Work Text:
> WELCOME TO NETSPACE.
> DO YOU WANT TO LOGIN?
/USERNAME: OMORI207
/PASSWORD: ******
/THE WHITE DOOR OPENS.
I find myself in a world of chat rooms, filled with people from so many different walks of life.
It was a grand, new world. A gift from Dad. So many individuals I would've never met at any point in my life now at a conversation's reach. Amidst the kaleidoscope of information the NetSpace could give me, I was able to make a couple of good friends over the net. They saw me get online, and greeted me with joy.
"How was your day, OMORI?"
HERO came forward, and asked me such a question. It was nice to be asked how I've been, and what I was feeling. Next to him was KEL, his brother. AUBREY hangs around with them too, constantly bantering with KEL as HERO mediates.
Every day was a good day, when it's with them.
"What have you been drawing, man?"
KEL and AUBREY ran up to me. I uploaded a couple of sketches I've been working on today. They were ecstatic to see it.
"I can't even come close to being able to do this stuff."
KEL comments as he shifts through the uploads that I pushed up.
"You can't do much at all, KEL."
AUBREY remarks in snide.
"How long have you been drawing, again?"
"3 years."
"And counting!"
HERO enthusiastically added.
"You've got so much talent, OMORI. Especially at such a young age. I'm envious!"
KEL mutters.
"Although... could you draw something a little bit less...?"
AUBREY cuts him off before he finishes that sentence. I know where he's coming from, though.
"He's got his reasons, dude."
So many interesting topics were brought up. Topics I've never heard people my age talk about. They're very well spoken, well read. They're very funny, too.
I'm really just an observer in their interactions. They know each other better than they know me, so it's not who I am to get involved too much. But they always consider me. It feels nice.
This moment won't last long, though. I begin to hear rumbling. The ground underneath me was shaking.
They couldn't hear it. They will never hear it.
"Something's come up. I'll have to go."
Unaware of the reason why, they bid farewell.
> DO YOU WANT TO LOG OUT?
/YES.
You stare at a reflection of yourself through a black screen. You hate seeing yourself, so you leave your seat and lay down on your bed.
It's been a daily occurrence. Mom and Dad, arguing downstairs. It's 2 in the morning. You put on your earbuds in your room, as music drowns out the reality that you are facing.
You wonder if you ever came down there, and beg them to stop, it would fix everything. You love your family, after all.
But you are still a little kid, and you are still a little scared.
You do nothing. Maybe things will be alright again. They love each other, right?
You feel a faint knock on your door. You almost didn't notice it. You get out of your bed to open it, finding your sister standing outside your room. You didn't know she'd even be up this late, although justifiably.
"Hey, can I stay in your room?"
She whispered. You nod quietly, and she sneaks inside, and you close the door as slowly as possible.
"I didn't know you'd be awake at this hour." She commented. Well, it's impossible to not wake up from the ruckus. She looks worried. Of course she is. Maybe she's here to make sure that you're okay. Maybe she's here to comfort herself, too. You agree to yourself not to bring it up to her, and she seems to agree to ignore it, for the moment.
You sit next to each other on the bed. She looks at your MP3 player, noticing that you weren't even trying to sleep during all this. Of course you couldn't. She wraps her arm around you, pulling you close to her.
Your father shouts at mom something you couldn't make out. You hear them frantically run around the living room. Then, you hear thumping, the sound of a fist hitting someone. There was silence afterwards. You hear your father's footsteps walk up the stairs, and into his room.
She silently admits the situation our family is in. You were scared.
"It's gonna be alright."
It sounded like she said it to you, but also to herself.
Your father's shouting resonates through the entire house. This time, it was directed at you. You're drenched in water, he had splashed a glass of water over the top of your head.
You've just failed your entrance exam. You've been studying hard. They were paying you for courses. But you couldn't do it. He's not happy about it. You tried to protest, but his anger was louder. Mom was silent. Mari is in her room. Studying, maybe. You wonder if this argument is even going to end. After some point, it did, you don't know how or why.
Your father blamed your failure on your use of NetSpace, and took it away from you. You'll never see your friends again, and you protested, however his anger was louder.
"They're not your real friends," making fun of you.
You held yourself together surprisingly well, but you lose all sense when you get to your room. Tears wouldn't stop flowing out of your eyes.
You bury your face as deep as you could into the pillow, hoping that your crying won't be heard outside your room.
It didn't work, as Mari opened the door to your room. She was smiling, but you know there's concern. You couldn't stop your hiccups, your sniffles, your tears, as you look at her face.
"Aren't you studying?"
You struggled to get those words out of your throat in the middle of everything.
"Just finished."
It sounded like a lie, but the both of you are not going to pretend to ignore the situation. She's always there for you. She's holding a towel in her hands, and begins to dry your hair off, wiping off the water that was splashed all over you.
You think you hear your mother shouting again. You don't want to check. Mari won't let you check. You wonder if this will ever end.
"I'm so sorry, Sunny."
She said, stroking your hair, her chin leaning on you. She couldn't have done anything. You don't blame her. You can't blame her.
Later that night, you watch as Mari tends to the bruises on her mother's back. Your dad was banging on the door to her room, yelling at mom to open it. The three of you cry together, praying to God, praying that things are going to be alright.
You stopped believing in God.
Today's gonna suck.
You hated waking up in the morning. Every single day, you dreaded walking towards the school gates. You fear what's going to happen to you today. You've felt like that for as long as you are going to school.
Mari sees you off. You and her now go to the same school, but different buildings. That's good for her. She doesn't need to know what's happening.
You feel sick, and tired. But you have to go.
At the class entrance, they steal your lunch money, lying to you that they're just borrowing it. They didn't harm you, so you didn't fight back.
Wait, what day is it today? There was a group project you're supposed to do with your classmates, but during the first period, they told your teacher you didn't participate. You could've sworn they never even said anything to you about working together, but you couldn't tell. Maybe they did, but you forgot. What's wrong with you then?
You didn't say anything. Your scores are slashed, so what.
You're not gonna be eating anything during recess now... So you draw, which is the only thing you can do. They notice what you were doing, and they take your sketches to throw them away. You could always draw more, so it shouldn't bother you.
It shouldn't... but you try to take them back, anyways. It's always a bad idea to try and go against them, because your reaction is what they want to see in the first place. Acting against them essentially authorizes them to do whatever they want to you, so they drag you to a dark corner, and push you down. They laugh at you as you keep trying to stand up, only to push you back down again.
After a while, they get bored of you, and they leave.
You didn't get hurt, so it shouldn't bother you. You tell yourself that as you look at yourself in the bathroom's mirror. Not being able to hold yourself together, you start crying, kneeling as you lean into the sink, and you turn the tap on, so that the sound of your sobbing would be masked by the noise of running water.
A classmate came up behind you. You were able to tell who he is, even through the tears in your eyes. A classmate named Basil, as far as you can remember.
He's holding pieces of papers, and timidly came up to you. "Um... this is yours, right?"
He hands them over to you. They were your drawings. Your tears fall onto the papers.
"Throw them away."
You can't be this weak in front of someone here. You stand up, wiping your eyes and taking a deep breath.
"It's better for you to not stick around with me."
It's for his sake. If they find out that he's been hanging around with you, they'll come after him too.
They're all so different from you. They're loud. They're mean.
They're treating you like such because you're so different from them. Why weren't they more like KEL, or AUBREY, or HERO? Why are they... the way that they are?
Recess period has ended, so it's back to classes for now. Ah, right, you haven't trimmed your hair yet, and this period would be with your homeroom teacher. After everyone settles down, she immediately looks towards you.
"Your hair's too long, Sunny."
With a grin on her face, she took a pair of scissors and started to hack away at your hair. You feel the gaze of your classmates, but you try to ignore them, pretending that they're not there.
She hands you your exam results. Well, you barely even tried to fill in the paper during the exam, mathematical problems don't make sense, so it's a big, fat F.
If you had the option to not turn in that paper in the first place you would've done it.
Although, the boys at the back of the class seem to be getting the same results, too.
"You keep this up, I'll make sure you don't pass this class."
Well, what about them?
She's always frowning at you, you feel like. When she turns to another student, that's the only time you see her smile.
Maybe she just hates you, huh?
Everyday is like this. Life felt so long to live through.
When you got back home, your mother was furious. Your scores were terrible. You skipped out on group projects. You're failing school.
Yeah, you're a failure.
You've had enough.
You run into your room, looking for your MP3 player, and a pair of earbuds. That's all you need.
It's dark outside. You weren't gonna return. You shiver, from the sheer cold. You run as far as you could get, but something is stuck in the back of your mind that's stopping you.
You wish you had a chance to live another life.
The MP3 player begins to run out of battery. The only thing you have left that would have drawn you away from reality is not going to last very long, now.
Mari found you sitting alone in front of a closed shop. She went out looking for you. Her breath lingers in the air.
She was worried. You immediately feel guilty, for putting her through this. But she's not going to let you throw yourself away, as much as you want to.
"It's cold out here."
"Please come home."
She pleaded, inching closer and closer, her hand reaching out, hoping you'd take it.
You're just tired. You're just going to keep coming back living the same life. Over and over again, day by day.
But if it weren't for her, you would've ran further.
You walk back home together with her in silence, although the strongest grip you've ever felt from her hand says enough.
"I'll try to talk to mom about you."
"It's gonna be alright."
You stopped believing in those words.
Ever since dad left, I wasn't really paying attention towards Sunny's behavior since it seemed like things were going okay with him and school. He became really quiet, and it was very difficult for me to talk to him, but I thought that's what everyone goes through when they're in puberty. After enough trial and error he managed to pass the entrance examination into the same school I was attending to, although I wasn't able to see him as much either since we go to different buildings, and we go home at different times due to my extracurricular activities.
I wish I knew something was up sooner, because I've never felt fear as much as I had when he decided to just... leave. It felt like the world was ending when he suddenly disappeared at night. I was thankful I was able to find him. I held his hand when walking home, afraid that he'd run away if I had let go. His hand, well, it didn't feel like it was his anymore.
The morning after that night, he locked himself inside his room and left it that way throughout the morning, so that his mother couldn't drag him out of bed to get him to school. Once it became apparent that he wasn't going to come out, she gave up, and went to work.
Maybe he just didn't want to have anything to do with her. I don't understand what was going on with him and school, but I really wish I know.
I knocked on his door.
"Sunny! Mom's gone. What's going on? Please come out and talk to me, so we can figure something out!"
There wasn't any response. He wouldn't even let me go inside his room.
Well, he's bound to go to the bathroom, or downstairs to find something to eat. I'll catch him then.
After a couple of hours, he relented, and went to the bathroom. I caught him as he was walking back to his room, kneeling in front of him grabbing his arms, stopping him in his tracks.
"Sunny. Please, tell me what's going on."
He has this blank stare in his eyes, and heavy bags underneath his eyes, telling me that he hasn't slept ever since we got home. I guess I haven't, either.
"You... don't have to worry about me."
He took his hands away from my grip, and walked back into his room.
"I do, because I love you."
There was no answer from the other side of the door.
Maybe we both needed to take a little break. He'll let up after some time, right?
A couple of weeks has passed, and he still isn't coming to school. Nor have he said anything to me besides just dry back-and-forth about food, bath, and the like. We never even ate dinner together as family anymore. He'd just take his food into his room and eat it inside.
I tried to convince mom to take him out to a therapist, so he would get a place where he could properly process his own emotions, and talk to someone who can understand him better than any of us would.
"It's for his sake, and mine too,” I said.
"My son's not a maniac."
That's all she had to say. She's changed over the years too, the divorce has done numbers on her psyche, and the way she looks at the world.
No luck there.
The next day, there was a person visiting the house.
He was the same age as Sunny. Could be a classmate, right?
"O-oh!"
He must've thought he would've met Sunny first.
I haven't smiled at all in a while after what was happening, but knowing that my brother has a friend who cares about him, I can't help but put a big one on for him.
"Hey! Are you Sunny's friend?"
I asked him, in a cheerful tone. I didn't have to force it out of me.
"Yes.. Is Sunny here?"
He's holding sheets of papers in his hand. School notes, maybe?
"He's in his room... although he hasn't come out in some time."
Maybe he will once he knows that his friend is here.
"What's your name?"
"Basil."
"Let's head inside and see if we can lure him out!"
I invited him into the house, and we walked up the stairs to his room together.
"Sunny! Your friend's here to see you!"
I called out to him as I got closer and closer to his bedroom door.
"Basil's here, Sunny."
There was no response, however. Basil was nervous.
No luck there, huh?
"I'm sorry, Basil. He's been like this for weeks, nothing can make him come out of there."
His eyes peer down, worried for his friend.
"I see..."
"What were you bringing him?"
He tightens his grip on the papers he was holding.
"...His drawings."
"His classmates were snatching these away from him and throwing them away. I gathered them back together, and I wanted to give them back to him."
So he really was being bullied at school. My stomach churns at such a thought. He's a good kid, he doesn't deserve this.
"But I guess he's not coming out of there, huh..?"
But he has a friend who's looking out for him.
"Thank you for looking out for Sunny, Basil."
"...I wish I could've done more for him."
He handed me the drawings, and I took a look through them.
The imagery was heavy. A lot of them were an abstract portrayal of death and... sadness, I believe. They were rather surreal.
Many of these have writings on them too, like poetry. They were a little washed away by water... tears?
I take a look at one of them, depicting a figure running up a stairway of broken glass.
peer into a dream
last resort, everything
no way out
so seek new realities
worlds, concocted by us
briefly in melody
swirls into beauty
I didn't know he had an interest in these things.
Well, I'll just hold onto these for now, until I can give them to Sunny.
"They were pushing him around at school... Snatching his lunch money. I only sat there to watch it happen to him, but I was too scared to do anything."
It was like he was speaking to himself more than he was saying it to me. It's a very familiar description.
"I know how that feels."
Basil was taking it harder on himself, however, and prepared himself to go back home.
"I'll... take my leave for now."
"Hey."
But before he goes, maybe I can help him a little, too.
"You have a phone?"
-
We exchanged our numbers together.
"If something comes up with Sunny I'll let you know. Oh, and you're free to stop by anytime you want."
"Thank you... uh..?"
"Oh, my name's Mari."
Haha, we got so caught up in trying to coax Sunny out of his room for once I never got to properly introduce myself to him.
"Thank you, big sis Mari. I'll be going now!"
He returns to a person who looked like his caretaker, and they both walk back home.
It’s been the most hectic this household’s ever gotten in a while, so the sound of crickets took me aback.
I'm starving. I don't think he's even gone out of his room to eat anything today... That worries me a lot. Maybe I'll just try speaking to him, regardless if he replies or not. He just needs to know that there are still people who care for him.
I knock on his door, still holding onto his drawings.
"Hey, Sunny! I'm going to go fix something to eat, let's come down!"
"Basil got you your drawings here, too."
The silence was deafening. I reached down, and slid the drawings through the small gap underneath his door. I suppose I'll prepare him something he can eat later that night. He never came out for me, but if I keep trying, at some point, he's bound to have a change of heart.
Basil would visit in the following days, he actually didn't live too far away from us. We'd have conversations about Sunny, and have lunch together. He'd talk about his hobby of gardening, and I'd share with him stories about the misadventures Sunny were up to when he was way younger. I shared photos of his younger self, too. Back when he had that bright smile on his face.
Those were better days for all of us.
"I never saw him smile at school."
Basil told me, looking at the pictures.
Of course, every time he visited, we both would come up in front of his room, telling him that we're here. It's not going to make him come out, but he'll definitely know that we're there, waiting for him. Knowing that was usually enough for us…
"There's not much else we can do, huh?"
Basil would take it rather hard on himself, with no apparent progress in seeing his friend again.
"In the end, it's all up to Sunny to open that door to us, to open up to us and make that change for himself."
Well, that's the reality of the situation we're facing.
"But I trust that Sunny would do the right thing, one day."
He's a good kid, after all.
One day, Basil handed me a flower, and a letter, when he was coming back home.
"Kids these days are super bold, huh?"
Smugly, I deliberately made him self-conscious, just for the hell of it. He realized what he just did, giving a flower to a girl.
"Oh, no, no, it's not for you!"
...and he immediately regretted saying that, too. I laughed hard.
"It's fine. For Sunny, right?"
"...Yeah."
He blushed, before turning his back and running back home with his caretaker without saying anything. Oh, boys.
I walked up to Sunny's door. I can't slide a flower underneath the gap of a door, it'll just break it.
"Sunny! Basil's got something for you, a flower! I know it's been hard on you, but you mean a lot to me, and to Basil, and the both of us want to see you happy again. Please keep it in mind, okay?"
There was no response, just as usual. I was going to find a place to store the flower, but he unlocked the door.
No way.
"I'm coming in, okay?"
In a hushed tone, I slowly peer the door open.
Sunny was sitting on his bedside, looking down on his feet. He was pale. His shoulders drooped, he looked shrivelled, and exhausted.
Just like old times, I sat next to him, and wrapped my arm around his shoulders to pull him close.
"Basil told me about school..."
"I'm sorry I never caught on."
I felt him shiver when I said that.
"No... it's not your fault."
He struggled to get that sentence out of his throat as he began to cry.
"I don't want anyone to blame themselves for my failures."
Failures..?
"If I had just said something to Dad back then... maybe we're all still gonna be together. If I hadn't been a weird person, they wouldn't have done anything to me at school. If I was smarter, my teachers would've liked me."
I had never known he took all of these things so hard on himself... Although I did too. The difference was that I distracted myself and got myself busy with school, while he tackled all this on his own.
He looked into my eyes, his face streaming with tears.
"I don't want to live like this anymore, sis."
"Every day feels like hell to live through."
Those were the last comprehensible words he could've gotten out of himself before he started sobbing.
My soul crushed at such a sight. I shouldn't have let this happen to him in the first place.
"You don't have to worry about that for now."
I pull his face into my shoulder.
"Thank you for finally opening up to me."
"I'm very grateful."
HERO, KEL, and AUBREY's gone through some time through NetSpace without OMORI for some time now.
They never knew what happened to him. He just logged off and... never got back online. Obviously we can't go looking for him, we didn't even know what his real name was.
Was he just sick of using NetSpace? Was he sick of us?
Did something happen to him?
Let's not think about that for now.
That has AUBREY wondering though. If something were to happen to her, would HERO and KEL know? Would they even care?
The thought made her shudder. She looked at KEL, and how there's only been arguments between the two of them so far. Just yesterday there was a heated argument between them about her behaviour and they went offline without properly resolving it, regardless of HERO's attempts to cool them down.
What if she had to go away forever, and KEL never knew how much their friendship meant to her?
"KEL."
AUBREY called for him, out of the blue.
"Sup?"
There was a loooooong pause after that statement,
"Hello?"
"I'm sorry."
KEL was baffled.
"Huh?"
He smugly pretended as if he didn't hear it clearly from AUBREY.
"Can you say that again?"
"Shut the fuck up."
AUBREY's stifled laughter breaks through an angry statement. He knew what she said
"I don't care."
KEL replied with a smile.
"and, I love you guys."
There was a long bout after that night when both me and Sunny (mostly me) begged Mom to let him quit school, and let him home-school instead.
Eventually, she relented, finally realizing what school had been doing to her son and how past events have affected him mentally.
She signed up a home tutor who would come over the house from Monday to Thursday, at hours where he doesn't need to force himself to wake up early.
The following days and weeks, I saw significant improvements in Sunny's mood, health, and behaviour. He no longer locks himself inside his room. He got healthier over the days, since he no longer had to push himself to perform at school from very early hours.
Basil would come over the house from time to time to hang out with us, and sometimes, Sunny would visit his house, too. They've become close friends over the days.
According to Sunny, Basil has a lot of flowers and plants in his house. His eyes were practically beaming when he was describing what he saw to me.
I suppose it rubbed off on him, since he's begun to pick up gardening as a hobby.
One morning, I had found him awake earlier than usual, tending to his flower pots.
"Oh, sis."
He stood up and turned towards me. With a bright smile he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.
"Good morning."
"You've been getting quite into this."
I commented, walking closer towards him to look at the flowers he was taking care of.
They haven't grown much, but there's been progress.
"Yeah, it's fun."
We sat next to each other observing the pots, before he took a deep breath.
"You know, after I quit school..."
He gazed into the morning clouds, preparing himself to tell a rather personal story.
"I didn't have much reason to get out of bed."
"I spent a lot of my time in my room sleeping, since there wasn't anything for me to do."
"I was just really desperate trying to get through the days, hoping that something would happen to me."
"Every day sucked."
He looked into my eyes when he said that, and I kept my gaze, letting him know that I'm still listening. He realized that we're making close eye contact, and darted his view away again.
"I still feel it from time to time. But seeing Basil take care of his flowers at home everyday, it kind of inspired me too."
"It's not a big step. But tending to these flowers... They're something I can look forward to every day."
His voice cracked, and he couldn't resist smiling.
"And it's nice."
Realizing that he suddenly became sentimental, he started laughing.
I wrap my arm around his shoulders, laughing alongside him too.
God, my little brother's not so little anymore now.
"You should tell that to Basil too."
It'll be such a shame if he didn't know how much he meant to Sunny. Sunny stammered.
"U-uh, should I?"
Before I could answer, I noticed Basil timidly walking up to our house. He looked like he was about to turn around and go home.
"Basil!"
I called out to him. Sunny was panicking, and so was Basil, as he turned around with his shoulders raised up.
"Come on over here!"
"Sis, what are you doing?" He protested under his breath to me, trying to make sure Basil couldn't hear it.
"He's coming to see you, dude!"
"Go talk to him."
I pat him in the back and send him off, as he slowly walks over to where Basil is.
They scuttle in together closely, awkwardly facing each other, looking down on their shoes.
"...Did you hear any of that?"
Sunny asked, timidly.
"Yeah."
Basil's tone made it sound like he felt guilty for accidentally eavesdropping. It was rather funny to see unfold.
"....Thank you."
It was very, very faint. Basil only silently nodded, and looked at me. I give him two big thumbs up, and a smile.
Thanks for looking out for Sunny, kid.
They begin to walk off somewhere. I don't have any business to tag along with them, so I stand up to go back inside the house.
Ow, ow ow. My knee.
"Big sis Mari!"
Before I could head inside, I heard Basil call out to me. Again, Sunny looked like he was about to protest, but he relented.
"Would you like to hang out at my house? I can show you how gardening is like."
Well, does that not sound like fun?
"Thought you'd never ask."
I caught up to them, and the three of us walked side by side, conversing and laughing along the way. I glance at a much brighter, happier Sunny, as things finally take a turn for the better in his life, and by extension, mine too.
I'm so glad.