Work Text:
It's nice outside. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming. But you just can't enjoy it today, because it's that day. The day Chara disappeared. The 15th anniversary, to be exact.
Over the years, you've made a habit of visiting their gravestone on the day. Normally you'd do something like this on, say, their birthday, but Chara always hated their birthday. It felt more appropriate to honor them on the day they made the choice to leave, though you'd never known where they went.
You'd missed a few visits in the past, but this one felt important. You had a lot to catch up on. A whole race of magical monsters had been freed from under Mt. Ebott by a ten-year-old or something about a month ago. Who knew they'd been right there that whole time? Life sure had been eventful since then. Luckily there hadn't been another war, but a lot of humans were still skeptical of monsters. You know that kind of prejudice all too well.
You make your way through the grass and wildflowers over to the statue. It was huge and gaudy and just the type of thing they would have hated, especially since your parents had it personally commissioned. Every time you looked at the stone face of your sibling, smiling, you were reminded how little you saw that expression before they were gone.
You sit down at the statue's feet, its dark shadow covering you, obscuring the warmth and light of the sun. You place the bouquet of golden flowers at the base, like you did every year, though it seemed a little redundant at this point. The flowers were remarkably persistent and had taken root themselves in the cemetery ground ages ago, so the bouquet pretty much disappeared under a sea of yellow petals. At least you could take pride in knowing you added something of value to a grave you knew they would've hated otherwise. You let out a deep sigh.
You feel a finger tapping on your shoulder from behind. You yelp and jump slightly, turning to see a human child in a striped shirt. Well, the striped shirt was a given; everybody knows kids wear striped shirts. For a moment you thought Chara had come back to life until your eyes adjusted. Their shirt was blue and purple, and they had a messy bob haircut, the type your parents wouldn't have allowed. Remarkably similar, sure, but far from the same person.
"Jeez, don't you know not to sneak up on somebody in a graveyard, kid?" you ask.
The child made a few quick hand motions and tilted their head. It took a few moments for you to realize they were using sign language.
"Oh, I'm sorry... I don't know..."
"That's okay," they said. "I'm Frisk."
"...nice to meet you, Frisk," you replied, slightly confused as to why this random child had approached you in the otherwise empty graveyard. "Listen, kid- Frisk, I really... could use some alone time right now..."
"It's about Chara," Frisk said, and your mind went blank. The sounds of leaves rustling, grass swaying, wind blowing and birds chirping all seemed to disappear as you slowly turned towards them.
"How... do you know that name?"
You glanced over at the grave stone again, to see if you had been hallucinating or something, but no. It still didn't say "Chara", just like it hadn't for the past 25 years. Your parents' final insult had been refusing to use their preferred name on their grave, even when that intolerance had caused the child to vanish forever. There wasn't anything underneath, of course- they never found a body. Everybody just assumed they got lost in the woods or fell off a cliff or something. You were never sure whether that had contributed to your parents' early deaths or not. They hadn't seemed particularly broken up about it at the time.
"Do you know... are they okay?" you asked, your voice cracking. "I understand... if they didn't want to see me again... but are they...?"
Frisk sighed softly, averting their eyes from your gaze, and you knew the answer was no.
Even after all these years, it hurt to know for sure. At least before, you could delude yourself that they'd run off to some other, loving family, one that accepted them for who they were. That they'd grown up and lived happily ever after, free from the ignorance and hate of the village that had raised them.
"...Did they ever mention me?" you asked. "I... I guess it doesn't matter now. I thought maybe one day I could tell them... that I was sorry."
"Sorry... for what?"
"For not standing up for them. To our parents, I mean."
"...Do you want to talk about it?" Frisk asked quietly, sitting down next to you in the grass. You weren't sure what they had to gain from listening to you, but it seemed like you were the only one who remembered Chara anymore. It wouldn't hurt to pass their story along.
"...I was older, you know, I got used to it..." you reminisced, eyes watering. "Being a trophy instead of a human being, something to show off at parties, left to tuck yourself into bed at night. Never hearing a single 'I love you'. But Chara wasn't like me, or anybody else I knew. They were sensitive. They wanted to... I don't know. I don't really understand it, even now. Sometimes I resented them, for not just sitting down and taking it like I did. For talking back. I didn't get it..."
The wind whistled through the trees. You took a deep breath. The cold air stung in your throat.
"I could've tried, I don't know, to be on their side. But I'd spent so long under that roof... I was almost exactly what our parents wanted us to be. Something that just does what you tell it to and doesn't fight back. And then, one day, they were gone.
Ran away, I mean. I don't blame them for that. I did at the time, I guess, because then I was all alone. You know what they say; you don't know what you have until it's gone. Our parents had the whole town searching for weeks. I don't know if it was just for appearances or if they really did care, in their own twisted way, but we never found Chara. Obviously," you finished, motioning towards the grave in from of you.
"Everybody... moved on, eventually. That's just the way it is, right? Life goes on, whether or not... you want it to," you finished quietly.
Frisk nodded solemnly in understanding. The two of you sat together in silence, listening to the sounds of nature for what felt like a peaceful eternity.
"Chara wanted you to know... they're very sorry, too."
"...I-i don't... understand," you replied, your voice cracking.
"For leaving you alone. For not asking for help. For never coming back. It's a really long story, but... I hear them sometimes. Guiding me. Making jokes. They even saved my life, once."
You couldn't bring yourself to say anything.
"They didn't want me to come here. They said... you would have forgotten them by now. But I know that's not true. When you lose someone like that... you don't forget."
Your throat tightened.
"...Also, they think the statue sucks, apparently."
You chuckled. And then you laughed, and kept laughing. It was so funny, you couldn't stop. Tears ran down your face. You laughed and cried until your lungs and tears ran out, and then some.
After a while, you fell silent. Frisk spoke up again.
"I can't... tell you what to do now. Maybe you already know. Chara died... a long time ago. But they made some people very happy. And if you want... I can introduce you to them."
"Thank you... Frisk. I'd like that."