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For a long time, Sunny’s whole world was succinctly kept in the few walls that were his house.
There was his mum, there was his dad, and his sister Mari.
Mari was much of Sunny’s life, almost half of him now. She knew what he liked, and what he didn’t, and he knew what she did and didn’t as well.
Her face wrinkles at the nose only when she’s very mad, she’ll raise her eyebrows very high if she’s displeased. For all that she is very responsible, she loves to leave her stuff piled up and never in drawers.
All this, he pretends he doesn’t know.
It comes with being siblings, he thinks; it’s only natural he knows when she’s angry or frustrated, but to actually ever tell her how he knows would be the biggest of betrayals, like revealing a magician's trick.
She knows his tells as well, and sometimes she says things that allude to the fact, like he wants him to know that she is part of the sibling contract, even if she works in another branch and has other benefits.
The point is. Sunny’s whole life is on this floor.
For a long time, that is just Mari.
Sunny was five when his life expanded, just a little bit.
He’d been noticing his sister being brighter and a little bit more tired lately. He didn’t say anything but made her braids before they went down to breakfast.
“Finish eating quick Sunny!” She had her mouth almost full. “I have a surprise for you!”
Sunny liked surprises, not all of them, but he liked them so far. Mari’s surprises were almost always a new game or activity, mum’s surprises were always food, and dads were almost always toys for him; sometimes it was bigger things, like Mari’s piano.
She took his hands and with a twirl, she opened the front door.
Sunny stood silent on the front lawn as Mari called out to the neighbor's house through the fence.
Like a magic incantation, a kid Mari’s age came out of the house. He had spiky hair, and a small smile already drawn. He looked like he was going to introduce himself - there is a very ancient art to knowing what people will do next, and Sunny was fairly good at it -, and just as he extended his hand a loud voice was heard.
“What! Are you making friends without me? That is sooo not fair!” Sunny lowers his gaze to a much more comfortable height: his.
A little kid like him is just a few feet further from the three of them, he is tan, has unruly maroon hair, and big eyes. He’s been told he has big eyes as well, his mum says that when he was born he didn’t cry much, but instead observed everything with care.
The little kid stomped his way through and extended his hand high. “I’m Kel! This is my brother Hero!” Mari chuckled. “Pleased to meet you Kel, my name is Mari, and this is my brother Sunny, I hope you get along well.” Kel’s hand was still held up high; with an exasperated sigh, he said, “What? Don’t you know you should high-five a person who’s as cool as you?” He took Sunny’s wrist and pressed both their hands together. “ Like this!”
Clap
Sunny’s world has been expanded in what seemed a cosmical amount by the time he’s seven:
His world is as wide as his town now, he’d gone to the park, to Kel’s house - It’s Kel’s house for him, even though Mari always says it's Hero’s house -, the Othermark, the piano room, Ginos, Fix it and Hobeez.
Every part of his world was like a different country with its own rules; don’t make a ruckus or stay too long at the Othermark or Fix it, eat all the food on your plate at Kel’s, don’t talk to adults you don’t know at the park.
These parts of his world were easy to understand, Sunny had been perfecting the art of expectancy for a while now. The most difficult, fun, and unpredictable thing about his world was people.
Most of his world was still Mari, as much as he was hers. When the exterior world grew tired, they had each other, in what seemed like the same-but-not experience.
Now, his world also had Hero. Hero was amazing at most things, he was never rude and understood social cues perfectly, and although he seemed a bit more nervous with him and Mari, it was never a cause of discomfort.
Kel was a surprisingly big part of his world. He took him to a lot of different places and they had what he called “adventures”. Sunny had the suspicion that Kel wanted a more active friend out of him, so he tried to talk more than usual with him.
One afternoon, on the way back from the park they heard wailing from the opposite street, a little girl was sitting in the shade.
“ Bwhaaaaaaaaaa ” Mari was the first to cross the street to check up on her. “Hello, are you lost?” The girl looked up, her face was red from crying, and she had a cute pink bow on her hair. “N-no. I’m not lost!” She sobbed once more as the rest of them came closer. “But my s-shoe is! It’s m-my favorite shoe and I lost it!” We all sat down next to her, and as Mari began to pet her, she cried harder.
“It’ll be okay, we’ll look for it together.”
Aubrey was a nice addition to his world, he would say. She expanded it differently; apparently, they went to the same school, they just hadn’t noticed her because she was shy. The others were very skeptical when she said so because aside from her crying the first time they met, Aubrey has been nothing if not extroverted, unapologetic, and energetic.
Sunny believes her though, just because sometimes she looks like she’s just expanded her world by millions of miles when she looks at them, and he understands the feeling.
Aubrey fights with Kel a lot, which annoys everyone, but Sunny thinks they both enjoy it more than they want to say. She also likes to spend a lot of time with Mari; her sister had told him when they were alone that Aubrey just wanted someone like her to look up to, her exact words had something to do with girlhood but Sunny can’t remember what exactly.
Sometimes, even if Mari is busy, Aubrey will come to their house just to talk for a while. Not to go play or do something, just to talk. It’s new, it’s weird, and he likes it.
Unavoidably, they’ll run out of things to talk about, and she’ll just go to the piano room with Mari because they can’t just be silent around each other.
He is nine when Basil, his house, and the treehouse are added to his world.
Basil was introduced to them by Aubrey, who apparently took a support class with him, and is the most unpredictable of them all. Sunny quite likes that, it’s the most interesting part about people, after all.
Mari disagrees with him, but that’s just Mari; everyone behaves around her because she seems so put together that they all reflect on how much not-put-together they are. He says as much to her, and she laughs but doesn’t deny it.
She’s been spending more time with Hero, studying for tests, and playing the piano. She’s still at home most of the time, but not really.
Basil is very passive about things but will do most things they suggest with a lot of effort, and from time to time, he’ll say something very blunt and insensitive, but will correct himself pretty fast.
Sunny likes that about him; he can never quite know what he’ll do. In the same breath, unexpectedly, Basil becomes his best friend.
The second person he tells things to, or sometimes even the first, the one he can be silent with, can talk, play, draw, not see for a week and still be on good terms.
Basil sometimes had a hard time overthinking situations, he could tell. When they got together, he would often rant about how he had screwed something up, or so.
Sunny wasn’t quite sure what about that had pushed him into suggesting it, but something about seeing memories as they were in a realistic lens made Sunny propose getting him a camera for his birthday.
Click
By the time he was twelve, Sunny’s world had reduced to his house. Just the house. No fun people he could try to understand anymore. He couldn’t trust himself with that.
His world became his bedroom, then his bed, then nothing at all. Just white space.
At the same time, Omori’s world began at twelve.
Click
Sunny’s world was fluctuating in size now. Like the sea, the number of things he knew, people he talked to, and places he could go, never stayed the same now. Could he still look Aubrey in the eyes if he accepted this? Could he hold Kel’s hand?
He didn’t know.
He was once a master of the art of predicting his friends but it seems art evolves with no care for the artist. If he could still call himself that.
I need to tell you something
Sunny’s world was himself, and however small he wanted himself to be.
Kel was not having the great time everyone thought he was having. At least, he thinks people think that. He doesn’t always have the strongest social awareness but he’s pretty sure he’s been labeled as the easygoing one of the group.
Kel would disagree, the main reason being that he, even if no one has said anything about it, has put in too much effort to be easygoing.
He’s worked for everything he’s had at this point. He knows it hasn’t been easy since Mari’s death, and it isn’t as if he didn’t cry his fair share, but someone has to keep walking forward at some point.
He’s put effort into being kinder to his brother, who, as perfect as he is, still sometimes needs help to get out of bed. He’s put in effort in calling him when he’s in college, and not getting upset when doesn’t pick up.
He’s put a lot of effort into understanding why Aubrey and Basil’s relationship was the way that it was, he might even say that it took a lot of effort not to actually punch either of them, for separate reasons, sometimes.
He’d put effort into making Sunny get out of his house -even if had been a little late-, and making him see the town once more before he leaves.
Kel wouldn’t ever say he’s unhappy or suffering because of the effort he puts into these kinds of things, he would even say that he’s been handsomely rewarded, having Aubrey and Basil, and most of all Sunny (who he didn’t even know he missed that much, but apparently he really needed a good listener), back in his life.
All of this, however, doesn’t change the fact that he’s very tired, and would like to stop trying for a bit.
It all ends in three days , he’s been reminding himself, to be patient, and so and so.
But here, with the truth laid bare on top of a hospital bed, as if it were a medical operation, and Sunny was explaining the procedure, Kel realizes that this would never, could never, be succinctly put an end date. There would never be such a thing as an expiry date for Mari.
Kel finds this newfound knowledge deeply frustrating. No matter how much effort he puts in, this will still be an issue.
He’s so deep in his frustration that he only vaguely sees Hero slap Sunny, he hears it before he sees it actually, and is then followed by Aubrey out of the room.
He can still hear their footsteps due to the quietness of the hospital.
For a moment, Kel just stands there.
Sunny has moved to be next to Basil, who is sobbing, and they both look horrible.
He doesn’t know what to say. He can’t say he forgives them, it doesn’t feel like he has the authority to, being the most unaffected one.
He blurts out: “How are you?” Which is very dumb, considering they’re at a hospital to see them.
Sunny takes Basil’s hand, and smiles just a little, which is not only a lot for him, but also probably painful considering his injuries. “I think we’re going to be fine, Kel.”
And Kel’s a bit ashamed about it, but when the raven boy says that, a weight is lifted from his shoulders. Not because he truly believes in what Sunny said, but because he doesn’t have to worry about them that much.
“How are you, Kel?” Sunny’s cheek is still red.
“I’m good… Could be better, you know, after all this…” He walks towards the two to see Basil better. “I think you reopened a can of worms.” He says it without thinking, and immediately registers it as a bad choice of words, but before he can correct himself Basil says, “It had to be done, I think… I don’t think either of us would’ve survived if we didn’t tell you.”
He knows that. In the back of his mind, he might’ve always known that there was a different pressure on the two of them that was only relieved now; it’s been there ever since Sunny, as thalassophobic and unable to swim as he’s always been, threw himself without a second thought to get Basil in the lake. He didn’t do it to get him out, just to drown together.
Sunny takes his hand softly, but doesn’t meet his eyes as he says, “Thank you for staying.”
“I’m always here if you need anything, Sunny.” That much is true.
When Hero gets Basil and Sunny out of the water, as a studying doctor, he knows what signs to look for: fatal or non-fatal first, vomiting, coughing, etc. It had all been okay and it was just a minor scare, but he was immediately thrown back to the first time Sunny drowned.
He had coughed for what seemed like hours for a child, wheezing and not fully conscient. It was terrifying.
When Sunny tells them the truth years later, it feels much like being pushed into a cold lake.
He slaps him, even though he wants to punch him in the stomach and see him hurl a bit. They stay there for a second, Hero contemplating what he’s just done, Sunny bracing for a second hit. His hand stings, it is the only thing he can actually feel.
He storms out, and it feels wrong to stomp so loudly in a hospital, he thinks his seniors at Uni would scold him, but he can’t find it in him to care.
He vaguely remembers what stage two of drowning looks like and feels like it applies to him; moderate impairment: difficulty breathing and/or disoriented, fully alert.
His ears are still full of water, he can’t even hear himself.
Hero’s breathing is labored when he gets outside of the hospital, and simply, like a bubble breaking, just with “What the hell was that.” from Aubrey behind him, all the water exits his ears and his throat doesn’t feel as tense.
He turns to see her, and she’s breathing heavily as well, her cheeks are red, her mouth, frown, and nose are scrunched up, and if Hero squints, he thinks he can see tears forming.
“How could he?” He didn’t mean to say it, but he can’t care for now. “Just for-for a petty argument? He should’ve just… controlled his emotions! Like any rational person!”
He had been doing the rational person bit for a really long time now, and it was fine. He would not tell anyone it was good, but it was a social agreement that for peace to exist, there needed to be control of everyone’s emotions.
Hero remembers when Mari died, that it felt like he was never taught how to swim properly; he’d been flapping his arms on and on, trying to float, grabbing everything and anything to keep his head above the water, but eventually, he sank. The water was cold and dark and all-consuming, and it felt like he was just going deeper. Even after being saved by a lifeguard, whenever he pondered too much about Mari, a bit of him felt as if he was dipping his feet in a frozen lake: couldn’t he have seen the signs? Couldn’t he have loved her better? Could he have seen that she wanted to kill herself if he had paid more attention?
The truth leaves him with a bitter aftertaste, and he feels as if now he should be able to say “ No, actually, I couldn’t .” but it’s still hard. Turns out he got his feet cold and wet just because of a lie.
They both sit on the steps of the hospital, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Aubrey watching him closely, curiously. “I mean, I don’t think that bothers me that much.”
“What?”
“I- I mean, I’m heartbroken, I’m mad they didn’t tell us,” Her hands clench and unclench on her skirt. “But I don’t think I can blame Sunny for expressing human emotion at eleven years old.”
“I mean yes, I guess, but he- he killed her! How could he- he- just because…”
He trembles, slightly, and he turns to see Aubrey, he can tell he’s not being fully coherent, but he desperately wants someone to tell him that they understand.
Her face is completely red, nostrils flaring, face wet, and it reminds him of when they first met her, crying for something lost. He can’t quite remember what it was, only that Aubrey had been so frustrated at losing it, face scrunched up just as it is now.
“I’m not sure if I forgive them for covering it up. I miss her a lot,” just the admission of it makes him tear up a bit as well. “But I’m very tired, and I want to have these friendships back.”
She looks angry. She looks sad. And Hero vaguely thinks that maybe peace is overrated, because emotion has given Aubrey everything she is, and Hero finds solace in that, not peace, but companionship.
“I miss her too,” He turns to her, not too much, because if he does, he’ll see the hospital behind him and that's too much too soon. “I’m glad I came back.”
Sunny was away from him again, he’d collapsed thirty minutes after Kel left, apparently a mix of his new injuries, anemia, and malnutrition. The nurses that took him away seemed a little more panicked than Basil would’ve liked.
If he were to be in front of a jury, Basil would plead guilty to all charges against Sunny.
This may need a bit of backtracking to get the full testimony, but the point of the story is that Basil never had friends before he met Sunny.
He's spent a lot of his life with his grandma, at home, both being cared for by her and caring for her. She’s taught him the most important things by the time he’s nine, even if he’s not lived enough to put most of her teachings into action. This he knows:
You must care for things, people, or plants, with patience, with a loyalty to the fruits they will bear when the time is right.
Biscuits are always better homemade.
Confiding secrets should seldom be done, only with precious plants or friends.
There are only a few fruits that are ripe year-round.
Not all plants need the same sunlight and water.
He felt very inadequate and weird when he was with the other boys at his school, they didn’t like any of the things he liked, and were much too loud for him. It sometimes feels like in all her lessons, his grandma forgot to teach him about fun.
That’s not true, obviously, because he’s played table games with her and her friends, and she sometimes put animated movies for him, about lost cities, Christmas adventures, and impossible lovers, and he thinks that had to be her way of teaching him about fun.
When he met Aubrey, Hero, Kel, Mari, and Sunny, he half expected them to also be all about loudness and adventures. He isn’t wrong, but he is surprised to see Sunny sit down while the others play catch. He vividly remembers this, because it was the first time he felt belonging somewhere other than his house.
“Aren’t you bored here, Sunny?” He asked the boy, who was watching the others from the comfort of Mari’s picnic blanket.
“Why would I be bored? You’re here, aren't you?”
It was no admission of friendship or loyalty, just connection. It was no wonder how they became close friends after.
This has all been the motive of the crimes, now comes the actual scene:
He came into their house because he heard shouting, and thought he could help.
There was a nauseating cracking sound when she fell, and if he didn’t think about it enough, he could pretend it was the sound of the violin.
Sunny and him made her comfortable in her bed; she would’ve needed rest to recover from that.
Basil was the first that came to understand she was not waking up, and they’ll all blame Sunny, who wasn’t at fault.
Sunny wasn’t responding either, but he moved, and when Basil asked, he helped him hang her in the backyard tree.
End scene.
The jury isn’t allowed to let different, minor crimes affect Basil’s charges, but he still believes showing his photos to Sunny after Mari died was part of the crime.
His penance for this crime was paid with four years of solitude, and regret. It’s a lot of pain and loneliness, but when Sunny follows him into the water, and Hero saves them, when he begins to feel like he may be worthy of being something to Sunny, he thinks that spring may have come early, there was something blooming there.
His grandma dies the next day, and he can’t find anything in him more than deep sadness. There is no frustration, no regret; he saw this coming, but it still hurt. Who would listen to him now? He suddenly had trouble remembering the exact amount of flour her biscuits needed, and it felt like the worst betrayal to not have her etched perfectly on him. He’ll forget bits of her and he won’t even notice.
He was alone.
Next testimony:
Sunny’s come to meet him, he waited all night for him.
Basil couldn’t tell if Sunny was angry or not at him.
He panicked, they fought, or at least that’s what he thought they were doing.
Sunny didn’t fight back. There was blood on his hands, and he accidentally stained Hero’s t-shirt.
End scene.
There was no jury. It was just Sunny and him now. Sunny had confessed for the two of them, which was both a relief and a bit insensitive of him. He was leaving soon, he could put this behind him, but Basil couldn’t. Maybe that was his punishment.
“Do you hate me?” He asked when Kel left.
“I don’t think I could hate you, Basil.” His hand was cold all over, and when he raised his head to meet Sunny’s face, he regretted it immediately. Sunny’s eye was taped all over, his head also covered with bandages. He wanted to explain to his friend that he should hate him.
“I did that-I-I- You won’t see from that eye again, will you?” Sunny let go of his hand to touch his cheek.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It throbs.”
“I don’t think they’ll forgive us, Sunny” He looks weak just standing, and Basil wonders how no one has noticed he isn’t in his hospital room.
“That’s okay, sometimes you have to cut a bit of the tree for it to grow stronger.”
Aubrey is punching a tree by the time the sun falls. Her knuckles are torn and bleeding a bit, she can feel them aching, but she only stops to let out a frustrated scream.
She doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s not sad anymore. She’ll always grieve, but she’s not sad. She’s also not mad at Basil and Sunny, she can’t be. She’s just…
She wants to smash her head against a wall, freeze in a glacier, jump off of a mountain. She doesn’t want to die, and she doesn’t want to be injured, Aubrey just wants to feel something akin to what’s going on in her head.
The day before all this had been good, Aubrey had felt warm and safe again. They’d gone to the old treehouse, chatted with some of her friends, and she’d even talked alone with Sunny like she used to.
She realizes that the thing she needed the most out of this, was talking about Mari.
They had all distanced when she died, leaving her so lonely and spiteful, but more than anything, she now understands that she needed someone to talk to about her. She wanted to tell people anecdotes from when she and Mari had gone to a spa day, wanted to hear Hero’s stories about Mari and him on the beach; she desperately wanted to remember her correctly.
She hated when the funeral came and everyone just said things along the lines of “she was so kind to everyone, such a gentle soul”, which was true but, someone had to go on remembering the Mari that was awfully competitive, that teased Hero, that stole Sunny’s candy.
“Heyo!” she turned to see Kel behind her. “How are you holding up?”
He looks fine, he looks like it’s just an everyday check and something about it angers her.
“I’m doing just fine , can’t you tell?” She knows Kel is probably here to confront her about why she stormed out of the hospital. He’s the kind of person who sticks with his friends no matter what and talks things through.
“You’re doing better than I thought actually,” He comes closer and sits against the tree. “At least you’re punching a tree and not a person.”
“Yeah-well, that was Hero, wasn’t it?” It’s her first instinct to say hurtful things, but she doesn’t mean this one. She likes Hero, she understands why he stormed out first.
Thankfully, Kel doesn’t rise to the bait.
“I know you went after him to see how he was doing.” He wasn’t doing great, but neither was she. “And I know It’ll be hard to see Sunny and Basil after this,” Kel was building up to a request, and it was annoying her thoroughly. “But Basil said he’d like to talk to us again tomorrow, and I think we should go.”
She actually has no issue with that. Aubrey thinks that Kel is under the impression that she’s beyond mad at both of them, which isn’t the case, but she won’t go out of her way to deny it either.
“Will Sunny be there?” She wants to talk to him. He looked so alone and tired.
“Uh... I don’t think so,” Kel scratches his head. “He passed out after you left, and he still has to go through one more operation to-t-to remove his eye. You know. Because it’s too damaged.”
“What?”
“Y-yeah, they said it risked infection if they let it be, so they’d remove it, and in a few years he could get a prosthetic.”
“I mean, but does it… Like, does it hurt? Sunny didn’t look like he was in pain.” Kel frowned at this. “Obviously it hurts,” Aubrey sat down next to him; she felt like she was being reprimanded. By Kel of all people. “Basil told me Sunny said it throbbed, and hurt.”
“Did Basil apologize to Sunny?”
“Why would I know?”
“I dunno, you’re the one that came here with almighty kindness, knowledge, and shit, thought you’d be here to tell me what I should do.” She means all of this as an insult, and also as a plea.
“Oh, c’mon, even if I did know, you’d do your own thing.” He laughs and it seems a bit forced. “Truth is, I don’t know what to do either,” This all feels awful. Does no one know what they’re doing? “I just do what feels right and if it doesn’t turn alright I just…try again.”
Aubrey is vaguely reminded of the hooligans, and how they’re always there for each other like Kel is saying; they waited patiently for her to come out of her house more than one time, and even though she’s fought with Kim about a bunch of things they keep coming back to fix things.
She’s bitterly reminded that no one waited for Sunny to come out of his house. This is her time to be there for him.
Hero is in front of the hospital. Again.
He is the last one to show up, just short of being fifteen minutes late. This wasn’t a coincidence, he was raised to believe that “punctual” meant “ten minutes earlier”; Kel had coaxed him out of the house, avoiding the real reason they were going out, and then, two blocks before they reached the hospital he came clean.
Hero had been thinking to himself whether he could do it or not for ten minutes. The most prevalent thought he has is no reason not to , but then again, his very big cowardly voice says, yes you can . Because when it comes down to it, Hero doesn’t want to understand what happened, like Basil is offering to explain, he doesn’t want a resolution, he just wants to push through and not hear about this again.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Aubrey says as they enter the hospital.
“I didn’t know I was coming either,” They take the elevator to the eighth floor and before they take the right turn to Basil’s room, he keeps going straight.
“Wh-Where are you going?” Aubrey has to run a bit awkwardly to catch up to him.
“We should say hi to Sunny,” He lies, it’s most probable Sunny’s sleeping, but he’s not ready for Basil yet. “No, Hero, wait-”
He opens the door to see Sunny sleeping. His frown is scrunched and he’s slightly wheezing, there are approximately four tubes attached to him. The gauze on his eye is stained with blood.
Aubrey sighs and slumps against the doorframe when she sees his shocked face. “Didn’t Kel tell you? They had to take Sunny’s eye out.”
He didn’t know, and he should’ve. It was obvious. They’d covered infections in the second year of medical school.
Sometimes things were so damaged and rotten that they had to be cut down. And then they would be replaced. Was that what Sunny was going to do? He didn’t know how to feel about that. He was angry, he was frustrated, he was mad; if he ever talks to Sunny again he’ll say he’s happy for him, of course, but there is a bitterness that extends from his tongue to his throat about the possibility of him moving on, making new friends, leaving this behind.
The nail in the coffin is that Sunny’s room is filled to the brim with plants, accompanied by get-well-soon cards, all earned in the three days he was out of the house.
“I didn’t know.” She moves one of the plants closer to Sunny, a tulip, so that it’s facing him.
“We should get going.”
Basil’s door is the same as every other door, but it’s not on every door he hesitates on knocking.
“Look, Hero,” Aubrey turns to look at him. “I know it’s been tough, I think we covered that we both miss her a lot,” overstatement. “I just want you to know that no matter- well, almost no matter- what disturbing shit Basil wants to tell us about-about Mari,” She takes a deep breath and looks him in the eyes. It’s terrifying. “I’m gonna keep being friends with both of them.”
He smiles, gently, like he’s been doing lately, small, with his eyes half closed. “I want to keep being their friend as well.”
And it’s true, but it’s not the whole truth. He wants to stay friends with the people he remembers, not Sunny and Basil now, at least not as much. It doesn’t actually matter; he’ll go back to college and come back to faraway town only to say hello every few months.
There’s a trick to doing that. If they see each other less, the more they can remain how they were when they were kids.
“I mean, sure, but will you? Will you keep being friends, I mean.” Aubrey, unfortunately, is the most changed of them. “Because you don’t look like you want to put the effort into forgiving them, a-and that’s, that’s fine , but at least be honest about it.”
It suddenly struck him that maybe he could learn a thing or two from Aubrey; like expressing feelings, trying hard things, being passionate. In school, they teach them to read the pulse and perform CPR. The trick to CPR is to do it in a steady rhythm, so they often do it according to songs, like staying alive, I need a hero , and so and so. Unluckily, Hero doesn't know many songs. He remembers vividly the ones Mari showed him, she liked waltzes, Chopin, and Bach.
Maybe that's why, if Hero tried to beat life into her it wouldn't catch. The rhythm wasn't fast enough, the song not moving enough: Hero not passionate enough.
He learned a lot of things at school. He wanted to stop knowing everything he knew. He wanted to be six again.
Then again. He’d been good enough to keep Basil and Sunny breathing the last time they drowned. He wasn’t passionate, like Aubrey, or buzzing with energy, like Kel. But it’d been enough.
Truth be told, Hero isn’t completely sure what he is, if he’s not kind, passionate, or anything else.
“I’m going to try to forgive them,” Enough is enough. “I want us to be friends again.”
They went through the door without knocking,
The world feels a lot bigger than him now. Somehow. Sunny didn’t do much, and everything followed its course, outside of what he knew. He isn’t responsible for everything that happens.
Lately, things have just been simple; his eye hurts, so Kel gives him candy, he gets tired too soon, so Aubrey will offer her lap to rest his head, his stomach rumbles, so Hero cooks something for him, he needs to just be quiet, so Basil is quiet with him.
He’s leaving in a couple of weeks, and it feels terrible to be stripped away from the things he finally can have, but his mom assured him they could come every weekend, still, he cries. Because he can.
“Let’s take a nice photo together!” Basil says at Sunny’s goodbye party. He likes candid photos, but still, he chose to spend a bit of his camera roll on this. He feels loved. Aubrey and Kel push each other to fit in the frame, and Hero tries to pacify them and promptly gives up when Sunny pats his shoulder with a deadpan.
He laughs. Because he can.