Chapter Text
Sunny awoke from a dreamless sleep.
Six Months ago, the idea of a night without a crazy dream or nightmare would be unfathomable for him. Four years of constant dreaming sets a precedent, after all. Sunny found comfort in them, back when he still visited Headspace, but nowadays he definitely prefers no dreams to the shenanigans of Whitespace, Headspace, or even...
The bed creaks as he gets up, opening his door and walking into the kitchen to find something to eat. Sunny never wants to think about Blackspace ever again. He’d rather not think about ANY of it ever again if he could. He wasted four years of his life doing literally nothing, and his dreams are to blame for that. Mostly. Sunny opens a cabinet to find an off-brand corn-flake cereal, and pours some into a bowl, before opening the fridge to get some milk.
...this is expired.
For three days now, in fact.
Sunny internally groans, before putting it back and going to the sink. Tap water is better than dry cereal after all. At least he thinks. Sunny never really tried the alternative, and is not about to start today.
At least there’s milk at all. Sunny remembers during the last year of his isolation how Mom started to get very busy with her job in the city, only coming home every week or so. There wasn’t any point to getting stuff like Milk or bread when it’d expire before Sunny would open it, so Mom just stuck with canned food, long lasting food, or, if he was lucky, cold steak. Sunny couldn’t help but roll his eyes. At least it got better in the city...
...better is a poor descriptor, even if it was technically true. Mom comes home everyday, at least, but she only really brings home takeout, showers, and then goes to bed, so it doesn’t really matter. She’s gone before he wakes up, so it isn’t like Sunny’s seeing much more of her than before.
Sunny glanced around the apartment. Small, quaint, not much needless decoration, aside from some things that came with us from the house, like the family portrait, or the couch. It’s silver walls and brown floors gave it a nice clean feel, and hey, it has a tv for cartoons, so who can really complain, huh? It’s even one-story, so there’s no stairs to worry about!
No stairs...
Sunny stopped chewing. Thinking about it is getting on his nerves. He fought so hard to remember the truth, and now it’s burned in his memory for good. Watching Mari... and then him and Basil going out to the backyard and... that’s never going to get out of his head. For better or worse.
Sunny will never wish to go back to forgetting, but he can’t help but wish it wouldn’t stay in his mind. Just one day, please.
School helps, sometimes. It feels kind of embarrassing to be in classes with younger students, but it’s necessary to catch up to where Sunny should be. He’s doing pretty well on that end, catching up about two years with only about four to five months worth of schooling, it’s exhausting, but he can’t help but feel proud for doing so well. He wonders if this is how Hero feels in medical school.
Hero...
Of course his mind would wander to his old friends.
It’s hard not to. Sometimes he spends an uncomfortable amount of time thinking about them. Kel, Basil, Hero, Aubrey... Especially Aubrey. He can’t help but wistfully think back to that time on the swings, her reaching out to him, asking to take care of himself. He promised her, at least in his head, that he would get better. And he kept that promise. If only she cared anymore.
Sunny starts eating his cereal again. Besides, even if she did care about him after everything... It's for the best they don’t talk. He hasn’t spoken to any of them since he left six months ago, aside from Kel, who’s given him a few phone calls every now and again. A few brief words are exchanged, pleasantries, asking about Sally, but not much more. Kel tried to get Sunny to visit for the summer, but he declined. Sunny feels guilty about it, but the idea of running into Aubrey or Hero, is... unappealing. Besides, it isn’t like they would WANT to talk to him. Kel probably only does it to make sure Sunny doesn’t try to hurt himself. Sunny can’t imagine them caring after that day in the hospital.
Sunny dares to look up from the floor. His hands and knees are on the ground, and his eye are red and stained with tears. He just finished pouring out the most horrible day of his life, his unforgivable sin, to the people who he’s hurt the most. They needed to know.
Hero’s face is one of despair. The love of his life, taken away from him by someone he deemed a second brother. He can’t bear to look at Sunny. He averts his gaze from Sunny, and begins to walk towards him.
Aubrey’s screaming breaks his focus from Hero.
“How... HOW DARE YOU SUNNY!”
Hero brushes by Sunny, barely containing a sprint as he bursts out the door. Kel looks devastated, and begins to chase after, stopping at Sunny’s side. He opens his mouth to speak, but can’t find any words. He whips his head from Sunny, to the door, then back, then back again, before chasing after Hero, never closing his mouth.
Aubrey begins walking towards him, and Sunny assumes she’s walking to the door too, but stops in front of him. He looks into her tear-stained eyes as they rained fury down upon him. With how much fighting they’ve done the past few days... he can’t help but expect the worst.
“I-I can’t even- all this time, Sunny? ALL THIS TIME WE YOU JUST... LIED?”
She kicks him, hard, knocking him on his side.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TOOK HER FROM US! YOU AND BASIL!”
She raises her fist, tempted to slam it into Sunny’s nose, but she lowers it again.
“I wish Hero never pulled you out of the water,” She glances toward Basil, “EITHER of you.”
Sunny can’t even look at her anymore, but the sobbing tells him everything. She walks by him, slamming the door behind her.
So much for forgiveness. He doesn’t blame them, but those promises that carried him through his lowest point ring out in his mind. Broken, hollow.
Sunny can barely catch his breath as he tries to stand up. He double checks to make sure any cuts didn’t re-open, which one did, but only a minor one, so he brushes it off. Despite being devastated over their reactions, he needs to check up on Basil. He can grieve later. He walks over to his bed, and, seeing him asleep, nudges him awake.
“...S-Sunny? Your eye...”
Sunny, despite clearly being distressed, his tear-soaked eyes giving every dark thought and terrible feeling away, tries his best to smile. Basil needs to ease into this news, or...
“It’s alright Basil. I’m fine. I told them everything. They know. It’s fine.”
Basil is barely comforted. “They know? Sunny... why did you tell them?”
Sunny can barely hold the smile anymore, so he hugs Basil as tight as he can, with his crook in Basil’s neck, as tears begin to flow once more. He tries his hardest not to show it to Basil, containing his sobs as much as he can.
“They needed to know. I needed to tell them. I’m sorry Basil.”
“It’s ok Sunny,” Basil returns the hug, wrapping his arms around Sunny’s torso, “I forgive you. Everything’s going to be ok...”
Sunny breaks. The sound of his weeping reverberated throughout the room, and remained until the nurses found him, carrying him back to his room.
That was the last time he saw any of them.
The looks on their faces are ones he never wants to see again. He never wants to do that to them again. He never wants to feel Aubrey’s anger, Hero’s Sadness, EVER. AGAIN. And Sunny knows they won’t let him. Aubrey and Hero hate him now, he knew that for sure, and even if they didn’t, Sunny knew they would never look at him the same way again, if they ever tried to. He can’t bring himself to talk to them again.
Sunny feels himself sinking again. This was supposed to be a good morning, but look what he’s done, he’s gone and wandered himself into a dark corner of his mind, ruining his mood.
Just great.
Why should he feel sad? Today’s Friday! Friday is one of the days when Gracen usually shows up to the cafeteria! He enjoys talking with Gracen! They always sit in the corner table, and talk about games for the whole hour. It’s great! They tried organizing a hang-out once, but Gracen had to cancel on him, apparently something came up. They exchanged phone numbers to try again, but they never really started. Sunny sent a few, but Gracen never responded. Again, busy person. Sunny never tried after that, but at least they still chat in the cafeteria! When he shows up... and he’s not busy...
This isn’t helping. Sunny finished the last bite of his cereal, before getting up to pour the sugar water into the sink. Setting the bowl down, Sunny decided he'll probably wash it up when he gets home. Sunny showers, then returns to his bedroom to get dressed. Gathering his school supplies, he makes his way towards the door.
The landline phone on the wall in-between the kitchen and the living room begins to ring. Startled, Sunny quickly spins around to face it. That phone never rings, ever. Sunny wasn’t even sure if it was plugged in until now. If Mom was home, he’d likely leave it for her, but since she isn’t...
Sunny shyly steps over and hesitantly picks up the phone. The small screen on the base shows a number he does not recognize, but that isn’t saying much, since the only number he knows is Mom’s. He puts the receiver to his ear.
“H-hello?” Sunny asks quietly.
“Hello, is this Ms. Suzuki?” A feminine, adult voice speaks through the receiver.
Sunny hasn’t heard that surname in a long time, despite it being his. It felt weird for Mom to be addressed by anything but ‘Mom.’
“No ma'am, th-this is Su-Sunny Suzuki, ma’am. Her son?”
The voice takes a second to respond. “Hello Sunny, this is Anna Smith, we moved into your house about four months ago. I was just hoping you could pass a message to your mom for me, Dear. I tried calling her on her cellphone number she gave me, but it wouldn’t go through.”
That sounds like Mom, alright.
“Yes ma’am.”
Sunny hears a sigh from the other side, “Well, we moved in four months ago, and after we got settled, we dug through the closet and found an old toy box in the back.”
Sunny tenses. An old toy box.
Oh no.
The lady continues, “Our daughter, Lily, loves old toys, so we decided to open it up, we figured since you left it, you wouldn’t mind if we used it.”
Sunny swallowed.
He didn’t like where this was going. He tried to think of a good excuse as to why there would be a broken, bloody violin in a locked toy box, but his mind couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound suspicious.
“All we found was this beaten up violin. Lily was real sad there wasn’t anything fun in it, but nothing anyone would cry over.” graciously, the lady didn’t seem to bring up the dried blood or the hair in the strings, “With it and the Piano in the other room, we figured it was a sentimental thing that was forgotten about, am I right?”
Sunny nodded, before remembering that this was a phone call and this lady could, in fact, not see him through the phone.
“Th-that is cor-correct… m-ma'am.”
This stuttering is not helping Sunny whatsoever.
“Makes sense. So, we put the Violin in the Piano room, on top of the Piano, and forgot about it for like a month. But over the past couple of months, some weird stuff has been happening. Lily keeps seeing things out her window, and we keep waking up to hear the piano playing itself at night. My Husband even claims he saw a black-headed girl in the mirror one night.”
Sunny froze.
“Now, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t know about the… tragedy that happened in the house those years ago, or pretend like I didn’t notice the, uh... unusual things about the violin.”
Sunny could hear his own heart pounding out of his chest, unable to contain his labored breathing.
“I didn’t want to poke a sleeping bear, so I decided to hopefully let the whole thing blow over, but things are happening at such a frequency at this point that I don’t think I can’t ignore it any longer.”
“Sunny, I think your house is haunted.”