Chapter Text
Aubergine “Aubrey” O’Falon usually wasn’t so forgiving. It wasn’t everyday you find out that your two of your best friends from childhood staged an accidental murder as a suicide, and you’d think that’d be something that’d be far, far away from the possibility of forgiveness.
You’d think wrong, apparently.
It’s been about a week since Aubrey and the others were told the truth about Mari’s death and Sunny’s already moved away. As pissed as she was that Sunny’s not here to have a real talk with her about it, she gets it. She gets the whole situation. She likely wouldn’t have if they had told her even a week sooner. What Sunny did to Mari was in the heat of the moment, what she nearly did to Basil was in the heat of the moment. She’d be a hypocrite if she thought any bad on it.
She fidgets with the belt loops on her shorts as she walks through town, heading to Basil’s house. If she can’t talk to Sunny, she can at least talk to Basil, right? She’s not nervous, not at all. She’s thought this whole conversation though over and over again, hopefully to get Basil to accept her forgiveness.
Aubrey hops up onto Basil’s porch and knocks, trying to hold down a little smile and seem serious.
She is serious.
Instead of Basil opening the door, his caretaker did. As expected.
“Hey Polly, can Basil talk right now? It’s important.”
“Oh! I’m sorry but Basil is out right now,” Polly’s smile is soft, she seems happy that Basil’s not couped up in the house like usual.
“Do you know where he went?”
“I’m not exactly sure, he went with Kel. But I will be sure to let him know you stopped by.”
“Alright.. Thank you, Polly.” Just as quickly as the door opened, it shut.
That was uneventful. Aubrey spun back around and went back down the street, messing with her belt loops again. She was so certain Basil would be home. It wouldn’t be too big of a deal to go and find him, but she also didn’t want to upset him by tracking him down.
Naturally, she decided to go ask Kim. She always gets Kim’s input on things like this. She seems to be at the park with the others, at least someone’s where they usually are today.
“Kim! Come over here, I need to talk to you for a second!” Aubrey waves Kim over, away from the rest of the group so they can speak alone, “Hey, have you seen Basil around? I’m trying to tell him that I forgive him for the whole ‘hiding Mari’s dea-’” She realizes that she was getting a little too detailed a little too late.
“Well, I saw him with Kel by OtherMart,” Kim’s voice drops to a whisper, “And the whole ‘hiding Mari’s..’ what thing?”
“Y’know, Death? Thing?” Aubrey didn’t know how to explain it, it was a strange situation to say the least.
“No, I don’t know the whole ‘hiding death’ thing.” Kim tended to ignore when Aubrey slips too much information at once, obviously not right now. Aubrey knew she messed up big time, her and her big mouth.
Since it was clear she couldn’t hide it, between her already having said it and it being Kim she’s talking to, she might as well spill the whole situation.
Telling one person couldn’t hurt anyone. Unlike Aubrey, Kim can actually keep more than one secret at a time.
Kim didn’t seem half as shocked as Aubrey was first finding out. Kim also wasn’t very close to Sunny, Basil, or Mari back then. She didn’t fully understand.
Kim slowly nodded, “So you’re looking for Basil so you can forgive him for.. covering up Mari’s death as a suicide?”
“Yea.. You make it sound so simple.”
“I don’t mean to.”
Aubrey shook her head, it really is that simple. That was all there was to it. Sunny killed Mari, by accident, and Basil covered it up to protect him. Open and shut case, point A to point B.
Now to get point A.ubery to point B.asil and hopefully get past all this. Try and fix the past four years.
“You said OtherMart, right?” Aubrey abruptly turned to leave, only waiting on Kim’s confirmation before leaving.
“Yea. We’re talking about this later though, okay?”
Aubrey had already taken off. OtherMart wasn’t too far from the park, just down the sidewalk.
She shivered at the drop of temperature in OtherMart. Stores were always so cold for no reason at all. It didn’t take long to get used to but Aubrey’s always found it annoying.
Dammit, where are they..? Aubrey went back to fiddling with her belt loops as she walked down each aisle, pulling at them and twisting them around her finger, occasionally pricking herself with her nails by accident.
Maybe someone here’s seen them? She goes into the candy store, they most likely stopped by there if they came in.
“Hi! Welcome in!” The girl at the counter smiles and waves at Aubrey before going back to fixing one of her buns.
“Hi, have you seen Kel or Basil around here?”
“Oh! They were just in here about.. thirty minutes ago? Sorry!”
“It’s alright..” Aubrey sighed, thanking the lady and leaving. She just missed them, again. Are they avoiding her? No, they don’t even know she’s looking for them. Besides, why would they avoid her?
Okay, they had plenty of reasons to avoid her. But that’s not the issue.
It might be, actually.
Now’s not the time to think about that, only about getting to Basil.
It may take a while, though.
That’s fine, they’ll slow down eventually! Not a big deal if it’s tonight or tomorrow.
Not at all!
Actually, it may be a good thing if they’re hanging out the day before Aubrey brings such a heavy topic to Basil’s doorstep.
They must be having a lot of fun!
And Basil will be so happy to have such fun and forgiveness with Kel and then Aubrey’s forgiveness back-to-back!