The cold silence of the hospital room settled with Sunny, numbing his fingers.
Basil's blonde hair spilled across the pillow under his head. His thin, weakened frame felt delicate and fragile even for a boy who was already so gentle.
Sunny kept a close watch over Basil as he slept, hoping for any sign of awakening. Annoyingly, every once in a while, grey fuzziness filled up Sunny's vision. Losing an eye brought both pain and a significant loss of visual perception. The worst part of it all was that he could barely perceive depth anymore.
Several times over the past few days, he'd reached out, believing that the object he wanted to grasp—a cup of water, a fork, a plate of food—was a lot closer than it actually was. He nearly crashed his face against solid stone when his unsteady fingers failed to grasp their target, saving himself only by keeping his other hand steady on the back of his chair. Life would never be the same again without both eyes.
Sunny's half-blinded vision was not as painful as everything else he had gone through.
I lost my sister.
I want to cry and cry and cry...
Mari ...she's really gone.
His friends hadn't taken his confession well. When his words pulled open the curtain over his crimes, his voice fading into silence, a giant wave of sadness crashed over his emotions. Too much sadness.
He could feel the change in their mood. He could see the cloud that had settled over their eyes as they stared back at him.
A knot formed in his gut when he saw the flash of anger across their eyes.
"How could you do that to your own sister?" Aubrey spoke first. "How could you push her when she was right by the stairs?"
Sunny opened his mouth but the words failed to come to his lips.
He could feel their seething anger at him and he understood that words wouldn't do any good. He could explain all he wanted, that he didn't see the stairs behind her or that he hadn't meant to shove her with enough force to make her fall, but in the end his hands were still stained with blood.
"That's an awful secret to keep from us for so long," Kel said, his eyes glancing between Sunny and Hero.
Hero's face was so full of conflict.
"I can't believe you," Aubrey went on. "You killed your sister and you couldn't even come clean. No wonder you locked yourself inside for four years."
Sunny didn't know whether to talk about all the anguish he went through inside his head. He guessed that it wouldn't help.
"I...don't even know what to say to you," Kel added. But then he turned to face Aubrey.
"I think Sunny understands how bad he messed up. It takes a lot of guts to confess the truth. Maybe we shouldn't scream at him."
Hearing Kel defend him, Sunny felt a tiny shard of hope that he could be forgiven. He knew he could always count on Kel to stand up for him.
"Kel, I can't just forgive him for doing that to Mari," Aubrey replied.
Hero finally spoke. "Sunny. You...seriously...messed...up."
Sighing, Hero stepped towards Sunny with his hand outstretched in a reconciliatory gesture. "But...I sort of had the feeling this whole time that something wasn't right. I just never imagined you could actually pull it off. This probably ate away at you for so long. I'm glad you came clean with everything."
"I'm truly sorry," Sunny said, lowering his head.
But when Sunny raised his eyes, Hero had suddenly dropped his hand, leaving nothing for him to grasp on to. Maybe it had never been a reconciliation in the first place; maybe Sunny had merely clung too hard on to the false hope that all his friends would forgive him.
"You made me think Mari would've really done that," Aubrey went on, her eyes filled with tears, filled with grief and rage. "You convinced me she would've just left us all behind without a sign! You're the worst!"
Sunny felt his heart dropping into a dark and unreachable abyss.
"I—I guess I need time to think about this, too," Kel said with a color of sadness over his face. "Sunny. I know you're hurt...but I don't even know what to think right now. I can't believe you'd do that to your own sister. I want to...I want to think it over, talk with my brother a bit."
Aubrey's tears flowed down her cheeks. "Poor Mari. She didn't deserve this."
"She deserved better," Hero agreed.
"Mari, I'm so sorry," Aubrey went on, sobbing.
One by one, they began to leave the room.
As they passed by, Sunny felt their last stares at him, eyes filled with a mixture of anger, sadness, and pity, the kind of stares one might throw at a criminal just before being sentenced.
Just before closing the door behind him, Hero decided to say one last thing.
"We'll keep it under wraps," Hero spoke in a cooler voice. "I know you're sorry, but I'm still furious. I'll just...try not to make things worse for you."
And then the door closed, leaving Sunny all alone with an unconscious Basil.
I told them all the truth.
They reacted as well as I'd imagined.
Days passed by wordlessly.
His friends didn't come back. He kept wondering if they would at least return to check up on Basil, but besides his mom, the only people who showed up were the doctors who came to monitor Basil's condition. Sunny had little to say to them besides a few "thank you's".
There was one more thing about Sunny's confession.
He'd minimized everything Basil had done.
***
Basil had been the one who'd pushed Sunny to hang his sister up on a rope after she stopped breathing completely.
Instead of revealing that fact, Sunny had said that he'd come up with the whole plan and persuaded Basil, a witness, to go along with it.
I wanted to protect my best friend.
Sunny didn't know why he covered for Basil. And he didn't just stop there, either.
When his mom visited, he went even further for Basil by telling her that he'd lost his eye in an accident involving garden shears.
She was in tears that her son had just lost his right eye, and pressed him on whether Basil truly shared any culpability.
"Mom, Basil didn't do anything," Sunny said. "I went to his room and started punching him. I took the garden shears in his bedroom and tried to stab him. He tried to protect himself and I dropped the shears from my hand. I tripped and fell and my right eye got stabbed when I landed on them."
"Sunny, do you know what you're saying?" she replied. "Are you sure, sure that you just went into his room and started punching him?"
"I'm really sorry. I was mad that he, that he went along with what I did to, you know. I had a nightmare that night and wasn't thinking straight. He was just trying to protect himself but..."
"Sunny, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone those three days."
"Mom, it's okay. My head's clear now. I've come clean with everything."
"Sunny, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Mom, please don't cry. I just want Basil to wake up so I can tell him that I'm sorry."
He tried his best to console his mom for the rest of her visit. She'd lost her daughter, her husband, and now her son had just lost his eye; he started crying too. His words became a garbled mess, but he tried hard to make the point that he'd done everything wrong and Basil was not at fault in any way.
Why he went so far to protect Basil from any blame—he felt he had to.
Maybe Basil had protected him for too long, taking all the blame and all of Aubrey's bullying for what he did to his photo album.
And he knew Basil didn't mean to stab his eye. Basil had been in a bad state that night; Sunny understood how much pain Basil was in after learning that his grandma had died.
Adding in that Basil had also learned that his best friend was moving away, right when he appeared to be coming back for him after having abandoned him for four years—
No one deserved to face that much loss.
Sunny had cried when he let in his feelings of sadness for his sister's death that he'd repressed for so long. He became sad and filled with guilt again when his heart uncovered the turmoil Basil had felt over the years, abandoned by his best friend who'd promised that they would go through their pain together.
After pushing away his sadness for so long, crying felt very relieving. But his sadness could not go away if Basil didn't wake up.
Four days had now passed since his friends had left. After her visit, his mom called him every day. Sunny reassured her that he was fine after confessing the truth, that his head was totally clear now, and that he wouldn't go crazy again.
She'd also seen all the flowers people around town had sent to him. So, at the very least, she could feel comforted in that her son was well liked by everybody around town—except his friends whom he'd confessed the truth to.
Right now, she was out moving all their stuff to their new home in the city, but she also apparently had some additional business there to attend to.
Basil, please wake up.
The feelings boiling within Sunny's heart as he watched Basil breathing steadily but lying unconscious on his bed were impossible to put into words.
Out of all his friends, his feelings towards Basil had always brought the most conflict to his sense of self-understanding.
The memories inside himself all felt like a jumbled mess. He still could not fully differentiate between the Basil of his dreams who wore a pretty flower crown, the shadow Basil that pulled him away from the comfort of headspace towards the painful realities of waking life, and the real Basil whom he had ignored for four years.
When the real Basil woke up—if he would ever open his eyes again—
Would he be the kind, smiling Basil that always accompanied his sister at the picnic blanket with a beautiful flower crown on his head, taking photos of all his friends?
Would he be the darker, more serious shadow Basil who felt incredible anger and sorrow at his best friend for abandoning him despite promising that they would always be together?
The little he'd seen of the real Basil in those last three days only told him that the real Basil hid a tremendous web of loneliness and anxiety behind a smile that wore thinner with each passing day.
Even as he watched Basil now, he could see filaments of a dark web behind his head, the shadows of Something that had entangled his best friend for as long as he could remember.
Sunny understood why his heart ached.
He did not understand why it ached so much.
A sudden ringing sound snapped his mind to attention towards the phone on the small table by his chair. The caller was his mom again. Sunny picked up the call.
"Hello, Sunny?"
"Yes, mom? I'm still doing fine. Basil hasn't woken up yet."
"I'm glad you're doing okay, Sunny."
"Mom, what is it?"
"Sunny, I've been arranging some matters at our new place."
He could sense the hesitancy in his mom's voice. She had something to say to him that made her feel worried that it would bother her son.
"What kind of matters?" Sunny probed.
"I've been talking to Basil's parents."
Sunny felt tension spreading through every nerve in his body.
Over the past four days, his mom had been the relay between the hospital and Basil's worried parents. Because he told his mom that he'd started the fight with Basil for no reason, she would've had to relay that news to Basil's parents, and no doubt they'd harbor intense animosity towards him for beating up their son out of the blue.
Or would they?
Sunny had never met Basil's parents before and he had no idea what kind of relationship Basil shared with them. It was probably no relationship at all. Polly had taken care of Basil far more than his parents ever did.
Still, any parent would feel incredibly worried if their son was lying unconscious inside the hospital after a brutal fight with his supposed best friend whom he hadn't seen in four years.
But why won't they come and visit?
"Basil's parents have been really worried about the two of you," she said.
Sunny got the feeling that his mom was skirting around the real subject she called to discuss.
"Did you tell them that the doctors said that Basil is going to be fine?" Sunny asked. "And that he just needs some rest right now?"
"Yes, I did. They're glad that Basil is doing fine..."
Yet they won't visit him?
"But, they've asked me to take Basil with us to our new home for a while."
That dropped on Sunny's head with the weight of a brick.
"What?" Sunny replied, totally unprepared to hear that. "Why would they ask you to do that? Can't you say no?"
"It's complicated," she answered. "But I agreed to their request."
"How is it complicated? What's wrong with Basil staying at his current house being taken care of by Polly?"
"It's not going to be the same for him because his grandma isn't around any longer."
"But how is moving out to live with us any better? Isn't that just going to make things more stressful for him?"
"Sunny, I'm sorry. I know it's difficult because the two of you just had a fight, but you should think about fixing your mistakes right now because you were the one who put him in the hospital in the first place."
The ache in Sunny's heart grew ever more painful.
"Look on the bright side, Sunny," she went on. "It'll be easier to make amends with him if he lives together with us at our new home."
"Mom, Basil hasn't even woken up yet," Sunny said. "Why didn't you wait to reply to his parents until he's at least woken up first? Hear his opinion on it?"
A short silence.
"They really wanted me to," she spoke. "I'm sorry for dropping this on you—and Basil—out of the blue."
Sunny felt a bit angry at his mom, but he was angrier at Basil's parents.
Despite finding out that Basil had gotten into a fight that landed him in the hospital, they weren't even willing to visit him, and now they wanted to throw all responsibility for their son onto someone else.
But Sunny knew he would be a big hypocrite if he sought to avoid responsibility for Basil entirely.
His actions had traumatized Basil, gotten him bullied for years, knocked him out so badly that he was still lying unconscious in the hospital. He was in no place to argue with his mom on the part about making amends.
Still, having his best friend move in with him felt like too much of a burden for him to handle at the current time.
"Mom, this isn't fair," Sunny complained. "I—I don't know. It's just...not what I expected to hear."
"Sweetie, I know it'll be hard on you at first, but I promise I'll help make things work out," she said. "I've already moved all of Basil's plants to our new home since I know he likes to take care of them."
She spent the past four days doing all that?
That meant the deal was sealed and he couldn't object any further. Even if he spent all day complaining, she'd already moved all of Basil's plants to their new home and it would be a great hassle to move all of them back just because Sunny couldn't handle living with his best friend for a while.
"And Sunny, I've booked a therapist for you who you can talk to about your feelings. I've met her. She's really nice. I know the two of you will get along."
"Therapy? Mom, I don't know."
"Sunny, it's really important that you do this. We need to find out why you went to Basil's room and started punching him for no reason."
This situation was entirely his own fault.
"Okay, mom," Sunny gave in. "I'll try my best to get along with Basil at our new home."
"Thanks, sweetie. I'll come over and pick you two up soon. Oh, and please call me if Basil wakes up!"
"Okay. Bye."
"Bye, Sunny."
Sunny put down the phone with a heart full of mixed feelings.
He felt angry at Basil's parents, angry that they were still avoiding responsibility for their son even after all that had happened.
What's going to happen to Polly?
Another emotion, guilt, pushed its way in and made him feel all sorts of internal conflict.
After four years of traumatic separation, they were suddenly pushed together closer than either of them had ever expected. Both of them would get no time to think and work through their feelings by themselves. They'd live under the same roof, see each other every day, have no way of escaping complicated and painful emotions from being so close again.
One more feeling eased its way inside his heart, and unlike his other feelings, this one gave him a very small sense of relief.
He wouldn't be lonely in his new city with his best friend by his side.
***
The first signs of Basil stirring awake jolted Sunny out of his thoughts.
He rushed to Basil's side, watching him turn and mumble and slowly, ever so slowly, start to return to awareness.
Sunny's heart beat so fast it might spring out of his chest.
Basil, please open your eyes!
It was night time; the light inside the room was always on. All traces of sleep had vanished from Sunny's mind.
He held his breath as Basil appeared to just slightly lift his eyelids.
Sunny didn't know what to say or how to feel. He just stood there. The next few moments determined whether he would be able to forgive himself for the rest of his life, and he realized he was totally unprepared to face them.
Basil's weary eyes opened and came to land on Sunny.
As their eyes locked together, Sunny felt a glimmer of an emotion inside his heart that swept away all his other feelings.
In that moment, the only thing he could do was smile.
Seeing Sunny's smile, Basil smiled back.
The web of shadows that had entangled Basil inside its ruthless grasp for so long, the Something that Sunny had seen that night when they'd fought—
That web receded, vanishing behind Basil's head.
Sunny knew Basil must have seen his own Something—the shadow with a singular eye—fade away as well.
"Sunny," Basil spoke in a soft voice.
"Welcome back," Sunny said, perhaps not the best choice of words to say, but he'd never been good with words anyways.
Basil was a little confused but he kept smiling. "You came back for me."
"Basil, you're in the hospital right now, and you're going to be just fine," Sunny said. "And...I'm sorry for everything I've done."
Basil looked him over up and down. "Sunny, it's okay. I'm not mad at you."
Sunny felt tears welling up in his left eye.
His best friend was okay, and his best friend had heard his apology.
He still had lots more to say, but for now they could be together again and not be angry or sad with each other—for the first time in so long.
"How are you feeling?" Sunny asked.
Basil lifted his hands and rubbed his eyes. "My head's a bit dizzy. And my throat's all dry."
Sunny quickly filled a cup with water and gave it to Basil to drink.
"That's better," Basil said, drinking the whole cup. "Thank you, Sunny."
"Do you need anything else?" Sunny asked.
"N—No, not really."
Sunny could tell that there was something on Basil's mind. He was probably wondering what had happened since their fight inside his bedroom that night.
Before talking about any of that, Sunny reached for a hug.
He embraced Basil tightly in his arms, holding his best friend close enough to feel that he was warm and alive.
A sweet, belonging feeling rose in Sunny's chest as he held Basil close to his heart.
They hadn't hugged each other in so long. Even in the days before the incident, Sunny had never been one for hugs; he'd only really hugged Basil when their friends all shared a group hug together.
The hug they shared let Sunny express through touch the words that he meant to say—
I'm so glad you're alright.
The times we smiled together, our precious memories that you captured in your photos, and all the things you did for me—
Thank you so, so much.
I'm sorry I couldn't come back for you sooner.
Sunny held Basil in his arms, his heart full of relief and joy to see his best friend awake and smiling again.
Basil lifted his weak arms, a little surprised, and gently hugged Sunny back.
"I'm just really glad that you're okay," Sunny whispered.
"I'm happy that you're happy, Sunny. Thank you."
They didn't part their embrace for a long time, and when they did, Sunny still sat close by Basil's side on his bed.
Sunny spent the next half hour recounting everything that had transpired since that night. When he mentioned his confession to their friends about what they did, Basil grew a little anxious, but he managed to smile after hearing that they no longer had to keep up that awful lie.
I hid Basil's culpability to my friends, but I'll tell Basil that I told them everything...
It's only right after everything Basil did to protect me...right?
He didn't explicitly tell Basil that he'd put all the blame for coming up with the plan to hang his sister onto himself.
Neither did he tell Basil that he told his mom he'd just walked into his room that night, started punching him out of the blue, and accidentally got his eye stabbed when he fell onto those garden shears.
But he did say that their friends were mad at them.
The light in Basil's eyes watered when he heard how their friends had left upon hearing Sunny's confession.
"I understand how they might feel," Basil said. "They must be so mad at us."
"Yeah."
"Sunny, do you think..."
Basil's words trailed off.
Basil must have wanted to ask him whether he thought his friends would ever forgive them. Along with that question, it struck Sunny that Basil must be feeling worried that he would be in for a really hard time once he moved back to his house in Faraway.
This might be a good opportunity to mention that he wouldn't be going back to his house.
I still don't know why my mom agreed to that request, but I guess there's no point arguing about it now.
"Basil, I've got some weird news for you," Sunny began. "I don't know how to break it to you...so I'm just gonna say it."
Basil gazed at him with surprise. "Sunny?"
"Your parents asked my mom to bring you tolive with me at our new place in the city. She's coming to pick the two of us up."
~
this story will alternate between sunny's POV and basil's POV so next chapter will be basil's POV
i always wanted to write a story where basil moves in with sunny to their new home after the ending of the game~
it's gonna be another long one :D