Chapter Text
The first day of August. It had been exactly one year on this day that Sunny moved away from his childhood home in Faraway Town.
The sight of the pale autumn sun shone in through Sunny’s open curtains from his room in his new apartment home, signaling the start of a new day.
He got up mechanically, groggily beginning the start of the day and running through his mental list of to-dos his mother set him off to do around the house as she was gone for the weekend to visit her mother who had gotten sick.
Not exactly sick, per say, but just developed mild flu symptoms at the onset of the new season. His mother stubbornly decided to visit regardless, always a worry-wart for things like illness.
Sunny couldn’t blame her, having been a relatively sickly child while growing up. She was always worrying for him as a child, with the fact he was particularly prone to health-related issues.
She probably worried more about these things after Mari’s passing.
The thought stung him distantly as he washed his face, careful not to get water in his bad eye, then dried himself off and put his eyepatch on. He stared at himself in the mirror, his blank expression looking back.
It was too early in the morning to think about it. He always felt especially vulnerable right after waking up, his mind still catching up to meet with his mechanical body’s movements, let alone building up its mental defenses for the day.
A lot had stayed the same in the year since he left for a new beginning in the city, but more had changed.
Everything had happened too fast.
His friends barely had the time to react to Sunny’s confession before he had been checked out of the hospital a year ago and whisked away to the city, away from the trauma and the pain that was left behind in his old home in Faraway town.
It was enough time for the realization of the truth to settle on his friends' faces, but not enough to truly react to it. Sunny didn’t think he could ever forget the look on his friends faces paralyzed in mixed responses between shock and disbelief and fear at the realization of the truth, as if the truth was too much to accept all at once and it left them vulnerable and scared at what to do, not knowing how to react, left at a complete loss.
He’d never forget the look on their faces after he told them he had been the one to kill Mari all those years ago, the confession pouring out of him quickly before his body and mind could catch up with the words and cause him to throw up like he was on the brink of doing.
The mask over Aubrey's face that she had worn of anger had been completely broken, and she looked more like the scared little girl he remembered seeing all those years ago on the day of Mari’s funeral. It was the first time Sunny had ever seen her with such an expression of such raw fear, that he had to look away.
Kel’s face had quickly dissolved from shock to an expression of pain he had never seen on the boy before. He had hated seeing the expression on Kel’s face. It looked like a mixture of sympathy and sorrow and hurt, and it might have made Sunny finally break down crying if his mind had not been repressing his emotions as he confessed the truth to his friends.
And Hero-- Hero didn’t react at all. His expression was completely blank, frozen in shock and then falling completely void, almost like Sunny’s own expression. He had pressed a trembling hand on his temple and forehead before walking out of the room, leaving three broken friends at a loss of what to do. Normally in situations where the younger friends were lost and confused, they’d look to Hero to guide them, because he always seemed to have the solution despite being only a few years older than them. That time, Hero didn’t spare even a glance at Sunny before he left the room with silent footsteps and closed the door behind him.
That had been the last time he’d seen Hero since.
After that fateful day, time seemed to move on mercilessly as Sunny was checked out of the hospital and life seemed to move on despite everything that had happened. Aubrey had left the hospital after Hero, and Kel was the last one left in the hospital room where Sunny stood motionlessly still, the steady beep of Basil’s heart monitor permeating the cold room with white hospital walls surrounding the last three friends.
Kel took unsteady steps toward Sunny, before he reached a hand out to gently brush against his cold protruding knuckles with warm fingertips, barely able to choke out a We’ll keep in touch, Sunny, okay? , before leaving to find wherever Hero and Aubrey had ran off to.
The sting of tears didn’t register in Sunny’s buzzing and numb mind until he brushed them away with the knuckles Kel had touched. Even though his heart drummed loudly in his ears with pain and barely contained emotions, he felt a large weight leave him at finally having confessed the truth, and he managed to convey those bittersweet feelings to Basil, who had woken up not long after, giving the infirm boy a single smile that seemed to chase the shadows away from them both.
Since then, things moved as quickly as ever.
He and his mom were busy each day settling into their new home in the city-- a simple yet comfortable complex in the center of the city’s bustling streets overlooking the skyline that glimmered with activity day and night alike. Kel had kept his unspoken promise to Sunny, keeping in touch by texting him nearly everyday with updates about his life, updates on how Aubrey and Basil were doing (Kel never once mentioned Hero, and Sunny couldn't bring himself to ask), asking him how he was doing and how he was settling into the new city.
It filled Sunny’s day with a sense of normalcy he felt incredibly grateful to Kel for.
It wasn’t until halfway through the year that Kel decided to visit for the first time since his confession of the truth. Much to his surprise, Kel had entered the apartment with a nervous, beaming smile-- and with a familiar face standing behind him, long pink hair with an uncertain frown on her face straggling behind. Sunny had frozen in surprise-- he had heard from his mom, and from excited texts from Kel, that he was going to visit, but was unaware of the company that tagged along with him.
“I convinced her to come at the last minute, sorry I didn’t tell you,” Kel had laughed nervously with a sheepish smile and a hand coming to scratch at the back of his head. “It felt like things happened so fast half a year ago, you know? So I… well…”
Aubrey cut him off there, getting straight to the point, making hard eye contact with Sunny. “It felt wrong to tell you this through the phone, so I decided to take up Kel’s offer to come visit you.”
That day had gone surprisingly well for the three of them.
Aubrey had told Sunny what she hadn’t managed to say that day in the hospital, everything ranging from feeling lost and angry at Sunny being absent in their lives after Mari’s death, to the shock she’d felt that day after hearing the truth, the way she felt so so angry that Sunny had lied to them all for all those years, to the anger she felt at herself for not being able to hate Sunny for it.
“I don’t think I forgive you, Sunny,” she confessed in his room, with the three friends sitting cross legged in a circle on Sunny’s cold floor in his room. “But I don’t hate you for what happened. I kept thinking back to the day I pushed Basil in the lake, and I-- I imagined what would have happened that day if Hero hadn’t been there.. How you must have felt when you pushed Mari, with no one being there...” the words died in her throat as a pained look flashed across her features. Sunny had forced himself to keep eye contact, desperately wanting to look away and hide under his bed sheets, Kel’s warm hand over his own cold one grounding him in the moment.
“And after having time to think about it, I decided that… I don’t want to stop being your friend.”
The day had ended all too quickly with the three of them hugging eachother and making the promise to keep in touch. Sunny’s heart felt like it was bursting at the seams-- not having expected to still be a part of his friend's life after his confession of the truth.
He bit his lip as silent tears fell down his face and he nodded, Aubrey giving him a smile and a punch on the shoulder before she left, barely being able to hold back her own tears as she told him to update them on his new life in the city, and how maybe one day, Sunny could visit them all in Faraway town and hang again like old times. Sunny thought about it, and felt like he’d really like that-- his mind flashing to Basil before flashing to Hero’s absence of communication, wondering if visiting them would really be okay-- but Sunny didn’t mention that, only nodded in response to Aubrey’s suggestion.
Before they left, Sunny had reached out to grab Kel’s hand with an expression of gratitude in his features Kel seemed to understand, squeezing back with a smile before his two friends left side by side as the sun began to set in the city skyline.
It wasn’t complete closure, but for the first time in a long time, Sunny felt like things might actually turn out okay for them. Sunny had closed himself off to having hope for four long years of his life, and for the first time, he felt things weren’t hopeless for him anymore. He just had to wait, and allow time to help them heal.
Sunny snapped out of his own thoughts, realizing he had zoned off and had been staring at himself in the mirror for what felt like a half hour. He walked from the bathroom back to his room and checked the messages on the new phone his mother had bought him on his birthday a year ago, when he had been checked out of the hospital the same day he had exposed the truth to his friends.
4 new messages-- from Kel .
Sunny blinked down at the phone’s illuminating screen before quickly opening it up, realizing he had left his friend hanging for a good two hours, squinting at the time-- it was almost mid-day. He had overslept again. Oops.
10:12AM--
Hey Sunny, hows it going :)? Guess what I found out today??? There’s a remake coming out of Pet Rocks this weekend. Could you believe that? How come I haven’t heard about this until now!? Did you hear about it? It’s gonna have a whole new storyline and everything! With Hector the metamorphic rock being the main character of the story! How cool is that???
10:30AM--
Soooooooo I was thinking…… what if I come over again like I did half a year ago? It’s been so longggg. We text everyday and all but it’s not the same as talking to you in person, you know? I'm gonna buy the new game and we can play it together!
10:35AM--
If your busy this weekend, I totally get it though…. But if youre not, I may have already convinced my mom and called your mom and they both said it’s alright for me to come over and stay not only for just a day, but for the entire weekend. Hehe.
10:36AM--
Seriously, I miss you, man.
Sunny stared down at the texts a little while longer, his heart beating louder in his chest with an incoming wave of excitement at the idea of seeing his friend after months of only texting. He couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips as he replied back.
11:57AM--
Hey, sorry, I overslept. That sounds fun.
Sunny was never really good at communication and getting his feelings across, especially over the phone, but Kel never seemed to mind. After years of friendship and a whole year of near-daily communication, the two felt closer than they’d been in years.
It felt like back when they were kids, hanging out at Sunny’s place with everyone else as Aubrey and Kel bickered loudly with Sunny and Basil silently observing off in a quiet corner next to each other as Hero and Mari baked cookies together in the kitchen.
Even though Kel and Sunny were polar opposites, they always got along super well, with Kel droning on excitedly from one topic to another as Sunny listened with silent excitement shining in his eyes, pitching into the conversation every now and then.
It felt natural, comfortable. Kel had managed to stay the same since they were kids, and things hadn’t gotten awkward or stale between them since then because of it. Deep within his heart, Sunny felt a profound relief that Kel was still Kel because it made him feel less like the deranged monster he thought he himself had transformed into since Mari’s death.
Sunny didn’t think he could ever express that to Kel though.
The sound of his text notification brought Sunny out of his thoughts.
12:00PM-- AWWWW YEAAAAAAAH!!!!!!! AWESOME!!!! Dude I’m already so excited to see you!!! Friday can’t come soon enough.
Sunny felt himself warm with a silent affection for the boy, grateful how he kept making the effort to come see him even though he didn’t have to.
12:00PM-- I’m excited too.
And just like that, the day passed inside the comfortable apartment, with texts sent reminding Sunny of the innocence of childhood excitement, as dead leaves fell outside from trees shaking from the force of the cold autumn wind, awaiting the presence of the sun to make their leaves grow anew with new life.