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My knees buckles as I looked towards my sister ”resting” on her bedside, Basil sits closely beside me to comfort me with my sister’s untimely demise at my own hand. I cursed my luck with faint breath as the freezing night air becomes just unbearable.
I stare off into nowhere particular, anywhere is better than being here right now, why dose his luck most always torment him? why dose it always fellow him to bring its unforgiving raps on his soul?
It all seems to start when he was born it seemed, When his mother told him when he was young that he was diagnosed with a type of brain illness, Mari often told me not to worry about to much even though she herself seems to worry about it very often from what he can tell. eating was always a struggle throughout my life and becoming too skinny was always a worry for my overall health. I didn't have any friends at first besides my sister and our cat Mewo...well before she vanished that is, that’s when I had to get creative and invent my own friends, Humphrey and Abbi to fill the void the feline left in my heart. Mari would always to tell him to have hope, no matter what. that it we’ll all pass and that he well perceiver, he well overcome. that the hurt we’ll fade, that it we’ll come and go. I didn’t bother to ask what she mean’t at the time about hope, or what that meant and how it related to Mewo. His parents offered to replace her with another cat, another Mewo they said, but no other cat can just replace Mewo.
He would often would get into harms way in numerous other occasions, nearly getting hit by almost vehicle that just so happens to be drive across the street, the bathroom sink getting stuffed up and the pipes nearly bursting at the slightest touch. Numerous unexplainable accidents occurring outside and inside of faraway, despite all this mother referred to him as her lucky sunshine for apparently the fortune also seem to bring himself everywhere as well, a few coins put into a vending machine for only a Fanta or Coke would burst the entire vending machine into spewing its entire selection onto the ground, he recalled one time his father taking him to the Gas station one night because Mari and his mother went to the city for errands and he purchased a lottery ticket for the game sake, when I asked if I could scratch since it seemed cool for a child to rub the parchment of the card, my father agreed and handed it to me, and of course, it was the lucky few numbers for the prize. With my father shocked he handed me another one of the tickets he purchased I repeated it again, and again, and again. And all of them, every single one. where lucky numbers, from that day forward when me and my father locked eyes, we knew that I was truly a product of lady luck herself.
When me and Mari meet our friends, the gang. It was best and probably best few years that I ever had to live for. It felt like as if my life was finally going somewhere after Mewo, I didn’t realize at all at the time, but now looking back what I felt back then, when I first meet the gang, that feeling Mari was talking about, hope. Hero being the older brother I never had. Kel's love for sports and watching broadcasts of famed Ultimates/SHSL duel on the big screen with heated debates which would come out of a duel alive. Aubrey with her endless energy determination and loyalty to our friendship as a whole. Basil with his soft spoken endless trivia on fauna and his other really fun hobbies, sadly even these years where not safe from my luck, and how it seems to leer over every conversation he has and how it well almost always present itself in either the most harmless and subtle.
Such as the exploding of Hero and Kel rocket while I was helping them light the fuse which they were working on for school before it got sent flying straight through the front of Hobbies window, which destroying it and one of the bookracks inside, and yet no real punishment came out of it really, besides the F- on the grade they received that is.
Basil finding that his Tulips sprouted three weeks to soon after I touched them while asking him about when they’re where suppose too. My friends witnessing me being laid on and attacked by multiple seagulls when we all went to the beach then finding a rare and extensive message in the bottle from the 1800's only just a few hours later or me always winning every raffle we ever have or just tripping over my shoes after numerous extensive boy scout worthy certified knots from Hero still being undone mercilessly.
It got to the most outright ridiculous when we were all hungry and we already eaten all the food Mari has packed for the Picnic and I just wished for simple something to eat when out of no where an entire airplane stock of Swiss cheese fell from out of nowhere seemingly out of the literal sky only to skim the very teeth of hitting Kel dead on as it broke ground near our picnic as it entreated itself into the dirt.
So yeah, It got pretty bad at points. I had no other choice after that but to have a personal one on one talk with each of my friends regarding my luck, which of course was anything but easy to explain to all of them. I took a while for them to be accustomed to my luck but it became something that seemingly settled itself.
And then of course one Christmas they all decided to purchase a Violin with some of the left over winnings he earned over the previous months from various other things we all done together, they bought him a violin of all things with it and I didn’t really fancy myself as any type of musician of sorts at all, but I might as well since it was a gift and letting down my friends and my sister for me are huge no-no for me. So I begun to practice along with my sister on the new fancy OMORI piano she has now which of course, was for sale at 50% as there was a sudden buy out clear sale seemingly out of nowhere within the store we were at as soon as he announced the heavy expensive price tag for the piano. Over time the practice became more and more tedious as my sister continue to persist and say the we need to play perfectly to truly get it all down, I was confused as to why at first, and that's when Mari explained to me that she wanted us to practice and play for a recital at her middle school since there was suppose to recruiters venturing out towards some middle schools around there area because they were scouting for applicants worthy of Hope's Peak International Division!
I was shocked at first but then become greatly excited at the thought of Mari being possibly maybe, just maybe, that his own sister could get into that famous school across the pond. Mari continues, saying it needing to be perfect for the wanted it to be perfect for all there friends and for their parents as well. all of Faraway was going to be there and the fact that scouters were going to be there too only made the tension in room ever higher. even though I was a excited at the chance, there was my own self doubt as well with the fact that I always reservations about it since my luck dose not-do well at big open gatherings like the Mari is suggesting. I told Mari about my feelings on the matter and Mari once again said that she knew that be he should hope.
I asked what Mari always meant by that, Hope. Mari looked as she eat something sour and asked why, I explained what dose that mean, to have hope? her eyes wandered a bit as her eyebrows slanted she told him how hope ran the world and without hope you can't desire and you can't feel. without hope, there is no drive, no ambition to be better, and that's why they NEEDED to be perfect, to have hope.
Hope I wondered, tasting the word and the description Mari has said to me that day of practice. I looked through all my memories and what followed was a struggle, a struggle against me and my luck, against the world that always seem to make trial after trial against me and my friends and family, and when things seemed hopeless, hope… hope always followed, and things… they seemed to get a little better. I made another connection in my head, It was just like when Mewo disappeared! when she went missing… Me and Mari persevered like she said we should.. and she manage overcame what happened to Mewo unlike myself! she meet the challenge and she persevered to become a.. better and stronger person. A person who can meet those challenges like the recital and possibility of becoming someone with true talent like those from the fabled Hope's Peak Academy, and.. not.. falter.. right?!
That’s why Mari was pushing me so hard and giving such a hard time to the point my hands cramp that I couldn't feel them at all for hours, having my eyes go numb as I kept trying to land each note as perfectly as she can. it was all to push me to play so that so I can overcome the recital like she surely will since I couldn’t have proven myself when it came with Mewo, to overcome her vanishing and to get over it, that it was the past and I need to rise beyond it become better!
That was the understanding I gained that day of practice, that hope, hope needed challenge. that hope was too rise, above all adversity. Even when the going got tough.
But.. hope can not produce hope by itself, hope can't rise from thin air no, hope needs conflict It needs challenge to meet hope. for without adversity, without conflict hope well become stagnant.
adversity, conflict, struggle to meet the challenges of the world, the challenge which I learned from old homeless bagger on the corner not to far from the convent store where me and dad won all that money from those tickets which set us for life, that describes his own life as such.
My breath rapidly tighten a bit, my mind grounds briefly back into reality as my eyes shimmered and swirled as I now gazed prolonging at Mari corpse now swaying steadily in the gentle Faraway breeze, lifeless eyes and the sound of the rope gripping around my sisters neck nauseatingly predating across the yard, Basil stands next to me as his grip tightens around my hand and I tighten mine. despair, despair is what he called it, how he would so often feel it consume his soul every time he visits his fellow homeless on the street or in a home or in a another shelter the government would give him. the feeling of total dread, he told me that he was weak, that he has given up that he wasn’t going to be on the corner that next Thursday, and I asked him where he was going if he wasn’t going to be on the counter? he replied that he was going to go far away from far away, that he was going to go somewhere that must be better than containing to live on the corner. I didn’t understand what he meant intel the police was reported to have found a body near the lake not so long after. Despair, despair claimed him that day, I’m sure of it. he was weak, he told me as such, he raved about all he lost, from his family, to his nub which had housed his once precious arm which left him long ago, raving for hours for those all who would listened to his woes and to me when I had time between being with my sister and my friends or at school.
It was all because he didn’t push himself past despair, he gave into despair. he let it set into himself like a leech, and then once despair finished its ravenous feast it let him to feaster into a husk. husks that floods with the well of despair to those around those and others around them when they died, that’s why the most be overcome, Just like how all of Faraway overcame his suicide by knowing that he was worthless and that life MOST continue on and that that the hopeful well continue and the future must be push on no matter what and we must meet that challenge and to rise above our lessers, to meet these obstacles progress!! to shine like the brightest of stars in the sky! theses husks who are weak, left with nothing, are but… stepping stones for those who can perceiver over their object worthlessness!! they’re all utter hopeless!!, they’re lack of ambition and talent!! and Mari, I looked at my sister, she was the strongest beacon of hope I knew! (besides Captain Spaceboy, be he isn’t real, unlike Mari off course) she had talent!! she purpose!! she had goals! drive! beyond anyone of those sad sacks!
Everyone loved her, she brought, No.. she.. she..
I shake my head violently as Basil looked on at my inner turmoil in object horror “Sunny.. please I’m so sorry for all of this happening to sunny, it not your fault, please you have to listen to m-”
Basil words, whoever never reached me as I contained on with my epiphany.
Mari just SCREAMED hope every time she set a foot anywhere she went always because she never gave up, she never, ever lost hope, she had ambition drive and conquered husks and there hopelessness with ease, they were nothing and she kept those around her motivated and hopeful with her constant drive towards success. she was a champion, a champion of hope. She was perfect.
And what I was? for taking such a beautiful beacon of light out of my talented hopeful friends, my caring parents and everyone else in faraway lives?! taking away the recital which could have been a spark of hope that could have lit so many hearts with a passionate fire for a medium similarly to my sister, if not greater?
For me now a husk (or maybe I always was) hopelessly no better than that old bag and his own fate, but at least he just took his own life and didn’t brought anyone else to the aether with him, at least he didn’t snuff out someone else’s life who had actually had a future with so much promise like alight candle.
The only fate people like himself is to meet the same fate he should have shared with the old man all those years ago when he was plunged towards the bottom of the lake if it weren’t for his beloved sister Mari to risked her own life to save some worthless garbage like himself. and that’s why I need to be.. to be.. to be..
I stopped my raving, as Basil closes his arms around me as he slowed dragged me back towards my house, he closes the door to back yard as he slumps me in my father chair and hands me a glass of water as he looks at me worryingly “Sunny?! Komaeda?! please anything just answer me, you haven’t said anything for.. for so long please just say something!!” he grabs my side and digs his face into my green torn hoodie.
My eyes finally begin to regain some of their focus as my green hoodie begins to soak with his tears and dread, his despair. I then direct my head towards my head to Basil direction, my attention now on the blonde as I now brought myself to smile, a smile I’m sure Basil well appreciate! because I knew now what must be done, what most now come next, I needed to become his and all of my friends steeping stone towards the path way towards true greatness!! to be the challenge, that obstacle that we’ll get them to over come the utter and complete and despairing hopeless of Mari death!
They well use there talents! there skills and friendship that can and well overcome my own object worthlessness! They well vanquish me and Maris now endless, bottomless vacuum of despair into then becoming off the strongest and greatest hopes for all faraway to see!
tears of joy leaked out of my ducts as my irises swirled with the truth as a great big bright smile that stretched across my face. bringing my hands to cap my dearest friend face close towards mine and just to have him just look at me, as if to tell him a naughty secret Mari would tell during a sleepover with all of our friends.
Basil face of self-pity and desperation contorts into one of utter speechlessness as all did was just laugh, laugh and laughed, with its perpetual haunting echos reaching to the far reaches of every corner throughout my vacant home.
“Basil don’t be sad! you can’t lose now… this little incident will just be a stepping stone for you. In the end, hope always wins."
"That’s what I believe.”