Phytoremediation

Cut my palms, and make me put white gloves on.

It felt awful seeing Sunny's face so sad. Most people wouldn't think much of how he was looking, he just looked a little but upset, but the way Basil knew Sunny, he barely ever expressed sadness with his face, usually only crying with his eyes, and sometimes gritting his teeth while he did, but the face he wore now looked like he was on the verge of breaking down.

"P-Please Sunny, I did so much worse to you. I-" 

"I abandoned you Basil, and I left you in Faraway! I just-" Basil saw tears fall from his eyes, "You should hate me! You should just-" Sunny's voice trailed off.

"I could never hate you Sunny, please believe me. I- I just wanted to see you again..."

"I'll never abandon you again Basil. I'm so sorry." Sunny said, and hugged Basil.

Basil hugged back. He hoped it was true. Even though Sunny would never know how much this meant to him, and how much he meant to him, he hugged back, hoping how hard he held on could somehow communicate it to him.

After a longer-than-usual length hug, Basil pulled away and looked into Sunny's eyes. They were so beautiful to him, even the little gray lines on his pupil from what he had done, instead of remind him of his shortcomings, just seemed like another part of the beauty Sunny always had.

The red lines, however, did. It was hard to avoid how obvious of a shape the shears left. Basil looked at his arm, avoiding Sunny's gaze.

Basil couldn't help but look back at Sunny. His lips always looked so soft to him, though they he couldn't help but smile at the memory of when Kel tripped him, and Sunny spat out dirt and grass. Mari scolded Kel for it and he said "I didn't know he would really trip!"

Kel was so silly.

Kel helped up Sunny instead of Basil that time, because everyone else was so busy laughing at what he said. Even Sunny laughed a bit after he got up.

"Your laugh was so cute..." Basil muttered absentmindedly.

"What did you say Basil?" Sunny asked

"Ah- N-Nothing, it doesn't matter!" Basil said, a bit higher pitched than intended. He felt his face blush.

I really hope he didn't hear me say that!

Sunny smiled his beautiful smile at him. Basil's heart must have skipped a few beats. It's been so long since he's seen him smile like that.

"I have something I wanted to do with you today, Basil" Sunny said, smile lowering, but his eyes sparkling just as beautiful as before.

"O-Oh! What was that, Sunny?" Basil replied nervously.

"Well, if it's ok with Polly..." Sunny looked around wondering where she was.

"She's going to be here later, she had to stop by her parents on her way here, I think..." Basil answered pre-emptively.

"Ah! So, if you want, we can go see the library!" Sunny said, a slight smile on his face again. 

Basil couldn't say no even if he had wanted to, those eyes are so captivatingly genuine, you can't deny them. Of course, going to the library with Sunny wouldn't have been something he'd have wanted to avoid regardless, and as such, an excited and quick "Yes!" escaped Basil's lips, before he had finished collecting his thoughts.

Sunny's eyes lit up with excitement and joy, as he grabbed Basil's hand and brought him to the door, though, upon their exit they had become more reserved, and pinker than before, both praying the other wouldn't noticed how flustered they were about holding each other's hand.

I can't think of Sunny like that, he was just grabbing my hand as a friend, like Aubrey did the first time she introduced me to him, and everyone else!

Unbeknownst to Basil, Sunny was beating himself up in his own head, thinking Basil would believe him to be weird for grabbing his hand like that. Both oblivious as they walked a block in silence, until arriving in front of the Nearburgh Public Library and Resource Center.

"S-So we're here!" Sunny said, putting his confident façade back up.

Basil believed it, though preferred to keep his still pinkened cheeks facing mostly away from Sunny.

"So what did you want to do at the library with me, Sunny?" Basil asked innocently.

Sunny, seemingly seeing it less innocently, blushed at himself, then turned to Basil, wiping his face from any sign of previous emotion, except the reddened tint of his ears.

"Remember when we were younger, and you'd read to me all the time, and then talk about the book and stuff..." Sunny felt a bit embarrassed, but continued, if a bit more quietly, "well maybe we could... do that... again..."

Sunny felt as though he sounded like a total loser, but to his surprise, Basil seemed touched.

"Aww, Sunny, you don't have to do that again for me, I know you found it boring..." Basil said, holding his hands to his chest.

Sunny put his hand behind his head, then stuttered a few words, before putting his hand down and putting on a guilty expression.

"People were teasing me for reading with you all the time at recess... So I said that... I always enjoyed reading with you..." He admitted in an ashamed voice.

Basil's eyes lit up.

Sunny liked spending his time with me like that? Maybe he-

Basil shook his head to himself for a moment, then grabbed Sunny's shoulders. It seemed he grew an inch taller than him over the last month.

"Sunny, it's ok. I'm just glad to spend time with you now!"

No point thinking like that right now Basil, Sunny isn't like you, and if he was, he wouldn't want to be with someone who stabbed him in the eye, anyway.

Sunny grabbed a phone out of his pocket, then pressed some buttons. It looked like those new phones that came out, but easy to tell it was a knock-off from an emergency phone company, trying to imitate the looks of Nokia's newest designs.

"Hey mom, is it okay if Basil came over?" Sunny asked over the phone.

Basil blushed a bit. Being at Sunny's house after so long sounded like a dream come true.

"Yeah, that Basil."

"Yeah, the eye-stabbing one."

"Yeah, I know."

"Yeah."

"No, I'm still going to hang out with him, Mom."

"No."

"Yeah, I know he did mom."

"No, mom."

"Ok."

Sunny pressed a button, then closed the phone.

"So, um... is your mom mad at me?" Basil asked shakily.

"She seemed a bit, maybe... she said she wanted to see you though..." Sunny looked a bit nervous too, but quickly tried to cheer up Basil.

"Well, mad or not, I want to read with you, so pick out some books, and if my mom is mad, I'll just hang out at your house, I guess."

Basil pinched himself. Not a hallucination or dream, or at least one he would wake up from.

He pinched again, just to double check, yep, it still hurt.

Sunny and Basil toured around the library, checking random sections, giggling to themselves at the people they could see from the balcony going through the "ADULTS ONLY" labeled section in the "Japanese and Korean Media" shelves, and occasionally grabbing books that interested them.

Sunny saw a book he really found interesting. It's cover showed a black lightbulb, just like he saw in his dream, with a white background. It was titled "Overcast," and seemed interesting. The author's name was all in English characters, and sounding it out made nonsense, so Sunny assumed it was some western author he hadn't heard of.

Basil sounded it out loud quietly, "Dao... no, Dah... wait..." 

Sunny couldn't help but smile, watching the boy trying to sound it out made him feel a feeling in his chest, a feeling he wishes he could just let go. Basil wouldn't like him after all, would he?

"Doh... wait... Daw! Daw! ok Daw... soon.... and then... what is this character?"

Basil pointed at an apostrophe confused. Sunny knew what it would mean, and took a closer look at the book to focus on reading the name after "Daw-soon"

"It says... O'mor-ray? Wait, no, O'mor-ree..." Sunny stopped. That was a weird coincidence.

Sunny tried to let the name of the author not bother him, as he handed it back to Basil.

"What's wrong?" Basil asked with concern. He could see the flashes of fear in his eyes.

"I- It's nothing Basil, I'm ok." Sunny responded. Stupid Europeans and their weird names.

After Sunny and Basil preformed the not-so-arduous process of checking out their books at the front desk with their IDs, they headed back to Sunny's house. It wasn't very long until they were on the front steps of Sunny's new home. It was a tall house made of brick, but it looked a lot darker to Basil, than his old one. Either way, Sunny brightened up everything where he went, so Basil didn't really care.

"Alright Basil, before we go in, I have an idea, just let me talk a bit to her first."

Basil felt confused, but trusted Sunny.

"Okay, Sunny..."

Sunny burst open the door, pulling Basil in by the wrist a bit.

"Hey mom! Basil and I are here, can you tell me what this says?" Sunny's mother shot a look at Basil, but immediately vanished as she became absorbed in the book's author's name.

"A-Ah hello boys... let's see... this says Dawson... and this is... hmm... ah! The font is interesting, but I know this author! Dawson O'Murrey, incredible works, though I'm not sure you'll understand this one, you two, he writes very complex and intricate works, sometimes they even fly over my head..." his mother paused, then laughed as she admitted, "ok, maybe more than sometimes!"

Basil nervously laughed along with Sunny and his mother. His mother seemingly discarded most of the original animosity she seemed to have when they first walked in.

"Hello Basil, how are you?" she noticed the bruising still visible in some spots on Basil's face. "I guess both of you got your own scars, hm?"

Basil looked down. He really ruined a lot of things for her and Sunny.

I'm the cause of all of ours, though. I ruin everything...

Before Basil could sink into self-pity, Sunny hugged Basil again, as Sunny's mother voiced an "awww"

"I missed you Basil."

Basil felt tears welling up in his eyes.

I missed you too.