag on a certain, specific plot detail.

The movie had been about traveling through time. The hero in it was trying to fix a mistake he had made that had set off a war between humans and aliens, resulting in the downfall of humanity. Splitting apart the laws of the universe, all to change a single, tiny moment in time. An accident.

A cold chill went down his spine. His pupils in the mirror were blown wide. Was this it? A way to redeem himself? To save his sister?

What would she even be like in four years? What about Hero, a person who seemed to be almost totally consumed with her death? Would Aubrey still become a delinquent? Would Basil still…

Could he save Basil, too?

Slowly, chasing away the fear, a glimmer of optimism began to grow in his chest.

He decided not to think about that shattered window, though. That could wait. For now.

Chapter Text

The first thing that Sunny did when he managed to calm his breathing was to sneak into Kel and Hero’s room. It was a mission easily accomplished as everyone was still watching the movie downstairs, but even so his heart pounded as though he were about to commit a crime and risked getting caught.

His target was the calendar he knew Hero kept pinned neatly next to his desk. A glance at it confirmed what he had dreaded.

The date was September 24, a Friday. In hindsight it made sense that the weekend was starting. Why else would both his mom and dad be out of town? Even though he knew what he would see, Sunny felt compelled to lift the page to the following month.

One day stood out like a beacon. Hero had encircled it multiple times, and in capital letters, RECITAL!!! was written.

Saturday, October 23. The day Mari died.

He needed a plan. The recital was key. If he could just make it past that day… if Mari could live past that day… everything would be okay, wouldn’t it? He just had to do something about the recital. But what? How could he stop it?

Maybe if he got rid of his violin, but in a way where Mari wouldn’t know he had done it? Wait, they had all been afraid that the house had been broken into, right? What if he staged a burglary? Oh, what a shame, he can’t perform! His violin has been stolen! How sad!

...But that would involve staging a burglary, which would mean he would have to find time to do that when nobody was home. And he’d have to make a mess in order for it to be convincing, which he’d feel bad about. Also, wouldn’t it be weird that the thief only stole the violin? He could hide other things to make it more convincing, but… no. This didn’t sound like a good idea.

He could… break his arm? His brain chose that moment to very helpfully supply him with the memory of what crunching bone sounded like. No. No, no, no. Next.

He could run and hide the night of the recital? Hm… Tempting, but considering what his friends’ and his sister’s faces looked like earlier today, he had to reject that one as well. He couldn’t do that to them again.

Sunny bit his lip. He supposed he could just tell Mari he didn’t want to do it. But for some reason, the thought formed a pit in his stomach. He stared at the marked date on Hero’s calendar. Every other event that was notated was written in small, neat penmanship, standing in stark contrast to the all capitals and exclamation points on the 23rd. He remembered standing in the graveyard, his friends telling him about all the preparation they had been doing for that special night. Hair cuts, nice clothes. So much excitement.

He remembered how hard Mari had been practicing. How hard she had worked to make everything perfect.

Abruptly, Sunny realized that his head was spinning. Carefully, he sat down on the floor and took deep breaths.

Should he do it? Should he try and play at the recital?

He dropped his head against his knees and closed his eyes, trying to clear his head. The thought of holding his violin again was enough to make him feel almost sick with anxiety. But, at the same time, it felt like the right thing to do. Like some form of closure. Or in this instance, maybe rebirth was a better word for it. Either way, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something he had to do.

He had about a month to relearn the violin. Hopefully it was like riding a bike and muscle memory would do the trick.

Uh oh, wait a moment. Today was Friday. His violin tutor came over on Saturday mornings, right? It was suddenly much harder to breathe. That wasn’t enough time. He needed more time, he couldn’t play yet-

“Sunny?” Hero’s voice, tentative and filled with worry, snapped him back into the present.

Ah. Right. He was having a panic attack in the brothers’ room, wasn’t he? Cool, very cool, that’s something a normal friend does. He held perfectly still. Maybe Hero was like a dinosaur and wouldn’t see him unless he moved. (Or were those frogs?)

“Sunny, are you alright?” Hero’s voice, even more worried, was now closer. Not a dinosaur, then.

Sunny held his hand up in a thumbs up, not daring to look at Hero’s face.

There was a pause, and then a rustle of fabric. It sounded like Hero had sat down behind him. “Sunny, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop when you were talking to Mom and Mari, but… You know we don’t hate you, right?”

Sunny’s head lifted a bit. Of course he knew that. Mari wasn’t dead, there was no reason to hate him. Yet. He nodded.

Hero’s hand gently ruffled his hair. It felt nice. “Okay. If you need to talk about anything, you can always come to me. Mari, too. I know she’d be happy to listen. You’ve been quiet today, so I know now might not be when you want to do that, but whenever you’re feeling ready for it, the offer stands.”

Hero started to stand up. Before his mind could catch up with his actions, Sunny uncurled himself and latched on to Hero’s arm. Hero looked down at him in surprise.

In a miserably small voice, Sunny managed to squeak out, “Can I skip practice tomorrow?”

Hero’s expression softened. “Sure, that’s fine. You’ve had a hard day. I’ll let Mari know.”

Sunny practically sagged with relief. In doing so, he didn’t notice Hero’s eyes clouding with worry.

Sunny had never slept so poorly in his life.

He was good at sleeping. The best. The undefeated, reigning champion. He could sleep for twelve hours and still be tired enough to take naps once he woke up.

But right now, his nerve endings felt scraped raw. For one thing, Kel and Mari both had their arms wrapped around him, and he felt like he was suffocating. He had enjoyed the contact earlier, but he hadn’t slept in the same bed with someone in years. Even when Kel and Hero had slept over at his place, they had made their blanket fort and left him the bed.

The more pressing issue, however, was his fear of waking up. The fear that this was a dream after all, and that he’d wake up with a missing eye and a dead sister. So, he’d drift, only to jerk awake over and over again. While the contact made him horribly uncomfortable, at least Mari’s arms around him was proof that she was still here.

It was a long night.

“Hey, hey sleepyhead!”

Sunny blearily opened his eyes to shoot Kel a halfhearted glare. Kel looked unfazed, still poking him.

“Don’t fall asleep or I’ll steal all your bacon!”

Spitefully, Sunny licked the piece Kel had been greedily eyeing.

“Aw, no fair!”

Aubrey kicked Kel under the table. “Leave him alone, Kel! Stop trying to steal Sunny’s food!”

“But he isn’t even eating it!” Kel whined with a pout.

“Are you feeling okay, Sunny?” Basil fretted. “Kel’s right, you’ve barely touched your food. And you’ve been really quiet today, too.”

Sunny tried not to visibly grimace, but based on the looks his friends exchanged he probably didn’t succeed. He just kept forgetting that people actually expected him to talk. “Just not that hungry. I’m fine,” he forced out quickly. When that didn’t seem to convince them, he took a deliberate bite of his toast. It was enough to get them off his back, at least, and the conversation returned to normal.

Hero and Mari were shuffling around in the kitchen, muttering to each other quietly. Sunny tried to eavesdrop, but their voices were too soft to hear.

After breakfast and saying goodbye to Hero and Kel’s parents, they headed back to Sunny and Mari’s home, armed with trash bags and cleaning supplies.

Despite Aubrey’s warning from the previous day, it still shook Sunny to see the destruction. Mari’s side of the room was totally untouched, but his was an absolute nightmare. The pages from his sketchbooks were torn out and strewn everywhere. The garbage can was overturned. His blankets were on the floor, and the stuffing had been pulled out of his pillow. Every single one of his drawers stood open, their contents spilling out. His books had been pulled off the shelf, and some of the pages were bent or ripped. And, of course, the window, smashed open from the inside, the curtain rod now slightly askew from the attack.

Immediately, aware of the eyes on him but too focused to care, Sunny checked underneath his bed. His violin case looked like it had been bumped, but when he pulled it out and opened it, the violin was unharmed. Totally perfect, not a scratch on it. He felt the tense knot in his stomach unravel a bit.

“Alright, team! Let’s get started.” Mari said brightly. “I’ll order us a pizza when we’re done, so let’s work hard, okay?”

Aubrey’s eyes shone, and Kel cheered loudly. With that, the cleaning frenzy began.

“What are we going to do about the window?” Basil asked from his spot on the floor where he had begun folding Sunny’s clothes.

Hero flashed a winning smile. “Don’t worry. I asked dad to help with that. He needed to stop by the home improvement store today anyways.”

“Thank you so much, Hero. I’ll pay you guys back for this, I promise.” Mari beamed.

Sunny felt his face heat. He knew that he didn’t do this, but he still felt responsible somehow. “I can pay you back for that,” he cut off Hero, who had been opening his mouth. Probably to say something like I would never ask you to pay me back, Mari, look at how perfect I am, blah blah blah. “I’ll take a part time job or something.”

Everyone looked at him like he had grown two heads.

“Sunny, you can’t work!” Kel sounded absolutely scandalized. “Working is for grownups!”

Sunny set his jaw stubbornly.

“Oh, Sunny, you don’t have to do that, really!” Hero protested. “We don’t mind.”

“It’s expensive, isn’t it?” Sunny pressed. Hero wilted a little at that.

“...It…It Isn’t cheap, but-”

Sunny nodded, satisfied. “I do it.” he paused, then added, “After the recital, though. I need to practice in my free time.”

The group made phenomenal progress after that. It was a small room after all, so with all of them working together, things were looking much better after only a few hours. Aubrey, Kel, and Basil had gone down to the storage closet, looking for replacements for Sunny’s destroyed sketchbooks and for a spare pillow to switch with Sunny’s old one. (Even after finding all of the stuffing that they could, it was now almost comically flat.) Hero was outside, carefully sweeping the broken glass on the lawn below into a pan.

That left Sunny and Mari in the room alone together.

Hero had given Mari a meaningful look before heading out. Traitor. Sunny held back a sigh and peeked over his shoulder at Mari. Sure enough, she was picking at her nails, as she always did when she was feeling anxious. Sunny cleared his throat, and her attention snapped to him.

“I’m okay,” he reassured her. “Sorry, I know I’m being weird right now. But I promise, you don’t need to worry about me.”

Mari gave him a wobbly smile. “You’re saying that, but… I’ve been pushing you too hard, haven’t I?”

Sunny shook his head hard. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mari frowned before scooting closer to him and pulling him into a hug. He leaned into it. “Little brother, I really don’t understand what’s going on in that head of yours right now. Why won’t you let me in?”

“My head. Get your own.”

She snorted and pinched his cheek. “Deflecting, are we? Fine, have it your way. But, if the recital is stressing you out too much, tell me. There’s always next year-”

“No!” he sat up quickly, pulling out of the embrace. Mari looked startled. “No, I have to do this.”

“Sunny, you don’t have to, it’s fine! Your mental health is much more important.” Mari’s voice was pleading. “I want to do the recital, but not if it’s hurting you!”

Sunny grabbed her hand.

Her palm was warm, alive. Her fingers curled around his. He met her gaze.

“I want to.” He wasn’t lying. “I really, really want to. I’m just-” his voice wavered, and he willed his stupid eyes to stay dry. “-scared I’ll mess everything up.”

Mari crushed him into another hug. “I’ll always love you no matter what, even if you do mess up.”

Stupid eyes. Stupid, stupid, leaky eyes. He sniveled and buried his face into her shoulder, squeezing them shut as though that could force the tears back in. Mari murmured soothing words of comfort as she rubbed his back.

Funny. He was mentally as old as she was, but even now, he felt like such a baby around her. He supposed that as old as he got, she always would be his big sister.

There was a scream from downstairs.

The pair jolted apart.

Was that… Basil?

Like a flash, Mari was on her feet and darting out of the room. An alarm bell went off in Sunny’s head, and he scrambled after her.

Mari was at the top of the stairs, body poised to run down them at full speed.

“ Mari, don’t! ” His voice came out loud and sharp, wholly unlike his own. It must have been jarring, because it was enough to stop Mari in her tracks. Sunny slipped past her, running down the stairs himself.

He didn’t fall, but there wasn’t time to celebrate. He turned towards the storage closet just in time for Aubrey, Basil, and Kel to stumble out. The trio were white as sheets.

“Guys?” Mari called from the top of the stairs. “Are you okay?!”

Aubrey burst into tears, and Kel was quick to follow. Surprisingly, it was Basil who found his voice first.

“Sunny,” he choked out. “I think your house is haunted.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Hero said, massaging his temples. Kel and Aubrey glared heatedly at him.

“You don’t know that, Hero!” Aubrey protested, stomping her foot.

“Yeah, you didn’t see it!” Kell chimed in. “But we all did! You think we’re lying? You think Basil is lying?”

Basil shrunk away as the attention was directed at him. “Guys!” he whined. “Don’t put this on me!”

“Is it true, Basil?” Mari pressed. “Did you see something?”

Basil flushed and looked away. “It might have been my eyes playing tricks on me, but… Yeah, I thought I did. Sorry for screaming and scaring everyone.”

Aubrey puffed up in triumph. “See? It’s true!”

Hero looked unmoved, but not angry. It was akin to the face he wore whenever Aubrey and Kel got into one of their more ridiculous fights; a combination of fond exasperation and exhaustion. “Okay, what do you want to do about it then? Is there a way to ask the ghost to leave?”

Sunny poked his head into the storage closet. He didn’t see anything, but did that really mean there was nothing there? “Can you leave?” he called into the room.

Basil and Aubrey shrieked and pulled Sunny away from the door. “What are you doing?!” Kel hissed. “The ghost will eat you!”

“Stupid!” Aubrey snapped. “Ghosts don’t eat!”

“Says you!”

“I’m not charming enough.” Sunny turned to Hero. “You have to do it.”

Hero looked baffled, but flattered. “You think I’m charming? Aw, thanks Sunny!”

Mari rubbed her chin. “You know, I think we’re supposed to burn sage if we’re performing an exorcism. Basil, do you have any sage?”

“O-oh, yeah! I’ve seen that in movies! Yeah, I have sage! It’s a really cute plant, and it smells nice!”

Aubrey gasped loudly. “Wait, they use holy water in the movies too, right? What if we get some holy water from the church?”

Kel cocked his head to the side. “How? It’s not like they have holy water vending machines.”

“If we bring our own…” Sunny started. Kel lit up.

“...Then the priest can bless it for us! Nice thinking, Sunny!”

“We have a gallon underneath the bathroom sink!” Mari seemed to become more and more into the idea as the conversation continued. “It’s distilled, but I don’t think that affects anything.”

“Mari…” Hero said weakly. “Isn’t this a little much?”

“Aw, but it’s exciting, isn’t it?”

Her enthusiasm was apparently too much for Hero to resist. “Alright, fine. But let’s finish this up before my dad gets here, alright?”

They split into two teams; Team Basil’s house (Sunny, Basil, and Mari) and Team Church (Hero, Kel, and Aubrey). There wasn’t much strategy to the organization of the teams; the only thing that they had really prioritized was making sure Hero would be the one to ask the priest to turn the gallon of distilled water into “anti ghost zapping juice”, as Kel called it.

As usual, Basil’s parents weren’t anywhere to be found. However, his grandma was out in the garden, happily watering plants while wearing her little sun hat. Sunny waved to her enthusiastically, happy to see her alive and well.

“I’ve brought them inside since it’ll probably start getting cold soon,” Basil explained as he cheerily led them to his room. “How much do you guys think we need?”

“I don’t think we need much.” Mari hummed. “The important thing is the smoke, right?”

Sunny blinked. “Wait… burning?”

“Yes?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Do fresh things burn?”

Basil, who had been about to cut a few pieces, paused. “Uh…”

“Maybe if we wrap it in paper? Or something flammable?” Mari suggested. “That should be fine, right?”

Together, they found a few old newspapers and wrapped the pieces of fresh sage in that before tying it off with some twine. It didn’t look cool like in the movies, but… it looked flammable enough? As Sunny and Mari finished tying off the bundle, there was a click and a flash. Basil, with a mischievous smile, lowered his camera. “Sorry,” he giggled. “It’s just, this is kind of fun, right? It feels like we’re on an adventure!”

Mari clapped her hands together. “I agree! I think this is exactly the kind of thing we needed. Oh!” She gasped, and her eyes sparkled. “Basil! You should bring your camera and try to take a picture of the ghost!”

Basil paled a little at that. “Isn’t that kind of scary, though?”

“If it attacks us,” Sunny said seriously, “we can just beat it up.”

“S-Sunny?!”

“Six of us. One ghost. We win.”

Mari held the sage bundle aloft. “We win!”

In the face of the relentless optimism of his friends, Basil started to look a little braver. “Well… I guess that does sound exciting…”

Mari cheered.

When they arrived back at Sunny and Mari’s home, it was to Kel’s howling laughter. Hero had poured some of the holy water into a spray bottle, and Kel and Aubrey had decorated the bottle with brightly colored stickers. Kel brandished the bottle. “Our weapon,” he declared grandly, “is complete!”

“I figured it would be silly to just pour water all over the place.” Hero huffed, trying and failing to not look amused. “I’m starting to regret that choice, though,” he added, as Aubrey grabbed the spray bottle and pantomimed blasting Kel with it. Kel slapped his hands over his chest and crumpled dramatically to the floor. 

“Well, you guys sure are having fun!” Mari teased. “Kel, Aubrey, weren’t you both scared earlier?”

Aubrey blushed, but Kel waved his hand in the air. “Whaaaat? Nah, not us. We’re professionals. Ooh, we should buy squirt guns! Then we can shoot the ghost- ”

“That’s a no, Kel,” Hero lightly bonked Kel on the head with his hand. “No, we are not going to go to use water guns indoors in Mari’s house. We already cleaned up one mess today, we don’t need to do it again.”

“Boo.” Kel sulked. “Oh well. This is still pretty neat. Look, we even have Captain Spaceboy stickers on here!”

“Here’s a lighter, Mari!” Basil handed it to her. “Uh, and here’s a fire extinguisher! Just in case.”

“Thanks, Basil!” Mari cheered. “Alright, everyone! Ready to get that ghost?!”

Aubrey and Kel let out fearsome warcries. Sunny, Basil, and Hero let out… not nearly as fearsome cries, but it was something.

Mari flicked the lighter on and ignited the sage bundle. It took a bit for it to catch, but once it did, it became smokey quickly. ...Very smokey.

Aubrey covered her nose. “I thought this was supposed to smell nice?”

“Well…” Mari laughed sheepishly. “It is fresh… but I’m sure it’ll be fine!”

Sunny pushed open the door of the storage room, and Mari wafted some of the smoke inside. Kel readied the spray bottle. “Hero! Tell it to go away!” he hissed at his brother.

“Charmingly,” Sunny added instantly.

“A-Alright, uh…” Hero cleared his throat and flashed a smile at the empty storage room. “Spirit! Please leave this place. I’m sorry, but you can’t stay any longer. Return to the afterlife where you belong!”

There was a pause. Hero turned to Mari. “Was that good-”

The power went out.

Shrieks rang out from all sides around Sunny. Someone stepped on his foot. Next to him, Mari fumbled with the lighter, finally managing to light it, the small, flickering flame illuminating the room a little.

There was something in front of them.

Another smell filled the room; one that was putrid sweet, like rotting fruit. Of what little he could see, it was something wet, with long, grasping fingers.

Sunny couldn’t see anyone else's expression, but he could see Mari's. She was frozen, eyes wide, mouth slack, the sage drooping in her loosened grip.

Acting on impulse, Sunny snatched the sage bundle from Mari and threw it at the creature. His throw went wide, but the motion was enough to snap everyone out of their stupor. A spray of holy water from Kel sent the thing snarling, gums pulling back as it reeled. There was a flash from Basils camera, and it staggered further, reeling away from the light before it lurched forward, clawing.

It was aiming at Sunny.

Mari stepped in front of him, and blind panic rose in Sunny as he tried to call her name. Before he could, she had reeled back and-

WHAM!

Whatever it was, it went sprawling. Mari looked at her fist like she couldn’t believe it belonged to her.

Emboldened by Mari’s bravery, Aubrey yowled like a cat and pounced on the thing, stomping on it’s prone form. Hero’s voice rang out in the dark, this time much less polite than it had been before.

“Leave!” he shouted. “Get out! GET OUT NOW!”

The room felt flooded with cold, and there was a rattling, furious scream. Then silence.

The lights turned back on.

The ghost was gone.

Kel, of course, was the first to start screaming. “It was real! It was real! Basil, oh Basil, please tell me you got a picture of that!”

Basil was holding the picture in a shaking hand. Wordlessly, he turned it so they could all see.

It was shoddily lit and a bit blurry, but, undeniably, there had been something there.

“Mari punched a ghost! She punched it! In the face! ” Kel crowed between bites of pizza. “And then Aubrey stomped it to smithereens! That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”

Aubrey preened at the praise. “Well, yeah, I wasn’t just gonna stand there! Had to show it who’s the boss!” 

Hero groaned. Mari patted him on the back sympathetically. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that ghosts are real. This is ridiculous,” he said mournfully. “When Dad got here, he asked me what was wrong, and I told him the truth! Told him I’d just gotten in a shouting match with a ghost. And he laughed, like I had just told the funniest joke in the world.”

“You were very impressive though, Hero!” Basil tried to cheer him up. “You really, uh, put it in its place!”

Hero groaned again, louder. “Can’t believe this happened. Today started out so normally.”

“But did it?!” Kel demanded, leaning forward, eyes alight. “Okay, hear me out. So Sunny woke up in the middle of nowhere yesterday, right? And his room was all messed up?”

“Yeah Kel, we know, we were all there.” Aubrey raised an eyebrow.

“No, listen!” Kel waved his slice of pizza emphatically. “Doesn’t all that sound a bit… crazy to you? A bit spooky? Maybe even… supernatural-y?!”

Basil gasped. “Sunny was possessed by that ghost!” he turned huge, shining eyes towards Sunny. “We saved you!”

Sunny shifted awkwardly in his seat.

“Well, little brother? Do you feel,” Mari hesitated, searching for the right word. “Cleansed?”

“Ghost free?” Aubrey suggested.

Hero grumbled into his arms where he had buried his head.

Sunny shrugged. He felt the same. A little amazed that ghosts were real, apparently, but honestly that wasn't the strangest or even the most frightening thing on his mind at the moment. “...Yes?”

“Yes!” Kel cheered. “Awesome! We should fight ghosts again sometime!”

Hero raised his head to glower at his brother. Kel ignored him.

Despite the fact that Mari and Sunny were now the proud owners of an exorcised home, neither of them really wanted to be alone in the house, and their parents wouldn’t be back until the next day. So, once more, they slept over at Hero and Kel’s home. The events of the day had thoroughly exhausted them and they all but collapsed into their blankets.

This time, Kel was draped over Hero instead of Sunny, so it was just him and Mari. His head was tucked against her shoulder as she gently ran a hand through his hair. Everyone else seemed to be fast asleep, based on the snoring and deep breathing, so he chanced a whisper. “Mari?”

“Hm?” her voice was equally hushed.

Sunny swallowed. “Please don’t jump in front of me like that again.”

Her hand paused before resuming its soothing motion. “I’m sorry. I scared you, didn’t I?”

Stupid eyes, knock it off. He sniffed.

“I can’t promise that I won’t protect you, Sunny. That… whatever that thing was, it was after you. I don’t regret stopping that. But I’m so sorry I made you worry. I’ll try not to put you through that again.”

Feeling reckless, Sunny pushed further. “Promise you’ll be careful on the stairs.”

“...What?”

“Please.”

Mari sighed helplessly. “Oh, little brother. What has gotten into you? I promise, I’ll be careful on the stairs. I’ll use the railing and everything. Will that make you feel better?”

Not trusting his voice, he nodded.

“Okay, then I’ll do it. But in return, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything,” he said fervently.

Gently, she pushed back his bangs so that he was looking her in the eye. “You don’t have to force yourself when you’re feeling sad or angry, but… please let yourself smile more. I know you have a lot going on in that head of yours, but remember you’re allowed to have fun.” Her own smile turned impish. “Today was pretty fun, right? Your big sis may not play ball anymore, but I still have a good arm!” She flexed. Sunny giggled, and Mari’s eyes warmed. “There it is! The sun from behind the storm clouds!”

Embarrassed, Sunny ducked his head, but he was still smiling.

“Sunny, I love you.”

“Love you too, Mari.” 

Chapter Text

It was easy to assume that Mari lived a perfect, storybook life. She was a pretty, straight A student, beloved by teachers and friendly with all of her classmates. She was dating Hero, the guy who nearly everyone had a crush on. Once a softball star, now a piano prodigy.

It was easy to assume that Mari never doubted herself. That late at night, she wouldn’t mentally tally all of the things that she had messed up on throughout the day, or lock herself in the bathroom and stare at her reflection, wishing she were someone else.

Mari was fourteen when she had her first panic attack.

It was during a trip to the mall. She remembered it so clearly. She had been browsing through some skirts before noticing another boy from school in the store next over. The aptly nicknamed “Pretty Boy”, or PB for short, was younger than her, only a grade above Sunny, but she saw him in the library often and he was very sweet and funny. She had wanted to say a quick hello, that was all, so she had slipped away from her family without telling anyone where she was going.

Maybe she had talked to PB for longer than she remembered. Or maybe everyone had already been about to leave and didn’t notice she was gone. She wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter. Either way, when she returned, she found herself alone.

In hindsight, the solution was crystal clear. Embarrassing, really, in its simplicity. The mall had security, she could have just told someone she had gotten lost. But in the moment, panic had clouded her mind, and there, standing in a sea of indifferent people passing her by, she suddenly had the sensation of being unable to breathe. She had bolted for the restroom at the food court, gasping for the air that, despite filling her lungs, somehow didn’t feel like enough.

She didn’t know how long she was in there. It must have been awhile, because a female security guard eventually came in, gently calling her name. She had staggered out, needed help walking back to her family because her legs felt like jelly.

Her parents were in hysterics, and Sunny had clung to her as though afraid she would disappear if he let go. “What happened?!” she remembered her father demanding.

But that was just the thing; nothing had happened, not really. She had just been overwhelmed, for no good reason. A moment of weakness.

A flaw that must be fixed.

Mari had known for quite some time that she probably had some form of undiagnosed anxiety, but panic attacks were the final straw. She could handle the anxiety. She could push it down, force it into a box, throw herself into extracurricular activities in order to distract herself from it. But the panic attacks were crippling. They would come without warning, in the dead of night while she was trying to sleep or in the middle of day surrounded by people. Mari dreaded the day that she wouldn’t be able to hide it from everyone. What if something happened at school? What would they all think?

She couldn’t talk to a therapist. Because that would mean admitting, out loud, that there was something wrong.

Which was funny, because if someone else had confided to her that they were having these issues, she knew she would tell them that it was okay, that therapy was nothing to be ashamed of, that it was good and healthy to discuss these feelings with a professional.

And yet, even knowing this, she couldn’t apply that same logic to herself.

She did what she thought was the next best thing. After a solo trip to the library under the guise of doing homework, Mari researched how to handle these issues on her own.

She learned breathing exercises. In the mornings, she would meditate. When she would feel the panic begin to choke her, she would tell herself, “It’s not as scary as you think.”

It wasn’t a magical cure. Her problems didn’t vanish. But it helped a little, to her relief.

The knowledge became invaluable the night after Sunny almost drowned. She was having some trouble sleeping, so she had stayed up to read her latest copy of Sweetheart (Sunny’s lip had curled at the sight of the cover before rolling, burrowing in his blankets). It was a quiet, still night, so she heard the moment that Sunny began to gasp for air before jolting awake, shivering and terrified.

Mari taught him her breathing exercises that night before soothing him back to sleep, whispering that everything was going to be okay.

There was something strange going on with Sunny.

Actually, it was more than one thing. Too many things seemed strange.

Sunny was a creature of habit and comfort. He loved routine, hated even minor inconveniences, and if you gave him the option between doing something difficult but rewarding or just taking a nap, he’d be asleep before you were finished making the offer.

As a person who always pushed herself, these traits of Sunny’s had annoyed her in the past. And, there had been a time where, if Sunny suddenly started taking initiative on something, she would have been very proud of him. But considering everything else, the concern overrode her normal bias.

Every day, Sunny had started waking up before the sun rose. She would hear him quietly reach under his bed and pull his violin from its spot before sneaking out of the room. After a few minutes, if she strained her ears, she could hear him practicing from somewhere outside.

She thought he didn’t like practicing. She always had to pester him to do it. So why…?

He had denied it, but hadn’t she nagged him too much? Tried to get him to be more like her and and work harder, even though she knew all he wanted to do was watch the Saturday morning cartoons with everyone else? Had she transferred that desperate pressure to succeed that she felt every day onto her baby brother? Despite Sunny’s assurances that it wasn’t her fault, she found herself combing through her memories of past practices, cringing at all of the things she had said that could have been misconstrued as harsh.

And then, of course, there was the issue of the “ghost”.

Mari had a deep love for horror. Not the really hardcore stuff, but she enjoyed ghost stories and scary movies, and even more than that, she enjoyed the way they made Hero cower into her side when they watched them together.

Even so, witnessing a real, undeniably supernatural event had certainly been a lot.

She couldn’t say that she was traumatized or anything like that. The relative ease she and her friends had brought down the creature had helped in that regard. Her friend's unrelenting jocularity regarding the event, Kel’s in particular, also helped. If anything, it was treated as something of an inside joke among their circle, fueled by the amazement at the impossibility of the whole thing and a rush of giddy adrenaline that had yet to really fade. And yet, sometimes, her mind would conjure up the image of teeth, wet flesh, and too long fingers and she would have to take a moment to just clear her head. And the concept itself was quite a lot to deal with. If something like that was real, what else was real? What other outlandish things were possible in this world?

But Sunny seemed completely unfazed. Sunny, her little brother who was afraid of spiders and crawled into her bed when he had nightmares, had brushed off the encounter as if it were nothing. Thinking that maybe he was just repressing his feelings, Mari had actually confronted him, assuring him that she was there for him, if he needed to talk. 

He had stared up at her, head cocked cutely to the side, in the same way Mewo did when Mari called her name. “...About the recital?” he had asked.

“No- Well, yes, of course. I’m there for you about that too. But I was talking about the ghost.”

A blink and a nod. And that was all.

He was so quiet these days. He had always been quiet, but this was on another level. Her parents hadn’t seemed to have noticed, but that was, unfortunately, unsurprising. They were keeping it a secret from their children, but it was clear to Mari that behind closed doors, they were fighting. Mari had eavesdropped one night, ear pressed against the cold bathroom wall. She hadn’t been able to catch all of the details, but it seemed as though her dad’s work was going to need him to start traveling more soon. Her mom, who’s job already involved frequent travel, wasn’t happy about it. After all, who would look after the kids?

Honestly, it seemed as though there had already been tension brewing between them, and this was just another thing atop the pile. So, for them, Sunny being a little more quiet than usual was nothing of note.

Today was a Saturday. It had been one week since she woke up to find Sunny missing and his side of the room in shambles. One week since they performed the world’s most amateurish exorcism. And once again, despite it being the weekend, and despite the fact that his violin tutor would be showing up later in the morning, Mari could hear Sunny sneaking out of the room. She thought about following him, but something about the idea seemed invasive. So, she just wobbled to the window, her bad knee stiff from sleep, and cracked it open so that she could listen to the soft notes. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Whatever was going on with Sunny, it was clear that he was trying hard.

She would have to do her best, too.

His friends were loading up a picnic basket when Sunny finished with his lessons for the day. Like a well oiled machine, Hero and Mari built and wrapped perfect little sandwiches, tucking them neatly inside. Like a rusty, more inefficient machine, Aubrey and Kel argued over chip flavors before giving up on negotiations entirely and just stuffing multiple bags in. Basil stood off to the side, camera at the ready but looking indecisive about where to point it. When he caught sight of Sunny, though, his eyes lit up and the camera flashed. Sunny gave him a curious look.

“The sun is streaming in from the window behind you, and it looks really pretty!” Basil explained. Sunny turned, following where Basil was pointing. Sure enough, bright shafts of light illuminated tiny specks of dust in the air and pooled onto the carpet. Sunny immediately sat down in the warm patch and closed his eyes contentedly. Judging from the soft pressure against his leg, Mewo had been quick to join him.

He heard rustling as Basil sat down beside him as well. “How did practice go?”

Sunny shrugged indifferently. His tutor had told him he had done well, but honestly, it was hard for him to know if she was just placating him or not. Ever since he had first snuck out to the treehouse to practice on his own, he found himself unable to really focus on the music he was making. All of his attention was devoted to making sure that he had the notes and timing down, and he couldn’t distance himself enough to listen and hear if anything actually sounded good. Really, he was just glad he could work up the nerve to play at all. The treehouse practice sessions had definitely helped. It had taken a frustrating amount of time just to work up the nerve to lift the violin from the case, and the bow had felt awkward in his hand. But, as he’d hoped, the memory of how to play hadn’t truly left him in those four years. Practice today had been the first time he had actually played in front of someone since...that day. And it went fine.

He decided not to think about the looming deadline of the recital right now. He just wanted to enjoy the weekend.

“Don’t worry, Sunny! I’m sure the recital will go well. You and Mari have been working really hard!” Basil tried to reassure him, voice faltering when Sunny grimaced.

Fortunately for Sunny, a distraction came in the form of Kel making a loud vomiting sound.

“Kel, come on!” Hero scolded. “They aren’t that bad, and they’re a healthy alternative to chips. You want to try out for the basketball team next semester, right? Shouldn’t you start eating healthy now so that you’re at your best when tryouts start?”

“Bro, I can play basketball without eating your gross dried cucumbers.” Kel scowled.

Aubrey nodded, prodding a dehydrated carrot with a nauseous expression. “I’m with Kel. This is not chips. This is punishment food. I don’t think Bun Bun would even eat this.”

“I think they’re nice!” Mari protested. “I used to eat these on the bus ride home!”

Kel and Aubrey pushed the bag towards her. “Great! All yours, Mari!” Kel said quickly.

“Yeah, I’ll stick with Barbeque, thanks.”

“Boo! Sour cream and onion is where it's at!”

“ Gross, Kel!”

“It is not! ”

Hero grumbled and crossed his arms. “Well, I think they’re good. Sunny? Basil? What do you think?”

“I’m with you and Mari, Hero. Dried veggies are a nice snack! They don’t taste like chips, sure, but I still like them.” Basil smiled. 

It was much quieter than Kel’s, but Sunny also made a little vomiting sound. Kel and Aubrey cackled.

The weather was gorgeous, and it was a perfect day for a picnic. It was unseasonably warm for fall, and the leaves were a multitude of stunning, fiery shades. Staring up at them gave Sunny the idea of trees decked in flickering flame instead of leaves, and proceeded to mentally map out the concept of a fire forest during the walk to the park. He imagined trees wreathed in dancing flames, little candles as flowers, and a still, shimmering lake of melted wax.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t come back to reality until Basil tentatively waved a hand in his face. “Um, Sunny? You okay? You’ve been spacing out for a while now.”

Sunny blinked and looked down. He was holding a sandwich, which he didn’t remember receiving. He shrugged and took a bite. It was good… Mostly. He sneakily spat out a piece of cucumber into a napkin. It seemed Hero and Mari had taken revenge for nobody wanting their gross chips.

“We wanted to know how school has been going for you, Sunny,” Hero repeated. “Especially since-”

“-Since you got possessed!” Kel interrupted, mouth full. “Sunny’s like, way smarter now! I think the ghost gave him brain powers or something.”

“The power to be better at math?” Aubrey scoffed. “That’s boring. If you’re going to get powers from a ghost, shouldn’t you get to walk through walls and stuff?”

Hero sighed, looking defeated, and Mari took the lead instead. “Come on guys, let Sunny answer! How’s it been going, little brother?”

Sunny started to shrug again, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to be rude. So instead, he replied, “Fine, but boring.”

“Boring?” Basil repeated.

Sunny fiddled with the lettuce poking out of the corner of his sandwich. “...Too easy. It makes it hard not to fall asleep.”

Kel nodded knowingly. “You have been dozing off a lot. But hey, that reminds me of a funny story! Mrs. Mackleberry was so mad yesterday!”

“Good,” Aubrey muttered. “She’s mean.” Basil nodded rapidly in agreement.

“Right?! She’s the worst! But yesterday, Sunny fell asleep in class, and she did that thing! You know, where she walks up to your desk and slams her hands down on it when you aren’t paying attention?”

Basil shuddered and looked traumatized. “Y-yeah… But didn’t you say this was a funny story?”

“I’m getting there! So she was all grumpy and was like, well since this is so boring for you, why don’t you go up to the front and show us how it’s done? ” Kel paused for dramatic effect, smile widening. “And so Sunny shuffles to the front, still looking half asleep, and immediately solves everything, just like that! And then he went right back to sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her face so red!”

Mari’s eyes were wide. “Is that why there was an angry message on the answering machine from some lady when I got home?”

“You did?! What’d it say?” Aubrey demanded.

“I- well, I didn’t realize it was a teacher… I thought it was a misdial? So I deleted it.”

Aubrey laughed uproariously. “Serves her right!”

“Guys…” Predictably, Hero’s tone was a lecturing one. “You shouldn’t be antagonizing a teacher. And Sunny, I’m glad that your studies are going so well that things are easy for you, but you really shouldn’t be sleeping in class! Are you getting enough rest at night?”

Sunny flinched, but tried to hide his reaction by looking away quickly. It didn’t seem to work though.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mari asked gently. Sunny felt his cheeks burn and shook his head. The corners of her mouth pulled down unhappily. “Okay. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

There was an awkward lull in the conversation after that. Basil’s eyes dated from face to face, as though hunting for a distraction. Eventually his gaze rested on Sunny, and he seemed to find what he was looking for, as he blurted, “Do you guys want to dress up as the Ghost Lords for Halloween?”

A brief pause. Then, Kel gasped dramatically, and his eyes sparkled. “BASIL! You’re the smartest person I know!”

Hero, in contrast, wilted. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something… Not ghost related?”

Aubrey snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that, Hero.” She jerked her head towards Sunny and Mari, drawing his attention to the siblings.

A total 180 from their mood just moments ago, the two were practically vibrating with excitement. “Oh no.” Hero whispered.

Mari leapt to her feet, a few stray crumbs falling from her skirt with the motion. “I call dibs on Maximilian!” Mari sang, arms held wide. “I’ve always wanted an excuse to dress up like him! The pocket watch! The flowing cape! Those boots!” she swooned.

“Leroy.” Sunny said simply, face alight.

“Yes!” Mari dropped back down to hug him. “We’ll be the coolest brothers around! And you already look so much like Lee, it's perfect! ”

Despite lacking their enthusiasm, Hero was unable to resist the siblings’ obvious delight, and a little chuckle escaped him. “I forgot how much you guys liked that show. That was the one with the cat butler, right? And all the toast?”

“Yeah, Mari named Mewo after him.” Aubrey nodded. Then her brow furrowed. “Wait, what? Toast? What the heck did Ghost Lords have to do with toast?”

“They were always eating toast! Always! Even though they had this big manor and fancy clothes, they literally were only ever eating toast with jam!” Kel cried. “Whenever I watched it, it gave me weird toast cravings.”

Aubrey looked perplexed. “I never realized. How did you guys notice something so specific?”

“Flynn talked with his hands a lot! So half the time, he’d be waving the toast around. That’s how I noticed, anyways.” Basil looked around at everyone, cheerfully. “So, Ghost Lords for Halloween is a yes?”

“Obviously!” Kel cheered. “It’s perfect for us. I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner! Actually, I should re-watch the series so that I’m prepared for our next ghost encounter. Who knows, maybe I can learn some techniques!”

Hero massaged his temples, but at this point he seemed to have given up on insisting that they were not ghost hunters.

Fortunately for Sunny, this topic the conversation had derailed into proved to be a far safer one. He was able to escape from any further questions for the duration of the picnic as his mind drifted once more. This time, however, it did not wander into the mystical fire forest of his creation, but into the past.

They hadn’t made any plans as a group for Halloween last time. They hadn’t gone on any picnics in October, Mari hadn’t wanted to. She’d been too busy with practicing for the recital and her extra classes. So even if Basil had been planning on asking everyone if they wanted to wear coordinated costumes, he never had a chance to. It felt strange, planning for an event after the recital. It didn’t seem real. There was a tiny part of his mind that seemed to be convinced that time would essentially stop after that day, because surviving it- and ensuring Mari survived it- was basically all he was working towards.

If that day came and went… what would he do after?

Another morning, another day that Sunny was sneaking out early. Mari watched him through slitted eyes until the door softly closed. After a moment, she sat up, rubbing her face and sighing quietly through her nose. Mewo took advantage of the additional pillow space and stretched out across where Mari’s head had been, purring contentedly. She’d been trying to get Sunny to relax and take a break, but he just wouldn’t. She’d dragged him out on picnics. She made time for watching movies together. She even bought him a new video game with her allowance. Mari wasn’t trying to bribe him into being happy (she of all people knew it wasn’t that simple), she just wanted him to slow down and breathe, just for a moment. He wasn’t paying attention in class, he wasn’t drawing at all… the only thing he seemed to care about was that violin. This relentless obsessiveness was so out of character for Sunny, and it couldn’t be healthy. At this point, she was looking forward to the recital, not because of the excitement of performing, but so that it’d be over already. Wearily, she wondered if this was how Sunny felt whenever she got into one of her everything must be perfect moods. Probably. Her head dropped to her knees, and she took a deep breath, attempting to steady herself. Now was not the time for wallowing in self pity. This wasn’t about her, this was about her baby brother.

She could hear him playing, now. As always, she cracked open the window to hear the song more clearly.

He was doing beautifully, the notes clear and flawless. She couldn’t help but think there was a stiffness to them, though; an odd, clinically detached sound, as though the melody was made with all the passion of someone doing a job that they were good at but had no real interest in.

Maybe she was reading too much into it.

From downstairs, she heard movement, and her attention snapped back to reality. Had her parents heard Sunny playing? Quickly, she scrambled to her feet and exited the room, combing her fingers through her messy bed hair.

“Don’t go out to him!” She called quietly, padding to the stairs. “I think he’s self conscious about his playing, you’ll upset…him…”

It wasn’t her parents. They weren’t home right now. In her half awake, distracted state, she’d forgotten.

At the foot of the stairs, staring towards the door that led to the backyard, was the ghost. Upon hearing her voice, it’s head slowly rotated to face her.

In the dim, early morning sunlight, she could see it more clearly. It didn’t have eyes. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest.

In a high pitched, mocking voice that sounded far too much like Sunny’s, it let out an unpleasant giggle. “Why do you care?”

Mari’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly a few times before she was able to get enough oxygen into her lungs to gasp out the word, “W-what?”

“Why do you care about him?”

Her knees felt like they were going to give out, so she reached out and gripped the railing tightly to support herself. She had made a promise to be careful by the stairs, after all. “Why...wouldn’t I care? He’s my brother. I love him.” It was a struggle not to hyperventilate, and she recognized the early warning signs of a full blown panic attack. Her hand gripped the railing even harder, hoping the sensation would ground her.

“He should die.”

Suddenly, instead of feeling too much at once, it was like everything stopped. She could hear a hollow ringing in her ears, but her adrenaline felt as though it had crashed into a wall, and her body felt cold. Some strange, alien feeling curled in the pit of her stomach. Mari had never considered herself a violent person. She didn’t get in fights. She almost never lashed out, even when she was hurting. But now, punching this creature in the face didn’t seem like nearly enough.

“He doesn’t deserve to live.”

With numb, absolute detachment, Mari took a careful step down the stairs.

“You should hate him.”

Another slow, careful step. She couldn’t feel her hands.

“He stole everything from you.”

Another step. She couldn’t feel her feet.

“And, he stole you away from everyone.”

Another step. It was as though her body was moving on its own.

“He got away with it, too.”

Another.

“They’ll forgive him. But they shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.”

Step.

“He should die.”

Another.

“You should kill him.”

Mari stopped moving. Then she continued, a little faster.

“But you won’t, even though he deserves it. You’re too nice for that. Or maybe too weak.”

Her feet moved faster. The creature’s foul face twisted into something that resembled a smile.

“Do you want me to kill him for you?”

She lunged for it.

It vanished before she could touch it, and she crashed painfully to the floor, her knees striking the ground hard enough to bruise. The pain helped to pull her out of whatever state she had been in. Her pulse thundered in her ears, and she heard that mocking giggle once more before it faded into silence.

Her heartbeat was so loud. Forcing its way through the fading numbness, a hot, sickening fury was bubbling to the surface. When it became too much to bear, she staggered to her feet.

Ignoring the searing in her knees, she stalked to the closet and slammed the door open. The creature was nowhere to be found. A hitching gasp escaped her, like a dry sob, and she shivered hard. Had she ever been this mad before? She felt like her blood was burning under her skin. Almost compulsively, she shoved one of the shelves forward until it fell with a deafening, satisfying crash. Something shattered. She didn’t care what it was.

She hated it. She hated it. She hated it. 

A world without Sunny. What kind of awful place would that be? She couldn’t imagine how terrible it would be to lose him. That fear she’d felt the day he’d gone missing… if she’d found a body that day… How could she have carried on? What would have happened to her family, to her friends, once they’d learned? A future where Sunny couldn’t grow up, where his life had been cut short before it had barely even begun- that was too horrible to imagine. She’d held him as a baby, when she herself was so young that the memory lay half-buried in fog, and promised she’d always be there for him. That she’d never let anything bad happen to him.

And there was that thing, saying he deserved to die?

Mari batted a box to the floor. Another crash.

She had to calm down. She had to think, had to act now or she felt like she’d crawl out of her own skin. She tried to take a deep breath. Even though it was unsteady, she managed it.

...Wow, she’d made a mess. Mari stared blankly at the floor before slowly backing out of the room and closing the door behind her. She’d clean that up before Mom and Dad came home. Hopefully she hadn’t broken anything important. She glanced towards the sliding door and crept towards it, cracking it open. It was harder to hear from the door than from her window, but yes, Sunny was still playing. She closed the door and breathed out a little sigh of relief. Good. He hadn’t heard her throwing a tantrum. Mari scowled over her shoulder back at the unobtrusive looking closet door, as if it were the ghost itself and not just part of the house.

If that vile thing thought she was just going to sit around and let it hurt her family, it had another thing coming.

“It’s weird though, isn’t it?” Basil mused. “We don’t normally hang out after school as a group. Not that I mind or anything!”

Kel nodded, hands linked behind his head as he walked. “No, you’re right, Mari isn’t usually so… uh… pushy?”

“Don’t be a jerk, Kel.” Aubrey scolded, but there wasn’t much heat behind the words. “She made it sound like it was important.”

He held up his hands defensively. “Wasn’t trying to be! You know what I mean though, right? Sunny?” He looked to Sunny to back him up. Sunny, however, was staring straight up at the clouds, barely watching where he was walking. Kel grumbled a little and poked his friend in the ribs. “Come back, Sunny. This is serious!”

Sunny blinked at him and shrugged. “Don’t know. I didn’t notice anything.”

Aubrey grimaced. “Look, I’m not trying to pick on you, I know you’re stressed right now, but you should really pay more attention to your surroundings, Sunny.”

He gave her a confused look, but said nothing further.

Hero was already at the hideout, a slightly apprehensive look on his face as he glanced at his watch. “Hey.”

“Hi, Hero!” Basil greeted. “Sorry, are we late?”

Hero laughed nervously. “Oh, no, it's not that. It’s just that Mari isn’t early. It’s just weird for her, that’s all. I’m sure it's nothing.”

Together, they migrated towards the lake’s edge and sat at the dock, exchanging mindless conversation to pass the time. They weren’t kept waiting for very long.

“Hey guys!” Mari all but sang as she ran to them, an enormous backpack thrown over her shoulder. “Sorry for keeping you waiting. Had to grab a bus and stop by downtown to get everything I was looking for.”

“Downtown?!” Hero sputtered.

“Yep!” She unzipped the overstuffed bag. “First, we have this for Kel! Here you go!” Like Santa with a bag full of toys, she handed Kel an absurdly large squirt gun. “You wanted one, right? For the holy water?”

Kel let out a tiny scream as he latched onto the ridiculous toy. “This is the best day of my life,” he said as he pretended to wipe away a tear.

“And for Aubrey, you wanted one of these, right? Like mine?” A pink aluminum baseball bat was the next item to be handed out. Aubrey’s eyes shone like stars, and she sprang to her feet to give it a few practice swings. “Yeah, like that! Great form!” Mari cheered encouragingly.

“Uh… Mari…” Hero started weakly. He was ignored.

“Basil, I found some dried sage! So you don’t have to cut up your poor plant anymore.” She handed him a massive bundle. “Oh, and there’s some cedar in there as well. I looked it up and it seems that cedar is also effective against ghosts, isn’t that interesting? I wonder why they only ever used sage in the movies.”

Hero opened his mouth again, but he was silenced by the full force of Mari’s attention turning towards him as she pressed a very occult looking book into his hands. He stared down at it blankly. “U-uh…”

“It’s a spell book!” She said brightly. “It has a whole section just about spirit banishment. I’m counting on you, Hero!”

Hero finally gave up and just nodded.

“And don’t worry, baby brother, I didn’t forget about you! Here’s a squirt gun for you as well! And some pepper spray, a self defense keychain, a retractable baton, a pocket spell book- please memorize the protective charms in it…”

Sunny watched the growing pile of objects in his lap grow before looking back up at his sister, an increasingly alarmed look on his face as more was added to it. Kel mouthed the words I told you so, and Sunny wrinkled his nose at him.

“-flashlight that strobes when you press the button twice! You can also hit things with it. And another self defense keychain, isn’t it cute? It looks like a kitty!”

“It is cute.” Sunny admitted.

“Right?!”

“Are you okay, Mari?” Sunny asked quickly, before she could go off on another tangent.

Her smile remained fixed in place. “Yep! Why do you ask?”

“This is just,” he hesitated, choosing his words carefully, “a lot more than what everyone else got.”

“Of course it is!” she responded easily. “You’re the only one of us who’s ever been personally targeted by a ghost. It only makes sense for you to be prepared in case something else shows up.”

Biting his lip, Basil nodded slowly. “She has a point. That ghost really wanted to get Sunny. Maybe he has a tasty aura or something.”

Hero visibly twitched at the word aura but wisely kept silent.

Aubrey and Kel seemed too excited about their gifts to really pick up on Sunny’s tension.

Hoisting her bat over her head, Aubrey crowed, “I’m gonna beat up a ghost!” Kel held his squirt gun in one hand, and they both struck a pose. Basil snapped a picture.

Mari moved her old bat from the treehouse into her and Sunny’s bedroom, leaning it carefully near her headboard. Sunny didn’t ask why- in fact, she wasn’t even sure if he noticed. But the ghost didn’t show up again after that, and that was all that mattered.

The recital was now only a week away. For very different reasons, neither sibling was sleeping well. But at least they got to stay up late and read together.

It was the day before the festival.

Sunny didn’t think his finger had stopped tapping once since he’d woken up. One more day. He didn’t think he’d actually get this far. Mom had cooked breakfast before leaving work. The scent of it was drifting upstairs, and it made him feel sick as he curled on top of his covers, holding Mewo against his chest.

It ended up being a horrifically unproductive day, and the only one so far that he couldn’t muster up the nerve to hold the violin. Mari didn’t yell at him about it, and brought him a glass filled with ice chips so he wouldn’t dehydrate.

He grabbed pitifully at her sweater as she started to leave. “You-” his voice cracked, and he tried again. “You remember your promise, right?”

She looked down at him quietly, then smoothed his hair out of his eyes. “Holding onto that railing at all times.” She paused, a little teasing smile forming. “Looking both ways before I cross the street. Wearing my armor before I leave to slay the dragons. Very safe stuff.” At the mention of armor and dragons, Sunny’s eyes widened, and he looked more animated in that moment than he had the whole week. Mari’s grin grew wider at the sight. “Imagining me as a cool lady-knight?” He nodded enthusiastically, and she preened. “Well, no pressure, but if you feel like drawing that at any point, I’d love to see it.”

Sunny hummed noncommittally, but her words had lifted his spirits a bit. She was being careful. He wasn’t going to break his violin.

Everything was going to be okay, right?

It was the day of the recital.

Mari was a little surprised, but pleased, that today of all days Sunny had slept in. Good. Neither of them had been sleeping great lately, but he was a growing boy, and it was more important that he got it.

Snagging a scrunchie from her bedside table, she pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail and headed downstairs. Sunny hadn’t eaten much yesterday- no doubt the stress of the recital had finally ground him down. But she didn’t want him to pass out, so getting him to eat at least a little was important. Humming absentmindedly, she pawed through the pantry. Maybe something with fruit? Actually, wait, had her parents bought any fruit recently? She turned to the fruit bowl and made a face. Nope. Even though she had asked… Maybe she could run by Hero’s place and see if they had any.

She opened the door and was startled to see Basil on the other side wearing a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, hand raised and poised to knock. He also jumped a bit before blushing and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hey! I, uh, I know I’m a little early, but…”

Mari, beaming, made a grand gesture of letting him in, sweeping her arm dramatically. Basil laughed and entered, body positioned oddly. Mari tried to peer around him. “Oh?” Her eyebrows rose. “Hiding something from me, are you?”

“Who, me?” His eyes were huge and innocent. “I would never! ...But, uh, actually, do you maybe have a vase? And some water for it? I was excited and I forgot to bring one with me.”

Mari gasped and scrambled to the cabinet, snatching a large mason jar. “Did you bring us flowers?!”

Imitating her own flourish from earlier, Basil brandished a stunning bouquet of white carnations. “Ta-da! I was going to bring them after the recital, but you and Sunny have seemed really stressed lately, so I thought bringing them early might help!”

“Oh Basil, they’re beautiful!” Mari ran a delicate petal between her fingers. “Are carnations supposed to reduce stress?”

“Not specifically, but white carnations symbolize good luck!”

Gently, Mari placed the flowers in the mason jar. Their mere presence seemed to add more light to the kitchen. “Well, I certainly feel lucky to have a friend like you! You’re so talented, Basil!”

His cheeks reddened, but he looked pleased. “Aw, thanks. Those are only a few of the blossoms, of course, but I’ve actually been growing these for awhile! Carnations take a really long time to bloom.” As he spoke, he glanced past her shoulder into the rest of the house, as though searching for something.

Mari’s smile became teasing. “Looking for Sunny? Am I not enough for you?”

“Ha, ha. Um, but actually,” his voice became softer, “how is he doing?” Mari winced, and Basil looked sad. “Yeah, I kind of figured.”

Mari leaned across the kitchen counter towards Basil, resting her chin in her hands. “I feel bad for saying this, because I was the one who wanted to do the recital in the first place, but I’m so ready for today to be over, Basil. I just want things to go back to normal.” She quieted, then looked away. “Hey, can you be honest with me? Do you think I was too hard on Sunny? Do you think that’s why all this is happening?”

Basil opened his mouth, but hesitated for a bit too long. It was enough. Mari groaned and dropped her forehead to the countertop.

“I- I don’t think it’s your fault, Mari!” Basil stammered. “Okay, yes, I didn’t want to say anything because I know you don’t mean to, but sometimes you, um… are a little hard on Sunny? I know it's because you worry about him, and I’ll admit he can be a bit too easy going. But,” he added quickly, “You’ve been trying really hard lately to do better, and I think that’s great! All of those picnics and buying the fun ghost hunting stuff, that was to help him relax, right? That’s really nice and thoughtful of you. So please don’t be hard on yourself, either. You can relax too, you know?” Basil fidgeted. “Sorry if that’s not the right thing to say, I just want you both to be happy.”

Mari turned her head so that she could meet his gaze. “It’s okay. I asked for honesty, so I’d prefer that over you saying what I want to hear. Thank you, Basil. I’ll ease up on Sunny, I promise.”

“And yourself, too, right?” Basil pressed gently.

Mari tried not to make a face. That was so much easier said than done. She’d heard a literal ghost threaten the life of her brother. It was hard to just relax after an incident like that. But he was talking about in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t he? Not just about this. So, she managed a little nod. Basil lit up, his smile as bright as the flowers he’d grown. At the sight of it, Mari determinedly shook off the gloom and straightened up, clapping her hands together. “So! Have you had breakfast yet today?”

Donning her favorite apron, Mari got to work on pancakes as Basil was sent off on a “raiding mission” to see if Hero and Kel’s house had any fruit to spare. It was a success, and Basil quickly returned, armed with a wicker basket laden down with bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. Mari cooed at the sight of them, but her hands were full and she couldn’t snack on them like she wanted to.

“Basil! Toss me a blueberry!” She encouraged him.

It prompted a giggle. “Aren't these for the pancakes?”

“Aww, come on, just one!”

Hesitantly, he threw the berry, and she tried to catch it in her mouth. Unfortunately, it just bounced off her nose. She made an undignified squawking sound that set the pair off into a fit of laughter that had them nearly doubled over. Because of that, it took them quite a while to realize that Sunny was quietly standing in the entrance to the kitchen.

“Oh, hey, little brother!” Mari greeted, wiping her eyes and waving her spatula at him. “Good morning! Look, Basil brought us flowers!”

Sunny didn’t turn to look at the flowers. He had a complicated look on his face, and he seemed to be struggling to find his words even more than usual. Finally, he managed, “What time is it?”

Basil glanced at the time on the stove. “Looks like… Wow, it’s 11:30 already! You must’ve been really tired, huh Sunny- S-Sunny?!” Basil’s voice turned into a squeak as suddenly, there were tears running down Sunny’s face. “Are you okay?!”

Utterly lost, Mari turned off the burner and set down the spatula before opening her arms. In an instant, Sunny had darted into her embrace. She held him securely. “Did you have one of those dreams where you think you’re late for something? Don’t worry, we have so much time to get ready, still!” she soothed.

He shook his head, but didn’t answer.

Basil’s hands hovered above Sunny’s shoulder, but he hesitated, looking at Mari with wide eyes. She nodded encouragingly, and Basil began to rub Sunny’s back in soothing circles.

It took a while for Sunny to regain his composure, but eventually he did pull away. Face flushed red from embarrassment, he ducked his head, mumbling a mostly inaudible apology.

“You don’t have to apologize for crying!” Mari chided gently. “It’s good for you to let yourself cry when you need to. Do you have anything you want to talk about, or would you rather not?” She desperately wanted to know what had sent her brother sobbing into her arms first thing after waking up, but she kept that to herself. Pressuring him right now would probably be a bad idea.

Sunny hesitated for a long moment before speaking again. “...I want to talk about it, but I feel like I can’t right now.”

“That’s fine, take all the time you need.” She wiped away the tears clinging to his cheek with a thumb. He looked away once more, but this time, there was a resolute set to his jaw. “Go ahead and grab a seat! Pancakes will be ready soon.”

They began to get ready after they finished eating, with Mari claiming the shower first since her long, thick hair took so long to dry. When it was Sunny’s turn, he stood under the stream of hot water in a daze.

He didn’t remember... when exactly Mari had died. He’d been in such a dissociative state that even after recollecting his memories, the specific details of the worst moment of his life remained a bit blurry. But he knew it had been just before sundown on the day before the recital. He knew that for sure, because he could remember staring up at the fading light between the leaves as the sun drifted below the horizon, telling himself over and over again that surely he was just having a nightmare.

But last night, he had fallen asleep early, well before dusk. His body had been exhausted from a combination from not being able to eat anything during the day, and from the cumulative sleepless nights he’d been having recently.

He hadn’t had any dreams. Just a deep, silent, restful sleep. And when he’d woken up, Mari was still alive.

Sunny felt more tears slip down his face, mixing with the water from the shower until the streams were indecipherable from each other. He didn’t want to let himself feel relief too early. There was a chance that even now, he could mess things up. He couldn’t let himself get his hopes too high. But even telling himself that, there was this feeling of breathless disbelief, almost triumph, for getting this far.

The water was starting to cool a bit. Wait, how long had he been standing here?! Hastily, Sunny scrubbed his hair and skin clean before the hot water ran out.

Mari was using the hair dryer by the time he was dressed and returned to the bedroom. Basil laughed helplessly as he shielded his face as Mari used the combination of the dryer and her hair length to blow the tendrils so they would swat at his face. She tried to do the same to Sunny when he ventured too close, but he managed to escape by retreating to his bed, seating himself out of her reach. When she finally finished, she dried Sunny’s hair for him. Sunny never really used a hair dryer, but he wondered if he should start, because the warmth felt very nice. Honestly he might have dozed off if it weren’t for the loud sound the dyer made as it worked its magic.

Sunny and Mari’s outfits had been purchased months ago. They hung neatly in the closet, protected by garment bags. The clothes were designed to look good together; a crisp white button up top and black slacks for Sunny, and a white dress with black accents for Mari. Not used to wearing expensive clothes, Sunny treated the material with trepidation.

Basil finished getting ready well before Sunny and Mari, but that was largely due to his head start. He had already showered before coming over, and had arrived partially dressed as well. All Basil really needed to do was throw on his vest and brush his hair, and he was good to go.

Mari took the longest by far, but it was something that they had already known would happen. Her hair took a long time to style, and she wanted to wear some makeup as well. But the effort was well worth it. With her dark locks tucked into an elegant updo and the touches of color to her eyes, cheeks, and lips, Sunny thought Mari looked like an angel.

“You look amazing, Mari!” Basil cheered.

Pleased, she did a little twirl. “Thank you! This dress is surprisingly comfortable. Oh, Sunny, do you want me to put a little bit of foundation on you?”

Sunny blinked. He had never worn any before, but Mari seemed to like it, so it couldn’t be bad. “Sure.” 

As Mari directed him to take a seat, Basil inched closer with a curious expression. “Boys can wear makeup?”

“Of course! It’s more common than you think. Most men on television wear a bit to make their skin look nice.”

Basil lit up. “That makes sense! I guess I never realized. And now that I think of it, there’s that guy in school who wears it. It looks really good on him.”

Mari let out a mournful sigh as she began to dab something that looked like moisturizer but in a smaller container on Sunny’s face. “If you’re talking about PB, he actually doesn’t wear makeup. He just looks like that. Unfair, I know.”

Basil gaped. “Are you serious?”

“Yep. I’ve asked him about his routine. Apparently he gets that a lot.”

Since she was using far less product on him than she did on herself, Mari was finished in no time at all. Sunny wasn’t very good at judging his own appearance, but he thought he looked a little bit healthier now. Basil had been very enthusiastic about complimenting him and had snapped three pictures in quick succession, so Sunny figured that was probably a good thing.

There was a cheerful sounding commotion from downstairs just as the trio had finished up. Sunny and Mari’s parents had arrived home, and accompanying them was Basil’s grandma. Sunny thought his parents looked to be in higher spirits than they had in a long time, and he could smell Basil’s grandma’s lovely signature rose perfume.

“Look at my babies!” Mom cooed, giving them each a hug. Basil was included in this, which seemed to simultaneously embarrass and please him. “You all look so grown up and beautiful! Basil, honey, did you bring those flowers? They’re gorgeous, sweetie. You’re so talented!”

“It was nothing!” Basil replied, red faced but smiling.

“What do you kids think? We’ll be early, but do you want to head on over so you’ll have plenty of time to get set up?” Dad asked, checking his watch. 

“Yes, let’s go! I need to be certain everything looks right, and that nobody moved anything to where it shouldn’t be. I also want to double check the sound system and make sure the techs did their jobs right this time. I still remember that winter recital from four years ago-” Mari caught herself before hastily backtracking. “-Sorry. Sunny, did you want to wait a bit longer?”

Sunny shook his head. “Let’s go,” said firmly, proud that his voice didn’t shake.

His dad laughed loudly. “That’s my boy! Go get ‘em!”

Sunny smiled, hoping it didn’t look like a grimace.

There were a lot of people sitting in the audience. Sunny hadn’t worked up the courage to peek past the curtain, but he could hear the telltale sound of hundreds of voices murmuring together. He knew this event was a big deal. It only happened once every year. But still, didn’t these people have anything better to do?!

Probably not, honestly. One of the downsides of living in such a small town. He sighed.

“How are you feeling?”

He turned. Mari stood behind him, regarding him with an understanding expression. His throat tightened a little at it.

He was so grateful that she was trying to be there for him. But she didn’t have the full picture. If she did, there was no way that she’d be able to look at him like that.

...Now wasn’t the time, but he knew that he’d have to tell her the truth.

First, he had to get through this recital.

He hadn’t answered her question, he realized. It was hard to speak through the tightness of his throat, but he did his best. “Scared,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of people waiting. I don’t want to let you down.”

Her eyes were fond. “You won't.”

“But-!”

“You won’t, Sunny. You could go out there and mess up every single note and you still won’t let me down. I mean it.” Her voice was absolute. It made Sunny’s heart ache in a way that felt bittersweet. She smiled playfully. “So let’s have fun, okay? Don’t play because you’re trying to make me happy, do it for yourself. Pretend it’s just the two of us. I want… I want this to be a happy memory.”

At that, her words became almost too much to handle, and Sunny had to struggle not to burst into tears on the spot. “Me too,” he gasped. “I-I want that, too.”

He wanted it desperately. Even if everything fell apart after he told the truth, if he could have this one moment…

The curtain was rising. Mari reached out and squeezed his hand. “Don’t look at them. Just look at me.”

She sat down at the bench. He followed her instructions, ignoring the crowd with single minded determination, and readied his violin.

There was no one else there. Just the two of them.

He took a deep breath, and they began to play.

It started out the way it always did when he practiced in the treehouse or in front of his tutor. He went through the carefully rehearsed motions, counting the timing, as precise and mechanical as clockwork. But then, looking up at him during a small pause in her part, Mari sent a warm look his way.

And suddenly, for the first time in so, so long, he could actually hear the music. His body became less stiff, and suddenly those practice motions didn’t just feel rehearsed, they felt natural.

The song was beautiful. He’d always known that, but it had been so tied up in his guilt stained mind that he’d lost the ability to hear it for what it was.

A happy memory.

They received a standing ovation. It was only for a recital, but to Sunny, he may as well have been getting applause after returning home from saving the world. He had yet to stop smiling. His parents, after showering them both with praise, apologized profusely that once more, they’d be leaving town. They’d only stopped by for the recital. Mom had somewhere she needed to drive to, and Dad had a train to catch. Hero and Kel’s father, all smiles and charm, had immediately offered everyone the option to have a sleepover. Mari had jumped on the offer, and Sunny was excited to spend the night staying up late playing video games with Kel, Aubrey, and Basil. They’d still need to stop back home first, though. Basil’s duffle bag was still in Sunny and Mari’s room, and they needed their overnight stuff, too.

Dropping them off in front of the house, their mom pressed a kiss to Sunny and Mari’s foreheads and gave Basil another hug. “I’m so proud of you both!” she cooed to her children. “Call if you need anything, okay? Mommy loves you!”

“Good job tonight, kiddos. Make sure they go to bed on time, Basil!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

They waved and drove off as Mari unlocked the front door. The house was pitch dark, so Mari went for the light switch.

The lights didn’t turn on.

Basil peered in behind the siblings with a curious expression. “Did a fuse blow or something?”

Mari looked tense.”...Maybe. Hang on a second and wait outside, okay guys? We have a spare flashlight in a drawer in the kitchen.”

She didn’t wait for them to respond, quickly entering the dark house on her own. Sunny and Basil were left dawdling in the entrance before Basil’s eyes went wide. He grabbed Sunny’s hand. “Y-you don’t think it's another ghost, do you?” he whispered to Sunny. “We don’t have any of our equipment.”

Sunny cocked his head to the side, considering. “Maybe,” he mused before raising his voice. “Mari? Did you find it?”

There was a rustling and then a click. A bright beam of light entered their field of view. Mari held up her fingers in a V for Victory. “All set! You keep waiting there, I’ll get our things.”

Sunny frowned at her. “But what if there’s a ghost?” Mari’s jaw tightened. Apparently, she had already had the same thought.

“You aren’t supposed to split up in situations like these!” Basil added, inching forward. “We should come with you, Mari!”

“I understand your logic, but Sunny is the one who this thing has been after. So if it is a ghost, I should go. It’s simple.” Mari’s tone allowed no room for argument, and she turned away, moving towards the stairs.

The scene was different from the one that haunted his nightmares, but something about seeing Mari silhouetted against the staircase filled Sunny with blind terror, and he stumbled forward into the house even as Basil called after him. Mari spun on her heel in time for Sunny to latch onto her, expression faltering at whatever she saw in Sunny’s face.

“Don’t-” he choked, “don’t go on your own.”

She looked down at him as Basil entered behind them both. She didn’t look pleased, but there was a glimmer of sympathy in her eyes. “...Okay,” she said finally. “We’ll all go together. But you both stay behind me, understand? And Sunny goes in the middle.”

They both nodded. Basil looked a little scared, but there was a surprising amount of resolve in the way he moved to stand behind Sunny.

As a unit, they climbed the stairs, each creaking step a moment loaded with tension. Sunny, far more afraid of the stairs than any ghost that may be lurking around them, clutched at the railing with a white knuckled grip. But before long, they made it to the top with no issues. Moving much more quickly, they staggered into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind them. Mari balanced the flashlight so that it was standing straight up on her desk, illuminating the room as a lamp would. Sunny stowed his violin case safely under his bed, and Basil snatched his duffel bag from where it had been carelessly dropped, stowing his camera case securely inside. Mari handed Sunny a bag that she’d filled with his belongings, pulling her own over her shoulder. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

Sunny nodded and opened the door.

Something with long fingers grabbed his wrist and pulled.

Mari and Basil screamed from behind him as he was dragged bodily from the room. The force of the tug was strong enough to make him stumble and fall.

“You don’t deserve to live.”

He froze at the words, spoken in his own voice. He trembled in the creature’s grasp. It’s lips pulled into a horrible smile.

“How about I do to you what you did to her? That’ll make it even.” With a tremendous yank that made him wail in pain, it dragged him to the stairs. Sunny kicked out and struggled, but it’s grip was unyielding. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see what happened next.

From above him, he heard a resounding crack, and suddenly those long fingers loosened. He felt himself being yanked from the creature, and his eyes snapped back open.

Basil was shoving him away from the stairs, placing himself between Sunny and the ghost despite trembling like a leaf. 

Mari had smashed it’s head in with her bat.

Chest heaving with exertion, there was a ferocious expression on Mari’s face that Sunny had never seen before. “Don’t you touch him! Go away! Just go away!”

Despite it’s now even more distorted features, it was still standing. “But this is all his fault. Everything is. The world would be a better place without him.”

“You’re wrong!” Mari snarled. “Sunny, don’t you listen to a single thing it says. None of it is true, none!”

“Nobody should forgive him.”

Sunny shook hard, gasping for air. The panic that was beginning to consume him felt ferociously familiar. He could practically feel the cold metal shears gouging out his eye. His fingers dug welts into his own arms as he tried desperately to steady himself. “I- I’m… I’m so… sorry…”

“I forgive you.”

Mari still had her back to him, so he couldn’t see her face. But the conviction in her voice was as steady and unwavering as it had been before the recital.

The being before them jerked erratically, and Mari threateningly readied her bat. “You don’t know what he did. You can’t forgive him.” it’s words were spat furiously through clenched teeth.

“I just did. It doesn’t matter what he did. I forgive him. That’s my choice, not yours.” Her voice grew louder with every word she spoke, until she was practically screaming. “So leave! Go AWAY!”

It lunged forward one final time at Sunny, desperate malice in it’s movements. Basil shielded Sunny as Mari brought the bat down.

There was a strange cracking and popping sound, and with the contact from the bat, its physical form gave out completely. Like a punctured water balloon, all that gushed to the floor was a liquid that was impossible to identify in the dark, splashing them in its wake.

They remained frozen for a moment, staring at the damp spot in the carpet as though they expected the creature to rise from it once more. Basil sprung into action first, looping his arm around Sunny’s and picking up the overnight bag that had been dropped in the chaos. “Out, out, out,” he chanted, reaching out a hand towards Mari. Seemingly snapping out of a daze, Mari grabbed the offered hand, and together they hustled downstairs. Mewo emerged from the kitchen, meowing for her dinner, and was likely very confused when Sunny scooped her up instead. Once Mari locked the front door, they all but sprinted to Hero and Kel’s house.

The brothers were outside in the front yard, playing fetch with Henry. Aubrey was laying in the grass, still in her nice clothes but seemingly unconcerned about getting them dirty as she stared up at the sky. Upon hearing their friends approaching, they all looked up with cheerful expressions, only for those looks to morph into varying degrees of bewilderment and concern.

“What happened? You’re soaking wet- ow, Kel! ” Hero protested as the ball collided with his chest.

“Sorry, sorry! I’d already let go when you looked away!” Kel apologized quickly. “You guys smell like the hideout! Did you stop by to take a swim?”

“In their clothes? This late?” Aubrey stared at him until he blushed.

“I mean, it sounds fun to me,” he said under his breath.

“It was the ghost!” Basil blurted. “It came back!”

Hero’s face blanched. “Are you guys okay? Were you hurt?”

“Shaken up, but no, we’re okay.” Mari assured him before glancing down. “Oh. I forgot to put this back,” she added, sounding surprised to see the baseball bat still clutched in her hand.

“Did you beat the ghost up again?!” Kel asked enthusiastically, but his grin faded at the grim silence. “Or not…?”

“No, she did!” Basil bit his lip. “I-it just wasn’t very fun this time. It said some really horrible things about Sunny… I think it really wanted to hurt him.”

Sunny stared down at his feet.

Hero crouched into his field of view. “Do you need to sit down?” he asked, concern clear on his face.

Sunny shook his head. His heart was hammering. He knew what he had to do, he just hoped they wouldn’t hate him for it. He looked up into their eyes, one by one.

“I need to tell you something.”

Chapter Text

Sunny told a story.

He told a story about how, once upon a time, there was a boy named Sunny who had an older sister named Mari. He loved her very much, and loved spending time with her. Mari was a very talented girl who played the piano, and deep down, he had always harbored the wish to play alongside her. When he was very young, he had played the violin, but it was a tiny model that he had long since outgrown. It was a dream he’d shelved, because it never occurred to him that it could become a reality.

But Mari and his friends made that unvoiced wish come true.

He was given a violin, and he was so filled with joy. He played the first few notes with trembling fingers.

They decided that they would play together at a recital. Mari picked the song. It was one of her favorites, and she wanted it to be perfect.

Sunny did too.

At first.

It was hard, in the beginning, but it was fine. Really, it was no different from having homework. Practicing over and over again wasn’t fun, but he could do it.

But he kept messing up.

Mari was getting annoyed with him.

She was trying to hide it. But the telltale signs- the tightness in her voice, the strain in her forced smile, the tiny sighs through her nose- they were all there. 

It wasn’t her fault, of course! He had agreed to do it. He had wanted to do it. But as the pressure mounted, enthusiasm turned to anxiety. Joy soured and curdled into resentment.

He started to hate that violin.

He started to wish his friends had never gotten it for him. 

Mari had to nag him to get him to practice now, and each time she did, her patience with him seemed to fray a little more. He hated how heavy her disappointment felt. It rested on his shoulders like layers of blankets, dragging him down and suffocating him. He never had wanted to be a burden, but all he seemed to do was trouble everyone.

Everyone was so excited. He didn’t want to let them down. But he just couldn’t do it. It was all so much and he couldn’t do it.

The night before the recital, Mari had said something to him. He couldn’t remember what it was anymore, but it had been something small. A passing comment that he had interpreted as overly harsh criticism. And suddenly, it was all too much to bear.

He pitched the violin down the stairs, feeling a moment of brief catharsis as it shattered into pieces on the floor below. The noise attracted the attention of Someone , who had just been about to knock on the door, but Sunny was too overwhelmed to notice Someone’s entrance.

The noise also caught the ear of Mari, who had been in their room.

When she saw what he had done, she was furious.

Everyone had worked so hard to buy that violin for him. How could he do such a terrible thing?

He couldn’t remember what words were exchanged. All he could recall was the sound of his own frantic heartbeat in his own ears as he screamed hateful things at the person he treasured most. He was so angry. He had to get out. He tried to push past her, wanting to run, maybe flee to the park or a friend's house. Anywhere. Anywhere but here.

Mari grabbed his wrist.

He pushed her away.

Her bad leg couldn’t support her weight.

Mari fell down the stairs.

It was an accident.

But that didn’t matter. She wasn’t breathing.

She was gone. And he had killed her.

From here, the memories are fogged. He remembers pulling Mari to her bed, delusionally and desperately hoping that she just needed rest. She’d be fine. She was just sleeping, and she’d wake up.

But she never did.

Someone had seen everything. And they were afraid. They didn’t want everyone to think Sunny had done it on purpose. So they tried to help.

The noose was tied as Sunny lay limp in the dirt, praying that this was all just a bad dream. 

They made the mistake of looking back once they were inside. The sight scarred them both forever.

Everything fell apart. Sunny’s parents divorced. Dad took Mewo away when he left, but not before cutting down that tree.

He thinks, in hindsight, that they knew. They must have. Death by hanging is very different from falling down the stairs. Maybe that’s why Dad never looked back at him before he left, why he never called or visited. Maybe that’s why Mom avoided coming home.

He stopped going to school. He couldn’t leave the house. All he could do was sleep.

He was so tired. 

In his dreams, he played with his friends. They went on adventures into magical places. Mari was there, safe and alive.

Meanwhile, reality carried on without him.

The Someone who had covered for Sunny was left behind. They had sullied their own hands in their attempt to not lose him. They were alone, haunted by what they had done, all to save someone who now wouldn’t even leave the house. Alone, bullied, and an outcast, they retreated into themselves, tormented by delusions of something behind them.

Someone else was so crushed by the loss of Mari, they lost interest in everything they had once held dear. When they finally got out of bed and returned to “normal”, everyone was relieved… but they were never truly the same, and they never did pursue those long held dreams that they once harbored.

Someone else felt like they had to put on a brave face, so they did. They tried to move on. They were too afraid to try and be there for their friends, because they were afraid they’d just make everything worse. In their mind, after all, they always did.

Someone else felt abandoned. Left behind by their friends as everyone either became closed off or too lost in their own grief to acknowledge them, they felt like no one else really cared about them, about Mari. They started to act out, to bully others. Really, all they wanted was to not feel alone.

Years passed.

Someone else all but dragged Sunny back into the real world. And it was hard. He’d always been shy, but now social interactions might as well have been alien encounters for him. Even so, Sunny did his best to make things right. He tried to help everyone, even though he was so tired, and he wasn’t sure that he himself could be helped.

It seemed like, maybe, things could be okay again.

But then, Someone lost a family member. After everything they had been through, it was too much.

Everyone tried to be there for Someone. They spent the night camped on the floor of Someone’s house, hoping to offer some small comfort. After everyone had fallen asleep, Sunny confronted them alone.

He wanted to help. He wanted to save them. He had made such a mess of things, hated himself so much, and even though he wanted to deny it, in a way, he hated them a little bit, too. But he knew that if there was to be any hope for them, they had to move on and look forward instead of back.

In the state they were in, Someone could no longer distinguish dream from reality. They also wanted to save Sunny. But where he had been ready with words, they had been ready with a blade.

His eye hurt so much. There was blood everywhere. He couldn’t tell whose it was anymore.

He was so cold.

It was dark.

And then, years in the past, drenched with water before a broken shrine, Sunny had awoken once more.

The silence after he finished speaking was deafening.

At first, Sunny was too afraid to look at anyone. He didn’t know what he would see, and the thought of seeing hatred and disgust in their expressions was too much to bear. But as the quiet dragged on, he found himself chancing a fearful peak upwards.

Aubrey and Basil stared at him, faces white and blank with utter shock. Kel stared off into space, a look of distant horror clouding his expression. Hero was currently unreadable- his face was hidden as he had curled in on himself, head resting against his knees.

He couldn’t look at Mari. He was too scared. Sunny’s eyes dropped back to his feet, swallowing. His throat was so dry. Had he ever spoken that much all at once before?  

Kel broke the silence with a soft, emphatic, “ Shit. ”

Hero’s head shot up, revealing his red rimmed eyes. “Kel!” he scolded, voice hoarse.

“Wha-?! Don’t Kel me, if there was ever a moment for bad words, it’s now!” Kel protested.

“Sunny…” Aubrey’s voice was very, very small. “You’re serious, right? This isn’t a joke? Because it’s not very funny if it is one.” her tone was more fearful than accusatory, but Sunny still felt his heart clench.

Sunny couldn’t manage any more words. It was like he was tapped. Today had been so much and he just couldn’t get anything out. So, he just shook his head.

“He wouldn’t joke about this.” Basil whispered. “Never. Not about M-M-Ma…” he shivered, apparently unable to continue the thought. “...Not about this. We’ve already seen the impossible, how is this any different? I believe him.”

Nobody seemed inclined to argue with that.

Hero looked like he was about to be sick. He was blinking rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “She was just gone?” he choked out. “Just like that?”

“Mari died, everything went bad, and one of us killed you? ” Kel’s tone bordered on hysterical. Everyone flinched at the volume, and he noticed, shrinking into himself and quietly apologizing.

Sunny nodded.

Next to him, he felt Mari shift. He violently flinched, ducking his head away. He couldn’t. He knew he deserved it but he couldn’t see her face, he couldn't look up and see that accusatory eye from his nightmares, he couldn’t do this-

Shaking arms wrapped around him and pulled him close. It took him a moment to understand where the trembling was coming from. Mari was heaving with silent sobs.

It took her several tries to get words out. When she finally succeeded in catching her breath, she managed, “I already told you I forgive you, didn’t I?”

Sunny broke.

With a thin wail, he clutched at her. Distantly, he was aware that he was crying uncontrollably, but his mind felt like it was hovering outside of his own body.

No. No way.

There was absolutely no way.

This was...too good to be true, right? It had to be a dream.

Who could forgive their own murderer?!

But even as he told himself this, he could feel her arms around him.

Her hug was so warm.

Everything made sense now.

Mari rubbed her eyes dry, pulling Sunny into her lap and pressing his face against her shoulder. She felt his hot tears rapidly wetting the expensive fabric. Ah, she’d been wearing mascara, hadn’t she? She looked at her hand, now smudged dark.

Lurking just beneath her consciousness, Mari felt those horribly familiar early signs of a panic attack. The sudden hyper-awareness of her own mortality was far too much to handle right now. She willed herself to keep it together. At least for now, she couldn’t break down.

Later. She’d deal with those existential fears later. Her brother needed her.

Actually, now that she looked around, it seemed everyone did.

Basil, Kel, and Aubrey had been set off by Sunny’s meltdown, and the trio sat huddled together, faces scrunched and red with fat tears rolling down their cheeks. Hero looked to be somewhere far away, body and expression stiff with horror.

...One of them had strung up her lifeless body. Left it dangling outside, like-

No. She clamped down on that thought, not allowing herself to finish forming it. She refused to do that to them. They didn’t deserve her judgement for something they’d never done.

She had to move now, or she’d lose her increasingly precarious grip on her self control.

Once Sunny seemed to be calming down, she reached around him and dug into her overnight bag. There. She tore open the pack of makeup remover wipes, scrubbing her face free of the evidence of tears. Then, as gently as she could, she deposited Sunny into Hero’s lap instead. They both startled at this, peering up at her with wide, wet eyes. She smiled tenderly.

“I’ll be right back, okay? You all sit tight.”

She turned away and took a steadying breath before entering Hero and Kel’s home. There was something bizarre about the normalcy of it all. Their dad was sitting in the living room, relaxing with a beer in his hand, blissfully unaware of what had just been revealed outside on his own front lawn. He turned to smile at her, but the expression faltered a little. “Woah, you alright there, Mari? Your eyes are awfully red.”

Mari shrugged carelessly. “Oh, I’m fine. I was taking off my makeup and some got in my eyes. They’ll be normal again in just a minute. But anyways, we were wondering if we could go for pizza tonight! Does that sound okay?”

The concern cleared, and he chuckled. “Hey, whatever you guys want! This is your special day, after all. Here,” he pulled out his wallet and handed her some cash. “Just bring back a pepperoni pizza for the missus and me and we’re even, the rest is yours to spend.”

Counting the amount, Mari huffed helplessly. “This is too much!”

He waved a hand. “Then get some sodas for yourselves, too! You did good today, Mari. Go have fun.”

Everyone was in the same place where she left them. As she approached, Mari brandished the money in her hand. “Let’s get going, guys!” she said brightly. She hoped it didn’t sound as fake to them as it did in her own ears.

Caught off guard by her tone, Aubrey scrambled to her feet. “Go? Go where?”

“Gino’s! I want pizza. I don’t know about you all, but I’m starving and I think we deserve something greasy.” Reaching out, Mari helped pull Kel and Basil upright as well.

“Mari…” Hero called softly. “You’re okay?”

Sunny watched her carefully, looking a bit perturbed.

Mari took another calming breath. In, out. “I will be,” she responded firmly. “I’m not going to lie and say this isn’t a lot, because it is. But we’ll get through this. And we all have each other.” she hesitated, then added quietly, “That’s not something I’ll ever take for granted again. In a weird way, I’m kind of grateful for that. You all mean everything to me.”

Hero let out a shuddering exhale and nodded. He stood as well, lifting Sunny with him with a small grunt of effort. It was small, but he managed a smile. “Okay. Let’s, uh, go get some food then. But," he glanced away, "I just wanted to tell you that nobody is expecting you to be perfect right now. If you need anything, please tell us. We're all here for you too, you know."

On any other day, she would tease him for the cute expression on his face, but she couldn’t muster up the energy right now. So, she just nodded and took her brother’s hand as they started walking.

She unsuccessfully tried not to dwell on the way Sunny held her hand. He entwined their fingers like hers were made of fragile porcelain; like with one wrong move, they could shatter.

Sunny stared at the slice of pizza in his hand. His stomach clenched in warning. Go ahead, eat and see what happens , it would probably say if stomachs could talk. One wrong move and I’ll send you running straight to the toilet, buster. He grimaced. Taking the threat seriously, he laid the untouched slice back down into the box.

“You aren’t hungry, Sunny?” Basil fretted. “Are you feeling...um...okay?”

Sunny looked at him.

“F-fair enough, yeah.” Basil tugged at a loose thread from his pants. Oh yeah, they were still in their nice clothes, weren’t they? He had forgotten. They must have been an odd sight to see, walking into Gino’s, all overdressed with puffy eyes.

They were all eating upstairs in Hero and Kel’s room, under the guise that they wanted to read comics and play video games. So far, though, nobody seemed to have much of an appetite. Mari was still doing her best to hold it together, but that wobbly smile of hers had faded by the time they had made it back, and she seemed now to be so lost in thought she was unable to keep up any pretense of her normal cheer. Hero and Aubrey kept casting anxious glances at her, while Basil hovered around Sunny as though fearing he would burst into tears again. Kel wasn’t looking at anyone. It was hard to read his expression.

Sunny blinked in surprise as Kel glanced up at him at that moment. The other boy’s brows furrowed as he glanced between him and Mari. “Hey, Mari?”

She snapped out of her stupor. “Oh! Yes, Kel?”

Kel’s face scrunched. “I hope that this doesn’t cross a line, because I don’t really know if it's my place to say this? But, er-” he peered back at Sunny. “Sunny, you know I forgive you too, right? Because you keep looking at us like we’re going to beat you up or something. Like,” his voice got a little louder, hands waving for emphasis as he spoke, “I’m not saying it wasn’t awful what happened, because it was, but you obviously feel really bad about it. A bad person wouldn’t feel that way, so you aren’t one. And it was an accident, so even if it was awful, it isn’t- Ugh. I don’t know how to say this right. Hero, help me!”

Hero gaped at him. “W-what?”

Kel’s face reddened in frustration and embarrassment. “You’re better with words than I am! Tell Sunny we don’t hate him in a way that doesn’t sound stupid!”

“Idiot,” Aubrey groused. “Sunny, we don’t hate you. There. Easy.”

Kel soundlessly gaped at her, looking torn between awe and irritation.

“Right!” Basil hastily chimed in. “Sorry I didn’t say anything sooner, I guess I thought it was obvious I don’t hate you. But now that Kel mentions it, you have been looking at us kind of, um, oddly. I’m sorry I didn’t put two and two together.” He leaned closer. Sunny clenched his fists and willed himself not to pull away. “You saved her this time, Sunny. That has to count for something, right? Please don’t think we blame you for everything that happened...uh, before? A-after?”

Mari didn’t say anything, but she rested her hand on his knee. Sunny bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood.

“Why?” His voice was a quivering, tiny thing. “I don’t understand. You’re supposed to hate me.”

“It’s the truth, though.” Hero was also quiet, and the ghost of pain lurked behind his eyes, but his words were firm. “None of us hate you. I actually feel horrible for everything you had to go through. I can’t imagine how hard it all must have been.”

Sunny hunched forward, his hair swinging with the movement to cover his eyes. Even with his expression partially hidden, he knew he wasn’t going to fool anyone into thinking he wasn’t seconds away from another crying fit.

Kel looked thoroughly perplexed. “Why are you still sad? You don’t want us to hate you, right?”

Shaking his head, Sunny desperately grasped for the words to explain. “...Not want. I want to be forgiven. J-just how it should be. Guilty people should be punished, right?”

Mari sat up straight, expression unexpectedly hard. “I think you’ve punished yourself enough.”

“But-”

“If I’m the victim, I get to decide, right?”

Sunny didn’t really know how to respond to that. ...He didn’t really agree with the sentiment. Yes, Mari was the victim, but she wasn’t the only victim. Sunny’s mistake had affected the lives of everyone in the room. They were all victims. That being said, any arguments he may have made about that point died on his tongue as he met her stubborn gaze. He knew this look. There was no arguing with her now. So Sunny let out an exhausted little sigh and bobbed his head.

“Woohoo, alright!” Kel cheered. “Then we’re good, right?! So let’s stop moping already and have fun! We have a Halloween to plan for!”

Hero sputtered. “Kel, that’s-”

Mari’s eyes widened. “Oh gosh, that’s right! We’re running out of time! I’ll have to sew quickly…”

“Mari?!” Hero cried. Aubrey grumbled alongside him, muttering something under her breath about the conversation giving her emotional whiplash.

“I think Mari and Kel have a point,” Basil mused. “We’re all alive and together, and now we understand just how important that is. I’m not saying that this hasn’t all been a lot, but I think it would do us some good to have fun tonight. Besides,” he smiled sweetly at Mari and Sunny, “You guys did so well at the recital! It’d be a shame to not acknowledge that just because some mean ghost chose tonight to spoil the fun.”

The rest of the night was spent making plans for Halloween, which was really not how Sunny thought the conversation would go after he told everyone the secret that he had kept locked in a pit inside of his own headspace. He had been braced for screaming and crying and insults hurled his way. There had been a very good chance that after today, he’d be alone again, with only the warmth of the memory of the recital to keep him company. And yet, here they all were, as the hours of the night stretched later and later, drinking soda and making plans for a future that still had Sunny in it.

He wondered if this new reality would ever truly feel real to him. Regardless, he decided to take Basil’s words to heart and enjoy this.

As Mari and Sunny had already called dibs on Maximilian and Leroy, the handsome dark haired lord and his prodigy younger brother, their friends had to decide who would be the remaining characters. It was pretty quickly decided that Kel simply had to go as Flynn, the enthusiastic, fast-talking jokester of the lords. Aubrey chose the proud and chivalrous Vincent, since he was her favorite. Basil’s personality couldn’t be more different from Glenn, who was the no-nonsense, serious type, but they looked so visually similar that there really was no other choice. And Hero certainly was handsome enough to be Arthur, the bad boy heartthrob and Maximillian’s rival, even if Hero was maybe the furthest from “bad boy” as a human being could possibly be. Mewo would be going as Mewo the Cat Butler, naturally. Sunny was very excited to see her in a little suit and tie.

After the plans were made, Kel turned on some anime that Sunny couldn’t remember. It was quickly revealed why- the plot was as shallow as a puddle, and the action wasn't exciting enough to compensate. The droning nature of it all was enough to make his eyelids droop, and before he knew it, he had fallen into a deep, emotionally exhausted sleep.

Mari left the room as quietly as she could. Slipping out to the hallway and into the bathroom, she felt a small amount of relief as the door clicked shut behind her. She stood alone for a moment in the dark, but the memories of what she saw back in her home were too fresh, and she flicked the light on.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror across from her. As soon as her heart rate slowed a bit, she approached and leaned forward, looking closely at her own eyes.

She hadn't thought much about dying before.

It was inevitable. It was scary. But it was something for later, much later, when she was old and grey and had lots of grandbabies. But apparently that wasn't reality. She could just stumble and then be gone. One day here, the next in a coffin.

Her body had been teetering on the verge of panic since earlier, adrenaline high and emotions worn thin. But now that energy had burned itself out, and she felt scraped hollow. 

More than anything else, Mari didn't want Sunny to think she secretly resented him, or to make him regret being honest. He'd feel so guilty if he knew how much this was affecting her. He was already so hurt by everything that had happened that he was able to convince himself that she’d hate him for an accident. She couldn’t imagine throwing more kindling onto that fire. It was probably best to get everything out of her system now, right? While she was alone, and wouldn't burden anyone?

Cry, she silently encouraged her reflection. Cry now, while you have a chance. Get it all out so we can smile and be normal around them.

Her reflection stared back. Blankly. Face rudely, obnoxiously, dry.

"You’re such a pain," she groused. "How does anyone put up with you?"

"Um, Mari?"

She froze. Then let out a little cough. "H-hey Hero! What's up?"

It was quiet. Then there was a little sigh, and the soft thump of something against the door. She guessed it was his head. "Mari. Can I come in?"

"How scandalous…"

"Mari."

She grumbled before unlocking the door and swinging it open. A handsomely disheveled looking Hero stood there, partially illuminated by the bathroom light. Their eyes met. She blew her hair out of her face and scooted to the side to let him in. He quietly dropped down to sit on the side of the tub as she shut the door once more.

He stared down at his clasped hands for a moment before looking back up at her. "I know you handle things differently than I do. You and Kel, honestly," he laughed quietly before growing serious again. "I know that it's easier to tell jokes and laugh things away, and I don't think that's a bad thing. There are definitely worse ways of coping. But we heard a lot today and I just wanted to tell you again that I'm here for you. Do you need anything? Or want to talk?"

Mari picked at her nails. "Can we… can you make something sweet? I know it's late but-"

He was already standing, a gentle smile warming his face. "We have marshmallows. How does some oven s'mores sound?"

"Perfect. That sounds…" her eyes started to water and she tried to blink them away. But there were just too many of them, and they began to spill from the corners of her eyes. "That sounds really great."

His expression soft, he took her hand and led her out of the bathroom. When they reached the stairs, his grip twitched ever so slightly, but they maintained their pace. Once in the kitchen, he escorted her to one of the barstools at the kitchen counter. "The seat of honor," he declared. His voice was still quiet, but he was using a little more volume now that they were a decent space away from everyone who was sleeping. Then he turned and got to work as Mari sat, still with tears rolling down her cheeks. Neither of them spoke for a while, and only the sounds of soft sniffling and the rustling of Hero's work could be heard. Eventually, Mari cleared her throat. 

"Hey so," her voice was a bit wobbly. "If anything ever happens to me-"

He very nearly drops the baking sheet.

"-which it won't! It won't. I promised Sunny I'd be careful on the stairs. I'll be fine," she inhaled shakily. "But please, if something happens. Promise me you'll take care of Sunny. I can't stand the idea of him being left all alone. Mom and Dad… you know how they are. He needs me. I can't imagine how… h-hard… it…" the tears were making it very hard to talk at this point.

Hero didn't hesitate. "Of course," he said emphatically. "I won't let anything hurt him, ever. Not even… ghosts. Or whatever that thing in your house was." He carefully unwraps some chocolate. "Will you do the same for me? With Kel?"

"Always. And we'll both take care of Aubrey and Basil, naturally."

He nodded. "Naturally. But nothing will happen. We're going to have a nice Halloween, all of us. And the rest of our lives together, too."

She wiped her tears and shot him the closest she could manage to a coy look with puffy, bloodshot eyes. "Together forever, huh?"

He flushed red, but he didn't break eye contact. "Yes, if you'll have me."

Her jaw dropped. If possible, he turned even redder.

"Mari. I just learned that I could have lost you. There's no way I'm going to make the mistake of not saying it clearly. I-I love you."

They'd… they'd said it before. But not like this. Mari felt herself flush as well. "I love you too. You're one of the best things that ever happened to me. I'm so glad I have more time with you."

Hero reached across the counter and gripped her hand warmly with his own for a minute. Then he pulled the s'mores from the oven and slid several onto a plate, placing it between them.

"Cheers," he said, holding one of the sticky treats aloft. "To the future."

She took an especially chocolate laden one and lifted it as well. "To the future," she echoed. "One with all of us in it."

Chapter Text

"Oh, this suuuucks," Kel whispered, clutching at his Squirt Gun of Smiting with a white knuckled grip. "Someone else go first, no way I'm doing it."

"It's okay, Kel!" Basil's tone was reassuring, but the way he was currently hiding behind Aubrey was less so. "I definitely saw it vanish after Mari hit it."

Aubrey made a face at Basil over her shoulder. "Yeah, but we thought it was gone last time, too…"

"Exactly!" Kel pushed Hero to the front. "You go first, Hero! You're the tallest!"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Hero sighed, but he looked resigned. "Mari, Sunny? Are you two ready for this?"

Mari slapped her trusty bat into her open palm. "If it is still hanging around, I'll make sure it regrets that choice," she said, like a cool character from a movie.

"Meow," Sunny held up the cat shaped self defense keychain Mari gave him, like the cool character's doofy comic-relief sidekick.

"Okay. Let's do this." Hero began to slowly crack open the front door to Mari and Sunny’s home. 

"No, not like that!" Kel critiqued. "You're supposed to slam it open, all threatening and stuff! We gotta show it who's the BOSS!"

"Stop backseating, Kel!" Aubrey cried.

Hero, after a moment of deliberation, nodded to himself before hurling open the door. "Ghost! If you're still here- show yourself!"

The house interior remained resolutely silent. Across the street, an older woman gave them a judgmental look.

"We're rehearsing for a school play," Mari shot the woman a blinding smile. She didn't look totally convinced, but at least she stopped looking like she was about to call the cops on them.

"L-let's go in before more people start staring at us," Basil laughed awkwardly. 

In a tight cluster, they nervously pushed their way through the door. They stood in silence at the entrance. 

"Sunny!" Aubrey whispered. "Should you try calling out to it? It seemed to only really care about attacking you, so if it's here, you'd be the one it would want, right?"

Sunny thought carefully. Then, flatly, he called, "Boy, I would really be upset if a ghost showed up right now." There was a pause. "I'd hate that! It would scare me so bad I'd just die. Like a bunny."

"What?!" Basil was stricken. "Bunnies can die of fright?!"

Aubrey nodded glumly. "They can. It's so sad."

"Wow… glad people aren't like that. Hero would have been murdered by spiders years ago." Kel mused. Hero shot him an offended frown.

Sunny shushed them with a firm look before resuming. "These aren't actually my friends, they're just holograms. I am completely alone right now. Sure hope a ghost doesn't kill me when I'm so alone. And kill-able."

Resounding silence. 

Mari smiled, pleased. "I think we're ghost free! But just to be safe, Basil, would you do us the honors?"

Hero helped Basil set the stick of dried sage alight. Then, as a huddle, they all shuffled from room to room, wafting the smoke into the air.

The storage room was saved for last. Basil hovered anxiously outside the door before peeking back at Sunny over his shoulder. Sunny gave him a double thumbs up in encouragement. Emboldened, Basil threw open the door in an imitation of the way Hero had.

There was nothing. The smoke drifted aimlessly into the empty room.

As one, the group breathed a heavy sigh of relief. 

"Okay. It's alright, now." Mari lifted an arm, and Sunny immediately moved to allow himself to be pulled against her side. "Everything is going to be okay."

With the house now definitively ghost free, the friends turned their attention to the next event lurking close on the horizon- Halloween. As Faraway was notably lacking in any craft stores, they decided to ride the bus downtown to see what they could find.

"I saw a few promising looking shops when I was buying our ghost hunting gear." Mari said enthusiastically, swaying slightly as the bus rumbled along. "We can start there!"

They all fell into casual chatter after that, but Sunny remained silent, distracted. No one else had noticed, but sitting across the aisle, her face partially obscured by a book about dinosaurs, was Kim. That in itself wasn't strange- it was a small town, and this bus route saw a lot of teenagers crossing through. But when Mari had spoken, Kim had paused in her reading to look up and stare, eyes narrow and mouth pressed in a tight line. Her attention was now directed back down at her book, but her eyes weren't moving across the page.

As the bus slowed to a halt, Sunny stood quickly, hoping to catch her before she ran off. Unfortunately, Kim was fast, and Sunny had never been good at pushing through crowds. By the time they had disembarked, he could see no traces of the girl anywhere.

"Sunny? Are you okay?" Basil asked, a small worried crease between his eyebrows. "You look distant."

Sunny made a face and shrugged, giving up on his search. Maybe he could talk to her the next time he saw her at school.

"Mari! Is that it?!" Aubrey called excitedly, pointing. The store in question was decorated to the extreme, with cobwebs, bats, and pumpkins lining nearly every available surface. Glittering orange and purple lights hung in the windows, and the door featured a surprisingly tasteful skull wreath. 

"That's the one!" Mari pumped a fist in the air with excitement. "Let's go, everyone! We got some shopping to do! I'll cover every-"

"I'll pay," Hero interrupted, giving Mari a quick smile. She puffed her cheeks at him in annoyance, and he chuckled nervously. Even so, he held his ground. "You spent a lot on the ghost stuff. Let me, I don't mind, really."

Hero's words triggered a memory, and Sunny resisted the urge to slap his forehead. That was right, he said he'd pay the older boy back for the window incident, didn't he? For now, he'd say nothing, but he needed to get a move on for that. The recital was over, after all- he had no more reasons for putting it off. He wondered if Gino's would be okay with hiring a middle schooler…?

The ringing of the shop door and the sudden scent of cinnamon gently pulled him from his thoughts. He breathed deeply.

"It smells good in here!" Kel's voice brimmed with enthusiasm. "What is that? Cookies?"

Basil leaned over a large bin and pulled out a bag of small, decorative pinecones. He gave it a sniff. "It's these, I think!"

"There are also scented candles- hm? Kel, what's wrong?" Hero asked, seeing his brother's face fall.

"Now I'm hungry," he grumbled. 

"We just had breakfast!" Aubrey protested. 

"I'm a growing boy! Right, Sunny?! I get super tall, don't I?"

Sunny had diligently refused to give any surplus details on the future, fearing some unforeseen ripple effect. He doubted that Kel knowing his height would affect anything, but… "No spoilers," he said flatly.

...In this case, not telling was just funnier.

Kel groaned dramatically. Mari giggled behind her hand. "We'll get food as soon as we're done here, okay?"

They had come with the explicit purpose of finding materials to make their costumes. However, that mission was quickly derailed.

"Kel,"

"Come on, bro!"

"Kel. We do not need a skeleton. We especially don't need one that's too big to fit through a door-"

"But it's COOL!"

"Mari, look! They have cute earrings!"

"Ooh, those would look great on you, Aubrey!"

"S-Sunny, it's okay! It's not a real spider!"

"..."

What should have been a short trip ended up taking hours… not that anyone really minded. The return to normalcy, the privilege of acting like nothing was wrong because it was true , was something Sunny  couldn’t take for granted. 

When Basil took a candid photo of everyone excitedly crowded around a particularly cute black cat plush, it made Sunny realize something. In this new life (that he still wasn't sure he deserved), this was the first new memory. Not in a literal sense, of course. But were he to travel back into the abandoned library within Headspace, this day would be one of the entries on the shelves.

The smell of cinnamon. The low chatter of the other customers. The plunky Halloween music playing over the speakers.

The thought made him smile.

There was another camera flash, and he made a face at Basil.

"Sorry, Sunny! That was just way too cute, you never smile in pictures! You must really like that stuffed kitty, huh?"

Before he could explain, Hero’s hand had landed on his shoulder. "Well, that settles it! Go ahead and hold onto that, Sunny. I'll buy it for you!"

Well, it was really cute. Sunny hugged it, and Mari, overwhelmed with the display, hugged him, too. 

Eventually, they managed to actually acquire the materials they would need for their costumes. It was difficult to imagine the bundles of fabric and buttons and various sewing supplies in the shopping cart as being actual, wearable clothes. But Mari and Hero seemed confident, so Sunny easily accepted their judgement. 

Before they took the bus back home, they stopped by a local café to satisfy Kel's- and everyone else's, by this point- appetite. Just like the craft store, it was similarly all decked out for the season, with a hand drawn menu that cheerily recommended a number of apple and pumpkin flavored beverages and treats.

"Oh, wow! Everything looks so good… I don't know what to pick!" Basil hummed indecisively. Sunny was inclined to agree.

"Well, at least if they all look good, you can't go wrong no matter what you choose! Right?" Aubrey's voice was cheery as the friendly lady working at the counter handed her a caramel apple.

Bolstered by her confidence, Sunny, Basil, and Kel all quickly made their selections afterwards. Mari whispered something into Hero’s ear, and he chuckled. 

"Can we also get some of those sandwiches, please?" Hero asked the smiling woman.

"Woohoo, more food!" Kel cheered.

"Not more food, real food," Mari teased, pointing at the doughnut in Kel’s now sticky hand. "That doesn't count."

The outing left Sunny in high spirits, and he now found himself awaiting Halloween with more enthusiasm than ever. Unfortunately, there was still a week left of school to slog through before the day arrived. He spent the entirety of his classes in dreamland, too distracted to even pretend to be taking notes. Fortunately, no teachers seemed to notice. The weather was unexpectedly dreary. As if to make up for lost time from the unreasonable warmth earlier in the month, the air now held a persistent chill. A thick layer of clouds hung low and heavy in the sky. Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed that the change in atmosphere was affecting more than just the clouds. Everyone seemed a little more lethargic than usual- it was just one of those days.

So, it came as a bit of a shock when, after he had only just sat down for lunch, a pair of hands slammed down on the table across from him.

Sunny jolted in surprise. His elbow hit Kel's arm, jostling it and spilling a (thankfully) small amount onto the other boy's shirt. Kel sputtered. 

"What the heck- uh…?" It was Kim. Kel seemed to be struggling to remember her name.

Immediately catching his hesitation, she scowled. "Oh, come on, you know who I am, Kel! We used to play together at the playground all the time!"

Kel shot Sunny, Aubrey, and Basil a helpless look. Aubrey simply raised an eyebrow, enjoying watching him squirm, but Sunny took pity and mouthed Kim.

"Kim?" Kel repeated with a furrowed brow. Then his eyes lit up. "OH! Oh yeah, Kimberly! Berly! Hey, how's it been- ouch! What was that for?!"

Kim had swung a fist into his upper arm. "It's just Kim! Jeez, nobody calls me that anymore. You're so embarrassing, ugh, this is why I didn't want to ask you guys…"

"Ask? Do you need something?" Aubrey looked curious.

Kim suddenly looked apprehensive. She chewed her lip, glancing back and forth at them all. It was uncomfortably quiet.

Basil was the one who broke the silence. "Do you want to have a seat?" He asked, gesturing to the open one she was already standing near. "We, um, got some extra pastries from when we went shopping for Halloween stuff yesterday. We were planning on sharing them, so if you want, you can have some too!"

At the mention of sweets, Kim's entire countenance lightened considerably, and she dropped down where Basil had directed. "Well! If you insist. I guess I can help take some off your hands!"

Sunny watched as Aubrey unwrapped and handed over a bear claw, which Kim dug into with relish. As soon as she seemed pacified, he asked, "Is everything alright?"

Kim paused in her enthusiastic chewing before swallowing and grumbling under her breath. "...If you laugh, I'm gonna fight you in the parking lot after school. You got that?! Don't laugh!"

Kel looked like he wanted to rise to the challenge, but a swift kick from Aubrey underneath the table was more than enough to stop that bad idea in its tracks. "We won't, promise," She said quickly. "We haven't talked for a while, sure, but we're friends, aren't we?"

Kim flushed and grumbled some more. "Okay. Yeah." She squared her shoulders. "I'll just come out and ask. Are you guys ghost hunters?!"

There was a beat. Then Kel grinned hugely. "You better believe we are!"

"Wait. W-weren't we supposed to keep that a secret?!" Basil squeaked, eyes huge at Kel’s boldness. 

Sunny cocked his head to the side. "We were?"

"Um. Well, isn't that how it usually goes? That's the thing you're supposed to do, right? Like, in stories?" Even as he spoke, Basil seemed unconfident in his own words, as though he were trying to convince himself of their merit even as they came out of his mouth.

"Not the Ghost Lords," Kel insisted. "They even have business cards. Ooh, we should get business cards!"

Aubrey burst into giggles at that. "Well, I guess that answers your question, right?"

Kim looked torn between disbelief and awe. "For real?! ...No. I know you're telling the truth. No way Mr. and Miss Perfect would go along with it if it were just some dumb game." The last part of her statement was spoken in an undertone, as though she didn't realize she were saying it aloud.

Sunny decided not to mention that actually, both Mari and Hero would absolutely go along with something like that even if they thought it was a game, as evidenced by recent experiences.

"But Kim, why'd you want to know?" Aubrey leaned forward, looking curious. "You didn't strike me as the kind of person who was into stuff like that. Not that it's bad, or anything…"

Kim exhaled in a huff. "I'm not. I don't care about stupid dead stuff like ghosts. My interests are in living things. Like dinosaurs."

Sunny squinted at her. Again, he wisely opted to remain silent.

"So then…" Basil prompted gently.

"...I think my Dad's house is haunted."

"This is so exciting!" Mari all but vibrated in excitement. Hero gave her a look brimming with both love and exasperation. 

"Mari… Isn't this stuff kind of dangerous? After what happened last time-"

"This is totally different! It's not after Sunny, for one thing. And from the sounds of it, it hasn't actually attacked anyone, right?"

Aubrey nodded, idly twisting a strand of hair around her finger. "That's what she said. And it sounds like it appears pretty sporadically, just like the one we had to deal with. So, we're kind of… on call? For a while?"

Hero furrowed his brow. "Oh? We're going to wait for it to appear? Wouldn't preventative measures be a better call?"

Mari grinned and elbowed him. "Ooh. Taking this seriously?"

With a light flush, Hero chuckled. "Well, if we're going to do this, we should do it right."

Basil hummed. "If you really wanted to, I don't think she'd stop us. But when I gave her some sage to take home, she was pretty firm in the belief that it wouldn't help. Something about how she already tried?"

Kel waved a hand. "But she's not a professional, like us. Hobbyists make mistakes all the time."

Aubrey opened her mouth to argue with his obviously flawed reasoning, but stopped when she noticed the mischievous glint in his eyes. Recognizing the bait for what it was, her jaw snapped closed. 

Mari clapped her hands together and wriggled in place. "So begins our lives as the most prolific ghost hunters in the country! They'll make documentaries about us!"

"But we'll never reveal the truth," Sunny said serenely. "Which is that all you have to do to beat ghosts is hit them really hard."

A burst of laughter erupted from his friends. After sobering, Hero rubbed his chin.

"Actually," he said thoughtfully, "we don't really know much about how these things work at all, do we? Sunny, you said that there weren't any ghosts in the other timeline, right?" Upon receiving a confirming nod from Sunny, Hero mirrored the motion, head bobbing. "So it's pretty safe to assume that whatever… uh, power, sent you back in time may also have opened up something."

"Is it?" Aubrey looked dubious.

"We don't have anything else to connect it to, so for now, I'd say so." Hero crossed his arms and leaned back. Mari took advantage of this to lay her head down on his shoulder. "We've had two encounters with a ghost, but we don't really know why it reappeared once and then, well, splattered in the other."

"I understand!" Basil chimed in. "So we need to approach this a little more scientifically, right? That way we can learn what specifically does and doesn't work on these things." He hesitated, then laughed nervously. "I mean, assuming it really is a ghost and not just her mind playing tricks on her."

Aubrey made a face. "I don't think she'd fall into something like that. Kim has always been pretty straightforward, leaping to weird conclusions like ghosts doesn't sound like her."

Kel shook his head, baffled. "How do you even do that? How can you remember someone's name and personality after all that time? I can barely do that when I've just met someone!"

At the implied compliment, Aubrey looked pleased. "Well, I just try to look people in the eye and repeat their name a few times in my head when we're introduced. It's nothing that special."

"Are you kidding?! That's like a superpower!" Kel cried.

"Look at you two, getting along!" Mari grinned. "There really must be something supernatural afoot!"

They both made a show of protesting that comment, but it was glaringly obvious that neither of them were really heated.

Lost in the comfortable white noise of his bantering friends, the threads of conversation slipped from Sunny’s fingers as he drifted off into his own thoughts. As much as he felt bad for Kim (and by extension, Vance) having to go through a potential haunting… part of him was a little glad for it.

When he'd decided not to tell anyone about the details of their future lives, there had been a few key aspects that had been difficult for him to leave out. The Hooligans had been the most difficult among those.

They were special to Aubrey. When everyone else had failed her, when she'd been in her darkest moments, it had been Kim, Vance, and their little collection of oddballs that had saved her. Sure, they'd probably influenced her to become a more violent, socially outcast person, but they'd cared enough about her to stand by her side, good times and bad. He clearly remembered arriving at Aubrey's house as the fretful gang paced outside, worrying about what had happened to her, and it becoming clear as day that she was blessed to have them.

This was the perfect opportunity to bring them back into her life. And he had a secret weapon. 

Sunny shook the bag to catch Kim's attention as she attempted to pass him in the hallway. She froze and turned wide eyes towards him at the sound.

"Is that candy?!" she demanded.

Sunny nodded. "I accidentally bought too much. I know you like candy, so I wanted to know if you'd like to share it with us all at lunch."

Kim stared at the bag with open desire, but something was clearly holding her back. Sunny decided to give one more little push.

"If you usually sit with someone else, they could come, too. I'm sure nobody would mind."

The tension in Kim's shoulders relaxed as she perked up. Even so, she was still somewhat guarded as she clarified, "Are you sure? Not many people can handle us. Not gonna chicken out, are you?"

In lieu of a response, Sunny simply gave her a thumbs up. Her face cracked wide with a smile.

"Fine, then I guess I can put up with you nerds a little bit longer."

Lunch time became much more chaotic after that. Vance was the only member of the former gang (future gang…?) not present, as he was in a different grade. It was strange seeing the group of oddballs before they'd become delinquents, mostly because of how largely unchanged they were. Angel still radiated rambunctious enthusiasm and doodled in a spiral bound notebook. Charlie was as shy as ever, sitting with her shoulders hunched and avoiding eye contact, but looking happy to be there all the same. Mikhael was Mikhael.

Aubrey and Kim didn't suddenly become best friends overnight, but that was alright. Whether or not they became closer was their choice from this point.

Kim had yet to spot any ghostly activity she could report- a fact that she was obviously annoyed by. Grumbling viscously, she'd complained that- "Of course now that I've done something about it, it decides to stop…" -but it couldn't be helped. They'd just have to wait and see.

At last, Halloween had arrived. Sunny, Mari, Basil, and Aubrey had arrived at Hero and Kel’s house the night before, arms laden down with their costumes and overnight bags. At Hero's suggestion, they'd refrained from staying up too late, so they could awaken bright and early to get the most out of the day.

The morning was cold, and Sunny had a difficult time getting out from underneath his warm covers. The scent of breakfast was enough to rouse him, though. As expected, he was the last one to awaken, and he sleepily padded down the stairs.

"Good morning, Sunshine!" Mari sang, meeting him at the entrance to the kitchen and grabbing his arm. Humming, she coaxed him into doing a twirl with her, and he allowed himself to be moved like a complacent cat.

"Don't worry, Sunny, there's plenty left! Here, want a muffin?" Hero called over his shoulder. 

Sunny nodded eagerly, allowing Hero to load his plate with the delectable smelling food. The others were already sitting in the living room, with the TV airing Halloween specials.

"Morning, Sunny!" Kel greeted cheerily. Basil scooted over on the couch and patted the spot next to him, and Sunny dropped into place. Shoveling another bite of egg into his mouth, Kel continued with his mouth full, "So, what's the game plan?"

"I want to start getting ready right away!" Aubrey's eyes sparkled. "I've been looking forward to this, so I want to look as good as possible! Mari, will you help me with my makeup?"

"You bet I will!" Mari agreed enthusiastically. "And that goes for everyone else, too! If you need any help, just let me know! And I agree completely. As soon as I finish eating, there is no more Mari- only Maximilian!" She twirled her arm in a dramatic flourish that was only slightly spoiled by the blueberry that flew from her fork with the motion. "Oops-"

Kel's arm shot out, and he swiped the flying fruit from the air. "Yoink," he snickered, popping the berry into his mouth. Basil let out an awed noise and clapped.

Getting ready took shockingly long. After the recital, Sunny believed that he had a grasp of how long it could take some people to get ready for things, but there were some aspects that he hadn't even considered that greatly lengthened the process of getting into costume. Mari and Aubrey both had wigs, since their hair was far too long to look like Maximilian and Vincent. Hero and Kel's brunette locks had to be darkened with washable dye. Basil and his own costumes had seemed like they would be the simplest, as they already looked so much like their characters of choice, but putting in colored contacts proved to be something of an ordeal for both of them. Sunny’s brain attempted to remind him that he had a bad history of things going into his eye. He mentally curb-stomped the intrusive thought and succeeded in getting the little lens in on the very next try.

All of the effort was well worth it, though. The end result was nothing short of dashing. With not a hair out of place, the group approached Hero and Kel’s parents, asking if they could be photographed with Basil’s camera.

"Look at you all! So handsome!" their mom cooed. "Basil, honey, lift up your chin a little, Mari, tilt your head… and cheese! "

They dutifully echoed the phrase back, and the camera flashed. As one, they all rushed forward.

"We look awesome!" Kel cheered, and Mari nodded vigorously. 

"Just like the poster!" Aubrey agreed before squinting and leaning closer. "Gosh, Basil looks so much like Glenn that it's scary. You could be a stunt double. Or a professional impersonator."

Basil blushed, but it was fainter than his usual deep red thanks to the full coverage, pale foundation on his skin. "Thanks! It's only because Mari is so talented, though. You all look really cute, too!"

As soon as his mom was out of earshot, Hero smiled and tugged at his earlobe. As his character, Arthur, was the bad boy archetype, his character had piercings, which they had replicated with magnetic ones. "Don't say anything, but I kind of like the way this looks…"

Mari turned to him with stars in her eyes. "Are you going to-?!"

"Mom would kill me," he said thoughtfully. His tone implied that this wasn't a deal breaker, however. 

"Do it, do it, do it!" Kel chanted. "Your teenage rebellion starts now, bro! Wear torn jeans! Listen to loud music! Stay up late!"

"Dye your hair!" Aubrey added.

"Do crimes." Sunny insisted.

"M-maybe just one step at a time…" Basil laughed nervously.

Trick-or-treating was a rousing success. Group costumes were the hottest trend in Faraway at the moment, and people were quick to compliment them and hand out extra candy in their enthusiasm. The local shops were participating in the seasonal fun as well, with Hobbeez handing out packs of retro style candy and packs of trading cards, and Gino's having a little stand set outside as the employees passed out free samples. Sunny spotted Daphne and Bowen dressed as loaves of bread, also handing out samples and pamphlets. Mikhael was conspicuously absent. Mari waved eagerly at a passing PB, who was arm in arm with some of their mutual friends, all of whom were dressed as a coven of vampires.

"Well, look who it is!"

They turned to see Kim and Vance approaching. Sunny squinted, trying to figure out what their costumes were supposed to be. They wore matching period clothing, and Kim wore a wig with braids that made her look almost unrecognizable. She cackled at Sunny’s expression. "Can't figure it out, huh?!"

"We're Hansel and Gretel," Vance explained. 

"Yeah! Now give us all your candy, bahahaha!"

Aubrey shared in the laughter. "You're in a good mood!"

Kim beamed. "You better believe I am! This is the best day of the year, every year! No holiday is better than Halloween!"

"Glad you're having fun!" Kel leaned forward. "Everything still cool?"

Kim's voice lowered in pitch a bit, but there was so much loud conversation around them that there wasn't much risk of being overheard. "Yeah, completely. And you'd think that if there was gonna be a spooky haunting, it'd happen today, right? But there's been nothing at all."

Vance shrugged, scratching his chin. "Maybe it really was in our head? Or the salt we put down did the trick after all?"

Kim didn't look totally convinced, but she nodded anyway. "I mean, nothing has happened, so that must be it. Sorry for wasting your time, guys."

"It hasn't been a waste!" Mari chimed in with a sweet smile. "You all stopped spending time together after elementary school, but this whole thing brought you together again. That's got to be worth something, right?"

Kim reddened and grumbled out a half-hearted protest, but Vance returned the expression. "For sure. Kim has been pretty happy lately, so-"

"-HEY, wow, look at the time," Kim interrupted, voice cracking in embarrassment. "We gotta get moving or we'll miss out on the good stuff! See you later, or whatever!" With that, she ran off, and Vance followed after waving goodbye.

"Ooof, my feet hurt. How do they wear these heeled boots and run all the time?" Aubrey groaned. They had arrived back at Hero and Kel's place with a huge amount of candy stuffed into their bags, smiles on their faces, and blisters on their feet. Too lazy to fully take off their costumes just yet, they had settled in to watch some scary movies to round out the night.

"Anyone want popcorn?" Hero called from the kitchen. They all eagerly responded with a yes.

"Oh, and some apple slices for me, Hero. I've had too much sugar today, I need something nourishing!" Mari added.

"Boooring," Kel teased in a sing-song voice, then squawked as Mari squished his cheeks in revenge.

"Health isn't boring," she scolded lightly.

Hero brought out several bowls of popcorn precariously balanced on each other, and Basil stood and scrambled to help him carry it all to the couch.

The movie they'd picked was something of a slow burn horror. It refrained from using blood or sudden loud noises as a means of generating fear. Instead, there was an oppressive, deeply uncomfortable atmosphere that slowly grew heavier and heavier, until they were all but choked by anxiety as they watched the heroine stare into the dark woods.

"Don't go in, don't go in! The killer is hiding in there!" Basil groaned, curling into Kel, who cringed at the screen through a gap in his fingers.

"Does the dog die?!" Aubrey weakly demanded. "I don't want to watch this if the poor puppy dies…"

"The dog doesn't die," Hero insisted. "I looked that up before I rented it, I promise."

"The parents are definitely dead though," Mari said, wringing her hands. "Oh gosh, oh jeez-"

There was a banging on the front door.

They all screamed.

"It's a murderer," Sunny’s voice came out curiously flat, even as he clung to Hero's arm with a white knuckled grip. Gingerly, Hero detached himself from Sunny’s grasp and stood.

"It must be Mom and Dad," he forced out, clearly trying to sound unconcerned. "They probably forgot something."

They all clustered behind him, making their way to the front door. The banging knock started up again.

Just like the week prior, Hero inhaled to steady himself before flinging open the door.

It was Kim and Vance.

They were out of breath, as though they'd been running. Their costumes were now half street clothes, and Kim's wig was missing. Before any of them could ask, Kim blurted, "It's back."