Chapter Text
Dusk is falling by the time the students of Upland Crossroads Schools arrive at Overlake Camp, but the chilly January air is charged with energy. Eager to stretch their legs after the long and bumpy bus ride north, everyone trundles out of the bus to collect their things. They crowd around, fighting for the best spots as the luggage cascades out onto the cold ground.
Kel’s neon bag sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s somehow managed to fit three days’ worth of supplies in his regular bag, which has taken on the form of a lumpy, overstuffed orange. His friends stare at him quizzically.
“Don’t look at me like that!” he exclaims with an exaggerated huff. “Admit it—you’re jealous ‘cause you have to drag your stuff up this hill.” It’s true. The trek up to their usual Cabin Twenty-Five is exponentially harder with ice-clogged luggage wheels. Sunny wonders why they’ve come in winter, instead of their school’s usual fall getaway. He tosses his flashlight to Kel—if his hands are free, he can at least make himself useful. Petulant, Kel scrunches his face. Sunny rolls his eyes. There’s a blinding flash and a click as Basil captures the scene with his 15th birthday present: a new camera.
The newest-model device is an excellent upgrade from his old Polaroid, not in the least because the photos appear instantly on the tiny LCD screen. Sunny recalls Basil’s elation upon unwrapping the gift. 12-times zoom…No waiting for development…And it’s super sleek! In that moment, every minute Sunny had spent math tutoring (or wrangling unruly children as a camp counsellor, or puttering around the neighbourhood delivering pizzas) was made worthwhile.
Basil lingers a little, fiddles with the settings, then turns the gadget so they can all squint at the low-resolution preview. It’s fuzzy, overexposed, and they wince through the blur.
The resolution is already high enough for Sunny. Once the photo is transferred to Basil’s clunky laptop back home, the two boys will be in painfully high definition, down to every pore and unkempt strand of hair. Yikes.
Maybe they’re just unphotogenic.
“I should never have gotten that for you. It was better, not knowing how we looked.” groans Sunny. The three of them dissolve into laughter, and at once the distance to their cabin seems shorter than ever.
They’re nearly to the crest of the hill when a very annoyed classmate huffs in frustration, abandoning his belongings right there in the snow. It turns out that they have to walk all the way back to base camp for dinner, where all ground rules are reiterated before the students can head off for a good night’s rest. At this, Basil mimes air quotes. Sunny responds with a smug, sidelong look, and the two fight to keep their faces straight.
Dibs are called on beds—Kel will take the top one, thank you very much.
“Hey, get a load of this!” Basil taps the underside of Kel’s bunk. Etched into the wood are aged doodles, messages from their past selves.
There’s a cactus, a tulip, a sunflower.
A bus with three stick figures inside.
A poorly drawn Pet Rock, wearing a cap and sunglasses.
One of the slats is completely scratched over with the message: “SNACK STORAGE!”
Tally marks criss-cross along the bedpost. “Kel’s loss record confirmed?!” reads Basil’s spindly annotation underneath.
Tracing over the crude, crooked lines, Sunny spots another inscription, minuscule. “s.f. + a.c.?” The writing is obviously Kel’s, and the cheeky follow-up belongs to himself: “a.c.? i love air conditioning!”
As sleeping bags are unfurled, toiletries are set out near the sinks, and an outlet for charging the camera battery is located, a knock resounds from the door. Due to a spontaneous snowball fight on the way home, Basil is the only cabinmate who appears mildly presentable.
“Go, go!” he motions. They climb into their bunks in record time, mimicking extreme fatigue.
Basil answers the door: yes, everyone’s brushed their teeth, yes, we’ll turn the lights out right away, no, of course not, we definitely didn’t bring any snacks, see you tomorrow and have a good night, sir! Kel smiles wide, and Sunny manages a thumbs-up. Basil, hand clutching the doorknob in a death grip, firmly closes the door, then the storm gate for good measure.
“I can’t believe it,” Basil grins, “they didn’t even come in!”
The three boys pump their fists in victory.
The crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps on icy ground has barely receded before a great rustling sound fills the cabin. It’s Sunny in his favourite grey hoodie, shifting out of his thick navy blanket. The hoodie’s oversized-ness is precisely what makes it simply superior; the bottomless pockets are stuffed with plastic-wrapped, salt-laden goodness from the Gino’s across their school.
“And I can’t believe you!” continues Basil, shaking Sunny like a rag doll. “However did you sneak all of this in?!”
The plunder, including candy of every kind, cans of soda, and an entire package of instant noodles, is unloaded and piled in the centre of the cabin like a sort of offering. Courtesy of Sunny’s mother, there’s also a battered reusable container full of homemade tofu puffs. Basil snatches it with glee.
It was a funny thing, how Sunny and Basil had bonded. He recalled the exact day; the group had been sitting outside in the sun, basking in the autumn rays. Sunny had stared out at the enchanting Gino’s sign, picking morosely at his lunch of fried tofu and rice. Basil looked at the meal with fascination. Sunny couldn’t understand. I don’t know why you would want to eat this, he’d warned. It tastes like cardboard. Basil had strongly disagreed, saying that his grandmother's coulibiac was far too rich. The rest was history. Lunch sessions hereafter included regular tofu trades, which evolved into suspiciously-regarded requests for extra helpings. This culminated in several embarrassing attempts to prepare the food themselves, and a purchase of an ever-helpful cookbook: The Benefits of Tofu. He and Basil were opposites, in the best way possible. Is that called symbiosis? Whatever. Sunny wasn’t planning on taking biology—Basil was best at that, after all.
The cabin once again flickers with dim torchlight. A pack of cards is produced from Basil’s knapsack; Kel deals them out, and Sunny puts on his best poker face. Camp nights are the same as always with the boys: ‘lights-out’ as a suggestion, heated card games, candid-picture disasters, endless turns with Sunny’s treasured, blue (formerly red; it had been re-shelled in blue as a Christmas present) GameBoy. And of course, The Interrogation. They’re wrapping up a fifth game of Uno when Basil announces an ultimatum.
“If—and I mean when I win the next game, Kel here is going to tell me who he’s trying to kick it to.”
“What?!” he splutters in response. “Kick it to?”
“Oh?” Sunny’s curious, now.
“Yeah, wait, what if Sunny wins?! Because we all already know that you like—”
“Trying to stall?” Basil’s tone is casual, yet off in a way he can’t place. He hesitates ever-so-slightly as he places his first card down. In an instant, a second is tossed over it, and the moment is forgotten.
When it’s all said and done, Kel is left with no option except to concede, because Basil is also the best at card games. Kel’s sweet on that blue-haired girl, no, Cris, her name is, and she transferred here in ninth, and maybe that’s why the name isn’t familiar to Sunny. You have to be really, really good to transfer in a later year; it certainly lines up with how Kel describes her.
He rambles about how Cris is the fastest swimmer in the school. Like a torpedo!
“She said I’m a shoe-in for the junior varsity team. Do you think she’d come to my games?” They’re a great match—both upbeat, extroverted, and sporty. Sunny opens his mouth to respond when Kel abruptly switches gear.
“Wait, actually, I was totally saving this for later, but I’ll tell you now! So you know how I’m still kinda friends, right.”
Sunny isn’t sure where this is going.
“With Aubrey.”
Oh.
“I think she totally likes you,” he continues, not noticing that Basil has gone completely motionless. “She’s always asking about you. How you’re doing. What you like. Stuff like that. And in the dinner line she was looking, like looking, looking, right? That’s legit, man. I didn’t even think she was capable of liking another person. Thought she was sworn to eternal beef with the male populace.”
Kel claps him on the back and beams as if they’ve won a championship game. Sunny’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to be the one grinning. He waits for a sliver of pride or the thrill of joy to reach him. Instead, it’s as if the floorboards have all started to tilt. He runs a hand through his hair, an awkward chuckle caught in his throat. He glances over to Basil for assistance…and his questing gaze goes unmet.
It was already strange for Basil to interrupt like he had done—because he never, never interrupts anyone—but it’s that uneasiness in his eyes which speaks volumes.
When you’ve shared half a decade of bus rides home and whispering past bedtime, half a decade of copied homework and Pet Rock clashes, half a decade of friendship…
It’s enough to feel when something’s not quite right.
And certainly enough to wonder.
But it’s not enough to understand.