Chapter Text
At first, Basil isn’t sure if he’s having a dream or a nightmare.
“Sunny… can I tell you something?” Basil says.
“Of course!” Sunny smiles.
Basil’s sitting with Sunny on a red plaid picnic blanket. They’re alone in a field of pastel-coloured wildflowers, which sway lazily around them, below a beautiful, purple sky splattered with stars.
“It’s something really important. I… I dunno. C-can I be honest with you real quick?” Basil says.
“Yeah.” Sunny’s smile shrinks back a bit.
“Promise we’ll still be best friends after this.”
“Basil, I don’t think anything you say can change-”
“Just promise me!”
Sunny gulps, then scoots closer to Basil and holds his hand.
“I promise,” Sunny says. “Best friends, no matter what.”
“Okay,” Basil says. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and exhales slowly. “I’ve… I’ve been feeling kind of… lately I’ve…”
Sunny raises his eyebrows.
“The truth is… I like you,” Basil says.
“Oh. I like you too. Why were you scared to say that?”
Basil panics.
“No, that’s not what I meant! Like, I like-like you,” Basil says.
“I like-like you too.”
Basil slaps his forehead.
“Like!” Basil repeats. “Like, I like-like-LIKE you. Like, I really like you.”
Sunny just giggles. “Duh? I like-like-like you, too.”
Basil shoots him a serious look. “You don’t get it.”
“I don’t?” Sunny says.
“I love you.”
“I love you too. As a friend,” Sunny smiles.
Basil’s heart sinks into his stomach. It’s a nightmare, after all. He wants to cry.
“No!” Basil screams, and Sunny recoils a bit. “No, not as a friend!”
“We’re… we’re not friends?” Sunny says.
“No! I mean, yes - we are friends - it’s just… RAHHHH!” Basil digs his fingers into his hair.
“Oh,” Sunny says, letting out a sigh. “Phew. Got me worried there.”
“Like, I love you. More than anyone else in the world,” Basil says, quietly.
Sunny raises his eyebrows. “I love you too. More than anyone else.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” Basil says.
“I don’t get why you were worried.”
Basil stares at his best friend for a moment, his lips trembling. Then, he turns and looks off into the distance, hugging his knees against his chest. He can feel tears well up in his eyes.
“N-never mind,” Basil finally says. “Forget it.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Basil finally decides that it’s a nightmare.
He resigns himself to the fact that it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a dream, after all. There’s no way Sunny would be so stupid in real life.
There’s no way.
Honestly, he usually is this stupid.
A realization dawns on Basil. There’s no way he would be able to muster the same amount of courage in real life. Dreams are dreams.
He lets out a deep, heavy sigh.
Perhaps his dreams were telling him something.
Perhaps his dreams were telling him that confessing to Sunny would be a terrible mistake, after all.
Perhaps his-
Basil feels something warm wrap around him. He looks to his left. Sunny is sitting right next to him, with an arm around his shoulder.
“Basil, can I tell you something?” Sunny says.
“Y-yeah.”
“It’s something really important. Can I be honest with you?” Sunny says.
Basil feels his cheeks get a little warm. “Yeah.”
“You’re a dumbass,” Sunny says.
“Wha-”
Sunny leans in and kisses Basil on the cheek. “Mwah!”
Basil feels his cheeks get very warm. “Oh.”
“I love you,” Sunny says. “And I knew exactly what you meant.”
Basil feels his cheeks got hot. “W-what? You knew?”
“Yup. I was just teasing.”
“You knew from the first ‘I like you’?”
“Oh, Basil. I knew from ‘Can I tell you something’.”
Basil wants to cry.
“I hate you,” Basil says, and then he starts giggling. “I hate you so much.”
“I hate you too,” Sunny says. He leans in and rests his head on Basil’s shoulder.
“I love you,” Basil says. “I love you, so, so much.”
“I love you so, so, much, too,” Sunny says.
“So… we’re boyfriends now?”
“I guess. In this dream, at least.”
Reality comes crashing down onto Basil. The flowers suddenly stop swaying. The imaginary breeze comes to an abrupt halt. The stars in the sky disappear, and the entire sky turns pitch black. In the blink of an eye, they’re suddenly alone on the picnic blanket, in nothing but pure black.
“Oh. Right,” Basil says. “Forgot I was dreaming.”
“Can you… can you do me a favour?” Sunny says.
“Yeah?”
“Can you… can you tell me… the exact same thing, in real life?”
“I…”
-
*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*
Basil wakes up to the alarm on his bedside table. He immediately reaches over to silence it, without opening his eyes.
He keeps his eyes tightly shut, begging, pleading, to return to that dream world, where everything had been perfect. Where he’d finally poured his heart out to Sunny.
But the dream doesn’t return. Instead, the sun slowly rises, illuminating his bedroom until it’s so bright that he can sense the light through his eyelids.
He turns over and buries his face into his pillow, desperate to return his dreams. He replays the scene over and over in his head.
“I love you, Sunny,” he murmurs into his pillow.
It had been a good dream, after all.
🌻
“Good morning, brother!” Sunny greets Basil at his locker with a grin, casually throwing an arm around Basil’s shoulder. “Sleep well?”
Basil shivers at the familiar feeling of Sunny’s arm. “Uh… y-yeah. Pretty well, actually.”
“Oh?”
“I had a really good dream,” Basil says.
Sunny freezes in place, then slides his arm off of Basil. “Oh. That’s nice.”
“D’you sleep well?”
“Yeah… had a nightmare, though,” Sunny says, looking at the floor.
“Aww! Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s fine.”
“What… what was it about?” Basil asks.
Sunny just shakes his head. “I… I’d rather not say.”
“Oh.”
“You were in it,” Sunny says.
The two boys look at each other for a moment. Around them, students are streaming steadily towards their morning classes.
“What did you dream about?” Sunny says.
Basil hesitates.
“I… I’d rather not say, either.”