Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The immediate reaction was silence.

It’s not all too surprising. What else could it have been? If, after everything you just heard, any other reaction was expected, he must well and truly be a lunatic. Although, that wouldn’t be your first clue.

Stop.

You knew from the start he wasn’t lying. He spoke. He wouldn’t waste that on a lie. It was like hearing a rusty bell, old and unused until now. Its sound is discordant at best, but unmistakable familiarity gives its noise a disgusting clarity. There was an overabundance of detail on exactly what he did—what they did—and how he felt during it. He didn’t dare spare a single fact, for your sake and his. An unspoken understanding was shared to let this play out, to let the bell ring. Not that any of you wanted to hear a single word of this.

You feel disconnected. Detached. Apathy surges through you like adrenaline. It’s the coldest kind of peace. There’s certainly no pain, but there’s no comfort either. Just a slight haze as you have a front row seat to this moment in eternity. Vaguely, you imagine this hospital room as a vast, empty, and white space, like a sensory deprivation chamber. The sensation of being in a room like that for far too long—that draining heaviness—washes over you.

It should’ve been you.

You’re familiar with this thought. You’re familiar with it in a way no one should ever be with their darkest impulses. At first, during that bedridden year, “you” was yourself. “It” was…

Well. We don’t need to say it out loud. That would require confronting something, wouldn’t it?

You said it out loud for the first time a bit before the anniversary of her passing. In this case, “you” was your baby brother, because you wanted to hurt him the way you got hurt, the way you hurt yourself, in a way he never deserved. You needed someone who understood, because the only one that did is gone.

“It” was still the same.

Then, you kept thinking about this phrase with a degree of fascination. You pretended you were over this intoxicating train of thought, but you kept tabs on it. With everything that happened in the first year after her death, someone had to take the place of “you”, lest you accept what happened to her. The immediate answer was in the mirror. But that didn’t feel right anymore. So “you” became whoever you hated most in the moment. Perhaps it was always that. 

“It” was still the same.

And now, you’re testing how the phrase feels on your tongue, wondering if it's apt to use it on her killer. Her brother.

“You”, for the first time, is him.

“It” is still the same.

The idea churns and polishes itself into a level of clarity—of perfection —that you as a person can never go back to. Doesn’t it feel right? Doesn’t it feel g o o d ?

It doesn’t. It feels disgusting and wrong in the same way it always did. It’s pointless agony in its purest form. It doesn’t even feel like the idea came from you.

That last thought makes you laugh. Don’t flatter yourself. Any pretense of a pristine, polite “you” got snuffed out with her.

Truth is, you’re terrible, Hero. Nothing in the past two days changed anything about that, and today certainly doesn’t change anything about that.

Your hollow, horrifying cackle over your inadequacy ends up being your outward reaction to the truth. It’s what breaks the silence. And for a moment, nothing else happens.

As you bore holes into the ground, collapsed into a chair as if the insidious cynicism fueling your laugh and pumping through you never slipped out, you hear a distinct and deep breath.

“Basil didn’t destroy the photo album.”

…Ah.

Aubrey.

You recognize that eerie and neutral tone. You recognize its honest malice and its underlying tremble that is so much louder than she wants it to be. It can hardly be called a calm before the storm with the sheer amount of dread it induces.

“If everything you said is true, then I’m willing to bet my life that was a lie too. A lie by omission.”

You know exactly where this is going.

“Who was it?”

Aubrey said she bullied him because he destroyed the photo album.

“…”

But if he wasn’t the one who did that

“Sunny.”

then that would mean

“Who ruined it, Sunny?”

that Aubrey became a bully

“…”

for four years

“ANSWER ME.”

over nothing.

“I-” He chokes, and you hear a violent coughing alongside the sound of something collapsing. Someone collapsing. Someone falling. Falling. Falling. Falling. Fa

You look up to see Aubrey towering over a pile of crumpled, malnourished limbs. It is heaving. It does anything it can for air, for anything that can fuel its sobs that are beginning to wrack its entire body.

He isn’t done.

He’s putting everything he can into moving this corpse of his for a second longer.

Everyone hears what comes next.

The bell chimes.

“I’m sorry.”

Aubrey screams.

The weird thing about it is nothing about the scream itself hurts you. What hurts you is that it came from Aubrey. It, too, carried familiarity, same as the rusted bell, and you felt the briefest, slightest pangs of distress from the fact she is feeling pain. Specifically, a four year stockpile of it. Pain inflicted on her, and pain she inflicted on others. She feels all of it, and how all of it was completely misguided in the worst way possible. Aubrey became a bully over lies.

You suppose learning the truth is her penance, then. Her punishment for pointless agony is a purpose to the anger. She never actually says it, because she’s too busy violently screeching, but you still swear you can hear her—a second her—speaking.

It should’ve been you.

You’re projecting again. It sounds terrible when she says it too.

The door is slammed shut by a pink whirlwind. As you move to go back to letting your head hang, you remember he’s here too. The accomplice.

Basil.

Still asleep, surprisingly. His peaceful, yet battered face stirs something incomprehensible in you. The chair you sat in was turned to him, so it’s no wonder you noticed him before…

Kel.

He’s mumbling to himself, a clear case of intense dissociation. Considering the type of person Kel is, you never thought you’d see him get like this. The sight sparks the greatest anger in you yet, except it doesn’t. You’re mad, sure, but it’s not even close to what you’re angriest about. This is just the only source of anger you can comprehend. As if seeing Kel get hurt (yet again) when he did not deserve it (yet again) by someone he loves (It should’ve been you.) is a gateway drug.

He’s practically comatose. The spitting image of you. The only difference is that he’s still standing.

“I… I need to…”

Slowly, he turns his head to the pile of malnourished limbs on the floor.

Even slower, he turns his head to Basil. He stops himself, physically choking on his words.

At a glacial pace, he turns to you.

“I should go find Aubrey.”

He’s looking right at you when he says that.

Again, a second version of them speaks to you. An insidious whisper crawls into your ear and puts a chokehold over all conscious thought.

I can’t be here right now.

Kel is giving up, and he wants to make sure you know that.

Your heart twists in agony and frustration. You are bordering on hatred in a way you never had before, increasingly intoxicated by the sense of freedom it promises to bring. Surely, shackling yourself with hatred against the people you define your life by will make things so much easier.

It should’ve been you.

You give Kel a nod so weak, you’re not even sure he noticed it, and at some point, he leaves the room. It’s dead silent now. You make no effort to approach the pile of limbs that made Aubrey so angry and Kel so desolate. Instead, you’re locked in a thousand yard stare with the room’s floor, which seems to dissolve around you.

It took you considering that maybe you’re the one in the hospital bed and that this is all a hallucination for it to finally register that you need to calm down. So you did. Deep breath in… deep breath out…

deep breath in… deep breath out…

deep breath in…

…

…Sunny.

Sunny.

It’s so hard to hate him.

Do you need to? 

Do you want to?

…

You can’t do this right now.

Basil.

Basil is sleeping. He can be ignored. He won’t be. You will obsess over the fact he is in agony.

You will obsess over the fact they were in agony all this time. You will obsess over the fact they suffered for four years and you did nothing. You did nothing. You did nothing. They killed her. You did nothing.

You deny it's an obsession, because you refuse to go any deeper than acknowledging the surface level existence of these thoughts. You can’t even bring yourself to affirm them or enact on them, but they will continue to run through your head regardless. They will not stop and you don’t know if they will ever stop until you do something.

So do something.

“Sunny.”

You stand.

He’s gone.

Perhaps it’s despair that prompts you to assume the worst, remembering the bloodshed of the previous night. Perhaps it’s stress that immediately leads you to panic. And perhaps it’s an instinct you don’t want to acknowledge that causes you to make a beeline out of the room to where Sunny was assigned, your mind filled with nothing but a need to know that he will be okay.

Please.

No more.

Don’t leave-

The door is SLAMMED open as you charge in.

The single eye of a single, shaking boy greets you.

You are slightly panting, and your legs are quivering under your weight. The trek was not long, but you put your all into it. Not to mention that you still aren’t as fit as you’d like to be.

“Sunny, I-”

Not to mention how emotionally devastated you are. That one is probably what leads to you nearly collapsing on the floor, before saving yourself by leaning on the nearby sinks.

“I-I looked up, and I didn’t see you, and I just…

You envision yourself on your knees, just as you are now, in front of the tree.

The tree she was hung on.

“I… I don’t know why I-”

You remember it was Sunny’s favorite tree. This is the first time you have ever thought about this since the day it happened.

You’re not able to finish your sentence before you start choking up. Tears were already forming as you spoke, but the guttural sob could not have been circumvented or powered through like they were. It’s what causes you to fully collapse, left arm still resting on the countertop you are now at eye level with.

Even more so than before, the passage of time gets hazy as you fully unravel so thoroughly that the world around you fades. You can’t bring yourself to look at the big picture yet. It’s too much. You forget parts of everything that’s happened on account of focusing too much on another part. It feels as though the scenery around you changes from Sunny’s hospital room to Basil’s to the hideout as Basil drowns and you’re diving in to Basil’s room with these blotches of blood on the floor that surround a scene that makes you want to retch to Basil’s hospital room again and now Sunny’s there and he has something to tell you to the pond in the hideout where you’re saving Basil’s life and Sunny’s life and they killed her they killed her and hung her and her body hangs over you as we speak and she’s watching you and

A hand lands on your shoulder. With it, you’re back in reality.

Sunny expresses emotions in a very particular way. A lot of it comes from his eyes, but there’s also his body language to consider. The way he’s looking at you now causes your mind to drift.

Once more, you are no longer in Sunny’s hospital room. Instead, you are in Othermart. With her.

With Mari.

You’re going shopping together. Snacks and such for an upcoming sleepover. This must’ve been about a decade ago. The two of you use the time “alone” to be unabashedly lovey dovey, without quite fully realizing the extent of your feelings for each other. That is, until the two little brothers you only just remembered tagged along crash into you with an explosive hug. You get confused at the sudden love until you remember this is simply how things were. Kel’s affection when he was so small was always a particular brand of spontaneous, which often made it all the more genuine, and Sunny tends to get involved in Kel’s shenanigans like this. The inclusion of Sunny in this somewhat bygone ritual both warms your heart further and twists it. The latter reaction reminds you this is only a memory, but it’s not strong enough to pull you out completely. You end up telling them Mari is feeling lonely, all deviouslike and already planning the group hug. This prompts Kel to gasp dramatically, proclaim how right you are, and promptly crash into her the same way he just did for you. Her laugh…

But Sunny doesn’t let go of you. He actually squeezes you harder. And he gives you a look, while suddenly slightly shaking. And at the time, you smiled, and gave him a soothing pat on the head. Because you understood what he was trying to communicate. That he didn’t want to leave you alone. He thinks it’d make you sad, even though you were the one telling him to go hug Mari.

Your mind returns to the present, now understanding the reason for the memory. Sunny’s stare now is the same one he gave you so many years ago, with the same tremble. He doesn’t want to leave you alone.

He’s trying to be strong for you. He’s trying to be there for you. He’s trying. After everything. After you abandoned him for four years.

After he pushed her.

You should’ve been there for him. He pushed her. You should be there for him. They hung her. He shouldn’t be the one consoling you. They killed her. They killed her. They…

…

You stand up. He follows, taking his hand off you. You stare at each other. You don’t know what face you’re making.

You made a promise to him less than 12 hours ago that you would never abandon him again.

“I have to go.”

Scum.

You’re terrible. You really, really are. As you stumble out of that room, it’s the only thing you can think of. You’re terrible. Terrible terrible terrible. You deserve to rot for how terrible you are.

You eventually step outside, and you see him.

Kel.

He’s staring at you, and all you can think of is how terrible you are. How you don’t deserve the kindness Kel immediately attempts to give you, trying to ask something as simple as how you’re feeling. You coldly disregard it with a hollow look and a sunken gait as you get ready to drive home with Kel and Aubrey in your parents’ car.

And it’s as you finally leave the hospital that you realize you were right from the start.

It should’ve been you .

---

The rest of that day, along with the day after, are uneventful. At least, from what you can remember of them. You fell back into old habits, on account of being terrible. Lying in bed, curled up and depressed beyond description. Never fully awake or asleep. There’s a bit of an effort to keep up appearances this time, insisting that it’s simply exhaustion from being awake for so long and a reaction to everything that’s been happening with Sunny and Basil. You’re technically not lying, even if they think you’re only referring to the night before the hospital trip. You spend your scant time “awake” following through on the promise you made to do the dishes for the next week. You’re doing everything you can not to perceive Kel, who is largely absent from the house and silent when he isn’t. You don’t mind. It makes being terrible easier.

The first night after the confession, you’re unable to say if there was ever really a point where you “slept”. The next night, however, you definitely do, because you remember dreaming that night. And in that dream, Sunny’s confession is playing on loop, with it always beginning at when he first came in the room and ending each time Aubrey leaves it.

With each repeat, everything becomes distinctly less real. The walls warble and twist and stretch before fading, and the slight blue hue vanishes entirely. Rather than a hospital room, there is only the white space you were beginning to imagine upon first hearing these words that now echo around you and keep repeating. 

Then, as Sunny is apologizing to Aubrey for the umpteenth time, rather than responding in a scream that is beginning to make your head ache and your ears ring…

you hear a strange, dull thud. And then another as Sunny falls to the ground.

Aubrey says nothing as she continues kicking Sunny’s head. You cannot see it happening, as you haven’t looked up, but you just know she’s aiming for his head. Dreams are like that.

The thuds get louder and increase in frequency, so much so that it wouldn’t be possible for a single person to be producing them at such a rate.

Kel has joined in.

You can’t stop them. Yet another thing you just know on account of it being your dream, as you made no actual effort to stop them. There’s a maelstrom of compulsions that swirl so violently it physically pains you, yet it is all overshadowed by an apathy so strong, you cannot bring yourself to look up.

The kicks continue. You start to hear Kel and Aubrey getting winded.

You hear a sickening gurgle that you assume is coming from Sunny,

and then

there’s

a

CRACK.

You look up. 

Suddenly, you are no longer in the white space. You are standing at the edge of the dock in the secret hideout, Kel and Aubrey behind you. You look down at the water. It’s been made purple from the sun’s rays.

Her favorite color.

There are a series of bubbles rising up to the surface. Their pattern indicates it’s the result of the desperate throes of someone drowning.

You know there are two people drowning currently. You know who those two people are.

You wait.

The bubbles stop.

The water is serene.

You practically leap out of bed in order to get to the toilet in time to vomit.

---

Your parents assume that what happened the night before Sunny and Basil got hospitalized—what got them hospitalized—is the reason you’re like this. Probably because normally, it would absolutely be enough. It’s made your absolute failure to keep up appearances not as big of a problem.

As far as you can tell, no one has told them the truth. Kel hasn’t told them, so you won’t, and in fact, you won’t even try thinking about whether you should. Instead, you think a lot about Kel and Aubrey. About how you neglected them and continue to neglect them because you are terrible. About how you will not be able to get out of bed for them and continue to be terrible. It’s a real pity party.

You skip breakfast. Lunch tastes like nothing, and dinner is no better. They’re essentially the only parts of the day you see Kel, who keeps looking at you. You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze. But you can feel it.

In the scant moments where you aren’t completely selfish, you think about the kind of pain everyone must be going through right now.

Kel worked hard to get everyone together again. When you first came back, his smiles were the widest they’ve ever been with Sunny around. They were so clearly, refreshingly, infectiously sincere, as opposed to before. Not that they were ever completely fake, mind you, but they were constantly compensating. You could never bring yourself to mention it. If you ever pointed it out, you’d be a hypocrite.

Are you even capable of helping him? Would any attempt you make be worth his time?

It should’ve been you.

Thought so.

Your mom tried to relieve you of doing the dishes, but you insisted, because it’s your only tether to reality right now. That, and you are mentally incapable of breaking another promise right now.

You know now, at least vaguely, what Aubrey’s home life has been like. From that, a bigger picture starts to form in your mind. A picture of exactly how she’s been hurting and how much everything has hurt her these past four years. It shreds your heart to pieces.

Of course she felt abandoned. You abandoned her.

God, you’re so terrible. There’s really no other way to put it. A complete screw up.

You know on some level you need to stop thinking like this, if for no other reason than with each punch to your own gut, you confine yourself to the prison of this bed. You prolong and intensify your misery as you wallow in it.

At the very least, if you won’t do it for yourself, Kel doesn’t deserve to see a husk like you every time he goes to bed. Although, you think that as if you didn’t force him through that for an entire year already.

…

It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Everything hurts.

You failed Kel. You failed Aubrey. You failed everyone.

Your resistance to your self-hate quickly crumbles, and just as your mind begins to fully resign to the self-loathing, your body succumbs to sleep.

Another dream ensues. This one is also in Basil’s hospital room, though there is no looping confession happening. Rather, this is squarely after the confession, and you have been backed up against a wall as Kel and Aubrey stand between you and the two boys.

Everyone in the room is looking at you with a very specific face. Their normal faces they have in the real world all contort to be this one face, all staring at you.

It’s how Kel looked at you three years ago, on the night you finally responded to his attempts to make you feel better.

On the night you hurt him. Irrevocably.

Everyone is afraid.

Aubrey practically shrieks at you. “Stay away from them!”

Kel tries to approach you, but does so with a distinct caution. As if what he is coming closer to is something dangerous and unpredictable. “Hero, listen, you have to think about this. I know what they did, and I understand how it makes you feel. But think about it. This means she didn’t kill herself. It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done.”

Aubrey lashes out at Kel’s attempt. “Oh, like he cares! I know that look, and I know what he wants to do. No words are gonna stop him.”

Kel looks… tired. Eerily resigned as he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. Exasperated, he responds. “Aubrey, you’re not helping…”

She bristles, but ultimately doesn’t protest, and stands just as fiercely as before.

Kel continues walking towards you. A chill courses through you as Kel’s tone turns sickly sweet and uncharacteristically level. His words are spoken with a monotone delivery, coated with a faux saccharine attitude that only barely tries to seem genuine. “Look. I know what you’re capable of. I can tell how close you are. It doesn’t have to come to that, okay?”

They think you want to hurt them. You might’ve already. You can’t tell. You can’t remember.

Do you want to hurt Sunny? Do you want to hurt Basil?

You physically recoil, and cry out in distress. You end up being so physically averse to these thoughts running through your head that you’re nauseous, horrified you can even be capable of such cruelty towards them. It makes you not want to be in your own skin.

Your ears start to ring as you slide down the wall behind you. A liquid that is likely blood pours out of them, but you can still hear clearly. Kel and Aubrey don’t seem bothered by your outburst from earlier, with the latter of the two currently talking. At least, it looks like she is. She only starts making noise when you pay attention to her, as if you willed her words into existence. It’s a peculiar sensation. You’re not sure how to describe it other than being simply unreal.

“Have some decency!”

The statement jars you, because it came from Aubrey, but it sorta sounded like…

you?

Kel is suddenly towering over you, looking furious. Finally taller than you, his voice is booming. “I’m just so tired. Of everything. Of you.”

Kel looks down at you, now scornful and furious. His voice, too, has started sounding like yours, and it is registering what this is becoming.

You remember those words. You spoke them.

“If it was anyone else, ANYONE else, I would be happier. But of course, it had to be her.”

Now that you know the truth about the day of the recital, you can safely say this is your single biggest regret.

“I don’t care about anything else other than her. I don’t WANT to move on. I WANT Mari back. My future is meaningless without her.”

He’s getting louder.

That night. Three years ago. You needed someone to understand you so desperately, you were willing to sink the one person who still tried to be present. The one person you love the most.

“But I can’t have that, because she’s dead. So try to have some fucking decency, you braindead, tactless IDIOT.”

It’s terrible of you to imagine something like this. It’s wrong. It’s sick. As if this dream somehow gives Kel any semblance of retribution. As if someone as good as Kel would want this to happen to you or for you to be treated like this. As if you have any right to imagine this so vividly, as if you can somehow understand the extent of how badly you screwed up.

You’re terrible, Hero. Let that fundamental truth accompany you to your grave.

“It should’ve been YOU, goddammit!”

Like last night, it’s still dark when you wake up. Thankfully unlike last night, you don’t feel a need to puke. You just feel cold.

There isn’t any way you’re going to be getting any more sleep, let alone any decent sleep, so you try falling back on a habit that’s hopefully more helpful than your rotting away in bed: Mindlessly cooking at 4 AM.

The prospect of food—combined with no one else being up—makes getting out of bed abnormally easy. You don’t pay much mind to this miracle, and instead, you decide on just making some bacon and eggs like the last time you cooked. If you were to do anything more complex than that, the daze you’re in combined with your general rust with cooking might result in you screwing up. Still, this is supposed to distract you, so you try to mix it up with the eggs. Your pondering on how to prepare them causes your mind to drift somewhat, thankfully to something lighter than the things you’ve been thinking of the past few days.

Kel’s favorite way of eating eggs is sunny side up. Always has been, always will be. Meeting Sunny made him like it even more. He said that every time he ate it, he got to think about him. It’s very sweet of him. Kel’s a sweet guy.

Both your parents like it scrambled. Your dad likes putting chili powder on his, and your mom cakes her’s in pepper. The difference between the two is somewhat arbitrary. They’re different textures and slightly different tastes, but your parents mostly stick to their versions because it’s how they ate it growing up, rather than actually preferring it to the other method (or any other method, for that matter).

Aubrey likes it over easy, though is also generally partial to whenever the yolk is runny. Because of that, any way of preparing it soft-boiled is a close second to her.

Sunny never really had a favorite. He did have a least favorite for a bit, which was sunny side up, but he never actually tried it that way out of spite for the name. Once you got him to, he admitted he liked it, but only because you made it. And Basil…

Basil was like you. You two didn’t really have a preference, and just decided based on what you were in the mood for at the moment.

Is he…

…

You decide to just stick with scrambled eggs, and only start making bacon when the sun starts coming out. Between the time of you finishing breakfast and awaiting dawn, your mind wanders back into the abyss of thoughts you’ve been having. That’s fine, though. It’s not like you could’ve stayed away for very long.

It’s hard thinking about Sunny. The thought of him stresses you out in a way nothing ever has before. It’s far too many intense emotions, clashing far too violently with each other.

Basil isn’t much better, though it is bearable. Not because the emotions are in any way less intense, but because you’re still not quite over the sheer horror with him especially. Everything with Sunny was an accident. The ghastliness of it cannot be understated, but it was an accident nonetheless. What happened after…

It hasn’t registered for you that people you know could be capable of doing something like that. It hasn’t registered that Basil could be capable of doing something like that.

Those thoughts begin to lead you down a road you are never prepared for, but always take anyways: Trying to think of signs you missed.

Despite the predictability of this train of thought, considering how you’ve spent nearly half a decade wondering if there was anything you missed with her, your approach still surprises you. The anger that’s been boiling at the pit of your stomach doesn’t interfere; all that drives you is a distressed curiosity of what drove him to this point. You don’t think you’re currently ready to acknowledge why your rage was suddenly so easily disregarded, and you don’t think you will be anytime soon.

It’s rich to say this now, but back in the day, you couldn’t help but think of Basil as innocent. It wasn’t a particularly unique trait in their group back then, and it’s not like he was naive. He simply gave off that impression. He was gentle to his core, ceaselessly caring, and probably the most attentive in their group to everyone’s emotions. You could see it all on display in his gardening. It’s an activity that already takes a special kind of focus, so seeing him be as dedicated as he was to it was truly remarkable. Not to mention his photography. He always somehow knew how to capture the moment, a testament to how thoughtful he was.

He really did love everyone. Again, not surprising for such a close-knit group, but you really can’t stress enough how considerate he could be. That time he assigned a flower to everyone is a perfect example. You still remember yours, too. You were a rose. Not a specific type. You were all kinds of roses, because you were “versatile and universally loved”.

You hold that memory unspeakably near and dear to your heart. And upon consciously realizing that, you are forced to sit with it.

You remember how much it sickened you that Basil’s parents weren’t there for their son. You remember how unfair it was that Basil didn’t get to have a family like you did.

You remember telling him one day that if he wanted, you could be his family.

…

You think back to the confession.

To what they did to her body.

To what Basil suggested.

And it occurs to you that there was something about this that’s been eating away at you. Specifically about Basil’s role and what he’s capable of. You couldn’t see it until now, because you didn’t want to think about what had happened.

But now you have. And with it, comes a horrifying realization of what exactly has been gnawing at you all this time.

You can no longer eat. You pace around until the sun dawns.

---

Your rage is childish, as anger tends to be. But it’s especially bad now, for how truly aimless you are. You’ve confused yourself with your thoughts about Basil from earlier, locked in distress that is only half-real on account of how badly certain aspects of you want to disregard your realization entirely. You want to let this go, it’s too much right now, it will forever be too much. But you also won’t. You will not let this go. You refuse to. And so it lingers.

Breakfast went well. Kel was both the first person to come in and the first to leave. There’s a pang in your heart for how he wouldn’t stick around for more after his first plate. Then again, who are you to talk? You don’t know if he ever looked at you, because you refused to ever look at him. You didn’t even give him a “good morning” or anything that would’ve acknowledged him. He probably thought you were off in your own little world the whole time. He wouldn’t be entirely wrong. And if he thinks you’re ignoring him…

he still wouldn’t be wrong. Because you’re terrible.

After cleaning dishes, you confine yourself to the bed once more. Foolishly, you have left no excuses to stave off all the thoughts of your realization from a few hours prior.

Your mind flashes back to the night before the hospital. It tirelessly wonders what could have led to that, still not entirely sure even with the truth. How was everything somehow worse than you ever thought possible? How could you be so terrible?

The memory of Sunny hugging you in Othermart flashes through your mind once more. Your body convulses in response.

You curl up and start softly weeping into your pillow, putting your all into making sure no noise escapes you and, when it inevitably does, that no noise ever leaves the room.

You don’t see yourself being able to sleep anytime soon.

---

Based on Kel’s recent return and the room now being devoid of light, you’re guessing it’s night.

The distant noise of the shower being turned on reminds you that you haven’t really washed or taken care of yourself beyond inconsistently brushing your teeth. You’re not sure why that was the only thing you managed to somewhat keep up with. It just was. 

You really have been just such a thorough failure. You failed them. Again. You’re failing yourself. Again.

You’re failing her.

Again.

If there’s one concrete thing you can say about your anger, it is phenomenal at riling itself up. Its own existence incites itself. Anything outside of that is an utter mystery to you. You wouldn’t be able to explain anything about it to anyone, let alone to yourself. It’s too omnipresent; it consumes you and asks for hatred from you. It's also safe to say that your unwillingness to explore it is making you lose yourself. Although, you do have to wonder…

Why haven’t you given it the hatred it wants? Why aren’t you producing the hatred that so much of you wants to feel?

Your mind flashes back to Sunny in Othermart. It goes to the photo album. To Basil’s room the night you sent those two to the hospital. Your mind goes to group hugs and summer vacations and study sessions and picnics and reunions that were long overdue.

Your mind goes to the realization you made when you cooked breakfast, and a migraine immediately flares up, dissipating any semblance of cogent thought. You drink some water on the nearby nightstand to try to calm it down. You realize that you didn’t bring any water with you to bed, meaning someone must’ve left it there for you. For some reason, the physical proof that people care about you only depresses you further. Pathetic.

You refuse to leave bed. You know it’s a prison, but you won’t leave it. You can’t. It is your personal grave. It is where you will succumb.

As you wait for the headache to pass, Kel walks in. You make eye contact with him for the first time in… too long, we’ll call it. You’re unsure how many days it's been.

He looks good, considering. The cracks are definitely there. There are bags under his eyes and he has a haunted look to him. He seems to be making both more and less of an effort to hide his honest feelings around you.

You’re not sure what summons the will to do this in you, but you open your mouth to speak. And promptly violently cough.

Kel is immediately at your side, making sure that you’re okay. You mumble out a raspy “‘M fine, thank you…” that causes him to tepidly back off. For the second time in days, you look your baby brother in the eyes. The moment is not necessarily tense, but it does last an eternity.

“Goodnight, Kel.”

You don’t stick around long enough to hear back from him. Instead, you slink back into bed, balling up once more and doing everything in your power to prevent yourself from bawling.

Your mind is put somewhat at ease from the interaction. It was small, but you feel a pang of pride in yourself. Your anger immediately tries to stomp it out. It mostly succeeds, but it was there for a moment, at least.

Eventually, possibly due to the remarkable stillness of that night which you couldn’t help but notice (was it this quiet in the days before? you can’t remember), you drift to sleep, and you dream once more. And you are in the hospital room once more. Except this time, you are easily the most lucid you have been yet in one of these dreams. Ironic, considering your dissociation in the real world. You feel more real here than you did out there.

Yet again, Sunny steps in. Yet again, he reveals everything. Yet again, Aubrey forces an extra morsel of truth out of him before storming off. Yet again, Kel gives up and lets you know that he gives up. Yet again, Sunny returns to his room without it registering, and once it does, you storm off for him. It is unusual that it has stayed this normal for so long, but that is about to change.

You reach his room, and take a look at Sunny. Something’s off about him. His frame looks even smaller than it was in the real world, and he looks completely overtaken by fear. When this actually happened, he was scared, but he still chose to reach out for you. Now, though? He’s petrified of you. An instinct within you cries out in utter distress at this. It feels overwhelmingly familiar, and forces you into action, pleading with Sunny to know what’s wrong, besides everything.

In his attempts to speak, he hyperventilates and seems to start going through the throes of an anxiety attack. Despite this, his words are clear once he’s able to get them out.

“She’s going to hurt Basil.”

You bolt out of the room before what he said even fully registers. You can’t say for sure what he means by that, but the instinct from earlier is practically screaming in your head. Your ears ring. You feel nauseous. You are putting your everything into getting to Basil’s room. The hallway stretches out and becomes longer than it was before, which only prompts you to push harder. Your body feels like it’s on fire only from running for a minute. Something tells you it's not just your frail constitution at work.

You push harder. And harder. And only when it feels like you’re at the brink and like your body is about to stop working altogether do you finally make it. Off-handedly, you notice the door looks not like the one for Basil’s hospital room, but for his room back at his house.

When you open the door, for just a moment, Basil looks like he’s been mutilated beyond recognition. He was forcibly torn from his bed, his head bashed against the frame of it. Deep stab wounds decorate his torso. There’s so many other gashes and bruises across his whole body, staining him red and purple and black and blue and green. You can only recognize it’s him because of the pink flower left in his hair, spotless among normally blonde hair that is caked in blood and dyed orange in some spots.

You blink, and he’s back in his bed, sleeping soundly. The only injuries he has are the ones he got from Sunny the night before. He’s okay.

Everything is okay.

You sit back down in the chair next to his bed. You don’t feel like you saved him. For some reason, you feel like you’ve doomed him. Despite it, you find it in yourself to recuperate. The room is serene.

That is, until she comes in through the door.

She looks exactly like she used to, and yet so wrong. Her skin and dress are the same shade of paper white. It’s evocative of the white space you’ve been imagining sometimes. What you see before you is hauntingly similar to the sight of her hanging from the tree. Her legs and arms look filthy from black dirt, but her dress and her head and her pitch black hair are all pristine, the latter almost glistening like obsidian in the sunlight coming in through the window. She also looks… longer. Not taller, necessarily, but like she’s been stretched out, imbuing in her this essence of the uncanny valley. This, combined with a frigid aura and almost animalistic baring of her teeth, makes you feel like you’re immediately in danger upon seeing her. There is zero relief. Only dread.

You try to look into her eyes. She has none. Only a smile, a nose, and paper white skin.

It’s then that you recall what Sunny said. And it’s then you notice the only gray thing composing this otherwise black and white being: A kitchen knife held in her right hand.

The second you see it, as if she was waiting for when you’d notice it, she lunges at superhuman speeds for the sleeping, peaceful, battered body of the person who hung her, and time seems to slow to a crawl, as if giving you a chance to think.

Except you don’t need to think. You madly scramble closer to his side, and right before she’s able to connect, you shoot your arm out between her and him in pure desperation. The entire blade of the knife goes through your hand. Once the handle has reached your palm, she immediately and gracefully retreats from the bed, knifeless. Basil is still asleep. Some of your blood is splattered on his cheek.

She laughs with a crooked smile. It’s cold. It’s the exact same cackle you let out upon learning the truth, except it’s coming from her voice.

It is not her laugh.

This is not Mari.

“It’s so rich to me that you still have this instinct to protect them.”

Her words have a singsongy lilt to them, somewhat like Kel in the previous dream, yet they drip with so much more malice.

“No, really! I’m not disappointed by it, even if I hate it. I’m fascinated.”

As she begins to step toward you with a saccharine grin, you notice that you aren’t really feeling any pain from the stab wound. You are, however, feeling weaker. It’s getting hard to stand, and you have to rely on the bed to stay up. Your body is freezing like it’s in the middle of a snowstorm, which accelerates the numbness stretching across your whole body.

She stands close enough to you that she can touch you without having to stretch her arm very far.

“I can feel it, y’know? I can feel your hatred, Hero.” She lowers her volume slightly to make her words seem gentler than they are.

“I can feel your anger, your misery, and your apathy swirling at the pit of your soul like an ouroboros, constantly yet inconsistently flaring and overwhelming you in a loop that begets itself. If you keep trying to deny it or fight it, you’ll become useless. We wouldn’t want that!”

Your knees buckle and you start feeling nauseous. Your throat feels dry, and you can’t speak no matter how hard you try.

She steps closer, still not touching you but clearly intending to. “I know you think you’re terrible, Hero, but you won’t have to feel that way if you let go!

“Think about it. You know you can be honest with me, right? So be honest. When you look back at the two days you spent with Sunny before he confessed, how do you feel? Do the memories make you happy? What about the hug in Othermart? Does the thought of his care so many years ago make you feel happy, nostalgic, or even bittersweet?”

Her transparent cheery demeanor is dropped, and she goes completely deadpan. Her voice is low, and the malice makes itself even more known in her tone. 

“Or did he poison it all for you?

“Did his confession make your entire world fall apart and render you into a sniveling, miserable mess, just like the sight of my hung corpse did? Because I don’t just think that. I KNOW that, Hero. I know how you’re feeling. I know how sick the sight of him makes you. I know how much the memories of the past have had all the comfort they once had sucked out of them. Now, there’s only the pain of hindsight. A poisoning of what was once a golden past.”

She cackles again, and her sickly sweet tone comes back in. “An itty-bitty murderer looks up to you. You can’t help yourself but brand him with that when you think of him. I know this because I know YOU, Hero. And who can blame you?

“You know what I think, Hero?”

You want to leave.

“I don’t think you give a shit about Sunny. I think you only care about my little brother.”

Your vision is growing spotty, and her form seems to slightly distort as you nearly stumble.

“It’s the only explanation for why you hate him so much, but still keep thinking about him. Or how he’s done all this to you, yet you were still so desperate in making sure he was okay when he left the room without you realizing. He’s the closest conceivable scrap of me that you can still preserve. He’s all you have left of me, so you won’t let yourself be honest about what you think of him.

“Let him go, Hero. Let them all go. Let this all die. It’s for the best.”

The floor below you twists and warps. You stare at its distorted patterns and not at her. Both because of how pained even the blurry outline of her makes you and because you lack the energy to lift your head. You feel so weak, both physically and mentally. You feel crushed and exhausted under the weight of her words. You’re on the verge of crumpling to the ground and passing out.

That’s when you blink, and for a moment, Sunny is there. You can see him clear as day, hugging you. Looking up at you with the expression he had so many years ago and just a few days ago. There he is, in his hospital garb, battered and bruised, doing everything he can to be there for you.

You think about Sunny. You think about what he means to you.

You blink again.

He’s gone.

…

You’re… afraid. You’re not ready to put these feelings into words quite yet.

But for now, that’s okay.

You stand tall, slowly lifting yourself off the bed.

You do not succumb.

There is work to be done.

You’re finally able to breathe when she stops speaking, as if she is letting you now. Up to this point, it felt like you were being choked, despite her never actually touching you.

Your voice is hoarse and quiet, but in the stillness of the hospital room, it can still be heard clearly.

“You’re wrong.”

She responds with silence. Emboldened, yet still somewhat tepid, you continue.

“All this talk about Sunny… and yet…”

You look up at “Mari”.

“who did I save just now?”

You’ve long since been unable to make out the specifics of her form, but you can still sense a shift in it.

Something wells up in you. It makes your insides feel hot and instills in you a strange, unstoppable passion. You take full advantage of it, and step forward.

“Who did I save?”

“…”

“ANSWER ME.”

There is nothing but silence as pink, white hot flames flick your insides and put you into a frenzy. You grab the handle of the knife that is still lodged deep into your hand.

And you rip it out.

A red pool grows from under you and her, though the bed is left strangely spotless. You can see some red streaks on her dress and where her eyes would be. There is still no pain, but you lose feeling almost entirely in your body. Even your mouth goes numb, making the words you scream feel strangely disconnected from you. Despite that, you stand strong. You claim ownership of your responsibility. You do not succumb.

“I SAVED BASIL. JUST NOW, I SAVED BASIL, AND NOT SUNNY, AND-”

Finally, your legs give out, and you fall. You don’t care. You don’t succumb. Still using the bed for support, you manage to sit yourself up and continue, powering through tears you only just started feeling roll down your cheeks in droves.

“And I’d do it again. I’d do it every single time you asked me. I’d do it every single time you made me.” 

You’re crying harder and harder with every passing second. Your tears dilute the puddle of blood under you, and sobs that make your whole body shake and your throat hurt start to get in the way of talking.

You don’t care. You press on. You don’t succumb.

“I-It doesn’t matter which one of them it’d be! I don’t care! I’d do it and I wouldn’t think about it or hesitate.

“And I wouldn’t ever, EVER regret it.”

Your tears have died down, as have your words. You’ve expunged so much of your energy as it was rapidly depleting, you are practically catatonic at this stage. The silence is deafening until a blurry black outline in an encroaching white void that is most likely her crouches down beside you.

Fear for your life grips you, and you find it in you to start crying again. You’re muttering profuse apologies one after another to the vague figure.

It outstretches its hand to you and cups your cheek. Its touch is scalding. Your voice warbles, the apologies devolving into soft whimpers that are all you can manage to let out in response to this sensation. 

“Don’t say sorry, Hero.”

It leans its head forward, as if for a kiss, before suddenly going up to your ear, whispering.

“I know you don’t mean it.”

“HERO!”

When your eyes shoot open, you’re already sitting upright on account of Kel holding you by the shoulders. For the third time in too long, you make eye contact with him, and you’re immediately jarred.

There’s something… distressing… about Kel’s gaze.  It’s desperate. Desperate and emotional in a way that twists your heart. The look he gives off goes beyond pity. It’s as if what he is looking at, what he is holding at this exact moment, is pure misery incarnate.

Somehow, your voice sounds even raspier and weaker than before. “K…K-Kel…?” Your face is caked in sweat. It feels slimy and sticky, and your pillow below you feels drenched and smells awful.

Kel’s gaze becomes even more intense, fueled by a passion you can’t quite pinpoint as his voice turns watery.

“Hero…”

He crashes into you as you’re pulled into a tight hug.

You figure out that the passion he was expressing through his eyes is love.

He loves you.

You hug him back just as tightly and wail into the crook of his neck, realizing from how wet your face already was that you’d been crying in your sleep, on top of profusely sweating.

Apologies pour out of you like the most faulty faucet imaginable. He returns every single one with some variation of “It’s okay” or “I forgive you”. By the time your tears dry up, you’re still heaving and hiccuping like a mess, barely able to get out what you want to say.

“I d-don’t w- *hic* I don’t wanna… wanna lose you- *hic* ever again…”

You’re not quite sure where this came from, but your words clearly leave an impression on him with the way he shifts in place and squeezes you even tighter.

“I should be saying that…”

You squeeze back twice as hard. Harder than that, actually. You put every ounce of your energy into holding Kel.

You’re unsure how long this lasts. Probably a while, considering how drained your arms feel. Noticing that does not stop you from continuing to hold Kel with all your might. What does stop you is Kel clearing his throat to indicate to you that he’s about to speak.

“Let me cook.”

He says it rather groggily and softly, reminding once more that this is, in fact, Kel. A person you thoroughly do not deserve.

You acquiesce pretty quickly, stumbling to the kitchen, though not so carelessly as to cause noise. You take a seat at the counter, boring holes into it as you hear the sizzle of the pan behind you.

“What’re you in the mood for?”

You look up and stammer for a bit as your mind slightly escapes its haze. “Uh, scrambled eggs, please.”

He nods and smiles, and you’re jarred. Kel’s sincerity is so nonchalant and so typical that it ever so slightly knocks you out of your stupor.

“Anything special you want on it?”

You pause and stare off into space. You don’t make an attempt to regain eye contact when you answer.

“Basil.”

Still not bothering to focus back in, all you can register is a prolonged silence before you hear the sound of cabinets softly opening and closing.

You cough at an attempt to break the tension that you may very well be the only one feeling. “What woke you up?”

“Dunno. If I didn’t know it was 5 in the morning right now, I’d think I didn’t sleep at all.”

You sigh and sniffle. “It was probably me, then. I’m sorry for making too much noise.”

Again, Kel smiles at you with an earnestness that normally would not surprise you. “Hey, don’t feel bad now! It might not have even been you, anyways, cuz if you woke me up, you would’ve definitely woken Sally up.”

Crying begins to echo down the hall and comes in through the kitchen door somewhat muffled.

Kel becomes stiff as a board and sweats bullets. “Uhhhh, case in point, haha…”

You laugh back. It’s stiff, but it’s certainly not forced. “Should I?”

Kel sags his shoulders in relief and looks at you as if you just saved his life. “Pleaseandthankyouyou’rethebest-”

---

It occurs to you that Kel is pretty great at cooking. You tell him that after everyone is finished eating, leaving him so flattered, he somehow looked like more of a mess than you did for a moment there. You really should tell him how proud of him you are more.

With just a few hours spent with Kel, you end up feeling substantially better. So much so, that you manage to stay far away from the bed the whole day, making things feel almost normal. Eventually, your parents leave with Sally for Othermart. Before doing so, they simultaneously scold and coddle the two of you for struggling so much with sleep lately. After promising to do better going forward, you and Kel try to talk things out more thoroughly in their absence.

After about a minute long grace period, you begin. “So, uh… what have you been up to?”

Immediately, Kel bristles. “I spend most of my days looking for Aubrey, with no real luck. Apparently, she told all her friends that if I came to ask about her again to just sock me right there and then.” He sees you trying to hold back a laugh, and he glares at you before immediately shrinking into himself. “But the reason why I woke up so early today, and why I didn’t go back to sleep yesterday is because…”

You give him a patient look, fully understanding he thinks you are going to hate what you are about to hear.

“Because… I’ve been visiting the hospital.”

He looks like he’s bracing for something, and your heart twists knowing that Kel is capable of thinking of you that way.

You’re still not mentally capable of breaking any promises, big or small. And you promised to yourself you were gonna do everything not to hurt him ever again.

You approach him, making sure it’s okay for you to pat his shoulder. He stares at you with wide eyes and barely nods, leading you to going through with it.

And for Kel’s sake, you take the time to acknowledge your anger. Because a part of you does hate what he’s said. And for Kel’s sake, you do what you can to set it aside. Because another part of you doesn’t. And for Kel’s sake, you find it in yourself to mean what you’re going to say. Because the part of you that hates it is you from three years ago.

“You’re a good friend, Kel.”

And you’re better than that.

You’re pretty sure you didn’t see him bawl this hard since… last night, actually. And just like last night, you hold him as tightly as you can, as he tells you how he forgave them. How he couldn’t help himself from forgiving them. How he will be damned if he loses the people he loves most yet again. How everything hurts, how he admittedly couldn’t really bear to look at you (you’re terrible), and how he is going to try again. Because he thinks that it’s worth it. He thinks they are worth it. He thinks you are worth it.

You tell him about your dreams. Your ensuing shivers are dampened by his embrace. You tell him how well and truly lost you are. You tell him how you can’t possibly pinpoint a single thing you’ve been feeling. You tell him about your horrifying realization. You tell him about what you’re thinking about doing because of it.

And you tell him how unbelievably proud of him you are. He sobs harder.

---

Eventually, you two break up, and you send him off to go looking for Aubrey, handing him your cell phone to let you know how things are going. What follows for you is a refreshingly proactive day. You can’t quite bring yourself to go out, but you enthusiastically do everything you can to help around the house once you finally take a shower. It’s the first time since you came back to Faraway that you really got to catch up with your parents. It was wonderful.

The only hiccup was the growing concern you had for Kel. It was dark out, yet he still hasn’t come back or given you a call. Only when you and your mom finish soothing Sally to sleep do you hear the home phone ringing.

The speaker crackles slightly before you hear a voice. “Yo, Hero, uhh, I’m gonna be staying at Aubrey’s tonight. Hope that’s okay.”

It’s him! Oh, thank goodness…

“Hey, Kel! That’s absolutely fine! I can handle things here no problem, and I’m sure mom and dad won’t mind.” Now that you think about it, the fact he’s staying at her place is a really good sign that everything worked out between them. Another relief!

You can’t help but break a tired smile as you pipe up once more. “I’ll talk to them right now. We were kind of worried for you, so it’s good to know you’ll be safe, even if you won’t be home.”

You can hear a growing sheepishness in Kel’s voice that instinctually widens your grin just a smidgen. “Yeah, I know, it’s kinda greedy of me, but I swear I’ll make it up to you somehow!”

The idea that, after everything he’s done, he needs to make something up to YOU makes you laugh. “Kel, come on, you don’t need to worry about that. After everything from this morning, it’s me that owes you. You saved me, Kel. There really is no better way to put it.”

Kel stammers for a second before responding. “Ah jeez, Hero. You’re gonna make me blush here. You know I meant every word man, and I really will make it up to you. Pinky swear.”

Once again, you laugh. “If you say so.”

You then hear some distant conversation layered with a bit of static (and a smacking sound in the middle of it all, which is about right for those two) before Kel’s voice returns to its prior clarity.

“Hey, Aubrey wants to talk to ya.”

You actually were planning on catching up with Aubrey yourself earlier today, so this works out! “Oh, I’d love to! Thank you, Kel.”

Yet more shuffling noises ensue. Once they stop, you assume you are clear to speak. “Aubrey? You there?”

“Y-Yeah, hey Hero.”

There she is! Oh god, you missed her. She sounds like she’s doing okay, though the lacking audio quality makes it difficult to pick up on any intricacies.

“Hi! Sorry I haven’t been out and about in a while, it’s been…”

You pause, trying to think of the right word for it all.

“It’s been hard. But I’m hanging in there. How have you been?”

“I’m fine, all things considered.” You can feel some of the nervousness towards you from when you first came to her home. “I’m, uh, I’ve been worried about you. You’re sure you’re okay?”

As appreciative as you are of her concern, the question makes you involuntarily sag from exhaustion. You permit yourself a sigh, but make absolutely certain that you don’t mean to imply any annoyance at her by speaking right after.

“I don’t know if okay is quite the right word to use yet, but I do feel better. A lot better, actually.” Again, the thought of your brother causes you to chuckle. “You have Kel to thank for that.”

At first, all you hear from Aubrey is a prolonged nose exhale. Normally, that gesture can insinuate frustration, but you remember that for Aubrey, that signifies relief.

“I’m happy to hear that. Really.”

A smile lingers on your face. You really did miss her so much. You’re so proud of Kel for managing to work things out with her again.

Suddenly, Aubrey sounds a bit sheepish. “Hey, uhm. Hero?”

“Yes, Aubrey?”

“Can I… Can we hang out tomorrow? I-” She suddenly goes silent.

“Aubrey…? Aubrey, you there?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I just wanted to say that I really missed you without Kel hearing.”

…That catches you off-guard. It’s always a very pleasant surprise to see Aubrey be as open with her emotions as she used to be, even if it’s in small or involuntary ways.

You lean against the wall, involuntarily laughing over the realization your smile has not only persisted this whole phone call, but grown. “I missed you too, Aubrey. I’d love to hang out with you.”

Seeing Aubrey is actually the first thing you want to do when you go outside again, so this works out wonderfully! The enthusiasm now imbued in you leads you to another idea.

“Oh, tell you what. Both of you, that’s you and Kel, feel free to come here first thing in the morning for some breakfast, alright? I’ll cook something up for you!”

There’s silence for a bit, which leads you to worry you’re overstepping your boundaries, until Aubrey responds with an “O-Okay. Thanks, Hero.”

Success!!! You can’t help but pump your fist, knowing no one’s looking. “No problem, Aubrey. I gotta go now, if that’s okay. Have a good night, you two.”

“Goodnight, Hero.”

You put the home phone back in its slot and let your smile get even wider. That night, you have no trouble falling asleep, and no dreams to speak of.

---

The prospect of seeing Aubrey in person for the first time since the confession puts butterflies in your stomach. It’s not that you’re scared what she’ll think of you, but more that you truly don’t know where this will go. You’re not sure how much she’ll be willing to admit about how she’s doing. You’re not even sure how much you’ll be willing to admit about yourself. Heck, it might not even go in that direction. It’s possible the three of you will try to forget about everything and just eat.

You hear a door open right as you’re finished preparing breakfast. You choose to consider the perfect timing as a sign of good tidings for the rest of the day. Once you allow yourself a chance for a deep breath, you open the door from the kitchen to the living room.

First, you see Kel, seemingly about to beckon for you, before seeing you and exclaiming, “Oh, there you are, Hero!”

You cross your shoulders, lean on the wall between the kitchen and dining room doors, and let out a slightly nervous smile. “Were you about to shout for me? You know Sally’s still asleep, right?”

Kel stares blankly ahead of him with eyes that might as well have shrunk into little beads. “Oh. Right.”

You laugh. The more things change and all that. And speaking of…

Aubrey is standing behind Kel. It seems like she’s making a slight effort to hide herself from you. Considering how unbecoming it is of her, you assume it’s being done subconsciously.

You wave and attempt a laid back grin. “Hi, Aubrey! I’m really happy to see you!”

She finally steps aside so you can see her better. She’s still wearing what she had on when you saw her a few days ago. There’s a bit of conflict in her eyes that’s reflected in her stance. Equally strong compulsions to keep up appearances and to deflate entirely tug at her. It becomes especially apparent when she returns your eye contact.

“Hey, Hero. Sorry for the bother.”

“Hey, none of that. I was the one who suggested you come! Plus…”

You walk towards her, and slightly outstretch your arms.

“I mean it when I say I’m happy to see you.”

She waits a moment in a slight stupor before viciously accepting your offer for a hug. You force Kel in to make it a good old fashioned group hug.

Once it breaks up, you clap your hands together. “Alright! Who’s ready for some pancakes?”

You can practically see the stars in Aubrey’s eyes as the rest of her does everything in its power to play down her excitement.

Kel, on the other hand…

“Oh, HELL yes!”

…is a bit more forthcoming.

Rather quickly, any attempt at withholding yourself disintegrates. You get to work on the pancakes as Kel and Aubrey engage in small talk. You participate occasionally, but you have to focus on making the pancakes, so you tend to be lost when you do involve yourself. Once you serve breakfast, you crack a grin at Aubrey’s reaction. It’s rare when someone who isn’t Kel salivates over pancakes, of all things.

“Hey, Hero?” Kel asks, “Do you think you could also make me some bacon?”

Some of your surprise is a result of Kel wanting to eat so much of the same thing in the past week or so, but most of it is due to his timing. “Sure, but why didn’t you say so earlier? I could’ve made you bacon pancakes, no problem.” Kel proceeds to take on an air of smugness that concerns you immediately.

“Nah nah nah nah nah, trust me on this. I got a plan.”

Aubrey roughly swallows the last of her pancakes. “Hero, don’t.”

“Hey!”

Aubrey points her fork at Kel. “I don’t trust you at all when you start making a voice like that. You’re definitely gonna do something gross with that bacon.” You set another plate of pancakes down for her, and gently remind her that she is welcome to have as much syrup as she wants. Quietly, she thanks you.

“Oh, Hero, uh…” Aubrey’s tone of voice becomes noticeably softer when speaking to you, like it’s a flick of a switch. “did you put something in these pancakes? Or do pancakes just not taste like how I remember them?”

You take a moment to appreciate the sizzle of the bacon on the pan before responding. It’s the little things. “Yeah, I put M&Ms in them! That’s why they have the colorful spots on them. Those were your favorite, right?”

Aubrey takes a bit to respond. You look to her to make sure she heard you. You’re guessing she did by her stunned expression. 

“…Y-Yeah. Yeah, they were. They still are.”

You give your first toothy grin in a while in response. “Oh, that’s great! I’m happy to make you more if you want!”

She responds immediately. “Yes, please.”

You immediately get to work on them. Later, when you give Kel his bacon, it takes about ten seconds for you to then hear a loud “EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW” from behind you.

Kel has wrapped a pancake around the bacon while keeping the top exposed, and has taken a bite into it as if it was a hot dog or a taco. You also see he drenched the insides of it with syrup by how much of it is dripping onto his plate. After chewing for a moment, he scrunches his face and forces himself to swallow it before setting his sinful version of a bacon pancake down.

Only then does he have the gall to say, in a raspy voice, “Nevermind, that was pretty gross.”

Aside from… that, breakfast goes by in a flash. Long after everyone has had enough food, the three of you keep conversing. As you do, you come up with an idea.

“We shouldn’t coop ourselves inside all day. Do you two wanna walk around outside and keep talking?”

Aubrey shrugs nonchalantly. “I don’t see why not.”

Kel, on the other hand, looks panicked. “Oh, wait, uh, what time is it?” He starts scrambling around, looking for the clock. You’re confused how he doesn’t remember where it is and you do, despite not being here for an entire school year.

“It’s 10 o’clock. Why do you ask?”

Kel looks slightly relieved, but only slightly. “I gotta get going somewhere. I’ll be back by noon!” He then bolts out the door, with you and Aubrey only barely able to catch a blur of him shutting the door behind him, shoes half-on.

You two stand there, a bit rattled, before she looks at you. “Do you know where he’s going?”

“Probably to the hospital, if I had to guess.”

She perks up a bit. “Oh, you know about that.”

“Yep.”

“No problems with it?”

“…Nope.”

“Hm.”

…

“I’m still down to hang out until he gets back.”

Taken out of your stupor, you respond, “Oh, yeah! I am too!”

Her repeated reciprocation of your invitation prompts you to start going out the door. When you notice Aubrey hasn’t moved, you look back to her and you see an equally bemused and amused expression on her face. She points at your torso. “You’re not gonna take that off?”

…

You’re wearing the frilly pink apron.

You scratch your cheek out of embarrassment and take your shoes back off. “Whoops…”

Aubrey chuckles. “Did I just see Hero pulling a Kel?”

You store the apron in a drawer and laugh back. “Nah, I’m just spacey sometimes.”

“Really? I don’t remember you being like that. No offense.”

“None taken! It was probably because Mari helped a lot in picking up my slack.”

“Ah.” The mood grows ever-so-slightly melancholic at the mention of her. You two take a beat of silence to “appreciate” it as you step out of the house.

“Enough of that, though! Let’s go to the park for a bit!”

“Okay.”

It ended up being a lot longer than a bit. You haven’t gone outside much at all in the past several days, so you’re still not over the nostalgia of these old stomping grounds yet. As the two of you are sitting on a bench near the playground, Aubrey has to tap on your shoulder to bring you back out of your daydreaming.

“S-Sorry! Did you say something?”

“It’s okay. Man, you really are spacey.” You let out a small, light laugh at that. “I was asking you what college you’re going to.”

Oh man, you really haven’t thought about college at all since you got here. In a weird way, your first year feels like a lifetime ago. “University of Nearby. My parents wanted me to go to an ivy league, but I didn’t get accepted into any.”

“Their loss.”

Aubrey’s response is blunt and immediate as she goes slightly limp on the bench.

“Thanks, Aubrey. That’s really flattering, haha.”

“No problem. Can I ask a second question?”

“Sure!”

Aubrey looks uncomfortable. Was that… not the answer she wanted?

“So… you don’t have to answer this, and I don’t want to be rude…”

“…But?”

She sighs. “But I have to know.”

Aubrey looks you dead in the eyes. They don’t look cold necessarily, but there is a hardness to her teal gaze.

It’s anger. Bitter, old flames that still can’t help but smolder.

“Where were you before you went to college?”

…

Right.

Your right hand balls up into a fist at the same time her left does once the question is asked. The implication is pretty clear, and totally fair.

The second her in your head makes a return from the day of the confession.

Why weren’t you there for anyone? Why weren’t you there for me? What’s your excuse for being terrible?

You hold your hands together and rest your elbows on your lap while your chin rests on your entwined fingers. You look in front of you, and you steel your resolve.

She deserves to know.

“When Mari died… I felt like I was a failure. Like it was our fault that she died. I thought… we weren’t good enough. We weren’t worth it.”

Your nails dig into your skin.

“Or, more accurately, I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t worth it.

“I didn’t really see much point in living without her. It didn’t help that I felt like I failed her, like I was personally responsible for what she did. It felt like I was the only one that could have helped her. Her parents weren’t helping things with how much they indulged her perfectionism, and all of you were too young to be able to help or even understand a lot of things. Plus, I couldn’t help but feel like everyone was already going through a lot.

“I failed her. I could’ve helped, and I didn’t. I tried, but I didn’t.”

A minute passes before you continue.

“But even if I didn’t want to live, I didn’t want to die either. I didn’t want to do that to everyone. So I just… laid in my bed. And I never really got up from it, aside from using the bathroom. I don’t really remember any of the times I ate, but I must have. What I do remember is spending hours and days and months on end drowning in regret. When I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, I remember vomiting in the toilet right after.

“And then there was Kel…”

Your breathing hitches before you’re able to keep going.

“Kel never once gave up on me. My friends from my grade did pretty quickly. Not that I blame them. My parents never fully gave up, per se, but they tapered off on even looking at me after about two weeks. But Kel? Kel spent every single night talking about whatever was on his mind to me before he went to bed. If I had to guess, he’s probably the one who got me food, too. For a year straight, he brought himself to talk to me for as long as he could. Towards the end, though, I noticed that his talks got shorter and shorter. And because I was just… such a terrible person, I was relieved by that. Because I thought I’d finally be left alone. I thought, maybe, after a year…

“Everyone would forgive me for not wanting to exist after what I had to go through.”

Even with all the emphasis up to this point of how terrible you are, you’re still revolted at just how low you’ve managed to go in life.

You focus on the sensations of the wind on your skin and the sounds of chirping birds and cars driving past to ground yourself. Somehow, you persist.

“But then, one night, Kel’s talk shifted gears. It ended up being about me instead of himself. About how he misses me, how everyone misses me. He said… that Mari wouldn’t want to see me like this.

“A-And I snapped at him. I got out of my bed after a year of secluding myself and wallowing in misery just so I could lay all my frustrations into him. I-I told him… God…” You swallow, a lump in your throat forming. “I told him that it should’ve been him. That I would’ve been happier if he took Mari’s place.”

Dead silence meets your confession.

“Now that I know the truth of what happened to Mari, I think it’s safe to say that is my single biggest regret. That I could hurt someone that cared so much like that. That I could dare to be so jealous of Kel for being stronger than me. That I could be so terrible.”

Mantras run through your head like electricity on a circuit. It should’ve been you. You’re terrible. You have been terrible. You will be terrible. You are terrible.

It should’ve been you.

Yet you persist.

“Our parents came in and tried to console me. When that happened, and when I saw Kel’s face for what felt like the first time that night, I immediately realized what I did wrong. I apologized what had to have been thousands of times, and resolved to myself that I wouldn’t let myself feel sad if it meant this happening to the people I loved.”

“Hero, I-“

“But just because I forced it down didn’t mean it wasn’t there. So even after that point, when I started going back to school, I didn’t make any attempt to reconnect with anyone, least of all everyone in the group that wasn’t Kel. I think I managed to delude myself into thinking I somehow wasn’t being terrible by doing that. It was some nonsense about how everyone is better off without me. It was nonsense. It was pathetic. It was terrible. I was still terrible, even when I got out of that bed.”

And you still are.

“…”

“I’m sorry… That went on for way too long… That’s what I was up to. I’m sorry.”

Aubrey doesn’t do anything for a moment. When she does, she looks down at the grass and frowns. Then, she slowly envelops you in a hug as best she can with her smaller frame.

“I forgive you.”

Wordlessly, you hug back, trying to squeeze her as firmly as she is you.

When you break it up, you quietly say “thank you”, to which she nods.

“I’m sorry to ask you about that.”

You lazily wave your hand at her and feel the sag in your tired smile. “It’s okay. I understand why you needed to know.” You cough a bit. “Thank you for saying you forgive me.”

Again she nods, and the conversation reaches a lull. You’re the one to break the silence with something you’ve wanted to verbalize for a while.

“I want to go see Basil.”

She looks at you, curious and trying to hide her shock with an artificial nonchalant air. “Why’s that?”

You tell her what you realized the night after your second dream.

This time, Aubrey fails to hide her shock. She needs time to recover, which you are happy to provide her. She mumbles something to herself that you weren’t quite able to hear, but your gut is confident that it was something along the lines of, “I should’ve known.”

Despite how confidently you told this all to Aubrey, your mind is still in chaos over it. You still don’t have the faintest idea of how you feel about the truth or the two of them. Hopefully, this will result in something happening or something being resolved, but you’re not sure what it is precisely you want those “something”s to be. Because you’re not sure if you even want an answer. You just want something. Though, if you’re willing to be entirely honest with yourself, you might already have your “something”. It’s just a matter of realizing it. It’s a matter of accepting it. Accepting the truth of how you feel and what you want.

The truth is absolute, but the human interpretation and digestion of it are not. All of this is not just about what the truth is. It’s about what’s been done with it. It’s about what it will cause. And isn’t there something horrifying about that? Something unspeakable and dangerous and scary?

Is that not what Sunny and Basil have been running from all this time?

“Hero.”

You flinch, and stare at her. Aubrey’s expression is firm. Practically nothing to read from it. No anger, no fear, no sadness. You will realize in retrospect it’s because she doesn’t feel any of that when she’s with you.

“Whatever decision you make, whatever you say to him when you get there…

“Do it for your sake, okay? Don’t swallow your emotions and pretend to be okay with Basil. Don’t do it for him. Don’t do it for Kel. Don’t do it for Mari. This is a choice you two will have to make, based on how you two feel.”

Wow…

“You’ve become such a strong person, Aubrey.”

She’s immensely flustered by the unprompted statement, practically becoming putty. “H-Huh???”

“I mean it. I’m so proud of you.” 

She responds with confused noises that make you laugh. A couple minutes later, she’s mostly sorted herself out. You smile.

“I swear I’ll heed your advice.”

After a moment, she gives a small smile back.

“Good.”

At that, you allow yourself a question of your own.

“Hey, how do you feel about headpats?”

It doesn’t quite disintegrate her like last time, but it absolutely catches her by surprise. “W-What?”

“I know we’re probably too old to be doing that kind of stuff now, but the park’s nearly empty right now, and Kel’s still not here. So I have a chance to give you one now, if you want! Only if you want it, though.” You beam at her to hopefully express your sincerity in that. You don’t wanna do anything that implies you look down on her.

It looks like she’s deliberating for a while, but you know Aubrey. She’s already decided on her answer. She’s just waiting for when she can bring herself to say it.

“Y-Yes, please.”

You pat Aubrey’s head. She lowers her shoulders and her expression softens as a response.

Immediately after you take her hand off your head, as if on cue, Kel enters your field of view. You meet him halfway on the sidewalk in front of the park.

“Hey! What have you two been up to?”

Aubrey responds first. “Just sat and talked.”

Kel perks his eyebrow up. “Dang, that’s like a world record.”

You can practically hear something forcefully stop in Aubrey’s head in sheer confusion. “A world record for what?”

“You know what I mean. C’mon, let’s go to Hobbeez!” Kel immediately skips in a way you can immediately tell was precisely engineered to piss off Aubrey as much as possible.

“A WORLD RECORD FOR WHAT?!?!?!”

It works like a charm.

As you spend the day with the two of them, you realize a lot of things. Most of them are things you realized before you went to the hospital, but forgot in your near-spiral. One is that you really do love these two.

It’s not like anything profound happened in the rest of the day, but the time spent with them was constant affirmation after constant affirmation of what it is about them that really is so wonderful. That absolutely includes how exhausting they can be when paired together. It wouldn’t be Kel and Aubrey without Hero ending up with a borderline headache.

If there was one moment you had to pick as your favorite, an answer does come to mind. It was when the three of you came back to your house once the sun started setting. You elected yourself to cook for dinner so your parents could focus on Sally and so Kel and Aubrey could relax, with the former convincing the latter to stay for the night. Tonight’s dish was curry. Kel and Aubrey wanted you to make their portion spicier than the other’s. You could tell it was out of a desire to prove they were better than the other, so you decided to make both of them as spicy as possible.

As you cooked, there was one part where an extra pair of hands could’ve helped. If someone could help stir the pot while you diced vegetables, it would definitely save time. So, you took a moment to step into the living room to ask if they’re available to help. And that’s when you see it.

An old Spaceboy movie on the television.

The couch is deserted in favor of the floor.

Kel is leaning against the couch. Aubrey is leaning against Kel.

She is being held.

You can’t say for certain, but her eyes look a little watery.

She mumbles something to Kel you’re barely able to hear.

“You’re stupid.”

Kel nods in return, making a noise of affirmation alongside the gesture.

“I know.”

He squeezes her.

…On second thought, you can handle it yourself.

Chapter Text

The sun shines on a cloudless day, beaming down relentlessly on the residents of the far away Faraway. Summer’s heat has grown to be nigh-unbearable, but the town still manages to look picturesque. Its park looks worn yet proud of its use, metal bars and grass both practically glowing despite the respective scratches and signs of trampling. The plaza has a hustle and bustle to it that is rarely ever seen in Faraway, especially during the morning. Even the cars zooming past feel as though they have an extra pep in their step. An undeniable jubilant energy is shared between the various denizens, who are excited for what such a beautiful day can bring.

You can’t help but feel like it’s all mocking you.

So far, you’ve been spending your morning loitering in front of the hospital, antsy and nervous and tired. None of these feelings are new to you, but they’re mixed together just right to make your stomach churn with slick and heavy dread.

It’s been a week since Sunny’s confession. You feel enough time has passed for this to happen. The typical maelstrom within you has quieted itself, but it is still oppressively and aggressively present. It’s an overwhelming force illustrating a careful picture in your mind of sheer atrocity, using your memories as paints.

You’re psyching yourself out. Calm down.

Despite this panic, your determination to see this through is undeniable, and so, you persist. Not necessarily in search of an answer to your question, but for something. Anything.

You take one last look at the hospital’s flower bushes near the front door. It’s shockingly beautiful, especially in this weather. Verdant leaves weave between flowers more vibrant than a rainbow, from blue orchids to green gladioli to several warm shades of roses. There’s no better word for it than iridescent.

Admittedly, you can’t really say what it is about this arrangement that fascinates you so much. Regardless of how illogical your sudden interest is, you can’t deny it brings you a level of inner peace to admire the beauty of it. Not to mention the work that must’ve gone into this. Gardening’s hard work, after all, even if Basil makes it look easy.

Made, you correct yourself. Made. You haven’t spoken to him in four years. 

With that, you are forcibly snapped back into the present. Except now, you are saddled with the uncomfortable truth that the peace you found in this arrangement was not only in its beauty and the care in its construction, but also in the ways those things reminded you of Basil.

There’s been a strange dichotomy within you since your realization about him. Not only do you feel so many emotions towards him, but you also can’t bring yourself to even acknowledge a lot of them. You’re not ready to, but you know you’ll need to be if you want to confront him.

You’re so tired.

In the bushes, you spot a yellow daisy with a particularly red center. It reminds you heavily of a sunflower.

…

Making certain no one is looking, you pick it before heading into the hospital.

The air in the building is both chilly and stuffy, apparently carefully engineered to be as uncomfortable as possible. It would impress you if you didn’t hate it so much.

A couple of the people you walk past give you a look. Patients and nurses and doctors and visitors alike steal glances at you. You believe it to be pity reflected in their eyes. Do you really look so bad that people who are suffering or are at least exhausted are looking at you like this? Didn’t you specifically try to tidy yourself up this morning so this wouldn’t happen? Kel said you looked fine…

It clicks for you that it’s probably less your physical appearance, and more the emotions that seem to emanate from you. To actually, fully describe them would be impossible, but for an outsider looking in like them, you could probably put it in a single word: Overbearing.

It's not fair that you have to fight so much harder to be less bitter.

Quit whining. You’re beyond pathetic if this is all it takes to break you.

The atmosphere intensifies with their looks. The hospital starts to feel ethereal, detached from the outside world like some sort of lion’s den. The way it excites the dread at the pit of your stomach can’t be ignored, so you do all you can to power through it instead.

You consider taking the elevator due to the subtle shivers caused by you even thinking about stairs, but the part of you that wants to put this off as long as possible justifies the stairs as a nice workout.

You try to take this time to go over how you want to do this. You begin when you reach the fourth floor, and your thoughts are immediately interrupted by screaming that you hear coming from the fifth floor. On the sixth, you realize you have no plan, and that you won’t be able to come up with one without backing out of doing this. And on the seventh, you initially step into the main hall before realizing you need to go up one more floor to get to Basil. Before you leave, you hear someone thrashing in a room close to the staircase.

Finally, you reach the eighth floor, which is significantly quieter than the ones under it and has the sun shining particularly bright through the windows. Normally, this would give it a peaceful air, reinforcing the ethereal feeling the building already had, but in a positive way. Now, it just feels eerie.

You pay some mind to the door to Sunny’s room, not daring to go close enough that you can start to consider opening it.

You can’t see Sunny right now.

The walk to the end of this hall feels exponentially longer than the walk up the several flights of stairs. It’s like it keeps stretching out the deeper you walk in, never letting you reach the end. But it’s not really doing that. Because this isn’t a dream. This isn’t an otherworldly enigma, or a dungeon with a terrible beast at the end which the hero must slay.

It’s a hospital. Two people you know are being kept in it. And you’re going to see one of them to ask a question.

With that, you reach Basil’s door. Whatever happens in here, it will be your doing. Now that you’re finally here physically instead of imagining it in a dream, the idea of what it is you’re aiming for with this endeavor starts to feel fascinatingly approachable. Something about actually standing in this hospital, in front of this room, makes it all feel so much more… real.

You open the door, far faster and far sooner than you would’ve liked.

It’s time.

The oddly blue tint of the room soothes and saddens you. The boulder of dread within you doesn’t subside per se, but it takes a backseat to the aura of this place. It’s not peaceful, but it’s certainly not eerie. It is simply still.

Basil’s awake. He still has as many bandages on him as you last saw him, though you’re guessing they’re all new ones. He’s reading a book, and is too engrossed to immediately address you. He does notice that another presence is in the room, though. 

Basil closes the book, and reaches for the nightstand to leave it there. He still hasn’t realized it’s you.

“Sorry about that! I got really immersed, haha. How can I help y-”

And now he does.

The book doesn’t reach the nightstand. It falls on the floor, out of Basil’s now trembling grasp.

The stillness of the room has evolved into a palpable tension.

“…I’ll get that for you.”

You’re not sure how you were going to sound when you started talking to him again, but your tone is still unexpected. It’s both bitter and soft-spoken. It’s careful and it’s tired. It’s aimless and it’s pointed. It’s aching and it’s…

it’s…

…

You take the book, and look over to Basil. His demeanor is that of a convict on death row, watching you like a hawk with glazed-over eyes.

“What page were you on?”

“…”

“Basil?”

“…H-Hello, Hero.”

“…Hi, Basil.” You sigh, already exhausted and fully melancholic.

“I-I was… It was 70 something, I think. It was on a page where a chapter was starting.”

You flip through. “Was it 73?”

“Um, yeah, i-it was 73.”

“Got it.” You take the bookmark that also fell to the ground, and slide it in. It has a floral pattern.

“Do you know what flower this is, Basil?”

You’re stalling.

“H-Huh? What flower?”

“On this bookmark. Sorry, I should’ve specified.”

“Oh, no, it’s… i-it’s okay. Um, it’s slightly hard to tell now because it looks faded, but it’s a blue hydrangea.”

You hum. “I see. Thank you, Basil.”

“Y-Yeah, thank you, too…”

He sounds both distant and distressed. He clearly doesn’t want to be here, solely because you’re here. You’re scaring him.

You set down the book on his desk, finally taking a peek at the title.

The Picture of Dorian Gray .

You look at it for a moment longer before resting it on the nightstand. Basil sees this, and doesn’t seem to have much of an outward reaction. Terror seems to be overpowering every other feeling for him at the moment.

You sit beside him, and you stare at each other for a beat. And then another. And it’s…

it’s…

it’s… it’s… it’s…

No. You’re not losing control. You won’t. You refuse. You have to focus. Focus on every conceivable angle to this, consider what you want to do and what it means, what it says about you and the future. You’ve made yourself painfully aware of the future for this visit. If you let yourself think about the past for even a moment longer than you need to, you’re going to lose yourself. You know you won’t be strong enough to bear it. You just know.

All this posterizing in your mind, this obsession with pressing onwards, but it’s still already so crushing. It has been crushing. You feel abused beyond description, exhausted beyond belief, and frustrated beyond compare. You feel like you are without a paddle in the dead center of a raging storm, envious of its reckless abandon.

It’s not fair. None of it is fair. It’s not fair that you’re so terrible, so weak, so ambitious, and this is what you’re left with.

It should’ve been you. You want to wail and let your knees crumple from under you. You want to rot in this hospital room. If not here, then at least in your bed. It’s more comfortable there, anyways.

Basil is still in the process of dissociating. He is sunken in his hospital bed, not minding or perhaps not noticing your crisis. How considerate.

There’s no easy way to do this. A small flame scorches you from the inside, and you find it in you to press on.

“Has Kel been treating you well?”

Basil snaps to attention, jittery and afraid. “What was that?”

“I know Kel’s been coming here every morning that he can. Has he been treating you well?”

Basil’s shaking violently increases for a moment before being subdued enough for him to speak. “Um, yeah, yeah, Kel’s been… I’ve been seeing Kel a lot. He’s nice.”

“Yeah. He is.”

You can’t stress enough how haunted the look on his face is. He’s certain he’s going to die here. And if not, something he cares about more than his own life will crumble before him.

A blip in your mind uses his voice. The simulacrum of Basil tells you how much he will miss the image of you he has in his mind. The hero. And how he has long since lost the right to it, but selfishly kept clinging.

You might throw up.

Basil looks as if he is considering something grave. Knowing him, he’s probably gonna take it to his grave if you don’t try to goad him. Like how he was going to take the truth to his grave that night. Like how Sunny sent Mari to an early-

“I’m going to a mental ward tomorrow.”

…Oh.

Nevermind, then. He said it.

You’d be admonishing yourself for how terrible you are if you weren’t so off put by his declaration. You don’t respond to it. You can’t. Basil knows you can’t, so he keeps going. 

“I was,” he swallows dryly, “scared to tell Kel or Sunny. I don’t… know why I’m only now saying it, but… yeah.”

Your throat no longer feels blocked, but you’re still at a thorough loss of what to say. His announcement puts everything that’s happened into perspective. In an odd way, it’s reminded you that this is still real life. Combine this with the knowledge that you are the first of the group to learn about it, and the pit in your stomach, the all-consuming void of dread and rage and misery, stops existing for a moment. In its place are the emotions you have yet to put a name to and are extremely reluctant to feel. They’re incredibly familiar and strangely instinctive. It’s as if these feelings are baked into your very core.

That is, until the next moment, where the void in you comes back into being and the momentary lapse is nothing more than an oddity you can’t help but remain undeniably drawn to. It revealed to you that something is there, buried deep in your pain. The overwhelming impression you got from it was a sense of unwavering will… and care. You feel as though, through that moment of what must’ve been clarity, you understand yourself a bit better.

In just a mere few minutes with Basil, you have already been on an exhaustingly jumbled emotional roller-coaster. His voice brings you back to reality. “Polly managed to get them to say why they’re sending me there. And…” Basil begins to speak very slowly, both because he is choosing his words with extreme care and because he seems to be trying to keep his shaking to a minimum so he can talk clearly. You make no effort to help in a situation where you could. Regardless of if you simply didn’t realize you could help or consciously chose not to, there was a time where you would have tried in this situation. And now you’re not. For that, you are staying true to being indisputably terrible.

“And they said the main reason why was because I confessed to starting the f-fight Sunny and I had. And for… for doing what I did to him. So, at the very least, that means Sunny probably won’t have to go.”

Basil’s smile is wry and hollow. It’s brutal to say, but there is truly no better way to describe it than a smile of pure shame. It screams at you ‘I’m sorry for being alive’.

“There’s, um, also a lot of legal stuff with it. My… M-My grandma… she… passed very recently. They’re still trying to, um, work stuff out from her will, so it’s not certain that I’ll be able to live in the house.”

The timing of everything that’s happened with this group in respect to what happened to Basil’s grandma is something you’ve mentally skirted past many times for how heart-wrenching it is to consider. That, and how horrifying and crushing the situation has to be for Basil.

It hurts. It all just hurts.

There’s a whisper of “It should’ve been you.” that’s trying to wriggle under your skin and infect your mind, but you manage to refuse it outright. You can’t have self-pity so terribly narcissistic in its timing make you lose focus now. 

“The p-p-police also suggested this might be my only way of being able to escape jail time. That definitely complicated things…”

“The police???”

He nods. “Sunny’s mom got them involved.”

“Ah…”

You think about Basil rotting in prison for desecrating her corpse. The image is immediate and vivid in your mind’s eye. It is disgusting, and you hate it with every fiber of your being.

You start clenching and unclenching your fist over and over. If Basil notices this, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he introduces the third legal complication of his situation.

“And the closest thing I have to a guardian is… Polly. She…”

His voice gets slightly warbled, albeit not quite watery. “She said she’s okay with becoming my legal guardian. But… B-But she still has to go through some stuff to get it. Mostly paperwork, I think…”

You don’t know Polly very well yet, but she sounds like a bona fide saint. On the topic of her, Basil’s countenance comes off as deeply melancholic.

“I don’t deserve her.”

It’s an objective fact that Basil has suffered and lost so much. It’s an objective fact he is wracked with guilt and regrets. It’s an objective, undeniable fact that is currently ruining you because of how obvious it is. It strongly exudes from the person, the child, you see before you.

This is not right. Everything that’s happened. What everyone’s gone through. None of it is right.

You want-

You wish you could just-

If only you’d finally reach your hand out to them, to HIM, and-

and fix it.

…

You’re not sure how much longer you can do this.

You suppose now is the best time for you to ask your question. It’s not. In fact, it’s greedy and terrible of you to make this conversation any heavier. It’s terrible of you to expect more from him, and it’s terrible that there’s undeniable voices in you that are clamoring to see him suffer. But you know that this moment, right here, is the single best chance you have at managing to pry this out of yourself. In other words, it’s the worst time for actually asking it, but the best you’ve got in coaxing it out of yourself. Not to mention, it’s very likely that Basil is starting to wonder just what the point of your visit is. 

You take a minute to let the stifling air of the room sit as you prepare further mentally. You shuffle your seat to be closer to his bed, managing eye level as best as possible. Basil gives you a weary side-eye.

All systems go.

“Basil, is it okay if I ask you a question?”

There is no response at first. In fact, nothing really changes about his demeanor. It’s as if you never said anything. No indication is made as to what his answer will be or even if he will answer.

“It’s okay if you don’t want me to.”

This comes out colder than you wanted it to.

“What’s your question, Hero?”

Your mind races a mile a minute. A not insignificant part of you wants to run right now.

You lean forward and force your mouth open. 

“There was something I realized about what happened four years ago. Something that didn’t make sense to me until I assumed the worst about it. What I came up with did explain what I was thinking about, and it even explains some other things about that night as well, but… I still can’t accept it. So I need to know if what I deduced is really as bad as I think it is.”

There is no more stalling to be done. You’re here now.

“Basil.”

He remains eerily still, only half-there mentally.

“How did you know how to tie a noose when you were 12?”

His eyes widen, and for a moment, he goes into a panic. Then he stops himself, does everything he can to quell himself, to not make a scene. He wants to pretend he didn’t hear what you said so he can move past it. Or, a more charitable part of you suggests, he’s trying to soothe himself so he can respond.

But the charitable part of you is wrong. The lazy lilt in his look is forced, looking clearly deliberate compared to how it was before. There is nothing more he wants than to not be here. He wants to fade from existence so badly.

He heard you. Loud and clear. And he doesn’t want to answer.

In a way, you’re actually happy to see his reaction, because it confirms you’re not going insane. His panic marks a clear indication that there is something here, that this realization you’ve had that’s ultimately tethered you back here confirms something undeniable. Two things, actually. One, that Basil’s problems, his suffering, did not start with Mari. It couldn’t have, for him to be capable of that.

Two, that you deeply care for Basil. You think about him in a way that is so lacking in scorn, you’d make this realization and come running to him. Truthfully, you’ve known about this care for a while. You may have very well never even forgotten it. After all, your concern has been gnawing at you so heavily that it got you here. You just never wanted to give it a name. You never wanted to call it care. Or concern.

Or love.

But you had to eventually. You had to stop lying to yourself eventually.

“I got it from watching TV.”

Basil is dead set on looking straight ahead as he speaks. His gaze is nowhere near you. He’s straining every muscle on his face to get himself to spit this out. You’re pretty sure he isn’t even blinking.

“I used to watch crime shows a lot, and it was an easy knot to make.”

…

…ok. So it’s pretty obvious you can’t just leave this at simply asking the question. You thought you could, but evidently, that was wrong. Really though, what did you expect, asking something like that?

Identifying your concern for the boy who desecrated your soulmate’s corpse does little to calm the internal storm that results from Basil’s lie. There’s the instinct in you to give up. It touts itself as a voice of reason, wishing you would finally fold and walk out the door. It emphasizes its reminders up to this point of how you can still leave at any time.

Then there’s the one that wants to let your screams and wails be heard, to have it be understood what he did to you through lamenting as ceaseless as your suffering.

Yet another is silent, yet deafening, steadily providing you mental images of long dead dreams of marriage, a petrified Sunny, a maimed Basil, and two drowning murderers that you save as soon as you came back to Faraway. It is pulling out all of the stops to remind you that your scorn is justified, that it has every right to envelop you, that it is only proper for you to succumb to it.

You can feel different muscle groups in your body tensing such that each is listening to a different one of these instincts. Your legs shake in anticipation to bolt. Your throat tightens in preparation for sobbing.

Your fists clench.

But ultimately, none of this actually comes to be. It comes close. Each of them come so close. You were practically able to see the moments immediately after you go into motion. But when you imagine yourself as someone who is irrevocably desolate, it strikes you as not who you are. When you imagine yourself as a coward, you disagree entirely.

When you imagine yourself as so deeply hateful, it’s unrecognizable.

So, instead of running or crying or lashing out, your feet are planted firmly on the ground. You cough to loosen your throat. You lay your hands on your lap. And your mouth opens.

“I understand if you don’t want to answer.”

Basil bristles, then deflates soon after, muttering to himself. “…Thank y-”

“But if you’re not going to, then there’s something I want to say.”

He bristles again, and does not relax after. He tries to hide his trembling. Your heart twists. The grip on your lap tightens.

Persist.

“When Mari died, I hid myself. I shielded myself from reality and isolated myself from it. When I did that, I thought I was doing the world a kindness. It felt like everything good in me had left with her. There was no use for me. I was a shadow of my former self, a stranger in comparison.”

Basil shivers at that last phrase and clutches his balled up legs under the thin blue blanket tightly.

“But no matter how much you feel like scum, no matter how wrong it feels that you’re here right now… that stuff will never be true, nor will it ever matter. You will always belong, and there is nothing any of those thoughts can do about it.

“And because of that, I want you to know that I think I know how you’re taking my question. And I want you to know that I understand it. I absolutely get it. But I also want you to know you’re not doing anyone any favors by hiding. It’s clear that there’s something wrong, it’s… it’s clear that there’s BEEN something wrong… and it’s not okay that you won’t be honest about it.

“It doesn’t have to be me, it doesn’t have to be me at all. But it has to be somebody. Please…

“It isn’t kind of you to hide while you suffer.”

At some point, you stood up while you were talking, clutching a railing to Basil’s bed. You notice this, let out a soft spoken apology to no one in particular (could’ve been Basil, could’ve been the bed, could’ve been the railing specifically), and spend an eternity in silence with Basil.

Your statement could’ve been a lot longer, but you’re still happy with it. You want to believe the message you were trying to make and the emotions you were trying to express came though.

Basil suddenly shifts to give you an anxious look.

He’s ready to tell you.

You sit by his side, waiting as patiently as possible through his breathing exercises.

By the time he seems to have grounded himself, a grim air overcomes him. The desolate, empty look in his eyes come back. You can imagine internal screams and unadulterated panic flashing through him before he finally speaks.

“When I grew up, before I met any of you, before I met Aubrey… I only had one person in my life who loved me: My grandma.

“My parents might’ve loved me, but they didn’t really show it. They didn’t pay much attention to me or know much about me. As I grew up, they were home less and less, and my grandma had to come over to take care of me for them. When grandpa died, she sold her house to come live with us permanently. Soon after, my parents all but disappeared, probably because grandma promised to basically adopt me. I was okay with it, because she felt more like an actual parent to me than they did. I loved her and admired her so much. I still do, but…”

As he speaks, you notice that his shaking dies down. The dread in his eyes intensifies as he bores holes into his sheets. It’s not that he’s calming down as he speaks. It’s that the anxiety of four years and beyond is crashing down on him and shutting him down.

“So, uh-” Basil coughs to hide how shaky his voice sounded. “Yeah, she was… she was the only family I had. And I didn’t have much in the way of… friends…” His voice cracks on the last word. He starts speaking slower to make sure he still has control of himself. With this, his anxiety slightly returns to the surface, though apathy is still the overwhelming consensus if his deflated body language is to be trusted.

“I don’t know if she still remembers, but Aubrey saw a lot of this next part for herself. I liked gardening a lot and I tended to play with the girls when I was little, so I got called a lot of names. Other kids started to beat me up when they knew they could get away with it. Everyone that wasn’t bullying me still looked down on me and didn’t want to get close, even the girls I used to play with.

“That was around the time my grandma got the first of her health issues. It wasn’t anything big. She suddenly passed out one day and wouldn’t wake up after. My parents even paid for the medical bill, though they just sent a check and never actually came back. But for a moment there, I really thought she was gone. The doctors said her complications were likely a result of exhaustion.”

“…”

“You see where I’m going with this. I thought she was tired because she had to take care of me. By herself. She reassured me that it wasn’t my fault, but there just wasn’t any other explanation. It’s my fault it happened to her.

“For a moment, I thought I killed the only person who cared about me. That was my first time ever really thinking about death. And I could feel it changing me.”

You weren’t prepared for this. You thought you were, but you-

“I could feel this idea of people disappearing i-infecting me. I wanted it to stop, but I think I knew even then that kind of realization wasn’t something you could ever go back on.

“The night my grandma was sent home, I thought about death, though I don’t think I called it that. I thought about what it means for a person to disappear like that. I thought about my grandma disappearing, and it made me so… sad. The idea was so disgusting because it felt so close. It felt like it was so close to being real, and even with grandma back home, it didn’t go away. I imagined and envisioned and dreamt about it so frequently, and when it got bad, when I drowned myself in those thoughts so much that I thought they were reality and she was already gone, I thought to myself…

“‘It should’ve been me.’”

The noise that comes out of you is indescribable. It’s a ghastly combination of a gurgle and a wail as you can’t help but stumble out of your chair and take a step back.

“H-Hero? Are you okay?!”

You want to throw up. You want to violently thrash until your every nerve is sore and scream until your throat is so hoarse that it hurts to breathe and punch the walls until blood is spurting out of your knuckles like fountains.

“I-I-“

You force yourself to stop in place.

With your back turned to Basil, you close your eyes. And take a deep breath.

You calm down.

And you focus.

And you persist.

You turn around. Basil looks intensely and frantically concerned.

“I’m fine. Sorry.”

You sit back down.

“Please continue.”

His shaking’s back. He’s worried for you. You hate being here with every fucking fiber of your being.

“Are y-“

“I’m sure, Basil. Please, just… keep going.”

For a moment, his shaking quickens. His eyes remain oddly static, compared to the rest of his hurricane of a body. His pupils stare you dead in the eyes and into your soul, before being forced close. Likewise, the rest of his body is pressured into stillness through a breathing technique, one that’s different from the one before. You find yourself following along with it.

When his eyes open, they’re back to being dull and looking everywhere but your direction.

“That was the first time I thought about… it. I tried steering away from it. I thought about my teachers disappearing. Or my classmates disappearing. Or my bullies. None of it worked. I just became more panicked. I should’ve just stopped thinking about death altogether, but I couldn’t let myself for some reason. I was already so obsessed that I couldn’t physically stop thinking about my own death. That fascination, combined with the bullying and my parents abandoning me and just… the coldness and loneliness of it all, I… it stuck with me.

“Days passed, and things calmed down. I calmed down. But I also still changed. This was around the time I met Aubrey, actually. I didn’t go to school for a few days because of what happened to my grandma, and on the day I came back, she checked up on me. I was… pretty mean to her. I assumed she was trying to trick me. She kept coming back the days after though. More on that in a bit.” Basil allows himself the tiniest semblance of a smile at recalling one of the very first kernels of good in his life and one of the very first memories of the group. Seeing it heals your soul and twists your heart.

“One night, I ended up asking my grandma if she was really a ghost. It’s… silly to think about now, but I was so scared. And she spent that whole night soothing me and calming me down. She told me that she’s okay, that everything is going to be okay. 

“That night helped me more than I could ever possibly express. I was more grateful for my grandma than ever. But…” Basil’s face starts to darken. You’re happy on some level to see him express some emotion, but on the other hand…

You are afraid.

“I still thought so much about my disappearance. I started feeling like it needed to happen. It just had to. I didn’t mean that I was going to die eventually, though I did also realize that. I meant it as in…

“as in I had to die. As in I wanted to. As in I needed to.”

This was always in him. You have to keep reminding yourself of this. What Basil is describing right now is not anything new about him. It’s new to you, but it is not actually new. What he is describing is something that was a part of him since the day you met him.

This is the truth. The horrifying, horrifying truth. As if you didn’t have enough of it a week ago.

“I didn’t want it to hurt. I read about it and asked way too many people. I think the only reason I didn’t get reported by anyone or anything like that is because I asked something that was more like ‘what’s the least painful way to die?’ instead of ‘what’s the least painful way to kill myself?’. I wasn’t trying to hide myself, so I guess I just got lucky with how I worded it.”

Basil tries to laugh, but he immediately cuts himself off. The tiny bit that he let out sounded agonizingly hollow.

“I-I actually did watch some crime shows to try and find an answer, but all the deaths I saw in those looked too scary and painful. I don’t remember where exactly I saw it, but I found something about snapping the neck, and from there, I found stuff about nooses. I already did a lot of tying knots with my grandma when she taught me about knitting and sewing, so it came to me eventually after a lot of trial and error. As I was figuring it out, I finally gave some thought to what would happen if I died. And I realized that for how little people at school would care, I knew it would make my grandma sad if I left. Because I knew that she loved me. She was there for me when my parents weren’t, and she always took care of me and was so kind to me. So when I figured out the hangman’s knot, I stopped. I finally stopped, and I decided I wasn’t gonna do this while she was still alive. I wasn’t gonna do this while I had people that cared about me, even if I thought it was just the one person. Of course, little did I know, there was one other person who cared about me.”

He is surprised when he hears you speak.

“Aubrey…”

“Um, y-yeah, Aubrey! The next day, when she came to me, I finally apologized for how I was acting up to that point. I started playing with her and being nicer to her. Those… those days did so much in reminding how good things could really be, and-“ He sniffles. “I don’t… I don’t think I ever told her just how much that time we spent together still means to me.

“With her as my first friend, I now had two people who I knew cared about me. My world felt like it became so much bigger and better and brighter, and I remember how happy it made my grandma to see me so happy! I really, truly didn’t think things could get better than that.”

Basil finally, finally looks you in the eyes once again.

“Until I got introduced to all of you.”

You’re so unbelievably exhausted. The walls you’ve built the past four years are crumbling with the realization that you want them to. You want to be able to admit to the things you feel about Basil. Even still, it’s draining all the same.

Persist. You’re so close.

“The summer that Aubrey introduced me to all of you might still be the best summer of my life. Not that the summers we had after weren’t great, but the first one was… special to me.” 

Your voice is raspy. It hurts to talk, but you feel like you need to. “You apologized to us so much for every little thing you did. Every time we told you that we accepted you, you’d break down into tears. Aubrey would always hype you up whenever she was able to bring you along with whatever we were doing. Kel thought you were the single coolest person alive for knowing how to garden, and even on the day we first met you, Mari was encouraging you to keep pursuing it, because she could see how much it soothed you. And once you and Sunny met, it immediately became pretty much impossible to separate you two. It took you less than 24 hours to become an essential part of the group.”

He looks bemused. Internally, a weight is lifted off your shoulders at seeing Basil express something that isn’t utter despair.

“You… still remember? All of it?”

“Basil…

“How could I forget?”

Your response leaves the room in silence and Basil in turmoil. It takes a full minute until he is able to continue.

“I knew how to hang Mari and tie the noose because I wanted to kill myself for years. That’s the truth. The truth is I want to kill myself, Hero.”

Basil is growing restless. He is losing himself and starting to cry.

“These past four years… they’ve been nothing but loss to me. I lost everyone. Mari. You. Kel. Aubrey. Sunny… and my grandma. Everyone left, and rightfully so. I still have Polly, and she’s been so wonderful to me for so long, but I just-

“I got… I got close that night. I was trying to take Sunny with me when he checked on me. I can’t believe I can be so disgusting, but it’s the truth. Because I’ve always been like this. I’ve always thought about it, Hero. It seemed so…”

His gaze grows vacant. His thrashing lessens until it dies down completely and his arms lazily fall to his sides.

“…easy.”

His mind has fully left the hospital room.

You should be helping him right now. But you are terrible, so you aren’t. You are terrible, so you won’t.

You won’t.

You should.

You won’t.

You want to.

You won’t.

You-

No. Stop.

Focus.

You know this. You can see this for what it is.

It should’ve been him. That’s what he thinks. He’s believed it for his whole life and fervently wished for it in some way this whole time. What can you really do in the face of that?

Basil is wracked with guilt for being alive. He’s wrapped the blanket of depression around him and held it tight, always readily available as a veil and a wall. But in that, he has scrapes and bruises that he’s let linger and become infected. They’ve turned sickly greens and purples as that filthy, uncomfortable blanket keeps scraping up against it.

You can’t help but think of Sunny. You can’t help but think of how he hurt himself. He closed himself off and kept to his bed. He fell into delusions and did not allow himself anything more than nothing. The truth was too scary, and he didn’t deserve happiness, so he didn’t let himself feel or think anything.

Do you need it spelled out? He’s exactly like you. They both are.

The familiarity and the cruelty of their punishments have come rushing through you. It’s made this process far messier than you ever wanted it to be.

Basil doesn’t dare let his wounds be treated. He doesn’t deserve it, and he will insist that. There is no reality for him where happiness is possible, let alone deserved. He let himself believe that when he blamed himself for his grandma’s old age. You let him believe that when you gave up on him. When you gave up on everybody.

Kel didn’t give up on him. He didn’t give up on you. He didn’t give up on Sunny. He’s still going. He never stopped. He found that in himself.

Aubrey is finding it in her to heal as we speak. Even with the hand she’s been dealt, she’s found ways to thrive, and she will continue to do so. She is by no means perfect, but she is trying. There is no force that could ever possibly stop her from growing.

After four years, Sunny managed to tell the truth. He somehow managed to forgive himself, to stand his ground, to face down memories more horrifying than you could ever imagine. He found it in himself to live.

And what have you done? Outside of leaving? Outside of running?

It’s fascinating how easily you delude yourself. You shirk responsibilities and tethers to reality because times where you had basic decency supposedly make up for it. It’s appalling to think of how you got to this point, where you somehow didn’t feel bad for constantly running away for so long. You hurt without regard, without even being fully conscious of it.

In the instances during this conversation where you were able to feel control slipping away, you tended to wrestle it back by fixating on the present. Now is no exception. Sometimes, it’s still more than you can handle, but you reassure yourself with the fact that, even when it doesn’t feel like it, the future is the only thing you absolutely have to think about. Forego any context, any loose thoughts, any gnawing pains that you’re not already used to, and think. What do you see in front of you? What are you going to do about it?

Basil is crying. He’s shaking violently and keeps pleading in barely cogent speech. Your mind tries to remind you who Basil is and what he’s done to you, but you ignore it as best as you can. You convince yourself that doesn’t matter right now.

You’re suffering. Because of him. Of them.

He’s alive. You’re alive. That is what you have managed to do. That’s what you both accomplished, after all this.

You survived.

The internal collapse you anticipated all this time never comes, and you instead come to an understanding with your subconscious. You start accepting exactly who Basil is with open arms. You brace yourself for it, but it doesn’t overwhelm you. Not anymore.

Ever since you’ve come back to Faraway, there’s been noticeable peaks and valleys to how much you’ve cared. The nights before and after learning the truth were big ones where you felt such overwhelming concern. It felt so natural, you wonder how you ever lived without it. Without them. But there’s also moments where you are so certain that things can never go back. That all this is a sinking ship without her. What a disgusting thought that is. What a disgusting emotion rotting you from the inside.

And yet, you’re not denying it. Here and now, there is no denying that emphatic, insistent thought came from you.

Somewhat abruptly, a memory of her floats to the forefront of your mind. This one was a bit before the recital, and one of the last times you ever saw her. You had been consoling her over her stresses and woes, something you had been doing especially frequently in that time frame. When she started feeling better, she wanted to finally tell you a secret of hers: why she loved you.

You hold her next words so close to your chest that they practically crush you.

It was a torrent of what felt like everything about you, big and small, being thrown at you and scrutinized for just how incredible she believes it all to be. From your cooking to your smarts to being “the single biggest dork I’ve ever seen”, she found something to say about all of you. She’s the one person who probably knew you the absolute best, more than anyone, and she adores you.

God, you didn’t deserve her.

Stay on track. Even if you’re right about that.

She capped this all off with what she called “the main ingredient”. On top of everything, you were just... kind. Plainly and simply, but also in your own, special manner. Your careful regard for others always made it so that when you helped people, it was always in such particular ways that you knew would help them the absolute most. Ways that made it clear JUST how much you cared and paid attention. Compassion is inherent to you, and it's given you incredible strength. It's part of who you are, and part of why people love you. Why we love you. Why I love you.

You make all four of them so happy, y'know? Of course, they enjoy spending time with you, and you’re their friend and all that. But beyond that, you're practically a big brother to all of them! You make sure to be caught up on Captain Spaceboy comics just so they can talk to you about it. You’re always happy to teach them, but you never once act like you’re in any way above them. I know, I know, this probably sounds like it's the bare minimum to you, but that’s also exactly my point! You go so above and beyond for the people you care about, and I think how you care about them is also special. In their case, you make them feel safe. And loved. And we both know how badly they need that.

You can't help but be good to others. Even better than you are to yourself, sometimes, but we're working on it.

Her laugh… 

It still hurts. It always will. You have long since learned it's best to accept that.

I love you not just because you love me, Hero, but because you find a way to love everyone, and your love is one of the greatest things I've ever felt.

The final word she gave you was selfless. You are selfless.

This memory, those words, her voice. They used to hurt you three years ago, two years ago, one week ago. They hurt in ways that made you writhe in agony and self-hate as you twisted them into a vicious mockery and denouncement of your very being. How could she mean those things if you failed her?

Now, though? Bittersweet memories such as this are about the only things that have kept you calm.

Looking back, it was bizarre to have your own traits explained to you, especially in such a congratulatory way. It makes you squirm in doubt over whether such admiration was really earned, but regardless of whether or not you deserved it, you quite clearly needed it on the days you didn't feel much like a person. Self-confidence is something you always struggled with.

The memory loops yet again in your head. She called you their big brother, and you didn’t really verbally acknowledge it at the time. You were simply too flattered by all the praise to ever possibly give special attention to any specific bit of it, but now you’re stuck on this. What were your thoughts about being that for them? How did it make you feel? Do you still think that way?

Caring for them was never some monumental task. You can’t really remember a time where you saw it as a hassle. Sure, there were times where you had to go out of your way for them, where you were in the middle of something and had to drop it to help, but you don’t think you ever once minded. Beyond not seeing it as a bother, you never saw how it could be. Why is that? Was it because there was not a single other thing you’d rather be doing?

Your heart swells in a way that creeps up on you. Nostalgia breaks through the fog of melancholy around you from this week. It feels sobering, which is the opposite of what nostalgia usually feels like.

That's because this isn’t nostalgia. It’s a feeling that has to do with the past. But it’s not nostalgia. It’s a realization. A realization that things have not changed nearly as much as you thought.

There’s something swirling within you, another urge. Incomprehensible once more, but no longer intoxicating. It’s painful, and there’s a familiar compulsion to it. A need to embrace it, thorns and all, for the soft and luscious petals at its top which it means to stand for.

The pettier parts of you want to scramble and needlessly deliberate, as if you didn’t immediately realize what’s happening and what this is and what you can do with it.

In these past four years, you did everything you could to ignore the world around you. A cycle of daydreams and nightmares that extended to textbooks after you slapped away the only hand that still reached out to you. You avoided the responsibility of emotion, and opted out of even the bare minimum of living. In these four years, there wasn’t nothing, but there was oh so little. You thought it was because it all left, but upon reflection, it was also that you threw so much of it away.

Is it really, truly, an exaggeration to say they are your everything? Do you only remember the days when you taught Aubrey how to tie her shoes because Mari was teaching her too? Do you only remember showing Basil how to use his camera because Mari was the one who got it for him? Do you only remember tutoring Sunny and baking some sweets with him after because he’s Mari’s little brother? 

Do you only remember hurting Kel because Mari was mentioned? Or was it because you hurt your baby brother? Was everything you’ve given them, each and every one of them and each and every thing, good or bad, really all for the sake of Mari?

Or do you remember because you love them?

Determination and pride surge in you, and you make a vow. If everything good falls around you, you will make something even better from nothing. You will do as Kel does, as Aubrey does, as Mari did.

You will do as you did, as their big brother. If there is not a speck of kindness in the world they find themselves in, you will make it yourself and you will shower them in it. Because it is your sworn duty to her. It is your sworn duty to them.

And it is your sworn duty to yourself. Your personal mission, if you’ll let yourself be so dramatic.

You will stand by your reassurance. Reassurance to the world that refuses to be kind to them when they’re in so much pain. Reassurance to your own self that there is nothing you’d rather be doing than be here. With them. By their side. With kindness, you are capable of becoming more than yourself. At your lowest point, you will choose to do the most remarkable thing you can do. You will be yourself. And that’s remarkable because you are selfless. Because you are still thinking of others, even now. You think of protecting and helping and cherishing them even now, when once before you would have not. After all, if you don't show kindness when it's at your expense, when will you show it?

Mari always called it poetic. Perhaps there is something profound in being a good friend.

And still, STILL, your mind struggles for a “why” to all this, or a “how”. There's still so much of you that can’t accept that your love is and has always been unconditional. Even for her killer and his accomplice. Especially for her brother and his friend. Because on top of being her killer and his accomplice, on top of being her brother and his friend, they’re also your friends. Your little brothers.

You have proven yourself capable of hurting the ones you love, and that makes you flawed. And by proxy, it makes your love flawed, too. But it is everything you have, and you intend to use every last bit of its endless supply.

You’re a giver, Hero. Terrible and selfless.

It’s love, if it wasn’t obvious. You’re feeling love again, and not nostalgia. You’re finally feeling it, and you’re finally acknowledging it, and you missed it for so long. It strengthens your anger, turns it righteous, and puts your hate to shame. You can use it to help them.

Help him.

Help Basil.

Will you save Basil?

…

After four years, you start to consider the possibility that Mari would be proud of you.

“I know how you feel.”

“W-What?” Basil’s soft confusion on his face indicates he’s not sure you even spoke to begin with.

There’s nothing profound about what you’re doing. If you absolutely had to put a word to it, it’d be overdue.

“I said I know how you feel. You’re exhausted, right? It’s not like everything’s okay. It’s not like everything’s fixed. Mari’s still gone. What you and Sunny did still happened.

“But that’s not what matters.”

Basil's expression reads exactly how you expect. To him, it is as if this kindness you're trying to extend is hurting you. It probably would, had you never met Mari, but you wouldn't be here if you never met Mari.

“The world kept going without her. Because so many of our problems didn’t start with that accident. Your confession just now is proof of that. I am proof of that.

“I dunno if Kel told you anything about this, but I became pretty much catatonic from misery for a year after she died. I was wracked with guilt, a need to not exist anymore. It was both a need to escape and a need to be properly punished for being so terrible. And you’d think, from the sound of that, this problem was something that started with Mari’s death. But I don’t think that’s right.

“I’ve had this obsession to always be my best for as long as I can remember. Mari shared that perfectionism with me, so keeping each other in check ended up being a pretty major foundation for our relationship. So, because of that, when I found out she didn’t kill herself, I wasn’t relieved from my guilt. Because even if I didn’t miss any of those kinds of signs from her, I still failed her. I let her spiral. I let Sunny suffer. I’m okay with saying it’s not my fault it happened. I’d be arrogant to think that. But it’s a fact I could’ve stopped it.

“I think… I was always depressed. I’ve had no close friends my age besides Mari. My academic success never satisfied me. I feel desolate if I look too hard at the trophies in my room. They’re the only “decorations” I have now. I can only feel dread and stress about my future, because my parents have pushed what they want me to do my whole life and I never really fought back on it. I’ve always had days where things felt dull and I felt lifeless and inconsolable. I parsed them off as bad moods, or just being a weirdly gloomy person who was inexplicably desperate to hide that fact. But after everything, I think I just need help.” Humorlessly, you laugh.

“I don’t mean to make it seem like I’ve had a bad life at all. It’s the exact opposite. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have the things, opportunities, memories, and people that make up my life. Quite frankly, I’m blessed. I think anyone who has a brother like Kel is pretty much guaranteed a happy life.” This time, some genuine mirth bubbles up in your chuckle.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to ramble. I don’t really have a point to a lot of this, but I promise it’s leading up to something. I also don’t mean to downplay the impact of what happened with Mari, and the ways that changed us. So many feelings that fermented for so long came out, and they fractured and hurt and broke us. For me, it took permanently hurting Kel to ‘recover’. Not physically, NEVER physically, but I refuse to believe what I said to him didn’t leave a disgusting mark that never should’ve happened. Plus, it’s not like it fixed anything. I came back to the real world, but all the feelings were still there. So I stewed in them, I guess. I let them overwhelm me and destroy me. I had to put every ounce of myself into making sure that when I blink, I won’t be in front of that tree looking at her.” You sharply, shakily inhale before continuing.

“I can’t help but feel like I came to the right answer way too late, but I guess what I’m trying to say is…

“When Mari died, we made the mistake of leaving each other when we needed each other the most.

“This time… if you’ll let me… we'll stay together.

“I don’t see leaving as an option. Not anymore.”

The farther reaching implications of your statement are predicated on what is technically a lie. You’ve come to realize over this past week that leaving was an option, that there is no obligation to your kindness if you truly didn’t want there to be.

Except you want to be here. You want to stay more than anything, and that love is not an obligation.

You did come to see leaving as an option. The forgiveness for your lie comes in at the realization that you refuse it outright.

“Do you mind if I touch you, Basil?”

“U-Uh…” Basil is doing everything he can to stop his shaking. You want to help, but you also don’t want to approach if he doesn’t want you to. You know that he usually doesn’t mind physical contact, but the situation is obviously anything but “usual”. You would understand if he still doesn’t quite feel safe enough yet.

He swallows air so hard you can hear him gulping a mouthful of it. The technique slows him down long enough for him to be able to speak.

“…Please… feel free…”

You suddenly pull him into your embrace, fueled by his consent, and immediately, instinctively cocoon him. Your body shields him from the rest of the room and protects him from the rest of the world.

This past week for you has been a never ending stream of crushing realization after overwhelming revelation after inevitable acknowledgement, all for things that were usually staring you right in the face and you couldn’t bring yourself to admit. But this time, in this moment, comes a fact that you haven’t necessarily been avoiding. Rather, it’s only now that the full gravity of this truth has set in.

They were just kids.

They still are.

The two of you sit like this for an undetermined amount of time. You don’t know how long it is, and you couldn’t care less. The only thing you care about is if it will be enough to undo years of hurt.

It isn’t. But one day, it might be.

Eventually, you hear Basil quietly stammering, “Y-You haven’t, um, broken the hug yet.”

“Do you want me to?” You ask him quietly.

He says nothing. He only squeezes you back and nestles his face in your shirt.

They’re still just kids. He’s just a kid.

He’s trying not to cry. You can tell by how forceful his sniffles are that he’s trying to stop himself.

“I-I… I am-I’m so sorry-”

Gently, you shush him. “It’s okay. You’re free to use my shirt if you need it. Let it all out.”

He does exactly that, this time squeezing you quite fiercely as he doesn’t hold back.

Again, you’re not sure how long you stayed like this, and again, you don’t care. You only really tuned back into reality when Basil eventually pulled away from you. He sniffles, and you believe you hear a muttered “thank you”. You smile in return, and sit back down.

“Basil.”

Immediately, he is afraid once more.

You can’t… really forgive him. It’s undeniably callous to think that after what happened, but you aren’t going to lie to yourself. That bitterness is still raging in you. It’s still so fresh.

However.

This has quelled it. This moment you shared with him, the conversation before it, and the trust needed for it all to go the way it did, all of it has noticeably, substantially quelled your potential for lasting hate.

Kel and Aubrey quelled it. Their efforts inspire you even now, and the memory of them brings more hope than you could ever ascribe to words.

And when, not if, you see Sunny again…

You are sure he will also quell it. You are sure that, if anything, he will be the one that eradicates it from you.

Don’t put that kind of pressure on him, though. He’s already going through so much.

And for all this said, you know, at some point, you will forgive Basil. You know that you will. Because you want to, and you can. So you will.

“I’m still… reeling. From this, and what… we were told. And I’m going to be reeling for a long time, and hurting for even longer. I…

“…I am permanently scarred from what you did. I know that. I acknowledge that. I want you to know that I understand what you did very, very well. And I also want you to know-” You dig into your pockets, and eventually find it. There is no going back.

This visit was never going to be as simple as a single question.

“-that if you, for whatever reason, need anything, I’m only a phone call away.”

You show Basil the paper. It has your phone number written on it. Basil stares at it with a strangely soft confusion. He can identify that something is written on the page, but subconscious refusal makes it impossible for what that something is to register.

Basil is confused, and you can’t blame him. You’ve only recently become sure of what you’re doing here. He grabs the paper at a glacial pace.

“It… doesn’t just have to be if you need anything, by the way. You can call me if you ever just want to talk, too.”

Basil’s gaze shoots right up at you. During that motion, the bafflement drains from his face and leaves behind something profusely apologetic.

“Hero… I don’t think I deserve this…”

You don’t know how you’re going to say what you’re going to say. You only know that it’s going to be far colder than you intend.

“You’re probably right.”

Way to go.

The response doesn’t seem to take Basil much by surprise, though it almost looks to take a physical toll on him from the way his shoulders sag.

You should probably finish your thought.

“But I don’t really care about whether or not you deserve it. I… I care about you, Basil.”

Basil’s taken aback by that, but you disregard the reaction pretty quickly. You came here for one reason, and one reason only. To confirm something with Basil.

“For a while now, even before learning the truth, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to care. I felt like I lost everything for so long, and it made me want to just… let go. I didn’t realize there was still something there, that I wasn’t just giving up on myself. So I care anyway.

“But I still don’t really know what to do. I feel more lost than ever. I keep trying to think about what to do, and the only conclusion I keep coming back to is indulging myself. Let myself care again. Let myself try again, and see where that goes.

“I’m sorry, I know this probably doesn’t make sense, but…” But. But. But.

Calm down.

Focus.

Persist.

…

Overcome.

Cherish.

“I don’t care if you do or don’t deserve help. Or support. Or love. Because that doesn’t change the fact that you need all of that. And I am going to do everything in my power to help you. I’m going to do everything I can to support you.”

Once more, you fish around in your pockets, decidedly more delicate and calculated in your search this time. Your care is rewarded in finding the yellow daisy mostly untouched to present to him.

“I’m going to do everything I can to love you, Basil.”

You make a movement to indicate you’re going to try to put the flower in his hair. He makes no indication for you to stop. Delicately, gracefully, and effortlessly, it slips into where you remember he used to wear his pink periwinkle.

The yellow daisy suits him perfectly. The shade of yellow it takes on is similar enough to his hair color to blend in naturally, but simultaneously distinct enough to be easily seen. It’s as if it’s a natural part of him.

The silence after your statement is much shorter than you expected. Right after your gesture, there’s a piercing sob.

“S-S-Sorry, I *hic* I… I can’t…”

Once more, Basil is crying. He’s getting overwhelmed. It’s really bad this time. Right off the bat, pretenses are dropped, and no attempt is made at anything resembling posterity. He lets it all out. He is no longer afraid. At least, not of you.

Another hug should do the trick.

---

“There’s some days where Kel doesn’t visit though. Sunny and I don’t see each other those days. He says that we should probably try to keep our distance. I… I'm not sure if I agree with that, but I want to respect his decision. I thought it would hurt a lot more to hear him say that, and it still kinda does, but… it feels kinda nice, too. It doesn’t feel like he’s abandoning me this time. I believe him when he says he’s not gonna ever completely go from now on. I believe him when he lets me see him smile and tells me he’ll still always be there for me.” Basil grins at that, and seems to get choked up for a moment. “It just feels like…

“progress. It feels like progress.”

Basil smiles. It is genuine and pained and beautiful. You’re pretty sure you cried a little seeing it. If only Mari was here to swipe a photo of it…

Ah well. The memory of it will have to do. Not like you’re forgetting it anytime soon.

You two have been talking for a good long while now. About everything and nothing. From finally catching up to bittersweet reminiscing to idle thoughts to bad puns to aimless chit chat about hobbies, or, on your part, the lack of them. That’s when Basil, the sweetheart he is, starts throwing out some ideas.

“Reading?”

“Honestly? I already have enough material to sift through with college. Though the one you were looking at before I came in looks interesting.”

“That’s fair! That’s kind of why I fell off of the Spaceboy comics in high school. And Dorian Gray has been really great so far! I really recommend it!”

You nod, keeping track of that. “Are you still interested in catching up on those sometime? Spaceboy, I mean.”

Basil gives the proposition some genuine thought, given the slight scrunching of his face and his humming. “Maybe? I’m not sure if I’ll be as into them as I used to be, especially since I don’t think I have anyone to talk to about it.”

“We could see if everyone else in the group is interested. Kel still has his action figures, and Aubrey still has a Spaceboy poster up in her room. And if they’re not interested, at least I’d be willing to catch up with you.” You grin and give Basil a wink upon that last statement.

Basil smiles in response. “Oh, yeah, you read them too! I almost forgot!”

You laugh at his excitement towards the reminiscing. “Mostly just so I’d know what you were all talking about when it got brought up. Mari still teased me a lot for it though, because she could tell I was getting into it and having fun too.”

This time, both of you laugh at the memory, until Basil speaks again, still smiling. “Have you ever considered writing?”

You nod. “I tried keeping a journal when I first got on campus, but it ended up being too time-consuming. That, and…” Your breathing hitches. Basil gives you a patient and deeply understanding look. You give a grateful one, in return.

“How about video games, then? Kel says they’re a good way to turn your brain off.”

“They definitely do the trick, but they do it a little TOO well, haha…”

Basil laughs back. “You get too sucked in?”

“Don’t get me wrong, my daydreaming isn't as bad as Sunny! But it’s definitely something I need to work on…” He nods sagely, and you instinctively scratch your cheek again, nervously chuckling. Though the “nervousness” is ultimately a hollow, knee-jerk reaction, since you’re with someone you know you can be less than perfect with.

“Arts and crafts?”

That one actually resonates with you a bit. The two of you actually were making bracelets before this, using supplies snuck in by Kel and hidden by Basil. As it was being initially discussed, a nurse brought in food for Basil, and you left to get a snack yourself. Once you came back, he had the materials splayed in front of him and on the nightstand.

You went for something simple, predominantly using a single type of bead. Said type is a simple sphere that’s mostly green, traveling through various vibrant, vivid, deep, rich shades. Hues vary not only between the different beads, but also fluctuate on each individual one. None of them are a single, solid shade, nor are any two beads the same. They strike you as iridescent, a colorful rainbow despite only being a single color. Although, that’s probably at least partly because there is a slight incorporation of blue as well, in the form of sea green, teal, turquoise, cyan, and some deeper shades beyond that. Due to all this variety and for how frankly pretty they look, you feel you can be forgiven for predominantly sticking to this one type of bead. That, and one other reason.

You struggle to think of anything that would serve as a better memento for today. There is nothing that strikes you as more plainly emblematic of what happened here. Nothing more simple than a beautiful expression of his favorite color, supported by yours. Green and blue. Basil and you.

It’s probably a little stupid, but Basil loves it. You do too.

Basil, on the other hand, goes for something decidedly more complex. Harkening to what he spoke of in his time with his grandma, he ties what he called a “chevron pattern” with various colorful bits of thread woven together. To you, the pattern looks like a series of arrow heads. In this case, Basil goes for a looping rainbow, with each arrow head being one color and with a few notable deviations. The red is replaced by pink, there is no yellow, and gray ends the sequence after purple. Thus, it goes pink, orange, green, blue, purple, gray, repeat. Or, to extend from the language you attempted to employ for your bracelet: Aubrey, Kel, Basil, you, Mari, Sunny. Seems Basil’s artistry and thoughtfulness hasn’t dulled since you last saw him.

Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, his idea takes a lot longer in contrast to yours, so he’s not quite done by the time you are. As such, you set to work on a second one for yourself (You gave the first to Basil. It very nearly made him cry again.) before you both set what you have so far aside to focus on this conversation.

Oh. Right. You’re in the middle of a conversation.

If this recent attempt is anything to go by, arts & crafts scratches a bit of a similar itch that cooking does for you in that you’re creating something. Parts of you are turned off by it arguably being even less practical than cooking, but this is a hobby, dangit! It doesn’t need to be anything practical!

“Maybe! You can tell I haven’t gotten much better since that time we made flower crowns together… but I still had a good time with that, and I’m having a good time with this! Of course, being with my best friends helps a lot with both.”

Basil is rendered flustered by the affection, but it’s for a brief time before he manages to continue. “Kel brought a lot of arts & crafts stuff in for him, me, and Sunny to work on together. Funny you mention them, because we did flower crowns yesterday in Sunny’s room! It’s really calming, for being an idea Kel came up with, haha. Plus, it’s also really fun, and since it requires so much concentration, it’s a good way to clear your mind and distract yourself. I guess it’s like gardening, in that way.”

Suddenly, he gasps. Something he came up with seemed to have excited him, since he has that ever-so-slightly dopey looking face where he starts pumping his fists and makes an “O” with his mouth. You haven’t seen this since he was 12. It warms your heart something fierce to get to witness it again.

“Wait, I just came up with one!”

“Oh?” You’re intrigued to see why this idea makes him so excited, though you frankly think you can guess what he’s going to suggest. You’re surprised it wasn’t the first thing he said.

“Oh man, how could I have forgotten?! You should get back into cooking!!!”

Yeah, there it is. Your apparent unease at the topic causes some hesitation to get cast on Basil’s face, leading you to try to slip out a smile. “I think about it a lot, but it’s something that kinda fell to the wayside, since my parents want me to become a doctor.”

“O-Oh…” Basil doesn’t deflate at this, necessarily, but he does look sullen. Instinctually, you try to make him feel better.

“I still haven’t forgotten about it, though! I’ve actually been cooking a few times since I came back this summer, now that I have some free time. Plus, I don’t think it’s ever something I’ll fully let go of.”

Basil smiles at that. “That’s a relief.”

But there’s something wrong with it. It’s not that the smile itself is disingenuous, but more that the magnitude of it is. You’re able to piece it together pretty quickly, because it’s a reaction you’ve seen before. In fact, it’s a reaction you’ve seen from every member of the group.

Including her.

She was definitely the most insistent about it, though the title of most direct actually might go to Sunny. His version of this reaction came about from one picnic where he, Kel, and Aubrey ended up falling asleep. He was the first of the three to wake up, and you ended up poking his brain a bit. You asked him directly if you should be a chef when you grow up. His response was quite possibly the most emphatic showing of any emotion you had seen from him.

Every last one of them really wanted you to be a chef when you grew up. Not because it’s what they expected of you, but because they knew it was what you wanted to do.

Seems they still know. Seems they still want you to be happy.

You imagine yourself once more as a chef. And for the first time in almost half a decade, rather than dispel the thought as if it was some cobweb in your way, you keep the image in the back of your mind. For later consideration.

You imagine serving food to Basil, Sunny, Aubrey, and Kel. On the house.

And you smile, momentarily letting yourself get swept up in this paradise of an idea, before returning to the battered Basil of the present.

Being with Basil again ends up being an absolute blast. So much so, you pay little heed to the nurses occasionally coming in and out. You don’t even initially notice when the sun is setting.

You lightly scratch your cheek and chuckle, looking out the window. “Is it evening already? Jeez, have I really been here that long?”

Basil’s smile is infectious. The nostalgia and mostly unabashed joy exuded by the sight of it is what causes your smile to persist. “Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess! At this rate, I’ll be out of here in no time!”

Basil’s statement is unassuming, yet there’s something about it that strikes you as wrong. Once you remember why it’s wrong, your smile falls. “But then you’ll have to go to a ward once you do, right?”

He bristles. You feel bad, because it’s pretty apparent by his reaction that he wasn’t surprised by your suggestion. He did remember that he would have to go there, but he didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to dream for just a moment longer.

“…Right. Tomorrow.”

You can’t decide where on Basil you want to lay your hand. As a silver lining, your apparent hesitation makes for sufficient signaling that you want to initiate physical touch again, and Basil permits it. You decide to put it on top of his hand. Not necessarily holding it, especially since the palm is faced downwards towards the blanket, but rather covering his hand with your own.

You speak to him gently and carefully, as if he is the kid that he is.

“Are you scared?”

He doesn’t respond at first. You wait patiently, making it clear he doesn’t have to answer.

“I’ll be okay.”

But he does. And you’re not sure what to say back to it.

This meeting has gone better than you could have ever even imagined. So much of it has been so painful, but it has made you feel so light, so happy, so optimistic. Still, not everything has been fixed by it, and time marches on. Basil has yet to face the full consequences of his actions despite suffering so much, and you are not even close to ready to forgiving either of them despite rediscovering your gargantuan adoration and love for both of them, for ALL of them.

But that’s okay. Because even though time marches on, so do all of you, right along with it. None of you have succumbed just yet, and none of you intend on it. Speaking for yourself, instead of giving up, you intend to protect them and cherish them as best you can. You intend to grow and thrive, using the unstoppable onslaught of time to your advantage, using it as a way of healing both yourself and them. 

You squeeze Basil’s hand and look him in the eye.

“You’ll be okay.”

Tiredly, he smiles. It isn’t full, but it is genuine.

Basil starts to shakily breathe in. He’s preparing to say something, seeming slightly nervous about it. You stay where you are, squeezing his hand once more for encouragement.

“Can I be honest with you about something, Hero?”

Basil asks you the normally innocuous, if a bit mystifying, question rather gravely. He’s not nervous, per se, but his pursed lips imply that he’s contemplating what exactly he means to say even now.

Despite this change, you try to keep your tone lighthearted. “Of course, Basil.”

A moment passes. Again, he avoids eye contact with you, except he seems more lost than anxious as he does so.

“I really didn’t think I was ever going to speak with you again.”

“…That makes sense.”

Basil seems both shocked and not by your response. If you had to guess, it’s because he is still not used to how candid this whole conversation has become. You can’t blame him; you’re not either.

He continues. “I figured we would’ve probably seen each other again because of Kel, and maybe we would’ve exchanged greetings or something like that, but we wouldn’t have ever…” He gestures vaguely. The message comes across well enough.

There’s a slightly uncomfortable silence for a long moment before Basil starts to speak again, stress seeping in further than immediately prior.

“I think… you and Mari represented something I felt like I didn’t deserve for a really long time.”

Weirdly enough, you might actually know what he means by that already, but you still let out a quizzical hum. Just because you have an idea already doesn’t mean it’s a correct idea. Nor does it mean you’re not interested in hearing it from him. 

“I talked about this with Aubrey a really long time ago, and I still stand by it, especially with everything that’s happened. A-and don’t get either of us wrong, we still meant the world to each other, and of course we also loved Kel and Sunny. But you two were just… you represented something kind of different for us. Something we never really got to have until we met you two.

“Based on what you mentioned earlier about Aubrey’s Spaceboy poster, I assume you’ve seen the rest of her house as well. I assume you have at least an idea of what her family situation is like. And you just heard from me earlier about what mine was like.” Basil seems to be shrinking into himself as he speaks. His voice becomes progressively more akin to a squeak. He seems to be getting embarrassed over what his words imply and what he’s building up to and about to say.

You squeeze his hand once more for encouragement, and patiently wait for him to recuperate.

“I… This feels… probably stupid to say, but you two, and… the way you treated us… the way you took care of us… you made that group feel like something more.” His voice cracks, and he has to clear his throat to continue.

You’re almost there, Basil. 

Persist.

“You were like… you WERE… our older siblings. It wasn’t-“ He gulps. He tries to keep it together. “It wasn’t just a friend group to us. It was that, too, but… it really, really, honestly felt like more.

“It felt like it was a family to me. When Aubrey introduced me to all of you, it felt like m-my sister and I just got adopted. I know that’s… it’s stupid, but I just-“

One final time, Basil takes a deep breath. Once he’s ready, he speaks slowly and precisely.

“It’s probably selfish of me to say this, but you were the big brother I never had, but always wanted… n-needed. And I’m just-“

Wordlessly, you signal him for a hug, and he falls into you, shaking. You caress his back to soothe him as he keeps going.

“I’m just so grateful. I am so grateful that I got to know any of you. I am so grateful I got to know you, Hero.

“I don’t mean to speak for everyone without their permission, but I remember how much we admired you. You were always so kind, not just to us but to everyone. A-At least, from what we saw. I still remember Kel admitting he doesn’t recall a single time you were ever outwardly mean.”

You try to play down your bristle over how that’s not quite the case anymore. Basil either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore it outright.

“You were also definitely smarter than us, haha. You were pretty much our go-to tutor. Whenever we met to study or do homework, you’d always stay with us the whole time, even if you were done with your own work. The only thing that could get you to leave us was if Mari needed you for anything.”

You laugh as a series of similar memories to Basil’s description play in your head.

“But it wasn’t just book smarts, either. It always seemed like you knew exactly what to say, especially with Kel and Aubrey. You took care of us, but you never looked down on us. You made it seem like you trusted us just as much as we trusted you. Probably… because you did…” Basil seems to ruminate on this, on how he managed to verbalize it, and on everything he said up to this point. As he does, you hear a second Basil in your head. He’s quiet, making it seem as though he’s whispering to you, when it’s more likely he’s whispering to himself despite being a fragment of your imagination.

Wow…

The real Basil speaks immediately after this, as if interjecting on his imaginary self.

“M-Maybe this might be too much, but… I think… you were an inspiration to me, Hero. I think you were for all of us. I think…

“I think you still are.”

It’s your turn to be overcome with emotion. You don’t respond to Basil’s suggestion verbally, but you do give him a very long squeeze.

He squeezes you back, and continues. You’re certain he’s smiling.

“You’re supportive, a-and caring, and you’re really strong, too! We were probably biased, but back then, you seemed so infallible. Both you and Mari sometimes felt like you were larger than life. It looked like you had so much more to deal with than us, but you were both still so gentle and reliable. I-I’m sorry, I know that’s… wrong to say, now. With everything that’s happened. But, for what it’s worth… I still think you’re strong.”

Basil begins to speak at a muffled whisper as he turns his face into your torso.

“I don’t think you’d be here if you weren’t.”

Again, you give no verbal response. You feel bad for being quiet for so long, but it’s been… difficult for you to come up with anything. You can only hope what you do have right now is good enough.

You whisper back into his hair as you continue rubbing his back.

“Thank you, Basil. That means a lot.”

His shoulders immediately sag in relief and he squeezes you. He adjusts his head so he can be heard more clearly.

“I-I’m sorry, I’ll be done in a second, but I also just wanted to mention one more thing.”

“Go right ahead.”

“I remember you saying, back when we hung out in the treehouse, how Mari’s cookies have more love baked into them than yours. I remember a lot of times where you would say how much more impressive Mari was than you at things. When she made those cookies, you said her baking was better. When you both came back home with test grades or report cards, you always said her scores were more impressive than yours. You said you could never hope to reach her level of artistic talent the first time we heard her play piano and when we made the flower crowns.

“Mari was really wonderful, a-and I’m really sorry if it isn’t my place to say this, but-“

Once more, he gulps so hard you can hear it.

“I don’t agree.

“Mari’s cookies were AMAZING, but so were yours. You wouldn’t make them as often as she did, but they had just as much love baked into them. Especially for the ones where one or a few of us helped you make it, or, if we were lucky, when both of you made them together.

“Mari might’ve gotten better grades than you, and she might’ve been the one that was going to cram school, but I didn’t forget the times when Kel would brag about his genius of a brother. And it was you that would always teach and tutor us when you could. And I know you probably don’t like them very much anymore based on how you talked about them earlier, but you still managed to get all those trophies, right?

“And there’s no doubt that Mari was a phenomenal musician, and she was an absolute natural when it came to making beautiful flower crowns. She was better than she ever knew. But even with how much you struggled with your flower crown, you never gave up. You persisted, and you managed to make one that we all loved! Not to mention what you made today, which I think also looks fantastic!”

Your bracelets from earlier glisten in the setting sun, sitting proudly on the nightstand as witnesses to this event.

“And then there was also how good of a job you did at presenting the food you made! I know you say you get a lot of help with that, especially Mari, but it still always looked so amazing! And you still came up with the ideas for them! And I remember how Mari would say you were selling yourself short with how much you did in making it look good!

“Plus, I heard from Kel that you picked up piano yourself, and he says you’re great at it! A-And I think… I think Mari would agree.”

…You can only hope.

“I really do think you’re creative, Hero. And strong. And kind. And you’ve helped me and everyone else so much. And I’m so grateful for all of it and I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore but I-“

Basil takes a moment to recuperate.

“I-I don’t mean to say all of this to try to make Mari seem less incredible than she was. I just mean that… I think you’re incredible, too, Hero. And you’ve helped me so much. I wish I got to tell you as much sooner.”

A moment of silence passes. You are so completely, frustratingly clueless as to how to respond to any of this. Thankfully, as you keep mentally scrambling for anything to say, Basil seems to not take any offense to your silence.

“I… I’m still kinda blown away by how comfortable we got, I guess. I’m sorry for how I was when you first got here. I forgot how nice you were, haha. You’re-”

His breathing hitches. He sniffles, taking a moment before continuing.

“Thank you.”

His voice regains its watery warble and repeats something from earlier, after a beat of shuffling in your embrace and clinging extra hard to your shirt.

“You were always the big brother I never had.”

In response, you waste no time squeezing him, sinking further into each other. You finally have a response.

“I still am, Basil. I always will be.”

Between sniffles, he hums affirmably in response. His approval emboldens you.

"You... weren't there for it, but I made a promise the night we stayed at your house. I... I promised we weren't leaving each other this time… And I reiterated that promise to you earlier."

"..."

"A-And I think even with everything... maybe even because of everything... I want to stick to that promise now more than ever.

“I don’t wanna do this just for Mari’s sake. I know it’s what she’d want, and I want to fulfill that for her with all of my heart. But it’s also what I want. I want to be by everyone’s side, because I love you four. Because you four are family to me.

You look him dead in his misty eyes. “Because you are family to me. And if none of this changes that, I can assure you that nothing ever will.

"I don't forgive you, Basil. Not yet. But I will. I will, and it won't be because I have to or feel like I have to."

He's on the verge of sobbing once more. His tears have been exhausted, reminding you to get him some water once you finish your thought, but his shaking body leads you to instinctively wrap him in another hug. Once more, you are hugging a frail, 16 year old kid who wasn’t ready for things he never should've had to go through. You are cherishing your friend, the little sibling you both never and always had. Because that is the role of the big brother. It is the role you have chosen for yourself. It is the role you will emphatically maintain for as long as they need it and for even longer, because you will lose an arm and a leg and quite possibly your life before giving up on a single one of them.

Basil shakes in anticipation, in fear, in silent awe of what's to come and of the future your next few words represent. He still can’t believe this is happening, that this is real.

Give it to him, and continue giving. For you are Hero. And Hero is a giver. Terrible and selfless.

"It'll be because I want to."