Chapter Text
Sunny didn’t remember his dream, but he was awake before the dawn. His last day with his friends before he was to return home dawned with a beautifully heavy sky that threatened rain. Sunny sat on the porch and watched the stormy sea and found himself feeling good as the heavens opened up and the rain began to pour down. The sound of thunder washed over him as he marveled at the flashes of lightning across the sky. It was a terrific sight as he felt the storm reflecting in his eyes. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. The thin layer of screen on the windows separated him from the barrage of the rain, but he felt speckles of it splatter across his skin. The wind was chilly as his hair whipped around him. Sunny put in his headphones and listened to music while he imagined the clouds were dancing with the lightning.
By the time that the storm began to calm down to a steady rain, Sunny’s friends began to wake up. Hero was the first, always awake with his alarm no matter if it was the weekend or not. He found Sunny on the porch and crouched down next to him, catching the boy’s attention. He pulled his earphone out in case his friend was going to speak.
“I guess I’m not running today.” Hero started before he shot him a small smile. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
Sunny weighed his answer before ultimately deciding that yes, he had slept well. “Your present worked.” He said.
“Is that right? I’m glad, then. I didn’t know about your predicament when I had bought it, so I’m grateful that it’ll be useful for something other than just aesthetics.” He sat down properly next to Sunny despite the fact that the ground was kind of wet. “You look cold.”
Sunny realized that he was. “Just a bit.” He said. “It’s okay.” He offered his other headphone to Hero, who took it. He smiled a little at the music. It was older stuff since Sunny hadn’t really listened to the radio in the past few years. Some classical music was on now. Impressionist music was his favorite. He could always imagine all kinds of things while floating on the waves of each instrument happily taking him to many avenues of thought.
For a while the two of them enjoyed the music and simply watched the rain fall. They could faintly pick up the distant sounds of the ocean over the rain and the cars passing by on the other side of the house. Then Hero spoke up to say, “Mari would be proud of you, you know. You’ve worked really hard even though I know it’s been really tough for you.” He wrapped an arm over his friend’s shoulder, and Sunny leaned against the man’s side. “Thank you, Sunny.”
Sunny pressed his face into the shoulder of the man he considered an older brother and felt something in his heart loosen a bit and fall into place. “No,” he said, “thank you. All of you.”
“Even though you’re going home tomorrow, make sure you remember what we said. This time let’s not wait another year to hang out again. Even if we’re no longer in the same town, we still have plenty of vacations and weekends ahead of us. It doesn’t even have to be all of us gathering together. It can be just a couple of us. That way we’ll have plenty of stories to share with each other.” Hero’s hand came up to Sunny’s slightly-damp hair and rested there. “Don’t be scared anymore, Sunny. We’re here for you.”
Sunny nodded in understanding. For some time neither of them spoke again. The lulls in the conversation felt natural and pleasant. The fact that Sunny could sometimes simply sit in silence with his friends was a luxury that he had thought he had been banned from a long time ago. He could sit for days and never say a word as he let his friends speak instead. He let them choose the beats and movements to every conversation. This one was no different.
“I saw Mari the other night.” Hero said. It startled Sunny to hear it. He stared at his friend. Hero’s gaze was as wistful and grey as the clouds above, but he didn’t cry. “I can’t say for sure what she was, really. A hallucination, a ghost, a dream? I don’t know. But I could touch her, so I imagine it was probably something like how you experience the world.”
That was good, Sunny thought. He was glad that Hero got to see Mari, but only if it made him feel better. He wasn’t sure how he would feel if his friend was hallucinating, though. Not good at all, probably.
“I think I needed to see her.” He continued when Sunny said nothing. “As much as it hurt, it was nice. I had almost forgotten what it was like talking with her. I like to think it was her spirit, if I’m honest, since we spoke about it before. I still don’t think she’s gone, but I think she’s happy for us.”
Sunny didn’t ask Hero what the two of them spoke about. It was none of his business, after all. There were some secrets that weren’t meant to be shared, and he wouldn’t be nosy enough to ask about it. Instead he said, “She likes to visit us. Still watching over us.”
“Yeah. Do you see her a lot?”
“Sometimes. Would you feel better if she visited you more?”
Hero thought about it. It took so long that Sunny didn’t know for certain if he would respond. But eventually the man said, “No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t mind seeing her sometimes but… If I saw her all the time I feel like I’d never be able to let her go.”
“You don’t need to let her go.”
“No, I do. Not completely, though. I don’t need to forget her. I never will. But one day I want to think of her and not want to cry, you know?”
“I do.” Sunny said softly.
“You should think about it too, Sunny.” He finally turned his sad gaze onto his friend. “You’ll have to let her go as well, when you’re ready.”
Sunny swallowed thickly. “Mari told me that too.” He looked down and away. “You’re both really unfair.”
In response, Hero only squeezed him a little tighter to him.
The two stayed like that for a little while longer before Hero prompted them both to stand and go to wake the others so that they could get started on packing up. They only had until noon to get their stuff and return the rental key. There had been plans to maybe hang out again at the beach for the rest of the day, but the rain didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon. That left the group to pack the car and return the key before hitting the road once more by midmorning.
“What should we do, then?” Kel asked once the car was on the highway headed home. Sunny watched the water trail over the windows as he listened to his friends discuss the plans, “Are we really just gonna head home?”
“It might not be raining there.” Hero said. “It’s gonna be a couple hours until we’re home.”
“Boring! Let’s figure something out! Like going to a movie or something!”
“I wouldn’t be against that.” Aubrey said. “Though, didn’t you just steal that idea because I’m going to go see a movie with Angel and the others later?” She turned in her seat to shoot him a suspicious look.
“No.” Kel pouted, lips jutting out childishly. “We’re already out, you know? So doing something that takes some traveling to get to might be nice.”
“I’m surprised you’re not tired.” Basil said. “This week has been the busiest I’ve been in a really long time.”
“That’s a good thing.” Kel smiled at him. “Relaxing is good for the heart, but becoming stagnant is toxic.”
“You’re right, but it’s kinda weird hearing you say that.”
“He comes out of left field with shockingly mature stuff sometimes.” Hero joked.
“He’s right. Maybe it’s because I’m the big brother now?” Kel laughed.
“That just means Sally will have a great role model.”
“I had the best, so it’s only right I pass it on!”
“Aw, Kel.”
“What a sap.” Aubrey teased.
“I’d hug him if I could.”
“You can hang onto that hug!” Kel said. “What’s the game plan here?”
“Well, since it’s Sunny’s last day maybe he should choose? He chose well last time.” Hero suggested, glancing at Sunny through the rearview mirror. “Any suggestions?”
Sunny followed the speedy path of a drop of rain as he thought about the question. Finding something they could all do indoors since it was raining was a tough thing to think of. Yeah, they could watch a movie, but that would only last them a couple hours before they would head back home anyway. And Sunny would probably just fall asleep unless it was a movie he was interested in. What was something that teenagers did indoors that would be appropriate for all of them? Sunny and the others weren’t twelve anymore, after all, and the stuff he wanted to do as a kid were things he had grown out of.
“Ah.” It hit him then what might be fun. Since he had been somewhat daydreaming of activities that they could do as a group should they come to visit him in the city anyway, he had some ideas in mind for stuff they could do. “Are you okay with stopping by the city I live in?”
“Sure! It’s on the way anyway.”
“Sunny’s got an idea!” Kel cheered, pumping his fist once.
“Here, put it in the GPS for me. Aubrey, can you pass it to him?” Aubrey passed Sunny the GPS, and Sunny did a quick search on his phone for a location. When he was pretty sure he had found what he had been thinking of, he put it into the GPS and passed it back to Aubrey. She set it up so Hero could use it. It would still be a while before they got into the city.
“So, where are we headed?” Aubrey asked.
“There’s this arcade not far from where I live.” Sunny said. “I, um, saw it when I was walking around. It looked cool, but I haven’t gone in.”
“Ah man, we’re really gonna be broke by the end of this week.” Hero lamented with only a little bit of seriousness.
“...Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“An arcade! Oh man, what a Sunny suggestion! We’ve never been together, right? With Sunny on our team we could probably win a bunch of prizes!” Kel leaned far enough in his seat that his seatbelt was pulled taut. He patted on the shoulder of Aubrey’s seat as he beamed. “I’m down for it! Who cares about being broke for a little while? We have all summer to work on that!”
“An arcade, huh? I’m down for it.” Aubrey said. “You said it’s near where you live, Sunny? Think we should pop ‘round your place?”
“Don’t give his mom a reason to take him home before the day is over.” Kel whined.
“I can show you where I live.” Sunny said instead. “So when you come to visit, you can find it easily.” His words brightened the atmosphere around the group significantly. They seemed pleased to hear him say that.
“Yeah, he’s right. I feel like I would get lost in a big city easily.” Basil said.
“You get used to it after a while, I think.” Hero said.
“You’re in a college town! It’s not the same as the big city!” Kel protested.
“Hey, I don’t live that far out of the city. I’m just in another section of where Sunny lives, I think.”
“What, is that true?” Aubrey asked, surprised.
“Yeah, you didn’t know? I mean, it’s a big city so I’m not surprised you don’t but yeah. I think I live maybe 30 minutes from Sunny?”
“What the heck! No fair! Hero can basically visit Sunny whenever!” Kel complained.
“I can’t, though! I’m pretty busy. But yeah, I could probably hang out more often than you do.”
The idea of it made Sunny’s heart race with excitement. One of his friends didn’t actually live that far from him? It never really occurred to him to ask where Hero’s college actually was. He had known there was a pretty big university in the city he lived - two, actually, though in different parts of the city - but he hadn’t realized that Hero went to one of them. “We have a spare room if you ever want to stay over sometime.” He suggested. “To study or something if the dorms are loud. It’s, um, usually really quiet at my apartment.”
“Yeah? I might take you up on that. I’m used to sharing a room, but not really with college kids. I usually go to the library to study. But… thanks, Sunny. That sounds good, if I’m honest.”
“I’m so jealous!” Basil whined quietly. “I wish I could visit more often too.”
“The spare room is open for anyone… I don’t think my mom cares.” Sunny said. “She’s not home that often since she’s working.”
“I’m totally gonna visit whenever I want, then!” Kel said. “Just you wait until I have a car, Sunny!”
“If you go to the same college as me, you can visit whenever.” Hero said.
“Pssh, there’s no way I can get into that bougie place! But maybe the community college!”
“Hm, same here.” Aubrey said. “At least we know if we visit we can make it an overnight trip. That’s kinda nice.”
“Agreed.” Basil said.
“Well Sunny,” Kel grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up, “looks like you’re not getting rid of us anytime soon, huh?”
Sunny only smiled back.
Basil took a picture of him and laughed at how quickly Sunny’s smile dropped away. He didn’t like smiling for pictures. It was sneaky of him to snap one when he had been caught off-guard. But he would forgive him. He was happy enough to actually smile, after all.