Chapter Text
{A/N: Hello lovelies, thank you for checking out my fanfic! I hope you enjoy it!}
“Hey, shopkeep, is it here yet?” Kel yelled, slamming open the door to HOBBEEZ and startling the customers inside.
“Kel, don’t be rude,” Hero and Mari scolded before apologizing to the shopkeeper.
Everyone else made a beeline to the comic section, not caring about their manners. They were kids after all, so they had better things to do.
The kids had their eyes peeled wide open as they scanned the rows and rows of comics, specifically the Captain SpaceBoy! edition.
On the first Saturday of every month, a new edition is released. Meaning that had to come here at least once a month to stay up to date with the best comic in the world.
Sure, it may be wrong for them to read the comic without paying for it, but who said that kids had money?
Kel was the first to grab the latest edition.
“Kel, it’s my turn to hold it!” Aubrey exclaimed, reaching for the comic. Kel held it over his head and out of Aubrey’s reach.
“Finders keepers.” Kel stuck his tongue at her.
“It was your turn last time, Kel, you have to share,” Basil reasoned as he got in between the two of them.
“No!”
“Yes,” Hero rebutted, plucking the comic out of his hand and handing it over to Aubrey. “It’s Aubrey’s turn.”
“Hero, come on let’s check out the records,” Mari called to him.
Aubrey stuck her tongue out at Kel, motioning for everyone to gather around her. Kel stood to her right while Sunny stood to her left. Basil, instead, stood in front of the three and lifted up his camera.
Without them noticing, he snapped a picture.
“Hurry up, Aubrey, start reading,” Kel commanded.
Sunny shushed him as they all tuned into Aubrey’s voice.
“You see, this sweet jelly filled donut isn’t just any donut,” Aubrey narrated as Captain SpaceBoy.
“What do you mean, boss?” She voiced as a space pirate before imitating SpaceBoy’s sigh.
“I guess it’s time for me to come clean.”
===
“I have to tell you something.”
Sunny stood at the entrance of Basil’s hospital room. He made eye contact with Basil, judging by his expression he understood what he was about to say. His heart was pounding in his chest despite the calm look in his eyes.
This will change everything.
He took a deep breath before shortening the distance between him and his friends. Whether or not they were about to stay his friends was up to them.
“Sunny, are you feeling okay? You probably shouldn’t be out of bed right now,” Hero voiced his concern.
“I’m okay.”
Truthfully, he was not, but his physical state was the least of his concern. His head was throbbing lightly along with his right eye. Despite only having half his vision, he could see clearly.
He had to do this.
“You’re not going to like this,” Sunny admitted, his eye itching to cast downward, but he forced himself to look up. His friends were on edge. “It’s about Mari.”
The room froze.
Everyone stared at Sunny, the atmosphere was too heavy for this to be positive information. Basil met Sunny’s gaze and nodded, urging him to continue through the thick of the truth.
“What…What about her?” Kel asked, trying to meet the gaze of anyone in the room but all eyes were glued onto Sunny.
In one deep breath, Sunny finally admitted the truth.
“Her death wasn’t…it wasn’t a suicide.”
He watched in slow motion as everyone's eyes widened. Aubrey’s brows furrowed, sending a harsh glare toward the typically silent boy. Kel was too stunned to do anything but stare, and Hero’s eyes immediately began to water.
“Where is this coming from?” Aubrey snapped, her eyes slowly beginning to water. “Why are you telling us this?”
This didn’t seem right to anyone. Nothing could have prompted Sunny to say this right now. More important than that, what he was telling them seemed unbelievable.
Mari had passed away four years ago.
Everyone, even their parents, knew it was a suicide.
That’s why their tree was chopped down.
“Sunny, you’re not lying to us aren’t you?” Hero questioned, but by the way he phrased it he already knew the answer.
The boy in question shook his head.
“It was an accident,” Sunny muttered, feeling exactly how he did all those years ago when he saw Mari’s body at the bottom of the stairs.
“What happened?” Kel asked slowly, a feeling in his stomach telling him he wouldn’t like the answer.
It’s as they say,
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
With that, Sunny finally opened the floodgates of truth to wash over the lies crudely mistaken as fact.
The truth fell deaf on Basil’s ears. He trusted Sunny with the truth, unknowing of the fact that that trust was not originally reciprocated.
With each word that came out of his friend’s mouth, the burden Basil carried felt lighter and lighter. He glanced at his friends.
They all stared at Sunny, horrified.
The whole truth was revealed. From the argument to the cover up, no detail was left hidden. There was no point in sugar coating the truth anymore.
What happened now was all up to their friends.
The two boys trusted that their friends, or possibly now former friends, would make the right decision regarding their actions. If that was prison, then so be it.
They didn’t care what happened to them anymore. If they left the truth inside, it was only going to take their lives.
It was the whole reason why they were here right now.
Basil’s future was going to be six feet under if it wasn’t for Sunny, yet that was the irony of it all. Their consciousness was going to drag them deeper and deeper until they couldn’t see the light of day again.
“I’m sorry, we didn’t think anyone would believe us if we said it was an accident, so we kept it hidden. We’re sorry,” Sunny finished. Despite trying his hardest to sound apologetic, and he truly was, expressing his emotions was never his strong suit.
No one spoke a word. The silence was growing louder by the second.
Hero turned to Basil, who hadn’t made a sound since Sunny walked in.
“You knew.”
Basil nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
Hero turned away and glanced at his brother and Aubrey. None of them could fully digest what they had been told, and it was hard to believe that Sunny and Basil had lived with this for years.
The silence became suffocating.
“I don’t know what to say,” Aubrey finally spoke, but by the way she bit the inside of her cheek everyone knew she was angry. Hero placed a hand on her shoulder.
“I think it’s time we go home,” he announced, his voice void of any emotion.
Slowly, the three of them walked out of the room. Kel stopped for a moment and looked back at the two people he thought he knew everything about.
They were now unrecognizable.
Kel looked away and walked out of the room, leaving the two of them alone. Two people who were stuck covering up a crime never meant to be committed.
Sunny turned back to Basil, watching as the strands of black hair that had once suffocated his friend retreated. A smile grew on his face while his one working eye finally started to water for the first time in four years.
Basil watched as the tears dripped down his face. Something was no longer behind him.
Together, they were able to take their first breath of fresh air without feeling like they were drowning in guilt.
“Is it over?” Basil asked, tears of his own began dripping down his face.
Sunny nodded, moving over to now sit on the bed. Basil sat up and wrapped his arms around his partner in crime.
“I’m sorry,” Basil apologized, “If I hadn’t suggested-”
“No,” Sunny interrupted, “We didn’t know what to do. Besides, I pushed her.”
“But it was an accident, right?”
“Yeah.” This time, Sunny could say that with full confidence. There was no way he purposefully pushed Mari down the stairs with the intent of murder. She’d scared him in a moment of distress and he acted without thinking.
This was Sunny’s fault, and he was able to accept that along with Basil, who had chosen to blame Mari’s death on something.
The truth was, anyone could kill. It didn’t matter if someone had a good moral conscience, they too could be put in a situation where death was possible.
Sunny knew that what he did wasn’t legally murder, but involuntary manslaughter. As for Basil, he had no idea what category he’d fall under.
It was one thing to push someone down a flight of stairs. It was another to frame it as a suicide.
They had no idea how they were going to come back from this.
“I’m gonna miss you. I don’t want you to leave,” Basil cried, clutching onto the back of Sunny’s hospital gown tighter. “What am I gonna do when you’re gone?”
Sunny finally wrapped his arms around him. He never wanted to leave Faraway Town in the first place, but maybe it was for the better.
“I don’t know, but I guess you should probably start seeing a therapist,” Sunny half-joked. Basil started to giggle, prompting Sunny to do so too.
Their laughter continued to grow as the tears streamed down their cheeks. When Mari died, that’s what the two of them needed the most and yet they never even got it. Instead, Sunny created White Space and Basil tried to kill himself.
They were only sixteen years old and this was the life they were forced to live.
The two needed help, mental help, but how they were going to get it properly without revealing the truth was going to be the challenge. In the end, the truth was still going to be hidden from people, but at least it was now out there.
Their laughter gradually came to a stop, now only reduced to short chuckles.
“Sunny…,” Basil’s laughter had died down completely, his tone no longer light, “please promise me that we’ll always be there for each other , even though we’ll be apart.”
Where had he heard that before?
Was it when he and Basil stood hand in hand in a circle of pictures that were wished to be forgotten?
Was it when he sat with his head in his hands as Basil tried to coax him into seeing reality?
Or was it when they watched Mari’s casket lowered into her grave, not realizing their subconscious was dragging them down with her?
Nevertheless, Basil pleaded with him to stay and, instead, Sunny chose to live in a fantasy.
The two of them had learned the hard way that choosing escapism was choosing death over life.
Sunny pulled back from Basil, studying the tear stained face that he had tried to silence for so long. He knew his answer.
“I promise.”
===
No one said a word as they walked out of the hospital. No one even knew what to say or how to react.
Aubrey and Kel followed Hero outside, too appalled to have any sense of direction. Instead of going to his car, Hero continued walking until he reached a bench near the hospital entrance.
He sat down and gazed up at the sky.
What a lovely morning to receive such damaging news.
Aubrey looked up after him, noticing the broken balcony several stories above.
“Someone could get seriously injured if they went up there,” Aubrey thought, finally being able to form a coherent thought since Sunny told them the truth.
“Well, that was something,” Kel finally spoke
Aubrey turned to Kel and furrowed her eyebrows, disgusted by his choice of words.
“That was something?” She requoted, “What are you even thinking?”
Kel shrugged, his face blank of any emotion.
“She didn’t kill herself,” Hero muttered quietly to himself, still staring at the sky.
“Why would Sunny do this? He’s just going to drop this onto us and then leave?” Aubrey put her hands through her hair, trying desperately to get a hand on her emotions.
“I…I don’t know, but I just- I’m confused.”
“ You’re confused? Sunny killed Mari and Basil helped cover it all up! What is there to be confused about?”
“Did she survive the fall?” Hero asked himself, his eyes beginning to water.
“Do you actually believe Sunny did it by accident?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Aubrey was yelling at this point. “We haven’t seen him in four years, we don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“But what about then, huh? Sunny wouldn’t… he couldn’t-”
“Are you honestly defending him? He hid this from us for years, he and Basil are the ones to blame!”
“Well maybe you’re acting like this because you want someone to blame for her death. Why are you so quick to say they did it on purpose?” Kel’s volume increased, gradually matching the anger Aubrey was emitting.
“I wasn’t the one who killed her!” Bitter tears started to slide down Aubrey’s face. “Oh god, she was killed…,” she muttered to herself. The realization of her death finally settling into her.
Kel was about to respond until he heard quiet sobs from behind Aubrey. The two of them turned to watch Hero, who now had his head in his hands.
“Hero…”
They moved to sit on either side of him.
“Hey,” Kel comforted, “everything’s gonna be okay.”
“You don’t know that, Kel,” Aubrey refuted, trying to fruitlessly wipe her tears away. “For all we know, there could be more they’re not telling us.”
“You don’t trust them at all anymore do you?”
Aubrey was silent, staring into Kel’s eyes as she contemplated the last three days. In three days, they managed to heal their relationship with one another, and in one moment they broke it.
“No. Don’t tell me you do?” Malice was laced in her voice.
“I honestly don’t know what to believe, but they’re our friends.”
“Why do you think that changes anything? If your friend told you that they had been killing people, would you still trust them?”
“No, of course not! All I’m saying is that there’s a lot of gray areas that we have to consider, so I can’t just label them as monsters without understanding what happened.”
Kel looked away from Aubrey, overwhelmed with their current situation. He didn’t want to think about what his friends did, but he knew it couldn’t go unaddressed. Kel may be an idiot sometimes, and he might be one right now, but he would never lack empathy. Especially when it regarded the people he cared about the most.
Now the three of them sat there, asking questions they knew would never be answered.
“Hero, what are we gonna do? Should we tell the police?” Kel asked, finally directing his full attention onto his brother.
Hero didn’t respond, but his cries turned to silent tears.
“Is that what Mari would have wanted?” Hero thought to himself. Everyone knew how much Mari loved Sunny, and to learn that he did this to her…
No.
Hero wiped his tears away and sat up. They all needed to calm down before making any impactful decisions. It was clear how detrimental it could be if they didn’t think before they acted. Before he was able to respond, the three of them heard footsteps approaching them.
“Polly!” Kel exclaimed, turning over to face the caretaker.
“Hey, is Basil awake? I just got off the phone with his parents and-” Polly stopped talking, now noticing the tear stained faces of Aubrey and Hero- “Wait, did something happen?”
Aubrey and Kel didn’t know how to respond. Should they tell her the truth?
“Nothing happened, Polly,” Hero reassured as he stood up, flashing his usual charming smile. “We were just relieved that Sunny and Basil are okay.”
Polly smiled at him.
“I see. Well, I’m going to go see him. You guys should probably head back home, your parents are probably worried about you.”
Hero agreed and the three of them bid their goodbyes to Polly. Now that they comprehended what Basil had done, they understood why he couldn’t open up to Polly.
Aubrey and Kel followed behind Hero to the car, sharing a look as they walked.
“He didn’t tell her.”
Was this the route Hero was going to take? How could he defend someone who took his whole world away?
The two high schoolers remained silent as they were driven home.
What was supposed to be a bittersweet ending to their reunion. A new chapter of their lives free from the burden of Mari’s death, was now riddled with conflict.
===
Sunny returned to his room shortly after Polly arrived. According to her, the two of them were supposed to be released today.
All Sunny needed to do was wait for his mother. It took about an hour to get from Faraway Town and wherever the hell he was going to move to, so he spent his time looking at the flowers that adorned his room.
He’d done all this good for others, but he couldn’t even do good for his sister.
A knock on his door snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Sunny? Baby?” His mom called out before opening the door. Despite being relieved that her son was all right, his injuries broke her heart. “Oh my gosh…”
She walked over and caressed the injured side of his face, being careful not to go near the eye.
He wasn’t getting that eye back.
“Sorry,” Sunny awkwardly replied, not knowing how to respond in a situation like this. His mom wrapped him up in a hug.
“Don’t be, the doctors told me it was an accident, but… I sense it probably wasn’t, right?”
Sunny didn’t respond, choosing to hug his mom tighter. It was more than enough to answer her question.
“My sweet baby boy, I can’t believe you two did this. Mommy is so sorry for leaving you alone, she should have come back sooner.”
He cringed at her words. Since Mari’s passing, his mom has been stuck treating him like a twelve year old. To her, keeping some sense of normalcy before her daughter’s passing was what kept her sane.
She lost everything, Sunny was the only thing she had left and she’d be damned if she lost him too. Studying Sunny’s face though, with the bandages wrapped around his head and eye, gave the dark reminder that clinging onto the past wouldn't allow her to fall into the future.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Sunny finally responded, remembering back to everything he and his friends had done over the past three days.
His mother sighed.
“Anyways, you’ve been released from the hospital, but the doctor wants regular check ups on you. They said you suffered a minor concussion and of course… your eye, so we have to come back here. Our insurance will cover most of the fees if we do it here.”
Sunny looked up at his mom, his eye wide. He took a glimpse at the different flowers, each one from a person he didn’t want to bid a farewell to.
This wasn’t the final goodbye, and he realized that now.
This was the greeting to his reality.
===
Sunny was ushered into the backseat of the car with the claim that there wasn’t enough room in the front. He settled in and fixated his view out of the window, watching as the once blue sky faded into warm colors.
“Buckle up, baby,” his mom reminded him as she began to drive out into the streets.
Butterflies settled into his stomach, the thought of living somewhere new after he just conquered the demons living in his own home unsettled him. He was glad his life here wasn’t over yet, even if he had no idea what was to come. He hadn’t even told his mom yet about what he admitted to his friends.
She had tried her hardest to cover up the truth only for Sunny to go behind her back and dig it out of its grave.
Instead, she sat unaware in the driver seat while her son watched the cookie cutter houses pass by in the back.
It was only when Sunny recognized Aubrey’s house amongst the scenery that he realized their destination had altered.
“Mom, where are we going?” This wasn’t the direction to the city at all.
The woman in question pulled up to the church and gazed at her son through the rear view mirror.
“Well, we can’t leave town without saying goodbye to Mari, now can we?” She got out of the car and walked over to the passenger side, pulling out a potted white orchid. Motioning her son to follow, she headed toward the cemetery.
Sunny watched as she placed her flower next to the one he bought for her.
“My beautiful baby girl,” she whispered to herself, blinking away a tear that threatened to slip from her eyes. It’s been four years and she still couldn’t go to her grave without the feeling of guilt. No matter the circumstance, parents always tended to blame themselves for the death of their child.
Sunny stared at the tombstone. More specifically, he stared at Mari in her smooth white dress as she stood behind her tombstone, watching her mother.
Mari smiled before turning her head toward Sunny. She made a heart with her hands with a smile on her face as she disappeared like all the other hallucinations .
The hallucinations weren’t as strong anymore, but they still managed to make their appearance.
His mom took a deep breath, composing herself before directing her attention toward her son.
“Come on, baby. Mommy is ready to go now.” She grabbed his hand as they walked back to the car. Despite the passenger seat now being free, Sunny still opted to sit in the back.
His mom turned on the radio, hoping to drown out any negative thoughts the two of them may be having.
Who knew what could happen if they were left alone with their thoughts for too long.
For Sunny, the music was background noise. By now the sun had finally set, and after the events of today, he was exhausted.
“One more day the sun reaches my bed.”
“I’m sure you’re tired after all this, Sunny.”
“One more day to spend alone again.”
“Go ahead and sleep, I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
“Mornings start without me.”
With that, the song slowly became muddled as he drifted further into sleep. A sense of peace washed over him.
“Though the pain remains,”
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the end of a chapter, but only the beginning.
“And though it may be hard,”
To end his journey here would be a story without a moral.
“I’ll carry on.”
Leading people to falsely believe in true happiness with no worry about the consequences.
“Time to rise and shine.”
In his quest for closure he failed to realize that many people confuse peace-
“Good morning!”
-with unconsciousness.
Welcome to White Space.
{A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope to see you again in the next chapter! If you liked this chapter please leave it a kudos and a comment. Bye!}