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“Sunny! Sunny! Are you home?” excited for their usual little weekend rendezvous, he rang the doorbell over and over again, a wide smile plastered across his face.
He stepped back once he saw the doorknob turn, the crack of the door revealing the stoic demeanour of the person he wanted to see the most, his boyfriend.
“Sunny!” once Sunny opened the door fully, he rushed in, wrapping his arms tightly around his slim waist, resting his chin atop Sunny’s head. As he inhaled the smell of his shampoo— something a bit floral, a little perfumy, probably something his mom bought for him because he didn’t care— the smile that stretched across his face upturned the corner of his mouth as far as they could go when he felt a pair of arms wrap around his back.
“I missed you.” Kel whispered, affection welling in his voice. He had been suffering from what he labelled “Lack of Sunny Syndrome or LoSS for short. It was a serious illness! If he didn’t get his weekly dose of Sunny, then he could die!
“I-I… I missed you too…” he felt the arms around him tighten, and that was when he felt as if his heart shot straight into his throat. His heart was beating fast, faster than any basketball tournament he had played in. It felt as if his heart would explode in his chest. Could it be… from an overdose of Sunny?!
If this was the way he was going to pass away, in the arms of his special someone, then so be it. At least he would die a happy man. A tear slipped from the corner of his eyes, it was an honourable death indeed.
While it had only been a week since he had last seen him, a week without seeing Sunny dragged on slowly. It was as if every second that passed felt like a minute and every minute that passed felt like an hour. Ever since Sunny had moved away a year or so ago since he confessed to everything that happened to Mari, it took months before things were the way they were now.
Kel would never forget how it felt as if his entire body was doused in cold water, how he felt betrayed, hurt, angry, but strangely relieved at the closure the two of them gave the three of them. If Kel was being honest, it took everyone some time for it to sink in. It felt as if a bandaid atop an already bleeding wound were ripped off, and words could not describe how immensely painful it was to rehash the moments they suppressed while weaving the new information into their memories. It took the three of them months to come to terms with it, but at the end of the day, Basil and Sunny were still their friends, and even though they all lost Mari, they didn’t want to lose them too.
After all of that, they all tried to rekindle their friendship despite Sunny moving half way across state to a new town, Kel made it a habit to visit Sunny every weekend regardless of all of the feelings spiralling around in his mind, thinking it would offer Sunny a semblance of comfort in a new place to see someone he knew. Things were going well, in fact, almost too well for Kel. Soon enough, he found himself developing feelings for the other boy. Eventually, he confessed, elated that Sunny shyly held the same feelings for him.
And now they were like this. Sunny was wrapped in his arms and Kel could feel the warmth radiating off of him as if he were being warmed by the sun’s rays. What went from a mere high five to being able to hold his hand, to kiss him, to be beside him; it made Kel feel as if he were over the moon.
They stood like that for a while, soaking in each other’s presence, before Sunny was the first one to detach himself, motioning for Kel to enter. Kel restrained himself from pouting, already missing the lack of warmth Sunny’s body provided him.
“How were things this week?” he asked, concern colouring his tone as he slung his backpack off and placed it beside the kitchen table, taking a seat. Sunny seemed to be adjusting to his new life just fine. Slowly but surely, Sunny was making steps in the right direction. He was starting to go to school again and more importantly, he was seeing a therapist on a regular basis. However, no matter how many times Kel has visited in the past two years, this new home was a place that Kel thought he would get never used to. Despite the same furniture from the old house-- the ones that had the obvious wear and tear from their childhood--it was a place that lacked familiarity and the warm memories from those fond days, leaving the entire place with a hollow, desolate feeling, with nothing Kel could latch onto.
“Okay,” he answered, settling down beside him where he had his notebook already open to a page full of scribbles. “I almost fell asleep during my English class and my teacher almost yelled at me though…”
“It’s not your fault she gave you a desk that’s right beside the window. Who couldn’t resist the temptation to take a nap when you’re soaking up the sun! I would do the same!” Kel huffed, pulling out his own notebook. The two of them decided that they would do their homework on Fridays, so they could relax without the Monday’s deadlines looming over them on the Saturday and Sundays. It was a good idea, yet it took them-- more so Kel-- ages to finish. How could he focus on his homework when he wanted to focus on his boyfriend focusing on his homework instead?
“You shouldn’t,” a subtle smile tugged at the corners of Sunny’s lips, lightly tapping the tip of Kel’s nose with the eraser on the top of his pencil. “You’re graduating soon.”
“Oh yeah… I almost forgot.” he looked back down at his homework. Math. He mentally groaned at the formulas and random numbers scattered across the crumpled worksheet. “Welp,” he leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. “It’s not like I’m getting into college for my grades anyways! I just gotta make sure they’re okay and I should be fine! Emphasis on okay.”
He picked up his pencil once more, clicking it twice as he brought it to the paper. That was right. He was graduating soon while Sunny would still be here, taking supplementary classes as he worked through everything he missed the last four years prior. While it was a sad feeling, it was sadly one that he was used to. He was used to their semi-long distant relationship, he was used to only seeing him a handful of times, but what he wasn’t used to was the loneliness he had to cope with when he couldn’t see him.
“Is there something on your mind?” Sunny’s cool voice broke him out of his thoughts.
“It’s just…” Kel started, hesitant as he tried to piece together his thoughts into one coherent sentence. “I don’t want to be so far from you again when I go to college… was what I was thinking about. It’s a little bit farther out than Hero’s college, and I don’t know how often I can come around and visit…” This time, he couldn’t stop the pout that his lips formed, sad at the thought of being farther from him.
“We can still call or text everyday and instead of you visiting me… maybe I can visit you instead.” Sunny reassured him. “We’ll be okay. We can do this together.”
Kel’s eyes lit up, jaw dropping in shock at what Sunny just said. “You would do that for me?! Really?!”
A light pink dusted Sunny’s pale cheeks as he nodded. “Mhm.”
Kel pulled Sunny into a side hug, following it up with a kiss to the cheek. “I would love that. I could show you around the campus and maybe you could come to my games! If you’re in the audience cheering me on, I’ll definitely win. Just watch me.”
The two fell into a comfortable silence, finishing the rest of their homework, then moving onto their regularly scheduled program of playing video games, with Sunny winning the majority of their games. The two drank in each other’s company as much as possible before Kel had to leave again.
It wasn’t until nightfall where their comfortable atmosphere evaporated into something a bit more worrisome.
“Sunny, Sunny,” he gently called to the boy tightly wound in his grip, bodies pressed close to each other in the tight confines of Sunny’s twin sized bed. If Kel was being honest, he didn’t exactly get the best sleep on this bed for someone his height. But as long as Sunny was right beside him, he would not utter a single complaint about the fact that his feet dangled off the edge of the bed… or that he was afraid that some type of monster would drag him off the bed into the darkness of the night. “Wake up, you’re having a nightmare.”
Ever so often, Sunny would shake as if he were a leaf in the wind during his sleep, stirring Kel in his sleep as he felt a warm wetness slip from the shorter boy’s eyes and onto his arms.
When they first started dating, Sunny opened up to him enough to tell him about the white space, about his dream-self Omori, about how he would lock himself in his dream world to cope with the weight of his crimes. How eventually that place crumbled, and it left Sunny facing the reality of his actions. While the others had slowly begun to forgive him and Basil, Sunny himself found it hard to do so. Certainly, Sunny had become more expressive throughout the years, but some wounds were just so deep that no amount of time or therapy could heal them, the only thing they could do was make it a distant, past memory.
Through his eyes that were well adjusted to handle the dark veil the night cast into Sunny’s room, he could see Sunny’s eyes open ever so slightly, as if he were testing the waters to see if he could fully open them. Tears silently streamed down his pale cheeks, as he tightly clutched onto Kel’s pyjama shirt.
“I… I killed her. It’s all my fault.” Sunny’s voice broke in between his silent sobs.
With that, Kel felt his gut wrench. He pulled him as close as he could possibly muster, bringing his hand up to wipe away the tears streaming down Sunny’s face with his thumb.
“Just because you did something bad,” he started, “doesn’t make you a bad person, Sunny.”
Sunny didn’t reply, instead, he clung onto Kel tighter, opting to wrap his entire body around him instead. Sunny’s sniffles were muffled by the fabric of his shirt.
In moments like these, Kel has learned that over the years the best thing to do was not say anything at all. He knew how bad he was with words, how he could accidentally say something that hurt rather than helped. So, he wrapped Sunny up in his arms, threading his fingers through his sleep-disheveled hair to soothe his cries.
He pressed his lips to Sunny’s sweat covered forehead. “It’s okay…” he cooed. “It’s okay, Sunny. I’m right here for you.”
Deep down, Kel wished he could do more for him. He wished he could ease his worries or fight the nightmares that manifested from his guilt on his behalf, but this was something he needed to overcome on his own. However, even if Kel couldn’t do that for him, all he knew was that he would do everything in his power to support him through the nightmares that haunted him.