Chapter Text
Step one, you say we need to talk
He walks, you say, “Sit down, it's just a talk”
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
The bow slides gracefully across the violin strings, and a harmonious melody rings out. Only the barest tremor betrays the way the boy’s hands tremble as he plays, audible not to his inexpert ear, only to hers. She sighs, and the piano stops, the violin taking a moment to catch up as he realizes he’s done something wrong again.
“Let’s try again, okay, Sunny?” his sister says, flashing her winning smile. “You just need to play with a little more confidence. I know you can do it!”
If the words came more easily, he would explain—but she turns back to the piano and begins the song again before he can gather his courage. He grumbles quietly to himself, but picks up his part and plays. He focuses on the lilting melody, playing louder, fuller, in the hopes that it will make her proud. A few bars pass without comment, and then he feels it again. A sharp jolt that rings up and down his arm—
Like the thrill of fear in the dark.
Like the sting of a spider’s bite.
Like the last breath underwater.
Pain and fear collide in a split second and his hand slips, this mistake obvious to both of them. He stops and lets the violin fall to his side, a tear springing to his eye. He was supposed to be good at this, wasn’t he? Why did it hurt so much?
Mari frowns as she sees him stop. “Sunny...” she admonishes, her voice gentle but with a firm undertone. “We need to get this right. Come on, let’s just get through it once and then we can stop for lunch! How does that sound?”
She isn’t looking for an answer to her question. Again she turns to play, expecting him to follow suit. He lets the teardrop run down his face, staring at nothing, his mind overcome with tiny annoyances—his sore hands, his unsteady play, her unnoticed ignorance of everything that plagued him. The fact that these things shouldn’t bother him so only makes him angrier.
The first measure of his part comes and goes, and still the violin hangs from his hand listlessly. She stands from the bench, and he can’t stand to look up and face her. He only listens as she scolds him for his inattention, reminding him that the recital is in just a few hours— as if he weren’t already frustrated at being so unprepared —and fails to see the fury and sorrow welling up within him at all of it. He listens until he can no longer.
Then he runs.
She runs after him.
Why? Why now, of all times, does he have to be so stubborn? He never used to act like this, she remembers as she takes the stairs two at a time—before this year, he never showed much emotion, and it seemed impossible to upset him. She used to pride herself on how good she was at reading his slight changes in expression, every tilt of his head or quirk of his lips a page in an open book to her. But the way he had acted lately was so unfamiliar.
“Sunny, wait!” she calls, grabbing his arm at the top of the stairs. He jerks out of her grip like a wounded animal, the violin dangling from his other hand precariously, his eyes wild, his breathing haggard. He looks furious, and...
...exhausted. In a single moment it clicks. It’s as if she’s seeing a completely different person: the rough red scars running down his hands, the lines running down his face from crying, the way he looks at her as if he’s never seen her before. The same way she looks at him. She stops in place, her outstretched hand falling to her side, and tries to calm down. They can get through this. She just needs to explain that after the recital, everything will be okay. She starts a sentence, and—
He raises the violin overhead with both hands and hurls it downstairs.
Why did he do that?
He blinks back tears and sees the broken silhouette at the bottom of the stairs. Shattered wood and broken strings lie in a crumpled heap, shattered beyond repair. Mari was shouting now, but the words don’t make it through. Two emotions bubble deep inside again.
He is angry at himself. How could he have done that? All of his friends’ hard work, their months of dedication to give him a chance to prove himself, to open up to them through music—all for nothing, less than nothing. Basil had said he would come and visit that morning; surely he would find the ruins of their gift. Surely he would hate Sunny. Then Hero would stop by, taking up Mari’s standing invitation to prepare lunch, and he and Kel would encounter Basil in shock. Surely they would hate Sunny too. Last would be Aubrey, hoping to catch a ride with their family to the recital, but finding like the others that her friend had destroyed the violin they’d worked tirelessly to pay for. Surely she would hate Sunny. They all would.
And as for Mari...well, perhaps the others didn’t have to know. He could pretend it had been an accident, that he had dropped it while going downstairs that morning, simply too excited to practice the piece they had all wanted so desperately to hear. It was a good excuse, even if their consolations would ring painfully false. But Mari knew the truth; she had seen him decide in a moment of wrath that none of his friends mattered more to him than a moment of release from this minor pain. She would tell them what had happened, of course. Surely she would hate him most of all.
But as she keeps talking, going on about what a terrible thing he’d done (as if he didn’t know), the anger burning deep within him fades and dulls. It is still there, still powerful, but it subsides as a new wave of emotion washes over him. He tries desperately to push it down, knowing he should only hate himself for this horrible act of impulse, but it overwhelms him nonetheless. It is something he’s never felt before, but in his drowning depths of misery it becomes something to grab onto and hold tight to. He feels angry, again...at her .
Every complaint he’s started in his mind, only to turn it back on himself...every unbidden feeling of annoyance, growing into anger, growing into utter rage...held back under his frustration at his own lack of tolerance, his own lack of confidence...
It breaks past every defense.
Sunny stares into his sister’s eyes for the first time, and in a single moment of clarity, he feels suddenly with great certainty that he must leave now or he’ll make things even worse. He steps toward the stairs—but she blocks his path. She yells again, and suddenly he can hear her perfectly. Every word tenses his sore muscles and inundates the flood of fury within him.
“I’m not finished talking!” she snaps, standing between him and the stairs. Something moves behind her, but as quickly as he notices it, the thought slips from his mind amid the tumult of emotion. She speaks again, audibly trying to calm her voice, to get through to him. “Please...don’t run away, just stay here, okay? Talk to me. I—I know it’s been tough, the last few days, but you can’t just push away all your problems.”
The soft words of understanding simply fail to register. He hears them clearly, but all that reaches deeper into his state of violent resentment are the coldest undertones. I can’t trust you alone. You threw away our gift. This is all your fault.
She relaxes for a moment, and he thinks for a moment that he can escape. He lunges for the stairs, hoping to run down and gather the ruined violin in his arms before anyone can see, not thinking of Mari, not thinking of the flicker of movement behind her. She is quicker than him, blocking his path again, placing weight on her bad right knee for a moment. He doesn’t see it.
He loses all sense and pushes her down the staircase.
She feels weightlessness, and a pull.
She remembers diving into a lake without hesitation. Water billowing up around her, light streaming down, as she reached for the shadow of her brother’s hand. Dragging him back to the surface against the relentless pull of the depths, bursting into tears as she realized he would be okay.
It’s irrational of her, she knows, but she can’t help but think...
Is this really how he repays me?
She overflows with shame and anger for thinking such a thing, but the intrusive thought refuses to leave her be. It is only joined by another, deriding her for the anger she can’t suppress.
You’re just a terrible older sister, aren’t you?
As she crashes against the hard wooden stairs, as her leg twists at an unnatural angle, as unimaginable pain spikes through her mind, as she slips into senseless sleep, her mind runs over with hate, and for half a second she wonders if she deserves everything that’s coming to her.
One second passes at the top of the stairs, lasting an eternity. The ringing in Sunny’s ears subsides, and he expects to hear a sickening crunch, the sound of a battered body crushing on top of shards of sharp wood. Instead, he hears a soft thud and an exclamation of pain. His eyes refocus and he dares to look down to see...
Mari on the floor just past the violin, and someone else below her. He’s mostly covered by the body lying on top of him— her chest rises and falls lightly with a breath —but from his shock of blond hair and the flower clip lying where it’s fallen beside him, it’s clearly Basil. He must have come to visit early.
Sunny brushes off the question that presses at the back of his mind— what if he hadn’t? —and stumbles down the steps in a daze, taking care not to fall, but hurrying nonetheless. He arrives in time to help Basil carefully lift Mari off of him, and they set her on the ground beside the ruined instrument. She seems almost peaceful in her sleep, breathing softly, her expression calm and her eyes shut...but her leg is bent the wrong way, and her body is covered in bruises. Sunny stumbles back as he realizes the extent of the damage he’s done. Seeing the remains of the violin beside her only pierces him deeper. He founders and falls to the floor, unable to handle the sight of his sister.
“W-what do we do?” he hears Basil say. He doesn’t reply for a long time. “S-S-Sunny, please...”
Eventually, he senses his friend sit down beside him. He can’t help but hear him whispering, over and over again...
“Everything will b-be okay. Everything will be okay. Everything w-will be okay. E-everything will be o-okay. Everything will b-be...”
Sunny’s eyes flutter open, his mind graced by a moment of lucidity.
What is Basil talking about? Of course things aren’t okay. Mari is lying right there in front of them, unconscious and injured. She needs help. She needs...
Sunny stands and runs again, sprinting with all the strength he has left towards Hero’s house.