Chapter Text
Four years.
Kel had spent four years giving his friends space.
He had spent four years waiting.
At first, it was a few days. Then days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into…
… He’d rather not think about how long its been since he’s last seen the majority of his childhood friends. Besides, what matters right now is these next few days.
Kel walks past the “for sale” sign in front of Sunny’s house, which seemed to cast a darker and darker shadow every passing day. Ever since he saw that sign first appear, his goal became trying to reach out to his old friend as best as he could, which mostly consisted of him walking up to the house every few days and checking up on them. It wasn’t perfect and hasn’t yielded a result yet, sure, but it’s something.
So once again, he walked up the same concrete pathway, stopping at the door; he raised his hand and knocked a few times. It was a normal routine for him, almost.
He waited a few seconds before knocking again. “Hello?” he called out. “Hey, Sunny, you there?”
He waits again. Some shuffling can be heard from the other side of the door. Kel knows that Sunny’s mom hasn’t been home for the last few days, so that could only mean…
“It’s me, your old friend Kel!” He shuffled awkwardly, pausing again in case of a response. “I uhh… saw the sign in front of your house and heard you were moving away soon, so I just wanted to ask if you’d like to hang out before you go; for old time’s sake, ya know?”
The silence that followed was tense. He knew for a fact that someone was at the door this time, but it didn’t guarantee an answer; the past had proven that well. A moment passed before he heard more shuffling from the other side of the door— the click of a lock, the squeaking of a hinge.
If he was being honest, he wasn’t expecting an answer.
The door slowly opened, and Sunny cautiously peeked through the crack before stepping outside, closing it behind him. Kel spoke without thinking.
“Wow, you actually came out today.”
… Fuck , he didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“I mean, uhh,” he fumbled, averting his gaze; Quick, think! He takes a quiet breath in, centering his focus, before looking back up at his friend. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Sunny simply stares at him in response, much like a cat would, leaving the two in silence again.
Kel could tell something was distinctly off about this moment, but he couldn’t pin down what; he shrugs it off for the time being. This didn’t help with how quiet it was— was Sunny always this quiet? The boy didn’t even say a “hello” when he saw him. Maybe it's just been a while for him. Kel decided to drop the act for the moment.
“Okay, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting you to come out today, so I don't really have a game plan here,” he says. He lifts up his hand and taps a finger against his chin for a moment in thought, eyes shifting to gaze at nothing in particular. They could always hang out around town, that’d be nice since Sunny’s moving soon. Maybe they could go to the park or the plaza or—
Kel perked up, snapping his fingers when the idea came to him: “Oh, I know! Let’s go to Hobbeez! I have to pick up something there anyways, so we can always take time to read comics or something like that. How’s that sound?”
Sunny once again stares at Kel in silence, his brows raising slightly and eyes opening a little more at the suggestion his friend has given. Yes, a sign of approval!
“Alright!” Kel starts, moving so he’s no longer blocking the house’s pathway. “You lead the way! Don’t worry about directions too much, nothing’s really changed since we saw each other last.” At that, Sunny begins walking down the path—holy shit he’s walking outside of the house, that’s actually happening right now—and leading the duo to Faraway Plaza.
As the two walk, the silence persists. Even with remembering Sunny’s nonverbal social cues, communication still felt a little… awkward, if Kel had to attach a word to it; Sunny always has been a quiet kid, yeah, but this felt a little too quiet. Strangely enough, this isn’t what was bothering him earlier. Walking next to his friend, the same feeling from before begins to creep its way into his mind.
Was… was Sunny always this short?
No, no, that couldn’t have been the case, he thinks. The two of them used to be around the same height when they were younger, and Kel hit his growth spurt while Sunny locked himself away, making the former the taller one of the two. It felt odd in a way. To him at least, Sunny wasn’t always this short.
… Has Sunny grown at all?
Kel finds himself mentally stop for a moment. Of course after a few years there’s a noticeable difference in height, sure, but… he still looked like how he did before. He glances at Sunny in his peripheral; the boy looked so thin, it's like nothing changed about him at all.
Sunny , Kel thinks to himself, how bad was it in there?
He can't bring himself to ask that question out loud.
***
It turns out that not talking to someone in four years can leave a lot of resentment boiling underneath.
Unfortunately, Kel had to learn this the hard way when Aubrey, the aforementioned person he hasn’t talked to in four years, challenged him and Sunny to a fight at the park. It doesn't help that there’s an unspoken pressure from onlookers: a group of teens that Kel can only assume are Aubrey’s new friends, and then Basil, who he hasn’t seen much if at all in recent years as well. God, this friend group is really in shambles.
Aubrey charges towards Kel and Sunny as the fight starts— the latter looks oddly calm for getting into a fight so soon after not leaving the house in so long. Kel looks around for a moment, trying to find something to use as an improvised weapon. He finds… a basketball. He picks it up off the ground; as long as it can disorient someone enough, it’s better than nothing. Turning back and winding up as he does so, he chucks the ball at her with force, managing to hit Aubrey in the shoulder. She stumbles for a moment before resuming her advance, noticeably clenching her fist, readying a solid punch. Shit . She raises her arm as she approaches, and—
There’s some movement out of the corner of his eye for a moment. Sunny?
A reflection of the light on… something.
“ Gah! ” Aubrey shouts, recoiling. “Is… is that a knife?!” She moves her arm back as she speaks, blood trickling down her forearm as she holds it close to herself and away from Sunny.
Wait. Blood? A knife?
Kel turns to Sunny, and sure enough, the boy is holding the aforementioned weapon in hand, face as neutral as ever. “Sunny, where…” he began, perplexed, “where did you even get that?” Sunny looked at the knife in his hand, then back at Kel. He shrugged. Kel just stared at him with concern.
Turning back, the two stood there (awkwardly) while the group of people who Kel could only assume were Aubrey’s friends rushed to her aid. Some words were exchanged between people in the group, but if Kel is being honest, he was barely paying attention to any of it. It was more like he half processed it, logging the information in the moment but not giving it any mind in the moment. He watched as the group left the park without a thought in his head, leaving just him, Sunny, and Basil just standing there.
“Well,” Kel begins, “I’m glad that’s dealt with.” He turns to face Sunny as he speaks; “Good thing you had that knife, otherwise things would’ve gotten messy—“
Fuck , that’s right! Sunny has a knife! The aforementioned boy continues to stare at his friend, hand still holding the slightly bloodied weapon in front of him.
“Hold on, gimme that!” Kel quickly reaches over to grab the knife; Sunny attempts to evade by moving his arm, but his reaction time is a little (a lot) too slow, and Kel manages to take the knife. Sunny stares at his now-empty hand for a moment before turning back to face Kel.
“Sunny, you can’t carry things around like this, that’s dangerous.” He puts the weapon in his back pocket as he talks. “I know Aubrey had a bat, but it wasn’t like she was gonna use it on anyone.”
Kel notices Sunny tensing his jaw and his brows furrowing ever so slightly—his friend’s version of a pout.
“Listen, you can fight in self defense if you want to, just no weapons, okay?” Kel extends a hand to initiate a handshake. “I’ll step in so you don’t get hurt, either.”
Sunny looks at Kel’s hand for a moment, pondering, before giving a small thumbs-up—agreement! Kel smiles and gives his own thumbs-up in response.
“Alright! With that out of the way, why don’t we go check on Basil?”
Kel didn’t wait for an answer this time, knowing full-well that Sunny was just behind him as they approached their old friend.
***
Okay, no, Kel was wrong—Aubrey was 100% ready to use the nail bat in a fight.
Exhausted from the day (including the earful his parents gave him for being out so late), he practically fell onto his bed face-down, welcoming the comfort.
Overall? Today was a success in his mind! He got Sunny out of the house and helped out Basil. Sure, they had a couple of tussles with the Hooligans but that wasn’t that bad looking back on it. Although, it was one of the main reasons why he was so tired; at least Aubrey didn’t use the spiked end of the nail bat, cause if she did she would actually get arrested. Nail bats are no joke…
… Okay, yeah, there was room for improvement from the day. Especially with what happened at the park with that first fight with Aubrey. Why would Sunny have a knife on him, anyways?
Oh fuck, the knife!
In a moment of haste, Kel moved as best as he could to grab the knife out of his back pocket; he held it in front of him, pushing himself off of the mattress to get a better look at it in the moonlight. The blood has dried by now, but it doesn’t make it any less disturbing. At least it's a kitchen knife and not something more meant for combat.
… Where the heck is he gonna put this? It’s not like he should give it back to Sunny, not now at least given the fact that Sunny almost stabbed someone today. Kel glances around, partially getting off of his bed to find a good place to hide the knife. There’s always his nightstand drawer, but there isn’t much space in there anyways. How about… oh! Under the bed! He’s got plenty of empty boxes he can throw things in. Reaching underneath, he feels around for a box, eventually finding one and pulling it out. It doesn’t have a lid unfortunately, but he’s sure nobody would think to look. He places the knife in the container and thoughtlessly slides it back underneath the bed into the darkness. Content with his efforts, he lays back down on the bed, facing the ceiling.
…
He would be lying if he said he was perfectly content, though.
He genuinely was worried for his friends—he may play dumb, but he’s not as ignorant as people think. Yeah, sure, he sometimes does or says things without thinking but that isn’t relevant right now, what matters is the abnormal behavior his old friends had. Of course, Aubrey has changed, that much was obvious, but the two that mainly concerned him were Sunny and Basil.
Sunny avoided conflict as much as he could in the past, and would typically be a bystander if a fight of any kind did occur, yet he readily attacked someone with a knife shortly after the fight began. Sunny wouldn’t do that at all if he were younger—the Sunny that Kel knew wouldn’t even think of something like that. What was going through that boy’s head?
Basil was strange. He acted like his old self for the most part with a little more anxiety, but something about him felt distinctly off . He gave Sunny his photo album as if he knew the latter was moving, but the information seemed completely new to him when talking about it over dinner. And with how he ran off to the bathroom too; Kel understands that when you go you gotta go but even then the timing was really coincidental to cut off the conversation before it got any further.
It’s not like he has any answers to any of this, unfortunately, so he can only wait and see what happens next.
…
He can’t sleep still.
Kel sighs, mind wandering again.
He hopes Sunny was doing okay. Just from being around him for a day, Kel was able to notice how unhealthy his friend looked—it was like Sunny just didn’t grow at all. It was frankly very worrying, considering how he never left his house. Hopefully he’ll be okay, Kel should just check in on him again tomorrow when he’s able to first thing. Yeah, that’d be good. He just hopes that Sunny wouldn’t pick up on his stress about his well-being; the last thing he wants is him thinking there was something wrong beneath the surface, especially with the look he gave Kel back at the cemetery—
Oh yeah.
The cemetery.
Kel wasn’t lying when he told Sunny that he hadn’t meant to say so much. Being back there with someone, despite having gone there before, probably caused the memories to resurface. It’s nothing worth worrying about, if he was being honest, but what he is worried about is Sunny getting concerned; the last thing that boy needs is someone to worry about, especially since what Kel had talked about was so closely linked to Mari’s death.
Kel was fine. He didn’t need Sunny worrying about him, especially over something around three years ago now. It was fine.
Sunny’s happiness is what matters right now. He moves away in three days, after all—soon to be two—and the two of them have to make the most of it while it lasts.
Tomorrow is another day. It’ll be smoother than this one, hopefully.
He sinks into his bed a bit more, mind relatively clear of thought. He just needs to focus on tomorrow and the chances it’ll bring; he’ll be fine.
…
For what felt like the first time in his life, Kel felt unable to relax enough to fall asleep peacefully.